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ignore the supercomputer race

ignore the supercomputer race
What will matter is who invests most wisely in basic research—the kind of methodical, unglamorous science that might only yield results years in the future
A new list of the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers suggests that China might be speeding past the US in the race for technological supremacy. China now holds the two top spots, and placed a total of 167 machines on the list. The US had only 165 on the list, with its fastest placing a very distant third.

That’s leading some American commentators to wring their hands. Wired went so far as to declare a “blow out” in the race for supercomputer supremacy. But as impressive as China’s accomplishment is, there’s no reason to panic. The race for technological dominance won’t be won by measuring who can build faster computers. Instead, what will matter is who invests most wisely in basic research—the kind of methodical, unglamorous science that might only yield results years in the future.

The immediate goal of such research isn’t necessarily a product. But long-term, it might turn into many. Government-funded work on three-dimensional seismic imaging, for instance, helped lay the groundwork for the fracking revolution of recent years. The Human Genome Project, started in 1990, will provide scientists with raw material to cure diseases for decades to come.

“People cannot foresee the future well enough to predict what’s going to develop from basic research,” is how George Smoot, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, once explained it. “If we only did applied research, we would still be making better spears.”

In this, the history of supercomputers is instructive. Bell Labs was doing fundamental research on semiconductors all the way back in the 1940s. Eventually, what they developed was licensed to other companies, including Texas Instruments, which then developed transistors, integrated circuits and other components. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that such technology coalesced into an early version of the supercomputer.

The US dominated supercomputing for two decades, but it was only a matter of time before others piggy-backed on established technology to catch up. In 1981, Japan started a government-backed initiative to develop its own machines. China did the same in 1989. Russia and several European countries have joined the game.

Amid such competition, the title of the world’s fastest supercomputer tends to be a fleeting honorific. And the wisdom of engaging in the race has always been questionable. In 2010, US President Barack Obama’s council of science and technology advisers argued that a “single-minded focus” on increasing speed diverts resources from more creative approaches to computing. In most fields of science and engineering, for instance, performance improvements from more sophisticated algorithms—the mathematical rules used to solve a problem—have topped those from faster processors in recent years.

That kind of inventiveness is often the result of years of patient research—a lesson America shouldn’t forget. Although the US still leads the world in research and development (R&D) funding, as a percentage of gross domestic product, its efforts now lag behind South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. The portion of the federal budget dedicated to R&D has been in decline since 1965.

Meanwhile, the competition for basic research is heating up. Chinese research programmes have historically focused on hitting clearly defined goals, which is one reason that supercomputer speed has been such an appealing benchmark: In 2012, 84% of China’s R&D went to the commercialization of technologies. But policymakers are starting to change their tune. In mid-June, China’s National Science Foundation announced big funding increases for basic research, including cosmic ray physics, mathematics, brain science and infectious diseases.

This is no bad thing. Invigorated competition for basic research would be far more productive than the race to soup up supercomputers. Fields such as synthetic biology, quantum computing and photonics all stand to benefit from a healthy international rivalry. And areas with less obvious pay-offs may prove even more important. Current mysteries such as dark matter might one day turn out to be just as fruitful as one-time mysteries like radio waves. The benefits may not materialize for years or even decades. But if history is any guide, it’s a good bet that they will be worth the wait

World Bank to help India-led solar alliance mobilize $1 trillion

भारत के प्रयासों से शुरू हुए 121 देशों के अंतरराष्ट्रीय सोलर गठबंधन के साथ विश्व बैंक ने एक करार किया है।
भारत की सोलर एनर्जी की जरूरतों को पूरा करने के लिए विश्व बैंक ने भारत को 100 करोड़ ड़ॉलर देने का भी फैसला किया है।
World Bank to help India-led solar alliance mobilize $1 trillion
World Bank to also give India $1 billion loan to expand solar energy generation, including a $625 million grid-connected rooftop solar programme
In a significant push for solar power, the World Bank on Thursday signed an agreement with the International Solar Alliance (ISA)—launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Paris climate summit last year—to mobilize $1 trillion in investments by 2030.

The World Bank will also lend more than $1 billion to support India’s ambitious initiatives to expand solar energy generation, including a $625 million grid-connected rooftop solar programme.

“We signed an agreement with the ISA, consisting of 121 countries led by India, to collaborate on increasing solar energy use around the world, with the goal of mobilizing $1 trillion in investments by 2030. This agreement establishes the World Bank group as a financial partner for the alliance,” World Bank president Jim Yong Kim said at the end of a two-day visit to India.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley and minister for power, coal, and new and renewable energy Piyush Goyal were also present at the signing of the agreement.

The World Bank president said he hoped the agreement would help mobilize the global movement toward a climate-friendly future.

“As part of the agreement, the (World) Bank Group will develop a roadmap to mobilize financing for development and deployment of affordable solar energy, and work with other multilateral development banks and financial institutions to develop financing instruments to support solar energy development,” added Kim.

ISA was launched at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris on 30 November last year by Modi and French President Francois Hollande. The alliance, headquartered in India, aims to bring together countries situated between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn which receive abundant sunshine for around 300 days a year.

Kim met both Modi and Jaitley during his two-day visit.

The multilateral lender will continue to support the Modi government’s renewable energy push, he said.

“The prime minister understands the World Bank better than us and always pushes us to move faster and faster, keeping pace with him,” said Kim, while applauding the Modi government for its Swachh Bharat Mission, which is also partly financed by the Bank.

“India’s plans to virtually triple the share of renewable energy by 2030 will both transform the country’s energy supply and have far-reaching global implications in the fight against climate change. Prime Minister Modi’s personal commitment toward renewable energy, particularly solar, is the driving force behind these investments,” Kim said.

The development of $200 million shared infrastructure for “Solar Parks Project under a public-private partnership model is also under preparation”, said a statement issued by the World Bank, which pointed out that the $1 billion loan is the lender’s largest solar project funding for any country.

Modi has been betting big on solar power since forming the government in May 2014. The National Democratic Alliance government has raised India’s target of solar power from 20,000 megawatts (MW) to 100,000MW by 2022.

Experts welcomed the $1 billion loan from the World Bank to boost India’s solar energy programme. “It is a positive move, but the exact details of the loan—like interest rates—are not clear as yet. Also, more information is needed about technology imports and funding for the rural sector,” said Rakesh Kamal, senior programme manager, climate change, at the Centre for Science and Environment, a Delhi-based environmental think tank.

July 1991—the month that changed India

July 1991—the month that changed India
The 1991 reforms had intellectual clarity as well as internal consistency
There is no month as dramatic as July 1991 in Indian economic history. It is now exactly a quarter of a century since Indian economic policy was completely overhauled, in a blitz of inspired action by the minority government led by P.V. Narasimha Rao.

India was still battling a crisis in its external payments. The first moves were naturally on the trade front. The rupee was devalued on the afternoon of 1 July 1991, to test the waters. A bolder second devaluation was announced a mere two days later. The next day, on 4 July, commerce minister P. Chidambaram ended the perverse system of import controls, with a new trade policy that he virtually wrote on his own. He also announced that the rupee would be made convertible on the trade account within three years.

Then came 24 July. Around noon, the government tabled a new industrial policy that demolished the licence raj with a few deft strokes. Finance minister Manmohan Singh stood in Parliament just four hours later to present a landmark budget that set India on a new economic path. All this was done by a minority government led by a man who had shown no previous enthusiasm for economic liberalism.

There are three sets of initiatives that deserve appreciation. First, reformist economists within government had, for at least a decade, patiently created the intellectual climate for a new economic policy. They were involved in the tentative reforms of the previous decade, including some easing of industrial controls as well as the focus on industrial efficiency in the Seventh Five-Year Plan. Much of this fresh thinking was brought together into a famous note circulated internally by Montek Singh Ahluwalia in 1990. A calm study of economic policy debates since the late 1970s should be adequate proof against the silly claim that the 1991 reforms programme was handed on a platter by the International Monetary Fund.

Second, the political management of the reforms was exemplary. Manmohan Singh defended the devaluation in Parliament by reminding politicians that one of the important demands of the Indian national movement was against an overvalued rupee that hurt Indian industry while it benefited the colonial government. The industrial policy statement was presented as a step towards realizing the Nehruvian dream of an industrially advanced India. There were several reminders about the reformist promises made in the Congress election manifesto that Rajiv Gandhi had cleared.

Third, the prime minister became bolder as the days went by, though he also forced the reformers to backtrack when the political costs of any individual step—such as bringing down fertilizer subsidies—threatened the overall process. His early concerns about a steep devaluation, in a country which unfortunately seeks a strong exchange rate as a goal in itself, soon gave way to more confidence. Some of his parliamentary interventions in defence of the economic reforms should not be forgotten. He also reached out to the opposition leaders to explain what dire straits India was in. A lot is also owed to A.N. Varma, who used his perch in the Prime Ministers Office to push civil servants in various ministries to cooperate with the reformers.

Later, the Reserve Bank of India began to deregulate interest rates. The rupee was floated. A committee headed by M. Narasimham laid out a path for financial sector reforms. Another committee headed by Raja Chelliah did the same for tax reforms. The first negotiations on how to end the automatic monetization of fiscal deficits began.

Some of the best economic minds collaborated to design a reforms programme that had intellectual clarity as well as internal consistency. Manmohan Singh’s first budget speech is still a master class in how to think about economic policy—linking structural adjustment to industrial policy to trade policy to employment growth to poverty eradication.

And his powerful ending to the budget speech is worth repeating in full: “I do not minimize the difficulties that lie ahead on the long and arduous journey on which we have embarked. But as Victor Hugo once said, ‘No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.’ I suggest to this august House that the emergence of India as a major economic power in the world happens to be one such idea. Let the whole world hear it loud and clear. India is now wide awake. We shall prevail. We shall overcome.”

In what ways have the 1991 reforms changed India?

RM Hands Over Varunastra Torpedo to Indian Navy

RM Hands Over Varunastra Torpedo to Indian Navy

The Defence Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar today handed over “Varunastra – a Ship Launched Heavy Weight Torpedo”, also known as underwater missile to the Indian Navy in a befitting ceremony here today.

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Manohar Parrikar congratulated DRDO for the achievement and appreciated the efforts made in this regard. He asked the DRDO to ensure its participation in the production process and to keep adequate quality control of their products so that it can meet the international standards. The Minister also stated that in these high technology areas, DRDO’s contribution with 95 per cent of indigenous content is an apt example of Indigenously Designed Developed and Manufactured (IDDM) category.

The Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sunil Lanba termed the occasion as momentous and described it as yet another feather in the DRDO’s cap. He applauded DRDO and Naval Science and Technological Laboratory (NSTL) for rendering yeomen service to the nation in achieving self-reliance in defence and underwater technologies. He said the Navy’s partnership with DRDO laboratories has strengthened and matured over the years. ‘The fact that three of the premier DRDO labs NPOL, NMRL and NSTL carry the prefix ‘Naval’ in their names highlights the close relationship between the Indian Navy and the DRDO in our joint efforts’, Admiral Lanba stated.

Secretary, DD R&D and DG DRDO Dr. S Christopher in his address described the induction ceremony of Varunastra as a proud moment for the nation as India has joined in the elite group of only a handful of countries. He commented that the development of submarine launched heavy weight torpedo is in advanced stage for user trials. Dr. Christopher mentioned that Varunastra, the shipborne anti-submarine torpedo has got the goodwill of Navy as a user which has decided to produce 73 of them, immediately. He briefly mentioned that last year Mareech – Advance Torpedo Defence System was handed over to Indian Navy. He also highlighted the DRDO developed LCA – Tejas, the first Squadron of which is being raised by IAF on July 01, 2016. The AEW&C is also striding towards induction into IAF this year. Recently, another milestone has been achieved by BrahMos, a Joint Venture of DRDO which successfully demonstrated captive trials with Su30 aircraft, he stated.

Varunastra has been developed by NSTL, a premier DRDO laboratory based at Visakhapatnam. M/s Bharat Dynamics Ltd has been associated as a production partner in concurrent engineering mode.

Varunastra, a versatile naval weapon which can be fired from the Rajput class destroyers, Delhi class and all future Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) ships capable of firing heavy weight torpedoes and is capable of targeting quiet and stealthy submarines both in deep and littoral waters even in intense countermeasure atmosphere.

The function was also attended by Defence Secretary Shri G Mohan Kumar, Secretary, (Defence Production) Shri AK Gupta, Scientific Advisor to Raksha Mantri Dr. G Sateesh Reddy and senior functionaries of Ministry of Defence, Indian Navy, DRDO, Production & Industry partners.

Cabinet approves National Mineral Exploration Policy

Cabinet approves National Mineral Exploration Policy

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the National Mineral Exploration Policy (NMEP).

The NMEP primarily aims at accelerating the exploration activity in the country through enhanced participation of the private sector. There is a need for comprehensive mineral exploration of the country to uncover its full mineral potential so as to put the nation's mineral resources (non-fuel and non-coal) to best use and thereby maximize sectoral contribution to the Indian economy.

The policy emphasizes on making available baseline geoscientific data of world standards in the public domain, quality research in a public-private partnership, special initiatives for search of deep-seated and concealed deposits, quick aerogeophysical surveys of the country, and creation of a dedicated geoscience database etc.

NMEP has the following main features for facilitating exploration in the country:-

i. The Ministry of Mines will carry out auctioning of identified exploration blocks for exploration by private sector on revenue sharing basis in case their exploration leads to auctionable resources. The revenue will be borne by the successful bidder of those auctionable blocks.

ii. If the explorer agencies do not discover any auctionable resources, their exploration expenditure will be reimbursed on normative cost basis.

iii. Creation of baseline geoscientific data as a public good for open dissemination free of charge.

iv. Government will carry out a National Aerogeophysical Program for acquiring state-of-the-art baseline data for targeting concealed mineral deposits.

v. A National Geoscientific Data Repository is proposed to be set up to collate all baseline and mineral exploration information generated by various central & state government agencies and also mineral concession holders and to maintain these on geospatial database.

vi. Government proposes to establish a not-for-profit autonomous institution that will be known as the National Centre for Mineral Targeting (NCMT) in collaboration with scientific and research bodies, universities and industry for scientific and technological research to address the mineral exploration challenges in the country.

vii. Provisions for inviting private investment in exploration through attractive revenue sharing models.

viii. On the lines of UNCOVER project of Australia, the government intends to launch a special initiative to probe deep-seated/ concealed minerals deposits in the country in collaboration with National Geophysical Research Institute and the proposed NCMT and Geoscience Australia.

In order to implement the recommendations of the NMEP, initially an amount of about Rs.2116 crore over 5 years would be required over and above the annual plan budget of the Geological Survey of India under the Ministry of Mines. The NMEP will benefit the entire mineral sector across the country.

The major impact of NMEP are:-

1) The pre-competitive baseline geoscientific data will be created as a public good and will be fully available for open dissemination free of charge. This is expected to benefit public and private exploration agencies.

2) The collaboration with scientific and research bodies, universities and industry for the scientific and technological development necessary for exploration in public- private partnership.

3) Government will launch a special initiative to probe deep-seated/concealed mineral deposits in the country. Characterizing India's geological cover, investigating India's lithospheric architecture, resolving 4D geodynamic and metallogenic evolution, and detecting and characterizing the distal footprints of ore deposits, would be the main components of this initiative.

4) A National Aerogeophysical Mapping program will be launched to map the entire country with low altitude and close space flight to delineate the deep-seated and concealed mineral deposits.

5) Government will engage private agencies for carrying out exploration in identified blocks / areas with the right to certain share in the revenue accruing to the State government through auction.

6) Public expenditure on regional and detailed exploration will be prioritized and subject to periodical review based on assessment of criticality and strategic interests.

Background:

The Ministry of Mines has, in the recent past, taken a series of measures for the growth of the mineral sector, including allowing 100% FDI. However, these initiatives have fetched only limited success. Further, over the years the dynamics of the mineral sector have undergone sea change thereby creating new demands and imperatives. There is a compelling need to provide an impetus to exploration activity in the country. This has prompted the Government to carry out a comprehensive review of its exploration policy and strategy. The amendments brought in to the MMDR Act in 2015 is a step in this direction. The most important feature of this amendment is that mining leases (ML) and prospecting license-cum-mining lease (PL-cum-ML) will be granted only through an auction process. This is expected to bring in transparency, expeditiousness and simplification in procedures in grant of mineral concessions. Against this background, the NMEP has been framed so as to provide a new set of objectives, sense of purpose and direction to exploration within the amended legal framework.

Cabinet approves Implementation of the recommendations of 7th Central Pay Commission

Cabinet approves Implementation of the recommendations of 7th Central Pay Commission

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the implementation of the recommendations of 7th Central Pay Commission (CPC) on pay and pensionary benefits. It will come into effect from 01.01.2016.

In the past, the employees had to wait for 19 months for the implementation of the Commission’s recommendations at the time of 5th CPC, and for 32 months at the time of implementation of 6th CPC. However, this time, 7th CPC recommendations are being implemented within 6 months from the due date.

The Cabinet has also decided that arrears of pay and pensionary benefits will be paid during the current financial year (2016-17) itself, unlike in the past when parts of arrears were paid in the next financial year.

The recommendations will benefit over 1 crore employees. This includes over 47 lakh central government employees and 53 lakh pensioners, of which 14 lakh employees and 18 lakh pensioners are from the defence forces.

Highlights:

1. The present system of Pay Bands and Grade Pay has been dispensed with and a new Pay Matrix as recommended by the Commission has been approved. The status of the employee, hitherto determined by grade pay, will now be determined by the level in the Pay Matrix. Separate Pay Matrices have been drawn up for Civilians, Defence Personnel and for Military Nursing Service. The principle and rationale behind these matrices are the same.

2. All existing levels have been subsumed in the new structure; no new levels have been introduced nor has any level been dispensed with. Index of Rationalisation has been approved for arriving at minimum pay in each Level of the Pay Matrix depending upon the increasing role, responsibility and accountability at each step in the hierarchy.

3. The minimum pay has been increased from Rs. 7000 to 18000 p.m. Starting salary of a newly recruited employee at lowest level will now be Rs. 18000 whereas for a freshly recruited Class I officer, it will be Rs. 56100. This reflects a compression ratio of 1:3.12 signifying that pay of a Class I officer on direct recruitment will be three times the pay of an entrant at lowest level.

4. For the purpose of revision of pay and pension, a fitment factor of 2.57 will be applied across all Levels in the Pay Matrices.

5. Rate of increment has been retained at 3 %. This will benefit the employees in future on account of higher basic pay as the annual increments that they earn in future will be 2.57 times than at present.

6. The Cabinet approved further improvements in the Defence Pay Matrix by enhancing Index of Rationalisation for Level 13A (Brigadier) and providing for additional stages in Level 12A (Lieutenant Colonel), 13 (Colonel) and 13A (Brigadier) in order to bring parity with Combined Armed Police Forces (CAPF) counterparts at the maximum of the respective Levels.

7. Some other decisions impacting the employees including Defence & Combined Armed Police Forces (CAPF) personnel include :

· Gratuity ceiling enhanced from Rs. 10 to 20 lakh. The ceiling on gratuity will increase by 25 % whenever DA rises by 50 %.
· A common regime for payment of Ex-gratia lump sum compensation for civil and defence forces personnel payable to Next of Kin with the existing rates enhanced from Rs. 10-20 lakh to 25-45 lakh for different categories.
· Rates of Military Service Pay revised from Rs. 1000, 2000, 4200 & 6000 to 3600, 5200, 10800 & 15500 respectively for various categories of Defence Forces personnel.
· Terminal gratuity equivalent of 10.5 months of reckonable emoluments for Short Service Commissioned Officers who will be allowed to exit Armed Forces any time between 7 and 10 years of service.
· Hospital Leave, Special Disability Leave and Sick Leave subsumed into a composite new Leave named ‘Work Related Illness and Injury Leave’ (WRIIL). Full pay and allowances will be granted to all employees during the entire period of hospitalization on account of WRIIL.

8. The Cabinet also approved the recommendation of the Commission to enhance the ceiling of House Building Advance from Rs. 7.50 lakh to 25 lakh. In order to ensure that no hardship is caused to employees, four interest free advances namely Advances for Medical Treatment, TA on tour/transfer, TA for family of deceased employees and LTC have been retained. All other interest free advances have been abolished.

9. The Cabinet also decided not to accept the steep hike in monthly contribution towards Central Government Employees Group Insurance Scheme (CGEGIS) recommended by the Commission. The existing rates of monthly contribution will continue. This will increase the take home salary of employees at lower levels by Rs. 1470. However, considering the need for social security of employees, the Cabinet has asked Ministry of Finance to work out a customized group insurance scheme for Central Government Employees with low premium and high risk cover.

10. The general recommendations of the Commission on pension and related benefits have been approved by the Cabinet. Both the options recommended by the Commission as regards pension revision have been accepted subject to feasibility of their implementation. Revision of pension using the second option based on fitment factor of 2.57 shall be implemented immediately. A Committee is being constituted to address the implementation issues anticipated in the first formulation. The first formulation may be made applicable if its implementation is found feasible after examination by proposed Committee which is to submit its Report within 4 months.

11. The Commission examined a total of 196 existing Allowances and, by way of rationalization, recommended abolition of 51 Allowances and subsuming of 37 Allowances. Given the significant changes in the existing provisions for Allowances which may have wide ranging implications, the Cabinet decided to constitute a Committee headed by Finance Secretary for further examination of the recommendations of 7th CPC on Allowances. The Committee will complete its work in a time bound manner and submit its reports within a period of 4 months. Till a final decision, all existing Allowances will continue to be paid at the existing rates.

12. The Cabinet also decided to constitute two separate Committees (i) to suggest measures for streamlining the implementation of National Pension System (NPS) and (ii) to look into anomalies likely to arise out of implementation of the Commission’s Report.

13. Apart from the pay, pension and other recommendations approved by the Cabinet, it was decided that the concerned Ministries may examine the issues that are administrative in nature, individual post/ cadre specific and issues in which the Commission has not been able to arrive at a consensus.

14. As estimated by the 7th CPC, the additional financial impact on account of implementation of all its recommendations in 2016-17 will be Rs. 1,02,100 crore. There will be an additional implication of Rs. 12,133 crore on account of payments of arrears of pay and pension for two months of 2015-16.