Prof HN Mahabala passed away this afternoon, 27-Jun-2022, in Bangalore

 

 Photograph by S. Ramani

Everyone who has known Prof Mahabala will feel the loss. He was so cheerful, friendly, energetic and had played a critical role in Indian Computer Science & Technology education. The list of his former students is itself a tribute to the contributions he made to Indian education. 

There is a heart-warming tribute to Prof Mahabala at an Economic Times article titled: “Meet Professor HN Mahabala, the man who mentored India’s IT icons”.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/ites/meet-professor-hn-mahabala-the-man-who-mentored-indias-it-icons/articleshow/53346662.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

 Ithihasa has immortalized our memories of him at

https://itihaasa.com/listing/artefacts/Multimedia%20File?interviewee=Prof.+H.+N.+Mahabala

Thousands of members of the Computer Society of India remember him warmly as a Past President.

Srinivasan Ramani  

“As I lived it” by Pramode Verma: A Book Review

This is an autobiography of a pioneering telecom engineer, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Science, and of the Indian Telecommunication Service (ITS), earlier known as the Telegraph Engineering Service. Interest in great ideas in telecom, particularly that of Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) and Digitalization of telephone networks, took him to universities in Canada and USA and to a job at the Bell Labs of AT&T before the days of the breakup of AT&T. Careful career planning, and the employee-friendly practices of Bell Labs made sure that he could earn a Management Degree from the prestigious Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Pramode Verma continued working with new ideas all through his career – adding to his interests computer networks and the use of techniques based on quantum theory to provide secure communication. He created a Telecommunication Program at the Tulsa campus of the University of Oklahoma, and ran it till his retirement at about the age of 75.

This book is his autobiography beginning with his birth in rural Bihar. He had decided to arrive while his parents were traveling from Salehpur to Bettiah on a bullock cart with a canopy on top. The book covers a lot: growing up in the towns and cities of Bihar, engineering education at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, acing the TES examination, working with PCM, moving to Canada and then to the U.S. Any professional of Indian origin who lived through the second half of the twentieth century would find a lot in common with Pramode and his experience: tremendous growth in technology, new ideas and new technology, new opportunities, the exhilarating experience of spending some time abroad, preservation of family bonds and family values, the warmth of the Indian communities everywhere, seeing children and grandchildren grow up to match or surpass oneself!

It is a common belief that all engineers are poor writers. Pramode Verma is an excellent counterexample. His autobiography reads very well. He is socially very sensitive, and his values are very modern. His wife, Gita is given full credit for her abilities as a working professional, an able mother, and an able support to Pramode Verma as he deals with a demanding career.   

The author has travelled widely and his comments on life in the Soviet Union and China in the eighties are interesting. His comments on life in India are particularly interesting to Indian readers. His comments on people he has worked with, organizations he has worked for, and the hotels he has stayed in, etc., are insightful and relevant to every manager.

I read the Kindle edition of the book.

Srinivasan Ramani
14-Jun-2022

Samosas and Tea in a Professional Life

Informal meetings of professional groups play a valuable role. Potential recruits are identified by company executives. Startups make valuable contacts. New and hot topics are sometimes covered in informal short talks. Industry professionals and academics meet. Society officers find volunteers. The list could be longer but let us focus on Samosas!

Some professional societies think of acquiring club-like premises. I think that is a bit like keeping a cat to protect your clothes from rats. Visit https://www.itstimetomeditate.org/loin-cloth-old-indian-story/

Other societies have a simpler solution for getting a place for monthly informal meeting. Find a suitable restaurant which gives meeting space and serves a snack and tea. IT in India is profitable enough that members coming to the meeting will not hesitate to share the bill!

I wish that the Computer Society of India (CSI) would find restaurants for monthly meetings in every city where it has an active chapter. The meetings could serve hot Samosas and tea first, so that people would come in time! We could then have one or two speakers who would give informal short talks (10 minutes or less and no presentations) on interesting topics. A moderator could introduce the speakers and keep things under control.

Srinivasan Ramani

1-June-2022

Critical Moment for the Computer Society of India

Computer Society of India, founded in 1965, ran into serious problems over the last few years. Warring parties went to court. The High Court of Bombay has now appointed a three-member committee and has asked this committee to hold elections for the immediate future. All well-wishers of the CSI are grateful to the honorable court and wish all success to the three-member committee. The task immediately at hand is the conduct of a fair election and bringing CSI back to normal operation. Members need to vote and make this a successful election. This may be the last chance to revive the Society. No vote should be cast for doubtful candidates and unheard-of candidates, if any. 

I will look farther ahead into the future. What changes should we contemplate? What should we learn from past? What weaknesses do we have and which of these can we rectify? Undoubtedly, our elected bodies in future will consider such issues and take suitable action. Hopefully they would amend the Bylaws of CSI to make it a healthier organization.

Let me exercise my rights as a retired old soldier of CSI and share my thoughts! When the Society started in 1965, computer science and technology were in their infancy as academic disciplines. So, there was no question of asking for a professional qualification of members. The leaders in the profession came from different disciplines. However, as the country developed its university courses in the computer area, CSI did not move to setting tighter standards for admitting new members. Normally, a degree relevant to the area, or passing examinations to show equivalent knowledge, should have been prescribed. Successful societies around the world follow these practices. I believe that CSI should take steps in this direction in future.

Another problem faced by CSI has been with elections. I am told that the fraction of members who vote has often been around 20%. The number of ballots sent by post and returned as undeliverable was often higher than the number of votes cast! There was a fear that if the information in these bounced ballots fell into wrong hands, it would lead to fake voting. CSI was continuing to grow meanwhile. Online voting became an essential procedure. Unfortunately, online voting did not eliminate bounced ballot “papers”. Emails bounced! The established companies that were contracted to carry out our online elections sent all bounced ballot emails to one specified person in the CSI. Again, there was fear of bounced email information falling into wrong hands.

I feel that there is one possible solution to this problem. If ballot emails bounce, information should be sent to each member of the Nominations Committee. The member whose email caused the bounce should be made a non-voting member for that election immediately. To be fair, it should be possible for a member to send an SMS anytime from his registered mobile number to get immediately a copy of all that is contained in the CSI database about him. Those who prefer to use email should be able to send an email from their registered email address and get similar information. CSI should also offer members a safe but simple method for keeping their contact information up to date on the CSI database.

Despite this facility, if members do not keep their contact information up to date, they should accept losing their chance to vote in elections till they update their data.

I would also recommend the option of “None of the above” on the ballot.  Members, who are unable to make satisfactory choices for whatever reason, can at least vote for “none of the above”. It would prevent some hacker voting by misusing their credentials. I would also suggest that a member should be considered for being elevated to senior-member status only after voting in a minimum of four elections.

There was another problem with elections. In the early years, Nominations Committees not only supervised the conduct of the election. They also filtered the list of nominated candidates to finalize the ballot paper. They could even decide that one candidate was so good that other candidates should not go on the ballot. The idea was that one should avoid “embarrassing” the favored candidate with a competitive election! Many CSI members felt that this was not a democratic practice. So, the constitution was amended to prevent the Nominations Committee from throwing out candidates meeting all published requirements.

That was a democratic step, but published requirements were not good enough to keep out questionable candidates! The baby had been thrown out along with the bathwater!

I believe that we must have checks and balances at multiple levels of CSI. No one should qualify for being a senior-member without doing above average work within CSI. This work could be in organizing events, serving on elected committees, serving as a volunteer, participating in CSI convention and conferences, lecturing, and teaching. The list is not meant to be an exclusive one.

One should not become an office bearer or a Fellow before being selected as a senior-member. In addition, Fellowship-candidates should be endorsed by a majority of Fellows who vote on the Fellowship.

Companies are required by law to publish the remuneration they offer key managerial personnel. CSI should similarly publish any payments and reimbursements it makes to its office bearers and key management personnel. Committees, including the Nominations Committee and Executive Committee, should publish the minutes of their meetings without delay through the very next issue of CSI Communications. Transparency is an essential part of good governance.

S. Ramani

 

Borrowing a leaf from the highly successful IT sector

  

Photo: User Gflores on en.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons            

                                             

There was an interesting online event on the evening of Friday, 29-April-2022. Prof D. B. Phatak and Mr. Harish Mehta were the speakers. Mr. H. R. Mohan was the organiser. The focus was on the book:

The Maverick Effect: The Inside Story of India's IT Revolution

by Harish Mehta, 348 pages, HarperBusiness

  I have bought the book just now (available in e-book form as well) and have not read it yet, but I had listened to the speakers carefully and will share my own thoughts.

1.   The magic of IT was let loose when our pioneers realised in the eighties that the world market for services of software professionals was very big. Indian demand for such services was minuscule at that time.

2.   This must be seen in the light of experience of countries like U. K. I remember a conversation in the nineties with a senior British computer professional. U. K. had been a very significant contributor to innovations in IT. They had contributed to advances in computer and network architecture, good software like the George series of operating systems, and protocol suites for computer networking, etc., not to mention their fundamental invention of stored program computers! However, at that time they were switching to Unix, C, TCP/IP etc. The professional I mentioned above explained it by saying that the U. K.’s IT economy was a mere 3% of the world’s IT economy. “The tail does not wag the dog”, he said. Our pioneers were right. The IT revolution would come to us from those who addressed the world market. 

3.   One of the questions many members in the audience raised was what next? Indian IT industry has been a great success with only five million employees (approximately). Can we go beyond our current focus in this area, and achieve more? Harish Mehta had a good answer. NASSCOM, the National Association of Software and Service Companies, would only deal with areas in which it believes it will succeed.

4.   The challenge to the nation remains. How can we promote worldwide market access to Indian companies offering different types of professional services?

5.   We should note the Indian experience in the engineering consultancy field. Dr F. C. Kohli was heading the sizable engineering consultancy unit of the Tata Group, Tata Consulting Engineers back in 1966-69. Consultancy to clients abroad was not new to him. Engineers India Ltd, 51.5% owned by Govt of India, offers consultancy around the world. Visit https://engineersindia.com/

  There are, of course, many other companies in the engineering consultancy field. Somehow, nothing like the miracle of the Indian Software Revolution has taken place in this field. There is no visible association to highlight achievements and difficulties in this field. There is no shortage of manpower here, as approximately a million engineers graduate every year. 

6.   There are other fields in which Indian professional expertise is finding a world market, for instance: online and media-based education, and Indian lawyers and auditors providing their services. Some of this may be covered by the “IT based services” label. Do these fields not require their own associations? Doesn’t the country want to support the growth of employment in these sectors?

7.   Smart people with the right contacts have always managed to work profitably for the world market in services. Prof JG Krishnayya mentioned to me during an interview that fifty years ago he had found in Kulu a doctor on an easy chair in a Forest Bungalow - he used to spend 3-5 months in UK as a locum and then laze uphill from Kulu for a few months.

      That raises a question: Is India too restrictive on Indian medical professionals working and earning money abroad? If we ensure that they pay for their education, they should be free to earn abroad. We may lose a significant fraction of our doctors, but there are millions willing to get educated and to replace them.

       Medical education is a profitable business. We should perhaps allow it to expand and to accept foreign students. Many of these decisions require significant government consideration and decision making. Currently, state governments give upcoming medical colleges some land at government rates, and then insist on tying them up in unnecessary restrictions such as favouring candidates from the state.   

8.   Tunisia has a Minister of Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians Abroad. No doubt this is in recognition of the fact that Tunisian professionals working abroad make a major contribution to their economy. We also need Govt recognition that the magic of marketing professional services abroad need not be confined to IT alone.

9.   The farsighted Prof. Michael Dertozous of MIT had written in 2001 in his book “The Unfinished revolution” as follows:
“Just imagine what 50 million Indians could do to the English-speaking industrial world using their ability to read and write English and offer their skills, at a distance …”

All the 50 million professionals need not work “at a distance”. Like Prof Krishnayya’s doctor in Kulu, they could spend a few months abroad in a year, if it is necessary!  

  The book reference is to:
Dertouzos, Michael L., Paul Hecht, and Andrew Sydor. The unfinished revolution: Human-centered computers and what they can do for us. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

The low rate of growth in India for a long time had been the result of self-imposed, unnecessary restrictions. Harish Mehta tells us the story of the time a customs officer had asked to be shown software being exported. On being shown a floppy containing software, he promptly stapled it to some document!

 

Writing off some Govt revenue to get rid of unimplementable and unnecessary restrictions has often led to manifold increase in the sector concerned and to growth of tax income. A large part of the revenue of software exporting companies is paid out as employee salaries. The five million employees of this fast-growing economy pay income tax on their salaries, making up for itty-bitty loss on customs duties on software exported on floppies!

  It would be valuable if the Ministry of External Affairs takes on this challenge of growth. MEA has five Secretaries now. It could perhaps add a sixth Secretary, who should be expected to emulate the legendary Mr. N. Vittal, who had played a big role in the Indian IT revolution.

Srinivasan Ramani

Driving our students abroad at great cost to the nation

How much foreign exchange does India spend every year because a huge number of Indian students go abroad for study? Visit

12 lakh Indian students go abroad for education: AIU - The Hindu

and estimate the cost yourself.

This article reports that only about 26,000 foreign students come to India for studies.

Why does this happen? Many great universities of the world are run by endowments. Donations to one’s alma mater and to other institutions are also there in India: Visit the following websites for a few samples of what Indians are doing.

IIT-Delhi Endowments

IndiGo Co-Founder Rakesh Gangwal Donates Rs 100 crore

Kris Gopalakrishnan's trust donates 225 crores for brain research

There are many more. Two of the oldest contributions of the industry to Indian university education I know of was the creation of the Tata Institute of Science (Now, Indian Institute of Science) and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Of course, the Tata Group has contributed to the creation of several other institutions.

How many great “not-for-profit” educational and research bodies do we have, that are not dependent on government grants on a recurring basis? Surely, there are many charitable institutions, but many of them are quite profitable set ups! Also ask why fees in Indian educational institutions set world records!

India lags in the creation of world class institutions with autonomy because our rules governing autonomous educational and research institutions are too restrictive. A donation may build a hostel or a big main building, or a new school. Our system allows that. However, the continued use of such capital investments needs to be matched by “revenue expenditure” which meets the costs of running the activity year after year. We need endowments, wisely invested, to give a good return. Our system hampers this, saying endowment funds need to be invested only in “approved securities”, which exclude equities. Our constitution does not say that profit making entities are born in sin, but we usually practice that belief in our governance!

Of course, exemplary safeguards are necessary when tax-exempt endowment funds are managed. There cannot be a whiff of corruption, partiality, etc. This does not mean that the only investments allowed are those which lose half the earnings to inflation! Efficient investment requires investing in equities. Allowing endowments to reputed institutions to be used efficiently is the surest way of making education affordable. Endowments reduce the dependence on fees paid by students. They allow the institutions to choose the students most likely to be the best scholars; not the ones who can buy seats at any cost!

There seems to be one way to have the cake and eat it too! Include approved index funds in the list of approved securities. This means that the recipient institutions cannot selectively invest endowments in companies run by brothers-in-law of influential people! They cannot gamble on the success of fly-by-night companies! It also means that the endowment would not crash to junk status unless the whole country’s economy crashes! With good oversight by SEBI, index funds seem to be quite reliable in India.

We do not need big bureaucracy to tell every educational institution how to invest its endowment funds. We do not have to “take over” every institution under government control as soon as it becomes big enough to earn an international reputation.

Do we have the will power to do something like this? Or is it easier to let lakhs of students go out every year to get an education they can afford?

Srinivasan Ramani

 

 

 

 

 

P Sadanandan, Co-Founder of the National Centre for Software Technology and Database Pioneer

P Sadanandan, Co-Founder of the National Centre for Software Technology (NCST), and a pioneer in database research, passed away this morning (12-Feb-2022). He had served the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research for about twenty years starting in 1964. He moved to the daughter institution, NCST, in 1985. He had headed NCST's Database Division. In addition to being a researcher, he was a very popular teacher and consultant. A large number of professionals had attended his courses on relational data bases at TIFR and at NCST.

Sadanandan was Associate Director, NCST and had headed NCST, Bangalore. He had played a key role in creating and developing this campus. Sadanandan retired from the NCST in 2001.

NCST was merged with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) by the end of 2001.

Srinivasan Ramani

The Hindi Version of this article appears at https://hindimestem.blogspot.com/2022/03/blog-post.html