Indian software exec pulls a Bill Gates

The storyline sounds familiar: software executive makes billions building his company, realizes that with wealth comes responsibility, and pledges the bulk of his fortune to charity.
But this time it's not Bill Gates. It's Azim Premji, the billionaire chairman of India's Wipro.
Premji, like Gates, has a big focus on education, using his foundation to improve teaching standards and fund schools that are trying new methods, according to a report on Forbes.com. Premji said he is trying to break with tradition in Asia, which holds that wealth is passed from generation to generation.
"Even if I was to give my children a small part of my wealth, it would be more than they can digest in many lifetimes," Premji told Forbes.
During his recent college tour, Bill Gates said he had been talking with many of the wealthy in India and China about the benefits of giving back.
"I'm hopeful," Gates said, as part of his talk at the University of California at Berkeley. "In fact, I've been having meetings with some of the people who have done very well in India and the people who have done very well in China."

Click on the image above to see CNET's complete coverage of Bill Gates' College Tour.

Gates noted that there is a fairly good philanthropic tradition in the U.S., but even here only about 20 percent of the biggest estates' money goes to charity.
"That 20 percent should be more like 50 or 60 percent," Gates said. But it's even less elsewhere.
"In India or China today it's very, very small and yet, because there's no tradition--it could go one direction or another," Gates said. "It's clear the best place to capture a fortune for philanthropy is in the generation it was first earned...If you don't get it right at the beginning, if you get this sort of dynastic thinking under way, then it is very difficult."

Age is just a number after all - Sachin proves it

Isn't it difficult to believe that Sachin Tendulkar enters his 37th year on Saturday? Somehow, it seems only yesterday that he started his international career but we have to pinch ourselves to remind us that it was in Pakistan way back in November 1989.

He started his way out as a curly haired 16-year-old and seems to have drunk from the fountain of youth. Like the evergreen Dev Anand of the silver screen, he seemingly can just go on and on. He has frequently spoken of his one remaining dream to be achieved – to be a member of the World Cup winning team.

He gets the opportunity next year and while conventional wisdom is that he will ride off into the sunset following that Fifty50 tournament whether India wins or not, gamblers will do well to hesitate before placing any bets on this. One would indeed not be surprised if he is still around to represent the country in the 2015 World Cup. So what if he will be 42? Age is just a number after all for cricketers like Tendulkar.

Watching him on the field these days it is difficult to believe that he is the senior most cricketer in the game today. Whether batting or fielding, whether leading the side or sending down his occasional cocktail of leg breaks, off breaks and googlies he could well be the junior most player around. His enthusiasm is boundless and time and age have not withered his skill or lessened his hunger for success.

If anything like good wine, he is getting better with age as his recent performances in all formats of the game clearly illustrates. Moreover, this keenness is infectious as the Mumbai Indians campaign in the IPL has underlined. The players responded spontaneously with the result that Mumbai Indians topped the table at the end of the league stage when it was not necessarily the strongest among the eight outfits in a highly competitive field. A victory on Sunday will be the perfect birthday present for Tendulkar.

Being a living legend has its own responsibilities - and pitfalls. Nothing but the best is expected from you all the time and particularly when you are an Indian the pressures are unthinkable. But, Tendulkar has carried these hopes and aspirations on his shoulders for two decades now whether it is Test cricket, ODIs or leading the side in the IPL.

Twenty20 they said was a young man's game but then they underestimated Tendulkar's sublime skills. He has proved that cricket's newest and shortest format is not just about fours and sixes and big hits but there is a place for strokes that are a blend of timing and placement.

He has based his game on playing cricketing shots and the results are there for all to see – he is the leading run getter in the IPL and with an impressive strike rate to boot. No wonder, there was a clamour for his inclusion in the Twenty20 World Cup side for on form there is little doubt that he can walk into the side.

However, he made it clear three years ago that he wasn't going to play Twenty20 internationals and such is the respect for his views that the campaign for his inclusion soon petered out.

I have never seen the knowledgeable Chepauk spectators in such a fix as they were during the match between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians last week. They wanted their team to win which was perfectly natural, but they also wanted Tendulkar to succeed.

It reminded me of the predicament that Neville Cardus found himself in around a hundred years ago when as a schoolboy he wanted England to win but he also wanted his hero Victor Trumper to get a hundred. That's Tendulkar for you. He commands spontaneous respect from every corner of the country.

It is not easy to maintain a squeaky clean image in a game beset by controversies and even scandals. It is not easy to maintain one's popularity for 20 years and continue to be successful in all formats of the game for an extended period.

Let's not make the mistake of writing off Sachin Tendulkar – a mistake that a prominent national newspaper did in 2006 after he had a few failures in the Test matches in Pakistan.

It carried a short news item on page one headlined "Endulkar?'' I am reminded of this every time he goes through a purple patch which he is enjoying at the moment or when he sets a world record which he did at Gwalior a couple of months ago.

The now infamous headline can be summarily dismissed as sensationalism or a vulgarly irresponsible job by a deskman who tried to be too clever but was made to eat humble and distasteful pie.

Tendulkar will go out on his own terms and on a high. In the meantime, let us wish the perennially young man many happy returns of the day, a memorable year and many more years of service to Indian cricket!

Sachinism - More than a Religion

I just woke up now at 10:47 am,forget to switchoff the tv last night.The news channel CNN IBN just showing up the stats of IPL 2010 so far,sachin being the highest rungetter followed by kallis and jayawardane.sachin will turn 37 on april 24th this year,what an amazing player he is been for all these years.
I was always amazed by the question,"what made me the sachin follower?".Is it the cricket he played or his attitude?I can remember the early days of my cricketing career(watching cricket).I started watching cricket from 1996 worldcup which held in India.Without anyone's acknowkledgement my eyelids forget its normal action for some seconds when I lived a shot from a 5 feet 3 inches god who uses english willow written MRF on it.I just asked my nephew who is he?He just screamed" dont you know him"? "He is Tendulkar.Sachin Tendulkar".

I might be the hundred millionth person to feel that astonishment.But he made every indian feel it for once in every year.Its an given promise given to us by sachin.There is a question ,mightbe in every australian's heart,Sachin being the greatest or best cricketer of alltime?I dont try to answer this question,but everyone in this world should agree a thing"No one in this world made the game so exciting and made everyone to pray for everyball that next delivery shouldn't take sachin's wicket".

Sachin being the highest rungetter highest centurion in all forms of game had a very rare attitude and character.I stronly believe he is the more resemblances with Lord Rama.As rama he is also almost mr clean image.He married anjali who is elder to him just like rama married to sita.He didnt get away with image like yuvraj singh who had very higher ability,but arrogant.

I dont forget to remember you some lines which made the people drive crazy"Commit all crimes when sachin is playing,bcoz even god is watching him".And recent Ipl we all aware about the dhoni's campaign about save our tigers .One fan showed a flexi "Only 1411 tigers left...are you sure ? left sachin".
There are millions of people who wrote about sachin befor me.But I myself felt one will forget time when you started thinking about sachin.He had that charm in every aspect.No one can forget his 97 in match with pakisthan in 2003 worldcup,175 in chasing aganist australia,200 not out aganist south africa in gwalior,and consecutive centuries in sharjah.The list will be endless because I hardly forget any shot played by him whether it's cover drive in mcgrath bowling or slice shot in akthar's,pull from caddick's bouncer,upper cut from ntini's or a frontfoot shot gone to miles bowled by magical fingers of shane warne.

The records can tell the numbers but not the class of his game.I strongly believe the class of his game chaged the name of MRF (Madras rubber factory to Master's riding federation).Sounds funny to say that.

Cricket being the unofficial national game of India,no one ever doubted to say "If Cricket is a religion than sachin is the god".Whats the religion name?

"Sachinism - I follows it,will you...i repeat again Will YOU?"

What does 3G wireless mean for you?

After being postponed several times in the last two years, the long-awaited auction process for 3G services is well on its way and mobile subscribers in India can soon expect to see a revolutionary change in the way telecom services will be available to them.
3G is all about speed, speed, and more speed! 3G represents a paradigm shift from the voice-centric world of the previous generations of wireless networks to the multimedia-centric world of 3G. Simply put, it will shift the focus from the ears to the eyes. It is the next generation of wireless network technology that provides high speed bandwidth (high data transfer rates) to handheld mobile devices. The high data transfer rates will allow 3G networks to offer multimedia services combining voice and data.
3G services will seamlessly combine superior voice quality telephony, high-speed mobile IP services, IT, rich media, and offer diverse content. The characteristics of 3G services will ensure 'always on' Internet download speeds of up to 2Mbps.
There's no doubt that 3G represents the next big thing in mobility. Just as broadband Internet access took over from conventional dial-up and radically changed the way you were able to use the Internet from conventional desktop and laptop computers, 3G holds the same promise for mobile users accessing and leveraging the Internet while on the move. Suddenly, the hours travelling on the road or rail or waiting at airports or in between meetings will become productive and entertaining for all of us.
3G services, apart from giving us capacity and speed, will give us the benefits of multitasking. Consider ourselves as wireless knowledge workers who will have far greater flexibility, efficiency and speed of response to a multitude of demanding situations in real time, while we are on the move. We shall soon be capable of getting an exciting range of mobile services such as mobile office services, virtual banking, home shopping, video-conferencing, rich multimedia with streaming audio & video, email and instant messaging with audio/ video clips, online entertainment like mobile TV and many more services which not only will be location-based but will also include personalised services where specific content can be pushed to users based on individual needs!
Video conferencing
Face-to-face video calling between compatible 3G mobile phones: Users will be able to see each other as they talk on the move. Think of it as a webcam you carry in your pocket. Look at the time and costs (what with the increasing complexity of traffic and oil prices) you will save by not travelling for one-on-one meetings!
TV & video on demand
A user will be able to watch TV channels on their mobile phone. Just imagine the thrill of being able to watch the crucial sports matches or your favourite 'soap' on your mobile when you are stuck in the middle of a traffic jam. You can also 'demand' a movie or a TV programme of your choice!
Social networking
Social networking has seen a monumental influx of users over the past several years as websites like YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have gained widespread traction in India and mind you, it is not only restricted to the youth. I know a fare share of users who are the not-so-welcome parents. These sites typically allow you to post and share videos, pictures and comments of your personal lives to a central site that can then be accessed by the general public or select users. Millions of users around the globe are accessing these websites, downloading and uploading photos and videos as well as communicating online via their mobile devices.
With faster speeds of 3G services soon coming to your doorstep, imagine being able to connect to Facebook & Twitter and a host of all those social networking and instant messaging without any delays. Post your 'status' every hour or Tweet constantly even while on the move.
Location-based services
A location-based service (LBS) is an information service provided by telecom operators that is accessible by your mobile phone. LBS services utilise the geographic position of the mobile phone to provide location information to the user. Uses of LBS include mapping and navigation applications and social networking services based on location and presence technologies either embedded in the handset or placed in the network.
LBS services can be used in a variety of contexts, such as healthcare, professional and personal life. LBS services include services to identify a location of a person or object, such as finding the nearest ATM machine, business or the location of a friend or employee. LBS services include parcel tracking and vehicle tracking services. They include personalised weather services, traffic alerts and even location-based games. LBS services can include mobile commerce when taking the form of coupons or advertising directed at customers based on their current location. Retailers can deploy applications that recognise potential consumers' presence within a given geographic area for example, as they walk past a store and deliver highly personalised multimedia marketing content to entice them into the store. Beware all you impulsive shoppers!
The consumer benefits of 3G are clear: downloading songs in mere seconds, surfing the Internet at fast speeds, or streaming live television and satellite radio broadcasts. But how does this next-generation wireless protocol stack up when it comes to the critical area of costs? The 3G spectrum will hopefully be auctioned successfully, and while its primary purpose was to contribute to the further development of the telecom sector and benefit the Indian subscribers, it has also captured attention for its probable positive impact on India's fiscal health and its exchange rate. Just as the intense competitive environment that exists amongst the 2G service providers has ensured that cellular services in India are available at amongst the lowest tariff rates in the world, let us hope that 3G services will also follow suit and likewise be available at an affordable price so that the masses can enjoy the multitude of benefits of 3G.
If you want to join the party, make sure that you buy a 3G compatible mobile phone, the next time you are in the market to replace your faithful but soon to be obsolete 2G device.

Tharoor-Modi row: What is it all about?

Union Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has again got tongues wagging for his alleged meddling in the Indian Premier League franchise business.

IPL-gate: What is it?
Shashi Tharoor landed himself in a fresh controversy when IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi alleged that Tharoor told him not to reveal the ownership pattern of the IPL Kochi franchise.
The dispute erupted after Lalit Modi said the winning consortium allotted stakes worth about $15 million for free to a woman Indian media identified as Tharoor's girlfriend Sunanda Pushkar.
Modi said Tharoor had called him to ask that the shareholding details of the consortium not be revealed. Tharoor denies this and has not commented on the nature of his ties to Pushkar.
Lalit Modi alleged that Tharoor did not want to reveal the stake of Sunanda Pushkar, a close friend, in Rendezvous Sports World which is part of consortium that won the IPL Kochi franchise.
But, Modi has not only publicly disclosed the names of some of the owners of the consortium that bought the franchisee for $333 million but has also alleged that he was told by Tharoor not to ask who these shareholders were.
This startling claim assumes significance since at the heart of the controversy is the reported 19% stake owned by Sunanda Pushkar in the 25% free equity owned by Rendezvous Sports World Pvt Ltd, the company that led the consortium that finally won the team. The value of Pushkar's stake is $15.82 million (about Rs 70 crore).
Tharoor says:
Embattled Shashi Tharoor, India's minister of state for external affairs, said he would not oblige his critics by resigning as he had done no wrong in the billowing controversy over the Kochi IPL franchise.
'If I had done anything wrong, I would have resigned. To resign because people have chosen to deliberately misrepresent you or misperceive you means that you are giving more importance to other people's perception than to your own character and your own integrity. I am not going to resign,' Tharoor.
Slamming Modi, Tharoor said: 'The unethical efforts that have been made by Modi and others to thwart the Kerala franchise which had been won fair and square in a transparent bidding process are disgraceful.
'I deny Lalit Modi's allegation that I called him during his meeting with investors in the Kochi consortium in Bangalore Saturday night in order to press him not to question the composition of the consortium,' the minister said in a statement.
Lalit Modi says:
Modi, in an email sent to Shashank Manohar, president, Board of Control for Cricket in India and the members of the governing council of the board, alleged that the Kochi franchisee has "a lot to hide and as such have lied about who is the actual owner of the shares (in the consortium that bought the team)."
Modi also said in his email that "when I questioned who the shareholders were...they had no answer. In fact, they said we will revert back. Within minutes of me asking the same...I got a call from Shashi Tharoor asking me not to ask about who these shareholders are."
Modi in his tweets claimed he was asked not to get into who owns the Rendezvous.
'I was told by him (Tharoor) not to get into who owns rendezvous. Specially Sunanda Pushkar. Why? The same has been minuted in my records,' he tweeted.
Sunanda Pushkar says:
In a hard-hitting statement Pushkar accused the media of ignoring her professional background and international business experience and focussing 'obsessively on my personal life as if a woman cannot be capable of professional or financial success.
'My own business interests and assets are substantial, and efforts to besmirch Tharoor by presenting me as a proxy for him are personally insulting for me as a woman and as a friend.
'I have built up a respectable and successful career while coping with widowhood and raising a child as a single mother. Yet I have been reduced to a caricature in the media, portrayed with inaccuracies and falsehoods,' she said.
Kochi franchise says:
In the eye of storm over its ownership pattern, Indian Premier League's Kochi franchise alleged that IPL commissioner Lalit Modi is targeting the new team under pressure from Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
"We were told that we won't be allowed to work. The Adani group and Narendra Modi had a stake in the Ahmedabad IPL bid.
"Since Modi has disclosed all the stakeholders of the Kochi team, he should also furnish details of other franchises. I ask the government to reveal the ownership details of other IPL teams under the corporate law.
Government should investigate. We are clean and we have nothing to hide," the franchise's spokesperson Satyajit Gaekwad asserted Modi has alleged that Kochi are not coming out clean on their stakeholders.
Opposition guns for Tharoor
The Shashi Tharoor-Lalit Modi row over ownership of Kochi IPL team escalated assuming political proportions with the BJP demanding sacking of Minister of State for External Affairs for alleged corruption and Congress calling it "absurd".
The Left parties joined the campaign against Tharoor and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) demanded he must step down till his name 'is cleared of any unethical or irregular behaviour.'
The CPI went a step further and asked Manmohan Singh to sack Tharoor for misusing his official position.
Samajwadi Party asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to remove Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor from Union cabinet over the Kochi IPL team controversy. (Text courtesy: Agencies)

King of Speed - Fastest Supercomputer

To put the computer’s speed in perspective, if every one of the 6 billion people on earth used a hand-held computer and worked 24 hours a day it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner computer can do in a single day.

The interconnecting system occupies 6,000 square feet with 57 miles of fiber optics and weighs 500,000 pounds. Although made from commercial parts, the computer consists of 6,948 dual-core computer chips and 12,960 cell engines, and it has 80 terabytes of memory.

The cost: $100 million.

Turek said the computer in a two-hour test on May 25 achieved a “petaflop” speed of sustained performance, something no other computer had ever done. It did so again in several real applications involving classified nuclear weapons work this past weekend.

A “flop” is an acronym meaning floating-point-operations per second. One petaflop is 1,000 trillion operations per second. Only two years ago, there were no actual applications where a computer achieved 100 teraflops — a tenth of Roadrunner’s speed — said Turek, noting that the tenfold advancement came over a relatively short time.

Forget 3G - 4G is here

It wasn't so long ago that the cell phone world was just transitioning to 3G technology. But now, just as we're getting settled, the ever-restless industry is moving on again. Fourth-generation technology, or 4G, is gaining traction and carriers are promising even faster data speeds.

So what is 4G?
To start, think of wireless technology as a family that gets faster with each generation. Second-generation (2G) networks were faster than the original first-generation wireless technology; third-generation (3G) is faster than 2G; and 4G is faster than 3G. Speed is important for data transmission (not so much for voice) because a faster network lets you do more with your phone. The 3G networks that we use today allow us to stream video, download music tracks and other large files, and surf the Web on full HTML browsers. Think of it like moving from a dial-up Internet connection to cable or DSL--suddenly you could do more with your computer and do it faster.

That's why it's easiest to think of 4G not in terms of what it is, but rather in terms of what it can do. While 3G offers data speeds of about 1.5 to 2 megabits per second (Mbps), 4G will double that--and it could go even faster. It's important to remember, however, that promises are just that. As any iPhone user can tell you, 3G speeds can vary widely in everyday use, so 4G performance won't always be perfect.

Types of 4G
Just as there are different types of 3G (EV-DO, UMTS, and HSDPA) there are two main types of 4G. I'll tell you the basics, but before we start it's important to note that 4G more or less marks the end of the traditional CDMA/GSM divide. Carriers can choose which technology they're going to employ--they aren't limited by what they're using now. That's why you'll get Verizon Wireless and AT&T both choosing the same 4G solution. They won't necessarily be interoperable, but they will be similar.

LTE
LTE, aka long-term evolution, is the natural outgrowth of current 3G technologies. As it has an all-IP architecture, it treats everything it transmits, even voice, as data. Verizon Wireless and AT&T have chosen LTE, and it's expected that T-Mobile will go that way as well. At the time of this writing, no commercial LTE devices are available in the U.S. market, though we expect to see announcements later this month at the annual CTIA show in Las Vegas.

Verizon said Monday that LTE testing in Seattle and Boston has gone well and that it will bring the technology to 25 to 30 markets this year. According to the carrier, its network is capable of download speeds of 40Mbps to 50Mbps and upload speeds of 20Mbps to 25Mbps. Average speeds, however, will more likely range from 5Mbps to 12Mbps for downloads and 2Mbps to 5Mbps for uploads.

In contrast, AT&T is a bit further behind. The carrier announced in February that it will begin LTE testing later this year and will deploy commercial networks in 2011. So, at least for the time being, don't get your hopes up that a 4G-capable iPhone will arrive at AT&T this summer. T-Mobile will be playing catch up for some time, too. Last month at the Mobile World Congress, T-Mobile CTO Cole Brodman said the carrier will expand its HSPA+ network to more U.S. cities this year. Though Brodman billed it as 4G technology, HSPA+ is an advanced 3G technology.

WiMax
In contrast to LTE, WiMax, which stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, isn't an evolution of current cellular systems. Rather, it's more related to current Wi-Fi technology. The initial version for mobile use is based on the 802.16e wireless standard (Wi-Fi is 802.110). It has potential for very long range transmission (up to 30 miles) and could offer speeds of about 10Mbps.

Sprint is the only U.S. carrier to adopt WiMax, but for now the carrier's network is more widely available than LTE. Sprint and Clearwire have a WiMax network in 27 cities with at least eight more slated for the first half of this year. Sprint is promising average speeds of 3Mbps to 6Mbps with peak speeds up to 10Mbps. The carrier also has no 4G phones for now, but it introduced a WiMax-capable router last January at CES. And we expect to see it roll out some real 4G phones at CTIA.

Problems in Europe not to affect IT firms

Despite a debt crisis in Greece, Spain, and Portugal, other countries in Europe, such as Germany and France, besides the Nordic region (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark) and Benelux (the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg), are expected to continue and, in some cases, even increase their outsourcing and offshoring work to low-cost countries like India.

“Though Europe is still fragile, we are certainly seeing an uptick in outsourcing, as well as offshoring from European clients. Deals are getting shorter and smaller in duration, but it certainly is increasing. To give you an idea of the 800 inquiries that we received last year from European clients, about 90 per cent asked us about offshoring,” explains Gilbert Van Der Heiden, Gartner’s research director for information technology (IT) sourcing.

The UK, according to Gartner’s forecast on enterprise IT spending for 2010, was expected to witness a growth rate of 3.8 per cent for 2010, while Germany was expected to grow by 3.2 per cent. For France, it was 4.3 per cent and the Nordic regions, 4.2 per cent. While Benelux is expected to clock a 4.6 per cent growth rate.