Global hunger index

Outlook carries an article about a Global Hunger Index developed by the International Food Policy Research institute. Some of the key findings from the index are here.

• India ranks 23rd (1 being most afflicted by hunger).
  
• Malnutrition in India is worse than that in Sub-Saharan Africa but child mortality rates are less.
  
• The custom in many households for women to eat what's left after men have had a go is an important cause for child undernourishment.
  
• Good news is that India's Global Hunger Index has fallen dramatically from 41.23 in 1981 to 25.73 in 2003.
  
• Bad news is that the index was 25.73 in 1997. So in this one aspect nothing has improved during 6 years of torrid economic growth.
  

There is also a short and interesting comparison between the poverty alleviation efforts of India and China over the past 30 years.

Ultra cheap pc from, where else China

Slashdot links to this techfreep article about a $125 PC planned by a company called 'ZhongKe Menglan Electronics Technology Co.' in China. At first look the specifications of this PC look pretty good for the money. Infact (and I am a bit embarassed here) it's almost as good as my old, still very much in use PC.
RAM - 256MB (same as mine)
Hard Drive - 40-60 GB (more than mine)
CPU - Godson-2 800Mhz-1Ghz (mine is a Pentium4 2Ghz)
The CPU ofcourse is the issue in ways more than one. There have been some concerns that it's a rip off of a MIPS chip from MIPS Technologies.

"However, the chip’s architecture has gotten attention around the industry for its similarities to the MIPS chip from MIPS Technologies Inc. According to market research group In-Stat, the Godson-2 is about 95-percent compatible with the MIPS R10000, which was introduced in 1995. BLX claims that similarities between the Godson and MIPS are strictly coincidental."

Well, we had heard similar accusations when Huawei and ZTE initially got into the Telecom infrastructure market. I don't see anyone talking about that anymore. So lets see how the CPU part of this saga plays out.

Anyway, back to the PC. Initially it will be priced at $160-$170 and used in schools and government offices in China. It will hit the $125 price tag if the initial rollout goes well and it goes into mass production. The PC will come preloaded with Linux and the free goodies that come with Linux. I wonder if a person who has never used a PC before will find Linux user friendly. My theory is that a lot of 'user-unfriendliness' of Linux can be attributed to our collective addiction to Windows, a problem which a completely new user wont have. But that's just idle speculation. I can't prove anything.

On similar lines I came across some old articles from DQIndia about the Rs10,000(~$220) PC that are being marketed by Xenitis India. The article in June 2005 makes it sound very promising.

"A quick comparison with some of the branded competitors brings out the magnitude of Xenitis' achievement. For an under 10K price tag, Xenitis provides a PC fuelled by a Cyrix 1 GHz chip, with 128 MB RAM; a 30 GB hard disk drive; a 52x CD drive, a floppy drive and a 15 inch color monitor. The software is Red Hat's Enterprise 3 professional version of Linux, which comes on 9 CDs that include the Open Office suite, database, e-mail tools and a browser."

But in another article a few months later it documents the practical problems involved in actually buying such a PC. A good read if you need convincing that just technically reducing the cost of something is not enough. The eco system (suppliers, distributors) to make it available also needs to be in place.

What the world thinks - does it matter?

Outlook magazine is running a series of articles and the results of a couple of opinion polls under the theme - what does the world think of India? The inevitable question ofcourse is, why does that matter? But if you can ignore that question for a while there are some good reads there. There is an interview with Amartya Sen where he makes some interesting observations which I can't resist from quoting here.

On a question referring to India's socialist past.
"... I'm not sure what you mean by India's socialist past. A country that failed to achieve the most elementary progress that most socialist countries in the world achieved easily (despite their failures in many other fields), namely universal schooling and basic education supported by the state, primary healthcare for all provided by the state, comprehensive land reforms and so on which pre-reform Russia, pre-reform China, Cuba, Vietnam and other socialist countries achieved, can hardly be described as a socialist country...."

On a reference to Indian diaspora's contribution.
"...It's also important to recognise that India's success as a functioning democracy, with a relatively free media, regular multi-party elections and a lively civil society has also helped the diaspora gain respect and acceptance abroad...."

On a reference to India's growing 'power'.
"...We have to think more critically and more fully about exactly what powers we want, in what sense, and precisely what we want to do with power. Having more power is not a virtue in itself."


There are articles from among others Dominique Lapierre, Ayaz Amir, Gurcharan Das and of all people Donatella Versace!

As for the opinion poll, it was conducted in New York, London and Beijing where people were asked various questions geared towards getting their opinion about India. Well I generally use opinion polls for entertainment purposes. They failed to correctly predict the results of both the American and the Indian elections! How the hell can they be true guages of the opinions of entire countries? So in the spirit of entertainment I am quoting 2 results from this opinion poll.

How apt are the following attributes describing Indians?

Hard-working and disciplined

91(NY) 82(Lon) 44(Beij)


Do the following things about India interest you? (Affirmative responses given below)

Hindi cinema/ Bollywood

33(NY) 30(Lon) 76(Beij)

At least the Beijing wallahs like our movies :)