 Saturday, 14th September, 1996
The Future of Indian Democracy
A talk by Vineet Narain,
journalist/social-activist/the man who exposed the hawala scandal
[ Thanks to Nihar Mehta for writing the minutes. ]
The Hawala Scandal
In 1991 CBI had conducted raid on Jain brothers during
which they obtained so called Jain Diaries - which are actually proper books of accounts
kept by Jain Brothers. The CBI did not made any progress in the case till 1993. It was in
1993 that a person approached Mr. Narain to disclose this matter to public. Mr. Narain was
then the producer of investigative video magazine, Kalchakra, telecast on National TV. Mr.
Narain covered the issue in the July 1993 episode of Kalchakra. However Doordarshan censor
board did not approve it, stating that it is defamatory in nature.
Mr. Narain then filed a petition in lower court and later
in the Supreme Court questioning CBI for their inaction after the seizure of documents
from Jain Brothers.The petition was filed in Oct 1993, but Supreme Court did not made much
progress on the petition till Nov 1994, when new bench was appointed to address the
petition.
During this time Mr. Narain made several futile efforts to
convince his media colleagues to cover this issue in their newspapers. He also brought out
his own newspaper and sent about 2000 copies to various agencies, intellectuals and
politicians, but he did not gain much support. He also tried to distribute flyers amongst
railway passengers with the help of Delhi university students to spread the awareness.
Mr. Narain has deep faith in Gita and the principle of
Karma. As per him it is this faith that has kept him alive for so long. He said 'Have
faith in God and People's conviction'.
Finally, in January of 1996, the new bench in Supreme
Court, instructed the CBI to reply to questions asked by Mr. Narain in his petition. Since
that time about 115 Politicians and Bureaucrats are charge sheeted in the Hawala Case.
On the Future of Indian Democracy
The primary concern of Mr. Narain was the corrupt
legistature. He believes that it is the corrupt parliament which is the root of all the
problems in India - like those related to Agriculture, Electricity, Water supply,
Infrastructure, Telecom, Public Sector, etc. He beleives that we need to launch a second
struggle for independence, this time from corrupt politicians.
He stated that there are lot of activists who work on
solving problems related to either public health, Agriculture, etc. But we are not seeing
much results since it is like "watering the leaves or branches of the tree instead
of watering the roots".
He said India is not a poor country, it is being made poor
by the corrupt politicians. He said the question most politicians address is the issue of
short fall in electricity and water supply, but they never address the issue of
mismanagement of resources, loss in productivity, etc. If corruption is removed from these
sectors, most villages and towns in India will not have electricity and water shortages.
He said there is no shortage of resources or entrepreneurship or hard working people in
India.
For example, there are 5 lakh 50 thousand villages in
India. If corruption is stopped in just Delhi, the money saved from that will amount to
upto 10 million (1 crore) rupees for each village!
With the rate at which more scandals are surfacing in
Delhi, the process on cleaning up has began. He is optimistic that political infighting
will help bringing more such issues to table and the so called self destruction of corrupt
politicians will take couple of years. The process of creation of alternative has to be
worked out.
His Vision/Solution to the problems
People in India are not more corrupt, but the common man is
feeling the pinch of corruption, this is unlike the case in most developed countries where
corruption mostly prevails at the top.
Mr. Narain is creating a network of retired army personnel
and university students. Retired army personnel have the time and are not used to
corruption. The students also have lots of time and energy. Mr. Narain has already
conducted some experiments in certain areas where a group of people helped the common man
in getting services at rationing offices, police stations, telecom offices, etc. These
experiments have been highly successful and Mr. Narain is very encouraged to pursue this
Nationwide.
In short, he has a four step plan:
1. To continue to expose corrupt politicians. Disemminate
information about policies, rights, corruption etc across the nation.
2. To form small groups of volunteers all acros the country to
help root out corruption at all levels. He beleives students and retired army personnel
are available to support.
3. Identify committed, spiritually inclined leaders across the
country. Groom and train these leaders to plan and execute.
Mr. Narain is continuing to meet NRIs across the US/Canada
and hopes to take his struggle across India on his return. He should be giving talk in NY
on 22, Sept and Houston on 26, Sept. Overall a very interesting, absorbing, educative and
inspiring talk.
Saturday, 17th August, 1996
The Start-Up Experience - A Founder's
Perspecptive
A talk by Ajay Shah, President
& CEO, SMART Modular Technologies
and Lata Krishnan, CFO, SMART Modular Technologies
Ajay Shah and Lata Krishnan founded SMART Modular
Technologies in 1988 and the company is publicly held since 1995. (NASDAQ: SMOD). SMART Modular
Technologies, Inc. is the leading independent manufacturer of specialty memory
modules,standard memory modules and PC Cards with memory and communications functionality.
SMART runs manufacturing facilities in both the United States and Puerto Rico. To
facilitate round-the-clock design service, the company operates an additional design
center in Bangalore, India. Sales organizations in North America, the United Kingdom and
Australia market the products to OEMs and corporate end users worldwide.
Ajay Shah gave an interesting background SMART Modular
Technologies, Inc.It was founded as a bootstrap operation, without the support of Venture
Capital.
The company was founded on limited private funding of about
$110000. The company became profitable very quickly and started selffunding itself in
about 3 months after startup.
SMART Modular Technologies had $275 million in sales last
year and has been profitable every quarter since. In the previous 1996 quarter , sales was
$110 million.
Issues during early months of the inception of SMART
Modular Technologies :
Ajay Shah , the CEO was not tied down to decision
strategies in the early days but had to put on various hats as needed. Some of the roles
played were focused on Sales, Marketing, Shipping and Quality Assurance.
The company grew in size very quickly it was a great
challenge to put a team together. What started out as a contract manufacturing company
became product oriented and grew to become profitable in about 3 months after founding.
SMART Modular Technologies did have great support from
larger companies and vendors like Samsung, IBm, Toshiba, Intel, Hp, Siemans and Compaq.
One of the strategies was collecting from customers to get
the bills paid promptly. Minimal investment in equipment and a strong budget helped SMART
Modular Technologies control their costs.
One of the reasons for immediate success was that Ajay and
Lata had a robust business plan supported by eager engineering team with goals toward long
term investment.
SMART Modular Technologies designs and manufacturers memory
modules for PCs, large workstations and servers. They do have a design center in
Bangalore, India.
SMART Modular Technologies future plans include getting
into telecommunication markets and Embedded Data processing. For more information on SMART
Modular, check out http://www.smartm.com.
The meeting started with the open forum, where attendees
were given time to make announcements that were of general interest to the SIPA members.
This was followed by a brief "Q&A cum suggestions" session for SIPA. There
were a few requests for SIPA's database on the web. SIPA President, Pran Kurup responded
that we could do that and much more provided someone was willing to volunteer his
time" One of the members who suggested the same, promised to "look into it"
(or as the more optimistic would say,"to volunteer his time").
Saturday, 20th July 1996
Product Idea to a Succesful Venture
A talk by Prakash Agarwal,
President & CEO, Neomagic Corporation
Mr. Agarwal spoke about the early days of NeoMagic, founded
by a group consisting of 6 former Cirrus Logic employees. NeoMagic is the first company to
integrate DRAM and Logic onto a single chip. For more information on NeoMagic, please
check http://www.neomagic.com.
He beleives that vision, strategy, tactics and leadership
are the key components of a succesful venture. A good vision consists of core values and
beleifs, purpose and a mission. NeoMagic's core values and beliefs include - customer
satisfaction, "quality" is exceeding expectatons, culture founded on
intellectual honesty,openness, trust and mutual respect.
NeoMagic's purpose is "To Make the World More
Mobile" while its mission - "To be be the World's Leading supplier of Multimedia
semiconductor solutions for the portable market"
Mr. Agarwal touched upon key NeoMagic milestones through
its 3.5 year history.
First round $3 million Financing. - July 93
Second Round 5.75million financing. - Jan 94
First Functional Silicon - Dec 94.
First product announcement - March 95
Third round financing - 8 million July 95.
Some of NeoMagic's leading customers include: Compaq, NEC,
Acer, Dell, Sharp.
The key to NeoMagic sucess includes compelling/innovative
technology, cohesive team, experienced management, strong board team, clear vision,
purpose and mission.
Mr. Agarwal spoke at length about raising money, the
importance of a strong board of directors, intrapreunership vs entrepreunership, among
other things.
The talk was followed by a Q&A and a networking
session.
Saturday, 4th May 1996
An Investment and Financial Planning
Seminar
A talk by Sandeep Pandya,
President, SP Asset Management
and Naresh Arora, CPA
One of the most spoken about subjects amongst colleagues at
work or friends is investments, may it be stocks, 401K/IRA plans or real- estate. Amongst
SIPA members, some are simply awaiting to overcome the initial inertia, fear or lack of
knowledge thereof to jump on the investment bandwagon. Others are in the constant learning
phase to acquire sound judgement to maximise gains taking calculated risks. There are the
more daring and speculative kinds who thrive on the thrills achieved by the content of
risk involved to achieve high gains.
SIPA organized this Investment and Financial Planning
Seminar in an effort to enable members to gain from the perspectives of two expert
speakers -- Sandeep Pandya, President of SP Asset Management and Naresh Arora, CPA.
Sandeep provides Investment and Financial Advisory services to high net-worth individuals.
He comes from an engineering background and has multiple years of experience in managing
money and issues related to financial planning. Naresh Arora is a CPA and provides tax
consulting to businesses, self-employed, and salaried individuals. He has multiple years
of experience providing tax consulting.
Intriguing questions abound investors' minds. Which broker
to select from a wide variety? What services do they offer? Are you overwhelmed by the
number of mutual funds available for you to pick from? What should be the base criteria
for selecting stocks? What investment strategies and financial instruments are available
to investors? Sandeep addressed these issues which investors, at times, are perplexed with
and provide pointers to various sources to acquire knowledge of companies and markets.
Today's markets require an investor to have a very disciplined investment approach.
Sandeep talked about his investment style that many others could benefit from.
An important financial planning component is tax planning.
How do various investments impact taxes? How do tax deferred investments like 401K/IRA
influence the tax-payer? What tax planning issues are generally faced by salaried and
self-employed individuals? Naresh enlightened us with his expert tax advice. He provided
insights into areas that one should be looking towards for better planning during the tax
year as opposed to figuring out tax saving strategies on April 15th.
Saturday, 16th March 1996
Future of Computing Technology and the
Java revolution
A talk by Anant Agarwal, Vice
President of Engineering, SPARC Technology Division, SUN Microsystems Inc.
About 150 people attended the very first meeting of SIPA
for this year 1996. SIPA President, Pran Kurup gave a quick introduction and made the
following announcements.
1. All members of SIPA will be given a membership card.
This makes the administration definitely easier. Members are encouraged to carry their
membership cards to all SIPA events and may in the future be able to use it for discounts,
etc. Members who wish to collect their membership cards will have to do so at the next
SIPA meeting.
2 Volunteers are needed for the SIPA newsletter. Contact
Sundar Palaniraj (contact@sipa.org) if you would like to contribute for the newsletter
(either writing articles or graphic design to improve its look and feel).
3. Volunteers are needed to improve and maintain the Web
page for SIPA. This is an excellent opportunity for anyone who is HTML proficient plus
looking to get involved in SIPA activities.
4. SIPA is looking for a logo. It should portray SIPA's
charter/mission in some small way or the other. Other than that you are free to let your
creative juices flow. THE WINNER WILL GET A $100.00 GIFT CHECK. DEADLINE - April 15.
5. During the month of April there is a meeting on
Investing and Managing money, The date and location will be announced later.
Other Speakers
The Indus Entrepreneurs(TiE)
Dr. Suhas Patil, President of TiE(The Indus Entrepreneur)
announced the that the annual TiE seminar will be held on May, 10, 11. The focus of this
year's seminar being "Finance". For more information, contact
tieadmin@tie.org
Indian Literacy Program
(ILP)
Nand Mulchandani, an ILP volunteer announced the plans for the
annual ILP fund raiser to be held on May 11 featuring renowned violin virtuoso
Subramaniam, Swapan Chaudhuri (Tabla), and Trichy Sankaran (Mridangam). For more
information contact
ilp@pobox.com
Minutes
[Thanks to Lalitha Krishnamurthy for writing the
minutes.]
Mr Agarwal started with an overview of Sun Microsystems and
its organization. Sun Microsystems was not the leader of techonology a few years ago,
however with management changes, process and design changes, SUN is a great leader of
technology today. The presentation was done in two sections,
Casting Java in silicon
Java language and its features
Casting Java in Silicon
One of Sun's planets is the business group Javasoft which
is responsible for all software business on Java.
One of the project goals of Ultra Sparc was to focus design
on being a Compute engine, Multimedia engine and Networking engine. New instructions were
added to enable multimedia applications to handle 2D/3D imaging.
Another important criteria was the processor performance
Management infrastructure was built and tuned to meet performance challenges. Every
developement hacker was given an independent environment for development, however
uniformity was maintained to streamline project goals. Management structure was very
robust in handling addition of new engineers to the project.
Spit fire administration group was formed to handle project
dependencies , decision making. The teams were partitioned as
Architectural group
Circuit group
CAD and resources group
Design methodology focused on early learning with no
surprises CAD methodology was to use tools available in the market instead of in house
development.
Significant milestones were set and achieved. Intermediate
releases spanned 3 months in duration, internal releases were done in twp weeks.
When the chip was tested it worked correctly the first
time. This was a significant achievement for the group members which clearly reflected
excellent project managment and process design.
Java
was announced last year by SUN, It is a dynamic language.
The language has been developed to suit multiple architectures, multiple computers, and
multiple operating systems.
Goal of Java and its tools are to make Binary distribution
a reality. Java is distributed as Byte codes which runs on a virtual machine. This virtual
machine is compatible with any underlying RISC instruction set.
Java is simple and small and is a subset of C++ , with a
lot complexities in C++ removed. It is multithreaded and is compliant with Netscape,
Spyglass and Oracle Web browser.
Advantages of Java
Eliminates porting Makes system upgrade easier Memory
requirements for using Java chips are much lower Suitable for setting up an Wired small
office , Home office Java targets applications for network peripherals, skinny clients
Mr Agarwal concluded the speech with the project management
and process design details that enables SUN to develop and market JAVA.
The talk was followed by a Q&A and
networking session.
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