Day: July 10, 2004

Economist on India’s Budget

The Economist callits it balanced but uninspiring:

Agriculture and rural areas were a central focus of Mr Chidambaram’s speech. He is offering a range of support and incentives, including a doubling of agricultural credit over three years, widespread water schemes, and help for diversification into new farm products and food processing. This echoed the themes of a speech on June 24th by Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, who promised a change in the manner in which this country is run and said that economic growth should advance the cause of distributive justice and recreate new employment opportunities. Politically astute, no doubt, but possibly not the stuff of which a new Asian tiger is made.

On industry, Mr Chidambaram balanced the wishes of reformers and the leftist parties by announcing a new commission to boost both foreign and domestic investment. The key to growth is investment, he said. Public and private, domestic and foreign. So he raised the limits for foreign ownership in two areas where joint-ventures urgently need fresh funds from abroadinsurance (from 26% to 49%) and telecoms (from 49% to 74%). He also raised the limit for civil aviation from 40% to 49%. These increases should help to boost India’s poor record on investment inflows, which fell in 2003-04 from $4.7 billion to $4.5 billion (a tiny fraction of what China takes). Limits, though, are only part of it: foreign investment is mostly restricted by foreign companies’ frustrations with India’s bureaucracy and poor public services and infrastructure.

Reformers will, however, be less than delighted with his pro-leftist attempt to rebuild India’s public sector instead of trying to privatise it. He announced the creation of a Board for Reconstruction of Public-Sector Enterprises that will advise on how to develop (and with luck occasionally sell) government-owned companies; and he pledged government funds for major investments in public-sector power, telecoms, railways, roads, petroleum, coal and civil aviation.

Yet Mr Chidambaram failed to explain how the government plans to make its investments in the public sector any more effective than before. This is not the end of reform in India, nor is it an inspiring start for the new government’s efforts to advance it.

Strategy and Tactics

Marketing Playbook writes about the distinction:

Strategy
– Strategy a : The science of military command, or the science of projecting campaigns and directing great military movements; generalship.
– The set of decisions made to best ensure achievement of the desired objectives, based on an assessment of:
… ones own current situation/position; capabilities & shortcoming; competitive position
… options/alternatives — risks
… timing

Tactics
– Tactic a : a device for accomplishing an end; b : a method of employing forces in combat
– The set of requirements for a plan to take effect

Tactical vs. Strategic:
– Always relative to one another
– Tactics: the set of actions taken to fulfill a strategy

Internet Suspend-Resume

Roland Piquepaille points to a story on the ISR project in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and writes: “Imagine a world where computers become so ubiquitous that the idea of carrying a laptop will almost be laughable, a world where any computer could be your computer! According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, this is the goal of Intel Research Pittsburgh’s Internet Suspend/Resume (ISR) project, a project that may one day let your work jump from computer to computer without interruption by using Internet, distributed file systems, and virtual machines. When the non-proprietary technology becomes available, a user will suspend a task on the computer he’s working on, and resume this work using another computer in another part of a city or several thousand miles away. The second system will look identical to the first one, with the same files and applications opened. This technology would also ease OS upgrades or eliminate the pain coming from a hard disk failure. The project has even a feature named Rollback which would permit to go back in time, eliminating these pesky viruses.”