Random Facts & Figures from "The Week"

[mcgillianaire]

DID YOU KNOW? - EDITION II

• $15 billion is the total inflow of FDI into India in FY 2006/07. $7 billion alone arrived in the last 3 months.
  
  
• 40 million is the proposed annual passenger carriage capacity for the new Mumbai International Airport at Navi.
  
  
• 1.98 million is the number of new subscribers to BSNL in March, the highest-ever net addition by an ISP in a single month.
  
  
• 4% to 12% is the rape conviction rate in India.
  
  
• 108 feet is the height of India's tallest statue for the Hindu monkey-God, Lord Hanuman. Check it out at Delhi's Pusa Road.

More Tomorrow!

Comments

[mrputter.livejournal.com]

> 1.98 million is the number

Dear God. The mind boggles trying to imagine how their infrastructure can possibly cope.

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

The first time I tried to use the Internet in India (1999?), it couldn't. In Delhi and in Bombay, all I ever got was busy signals. When I did get through- a process that tooks hours and attempts to dial a variety of different numbers, I'd get disconnected from my painfully slow connection at arbitrary intervals. It wasn't just bad, it was painful. But every visit since then has been fine, and I'm fairly certain they've been dealing with geometric growth the whole time. I just wish they let private ISPs in earlier, the state telecos have not been great.

[mrputter.livejournal.com]

> I just wish they let private _____s in earlier, the state _____s have not been great.

Isn't that pretty much a universal truth (not just in India, but also elsewhere)?

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. The privatization of British Railways is one prominent example. The current system of HMOs and private insurance in the United States means people here pay twice as much for healthcare as the rest of the developed world, and 40 million people still don't receive coverage. I'm not even going to try to think about Russia under Yeltsin.

I'm generally for private enterprise, but there are a couple of things best left to governments. Dubai has given for-profit corporations control of neighborhood planning, for instance, and the results have not been to my liking.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Indeed. The internet has come an extremely long way in India since those Dark Ages in the mid-to-late-90s. Though I can't speak for Delhi or Bombay, broadband connections in India since 2005 have been out of this world! A couple years ago, 1Mbps connections were rare but thanks to BSNL, 2Mbps connections are becoming the norm in the cities. Which brings me to your last point about state telecos. As it happens, the best internet network in the country as we speak (and it has been this way for about half a year now) both in terms of speeds, stability and pricing is BSNL - the only state teleco providing Internet services. I can't speak for its service anywhere except in TN but they offer a range of services including an unlimited bandwidth plan for Rs.900 ($22) a month @ 2Mbps. The one I've been using in Chennai the past couple weeks is for Rs. 500 ($12) a month and offers unlimited time and 2GB worth of downloads. But just in case you thought that was a raw deal, there's unlimited bandwidth for downloads and uploads between Midnight and 6am.

I've been discussing reasons with people over here as to why BSNL is offering the best service amidst atleast a dozen other private ISPs and they generally agree that it is because of BSNL's monopoly over land-line connections. BSNL provides free-installation for their internet services if you already have a phone-connection with them. The private guys are finding it difficult to keep pace, for now at least, because they need to lay down their own cables anywhere. Since internet speeds are constantly improving, it seems like the private guys are finding it difficult to keep pace with it in terms of updating their hardware. In terms of pricing, my uncle currently has Tata Indicomm's (formerly Tata VSNL, and before that VSNL, a state teleco), 512 Kbps service in Salem, and he's paying Rs.500 per month for 20 hours or 1GB of downloads, whichever comes first. After experiencing the awesome BSNL connections here in Chennai however, he intends to make a switch to it as soon as he returns there tomorrow. We could never download more than 20-30kb/sec in Salem but here I've easily managed connections of 200kb/sec.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I forgot two more things.

1) Check this (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Infotech/Internet__Telecom/Free_2_Mbps_broadband_by_2009/articleshow/1957303.cms) out.
2) Another significant reason why state telecos are on the up-and-up atm is because of the guy in charge of the telecom and IT ministry - Dayanidhi Maran (http://www.dmaran.nic.in/profile.htm). He has single-handedly transformed telecommunications in India this century, after decades of disgraceful mismanagement. He was also responsible for convincing Nokia to build a major plant in India.