Israeli companies interested in joint ventures with Indian firms

The two-way trade between India and Israel touched $4 billion in 2008

Israel recycles about three-fourths of the water that is consumed

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Orna Sagiv

Bangalore: Israeli companies with expertise in niche areas are looking to develop ties with Indian firms to exploit markets in third world countries. Speaking to The Hindu, Orna Sagiv, Consul-General at the Israeli Consulate in Mumbai, said: “Israeli companies need not be seen as competitors to Indian companies but as complementing them by providing expertise in key areas.”

Although Ms. Sagiv acknowledged that most of the technological expertise in several fields was a spinoff from defence and security applications developed by Israeli companies, the expertise is by now means confined to these areas alone. Information technology, telecommunications, automotives, renewable energy agriculture, water use and management and biotechnology are some of the areas in which Israeli companies are interested in developing partnerships with Indian companies. Another significant area of collaboration relates to aerospace and avionics, but Ms. Sagiv said she would rather speak about civilian cooperation.

The two-way trade between India and Israel increased from $ 200 million in 1992, when diplomatic relations were established, to $4 billion in 2008. Ms. Sagiv said although Israeli IT companies were much smaller than their Indian counterparts, “They are well equipped to offer firewall solutions, for instance.”

Ms. Sagiv said solutions for dryland farming practices developed by Israeli scientists, working in collaboration with farmers and Israeli companies, could be deployed in India. “Israel has much more to offer than drip irrigation, which was developed in the 1960s,” she remarked. Israel, which has always faced a shortage of water, does not grow water-intensive crops such as rice and cotton, but focusses attention on other crops which can be cultivated without wastage of precious water, she said.

“The trick is to supply produce during the off-season to markets in advanced countries such as in Europe in order to ensure better prices,” she remarked. For instance, Israeli farmers grow and supply strawberries in the winter, which at that time get far higher prices in Europe, she said.

The average annual milk yield from a cow in Israel is about 12,000 litres, which Ms. Sagiv claimed was among the highest in the world. This was because the entire production process is managed scientifically, she added.

Israel recycles about three-fourths of the water that is consumed. “In two years, we want to increase this to 95 per cent,’ Ms. Sagiv said. “Although the recycled water is fit for human consumption, for psychological reasons, we use it for agriculture.” A lot of the drinking water comes from the desalination plants, which are among the biggest in the world, she added.

Asked if Israeli companies would be participating in the Global Investors’ Meet scheduled in Bangalore in June, Ms. Sagiv said she is not aware of it. There are about 100 Israeli companies in India. Among the active companies in Bangalore is a real estate company, Elbit Imaging, which has interests in real estate, hospitals and now agriculture and dairy.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/29/stories/2010042954100400.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

NGOs chip in to make engg. students employable

Anantapur: About 500,000 students graduate from 750 engineering colleges in the State every year and only 20 per cent of them are employable by corporate and multi-national companies. The remaining have been finding it difficult to market themselves for lack of proficiency in English language, self-confidence and job skills.

The Ashwamedha Charitable Trust (ACT) and another NGO called Talent Sprint have jointly launched a training programme to help weak students in academics, job skills and personality development, N.T. Choudhury, chairman of Ashwamedha Charitable Trust said in a press release.

A meeting of the two NGOs was held recently at the local SK University to select students for the training and also to give appointment letters to the students trained by them and employed by corporate IT companies.

Talent Sprint chairman J.A. Choudhury said that the 500 selected students would be trained at Hyderabad. The training programme was being totally sponsored by the Ashwamedha Trust. So far the ACT had sponsored educational and job training of about 10,000 students belonging to economically weaker sections in the State.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/29/stories/2010042951740200.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

Prospective entrepreneurs derive confidence

Meeting on entrepreneurship opportunities organised

TIRUCHI: Prospective women entrepreneurs could realise that it is motivation and commitment rather than the volume of investment that determines success in entrepreneurship ventures, during a meeting on entrepreneurship opportunities organised here recently by the Women Industrial Entrepreneurship Club (WIPEC) in association with R.K. Charitable Trust.

At the meeting to discuss opportunities in fabricating, machining, food processing, textile and other areas, they learnt how an industrial unit in Tiruchi that started off as a sub-contractor to the BHEL, Tiruchi, with modest investment could today emerge as a company with a turnover exceeding Rs. 150 crore.

Addressing the participants, V. Shankar, Joint Managing Director, Veesons Energy Systems (P) Ltd, who delivered the key note address, said the unit was started with an initial investment of Rs. 60,000. “We have huge orders and have set a turnover target of Rs. 250 crore,” Mr. Shankar said, expressing readiness to outsource jobs to interested women entrepreneurs.

Presiding over, G.M.Rajendran, Additional General Manager – Valves, BHEL, Tiruchi, said the power sector requirement was very high and that there will be enormous demand for the next two decades. Prospective women entrepreneurs were promised of guidance for setting up units by WIPEC that functions with support from the Chennai-based Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises – Development Institute, and the Vellore Institute of Technology.

Ramasamy Desai, Project Director, Periyar Technology Business Incubator, said that under the aegis of the project of the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, awareness programmes will be conducted for unemployed youths and women to start industries. The Periyar TBI, he said, promotes new innovations in herbal and food processing, and incubates projects by providing technology, space and necessary infrastructure. Financial assistance will also be arranged through banks for starting new units, Mr. Desai said, informing that the Periyar TBI will conduct skill-development programmes in all parts of Tamil Nadu alongside providing guidance to start industries.

BHEL Small Industries’ Association (BHELSIA) president Rajappa Rajkumar said that the BHEL, Tiruchi, was likely to announce ‘best performance award’ for tiny units run by women entrepreneurs under the Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development project of the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, that was implemented by the Tiruchi District Tiny and Small Scale Industries’ Association.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/29/stories/2010042960790600.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

Abandoned mentally ill to be identified

After ensuring their hygiene, the civic body would arrange to admit them to the IMH

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CHENNAI: The Corporation will start a drive to identify all abandoned mentally ill persons in the city and provide them medical intervention.

According to a release, such persons would be taken to the Communicable Diseases Hospital in Tondiarpet on May 3. After ensuring their hygiene, the civic body would make efforts to admit them to the Institute of Mental Health with the assistance of the police after obtaining the permission of the Judiciary.

Information about abandoned mentally ill persons could be given to the assistant health officers of the zones concerned. Their contact numbers are: Tondiarpet zone – 9445190701; Basin Bridge – 9445190702; Pulianthope – 9445190703; Kilpauk – 9445190705; Ice House – 9445190706; Nungambakkam – 9445190707; Kodambakkam – 9445190708; Saidapet – 9445190709; Adyar – 9445190710.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/29/stories/2010042951510200.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

An able worker on a quest

Despite a disability, he opted for a profession that requires intricate working with hands

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K. Mohammed Hassan at work in his shop in Kolathur.

CHENNAI: He is the epitome of confidence. Despite a disability, he opted for a profession that requires intricate working with hands. He even started ‘Lakshiya Paadai,’ a forum for persons with disability that celebrated its first anniversary on Monday.

Thirty-three-year-old K. Mohammed Hassan of Kolathur runs Hanee Tronics, a cellular phone repair shop on Kolathur Main Road. Soon after his birth, his malformed arms were noticed. But the disability did not stop him from taking up servicing of cellular phones and he set up his own shop and repairs handsets using his legs with great dexterity.

“Earlier, I was confined to the four walls of my room. Things changed after my friend Santhosh, who was working with an NGO, took me around and introduced me to persons with disabilities who were working and leading a happy life like others.” That day, he decided to do something and stand on his own legs. Hassan, who learnt about cellular phone technology from his brother Shahul Hameed, set up his shop in 1999.

Much to the admiration of his customers and neighbouring shopkeepers, Hassan now uses hand tools such as soldering iron, de-soldering pump and a blower with his legs to service handsets. His perfection at work has also earned him a loyal clientele.

A highly religious person, Hassan prays five times a day at a mosque nearby, while shopkeepers at neighbouring stores take care of the shop. “A few years ago, when I had gone to the mosque after leaving the shop with a small boy, three cell phones ready for delivery went missing. Then I had to replace them with new pieces. Now, I request my neighbouring shopkeepers to take care.”

In a step towards making a difference for persons with disabilities, Hassan started ‘Lakshiya Paadai’ in April 2009 at his shop.

“We now have only 10 members. It is my small initiative to try and motivate persons with disability, who are confined to their homes. My motto is to bring out their talent and make them believe that they too can be successful.”

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/29/stories/2010042958530200.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

City Pushes Shift for Special Education

The Bloomberg administration, struggling to address the needs of a growing number of students with learning disabilities, is overhauling special education by asking every principal to take in more of the students and giving them greater flexibility in deciding how to teach them.

Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency

The city schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, left, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

This fall, more than 250 schools will be asked to accept more students with disabilities rather than send them to schools that have specific programs for special education, as has been the case for decades. By September 2011, principals at each of the system’s 1,500 schools will be expected to enroll all but the most severely disabled students; those students will continue to be served by schools tailored exclusively to them.

The shift echoes one of the central philosophies of the administration, giving principals more responsibility and control over their schools. It is also an effort to bring New York more in line with the nationwide trend of allowing special education students to benefit from regular classroom settings.

But some special education advocates and principals worry that the changes could be too difficult for principals with little knowledge of special education, who are already strained by day-to-day issues and impending budget cuts.

“This is fundamentally looking to change the way kids with special needs are treated in the city — they’re talking about changing the culture of all the schools in the city so that they can serve students that many of them were previously shipping out,” said Kim Sweet, the executive director of Advocates for Children of New York, which helps parents navigate the special education system. “This could easily fall flat if it’s not done right.

“If kids are stuck in schools that don’t have the capacity to serve them and are denied requests to move elsewhere, that would be falling worse than flat.”

Like other large cities, New York has had difficulty figuring out how to provide appropriate services for disabled students without isolating them, and how to manage large spending increases on special education.

Enrollment in special education programs has climbed to some 177,000 students, or more than 17 percent of the system, up from roughly 13 percent in 2003. Experts in special education say it is difficult to know what has caused the increase. Theories include better identification of students with learning disabilities, particularly autism; parents being less reluctant to see their children identified as disabled; and the possibility that more children might actually have difficulties than in years past.

The city now spends $4.8 billion annually on special education, up from $3.8 billion five years ago. That includes $1.2 billion to send students to private schools. Recent state and United States Supreme Court rulings strengthened the rights of parents of special education students to receive private schooling at taxpayer expense if public schools cannot give them the services they need.

Education Department officials said that they did not believe they would save money and that costs did not factor in their decision to make the change. Rather, they said, it was an effort to improve results for special education students.

While graduation rates have risen over all, for example, the rates for special education students have remained stubbornly low — fewer than 25 percent received a regular diploma last year, compared with more than double that for traditional students.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the city schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, first pushed to move more disabled students into mainstream classes in 2003. The effort never took hold. Making matters worse, many student files were misplaced or lost, and some students received no services for months at a time. Since then, the department has spent more than $40 million to computerize records.

Laura Rodriguez, the deputy chancellor for special education and students still learning English, who was appointed last year to oversee the changes, said she was confident they would stick this time because so many educators were frustrated with the system.

“There has never been a golden age of special education,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “For the vast majority of students, there’s no reason they cannot be in a regular classroom setting if they get what they need.”

Some schools have no special education students. Others, particularly in black and Hispanic neighborhoods, have as much as one-third of the student body receiving services. Ms. Rodriguez said there was a narrow divide between some students classified as special education and those who simply struggled in math and reading.

Exactly how the new policies will be carried out remains uncertain. The department could not say how it would enforce the requirement that principals accept more special education students. Officials did say there would be no quota for each school. Selective schools like Stuyvesant High School would continue to grant students with disabilities extra time to complete admissions tests and would not be expected to soften their entry requirements. Officials also said they did not expect to make changes in District 75, which serves 23,000 special education students in schools dedicated to them.

Principals are also wary of violating myriad complicated special education laws. Many of the city’s services for students with disabilities are governed by court-ordered consent agreements, the result of lawsuits brought by parents demanding appropriate services for their children. But Ms. Rodriguez said the law allowed principals more flexibility than most of them realized.

“On the one hand, this is incredibly exciting to have more freedom to do what we think is the best for students,” said Allison Gaines Pell, the principal of the Urban Assembly Academy of Arts and Letters middle school in Brooklyn, which is involved in the changes next year. “But it’s also scary. I need to know that all my teachers have enough training. I need to know what all the right services are.”

In New York City schools, special education students are generally taught in one of three ways — in a traditional class but with an extra teacher, an approach known as collaborative team teaching; in small classrooms with 6 to 12 students; or by being pulled out of a traditional classroom to receive extra services like speech or physical therapy.

Charlene Carroll-Hall, whose son Traé is a high school freshman, said she thought the goal of integrating special education students with their peers was laudable but worried that students could slip through the cracks.

“My son had to fail at a regular zoned school first before I could get him the help he needed — they just put him in there and didn’t expect much and didn’t care,” Ms. Carroll-Hall said of one school her son attended.

In schools more focused on special education, she added, “he could finally catch up; they expected him to actually learn something and they knew how to teach it.” He now attends Queens High School of Teaching, a regular school, where he has a part-time aide.

Some principals say they are particularly nervous about having more demands on them at a time of budget cuts, though public money is provided to cover special education students’ services. For example, Ms. Gaines Pell said, if she decided midyear that a student should have a dedicated aide for reading, she wondered whether the school could secure the money for it. Others are concerned that they may overlook a nuance in the educational plan that states which services a student should receive.

“The fundamental question is, How much special education expertise am I expected to have, and how much special education services am I supposed to provide?” said Randi Herman, a vice president of the principals’ union, who has been involved in the department’s efforts. “They want to do right by the parents and the child, but right now, there’s a real sense of uncertainty around that.”

Reference Link
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/education/29schools.html?nl=nyregion&emc=ura1

Courtesy
The New York Times Company