NEWS: Business interests scuttling Sankhya Vahini: Arunachalam

[FREDERICK NORONHA <fred@bytesforall.org>]

IT-Sankhya Vahini

Business interests scuttling Sankhya Vahini: Arunachalam

By Aziz Haniffa, India Abroad News Service

Atlanta (Georgia), Feb 22 - V. S. Arunachalam, former principal scientific
advisor to the Indian government, has alleged that continuing attempts to
scuttle the $250 million Sankhya Vahini project was a conspiracy by leading
vested business interests in India.

But Arunachalam vowed to press on with the project -- a collaboration
between the Carnegie Mellon University and the Indian government on
networking educational institutions -- because he had the complete backing
of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, External Affairs Minister Jaswant
Singh and other key government members.

Arunachalam and Raj Reddy, also of Carnegie Mellon University, prepared the
first draft of their proposal for a national high-speed inter-university
data network, to be called Sankhya Vahini (data carriers), for India in
1998.

Though the information technology task force of the Indian government
approved the proposal in principle and a memorandum of understanding (MoU)
was also signed, the project has since run into controversy on procedural
and national security grounds.

Arunachalam alleged at a meet here that some vested interests had asked,
"How much would it take for you to just go back. Don't do this project. We
will do it our style. The country doesn't need bandwidth. We got a lot of
indigenous people, why are you coming?"

Arunachalam, who is currently distinguished service professor of engineering
and public policy, materials science and engineering at Carnegie Mellon, was
speaking at the Indian Professional Network (IPN) of Georgia, comprising
mainly high tech entrepreneurs and information technology (IT) specialists.

"Essentially, it is two, three companies having all the monopolies and who
are wanting to do this," Arunachalam said, adding that one company, which he
refused to name, "that has laid a few hundred kilometers of fiber, their
main job is to ensure that no other person comes in here, and this is true
of communication, this is true of electric power."

Arunachalam said there was absolutely no credibility to the fears these
vested interests have fueled. Arunachalam said he and Raj Reddy, who heads
up the university's robotics institute and has been a pioneer of artificial
intelligence, had mooted the project in 1997 solely on the urging of Singh
who was on the information technology task force and implored them to help
India to set up its communications infrastructure "without sitting in
America."

He said Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu had also been
part of the campaign to solicit the expertise and the resources of Carnegie
Mellon. After a discussion with Singh, "because I had previous experience of
writing Sanskrit names like Agni, Prithvi and so on and so forth, I told him
I'll give a nice Sankrit name this time too, Sankhya Vahini," Arunachalam
said.

He emphasized that Singh had been told "we do not want anything but will use
India's fiber and make it fast and put it in," and that the Government of
India would have the majority stake with 51 percent and Carnegie Mellon
would form a company for 49 percent.

Arunachalam, who is president of company IUNet, Inc., a subsidiary of
Carnegie Mellon University, said, "I also insisted that Indian universities
should be involved -- IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) of Bombay, Indian
Institute of Science, Bangalore, IIT Madras."

"We said we will bring not only the technology, we will bring cash, (and) we
will raise the equity of $250 million," he added. But he said as soon as the
cabinet approved it, "and I must say the prime minister understood it -- all
hell broke loose."

Arunachalam said he and Reddy were accused of being front-men for the CIA
(Central Intelligence Agency) "and that Carnegie Mellon, because one former
CIA worker was an adjunct professor or something--is a den of CIA agents."

Arunachalam said these vested interests were not reassured even when he and
Reddy had argued that "it is going to be an Indian company and Indian
engineers would be designing the network with us." He lamented that today,
when India should be having 40 gigabits, "I am still waiting for the public
interest litigation to be over."

"But I have not given up and we will go ahead and fight to see that the
country gets the bandwidth and I still feel confident that we will pull it
through. We have invested two full years of our lives on this project," he
said.

Arunachalam claimed that the fight has already cost Carnegie Mellon $1.5
million and the irony of it was that "we fought against going to another
country that wanted this kind of network."

He was full of praise for the prime minister, who he acknowledged, "defended
me beautifully. It's not ordinary. I mean he came out very strongly in (my)
defense."

Arunachalam, who has also won a slew of civilian awards in India, including
the Padma Vibhushan, the Padma Bhushan and the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize
for Engineering Sciences, acknowledged that if something like this could
happen to a person like him who worked for the government for over 30 years
and has so much clout and influence in New Delhi, be accused of being a CIA
agent, "imagine an innocent Indian from the United States wanting to
invest."

--India Abroad News Service