An EVM for action: What Gore would have given for one!

Outgoing governments like to dispense largesse with an eye on the elections. Sure enough, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh has unveiled, in his mini-budget and the run-up to that, a series of sops for just about everyone. However, the Election Commission has, with its more-stringent-than-stringent guidelines, cramped the style of most politicians by enforcing a code of conduct that limits the largesse. Still, there are two public sector companies that are licking their chops in anticipation of the elections to the thirteenth Lok Sabha and those to state assemblies in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, maybe even Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Over the next two months, Bangalore-based Bharat Electronics Limited, will supply 60,000 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to the Election Commission. That'll take the number of machines supplied by BEL to the Election Commission since 1990 to around half a million. "Apart from Hyderabad-based Electronics Corporation of India (another public sector company), we are the only authorised supplier of EVMs in the country," says N. Narasimha, General Manager (Exports & Manufacturing), BEL. "This year, all elections are likely to be conducted using EVMs." The man is loath to put a price on the machines his company supplies to the Election Commission (he says the going rate is "significantly higher" than the Rs 5,500 it used to charge the commission in 1990). With the experience gained locally, the company is eyeing export markets for EVMs, and is currently talking to several counties in Africa and South Asia, even one in Europe in this context.

The other company that is looking forward to the polls is the Mysore-based Mysore Paints and Varnishes Limited (MPVL), the sole authorised supplier of indelible ink-this is applied onto a voter's index finger to ensure that he or she doesn't cast another vote under some other name-to the Election Commission. The exact composition of the ink is a closely guarded secret, and MPVL, which will supply 18 lakh 5 cc and 7.5 cc phials to the commission, hopes to earn Rs 3 crore this year because of the elections. The company exports to Indonesia, Turkey, Fiji, and Ghana, and its Managing Director Hemant Kumar says it is "exploring the African market further." Democracy = Business for these two companies.

-Venkatesha Babu

ON THE ROAD DEPARTMENT
One Ring To Bind Them
Yesterday's enemies, warring telecom associations, are forging an united front against a greater evil.

The emergence of limited-turned-fully-mobile services such as Reliance India Mobile makes a case for a common telecom association

Gauri Sadan, an innocuous looking building on Delhi's central-yet-quiet Hailey Road is the setting for a Bollywood-style corporate drama that has played out over the better part of the past decade. In the 1990s, this was the edifice that housed, albeit on different floors, India's two telecom associations, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), and Association of Basic Telecom Operators (ABTO). Back then, COAI was an elitist gathering of blue-chip corporates that enjoyed significant lobbying power as evident in its success in convincing the government that cellular telephony companies needed to be 'migrated' from a fixed licence fee regime to a revenue sharing one. ABTO was the voice of the unglamorous plain old telecom services (pots) companies, which were always behind the targets they had committed to meeting in their agreements with the government. And the two got along as well as a house on fire.

Things started souring in 2000, when basic telephony companies lobbied the government to be allowed to offer 'limited-mobile' services. Soon, COAI and ABTO were sworn enemies, trading blows across the pages of dailies, even industry fora. COAI even moved its office out of Gauri Sadan. However, with the government's recent decision to allow companies in possession of a unified licence to offer any telecom service of their choice, the two associations have decided to bury the hatchet. ABTO is no longer a poor cousin: it commands 20 per cent of the 30 million wireless (yes, you read that right, wireless) connections in the country and has the force of two of India's largest groups, Reliance and Tata, behind it. And it has gone ahead and rechristened itself United Telecom Service Providers Association of India. "ABTO has come forward to create a unified association," declares S.C. Khanna, the Association's Secretary-General. "We are working together on all common issues and I am sure a common association will emerge soon," responds COAI Director-General T.V. Ramachandran.

Fostering this new-found spirit of camaraderie are common concerns-inadequate spectrum, interconnect charges payable to the state-owned BSNL and MTNL, the demand for 'free migration' to 3G (third generation) licences, and the like-and a common enemy, BSNL. Given ABTO's new name and COAI's conciliatory approach, it is evident which association will merge into which. Now, if only we hacks can train ourselves to roll UTSPAI off our tongues the way we did COAI and ABTO.

-Vandana Gombar

PEACEMAKER
The Man From UNCLE

Nikhil Nanda was not all pleased by the recent squabble between his father (Rajan) and his uncle (Anil). So he took it upon himself to play the role of a mediator. ''I have always had a wonderful relationship with my uncle, and the way things were going they were not at all good for the company, shareholders or the family,'' he says. Today, Nikhil claims the ''core issues are close to being resolved''. Now, the scion of the Escorts group would rather everyone focussed on the business.

-Kushan Mitra

DASH BOARD

A+
India beats countries like Spain, Italy, Israel, and China to top the list of nations filing for approval of generic drugs with the US FDA. All that news about India's pharma research prowess isn't hype.

D
With the IIM-Murli Manohar Joshi spat increasingly looking like a clash of a politico's ego with a school's free-market leanings, the minister takes pettiness to a new level by announcing a fee-cut as, probably, his ministry's last pre-poll act.