India, as this magazine pointed out not too long ago, has around 40 million internet users, a number adequate enough to support everything from online utilities to online advertising (even online commerce). Indeed, investors are beginning to take notice of Indian internet companies, start-ups that are the result of an understanding of just what works on the web today (popularly referred to as Web 2.0 or Net 2.0 companies) are mushrooming across the country, and there is a general feeling of optimism in most quarters about the prospects of the internet in India, and those companies seeking to make money off it. Then, there's the Baidu-connection. Chinese dotcom Baidu is a Beijing-based search engine whose shares are trading at around $65 or Rs 2,925 on NASDAQ, and it is widely considered to be indication of the fact that dotcoms have come of age in this part of the world. All these are sound reasons why the coming dotcom boom in India-to be sure, there is one on its way-will be unlike the previous one where companies had no idea how to make the shift from really-cool to even marginally profitable.

Alas, if happenings in the US, still the centre of gravity of the dotcom economy, are any indication, the second wave also runs the risk of being derailed by hype and irrational exuberance. One analyst says she expects the Google stock, currently trading at $465 or Rs 20,925, to touch $600 or Rs 27,000 before the year is out. Another says he sees no reason why it should not touch $2,000 or Rs 90,000 eventually. While there is no doubting Google's abilities to come up with nifty utilities, tools, or services, and make money off them, expectations such as these seem more the product of hype than careful analysis. Almost all of Google's current revenues come from its advertising programme, and if the company has figured out its future strategy and how to monetise the same, it is yet to share that knowledge with the world at large, feeding a frenzy of suppositions from tech-pundits and lay people alike. There isn't a dotcom bubble yet, not in the US, not in China, and definitely not in India. Yet, in these countries, and in most parts of the world, the conditions are perfect for one.

The Indian economy and its stock markets are on a roll; there's enough venture capital riding on the India-story; and it has been five years since the dotcom bust, enough time to forget and forgive.

Right To Vote

Right choice: PM Manmohan Singh with a NRI

Your cousin, the doctor with a green card in New Jersey, could be voting in Lok Sabha elections in the not-too-distant future. Never mind that he doesn't pay any taxes in India, your non-resident Indian cousin may get to have a say in forming a government that decides, among other things, what to do with taxes that resident Indians like you are going to cough up. Also, since he lives in NJ, would he also get to choose the Lok Sabha constituency from where he wants to vote?

The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement at the recent Pravasi Bharatiya Divas meeting that overseas Indians in the Gulf will be the first to be allowed to vote in future Indian elections has virtually opened up a Pandora's Box, raising a rash of difficult questions. Singh said overseas Indians in the Gulf were "unique" because they would never be naturalised and because many of them have left families back home in India and, therefore, had some stake in the country, it would be fair to offer them voting rights.

What then of NRIs in other parts of the world, like your cousin, the good doc in NJ? If he holds on to his Indian passport, will he get to vote? After all, can you really differentiate between an overseas Indian in the Gulf and an overseas Indian, say, in Alaska?

In the US, sometimes considered the freest country in the world, only those overseas Americans with dual citizenship (they have to be us citizens in addition to their status as citizens of the country of their residence) are allowed the right to vote. What's more, the us also makes it clear that such persons who have the right to vote in us elections also have to pay some amount of taxes to the us government so that they have a real and not merely an "emotional" stake in the home country.

The situation in Europe is quite different. Since the 25-member European Union is a single common market, people are allowed to work and reside in any country they want, without any need for citizenship. However, once they start working and residing in a country different from that of their origin, they are not allowed to vote in their home country elections.

The Prime Minister's statement on voting rights for NRIs may be a step in the right direction for, among other things, it could foster a sense of belonging to the mother country among NRIs, many of whom have a lot to contribute towards India's path to development. But the questions his proposal raises have to be answered first.

The Good Fight

Comrades-in-arm: Prakash Karat with Brinda Karat

Logic would seem to dictate that the use of human skulls in a medicinal preparation would be driven by either the fact that the same did have some miraculous therapeutic or curative properties (which is not the case), or that a large number of people believed in such a theory (in which case, hiding the fact that skulls were indeed used in the preparation would defeat the very purpose of their usage). Credit for encouraging a large number of Indians to engage in this complex introspection over logic should go to Rajya Sabha mp and CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat who alleged, sometime back, that the ayurvedic medicinal preparations sold by a famous TV yogi did, in fact, contain animal matter and human skulls. It now emerges that the actual issue was the firing, by the holy man, of some workers belonging to a union affiliated to the CPI(M). The connection between human skulls and retrenched employees, however, would only seem to be as remote as that between tapped phones and foreign direct investment in the telecommunications sector. That (the second) leap of logic was effected by Ms Karat's spouse, Prakash Karat, head of the CPI(M), while commenting on the recent controversy over the tapping of Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh's phone. While Brinda Karat has found herself isolated over the what-do-you-think-was-in-the-Swami's-medicine controversy, not too many people have taken Parakash Karat's anti-FDI-in-telecom outburst seriously. Both should bring cheer to free marketeers. The communists' parliamentary currency (read: 63 seats in the lower House) combined with the obvious intelligence and rationality of its leaders such as the Karats could have derailed India's journey towards becoming a free-market economy. More incidents such as these, however, could make less people take them seriously. Finally, this magazine would like to add (for the record) that while enough grey matter has been expended in its production, no human skulls have.