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Shri Dayanidhi Maran, Minister of Communications & Information Technology returned from San Francisco (USA) on a five-day tour there to promote and project India as a strategic hub for manufacturing, marketing, R&D and Services. In all the meetings Shri Maran emphasised the need to work closely with US hardware manufacturing companies to develop the Indian Hardware Manufacturing Sector to its full potential and create Hi-Tech Manufacturing jobs in addition to what has been created through Software Development and BPO.
During the discussions with Dr. Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel regarding their proposal to set up a manufacturing base in India Shri Maran explained the policy initiatives taken by his Ministry to promote investment in the IT hardware manufacturing sector. The Minister assured Intel to take up the issues relating to infrastructure, such as availability of water and transportation with the concerned State Governments on priority basis. The Chairman Intel assured the Minister that they would expedite their assessment procedure and take a final decision regarding site location within a month. The State Governments are being informed separately to look into these issues for an early settlement.
In the meeting with Mr. Hong Liang Lu, Chairman, CEO & President, UTStarcom. UTStarcom, Shri Maran outlined the advantages that would accrue to the company in the event of its starting a manufacturing unit in India. Mr. Hong Liang, expressed their willingness in considering India as a location for starting their manufacturing operations. UTStarcom is a major $3 Billion Telecom Equipment Company specialised in providing solutions for reaching rural areas. It was in this background that a joint working group with CDOT/TEC was to be set up to look into the possibilities of adopting their technologies.
During the meeting with Mr. Mike McNamara, COO, Flextronics, Shri Maran explained in detail the initiatives of the Departments of Telecommunications and IT and the huge requirement of telecom and other associated equipment required to upgrade the existing infrastructure. Flextronics has made significant investments in Offshore Development in India and is the world's largest Hardware manufacturer.
Shri Maran also met Mr. John T. Chambers, President and CEO, Cisco System who agreed to explore the options to increase the presence of Cisco's in India. The Minister invited Mr. Chambers to visit India by which time the framework for the joint collaboration would be worked out with BSNL/CDOT and e-Governance group in the Department of IT. From the Cisco side it was mentioned that the company is planning to make India the largest R&D hub outside US. As a result of these talks Mr. Chamber’s would be visiting India to formalise the initiatives for achieving a quick result.
Dr. Hector Ruiz, CEO & Chairman of the Board of AMD had a detailed meeting with the Minister. During the meeting, AMD’s plans to bring low cost computers in response to the Minister’s initiative were highlighted. The Minister while appreciating their efforts asked them to realign their strategy so as to give a greater impact and reach.
Shri Maran also met Mr. Kenneth L. Schroeder, CEO, KLA-Tencor Corporation, a market leader of process control and yield management solutions for semiconductor and related microelectronics industries.
The Executive Vice President of Solectron, Mr. Craig London, called on the Minister. Solectron was very much aware of the recent initiatives of the Department of Telecommunications to bring manufacturing in the Country and would be coming out with their plans in this direction.
Shri Maran had a meeting with the world's largest semiconductor equipment company (Applied Materials), IBM, India Electronics Manufacturing Corporation and the India Semiconductor Association to setup the state-of-art 90nm / 65nm fab in India. IBM as a partner in this venture would provide the necessary technical support. The Minister assured full support from the Government of India and mentioned about the group constituted in the Ministry to interact with such initiatives including any proposal that may come from their group to take this initiative forward. The consortium agreed to prepare a detailed feasibility report of the project and visit India by the middle of July, for detailed discussion with the Government of India to carry this important initiative forward.
In the one-to-one meetings and interactions with famous Silicon Valley firms (who manage over $15 Billion venture investments annually) as Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Sequoia Ventures, Venrock, MayField, Benchmark, USVP, Charter Ventures, Clearstone Partners, Matrix Partners, Accel Partners, NEA, Menlo Ventures, Vanguard, etc., the Minister made a presentation on India’s strength in the telecom and IT sectors with a view to getting high quality venture capital investments in to the country.
Apart from the above business-ventured meetings Shri Maran had also met top brasses in the USA on informative side. Dr. Vincent G. Cerf, Chairman, Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and numbers (ICANN) and Dr. Paul Twomey, President, ICANN also called on the Minister and apprised him of the latest developments. The Minister mentioned about the initiatives taken by the Ministry to promote efficiency in routing of Internet traffic within the country as a sequel to the launch of .IN domain and other related issues like migration to IPv6.
The Minister visited the Headquarters of Google to see the work of translation of existing content to various other languages. During the visit, the delegation met Sergei Brin, founder of Google, Eric Schmidt CEO of Google. The initiative of the Department of IT through CDAC was highlighted by the Minister to Google team. The Minister extended invitation to the Google team to visit India and take this initiative forward. The Minister briefly mentioned the steps taken by the Ministry since the launch of broadband services by the BSNL. He also outlined the strategy for covering nearly 200 towns in the current year. The CEO, Google promised to visit India in the last quarter of the year and assured his complete support for these projects.
RM/AMA-130605 USA Visit
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