Re-Manufacturing as an option in modern Production and Operations

I happenned to be a participant at a seminar on "Remanufacturing" conducted by CII(Confederation of Indian Industry) at Hotel Leela Kempinsky in Bangalore some where in the year 2010. Ganesh Iyer the ceo of Caterpillar gave a spirited talk on "Remanufacturing" and ever since I have been enamoured by the various possibilities such an approach should throw up in a resource constrained world.

What is Re-manufacturing ? The answer some where is simple. Take a 20 year old vehicle and re-manufacture and transform it into a new one and it should work for another 20 years as a new one. This activity must be taken seriously by manufacturers because some-where hidden in this concept is the ability to manufacture low cost products of tommorrow.

Across the board and across all product sectors we come across products at the end of the product life cycle with increased maintenance and operating costs with an inherent in-ability to perform; but the truth of the matter is that barring few components the rest of the product is in-tact. Take a car- the engine life is much much larger than the life span of few other components that might be inhibiting the proper function of the car. Note that it needs large scale effort to make an engine and to render the car as "unfit" for further use shrouds within itself large-scale and mind-less waste and some kind or pernicious disregard of various resources and capabilities that went into manufacture the product or car or whatever it might be.

The globe can be linked through re-manufacturing; the fact of the matter being that this concept may be irrelevant for certain classes of products and societies which is understood but a re-manufactured and re-configured product would defanitely have use some where in the world. The common man can contribute to remanufacturing by possibly sending back a product back to a re-manufacturing facility. All that is the need of the hour is understanding the importance of re-manufacturing both at a producer and user levels.

Re-manufacturing needs advanced engineering. I feel manufacturing needs engineering and re-manufacturing needs advanced engineering. Manufacturing happens as a matter of habit and flow in a conventional methodology with minimum deviation and you get a standard by-product from a system that gives scope for minimum and predictable quality problems; On the other hand re-manufacturing gives un-predictable situations and taking a used product studying what is weak and giving fool-proof solutions and making the product work is truly Engineering and a task which society at large must be thankful for the large scale less conspicious saving that happens through this effort which would run into millions of dollars when embarked around the world. The environment and sanity would be thanful to mankind that human beings are truly evolving in the right way and inventing methodiologies of conservation and use to the benifit of man-kind. Let us identify ten approaches that could make re-manufacturing a success;

1. Every individual must take into cognizance the effort needed to manufacture a product, all the time ;energy and manpower.
2. Theoretically all products can be remanufactured.
3. Before throwing away a used product ponder its possible re-use by some one and clearly brief him about the problems to be overcome.
4. Like we have the word servicing it is time we recognize rhe word "Remanufacturing" too around the world.
5. Equipment manufacturers should create re-manufacturing facilities.
6. There should be wide-spread research on re-manufacturing- its unique problems, challenges and constraints.
7. Re-manufacturing must be made a cost-effective proposition.
8. Re-manufacturing should cut across brands that originally made the product.
9. Re-manufactured products must be put though stringent quality and reliability tests.
10. Universities must incorporate Re-Manufacturing as part of their sylabbi to create awareness of its vast potential and possibilities and the realities that are likely to unfold in the economy of the globalized generation.

Telephones and Telecommunications in Bangalore City

I happenned spend my childhood near a major Telecommunication giant in ITI but the telecommunication scenario in Bangalore was as good or bad as any city in India of that time. Having a telephone at home was a matter of great prestige and only very few had it- less than a hand full. To get a telephone one had to wait years on years so much so that no one applied for one until he had some very pressing reason. Iam talking of the era between 1970 and 1985.

In the entire area of Durvaninagar I think the Panchayat chairman by name Sreenivasa Reddy had a phone with number 58702. Even he could manage a telephone only in 1982 or so or may-be slightly earlier. When I was at Calicut I used to very rarely call up this number and send message to my home. The sons of Mr. Srinivasa Reddy by name Raja and Babu were kind enough to come all the way and inform my father or mother - and Iam thankful today for the trouble they used to take. Note that strowger exchanges were the order of the day making it impossible to expand the telephone system beyond few connections.

Things began to change unexpectedly and drastically in the early 1990's and during the era of Shri Rajiv Gandhi. Sam Pitroda and his organization called C-DOT made sweeping cjhanges on the telecommunications horizon of India overnight forcing the country to shed its tag of a developing economy to atleast a quasi-developed one and the city of Bangalore has gone through these stages and adjusted to them very fast. What c-dot possibly did was to create electronic exchanges and with that exploded telephone connections to the surprise and surmise of all around. Every single nook and corner of Durvaninagar has a telephone connection and land-lines have become a thing of the past and might be getting fast discarded for mobile and wire-less telephony.

The interesting juncture in this metamorphosis would be the year 1997 when both the internet and Mobile telephony made in-roads almost at the same time or simultaneously. The mobile companies to start with were JT Mobiles and Spice telecom. A call from a mobile of that time was costly by any standards - around eight rupees for one call. Gradually companies like Airtel and many others hold sway over telecom all over India and Bangalore. The chaotic growth of Bangalore over the past decade can be attributed to the growth of Mobile telephony.

Compared to what it was......Telecommunications should be anything but world-class today in Bangalore and possibly sets standards for the world. Anywhere you find a coin booth from where one could make a call to any land-line or mobile anywhere around the world for a few coins. This developing country of one time must have developed and grown very fast when the world was asleep and its own constituents like me aghast at the churn; growth and change a swift and virulent pull which might make many cities and communities follow suit.

The Pondicherry Central University at Kalapet Pondicherry (Puducherry)

I was associated with the PCU for some time in my life and I find it worth mentioning. PCU called Pondicherry Central University is an university operated by the central Govt in the union territory of Pondicherry. I did a masters degree in Management from this university.

Firstly, something about Pondicherry. Pondicherry today has an official name Puducherry and is around 8hrs journey from Bangalore through Tiruvannamalai. Pondicherry must be three hours drive from Chennai/Madras on the East Coast Road. Mahe a place presently in Kerala also comes under the fold of Pondicherry and was basically a french territory all along until independence.

I did a Masters degree from the Pondicherry University and my good experience with the University is worth mentioning. I found the university new fangled and the educational processes adequately challenging. The Masters program was a two year program with assignments and contact classes. I wrote the first year exam at the university itself and the second year exam at the community college in lawpet.


The general ambience of this university is genuinely fascinating and is on the sea-shore at a place called kalapet from the Pondicherry town. The evaluation of the exams were done very professionally and any student would be delighted at the good work of the University. I could not attend my convocation in person and accepted the degree from the University in absentia. As a aluminus of this organization I would recommend the same to any aspiring student eager to get some good education and I sincerely hope the university continues to do its good work as ever.

Something about Pondicherry town. I found it a fairly refined place. There are many hotels in the vicinity of the bus stand; many of them not so good and some of them worth a stay and any traveller to this place must make the choice carefully. For Rs. 300/- some good hotels are handy round some corner. Food is avaliable cheap at many eat-outs and are worth trying for a few days. At the pondicherry bus stand itself there is a full fledged south indian restaurant. As mentioned earlier the University is 14 kms from this point and there are many city buses that ply from the town to the university and should take some 45 minutes.


 I found something very fascinating at the Pondicherry bus-stand ; a one rupee pen ( something like a one lakh rupee car). This pen caught my fancy and note that I wrote all my ten exams of the University using the One rupee pen and found to my assessment that using a one rupee pen I could write two examinations of three hours duration. India seems to set many standards for the world it appears. I have Parker pens and many other such higher end pens but the flow and writing satisfaction that this Pondicherry pen gave me was without parallel. I used to go searching for this pen for an ensuing exam at Pondicherry.

There is a Tsunami connection between me and Pondicherry. In 2004 December I was travelling towards the university to write an exam and has seen the sea from the bus barely 15 minutes before the tsunami. People were rushing helter-skelter and many of them rushing into the vast boundaries of the university in panic as a result of the tsunami. One of my examinations were re-scheduled on this count. Some people told me that water from the sea had rushed in-land. I could not believe this because I had no idea of a tsunami hither-to. It is only the following day when I went through the news papers I understood the enormity; gravity and the transnational nature of the tsunami. Note that water from the sea had travelled almost two kilometers inland at places close to the university marooning the main road and crushing through earthern barricades in the process. I was oblivious to all these as I was closetted within the exam hall unaware of the catastrophe around.

In 2006 I had visited pondicherry university again as a delegate of an International conference of SOM (society of operations Management) where I spoke about artificial intelligence. It was in December 2006 to be precise. The university had organized a demonstration of Yoga by the students of the University in the auditorium for about an hour and the display was truly awesome the least said. During the inaugural function of the conference I had the opportunity of interacting with Dr. Bhatnagar the vice-chancellor of the university at that time and Lt. General Madan Mohan Lakhera ( M M lakhera) the Hon. Lt. Governor of Pondicherry at that time. I stayed at the university guest house and my room mate during the conference being Dr. Anil Kumar of "College of Engineering Trivandrum". There was something mutual between Dr. Anil Kumar and myself we discovered; Mr. Devadas Menon now at IIT Madras who used to teach at NITC. I did meet Pankaj chandra the present director of IIM Bangalore at the conference and Prof. Devanath Tirupathi a senior faculty in of Operations Management at IIM Ahmedabad.

Pondicherry and its environs has created in me a small desire of serving as Lt. Governor of Pondicherry for few years some time in the future. I dont know what I will do from the post but definitely I could leave a mark on the polity and land-scape of this relatively small place that conferred on me a Masters Degree to joy and delight of my father.

MANAGING AND MAINTAINING ELECTRICAL NETWORKS IN INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS

I have always liked Electrical Engineering for various reasons and may be to a large extent to the complexity it involves and the wide variety of areas that come under its ambit and also because of the huge possibility and a never ending scope for increasing refinement in this area. Practically nothing works today without the aid of electrical power and also add to it the possibility of next generation cars and buses fuelled by electrical power through solar energy or what so ever. Electrical Engineering I have found is a complex science and to a large extent drawn directly from many principles of basic sciences. Modern day electronics and computers can be seen as some kindly of off-shoots of main stream Electrical Engineering.

Maintaining electrical networks can be a difficult and dangerous activity the least said and a preventive approach and also a pro-active approach must be adopted as against an approach of fire-fighting. Trouble shooting electrical networks is time consuming with minimum possibilities for short-cuts and temporary solutions and any mishap leading to irreversible consequences like fire and other damages. Maintaining electrical networks needs management and analysis to prevent crisis.

The glare; blur and confusion around Electrical maintenance need to be cleared in some form so that the entire activity can be seen from a simplistic view-point. Added to the confusion is that very often than not Electrical Maintenance involves trouble-shooting networks that were principally and initially fixed by some one with little or no traceability to the original designs and manuscripts. It needs years of experience and grooming to really put things in place and be a good trouble shooter of electrical problems in large and medium scale organizations.

In its simple form Electrical networks can be classified as three principal entities. The source; control system and the contrivance. In the best of electrical networks these three dimensions must be visible traceable and conspicuous both to regular maintainer and to one who is there out of spite and any other contrivance present be properly classified along lines. I think the clutter in the problems of maintenance is the inability to see a network from simplistic angles.

The source is the source of power. It could be a transformer in an AC system or a DC battery in a DC system. At the exit of any source is some kind of control system that protects the source which could be a fuse which is an un-bounded control system or a relay which is a bounded control system. Both of them act as switches on demand and add to it the manual switches that operate along the system. The final entity is the contrivance is the final device that uses the electrical power. I have found that learning electrical engineering at some level alone is inadequate to be good as a practitioner and some kind of an approach must be indoctrinated to the practitioner of maintenance. Maintenance problems can arise at all of these stages. I think a transformer can be seen as an control system because it acts as a barrier between two voltage levels ; Transformer is also a source and under what classification a transformer would fit depends on the location of the same vis-à-vis electrical networks. A transformer in the field would be some kind of a control system and a major transformer supplying power to an industrial set-up seen as a source.

Control systems as defined above though might differ from the fundamental principles as outlined in “control theories” today come in various forms and has a large involvement of electronics and power electronics. See the dynamic nature of Electrical Engineering. Today we have Power Electronics which is nothing but electronic devices that work under higher voltage levels. Next generation electronic systems used along side electrical systems would involve many kinds of IC’s and embedded systems. This approach could make maintenance both a simpler and complicated activity.

Managing Electrical Maintenance properly is a very significant activity and could reduce the occurrence of maintenance problems along electrical networks. Most maintenance problems occur from frivolous reasons so to say but a wrong judgment of the situation can lead to regret. A frivolous reason could be wrong setting of a relay to some weather related nuisance- tripping. Because of one small cause an entire manufacturing system is down leading to loss of an economic kind every second. Some of these problems cannot be explained by any as to why it occurred but one has to take solace in accepting them and preparing for their recurrence but this time with sure-shot solutions or taking preventive steps by predicting their recurrence. The heroes of electrical maintenance every where are fire-fighters as against the preventers. Such an approach can be dangerous the least said. Managing Maintenance could be creating a record of all problems of the past and the entire scope and spectrum of solutions tat came to the rescue of such situations and the ability to prevent and implement efficiently the key corner stone of Maintenance. The best maintained systems are the ones that have zero break down over a reasonable period of time and any break down that occurs were predicted -other wise maintenance is mindless, confusing and exasperating.

I find as a rule a majority of maintenance problems arise in the Control Entity as enumerated earlier. This is an important and possibly a generic rule of Maintenance. When there are problems the control entities associated with the system must be investigated first before any other entity is suspected. I have myself seen an absence of such an approach leading to huge economic losses to organizations in the form of unnecessarily replaced spare parts out of suspicion only to understand later that the problem arose out of some simple fault some where in the control sector. Maintenance training must be periodically accorded to staff from time to time where largely control devices like relays and breakers are dissected and all the constituents and their role understood by practitioners of maintenance from the ordinary maintenance technician to the chief engineer so that early on the right kind of components are suspected well in advance.

Out of conjecture I would put 60% of maintenance problems arise from the control entity; 30% from the contrivance and a 10% from the source. Such an approach would prevent panic in the event of a maintenance exigency.

Before I conclude to the aid of Maintenance practitioners around the world may I lay a ten point program so that Maintenance staff around the world could use to make maintenance and more so electrical maintenance is made a smooth and hassle free activity;

==Always understand the key skills of your people with regards to operational and working skills.

==Always maintain a log-book of past maintenance issues and especially with regards to preventive procedures need to be taken from time to time.

==Always keep relevant drawings handy. Scan the drawings and save them on the internet or the computer for reference and easy trouble shooting.

==Whenever preventive maintenance work is embarked upon ensure that all the key people needed are present and do not embark upon a preventive maintenance work without proper briefing and understanding of all the necessary tasks to be undertaken. Never let any staff go until the entire task is completed and the system charged and working for at least an hour.

==Always be careful when leave is sanctioned to staff involved in Maintenance especially the more skilled one’s. Ensure that the more skilled ones are paid well and better.

==Best maintenance people are more than anything good managers and get their people to perform from friendly persuasion.

==Always suspect control entities in the event of a break down. It could be a relay or even a simple switch.

==Exercise vigilance to ensure that there are no saboteurs who willfully damage the system or components.

==Never panic in the event of Maintenance problems. This is a sign of lack of experience or competence.

==Note that Maintenance especially of the electrical kind can be dangerous at times. If you know it – then do it. If you know it but cannot execute – then get it done. If you don’t know it with going in circles and cant get it done ----GET OUT OF ELECTRICAL MAINTENANCE FOR GOOD.

FINE-TUNING EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

I have always held the activity of "education" close to my heart. In the modern world education is the panacea for all problems that social settings of the world face. Yet there is education and there is mal-education and it is probably difficult to differentiate between them. However education of some kind benefits society both at a personal level and at a collective level.

The problem of education and its limitations commence from the heterogeneity of the human input and its vagaries. Had human populace been identical in intellectual and moral configuration it would have been much easier to configure education for the collective; but this is not the case. The forces of education coerce people to conform into some pattern to the permanent exclusion of many other possibilities which is a negative aspect of education of modern times. Well; can we tide over such a malady- we should is the answer . But how? The focus must be invariably in the proper administration of education drawn from a wider perspective than just from some immediate objectives as seen by many. These problems are rampant around the world from the best B Schools around the world to the government primary school functioning from under a tree. This lack of synchronization is a perennial and persistent issue and would be of concern across centuries ahead.

To me Bill Gates is a classic case study of the ills and blessings of modern day education. It is very easy to say in the passing that he dropped out of Harvard. This indeed must have been a painful experience for him as well as his family. Harvard had to concede and call him back to confer a degree on him years after he became a distinguished person in his own right. What Harvard did with him whilst he was a student is un-clear but there is something amiss somewhere when a person of his intellectual caliber has to drop out of the system mid-way . May be more than a personal decision circumstances forced Bill out of the education system - it appears. Is our system of education around the world largely cut for the dullard and has it got no avenues for the intelligent. Has it no scope to accommodate stalwarts and possible pioneers? There must be many such people trapped in our education systems around the world with no help or succor forthcoming and the least no one understanding their predicament.

What are the ultimate aims of education? We better address this issue and question to some level of profundity. When the aims of education are singular—there arises the problem and the demands of conformance on the recipient as against many other possible factors that should run alongside and must be seen distinctly but are simply not. Let us try to crystallize some possible aims of education no matter what the level, must be adhered to and seen in the course of educational transactions;

• The main motto of education must be development of the individual

• Education must lead to psychological transformation

• ‘Education must help people to build a long term vision

• Education must build faith

• Educational procedures are a means to an end and not an end in itself

• Good teaching is the most important ingredient of education

• All education must have more than one purpose

• Education must instill a culture of collective work

• Education must lead to collective and self actualization

• No one must feel stifled or marginalized by any process of education

• Examinations are important but should not be the only decisive factor

• Character of a student is more important than any other parameter and must form part of evaluation procedures.

I have seen vision and mission statements developed and instilled by industrial organizations around the world – and very significantly so a post 20th century phenomenon. They are supposed to guide organizations and be the watch word that guides actions. Though they may not be followed but the very fact that they exist suffices in itself to provide some long term direction for organizations. All educational institutions must primarily develop lofty aims for

itself and display them conspicuously other wise all educational activities of that system are merely farcical and do not serve the purposes they simply are meant to both in the sort and long terms. I had visited SMU Singapore Management University some time back and was impressed by one of the statements displayed at the outset. It said “Education Re-defines Destiny”. Definitely something purposeful must be happening at this place.

I have always disliked the modern way of teaching which involves the use of lap-tops and presentations. Though it serves some purpose and aids the teaching process it inhibits right teaching and education. The fundamentals of education simply do not rest on such practices. The fundamentals of education are always fundamental and the fundamentals of the fundamentals of education are eternal and would not change for centuries and when educational systems constantly veer from these fundamentals educational systems have to be reviewed , examined and corrected. I feel that the greatest malady of education as it stands today is its focus on what a person cant do as against the focus on what a person can do. What a tragedy ? In spite of the best intentions the matter trickles down to such a situation; this is fundamentally that so many people who are self-educated do better sometimes in life than the university educated primarily because self education does not create such binds but self education has its larger limitations and ramifications. When I was studying law at NLSIU I used to like the traditional chalk and talk approach to teaching adopted by Mr. M P P Pillai who used to teach “Company Law”.

Educational systems must take a broader view of the individual and must not be a policing act. At various levels of education the apt approach must be undertaken. I am largely overwhelmed by the increasing and ever increasing costs of education ; There might be economic reasons for being so but there must be some ceiling and limiting factors so that such situations around the world do not go aghast; and some kind of an alternative educational options created that may not be over-bearing on the student.

Eeducational institutions worldwide have one balancing act to do - namely balance the requirements of education and the institution. If this focus for any reasons is lop sided or incorrectly drawn it results in mal-education the side-effects of which will be for-bearing on the individual at some future point of time. Educational systems must be an elastic system that can wax and wane within reasonable limits according to individual and collective demands and must not be a rigid plastic container where few force-fit themsekves into some kind of comfort and others feel stifled, miffed and resigned. It must have the composite ability to accomodate pretty well a wide set and spectrum of individual talent and psycologies.

In the ultimate analysis education revolves around three T's namely Transmission; Transaction and Transformation in that order and the most important end-result of education is "Transformation". Transformation can be for the good or for the worse and let the process of education around the world take a turn towards good for the good of education; the receipent the system and the institutions that are constantly involved in the educational process

FILM SHOOTING AT REC-NIT CALICUT IN 1983

When I was a student at NIT there was an attempt to shoot few scenes of a movie at our institute. What a confusion and flutter it created.

The movie was Kattathe Kilikoodu which was released during the same year. It was a malayalam film and had Mohanlal; Gopi and Revathy in its cast. They were basically looking for a class room session to be shot at our place. As the news about the proposed shooting spread many of my immediate senior students were the more enthusiastic ones keen on taking part. All that the movie team wanted was some thirty students in the class for the scene but nearly 200 of our boys landed up in right earnest to be students in the class. Many of them had a bath and put all the powder and make-up possible to look presentable and some of them already began to look like heroes with the extra make-up on their faces.

The director was amazed seeing the large crowd of prospective actors each vying with the other for a place in the hall- that too for a single scene. They had to call off the shooting of this scene on the day because of the melee and had the scene shot in the Providence women's college instead.

I think they shot a scene at the valley and I happened to recognise our valley when I got to see the movie myself.

THE FALLACY CALLED PER CAPITA INCOME IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD

The fallacy called Per Capita Income in the Globalized World

For long economists considered per capita income as the be all and end
all of a country's economy...but there must be some thing more to it in a human
perspective.

THE FALLACY CALLED PER CAPITA INCOME For long economists considered per capita income as the index of human development and a countries growth. GDP might be an index in that direction but in the globalized world the view of per-capita-income has to be changed. I have always beleived a single pivot evaluation of any economy is in-correct and mis-leading. Multiple indices must always be developed.For one the concept of per capita income is rooted in want and not in the setting of plenty. There can be startling exceptions under steady state of the economy. Per Capita income by itself is inappropriate in a knowledge economy. Per capita income was an appropriate index in the labour dominated organizations of yester years.

Just evaluating countries and economies on this basis is misleading.What then should be the index of measuring economies and their standing?Well it is important to understand that human beings are more human than a resource. A more broad based index must cover various aspects of human life and existence.

Firstly communities must be judged based on a relation ship index which largely revolves on the ability of various individuals to maintain the kind of relationships they are supposed to under normal circumstances and an example of that would be family relations. Any economy incessantly at strain on such issues can never be a developed economy leastly said. This would also encompass relationships at the work place and other social settings. Creating high relationship index is key to a better economy. Various societies vary in this context. Such an index tries to measure the level of conflict in social settings. Relationship has economic moorings; which means better the relations better the ability of communities to create and distribute wealth.

Secondly any community must be able to monitor the health index of its individuals not from the stand point of cure but from the intrinsic ability to avoid ill health. Ill health has its roots in wrong living simply said. The ability to mitigate the number of unwell people is key to a developed community. There are many fairly well to do communities in the world which may not be well off but well set on such fronts. The countries of the world which enjoy a high per capita income are not devoid of sick people of varying kinds. No particular reason can be attributed for such issues but adequate research must go in from time to time to evaluate overall causes for human being not fully well or totally unwell. Such instances on the rise increase costs and diverts attention which could have otherwise been put to constructive use.

Thirdly far from mere employment any society must be able to give its people occupations and not jobs. Income generated by individuals from vocations which they think need not have been fundamentally theirs is no income at all. Vocations must give a community psychic income to a large measure. People must not feel trapped in some form of vocation or occupation. There must be sufficient lateral ability for an individual to move to vocations that give him long term enrichment and development. This would mean many things. Constant innovations and definitions and creation of fresh oppurtunities of various kinds both by the state and individuals should be a top prerogative of planners and executioners of the economy.

Lastly any economy must have large scope for the creation and maintenance of micro enterprises as against the creation of large enterprises. The ability of so called developing economies to create and sustain such enterprises is what is making them note- worthy to the world. Micro enterprises may not have sustenance under several kinds of settings in the world. A large number of such enterprises spread over a vast geography has potential to contribute what an economy calls for. Through governmental lending or otherwise such enterprises must be encouraged and recognised. A country is not poor as long as the people see and feel the winds of policies breezing in the correct direction. A largely populous nation has one great asset---its people. Through collective actualization great economic results get begotten simply said. It is an explosive waiting to explode; larger the impact more inclusive of people it is. India has a country has seen in parts and in bits and peices such large scale development though lopsided in the recent past post globalization.That per capita income is a fallacy can be seen in the vague satisfaction that the so called developed economies of the world had for ages in the way such pointers inclined themselves to learn too late that the developing countries of the world were more developed than they previously thought.

The world must move away from one thing for sure and that is the treatment of humans at a fundamental level as a mere resource and any index so developed may have had relevance in the domains of the past and they need to look at humans as humans first and then as a resource. Conversely said any economic index must be able in toto to synchronise these two fractions in the best way possible. India as a country is criticised by the world for its infrastructure and roads. ( Even Jeffrey Immelt of GE did this on TV once though in the right tone and spirit) Progress is being seen on these sectors. In the final analysis it is not infrastructure or roads that singularly determine national progress. They form definitely a component but side-by-side many issues must be addressed to ensure that the indices of an economic kind that we humanity develop from time to time to meter our progress is not mis-inclined but covers all the domains it invariably has to.