Interview of Bill Gates:
India is more than a market for me 

VIPIN V NAIR  / The Hindu Business Line 10nov02

See Below: 
"Gates gives $100 million to fight AIDS" The Hindu 11nov02
"Fighting Hunger: Waiting for Bill Gates" AgBioIndia 13nov02

NEW DELHI -- IN the history of computing, he could well be the most adored, loathed, envied and ridiculed geek.

And reasons for being the object of adulation and animosity on a global scale is his mind-boggling quantity of wealth, which makes him the richest person on earth, and the company he co-founded, Microsoft Corporation, which ruthlessly crushed rivals to make him the richest. Mr Bill Gates, Co-founder, Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft is in India once again.

In an interview to Business Line through e-mail, Mr Gates talked about his third visit to the country, open source software and Microsoft's latest offering, the Tablet PC. Excerpts:

Tue Nov 12 10:01:48 EST 2002  Microsoft Stock Price: $54.254  Bill Gates's Wealth: $61.268000 billion*

You are coming to India for the third time and second since 2000. Could you tell us what are the objectives of this visit?

Coming to India is valuable to me for both business and personal reasons. I'll be spending time on both during this trip. As a fast-growing market, a partner on major projects that impact governments, schools and enterprises, and a focal point of incredible technical talent, India is immensely important to Microsoft. Investments such as our research and development centre in Bangalore demonstrate our commitment to and strong partnership with India's IT industry.

Why is it that your Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is interested in India now?

On a personal level, India's societal issues are consistent with the work of my foundation. It's a place where I believe we can make substantive efforts to eradicate diseases and help develop the healthcare infrastructure in a way that benefits millions of people.

Why are businesses increasingly preferring to use open source software? And why should one prefer Windows to Linux?

The key issues most people cite when considering Linux are cost and security. And these are important — I can't think of any customer these days who isn't concerned about the amount of money he is spending on technology, and security is increasingly important in a connected world.

But when you look at Linux's actual total cost of ownership (TCO) over a number of years — which is what counts — and take into account costs such as migration, development, consulting and support, you find that Windows almost always offers a lower TCO.

Similarly, security-tracking organisations have identified numerous vulnerabilities in Linux, and those vulnerabilities often remain unaddressed for long periods of time because there is no central organisation driving development.

How do you address issues of security since Windows is a constant target of virus attacks?

At Microsoft we have a dedicated team who focus only on security. When a vulnerability is discovered, they work with development teams to create a fix, test it and communicate quickly to our customers worldwide. That is our responsibility and just one part of our efforts to create trustworthy computing. If I were a CIO, I would be reluctant to run a mission-critical application on a platform that has no long-term road map and no single commercial entity responsible for its development.

Tell us about your new offering, Tablet PC?

The Tablet PC is a breakthrough product and I'm incredibly excited about. We've been working on aspects of the Tablet for a decade, and it's a great example of how we can partner with the industry to create great new form factors and devices that help people get more from technology. For individuals, the new user interface and increased mobility improves the usefulness of the PC by hours every day.

They can literally pick up their Tablet PC and walk away, taking notes and annotating documents as they go, and using wireless connections to retrieve the information they need to do their jobs.

Handwriting recognition means that the value of impromptu meetings and whiteboard discussions can be captured and easily shared. This offers a huge productivity advantage for information workers and the companies they work for.

source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/businessline/2002/11/11/stories/2002111101860100.htm 11nov02

Gates gives $100 million to fight AIDS

The Hindu 11nov02

NEW DELHI -- The Microsoft chairman, Bill Gates, today announcing a grant of $100 million from his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for a new initiative to prevent the spread of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) in the country.

The fund would primarily be used to improve access to proven HIV prevention interventions among the `mobile' population, such as truck drivers and migrant labour and to launch a nationwide campaign to combat the social stigma surrounding the disease.

Announcing the grant, Mr. Gates said the initiative was not parallel to the Indian Government's national AIDS control programme. It would complement it. The Programme Advisory Board would be headed by the Union Health Minister, Shatrughan Sinha, and include two senior Government officials, apart from representatives from the business, medical and NGO community, he said.

Mr. Gates indicated that it would not be a one-time grant. It was only an initial commitment and the Foundation would support the anti-AIDS activities on a long term basis. He announced the appointment of Ashok Alexander, senior partner at the consultancy company, McKinsey, as the Director of the anti-AIDS initiative.

Answering questions, Mr. Gates denied that the Foundation was targeting a narrow group of population. The initiative focussed on the mobile populations because even as they were more vulnerable to the disease and were a key group to reach to prevent the spread of the disease, currently, only a few HIV prevention programmes in India addressed them.

He distanced himself from the controversy over estimates on the number of HIV patients in India that has arisen following a report of the U.S. National Intelligence Council which had warned that 25 million Indians could be infected by HIV/ AIDS by 2010.

Rejecting allegations that the Foundation was one of the sponsors of the study, he said it was not bothered about the numbers. It was only interested in strengthening India's efforts to prevent the spread of the diseases so that India's health, economic and social systems were not affected by HIV epidemic.

Earlier, he called on the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, at his residence and discussed the challenges faced by India on the AIDS front. "The Prime Minister was highly appreciative of the initiative and offered his support for it." He also visited a leading NGO, Naz Foundation India Trust, where he met people living with HIV/ AIDS and learnt about its services. Speaking to reporters, a spokesperson of Mr. Gates said disbursement of funds under the grant would begin in a few months.

* source: http://db.photo.net/WealthClock 11nov02

Fighting Hunger:
Waiting for Bill Gates 

AgBioIndia 13nov02

US software giant and billionaire Bill Gates arrived in New Delhi on Monday with the announcement of a US $ 100 million grant for HIV AIDS, a meeting with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and an unequivocal statement that the killer disease was rapidly growing into the world's biggest health and economic threat.

Newspapers in India, knowing that some the $100 million promised will flow to them as ad revenue, are sore at the Health Minister and film star Shatrughan Sinha's statement accusing Bill Gates and US Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwell, for "spreading panic", and to take comfort in the fact that ' the prevalence of the disease in the country is much lower than in many other Asian countries'. The Times of India, which put Bill Gates on nearly half the front page, in an editorial advised Mr Sinha to seize on this (opportunity) rather than 'be such a spoilsport'.

Nevertheless, the media and the politicians have all lined up literally throwing a red carpet. In the days to follow, there will be promises after promises to fight this scourge together. One wonders when will Bill Gates shift his attention to mankind's greatest shame, nowhere as starkly visible as in India -- the tragedy of hunger and starvation. Bill gates should know that an estimated 24,000 people die of hunger every day, a significant number of which are from India. Perhaps his initiative to provide another hundred million dollar for fighting hunger will motivate the Indian, as well as the international community, to launch a direct assault on hunger.

And if Bill Gates decides to include hunger as one of the priority areas for grants from the US $ 24 billion Bill and Melinda Foundation, he will surely put the FAO and the Heads of State of over 170 countries (which met at the World Food Summit 1996 and 2002) to shame for postponing for all practical purposes the monumental task to remove hunger to the year 2015.

Fighting Hunger 
WAITING FOR BILL GATES
By Devinder Sharma

The Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, takes a dig at the ruling BJP Coalition: "I take this opportunity to say how insensitive the Centre has been. In August, I had met the Prime Minister with some of our chief ministers to tell him how serious the situation is." Ironically, this was in reaction to media queries on the issue of starvation deaths in Rajasthan, while she was chairing in early November the Congress Chief Ministers' conclave at Mount Abu, also in the same State.

Sonia Gandhi did say that the hunger deaths in Baran district were a "matter of anguish" and that she was in constant touch with the Rajasthan chief minister ever since she saw media reports. She however did not find it worthwhile to pay a customary visit to the hunger-affected regions, not far away from Mount Abu. Nor were any of the chief minister's present at the conclave interested in getting a first hand feel of hunger and starvation. And that included chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Karnataka and Maharashtra, the States, which have been faced with hunger and malnutrition deaths in the recent past.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who has never visited a village during his entire tenure, obviously had no time for the dying tribals in Rajasthan. None of his colleagues, and that includes the Food Minister, Mr Sharad Yadav, who claims to be a champion of backward tribes, found it worthwhile even to include Baran district in his official travel itinerary. On the other hand, the health minister, Mr Shatrughan Sinha, who should be worried at the growing malnutrition, was busy dancing and singing to celebrate his birthday.

Politicians of all political parties, without exception, have been busy talking about disinvestment and ministry expansion. Policy makers spend more time with industrialists and business houses, or hobnobbing with the diplomats in the cocktail circuits. Media too has been very busy with the page three crowd and has never felt tired of writing and printing pictures of shapely long legs. And if you are wondering about agricultural scientists, don't forget they too have little time for the small and marginalised farming communities. They are busy promoting the commercial interests of the multinational seed and biotechnology companies.

In a country, which alone has one-third of the world's 800 million people who go to bed hungry every night, hunger and starvation no longer evokes compassion and reaction. News of hunger and starvation no longer adorns the front pages of newspapers. Hunger is, in reality, a non-issue. It is something that we must despise, something that we must close our eyes to. After all, the elite should not spoil their morning breakfast looking at pictures of the hungry splashed on the front pages of daily newspapers.

Even the farmer leaders, who once led powerful agitations to see that the subsistence farming class gets at least two square meals a day, have deserted the farming lot. They have now moved on to the plush confines of the biotechnology industry, feeling comfortable in their new role of public relations for the corporate interests. Reports of hunger and starvation, whether in Rajasthan or in Orissa, no longer shocks. They even remain unmoved by the increasing number of farmers taking the fatal route to escape the humiliation that comes along with growing indebtedness. Hunger is a price that the poor have to pay in the short-term for the irretrievable economic reforms.

The newly emerging leadership in religious discourse, you see them religiously on the television every morning and evening, refuses to even acknowledge that growing hunger and starvation is a human folly. Nor do they blame the religious indifference towards the poor, hungry and downtrodden to be the cause for the shameful paradox of plenty that exists. Many of them, in fact, are busy in buying land and property and that too at a subsidised rate from the government's quota. Not many of them see God in every destitute and hungry. Except of course for the compassion shown by a group comprising Baba Mohan Singh, a spiritual guru of Sikhs, who dispatched 50 sewadars to the starved Baran district to start a langar (community kitchen) to feed 1,00,000 people for the next three months.

But the government continues to dither and drag its feet. Even the Supreme Court's directive to the government last year to "devise a scheme where no person goes hungry when the granaries are full and lots being wasted due to non-availability of storage space," hasn't had the desired impact. Except for statistical jugglery, the government remains non-committal on its role in eradicating hunger. This speaks volumes for the government's apathy towards the poor, hungry and the malnourished. And that too at a time when the country is saddled with an unmanageable food stocks of 65 million tonnes, much of it already rotting and turning into cattle feed.

Three months before the Supreme Court's directive, Mr Vajpayee, had said in his inaugural address to a national consultation on "Towards a Hunger Free India" in New Delhi in April 2001: "Democracy and hunger cannot go together. A hungry stomach questions and censures the system's failure to meet what is a basic biological need of every human being. There can be no place for hunger and poverty in a modern world in which science and technology have created conditions for abundance and equitable development." And yet, all his government did was merely rename and 'strengthen' the public distribution system and to 'use foodstocks in an imaginative and purposeful way' to stabilise prices and boost exports.

Interestingly, the President of India, Mr A P J Abdul Kalam, too had presided and released a food insecurity atlas of India (in reality, the hunger atlas of India) at a function organized by the World Food Programme and MS Swaminathan Research Foundation a few weeks back. He did talk about the dichotomy of hunger at a time when the food silos were bursting but refrained from initiating any move that embarrasses the ruling party. And despite his efforts to reach out to children in well-to-do- schools, Mr Kalam hasn't found any time to meet 'the children of a lesser god'. After all, it is not the right protocol for the Present of India to sit among the poor and hungry children, many of who have already lost their parents from hunger and starvation.

At the international level, the scenario is no different. Heads of the State, who assembled at the World Food Summit plus five at Rome in June 2002, merely reiterated their commitment to half the number of world's 800 million hungry by the year 2015. The United States, in fact, was more keen to enforce biotechnology as the global agenda for eradicating hunger rather than to force the international community to launch a direct assault of mankind's greatest shame. The US, Britain and even the international agricultural scientific community is only anxious to promote the commercial interests of the multinational industry rather than to embark upon programmes that pulls out the hungry from the clutches of poverty and starvation.

The tragedy, however, is that everyone swears in the name of the hungry and malnourished. Whether it is the politicians, policy makers, scientists, religious heads, multinational corporations, industry, and even the global negotiations and treaties, every initiative is for the benefit of the poor and poverty-stricken in the developing world. Whether it is the World Trade Organisation, Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights, Climate Change, World Summit on Sustainable Development, and you name it the agenda is invariably for the benefit of the poor and hungry. And yet, it is the poor and hungry who have to pay a price for keeping these initiatives afloat.

In such a dismal scenario, the 320 million people who sleep with an empty stomach every night in India, will have to live on hope - hoping that one day a Bill Gates will come to India with a bagful of money, this time not for AIDS but to fight hunger. Prime Minister, leaders of Opposition parties and the chief ministers will then line up to receive the richest man in the world, sing praises for his passionate concern for the underprivileged and vow to join hands with him to remove hunger. Till then, the hungry unfortunately will have to wait.

www.dsharma.org