Air on this side is greener

Oil politics might finally be getting over. German automaker BMW will start distributing the world’s first hydrogen cars in 2007.

BMW had environmental — not political — issues in mind when it started work on hydrogen fuel technology in 1978. Imagine zipping along an expressway pumping only water vapour into the atmosphere. Part of the 7 Series, BMW’s Hydrogen 7 will minimise the emission of carbon dioxide. And unlike fossil fuels, hydrogen is available in infinite supply.

Hydrogen fuel has some constraints. Realising that road users will not find hydrogen stations at every corner, BMW has made the H-7 a dual-fuel vehicle.

Critics are not convinced with BMW’s grand experiment. An entire infrastructure — comprising special service stations and tankers — needs to be built to support hydrogen cars. They say, why not simply go electric — it produces no emissions either.

But BMW is going ahead with its plans to build and distribute 100 hydrogen vehicles next year. Petrol is passé, hydrogen is hip.

Stump vision

Cricket lovers may have a ‘timely’ reason to celebrate — the quadrennial ICC World Cup gets underway on March 11. And this time round, it’s happening in the West Indies. So what, cynics would pout — no one’s handing out free return air tickets to the isles anyway. Well no, no one is. But owing to simple geographical phenomena, it so turns out that the isles are almost nine-and-half hours behind us in terms of global time. And while the sceptics wouldn’t read much into the issue, the fans would have got to the finer point already.

Cricket ODIs traditionally begin between 8.30 and 9 in the morning, or around 2 in the afternoon in case they are being played under floodlights. Take the time difference into account and the implications become clearer than crystal. More productivity at work, less wasting time by huddling in front of the office TV, relieved bosses. After all, nothing can beat watching cricket after office hours in pop-corn-strewn living rooms — especially when Dada has shown that he can still wield a mean bat when he wants to.

Opening up a Vista

After years of jokes such as ‘Windows — a virus with a mouse support’, or ‘have you reinstalled your Windows today,’ Microsoft Technologies gets ready to release its newest operating system — Windows Vista. Code named Longhorn, the development of this operating system (OS) has taken Microsoft five years — the longest in OS history. New graphics and a new interface will greet users of Microsoft’s newest baby. But what is in store for geeks and would-be-geeks?

The upgraded feature comes in the form of a System Protection Point that helps users create shadow copies. Software and security updates will become a part of the control panel. Technologies including ReadyBoost and Ready Drive have been introduced for faster flash memory. Performance enhancers such as TCP scaling, a new Windows Display Driver Model and a new Kernel Transaction Manager have been incorporated into the new system. Security being of paramount importance, Vista includes a number of features for data protection, anti-spyware and anti-firewall.

Non-geeks can rejoice using an interactive interface, parental locks that monitor what and how much of computer a child can use. Here’s a window of opportunity that should be grabbed with both hands — and a mouse.

Bharat on-line

The bullock cart might still be an important transport in India, but distance will die a quick death next year.

A report by the Internet and Online Association of India estimates the country will have 100 million Internet users by 2007. While myth assumes that the Internet has an urban bias, the research finds our country cousins are also logging on double quick.

Anil Ambani will vouch for that. Reliance found that a majority of its customers in the semi-rural ‘Bimaru’ states use cell phones to log onto the Net.

Urban India will witness a broadband bang next year. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) will roll out a triple broadband service — which combines voice, video and the Internet. Bharti Telecom is targeting to touch a subscriber base of 2.5 million broadband users.

A postscript for companies: discrete job surfing is one of the most popular uses of the Internet in urban India.

Picture perfect

Movies, movies and more movies — 2007 is going to be a packed year. And among the films to look forward to is Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya. The film, a launch pad for Ranbir Kapoor (Rishi Kapoor’s son) and Sonam (Anil Kapoor’s daughter), also stars Rani Mukherjee and Salman Khan. Cameras have started rolling but the film is slated for a Diwali 2007 release. Bhansali, of course, is tightlipped about the content of the film but it will apparently be in the same league as that of his past films, in terms of romance and grandeur.

But will it manage to edge out Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodha Akbar starring Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai? The film is all set to dhoom machadey at the box office come October, 2007. Billed as it is as “an intense love story as seen through the eyes of history”, Gowariker insists that he is not making a historical document. Twenty per cent is history, he says, and the remaining 80 per cent imagination. But then, that’s what the fantasy world of Bollywood is all about.

Dizzy rise

Will we or won’t we? After years of uncertainty India is finally inching closer to a double digit growth rate. Next year — as the ambitious 11th five-year plan starts to roll on April 11, 2007 — the growth rate is expected to grow further. India is aiming at an annual growth of nine per cent, touching 10 per cent in the last two years of the plan period. This ambitious plan focuses on agriculture, social and manufacturing. And if achieved, India’s growth rate would be comparable to that of China — the only country that has grown at 10 per cent or more on a sustained basis in recent times. Exit the dragon, enter the cow?

More money, fewer problems

The grapevine that goes around the exchequer has it that finance minister P. Chidambaram might just smile on the common man when he walks into Parliament with the black suitcase under his arm in late February. Come budget 2007, and the current ceiling for tax deduction at source (TDS) on income generated from interest on fixed deposits in state-owned banks might go up to Rs 10,000, from the present ceiling of Rs 5,000. Also, a move to bring down the tenure for claiming tax relief in fixed deposits from five years to three stands a good chance of seeing the light of day. It’s a good reason for senior citizens who live on interest to pop the champagne. For if things do change, investors would be free to withdraw the entire interest from banks without TDS hassles and pay the revenue department later, instead of paying out and then queuing up to claim TDS refunds later. It only goes to show how devoted the government is when it comes to making life easier for the veteran generations of the country, and leave India truly shining!

Where’s the party tonight?

The time has indeed come for all good men to come to the aid of the party. And when we say party, we mean not just the CPM, but the blast that’s going to mark its 30 years in power in Bengal next year. And no one — no, not even Trinamul Congress boss Mamata Banerjee — should begrudge the Marxists if they were to uncork a bottle or two (of home-grown wine, of course) to celebrate the occasion. After all, holding office — with only one change of chief minister in three decades — is no mean feat in electoral politics.

But luck is something that the West Bengal government will be praying for as it moves on by a year. For mighty though the CPM is politically and organisationally, it’s now facing a challenge — not from outside but from within. As the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government seeks to deliver on its electoral promises of turning Bengal into an industrial powerhouse, the party is struggling hard to keep its traditional support bases intact among peasants and workers. The last round went to Bhattacharjee and his team. But Mamata Banerjee — hungry for revenge — is still to be reckoned with.

Jobs, jobs and more jobs

A joke about PC-manufacturing firms moving jobs to developing countries goes: A technician called to fix a computer problem was asked what the glitch was. He replied, “Simple — Intel Inside, Idiot Outside.” Dell may not be amused. The global PC maker has announced it will start manufacturing desktops and laptops in India from 2007. For this, it will increase its workforce to 20,000 people — from the current 13,000. HR professionals in India need to make a diary entry for 2007 — hire, and fast. The great Indian low-cost techie turns into a scarce commodity next year. A study estimates there will be a 12 per cent growth in new jobs in India, besides the usual attrition-related hiring. On the BPO front, European insurance firm Aviva Plc plans to outsource 7,800 jobs to India next year

Key to fortune

Last seen, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon was walking along the Prime Meridien through the heart of Paris to stop bang at the gates of the Louvre, right above the site where he believed the mortal remains of Mary Magdalene, the controversial Biblical character, lay. Four years later — after the release of the 2003 bestseller The Da Vinci Code, that is — he is poised to make a comeback, in American author Dan Brown’s next thriller The Solomon Key. The book, set for release sometime in 2007, is believed to take Brown’s obsession with codes and controversies a step further — Brown even apparently planted certain visual clues on the jacket of The Da Vinci Code that pointed to the subject of The Solomon Key. Several guesses have already been made about what the forthcoming book is all about, and there have been conjectures that sundry themes such as the history of the Freemason fraternity and the architecture of Washington D.C. are slated to play important roles in the plot. Meanwhile, what is known is that Brown has got his own key. The key to the bank, that is.

Book it now

Potterphiles, rise — for 2007 is likely to see quite a bit of Potter magic. The last book of the Potter series and the fifth Potter movie are both slated for release in the New Year. Publishers Bloomsbury had stated in May that the final book was “likely” to be released in 2007, but author J.K. Rowling hasn’t as yet made a formal announcement about the date. But the launch of the book — which will tell us if Dumbledore is really dead — will be a big event, and there are some who are convinced that it can’t be on any old day of the year. And since the last Potters were all released on a Saturday, and mostly in the June-July season, Potter fans are hoping that the seventh book will be released on 07/07/07.

So why zero in on July 7, 2007? For one, in the Potter universe, number 7 has magical properties. In Half-Blood Prince, evil incarnate Lord Voldemort had made seven horcruxes. Quidditch teams have seven players each. The entrance to Gryffindor Towers is on the seventh floor at Hogwarts.

Meanwhile, the fifth Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is being released on Friday, July 13, 2007. No wonder there is magic in the air.

Prez race

Do you want a President who has flown the Sukhoi jet, is the father of the Indian missile programme and who dreams of a super power India by 2020? Or would you rather support Sushil Kumar Shinde whose life story from being a cobbler’s son to one seeking a presidential seat would provide the fodder for a zillion film scripts? Or else, are you ready to create history by nominating the first woman President of the country in the form of 87-year-old Lakshmi Sahgal — the first woman commander of the Indian National Army?

A.P.J. Kalam’s term comes to an end on July 18 next year, and the 340-room Rashtrapati Bhavan is awaiting its next occupant. There is a school that believes Kalam — who likes his south Indian vegetarian food and the veena — should be re-nominated. But the debate is far from over. After all, the race for presidentship, as we have seen earlier, can take all kinds of factors such as region and religion into account. But may the best man — or woman — win.