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'I am so alone'

Dewang Mehta -- the ultimate lobbyist for the Indian IT industry, the high-profile National Association of Software and Services Companies President, the poster-boy for the IT sector -- is no more.

He leaves behind a void that may never be filled. Whether it was lobbying for an increase of H1B visa cap, setting ambitious Indian software export targets or waxing eloquent about India's IT achievements, Dewang Mehta was always in the forefront.

But who really was Dewang Mehta, the man? Despite their long association with him, few actually knew about his personal life.

As always, the circumstances in which Mehta's demise came to light leave a lot of room for speculation over the reason for his death.

Be that as it may, Mehta was a jovial sort, ever-smiling, full of information, a zest for life and an enviable memory - he could rattle off numbers and statistics without once glancing at his notes.

For all his ebullience, amiability and fame, he was lonesome. "You know, I am so alone," he told rediff.com around a month ago.

Expressing the desire that he would like to get married this year, he had joked: "I only have rakhi sisters. I have so many of them." He always stressed that he hardly had any time for himself.

Though it is not very difficult to see why. The man was everywhere - emitting energy, working with a missionary zeal.

Despite signs of a US economy slowdown and increasing competition from China, Mehta was optimism personified. In what was his last interview to rediff.com's Kanchana Suggu, Mehta had emphatically stated, "We are five years ahead of China."

Excerpts from the interview:

A recent Merrill Lynch survey indicated that the increase in US company spending on IT would drop from 78 per cent in 2000 to 56 per cent in 2001. Despite this, are you optimistic about achieving the target?

Currently, we find that there is a marginal slowdown in the US economy and cut in growth of IT expenditure. We have been talking to our major clients. Out of 140 clients, 138 said that they would continue doing outsourcing and even more. Only 2 said that they will not do much. That itself shows that there is no real impact.

Also, we are doing more exports to Japan and Europe now. So that market is also opening up. If at all there is some slowdown somewhere, this market could surely compensate.

We are doing a lot of IT enabled services now. Many analysts and bankers believe that a cut in US expenditure may actually increase outsourcing. From this overall view, we feel that in this current fiscal year, we should be able to do about $ 6.24 bn of software exports and $9.5bn in the next year.

China is being seen as a major competitor for India. Is Russia too a potential threat?

Russia has very intelligent programmers and scientists. The only problem is that it is not an organised industry. But that does not mean they will not be organised one day. Right now, the only problem is that are not English speaking. But we are keeping a watch on all possible countries who can emerge as a possible competitor for us.

We are quite confident that we'll keep on evolving strategies so that we can remain ahead of all competition.

And what about competition from China?

We have competition from all over the world. But I must say that we are five years ahead of China. China's exports are less than $1 billion. And our exports are at $6.24 bn. We do have the advantage of a large English speaking population, but their telecom sector is something we have to learn from.

There are lot of talks going on about original technology, but not much action. When do we see original technology really happening in India?

I would say that in another three years, we should have at least 20-25 world class IT technologies coming out of India. Original technology basically means creating technology that becomes popular, which people buy and you make money out of it. You can create a technology that is original, but it may have no revenue model. That is of no use.

Just getting a patent done is not original technology. To us, original technology should be a mix of patent, commercial viability and something that others would follow worldwide. 20-25 original products and packages will be coming out from India in the next 3 years.

Is this a mere prediction? Can you substantiate?

No. I have been talking to people who are developing original technology. That's the reason we have formulated the CTO forum, basically to galvanise that.

India takes great pride in being the 12th country to have implemented the IT act. But how far has it really been implemented?

Cyber laws, in the form of the IT act, were passed in May 2000 and implemented in October 2000 with the appointment of a controller. It has only been implemented on paper. It does take time before the government formulates various procedures.

The IT act has 3-4 portions to it. One is regarding digital signatures, which is still being implemented and we expect the first certification agency to come out by March-end. This means that there will be more safeguards for e-commerce transactions from the next financial year.

The second portion is regarding cyber crime, which is already implemented. Third is e-governance. The government has already started doing that. It'll take sometime before the infrastructure is put in place. The government will have to do both electronic and physical notification for a few years, because internet does not have that much reach yet.

Also, there are some changes required in the Indian Evidence act, Indian Telegraph Act, Indian Bankers Act and work has already started on them.

But is there enough awareness spread about cyber crime amongst the police force? Isn't that vital?

You have to start creating Cyber Cop Forces in each state. You can't train every officer on cyber crime immediately. I was at the FBI in May and I had the good fortune of spending some time there. You know what I found?

As far as smartness is concerned, Indian cops are as good as FBI. But the average American knows more about computers than an average Indian. That is the only difference. The judiciary too has to be trained.

Nasscom is working very closely with the National Police Academy. We are also now working with the judiciary to see if we can train them. Without the training, I think, it will take a longer time and certain times the wrong person may unnecessarily get trapped.

There have been certain cases where the police or the judges had no idea about the difference between a search engine and a directory. Today, when you go through a search engine and if you hit upon a porno site that is hosted somewhere else, the big question mark is whether the liability is of the Indian search engine's or not. Nasscom's view is that the network service provider should not be held liable. We are trying to get such guidelines issued.

Nasscom 2001 saw delegations from 14 different countries. How fruitful was the exercise?

Well, we'll come to know in the next few days. They basically came to see if they could outsource, meet people, sell etc. The exact benefits will be known later.

Why is it always being said that India should be following the Israeli IT model?

There are three countries which are doing extremely well in software- Ireland, India and Israel. Ireland specialises in IT services and they are a gateway to Europe. Israel has very few professionals. They are a great in products and packages. We are a combination of both. We have tied up with the Israeli software association and signed an MOU and we are increasing collaboration with them.

What we have to learn from Israel is how to make world-class products and packages. We have only about six companies listed on the American stock exchange. Israel has 84.

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