Every day, tuberculosis claims 1,053 lives in India, while 5,000 people contract it. Last year, there were around 4,00,000 deaths, most of which could have been prevented had dots (Directly Observed Treatment, Short Course) been in place. Despite the Government's claim in 2000 that seven out of 10 people with infectious TB would be treated with dots and by 2005 at least six would be cured, the reality is different. The TB Report Card for India, which was released last week on World Tuberculosis Day by the Pune-based Massive Effort Campaign, reveals that 56 per cent of the Indian population have seen only half-hearted TB programmes, while 3 per cent have seen none. This despite the World Bank pumping in Rs 142 crore annually into TB programmes in India. In the next five years, Rs 190 crore will come in from the Global Fund, while Rs 169 crore has been demarcated for TB in Budget 2003. Setting goals may be a result of political will, but achieving them will need more than that.

-Shefalee Vasudev

Calling Off

The war clouds hovering over Iraq have begun taking a toll on the foreign tourist traffic to India. Ladakh, the cold desert in Jammu and Kashmir, is among the first to feel the heat of the US war on Iraq. In the past three weeks, nearly 25 per cent of the foreign tourists who had booked for travel to Ladakh this summer have cancelled their trip, according to tourism officials at Leh. Most of the cancellations are from the US and Europe. It is worrying given the fact that tourism is the mainstay of the Ladakh economy. Last year, it suffered because of the rise in Indo-Pak border tensions. This time too, with the Iraq crisis showing little signs of abating, Ladakhis are keeping their fingers crossed on the arrivals.

-Ramesh Vinayak

Kotak's Private Gamble

PRIVATE BANK: Kotak

Uday Kotak, well known in Mumbai for his stock-broking and corporate deal-making acumen, now wants to demystify your money. Kotak, 44, has converted his 18-year-old finance company, Kotak Mahindra Finance, into what is India's first private-sector bank in nearly a decade. It is also the first time a private company has turned itself into a bank. And Kotak feels there is a place for him in a market crowded with public, private and foreign banks trying to grab a share of your wealth.

"We will target only the aspirational class," he says. This implies households that have an annual income of at least Rs 4.5 lakh. And Kotak says there are 70 lakh such households in India.

So those who can afford to keep a minimum bank balance of Rs 20,000 are welcome to Kotak Mahindra Bank. This, Kotak says, is to ensure that the bank can keep only so many customers that it can service effectively. While the target clientele will be the usual suspects-software sector employees and self-employed people, among others-Kotak promises to bring the financial-sector flavour to banking. "To find practical financial solutions for our customers is what we will focus on," he says.

"Our platform is to give good advice and keep it simple," says Kotak. He will need to do a lot more.

-Vivek Law

Now SMS can also be an SOS

MAIL MESSENGERS: Trivedi (left) with Jajal

Some would say it is two years too late. A lecturer in Bhavnagar Engineering College has developed a disaster warning system that can send out an SMS message within seconds of a natural disaster. If this innovation had been in place before the January 26, 2001 Gujarat quake, it would have helped save many lives. But better late than never. Kiran Trivedi, 27, and two of his students, Jaigiri Goswami and Mehul Jajal, have put together a system of vibration sensors and it network to develop an "emergency messenger system" (EMS). It sends an SMS message within 20 seconds of a disaster taking place. And the activation is automatic. If plugged to a seismograph, it will give out earthquake alert within 20 seconds-faster than the shock waves can travel and, of course, much faster than you can make a phone call or type out an SMS.

"If this system had been in place in Kutch when the massive quake ripped it two years ago, mobile users in Ahmedabad would have known of the impending havoc at least 90 seconds in advance," says Trivedi. Now the trio is trying to include the quake's intensity on the Richter scale on the EMS.

Earthquakes were, of course, the first thing on Trivedi's mind. But his system can be used in case of floods too. If a sensor is placed at the danger level on a river bridge or a dam, it will give a warning within 20 seconds of the water flooding.

The EMS works simply enough. The vibration sensors electronically convey the alert to a computer equipped with a special software which is constantly searching for the ominous signal. If an Internet service provider is used to transmit it to an SMS server, it would take 20 seconds. And only five seconds if a dedicated server is in place. The EMS costs only Rs 500 to instal. A small price to pay for thousands of lives.

-Uday Mahurkar

Made in India Mobiles

The first Indian brand of mobile phones has a very Indian name-V.K. Munoth. Chennai-based Munoth has joined hands with the V.K. Corporation of South Korea to launch some of the smallest handsets in the world. Priced at Rs 12,900-17,500, the first range of models weigh about 70 g. They sport a bio-rhythm evaluator that tells you your daily mood based on numerological calculations. Munoth, who is a distributor for Siemens, plans to tap his existing network of 2,000 dealers. But even a Munoth phone cannot predict its prospects in the Indian market.

-Arun Ram