Since we Indians as a people are obsessed with cricket, which in its current avatar seems to have no place for ‘draws’, it is hard to explain how a sporting contest while producing a series of draws can still be interesting enough. Well it can happen in chess, where draws can be somewhat dull (first and second games), draws can be thrilling and exciting (third game) and draws can be ‘not so exciting, but still tolerable’ (fourth game).

So, there you are, four games, four draws and two points each. Eight more games to go. Neither Viswanathan Anand, nor Boris Gelfand have drawn first blood, as yet.

Everybody loves results. The odd one claiming to be a connoisseur might say a draw is equally riveting, but I have my doubts. Hey, who plays for a draw, unless you are leading in a match or a series, as it happens in cricket. You win the first match or Test and draw the rest, bore the spectators to death (Anand and Gelfand haven’t done that, as yet) and go on to win the series.

***

Every sports lover is a secret stats junkie. I claim I don’t like stats, but I am usually lying when I say that.

Hey, stats are fun. Tendulkar’s hundred centuries (I wrote a full book on that ‘Sachin – A Hundred Hundreds Now) fascinated me no end, as did Leander’s 13 Grand Slam doubles titles or Anand’s four World Championships and six Oscars (yes, they have them for chess, too!).

Now let me unleash some chess stats. Not since he played eight draws in the first eight games against Garry Kasparov in the 1995 PCA final in New York, has Anand drawn his first four games in a World Championships final match.

In fact, only once since 1995, has he had more than four drawn games in a row – five between the fourth and eighth games of the PCA Candidates final against Gata Kamsky. Anand finally won 6.5-4.5 to qualify to meet Kasparov.

Now for the Slav opening. Vladimir Kramnik played the Slav six times in his 2006 match against Veselin Topalov and on two other occasions he played the semi-slav.

***

Anand and Gelfand are still ‘probing’ each other at the Tretyakov Gallery. Witty as usual, Anand, when asked to sum up the first four games, smiled and said, “Well it was four draws….(laughter all around).” And then after a pause added, “The match is just developing. We’re still probing. It’s very early, you don’t really want to be doing evaluations. So far it’s a pretty tough match.”

Gelfand’s reaction: “I said before I am taking one game at a time. I don’t want to make any assessments at this stage.” Gelfand just did not want to get into an area of discussing strategy, lest he reveal something!

Ah, the secrecy that surrounds the chess world.

***

Silence is the buzzword in chess. Even though the two players inside the Glass Room or Cage, depending on what you want to call it can hardly hear any noise from outside, the only sound that is tolerated is that of ‘creaking’ doors besides the breathing of the spectators, officials and media.

The Glass Cage, we shall stick to that from now, is out of bounds for all save the Chief Arbiter and his deputy, who stay inside it for the entire duration of the game. In addition, two official photographers, one videographer and three other photo journalists can enter the cage/ glassed room for precisely five minutes.

***

Sport by its nature detests that one gadget we can’t seem to live without. It is called the cellphone. There are clear instructions outside the playing hall that no visitor can carry cellphones into the playing hall. “We the Media” are a privileged class and can carry cellphones but in the silent mode. For others cellphones need to be deposited at the Gallery’s lobby – the Art Gallery, too, does not allow cellphones – before going up to the Chess Hall.

Despite warnings, two spectators – neither of them Indian or Chinese! – sneaked the ‘illegal object’ inside. Worse, they were not in silent mode. Disaster struck when some friends of theirs decided to call them up at this inappropriate time.

The security promptly threw them out of the Hall! Check and mate!

Nothing is more disappointing than coming within hand-shaking distance of a win and then having to return empty-handed. Psychological pluses and creativity sound great and make even greater copy for the journalists, but when it comes to a player, no matter what the sport, nothing beats the winning feeling. The ‘oh-so-close’ feeling is usually a disappointing one, making one toss and turn in the bed in the night with the feeling of emptiness.

Vishy Anand must have experienced that on Monday night in Moscow’s posh Kremlin Hotel, where he is putting up during the World Chess Championships match. As the cliché goes, he came within a whisker of registering the first win in the ongoing match, which most experts agree could well have been the back-breaker for Boris Gelfand.

Gelfand, who was 0-for-10 years, when it came to Gruenfeld for an opening, was now 2-for-2 with black in the World Championships. Anand was no longer surprised. His team of seconds had probably worked overtime to counter it and they came out with 3.f3, which if nothing, should have surprised Gelfand in turn. But the Minsk-born Israeli was upto the task and replied quickly. The game went by fast and on expected lines for quite sometime.

Anand may have delivered the move of the day with his 25. Rh4, but the surprise of surprises was that the Lightning Kid was suddenly short on time! He was almost half an hour behind Gelfand, not really the fastest of players. One hand to double check the clock!

Maybe that struggle with the clock and the need to keep a watch on any Gelfand preparatory surprises, came in the way of Anand finding that killer punch (read winning move), only to discover it too late. Alas, the fist, which came so close to chin had to be put back in the pocket without connecting.

The moment had passed and the result that could have been 1-0 stayed 0.5-0.5

***

Five minutes after the start of Game 3, there was a lot of commotion outside the Hall at the Tretyakov Gallery. Stepping outside one was hit by an amazing sight – that of a big bunch of kids being brought to the venue.

This was part of a children’s programme launched by Russian Chess Federation, as part of the FIDE World Championships Match.

Over the next three weeks more than 200-300 children will be brought to the venue in batches to see the matches and these kids are coming from as far as the Far East and the Siberian Federal District. The programme has been set up in partnership with the State Tretyakov Gallery.

It is not just another promotional activity. With some of the biggest names in Russian chess are visiting the venue each day, these young players will get to meet Grandmasters, chess mentors and coaches and will also be introduced to members of the Russian national teams and also meet some former world chess champions.

Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov and Peter Svidler will hold classes and analyse World Championship games at the “Chess Corner” set up for the duration of the Championships in the inner courtyard of the Engineering Building at the Tretyakov Gallery.

Little wonder then that Russia or the erstwhile states of the Soviet Union produce so many superstars in chess.

In the midst of all of this, a California-based computer company called Apple Inc reported that sales in mainland China, Hong Kong & Taiwan tripled to $7.9 billion in the first quarter of 2012  – or 20% of total sales of $39.2 billion. It is now expected that Apple’s China sales will double in 2012 to around $26 billion (Rs 130,000 crore).

Now, of the $40 billion of sales for the last quarter, thanks largely to China, Asia Pacific contributed to $10.2 billion (in case you were wondering where India could possibly fit) This does exclude Japan where sales were $2.6 billion. Amazingly, Apple apparently did not even include Asia Pacific in its geographic breakdown till its results of December 2009.

In contrast, imagine any corporation, foreign or Indian, doing Rs 130,000 crore of sales in the India market not this year but in coming years. Surely not in consumer products. Energy perhaps. Either a state-owned monopoly or Reliance Industries, who in any case does not count India as its dominant market any more. (2011 full-year revenues are $66.8 billion, of which $40.9 billion are exports). Actually, most Indian business houses don’t.

There are two different perspectives on this. First, Apple has created an insatiable appetite for its products in China, so much so that millions are devouring iPhones, iPads and iPods. This mass Apple consumption frenzy – not limited to China – is evidently reflected in the Cupertino-headquartered company’s good fortunes. This may or may not last. After all, Korean giant Samsung is snapping at Apple’s heels and has already overtaken Nokia in mobile phone sales.

The other is that there is something fundamental that is changing about the emerging market consumption story. Jim O’Neill, the Goldman Sachs Vice-Chairman who coined the famous BRICS term, said the other day, “And now 20 percent of what [Apple is] getting is from China. How can you call that a traditional emerging market? It doesn’t make sense.” Goldman Sachs now calls these the Growth Markets.

So the big question (posed frequently) is whether consumers in India or for that matter China are behaving similarly or differently, regardless of what the perceived political climate of the day is? And to that extent whether businesses tied firmly to consumption story will be affected by this ambient noise ?

A Business Standard opinion piece two weeks ago effectively said the answer to the first (India) question was yes, consumers were not as down and out as maybe businessmen and others were. At least recently.

It pointed out that Hindustan Unilever, India’s largest consumer products company, grew 20.4% in consolidated sales for the quarter ended March 31. Of this, 9.6% came from volumes, rest from price increases. Dabur, which gets 70% of business from India saw sales going up 23%, more than half of that came from higher volumes. Ditto for Godrej which reported similar trends in numbers.

The stockmarkets concurred. The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Fast Moving Consumer Goods or FMCG Index is up roughly 23% at a time when the Sensex has dipped 11%. And the anticipation of the future is strong. A Hindu Business Line article says the FMCG Index trades at a `trailing earnings’ multiple of 33 times, well above the Sensex and BSE 500 multiples of 16.6 and 17.8 times.

But its not just market optimism on companies whose sweep might be limited. The Business Standard piece also quoted Nielsen figures which said rural markets grew faster in the last quarter, actually growing between the last and the previous quarter to 17.2% while in the urban market it was 16.5%.

While in India large consumer product companies have strong rural focussed sales efforts now, the numbers would not have been good were demand or sentiment weak. To be fair, Government subsidies are also a contributor too but its unlikely to be the sole driver of demand.

A swallow or an Apple does not make a summer, in China or India. Not all of China’s consumption and/or political trends are ‘extrapolatable’ to India. And an Apple may not be the object of attention tomorrow. Though some other brand or service might.

But indications do suggest the macroeconomic gloom as perceived by some is not all pervasive.  And thus, at least in the Indian context, frustrations about political stasis might not immediately affect consumer desires, rural and urban.

More importantly, the Apple story also suggests some fundamental shifts in what consumers desire and who is best positioned to meet those desires. Remember, Apple creates one product that works uniformly everywhere. No `glocalisation’. Though that’s a story for another day.

The first two games of the 12-match final were drawn and the score stands 1-1. The third game starts late in the afternoon (Moscow time) on Monday. Nothing unique for a World Chess championships final match, but it showed that both sides had prepared extensively, but were unwilling to throw open their cards so early in the match. So, the first two games, in boxing parlance, were akin to sparring.

Israeli Grand Master, Gelfand, who had never played a Gruenfeld defence (I will tell you a story about that a little later in this blog) against any major opponent – even a computer called Anand couldn’t recall Gelfand playing it – and yet he sprung it on the Indian, who simply stepped back and parried it away neatly. Anand himself tried to inject a bit of a risk, but Gelfand, handled it equally well. The net result: a draw in 24 moves and in under three hours.

In game 2 Gelfand played the 1.d4 and Anand went in for Slav defence and Gelfand opted for the Meran variation. All fine, till Anand played a 14…Nf6 and that set Gelfand thinking for more than 35 minutes. If you took that much time against your club opponent, he would thump you on your head, but these World Championships types are polite guys.

Anand waited, Gelfand replied perfectly. And then like good friends, that they are, they shook hands for a second draw, this one in 25 moves and still under three hours, and went for early dinner. Though not together, but with their respective teams (More about that, too, in a later blog).

***
Ah, now for a story on the Gruenfeld defence that Gelfand used against Anand in the first game.

The first documented evidence of a Gruenfeld defence being played was, believe it or not, by an Indian, Moheshchunder Bannerjee. His name was probably Mahesh Chander but old chess books refer to him thus and we leave it that. Bannerjee played it against a then well-known English player, John Cochrane in Kolkata in 1855. A barrister by profession, Cochrane, a member of the Calcutta Bar, was well known in chess circles those days. He was also the mentor of Howard Staunton, who he helped become one of the leading players of his times.

Later Gruenfeld defence became popular when Ernst Grunfeld employed it to beat Alexander Alekhine in Vienna in 1922. It was later adopted by various stars down the years, including Kasparov, Karpov and Anand.

***

Thirty years ago, when I came into sports journalism, a senior colleague in a well-known newspaper, asked me, “How the hell do you report on chess. Surely you don’t want to spend the rest of your life reporting on chess, which not many readers understand.” Analyses, openings with long-winded names, older notations and the algebraic notations, which later came into use, looked and sounded like complex formulae in physics – remember computer languages were not yet part of our lexicon, simply because we had no computers!

To me, chess was more than just a series of moves on the board with 64 squares. It was character. It was a mind game. It was determination. It was an ability to take mental pounding and survive the bruises, which no one on the outside could see or feel.

More than that, having entered sports journalism in an era when there were hardly any Indian sporting heroes – Sachin Tendulkar, Leander Paes and Anand were all yet to make their appearance – chess to me looked the most likely sport where India could produce world champions. When I said so, senior colleagues laughed, “What chance do we have against the Soviets?”

I would clam up, but I stuck to my belief. My big moment came when Anand challenged Garry Kasparov in New York at the now non-existent World Trade Centre. No newspaper wanted to fund me, yet I dipped into my pockets, stayed in NY for more than a month and reported on the match for an agency and a TV Channel – which fortunately, like me believed it was a big moment for Indian sport.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since. The senior colleague of those days, is now even more senior – in age – and says he didn’t mean what I thought he meant!

An Indian is now a World Champion – Anand has been so since 2007. There are many more in the assembly line, in various age groups. India’s top woman, Koneru Humpy, was World No.2 till recently, though she has slipped to No.3 now.

It is what I call my “I-told-you-so” moment!

The New iPad. Like every other Apple device, this tablet is unspeakably enigmatic: it evokes emotions ranging from skepticism to outright lust. So after intensively using it for close to a week, I decided not to write a review. It has been tested, dissected, raved about and ranted on extensively. But being as I am (like several others I’m sure) intrigued by the mystery that shrouds Apple and its devices, I decided instead to delve into the things that make Apple products, well, Apple products.

First, I’d like to believe that Apple designs, builds and markets to a very specific type of consumer. By specific, I’m not implying a tiny subset (as their sales figures will more than adequately indicate.) They address a consumer that a) Simply wants an Apple product, or b) Needs a device that is simple to learn and use. From their almost clinical approach to product design to their highly-researched and intuitively lucid user interface, Apple products quickly ensconce their owners in a comfort zone –hook, line and sinker. The second aspect that makes Apple products so appealing is the ecosystem they have so carefully crafted–products are designed to be easy to use, with online services that are easy to access. They don’t expect you to want to delve into the internals, or tweak several settings–like a butler who’s raison d’etre is to insulate his master from everything pedestrian, Apple’s products enable consumers to go about their lives without having to bother about the many underlying technologies that make their devices tick.

But the thing is, I love the underlying technologies. I enjoy tweaking and configuring and digging into the guts of settings until I’m satisfied with the way a device performs and behaves. I’m probably a minority, but was still intrigued to know whether I could be sold on the New iPad. There already is an iPad 2 in my home, which has been used regularly over the past year and a half for everything from reading eBooks to watching video podcasts and connecting to social networks. The iPad platform is arguably the easiest to get accustomed to, and it is especially the little nuances like the ultra-smooth touchscreen sensitivity and glossy application and user interface that set it apart from other competing devices. Apple has managed to consistently deliver on these usability fronts, and craft devices that do more than just fulfill a specific consumer need–their products have a way of forging an emotional bond with their owners. From the controlled and highly scientific manner with which buzz is created around upcoming products, to their definitive smoke and magic product launches, many consumers are sold on Apple products even before they hit the shelves. This curious phenomenon has been famously referred to as the ‘Apple reality distortion field’–where traditional consumer behavior and buying rules cease to apply. And this halo effect begins unfolding even before the unboxing.

Apple’s product packaging is a lesson in design. It could in fact be an entire semester in design. Being in the position they are, they clearly don’t need to try too hard so far as graphics design on packaging goes–while other products splash evocative visuals, blaring specifications and saturated colors, the instantly recognizable ‘Apple white’ box oozes minimalism. Each of the five visible package surfaces contain just one motif, image or word–the word ‘iPad’ on the long sides, a silver Apple logo and iCloud logo on the short sides, and an edge-on view of the New iPad on the top. Unboxing an Apple product can almost never be done alone–it’s the kind of event that calls for a gathering of friends or family while the expectant owner does the honors with all else huddled around like treasure hunters on the verge of discovery. Much has been written about the ‘Apple smell’, and truly, there is something rather distinctive about the fragrances that hit your olfactory receptors the moment you open that box (on a side note, one company has even gone so far as to attempt bottling this particular smell!)

Slide up the cover of the box and all you see is the gleaming iPad with its protective plastic cover. All the other white package contents are stored neatly beneath, each in their own recessed white area or neat little white box. Everything is white and pristine. There is no real instruction manual, possibly because there isn’t really a need for one. But there is a little card that indicates the few Spartan buttons on the device–all you really need to know is the location of the power button and everything else falls in place.

Powering it up for the first time, the key aspect that strikes you about the New iPad is its much-publicized retina display–it is very, very crisp, as are the nicely saturated colors and great viewing angle. As expected, seeing hi-res photos, watching hi-definition movies and using any other visually-intensive application is a luscious experience. But here’s the thing–the human body, with its innate ability to adapt, very quickly gets accustomed to change. Before you know it, you stop being conscientiously aware of the high-resolution display, except of course for the times you’re showing it off to a first-time onlooker. The new A5X processor and revamped graphics core come to the fore when using especially-demanding applications like 3D games and image processing apps. But for day-to-day usage scenarios the experience is exactly similar to its predecessor, which also runs the updated OS and all of the apps–you’ll notice nothing different by way of usability and response. New features like the improved camera (based on the one in the iPhone 4S) capture great photos and HD videos, although I wouldn’t recommend any tablet as a primary camera–the very size and weight make it ungainly for prolonged use. This particular iPad had 64GB of storage and is 4G (LTE) ready when the network becomes available–while it perfectly works with current 3G networks.

Like I mentioned in my launch review of this iPad, it is undoubtedly a great device and one that makes sense going in for if you’re a first-time buyer sold on getting an iPad. The earlier iPad 2 is still available, and at a discounted rate–a compelling option if you’re comfortable with forfeiting the new-generation bells and whistles. But then there’s the lure of the powerful reality distortion field; very few self-respecting Apple buyers will settle for anything less than the latest and greatest. And Apple will continue to sell millions of new tablets. Unquestionably.

Along with managing director of Philips India Rajeev Chopra, Menhardt unveiled two new, portable ultrasound machines, a suite of Intelli-Hospital products and an e-ICU. The first two categories of products were a global launch for Philips. Now that’s some change in mindset. Exactly two years ago when I had met Menhardt, barely two months into his new role in India, he had said, “There is need for more value products in the Indian market. Until now, the lowest products in the US market were picked up for sale here.”

Wido Menhardt, CEO, Philips Innovation Centre

That was a refreshingly honest statement from the head of a large MNC centre. A year later in 2011 when I asked him how he was doing, he said, “I can say that I am making progress on some of the key objectives I had set out to achieve to bring PIC and the local [Indian] sales operations closer.” But he did hint that his report card would show results only next year, that is in 2012.

So watching some of the demo at PIC yesterday, it was clear that Menhardt and Philips have taken the “value” segment seriously. For the first time they have general managers, marketing teams and a full supply chain support to make these products work, here as well as in other markets. “Earlier there would be someone in the US or Europe telling teams here what to do,” said Menhardt.

Though competition, GE in particular, has been ahead in leveraging the insights and constraints that the Indian market offers for innovation, Philips’ technologies look promising. For instance, the ClearVue ultrasound, which is built ground-up, and besides claiming lower cost, higher energy efficiency, better image quality (that will handle about 50% cases earlier referred to CT), etc, has brought a new technology, Active Array, that moves intelligence from the system to the tiny transducer (the probe that does the scanning). Despite repeated questions, the team did not give away much, but it clearly points toward a healthcare era where the device is separated from the data; stored and  analysed on the cloud.

Launch of ClearVue is also a big deal for  Philips, says Menhardt, because the company  is moving quickly to innovation in the emerging economies, be it India, Brazil, or China. “In particular if we’re able to set global benchmarks in speed to market, as we did with ClearVue.”

Two other demonstrations, of e-ICU for tier 2 and 3 towns, and IntelliHospital, for high-end healthcare centres, also gave a glimpse of where healthcare is headed. Intelli-Hosptial is a concept that a lot of medical and other technology companies have been experimenting with, but what gives companies like Philips (and perhaps Siemens and GE too) a big edge is the fact that they deal with disease management and hence the ‘clinical decision support’, or analytics, that they provide to the machines is far superior to what non-med-tech companies can offer.

A year ago Menhardt established a global Mobility Centre of Excellence for Philips at PIC, to extend the capabilities in healthcare, lighting and consumer lifestyle to mobile platforms. We got a whiff of what a smart phone can do in these spaces, nothing out of the world I must say, but it did show a more manageable way of doing things, be it hospital staff getting all alerts and streaming data on their phones, or a person getting control of all lighting in his workplace or home, or of music/photos/videos, done wirelessly through AirStudio using a phone/tablet/PC.

It’s not easy to make engineers, who’ve been hired in batches and bundled up with a manager to do the off-shoring job, to innovate. Now that Menhardt has begun attacking that problem, what should we expect in  near future?

He certainly expects “Jugaad 2.0″,  innovating in India for the world. “The ingenuity and innovativeness of India is all around us, and if we can channel that so it becomes repeatable, reliable, scalable, we may see India develop into a global innovation engine. But this will take time,” he says.

Sometime back Menhardt had said, Philips India, like other Indian arms of MNCs, was about sales, with super sharp focus on high quality and low cost. PIC on the other hand was less about cost reduction and more about innovation. He has been trying to bring the two closer. Watching Chopra and heads of healthcare and lighting, Krishna Kumar and Indranil Goswamy respectively, together talk about what’s new and in the pipeline, it seemed grades in Menhardt’s report card had improved from 2010.

Now, how much market share they’d clinch from the competition in some of these product categories, (especially in ultrasound, and excluding lighting), will reflect in the next report card. We’ll make sure we get you those grades next year!

What about an early diamond finesse as an alternate line of play? In case it fails, you will be forced to bring in the clubs without loss because the defense is always capable of eking out 3 heart tricks with minimal effort. Even if the diamond finesse works, you will need to figure out which is the best way to play clubs. In case you cash ♣AK you may well set up ♦Q for West. The defense may now collect 3 hearts apart from the winning queen in each minor! So the decision about what to play at trick 2 is really simple – you have no choice but to cash the top clubs! For the sake of completeness, West held ♠10962♥K532♦875 ♣Q3 in the actual deal.

You receive the opening lead of the spade Jack and wonder what the best way to maximize your chances is? The only possible losers are in hearts. In case West holds both missing picture cards in hearts, you might end up losing 2 tricks in the suit. The double finesse in hearts gives you a slightly better than 75% chance of avoiding 2 losers. Is there a way to knock off the 24% chance that you might fail to arrive at 12 tricks? Thankfully, such a solution exists provided trumps divide 2-1!

Aim to ruff a spade high at trick 2 after winning the opening lead in dummy. Now a low trump to dummy and another spade ruffed with a picture. Repeat the plan to remove the last trump and eliminate the spades. Now you play 3 rounds of diamonds, ruff-ing the last one in dummy. Dummy and declarer end up with 3 hearts and a trump in the 4 card ending. Simply play a heart from dummy and insert the 10 in case East does not play an honour! West may win but must now either return a heart into AQ or give you a ruff & sluff! The key to the hand is timing it right so that you are in dummy after playing to the first nine tricks. West was a mere spectator holding ♠J1096♥KJ62♦J76 ♣75.

When Reliance Industries was negotiating its $3.4 bn investments in US shale companies- the world was different. America was energy starved and looking desperately for ways to reduce dependence on the Gulf. For RIL, shale gas was seen as the next big thing, after its offshore find earlier in the decade. It would give the energy giant knowledge of the new ways of gas production, as well as allow it to ride the gas price boom. Three years down the picture is different. The United States is floating in natural gas- storages all over the country will max out in the next few months and prices are at ten-year lows.

Some say producers may soon have to give away the gas free- with money being made only on associated liquids and condensates that were initially considered by-products. RIL is `right-sizing’ its activity in the shale fields and the portfolio mix on its investments in shale assets. Like other producers here, it will focus on ramping up its production in liquid-rich fields and cutting costs at fields where there are little or no liquids. Gas prices that peaked at $13 a unit (measured as mmbtu-million british thermal units) in 2008, are marginally above $2 now. Prognosis for gas prices over the next few years is not too bright. But the associated liquids still trade at roughly 50 per cent of oil prices- which are still very high.

In its Annual report for 2011-12 released this week, the RIL management says it will take a prudent approach to the shale production ramp up. The company has three big investments in US shale. Two of the joint ventures with Chevron and Carrizo are in the Marcellus formation in eastern US and one is in Eagle Ford in Texas with Pioneer Natural Resources. Investments in all the three ventures has been largely on drilling wells- as shale extraction requires hundreds of wells to be dug. The company has set aggresive cost-cutting targets for the Chevron joint venture.

“It has now become a rush for liquids,’’ says Bill Holland, the Washington DC based associate editor at Platts gas daily. Smart companies are trying to figure how to reduce their costs and improve fracking techniques, he says. It costs only 80 cents to get out a unit of gas at Marcellus- so companies there are still making money. The real challenge is to keep head above water in the dry fields- which produce only gas and no liquids. Analysts here expect consolidation among shale gas companies later this year. Private equity firms like KKR are already buying up a lot of assets at valuations that are much lower than the peak. Most of these deals are with the intention of flipping over the assets, when circumstances change. KKR Natural Resources, the PE firm’s vehicle for gas investments already has a $900m portfolio.

Despite the sorry rate of return on the shale gas at the moment, there is one good reason for Reliance to stay invested in US shale. And this is to do with being at the cutting edge of fracking- the technique for gas extraction from dense rock. In what will surely be a first for an Indian company, Reliance Industries may soon become the operator of shale fields in Pennsylvania. The contract in the joint venture with Carrizo, where it has invested close to $500m allows this. This would be a big step for the company in terms of figuring out the operations first hand. Many Chinese, Korean and French companies continue to remain invested the shale ventures for this reason. Cash rich companies such as Reliance Industries and CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Company) have to a great extent, bankrolled shale ventures of small and medium sized US companies.

CNOOC invested over $2.4bn for a stake in Chesapeake Oil’s lease holdings in various shale fields. Like India, China is trying hard to replicate the US success in shale- so far with mixed results. The current glut of gas in the United States is in sharp contrast to the energy shortages in India and China. In India, the ministry of petroleum and natural gas has kicked off initial rounds to explore shale formations for gas. Once the process is underway, it could well be RIL’s day in the sun- once more.

I know, given the herd mentality, a fresh backlash against clinical trials will begin in the press and civil society and that can only cause more harm to healthcare at large. While this is a fresh blow, the health ministry said yesterday that the guilty in the poorly conducted clinical trials of human papilloma virus (or cervical cancer) vaccine in AP andGujarat, which were suspended in April 2010, would face punitive action if the investigation proves it. If and when that happens (the committee of experts ruled out direct linkage between the deaths and the trials when they put in their final report saying that “the cause of death in all cases could not be established with certainty”) it would not only bring justice to the affected families but absolve, at least to some extent, the field of clinical studies of the sins it has been heaped on. This case could set a precedent for punishing the guilty, medical and non-medical staff.

Just because the Indian regulatory regime is inadequate and incompetent (particularly in evaluating protocols), it doesn’t mean we paint the entire field in disrepute! As I was reporting for this story on cancer care and HCG in ForbesIndia, Dr R Badwe, director of Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai earnestly requested more public understanding, especially from media, in dispelling misconceptions about clinical research.

It’s true most of the clinical trials that we hear of are conducted by pharma companies, either directly or through CROs but the impression one gets from outside is that everyone participating is a guinea pig. That’s not true, research is mistaken as experimentation. I’ll come to the missed (or soon to be missed opportunities) in a bit but just looking the industry numbers, it’s clear that the projection that McKinsey had made in 2006 about the industry being $1 billion by 2010 hasn’t come true. Assocham had predicted thatIndiawould garner 15% of the global trails, but the reality isIndiaaccounts for just about 1% of global trials today. The country did not gird up for the exploding market.

China,Braziland Eastern European countries are benefiting more from it. Recently, the Australian government announced tax credits particularly for preclinical and human clinical trials that will be brought into effect retroactively from mid September 2011. It means a company can get back between 15 cents and 45 cents of every dollar spent.

As far as the business is concerned,Indiais losing the plot.

Now, the academic progress and health benefits: clinical research in general and clinical trials in particular, is the way medical science progresses. While there may be stray incidents of medical research done unethically, the checks and regulations, some in place now and more to come, will ensure that good clinical research practices (GCP) are followed by all researchers. After all, there are a number of studies which conclusively prove that patients who are part of clinical trials end up with superior care than they would get otherwise, primarily because every small step and action in clinical trials follow a set protocol, says Dr CS Pramesh, associate professor and convenor of Thoracic Oncology Diseases Management group at TMC in Mumbai.

“Bad media coverage and uninformed, sensationalistic reporting will be the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back and combined with ill-advised policy making, could spell the death of clinical research and consequent medical progress in the country,” says Dr Pramesh.

Take for instance head and neck cancer: disease of the poor; it’s most prevalent inAsia. The pharma industry is not interested in developing new treatment for these patients. The onus therefore lies on the academic head and neck specialists to develop these trials. Thankfully a beginning has been made. But sustained opposition to clinical research and bad press would deter doctors from taking up these studies in academic institutions.

Then there’s the issue of finding cost-effective treatments which pharma industry is not very interested in as profits are low. Dr BS Ajaikumar of HCG says even trying low doses of very expensive cancer drugs like Avastin, — say a 1-2 mg-dose as opposed to the standard 10 mg dose that is sold by pharma companies at an astronomical price — have shown great improvements in patients. He says if hospitals, teaching or otherwise, keep trying such regimens, many innovative results can be obtained. “But inIndiawe are just followers. We only follow the Western clinical studies’ outcomes,” he says.

In cancer, doctors are not curing everybody, at least not in the non-toxic way. So, clinical research is an absolute must! Radical mastectomy (in breast cancer) was never challenged for over a century. “Now standard care is lumpectomy or breast conservation,” Alan Hatfield, executive vice president, Clinical Research, Piramal Healthcare, and a former longtime practicing physician from the National Cancer Institute, US.  “Hundreds and thousands of women across the world have participated in trials to bring the best of care in breast cancer.”

To cite another example, treatment of advanced lung cancer has been revolutionized by new targeted therapy (oral tablets as an alternative to conventional chemotherapy which has much higher side effects). The results from Asian countries with this treatment is far superior to that seen in the west because lung cancers in Asians harbor a genetic mutation much more frequently than in the west which makes these tumors more responsive to the targeted therapy. Isn’t this a clear benefit of clinical trial?

Furthermore, says Dr Pramesh, by blindly following the results of clinical research done in the west and extrapolating those results to our patients, we might actually be erring grossly as ethnic and genetic differences could make these results inapplicable in our setting. “Ultimately, it will be patients who suffer the most by a slowdown of clinical research in the country.”

Unarguably, some regulatory and local IRB Accreditation issues still need to be addressed. But the collective effort should be to fix the system, not abandon it.

It signed the memorandum of understanding (MoU) in 2005 with the Naveen Patnaik-led Orissa governmentto set up a 12 million ton per year steel plant in the state. Since then POSCO  has been hampered by a mix of its own inability to read local conditions; and frequent flip-flops by establishments at the state and the centre on issues such as environment, iron ore export and land acquisition. The MoU too has expired now.

In a feature that I had written last year after visiting the POSCO site and talking to scores of people connected to the project, it was clear that neither of the sides was blameless. Here is the link to the story – http://forbesindia.com/article/big-bet/can-posco-cross-the-india-barrier/27502/1.

With an army legacy that had shaped a top-down approach in management, POSCO was unprepared for setting up the steel plant in India. Orissa was not Pohang or Gwangyang, where POSCO has its plants in its home country. There were hardly any protests by 70,000 people who were displaced in the two cities. To quote from the story, “In Orissa, only about 2,000 people were to be displaced and Posco expected the first phase with annual capacity of 4 million tonnes to be up and running by 2011. Unfortunately, it misread the ground realities and failed to rope in local partners.”

POSCO is now making amends. It’s latest Chairman and Managing Director of the Indian unit, Yong Won Yoon (the fourth from the parent company to be deputed to India in the last seven years) has sent feelers to major Indian steel players to help him set up the project in Orissa. Someone like Essar Steel or Tata Steel, who already have operations in the state, would be well suited. The have already built relationships with local establishments and have personnel who are experienced in dealing with the ground realities.

Two years ago in our flagship Forbes India Rich List issue, (http://forbesindia.com/article/india-rich-list-10/lakshmi-mittal-cast-in-a-new-mould/18062/1) I had mentioned how Lakshmi Mittal was tweaking his India plans to expedite work on projects that his company ArecelorMittal planned in the country. Instead of insisting on mega plants that needed huge tracts of land, the Indian billionaire now was open to setting up smaller units on fewer acres. Now POSCO, albeit a little late, is showing the same flexibility.

Press Trust of India yesterday quoted Kim Joong-Keun, ambassador to the Republic of Korea in India, “We are eager to complete whole size plant as planned in Odisha. If the situation does not permit to do so, we have to be satisfied with a smaller size.” The original 12 million ton per year plant would need 4,004 acres. But so far POSCO has received only 2,000 acres.  According to its officials, another 700 acres will enable the company to start work on a smaller unit of possibly less than half the original capacity.

Interestingly, the environmental clearance for the company’s project was recently suspended by the National Green Tribunal, which pointed out that the environment impact assessment report had been prepared only for 4 million ton per annum in the first phase and not for the whole project. So has this judgement forced POSCO’s hand? Nevertheless, recent news coming out of the company’s camp in India hold out some promise for the country’s largest FDI proposal. As they say in Hindi, Der aaye durust aaye!