Mr. Aggarwal, please try to be scientific

["Dr. Subroto Roy" <sroy@vgsom.iitkgp.ernet.in>]

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> >From what I have read of Dr. Roy's posts, I hardly think he is
qualified
to
> be "giving a talk" on this subject.

-- woe betide my audience perhaps...but clearly they have contained
similar
critics before...  I am also an academic after all, and think rather
well of
the notion of academic freedom..... and academic freedom often requires
standing firm against nonsense being purveyed by powerful cliques or
power
structures...

> Let me attempt, once more, to shed some light on the $50 billion
export
> target.

-- okay, so it is a "target"; we agree it is not a fact.

India's software exports have been growing at the rate of 50-60%
> since 1991.

-- please be good enough to refer to a  published source for this figure
if
you have one; alternatively, I repeat, what is the basis of this
measurement?  and who has been measuring it?   Is the sole basis of the
measurement and the figures someone from the software industry itself?

In 1992, when they were around $250 million

- again, please be good enough to refer to a source, and a method of
measurement... do you for example mean that Indian software companies
received so much from foreign purchasers of their services?

 NASSCOM's Dewang
> Mehta predicted they would cross the $1 billion mark in 1996/97.

-- on what basis?  did he have a model which is published somewhere and
can
be seen by independent observers?

Few
> believed him at the time

-- to put it bluntly, I do not believe him now; and I think he has been
making wild projections which have no known scientific basis....By a
scientific basis, all I mean is that he or you or Nasscom or anyone else

must simply explain to the world what you are measuring precisely, and
how
you are doing so, and then having made your measurements, you must
publish
them freely so anyone can examine them and test them for their validity.

We could start a small side-debate if you like on whether that is an
adequate definition of scientific method for this question, and then
return
to the question itself.   Mehta's projections do not qualify as being
scientific by my simple definition as far as I can see, and the tragedy
is
he has been believed by all and sundry....but then we are also a country

where perhaps 90% of the population believe in astrology when all of
astrology assumes the Ptolemaic and no the Copernican solar system...

however his prediction was indeed accurate,

-- again, please give us some publicly verifiable evidence for your
belief
if possible...

 and
> software exports even today are maintaining a growth rate of 50-60%.

-- how do we know this?  who is measuring it?  what is being measured
precisely?  where are the numbers?

So I
> think the real question is: how long can India sustain the current
50-60%
> software export growth rate?


> The Mckinesy/Nasscom study and projections are based on exactly this
kind
of
> analysis.

-- which is why, unless I see contrary evidence, I think it is
completely
bogus.

Regards

Subroto Roy


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