Tireless research echoes throughout the book : New Indian Express, May 24, 2009

By Bala Murali Krishna

The rise of India as an information technology powerhouse, and back office of the world, is infinitely more complex than the simple IITs-to-Silicon- Valley-to-Nasdaq stories of fabled Ind ian American entrepreneurs. Politics, egos, turf battles, policy missteps, plain shortsightedness, bureaucratic red tape and, perhaps, accidents shaped the path of IT in this country......

Sharma, a journalist who has written extensively on science and technology, goes all the way back to the rivalry between P C Mahalanobis, best known as the architect of India’s five-year plans, and Homi Bhabha, best known for setting up India’s nuclear establishment, to lay out the country’s path in IT development. He narrates in detail the roles of prime ministers Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, and technocrat Sam Pitroda, and the circumstances that forced IBM out of the country in 1977. Tireless research echoes throughout the book, be it in the discovery of key facts from government documents or notable insiders, or indeed in laying to rest some popular myths. If Sharma is correct, Neh ru’s role in the establishment of the IITs is exaggerated, Rajiv Gandhi’s influence on IT began long before he became prime minister and the first computer to arrive at IIT, Kanpur, was never carried on a bullock cart.

Monumental research on Indian IT: Science Reporter, May 2009

By Hasan Jawaid Khan

How did it all begin? And how long is this roller-coaster ride of the Indian IT industry going to sustain? A professional journalist, Dinesh provides answers to these and innumerable other questions, which an IT industry watcher would be looking for, with a light touch that is the hallmark of a true journalist. And the monumental research that has gone into the book is truly fascinating......

......A thoroughly researched, lucidly written and skillfully

presented book that is a must read not just for students of IT as well

as IT professionals but for all those who have a penchant for historical

accounts.

"Scholarly volume, eminentlyl lucid and highly readable"

The Story of India's IT Prowess

By Biman Basu 

Inventional Intelligence, April 2009

Today one can do railway and air bookings without stepping out of home. One can pay bills and taxes and do purchases from around the world online. One can withdraw money from ATM anywhere, any day, any time using debit or credit card; one doesn’t need to go to the bank any

more. All this not only means more convenience for the people but also greater efficiency. The driving force behind this change is the emergence of India as a global player in information technology, made possible by several factors including development of skilled manpower,

and pragmatic government policies. Unfortunately, not many users of IT in India are aware of the chequered history of the growth and development of the country’s computer and IT industry. Dinesh C. Sharma’s scholarly volume adequately fills the void. The Long Revolution traces every twist and turn in the long story of India’s IT revolution.

Fascinating story, says Prof Sadagopan, Director, IIIT Bangalore

Prof S Sadagopan, director of the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, has written  a chapter-wise ten part review of 'The Long Revolution' in his technology blog -http://ss.emergic.org

....In chapter 7 “Big boys, garage, startups and software codes” is perhaps the most fascinating chapter as it documents the Indian software story and the risk of Silicon Valley of India, namely, Bangalore along with the iconic company Infosys. It is interesting observation to link Kishanagarh in Rajasthan (the place of Narendra Patni of “Patni Computer Systems”) to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Narendra working with Lexis-Nexis to “key in” data in India and publishing in USA through his company Data Conversion Inc (DCI) is the first instance of “off shoring”. InterestinglyDCI was punching five mile of paper tape every day!.......

Read the full review at http://ss.emergic.org/page/2/ 

Spotlight: IT: A Passage Through India, The Statesman, April 5,2009

By Aditi Roy Ghatak

When men of mettle clash, sparks fly. That was possibly how the race to win the information technology race in India took off; courtesy the Bhabha and Mahalanobis clash at a time Calcutta was still the centre for scientific excellence – the computing industry included. What began under the visionary Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis as IT’s long revolution, only to lose its way in Calcutta, even as it travelled through Bombay acquiring muscle in Bangalore and Hyderabad is quite a fascinating tale. The origins may be irrelevant in an India where leading multinationals have sited their R&D operations. Nevertheless, the Mahalanobis story – getting India’s first automatic calculators and unit record machines for the Indian Statistical Institute; following it up by a facility to develop and fabricate computing machines locally; driving the non-profit Indian Calculating Machine and Scientific Instrument Research Society to develop calculators and scientific instruments in September 1943; and the then establishing an ISI unit for repair and maintenance of calculators – deserves to be revisited. Who else but Mahalanobis could inspire Samarendra Kumar Mitra and Soumyendra Mohan Bose, outstanding engineers of the times, to go through the junkyards of Chandni Chowk to dig up war material to build India’s first ‘analogue electronic computer’ in 1953 at the ISI’s Electronic Computer Laboratory, made ready for this specific purpose in 1950? The revolution was on track as Mahalanobis got large mainframes from British Tabulating Machine, Ural from the Soviet Union and another computer from IBM and even later when the ISI and Jadavpur University collaborated to developed a digital computer, ISIJU. By then, though, the revolution was encountering a parallel force. Homi J. Bhabha was charting a brilliant course with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research that eventually developed the TIFR Automatic Calculator. Also, Bhabha won the battle for the tag of National Computer Centre for his own computer installations, simultaneously taking the lead in spearheading the electronics development policy, especially after the war with China. Bengal took the back seat since then.

Dinesh C. Sharma’s chronicle The Long Revolution: The Birth and Growth of India’s IT Industry undertakes a journalist’s – rather than a scientist’s journey – through the electronics committee which Bhaba headed, paving the way for the Electronics Commission and the Department of Electronics. The Calcutta initiative had clearly been wrested by Bombay and with the Leftists sowing the seeds of suspicion around computers in the heart and souls of the middle-class Bengali, the computer revolution went way off target in this city.

Birth and Growth of India's IT Industry : Interview in Techgoss April 2, 2009

By Suneetha

Sam Pitroda, widely regarded as the father of the telecom revolution in India, released this historical book by Dinesh C Sharma, a senior tech journalist. “The Long Revolution: The Birth and Growth of India's IT Industry”, while detailing every important milestone in the tech sector, tells us the real story behind what was perceived as IBM's eviction from India in 1977.

Here is an interview with the author Dinesh C Sharma.

Q (Techgoss): How did you get into writing this particular book?
A: (Dinesh C Sharma): I have been a journalist since 1984. My first job as a trainee journalist with the Press Trust of India 1984 exposed me to two generations of data communication technologies – teleprinter with its paper tapes and the computer-based communication network which was just being introduced in the agency. This was also the beginning of my interaction with the information technology industry as a reporter, which continued over the next decade and beyond.

In the late 1990s, I crossed the fence for a brief while. First I – along with two other friends - floated a dotcom company, then worked as part-time head of India operations of a business-to-business portal for software industry launched by a former investment banker from New York. All these experiences gave me valuable insights into inner workings of the industry. Then while reporting for Cnet.com in 2000s, I realized that interest about the Indian industry was growing in America and yet there were a lot of misconceptions. The same was the case with new generation of Indians who were introduced to the sector in late 1990s. So, I thought of writing a book.

When I did so, the first thought that came to my mind was the story of IBM and Coca-Cola being 'thrown out of India' during the Janata Party regime in 1977. As a reporter, I kept hearing different versions of this story. So, I thought here is my story line – from IBM leaving India in 1977 to IBM's comeback in early 1990s. To the journalist inside me, this appeared to me a killer plot. Barring the IBM's exit and the period of early growth of the industry till 1984, I was a witness as well a recorder of all major events in this period. But when I started researching into the IBM episode, I realized the story actually begins when early computing machines came to India in the pre-independence days. That's how the plot got extended. So this is the first book on the Indian IT industry that tells the story right from the day first computers arrived in India. Much of research and writing for this book took place between 2005 and 2007. I got a one-year fellowship from the New India Foundation, Bangalore, for writing the book.
Read full interview at: http://www.techgoss.com/Story/28S13-Birth-and-Growth-of-India-s-IT-Industry.aspx

"The Long Revolution" launched by Sam Pitroda, New Delhi March 20, 2009

Book Released, The Hindu,, March 22, 2009

http://www.thehindu.com/2009/03/22/stories/2009032254560400.htm

PTI, March 20, 2009

http://www.zibb.com/article/5100429/Indian+IT+sector+should+focus+more+on+domestic+mkt+Pitroda

Eanaadu, March 21, 2009:

"It was long, exciting journey"

Author's statement at the launch of "The Long Revolution", March 20, 2009, New Delhi

"Writing this book has been a fascinating journey. It was long and lonely at times but enjoyable all the time. It was a journey of discovery and learning and I was excited all the time while writing this book.

It was challenging too, because information technology has been a subject of great debate, discussion and public discourse in this country for the past more than a decade or so. There are too many myths and popular perceptions - and a lot of hype - about this sector. I had to cut through all this and present a clearer picture. How far I have been successful, it is for you – the readers – to decide. I am open to criticism and I welcome it.

It was also a challenge on another count – I was dealing with a period spanning half a century, and not just one or two decades. Some people warned me not to take this up, but there were many who encouraged me to go ahead. I am happy I did so. I was fortunate to have met and interacted with people who played a key role in different epochs of this sector. Some of them have been associated with this industry for close to half a century. Prof R Narasimhan was one such. He was the designer of India’s first digital computer in 1950s.Interactions with such people, coupled with research into archival records wherever possible, helped me decipher key turning points in this long saga of information technology in India."

'India didn't throw out IBM in 1977': Book Times of India , March 19, 2009

Arvind Padmanabhan/IANS
NEW DELHI: Contrary to the general perception that India had forced US IT giant IBM toexit the country in 1977, evidence shows that the governmen
t was not only keen to retain the company but had also held secret parleys for that with the company's top brass in the US, says a new book.

The closed-door talks with IBM were piloted by the then Electronics Commission led by senior technocrat N Seshagiri, says the detailed account of the IBM era in the book, entitled "The Long Revolution: The Birth and Growth of India's IT Industry".

Authored by senior science and technology writer Dinesh C Sharma, the book says there was a stalemate in the official talks with IBM India to recast its Indian operations to fall in line with a new law -- the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act.

It was for this reason that the chairman of the Electronics Commission and secretary in the Department of Electronics, MGK Menon, had deputed Seshagiri to open an informal dialogue with IBM top brass in America.

Read full story at:http://infotech.indiatimes.com/News/India_didnt_throw_out_IBM/articleshow/4285785.cms

Exploring India’s ITinerary - Business World March 13, 2009

BY NELSON VINOD MOSES

Writing a book on India’s IT industry is a brave attempt considering the frequency with which it has been discussed and dissected by journalists, academics, analysts and consultants, and the obvious fatigue that has set in. Dinesh C. Sharma, writing as a New India Foundation fellow (fellowships are awarded to scholars and writers working on different aspects of the history of Independent India), treads on a road well-worn, but pulls away from most other writers because he attempts to chronicle the IT story from the origins to the present.

The Long Revolution is a comprehensive catalogue of the country’s struggles, many false starts, state-created inertia, gradual discovery and eventual emergence as a global IT giant. Sharma’s narrative begins in the 1920s and ’30s, when the use of IT in India started at about the same time as the rest of the world. This was thanks to P.C. Mahalanobis and Homi Jehangir Bhabha, who took the first few baby steps that has since exploded into a revolution. This was the pre-computer age of tabulating machines and unit recording machines. Mahalanobis and Bhabha used predecessors of computing machines to solve their own pain points — the former using it to analyse data from the National Sample Survey, and Bhabha for designing and running nuclear reactors. What began then is traced all the way through to the present.

Sharma’s task is tough because the story of the Indian IT industry is synonymous with outsourcing to most casual observers. But the book goes beyond that, and focuses on the history of the use of IT in India, and also the software, hardware, semiconductor and design industries. The IT story is believed to have started after the liberalisation in 1991, when a progressive software policy created the perfect storm for the industry to carve out India as the premier IT outsourcing destination. The book dives below the tip of the 1991 iceberg to emerge with a lot of relatively unknown data and interesting anecdotes. Some of these stories from the pre-1991 era are either not well-known or are otherwise untold.

Read the full review at: http://www.businessworld.in/index.php/Books-and-Guides/Exploring-Indias-ITinerary.html

How HCL wrote the growth programme for the industry

Financial Express, February 19,2009


The changing character of computer usage in India—from mainframes and minis to microcomputers—at the start of the 1980s threw up new demands for computer education. In the mainframe era, the role of a computer user was limited. The software was written by IBM and the machine was also serviced by IBM. The same happened in electronic data processing centres and the RCCs. With the introduction of microcomputers, the situation changed.

HCL, which pioneered this shift, had to educate customers on how to use its computers. One of its early advertisements said, ‘Even a typist can use our computers,’ emphasizing that companies don’t have to depend on outsiders to operate their computers.

The origins of computer training in the private sector can be traced to HCL. Rajendra Singh Pawar, a 1972 electrical engineering graduate of IIT Delhi, joined HCL in September 1976, after a stint with Larsen & Toubro and DCM Limited.

Read full excerpts at: http://www.financialexpress.com/news/how-hcl-wrote-the-growth-programme-for-the-industry/425208/

Reading this book is like watching a documentary on evolution of Indian IT - Sahara Times, March 7,2009

Comprehensive, detailed... accessibly written - Business Standard Feb 26, 2009

History of India's IT odyssey

By Subor Roy

The popular media in India has been extensively covering the Indian software story ever since it became visibly successful around the turn of the century. As the success has proved durable, the need to know how it all began and grew to its present state has become acute. This book succeeds in filling that gap admirably. It is a comprehensive and detailed history of the Indian IT industry, made possible by the use of invaluable archives and conversations with many of the key players. It is also very accessibly written.

Read full review at:http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=350151&tp=

Review in Hindi Business Standarad:
यूं लिखी गई आईटी की कामयाबी गाथा
यह किताब बहुत अच्छे ढंग से हम तक ये सभी जानकारियां उपलब्ध कराती हैं। यह भारतीय आईटी उद्योग का व्यापक और विस्तृत इतिहास है। किताब की भाषा सरल है और इसमें एक प्रवाह दिखता है।
सुबीर रॉय / March 04, 2009
भारतीय सॉफ्टवेयर उद्योग की सफलता जगजाहिर होने के बाद मुख्यधारा के मीडिया ने सफलता की इस गाथा के बारे में छापने या प्रसारित करने में गहरी दिलचस्पी दिखाई है।
अब चूंकि साबित हो चुका है कि यह सफलता टिकाऊ है, इसलिए हमें यह जानने की जरूरत है कि इस सफर की शुरुआत कैसे हुई और कैसे यह उद्योग लगातार तरक्की करते हुए अपने मौजूदा स्तर तक पहुंचा है।
यह किताब बहुत अच्छे ढंग से हम तक ये सभी जानकारियां उपलब्ध कराती हैं। यह भारतीय आईटी उद्योग का व्यापक और विस्तृत इतिहास है। पुराने दस्तावेजों और आईटी उद्योग की दिग्गज शख्सियतों के साथ बातचीत ने इस को बेशकीमती बना दिया है। किताब की भाषा सरल है और इसमें एक प्रवाह दिखता है।

http://hindi.business-standard.com/hin/storypage.php?autono=15309

The Silicon Route - Down to Earth March 15 2009

By Ananth Nayak

....Sharma is an effective chronicler, attentive to the minutest of details. He points out the efforts to develop computers in India benefited from a fortuitous turn of events. In 1959 Homi Bhabha ran into ibm’s director of research E R Piore on board a flight to Zurich. When Bhabha mentioned plans to acquire a powerful computer for atomic energy work in India, Piore suggested that his company could help. This was the beginning of an almost 20-year association of state-backed Indian computing endeavour with the US computer biggie.

Sharma is not the archetypal business history writer dismissing all state-sponsored efforts. He notes a large industrial infrastructure for electronics manufacturing was created in the public sector. But he does not overplay the role of the pre-liberalized state in India. He is attentive to the fact that Indira Gandhi’s restrictive policies were responsible for India missing the hardware bus.

The Long Revolution is not just about highbrow state research. There are interviews with small software developers in Noida and Hyderabad. There is a delightful description of the computerization of railway reservation.

The book ends on a hopeful note. “There are many more Silicon Valleys waiting to be discovered,” Sharma writes. But will the Silicon Valleys come with more Satyams. There are fault lines in India’s revolution that require examination. The book shows us that.
Read full review at: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/full6.asp?foldername=20090315&filename=news&sec_id=15&sid=35