22 THE NEW REVIEW | 06.03.11 | The Observer The Observer | 06.03.

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DISCOVER HITECH ECONOMY HITECH ECONOMY DISCOVER

1,000-mile stretch of
high hills blanketed
in forests near Indias
west coast is one of the
most remote places in
the world. There are
at least 5,000 types
of ower. Elephants, snakes, tigers,
and cave bats all live here, secluded
from the rest of India. Zoologists who
have occasionally ventured into the
Ghats have found new species by the
handful. The mountainous territory is
inhospitable. The second I cross into
it, civilisation disappears. I cant get a
mobile phone signal.
And yet here in the middle of the
Western Ghats, in what can reasonably
be called nowhere, I descend into a
steep valley and nd myself in what
will soon become one of the most
advanced cities on earth.
I rst read about it in an
advertisement in an inight magazine,
and became intrigued by what the
advert claimed will be a metropolis
governed mainly by machines. A
central bank computers will control
everything here from household
security to the transport network. Its a
half-billion dollar project to build, from
scratch, an urban dream in the middle
of the mountains.
Standing on the promenade in the
heart of Lavasa, I have a vantage point
across the entire site. Ten years ago
there was nothing here but a few tribal
villagers living in low thatched huts.
They grow food by terracing the slopes
and waiting for the monsoon rains to
feed their rice and vegetables. And now
they can be found on the outskirts of
Lavasa, watching this city rise from the
valley, like a girl gazing at her mother
while she puts on her makeup.
If it looks surreal to me, it must
look bizarre to the villagers. There are
tall, thin, multicoloured apartment
blocks in long terraces; they appear to
have been lifted brick by brick from
the Italian streets of Portono. The
opulent chalets above me, nestled
inside the forests, could be from
Bavaria. In the brochure, the Lavasa
Corporation has used pictures of
Oxford to illustrate how picturesque
Lavasa will look when its nished. Its
as if the developers have picked the
most beautiful parts of Europe and
transplanted them here.
Right now, though, its a ghost town.
Work has halted while the Indian
authorities debate environmental
issues surrounding the development,
though few seriously doubt that the
project will reach completion. The
city is eerily quiet. Theres a state-of-
the-art hospital, which looks deserted.
Electricity pylons stretch from here
to the horizon, standing tall in the sun
like marching aliens. The only building
that could be described as remotely
busy is the canary-coloured town hall
where men in suits and sleeveless
yellow safety jackets stand outside for
a smoke, but by any normal standards
its very quiet. This is the opposite of
an Indian city.
Indian cities have not distinguished
themselves in the annals of urban
management in terms of how well
run they are, says Scot Wrighton, the
American city manager for Lavasa,
whose small oce is upstairs inside
the town hall. Hes responsible for
running the city until it receives its
rst residents and elects a real mayor.
Although this is an Indian project, the
developers scoured the world for an
expert who knew how to run towns
with western eciency and cutting-
edge technology. Wrighton, who has
previously managed a few midwestern
cities, was their choice.
I imagine that travelling from the
American midwest to the Western
From rocket science to DNA research, India is ridding itself
of its poor country image. In this extract from her new
book Geek Nation, Angela Saini visits an emerging dream
city where machines rule and geeks will inherit the earth...
Welcome to the smartest country in the world
Ghats must have been a culture
shock for him. Many Indian cities are
unplanned and riddled with slums.
Auent districts have security guards
on constant watch or locked gates at
least. Since 24-hour access to any kind
of amenity, from water to electricity,
is rarely guaranteed, people who can
aord it have their own electricity
generators and water pumps.
So the challenge for Lavasas
planners is to create a city that doesnt
suer from these problems. The way
they hope to do it is by wherever
possible replacing human bureaucrats
with machines.
Miles from the reach of even the
police and the emergency services,
Lavasa is, by accident or design (I
cant gure out which), forced to be
self-sucient. The chairman of the
Lavasa Corporation, Ajit Gulabchand,
dreams of turning this city into its
own governmental entity, so it can
do whatever any other Indian city
is allowed to do, from providing
healthcare and education to levying
taxes. His ambitious promise is that
Lavasa will be a city that governs
itself using technology, leapfrogging
cities in the rest of the world.
But this isnt just an idealistic
community. Lavasa is also a protable
real-estate development. Mumbai
is only a few hours away. And the
nearest city, Pune, is famous as an
up-and-coming IT hub. In fact, the
more I wander around the perfect
pavements and delicate fountains in
the blistering midday heat, the more
I notice how hard theyre trying to
attract the kind of nerdy IT workers
who are working in Indias booming
technology companies like Infosys and
Tata Consultancy Services. Theres
a videogaming arcade opposite the
American diner. In the next few years
developers will also be building a space
theme park, masterminded by the same
people who created the American
Space Camp in Alabama.
This may be Indias rst city
designed for Generation Y. Its a geeks
paradise. And not only will the geeks
live here, the geeks will rule.
Electronic governance is really
nothing more than conducting the
basic transactions of government
via an electronic portal, says Scot
Wrighton. This means replacing
paper-based ling, ocial forms and
bills with digital ones, and transferring
every point of contact between the
government and its citizens online. The
philosophy behind it is that automating
the government can make bureaucracy
faster, easier and more transparent.
(The idea itself isnt new. About a
decade ago countries around the
world, but particularly in Asia, began
putting these ideas into practice in
earnest, using the terms e-government
and Government 2.0.)
Here in Lavasa, one of the major
companies responsible for installing
and maintaining the technology is
Wipro, one of Indias big three IT rms.
The linchpin of the e-governance
system is a website through which
residents will be able to pay their bills,
access emergency services, report
any problems, make complaints
and do anything else involving the
governments help. Households
without computers will have a digital
automation unit tted in their homes
to give them access to the site. The
hardware will be replaced every four
years or so, and the software will
be automatically updated through
the internet cloud. Its a slimmed-
down, more ecient infrastructure,
Wrighton explains.
The Lavasa public relations team
take me next to speak to the person
from Wipro responsible for installing
the hardware. Hes known here only by
his initials, UGK. He wont tell me what
the U stands for but the GK means
Gopal Krishna. Lavasa on a proactive
basis would be looking at every aspect
of infrastructure in the city, he tells
e ambitious
promise is that this
will be a city that
governs itself
through technology
me, whether it is the streetlights,
whether it is the roads, whether it is
utilities. In the phase one, we would be
having approximately 70km of optical
bre.
Metre by metre, researchers are
mapping the city using a geographic
information system. It includes water
pipes, bre optic cables, electrical
WIRED NATION Women study computer
science in Bengaluru. Tom Bible
B UR MA
I N D I A
S R I
L ANKA
NE P AL
P AKI S T AN
C HI NA
B HUT AN
B ANG L AD E S H
l N D l A N D C E A N A R A B l A N S E A
B A Y D F B E N 6 A L
0
Miles
200
B I H A R
A S S A M
N A G A L A N D
M A N I P U R
M I Z O R A M
T R I P U R A
M E G H A L A Y A
W E S T
B E N G A L
K A R N A T A K A
G O A
O R I S S A
J H A R K H A N D
A N D H R A
P R A D E S H
M A D H Y A P R A D E S H
U T T A R P R A D E S H
H I M A C H A L
P R A D E S H
J A M M U A N D
K A S H M I R
H A R Y A N A
U T T A R A N C H A L
P U N J A B
R A J A S T H A N
M A H A R A S H T R A
G U J A R A T
C H H A T T I S G A R H
T A M I L
N A D U
K E R A L A
Sriharikota
Kalpakkam
Bengaluru
Chennai
Hyderabad
Mumbai
Lucknow

Lavasa
1 5
in
Medical sta in UK are of Indian origin
wires, transport links, and the footprint
of every building. If a pipe bursts, they
will know exactly where it is.
UGK continues: You will have smart
metering enabled which will allow
you to capture the points of failure on
a predictive basis, a preventive basis.
It will also exactly pinpoint where the
fault is. All this would ensure that a
resident at Lavasa would experience a
very quick turnaround of faulty actions
and repairs around that.
Im impressed, but at the same
time I cant escape the feeling that
Im being given the hard sell. Indeed,
from the slick brochures to the
manicured gardens, it all feels like a
giant sales pitch. But I guess I should
wont only work here but can also
be a role model for the rest of India.
We cant just cram more people into
these already overloaded cities, says
Wrighton.
What were going to have to think
about is how to structure that and
deliver those services dierently.
Thats the laboratory of Lavasa. The
vision of the chairman is that we can
create a new governance model that
can be replicated elsewhere. Thats
a terribly grand and idealistic goal,
OK. It really doesnt exist anywhere
else. So his idea is that we will be the
laboratory, and gure out what works
and what doesnt work.
He suggests that I check out the
corporate video in the building next
door. Hes in it, he tells me, half
proud and half embarrassed. Its as
professional as a Hollywood movie.
Over helicopter shots of the lush hills
someone quotes Byron: There is
society where none intrudes, By the
deep sea, and music in its roar: I love
not man the less but Nature more
Gulabchand appears on screen in
sunglasses and a sharp suit. Four
hundred million people will migrate
from rural areas to the urban areas in
India over the next 40 years, he says,
his thick, silvery hair uttering as he
walks past some bushes, the towering
hills behind him. This huge migration
took a thousand years to happen in
Europe. It will happen in India in just
40. India will have to expand its cities
and towns. The solution, Gulabchand
announces, is Lavasa.

he next morning I take a tour

of the entire 25,000-acre site
with the woman from public
relations. Most of the site
is empty land, with only the odd
bulldozer lazily nuzzling the dirt.
Reaching the edges, where the black
Tarmac gives way to dirt roads, we
stray into tribal territory. The number
of people living in Lavasa, the PR
woman tells me, will be capped at
300,000 to make sure that services
arent overwhelmed. The city will be
a quarter of the size of Mumbai but
with only 2% of the population. There
isnt a town on earth I know of that
is so tightly controlled that the size
is decided upfront, except maybe a
retirement village.
I also wonder what this means for
the poorer families on the outskirts of
THE NEW GURUS People in the driving seat
the city. When the Lavasa Corporation
arrived in the Western Ghats, she
continues, 150 families moved out of
the valley.
They just moved from their land?
Didnt they mind? I ask.
They were hardly connected to the
city, she replies. There used to be
a bus maybe once a day, maybe less.
Now there are regular buses. And to
help keep the peace, the corporation
also gave them electricity connections
for the rst time, and built creches to
educate the local children. This is
better for them, she insists.
I leave Lavasa the following day.
Rushing to the airport, the driver is
reluctant to take a shortcut. He tells me
hes scared to go down the minor roads
because people living outside Lavasa
throw rocks at vehicles coming out of
the city when they see them.
Some fear that the environmental
impact on this corner of the Western
Ghats may be too big, and thats
why work is currently at a standstill.
The Lavasa Corporation is waiting
for clearance before it can continue
construction, which, given the might
of the project, I am sure it will do.
But I wonder whether the geeky
governance model being used here
can be replicated, as the corporation
seems to believe, or if it runs the risk of
turning India into an even more split
society by introducing a digital divide
where economic divides already exist.
Lavasans will be living their hi-tech,
sheltered lives parallel to the forest-
dwelling tribes just a few mountains
away. For it to work, it would have to
meet everyones needs, not just those of
the wealthy and privileged.
Angela Saini is a science journalist and
author of Geek Nation, How Indian
Science is Taking Over the World
(Hodder and Stoughton, 20). To buy
a copy for 16 with free UK p&p, go to
guardianbookshop.co.uk or call 0330
333 6847
KIRAN
MAZUMDARSHAW
Biotech queen
Named one of the
worlds 100 most
inuential people
last year by Time magazine and
dubbed Indias mother of invention,
Mazumdar-Shaw founded Biocon in
her Bengaluru basement aged 25. Her
aim was to make drugs aordable to
everyone. Now Biocon is Asias largest
biotech company.
NR NARAYANA
MURTHY
Indias Bill Gates
Chairman of Infosys
Technologies, a
consulting and IT
services company with oces in 33
countries and some 128,000 employees.
Founded by Murthy in 1981 with just
$250, Infosys is based in a vast Google-
style campus in Electronics City,
Bengalurus answer to Silicon Valley.
Murthy, 64, is now worth an estimated
$1.6bn but lives a simple life.
NANDAN NILEKANI
Socially conscious
tech guru
e charismatic former
CEO of Infosys helped
move India into the
IT age. Now hes heading up Indias
new ID programme, the UIDAI (Unique
Identication Authority of India), which
many believe will benet the countrys
faceless millions.
G MADHAVAN NAIR
Space-race
heavyweight
Until recently the
chairman of the Indian
Space Research
Organisation, Nair supervised sending
the Chandrayaan-1 rocket to the moon
in 2008 and 27 other space missions.
MANISH GUPTA
Spoken Web prophet
Runs IBMs Spoken Web,
a voice-based internet
service which could
boost the number of
internet surfers by hundreds of millions.
AZIM PREMJI
Modest IT billionaire
Media-shy chairman
of Wipro who turned
a family business that
produced cooking oil into
a software giant, after entering IT in the
1980s. Premji, 65, is, according to Forbes,
the 28th richest person in the world
but drives a Toyota Corolla and ies
economy class. His Premji Foundation,
based in Bengaluru, donated 1.2bn to
education in rural India. Killian Fox
THE HITECH SUBCONTINENT
HOME-GROWN DRUGS
e Indian Institute for
Chemical Technology
in Hyderabad has
developed its own
version of zidovudine,
an antiretroviral
drug to combat Aids
costing just Rs15 (20p),
in collaboration
with a Mumbai-based
company, Cipla.
have expected this. If the Lavasa
Corporation doesnt attract a critical
mass of at least 100,000 residents,
there simply wont be enough teachers,
doctors, lecturers, shop sta and other
people to supply and use the services.
It will remain a ghost town.
The PR team and the sta continue
to drill me with the idea that Lavasa
Will it turn India into
an even more split
society, with a digital
divide being added
to economic divides?
THE FINAL FRONTIER
India plans to send
its rst astronaut into
space in 2015, from
the Vikram Sarabhai
Space Centre in
iruvananthapuram,
Kerala.
MINI MIRACLE
e Tata Group, based in
Mumbai, launched the
worlds cheapest car, the
Nano, in 2009. It costs just
Rs100,000 (1,360).
THORIUM REACTOR
e worlds rst nuclear reactors powered
by thorium, a lesser-known radioactive
element, are being developed at Bhabha
Atomic Research Centre. An experimental
reactor has been operating in Kalpakkam,
Chennai, since 1996.
CODE CRACKING
In 2009, researchers at the
Institute of Genomics
and Integrative Biologyin
Delhi were the rst in
the world to sequence the
genome of zebrash.
SILICON VALLEY
A third of Indias IT workers are based at
Bengaluru formerly Bangalore, tech
hub and home to Infosys, Microsoft and
IBM. By 2015 the Indian software-
product market will be worth 7bn.
TB RESEARCH
Medical researchers
at the Tuberculosis
Research Centre in
Chennai, Tamil Nadu,
are working on the
rst new tuberculosis
drug for 40 years.
TARGETING ILLITERACY
e worlds rst satellite devoted to
long-distance learning, for the
countrys remote regions, was launched
at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at
Sriharikota island in the Bay of Bengal.
NEW TOWN
e hi-tech new half-
billion-dollar city of
Lavasa is being built in the
remote Western Ghats.
GM BANANAS
Scientists at the National
Botanical Research Institute in
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, are
working to genetically modify the
banana so it stays fresh for longer.