Growing Israeli passion for business with India

December 10, 2012
Anat-Bernstein-Reich

Bilateral trade between India and Israel has gone up from a mere $120 million to $5 billion since the two nations formally established relations in 1992, but as president of the Israel-India Friendship Association (IIFA) she sees a much higher potential.

"I want to show the beauty of India to the world," says Bernstein-Reich, who serves as co-producer of the "Bharati Show - The Wonder that is India", a Bollywood style show that has gone all around the world over the last several years.

She also runs a five-session course on doing business with India with a Hindi class and bits of history, politics and culture thrown in.

There Israeli business people learn to say phrases like "Kya haal hai?" (How are you?), "Phir milenge" (See you later), the meaning of things like "Diwali, Ganesh and Bindi" and even the Indian craze about the game of cricket.

"Once they understand culture they can do business," Bernstein-Reich tells a group of visiting Indian and Indian-American journalists and policy leaders as she lists a wide range of areas that can take Israeli-Indian trade to a projected $15 billion in a few years.

Dan Catarivas, director of the division of foreign trade and international relations at the Manufacturers Association of Israel and a former government official, agrees seeing "much more potential" in the India-Israel-US trade relationship, particularly in the area of high technology.

Noting that Israel was in the process of negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with India, Catarivas said while transfer of technology to China was fraught with risks because of US restrictions, there was no such danger in working with India in hi-tech and IT areas.

Eitan Yudilevich, executive director of the Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD), which promotes strategic partnerships between Israeli and American companies in various technological fields, concurs.

Yudilevich, a former head of the missiles division at Rafael Advanced Defence systems, the Israeli authority for development of weapons and military technology, who played a key role in the development of Israel's famous Iron dome, suggests the Singapore model for hi-tech trade with India.

This would have military cooperation spilling over or providing a spin-off in civilian areas, he says, noting that the Israelis were keen on going to India, shopping for partners there as long as the Americans don't mind.

Currently India is the largest customer of Israeli military equipment and Israel is the second-largest military partner of India after the Russian Federation. The military business between the two nations is worth around $9 billion.

Diamonds are another area of major trade between the two nations, but there is great scope for expansion in areas of agriculture, solar energy, energy, water treatment, desalination, clean technology and much more.

The only problem is their business culture, says Bernstein-Reich. While Israelis come straight to the point, Indians like to negotiate endlessly and reopen settled issues, she says and thus advises her clients: "Leave some room for bargaining."




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News Network
March 13,2020

Bengaluru, Mar 13: In the wake of fresh cases of Covid-19 reported in Karnataka, Infosys Foundation chairperson Sudha Murty has urged the Karnataka government to take steps to shut malls and theatres, saying the coronavirus multiplies in air-conditioned areas.

In a letter to the government, she said preventive measures should be taken to control the spread of coronovirus before it gets worse.

Murty, who also leads the State government-constituted Karnataka Tourism Task Force, said she has discussed the current situation with Chairman and Executive Director of Narayana Health, Devi Prasad Shetty.

She suggested closure of all schools and colleges with immediate effect, malls, theatres and “all air-conditioned areas where the virus multiplies”, and allow only essential services like pharmacy, grocery and petrol bunks.

“It is not scientifically proven that the virus dies in high temperature,” she said pointing to spread of the virus -- despite heat -- in peak summer in Australia and Singapore, which have “summer all 12 months”.

“I request you to vacate one government hospital with at least 500 - 700 beds for this purpose (to deal with coronavirus cases), which requires oxygen lines and pipes,” she said.

“Infosys Foundation, the philanthropic and CSR arm of software major Infosys, would do the civil work and Devi Shetty has agreed to share resources like medical equipment,” she added.

“We would like to work with the government proactively so that we can prevent this as early as possible,” Sudha Murty said.

The total number of confirmed coronavirus positive cases in Karnataka is five, including the 76-year old man from Kalaburagi who died on Tuesday night.

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Agencies
February 23,2020

Google has indexed invite links to private WhatsApp group chats, meaning anyone can join various private chat groups (including several porn-sharing groups) with a simple search.

According to a report in Motherboard, invitations to WhatsApp group chats were being indexed by Google.

The team found private groups using specific Google searches and even joined a group intended for NGOs accredited by the UN and had access to all the participants and their phone numbers.

Journalist Jordan Wildon said on Twitter that he discovered that WhatsApp's "Invite to Group Link" feature lets Google index groups, making them available across the internet since the links are being shared outside of WhatsApp's secure private messaging service.

"Your WhatsApp groups may not be as secure as you think they are," Wildon tweeted on Friday, adding that using particular Google searches, people can discover links to the chats.

According to app reverse-engineer Jane Wong, Google has around 470,000 results for a simple search of "chat.whatsapp.com", part of the URL that makes up invites to WhatsApp groups.

WhatsApp spokesperson Alison Bonny said: "Like all content that is shared in searchable public channels, invite links that are posted publicly on the internet can be found by other WhatsApp users."

"The links that users wish to share privately with people they know and trust should not be posted on a publicly accessible website," Bonny told The Verge.

Danny Sullivan, Google's public search liaison, tweeted: "Search engines like Google & others list pages from the open web. That's what's happening here. It's no different than any case where a site allows URLs to be publicly listed. We do offer tools allowing sites to block content being listed in our results."

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Agencies
January 4,2020

Washington D.C: One of the greatest spectacles of modern art is still thriving in the Australian outback as confirmed by satellite imagery of NASA. The Marree Man is a massive geoglyph depicting an aboriginal hunter, that spans over 2.6 miles in the Southern Australian region.

Discovered by a pilot in 1998, its origin still remains a mystery even to this date.

The Marree Man was given a new lease of life in 2016 when a group of people from the neighboring town of Marree plowed its lines to avert its fading due to erosion.

After NASA shared the image of the art-work that was taken in June, the efforts of the good samaritans turned out to be a total success, reported CNN Travel.

The restoration team believes that the refurbished Marree Man would last longer than its original version.

According to NASA, "They [the team] created wind grooves, designed to trap water and encourage the growth of vegetation. They hope that eventually, the man will turn green."

In a previous article, CNN reported that an entrepreneur by the name of Dick Smith took upon himself to unravel the geoglyph's mystery in 2016. His team combed through all the available evidence but couldn't find anything conclusive.

In 2018 he even offered a 5,000 Australian dollar reward for anyone who knows the identity of its creator.

Nobody turned up with an answer but it was speculated that unknown artist lives in Alice Springs or even might be an American.

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