Quotes on Success

Try not to be a man of success, but rather to be a man of value.
- Albert Einstein

~~~~~~~~

Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.
- Norman R. Augustine

~~~~~~~~

Unless a man undertakes more than he possibly can do, he will never do all that he can.
- Henry Drummond

~~~~~~~~

They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you make them feel.
- Carol Buchner

~~~~~~~~

Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.
- Norman R. Augustine

~~~~~~~~

Footprints on the sands of time are not made by sitting down.
- unknown

~~~~~~~~

Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength.
- Henry Ward Beecher

~~~~~~~~

A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.
- Arthur Golden

~~~~~~~~

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
- Samuel Johnson

~~~~~~~~

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
- Theodore Roosevelt

~~~~~~~~

Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.
- Francis Bacon

~~~~~~~~

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation...The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.
- Jacob Bronowski

~~~~~~~~

It is time for us to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever, the one who recognizes the challenge and does something about it.
- Vince Lombardi

~~~~~~~~

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
- Marie Currie

~~~~~~~~

Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has the pluck to fight when he's sure of losing.
- George Eliot

~~~~~~~~

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Thomas Edison

~~~~~~~~

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
- John C. Maxwell

~~~~~~~~

The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.
- William James

~~~~~~~~

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
- Henry Ford

~~~~~~~~

After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.
- Italian Proverb

~~~~~~~~

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
- Abraham Lincoln

~~~~~~~~

What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?
- Robert Schuller

~~~~~~~~

We never know how far reaching something we may think, say or do today will affect the lives of millions tomorrow.
- B.J. Palmer

~~~~~~~~

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.
- Confucius

~~~~~~~~

What comes out of you when you are squeezed is what is inside you.
- Wayne Dyer

~~~~~~~~

Empowerment is all about letting go so that others can get going.
- Kenneth Blanchard

~~~~~~~~

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.
- Malcolm Forbes

~~~~~~~~

Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.
- Cherie Carter-Scott

~~~~~~~~

Not every successful man is a good father. But every good father is a successful man.
- R. Duvall

~~~~~~~~

I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week.
- Mario Cuomo

~~~~~~~~

The tragedy in life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.
- Benjamin Mays

~~~~~~~~

Victory belongs to the most persevering.
- Napoleon

~~~~~~~~

If you are to be, you must begin by assuming responsibility. You alone are responsible for every moment of your life, for every one of your acts.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

~~~~~~~~

To make our way, we must have firm resolve, persistence, tenacity. We must gear ourselves to work hard all the way. We can never let up.
- Ralph Bunche

~~~~~~~~

I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
- Christopher Reeve

~~~~~~~~

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
- Anonymous

~~~~~~~~

The real contest is always between what you've done and what you're capable of doing. You measure yourself against yourself and nobody else.
- Geoffrey Gaberino

~~~~~~~~

Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. Courage is what counts.
-Sir Winston Churchill

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
-Vince Lambardi

~~~~~~~~~~

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.
-Abraham Lincoln

~~~~~~~~~~

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.
-Albert Pike

~~~~~~~~~~

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word -- excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
-Pearl S. Buck

~~~~~~~~~~

Successful: coming about, taking place or turning out as hoped for.
-Webster's

~~~~~~~~~~

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
-Winston Churchill

~~~~~~~~~~

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.
- General George Patton

~~~~~~~~~~

It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
- Seneca

~~~~~~~~~~

The entrepreneur is essentially a visualizer and actualizer... He can visualize something, and when he visualizes it he sees exactly how to make it happen.
- Robert L. Schwartz

~~~~~~~~~~

According to aerodynamic laws, the bumblebee cannot fly. Its body weight is not the right proportion to its wingspan. Ignoring these laws, the bee flies anyway.
- M. Sainte-Lague

~~~~~~~~~~

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
- Helen Keller

~~~~~~~~~~

You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.
- Henry Ford

~~~~~~~~~~

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.
- Sam Ewig

~~~~~~~~~~

The art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of our great men.
- Captain J.A. Hatfield

~~~~~~~~~~

Success will not lower its standard to us. We must raise our standard to success.
- Rev. Randall R. McBride, Jr.

~~~~~~~~~~

It's never too late to be who you might have been.
- George Elliot

~~~~~~~~~~

Talk does not cook rice.
- Chinese Proverb

~~~~~~~~~~

Rule your mind or it will rule you.
- Horace

~~~~~~~~~~

It is when the well is dry that we know the price of water.
- Ben Franklin

~~~~~~~~~~

Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.
- George Halas

~~~~~~~~~~

Attach yourself to your passion, but not to your pain. Adversity is your best friend on the path to success.
- unknown

~~~~~~~~~~

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.
- Sidney Greenberg

~~~~~~~~~~

As one person I cannot change the world, but I can change the world of one person.
- Paul Shane Spear

~~~~~~~~~~

To achieve the impossible, one must think the absurd; to look where everyone else has looked, but to see what no else has seen.
- unknown

~~~~~~~~~~

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.
- Richard Nixon

~~~~~~~~~~

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
- Colin Powell

~~~~~~~~~~

I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.
- Talleyrand

~~~~~~~~~~

The mind is like a parachute - it works only when it is open.
- Unknown

~~~~~~~~~~

Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

~~~~~~~~~~

I can not do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do.
- Helen Keller

Have courage for the great sorrows in life, and patience for the small ones. And when you have laboriously accomplished your daily tasks, go to sleep in peace, God is awake.
- Victor Hugo

~~~~~~~~

ANTICIPATION: Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
- Benjamin Franklin

~~~~~~~~

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
- Isaac Newton

~~~~~~~~

Outstanding leaders appeal to the hearts of their followers - not their minds.
- Unknown

~~~~~~~~

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Thomas Edison

~~~~~~~~

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

~~~~~~~~

Truth fears no trial.
- Proverb

~~~~~~~~

If there is anything I would like to be remembered for it is that I helped people understand that leadership is helping other people grow and succeed. To repeat myself, leadership is not just about you. It's about them.
- Jack Welch

~~~~~~~~

Yesterday is a cancelled check; Tomorrow is a promissory note; Today is the only cash you have, so spend it wisely.
- Kim Lyons

~~~~~~~~

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living, the other helps you make a life.
- Sandra Carey

~~~~~~~~

Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.
- Anonymous

~~~~~~~~

If you take too long in deciding what to do with your life, you’ll find you’ve done it.
- George B. Shaw, 1856 – 1950

~~~~~~~~

How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money. Money mistakes can be corrected, but time is gone forever.
- David Norris

~~~~~~~~

Never let a problem to be solved ecome more important than a person to be loved.
- Barbara Johnson

~~~~~~~~

Character cannot be developed in ase and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened; vision cleared; ambition inspired, and success achieved.
- Helen Keller

~~~~~~~~

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies, for the hardest victory is victory over self.
- Aristotle

~~~~~~~~

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon - instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.
- Dale Carnegie

~~~~~~~~

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
- T.S. Eliot

~~~~~~~~

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

~~~~~~~~

Genius is seldom recognized for what it is: a great capacity for hard work.
- Henry Ford, 1863 – 1947

~~~~~~~~

Success is your dreams with work clothes on…
- unknown

~~~~~~~~

The purpose of life is a life of purpose
- Robert Byrne

~~~~~~~~

Reputation is what people think you are. Character is who you really are. Take care of your character and your reputation will take care of itself.
- (On an American plaque)

~~~~~~~~

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

~~~~~~~~

Most look up and admire the stars. A champion climbs a mountain and grabs one.
- Unknown

~~~~~~~~

The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.
- Richard Bach

~~~~~~~~

The secret of success is to do the common things uncommonly well.
- John D. Rockefeller

~~~~~~~~

Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.
- Tim Notke

~~~~~~~~

Success is a journey, not a destination.
- Ralph Arbitelle

~~~~~~~~

The middle of every successful project looks like a disaster.
- Rosabeth Moss Cantor

~~~~~~~~

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
- Helen Keller

~~~~~~~~

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
- Roosevelt

~~~~~~~~

Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.
- John Maxwell

~~~~~~~~

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.
- Beverly Sills

~~~~~~~~

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.
- Ronald E. Osborn

~~~~~~~~

If you aren't making any mistakes, it's a sure sign you're playing it too safe.
- John Maxwell

~~~~~~~~

If you have the will to win, you have achieved half your success; if you don't, you have achieved half your failure.
- David Ambrose

~~~~~~~~

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are countless ways of achieving greatness, but any road to achieving one's maximum potential must be built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity.
- Buck Rodgers

~~~~~~~

The freedom to do your best means nothing unless you are willing to do your best.
- Colin Powell

~~~~~~~

He that would govern others, first should be the master of himself.
- Philip Massinger

~~~~~~~

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it; Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

~~~~~~~

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

~~~~~~~

Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.
- Mother Teresa

~~~~~~~

A good laugh is sunshine in a house.
- William Makepeace Thackeray

~~~~~~~

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
- Harry S Truman

~~~~~~~

Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at the top.
-J.C. Penny

~~~~~~~

Success is not measured by what a man accomplishes, but by the opposition he has encountered and the courage with which he has maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.
- Charles Lindbergh

~~~~~~~

To bring one's self to a frame of mind and to the proper energy to accomplish things that require plain hard work continuously is the one big battle that everyone has. When this battle is won for all time, then everything is easy.
- Thomas A. Buckner

~~~~~~~

Nothing ever comes to one that is worth having except as a result of hard work.
- Booker T. Washington

~~~~~~~

Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right; decide on what you think is right and stick to it.
- George Eliot

~~~~~~~

You must do the very thing you think you cannot do.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

~~~~~~~

A competitive world has two possibilities for you: you can lose or, if you want to win, you can change.
- Lester C. Thurow

~~~~~~~

True success is obeying God.
- John Maxwell

~~~~~~~

Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?
- Frank Scully

~~~~~~~

There are three ways to get something done: Do it yourself, employ someone or forbid your children to do it.
- Monta Crane

~~~~~~~

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.
- Booker T. Washington

~~~~~~~

All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
- James Russell Lowell

~~~~~~~

I cannot give you a formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: try to please everybody.
- Mr. Herbert Bayard Swope

~~~~~~~

The secret of success is consistency of purpose.
- Benjamin Disraeli

~~~~~~~

Doing little things with a strong desire to please God makes them really great.
- St. Francis De Sales

~~~~~~~

Sometimes our best is simply not enough.... We have to do what is required.
- Sir Winston Churchill

~~~~~~~

And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
- Abraham Lincoln

~~~~~~~

Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.
- John Wooden

~~~~~~~

The more extensive a man's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.
- Benjamin Disraeli

~~~~~~~

Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility... in the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have... is the ability to take on responsibility.
- Michael Korda

~~~~~~~

What we do on some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are; and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline.
- HP Liddon

~~~~~~~

Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility... in the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have... is the ability to take on responsibility.
- Michael Korda

~~~~~~~

What we do on some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are; and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline.
- HP Liddon

~~~~~~~

I used to sit on the banks with a raft and watch the water roll lazily by. One day I pushed my raft into the shallows of the water and found the water moved swifter than I thought. My raft was actually a boat. Then, after some time, I rowed my little boat into deeper water. There were great storms, mighty winds, tremendous waves, and sometimes I felt so alone. But I have noticed my little rowboat is now a mighty ship manned by my friends and loved ones; and beautiful calm seas, warm sunny days, and nights filled with comfortable dreams always double after a storm. Now, I could never go back and sit on the bank. In fact, I search for deeper water. Such is life when lived.
- B. D. Gulledge

~~~~~~~

The most extraordinary thing about the oyster is this. Irritations get into the shell... And when he cannot get rid of them, he uses the irritations to do the loveliest thing an oyster ever has the chance to do. If there are irritations in our lives today, there is only one prescription: make a pearl - And it takes faith and love to do it.
- Harry Emerson Fosdick

~~~~~~~

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt

~~~~~~~~~~

GOALS
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true
and important principle of life
that the most likely way to reach a goal
is to be aiming not at that goal itself
but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
- Arnold Toynbee

~~~~~~~~~~

CURIOSITY
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
One cannot help but be in awe
when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity,
of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.
It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend
a little of this mystery every day.
Never lose a holy curiosity.
- Albert Einstein

~~~~~~~~~~

DEDICATION
The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.
- Cecil B. DeMille

~~~~~~~~~~

HONOR
The most important thing is to be whatever you are without shame.
- Rod Steiger

~~~~~~~~~~

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

~~~~~~~~~~

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
- Plato

~~~~~~~~~~

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome.
- Samuel Johnson

~~~~~~~~~~

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
- Helen Keller

~~~~~~~~~~

Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked, and never mended well.
- Benjamin Franklin

~~~~~~~~~~

He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.
- Henry Ward Beecher

~~~~~~~~~~

Your goal should be out of reach but not out of sight.
- Anita DeFrantz

~~~~~~~~~~

Doing the best at this moment
puts you in the best place
for the next moment.
- Oprah Winfrey

~~~~~~~~~~

It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.
- Benjamin Franklin

~~~~~~~~~~

The price of greatness is responsibility.
- Winston Churchill

~~~~~~~~~~

Happiness is giving back a little more than you received. Peace is accepting what has been offered with thanks.
- Ralph Arbitelle

~~~~~~~~~~

It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.
- Roy Disney

~~~~~~~~~~

It is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is from the top.
- Arnold Bennett

~~~~~~~~~~

The last, if not the greatest, of the human freedoms: to choose their own attitude in any given circumstance.
- Bruno Bettelheim

~~~~~~~~~~

None of the secrets of success will work unless you do
. - Unknown

~~~~~~~~~~

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.
- Paul Boese

~~~~~~~~~~

Life is a great big canvas and you should throw all the paint on it that you can.
- Danny Kaye

~~~~~~~~~~

A life isn’t significant except for its impact on other lives.
- Jackie Robinson

~~~~~~~~~~

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind in other people the convictions and the will to carry on.
- Walter Lippmann

~~~~~~~~~~

You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.
- John Bunyan

~~~~~~~~~~

There is one who scatters, yet increases more; And there is one who withholds more than is right, But it leads to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich,
And he who waters will also be watered himself.
- Proverbs 11:24,25

~~~~~~~~~~

A leader is one who see more than others see, who sees farther than others see,
And who sees before others see.
- Leroy Eims

~~~~~~~~~~

You shouldn’t gloat about anything you’ve done; You ought to keep going and try to find something better to do.
- David Packard

~~~~~~~~~~

Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.
- James Baldwin

~~~~~~~~~~

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.
- Samuel Johnson

~~~~~~~~~~

There is a price to pray to grow. Commitment is the price.
- Ed Cole

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference.
- Tom Brokaw

~~~~~~~~~~

Many persons have the wrong idea of what constitutes happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
- Helen Keller

~~~~~~~~~~

The man who keeps busy helping the man below him won’t have time to envy the man above him.
- Henrietta Mears

Ranjan Lakhanpal

He Lost His Father And Son To Excesses Of The State. But This Human Rights Activist Is Still...

Had such tragedies happened to any other man, he would have been broken, perhaps irreparably. But not human rights activist and lawyer Ranjan Lakhanpal, who lost both his father and son to excesses of the state.

“But those two incidents only prodded me to fight harder against the dispossessed, the weak and the vulnerable,” said the 52-year-old who’s taken up more than 10,000 cases of human rights abuses. "I know the pain of a sufferer."

Tears still fill Lakhanpal’s eyes as he talks about the death of his father and, much later, his son. “My father, an advocate like me, was arrested under Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) because he raised his voice against imposition of Emergency and arbitrary arrests being made at that time,” he said, going back in time. “He died in jail."

What happened years later was worse. “My son, just 10, was killed by the police because I was fighting cases against them. They had earlier threatened me repeatedly, but I took no note. When I didn’t agree, they did this to put pressure on me,” said the man who’s now a rallying point for those taking up rights issues.

The legal eagle, who started his practice in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 1980, has been instrumental in freeing 250 Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails. Not that he’s spared Pakistan. “I filed a petition in the Pakistan Supreme Court for violating the human rights of Lieutenant Sourabh Kalia and five other Indian soldiers who died during Kargil war. This was the first case to be filed by an Indian in Pakistan,” added Lakhanpal, who’s been crying hoarse about Bhikiwind’s Sarabjit Singh, awaiting execution in the Kot Lakhpat jail across the border.

Not one to back out from a tough, and often dangerous fight, the lawyer was one of the first ones to leap up to defend the accused in the infamous Jammu and Kashmir sex scandal. “Everyone needs a fair hearing,” is his simple argument against all charges, including that of treason.

So what’s been his best battle? He remembers the touching case of POK resident Shenaz Praveen Kausar and her India-born daughter Mobin. In a suicide bid, Kausar had jumped into the Jhelum in POK but survived and reached the other side of the river in India. She was immediately arrested and was later raped in jail. Kausar then delivered Mobin. But that was just one part of her unfortunate story. The Pakistan government agreed to take Kausar back but refused Mobin entry, saying she is Indian.

Lakhanpal filed a PIL in Jammu and Kashmir High Court for their release and adequate compensation. The court ordered cops to release Kausar and Mobin. It also granted Rs 3 lakh to them. After the matter got highlighted at the international level, Pakistan government too took back both Kausar and her daughter.

“This case is close to my heart because I helped a woman and her child who were totally helpless in a foreign land,” said Lakhanpal who sees Mother Teresaas his guiding light.

Satyendra Kumar Dubey

Satyendra Kumar Dubey (1973 - 2003) was project director at the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). He was assassinated in Gaya, Bihar for fighting corruption in the Golden Quadrilateral highway construction project.

Early life
Satyendra K. Dubey, the son of Bageshwari Dubey and Phulamati Devi, was born at the village of Shahpur in the Sewan district of Bihar, India. The family of five girls and two boys subsisted on a small piece of land, and Bageshwari also held a low-paying clerical position in a nearby sugar mill.

Until the age of 15 he studied at the Gang Baksh Kannaudi High School and joined junior college at Allahabad, about three hundred kilometers away. Living away from home was a considerable drain on the meager resources of his family. However, he pursued his dream of becoming an engineer, and was admitted to the Civil Engineering Department of IIT Kanpur in 1990, the first person from his village to achieve this feat.

He graduated with an excellent academic record in 1994. He graduated with an M. Tech (Civil Engineering) degree from IT-BHU in 1996.

Exposing Corruption
During planning,designing and execution of the project he found deficiency and corruption in every stage. He termed the project as "Great Loot Of Public Money" in the subject of confidential letter addressed to then Prime Minister.

{A dream project of unparalleled importance to the Nation but in reality a great loot of public money because of very poor implementation at every state.}

The GQ project had strict controls to ensure that the construction work would be carried on by experienced firms with proper systems. A second independent contract was given for supervision of the project. However, Dubey discovered that the contracted firm had been quietly subcontracting the actual work to smaller low-technology groups, controlled by the local mafia. When he wrote to his boss, NHAI Project Director SK Soni, and to Brig Satish Kapoor, engineer overlooking the supervision, there was no action.

According to the case file after his murder (FIR), Dubey had been facing several threats following his action against corruption at Koderma. A subsequent FIR filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) named both Soni and Kapoor.

In August 2003 when he was transferred to Gaya, a transfer which he opposed since he felt that it did not serve the interests of NHAI.

At Gaya, he exposed large-scale flouting of NHAI rules regarding sub-contracting and quality control. At this time he took a departmental test and was promoted as deputy general manager, which made him eligible to take charge as project director. Since there was no project director's post in Gaya, he was likely to be posted to Koderma soon.

There was widespread sentiment (based on their pattern of operation), that the criminal nexus, opposed to having him as director, may have been behind his murder.

Letter to the Prime Minister
Meanwhile, faced with the possibility of high-level corruption within the NHAI, Dubey wrote directly to the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, detailing the financial and contractual irregularities in the project. While the letter was not signed, he attached a separate bio-data so that the matter would be taken more seriously. Despite a direct request that his identity be kept secret and its sensitive content that pointed fingers at some of his superiors, the letter along with bio-data was forwarded immediately to the Ministry for Road Transport. Dubey also sent the same letter to the Chairman, NHAI.

Soon Dubey received a reprimand: the vigilance office of NHAI officially "cautioned" Dubey for the impropriety of writing a letter directly to the Prime minister. In the process, through connections in the NHAI and the Ministry, it is likely that the letter may have reached the criminal nexus running the highway construction projects in Bihar.

Following the event, pressure is mounting in India to incorporate a Whistleblower Law.

Contents of the Letter
The letter said the NHAI officials showed a great hurry in giving mobilisation advance to selected contractors for financial consideration. "In some cases the contractors have been given mobilisation advance just a day after signing the contract agreement."

"The entire mobilisation advance of 10 per cent of contract value, which goes up to Rs 40 crore (USD 10 million) in certain cases, are paid to contractors within a few weeks of award of work but there is little follow up to ensure that they are actually mobilised at the site with the same pace, and the result is that the advance remains lying with contractors or gets diverted to their other activities," it said.

Dubey also highlighted the problems of sub-contracting by the primary contractors.

[But in reality, they are getting most of the work done through numerous small petty contractors (main contractors are supplying only a few critical equipment & materials) at 50-60 per cent of the price quoted by them and the rest 40 per cent of contract price is being pocketed by them without much effort. In the process, the main contractors are working just like commission agents.] – Letter of S.K. Dubey addressed to Prime Minister Of India.

"Though the NHAI is going for international competitive bidding to procure the most competent civil contractors for execution of its projects, when it comes to actual execution, it is found that most of the works, sometimes even up to 100 per cent are subcontracted to petty contractors incapable of executing such big projects," he said. Everyone in the NHAI is aware of the phenomenon of subcontracting but turned the other way.

"I have written all these in my individual capacity. However, I will keep on addressing these issues in my official capacity in the limited domain within the powers delegated to me," the letter said.

Assassination
On November 27, 2003, Dubey was returning from a wedding in Varanasi, and called his driver to meet him at the station. He reached Gaya railway station at three in the morning, and found that the his car was not able to come because of a battery malfunction.

It appears that at this point Dubey decided to take a rickshaw home. When he didn’t reach home, his driver went to look for him and found him dead by the side of the road in the suburb of A.P. Colony. He had been shot.

The news ignited tremendous public hue and cry. The matter was raised in Parliament, and the Prime Minister shifted the onus of investigation from the Bihar Police (who might themselves be implicated), to the CBI.

A foundation, SK Dubey foundation, was set up to fight corruption in India.

The CBI registered a case against unknown persons under 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 302 (murder) of Indian Penal Code and various provision under Arms Act on December 14 2003.

The Investigation
In early investigations, the CBI interrogated the rickshaw puller Pradeep Kumar who was caught using Dubey's stolen cell phone. The mobile phone was switched off for about a fortnight after the murder, but then Kumar called his 'second wife' in Kolkata, following which the CBI traced the rickshaw puller to his slum in Gaya. Although Kumar had a criminal history in similar cases of robbery, it appears he was released after interrogation, and could not be traced a month later.

Two other suspects, Sheonath Sah and Mukendra Paswan, were questioned by the CBI. They were found dead from poisoning on February 1, 2004, within within 25 hours of the CBI questioning. Sah's father lodged an FIR against the CBI with the Bihar Police, but CBI Director Umashanker Mishra called their deaths a suicide in a press meeting a few days later.

The CBI concluded its investigations and four persons were charge-sheeted on September 3, 2004. Based on testimony by Pradeep Kumar, who was his rickshaw puller, the event was presented as an attempted robbery. Because Satyendra put up a fight about giving up his briefcase, he was shot.

The person accused of actually shooting Dubey with a country-made pistol was Mantu Kumar, son of Lachhu Singh, of Village Katari, Gaya district. Accomplices with him included Uday Kumar, Pinku Ravidas and Shravan Kumar.

Murderer Escapes
On September 19, 2005, while the case was being heard in Patna, Bihar in the court of Addl. Session Judge, J M Sharma, Mantu Kumar escaped from the court premises, leading to widespread allegations of police complicity. While Mantu was being held at the high security Beur Jail, the invigilation can be lax during such court appearances, and it is a common tactic of the mafia to organize a few policemen to make it possible for the criminal to escape.

It was felt that the escape was engineered by higher-ups who may have executed the murder through Mantu Kumar.

The CBI announced a cash reward of Rs. 1 Lakh for apprehending Mantu.

A month later, Mantu Kumar was arrested from near his home in Panchayatee Akhada in Gaya. He had apparently been living in Gaya town and working as a rickshawpuller.

Who ordered the murder
Now, it is quite possible that Dubey may have been the victim of a simple robbery during which Mantu Kumar shot him, as alleged in the case filed by CBI. However, given the death and disappearance of several witnesses and the startling escape of the prime accused, there is wide-spread speculation that vested interests may have engaged the criminals who actually pulled the trigger.

As for the GQ project, the Supreme Court is currently overlooking investigations into the corruption charges initially raised by the Dubey letter. Several official have been indited and a technical team is overseeing the actual construction.

Also, as of September 2005, news reports indicated that the law ministry was about to introduce legislation to protect whistleblowers.

Meanwhile, on February 10, 2006, a 600 meter stretch of the highway connecting Kolkata to Chennai subsided into the ground, opening up ten meter gorges near Bally, West Bengal 2. This stretch had been completed a year back by a multinational firm, selected after global tendering.


Fighting Corruption
It is a testimony to fickleness of public memory that there was little hue and cry about Mantu Kumar's escape. Fortunately he was re-arrested.
However, even if it establishes these men as the actual perpetrators of the murder, the motives for the murder remain to be clarified...

However, the fight against corruption in India continues. Unfortunately it continues to claim lives.

A kindred spirit of Dubey, Manjunath Shanmugam, was a graduate of the prestigious IIM Lucknow, 2003 batch. Manju was working as a Sales Manager with Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL), and refused bribes and ignored threats in his drive to check rampant adulteration of petrol in the pumps owned by the erstwhile monopoly Indianoil. On November 19, 2005, he was shot dead in Lakhimpur Kheri, allegedly by a petrol pump owner and his gang.

Legacy
Dubey's murder drew several protests in India and abroad, especially by the media. Student and Alumni bodies of IITs took the lead in raising this issue. S. K. Dubey Foundation for Fight Against Corruption in India was launched to systematically fight against corruption. IIT Kanpur instituted an annual award in his name, Satyendra K Dubey Memorial Award, to be given to an IIT alumnus for displaying highest professional integrity in upholding human values. Arvind Kejriwal, a recipient of this award, went on to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award as well. Indian Express had also announced a fellowship in the name of Dubey.

Satyendra Dubey was recognised posthumously by several awards, which included the Whistleblower of the year award from the London-based Index on Censorship, the Transparency International's Annual integrity award and the Service Excellence award from the All India Management Association.

Brave through the bad times

I learnt: to stretch a shoestring budget to the max, the importance of a satisfied customer, value of a good team, and the fact that starting a company is no joke.’

Approximately one-third of employees in Indian software companies today are women. An increasing number of women enter professional engineering streams such as computer sciences and electronics. With the demand for technical professionals remaining strong in IT (information technology) industry, women will remain valued employees. “But the glass ceiling does exist at the senior management levels,” says Nita Goyal, co-founder and VP of Tavant Technologies.

She should know, as ‘the first woman to have obtained a computer science (CS) degree from any of the Indian Institutes of Technology’, a PhD from Stanford University in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), and a successful entrepreneur.

Goyal is, however, hopeful of better times for women. “I see a change with Indian companies that are beginning to create a better eco-system that supports women at work in terms of availability of quality childcare, creating women forums that allow for mentoring, flexi-time, rehiring, work from home etc,” she says, responding over email to questions from eWorld.

Excerpts from the interview:

How has your journey been thus far, beginning from IIT?

I went from being a student in IIT Kanpur to being a PhD student in CS at Stanford University. Stanford was a humbling and inspiring place where one got to learn with and from the best in the world. After graduating from Stanford I joined Hewlett-Packard (HP) Labs and learned how to apply research skills to real-world problems. The technology developed by our group at HP was spun off as a start-up. This was my first experience as an entrepreneur — participating in everything from finding an office to developing technology and leading an offshore team. By 2000, the start-up fever hit again and Tavant was started. The journey beginning from IIT-K has been exhilarating. I have done research in academia and industry, lived the Silicon Valley experience of starting companies and seen a company grow from five to 1,000-plus employees.

How did your research in artificial intelligence find relevance in your subsequent work?

The PhD had led to my first start-up, Exemplary, as a spinout of my research. Soon after I left Exemplary, I got involved in discussing ideas with a group of executives who had been part of Junglee and we started Tavant in 2000. The key appeal of Tavant was the quality of the team that had come together — people from banking, Internet, enterprise software, consulting, research — who all worked well together. The AI PhD also came in handy in putting together Tavant’s mortgage pricing and optimisation solutions for our financial customers.

You have co-founded two companies. Did being a woman pose any difficulties?

Strangely enough, I never thought about it. Not that it was a piece of cake being one of the few women in a sea of men, but I never let that bother me. And I always found many friends and mentors, a large number of men and women who helped navigate this sea. Focusing on the work at hand rather than the gender has helped me.

Who is the person you most admire?

My mother. I learnt to balance my family, career, and other interests from her. She also taught me to strive and overcome gender barriers.

How do you balance your different roles?

Prioritisation and time management.

What is your advice to wannabe IT professionals among women?

Be yourself, know your strengths and weaknesses, enjoy the labour of work with professionalism, and value yourself as a contributor to society.

On your greatest challenge…

In early-2001, with the down-cycle in the market, Tavant had trouble raising finance and we had a big first customer to deliver to. It ultimately turned out well; the customer was happy and eventually became an investor too. I learnt: to stretch a shoestring budget to the max, the importance of a satisfied customer, value of a good team, and the fact that starting a company is no joke — no one should do it unless they are willing to put in the commitment and hard work needed to see it through the bad times that are almost inevitable in any business.

Does a corporate stint help when launching a start-up?

Yes and no. Just out of school, it is hard to appreciate how markets work and how companies function. Corporate experience definitely helps in that regard. But energy, enthusiasm, fresh ideas, no fear of failure are more important and it is not necessary to spend time in the corporate world for that. Microsoft, Yahoo, Google are outstanding examples of companies sarted by people with not much corporate experience. On the other hand, the combined corporate experience of the initial team at Tavant was a key success factor.

In promoting entrepreneurial spirit, how crucial is a culture that gives space for ‘failure’?

Failure is a critical part of entrepreneurship. For every Google that succeeds, there are hundreds of companies that fail. Often failures teach us more than successes. When failure becomes socially acceptable, innovation blossoms, as people are more willing to risk the unknown. In India, failure is not tolerated quite so well. But I believe there is change afoot, and young people are increasingly comfortable with risk and failure and there are more start-ups now than even a couple of years ago.

Should entrepreneurs be trend-oriented?

Trends are interesting because they capture some market belief and usually either offer new problems to be solved or new ways to solve old problems. However, blind pursuit of trends is what led to the dotcom bust in 2000. Question is not whether a business is following a trend but rather what is the value being created by the company. For example, the Internet has fundamentally changed the way many businesses are done and several large companies have been built on this realisation.

Are current times tough for entrepreneurs in India?
Entrepreneurship is a challenge anytime, anywhere. The Indian economy at the moment provides opportunities in almost every sector, but being an entrepreneur is never easy. However, entrepreneurship has many rewards, such as a sense of personal satisfaction and the thrill of seeing your vision become reality.

It is a myth that the challenge for new entrepreneurs is lack of finance. Actually, the biggest challenge is identifying your customer and the value you can provide them. Further, you need hard work and the ability to stand your ground against overwhelming odds. Of course, you do need money to get started, a team that believes in the idea, and people who are willing to support and guide you - especially your family.

Is the entrepreneurial spirit healthy in India?
The entrepreneurial community is not only vibrant but growing significantly across all sectors. Not only are more people, senior and junior, starting and joining young companies, a lot of venture capital is available to finance them. India does throw up particular barriers for entrepreneurs - poor infrastructure and insufficient ecosystem to support entrepreneurs (mentors, risk-averse family members, inadequate talent). Incubators would help in addressing many of these issues. That said, most of the lessons of entrepreneurship are equally applicable in India. There are numerous forums that promote the understanding of these lessons by enabling India's upcoming entrepreneurs to meet with other successful entrepreneurs and investors. These forums include The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN).

How far can education be tailored to foster entrepreneurship?
Business schools today are incorporating entrepreneurship as part of their programme program. This is a welcome trend but needs to be supplemented with practical experience. Experience of entrepreneurship offers its own education that cannot be replaced by any classroom. Entrepreneurship requires one to wear multiple hats, think on the feet, act with incomplete information (intuition) and learn from failure. Having the flexibility of taking a break from the academic programme program can also be useful. Many US universities allow for it and Silicon Valley is full of entrepreneurs who mixed education with entrepreneurship successfully.

What motivates an entrepreneur?

Since the 1990s, there has been a phenomenal growth in the number of high-tech enterprises started in India.

To understand the reasons behind this phenomenon, Subodh Bhat and Richard McCline of San Francisco State University studied the motivations, resources, networks, attitudes and behaviours of these new entrepreneurs with both in-depth interviews with a dozen entrepreneurs and a survey that netted 33 usable responses.

What was the sample like? An overwhelming majority (93 per cent) was male, with close to two-thirds in the 26- to 39-year range. A quarter had just undergraduate degrees, while 69 per cent had master's degrees.

More than 63 per cent of the respondents' businesses had been in existence for three to six years and the median annual revenue of the businesses was Rs 1.5 crore (Rs 15 million) with 85 per cent having annual revenues of Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) or below.

The median number of employees was 15, with 84 per cent having less than 100 employees. Parents or close relatives of 28 per cent of the respondents owned their own businesses and the average number of people whom the respondents could call for help was 10.

The respondents had been employed for five to eight years before starting their first business. They were members of an average of three business or professional association and attended five seminars and trade fairs every year.

Entrepreneur motivation

The respondent entrepreneurs were motivated primarily by the desire to create something new, the desire for autonomy, wealth and financial independence, the achievement of personal objectives and the propensity for action ('doing').

The excitement of entrepreneurship was another major motivator -- this was nicely captured by one comment: "We are not sure what's coming down the curve but it is a thrill." Importantly, most entrepreneurs stressed that the objective was never money for its own sake.

They wanted to leave a legacy in the form of a profitable long-lasting business.

The driving force: what motivates Indian entrepreneurs
Motivator	% mentioning
Rewards of entrepreneurship
Autonomy	57
Making money/financial independence	43
Saw business opportunity/impact on industry	27
Recognition of self and/or organisation	23
Desire to create something new/innovate	20
Build something important/make a difference	17
Grow a business from scratch	17
Desire to be entrepreneur/excitement of entrepreneurship	3
Personal qualities
Intellectual challenge/achieve potential	27
Instinct	10
Others	10
Career
Career growth/diversification/satisfaction	13
Others	3
Experience
Utilise previous experience	6
Had technology/industry vision	3
Non-monetary factors
Help India in various ways	23
Non-monetary success/personal satisfaction	7
Create value/jobs/wealth in society	3

Support systems

Indian entrepreneurs rely on friends and family for help in starting the business, with the quality of help from friends, former co-workers and university mates in the startup and management stages being rated the best.

Assistance in terms of manpower was mainly from former co-workers. Help in marketing and access to markets was mainly from friends, former co-workers and university mates.

Finance was obtained from relatives and friends but not from former co-workers. One surprise was that few in the sample received much in the way of technological help from others.

Only 16 per cent received help from a government institution and 41 per cent from consultants. Several interviewees lamented the lack of a visible venture capital presence in India.

Success attributions

The respondents rated their success in business as quite high on various measures. They also reported that their businesses were quite profitable with median percentage annual growth in revenues, customers, and profits in the past three years of 25, 20 and 13 respectively.

They judged their success not only on the basis of business barometers like revenues, profits, growth and business reputation and monetary rewards, but also on personal factors like satisfaction and goal-achievement.

Most entrepreneurs felt their success was tied to creating something new and durable ('create a world-class company based on intellectual property') and to leaving a legacy ('leaving an indelible mark on the sands of time').

A few viewed success as being able to prove themselves and several emphasised the importance of the contribution of their business to the nation.

The respondents attributed their success mainly to hard work and focus or drive. Other factors were technical knowledge/experience and access to resources.

Emotional or mental strength, resilience ('I can't be kept too down for too long'), perfectionism and patience were other frequently mentioned qualities.

Leadership skills, particularly communication skills and good employee management, were highlighted as contributors to success.

Several entrepreneurs suggested that professional bodies play a more active role in encouraging entrepreneurship and representing the high tech industry and in educating the government and others in India on issues facing entrepreneurs and the high-tech industry.

Such organisations can develop programs to help entrepreneurs translate concepts into reality and to create role models. Another recommendation is to have schools play a more active role in encouraging entrepreneurship as a career by among other things, establishing training programs.

Surprisingly, our respondents did not report much networking and did not view it as very crucial to success.

Lessons learnt

What were the lessons the respondents learnt in the entrepreneurial process?

Do whatever it takes, whatever is necessary

Retain strong customer focus

Invest for the long-term

Invest in quality

Be hands-on

Multi-tasking is important

The need for the ability to tolerate ambiguity

Share profits with employees

Government's relative univolvement in the high tech industry is a blessing

And what hampers the entrepreneurial process?

Financial struggle -- lack of money in the business as well as personally was the most cited negative factor

No government support -- however, a few entrepreneurs disagreed, saying that the government has been supportive and has given lots of concessions to the high tech industry

Dearth of sophisticated local investors and angel investors

Lack of a forum for discussing entrepreneurial issues

Difficulty in finding top-notch resources (for instance, recruiting from good schools)

Poor infrastructure

Corruption and bureaucracy

Ratan Tata - A true Indian entrepreneur

Ratan Tata has been in the news all the time and more so recently with the recent success they had in winning over Corus. What makes this man special? Is it the size of the businesses he oversees? It is the number of areas the TATA group has been able to diversify into? Is it the amount of value he's creating for his shareholders? What is the story about this man that makes him so special and likeable?

Ratan Naval Tata was born on the 28th of Dec 1937. In 1962 he graduated with a degree in Archietecture and Structural Engineering from Cornell University. He came back to India and was sent to work on the shop floor in Tata Steel for 3 yrs. How many of you remember a TV set called Nelco Blue Diamond? Nelco (National Radio and Electronics Company) was his next destination where he was made a Director.

Ratan completed a Management program in Harvard and around that time Emergency was imposed in India which led to a lockout of Nelco. From here Tata went to work in the textile business of the Tata's which had mixed results. The main reason for this was attributed to the labor problems in Bombay then under the astute leadership of Datta Samant, a strong trade union leader.

In 1991 Ratan Tata took over as group chairman of the TATA group and this period saw TATA consultancy services going public and the foray of TATA motors into the passenger car market. The TATA Indica was an ambitious project because no Indian company had designed cars before. The easiest way was to find a foreign partner and manufacture cars under a JV. Ratan chose to take the path that was never travelled.

TATA Indica was launched on Indian roads in 1998 and it met initially with a lot of criticism and was also plagued with defects and other running problems. But to the company's credits everything was sorted out in a short span of time and it's one of the best selling cars of the country today. This was followed by the supremely successful TATA Indigo which still sells like hot cakes. The TATA's are all set to launch a luxurious version of this car named Indigo XL.

Ratan also led TATA to Korea and acquired Daewoo motors heavy vehicles division. TATA Tea acquired Tetley. Tata Teleservices acquired Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) when the Government divested it's stakes in it. Corus was a tough bargain because CSN stepped in and upped the ante. But Ratan says they bought it for a price which was within what they had decided and it surely is a victory for the group.

Ratan Tata is know for his integrity in business and the values that he holds dear to him. An intensely private bachelor, he loves dogs, flying, electronics, technology and cars. Rumor has it that he drives a TATA Indica to work in Mumbai. His next big adventure according to him is to fly the F16 for which he's been invited. A big cheer for the man who makes India proud, who serves as a role model for countless indian and who strongly believes that corporates should give back something to the country.

This interview with Rajdeep Sardesai on CNN-IBN on being conferred the 'Indian of the year' is a must watch.

The World Is Flat- Thomas Freedman

OVER the past few years, the United States has been obsessed with the Middle East. The administration, the news media and the American people have all been focused almost exclusively on the region, and it has seemed that dealing with its problems would define the early decades of the 21st century. ''The war on terror is a struggle that will last for generations,'' Donald Rumsfeld is reported to have said to his associates after 9/11.

But could it be that we're focused on the wrong problem? The challenge of Islamic terrorism is real enough, but could it prove to be less durable than it once appeared? There are some signs to suggest this. The combined power of most governments of the world is proving to be a match for any terror group. In addition, several of the governments in the Middle East are inching toward modernizing and opening up their societies. This will be a long process but it is already draining some of the rage that undergirded Islamic extremism.

This doesn't mean that the Middle East will disappear off the map. Far from it. Terrorism remains a threat, and we will all continue to be fascinated by upheavals in Lebanon, events in Iran and reforms in Egypt. But ultimately these trends are unlikely to shape the world's future. The countries of the Middle East have been losers in the age of globalization, out of step in an age of free markets, free trade and democratic politics. The world's future -- the big picture -- is more likely to be shaped by the winners of this era. And if the United States thought it was difficult to deal with the losers, the winners present an even thornier set of challenges. This is the implication of the New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman's excellent new book, ''The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.''

The metaphor of a flat world, used by Friedman to describe the next phase of globalization, is ingenious. It came to him after hearing an Indian software executive explain how the world's economic playing field was being leveled. For a variety of reasons, what economists call ''barriers to entry'' are being destroyed; today an individual or company anywhere can collaborate or compete globally. Bill Gates explains the meaning of this transformation best. Thirty years ago, he tells Friedman, if you had to choose between being born a genius in Mumbai or Shanghai and an average person in Poughkeepsie, you would have chosen Poughkeepsie because your chances of living a prosperous and fulfilled life were much greater there. ''Now,'' Gates says, ''I would rather be a genius born in China than an average guy born in Poughkeepsie.''

The book is done in Friedman's trademark style. You travel with him, meet his wife and kids, learn about his friends and sit in on his interviews. Some find this irritating. I think it works in making complicated ideas accessible. Another Indian entrepreneur, Jerry Rao, explained to Friedman why his accounting firm in Bangalore was able to prepare tax returns for Americans. (In 2005, an estimated 400,000 American I.R.S. returns were prepared in India.) ''Any activity where we can digitize and decompose the value chain, and move the work around, will get moved around. Some people will say, 'Yes, but you can't serve me a steak.' True, but I can take the reservation for your table sitting anywhere in the world,'' Rao says. He ended the interview by describing his next plan, which is to link up with an Israeli company that can transmit CAT scans via the Internet so that Americans can get a second opinion from an Indian or Israeli doctor, quickly and cheaply.

What created the flat world? Friedman stresses technological forces. Paradoxically, the dot-com bubble played a crucial role. Telecommunications companies like Global Crossing had hundreds of millions of dollars of cash -- given to them by gullible investors -- and they used it to pursue incredibly ambitious plans to ''wire the world,'' laying fiber-optic cable across the ocean floors, connecting Bangalore, Bangkok and Beijing to the advanced industrial countries. This excess supply of connectivity meant that the costs of phone calls, Internet connections and data transmission declined dramatically -- so dramatically that many of the companies that laid these cables went bankrupt. But the deed was done, the world was wired. Today it costs about as much to connect to Guangdong as it does New Jersey.

The next blow in this one-two punch was the dot-com bust. The stock market crash made companies everywhere cut spending. That meant they needed to look for ways to do what they were doing for less money. The solution: outsourcing. General Electric had led the way a decade earlier and by the late 1990's many large American companies were recognizing that Indian engineers could handle most technical jobs they needed done, at a tenth the cost. The preparations for Y2K, the millennium bug, gave a huge impetus to this shift since most Western companies needed armies of cheap software workers to recode their computers. Welcome to Bangalore.

A good bit of the book is taken up with a discussion of these technological forces and the way in which business has reacted and adapted to them. Friedman explains the importance of the development of ''work flow platforms,'' software that made it possible for all kinds of computer applications to connect and work together, which is what allowed seamless cooperation by people working anywhere. ''It is the creation of this platform, with these unique attributes, that is the truly important sustainable breakthrough that has made what you call the flattening of the world possible,'' Microsoft's chief technology officer, Craig J. Mundie, told Friedman.

Friedman has a flair for business reporting and finds amusing stories about Wal-Mart, UPS, Dell and JetBlue, among others, that relate to his basic theme. Did you know that when you order a burger at the drive-through McDonald's on Interstate 55 near Cape Girardeau, Mo., the person taking your order is at a call center 900 miles away in Colorado Springs? (He or she then zaps it back to that McDonald's and the order is ready a few minutes later as you drive around to the pickup window.) Or that when you call JetBlue for a reservation, you're talking to a housewife in Utah, who does the job part time? Or that when you ship your Toshiba laptop for repairs via UPS, it's actually UPS's guys in the ''funny brown shorts'' who do the fixing?

China and India loom large in Friedman's story because they are the two big countries benefiting most from the flat world. To take just one example, Wal-Mart alone last year imported $18 billion worth of goods from its 5,000 Chinese suppliers. (Friedman doesn't do the math, but this would mean that of Wal-Mart's 6,000 suppliers, 80 percent are in one country -- China.) The Indian case is less staggering and still mostly in services, though the trend is dramatically upward. But Friedman understands that China and India represent not just threats to the developed world, but also great opportunities. After all, the changes he is describing have the net effect of adding hundreds of millions of people -- consumers -- to the world economy. That is an unparalleled opportunity for every company and individual in the world.

Friedman quotes a Morgan Stanley study estimating that since the mid-1990's cheap imports from China have saved American consumers over $600 billion and probably saved American companies even more than that since they use Chinese-sourced parts in their production. And this is not all about cheap labor. Between 1995 and 2002, China's private sector has increased productivity at 17 percent annually -- a truly breathtaking pace.

Friedman describes his honest reaction to this new world while he's at one of India's great outsourcing companies, Infosys. He was standing, he says, ''at the gate observing this river of educated young people flowing in and out. . . . They all looked as if they had scored 1600 on their SAT's. . . . My mind just kept telling me, 'Ricardo is right, Ricardo is right.' . . . These Indian techies were doing what was their comparative advantage and then turning around and using their income to buy all the products from America that are our comparative advantage. . . . Both our countries would benefit. . . . But my eye kept . . . telling me something else: 'Oh, my God, there are just so many of them, and they all look so serious, so eager for work. And they just keep coming, wave after wave. How in the world can it possibly be good for my daughters and millions of other young Americans that these Indians can do the same jobs as they can for a fraction of the wages?' ''

He ends up, wisely, understanding that there's no way to stop the wave. You cannot switch off these forces except at great cost to your own economic well-being. Over the last century, those countries that tried to preserve their systems, jobs, culture or traditions by keeping the rest of the world out all stagnated. Those that opened themselves up to the world prospered. But that doesn't mean you can't do anything to prepare for this new competition and new world. Friedman spends a good chunk of the book outlining ways that America and Americans can place themselves in a position to do better.

People in advanced countries have to find ways to move up the value chain, to have special skills that create superior products for which they can charge extra. The UPS story is a classic example of this. Delivering goods doesn't have high margins, but repairing computers (and in effect managing a supply chain) does. In one of Friedman's classic anecdote-as-explanation shticks, he recounts that one of his best friends is an illustrator. The friend saw his business beginning to dry up as computers made routine illustrations easy to do, and he moved on to something new. He became an illustration consultant, helping clients conceive of what they want rather than simply executing a drawing. Friedman explains this in Friedman metaphors: the friend's work began as a chocolate sauce, was turned into a vanilla commodity, through upgraded skills became a special chocolate sauce again, and then had a cherry put on top. All clear?

Of course it won't be as easy as that, as Friedman knows. He points to the dramatic erosion of America's science and technology base, which has been masked in recent decades by another aspect of globalization. America now imports foreigners to do the scientific work that its citizens no longer want to do or even know how to do. Nearly one in five scientists and engineers in the United States is an immigrant, and 51 percent of doctorates in engineering go to foreigners. America's soaring health care costs are increasingly a burden in a global race, particularly since American industry is especially disadvantaged on this issue. An American carmaker pays about $6,000 per worker for health care. If it moves its factory up to Canada, where the government runs and pays for medical coverage, the company pays only $800. Most of Friedman's solutions to these kinds of problems are intelligent, neoliberal ways of using government in a market-friendly way to further the country's ability to compete in a flat world.

There are difficulties with the book. Once Friedman gets through explicating his main point, he throws in too many extras -- perhaps trying to make that chocolate sundae -- making the book seem slightly padded. The process of flattening that he is describing is in its infancy. India is still a poor third-world country, but if you read this book you would assume it is on the verge of becoming a global superstar. (Though as an Indian-American, I read Friedman and whisper the old Jewish saying, ''From your lips to God's ears.'') And while this book is not as powerful as Friedman's earlier ones -- it is, as the publisher notes, an ''update'' of ''The Lexus and the Olive Tree'' -- its fundamental insight is true and deeply important.

In explaining this insight and this new world, Friedman can sometimes sound like a technological determinist. And while he does acknowledge political factors, they get little space in the book, which gives it a lopsided feel. I would argue that one of the primary forces driving the flat world is actually the shifting attitudes and policies of governments around the world. From Brazil to South Africa to India, governments are becoming more market-friendly, accepting that the best way to cure poverty is to aim for high-growth policies. This change, more than any other, has unleashed the energy of the private sector. After all, India had hundreds of thousands of trained engineers in the 1970's, but they didn't produce growth. In the United States and Europe, deregulation policies spurred the competition that led to radical innovation. There is a chicken-and-egg problem, to be sure. Did government policies create the technological boom or vice versa? At least one can say that each furthered the other.

The largest political factor is, of course, the structure of global politics. The flat economic world has been created by an extremely unflat political world. The United States dominates the globe like no country since ancient Rome. It has been at the forefront, pushing for open markets, open trade and open politics. But the consequence of these policies will be to create a more nearly equal world, economically and politically. If China grows economically, at some point it will also gain political ambitions. If Brazil continues to surge, it will want to have a larger voice on the international stage. If India gains economic muscle, history suggests that it will also want the security of a stronger military. Friedman tells us that the economic relations between states will be a powerful deterrent to war, which is true if nations act sensibly. But as we have seen over the last three years, pride, honor and rage play a large part in global politics.

The ultimate challenge for America -- and for Americans -- is whether we are prepared for this flat world, economic and political. While hierarchies are being eroded and playing fields leveled as other countries and people rise in importance and ambition, are we conducting ourselves in a way that will succeed in this new atmosphere? Or will it turn out that, having globalized the world, the United States had forgotten to globalize itself?