An Analysis of the Recent Phenomenal Growth of the IT Sector in India 

I. Introduction

In 1993, Nidumolu and Goodman wrote an article, describing India, at that time, as an Asian elephant learning to dance in the IT industry ¹. But after only 13 years, maybe surprising to many people, the elephant has become a noticeable giant in this field.

The whole 1990s saw a great expansion of the India software sector at an average annual rate of over 40%. In 2005, the Indian IT – ITES industry continued to chart significant double-digit growth and is expected to exceed $36 billion in annual revenue in year 05-06, at a growth rate of nearly 28%.²

Today, India exports software and services to nearly 95 countries around the world. Exports in this field have become the dominate sector among India’s export industries. Total IT- ITES exports grew to $18.2 billion in year 04-05 and it is estimated that it will exceed $23.9 billion in year 05-06 ². This partly, has made India’s foreign stock of exchange earnings amongst the highest in the world, $139 billion in January 2006.

Meanwhile, China, often refereed to as the awakening dragon, has successfully become the world factory since 1978. In IT, after the shift of IT manufacturing from Taiwan to South China and the growth of a semi-conductor manufacturing center around Shanghai, China has evolved a manufacturing-based development pattern and now owns a most dynamic and powerful IT manufacturing sector. But when it comes to software industry, it is still infant and underdeveloped, with quite low exports sales. Thus there is still quite a long way for China’s software industry to go.

For me, being a future Chinese IT professional and more importantly, an ambitious potential Chinese IT leader in the near future, I feel great responsibility to examine the factors which promoted Indian software industry’s striking growth during the past decades and to find a way for the counterpart in China to catch up with India, based on the advantages we have already gained in manufacturing, in the coming 10 to 20 years. But due to the length limit of this paper, I will only cover the analysis of the development of India software sector and the challenges it faces.

II. Global Software Market and Recent Trends

From the perspective of demanding, the past three decades have seen a fierce growth of software and software service demanding all around the world. Annual growth in global software industry has been above 15% since the early 1990s and remains on a rising trend ³.

In recent years, the growing market opportunity in Offshore Product Development (OPD) services becomes substantial and currently 84 percent of companies worldwide are dependent on off shoring. Although India only entered the outsourcing market after 1999, it is now viewed as the most ideal BPO destination in the world and commands 83 percent market share in OPD ⁴. “India’s massive potential in the OPD space is attributed to the best mix of elements it offers to software companies in terms of skill-sets, return on investments, product quality and flexibility,” says Anand Deshpande, Chairman and Managing Director, Persistent Systems, a leading player in the OPD space ⁵. In the long run, outsourcing will continue to be a primary growth engine for software industry with further globalization.

III. IT Superpower, How and Why India

India software industry nowadays is widely acknowledged not only by its low cost which is becoming diminishing, but also, more importantly, by its high quality and flexibility. A McKinsey study comparing India with its various competitors indicated that India keeps ahead in terms high quality and low cost. Countries like Israel and Singapore are in high quality as well as in high cost while countries like China and Hungary are low in quality and low in cost too ⁶.

In reality, India software industry has successfully exploited the innovative global software market. In this part, I will examine the main factors which were important in booming India’s software industry as well as significant for future development.

1.      Government role and policy

The Government of India is committed to making India a global IT superpower and a front-runner in the age of the information revolution.

As part of the reform, Indian Government has taken steps to promote IT sectors ever since late 1980s with the focus on software development for export. In 1988 it announced the World Market Policy and the establishment of the Software Technology Parks of India (STP) scheme.

In May 1998, the Prime Minister of India formed a National Taskforce on Information Technology and Software Development to make India an IT superpower and one of the largest generators and exporters of software in the world within ten years ⁷.

In addition, the IT Act of 2000 which was based on the recommendation of the National IT Taskforce, aimed to set the overall strategy for the IT sector, and to provide a legal framework for the recognition of electronic contracts, prevention of computer crimes, electronic filing of documents, etc.⁸.

In the state level, during the last few years, 18 state governments have announced IT policies. These policies focus on the key issues of infrastructure, e-governance, IT education and providing a facilitating environment for increasing IT proliferation in the respective states. ⁹

However, even until 2000, India Government’s policy provides widely protection from transnational corporations and startups which restricted the growth of project management and domain skills. Ironically, as pointed out by Rafiq Dossani, a senior research scholar in Stanford University, the policy actually disfavored all types of firms but was least hostile to large, domestic firms. ¹⁰ I found this conclusion provided by Rafiq quite powerful in explaining why large domestic firms dominate the whole industry, at least at its early phase.

But it is still widely believed that India Government has identified and tried to harness the resources to encourage the industry.

2.      Human Resource and Education

India has the second largest population of the world and is home to a vast pool of talent comprising educated, English speaking, and computer professionals.

The country’s education system emphasizes a lot on mathematics and science which is beneficial to provide large number of science and engineering graduates to meet the requirement of international IT demand. Every year, approximately 19 million students are enrolled in high schools and 9.1 million students are enrolled for tertiary education. Moreover, 2.1 million graduates and 0.3 million postgraduates pass out of India’s non-engineering colleges. And it is estimated that, at current rates, there will approximately be 17 million people available to the IT industry by 2008 and till then IT sector is expected to be the India's largest employer, only following agriculture. ¹¹

Huge talent pool and low price index lead to low wages. The average salary for an Indian IT professional is somewhere around only one fourth of his fellow’s wage in the U.S, and a little lower than the ones in China. What’s more, Indian programmers are widely acknowledged for their strong technical skills and eagerness to satisfy clients’ requirements.

However, the huge human pool analyzed above are only responsible for the design, coding and implementing as well as testing, which are actually low in the value chain of the development of software. The most competitive part of today’s India is the qualified managing personnel and business expertise that now exists in the industry. With the experience dealing with clients all over the globe, many managers have developed good understanding of business practices in this domain and have acquired knowledge of the cultural context of the customer. These are essential for moving from low technical services to higher level.

In conclusion, it is true that China is ahead in terms of, say, physical infrastructure, but India has succeeded in creating its huge intellectual infrastructure which is the most precious and difficult to replicate.

3．Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), Cluster Effect

Software Technology Parks of India is a government agency, established and registered as an Autonomous Society under the Department of Information Technology in 1991. ¹² Its objective is to implement STP Scheme, and to provide and manage infrastructure facilities and services. It is described explicitly that the main thrust of STPI is to create a state-of-the-art infrastructure for providing a wide variety of value-added services that are needed for software development and export operations.

Poor infrastructure is quite an old topic when talking about investment in India. However it is not quite an obstacle when it comes to software industry.

As the core of India’s strategy to become the superpower in IT, STPIs all over the country are likely to provide space and infrastructure, utilizing the policy predominance and positive communications with different levels of authorities. They have become the linkages between India’s huge talent pool and global software market and boomed the development of the IT sector.

Working closely with respective State Government/local authorities, STPI has set-up following centers all over the country ¹³:

STPIs not only work as a resource center to provide software companies general infrastructure facilities like ready to use built-up space, centralized computing facility and High Speed Data Communication (HSDC) facilities, but also maintains engineering resources to provide project management and consultancy services. The whole STPI has successfully become systematic which makes it easy to invest and operate companies with STPIs ¹⁴:

STPI also provides an excellent network of schools and colleges, which produce brilliant young students. STPIs are usually built near universities, engineering colleges and management institutes, to fully exploit he large number of human resource.

Now more than 6,000 businesses are registered under the STPI umbrella, with 36% growth by value in 2005-06 exports over the previous year. What’s more, more than 3500 units registered under STPI umbrella are exporting and the export figure from STP units represents more than 85% of the national software exports. ¹⁵

Part II

http://koarthur.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!A32BC317782C7939!1731.entry

Cluster Effect in some STPIs has taken place like technology clusters like Silicon Valley, Ireland and Tokyo. Its creation is out of adequate infrastructure and the connections and economies of scale generated, which attract IT-enabled outsourcing providers the most. For example, Bangalore city region, which is called “Silicon Valley of India”, is now home to more that 250 world class high tech companies such as IBM, Texas Instruments, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Motorola, Cisco Systems, Novell, Sony, etc., including India’s home grown IT giants like Wipro, Infosys, TCS etc. Because of Govt. investor friendly incentives and attitude, Bangalore city region has grown as the 4th largest technology cluster in the world. ¹⁶

The cluster effect also leads to industry self-regulation and quality control because of the widely existed competitions among them. Many Indian software companies have been assessed at SEI CMM level 4 and 5, which are the first in the world to achieve this highest quality certification. Other companies may take certifications like TickIT and ISO 9000. As of December 2005, over 400 Indian companies had acquired quality certifications with 82 companies certified at SEI CMM Level 5 – higher than any other country in the world.¹⁷

To conclude, STPI, linking the government, industry, and large talent pool, has become a successful development model and helped to expand the IT industry greatly. What’s more, the model has been replicated by many countries, in the hope of emulating the Indian success story

IV. Problems and Challenges

For the problem and challenge part, I do not want to talk any more on infrastructure because as mentioned above, it is too old a topic. In addition, India is on its way to solve this problem and the development in software industry will greatly facilitate infrastructure construction. Thus it is not time for us Chinese to snigger any more on its poor infrastructure and wonder how the Indian IT professionals can go so far, but to look at it from a much comprehensive perspective

1.      Brain Drain

Although every year India fosters nearly 400,000 engineers, a NASSCOM study found that only one in four of them are employable. The rest may be deficient in required technical skills, lack of fluency in English or absence of enough teamwork capability. The shortage is out of limited university and related educational investment and low linkages between schools and commerce. But what I want to clarify is that this is an extensive problem that not only India but also many other countries encounter. From my personal experience, comparing to the education received in NUS, what I received in China seems quite ideal and theoretical and the case is not rare that a graduate need to take a rather long time to become a qualified employee after graduation. However, in India, higher education is still available only to a tiny slice of India’s young. No more than 10 percent of Indians ages 18 to 25 are enrolled in college, according to official figures. What’s more, at the base level, the male and female adult literacy rate respectively is only 68% and 45% in 1999 ¹⁸. Meanwhile, China, as a report on education in East and South Asia showed, alone accounts for 12 million of the 33 million students in tertiary education throughout the region, which is more than all of the countries of South and West Asia combined (11.3m). And the male and female adult literacy rate is 92% and 78% respectively.¹⁹Thus both basic and higher education are still big problems for India.

But what seems more serious for the industry now is the brain drain. It seems quite surprised to me that four of out every ten Indian software developers are now working in the U.S. while several of India’s small software companies have been forced to shut down—not for lack of business but because they couldn’t find enough employees.²⁰

However, current brain drain at the same time means huge quantity of highly skilled experts and engineers overseas. If they can be attracted back home, they can help to upgrade domestic industries and markets with the training and experience gained, by transferring up-to-date technology and market information and their entrepreneurship.

Thus it is quite a challenge, as well as an opportunity for India to create incentives for engineers and scientists to return to India, shifting the brain drain to brain circulation.

2. Limited Domestic Demand

India’s software industry is highly export oriented. In 04-05, export earnings accounted for 64 per cent of the total IT-ITES aggregate. And software and services exports (excluding hardware) are projected to grow at 32% in the current fiscal.²¹This, of course, is great triumph for the whole industry but we cannot simply ignore the role that domestic market plays.

The export part of software industry is sometimes low-level design, coding and some types of testing services. However for domestic clients, the industry need to provide a wider range of services that usually spans the entire lifecycle of software development which makes up the upper part of value chain and will help the industry to move from lower to higher value services. Cultivating and exploiting the domestic market, in the long run, are beneficial to the industry and the whole country’s economy. But the current India domestic demand is still quite limited and underdeveloped, so while most of the companies are looking forward to share more on the global market, one of the IT industry’s tasks may be further exploit the huge potential domestic one.

3. Challenges from Other Countries, Mainly China

China exceeds India in many areas except software industry. In quantitative measures, we are keeping ahead in geographic area, population, GNP, FDI, and hold a larger share of the world’s exports. However in software industry, Indian software exports far exceed those of China.

A recent McKinsey study of China's software outsourcing sector revealed that it will be many years before China poses a threat to its continental rival, India in this arena and it is widely believed that in IT service, India is far ahead China²². Comparing to India, software industry in China is still highly fragmented and what’s more, managers are inexperienced in M&A and do little to develop their employees and rarely use stock options, training programs or other incentives to build talent.

However, as far as I can see, the development of China’s software industry is only a problem of time. China's spectacular economic success and its hardware manufacturing is the most powerful growth engine and solid backbone for the software industry, making it not only limited in the domain of outsourcing.

The huge domestic demand provides good opportunities for us to start up and offers space for the industry to grow. The immensurable advantage in this part is that only Chinese programmers are the best-suited to deal with material written in Chinese and can better customize software for the heavily regulated but rapid growing Chinese market, including the software used by vast western companies in China.

Although still small scale now, there is a trend for the U.S. companies to turn to China for IT services. In addition, the vast supply of technology talents, that is, the largest number of science and engineering graduates in the world, will help to keep low wages and cost.

The government also plays an active role in stimulating China’s software industry.  Software parks have been already established all over the mainland and local authorities are also eager to provide anything they can to activate its development. What’s more, China's Ministry of Commerce are planning for a budget of at least 100 million yuan ($12.5 million) to set up 10 bases for service outsourcing over the coming three to five years, in the hope of attracting 100 MNCs to transfer some of their outsourcing businesses to China, of course, from India, as well as creating 1,000 large scale outsourcing enterprises.

To conclude, although there is still a long way for the Chinese to go, it is obvious that India are confronting with China’s pursue and is expected to be faced with its fierce competition in outsourcing, maybe not now, but at most within five to ten years. However, whether view China as a competitor or a collaborator in exploiting new market, both in and outside China, may be what the India IT professionals need to consider.

V. Conclusion

In conclusion, during the past three decades, IT has exploded in India, making India the dominate role in global outsourcing and offshoring market. India Government’s promotive policy and its huge and widely acknowledged human resource in software developing, as well as the STPIs, are all positive factors in facilitating the industry.

However, facing the problems of poor infrastructure facilities, brain drain, and limited domestic demand, as well as the competitions from other developing countries, it is still not time for the India government and firms to relax, based on the great achievements they have already gained, even for a moment. There is also quite a long way for them to go to further establish their predominance and move up the value chain.

Back to the initial problem of whether the growth in the IT sector in India is sustainable, based on the analysis above, I should argue that it is sustainable and will be more competitive if they can successfully handle the problems using the current predominance and value gained.

Finally, just a gentle reminder for the India software industry, given the rapid changes and development taking place in the Middle Kingdom, especially in IT industry, the awakening dragon is still following the elephant tightly, trying to capture it one day.

References:

1.         S.R. Nidumolu，S.E. Goodman，In Computing in India: An Asian Elephant Learning to Dance. PP1-3

2.          Indian IT Industry Fact Sheet: NASSCOM Analysis

3.          Simon Commander, 2005

What Explains the Growth of a Software Industry in Some Emerging Markets?

In The Software Industry in Emerging Markets

Cheltenham, UK ; Northhampton, MA, USA : E. Elgar Pub., 2005.

4.Sand Hill-Persistent Report On Software Offshoring

          Sand Hill and Persistent Systems

5.          Growing demand for offshoring services

Retrieved on 26^th Oct, 2006

http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20060612/market05.shtml

6.    The Software Industry in India: Opportunities and Challenges PP 4.

          Narayana Murthy

7.          Special Website for National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development

Retrieved on 28^th Oct, 2006 at http://it-taskforce.nic.in/index.html

8.          IT-ACT 2000-Department of Information Technology

Retrieved on 28^th Oct, 2006 at http://www.mit.gov.in/it-bill.asp

9.          Nagesh Kumar and K J Joseph

In National Innovation Systems and India’s IT Capability: Are there any lessons for ASEAN Newcomers? PP 6-10

10.      Rafiq Dossani, in Origins and Growth of the Software Industry in India. PP 2-5

Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6055

11.      Managing India's HR Environment 2006

Retrieved on 28^th Oct, 2006 http://www.mercerhr.com/knowledgecenter/reportsummary.jhtml/dynamic/idContent/1244935

12.      STPI - FACILITATOR FOR SOFTWARE EXPORTS

Retrieved on 29^th Oct, 2006 at http://lucknow.stpi.in/STPIFACILITATOR.aspx

13.      SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY PARKS OF INDIA.PP 1-5

Retrieved on 29^th Oct, 2006 at

www.dehradun.stpi.in/STPIBrochure%203%5B1%5D.2.2005.doc

14.      SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY PARKS OF INDIA

(An Autonomous Society under Department of Information Technology,

Government of India)Borjhar, Near Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi Inernational Airport, Guwahati – 781 015. PP 7

15.       SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY PARKS OF INDIA.PP 4-7

Retrieved on 29^th Oct, 2006 at

www.dehradun.stpi.in/STPIBrochure%203%5B1%5D.2.2005.doc

16.      Deepak Kr. Sareen

Innovation and IT in India (Bangalore Case Study) PP 15-17

National Expert Researcher

17.      Information Technology Annual Report, 05-06,

Department of IT, India.

18.       UNESCO Institute for Statistics

SOUTH AND EAST ASIA regional report,PP23

19.       India: At A Glance. United Nations Children's Fund.

Retrieved on Oct 29^th, 2006, at http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/india_statistics.html#5

20.       Sanjay Kapoor, “Subcontinental Drift” Asiaweek, Dec. 15, 2000.

21.       Indian IT Industry – Fact Sheet, NASSCOM, 2006 PP 2-5

22.       A McKinsey Study of China's Software Outsourcing Sector

The report is not free of charge so I can only find certain parts of the report from editorials and news.

''China to take years to challenge Indian IT'' retrieved on Oct 29^th, 2006 at http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/1554.asp provides much information on this report

What’s more, the U.S state governments usually pay a lot of attention on the legislation of this field. As early as 1998,

before the Giant-Elensys case happened, a lot of states had already had regulatory scheme on protections of health information. [4]

 And after the case, the name "Elensys" was routinely cited during Capitol Hill discussions about privacy. [5] On April 14, 2001, 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Privacy Rule which meant that, the privacy of medical information

 in the United States was protected by law.

Therefore, there existed risks that the program might have potential legal issues. This is the third disadvantage of such prescription 

compliance programs.

Secondly, the program should meet the required standards by HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) to control the flow of sensitive information. That is, the prescriptions and other medical record should be kept confidential under highly safeguarded conditions to protect patients’ privacy rights. Any other use of personal information must be under patients’ consent.

Thirdly, appropriate civil penalties or punishments can be taken if covered entities intentionally or unintentionally disclose or transmit information under false pretenses. This is to further protect patients’ right of their privacy.

Finally, the organization or companies can use the health information for commercial purposes, but only under the agreement of patients. And descriptions of how the individual can opt out of programs or activities must be provided. That is, if the program providers plan to use or disclose certain patient’s information for marketing or fundraising, they must obtain patient’s authorization.

Such measures above are quite necessary because we should avoid the occurrences of incidences of people's medical records being publicized, or reported, which may ruin people’s life. During the research of the case study, I found great amount of cases of unauthorized use of medical information. All these cases are warning us the importance of our own health records, even when they are kept under noncommercial organizations.

Equally important to notice are technological developments. The great improvements in efficiency of database systems, which greatly reduce the cost of possessing, purchasing, and transmitting data, can easily cause a considerable loss of privacy. I am quite surprised to find that, in 2000, the costs of fetching personal information were not even a great burden: $190 to uncover stock, bond, and mutual fund holdings; $450 to reveal a credit card number; between $80 and $200 to provide telephone records; $400 for access to 10 years' medical history, and between $10 and $20 to buy a divorce, death claim, or bankruptcy search ^[8]. Thus I do feel strongly that nowadays such stories are likely to happen outside Hollywood movies and it has become more and more important for us ordinary people to be aware of such severe facts.

In conclusion, it is never too cautious when considering issues related to one’s health information. And we can never sufficiently trust the pharmacy company and the compliance program provider before examine critically on their actions.

Question 3

Part a)

Going through carefully the websites of the three online pharmacies, I found that all of them put emphasis on and assure customers the security of their personal information and credit card or debit card information. They all indicate that the information are encrypted using SSL encryption technology to prevent them from being stolen or intercepted while being transferred before being sent over the Internet, and keep them safe from hackers.But when it comes to privacy issues, things differ. And from my observation, drugstore.com has a more comprehensive and more acceptable privacy policy.

Drugstore.com contains privacy notice on its home page and Pharmacy Notice of Privacy Practices required by HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) notice at its website ^[9]. It also has a VIPPS (Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites™ Seal) certification and is licensed by the TRUSTe Privacy Program.

Further, the privacy policy provided by drugstore.com ^[10] is the most concrete among the three online pharmacies. It specifies the kind of information collected from customers, information automatically collected during browsing the websites, and the possible situations of sharing information with third parties, as well as cookies and web beacons used.

Actually, it specifies all the possible third parties with which they may share the information with and under what situation will they share the data with a certain third party. The list of its third parties includes GNC, Rite Aid, FSA purchases, brand manufacturers, agents, and situations like business transfer, compliance with law; protection of rights, and so on. It also clarifies that “other than as set out above, you will receive notice when information about you might go to third parties, and you will have an opportunity to choose not to share the information”^[11].

Equally important to notice is the source of drugs. Drugstore.com indicates that it “serves as the on-line pharmacy for Rite Aid Corporation, a chain pharmacy with approximately 3,800 store locations throughout the United States” because it believes that the relationship allows it to provide better services to customers.

Durgstore.com ’s policy about prescriptions is also concrete. All the customers who are willing to fill their prescriptions online need to get their prescriptions to the online pharmacy through mail, or from their doctor, or transferred from another pharmacy. And they can choose to have the prescription mailed to them or available for pickup at a Rite Aid store convenient to them.

As it declares in its website, TTSH Pharm+ezy “is managed by the Pharmacy Department of Tan Tock Seng Hospital and powered by Netcare Internet Services, both members of the National Healthcare Group”.^[12]    Besides this, I can find no other information about their validity and certificate.

Further, compared to drugstore.com’s privacy policy, the one provided by Tan Tock Seng Hospital (www.ttshpharmezy.nhg.com.sg) is quite simple and abstract. Besides the description of the use of customers’ information, it only abstractly declares some kinds of third parties with which they may share the information, such as “agents, representatives and trusted service providers and contractors”. For the purposes of sharing, it also vaguely defines it as “limited purposes of fulfilling customer orders; offering certain products and services in connection with our website; communicating with customers; providing customer service and completing credit card transactions”.^[13] 

All of these are not explicit enough for us to fully believe that customers’ personal health information will be handled properly by the company.

The instance of Changi General Hospital is only slightly better than TTSH Pharm+ezy. Mypharmacy.com.sg has a label of CNSG (CommerceNet Singapore) and a label of ICRA( Internet Content Rating Association, an international non-profit organization working to develop a safer internet ^[14]). And it has been awarded the TrustSg seal as it “adheres to the Code of Practice set by COMMERCENET SINGAPORE LTD to promote good e-business practices” ^[15].

The privacy policy provided includes the types of information collected, how they use the collection information, when and with whom they share your personal information, how customers can control the use of or change their personal information, etc.

It is quite interesting to find that the part of privacy policy on what kind of third parties with which they may share the information and purposes, is surprisingly similar with TTSH Pharm+ezy with only some slight differences. Thus in my opinion Mypharmacy.com shares similar problems in privacy policy with TTSH Pharm+ezy.

Part b)

Actually, there are many benefits to purchase approved drugs online. Legitimate pharmacy sites on the Internet will provide convenient, private way to obtain medications under the increasing use of computer technology. And it may help reduce prescription errors when transmitting prescriptions from doctors to pharmacies ^[16].

However, as the U.S FDA (Food and Drug Administration) warns, when it comes to buying medicine online, it is important to be very careful ^[17].

Thus, for me, there are several things to be considered before deciding to buy from an online pharmacy.

First I need to meet and talk with my doctor whether it is recommended and appropriate to do so. And I will only use medicine that has been prescribed by my doctor or another trusted professional who is licensed in Singapore. No new medicine recommended by the online pharmacy will be taken before the doctor’s consent.

Secondly I have to make sure the online pharmacy is regulated under government, that is, it should have a license by Singapore government. Further, I need to look for its privacy and security policies to make sure that it meet the standard and my privacy will be protected to be safe and private.

Thirdly, the source of drugs should be clarified. All the medicines provided must be approved by the government and should be proved to be labeled, stored, or shipped correctly.

Finally, the online pharmacy could only provide drugs described in a customer’s valid prescription. No other medicine should be involved if it is not included in a customer’s valid prescription. And for a prescription to be valid, it must address a legitimate medical purpose, be written by a physician or other health care provider authorized to prescribe medicine, and be based on a legitimate doctor–patient relationship ^[18].

In conclusion, to enjoy the benefits it brings in, if I can fully trust an online pharmacy, I will purchase from it under the considerations above.

References

1.          Sabaté, E. (ed.): "Adherence to Long term Therapies: Evidence for Action". World Health Organization

2.          Robyn A. Meinhardt, RN, JD, Kimberly Applequist, JD, Paula C. Ohliger, JD "New Perils of Sharing or Selling Prescription Information"

3.          Louis Harris & Associates [1993]

4.          Calif. Regs. Code, Title 16, §1764.

http://www.aclu.org/privacy/medical/15350prs20000502.html

5.          Company That Violated Privacy Changes Name (5/2/2000)

6.          Mary J. Culnan “GIANT FOOD AND ELENSYS: LOOKING OUT FOR CUSTOMERS OR GROSS PRIVACY INVASION? “

7.          Mary J. Culnan APPENDIX 2. TRANSACTION DATA SUPPLIED TO ELENSYS  “GIANT FOOD AND ELENSYS: LOOKING OUT FOR CUSTOMERS OR GROSS PRIVACY INVASION?”

8.          "The New Enemy of Privacy," Challenge, Vol. 43, No. 2 (May/June 2000), pp 221

9.          Pharmacy Notice of Privacy Practices

https://www.drugstore.com/templates/HIPAA/info.asp?catid=16645&besecure=on&sra=1

10.       What is the drugstore.com privacy policy? http://drugstore.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/drugstore.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=191

11.       What is the drugstore.com privacy policy?

http://drugstore.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/drugstore.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=191

12.       About Us (Tan Tock Seng Hospital)

http://www.ttshpharmezy.nhg.com.sg/scripts/ttsh_aboutus.asp

13.       Private policy of Tan Tock Seng Hospital

http://www.ttshpharmezy.nhg.com.sg/scripts/ttsh_privacy_policy.asp

14.        ICRA  At A Glance

http://www.icra.org/about/       

15.       Verification Report of TrustSG

https://www.trustsg.com/tsgapp/seal/VerifyGatewayServlet?ID=NTC-CNSG-2005-1164&URL=http%3A//www.mypharmacy.com.sg

16.       Frequently Asked Questions of FDA

http://www.fda.gov/oc/buyonline/faqs.html#faqs2

17.       Buying Prescription Medicine Online: A Consumer Safety Guide

http://www.fda.gov/buyonlineguide/

18.       Michelle Meadows “Use Caution Buying Medical Products Online”,FDA Consumer magazine ,January-February 2005 Issue

This temple was built as early as 1855 and newer extensions were added in 1908. Dedicated to Kali, the Goddess of Power and ferocious incarnation of Lord Siva’s wife, this Hindu temple is believed to be the first one of its kind in Singapore to venerate her.

Housed in a more modern building, it’s truly a shopper’s paradise, with floor upon floor of endless merchandise, very reasonably priced and opened 24 hours! The selection is mind-boggling. You’ll definitely find whatever you need here.