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Sun, 26 Aug 2007
"But such an outcome remains unlikely, since voting against the Congress-led government would mean voting with the chauvinist BJP, whom the communists loathe even more than the United States." That's the question, isn't it? That is, if the commies dislike the Americans more than the BJP? I'm betting on BJP, but you never know. Vir Sanghvi has another article denouncing the commies. But he also wonders if the nuke deal is worth staking the government over. I can't believe he wonders about that. One, the deal has long-term implications for India that are almost wholly positive (new technology, credibility, enhanced status). In fact, Indian diplomats seem to have negotiated a surprisingly *good* deal. Two, how can you go back on an agreement when the parliament has (a few months ago), in principle, approved it! Thu, 23 Aug 2007
Also, this passage was interesting: "The rise to power of the KGB veterans should not have been surprising. In many ways, argues Inna Solovyova, a Russian cultural historian, it had to do with the qualities that Russians find appealing in their rulers: firmness, reserve, authority and a degree of mystery. The KGB fitted this description, or at least knew how to seem to fit it." The notion that societies have cultural preferences for specific types of leaders certainly seems true. For example, the presence of political dynasties in Indian democracy can be traced somewhat to the influence of casteism and feudalism on Indian culture. Similarly, many of the oddities of American politics can be traced to quirks of American culture (e.g. interplay between religiosity and issues like abortion and stem-cell research). However, this notion is also somewhat unsettling. Democracies are supposed to enable a free market of ideas, letting the best idea win. For better or for worse, voters are not rational beings--- they are influenced by their culture in picking their leaders. In particular, they may pick a leader who resonates with them culturally but has poor ideas. Does this mean that certain societies are condemned to a generally poor choice in leaders than others? To extend the argument, are some cultures worse than others? Wed, 22 Aug 2007
"Sadly, Indian Muslims have the worst political leadership of any community in India. Worse still, it is a leadership that is illegitimate. Muslims are affected by many of the same issues as Hindus or Christians: inflation, law and order, economic growth, corruption etc. So why then do they need Muslim leaders? Why cant secular leaders represent them on secular issues? The short answer is that, of course, they can. And Muslim leaders, fearful of their own irrelevance, needlessly whip up sentiment on religious issues to try and ensure that Muslims vote only as Muslims and not as Indians. So, an insult to the Prophet by Taslima will be manufactured; some Samajwadi thug-cum-minister will offer a reward for the death of a Danish cartoonist that his constituents have never heard of; The Satanic Verses will be burnt by people who would never otherwise have read it; and a bogus cry of Islam being in danger will be raised."
There's a certain amount of brinkmanship going on between the political parties, but I can't believe that they (the Left and, also, BJP) will let India's biggest diplomatic success in a long time go to waste. Actually, I believe they well might, but I'm hoping they won't.
I'm guessing that Rahul Gandhi was the main invitee among the Young Turks, and the others were invited for appearances' sake. But, at the very least, they could've also invited young politicians who don't have powerful dads or are from the opposition parties. Wed, 15 Aug 2007
This one should be easier:
Some good writing on the day [1,2,3]. Some atrocious writing [4,5]. Some deluded writing [6]. Some well-meaning-but-badly-written stuff [7]. Some annoying-but-true stuff [8]. The inevitable China comparison [9]. Here's an article in praise of the British [10]. While I agree with the article, may I re-rant that Churchill was-- as far as India is concerned-- a jackass of the highest order. Here is a bad case of projection (the author didn't have a Muslim friend in school/college and so he assumes no one else did). Mon, 13 Aug 2007
I found this interesting because it points to a delicate balance that a State has to strike when using force against (parts of) its own population. Usually, the police (and, to a smaller extent, the army) are the agents forcing the State's will. A key part of their training ethos is discipline and the importance of following orders, i.e., they are supposed to inflict violence on people as ordered, even if they don't want to. But what happens if the State pushes them too far? Maybe the army/police is at fault, but what if the State is the one that's wrong? The First War of Indian Independence can be thought of in these terms. The various riots in recent Indian history also have a related angle-- the State (at least, the Indian Consitution) would've liked to protect the victims regardless of their religion, but the police often weren't disciplined enough to do so: they were probably more keen on protecting people from a particular religion. But some of the most interesting such conflicts happen with Israeli Defence Forces. I think this is because of their compulsory military service, due to which Israeli soldiers come from a much broader ideological/political spectrum than in other armies. Sometimes, you might even agree with the dissenters. Sat, 11 Aug 2007
As the Indian manufacturing sector grows more, places like ITIs are going to be crucial in fulfilling the labor needs. Fri, 10 Aug 2007
"Nothing within [our current system of leveraged finance] allows for the hedging of liquidity risk, and that is the problem at the moment." "The new financial system is not the one the Fed was created to deal with, but it is the one it must try to handle." In some places, however, the article's reasoning seems to be flawed: "At the heart of the new system was a decision to have loans financed directly by investors, rather than indirectly by bank depositors. Investors, ranging from hedge funds to wealthy individuals, had confidence in the arrangement because most of the securities were blessed as very safe by the bond rating agencies, like Moodys and Standard & Poors. There's a reason SEC limits the kind of people who can invest in hedge funds. The latter have often given their investors extremely good returns over the last few years. That kind of return comes with higher risk. Buyer beware. Thu, 09 Aug 2007
Wed, 08 Aug 2007
Interestingly, the New York subway seems to have been shut down by 3 inches of rain (though it come down fairly quickly). In the 2005 Mumbai mega-pour, the city got 37 inches in a single day. No wonder it flooded. People often complain about India's infrastructure, and rightly so. But some of the nature-related challenges in India (heat, monsoon, dust etc.) are quite difficult to deal with.
And now that justice is being served for the blast perpetrators, shouldn't the Mumbai riot perpetrators be tried too? More than any other criminal activity, riot-related crimes seem to receive the least prosecutorial attention (on a per-victim basis). Maybe India really is, as others have said before, a nation without a memory. Mon, 06 Aug 2007
In an article, William Dalrymple trots out the argument --- it's almost a meme now --- that the recent prosperity of India and China is really just the start of a return to global historical balances (before the British colonized India, its economy is thought to have made up 22% of the world economy). A bit too early to extrapolate at this juncture, I'd say. WD's claim is a bit like saying that because India and China were the best sprinters in the neighborhood, they'll also be the best auto-racers now that everybody's got cars. I really hope it happens, but we Indians (WD being an honorary Indian) can be a bit too quick in self-congratulations (and self-denigrations!). Also, watch out for the piece by Ishaan Tharoor. I'm guessing he's the son of Shashi Tharoor.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that one of the best things India can do for stability in its neighborhood is to open its markets completely to its neighbors (except Pakistan and China). In fact, it might even be worth taking the lead by opening Indian markets first and giving Nepal/Bangladesh/Srilanka, say, 5 years before they open theirs. Thu, 02 Aug 2007
They mention a prospect that's already coming to fruition in India: as the rich drink from the bottle, they'll be less willing to support funding of water purification and distribution systems, leading to a decline in the quality of municipal water (which is the only type available -- if at all -- to the poor). With private groundwater pumps and UV/Filtration-based purification systems at home, the rich in many Indian cities no longer have a great stake in improving the quality and quantity of municipal water supply. Wed, 01 Aug 2007
I'm saddened that MERL won't be as good as they used to-- they have been really good in computer vision and graphics. But then again, I'm almost surprised Mitsubishi supported MERL this long. Mitsubishi isn't a company I'd have credited with supporting open-ended research, particularly the kind that isn't in a field they specialize in. It takes a monopoly (rare) or a strong founder-manager with a broad, long-term vision (even rarer) to put money into open-ended research. Not that it does much good crying about the unfairness of this situation. Companies are run for profit (and usually owned by shareholders who care a lot more about the short-term than the long-term); this goal rarely aligns with the act of funding basic, open-ended research. All the more reason why such research should be supported by governments and philanthropists. Tue, 03 Apr 2007
This week's Foreign Exchange is really worth watching also for Zakaria's interview with a Japanese journalist. The interview was about the comfort women in WW-II issue and Japan's supposed intransigence in admitting-- or repenting!-- its official and forcible use of Korean and Chinese women as prostitutes. The Jap journo went on a big rant on (1) Japan's already repented and has been punished enough for WW-II (A-Bombs, tribunals, reparations...) and (2) there is an amount of racism in ganging up on Japan and (3) what not. Lovely rant to watch. Really. He also made some points that the Japanese are usually unwilling to say this bluntly. The relevant segment starts at around 11:20 min into the video.
Fri, 16 Feb 2007
Wed, 07 Feb 2007
"More important, the main reason companies are listing in their home
markets is that globalization is not a lofty theory but has truly
produced more competitive global markets. That means more companies will
choose not to trek halfway around the world to raise money -- especially
when fees in London are half that of the United States.
But if you are Mr. Schumer or Mr. Bloomberg, there are reasons to be
alarmed.
As I.P.O.'s move, so does trading: where the company lists will dictate
where there will be more liquidity, more hedging and more
over-the-counter derivatives in the market where the underlying stock
exists.
This is a boon for banks like Goldman Sachs and UBS, who will profit on
underwriting companies from China to Mars. But the banker doing that
deal will hail from China and his bonus will help inflate Chinese real
estate, art and restaurant prices, not New York's. And as more companies
list there, more institutions will seek to do business there -- hedge
funds, for example -- generating more business for the Shanghai office
and fewer taxes for New York.
....
New York will also have to accept that it will be a leader among global financial centers rather than the leader. And while it is natural that New York politicians strive to keep taxes and jobs at home, not even the newly enlightened Mr. Spitzer can buck globalization." Fri, 02 Feb 2007
"Consul General Prakash said there might be a cultural dimension to the level of outrage related to the incident among Western visa applicants." Why do seemingly sensible (he writes columns for Rediff and they aren't insane) people say such moronic things?!! What's wrong with just saying "Sorry! We didn't have the right processes in place, and we'll fix it from now on." Didn't somebody tell them the cardinal rules of dealing with a PR shitstorm: "Be Honest. Be Quick. Be Concerned."?!! Identity theft issues are woefully underappreciated in India. When charging to a credit card, too many shops in India print out the entire credit card number and expiration date on the receipt. For trash-can hunters, it's a bonanza waiting to happen. Mon, 04 Sep 2006
Continuing on Iran, I love what Zakaria says: "Washington has a long habit of painting its enemies 10 feet tall and crazy."
R.I.P. Steve Irwin. Sun, 03 Sep 2006
Tue, 11 Apr 2006
Affirmative action in India is a difficult issue. I do believe that some proactive strategy is needed to provide equal opportunities to historically disadvantaged communities. If quotas prove to be the most effective-- and I am far from sure they are-- my preferred solution would've been close to what the Supreme Court said a few years ago-- make quotas rare, make them economically-focused rather than caste-focused, and ensure that nobody becomes a 2nd-generation quota-benefitee, i.e., once one of your parents got it, you won't. But it's easy to understand that others have different opinions on this. What's not easy to understand is how Arjun Singh is bandying about a humongous increase in the current quotas-- to slightly short of 50%. WTF!! We might as well get rid of any fantasy of a meritocracy and have all colleges or PSUs just accept candidates based on how politically powerful a group they belong to. Moreover, we'll be screwing up things for a long time to come: as Tavleen Singh at Indian Express pointed out, no party can currently afford to be seen as opposing more reservation; and future rescindment of any such quota increase is just unimaginable, even though our constitution planners put in a sunset clause on quotas originally. The funny thing is, at least at the IITs, they are already having trouble having enough SC/ST students make it through their pipeline. The IITs are one of the few Indian colleges which execute well the philosophy that even if a student makes it by clearing a lower bar, his/her subsequent educational progress is held up to the same standard as the others. Non-performers are kicked out. Even with 22.5% reservation, people are kicked out. Making it 50% would only effectively decrease the number of people who graduate from IITs. This Rediff column is also interesting. Sun, 09 Apr 2006
It is easy to think of this episode as an evil company trying out its concoction on guinea pigs. But that'd most likely be wrong-- assuming the company followed the rules. There will always be a certain amount of risk when testing a new kind of drug--- that is why they "test" it. A lot of the initial computational modeling and animal model work is meant precisely to weed out the bad candidates. But they won't always work-- afterall, monkeys and humans might both be primates but they are not the same species. Moreover, if the drug industry is to find more drugs for more diseases, new kinds of molecules will have to be looked at. Me-too molecular classes will just produce me-too drugs. Drug testing is just a price we have to pay for getting better. Sun, 02 Apr 2006
Also, one learns something new everyday--- India has a remarkably liberal immigration policy, it turns out: people born in India, regardless of the nationality of their parents, are automatically eligible for citizenship, just like in U.S. Mon, 27 Mar 2006
"The judge hearing the case, Justice Edward Mann, is an iPod user, but neither side has asked him to recuse himself." Imagine if Apple sued Microsoft and each company asked any judge who used the other's OS to recuse himself. Would be fun, no? We'd know if there's a judge in the American legal system who uses Linux. Or one who still uses his Remington typewriter. Probably the latter. Fri, 24 Mar 2006
This is how things are meant to work. It's so easy to imagine some other country, rich or poor, where the government would've quietly sat on known terrorist threats against opposition leaders. Yupp, somebody is sure to find some cynical angle to the whole thing. Screw them. Mon, 20 Mar 2006
Even more sadly, America will cajole and threaten the rest of the world into getting a patent system just like its own, one that's just as screwed-up. Then, once it fixes its broken patent system-- and that *will* happen-- it'll again get everybody else to change theirs. For everybody's sake, I hope there's some US patent reform before that. Mon, 13 Mar 2006
Sun, 12 Mar 2006
In a way, the Indian muslim community is between a rock and a hard place. International islamic terrorism, Kashmir, and the viciousness of their own lunatic, extremist fringe has made it vitally important that the community stand up against its crazy fringe elements and, equally importantly, be *seen* as fighting in this fashion. At the same time, the community is woefully ill-equipped to do so. The problem is that the community doesn't have the people who can lead the required self-policing effort. A poor man couldn't care less about protest rallies, he's worried about roti kapda aur makan. No, protests need two kinds of people, both influential and both relatively well-off. The first set consists of articulate, well-known people who lead the fight in politics, in the media, on the web and elsewhere. The second, much larger set consists of people who show up, i.e. add their voice to the protest, giving it the broad base required. People in both the set almost invariably hail from the middle class, though the members of the first set have probably moved up since then, to be now counted among the upper class. The Indian muslim community has neither of these people. It has a small upper class, but this upper class is almost completely of feudal origin and totally uninterested and ill-suited to lead any self-policing of any kind. The middle class is miniscule. As such, the muslim community has few people who can be counted upon to stand up against their own fringe elements. Yet, stand up the community must, or have even more fingers pointed at it. As an aside, they've shunted out the top police officer in Benares . I couldn't make up mind if this was scapegoating or plain old kick-out-the-moron. Then I read that the guy was attending a wedding party in the CM's native village when the blasts happened and I am now leaning towards the latter. Also, it seems a bit too early for the blame game, even by babudom standards. Yet another aside, this story is heart-breaking. Sat, 11 Mar 2006
Fri, 10 Mar 2006
Short of that, there should be rules that all religious organizations (including Hindu organizations!) make their funding (and accounting) records publicly available and then put these records on the web, so there will be some public oversight of who's getting their money from where and where the money's going. It's just outrageous that we pay through our nose to buy (oil) from people who funnel the money back to kill us.
But at least, they printed the various letters they've gotten excoriating the first of their agonizingly misguided and culturally condescending opinion pieces. The second one, a cover story (no less!), is just out; we'll have to wait for the letters on that. Thu, 09 Mar 2006
In such an environment, things like what Vir Sanghvi is saying are a good start. Is it so unfair to ask why somebody who is offering a reward of Rs 51 crore to kill a cartoonist is being applauded by members of the Muslim community? Or why should the Muslim community (not to mention the perniciously anti-India leftists) argue for Iran and work to undermine a nuclear deal that is clearly in India's long-term interests? Tue, 07 Mar 2006
I am glad this deal happened. This deal is strategically great for both India and US. It pisses the commies off. What's not to like? Wed, 08 Feb 2006
Had a discussion with my officemate y'day, where we were lamenting that Muslims (read: Middle East) missed a great opportunity to take the moral high-ground in the general debate about Islam. An issue that could have been made into the poster-child for West's insensitivity to Islamic culture- afterall, the photos really were in bad taste considering the general Islamic tabboo against idolatry-- has been made into a issue where Muslims (read: Middle East) are again being lectured about free speech and tolerance. It is left to *non-muslims* to point out that the West in general and Europe in particular does place limits on free expression, so it really is quite proper to debate the logic in printing these pictures of Mohammed. What a pity! Kinda like the Palestinian issue, really. Tactically speaking, it should be so easy for the Palestinians to portray themselves as the injured party and raise money and turn international opinion against Israel that it really is a miracle how disliked they have made themselves. Even the IRA, despite its bombings, was better at maintaining some goodwill outside UK (especially, in the USA). In this respect, all fundies should take leaf out of the conservative Christians' book. Those guys have the art of protesting, boycotting, and putting-on-a-general-air-of-injured-innocence down pat. Heck, they have perfected the technique of going after the soft spots of their targets, e.g., focusing on the sponsor of a TV show, rather than (ineffective) letters to the network itself. I am not saying that we should all become fundies- far from it! But if you really do want to protest, at least do it effectively. Christian and Jewish groups are past masters at these methods; Hindu groups are learning the tricks; and the Muslim groups are ...well... |