And the winner is...

After choosing Adolf Hitler in 1938 and Stalin twice - in 1939 and 1942, Time's Person of the year has followed tradition to choose VLADMIR PUTIN for 2007. For those unaware, he is more or less the dictator of Russia.


"TIME's Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not a popularity contest," says the magazine. Ummmm damn right it isn't!


This is what Garry Kasparov, formerly the world chess champion and now a leader of The Other Russia, a pro-democracy coalition has to say
(excerpt from his column in the Wall Street Journal):

Ever since President Vladimir Putin took office eight long years ago, the political and media leadership of the West have had a full-time job trying to look on the bright side of Russia's rapid turn from democracy.

The free press has been demolished, elections are canceled and rigged, and then we hear how popular Mr. Putin is. Opposition marches are crushed, and we're told -- over and over -- how much better off we are today than in the days of the Soviet Union.

End of famine

A few years ago, when I was a student, our campus received visiting officials from the United States. Related to the trade department (I forget whether directly or indirectly), they spent a class explaining to us, engagingly and unapologetically, how their job was not to meet the international trade requirements nor to encourage global trade - but to make the lot of US-based businesses better. They enumerated how unfavorable trade promises were handled sometimes - ignored by finding loopholes and followed in letter rather than spirit, or simply not followed until the counter-party country lodged a case and won their complaint at the assigned international court.

All very sensible for them. But rather unfair for the developing countries who had not the legions of lawyers to understand and design trade treaties nor the greenback to defend their case in law. So it was no surprise for me, or any observer who's been seeing the WTO roll-out, that after putting up with all the hoodwinking and smartassing for years, developing nations such as India put their foot down in negotiations. Address the subsidies in agriculture in Western nations, they insisted, or we will have nothing to discuss.

As of now, the agricultural subsidies are still on. Clearly, US and Europe feel it is too important to be done away with.

I suppose the president of Malawi, overlooking a country racked by year-after-year of famine, and at the mercy of Western nations who were bullying it into reducing agricultural subsidy, must have noticed the anomaly.

After the 2005 harvest, the worst in a decade, Bingu wa Mutharika, Malawi’s newly elected president, decided to follow what the West practiced, not what it preached.

[source: New York Times, 2 Dec 2007]

Mutharika, in short, reinstated and deepened fertilizer subsidy in Malawi. The US did not support this subsidy and the World Bank had spent the last 20 years pushing Malawi to eliminate these subsidies altogether. So you have to admire the man's galls and gumption for going ahead with what he did in the face of its biggest donors. Luckily for him, the gambit worked.

Added to the economic move was a good rainfall last year. The result: bumper crops that have suddenly and swiftly ended the famine years.

...this year, a nation that has perennially extended a begging bowl to the world is instead feeding its hungry neighbors. It is selling more corn to the World Food Program of the United Nations than any other country in southern Africa and is exporting hundreds of thousands of tons of corn to Zimbabwe.

The problem with Malawi's agricultural all along has been its poor soil. The only way its poor farmers can afford fertiliser is through subsidy. Without it, they fall into a debt trap. It is really that simple.

But advocates of free market insisted that Malawi must embrace free markets. They believed, as is the current fashion, that giving subsidies to farmers would be counter-productive.

The United States, for instance shipped $147 million worth of American food to Malawi as emergency relief since 2002, but only $53 million to help Malawi grow its own food. It gave no aid for the fertiliser subsidy program (except in helping pay for its evaluation) reports New York Times.

Hopefully, the experience of Malawi will make them reassess their aid plans for the rest of Africa.

disclaimer: this post is not my blanket love for subsidies. rather, it is a reminder to blanket-lovers of free market that subsidies have a valuable place in economics

So many people had extolled the 'Life of Pi' to me that it landed in my one-day-I-must-read-it list. And the long overdue One Day finally arrived this week.

Surprisingly, no one had mentioned how much talk about religion it contains (at least in the first quarter where I am) and the contempt he held agnostics in (which I happen to be).

Still, weathering the insults, I read on. Because, God apart, we have several common grounds:

There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, "Business as usual." But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, the sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.

Life of Pi, Chapter 25. By Yann Martel

Of men and frogs and copyright infringement

Have you heard of the Frog Experiment?

The procedure involves putting a frog in a pan of water - with room for the frog to jump. Then, you put the water to boil. As temperature speedily rises, of course, the frog jumps out.

But, if the water temperature rises slowly, really slowly... the frog keeps sitting. In fact it doesn't budge way beyond the temperatures that it had sanely jumped out of earlier, and lo and behold, it actually lets itself get boiled to death!*

Naturally, as in most science experiments that involve non-humans, researchers wonder - would humans do the same? Fortunately, so far as I know, they haven't tried to boil a man alive yet since Hitler's days.

But as far as social life goes, this conjecture is readily answered - Yes. When changes are gradual, mankind takes them in its stride; we end up accepting situations that would have been unacceptable say, just a year ago, because they've been creeping steadily into our lives.

It's the reason why Indian news channels have become as crappy as they are today. Ten years ago, they would have been spit at had they run stories such as Murgi main maan ki aatma (Mom's spirit now in my cock, uh I mean, chicken) [Star News ran that by the way, though without this translation, coz they probably couldn't think of it.]

But after years of steadily declining news standards incorporating Page 3s, Lakme Fashion Weeks, what-Ashwarya-Rai-wore-to-Cannes-and-why-and-what-can-we-say-to-bitch-about-it, etc, anything goes, doesn't it?

The Frog Experiment also explains why there's so much sex and violence in TV today. I remember when I came home for holiday after 3 months of TV-less existence from XLRI. Me, the target market for [V] and a fan-just-3-months-ago was appalled at what I saw at my return. Had everyone always been so publicly naked? Or had I forgotten what I used to see? I wondered as my sister cheered along and my mom allowed it. I suppose I had missed the three-month prepping they'd been through.

********

But the reason I write today is because of a copyright news item that my friend Bajaj forwarded me.

It says:
The UK-based Performing Rights Society (PRS) has filed a £200,000 suit against a car repair chain named Kwik-Fit for copyright infringement because mechanics were regularly found to play their radios loud enough for others to overhear the music.

It seems playing music loud enough for other to overhear amounts to a public performance of music - which cannot be done without at £30,000 per year license!

The judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit as frivolous, and said evidence was adequate for a hearing.

In other words, if you live in UK, you had better think twice before playing a background score when guests come over for dinner. It is suable!

What's more, being the Melodrama queen I am, let me make this comparison:
Do you remember what made us aghast about the Taliban? Yes, the worst was perhaps the oppression of women, and in addition - they didn't let you dress up, see cinema, hear film music... In the name of religion, they simply clamped your life.

Now, in the name of copyright, it is an acceptable debate to do it to ourselves!!!???

If ultimately this claim is upheld I can imagine you would be installing sound-proof windows and drawing your curtains close so that the cops don't catch you. Think I'm joking? Well, let's just wait for five years!

You think this claim is too absurd to be finally upheld?

Technically, as PRS will insist in court, they're aren't screwing your life: you can pay for license and blare your radio all you want at your office, in your house, at the picnic, wherever! Just pay, and the choice is yours!

And what about the choice for people who don't have that kind of money to pay - why, who cares! After all, we already have pharma companies fighting to make money from AIDS drugs in Africa. They believe that a country's status as an AIDS-ridden and poverty-ridden nation is not sufficient to allow other companies to manufacture their drugs without copyright at a lower price!

How long before this demand seems reasonable?

And, what's next?


*A note before you weep for the frogs: The experiment may have never happened, suggests Wikipedia

Tera crime crime, mera crime mistake!

"We have 1,000 guys out in the field. People make mistakes, they do stupid things sometimes."

Erik D. Prince, chief executive of Blackwater USA, which is under scrutiny for shootings by its employees in Iraq.


I think US should just come up with an updated dictionary so that the world can understand it better.

Crime
An act in which an American/American building or the US dollar's value is hurt by a non-American

Defense
An act in which a non-American person/country/economy is hurt by an American

Mistake
An act in which a non-American is hurt by an American, repeatedly, and the the proof is available for the world to see.

Stupidity
An act which has allowed American 'defense' to be caught on tape or some other manner of proof

Dictatorship
A government (other than the Government of USA) that does not have America's best interests at heart. Actually, make that a government that does not support George Bush.

God
Someone who has no doubt of what's right and what's wrong and is always right. Someone who everyone should follow or they'll have hell to pay, and fire. In other words, George Bush. He says anything, anything , and it becomes gospel. Even something as bizarre as the war is a success and has been won, and as Fox News will tell you, it turns true! If that's not a miracle and proof of Godship, what is?

note: An American is a US citizen. Does not include those miserable South Americans whose relatives are constantly trying to sneak in and work for poor wages in USA.

"Just a President"

It's disquieting how often I've heard that phrase in the last few weeks.

I'm told (and not entirely wrongly) that in India the President is no more than a ceremonial head. Therefore, goes the argument, if there be a loony woman who dabbles in scamming people through a cooperative bank at one time, and harbouring a murdering relative some other time, and not surprisingly is a politician all along this time, and now believes that one day she shall be President coz (thank you God!) after all, the spirit of a dead man inside the body of a live woman told her and divinely blessed her so, and then this loony woman does in fact end up as President Pratibha Patil indeed , ummm, no Big Deal!!! All she has to do is live in Rashtrapati Bhavan and sign some bills, and maybe meet George Bush one day over lunch, and given that even a newly-launched Microsoft software can manage the first and loons would excel at the latter, what's the worry?

What's the worry??!!!!

I know we've survived loony prime ministers who thought that killing the poor would kill poverty (I'm talking about the Forced Sterilization Brigade), and others who think that the suicide of poor is boring, avoidable news (I'm talking about the farmer suicide epidemic currently mostly ignored by the MSM), but these have been rather poor quality of survivals.

And it is indeed a matter of worry that though up until now our choice of presidents was nothing to hide-behind-statistics about, not something we had to get defensive about, not someone we glossed over by talking about our GDP and nuclear prowess and other dubiously chest-thumping claims - that instead of people who had the heads and galls to critique government bills, we now have to suffer a yes-woman.


The Somehow Nation
We Indians often boast of this; how despite obstacles we march ahead and how amazing it proves us to be. Somehow, without adequate infrastructure, our GDP is rising, our corporations are expanding, and we've even managed to acquire a future-superpower halo. Somehow, without focus on education policies and with a pitiful public schooling system, our country continues to produce exceptional scientists and thinkers and a student-force large enough to create an outsourcing base for the US.

It is amazing, yes. But worth boasting about? No.


Quite a few mouthfuls:


Good one: Celebrating Pratibha Patil - Amit Varma in Livemint

couldn't have said it better: the iRack

Whodunnit !

"...Aung San Suu Kyi is not under house arrest. (Burmese) government is just taking care of her security because of the sever split in her party, the National League for Democracy"

Who do you think said that? Your choices are:

A. A Martian

B. George Bush, on being told that Burma, impressed by Parvez Musharraf's experience in dictatorship, has decided to suuport the 'War Against Terror'

C. A member of the National League for Democracy, post-torture by the police

D. The Myanmar Consulate in Hong Kong, believing it shall convince us all

E. Sarcasm by Anuja Byotra



[Ans: D]

In the name of honour

Crimes against women, especially rape, have often enough been brushed under the carpet so that the victims' 'dignity' may be preserved. Now East-Asian women, who were forced into prostitution by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II, have a new honour to contend with - that of their assailants!

A brief history:
'Comfort Women' began as voluntary recruits to brothels that served the army during the Second World War. But as the war progressed and the army moved further from Japan to successfully occupy territories in Korea and China, increasingly women, and girls, in these areas were coerced by force and kidnapping into serving as prostitutes. In many cases they were bought from their poor families, and often enough they were duped into the profession. There is historical documentation that proves beatings, serial rape, shoddy abortion, and sometimes at the end of it all - abandonment in alien territory.

'Comfort women' indeed! How the word hides the barbarity that lies behind it!

The horrors of this war crime have long been disputed - one, for their magnitude (the number of women who suffered remains a wide estimate), and two, for their sanction by the Japanese army. It was only in the early 90s, after historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi discovered proof (in military archives) that at the very least, the army was aware of what was happening at the 'comfort stations' that the Japanese government admitted the army's involvement(but even then, not monetary or moral responsibility).

This turn of events finally led the then-chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono to issue something akin to an apology: (full text here)

The then Japanese military was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women... The government study has revealed that in many cases they were recruited against their own will, through coaxing coercion etc., and that, at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments. They lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere.

The reason I am writing about this now is because yet again we have denial by the Japanese on our hands - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made a volte-face on the issue:

The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion

Similarly, Nariaki Nakayama, chairman of the group of about 120 Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers. a group that wants Abe to reconsider the Kono apology, has this to say on the subject:

"Some say it is useful to compare the brothels to college cafeterias run by private companies, who recruit their own staff, procure foodstuffs, and set prices...

...Where there's demand, businesses crop up ... but to say women were forced by the Japanese military into service is off the mark,...

...This issue must be reconsidered, based on truth ... for the sake of Japanese honor."
[source: Time]

Behind these denials lies the unwillingness of the nation to face its past - its desire to save face.

Unfortunately, this ostrich-like response to facts is not limited to the government of Japan. Go to Amazon's website and you will read what the citizens of Japan have to say about Yoshimi's book (the historian who discovered incriminating documents). Or open SCMP to find what their response to Abe's comments have been, such as this:

"May I remind readers how much the Imperial Army's comfort women got paid by the Japanese during the second world war? Four star generals were paid 52 yen, comfort women earned 80 yen. That is the bottom line, whether or not those women were forcibly hauled in," says Naoki Uchikata.

Honestly, even more appalling than Abe's denial is this contention that payments made to Chinese women made it fair for them to be raped! Wouldn't a 'Sorry' be simpler and more graceful than such tortured logic?

Madeline Albright - you're a star!

Former US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright has this to say:

Iraq War Did Not Meet All Just War Requirements

America always has the right to go to war in self-defense but Iraq’s government did not pose an imminent threat to the security of the United States.

The war, itself, has been characterized by massive human rights violations committed by anti-government insurgents and terrorists as well as by militias, including some acting as part of the Iraqi security forces.

U.S. troops also have sometimes failed to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants, as at Haditha, and all sides have been guilty of mistreating prisoners.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

chuckle chuckle chuckle

No, I haven't lost my head in disbelief that someone in the government has miraculously found a reason to criticize the war in Iraq . I am just vastly amused at how the Albright is trying to make a complete turnaround from her yesteryears; how she is trying to take advantage of the anti-war atmosphere by refurbishing her image, albeit in baby steps. [Note how she carefully avoids talking about human rights violations on the US-side, even as she admonishes The Enemies for them.]

In short, I'll be damned if I believe her pretended intent here, in this posting on The Washington Post. I find it impossible to swallow that she has miraculously turned sensitive and cares about the cost of the war in Iraq and the morality involved therein.

After all, she is the woman who famously said:

the price is worth it

when the price in question was the death of half a million Iraqi children. In an interview on CBS's 60 minutes, she had used this exact phrase to put weight behind UN sanctions which were keeping medicines (and other necessities) away from Iraqis - sanctions, that were in force even 6 years after Iraq's Kuwait invasion, which by the way, was a bloodless war.

I doubt she has fathomed yet that men are not apricots, where you can decide to throw 30% in the rubbish-bin so that the remaining 70% look nicer in your shop. For unlike apricots, every human life counts, and it must count, irrespective of whether the veins carry Iraqi blood or American – life must be viewed as important for its own sake for there to be any human rights at all. And no one can decide whether a life is worth sacrificing, except by the person himself.

From a woman who found civilian deaths par for the course, an acceptable damage, it is indeed laughable to hear about human rights violations.

About 655,000 Iraqis - or more than 500 people a day - have died since the US-led invasion, according to a survey by the British medical journal The Lancet. But US politicians are worried because the war is dragging on so long, costs so much and is impossible to win.

I think it's time for Americans to think about the real costs of this war.

- Sharon Fung, in a letter to the editor, SCMP

Iraq's New Year - The headcount has begun
[GFX source: New York Times]

Maritime park = Factory !!!

Like most Indians, I have staunchly believe that Indian politicians are the greediest and most short-sighted of all. But boy, do we have tough competition!

Hong Kong's energy major CLP Power wants to build an LNG terminal in Sokos Islands - a place designated in 2003 as a marine park by the government. It is the the only location where the Chinese White Dolphin and the Finless Porpoise coexist in local waters, says WWF. Unfortunately, it is also the only place that CLP Power wishes to build its terminal at.

Now I can understand why a corporation, in tradition of all the energy companies behind it, will care little for trivialities such as environmental impact. Its desire has probably all to do with costs and profits, and people be damned. But what was the government thinking when it figured that the project - the building of a factory in an area rich in marine life - would have "insignificant" ecological impact on marine life? Really? You're telling me that you'll pump in huge amounts of hot water day after day for years on end into the surrounding waters - which is how energy plants including this one work - and it won't effect the organisms living in the area? That having a noisy factory next door, and before that, the cacophony of construction, will not impact the habitat of resident animals? All this, after you've already allowed other developments nearby, such as the building of an airport. which are bound to add on to a cumulative effect?

From everything I've ever learnt of ecosystems, even small variations in temperatures snowball into big results. And anyone who thinks that a mere HK$100 million will set things right is an idiot, or bought out, or worst of all - someone who believes that government has a greater duty to business that to citizens.

I guess we won't need China to kill what Hong Kong was.


Update, Sep 2008: The CLP factory plan is shelved! The Hong Kong government and China signed a natural gas supply agreement which killed the economics behind the factory, hence the decision. I like to believe the public and media uproar had something to do with the government's initiative. In any case, a case of all's well that ends well!

It's burning us, It's burning us not...

The attitude on global warming today seems much like the research on cigarette smoking a few decades ago: a pretence there is no proof of harm, and indignance that it must be stopped, gasp, even if it affects profits. This, despite the fact that any adult not suffering from amnesia can tell that the world has become increasingly fickle about seasons.

Parts of China are experiencing their hottest summers in 167 yeras. Canada has not fared much better, at least that was the case till January, but now it has suddenly become frigid beyond reason.

But honestly, I hardly need statistics to tell me what my fine-tuned thermometer-cum-ocular-sensor with enhanced capability to store retroactive information, aka, body can comprehend. I've been in Hong Kong just over two years, and in this short period I have found that the sea-view horizon has been creeping closer at a remarkable speed. Two years ago I could see the outlying islands; nowadays, I have to be thankful if I can spy Kowloon across the harbour clearly. Miraculously, the view returns when Chinese New Year shuts down the factories in nearby China (which, by the way, are not owned only by the Chinese residents but also Hong Kongers).

But the view is really the least of the problems. Prevelance of asthma has been increasing, and many with respiratory allergies swear that they cannot possibly make Hong Kong home.

Far away in New Zealand, pollution is not an issue. Yet, when I visited the countryin December, supposedly its summer season, it clearly wasn't summer. Most days I had my muffler on, and some cities were even expecting a white Christmas.

Needless to say, Hong Kong too this year is nowhere as cold as the last two years have been. But this has not been an impediment to the beliefs of its Chief Executive Donald Tsang.

"...you can only come to one conclusion - we have the most environment friendly place for people, for executives, for Hong Kong people to live,"

he naively announced to a shocked audience - The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce's Clean Air Charter - in November [reports South China Morning Post].

In similar vein, China insists on its right to pollute, saying that its per-capita pollution is low, and so what if it all adds up to high numbers and kills its rivers and ruins its land on the side. And meanwhile, George Bush the Ostrich has found umpteenth reasons to keep himself from signing the Kyoto Protocol.

In short, I can safely surmise that our planet shall have millions of natural disaster refugees before something tangible and fruitful is done to tackle the problem.

Martyrisation 101

Of all the ways they could have brought Saddam to justice, USA chose an unfair trial. There was no international body, no United Nations, to oversee the proceedings. The prosecution was mostly financed by USA and the defense team was mostly killed.

Of all the reasons they could have hanged Saddam for, they chose the least convincing. The first charge - indeed, the one and only charge that the court ordered execution for - is Saddam's action against people suspected of plotting to kill him themselves! The US waited for only one guilty verdict to be handed out, and hanged him in a hurry, while all the other ghastly crimes that actually brand Saddam the dictator that he was - the gassing of Kurds, various tortures and repressions - all these are left behind without closure.

Of all the times they could have hanged Saddam to death, US / Iraqi government chose Eid.

The one final time they could have pretended that Saddam's end was justice delivered, they chose to make it a raucous setting. Hecklers shouted 'Muqtada' - the name of a man whose militia is a prime perpetrator of civil war in Iraq - making it clear that Iraq's future had not passed on to better hands.

I can't think of any reason why George Bush would want to make Saddam a martyr, but he really couldn't have done it better. Of course, what can you expect of a man who claimed that bringing war to Iraq would give it peace. Really, next he'll suggest sex as the way to virginity.

Here's the lynching:


To understand why I call it lynching, and for a translation of what is being spoken in the background read here.

Journalist Gwynne Dyer gives a very interesting perspective on why Saddam was executed so soon after the verdict :

With all of Hussein's other crimes to choose from, why on earth would you hang him for executing the people suspected of involvement in the Dujail plot?

Because the US was not involved in that one. It was involved in the massacre of the Iraqi communists (the CIA gave Hussein their membership lists). It was implicated up to its ears in Saddam's war against Iran. The Reagan administration stopped Congress from condemning Hussein's use of poison gas, and the US State Department tried to protect Hussein when he gassed his own Kurdish citizens in Halabja in 1988...

(Read full text of her article here)


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