In Memorium

Were she alive, chances are I would have been denouncing the dynastic rule she represents and amnesties she gifted her criminally-charged husband.

But in her death, her loss makes one keenly aware of how pivotal she was to transform Pakistan into a secular and democratic nation.

She will be sorely missed in the fight against terrorism.


But what's with all the rioting over "grief" in her country? Goondaraj, the rule of mob, does no credit to either her memory or the the causes she said she represented.

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