Recognizing and accepting the consequences of one’s action on others both materially and emotionally is what I guess makes us fit to live in a society, a human. Admission of guilt and an apology is a great way to start. Parents teach their kids the value of 3 magical words “Please, thank you and sorry” to infuse this habit very early on. However looks like in spite of being one of the most experienced and highly educated individual, our Prime Minister is not aware of these facts.

Livemint has correctly pointed out http://www.livemint.com/2011/02/16211114/Plumbing-a-new-low.html that the high handiness of the Prime Minister has resulted in our country reaching a new low. No wonder under his regime as a Finance Minister, the country witnessed the biggest financial scandal (Harshad Mehta) and under his regime as a Prime Minister we have witnessed the biggest scandal (Telecom).

What irks me is that how can he claim to have the Moral High ground?

Hello: There can only be 2 things possible: He was aware of these 2 scams or he was not.

If one truly believes that he was unaware of these developments then he is probably more incompetent to run this country than a blind, deaf and mute individual.

If he was aware of these scams, then he is an accomplice who should be tried like common criminals and lynched by the very mob that lost 50,000,00,00,000/-. After all he is no different than any common crook or con artist who charms the target before robbing them.

Correction: As per the law Prime Minister is the Leader of the cabinet of ministers who are collectively responsible for their actions. So this makes him the head of the gang of criminals (which apparently he handpicked)

So why the role reversal for Diesel engine?

1. In a petrol engine the intake is a mixture of fuel (petrol) and air (oxygen). The major source of lower efficiency of 2 stroke IC engine is that either some of the fuel leaks away with the exhaust or the exhaust fumes are not fully drained out from the cylinder. However in diesel engine the intake is only air. The fuel is sprayed into the combustion chamber during the combustion phase only. So this takes care of the major source of inefficiency.

2. Diesel is traditionally regarded as a slow and bulky engine. However 2 stroke engine means that for the same rpm (and to the large extend weight and size), there is twice as much combustion and twice as much power.

However all said, 2 stroke engine crams up the intake and exhaust so much that a lot of aerodynamic and thermal stress problems emerge due to close proximity of cold intake with hot exhausts.

I have had the fortune to visit Europe during the sub-prime crisis and 3 countries in SE Asia after the Asian Crisis. People were unanimous that times are bad and they are poorer than what they earlier were. However they were not poor, the infrastructure is better than what is found in India, people have better skills and spirit. Hence no wonder within a few years of recession, it’s going to be prosperity and business as usual.

On the other hand, India in 1947 was economically better off than Japan, Europe or any country in the SE Asia. Over the years these countries witnessed several cycles of boom and recession while India has had nearly 7 decades of stagnation where the people were deprived of a decent standard of living.

Failure is the cost of dreaming and the recession is the cost of progress and development. Its high time that our policy makers realize that. “I have never met a rich guy who hasn’t lost a dollar, but have met several poor people who have never lost even a dime” – Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Private and foreign banks tend to have leaner operation cost and more convinient services resulting in lower rates and ease in obtaining credit. Now there can be 2 reasons why the public sector banks are growing at the cost of Private/foreign banks:

1. They are working extra hard to make themselves accessible to their customers while charging them competitive prices.

2. Over the past couple of years the story of private banks man-handling and threatening their defaulting customers have scared even the good customers away.

Tradition demands that the loan shark be shrewd and cold blodded in order to be able to recover his outstanding. However looks like the Public and the foreign banks in India have taken these saying a bit too seriously because now their customers are scared of them.

Note: This theory is unsubstantiated. I really need to organize myself to find out time to dig deep into it before I can confirm what I have written here.

BSP is probably the only party which has grown to a national party from a regional party. Yet the party is little more than a vehicle to serve the wishes of her Leader Mayawati. In spite of all the tall claims. In this year general elections the 17 Dalit leaders that BSP has fielded belong only to the reserved seats (where she could not field any other candidate. I could not locate the party manifesto. However I won’t be surprised if like Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party, all the manifesto says is removing computers and bring India back to the Dark ages.

As of now, there is no evidence that Dalits in UP are doing better than in any other part of the country. At the moment the only results that I am seeing are the grand birthday and the public display of millions of dollars worth of public wealth amassed by her party leaders.

Future group (its promoters) have launched a prepaid card (which also offers a cash discount of 5% on all sales). A consumer usually is in the hurry to consume the balance in a pre-paid card. Hence he/she effectively is expected to visit the store repeatedly. Also like credit cards, many people tend to spend more when there is an option of a cashless transaction.

I really feel that these 2 schemes are really innovative measures taken by this retail chain. They will not only increase the footfalls and billing but also change the consumer buying behavior completely.

What message does the Indian Government want to communicate by saying that it cannot guarantee the safely of Indian nationals (who are not involved in any controversy) on Indian Soils?

You might call me anti-P Chidambram, but it looks like home minister has lost his mind.
When the Sensex was falling, he emphasized on the confidence building positive talks to raise the sentiments. In fact he did it so much that many people started wondering if he truly understood the gravity of the situation.
Now when he is in Home Ministry and people of India are desperately looking for a reason why they should feel safe, he is denying us one. Why is the GoI chickening out? Why can’t it guarantee the safety of Indian Nationals? Has it lost its spine?

Basically the asset is transferred to this account and depreciated without effecting the Profit and loss accounts. What is worse is that since Indian courts allow this scheme, more and more companies are taking the route and hiding the true shape of their balance sheet from the public.

2. India already has a huge forex reserve (251 USD) why does india not use it? Anyways that cash is lying idle and not earning as much interest.

If India wants to play a bigger part in the global economy, it should help World bank and other international agencies help countries suffering from stagflation, and not borrow from this pool.

China stole a natural gas deal from right under India’s noses. It signed a 30-year natural gas supply agreement from a field in Myanmar in which India has a 25.5% stake.

Source

Similarly Swaminathan wrote a wonderful editorial explaining why a gas line from Iran is also infeasible.

So if India continues to mess up with the neighbors, is not able to import gas… I wonder what the energy future is for us? BTW India has the worst quality coal in the world. Most of which has over 50% ash (sillica) content which makes it unsuitable for most purposes except power plants. And newer and stricter environmental guidelines would stop us even from that purpose.

‘They do it because everyone else is and they feel they should, too. Information isn’t guidance. Telling people they can have contraceptives in school or giving them sex education at five just isn’t enough. What young people need is moral guidance  -  that is what is missing.’

To read the entire article, click here.

Today our junior finance minister Pawan Kumar Bansal lied openly in the parliament that Reliance power IPO was not oversubscribed.
A month ago his boss P Chidambram tried to fudge the data by not taking into account the Oil Subsidy and the Loan waiver into the fiscal deficit calculations. Do these people think that they are the only smart guys and rest of the world is stupid?

PS: Our Prime minister is perceived as a lap dog who knows when and how to wag his talk and as Ram pointed out, now even our President is not taken seriously.

And Prax forwarded a nice article detailing how the real fiscal deficit is 4 times what is being claimed by PC.

Photo courtesy:  BBC news

The above pictured in the BBC website.

I felt very sad looking at the photo.

The Woman was collecting rice that was spilt on the

ground. Its really heart breaking to see somebody

lowered to such a state.

Whether this Woman is a terrorist, muslim, Iraqi etc., etc., she is a Woman first. She is so caring that she
picks up rice for her family.

To top all this, the Photographer thought that it was appropriate to photograph her. Dear Photographer, do
the words “Photography ethics” tell you something? Shame on you.

And a soldier is happily posing for the photo without even a shade of shame or pity for the women.

Cross posted from Sri’s views

Here is a nice article from economist explaining how this New world Bacteria went global.

For every million rupees spent, roads raised 335 people above the poverty line, and R&D 323. Every million rupees spent on education reduced poverty by 109 people, and on irrigation by 67 people. The lowest returns came from subsidies that are the most popular with politicians – subsidies on credit (42 people), power (27 people) and fertilisers (24 people).

Swami has recently published a very good article on how roads can be one of the most effective way for poverty elevation.

Connectivity enhances the value of every other rural investment, since it empowers people through improved mobility and access. People can more easily buy agricultural inputs and sell their produce. Children can go more easily to schools, cattle can more easily get veterinary help, and the sick can get to health centres. Remote areas have, by definition, the worst connectivity. They are among the poorest and slowest-growing, but accelerate when given connectivity.

Roads can incubate a thousand small businesses, and can convert villages into towns. Government staff are much more willing to be posted to places with good connectivity, so roads improve administration. Rural productivity cannot be high without roads, but can be very high with them.

No wonder even in America the railroad boom came first and then came the rapid growth and development.

When will Indians understand it

Its slightly long, but do Read if you have time

———————–
When the police exceed their authority and powers in order to achieve apparently legitimate ends, it is called ‘noble cause corruption’. This phrase, which entered the lexicon with Edwin Delattre’s influential book Character and Cops: Ethics in Policing (1989), has classical origins — in Plato’s Republic the philosopher-king justifies the use of noble lies in order to advance the good of the city. But whereas for Plato, the noble cause does not justify anything more than minor deception, police today indulge in flagrant abuse of human rights.

On the face of it, noble cause corruption is very different from what’s generally referred to as corruption. It is committed in the name of good ends, corruption that happens when police officers care too much about their own work and corruption committed in order to get the bad guys off the streets. Many feel that corruption for personal gain is more serious than corrupt behaviour that tends to benefit the society at large.

This is expressed best in the film Dirty Harry where the anti-hero is trying to achieve a good end, trying to find a girl whose life is in imminent danger, and tortures the kidnapper who refuses to reveal her whereabouts. The image of Harry Callaghan inflicting pain upon a psychopath is emotionally compelling.

But in practice when police either fabricate evidence or use excessive force, they violate the right of the suspect and affect the moral fibre of the policemen indulging in such methods. Besides, corrupt acts including noble cause corruption are habitual, not a one-off immoral action committed for a good purpose. Police officers simply tend to act in this manner, rather than rationally calculating the morality of ends and means on a case-by-case basis.

Noble cause corruption implies faith in the concept that the end justifies the means. However, the critical question is whether the ends are important enough to justify the means. Convicting a criminal is important but in a liberal democracy the police have to behave in accordance with the values of their society. Adoption of impermissible means may ultimately undermine the end.

Again, many means have other consequences that may make their use inappropriate. In the post-9/11 world, many democratic countries have passed draconian laws to curb terrorism but the enforcement of such laws, even in India, show that some ways of keeping a country secure for freedom may end up jeopardising other values of a democratic society.

Some justify torture to fight terrorism. But once a degree of torture is permitted it gives interrogators the license to use it systematically. The argument that enemies deserve no justice will lead to deterioration of justice for all. Proportionality of means has to be kept in view.

Noble cause corruption often occurs in a climate of arrogance which generates a belief that police officers know what’s best for society and have the right to punish anyone posing a ‘threat’ to public order. Unless senior officers take a resolute stand against various forms of misconduct, illegal practices will continue.

One common form of noble cause corruption is testimonial deception, for ensuring conviction of someone believed to be guilty of criminal activity. This can include fabrication of material evidence, selective presentation of evidence and improper collusion in the presentation of evidence etc — deceptions amounting to perjury.

Writers like Michael Walzer hold the view that noble cause corruption is a definitive part of the roles of political leaders, police, and military personnel. They have ‘dirty hands’ as they have to perform actions that infringe on the principles of morality, but may be morally justified, despite questionable methods. For example, a political leader who must order the torture of a terrorist chief with a view to discovering the whereabouts of a bomb likely to kill innocent people — this is an unusual emergency when moral principles can be infringed for the sake of greater public good.

Another view is that in difficult cases where there is conflict between ends and means, responsibility for any such decision should rest with the person with greater authority in the police department. But often, important decisions affecting life and liberties of people have to be taken by street patrolling officers, who have to be vested with enormous discretion. The police system allows enormous discretion in practice while at the same time maintaining a top-down command system.

Training for humane and ethical policing is of utmost importance. The police have to develop sensitivity towards both suspects and victims. In policing, mechanical application of rules do not always help, officers have to use their discretion and discretion is not license. Though grounded on rules, discretion is a form of judgement rather than mere following of rules.

This stupid and irresponsible act should be stopped ASAP. Moneylenders, inspite of all their vices are an important part of the Indian society. They provide quick loans and short term credit to those who need it.
Indian banks often do not cater to people who live on daily wages. Micro credit organizations, in spite of all the hullah gullah demand very cumbersome and stringent rules. The poor need to organize themselves in groups, take collective responsibility for all the members in the group etc. In contrast, these money lenders don’t ask for any complicated compliance, they are ready to give whatever amount you want, whenever you want and have no foreclosure penalty. If you can produce some sort of surety (preferably in gold), the interest rates which the money lenders charge is less than what is charged by Micro-Credit organizations.

Indian banks are still living in the communistic era where they were a instrument to suck up all liquidity from the poor. Post offices, co-operations and banks still exist for the sole purpose of taking money/deposits from the poor and lending to the rich. However what India and esp its poor need is totally opposite. Flow of capital from those who have in excess to those who need it. So essentially, these individuals are a cost effective, simple solution to all the shortcomings of our fledging banking system.

If this call for large scale defaults and dismantling of the Money Lending business gains momentum (and there is no reason why it won’t), then the poor and entrepreneurs won’t get credit in time and at terms they want. They won’t be able to earn their living, expand their operations, get money for medical emergencies, or to pursue a trade which they know would be lucrative. So essentially Sharad Pawar is condemning the poor for eternal damnation.

PS: sorry if I come out insensitive in this post, but please understand I really feel uneasy around these people and had a couple of shocking prior experiences.

That means that a privately held company had 10,419 Acres of farmland. Now as per my understanding, most states in India have implemented Land reforms. They put a limit of 25 to 40 acres of land that a single individual can hold. The only exceptions to this rule were
a) Plantations. (which needs size to get economies of scale)
b) Privately Held forests (Seizing this land would not have resulted in any benefit to the government, as the only way govt could reuse this land was by cutting down trees. And that does not go really well with the environmentalists.)

Now I know Emmar is just like any other Real Estate development company that has amassed a huge landbank and intends to get it converted to residential/commercial property and develop it. But my question is under what laws was it allowed to purchase such large tracts of agricultural property?

And don’t tell me that the company seized over 10,000 acres of land and is just waiting for the government approval to pour concrete over it. Most of the land must be fertile and the company must be growing some crops/vegetables on it to generate some revenue. If so, isn’t it return of Zamidari System?
—–

On a lighter note, I liked this cartoon on Premature Ejaculation

Why do I think as a bad sign?
1. the asset sale is artificially boosting the profits and is hiding the fact that DLF is not being able to develop and sell property (its core business is failing) It is able to do this massive sale now, but this is not a sustainable business model
2. REMEMBER: DLF is trading at a significant premium to the land bank value. So people are counting on the profits it would have made by developing it. And by not doing this duty, DLF is robbing its share holders their rightful due.
3. Sale of assets to the promoter’s firm never happens at market terms. The prices are affordable and the cashflow/payments happen at their own sweet time. No wonder DAL is yet to pay for the land it acquired several months ago.
4. DAL is a separate firm, and none of the profits made by DAL will ever flow into DLF. As a matter of fact DAL is expected to be listed as REIT (real estate investment trust) in Singapore in the coming months.

As Prax pointed out, DLF has a rotten history and have repeatedly cheated the shareholders. Read Sucheta Dalal’s article on it.

A close friend of mine had plans to buy a large track of Desert Land in Rajasthan for afforestation. Lucky for him, this news came just in time.

The impact was so severe that several factories and offices including the Toyota Plant had to stop its operations. The authorities say that those drivers who already comply with the prescribed limits should not worry and these devices would only restore discipline on the streets.
While the drivers say that already due to congestion on Bangalore Roads the automobiles crawl at an average speed of 17 Km per Hour (about 10 miles per hour) so these speed governors would only result them in spending a 10-15K INR without any perceivable benefits to the public. Also speed Governors in Delhi have failed miserably. Tampering is rampant and hence they lead to no improvements.

On a lighter note, my friend Aparna forwarded me an Out of the Box solution for the problem

Thinking like a simple villager, the only corollary I could draw was about inviting dignitaries to my daughters (formal) marriage. The first Dignitary was accompanied by his spouse, second by his fiance, and third by his friend (of opposite sex).

The questions I would ask are:
1) Should I treat the 3 companions differently?
2) Should I even care what is the relationship between my guest and his companion.
3) Should I even bother whether they are just friends, are sharing the same room, or married but on the verge of divorce.

My job is to conduct my marriage and the various festivities and customs associated with it in a proper fashion and not poke around in the private life of my guests.

By raising all this controversy India lost of creating another brand Ambassador for India. Bruni, like all beautiful women, are very influential. It does not matter whether they have an official powers or not, the worl (esp Sarkozy) would listen to each and every world they say and its hard to refuse their requests. Since Bruni was not officially married, she was not expecting much. However if India would have still showered even half the kind of hospitality which we did on Bill Clinton, I am sure we would have won her heart.

* In the last three years, a Coca-Cola plant in Kerala’s Palakkad district has produced more than 5,000 tonnes of sludge, which Coke officials say is good fertiliser for crops.
* But an investigative study by media giant BBC- the British Broadcasting Corporation — and environmentalists insists that the fertiliser contains ‘hazardous toxic chemicals.’
* Water samples collected from the wells near the Coke factory situated at Plachimada are now found to be unfit for drinking. The hardness and chloride found in the well water are at medically unacceptable levels.
* A probe has now been launched by the Kerala government to check out the hazardous content in the fertilizers provided to the farmers.
* Another study by Greenpeace too says the sludge is extremely harmful to plant and animal life.

Why am I telling you so?
Indians now have to carry their papers everywhere. Random checks will happen and documents not being in order, is a just reason for arrest.

This is very interesting because a 1/3 of the citizens cannot read and write. So it might be hard for them to know whether they are carrying their papers or their wife/kid’s documents. Also Ration Card (PDS) is the only form of documentation for majority of the citizens, but you cannot get one if you do not have a house or live in slums.

Hail Singh!!!

BTW one of my best friend has a polio… and I have been friends will some physically challenged individuals and none of them want to be assisted or any special treatments. All they want is that the buildings and airports should have a ramp comfortable enough for them to roll. They r not looking for charity… so don’t portray as if you are giving them one
Is it too much to ask for? Is it something for which they should pay extra?

GoI has been recently collecting educational cess on all the taxes and financial transactions. This was a welcome move, because in a country where half a billion souls have never attended schools/colleges now the Human Resources Ministry has almost infinite funds to educate the masses. Or this is what I had thought.

All the tolls collected via cess went directly to the center. While Primary education was funded by state government and panchayat/local administration (Madhya Pradesh) So in reality, although a huge war-chest was build, the spending on education hardly increased over the past 3 years.

Another problem faced by the HRD ministry was that budget was to be presented in a few months. Traditionally, any department that does not spend the funds it had been sanctioned in the previous budget is penalized in three ways:
1)It has to answer why it had not been able to plan and execute efficiently
2)The funds are taken away from it
3)In the next year, the department will get lesser funds.

I have a feeling that this scheme is nothing more than a plot to squander away our taxes.

If government wants to do something for an “All Inclusive Growth”, then open a thousand primary schools, open vocational and technical schools. The higher education is already very subsidized (a engineering graduate’s first year salary would be more than adequate to cover for his entire educational expenses).

Also if you look at the fine print, it covers only the undergraduate/post graduate study loan taken from Nationalized Banks. Now if Government wants to help the poor but deserving students, then isn’t providing a scholarship/full tuition waiver a better way to help them. After all its general knowledge that students work harder and perform better when they get study grants, for these students need to display good academic achievements for continuance of the grants.

In short there is nothing new or significant in the scheme.

Since I thought most people are unaware of what it means for the country esp. its urban population, I thought I will explain it. Although India is a democracy where everybody is claimed to be equal. But reality it is not exactly true.

1) The Lok Sabha seat cannot span across state boundaries. Hence smaller states/union territories like:
Mizoram
Nagaland
Sikkim
Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Chandigarh
Dadra and Nagar Haveli
Daman and Diu
Lakshadweep
Pondicherry

Have an advantage of higher representation per citizen. However this bill cannot solve this problem.

2) The real problem we are targeting is that:
The present constituency map for Lok Sabha Seat or a seat in the State legislative assembly was drawn in accordance to the 1971 Census. Over the past 37 years the demography of the country has changed considerably. Several new cities/urban centers have spawned up over the last 3 decades and population of the existing cities (like Bangalore) has boomed to many folds. Hence what was once a open field with little or no habitation is now a crowded apartment complex with over a thousand households. In contrast, thanks to movement of labor to the cities, the village population has been more or less stagnant increasing slightly in areas where new irrigation methods or crops were introduced, and reducing in rain fed areas.

Unfortunately Election Commission could not keep pace with this changing population density and this has yielded some disastrous consequences for the urban citizens. Although cities account for over 70% of the GDP, 80% of all taxes collected and 40% of the country’s population, politicians which continued to ignore the cities continue to get reelected and there is nothing we could have done about it.
With this delimitation, we could hope for a more equitable representation and hence would compel the politicians to respect our urban population.

However one important aspect of the demilitation which  involves giving equitable representation  to the states whose population density has increased over the past 3 decades, has been  left to be outside the scope of the bill.

Why has our country been reduced to an Anarchy?

2) Then today taking the country by the surprise, today we signed a historic treaty. India would not only be leasing the airbase of Kalaikunda. Who could believe that in the sleepy village of West Bengal (just cycling distance away from IIT Kharagpur), we will be training foreign pilots… its like our own Top Gun school.

Do you guys think that CPI which protested about Indo-US naval joint exercise so strongly at Visakhapatnam will do the same this time also?

The VHP kendriya margdarshak mandal leader and two-time BJP Lok Sabha member issued the ‘fatwa’ in Ayodhya in which he said whosoever chopped off the head and tongue of the DMK president would be gifted with gold by the saints of Ayodhya.

- Source

My questions:
1) I do not know the legality of fatwa, but doesn’t this constitute as a threat, attempt of murder, and hiring assasins for a cold blooded murder? If so why is not this BJP MP not arrested for death threat?
2) By issuing fatwa, doesn’t VHP becomes exactly the organization that they truly hate?

now won’t it be much simpler and effective to just list the 1-2 places where there is going to be power this weekend. Also if the IT capital.. which runs solely on electrons is in such a bad shape, then just think what happens in the rest of the state.

What should the government do?
Should it not help this guy, and prevent people from terrorizing people into submission? Instead our educated and learned Mayawati is siding with the mobsters by ordering all big retail outlets to shut shop. Not only this, she created a committee (atleast 6 months delay) to decide when and how to reopen it.

What kind of justice is this? Are we some sort of anarchy where any Tom, Dick and Harry can pelt a few stones and get what they want…. whether its stop screening of a movie, or just getting rid of competitors.

Brahma Chellaney, as prax had pointed out, raised a lot of questions about the deal..
Since I strongly support this deal… let me answer them one by one:

* US gains right to unilaterally terminate cooperation at will.
What is India giving up? The facilities are still its.. and USA is only providing the much needed technology and fuel to help us progress… since India is not paying or doing any irreversible damage… what does India lose if USA terminates the contract?

* No provision for instituting alternate suppliers before terminating cooperation.
Australia has already agreed to supply fuel (it has 40% of the known reserves and does more than half of the legal Uranium exports)
Russia did supply us some fuel immediately after the first draft of the deal was hinted.
so I do not think it is a pressing concern.

* India concedes to US unfettered “right of return”.
The USA can take back the equipment and fuel (which it supplied and not the other countries supplied) after it pays a fair market price for them and compensates us for the loss… I think it is a fair deal.. after all suppose in near future, if India turns rogue.. them USA won’t want India to be using US supplied equipment and fuel to start a nuclear war.

* Agreement upholds supremacy of US law.
Again… lets assume 2 scenarios…
1) India does not sign the deal.
2) India signs the deal and after 10 years the deal is canceled.
in which of the 2 scenarios do u think India would have benefited more?

* India given reprocessing right only in principle. Actual right uncertain.
Firstly.. its their fuel.. and they have full right to dictate its full use… India has imported it for generating power.. when the fuel is depleted they want it back so that we do not use it to make warheads.. after all till date almost all the reprocessing is for the warheads and there r little if any civilian uses of it.

* Fuel-supply assurance subject to US right to terminate.
India plans to use USA’a approval as an endorsement of our nuclear programme and use USA’a political clout to get more and more alternative suppliers ASAP. So that we won’t be left high and dry.

* No full cooperation.
This deal does not stop the countries to go sign a second deal 5-10 year ahead when both parties trust each other. Instead of hoping for a quantum leap.. lets take 2-3 small steps.

* India accepts IAEA-safeguarded enrichment or reprocessing is “dual-use” activity.
The only reason why this deal is happening is because USA is agreeing to provide technology and fuel for IAEA supervised facilities… now if India takes fuel away from IAEA jurisdiction.. then how can the world be assured that there is no pilferage?

* Accord provides for fallback safeguards.
Safeguards a good… Put urself in USA’s shoes.. do u think without safeguards they will hand us the fuel and technology and equipment in a silver platter?

* Agreement turns unilateral test ban into bilateral legality.
thats a misinformation… I was reading Pranab’s interpretation.. and it looks ok. Plus nowhere India has signed a pledge that India won’t be doing any more tests… All the deal says is that the moment india does the tests the deal is off… and under no circumstances it will be considered as breaking a pledge… Please read the lines in bold once more.

When it comes to success in the technology arena, entrepreneurs’ choice of schools isn’t nearly as important as what they study, and for how long.

That’s the down-to-earth conclusion of a report released in June by the Kauffman Foundation. Founding a tech company doesn’t require an elite university degree, whether it’s in the U.S. or anywhere else.

The study bases its findings on interviews with 144 Indian, Chinese, and Taiwanese immigrant company founders culled from surveys of 1,572 companies in 11 tech centers across the country.

“It doesn’t matter which university you get your degree at,” said Vivek Wadhwa, the study’s lead author. “What matters is the level and the field of education.”

The survey found that more than half of foreign-born entrepreneurs came to the U.S. solely for an education. Close to 40% came for work. Fewer than 2% came with the express purpose of starting a company.

Immigrant founders of U.S. tech and engineering companies are highly educated in what educators call the STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

That was expected, says Wadhwa, a former entrepreneur who is Executive in Residence at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering.

Almost all immigrant founders in the study — 96% — had bachelor’s degrees. Forty-seven percent had master’s degrees, and close to 27% had doctorates.

Of those degrees, 75% were in STEM areas. Engineering accounted for 44% of the degrees.

Over half of the immigrant founders — 53% — earned their highest degrees from U.S. universities. But no top-tier university in the U.S. or abroad got particular credit for producing tech entrepreneurs.

That was a surprise, Wadhwa says. It’s good news for less prestigious schools and the students who attend them.

“From the U.S. perspective, M.I.T and Stanford didn’t have any advantage in developing successful entrepreneurs over some small university in the Midwest,” said Wadhwa.

The situation is similar in India, where tech success is practically synonymous with the subcontinent’s seven famed India Institutes of Technology. But the research shows that the IITs graduated only 15% of the Indian tech company founders.

“IITs aren’t what we feared,” Wadhwa said.

Institutions ranked below the IITs are exulting at the news, which got wide coverage in the Indian press, he says. Researchers at Duke and the University of California, Berkeley, conducted the study.

It follows a January report showing over a quarter of U.S. tech and engineering companies started between 1995 and 2005 had at least one foreign-born founder.

That a top-tier university education isn’t necessary for success shouldn’t be surprising, says Arthur Schwartz, deputy executive director of the 50,000-member National Society of Professional Engineers.

“It is absolutely the kind of education that the individual receives rather than the institution that provides it,” he said.

Education in certain fields are often a tried-and-true path to success, Schwartz says.

“Historically science, technology, engineering and mathematics have been social levelers for getting ahead for all groups,” he said.

Those looking at the tech professions from the outside in also agree that a particular university pedigree isn’t everything.

“There are certain critical thinking and higher order skills that can’t be transmitted via education,” said Forrester Research (NASDAQ:FORR) analyst Sam Bright. “So where you go to school is not the be-all and end-all.”

Whether study findings will affect investors who fund entrepreneurs is the bigger question, he says.

“The real test of this report is how open-minded angels or venture capitalists will be to expanding their filter beyond the brand of a particular school,” Bright said.

It also addresses what’s sometimes forgotten in the immigration debate, says Raman Unnikrishnan, dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at California State University, Fullerton.

“The discussion tends to focus on the negative aspects of immigration,” Unnikrishnan said. “Often immigrants are evaluated in terms of employment rather than entrepreneurship.”

But foreign-born entrepreneurs make a significant contribution to the U.S. economy, he points out.

“Immigrant-founded firms have created wealth and employment opportunities for all Americans,” Unnikrishnan said. “When political heat comes to bear, people forget that aspect of immigration.”

There are culture-specific reasons why foreign-born entrepreneurs are successful in the U.S., according to Unnikrishnan.

If the Indian tech and engineering graduates noted in the study had remained in India, they could not have taken the same entrepreneurial paths, he says.

“The U.S. allows failure,” Unnikrishnan said. “Older cultures like India do not.

“That is a profoundly important contribution that the U.S. education system and culture imparts to these bright foreign graduates who come here as immigrants.”

Since the situation has not improved since 2004-2005 and has only worsen since then…. Where did my money go?
Don’t tell me it went in creating new IITs, IIMs, or AIIMS with the sole purpose is to create an army of professionals who would pay taxes and help US Government reduce its Social Security deficit. Because… we have not created a new one either in the past couple of decades.

Lawyers are supposed to uphold the law and help their clients get justice, right? Ask Sumati. If she hadn’t approached a lawyer to file a claim for the compensation that she was entitled to under the law after her husband was killed in a road accident, she would have saved Rs 70,000 that she ended up spending on the lawyer, money that could have ensured some financial security for her 10-year-old daughter who now spends her time on the streets. That child has had to discontinue schooling because there is no money to meet the expenses.

The lawyer has not only cheated Sumati (not her real name) with repeated demands for money on dubious grounds but also lied to the court, obtained her signature unauthorisedly on documents that she could not read because she is a poor roadside vendor, and ensured that her case will never get resolved.

Sumati was married off at age 18 to an autorickshaw driver who died 15 months later in a traffic accident. She returned to her mother’s place, with a 3-month-old infant, and on the suggestion of some neighbours, engaged this lawyer to file for compensation at the Accidents Claims Tribunal.

The lawyer demanded Rs 200 first, then another Rs 400 ‘for stationery’, then a further Rs 400 ‘for expenses incurred in filing papers’, then another Rs 300 ‘towards typing charges’, and so on, and she kept paying, believing that he was going to help her get the compensation that was due to her. He gave no receipts. He also took her signature on various documents prepared by him (including an undertaking to give him 20 per cent of whatever compensation the court awards her – he did not explain this to her; such a clause is illegal) and she signed, unable to read, and not suspecting that he would do anything fraudulent. He was, she now says, ‘‘going to get her justice’’ and there was, as she saw it, no question of not trusting him.

She too is a roadside vendor like her mother, selling flowers. A year passed, then another, and another. Nothing happened. Whenever she asked him about the delay, he was brusque, and told her irritably that this was how courts worked. It would take time, he said, and she took his word for it.

Her child is now ten years old, and has become a street kid because there is no money to pay the fees that the school demands to let her take her exams. When she sought my advice after becoming suspicious about the lawyer, she hadn’t eaten for two days. An NGO I contacted made investigations and discovered that the lawyer had failed to attend hearings and the case had got dismissed long ago. He never told her.

He abused Sumati when she demanded an explanation, and threatened to have her and her mother ‘‘put in jail’’ if they bothered him. He has her trapped in his clutches. Even to get details of the case number from him was a time-consuming task for the NGO because he refused to part with the case papers and kept dodging them if they phoned. Without a ‘no objection’ from him, the NGO could not proceed with the investigations.

Complain to the Bar Council? Forget it, it won’t work, she has been advised. The family is also vulnerable because three generations of females – the elderly mother, her pretty 29-yearold daughter, and the 10-year-old girl child – are living in a slum without male escort.

The lawyer has made money out of her distress, her widowhood, her ignorance and helplessness. And her implicit trust in someone who speaks English and wears a coat and tie and argues in court. This, then, is the reality. Even in the booming, metropolitan ‘‘IT capital of the country.’’ Even with NGOs willing to help, justice seems elusive, impossible. She has signed papers because she is unlettered and trusted her lawyer. Whose fault is that – hers, or that of the state which guaranteed universal education half a century ago but defaulted on that promise? Who punishes the lawyer for his criminal act of taking a gullible client to the cleaners? He struts around and threatens her – because he is an ‘‘educated’’ man, with access to courts, and she is a poor female with no clout, no money, no VIPs to help. Court procedures intimidate her. No one told her about free legal aid for the indigent. Whose fault is that again?

What happens to Sumati’s daughter who has become a street child because she has had the misfortune to be born to an indigent woman whose husband died in an accident? What is her future? Will she be any better off than her mother and grandmother? So what ‘‘shining progress’’ and golden anniversaries are we boasting about if this is the reality for the 280 million who are poor and unlettered?

What use are all the laws we add to the statute books, if one destitute woman who is entitled to compensation under the law, is not only unable to get it but has, in trying to get it, become heavily indebted, because her lawyer, who was supposed to help her get justice, has not hesitated to do everything that is wrong under the law – the same law that he has got a degree in and claims to uphold, as an advocate? Answers, anyone?

The ‘cooperative’ bank for empowering women liquidated under orders of the Reserve Bank– The sugar mill bankrupt, having swallowed over Rs. 20 crore of unpaid loans– We see the very same pattern in the other endeavours of our next President. Her biodata speaks of the Shram Sadhana Trust that she has set up. It runs an engineering college – for rural youth, as the bio-data says. What do documents show? A Medical Aid Account is set up for students. Naturally, money from it goes to doctors – and, lo and behold, her brother, G.N. Patil’s name stands out by a mile. The documents indicate that the account is operated by Pratibha Patil herself– Employees of the college turn out to be working at the residences of the various directors – including at Pratibha Patil’s home in Mumbai. A guest house is built, and comes to be used, not by academicians visiting the college, but by members of the family– Money collected from the students goes to the soon-tobe- declared bankrupt sugar mill– Money is taken from the teachers’ salaries as compulsory deposits in that family-controlled ‘cooperative’ bank; these deposits are used to enroll ‘shareholders’ in the bank – who in turn help the family win the ‘elections’ of the cooperative bank– A pattern through and through.

Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who has been so exercised about enforcing morality on the media, is unmoved. ‘A visibly upset Dasmunsi hit out at the NDA for trying to malign Patil’s image,’ The Express reports. ‘In the process, he drew a parallel between Patil’s case and “many political leaders” whose brothers, sisters and relatives were loan defaulters and also “electronic media industry” which has been slapped with plenty of notices.’

Surely, the answer is to bring them to book too. Surely, the answer is to do what so many of us have been demanding for so long – namely, to publish the names of all bank-defaulters. Not to pick one of them at random and make her or him President of India! In any case, even Munsi, in spite of his fertile imagination, will not claim that murder has brushed the hem of the ‘electronic media industry’ as closely as it has in this instance.

Names and dates But first a few names and dates. Vishram G. Patil: Professor of English at a college in Jalagaon affiliated to the North Maharashtra University. A Congressman for thirty years. Elected President of the District Congress Committee not once but thrice. Murdered on 21 September, 2005.

Rajani Patil: his wife. Professor of Marathi at the same college. She names G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as the conspirators in her husband’s murder. G.N. Patil: brother of the UPA nominee for the Presidentship of India. Rival and adversary of Vishram Patil. Defeated by Vishram Patil in his effort to become President of the District Congress Committee.

Ulhas Patil: former Congress member of Parliament. Close associate of G.N. Patil. Rival and adversary of Vishram Patil. Runs a number of NGOs of customary repute.

Raju Mali and Raju Sonawane: two arrested for murdering Vishram Patil. Raju Mali tells Aaj Tak correspondent, on camera, that they are just being made sacrificial goats. The real perpetrators of the murder are at large. Who are they, he is asked. “The persons who are being named by Rajani Patil,” he says. He suddenly dies in police custody – three days after, at long last, the CBI team visits Jalagaon on its first visit.

Leeladhar Narkhede and Damodar Lokhande: two who are named as having financed the murder of Vishram Patil. Phone records show several calls between them and G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil on the day before the murder, on the day of the murder and on the day after. The two are picked up. But four months later, they are let off. The FIR about them is withdrawn.

A few dates 21 September, 2005: Vishram Patil murdered. Great commotion in Jalagaon. People openly say that he has been killed as the result of a supari having been given to murder him by his political rivals within the Congress party. By the fourth day, Police say they have completed ‘90 per cent’ of the investigation, and will soon get the killers and those behind them. Police arrest the two who confess to the actual murder.

October 2006: Aaj Tak puts out a detailed story by Manish Awasthi cataloguing the murder. In it, Aaj Tak takes viewers through the records of the mobile telephone company that establish that numerous calls were made between the two reported financiers of the murder and the brother of Pratibha Patil, G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil – the calls were made on the day before the murder, on the day of the murder and on the day after the murder. The channel shows the exact times and duration of the calls from the records of the mobile phone company. Awasthi’s story contains a devastating interview of Raju Mali from within the jail. In September 2005, they had gone on an indefinite fast inside the jail. Raju Mali says in the interview that they had stopped taking food to protest against the Police for not arresting, for not even questioning the real culprits, ‘the persons named by Rajani Patil’. ‘We have simply been made sacrificial goats in the case while the real culprits are untouched.’ 4 April, 2007: a year and a half after the murder, and after vicissitudes that we shall soon encounter, the CBI team comes to Jalagaon for its first visit. 7 April, 2007: the CBI team interrogates Rajani Patil, the widow of the murdered DCC President. But something else happens in the jail not far away: Raju Mali ‘falls ill’; he is taken to the Government hospital; in little time, while still in Police custody, he dies.

Events The brother of Pratibha Patil, G.N. Patil — who, as we have seen, has been a close collaborator in her endeavours to empower women and bring succour to rural youth – is a frustrated rival of Vishram Patil. The latter has defeated him to the Presidentship of the District Congress Committee. Congress workers collect funds – ostensibly to provide relief to tsunami victims. This happens during G.N. Patil’s Presidentship of the DCC, that is before he is defeated by Vishram Patil. The collections are never deposited in the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. Congress workers again collect funds – this time to felicitate Pratibha Patil upon her appointment as Governor of Rajasthan. No one hears what happens to these funds either. Several office-bearers of the District Congress Committee send a memorandum to Prabha Rau, head of the Maharashtra Congress, asking her to institute an inquiry into the missing funds. They receive no reply.

15 August, 2005: nine office-bearers of the DCC issue a press release saying that G.N. Patil, the brother of Pratibha Patil, has not submitted accounts of funds that were collected by Congress workers for felicitating Pratibha Patil. Vishram Patil commences an inquiry within the Congress into the misappropriation of the funds. He also commences an inquiry into financial dealings of Ulhas Patil and his NGOs. He brings the matter to the attention of the high command of the Congress.

He receives three anonymous letters. Written in hand, they state that a supari has been given out to kill him, that he should be careful. He persists with the inquiry. He is killed. Local dailies are full of the murder. They surmise that it is the result of political rivalries in the District Congress Committee. Because of the enormous commotion among the local people, the Police act. Within a few days, they nab the killers.

They make swift progress in the investigation. They tell Rajani Patil, the widow, that 90 per cent of the investigation is over, that they will soon get the ones who instigated the murder also. Suddenly, the investigation goes off the rails. The police now put out a story that the murder actually took place because of a dispute over money — ostensibly Rs. 4.5 lakhs — that Raju Mali had borrowed from Vishram Patil. Rajani Patil strongly refutes the insinuation. Local papers puncture holes in this new concoction of the Police. As suddenly as the concoction had been put out, the investigation is taken out of the hands of the local police entirely, and turned over to the CID of the state Government. 26 September, 2005: alarmed at the way the investigation is being derailed, the widow, Rajani Patil writes to Sonia Gandhi. She says, ‘The brain behind the crime is pressurizing the investigation process.’

27 September, 2005: a local paper, Deshdoot, reports that at a press conference, Rajiv Patil, the parabhari adhyaksha of the Congress, has said that Raju Mali, the killer, is an agent of G.N. Patil, the brother of Pratibha Patil, Governor of Rajasthan. Another report in the paper says that everyone in Jalagaon is talking about the contract killing, about how much was paid for it, and by whom– The same day, 27 September, 2005, thirteen office-bearers of the District Congress Committee write to the local Superintendent of Police. They name G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as being the persons behind the murder and express grave concern that the investigation is being dragged down to a crawl.

28 September, 2005: Local papers like Deshdoot and Deshonnati carry a tell-tale photograph. It has been taken on the day the election of the District Congress Committee President takes place. A group is standing around the victor, Vishram Patil. In the picture, mysteriously, is Raju Mali – the very man who is to kill Vishram Patil soon. He was not and is not a member of the Congress, the papers say. Who let him into the party office? With whose blessing was he roaming inside the office? With who is he linked? They have no doubt about the answer– On 28 September, 2005, Manikrao Gavit, the Minister of State in the Home Ministry at the Centre – and he too belongs to the Congress party — writes to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. He writes that he has received a letter from the Prabhari President of the Jalagaon District Congress Committee, Rajiv Patil, in which the latter has named G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as the conspirators behind the murder. Gavit says that there is haa-haakaar in the local Congress, hence he is sending Rajiv Patil’s letter. He urges the Chief Minister to have the matter investigated in this direction and to do everything necessary to get at the real culprits and have them punished. The local papers are full of the inaction that has overtaken the investigation. The real culprits are at large, they say. The names of G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil are splashed across the headlines of stories connected with the murder. Rajani Patil, the widow, writes to the local Police chief: ‘This murder has been committed out of political enmity. I therefore urge you to investigate the case from this angle and arrest the persons concerned. I strongly believe that, under somebody’s pressure, there is an attempt to misdirect the Police investigation by fabricating cock-and-bull stories.’

5 October, 2005: Rajiv Patil, the parabhari-adhyaksha of the Congress, writes to the Chief Minister, to the Director General of Police, and to the head of the Pune Branch of the CID. He records his concern that the investigation is going nowhere. He urges that some of the Jalagaon-based police officers who were handling the initial investigation and who know the facts should be involved in the inquiry. He gives the names of the concerned officers. He receives no reply.

15 October, 2005: Rajiv Patil writes to the authorities again pointing to the connection between the killers and G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil. He says that the killers who have been nabbed were never Congress activists, that they were brought to the Congress office by G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil only at the time of the DCC election. 1 December, 2005: two months have gone by since the murder, the investigation has been steered into the wrong direction all too-patently. Rajani Patil, the widow, writes to R.R. Patil, the Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister of the state. She expresses her anguish at what has been done to the investigation. It is going nowhere, she says. The police had assured us that 90 per cent of the investigation is over and that they will soon get to the real conspirators. But as ‘the real conspirators have high-level connections, when only 10 per cent of the investigation was left, the case was taken out of their hands and given to the state CID.’

8 December, 2005: Rajani Patil again writes to the Chief Minister and Home Minister of the state. She strongly repudiates the police insinuation that there was some financial dispute between her husband and the killers. My husband was killed because of the supari given by the political rivals of my husband, she writes. You can find out who gave the supari by asking the two who are in custody, she tells them. There is no response.

(To be concluded)

So how should we curtail this globalization of Diseases?
By Banning Taiwan from becoming a part of WHO.

Apparently WHO and its members had excluded Taiwan in 1972. Lets guess the reason. Is it because:
1) Taiwan government seizes life saving drugs and sells it to the open market?
2) Taiwan is a no man land, and WHO lost several health workers in the insurgency?
3) Taiwanese government ill treats Doctors and Medical Personnels?

Well it was a trick question.
Taiwan has been repeatedly pleading WHO to start its operations and share valuable research and data with it. But WHO believes in “One China Policy”. It cannot afford to jeopardize its relationship with China in a mission to save the world from epidemic outbreaks.
Why can’t we keep politics away from such noble tasks?

The latest one being “Ban of women in night shifts”
Typically I would expect such bills to be pro-females after all, in the eyes of the government, they are the weaker sex who needs protection. But my assumption was soon proved wrong by the last line of the news:
“And this gives women’s groups enough time to gather their resources and voice their protest.”

Can anybody please enlighten me what is the motive behind this bill? Whom is it supposed to benefit?

My stance:
1) Suppose I manage a hotel, restaurant or a shop, and I am an equal opportunity employer… what should I do? Should I continue to pay salaries to employees which will not be productive during the peak business hours (8-10pm) or should I just get rid of them?
2) What is so special about BPO/ IT offices that the ban does not apply to them?
3) What support does the government plans to give to a single mother who lost her job due to this bill?
4) What about the successful businesswoman who will have to sell her enterprise because she can no longer manage her shop while it is open?