Flying Singh Remembers
Sports columnist Rohit Brijnath talks to the 'Flying Sikh' Milkha Singh, the finest athlete India has ever produced, ahead of the Beijing Olympics.
Now in his 70s, voice still strong, Milkha Singh knows it's Olympic year, he knows journalists (like me) will call and ask him about that day 48 years ago and dredge up a memory so piercingly painful. He has won four Asian Games gold medals, and one Commonwealth Games gold, yet it is not his many victories but one failure that people ask about. He sighs. He speaks.
India has won a fistful of individual Olympic medals, bronzes by KD Jadhav (wrestling, 1952), Leander Paes (tennis, 1996), Karnam Malleswari (weightlifting, 2000) and a silver from Rajyavendra Singh Rathore (shooting, 2004). Yet Milkha's story of a bronze missed in Rome 1960, is the most irresistible, the one we return to constantly.
Perhaps because heartbreak, as a story, is often more powerful, and poignant, than triumph. Perhaps because in 2008 India expects medals, but then in 1960, in a country that had savoured independence for just 13 years, where facilities were few, contending for medals was a more romantic pursuit.
Different world
India's progress in sport has not yet manifested itself in medals, but its strides are quiet and surer. Last year swimmer Virdhawal Khade's parents, from Kolhapur in Maharashtra state, agreed to the once unthinkable: letting him delay his class 10 examinations to qualify for Beijing. He did.
Technology is no longer foreign to Indian athletes. Khade has been privileged to use Speedo's breakthrough LZR Racer suit. World champion shooter Abhinav Bindra has been hooking himself up to a machine that identifies what activity is going on in his brain when he is shooting well. As he told me: "The key is how to train that area of the mind so it is routine to get into that state."
Milkha's world bore no resemblance to this. With a straightforwardness that is immediately disarming, he says that when he joined the army, "I came from a remote village, I didn't know what running was, or the Olympics".
Context gives Milkha's story its searing beauty, the environment in which he ran gives his tale uniqueness. PT Usha would lose Olympic bronze in 1984 by an even crueller margin, yet in a comparison of tragedies he wins because of where he came from, what he endured. Usha did not work less hard, but it's impossible to compete with a man whose parents were killed, some reports say in front of him, in the carnage of India's partition. Whose temporary home for a month was a platform on Delhi's railway station.
His beginnings as an athlete can be linked, he says, to a five-mile cross-country run that every jawan (soldier) had to run. The top 10 were to be given further training, and so he ran it, was stricken by a stomach pain after just half a mile, sat down, but then got up, telling himself, "I have to come in the top 10". He came sixth, he says. The legend had started.
He was told then to run 400 metres, whereupon he asked, "how long is that?"
"Ek round," they said. One round, he thought, could not be such a big deal.
He was not familiar with spikes. Nor a tracksuit. But what he had couldn't be manufactured in a factory. "Aag thah andar," he says in Hindi ("I had a fire inside").
Discipline, hard work, will power: he says the words with the devotion of a man nursing prayer beads. His own perseverance takes many forms, in the blood he reportedly urinated because he worked so hard, in the oxygen that was supposedly used to revive him after practice. In an interview in 1996, he told me: "My experience made me so hard that I wasn't even scared of death." But one story reflects his desire clearest.
Almost hero
In 1956, he journeyed to the Melbourne Olympics, just a novice who exited early in the heats. The 400-metre gold medallist that year was Charles Jenkins, and Milkha, taking with him an interpreter who spoke "tuta-phuta" (broken) English, met the American and asked for his training schedule.
Come back after a few days, Jenkins told him. "So we went," says Milkha, "and he gave me his coaching schedule, for hill running, for sprints, for starts, for weights."
"And I decided unless I beat his record (46.7, hand-timed) I won't stop."
Two years after Melbourne, he did beat that time, in Cuttack, his run eliciting such disbelief that the track was measured again.
Four years after Melbourne, he was a medal contender at the Rome Olympics. He'd run and won so often around the world that he says he had 20 passports. He was ready, an athlete poised for his moment.
And this is when the story must be hard for him to tell, for however many times he tells it, the result never alters. He is always fourth. He is always .1 of a second too late. He is always the almost hero.
What happened in the 400 final? Was it the fact the final was held, for the first time since 1912, on a different day from the semis, and Milkha says "that killed me, I was alone thinking about the race, no one was allowed to meet me".
Was it, as he always says, that he went out too quick when the gun went off? "It went in my mind that I was running too fast and I may not finish." So he slowed, broke his rhythm, couldn't regain it. Goddamn it.
"It was bad luck", says this proud man, "for India and Milkha Singh." And it was, for both nation and man in 1960 were trying to make themselves heard, be noticed, and perhaps this is why he still sits in the memory. In a land not given to nicknames, this Flying Sikh almost everyone Indian knows.
Milkha gave India medals in Asia, determination, pride, an unforgettable story and a terrific son called Jeev. One of these days, hopefully, India will give back to him by producing a runner who wins an Olympic medal. I think he'll like that.
Aug 2, 2008
World - Bribery rules on Afghan Roads
On a hot summer afternoon in the chaotic border town of Torkham in eastern Afghanistan, Mohammad Younas is counting the money he needs to bribe local customs officials.
Torkham, in Nangarhar province, is one of the busiest crossing points between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Every day, hundreds of trucks and cars, laden with passengers and goods, pass through.
The 35-year-old Afghan truck driver is carrying 15 tons of tomatoes he picked up in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
Trials and tribulations
However, before driving towards the city of Jalalabad Younas has to wait an hour to get to the front of the queue.
One Afghan customs official checks his papers and gives him the green light, but then asks Younas to wait until his papers are "cleared".
After a few minutes of waiting, Younas pulls out 5,000 Afghanis ($108).
''You see this bribe? If I don't pay now, they will make me wait here for hours. The tomatoes will be spoiled in this hot weather."
Younas has agreed to let me ride in his truck so I can see for myself the trials and tribulations faced by the average Afghan transporter.
The tall, blue-eyed driver hands the money over to the customs official and is finally allowed to leave Torkham.
''We have better roads these days. We can play music and have more independence. But look at the level of corruption,'' he says.
Younas began work in the transport industry shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
His village, Samarkhel, was caught in the fighting between Soviet and Mujahideen forces. Like millions of other Afghans, he took refuge in Pakistan.
"I was a young boy then. We fled and lived in a refugee camp. I started as an assistant truck driver and after 16 years I learned how to drive. For all these years I have been driving mostly between Pakistan and Afghanistan."
Rude police
Younas chooses a Pashto music cassette to play as he steers his massive truck on one of Afghanistan's busiest roads. ''I am an experienced driver," he assures me.
As we barrel down the Torkham-Jalalabad highway, Younas complains about corruption and the "rude behaviour of Afghan police".
We arrive at a check post in the Daka area and a uniformed police officer asks Younas for his documents.
After a 30-minute wait, it becomes clear that the police officer wants money or else we will wait here forever.
After much bargaining, Younas doles out 600 Afghanis ($13).
"Nothing gets done without money these days. During the Taleban days, we didn't have to pay bribes," he says, visibly angry.
For about 45 minutes, Younas is quiet and the Pashto music blares as we travel in the scorching heat. I try to engage Younas, but in his frustrated state he is not interested in conversation.
As we get close to the Mohammand Dara district, a passing American convoy orders all traffic to halt and Younas finally begins talking again.
"This is a joke - the road is blocked again!"
We wait for another 30 minutes before we get the green light from the American soldier waving from his humvee.
Minutes later we arrive at another police check post. This time, the police demand a crate of tomatoes. Younas orders his assistant to give them a rotten one.
'We will all die'
Younas refuses to be photographed for fear of retribution. However, most of his fellow drivers are keen to be photographed and to have their voices heard.
Take Mohmmand Nader: "I leave Peshawar and we start paying bribes. Once we cross into our country, we start paying bribes. We have got used to it by now."
Nangarhar police spokesman Ghafoar Khan is defensive: "We have in the past sacked corrupt traffic policemen and other police officials, we have also prosecuted them. If these drivers help us with some evidence, we will sack the corrupt officials. We are very serious about this."
But drivers like Mohammad Ebrahim accuse the Afghan government of turning a blind eye to what he calls robbery.
''If we don't pay the traffic police or the customs official, they will make us wait for hours. And we can't afford to wait. Corruption is everywhere," he says while waiting outside a customs checkpoint on the outskirts of Jalalabad.
My journey with Younas on the 74-km Torkham-Jalalabad highway took three hours and 45 minutes.
We stop for lunch at a Jalalabad restaurant. Younas is soaked in sweat and visibly tired.
"Corruption in Afghanistan is like Aids - if our government doesn't punish corrupt officials, we will all die," he says, before we say our farewells.
Torkham, in Nangarhar province, is one of the busiest crossing points between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Every day, hundreds of trucks and cars, laden with passengers and goods, pass through.
The 35-year-old Afghan truck driver is carrying 15 tons of tomatoes he picked up in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
Trials and tribulations
However, before driving towards the city of Jalalabad Younas has to wait an hour to get to the front of the queue.
One Afghan customs official checks his papers and gives him the green light, but then asks Younas to wait until his papers are "cleared".
After a few minutes of waiting, Younas pulls out 5,000 Afghanis ($108).
''You see this bribe? If I don't pay now, they will make me wait here for hours. The tomatoes will be spoiled in this hot weather."
Younas has agreed to let me ride in his truck so I can see for myself the trials and tribulations faced by the average Afghan transporter.
The tall, blue-eyed driver hands the money over to the customs official and is finally allowed to leave Torkham.
''We have better roads these days. We can play music and have more independence. But look at the level of corruption,'' he says.
Younas began work in the transport industry shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
His village, Samarkhel, was caught in the fighting between Soviet and Mujahideen forces. Like millions of other Afghans, he took refuge in Pakistan.
"I was a young boy then. We fled and lived in a refugee camp. I started as an assistant truck driver and after 16 years I learned how to drive. For all these years I have been driving mostly between Pakistan and Afghanistan."
Rude police
Younas chooses a Pashto music cassette to play as he steers his massive truck on one of Afghanistan's busiest roads. ''I am an experienced driver," he assures me.
As we barrel down the Torkham-Jalalabad highway, Younas complains about corruption and the "rude behaviour of Afghan police".
We arrive at a check post in the Daka area and a uniformed police officer asks Younas for his documents.
After a 30-minute wait, it becomes clear that the police officer wants money or else we will wait here forever.
After much bargaining, Younas doles out 600 Afghanis ($13).
"Nothing gets done without money these days. During the Taleban days, we didn't have to pay bribes," he says, visibly angry.
For about 45 minutes, Younas is quiet and the Pashto music blares as we travel in the scorching heat. I try to engage Younas, but in his frustrated state he is not interested in conversation.
As we get close to the Mohammand Dara district, a passing American convoy orders all traffic to halt and Younas finally begins talking again.
"This is a joke - the road is blocked again!"
We wait for another 30 minutes before we get the green light from the American soldier waving from his humvee.
Minutes later we arrive at another police check post. This time, the police demand a crate of tomatoes. Younas orders his assistant to give them a rotten one.
'We will all die'
Younas refuses to be photographed for fear of retribution. However, most of his fellow drivers are keen to be photographed and to have their voices heard.
Take Mohmmand Nader: "I leave Peshawar and we start paying bribes. Once we cross into our country, we start paying bribes. We have got used to it by now."
Nangarhar police spokesman Ghafoar Khan is defensive: "We have in the past sacked corrupt traffic policemen and other police officials, we have also prosecuted them. If these drivers help us with some evidence, we will sack the corrupt officials. We are very serious about this."
But drivers like Mohammad Ebrahim accuse the Afghan government of turning a blind eye to what he calls robbery.
''If we don't pay the traffic police or the customs official, they will make us wait for hours. And we can't afford to wait. Corruption is everywhere," he says while waiting outside a customs checkpoint on the outskirts of Jalalabad.
My journey with Younas on the 74-km Torkham-Jalalabad highway took three hours and 45 minutes.
We stop for lunch at a Jalalabad restaurant. Younas is soaked in sweat and visibly tired.
"Corruption in Afghanistan is like Aids - if our government doesn't punish corrupt officials, we will all die," he says, before we say our farewells.
World - Italians dial up best food prices
A text messaging service set up by the Italian government is helping its citizens to haggle on their high street.
The rising cost of food is a growing concern for many people across the world.
There have been protests, and even riots, in countries including Mexico, India and Egypt, clear evidence of the struggle that many people are now facing.
However, if Italians feel that their local food retailer is charging unreasonable prices, they can now call on a new service to help them haggle or walk away.
Thanks to a short message service (SMS) text system set up jointly by the Italian agriculture ministry and consumer associations, shoppers can check the average price of different foods in northern, central and southern Italy.
With prices spiralling out of control in some parts of the world, some people feel that it is high time consumers could check just how much traders are profiting.
Luca Di Maio is a consultant for the Consumer Federation in Rome, and explains that the new system lets consumers type the name of the food product they want to price check into their mobile phone and send a free text message to a dedicated number.
"After a few seconds you will receive an SMS that will tell you the different prices in the different areas of Italy", he says.
Trading tomatoes
BBC reporter Emma Wallis from BBC World Service's Culture Shock programme decided to find out how much 2kg of tomatoes cost in a market in Rome.
She found that the wholesale price of a kilo of cherry tomatoes is 69 euro cents (54p).
Whereas the retail price in the north is 2.9 euros, in central Italy it is 2.8 euros, while in the south its 1.85 euros.
By contrast, for bigger tomatoes the wholesale price is 62 cents compared with 2.15 euros in the north, 1.85 euros in central and 1.50 euros in the south.
However, the tomatoes are bought by the wholesalers for only 22 cents a kilo from the farmers.
Mr Di Maio explains that the problem facing Italian shoppers is that there are a large number of traders and prices can vary hugely between them.
He explains that the price checking system is there to let the consumer know and understand the pricing dynamics of the market, and make a more informed choice.
"We are in a free market and consumers should be able to buy or not buy, or go around and check for better prices", he adds.
Dealer's prices
Emma Wallis hit the streets of Rome to find out how many people had actually heard about the new price checking service.
"I've heard about this line and I think it's a great idea" said one woman, adding that everyone puts the prices they feel like putting.
"If you stroll down this market for instance, there are courgettes for two euros, 2.5 euros and 1.5 euros, you never know which ones to choose", she adds.
Another woman explains that she would be interested in using the price checking service, but only in certain situations.
"I do my shopping pretty quickly but I do try and check prices when I can. But I trust this stall holder so I wouldn't really need it here," she says.
But she was not sure she would use the service for shops.
In perspective
According to Tom Standage, business editor at The Economist magazine, markets are more efficient when you have more information.
"If you are in a supermarket and there's a price for tomatoes and that's the only piece of information you have, you've got no idea whether you should be protesting by not buying it," he says.
He explains that for supply and demand to work at its best, consumers need to be able to compare different prices from suppliers on the spot, something the texting service and others like it should help make easier.
"There are even services where you can scan a barcode in with your mobile phone and it tells you how much the internet retailers are selling a particular product for," he says.
If a price is too high, people will not buy the product and the trader will have to drop it, he adds.
With many analysts warning that high food costs are here to stay, Italian consumer are unlikely to be the only ones hoping to find the High Street's best prices.
The rising cost of food is a growing concern for many people across the world.
There have been protests, and even riots, in countries including Mexico, India and Egypt, clear evidence of the struggle that many people are now facing.
However, if Italians feel that their local food retailer is charging unreasonable prices, they can now call on a new service to help them haggle or walk away.
Thanks to a short message service (SMS) text system set up jointly by the Italian agriculture ministry and consumer associations, shoppers can check the average price of different foods in northern, central and southern Italy.
With prices spiralling out of control in some parts of the world, some people feel that it is high time consumers could check just how much traders are profiting.
Luca Di Maio is a consultant for the Consumer Federation in Rome, and explains that the new system lets consumers type the name of the food product they want to price check into their mobile phone and send a free text message to a dedicated number.
"After a few seconds you will receive an SMS that will tell you the different prices in the different areas of Italy", he says.
Trading tomatoes
BBC reporter Emma Wallis from BBC World Service's Culture Shock programme decided to find out how much 2kg of tomatoes cost in a market in Rome.
She found that the wholesale price of a kilo of cherry tomatoes is 69 euro cents (54p).
Whereas the retail price in the north is 2.9 euros, in central Italy it is 2.8 euros, while in the south its 1.85 euros.
By contrast, for bigger tomatoes the wholesale price is 62 cents compared with 2.15 euros in the north, 1.85 euros in central and 1.50 euros in the south.
However, the tomatoes are bought by the wholesalers for only 22 cents a kilo from the farmers.
Mr Di Maio explains that the problem facing Italian shoppers is that there are a large number of traders and prices can vary hugely between them.
He explains that the price checking system is there to let the consumer know and understand the pricing dynamics of the market, and make a more informed choice.
"We are in a free market and consumers should be able to buy or not buy, or go around and check for better prices", he adds.
Dealer's prices
Emma Wallis hit the streets of Rome to find out how many people had actually heard about the new price checking service.
"I've heard about this line and I think it's a great idea" said one woman, adding that everyone puts the prices they feel like putting.
"If you stroll down this market for instance, there are courgettes for two euros, 2.5 euros and 1.5 euros, you never know which ones to choose", she adds.
Another woman explains that she would be interested in using the price checking service, but only in certain situations.
"I do my shopping pretty quickly but I do try and check prices when I can. But I trust this stall holder so I wouldn't really need it here," she says.
But she was not sure she would use the service for shops.
In perspective
According to Tom Standage, business editor at The Economist magazine, markets are more efficient when you have more information.
"If you are in a supermarket and there's a price for tomatoes and that's the only piece of information you have, you've got no idea whether you should be protesting by not buying it," he says.
He explains that for supply and demand to work at its best, consumers need to be able to compare different prices from suppliers on the spot, something the texting service and others like it should help make easier.
"There are even services where you can scan a barcode in with your mobile phone and it tells you how much the internet retailers are selling a particular product for," he says.
If a price is too high, people will not buy the product and the trader will have to drop it, he adds.
With many analysts warning that high food costs are here to stay, Italian consumer are unlikely to be the only ones hoping to find the High Street's best prices.
Tech - The Importance of being there
On Monday I went to see author and thinker Clay Shirky talk at a lunchtime seminar hosted by the Demos think tank.
I travelled in to London earlier than I needed to on a crowded train, sitting on a slow bus across town and then squeezing into a bright but too warm room to sit on a hard seat in order to listen to something which was being recorded and will later be available as a podcast.
Clay was charming and intelligent and funny, and I got to hear him thinking out loud about the impact of social tools on international politics, which was fun, but I could have done all that by listening in online, or even by watching the stream of brief reports appearing on Twitter, the communications service that is currently taking the net by storm.
Instead I sat there offering my own online commentary on what he was saying while looking up references on the web as he talked.
Net benefits
What drove me there was the same inner need that got me to the OpenTech conference last weekend, despite the fact it meant a trip to London on a Saturday.
Two weeks ago it took me to York for Shift Happens, an event for those working in the arts to explore new technology, and before that it had dragged me to 2gether08, the strangely-named but fabulously productive convention that arch-networker Steve Moore created by inviting a lot of interesting people to come up with some cool things to talk about.
I am sure that it will take me around the country and indeed the world in years to come, because there is something special about being in the same space as someone else.
However good the video link, however clear the audio, and however anatomically accurate the avatar, sharing the same space and breathing the same air makes a difference to the quality of interaction, especially when you're trying to do something creative rather than being a passive member of an audience.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't try to improve the various online alternatives to being there, just that we should not expect them to be an adequate substitute in all circumstances.
Online may not be the same as being there, but it does of course have its own special advantages.
Online I can participate in distributed events, meet with people who could never all be present in the same space at the same time, and use the tools to mix synchronous and asynchronous communications to allow a distributed form of participation.
I can even be in two places at the same time. A video feed of every session at 2gether08 was streamed live on the internet, so I managed to sit in a room paying a bit of attention to the discussion about freeing up public data with a headphone in one ear so that I could keep up with the discussion happening downstairs.
And I get to keep a record of my participation. The chat I had with Clay after his talk has vanished, but every word I said to the team from Chinadialogue in our Skype chat last week is carefully preserved, including the moment when the clock chimed and I thought it was interference on the line.
'Virtual presence'
Although they won't replace physical meetings, more and more of us are using online tools and services to keep up to date with our friends, share information about what we're up to or interested in and even to take part in events which we're not physically present at.
But travel takes time, costs money and can have an environmental impact that outweighs the benefits of actually "being there", so we want to make sure that the alternatives are as good as they can be.
And we can't assume that there is a single model for success, or that something that works in one context will be effective or even acceptable everywhere.
Clay Shirky was in London to talk about the ideas from his recently published book Here Comes Everybody, and in it he outlines what he sees as the social and technological factors that determine the success of a social tool, whether a service like email, a site like Facebook or a video-conferencing tool offering "virtual presence" at meetings.
For Shirky every successful social tool brings together a promise, a tool and a bargain - or rather, a plausible promise, an effective tool and an acceptable bargain with users.
The promise is the premise for a group's formation, the reason why people might sign up, join in or take part; the tool makes the necessary interaction possible; and the bargain is the deal between the provider and the user about what will ensue.
If you want to launch a new service then you need to find a way to bring the group of interested people into existence by promising them something, you need to find a tool that will do the job, and you need to keep your side of the bargain once the community is in existence - however ephemeral it may be.
Tools work in different ways, and they also build different levels of engagement between their users, from contribution (which Shirky calls "sharing") through cooperation to collaborative production, and ending with collective action. Wikipedia is a good example of cooperative creation; Linux of collective action.
We are still at a very early stage in our use of online tools for interaction and community-building, so we should not assume that any of today's models will persist or the big sites will be around in a few years time.
What is clear, however, is that the boundaries between the online and offline worlds are blurring as we put our hands through the looking-glass of the screen to shake hands with those on the other side, occasionally pulling them back through into what we still like to call "real life".
Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet.
I travelled in to London earlier than I needed to on a crowded train, sitting on a slow bus across town and then squeezing into a bright but too warm room to sit on a hard seat in order to listen to something which was being recorded and will later be available as a podcast.
Clay was charming and intelligent and funny, and I got to hear him thinking out loud about the impact of social tools on international politics, which was fun, but I could have done all that by listening in online, or even by watching the stream of brief reports appearing on Twitter, the communications service that is currently taking the net by storm.
Instead I sat there offering my own online commentary on what he was saying while looking up references on the web as he talked.
Net benefits
What drove me there was the same inner need that got me to the OpenTech conference last weekend, despite the fact it meant a trip to London on a Saturday.
Two weeks ago it took me to York for Shift Happens, an event for those working in the arts to explore new technology, and before that it had dragged me to 2gether08, the strangely-named but fabulously productive convention that arch-networker Steve Moore created by inviting a lot of interesting people to come up with some cool things to talk about.
I am sure that it will take me around the country and indeed the world in years to come, because there is something special about being in the same space as someone else.
However good the video link, however clear the audio, and however anatomically accurate the avatar, sharing the same space and breathing the same air makes a difference to the quality of interaction, especially when you're trying to do something creative rather than being a passive member of an audience.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't try to improve the various online alternatives to being there, just that we should not expect them to be an adequate substitute in all circumstances.
Online may not be the same as being there, but it does of course have its own special advantages.
Online I can participate in distributed events, meet with people who could never all be present in the same space at the same time, and use the tools to mix synchronous and asynchronous communications to allow a distributed form of participation.
I can even be in two places at the same time. A video feed of every session at 2gether08 was streamed live on the internet, so I managed to sit in a room paying a bit of attention to the discussion about freeing up public data with a headphone in one ear so that I could keep up with the discussion happening downstairs.
And I get to keep a record of my participation. The chat I had with Clay after his talk has vanished, but every word I said to the team from Chinadialogue in our Skype chat last week is carefully preserved, including the moment when the clock chimed and I thought it was interference on the line.
'Virtual presence'
Although they won't replace physical meetings, more and more of us are using online tools and services to keep up to date with our friends, share information about what we're up to or interested in and even to take part in events which we're not physically present at.
But travel takes time, costs money and can have an environmental impact that outweighs the benefits of actually "being there", so we want to make sure that the alternatives are as good as they can be.
And we can't assume that there is a single model for success, or that something that works in one context will be effective or even acceptable everywhere.
Clay Shirky was in London to talk about the ideas from his recently published book Here Comes Everybody, and in it he outlines what he sees as the social and technological factors that determine the success of a social tool, whether a service like email, a site like Facebook or a video-conferencing tool offering "virtual presence" at meetings.
For Shirky every successful social tool brings together a promise, a tool and a bargain - or rather, a plausible promise, an effective tool and an acceptable bargain with users.
The promise is the premise for a group's formation, the reason why people might sign up, join in or take part; the tool makes the necessary interaction possible; and the bargain is the deal between the provider and the user about what will ensue.
If you want to launch a new service then you need to find a way to bring the group of interested people into existence by promising them something, you need to find a tool that will do the job, and you need to keep your side of the bargain once the community is in existence - however ephemeral it may be.
Tools work in different ways, and they also build different levels of engagement between their users, from contribution (which Shirky calls "sharing") through cooperation to collaborative production, and ending with collective action. Wikipedia is a good example of cooperative creation; Linux of collective action.
We are still at a very early stage in our use of online tools for interaction and community-building, so we should not assume that any of today's models will persist or the big sites will be around in a few years time.
What is clear, however, is that the boundaries between the online and offline worlds are blurring as we put our hands through the looking-glass of the screen to shake hands with those on the other side, occasionally pulling them back through into what we still like to call "real life".
Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet.
Lifestyle - Changing the way we think
Bill Thompson considers how our multi-media world is impacted the way we see ourselves.
In her recently published book ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century, Professor Susan Greenfield brings her considerable expertise as a neuroscientist to bear on the question of whether and how our current use of computers is changing the way our brains work.
Greenfield argues that the visual stimulus we get from screen-based information and entertainment differs so markedly from that available to previous generations that certain areas of the brain, specifically those areas that are older in evolutionary terms and retain the capacity to alter as a result of experience, may be affected in ways that express themselves a changes to personality and behaviour.
It's an interesting hypothesis, and one that has the virtue of being experimentally testable, unlike many other claims about the effect of modern living on human psychology.
And it is a model that Nick Carr uses to support his rather broader viewpoint that our intellectual faculties are being damaged by the internet in his latest essay for the US-based Atlantic magazine.
Carr believes that the style of searching and exploration of links encouraged by search engines such as Google is changing the way heavy users think, reflecting that "over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn't going - so far as I can tell - but it's changing. I'm not thinking the way I used to think".
War and Peace
He likens himself to HAL, the computer in Arthur C Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, reverting to child-like singing as its memory banks are disconnected by astronaut Dave Bowman.
He regretfully notes that "my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle".
Although the piece has the attention-grabbing headline 'Is Google Making Us Stupid?' Carr's target is really the whole internet, where Facebook status updates and invitations compete with incoming Twitter posts, Friendfeed alerts and RSS feeds from hundreds of websites to overwhelm any attempt to pay careful attention to a well-ordered argument spread over thousands of words or hundreds of pages in a linear fashion.
Why read War and Peace, he seems to say, when you can get a text message from a friend to tell you what has happened to Pierre in only 160 characters, or cut it down to 140 for Twitter?
It's a nice argument, and has succeeded in provoking a wide-ranging debate.
John Battelle, for example, sees himself getting cleverer as he searches, follows links and absorbs information, arguing that when "performing bricolage in real time over the course of hours, I am 'feeling' my brain light up, I and 'feeling' like I'm getting smarter. A lot smarter, and in a way that only a human can be smarter".
New literacy
Battelle may feel smarter, but he also accepts that the way of working online is different from that which prevailed when we were a print-based culture. He just thinks it is at least equal, if not superior, to what went before.
There does seem to be a difference between screen-based literacy and page-based literacy, and the reason may be that outlined by another participant in the debate, developmental psychologist Maryanne Wolf.
In her new book, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, she points out that reading is not an innate ability for humans but something we have to learn how to do, and there is no reason why different forms of literacy should not emerge as new technologies do.
Tech drug
After all, the ability to read a text is as much a learned behaviour as knowing how to use a mouse to control a cursor on screen, and it is claimed that the Venerable Bede, the monk who lived in Jarrow in the seventh century, was the first person to read without moving his lips.
Whether or not our brains are being fundamentally altered by the products of the Googleplex it is clear that the current generation of search tools are changing the ways we look for information and the navigational strategies we use to find our way from source to source, looking for data and insights.
Today's internet presents information in bite-sized chunks, linked together into a rich tapestry where the connections often carry as much meaning as the words themselves.
The fact that a blog post recommended by one of the A-list bloggers may matter more than what it says; and often the accumulation of small references to a topic is vital to build up our understanding.
The impact does not have to reflect a change to neuroanatomy or a fundamental shift in our way of engaging with the world of words. It could just be that search engines, RSS feeds and Tweets are western culture's informational drug of choice, the intellectual equivalent of LSD in the 60's, cocaine in the 80's and ecstasy in the 90's, a temporary obsession.
Google and other search engines may satisfy us because they are less likely to take us into areas where our preconceptions are challenged.
One of the reasons I like my Twitter friends is that I've chosen to follow people I like, whose views and opinions I am more likely to find acceptable. If I am challenged by them then it is within severely proscribed limits - I'm not following Fox News, for example, because I'd just find it annoying.
The Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget described two processes that he believed lay behind the development of knowledge in children.
The first is assimilation, where new knowledge fits into existing conceptual frameworks. More challenging is accommodation, where the framework itself is modified to include the new information.
The current generation of 'search engines' seem to encourage a model of exploration that is disposed towards assimilative learning, finding sources, references and documents which can be slotted into existing frameworks, rather than providing material for deeper contemplation of the sort that could provoke accommodation and the extension, revision or even abandonment of views, opinions or even whole belief systems.
Perhaps the real danger posed by screen-based technologies is not that they are rewiring our brains but that the collection of search engines, news feeds and social tools encourages us to link to, follow and read only that which we can easily assimilate.
Time to start following Fox, I think, and take myself out of my online comfort zone.
Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet.
In her recently published book ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century, Professor Susan Greenfield brings her considerable expertise as a neuroscientist to bear on the question of whether and how our current use of computers is changing the way our brains work.
Greenfield argues that the visual stimulus we get from screen-based information and entertainment differs so markedly from that available to previous generations that certain areas of the brain, specifically those areas that are older in evolutionary terms and retain the capacity to alter as a result of experience, may be affected in ways that express themselves a changes to personality and behaviour.
It's an interesting hypothesis, and one that has the virtue of being experimentally testable, unlike many other claims about the effect of modern living on human psychology.
And it is a model that Nick Carr uses to support his rather broader viewpoint that our intellectual faculties are being damaged by the internet in his latest essay for the US-based Atlantic magazine.
Carr believes that the style of searching and exploration of links encouraged by search engines such as Google is changing the way heavy users think, reflecting that "over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn't going - so far as I can tell - but it's changing. I'm not thinking the way I used to think".
War and Peace
He likens himself to HAL, the computer in Arthur C Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, reverting to child-like singing as its memory banks are disconnected by astronaut Dave Bowman.
He regretfully notes that "my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle".
Although the piece has the attention-grabbing headline 'Is Google Making Us Stupid?' Carr's target is really the whole internet, where Facebook status updates and invitations compete with incoming Twitter posts, Friendfeed alerts and RSS feeds from hundreds of websites to overwhelm any attempt to pay careful attention to a well-ordered argument spread over thousands of words or hundreds of pages in a linear fashion.
Why read War and Peace, he seems to say, when you can get a text message from a friend to tell you what has happened to Pierre in only 160 characters, or cut it down to 140 for Twitter?
It's a nice argument, and has succeeded in provoking a wide-ranging debate.
John Battelle, for example, sees himself getting cleverer as he searches, follows links and absorbs information, arguing that when "performing bricolage in real time over the course of hours, I am 'feeling' my brain light up, I and 'feeling' like I'm getting smarter. A lot smarter, and in a way that only a human can be smarter".
New literacy
Battelle may feel smarter, but he also accepts that the way of working online is different from that which prevailed when we were a print-based culture. He just thinks it is at least equal, if not superior, to what went before.
There does seem to be a difference between screen-based literacy and page-based literacy, and the reason may be that outlined by another participant in the debate, developmental psychologist Maryanne Wolf.
In her new book, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, she points out that reading is not an innate ability for humans but something we have to learn how to do, and there is no reason why different forms of literacy should not emerge as new technologies do.
Tech drug
After all, the ability to read a text is as much a learned behaviour as knowing how to use a mouse to control a cursor on screen, and it is claimed that the Venerable Bede, the monk who lived in Jarrow in the seventh century, was the first person to read without moving his lips.
Whether or not our brains are being fundamentally altered by the products of the Googleplex it is clear that the current generation of search tools are changing the ways we look for information and the navigational strategies we use to find our way from source to source, looking for data and insights.
Today's internet presents information in bite-sized chunks, linked together into a rich tapestry where the connections often carry as much meaning as the words themselves.
The fact that a blog post recommended by one of the A-list bloggers may matter more than what it says; and often the accumulation of small references to a topic is vital to build up our understanding.
The impact does not have to reflect a change to neuroanatomy or a fundamental shift in our way of engaging with the world of words. It could just be that search engines, RSS feeds and Tweets are western culture's informational drug of choice, the intellectual equivalent of LSD in the 60's, cocaine in the 80's and ecstasy in the 90's, a temporary obsession.
Google and other search engines may satisfy us because they are less likely to take us into areas where our preconceptions are challenged.
One of the reasons I like my Twitter friends is that I've chosen to follow people I like, whose views and opinions I am more likely to find acceptable. If I am challenged by them then it is within severely proscribed limits - I'm not following Fox News, for example, because I'd just find it annoying.
The Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget described two processes that he believed lay behind the development of knowledge in children.
The first is assimilation, where new knowledge fits into existing conceptual frameworks. More challenging is accommodation, where the framework itself is modified to include the new information.
The current generation of 'search engines' seem to encourage a model of exploration that is disposed towards assimilative learning, finding sources, references and documents which can be slotted into existing frameworks, rather than providing material for deeper contemplation of the sort that could provoke accommodation and the extension, revision or even abandonment of views, opinions or even whole belief systems.
Perhaps the real danger posed by screen-based technologies is not that they are rewiring our brains but that the collection of search engines, news feeds and social tools encourages us to link to, follow and read only that which we can easily assimilate.
Time to start following Fox, I think, and take myself out of my online comfort zone.
Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet.
Lifestyle - Heaviest man eyes slimming record
But that is what Manuel Uribe from Monterrey, Northern Mexico, has done.
Now the world's heaviest man is on track to become the planet's most successful slimmer.
Put another way, his weight loss in one year is the equivalent of shedding two fully grown adult males from his body.
Manuel is already in the latest edition of the Guinness World Records as the heaviest living person.
That's because, not long ago he weighed 560kg (88 stones), or half a tonne.
Supervised diet
Supersized by nature, he has now downsized through diet and willpower.
And that will put him in the record books again.
"Look at my face," he says. "I have lost a lot."
Manuel puts it all down to something called the Zone Diet.
The diet, supervised by a team of scientists and nutritionists, consists of a strict formula of carbohydrates, proteins and fats.
It's about controlling hormone levels in the body, particularly insulin and glucagons.
Those behind the diet say that when these are at the correct levels through the right intake of food, anti inflammatory chemicals are released to keep the body's weight in check.
They say the body then uses its stored fat for energy, thereby causing weight loss.
"Life is good now because food is medicine," said Manuel. "If you have the right food your body gets what it needs. If I can lose weight, anyone can."
Manuel certainly doesn't starve himself to achieve his weight loss.
He eats roughly five times a day.
His lunch was a plate of chicken cooked in olive oil with broccoli, tomatoes and slices of raw red pepper.
Mother 'proud'
He can eat fish, chicken, some meat, many types of fruit and pretty much any vegetables, but all in strictly controlled portions called 'blocks'.
He is even allowed one fizzy drink a day - sugar-free, of course.
"He likes his food," said his mother, Otilia. "But I am very proud for what he has achieved in the past year."
The Zone Diet is controversial.
The American Heart Association doesn't recommend diets high in proteins. It also says there is not enough evidence about the long-term effects of being on the diet.
The Zone Diet's backers say they have a lot of evidence to prove it is safe and that it is not 'high protein', as such.
They say that the amount of protein a person absorbs depends on their height and build. They say that goes for carbohydrate and fat intake as well.
Manuel's weight problems are partly genetic, partly down to overeating.
His scale of morbid obesity puts him in the top half of one percent of overweight people.
Extreme case
Dr Roberto Rumbaut, a surgeon in Mexico who specialises in obesity, puts Manuel's case in perspective.
"Manuel Uribe is an extreme case," he said. "Where the obesity crisis lies is in people who are 13 to 31kg (30 to 70lb) overweight."
Dr Rumbaut said there were 1.6 billion overweight people in the world, of which about 450 million are obese, according to figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
"It's these people who are putting pressure on health services everywhere," he said.
Dr Rumbaut says it's not just diet that will resolve what has been called the world's "globesity" problem.
"It's the old fashioned stuff like exercise and lifestyle changes," he said.
Back at the house, Manuel sits on the reinforced steel bed that he has not left in six years.
Next to it is a massage machine that he uses to draw the circulation along his limbs. His only movement is to use his hips to swing himself from the lying down position to sitting upright.
New girlfriend
It is a dream of his to walk.
It's a dream shared by his new girlfriend, Claudia, who has helped to wash, feed and encourage him through this last year or so of dramatic weight loss.
"We are very happy for the effort he has been making recently," she said.
"Sometimes he is sad and cries because he cannot get off his bed. But he is an example for other obese people to move forward. As he says: 'If I can, you can'."
Alongside his copy of the Guinness World Records lies another text, The Bible.
"I have Claudia, my mother and God to thank," said Manuel. "I am happy."
Still larger than life, but now, the incredible, shrinking, Manuel Uribe
Now the world's heaviest man is on track to become the planet's most successful slimmer.
Put another way, his weight loss in one year is the equivalent of shedding two fully grown adult males from his body.
Manuel is already in the latest edition of the Guinness World Records as the heaviest living person.
That's because, not long ago he weighed 560kg (88 stones), or half a tonne.
Supervised diet
Supersized by nature, he has now downsized through diet and willpower.
And that will put him in the record books again.
"Look at my face," he says. "I have lost a lot."
Manuel puts it all down to something called the Zone Diet.
The diet, supervised by a team of scientists and nutritionists, consists of a strict formula of carbohydrates, proteins and fats.
It's about controlling hormone levels in the body, particularly insulin and glucagons.
Those behind the diet say that when these are at the correct levels through the right intake of food, anti inflammatory chemicals are released to keep the body's weight in check.
They say the body then uses its stored fat for energy, thereby causing weight loss.
"Life is good now because food is medicine," said Manuel. "If you have the right food your body gets what it needs. If I can lose weight, anyone can."
Manuel certainly doesn't starve himself to achieve his weight loss.
He eats roughly five times a day.
His lunch was a plate of chicken cooked in olive oil with broccoli, tomatoes and slices of raw red pepper.
Mother 'proud'
He can eat fish, chicken, some meat, many types of fruit and pretty much any vegetables, but all in strictly controlled portions called 'blocks'.
He is even allowed one fizzy drink a day - sugar-free, of course.
"He likes his food," said his mother, Otilia. "But I am very proud for what he has achieved in the past year."
The Zone Diet is controversial.
The American Heart Association doesn't recommend diets high in proteins. It also says there is not enough evidence about the long-term effects of being on the diet.
The Zone Diet's backers say they have a lot of evidence to prove it is safe and that it is not 'high protein', as such.
They say that the amount of protein a person absorbs depends on their height and build. They say that goes for carbohydrate and fat intake as well.
Manuel's weight problems are partly genetic, partly down to overeating.
His scale of morbid obesity puts him in the top half of one percent of overweight people.
Extreme case
Dr Roberto Rumbaut, a surgeon in Mexico who specialises in obesity, puts Manuel's case in perspective.
"Manuel Uribe is an extreme case," he said. "Where the obesity crisis lies is in people who are 13 to 31kg (30 to 70lb) overweight."
Dr Rumbaut said there were 1.6 billion overweight people in the world, of which about 450 million are obese, according to figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
"It's these people who are putting pressure on health services everywhere," he said.
Dr Rumbaut says it's not just diet that will resolve what has been called the world's "globesity" problem.
"It's the old fashioned stuff like exercise and lifestyle changes," he said.
Back at the house, Manuel sits on the reinforced steel bed that he has not left in six years.
Next to it is a massage machine that he uses to draw the circulation along his limbs. His only movement is to use his hips to swing himself from the lying down position to sitting upright.
New girlfriend
It is a dream of his to walk.
It's a dream shared by his new girlfriend, Claudia, who has helped to wash, feed and encourage him through this last year or so of dramatic weight loss.
"We are very happy for the effort he has been making recently," she said.
"Sometimes he is sad and cries because he cannot get off his bed. But he is an example for other obese people to move forward. As he says: 'If I can, you can'."
Alongside his copy of the Guinness World Records lies another text, The Bible.
"I have Claudia, my mother and God to thank," said Manuel. "I am happy."
Still larger than life, but now, the incredible, shrinking, Manuel Uribe
World - Kenya's expensive free education
Rolling out the programme in January, President Mwai Kibaki said free education would ensure that children from poor homes acquired quality education.
His government introduced universal free primary education after he was first elected in 2002.
Under the programme, the government would pay tuition fees while parents covered boarding costs and bought uniforms.
But seven months after the programme was supposed to take off, the government has provided only a quarter of the funding schools need to make it work.
Some school administrators have been forced to run the institutions on a credit line while others have opted to reinstate tuition fees to avoid closing down.
Rising debt
Sylvester Wambua, the head teacher at Kyanguli Memorial School, says the delay is threatening operations at the institution.
"The government is supposed to give us $95,861 - they have only given us $19,354.
"The free secondary education is really a challenge. We have creditors, we cannot pay them," Mr Wambua says.
Buckling under the weight of a $77,000 deficit this year, the school has been incurring debts to bridge the gap.
Mr Wambua is not the only school administrator grappling with a myriad of problems resulting from the lapse of support by the government.
Chacha Ngalando, the school administrator at Kithangaini Secondary School in Eastern Province is also struggling to make ends meet.
"There has been an increase in the student population, which means increasing the infrastructure. So where do you get the beds, the books with the peanuts that the government sends?" Mr Ngalando asks.
Cash crunch
But the government has blamed the delay on school administrators, who it says have not provided proper bank accounts for the funds to be deposited.
And it promises that things will get better.
Education Assistant Minister Calist Mwatela says the programme needs time to succeed.
"It should be understood that our system is a transformation... It has its own challenges," Mr Mwatela says.
But the government has also admitted that it is facing a cash crunch.
Kenya's economy took a hit from the post-election violence witnessed early this year.
The government is also facing increased expenditure to meet the costs of a 42-member cabinet formed as part of a power-sharing agreement.
The cabinet will cost the government an extra $300m, and the ministry of finance warns it may be forced to shift funding from vital programmes.
Key ministries - among them medical services, roads, education and finance - have already had their budgets slashed to accommodate the increased government expenditure.
The free secondary school education programme may just be one of the casualties.
Heavy price
To cope with the funding crisis, administrators at schools serving the middle class have defied the government's directive not to charge fees.
Some schools are now asking parents to pay as much as $1,300 per year instead of the recommended $300.
If the government continues to delay the funding, the quality of high school education in public schools could be seriously compromised.
If this happens, it is the students from poor families who will pay a heavy price, as their parents cannot afford to take them to the costly private schools.
But the government insists that the programme has been a success.
President Kibaki says enrolment in secondary schools has shot up by 300,000 since January.
After a rocky start and with mounting challenges, the government faces an uphill task in providing high quality free secondary education.
His government introduced universal free primary education after he was first elected in 2002.
Under the programme, the government would pay tuition fees while parents covered boarding costs and bought uniforms.
But seven months after the programme was supposed to take off, the government has provided only a quarter of the funding schools need to make it work.
Some school administrators have been forced to run the institutions on a credit line while others have opted to reinstate tuition fees to avoid closing down.
Rising debt
Sylvester Wambua, the head teacher at Kyanguli Memorial School, says the delay is threatening operations at the institution.
"The government is supposed to give us $95,861 - they have only given us $19,354.
"The free secondary education is really a challenge. We have creditors, we cannot pay them," Mr Wambua says.
Buckling under the weight of a $77,000 deficit this year, the school has been incurring debts to bridge the gap.
Mr Wambua is not the only school administrator grappling with a myriad of problems resulting from the lapse of support by the government.
Chacha Ngalando, the school administrator at Kithangaini Secondary School in Eastern Province is also struggling to make ends meet.
"There has been an increase in the student population, which means increasing the infrastructure. So where do you get the beds, the books with the peanuts that the government sends?" Mr Ngalando asks.
Cash crunch
But the government has blamed the delay on school administrators, who it says have not provided proper bank accounts for the funds to be deposited.
And it promises that things will get better.
Education Assistant Minister Calist Mwatela says the programme needs time to succeed.
"It should be understood that our system is a transformation... It has its own challenges," Mr Mwatela says.
But the government has also admitted that it is facing a cash crunch.
Kenya's economy took a hit from the post-election violence witnessed early this year.
The government is also facing increased expenditure to meet the costs of a 42-member cabinet formed as part of a power-sharing agreement.
The cabinet will cost the government an extra $300m, and the ministry of finance warns it may be forced to shift funding from vital programmes.
Key ministries - among them medical services, roads, education and finance - have already had their budgets slashed to accommodate the increased government expenditure.
The free secondary school education programme may just be one of the casualties.
Heavy price
To cope with the funding crisis, administrators at schools serving the middle class have defied the government's directive not to charge fees.
Some schools are now asking parents to pay as much as $1,300 per year instead of the recommended $300.
If the government continues to delay the funding, the quality of high school education in public schools could be seriously compromised.
If this happens, it is the students from poor families who will pay a heavy price, as their parents cannot afford to take them to the costly private schools.
But the government insists that the programme has been a success.
President Kibaki says enrolment in secondary schools has shot up by 300,000 since January.
After a rocky start and with mounting challenges, the government faces an uphill task in providing high quality free secondary education.
World - Blood oil dripping in Nigeria
Under cover of night dozens of barges queue up to dock at a jetty in a creek somewhere in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta.
Their holds are filled with stolen oil running from valves illegally installed into a pipeline.
Full, they chug downstream to meet around 10 larger ships near the oil export terminal in Bonny, Rivers State, where they disgorge their cargo.
By 0500, in the darkness before dawn, the ships uncouple from the barges and move out in a convoy to sea to rendezvous with a tanker which will spirit away the stolen oil, making it disappear into another cargo, bound for sale on the world market.
It is likely the tanker arrived partly loaded with guns, cocaine to be trafficked into Europe and cash, which they will use to pay for the oil.
Bogus shipping documents make their load - possibly tens of thousands of tons of crude oil - disappear into legitimate markets in Eastern Europe or America.
This, according to activists and former Nigerian government advisers, is the process by which Nigeria is losing billions of dollars every year to oil smuggling.
The illegal "bunkering", as it is known, makes a huge profit for Nigerian syndicates and rogue international traders.
It leaves in its wake chaos and misery for the people of the Niger Delta.
'Godfathers'
According to Nigeria's President Umaru Yar'Adua this is "blood oil", akin to the trade in "blood diamonds" that fuelled bloody civil wars in West African neighbours Liberia and Sierra Leone.
He is calling on the international community to help Nigeria end the trade.
Britain has promised military training to improve the Nigerian military Joint Task Force's ability to police the Delta region.
But a source close to the former government of President Olusegun Obasanjo says the problem is not about quashing militants in boats.
Some of the people who run the cartels are among Nigeria's top political "godfathers", who wield massive political influence.
"If the president goes after them, they could destabilise the country, cause a coup, a civil war. They are that powerful, they could bring the state down," said the source, who did not want to be identified.
He says that attempts in the past to bring the trade under control were stopped for that reason.
"This is an industry that makes £30m ($60m) a day, they'd kill you, me, anyone, in order to protect it," he said.
The militant connection
In order to get away with the theft, the bunkering syndicates operate under the cloak of the conflict between militants and oil companies in the Niger Delta.
They need "security" - gangs of armed heavies to protect their cargos - and threaten anyone who tries to interfere.
They don't have to look far to find large groups of unemployed youths willing to do what they are told for a little money.
State governments in the Delta armed militias to carry out widespread rigging during the 2003 elections.
But the militiamen say they were abandoned, so they turned to oil theft to fund their activities.
Although they are referred to in the media as "militants" there are few coherent groups.
Most are gangs, led by commanders who are perpetually at war with each other.
These youths protect bunkering ships, force local community leaders to let bunkerers pass and bribe the Nigerian military.
The thieves may also need "the boys" to blow up pipelines, forcing the oil company to shut down the flow, allowing them to install a tap in the pipe.
"Hot-tapping", as it is known, requires considerable expertise, usually supplied by a former oil company employee.
These militants don't see the process of oil theft as stealing, observers say.
They believe they are taking what is legitimately theirs from the companies and the government.
They organise themselves in "bunkering turfs", but outbreaks of violence between them have been frequent and bloody.
'Legal theft'
But militant-assisted theft is not the only way oil is stolen.
According to a source close to the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the heavy military presence in the Delta has led oil bunkerers to find other ways to extract more oil.
Simply put, they just load more onto a ship than they are allowed to.
With the connivance of officials from international oil companies, national oil parastatal officials and ships' captains, oil can be stolen through the legitimate process of lifting oil from the dock to the ship.
One oil company employee told the BBC that his company had discovered a vessel they were using had a secret compartment behind the bridge, where tens of thousands of barrels could be redirected at the flick of a switch while the hold was being filled.
Other ways include almost filling the ship with legitimate oil, then topping it up with oil that hasn't been paid for legitimately, according to government sources.
Or a whole ship can be filled with stolen crude using fake documents.
Estimates on how much oil is stolen in this manner vary, but according to the International Maritime Organisation last year it amounted to 80,000 barrels every day.
Part of the problem is that no one can be sure how much oil is being taken out of the ground.
Shipping documents can be forged.
Also ownership of a shipment can be transferred while the vessel is on the high seas, making cargo tracking incredibly difficult.
Possible solution?
The only way to shut down the oil cartels, observers say, is a tighter regulatory framework.
This would involve electronic bills of how much oil a ship has loaded, which would record if they had been tampered with.
Oil can also be "fingerprinted".
The technology to distinguish between different types of oil exists already, says Patrick Dele Cole, a former adviser to Mr Obasanjo.
Oil companies do this routinely already, sources say. All that would be needed is a database of all the different types of Nigerian crude.
The UK has offered to train the military, and President Yar'Adua wants to form a "maritime academy" naval installation in the Delta.
But activists in the Delta say that increasing the military presence would be counterproductive.
It would increase resentment and militants' numbers - the level of violence would rise, they say.
And the Nigerian military is part of that violence, observers say.
Soldiers have indiscriminately burned whole towns and killed civilians, according to activists.
The high price of oil today is partly a result of Nigeria's complex and shadowy world of corruption and violence.
It is into this chaotic shadow world that the UK is about to commit itself.
Their holds are filled with stolen oil running from valves illegally installed into a pipeline.
Full, they chug downstream to meet around 10 larger ships near the oil export terminal in Bonny, Rivers State, where they disgorge their cargo.
By 0500, in the darkness before dawn, the ships uncouple from the barges and move out in a convoy to sea to rendezvous with a tanker which will spirit away the stolen oil, making it disappear into another cargo, bound for sale on the world market.
It is likely the tanker arrived partly loaded with guns, cocaine to be trafficked into Europe and cash, which they will use to pay for the oil.
Bogus shipping documents make their load - possibly tens of thousands of tons of crude oil - disappear into legitimate markets in Eastern Europe or America.
This, according to activists and former Nigerian government advisers, is the process by which Nigeria is losing billions of dollars every year to oil smuggling.
The illegal "bunkering", as it is known, makes a huge profit for Nigerian syndicates and rogue international traders.
It leaves in its wake chaos and misery for the people of the Niger Delta.
'Godfathers'
According to Nigeria's President Umaru Yar'Adua this is "blood oil", akin to the trade in "blood diamonds" that fuelled bloody civil wars in West African neighbours Liberia and Sierra Leone.
He is calling on the international community to help Nigeria end the trade.
Britain has promised military training to improve the Nigerian military Joint Task Force's ability to police the Delta region.
But a source close to the former government of President Olusegun Obasanjo says the problem is not about quashing militants in boats.
Some of the people who run the cartels are among Nigeria's top political "godfathers", who wield massive political influence.
"If the president goes after them, they could destabilise the country, cause a coup, a civil war. They are that powerful, they could bring the state down," said the source, who did not want to be identified.
He says that attempts in the past to bring the trade under control were stopped for that reason.
"This is an industry that makes £30m ($60m) a day, they'd kill you, me, anyone, in order to protect it," he said.
The militant connection
In order to get away with the theft, the bunkering syndicates operate under the cloak of the conflict between militants and oil companies in the Niger Delta.
They need "security" - gangs of armed heavies to protect their cargos - and threaten anyone who tries to interfere.
They don't have to look far to find large groups of unemployed youths willing to do what they are told for a little money.
State governments in the Delta armed militias to carry out widespread rigging during the 2003 elections.
But the militiamen say they were abandoned, so they turned to oil theft to fund their activities.
Although they are referred to in the media as "militants" there are few coherent groups.
Most are gangs, led by commanders who are perpetually at war with each other.
These youths protect bunkering ships, force local community leaders to let bunkerers pass and bribe the Nigerian military.
The thieves may also need "the boys" to blow up pipelines, forcing the oil company to shut down the flow, allowing them to install a tap in the pipe.
"Hot-tapping", as it is known, requires considerable expertise, usually supplied by a former oil company employee.
These militants don't see the process of oil theft as stealing, observers say.
They believe they are taking what is legitimately theirs from the companies and the government.
They organise themselves in "bunkering turfs", but outbreaks of violence between them have been frequent and bloody.
'Legal theft'
But militant-assisted theft is not the only way oil is stolen.
According to a source close to the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the heavy military presence in the Delta has led oil bunkerers to find other ways to extract more oil.
Simply put, they just load more onto a ship than they are allowed to.
With the connivance of officials from international oil companies, national oil parastatal officials and ships' captains, oil can be stolen through the legitimate process of lifting oil from the dock to the ship.
One oil company employee told the BBC that his company had discovered a vessel they were using had a secret compartment behind the bridge, where tens of thousands of barrels could be redirected at the flick of a switch while the hold was being filled.
Other ways include almost filling the ship with legitimate oil, then topping it up with oil that hasn't been paid for legitimately, according to government sources.
Or a whole ship can be filled with stolen crude using fake documents.
Estimates on how much oil is stolen in this manner vary, but according to the International Maritime Organisation last year it amounted to 80,000 barrels every day.
Part of the problem is that no one can be sure how much oil is being taken out of the ground.
Shipping documents can be forged.
Also ownership of a shipment can be transferred while the vessel is on the high seas, making cargo tracking incredibly difficult.
Possible solution?
The only way to shut down the oil cartels, observers say, is a tighter regulatory framework.
This would involve electronic bills of how much oil a ship has loaded, which would record if they had been tampered with.
Oil can also be "fingerprinted".
The technology to distinguish between different types of oil exists already, says Patrick Dele Cole, a former adviser to Mr Obasanjo.
Oil companies do this routinely already, sources say. All that would be needed is a database of all the different types of Nigerian crude.
The UK has offered to train the military, and President Yar'Adua wants to form a "maritime academy" naval installation in the Delta.
But activists in the Delta say that increasing the military presence would be counterproductive.
It would increase resentment and militants' numbers - the level of violence would rise, they say.
And the Nigerian military is part of that violence, observers say.
Soldiers have indiscriminately burned whole towns and killed civilians, according to activists.
The high price of oil today is partly a result of Nigeria's complex and shadowy world of corruption and violence.
It is into this chaotic shadow world that the UK is about to commit itself.
Health - Circumcision injury story
A sixteen-year-old Kenyan boy is being treated in hospital after losing part of his penis in a circumcision ritual.
He suffered the accident during the Luhya people's circumcision festival in western Kenya when the circumciser's knife slipped.
Reporters say traditional circumcision often comes in for criticism because of the health risks but is a longstanding part of the Luhya culture.
Doctors say he is in a stable condition but may require reconstructive surgery.
'Not suing'
Medical officers at the Bungoma District hospital told the BBC that the tip of the boy's penis was chopped off by mistake when the knife wielded by the circumciser slipped.
He has been undergoing surgery on Friday to prevent further bleeding.
They said it was thought that he would be able to urinate but may not be able to have sex in future.
Correspondents say reconstructive surgery is expensive and the boy may have to go abroad for surgery.
Hospital officials said this was the first such incident this year and in previous years boys had been admitted with complications such as bleeding or infections.
The boy's father said that it was an unfortunate accident but he would not be suing the circumciser for compensation.
"I have learnt a bitter lesson," he told the BBC.
"I shall take my remaining two boys to be circumcised in hospital in future."
A new programme has been launched to introduce circumcision in neighbouring Nyanza province to combat the spread of HIV and Aids.
About 2.5 million of 32 million Kenyans are currently living with HIV/Aids.
He suffered the accident during the Luhya people's circumcision festival in western Kenya when the circumciser's knife slipped.
Reporters say traditional circumcision often comes in for criticism because of the health risks but is a longstanding part of the Luhya culture.
Doctors say he is in a stable condition but may require reconstructive surgery.
'Not suing'
Medical officers at the Bungoma District hospital told the BBC that the tip of the boy's penis was chopped off by mistake when the knife wielded by the circumciser slipped.
He has been undergoing surgery on Friday to prevent further bleeding.
They said it was thought that he would be able to urinate but may not be able to have sex in future.
Correspondents say reconstructive surgery is expensive and the boy may have to go abroad for surgery.
Hospital officials said this was the first such incident this year and in previous years boys had been admitted with complications such as bleeding or infections.
The boy's father said that it was an unfortunate accident but he would not be suing the circumciser for compensation.
"I have learnt a bitter lesson," he told the BBC.
"I shall take my remaining two boys to be circumcised in hospital in future."
A new programme has been launched to introduce circumcision in neighbouring Nyanza province to combat the spread of HIV and Aids.
About 2.5 million of 32 million Kenyans are currently living with HIV/Aids.
World - The Minefield of medical morals
Hardly a week goes by without a medical ethics dilemma appearing in the news.
Occasionally, on the screen or in print, a "medical ethicist" makes an appearance.
But what do we actually do?
Consider the following case:
18-year old Susan wants to donate one of her kidneys to her father John. Without the transplant, John will soon die. He has end-stage kidney disease and the waiting list is several years long. His wife died from cancer two years ago.
When performing routine blood tests, the medical team unexpectedly discovers that John is not in fact Susan's biological father. Thankfully, the two are still a match, but should the clinicians disclose the non-paternity to Susan and her father, or should they keep it quiet and perform the transplant?
When I asked this question to several hundred doctors, patients and members of the public in Oxford, the results were consistent across each group: about two-thirds of respondents said the clinicians should withhold the information, while the remaining third believed the patients should be told.
In North America, many hospitals employ medical ethicists.
Faced with the case of Susan and her father, the doctor would contact the on-call ethicist for a consultation.
The ethicist would help the medical team identify the key ethical and legal issues.
He or she would clarify the facts of the case, look at similar past cases, find relevant guidelines, apply ethical principles, and help the clinicians make a morally robust decision.
When a similar case arose in Canada, the ethicist recommended telling the patients.
The daughter and father were shocked, but grateful to have been told.
The transplant went ahead as planned.
Lower UK profile
In the UK, there are no full-time hospital ethicists.
The medical team might decide on their own, seek legal advice, or bring the case to a clinical ethics committee, if the hospital has one.
Although not all medical ethicists are alike, most divide their time between teaching ethics to doctors, nurses, and medical students, writing articles in academic journals, and sitting on committees which review hospital cases and applications for medical research.
The more outspoken ethicists may also do some media work.
About once a week, I speak to journalists about topical issues in medical ethics.
For instance: "Dr Sokol, what do you think about the case of Ashley X, the disabled girl whose parents stunted her growth to care for her more easily?"
Or: "What are your thoughts on Ms A, the teenage girl who told her doctor that she was abused by her father but begged the doctor to keep her secret?"
Or: "Should the parents of this severely disabled baby be allowed to insist on life-sustaining treatment, even if doctors think it's futile?"
As we often only get one side of the story (for example, the parents' views but not the clinicians', who are instructed not to comment), I try to give a useful but cautious analysis.
Just as doctors don't like to give medical advice without a proper examination of the patient, medical ethicists are reluctant to give their detailed opinions without a thorough examination of the facts.
Common cases
The cases that hit the headlines are dramatic, but relatively rare.
The vast majority of clinicians will not face life-or-death decisions about separating conjoined twins or giving high doses of oestrogen to stop the growth of a disabled child.
The common ethical cases are more mundane.
What should a GP do when confronted by a patient who asks for a sick certificate but who probably isn't sick?
Should a junior doctor tell a patient that he has never performed a procedure before?
When you spend your days thinking about such cases, it can sometimes be difficult to remember that the dilemmas are not mere intellectual exercises, but events affecting real individuals.
By focusing so much on analysis and argument, on trying to make our reasoning as sharp as the surgeon's scalpel, we can forget the human and emotional dimensions.
Problem solving
William Osler, the famous Canadian doctor, said doctors should have a cool head and a kind heart.
The same is true of medical ethicists.
One thing that probably all medical ethicists share is the enjoyment of problem-solving.
Contrary to what some people think (that ethicists do not experience any moral dilemmas since they know instantly what is right and wrong), my initial reaction to a case is occasionally "I have no idea what to recommend".
Most of the time, I enjoy the process of resolution: finding out the pertinent facts of the case, identifying the available options, weighing up their pros and cons, and arriving at the most ethical and practical solution.
At school, I was torn between the humanities and the sciences.
One day, I saw the late professor Jean Bernard, a French haematologist and bioethicist, interviewed on television.
He told the story of a hard-working farmer in a developing country who needed to sell his kidney to feed his family.
I remember thinking: "How tragic and fascinating!"
Medical ethics, which combines philosophy and medicine, was a perfect compromise between the humanities and the sciences.
With the growing need for ethical reflection in medicine (partly as a result of technological developments), there are more and more courses in the UK for clinicians and non-clinicians interested in the subject.
The future
Medical ethics is still an emerging field.
In a few years time, several hospitals in the UK may have medical ethicists to help health professionals deal with ethical problems, draft hospital policy, and provide ethics training.
A few have already hired very part-time ethicists.
Even in the absence of hospital ethicists, however, if you're a patient or a relative struggling with a medical ethics issue, you may wish to contact the hospital's clinical ethics committee.
Some committees are happy to consider cases brought by patients.
They may not always resolve the problem, but they will help you think through it.
• Dr Daniel Sokol is a medical ethicist at St George's, University of London, and Director of Imperial College's Applied Clinical Ethics (ACE) course.
Occasionally, on the screen or in print, a "medical ethicist" makes an appearance.
But what do we actually do?
Consider the following case:
18-year old Susan wants to donate one of her kidneys to her father John. Without the transplant, John will soon die. He has end-stage kidney disease and the waiting list is several years long. His wife died from cancer two years ago.
When performing routine blood tests, the medical team unexpectedly discovers that John is not in fact Susan's biological father. Thankfully, the two are still a match, but should the clinicians disclose the non-paternity to Susan and her father, or should they keep it quiet and perform the transplant?
When I asked this question to several hundred doctors, patients and members of the public in Oxford, the results were consistent across each group: about two-thirds of respondents said the clinicians should withhold the information, while the remaining third believed the patients should be told.
In North America, many hospitals employ medical ethicists.
Faced with the case of Susan and her father, the doctor would contact the on-call ethicist for a consultation.
The ethicist would help the medical team identify the key ethical and legal issues.
He or she would clarify the facts of the case, look at similar past cases, find relevant guidelines, apply ethical principles, and help the clinicians make a morally robust decision.
When a similar case arose in Canada, the ethicist recommended telling the patients.
The daughter and father were shocked, but grateful to have been told.
The transplant went ahead as planned.
Lower UK profile
In the UK, there are no full-time hospital ethicists.
The medical team might decide on their own, seek legal advice, or bring the case to a clinical ethics committee, if the hospital has one.
Although not all medical ethicists are alike, most divide their time between teaching ethics to doctors, nurses, and medical students, writing articles in academic journals, and sitting on committees which review hospital cases and applications for medical research.
The more outspoken ethicists may also do some media work.
About once a week, I speak to journalists about topical issues in medical ethics.
For instance: "Dr Sokol, what do you think about the case of Ashley X, the disabled girl whose parents stunted her growth to care for her more easily?"
Or: "What are your thoughts on Ms A, the teenage girl who told her doctor that she was abused by her father but begged the doctor to keep her secret?"
Or: "Should the parents of this severely disabled baby be allowed to insist on life-sustaining treatment, even if doctors think it's futile?"
As we often only get one side of the story (for example, the parents' views but not the clinicians', who are instructed not to comment), I try to give a useful but cautious analysis.
Just as doctors don't like to give medical advice without a proper examination of the patient, medical ethicists are reluctant to give their detailed opinions without a thorough examination of the facts.
Common cases
The cases that hit the headlines are dramatic, but relatively rare.
The vast majority of clinicians will not face life-or-death decisions about separating conjoined twins or giving high doses of oestrogen to stop the growth of a disabled child.
The common ethical cases are more mundane.
What should a GP do when confronted by a patient who asks for a sick certificate but who probably isn't sick?
Should a junior doctor tell a patient that he has never performed a procedure before?
When you spend your days thinking about such cases, it can sometimes be difficult to remember that the dilemmas are not mere intellectual exercises, but events affecting real individuals.
By focusing so much on analysis and argument, on trying to make our reasoning as sharp as the surgeon's scalpel, we can forget the human and emotional dimensions.
Problem solving
William Osler, the famous Canadian doctor, said doctors should have a cool head and a kind heart.
The same is true of medical ethicists.
One thing that probably all medical ethicists share is the enjoyment of problem-solving.
Contrary to what some people think (that ethicists do not experience any moral dilemmas since they know instantly what is right and wrong), my initial reaction to a case is occasionally "I have no idea what to recommend".
Most of the time, I enjoy the process of resolution: finding out the pertinent facts of the case, identifying the available options, weighing up their pros and cons, and arriving at the most ethical and practical solution.
At school, I was torn between the humanities and the sciences.
One day, I saw the late professor Jean Bernard, a French haematologist and bioethicist, interviewed on television.
He told the story of a hard-working farmer in a developing country who needed to sell his kidney to feed his family.
I remember thinking: "How tragic and fascinating!"
Medical ethics, which combines philosophy and medicine, was a perfect compromise between the humanities and the sciences.
With the growing need for ethical reflection in medicine (partly as a result of technological developments), there are more and more courses in the UK for clinicians and non-clinicians interested in the subject.
The future
Medical ethics is still an emerging field.
In a few years time, several hospitals in the UK may have medical ethicists to help health professionals deal with ethical problems, draft hospital policy, and provide ethics training.
A few have already hired very part-time ethicists.
Even in the absence of hospital ethicists, however, if you're a patient or a relative struggling with a medical ethics issue, you may wish to contact the hospital's clinical ethics committee.
Some committees are happy to consider cases brought by patients.
They may not always resolve the problem, but they will help you think through it.
• Dr Daniel Sokol is a medical ethicist at St George's, University of London, and Director of Imperial College's Applied Clinical Ethics (ACE) course.
World - China's rapid renewable energy surge
China's rapid investment in low carbon technologies has catapulted the nation up the global renewable energy rankings, a report shows.
The Climate Group study said China invested $12bn (£6bn) in renewables during 2007, second only to Germany.
However, it was expected to top the table by the end of 2009, it added.
The findings have been published as China faces criticism over its air quality ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games, which begin on 8 August.
The report, China's Clean Revolution, brings together the latest data on the country's burgeoning renewables sector in one publication.
Co-author Changhua Wu, The Climate Group's China director, said the rapid rise in investment was, in part, the result of the government realising that the western model of industrialisation was unsustainable.
"China has been experiencing similar problems during its industrial revolution that western nations saw during their period of rapid growth - pollution, environmental damage and resource depletion," she told BBC News.
"Domestically, we are being constrained in many ways; we do not have that many natural resources anymore.
"We have to rely on the international markets, so there is a big security concern there."
Uncertainty over future energy supplies has seen global fuel prices reach record levels, which has resulted in renewable technologies becoming a more attractive option.
The report said China's $12bn investment in renewables during 2007 was only just behind top-of-the-table Germany, which spent $14bn.
In order to meet its target of increasing the percentage of energy from low carbon technologies from 8% in 2006 to 15% by 2020, China is expected to invest an average of $33bn annually for the next 12 years.
This was going to result in China becoming the leading investor by the end of 2009, Ms Wu forecast.
Figures within the report showed that China was already the leading producer in terms of installed renewable generation capacity.
It has the world's largest hydroelectricity capacity since the controversial Three Gorges project began producing electricity, and the fifth largest fleet of wind turbines on the planet.
Although its installed capacity of photovoltaic (PV) panels is still relatively low, it is already a leading manufacturer of solar panels.
Ms Wu explained that the rapid growth of the sector was being driven by both government and business.
"In order to really drive towards a low carbon economy, policy incentives are crucial; but it is not always the case," she said.
"The wind sector's fast growth was mainly a result of domestic policies, because the government offered incentives to developments so that private and public sector entrepreneurs would jump on it.
"But the solar PV sector benefitted mainly from the international market, such as demand from the US and EU.
"Even today, the policy incentives are still not there, yet it still has grown to the level it is now."
Lingering legacy
However, despite the advances in low carbon technology, the legacy of rapid economic growth, which was primarily fuelled by burning coal, has been soaring greenhouse gas emissions.
In the final days before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing, there has been growing international concern over the air quality in the Chinese capital as the world's top athletes begin to arrive.
Organisers of the Games had promised that the city's notorious pollution would be cleaned up, so failure to deliver would be seen as an embarrassing environmental shortcoming.
City officials said that they would introduce emergency measures, such as banning the use of private cars and closing some factories, if conditions did not improve.
Although Beijing's troubles are currently under the media spotlight, air quality is a nationwide problem. According to figures from the World Bank, 20 of the planet's 30 most polluted cities are in China.
"In terms of total emissions, China is already the world's biggest emitter," Ms Wu said. "That's publicly available information, even the government is not denying it anymore.
"But if you look at emissions on a per capita basis, we are not the biggest emitters because we have 1.3bn people."
The report suggests that if China's population emitted as much as US citizens, its total emissions would be roughly equivalent to those of the entire planet's human activity.
"But just looking at numbers does not help tackle global climate change," Ms Wu added.
"In China, we are concerned about the speed of growth in emissions; it is really scary."
The report showed that China was only responsible for about 7% of greenhouse gases emitted in the period before 2002, when more than 90% of emissions from human activity were released.
But since the turn of the century, it added, China's portion has been growing steadily and now accounts for 24% of the global total.
The government is looking to stabilise its emissions by 2020, primarily through greater energy efficiency and the expansion of the nation's renewable energy infrastructure, including electric cars.
Ms Wu added that within the international climate negotiations, the Chinese were looking to developed nations to prove that they were serious about tackling climate change, such as delivering the mandatory cuts in emissions outlined in the Kyoto Protocol.
"If they are not able to do it with the technology available to them, then is it reasonable to expect China and India to do it?
"China does not commit itself to a number and then not deliver," she said, referring to whether China would sign up to legally binding targets in the ongoing UN climate negotiations about what system should replace the current Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.
"If they commit, then they are very, very serious about; so they have to figure out what is possible."
The Climate Group study said China invested $12bn (£6bn) in renewables during 2007, second only to Germany.
However, it was expected to top the table by the end of 2009, it added.
The findings have been published as China faces criticism over its air quality ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games, which begin on 8 August.
The report, China's Clean Revolution, brings together the latest data on the country's burgeoning renewables sector in one publication.
Co-author Changhua Wu, The Climate Group's China director, said the rapid rise in investment was, in part, the result of the government realising that the western model of industrialisation was unsustainable.
"China has been experiencing similar problems during its industrial revolution that western nations saw during their period of rapid growth - pollution, environmental damage and resource depletion," she told BBC News.
"Domestically, we are being constrained in many ways; we do not have that many natural resources anymore.
"We have to rely on the international markets, so there is a big security concern there."
Uncertainty over future energy supplies has seen global fuel prices reach record levels, which has resulted in renewable technologies becoming a more attractive option.
The report said China's $12bn investment in renewables during 2007 was only just behind top-of-the-table Germany, which spent $14bn.
In order to meet its target of increasing the percentage of energy from low carbon technologies from 8% in 2006 to 15% by 2020, China is expected to invest an average of $33bn annually for the next 12 years.
This was going to result in China becoming the leading investor by the end of 2009, Ms Wu forecast.
Figures within the report showed that China was already the leading producer in terms of installed renewable generation capacity.
It has the world's largest hydroelectricity capacity since the controversial Three Gorges project began producing electricity, and the fifth largest fleet of wind turbines on the planet.
Although its installed capacity of photovoltaic (PV) panels is still relatively low, it is already a leading manufacturer of solar panels.
Ms Wu explained that the rapid growth of the sector was being driven by both government and business.
"In order to really drive towards a low carbon economy, policy incentives are crucial; but it is not always the case," she said.
"The wind sector's fast growth was mainly a result of domestic policies, because the government offered incentives to developments so that private and public sector entrepreneurs would jump on it.
"But the solar PV sector benefitted mainly from the international market, such as demand from the US and EU.
"Even today, the policy incentives are still not there, yet it still has grown to the level it is now."
Lingering legacy
However, despite the advances in low carbon technology, the legacy of rapid economic growth, which was primarily fuelled by burning coal, has been soaring greenhouse gas emissions.
In the final days before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing, there has been growing international concern over the air quality in the Chinese capital as the world's top athletes begin to arrive.
Organisers of the Games had promised that the city's notorious pollution would be cleaned up, so failure to deliver would be seen as an embarrassing environmental shortcoming.
City officials said that they would introduce emergency measures, such as banning the use of private cars and closing some factories, if conditions did not improve.
Although Beijing's troubles are currently under the media spotlight, air quality is a nationwide problem. According to figures from the World Bank, 20 of the planet's 30 most polluted cities are in China.
"In terms of total emissions, China is already the world's biggest emitter," Ms Wu said. "That's publicly available information, even the government is not denying it anymore.
"But if you look at emissions on a per capita basis, we are not the biggest emitters because we have 1.3bn people."
The report suggests that if China's population emitted as much as US citizens, its total emissions would be roughly equivalent to those of the entire planet's human activity.
"But just looking at numbers does not help tackle global climate change," Ms Wu added.
"In China, we are concerned about the speed of growth in emissions; it is really scary."
The report showed that China was only responsible for about 7% of greenhouse gases emitted in the period before 2002, when more than 90% of emissions from human activity were released.
But since the turn of the century, it added, China's portion has been growing steadily and now accounts for 24% of the global total.
The government is looking to stabilise its emissions by 2020, primarily through greater energy efficiency and the expansion of the nation's renewable energy infrastructure, including electric cars.
Ms Wu added that within the international climate negotiations, the Chinese were looking to developed nations to prove that they were serious about tackling climate change, such as delivering the mandatory cuts in emissions outlined in the Kyoto Protocol.
"If they are not able to do it with the technology available to them, then is it reasonable to expect China and India to do it?
"China does not commit itself to a number and then not deliver," she said, referring to whether China would sign up to legally binding targets in the ongoing UN climate negotiations about what system should replace the current Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.
"If they commit, then they are very, very serious about; so they have to figure out what is possible."
Business - The challenger from Ingolstadt
Audi is making a very discreet yet powerful statement in India.
All right! Mercedes-Benz stands for luxury and BMW for sportiness, but what about Audi? The whiz-kids from the small town of Ingolstadt, near Munich, would widen their eyes, hold their breath and say, “Vorsprung durch Technik.”
Loosely translated, that means advancement through technology, which applies not just to the way Audi builds its cars but also to the concern for environment and a host of things nice and new-age German.
But you ask an enthusiast what separates the average Merc and Beemer from an Audi and she would tell you, “Quattro.” The quattro badge on the boot lid of a car promises that it is dynamically safer and sharper than the one you are travelling in.
Audi achieves this by sending power to all the four wheels instead of the rear wheels alone, as in the case of the traditional luxury cars built by Mercedes and BMW.
Advantage? The traction on all four ends of the car equals safety in almost all weather conditions. But those who understand automotive production and platform-sharing will tell you it is a smart way to re-engineer a Volkswagen Golf into something called an A4 or, for that matter, an already well-built VW Passat into something that can sell for double the price once labeled A6.
Yup, the VW Group shares plenty of underpinnings and engine-gearbox combinations across its brand range. So the mass-produced VW Golf comes from a platform that also gives birth to the sporty Audi TT and the entry-luxury Audi A4, apart from a host of Skodas and Seats.
But quattro is unique to Audi and it embellishes only the more powerful and sportier models. For instance, you can book the new Audi A4 only in the quattro edition if you are opting for a petrol model. But if you want something more economical and practical for our country, you can go for the A4 diesel that powers the front wheels alone — like VW Golf.
Apart from Quattro, Audi builds its cars carefully from a rather relaxed car plant where more attention to detail results in some exquisite machinery. And, of course, the quality of materials and surfaces ensures that Audi competes with the best.
In India, A4 and A6 are being assembled from “disassembled kits” at the Aurangabad facility of Skoda. Soon this facility will become an assembly unit for cars.
Will the traditional Indian car buyer appreciate the technological leap that Audi represents or will she stick to her Mercs and BMWs? Come September, Audi will officially launch R8 — a monster of a sports car that can stun Italians with its mid-mounted 420 bhp V8 that will retails for over Rs 1 crore. A supercar? In India?
Yup, and so what if it will not sell in large numbers; it will attract more luxury car buyers to Audi dealerships and help populate our roads with more A4s and A6s, which incidentally are competitively priced against Mercedes C-Class and BMW 3 Series, and E-Class and 5 Series, respectively.
If you have not got the plot yet, here goes. The VW Group is flexing its muscles big time in India, and Audi has a big role to play. Today it sells UK-made Bentley, made-in-Italy Lamborghini Gallardo and Murcealago, Czech-conceived Skoda, and quality cars that bear the four-rings, apart from launch pad VW models such as Passat and Jetta in India.
The larger dealer and service network may also mean better care for Audi models across the nation. So the fellow Germans do have a reason to worry. Audi has just started.
All right! Mercedes-Benz stands for luxury and BMW for sportiness, but what about Audi? The whiz-kids from the small town of Ingolstadt, near Munich, would widen their eyes, hold their breath and say, “Vorsprung durch Technik.”
Loosely translated, that means advancement through technology, which applies not just to the way Audi builds its cars but also to the concern for environment and a host of things nice and new-age German.
But you ask an enthusiast what separates the average Merc and Beemer from an Audi and she would tell you, “Quattro.” The quattro badge on the boot lid of a car promises that it is dynamically safer and sharper than the one you are travelling in.
Audi achieves this by sending power to all the four wheels instead of the rear wheels alone, as in the case of the traditional luxury cars built by Mercedes and BMW.
Advantage? The traction on all four ends of the car equals safety in almost all weather conditions. But those who understand automotive production and platform-sharing will tell you it is a smart way to re-engineer a Volkswagen Golf into something called an A4 or, for that matter, an already well-built VW Passat into something that can sell for double the price once labeled A6.
Yup, the VW Group shares plenty of underpinnings and engine-gearbox combinations across its brand range. So the mass-produced VW Golf comes from a platform that also gives birth to the sporty Audi TT and the entry-luxury Audi A4, apart from a host of Skodas and Seats.
But quattro is unique to Audi and it embellishes only the more powerful and sportier models. For instance, you can book the new Audi A4 only in the quattro edition if you are opting for a petrol model. But if you want something more economical and practical for our country, you can go for the A4 diesel that powers the front wheels alone — like VW Golf.
Apart from Quattro, Audi builds its cars carefully from a rather relaxed car plant where more attention to detail results in some exquisite machinery. And, of course, the quality of materials and surfaces ensures that Audi competes with the best.
In India, A4 and A6 are being assembled from “disassembled kits” at the Aurangabad facility of Skoda. Soon this facility will become an assembly unit for cars.
Will the traditional Indian car buyer appreciate the technological leap that Audi represents or will she stick to her Mercs and BMWs? Come September, Audi will officially launch R8 — a monster of a sports car that can stun Italians with its mid-mounted 420 bhp V8 that will retails for over Rs 1 crore. A supercar? In India?
Yup, and so what if it will not sell in large numbers; it will attract more luxury car buyers to Audi dealerships and help populate our roads with more A4s and A6s, which incidentally are competitively priced against Mercedes C-Class and BMW 3 Series, and E-Class and 5 Series, respectively.
If you have not got the plot yet, here goes. The VW Group is flexing its muscles big time in India, and Audi has a big role to play. Today it sells UK-made Bentley, made-in-Italy Lamborghini Gallardo and Murcealago, Czech-conceived Skoda, and quality cars that bear the four-rings, apart from launch pad VW models such as Passat and Jetta in India.
The larger dealer and service network may also mean better care for Audi models across the nation. So the fellow Germans do have a reason to worry. Audi has just started.
Business - Racing the Star
Not too long ago, Peter Kronschnabl was ensconced in Munich, Germany, working as a general manager with luxury car maker BMW.
Entrusted with market development in the Asia-Pacific, Africa and central and east Europe, his job was to evaluate markets where BMW had the potential to set up its own subsidiary. He had already done Poland and Hungary when India began to beep on his radar. And that changed his life.
At first, it was like any other project report — a desk analysis in June 2004 followed by two weeks of field analysis in September that involved meeting industrialists, consultants, potential buyers and long stretches of road travel.
At the end of it, Kronschnabl submitted a very optimistic opinion of India. “I gathered that everybody in India was on the move. The people were eager to achieve and open-minded. I could feel the drive of the country,” he says.
In the normal course, he would be done by that stage and head to his post in Munich. But the BMW bosses decided to add a twist to the plot and asked Kronschnabl to make good his own report.
“A project like that… India is BMW’s most strategic project globally… You do the entire groundwork and entry… you can prove in reality that the strategy was right.”
He proved that so quickly that he surprised himself. Unmarried, Kronschnabl moved to India in August 2006 as country head and president and ignited operations in January of next year.
Nineteen months later, he is already breathing down the neck of Mercedes-Benz India, which pioneered the luxury car segment in India with its launch 13 years ago and whose three-pointed star has been the badge that thou shalt covet.
BMW India’s target for 2007 was to sell 1,000 cars. It sold 1,387. It toyed with 2,000 as this year’s target before pegging it at 2,800 — a number it is on course to achieve. That will be more than the 2,491 cars Mercedes-Benz India sold in 2007.
Mercedes does not reveal sales targets. However, its director, corporate affairs, Suhas Kadlaskar says the company’s sales in January-June this year have grown 50 per cent. At this rate, it will be comfortably ahead of BMW in this year’s sales, though not very comfort-ably ahead.
Wheels of luxury
As the two German giants try to outpace each other, there has been a sharp surge in luxury car sales in India, with the volume rising from 3,050 in 2006 to 4,200 in 2007.
This year, the total volume is expected to touch 7,000 — a number referred to as “magical” by automobile analysts and writers though, as is the case with psychological landmarks, it’s not very clear why.
“This is just the beginning. This segment is poised for continuous growth. The top two layers of the income group (called globals and achievers, respectively, in the Bird of Gold report of McKinsey Global Institute) are poised to grow 10-15 times in the next 10 years. The result will be a substantial rise in discretionary spending,” says Rajat Dhawan, partner, McKinsey & Company.
With India hitting a purple patch of economic growth, personal incomes and corporate profits have risen sharply. As the feel-good factor became pervasive, people felt comfortable making a statement of their success and bought a luxury car as a symbol of having arrived in life.
“There has been a sense of bullishness all along. The feel-good factor has been very strong,” says Ramnath S, director-research, IDFC-SSKI Securities.
A new set of buyers of luxury cars has cropped up. “We wouldn’t have come (into India) if the economy was not growing. India has a lot of successful entrepreneurs and professionals. Our business is related to people’s passion and how they want to reflect themselves,” says David Panton, senior vice-president, Asia Pacific (excluding China) and South Africa, BMW Group.
Mercedes, too, is seeing a new rush of buyers. “The average age of Mercedes buyers has dropped to 35 and above from over 50 four years ago. New entrepreneurs who have generated wealth in this life want to spend it in this life only. They want the best they can afford,” says Kadlaskar.
A big chunk of the sales goes to fleet owners and segments like travel and hospitality, especially those catering to foreigners. The new Four Seasons hotel that has opened in Mumbai has just bought 20 BMW cars.
“On the supply side, we so far had CBUs (completely built units, or imported cars), which attracted 109-110 per cent duty. That made luxury cars out of the reach of even some of the achievers. But in the last year and a half or so, a lot more assembly has begun to happen in India. With that, the price elasticity effect has kicked in,” says Dhawan.
The local alien
It was not like BMW only had to turn up to sell its cars. “That would be paradise,” says Panton.
Adds Kronschnabl, “It is not like I am opening a bakery and selling bread. Everyone needs bread. But everyone does not need a luxury car.”
The automobile expert of a very reputed consultancy firm says BMW’s India strategy holds the promise to become a case study.
From the beginning, it had the clear focus to become a local player. Thus, it began the India operations with assembling the 3 and 5 Series at a new plant constructed in Chennai. Of the 2,800 cars BMW is sure of selling this year, only 600 will be CBUs.
A believer in the one world culture, BMW has built showrooms and dealerships that will not be out of place anywhere in the world. Its showrooms in Gurgaon and Delhi are a feast for a car lover’s eyes.
“Finally, luxury cars have begun to be sold in India the way they deserve to be sold. In India, the word of mouth and dealerships play the most critical role in the sale of luxury cars. If you want a comparison, the internet channel in China is generally more in use by all car segments,” says Dhawan.
Extending the one world belief, BMW quickly brought nearly its entire bouquet of cars to India.
Even the high-performance M Series and the X Series of sports utility vehicles are available in Indian showrooms. The only ones it has kept away are 1 Series and Mini. The first is a small car by BMW standards. The second is not meant to be a volume catcher anywhere; it sells on the lifestyle plank, which is not seen as a big market in India yet.
The standards, processes and design are standardised across the world. The only things modified for India are safety and emission systems to meet the local criteria, and small things like not using cloth, which Indian buyers despise, as upholstery.
“We have brought world class to India in terms of showrooms and sales staff. All the machinery in the Chennai plant is of the latest technology. Our plant in India is the first BMW plant anywhere to have that kind of machinery,” says Kronschnabl.
There is a lot of emphasis on training. Everyone working for BMW in India has undergone brand training either in West Asia or in Germany. Trainers have been flown into India.
The India office reports directly to Munich and the two are constantly in touch. “Someone from one organisation is speaking to someone in the other organisation, through phone or video conference or in person, every hour,” says Panton.
On their marks
It was a different era when Mercedes came in. “When we entered, there was no market for luxury cars. We developed the market,” says Kadlaskar.
According to reports that have appeared earlier, Mercedes was slow off the blocks. From 1,800-odd cars sold in 1996, its sales plunged to 734 in 1999.
Mercedes' opening gambit consisted of E220 and E250 Diesel models, part of the W124 series. The new E Class W210 series was already ready to roll out in Germany. Indian consumers knew that, as the luxury car buyer is inevitably an extensive traveler and well-informed.
But that was a long time ago. “When a car is launched in Germany, it is in India within six months,” says Kadlaskar. He dismisses the idea that BMW is catching up with Mercedes, saying that the overall pie is growing and creating room for new players.
Nobody these days wants to comment on rivals, but Kadlaskar exudes immense confidence in Mercedes' network. "We have the edge. We are very strong in after-sales (service support). We are present in 28 cities. We give a lot of importance to training. Our entire network is certified by ISO."
Kronschnabl, though, is unfazed. "We have 12 dealers in 10 cities. This we wanted to have by 2009, but have already achieved. We will have 15 dealers by the end of the next year."
When it comes to the race with the three-pointed star, BMW is cautious, but optimistically so. Says Panton: “It is not an absolute objective to be ahead of Mercedes in India. I think we will be ahead of Mercedes as a natural outcome of what we are doing -- whether in 2009 or 2010, I don’t know.”
Entrusted with market development in the Asia-Pacific, Africa and central and east Europe, his job was to evaluate markets where BMW had the potential to set up its own subsidiary. He had already done Poland and Hungary when India began to beep on his radar. And that changed his life.
At first, it was like any other project report — a desk analysis in June 2004 followed by two weeks of field analysis in September that involved meeting industrialists, consultants, potential buyers and long stretches of road travel.
At the end of it, Kronschnabl submitted a very optimistic opinion of India. “I gathered that everybody in India was on the move. The people were eager to achieve and open-minded. I could feel the drive of the country,” he says.
In the normal course, he would be done by that stage and head to his post in Munich. But the BMW bosses decided to add a twist to the plot and asked Kronschnabl to make good his own report.
“A project like that… India is BMW’s most strategic project globally… You do the entire groundwork and entry… you can prove in reality that the strategy was right.”
He proved that so quickly that he surprised himself. Unmarried, Kronschnabl moved to India in August 2006 as country head and president and ignited operations in January of next year.
Nineteen months later, he is already breathing down the neck of Mercedes-Benz India, which pioneered the luxury car segment in India with its launch 13 years ago and whose three-pointed star has been the badge that thou shalt covet.
BMW India’s target for 2007 was to sell 1,000 cars. It sold 1,387. It toyed with 2,000 as this year’s target before pegging it at 2,800 — a number it is on course to achieve. That will be more than the 2,491 cars Mercedes-Benz India sold in 2007.
Mercedes does not reveal sales targets. However, its director, corporate affairs, Suhas Kadlaskar says the company’s sales in January-June this year have grown 50 per cent. At this rate, it will be comfortably ahead of BMW in this year’s sales, though not very comfort-ably ahead.
Wheels of luxury
As the two German giants try to outpace each other, there has been a sharp surge in luxury car sales in India, with the volume rising from 3,050 in 2006 to 4,200 in 2007.
This year, the total volume is expected to touch 7,000 — a number referred to as “magical” by automobile analysts and writers though, as is the case with psychological landmarks, it’s not very clear why.
“This is just the beginning. This segment is poised for continuous growth. The top two layers of the income group (called globals and achievers, respectively, in the Bird of Gold report of McKinsey Global Institute) are poised to grow 10-15 times in the next 10 years. The result will be a substantial rise in discretionary spending,” says Rajat Dhawan, partner, McKinsey & Company.
With India hitting a purple patch of economic growth, personal incomes and corporate profits have risen sharply. As the feel-good factor became pervasive, people felt comfortable making a statement of their success and bought a luxury car as a symbol of having arrived in life.
“There has been a sense of bullishness all along. The feel-good factor has been very strong,” says Ramnath S, director-research, IDFC-SSKI Securities.
A new set of buyers of luxury cars has cropped up. “We wouldn’t have come (into India) if the economy was not growing. India has a lot of successful entrepreneurs and professionals. Our business is related to people’s passion and how they want to reflect themselves,” says David Panton, senior vice-president, Asia Pacific (excluding China) and South Africa, BMW Group.
Mercedes, too, is seeing a new rush of buyers. “The average age of Mercedes buyers has dropped to 35 and above from over 50 four years ago. New entrepreneurs who have generated wealth in this life want to spend it in this life only. They want the best they can afford,” says Kadlaskar.
A big chunk of the sales goes to fleet owners and segments like travel and hospitality, especially those catering to foreigners. The new Four Seasons hotel that has opened in Mumbai has just bought 20 BMW cars.
“On the supply side, we so far had CBUs (completely built units, or imported cars), which attracted 109-110 per cent duty. That made luxury cars out of the reach of even some of the achievers. But in the last year and a half or so, a lot more assembly has begun to happen in India. With that, the price elasticity effect has kicked in,” says Dhawan.
The local alien
It was not like BMW only had to turn up to sell its cars. “That would be paradise,” says Panton.
Adds Kronschnabl, “It is not like I am opening a bakery and selling bread. Everyone needs bread. But everyone does not need a luxury car.”
The automobile expert of a very reputed consultancy firm says BMW’s India strategy holds the promise to become a case study.
From the beginning, it had the clear focus to become a local player. Thus, it began the India operations with assembling the 3 and 5 Series at a new plant constructed in Chennai. Of the 2,800 cars BMW is sure of selling this year, only 600 will be CBUs.
A believer in the one world culture, BMW has built showrooms and dealerships that will not be out of place anywhere in the world. Its showrooms in Gurgaon and Delhi are a feast for a car lover’s eyes.
“Finally, luxury cars have begun to be sold in India the way they deserve to be sold. In India, the word of mouth and dealerships play the most critical role in the sale of luxury cars. If you want a comparison, the internet channel in China is generally more in use by all car segments,” says Dhawan.
Extending the one world belief, BMW quickly brought nearly its entire bouquet of cars to India.
Even the high-performance M Series and the X Series of sports utility vehicles are available in Indian showrooms. The only ones it has kept away are 1 Series and Mini. The first is a small car by BMW standards. The second is not meant to be a volume catcher anywhere; it sells on the lifestyle plank, which is not seen as a big market in India yet.
The standards, processes and design are standardised across the world. The only things modified for India are safety and emission systems to meet the local criteria, and small things like not using cloth, which Indian buyers despise, as upholstery.
“We have brought world class to India in terms of showrooms and sales staff. All the machinery in the Chennai plant is of the latest technology. Our plant in India is the first BMW plant anywhere to have that kind of machinery,” says Kronschnabl.
There is a lot of emphasis on training. Everyone working for BMW in India has undergone brand training either in West Asia or in Germany. Trainers have been flown into India.
The India office reports directly to Munich and the two are constantly in touch. “Someone from one organisation is speaking to someone in the other organisation, through phone or video conference or in person, every hour,” says Panton.
On their marks
It was a different era when Mercedes came in. “When we entered, there was no market for luxury cars. We developed the market,” says Kadlaskar.
According to reports that have appeared earlier, Mercedes was slow off the blocks. From 1,800-odd cars sold in 1996, its sales plunged to 734 in 1999.
Mercedes' opening gambit consisted of E220 and E250 Diesel models, part of the W124 series. The new E Class W210 series was already ready to roll out in Germany. Indian consumers knew that, as the luxury car buyer is inevitably an extensive traveler and well-informed.
But that was a long time ago. “When a car is launched in Germany, it is in India within six months,” says Kadlaskar. He dismisses the idea that BMW is catching up with Mercedes, saying that the overall pie is growing and creating room for new players.
Nobody these days wants to comment on rivals, but Kadlaskar exudes immense confidence in Mercedes' network. "We have the edge. We are very strong in after-sales (service support). We are present in 28 cities. We give a lot of importance to training. Our entire network is certified by ISO."
Kronschnabl, though, is unfazed. "We have 12 dealers in 10 cities. This we wanted to have by 2009, but have already achieved. We will have 15 dealers by the end of the next year."
When it comes to the race with the three-pointed star, BMW is cautious, but optimistically so. Says Panton: “It is not an absolute objective to be ahead of Mercedes in India. I think we will be ahead of Mercedes as a natural outcome of what we are doing -- whether in 2009 or 2010, I don’t know.”
India - B-School placements to take a 25-30% hit this year
The economic downturn is expected to take its toll on B-school placements too. The premier Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) do not appear to be perturbed, but other prominent B-schools anticipate a 25-30 per cent drop in placements this academic year.
They are concerned that several regular companies may drop out of the placements and others may recruit fewer numbers than usual.
For instance, Mumbai-based SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) discovered that although 60 per cent of the companies have committed to recruiting the regular numbers, 30 per cent said they are not sure if they would recruit in regular numbers and 8 per cent said they would freeze recruitment for the time being.
Placement officials of B-schools who spoke to this paper still hope the situation won't be as bad but admit that the students might have to compromise on their dream profiles this year.
As a precautionary measure, the management institutes have already started expanding their company base by approaching new firms, such as smaller private equity players and wealth management firms. Unlike most years, the Banking and Financial Services (BFSI) sector is not expected to be the best performer on the campuses this year. FMCG, trading and the services sector might take the lead instead.
“The number of offers on B-school campuses by the financial sector could come down with some companies even opting out of placements this year,” said Professor Subir Verma, chairperson, placements, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon.
Some companies, however, see a silver lining in the current slowdown as they stand a chance to recruit students even at a salary they would have to offer.
According to a placement officer of a reputed Mumbai-based B-school, these companies, including banks, found it difficult to recruit from campus earlier because of relatively low salary levels, despite good job profiles.
“It helps us in the sales and marketing scenario. It’s a win-win situation for the company as well as the students because they will find growth and we will get the best of talent from second rung B-schools. Given the ambition and expectations, one cannot afford an IIM or an FMS student,” says T N Radhakrishna, HR Head, UTI MF. The company, however, would be careful in terms of articulating its recruitment needs, said Radhakrishna.
They are concerned that several regular companies may drop out of the placements and others may recruit fewer numbers than usual.
For instance, Mumbai-based SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) discovered that although 60 per cent of the companies have committed to recruiting the regular numbers, 30 per cent said they are not sure if they would recruit in regular numbers and 8 per cent said they would freeze recruitment for the time being.
Placement officials of B-schools who spoke to this paper still hope the situation won't be as bad but admit that the students might have to compromise on their dream profiles this year.
As a precautionary measure, the management institutes have already started expanding their company base by approaching new firms, such as smaller private equity players and wealth management firms. Unlike most years, the Banking and Financial Services (BFSI) sector is not expected to be the best performer on the campuses this year. FMCG, trading and the services sector might take the lead instead.
“The number of offers on B-school campuses by the financial sector could come down with some companies even opting out of placements this year,” said Professor Subir Verma, chairperson, placements, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon.
Some companies, however, see a silver lining in the current slowdown as they stand a chance to recruit students even at a salary they would have to offer.
According to a placement officer of a reputed Mumbai-based B-school, these companies, including banks, found it difficult to recruit from campus earlier because of relatively low salary levels, despite good job profiles.
“It helps us in the sales and marketing scenario. It’s a win-win situation for the company as well as the students because they will find growth and we will get the best of talent from second rung B-schools. Given the ambition and expectations, one cannot afford an IIM or an FMS student,” says T N Radhakrishna, HR Head, UTI MF. The company, however, would be careful in terms of articulating its recruitment needs, said Radhakrishna.
India - Street Side Blues
Instead of helping hawkers modernise, the Left gives them sophistry.
Lest it be imagined that Somnath Chatterjee faced a unique dilemma, let us spare a thought for Shyamal Chakraborty, West Bengal president of CITU, the CPI(M) trade union, who has deftly managed the conflict between principle and practice. Though CITU remained ostentatiously aloof from the hawkers’ protest against Spencer’s, the retail arm of RPG Enterprises, Chakraborty vociferously claimed a share of the laurels when an agreement of sorts was hammered out on July 5.
But this column is not about Marxist manipulation. It’s to point out that the fracas that delayed the opening of Spencer’s South Calcutta hypermart (as it’s called) has lessons for the transition from our present haphazard mix of laissez-faire and state control to the organised free market (which sounds like an oxymoron) if pain, confusion and confrontation are to be avoided. Singapore’s immensely popular hawker stalls, where you can eat everything from biryani to birds nest soup, provide an example of managing change harmoniously.
Briefly to recapitulate, hundreds of small traders prevented Spencer’s planned opening, forcing the RPG vice-chairman, Sanjeev Goenka, to beat a hasty retreat, because they feared the shop would take away their rice and dal. Demanding that no “local or international retailer” should encroach on the preserve of about 5,000 hawkers and over 1,000 traders, Shaktiman Ghosh, general secretary of the Hawker Sangram Committee, demanded that Spencer’s should not sell any grocery, vegetables, fish and milk. It was an unequal fight, for Bengali pavement peddlers are no match for one of the country’s most powerful Marwari business houses. How unequal was glaringly obvious when though every political party joined the protest, CITU did not. After all, the CPI(M) is synonymous with Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s government, which cannot afford to offend big business.
Ghosh’s demand was not particularly realistic either. Only three to four per cent of India’s total food and grocery trade might now be organised, as an RPG statement pointed out, but modernisation and globalisation will sooner or later bring in their train smooth streamlined shops in smooth streamlined air-conditioned shopping malls that are as much a place to buy and sell as a pleasure destination for simple folk. Given India’s extreme disparities of income, malls and pavement hawkers will co-exist for many years to come. But the gulf has to be bridged and the transition eased. The six-point compromise solution for which two Marxist luminaries, Chakraborty and Calcutta’s mayor, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, claim credit, seems too artificial to achieve this.
Who, for instance, will check every Spencer’s sale of rice, fruit and vegetables to ensure that the amount is not less than 3 kg? Will anyone stop buyers to weigh their purchases of potatoes and onions which must be more than 6 kg? Similarly, Spencer’s cannot sell spices in packs of less than 500 gm. It may be all right stipulating that rice must be branded but it seems absurd to insist that garments must be both branded and cost not less than Rs 300 when pavements are packed with unbranded readymades that cost much more. The final clause that everything Spencer’s sells must cost more than the hawkers’ price will give the two-member supervisory committee plenty to do if it takes its mandate seriously. Or honestly.
Old photographs of Singapore show an abundance of hawkers and peddlers quite as untidy as those who clutter up Indian pavements. Itinerant food sellers were especially popular, and the government dealt with them by making it unlawful for cooked dishes to be sold without running water. Simultaneously, it bought space, provided water and electricity and laid out stalls that were then sold or rented to hawkers. Other pavement traders need a licence, and opposition politicians like Chee Soon Juan have been arrested for selling their publications without a permit. I bought Chee’s To be Free (which he inscribed “Towards greater humanity”) from him in Orchard Road without realising it was an illegal transaction.
Such laws would never be enforced here because hawkers are vote banks. Each Left Front constituent has its own pavement constituency. The stalls Kolkata’s city fathers built at a cost of more than Rs 8 crore for more than 7,000 hawkers displaced 12 years ago have been passed on to other occupants (no doubt for a consideration) or are used as godowns. The pavement is still their favourite pitch. This combination of hawker obduracy and political patronage makes it easier for business houses to bludgeon their way and repeat in 21st century India the avoidable anguish of Britain’s 19th century Industrial Revolution.
Lest it be imagined that Somnath Chatterjee faced a unique dilemma, let us spare a thought for Shyamal Chakraborty, West Bengal president of CITU, the CPI(M) trade union, who has deftly managed the conflict between principle and practice. Though CITU remained ostentatiously aloof from the hawkers’ protest against Spencer’s, the retail arm of RPG Enterprises, Chakraborty vociferously claimed a share of the laurels when an agreement of sorts was hammered out on July 5.
But this column is not about Marxist manipulation. It’s to point out that the fracas that delayed the opening of Spencer’s South Calcutta hypermart (as it’s called) has lessons for the transition from our present haphazard mix of laissez-faire and state control to the organised free market (which sounds like an oxymoron) if pain, confusion and confrontation are to be avoided. Singapore’s immensely popular hawker stalls, where you can eat everything from biryani to birds nest soup, provide an example of managing change harmoniously.
Briefly to recapitulate, hundreds of small traders prevented Spencer’s planned opening, forcing the RPG vice-chairman, Sanjeev Goenka, to beat a hasty retreat, because they feared the shop would take away their rice and dal. Demanding that no “local or international retailer” should encroach on the preserve of about 5,000 hawkers and over 1,000 traders, Shaktiman Ghosh, general secretary of the Hawker Sangram Committee, demanded that Spencer’s should not sell any grocery, vegetables, fish and milk. It was an unequal fight, for Bengali pavement peddlers are no match for one of the country’s most powerful Marwari business houses. How unequal was glaringly obvious when though every political party joined the protest, CITU did not. After all, the CPI(M) is synonymous with Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s government, which cannot afford to offend big business.
Ghosh’s demand was not particularly realistic either. Only three to four per cent of India’s total food and grocery trade might now be organised, as an RPG statement pointed out, but modernisation and globalisation will sooner or later bring in their train smooth streamlined shops in smooth streamlined air-conditioned shopping malls that are as much a place to buy and sell as a pleasure destination for simple folk. Given India’s extreme disparities of income, malls and pavement hawkers will co-exist for many years to come. But the gulf has to be bridged and the transition eased. The six-point compromise solution for which two Marxist luminaries, Chakraborty and Calcutta’s mayor, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, claim credit, seems too artificial to achieve this.
Who, for instance, will check every Spencer’s sale of rice, fruit and vegetables to ensure that the amount is not less than 3 kg? Will anyone stop buyers to weigh their purchases of potatoes and onions which must be more than 6 kg? Similarly, Spencer’s cannot sell spices in packs of less than 500 gm. It may be all right stipulating that rice must be branded but it seems absurd to insist that garments must be both branded and cost not less than Rs 300 when pavements are packed with unbranded readymades that cost much more. The final clause that everything Spencer’s sells must cost more than the hawkers’ price will give the two-member supervisory committee plenty to do if it takes its mandate seriously. Or honestly.
Old photographs of Singapore show an abundance of hawkers and peddlers quite as untidy as those who clutter up Indian pavements. Itinerant food sellers were especially popular, and the government dealt with them by making it unlawful for cooked dishes to be sold without running water. Simultaneously, it bought space, provided water and electricity and laid out stalls that were then sold or rented to hawkers. Other pavement traders need a licence, and opposition politicians like Chee Soon Juan have been arrested for selling their publications without a permit. I bought Chee’s To be Free (which he inscribed “Towards greater humanity”) from him in Orchard Road without realising it was an illegal transaction.
Such laws would never be enforced here because hawkers are vote banks. Each Left Front constituent has its own pavement constituency. The stalls Kolkata’s city fathers built at a cost of more than Rs 8 crore for more than 7,000 hawkers displaced 12 years ago have been passed on to other occupants (no doubt for a consideration) or are used as godowns. The pavement is still their favourite pitch. This combination of hawker obduracy and political patronage makes it easier for business houses to bludgeon their way and repeat in 21st century India the avoidable anguish of Britain’s 19th century Industrial Revolution.
India - When the onus is on the victim
Sitting in my first floor flat in a middle-class Delhi colony, I have a choice of five Wi-fi networks. My own is kind of secure though I wouldn’t bet it is hack-proof. At least it doesn’t broadcast and log-ons must be manually assigned from the admin console
The other four networks can all be jumped easily. Two are open and offer connections to all comers. Two have WEP security but neither admin has bothered to change the default network name (the router’s brand). Nor have they shifted routers from default gateway IP addresses or changed Username, Password options (“admin”,”admin”) the routers shipped with.
This means, one can make an educated guess about where to find the router, log on as admin and do whatever. It is possible to gain access to passwords and other sensitive information without any effort. In fact, you could do it by accident.
My home is not in a very high net-penetration zone, being residential apart from a few lawyers’ chambers (at least two of those insecure networks belong to law firms). In the office areas of downtown Gurgaon and the Noida STP, you can war-drive long stretches and take your pick of dozens of Wi-fi networks.
Maybe half are unsecured; almost all are vulnerable to automated attack. The required software can be downloaded free for legitimate purposes from many sites. As a result, even Geoff Boycott’s proverbial mum could hack most Wi-fi networks.
It’s the same all over urban India. Wi-fi is convenient, laptop and Smartphone penetration is rising and laptops are default-configured for Wi-fi access. SOHO and SME environments brim with Wi-fi, often to the point where channels must be reset to manage signal interference.
Configuring security is painful and most people consider it unnecessary. Any Wi-fi user is likely to be using unlimited plans, paying flat rates regardless of traffic. An extra machine doesn’t degrade quality of connection much, so why bother?
This casual approach can lead to grief for US-based iPhone users visiting India. The iPhone is configured to default-access any available Wi-fi. This saves money and improves speeds in the home area. On international roaming, it causes huge bills if the user forgets to switch the feature off.
Keith Heywood, an American living in Navi Mumbai, is learning the hard way that there are other possible consequences of leaving Wi-fi unsecured. Somebody sent emails (using a yahoo.com address) from his Wi-fi, claiming responsibility for the terrorist attacks just before mayhem started in Ahmedabad.
Mr Heywood was probably collateral damage from war-driving — that is the simplest explanation. It is possible to spoof IPs. But spoofing requires some knowledge. It’s much easier to just wander around with a smart phone that latches onto any open Wi-fi.
Mr Heywood has been a beneficiary of racial profiling in that it has been assumed that he is victim rather than perpetrator because of his background. If the Wi-fi network in question had belonged to an Indian, that assumption wouldn’t be made.
The scary thing is that this could happen to anyone and the victim would not know it until the police come calling. The hack may not even show up on a forensic exam if the logs have been wiped.
The legal position about an Internet connection being hacked and used for criminal purposes is unclear under the IT Act, 2000. It is analogous to having a phone or car stolen and misused. But in those cases, there are warning and clear legal recourse. The onus in a hack is on the victim to prove there has indeed been a hack. Maybe it’s less trouble to secure the stable door before the horse has bolted?
The other four networks can all be jumped easily. Two are open and offer connections to all comers. Two have WEP security but neither admin has bothered to change the default network name (the router’s brand). Nor have they shifted routers from default gateway IP addresses or changed Username, Password options (“admin”,”admin”) the routers shipped with.
This means, one can make an educated guess about where to find the router, log on as admin and do whatever. It is possible to gain access to passwords and other sensitive information without any effort. In fact, you could do it by accident.
My home is not in a very high net-penetration zone, being residential apart from a few lawyers’ chambers (at least two of those insecure networks belong to law firms). In the office areas of downtown Gurgaon and the Noida STP, you can war-drive long stretches and take your pick of dozens of Wi-fi networks.
Maybe half are unsecured; almost all are vulnerable to automated attack. The required software can be downloaded free for legitimate purposes from many sites. As a result, even Geoff Boycott’s proverbial mum could hack most Wi-fi networks.
It’s the same all over urban India. Wi-fi is convenient, laptop and Smartphone penetration is rising and laptops are default-configured for Wi-fi access. SOHO and SME environments brim with Wi-fi, often to the point where channels must be reset to manage signal interference.
Configuring security is painful and most people consider it unnecessary. Any Wi-fi user is likely to be using unlimited plans, paying flat rates regardless of traffic. An extra machine doesn’t degrade quality of connection much, so why bother?
This casual approach can lead to grief for US-based iPhone users visiting India. The iPhone is configured to default-access any available Wi-fi. This saves money and improves speeds in the home area. On international roaming, it causes huge bills if the user forgets to switch the feature off.
Keith Heywood, an American living in Navi Mumbai, is learning the hard way that there are other possible consequences of leaving Wi-fi unsecured. Somebody sent emails (using a yahoo.com address) from his Wi-fi, claiming responsibility for the terrorist attacks just before mayhem started in Ahmedabad.
Mr Heywood was probably collateral damage from war-driving — that is the simplest explanation. It is possible to spoof IPs. But spoofing requires some knowledge. It’s much easier to just wander around with a smart phone that latches onto any open Wi-fi.
Mr Heywood has been a beneficiary of racial profiling in that it has been assumed that he is victim rather than perpetrator because of his background. If the Wi-fi network in question had belonged to an Indian, that assumption wouldn’t be made.
The scary thing is that this could happen to anyone and the victim would not know it until the police come calling. The hack may not even show up on a forensic exam if the logs have been wiped.
The legal position about an Internet connection being hacked and used for criminal purposes is unclear under the IT Act, 2000. It is analogous to having a phone or car stolen and misused. But in those cases, there are warning and clear legal recourse. The onus in a hack is on the victim to prove there has indeed been a hack. Maybe it’s less trouble to secure the stable door before the horse has bolted?
Columnists - T C A Srinivasa Raghavan
An extraordinary thing is happening. It is not yet a tide, nor may it happen to the extent that the CPI(M) would hope for. But wherever you go, you find people slowly reverting to their old tormentors in the public sector after expressing extreme irritation with the private sector and its ways. Indeed, my worst abuse — well, not really the worst, I suppose — for the private sector used to be “you are no better than the public sector”. Now I ask public sector managers why they are behaving like the private sector — which really confuses them.
Let us take four examples, though, one each from telecoms, aviation, the media and banking, because these are the great success stories. Without exception, the service quality in each of them has plummeted. Overall, each of them has started treating the customer as a pain in the neck, just as the public sector used to. In contrast, the public sector seems to have woken up to the fact that even a little improvement in service quality goes a long way.
The mobile phone fellows have become almost as bureaucratic as, say, the DGS&D. There is no way that you can get something done in less than an hour or via a verbal instruction, even when delivered in person. Everything has to be in writing, even a disconnection. I have a dozen stories to tell because as a family we have five or six connections with one of the firms. I am waiting most anxiously for number portability.
What has happened to the premium airline is also very sad. It started out so marvellously but began to decline after about 18 months. If you take each element that contributes to this decline separately the explanations seem reasonable enough. But then isn’t that true of the public sector also? In any case, it is the overall outcome that matters, and in the case of the airline I am referring to, this is a visible increase in tawdriness and lateness. In contrast, Air India has become so much better now.
Then there are the banks. The biggest of the private sector ones is now no better than what SBI used to be in the old days. The bottom line is exactly the same: irritation and aggravation when you have to deal with it, even online. The bank has simply lost it when it comes to customer service.
Last but not least is the electronic media. Scores of people I know are now turning back to Doordarshan and AIR for news, for a very simple reason: there you get the news without idiotic frills. DD and AIR have stuck to the old concept of news and not some claptrap that the private sector channels think will get them the eyeballs.
So what’s the problem with the private sector? My guess is this: there is a disjunction between the mad race for market share and the pressing need to keep costs down. The fellows in marketing are under pressure from above to sell more, while the fellows in finance are being told to cool it. The result is the same as for the public sector, even though the driving forces are different because in the public sector it is the procedures and the corruption that delay capital spending. There is no real pressure to keep costs down.
As long as the private sector’s customer base is small, the opposite pressures to expand market shares and keep costs down lead to greater all-round efficiency. But the moment it crosses a critical mass, which I would put at about 500,000 customers, problems start surfacing.
The reason is simple: the indivisibility of capital expenditure. That is, in order to keep the same level of service, you have to add to labour and capital costs in amounts that don’t appear justified, given the rate at which market share is expanding. So you try to squeeze more out of existing resources, and soon that begins to tell on the quality of the output. There is nothing like a combination of old machines and untrained workers to really short-change the customer.
All this, I daresay, is well-known. But that really is not the point of this article. Instead the issue to focus on is whether when dealing with large numbers of customers, ownership ceases to matter. I now genuinely believe that it does. Public or private, the customer is done for.
I was once sent to interview a mathematician from Oxford and after the usual questions, I asked him if the Jupiter effect (light bends when it gets near it) applied to the management of large numbers as well, in that you need completely different rules when you serve so many customers. He said he would have to think about it but to date I have not got any answer.
That is why I suspect we in India are doomed forever to live with poor service quality. The market is so large that, by definition almost, any service provider, public or private, will fall way short of the standards you find in smaller markets. This means there is a case for a large number of small firms, rather than a large number of large firms.
But since that is not likely to happen reassure yourself, with the most famous of all Confucian thoughts.
Let us take four examples, though, one each from telecoms, aviation, the media and banking, because these are the great success stories. Without exception, the service quality in each of them has plummeted. Overall, each of them has started treating the customer as a pain in the neck, just as the public sector used to. In contrast, the public sector seems to have woken up to the fact that even a little improvement in service quality goes a long way.
The mobile phone fellows have become almost as bureaucratic as, say, the DGS&D. There is no way that you can get something done in less than an hour or via a verbal instruction, even when delivered in person. Everything has to be in writing, even a disconnection. I have a dozen stories to tell because as a family we have five or six connections with one of the firms. I am waiting most anxiously for number portability.
What has happened to the premium airline is also very sad. It started out so marvellously but began to decline after about 18 months. If you take each element that contributes to this decline separately the explanations seem reasonable enough. But then isn’t that true of the public sector also? In any case, it is the overall outcome that matters, and in the case of the airline I am referring to, this is a visible increase in tawdriness and lateness. In contrast, Air India has become so much better now.
Then there are the banks. The biggest of the private sector ones is now no better than what SBI used to be in the old days. The bottom line is exactly the same: irritation and aggravation when you have to deal with it, even online. The bank has simply lost it when it comes to customer service.
Last but not least is the electronic media. Scores of people I know are now turning back to Doordarshan and AIR for news, for a very simple reason: there you get the news without idiotic frills. DD and AIR have stuck to the old concept of news and not some claptrap that the private sector channels think will get them the eyeballs.
So what’s the problem with the private sector? My guess is this: there is a disjunction between the mad race for market share and the pressing need to keep costs down. The fellows in marketing are under pressure from above to sell more, while the fellows in finance are being told to cool it. The result is the same as for the public sector, even though the driving forces are different because in the public sector it is the procedures and the corruption that delay capital spending. There is no real pressure to keep costs down.
As long as the private sector’s customer base is small, the opposite pressures to expand market shares and keep costs down lead to greater all-round efficiency. But the moment it crosses a critical mass, which I would put at about 500,000 customers, problems start surfacing.
The reason is simple: the indivisibility of capital expenditure. That is, in order to keep the same level of service, you have to add to labour and capital costs in amounts that don’t appear justified, given the rate at which market share is expanding. So you try to squeeze more out of existing resources, and soon that begins to tell on the quality of the output. There is nothing like a combination of old machines and untrained workers to really short-change the customer.
All this, I daresay, is well-known. But that really is not the point of this article. Instead the issue to focus on is whether when dealing with large numbers of customers, ownership ceases to matter. I now genuinely believe that it does. Public or private, the customer is done for.
I was once sent to interview a mathematician from Oxford and after the usual questions, I asked him if the Jupiter effect (light bends when it gets near it) applied to the management of large numbers as well, in that you need completely different rules when you serve so many customers. He said he would have to think about it but to date I have not got any answer.
That is why I suspect we in India are doomed forever to live with poor service quality. The market is so large that, by definition almost, any service provider, public or private, will fall way short of the standards you find in smaller markets. This means there is a case for a large number of small firms, rather than a large number of large firms.
But since that is not likely to happen reassure yourself, with the most famous of all Confucian thoughts.
India - DTC,Low Floor Performance
The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) has a fleet of some 3,600 buses. In two years, it will have 80 per cent more buses, despite retiring about half of today’s fleet. That is not because the existing fleet is old — most of the buses were inducted only a few years ago when DTC switched from diesel to gas as fuel. But DTC is buying 5,000 new low-floor buses (of which a quarter will be air-conditioned), for Rs 1,800 crore. The first few of these are already in operation, and have given the city’s streets a noticeable face-lift with their bright colours, hi-lux lighting inside the buses as well as on the display panels, and contemporary styling. Already, the existing CNG fleet looks as though it belongs to the last century. By the time the Commonwealth Games come around, Delhi will have the country’s largest and finest city bus service.
DTC does not have the money to finance this dream, since it has the distinction of losing more money than the rest of the country’s city bus systems taken together. Last year, it lost more than Rs 1,000 crore, with total costs being four times revenue. Even its operating costs are twice revenue. And its employee bill alone is more than the revenue it earns. With those numbers, it is a disaster on the road, in more ways than one.
What is the problem? DTC has 10 employees per bus on the road. So does Mumbai’s BEST, but Mumbai with slightly fewer buses carries 75 per cent more passengers. To be sure, the average trip length in Mumbai is shorter, but even if you count seat-km per bus, there is a huge difference in productivity. Bangalore even managed to run its bus service at a profit for some years, and now has only a marginal loss; Chennai has far better operating efficiencies. From whichever angle one looks at it, DTC brings up the rear.
It is an old problem in India’s public sector. Services have to be provided to citizens, the chosen vehicles for doing the job are run badly, but more money is shoved down the same pipe while nothing is done to improve performance. Delhi’s citizens feel chuffed about the new buses on their roads, but this is a gift to them because DTC’s finances will get hobbled even more when it has to service the capital cost of its snazzy new fleet. The capital’s already pampered citizens know none of this, of course — in part because DTC’s last available annual report is three years old.
DTC is now busy getting into side activities. It is re-designing its 4,500 bus stops so that advertising space will fetch many crores every year — in the fullness of time, perhaps as much as it gets from passengers. It wants to develop its 35 depots, many of them in prime locations, as real estate projects, complete with budget hotels and perhaps shopping malls. All of which is fine, but that should be icing on the cake, not a substitute for operational efficiencies.
Fixing a bus service is not rocket science. Bangalore’s bus service was set right because a dynamic officer teamed up with a good minister to do all the right things. DTC, in contrast, once had a minister from a neighbouring state who ordered that thousands of voters in his constituency be hired as employees. The official who was the DTC boss (he went on to become a prominent minister in the central government) duly obliged, and destroyed DTC’s finances — not for the first or the last time. The question is, when will Delhi be lucky to get the accidental concatenation of forces that Bangalore did?
DTC does not have the money to finance this dream, since it has the distinction of losing more money than the rest of the country’s city bus systems taken together. Last year, it lost more than Rs 1,000 crore, with total costs being four times revenue. Even its operating costs are twice revenue. And its employee bill alone is more than the revenue it earns. With those numbers, it is a disaster on the road, in more ways than one.
What is the problem? DTC has 10 employees per bus on the road. So does Mumbai’s BEST, but Mumbai with slightly fewer buses carries 75 per cent more passengers. To be sure, the average trip length in Mumbai is shorter, but even if you count seat-km per bus, there is a huge difference in productivity. Bangalore even managed to run its bus service at a profit for some years, and now has only a marginal loss; Chennai has far better operating efficiencies. From whichever angle one looks at it, DTC brings up the rear.
It is an old problem in India’s public sector. Services have to be provided to citizens, the chosen vehicles for doing the job are run badly, but more money is shoved down the same pipe while nothing is done to improve performance. Delhi’s citizens feel chuffed about the new buses on their roads, but this is a gift to them because DTC’s finances will get hobbled even more when it has to service the capital cost of its snazzy new fleet. The capital’s already pampered citizens know none of this, of course — in part because DTC’s last available annual report is three years old.
DTC is now busy getting into side activities. It is re-designing its 4,500 bus stops so that advertising space will fetch many crores every year — in the fullness of time, perhaps as much as it gets from passengers. It wants to develop its 35 depots, many of them in prime locations, as real estate projects, complete with budget hotels and perhaps shopping malls. All of which is fine, but that should be icing on the cake, not a substitute for operational efficiencies.
Fixing a bus service is not rocket science. Bangalore’s bus service was set right because a dynamic officer teamed up with a good minister to do all the right things. DTC, in contrast, once had a minister from a neighbouring state who ordered that thousands of voters in his constituency be hired as employees. The official who was the DTC boss (he went on to become a prominent minister in the central government) duly obliged, and destroyed DTC’s finances — not for the first or the last time. The question is, when will Delhi be lucky to get the accidental concatenation of forces that Bangalore did?
India - 3G
Indian consumers will have their tryst with 3G telecom services in the next six months, with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) announcing that it is issuing state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) spectrum to roll out all-India services.
3G or third generation services offer consumers internet access at speeds that are at least 30 times faster than 2G.
The move will give the state-owned corporations a four-to five-month head-start in the 3G space over private sector rivals.
The government, which announced the broad guidelines of the 3G policy today, said details of the auctioning of spectrum — radio frequencies that enable wireless communications — and the number of players allowed in each circle will be finalised within four months.
The state-owned corporations, for which spectrum has already been reserved, will have to match the highest bid after the auction for private companies is completed.
Announcing the new 3G initiative, Communications Minister A Raja said: “We expect to earn Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 crore through this 3G auction.”
BSNL Chairman Kuldeep Goyal added: “We will roll out an all-India 3G network in six months starting from the north and east.” The company has placed orders for equipment and said 25 per cent of the 40 million-line GSM order is for 3G services.
Industry experts predict 45-70 million 3G customers by 2012, roughly 10 per cent of the mobile customer base. New players that win bids will, however, have to pay additional cash (Rs 1,650 crore for an all-India 3G licence) for mandatorily taking a universal access service licence (UASL) also.
A SPECTRUM SHIFT
(Key telecom announcements by the government on Friday)
Spectrum to be auctioned in blocks of 5 MHZ for 20 years
Number of licences to be auctioned would vary from five to ten in each circle
Licence holders and new players with 3G experience to be allowed
The reserve price for auctioning in Mumbai, Delhi and category A circles set at Rs 160 crore, for Kolkata and category B circles at Rs 80 crore and Category C circles at Rs 30 crore
One block of 5MHz reserved for BSNL and MTNL
A new player who wins a 3G bid also has to take a UASL licence
Roll-out obligation imposed; in metros have to cover 90% of the area in five years and 50% of cities in all other circles
Spectrum withdrawn if roll out obligation not met after giving a grace period of another one year (from 5 years)
Auction to be conducted by an independent expert agency
GUIDELINES FOR MOBILE NUMBER PORTABILITY
Two players to be licenced for number portability services
Number portability in metros to be launched in six months and across the country in a year
GUIDELINES FOR BROADBAND WIRELESS ACCESS SERVICES
Reserve price will be 25% of the 3G service price
Licence to be given through e-auction
Licence holders as well as new players with experience in running internet service
The industry is divided on today’s announcement. "The government’s plans to allocate additional spectrum should ensure the fullest possible breadth of competition in 3G services," said T V Ramachandran, director general, Cellular Operators Association of India, which represents GSM mobile operators.
“This will surely push our valuations up since new players who win bids for 3G, will have to tie up with us for 2G,” said Mahendra Nahata, a shareholder in all-India licence-holder Datacom Solutions.
But new players interested in entering the country (AT&T, Sprint and some West Asian telcos) said the guidelines will make it unviable for them until they also get 2G spectrum simultaneously.
“You can’t sustain a business in which 10 players are fighting for only 70 million 3G customers. You need a mass consumer base of 2G subscribers to survive, so getting 2G spectrum with 3G is essential,” said a senior executive of a telco with plans to enter India.
Although new players have to pay more for a UASL, there is no guarantee that they will get the 4.4 MHz start-up 2G spectrum that comes bundled with the licence because such spectrum is in short supply.
Also, a new player would need $3 billion to $3.5 billion to roll out a 3G network from scratch. A 2G incumbent can roll out 3G operations for half the cost, giving it a huge competitive advantage.
3G or third generation services offer consumers internet access at speeds that are at least 30 times faster than 2G.
The move will give the state-owned corporations a four-to five-month head-start in the 3G space over private sector rivals.
The government, which announced the broad guidelines of the 3G policy today, said details of the auctioning of spectrum — radio frequencies that enable wireless communications — and the number of players allowed in each circle will be finalised within four months.
The state-owned corporations, for which spectrum has already been reserved, will have to match the highest bid after the auction for private companies is completed.
Announcing the new 3G initiative, Communications Minister A Raja said: “We expect to earn Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 crore through this 3G auction.”
BSNL Chairman Kuldeep Goyal added: “We will roll out an all-India 3G network in six months starting from the north and east.” The company has placed orders for equipment and said 25 per cent of the 40 million-line GSM order is for 3G services.
Industry experts predict 45-70 million 3G customers by 2012, roughly 10 per cent of the mobile customer base. New players that win bids will, however, have to pay additional cash (Rs 1,650 crore for an all-India 3G licence) for mandatorily taking a universal access service licence (UASL) also.
A SPECTRUM SHIFT
(Key telecom announcements by the government on Friday)
Spectrum to be auctioned in blocks of 5 MHZ for 20 years
Number of licences to be auctioned would vary from five to ten in each circle
Licence holders and new players with 3G experience to be allowed
The reserve price for auctioning in Mumbai, Delhi and category A circles set at Rs 160 crore, for Kolkata and category B circles at Rs 80 crore and Category C circles at Rs 30 crore
One block of 5MHz reserved for BSNL and MTNL
A new player who wins a 3G bid also has to take a UASL licence
Roll-out obligation imposed; in metros have to cover 90% of the area in five years and 50% of cities in all other circles
Spectrum withdrawn if roll out obligation not met after giving a grace period of another one year (from 5 years)
Auction to be conducted by an independent expert agency
GUIDELINES FOR MOBILE NUMBER PORTABILITY
Two players to be licenced for number portability services
Number portability in metros to be launched in six months and across the country in a year
GUIDELINES FOR BROADBAND WIRELESS ACCESS SERVICES
Reserve price will be 25% of the 3G service price
Licence to be given through e-auction
Licence holders as well as new players with experience in running internet service
The industry is divided on today’s announcement. "The government’s plans to allocate additional spectrum should ensure the fullest possible breadth of competition in 3G services," said T V Ramachandran, director general, Cellular Operators Association of India, which represents GSM mobile operators.
“This will surely push our valuations up since new players who win bids for 3G, will have to tie up with us for 2G,” said Mahendra Nahata, a shareholder in all-India licence-holder Datacom Solutions.
But new players interested in entering the country (AT&T, Sprint and some West Asian telcos) said the guidelines will make it unviable for them until they also get 2G spectrum simultaneously.
“You can’t sustain a business in which 10 players are fighting for only 70 million 3G customers. You need a mass consumer base of 2G subscribers to survive, so getting 2G spectrum with 3G is essential,” said a senior executive of a telco with plans to enter India.
Although new players have to pay more for a UASL, there is no guarantee that they will get the 4.4 MHz start-up 2G spectrum that comes bundled with the licence because such spectrum is in short supply.
Also, a new player would need $3 billion to $3.5 billion to roll out a 3G network from scratch. A 2G incumbent can roll out 3G operations for half the cost, giving it a huge competitive advantage.
Mkitg - Viral Mktg & Bollywood
Everything is possible in virtual world. So when you see Bollywood’s latest teen heart throb Imraan Khan knocking on your computer screen it has to make you curious and wonder what he’s doing there?
“Marketing is a separate exercise altogether and is actually a creative art. Our film budget was Rs 8 crore and we spent another Rs 4 crore to market Jaane Tu..Ya Jaane Na, which is 50% of our budget! And we used some really innovative marketing, specially the eye blaster technology, which I believe has been used for the first time in Bollywood, which sees Imran coming right up to you on your screen! This really was aimed at the target audience and helped in creating a buzz. It also got the song, Kabhie Kabhie Aditi a great start,” says producer Aamir Khan.
New viral marketing techniques are the latest buzz in Bollywood films. Love Story 2050 too used the internet to generate a different buzz around the film through some innovative campaigns and the much-awaited Akshay Kumar starrer, Singh Is Kinng has partnered with web portal India FM which will go live on Monday with an interactive campaign where the users will see Kumar doing stunts while the users can play a game where they get to be Akshay Kumar.
Films have now moved on from just plain vanilla advertisements to ones that ensure more interactivity with the audience. Misrosoft Advertising rich media banner where Imran Khan comes alive to interact with the user on his desktop, walks on the website, looks around, knocks on your screen and then walks into the advertisement and even moves to the tune of the song Kabhi Kabhi Aditi Zindagi worked really well for both. A separate shoot was done only for this advertisement which had a click-through rate(CTR) of 2.8%. The average CTR of banner advertisements is 0.3%.
“Earlier content that was developed for the conventional medium was put on the internet too but today specific content is developed for the internet because of the nature of the medium and the returns justify the extra costs. Five lakh users replayed the Jaane Tu... advertisement and then there is word of mouth that goes around too,” says Vineet Gupta, marketing manager, Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions.
Songs are the first consumer touch point for most Bollywood films and draw audiences to theatres. Love Story 2050 and Jaane Tu.. had groups on Facebook as well much before the release where the film’s pictures and posters were put up and the group would facilitate discussion on the film. Movie Talkies launched an application for Jaane Tu.. on Facebook on the day of the release, where users were discussing the tagline of the film — so when do you know it’s love?
Entertainment is a segment that requires different treatment than other products which is why innovation is the key in viral marketing. “The audience must get to sample the film, so that they are enticed. Net advertising aims to break clutter. It is a mixture of the right creative in the right environment,” says Nabeel Abbas, CEO, Epigram Advertising.
Films that are more youth-focused tend to use more viral marketing as the internet is popular among the youth. But according to Abbas, the internet is a good way to advertise even for those movies that are not primarily targeted at the youth. According to him, the general audience can be reached through conventional advertising but if producers are looking at a blockbuster hit then the youth must be engaged too. Knock, knock...who’s there? Imran?
“Marketing is a separate exercise altogether and is actually a creative art. Our film budget was Rs 8 crore and we spent another Rs 4 crore to market Jaane Tu..Ya Jaane Na, which is 50% of our budget! And we used some really innovative marketing, specially the eye blaster technology, which I believe has been used for the first time in Bollywood, which sees Imran coming right up to you on your screen! This really was aimed at the target audience and helped in creating a buzz. It also got the song, Kabhie Kabhie Aditi a great start,” says producer Aamir Khan.
New viral marketing techniques are the latest buzz in Bollywood films. Love Story 2050 too used the internet to generate a different buzz around the film through some innovative campaigns and the much-awaited Akshay Kumar starrer, Singh Is Kinng has partnered with web portal India FM which will go live on Monday with an interactive campaign where the users will see Kumar doing stunts while the users can play a game where they get to be Akshay Kumar.
Films have now moved on from just plain vanilla advertisements to ones that ensure more interactivity with the audience. Misrosoft Advertising rich media banner where Imran Khan comes alive to interact with the user on his desktop, walks on the website, looks around, knocks on your screen and then walks into the advertisement and even moves to the tune of the song Kabhi Kabhi Aditi Zindagi worked really well for both. A separate shoot was done only for this advertisement which had a click-through rate(CTR) of 2.8%. The average CTR of banner advertisements is 0.3%.
“Earlier content that was developed for the conventional medium was put on the internet too but today specific content is developed for the internet because of the nature of the medium and the returns justify the extra costs. Five lakh users replayed the Jaane Tu... advertisement and then there is word of mouth that goes around too,” says Vineet Gupta, marketing manager, Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions.
Songs are the first consumer touch point for most Bollywood films and draw audiences to theatres. Love Story 2050 and Jaane Tu.. had groups on Facebook as well much before the release where the film’s pictures and posters were put up and the group would facilitate discussion on the film. Movie Talkies launched an application for Jaane Tu.. on Facebook on the day of the release, where users were discussing the tagline of the film — so when do you know it’s love?
Entertainment is a segment that requires different treatment than other products which is why innovation is the key in viral marketing. “The audience must get to sample the film, so that they are enticed. Net advertising aims to break clutter. It is a mixture of the right creative in the right environment,” says Nabeel Abbas, CEO, Epigram Advertising.
Films that are more youth-focused tend to use more viral marketing as the internet is popular among the youth. But according to Abbas, the internet is a good way to advertise even for those movies that are not primarily targeted at the youth. According to him, the general audience can be reached through conventional advertising but if producers are looking at a blockbuster hit then the youth must be engaged too. Knock, knock...who’s there? Imran?
Fun - Food for sex
Cloves : If you thought they were good enough as mouth-fresheners only, think again. Cloves are the most powerful natural aphrodisiacs and are also effective against mental and physical fatigue. So the next time your partner complains of being tired when you are in the mood, just feed him/her some cloves.
Ginger : They don't just add flavour to your dishes, but can also excite your senses. It has been used in drinks and when taken in reasonable doses, it can cause healthy hot flashes.
Garlic : The thought of a garlic smelling mouth is hardly a turn-on, but then to get something you need to give up something. The heat in garlic is said to stir sexual desires. So the next time your partner stuffs your dish with garlic, you know what is playing on their mind.
Tomatoes : Now we know why this vegetable is a must in almost all Indian dishes. Our ancestors surely knew what they were doing when they made all those recipes. Tomatoes have been associated with goddesses Venus and Aphrodite. Paired with other sensual flavours like, basil and mint they can create a lot of heat and passion.
Coriander : They can not only spice up your curries but also your sex life. Dried coriander seeds have an euphoric effect especially on women. So the next time you go vegetable shopping don't forget to stock up some extra coriander.
Onion : Remember how widows in ancient India were asked to refrain from using onion and garlic in their food. Well, with the kind of lives these women were expected to lead they couldn’t afford to have their sexual desires kindled. In France, centuries ago, newlyweds were fed onion soup on their wedding day to restore their sexual energy.
Horseradish : If you like ‘muli-ke parathe’ you are in luck. Feed your physical and sexual hunger with this vegetable. The pulp of horseradish is said to have aphrodisiac properties.
Carrots : Well, here's an excuse to have another bowl of ‘gajar ka halwa’. This phallus shaped vegetable is said to be a stimulant for men. In ancient Middle Eastern royalty they were used to aid seduction.
Bananas : Who would have thought that this fruit, so commonly available round the year, would have such properties? Your humble ‘kela’, is much more than a nutritious fruit. The banana flower with its phallic shape is partially responsible for its popularity as an aphrodisiac food. Banana is also rich in potassium and vitamin B which are a necessity for sex hormone production.
Grapes : This is one fruit which has often figured as food of love. Pictures of lovers teasing and feeding each other with grapes are quite common. But now we know why. Related to Dionysus, wine and fertility, grapes have long been considered the food of Gods.
Saffron : Often used as a flavour in many Indian sweet dishes, these orange flakes, better known in India as ‘kesar’ has stimulating effects on the erogenous zones. Studies have proven that saffron has the same effect as hormones.
So you see, getting yourself or your partner into the right mood is not that difficult or expensive. While scented candles, massage oils and caviar are always a welcome treat, for the not-so-special occasions you can give always peep into your refrigerator or your vegetable basket for some help.
Ginger : They don't just add flavour to your dishes, but can also excite your senses. It has been used in drinks and when taken in reasonable doses, it can cause healthy hot flashes.
Garlic : The thought of a garlic smelling mouth is hardly a turn-on, but then to get something you need to give up something. The heat in garlic is said to stir sexual desires. So the next time your partner stuffs your dish with garlic, you know what is playing on their mind.
Tomatoes : Now we know why this vegetable is a must in almost all Indian dishes. Our ancestors surely knew what they were doing when they made all those recipes. Tomatoes have been associated with goddesses Venus and Aphrodite. Paired with other sensual flavours like, basil and mint they can create a lot of heat and passion.
Coriander : They can not only spice up your curries but also your sex life. Dried coriander seeds have an euphoric effect especially on women. So the next time you go vegetable shopping don't forget to stock up some extra coriander.
Onion : Remember how widows in ancient India were asked to refrain from using onion and garlic in their food. Well, with the kind of lives these women were expected to lead they couldn’t afford to have their sexual desires kindled. In France, centuries ago, newlyweds were fed onion soup on their wedding day to restore their sexual energy.
Horseradish : If you like ‘muli-ke parathe’ you are in luck. Feed your physical and sexual hunger with this vegetable. The pulp of horseradish is said to have aphrodisiac properties.
Carrots : Well, here's an excuse to have another bowl of ‘gajar ka halwa’. This phallus shaped vegetable is said to be a stimulant for men. In ancient Middle Eastern royalty they were used to aid seduction.
Bananas : Who would have thought that this fruit, so commonly available round the year, would have such properties? Your humble ‘kela’, is much more than a nutritious fruit. The banana flower with its phallic shape is partially responsible for its popularity as an aphrodisiac food. Banana is also rich in potassium and vitamin B which are a necessity for sex hormone production.
Grapes : This is one fruit which has often figured as food of love. Pictures of lovers teasing and feeding each other with grapes are quite common. But now we know why. Related to Dionysus, wine and fertility, grapes have long been considered the food of Gods.
Saffron : Often used as a flavour in many Indian sweet dishes, these orange flakes, better known in India as ‘kesar’ has stimulating effects on the erogenous zones. Studies have proven that saffron has the same effect as hormones.
So you see, getting yourself or your partner into the right mood is not that difficult or expensive. While scented candles, massage oils and caviar are always a welcome treat, for the not-so-special occasions you can give always peep into your refrigerator or your vegetable basket for some help.
India - Cheques to travel faster
By next year, you can get your outstation cheques cleared within a day. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is set to clear an electronic process called cheque truncation system by the year-end.
Physical movement of cheques from one bank to another used to take lot of time, which will now be done away with. The new system will send scanned images of cheques through secure e-mail networks to the destination branch for verification. Banks will be able to set up these systems once the RBI clears them.
Speaking at a conclave on Indian Banking Vision 2010, V Leeladhar, Deputy Governor, RBI, said, “Over 50 banks are participating in the pilot project being implemented in the NCR (National Capital Region of Delhi). The systems may be cleared by the year-end.” The project was initiated by the RBI, a couple of years back.
Leeladhar also said that the guidelines under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act (PSSA) would be released in a week’s time.
Responding to a query relating to regulation of money transfer companies, RBI deputy governor Leeladhar said, “There is no oversight on money transfer companies like Visa, Mastercard and Western Union as of now. Once the PSS Act guidelines come into force they will come under the RBI purview.”
The Act, which brings funds transfer companies — domestic as well as international — operating in India under RBI’s regulation, was passed by the Parliament in October 2007.
The payment and settlement services provided by the RBI, which are offered free-of-cost as of now, will be available at a price after March 2009. “However, four banks have decided to offer these services free-of-cost even after the deadline of March 31, 2009,” Leeladhar said. The services are being made available to banks for five years.
RBI operates several nation-wide payment and settlement systems — Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), Electronic Clearance System (ECS), National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) and SEFT etc. Except RTGS, all these retail clearance services will be transferred to a new non-profit entity called National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) being set up.
Physical movement of cheques from one bank to another used to take lot of time, which will now be done away with. The new system will send scanned images of cheques through secure e-mail networks to the destination branch for verification. Banks will be able to set up these systems once the RBI clears them.
Speaking at a conclave on Indian Banking Vision 2010, V Leeladhar, Deputy Governor, RBI, said, “Over 50 banks are participating in the pilot project being implemented in the NCR (National Capital Region of Delhi). The systems may be cleared by the year-end.” The project was initiated by the RBI, a couple of years back.
Leeladhar also said that the guidelines under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act (PSSA) would be released in a week’s time.
Responding to a query relating to regulation of money transfer companies, RBI deputy governor Leeladhar said, “There is no oversight on money transfer companies like Visa, Mastercard and Western Union as of now. Once the PSS Act guidelines come into force they will come under the RBI purview.”
The Act, which brings funds transfer companies — domestic as well as international — operating in India under RBI’s regulation, was passed by the Parliament in October 2007.
The payment and settlement services provided by the RBI, which are offered free-of-cost as of now, will be available at a price after March 2009. “However, four banks have decided to offer these services free-of-cost even after the deadline of March 31, 2009,” Leeladhar said. The services are being made available to banks for five years.
RBI operates several nation-wide payment and settlement systems — Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), Electronic Clearance System (ECS), National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) and SEFT etc. Except RTGS, all these retail clearance services will be transferred to a new non-profit entity called National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) being set up.
India - Remembering H.S.Surjeet
In the first part of his political life, Harkishan Singh Surjeet was influenced by many converging strands of radical politics. First, the initial radicalism of the Akali Party, of which his father was a Jalandhar district organiser and leader, interacting with the Congress and Khilafat movements. Secondly, the uncompromising revolutionary spirit of Bhagat Singh, the shining hero of his youth. Thirdly, the excitement and twists and turns of the freedom struggle, as it marc hed towards independence, combined with the working people’s cause.
In his early teens, Harkishan was initiated into anti-colonial activity by his father, Harnam Singh Basi, and his more radical political associates. He joined Bhagat Singh’s Naujawan Bharat Sabha, participated in the Congress movement, and enrolled in the Congress Socialist Party in 1935. In 1934, he made a lifelong commitment by becoming a member of the illegal Communist Party. He subsequently made a name for himself as a kisan sabha organiser and leader. During Partition, he worked strenuously for communal harmony.
As Mr. Surjeet recalled to an interviewer in 1997, his grandfather was a well-to-do peasant who had worked in Australia for several years and returned with his savings. The boy’s father, who served in the army, embraced the freedom movement at the end of the First World War; for this, he was sent away from home and virtually disinherited but was eventually given two acres by his father. He immersed himself in politics and became the head of the Akali Party’s Jalandhar district organisation. Harkishan’s illiterate mother, who came from a non-Sikh family, was an embodiment of fortitude and a source of immense strength to the family. In 1929, her husband left for the United States to make his fortune but his plans failed and he was unable to send any remittance home for five years. (He worked for a while as a bus-driver in Panama.) As a consequence of all this, the family suffered great economic hardships during Harkishan’s early years.
In 1930, the 14-year-old was approached at home by leaders of the illegal Workers and Peasants Party in Punjab and asked to organise a meeting in the village, which he did effectively. The next day, the police were waiting for him at school. Although the headmaster, who knew the family, was sympathetic and wanted to protect him by getting him to apologise, he could not avoid expelling the rebellious schoolboy – who, saying he had “not committed any sin,” refused to apologise. There was no other school in the vicinity and, after a great deal of effort, well-wishers had Harkishan admitted to the Khalsa School in Jalandhar town. His mother had to work extremely hard to make the ten rupees a month (Rs. 4 each for fee and food, and Rs. 2 for milk) available for his residential schooling.
Daredevil act
In 1932, 16-year-old Harkishan came into political prominence on a larger stage through a daredevil act. He had just completed the written part of his matriculation examination and was awaiting his science practicals. The district Congress committee had announced that it would hoist the Tricolour and bring down the Union Jack atop the Hoshiarpur district court building. But after the district authorities threatened to clamp down on such seditious action and deployed the army, the plan was called off. Harkishan, who went to Hoshiarpur to participate in the event, remonstrated with the Congress office secretary to the effect that giving up on the plan was “an insult to the nation,” whereupon he was challenged to do it himself.
Braving army personnel who had orders to shoot, the schoolboy climbed up the stairs of the Hoshiarpur district court building, brought down the British flag, and hoisted the national tricolour. Narrowly escaping death and immediately jailed and tried, he mocked British rule by giving his name to the magistrate as “London Tore Singh” (“one who breaks London”). Sentenced to one year’s rigorous imprisonment, he asked the court, “Only one year?’ and had his jail sentence enhanced to four years. “Only four years?” he enquired of the magistrate who responded that, under this particular section of the law, he could not give him a longer jail term.
In Lahore’s Borstal Jail, Mr. Surjeet was treated roughly. His legs were chained when he was taken from one place to another. Many decades later, he recalled to an interviewer that a letter from his father asking him not to backtrack from the path he had chosen, and his illiterate Hindu mother’s encouragement, fortified him in his political resolve and shaped his future course. At the same time, he added, “the immense economic difficulties that we had to face had their impact and helped me to identify with the working class ideology and social revolution. I feel proud of what I did on that day.”
In his early teens, Harkishan was initiated into anti-colonial activity by his father, Harnam Singh Basi, and his more radical political associates. He joined Bhagat Singh’s Naujawan Bharat Sabha, participated in the Congress movement, and enrolled in the Congress Socialist Party in 1935. In 1934, he made a lifelong commitment by becoming a member of the illegal Communist Party. He subsequently made a name for himself as a kisan sabha organiser and leader. During Partition, he worked strenuously for communal harmony.
As Mr. Surjeet recalled to an interviewer in 1997, his grandfather was a well-to-do peasant who had worked in Australia for several years and returned with his savings. The boy’s father, who served in the army, embraced the freedom movement at the end of the First World War; for this, he was sent away from home and virtually disinherited but was eventually given two acres by his father. He immersed himself in politics and became the head of the Akali Party’s Jalandhar district organisation. Harkishan’s illiterate mother, who came from a non-Sikh family, was an embodiment of fortitude and a source of immense strength to the family. In 1929, her husband left for the United States to make his fortune but his plans failed and he was unable to send any remittance home for five years. (He worked for a while as a bus-driver in Panama.) As a consequence of all this, the family suffered great economic hardships during Harkishan’s early years.
In 1930, the 14-year-old was approached at home by leaders of the illegal Workers and Peasants Party in Punjab and asked to organise a meeting in the village, which he did effectively. The next day, the police were waiting for him at school. Although the headmaster, who knew the family, was sympathetic and wanted to protect him by getting him to apologise, he could not avoid expelling the rebellious schoolboy – who, saying he had “not committed any sin,” refused to apologise. There was no other school in the vicinity and, after a great deal of effort, well-wishers had Harkishan admitted to the Khalsa School in Jalandhar town. His mother had to work extremely hard to make the ten rupees a month (Rs. 4 each for fee and food, and Rs. 2 for milk) available for his residential schooling.
Daredevil act
In 1932, 16-year-old Harkishan came into political prominence on a larger stage through a daredevil act. He had just completed the written part of his matriculation examination and was awaiting his science practicals. The district Congress committee had announced that it would hoist the Tricolour and bring down the Union Jack atop the Hoshiarpur district court building. But after the district authorities threatened to clamp down on such seditious action and deployed the army, the plan was called off. Harkishan, who went to Hoshiarpur to participate in the event, remonstrated with the Congress office secretary to the effect that giving up on the plan was “an insult to the nation,” whereupon he was challenged to do it himself.
Braving army personnel who had orders to shoot, the schoolboy climbed up the stairs of the Hoshiarpur district court building, brought down the British flag, and hoisted the national tricolour. Narrowly escaping death and immediately jailed and tried, he mocked British rule by giving his name to the magistrate as “London Tore Singh” (“one who breaks London”). Sentenced to one year’s rigorous imprisonment, he asked the court, “Only one year?’ and had his jail sentence enhanced to four years. “Only four years?” he enquired of the magistrate who responded that, under this particular section of the law, he could not give him a longer jail term.
In Lahore’s Borstal Jail, Mr. Surjeet was treated roughly. His legs were chained when he was taken from one place to another. Many decades later, he recalled to an interviewer that a letter from his father asking him not to backtrack from the path he had chosen, and his illiterate Hindu mother’s encouragement, fortified him in his political resolve and shaped his future course. At the same time, he added, “the immense economic difficulties that we had to face had their impact and helped me to identify with the working class ideology and social revolution. I feel proud of what I did on that day.”
Personality - Nandan Nilekani (V.G.Read)
Bangalore: It is high noon and Nandan Mohan Nilekani is doing something he rarely does: drumming his fingers.
He is sitting in a conference room adjacent to his office with six Infosys Technologies Ltd employees. Their goal, which also happens to be Nilekani’s pet project, is to make the computer services giant an environmentally sustainable company.
“How far is Infosys from being carbon neutral? Why are the rooms kept so cold? In Bangalore, we shouldn’t even be using air conditioners, yaar,” says Nilekani as he listens to presentations and fires questions and suggestions.
He listens to an Internet-led carpooling scheme. “But, people should hook up through SMS. Who wants to go online to check if a car is going to Electronic City?” he says.
“What about the water flushed from the urinals? Are we reusing it?” Turns out they are — for landscaping. “What about green accounting?” The woman in charge of that division starts explaining but Nilekani interrupts, gently. “No, no, that’s not it. In green accounting, the numbers will change.”
What about energy consumption? A young man launches into explanations. Infosys wants to convert all personal computers into more energy efficient laptops but vendors aren’t keen as the orders aren’t large enough. Perhaps, if Infosys can team up with rival Wipro Ltd and other local IT firms and then order such laptops, vendors might fall in line.
“I’ll talk to Azim (Wipro chairman Premji) about it,” Nilekani promises.
Nilekani instructs the group to make sure every new building that goes up on an Infosys campus complies with sustainability guidelines. “Just tell all our architects and builders that if they want our business, they build to our specs,” he says. Then comes a mind-numbing array of numbers: litres of water flowing through urinals, the number of lights left on at night on campus, how many cars on campus, air-conditioner temperatures, wattage of electricity used.
“I call him the closure man,” says Nandita Gurjar, head of human resources (HR) at Infosys. “He is a man in a hurry. Once I went to him with a global award that we had won; very prestigious; and he’s like, ‘Oh great!’ and moves right on.” She recalls asking him, “Nandan, what award would make you stop and take notice?” A dramatic pause and then he replies: ‘The Nobel Prize’.”
Like everyone else I meet to discuss Nilekani, Gurjar says she marvels at his memory, his “computer brain” that can store huge amounts of facts and trivia about people and events. Once when she was being inducted into Infosys, she says she met Nilekani at a party and he said something like, ‘So how are you dealing with all that noise pollution around your house?’ and I thought, ‘How do you even know where I live?’”
For someone who could very easily build a coterie of sycophants around him, Nilekani seems to do the exact opposite.
“He is not vain; cares little for external appearances; is easily bored with others’ vanities,” says his wife Rohini Nilekani. It isn’t to say Nilekani doesn’t hang out with the usual suspects — CEOs of multinationals, entrepreneurs on the verge of going public, and multimillionaires. But he also reaches out to solar-panel specialists and climate change researchers; social activists and historians; educators and architects, and even the occasional herpetologist. Some of this is clearly because of Rohini, a writer and philanthropist though, in many instances, he reaches out on his own. “I am curious about people who march to a different drummer,” says Nilekani.
Unlike the typical CEO, Nilekani seems to actually act on his curiosity. He asks questions; he is interested. During one car-ride, we compare Bangalore to other cities. Delhi, we agree, is all about power, in a which-politician-attended-your-son’s-wedding sort of way. Mumbai is about wealth — isn’t-my-yacht-bigger-than-yours.
“Bangalore is about ideas and that suits me,” says Nilekani. My own reason for liking Bangalore is not so macro, I say. I like Bangalore because people actually make an attempt to start book clubs in spite of the numbing traffic. Nilekani nods. For years, Rohini and he were part of a quiz club with many families.
Then come the questions. What book were we reading? Who was in the book club? Turns out he knows most of the people in my book club. This is how the man does it, I think. Next time he meets someone from my book club — whose names he will remember — Nilekani will most likely casually ask: “So, how was your book club discussion of The Hungry Tide?” And they will be flabbergasted.
In June 2007, after five largely successful years as CEO of Infosys, Nilekani decided to step down. It was, he says, time to pass the baton. But it was yet another turning point in the remarkable journey of a young man from Sirsi who walked into an office at Patni Computers some 27 years ago to ask for a job from one N.R. Narayana Murthy, the now legendary chief mentor of Infosys.
* * *
These days, Nilekani is co-chairman of Infosys. He plays ambassador, helps with brand building and key clients. He is still vitally involved, but the company’s day-to-day affairs don’t preoccupy him any more.
A few passions occupy Nilekani these days. The first still has to do with helping Infosys. The second is what he calls “paying off old debts and giving back”. Be it giving IIT Bombay $5 million (around Rs21 crore, now) for a chaired professorship, an incubator, the school of IT, a new hostel and renovating old ones; building a new auditorium and endowing his old school in Dharwad, where he grew up; contributing to a hospital wing in Sirsi, his ancestral home town.
One morning, Nilekani receives six men at his home and talks to them for a few hours about how to grow their private company, with Rs100 crore in annual revenues, into a Rs1,000-crore enterprise. Nilekani gives ideas and a game plan, a bit of a crash course in entrepreneurship. And the tutorial goes something like this:
“It’s all about outsmarting the other guy... You guys need to figure out the best outcome and the minimal outcome… What will you do yourselves and what will you outsource? What’s your HR policy — how will you attract and retain talent? How much money will you need and where is it coming from? What is your senior management capacity and bandwidth? What are the roles of responsibility and how do you make those accountable? How much of your role is governance and how much is operational? Who does the firefighting? What are the risks and how do you mitigate them?”
Nilekani speaks with quiet authority yet the tone is conversational, neither preachy nor self-aggrandizing. He offers to sit with them in six months to review progress, saying he will fly out to Pune and reduce the carbon footprint rather than have the six of them fly to Bangalore. He also offers to visit their factory the next time he is in Sirsi.
“The family is known to me and the patriarch miraculously found a house for us in Bombay (Mumbai) when Rohini and I were newlyweds. I can never forget that,” he says. Again, repaying old debts.
Then there is Nilekani’s reform agenda, including, for now, e-governance, urban issues, and climate change. He has given nearly $4 million to set up the E-governments Foundation (www.egovernments.org) that aims to use technology to help municipal governments. It is run by former Intel Corp. executive Srikanth Nadhamuni, a passionate advocate for e-governance, whose wife, Sunita, happens to head Rohini’s foundation.
Every now and then, Nilekani visits the E-governments Foundation’s office in Indranagar for an update. Sitting in a tiny room, amid swarms of wires and cups of Café Coffee Day coffee (which, by the way, is owned by another Nilekani friend, V.G. Siddhartha), Nilekani listens to Nadhamuni make a presentation about governance and how to make it profitable. The tone is congenial; the atmosphere collegial. Nilekani seems perfectly at home, laughing and joking with the guys. Sure enough, out comes a line that he uses often: “I don’t know why you’d want to hang around jokers like me.”
Joker is a word Nilekani, 53, uses often, and to great effect. Bozo and yaar (friend in Hindi) are others. This does several things: It disarms people and makes Nilekani appear more approachable than he is. It also allows him to interrupt rambling presentations without seeming rude.
Indeed, within Infosys, Nilekani is famous for cutting off speeches. “You walk in with a half-hour presentation and 3 minutes later, he’s like, ‘Okay, I get it. Now what?’,” says Sanjay Purohit, head of Infosys’ corporate planning division. Over the years, thanks to numerous 360-degree evaluations, Nilekani has also tried to temper his impatience. “For someone with such a quick mind, he is a superb listener,” says his friend, designer Sujata Keshavan.
One afternoon, Nilekani spends 4 hours at the offices of Janaagraha, an urban reforms group co-founded by (Mint columnist) Ramesh Ramanathan. He listens to a long presentation from a distinguished lawyer and academic about what is wrong with the Indian judicial system. In the end, the men brainstorm ways of fixing it: At one point during the lawyer’s oration, Nilekani interrupts him with a, “Boss, Boss…let’s look at it this way.” It is classic Nilekani. Disarm, then deliver ideas.
Nilekani’s solutions are the product of a superlative engineering mind. He quickly grasps the moving parts, takes things apart and comes up with workable solutions, stressing priorities and gaps. “It’s important to get buy-in from the judges and lawyers. Otherwise, this whole thing is a non-starter.”
A few days later, Nilekani hammers home the same solutions at a conference held at the Karnataka high court to a room full of lawyers and judges. Nilekani calls it the “multiplier” effect. He says that he gets involved in issues where he can have a “seminal impact” on the way things are done. It’s a high return on investment, he says. So he chooses areas that are in the cusp of change; where lending his voice will give momentum and speed; issues with far-reaching impact; like legal reform.
“Nandan has a better understanding of the temporal nature of wealth and status than most others and he passionately wishes well for India,” says his brother, Vijay Nilekani, who works for the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, DC. “The good news is that he is doing something about it. Nandan has this ability to engage people at their own level, rather than the aloof condescending attitude of many others with similar levels of accomplishment.”
It’s true. Perhaps because of his irreverence; perhaps because he seems approachable; perhaps because of his self-deprecating humour; or perhaps because Nilekani doesn’t take himself so seriously, all kinds of people hit him with all kinds of requests. Mostly, he says no. But, he does it gently, without shattering smaller egos.
Some of Nilekani’s motivation for social change comes from the bar-belled circumstances in which he grew up. Born in Bangalore, Nandan is a Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin — like Girish Karnad, Shyam Benegal — and speaks Konkani at home. His father, Mohan Rao Nilekani was a manager at Minerva Mills, with several transfers and job changes that took him from Bangalore to Davanagere to Nirmal in Andhra Pradesh before he retired to Dharwad. As a result, both siblings bounced around as children. Vijay was eight years older and so the brothers didn’t have much contact while growing up. Young Nandan stayed with his uncle in Dharwad after he turned 12 — an early enforced independence that might have been tough on a kid. “I think all the early variation contributed a lot to our world view and values,” says Vijay.
Their father was a passionate individual with Fabian socialist views and altruistic instincts. He would write endless letters to the editor and to the prime minister; sue corrupt bureaucrats and politicians; take on strays, orphans and poor relatives into their ancestral Sirsi home. His tenacity, says Vijay, “was a touching and seminal experience for all of us”, something which they still recall seven years after their father’s passing. Their mother, Durga, who is 83 and lives with the Nilekanis in Bangalore, was the “anchor” who tolerated their father’s “frailties and idiosyncrasies”.
A high achiever right from childhood, Nilekani fast-tracked into IIT Bombay right after Dharwad. He speaks of his experiences at IIT fondly, recalling how “this raw small-town kid” became exposed to a larger world; and met his future wife.
The two brothers are clearly a lot closer now. The families vacation together: in South Africa, Goa, Kerala, on ski trips and sailing holidays. Not enough, though. “Whenever I meet Nandan, I say that it is like sighting an endangered species; like the rare sighting of a Bengal tiger,” Vijay says, with a chuckle.
For Nilekani’s family, the biggest surprise that he pulled was, of course, Infosys. Says Vijay, “When I derided it as a pipe dream that he may live to regret — I used stronger language — he just listened and smiled. I did not get the explosive emotional pushbacks like I might have expected with many. The rest of course is history!”
* * *
Nilekani works out of a spacious corner office in the corporate block of Infosys, surrounded by the leafy tops of trees with pink tabebuia flowers. His desk is spare. Shelves hold multiple awards and photographs of him with various powerful people: Nilekani with Tony Blair; shaking hands with Bill Clinton; with a large India contingent in Davos; with Manmohan and Mrs Singh in the White House with Laura Bush. On his desk is a small black-and-white photograph of Rohini and him.
Nilekani likes order and control within his office. He likes to sit at the sofa facing the front door where he can have a view of what’s going on outside his office. His phone goes everywhere with him; his BlackBerry is not in sight. When he is meeting with people, Nilekani’s mobile phone rarely rings — by design. “When I am with someone, I like to give them my full attention. You know, Bill Gates doesn’t even carry a mobile.”
What Nilekani hears, he digests instantly and has complete playback from then on, thanks to a prodigious and impeccable memory. “I wish I could have Nandan’s memory but that is impossible,” says Infosys co-founder S.D. Shibulal, who roomed with Nilekani in the early days.
Like many others, I wonder about the dynamics between the many Infosys founders. The party line is that they all get along famously, that they all put the company before their own egos. Shibulal says they socialize but not that often — getting all of them together in one city is difficult. The wives apparently meet. The seven founders do seek each other out on matters unrelated to Infosys, but not that often. “We gravitate towards different people (founders) for different things,” he says. “Like Kris (Infosys CEO Gopalakrishan) and I share a passion for gizmos and Kris and Nandan are neighbours.” Most importantly, when the chips are down, they show up. “When Rohini’s father passed, we were all there within minutes,” says Shibulal. “When Kris’ mother passed away, we were tracking it as it happened. We know what’s going on in each other’s personal lives.”
Do they confide personal problems in each other or do they go to great lengths to hide vulnerabilities, I ask. “After 26 years, what vulnerability can I hide from Nandan?” Shibulal shoots back.
What I really want to know is how the founders deal with it if one of them screws up in a major way. So, I ask Murthy. They start every transaction with a zero-base, Murthy replies. They deal with data in a logical way and keep egos out of it. “And, we smile when we walk out of the room,” he says.
What about disagreements about the future direction of Infosys? “It is generally the responsibility of the person who brings an idea to the table to argue out a point with data and facts,” says Murthy. “If, in spite of the data and facts, some people disagree, we vote on that issue. That has happened rarely, though.”
In his book-lined office in the heritage wing of Infosys, a relaxed and expansive Murthy talks about his protégé; about Nilekani’s extraordinary ability to engage and communicate with people; about the way he rallies people around a common goal; and about how he always saw the big picture. “Earlier, he used to get angry more easily. He would come across as impatient,” says Murthy. “Now he has become much more forgiving.”
“Of all the people in Infosys, I am closest to Nandan,” says Murthy. “I can tell him anything I want and usually do. And, he can tell me anything; I don’t think he does, though.”
The big difference between them seems to be that Murthy leads from the heart and Nilekani from the head. “Nandan leads more by intellect than by heart,” says Subhash Dhar, a senior vice-president at Infosys. “People who are most impressed by Nandan are those that can relate to him intellectually. He is a leader among peers.”
This may explain why the average Infosys employee perceives Nilekani more as a global ambassador for the Infosys brand than the leader they can relate to. “Nandan is an introvert masquerading as an extrovert,” says Infosys HR’s Gurjar.
Murthy says it differently. He says: “A good leader is one who can connect a bird’s-eye view with a worm’s-eye view of the world. Nandan is very good with the bird’s-eye-view.”
Still, it is clear those at Infosys don’t like to talk about how Nilekani became the first among equals, after Murthy. Perhaps it was because Nilekani’s smooth marketing skills were needed at that phase of Infosys. Perhaps it was a simple case of meritocracy — Nilekani, at that time, was just better than the other co-founders. “The rest of them wanted to be told what to do whereas with Nandan it was always, ‘This is what I want to do and Murthy, is it okay with you?’” says one senior Infosys executive who didn’t want to be identified.
Nilekani himself attributes it to another co-founder, N.S. Raghavan, who “graciously stepped aside”. Adds Murthy: “In the hierarchy of Infosys, Nandan was No. 4 after Raghavan and Kris,” he recalls. “But, when I stepped down, Nandan was quite keen, Raghavan didn’t want to lead; and Kris’ magnanimity allowed Nandan to be CEO. Of course, Nandan was decent enough to step down after five years to give his peers (Kris) a chance to lead.”
What if Nilekani weren’t still at Infosys, I ask. “Oh, he would have easily been a very successful English professor,” says Murthy. “He is the best speaker and writer of English that I have ever come across. No one within Infosys even comes close.”
* * *
What has taken up a lot of Nilekani’s bandwidth these days is his book, a grand vision statement. Called Imagining India, the book outlines Nilekani’s ideas for India — past, present and future.
Historian and author Ramachandra Guha, a friend of 30 years, was among the first few to see a draft. “It’s a very good book, full of interesting insights,” says Guha. “I don’t share his optimism but, very largely, he has carried it off.”
Guha calls Nilekani a “passionate democrat who aligns himself with the broad tradition of humanistic and democratic politics in modern India. I’ve rarely met an Indian who has such a sure and quick grasp of social and political issues. Some other tycoon would have written a much more superficial and simple-minded book”.
Why bother, I ask Nilekani. What do you have left to prove? Are you playing at being author?
Nilekani takes umbrage. For the first time, I get a rise out of him. The even-toned comments are gone. “What do you mean?” he asks. “I have worked hard on this. Every single idea in that book is mine,” he says, practically pounding the table. “I am going out on a limb here; opening myself up to criticism; people I don’t know can take potshots at me.”
Call him a bozo and he’ll say it right back at you; call him cold and unemotional, as some Infosys employees do, and Nilekani will listen — unemotionally, of course. But, imply that he is faking it and the man will get royally pissed off.
Nilekani is not a screamer. At work, he rarely raises his voice, unlike Murthy, who, some employees say, “rants and raves”. But Murthy also takes ownership of problems in a way that Nilekani doesn’t.
“Nandan doesn’t like bad news,” says the Infosys HR head Gurjar. “If you go to him with bad news, he’ll say, ‘Yes, but you are in control, right?’ and if you say, no, he’ll say, ‘Go talk to your boss; go talk to Mohan or Kris’.”
“I am not confrontational,” Nilekani allows. Neither is he a control freak. Several employees at Infosys talk about how Nilekani allows them to take an idea and run with it.
When Nilekani took over as CEO, Infosys was in a bit of a crisis as the US market had collapsed after the technology bubble burst in 2001. Indeed, asked what the absolute low point of his life was, Nilekani says it was the year after he took over as CEO. The absolute high point? 2006, when “all my contributions to the company seemed to come together and pay off.” That was the year he won the Padma Bhushan, was elected to the World Economic Forum Foundation board, named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Where Nilekani stands out is as a mentor and champion, both to people within and outside Infosys. In a couple of such mentoring sessions, Nilekani plays journalist, drawing out a young star within Infosys. “Do you feel that you can go up and talk to anyone in a party? Do you read the Economist every week? Do you know how to schmooze?”
The young man is both respectful and brash: a tone that Nilekani relishes. After half an hour of Nilekani’s questions, they identify three areas of improvement. “You need to be able to quickly ramp up your learning on multiple areas so you can talk to clients knowledgeably,” says Nilekani. “You need to network; and you need to learn how to schmooze.”
Nilekani is an acknowledged master with clients and visitors, Infosys’ trump card. One morning, a technology analyst from the US visits him. Before the meeting, an aide briefs Nilekani on what to say: “We have been nurturing a relationship with him but he needs to know that we are committed to Finacle (a banking software) at the highest level.”
Nandan is all bonhomie and charm, suave and polished, Western in speech and demeanour. He cracks jokes, charms the guy, saying, “You’ve always been ahead of the curve.” He spouts the party line and liberally ad libs.
He tells the analyst that several divisions in Infosys work together to come up with a comprehensive product. This is rich because just in the previous meeting, Nilekani was exhorting the New Business Models group that they ought to talk to each other more often; that they shouldn’t work in “silos”. Nilekani actually seems — is indeed interested — in the visiting analyst’s ideas.
“So, what’s your prediction for the US?” he asks and then listens intently. When the analyst mentions a presentation that he has put together on the subject, Nilekani says, “Why don’t we go next door and view it?” The analyst leaves, bedazzled.
* * *
Rohini and Nandan live in an airy sprawling home in Koramangala. There are two parts to the house: the entertaining section of the house that is impersonal, designed to impress. The living wing reflects their personality more. It is spare, bright with skylights, and uncluttered. It feels airy, lived in. Wearing a blue kurta and pants, Nilekani is relaxed as he potters around barefoot, eating dal-roti-sabzi and salad for lunch; seeing off his son, Nihar, who is going to write an exam and whispering to his mother, who shuffles in and out. In one corner are some hanging bells; in another, a tulsi-katte, a square structure with a holy basil plant on it. There are fresh flowers everywhere. For such a large house, it manages to keep the intimate scale of a home.
Relative to their means, the Nilekanis lead a pretty simple life. They seldom show up in the gossip pages of magazines and newspapers. They splurge on travel but little else. “I am not Gandhian, but my kids (daughter Jahnavi, now in Yale, and son Nihar) keep me grounded,” says Nilekani, who also readily admits to being a “pretty poor parent especially in the early years when I simply wasn’t around”.
Nilekani lives by certain rules. He sets goalposts for himself — three or four things that he pursues relentlessly. He wants to be “stingy with his time but generous with his money”, to be productive without being busy. Not a great believer in the BlackBerry, he thinks the whole back-and-forth emailing is a waste of time. He likes to pick up the phone and resolve issues.
Given his connections — from the Prime Minister’s Office to corporate chieftains across the globe — he can put people together with one phone call. Manish Sabharwal, founder of placement firm TeamLease, says that the skill reforms that he had been working on “went into a different orbit after Nandan opened his network. We got access to all sides of the political aisle, Prime Minister’s Office, Planning Commission and everyone relevant, whether supportive or opposed.”
Nilekani’s network of influence is indeed huge and he does like to socialize, exchange ideas. The Nilekanis entertain visiting dignitaries often on the lawns of their home. But Rohini and Nandan also have very independent public personas. She is the anchor of Uncommon Ground, a TV show on NDTV, the chairperson of the Akshara Foundation, which deals with early-childhood education; and Pratham Books, which aims to publish quality books at reasonable prices. More recently, she pledged $25 million of her money — it came from her own investments into Infosys some 26 years ago — to start Arghyam, with a goal of bringing safe sustainable water to all.
“Rohini has a very strong social conscience,” says Nilekani, adding that her influence on him has been “huge in a number of ways. She has made me see things that I otherwise would not have noticed. She has made me far more human”.
For her part, Rohini says: “Nandan has this incredible ability to start each day, maybe each moment, on a clean slate. Even if he is upset about something, he has a process by which he quickly deals with it and when he faces that person or situation again, the past will not come in the way. In a marriage, that can be particularly healing.”
* * *
When he is in Bangalore, Nilekani is up every morning at 5.30 and then exercises for an hour with a trainer. By 7am, he has accomplished a great deal. He checks his email once in the morning and once in the evening, and if he finds time, during the day
Every now and then, Nilekani will sit down with a piece of paper and write down things he needs to change about himself.
“I don’t want to call it reinventing myself but I do want to stay relevant,” he says. Staying relevant could mean studying every research report about climate change he can lay his hands on; talking shop with retailer clients and technology with telecom clients. Mostly, it is an uncommon skill he has developed of wading into any area and quickly, as he says, “distilling it into its key issues — challenges, constraints, assets, and advantages — and framing solutions”.
A voracious reader, Nilekani rues the fact that he mostly reads research reports these days. He gravitates towards non-fiction and thinks fiction is “a waste of time; plus the great fiction books were all written in the old days and I’ve read them anyway”. When asked what he does to relax, he says, “I vegetate, yaar.” A sharp contrast to older brother Vijay, a licensed pilot; scuba-diver; ocean-going sailor and yacht owner; downhill skier; and as of his 60th birthday, a bungee jumper.
Nilekani says he has little interest in things that consume most Indians: Bollywood, cricket and the minutiae of politics. “Once you remove those three things, a great deal of time and mental space is freed up,” he says. Yet, Nilekani is clearly not a Renaissance man who can wax eloquent about Picasso, Pushkin or Purandara Dasa. He seems to have little interest in the arts, poetry, music and philosophy. He is an ideas person but, only those that can be applied. A man who lives in the present and the future. Nor does he endlessly dissect or regret the past.
When I interviewed him, the only area where he was uncomfortable was when I asked him about early influences. “Oh, God!” he said, rolling his eyes. “Do I have to answer all this?” But, ask him about changing the world and he gets animated. The people he admires are doers like him; innovators, not in the pure sense — such as Ramanujam, Da Vinci or Tchaikovsky — but people who take an idea and transform the world around them. Asked by a recent visitor to name three people he would like to shadow for a week, he said, “Steve Jobs, Mohammed Yunus and (Nelson) Mandela in his prime.”
Asked what he would like on his epitaph, Nilekani simply says: “Here lies someone who didn’t squander his serendipitous opportunities.”
He is sitting in a conference room adjacent to his office with six Infosys Technologies Ltd employees. Their goal, which also happens to be Nilekani’s pet project, is to make the computer services giant an environmentally sustainable company.
“How far is Infosys from being carbon neutral? Why are the rooms kept so cold? In Bangalore, we shouldn’t even be using air conditioners, yaar,” says Nilekani as he listens to presentations and fires questions and suggestions.
He listens to an Internet-led carpooling scheme. “But, people should hook up through SMS. Who wants to go online to check if a car is going to Electronic City?” he says.
“What about the water flushed from the urinals? Are we reusing it?” Turns out they are — for landscaping. “What about green accounting?” The woman in charge of that division starts explaining but Nilekani interrupts, gently. “No, no, that’s not it. In green accounting, the numbers will change.”
What about energy consumption? A young man launches into explanations. Infosys wants to convert all personal computers into more energy efficient laptops but vendors aren’t keen as the orders aren’t large enough. Perhaps, if Infosys can team up with rival Wipro Ltd and other local IT firms and then order such laptops, vendors might fall in line.
“I’ll talk to Azim (Wipro chairman Premji) about it,” Nilekani promises.
Nilekani instructs the group to make sure every new building that goes up on an Infosys campus complies with sustainability guidelines. “Just tell all our architects and builders that if they want our business, they build to our specs,” he says. Then comes a mind-numbing array of numbers: litres of water flowing through urinals, the number of lights left on at night on campus, how many cars on campus, air-conditioner temperatures, wattage of electricity used.
“I call him the closure man,” says Nandita Gurjar, head of human resources (HR) at Infosys. “He is a man in a hurry. Once I went to him with a global award that we had won; very prestigious; and he’s like, ‘Oh great!’ and moves right on.” She recalls asking him, “Nandan, what award would make you stop and take notice?” A dramatic pause and then he replies: ‘The Nobel Prize’.”
Like everyone else I meet to discuss Nilekani, Gurjar says she marvels at his memory, his “computer brain” that can store huge amounts of facts and trivia about people and events. Once when she was being inducted into Infosys, she says she met Nilekani at a party and he said something like, ‘So how are you dealing with all that noise pollution around your house?’ and I thought, ‘How do you even know where I live?’”
For someone who could very easily build a coterie of sycophants around him, Nilekani seems to do the exact opposite.
“He is not vain; cares little for external appearances; is easily bored with others’ vanities,” says his wife Rohini Nilekani. It isn’t to say Nilekani doesn’t hang out with the usual suspects — CEOs of multinationals, entrepreneurs on the verge of going public, and multimillionaires. But he also reaches out to solar-panel specialists and climate change researchers; social activists and historians; educators and architects, and even the occasional herpetologist. Some of this is clearly because of Rohini, a writer and philanthropist though, in many instances, he reaches out on his own. “I am curious about people who march to a different drummer,” says Nilekani.
Unlike the typical CEO, Nilekani seems to actually act on his curiosity. He asks questions; he is interested. During one car-ride, we compare Bangalore to other cities. Delhi, we agree, is all about power, in a which-politician-attended-your-son’s-wedding sort of way. Mumbai is about wealth — isn’t-my-yacht-bigger-than-yours.
“Bangalore is about ideas and that suits me,” says Nilekani. My own reason for liking Bangalore is not so macro, I say. I like Bangalore because people actually make an attempt to start book clubs in spite of the numbing traffic. Nilekani nods. For years, Rohini and he were part of a quiz club with many families.
Then come the questions. What book were we reading? Who was in the book club? Turns out he knows most of the people in my book club. This is how the man does it, I think. Next time he meets someone from my book club — whose names he will remember — Nilekani will most likely casually ask: “So, how was your book club discussion of The Hungry Tide?” And they will be flabbergasted.
In June 2007, after five largely successful years as CEO of Infosys, Nilekani decided to step down. It was, he says, time to pass the baton. But it was yet another turning point in the remarkable journey of a young man from Sirsi who walked into an office at Patni Computers some 27 years ago to ask for a job from one N.R. Narayana Murthy, the now legendary chief mentor of Infosys.
* * *
These days, Nilekani is co-chairman of Infosys. He plays ambassador, helps with brand building and key clients. He is still vitally involved, but the company’s day-to-day affairs don’t preoccupy him any more.
A few passions occupy Nilekani these days. The first still has to do with helping Infosys. The second is what he calls “paying off old debts and giving back”. Be it giving IIT Bombay $5 million (around Rs21 crore, now) for a chaired professorship, an incubator, the school of IT, a new hostel and renovating old ones; building a new auditorium and endowing his old school in Dharwad, where he grew up; contributing to a hospital wing in Sirsi, his ancestral home town.
One morning, Nilekani receives six men at his home and talks to them for a few hours about how to grow their private company, with Rs100 crore in annual revenues, into a Rs1,000-crore enterprise. Nilekani gives ideas and a game plan, a bit of a crash course in entrepreneurship. And the tutorial goes something like this:
“It’s all about outsmarting the other guy... You guys need to figure out the best outcome and the minimal outcome… What will you do yourselves and what will you outsource? What’s your HR policy — how will you attract and retain talent? How much money will you need and where is it coming from? What is your senior management capacity and bandwidth? What are the roles of responsibility and how do you make those accountable? How much of your role is governance and how much is operational? Who does the firefighting? What are the risks and how do you mitigate them?”
Nilekani speaks with quiet authority yet the tone is conversational, neither preachy nor self-aggrandizing. He offers to sit with them in six months to review progress, saying he will fly out to Pune and reduce the carbon footprint rather than have the six of them fly to Bangalore. He also offers to visit their factory the next time he is in Sirsi.
“The family is known to me and the patriarch miraculously found a house for us in Bombay (Mumbai) when Rohini and I were newlyweds. I can never forget that,” he says. Again, repaying old debts.
Then there is Nilekani’s reform agenda, including, for now, e-governance, urban issues, and climate change. He has given nearly $4 million to set up the E-governments Foundation (www.egovernments.org) that aims to use technology to help municipal governments. It is run by former Intel Corp. executive Srikanth Nadhamuni, a passionate advocate for e-governance, whose wife, Sunita, happens to head Rohini’s foundation.
Every now and then, Nilekani visits the E-governments Foundation’s office in Indranagar for an update. Sitting in a tiny room, amid swarms of wires and cups of Café Coffee Day coffee (which, by the way, is owned by another Nilekani friend, V.G. Siddhartha), Nilekani listens to Nadhamuni make a presentation about governance and how to make it profitable. The tone is congenial; the atmosphere collegial. Nilekani seems perfectly at home, laughing and joking with the guys. Sure enough, out comes a line that he uses often: “I don’t know why you’d want to hang around jokers like me.”
Joker is a word Nilekani, 53, uses often, and to great effect. Bozo and yaar (friend in Hindi) are others. This does several things: It disarms people and makes Nilekani appear more approachable than he is. It also allows him to interrupt rambling presentations without seeming rude.
Indeed, within Infosys, Nilekani is famous for cutting off speeches. “You walk in with a half-hour presentation and 3 minutes later, he’s like, ‘Okay, I get it. Now what?’,” says Sanjay Purohit, head of Infosys’ corporate planning division. Over the years, thanks to numerous 360-degree evaluations, Nilekani has also tried to temper his impatience. “For someone with such a quick mind, he is a superb listener,” says his friend, designer Sujata Keshavan.
One afternoon, Nilekani spends 4 hours at the offices of Janaagraha, an urban reforms group co-founded by (Mint columnist) Ramesh Ramanathan. He listens to a long presentation from a distinguished lawyer and academic about what is wrong with the Indian judicial system. In the end, the men brainstorm ways of fixing it: At one point during the lawyer’s oration, Nilekani interrupts him with a, “Boss, Boss…let’s look at it this way.” It is classic Nilekani. Disarm, then deliver ideas.
Nilekani’s solutions are the product of a superlative engineering mind. He quickly grasps the moving parts, takes things apart and comes up with workable solutions, stressing priorities and gaps. “It’s important to get buy-in from the judges and lawyers. Otherwise, this whole thing is a non-starter.”
A few days later, Nilekani hammers home the same solutions at a conference held at the Karnataka high court to a room full of lawyers and judges. Nilekani calls it the “multiplier” effect. He says that he gets involved in issues where he can have a “seminal impact” on the way things are done. It’s a high return on investment, he says. So he chooses areas that are in the cusp of change; where lending his voice will give momentum and speed; issues with far-reaching impact; like legal reform.
“Nandan has a better understanding of the temporal nature of wealth and status than most others and he passionately wishes well for India,” says his brother, Vijay Nilekani, who works for the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, DC. “The good news is that he is doing something about it. Nandan has this ability to engage people at their own level, rather than the aloof condescending attitude of many others with similar levels of accomplishment.”
It’s true. Perhaps because of his irreverence; perhaps because he seems approachable; perhaps because of his self-deprecating humour; or perhaps because Nilekani doesn’t take himself so seriously, all kinds of people hit him with all kinds of requests. Mostly, he says no. But, he does it gently, without shattering smaller egos.
Some of Nilekani’s motivation for social change comes from the bar-belled circumstances in which he grew up. Born in Bangalore, Nandan is a Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin — like Girish Karnad, Shyam Benegal — and speaks Konkani at home. His father, Mohan Rao Nilekani was a manager at Minerva Mills, with several transfers and job changes that took him from Bangalore to Davanagere to Nirmal in Andhra Pradesh before he retired to Dharwad. As a result, both siblings bounced around as children. Vijay was eight years older and so the brothers didn’t have much contact while growing up. Young Nandan stayed with his uncle in Dharwad after he turned 12 — an early enforced independence that might have been tough on a kid. “I think all the early variation contributed a lot to our world view and values,” says Vijay.
Their father was a passionate individual with Fabian socialist views and altruistic instincts. He would write endless letters to the editor and to the prime minister; sue corrupt bureaucrats and politicians; take on strays, orphans and poor relatives into their ancestral Sirsi home. His tenacity, says Vijay, “was a touching and seminal experience for all of us”, something which they still recall seven years after their father’s passing. Their mother, Durga, who is 83 and lives with the Nilekanis in Bangalore, was the “anchor” who tolerated their father’s “frailties and idiosyncrasies”.
A high achiever right from childhood, Nilekani fast-tracked into IIT Bombay right after Dharwad. He speaks of his experiences at IIT fondly, recalling how “this raw small-town kid” became exposed to a larger world; and met his future wife.
The two brothers are clearly a lot closer now. The families vacation together: in South Africa, Goa, Kerala, on ski trips and sailing holidays. Not enough, though. “Whenever I meet Nandan, I say that it is like sighting an endangered species; like the rare sighting of a Bengal tiger,” Vijay says, with a chuckle.
For Nilekani’s family, the biggest surprise that he pulled was, of course, Infosys. Says Vijay, “When I derided it as a pipe dream that he may live to regret — I used stronger language — he just listened and smiled. I did not get the explosive emotional pushbacks like I might have expected with many. The rest of course is history!”
* * *
Nilekani works out of a spacious corner office in the corporate block of Infosys, surrounded by the leafy tops of trees with pink tabebuia flowers. His desk is spare. Shelves hold multiple awards and photographs of him with various powerful people: Nilekani with Tony Blair; shaking hands with Bill Clinton; with a large India contingent in Davos; with Manmohan and Mrs Singh in the White House with Laura Bush. On his desk is a small black-and-white photograph of Rohini and him.
Nilekani likes order and control within his office. He likes to sit at the sofa facing the front door where he can have a view of what’s going on outside his office. His phone goes everywhere with him; his BlackBerry is not in sight. When he is meeting with people, Nilekani’s mobile phone rarely rings — by design. “When I am with someone, I like to give them my full attention. You know, Bill Gates doesn’t even carry a mobile.”
What Nilekani hears, he digests instantly and has complete playback from then on, thanks to a prodigious and impeccable memory. “I wish I could have Nandan’s memory but that is impossible,” says Infosys co-founder S.D. Shibulal, who roomed with Nilekani in the early days.
Like many others, I wonder about the dynamics between the many Infosys founders. The party line is that they all get along famously, that they all put the company before their own egos. Shibulal says they socialize but not that often — getting all of them together in one city is difficult. The wives apparently meet. The seven founders do seek each other out on matters unrelated to Infosys, but not that often. “We gravitate towards different people (founders) for different things,” he says. “Like Kris (Infosys CEO Gopalakrishan) and I share a passion for gizmos and Kris and Nandan are neighbours.” Most importantly, when the chips are down, they show up. “When Rohini’s father passed, we were all there within minutes,” says Shibulal. “When Kris’ mother passed away, we were tracking it as it happened. We know what’s going on in each other’s personal lives.”
Do they confide personal problems in each other or do they go to great lengths to hide vulnerabilities, I ask. “After 26 years, what vulnerability can I hide from Nandan?” Shibulal shoots back.
What I really want to know is how the founders deal with it if one of them screws up in a major way. So, I ask Murthy. They start every transaction with a zero-base, Murthy replies. They deal with data in a logical way and keep egos out of it. “And, we smile when we walk out of the room,” he says.
What about disagreements about the future direction of Infosys? “It is generally the responsibility of the person who brings an idea to the table to argue out a point with data and facts,” says Murthy. “If, in spite of the data and facts, some people disagree, we vote on that issue. That has happened rarely, though.”
In his book-lined office in the heritage wing of Infosys, a relaxed and expansive Murthy talks about his protégé; about Nilekani’s extraordinary ability to engage and communicate with people; about the way he rallies people around a common goal; and about how he always saw the big picture. “Earlier, he used to get angry more easily. He would come across as impatient,” says Murthy. “Now he has become much more forgiving.”
“Of all the people in Infosys, I am closest to Nandan,” says Murthy. “I can tell him anything I want and usually do. And, he can tell me anything; I don’t think he does, though.”
The big difference between them seems to be that Murthy leads from the heart and Nilekani from the head. “Nandan leads more by intellect than by heart,” says Subhash Dhar, a senior vice-president at Infosys. “People who are most impressed by Nandan are those that can relate to him intellectually. He is a leader among peers.”
This may explain why the average Infosys employee perceives Nilekani more as a global ambassador for the Infosys brand than the leader they can relate to. “Nandan is an introvert masquerading as an extrovert,” says Infosys HR’s Gurjar.
Murthy says it differently. He says: “A good leader is one who can connect a bird’s-eye view with a worm’s-eye view of the world. Nandan is very good with the bird’s-eye-view.”
Still, it is clear those at Infosys don’t like to talk about how Nilekani became the first among equals, after Murthy. Perhaps it was because Nilekani’s smooth marketing skills were needed at that phase of Infosys. Perhaps it was a simple case of meritocracy — Nilekani, at that time, was just better than the other co-founders. “The rest of them wanted to be told what to do whereas with Nandan it was always, ‘This is what I want to do and Murthy, is it okay with you?’” says one senior Infosys executive who didn’t want to be identified.
Nilekani himself attributes it to another co-founder, N.S. Raghavan, who “graciously stepped aside”. Adds Murthy: “In the hierarchy of Infosys, Nandan was No. 4 after Raghavan and Kris,” he recalls. “But, when I stepped down, Nandan was quite keen, Raghavan didn’t want to lead; and Kris’ magnanimity allowed Nandan to be CEO. Of course, Nandan was decent enough to step down after five years to give his peers (Kris) a chance to lead.”
What if Nilekani weren’t still at Infosys, I ask. “Oh, he would have easily been a very successful English professor,” says Murthy. “He is the best speaker and writer of English that I have ever come across. No one within Infosys even comes close.”
* * *
What has taken up a lot of Nilekani’s bandwidth these days is his book, a grand vision statement. Called Imagining India, the book outlines Nilekani’s ideas for India — past, present and future.
Historian and author Ramachandra Guha, a friend of 30 years, was among the first few to see a draft. “It’s a very good book, full of interesting insights,” says Guha. “I don’t share his optimism but, very largely, he has carried it off.”
Guha calls Nilekani a “passionate democrat who aligns himself with the broad tradition of humanistic and democratic politics in modern India. I’ve rarely met an Indian who has such a sure and quick grasp of social and political issues. Some other tycoon would have written a much more superficial and simple-minded book”.
Why bother, I ask Nilekani. What do you have left to prove? Are you playing at being author?
Nilekani takes umbrage. For the first time, I get a rise out of him. The even-toned comments are gone. “What do you mean?” he asks. “I have worked hard on this. Every single idea in that book is mine,” he says, practically pounding the table. “I am going out on a limb here; opening myself up to criticism; people I don’t know can take potshots at me.”
Call him a bozo and he’ll say it right back at you; call him cold and unemotional, as some Infosys employees do, and Nilekani will listen — unemotionally, of course. But, imply that he is faking it and the man will get royally pissed off.
Nilekani is not a screamer. At work, he rarely raises his voice, unlike Murthy, who, some employees say, “rants and raves”. But Murthy also takes ownership of problems in a way that Nilekani doesn’t.
“Nandan doesn’t like bad news,” says the Infosys HR head Gurjar. “If you go to him with bad news, he’ll say, ‘Yes, but you are in control, right?’ and if you say, no, he’ll say, ‘Go talk to your boss; go talk to Mohan or Kris’.”
“I am not confrontational,” Nilekani allows. Neither is he a control freak. Several employees at Infosys talk about how Nilekani allows them to take an idea and run with it.
When Nilekani took over as CEO, Infosys was in a bit of a crisis as the US market had collapsed after the technology bubble burst in 2001. Indeed, asked what the absolute low point of his life was, Nilekani says it was the year after he took over as CEO. The absolute high point? 2006, when “all my contributions to the company seemed to come together and pay off.” That was the year he won the Padma Bhushan, was elected to the World Economic Forum Foundation board, named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Where Nilekani stands out is as a mentor and champion, both to people within and outside Infosys. In a couple of such mentoring sessions, Nilekani plays journalist, drawing out a young star within Infosys. “Do you feel that you can go up and talk to anyone in a party? Do you read the Economist every week? Do you know how to schmooze?”
The young man is both respectful and brash: a tone that Nilekani relishes. After half an hour of Nilekani’s questions, they identify three areas of improvement. “You need to be able to quickly ramp up your learning on multiple areas so you can talk to clients knowledgeably,” says Nilekani. “You need to network; and you need to learn how to schmooze.”
Nilekani is an acknowledged master with clients and visitors, Infosys’ trump card. One morning, a technology analyst from the US visits him. Before the meeting, an aide briefs Nilekani on what to say: “We have been nurturing a relationship with him but he needs to know that we are committed to Finacle (a banking software) at the highest level.”
Nandan is all bonhomie and charm, suave and polished, Western in speech and demeanour. He cracks jokes, charms the guy, saying, “You’ve always been ahead of the curve.” He spouts the party line and liberally ad libs.
He tells the analyst that several divisions in Infosys work together to come up with a comprehensive product. This is rich because just in the previous meeting, Nilekani was exhorting the New Business Models group that they ought to talk to each other more often; that they shouldn’t work in “silos”. Nilekani actually seems — is indeed interested — in the visiting analyst’s ideas.
“So, what’s your prediction for the US?” he asks and then listens intently. When the analyst mentions a presentation that he has put together on the subject, Nilekani says, “Why don’t we go next door and view it?” The analyst leaves, bedazzled.
* * *
Rohini and Nandan live in an airy sprawling home in Koramangala. There are two parts to the house: the entertaining section of the house that is impersonal, designed to impress. The living wing reflects their personality more. It is spare, bright with skylights, and uncluttered. It feels airy, lived in. Wearing a blue kurta and pants, Nilekani is relaxed as he potters around barefoot, eating dal-roti-sabzi and salad for lunch; seeing off his son, Nihar, who is going to write an exam and whispering to his mother, who shuffles in and out. In one corner are some hanging bells; in another, a tulsi-katte, a square structure with a holy basil plant on it. There are fresh flowers everywhere. For such a large house, it manages to keep the intimate scale of a home.
Relative to their means, the Nilekanis lead a pretty simple life. They seldom show up in the gossip pages of magazines and newspapers. They splurge on travel but little else. “I am not Gandhian, but my kids (daughter Jahnavi, now in Yale, and son Nihar) keep me grounded,” says Nilekani, who also readily admits to being a “pretty poor parent especially in the early years when I simply wasn’t around”.
Nilekani lives by certain rules. He sets goalposts for himself — three or four things that he pursues relentlessly. He wants to be “stingy with his time but generous with his money”, to be productive without being busy. Not a great believer in the BlackBerry, he thinks the whole back-and-forth emailing is a waste of time. He likes to pick up the phone and resolve issues.
Given his connections — from the Prime Minister’s Office to corporate chieftains across the globe — he can put people together with one phone call. Manish Sabharwal, founder of placement firm TeamLease, says that the skill reforms that he had been working on “went into a different orbit after Nandan opened his network. We got access to all sides of the political aisle, Prime Minister’s Office, Planning Commission and everyone relevant, whether supportive or opposed.”
Nilekani’s network of influence is indeed huge and he does like to socialize, exchange ideas. The Nilekanis entertain visiting dignitaries often on the lawns of their home. But Rohini and Nandan also have very independent public personas. She is the anchor of Uncommon Ground, a TV show on NDTV, the chairperson of the Akshara Foundation, which deals with early-childhood education; and Pratham Books, which aims to publish quality books at reasonable prices. More recently, she pledged $25 million of her money — it came from her own investments into Infosys some 26 years ago — to start Arghyam, with a goal of bringing safe sustainable water to all.
“Rohini has a very strong social conscience,” says Nilekani, adding that her influence on him has been “huge in a number of ways. She has made me see things that I otherwise would not have noticed. She has made me far more human”.
For her part, Rohini says: “Nandan has this incredible ability to start each day, maybe each moment, on a clean slate. Even if he is upset about something, he has a process by which he quickly deals with it and when he faces that person or situation again, the past will not come in the way. In a marriage, that can be particularly healing.”
* * *
When he is in Bangalore, Nilekani is up every morning at 5.30 and then exercises for an hour with a trainer. By 7am, he has accomplished a great deal. He checks his email once in the morning and once in the evening, and if he finds time, during the day
Every now and then, Nilekani will sit down with a piece of paper and write down things he needs to change about himself.
“I don’t want to call it reinventing myself but I do want to stay relevant,” he says. Staying relevant could mean studying every research report about climate change he can lay his hands on; talking shop with retailer clients and technology with telecom clients. Mostly, it is an uncommon skill he has developed of wading into any area and quickly, as he says, “distilling it into its key issues — challenges, constraints, assets, and advantages — and framing solutions”.
A voracious reader, Nilekani rues the fact that he mostly reads research reports these days. He gravitates towards non-fiction and thinks fiction is “a waste of time; plus the great fiction books were all written in the old days and I’ve read them anyway”. When asked what he does to relax, he says, “I vegetate, yaar.” A sharp contrast to older brother Vijay, a licensed pilot; scuba-diver; ocean-going sailor and yacht owner; downhill skier; and as of his 60th birthday, a bungee jumper.
Nilekani says he has little interest in things that consume most Indians: Bollywood, cricket and the minutiae of politics. “Once you remove those three things, a great deal of time and mental space is freed up,” he says. Yet, Nilekani is clearly not a Renaissance man who can wax eloquent about Picasso, Pushkin or Purandara Dasa. He seems to have little interest in the arts, poetry, music and philosophy. He is an ideas person but, only those that can be applied. A man who lives in the present and the future. Nor does he endlessly dissect or regret the past.
When I interviewed him, the only area where he was uncomfortable was when I asked him about early influences. “Oh, God!” he said, rolling his eyes. “Do I have to answer all this?” But, ask him about changing the world and he gets animated. The people he admires are doers like him; innovators, not in the pure sense — such as Ramanujam, Da Vinci or Tchaikovsky — but people who take an idea and transform the world around them. Asked by a recent visitor to name three people he would like to shadow for a week, he said, “Steve Jobs, Mohammed Yunus and (Nelson) Mandela in his prime.”
Asked what he would like on his epitaph, Nilekani simply says: “Here lies someone who didn’t squander his serendipitous opportunities.”
Columnists - Vir Sanghvi
Why you shouldn't fix your imperfect body
For as long as I can remember, I have had a deep and abiding contempt for cosmetic surgery — and for many of those who favour it. Sometimes, I have even said that I regard it as entirely immoral — how can you justify undergoing a surgical procedure only to make your facial skin look tighter?
In recent years, I have moderated my hostility somewhat. I now accept that there are times when self-worth depends so much on looks that plastic surgery may be necessary. Consider a child who is regarded as the ugliest girl in class because she has a nose like Charles De Gaulle’s. It’s hard to argue that her parents are being immoral in getting her nose fixed when the rhinoplasty will probably change her life.
I am less willing to forgive movie stars. Can you really admire Rakhi Sawant for having collagen pumped into her mouth? Was it necessary for so many surgeons to work so long and so hard on Mallika Sherawat’s body? Who knows? I am rethinking that one.
I now accept that for stars, plastic surgery falls into two categories. There are those like Elton John whose careers do not depend on a full head of hair but who choose hair transplants out of vanity. Some of them see the light in later life — Paul Simon has refused to have new hair grafted on to his scalp and has even abandoned the toupee he wore for more than three decades — and some don’t; Art Garfunkel still wears a wig; Frank Sinatra had something like five hair transplants in the 1960s when the technique was still evolving. Doctors made so many mistakes that by the end, his scalp probably looked like a gorilla’s crotch.
But there are those who need the operation to remain in business. These days, nearly everybody in Bollywood has hair surgically inserted into their heads. They do not do this out of any sense of vanity, but simply to keep their careers going. Would we accept Aamir Khan as a romantic hero if he did not pay to get his face and hair done? The likes of Sushmita Sen and Manisha Koirala had their chests enhanced only because producers wanted them to look more oomphy, not because they were vain or insecure (Sushmita was already Miss Universe before the procedure).
Sometimes stars are good-natured about their plastic surgery. Years ago, Shilpa Shetty giggled happily about her two nose jobs (“the first one went wrong so I had to do another”) when I interviewed her on TV. I am sure that Salman Khan does not even pretend that the new Elvis-style bouffant he sports on his head these days is completely natural. And sometimes, they deny it. Either way, I think it’s their right. Amitabh Bachchan jokes about his hair (its colour, its provenance, etc.) but I don’t think we would judge him harshly even if he didn’t.
While the vanity surgery (John, Sinatra, etc.) is no different from the facelifts favoured by elderly socialites, surgery in the line of duty strikes me as being in a different moral category. The moral dilemmas are not about stars. They are about ordinary people. For years, my view has been: How can anybody possibly justify surgery in the pursuit of mere vanity?
But I have had to re-examine this position in the light of recent advancements in medicine.
The basis of my argument was never that vanity has no place in society. If I believed that, I’d have to disapprove of the fashion business, the beauty products industry, modern gymnasiums, hairdressers and God alone knows what else.
My view was that while vanity may be an understandable human emotion, there were limits to how far we should go in the pursuit of good looks. For instance, greed is an acceptable impulse up to a certain level but when it begins to dominate your life, only Ivan Boesky can approve of it. It’s all right to take that extra helping of chocolate cake; quite another thing to be a glutton.
My point was about extremes. Vanity is fine. But when it leads you to go under the knife, then it reaches unacceptable levels.
The problem is that, these days, you don’t have to go under the knife. I treat botox as the moral equivalent of a facelift. But all it can take is a single injection and 15 minutes of a woman’s time. How extreme is that? It’s less trouble than a hair-styling session. So it is with, say, liposuction. There’s now something called “lunch-time lipo” which is exactly what its name suggests. I can’t really put that in the same category as Sinatra’s hair transplants, no matter how hard I try.
What then is the basis of my objection to cosmetic surgery? If I regard botox as worthy of moral condemnation, then shouldn’t I also work myself into a lather over dental braces?
I concede that there is a philosophical problem. My old rule about extreme measures in the pursuit of vanity does not hold in today’s environment.
So, here’s a new moral saw: It’s immoral to use artificial means to permanently alter the bodies God gave us. It’s okay to get your hair done, but a transplant is quite another thing. It’s fine to go on a diet but wrong to get a doctor to suck the fat out of you.
My point is no longer about extremes. It’s about invasive procedures. Use surgery, toxins, fat-extractors, etc., in the pursuit of vanity, and I will still make moral judgements about you. Medicine is for curing diseases. It’s not meant to pander to human vanity. To use surgery for the purpose of beauty is to lose your soul. It may change you on the outside. But it rots you on the inside.
Is that a stronger basis for my disapproval? I hope so. It seems technology-proof.
But who knows? The older I get, the more my own vanity corrodes my morality. So maybe one day I will concede the point entirely.
For now, however, the self-righteousness endures.
For as long as I can remember, I have had a deep and abiding contempt for cosmetic surgery — and for many of those who favour it. Sometimes, I have even said that I regard it as entirely immoral — how can you justify undergoing a surgical procedure only to make your facial skin look tighter?
In recent years, I have moderated my hostility somewhat. I now accept that there are times when self-worth depends so much on looks that plastic surgery may be necessary. Consider a child who is regarded as the ugliest girl in class because she has a nose like Charles De Gaulle’s. It’s hard to argue that her parents are being immoral in getting her nose fixed when the rhinoplasty will probably change her life.
I am less willing to forgive movie stars. Can you really admire Rakhi Sawant for having collagen pumped into her mouth? Was it necessary for so many surgeons to work so long and so hard on Mallika Sherawat’s body? Who knows? I am rethinking that one.
I now accept that for stars, plastic surgery falls into two categories. There are those like Elton John whose careers do not depend on a full head of hair but who choose hair transplants out of vanity. Some of them see the light in later life — Paul Simon has refused to have new hair grafted on to his scalp and has even abandoned the toupee he wore for more than three decades — and some don’t; Art Garfunkel still wears a wig; Frank Sinatra had something like five hair transplants in the 1960s when the technique was still evolving. Doctors made so many mistakes that by the end, his scalp probably looked like a gorilla’s crotch.
But there are those who need the operation to remain in business. These days, nearly everybody in Bollywood has hair surgically inserted into their heads. They do not do this out of any sense of vanity, but simply to keep their careers going. Would we accept Aamir Khan as a romantic hero if he did not pay to get his face and hair done? The likes of Sushmita Sen and Manisha Koirala had their chests enhanced only because producers wanted them to look more oomphy, not because they were vain or insecure (Sushmita was already Miss Universe before the procedure).
Sometimes stars are good-natured about their plastic surgery. Years ago, Shilpa Shetty giggled happily about her two nose jobs (“the first one went wrong so I had to do another”) when I interviewed her on TV. I am sure that Salman Khan does not even pretend that the new Elvis-style bouffant he sports on his head these days is completely natural. And sometimes, they deny it. Either way, I think it’s their right. Amitabh Bachchan jokes about his hair (its colour, its provenance, etc.) but I don’t think we would judge him harshly even if he didn’t.
While the vanity surgery (John, Sinatra, etc.) is no different from the facelifts favoured by elderly socialites, surgery in the line of duty strikes me as being in a different moral category. The moral dilemmas are not about stars. They are about ordinary people. For years, my view has been: How can anybody possibly justify surgery in the pursuit of mere vanity?
But I have had to re-examine this position in the light of recent advancements in medicine.
The basis of my argument was never that vanity has no place in society. If I believed that, I’d have to disapprove of the fashion business, the beauty products industry, modern gymnasiums, hairdressers and God alone knows what else.
My view was that while vanity may be an understandable human emotion, there were limits to how far we should go in the pursuit of good looks. For instance, greed is an acceptable impulse up to a certain level but when it begins to dominate your life, only Ivan Boesky can approve of it. It’s all right to take that extra helping of chocolate cake; quite another thing to be a glutton.
My point was about extremes. Vanity is fine. But when it leads you to go under the knife, then it reaches unacceptable levels.
The problem is that, these days, you don’t have to go under the knife. I treat botox as the moral equivalent of a facelift. But all it can take is a single injection and 15 minutes of a woman’s time. How extreme is that? It’s less trouble than a hair-styling session. So it is with, say, liposuction. There’s now something called “lunch-time lipo” which is exactly what its name suggests. I can’t really put that in the same category as Sinatra’s hair transplants, no matter how hard I try.
What then is the basis of my objection to cosmetic surgery? If I regard botox as worthy of moral condemnation, then shouldn’t I also work myself into a lather over dental braces?
I concede that there is a philosophical problem. My old rule about extreme measures in the pursuit of vanity does not hold in today’s environment.
So, here’s a new moral saw: It’s immoral to use artificial means to permanently alter the bodies God gave us. It’s okay to get your hair done, but a transplant is quite another thing. It’s fine to go on a diet but wrong to get a doctor to suck the fat out of you.
My point is no longer about extremes. It’s about invasive procedures. Use surgery, toxins, fat-extractors, etc., in the pursuit of vanity, and I will still make moral judgements about you. Medicine is for curing diseases. It’s not meant to pander to human vanity. To use surgery for the purpose of beauty is to lose your soul. It may change you on the outside. But it rots you on the inside.
Is that a stronger basis for my disapproval? I hope so. It seems technology-proof.
But who knows? The older I get, the more my own vanity corrodes my morality. So maybe one day I will concede the point entirely.
For now, however, the self-righteousness endures.
Lifestyle - When did you last use? your friend?
It really kills me to write this for it goes against everything I believe in — about friendship and the class system. But after much deliberation, I have come to accept the sorry truth about friendships, and it is this: After a certain age, pretty much after college, most of our friendships are class-based. Most of us end up hanging around people who are “like us”.
There are exceptions. There are executives who will cut across class and professional lines and socialize with, say, school teachers — noble profession, but let’s face it, not so well paying. But for the most part, the rich hang around other rich people (or sycophants); the middle class socializes with others like them; and…you get the picture.
I am sort of stunned by my conclusion because I am one of those suckers who believe in the “purity” of friendships; that the only rule for friendships is that the other person “gets” you with all your quirks and eccentricities and you have fun together. For me to conclude that middle-aged friendships are class-based is heresy. But there it is: my theory. You can stop reading now.
I am not a cynic. If anything, I am the opposite. So let me explain how I came to this conclusion. Many things dictate our friendships, but after living in three cultures, I believe that geography is a key element. Although many of us maintain long-distance friendships, it is not the same thing as having friends within the same city.
So there you are, living in Delhi, Mumbai or Bangalore. You make friends: at work, and near your home (geography again). Other friends introduce you to cool people and you make more friends. Now, I ask you: Tell me honestly, are your friends people like you? Are they all professional, roughly in the same economic bracket and with similar personal concerns? My guess is that your answer is yes. And why not? In order to do things together with friends, whether it is eating out or vacationing together, you have to be on the same page with respect to many things, but also budget.
Tomorrow is World Friendship Day, which is what got me started on this in the first place. Unlike childhood friendships, which operate in a tabula rasa, friendships in today’s global world are complicated. For instance, most people believe that you should not “use” your friends, whatever that means. But I find that I am doing this all the time: I call them for contacts; ask them for recommendations; call in favours. So I’ve decided to scratch that notion. Like it or not, I use my friends.
Then there is the whole business of “networking”. We are told to network and develop a circle of friends who can then be tapped for information and advice when needed. But professional networks aren’t friendships. You can network with people you don’t like; but you can’t stay friends with people you dislike.
I used to think that friendships are lifelong. I have a slightly different view now. With so many of us moving towns and travelling often, I find that friendships may last a lifetime but their strength depends on geography. A dear friend just moved to Hong Kong. I know that my affection for her will continue, but I also know that we will drop out of touch. I used to think this was a tragedy. Nowadays I accept it as a fact of life.
Someone told me that the older you get, the fewer new friends you make. I disagree. I have lived in Bangalore for three years now and have made new friends. What has changed is the profile of my friendships. I used to hang out with a variety of people; now all my friends are of the same texture. I used to have a lot of gay friends but finding them in Bangalore (particularly if you are enmeshed in the kiddie carpool wagon) is turning out to be a bit of a problem. And when I do find people with opposite views, I hang on to them.
Where do you set your bar for friendship? Mine is pretty high. In order to call someone a friend, I feel that I should be able to pick up the phone and call her or him anytime. Without thinking; without hesitating. That’s pretty tough to achieve when you are dealing with busy professionals. But not impossible.
Getting into a routine with people you like has been my method. One of my closest friends in Bangalore is a cross-cultural trainer named Gauri. We used to carpool together every day for a year; that turned out to be the bulwark of our friendship. I don’t see her often anymore but she is someone I can call anytime.
Meeting once a month, I have found, is a fantastic formula for friendship. Going out for drinks; getting a pedicure together; or attending a book club are all good ways of nurturing friendships. Saying “No” is another.
I was once a victim of the party trap. Some acquaintance would invite me to a party and I would feel obligated to attend. This grew and grew to a point where I was party-hopping four times a week. I knew a lot of people and had a hectic social life but somehow it felt empty at the end of the night. Things are different now. As my professor, Leonard DeLonga, who hung out with his wife, a potter, every evening said: “I have a great social life. I am just choosy about my social partners.”
Vacationing together is a great (albeit frustrating) way to maintain friendships. As I speak I am trying to coordinate a vacation with our friends from Singapore. Simply matching holiday schedules is a challenge. But we persist because we know it will be fun in the end.
There are exceptions. There are executives who will cut across class and professional lines and socialize with, say, school teachers — noble profession, but let’s face it, not so well paying. But for the most part, the rich hang around other rich people (or sycophants); the middle class socializes with others like them; and…you get the picture.
I am sort of stunned by my conclusion because I am one of those suckers who believe in the “purity” of friendships; that the only rule for friendships is that the other person “gets” you with all your quirks and eccentricities and you have fun together. For me to conclude that middle-aged friendships are class-based is heresy. But there it is: my theory. You can stop reading now.
I am not a cynic. If anything, I am the opposite. So let me explain how I came to this conclusion. Many things dictate our friendships, but after living in three cultures, I believe that geography is a key element. Although many of us maintain long-distance friendships, it is not the same thing as having friends within the same city.
So there you are, living in Delhi, Mumbai or Bangalore. You make friends: at work, and near your home (geography again). Other friends introduce you to cool people and you make more friends. Now, I ask you: Tell me honestly, are your friends people like you? Are they all professional, roughly in the same economic bracket and with similar personal concerns? My guess is that your answer is yes. And why not? In order to do things together with friends, whether it is eating out or vacationing together, you have to be on the same page with respect to many things, but also budget.
Tomorrow is World Friendship Day, which is what got me started on this in the first place. Unlike childhood friendships, which operate in a tabula rasa, friendships in today’s global world are complicated. For instance, most people believe that you should not “use” your friends, whatever that means. But I find that I am doing this all the time: I call them for contacts; ask them for recommendations; call in favours. So I’ve decided to scratch that notion. Like it or not, I use my friends.
Then there is the whole business of “networking”. We are told to network and develop a circle of friends who can then be tapped for information and advice when needed. But professional networks aren’t friendships. You can network with people you don’t like; but you can’t stay friends with people you dislike.
I used to think that friendships are lifelong. I have a slightly different view now. With so many of us moving towns and travelling often, I find that friendships may last a lifetime but their strength depends on geography. A dear friend just moved to Hong Kong. I know that my affection for her will continue, but I also know that we will drop out of touch. I used to think this was a tragedy. Nowadays I accept it as a fact of life.
Someone told me that the older you get, the fewer new friends you make. I disagree. I have lived in Bangalore for three years now and have made new friends. What has changed is the profile of my friendships. I used to hang out with a variety of people; now all my friends are of the same texture. I used to have a lot of gay friends but finding them in Bangalore (particularly if you are enmeshed in the kiddie carpool wagon) is turning out to be a bit of a problem. And when I do find people with opposite views, I hang on to them.
Where do you set your bar for friendship? Mine is pretty high. In order to call someone a friend, I feel that I should be able to pick up the phone and call her or him anytime. Without thinking; without hesitating. That’s pretty tough to achieve when you are dealing with busy professionals. But not impossible.
Getting into a routine with people you like has been my method. One of my closest friends in Bangalore is a cross-cultural trainer named Gauri. We used to carpool together every day for a year; that turned out to be the bulwark of our friendship. I don’t see her often anymore but she is someone I can call anytime.
Meeting once a month, I have found, is a fantastic formula for friendship. Going out for drinks; getting a pedicure together; or attending a book club are all good ways of nurturing friendships. Saying “No” is another.
I was once a victim of the party trap. Some acquaintance would invite me to a party and I would feel obligated to attend. This grew and grew to a point where I was party-hopping four times a week. I knew a lot of people and had a hectic social life but somehow it felt empty at the end of the night. Things are different now. As my professor, Leonard DeLonga, who hung out with his wife, a potter, every evening said: “I have a great social life. I am just choosy about my social partners.”
Vacationing together is a great (albeit frustrating) way to maintain friendships. As I speak I am trying to coordinate a vacation with our friends from Singapore. Simply matching holiday schedules is a challenge. But we persist because we know it will be fun in the end.
Tech - Indian Bill Gates in the making
Bill Gates saw his teenage dream of seeing personal computers on virtually every desk come true. Now his company Microsoft is helping young students live and achieve their dreams through an Innovation Accelerator programme. The company is using the Imagine Cup as a route to help discover new talent and develop innovative ideas as a business.
One such team from India called SKAN, led by a bunch of students in Mumbai, has become the first Indian winner of the Interoperability award at the Imagine Cup 2008 worldwide finals, held at Paris last month. Microsoft is helping this team incubate its business idea into a commercial proposition.
“The Microsoft Innovation Accelerator Program was recently launched in India and SKAN is the first team that has been chosen by the company for taking their idea to the market,” Paul Murphy, director of Innovation, Microsoft India said.
“When the Innovation Cup was started, we realised that the ideas of some finalists were so good that they could become viable businesses. This led to the Innovation Accelerator program,” he explained.
One of the Imagine Cup 2006 finalist teams is on its way to entrepreneurship. Four students from the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences whose company is called Trailblazers developed navigation software focused on the needs of physically disabled people. Russia’s Team Inspiration, the winners of the Imagine Cup 2005 incorporated Musigy Inc, enabling musicians to plug their instrument into a computer and be connected to other musicians globally, perform live in a distributed environment and share real-time performance via Internet protocol multicasting.
Microsoft wants to replicate similar success stories in India. The SKAN team has developed a system that switches idle computers into the power-save mode. “Our application is targeted towards networks and assures savings of $25 to $75 on a single computer on an annual basis,” Amith George, team member of SKAN said.
The team is now heading for IIM Ahmedabad where they will spend two weeks to get into the entrepreneur mode. “Microsoft will review the progress of this team on a quarterly basis and release the seed funding in a phased manner,” Murphy said. We are looking at funding more such start-ups by pushing more local innovation accelerator efforts in India, he added.
In addition to the Innovation Accelerator Program for students, Microsoft has the Start-Up Accelerator Program for start-ups. The company plans to incubate 100 start-ups globally and wants at least 10 of them to come from India. Four Indian start-ups are already on Microsoft rolls and more would come by the year-end.
One such team from India called SKAN, led by a bunch of students in Mumbai, has become the first Indian winner of the Interoperability award at the Imagine Cup 2008 worldwide finals, held at Paris last month. Microsoft is helping this team incubate its business idea into a commercial proposition.
“The Microsoft Innovation Accelerator Program was recently launched in India and SKAN is the first team that has been chosen by the company for taking their idea to the market,” Paul Murphy, director of Innovation, Microsoft India said.
“When the Innovation Cup was started, we realised that the ideas of some finalists were so good that they could become viable businesses. This led to the Innovation Accelerator program,” he explained.
One of the Imagine Cup 2006 finalist teams is on its way to entrepreneurship. Four students from the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences whose company is called Trailblazers developed navigation software focused on the needs of physically disabled people. Russia’s Team Inspiration, the winners of the Imagine Cup 2005 incorporated Musigy Inc, enabling musicians to plug their instrument into a computer and be connected to other musicians globally, perform live in a distributed environment and share real-time performance via Internet protocol multicasting.
Microsoft wants to replicate similar success stories in India. The SKAN team has developed a system that switches idle computers into the power-save mode. “Our application is targeted towards networks and assures savings of $25 to $75 on a single computer on an annual basis,” Amith George, team member of SKAN said.
The team is now heading for IIM Ahmedabad where they will spend two weeks to get into the entrepreneur mode. “Microsoft will review the progress of this team on a quarterly basis and release the seed funding in a phased manner,” Murphy said. We are looking at funding more such start-ups by pushing more local innovation accelerator efforts in India, he added.
In addition to the Innovation Accelerator Program for students, Microsoft has the Start-Up Accelerator Program for start-ups. The company plans to incubate 100 start-ups globally and wants at least 10 of them to come from India. Four Indian start-ups are already on Microsoft rolls and more would come by the year-end.
India - Mobile Number Portability gets nod
New Delhi, Aug 1 Mobile subscribers will soon be able to change their operator without changing their phone number. Despite opposition from operators, the Minister of Communication, Mr A. Raja, has announced the introduction of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in phases. Starting with the four metros, the facility will be implemented across the country in a year.
MNP will provide the customer the facility to retain the same number while switching over from one operator to another within the same service area. A recent study pointed out that having to give up their mobile numbers was the single most reason that subscribers did not want to change their operator despite poor quality of services. The move to introduce MNP will now force cellular operators to offer better quality of services in order to keep the churn rate low. Number portability will benefit the new mobile operators, who can hope to take away some of the subscribers from the existing operators, without having to change the users phone number.
Four zones
As per the guidelines outlined on Friday, the country will be divided into two zones consisting of 11 circles areas each. A MNP service provider will be put in place for each zone, which will run the system by setting up a clearing house and a database of subscribers who change their operator. The two service providers will be selected through a bidding process. Existing telecom players will not be allowed to be a MNP service provider. Companies like Telcordia, Tekelec, Nortel and Syniverse may bid for the MNP service provider licence.
GSM operators, who had earlier raised objections to the introduction of the facility, said that they will co-operate with the Government. Earlier, the Cellular Operators Association of India had said that MNP was being introduced to favour a few new players since it was then proposed to roll out the facility only in Metro areas. “However, since the Government has decided to introduce MNP across the country within the time frame of 12 months, we have no objections to implementing this,” said Mr T.V. Ramachandran, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India.
MNP will provide the customer the facility to retain the same number while switching over from one operator to another within the same service area. A recent study pointed out that having to give up their mobile numbers was the single most reason that subscribers did not want to change their operator despite poor quality of services. The move to introduce MNP will now force cellular operators to offer better quality of services in order to keep the churn rate low. Number portability will benefit the new mobile operators, who can hope to take away some of the subscribers from the existing operators, without having to change the users phone number.
Four zones
As per the guidelines outlined on Friday, the country will be divided into two zones consisting of 11 circles areas each. A MNP service provider will be put in place for each zone, which will run the system by setting up a clearing house and a database of subscribers who change their operator. The two service providers will be selected through a bidding process. Existing telecom players will not be allowed to be a MNP service provider. Companies like Telcordia, Tekelec, Nortel and Syniverse may bid for the MNP service provider licence.
GSM operators, who had earlier raised objections to the introduction of the facility, said that they will co-operate with the Government. Earlier, the Cellular Operators Association of India had said that MNP was being introduced to favour a few new players since it was then proposed to roll out the facility only in Metro areas. “However, since the Government has decided to introduce MNP across the country within the time frame of 12 months, we have no objections to implementing this,” said Mr T.V. Ramachandran, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India.
Aug 1, 2008
Fun - Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce is the cackling king of cynics. A writer and adventurer, he was America's answer to Oscar Wilde but vanished without a trace in 1913 while touring war-torn Mexico. Bierce happily accepted the danger, writing in one of his last letters: "If you hear of my being shot to rags, please know that I think that's a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs." His mysterious disappearance inspired books and films, and remains unexplained to this day. But Bierce is also famed for his Devil's Dictionary, which every person of wit and sophistication should be able to quote at will. Here are 12 Devil definitions to remember for your next dinner party.
Abstainer: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage. Peace: In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting. Brain: An apparatus with which we think we think. Cat: A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle. Sweater: A garment worn by a child when its mother is feeling chilly. Apologise: To lay the foundation for a future offence. Day: A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. Telephone: An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance. Circus: A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool. Custard: A vile concoction produced by the malevolent conspiracy of the hen, the cow, and the cook. Quotation: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
Ambrose Bierce is the cackling king of cynics. A writer and adventurer, he was America's answer to Oscar Wilde but vanished without a trace in 1913 while touring war-torn Mexico. Bierce happily accepted the danger, writing in one of his last letters: "If you hear of my being shot to rags, please know that I think that's a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs." His mysterious disappearance inspired books and films, and remains unexplained to this day. But Bierce is also famed for his Devil's Dictionary, which every person of wit and sophistication should be able to quote at will. Here are 12 Devil definitions to remember for your next dinner party.
Abstainer: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage. Peace: In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting. Brain: An apparatus with which we think we think. Cat: A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle. Sweater: A garment worn by a child when its mother is feeling chilly. Apologise: To lay the foundation for a future offence. Day: A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. Telephone: An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance. Circus: A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool. Custard: A vile concoction produced by the malevolent conspiracy of the hen, the cow, and the cook. Quotation: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
Columnists - David Brooks
We’re about to enter our 19th consecutive year of Truman-envy. Ever since the Berlin Wall fell, people have looked at the way Harry Truman, George C. Marshall, Dean Acheson and others created forward-looking global institutions after World War II, and they’ve asked: Why can’t we rally that kind of international cooperation to confront terrorism, global warming, nuclear proliferation and the rest of today’s problems?
The answer is that, in the late 1940s, global power was concentrated. The victory over fascism meant the mantle of global leadership rested firmly on the Atlantic alliance. The United States accounted for roughly half of world economic output. Within the U.S., power was wielded by a small, bipartisan, permanent governing class — men like Acheson, W. Averell Harriman, John McCloy and Robert Lovett.
Today power is dispersed. There is no permanent bipartisan governing class in Washington. Globally, power has gone multipolar, with the rise of China, India, Brazil and the rest.
This dispersion should, in theory, be a good thing, but in practice, multipolarity means that more groups have effective veto power over collective action. In practice, this new pluralistic world has given rise to globosclerosis, an inability to solve problem after problem.
This week, for the first time since World War II, an effort to liberalize global trade failed. The Doha round collapsed, despite broad international support, because India’s Congress Party did not want to offend small farmers in the run up to the next elections. Chinese leaders dug in on behalf of cotton and rice producers.
In a de-centered world, all it takes is a few well-placed parochial interests to bring a vast global process tumbling down.
And the Doha failure comes amid a decade of globosclerosis. The world has failed to effectively end genocide in Darfur. Chinese and Russian vetoes foiled efforts to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe. The world has failed to implement effective measures to deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The world has failed to embrace a collective approach to global warming. Europe’s drive toward political union has stalled.
In each case, the logic is the same. Groups with a strong narrow interest are able to block larger groups with a diffuse but generalized interest. The narrow Chinese interest in Sudanese oil blocks the world’s general interest in preventing genocide. Iran’s narrow interest in nuclear weapons trumps the world’s general interest in preventing a Middle East arms race. Diplomacy goes asymmetric and the small defeat the large.
Moreover, in a multipolar world, there is no way to referee disagreements among competing factions. In a democratic nation, the majority rules and members of the minority understand that they must accede to the wishes of those who win elections.
But globally, people have no sense of shared citizenship. Everybody feels they have the right to say no, and in a multipolar world, many people have the power to do so. There is no mechanism to wield authority. There are few shared values on which to base a mechanism. The autocrats of the world don’t even want a mechanism because they are afraid that it would be used to interfere with their autocracy.
The results are familiar. We get United Nations resolutions that go unenforced. We get high-minded vows to police rogue regimes, but little is done. We get the failure of the Doha round and the gradual weakening of the international economic order.
A few years ago, the U.S. tried to break through this global passivity. It tried to enforce U.N. resolutions and put the mantle of authority on its own shoulders. The results of that enterprise, the Iraq war, suggest that this approach will not be tried again anytime soon.
And so the globosclerosis continues, and people around the world lose faith in their leaders. It’s worth remembering that George W. Bush is actually more popular than many of his peers. His approval ratings hover around 29 percent. Gordon Brown’s are about 17 percent. Japan’s Yasuo Fukuda’s are about 26 percent. Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and Silvio Berlusconi have ratings that are a bit higher, but still pathetically low.
This is happening because voters rightly sense that leaders lack the authority to address problems.
The bottom line is that presidential candidates can talk grandly about global partnerships, but it’s meaningless without a mechanism to wield authority. A crucial question in an authority crisis is: Who has a strategy for execution?
The best idea floating around now is a League of Democracies, as John McCain and several Democrats have proposed. Nations with similar forms of government do seem to share cohering values. If democracies could concentrate authority in such a league, at least part of the world would have a mechanism for wielding authority. It may not be a return to Acheson, Marshall and the rest, but at least it slows the relentless slide towards drift and dissipation.
The answer is that, in the late 1940s, global power was concentrated. The victory over fascism meant the mantle of global leadership rested firmly on the Atlantic alliance. The United States accounted for roughly half of world economic output. Within the U.S., power was wielded by a small, bipartisan, permanent governing class — men like Acheson, W. Averell Harriman, John McCloy and Robert Lovett.
Today power is dispersed. There is no permanent bipartisan governing class in Washington. Globally, power has gone multipolar, with the rise of China, India, Brazil and the rest.
This dispersion should, in theory, be a good thing, but in practice, multipolarity means that more groups have effective veto power over collective action. In practice, this new pluralistic world has given rise to globosclerosis, an inability to solve problem after problem.
This week, for the first time since World War II, an effort to liberalize global trade failed. The Doha round collapsed, despite broad international support, because India’s Congress Party did not want to offend small farmers in the run up to the next elections. Chinese leaders dug in on behalf of cotton and rice producers.
In a de-centered world, all it takes is a few well-placed parochial interests to bring a vast global process tumbling down.
And the Doha failure comes amid a decade of globosclerosis. The world has failed to effectively end genocide in Darfur. Chinese and Russian vetoes foiled efforts to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe. The world has failed to implement effective measures to deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The world has failed to embrace a collective approach to global warming. Europe’s drive toward political union has stalled.
In each case, the logic is the same. Groups with a strong narrow interest are able to block larger groups with a diffuse but generalized interest. The narrow Chinese interest in Sudanese oil blocks the world’s general interest in preventing genocide. Iran’s narrow interest in nuclear weapons trumps the world’s general interest in preventing a Middle East arms race. Diplomacy goes asymmetric and the small defeat the large.
Moreover, in a multipolar world, there is no way to referee disagreements among competing factions. In a democratic nation, the majority rules and members of the minority understand that they must accede to the wishes of those who win elections.
But globally, people have no sense of shared citizenship. Everybody feels they have the right to say no, and in a multipolar world, many people have the power to do so. There is no mechanism to wield authority. There are few shared values on which to base a mechanism. The autocrats of the world don’t even want a mechanism because they are afraid that it would be used to interfere with their autocracy.
The results are familiar. We get United Nations resolutions that go unenforced. We get high-minded vows to police rogue regimes, but little is done. We get the failure of the Doha round and the gradual weakening of the international economic order.
A few years ago, the U.S. tried to break through this global passivity. It tried to enforce U.N. resolutions and put the mantle of authority on its own shoulders. The results of that enterprise, the Iraq war, suggest that this approach will not be tried again anytime soon.
And so the globosclerosis continues, and people around the world lose faith in their leaders. It’s worth remembering that George W. Bush is actually more popular than many of his peers. His approval ratings hover around 29 percent. Gordon Brown’s are about 17 percent. Japan’s Yasuo Fukuda’s are about 26 percent. Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and Silvio Berlusconi have ratings that are a bit higher, but still pathetically low.
This is happening because voters rightly sense that leaders lack the authority to address problems.
The bottom line is that presidential candidates can talk grandly about global partnerships, but it’s meaningless without a mechanism to wield authority. A crucial question in an authority crisis is: Who has a strategy for execution?
The best idea floating around now is a League of Democracies, as John McCain and several Democrats have proposed. Nations with similar forms of government do seem to share cohering values. If democracies could concentrate authority in such a league, at least part of the world would have a mechanism for wielding authority. It may not be a return to Acheson, Marshall and the rest, but at least it slows the relentless slide towards drift and dissipation.
Lifestyle - Working Long Hours & Paying a Price
DO you ever mutter under your breath at a dry cleaner with the temerity to open as late as 7 a.m.? Have you snapped at a neighbor who asks if you plan to attend the 7:30 p.m. town council meeting? Does your child have trouble remembering which country you are in this week?
If you answered yes to more than one of these questions, chances are you have been working the long hours that are increasingly common for many salaried employees.
Officially, the average workweek has changed little in the last two decades. But those figures mask a shift in who works the most. In 1983, the lowest-paid workers were more likely to work long hours, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. But by 2002, the most highly paid workers were twice as likely to work long hours as the lowest paid.
After my last column, on obesity as a workplace issue, my inbox was full of messages describing long days of sedentary work — along with lunches gulped down in the office, frequent travel and BlackBerrys that never seem to quit.
Is all this work a bad thing?
Truth be told, as a society we have been ambivalent about work hours as long as — well, as long as we have been a society. There have been demands for shorter work hours since the late 18th century, when it was not uncommon to spend 70 or more hours each week performing some kind of manual labor. In 1791, for example, Philadelphia carpenters went on strike, demanding a 10-hour workday. And in the 1840s, the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association petitioned the Massachusetts legislature for a 10-hour workday for mill workers. (Both efforts failed.)
But our Puritan work ethic has been part of our culture for just as long. Some employees are drawn to challenging, demanding work and the outsize financial rewards that can follow. A survey of highly paid American workers published in 2006 by the Center for Work-Life Policy found that 21 percent of them — mostly men, it should be noted — said they worked at least 60 hours a week under highly stressful conditions. Two-thirds of those respondents said they loved their work.
“Americans do seem to want to work longer, and you ask them, ‘Do you like your job?’ and we like our jobs more than other people do,” said Robert Whaples, a professor of economics at Wake Forest University who has studied work hours.
Professor Whaples theorized that when most people were working 12 hours a day or more, obtaining any amount of leisure time was more of a priority. But the general reduction in work hours has helped ease the need for downtime for at least some workers.
Alternatively, he said, “Maybe we’ve convinced ourselves this is what we should be doing” in a world of conspicuous consumption.
Still, long days at work take a serious toll. For starters, it is very hard for employees to maintain a healthy lifestyle when work and commuting consume 60 or more hours a week. It is probably not a coincidence that obesity has become more prevalent as work hours have expanded for some.
Too many hours at the office can also wind up being counterproductive. Employees who are overtired or preoccupied with neglected personal issues are unlikely to perform at their peak. They fall behind, spend more unproductive time at work to catch up, and so on.
It is in managers’ interests to help employees find ways to get more done in less time, and some are trying.
Sprint Nextel, for example, offers its employees time-saving services like the ability to fill prescriptions at work and help with travel planning, said Collier Case, Sprint’s director of health and productivity. There are also incentives to stay active at work: the headquarters in Overland Park, Kan., has covered pathways between buildings, and stairwells are designed to be inviting. (Also, some elevators operate at deliberately slow speeds.)
Other companies are addressing the problems of long hours head on. About a year ago, the financial services asset management group at Ernst & Young began trying to cope better with its busy season, roughly February to May, when long stretches of 11- and 12-hour days and weekend work are the norm. Arthur Tully, the partner in charge of the group, went to his manager, who offered to pay for consultants who could help change the group’s work style.
The consultants emphasized the inefficiency of multitasking (nothing gets done very well); the need for adequate sleep, exercise and a healthy diet; and the importance of scheduling time for restorative personal priorities.
Things changed. Free fruit was supplied twice daily, and bagels and cream cheese were replaced with granola and fruit. Employees were also urged to limit weekend work to one day when feasible, and get home to their families on Friday nights.
“There’s a view that the longer you work, the better you are,” Mr. Tully said. “But that’s not true at all.”
It was the group’s busiest season ever, Mr. Tully said, but employees’ hours declined over all. He does not yet know what effect the program had on turnover, but at least one part of it has been made permanent. The fruit deliveries ended after the busy season, and employees objected immediately. The fruit, Mr. Tully said, is back.
If you answered yes to more than one of these questions, chances are you have been working the long hours that are increasingly common for many salaried employees.
Officially, the average workweek has changed little in the last two decades. But those figures mask a shift in who works the most. In 1983, the lowest-paid workers were more likely to work long hours, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. But by 2002, the most highly paid workers were twice as likely to work long hours as the lowest paid.
After my last column, on obesity as a workplace issue, my inbox was full of messages describing long days of sedentary work — along with lunches gulped down in the office, frequent travel and BlackBerrys that never seem to quit.
Is all this work a bad thing?
Truth be told, as a society we have been ambivalent about work hours as long as — well, as long as we have been a society. There have been demands for shorter work hours since the late 18th century, when it was not uncommon to spend 70 or more hours each week performing some kind of manual labor. In 1791, for example, Philadelphia carpenters went on strike, demanding a 10-hour workday. And in the 1840s, the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association petitioned the Massachusetts legislature for a 10-hour workday for mill workers. (Both efforts failed.)
But our Puritan work ethic has been part of our culture for just as long. Some employees are drawn to challenging, demanding work and the outsize financial rewards that can follow. A survey of highly paid American workers published in 2006 by the Center for Work-Life Policy found that 21 percent of them — mostly men, it should be noted — said they worked at least 60 hours a week under highly stressful conditions. Two-thirds of those respondents said they loved their work.
“Americans do seem to want to work longer, and you ask them, ‘Do you like your job?’ and we like our jobs more than other people do,” said Robert Whaples, a professor of economics at Wake Forest University who has studied work hours.
Professor Whaples theorized that when most people were working 12 hours a day or more, obtaining any amount of leisure time was more of a priority. But the general reduction in work hours has helped ease the need for downtime for at least some workers.
Alternatively, he said, “Maybe we’ve convinced ourselves this is what we should be doing” in a world of conspicuous consumption.
Still, long days at work take a serious toll. For starters, it is very hard for employees to maintain a healthy lifestyle when work and commuting consume 60 or more hours a week. It is probably not a coincidence that obesity has become more prevalent as work hours have expanded for some.
Too many hours at the office can also wind up being counterproductive. Employees who are overtired or preoccupied with neglected personal issues are unlikely to perform at their peak. They fall behind, spend more unproductive time at work to catch up, and so on.
It is in managers’ interests to help employees find ways to get more done in less time, and some are trying.
Sprint Nextel, for example, offers its employees time-saving services like the ability to fill prescriptions at work and help with travel planning, said Collier Case, Sprint’s director of health and productivity. There are also incentives to stay active at work: the headquarters in Overland Park, Kan., has covered pathways between buildings, and stairwells are designed to be inviting. (Also, some elevators operate at deliberately slow speeds.)
Other companies are addressing the problems of long hours head on. About a year ago, the financial services asset management group at Ernst & Young began trying to cope better with its busy season, roughly February to May, when long stretches of 11- and 12-hour days and weekend work are the norm. Arthur Tully, the partner in charge of the group, went to his manager, who offered to pay for consultants who could help change the group’s work style.
The consultants emphasized the inefficiency of multitasking (nothing gets done very well); the need for adequate sleep, exercise and a healthy diet; and the importance of scheduling time for restorative personal priorities.
Things changed. Free fruit was supplied twice daily, and bagels and cream cheese were replaced with granola and fruit. Employees were also urged to limit weekend work to one day when feasible, and get home to their families on Friday nights.
“There’s a view that the longer you work, the better you are,” Mr. Tully said. “But that’s not true at all.”
It was the group’s busiest season ever, Mr. Tully said, but employees’ hours declined over all. He does not yet know what effect the program had on turnover, but at least one part of it has been made permanent. The fruit deliveries ended after the busy season, and employees objected immediately. The fruit, Mr. Tully said, is back.
World - Harvesting Food in a Hungry World
THE latest round of global agricultural trade negotiations that began seven years ago in Doha, Qatar, collapsed in acrimony this week in Geneva. While India and China are getting the blame for refusing to reduce import tariffs and farm subsidies, you can assume that trade officials in Europe and the United States are breathing a sigh of relief that they aren’t going to have to limit their own protectionism.
Nothing new here. Nor is it a staggering blow to world trade: the aggregate loss caused by the trade barriers in question is probably no more than $70 billion in a global imported food market of more than a trillion dollars. But what is different this time is a backdrop of soaring food prices that makes all past assumptions seem ossified. It also makes the world’s poorest people even more vulnerable when trade bureaucrats in both the wealthy West and rising East make vapid arguments.
Usually trade in agricultural produce involves governments’ efforts to prop up farmers who claim they will go broke without subsidies and tariffs. Constant improvements in technology, mechanization, plant breeding and farm chemicals have steadily increased food production per acre, and for the last 30 years led to a world that we assumed would be awash in cheap food.
Yet world prices for wheat, corn, rice, soy, coffee, cotton, dairy products, meats, fruits and vegetables have suddenly reached record levels. Why now?
The answer starts with the half-billion new middle-class consumers in China and India who increasingly wish to emulate the rich diet that Westerners take for granted. And they have the cash to buy the food they want on the world market. Despite slowing growth rates, world population is nearing seven billion people and may reach nine billion mouths in less than 40 years.
In addition, increases in the cost of oil have sent diesel fuel, fertilizers and farm chemical prices sky-high. Those added costs are now being passed on to consumers. Environmental regulations, water scarcities and urban development continue to cut back arable acreage. Technology and machinery constantly improve, but now only marginally improve on past serial leaps in production. More than one-fifth of the American corn crop is now devoted to ethanol. In short, the era of cheap food, like the age of cheap gas, may be about over.
The result is a growing revolution in the way we envision the economics of agriculture, and it should be reflected in the efforts of all nations to ensure much freer trade in food.
Yet Europe — usually the self-appointed voice of global moral conscience on international human rights, climate change and poverty — remains committed to agricultural policies that protect its own farm sector while stymieing farmers abroad. It is past time that the European Union let the market determine what and how its farmers produce, while also allowing its consumers to buy the safest and cheapest food it can, regardless of its origins.
Here at home Congress recently overrode President Bush’s veto to approve a $300 billion, multiyear farm bill awash in subsidy payments regardless of current commodity prices. Yet we all know the tired refrain each time these indefensible farm bills come up for enactment.
First, they are transparent election-cycle harvests for farm-state politicians, who have small constituencies but exercise outsized national political clout.
Second, because such special-interest legislation wins little broad public support, its supporters rely on phony rationalizations if not outright deception. In 1996 the trick was to call billion-dollar subsides the Freedom to Farm Act and vow a phase-out in seven years, a promise that was quickly forgotten.
In 2002, the next farm bill piggybacked onto fears following Sept. 11. So the gimmick was to name it the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act — as if giving millions to corporate wheat farmers might protect us from Al Qaeda. Now with the public worried about gas prices, the latest bill was pushed as the Farm, Nutrition and Bioenergy Act.
Third, all the rationalizations of this Depression-era legislation have become risible. Family farmers — now less than 1 percent of the population — disappeared as the farm subsidy industry grew. Indeed the wealthiest corporations now receive the most federal largess. Political considerations, not scarcities or nutrition, explain why crops like sugar and rice are subsidized and lettuce and fresh fruit are not.
For decades there has been neither a national interest nor a moral need for farm subsidies. But now in times of soaring world food prices there is not even economic justification. As a brave new world fought it out at the Doha talks, it is growing hungrier by the day.
It is understandable that poorer nations are near paranoid in their fear for their own farmers’ livelihoods should they import a glut of imported American and European food that is a product of sophisticated economies of scale. But with food shortages looming, all countries should now support open trade in food to encourage as much supply as possible for a hungry planet.
The best thing that the United States, the beacon of world capitalism, could now do is to stop interfering with its own farmers, let markets and need determine what they grow and how they farm — and then by such a principled American example persuade the rest of the world to do the same.
Victor Davis Hanson, a former raisin farmer and a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, is the author of “Fields Without Dreams” and “The Land Was Everything.”
Nothing new here. Nor is it a staggering blow to world trade: the aggregate loss caused by the trade barriers in question is probably no more than $70 billion in a global imported food market of more than a trillion dollars. But what is different this time is a backdrop of soaring food prices that makes all past assumptions seem ossified. It also makes the world’s poorest people even more vulnerable when trade bureaucrats in both the wealthy West and rising East make vapid arguments.
Usually trade in agricultural produce involves governments’ efforts to prop up farmers who claim they will go broke without subsidies and tariffs. Constant improvements in technology, mechanization, plant breeding and farm chemicals have steadily increased food production per acre, and for the last 30 years led to a world that we assumed would be awash in cheap food.
Yet world prices for wheat, corn, rice, soy, coffee, cotton, dairy products, meats, fruits and vegetables have suddenly reached record levels. Why now?
The answer starts with the half-billion new middle-class consumers in China and India who increasingly wish to emulate the rich diet that Westerners take for granted. And they have the cash to buy the food they want on the world market. Despite slowing growth rates, world population is nearing seven billion people and may reach nine billion mouths in less than 40 years.
In addition, increases in the cost of oil have sent diesel fuel, fertilizers and farm chemical prices sky-high. Those added costs are now being passed on to consumers. Environmental regulations, water scarcities and urban development continue to cut back arable acreage. Technology and machinery constantly improve, but now only marginally improve on past serial leaps in production. More than one-fifth of the American corn crop is now devoted to ethanol. In short, the era of cheap food, like the age of cheap gas, may be about over.
The result is a growing revolution in the way we envision the economics of agriculture, and it should be reflected in the efforts of all nations to ensure much freer trade in food.
Yet Europe — usually the self-appointed voice of global moral conscience on international human rights, climate change and poverty — remains committed to agricultural policies that protect its own farm sector while stymieing farmers abroad. It is past time that the European Union let the market determine what and how its farmers produce, while also allowing its consumers to buy the safest and cheapest food it can, regardless of its origins.
Here at home Congress recently overrode President Bush’s veto to approve a $300 billion, multiyear farm bill awash in subsidy payments regardless of current commodity prices. Yet we all know the tired refrain each time these indefensible farm bills come up for enactment.
First, they are transparent election-cycle harvests for farm-state politicians, who have small constituencies but exercise outsized national political clout.
Second, because such special-interest legislation wins little broad public support, its supporters rely on phony rationalizations if not outright deception. In 1996 the trick was to call billion-dollar subsides the Freedom to Farm Act and vow a phase-out in seven years, a promise that was quickly forgotten.
In 2002, the next farm bill piggybacked onto fears following Sept. 11. So the gimmick was to name it the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act — as if giving millions to corporate wheat farmers might protect us from Al Qaeda. Now with the public worried about gas prices, the latest bill was pushed as the Farm, Nutrition and Bioenergy Act.
Third, all the rationalizations of this Depression-era legislation have become risible. Family farmers — now less than 1 percent of the population — disappeared as the farm subsidy industry grew. Indeed the wealthiest corporations now receive the most federal largess. Political considerations, not scarcities or nutrition, explain why crops like sugar and rice are subsidized and lettuce and fresh fruit are not.
For decades there has been neither a national interest nor a moral need for farm subsidies. But now in times of soaring world food prices there is not even economic justification. As a brave new world fought it out at the Doha talks, it is growing hungrier by the day.
It is understandable that poorer nations are near paranoid in their fear for their own farmers’ livelihoods should they import a glut of imported American and European food that is a product of sophisticated economies of scale. But with food shortages looming, all countries should now support open trade in food to encourage as much supply as possible for a hungry planet.
The best thing that the United States, the beacon of world capitalism, could now do is to stop interfering with its own farmers, let markets and need determine what they grow and how they farm — and then by such a principled American example persuade the rest of the world to do the same.
Victor Davis Hanson, a former raisin farmer and a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, is the author of “Fields Without Dreams” and “The Land Was Everything.”
Fun - The Great Brazilian Lottery Rumour
When they write the definitive history of the Great Brazilian Lottery Rumor, its authors may not be able to get much closer to its precise origins than the notebook of Leonardo Ferreira, a reporter for The Brazilian Voice newspaper, which is published here.
Skip to next paragraph It was Mr. Ferreira who, in the newspaper’s July 26 issue, first printed the gossip that the winning ticket in New Jersey’s Mega Millions lottery drawing of July 22 had been purchased by a Brazilian immigrant at a supermarket in the Ironbound neighborhood, which has large Brazilian and Portuguese populations. The jackpot was $126 million.
The source of Mr. Ferreira’s tip was nebulous: a supermarket employee whose name he never learned. But in short order the scuttlebutt got increasingly rich and more colorful.
One version held that the immigrant was illegal and was afraid to step forward for fear of losing the prize and being deported. In a retelling, the woman had entrusted the ticket to a friend, a legal immigrant, who now refuses to give it back. A variant maintained that the woman gave the ticket to her boyfriend who ran off with both the ticket and another lover.
The rumors of the Brazilian multi-multi-multi-millionaire even became big news in Brazil, as they zipped back and forth between the continents via Internet, telephone, television and the jet streams of aspiration that connect the two countries. Within days, Brazilian television stations and newspapers, following up on Mr. Ferreira’s article, were tracking the story.
“Brazilians from all over Brazil have been calling me,” said Mr. Ferreira, who immigrated to the United States from Rio de Janeiro in 1995. “Everybody went crazy.”
Problem is, it may not be true.
Antonio Seabra, owner of A & J Seabra Supermarkets XII in Ironbound, where the winning ticket was sold, said in a telephone interview late Thursday that he knew the winners. And while he declined to disclose their names, he said the winners were a married couple, legal Portuguese immigrants who had been shopping at his chain of supermarkets for 35 years and who were putting off claiming the prize until they could get their legal affairs in order.
“They’re wonderful, wonderful people,” Mr. Seabra said. “They are so humble, a hard-working family. One of the American dreams.” The husband, he added, “actually went to work the next day.”
But the tale of the Brazilian lottery winner has become a great example of a world made small by modern telecommunications, media, trade and travel, where rumors in one immigrant corner of one American city can quickly reverberate back home, even if home is thousands of miles and a hemisphere away.
For the Brazilians of the Ironbound neighborhood and their relatives and friends in Brazil, a miraculous windfall of this magnitude represents the perfect get-rich-quick scheme, the ultimate expression of the American dream.
“People have been dreaming about the money and saying, ‘Oh my God! If I win this money, I can buy whatever I want! I can have the American dream!’ ” Mr. Ferreira said.
One elaboration of the rumor that gained currency during the week was that the ticket buyer was from Governador Valadares, a city in the south-central Brazilian state of Minas Gerais from which tens of thousands of people have migrated to the United States. Governador Valadares’s ties to the United States are so strong that it has come to be known as Brazil’s most American city.
“People here went nuts,” Raimundo Santana, a journalist in Governador Valadares, said about the rumor. “Wherever you go, all you hear is people talking about who this lottery winner might be, and what she might do with all this money.” The $126 million lottery jackpot is equivalent to nearly half of the city’s operating budget.
The rumor comes at a time when the Brazilian community in Ironbound seems in need of a boost. After years in which the Brazilian population here multiplied and Brazilian-owned businesses proliferated, the slumping American economy has compelled some residents to return to Brazil, where the economy is buoyant.
The rumors have provided immigrants a distraction from economic woes, and seems inspired in part by a feeling that a victory for a Brazilian here would, in some way, be a victory for the entire community.
Skip to next paragraph
It has also spurred unbridled fantasizing. One evening this week, employees and guests at the Casa Nova Grill, a Brazilian restaurant in Ironbound, were riffing on their dreams.
“I would travel the whole world and let people forget about me and settle down,” said Mariana Dias, who is from Belo Horizonte in Brazil and was visiting the restaurant’s manager, Rogerio Santos. “Then I would go back to Brazil.”
“I’d move to Miami Beach, I’d buy a Lambo,” said Mr. Santos, a native of Rio de Janeiro, using shorthand for a Lamborghini. “Bling, bling!”
But Francisco Sampa, the president of the Brazilian American United Association of New Jersey and a leader of the Brazilian community here, was more circumspect about the whole thing. He wasn’t buying into the rumors.
“I’m a man with the feelings,” he said while sitting at the restaurant’s bar sipping a Brazilian soda. “Everybody say it’s a Brazilian. But maybe not. I search already. I made a lot of phone calls, visit a lot of homes. Where is she? I know everybody.”
Still, the rumor of an illegal immigrant’s winning the lottery raised a question that hung in the air of Ironbound’s rodizio grill joints and choperia taverns this week: What’s an illegal immigrant to do if she suddenly finds herself holding a $126 million lottery ticket?
Dominick DeMarco, spokesman for the New Jersey Lottery, said that a nonresident foreigner, illegally in the country or not, could claim a prize provided that the person could show an official document that proves identity and country of origin. But the nonresident foreigner would face a 30 percent federal tax rather than the 25 percent that a legal resident would face.
He said a nonresident foreigner had not won the lottery’s jackpot “in recent memory.”
Richard Rocha, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said if the agency investigators received “credible information” that a person was in the country illegally, they might start investigating.
Mr. DeMarco said the kind of self-propelling theories that have been the buzz of Ironbound are not unique. “There are a lot of rumors swirling around when a winner doesn’t immediately step forward,” he said.
But he seemed amused by the increasingly colorful details of the rumors surrounding the July 22 drawing.
“I got to tell you,” he said, fighting back laughter. “There are probably as many stories out there as there are combinations of numbers.
Skip to next paragraph It was Mr. Ferreira who, in the newspaper’s July 26 issue, first printed the gossip that the winning ticket in New Jersey’s Mega Millions lottery drawing of July 22 had been purchased by a Brazilian immigrant at a supermarket in the Ironbound neighborhood, which has large Brazilian and Portuguese populations. The jackpot was $126 million.
The source of Mr. Ferreira’s tip was nebulous: a supermarket employee whose name he never learned. But in short order the scuttlebutt got increasingly rich and more colorful.
One version held that the immigrant was illegal and was afraid to step forward for fear of losing the prize and being deported. In a retelling, the woman had entrusted the ticket to a friend, a legal immigrant, who now refuses to give it back. A variant maintained that the woman gave the ticket to her boyfriend who ran off with both the ticket and another lover.
The rumors of the Brazilian multi-multi-multi-millionaire even became big news in Brazil, as they zipped back and forth between the continents via Internet, telephone, television and the jet streams of aspiration that connect the two countries. Within days, Brazilian television stations and newspapers, following up on Mr. Ferreira’s article, were tracking the story.
“Brazilians from all over Brazil have been calling me,” said Mr. Ferreira, who immigrated to the United States from Rio de Janeiro in 1995. “Everybody went crazy.”
Problem is, it may not be true.
Antonio Seabra, owner of A & J Seabra Supermarkets XII in Ironbound, where the winning ticket was sold, said in a telephone interview late Thursday that he knew the winners. And while he declined to disclose their names, he said the winners were a married couple, legal Portuguese immigrants who had been shopping at his chain of supermarkets for 35 years and who were putting off claiming the prize until they could get their legal affairs in order.
“They’re wonderful, wonderful people,” Mr. Seabra said. “They are so humble, a hard-working family. One of the American dreams.” The husband, he added, “actually went to work the next day.”
But the tale of the Brazilian lottery winner has become a great example of a world made small by modern telecommunications, media, trade and travel, where rumors in one immigrant corner of one American city can quickly reverberate back home, even if home is thousands of miles and a hemisphere away.
For the Brazilians of the Ironbound neighborhood and their relatives and friends in Brazil, a miraculous windfall of this magnitude represents the perfect get-rich-quick scheme, the ultimate expression of the American dream.
“People have been dreaming about the money and saying, ‘Oh my God! If I win this money, I can buy whatever I want! I can have the American dream!’ ” Mr. Ferreira said.
One elaboration of the rumor that gained currency during the week was that the ticket buyer was from Governador Valadares, a city in the south-central Brazilian state of Minas Gerais from which tens of thousands of people have migrated to the United States. Governador Valadares’s ties to the United States are so strong that it has come to be known as Brazil’s most American city.
“People here went nuts,” Raimundo Santana, a journalist in Governador Valadares, said about the rumor. “Wherever you go, all you hear is people talking about who this lottery winner might be, and what she might do with all this money.” The $126 million lottery jackpot is equivalent to nearly half of the city’s operating budget.
The rumor comes at a time when the Brazilian community in Ironbound seems in need of a boost. After years in which the Brazilian population here multiplied and Brazilian-owned businesses proliferated, the slumping American economy has compelled some residents to return to Brazil, where the economy is buoyant.
The rumors have provided immigrants a distraction from economic woes, and seems inspired in part by a feeling that a victory for a Brazilian here would, in some way, be a victory for the entire community.
Skip to next paragraph
It has also spurred unbridled fantasizing. One evening this week, employees and guests at the Casa Nova Grill, a Brazilian restaurant in Ironbound, were riffing on their dreams.
“I would travel the whole world and let people forget about me and settle down,” said Mariana Dias, who is from Belo Horizonte in Brazil and was visiting the restaurant’s manager, Rogerio Santos. “Then I would go back to Brazil.”
“I’d move to Miami Beach, I’d buy a Lambo,” said Mr. Santos, a native of Rio de Janeiro, using shorthand for a Lamborghini. “Bling, bling!”
But Francisco Sampa, the president of the Brazilian American United Association of New Jersey and a leader of the Brazilian community here, was more circumspect about the whole thing. He wasn’t buying into the rumors.
“I’m a man with the feelings,” he said while sitting at the restaurant’s bar sipping a Brazilian soda. “Everybody say it’s a Brazilian. But maybe not. I search already. I made a lot of phone calls, visit a lot of homes. Where is she? I know everybody.”
Still, the rumor of an illegal immigrant’s winning the lottery raised a question that hung in the air of Ironbound’s rodizio grill joints and choperia taverns this week: What’s an illegal immigrant to do if she suddenly finds herself holding a $126 million lottery ticket?
Dominick DeMarco, spokesman for the New Jersey Lottery, said that a nonresident foreigner, illegally in the country or not, could claim a prize provided that the person could show an official document that proves identity and country of origin. But the nonresident foreigner would face a 30 percent federal tax rather than the 25 percent that a legal resident would face.
He said a nonresident foreigner had not won the lottery’s jackpot “in recent memory.”
Richard Rocha, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said if the agency investigators received “credible information” that a person was in the country illegally, they might start investigating.
Mr. DeMarco said the kind of self-propelling theories that have been the buzz of Ironbound are not unique. “There are a lot of rumors swirling around when a winner doesn’t immediately step forward,” he said.
But he seemed amused by the increasingly colorful details of the rumors surrounding the July 22 drawing.
“I got to tell you,” he said, fighting back laughter. “There are probably as many stories out there as there are combinations of numbers.
World - After bike sharing success,now France plans Electric Cars
PARIS (AP) — Parisians and tourists so eagerly embraced a citywide bike-sharing plan that was begun a year ago that Mayor Bertrand Delanoë is proposing a four-wheeled version, using electric cars.
Under the plan, a driver could pick up a car on the Right Bank, snake up the slopes of Montmartre, then drop it off — and pay only for the minutes spent behind the wheel. But cars, even electric ones, are already proving more divisive than bikes.
With the price of gas steadily rising and parking in Paris a chronic headache, some drivers are delighted by the new project. Others, though, see it as a step backward, fearing it would produce more traffic and dependence on cars in an already congested city.
The program, called Autolib’, is expected to begin in late 2009 or early 2010 with a fleet of 4,000 electric cars, 2,000 within Paris and 2,000 in the suburbs.
Car sharing is a growing trend in many countries, with private companies like Zipcar flourishing in cities in the United States and elsewhere. Autolib’, however, will be run by the city of Paris.
As with the Velib’ bike-sharing program, Autolib’ would enable drivers to rent cars from one of 700 planned lots, both under and above ground, and drop them off at any other lot. Organizers say it is too soon to discuss many details, like how the lots would be monitored, whether the driver’s licenses of international tourists would be accepted, or even how much it would cost to rent a car.
Annick Lepetit, deputy mayor in charge of transportation, said Autolib’ would single out people who are considering buying their first automobile, in the hope of deterring them from ever buying a polluting car. By putting lots in the suburbs, it also would encourage occasional commuters to choose a gasoline-free alternative to get downtown.
Elsa Bergamo, 21, a university student, has been a Velib’ fan since day one. Like many young Parisians, she does not have a driver’s license, which can be expensive to obtain. But she is intrigued by Autolib’.
“It’s true that not everyone can afford to buy their own car, so it could be very useful,” she said.
Yet some members of the influential Green Party in Paris have been vocal critics, even though the proposal calls for electric cars. They want to reduce car use, period.
Denis Beaupin, a Green deputy mayor for the environment, said the Green Party would prefer a system in which shared cars were returned to the lots from which they were rented, to ensure that they are only used in exceptional situations.
But Pascal Husting, president of Greenpeace France, said he thought Autolib’ would be a step in the right direction.
“Today we have consumer habits, whether it’s going to Ikea or elsewhere, which necessitate that once in a while, even those who can’t afford cars need to use one, and in this sense I think this will complement public transportation,” he said. “We should be open to this type of initiative, knowing that there is not one solution to the problems of transportation and climate change.”
Financing for the project is still in the planning stages, and according to Ms. Lepetit, zero-emission hybrids could be an alternative if the city does not find a carmaker with the capacity to provide 4,000 electric cars in time.
Under the plan, a driver could pick up a car on the Right Bank, snake up the slopes of Montmartre, then drop it off — and pay only for the minutes spent behind the wheel. But cars, even electric ones, are already proving more divisive than bikes.
With the price of gas steadily rising and parking in Paris a chronic headache, some drivers are delighted by the new project. Others, though, see it as a step backward, fearing it would produce more traffic and dependence on cars in an already congested city.
The program, called Autolib’, is expected to begin in late 2009 or early 2010 with a fleet of 4,000 electric cars, 2,000 within Paris and 2,000 in the suburbs.
Car sharing is a growing trend in many countries, with private companies like Zipcar flourishing in cities in the United States and elsewhere. Autolib’, however, will be run by the city of Paris.
As with the Velib’ bike-sharing program, Autolib’ would enable drivers to rent cars from one of 700 planned lots, both under and above ground, and drop them off at any other lot. Organizers say it is too soon to discuss many details, like how the lots would be monitored, whether the driver’s licenses of international tourists would be accepted, or even how much it would cost to rent a car.
Annick Lepetit, deputy mayor in charge of transportation, said Autolib’ would single out people who are considering buying their first automobile, in the hope of deterring them from ever buying a polluting car. By putting lots in the suburbs, it also would encourage occasional commuters to choose a gasoline-free alternative to get downtown.
Elsa Bergamo, 21, a university student, has been a Velib’ fan since day one. Like many young Parisians, she does not have a driver’s license, which can be expensive to obtain. But she is intrigued by Autolib’.
“It’s true that not everyone can afford to buy their own car, so it could be very useful,” she said.
Yet some members of the influential Green Party in Paris have been vocal critics, even though the proposal calls for electric cars. They want to reduce car use, period.
Denis Beaupin, a Green deputy mayor for the environment, said the Green Party would prefer a system in which shared cars were returned to the lots from which they were rented, to ensure that they are only used in exceptional situations.
But Pascal Husting, president of Greenpeace France, said he thought Autolib’ would be a step in the right direction.
“Today we have consumer habits, whether it’s going to Ikea or elsewhere, which necessitate that once in a while, even those who can’t afford cars need to use one, and in this sense I think this will complement public transportation,” he said. “We should be open to this type of initiative, knowing that there is not one solution to the problems of transportation and climate change.”
Financing for the project is still in the planning stages, and according to Ms. Lepetit, zero-emission hybrids could be an alternative if the city does not find a carmaker with the capacity to provide 4,000 electric cars in time.
World - Is the water actually fine ?
ON the Fourth of July, the water temperature at the beach in Ocean City, N.J., was hovering around 60 degrees, but that didn’t stop people from going for a swim.
Neither did the large brown pipes that open all along the water’s edge, apparently also enjoying a sunny day off but ready to deliver storm water to the ocean at the next rain.
Steve Niedzielski, visiting from Downingtown, Pa., was building sand castles near the shoreline with his two young children, but said concerns about water quality were not on his mind. “In the past, I did think about it a lot because they had issues about people dumping their trash in the ocean,” he said. “But in recent years it hasn’t been a problem.”
Ocean dumping may not be a problem on the nation’s beaches the way it was in the late 1980s, but there is evidence that beachgoers are facing a different, less visible threat: contamination from storm water and in some cases sewage that ends up in the waters where people swim.
On Tuesday, the Natural Resources Defense Council released its 18th annual survey of beach water quality in the United States, reporting 22,571 closing and advisory days for possible contamination at 3,500 ocean, bay and Great Lakes beaches last year.
While the number of closings and advisories actually declined from 2006 — when 25,643 days at the beach were spoiled — the 2007 results were still the second-highest recorded since the council began tracking this data.
“Storm water is actually the largest cause of beach closings and advisories in the United States,” said Nancy Stoner, director of the council’s clean water project. “After a heavy rainfall, if the pipes are discharging on the beach, you could be swimming in all kinds of contaminants and pollutants that are not good for you in the long run.”
Ocean City was not singled out in the council’s report, and in fact it and the other beaches in Cape May County tend to be cleaner than those farther north in the state. But the council report cited New York and New Jersey as states that have experienced significant increases in beach closing and advisory days, up 33 percent in 2007 after a 96 percent increase in 2006.
Beach communities like those in New York and on the Jersey Shore face a constant struggle to balance urban infrastructure needs and the maintaining of clean recreation areas. Ocean City has employees who rake and clean up the beaches daily, said Jim Rutala, the city’s administrator, as well as many trash cans and recycling containers on the beach. But given that the community sits on a barrier island, storm water ends up in nearby waterways — as it does in many areas — along with whatever is picked up along the way.
A storm washes a potentially toxic mix of trash and chemicals into sewers — pet waste, bird droppings, motor oil, fertilizer, cigarette butts and other litter — which travels via pipes to rivers, lakes and the sea.
Some urban areas like New York City have combined sewerage systems that carry both raw sewage and storm water runoff to sewage treatment plants, which, during heavy rains, are designed to release that mix directly into waterways to avoid overflowing.
That means a less visible type of contamination than the trash that once washed up on the beach.
“You don’t necessarily see it,” Ms. Stoner said. “The water might be a little more cloudy, but a lot of times people don’t notice that.”
The decision on whether to close a beach or issue an advisory is primarily based on water quality tests by local health agencies, made once a week for most recreational beaches. The tests look for bacteria indicating human or animal waste, but not other contaminants.
Relying on data submitted by these health authorities to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the council reported that 7 percent of all samples taken in 2007 failed national health standards, the same percentage as in 2006.
A crucial problem for weekend beachgoers is getting information on water quality in time to use it. Typically during the summer, bathers won’t know for days after testing is completed whether the water has harmful bacteria because the current testing method can take 24 hours to show results, and some areas require a second test before officials decide to post a warning or close a beach.
“Right now, it takes up to three days for beaches to be closed because of water quality, so when the tests come back, you know you shouldn’t have been swimming for the past three days,” said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, a coalition working to protect coastal waters in New York and New Jersey. “It’s kind of an awkward public health message.”
Because heavy rains have consistently led to failed tests in some locations, health agencies sometimes issue pre-emptive beach advisories or closings after a downpour, without waiting for the next test.
New Jersey is one of the states participating in a pilot program to evaluate a rapid testing method that would provide results within several hours, one of the main goals of the E.P.A. and other environmental organizations.
“I would say in the next two to three years we’ll be in a position to see that rapid reliable testing is used much more frequently throughout the country,” said Benjamin H. Grumbles, the E.P.A.’s assistant administrator for water.
THERE is also a push to develop a newer testing standard, since the current one hasn’t been updated in 20 years, as well as for studies to determine how often beachgoers actually get sick from contaminated water.
“It’s not an exact science,” Mr. Grumbles said of monitoring the health effects of polluted beach water. But he cited gastrointestinal problems, rashes, and ear, nose and throat infections as some of the illnesses that can result.
Children, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems are particularly vulnerable, but advocacy groups worry about anyone who spends time in affected waterways.
In fact, the Surfrider Foundation, based in San Clemente, Calif., was founded in 1984 by a group of surfers concerned about getting sick from bacteria floating around their boards or lurking in the waves.
“We believe there is a problem — at least at some locations sometimes,” said Rick Wilson, coastal management coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation, though he acknowledged that progress had been made in the past decade.
“Prior to 2000, a lot of beaches weren’t tested at all,” he said. “It was a big step forward to get more standardized monitoring around the country.”
The 2000 Beach Act provides much of the funding for water quality testing programs nationwide and requires posting the results, which accounts for some of the rise in advisories and closings.
“We went from doing maybe 500 samples in 2002 to almost 5,000 in 2007,” said Robert Waters, who manages the beach monitoring program for the Suffolk County Department of Health Services in New York. “You can’t make the connection that because we have more advisories now that water quality is worse. It’s hard to tell.”
Ms. Stoner, however, said the data reported by the National Resources Defense Council in recent years were based on a relatively stable number of beaches being tested.
“It’s not due to increased testing in general over the past six years,” she said. “Instead it’s that there are more pollution problems at the beaches that are identified.”
Officials working on water quality issues cite aging sewerage systems as the main cause of beach water pollution, and note that testing the water is only the first step in solving the problem.
“The ultimate solution is not just to test the waters and tell people whether or not they’re going to get sick,” Ms. Stoner said, “but to clean them up.”
The Beach Protection Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives in April and is awaiting action in the Senate, would not only authorize more money for testing programs, particularly rapid testing methods; it would also expand the use of federal funds to include tracking and preventing the sources of water pollution.
Individual behavior also plays a role in cleaning up swimming waters — especially avoiding littering both upstream and at the beach.
“Street litter that comes out of storm drains is a big issue, and beach litter is a problem,” said Virginia Loftin, a research scientist with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. “It’s human behavior that we would like to see changed.”
AFTER the Fourth of July fireworks ended in Ocean City, heavy rains washed the streets clean of revelers’ debris. But by the next morning, some of that litter had traveled through the sewerage system and into the ocean, and then washed up on the beach.
A quick count revealed 180 cigarette butts along the shoreline between two sewer outflow pipes, along with straws, toothpicks, a wine cork, a candy wrapper, a coffee stirrer, a wooden ice cream spoon, a foam cup and a plastic bottle cap — just a sampling of the trash marking the water line in the sand.
Nearby, a young man wearing white board shorts and a gray tank top finished his cigarette and dug a hole with his toes a few feet from the water, dropped in the butt and covered the hole again. That brought the tally to 181 cigarette butts along just a fraction of the shoreline that day, waiting to welcome swimmers to the beach.
MORE INFORMATION
Many states post information about beach water quality and closings online; some localities also have hot lines.
As a general rule, health officials suggest staying out of the water for 24 hours after a heavy rain or at least keeping your head above water if you swim, especially near urban areas.
Neither did the large brown pipes that open all along the water’s edge, apparently also enjoying a sunny day off but ready to deliver storm water to the ocean at the next rain.
Steve Niedzielski, visiting from Downingtown, Pa., was building sand castles near the shoreline with his two young children, but said concerns about water quality were not on his mind. “In the past, I did think about it a lot because they had issues about people dumping their trash in the ocean,” he said. “But in recent years it hasn’t been a problem.”
Ocean dumping may not be a problem on the nation’s beaches the way it was in the late 1980s, but there is evidence that beachgoers are facing a different, less visible threat: contamination from storm water and in some cases sewage that ends up in the waters where people swim.
On Tuesday, the Natural Resources Defense Council released its 18th annual survey of beach water quality in the United States, reporting 22,571 closing and advisory days for possible contamination at 3,500 ocean, bay and Great Lakes beaches last year.
While the number of closings and advisories actually declined from 2006 — when 25,643 days at the beach were spoiled — the 2007 results were still the second-highest recorded since the council began tracking this data.
“Storm water is actually the largest cause of beach closings and advisories in the United States,” said Nancy Stoner, director of the council’s clean water project. “After a heavy rainfall, if the pipes are discharging on the beach, you could be swimming in all kinds of contaminants and pollutants that are not good for you in the long run.”
Ocean City was not singled out in the council’s report, and in fact it and the other beaches in Cape May County tend to be cleaner than those farther north in the state. But the council report cited New York and New Jersey as states that have experienced significant increases in beach closing and advisory days, up 33 percent in 2007 after a 96 percent increase in 2006.
Beach communities like those in New York and on the Jersey Shore face a constant struggle to balance urban infrastructure needs and the maintaining of clean recreation areas. Ocean City has employees who rake and clean up the beaches daily, said Jim Rutala, the city’s administrator, as well as many trash cans and recycling containers on the beach. But given that the community sits on a barrier island, storm water ends up in nearby waterways — as it does in many areas — along with whatever is picked up along the way.
A storm washes a potentially toxic mix of trash and chemicals into sewers — pet waste, bird droppings, motor oil, fertilizer, cigarette butts and other litter — which travels via pipes to rivers, lakes and the sea.
Some urban areas like New York City have combined sewerage systems that carry both raw sewage and storm water runoff to sewage treatment plants, which, during heavy rains, are designed to release that mix directly into waterways to avoid overflowing.
That means a less visible type of contamination than the trash that once washed up on the beach.
“You don’t necessarily see it,” Ms. Stoner said. “The water might be a little more cloudy, but a lot of times people don’t notice that.”
The decision on whether to close a beach or issue an advisory is primarily based on water quality tests by local health agencies, made once a week for most recreational beaches. The tests look for bacteria indicating human or animal waste, but not other contaminants.
Relying on data submitted by these health authorities to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the council reported that 7 percent of all samples taken in 2007 failed national health standards, the same percentage as in 2006.
A crucial problem for weekend beachgoers is getting information on water quality in time to use it. Typically during the summer, bathers won’t know for days after testing is completed whether the water has harmful bacteria because the current testing method can take 24 hours to show results, and some areas require a second test before officials decide to post a warning or close a beach.
“Right now, it takes up to three days for beaches to be closed because of water quality, so when the tests come back, you know you shouldn’t have been swimming for the past three days,” said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, a coalition working to protect coastal waters in New York and New Jersey. “It’s kind of an awkward public health message.”
Because heavy rains have consistently led to failed tests in some locations, health agencies sometimes issue pre-emptive beach advisories or closings after a downpour, without waiting for the next test.
New Jersey is one of the states participating in a pilot program to evaluate a rapid testing method that would provide results within several hours, one of the main goals of the E.P.A. and other environmental organizations.
“I would say in the next two to three years we’ll be in a position to see that rapid reliable testing is used much more frequently throughout the country,” said Benjamin H. Grumbles, the E.P.A.’s assistant administrator for water.
THERE is also a push to develop a newer testing standard, since the current one hasn’t been updated in 20 years, as well as for studies to determine how often beachgoers actually get sick from contaminated water.
“It’s not an exact science,” Mr. Grumbles said of monitoring the health effects of polluted beach water. But he cited gastrointestinal problems, rashes, and ear, nose and throat infections as some of the illnesses that can result.
Children, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems are particularly vulnerable, but advocacy groups worry about anyone who spends time in affected waterways.
In fact, the Surfrider Foundation, based in San Clemente, Calif., was founded in 1984 by a group of surfers concerned about getting sick from bacteria floating around their boards or lurking in the waves.
“We believe there is a problem — at least at some locations sometimes,” said Rick Wilson, coastal management coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation, though he acknowledged that progress had been made in the past decade.
“Prior to 2000, a lot of beaches weren’t tested at all,” he said. “It was a big step forward to get more standardized monitoring around the country.”
The 2000 Beach Act provides much of the funding for water quality testing programs nationwide and requires posting the results, which accounts for some of the rise in advisories and closings.
“We went from doing maybe 500 samples in 2002 to almost 5,000 in 2007,” said Robert Waters, who manages the beach monitoring program for the Suffolk County Department of Health Services in New York. “You can’t make the connection that because we have more advisories now that water quality is worse. It’s hard to tell.”
Ms. Stoner, however, said the data reported by the National Resources Defense Council in recent years were based on a relatively stable number of beaches being tested.
“It’s not due to increased testing in general over the past six years,” she said. “Instead it’s that there are more pollution problems at the beaches that are identified.”
Officials working on water quality issues cite aging sewerage systems as the main cause of beach water pollution, and note that testing the water is only the first step in solving the problem.
“The ultimate solution is not just to test the waters and tell people whether or not they’re going to get sick,” Ms. Stoner said, “but to clean them up.”
The Beach Protection Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives in April and is awaiting action in the Senate, would not only authorize more money for testing programs, particularly rapid testing methods; it would also expand the use of federal funds to include tracking and preventing the sources of water pollution.
Individual behavior also plays a role in cleaning up swimming waters — especially avoiding littering both upstream and at the beach.
“Street litter that comes out of storm drains is a big issue, and beach litter is a problem,” said Virginia Loftin, a research scientist with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. “It’s human behavior that we would like to see changed.”
AFTER the Fourth of July fireworks ended in Ocean City, heavy rains washed the streets clean of revelers’ debris. But by the next morning, some of that litter had traveled through the sewerage system and into the ocean, and then washed up on the beach.
A quick count revealed 180 cigarette butts along the shoreline between two sewer outflow pipes, along with straws, toothpicks, a wine cork, a candy wrapper, a coffee stirrer, a wooden ice cream spoon, a foam cup and a plastic bottle cap — just a sampling of the trash marking the water line in the sand.
Nearby, a young man wearing white board shorts and a gray tank top finished his cigarette and dug a hole with his toes a few feet from the water, dropped in the butt and covered the hole again. That brought the tally to 181 cigarette butts along just a fraction of the shoreline that day, waiting to welcome swimmers to the beach.
MORE INFORMATION
Many states post information about beach water quality and closings online; some localities also have hot lines.
As a general rule, health officials suggest staying out of the water for 24 hours after a heavy rain or at least keeping your head above water if you swim, especially near urban areas.
World - Waiting for Justice
Let’s pretend, for a moment, that you are Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, sitting in Khartoum and likely to face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity from the International Criminal Court for the last five years of bloodshed in Darfur.
You’re watching CNN International, and what comes on the screen but Radovan Karadzic, the notorious Bosnian Serb leader, apprehended after 13 years in hiding and about to be hauled to the United Nations-backed tribunal in The Hague on war-crimes charges.
Now what, Mr. Bashir?
A) Do you get really nervous at this peek into your future and decide to straighten up, do what the international community has been telling you to do, sign a peace deal and let peacekeeping forces into Darfur?
B) Or do you get only mildly nervous at this peek into your future, figure that you have some options, and decide that since there’s a wanted poster with your face on it, you might as well forget the peace deal and give the Janjaweed even freer rein to attack civilians and maybe even a few relief workers?
The dueling war-crimes cases of July — first Mr. Bashir is told that a prosecutor is seeking a warrant for his arrest on war-crimes charges, and then Mr. Karadzic actually gets arrested in Belgrade, Serbia, in a move that will most likely send him to The Hague — received two very distinct reactions from the international community. The reason may well lie in the two very distinct pathways that Mr. Bashir could choose in our opening puzzle.
Just about everyone except a few übernationalistic Serbs appeared to cheer the arrest of Mr. Karadzic, who was indicted for the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica in which Bosnian Muslim men were singled out for slaughter. But curiously, the request by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, for a warrant for Mr. Bashir’s arrest was greeted with ambivalence among international human rights activists.
“The problem is, it doesn’t stop the war,” said one human rights official, who spoke on condition that his name not be used. Gary Bass, a Princeton professor who wrote a book on the politics of war-crimes tribunals, said human rights advocates were caught in a bind in the Bashir case because they worry that an indicted Mr. Bashir might think he has no option but to continue waging war; if he makes peace, he will still have an indictment hanging over his head and could end up in The Hague.
“From a human rights perspective, what’s more important?” Mr. Bass asks. “Delivering justice for people who’ve been victimized, or preventing future victimization?”
There is a strand of those within the human rights community who say that war-crimes indictments should be used only after a conflict is resolved, because such indictments, they say, can extend the length of a conflict. Advocates of this view point to the case of Joseph Kony, head of the Lord’s Resistance Army, the guerrilla group that has been engaged in an armed resistance against the Ugandan government since 1987. During peace negotiations in 2005, the I.C.C. issued arrest warrants for Mr. Kony and his deputies, charging them with crimes against humanity that include murder, rape, sexual slavery and the enlisting of children as combatants.
Mr. Moreno-Ocampo met with some human rights advocates before issuing the warrants; the advocates said they urged him not to do it. Mr. Kony’s advisers said they would never surrender unless they were granted immunity from prosecution, but the Ugandan government doesn’t have the power to revoke a war-crimes indictment. A tenuous peace is holding right now in Uganda, but human rights advocates point out that Mr. Kony remains at large — he is believed to be hiding in eastern Congo — and fighting could flare up again at any time.
International justice advocates say the don’t-indict-until-the-conflict-is-over argument is bogus. “The push for justice is getting a bum rap,” said John Norris, executive director at Enough, a group that seeks to end genocide. “What they miss is what an indictment does to change the internal debate. It’s a big thing when the international community stands up and says ‘this guy is reprehensible and we’re not going to do business with him.’ ”
Mr. Norris worked on the Kosovo war for the State Department during the Clinton administration. He said he was in Moscow for negotiations in 1999, while NATO forces were bombing Serbia, when news came that the Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, had been indicted for war crimes. Russian negotiators, Mr. Norris said, “saw this indictment as a disaster.”
“They said the war was never going to end,” Mr. Norris said. “Everybody was gnashing their teeth about it.” But, he argues, the indictment didn’t change Mr. Milosevic’s calculations. In fact, it was only a week later that Mr. Milosevic gave in to NATO’s demands and the war ended.
Why? For one thing, Mr. Milosevic had endured a fierce bombing campaign. For another, he believed — rightly — that he had other options. Indeed, it wasn’t until two years after he was indicted, in 2001 — after he had lost elections — that he was forced to surrender to Yugoslav security forces. He was then transferred from a jail in Belgrade to United Nations custody just inside Bosnian territory, and eventually to The Hague, where he died two years ago, his trial incomplete.
Mr. Karadzic’s case is even more striking. After the Bosnian war ended in 1995, he lived as a fugitive for 13 years. It wasn’t until Serbia elected a new government more interested in joining Europe than in nationalism that the authorities arrested the Bosnian Serb leader.
Those cases suggest that one way war-crimes indictments are useful is not so much to obtain justice, but as a tool to help shape the postwar behavior of a country: its new leaders may need a way to re-engage the outside world. In the case of Mr. Karadzic, Serbia’s new leaders realized he was of more use to them as a way to get back into the good graces of Europe.
An indictment also didn’t change the calculations of Charles Taylor, the Liberian president indicted for war crimes in March 2003. But it did play a role in clearing a path for peace, all the same.
Just a few months after he was indicted, Mr. Taylor agreed to a deal that forced him to leave Liberia for what was supposed to be a safe haven in Nigeria. Part of the deal, which Mr. Taylor struck with Nigeria’s president, Olusegun Obasanjo, was that he could stay, unarrested, provided he didn’t meddle in West African affairs and wars while in exile.
Prosecutors with the Special Court for Sierra Leone said that Mr. Taylor didn’t keep that promise, and Mr. Obasanjo rescinded Mr. Taylor’s “safe haven.” He was captured while trying to leave Nigeria in 2006, and was eventually carted off to The Hague; meanwhile, in his absence, Liberians had elected a new democratic leader, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who promised reconciliation.
Professor Bass of Princeton says that while he’s not sure war-crimes indictments are always the way to go in the midst of a conflict, he does think indictments sometimes embolden a country’s opposition, making a despot’s reign more tenuous. “It tells domestic political opponents that maybe the time is right to get rid of you,” he says.
And, he adds, no matter the problems it may create, there’s something to be said for justice.
“Does finding out the truth mean something?” he asks. “For a lot of people — like the Armenians, for instance — it does.”
You’re watching CNN International, and what comes on the screen but Radovan Karadzic, the notorious Bosnian Serb leader, apprehended after 13 years in hiding and about to be hauled to the United Nations-backed tribunal in The Hague on war-crimes charges.
Now what, Mr. Bashir?
A) Do you get really nervous at this peek into your future and decide to straighten up, do what the international community has been telling you to do, sign a peace deal and let peacekeeping forces into Darfur?
B) Or do you get only mildly nervous at this peek into your future, figure that you have some options, and decide that since there’s a wanted poster with your face on it, you might as well forget the peace deal and give the Janjaweed even freer rein to attack civilians and maybe even a few relief workers?
The dueling war-crimes cases of July — first Mr. Bashir is told that a prosecutor is seeking a warrant for his arrest on war-crimes charges, and then Mr. Karadzic actually gets arrested in Belgrade, Serbia, in a move that will most likely send him to The Hague — received two very distinct reactions from the international community. The reason may well lie in the two very distinct pathways that Mr. Bashir could choose in our opening puzzle.
Just about everyone except a few übernationalistic Serbs appeared to cheer the arrest of Mr. Karadzic, who was indicted for the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica in which Bosnian Muslim men were singled out for slaughter. But curiously, the request by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, for a warrant for Mr. Bashir’s arrest was greeted with ambivalence among international human rights activists.
“The problem is, it doesn’t stop the war,” said one human rights official, who spoke on condition that his name not be used. Gary Bass, a Princeton professor who wrote a book on the politics of war-crimes tribunals, said human rights advocates were caught in a bind in the Bashir case because they worry that an indicted Mr. Bashir might think he has no option but to continue waging war; if he makes peace, he will still have an indictment hanging over his head and could end up in The Hague.
“From a human rights perspective, what’s more important?” Mr. Bass asks. “Delivering justice for people who’ve been victimized, or preventing future victimization?”
There is a strand of those within the human rights community who say that war-crimes indictments should be used only after a conflict is resolved, because such indictments, they say, can extend the length of a conflict. Advocates of this view point to the case of Joseph Kony, head of the Lord’s Resistance Army, the guerrilla group that has been engaged in an armed resistance against the Ugandan government since 1987. During peace negotiations in 2005, the I.C.C. issued arrest warrants for Mr. Kony and his deputies, charging them with crimes against humanity that include murder, rape, sexual slavery and the enlisting of children as combatants.
Mr. Moreno-Ocampo met with some human rights advocates before issuing the warrants; the advocates said they urged him not to do it. Mr. Kony’s advisers said they would never surrender unless they were granted immunity from prosecution, but the Ugandan government doesn’t have the power to revoke a war-crimes indictment. A tenuous peace is holding right now in Uganda, but human rights advocates point out that Mr. Kony remains at large — he is believed to be hiding in eastern Congo — and fighting could flare up again at any time.
International justice advocates say the don’t-indict-until-the-conflict-is-over argument is bogus. “The push for justice is getting a bum rap,” said John Norris, executive director at Enough, a group that seeks to end genocide. “What they miss is what an indictment does to change the internal debate. It’s a big thing when the international community stands up and says ‘this guy is reprehensible and we’re not going to do business with him.’ ”
Mr. Norris worked on the Kosovo war for the State Department during the Clinton administration. He said he was in Moscow for negotiations in 1999, while NATO forces were bombing Serbia, when news came that the Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, had been indicted for war crimes. Russian negotiators, Mr. Norris said, “saw this indictment as a disaster.”
“They said the war was never going to end,” Mr. Norris said. “Everybody was gnashing their teeth about it.” But, he argues, the indictment didn’t change Mr. Milosevic’s calculations. In fact, it was only a week later that Mr. Milosevic gave in to NATO’s demands and the war ended.
Why? For one thing, Mr. Milosevic had endured a fierce bombing campaign. For another, he believed — rightly — that he had other options. Indeed, it wasn’t until two years after he was indicted, in 2001 — after he had lost elections — that he was forced to surrender to Yugoslav security forces. He was then transferred from a jail in Belgrade to United Nations custody just inside Bosnian territory, and eventually to The Hague, where he died two years ago, his trial incomplete.
Mr. Karadzic’s case is even more striking. After the Bosnian war ended in 1995, he lived as a fugitive for 13 years. It wasn’t until Serbia elected a new government more interested in joining Europe than in nationalism that the authorities arrested the Bosnian Serb leader.
Those cases suggest that one way war-crimes indictments are useful is not so much to obtain justice, but as a tool to help shape the postwar behavior of a country: its new leaders may need a way to re-engage the outside world. In the case of Mr. Karadzic, Serbia’s new leaders realized he was of more use to them as a way to get back into the good graces of Europe.
An indictment also didn’t change the calculations of Charles Taylor, the Liberian president indicted for war crimes in March 2003. But it did play a role in clearing a path for peace, all the same.
Just a few months after he was indicted, Mr. Taylor agreed to a deal that forced him to leave Liberia for what was supposed to be a safe haven in Nigeria. Part of the deal, which Mr. Taylor struck with Nigeria’s president, Olusegun Obasanjo, was that he could stay, unarrested, provided he didn’t meddle in West African affairs and wars while in exile.
Prosecutors with the Special Court for Sierra Leone said that Mr. Taylor didn’t keep that promise, and Mr. Obasanjo rescinded Mr. Taylor’s “safe haven.” He was captured while trying to leave Nigeria in 2006, and was eventually carted off to The Hague; meanwhile, in his absence, Liberians had elected a new democratic leader, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who promised reconciliation.
Professor Bass of Princeton says that while he’s not sure war-crimes indictments are always the way to go in the midst of a conflict, he does think indictments sometimes embolden a country’s opposition, making a despot’s reign more tenuous. “It tells domestic political opponents that maybe the time is right to get rid of you,” he says.
And, he adds, no matter the problems it may create, there’s something to be said for justice.
“Does finding out the truth mean something?” he asks. “For a lot of people — like the Armenians, for instance — it does.”
World - Brazil rides a wave of growth
Desperate to escape her hand-to-mouth existence in one of Brazil's poorest regions, Maria Benedita Sousa used a small loan five years ago to buy two sewing machines and start her own business making women's underwear.
Today Sousa, a mother of three who started out working in a jeans factory making minimum wage, employs 25 people in a modest two-room factory that produces 55,000 pairs of cotton underpants a month. She bought and renovated a house for her family and is now thinking of buying a second car. Her daughter, who is studying to be a pharmacist, could be the first family member ever to finish college.
"You can't imagine the happiness I am feeling," Sousa, 43, said from the floor of her business, Big Mateus, named after a son. "I am someone who came from the countryside to the city. I battled and battled, and today my children are studying, with one in college and two others in school. It's a gift from God."
Today her country is lifting itself up in much the same way.
Brazil, which has the largest economy in South America, is finally poised to realize its long-anticipated potential as a global player, economists say, as the country rides its biggest economic expansion in three decades.
That growth is being felt in nearly all parts of the economy, creating a new class of superrich even as people like Sousa lift themselves into an expanding middle class.
It has also given Brazil new swagger, providing it, for instance, with greater leverage to push for a tougher bargain with the United States and Europe in global trade talks. After seven years, those negotiations finally broke down this week over demands by India and China for safeguards for their farmers, a clear sign of the rising clout of these emerging economies.
Despite investor fears about the leftist bent of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva when he was elected in 2002, he has demonstrated a light touch when it comes to economic stewardship, avoiding the populist impulses of leaders in Venezuela and Bolivia.
Instead, he has fueled Brazil's growth through a deft combination of respect for financial markets and targeted social programs, which are lifting millions out of poverty, said David Fleischer, a political analyst and emeritus professor at the University of Brasilia. Sousa is one such beneficiary.
Long known for its unequal distribution of wealth, Brazil has shrunk its income gap by 6 percent since 2001, more than any other country in South America this decade, said Francisco Ferreira, a lead economist at the World Bank.
While the top 10 percent of Brazil's earners saw their cumulative income rise by 7 percent from 2001 to 2006, the bottom 10 percent shot up by 58 percent, said Marcelo Cortes Neri, the director of the Center for Social Policies at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in Rio de Janeiro.
But Brazil is also outspending most of its Latin American neighbors on social programs, and overall public spending continues to be nearly four times as high as what Mexico spends as a percentage of its gross national product, Ferreira said.
Still, the momentum of its economic expansion is expected to last.
As the United States and parts of Europe struggle with recession and the fallout from housing crises, the Brazilian economy shows few of the vulnerabilities of other emerging powers.
It has greatly diversified its industrial base, has massive potential to expand a booming agricultural sector into virgin fields and holds a tremendous pool of untapped natural resources. New oil discoveries will thrust Brazil into the ranks of the global oil powers within the next decade.
Yet while exports of commodities like oil and agricultural goods have driven much of its recent growth, Brazil is less and less dependent on them, economists say, having the advantage of a huge domestic market - 185 million people - that has grown wealthier with the success of people like Sousa.
In fact, with a stronger currency and inflation mostly in check, Brazilians are on a spending spree that has become a prime motor for the economy, which grew by 5.4 percent last year.
They are buying both Brazilian goods and a rising flood of imported products. Many businesses have relaxed credit terms to allow Brazilians to pay for refrigerators, cars and even plastic surgery over years instead of months, despite some of the highest interest rates in the world. In June the country reached 100 million credit cards issued, a 17 percent jump over last year.
At Casas Bahia, a modestly priced Brazilian furniture store chain, the number of customers buying items on installments nearly tripled to 29.3 million from 2002 to 2007, said Sonia Mitaini, a company spokeswoman.
Other signs of new wealth abound. In Macaé, an oil boomtown near Rio de Janeiro, contractors are racing to finish new shopping malls and luxury housing to keep up with demand from burgeoning oil-service firms. At a port in Angra dos Reis, a town known for its spectacular islands, some 25,000 workers have found jobs building new Brazilian oil platforms.
Petrobras, Brazil's national oil company, shocked the oil world in November when it announced that its Tupi deepwater field offshore of Rio de Janeiro could hold up to eight billion barrels of oil.
Analysts think there could be billions of barrels more in surrounding areas, making Brazil second only to Venezuela in Latin America.
While the oil will be expensive and complicated to extract, Petrobras has said it expects to be producing up to 100,000 barrels a day from Tupi by 2010 and hopes to produce up to a million barrels a day in about a decade.
The new oil plays are setting off an investment boom in Rio de Janeiro, with an estimated 107 billion reals, or $68 billion, expected to flow into the state by 2010, according to the Brazilian government. Petrobras alone expects to invest $40.5 billion by 2012.
Some economists say a slowdown in the rest of the world's economy, especially in Asia, which is soaking up much of Brazilian exports of soybeans and iron ore, could crimp growth here. "But that probability is small," said Alfredo Coutino, the senior economist for Latin America for Moody's Economy.com.
In fact, because the Brazilian economy has become so diversified, the country is less susceptible to a hangover from the struggling U.S. economy, unlike many others in Latin America.
Brazilian exports to the United States represent just 2.5 percent of the Brazilian gross national product, compared with 25 percent of GNP for Mexican exports, according to Moody's.
Mery Galanternick contributed reporting from Rio de Janeiro.
Today Sousa, a mother of three who started out working in a jeans factory making minimum wage, employs 25 people in a modest two-room factory that produces 55,000 pairs of cotton underpants a month. She bought and renovated a house for her family and is now thinking of buying a second car. Her daughter, who is studying to be a pharmacist, could be the first family member ever to finish college.
"You can't imagine the happiness I am feeling," Sousa, 43, said from the floor of her business, Big Mateus, named after a son. "I am someone who came from the countryside to the city. I battled and battled, and today my children are studying, with one in college and two others in school. It's a gift from God."
Today her country is lifting itself up in much the same way.
Brazil, which has the largest economy in South America, is finally poised to realize its long-anticipated potential as a global player, economists say, as the country rides its biggest economic expansion in three decades.
That growth is being felt in nearly all parts of the economy, creating a new class of superrich even as people like Sousa lift themselves into an expanding middle class.
It has also given Brazil new swagger, providing it, for instance, with greater leverage to push for a tougher bargain with the United States and Europe in global trade talks. After seven years, those negotiations finally broke down this week over demands by India and China for safeguards for their farmers, a clear sign of the rising clout of these emerging economies.
Despite investor fears about the leftist bent of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva when he was elected in 2002, he has demonstrated a light touch when it comes to economic stewardship, avoiding the populist impulses of leaders in Venezuela and Bolivia.
Instead, he has fueled Brazil's growth through a deft combination of respect for financial markets and targeted social programs, which are lifting millions out of poverty, said David Fleischer, a political analyst and emeritus professor at the University of Brasilia. Sousa is one such beneficiary.
Long known for its unequal distribution of wealth, Brazil has shrunk its income gap by 6 percent since 2001, more than any other country in South America this decade, said Francisco Ferreira, a lead economist at the World Bank.
While the top 10 percent of Brazil's earners saw their cumulative income rise by 7 percent from 2001 to 2006, the bottom 10 percent shot up by 58 percent, said Marcelo Cortes Neri, the director of the Center for Social Policies at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in Rio de Janeiro.
But Brazil is also outspending most of its Latin American neighbors on social programs, and overall public spending continues to be nearly four times as high as what Mexico spends as a percentage of its gross national product, Ferreira said.
Still, the momentum of its economic expansion is expected to last.
As the United States and parts of Europe struggle with recession and the fallout from housing crises, the Brazilian economy shows few of the vulnerabilities of other emerging powers.
It has greatly diversified its industrial base, has massive potential to expand a booming agricultural sector into virgin fields and holds a tremendous pool of untapped natural resources. New oil discoveries will thrust Brazil into the ranks of the global oil powers within the next decade.
Yet while exports of commodities like oil and agricultural goods have driven much of its recent growth, Brazil is less and less dependent on them, economists say, having the advantage of a huge domestic market - 185 million people - that has grown wealthier with the success of people like Sousa.
In fact, with a stronger currency and inflation mostly in check, Brazilians are on a spending spree that has become a prime motor for the economy, which grew by 5.4 percent last year.
They are buying both Brazilian goods and a rising flood of imported products. Many businesses have relaxed credit terms to allow Brazilians to pay for refrigerators, cars and even plastic surgery over years instead of months, despite some of the highest interest rates in the world. In June the country reached 100 million credit cards issued, a 17 percent jump over last year.
At Casas Bahia, a modestly priced Brazilian furniture store chain, the number of customers buying items on installments nearly tripled to 29.3 million from 2002 to 2007, said Sonia Mitaini, a company spokeswoman.
Other signs of new wealth abound. In Macaé, an oil boomtown near Rio de Janeiro, contractors are racing to finish new shopping malls and luxury housing to keep up with demand from burgeoning oil-service firms. At a port in Angra dos Reis, a town known for its spectacular islands, some 25,000 workers have found jobs building new Brazilian oil platforms.
Petrobras, Brazil's national oil company, shocked the oil world in November when it announced that its Tupi deepwater field offshore of Rio de Janeiro could hold up to eight billion barrels of oil.
Analysts think there could be billions of barrels more in surrounding areas, making Brazil second only to Venezuela in Latin America.
While the oil will be expensive and complicated to extract, Petrobras has said it expects to be producing up to 100,000 barrels a day from Tupi by 2010 and hopes to produce up to a million barrels a day in about a decade.
The new oil plays are setting off an investment boom in Rio de Janeiro, with an estimated 107 billion reals, or $68 billion, expected to flow into the state by 2010, according to the Brazilian government. Petrobras alone expects to invest $40.5 billion by 2012.
Some economists say a slowdown in the rest of the world's economy, especially in Asia, which is soaking up much of Brazilian exports of soybeans and iron ore, could crimp growth here. "But that probability is small," said Alfredo Coutino, the senior economist for Latin America for Moody's Economy.com.
In fact, because the Brazilian economy has become so diversified, the country is less susceptible to a hangover from the struggling U.S. economy, unlike many others in Latin America.
Brazilian exports to the United States represent just 2.5 percent of the Brazilian gross national product, compared with 25 percent of GNP for Mexican exports, according to Moody's.
Mery Galanternick contributed reporting from Rio de Janeiro.
Fun - Paris Airports offer Free Dance Lessons
Parisian airports are offering free dance lessons in their terminals this summer to help passengers get into the holiday spirit, the company that runs the airports said on Thursday.
"So if you're flying to Cuba you can learn salsa and if you're flying to New York you can learn hip hop," a spokesman for Aeroports de Paris, or ADP, said.
The lessons last 15 minutes, and passengers hear music and instructions from teachers through headphones. ADP said 4,000 people had already enjoyed free classes since the program started in late June.
Classes take place all day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on busy summer weekends and an ADP statement said Oriental dance, mambo, modern jazz, rock'n'roll and tango were among the styles on offer in addition to salsa and hip hop.
The spokesman said Latin dances were proving the most popular so far
"So if you're flying to Cuba you can learn salsa and if you're flying to New York you can learn hip hop," a spokesman for Aeroports de Paris, or ADP, said.
The lessons last 15 minutes, and passengers hear music and instructions from teachers through headphones. ADP said 4,000 people had already enjoyed free classes since the program started in late June.
Classes take place all day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on busy summer weekends and an ADP statement said Oriental dance, mambo, modern jazz, rock'n'roll and tango were among the styles on offer in addition to salsa and hip hop.
The spokesman said Latin dances were proving the most popular so far
Lifestyle - Shorts for Men
First came Casual Fridays, that dread episode in the history of fashion, with their invitation for men to trade in suits for Dockers and to swap a proper shirt and tie for an open neck and a daring flash of masculine décolletage.
Then the bare ankle migrated from country-club Saturdays to meeting-room Mondays and suddenly men, whether shod in wingtips or loafers, were widely seen without socks. Now it appears that, after some stops and starts in recent seasons, the men of the white-collar work force are marching into the office in shorts.
It was no more than a moment ago, in the sartorial long view, that a guy who came to work wearing short pants would have been shown the door - or, anyway, given the address for human resources at UPS. All that appears to be changing.
Consider that an advertising agency in Salt Lake City this summer introduced a no-long-trousers policy. Consider the octogenarian New York lawyer who ditched his seersucker suit for jaunty camouflage shorts on the job. Consider the pack of stylish young men on the streets of New York who find it not only sensible, in thermometer terms, to beat the heat by wearing shorts but also, in style terms, cool.
"We try to have a little bit of fun around here on a regular basis," said Dave Newbold, president of Richter7, the Salt Lake City ad agency in question, whose clients include Medtronic and the Chamber of Commerce of Park City, Utah, where wearing long pants outside of ski season is practically a violation of the law.
Then the bare ankle migrated from country-club Saturdays to meeting-room Mondays and suddenly men, whether shod in wingtips or loafers, were widely seen without socks. Now it appears that, after some stops and starts in recent seasons, the men of the white-collar work force are marching into the office in shorts.
It was no more than a moment ago, in the sartorial long view, that a guy who came to work wearing short pants would have been shown the door - or, anyway, given the address for human resources at UPS. All that appears to be changing.
Consider that an advertising agency in Salt Lake City this summer introduced a no-long-trousers policy. Consider the octogenarian New York lawyer who ditched his seersucker suit for jaunty camouflage shorts on the job. Consider the pack of stylish young men on the streets of New York who find it not only sensible, in thermometer terms, to beat the heat by wearing shorts but also, in style terms, cool.
"We try to have a little bit of fun around here on a regular basis," said Dave Newbold, president of Richter7, the Salt Lake City ad agency in question, whose clients include Medtronic and the Chamber of Commerce of Park City, Utah, where wearing long pants outside of ski season is practically a violation of the law.
When Sean Avery, a National Hockey League player, took an internship at Vogue this summer, the work uniform that the fashion-besotted left wing chose included a shorts suit that showcased his athletic calves.
"Why go to work and be hot?" he asked last week, adding that there was no compelling business reason to look modest and dull on the job.
"You can look good and not have that boring-type look," said Avery, who signed with the Dallas Stars this summer after several seasons with the New York Rangers. "Why are women allowed to do it and not men?"
The willingness of men to expand the amount of skin they are inclined to display can be gauged by the short-sleeved shirts Barack Obama has lately favored, the muscle T-shirts Anderson Cooper wears on CNN assignment and the Armani billboard in which David Beckham, the soccer star, appears nearly nude.
For Avery, a man in a shorts suit is no more startling than a woman in a miniskirt.
"Women have the option of wearing a dress," he said with the assurance of someone who can hip-check those who fail to share his opinion. "I haven't asked them, but I'm sure women like looking at a man's calves or, if a man has them, nice ankles."
That may be. Yet none of the New York City banks, law firms, stock brokerages or hospitals contacted by a reporter last week considered shorts an acceptable part of a work uniform, for reasons that varied from the need to preserve institutional decorum to hygiene (imagine a hairy leg in an operating room.)
Still, it is probably worth remembering that there was a time when politicians were seldom seen, even out of the office, without their decorous suit coats, and never in short pants (Richard Nixon famously wore shoes on the beach).
And it was only a short while ago that news anchors who ventured out on combat assignment did so in more protective khaki than a Victorian ornithologist braving the wilds of Borneo.
Fifteen years ago, when Hyman Gross, a real estate lawyer in Manhattan who is in his ninth decade, proposed wearing shorts in summer, his boss responded that the firm was not a beach club.
"It's a pretty straitlaced office, and I quickly retreated from that position," Gross said. Last year, though, looking at office workers of both sexes disporting themselves seminaked on the streets of the city, he concluded it was time for shorts. "It seems so strange on an over-90-degree day to subject yourself to sartorial rigidity," he said.
And so there was Gross taking a break at Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan, nattily attired in a black polo shirt from Target, a pair of sandy-colored camouflage shorts he bought in a shop in a subway arcade and a Panama topper from Arnold Hatters.
"I travel to and fro in shorts," said Gross, who also wears his short pants to the ballet and the opera. "No one has ever spoken to me about it. And if anyone decides they don't like it or they won't take me, it's their loss."
"Why go to work and be hot?" he asked last week, adding that there was no compelling business reason to look modest and dull on the job.
"You can look good and not have that boring-type look," said Avery, who signed with the Dallas Stars this summer after several seasons with the New York Rangers. "Why are women allowed to do it and not men?"
The willingness of men to expand the amount of skin they are inclined to display can be gauged by the short-sleeved shirts Barack Obama has lately favored, the muscle T-shirts Anderson Cooper wears on CNN assignment and the Armani billboard in which David Beckham, the soccer star, appears nearly nude.
For Avery, a man in a shorts suit is no more startling than a woman in a miniskirt.
"Women have the option of wearing a dress," he said with the assurance of someone who can hip-check those who fail to share his opinion. "I haven't asked them, but I'm sure women like looking at a man's calves or, if a man has them, nice ankles."
That may be. Yet none of the New York City banks, law firms, stock brokerages or hospitals contacted by a reporter last week considered shorts an acceptable part of a work uniform, for reasons that varied from the need to preserve institutional decorum to hygiene (imagine a hairy leg in an operating room.)
Still, it is probably worth remembering that there was a time when politicians were seldom seen, even out of the office, without their decorous suit coats, and never in short pants (Richard Nixon famously wore shoes on the beach).
And it was only a short while ago that news anchors who ventured out on combat assignment did so in more protective khaki than a Victorian ornithologist braving the wilds of Borneo.
Fifteen years ago, when Hyman Gross, a real estate lawyer in Manhattan who is in his ninth decade, proposed wearing shorts in summer, his boss responded that the firm was not a beach club.
"It's a pretty straitlaced office, and I quickly retreated from that position," Gross said. Last year, though, looking at office workers of both sexes disporting themselves seminaked on the streets of the city, he concluded it was time for shorts. "It seems so strange on an over-90-degree day to subject yourself to sartorial rigidity," he said.
And so there was Gross taking a break at Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan, nattily attired in a black polo shirt from Target, a pair of sandy-colored camouflage shorts he bought in a shop in a subway arcade and a Panama topper from Arnold Hatters.
"I travel to and fro in shorts," said Gross, who also wears his short pants to the ballet and the opera. "No one has ever spoken to me about it. And if anyone decides they don't like it or they won't take me, it's their loss."
Seminudity, of the sort proposed by Miuccia Prada or Dsquared in the recent men's collections, holds little appeal for someone like Kwesi Blair, a branding adviser whose shorts and blazer look became a wardrobe default during a recent sweltering spell.
Wearing a shorts suit, Blair explained, is not only more comfortable than the alternative, but a way to road test your own self-invention.
"I get a lot of looks and remarks," said Blair, whose wardrobe runs to conservative labels - a Polo blazer, shirt and tie, a pair of J. Crew shorts.
"On the street, people are like, 'That's a bold move.' But, honestly, I'm just tapping into my own sense of style and sensibility and putting it out there. It's not like I'm looking for acceptance."
Wearing a shorts suit, Blair explained, is not only more comfortable than the alternative, but a way to road test your own self-invention.
"I get a lot of looks and remarks," said Blair, whose wardrobe runs to conservative labels - a Polo blazer, shirt and tie, a pair of J. Crew shorts.
"On the street, people are like, 'That's a bold move.' But, honestly, I'm just tapping into my own sense of style and sensibility and putting it out there. It's not like I'm looking for acceptance."
Lifestyle - A Jeweller joins its friends on myspace
On MySpace, the social networking Web site, the rock band Panic at the Disco has 1.4 million friends. Coldplay has 467,000 friends. Paris Hilton has 178,000 friends and Madonna has 397,000.
As for Cartier, the luxury jeweler, it has more than 3,800 friends, including Sting, the band Good Charlotte and Lou Reed. And while the sincerity of these friendships is questionable — when was the last time that Eric Clapton sent Cartier a birthday card, or vice versa? — they send a message that Cartier cares about people who spend their time on MySpace.
Cartier, owned by Richemont of France, is one of the first luxury brands to hang out its shingle on a social networking site, for fairly obvious reasons. How do you market items of the you-can't-afford-it-if-you-have-to-ask-the-price variety to a population that is heavily represented by people who make their money by baby-sitting and mowing lawns?
"To work in the luxury environment, it means being a step in advance sometimes," Corinne Delattre, director of communications at Cartier, said. "We work with people moving fast. They use technology. They are ahead in their way of life."
On its MySpace site, Cartier has many friends who it hopes fit this description. Most of them are not famous, but the jeweler is counting on them nonetheless to spread the vibe through the social network and beyond.
The MySpace profile was set up to advertise jewelry in Cartier's Love collection, but visitors can also sample music from artists like Lou Reed and Grand National, including several songs with the theme of love that were composed for Cartier. They can watch film clips with a romantic story line. And, of course, they can click on any of those friends' pictures to visit their profiles.
The possibility of blending entertainment and marketing and spreading it through chain letter-style links has many marketers excited about social networking. But luxury brands, worried about the company they keep, have been reluctant to become involved with the likes of MySpace or Facebook. Cartier took the risk, Delattre said, because it was a "different way to talk to a young audience."
Actually, many expensive brands have been slow to move to the Internet generally, let alone to freewheeling frontiers like social networks. Some brand owners have spent years battling eBay, the online auction site, contending that it does too little to curb sales of fakes. Others have clashed with Google over its advertising system, which has allowed rival marketers to snatch away trademarks as search keywords.
A number of fashion and luxury companies have advertised on ASmallWorld, an invitation-only social network aimed at wealthy consumers. Now some of them are getting their first exposure to mainstream, mass-market social networks. Some have "fan pages" on Facebook, which allow people to post videos of themselves wearing their favorite designer fashions, for example.
But practically anyone can set up a page on Facebook, at no cost, which demonstrates two of the biggest problems with social networking as an advertising medium. One, for the advertiser, is a lack of control over the process. The other, for the network owner, is the lack of money changing hands: if "fans" of a luxury brand voluntarily tell their friends about it, why should the brand owner spend any money to do so?
Though ad spending on MySpace has trailed expectations, the company, part of the News Corporation, thinks it has solved some of the problem, with the Cartier campaign serving as a model. MySpace requires big marketers that want to create profiles to pay for the space, though it declined to say how much Cartier was being charged for its yearlong campaign.
In return, MySpace takes steps to drive traffic to advertisers' profiles and to ensure that the material that appears on them "respects the brand's objectives," as Damien Vincent, head of sales at MySpace France, put it. In the case of Cartier, that means weeding out some would-be friends. Candidates whose photos show them guzzling a beer at a party, for instance, are unlikely to make the cut, Vincent said.
MySpace is eager to show that its audience extends beyond teenagers looking to kill time after school. Eighty-five percent of American users are over 18, it says. "I think there's a huge potential market for luxury advertisers," said Jamie Kantrowitz, senior vice president for content and marketing at MySpace International.
Ben Hourahine, futures editor at the London branch of the advertising agency Leo Burnett, said the use of social networks was appropriate at a time when consumer attitudes about luxury were changing. In a recent survey of American consumers by the agency, only 7 percent said they thought "luxury" meant being part of an exclusive club.
"Luxury brands in the past had this unattainable aspect to them," he said. "Now they realize they need to connect and communicate with people."
As for Cartier, the luxury jeweler, it has more than 3,800 friends, including Sting, the band Good Charlotte and Lou Reed. And while the sincerity of these friendships is questionable — when was the last time that Eric Clapton sent Cartier a birthday card, or vice versa? — they send a message that Cartier cares about people who spend their time on MySpace.
Cartier, owned by Richemont of France, is one of the first luxury brands to hang out its shingle on a social networking site, for fairly obvious reasons. How do you market items of the you-can't-afford-it-if-you-have-to-ask-the-price variety to a population that is heavily represented by people who make their money by baby-sitting and mowing lawns?
"To work in the luxury environment, it means being a step in advance sometimes," Corinne Delattre, director of communications at Cartier, said. "We work with people moving fast. They use technology. They are ahead in their way of life."
On its MySpace site, Cartier has many friends who it hopes fit this description. Most of them are not famous, but the jeweler is counting on them nonetheless to spread the vibe through the social network and beyond.
The MySpace profile was set up to advertise jewelry in Cartier's Love collection, but visitors can also sample music from artists like Lou Reed and Grand National, including several songs with the theme of love that were composed for Cartier. They can watch film clips with a romantic story line. And, of course, they can click on any of those friends' pictures to visit their profiles.
The possibility of blending entertainment and marketing and spreading it through chain letter-style links has many marketers excited about social networking. But luxury brands, worried about the company they keep, have been reluctant to become involved with the likes of MySpace or Facebook. Cartier took the risk, Delattre said, because it was a "different way to talk to a young audience."
Actually, many expensive brands have been slow to move to the Internet generally, let alone to freewheeling frontiers like social networks. Some brand owners have spent years battling eBay, the online auction site, contending that it does too little to curb sales of fakes. Others have clashed with Google over its advertising system, which has allowed rival marketers to snatch away trademarks as search keywords.
A number of fashion and luxury companies have advertised on ASmallWorld, an invitation-only social network aimed at wealthy consumers. Now some of them are getting their first exposure to mainstream, mass-market social networks. Some have "fan pages" on Facebook, which allow people to post videos of themselves wearing their favorite designer fashions, for example.
But practically anyone can set up a page on Facebook, at no cost, which demonstrates two of the biggest problems with social networking as an advertising medium. One, for the advertiser, is a lack of control over the process. The other, for the network owner, is the lack of money changing hands: if "fans" of a luxury brand voluntarily tell their friends about it, why should the brand owner spend any money to do so?
Though ad spending on MySpace has trailed expectations, the company, part of the News Corporation, thinks it has solved some of the problem, with the Cartier campaign serving as a model. MySpace requires big marketers that want to create profiles to pay for the space, though it declined to say how much Cartier was being charged for its yearlong campaign.
In return, MySpace takes steps to drive traffic to advertisers' profiles and to ensure that the material that appears on them "respects the brand's objectives," as Damien Vincent, head of sales at MySpace France, put it. In the case of Cartier, that means weeding out some would-be friends. Candidates whose photos show them guzzling a beer at a party, for instance, are unlikely to make the cut, Vincent said.
MySpace is eager to show that its audience extends beyond teenagers looking to kill time after school. Eighty-five percent of American users are over 18, it says. "I think there's a huge potential market for luxury advertisers," said Jamie Kantrowitz, senior vice president for content and marketing at MySpace International.
Ben Hourahine, futures editor at the London branch of the advertising agency Leo Burnett, said the use of social networks was appropriate at a time when consumer attitudes about luxury were changing. In a recent survey of American consumers by the agency, only 7 percent said they thought "luxury" meant being part of an exclusive club.
"Luxury brands in the past had this unattainable aspect to them," he said. "Now they realize they need to connect and communicate with people."
Lifestyle - Never too young for a pedicure
One recent rainy afternoon, Eleanor LaFauci, 7, sat with her feet in open-toed foam slippers, admiring her toenails, freshly painted watermelon pink.
"Look, we're reading an adult magazine," Eleanor told her mother, gleefully waving a copy of People with a desultory-looking Britney Spears on its cover.
Eleanor was in the bubble-gum-colored pedicure lounge of Dashing Diva, the Upper West Side franchise of the international nail spa, with her 3 1/2-year-old sister and a half-dozen or so friends. The girls were celebrating her birthday with manis, pedis and mini-makeovers with light makeup and body art - glitter-applied stars, lightning bolts and, of course, hearts.
Eleanor's mother, Anne O'Brien, stood watching and shrugged. "What can I say?" said O'Brien, whose husband suggested the party. "She's a girly girl. I'm not quite sure how it happened. I didn't get my first manicure until I was 25."
Traditionally, young girls have played with unattended MAC eye shadow or Chanel foundation, hoping to capture a whiff of sophistication. In the recent past, young girls have also tagged along on beauty expeditions by their mothers and teenage sisters.
But today, cosmetic companies and retailers increasingly aim their sophisticated products and service packages squarely at 6- to 9-year-olds, who are being transformed into savvy beauty consumers before they're out of elementary school.
"The starter market has definitely grown, I think, due to a number of cultural influences," said Samantha Skey, the senior vice president for strategic marketing of Alloy Media and Marketing.
Reality programming like "America's Next Top Model" often hinges on the segment devoted to a hair and beauty transformation for the contestants, Skey said. On social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, members' intense self-focus and their attention to how they present themselves also affect 6- to 9-year-olds, even though technically, they aren't allowed to set up profiles on the sites, she added. "We live in a culture of insta-celebrity," Skey said. "Our little girls now grow up thinking they need to be ready for their close-up, lest the paparazzi arrive."
Sweet & Sassy, a salon and party destination based in Texas for girls 5 to 11, includes pink limo service as a party add-on, which starts at $150 a ride. And Dashing Diva franchises often offer virgin cosmos in martini glasses along with their extra-virgin nail polish, free of a group of chemicals called phthalates, for a round of services for a birthday girl and her friends.
At Club Libby Lu, a mall-based chain and the most mainstream of the primping party outlets, girls of any age can mix their own lip gloss and live out their pop idol fantasies. Last year, the chain did about a million makeovers in its 90 stores nationwide, said Ari Goldsmith, the director of advertising and marketing.
Many of those were Hannah Montana makeovers, which entail donning blond wigs, makeup and concert costumes like the ones the girls' idol wears. Mom and Dad capturing them on the camcorder belting tunes is optional.
Dozens of results can be seen on YouTube, including one zealous poster's series of "Rebecca as Hannah Montana."
Brides and bachelorettes have long thrived on beauty services done en masse. But now primping parties are even popular for first-graders.
Tracy Bloom Schwartz, an event planner at Creative Parties in Bethesda, Maryland., said that she ordered beauty-theme stock invitations a couple of years ago. "I figured we'd sell them for bridal and bachelorette-type of events," she said.
"But now the parents of little girls - easily 6 years old - use these cards as invitations for their daughters' birthday primping parties. And, the slightly older girls, say, 8 and 9, use them for makeover slumber parties," she said. "Sometimes I want to ask, 'makeover what?' "
In a study last year, 55 percent of 6- to 9-year-old girls said they used lip gloss or lipstick, and nearly two-thirds said they used nail polish, according to Experian, a market research company based in New York. In 2003, 49 percent of 6- to 9-year-old girls said they used lip gloss or lipstick.
Youth market analysts say this is part of a trend called KGOY, "kids getting older younger," and cultural observers describe a tandem phenomenon, more-indulgent parents.
It's a point that vexes Rosalind Wiseman, the author of "Queen Bees & Wannabes" (Three Rivers Press, 2003). "Mothers and fathers do really crazy things with the best of intentions," she said. "I don't care how it's couched, if you're permitting this with your daughter, you are hyper-sexualizing her. It's one thing to have them play around with makeup at home within the bubble of the family. But once it shifts to another context, you are taking away the play and creating a consumer, and frankly, you run the risk of having one more person who feels she's not good enough if she's not buying the stuff."
generation ago, girls had fewer products to choose from. Now, they have nail art; fragrance roll-ons; and all manner of glitter for face, neck, shoulders and hair marketed to them. That's in addition to staples like lip balms, lip glosses and nail lacquers.
These products are moderately priced so that grandparents and parents can treat. Or so the very young can afford them with nothing more than change from the sofa or their meager weekly allowance.
"Packaging is key," said Ricardo Cruz, the marketing and licensing manager of the youth division of Markwins International, a company that licenses and manufactures a Bratz line of cosmetic gift sets as well as ACT, the company's own brand. Because it's makeup for little girls, Cruz said: "We're not going to put lip plumper in there. It's just little things the girls can test out, try on with their friends."
With more-pressing issues of online predators, fast-food consumption and homework that needs to be done, the 10 parents interviewed for the article all said that they had allowed their daughters to attend a primping party.
"Of course, it depends on your environment, but here, I've even heard of Girl Scout troops doing this kind of social beauty thing," said Stacie Christopher, a mother of three from Chevy Chase, Maryland.
And yet, there is always potential for backlash.
Last summer, when Bonne Bell and Mattel announced a partnership to introduce a line of Barbie-inspired Bonne Bell beauty products for 6- to 9-year-olds at the end of this year, a modest firestorm was set off online. A debate followed on Jezebel, a celebrity and fashion blog, on how young was too young for girls to wear makeup. One commenter reduced it to a simple formula: "Lip gloss and mascara at age 12 (EQUAL) sure. Anything other than pink nail polish on anyone under 10 (EQUAL) no."
But cosmetics for girls at any age worries Lucy Corrigan, a mother of two daughters, 8 and 11, in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Still, last year she allowed her younger daughter to go to two salon birthday parties for 7-year-olds. "Of course, it was alarming," she said."But I'd rather my girls try it and decide they don't need all these products to be beautiful, and then do something more vital with their time and money and efforts, like write a poem or take a walk or save the world."
"Look, we're reading an adult magazine," Eleanor told her mother, gleefully waving a copy of People with a desultory-looking Britney Spears on its cover.
Eleanor was in the bubble-gum-colored pedicure lounge of Dashing Diva, the Upper West Side franchise of the international nail spa, with her 3 1/2-year-old sister and a half-dozen or so friends. The girls were celebrating her birthday with manis, pedis and mini-makeovers with light makeup and body art - glitter-applied stars, lightning bolts and, of course, hearts.
Eleanor's mother, Anne O'Brien, stood watching and shrugged. "What can I say?" said O'Brien, whose husband suggested the party. "She's a girly girl. I'm not quite sure how it happened. I didn't get my first manicure until I was 25."
Traditionally, young girls have played with unattended MAC eye shadow or Chanel foundation, hoping to capture a whiff of sophistication. In the recent past, young girls have also tagged along on beauty expeditions by their mothers and teenage sisters.
But today, cosmetic companies and retailers increasingly aim their sophisticated products and service packages squarely at 6- to 9-year-olds, who are being transformed into savvy beauty consumers before they're out of elementary school.
"The starter market has definitely grown, I think, due to a number of cultural influences," said Samantha Skey, the senior vice president for strategic marketing of Alloy Media and Marketing.
Reality programming like "America's Next Top Model" often hinges on the segment devoted to a hair and beauty transformation for the contestants, Skey said. On social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, members' intense self-focus and their attention to how they present themselves also affect 6- to 9-year-olds, even though technically, they aren't allowed to set up profiles on the sites, she added. "We live in a culture of insta-celebrity," Skey said. "Our little girls now grow up thinking they need to be ready for their close-up, lest the paparazzi arrive."
Sweet & Sassy, a salon and party destination based in Texas for girls 5 to 11, includes pink limo service as a party add-on, which starts at $150 a ride. And Dashing Diva franchises often offer virgin cosmos in martini glasses along with their extra-virgin nail polish, free of a group of chemicals called phthalates, for a round of services for a birthday girl and her friends.
At Club Libby Lu, a mall-based chain and the most mainstream of the primping party outlets, girls of any age can mix their own lip gloss and live out their pop idol fantasies. Last year, the chain did about a million makeovers in its 90 stores nationwide, said Ari Goldsmith, the director of advertising and marketing.
Many of those were Hannah Montana makeovers, which entail donning blond wigs, makeup and concert costumes like the ones the girls' idol wears. Mom and Dad capturing them on the camcorder belting tunes is optional.
Dozens of results can be seen on YouTube, including one zealous poster's series of "Rebecca as Hannah Montana."
Brides and bachelorettes have long thrived on beauty services done en masse. But now primping parties are even popular for first-graders.
Tracy Bloom Schwartz, an event planner at Creative Parties in Bethesda, Maryland., said that she ordered beauty-theme stock invitations a couple of years ago. "I figured we'd sell them for bridal and bachelorette-type of events," she said.
"But now the parents of little girls - easily 6 years old - use these cards as invitations for their daughters' birthday primping parties. And, the slightly older girls, say, 8 and 9, use them for makeover slumber parties," she said. "Sometimes I want to ask, 'makeover what?' "
In a study last year, 55 percent of 6- to 9-year-old girls said they used lip gloss or lipstick, and nearly two-thirds said they used nail polish, according to Experian, a market research company based in New York. In 2003, 49 percent of 6- to 9-year-old girls said they used lip gloss or lipstick.
Youth market analysts say this is part of a trend called KGOY, "kids getting older younger," and cultural observers describe a tandem phenomenon, more-indulgent parents.
It's a point that vexes Rosalind Wiseman, the author of "Queen Bees & Wannabes" (Three Rivers Press, 2003). "Mothers and fathers do really crazy things with the best of intentions," she said. "I don't care how it's couched, if you're permitting this with your daughter, you are hyper-sexualizing her. It's one thing to have them play around with makeup at home within the bubble of the family. But once it shifts to another context, you are taking away the play and creating a consumer, and frankly, you run the risk of having one more person who feels she's not good enough if she's not buying the stuff."
generation ago, girls had fewer products to choose from. Now, they have nail art; fragrance roll-ons; and all manner of glitter for face, neck, shoulders and hair marketed to them. That's in addition to staples like lip balms, lip glosses and nail lacquers.
These products are moderately priced so that grandparents and parents can treat. Or so the very young can afford them with nothing more than change from the sofa or their meager weekly allowance.
"Packaging is key," said Ricardo Cruz, the marketing and licensing manager of the youth division of Markwins International, a company that licenses and manufactures a Bratz line of cosmetic gift sets as well as ACT, the company's own brand. Because it's makeup for little girls, Cruz said: "We're not going to put lip plumper in there. It's just little things the girls can test out, try on with their friends."
With more-pressing issues of online predators, fast-food consumption and homework that needs to be done, the 10 parents interviewed for the article all said that they had allowed their daughters to attend a primping party.
"Of course, it depends on your environment, but here, I've even heard of Girl Scout troops doing this kind of social beauty thing," said Stacie Christopher, a mother of three from Chevy Chase, Maryland.
And yet, there is always potential for backlash.
Last summer, when Bonne Bell and Mattel announced a partnership to introduce a line of Barbie-inspired Bonne Bell beauty products for 6- to 9-year-olds at the end of this year, a modest firestorm was set off online. A debate followed on Jezebel, a celebrity and fashion blog, on how young was too young for girls to wear makeup. One commenter reduced it to a simple formula: "Lip gloss and mascara at age 12 (EQUAL) sure. Anything other than pink nail polish on anyone under 10 (EQUAL) no."
But cosmetics for girls at any age worries Lucy Corrigan, a mother of two daughters, 8 and 11, in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Still, last year she allowed her younger daughter to go to two salon birthday parties for 7-year-olds. "Of course, it was alarming," she said."But I'd rather my girls try it and decide they don't need all these products to be beautiful, and then do something more vital with their time and money and efforts, like write a poem or take a walk or save the world."
Business - Cosmetic giants run into a Himalayan Challenge
A dozen women are busy plucking seabuckthorn berries in Leh-Ladakh and Kargil for supplying them to their local Nundum Cooperative Society (NCS). The society will further their produce to All-India Aromatic Plants Growers Association (AIAPGA).By supplying such special fruits with medicinal values, these women will earn Rs 85-90 per kg, higher than what they were getting earlier. “Our members have started earning more than 50% by growing such plants,” says Mohammed Zaffar, president, NCS, which has 40 members. And the buck doesn’t stop here. In fact, it starts from here. In a way, the hill people of India are coming together to take on foreign FMCG biggies such as Amway, K-Link, DXN and Tenzxi, who have been dominating the Indian cosmetics market, by launching a slew of herbal cosmetic products. The 6,000-member-strong AIAPGA, including herbal society, will launch herbal products under its common brand across the country by next week through self-marketing. And it is confident of outdoing the foreign competition. “We will break them completely. Our prices are quite nominal than these biggies and high in quality,” says AIAPGA president and Kangra Herb Society director Randhir Singh Guleria. The growers are expected to get more than 40% margins on their produce once the mechanism falls in place. The association has got patent approval for launching 35 products initially, and a few more will join after approval. What’s more, the Rs 300-crore industry is confident of touching the Rs 1,000-crore mark in the next five years with their in-house business model. Until now, the Indian consumer didn’t have the right choice of organised herbal-care products. “This will wipe out the existing cosmetic players and create a new market for us,” says Mr Guleria. Right from planting till the packaging, branding and marketing of the final product, the association has strategically built an in-house model for its members. This model will be more cost-effective than the one followed by foreign biggies, they claim. Interestingly, the growers will get returns as per their subscription period with the association. That means the longer the period, the higher the margins. “Our 40-hectare land was a complete wastage as we didn’t know how to utilise it. Now, we have decided to supply medicinal plants for two years,” says Dharamshala-based grower Manish Mahajan. A large number of growers come from regions like Leh, Kargil, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and areas covered under the Himalayan range.
Busines - Fast moving goods still not preferred in low-unit packs
The Rs 83,709-crore fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector seems to be bucking the trend of inflation-hit consumers going for low-priced, low-unit packs (LUPs).According to Nielsen Retail Audit Data, LUPs of most food and non-food FMCG categories have shown slower (value) growth during April-June 2008 vis-a-vis April-June 2007. And in some categories, like skin creams and namkeens, LUP sales have fallen year-on-year (y-o-y) in the first three months. LUPs of washing powders and liquids registered a mere 7% value growth in May compared to a 44% jump last year. And this after a negative 6.5% and 8.3% growth in April and March 2008 against over 40% and 80% growth a year earlier. Growth of LUPs of detergent cakes/bars, on the other hand, came down to 61.1% in June compared to humungous 741% last year. Skin cream LUPs witnessed a negative 80% growth in June 2008 compared to a robust over 40% growth in June 2007. The only FMCG categories where LUP sales growth in April-June outpaced 2007’s are biscuits and refined oil. The Nielsen Company director (client solutions) Amita Shetye feels that while inflation has led to adjustments in budgets, there are no signs of consumers opting for small-unit packs in the period. “Inflation is surely a testing time for Indian consumers and they must be trying to adjust their household budget with the onset of high EMIs, increasing transportation cost and rising commodity cost. However, Nielsen Retail Audit Data does not indicate negative growth in household essentials, neither a considerable move in lower pack SKUs. This indicates that consumers, in adjusting their household budgets, are focusing on minimising other expenses rather than daily FMCG essentials.” With fears of cost-cutting by consumers due to inflation some companies introduced value-pack offers. For instance, Henkel started offering its products like Henko, Pril and Bref at a discounted price. However, the company is not sure if the numbers are coming from these offers. Says Henkel India marketing vice-president Ranju Kumar Mohan: “It is too early to say if there is downtrading in consumer goods. It’s difficult to say that lower-price segment is showing greater signs of growth particularly in April and May this year.” The company does not plan to add any new value packs in its portfolio. Subhiksha managing director R Subhramaniam is not surprised. “It is convenience that drives their sale rather than price points. Typically, consumers do not see trading down by opting for lower-sized packs to beat inflation. If a consumer has to consume say a kilogram of a particular product in a month, it does not make sense for him to buy several small packs, he would rather buy in bulk and save cost,” explains Mr Subhramaniam. In the food category, biscuits and refined oils have shown positive signs in 75gm and 200gm packs, respectively. However, Britannia marketing vice-president Neeraj Chandra maintains that given the flux in the market with inflation in the overall consumption basket and changes in prices of specific packs there are no clear patterns of shifts in the sale of small packs. “This may over time result in a different pattern of sales for pack/prices points. However, given the short period of a quarter and possibilities of trade pipeline adjustments and panel measurement limitations, these shifts in consumption pattern may be getting diffused and not showing through as yet,” says Mr Chandra. If the results for most FMCG companies in the April-June quarter are anything to go by, there are clear indicators of higher margins coming from price hikes, differential pricing across products and new product launches. Colgate-Palmolive notched up an 18% increase in net profit at Rs 71.9-crore on net sales of Rs 407 crore during the quarter. All its major brands—Colgate Dental Cream, Active Salt, and Cibaca—contributed to the volume growth of 11%. Marico, on the other hand, registered a 15% increase in net profit at Rs 46.2 crore, with more than half of the growth coming from volume expansion. Similarly, the country’s biggest FMCG player Hindustan Unilever undertook steep price rises for its products and registered a 13% growth in net profit at Rs 558 crore, mostly driven by higher volumes in personal-care products.
Business - Mahindra
“A Mahindra in every household,” Mahindra & Mahindra Vice-chairman and Managing Director Anand Mahindra gave a clear indication of his intent on Wednesday after acquiring the assets of Pune-based two-wheeler maker Kinetic Motor Company for Rs 110 crore.Mahindra, in fact, has been working towards this end ever since he became the chief executive of the company in 1997. Even at that time, he had a sizeable presence in rural households with his line of tractors. It only got strengthened when he acquired Punjab Tractors some time back. Now, every third tractor sold in the country is a Mahindra.He pioneered Mahindra & Mahindra’s foray into sport utility vehicles. Earlier, the company had a presence in utility vehicles used for commercial purposes. It was Mahindra who moved the company up the value chain to launch Scorpio, which in no time went on to become India’s largest-selling sports utility vehicle.He even launched a mid-sized sedan, Logan, with European carmaker Renault, though sales are now believed to have fallen way short of projections. And soon, 53-year-old Mahindra will have two-wheelers in his portfolio of products.Mahindra had decided to get into the two-wheeler business some 18 months back when he hired Anup Mathur, an executive director at Hindustan Unilever, to head his group’s new venture.The timing couldn’t have been worse, some experts had said. The outlook for the sector had just turned negative after a dream run of almost two decades. And the sales numbers only got worse as the months passed by. Two-wheeler sales in the country declined 8 per cent in 2007-08 as rising interest rates kept buyers away.But Mahindra was clear that his ambition to have a Mahindra in every household wouldn’t be realised without two-wheelers.“Large sections of Indian population are yet to get mobility,” he said. Sales may have slowed down, but India continues to be the world’s second-largest market for two-wheelers after China.Naturally, Mahindra is dead serious about the business, in spite of the adverse business climate. Mahindra & Mahindra has also acquired Engines Engineering SpA in June, an Italian two-wheeler design company, heralding its entry into the segment.“Product development capability is going to be our strength,” said Mahindra, adding: “We wish to be present in all aspects of the two-wheeler business.”Automobile analysts said although a late entrant into the crowded two-wheeler market, Mahindra & Mahindra, with its global sourcing expertise, experience in building differentiated brands and strength of its vehicle finance arm, Mahindra Finance, does have the wherewithal to compete with established players such as Hero Honda, TVS and Bajaj Auto.Still others want to know what would be the future of two-wheelers in the country once Tata Motors’ Rs 1-lakh car, Nano, comes out later this year. Will Mahindra be able to build a new brand from scratch? The MBA from Harvard Business School will have to pull out every trick he learnt there to be able to answer in the affirmative. Motown can look forward to some exciting time ahead.
Entertainment - Discovery to launch 3 new channels
Discovery Networks India, part of leading non-fiction media firm Discovery Communications, on Thursday said it will launch three new channels by next year as part its expansion plan in the country.The company plans to launch its three niche channels Discovery Science, Discovery Turbo and Discovery HD and it is mulling over bringing more global channels to India in future. "We have already applied for permission to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to launch the three 24 hour channels," Discovery Communications India Senior Vice- President and General Manager Rahul Johri told reporters here. He said the company expected to launch the three channels by the first quarter of next year subject to government approval. Presently, Discovery airs three channels in the country -- Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and Discovery Travel and Living. Asked if the firm planned to bring more of Discovery's global channels, Joshi replied in the affirmative. "In Asia we have seven channels. The only one left in India would be Discovery Home and Helth, which we will look to bring here," he said. Johri also said out of the 14 global brands, Discovery would also bring a few here "as and when the market develops for those channels." On the investment plans for launching the new channels, he declined to comment. "We will make appropriate investments for launching a channel," he said. Discovery which has around 86 million overall subscribers in India expects to increase its viewership with the launch of these new channels. "It will strengthen our growth in India," Johri said without giving any specific numbers. The company has 1.5 billion cumulative subscribers in over 170 countries and has a total of 14 brands.
Business - Bajaj's new strategy
MUMBAI: Bajaj Auto has drawn up a new, aggressive strategy for its motorcycles, which will involve a specific platform approach to generate big numbers.As part of this effort, it has also decided to launch a 125cc version of the Platina that will co-exist with its 100cc sibling. Managing director of Bajaj Auto, Rajiv Bajaj told DNA Money that three distinct platforms would form part of the plan.The top tier comprises the Discover, Pulsar and Avenger while the XCD represents the mid-platform.The 100cc range rolls out of the basic platform which includes the Platina as well as export models like the Boxer and CT100. “Our plan is in place with the last bike from the XCD platform due to debut in February next year, by which time the three platforms will account for combined sales of 225,000 to 240,000 bikes each month both for the local and international markets,” he said. Put simply, each platform will churn out 75,000 to 80,000 bikes every month as part of a new, uncluttered approach. According to Bajaj, the company had also altered its 125cc bike strategy from the originally planned XCD Sprint. “We are now prioritising another product that will be out in September, followed by one in November and finally in February to complete the picture for the XCD,” he added. The strategy for the 125cc version of the Platina is interesting in this context, especially when Bajaj Auto has maintained that the bike does not represent a brand and is only a product by the end of the day which hardly yields any money. However, its numbers still make it relevant to both suppliers and dealers. In the price segment it operates in, the 100cc Platina is ahead of models from Hero Honda and TVS with a 44 % market share. “We had earlier kicked off with the Boxer and CT100 in this segment but they were easy to imitate and competing models quickly joined the arena. Even when we added interesting features to the Platina, it was only a matter of months before competition followed suit,” Bajaj said. The company then decided that it was time to do something which would not be imitated so quickly. The solution lay in changing the engine. “An electric start 125cc would positively take two years to imitate quite unlike the past where we saw competing models emerge in six months,” he explained. The engineering done on the XCD platform has resulted in some “terrific costing and high mileage” for a 125cc bike. Taking advantage of that feature, Bajaj Auto has now decided to go in for the Platina 125 which can hold its own in the market and insulates the company from any similar product in a hurry. “This motorcycle is a premium to the 100cc Platina and will give us more money. It could also help build the bike’s brand and wean 100cc customers gradually away to this better option,” Bajaj said. He reiterated that the top priority was to defend the company’s leadership in the 125cc plus segment while constantly upgrading products. This was the rationale for the launch of the sportier Discover 135 DTS-i last week. “The Pulsar lineups are being upgraded every 18 months and the time has now come for the Discover which has been untouched for two years. The new features make it sharper and more aggressive to fit in with the image of our bikes in this product category. This becomes harmonious with the DTS-i portfolio that stands for sporty, hi-tech bikes,” Bajaj said. This change in the Discover makes it dearer by Rs 2,500 and the least expensive option at Rs47,000 (ex-showroom) is still Rs6,000 costlier than the top-end electric start XCD. “It is in this price gap that we are creating more bikes which will improve profitability and create a stronger brand,” he added.
Fun - World's oldest joke traced back to 1900 B.C
LONDON : The world’’s oldest recorded joke has been traced back to 1900 BC and suggests toilet humour was as popular with the ancients as it is today.
It is a saying of the Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern Iraq and goes: ;Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’’s lap.; It heads the world’’s oldest top 10 joke list published by the University of Wolverhampton on Thursday.
A 1600 BC gag about a pharaoh, said to be King Snofru, comes second — ;How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish.
The oldest British joke dates back to the 10th Century and reveals the bawdy face of the Anglo-Saxons -- ;What hangs at a man’’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’’s often poked before? Answer: A key.; Jokes have varied over the years, with some taking the question and answer format while others are witty proverbs or riddles,; said the report’’s writer Dr Paul McDonald, senior lecturer at the university. ;What they all share however, is a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion. Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research.; The study was commissioned by television channel Dave.
It is a saying of the Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern Iraq and goes: ;Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’’s lap.; It heads the world’’s oldest top 10 joke list published by the University of Wolverhampton on Thursday.
A 1600 BC gag about a pharaoh, said to be King Snofru, comes second — ;How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish.
The oldest British joke dates back to the 10th Century and reveals the bawdy face of the Anglo-Saxons -- ;What hangs at a man’’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’’s often poked before? Answer: A key.; Jokes have varied over the years, with some taking the question and answer format while others are witty proverbs or riddles,; said the report’’s writer Dr Paul McDonald, senior lecturer at the university. ;What they all share however, is a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion. Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research.; The study was commissioned by television channel Dave.
Quote for the Day
"Hitler was a vegetarian. Just goes to show: vegetarianism, not always a good thing. Can, in some extreme cases, lead to genocide."
India - What it was to be in the first batch of IIT-M
The photo - President Radhakrishnan addressing the first convocation of IIT-M on July 11,1964
CHENNAI: Today, they are CEOs, professors, scientists and entrepreneurs, proud of being the first graduates of what is now a global brand name. On Thursday, IIT-M began its golden jubilee year. However, half a century ago, the 92 B.Tech students who made up the first batch at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras were taking a chance on an unknown institution.
“I applied after seeing a small news item in The Hindu. My uncle recommended that I apply to this new institute rather than the more established CEG [College of Engineering], Guindy. My mother was so angry with him for sending me off to a jungle,” laughs S. Srinivasan.
The jungle was untouched in those days, with no buildings on campus ready for the first batch of students. “Back then, IIT existed in the minds of the planners and its physical presence was discerned in the borrowed classrooms of AC Tech,” said Mallik Putcha, writing in a campus paper a quarter of a century later. Students lived at the old Presidency College women’s hostel in Saidapet. “We used to cycle from there and cross the Adyar river by boat. I remember the ride used to cost us about 25 paise a week,” remembers R. Mahadevan.
There was no entrance examination, but one’s PUC (pre-university certificate) marks and performance at an intensive interview determined entry. “That interview was tougher than any JEE,” says Mr. Srinivasan. Dr. Mahadevan remembers that understanding the accent of the German professors on the panel was one of the tougher parts of the interview. “Dr. Koch, who taught Physics, would tell us we must learn to ‘sink’. It was some time before we realised he meant ‘think’,” says Dr. Mahadevan.
The German influence went beyond language mishaps.
They focussed on practical exercises, going so far as to insist on a week of workshop to follow every week of classroom teaching. Open book examinations, the importance given to analytical ability versus rote learning, and the ‘surprise tests’ for continuous evaluation made the IIT system different from its contemporaries, says Mr. Srinivasan.
After the first year, the students moved to the current campus to start classes at the Civil Engineering building and begin life at Cauvery hostel. “We lived with a cross-section of India, learning due to the cultural confluence,” says Dr. Mahadevan, recalling how they got used to a few days of familiar South Indian food, followed by Bengali or North Indian cuisine. In July 1964, the first graduates of IIT-M were given their degrees by the then President, S. Radhakrishnan, followed by dinner hosted by staff at the High Voltage lab. They have gone on to do their country proud.
Dr. Mahadevan went on to complete his Ph.D at IIT-M before joining India Pistons as a management trainee. Today, he is a director at the same company. Dr. Putcha went on to become a software engineer with Boeing at the NASA International Space Station.
Mr. Srinivasan worked with IBM, playing another role in IIT-M history by installing its first large mainframe computer in 1970. He taught at his alma mater for a stint before starting his own company in 1986.
“I applied after seeing a small news item in The Hindu. My uncle recommended that I apply to this new institute rather than the more established CEG [College of Engineering], Guindy. My mother was so angry with him for sending me off to a jungle,” laughs S. Srinivasan.
The jungle was untouched in those days, with no buildings on campus ready for the first batch of students. “Back then, IIT existed in the minds of the planners and its physical presence was discerned in the borrowed classrooms of AC Tech,” said Mallik Putcha, writing in a campus paper a quarter of a century later. Students lived at the old Presidency College women’s hostel in Saidapet. “We used to cycle from there and cross the Adyar river by boat. I remember the ride used to cost us about 25 paise a week,” remembers R. Mahadevan.
There was no entrance examination, but one’s PUC (pre-university certificate) marks and performance at an intensive interview determined entry. “That interview was tougher than any JEE,” says Mr. Srinivasan. Dr. Mahadevan remembers that understanding the accent of the German professors on the panel was one of the tougher parts of the interview. “Dr. Koch, who taught Physics, would tell us we must learn to ‘sink’. It was some time before we realised he meant ‘think’,” says Dr. Mahadevan.
The German influence went beyond language mishaps.
They focussed on practical exercises, going so far as to insist on a week of workshop to follow every week of classroom teaching. Open book examinations, the importance given to analytical ability versus rote learning, and the ‘surprise tests’ for continuous evaluation made the IIT system different from its contemporaries, says Mr. Srinivasan.
After the first year, the students moved to the current campus to start classes at the Civil Engineering building and begin life at Cauvery hostel. “We lived with a cross-section of India, learning due to the cultural confluence,” says Dr. Mahadevan, recalling how they got used to a few days of familiar South Indian food, followed by Bengali or North Indian cuisine. In July 1964, the first graduates of IIT-M were given their degrees by the then President, S. Radhakrishnan, followed by dinner hosted by staff at the High Voltage lab. They have gone on to do their country proud.
Dr. Mahadevan went on to complete his Ph.D at IIT-M before joining India Pistons as a management trainee. Today, he is a director at the same company. Dr. Putcha went on to become a software engineer with Boeing at the NASA International Space Station.
Mr. Srinivasan worked with IBM, playing another role in IIT-M history by installing its first large mainframe computer in 1970. He taught at his alma mater for a stint before starting his own company in 1986.
Sport - Clay poised to become world's best
Decathlon likely to be an American affair in Beijing
Bryan Clay was an angry youngster a few years ago. His parents were divorced which made life very difficult at home.
The gloomy life upset him very much. He got into fights almost every day, threatened teachers, skipped classes and was suspended from school quite a few times.
His mother often thought her son would slowly slip into the world of crime.
The wayward Clay is now stunningly poised to become the world’s greatest athlete. Big favourite
The 28-year-old, whose mother is Japanese and father African-American, is a huge favourite to win the decathlon gold at the Beijing Olympics after collecting a stunning 8,832 points at the recent US Olympic Trials.
It made him the sixth best decathlete in history. Nobody has come up with such a big one in nearly four years.
True, Czech Republic’s Roman Sebrle, the defending Olympic and World champion, is the only man to carry the world record past the 9,000-point mark. But that was more than seven years ago and the 33-year-old is now struggling through an injury-packed season. As for the others…well, they are far behind this season.
Clay’s stunning series in the 10-eventer at the US Trials included a 10.39-sec 100m, 13.75-sec high hurdles, 2.09m high jump and a 52.74m discus throw.Confident
After pulling out midway through last year’s World Championship with an injury, the 2004 Athens Olympic silver medallist is now hungry for gold and in fine touch too.
“If I can do what I do in practice every day, I can break the world record (Sebrle’s 9,026), win a gold medal and quite possibly go down as the greatest decathlete in history,” said the 2005 outdoor World champion who won the indoor World heptathlon gold this year.
And the presence of the experienced Tom Pappas and the young Trey Hardee — both come in the top four in the world list this year — is likely to make the decathlon an American affair in Beijing.
At 5’ 11”, Clay is among the shortest decathletes on the world circuit but surprisingly, that has not been a hurdle for the sport’s big fighter.
Bryan Clay was an angry youngster a few years ago. His parents were divorced which made life very difficult at home.
The gloomy life upset him very much. He got into fights almost every day, threatened teachers, skipped classes and was suspended from school quite a few times.
His mother often thought her son would slowly slip into the world of crime.
The wayward Clay is now stunningly poised to become the world’s greatest athlete. Big favourite
The 28-year-old, whose mother is Japanese and father African-American, is a huge favourite to win the decathlon gold at the Beijing Olympics after collecting a stunning 8,832 points at the recent US Olympic Trials.
It made him the sixth best decathlete in history. Nobody has come up with such a big one in nearly four years.
True, Czech Republic’s Roman Sebrle, the defending Olympic and World champion, is the only man to carry the world record past the 9,000-point mark. But that was more than seven years ago and the 33-year-old is now struggling through an injury-packed season. As for the others…well, they are far behind this season.
Clay’s stunning series in the 10-eventer at the US Trials included a 10.39-sec 100m, 13.75-sec high hurdles, 2.09m high jump and a 52.74m discus throw.Confident
After pulling out midway through last year’s World Championship with an injury, the 2004 Athens Olympic silver medallist is now hungry for gold and in fine touch too.
“If I can do what I do in practice every day, I can break the world record (Sebrle’s 9,026), win a gold medal and quite possibly go down as the greatest decathlete in history,” said the 2005 outdoor World champion who won the indoor World heptathlon gold this year.
And the presence of the experienced Tom Pappas and the young Trey Hardee — both come in the top four in the world list this year — is likely to make the decathlon an American affair in Beijing.
At 5’ 11”, Clay is among the shortest decathletes on the world circuit but surprisingly, that has not been a hurdle for the sport’s big fighter.
Science - To prevent the elderly from falling
BOSTON: Scientists working to help astronauts regain balance after extended flights in zero gravity say they have found a way to use the research to help elderly people avoid catastrophic falls.
An “iShoe” insole contains sensors that read how well a person is balancing. The point is to gather information for doctors and to get people to a specialist — before they fall. Erez Lieberman, a graduate student who developed the technology while working as an intern at NASA, said a damaging fall is preceded by numerous warnings, similar to how high cholesterol and elevated blood pressure point to a coming heart attack.
“You gradually get worse and worse at balancing,” said Lieberman, who studies in a joint Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology health science and technology programme. “If you know the problem is there, you can start addressing the problem,” he said.
The National Osteoporosis Foundation estimates 300,000 people annually suffer hip fractures, which are often caused by falls. An average of 24 per cent of hip-fracture patients aged 50 and over die within a year of the fracture. Many victims who do not die within a year end up being disabled the rest of their lives. “It’s a huge issue,” said Elinor Ginzler of the AARP. “It significantly impairs your ability to stay independent, which is what people want,” she said.
The idea for the iShoe came to Mr. Lieberman while he was working at NASA last summer on a project to help astronauts regain balance after months in zero gravity. The work is part of preparations for long space missions, such as trips to Mars, which require astronauts to perform complicated tasks on the terrain soon after landing.
The balance research seemed to Mr. Lieberman to have obvious earthly applications for the elderly. He and Katharine Forth, a visiting scientist at NASA who also works on the iShoe, had been touched personally by the issue of elderly falls, with each seeing a grandmother’s health rapidly deteriorate after such an accident.
“It was something that has kind of been on my mind in general, and once I started looking at balance it became very clear it would have applications in that direction,” said Mr. Lieberman. NASA tests balance with an expensive device about the size of a phone booth. Mr. Lieberman and Ms. Forth say the iShoe insole, slipped inside any shoe, solves the problem of portability and affordability, since the device would cost about $100.
The iShoe researchers used some of their own work and previous NASA data to determine how pressure is distributed on the foot by people with balance problems, compared to those with good balance.
They then were able to determine certain pressure patterns that show up when people are struggling with balance.
The iShoe, with a half dozen sensors, is not an instant alarm, though it would send out a signal if the wearer actually falls. It is more like a data recorder that the user can bring to a doctor or balance specialist for help if the dangerous pressure patterns are seen.
Mr. Lieberman estimates $1 million is needed for a broad clinical trial, and $3 million to $4 million to bring the insole to market.
An “iShoe” insole contains sensors that read how well a person is balancing. The point is to gather information for doctors and to get people to a specialist — before they fall. Erez Lieberman, a graduate student who developed the technology while working as an intern at NASA, said a damaging fall is preceded by numerous warnings, similar to how high cholesterol and elevated blood pressure point to a coming heart attack.
“You gradually get worse and worse at balancing,” said Lieberman, who studies in a joint Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology health science and technology programme. “If you know the problem is there, you can start addressing the problem,” he said.
The National Osteoporosis Foundation estimates 300,000 people annually suffer hip fractures, which are often caused by falls. An average of 24 per cent of hip-fracture patients aged 50 and over die within a year of the fracture. Many victims who do not die within a year end up being disabled the rest of their lives. “It’s a huge issue,” said Elinor Ginzler of the AARP. “It significantly impairs your ability to stay independent, which is what people want,” she said.
The idea for the iShoe came to Mr. Lieberman while he was working at NASA last summer on a project to help astronauts regain balance after months in zero gravity. The work is part of preparations for long space missions, such as trips to Mars, which require astronauts to perform complicated tasks on the terrain soon after landing.
The balance research seemed to Mr. Lieberman to have obvious earthly applications for the elderly. He and Katharine Forth, a visiting scientist at NASA who also works on the iShoe, had been touched personally by the issue of elderly falls, with each seeing a grandmother’s health rapidly deteriorate after such an accident.
“It was something that has kind of been on my mind in general, and once I started looking at balance it became very clear it would have applications in that direction,” said Mr. Lieberman. NASA tests balance with an expensive device about the size of a phone booth. Mr. Lieberman and Ms. Forth say the iShoe insole, slipped inside any shoe, solves the problem of portability and affordability, since the device would cost about $100.
The iShoe researchers used some of their own work and previous NASA data to determine how pressure is distributed on the foot by people with balance problems, compared to those with good balance.
They then were able to determine certain pressure patterns that show up when people are struggling with balance.
The iShoe, with a half dozen sensors, is not an instant alarm, though it would send out a signal if the wearer actually falls. It is more like a data recorder that the user can bring to a doctor or balance specialist for help if the dangerous pressure patterns are seen.
Mr. Lieberman estimates $1 million is needed for a broad clinical trial, and $3 million to $4 million to bring the insole to market.
Science - Pill to shed the flab
Drug gives couch potato mice the benefits of a workout
Mice that took the drug burned more calories
Drugs studied by researchers for other uses
NEW YORK: Here’s a couch potato’s dream: What if a drug could help you gain some of the benefits of exercise without working up a sweat?
Scientists reported on Thursday that there is such a drug — if you happen to be a mouse. And, who knows, one day it could be for you, too.
Sedentary mice that took the drug for four weeks burned more calories and had less fat than untreated mice. And when tested on a treadmill, they could run about 44 per cent farther and 23 per cent longer than untreated mice.
Just how well those results might translate to people is an open question. But someday, researchers say, such a drug might help treat obesity, diabetes and people with medical conditions that keep them from exercising.
“We have exercise in a pill,” said Ron Evans, an author of the study. “With no exercise, you can take a drug and chemically mimic it.”
Mr. Evans, of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute reports the work with colleagues in a paper published online on Thursday by the journal Cell.
They also report that in mice that did exercise training, a second drug made their workout much more effective at boosting endurance. After a month of taking that drug and exercising, mice could run 68 per cent longer and 70 per cent farther than other mice that exercised but did not get the drug.
Both drugs have been studied by researchers for other uses. The no-exercise drug is in advanced human testing to see if it can prevent a complication of heart bypass surgery.
Mr. Evans noted the drugs might prove irresistible for professional athletes who seek an illegal edge. He said his team has developed detection tests for use by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Mr. Evans said he has no financial interest in either drug or the test.
Resveratrol, a substance being studied for anti-aging effects, has also been reported to enable mice to run farther before exhaustion without exercise training. But the drugs in the new study appear to act more specifically on a process in muscles that boosts endurance, the researchers said.
Still, it takes more than just altered muscles to turn a sedentary mouse into a distance runner, Mr. Evans said, and “honestly, I just don’t know how that happens. Whether it would happen in a person, I don’t know. I think it’s a small miracle it happened at all.”
In fact, Mr. Evans said that when the experiment with sedentary mice was suggested by an outside scientist who was reviewing the lab’s research, “I didn’t think it was going to work.”
The no-exercise drug is called AICAR. Previous experiments suggest that it might protect against gaining weight on a high-fat diet, which might make it useful for treating obesity, Evans said. But it would have to be taken for a long time, he said, so its safety in people would have to be assured.
Experts who study muscle agreed that a drug like AICAR may prove useful someday in treating obesity and diabetes. Many drug companies are working on such drugs
Mice that took the drug burned more calories
Drugs studied by researchers for other uses
NEW YORK: Here’s a couch potato’s dream: What if a drug could help you gain some of the benefits of exercise without working up a sweat?
Scientists reported on Thursday that there is such a drug — if you happen to be a mouse. And, who knows, one day it could be for you, too.
Sedentary mice that took the drug for four weeks burned more calories and had less fat than untreated mice. And when tested on a treadmill, they could run about 44 per cent farther and 23 per cent longer than untreated mice.
Just how well those results might translate to people is an open question. But someday, researchers say, such a drug might help treat obesity, diabetes and people with medical conditions that keep them from exercising.
“We have exercise in a pill,” said Ron Evans, an author of the study. “With no exercise, you can take a drug and chemically mimic it.”
Mr. Evans, of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute reports the work with colleagues in a paper published online on Thursday by the journal Cell.
They also report that in mice that did exercise training, a second drug made their workout much more effective at boosting endurance. After a month of taking that drug and exercising, mice could run 68 per cent longer and 70 per cent farther than other mice that exercised but did not get the drug.
Both drugs have been studied by researchers for other uses. The no-exercise drug is in advanced human testing to see if it can prevent a complication of heart bypass surgery.
Mr. Evans noted the drugs might prove irresistible for professional athletes who seek an illegal edge. He said his team has developed detection tests for use by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Mr. Evans said he has no financial interest in either drug or the test.
Resveratrol, a substance being studied for anti-aging effects, has also been reported to enable mice to run farther before exhaustion without exercise training. But the drugs in the new study appear to act more specifically on a process in muscles that boosts endurance, the researchers said.
Still, it takes more than just altered muscles to turn a sedentary mouse into a distance runner, Mr. Evans said, and “honestly, I just don’t know how that happens. Whether it would happen in a person, I don’t know. I think it’s a small miracle it happened at all.”
In fact, Mr. Evans said that when the experiment with sedentary mice was suggested by an outside scientist who was reviewing the lab’s research, “I didn’t think it was going to work.”
The no-exercise drug is called AICAR. Previous experiments suggest that it might protect against gaining weight on a high-fat diet, which might make it useful for treating obesity, Evans said. But it would have to be taken for a long time, he said, so its safety in people would have to be assured.
Experts who study muscle agreed that a drug like AICAR may prove useful someday in treating obesity and diabetes. Many drug companies are working on such drugs
World - Tackling workplace inequality
The International Labour Organisation’s year-long campaign to promote gender equality at the workplace launched recently assumes particular significance in the current context of increasing participation of women in the labour force, largely in the informal sector, and emerging issues of inequity in their employment-linked status. The latest initiative is intended to raise public awareness ahead of a discussion on the theme to be held at the ILO’s highest polic y-making organ in June 2009, coinciding with its 90th anniversary. According to the ILO’s report on global employment trends for women, despite the entry of over 200 million women into the labour market in the past decade, the rate of female unemployment remains high at 6.4 per cent, in comparison with 5.7 among men. Moreover, globally, the employment to population ratio in 2007 for women was a mere 49.1 per cent, as against 74.3 for men. It is inconceivable that the international objective of increased economic output, as a means to better redistribution, can be realised when such a large segment of the population remains outside the productive workforce. Although evidence suggests that women have adapted themselves to the changing employment scenario from agriculture to the services sector, persisting disparities in levels of attainment in education and vocational skills systematically undercut their chances for employment and career mobility in the long-term. The continuing exclusion from productive employment is perhaps the most fundamental cause of gender inequality at the workplace, as it could in effect serve to undermine rights to association, remuneration, quality and hours of work, protection from gender-specific occupational hazards and overall economic freedom and social empowerment. Moreover, women’s income per hour is on average 75 per cent of that for men.
The relevance of the latest campaign cannot be overstated, especially in relation to developing countries, which consequent to the ongoing transformation from traditional agrarian to market-oriented economies, have necessarily to grapple with the manifold challenges of striking a balance between work and family. Recognition of the family responsibilities of employees, flexible working hours, reconciling the productive and reproductive roles of women and paternity are among these issues. The attempt to mainstream a gender perspective in legislation, public and corporate policies and programmes could serve as a useful beginning in the right direction.
India - Generation Afraid
The Kashmir valley is wrenched by a terrible hopeless sorrow. It is wearied by 19 unrelenting years of fear, bloodshed and helpless rage. “We are children of conflict more than anything else,” a Kashmir University student tells me. “The conflict defines who we are. It is all that we have witnessed throughout our lives.”
Another student adds: “Our earliest childhood memories are of violence, of gunshots, firings, grenades, land-mines, crackdowns, raids and searches. Death has become normal for us.”
I met a large number of young people: university students and school drop-outs; youngsters from elite city enclaves, slums and the countryside; carpet-weavers, domestic workers, vegetable sellers and farmers
Above all, I was struck by how universal their despair was. I couldn’t find one resident who was not directly touched in one way or the other by a two-decade cycle of violence. I held these dialogues as an invited member of the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian Administered Kashmir, convened by Parvez Imroz and Angana Chatterji with young activists like Khurram Parvez. The convenors themselves have been under official attack.
The overwhelming memory of growing up in Kashmir — which every young person talked of — is of fear. Faiyaz, a 25-year-old shawl-weaver elaborates: “We always carry fear in our hearts. Fear that firing will break out, fear that grenades will be thrown; fear that the army will catch up with you and ask for ID cards, ask where you’re from, claiming that you are not a Kashmiri but a militant from outside, that you are giving shelter and food to militants.”
“I am still frightened of leaving my home after six,” confirms one student. “But I am also frightened about what will happen inside my home.” Every home is lined with thick curtains to ensure that not a sliver of light escapes after dark, as it may attract security personnel to their homes.
Another fear is to be on the streets without an ID card. Armed security-men are stationed every few hundred metres ready to ask for proof of identity, often frisking people for weapons. It’s worse if you have a beard. If you cannot show your ID card, you are arrested. And even if you do, they may keep it for ‘further investigation’.
Each day one has to wait for hours outside the army camp, begging for the return of ID card. Sajjad, a young village tailor, is often thrashed even after showing his ID card. Aijaz, a school drop-out who weaves pashmina shawls, says, “We were never allowed to travel far or to play after dark. All our mothers wanted was to see us before their eyes.” It was a cramped and cloistered childhood.
The dread is also of being caught in a crossfire. A young man tells me of how he was walking home from college with his friends, when they were suddenly dragged by soldiers who were ambushing militants holed up in a house. The soldiers used him and his friends as human shields, forcing them to walk ahead as they showered bullets at the house. The militants finally surrendered and were shot dead. If they had not so chosen to hold their fire, the ‘human shields’ would have fallen instead.
An English word that every single Kashmiri knows and dreads is ‘crackdown’. It has a specific meaning for the people of the valley. A crackdown begins with a terrifying knock on every door of a village or urban settlement at dawn. What follows is a rough peremptory command by a menacing contingent of uniformed soldiers to all men, women and children to gather immediately in an open space. The women and men, often still half-asleep, are separated.
Then the young men are formed into groups, and each youth is identified by informers and interrogated, to confirm if any of them are ‘outsiders’. If they are, they are presumed to be militants. No one is permitted to go out during a crackdown.
Hours pass — often without water and food — as homes are searched. Sometimes the terrified women and girls are returned home. Crackdowns were sometimes repeated every week, or even more often.
They continue even today.It’s worse if you are picked up in one of these crackdowns. Aijaz told me how his father was arrested by security forces many times, charged falsely each time as being a member of a militant group. He used to be returned battered but not broken; a case could never be built against him. So Aijaz gave up his dreams of becoming a doctor and joined his mother in carpet-weaving.
As a teenager, Faiyaz was picked up once and driven to an army interrogation centre. For an hour, he sat outside the chamber, his hands tied behind his back, listening to screams of men inside who were being tortured. “I almost died hearing those screams, thinking that it was my turn next. That one hour was more than qayamat (the Day of Judgement) for me.”
Fortunately, he was let off with just a few slaps. He wryly quoted an Urdu poem to the effect that in the times they lived in, qayamat came not once, but every day.
Another student adds: “Our earliest childhood memories are of violence, of gunshots, firings, grenades, land-mines, crackdowns, raids and searches. Death has become normal for us.”
I met a large number of young people: university students and school drop-outs; youngsters from elite city enclaves, slums and the countryside; carpet-weavers, domestic workers, vegetable sellers and farmers
Above all, I was struck by how universal their despair was. I couldn’t find one resident who was not directly touched in one way or the other by a two-decade cycle of violence. I held these dialogues as an invited member of the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian Administered Kashmir, convened by Parvez Imroz and Angana Chatterji with young activists like Khurram Parvez. The convenors themselves have been under official attack.
The overwhelming memory of growing up in Kashmir — which every young person talked of — is of fear. Faiyaz, a 25-year-old shawl-weaver elaborates: “We always carry fear in our hearts. Fear that firing will break out, fear that grenades will be thrown; fear that the army will catch up with you and ask for ID cards, ask where you’re from, claiming that you are not a Kashmiri but a militant from outside, that you are giving shelter and food to militants.”
“I am still frightened of leaving my home after six,” confirms one student. “But I am also frightened about what will happen inside my home.” Every home is lined with thick curtains to ensure that not a sliver of light escapes after dark, as it may attract security personnel to their homes.
Another fear is to be on the streets without an ID card. Armed security-men are stationed every few hundred metres ready to ask for proof of identity, often frisking people for weapons. It’s worse if you have a beard. If you cannot show your ID card, you are arrested. And even if you do, they may keep it for ‘further investigation’.
Each day one has to wait for hours outside the army camp, begging for the return of ID card. Sajjad, a young village tailor, is often thrashed even after showing his ID card. Aijaz, a school drop-out who weaves pashmina shawls, says, “We were never allowed to travel far or to play after dark. All our mothers wanted was to see us before their eyes.” It was a cramped and cloistered childhood.
The dread is also of being caught in a crossfire. A young man tells me of how he was walking home from college with his friends, when they were suddenly dragged by soldiers who were ambushing militants holed up in a house. The soldiers used him and his friends as human shields, forcing them to walk ahead as they showered bullets at the house. The militants finally surrendered and were shot dead. If they had not so chosen to hold their fire, the ‘human shields’ would have fallen instead.
An English word that every single Kashmiri knows and dreads is ‘crackdown’. It has a specific meaning for the people of the valley. A crackdown begins with a terrifying knock on every door of a village or urban settlement at dawn. What follows is a rough peremptory command by a menacing contingent of uniformed soldiers to all men, women and children to gather immediately in an open space. The women and men, often still half-asleep, are separated.
Then the young men are formed into groups, and each youth is identified by informers and interrogated, to confirm if any of them are ‘outsiders’. If they are, they are presumed to be militants. No one is permitted to go out during a crackdown.
Hours pass — often without water and food — as homes are searched. Sometimes the terrified women and girls are returned home. Crackdowns were sometimes repeated every week, or even more often.
They continue even today.It’s worse if you are picked up in one of these crackdowns. Aijaz told me how his father was arrested by security forces many times, charged falsely each time as being a member of a militant group. He used to be returned battered but not broken; a case could never be built against him. So Aijaz gave up his dreams of becoming a doctor and joined his mother in carpet-weaving.
As a teenager, Faiyaz was picked up once and driven to an army interrogation centre. For an hour, he sat outside the chamber, his hands tied behind his back, listening to screams of men inside who were being tortured. “I almost died hearing those screams, thinking that it was my turn next. That one hour was more than qayamat (the Day of Judgement) for me.”
Fortunately, he was let off with just a few slaps. He wryly quoted an Urdu poem to the effect that in the times they lived in, qayamat came not once, but every day.
Fun - Boys will be Boys
In our house, the words, “Did you take your medicine? How many times do you have to be reminded?” are heard at least once, if not more; spoken either by my mother or me, to my laidback dad. He always forgets to take his medication for blood pressure, despite repeated reminders.
A fly on the wall, in any home, would hear a woman’s voice say to a son, “Again you forgot to do your homework? How many times do you have to be told?”Or “How many times do I have to tell you? Drink your milk.” Or “Again you left your lunch box at school? Where is your mind all the time, in the air?”
If the fly moved to the neighbours’, it would hear the wife saying to her husband, “You didn’t get the plumber with you? So what did you do in the market all this while?” Or “How many times must I tell you to put your socks in the wash.. you wear the same thing every day and it stinks.” Or “What?
Your boss is coming for dinner and you forgot to call me?”
Blame it on men Move over next door and the fly would overhear a young woman tell a man, “Oh god! The dishes are still piled in the sink..what did you do all day? Or “You stood me up. If you were not coming to the party, couldn’t you have called? Why didn’t you answer my phone? ”And so it goes. The women get the rap for being a nag, while men of all ages go through life blissfully with smelly socks, dirty dishes piled up in the sink, food rotting in the refrigerator, bills unpaid, dripping taps, medication ignored, belongings left behind and appointments forgotten.
Wild child The problem is that no one would blame the men for it. It would always be, “What kind of mother are you? Your kid doesn’t do his homework. What kind of wife lets her husband out wearing a pair of unwashed socks? What kind of woman ignores her husband’s health? What kind of homemaker lets the tap drip for days?”
It’s a no-win situation for women. Men seldom grow up from grubby boys with scraped knees, reaching out to eat with filthy hands, while a female voice shrieks, “How many times do I have to tell you to wash your hands before touching food? ”Then to the man, “You never say anything and your son is growing up to be a junglee.” Who’s the winner? And most women grow up to be like their mothers, because most men (unless they suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder) remain little boys. Why do little girls always grow up and go out smelling nice, always drink their juice, never land up in school in mismatched socks or without ironing their shirts? Maybe vanity is hard-wired into them. And also maybe because they have to do the remembering for two, so their memory cells have evolved more.
Like men, why can’t women understand that dishes piled up in the sink, clothes strewn on the floor or dripping taps are not the end of the world? Maybe they do, they are just ducking the inevitable with a, “What kind of...”barb. If the choice is between nag and slack, the nag is a clear winner.
A fly on the wall, in any home, would hear a woman’s voice say to a son, “Again you forgot to do your homework? How many times do you have to be told?”Or “How many times do I have to tell you? Drink your milk.” Or “Again you left your lunch box at school? Where is your mind all the time, in the air?”
If the fly moved to the neighbours’, it would hear the wife saying to her husband, “You didn’t get the plumber with you? So what did you do in the market all this while?” Or “How many times must I tell you to put your socks in the wash.. you wear the same thing every day and it stinks.” Or “What?
Your boss is coming for dinner and you forgot to call me?”
Blame it on men Move over next door and the fly would overhear a young woman tell a man, “Oh god! The dishes are still piled in the sink..what did you do all day? Or “You stood me up. If you were not coming to the party, couldn’t you have called? Why didn’t you answer my phone? ”And so it goes. The women get the rap for being a nag, while men of all ages go through life blissfully with smelly socks, dirty dishes piled up in the sink, food rotting in the refrigerator, bills unpaid, dripping taps, medication ignored, belongings left behind and appointments forgotten.
Wild child The problem is that no one would blame the men for it. It would always be, “What kind of mother are you? Your kid doesn’t do his homework. What kind of wife lets her husband out wearing a pair of unwashed socks? What kind of woman ignores her husband’s health? What kind of homemaker lets the tap drip for days?”
It’s a no-win situation for women. Men seldom grow up from grubby boys with scraped knees, reaching out to eat with filthy hands, while a female voice shrieks, “How many times do I have to tell you to wash your hands before touching food? ”Then to the man, “You never say anything and your son is growing up to be a junglee.” Who’s the winner? And most women grow up to be like their mothers, because most men (unless they suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder) remain little boys. Why do little girls always grow up and go out smelling nice, always drink their juice, never land up in school in mismatched socks or without ironing their shirts? Maybe vanity is hard-wired into them. And also maybe because they have to do the remembering for two, so their memory cells have evolved more.
Like men, why can’t women understand that dishes piled up in the sink, clothes strewn on the floor or dripping taps are not the end of the world? Maybe they do, they are just ducking the inevitable with a, “What kind of...”barb. If the choice is between nag and slack, the nag is a clear winner.
India - Rent-a-brand
They're deep in debt to sustain their brand addictions and now Delhi's Gen Z are renting out their luxe belongings to earn some extra cash. The capital city's brand babes, whose need to "create an impression" overrides all else, are into flashy cars, branded 'it' gizmos and international labels. But the problem is, most of then cannot afford these luxuries.
For some, like 28-year-old hotelier Akshay Sahni*, this flirtation with high-end brands resulted in a buying spree which in turn landed him in debt of over Rs 2 lakh.
"On our maiden shopping venture, not only did my 'rich' girlfriend buy brands like Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Armani but she also wanted me to stock them in my wardrobe! And my salary is around Rs 35,000..." But all was not lost, for a friend was looking to rent branded stuff for dinner with his boss.
Sahni, not only let him "borrow" his tux, but also his "girlfriend's favourite" Mont Blanc pen for a couple of extra grand. And in the process, joined the burgeoning ranks of "brand lenders".
Up for grabs
Everything that has a label is up for grabs. And why not - there are so many takers. Take Isha Kapadia*, a self-confessed brand addict, who found this a convenient way out for her "expensive" indulgence.
"Earlier I spent more than I earned on brands, raking up huge credit card bills. Now I 'borrow' them." So what merits "borrowing" a Louis Vuitton bag (Rs 5,000) or a pair of Jimmy Choos (Rs 10,000)?
"It could be anything - a first date, a fancy luncheon, or even a casual night out. Who doesn't want the P3 image?" says 20-year-old Ashu Sharma. "Brands add to my confidence," says Kapadia. "An iPhone at meetings or Jean Paul Gaultier at parties..."
Wise choice Investment consultant Kartik Chawla says, youngsters are wising up. Even if they can afford it, they now rent things, preferring to invest instead." For example, Himanshu Malik - who has many takers who want to 'ride' his latest set of wheels for Rs 5,000 a day - does it to make an extra buck he can invest. His success mantra: "They get to flaunt different cars on special occasions, with no paperwork. In case they want to extend the loan by a day or two,chalta hai."But others are not as laid back and despite deposits need constant reassurance that their goods, especially branded clothes, will be returned in "the same condition".
Another problem is finding the right size. But these are only small hiccups in what looks set to become a booming business for Delhi youngsters.
For some, like 28-year-old hotelier Akshay Sahni*, this flirtation with high-end brands resulted in a buying spree which in turn landed him in debt of over Rs 2 lakh.
"On our maiden shopping venture, not only did my 'rich' girlfriend buy brands like Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Armani but she also wanted me to stock them in my wardrobe! And my salary is around Rs 35,000..." But all was not lost, for a friend was looking to rent branded stuff for dinner with his boss.
Sahni, not only let him "borrow" his tux, but also his "girlfriend's favourite" Mont Blanc pen for a couple of extra grand. And in the process, joined the burgeoning ranks of "brand lenders".
Up for grabs
Everything that has a label is up for grabs. And why not - there are so many takers. Take Isha Kapadia*, a self-confessed brand addict, who found this a convenient way out for her "expensive" indulgence.
"Earlier I spent more than I earned on brands, raking up huge credit card bills. Now I 'borrow' them." So what merits "borrowing" a Louis Vuitton bag (Rs 5,000) or a pair of Jimmy Choos (Rs 10,000)?
"It could be anything - a first date, a fancy luncheon, or even a casual night out. Who doesn't want the P3 image?" says 20-year-old Ashu Sharma. "Brands add to my confidence," says Kapadia. "An iPhone at meetings or Jean Paul Gaultier at parties..."
Wise choice Investment consultant Kartik Chawla says, youngsters are wising up. Even if they can afford it, they now rent things, preferring to invest instead." For example, Himanshu Malik - who has many takers who want to 'ride' his latest set of wheels for Rs 5,000 a day - does it to make an extra buck he can invest. His success mantra: "They get to flaunt different cars on special occasions, with no paperwork. In case they want to extend the loan by a day or two,chalta hai."But others are not as laid back and despite deposits need constant reassurance that their goods, especially branded clothes, will be returned in "the same condition".
Another problem is finding the right size. But these are only small hiccups in what looks set to become a booming business for Delhi youngsters.
India - E-super highway to bring together school/varsities
To bring all the educational and research institutions in the country on to a common platform where they can share resources and expand collaborative research, the government is going to launch a broadband network, the National Knowledge Network (NKN).The network, which will interconnect institutions like the IITs and the Central universities, would be established in six months, S Regunathan, Advisor, National Knowledge Commission (NKC), said. The NKN would have a capacity of 15 GB, making it the fastest and largest network of its kind in the country.With a capacity to connect institutions up to the school level, the network would provide immense opportunities to all institutions in the country to share data within seconds, Regunathan said on the sidelines of eIndia 2008, a conference on information and communications technology.In the budget for 2008-09, Minister of Finance P Chidambaram had allocated Rs 100 crore for the Ministry of Information and Technology to operationalise the network. Following this, the government formed a high-level committee headed by Dr R Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government, to set up the network.The NKN, once it is in place, would also become the first major recommendation by the National Knowledge Commission to be operationalised by the government. Many of the NKC’s recommendations, like the setting up of an Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education, was a point of contention with government bodies, particularly the Ministry of Human Resource Development.The Committee, at present, is finalising the network’s various aspects and is in touch with various stakeholders like the institutions to be connected, Regunathan said. Accordingly, all the institutions like the Central and state universities, IITs, the National Institutes of Technology, and premier research bodies like the Indian Institute of Science would come under the network.The network also gains importance at a time when the government is expanding higher and technical education in the country by opening new IITs, IIMs, and Central universities.With a shortage of efficient faculty being a major problem, the network is expected to address such concerns through the sharing of knowledge between various institutions.
Fun - Supermario brothers voted greatest computer game
The classic platform game was first released in 1985 and has since become one of the biggest selling ever with more than 40 million copies flying off the shelves worldwide.
In the game brothers Mario and Luigi — now recognised the world over — try to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom in a bid to save Princess Peach.
Super Mario Bros 2 was released in 1988, and Super Mario Bros 3 in 1990. The third version was considered by many as the best, and has sold 18 million to date.
The poll of 2,000 gamers, conducted by www.onepoll.com, revealed ‘old skool’ games are still firm favourites with Britain’s army of gamers.
Pac-Man, which was released in 1980, was voted into second place.
The tiny yellow character is as recognisable as Mario and is credited with changing the face of gaming by making it more accessible to everyone.
Pac-Man has since appeared on Game Boy, Commodore 64, Playstation, PSP, and Xbox 360, amongst others.
As well as the hype generated around the arcade game, Pac-Man merchandise took the World by storm in the 1980s with t-shirts and toys.
Third place in the poll went to another game from the 1980s; Tetris.
The addictive puzzle game, which is widely available across different games consoles, consists of seven blocks which fall down the playing field — the gamer has to manipulate them to create lines which then disappear.
John Sewell, spokesman for www.onepoll.com, said: “Games which were invented years ago, like Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Super Mario and Pac Man all appear in the top ten.
“This shows that classic games will live on forever in the hearts of computer game fans.
“The gaming industry is getting more and more competitive, releasing more and more innovative games by the minute — but this survey proves that sometimes the most simple formats work well to keep game players hooked.”
The Sims and Sonic the Hedgehog complete the top five. Here’s the full top twenty list of best computer games.
In the game brothers Mario and Luigi — now recognised the world over — try to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom in a bid to save Princess Peach.
Super Mario Bros 2 was released in 1988, and Super Mario Bros 3 in 1990. The third version was considered by many as the best, and has sold 18 million to date.
The poll of 2,000 gamers, conducted by www.onepoll.com, revealed ‘old skool’ games are still firm favourites with Britain’s army of gamers.
Pac-Man, which was released in 1980, was voted into second place.
The tiny yellow character is as recognisable as Mario and is credited with changing the face of gaming by making it more accessible to everyone.
Pac-Man has since appeared on Game Boy, Commodore 64, Playstation, PSP, and Xbox 360, amongst others.
As well as the hype generated around the arcade game, Pac-Man merchandise took the World by storm in the 1980s with t-shirts and toys.
Third place in the poll went to another game from the 1980s; Tetris.
The addictive puzzle game, which is widely available across different games consoles, consists of seven blocks which fall down the playing field — the gamer has to manipulate them to create lines which then disappear.
John Sewell, spokesman for www.onepoll.com, said: “Games which were invented years ago, like Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Super Mario and Pac Man all appear in the top ten.
“This shows that classic games will live on forever in the hearts of computer game fans.
“The gaming industry is getting more and more competitive, releasing more and more innovative games by the minute — but this survey proves that sometimes the most simple formats work well to keep game players hooked.”
The Sims and Sonic the Hedgehog complete the top five. Here’s the full top twenty list of best computer games.
India - Soon you can touch 100kmph on highways
NEW DELHI: The Centre has proposed to raise the speed limit of passenger cars on highways to 100km per hour, despite the hue and cry over increasing deaths on these expressways. The transport ministry is seeking views of state governments and has called a meeting on August 6. "The ministry has proposed the limit to be raised to 100km/hour on national and state highways as well as expressways," a ministry official said. The present limit varies from state to state in the range of 80- to 90km per hour. The ministry mooted the proposal as highways being constructed now allow much higher speeds and new cars can run much faster, the official said
Lifestyle - Nanofoods
ORLANDO (FLORIDA): Those consumers already worried about genetically engineered or cloned food reaching their tables may soon find something else in their grocery carts to furrow their brows over - nano-foods. Consumer advocates taking part in a food safety conference in Orlando, Florida, this week said food produced by using nanotechnology is quietly coming onto the market, and they want US authorities to force manufacturers to identify them. Nanotechnology involves the design and manipulation of materials on molecular scales, smaller than the width of a human hair and invisible to the naked eye. Companies using nanotechnology say it can enhance the flavor or nutritional effectiveness of food. US health officials generally prefer not to place warning labels on products unless there are clear reasons for caution or concern. But consumer advocates say uncertainty over health consequences alone is sufficient cause to justify identifying nano-foods. "I think nanotechnology is the new genetic engineering. People just don't know what's going on, and it's moving so fast,"Jane Kolodinsky, a consumer economist at the University of Vermont, said at the conference. American consumers are generally more complacent about genetically modified or cloned foods than their counterparts in Europe. But Michael Hansen, a senior scientist with the Consumers Union, said polls show that 69% of Americans are concerned about eating cloned meat. He said that in focus groups run by the US Food and Drug Administration, no parents were willing to feed their children meat from cloned animals or their offspring. New consumer products created through nanotechnology are coming on the market at the rate of 3 to 4 per week, according to an advocacy group, The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN), based on an inventory it has drawn up of 609 known or claimed nano-products. Nano-products in common use today include lightweight tennis rackets and bicycles, and sunscreens containing clear, nonwhite versions of zinc oxide and titanium dioxide. On PEN's list are three foods - a brand of canola cooking oil called Canola Active Oil, a tea called Nanotea and a chocolate diet shake called Nanoceuticals Slim Shake Chocolate.
Fun - Gender Bender
In the animal world there are no gender issues. Female seahorses, for instance, routinely make males pregnant by inserting their extendable egg depositing organs into the males' “brood pouch”. If that's not dominatrix enough, consider the angler fish. When a mature male locates a female it bites into her and releases an enzyme that digests his mouth and her skin — thus fusing them together. Most of him thereafter dissolves away except for the testes which remain stuck on as part of her body. This ensures that any time she's ready to reproduce, the most important remains of her once and horny mate are available on demand. Ironically, human beings were also much more animal-like at one point of time and they, too, didn't have any gender problems in that primeval world. Evolution had made sure males were more physically robust and the females less so. This meant the former were obviously more capable of, say, spearing down prey and, therefore, it made perfect sense they did so instead of the other way around. Females, on the other hand, were fashioned with bodies capable of bringing babies to term and nurturing them. So, again, it made complete sense because it was a level-headed division of labour. But somewhere around this time our rapidly developing brains switched to warp drive. In quick succession we discovered or invented fire, agriculture, the wheel, writing, mathematics, medicine, printing, commerce, industry, head offices, hiring, CEOs and Indra Nooyi who it now turns out can not only look after her cave with the aplomb of a Stone Age squaw but can kick male ass — if she needs to, that is — better than a female seahorse in its prime. Unfortunately, though, for most of her sisters around the world, the story's not so rosy. But this was something that should have been anticipated by everybody ever since the hunter-gatherers and primary-caregivers became “civilised” into societies and those ancient divisions of labour began blurring via nascent concepts of equality. The irony here is that the blurring's happened only on the outside. Inside the brain the old hardwiring hasn't changed much. This not only explains why in countries like Saudi Arabia women aren't allowed to drive but why a “modern” democracy like Switzerland let its female citizens vote for the first time only in 1971. But no one's really to blame here. If, for instance, a bunch of cavemen had decided that, beginning one sudden century, they were going to personally look after their grottos and take care of the children from then on, they would probably have had their eyes raked out in reverse. Nevertheless, having said that, it's also way past due date when men should be telling themselves that the biological model no longer holds. That secretly blaming it on the genes is not going to work for much longer. In any case, in the future, the workplace isn't going to remain the jungle it's been so far. Two technologies in particular are going to make sure that the functional equivalence between men and women will rise to significantly higher levels than they are today. One is the bandwidth explosion; the other robotics. Once everyone has cheap and easy access to huge amounts of high-speed connectivity enabling voice, video and text, the need for a separate workplace will diminish and offices will become increasingly redundant, till they vanish. Home robots, on the other hand, will revolutionise the way we operate in our nuclear units to such an extent that about 50 years from now their presence will become nothing short of fundamental. When you have intelligent machines with apron strings looking after household work, domestic chores no longer remain the major responsibility of just one party. We're in a transition phase at the moment — still part brutes of the wild — but it's interesting to speculate how we're going to react when whole paradigms shift and mindsets melt, thanks largely to the impact of technology on our genetic make-up. So will that bring equality? Who knows. After all, freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.
Me - Long time
Hi All,
Long time since i posted.Guess the reason for the same being,i was too held up reading tat writing too the backseat.I have been getting comments on the blog from people i don't personally know.That is good news ,especially considering the fact that i haven't even spread the word about me blogging even to my college groups.So thank you everyone who left a message.
As for the content in the blog, we have tried to bring in quality content & i believe we are on the right track.I have been reading more,rejecting more & trying to post only articles which i feel are worth your time.I get regular feedback from my friend & colleague paramu on topics he enjoys reading.So have tried to take that into account.He is been asking me to slow down the pace of reading ,or else he just might lose interest seeing the huge number of posts.ha
Going forward we will try to bring in more fun,entertainment content for the blog so that people who prefer light reading also stay interested.
This week is been good,Last week i had fair amount of work at office & also had a lil bit of travelling ,hence the dip in number of posts. Iam hoping people readin the blog are liking whatever they are seeing. Do feel free to tell me new sites which you would want me to include to the reading list.
I think i will stop here and let you enjoy reading other content.
Take care and Happy readin
SZri ( I kinda like the SZ look,ha)
Fun - Boy = Girl
Do girls really fare worse than boys when it comes to studying science, or more specifically, while doing mathematics? Most people, including academics, seem to think so. No less an authority than the president of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, reiterated the same thing a few years back when he suggested that the lack of innate aptitude of women was a factor behind their low numbers in science and engineering. He had to resign, of course, but not before another “authority”, the well-known evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker, argued that Summers' remarks were scientifically justified and should not be considered offensive. Well, too bad for them because it's official now: girls are apparently just as good at math as boys. That was the finding of a study — the largest of its kind ever — released last week in the journal 'Science'. In it, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, said a comparison of standardised mathematical test scores of approximately seven million students showed girls did as well as boys at virtually every grade level — from primary to high school. This reverses study reports from some 20 years ago when girls were found to be lagging behind boys. Obviously, something other than genes are at work here in narrowing the gap. Normally, the perception which prevails among both parents and teachers is that boys are better at math and, as a conditioned reflex, girls keep buying into that. By believing the stereotype they wind up avoiding harder math classes which keep them out of a lot of careers in later life, particularly high-prestige, lucrative ones in science and technology. However, according to the new study, programmes promoting girls' participation in mathematics and science, as has been done in the US, is the ideal solution because the more girls are encouraged to take advanced math classes, the better they do on tests. This clearly suggests that cultural and social factors, not gender alone, influence ability to understand mathematical concepts. The relevance of the encouragement factor in a country like India, where the same mindset is even more rampant, cannot be overstated. Along with encouraging parents to give girls an education, if they could also be persuaded to push them along science streams, it could result in expanded opportunities for their children in the future.
Jul 31, 2008
Business - British Airways & Iberia
THERE is nothing like high oil prices, it would seem, to free a European airline from protective national sentiment. Late last year British Airways (BA) backed away from a bid it had made with four private-equity firms for Iberia, Spain’s flag carrier, after Caja Madrid, a Spanish bank with government connections, bought a large defensive stake. On Tuesday July 29th, with the price of oil up 25% and BA and Iberia shares down 25% and 37% respectively, the two firms said they were in talks about an all-share merger. Both companies’ boards support the deal, as does Caja Madrid.
In July Martin Broughton, BA’s chairman, said the firm faced “perhaps the biggest crisis the aviation industry has ever known”. As well as soaring fuel costs, airlines are bracing themselves for weakening consumer demand. Cost savings and revenue gains from a merger will help BA and Iberia mitigate the pain.
From a strategic point of view, too, both BA and Iberia badly need more bulk. The smaller of the two, Iberia has lost market share in Spain and is struggling to compete with Europe’s two biggest airlines, Air France-KLM and Lufthansa, both of which completed cross-border mergers in recent years. Those mergers relegated BA from first to third place in Europe, and made it look increasingly left out as the industry consolidated. Had Iberia fallen to one of BA’s European rivals, its position would have been badly weakened. And BA needs a new avenue for growth now that a third runway at Heathrow looks unlikely. Iberia will bring it extra capacity at Madrid Barajas airport, which has four runways, and fast-growing long-haul routes between Spain and Latin America.
As is customary in cross-border airline mergers, BA and Iberia will merge financially, but not operationally—at least in the immediate term. “They’ve put rings on each others’ fingers, but we may have to wait for several years for the consummation,” says Rigas Doganis, former chairman of Olympic Airways, Greece’s flag carrier. A joint holding company will own the two airlines, but their brands will survive, and day-to-day operations will be managed separately.
Savings will come from combining back-office activities and from joint purchasing of aircraft, fuel and ground services. Joint purchasing of aircraft, potentially the biggest source of savings, may take some time, however, says Robert Cullemore of Aviation Economics, a consultancy. Air France and KLM, he points out, still announce their orders for new aircraft separately, four years after merging. On the revenue side, the merger will reduce competition on routes where BA and Iberia both operate, letting them raise prices.
Similar “half merger” strategies produced better results than expected for Air France-KLM and Lufthansa, which took over Swiss in 2005. But industry observers question whether BA and Iberia will reap similar benefits. The two airlines already operate an alliance on the London-Madrid route and divide the profits, notes Geoff van Klaveren, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas, so there are no further synergies to be had there. And they have fewer long-haul flights in common than Air France and KLM did when they merged, so there is less scope for combining flights.
Now that Spain has allowed economic reality to prevail over nationalism, another struggling airline stands out all the more starkly: Italy’s flag-carrier, Alitalia, which is losing over €1m ($1.6m) a day. Air France-KLM offered to buy it, but the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, intervened to stop the deal. Oil prices have fallen from their recent peaks, but perhaps they are still high enough to change minds in Rome, just as they did in Madrid.
In July Martin Broughton, BA’s chairman, said the firm faced “perhaps the biggest crisis the aviation industry has ever known”. As well as soaring fuel costs, airlines are bracing themselves for weakening consumer demand. Cost savings and revenue gains from a merger will help BA and Iberia mitigate the pain.
From a strategic point of view, too, both BA and Iberia badly need more bulk. The smaller of the two, Iberia has lost market share in Spain and is struggling to compete with Europe’s two biggest airlines, Air France-KLM and Lufthansa, both of which completed cross-border mergers in recent years. Those mergers relegated BA from first to third place in Europe, and made it look increasingly left out as the industry consolidated. Had Iberia fallen to one of BA’s European rivals, its position would have been badly weakened. And BA needs a new avenue for growth now that a third runway at Heathrow looks unlikely. Iberia will bring it extra capacity at Madrid Barajas airport, which has four runways, and fast-growing long-haul routes between Spain and Latin America.
As is customary in cross-border airline mergers, BA and Iberia will merge financially, but not operationally—at least in the immediate term. “They’ve put rings on each others’ fingers, but we may have to wait for several years for the consummation,” says Rigas Doganis, former chairman of Olympic Airways, Greece’s flag carrier. A joint holding company will own the two airlines, but their brands will survive, and day-to-day operations will be managed separately.
Savings will come from combining back-office activities and from joint purchasing of aircraft, fuel and ground services. Joint purchasing of aircraft, potentially the biggest source of savings, may take some time, however, says Robert Cullemore of Aviation Economics, a consultancy. Air France and KLM, he points out, still announce their orders for new aircraft separately, four years after merging. On the revenue side, the merger will reduce competition on routes where BA and Iberia both operate, letting them raise prices.
Similar “half merger” strategies produced better results than expected for Air France-KLM and Lufthansa, which took over Swiss in 2005. But industry observers question whether BA and Iberia will reap similar benefits. The two airlines already operate an alliance on the London-Madrid route and divide the profits, notes Geoff van Klaveren, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas, so there are no further synergies to be had there. And they have fewer long-haul flights in common than Air France and KLM did when they merged, so there is less scope for combining flights.
Now that Spain has allowed economic reality to prevail over nationalism, another struggling airline stands out all the more starkly: Italy’s flag-carrier, Alitalia, which is losing over €1m ($1.6m) a day. Air France-KLM offered to buy it, but the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, intervened to stop the deal. Oil prices have fallen from their recent peaks, but perhaps they are still high enough to change minds in Rome, just as they did in Madrid.
Lifestyle - Losing their bottle
Wine makers experiment with snob-defying packaging
“THERE is a devil in every berry of the grape,” says the Koran. To the environmentally conscious, the wine bottle is not much better. At about 400 grams, a typical glass bottle is around eight times heavier than a plastic one. It therefore takes more energy to transport, and so entails greater emissions of greenhouse gases, which could be reduced by switching to lighter packaging.
Connoisseurs tend to flinch at the notion of drinking wine that comes in a plastic bottle or—heaven forbid—a box. But mass producers have succeeded in trading corks for screw caps, even for some more expensive bottles, without ruffling too many feathers.
New receptacles are now testing the limits of such open-mindedness. Boisset Family Estates, an American importer of French wines, has begun offering French Rabbit—wines which come in a rounded, octagonal one-litre Tetra Pak with a metallic finish. According to Boisset, French Rabbit’s carbon footprint is little more than a tenth of that of conventional bottled wines. Over 6m units have been purchased worldwide in the past 18 months, which bodes well for the future of alternative wine packaging.
Arniston Bay, a South African producer, has also begun to eschew the glass bottle, in favour of pouches, which have around one-twentieth of the weight and produce one-fifth of the emissions. Such packaging does not tend to be well received in South Africa, where downmarket papsaks (foil bags of wine) were banned because of their purported contribution to alcoholism and associated social ills. But Arniston Bay’s pouch is the subject of a marketing blitz in Britain.
Francis Ford Coppola, a film director turned winemaker, is also a packaging pioneer, although for marketing rather than environmental purposes. His Sofia Mini Blanc de Blancs, a sparkling wine which “bursts with rich pear, honeysuckle and exotic passion-fruit aromas”, comes in a shiny red aluminium can that will have purists running for the hills.
Not surprisingly, there is no sign of change at the high end of the market. David Berry Green, whose family has helped to run Berry Bros & Rudd, a grand wine merchant, for eight generations, admits that many of his customers are unlikely to accept anything other than a traditional bottle sealed with a cork. It may take a generation or two more before the family that served the exiled Napoleon III sells its grandest vintages in aluminium cans with straws included, like the Sofia Mini.
World - SAARC Chasm
South Asia discusses regional friendship
THERE may be some awkward pauses this week in Colombo, where South Asia’s leaders are due to meet to discuss, among other shared concerns, terrorism. It is not that they will be unprepared. Terrorism, with food security and energy, was long ago listed as a major talking point for the annual summit of the South Asia Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which is being held in Sri Lanka’s capital. The problem is that there has been so much terrorism about, including a suicide attack on India’s embassy in Kabul in June, in which an Indian diplomat and general were killed, for which India and Afghanistan blamed Pakistan. All three countries are members of SAARC.
This indicates a sad truth about South Asia’s regional club. Several of its members, including the biggest (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) don’t get on. And this makes one of SAARC’s founding objectives—“to contribute to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of one another’s problems”—rather difficult to achieve. Take terrorism, for example: Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have all, at various times, exported it to India, so South Asia’s biggest country tends to suppose that its problem, in fact, is its neighbours.
This goes a long way to explaining why SAARC has spectacularly failed in its main task: promoting regional economic integration. According to a World Bank report released last year, South Asia is the least integrated region in the world. Trade between SAARC’s members accounted for less than 2% of their combined GDP. In East Asia, the equivalent figure was 20%.
A vast potential is untapped. The Bank estimated that annual trade between India and Pakistan, currently worth about $1 billion and routed mainly through Dubai, could increase nine-fold—if both countries would only withdraw an army of tariff and other barriers from their razor-wired border.
An Indian think-tank, the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, cites another example: less than 4% of South Asian textiles and clothing is traded within the region. Over 80% of the fabric imported by Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, both major garment-makers, is imported from outside South Asia, even though India and Pakistan are net exporters of the stuff.
Bad governance is part of the problem. Sri Lanka’s impressive rag-makers, operating in high-value niches, may find China a more reliable source of fabric than corrupt, rowdy Pakistan. But bad politics, expressed in a clutter of tariffs, inspections and other needless regulation, is more to blame. SAARC was supposed to clear these. It has not, despite offering a probably-forlorn promise of regional free trade by 2012.
In part, this failure is a product of the club’s design, which supposes, almost by definition, that its members all have an interest in each other. In fact, India shares interests with its regional neighbours, and they, more or less, share interests with it. As South Asia’s dominant power—accounting for more than 75% of regional GDP—India has tended to see SAARC as little more than a means for the minnows to gang up on it. It has therefore preferred to conduct its regional business bilaterally.
With Nepal and Bhutan, Himalayan minnows, it has done so quite successfully. Both operate more or less open borders with India, though Bhutan levies some tariffs. And Nepal, much the bigger and trickier of the two, has proved hostile to Indian investment and political interference. With Sri Lanka, a smaller tiddler, India has also made progress. Since the two countries signed a free trade agreement in 2000, their bilateral trade has increased four-fold, to a still-modest $2.7 billion in 2007.
India and Pakistan, despite the latter's announcement this month that it would allow a greater range of imports from India, including diesel, have made no such progress. Pakistan has ratified the free-trade agreement, while limiting its concessions towards India. Bangladesh, under its unelected, military-backed government, has been more receptive to India’s invitations to boost bilateral trade, but only a bit.
The irrelevance of SAARC to these developments is rather depressing. In particular, it bodes ill for the prospects of regional progress on an issue where it is certainly needed—climate change. Poor, hot and largely agrarian, South Asia will suffer especially severely from rising temperatures. In Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, the loss of Himalayan glaciers will cause major disruption to the rivers upon which 600m people depend. By one estimate, climate change will cause a 30-40% drop in India’s agricultural output by 2080.
Rather belatedly, SAARC has noticed the problem. On July 3rd the club’s environment ministers met in Dhaka to announce a regional plan to co-operate against climate-induced problems. That was encouraging. Yet a suspicion remains that the region's climate may have to get dangerously hot before SAARC soars, phoenix-like into action.
THERE may be some awkward pauses this week in Colombo, where South Asia’s leaders are due to meet to discuss, among other shared concerns, terrorism. It is not that they will be unprepared. Terrorism, with food security and energy, was long ago listed as a major talking point for the annual summit of the South Asia Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which is being held in Sri Lanka’s capital. The problem is that there has been so much terrorism about, including a suicide attack on India’s embassy in Kabul in June, in which an Indian diplomat and general were killed, for which India and Afghanistan blamed Pakistan. All three countries are members of SAARC.
This indicates a sad truth about South Asia’s regional club. Several of its members, including the biggest (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) don’t get on. And this makes one of SAARC’s founding objectives—“to contribute to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of one another’s problems”—rather difficult to achieve. Take terrorism, for example: Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have all, at various times, exported it to India, so South Asia’s biggest country tends to suppose that its problem, in fact, is its neighbours.
This goes a long way to explaining why SAARC has spectacularly failed in its main task: promoting regional economic integration. According to a World Bank report released last year, South Asia is the least integrated region in the world. Trade between SAARC’s members accounted for less than 2% of their combined GDP. In East Asia, the equivalent figure was 20%.
A vast potential is untapped. The Bank estimated that annual trade between India and Pakistan, currently worth about $1 billion and routed mainly through Dubai, could increase nine-fold—if both countries would only withdraw an army of tariff and other barriers from their razor-wired border.
An Indian think-tank, the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, cites another example: less than 4% of South Asian textiles and clothing is traded within the region. Over 80% of the fabric imported by Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, both major garment-makers, is imported from outside South Asia, even though India and Pakistan are net exporters of the stuff.
Bad governance is part of the problem. Sri Lanka’s impressive rag-makers, operating in high-value niches, may find China a more reliable source of fabric than corrupt, rowdy Pakistan. But bad politics, expressed in a clutter of tariffs, inspections and other needless regulation, is more to blame. SAARC was supposed to clear these. It has not, despite offering a probably-forlorn promise of regional free trade by 2012.
In part, this failure is a product of the club’s design, which supposes, almost by definition, that its members all have an interest in each other. In fact, India shares interests with its regional neighbours, and they, more or less, share interests with it. As South Asia’s dominant power—accounting for more than 75% of regional GDP—India has tended to see SAARC as little more than a means for the minnows to gang up on it. It has therefore preferred to conduct its regional business bilaterally.
With Nepal and Bhutan, Himalayan minnows, it has done so quite successfully. Both operate more or less open borders with India, though Bhutan levies some tariffs. And Nepal, much the bigger and trickier of the two, has proved hostile to Indian investment and political interference. With Sri Lanka, a smaller tiddler, India has also made progress. Since the two countries signed a free trade agreement in 2000, their bilateral trade has increased four-fold, to a still-modest $2.7 billion in 2007.
India and Pakistan, despite the latter's announcement this month that it would allow a greater range of imports from India, including diesel, have made no such progress. Pakistan has ratified the free-trade agreement, while limiting its concessions towards India. Bangladesh, under its unelected, military-backed government, has been more receptive to India’s invitations to boost bilateral trade, but only a bit.
The irrelevance of SAARC to these developments is rather depressing. In particular, it bodes ill for the prospects of regional progress on an issue where it is certainly needed—climate change. Poor, hot and largely agrarian, South Asia will suffer especially severely from rising temperatures. In Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, the loss of Himalayan glaciers will cause major disruption to the rivers upon which 600m people depend. By one estimate, climate change will cause a 30-40% drop in India’s agricultural output by 2080.
Rather belatedly, SAARC has noticed the problem. On July 3rd the club’s environment ministers met in Dhaka to announce a regional plan to co-operate against climate-induced problems. That was encouraging. Yet a suspicion remains that the region's climate may have to get dangerously hot before SAARC soars, phoenix-like into action.
Business - In Sickness & In Wealth
Steve Jobs and the case for succession planning
IS HE sick, or isn’t he? And if he is sick, just how serious is his condition? Ever since an emaciated Steve Jobs appeared on stage at a conference in June to introduce Apple’s new generation of iPhone, rumours have been flying about the state of his health. Various non-committal statements from Apple executives have thickened the fog surrounding the issue.
Between July 21st and July 28th Apple’s stock slipped from $166.29 to $154.40. That partly reflects the firm’s prediction that sales will grow slower than it initially expected in the next quarter, as the global economy slows. But it also shows that investors are worried about both the health of Mr Jobs, who underwent successful surgery to tackle pancreatic cancer in 2004, and about Apple’s lack of an explicit plan to replace him should he become incapacitated. Apple’s experience is a wake-up call to board directors everywhere, who need to sharpen their thinking on executive succession, especially given the febrile state of today’s financial markets.
As companies’ profits fall, demands for a firm (and possibly new) hand on the leadership tiller will grow. Confusion at the top may be exploited by short-sellers, who will dump a firm’s shares and buy them back on the cheap after bad news has driven down the share price. Regulators have recently crimped the shorts' activity in financial stocks; they are looking for new targets.
All this raises two important questions: first, how much should a company divulge about its CEO’s health? And second, how explicit should it be to the outside world about its succession plans?
The by-the-corporate-governance-book answer to the first question is that so long as directors are kept informed of a CEO’s health and the boss is still capable of performing his or her duties, there is no obligation to make any public statement. This seems to be Apple’s approach: it considers Mr Jobs’s health a private matter.
But when investors believe that a company’s fortunes are intimately tied to a visionary leader—as is the case with Apple—speculation about that leader’s longevity can have a direct impact on the share price. If, on the other hand, a firm convinces investors it has strong successors-in-waiting, then rumours that the boss has the sniffles (or worse) are less likely to set its stock price aflutter.
So the answers to the two questions posed earlier in this column are linked: a company with a strong succession plan in place is less likely to have to broadcast its leader’s vital signs to the world.
To see how this can be done, consider the case of Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company run by the legendary Warren Buffett. Mr Buffett’s famed investment prowess has helped make Berkshire’s shareholders rich, and, at 77, he shows no signs of flagging.
Still, he stresses regularly that Berkshire is prepared for a post-Buffett future. “I’ve reluctantly discarded the notion of my continuing to manage the portfolio after my death—abandoning my hope to give new meaning to the term ‘thinking outside the box’,” quipped Mr Buffett in Berkshire’s 2007 annual report. The report stated that the firm has identified three outstanding internal candidates who could replace Mr Buffett as CEO if he becomes permanently indisposed.
Mr Buffett is a modest, laid-back and fabulously wealthy guy. Only the last of those adjectives can be applied to Mr Jobs. A driven business-builder, he may be reluctant to countenance the idea of giving up leadership of Apple or of having a publicly announced succession pool below him.
But the latest round of speculation over his health makes the case for such a pool stronger than ever. Perhaps Apple’s next gizmo launch should even be fronted by a potential successor, rather than Mr Jobs, clad in his trademark black garb.
Some boards fret that setting up a formal horserace may be counterproductive. Divisive rival camps may form. But speculation about succession to the corner office will occur anyway, and a formal plan both makes the process more transparent and allows the CEO and directors to manage any internal tensions more easily.
One company that has placed great emphasis on succession planning is General Electric (GE). Several years before standing down as CEO in 2001, Jack Welch and GE’s directors identified three potential successors: James McNerney, Robert Nardelli and Jeffrey Immelt. All three were put through their paces in a high-pressure process that one of the candidates likened to “playing in the last two minutes of the Super Bowl, but for two years.”
In the end, GE chose Mr Immelt. The handover was seamless and for several years GE continued to delight investors with increased sales and profits. But in recent months its fortunes—and Mr Immelt’s star—have faded. On July 25th the company announced a reorganisation, reducing its number of business units from six to four in a bid to simplify its management and boost profits. It is also selling off several activities.
Although the jury remains out on whether GE’s directors made the right choice, their approach to succession planning served them well. Apple’s directors would do well to follow it.
IS HE sick, or isn’t he? And if he is sick, just how serious is his condition? Ever since an emaciated Steve Jobs appeared on stage at a conference in June to introduce Apple’s new generation of iPhone, rumours have been flying about the state of his health. Various non-committal statements from Apple executives have thickened the fog surrounding the issue.
Between July 21st and July 28th Apple’s stock slipped from $166.29 to $154.40. That partly reflects the firm’s prediction that sales will grow slower than it initially expected in the next quarter, as the global economy slows. But it also shows that investors are worried about both the health of Mr Jobs, who underwent successful surgery to tackle pancreatic cancer in 2004, and about Apple’s lack of an explicit plan to replace him should he become incapacitated. Apple’s experience is a wake-up call to board directors everywhere, who need to sharpen their thinking on executive succession, especially given the febrile state of today’s financial markets.
As companies’ profits fall, demands for a firm (and possibly new) hand on the leadership tiller will grow. Confusion at the top may be exploited by short-sellers, who will dump a firm’s shares and buy them back on the cheap after bad news has driven down the share price. Regulators have recently crimped the shorts' activity in financial stocks; they are looking for new targets.
All this raises two important questions: first, how much should a company divulge about its CEO’s health? And second, how explicit should it be to the outside world about its succession plans?
The by-the-corporate-governance-book answer to the first question is that so long as directors are kept informed of a CEO’s health and the boss is still capable of performing his or her duties, there is no obligation to make any public statement. This seems to be Apple’s approach: it considers Mr Jobs’s health a private matter.
But when investors believe that a company’s fortunes are intimately tied to a visionary leader—as is the case with Apple—speculation about that leader’s longevity can have a direct impact on the share price. If, on the other hand, a firm convinces investors it has strong successors-in-waiting, then rumours that the boss has the sniffles (or worse) are less likely to set its stock price aflutter.
So the answers to the two questions posed earlier in this column are linked: a company with a strong succession plan in place is less likely to have to broadcast its leader’s vital signs to the world.
To see how this can be done, consider the case of Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company run by the legendary Warren Buffett. Mr Buffett’s famed investment prowess has helped make Berkshire’s shareholders rich, and, at 77, he shows no signs of flagging.
Still, he stresses regularly that Berkshire is prepared for a post-Buffett future. “I’ve reluctantly discarded the notion of my continuing to manage the portfolio after my death—abandoning my hope to give new meaning to the term ‘thinking outside the box’,” quipped Mr Buffett in Berkshire’s 2007 annual report. The report stated that the firm has identified three outstanding internal candidates who could replace Mr Buffett as CEO if he becomes permanently indisposed.
Mr Buffett is a modest, laid-back and fabulously wealthy guy. Only the last of those adjectives can be applied to Mr Jobs. A driven business-builder, he may be reluctant to countenance the idea of giving up leadership of Apple or of having a publicly announced succession pool below him.
But the latest round of speculation over his health makes the case for such a pool stronger than ever. Perhaps Apple’s next gizmo launch should even be fronted by a potential successor, rather than Mr Jobs, clad in his trademark black garb.
Some boards fret that setting up a formal horserace may be counterproductive. Divisive rival camps may form. But speculation about succession to the corner office will occur anyway, and a formal plan both makes the process more transparent and allows the CEO and directors to manage any internal tensions more easily.
One company that has placed great emphasis on succession planning is General Electric (GE). Several years before standing down as CEO in 2001, Jack Welch and GE’s directors identified three potential successors: James McNerney, Robert Nardelli and Jeffrey Immelt. All three were put through their paces in a high-pressure process that one of the candidates likened to “playing in the last two minutes of the Super Bowl, but for two years.”
In the end, GE chose Mr Immelt. The handover was seamless and for several years GE continued to delight investors with increased sales and profits. But in recent months its fortunes—and Mr Immelt’s star—have faded. On July 25th the company announced a reorganisation, reducing its number of business units from six to four in a bid to simplify its management and boost profits. It is also selling off several activities.
Although the jury remains out on whether GE’s directors made the right choice, their approach to succession planning served them well. Apple’s directors would do well to follow it.
India - Staying the courser
Indian conservationists strive to convince politicians of a small bird’s existence
WHEN in 2006 conservationists petitioned Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh (AP), to designate the Jerdon’s courser as the official bird of the southern Indian state, they had a strong case. Unlike the Indian roller, the incumbent state bird, the Jerdon’s courser is endemic to AP. Moreover, the “rediscovery” of the bird in 1986—almost a century after it had last been spotted, and decades after it was assumed to have gone extinct—was a special achievement for India’s ornithologists. But Mr Reddy had a problem. He worried that the courser did not, in fact, exist.
This was somewhat understandable. A small, brown inhabitant of undergrowth, the nocturnal courser—also known as the double-banded courser—is exceptionally rare and elusive. Since 1986, when a specimen of the bird was trapped, it has been seen only ten times, in a single patch of scrub forest in southern AP. Its call has been heard about 30 times, most recently in June. According to an unpublished study by researchers at Britain’s University of Reading—based on the habits of similar species—the courser’s protected forest could hold up to (but probably not more than) 32 pairs of the bird. It is one of 13 Indian bird species classified as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a grouping of governments and NGOs.
But there was another reason why Mr Reddy might have been reluctant to confer his official blessing on the lowly ground-nester. It was proving to be a major obstacle to an important development project of his government: a 400-km channel, known as the Telugu-Ganga canal, to bring water through AP to Chennai, formerly Madras, and irrigate vast spaces along the way. Three decades after work began on the scheme, it is almost completed. But it has been stalled since 2006 in one scrubby area, on the order of India’s Supreme Court, after conservationists complained that the canal would bisect the last habitat of the Jerdon’s courser.
An impressive—and expensive—compromise is now almost in place. At the urging of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), an NGO, the state irrigation ministry has agreed to reroute the canal. (Though haggling continues over its exact course.) The government has also more or less agreed to add 3,000 acres of adjoining land to the courser’s sanctuary. It has already acquired much of this. The land’s erstwhile owners are said to be happy with the deal. They had few ties to this land, which is mostly unproductive and was given to them after their original holdings were flooded for a reservoir. The BNHS, meanwhile, is trying to catch and then radio-tag two specimens of the courser—and so prove to Mr Reddy its inconvenient existence.
With many troublesome conservationists—and righteous judges—India has guarded its magnificent wildlife perhaps surprisingly well. Though poor, densely populated and home to many threatened species, it has lost only a handful of animals in recent decades: for example, the Asiatic cheetah, Javanese rhinoceros and Sikkim stag. And it has lost only two species of bird: the pink-headed duck and Himalayan mountain quail. Like the Jerdon’s courser, the forest owlet was also ruled extinct before it was rediscovered. A fish, the Ladakh snow trout, may have similarly have re-emerged from the abyss.
This gives India a better record in conservation than many countries. Yet its wildlife is nonetheless in dreadful jeopardy: from a poor and fast-growing population, eating into India’s remaining forests and marshes; and also, increasingly, from infrastructure projects, fuelled by strong economic growth. The IUCN now groups India with China, Brazil and Indonesia, as countries with the highest number of species facing extinction. Many will no doubt slip more quietly into that long night than the Jerdon’s courser.
WHEN in 2006 conservationists petitioned Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh (AP), to designate the Jerdon’s courser as the official bird of the southern Indian state, they had a strong case. Unlike the Indian roller, the incumbent state bird, the Jerdon’s courser is endemic to AP. Moreover, the “rediscovery” of the bird in 1986—almost a century after it had last been spotted, and decades after it was assumed to have gone extinct—was a special achievement for India’s ornithologists. But Mr Reddy had a problem. He worried that the courser did not, in fact, exist.
This was somewhat understandable. A small, brown inhabitant of undergrowth, the nocturnal courser—also known as the double-banded courser—is exceptionally rare and elusive. Since 1986, when a specimen of the bird was trapped, it has been seen only ten times, in a single patch of scrub forest in southern AP. Its call has been heard about 30 times, most recently in June. According to an unpublished study by researchers at Britain’s University of Reading—based on the habits of similar species—the courser’s protected forest could hold up to (but probably not more than) 32 pairs of the bird. It is one of 13 Indian bird species classified as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a grouping of governments and NGOs.
But there was another reason why Mr Reddy might have been reluctant to confer his official blessing on the lowly ground-nester. It was proving to be a major obstacle to an important development project of his government: a 400-km channel, known as the Telugu-Ganga canal, to bring water through AP to Chennai, formerly Madras, and irrigate vast spaces along the way. Three decades after work began on the scheme, it is almost completed. But it has been stalled since 2006 in one scrubby area, on the order of India’s Supreme Court, after conservationists complained that the canal would bisect the last habitat of the Jerdon’s courser.
An impressive—and expensive—compromise is now almost in place. At the urging of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), an NGO, the state irrigation ministry has agreed to reroute the canal. (Though haggling continues over its exact course.) The government has also more or less agreed to add 3,000 acres of adjoining land to the courser’s sanctuary. It has already acquired much of this. The land’s erstwhile owners are said to be happy with the deal. They had few ties to this land, which is mostly unproductive and was given to them after their original holdings were flooded for a reservoir. The BNHS, meanwhile, is trying to catch and then radio-tag two specimens of the courser—and so prove to Mr Reddy its inconvenient existence.
With many troublesome conservationists—and righteous judges—India has guarded its magnificent wildlife perhaps surprisingly well. Though poor, densely populated and home to many threatened species, it has lost only a handful of animals in recent decades: for example, the Asiatic cheetah, Javanese rhinoceros and Sikkim stag. And it has lost only two species of bird: the pink-headed duck and Himalayan mountain quail. Like the Jerdon’s courser, the forest owlet was also ruled extinct before it was rediscovered. A fish, the Ladakh snow trout, may have similarly have re-emerged from the abyss.
This gives India a better record in conservation than many countries. Yet its wildlife is nonetheless in dreadful jeopardy: from a poor and fast-growing population, eating into India’s remaining forests and marshes; and also, increasingly, from infrastructure projects, fuelled by strong economic growth. The IUCN now groups India with China, Brazil and Indonesia, as countries with the highest number of species facing extinction. Many will no doubt slip more quietly into that long night than the Jerdon’s courser.
World - Unhappy america
NATIONS, like people, occasionally get the blues; and right now the United States, normally the world’s most self-confident place, is glum. Eight out of ten Americans think their country is heading in the wrong direction. The hapless George Bush is partly to blame for this: his approval ratings are now sub-Nixonian. But many are concerned not so much about a failed president as about a flailing nation.
One source of angst is the sorry state of American capitalism (see article). The “Washington consensus” told the world that open markets and deregulation would solve its problems. Yet American house prices are falling faster than during the Depression, petrol is more expensive than in the 1970s, banks are collapsing, the euro is kicking sand in the dollar’s face, credit is scarce, recession and inflation both threaten the economy, consumer confidence is an oxymoron and Belgians have just bought Budweiser, “America’s beer”.
And it’s not just the downturn that has caused this discontent. Many Americans feel as if they missed the boom. Between 2002 and 2006 the incomes of 99% rose by an average of 1% a year in real terms, while those of the top 1% rose by 11% a year; three-quarters of the economic gains during Mr Bush’s presidency went to that top 1%. Economic envy, once seen as a European vice, is now rife. The rich appear in Barack Obama’s speeches not as entrepreneurial role models but as modern versions of the “malefactors of great wealth” denounced by Teddy Roosevelt a century ago: this lot, rather than building trusts, avoid taxes and ship jobs to Mexico. Globalisation is under fire: free trade is less popular in the United States than in any other developed country, and a nation built on immigrants is building a fence to keep them out. People mutter about nation-building beginning at home: why, many wonder, should American children do worse at reading than Polish ones and at maths than Lithuanians?
The dragon’s breath on your shoulder
Abroad, America has spent vast amounts of blood and treasure, to little purpose. In Iraq, finding an acceptable exit will look like success; Afghanistan is slipping. America’s claim to be a beacon of freedom in a dark world has been dimmed by Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and the flouting of the Geneva Conventions amid the panicky “unipolar” posturing in the aftermath of September 11th.
Now the world seems very multipolar. Europeans no longer worry about American ascendancy. The French, some say, understood the Arab world rather better than the neoconservatives did. Russia, the Gulf Arabs and the rising powers of Asia scoff openly at the Washington consensus. China in particular spooks America—and may do so even more over the next few weeks of Olympic medal-gathering. Americans are discussing the rise of China and their consequent relative decline; measuring when China’s economy will be bigger and counting its missiles and submarines has become a popular pastime in Washington. A few years ago, no politician would have been seen with a book called “The Post-American World”. Mr Obama has been conspicuously reading Fareed Zakaria’s recent volume.
America has got into funks before now. In the 1950s it went into a Sputnik-driven spin about Soviet power; in the 1970s there was Watergate, Vietnam and the oil shocks; in the late 1980s Japan seemed to be buying up America. Each time, the United States rebounded, because the country is good at fixing itself. Just as American capitalism allows companies to die, and to be created, quickly, so its political system reacts fast. In Europe, political leaders emerge slowly, through party hierarchies; in America, the primaries permit inspirational unknowns to burst into the public consciousness from nowhere.
Still, countries, like people, behave dangerously when their mood turns dark. If America fails to distinguish between what it needs to change and what it needs to accept, it risks hurting not just allies and trading partners, but also itself.
The Asian scapegoat
There are certainly areas where change is needed. The credit crunch is in part the consequence of a flawed regulatory system. Lax monetary policy allowed Americans to build up debts and fuelled a housing bubble that had to burst eventually. Lessons need to be learnt from both of those mistakes; as they do from widespread concerns about the state of education and health care. Over-unionised and unaccountable, America’s school system needs the same sort of competition that makes its universities the envy of the world. American health care, which manages to be the most expensive on the planet even though it fails properly to care for the tens of millions of people, badly needs reform.
There have been plenty of mistakes abroad, too. Waging a war on terror was always going to be like pinning jelly to a wall. As for Guantánamo Bay, it is the most profoundly un-American place on the planet: rejoice when it is shut.
In such areas America is already showing its genius for reinvention. Both the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates promise to close Guantánamo. As his second term ticks down, even Mr Bush has begun to see the limits of unilateralism. Instead of just denouncing and threatening the “axis of evil” he is working more closely with allies (and non-allies) in Asia to calm down North Korea. For the first time he has just let American officials join in the negotiations with Iran about its fishy nuclear programme (see article).
That America is beginning to correct its mistakes is good; and there’s plenty more of that to be done. But one source of angst demands a change in attitude rather than a drive to restore the status quo: America’s relative decline, especially compared with Asia in general and China in particular.
The economic gap between America and a rising Asia has certainly narrowed; but worrying about it is wrong for two reasons. First, even at its present growth rate, China’s GDP will take a quarter of a century to catch up with America’s; and the internal tensions that China’s rapidly changing economy has caused may well lead it to stumble before then. Second, even if Asia’s rise continues unabated, it is wrong—and profoundly unAmerican—to regard this as a problem. Economic growth, like trade, is not a zero-sum game. The faster China and India grow, the more American goods they buy. And they are booming largely because they have adopted America’s ideas. America should regard their success as a tribute, not a threat, and celebrate in it.
Many Americans, unfortunately, are unwilling to do so. Politicians seeking a scapegoat for America’s self-made problems too often point the finger at the growing power of once-poor countries, accusing them of stealing American jobs and objecting when they try to buy American companies. But if America reacts by turning in on itself—raising trade barriers and rejecting foreign investors—it risks exacerbating the economic troubles that lie behind its current funk.
Everybody goes through bad times. Some learn from the problems they have caused themselves, and come back stronger. Some blame others, lash out and damage themselves further. America has had the wisdom to take the first course many times before. Let’s hope it does so again.
One source of angst is the sorry state of American capitalism (see article). The “Washington consensus” told the world that open markets and deregulation would solve its problems. Yet American house prices are falling faster than during the Depression, petrol is more expensive than in the 1970s, banks are collapsing, the euro is kicking sand in the dollar’s face, credit is scarce, recession and inflation both threaten the economy, consumer confidence is an oxymoron and Belgians have just bought Budweiser, “America’s beer”.
And it’s not just the downturn that has caused this discontent. Many Americans feel as if they missed the boom. Between 2002 and 2006 the incomes of 99% rose by an average of 1% a year in real terms, while those of the top 1% rose by 11% a year; three-quarters of the economic gains during Mr Bush’s presidency went to that top 1%. Economic envy, once seen as a European vice, is now rife. The rich appear in Barack Obama’s speeches not as entrepreneurial role models but as modern versions of the “malefactors of great wealth” denounced by Teddy Roosevelt a century ago: this lot, rather than building trusts, avoid taxes and ship jobs to Mexico. Globalisation is under fire: free trade is less popular in the United States than in any other developed country, and a nation built on immigrants is building a fence to keep them out. People mutter about nation-building beginning at home: why, many wonder, should American children do worse at reading than Polish ones and at maths than Lithuanians?
The dragon’s breath on your shoulder
Abroad, America has spent vast amounts of blood and treasure, to little purpose. In Iraq, finding an acceptable exit will look like success; Afghanistan is slipping. America’s claim to be a beacon of freedom in a dark world has been dimmed by Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and the flouting of the Geneva Conventions amid the panicky “unipolar” posturing in the aftermath of September 11th.
Now the world seems very multipolar. Europeans no longer worry about American ascendancy. The French, some say, understood the Arab world rather better than the neoconservatives did. Russia, the Gulf Arabs and the rising powers of Asia scoff openly at the Washington consensus. China in particular spooks America—and may do so even more over the next few weeks of Olympic medal-gathering. Americans are discussing the rise of China and their consequent relative decline; measuring when China’s economy will be bigger and counting its missiles and submarines has become a popular pastime in Washington. A few years ago, no politician would have been seen with a book called “The Post-American World”. Mr Obama has been conspicuously reading Fareed Zakaria’s recent volume.
America has got into funks before now. In the 1950s it went into a Sputnik-driven spin about Soviet power; in the 1970s there was Watergate, Vietnam and the oil shocks; in the late 1980s Japan seemed to be buying up America. Each time, the United States rebounded, because the country is good at fixing itself. Just as American capitalism allows companies to die, and to be created, quickly, so its political system reacts fast. In Europe, political leaders emerge slowly, through party hierarchies; in America, the primaries permit inspirational unknowns to burst into the public consciousness from nowhere.
Still, countries, like people, behave dangerously when their mood turns dark. If America fails to distinguish between what it needs to change and what it needs to accept, it risks hurting not just allies and trading partners, but also itself.
The Asian scapegoat
There are certainly areas where change is needed. The credit crunch is in part the consequence of a flawed regulatory system. Lax monetary policy allowed Americans to build up debts and fuelled a housing bubble that had to burst eventually. Lessons need to be learnt from both of those mistakes; as they do from widespread concerns about the state of education and health care. Over-unionised and unaccountable, America’s school system needs the same sort of competition that makes its universities the envy of the world. American health care, which manages to be the most expensive on the planet even though it fails properly to care for the tens of millions of people, badly needs reform.
There have been plenty of mistakes abroad, too. Waging a war on terror was always going to be like pinning jelly to a wall. As for Guantánamo Bay, it is the most profoundly un-American place on the planet: rejoice when it is shut.
In such areas America is already showing its genius for reinvention. Both the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates promise to close Guantánamo. As his second term ticks down, even Mr Bush has begun to see the limits of unilateralism. Instead of just denouncing and threatening the “axis of evil” he is working more closely with allies (and non-allies) in Asia to calm down North Korea. For the first time he has just let American officials join in the negotiations with Iran about its fishy nuclear programme (see article).
That America is beginning to correct its mistakes is good; and there’s plenty more of that to be done. But one source of angst demands a change in attitude rather than a drive to restore the status quo: America’s relative decline, especially compared with Asia in general and China in particular.
The economic gap between America and a rising Asia has certainly narrowed; but worrying about it is wrong for two reasons. First, even at its present growth rate, China’s GDP will take a quarter of a century to catch up with America’s; and the internal tensions that China’s rapidly changing economy has caused may well lead it to stumble before then. Second, even if Asia’s rise continues unabated, it is wrong—and profoundly unAmerican—to regard this as a problem. Economic growth, like trade, is not a zero-sum game. The faster China and India grow, the more American goods they buy. And they are booming largely because they have adopted America’s ideas. America should regard their success as a tribute, not a threat, and celebrate in it.
Many Americans, unfortunately, are unwilling to do so. Politicians seeking a scapegoat for America’s self-made problems too often point the finger at the growing power of once-poor countries, accusing them of stealing American jobs and objecting when they try to buy American companies. But if America reacts by turning in on itself—raising trade barriers and rejecting foreign investors—it risks exacerbating the economic troubles that lie behind its current funk.
Everybody goes through bad times. Some learn from the problems they have caused themselves, and come back stronger. Some blame others, lash out and damage themselves further. America has had the wisdom to take the first course many times before. Let’s hope it does so again.
Business - Not all bad news
Newspapers are thriving in many developing countries
IT MAY not be much consolation to the hard-pressed hacks of the rich world, but in many developing countries the newspaper business is booming. According to figures released in June by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), an industry body based in Paris, newspaper sales in Brazil increased by some 12% last year. Over the past five years, circulation has gone up by more than 22%. In India, sales rose by 11%, bringing the five-year increase to more than 35%. Pakistan’s newspaper market grew by almost as much in the same period. The trend is similar elsewhere in Asia and Latin America.
The demand for news tends to go up as people enter the workforce, earn more money, invest it and so begin to feel that they have more of a stake in their society. Literacy rates also rise in tandem with wealth. For the newly literate, flipping through a newspaper in public is a potent and satisfying symbol of achievement.
Literacy campaigns by the government and NGOs account for much of the increase in sales of Indian newspapers, according to Ashok Dasgupta of the Hindu, a big Indian daily based in Chennai. Hiring is brisk, he says, and new papers and magazines are “cropping up every day”. Most are small, but the number of big, high-quality national business dailies has risen from four in 2006 to six today. A seventh will appear later this year.
Publishers in India benefit from a long tradition of press freedom. But papers in countries with more meddling governments are also, by and large, doing well. This is especially true of small newspapers. Governments with limited resources are often ill-equipped to monitor a profusion of local and regional newspapers. In Mali, for example, newspapers are popping up “like mushrooms”, says Souleymane Kanté, the local manager for World Education, an American NGO that aims to eradicate illiteracy. The Malian government keeps large national publications in line, Mr Kanté says, but local and regional papers have some breathing room.
China’s vast oversight apparatus keeps tabs on big and small outlets alike. But newspapers are thriving there, too. In the past five years sales have increased by more than 20% to 107m copies a day. (By comparison, daily sales in America amount to some 50m.) China’s growing wealth helps to explain this. So does a high level of literacy, thanks in part to the Communist Party’s investment in education.
Shaun Rein, of the China Market Research Group in Shanghai, says there are also other factors at work. Because all Chinese newspapers are state-owned, they will probably remain cheap even as costs increase and advertisers move online. And Beijing’s struggle to limit corruption may also play a part. Some officials see local publications as allies in the effort to unmask crooked regional and municipal authorities, and so favour lengthening reporters’ leashes. Others seem to disapprove, leading to rumours of a debate within the upper echelons of the party—unreported by Chinese media, of course.
Newspapers are doing well in middle-income countries, too, according to WAN. In Argentina, for example, newspaper circulation jumped more than 7% last year. Manuel Mora y Araujo, of IPSOS, a consultancy, says media groups from America and other rich countries have not been investing in Argentine news organisations, possibly because their own problems mean that they cannot afford to. Nonetheless, he says, “The press isn’t worried—there’s tons of advertising.”
IT MAY not be much consolation to the hard-pressed hacks of the rich world, but in many developing countries the newspaper business is booming. According to figures released in June by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), an industry body based in Paris, newspaper sales in Brazil increased by some 12% last year. Over the past five years, circulation has gone up by more than 22%. In India, sales rose by 11%, bringing the five-year increase to more than 35%. Pakistan’s newspaper market grew by almost as much in the same period. The trend is similar elsewhere in Asia and Latin America.
The demand for news tends to go up as people enter the workforce, earn more money, invest it and so begin to feel that they have more of a stake in their society. Literacy rates also rise in tandem with wealth. For the newly literate, flipping through a newspaper in public is a potent and satisfying symbol of achievement.
Literacy campaigns by the government and NGOs account for much of the increase in sales of Indian newspapers, according to Ashok Dasgupta of the Hindu, a big Indian daily based in Chennai. Hiring is brisk, he says, and new papers and magazines are “cropping up every day”. Most are small, but the number of big, high-quality national business dailies has risen from four in 2006 to six today. A seventh will appear later this year.
Publishers in India benefit from a long tradition of press freedom. But papers in countries with more meddling governments are also, by and large, doing well. This is especially true of small newspapers. Governments with limited resources are often ill-equipped to monitor a profusion of local and regional newspapers. In Mali, for example, newspapers are popping up “like mushrooms”, says Souleymane Kanté, the local manager for World Education, an American NGO that aims to eradicate illiteracy. The Malian government keeps large national publications in line, Mr Kanté says, but local and regional papers have some breathing room.
China’s vast oversight apparatus keeps tabs on big and small outlets alike. But newspapers are thriving there, too. In the past five years sales have increased by more than 20% to 107m copies a day. (By comparison, daily sales in America amount to some 50m.) China’s growing wealth helps to explain this. So does a high level of literacy, thanks in part to the Communist Party’s investment in education.
Shaun Rein, of the China Market Research Group in Shanghai, says there are also other factors at work. Because all Chinese newspapers are state-owned, they will probably remain cheap even as costs increase and advertisers move online. And Beijing’s struggle to limit corruption may also play a part. Some officials see local publications as allies in the effort to unmask crooked regional and municipal authorities, and so favour lengthening reporters’ leashes. Others seem to disapprove, leading to rumours of a debate within the upper echelons of the party—unreported by Chinese media, of course.
Newspapers are doing well in middle-income countries, too, according to WAN. In Argentina, for example, newspaper circulation jumped more than 7% last year. Manuel Mora y Araujo, of IPSOS, a consultancy, says media groups from America and other rich countries have not been investing in Argentine news organisations, possibly because their own problems mean that they cannot afford to. Nonetheless, he says, “The press isn’t worried—there’s tons of advertising.”
World - Islam & Apostasy
With some exceptions, an increasingly hard line across the Muslim world
“CAN a person who is Muslim choose a religion other than Islam?” When Egypt’s grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, pondered that dilemma in an article published last year, many of his co-religionists were shocked that the question could even be asked.
And they were even more scandalised by his conclusion. The answer, he wrote, was yes, they can, in the light of three verses in the Koran: first, “Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion”; second, “Whosoever will, let him believe, and whosoever will, let him disbelieve”; and, most famously, “There is no compulsion in religion.”
The sheikh’s pronouncement was certainly not that of a wet liberal; he agrees that anyone who deserts Islam is committing a sin and will pay a price in the hereafter, and also that in some historical circumstances (presumably war between Muslims and non-Muslims) an individual’s sin may also amount to “sedition against one’s society”. But his opinion caused a sensation because it went against the political and judicial trends in many parts of the Muslim world, and also against the mood in places where Muslims feel defensive.
In the West, many prominent Muslims would agree with the mufti’s scripturally-based view that leaving Islam is a matter between the believer and God, not for the state. But awkwardly, the main traditions of scholarship and jurisprudence in Islam—both the Shia school and the four main Sunni ones—draw on Hadiths (words and deeds ascribed with varying credibility to Muhammad) to argue in support of death for apostates. And in recent years sentiment in the Muslim world has been hardening. In every big “apostasy” case, the authorities have faced pressure from sections of public opinion, and from Islamist factions, to take the toughest possible stance.
In Malaysia, people who try to desert Islam can face compulsory “re-education”. Under the far harsher regime of Afghanistan, death for apostasy is still on the statute book, despite the country’s American-backed “liberation” from the tyranny of the Taliban. The Western world realised this when Abdul Rahman, an Afghan who had lived in Germany, was sentenced to die after police found him with a Bible. After pressure from Western governments, he was allowed to go to Italy. What especially startled Westerners was the fact that Afghanistan’s parliament, a product of the democracy for which NATO soldiers are dying, tried to bar Mr Rahman’s exit, and that street protests called for his execution.
The fact that he fled to Italy is one of the factors that have made the issue of Muslim-Christian conversion a hot topic in that country. There are several others. During this year’s Easter celebrations, Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-born journalist who is now a columnist in Italy, was publicly baptised as a Catholic by Pope Benedict; the convert hailed his “liberation” from Islam, and has used his column to celebrate other cases of Muslims becoming Christian. To the delight of some Catholics and the dismay of others, he has defended the right of Christians to proselytise among Muslims, and denounced liberal churchmen who are “soft” on Islam.
Muslims in Italy and elsewhere have called Mr Allam a provocateur and chided Pope Benedict for abetting him. But given that many of Italy’s Muslims are converts (and beneficiaries of Europe’s tolerance), Mr Allam says his critics are hypocrites, denying him a liberty which they themselves have enjoyed.
If there is any issue on which Islam’s diaspora—experiencing the relative calmness of inter-faith relations in the West—might be able to give a clearer moral lead, it is surely this one. But even in the West, speaking out for the legal and civil right to “apostasise” can carry a cost. Usama Hasan, an influential young British imam, recently made the case for the right to change religions—only to find himself furiously denounced and threatened on Islamist websites, many of them produced in the West.
“CAN a person who is Muslim choose a religion other than Islam?” When Egypt’s grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, pondered that dilemma in an article published last year, many of his co-religionists were shocked that the question could even be asked.
And they were even more scandalised by his conclusion. The answer, he wrote, was yes, they can, in the light of three verses in the Koran: first, “Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion”; second, “Whosoever will, let him believe, and whosoever will, let him disbelieve”; and, most famously, “There is no compulsion in religion.”
The sheikh’s pronouncement was certainly not that of a wet liberal; he agrees that anyone who deserts Islam is committing a sin and will pay a price in the hereafter, and also that in some historical circumstances (presumably war between Muslims and non-Muslims) an individual’s sin may also amount to “sedition against one’s society”. But his opinion caused a sensation because it went against the political and judicial trends in many parts of the Muslim world, and also against the mood in places where Muslims feel defensive.
In the West, many prominent Muslims would agree with the mufti’s scripturally-based view that leaving Islam is a matter between the believer and God, not for the state. But awkwardly, the main traditions of scholarship and jurisprudence in Islam—both the Shia school and the four main Sunni ones—draw on Hadiths (words and deeds ascribed with varying credibility to Muhammad) to argue in support of death for apostates. And in recent years sentiment in the Muslim world has been hardening. In every big “apostasy” case, the authorities have faced pressure from sections of public opinion, and from Islamist factions, to take the toughest possible stance.
In Malaysia, people who try to desert Islam can face compulsory “re-education”. Under the far harsher regime of Afghanistan, death for apostasy is still on the statute book, despite the country’s American-backed “liberation” from the tyranny of the Taliban. The Western world realised this when Abdul Rahman, an Afghan who had lived in Germany, was sentenced to die after police found him with a Bible. After pressure from Western governments, he was allowed to go to Italy. What especially startled Westerners was the fact that Afghanistan’s parliament, a product of the democracy for which NATO soldiers are dying, tried to bar Mr Rahman’s exit, and that street protests called for his execution.
The fact that he fled to Italy is one of the factors that have made the issue of Muslim-Christian conversion a hot topic in that country. There are several others. During this year’s Easter celebrations, Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-born journalist who is now a columnist in Italy, was publicly baptised as a Catholic by Pope Benedict; the convert hailed his “liberation” from Islam, and has used his column to celebrate other cases of Muslims becoming Christian. To the delight of some Catholics and the dismay of others, he has defended the right of Christians to proselytise among Muslims, and denounced liberal churchmen who are “soft” on Islam.
Muslims in Italy and elsewhere have called Mr Allam a provocateur and chided Pope Benedict for abetting him. But given that many of Italy’s Muslims are converts (and beneficiaries of Europe’s tolerance), Mr Allam says his critics are hypocrites, denying him a liberty which they themselves have enjoyed.
If there is any issue on which Islam’s diaspora—experiencing the relative calmness of inter-faith relations in the West—might be able to give a clearer moral lead, it is surely this one. But even in the West, speaking out for the legal and civil right to “apostasise” can carry a cost. Usama Hasan, an influential young British imam, recently made the case for the right to change religions—only to find himself furiously denounced and threatened on Islamist websites, many of them produced in the West.
World - Capital Thinking,Japan
PENSIONERS in Japan cannot help getting older, but could they be richer? The country’s vast public-pension fund, to which every citizen must contribute, is poorly managed. Last year it lost money (Ұ5.65 trillion, around $47 billion). Reform may now be on the way, perhaps with big implications for the Tokyo market.
The fund is the world’s largest publicly invested pension pot, with ¥150 trillion of assets. But the capital is mostly stagnant. Around two-thirds is parked in Japanese government bonds (JGBs), whose ten-year yield hovers at a modest 1.6%. Bureaucrats with little investment nous are in charge. Returns are low, at some 3.5% annually, compared with around 7% for public pension funds in Norway and Sweden, and 10% in Canada and France. Pension money was squandered in the past on things like building holiday resorts in preposterous but politically important places.
Without better returns, the government will have to reduce its support for the old or raise taxes; neither will be popular. To improve the fund’s performance, a group of politicians from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has called for a sliver of the pension purse, ¥10 trillion, to be set aside to create a sovereign-wealth fund. It would be run by professional managers, not necessarily from Japan, rewarded with performance-based salaries. The fund would be independent of bureaucratic and political meddling. Its working language would be English.
Previous efforts to reform the pension fund have been quashed by Japan’s Jurassic bureaucracy, as was an earlier attempt to create a sovereign-wealth fund using foreign-exchange reserves. Risky investments put the public’s money in peril, say detractors. To overcome this resistance, the proposed fund would maintain the same allocation to JGBs as the current one. If it can produce better returns from the portion of its capital that is actively invested, it may sway public opinion in favour of increasing its size and changing its allocation away from safe-but-sorrowful JGBs, explains Kotaro Tamura, an LDP legislator. The plan is a Petri dish for a potentially much bigger investment pool.
Any long-term shift away from JGBs may have broader fiscal consequences. The government’s debt is around 180% of GDP, the largest among industrialised countries. But it borrows cheaply, partly because the pension fund is a captive buyer. If the fund were to seek more enticing assets elsewhere, the government would have to offer better terms on its bonds, raising its cost of borrowing.
Some officials fear this would harm the national economy. But the true consequences would probably be more subtle. Pensioners would be better off, possibly at the expense of future taxpayers, who would bear the burden of repaying the government’s more costly debt.
There may be wider gains. The plan’s backers hope that fresh funds and cannier investment will give the Tokyo stockmarket a lift, by putting pressure on companies to improve shareholder value. Better performance may also inspire individuals to invest more creatively. Japanese households sit on ¥1,500 trillion of assets, half of which is buried in bank deposits earning scant interest. Unleashing that capital would really help to cushion old age.
The fund is the world’s largest publicly invested pension pot, with ¥150 trillion of assets. But the capital is mostly stagnant. Around two-thirds is parked in Japanese government bonds (JGBs), whose ten-year yield hovers at a modest 1.6%. Bureaucrats with little investment nous are in charge. Returns are low, at some 3.5% annually, compared with around 7% for public pension funds in Norway and Sweden, and 10% in Canada and France. Pension money was squandered in the past on things like building holiday resorts in preposterous but politically important places.
Without better returns, the government will have to reduce its support for the old or raise taxes; neither will be popular. To improve the fund’s performance, a group of politicians from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has called for a sliver of the pension purse, ¥10 trillion, to be set aside to create a sovereign-wealth fund. It would be run by professional managers, not necessarily from Japan, rewarded with performance-based salaries. The fund would be independent of bureaucratic and political meddling. Its working language would be English.
Previous efforts to reform the pension fund have been quashed by Japan’s Jurassic bureaucracy, as was an earlier attempt to create a sovereign-wealth fund using foreign-exchange reserves. Risky investments put the public’s money in peril, say detractors. To overcome this resistance, the proposed fund would maintain the same allocation to JGBs as the current one. If it can produce better returns from the portion of its capital that is actively invested, it may sway public opinion in favour of increasing its size and changing its allocation away from safe-but-sorrowful JGBs, explains Kotaro Tamura, an LDP legislator. The plan is a Petri dish for a potentially much bigger investment pool.
Any long-term shift away from JGBs may have broader fiscal consequences. The government’s debt is around 180% of GDP, the largest among industrialised countries. But it borrows cheaply, partly because the pension fund is a captive buyer. If the fund were to seek more enticing assets elsewhere, the government would have to offer better terms on its bonds, raising its cost of borrowing.
Some officials fear this would harm the national economy. But the true consequences would probably be more subtle. Pensioners would be better off, possibly at the expense of future taxpayers, who would bear the burden of repaying the government’s more costly debt.
There may be wider gains. The plan’s backers hope that fresh funds and cannier investment will give the Tokyo stockmarket a lift, by putting pressure on companies to improve shareholder value. Better performance may also inspire individuals to invest more creatively. Japanese households sit on ¥1,500 trillion of assets, half of which is buried in bank deposits earning scant interest. Unleashing that capital would really help to cushion old age.
World - America,The Economy,The Problem
JOEL AND JACKIE BRENDE differ on many things. He’s a Republican, and thrilled to have just shaken John McCain’s hand at a town-hall meeting in Kansas City, Missouri. She’s a Democrat, who supports Barack Obama because she thinks it is “time for a change”. But both of them agree that America’s star is fading.
“We were always optimistic when we were young. We thought that every year, things would get better,” says Mrs Brende. But now: “The bubble has burst. I think my generation [will be] the last to see a great America.” Her husband agrees. Standards are falling in schools, he frets. Young people are finding it harder to get ahead. “We’ve all been so greedy for so long and it has caught up with us,” says Mrs Brende. She hopes that Mr Obama may be able to do something about the national malaise, but fears that “It’s too late. The slide is on.”
Asked about their own lives, however, the Brendes are rather more cheerful. “We’re OK, financially,” says Mrs Brende. She is a travel writer; her husband is a doctor. They live half the year in Missouri and half in Mexico. They have 24 grandchildren and another on the way. Life could be a lot worse.
Regardless of their political beliefs, American voters are in a horrible mood this year. Democrats are sick of George Bush. Republicans are sick of the Democrats running Congress. Everyone worries about Iraq, either because they think the war should never have been fought, or because of the long, costly and thankless slog it has turned into. The latest violence in Afghanistan is depressing. The culture war grinds on: America is slouching towards Gomorrah or theocracy, depending on your viewpoint. The earth is either cooking or being overrun by eco-fanatics. And the American economy is tottering.
The polls tell a dismal tale. Only 29% of Americans approve of the president. Only 14% approve of Congress. And just 6% view the economy positively. Yet many Americans combine despondency about the big picture with personal contentment. More than 80% say they are satisfied with their own circumstances. Even more are satisfied with their jobs. And although nearly everyone despises Congress, most Americans like their own representatives.
How to reconcile these stark apparent contradictions? Some blame the media for overhyping gloomy news. Phil Gramm, a former senator from Texas and adviser to Mr McCain’s campaign, told the Washington Times that: “We have…become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline…Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day.”
He had a point. American headlines are crammed with words like “failure”, “hurting” and “Fannie Mae”. Foreign pundits sound even more bearish, and one sometimes detects a hint of gloating at the hyperpower’s distress. “The Great Depression,” thundered the front page of the Independent, a British newspaper, in April. The story underneath was about an increase in the demand for food stamps, after an effort to publicise their availability.
Amity Shlaes, the author of a history of the Great Depression, thinks the comparison absurd. During the 1930s, she notes, “people lost their homes even though they had borrowed only 10% of the purchase price.” People losing their homes today often borrowed more than 90%. And today’s unemployment rate, though rising, is 5.5%. In the Great Depression, it peaked at 25%.
Most Americans think their country is in a recession. But, buoyed by exports, output has yet to shrink for a single quarter. Mr Gramm suggested that his compatriots are suffering a “mental recession” rather than a real one. The McCain campaign tossed him under the Straight Talk Express, which was harsh but politically wise. For the figures miss an important point: consumers are facing a nasty squeeze, hit simultaneously by soaring costs for petrol, food and health care, tumbling house and share prices, tighter credit and flagging wages. Both candidates hear voters complaining about these things all the time. And since neither of them is a fool, both crack their cheeks trying to sound sympathetic.
Petrol prices, despite their recent retreat, hurt nearly everyone. Adam Julch, an enormous former college football star who is now a manager at a trucking firm in Omaha, Nebraska, complains that he had to trade in his pickup truck for a little Honda Civic. “I’m 350 pounds,” he says, “I feel like I’m in a clown car.”
Soaring energy costs have sent the overall inflation rate to 5%—higher than it was in 1992, when angry voters threw out George Bush senior. Average hourly pay is falling in real terms. Meanwhile houses, most Americans’ biggest asset by far, are tumbling in value at a pace that exceeds that seen in, yes, the Great Depression. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of national house prices is down 16% from its peak, and judging by the overhang of unsold homes, has a lot further to fall. Asset deflation coupled with consumer-price inflation is a powerful recipe for political discontent.
In Prince William County, Virginia, for example, house prices fell by 31% in the year to May and one home in 111 is in foreclosure. During the boom years, lenders offered mortgages to people with no cash for a deposit and no documents to prove a steady income, sighs a local real-estate agent. When these borrowers lost their jobs—and some were in the construction business, which has nosedived—many simply walked away from their homes.
Bankruptcies and bargains
In the worst-hit neighbourhoods, such as Dale City, the foreclosure signs are everywhere. “People don’t want to buy round here because they see all these empty houses and wonder what’s wrong with the area,” says Ed Moore, an air force veteran who supports Mr McCain. “Things are going badly,” says John, who owns a struggling local construction business and supports Mr Obama but prefers not to advertise the fact to his clients.
Both men are grumpy, but both reckon they will cope. Mr Moore’s home has lost much of its value, but since he plans to stay in it “till they put me six feet under”, he is not unduly bothered. John plans to quit construction, move to Texas and get into publishing. He is a college dropout, but reckons that “if you do some research, you can make a lot out of nothing” in America.
Meanwhile, others see an opportunity in Dale City’s collapse. Jessica Lofiego, a mother of two, is scouring the neighbourhood for a bargain. At the height of the boom, she says, normal families couldn’t afford a nice place this close to Washington, DC. Now, she’s looking at a spacious 3-bedroom house that someone is trying to unload for $149,000.
History suggests the housing slump will last for a while. A study of post-war housing busts by the IMF found that they typically last four years and involve a loss totalling 8% of a year’s output. Inflation, meanwhile, could slow if commodity prices stabilise. But given rapid, commodity-intensive growth in emerging economies, the underlying price shift—where American consumers spend relatively more of their income on food and fuel—is here to stay. Small wonder they are sour.
The malaise stems in considerable part from a feeling that individuals have become more vulnerable to forces beyond their control. The American can-do spirit is not dead, of course. Laid-off workers are finding new jobs, motorists are driving less and cooks are trawling the internet for recipes to jazz up the leftovers in the fridge.
But some shocks are hard to adjust to. The American suburban idyll of big homes and big gardens relied on cheap petrol. With gas prices high, many suburbanites yearn for a shorter commute. But they cannot quickly or easily sell their homes and start living in denser clusters with better public transport. Nor is it clear that they want to. So they suffer, and pray for petrol prices to fall. Sometimes literally: Rocky Twyman, a community organiser from Maryland, leads group prayers at petrol stations to beg for divine intervention.
America’s costly but leaky health-care system aggravates several other problems. Soaring health-insurance premiums depress wages and prompt cash-strapped firms to stop covering their staff. The proportion of workers whose employers cover them fell from 65% in 2001 to 59% in 2007. And the fact that most Americans still get their health insurance through their job makes them much more worried about losing it. Unemployment may be low, but if it means your children lose their health cover, losing a job is scary.
Opinion polls show unprecedented concerns about income distribution and economic mobility. Gallup finds that nearly seven out of ten Americans think wealth should be more evenly distributed, the highest fraction since the question was first asked in 1984. People are worried about inequality for good reason: real median household income has fallen since 1999, while labour’s share of the national pie has shrunk. The squeeze on labour could be cyclical: between 1997 and 2001, workers’ share of national income rose; now it is back where it was in 1997. But the earnings gap between the most-skilled workers and everyone else has been widening since the early 1980s. And in recent years the gains to the top have taken off while most people have stood still, or even fallen back, though the squeeze was partly mitigated by differing spending patterns (see article).
Figures collated by Emmanuel Saez, an economist at Berkeley, make the point starkly. In the 1990s, the incomes of the richest 1% of taxpayers went up 10% a year in real terms (see chart), while those of the other 99% grew at an average annual rate of 2.4%. Between 2002 and 2006 the richest 1% saw 11% annual real income growth: everyone else got less than 1%. Three-quarters of the gains from the Bush expansion went to 1% of taxpayers, who now receive a larger share of overall income than at any time since the 1920s.
Technology is probably the main culprit, but Americans prefer to blame trade. The latest Pew Research Centre survey of global attitudes found that only 53% of Americans think trade is good for their country, down from 78% in 2002 and lower than in any of the other 23 countries included in the survey.
The depth of gloom varies by age. The baby-boom generation (people aged 43-62) are glummer than the young or the elderly, according to Pew. Some 55% of boomers think it unlikely that their income will keep pace with the cost of living in the next year, compared with 44% of 18-42-year-olds and 43% of those aged 63 or more. Many boomers look after children and crumbling parents simultaneously.
Americans have grown accustomed to extraordinary prosperity. Poor Americans today are more likely to have fridges, dishwashers and air-conditioning than average Americans were in 1971. Young voters have no memory of a serious recession, since the last one was in the early 1990s. Some do not even realise that cyclical downturns are normal. Only 18% of Americans think they are worse off than their parents were at the same age. But elections hinge on shorter-term concerns. Four-fifths of Americans say it is harder to maintain a middle-class lifestyle now than it was five years ago. That probably means the election is Mr Obama’s to lose.
“We were always optimistic when we were young. We thought that every year, things would get better,” says Mrs Brende. But now: “The bubble has burst. I think my generation [will be] the last to see a great America.” Her husband agrees. Standards are falling in schools, he frets. Young people are finding it harder to get ahead. “We’ve all been so greedy for so long and it has caught up with us,” says Mrs Brende. She hopes that Mr Obama may be able to do something about the national malaise, but fears that “It’s too late. The slide is on.”
Asked about their own lives, however, the Brendes are rather more cheerful. “We’re OK, financially,” says Mrs Brende. She is a travel writer; her husband is a doctor. They live half the year in Missouri and half in Mexico. They have 24 grandchildren and another on the way. Life could be a lot worse.
Regardless of their political beliefs, American voters are in a horrible mood this year. Democrats are sick of George Bush. Republicans are sick of the Democrats running Congress. Everyone worries about Iraq, either because they think the war should never have been fought, or because of the long, costly and thankless slog it has turned into. The latest violence in Afghanistan is depressing. The culture war grinds on: America is slouching towards Gomorrah or theocracy, depending on your viewpoint. The earth is either cooking or being overrun by eco-fanatics. And the American economy is tottering.
The polls tell a dismal tale. Only 29% of Americans approve of the president. Only 14% approve of Congress. And just 6% view the economy positively. Yet many Americans combine despondency about the big picture with personal contentment. More than 80% say they are satisfied with their own circumstances. Even more are satisfied with their jobs. And although nearly everyone despises Congress, most Americans like their own representatives.
How to reconcile these stark apparent contradictions? Some blame the media for overhyping gloomy news. Phil Gramm, a former senator from Texas and adviser to Mr McCain’s campaign, told the Washington Times that: “We have…become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline…Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day.”
He had a point. American headlines are crammed with words like “failure”, “hurting” and “Fannie Mae”. Foreign pundits sound even more bearish, and one sometimes detects a hint of gloating at the hyperpower’s distress. “The Great Depression,” thundered the front page of the Independent, a British newspaper, in April. The story underneath was about an increase in the demand for food stamps, after an effort to publicise their availability.
Amity Shlaes, the author of a history of the Great Depression, thinks the comparison absurd. During the 1930s, she notes, “people lost their homes even though they had borrowed only 10% of the purchase price.” People losing their homes today often borrowed more than 90%. And today’s unemployment rate, though rising, is 5.5%. In the Great Depression, it peaked at 25%.
Most Americans think their country is in a recession. But, buoyed by exports, output has yet to shrink for a single quarter. Mr Gramm suggested that his compatriots are suffering a “mental recession” rather than a real one. The McCain campaign tossed him under the Straight Talk Express, which was harsh but politically wise. For the figures miss an important point: consumers are facing a nasty squeeze, hit simultaneously by soaring costs for petrol, food and health care, tumbling house and share prices, tighter credit and flagging wages. Both candidates hear voters complaining about these things all the time. And since neither of them is a fool, both crack their cheeks trying to sound sympathetic.
Petrol prices, despite their recent retreat, hurt nearly everyone. Adam Julch, an enormous former college football star who is now a manager at a trucking firm in Omaha, Nebraska, complains that he had to trade in his pickup truck for a little Honda Civic. “I’m 350 pounds,” he says, “I feel like I’m in a clown car.”
Soaring energy costs have sent the overall inflation rate to 5%—higher than it was in 1992, when angry voters threw out George Bush senior. Average hourly pay is falling in real terms. Meanwhile houses, most Americans’ biggest asset by far, are tumbling in value at a pace that exceeds that seen in, yes, the Great Depression. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of national house prices is down 16% from its peak, and judging by the overhang of unsold homes, has a lot further to fall. Asset deflation coupled with consumer-price inflation is a powerful recipe for political discontent.
In Prince William County, Virginia, for example, house prices fell by 31% in the year to May and one home in 111 is in foreclosure. During the boom years, lenders offered mortgages to people with no cash for a deposit and no documents to prove a steady income, sighs a local real-estate agent. When these borrowers lost their jobs—and some were in the construction business, which has nosedived—many simply walked away from their homes.
Bankruptcies and bargains
In the worst-hit neighbourhoods, such as Dale City, the foreclosure signs are everywhere. “People don’t want to buy round here because they see all these empty houses and wonder what’s wrong with the area,” says Ed Moore, an air force veteran who supports Mr McCain. “Things are going badly,” says John, who owns a struggling local construction business and supports Mr Obama but prefers not to advertise the fact to his clients.
Both men are grumpy, but both reckon they will cope. Mr Moore’s home has lost much of its value, but since he plans to stay in it “till they put me six feet under”, he is not unduly bothered. John plans to quit construction, move to Texas and get into publishing. He is a college dropout, but reckons that “if you do some research, you can make a lot out of nothing” in America.
Meanwhile, others see an opportunity in Dale City’s collapse. Jessica Lofiego, a mother of two, is scouring the neighbourhood for a bargain. At the height of the boom, she says, normal families couldn’t afford a nice place this close to Washington, DC. Now, she’s looking at a spacious 3-bedroom house that someone is trying to unload for $149,000.
History suggests the housing slump will last for a while. A study of post-war housing busts by the IMF found that they typically last four years and involve a loss totalling 8% of a year’s output. Inflation, meanwhile, could slow if commodity prices stabilise. But given rapid, commodity-intensive growth in emerging economies, the underlying price shift—where American consumers spend relatively more of their income on food and fuel—is here to stay. Small wonder they are sour.
The malaise stems in considerable part from a feeling that individuals have become more vulnerable to forces beyond their control. The American can-do spirit is not dead, of course. Laid-off workers are finding new jobs, motorists are driving less and cooks are trawling the internet for recipes to jazz up the leftovers in the fridge.
But some shocks are hard to adjust to. The American suburban idyll of big homes and big gardens relied on cheap petrol. With gas prices high, many suburbanites yearn for a shorter commute. But they cannot quickly or easily sell their homes and start living in denser clusters with better public transport. Nor is it clear that they want to. So they suffer, and pray for petrol prices to fall. Sometimes literally: Rocky Twyman, a community organiser from Maryland, leads group prayers at petrol stations to beg for divine intervention.
America’s costly but leaky health-care system aggravates several other problems. Soaring health-insurance premiums depress wages and prompt cash-strapped firms to stop covering their staff. The proportion of workers whose employers cover them fell from 65% in 2001 to 59% in 2007. And the fact that most Americans still get their health insurance through their job makes them much more worried about losing it. Unemployment may be low, but if it means your children lose their health cover, losing a job is scary.
Opinion polls show unprecedented concerns about income distribution and economic mobility. Gallup finds that nearly seven out of ten Americans think wealth should be more evenly distributed, the highest fraction since the question was first asked in 1984. People are worried about inequality for good reason: real median household income has fallen since 1999, while labour’s share of the national pie has shrunk. The squeeze on labour could be cyclical: between 1997 and 2001, workers’ share of national income rose; now it is back where it was in 1997. But the earnings gap between the most-skilled workers and everyone else has been widening since the early 1980s. And in recent years the gains to the top have taken off while most people have stood still, or even fallen back, though the squeeze was partly mitigated by differing spending patterns (see article).
Figures collated by Emmanuel Saez, an economist at Berkeley, make the point starkly. In the 1990s, the incomes of the richest 1% of taxpayers went up 10% a year in real terms (see chart), while those of the other 99% grew at an average annual rate of 2.4%. Between 2002 and 2006 the richest 1% saw 11% annual real income growth: everyone else got less than 1%. Three-quarters of the gains from the Bush expansion went to 1% of taxpayers, who now receive a larger share of overall income than at any time since the 1920s.
Technology is probably the main culprit, but Americans prefer to blame trade. The latest Pew Research Centre survey of global attitudes found that only 53% of Americans think trade is good for their country, down from 78% in 2002 and lower than in any of the other 23 countries included in the survey.
The depth of gloom varies by age. The baby-boom generation (people aged 43-62) are glummer than the young or the elderly, according to Pew. Some 55% of boomers think it unlikely that their income will keep pace with the cost of living in the next year, compared with 44% of 18-42-year-olds and 43% of those aged 63 or more. Many boomers look after children and crumbling parents simultaneously.
Americans have grown accustomed to extraordinary prosperity. Poor Americans today are more likely to have fridges, dishwashers and air-conditioning than average Americans were in 1971. Young voters have no memory of a serious recession, since the last one was in the early 1990s. Some do not even realise that cyclical downturns are normal. Only 18% of Americans think they are worse off than their parents were at the same age. But elections hinge on shorter-term concerns. Four-fifths of Americans say it is harder to maintain a middle-class lifestyle now than it was five years ago. That probably means the election is Mr Obama’s to lose.