Rajiv Gandhi’s birth anniversary was celebrated this week by the Congress party (and pretty much no one else). He was killed 17 years ago; so most people under 30 have no real recollection of him. Those who do, will have mixed memories. Looking back, it is hard to imagine a country as complex as India being led as prime minister by someone who was all of 40, and whose only real experience till then had been to pilot a plane. As might have been expected, therefore, his 10 years in politics had their peaks, troughs, and terrible mistakes (the Sri Lankan misadventure, overturning the Shah Bano judgment and then opening the locks on the Babri Masjid, and profligate spending). The question is whether the time has come for history to assess the man. So here is one thought: Rajiv Gandhi would not have thought of himself in such terms, but he was India’s last visionary politician.
You only have to look at his amazing list of initiatives, to understand why. He said India must computerise, in order to be ready for the 21st century, and the political class laughed. So did most others, at a time when the PC was barely born. But he was right. He saw the importance of telecommunications, and tried many new ideas: corporatise the phone service (thus was MTNL born), increase access and not just ownership (result: the omnipresent STD-ISD booths of the time), and so on.
He saw the inability of the government to deliver, and thought of the technology missions as an organisational innovation — focusing on such basic (and still relevant) issues as oilseeds development, drinking water supply and literacy. Indeed, he saw that the government was generally knowledge-proof and insisted that all government officers must go for periodic, mid-career training courses —every HR manager today would approve. As was his fate with even the most sensible suggestions, the wise guys just sniggered.
He saw that only privileged kids had access to good schools, so he thought of a Navodaya Vidyalaya in every district so that even poor children could have the best education; these now turn out the best results among all Indian schools. He saw the crisis engulfing India’s rivers, and started a “Clean the Ganga” programme. Unannounced at the time, he saw that Pakistan was close to nuclearising, and gave the go-ahead for weaponising India’s nuclear stockpile.
He was a bigger peace-maker than Nehru. He negotiated with President Jayawardene the best deal that the Sri Lankan Tamils will ever get, but the LTTE didn’t have the wit to understand that, and killed him for his pains. His whirlwind prime ministership saw peace accords to settle the long-running (in some cases, secessionist) agitations in Punjab, Assam and Mizoram; the first fell apart, the other two held; he showed daring and commitment in all three cases.
In the economic sphere, he was the original reformer — slashing the peak income tax rate from 66 per cent to 50 per cent in his first Budget. In the run-up to the 1991 elections, the Congress under him put together a manifesto that has not been surpassed since for the clarity and boldness of its action programme — including most of the steps that were adopted by the Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh combine for India’s second liberation.
Only Jawaharlal Nehru launched as many initiatives, on so many fronts, in five short years — all with an eye to the long-term future. If politics wasn’t kind to him, it was because of four failings: impetuosity, a style statement that hinted at rich-kid habits (fast cars, expensive holidays), the Bofors bribery scandal, and the fact that he was just too young. But those are not reasons for denying him his due.
Aug 23, 2008
Business - ICBC most profitable bank in the world
Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd earned a record 64.5 billion yuan ($9.42 billion) in the first half to become the world's most profitable bank as a focus on domestic lending helped it avoid the global credit crisis.
Net income rose 57 per cent, the Beijing-based bank said in a statement today, topping the $7.72 billion earned by closest rival HSBC Holdings Plc. Earnings per share rose to 0.19 yuan.
Chairman Jiang Jianqing has more than doubled ICBC's profit since 2005 as annual economic growth of more than 10 per cent bolstered corporate loans and services to the nation's growing number of wealthy people.
ICBC's domestic bias shielded it from the US sub-prime crisis that has led to more than $500 billion of writedowns and losses at financial institutions globally.
“This shows the rise of economic power in China,” said Yuk Kei Lee, an analyst at Core Pacific-Yamaichi International in Hong Kong. “ICBC's earnings power has already overtaken other global giants but we need time to see if this achievement can be sustained.”
The shares closed 2.9 per cent lower in Hong Kong today. ICBC's Hong Kong shares trade at about 2.5 times analysts' consensus estimates for book value, compared with 0.84 times for Citigroup Inc and 1.46 times for HSBC's Hong Kong-traded shares.
Net income rose 57 per cent, the Beijing-based bank said in a statement today, topping the $7.72 billion earned by closest rival HSBC Holdings Plc. Earnings per share rose to 0.19 yuan.
Chairman Jiang Jianqing has more than doubled ICBC's profit since 2005 as annual economic growth of more than 10 per cent bolstered corporate loans and services to the nation's growing number of wealthy people.
ICBC's domestic bias shielded it from the US sub-prime crisis that has led to more than $500 billion of writedowns and losses at financial institutions globally.
“This shows the rise of economic power in China,” said Yuk Kei Lee, an analyst at Core Pacific-Yamaichi International in Hong Kong. “ICBC's earnings power has already overtaken other global giants but we need time to see if this achievement can be sustained.”
The shares closed 2.9 per cent lower in Hong Kong today. ICBC's Hong Kong shares trade at about 2.5 times analysts' consensus estimates for book value, compared with 0.84 times for Citigroup Inc and 1.46 times for HSBC's Hong Kong-traded shares.
India - Andhra Model a trendsetter
When many millions of citizens are classified as below poverty line (BPL), a government needs to think twice before launching a health insurance scheme that intends to be truly inclusive. Andhra Pradesh did, and came up with a unique model — the Rajiv Aarogyasri Community Health Insurance Scheme.
It’s a public-private partnership that ropes in a private insurer, public and private hospitals, and women’s self-help groups, along with the heavy involvement of the government to provide quality health care to the bulk of its population.
Just 15 months after it was run as a pilot project in three districts, a colossal 65 million people are members of Aarogyasri, the largest cashless scheme of its kind.
“The first thing we decided was not to follow any of the existing schemes, which are group-specific and limited in coverage,” says Babu A, chief executive of the Aarogyasri Health Care Trust which runs the programme.
“Our learning from studying these schemes is that none of them is working very well.”
For Andhra Pradesh, the primary issue was to resolve “the contradiction between our philosophy of social inclusiveness and that of insurance, which is based on the principle of exclusion”, says the official.
What it designed was a scheme in which “the government had a stake in everything”. Each and every case is monitored 24 hours, 365 days, through the trust’s portal where the Aarogyasri workflow system can be tracked from the entry point to treatment and discharge.
The especially designed software and state-wide IT network cost Rs 4.8 crore, but it’s an investment well worth the cost, since the possibility of leakages is minimal. There are strict protocols on the treatment, with around 800 medical and surgical packages listed and the costs fixed by the trust’s panel of doctors.
Behind this model is a holistic approach to healthcare, ensuring that people are given free health check-ups by the network hospitals — it is mandatory for every hospital to run a health camp in its vicinity every month — and that a 24-hour health helpline is available to people seeking advice and assistance. Manned by 100 doctors and 1,600 paramedics, the call centre handles about 53,000 calls a day.
In this scheme, beneficiaries pay nothing. Since the state believes it is the government’s responsibility to provide healthcare to the people, Aarogyasri comes free to all the white ration-card holders — the BPL segment.
This is a controversial issue since most other health insurance schemes floated by the government insist on a participatory contribution. Trust officials say it makes no sense to collect part of the premium, simply because the cost of collection would far exceed the contribution.
While the argument for collection of a premium is that it confers rights on the insured, the move has a downside. It limits membership without, in any way, bringing down costs.
For instance, the Yeshasvini Cooperative Farmers Health Scheme levies a premium of Rs 120 but, more often than not, cooperative societies are forced to cough up the premium for their members, resulting in what Andhra Pradesh is determined to avoid — adverse selection. Only those with enough funds are able to pay the premium.
Costs are what make Aarogyasri a winner. Andhra pays a premium of Rs 330 per BPL family for a cover of Rs 1.5 lakh, with provision for another Rs 50,000 in case of major surgeries. In addition, cochlear implants with related therapy are reimbursed fully up to a maximum of Rs 6.50 lakh, while some complex surgeries are also reimbursed in full.
The rates laid down by the trust have been carefully evaluated and have avoided the pitfalls apparent elsewhere — uneconomic rates that force hospitals to do a fiddle. All the top hospitals have been empanelled and there is a long wait list to join the schemes, say officials.
Government hospitals, too, are beginning to reap the benefits of joining Aarogyasri. To date, public hospitals have earned Rs 22 crore in total claims of Rs 203 crore, which is about 13 per cent of the total.
Although critics claim that the scheme is intended to benefit private hospitals in the state, government hospitals are getting a fresh lease of life from the payments made by the trust.
In any case, the argument is not tenable since there aren’t enough government hospitals to provide specialised tertiary care for such colossal numbers. All the top-rated private hospitals in the state have already been empanelled and there’s a queue waiting to join in.
Aarogyasri’s biggest plus is that it affords a major saving for the state in every way. Officials point out that the spur for the scheme was the endless line of people queuing up at the chief minister’s house every morning, seeking aid for medical treatment. Between May 2004 and June 2007, says an official note, financial help of Rs 168.5 crore was doled out from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund to meet the hospitalisation expenses of the needy.
That’s how Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, himself a doctor, decided that such help should be institutionalised to improve access to quality medical care for the masses.
The dramatic success of Andhra’s big-bang approach is having a ripple effect across the country. Officials from at least 13 states have visited the Aarogyasri office in Hyderabad for lessons on how to replicate the scheme.
Three factors appear to be absolutely essential for this — a complete database on the beneficiaries, which is one reason why the labour ministry’s Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) is floundering already; the ability to regulate each and every case; and a strong commitment to meet the health needs of the disadvantaged.
Babu says the Aarogyasri Trust is willing to provide consultancy to the rest of the country because “no one can beat this product”. As other states begin to roll out similar schemes, it remains to be seen if this indeed is the case.
It’s a public-private partnership that ropes in a private insurer, public and private hospitals, and women’s self-help groups, along with the heavy involvement of the government to provide quality health care to the bulk of its population.
Just 15 months after it was run as a pilot project in three districts, a colossal 65 million people are members of Aarogyasri, the largest cashless scheme of its kind.
“The first thing we decided was not to follow any of the existing schemes, which are group-specific and limited in coverage,” says Babu A, chief executive of the Aarogyasri Health Care Trust which runs the programme.
“Our learning from studying these schemes is that none of them is working very well.”
For Andhra Pradesh, the primary issue was to resolve “the contradiction between our philosophy of social inclusiveness and that of insurance, which is based on the principle of exclusion”, says the official.
What it designed was a scheme in which “the government had a stake in everything”. Each and every case is monitored 24 hours, 365 days, through the trust’s portal where the Aarogyasri workflow system can be tracked from the entry point to treatment and discharge.
The especially designed software and state-wide IT network cost Rs 4.8 crore, but it’s an investment well worth the cost, since the possibility of leakages is minimal. There are strict protocols on the treatment, with around 800 medical and surgical packages listed and the costs fixed by the trust’s panel of doctors.
Behind this model is a holistic approach to healthcare, ensuring that people are given free health check-ups by the network hospitals — it is mandatory for every hospital to run a health camp in its vicinity every month — and that a 24-hour health helpline is available to people seeking advice and assistance. Manned by 100 doctors and 1,600 paramedics, the call centre handles about 53,000 calls a day.
In this scheme, beneficiaries pay nothing. Since the state believes it is the government’s responsibility to provide healthcare to the people, Aarogyasri comes free to all the white ration-card holders — the BPL segment.
This is a controversial issue since most other health insurance schemes floated by the government insist on a participatory contribution. Trust officials say it makes no sense to collect part of the premium, simply because the cost of collection would far exceed the contribution.
While the argument for collection of a premium is that it confers rights on the insured, the move has a downside. It limits membership without, in any way, bringing down costs.
For instance, the Yeshasvini Cooperative Farmers Health Scheme levies a premium of Rs 120 but, more often than not, cooperative societies are forced to cough up the premium for their members, resulting in what Andhra Pradesh is determined to avoid — adverse selection. Only those with enough funds are able to pay the premium.
Costs are what make Aarogyasri a winner. Andhra pays a premium of Rs 330 per BPL family for a cover of Rs 1.5 lakh, with provision for another Rs 50,000 in case of major surgeries. In addition, cochlear implants with related therapy are reimbursed fully up to a maximum of Rs 6.50 lakh, while some complex surgeries are also reimbursed in full.
The rates laid down by the trust have been carefully evaluated and have avoided the pitfalls apparent elsewhere — uneconomic rates that force hospitals to do a fiddle. All the top hospitals have been empanelled and there is a long wait list to join the schemes, say officials.
Government hospitals, too, are beginning to reap the benefits of joining Aarogyasri. To date, public hospitals have earned Rs 22 crore in total claims of Rs 203 crore, which is about 13 per cent of the total.
Although critics claim that the scheme is intended to benefit private hospitals in the state, government hospitals are getting a fresh lease of life from the payments made by the trust.
In any case, the argument is not tenable since there aren’t enough government hospitals to provide specialised tertiary care for such colossal numbers. All the top-rated private hospitals in the state have already been empanelled and there’s a queue waiting to join in.
Aarogyasri’s biggest plus is that it affords a major saving for the state in every way. Officials point out that the spur for the scheme was the endless line of people queuing up at the chief minister’s house every morning, seeking aid for medical treatment. Between May 2004 and June 2007, says an official note, financial help of Rs 168.5 crore was doled out from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund to meet the hospitalisation expenses of the needy.
That’s how Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, himself a doctor, decided that such help should be institutionalised to improve access to quality medical care for the masses.
The dramatic success of Andhra’s big-bang approach is having a ripple effect across the country. Officials from at least 13 states have visited the Aarogyasri office in Hyderabad for lessons on how to replicate the scheme.
Three factors appear to be absolutely essential for this — a complete database on the beneficiaries, which is one reason why the labour ministry’s Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) is floundering already; the ability to regulate each and every case; and a strong commitment to meet the health needs of the disadvantaged.
Babu says the Aarogyasri Trust is willing to provide consultancy to the rest of the country because “no one can beat this product”. As other states begin to roll out similar schemes, it remains to be seen if this indeed is the case.
Business - Standalone restaurants giving Five Star restaurants a run for their money
Bangalore: Be it the Jamavar at The Leela Palace, Bangalore, or Bukhara at the ITC Maurya, Delhi, or Wasabi at the Taj Mahal Palace & Towers, Mumbai, they all have one thing in common — the ‘fivestar restaurant power’ of attracting consumers . And while these restaurants have built strong niche markets for themselves, giving them a run for their money are the new breed of standalone fine dining restaurants. In Bangalore, restaurants at five-star hotels, which typically account for 40% of a hotel’s revenues, have seen a drop in sales by 20%-25 % over the last year.
On the contrary, for standalone restaurants , the sales are up. “Sales in the past eight months alone are higher by at least 15%,” says Sunil Kapur, MD of Blue Food, which runs restaurants like Copper Chimney, Spaghetti Kitchen and Noodle Bar. “People are increasingly drawn to speciality standalone restaurants as we’re on par with the five-star hotel restaurants on quality and quantity of food, ambience and service . So if a customer gets a five-star experience on three-star pricing, why wouldn’t he come to us?” Besides, with inflation soaring, people are seen to be getting more conscious about what they pay
Most fine dining restaurants are driven by chefs who were formerly with star hotels. Like Venkatesh Bhatt, who was formerly the head chef at The Leela Palace and opened speciality south Indian vegetarian restaurant South Indies 20 months ago. Its success spurred Bhatt to start Bon South, a south Indian non-veg restaurant earlier this week. “Restaurants run by chefs with experience in luxury hotels have an advantage as the chefs blend their culinary skills along with providing quality service ,” says Mohan Kumar, GM of Taj Properties , Bangalore. “Whether it is corporate czars hosting private or business lunches or socialites throwing a dinner party, standalone restaurants are increasingly becoming the preferred choice. In Bangalore, our customers rate Mainland China on par if not higher than the Taj’s Memories of China,” says Anjan Chatterjee, CMD of Speciality Restaurants that runs Mainland China and Oh! Calcutta. “Only actors or celebrities might still pick a fivestar hotel restaurant for the privacy they might offer, but standalone restaurants are catching up there too.”
He says that hotels have to work harder at building and more importantly sustaining , the brands of their restaurants. But it’s not all rosy for standalone restaurants either. “For fine dining restaurants to survive, they need to be positioned as specialty restaurants. Over 60% of the 100-odd such restaurants in Bangalore serve the same north Indian food. We have no fine dining restaurants catering to niche areas like say, northeastern food,” says Bhatt. Besides, standalone restaurants have to look into other facilities like parking, waiting areas and location, besides constantly innovating on their menu. And unlike the hotels, they have no captive audience. “It’s only a myth that we have lower costs,” says Chatterjee. “Be it in service, training or ingredients, our investments are the same. Besides, five-star hotels have the advantage of higher margins. Restaurants come under greater pressure to function on the premise of value and are driven more by volumes
Bhatt also feels that standalone fine dining restaurants still have some way to go to catch up with their star hotel counterparts in terms of gourmet appeal . “Taj West End’s latest offering, The Masala Klub, which is Indian food served with a contemporary flair of lightness, has just raised the level of fusion cuisine . It would take any restaurateur at least two years to achieve that quality,” says Bhatt. That possibly explains why when it comes to awards, it’s the restaurants at star hotels that get all the accolades. The Graze at Taj Residency Bangalore was featured in the Conde Nast Traveller , USA Hot List Tables 2008. Last year, The Jamavar at The Leela Palace had been ranked by Forbes among the world’s top 10 restaurants and the Bukhara at the ITC Maurya has been rated for the fourth consecutive year as the best Indian restaurant in the world by Acqua Panna.
On the contrary, for standalone restaurants , the sales are up. “Sales in the past eight months alone are higher by at least 15%,” says Sunil Kapur, MD of Blue Food, which runs restaurants like Copper Chimney, Spaghetti Kitchen and Noodle Bar. “People are increasingly drawn to speciality standalone restaurants as we’re on par with the five-star hotel restaurants on quality and quantity of food, ambience and service . So if a customer gets a five-star experience on three-star pricing, why wouldn’t he come to us?” Besides, with inflation soaring, people are seen to be getting more conscious about what they pay
Most fine dining restaurants are driven by chefs who were formerly with star hotels. Like Venkatesh Bhatt, who was formerly the head chef at The Leela Palace and opened speciality south Indian vegetarian restaurant South Indies 20 months ago. Its success spurred Bhatt to start Bon South, a south Indian non-veg restaurant earlier this week. “Restaurants run by chefs with experience in luxury hotels have an advantage as the chefs blend their culinary skills along with providing quality service ,” says Mohan Kumar, GM of Taj Properties , Bangalore. “Whether it is corporate czars hosting private or business lunches or socialites throwing a dinner party, standalone restaurants are increasingly becoming the preferred choice. In Bangalore, our customers rate Mainland China on par if not higher than the Taj’s Memories of China,” says Anjan Chatterjee, CMD of Speciality Restaurants that runs Mainland China and Oh! Calcutta. “Only actors or celebrities might still pick a fivestar hotel restaurant for the privacy they might offer, but standalone restaurants are catching up there too.”
He says that hotels have to work harder at building and more importantly sustaining , the brands of their restaurants. But it’s not all rosy for standalone restaurants either. “For fine dining restaurants to survive, they need to be positioned as specialty restaurants. Over 60% of the 100-odd such restaurants in Bangalore serve the same north Indian food. We have no fine dining restaurants catering to niche areas like say, northeastern food,” says Bhatt. Besides, standalone restaurants have to look into other facilities like parking, waiting areas and location, besides constantly innovating on their menu. And unlike the hotels, they have no captive audience. “It’s only a myth that we have lower costs,” says Chatterjee. “Be it in service, training or ingredients, our investments are the same. Besides, five-star hotels have the advantage of higher margins. Restaurants come under greater pressure to function on the premise of value and are driven more by volumes
Bhatt also feels that standalone fine dining restaurants still have some way to go to catch up with their star hotel counterparts in terms of gourmet appeal . “Taj West End’s latest offering, The Masala Klub, which is Indian food served with a contemporary flair of lightness, has just raised the level of fusion cuisine . It would take any restaurateur at least two years to achieve that quality,” says Bhatt. That possibly explains why when it comes to awards, it’s the restaurants at star hotels that get all the accolades. The Graze at Taj Residency Bangalore was featured in the Conde Nast Traveller , USA Hot List Tables 2008. Last year, The Jamavar at The Leela Palace had been ranked by Forbes among the world’s top 10 restaurants and the Bukhara at the ITC Maurya has been rated for the fourth consecutive year as the best Indian restaurant in the world by Acqua Panna.
Business - Best offers on shopping carts at Reliance Retail
Next time when you go to a Reliance Retail store the shopping cart might apprise you of the discounts and offers.Tech startup Blink Media has signed a deal with Reliance Retail to offer technology to power an intelligent interactive shopping cart. Apart from the shopping cart, Blink will develop products for other Reliance Retail formats such as Reliance TimeOut, Reliance Mart, Reliance Digital and Reliance Trendz. To optimise its offering, Blink has got access to Reliance Retail’s loyalty customer and transactions data. To execute the contract, Blink is looking at venture funding of around $2 million for which “we are willing to dilute up to one-third in Blink”, says co-founder Devang Raiyani. This will fund the expansion of their product team, marketing efforts and help them grow their data mining and analytics division. Blink already has a term sheet from a VC in hand. “We are open to angel funding as well as a non-VC strategic funding by an existing company,” informs Mr Raiyani. Blink was started in 2007 by Hemang Shah, Devang Raiyani and Sawan Ruparel. The technology uses an RFID-based sensor to track shoppers’ location inside a store and based on that location drives content to an interactive screen mounted on the shopping cart. Shoppers will get ads and offers on specific products as they pass through shelves. “The idea is to track the life-time value of a customer and see how we can make the customer more valuable for the store. We do this by analysing the customer and transaction data we have got from Reliance Retail,” he says. For fashion retail, Blink has developed a large interactive vertical screen called ‘magic mirror’, which senses your presence in front of it and asks what you are looking for. It visually shows you the apparel, which you could pair with others to see if they work well and whether a particular size and style is available. Here you could take a picture of yourself and using your mobile send it to a friend for advice. Blink has developed a non-interactive version of the intelligent shopping cart for Future Media that will be devoid of the location-based ads or touch interface. “These are being designed to be used in small town locations as the cost will be lower and therefore ROI will be better,” says Mr Raiyani. They haven’t agreed on pricing with Future Media yet but hope to close the deal soon. Rajeev Karwal, founder and CEO of Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions, recently bought a stake in the startup. Blink is looking at tapping international retail brands in markets such as Singapore, Malaysia, Dubai and Europe which are strong retail locations. “The return on capital is much higher in these mature markets,” says Mr Raiyani.
India - Get Business friendly
An international team of researchers has just released a Global Urban Competitiveness Report, which takes stock of 500 cities around the world. New York has been found to be the most competitive city in the world, followed, in that order, by London, Tokyo, Paris and Washington, DC. But what's shocking is that although cities across the world have been ranked according to seven parameters of competitiveness, such as enterprise competitiveness, industrial structure, human resources, business environment, living environment and so on, no Indian city features in any of the seven corresponding top 20 lists, with a solitary exception: Mumbai comes in at number 15 on industrial structure. Cities are the catalysts of growth and economic development. The poor representation of Indian cities belies India's status as a rising economic power. This should be an opportunity to look at what is wrong with our cities. Do they measure up to the other major cities' industries, people, multinational corporations, as well as living, social and business environments? Perhaps not at all. We need to step up to the plate and work hard to make our cities competitive. Let's face it, Indian cities lack many things that go towards making cities competitive - good infrastructure, enterprise management, business environment and quality of life. It's a good idea to benchmark Indian cities against criteria that make cities globally competitive, and then work on each of those criteria to improve a city's overall ranking. Bangalore is a good example of a city that has gone the other way. Although it gave rise to the phrase "being Bangalored", it appears to be losing its competitive edge due to poor infrastructure and lack of business environment. According to the report competitive cities are ones where local governments have autonomy and properly work out their relationship with the central government, engage market forces in government policymaking and maintain local features while expanding communications with the world. These are recommendations worth following. Local governments should take their jobs more seriously of facilitating balanced development of business and residential environment, besides developing multiple industries. Urban planners must outline development strategies clearly. They should encourage talent to come to their cities. It may be a good idea to have India-specific rankings of urban competitiveness as well, carried out by industry bodies such as the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
Health - Popular BP drugs may cause Diabetes
NEW DELHI: If you are hypertensive and have been prescribed one of the widely used class of medicines called beta blockers—drugs like atenolol, inderal and metaprolol— you could be running an unacceptable risk of diabetes. Recent research in the UK indicates that these drugs could increase blood sugar in patients suffering from diabetes, and in some cases led to onset of the disease among patients of high blood pressure. The study, carried out at National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College, London, concluded that the use of beta blockers greatly increases diabetes risk in hypertension patients. The research proposed to determine the baseline predictors of new-onset diabetes in hypertensive patients. Among 19,257 hypertensive patients in the trial who were randomly assigned to receive one of two antihypertensive regimens using beta blockers, 14,120 were at risk of developing diabetes at baseline. Of these, 1,366 (9.7%) subsequently developed NOD during median follow-up of 5.5 years. Says Dr Anoop Misra, director and head (diabetes and metabolic diseases) Fortis Hospitals: "In patients with hypertension, beta blocker drugs are no longer frontline therapy. These drugs may not only increase blood sugar levels in those who don't have diabetes, but may worsen sugar control in those with diabetes and also blunt warning symptoms when low sugar occurs." Mishra, however, added that these drugs were still useful in patients of diabetes and hypertension with associated heart disease. Newer beta blockers may have some advantage over the previous generation drugs, he said. As a result, doctors have begun restricting the use of beta blockers among diabetics and those suffering from high blood pressure.
India - To Marry,Get a No-HIV certificate
MADURAI: It is not unusual for enlightened young women in Tamil Nadu to insist on their grooms being screened for HIV before marriage. But a wedding hall in Chinnamanur in Theni district has gone a step further. It insists that all brides and grooms solemnizing their marriage in the hall get a ‘no HIV' certificate first. The hall's unusual condition came under spotlight when a 25-year-old autorickshaw driver, Selvam, was spurned by his fiance on the eve of their wedding on Thursday after she came to know that he had tested positive for HIV. Selvam was surprised when he was informed that he and his bride-to-be had to undergo a HIV test before conducting their marriage at the Maravar Makkal Manram. The young man was in for a further shock when he tested positive for HIV at the Theni government hospital. Selvam hails from the same Chinnamanur village and a bride was chosen for him from Allinagaram in Theni. Their marriage was to take place at the Maravar Makkal Mandram on Thursday. On Wednesday, the management of the hall, however, told the parents of both the bride and the groom that they had to abide by certain conditions if the wedding was to take place in their hall. The two parties agreed and Selvam and his bride underwent the necessary medical tests at the Theni government hospital. When they got the results the same evening, Selvam came to know that he had tested positive for HIV. When the parents of the bride were informed about the results, they stopped the wedding and thanked the hall managers and left for home. E Muthu, member of the managing board of the marriage hall and also the state organizer of the Muvender Munnetra Kazhagam, said they had taken the decision to insist on HIV screening for couples about to be married as there were many women in Chinnamanur and the surrounding villages who had lost their husbands to AIDS.
World - Obama's running mate is Biden
WASHINGTON: US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has chosen his Senate colleague, Joseph Biden, as his vice-presidential running mate, CNN television reported on Saturday. ( Watch ) The network cited unnamed Democratic Party sources, but did not offer any details. Earlier, ABC News said a detail of Secret Service agents had been sent to assume Biden's protection in preparation for his possible new role as an official candidate for high office. Biden, 65, emerged on top after Obama, according to unidentified sources, broke the news to two other contenders -- Indiana Senator Evan Bayh and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine -- that they were no longer under consideration. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden would bring decades of national security experience on board, having first been elected to Congress at the age of 29 in 1972. On the campaign stump this week, Obama has singled out Biden for praise over his response to the crisis in Georgia and proposals to extend more US economic aid to Afghanistan.
World - Whitehouse hopefuls face image problem
Barack Obama, who is generally regarded as a gifted orator, would do well to find time to unwind before he delivers the speech of his lifetime to the Democratic party’s convention next week.
A new analysis of Mr. Obama’s voice patterns and the delivery of his speeches made available to and reported in the London-based Guardian, found the Democratic candidate somewhat restricted in his range of facial expression.
Specifically, Mr. Obama’s face is locked in an almost permanent attitude of anxiety, with his forehead muscles contracted.
“In all topics Mr. Obama displays a similar worried, serious-looking facial pattern. Even when talking about more positive subjects, his facial expressions do not signal positive affective states,” said a report on the analysis, undertaken by the Vox Institute in Geneva for the Clearwater consulting group.
The institute reviewed footage of Mr. Obama’s speeches and those of the Republican candidate, John McCain. It relied on footage from four speeches conveying a range of emotions, as well as digitised voice samples, to rate the effectiveness of the two candidates in connecting with voters on the campaign trail. The habitual worried look is a potential liability for Mr. Obama, undermining the image he is trying to project of a confident leader. The image could be disturbing for audiences, said James McBrien, the founder of Clearwater.
It also undercuts Mr. Obama’s outward appearance of extreme confidence.
“There is an element of the fact that he is on the edges of his comfort zone here,” Mr. McBrien said. “Going into a presidential campaign is not something he has done before, and you could say it is written all over his face.”
Despite that failing, Mr. Obama was the clear winner against Mr. McCain in the oratorical contest. The result is unsurprising, given that Mr. McCain’s own campaign team has gone to some effort to conceal his limitations as a speaker.
Mr. McCain has had problems adapting to the Autocue, that staple of public speaking. On the campaign trail he has favoured smaller venues, where he can take questions from audiences, rather than the grand venues and stirring speeches that have become Mr. Obama’s signature.
Mr. Obama had high scores on six of the eight voice values, including diction, fluency, speed and modulation. His voice could have been a little louder at times, although the study praised his ability to reflect anger, positive emotions and sadness.
The verdict on Mr. McCain was harsh. The acoustic analysis noted that the Republican’s voice was pitched slightly high, and that it remained flat, or emotionless, even while he was talking about sad subjects. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008
A new analysis of Mr. Obama’s voice patterns and the delivery of his speeches made available to and reported in the London-based Guardian, found the Democratic candidate somewhat restricted in his range of facial expression.
Specifically, Mr. Obama’s face is locked in an almost permanent attitude of anxiety, with his forehead muscles contracted.
“In all topics Mr. Obama displays a similar worried, serious-looking facial pattern. Even when talking about more positive subjects, his facial expressions do not signal positive affective states,” said a report on the analysis, undertaken by the Vox Institute in Geneva for the Clearwater consulting group.
The institute reviewed footage of Mr. Obama’s speeches and those of the Republican candidate, John McCain. It relied on footage from four speeches conveying a range of emotions, as well as digitised voice samples, to rate the effectiveness of the two candidates in connecting with voters on the campaign trail. The habitual worried look is a potential liability for Mr. Obama, undermining the image he is trying to project of a confident leader. The image could be disturbing for audiences, said James McBrien, the founder of Clearwater.
It also undercuts Mr. Obama’s outward appearance of extreme confidence.
“There is an element of the fact that he is on the edges of his comfort zone here,” Mr. McBrien said. “Going into a presidential campaign is not something he has done before, and you could say it is written all over his face.”
Despite that failing, Mr. Obama was the clear winner against Mr. McCain in the oratorical contest. The result is unsurprising, given that Mr. McCain’s own campaign team has gone to some effort to conceal his limitations as a speaker.
Mr. McCain has had problems adapting to the Autocue, that staple of public speaking. On the campaign trail he has favoured smaller venues, where he can take questions from audiences, rather than the grand venues and stirring speeches that have become Mr. Obama’s signature.
Mr. Obama had high scores on six of the eight voice values, including diction, fluency, speed and modulation. His voice could have been a little louder at times, although the study praised his ability to reflect anger, positive emotions and sadness.
The verdict on Mr. McCain was harsh. The acoustic analysis noted that the Republican’s voice was pitched slightly high, and that it remained flat, or emotionless, even while he was talking about sad subjects. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008
Health - Glimmer of hope;AIDS
The search for a safe and efficacious AIDS vaccine has received a shot in the arm. The Phase I trial, aimed primarily at ascertaining the safety and HIV–specific immune response of a candidate vaccine, has yielded encouraging results in the exercise conducted at the Tuberculosis Research Centre, Chennai. Unlike the vaccine tried out earlier at the National AIDS Research Institute, Pune — the first time ever in the country — the one used in the Chennai tri al, apart from returning a positive verdict on the safety count, threw up a remarkable outcome by way of good immune response in all the volunteers. The cent per cent immune response reported by those who had received the high dose places this candidate AIDS vaccine as far superior to any other tested so far on humans. But there were also some shortcomings. While the immune response has been across the board, the level of such response was seen to be not only modest but declining over months. Since the level and persistence of immune response is equally important, the Modified Vaccinia Ankara-based vaccine tried out at Chennai may not be the best candidate if used alone. The proposal to use, along with it, a DNA-based vaccine in the Phase I prime-boost vaccine trial to be started next year at NARI and the TRC makes eminent sense in this context. Efforts should be directed towards producing a DNA vaccine construct using HIV genes isolated from Indian HIV strains as in the case of the candidate vaccine used in the Chennai trial. Such a vaccine may well produce a better immune response.
The vaccine tested in Chennai is unlikely to prevent infection. It is not surprising, given that most of the vaccine candidates being tested across the world are designed more to keep the viral load under check, thereby delaying the progression to the diseased state, than to prevent infection. With no medicines available to cure HIV and with no vaccine to prevent infection at an advanced stage of testing, the time-tested measures to prevent infection gain utmost importance. Apart from producing a promising candidate vaccine for a prime-boost trial, the scientists attached to the TRC and NARI have gained valuable experience from their participation in trials of international standards. The Phase I prime-boost trial to be conducted at the same institutions, subject to regulatory approvals, will go a long way in further upgrading them and enhancing the level of competence of the scientists. This is a big gain as India is fast becoming an ideal field for undertaking various drug/vaccine trials.
The vaccine tested in Chennai is unlikely to prevent infection. It is not surprising, given that most of the vaccine candidates being tested across the world are designed more to keep the viral load under check, thereby delaying the progression to the diseased state, than to prevent infection. With no medicines available to cure HIV and with no vaccine to prevent infection at an advanced stage of testing, the time-tested measures to prevent infection gain utmost importance. Apart from producing a promising candidate vaccine for a prime-boost trial, the scientists attached to the TRC and NARI have gained valuable experience from their participation in trials of international standards. The Phase I prime-boost trial to be conducted at the same institutions, subject to regulatory approvals, will go a long way in further upgrading them and enhancing the level of competence of the scientists. This is a big gain as India is fast becoming an ideal field for undertaking various drug/vaccine trials.
India - Next wave in telecom
The recommendations made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to liberalise internet telephony within the country have raised expectations that the next wave of pro-consumer growth in the telecom sector, represented by cheaper calls, will soon begin. The spectacular rise in the number of phone connections in recent years has created a massive base for internet telephony and value-added services. Of the 325.78 million phone connections as of June this year, 2 86.6 million are in the wireless category; the telecom regulator has assessed that 70 million mobile connections are ready for third generation (3G) service and broadband wireless access. The fast clip at which India’s mobile phone sector has grown, thanks to affordable ownership, is a well-known success story. With sustained competition, such as through internet telephony, call costs can go down further. TRAI’s objective to bring the fruits of technological innovation to a wider section of people is welcome. Towards this end, the regulator has opened up domestic voice calls service to internet service providers. Although the option of providing internet telephony has been available for sometime now to holders of basic, unified and mobile services licences, they have not rolled out the service. Obviously it is seen as disruptive to prevailing business models. But a protectionist stance can only stifle technological advancement and deprive consumers of better value.
The availability of good quality broadband connections and adequate bandwidth on all parts of a network is a prerequisite for voice calls to be made over the internet. Many among the existing 4.38 million broadband subscribers in the country are aware of the potential of the technology to drive down long distance and international calling charges; many already use it for free computer-to-computer and international calls. The business process outsourcing sector has welcomed the TRAI recommendations for their potential to lower call costs. If the new framework gets the green signal, it could attract a significant number of fixed and mobile phone subscribers. Globally, there has been a mixed response to internet calling in countries such as Germany and Britain, while a third of the households in France use the service. In the U.S., both phone and cable companies are adding a large number of internet phone customers. One reason cited for the slow adoption in some countries is resistance from large, conventional phone companies. But India has achieved fast telecom expansion with cascading benefits to the economy, thanks to a growth-oriented policy environment. Internet telephony will help millions of subscribers make cheaper long distance and international calls.
The availability of good quality broadband connections and adequate bandwidth on all parts of a network is a prerequisite for voice calls to be made over the internet. Many among the existing 4.38 million broadband subscribers in the country are aware of the potential of the technology to drive down long distance and international calling charges; many already use it for free computer-to-computer and international calls. The business process outsourcing sector has welcomed the TRAI recommendations for their potential to lower call costs. If the new framework gets the green signal, it could attract a significant number of fixed and mobile phone subscribers. Globally, there has been a mixed response to internet calling in countries such as Germany and Britain, while a third of the households in France use the service. In the U.S., both phone and cable companies are adding a large number of internet phone customers. One reason cited for the slow adoption in some countries is resistance from large, conventional phone companies. But India has achieved fast telecom expansion with cascading benefits to the economy, thanks to a growth-oriented policy environment. Internet telephony will help millions of subscribers make cheaper long distance and international calls.
World - Furore over new carbon-trading plan
Developing countries and human rights groups are heading for a clash at a U.N. climate change meeting intended to stop the destruction of tropical forests. Diplomats from more than 100 countries are meeting in Accra, Ghana, to open talks on whether tropical forests should join the emerging global carbon market. This would allow countries and companies to earn money from not cutting down trees.
The felling is responsible for almost 20 per cent of annual global carbon emissions, making it a crucial target in the battle against global warming.
The move, which is backed strongly by many developing countries and the G8, is expected to greatly increase the financial value of forests, encourage governments and corporations to protect them, and would potentially transfer millions of dollars a year to some of the poorest countries.
Human rights and environment groups are warning that the over-hasty inclusion of forests in the post-Kyoto carbon market could trigger a “land grab,” leaving millions of people worse off. According to the groups, which include Friends of the Earth International, the Rainforest Foundation, and the Rights and Resources Initiative — a coalition of environment and justice groups, it would: undermine the world carbon price; damaging the effectiveness of the market; drive indigenous peoples from forests; and benefit only a wealthy elite and increase the risk of corruption.
Without clear guidelines on land ownership and the involvement of local people, the groups said, the money poured into preserving forests could also fuel violent conflict. “Sixty million indigenous people are dependent on forests for their livelihoods, food and medicines. These people have already been severely impacted by deforestation,” said Belmond Tchoumba, Friends of the Earth International coordinator of the Forest and Biodiversity Programme. “If the value of their forests increases, governments and corporations may be willing to go to extreme lengths to wrest forests away from indigenous peoples and others,” he added.
Slashing the price of carbon could even lead to a failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions overall, said the campaigners. “The U.S. could say that it will only join a post-Kyoto agreement on condition that they can offset emissions by buying deforestation credits. It would be a catastrophe,” said Simon Counsell, director of the Rainforest Foundation in London.
“It could crash the price of carbon and would mean the reduction of pollution in rich countries would become quite uneconomic,” he added.
Justice groups are disturbed that logging, soya and palm oil companies, who have been responsible for large-scale deforestation and who own vast tracts of the tropical forests in Asia and Africa, could now demand compensation for every tree they do not cut down. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008
The felling is responsible for almost 20 per cent of annual global carbon emissions, making it a crucial target in the battle against global warming.
The move, which is backed strongly by many developing countries and the G8, is expected to greatly increase the financial value of forests, encourage governments and corporations to protect them, and would potentially transfer millions of dollars a year to some of the poorest countries.
Human rights and environment groups are warning that the over-hasty inclusion of forests in the post-Kyoto carbon market could trigger a “land grab,” leaving millions of people worse off. According to the groups, which include Friends of the Earth International, the Rainforest Foundation, and the Rights and Resources Initiative — a coalition of environment and justice groups, it would: undermine the world carbon price; damaging the effectiveness of the market; drive indigenous peoples from forests; and benefit only a wealthy elite and increase the risk of corruption.
Without clear guidelines on land ownership and the involvement of local people, the groups said, the money poured into preserving forests could also fuel violent conflict. “Sixty million indigenous people are dependent on forests for their livelihoods, food and medicines. These people have already been severely impacted by deforestation,” said Belmond Tchoumba, Friends of the Earth International coordinator of the Forest and Biodiversity Programme. “If the value of their forests increases, governments and corporations may be willing to go to extreme lengths to wrest forests away from indigenous peoples and others,” he added.
Slashing the price of carbon could even lead to a failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions overall, said the campaigners. “The U.S. could say that it will only join a post-Kyoto agreement on condition that they can offset emissions by buying deforestation credits. It would be a catastrophe,” said Simon Counsell, director of the Rainforest Foundation in London.
“It could crash the price of carbon and would mean the reduction of pollution in rich countries would become quite uneconomic,” he added.
Justice groups are disturbed that logging, soya and palm oil companies, who have been responsible for large-scale deforestation and who own vast tracts of the tropical forests in Asia and Africa, could now demand compensation for every tree they do not cut down. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008
World - Zardari tipped for Presiden't post in Pakistan
Islamabad: Pakistan’s ruling PPP leaders on Friday backed party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari for the post of Pakistan President, elections for which will be held on September 6, but left a final decision to him.
Meeting four days after the former President, Pervez Musharraf, resigned from the post in the face of imminent impeachment, the PPP’s top leadership, the largest constituent in the ruling coalition, considered the party’s presidential candidate. At its central executive committee meeting, party members felt Mr. Zardari should take over as the next President as PPP is representing the federation and has a right to the presidency, said PPP leader and Information Minister, Sherry Rehman, after the meeting.
The meeting finally authorised Mr. Zardari to select the party’s candidate for the presidential election. “Mr. Zardari thanked the central executive committee for backing him and said he would announce his decision within 24 hours,” said Ms. Rehman, adding the meeting had not considered any alternative candidates.
Reports have suggested Mr. Zardari is not keen on the post being held by any other party till constitutional amendments are passed to repeal some of the President’s sweeping powers, including the ability to dissolve Parliament and dismiss the Prime Minister. At Friday’s meeting, some PPP leaders advised Mr. Zardari against assuming the post as it would become a ceremonial position after the abolition of such powers.
The members of the executive committee, however, insisted that the next President should be from the PPP.
Meeting four days after the former President, Pervez Musharraf, resigned from the post in the face of imminent impeachment, the PPP’s top leadership, the largest constituent in the ruling coalition, considered the party’s presidential candidate. At its central executive committee meeting, party members felt Mr. Zardari should take over as the next President as PPP is representing the federation and has a right to the presidency, said PPP leader and Information Minister, Sherry Rehman, after the meeting.
The meeting finally authorised Mr. Zardari to select the party’s candidate for the presidential election. “Mr. Zardari thanked the central executive committee for backing him and said he would announce his decision within 24 hours,” said Ms. Rehman, adding the meeting had not considered any alternative candidates.
Reports have suggested Mr. Zardari is not keen on the post being held by any other party till constitutional amendments are passed to repeal some of the President’s sweeping powers, including the ability to dissolve Parliament and dismiss the Prime Minister. At Friday’s meeting, some PPP leaders advised Mr. Zardari against assuming the post as it would become a ceremonial position after the abolition of such powers.
The members of the executive committee, however, insisted that the next President should be from the PPP.
Columnists - Barkha Dutt
The war cry for ‘azaadi’ in the volatile valley of Kashmir has suddenly found a chorus among some of Delhi’s sharpest thinkers. Ironically, and unnoticed in the current breathless discourse, the advocates of azaadi come from two entirely extreme positions. There is the ultra-liberal faction that has always seen India as the oppressor and the Kashmiri people as her throttled victims. While they propagate self-determination in the Valley, for many of these commentators, the citizenship of a Nation-State is at best an irrelevance and at worst a jingoistic anachronism. Arundhati Roy, for example, famously declared herself to be an “independent, mobile republic”, while protesting the nuclear tests.
The other (and opposite) lobby is batting for freedom precisely because it believes in an idea of an India that should no longer be held back by the violent and contentious history of Kashmir. These writers, (my friend and HT’s Vir Sanghvi prominent among them) make a cold cost-benefit analysis to argue that India has spent more political energy and taxpayers’ money in the Valley than in any other state, but with no results to show for it. India, they say, doesn’t need lecturing by two-bit countries on Kashmir; it’s time to leave the past behind and embrace the future.
As always, it’s a healthy democracy that can be at debate with itself. It’s also a sign of how much has changed. A few years ago, I remember doing a television report on how greater autonomy, across all its regions, may be the antidote to alienation in the state. The mere suggestion evoked general indignation. My report mentioned that the state has its own flag and constitution, to underline its unique place in the federal structure. This was not opinion; it was fact. Even so, whether from ignorance or denial, everything I said was received with outrage and resistance.
Today, as we witness both mainstream and fringe voices debating azaadi, even if for opposite reasons, perhaps we are looking at an India that is less scared of itself. Or perhaps a new generation of Indians that is not haunted by the scars of Partition and has a greater detachment on the issue.
But let me strike a note of serious hesitation. Many of us agree that the democratic process in the state has not worked as it should. It is clear that conventional approaches that have alternated between dangling carrots and brandishing sticks are ineffective, and in some cases, self-destructive. And yet, isn’t there something discomforting and horrible about middle-class ennui being the driving force for change? Should urban fatigue or textbook liberalism now set the agenda for what should happen next? More importantly, if the problem is rooted in alienation, is the solution to tell an entire people to effectively go wherever the hell they want to? In my view, bleeding heart solutions that dismiss the very notion of boundaries and maps don’t have much resonance either. Yes, successive governments have been in denial about the extent of alienation. And yes, you can’t want the land (and its three rivers that you tap for electricity) but be indifferent to its people. So, should the solution be to throw your hands up in the air and say we-just-don’t-give-a-damn?
It’s kind of boring to be a realist in these times when more provocative ideas on Kashmir have given birth to a thousand television shows. But it’s my sense that the changing rhetoric on the state will not bring it either peace or solace at this time. Jammu and Kashmir has been on the boil for two months and yet this is a government that has not even thought it necessary to call in the firefighters. It’s unlikely to engage in philosophical debates on whether India is strong enough to accommodate secession, when it hasn’t even begun talks with protestors on either side of the Pir Panjal.
So, I’m going to be old-fashioned and say, if we still care, let’s start with the basics. Our politicians need to stop treating Jammu and Kashmir like a security challenge. We need to acknowledge that a regional divide is in serious danger of growing into a religious one. Identity politics in the Valley are driven by a deep disconnect from India, and in the Jammu region, by anger at the kind of attention Kashmir gets, from both politicians and the media. The Prime Minister either needs to step in himself or appoint a peace envoy who will talk to both the Samiti in Jammu and the separatists in the Valley. Commerce may provide an unlikely clue to peace. Opening trade across the Line of Control was something New Delhi was in favour of. If Islamabad is the obstacle to cross-border business, the government needs to hard-sell that fact so that it can strengthen the moderate separatists against the rabble-rousers who are loyal to Pakistan. The time for diffident press releases from the Home Ministry is long over.
Our politicians also need to pay much closer attention to the sense of neglect perceived in Jammu. You can’t let its people feel that just because their sentiment is not separatist, it figures lower on the list of priorities. And if azaadi is now a palatable word in drawing-room debate, how about making a more realistic start with autonomy? Autonomy proposals for all three regions of the state have been gathering cobwebs for close to a decade. How about wiping the dust off those files and resurrecting their suggestions?
In the end, that old fox Pervez Musharraf may have had it right. Before you can seriously look at sub-nationalism, you have to first find a way of making borders irrelevant, or at the very least, porous. But the government has to first react like it understands the gravity of the problem. And we need to pull our political class out of its slumber instead of pushing them deeper into stupor by going on about how tired we are of a dispute called Kashmir.Barkha Dutt is Group Editor, English News, NDTV
The other (and opposite) lobby is batting for freedom precisely because it believes in an idea of an India that should no longer be held back by the violent and contentious history of Kashmir. These writers, (my friend and HT’s Vir Sanghvi prominent among them) make a cold cost-benefit analysis to argue that India has spent more political energy and taxpayers’ money in the Valley than in any other state, but with no results to show for it. India, they say, doesn’t need lecturing by two-bit countries on Kashmir; it’s time to leave the past behind and embrace the future.
As always, it’s a healthy democracy that can be at debate with itself. It’s also a sign of how much has changed. A few years ago, I remember doing a television report on how greater autonomy, across all its regions, may be the antidote to alienation in the state. The mere suggestion evoked general indignation. My report mentioned that the state has its own flag and constitution, to underline its unique place in the federal structure. This was not opinion; it was fact. Even so, whether from ignorance or denial, everything I said was received with outrage and resistance.
Today, as we witness both mainstream and fringe voices debating azaadi, even if for opposite reasons, perhaps we are looking at an India that is less scared of itself. Or perhaps a new generation of Indians that is not haunted by the scars of Partition and has a greater detachment on the issue.
But let me strike a note of serious hesitation. Many of us agree that the democratic process in the state has not worked as it should. It is clear that conventional approaches that have alternated between dangling carrots and brandishing sticks are ineffective, and in some cases, self-destructive. And yet, isn’t there something discomforting and horrible about middle-class ennui being the driving force for change? Should urban fatigue or textbook liberalism now set the agenda for what should happen next? More importantly, if the problem is rooted in alienation, is the solution to tell an entire people to effectively go wherever the hell they want to? In my view, bleeding heart solutions that dismiss the very notion of boundaries and maps don’t have much resonance either. Yes, successive governments have been in denial about the extent of alienation. And yes, you can’t want the land (and its three rivers that you tap for electricity) but be indifferent to its people. So, should the solution be to throw your hands up in the air and say we-just-don’t-give-a-damn?
It’s kind of boring to be a realist in these times when more provocative ideas on Kashmir have given birth to a thousand television shows. But it’s my sense that the changing rhetoric on the state will not bring it either peace or solace at this time. Jammu and Kashmir has been on the boil for two months and yet this is a government that has not even thought it necessary to call in the firefighters. It’s unlikely to engage in philosophical debates on whether India is strong enough to accommodate secession, when it hasn’t even begun talks with protestors on either side of the Pir Panjal.
So, I’m going to be old-fashioned and say, if we still care, let’s start with the basics. Our politicians need to stop treating Jammu and Kashmir like a security challenge. We need to acknowledge that a regional divide is in serious danger of growing into a religious one. Identity politics in the Valley are driven by a deep disconnect from India, and in the Jammu region, by anger at the kind of attention Kashmir gets, from both politicians and the media. The Prime Minister either needs to step in himself or appoint a peace envoy who will talk to both the Samiti in Jammu and the separatists in the Valley. Commerce may provide an unlikely clue to peace. Opening trade across the Line of Control was something New Delhi was in favour of. If Islamabad is the obstacle to cross-border business, the government needs to hard-sell that fact so that it can strengthen the moderate separatists against the rabble-rousers who are loyal to Pakistan. The time for diffident press releases from the Home Ministry is long over.
Our politicians also need to pay much closer attention to the sense of neglect perceived in Jammu. You can’t let its people feel that just because their sentiment is not separatist, it figures lower on the list of priorities. And if azaadi is now a palatable word in drawing-room debate, how about making a more realistic start with autonomy? Autonomy proposals for all three regions of the state have been gathering cobwebs for close to a decade. How about wiping the dust off those files and resurrecting their suggestions?
In the end, that old fox Pervez Musharraf may have had it right. Before you can seriously look at sub-nationalism, you have to first find a way of making borders irrelevant, or at the very least, porous. But the government has to first react like it understands the gravity of the problem. And we need to pull our political class out of its slumber instead of pushing them deeper into stupor by going on about how tired we are of a dispute called Kashmir.Barkha Dutt is Group Editor, English News, NDTV
Columnists - Khushwant Singh
India’s first gold ever won by Abhinav Bindra should be seen alongside its failure to even qualify for the Olympic Games in hockey in which we were once world champions. Our record in the arena of international sports makes for sorry reading. We are not a sporting nation. We are mere spectators of others’ achievements. A nation of a billion people is outdone by countries with populations less than any of our metropolitan cities.
Don’t we have it in us to do better? I am sure we have and could do a lot better if we went about it the right way. We have to face the unpleasant fact that we can never hope to match people who have more muscle power than us — Americans, Europeans, Australians, New Zealanders, Japanese and the Chinese. They are physically stronger because they eat better, live better, train better to outrun us, outbox us, lift heavier weights, jump higher and longer, throw iron balls and javelins across longer distances. But there is no excuse for us not to be able to get the better of them in games that require more skill than stamina: shooting, archery, table-tennis, badminton and others. Initially, we should concentrate on these to achieve world-class status before we take on others.
I have a few half-baked notions on how to go about doing so. You may or may not agree with me, but spare a few minutes considering them.
First, keep politicians out of sports bodies.
They are more interested in self-promotion and publicity than in games. A simple way is to disqualify MPs, MLAs and office-bearers of political parties from holding any office in sports administration. The likes of Sharad Pawar, Suresh Kalmadi and Vijay Kumar Malhotra should stick to their chief pre-occupation. Sports bodies should be administered by civil servants who are dedicated to sports.
Second, take sports consciousness down to the village and school level.
Every village should have annual sports meets where boys and girls race, jump, shot putt, wrestle etc, and award winners with momentos. Every school should have provisions for indoor as well as outdoor competitive games such as table tennis, rifle shooting, archery, judo and jumping, rewarded with trophies on school annual days. This should go on through college with greater emphasis on individual competitive games rather than team games.
By then, it would be evident which of the boys and girls have it in them to become world-class. They should be given prolonged and expert coaching till in fact they come close to Olympic levels. And then only pick up likely winners of medals to compete in Olympic games.
Try it out and watch the results.
A left-handed compliment
The first thing I note while watching international tennis tournaments is whether the player is left or right-handed.
I have noticed many of the better players who get past the quarter-finals are left-handed. I thought that the principal factor for their doing better was that right-handed players’ assumed that if they aimed their shots on the opponents back hand, which is usually weaker than the front hand, they would win the rally.
I was wrong. There is more to being left-handed than meets the eye. Lefties or Southpaws, as they are known, have innate qualities that the right-handed do not have. It is not only in ball games that they do well but in other fields of activity they do well.
Both Barack Obama and John McCain running for the presidency of the United States are left-handed. In 1992, all contenders for the US presidency — George Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot were left-handed. So were some other incumbents: Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. Besides politicians, Spanish painter Pablo Picasso as well as American statesman Benjamin Franklin were Southpaws.
It is time we revised our notions that being left-handed is a handicap and stop forcing our children inclined that way to use their right hands. The prejudice has got into our language. Words like ‘adroit’ and ‘dextrous’ are derived from French and Latin: droit (right). French for left is gauche, which also means gross.
Then there’s the use of the word ‘Left’ for those opposed to the government, socialists and communists. It is not surprising that ‘weak’ and ‘awkward’ are synonyms for the Left.
Don’t we have it in us to do better? I am sure we have and could do a lot better if we went about it the right way. We have to face the unpleasant fact that we can never hope to match people who have more muscle power than us — Americans, Europeans, Australians, New Zealanders, Japanese and the Chinese. They are physically stronger because they eat better, live better, train better to outrun us, outbox us, lift heavier weights, jump higher and longer, throw iron balls and javelins across longer distances. But there is no excuse for us not to be able to get the better of them in games that require more skill than stamina: shooting, archery, table-tennis, badminton and others. Initially, we should concentrate on these to achieve world-class status before we take on others.
I have a few half-baked notions on how to go about doing so. You may or may not agree with me, but spare a few minutes considering them.
First, keep politicians out of sports bodies.
They are more interested in self-promotion and publicity than in games. A simple way is to disqualify MPs, MLAs and office-bearers of political parties from holding any office in sports administration. The likes of Sharad Pawar, Suresh Kalmadi and Vijay Kumar Malhotra should stick to their chief pre-occupation. Sports bodies should be administered by civil servants who are dedicated to sports.
Second, take sports consciousness down to the village and school level.
Every village should have annual sports meets where boys and girls race, jump, shot putt, wrestle etc, and award winners with momentos. Every school should have provisions for indoor as well as outdoor competitive games such as table tennis, rifle shooting, archery, judo and jumping, rewarded with trophies on school annual days. This should go on through college with greater emphasis on individual competitive games rather than team games.
By then, it would be evident which of the boys and girls have it in them to become world-class. They should be given prolonged and expert coaching till in fact they come close to Olympic levels. And then only pick up likely winners of medals to compete in Olympic games.
Try it out and watch the results.
A left-handed compliment
The first thing I note while watching international tennis tournaments is whether the player is left or right-handed.
I have noticed many of the better players who get past the quarter-finals are left-handed. I thought that the principal factor for their doing better was that right-handed players’ assumed that if they aimed their shots on the opponents back hand, which is usually weaker than the front hand, they would win the rally.
I was wrong. There is more to being left-handed than meets the eye. Lefties or Southpaws, as they are known, have innate qualities that the right-handed do not have. It is not only in ball games that they do well but in other fields of activity they do well.
Both Barack Obama and John McCain running for the presidency of the United States are left-handed. In 1992, all contenders for the US presidency — George Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot were left-handed. So were some other incumbents: Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. Besides politicians, Spanish painter Pablo Picasso as well as American statesman Benjamin Franklin were Southpaws.
It is time we revised our notions that being left-handed is a handicap and stop forcing our children inclined that way to use their right hands. The prejudice has got into our language. Words like ‘adroit’ and ‘dextrous’ are derived from French and Latin: droit (right). French for left is gauche, which also means gross.
Then there’s the use of the word ‘Left’ for those opposed to the government, socialists and communists. It is not surprising that ‘weak’ and ‘awkward’ are synonyms for the Left.
Entertainment - Newschannels;The question of balance
The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.
- Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
The great playwright passed away over a hundred years back, but the essence of the statement is being much debated in India. With reason.
Over the last few months, a section of the news channels have been showcasing content that one would’ve never quite expected to see on an offering that’s supposed to air news and current affairs.
Purists are aghast, but many in the business see nothing wrong.
With peculiar Indian curiosity to know about the minutest detail of the lives of the others, the appetite and consumption of news is on its growling pounce. News channels – at least a section of them - satiate the curiosity which derives voyeuristic pleasure from gossip and rumours.
Because it is this cacophony of subjects of coverage that offers something for everyone, that is driving up not just the ratings, but also revenues for Hindi news channels. And while there are those who wonder when the Hindi news engine will start to lose its steam, most are in agreement that it is not going to be any time soon.
The statistics though are telling. The advertising revenue of the new segment in the fiscal year 2006-07 is Rs 9.8 billion. In FY 08 it has touched Rs 12 billion and expected to grow to Rs 14.5 billion by the fiscal end.
According to industry research body Tam, in the January-June 2008 period, 54.2 per cent of the content on Hindi news channels was not news. And among English channels, the number is 38.4. This evidently seemed to help the ad volume. As per Tam Adex, ad volume growth in Hindi and English news channels which stood at 47,449 seconds in 2006 jumped to 62,173 in 2007. In the six-months period from January to June, it has already clocked 36,398 seconds.
The share of ad volumes of news channels in the overall TV advertising pie has been growing steadily. It went up 16 per cent in 2007 from 15 per cent in 2006. Says MCCS CEO Ashok Ventaramani, “The advertising revenue of the market has been growing with a CAGR of 18 per cent since the last five years.”
There is no doubt that advertising is the fuel that drives the satellite boom and India’s burgeoning news channels trade.
The consumption of news too has increased. From 6.9 per cent in 2006, the Hindi news genre has surged to 7.4 per cent to end-2007 (Tam, c&s, HSM, 15+). In the first half of 2008, it is well-placed at 7 per cent as compared to 32 per cent covered by the Hindi entertainment channels (GECs).
With the genre of the TV news consumption getting expanded, the advertising trend has also changed in a short span of two years. In 2006, the top advertisers rooster which was ruled by categories like car/jeep, corporate (brand image), social advertisements, suiting, hosiery and pan masala or gutkha no longer feature in it . The top categories in 2007 and 2008 have been replaced by categories like cellular services, internet and SMS services.
In 2008, direct-to-home (DTH) service and real estate are the unique categories that feature in the top advertisers. Advertisers like Biswanath Hosiery which topped the list in 2006 have been replaced by cellular services like Reliance Communication, Vodafane Essar in 2007 and 2008. In the first half of 2008, the top five advertisers slots are filled up by cellular services.
The entry of a new set of viewers is attributed as the reason for newer categories of advertisers mostly targeting mostly to Sec A and Sec B. They have higher purchasing power, making them more attractive clients for advertisers. As per Tam, 51 per cent of news channels viewers are from 35+ years, 28 per cent comes from 15-24 years and the rest 22 per cent are from 25-34 years.
What’s on the menu?
To a large extent, revenue flows determine how content is produced, packaged and put on airwaves by news channels. This leads to a permanent tension between the journalistic and commercial imperatives of media entities and affects the very nature of news programming.
According to Tam, from January to June in 2008, Hindi news channel have covered 45.8 per cent of news bulletin followed by reviews and reports (15.8 per cent), religious and devotional stories (9.9 per cent), cricket match (9.2), action and thriller (4.9 per cent), comedies (4.1 per cent), film based magazines (2.6 per cent).
English news channels have covered 61.6 per cent news and bulletins, reviews and reports (8 per cent), film based magazines (7 per cent), cricket matches (6.8 per cent) and comedies (1 per cent).
In various Hindi news channels, cricket has been featured differently in Ye Cricket Kuch Kehta Hain (Aaj Tak), Nach Le Cricket (Aaj Tak), Disco Cricket (Star News) while Khali has seen a variety of presentations like Khali Ki Khalbali, Khali Karega Khatma and Khali Sae Bali. Gods blessed the news channels in shows like Zinda Hain Rawan, Sabko Mil Gaye Ram and Kaise Dekhe Ram.
Star News claims that in the week ending 1 March, 41 per cent of the content in its channel was news bulletin while the rest was religious, crime and cricket-centric stories. Religious stories were 8 per cent while sports reviews, comedies, business shows, crime and thrillers were 7 per cent each. Cricket-based shows grabbed 10 per cent while film shows managed 1 per cent of the entire content pie.
Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami scoffs at the suggestion that viewers go away if channel don’t go strong on soft stories. He cites the example of the Khali episode. “Times Now did not devout a single second to Khali, yet we did not lose out on viewers and market share.”
News channels are realising this fast enough. Recently, Zee Group chairman Subhash Chandra announced that his channel is bringing news back in its original form . With the new positioning of ‘Zara Socheye’, Zee News promises to shun stories on godmen and superstitions.
Says Zee News CEO Barun Das, “It is high time someone realise that a news channel is meant for only news. He stresses on the fact that after the repackaging of Zee News, he has managed to make it “non-entertaining” yet “non-boring”.
How channels stack up?
In the Hindi news genre, from January to June 2008 six month period, long-time leader Aaj Tak still rules the roost with an average relative market share of 18.98 (Tam, c&s, HSM, 15 +) per cent, followed by Star News with 17.94 per cent. In the third spot is India TV in terms of average relative market share (14.43 per cent).
However, a closer look on month-on-month index puts India TV on the forefront in the month of May and in June shares the top spot with Aaj Tak (19 per cent each). Aaj Tak has been almost consistent with 19 per cent market share in the six month period. Its sister concern channel Tez has averaged 5.55 per cent.
India TV opened the year with 14 per cent to gradually move upto 19 per cent. Star News which was so far on the channel is meant for only news. He stresses on the fact that after the repackaging of Zee News, he has managed to make i t “non-entertaining” yet “non-boring”.
The six-month average of IBN7 is 8.92 per cent while NDTV India has an average of 8.11 per cent. Samay has 4.91 per cent from January to June. Newly launched channel News24 has an average of 4.42 per cent, Live India average 3.24 per cent while public broadcaster Doordarshan managed to pull 3.14 per cent.
The English news segment still continues with a three-way tussle. Six-month average places CNN-IBN with 29.09 per cent (Tam, c&s, All India, 15+) , NDTV 24X7 with 28.91 per cent while Times Now is at 28.58 per cent. Headlines Today stands at 13.34 per cent.
Blame it on distribution?
Advertising is central to privately owned news businesses across the world and in India Indian TV channels derive roughly 70 per cent of their revenues from advertising and about 30 per cent from subscriptions.
Venkataramani says, “Depending upon the band preferences of the channel, the distribution cost of a national channel can range anything between Rs 200-800 million.”
A large proportion of subscription revenue is consumed by cable operators and since broadcasters do not control their own distribution they can not pinpoint the exact number of viewers. Ratings therefore become vital as the currency of success.
A senior executive at a news channel who request anonymity vehemently opposes the Tam rating system. He argues that content is mainly driven by the Tam ratings. Explaining further, he says that most of the time, the editorial is forced to do stories which categorically caters to the places or states where Tam peoplemeters are placed.
The ratings, however do not represent all the states with a limited number of peoplementer which are absent in states like Bihar, North East and Jammu and Kashmir. This factor alone has tremendous impact on the content, programme packaging and imperative of selling airtime advertisers.
A man hit by a bull in the streets of Delhi will get more coverage and footage than five men killed in Darjeeling or Assam. The reason is only that peoplemeters are located in Delhi and not in the hill zones.
For a Delhiwallah, the neighbourhood report naturally gets more hits in the peoplemeter. "The content is thus decided by the geographical placement of the peoplemeter to get spikes in the ratings.
Hence, some parts of India (where the peoplemeter is absent) and some stories are left untouched or given very little importance," says the executive.
Over and above this constraint, with most news channels being free-to-air and hence not making any monies from subscriptions, their dependence on advertising and hence ratings is total.
A frequent complaint of news broadcasters is the heavy distribution cost.Broadcasters say more than half of the outlay goes in paying for reach, which cuts other costs like human resources. That is why a reporter cannot be placed in the interiors as it has its own costs. A virtual studio ultimately becomes the easy answer.
Says IBN7 managing editor Ashutosh, "Distribution costs have gone up tremendously because of the clutter of channels. This is in fact affects quality as a lot of money from a fixed budget goes into distribution, and channels compromise on quality. If only we could be patient, a lot of difference could come in."
“The single biggest problem in the industry today is distribution. It is getting more and more competitive, as more and more channels come into business. The cost is enormous and growing wildly, and it is hurting every broadcaster from the biggest to the smallest, free-to-air (FTA) or pay.
“In this battle, multi-system operator (MSO) and local cable operator (LCO) point fingers at each other, but either way it is costing the broadcaster. And money that could and should have been spent on content is getting spent on distribution instead, and it weakens the industry,” said a the broadcasting executive.
India is the only country in the world with more than 80 24-hour TV channels broadcasting programmes on news and current affairs, barely a quarter-century after the world's first 24-hour TV news channel (CNN or Cable News Network) came up in 1980.
The challenge for the news broadcasters in 2008 would be to turn the tables - lower the carriage fees and churn out revenue from subscription. Till the dependence on advertising revenue hangs on, there will be more breaking stories, exclusive stories, Amitabh Bachchan going to Shirdi, Siddhivinayak Temple et al, Salman Khan’s doings and live do or die, battle between godmen and rationalists.
- Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
The great playwright passed away over a hundred years back, but the essence of the statement is being much debated in India. With reason.
Over the last few months, a section of the news channels have been showcasing content that one would’ve never quite expected to see on an offering that’s supposed to air news and current affairs.
Purists are aghast, but many in the business see nothing wrong.
With peculiar Indian curiosity to know about the minutest detail of the lives of the others, the appetite and consumption of news is on its growling pounce. News channels – at least a section of them - satiate the curiosity which derives voyeuristic pleasure from gossip and rumours.
Because it is this cacophony of subjects of coverage that offers something for everyone, that is driving up not just the ratings, but also revenues for Hindi news channels. And while there are those who wonder when the Hindi news engine will start to lose its steam, most are in agreement that it is not going to be any time soon.
The statistics though are telling. The advertising revenue of the new segment in the fiscal year 2006-07 is Rs 9.8 billion. In FY 08 it has touched Rs 12 billion and expected to grow to Rs 14.5 billion by the fiscal end.
According to industry research body Tam, in the January-June 2008 period, 54.2 per cent of the content on Hindi news channels was not news. And among English channels, the number is 38.4. This evidently seemed to help the ad volume. As per Tam Adex, ad volume growth in Hindi and English news channels which stood at 47,449 seconds in 2006 jumped to 62,173 in 2007. In the six-months period from January to June, it has already clocked 36,398 seconds.
The share of ad volumes of news channels in the overall TV advertising pie has been growing steadily. It went up 16 per cent in 2007 from 15 per cent in 2006. Says MCCS CEO Ashok Ventaramani, “The advertising revenue of the market has been growing with a CAGR of 18 per cent since the last five years.”
There is no doubt that advertising is the fuel that drives the satellite boom and India’s burgeoning news channels trade.
The consumption of news too has increased. From 6.9 per cent in 2006, the Hindi news genre has surged to 7.4 per cent to end-2007 (Tam, c&s, HSM, 15+). In the first half of 2008, it is well-placed at 7 per cent as compared to 32 per cent covered by the Hindi entertainment channels (GECs).
With the genre of the TV news consumption getting expanded, the advertising trend has also changed in a short span of two years. In 2006, the top advertisers rooster which was ruled by categories like car/jeep, corporate (brand image), social advertisements, suiting, hosiery and pan masala or gutkha no longer feature in it . The top categories in 2007 and 2008 have been replaced by categories like cellular services, internet and SMS services.
In 2008, direct-to-home (DTH) service and real estate are the unique categories that feature in the top advertisers. Advertisers like Biswanath Hosiery which topped the list in 2006 have been replaced by cellular services like Reliance Communication, Vodafane Essar in 2007 and 2008. In the first half of 2008, the top five advertisers slots are filled up by cellular services.
The entry of a new set of viewers is attributed as the reason for newer categories of advertisers mostly targeting mostly to Sec A and Sec B. They have higher purchasing power, making them more attractive clients for advertisers. As per Tam, 51 per cent of news channels viewers are from 35+ years, 28 per cent comes from 15-24 years and the rest 22 per cent are from 25-34 years.
What’s on the menu?
To a large extent, revenue flows determine how content is produced, packaged and put on airwaves by news channels. This leads to a permanent tension between the journalistic and commercial imperatives of media entities and affects the very nature of news programming.
According to Tam, from January to June in 2008, Hindi news channel have covered 45.8 per cent of news bulletin followed by reviews and reports (15.8 per cent), religious and devotional stories (9.9 per cent), cricket match (9.2), action and thriller (4.9 per cent), comedies (4.1 per cent), film based magazines (2.6 per cent).
English news channels have covered 61.6 per cent news and bulletins, reviews and reports (8 per cent), film based magazines (7 per cent), cricket matches (6.8 per cent) and comedies (1 per cent).
In various Hindi news channels, cricket has been featured differently in Ye Cricket Kuch Kehta Hain (Aaj Tak), Nach Le Cricket (Aaj Tak), Disco Cricket (Star News) while Khali has seen a variety of presentations like Khali Ki Khalbali, Khali Karega Khatma and Khali Sae Bali. Gods blessed the news channels in shows like Zinda Hain Rawan, Sabko Mil Gaye Ram and Kaise Dekhe Ram.
Star News claims that in the week ending 1 March, 41 per cent of the content in its channel was news bulletin while the rest was religious, crime and cricket-centric stories. Religious stories were 8 per cent while sports reviews, comedies, business shows, crime and thrillers were 7 per cent each. Cricket-based shows grabbed 10 per cent while film shows managed 1 per cent of the entire content pie.
Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami scoffs at the suggestion that viewers go away if channel don’t go strong on soft stories. He cites the example of the Khali episode. “Times Now did not devout a single second to Khali, yet we did not lose out on viewers and market share.”
News channels are realising this fast enough. Recently, Zee Group chairman Subhash Chandra announced that his channel is bringing news back in its original form . With the new positioning of ‘Zara Socheye’, Zee News promises to shun stories on godmen and superstitions.
Says Zee News CEO Barun Das, “It is high time someone realise that a news channel is meant for only news. He stresses on the fact that after the repackaging of Zee News, he has managed to make it “non-entertaining” yet “non-boring”.
How channels stack up?
In the Hindi news genre, from January to June 2008 six month period, long-time leader Aaj Tak still rules the roost with an average relative market share of 18.98 (Tam, c&s, HSM, 15 +) per cent, followed by Star News with 17.94 per cent. In the third spot is India TV in terms of average relative market share (14.43 per cent).
However, a closer look on month-on-month index puts India TV on the forefront in the month of May and in June shares the top spot with Aaj Tak (19 per cent each). Aaj Tak has been almost consistent with 19 per cent market share in the six month period. Its sister concern channel Tez has averaged 5.55 per cent.
India TV opened the year with 14 per cent to gradually move upto 19 per cent. Star News which was so far on the channel is meant for only news. He stresses on the fact that after the repackaging of Zee News, he has managed to make i t “non-entertaining” yet “non-boring”.
The six-month average of IBN7 is 8.92 per cent while NDTV India has an average of 8.11 per cent. Samay has 4.91 per cent from January to June. Newly launched channel News24 has an average of 4.42 per cent, Live India average 3.24 per cent while public broadcaster Doordarshan managed to pull 3.14 per cent.
The English news segment still continues with a three-way tussle. Six-month average places CNN-IBN with 29.09 per cent (Tam, c&s, All India, 15+) , NDTV 24X7 with 28.91 per cent while Times Now is at 28.58 per cent. Headlines Today stands at 13.34 per cent.
Blame it on distribution?
Advertising is central to privately owned news businesses across the world and in India Indian TV channels derive roughly 70 per cent of their revenues from advertising and about 30 per cent from subscriptions.
Venkataramani says, “Depending upon the band preferences of the channel, the distribution cost of a national channel can range anything between Rs 200-800 million.”
A large proportion of subscription revenue is consumed by cable operators and since broadcasters do not control their own distribution they can not pinpoint the exact number of viewers. Ratings therefore become vital as the currency of success.
A senior executive at a news channel who request anonymity vehemently opposes the Tam rating system. He argues that content is mainly driven by the Tam ratings. Explaining further, he says that most of the time, the editorial is forced to do stories which categorically caters to the places or states where Tam peoplemeters are placed.
The ratings, however do not represent all the states with a limited number of peoplementer which are absent in states like Bihar, North East and Jammu and Kashmir. This factor alone has tremendous impact on the content, programme packaging and imperative of selling airtime advertisers.
A man hit by a bull in the streets of Delhi will get more coverage and footage than five men killed in Darjeeling or Assam. The reason is only that peoplemeters are located in Delhi and not in the hill zones.
For a Delhiwallah, the neighbourhood report naturally gets more hits in the peoplemeter. "The content is thus decided by the geographical placement of the peoplemeter to get spikes in the ratings.
Hence, some parts of India (where the peoplemeter is absent) and some stories are left untouched or given very little importance," says the executive.
Over and above this constraint, with most news channels being free-to-air and hence not making any monies from subscriptions, their dependence on advertising and hence ratings is total.
A frequent complaint of news broadcasters is the heavy distribution cost.Broadcasters say more than half of the outlay goes in paying for reach, which cuts other costs like human resources. That is why a reporter cannot be placed in the interiors as it has its own costs. A virtual studio ultimately becomes the easy answer.
Says IBN7 managing editor Ashutosh, "Distribution costs have gone up tremendously because of the clutter of channels. This is in fact affects quality as a lot of money from a fixed budget goes into distribution, and channels compromise on quality. If only we could be patient, a lot of difference could come in."
“The single biggest problem in the industry today is distribution. It is getting more and more competitive, as more and more channels come into business. The cost is enormous and growing wildly, and it is hurting every broadcaster from the biggest to the smallest, free-to-air (FTA) or pay.
“In this battle, multi-system operator (MSO) and local cable operator (LCO) point fingers at each other, but either way it is costing the broadcaster. And money that could and should have been spent on content is getting spent on distribution instead, and it weakens the industry,” said a the broadcasting executive.
India is the only country in the world with more than 80 24-hour TV channels broadcasting programmes on news and current affairs, barely a quarter-century after the world's first 24-hour TV news channel (CNN or Cable News Network) came up in 1980.
The challenge for the news broadcasters in 2008 would be to turn the tables - lower the carriage fees and churn out revenue from subscription. Till the dependence on advertising revenue hangs on, there will be more breaking stories, exclusive stories, Amitabh Bachchan going to Shirdi, Siddhivinayak Temple et al, Salman Khan’s doings and live do or die, battle between godmen and rationalists.
India - What's caste got to do with Business
Capitalism is all inclusive. Or is it? “Capitalism in India has evolved a long way since Independence and is fairly well-diversified today, not just in terms of production profile but also social base. Capital is not a privileged bastion of a few mercantile castes the way it was; its base has expanded to incorporate a wide spectrum of communities. However, this ‘inclusive capitalism’ has been more a feature of southern and, to some extent western India,” writes Harish Damodaran, in his book, India’s New Capitalists - Caste, Business, and Industry in a Modern Nation. He explains to Vivek Kaul the link castes/communities have had with Indian business over the years.
What were the reasons you got around to exploring the possible links between caste and business?I have been reporting on commodities for the past 15 years or so, during the course of which I have had the opportunity to travel and visit mandis, sugar mills, dairies, etc. What used to strike me most was the difference between the South and North. In the North, I used to see that all the owners of sugar mills, edible oil/solvent extraction units, dairies, etc were mostly either Banias or Khatris.Take for example, sugar, where you have Bajaj Hindusthan, Balrampur Chini, K K Birla, Dhampur Sugar Mills, Dwarikesh Sugar and DCM Shriram Consolidated (all Bania-Marwari) and Triveni Engineering (Khatri). Similarly, take the big branded basmati rice players: India Gate and Shrilal Mahal (Bania), Daawat Kohinoor and Lal Qila (Khatri).It is the case even with media: India Today-Aaj Tak (Khatri), Punjab Kesri (Khatri), Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar, Amar Ujala, Aaj, Zee Network (all Bania/Marwari). The striking thing here is that all the owners of sugar mills, rice mills, edible oil units in the North are Banias or Khatris, whereas the farmers who grow sugarcane, mustard, paddy or wheat are all Jats, Yadavs, Gujjars, Bishnois, Kurmis, Koeris, Sainis, etc.This was case surprisingly even in Punjab, where the so-called rich farmers are all Jat Sikhs, whereas the big players in industry in Ludhiana are all Khatris (the cycle majors — Hero, Atlas, Avon) or Banias (the various Oswal factions who control the knitwear business).The above pattern does not apply in the South, where it is difficult to identify industry with any particular caste. Again take sugar: KCP and Andhra Sugars (Kamma), Sakthi, Dharani and Bannari Amman Sugars (Gounder), Rajshree Sugars (Naidu), Thiru Arooran Sugars (Mudaliar), GMR Industries (Komati), Gayatri Sugars (Reddy), Empee Sugars (Ezhava), Ponni Sugars and Ugar Sugar (Brahmin).Similarly in the media business, we have Eenadu (Kamma), Daily Thanthi (Nadar), Malayala Manorama (Syrian Christian), The Hindu and Dinamalar (Brahmin), Deccan Chronicle-Andhra Bhoomi (Reddy), Deccan Herald-Prajavani (Idiga), Sun Network-Dinakaran (Isai Vellalar), Asianet (Nair) and TV-9 (Raju).Simply put, what I saw was a diversity of ownership by caste in the South, unlike in the North where every industrialist is a Bania or Khatri. In the South, the farmer could be Gounder or a Kamma, as much an industrialist could be from these castes. All this set me thinking and, around mid-2004, I started researching and examining the database of BSE-listed companies to try and trace the caste origins of the promoters. I ended up creating a database of around 5,000 companies and all this eventually led to my writing the book.Which castes/communities originally got into business in India in the nineteenth and the twentieth century? What were the reasons for their success? The old merchant communities in India are the Gujarati Banias/Jains, Marwaris and other non-Gujarati Banias/Jains, Parsis, Nattukottai Chettiars, and the Lohanas and Bhatias of Kutch-Kathiawar-Sindh belt. The trading and banking networks of these communities have historically been spread out much beyond their home base.One of the main reasons for the success of these communities was a mechanism for remitting large sums of money to remote corners of the country. This financial instrument was a very old Bania invention called the hundi. A hundi is akin to a bill of exchange. Let me give you an example. A merchant from Vidharbha who brings raw cotton to Mumbai to sell, instead of taking payment in cash could decide to take a hundi of an equivalent amount drawn by the buyer of the cotton in his favour. This saved him from the risk of carrying cash during the journey back. Once he was back to Vidharbha he could present the hundi to the Mumbai buyer’s agent or correspondent there and collect his money.What this system did was that it made possible the transfer of cash across the country without the need to physically carry it.Over a period, hundi became much more than just a remittance facility. It became a credit instrument. The seller of cotton could use the hundi to take a loan by transferring it through endorsement to the lender. The lender would give the loan at a discount to the value of the hundi and when the loan became due, he could encash the hundi on par. To use modern legal, jargon, the hundi became what we call a ‘negotiable instrument’. One community that business in India is associated with is the Marwaris. How do you explain the rise of the Marwaris?The Marwaris were originally a group of Bania castes from Rajasthan. Besides being involved in money lending and trading, they acted as modis or army provision suppliers and bankers to the various Rajput princes. Building on this by the eighteenth century, Marwari banking firms established there presence outside Rajasthan as well and started financing numerous-cash strapped independent principalities that had risen on the ruins of the Mughal empire. However, once the English East India Company started making inroads across India, these Marwari houses seamlessly switched sides. As the British rule expanded across India, so did the migration of Marwaris across the country. The commissioning of the railway line between Delhi to Kolkata in 1860 led to movement of the Marwaris eastwards all the way to Bangladesh and from there into Burma. Another large migration was to parts of Central India. The migration to Central India reached its peak during 1820-1860, when Malwa opium trade reached its peak.By the middle of the nineteenth century, Marwaris were present all across India. This led to them becoming a truly networked group through the indigenous hundi as well as the British-built railways and telegraph. At this point in time, large multi branch trading firms run by the Marwaris also started to emerge. Some of the famous firms during that time were Tarachand Ghanshyamdas of Kolkatta, Sevaram Ramrikhdas of Mirzapur and Bansilal Abirchand of Nagpur. These firms were magnets attracting fellow Rajasthani clansmen and many of them were ancestors of today’s famous Marwari industrial houses.Ghanshyam Das Birla’s grandfather, Shiv Narain, was a clerk in a Hyderabad trading firm and the grandfather of the steel tycoon L N Mittal worked with him.The community that seems to have made the most of the British rule were the Parsis. How did that happen?From the late seventeenth century, the Paris evolved a very good working relationship with the British. At that point most Paris lived in the Surat-Navsari stretch of southern Gujarat and worked there as agriculturalists, artisans, small-time coastal traders and shipbuilders. They were not a part of Hindu or the Muslim mainstream. Other than this, they had been exposed to commercial influences because they lived very close to the ports of Bharuch, Daman and Surat. Therefore, to the British, they seemed like an ideal recruitment as native brokers, agents and shippers.In 1735, Lowji Nusserwanji Wadia, a shipbuilder from Surat was invited to set up a dock in Mazagon. For the next 200 years, nearly seven generation of Wadias, built around 400 ships in Mazagon and Bombay dockyards.In fact, the rise of Mumbai is very intimately linked to the Parsi migration to Mumbai. Almost as a part of a deliberate settlement policy, by 1800 the community owned half of the city and was even known to rent out property to Europeans. The Parsis also gained tremendously when the East India Company opened up the Chinese market for opium and cotton, in order to pay for the tea exported to Britain. In fact, a number of Parsis were even imprisoned by the Chinese authorities in the Opium War of 1839-1842.However, unlike the Marwaris, the Parsis were direct participants in export trade as shippers. Take the case of Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy. He used to send opium and cotton from Mumbai and Kolkotta to Canton, export Chinese tea and silk from there to London, and then reroute funds from China to India by importing textile and iron goods from Britain. However, over the years, the importance of Parsis as a business community has diminished. This is primarily because of Anglicisation and the thrust of economic activity shifting from foreign trade to producing for the domestic market.Brahmins in the western and southern part of the country have been fairly successful despite coming from a non business background. What are the reasons for that? In 1713, the beleaguered Maratha King Shahu appointed Balaji Vishwanath Bhat as his peshwa (prime minister). This led to the family of this Chitpavan Brahmins from Konkan becoming the defacto rulers. Over time, Chitpavan Brahmins became the biggest moneylenders in the western part of the country. They accumulated capital by financing the empire and supplying stores and munitions for its war machine. However, all this came to an end when the last peshwa Baji Rao II was defeated in the third Anglo Maratha War of 1818. This was a setback for Brahmin enterprise in Western India and the Brahmins were nowhere to be seen when the Mumbai started to develop as India’s commercial capital.Having said that, the community retained its grip over education and bureaucracy. Take the case of Ranchhodlal Chhotolal, a Gujarati Nagar Brahmin from Ahmedabad. During his stint in the government, he conceived the idea of starting a textile mill. However, it took him almost ten years to realise his dream. The problem came while arranging the finances for the venture. The Ahmedabad Spinning and Weaving Company was finally registered in August 1858, just four years after a Parsi, Cowasji Nanabhai Davar, floated the first Indian owned mill at Mumbai. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Ahmedabad had 25 mills, though 21 mills were controlled by Banias and Jains. Just as was the case in the west, in the south too, Brahmins had a head start on education - particularly English education, the master key for opening the doors to the professions and service appointments.The Tamil Brahmins’ entry into the industry happened in the 1920s. Take the case of T V Sundaram Iyengar, whose group has become a veritable metaphor for Tambram capital. He had a middle class background and in 1908 he invested Rs 25,000 he inherited as share in ancestral property in timber trading. Profits he made on this were deployed four years later to launch a bus service in Madurai. In 1923, TV Sundaram Iyengar and sons was incorporated with its business centred around the sale and servicing of automobiles. Starting from this, over the years the group has started a series of auto-parts making companies like Sundaram Clayton, Sundaram Fastners, Sundaram Brake Linings etc.Some of the communities/castes that get into the business first taste big money through agriculture and then deploy the money into business. Given this, why haven’t we seen the Jats (Sikhs and Hindus), the biggest farming community in northern India, get into business big time? Why does business in north India continue to be dominated by Banias and Khatris?Yes, this is indeed a big mystery. My research shows that the only two big Jat industrialists we have in this country are KP Singh of DLF and Sameer Gahlaut of India Bulls. The main reason for this, I believe, is the fact that in the North, the Bania always had a ubiquitous presence right from the level of the village grocer-cum-moneylender to the arhthia in the mandi, the big city financier, and the factory owner. This was a network very difficult to break into, even if you are a big farmer.My theory about Khalistan is that it was a product of the Jat Sikh farmer’s frustration — his inability to break into a field dominated by Banias and Khatris. It led then to demands for a separate Khalistan state, which they felt would enable them to make the transition from farm to boardroom.In the South, there was no equivalent of a Bania caste. The Chettiars were mostly moneylenders and who actually preferred to venture out to Burma, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. So, there was always this ‘Vaishya vacuum’ that could be filled by any enterprising community. This absence of strong entry barriers, therefore, facilitated the entry of several industrialists from non-traditional business communities — including not just the Gounders and the Kammas, but even Brahmins. There was also an additional factor: access to education, in turn, facilitated by reservations/social justice movements right from the early twentieth century. As a result, communities such as the Kammas, Naidus, Ezhavas and Nadars were able to take advantage of educational opportunities, unlike the Jats or Yadavs who remained educationally backward until recently. In a way, it can be said that the South and West got ‘mandalised’ even before Mandal and this, on hindsight, was not a bad thing at all. It also helped in another way: the Brahmins, for example, realised earlier on that they had no guarantee of government jobs. So while affirmative action by the state provided a ‘pull’ for farming and other backward communities, it also gave a ‘push’ to Brahmins and other upper castes to look for avenues beyond government jobs. And many of them turned entrepreneurs.
What were the reasons you got around to exploring the possible links between caste and business?I have been reporting on commodities for the past 15 years or so, during the course of which I have had the opportunity to travel and visit mandis, sugar mills, dairies, etc. What used to strike me most was the difference between the South and North. In the North, I used to see that all the owners of sugar mills, edible oil/solvent extraction units, dairies, etc were mostly either Banias or Khatris.Take for example, sugar, where you have Bajaj Hindusthan, Balrampur Chini, K K Birla, Dhampur Sugar Mills, Dwarikesh Sugar and DCM Shriram Consolidated (all Bania-Marwari) and Triveni Engineering (Khatri). Similarly, take the big branded basmati rice players: India Gate and Shrilal Mahal (Bania), Daawat Kohinoor and Lal Qila (Khatri).It is the case even with media: India Today-Aaj Tak (Khatri), Punjab Kesri (Khatri), Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar, Amar Ujala, Aaj, Zee Network (all Bania/Marwari). The striking thing here is that all the owners of sugar mills, rice mills, edible oil units in the North are Banias or Khatris, whereas the farmers who grow sugarcane, mustard, paddy or wheat are all Jats, Yadavs, Gujjars, Bishnois, Kurmis, Koeris, Sainis, etc.This was case surprisingly even in Punjab, where the so-called rich farmers are all Jat Sikhs, whereas the big players in industry in Ludhiana are all Khatris (the cycle majors — Hero, Atlas, Avon) or Banias (the various Oswal factions who control the knitwear business).The above pattern does not apply in the South, where it is difficult to identify industry with any particular caste. Again take sugar: KCP and Andhra Sugars (Kamma), Sakthi, Dharani and Bannari Amman Sugars (Gounder), Rajshree Sugars (Naidu), Thiru Arooran Sugars (Mudaliar), GMR Industries (Komati), Gayatri Sugars (Reddy), Empee Sugars (Ezhava), Ponni Sugars and Ugar Sugar (Brahmin).Similarly in the media business, we have Eenadu (Kamma), Daily Thanthi (Nadar), Malayala Manorama (Syrian Christian), The Hindu and Dinamalar (Brahmin), Deccan Chronicle-Andhra Bhoomi (Reddy), Deccan Herald-Prajavani (Idiga), Sun Network-Dinakaran (Isai Vellalar), Asianet (Nair) and TV-9 (Raju).Simply put, what I saw was a diversity of ownership by caste in the South, unlike in the North where every industrialist is a Bania or Khatri. In the South, the farmer could be Gounder or a Kamma, as much an industrialist could be from these castes. All this set me thinking and, around mid-2004, I started researching and examining the database of BSE-listed companies to try and trace the caste origins of the promoters. I ended up creating a database of around 5,000 companies and all this eventually led to my writing the book.Which castes/communities originally got into business in India in the nineteenth and the twentieth century? What were the reasons for their success? The old merchant communities in India are the Gujarati Banias/Jains, Marwaris and other non-Gujarati Banias/Jains, Parsis, Nattukottai Chettiars, and the Lohanas and Bhatias of Kutch-Kathiawar-Sindh belt. The trading and banking networks of these communities have historically been spread out much beyond their home base.One of the main reasons for the success of these communities was a mechanism for remitting large sums of money to remote corners of the country. This financial instrument was a very old Bania invention called the hundi. A hundi is akin to a bill of exchange. Let me give you an example. A merchant from Vidharbha who brings raw cotton to Mumbai to sell, instead of taking payment in cash could decide to take a hundi of an equivalent amount drawn by the buyer of the cotton in his favour. This saved him from the risk of carrying cash during the journey back. Once he was back to Vidharbha he could present the hundi to the Mumbai buyer’s agent or correspondent there and collect his money.What this system did was that it made possible the transfer of cash across the country without the need to physically carry it.Over a period, hundi became much more than just a remittance facility. It became a credit instrument. The seller of cotton could use the hundi to take a loan by transferring it through endorsement to the lender. The lender would give the loan at a discount to the value of the hundi and when the loan became due, he could encash the hundi on par. To use modern legal, jargon, the hundi became what we call a ‘negotiable instrument’. One community that business in India is associated with is the Marwaris. How do you explain the rise of the Marwaris?The Marwaris were originally a group of Bania castes from Rajasthan. Besides being involved in money lending and trading, they acted as modis or army provision suppliers and bankers to the various Rajput princes. Building on this by the eighteenth century, Marwari banking firms established there presence outside Rajasthan as well and started financing numerous-cash strapped independent principalities that had risen on the ruins of the Mughal empire. However, once the English East India Company started making inroads across India, these Marwari houses seamlessly switched sides. As the British rule expanded across India, so did the migration of Marwaris across the country. The commissioning of the railway line between Delhi to Kolkata in 1860 led to movement of the Marwaris eastwards all the way to Bangladesh and from there into Burma. Another large migration was to parts of Central India. The migration to Central India reached its peak during 1820-1860, when Malwa opium trade reached its peak.By the middle of the nineteenth century, Marwaris were present all across India. This led to them becoming a truly networked group through the indigenous hundi as well as the British-built railways and telegraph. At this point in time, large multi branch trading firms run by the Marwaris also started to emerge. Some of the famous firms during that time were Tarachand Ghanshyamdas of Kolkatta, Sevaram Ramrikhdas of Mirzapur and Bansilal Abirchand of Nagpur. These firms were magnets attracting fellow Rajasthani clansmen and many of them were ancestors of today’s famous Marwari industrial houses.Ghanshyam Das Birla’s grandfather, Shiv Narain, was a clerk in a Hyderabad trading firm and the grandfather of the steel tycoon L N Mittal worked with him.The community that seems to have made the most of the British rule were the Parsis. How did that happen?From the late seventeenth century, the Paris evolved a very good working relationship with the British. At that point most Paris lived in the Surat-Navsari stretch of southern Gujarat and worked there as agriculturalists, artisans, small-time coastal traders and shipbuilders. They were not a part of Hindu or the Muslim mainstream. Other than this, they had been exposed to commercial influences because they lived very close to the ports of Bharuch, Daman and Surat. Therefore, to the British, they seemed like an ideal recruitment as native brokers, agents and shippers.In 1735, Lowji Nusserwanji Wadia, a shipbuilder from Surat was invited to set up a dock in Mazagon. For the next 200 years, nearly seven generation of Wadias, built around 400 ships in Mazagon and Bombay dockyards.In fact, the rise of Mumbai is very intimately linked to the Parsi migration to Mumbai. Almost as a part of a deliberate settlement policy, by 1800 the community owned half of the city and was even known to rent out property to Europeans. The Parsis also gained tremendously when the East India Company opened up the Chinese market for opium and cotton, in order to pay for the tea exported to Britain. In fact, a number of Parsis were even imprisoned by the Chinese authorities in the Opium War of 1839-1842.However, unlike the Marwaris, the Parsis were direct participants in export trade as shippers. Take the case of Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy. He used to send opium and cotton from Mumbai and Kolkotta to Canton, export Chinese tea and silk from there to London, and then reroute funds from China to India by importing textile and iron goods from Britain. However, over the years, the importance of Parsis as a business community has diminished. This is primarily because of Anglicisation and the thrust of economic activity shifting from foreign trade to producing for the domestic market.Brahmins in the western and southern part of the country have been fairly successful despite coming from a non business background. What are the reasons for that? In 1713, the beleaguered Maratha King Shahu appointed Balaji Vishwanath Bhat as his peshwa (prime minister). This led to the family of this Chitpavan Brahmins from Konkan becoming the defacto rulers. Over time, Chitpavan Brahmins became the biggest moneylenders in the western part of the country. They accumulated capital by financing the empire and supplying stores and munitions for its war machine. However, all this came to an end when the last peshwa Baji Rao II was defeated in the third Anglo Maratha War of 1818. This was a setback for Brahmin enterprise in Western India and the Brahmins were nowhere to be seen when the Mumbai started to develop as India’s commercial capital.Having said that, the community retained its grip over education and bureaucracy. Take the case of Ranchhodlal Chhotolal, a Gujarati Nagar Brahmin from Ahmedabad. During his stint in the government, he conceived the idea of starting a textile mill. However, it took him almost ten years to realise his dream. The problem came while arranging the finances for the venture. The Ahmedabad Spinning and Weaving Company was finally registered in August 1858, just four years after a Parsi, Cowasji Nanabhai Davar, floated the first Indian owned mill at Mumbai. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Ahmedabad had 25 mills, though 21 mills were controlled by Banias and Jains. Just as was the case in the west, in the south too, Brahmins had a head start on education - particularly English education, the master key for opening the doors to the professions and service appointments.The Tamil Brahmins’ entry into the industry happened in the 1920s. Take the case of T V Sundaram Iyengar, whose group has become a veritable metaphor for Tambram capital. He had a middle class background and in 1908 he invested Rs 25,000 he inherited as share in ancestral property in timber trading. Profits he made on this were deployed four years later to launch a bus service in Madurai. In 1923, TV Sundaram Iyengar and sons was incorporated with its business centred around the sale and servicing of automobiles. Starting from this, over the years the group has started a series of auto-parts making companies like Sundaram Clayton, Sundaram Fastners, Sundaram Brake Linings etc.Some of the communities/castes that get into the business first taste big money through agriculture and then deploy the money into business. Given this, why haven’t we seen the Jats (Sikhs and Hindus), the biggest farming community in northern India, get into business big time? Why does business in north India continue to be dominated by Banias and Khatris?Yes, this is indeed a big mystery. My research shows that the only two big Jat industrialists we have in this country are KP Singh of DLF and Sameer Gahlaut of India Bulls. The main reason for this, I believe, is the fact that in the North, the Bania always had a ubiquitous presence right from the level of the village grocer-cum-moneylender to the arhthia in the mandi, the big city financier, and the factory owner. This was a network very difficult to break into, even if you are a big farmer.My theory about Khalistan is that it was a product of the Jat Sikh farmer’s frustration — his inability to break into a field dominated by Banias and Khatris. It led then to demands for a separate Khalistan state, which they felt would enable them to make the transition from farm to boardroom.In the South, there was no equivalent of a Bania caste. The Chettiars were mostly moneylenders and who actually preferred to venture out to Burma, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. So, there was always this ‘Vaishya vacuum’ that could be filled by any enterprising community. This absence of strong entry barriers, therefore, facilitated the entry of several industrialists from non-traditional business communities — including not just the Gounders and the Kammas, but even Brahmins. There was also an additional factor: access to education, in turn, facilitated by reservations/social justice movements right from the early twentieth century. As a result, communities such as the Kammas, Naidus, Ezhavas and Nadars were able to take advantage of educational opportunities, unlike the Jats or Yadavs who remained educationally backward until recently. In a way, it can be said that the South and West got ‘mandalised’ even before Mandal and this, on hindsight, was not a bad thing at all. It also helped in another way: the Brahmins, for example, realised earlier on that they had no guarantee of government jobs. So while affirmative action by the state provided a ‘pull’ for farming and other backward communities, it also gave a ‘push’ to Brahmins and other upper castes to look for avenues beyond government jobs. And many of them turned entrepreneurs.
Entertainment - Kamal Hassan's Marmayogi
CHENNAI: After the multi-role mega Tamil film `Dasavatharam', actor Kamal Hassan is preparing himself for his next big budget multi-lingual venture, `Marmayogi' (mysterious saint). The film, to be directed by the actor himself, would be produced by his Rajkamal Movies in association with Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd. And as with many of his films, speculations are ripe in the Kollywood (Tamil film industry) about the story line of the new project while the film unit is tightlipped. While one theory is that it is a children's film where the actor dons the role of a guide, another predicts that the movie is a remake of the Val Kilmer-starrer `The Saint', where the Hollywood hero donned multiple roles. The actor is known for his panachea for multiple roles, as he did in `Michael Madana Kama Rajan' and `Dasavatharam'. It is also speculated to be a competition to the multi-crore Rajni-starrer `Robot'. Kamal Hassan has already donned the role of director in his critically-acclaimed `Hey Ram,' a plot intertwining pre and post-Independence India, `Virumaandi' and `Mumbai Express." With the actor sporting a thick beard and film stills showing him with long, undone hair and wearing classic battle robe, rumour mills has it that `Marmayogi' could be a remake (read `Inspiration') of Mel Gibson's `Braveheart'. Yet to go public on his project, all Kamal Hassan had to say was that he would make the official cut soon, and the aim was to "make a quality offering to the people." In a release here, Kamal Hassan said, "our aim is to make a quality offering to the people by way of the multi-million dollar venture and the producers are committed in this direction." The producers said the film is in its very nascent stages. According to a release from Saimira, the cast and technical crew are yet to be finalised for the film. "The project of this size and nature could not be implemented without a proper exploitation plan and a viability study," P S Samynathan, Chairman and Managing Director, Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd, said adding the same applied for the cast and crew. "Utmost care will be needed to decide on lead artists and technicians," he said. He said the film would be made in three langauges-- Tamil, Telugu and Hindi-- and there were also plans to make it in English `natively'.
Mktg -3 examples that redefined OOH innovation
OOH media can start conversations, create spectacle and influence employees, the artist community and entire cities if used strategically
Last week, I was at the Goa airport. And I couldn’t help noticing the lazy way in which a major telecom brand had used the OOH property in the airport’s vicinity.OOH is very often used as a plain-Jane reminder medium. The lack of imagination in planning and execution often underutilises the medium. Let me talk about three international examples which have challenged the definition and boundaries of OOH communication in the recent past.
1. Create brand spectacle & buzz.HBO’s Voyeur project: This Cannes Promotion Grand Prix winner was a theatrical multimedia experience and marketing campaign, which used voyeurism as a vehicle. Content was scattered online in fictional web pages, on Flickr and YouTube, in blogs, on the HBO channels and through mobile content. But the focus was on people living in eight fictional apartments on the corner of a New York Street. The display was projected on a massive never-before-scale on the side of a building. OOH was used dramatically to bring to life the brand promise of - “See what people do when they think no one is watching.”HBO Voyeur was one of the most buzzed-about campaigns that crossed all media and categories. And while OOH was just one vehicle in this multi-media campaign, it was the building-sized peep show that gave the campaign scale, spectacle and buzz value. A magnificent case study of how OOH can allow consumers to interact with the brand on a much deeper level through story-telling.2. Cause meets commerce The 59th minute video art project at Times Square: It began with a special screening of video artist Tibor Kalman’s work in 2000. The 59th Minute has been a consistent platform for the presentation of new and historic video art. The 59th Minute’s goal was to offer artists a special opportunity to present their work in the public forum of Times Square and allow them to stand out in the midst of the commercial clutter. The site and the 59th minute of every hour were donated by Panasonic. Panasonic got a lot of positive PR for this programme. The brand also connected to museum shows, artist performances and lectures! The press loved the project and Panasonic received accolades as well as PR that cannot be bought. This example demonstrates that OOH can be used innovatively so that it lends a support to artists, to civic institutions and causes and yet generate PR mileage for the brand. 3. OOH as a brand identity toolBloomberg’s corporate headquarters in Manhattan: It glistens with video terminals and lobby displays. The displays combine informational aspects as well as atmospheric and styled data visualisation video content. The internal sign system is part of Bloomberg’s brand and identity. The image that the brand wants to convey is that it is a stimulating place to work. So, basically, it fits within the internal brand communication to have a lot of different television screens, showing information and content flowing about... highlighting that they are not a staunch conservative company.The examples above demonstrate that OOH can start conversations, create spectacle and influence employees, the artist community and entire cities if used strategically. To use OOH as an influence medium for Indian brands, we must follow the principles of intrusion, transformation, installation, illusion, infiltration, sensation, interaction and digital. But more about these in a later piece.
(The author is senior vice-president, Mudra Marketing Services, and head of strategy, Prime Group, the specialist OOH company of the Mudra Group)
Last week, I was at the Goa airport. And I couldn’t help noticing the lazy way in which a major telecom brand had used the OOH property in the airport’s vicinity.OOH is very often used as a plain-Jane reminder medium. The lack of imagination in planning and execution often underutilises the medium. Let me talk about three international examples which have challenged the definition and boundaries of OOH communication in the recent past.
1. Create brand spectacle & buzz.HBO’s Voyeur project: This Cannes Promotion Grand Prix winner was a theatrical multimedia experience and marketing campaign, which used voyeurism as a vehicle. Content was scattered online in fictional web pages, on Flickr and YouTube, in blogs, on the HBO channels and through mobile content. But the focus was on people living in eight fictional apartments on the corner of a New York Street. The display was projected on a massive never-before-scale on the side of a building. OOH was used dramatically to bring to life the brand promise of - “See what people do when they think no one is watching.”HBO Voyeur was one of the most buzzed-about campaigns that crossed all media and categories. And while OOH was just one vehicle in this multi-media campaign, it was the building-sized peep show that gave the campaign scale, spectacle and buzz value. A magnificent case study of how OOH can allow consumers to interact with the brand on a much deeper level through story-telling.2. Cause meets commerce The 59th minute video art project at Times Square: It began with a special screening of video artist Tibor Kalman’s work in 2000. The 59th Minute has been a consistent platform for the presentation of new and historic video art. The 59th Minute’s goal was to offer artists a special opportunity to present their work in the public forum of Times Square and allow them to stand out in the midst of the commercial clutter. The site and the 59th minute of every hour were donated by Panasonic. Panasonic got a lot of positive PR for this programme. The brand also connected to museum shows, artist performances and lectures! The press loved the project and Panasonic received accolades as well as PR that cannot be bought. This example demonstrates that OOH can be used innovatively so that it lends a support to artists, to civic institutions and causes and yet generate PR mileage for the brand. 3. OOH as a brand identity toolBloomberg’s corporate headquarters in Manhattan: It glistens with video terminals and lobby displays. The displays combine informational aspects as well as atmospheric and styled data visualisation video content. The internal sign system is part of Bloomberg’s brand and identity. The image that the brand wants to convey is that it is a stimulating place to work. So, basically, it fits within the internal brand communication to have a lot of different television screens, showing information and content flowing about... highlighting that they are not a staunch conservative company.The examples above demonstrate that OOH can start conversations, create spectacle and influence employees, the artist community and entire cities if used strategically. To use OOH as an influence medium for Indian brands, we must follow the principles of intrusion, transformation, installation, illusion, infiltration, sensation, interaction and digital. But more about these in a later piece.
(The author is senior vice-president, Mudra Marketing Services, and head of strategy, Prime Group, the specialist OOH company of the Mudra Group)
World - Britain & Children
Britain is the worst country in the Western world in which to be a child, according to a recent UNICEF report. Ordinarily, I would not set much store by such a report; but in this case, I think it must be right—not because I know so much about childhood in all the other 20 countries examined but because the childhood that many British parents give to their offspring is so awful that it is hard to conceive of worse, at least on a mass scale. The two poles of contemporary British child rearing are neglect and overindulgence.
Consider one British parent, Fiona MacKeown, who in November 2007 went on a six-month vacation to Goa, India, with her boyfriend and eight of her nine children by five different fathers, none of whom ever contributed financially for long to the children’s upkeep. (The child left behind—her eldest, at 19—was a drug addict.) She received $50,000 in welfare benefits a year, and doubtless decided—quite rationally, under the circumstances—that the money would go further, and that life would thus be more agreeable, in Goa than in her native Devon.
Reaching Goa, MacKeown soon decided to travel with seven of her children to Kerala, leaving behind one of them, 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling, to live with a tour guide ten years her elder, whom the mother had known for only a short time. Scarlett reportedly claimed to have had sex with this man only because she needed a roof over her head. According to a witness, she was constantly on drugs; and one night, she went to a bar where she drank a lot and took several different illicit drugs, including LSD, cocaine, and pot. She was seen leaving the bar late, almost certainly intoxicated.
The next morning, her body turned up on a beach. At first, the local police maintained that she had drowned while high, but further examination proved that someone had raped and then forcibly drowned her. So far, three people have been arrested in the investigation, which is continuing.
About a month later, Scarlett’s mother, interviewed by the liberal Sunday newspaper the Observer, expressed surprise at the level of public vituperation aimed at her and her lifestyle in the aftermath of the murder. She agreed that she and her children lived on welfare, but “not by conscious choice,” and she couldn’t see anything wrong with her actions in India apart from a certain naivety in trusting the man in whose care she had left her daughter. Scarlett was always an independent girl, and if she, the mother, could turn the clock back, she would behave exactly the same way again.
It is not surprising that someone in Fiona MacKeown’s position would deny negligence; to acknowledge it would be too painful. But—and this is what is truly disturbing—when the newspaper asked four supposed child-rearing experts for their opinions, only one saw anything wrong with the mother’s behavior, and even she offered only muted criticism. It was always difficult to know how much independence to grant an adolescent, the expert said; but in her view, the mother had granted too much too quickly to Scarlett.
Even that seemed excessively harsh to the Observer’s Barbara Ellen…
Incidentally, here is a good column on almost the same subject by George Will.
Paternalism is the restriction of freedom for the good of the person restricted. AIPCS [American Indian Public Charter School] acts in loco parentis because Chavis, who is cool toward parental involvement, wants an enveloping school culture that combats the culture of poverty and the streets.
He and other practitioners of the new paternalism — once upon a time, schooling was understood as democracy’s permissible, indeed obligatory, paternalism — are proving that cultural pessimists are mistaken: We know how to close the achievement gap that often separates minorities from whites before kindergarten and widens through high school. A growing cohort of people possess the pedagogic skills to make “no excuses” schools flourish.
Unfortunately, powerful factions fiercely oppose the flourishing. Among them are education schools with their romantic progressivism — teachers should be mere “enablers” of group learning; self-esteem is a prerequisite for accomplishment, not a consequence thereof. Other opponents are the teachers unions and their handmaiden, the Democratic Party. Today’s liberals favor paternalism — you cannot eat trans fats; you must buy health insurance — for everyone except children. Odd.
Consider one British parent, Fiona MacKeown, who in November 2007 went on a six-month vacation to Goa, India, with her boyfriend and eight of her nine children by five different fathers, none of whom ever contributed financially for long to the children’s upkeep. (The child left behind—her eldest, at 19—was a drug addict.) She received $50,000 in welfare benefits a year, and doubtless decided—quite rationally, under the circumstances—that the money would go further, and that life would thus be more agreeable, in Goa than in her native Devon.
Reaching Goa, MacKeown soon decided to travel with seven of her children to Kerala, leaving behind one of them, 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling, to live with a tour guide ten years her elder, whom the mother had known for only a short time. Scarlett reportedly claimed to have had sex with this man only because she needed a roof over her head. According to a witness, she was constantly on drugs; and one night, she went to a bar where she drank a lot and took several different illicit drugs, including LSD, cocaine, and pot. She was seen leaving the bar late, almost certainly intoxicated.
The next morning, her body turned up on a beach. At first, the local police maintained that she had drowned while high, but further examination proved that someone had raped and then forcibly drowned her. So far, three people have been arrested in the investigation, which is continuing.
About a month later, Scarlett’s mother, interviewed by the liberal Sunday newspaper the Observer, expressed surprise at the level of public vituperation aimed at her and her lifestyle in the aftermath of the murder. She agreed that she and her children lived on welfare, but “not by conscious choice,” and she couldn’t see anything wrong with her actions in India apart from a certain naivety in trusting the man in whose care she had left her daughter. Scarlett was always an independent girl, and if she, the mother, could turn the clock back, she would behave exactly the same way again.
It is not surprising that someone in Fiona MacKeown’s position would deny negligence; to acknowledge it would be too painful. But—and this is what is truly disturbing—when the newspaper asked four supposed child-rearing experts for their opinions, only one saw anything wrong with the mother’s behavior, and even she offered only muted criticism. It was always difficult to know how much independence to grant an adolescent, the expert said; but in her view, the mother had granted too much too quickly to Scarlett.
Even that seemed excessively harsh to the Observer’s Barbara Ellen…
Incidentally, here is a good column on almost the same subject by George Will.
Paternalism is the restriction of freedom for the good of the person restricted. AIPCS [American Indian Public Charter School] acts in loco parentis because Chavis, who is cool toward parental involvement, wants an enveloping school culture that combats the culture of poverty and the streets.
He and other practitioners of the new paternalism — once upon a time, schooling was understood as democracy’s permissible, indeed obligatory, paternalism — are proving that cultural pessimists are mistaken: We know how to close the achievement gap that often separates minorities from whites before kindergarten and widens through high school. A growing cohort of people possess the pedagogic skills to make “no excuses” schools flourish.
Unfortunately, powerful factions fiercely oppose the flourishing. Among them are education schools with their romantic progressivism — teachers should be mere “enablers” of group learning; self-esteem is a prerequisite for accomplishment, not a consequence thereof. Other opponents are the teachers unions and their handmaiden, the Democratic Party. Today’s liberals favor paternalism — you cannot eat trans fats; you must buy health insurance — for everyone except children. Odd.
World - French Champagne lightens its load
Champagne bottles are so thick and sturdy they are sometimes deliberately weakened before being thrown at ships to avoid the bad omen of a failure to smash. But, faced with dizzying increases in production and transportation costs, champagne houses are making them thinner.
Champagne bottles have been made of thick glass, with most weighing about 900g empty (more than double the weight of a standard wine bottle), since the 19th century to ensure the sparkling wine is safely contained.
G.H. Mumm, the champagne house owned by French spirits and wine group Pernod Ricard, has completed a trial production run of 2.5m champagne bottles weighing 835g each when empty. Filled, they weigh almost 2kg.
Mumm has put the lighter bottles it has produced in its trial run in caves where they will age for at least 2 ½ years.
The house ran the trial at the request of the Comité Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne, the French trade association that represents grape growers and champagne producers and oversees the sale of 330m-340m bottles annually. Mumm cannot sell its bottles to consumers until it receives approval from the CIVC that they will not explode.
If the trials are successful, the CIVC may recommend its other members start using the bottles. “If you put more bottles on the same truck, obviously you save petrol,” the CIVC said.
The trial at Mumm was being watched by other champagne houses. “It’s creating a lot of interest.”
Pommery, the champagne house owned by Vranken-Pommery Monopole, is the only big champagne group to date to use 835g bottles. It adopted them in 2003 and says it can now load 4,000 more bottles on every truck. It estimates that if every Champagne house switched, there would be 3,000 fewer trucks on the road every year
British sparkling wine producers have been warned that traditional 900g bottles will become harder to get hold of as more champagne producers switch to lighter bottles.
Michael Roberts, founder of British sparkling wine group RidgeView Wine Estate, says his French oenologist told him to expect to receive supplies of lighter bottles as early as next year. Mr Roberts said the cost of glass bottles had risen 40 per cent over the past year as glass makers pass on higher energy costs.
There is also a shortage of glass bottles globally as people in emerging markets such as Latin America and eastern Europe drink more bottled soft drinks and alcohol.
Champagne bottles have been made of thick glass, with most weighing about 900g empty (more than double the weight of a standard wine bottle), since the 19th century to ensure the sparkling wine is safely contained.
G.H. Mumm, the champagne house owned by French spirits and wine group Pernod Ricard, has completed a trial production run of 2.5m champagne bottles weighing 835g each when empty. Filled, they weigh almost 2kg.
Mumm has put the lighter bottles it has produced in its trial run in caves where they will age for at least 2 ½ years.
The house ran the trial at the request of the Comité Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne, the French trade association that represents grape growers and champagne producers and oversees the sale of 330m-340m bottles annually. Mumm cannot sell its bottles to consumers until it receives approval from the CIVC that they will not explode.
If the trials are successful, the CIVC may recommend its other members start using the bottles. “If you put more bottles on the same truck, obviously you save petrol,” the CIVC said.
The trial at Mumm was being watched by other champagne houses. “It’s creating a lot of interest.”
Pommery, the champagne house owned by Vranken-Pommery Monopole, is the only big champagne group to date to use 835g bottles. It adopted them in 2003 and says it can now load 4,000 more bottles on every truck. It estimates that if every Champagne house switched, there would be 3,000 fewer trucks on the road every year
British sparkling wine producers have been warned that traditional 900g bottles will become harder to get hold of as more champagne producers switch to lighter bottles.
Michael Roberts, founder of British sparkling wine group RidgeView Wine Estate, says his French oenologist told him to expect to receive supplies of lighter bottles as early as next year. Mr Roberts said the cost of glass bottles had risen 40 per cent over the past year as glass makers pass on higher energy costs.
There is also a shortage of glass bottles globally as people in emerging markets such as Latin America and eastern Europe drink more bottled soft drinks and alcohol.
India - Wealthy Indians desert planes for trains
India’s affluent middle class is rekindling its affair with long-distance train travel, as sharp jumps in domestic airline ticket prices push many former frequent fliers back to the railways.
India has seen a boom in domestic air travel, as low-cost carriers – led by Air Deccan – brought the once-seeming luxury of air travel within the reach of a far greater number of Indians. They had previously relied on the country’s colonial-era rail system for most long journeys.
However, sharp rises in the cost of fuel have pushed India’s domestic airline ticket prices up in some cases by 20 per cent, prompting many cost-conscious Indians to keep their feet on the ground.
In July, India’s airlines carried 12.6 per cent fewer passengers on domestic flights than a year earlier, at 3.04m. Meanwhile, Indian Railways, the vast state network, saw traveller numbers in its more up-market, air-conditioned cars surge by nearly 50 per cent in the same period.
“We feel that some passengers are diverting to the trains from planes,” said Anil Kumar Saxena, a railways spokesman, although he said it was too early to know whether the trend would last.
Pankaj Gupta, a partner in New Delhi’s Outbound Travels, said, “a lot of people can’t believe that so recently it was x-y-z to fly somewhere and now it’s up by 20 per cent. It’s a shock to them. A lot of people are deferring their travel, saying: ‘We’ll think about it and let you know.’”
Since the 1990s Indian Railways has sought to upgrade its service to appeal to more demanding consumers, introducing measures such as online ticket sales.
Raajveev Batra, head of KPMG’s transport practice in India, said leisure travellers were those most likely to forgo flights and return to the trains while business travellers were still probably willing to pay a premium for a quick, efficient journey.
“The low-cost carriers helped people appreciate and realise the value of time,” he said. “People who still wish to pay more and save time will not go to other modes of transport ... The drop is largely for those passengers who were leisure travellers. I am sure that they must be shifting back to other modes of travel.”
Mr Batra said air carriers must now focus on boosting their efficiency, and predicted a period of industry consolidation. “It’s a good opportunity for airlines to introspect and look at their business but I don’t see doom for the carriers,” he said
India has seen a boom in domestic air travel, as low-cost carriers – led by Air Deccan – brought the once-seeming luxury of air travel within the reach of a far greater number of Indians. They had previously relied on the country’s colonial-era rail system for most long journeys.
However, sharp rises in the cost of fuel have pushed India’s domestic airline ticket prices up in some cases by 20 per cent, prompting many cost-conscious Indians to keep their feet on the ground.
In July, India’s airlines carried 12.6 per cent fewer passengers on domestic flights than a year earlier, at 3.04m. Meanwhile, Indian Railways, the vast state network, saw traveller numbers in its more up-market, air-conditioned cars surge by nearly 50 per cent in the same period.
“We feel that some passengers are diverting to the trains from planes,” said Anil Kumar Saxena, a railways spokesman, although he said it was too early to know whether the trend would last.
Pankaj Gupta, a partner in New Delhi’s Outbound Travels, said, “a lot of people can’t believe that so recently it was x-y-z to fly somewhere and now it’s up by 20 per cent. It’s a shock to them. A lot of people are deferring their travel, saying: ‘We’ll think about it and let you know.’”
Since the 1990s Indian Railways has sought to upgrade its service to appeal to more demanding consumers, introducing measures such as online ticket sales.
Raajveev Batra, head of KPMG’s transport practice in India, said leisure travellers were those most likely to forgo flights and return to the trains while business travellers were still probably willing to pay a premium for a quick, efficient journey.
“The low-cost carriers helped people appreciate and realise the value of time,” he said. “People who still wish to pay more and save time will not go to other modes of transport ... The drop is largely for those passengers who were leisure travellers. I am sure that they must be shifting back to other modes of travel.”
Mr Batra said air carriers must now focus on boosting their efficiency, and predicted a period of industry consolidation. “It’s a good opportunity for airlines to introspect and look at their business but I don’t see doom for the carriers,” he said
India - New fish to fry
For many years, India’s fishery exports (the largest component in the broad category of agro-exports) have had an unhealthy dependence on shrimp. So it is good news that this dependence is now reducing, the export basket diversifies. Also reducing is the dependence on the two principal markets (Japan and the United States), as other markets are being tapped. While these are positive developments, it cannot unfortunately be claimed that the woes of the marine fisheries sector are over. There has for years been a near stagnation in output, and deceleration in the growth of seafood exports. Even the growing domestic demand for fish and fish products is being met increasingly from inland fisheries.
The export trends of the past five years reveal that the share of shrimps in total seafood shipments has declined from 65 per cent to 52 per cent in value terms, and from 32 per cent to 25 per cent in quantitative terms. Shrimps have yielded ground to other marine products like frozen finfish and cuttlefish, whose share in exports has expanded. However, squids have not done too well despite their good potential. The narrow seafood export kitty — still largely black tiger-prawns, and only a small buyers’ club — has proved baneful for this sector though exporters have taken a long while to realise this, and have paid the price for their failure to do something about the problem. The US in particular has been taking full advantage of this situation by putting forward various kinds of riders, raising objections on sanitary and phyto-sanitary issues, toxicity levels and antibiotic residues, and even levying anti-dumping duties and other fiscal penalties. It is of course an unfortunate truth that Indian export houses were quite lax on sanitary and phyto-sanitary norms some years ago, but many of them have put their houses in order and some have secured endorsements from the US inspecting teams. Still, the disputes settlement body of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is still to be approached frequently enough against unfair US trade practices. The emergence of the European Union and several other South-East Asian and West Asian markets as export destinations may, therefore, ease pressure to an extent by offering fresh avenues for fisheries exports.
Nevertheless, the way forward is not easy because, along with the expansion of export markets, the competition has also grown. Countries like China, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia have emerged as tough rivals, and seem to be offering cheaper products. Besides, the US, Japan and even some European nations have begun importing vannamei shrimps, which are priced lower because of their smaller production cost, as a substitute for the black tiger-prawn. India has begun vannamei culture only this year. Thus, the cost advantage that India enjoyed in the past has largely been eroded. Moreover, domestic seafood production costs have gone up on account of higher freight, power, labour and infrastructure expenses, as well as frequent outbreaks of epidemics in shrimp farms. It is clear that India’s seafood exporters have to go in for better farming methods and enhanced operational efficiencies, besides cutting costs, in order to remain competitive. Only then can this sector draw upon the new diversity in its export basket for a sustainable seafood export boom
The export trends of the past five years reveal that the share of shrimps in total seafood shipments has declined from 65 per cent to 52 per cent in value terms, and from 32 per cent to 25 per cent in quantitative terms. Shrimps have yielded ground to other marine products like frozen finfish and cuttlefish, whose share in exports has expanded. However, squids have not done too well despite their good potential. The narrow seafood export kitty — still largely black tiger-prawns, and only a small buyers’ club — has proved baneful for this sector though exporters have taken a long while to realise this, and have paid the price for their failure to do something about the problem. The US in particular has been taking full advantage of this situation by putting forward various kinds of riders, raising objections on sanitary and phyto-sanitary issues, toxicity levels and antibiotic residues, and even levying anti-dumping duties and other fiscal penalties. It is of course an unfortunate truth that Indian export houses were quite lax on sanitary and phyto-sanitary norms some years ago, but many of them have put their houses in order and some have secured endorsements from the US inspecting teams. Still, the disputes settlement body of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is still to be approached frequently enough against unfair US trade practices. The emergence of the European Union and several other South-East Asian and West Asian markets as export destinations may, therefore, ease pressure to an extent by offering fresh avenues for fisheries exports.
Nevertheless, the way forward is not easy because, along with the expansion of export markets, the competition has also grown. Countries like China, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia have emerged as tough rivals, and seem to be offering cheaper products. Besides, the US, Japan and even some European nations have begun importing vannamei shrimps, which are priced lower because of their smaller production cost, as a substitute for the black tiger-prawn. India has begun vannamei culture only this year. Thus, the cost advantage that India enjoyed in the past has largely been eroded. Moreover, domestic seafood production costs have gone up on account of higher freight, power, labour and infrastructure expenses, as well as frequent outbreaks of epidemics in shrimp farms. It is clear that India’s seafood exporters have to go in for better farming methods and enhanced operational efficiencies, besides cutting costs, in order to remain competitive. Only then can this sector draw upon the new diversity in its export basket for a sustainable seafood export boom
Columnists - T C A Srinivasa Raghavan
Farewell to Okonomos
This is going to be the last Okonomos written by me. Over the 10 years that I have been writing this column, many people have asked me whether I had mis-spelt the Greek word for economics, oikos (house) and nomos (custom or law). Actually, what I had in mind was a paper by Edmund Phelps on growth, published eons ago, in which he talks about growth on an island called Okonomos.
When, back in 1998, I had mooted the idea of writing a weekly commentary on research in economics I had suggested that it should be written by different people each week. But the editor thought differently, and I ended up writing it every week.
The aim, originally, was to write only about Indian research. But after only a few weeks I ran into a problem: There just wasn’t enough of high quality research going on. The theoretical stuff from places like the Indian Statistical Institute and the Delhi School of Economics was good, no doubt, but hardly the sort of thing one could write about in a newspaper.
The universities were comatose and the think tanks, which had had to go commercial over the 1990s, produced status reports, which was not really research. As such they were more suited for the news columns, rather than the Okonomos. The empirical stuff was limited by the fact that there just wasn’t enough data around. The exception was the RBI and its publication, Occasional Papers. But that was mainly because the staff had the data. Sadly, it has become too occasional now. The website link was last updated in February and the last volume is dated Monsoon 2007.
Those were also the days when the Internet hadn’t quite become what it has now. It was really a problem finding — on a weekly basis — something interesting enough to write about. I started visiting the think tanks about then, and although nothing much resulted in professional terms, there was an important positive externality: I made some very good friends.
One of the most striking things was the frequent assertion by the economists I met was that they didn’t read the business papers. This strange approach doesn’t seem to have changed much. Just two days ago, I met a university professor who said the same thing. I wondered about the point of the research they did. If, like their counterparts in the US and the rest of the west, they didn’t address live problems, what did they do then? And why?
That was not all. I also discovered how easy it was for very powerful interests, both vested and wannabes, to use naive but competent economists to further their cause. The whole “reform the financial sector now, at once, now, now now” campaign then fell into proper perspective.
It was in 2001, I think, that I discovered the NBER site. It was a real eye-opener in at least three ways. First there was the idea itself, of letting it all hang out on a free website (no longer free, though). Second, there was the sheer volume of American research. And third was its extraordinary variety. You can find some guidance on practically any subject on the NBER website. How I wish the Planning Commission or some other agency would promote something similar in India as well.
But the law of diminishing marginal utility is inexorable. It always comes into play and by about 2005 I had begun to tire of the NBER website also. The reason was that the method of research posted on it was numbingly uniform, frozen as it were in a template: find a data set, run a few regressions, and come up with some fairly banal conclusions. Moreover, you never, ever find a theoretical insight at NBER. Also, the rapid increase in the number of posts on it seemed to have diluted the standards somewhat.
One thing that needs mentioning is the amazing preponderance of research on financial markets and the scarcity of research on the real sectors. Good microeconomics research is almost non-existent and the great Indian rope trick called macroeconomics dominates. There is a lot of pointless development economics research, probably because the World Bank funds so much of it. In my view it is complete bollocks.
I should also mention that of the nearly 600 Okos I wrote, I received less than 10 submissions from Indian economists. I finally had to conclude that the people for whom it was originally meant — economists — were not interested in reading about what other economists were saying. I would be remiss, though, if I did not mention that non-economists did find it useful.
I understand the column will continue, which is great news. Now I can sit back and let someone else bring me up-to-date on what’s going on in the confused world of economists. Better do a good job of it, lads.
This is going to be the last Okonomos written by me. Over the 10 years that I have been writing this column, many people have asked me whether I had mis-spelt the Greek word for economics, oikos (house) and nomos (custom or law). Actually, what I had in mind was a paper by Edmund Phelps on growth, published eons ago, in which he talks about growth on an island called Okonomos.
When, back in 1998, I had mooted the idea of writing a weekly commentary on research in economics I had suggested that it should be written by different people each week. But the editor thought differently, and I ended up writing it every week.
The aim, originally, was to write only about Indian research. But after only a few weeks I ran into a problem: There just wasn’t enough of high quality research going on. The theoretical stuff from places like the Indian Statistical Institute and the Delhi School of Economics was good, no doubt, but hardly the sort of thing one could write about in a newspaper.
The universities were comatose and the think tanks, which had had to go commercial over the 1990s, produced status reports, which was not really research. As such they were more suited for the news columns, rather than the Okonomos. The empirical stuff was limited by the fact that there just wasn’t enough data around. The exception was the RBI and its publication, Occasional Papers. But that was mainly because the staff had the data. Sadly, it has become too occasional now. The website link was last updated in February and the last volume is dated Monsoon 2007.
Those were also the days when the Internet hadn’t quite become what it has now. It was really a problem finding — on a weekly basis — something interesting enough to write about. I started visiting the think tanks about then, and although nothing much resulted in professional terms, there was an important positive externality: I made some very good friends.
One of the most striking things was the frequent assertion by the economists I met was that they didn’t read the business papers. This strange approach doesn’t seem to have changed much. Just two days ago, I met a university professor who said the same thing. I wondered about the point of the research they did. If, like their counterparts in the US and the rest of the west, they didn’t address live problems, what did they do then? And why?
That was not all. I also discovered how easy it was for very powerful interests, both vested and wannabes, to use naive but competent economists to further their cause. The whole “reform the financial sector now, at once, now, now now” campaign then fell into proper perspective.
It was in 2001, I think, that I discovered the NBER site. It was a real eye-opener in at least three ways. First there was the idea itself, of letting it all hang out on a free website (no longer free, though). Second, there was the sheer volume of American research. And third was its extraordinary variety. You can find some guidance on practically any subject on the NBER website. How I wish the Planning Commission or some other agency would promote something similar in India as well.
But the law of diminishing marginal utility is inexorable. It always comes into play and by about 2005 I had begun to tire of the NBER website also. The reason was that the method of research posted on it was numbingly uniform, frozen as it were in a template: find a data set, run a few regressions, and come up with some fairly banal conclusions. Moreover, you never, ever find a theoretical insight at NBER. Also, the rapid increase in the number of posts on it seemed to have diluted the standards somewhat.
One thing that needs mentioning is the amazing preponderance of research on financial markets and the scarcity of research on the real sectors. Good microeconomics research is almost non-existent and the great Indian rope trick called macroeconomics dominates. There is a lot of pointless development economics research, probably because the World Bank funds so much of it. In my view it is complete bollocks.
I should also mention that of the nearly 600 Okos I wrote, I received less than 10 submissions from Indian economists. I finally had to conclude that the people for whom it was originally meant — economists — were not interested in reading about what other economists were saying. I would be remiss, though, if I did not mention that non-economists did find it useful.
I understand the column will continue, which is great news. Now I can sit back and let someone else bring me up-to-date on what’s going on in the confused world of economists. Better do a good job of it, lads.
Entertainment - Khatron Ka Khiladi
Colors has made quite a splash debuting at number three in the Hindi general entertainment genre. Despite having a couple of industry veterans at their helm, peers NDTV Imagine and 9X couldn’t really pull off the kind of gross rating points — 116 in the second week — that Colors notched up. The show’s not over yet, the jostling for the number three slot will continue for a while. But the key takeaway from the Colors launch is that the days when a channel stayed put in one slot, for a reasonable length of time, are gone. Star Plus’s record will be hard to break; it has truly been a remarkable reign at the top. Zee has tried hard to get back its position and almost got there; towards the end of 2006, it was within 20 GRPs of Star but couldn’t make it. The gap has since widened to nearly 120 GRPs and Star retains its enviable reach of 65 per cent. It may not be long before we see a new number two — Zee is no longer the most watched channel during all prime time slots and its prime time GRPs are now down 30 per cent in seven months. It seems to be losing its touch in the regional space too — after years at the top, Zee Bangla has been upstaged by ETV Bangla.
With so much happening in the gec space — by far the biggest genre attracting a third of viewership and also advertising revenues — one would have expected to see some action from marketers too. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. While viewership for the genre has risen by about 26 per cent since November 2007 when 9X was launched, media buyer Mindshare reckons that advertising revenues on gec channels might actually have grown at a lower pace in the first six months to June 2008 compared with the same time last year. With several first time advertisers like Havells or Citibank sponsoring cricket, Mindshare figures that the total advertising revenues may have grown at 14-15 per cent on the base of Rs 3,600 crore. That’s clearly higher than the 12 per cent trend seen in the last few years. But with the IPL 20-20 matches taking away Rs 200 crore worth of ads from the pool of roughly Rs 4,100 crore, the rest of the pack, including gec channels, may have lost out. Mindshare reckons gec channels may not have done too well in July either.
Judging by the success of the 20-20 tournament, marketers will surely divert a substantial part of their adpsends to cricket next year. But it’s not just the IPL that will make life difficult for gec channels. While some variety in the programming put out by 9X and NDTV Imagine and now Colors may have had viewers tune into these channels, thereby growing the space, a younger, more educated and westernised audience will increasingly look for different fare. Notice how quickly INX’s Mahabharat was out of the top 100 — the K factor didn’t help too much there. And also how the Shah Rukh Khan hosted Paanchvi Pass was a near disaster. Today’s youngsters — the key segment being targeted by marketers — are looking for variety and will flirt with channels more than their parents did. The market in India may not be ready for the kind of salami slicing of programmes that Fox has done in the US, where there are entire channels devoted to select sports or even crime serials, but clearly that’s the way to go. Viewers will be fickle because there are more demands on time. One Indian Idol cannot a Sony make. Colors may have caught the attention of viewers but it will probably be at the expense of a Sony or a Zee or a 9X because there clearly isn’t enough room for nine or ten players.
Already, the average television viewing time, according to an estimate by CRISIL, is down to 112 minutes a day. And it won’t be long before the Internet and mobile phones lure youngsters away from television sets. GRPs for channels are coming down as are television rating points for programmes; from 14-16 TRPs for Star not so long ago in 2005, top content now notches up between 4 and 5 TRPs. Meanwhile, advertising inventory is increasing and already Star TV’s ad rates are 30 per cent off their peaks. Historically, advertising revenues for the genre have fallen faster than viewership: between 2003 and 2007 the genre’s share of advertising slipped from 53 per cent to 35 per cent. Collectively broadcasters could take home Rs 10,000 crore by 2010 from advertising revenues and with some luck subscription revenues could fetch them another Rs 5,000 crore. A 30 per cent share would see gec revenues hit around Rs 5,000 crore across all channels regional and national. This may not be good enough given that costs are huge with 80 per cent of expenses being running costs — content and people — and so the bill doesn’t really get smaller with time. On the contrary, with increasing competition they are only rising faster — carriage fees for the industry today are estimated to be more than Rs 1,000 crore. There’s plenty of cash to burn because an estimated $8-10 billion is expected to flow into television space over the next few years with $2 billion flowing into the broadcast business alone. But, the economics of the business cannot but deteriorate.
With so much happening in the gec space — by far the biggest genre attracting a third of viewership and also advertising revenues — one would have expected to see some action from marketers too. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. While viewership for the genre has risen by about 26 per cent since November 2007 when 9X was launched, media buyer Mindshare reckons that advertising revenues on gec channels might actually have grown at a lower pace in the first six months to June 2008 compared with the same time last year. With several first time advertisers like Havells or Citibank sponsoring cricket, Mindshare figures that the total advertising revenues may have grown at 14-15 per cent on the base of Rs 3,600 crore. That’s clearly higher than the 12 per cent trend seen in the last few years. But with the IPL 20-20 matches taking away Rs 200 crore worth of ads from the pool of roughly Rs 4,100 crore, the rest of the pack, including gec channels, may have lost out. Mindshare reckons gec channels may not have done too well in July either.
Judging by the success of the 20-20 tournament, marketers will surely divert a substantial part of their adpsends to cricket next year. But it’s not just the IPL that will make life difficult for gec channels. While some variety in the programming put out by 9X and NDTV Imagine and now Colors may have had viewers tune into these channels, thereby growing the space, a younger, more educated and westernised audience will increasingly look for different fare. Notice how quickly INX’s Mahabharat was out of the top 100 — the K factor didn’t help too much there. And also how the Shah Rukh Khan hosted Paanchvi Pass was a near disaster. Today’s youngsters — the key segment being targeted by marketers — are looking for variety and will flirt with channels more than their parents did. The market in India may not be ready for the kind of salami slicing of programmes that Fox has done in the US, where there are entire channels devoted to select sports or even crime serials, but clearly that’s the way to go. Viewers will be fickle because there are more demands on time. One Indian Idol cannot a Sony make. Colors may have caught the attention of viewers but it will probably be at the expense of a Sony or a Zee or a 9X because there clearly isn’t enough room for nine or ten players.
Already, the average television viewing time, according to an estimate by CRISIL, is down to 112 minutes a day. And it won’t be long before the Internet and mobile phones lure youngsters away from television sets. GRPs for channels are coming down as are television rating points for programmes; from 14-16 TRPs for Star not so long ago in 2005, top content now notches up between 4 and 5 TRPs. Meanwhile, advertising inventory is increasing and already Star TV’s ad rates are 30 per cent off their peaks. Historically, advertising revenues for the genre have fallen faster than viewership: between 2003 and 2007 the genre’s share of advertising slipped from 53 per cent to 35 per cent. Collectively broadcasters could take home Rs 10,000 crore by 2010 from advertising revenues and with some luck subscription revenues could fetch them another Rs 5,000 crore. A 30 per cent share would see gec revenues hit around Rs 5,000 crore across all channels regional and national. This may not be good enough given that costs are huge with 80 per cent of expenses being running costs — content and people — and so the bill doesn’t really get smaller with time. On the contrary, with increasing competition they are only rising faster — carriage fees for the industry today are estimated to be more than Rs 1,000 crore. There’s plenty of cash to burn because an estimated $8-10 billion is expected to flow into television space over the next few years with $2 billion flowing into the broadcast business alone. But, the economics of the business cannot but deteriorate.
India - Olympic glory needs huge state effort
There’s the cynics and there’s the hopefuls. The former, observing the hullabaloo over a couple of bronzes, would surely smirk. It is, at one level, rather incredible that a nation of our size and potential should be over the moon if our ‘best ever’ Olympic games have, so far, meant a total of just three medals. And all, let the point be made, were unexpected. We simply weren’t thinking any of our sportspersons would win anything. The hopefuls, on the other hand, would posit the medals as a sign that finally, perhaps, we will witness the rise of India as a sporting nation. Then again, this is a bit utopian. What has happened is that a couple of members of the backbone of this country, the hard-working lower and middle classes, have by dint of sheer physical grit broken through. The photograph of a delighted, yet incredulous Sushil Kumar, who won the bronze in the 66 kg Men’s Freestyle wrestling event, says it all. This individual determination and skill hardly means a national effort has paid off. Success in major global sporting events is first and foremost a consequence of a sustained state effort. There has to be a national effort to build the training facilities, to invest in the logistics of making champions. Nothing illustrates this better than China, the host country this time around. In the 2000 games in Sydney, China won 28 gold medals, compared to top-of-the-league USA with 39, the gap narrowed by the time of the Athens Olympics (China: 32, USA: 35), and finally, China has now stunned the world by leaving it far behind with its current tally of 46 golds compared to the second in-line USA at 28. The sheer scale of the state effort, and the long sustained support China has provided its sportspersons, has finally triumphed. Industry can and should play a role, but only the state can ensure and deliver the kind of resources needed to make a global sporting power. Already, voices in the US are demanding the state should step in and replace the almost-wholly private nature of support for sports prevalent in that country. Becoming a nation of champions is no accident.
Lifestyle - Edible Cutlery
Your neighbour won’t complain if you went green while he gobbled his dinner, plates, spoon and fork, et al. He has perhaps gone green himself, in another sense, as he has taken the environment-friendly route.BK Environmental Innovations brought out the concept of edible cutlery — it can be eaten after use
It constitutes of sorghum (jowar) as its main ingredient.The company’s managing director Naryana Peesapaty says: “We are now targeting a Rs 5,000-crore disposable cutlery market in India.” Want to give it a try?The price of a kilo pack of edible cutlery is Rs 185.Peesapaty has sold around 300 packets this year and his clients range from sweet shops in Hyderabad to ITC Hotels.The company is now planning to open Jowari Fast Food counters in Hyderabad this month.The counters will sell pizzas and burgers that are made from jowar
Peesapaty isn’t alone in this unique green revolution.A host of other small companies are trying to grab a pie of the market for environment-friendly products, from furniture made of coir ply and CFCfree ACs and manually-operated sanitary napkin machines that produces napkins at half the price of the branded products available in the market.“It is a huge market waiting to be explored. Only a few companies have innovated products that will help them gain a foothold here. But we expect more companies to join the bandwagon soon,” says Prof Anil Gupta of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad, who keenly follows and promotes grassroot innovators.Natura Fibertech manufactures coir into coirply, that is 40% cheaper than ordinary plywoods. The coir can be harvested within a period of 60 days.
It constitutes of sorghum (jowar) as its main ingredient.The company’s managing director Naryana Peesapaty says: “We are now targeting a Rs 5,000-crore disposable cutlery market in India.” Want to give it a try?The price of a kilo pack of edible cutlery is Rs 185.Peesapaty has sold around 300 packets this year and his clients range from sweet shops in Hyderabad to ITC Hotels.The company is now planning to open Jowari Fast Food counters in Hyderabad this month.The counters will sell pizzas and burgers that are made from jowar
Peesapaty isn’t alone in this unique green revolution.A host of other small companies are trying to grab a pie of the market for environment-friendly products, from furniture made of coir ply and CFCfree ACs and manually-operated sanitary napkin machines that produces napkins at half the price of the branded products available in the market.“It is a huge market waiting to be explored. Only a few companies have innovated products that will help them gain a foothold here. But we expect more companies to join the bandwagon soon,” says Prof Anil Gupta of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad, who keenly follows and promotes grassroot innovators.Natura Fibertech manufactures coir into coirply, that is 40% cheaper than ordinary plywoods. The coir can be harvested within a period of 60 days.
India - Beware of the takeaway food joints
Takeaway joints are a huge hit. But a peek into their kitchens throws up some unpalatable truths.The next time you think of skipping the cooking and ordering from the neighbourhood takeaway instead, think again. They may be cheap and save on time and energy , but with most operating without valid licences, the hygiene standards at these eateries leave a lot to be desired. And the story is the same across Delhi. While the city boasts more than 1,500 takeaway joints, barely 60 of them have health licences issued by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.When Times City looked into some of the kitchens, the look was that of a space which has not been cleaned for days. In many of them, the trash cans were kept right next to the cooking utensils, the vegetables and meat left uncovered on dirty slabs, flies and other insects swarming on them
The cooks wore neither gloves nor headgear and didn't bother to wash their hands even when they got dirty. Shortage of water often meant many utensils being washed in water already filthy with repeated use. With no proper ventilation or fire extinguisher in place, it would be safe to say the joints are dangerous in more ways than one. Most of the takeways function from small non-descript corners as customers place their orders on phone instead of actually coming to pick up the food. Said an MCD official: '' The licences of takeaways are issued at the zonal level . The basic requirement to open a takeaway is that the person opening it should have ownership proof and it should be functioning from a commercial area. No unauthorised construction should be carried out and the minimum size of the takeaway joint should be 100 sq ft, with no sitting place.''
Running water , proper ventilation, a clean kitchen, all cooking and storage vessels kept covered to prevent contamination, food items kept as far away from waste matter as possible, walls and ceilings which are whitewashed every six months and a high standard of personal hygiene maintained by workers at all times were the other "mandatory " requirements. However , in reality, not even 5% of these guidelines laid down in the DMC Act under Section 417/421 are met by most takeaway joints. While MCD claims that raids are conducted on a weekly basis and challans are issued against the offenders , this hardly seems to be the case on the ground. In Karol Bagh zone, only three licences have been issued to takeaways , four or five have been issued in South, Central and Rohini zones and only one has been issued in City zone.
Most takeaway joints have opened in the last four years, thanks to the increased demand to order in. With most couples working, it is more convenient and cheaper to order food from these joints than to cook at home. The quantity is decent and the range - from Chinese to Mughlai - wide, and it comes for as little as Rs 100 to Rs 150. At a takeaway at Old Rajinder Nagar that opened two years ago, an employee claimed that the outlets didn't need a licence to function. The dustbin at the entrance of this joint was kept next to the grill and the kitchen was filthy from within. The owner of a Chinese takeaway at Old Rajinder Nagar, Indu Nagpal said: '' Licences are not being issued by MCD. We have been running this joint for the last four years and get atleast 50-60 orders per day over the weekend .'' The problem is that the MCD only recently worked out a policy to issue health licences to takeaway joints on the 2,183 notified commercial and mixed land use stretches. The rest of the takeaways owners claim that getting a licence is not easy and involves too many complications for them to get into.
In Kailash Colony, a takeaway that has progressed into a fullfledged restaurant still lacks basic cleanliness in the kitchen area. The kitchen functions from a small place, without proper ventilation. In CR Park, a well known takeaway might be popular, but the kitchen is a small shed. Said one of the owners: '' We had a restaurant earlier which was shut during the sealing drive. Now we only take orders and deliver, though we are planning to shift from here.'' The standard of hygiene was no better at another takeaway at C R Park where Times City found the cooks cutting onions on a dirty plate on the floor. East Delhi also did not fare any better. Small takeaways on Narwana Road next to Mother Dairy seemed to function in the same way. Dirty, oil stained walls, cobwebs dotting the roof and unhygienic workers were the hallmarks of almost all of them
There are over 1,500 takeaways in the city but MCD has issued health licences to only around 60 of them Around 96% of them are functioning illegally in the city. The MCD issued one licence each in Najafgarh and City zones, four in Karol Bagh Zone and four to five in Central, South and Rohini zones The licences of takeaways are issued at the zonal level. The basic requirement to open a takeaway is that the person opening it should have ownership proof and it should be functioning in a commercial area No unauthorised construction should be carried out and the minimum size of the takeaway joint should be 100 sq ft with no sitting provision.A takeaway joint should have running water, proper ventilation. Kitchen should be kept clean and a high standard of personal hygiene shall be maintained by workers at all times, besides other such requirements. However, not even 5% of these guidelines laid down in DMC Act under Section 417/421 are met by most takeaway joints. Most of the takeaway joints have filthy kitchens and bad working conditions
The cooks wore neither gloves nor headgear and didn't bother to wash their hands even when they got dirty. Shortage of water often meant many utensils being washed in water already filthy with repeated use. With no proper ventilation or fire extinguisher in place, it would be safe to say the joints are dangerous in more ways than one. Most of the takeways function from small non-descript corners as customers place their orders on phone instead of actually coming to pick up the food. Said an MCD official: '' The licences of takeaways are issued at the zonal level . The basic requirement to open a takeaway is that the person opening it should have ownership proof and it should be functioning from a commercial area. No unauthorised construction should be carried out and the minimum size of the takeaway joint should be 100 sq ft, with no sitting place.''
Running water , proper ventilation, a clean kitchen, all cooking and storage vessels kept covered to prevent contamination, food items kept as far away from waste matter as possible, walls and ceilings which are whitewashed every six months and a high standard of personal hygiene maintained by workers at all times were the other "mandatory " requirements. However , in reality, not even 5% of these guidelines laid down in the DMC Act under Section 417/421 are met by most takeaway joints. While MCD claims that raids are conducted on a weekly basis and challans are issued against the offenders , this hardly seems to be the case on the ground. In Karol Bagh zone, only three licences have been issued to takeaways , four or five have been issued in South, Central and Rohini zones and only one has been issued in City zone.
Most takeaway joints have opened in the last four years, thanks to the increased demand to order in. With most couples working, it is more convenient and cheaper to order food from these joints than to cook at home. The quantity is decent and the range - from Chinese to Mughlai - wide, and it comes for as little as Rs 100 to Rs 150. At a takeaway at Old Rajinder Nagar that opened two years ago, an employee claimed that the outlets didn't need a licence to function. The dustbin at the entrance of this joint was kept next to the grill and the kitchen was filthy from within. The owner of a Chinese takeaway at Old Rajinder Nagar, Indu Nagpal said: '' Licences are not being issued by MCD. We have been running this joint for the last four years and get atleast 50-60 orders per day over the weekend .'' The problem is that the MCD only recently worked out a policy to issue health licences to takeaway joints on the 2,183 notified commercial and mixed land use stretches. The rest of the takeaways owners claim that getting a licence is not easy and involves too many complications for them to get into.
In Kailash Colony, a takeaway that has progressed into a fullfledged restaurant still lacks basic cleanliness in the kitchen area. The kitchen functions from a small place, without proper ventilation. In CR Park, a well known takeaway might be popular, but the kitchen is a small shed. Said one of the owners: '' We had a restaurant earlier which was shut during the sealing drive. Now we only take orders and deliver, though we are planning to shift from here.'' The standard of hygiene was no better at another takeaway at C R Park where Times City found the cooks cutting onions on a dirty plate on the floor. East Delhi also did not fare any better. Small takeaways on Narwana Road next to Mother Dairy seemed to function in the same way. Dirty, oil stained walls, cobwebs dotting the roof and unhygienic workers were the hallmarks of almost all of them
There are over 1,500 takeaways in the city but MCD has issued health licences to only around 60 of them Around 96% of them are functioning illegally in the city. The MCD issued one licence each in Najafgarh and City zones, four in Karol Bagh Zone and four to five in Central, South and Rohini zones The licences of takeaways are issued at the zonal level. The basic requirement to open a takeaway is that the person opening it should have ownership proof and it should be functioning in a commercial area No unauthorised construction should be carried out and the minimum size of the takeaway joint should be 100 sq ft with no sitting provision.A takeaway joint should have running water, proper ventilation. Kitchen should be kept clean and a high standard of personal hygiene shall be maintained by workers at all times, besides other such requirements. However, not even 5% of these guidelines laid down in DMC Act under Section 417/421 are met by most takeaway joints. Most of the takeaway joints have filthy kitchens and bad working conditions
Lifestyle - Changing Trends;Cocktails
Cocktails , like fashion, are a sign of the times. Think of a classic like, say, the Martini or the Manhattan, and it conjures up a certain era, a style, a mood. Others have similar associations — like a perfectly made Bellini or a Mojito. And barmen, or mixologists as they are now being called, are forever looking for ways to innovate, to capture in a glass the mood of the moment. In trend capitals like New York, cocktailmaking is constantly being re-invented . Now, while chefs are perfecting the art or science — if you will — of molecular gastronomy, cocktail experts are squirting foams and jellies of liquour combinations onto the tongues of customers, giving them a whole new taste sensation.
While that may be at the extreme end of the experimenting, there other distinct styles which now tend towards using fresh and indigenous ingredients to produce cocktails with clean, sharp flavours. In fact, they are being termed culinary cocktails for their sophistication, and cater to consumers who are now as informed, discerning and adventurous about what they drink as they are about what they eat. The quest for new and indigenous flavours has also shifted the focus onto Asian flavours. Cool bars here are now shaking up drinks based on unmistakably Indian ingredients . Diwakar, F&B exec at a luxe hotel, points to the Tamarind-Ginger Martini they serve at their high-end Indian restaurant. “We eschew all synthetic products, making our own tamarind syrup, for instance. Our Chutney Vodka with coriander and fresh pineapple is a big hit with guests,” he says.
The bar team constantly works at combinations with local ingredients to come up with these fresh ideas. Manish Kumar, F&B head at another fivestar , is also dealing with a new list of cocktails . “These came about because our bar got a makeover to acquire an Indian style. The cocktails had to reflect that atmosphere; hence our Curry Flavour (curry leaves, demerera sugar, citrus vodka) and Green Fire (coriander, green chillies, citrus vodka) and Dual Jewel (whisky, green chilli, mint and guava juice).” Manish says it’s an effort to give both foreign guests and well-travelled locals cocktails with a distinct Indian twist. The bar team here has been working at it for a long time now, infusing vodka with saffron, coriander and even cardamom and then blending these concoctions with other ingredients. “Of course, we waste a lot of alcohol, but the end results are well worth the effort,” says Manish. Innovative cocktails are being paired with interesting finger foods. “We are presenting local flavours with a twist on the bar food menu,” says Manish. “You have, for instance, a duet of pickled fish — one Mangalore-style mackerel and the other, rollmops.”
What's In
SEASONAL COCKTAILS: Bartenders are using local, in-season ingredients.
MICRO-DISTILLING : Artisanal spirits from small, regional distillers (often using locally-grown grains) are all the rage, particularly among bartenders willing to experiment with new products.
INNOVATIVE GARNISHES : Real and edible flowers, dried and dehydrated fruits, pickled foods, locally grown herbs are what are topping glasses now.
WINE COCKTAILS AND THE CLASSICS: Recreated to perfection
What's Out
Old flavours like cucumber and pomegranate
Artificial syrups
Inedible garnishes
Energy drinks in cocktails
While that may be at the extreme end of the experimenting, there other distinct styles which now tend towards using fresh and indigenous ingredients to produce cocktails with clean, sharp flavours. In fact, they are being termed culinary cocktails for their sophistication, and cater to consumers who are now as informed, discerning and adventurous about what they drink as they are about what they eat. The quest for new and indigenous flavours has also shifted the focus onto Asian flavours. Cool bars here are now shaking up drinks based on unmistakably Indian ingredients . Diwakar, F&B exec at a luxe hotel, points to the Tamarind-Ginger Martini they serve at their high-end Indian restaurant. “We eschew all synthetic products, making our own tamarind syrup, for instance. Our Chutney Vodka with coriander and fresh pineapple is a big hit with guests,” he says.
The bar team constantly works at combinations with local ingredients to come up with these fresh ideas. Manish Kumar, F&B head at another fivestar , is also dealing with a new list of cocktails . “These came about because our bar got a makeover to acquire an Indian style. The cocktails had to reflect that atmosphere; hence our Curry Flavour (curry leaves, demerera sugar, citrus vodka) and Green Fire (coriander, green chillies, citrus vodka) and Dual Jewel (whisky, green chilli, mint and guava juice).” Manish says it’s an effort to give both foreign guests and well-travelled locals cocktails with a distinct Indian twist. The bar team here has been working at it for a long time now, infusing vodka with saffron, coriander and even cardamom and then blending these concoctions with other ingredients. “Of course, we waste a lot of alcohol, but the end results are well worth the effort,” says Manish. Innovative cocktails are being paired with interesting finger foods. “We are presenting local flavours with a twist on the bar food menu,” says Manish. “You have, for instance, a duet of pickled fish — one Mangalore-style mackerel and the other, rollmops.”
What's In
SEASONAL COCKTAILS: Bartenders are using local, in-season ingredients.
MICRO-DISTILLING : Artisanal spirits from small, regional distillers (often using locally-grown grains) are all the rage, particularly among bartenders willing to experiment with new products.
INNOVATIVE GARNISHES : Real and edible flowers, dried and dehydrated fruits, pickled foods, locally grown herbs are what are topping glasses now.
WINE COCKTAILS AND THE CLASSICS: Recreated to perfection
What's Out
Old flavours like cucumber and pomegranate
Artificial syrups
Inedible garnishes
Energy drinks in cocktails
Mktg - GE's Judy HU
It is an old article ,but a good read
Jeff Immelt, chairman and chief executive of General Electric, is remaking one of the world's best-known companies into an eco-minded innovator. Judy Hu has to communicate his vision to the world.
If Immelt's job is making GE hot again -- its stock has lagged the broader market over the last five years -- then Hu's is making it cool. Hu is global executive director for advertising and branding for the Connecticut-based conglomerate and overseer of its award-winning "Imagination at Work" and "Ecomagination" ad campaigns. "We're reinventing a brand and a company," says Hu, who spoke at the recent 2007 Wharton Marketing Conference. "Jeff decided that we could no longer drive growth through acquisition. We had to focus on R&D and creating new products and services. Our story is about a new vision for GE."
Since becoming boss in 2001 -- just a few days before September 11 -- Immelt has aimed to make GE not only an innovator but also an environmental leader. In doing that, he has broken with his predecessor, Jack Welch, but also, in some ways, taken the company back to its roots. Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb and the phonograph, started GE in the late 1800s. More recently, under the combative, controversial Welch, it came to be known for operational excellence and a brassy pugnacity.
Welch famously declared that GE would have to be no. 1 or 2 in every line of business in which it competed and would ditch divisions where it wasn't. And he battled state and federal regulators for years over their order that GE clean up carcinogenic waste that its factories had dumped into New York's Hudson River. Under Immelt, the company hammered out an agreement to dredge the still-polluted river bottom. "Jeff said, 'We're going to fix that and move forward,'" Hu notes.
Hu arrived at GE in 2002. She came to the company from General Motors, where she had been executive director for corporate advertising. She had also worked on GM's ad campaigns in her previous job at D'Arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles, a well-known ad firm that was acquired by Publicis in 2002. A Detroit native, Hu earned her bachelor's at Harvard and her MBA at Yale.
Shortly after joining GE, Hu undertook a study of peoples' impressions of the firm. Most of those surveyed associated it with "light bulbs and appliances -- or their mother's kitchen," she says. Given GE's history, that sort of image didn't surprise her. But it overlooked the majority of the company's current operations. Today, GE makes everything from entertainment -- it owns NBC and Universal Studios -- to nuclear reactors, jet engines and medical-imaging equipment. It employs 300,000 people worldwide and generates a profit of $20.8 billion a year on $163.4 billion in sales.
Back when Hu started, GE also had a well-known slogan that played off its storied history: "We bring good things to light." A strong brand -- BusinessWeek and Interbrand rate GE's as No. 4 behind Coca-Cola, Microsoft and IBM -- and an iconic slogan are tricky to tinker with. A company doesn't want to tarnish its brand in, for example, the way that Coca-Cola did in the 1980s when it fumbled the introduction of New Coke. Yet it also must update its image as times and its business change. Hu believed that GE's slogan was no longer serving its purpose of underscoring the company's essence. "It conjured up yesterday, not the high-tech or global image of the company today," she says.
In contrast, "Imagination at Work" evokes the qualities -- "curiosity and relentless drive" -- that, through a series of internal interviews, Hu came to associate with her new co-workers. "We're the ultimate members of the 'Crackberry' generation at GE," she says, referring to the nickname for the Blackberry wireless device that connotes its addictive appeal to workaholics. "There's also a macho element to GE," she adds. "Even the women tend to be very driven. It's all about beating the competition and being first."
To break through the advertising clutter with the new message, Hu spearheaded a campaign of television, print and online ads that was rolled out in 2003. The ads, which frequently use humor and even whimsy, were targeted at business executives -- that is, the people who might decide to, say, buy one of GE's reactors -- but designed to appeal to regular people, too. "Executives respond to creative messages as human beings," Hu notes.
As part of her rebranding effort, Hu also tried to make a change that Immelt found too radical. She proposed redoing the company's logo, a cursive G and E intertwined against a circular blue background. "We did a huge logo study," she recalls. "And we found that most people outside of the U.S. couldn't read that G and E. But Jeff said that changing the monogram might be moving too fast." So instead, they added 14 new background colors, used according to context.
'Green Is Green'
The second phase of Hu's rebranding began two years ago with the introduction of the Ecomagination campaign. Here, Hu wanted to drive home Immelt's push to make GE a cleaner, greener and more profitable firm. "Jeff took a leadership position in the corporate world," Hu says. "Before Al Gore did An Inconvenient Truth, before other companies had gone green, he was talking about this stuff. Jeff likes to say that, 'Green is green.' What we're doing isn't charitable. It's about increasing revenues in an environmentally friendly way."
Hu's staff and GE's advertising firm decided that most advertising around environmental themes was "too focused on the negative, all about doing more with less and gloom and doom," she says. "That's the direct opposite to what we believe at GE." Innovators are necessarily optimists, she points out. They believe that the future can be better because you can make it better.
One way to escape the usual environmental pessimism was to dream up fun ways to communicate the message, and Hu and her team did that by creating the GeoTerra online game. Web surfers can drop in and play games in which they help the island of GeoTerra go green by harnessing GE technologies, like compact fluorescent light bulbs and wind turbines. "We've had players from 130 countries," Hu says. "Surprisingly, the Vatican City rates way up there in usage."
Although GE is a worldwide company with an overarching story, it tries to tailor the delivery of its message to the various countries where it operates. Specifically, it tries to show how its expertise might apply to problems that local people care about, and it strives to use words and images that will uniquely resonate with them.
For example, in Hamburg, Germany, a city surrounded by water, GE has stressed its expertise at water purification. "We put a giant straw in the River Alba and had about 200 customers go out and visit it in a boat," she says. In China, it created a print advertisement that showed goldfish swimming in the ocean. "We test all of our ads," she notes. "In most places, the ad tested poorly because people said, 'That's silly. Goldfish wouldn't be in the ocean. They're freshwater fish.' But in China, goldfish are symbols of good luck, so people liked it."
Hu uses all sorts of different means to measure the effectiveness of GE's ads. Her staff, of course, does focus groups and surveys, trying to discern how people perceive the brand's "image and personality," she notes. But she also cares about whether the ads win industry awards, even though those would seem to matter little to customers. "That helps our agencies stay motivated," she says. And occasionally, she uses the quick-and-dirty indicator afforded by a google search. "If you google 'Ecomagination,' you'll get 470,000 results. A word we created has become part of the popular lexicon."
Hu pointed out that the steps she undertook to reposition GE's brand are the same ones that a younger company might use to develop its brand. The process can move faster today, thanks to the Internet, but the basic steps haven't changed as forms of media have multiplied.
First, a company must develop a unique brand essence. It has to figure out who it is and how it differs from competitors. Then it must create a guiding framework for its many forms of communication; different media can stress different parts of the message but they can't contradict the basic theme. Call it the marketing equivalent of jazz improvisation: Ads can riff on one theme or another, but the melody must remain. And finally, the firm has to deliver the message consistently. "Consistency is key," Hu adds. "Jeff likes to say, 'Our brand is a promise. Imagination at Work is who we are.'"
Jeff Immelt, chairman and chief executive of General Electric, is remaking one of the world's best-known companies into an eco-minded innovator. Judy Hu has to communicate his vision to the world.
If Immelt's job is making GE hot again -- its stock has lagged the broader market over the last five years -- then Hu's is making it cool. Hu is global executive director for advertising and branding for the Connecticut-based conglomerate and overseer of its award-winning "Imagination at Work" and "Ecomagination" ad campaigns. "We're reinventing a brand and a company," says Hu, who spoke at the recent 2007 Wharton Marketing Conference. "Jeff decided that we could no longer drive growth through acquisition. We had to focus on R&D and creating new products and services. Our story is about a new vision for GE."
Since becoming boss in 2001 -- just a few days before September 11 -- Immelt has aimed to make GE not only an innovator but also an environmental leader. In doing that, he has broken with his predecessor, Jack Welch, but also, in some ways, taken the company back to its roots. Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb and the phonograph, started GE in the late 1800s. More recently, under the combative, controversial Welch, it came to be known for operational excellence and a brassy pugnacity.
Welch famously declared that GE would have to be no. 1 or 2 in every line of business in which it competed and would ditch divisions where it wasn't. And he battled state and federal regulators for years over their order that GE clean up carcinogenic waste that its factories had dumped into New York's Hudson River. Under Immelt, the company hammered out an agreement to dredge the still-polluted river bottom. "Jeff said, 'We're going to fix that and move forward,'" Hu notes.
Hu arrived at GE in 2002. She came to the company from General Motors, where she had been executive director for corporate advertising. She had also worked on GM's ad campaigns in her previous job at D'Arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles, a well-known ad firm that was acquired by Publicis in 2002. A Detroit native, Hu earned her bachelor's at Harvard and her MBA at Yale.
Shortly after joining GE, Hu undertook a study of peoples' impressions of the firm. Most of those surveyed associated it with "light bulbs and appliances -- or their mother's kitchen," she says. Given GE's history, that sort of image didn't surprise her. But it overlooked the majority of the company's current operations. Today, GE makes everything from entertainment -- it owns NBC and Universal Studios -- to nuclear reactors, jet engines and medical-imaging equipment. It employs 300,000 people worldwide and generates a profit of $20.8 billion a year on $163.4 billion in sales.
Back when Hu started, GE also had a well-known slogan that played off its storied history: "We bring good things to light." A strong brand -- BusinessWeek and Interbrand rate GE's as No. 4 behind Coca-Cola, Microsoft and IBM -- and an iconic slogan are tricky to tinker with. A company doesn't want to tarnish its brand in, for example, the way that Coca-Cola did in the 1980s when it fumbled the introduction of New Coke. Yet it also must update its image as times and its business change. Hu believed that GE's slogan was no longer serving its purpose of underscoring the company's essence. "It conjured up yesterday, not the high-tech or global image of the company today," she says.
In contrast, "Imagination at Work" evokes the qualities -- "curiosity and relentless drive" -- that, through a series of internal interviews, Hu came to associate with her new co-workers. "We're the ultimate members of the 'Crackberry' generation at GE," she says, referring to the nickname for the Blackberry wireless device that connotes its addictive appeal to workaholics. "There's also a macho element to GE," she adds. "Even the women tend to be very driven. It's all about beating the competition and being first."
To break through the advertising clutter with the new message, Hu spearheaded a campaign of television, print and online ads that was rolled out in 2003. The ads, which frequently use humor and even whimsy, were targeted at business executives -- that is, the people who might decide to, say, buy one of GE's reactors -- but designed to appeal to regular people, too. "Executives respond to creative messages as human beings," Hu notes.
As part of her rebranding effort, Hu also tried to make a change that Immelt found too radical. She proposed redoing the company's logo, a cursive G and E intertwined against a circular blue background. "We did a huge logo study," she recalls. "And we found that most people outside of the U.S. couldn't read that G and E. But Jeff said that changing the monogram might be moving too fast." So instead, they added 14 new background colors, used according to context.
'Green Is Green'
The second phase of Hu's rebranding began two years ago with the introduction of the Ecomagination campaign. Here, Hu wanted to drive home Immelt's push to make GE a cleaner, greener and more profitable firm. "Jeff took a leadership position in the corporate world," Hu says. "Before Al Gore did An Inconvenient Truth, before other companies had gone green, he was talking about this stuff. Jeff likes to say that, 'Green is green.' What we're doing isn't charitable. It's about increasing revenues in an environmentally friendly way."
Hu's staff and GE's advertising firm decided that most advertising around environmental themes was "too focused on the negative, all about doing more with less and gloom and doom," she says. "That's the direct opposite to what we believe at GE." Innovators are necessarily optimists, she points out. They believe that the future can be better because you can make it better.
One way to escape the usual environmental pessimism was to dream up fun ways to communicate the message, and Hu and her team did that by creating the GeoTerra online game. Web surfers can drop in and play games in which they help the island of GeoTerra go green by harnessing GE technologies, like compact fluorescent light bulbs and wind turbines. "We've had players from 130 countries," Hu says. "Surprisingly, the Vatican City rates way up there in usage."
Although GE is a worldwide company with an overarching story, it tries to tailor the delivery of its message to the various countries where it operates. Specifically, it tries to show how its expertise might apply to problems that local people care about, and it strives to use words and images that will uniquely resonate with them.
For example, in Hamburg, Germany, a city surrounded by water, GE has stressed its expertise at water purification. "We put a giant straw in the River Alba and had about 200 customers go out and visit it in a boat," she says. In China, it created a print advertisement that showed goldfish swimming in the ocean. "We test all of our ads," she notes. "In most places, the ad tested poorly because people said, 'That's silly. Goldfish wouldn't be in the ocean. They're freshwater fish.' But in China, goldfish are symbols of good luck, so people liked it."
Hu uses all sorts of different means to measure the effectiveness of GE's ads. Her staff, of course, does focus groups and surveys, trying to discern how people perceive the brand's "image and personality," she notes. But she also cares about whether the ads win industry awards, even though those would seem to matter little to customers. "That helps our agencies stay motivated," she says. And occasionally, she uses the quick-and-dirty indicator afforded by a google search. "If you google 'Ecomagination,' you'll get 470,000 results. A word we created has become part of the popular lexicon."
Hu pointed out that the steps she undertook to reposition GE's brand are the same ones that a younger company might use to develop its brand. The process can move faster today, thanks to the Internet, but the basic steps haven't changed as forms of media have multiplied.
First, a company must develop a unique brand essence. It has to figure out who it is and how it differs from competitors. Then it must create a guiding framework for its many forms of communication; different media can stress different parts of the message but they can't contradict the basic theme. Call it the marketing equivalent of jazz improvisation: Ads can riff on one theme or another, but the melody must remain. And finally, the firm has to deliver the message consistently. "Consistency is key," Hu adds. "Jeff likes to say, 'Our brand is a promise. Imagination at Work is who we are.'"
Aug 22, 2008
Health - Can refrigeration bring us back to life ?
The seemingly miraculous revival of a newborn baby that had initially been pronounced dead and refrigerated in Israel is raising eyebrows among scientists and doctors.
Some wonder if the baby really died before being put in a morgue refrigerator for more than five hours and then apparently reviving. And though the baby has since died (possibly, again), some doctors remain baffled about whether the extreme cooling had a life-preserving effect.
"We don't know how to explain this, so when we don't know how to explain things in the medical world we call it a miracle, and this is probably what happened," hospital deputy director Moshe Daniel said, according to Reuters.
However, there could be a less divine and more scientific explanation for the recovery via refrigerator.
"There have been a number of well-documented case histories of adults and children who drowned in very cold water, even trapped under ice for hours, and were successfully revived many hours later," Alistair Jan Gunn, a professor of physiology and pediatrics at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, told LiveScience. "Of course, this is used routinely in modern cardiac bypass."
Decreasing a body's temperature can induce a state of suspended animation, where metabolism slows and the body needs less oxygen and energy to survive.
"There is some historical precedent for how this might work," said Dr. Neil Finer, chief of the University of California-San Diego's division of neonatology. "Many years ago some babies were put into ice water at birth to try to revive them. There were reports that this actually could be effective and that some children survived."
Induced hypothermia has even been studied as a treatment for various injuries, sometimes with astonishing results.
In some experiments, such as those conducted by Hasan Alam at Massachusetts General Hospital, animals such as pigs and dogs survived normally-fatal injuries and blood loss by being cooled to a state of hibernation while doctors repaired their injuries.
Cooling therapy has even shown promising results in infants with hypoxic–ischemic encephalopathy, or brain damage due to lack of oxygen, according to a 2005 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine .
Some wonder if the baby really died before being put in a morgue refrigerator for more than five hours and then apparently reviving. And though the baby has since died (possibly, again), some doctors remain baffled about whether the extreme cooling had a life-preserving effect.
"We don't know how to explain this, so when we don't know how to explain things in the medical world we call it a miracle, and this is probably what happened," hospital deputy director Moshe Daniel said, according to Reuters.
However, there could be a less divine and more scientific explanation for the recovery via refrigerator.
"There have been a number of well-documented case histories of adults and children who drowned in very cold water, even trapped under ice for hours, and were successfully revived many hours later," Alistair Jan Gunn, a professor of physiology and pediatrics at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, told LiveScience. "Of course, this is used routinely in modern cardiac bypass."
Decreasing a body's temperature can induce a state of suspended animation, where metabolism slows and the body needs less oxygen and energy to survive.
"There is some historical precedent for how this might work," said Dr. Neil Finer, chief of the University of California-San Diego's division of neonatology. "Many years ago some babies were put into ice water at birth to try to revive them. There were reports that this actually could be effective and that some children survived."
Induced hypothermia has even been studied as a treatment for various injuries, sometimes with astonishing results.
In some experiments, such as those conducted by Hasan Alam at Massachusetts General Hospital, animals such as pigs and dogs survived normally-fatal injuries and blood loss by being cooled to a state of hibernation while doctors repaired their injuries.
Cooling therapy has even shown promising results in infants with hypoxic–ischemic encephalopathy, or brain damage due to lack of oxygen, according to a 2005 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine .
Tech - The mera image
Aesop obviously knew dogs were not as smart as some people thought. In one of his fables, a dog with a bone in its mouth sees its reflection in a stream and immediately thinks it's another dog with another bone, which it also wants. So it starts to bark and, of course, famously comes to grief. On the other hand, a magpie, which is a bird with a pea-sized brain, would never do something as dumb as that. According to cognitive scientist Helmut Prior and his colleagues at the Institut fur Psychologie in Frankfurt, Germany, when this bird looks into a mirror it doesn't think there's another magpie somewhere in there but recognises the reflection as itself.
The researchers used an ingenious method to discover this mirror self-recognition capability, as it's called. They subjected magpies to a "mark test" where small coloured marks were made on the birds' necks in such a way that they could only be seen in a mirror. Then a mirror was put in front of them. When the magpies started engaging in activity that was directed towards the mark - for example pecking or scratching at it - the researchers were able to conclude that they recognised the image as themselves, and not another magpie.
Very few other animals - and definitely no non-mammals prior to the latest addition - can pull off this simple cosmetic stunt. Among them, predictably, are the great apes such as chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos and orang-utans, the Asian elephant and bottle-nosed dolphins. Even human beings before the age of 18 to 24 months, which coincides with the first signs of social behaviour, don't have the same level of self-awareness and usually ignore the blob staring back at them.
Scientists believe the ability to distinguish oneself as different from others evolves only in highly social animals where individuality is important. Like human beings and apes, dolphins are also communal by nature and seem to show empathy towards one another and altruistic behaviour. So are elephants. However, by this reasoning, termites, ants and bees should also have self-recognition, right? Yet they don't. That's because scientists also say that a big brain along with a developed neo-cortex area as found in mammals, is crucial to developing self-awareness.
But forget brain size; birds which have vastly different brain structures and last shared a common ancestor with mammals 300 million years ago, don't even have a neo-cortex to begin with. Its absence, therefore, not only indicates that higher cognitive skills like awareness can develop independently along separate evolutionary lines but that totally dissimilar structures can produce similar abilities. Might this extend to complex inanimate structures as well? Why not?
For instance, a new robot has been deve-loped at Meiji University in Japan that can, by using "artificial
consciousness", tell the difference between its own image in a mirror, and an identical robot mimicking it. Junichi Takeno who heads the research team says that the robot is able to recognise its reflection without confusing it with the image of another robot with the same physical aspect because the mirror image cognition system is based on a humanlike neural network.
At the same time, there's another artificial intelligence-related computer phenomenon that can't be overlooked as far as the future of self-recognition and awareness goes - the internet. For one thing, the net's enormous
interconnectivity is hugely more social and intimate unto itself than anything biology has produced so far. And its individual cells are made up of almost a billion high performance central processing units.
At some point soon - the absence of a siliconised neo-cortex notwithstanding - one of its zillions of webcams around the world should be able to look at itself in a mirror hanging on the opposite wall of a monitor and, just like a magpie, exclaim silently: "Hey that's me!"
The researchers used an ingenious method to discover this mirror self-recognition capability, as it's called. They subjected magpies to a "mark test" where small coloured marks were made on the birds' necks in such a way that they could only be seen in a mirror. Then a mirror was put in front of them. When the magpies started engaging in activity that was directed towards the mark - for example pecking or scratching at it - the researchers were able to conclude that they recognised the image as themselves, and not another magpie.
Very few other animals - and definitely no non-mammals prior to the latest addition - can pull off this simple cosmetic stunt. Among them, predictably, are the great apes such as chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos and orang-utans, the Asian elephant and bottle-nosed dolphins. Even human beings before the age of 18 to 24 months, which coincides with the first signs of social behaviour, don't have the same level of self-awareness and usually ignore the blob staring back at them.
Scientists believe the ability to distinguish oneself as different from others evolves only in highly social animals where individuality is important. Like human beings and apes, dolphins are also communal by nature and seem to show empathy towards one another and altruistic behaviour. So are elephants. However, by this reasoning, termites, ants and bees should also have self-recognition, right? Yet they don't. That's because scientists also say that a big brain along with a developed neo-cortex area as found in mammals, is crucial to developing self-awareness.
But forget brain size; birds which have vastly different brain structures and last shared a common ancestor with mammals 300 million years ago, don't even have a neo-cortex to begin with. Its absence, therefore, not only indicates that higher cognitive skills like awareness can develop independently along separate evolutionary lines but that totally dissimilar structures can produce similar abilities. Might this extend to complex inanimate structures as well? Why not?
For instance, a new robot has been deve-loped at Meiji University in Japan that can, by using "artificial
consciousness", tell the difference between its own image in a mirror, and an identical robot mimicking it. Junichi Takeno who heads the research team says that the robot is able to recognise its reflection without confusing it with the image of another robot with the same physical aspect because the mirror image cognition system is based on a humanlike neural network.
At the same time, there's another artificial intelligence-related computer phenomenon that can't be overlooked as far as the future of self-recognition and awareness goes - the internet. For one thing, the net's enormous
interconnectivity is hugely more social and intimate unto itself than anything biology has produced so far. And its individual cells are made up of almost a billion high performance central processing units.
At some point soon - the absence of a siliconised neo-cortex notwithstanding - one of its zillions of webcams around the world should be able to look at itself in a mirror hanging on the opposite wall of a monitor and, just like a magpie, exclaim silently: "Hey that's me!"
India - kerala's sex education plan lands in a soup
fresh controversy is brewing in Kerala as the state government gets set to introduce the Adolescent Education Programme in schools. Religious groups and opposition politicians are still not prepared to accept the programme's handbook despite a revision, alleging it will lead to "sexual anarchy".
"The curriculum committee has approved the revised version of the Unicef handbook prepared by an expert committee. The book will be released in a month," curriculum committee member AK Chandran told IANS.
The state government led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist appointed the committee following opposition from student organisations and minority religious organisations over the alleged "pornographic type" pictures and offensive language in the original version of the Unicef handbook published last year.
The committee, which included psychologists, gynaecologists and other child educational experts, prepared the book omitting "vulgar language" and retaining the essence of the original book, said Chandran, who is also a leader of the pro-CPI-M Kerala School Teachers Association (KSTA).
The project is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Unicef and the National AIDS Control Organisation.
But Inter Church Council spokesman Philip Nelpuraparambil said the church would not accept the handbook if it wasn't backed by moral teaching.
"Sex is a sacred thing. It is not simply biological. It is closely related to society, family and religion. So firstly morality should be taught. Otherwise it will create sexual anarchy in the state," he told IANS.
Strongly rejecting the Church's view, Chandran said: "The book has nothing to do with moral teaching. It is not a pornographic book. It teaches just science - the physical and mental changes taking place in teenagers."
The book would be used in Classes 9 to 12. Women teachers would teach girls and men teachers the boys, Chandran added.
The government would hold talks with representatives of school managements before introducing the book, he said.
PC Vishnunath, former president of the Congress- affiliated Kerala Students Union (KSU), said he had seen the revised version of the book and it was a repetition of the "old controversial book".
Vishnunath, who is also a member of the state legislature, said: "Teaching subjects including 'sexual intercourse' in class is very awkward for everyone."
While emphasising the need for introduction of adolescent education in schools and saying that adolescent education is not sex education, former education minister ET Mohammad Basheer accused the state government of creating "unnecessary controversy" in all matters related to education.
"Our education department is responsible for this mess," he said.
KK Rajesh, general secretary of the Students Federation of India (SFI), the students' wing of the CPI-M, said the Adolescent Education Programme should be immediately introduced in schools in the state.
"Some communal forces are trying to create hindrance in the path of Kerala's social and educational development," said Rajesh.
"The curriculum committee has approved the revised version of the Unicef handbook prepared by an expert committee. The book will be released in a month," curriculum committee member AK Chandran told IANS.
The state government led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist appointed the committee following opposition from student organisations and minority religious organisations over the alleged "pornographic type" pictures and offensive language in the original version of the Unicef handbook published last year.
The committee, which included psychologists, gynaecologists and other child educational experts, prepared the book omitting "vulgar language" and retaining the essence of the original book, said Chandran, who is also a leader of the pro-CPI-M Kerala School Teachers Association (KSTA).
The project is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Unicef and the National AIDS Control Organisation.
But Inter Church Council spokesman Philip Nelpuraparambil said the church would not accept the handbook if it wasn't backed by moral teaching.
"Sex is a sacred thing. It is not simply biological. It is closely related to society, family and religion. So firstly morality should be taught. Otherwise it will create sexual anarchy in the state," he told IANS.
Strongly rejecting the Church's view, Chandran said: "The book has nothing to do with moral teaching. It is not a pornographic book. It teaches just science - the physical and mental changes taking place in teenagers."
The book would be used in Classes 9 to 12. Women teachers would teach girls and men teachers the boys, Chandran added.
The government would hold talks with representatives of school managements before introducing the book, he said.
PC Vishnunath, former president of the Congress- affiliated Kerala Students Union (KSU), said he had seen the revised version of the book and it was a repetition of the "old controversial book".
Vishnunath, who is also a member of the state legislature, said: "Teaching subjects including 'sexual intercourse' in class is very awkward for everyone."
While emphasising the need for introduction of adolescent education in schools and saying that adolescent education is not sex education, former education minister ET Mohammad Basheer accused the state government of creating "unnecessary controversy" in all matters related to education.
"Our education department is responsible for this mess," he said.
KK Rajesh, general secretary of the Students Federation of India (SFI), the students' wing of the CPI-M, said the Adolescent Education Programme should be immediately introduced in schools in the state.
"Some communal forces are trying to create hindrance in the path of Kerala's social and educational development," said Rajesh.
Columnists - Rajdeep Sardesai
Journalism has a nose for nostalgia : 20 years ago, ahead of the Seoul Olympics, I was sent as a cub reporter to track down the family of K.D. Jadhav, independent India's first Olympic medallist. The story of a wrestler in the small town of Karad in Maharashtra had a familiar ring to it: neglect, deprivation and a sense of anger at being forgotten in a cricket-crazy country. Ahead of the Beijing Olympics, the Jadhavs once again experienced their ritualistic date with fame. Perhaps, it's the last time we'll tell their tale. In the aftermath of Beijing, the country has found new Olympian families to showcase: next time, it will be the Bindras of Chandigarh and the Kumars of Bhiwani who will be celebrated. While India's first medallist died battling for his policeman's pension, the new generation heroes are already on the crorepati list.
It has taken 56 long and frustrating years for bronze to turn into gold for India's Olympic athletes. In the meantime, China, which won its first Olympic gold as late as 1984, has become the number one Olympic country, the US remains a powerhouse of talent, and even tiny Jamaica has established an enviable reputation. If the Olympic medal tally was to rank countries in a ratio of population to medals won, we'd still probably be close to the bottom, our sole satisfaction emerging from the fact that our eternal rivals, the Pakistanis, have drawn a blank.
Jadhav won his medal in the same year (1952) that India had its first general election. His win at the time should have heralded the arrival of a young nation on the world stage. Instead, it became a footnote in the history books. This was a time of the grand Nehruvian dream: of Five Year Plans, scientific temper, non-alignment, big dams and heavy industries. In this vision of a new India, Olympic sports had little place. Hockey alone prospered because of the legacy that had been handed over by the colonialists: the clubs and army grounds remained the nurseries of the sport. The rest of Indian sport was literally consigned to endless debates about why we were an Olympic zero.
The Nehruvians saw sports as yet another large public sector undertaking, to be managed like a steel plant. The Soviet-style buildings that housed our sporting bodies typified a bureaucratic mindset: the malaise of sporting talent being controlled by mean-spirited officials has been with us from the very beginning. Ironically, the Soviets (and now the Chinese) were highly successful in developing Olympic sport through a ‘controlled’ system. The reason was simple: an autocratic model of managing sport can work in a totalitarian political system, not in a chaotic democracy like ours. The Chinese system can train six-year-old gymnasts to do 60 sit-ups: in India, child rights activists would have filed a petition complaining of child abuse
And yet, maybe for the first time in six decades of independence, there may be a twist in the Indian Olympic tale and Beijing 2008 could mark a defining moment. For the first time there is a genuine belief that India's next Olympic gold won’t take quite so long, and that by the year 2020, we might actually get enough medals for customs officials to take note. What has changed? On the surface, very little. Our officials still remain as lethargic and junket-obsessed as ever. We still hire sporting grounds for marriages. Our athletes still receive shamelessly meagre daily allowances. And we still can’t shake off the monopoly of cricket in our lives.
What we have shaken off though is the inferiority complex that was sustained by a litany of past failures. It’s not just Abhinav Bindra's Mr Cool act that symbolises a quiet confidence that was missing in previous Olympics. As a child of privilege, Bindra had the benefit of exceptional parental support from a very young age. In an expensive sport, his success was almost fashioned like a well-crafted business plan for which his family deserves enormous credit. But what is perhaps even more creditable is the remarkable performance of our boxers and wrestlers. It’s not just the medals they've won, it's the journey they've undertaken to get there that suggests we have finally crossed a psychological barrier to actually compete at the highest level.
From Bhiwani to Beijing is an arduous journey but one that the Kumars have shown the courage and passion to undertake. Mohammed Ali once famously said that to be a good boxer you needed strong fists, but an even stronger heart. To watch our boxers, whether they win or lose, look their opponents in the eye, must rank as one of the finer moments in Indian sport. Not to forget bronze medallist Sushil Kumar and tiny Saina Nehwal who showed enough talent in her first Olympic appearance to make us believe that she will win a medal in the future.
Undoubtedly, there are many more Sainas and Sushil Kumars waiting to be discovered. We are an aspirational society, one which is on the cusp of change. Sporting success is part of that process of change, of unleashing the dormant energies that were stifled by bureaucratic chains. We still don't have a sporting culture like the Americans or the Australians, but at least we've moved beyond the Hindu rate of growth. As the economy expands, sports will be a natural beneficiary since it offers increasing opportunities for upward mobility, a chance to move overnight from a tinshed to a bungalow. Moreover, in the age of 24 hour news television, new role models are being constantly thrown up, with every medal won spurring a wave of nationalistic pride.
What is needed then is to sustain the Beijing momentum with a single-minded commitment to harness talent across the country, not just in the big cities. Cricket 'democratised' itself , which is why we have achieved so much success at the game. Now, other sports too need to be 'liberated' from the mai-baap culture of the Nehruvian era. Here’s a thought: why don't each of the IPL team owners adopt one sport and make it part of their business plan? Bhiwani could do with a world class boxing gymnasium.
Rajdeep Sardesai is Editor-in-chief, IBN network
It has taken 56 long and frustrating years for bronze to turn into gold for India's Olympic athletes. In the meantime, China, which won its first Olympic gold as late as 1984, has become the number one Olympic country, the US remains a powerhouse of talent, and even tiny Jamaica has established an enviable reputation. If the Olympic medal tally was to rank countries in a ratio of population to medals won, we'd still probably be close to the bottom, our sole satisfaction emerging from the fact that our eternal rivals, the Pakistanis, have drawn a blank.
Jadhav won his medal in the same year (1952) that India had its first general election. His win at the time should have heralded the arrival of a young nation on the world stage. Instead, it became a footnote in the history books. This was a time of the grand Nehruvian dream: of Five Year Plans, scientific temper, non-alignment, big dams and heavy industries. In this vision of a new India, Olympic sports had little place. Hockey alone prospered because of the legacy that had been handed over by the colonialists: the clubs and army grounds remained the nurseries of the sport. The rest of Indian sport was literally consigned to endless debates about why we were an Olympic zero.
The Nehruvians saw sports as yet another large public sector undertaking, to be managed like a steel plant. The Soviet-style buildings that housed our sporting bodies typified a bureaucratic mindset: the malaise of sporting talent being controlled by mean-spirited officials has been with us from the very beginning. Ironically, the Soviets (and now the Chinese) were highly successful in developing Olympic sport through a ‘controlled’ system. The reason was simple: an autocratic model of managing sport can work in a totalitarian political system, not in a chaotic democracy like ours. The Chinese system can train six-year-old gymnasts to do 60 sit-ups: in India, child rights activists would have filed a petition complaining of child abuse
And yet, maybe for the first time in six decades of independence, there may be a twist in the Indian Olympic tale and Beijing 2008 could mark a defining moment. For the first time there is a genuine belief that India's next Olympic gold won’t take quite so long, and that by the year 2020, we might actually get enough medals for customs officials to take note. What has changed? On the surface, very little. Our officials still remain as lethargic and junket-obsessed as ever. We still hire sporting grounds for marriages. Our athletes still receive shamelessly meagre daily allowances. And we still can’t shake off the monopoly of cricket in our lives.
What we have shaken off though is the inferiority complex that was sustained by a litany of past failures. It’s not just Abhinav Bindra's Mr Cool act that symbolises a quiet confidence that was missing in previous Olympics. As a child of privilege, Bindra had the benefit of exceptional parental support from a very young age. In an expensive sport, his success was almost fashioned like a well-crafted business plan for which his family deserves enormous credit. But what is perhaps even more creditable is the remarkable performance of our boxers and wrestlers. It’s not just the medals they've won, it's the journey they've undertaken to get there that suggests we have finally crossed a psychological barrier to actually compete at the highest level.
From Bhiwani to Beijing is an arduous journey but one that the Kumars have shown the courage and passion to undertake. Mohammed Ali once famously said that to be a good boxer you needed strong fists, but an even stronger heart. To watch our boxers, whether they win or lose, look their opponents in the eye, must rank as one of the finer moments in Indian sport. Not to forget bronze medallist Sushil Kumar and tiny Saina Nehwal who showed enough talent in her first Olympic appearance to make us believe that she will win a medal in the future.
Undoubtedly, there are many more Sainas and Sushil Kumars waiting to be discovered. We are an aspirational society, one which is on the cusp of change. Sporting success is part of that process of change, of unleashing the dormant energies that were stifled by bureaucratic chains. We still don't have a sporting culture like the Americans or the Australians, but at least we've moved beyond the Hindu rate of growth. As the economy expands, sports will be a natural beneficiary since it offers increasing opportunities for upward mobility, a chance to move overnight from a tinshed to a bungalow. Moreover, in the age of 24 hour news television, new role models are being constantly thrown up, with every medal won spurring a wave of nationalistic pride.
What is needed then is to sustain the Beijing momentum with a single-minded commitment to harness talent across the country, not just in the big cities. Cricket 'democratised' itself , which is why we have achieved so much success at the game. Now, other sports too need to be 'liberated' from the mai-baap culture of the Nehruvian era. Here’s a thought: why don't each of the IPL team owners adopt one sport and make it part of their business plan? Bhiwani could do with a world class boxing gymnasium.
Rajdeep Sardesai is Editor-in-chief, IBN network
India - Dubious Distinction
The Union Government and United Nations Children Fund on Thursday agreed to bring Indian children out of the global hall of shame on social indicators through a five-year joint action plan. The plan aims at providing better basic facilities to children in the country’s poorest districts.
About one-fifth of the world’s children live in India. But their conditions are even worse than those in sub-Saharan Africa on many social development indicators, including nutrition and usage of sanitation.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had raised a similar concern during his Independence Day speech when he regarded child malnutrition as the biggest curse for the nation.
Karen Hulsh, Unicef’s country representative, said Indian children face a number of problems, especially those belonging to the disadvantaged groups like Scheduled Castes, tribals and minority communities. “Though India is investing more on social development, the disadvantaged are yet to reap the benefits,” she said.
Committing $700 million of Unicef’s help in the next five years, she said the UN body would look at providing technological support to the government to provide tangible solutions like centres for sick new-born babies. But the emphasis would be on fulfillment of child rights, which is crucial for India’s economic and social development, she added.
While outlining government programmes for welfare of children, Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury wanted that the government, civil society and private sector should come up with out-of-box ideas to improve social indicators for women and children.
She was of the view that lack of awareness is the biggest hurdle in implementing government programmes for welfare of the deprived.
The action plan aims to lower the infant mortality rate from 58 to 28 per 1,000 and maternal mortality rate from 31 to 100 per 100,000 within next five years. Special programmes for child development and nutrition would also be run, Hulsh said.
Dubious Distinction
21% (2m) of all child deaths under 5 years of age
23% (117,000) of maternal deaths in the world
1 in 5 kids dies of pneumonia, highest in the world
29% (240m) of population doesn’t use improved sanitation
4m children die within 28 days of being born; that’s 25% of total neo-natal deaths in the world
35% (55m) of world’s underweight children belong to India
43% (8.3m) of newborns with low weight from India
50% (410m) defecate in the open
About one-fifth of the world’s children live in India. But their conditions are even worse than those in sub-Saharan Africa on many social development indicators, including nutrition and usage of sanitation.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had raised a similar concern during his Independence Day speech when he regarded child malnutrition as the biggest curse for the nation.
Karen Hulsh, Unicef’s country representative, said Indian children face a number of problems, especially those belonging to the disadvantaged groups like Scheduled Castes, tribals and minority communities. “Though India is investing more on social development, the disadvantaged are yet to reap the benefits,” she said.
Committing $700 million of Unicef’s help in the next five years, she said the UN body would look at providing technological support to the government to provide tangible solutions like centres for sick new-born babies. But the emphasis would be on fulfillment of child rights, which is crucial for India’s economic and social development, she added.
While outlining government programmes for welfare of children, Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury wanted that the government, civil society and private sector should come up with out-of-box ideas to improve social indicators for women and children.
She was of the view that lack of awareness is the biggest hurdle in implementing government programmes for welfare of the deprived.
The action plan aims to lower the infant mortality rate from 58 to 28 per 1,000 and maternal mortality rate from 31 to 100 per 100,000 within next five years. Special programmes for child development and nutrition would also be run, Hulsh said.
Dubious Distinction
21% (2m) of all child deaths under 5 years of age
23% (117,000) of maternal deaths in the world
1 in 5 kids dies of pneumonia, highest in the world
29% (240m) of population doesn’t use improved sanitation
4m children die within 28 days of being born; that’s 25% of total neo-natal deaths in the world
35% (55m) of world’s underweight children belong to India
43% (8.3m) of newborns with low weight from India
50% (410m) defecate in the open
World - Special coin to commemorate Gandhi's struggle in S.Africa
DURBAN: A special coin commemorating Mahatma Gandhi's struggle in South Africa against racial discrimination in the early 1900s has been launched here.
Natal Minister of Finance KwaZulu and leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in the province Zweli Mkhize launched the coin last night marking the beginning of an Indian Experience Festival.
The event, which will continue till October five in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, is the brain-child of Indian Consul General in Durban Harsh Varshan Shringla.
In his address, Mkhize said that Mahatma had made an immense contribution to the liberation of the South Africa through his policy of Satyagraha.
"Mahatma Gandhi is not only the son of India but also a son of South Africa," he said.
"We in South Africa are grateful to have had a leader of the calibre of Gandhi who lived and struggled here. We have learnt a great deal from him and are privileged to have put into practice his methods of struggle against racial discrimination and oppression," Mkhize said.
The occasion was also characterised by ceremonial burning of passes to observe the 100th anniversary of the burning of registration certificates for Indians by 2,000 natives led by Gandhi in Johannesburg in August 1908.
The Art Gallery in the City Hall, where the Gandhi coin was launched, was adorned with his paintings by artists from India.
Ms Ela Gandhi, who is a former MP and grand-daughter of Gandhi also attended the function and made a video presentation of his life in South Africa.
Natal Minister of Finance KwaZulu and leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in the province Zweli Mkhize launched the coin last night marking the beginning of an Indian Experience Festival.
The event, which will continue till October five in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, is the brain-child of Indian Consul General in Durban Harsh Varshan Shringla.
In his address, Mkhize said that Mahatma had made an immense contribution to the liberation of the South Africa through his policy of Satyagraha.
"Mahatma Gandhi is not only the son of India but also a son of South Africa," he said.
"We in South Africa are grateful to have had a leader of the calibre of Gandhi who lived and struggled here. We have learnt a great deal from him and are privileged to have put into practice his methods of struggle against racial discrimination and oppression," Mkhize said.
The occasion was also characterised by ceremonial burning of passes to observe the 100th anniversary of the burning of registration certificates for Indians by 2,000 natives led by Gandhi in Johannesburg in August 1908.
The Art Gallery in the City Hall, where the Gandhi coin was launched, was adorned with his paintings by artists from India.
Ms Ela Gandhi, who is a former MP and grand-daughter of Gandhi also attended the function and made a video presentation of his life in South Africa.
Entertainment - I don't rule out forming a band;Farhan Akhtar
After playing a musician in Rock on, director-turned-actor Farhan Akhtar says that the film has changed his attitude towards rock music and he might form his own band.
Excerpts:
Your new long-haired rocker's look is rocking.
Thanks. But I don't have the same look throughout Rock On. There're two looks, actually defining the two phases in my character's life, one with long hair and the other short.
Today are you more enthusiastic about rock music than ever before?
Yes, thanks to my music composer Shankar I know I can sing. And I can write songs too. My entire take on rock music has been tweaked after this film. Music was something I had put aside to make movies. Somehow I earlier felt there was only so much creative energy allotted to your life and only that much time to pursue your creativity. But I was wrong. It's amazing how much the human mind and body can do and achieve. Now I want to pursue music keenly.
In what way?
I want to start writing songs and working with a couple of my musician-friends who are more talented than I am. Like Randold from Pentagram and many other musician friends.
Are you telling me you are planning to form your own music band?
I don't rule that out. If ever there was a desire in me to be part of a music band, it's now. I wouldn't like to ignore this desire in me now because two years from now I'll regret it.
Would you say at this point of time your impulse for music and cinema are equally strong?
Yes, I'd have to agree with that. For Rock On, we not only acted as rock musicians, we also went into the studio to record songs and jammed live to get the concert feel right. All of this opened that long-shut door within me. Now it feels like the right time to pursue my dreams as a musician.
You've a lot to be thankful to your Rock On director Abhishek (Gattu) Kapoor for.
Oh yes! He had no idea I could sing or even play the guitar when he offered me the role. He didn't have a clue I was so heavily into rock music. I don't know what led him to me apart from bad directions.
You do look like a rock musician.
Gattu did say that my voice whenever I spoke reminded him of the lead singer of a band called Coldplay. That was the kind of voice he said he was looking to play the lead in Rock On.
Would you allow your passion for music to override your other big talent?
No, I know making movies gives me the greatest satisfaction. But at the moment I'm enjoying music thoroughly. It's very important to enjoy whatever you do in life. I'm looking forward to directing Voice From The Sky and Don 2.
Nothing gives me more creative satisfaction than directing movies. But music is at the moment very important. If it wasn't for Rock On I wouldn't have gone into singing and performing live. Rock On is very special. It's very fortunate that I got this role.
You've no reference points as an actor.
There never will be any reference points. Every character will have to be played anew. But people whose judgement I trust have liked my performance in Rock On. Shabana (Azmi), for one. To have extremely talented people liking my performance reassures me. I feel I made the right decision by going into acting.
So right now, are you looking for reassurance?
I very rarely go out looking for anything. You can't expect anything from anyone. I don't ever want to put people in a spot by seeking their approval.
Excerpts:
Your new long-haired rocker's look is rocking.
Thanks. But I don't have the same look throughout Rock On. There're two looks, actually defining the two phases in my character's life, one with long hair and the other short.
Today are you more enthusiastic about rock music than ever before?
Yes, thanks to my music composer Shankar I know I can sing. And I can write songs too. My entire take on rock music has been tweaked after this film. Music was something I had put aside to make movies. Somehow I earlier felt there was only so much creative energy allotted to your life and only that much time to pursue your creativity. But I was wrong. It's amazing how much the human mind and body can do and achieve. Now I want to pursue music keenly.
In what way?
I want to start writing songs and working with a couple of my musician-friends who are more talented than I am. Like Randold from Pentagram and many other musician friends.
Are you telling me you are planning to form your own music band?
I don't rule that out. If ever there was a desire in me to be part of a music band, it's now. I wouldn't like to ignore this desire in me now because two years from now I'll regret it.
Would you say at this point of time your impulse for music and cinema are equally strong?
Yes, I'd have to agree with that. For Rock On, we not only acted as rock musicians, we also went into the studio to record songs and jammed live to get the concert feel right. All of this opened that long-shut door within me. Now it feels like the right time to pursue my dreams as a musician.
You've a lot to be thankful to your Rock On director Abhishek (Gattu) Kapoor for.
Oh yes! He had no idea I could sing or even play the guitar when he offered me the role. He didn't have a clue I was so heavily into rock music. I don't know what led him to me apart from bad directions.
You do look like a rock musician.
Gattu did say that my voice whenever I spoke reminded him of the lead singer of a band called Coldplay. That was the kind of voice he said he was looking to play the lead in Rock On.
Would you allow your passion for music to override your other big talent?
No, I know making movies gives me the greatest satisfaction. But at the moment I'm enjoying music thoroughly. It's very important to enjoy whatever you do in life. I'm looking forward to directing Voice From The Sky and Don 2.
Nothing gives me more creative satisfaction than directing movies. But music is at the moment very important. If it wasn't for Rock On I wouldn't have gone into singing and performing live. Rock On is very special. It's very fortunate that I got this role.
You've no reference points as an actor.
There never will be any reference points. Every character will have to be played anew. But people whose judgement I trust have liked my performance in Rock On. Shabana (Azmi), for one. To have extremely talented people liking my performance reassures me. I feel I made the right decision by going into acting.
So right now, are you looking for reassurance?
I very rarely go out looking for anything. You can't expect anything from anyone. I don't ever want to put people in a spot by seeking their approval.
World - What bush got right ( V.G.Read)
Compared with the flutters and flurries of the near-daily polls in the presidential race, one set of numbers has stayed fixed for months, even years. President George W. Bush now enters his 23rd consecutive month with an approval rating under 40 percent. (It currently stands at 32 percent.) No matter what he does, or what happens in the world, the public seems to have decided that Bush has been a failure. As a result, both candidates are promising a change from the Bush presidency. Barack Obama, of course, promises a wholly different approach to the world. But even Bush's fellow Republican, John McCain, has on several issues suggested that he would depart from the administration's policies. McCain was last seen with the president at a fund-raiser more than two months ago at which no reporters or photographers were allowed.
A broad shift in America's approach to the world is justified and overdue. Bush's basic conception of a "global War on Terror," to take but the most obvious example, has been poorly thought-through, badly implemented, and has produced many unintended costs that will linger for years if not decades. But blanket criticism of Bush misses an important reality. The administration that became the target of so much passion and anger—from Democrats, Republicans, independents, foreigners, Martians, everyone—is not quite the one in place today. The foreign policies that aroused the greatest anger and opposition were mostly pursued in Bush's first term: the invasion of Iraq, the rejection of treaties, diplomacy and multilateralism. In the past few years, many of these policies have been modified, abandoned or reversed. This has happened without acknowledgment—which is partly what drives critics crazy—and it's often been done surreptitiously. It doesn't reflect a change of heart so much as an admission of failure; the old way simply wasn't working. But for whatever reasons and through whichever path, the foreign policies in place now are more sensible, moderate and mainstream. In many cases the next president should follow rather than reverse them.
Consider as a symbol of this shift Bush's appointment of the World Bank's president. His first choice for the job was Paul Wolfowitz, an arch neoconservative with little background in economics. But by the time Wolfowitz was forced to resign and the post opened up again, Bush realized that he needed a less ideological choice, and he picked the highly qualified and respected Robert Zoellick. Where Dick Cheney was once the poster child for the administration, today policy is being run by Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates, Stephen Hadley and Hank Paulson—all pragmatists. Change has not extended to all areas, and in many places it's been too little, too late. But that there has been a shift to the center in many crucial areas of foreign policy is simply undeniable.
The most obvious case is Iraq. For many people—a clear majority of those polled—the decision to go to war is now seen as a mistake. But wherever one stands on that issue, it is overwhelmingly clear that the administration made a series of massive blunders in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. It went in with too few troops, dismantled Iraq's Army, bureaucracy and state-owned factories, arrested tens of thousands of Iraqis, mistreated and tortured some of them, and used overwhelming military force against all perceived threats. The outcome? Chaos; an angry, dispossessed and armed Sunni community; a sullen and restless Shiite population; an insurgency; a jihadist terrorist movement, and spreading sectarian violence. In addition, foreign forces were destabilizing the country because both the invasion and the occupation were undertaken without first gaining support from neighboring Arab states or winning international legitimacy. The result was a perfect storm in international affairs, a failure that kept getting worse.
For years, even after it was apparent to almost everyone that the Iraq strategy was not working, the administration stuck to its guns. But by 2005, the failure was simply too large to ignore, so some efforts to repair the situation were made—mostly tactical and incremental moves, like searching for a better Shiite leader and trying to slow down the process of de-Baathification. Some U.S. officials in Iraq freelanced—for example, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad began the outreach to Sunni leaders and militants in 2006, even while his bosses in Washington were steadfastly condemning them as terrorists. American generals in Iraq were also learning from their own failures and advocating changes in tactics. (One of them was to support efforts by tribal sheiks in Anbar to take on their Qaeda rivals, which is why the Sunni Awakening actually preceded the surge.) By 2006, Bush told The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes that he was searching for new approaches. But it was only after the 2006 midterm-election debacle that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was fired and a new politico-military strategy was put in place with a commander who understood the need for sweeping change.
It took a long time, but the turnaround in our policy in Iraq has been significant. The United States has made broad overtures to the Sunni community, and now actively supports Sunni fighters it had once jailed. We've concentrated on stabilizing Shiite neighborhoods, helping to free them from dependence on militias. We have abandoned dreams of a pure, free market, instead trying to jump-start Iraq's state-owned enterprises in order to create jobs. And we've even been pursuing a more regional approach, trying to get neighboring countries to open embassies in Baghdad and commit to help stabilize Iraq. None of this has changed some of the basic gruesome realities of Iraq—a country from which 2.5 million people have fled (mostly the professional class), thugs and militias rule in too many places, dysfunction and corruption are utterly endemic, and religious theocrats still wield immense power. But given where things were in 2005, the administration has moved firmly in the right direction.
On Afghanistan, there is a more compelling case to be made that the administration mishandled the most important front in the War on Terror. The central critique that Barack Obama makes—that American attention, energy, troops and resources were wrongly diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq—is devastating and hard to dispute. But it's a criticism of Bush policy in 2003. The policy that the administration is currently pursuing is less vulnerable to easy attacks.
Like Obama, Defense Secretary Gates has talked about sending more troops to the region. But the problem is bigger than a lack of American soldiers. European countries haven't contributed enough troops to the effort, and have put absurd restrictions on the forces they do have in theater. Afghanistan itself is extremely complex. The country contains vast swaths of mountainous territory that have never been ruled effectively by the central government, where levels of illiteracy and unemployment are stunningly high, and where Pashtun nationalism has got mixed up with Islamic extremism. Many serious scholars and local politicians argue that more troops would not solve the problem—particularly since the Taliban's back bases are located across the border in Pakistan. And the administration has ramped up spending in the region considerably. Whereas in 2003 it spent $737 million on reconstruction and equipping the Afghan Army, by 2007 it was spending $10 billion.
On North Korea, the administration's reversal has been near total. Within months of entering the Oval Office, Bush publicly repudiated his secretary of State, Colin Powell, for even suggesting that the administration would continue Bill Clinton's efforts to negotiate with Kim Jong Il. But since July 2005, Bush has pursued a very similar approach, in fact an even more multilateral one than Clinton's—four additional parties are now at the table. Bringing in the Chinese has been crucial because they are the only ones who have any real leverage with Pyongyang. Bush began by describing North Korea as part of the Axis of Evil. Today he is considering taking the country off the terror list and has offered economic aid to its regime.
On Iran, the third charter member of the Axis of Evil, the administration has performed a similar about-face. Forget the muttering of various proponents of military action, periodically leaked to newspapers. The efforts of the administration have been diplomatic and multilateral. Its point-person for most of the second term was Nicholas Burns, a veteran diplomat who is viewed with great suspicion by neoconservatives. Last month one of the State Department's senior most officials, William Burns (no relation), joined the Europeans at the table with Iranian negotiators, the first physical American involvement in these talks. One could argue—I would—that the administration's diplomacy is half-hearted and lacks ambition. An offer of direct engagement and negotiations would be a bolder step. But that's not a silver bullet. Such an offer could well prove fruitless. The principal obstacles to a negotiated settlement are Iranian intentions, suspicions and dysfunctions. The general thrust of Bush administration policies has now evolved into the correct one.
The same could be said for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Bush began his term in office vowing that he would not involve himself in Clinton-style efforts at peacemaking. His administration adopted a hands-off approach, allowing resentments to build and conditions to worsen. It gave free rein to irresponsible policies from all parties, encouraging, for example, a thoughtless and ill-planned Israeli attack on Lebanon that ended up weakening Israel, devastating Lebanon and empowering Hizbullah. This year Bush has plunged into the process, holding an international conference in Annapolis at which, for the first time, both Israel and the Palestinians accepted that the purpose of the exercise was to create a Palestinian state. Since that meeting, Rice has made a half dozen visits to the region. All this hasn't produced much yet, may be seven years too late, and perhaps is not the right approach (what is?). But few would argue that U.S. policy is currently on the wrong track.
The ones who would are revealing. Disgruntled conservative hard-liners have been dismayed by the administration's policy in many areas, particularly North Korea, Iran and Israel. John Bolton, formerly Bush's U.N. ambassador and a superhawk, publicly makes the case for betrayal. When Burns joined the talks with Iran, Bolton fumed sarcastically on television that the State Department was obviously "doing its best to ensure a smooth transition to the Obama administration." (Obama has long advocated American negotiations with Tehran.) He described Bush's handling of North Korea as a capitulation, comparing him to Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. John Bolton is absolutely right that Bush has changed course fundamentally in many of these areas. Of course, I would celebrate that fact rather than condemn it.
Other reversals have drawn less opposition. In its early years the Bush administration seemed intent on confirming the conservative stereotype of being utterly uninterested in assistance to poor countries, especially if the money was going to treat AIDS patients. In each of its first two years it spent less than $1 billion on global HIV projects. This year the United States will spend almost $6 billion, most of it in Africa. The president's signature program, PEPFAR, has been a bipartisan success story (although the requirement that some of the money be spent on abstinence programs dilutes the program's effectiveness). Bush's overall efforts on disease prevention and aid have won him praise from an unusual assortment of figures—Bono, Bob Geld of and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who wrote that "George Bush has done much more for Africa than Bill Clinton ever did."
Politically the picture in Africa is more mixed. Bush put time, a presidential envoy and considerable effort behind the negotiations to broker a peace between north and south in Sudan, and he's made some similar attempts in Darfur. (These haven't yielded much, though mostly for reasons that cannot be blamed on the administration.) More generally, however, the administration has been far too focused on the threat of terrorism, providing aid and military assistance to any and every regime—from Ethiopia to Equatorial Guinea—that claimed to be battling Al Qaeda. In a sad replay of the cold war, the United States has allied itself with unscrupulous dictators for no particular gain, only because they have learned to mouth the language of the global War on Terror.
An obsession with terrorism has also made the administration devote too little time and energy to the defining feature of the new world order —"the rise of the rest," by which I mean the growth in economic and political power of countries like China, India, Russia, Brazil and a series of regionally prominent nations like South Africa, Nigeria, Mexico and Kazakhstan. In some cases its policy positions are divided and incoherent, as in the case of Russia. But in several crucial instances, they've pursued extremely sensible strategies.
The most important one, without question, is China. The bilateral relationship between China and America will be the most significant one in the 21st century. Bush began his term poorly on the subject. During the campaign, when asked by Larry King for the single most important area where he would depart from Clinton foreign policy, he cited China. "The current president has called the relationship with China a strategic partnership," Bush said. "I believe our relationship needs to be redefined as one as competitor." The initial months of the administration suggested that Bush would adopt a confrontational approach to Beijing, just as many neoconservatives and Pentagon strategists hoped.
Then in April 2001, four months into Bush's presidency, a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft collided with a Chinese fighter plane about 70 miles from the Chinese island of Hainan, and was forced to make an emergency landing. The Chinese claimed that the American plane had entered and violated Chinese airspace; Washington argued that it was in international airspace. In order to recover the aircraft and crew, Washington had to negotiate with Beijing and—despite much conservative grumbling—Bush agreed to send the Chinese a "letter of two sorries," in which the United States offered some carefully worded expressions of regret about the incident and death of the Chinese pilot.
Since then the administration's China policy has moved toward recognizing the centrality of the relationship. If China can be brought into the existing world order—in some fashion and to some extent—that will greatly improve the prospects for future peace and stability. Bush, despite his grand rhetoric about spreading democracy around the world, has been practical in his relations with the Chinese regime. On the most important issue to Beijing—that of Taiwan—Bush not only sided with the Chinese but has done so in a more direct manner than any previous president. He made clear to the then Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian that were Taiwan to make any moves toward independence, the island would lose the support of the United States. More recently, unlike some heads of government in Europe, Bush chose to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, a move that will earn the United States much good will not just with the Chinese government but also with its people.
Of course, the administration recognizes that the rise of China upsets the strategic balance in Asia. That's led Washington to deepen the strategic relationship with Japan and to develop a new one with India. In the latter case, Bush deserves credit for having transformed the relationship. While Indo-U.S. ties were warm under Bill Clinton, they were always limited by the controversy over India's nuclear program. The Clintonites refused to legitimize India's nuclear program, but for Indians their nukes were absolutely vital. Bush broke the deadlock by accepting, in large measure, that India would have to be treated as an exception and be brought into the nuclear nonproliferation regime as a nuclear power, not a renegade. Now India and America are developing a strategic relationship at many levels of government, which will stand both countries in good stead no matter what the future balance of power in Asia looks like.
If the United States hasn't engaged with this emerging world actively enough, other countries have done even less. In an essay in Foreign Affairs, political scientist Daniel Drezner points out that the administration has sought to give China, India and Brazil more weight in international institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the G8 and other such bodies. Timothy Adams, the undersecretary of Treasury, told The New York Times in August 2006 that "by re-engineering the IMF and giving China a bigger voice, China will have a greater sense of responsibility for the institution's mission."
The fiercest resistance to such reforms comes from Europe. If power in international organizations is going to be allocated on the basis of the current configuration of power, European nations, which are shrinking as a percentage of global GDP, will lose influence. If the U.N. Security Council were to be set up today, would 40 percent of the vetoes be given to European powers?
All this is not meant as a defense of George W. Bush. The administration made monumental errors in its first few years, ones that have cost the United States enormously. The shift in impressions about America's intentions across important sections of the globe, the sense in much of the Islamic world that America is anti-Muslim, the vast and counterproductive apparatus of homeland security—visa restrictions, arrests and interrogations—are lasting legacies of the Bush administration. Its dysfunction and incompetence have left a trail of misery in countries like Iraq and Lebanon, which have been destabilized for decades. The embrace of torture and other extralegal methods has violated America's noblest traditions and provided little in return.
And then there is the administration's record outside of foreign policy. Bush 43 has surely been the most fiscally irresponsible president in American history, taking surpluses that equaled 2.5 percent of GDP and turning them into deficits that are 3 percent. This is a $4 trillion hit on the country's balance sheet. On the central issue of energy policy—the greatest economic challenge and opportunity of our times—Bush has been utterly obstructionist, recycling the self-serving arguments of industry lobbyists. On the whole, Bush's record remains one of failure and missed opportunities.
So why offer this corrective? Because we cannot go back to 2001. The next president will inherit the world as it is in 2009. He will have to examine the Bush administration's policies as they stand in January 2009—not as they were in 2001 or 2002 or 2003—and decide how to accept, modify and alter them. There was a U.S. president who came into office convinced that everything his predecessor had done was feckless, stupid, ill-informed and venal. He rejected and tried to reverse everything that he could, almost as an article of faith. Before he had even examined the policies carefully, he knew that they had to be changed. The base of his party was delighted by his clarity and fighting spirit.
That president, of course, was George W. Bush. His decision to blindly repudiate anything associated with Bill Clinton is what got us into this mess in the first place. Let's hope that the next president, no matter how much he despises Bush, will take a careful look at his administration's policies, America's interests, and the world beyond and do the right thing for the country and its future.
A broad shift in America's approach to the world is justified and overdue. Bush's basic conception of a "global War on Terror," to take but the most obvious example, has been poorly thought-through, badly implemented, and has produced many unintended costs that will linger for years if not decades. But blanket criticism of Bush misses an important reality. The administration that became the target of so much passion and anger—from Democrats, Republicans, independents, foreigners, Martians, everyone—is not quite the one in place today. The foreign policies that aroused the greatest anger and opposition were mostly pursued in Bush's first term: the invasion of Iraq, the rejection of treaties, diplomacy and multilateralism. In the past few years, many of these policies have been modified, abandoned or reversed. This has happened without acknowledgment—which is partly what drives critics crazy—and it's often been done surreptitiously. It doesn't reflect a change of heart so much as an admission of failure; the old way simply wasn't working. But for whatever reasons and through whichever path, the foreign policies in place now are more sensible, moderate and mainstream. In many cases the next president should follow rather than reverse them.
Consider as a symbol of this shift Bush's appointment of the World Bank's president. His first choice for the job was Paul Wolfowitz, an arch neoconservative with little background in economics. But by the time Wolfowitz was forced to resign and the post opened up again, Bush realized that he needed a less ideological choice, and he picked the highly qualified and respected Robert Zoellick. Where Dick Cheney was once the poster child for the administration, today policy is being run by Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates, Stephen Hadley and Hank Paulson—all pragmatists. Change has not extended to all areas, and in many places it's been too little, too late. But that there has been a shift to the center in many crucial areas of foreign policy is simply undeniable.
The most obvious case is Iraq. For many people—a clear majority of those polled—the decision to go to war is now seen as a mistake. But wherever one stands on that issue, it is overwhelmingly clear that the administration made a series of massive blunders in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. It went in with too few troops, dismantled Iraq's Army, bureaucracy and state-owned factories, arrested tens of thousands of Iraqis, mistreated and tortured some of them, and used overwhelming military force against all perceived threats. The outcome? Chaos; an angry, dispossessed and armed Sunni community; a sullen and restless Shiite population; an insurgency; a jihadist terrorist movement, and spreading sectarian violence. In addition, foreign forces were destabilizing the country because both the invasion and the occupation were undertaken without first gaining support from neighboring Arab states or winning international legitimacy. The result was a perfect storm in international affairs, a failure that kept getting worse.
For years, even after it was apparent to almost everyone that the Iraq strategy was not working, the administration stuck to its guns. But by 2005, the failure was simply too large to ignore, so some efforts to repair the situation were made—mostly tactical and incremental moves, like searching for a better Shiite leader and trying to slow down the process of de-Baathification. Some U.S. officials in Iraq freelanced—for example, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad began the outreach to Sunni leaders and militants in 2006, even while his bosses in Washington were steadfastly condemning them as terrorists. American generals in Iraq were also learning from their own failures and advocating changes in tactics. (One of them was to support efforts by tribal sheiks in Anbar to take on their Qaeda rivals, which is why the Sunni Awakening actually preceded the surge.) By 2006, Bush told The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes that he was searching for new approaches. But it was only after the 2006 midterm-election debacle that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was fired and a new politico-military strategy was put in place with a commander who understood the need for sweeping change.
It took a long time, but the turnaround in our policy in Iraq has been significant. The United States has made broad overtures to the Sunni community, and now actively supports Sunni fighters it had once jailed. We've concentrated on stabilizing Shiite neighborhoods, helping to free them from dependence on militias. We have abandoned dreams of a pure, free market, instead trying to jump-start Iraq's state-owned enterprises in order to create jobs. And we've even been pursuing a more regional approach, trying to get neighboring countries to open embassies in Baghdad and commit to help stabilize Iraq. None of this has changed some of the basic gruesome realities of Iraq—a country from which 2.5 million people have fled (mostly the professional class), thugs and militias rule in too many places, dysfunction and corruption are utterly endemic, and religious theocrats still wield immense power. But given where things were in 2005, the administration has moved firmly in the right direction.
On Afghanistan, there is a more compelling case to be made that the administration mishandled the most important front in the War on Terror. The central critique that Barack Obama makes—that American attention, energy, troops and resources were wrongly diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq—is devastating and hard to dispute. But it's a criticism of Bush policy in 2003. The policy that the administration is currently pursuing is less vulnerable to easy attacks.
Like Obama, Defense Secretary Gates has talked about sending more troops to the region. But the problem is bigger than a lack of American soldiers. European countries haven't contributed enough troops to the effort, and have put absurd restrictions on the forces they do have in theater. Afghanistan itself is extremely complex. The country contains vast swaths of mountainous territory that have never been ruled effectively by the central government, where levels of illiteracy and unemployment are stunningly high, and where Pashtun nationalism has got mixed up with Islamic extremism. Many serious scholars and local politicians argue that more troops would not solve the problem—particularly since the Taliban's back bases are located across the border in Pakistan. And the administration has ramped up spending in the region considerably. Whereas in 2003 it spent $737 million on reconstruction and equipping the Afghan Army, by 2007 it was spending $10 billion.
On North Korea, the administration's reversal has been near total. Within months of entering the Oval Office, Bush publicly repudiated his secretary of State, Colin Powell, for even suggesting that the administration would continue Bill Clinton's efforts to negotiate with Kim Jong Il. But since July 2005, Bush has pursued a very similar approach, in fact an even more multilateral one than Clinton's—four additional parties are now at the table. Bringing in the Chinese has been crucial because they are the only ones who have any real leverage with Pyongyang. Bush began by describing North Korea as part of the Axis of Evil. Today he is considering taking the country off the terror list and has offered economic aid to its regime.
On Iran, the third charter member of the Axis of Evil, the administration has performed a similar about-face. Forget the muttering of various proponents of military action, periodically leaked to newspapers. The efforts of the administration have been diplomatic and multilateral. Its point-person for most of the second term was Nicholas Burns, a veteran diplomat who is viewed with great suspicion by neoconservatives. Last month one of the State Department's senior most officials, William Burns (no relation), joined the Europeans at the table with Iranian negotiators, the first physical American involvement in these talks. One could argue—I would—that the administration's diplomacy is half-hearted and lacks ambition. An offer of direct engagement and negotiations would be a bolder step. But that's not a silver bullet. Such an offer could well prove fruitless. The principal obstacles to a negotiated settlement are Iranian intentions, suspicions and dysfunctions. The general thrust of Bush administration policies has now evolved into the correct one.
The same could be said for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Bush began his term in office vowing that he would not involve himself in Clinton-style efforts at peacemaking. His administration adopted a hands-off approach, allowing resentments to build and conditions to worsen. It gave free rein to irresponsible policies from all parties, encouraging, for example, a thoughtless and ill-planned Israeli attack on Lebanon that ended up weakening Israel, devastating Lebanon and empowering Hizbullah. This year Bush has plunged into the process, holding an international conference in Annapolis at which, for the first time, both Israel and the Palestinians accepted that the purpose of the exercise was to create a Palestinian state. Since that meeting, Rice has made a half dozen visits to the region. All this hasn't produced much yet, may be seven years too late, and perhaps is not the right approach (what is?). But few would argue that U.S. policy is currently on the wrong track.
The ones who would are revealing. Disgruntled conservative hard-liners have been dismayed by the administration's policy in many areas, particularly North Korea, Iran and Israel. John Bolton, formerly Bush's U.N. ambassador and a superhawk, publicly makes the case for betrayal. When Burns joined the talks with Iran, Bolton fumed sarcastically on television that the State Department was obviously "doing its best to ensure a smooth transition to the Obama administration." (Obama has long advocated American negotiations with Tehran.) He described Bush's handling of North Korea as a capitulation, comparing him to Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. John Bolton is absolutely right that Bush has changed course fundamentally in many of these areas. Of course, I would celebrate that fact rather than condemn it.
Other reversals have drawn less opposition. In its early years the Bush administration seemed intent on confirming the conservative stereotype of being utterly uninterested in assistance to poor countries, especially if the money was going to treat AIDS patients. In each of its first two years it spent less than $1 billion on global HIV projects. This year the United States will spend almost $6 billion, most of it in Africa. The president's signature program, PEPFAR, has been a bipartisan success story (although the requirement that some of the money be spent on abstinence programs dilutes the program's effectiveness). Bush's overall efforts on disease prevention and aid have won him praise from an unusual assortment of figures—Bono, Bob Geld of and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who wrote that "George Bush has done much more for Africa than Bill Clinton ever did."
Politically the picture in Africa is more mixed. Bush put time, a presidential envoy and considerable effort behind the negotiations to broker a peace between north and south in Sudan, and he's made some similar attempts in Darfur. (These haven't yielded much, though mostly for reasons that cannot be blamed on the administration.) More generally, however, the administration has been far too focused on the threat of terrorism, providing aid and military assistance to any and every regime—from Ethiopia to Equatorial Guinea—that claimed to be battling Al Qaeda. In a sad replay of the cold war, the United States has allied itself with unscrupulous dictators for no particular gain, only because they have learned to mouth the language of the global War on Terror.
An obsession with terrorism has also made the administration devote too little time and energy to the defining feature of the new world order —"the rise of the rest," by which I mean the growth in economic and political power of countries like China, India, Russia, Brazil and a series of regionally prominent nations like South Africa, Nigeria, Mexico and Kazakhstan. In some cases its policy positions are divided and incoherent, as in the case of Russia. But in several crucial instances, they've pursued extremely sensible strategies.
The most important one, without question, is China. The bilateral relationship between China and America will be the most significant one in the 21st century. Bush began his term poorly on the subject. During the campaign, when asked by Larry King for the single most important area where he would depart from Clinton foreign policy, he cited China. "The current president has called the relationship with China a strategic partnership," Bush said. "I believe our relationship needs to be redefined as one as competitor." The initial months of the administration suggested that Bush would adopt a confrontational approach to Beijing, just as many neoconservatives and Pentagon strategists hoped.
Then in April 2001, four months into Bush's presidency, a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft collided with a Chinese fighter plane about 70 miles from the Chinese island of Hainan, and was forced to make an emergency landing. The Chinese claimed that the American plane had entered and violated Chinese airspace; Washington argued that it was in international airspace. In order to recover the aircraft and crew, Washington had to negotiate with Beijing and—despite much conservative grumbling—Bush agreed to send the Chinese a "letter of two sorries," in which the United States offered some carefully worded expressions of regret about the incident and death of the Chinese pilot.
Since then the administration's China policy has moved toward recognizing the centrality of the relationship. If China can be brought into the existing world order—in some fashion and to some extent—that will greatly improve the prospects for future peace and stability. Bush, despite his grand rhetoric about spreading democracy around the world, has been practical in his relations with the Chinese regime. On the most important issue to Beijing—that of Taiwan—Bush not only sided with the Chinese but has done so in a more direct manner than any previous president. He made clear to the then Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian that were Taiwan to make any moves toward independence, the island would lose the support of the United States. More recently, unlike some heads of government in Europe, Bush chose to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, a move that will earn the United States much good will not just with the Chinese government but also with its people.
Of course, the administration recognizes that the rise of China upsets the strategic balance in Asia. That's led Washington to deepen the strategic relationship with Japan and to develop a new one with India. In the latter case, Bush deserves credit for having transformed the relationship. While Indo-U.S. ties were warm under Bill Clinton, they were always limited by the controversy over India's nuclear program. The Clintonites refused to legitimize India's nuclear program, but for Indians their nukes were absolutely vital. Bush broke the deadlock by accepting, in large measure, that India would have to be treated as an exception and be brought into the nuclear nonproliferation regime as a nuclear power, not a renegade. Now India and America are developing a strategic relationship at many levels of government, which will stand both countries in good stead no matter what the future balance of power in Asia looks like.
If the United States hasn't engaged with this emerging world actively enough, other countries have done even less. In an essay in Foreign Affairs, political scientist Daniel Drezner points out that the administration has sought to give China, India and Brazil more weight in international institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the G8 and other such bodies. Timothy Adams, the undersecretary of Treasury, told The New York Times in August 2006 that "by re-engineering the IMF and giving China a bigger voice, China will have a greater sense of responsibility for the institution's mission."
The fiercest resistance to such reforms comes from Europe. If power in international organizations is going to be allocated on the basis of the current configuration of power, European nations, which are shrinking as a percentage of global GDP, will lose influence. If the U.N. Security Council were to be set up today, would 40 percent of the vetoes be given to European powers?
All this is not meant as a defense of George W. Bush. The administration made monumental errors in its first few years, ones that have cost the United States enormously. The shift in impressions about America's intentions across important sections of the globe, the sense in much of the Islamic world that America is anti-Muslim, the vast and counterproductive apparatus of homeland security—visa restrictions, arrests and interrogations—are lasting legacies of the Bush administration. Its dysfunction and incompetence have left a trail of misery in countries like Iraq and Lebanon, which have been destabilized for decades. The embrace of torture and other extralegal methods has violated America's noblest traditions and provided little in return.
And then there is the administration's record outside of foreign policy. Bush 43 has surely been the most fiscally irresponsible president in American history, taking surpluses that equaled 2.5 percent of GDP and turning them into deficits that are 3 percent. This is a $4 trillion hit on the country's balance sheet. On the central issue of energy policy—the greatest economic challenge and opportunity of our times—Bush has been utterly obstructionist, recycling the self-serving arguments of industry lobbyists. On the whole, Bush's record remains one of failure and missed opportunities.
So why offer this corrective? Because we cannot go back to 2001. The next president will inherit the world as it is in 2009. He will have to examine the Bush administration's policies as they stand in January 2009—not as they were in 2001 or 2002 or 2003—and decide how to accept, modify and alter them. There was a U.S. president who came into office convinced that everything his predecessor had done was feckless, stupid, ill-informed and venal. He rejected and tried to reverse everything that he could, almost as an article of faith. Before he had even examined the policies carefully, he knew that they had to be changed. The base of his party was delighted by his clarity and fighting spirit.
That president, of course, was George W. Bush. His decision to blindly repudiate anything associated with Bill Clinton is what got us into this mess in the first place. Let's hope that the next president, no matter how much he despises Bush, will take a careful look at his administration's policies, America's interests, and the world beyond and do the right thing for the country and its future.
India - Chennai's founding,369 years ago today
CHENNAI: This is the story of the beginning of Chennai, the founding of a city. On this day, August 22, in 1639, British Administrator Francis Day is reported to have received the grant for privileges in Medraspatam, as it was referred to then. It was officially ‘granted’ that day, and the rest, too, is history.
According to Vestiges of Old Madras by Henry Davison Love, the Naik’s grant, probably drafted by Day, was delivered with a letter signed by Day. Three copies are extant, but only one bears a date, 22nd July 1639, where July is probably a slip for August, since Day did not reach Madras until July 27, Love noted. The original document relating to the grant of the Fort St. George site to the British East India Company is said to have been signed at Chandragiri Fort in what is now in Andhra Pradesh.
The original text of the grant read thus:
‘The firman granted Mr. Day for privileges in Medrasspatam by the Nague Damela Vintutedra.
(O.C. No. 1690, 22nd July
{ ?Aug }, 1639 )
‘Firman granted by Damela Vintatedro Nague unto Mr. francis Day, Cheife for the English In Armagon, in behalfe of the Honble company for their tradeing and fortifieing at Medraspatam, to this effect as followeth:-
‘Whereas Mr. Francis Day, Captain of the English at Armagon, upon great hopes by reason of our promises offten made unto him, hath repaired to our port of Medraspatam and had personall Conference with us on behalfe of the Company of that Nation, Concerning their trading in our territories and friendly comerce with our subjects ; wee out of our spetiall Love and favour to the English, doe grant unto the said Captain, or whomsoever shall bee deputed to Idgitate the affaires of that company, by vertue of this firman , Power to direct and order the building of a fort and Castle in or about Medraspatam, as they shall thinke most Convenient , the Charges whereof, until fully and wholly finished to bee defrayed by us, but then to bee repaied when the said English shall first make their enterance to take possession thereof. And to make more full Expression of our effection to the English Nation, wee Doe Confirme unto the said Mr. Francis Day, or whatsoever other Substitutes or Agents for that Company, full power and authority to governe and dispose of the Government of Madraspatam for the terme and space of two yeares. Next Insueing affter they shall be seated there and possest of the said fortifications; and for the future by an Equall Division to receive halfe the Custom and revenuewes of that port.
‘Moreover, Whatsoever goods or Merchandize the English Company shall either Import or Export, forasmuch as Concernes the dutyes and Customes of Medraspatnam, they shall not only for the Prementioed two years in which they injoy the government , but for ever after, be Custom free. Yett if they shall Transport or bring any commodities up into, or through my Countray, then shall they pay halfe the dutyes that other Merchants pay, whether they buy or sell the said Commodities either in my Dominions or in those of any other Nague whatsoever.
‘Also that the said English Company shall perpetually Injoy the privileges of mintage(e) without paying any Dewes or dutyes whatsoever, more then the ordinary wages or hire unto those that shall Quoyne the moneyes.
‘Iff the English shall Accquaint us before they deliver out any moneys to the Merchants, Painters, Weavers &c, which are or shall hereafter reside in our prementioned port or territories, and take our word for their sufficcency and honest dealeing, then doe wee promise, in case those people faile in their performances, to make good to the English all such sumes of money as shall remaine on their Accounts, or Else deliver them their persons, if they sahllbe found in any part of my territories.
‘That whatsoever provisions the English shall buy in my Countrey, either for their fort or ships, they shall not be liable to pay any Custom or Dutyes for the same.
‘And if any shipp or vessell belonging to the English ( or to any other Countray whatsoever which tradeth or shall come to trade at that port) shall by misadventure suffer shipwrack and bee driven upon any part of my territories, they shall have restitution upon Demand of whatsoever can bee found remaining of the said wrack.
Dated the 22th July, 1639.’
According to Vestiges of Old Madras by Henry Davison Love, the Naik’s grant, probably drafted by Day, was delivered with a letter signed by Day. Three copies are extant, but only one bears a date, 22nd July 1639, where July is probably a slip for August, since Day did not reach Madras until July 27, Love noted. The original document relating to the grant of the Fort St. George site to the British East India Company is said to have been signed at Chandragiri Fort in what is now in Andhra Pradesh.
The original text of the grant read thus:
‘The firman granted Mr. Day for privileges in Medrasspatam by the Nague Damela Vintutedra.
(O.C. No. 1690, 22nd July
{ ?Aug }, 1639 )
‘Firman granted by Damela Vintatedro Nague unto Mr. francis Day, Cheife for the English In Armagon, in behalfe of the Honble company for their tradeing and fortifieing at Medraspatam, to this effect as followeth:-
‘Whereas Mr. Francis Day, Captain of the English at Armagon, upon great hopes by reason of our promises offten made unto him, hath repaired to our port of Medraspatam and had personall Conference with us on behalfe of the Company of that Nation, Concerning their trading in our territories and friendly comerce with our subjects ; wee out of our spetiall Love and favour to the English, doe grant unto the said Captain, or whomsoever shall bee deputed to Idgitate the affaires of that company, by vertue of this firman , Power to direct and order the building of a fort and Castle in or about Medraspatam, as they shall thinke most Convenient , the Charges whereof, until fully and wholly finished to bee defrayed by us, but then to bee repaied when the said English shall first make their enterance to take possession thereof. And to make more full Expression of our effection to the English Nation, wee Doe Confirme unto the said Mr. Francis Day, or whatsoever other Substitutes or Agents for that Company, full power and authority to governe and dispose of the Government of Madraspatam for the terme and space of two yeares. Next Insueing affter they shall be seated there and possest of the said fortifications; and for the future by an Equall Division to receive halfe the Custom and revenuewes of that port.
‘Moreover, Whatsoever goods or Merchandize the English Company shall either Import or Export, forasmuch as Concernes the dutyes and Customes of Medraspatnam, they shall not only for the Prementioed two years in which they injoy the government , but for ever after, be Custom free. Yett if they shall Transport or bring any commodities up into, or through my Countray, then shall they pay halfe the dutyes that other Merchants pay, whether they buy or sell the said Commodities either in my Dominions or in those of any other Nague whatsoever.
‘Also that the said English Company shall perpetually Injoy the privileges of mintage(e) without paying any Dewes or dutyes whatsoever, more then the ordinary wages or hire unto those that shall Quoyne the moneyes.
‘Iff the English shall Accquaint us before they deliver out any moneys to the Merchants, Painters, Weavers &c, which are or shall hereafter reside in our prementioned port or territories, and take our word for their sufficcency and honest dealeing, then doe wee promise, in case those people faile in their performances, to make good to the English all such sumes of money as shall remaine on their Accounts, or Else deliver them their persons, if they sahllbe found in any part of my territories.
‘That whatsoever provisions the English shall buy in my Countrey, either for their fort or ships, they shall not be liable to pay any Custom or Dutyes for the same.
‘And if any shipp or vessell belonging to the English ( or to any other Countray whatsoever which tradeth or shall come to trade at that port) shall by misadventure suffer shipwrack and bee driven upon any part of my territories, they shall have restitution upon Demand of whatsoever can bee found remaining of the said wrack.
Dated the 22th July, 1639.’
Tech - Megapixels of memories
SEATTLE: Digital cameras have liberated awe-struck travellers and proud parents from worrying about the price of film processing. But showing them off is still reminiscent of tedious living room slideshows — and perhaps now worse, because instead of one blurry photo of the Eiffel Tower or the high school musical, there might be 50.
Most digital photo-sharing sites require viewers to click from an album to a bite-sized thumbnail of a picture, and then again to a large image, then sit through a slideshow of snapshots one by one. Microsoft’s new Web tool, Photosynth, is designed to give viewers a much zippier way to take in the sights of Paris or an act of ‘HMS Pinafore.’
Here is how it works: after a quick software download, the photographer selects a collection of related images from his or her hard drive. The software crunches the files using the local computer’s processing power, looking for pixels that are the same in each photo. Then, Photosynth stitches together the images into a panoramic scene.
There is an old-school analogue to this: taped-together photo prints. But online the result is part photo gallery, part movie. One photo is shown clearly at a time; adjacent images appear faded, and others less closely related to the photo in focus are indicated with a ghostly scatter of pixels. Viewers can zoom in and out, and pan left and right, through the scene created by overlapping many different views of the same place or object.
The software, which works only on Windows PCs, latches on to similarities and ignores differences, so photos taken in the same room but at different times of day with different inhabitants can still match up.
Microsoft first opened Photosynth to employees and partners including the National Geographic Society, so the site already has many “synths” on file. (Those “synths” are all given numeric “synthy” scores, indicating how many of the photos overlapped in a way the program could detect.)
One synth, from a National Geographic photographer, combines hundreds of images of Stonehenge; another, submitted by a Microsoft employee, lets the viewer follow a climber on a harrowing ascent of a rock face.
Synths can be embedded like videos into other sites, including blogs and eBay auction listings.
Photosynth, launched on Wednesday, does not yet allow more than one person to add photos to a “synth,” which means strangers can’t easily pool photos of a certain place or event, as is commonly done using tags on sites like Yahoo’s Flickr.
But Microsoft’s David Gedye, manager for the Live Labs group that cooked up Photosynth, said eventually the program should allow not only small-scale collaborations but also global photo contributions.
Those could then be fed into Microsoft’s mapping technology to fill in gaps where satellite images are not available.
Most digital photo-sharing sites require viewers to click from an album to a bite-sized thumbnail of a picture, and then again to a large image, then sit through a slideshow of snapshots one by one. Microsoft’s new Web tool, Photosynth, is designed to give viewers a much zippier way to take in the sights of Paris or an act of ‘HMS Pinafore.’
Here is how it works: after a quick software download, the photographer selects a collection of related images from his or her hard drive. The software crunches the files using the local computer’s processing power, looking for pixels that are the same in each photo. Then, Photosynth stitches together the images into a panoramic scene.
There is an old-school analogue to this: taped-together photo prints. But online the result is part photo gallery, part movie. One photo is shown clearly at a time; adjacent images appear faded, and others less closely related to the photo in focus are indicated with a ghostly scatter of pixels. Viewers can zoom in and out, and pan left and right, through the scene created by overlapping many different views of the same place or object.
The software, which works only on Windows PCs, latches on to similarities and ignores differences, so photos taken in the same room but at different times of day with different inhabitants can still match up.
Microsoft first opened Photosynth to employees and partners including the National Geographic Society, so the site already has many “synths” on file. (Those “synths” are all given numeric “synthy” scores, indicating how many of the photos overlapped in a way the program could detect.)
One synth, from a National Geographic photographer, combines hundreds of images of Stonehenge; another, submitted by a Microsoft employee, lets the viewer follow a climber on a harrowing ascent of a rock face.
Synths can be embedded like videos into other sites, including blogs and eBay auction listings.
Photosynth, launched on Wednesday, does not yet allow more than one person to add photos to a “synth,” which means strangers can’t easily pool photos of a certain place or event, as is commonly done using tags on sites like Yahoo’s Flickr.
But Microsoft’s David Gedye, manager for the Live Labs group that cooked up Photosynth, said eventually the program should allow not only small-scale collaborations but also global photo contributions.
Those could then be fed into Microsoft’s mapping technology to fill in gaps where satellite images are not available.
India - Manipulation,not advocacy
High-profile cases in India, particularly those in which the rich and the powerful are accused, have been plagued with the problem of prosecution witnesses turning suddenly hostile. But the BMW hit-and-run case — in which the grandson of a former Indian Naval chief and son of a wealthy arms dealer is alleged to have killed six people in 1999 after driving his car through a police checkpoint — is the most shocking example of how justice is subverted by ‘pe rsuading’ witnesses to turn hostile. In this case, a sting operation conducted by a television channel showed the defence lawyer and the prosecution counsel colluding to bribe the sole surviving witness to change his testimony. The Delhi High Court’s conviction of senior advocates R.K. Anand and I.U. Khan for obstructing the administration of justice is the result of the shocking expose, which revealed that senior lawyers on opposing sides are not beyond cosying up and collaborating to manipulate the course of justice. Surprisingly, given the gravity of the charges, the two lawyers, who were fined Rs.2,000 each, have got off extremely lightly in the contempt case. Courts have imposed stiffer penalties, including imprisonment, for lesser offences in such cases — for example on journalists and writers for what they have written. It is difficult to say how much more lenient the High Court would have been had they apologised, either conditionally or unconditionally.
The ruling has recommended that the two be barred from appearing in courts for the next four months. This is for the Bar Council of India to implement. The decision of the BCI — which is empowered to bar or cancel the licence of lawyers and which has done nothing following the expose — will be watched closely. It would be a shame if this body, which has the jurisdiction to punish lawyers guilty of misconduct, fails to take stringent action. Public confidence in the criminal justice system has been seriously undermined by cases such as the BMW episode, and the BCI must keep this in mind while arriving at its decision. At a different level, the High Court’s ruling draws attention to the need for a comprehensive and effective scheme to prevent witnesses from turning hostile. The Jessica Lal and Best Bakery cases were but two high-profile cases that called attention to the urgent need for such a programme. At the same time, there is a parallel need to strengthen the perjury laws to prevent witnesses from being won over through financial and other inducements. At the end of the day, the successful working of any criminal justice system depends on the existence of individuals who can furnish information without either being intimidated or bought.
The ruling has recommended that the two be barred from appearing in courts for the next four months. This is for the Bar Council of India to implement. The decision of the BCI — which is empowered to bar or cancel the licence of lawyers and which has done nothing following the expose — will be watched closely. It would be a shame if this body, which has the jurisdiction to punish lawyers guilty of misconduct, fails to take stringent action. Public confidence in the criminal justice system has been seriously undermined by cases such as the BMW episode, and the BCI must keep this in mind while arriving at its decision. At a different level, the High Court’s ruling draws attention to the need for a comprehensive and effective scheme to prevent witnesses from turning hostile. The Jessica Lal and Best Bakery cases were but two high-profile cases that called attention to the urgent need for such a programme. At the same time, there is a parallel need to strengthen the perjury laws to prevent witnesses from being won over through financial and other inducements. At the end of the day, the successful working of any criminal justice system depends on the existence of individuals who can furnish information without either being intimidated or bought.
India - Land reform continues in West Bengal
The primary point of distinction between Left-led and all other State governments in India is that, on coming to power, every Left-led government has confronted the agrarian question directly. Land reform has been integral to the policy of the Left in government from the outset.
The importance of agrarian issues in the programme of Left governments is illustrated by the speed with which these governments have turned their attention to land reform. The first Communist government in India, led by E.M.S. Namboodiripad, was sworn in on April 5, 1957; the government’s first Ordinance on land reform was promulgated on April 11, just six days after the government was formed. In West Bengal, too, land reform has been and remains a foundational feature of the power of the Left, and was perhaps the earliest item on the administrative agenda of the Left Front.
New data presented by the Minister for Land Reforms in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly indicate how significant a contribution West Bengal has made to India’s aggregate land reform effort.
Net area sown in West Bengal as a proportion of net area sown in India was, according to the Union Ministry of Agriculture, 3.9 per cent in 2003-04. At the same time, as Table 1 shows, the extent of agricultural land distributed under land reform in West Bengal as a proportion of land distributed in the country as a whole is 22.6 per cent. Of the total number of gainers from land distribution programmes in the country, more than half — a full 54.5 per cent — are from West Bengal.
The absolute numbers give us an idea of the sweep of land reform. As a rough measure, the aggregate, as on February 15, 2008, of the total number of recipients of agricultural land under land reform (2,971,857), the number of recorded bargadars (1,510,657) and the number of recipients of homestead land (557,151), is 5,039,665 beneficiaries. (As an indicator of the obstacles to land reform, it is worth noting that 179,878 acres cannot be distributed because they are under legal injunction.)
The current data (that is, as on March 15, 2008) show that, among the recipients of agricultural land under land reform, the proportion of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe recipients (55 per cent) was significantly higher than the proportion of Scheduled Castes and Tribes in West Bengal’s population (which was 28.1 per cent).
Another interesting feature of the data is that, as on February 15, 2008, the number of new joint pattadars (that is, persons who had received new joint title deeds to agricultural land under land reform) was 581,000, and the number of new women pattadars was 159,400. Assuming that half the new joint patta holders were women, a total of 449,900, or about 4 lakh and a half, women received title deeds to agricultural land under land reform. I have no comparative data for other States on this matter, but the number indicates a noteworthy response to a long-standing demand of the women’s movement (although it still falls far short of creating conditions of equality in this regard).
A myth of “reversal”
Despite this achievement, there has been recent criticism, particularly since late 2006, that the Left Front government, in pursuit of its policy of industrialisation and industrial modernisation, has actually reversed its land reform programme. On the face of it, this allegation seems somewhat implausible: what could be the motive for a government to be so obviously self-destructive (or, in Jyoti Basu’s blunt formulation, “We are not out of our mind that we would destroy our agriculture…”)?
Current data show the allegation also to be untrue.
In each of the last three years, the extent of land acquired by the State government for industrial and infrastructural purposes was a fraction of the agricultural land distributed under land reform (and this does not even include the extent of homestead land distributed). Even in 2006-07, when acquisitions peaked, the extent acquired was 4,135 acres, and the extent distributed under land reform was 10,848 acres; in other words, in that year, the extent of agricultural land distributed under the land reform programme was no less than 2.62 times the extent acquired for industry and infrastructure.
Although it is true that more land was distributed in the first two decades of Left Front rule than at present, the fact remains that even today, with a narrower base of land available for redistribution, the extent distributed is much greater than the extent acquired.
The freedom of the government to implement land reform in West Bengal has been hemmed in historically by the constraints imposed by the Constitution and obstructed by counter-land-reform action and endless litigation. Nevertheless, the data show unequivocally not only that land reform swept the countryside in the late 1970s and 1980s, but also that the process of land distribution continues in rural West Bengal today.
The importance of agrarian issues in the programme of Left governments is illustrated by the speed with which these governments have turned their attention to land reform. The first Communist government in India, led by E.M.S. Namboodiripad, was sworn in on April 5, 1957; the government’s first Ordinance on land reform was promulgated on April 11, just six days after the government was formed. In West Bengal, too, land reform has been and remains a foundational feature of the power of the Left, and was perhaps the earliest item on the administrative agenda of the Left Front.
New data presented by the Minister for Land Reforms in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly indicate how significant a contribution West Bengal has made to India’s aggregate land reform effort.
Net area sown in West Bengal as a proportion of net area sown in India was, according to the Union Ministry of Agriculture, 3.9 per cent in 2003-04. At the same time, as Table 1 shows, the extent of agricultural land distributed under land reform in West Bengal as a proportion of land distributed in the country as a whole is 22.6 per cent. Of the total number of gainers from land distribution programmes in the country, more than half — a full 54.5 per cent — are from West Bengal.
The absolute numbers give us an idea of the sweep of land reform. As a rough measure, the aggregate, as on February 15, 2008, of the total number of recipients of agricultural land under land reform (2,971,857), the number of recorded bargadars (1,510,657) and the number of recipients of homestead land (557,151), is 5,039,665 beneficiaries. (As an indicator of the obstacles to land reform, it is worth noting that 179,878 acres cannot be distributed because they are under legal injunction.)
The current data (that is, as on March 15, 2008) show that, among the recipients of agricultural land under land reform, the proportion of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe recipients (55 per cent) was significantly higher than the proportion of Scheduled Castes and Tribes in West Bengal’s population (which was 28.1 per cent).
Another interesting feature of the data is that, as on February 15, 2008, the number of new joint pattadars (that is, persons who had received new joint title deeds to agricultural land under land reform) was 581,000, and the number of new women pattadars was 159,400. Assuming that half the new joint patta holders were women, a total of 449,900, or about 4 lakh and a half, women received title deeds to agricultural land under land reform. I have no comparative data for other States on this matter, but the number indicates a noteworthy response to a long-standing demand of the women’s movement (although it still falls far short of creating conditions of equality in this regard).
A myth of “reversal”
Despite this achievement, there has been recent criticism, particularly since late 2006, that the Left Front government, in pursuit of its policy of industrialisation and industrial modernisation, has actually reversed its land reform programme. On the face of it, this allegation seems somewhat implausible: what could be the motive for a government to be so obviously self-destructive (or, in Jyoti Basu’s blunt formulation, “We are not out of our mind that we would destroy our agriculture…”)?
Current data show the allegation also to be untrue.
In each of the last three years, the extent of land acquired by the State government for industrial and infrastructural purposes was a fraction of the agricultural land distributed under land reform (and this does not even include the extent of homestead land distributed). Even in 2006-07, when acquisitions peaked, the extent acquired was 4,135 acres, and the extent distributed under land reform was 10,848 acres; in other words, in that year, the extent of agricultural land distributed under the land reform programme was no less than 2.62 times the extent acquired for industry and infrastructure.
Although it is true that more land was distributed in the first two decades of Left Front rule than at present, the fact remains that even today, with a narrower base of land available for redistribution, the extent distributed is much greater than the extent acquired.
The freedom of the government to implement land reform in West Bengal has been hemmed in historically by the constraints imposed by the Constitution and obstructed by counter-land-reform action and endless litigation. Nevertheless, the data show unequivocally not only that land reform swept the countryside in the late 1970s and 1980s, but also that the process of land distribution continues in rural West Bengal today.
World - Another South African icon goes
The life and career of Brian Bunting (1920-2008), a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the African National Congress all his adult life, was marked by a careful reticence. This was a reticence cultivated as of necessity by most of those white South Africans, admittedly a minority, whose engagement in the liberation struggle was during the years of hard apartheid, and as active members of the Communist Party of South Africa and, later, of the South Afric an Communist Party. (The CPSA was dissolved in June 1950 after it was outlawed under the Suppression of Communism Act, but was revived clandestinely as the South African Communist Party in 1953.) Lionel (Rusty) Bernstein (1920-2002), a contemporary of Brian, recalls in his memoirs, Memory against Forgetting (Viking, London, 1989) that during those hard years of struggle and exile, lives depended on silence and forgetting. “Survival has required that memory be deliberately suppressed, and every written record burnt, shredded, flushed away or even swallowed.”
I was fortunate to have Brian as a friend and share food, wine and conversation at his table with other political friends, during my years in South Africa as this newspaper’s correspondent from 1994 to 2001. However, the acquaintance with his ideas began much earlier. For, apart from stray political pamphlets one read during an earlier sojourn abroad, the first systematic treatment of the political economy of apartheid South Africa was Brian Bunting’s The Rise of the South African Reich (Penguin, 1964) that I read in July 1970. That work clarified many inchoate and incoherent ideas teeming at the back of one’s mind as the reality of South African fascism was driven home following the Sharpeville massacres.
Brian’s parents were Communists. His father Sidney Percival Bunting (1873-1936) was a founding member of the CPSA. Brian has written, with characteristic lack of sentimentality, of the sad story of Sidney’s expulsion from the CPSA in 1931 and his political rehabilitation over half a century later, in his introduction to a new edition of his father’s political biography by Edward Roux. Roux himself was another extraordinary white South African, who was dismissed as Professor and Head of the Department of Botany, University of the Witwatersrand, for his political beliefs.
Brian’s whole life, as that of his wife and comrade Sonia (1922-2001), was devoted to the elimination of the apartheid regime. What his friend and comrade, Joe Slovo (1926-95) said in retrospect in December 1994, after the end of the apartheid regime, and less than a month before he died, was applicable to all these liberation fighters: “I decided long ago in my life that there is only one target, and that target is to remove the racist regime and obtain power for the people.” The arenas of struggle were different, but the objective never varied.
This was the case with Brian, too. On his return from the Second World War, he became a journalist and writer: it was his chosen field to continue the battle against South African fascism. He was the Editor, in succession as each of the journals was banned and revived under another name, of The Guardian, Advance, New Age and Spark — the last simply killed off by a notification of the Publications Control Board created under the Publications and Entertainment Act of 1963.
He was detained without trial after the Sharpeville massacres, banned from attending meetings, placed under a 13-hour house arrest and confined to Cape Town. Finally he left the country and made a home with Sonia and their three children in London where he continued his political work. He was for many years the Editor of African Communist, the SACP’s official organ, published from London, till its return to South Africa in the late 1990.
He was elected to Parliament in South Africa’s first democratic elections. Till about a year before his death, he remained a member of the SACP’s central committee. One recalls the fortitude and even his sense of humour during the funeral service of his wife Sonia which was as much an occasion to grieve as for celebrating her life.
What drove people like Brian or his parents and so many other white South African radicals, Afrikaner and Engelse, to choose a path of militant opposition to racial oppression and apartheid? Rusty recalls in his memoirs being asked a similar question in 1989, when he was in Moscow conducting on behalf of the ANC and its armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe, a series of seminars on the history of South Africa’s liberation struggles to students. These students were mostly of the ‘Soweto generation’, young persons fresh from street battles with the police and training to be guerrilla fighters.
Later, in an interview for a TV documentary, the director who knew little about Rusty, or for that matter about South Africa, wanted to know why some people made political choices that ran counter to their ‘class interests’. He wondered if their choices and actions were like those of the Decembrists, aristocrats and officers under the Tsar who staged a revolt against him in the late 19th century challenging the very feudal order that sustained them in their privileged positions and were mostly executed. So, the question: Why do some privileged white South Africans like Rusty strive to end white rule, and in the process endanger their own privileged positions?
Unable to give an explanation that would satisfy his interlocutor (the year, 1989, perhaps explains the kind of vulgarisation of Marxism that was implicit in the question), Rusty suggests that perhaps the life of Bram Fischer, Afrikaner and South African revolutionary, who too like Rusty, Brian, Joe Slovo (and their spouses) and so many others like them was a Communist, indeed an active member of the CPSA and the SACP, might provide an answer.
Bram was from a most privileged background, part of the Afrikaner aristocracy, who made common cause for the liberation of all the people of South Africa, black and white. He was the lead defence counsel for Nelson Mandela and his comrades who were facing capital charges in the Rivonia Trial (1963-64). Soon after that trial, Bram himself was arrested on charges filed under the Suppression of Communism Act, and sentenced to life imprisonment, essentially for his political beliefs. He died in prison, though technically it was at his brother’s home to whose care he was released when it was clear that he was dying. The house was declared a prison for the few remaining days of Bram’s life.
If one were to be asked about the legacy of these freedom fighters, black and white and all the colours in between, one can do no better than to recall the words inscribed in London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral under the bust of Christopher Wren, its architect: “If you seek his monument, look around.” The legacy of all the freedom fighters who spent their whole lives in the struggle against apartheid, many facing death bravely, is quite simply the democratic and constitutional state of South Africa that, despite all its problems, is an infinitely better place to live than the apartheid state for all its citizens.
(Brian Bunting died at his home in Cape Town on June 18.)
I was fortunate to have Brian as a friend and share food, wine and conversation at his table with other political friends, during my years in South Africa as this newspaper’s correspondent from 1994 to 2001. However, the acquaintance with his ideas began much earlier. For, apart from stray political pamphlets one read during an earlier sojourn abroad, the first systematic treatment of the political economy of apartheid South Africa was Brian Bunting’s The Rise of the South African Reich (Penguin, 1964) that I read in July 1970. That work clarified many inchoate and incoherent ideas teeming at the back of one’s mind as the reality of South African fascism was driven home following the Sharpeville massacres.
Brian’s parents were Communists. His father Sidney Percival Bunting (1873-1936) was a founding member of the CPSA. Brian has written, with characteristic lack of sentimentality, of the sad story of Sidney’s expulsion from the CPSA in 1931 and his political rehabilitation over half a century later, in his introduction to a new edition of his father’s political biography by Edward Roux. Roux himself was another extraordinary white South African, who was dismissed as Professor and Head of the Department of Botany, University of the Witwatersrand, for his political beliefs.
Brian’s whole life, as that of his wife and comrade Sonia (1922-2001), was devoted to the elimination of the apartheid regime. What his friend and comrade, Joe Slovo (1926-95) said in retrospect in December 1994, after the end of the apartheid regime, and less than a month before he died, was applicable to all these liberation fighters: “I decided long ago in my life that there is only one target, and that target is to remove the racist regime and obtain power for the people.” The arenas of struggle were different, but the objective never varied.
This was the case with Brian, too. On his return from the Second World War, he became a journalist and writer: it was his chosen field to continue the battle against South African fascism. He was the Editor, in succession as each of the journals was banned and revived under another name, of The Guardian, Advance, New Age and Spark — the last simply killed off by a notification of the Publications Control Board created under the Publications and Entertainment Act of 1963.
He was detained without trial after the Sharpeville massacres, banned from attending meetings, placed under a 13-hour house arrest and confined to Cape Town. Finally he left the country and made a home with Sonia and their three children in London where he continued his political work. He was for many years the Editor of African Communist, the SACP’s official organ, published from London, till its return to South Africa in the late 1990.
He was elected to Parliament in South Africa’s first democratic elections. Till about a year before his death, he remained a member of the SACP’s central committee. One recalls the fortitude and even his sense of humour during the funeral service of his wife Sonia which was as much an occasion to grieve as for celebrating her life.
What drove people like Brian or his parents and so many other white South African radicals, Afrikaner and Engelse, to choose a path of militant opposition to racial oppression and apartheid? Rusty recalls in his memoirs being asked a similar question in 1989, when he was in Moscow conducting on behalf of the ANC and its armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe, a series of seminars on the history of South Africa’s liberation struggles to students. These students were mostly of the ‘Soweto generation’, young persons fresh from street battles with the police and training to be guerrilla fighters.
Later, in an interview for a TV documentary, the director who knew little about Rusty, or for that matter about South Africa, wanted to know why some people made political choices that ran counter to their ‘class interests’. He wondered if their choices and actions were like those of the Decembrists, aristocrats and officers under the Tsar who staged a revolt against him in the late 19th century challenging the very feudal order that sustained them in their privileged positions and were mostly executed. So, the question: Why do some privileged white South Africans like Rusty strive to end white rule, and in the process endanger their own privileged positions?
Unable to give an explanation that would satisfy his interlocutor (the year, 1989, perhaps explains the kind of vulgarisation of Marxism that was implicit in the question), Rusty suggests that perhaps the life of Bram Fischer, Afrikaner and South African revolutionary, who too like Rusty, Brian, Joe Slovo (and their spouses) and so many others like them was a Communist, indeed an active member of the CPSA and the SACP, might provide an answer.
Bram was from a most privileged background, part of the Afrikaner aristocracy, who made common cause for the liberation of all the people of South Africa, black and white. He was the lead defence counsel for Nelson Mandela and his comrades who were facing capital charges in the Rivonia Trial (1963-64). Soon after that trial, Bram himself was arrested on charges filed under the Suppression of Communism Act, and sentenced to life imprisonment, essentially for his political beliefs. He died in prison, though technically it was at his brother’s home to whose care he was released when it was clear that he was dying. The house was declared a prison for the few remaining days of Bram’s life.
If one were to be asked about the legacy of these freedom fighters, black and white and all the colours in between, one can do no better than to recall the words inscribed in London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral under the bust of Christopher Wren, its architect: “If you seek his monument, look around.” The legacy of all the freedom fighters who spent their whole lives in the struggle against apartheid, many facing death bravely, is quite simply the democratic and constitutional state of South Africa that, despite all its problems, is an infinitely better place to live than the apartheid state for all its citizens.
(Brian Bunting died at his home in Cape Town on June 18.)
LIfestyle - Are chinese speakers on the verge of inheriting the Earth?
To anyone brought up with the Roman alphabet, the prospect of learning Mandarin — with 6,000 written characters and four oral tones — might at first sight seem a mite daunting. Brits are notoriously poor linguists but clearly a nation that revels in a challenge.
According to a new study by the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and the University of Stirling, in central Scotland, the number of Mandarin students at U.K. universities has almost doubled in the past decade. By contrast easy continental languages are in sharp decline with French undergrads down a third and German students plummeting by more than two-thirds.
The reason for the shift is unclear. It could be an Olympic side-effect, a spin-off from all those Zhang Yimou films or perhaps the widely held belief that Chinese speakers are on the verge of inheriting the Earth. In terms of the volume of characters to be learned, Arabic, Hebrew and Russian are a comparative doddle. To read a Chinese newspaper, you need to know 2,000 pictograms. But hey, it is not impossible. More than a billion people know the basics. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008
According to a new study by the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and the University of Stirling, in central Scotland, the number of Mandarin students at U.K. universities has almost doubled in the past decade. By contrast easy continental languages are in sharp decline with French undergrads down a third and German students plummeting by more than two-thirds.
The reason for the shift is unclear. It could be an Olympic side-effect, a spin-off from all those Zhang Yimou films or perhaps the widely held belief that Chinese speakers are on the verge of inheriting the Earth. In terms of the volume of characters to be learned, Arabic, Hebrew and Russian are a comparative doddle. To read a Chinese newspaper, you need to know 2,000 pictograms. But hey, it is not impossible. More than a billion people know the basics. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008
World - How Berlusconi reined in Italy
In his first 100 days in office, Silvio Berlusconi may have done the impossible: to a degree unprecedented in modern Italian history, he asserted control over this seemingly ungovernable nation. The opposition parties are mired in squabbling, and Berlusconi, now prime minister for the third time since 1994, has an approval rating of 55 percent—higher than Britain's Gordon Brown, France's Nicolas Sarkozy or Spain's José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero.
That anyone in Italy has managed to be so successful is surprising. More than most Western European countries, Italy has long been bedeviled by corruption and a system that gives disproportionate political weight to small parties. Berlusconi's predecessor, Romano Prodi, was stymied by his center-left party's tiny Senate majority and the government's fractious nine-party coalition. But Berlusconi, the 72-year-old media mogul, cannily exploited a 2005 electoral law that wiped out these small parties to win a surprise landslide victory from which the opposition is still trying to recover.
His center-right party now has 174 seats in the Senate (versus the left's 132) and while he enjoys something of a honeymoon period with the electorate, he has also wasted little time in consolidating his authority. One of his first acts: pushing through a bill that gives the top four national officeholders, including the prime minister himself, immunity from prosecution while in office. The bill passed overwhelmingly last month, and put an end to outstanding criminal proceedings against Berlusconi (which he and supporters say were politically driven).
That this new law was a possible conflict of interest did not go by unnoticed, but Italians are feeling too poor to pay it much attention. After 10 years of near-zero economic growth—Bank of America predicts 0.5 percent growth this year—they are demanding security, financial and otherwise. And Berlusconi is delivering, with an iron-fist-in-velvet-glove competence. Emblematic has been his ability to clean up Naples, buried for months under trash in part because the surrounding communities simply did not trust the government to manage the landfills. Ever the showman, Berlusconi held cabinet meetings in Naples—fulfilling a campaign promise to do so until the trash was cleared—and appointed a "garbage czar" to fix the problem. In July, Parliament approved Berlusconi's plan to open new landfills and incinerators, and permit soldiers to protect temporary landfills from angry residents. Days later Berlusconi said 50,000 tons of trash had been removed.
With a similar resolve he tackled the perception that violent crime is on the rise (despite data showing otherwise), and that foreigners are to blame for it. In July, the government declared a state of emergency to fight illegal immigration and proposed a law mandating fingerprinting for all Roma living in camps in Italy. Berlusconi softened the plan in the face of opposition from human-rights groups and the European Union. But in early August, he deployed thousands of troops throughout Italy in a bid to crack down on immigration and petty crime.
Such tough tactics could give Berlusconi the cover to tackle some of Italy's deeper issues. Italians now pay some of the highest taxes in Western Europe, at 43 percent, and have some of the lowest salaries—leading to widespread tax evasion. Public debt remains at more than 100 percent of GDP; servicing it costs Italy 5 percent to 6 percent of GDP annually, says Bank of America's Gilles Moec. Berlusconi has pledged to reduce spending (in contrast to his first term), but doing so will make it harder to fulfill a pledge to cut taxes or to stimulate growth. Yet Berlusconi must figure out a way. Italians like him now, but what they really want is economic stability. Cleaning up trash and harassing immigrants won't be enough.
That anyone in Italy has managed to be so successful is surprising. More than most Western European countries, Italy has long been bedeviled by corruption and a system that gives disproportionate political weight to small parties. Berlusconi's predecessor, Romano Prodi, was stymied by his center-left party's tiny Senate majority and the government's fractious nine-party coalition. But Berlusconi, the 72-year-old media mogul, cannily exploited a 2005 electoral law that wiped out these small parties to win a surprise landslide victory from which the opposition is still trying to recover.
His center-right party now has 174 seats in the Senate (versus the left's 132) and while he enjoys something of a honeymoon period with the electorate, he has also wasted little time in consolidating his authority. One of his first acts: pushing through a bill that gives the top four national officeholders, including the prime minister himself, immunity from prosecution while in office. The bill passed overwhelmingly last month, and put an end to outstanding criminal proceedings against Berlusconi (which he and supporters say were politically driven).
That this new law was a possible conflict of interest did not go by unnoticed, but Italians are feeling too poor to pay it much attention. After 10 years of near-zero economic growth—Bank of America predicts 0.5 percent growth this year—they are demanding security, financial and otherwise. And Berlusconi is delivering, with an iron-fist-in-velvet-glove competence. Emblematic has been his ability to clean up Naples, buried for months under trash in part because the surrounding communities simply did not trust the government to manage the landfills. Ever the showman, Berlusconi held cabinet meetings in Naples—fulfilling a campaign promise to do so until the trash was cleared—and appointed a "garbage czar" to fix the problem. In July, Parliament approved Berlusconi's plan to open new landfills and incinerators, and permit soldiers to protect temporary landfills from angry residents. Days later Berlusconi said 50,000 tons of trash had been removed.
With a similar resolve he tackled the perception that violent crime is on the rise (despite data showing otherwise), and that foreigners are to blame for it. In July, the government declared a state of emergency to fight illegal immigration and proposed a law mandating fingerprinting for all Roma living in camps in Italy. Berlusconi softened the plan in the face of opposition from human-rights groups and the European Union. But in early August, he deployed thousands of troops throughout Italy in a bid to crack down on immigration and petty crime.
Such tough tactics could give Berlusconi the cover to tackle some of Italy's deeper issues. Italians now pay some of the highest taxes in Western Europe, at 43 percent, and have some of the lowest salaries—leading to widespread tax evasion. Public debt remains at more than 100 percent of GDP; servicing it costs Italy 5 percent to 6 percent of GDP annually, says Bank of America's Gilles Moec. Berlusconi has pledged to reduce spending (in contrast to his first term), but doing so will make it harder to fulfill a pledge to cut taxes or to stimulate growth. Yet Berlusconi must figure out a way. Italians like him now, but what they really want is economic stability. Cleaning up trash and harassing immigrants won't be enough.
World - Dream of a new turkey
Since arriving in Ankara earlier this summer I have been having a cool Turkish dream. No, it does not take place on a yacht sailing through turquoise waters off the Turkish Riviera. Rather, my dream is a political one, involving Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), in the wake of the Constitutional Court's recent decision to fine it for violating the secular Constitution rather than shut it down. In my dream, the Islamist-rooted AKP embraces full-scale liberalism and finds a lasting balance between secularism and democracy for Turkey. My dream is not such a utopian one. Each time the Turkish court sanctions an Islamist party, that party reinvents itself as a more moderate political movement. In return, the court's reaction to each reincarnated Islamist party has become less harsh. The court shut down the AKP's hard-core Islamist predecessors, the Welfare and Virtue parties. But now it has come down with a lesser verdict against the more moderate AKP, hoping that the party will moderate further.
The AKP's record gives me much hope it will do so. When the court shut down the Virtue Party in 2001 for its antisecular activities, the AKP emerged as a breath of fresh air. It publicly eschewed Islamism and pronounced respect for secular democracy, as well as the West and its liberal values. Then things got even better. After coming to power in 2002, the AKP promoted European Union (EU) accession for Turkey, driving a liberal reform agenda and following pro-business policies. The party reached out to different constituencies, suggesting a pluralist understanding of democracy and alleviating concerns about its Islamist pedigree. For a while, it looked as if the AKP had found a liberal balance between Islam and democracy and that it was moving Turkey west.
Alas, it was a mirage on three fronts. First, after Turkey started accession talks with the EU in 2005, the AKP's appetite for the EU faded. It realized that accession talks meant costly reforms, and shied away from pursuing Turkey's EU dream. What's more, a November 2005 decision by the European Court of Human Rights to uphold Turkey's ban on a specific Islamic-style headscarf (turban) on college campuses disappointed the AKP, which had come to believe it could rely on Europe to redefine Turkish secularism. Second, the AKP started to treat liberal, egalitarian democracy as an à la carte menu, choosing some liberties while ignoring others. For example, while the party pushed to lift Turkey's turban ban on college campuses for female students, it implemented religion-infused policies that led to a decrease in women's employment. The erosion of Western values under the AKP resurrected fears about the party's Islamist pedigree, and Turkey was split down the middle between its supporters and opponents. Third, the AKP moved from a pluralist to a majoritarian understanding of democracy. After winning 47 percent of the vote in the July 2007 elections, the party started to interpret its popular mandate as a blank check to ignore democratic checks and balances, and harass dissenters in the media, NGOs, the courts and business groups. Within this background, the country's secular chief prosecutor opened a court case against the party, asking the Constitutional Court to sanction the AKP for violating Turkey's Constitution. Tension rose; some alarmist pundits even suggested that Turkey was moving into the abyss of democratic collapse through a "judicial coup."
But such pundits have been proved wrong. The Turkish court's August decision to put the AKP on probation demonstrated that democracy in Turkey is alive and kicking—and this is where my dream comes in. With the court's decision, the karmic wheel of religion-based parties has made a full circle toward democracy in Turkey, leaving the AKP with a stark choice. The party can continue to spin the karmic wheel by adopting a sincerely pro-EU political platform and pushing for economic and social reforms in Turkey. It can also pursue full-menu liberalism with respect to Western values including pluralist democracy, secular politics and the right to dissent. And it can advocate true gender-equality policies. That would be my dream come true—a liberal, secular and democratic Turkey for all.
Or, the AKP might challenge the court and continue to bolster its later majoritarian tendencies. If court action against Islamist parties has moderated such parties, it has also made them more popular, pulling them to the political center, as well as gifting them with the popular underdog brand. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already issued a rebuke to the court's decision, and the AKP might go after a narrowly defined understanding of democracy, dismissing checks and balances and ignoring the real work of EU accession. In this mind-set, the AKP would further its vision of a religion-based society with the party's distaste for women's employment, alcohol consumption and secular education dividing Turkey in the middle. Such a development would inevitably bring harsh court action against the AKP, maybe even a ban. The karmic wheel of Turkey's religion-based parties would stop spinning toward democracy, and that would be my nightmare.
The AKP's record gives me much hope it will do so. When the court shut down the Virtue Party in 2001 for its antisecular activities, the AKP emerged as a breath of fresh air. It publicly eschewed Islamism and pronounced respect for secular democracy, as well as the West and its liberal values. Then things got even better. After coming to power in 2002, the AKP promoted European Union (EU) accession for Turkey, driving a liberal reform agenda and following pro-business policies. The party reached out to different constituencies, suggesting a pluralist understanding of democracy and alleviating concerns about its Islamist pedigree. For a while, it looked as if the AKP had found a liberal balance between Islam and democracy and that it was moving Turkey west.
Alas, it was a mirage on three fronts. First, after Turkey started accession talks with the EU in 2005, the AKP's appetite for the EU faded. It realized that accession talks meant costly reforms, and shied away from pursuing Turkey's EU dream. What's more, a November 2005 decision by the European Court of Human Rights to uphold Turkey's ban on a specific Islamic-style headscarf (turban) on college campuses disappointed the AKP, which had come to believe it could rely on Europe to redefine Turkish secularism. Second, the AKP started to treat liberal, egalitarian democracy as an à la carte menu, choosing some liberties while ignoring others. For example, while the party pushed to lift Turkey's turban ban on college campuses for female students, it implemented religion-infused policies that led to a decrease in women's employment. The erosion of Western values under the AKP resurrected fears about the party's Islamist pedigree, and Turkey was split down the middle between its supporters and opponents. Third, the AKP moved from a pluralist to a majoritarian understanding of democracy. After winning 47 percent of the vote in the July 2007 elections, the party started to interpret its popular mandate as a blank check to ignore democratic checks and balances, and harass dissenters in the media, NGOs, the courts and business groups. Within this background, the country's secular chief prosecutor opened a court case against the party, asking the Constitutional Court to sanction the AKP for violating Turkey's Constitution. Tension rose; some alarmist pundits even suggested that Turkey was moving into the abyss of democratic collapse through a "judicial coup."
But such pundits have been proved wrong. The Turkish court's August decision to put the AKP on probation demonstrated that democracy in Turkey is alive and kicking—and this is where my dream comes in. With the court's decision, the karmic wheel of religion-based parties has made a full circle toward democracy in Turkey, leaving the AKP with a stark choice. The party can continue to spin the karmic wheel by adopting a sincerely pro-EU political platform and pushing for economic and social reforms in Turkey. It can also pursue full-menu liberalism with respect to Western values including pluralist democracy, secular politics and the right to dissent. And it can advocate true gender-equality policies. That would be my dream come true—a liberal, secular and democratic Turkey for all.
Or, the AKP might challenge the court and continue to bolster its later majoritarian tendencies. If court action against Islamist parties has moderated such parties, it has also made them more popular, pulling them to the political center, as well as gifting them with the popular underdog brand. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already issued a rebuke to the court's decision, and the AKP might go after a narrowly defined understanding of democracy, dismissing checks and balances and ignoring the real work of EU accession. In this mind-set, the AKP would further its vision of a religion-based society with the party's distaste for women's employment, alcohol consumption and secular education dividing Turkey in the middle. Such a development would inevitably bring harsh court action against the AKP, maybe even a ban. The karmic wheel of Turkey's religion-based parties would stop spinning toward democracy, and that would be my nightmare.
Lifestyle - Why westernized chinese dislike the west
Charles Zhang is practically the personification of hip, 21st-century China. The flamboyant, MIT-educated entrepreneur founded and runs one of China's two biggest Internet portals, Sohu.com. Last week he welcomed an international swarm of revelers to an Olympic bash at Beijing's fashionable Lan Club (décor by Philippe Starck), where he announced his new gig during the Games: talk-show host. "I learned a lot from Letterman and Leno while living in the States," he said confidently.
Zhang is speaking to a different audience now. He says the anti-Western backlash that erupted in China this spring—after pro-Tibetan demonstrators disrupted the Olympic torch relay in London, Paris and San Francisco—was entirely justified. He himself called for a boycott of French goods and media after an unruly scrum broke out over the torch in Paris. "That was the first time Chinese people as a whole stood up to the world," he says. "It's good for Chinese people ... That incident proves that when Chinese are upset, they can find their voice."
Such sentiments are common on the mainland. But people like Zhang were supposed to be different: he's what Chinese call a hai gui—"sea turtle"—referring to someone who has lived overseas. (The phrase is a pun on haiwai guilai, meaning "returned from overseas.") Their numbers are growing by the tens of thousands every year, and as the sons and daughters of the elite, they have an outsize influence once they move back to China. In the West there's long been an assumption that this cohort would import Western values along with their iPods. They were envisioned as the bridge to a more open, liberal, Western-friendly China.
That daydream got a cold bath during the torch relay this spring, when furious Chinese students in the West showed they could be even more jingoistic than Chinese who had never left home—and good luck to anyone who dared buck the trend. One courageous Duke University freshman from the coastal city of Qingdao tried to intercede in a campus confrontation between a dozen or so pro-Tibetan demonstrators and a much larger group of pro-Beijing Chinese students. For her trouble, she was called a "race traitor" and a "whore"; feces were dumped on her parents' doorstep.
Measuring attitudes among sea turtles can be difficult, especially with all of Chinese society changing around them. Still, some empirical data are beginning to emerge. Prof. David Zweig, head of the Center on China's Transnational Relations at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, is directing a research project based on responses from thousands of returnees from campuses in Canada, Japan and Europe. The data show they're "no less jingoistic than those who have never gone abroad," Zweig says. "As in, 'My country, right or wrong'." What's more, he adds: "A significant proportion of them believe that using force to promote China's national interests is acceptable." Bottom line? "It means the post-1989 policy to imbue youth with nationalism through 'patriotic education' has succeeded," Zweig says.
China has a long tradition of chauvinism, and for some sea turtles, intimate acquaintance with Western attitudes has only intensified their feelings of defensiveness. Author and business consultant Jim MacGregor, who deals frequently with hai gui, says, "The richest people here are the most anti-Western." Even as they sip cappuccino at Starbucks or show off their new Buicks, the last thing most want is to make over their homeland in the West's image. They're after something far more ambitious: a China that lives up to their sense of national greatness. The pacesetters among hai gui don't aspire to be "modern," as Europeans and Americans often use the word—as a synonym for Western. Instead, prosperous young returnees tend to see themselves emphatically as modern Chinese.
Previous generations of sea turtles were patriotic in a different way. A century or more ago, Chinese students were sent abroad to learn science and technology from the West, and returned with a sense of mission. "They felt the most important thing was to help Chinese education; they wanted to teach," says dissident journalist Dai Qing, who has just finished writing a book about that era.
Now the business opportunities available on the mainland are at least as big a draw for returnees. But even someone like Dai, who served a term in prison for opposing the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, says she feels the tug of the motherland. She's just returned from her fourth stint overseas—a year at Australian National University studying "relations between dictatorships and individuals." When she first left the country in 1991 for a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, many acquaintances mistakenly assumed she'd never go home. "People say, 'Dai Qing's stupid—after 20 years of going overseas she doesn't even have a green card'," she says with a laugh.
Many sea turtles have their own theories about why Chinese overseas might show a hostile streak. For one thing, they run out of patience with Westerners' ignorance. "To be honest, when we go abroad we do find people asking strange questions, like whether China has modern buildings or cars," says Danny Huang, who lived in Canada and the United States for more than a decade before returning to run an educational charity in Shanghai. "Sometimes it's hard not to feel they have some bias." For others, anger against the West can ease the pangs of homesickness, suggests Shanghai University film teacher Shu Haolun. "They need a bond to their motherland," says Shu, who studied cinema and photography at Southern Illinois University before returning to China in 2003. "They're being anti-Western to feel attached to their own country."
Some of the nationalism exhibited by Chinese living abroad might also be sustained, rather than diluted, by the Internet. "As soon as they get online they can be totally immersed in a Chinese environment," says Zhao Chuan, a novelist who lived in Australia from 1987 to 2000 before coming home to write about Shanghai. "When we were studying abroad ... occasionally you went to Chinatown to read a Chinese paper. Now if you're in the U.K. you can easily not read English papers or watch English TV."
Others say the returnees' driving force isn't exactly nationalism. Instead, they argue, it reflects the extraordinary assertiveness of young urban Chinese. Decades of strict one-child family-planning policies have produced a generation of only-children—"little emperors," the Chinese call them. "Young Chinese feel they have the right to speak out about anything," says Victor Yuan, who studied for a year at Harvard's Kennedy School and now heads Horizon, a market survey consultancy. Some rebel against both Chinese and Western norms—like architect Ma Yansong, who apprenticed under Zaha Hadid in London and is famous for his designs mocking the regime's obsession with huge, imposing buildings. "This generation doesn't want to accept any ideological message, whether it's from the Communist Party or Voice of America," says Yuan.
The power of hai gui is visibly growing. Two of China's cabinet ministers earned their doctorates at universities outside the country, and approximately 100 officials at the level of vice governor or higher have studied overseas for at least a year, according to Zweig's figures. Patriotism notwithstanding, he says his research suggests that as Chinese spend more time outside the country, their thinking becomes more nuanced and internationalist: "They don't want to see China pushed around but are smart enough to know China makes mistakes." At the Lan Club last week, Zhang said it's time for China to prove it can do things right. "After suffering for hundreds of years and then for 30 years scrambling to get things right, now China's getting the respect of the world," he said. "Chinese are gaining more self-respect, too, so they should become more responsible." With luck, that means becoming more responsible to the world, not just to China.
Zhang is speaking to a different audience now. He says the anti-Western backlash that erupted in China this spring—after pro-Tibetan demonstrators disrupted the Olympic torch relay in London, Paris and San Francisco—was entirely justified. He himself called for a boycott of French goods and media after an unruly scrum broke out over the torch in Paris. "That was the first time Chinese people as a whole stood up to the world," he says. "It's good for Chinese people ... That incident proves that when Chinese are upset, they can find their voice."
Such sentiments are common on the mainland. But people like Zhang were supposed to be different: he's what Chinese call a hai gui—"sea turtle"—referring to someone who has lived overseas. (The phrase is a pun on haiwai guilai, meaning "returned from overseas.") Their numbers are growing by the tens of thousands every year, and as the sons and daughters of the elite, they have an outsize influence once they move back to China. In the West there's long been an assumption that this cohort would import Western values along with their iPods. They were envisioned as the bridge to a more open, liberal, Western-friendly China.
That daydream got a cold bath during the torch relay this spring, when furious Chinese students in the West showed they could be even more jingoistic than Chinese who had never left home—and good luck to anyone who dared buck the trend. One courageous Duke University freshman from the coastal city of Qingdao tried to intercede in a campus confrontation between a dozen or so pro-Tibetan demonstrators and a much larger group of pro-Beijing Chinese students. For her trouble, she was called a "race traitor" and a "whore"; feces were dumped on her parents' doorstep.
Measuring attitudes among sea turtles can be difficult, especially with all of Chinese society changing around them. Still, some empirical data are beginning to emerge. Prof. David Zweig, head of the Center on China's Transnational Relations at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, is directing a research project based on responses from thousands of returnees from campuses in Canada, Japan and Europe. The data show they're "no less jingoistic than those who have never gone abroad," Zweig says. "As in, 'My country, right or wrong'." What's more, he adds: "A significant proportion of them believe that using force to promote China's national interests is acceptable." Bottom line? "It means the post-1989 policy to imbue youth with nationalism through 'patriotic education' has succeeded," Zweig says.
China has a long tradition of chauvinism, and for some sea turtles, intimate acquaintance with Western attitudes has only intensified their feelings of defensiveness. Author and business consultant Jim MacGregor, who deals frequently with hai gui, says, "The richest people here are the most anti-Western." Even as they sip cappuccino at Starbucks or show off their new Buicks, the last thing most want is to make over their homeland in the West's image. They're after something far more ambitious: a China that lives up to their sense of national greatness. The pacesetters among hai gui don't aspire to be "modern," as Europeans and Americans often use the word—as a synonym for Western. Instead, prosperous young returnees tend to see themselves emphatically as modern Chinese.
Previous generations of sea turtles were patriotic in a different way. A century or more ago, Chinese students were sent abroad to learn science and technology from the West, and returned with a sense of mission. "They felt the most important thing was to help Chinese education; they wanted to teach," says dissident journalist Dai Qing, who has just finished writing a book about that era.
Now the business opportunities available on the mainland are at least as big a draw for returnees. But even someone like Dai, who served a term in prison for opposing the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, says she feels the tug of the motherland. She's just returned from her fourth stint overseas—a year at Australian National University studying "relations between dictatorships and individuals." When she first left the country in 1991 for a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, many acquaintances mistakenly assumed she'd never go home. "People say, 'Dai Qing's stupid—after 20 years of going overseas she doesn't even have a green card'," she says with a laugh.
Many sea turtles have their own theories about why Chinese overseas might show a hostile streak. For one thing, they run out of patience with Westerners' ignorance. "To be honest, when we go abroad we do find people asking strange questions, like whether China has modern buildings or cars," says Danny Huang, who lived in Canada and the United States for more than a decade before returning to run an educational charity in Shanghai. "Sometimes it's hard not to feel they have some bias." For others, anger against the West can ease the pangs of homesickness, suggests Shanghai University film teacher Shu Haolun. "They need a bond to their motherland," says Shu, who studied cinema and photography at Southern Illinois University before returning to China in 2003. "They're being anti-Western to feel attached to their own country."
Some of the nationalism exhibited by Chinese living abroad might also be sustained, rather than diluted, by the Internet. "As soon as they get online they can be totally immersed in a Chinese environment," says Zhao Chuan, a novelist who lived in Australia from 1987 to 2000 before coming home to write about Shanghai. "When we were studying abroad ... occasionally you went to Chinatown to read a Chinese paper. Now if you're in the U.K. you can easily not read English papers or watch English TV."
Others say the returnees' driving force isn't exactly nationalism. Instead, they argue, it reflects the extraordinary assertiveness of young urban Chinese. Decades of strict one-child family-planning policies have produced a generation of only-children—"little emperors," the Chinese call them. "Young Chinese feel they have the right to speak out about anything," says Victor Yuan, who studied for a year at Harvard's Kennedy School and now heads Horizon, a market survey consultancy. Some rebel against both Chinese and Western norms—like architect Ma Yansong, who apprenticed under Zaha Hadid in London and is famous for his designs mocking the regime's obsession with huge, imposing buildings. "This generation doesn't want to accept any ideological message, whether it's from the Communist Party or Voice of America," says Yuan.
The power of hai gui is visibly growing. Two of China's cabinet ministers earned their doctorates at universities outside the country, and approximately 100 officials at the level of vice governor or higher have studied overseas for at least a year, according to Zweig's figures. Patriotism notwithstanding, he says his research suggests that as Chinese spend more time outside the country, their thinking becomes more nuanced and internationalist: "They don't want to see China pushed around but are smart enough to know China makes mistakes." At the Lan Club last week, Zhang said it's time for China to prove it can do things right. "After suffering for hundreds of years and then for 30 years scrambling to get things right, now China's getting the respect of the world," he said. "Chinese are gaining more self-respect, too, so they should become more responsible." With luck, that means becoming more responsible to the world, not just to China.
World - Does clean air mean more global warming ?
Dissidents aren't the only ones being forced off the streets of Beijing during these Summer Olympics. The Chinese government's heavy hand is also pushing drivers off the roads--about 3.5 million of them, in fact--as part of an effort to reduce the city's notoriously bad air quality. Late last month, the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau ordered half of the city's automobiles off the streets for the duration of the Games and closed hundreds of factories, steel mills, foundries and coal plants. "We can guarantee good air quality during the Games," Du Shaozhong, Beijing's smog czar, asserted at a recent news conference. "We can provide a good environment for the athletes."
But can they really? As the Games begin this weekend, many experts say the air is not healthy at all, especially for athletes competing outside. And it's worth mentioning that air deemed "healthy" in Beijing would still be considered "unhealthy" in any U.S. city, where pollution limits are as much as five times lower. Neither Shaozhong nor any other Chinese pols have had much to say about that, or about how bad Beijing's air will be for the 17.4 million residents once the athletes and reporters go home and all those cars are back on the streets and all those factories reopen.
But Veerabhadran Ramanathan will be able to tell us. Ramanathan, a leading climate researcher from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, is studying the air in Beijing for the duration of the Olympics and beyond (eight weeks total) to see how it affects the environment not only for the folks in Beijing, but the world. One of more than 100 scientists conducting air-quality experiments during the Games, Ramanathan is actually doing his work on the South Korean island of Jeju, some 500 miles southeast of Beijing but directly downwind from the pollution.
Ramanathan is launching unmanned drones to monitor air quality up to 12,000 feet and is using another unmanned plane from Edwards Air Force Base to measure how much of the bad stuff reaches California. Ramanathan says his goal with this experiment is to see how China's air affects the rest of the world, specifically with regard to climate change. The Chinese have made the air cleaner, he says, but it is still not healthy air for athletes, or children or other living things. And here's the real irony. "Air pollution actually masks global warming," says Ramanathan. "When you clean up very polluted air, as China is doing during these Olympics, it has a direct impact on global warming and temperatures rise."
Air pollution's ability to mask global warming is not something Al Gore just dreamed up. Scientists like Ramanathan have in fact been heeding this call for several years. Particles in pollution that enter the atmosphere cool the Earth by shielding radiation from the sun and bouncing it back out to space. Cutting down on the release of these particles by improving air quality, which China is doing right now and which the West has been doing for some time, actually diminishes this shield and the Earth's temperature rises, Ramanathan and others say.
If you think the idea that making the air cleaner can cause global warming sounds like a Faustian bargain of the worst kind, well, you're getting warmer. "There is indeed a cruel irony to all this," says Ramanathan. "And of course I'm not saying 'let's burn more coal,' I'm just saying that we need to start thinking of clever ways to address both problems. We know that air pollution masks the effects of global warming, but to what percentage we are still not certain. That's one of the things my experiment will be looking at. If it's 80 percent, that would be bad news."
Among the many good things about these Olympics, however, Ramanathan insists, is that they will not only increase awareness of the worldwide problem of air pollution but also the present danger of climate change--and the surprising connection between the two: "I'm not a policymaker, and there's no magic bullet. But we have to be aware of both the climate-change aspect and the pollution aspect. China has done a good thing by cleaning up the air for these Games, but they are all at the mercy of the winds. Beijing remains a very polluted city."
The British Broadcasting Corp.'s Beijing bureau confirms this, reporting that its pollution-measuring device has shown readings this week for tiny particles of soot and other particulate matter well above the World Health Organization's recommended levels for healthy air.
Unmoved, Chinese officials, and even some non-Chinese members of the International Olympic Committee, continue to preposterously insist that the thick yellow haze blanketing parts of Beijing this week is fog, not smog, and that the air is just fine. And they insist that if the air does get worse, they can force as many as 90 percent of the automobiles off the streets and close even more factories. But the athletes aren't breathing any sighs of relief.
But can they really? As the Games begin this weekend, many experts say the air is not healthy at all, especially for athletes competing outside. And it's worth mentioning that air deemed "healthy" in Beijing would still be considered "unhealthy" in any U.S. city, where pollution limits are as much as five times lower. Neither Shaozhong nor any other Chinese pols have had much to say about that, or about how bad Beijing's air will be for the 17.4 million residents once the athletes and reporters go home and all those cars are back on the streets and all those factories reopen.
But Veerabhadran Ramanathan will be able to tell us. Ramanathan, a leading climate researcher from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, is studying the air in Beijing for the duration of the Olympics and beyond (eight weeks total) to see how it affects the environment not only for the folks in Beijing, but the world. One of more than 100 scientists conducting air-quality experiments during the Games, Ramanathan is actually doing his work on the South Korean island of Jeju, some 500 miles southeast of Beijing but directly downwind from the pollution.
Ramanathan is launching unmanned drones to monitor air quality up to 12,000 feet and is using another unmanned plane from Edwards Air Force Base to measure how much of the bad stuff reaches California. Ramanathan says his goal with this experiment is to see how China's air affects the rest of the world, specifically with regard to climate change. The Chinese have made the air cleaner, he says, but it is still not healthy air for athletes, or children or other living things. And here's the real irony. "Air pollution actually masks global warming," says Ramanathan. "When you clean up very polluted air, as China is doing during these Olympics, it has a direct impact on global warming and temperatures rise."
Air pollution's ability to mask global warming is not something Al Gore just dreamed up. Scientists like Ramanathan have in fact been heeding this call for several years. Particles in pollution that enter the atmosphere cool the Earth by shielding radiation from the sun and bouncing it back out to space. Cutting down on the release of these particles by improving air quality, which China is doing right now and which the West has been doing for some time, actually diminishes this shield and the Earth's temperature rises, Ramanathan and others say.
If you think the idea that making the air cleaner can cause global warming sounds like a Faustian bargain of the worst kind, well, you're getting warmer. "There is indeed a cruel irony to all this," says Ramanathan. "And of course I'm not saying 'let's burn more coal,' I'm just saying that we need to start thinking of clever ways to address both problems. We know that air pollution masks the effects of global warming, but to what percentage we are still not certain. That's one of the things my experiment will be looking at. If it's 80 percent, that would be bad news."
Among the many good things about these Olympics, however, Ramanathan insists, is that they will not only increase awareness of the worldwide problem of air pollution but also the present danger of climate change--and the surprising connection between the two: "I'm not a policymaker, and there's no magic bullet. But we have to be aware of both the climate-change aspect and the pollution aspect. China has done a good thing by cleaning up the air for these Games, but they are all at the mercy of the winds. Beijing remains a very polluted city."
The British Broadcasting Corp.'s Beijing bureau confirms this, reporting that its pollution-measuring device has shown readings this week for tiny particles of soot and other particulate matter well above the World Health Organization's recommended levels for healthy air.
Unmoved, Chinese officials, and even some non-Chinese members of the International Olympic Committee, continue to preposterously insist that the thick yellow haze blanketing parts of Beijing this week is fog, not smog, and that the air is just fine. And they insist that if the air does get worse, they can force as many as 90 percent of the automobiles off the streets and close even more factories. But the athletes aren't breathing any sighs of relief.
Health - Brain rewiring turns an engineer to an artist
LONDON: A cerebral haemorrhage turned out to be a blessing in disguise for a British engineer, whose brain was "rewired" to turn him into an artist after the stroke.
Ken Walters, resident of Ormskirk, Lancashire, suffered multiple spine fractures and massive internal injuries when he was crushed against a wall by a fork lift truck when a driver lost control. Two life-threatening heart attacks further deepened his gloom.
The cerebral haemorrhage, however, "rewired" part of his brain and spawned an artistic flair he never previously possessed.
"Although I didn't realise it at the time, having a stroke was the biggest blessing in disguise I ever could have wished for," Walters said.
"I have amazed myself by the turnaround to be honest but I'm loving every minute of it. Now I wouldn't change my life for anything," he was quoted as saying by the Mail online.
Doctors convinced the abstract musings were the result of a "rewiring" of the brain encouraged Walters to develop his new found hobby, the report said.
"My doctor told me following a stroke your brain usually rewires itself to avoid the damaged bits and often leads to discovering hidden talents," Walters said.
The former engineer soon become an expert in digital imagery and created his own software. In October last year computer giant EA games was so impressed with a gallery of computerised creatures he had dreamed up they commissioned him to design 100 digital dinosaurs for a new educational game called Spore.
According to the report, Walters has already netted 30,000 pounds from his back bedroom creativity.
Ken Walters, resident of Ormskirk, Lancashire, suffered multiple spine fractures and massive internal injuries when he was crushed against a wall by a fork lift truck when a driver lost control. Two life-threatening heart attacks further deepened his gloom.
The cerebral haemorrhage, however, "rewired" part of his brain and spawned an artistic flair he never previously possessed.
"Although I didn't realise it at the time, having a stroke was the biggest blessing in disguise I ever could have wished for," Walters said.
"I have amazed myself by the turnaround to be honest but I'm loving every minute of it. Now I wouldn't change my life for anything," he was quoted as saying by the Mail online.
Doctors convinced the abstract musings were the result of a "rewiring" of the brain encouraged Walters to develop his new found hobby, the report said.
"My doctor told me following a stroke your brain usually rewires itself to avoid the damaged bits and often leads to discovering hidden talents," Walters said.
The former engineer soon become an expert in digital imagery and created his own software. In October last year computer giant EA games was so impressed with a gallery of computerised creatures he had dreamed up they commissioned him to design 100 digital dinosaurs for a new educational game called Spore.
According to the report, Walters has already netted 30,000 pounds from his back bedroom creativity.
India - Testing time for newspaper industry
Rising newsprint cost forces publications to defer launches, raise advertisement rates.
# Metro Now, the English language paper for Delhi, born of a joint venture between HT Media and Bennett, Coleman and Company (BCCL), has deferred its plan to enter the state capitals. It has reduced its print run for the Delhi region and shelved the idea of a Sunday paper for the time being.
# BCCL’s designs to take its flagship publication, The Times of India, to smaller towns after launching the daily’s Goa, Chennai and Jaipur editions this year, are also on the back burner. It had plans to start editions in southern and central India.
# Business Standard has shut down the newly-launched Rajkot edition of its Gujarati paper.
Indian newspapers are the cheapest in the world. They may not stay that way as publishers have started announcing price increases to neutralise the impact of record newsprint costs.
Many publishers are postponing expansion plans, while some are jacking up advertising tariffs to neutralise the higher costs. These are testing times for an industry that has seen rapid growth in the last few years, but is now forced to consider cutbacks of various kinds.
Though few newspaper proprietors and executives admit it, many publishing houses are holding back their expansion plans, thanks to a 50 per cent newsprint price hike in the last six months.
“The current newsprint crisis is affecting the expansion plans of print media companies. They will not venture into new markets, and capacity additions will be deferred if not shelved,” says Mohit Jain, director (business and commercial) at BCCL, the country’s largest publisher.
Rajeev Verma, CEO of HT Media, declines to specify whether his company has put new editions on hold, and/or calling off circulation drives for Hindustan Times, Hindustan and Mint.
“It’s not our strategy to talk about changes, if any, in our plans,” he says. The company had announced the Kolkata launch of its business daily, Mint, then changed its mind and returned money that had been taken from subscribers.
The Mid Day group’s chief financial officer, Manajit Ghoshal, does not link the increased input costs to the company’s current focus on the web, but he says that there will be only one new edition of Mid Day this year. The paper was launched in Pune on Monday.
Meanwhile, in the eight months since its launch, Mail Today, the compact daily from the India Today group, hasn’t ventured beyond Delhi. At the time of its launch, the company talked about a presence in 20 cities.
Ashish Bagga, group CEO, India Today, says Mail Today is yet to zero in on the cities it wants to enter. “We have not shelved our plans, though I agree that the print media industry is not as bullish as it was last year,” he observes.
The company that is busy swimming against the tide is the publisher of the Daily News and Analysis (DNA), which was launched in Mumbai three years ago, and in Pune a few months ago. Diligent Media Corporation, which owns DNA, is now readying for the daily’s Bangalore launch.
If other newspapers’ growth plans are badly hit, so are their profit margins. A regional newspaper proprietor, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that his paper’s profit has plummeted from Rs 90 crore to about Rs 40 crore, owing to spiralling newsprint costs.
“The valuations of media companies have gone for a toss, too. If things don’t change, the print industry will be wiped out,” says BCCL’s Jain.
In fact, the shares of print media companies such as Jagran Prakashan and HT Media have been under pressure, cost inflation being one of the reasons. Between March and August 2008, the HT Media stock price dropped 36.6 per cent, more or less in line with the Sensex which lost a third of its value, while the Jagran Prakashan stock saw a 46-per cent drop.
In an unusual response to the newsprint price surge, the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has advised its member-publications to reduce their newsprint consumption by 20 per cent. H
owever, newspapers have not waited for INS guidelines, and many have already taken action. Business Standard has cut its number of pages on some days, according to its president Akila Urankar. “We have also increased our cover price in some markets by 50 paise,” she adds.
Others too are raising cover prices. The Economic Times, which too has become slimmer than before, has increased its cover price to as much as Rs 4 in Pune, and by smaller amounts in some other editions (it is Rs 2 in most other markets).
The Times of India’s combo price in Mumbai (and several other markets) has also gone up from Rs 4 to Rs 4.50. However, in the intensely- competitive Delhi market, arch rivals HT and ToI are each waiting for the other to blink first and announce a price hike. The Outlook group, meanwhile, has increased the cover price of Outlook Money from Rs 20 to Rs 30.
INS office-bearers met the information and broadcasting minister last week to press for a 50 per cent increase in the rates for government advertising.
Priyaranjan Dasmunsi promised action within a week, indicating a tariff increase of 30 per cent. Meanwhile, some publishers have increased rates for non-government advertisments by between 25 and 40 per cent. “Advertisers will find it difficult to absorb the cost,” says Sejal Shah, vice-president at the buying company Indian Media Exchange.
She feels that the increased ad rates may push brands to switch to television and radio, or other mediums. She cites the case of an airline company which has halved its Rs 15-crore spend on print. It is now preparing to launch a television commercial. “Retail clients are also shifting money to TV,” says Shah.
Ashish Bhasin, India chairman of the Aegis Media group, does not agree. “Print is strong in India. People will accept the new rates after some initial resistance, unless, of course, advertisers start conserving their budgets on account of a slowdown,” he adds.
BCCL’s Jain says that advertising growth may have slowed down for some players. “It hasn’t happened as yet, but we may see a 10 per cent drop in volumes owing to the price increases,” he says.
With newsprint prices showing no signs of softening in the next six months, and revenue streams at risk, these are challenging times for Indian newspapers.
# Metro Now, the English language paper for Delhi, born of a joint venture between HT Media and Bennett, Coleman and Company (BCCL), has deferred its plan to enter the state capitals. It has reduced its print run for the Delhi region and shelved the idea of a Sunday paper for the time being.
# BCCL’s designs to take its flagship publication, The Times of India, to smaller towns after launching the daily’s Goa, Chennai and Jaipur editions this year, are also on the back burner. It had plans to start editions in southern and central India.
# Business Standard has shut down the newly-launched Rajkot edition of its Gujarati paper.
Indian newspapers are the cheapest in the world. They may not stay that way as publishers have started announcing price increases to neutralise the impact of record newsprint costs.
Many publishers are postponing expansion plans, while some are jacking up advertising tariffs to neutralise the higher costs. These are testing times for an industry that has seen rapid growth in the last few years, but is now forced to consider cutbacks of various kinds.
Though few newspaper proprietors and executives admit it, many publishing houses are holding back their expansion plans, thanks to a 50 per cent newsprint price hike in the last six months.
“The current newsprint crisis is affecting the expansion plans of print media companies. They will not venture into new markets, and capacity additions will be deferred if not shelved,” says Mohit Jain, director (business and commercial) at BCCL, the country’s largest publisher.
Rajeev Verma, CEO of HT Media, declines to specify whether his company has put new editions on hold, and/or calling off circulation drives for Hindustan Times, Hindustan and Mint.
“It’s not our strategy to talk about changes, if any, in our plans,” he says. The company had announced the Kolkata launch of its business daily, Mint, then changed its mind and returned money that had been taken from subscribers.
The Mid Day group’s chief financial officer, Manajit Ghoshal, does not link the increased input costs to the company’s current focus on the web, but he says that there will be only one new edition of Mid Day this year. The paper was launched in Pune on Monday.
Meanwhile, in the eight months since its launch, Mail Today, the compact daily from the India Today group, hasn’t ventured beyond Delhi. At the time of its launch, the company talked about a presence in 20 cities.
Ashish Bagga, group CEO, India Today, says Mail Today is yet to zero in on the cities it wants to enter. “We have not shelved our plans, though I agree that the print media industry is not as bullish as it was last year,” he observes.
The company that is busy swimming against the tide is the publisher of the Daily News and Analysis (DNA), which was launched in Mumbai three years ago, and in Pune a few months ago. Diligent Media Corporation, which owns DNA, is now readying for the daily’s Bangalore launch.
If other newspapers’ growth plans are badly hit, so are their profit margins. A regional newspaper proprietor, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that his paper’s profit has plummeted from Rs 90 crore to about Rs 40 crore, owing to spiralling newsprint costs.
“The valuations of media companies have gone for a toss, too. If things don’t change, the print industry will be wiped out,” says BCCL’s Jain.
In fact, the shares of print media companies such as Jagran Prakashan and HT Media have been under pressure, cost inflation being one of the reasons. Between March and August 2008, the HT Media stock price dropped 36.6 per cent, more or less in line with the Sensex which lost a third of its value, while the Jagran Prakashan stock saw a 46-per cent drop.
In an unusual response to the newsprint price surge, the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has advised its member-publications to reduce their newsprint consumption by 20 per cent. H
owever, newspapers have not waited for INS guidelines, and many have already taken action. Business Standard has cut its number of pages on some days, according to its president Akila Urankar. “We have also increased our cover price in some markets by 50 paise,” she adds.
Others too are raising cover prices. The Economic Times, which too has become slimmer than before, has increased its cover price to as much as Rs 4 in Pune, and by smaller amounts in some other editions (it is Rs 2 in most other markets).
The Times of India’s combo price in Mumbai (and several other markets) has also gone up from Rs 4 to Rs 4.50. However, in the intensely- competitive Delhi market, arch rivals HT and ToI are each waiting for the other to blink first and announce a price hike. The Outlook group, meanwhile, has increased the cover price of Outlook Money from Rs 20 to Rs 30.
INS office-bearers met the information and broadcasting minister last week to press for a 50 per cent increase in the rates for government advertising.
Priyaranjan Dasmunsi promised action within a week, indicating a tariff increase of 30 per cent. Meanwhile, some publishers have increased rates for non-government advertisments by between 25 and 40 per cent. “Advertisers will find it difficult to absorb the cost,” says Sejal Shah, vice-president at the buying company Indian Media Exchange.
She feels that the increased ad rates may push brands to switch to television and radio, or other mediums. She cites the case of an airline company which has halved its Rs 15-crore spend on print. It is now preparing to launch a television commercial. “Retail clients are also shifting money to TV,” says Shah.
Ashish Bhasin, India chairman of the Aegis Media group, does not agree. “Print is strong in India. People will accept the new rates after some initial resistance, unless, of course, advertisers start conserving their budgets on account of a slowdown,” he adds.
BCCL’s Jain says that advertising growth may have slowed down for some players. “It hasn’t happened as yet, but we may see a 10 per cent drop in volumes owing to the price increases,” he says.
With newsprint prices showing no signs of softening in the next six months, and revenue streams at risk, these are challenging times for Indian newspapers.
World - How Germany came to love nuclear energy
The latest casualty of the rising cost of energy is one of Europe's most persistent political taboos: Germany's striking aversion to nuclear power. Nowhere else did the opposition to atomic energy become as deeply embedded in the cultural and political DNA of a nation. Many citizens now in their 40s and 50s came of age protesting nuclear power in the 1970s and '80s. A generation of Green and Social Democrat (SPD) politicians built careers out of their total opposition to nukes—the Green party was antinuclear even before it became environmentalist. The movement reached its climax in 2001, when Parliament passed an "atomic-exit law" to shut down the country's then 19 reactors by approximately 2021. Two have already been decommissioned. As countries around the world began reinvesting in nuclear energy, thanks to growing worries over energy security and climate change, Germans held fast to the atomic-exit law and their quasi-religious belief in the evils of nukes.
But the energy business has changed dramatically since the Germans passed their law, and German attitudes are finally catching up. The world is now more worried about climate change than a repeat of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. Growing fuel imports from an assertive Russia and an unstable Middle East have turned energy into a security issue. But what really got Germans to rethink was their pocketbooks. When the Bundestag passed the exit law, oil cost less than $20 a barrel—one sixth its cost in early August. Now that Germans are pinching euros to pay their surging electricity bills, more of them have decided it makes no sense to shut off the source of 25 percent of their power—the relic of a nuclear building boom launched after the first oil shock in 1973, amid energy worries strikingly similar to today's. In a recent poll, an unprecedented 54 percent of Germans say they want to keep the reactors up and running, up from 40 percent as recently as December. As a result, what had long seemed unlikely has started to happen: a fresh public debate over nukes.
In June, parliamentarians in Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic party published a proposal to drop the exit law and build more plants, promising to make cheap nuclear energy an issue for next year's national election. Even in the SPD, dissident voices are getting louder. Prominent figures like ex-chancellor Helmut Schmidt and former Economics minister Wolfgang Clement have called on their party to rethink their energy policy. "It's enormous," says Dieter Marx, director of Atomforum, Germany's nuclear operators association. "We've been completely surprised by the shift in opinion." At this year's annual meeting in Hamburg, he says, only 15 protesters showed up.
In addition to high energy prices, part of the reassessment can be traced to pressure from Germany's neighbors. Germany's virtually unilateral veto of carbon-free nukes was getting ever tougher to square with the country's self-styled role as a global environmental leader. At the G8 talks on energy security in Tokyo earlier this summer, Merkel was the odd person out, opposing a call on countries to use nuclear energy as one way of cutting emissions. France, which generates 80 percent of its electricity from nukes and has one of the lowest per capita emission rates of any developed country, has just announced construction of its 61st reactor—and doesn't see why it should be obliged to shift to expensive wind and solar power like Germany. In July, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for the construction of eight new reactors in the United Kingdom over the next 15 years to help build what he calls "the post-oil economy."
Italy's Silvio Berlusconi has promised to reverse a phaseout similar to Germany's, just as Sweden suspended its phaseout in 2005. In line with a rapid change in Swedish public opinion, the government reasoned that avoiding emissions that cause climate change must come ahead of nuclear decommissioning. Even the International Energy Agency, of which Germany is a member, has called for a triple-pronged strategy to fight climate change: efficiency improvements, a switch to renewable energy and the construction of 1,300 new nuclear power plants worldwide.
If Germany—Europe's biggest consumer of energy—joins the shift toward nukes, it would make it far likelier that the EU can slow down, or even reverse, its growing dependence on Russia. But what makes the change in Germany so delicate to navigate is its own complex, internal, consensus-driven politics. The SPD, the junior partner in Merkel's coalition government, has steadfastly blocked any attempt to loosen the ban on new plants enacted when it was in power. Its veto power over any change to the phaseout law means it remains in place, though the power companies have used temporary shutdowns to extend the life of their oldest reactors until after the 2009 election—when they hope Merkel will head a more nuke-friendly coalition.
Merkel, whose modus operandi is to avoid open conflict, has pledged her adherence to the status quo until after the election. The government's own Council of Environmental Advisors, which is supposed to develop Germany's long-term environmental strategy, talks about everything—except nuclear energy. Miranda Schreurs, a council member who directs the Environmental Policy Research Center at Berlin's Free University, says the debate has started to become a more rational one, but centers only on the life extension of currently operating plants. Despite the emboldened CDU parliamentarians, building new reactors is still a nonstarter for most Germans. Merkel herself has ruled out new construction. "The old taboo is still there," says Schreurs.
Even more complicated is the SPD's position. The SPD's Environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, clings to wildly ambitious numbers for the use of wind and solar power to replace both nuclear energy as well as coal, which has lately also become a target of environmental protests. Any new debate over nuclear energy is seen by the SPD leadership as yet another threat to party unity at a time when masses of members and voters are abandoning the SPD for the far-left Linkspartei; an early August Forsa poll had the SPD at a historic low of 22 percent. Divisions are emerging already. In August, an SPD arbitration commission voted to expel Clement from the party, describing his attack on a fellow party member for her antinuclear policy as "damaging behavior."
The situation remains frozen at least until after next year's election. But the sudden change in mood proves that even for hyperenvironmentalist Germans, their emotional convictions aren't immune to the reality that nuclear energy cuts both CO2 and the bill for imported fuel. With the SPD imploding and Merkel's chances of getting her coalition of choice with the Free Democrats growing ever so slowly, the day when Germany drops its plan to kill its nukes is getting a little closer.
But the energy business has changed dramatically since the Germans passed their law, and German attitudes are finally catching up. The world is now more worried about climate change than a repeat of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. Growing fuel imports from an assertive Russia and an unstable Middle East have turned energy into a security issue. But what really got Germans to rethink was their pocketbooks. When the Bundestag passed the exit law, oil cost less than $20 a barrel—one sixth its cost in early August. Now that Germans are pinching euros to pay their surging electricity bills, more of them have decided it makes no sense to shut off the source of 25 percent of their power—the relic of a nuclear building boom launched after the first oil shock in 1973, amid energy worries strikingly similar to today's. In a recent poll, an unprecedented 54 percent of Germans say they want to keep the reactors up and running, up from 40 percent as recently as December. As a result, what had long seemed unlikely has started to happen: a fresh public debate over nukes.
In June, parliamentarians in Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic party published a proposal to drop the exit law and build more plants, promising to make cheap nuclear energy an issue for next year's national election. Even in the SPD, dissident voices are getting louder. Prominent figures like ex-chancellor Helmut Schmidt and former Economics minister Wolfgang Clement have called on their party to rethink their energy policy. "It's enormous," says Dieter Marx, director of Atomforum, Germany's nuclear operators association. "We've been completely surprised by the shift in opinion." At this year's annual meeting in Hamburg, he says, only 15 protesters showed up.
In addition to high energy prices, part of the reassessment can be traced to pressure from Germany's neighbors. Germany's virtually unilateral veto of carbon-free nukes was getting ever tougher to square with the country's self-styled role as a global environmental leader. At the G8 talks on energy security in Tokyo earlier this summer, Merkel was the odd person out, opposing a call on countries to use nuclear energy as one way of cutting emissions. France, which generates 80 percent of its electricity from nukes and has one of the lowest per capita emission rates of any developed country, has just announced construction of its 61st reactor—and doesn't see why it should be obliged to shift to expensive wind and solar power like Germany. In July, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for the construction of eight new reactors in the United Kingdom over the next 15 years to help build what he calls "the post-oil economy."
Italy's Silvio Berlusconi has promised to reverse a phaseout similar to Germany's, just as Sweden suspended its phaseout in 2005. In line with a rapid change in Swedish public opinion, the government reasoned that avoiding emissions that cause climate change must come ahead of nuclear decommissioning. Even the International Energy Agency, of which Germany is a member, has called for a triple-pronged strategy to fight climate change: efficiency improvements, a switch to renewable energy and the construction of 1,300 new nuclear power plants worldwide.
If Germany—Europe's biggest consumer of energy—joins the shift toward nukes, it would make it far likelier that the EU can slow down, or even reverse, its growing dependence on Russia. But what makes the change in Germany so delicate to navigate is its own complex, internal, consensus-driven politics. The SPD, the junior partner in Merkel's coalition government, has steadfastly blocked any attempt to loosen the ban on new plants enacted when it was in power. Its veto power over any change to the phaseout law means it remains in place, though the power companies have used temporary shutdowns to extend the life of their oldest reactors until after the 2009 election—when they hope Merkel will head a more nuke-friendly coalition.
Merkel, whose modus operandi is to avoid open conflict, has pledged her adherence to the status quo until after the election. The government's own Council of Environmental Advisors, which is supposed to develop Germany's long-term environmental strategy, talks about everything—except nuclear energy. Miranda Schreurs, a council member who directs the Environmental Policy Research Center at Berlin's Free University, says the debate has started to become a more rational one, but centers only on the life extension of currently operating plants. Despite the emboldened CDU parliamentarians, building new reactors is still a nonstarter for most Germans. Merkel herself has ruled out new construction. "The old taboo is still there," says Schreurs.
Even more complicated is the SPD's position. The SPD's Environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, clings to wildly ambitious numbers for the use of wind and solar power to replace both nuclear energy as well as coal, which has lately also become a target of environmental protests. Any new debate over nuclear energy is seen by the SPD leadership as yet another threat to party unity at a time when masses of members and voters are abandoning the SPD for the far-left Linkspartei; an early August Forsa poll had the SPD at a historic low of 22 percent. Divisions are emerging already. In August, an SPD arbitration commission voted to expel Clement from the party, describing his attack on a fellow party member for her antinuclear policy as "damaging behavior."
The situation remains frozen at least until after next year's election. But the sudden change in mood proves that even for hyperenvironmentalist Germans, their emotional convictions aren't immune to the reality that nuclear energy cuts both CO2 and the bill for imported fuel. With the SPD imploding and Merkel's chances of getting her coalition of choice with the Free Democrats growing ever so slowly, the day when Germany drops its plan to kill its nukes is getting a little closer.
Fun - Why cubans have such funny names
Dayron. Yampier. Yankiel. Yordenis. Yulieski. Eglis. Idel. These are just some of the stranger given names to be found among the 149 athletes representing Cuba at this year's Summer Olympics in Beijing, and they spotlight a quirky custom practiced by many of the island's 11 million inhabitants: a penchant for giving newborns unusual, custom-made monikers, many of them beginning with the 25th letter of the English alphabet.
This trend goes back years. Among the gold-medal-winning pugilists of Cuba's illustrious Olympic past are heavyweight Odlanier SolÃs, flyweight Yuriorkis Gamboa and light flyweight Yan Barthelemy. And the phenomenon goes beyond athletics. The island's best-known antigovernment blogger is a 32-year-old philologist named Yoani Sánchez, and the parents of the once famous shipwrecked boy Elián González came up with his handle by fusing their own (Elisabeth and Juan).
Why is this? Sánchez theorizes that in one of the world's last remaining Stalinist regimes, fashioning a bizarre name from whole cloth has been one safe way of flexing creative muscles without running afoul of the authorities. "Cuba is a country where everything was rationed and controlled except the naming of your children," she says. "The state would tell you what you would study and where, and creating names was a way of rebelling." Jaime Suchlicki, a Cuba expert at the University of Miami, says many middle-aged Cubans spent their youth fighting Fidel Castro's proxy wars in Ethiopia and Angola and may have given their kids African-sounding names in tribute to the continent. Similarly, the preponderance of names starting with the letter Y may reflect the contact Cubans had with Russian advisers sporting names like Yuri and Yevgeny in the years when the Soviet Union was bankrolling Castro's revolution.
Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits associate the practice with the Communist era. Suchlicki spent his formative years in pre-revolutionary Havana, and says his friends, relatives and neighbors all went by traditional, Spanish-language names. He left the island a year after Castro ousted a U.S.-backed dictator in 1959, and says the growing popularity of unconventional names among his younger countrymen came to his attention only after Castro had consolidated his grip on power. He speculates that this preference for unusual names might signify a denial on some level of the country's Spanish Roman Catholic heritage. "This may be a rejection of the Spanish past since Cuba is much more black today than it once was," he says, noting that an estimated 62 percent of all Cubans are of African descent (up from 40 percent 50 years ago)
The trend is not confined to Cuba within Latin America. Female weight lifter Yudelkis Contreras is one of 23 athletes representing the Dominican Republic in Beijing. And Venezuela's female softball team will include Yaicel Sojo and Yurubi Alicart. But no country in the region comes close to Cuba in the weird-name contest, a fact of life that has bedeviled some of the island's leading sports chroniclers. The legendary Cuban sportswriter and broadcaster Eddy MartÃn once claimed to have counted 400 baseball players whose given names began with the penultimate letter of the alphabet. "Yuniel, Ynieski, Yulieski, Yolexis, Yusian, Yoanni, Yumiel, Yadel, Yoneiki, Yunior, Yusded, Yinier, Yusnel," a weary MartÃn once told an interviewer. During live broadcasts he was sometimes known to set the stage for the next batter by muttering "And now to the plate comes another impossible name." MartÃn died in 2004, but he'd likely be grumbling still today, given the names of the Cuban delegation at this year's Olympics—though at least for onomastic innovation, the Cubans would certainly bring home the gold.
This trend goes back years. Among the gold-medal-winning pugilists of Cuba's illustrious Olympic past are heavyweight Odlanier SolÃs, flyweight Yuriorkis Gamboa and light flyweight Yan Barthelemy. And the phenomenon goes beyond athletics. The island's best-known antigovernment blogger is a 32-year-old philologist named Yoani Sánchez, and the parents of the once famous shipwrecked boy Elián González came up with his handle by fusing their own (Elisabeth and Juan).
Why is this? Sánchez theorizes that in one of the world's last remaining Stalinist regimes, fashioning a bizarre name from whole cloth has been one safe way of flexing creative muscles without running afoul of the authorities. "Cuba is a country where everything was rationed and controlled except the naming of your children," she says. "The state would tell you what you would study and where, and creating names was a way of rebelling." Jaime Suchlicki, a Cuba expert at the University of Miami, says many middle-aged Cubans spent their youth fighting Fidel Castro's proxy wars in Ethiopia and Angola and may have given their kids African-sounding names in tribute to the continent. Similarly, the preponderance of names starting with the letter Y may reflect the contact Cubans had with Russian advisers sporting names like Yuri and Yevgeny in the years when the Soviet Union was bankrolling Castro's revolution.
Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits associate the practice with the Communist era. Suchlicki spent his formative years in pre-revolutionary Havana, and says his friends, relatives and neighbors all went by traditional, Spanish-language names. He left the island a year after Castro ousted a U.S.-backed dictator in 1959, and says the growing popularity of unconventional names among his younger countrymen came to his attention only after Castro had consolidated his grip on power. He speculates that this preference for unusual names might signify a denial on some level of the country's Spanish Roman Catholic heritage. "This may be a rejection of the Spanish past since Cuba is much more black today than it once was," he says, noting that an estimated 62 percent of all Cubans are of African descent (up from 40 percent 50 years ago)
The trend is not confined to Cuba within Latin America. Female weight lifter Yudelkis Contreras is one of 23 athletes representing the Dominican Republic in Beijing. And Venezuela's female softball team will include Yaicel Sojo and Yurubi Alicart. But no country in the region comes close to Cuba in the weird-name contest, a fact of life that has bedeviled some of the island's leading sports chroniclers. The legendary Cuban sportswriter and broadcaster Eddy MartÃn once claimed to have counted 400 baseball players whose given names began with the penultimate letter of the alphabet. "Yuniel, Ynieski, Yulieski, Yolexis, Yusian, Yoanni, Yumiel, Yadel, Yoneiki, Yunior, Yusded, Yinier, Yusnel," a weary MartÃn once told an interviewer. During live broadcasts he was sometimes known to set the stage for the next batter by muttering "And now to the plate comes another impossible name." MartÃn died in 2004, but he'd likely be grumbling still today, given the names of the Cuban delegation at this year's Olympics—though at least for onomastic innovation, the Cubans would certainly bring home the gold.
India - 1.2 billion searches done in June
Internet and mobile research firm comScore has revealed figures for online search in India. Not surprisingly, it's Google which leads the search market with over one billion searches conducted by Indians on the Internet in June 2008.
Google commands 81 per cent of the search share in the country, while Yahoo! is a remote second with 117 million searches. Other sites on the list include Ask.com with 24 million searches, Microsoft's sites (including Live Search, with 22 million) and Rediff.com (18 million). A total of 1.2 billion searches were conducted in India during June.
Apart from the search engines, there are other sites which are frequently visited and used to conduct searches. Facebook attracted 10 million searches by Indians in June.
The People Group, which owns sites such as Fropper.com, Makaan.com and Shaadi.com, also figured on the list with nine million searches. The other sites are Cnet Networks, Wikipedia and AOL.
“The Indian search market is dominated by global Internet brands, with Google attracting the wide majority of searches. As the top local player in the search market, Indian web portal Rediff.com attracts slightly less than 2 per cent of all searches, indicating that there is substantial room for growth among the local Internet brands,” says Jack Flanagan, executive vice-president, comScore, in an official statement.
The report shows that the frequency of search among Indians is low with 53 searches per searcher, compared to the worldwide average of 92. The number of unique searchers in India was 23.4 million in June.
Flanagan adds, “Though India represents more than 15 per cent of the world’s population, it accounts for less than 2 per cent of global Internet searches. It will be interesting to see if this gap narrows as more people in India gain Internet access and ramp up their use of search over time.”
The data represents Internet users in India over the age of 15 years who surfed from both work and home locations in June 2008.
Google commands 81 per cent of the search share in the country, while Yahoo! is a remote second with 117 million searches. Other sites on the list include Ask.com with 24 million searches, Microsoft's sites (including Live Search, with 22 million) and Rediff.com (18 million). A total of 1.2 billion searches were conducted in India during June.
Apart from the search engines, there are other sites which are frequently visited and used to conduct searches. Facebook attracted 10 million searches by Indians in June.
The People Group, which owns sites such as Fropper.com, Makaan.com and Shaadi.com, also figured on the list with nine million searches. The other sites are Cnet Networks, Wikipedia and AOL.
“The Indian search market is dominated by global Internet brands, with Google attracting the wide majority of searches. As the top local player in the search market, Indian web portal Rediff.com attracts slightly less than 2 per cent of all searches, indicating that there is substantial room for growth among the local Internet brands,” says Jack Flanagan, executive vice-president, comScore, in an official statement.
The report shows that the frequency of search among Indians is low with 53 searches per searcher, compared to the worldwide average of 92. The number of unique searchers in India was 23.4 million in June.
Flanagan adds, “Though India represents more than 15 per cent of the world’s population, it accounts for less than 2 per cent of global Internet searches. It will be interesting to see if this gap narrows as more people in India gain Internet access and ramp up their use of search over time.”
The data represents Internet users in India over the age of 15 years who surfed from both work and home locations in June 2008.
Sport - Van der Weijden's remarkable story
BEIXIAOYING TOWN (CHINA): Dutch swimmer Maarten van der Weijden skirted just inside the final red buoy to grab gold in the men’s 10-km open water race on Thursday, completing a remarkable comeback after recovering from leukemia.
Van der Weijden won a three-way sprint in the inaugural event with a better-angled finish under a steady rain.
“I think leukemia taught me to think step by step,” van der Weijden said.
“When you’re lying in the hospital bed feeling so much pain and feeling so tired, you don’t want to think about the next week or next month, you’re only thinking about the next hour.
“You just (have to) be patient. You lie in your bed and just wait. It’s almost the same strategy I’ve used here, to stay in the pack, to be patient, and stay easy just waiting for a chance.”
David Davies of Britain and Thomas Lurz of Germany drifted to the outside at the finish and settled for silver and bronze.
Van der Weijden reached up to slap the yellow touchpad in 1h 51m 51.6s. Davies was 1.5 seconds behind and Lurz finished 2.0 seconds back.
“If there is anyone in the field that can beat me, that guy is an absolute legend,” Davies said of van der Weijden.
“He’s a great guy. He’s obviously been to the depths in his personal life and to come back is a great story. Lance Armstrong epic.”
Faster
Van der Weijden was diagnosed with leukemia in 2001. He came back in 2003 and began swimming faster than before he had the disease.
He now commits a large portion of his time to raising awareness for leukemia.
“Because of the treatment I got, the stem cell transplants, I had the luck to recover,” Van der Weijden said. “The stem cell transplants are because of research worldwide for cancer. So, everyone who donates money, donated money in the past, I’m grateful too or otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
After the win, van der Weijden raised his arms in the air and pumped his fists as he walked around the dock. He was hoisted on the shoulders of his fellow countrymen and pointed a finger toward to sky to show he was No. 1.
Davies was at or near the lead from start to finish on the 10 km course and opened up a five or six body-length lead with a few hundred metres remaining. He couldn’t hold it, though.
“It’s going to take a while for it to sink in,” Davies said. “At the last bit, I didn’t know what was going on.”
Medical attention
Davies received medical attention after the race.
“I just wanted to lie down and sleep, but before I knew it I was on a stretcher,” he said.
Along with Vladimir Dyatchin of Russia, Lurz was one of the pre-race favourites, having won the world title in this event in 2004 and 2006.
“I knew Maarten finished well, so it was important to stay with him,” Lurz said.
Dyatchin, who won back-to-back world titles in 2007 and 2008, was disqualified after touching 12th.
The 25 competitors swam four laps each around the artificial body of water, with coaches riding close by along the shore on bicycles.
Adapting well
Van der Weijden won the 25-km race at this year’s World championships and was fourth in the 10-km event.
His flexibility in adapting to different tactics and speed across various distances makes him a contender in almost any open water race.
Davies finished sixth in the 1,500m event inside the Water Cube on Sunday but is still relatively inexperienced in open water, as seen by his wide finish.
“I need to learn to swim straight. I know that sounds silly,” Davies said. — AP
Van der Weijden won a three-way sprint in the inaugural event with a better-angled finish under a steady rain.
“I think leukemia taught me to think step by step,” van der Weijden said.
“When you’re lying in the hospital bed feeling so much pain and feeling so tired, you don’t want to think about the next week or next month, you’re only thinking about the next hour.
“You just (have to) be patient. You lie in your bed and just wait. It’s almost the same strategy I’ve used here, to stay in the pack, to be patient, and stay easy just waiting for a chance.”
David Davies of Britain and Thomas Lurz of Germany drifted to the outside at the finish and settled for silver and bronze.
Van der Weijden reached up to slap the yellow touchpad in 1h 51m 51.6s. Davies was 1.5 seconds behind and Lurz finished 2.0 seconds back.
“If there is anyone in the field that can beat me, that guy is an absolute legend,” Davies said of van der Weijden.
“He’s a great guy. He’s obviously been to the depths in his personal life and to come back is a great story. Lance Armstrong epic.”
Faster
Van der Weijden was diagnosed with leukemia in 2001. He came back in 2003 and began swimming faster than before he had the disease.
He now commits a large portion of his time to raising awareness for leukemia.
“Because of the treatment I got, the stem cell transplants, I had the luck to recover,” Van der Weijden said. “The stem cell transplants are because of research worldwide for cancer. So, everyone who donates money, donated money in the past, I’m grateful too or otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
After the win, van der Weijden raised his arms in the air and pumped his fists as he walked around the dock. He was hoisted on the shoulders of his fellow countrymen and pointed a finger toward to sky to show he was No. 1.
Davies was at or near the lead from start to finish on the 10 km course and opened up a five or six body-length lead with a few hundred metres remaining. He couldn’t hold it, though.
“It’s going to take a while for it to sink in,” Davies said. “At the last bit, I didn’t know what was going on.”
Medical attention
Davies received medical attention after the race.
“I just wanted to lie down and sleep, but before I knew it I was on a stretcher,” he said.
Along with Vladimir Dyatchin of Russia, Lurz was one of the pre-race favourites, having won the world title in this event in 2004 and 2006.
“I knew Maarten finished well, so it was important to stay with him,” Lurz said.
Dyatchin, who won back-to-back world titles in 2007 and 2008, was disqualified after touching 12th.
The 25 competitors swam four laps each around the artificial body of water, with coaches riding close by along the shore on bicycles.
Adapting well
Van der Weijden won the 25-km race at this year’s World championships and was fourth in the 10-km event.
His flexibility in adapting to different tactics and speed across various distances makes him a contender in almost any open water race.
Davies finished sixth in the 1,500m event inside the Water Cube on Sunday but is still relatively inexperienced in open water, as seen by his wide finish.
“I need to learn to swim straight. I know that sounds silly,” Davies said. — AP
Sport - Kohli & Badrinath show their mettle
Colombo: The victory in the second ODI at Dambulla was engineered by Zaheer Khan, who turned in one of the best displays of calibrated seam bowling in recent times, and Praveen Kumar, who after a sparkling spell with the new ball returned to terminate vital late-order resistance.
But the most emboldening aspect of the three-wicket win, in the context of what has gone before it and what is likely to follow, was the pluck and skill shown by Virat Kohli, M.S. Dhoni, and S. Badrinath in handling the conditions and the situation.
Now, pursuits of targets as paltry as 143 are expected to be completed with minimum fuss by most half-decent batting sides. And scores of 37, 39, and 27 not out don’t make for celebratory writing. But this tour of Sri Lanka has been so severe and unique a test of courage, desire, and ability, that the yardsticks must be reassessed. This isn’t to say that the worst has passed; merely, these three men — in varying degrees — showed something that hasn’t always been on evidence this tour.
Rare pair
Ajantha Mendis, whose understanding of a rare craft is astounding for one so inexperienced, and Muttiah Muralitharan, whose mystery and quality have neither diminished nor grown stale with age, have tormented India over the last month. Seldom has a pair of spinners appeared so overmastering.
Only Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, and to a lesser extent, V.V.S. Laxman, and Rahul Dravid, played the pair with ease. With Gambhir missing the second ODI with a stiff neck, and the other three back home for different reasons, the test turned sterner for a side that looked distinctly stringy on paper. Add to this, the conditions in Dambulla, which armed the seam-and-swing bowlers as well, and the magnitude of India’s challenge becomes apparent.
Kohli, in many respects, showed his side the way against Mendis. Although his technique against the moving ball doesn’t inspire confidence — Kohli’s strength of mind isn’t in doubt. Neither the infirm nor the unambitious bat after losing their father that morning or lead an under-19 team to a World Cup triumph. Kohli betrayed no fear in tackling Mendis. He took his chances, but just as importantly, he reacted to what he saw — he trusted his methods. Kohli has been more privileged than Badrinath in receiving breaks, but at this level one makes his luck, and the 19-year-old will swim or sink on his merit.
Badrinath’s call-up to the national side is a story of unflinching will eventually shifting an immovable object —five immovable objects, in this case. Few cricketers have been made to jump through as many hoops; fewer still have done it as uncomplainingly and successfully. Lesser men would have turned bitter. But Badrinath persevered.
Prolific
Indeed, over the last three years, no Indian batsman has made as strong and undeniable a case for selection in both forms of the game: so prolific has been the right-hander in domestic cricket and ‘A’ tour games, that only Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar, among batsmen still active and with at least 50 innings, have a higher First Class average than Badrinath’s 56.49; his List A record is impressive as well — an average of over 40 in 71 games.
Yet the 27-year-old wasn’t part of the one-day squad announced for the five-match series, and it was only Sachin Tendulkar’s withdrawal that opened up a spot for him. Having spoken out at long last, saying he must at least be allowed the chance to fail, Badrinath proved he could backup the talk. In just his first innings, starting cold against the twin threats, he looked like he belonged.
His footwork against Mendis and Muralitharan was excellent. He also appeared to pick most deliveries. The most striking aspect of the right-hander, apart from the stillness of his head, was his hand-speed, similar kinaesthetically to Steve Waugh’s.
On Wednesday, Badrinath showed he could handle the constricting pressure of international cricket; just as crucially, his skipper Dhoni witnessed it from close range. For India, which faces three difficult contests on the low and slow surfaces of the Premadasa, the fact that they have three batsmen, and hopefully a returning Gambhir, that have dealt confidently with the two unorthodox spinners is cause for hope.
But the most emboldening aspect of the three-wicket win, in the context of what has gone before it and what is likely to follow, was the pluck and skill shown by Virat Kohli, M.S. Dhoni, and S. Badrinath in handling the conditions and the situation.
Now, pursuits of targets as paltry as 143 are expected to be completed with minimum fuss by most half-decent batting sides. And scores of 37, 39, and 27 not out don’t make for celebratory writing. But this tour of Sri Lanka has been so severe and unique a test of courage, desire, and ability, that the yardsticks must be reassessed. This isn’t to say that the worst has passed; merely, these three men — in varying degrees — showed something that hasn’t always been on evidence this tour.
Rare pair
Ajantha Mendis, whose understanding of a rare craft is astounding for one so inexperienced, and Muttiah Muralitharan, whose mystery and quality have neither diminished nor grown stale with age, have tormented India over the last month. Seldom has a pair of spinners appeared so overmastering.
Only Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, and to a lesser extent, V.V.S. Laxman, and Rahul Dravid, played the pair with ease. With Gambhir missing the second ODI with a stiff neck, and the other three back home for different reasons, the test turned sterner for a side that looked distinctly stringy on paper. Add to this, the conditions in Dambulla, which armed the seam-and-swing bowlers as well, and the magnitude of India’s challenge becomes apparent.
Kohli, in many respects, showed his side the way against Mendis. Although his technique against the moving ball doesn’t inspire confidence — Kohli’s strength of mind isn’t in doubt. Neither the infirm nor the unambitious bat after losing their father that morning or lead an under-19 team to a World Cup triumph. Kohli betrayed no fear in tackling Mendis. He took his chances, but just as importantly, he reacted to what he saw — he trusted his methods. Kohli has been more privileged than Badrinath in receiving breaks, but at this level one makes his luck, and the 19-year-old will swim or sink on his merit.
Badrinath’s call-up to the national side is a story of unflinching will eventually shifting an immovable object —five immovable objects, in this case. Few cricketers have been made to jump through as many hoops; fewer still have done it as uncomplainingly and successfully. Lesser men would have turned bitter. But Badrinath persevered.
Prolific
Indeed, over the last three years, no Indian batsman has made as strong and undeniable a case for selection in both forms of the game: so prolific has been the right-hander in domestic cricket and ‘A’ tour games, that only Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar, among batsmen still active and with at least 50 innings, have a higher First Class average than Badrinath’s 56.49; his List A record is impressive as well — an average of over 40 in 71 games.
Yet the 27-year-old wasn’t part of the one-day squad announced for the five-match series, and it was only Sachin Tendulkar’s withdrawal that opened up a spot for him. Having spoken out at long last, saying he must at least be allowed the chance to fail, Badrinath proved he could backup the talk. In just his first innings, starting cold against the twin threats, he looked like he belonged.
His footwork against Mendis and Muralitharan was excellent. He also appeared to pick most deliveries. The most striking aspect of the right-hander, apart from the stillness of his head, was his hand-speed, similar kinaesthetically to Steve Waugh’s.
On Wednesday, Badrinath showed he could handle the constricting pressure of international cricket; just as crucially, his skipper Dhoni witnessed it from close range. For India, which faces three difficult contests on the low and slow surfaces of the Premadasa, the fact that they have three batsmen, and hopefully a returning Gambhir, that have dealt confidently with the two unorthodox spinners is cause for hope.
Sports - Is Gene Doping the next Olympic Threat?
In this age of the doping athlete, even the least cynical fan of the Summer Olympics probably can't help but wonder how many of the competitors are juiced. Last week, seven top Russian athletes were provisionally suspended after being caught in what one World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) official called a "systematic doping" scandal. Officials are taking unprecedented steps to keep these Olympics clean: over the next two weeks, there'll be some 4,500 tests for banned substances, the most ever. But ridding the Games of illicit performance enhancers is a Sisyphean task, and the job promises to get even more daunting with the advent of "gene doping." The newest—and perhaps most troubling—trend in the world of athletic enhancement, gene doping involves modifying an athlete's DNA, or having them inject or inhale foreign DNA, to make them bigger, stronger and faster. It's harder to detect than most drugs, which makes it all the more desired by cheaters looking to prosper.
Could this be the first Olympics in which athletes are discovered altering their own DNA? "It would not surprise me at all if this were to occur," says Dr. Ted Friedmann, a leading authority on gene therapy and director of the Center for Molecular Genetics at the University of California, San Diego's School of Medicine. Friedmann, who in 2006 was named president of the American Society of Gene Therapy, is working closely in his lab with WADA, which was founded in 2000, to find ways to detect gene doping and, ideally, prevent it from becoming rampant.
With gene doping, a person's genetic makeup is actually changed by injecting genes into muscle or bone cells, creating proteins that then enter the tissue or blood. If it all sounds futuristic, it isn't. A German television report on the availability of gene doping in China, which aired just a few days before the Olympics, stunned anti-doping experts. In the documentary by ARD television, a reporter posing as an American swimming coach met with a doctor who is the head of the gene-therapy department of an unnamed Chinese hospital. The hidden-camera report shows the Chinese doctor, with his face blurred, offering gene-therapy treatment to the undercover reporter in return for $24,000. The reporter tells the doctor he's seeking stem-cell treatment for one of his swimmers. "Yes. We have no experience with athletes here, but the treatment is safe and we can help you," the doctor replies (his answer was translated by the news program). "It strengthens lung function and stem cells go into the bloodstream and reach the organs. It takes two weeks. I recommend four intravenous injections—40 million stem cells or double that, the more the better. We also use human growth hormones, but you have to be careful because they are on the doping list," the Chinese doctor says. Friedmann, who was interviewed by the German TV crew for the report, says he wasn't surprised by the discovery. "I don't know how it was arranged, or what level of hospital this was, but it supports the idea that the world of athletics is very aware of gene doping and already pursuing it," the scientist says.
In another case dating back two years, a German trainer named Thomas Springsteen was allegedly found to be looking on the Internet for a source of material for a sophisticated genetic procedure. According to Friedmann, Springsteen was apparently attempting to get Repoxygen, a virus containing a gene that, when put into tissue, can in principle increase the level of erythropoietin (EPO), a hormone that activates bone marrow to produce more red blood cells. EPO is well known to many because it has been used as a performance enhancer by cyclists and other endurance athletes.
The arrival of gene doping can be traced directly to the cracking of the human genome and the emergence of gene therapy, which is used to treat a variety of diseases including cancer. According to Friedmann, WADA has established a research program that plans to design new tests for gene doping, based on technologies developed around the Human Genome Project. Historically, to discover genetic changes it was necessary to test the muscle or bone that had undergone the change. But after taking a close look at this in the lab, Friedmann believes there are effective ways of testing tissue, blood or urine to see if the body has been genetically altered. "There are interesting preliminary results, but I can't expand on that," Friedmann says. Just how soon this research will translate into a marketplace-ready test for gene doping is anyone's guess. There is no timeline because there are so many different genes involved. "This idea still needs to prove itself," Friedmann says. "But we're all encouraged by the results, and WADA very much wants to be ahead of the curve on this and has funded a dozen or more labs on gene doping."
Of course, the issue of genetics is always attended by a variety of ethical questions, especially when mixed with the questions of athletes and cheating. It makes for inevitable quandaries. For example, as gene therapy becomes more commonplace in medical treatment, many athletes will undergo such procedures legitimately, and that will show up on any test. Friedmann says these athletes should be allowed to apply for an exemption. "This is all very subjective, but the hope is that it will be a fair process that will allow the athlete who has had gene therapy for legitimate reasons to state his or her purpose for it," he says. "The sporting authorities can then either accept or reject it."
As these Olympics continue, the more "traditional" ways of cheating through doping are still what concern Olympics officials most. But gene doping is looming on the horizon. Because it is so new and complicated, it still poses great risks: a handful of patients who have undergone gene therapy for diseases like leukemia have died. So Friedmann insists that sporting authorities must err on the side of caution. "If gene doping is happening already, as we suspect, it's being done unethically and with immature technology, and that makes it inherently very dangerous," Friedmann says. "Most of the information is already published and in the medical literature, the opportunity is there, there is the pressure on these athletes to perform, and of course so much money is potentially involved. Few of us would be shocked if something were going on at these Olympics. But whether anything is discovered during these next few weeks remains to be seen." Friedmann hopes the research he's doing now will lead to such discoveries at future Games.
Could this be the first Olympics in which athletes are discovered altering their own DNA? "It would not surprise me at all if this were to occur," says Dr. Ted Friedmann, a leading authority on gene therapy and director of the Center for Molecular Genetics at the University of California, San Diego's School of Medicine. Friedmann, who in 2006 was named president of the American Society of Gene Therapy, is working closely in his lab with WADA, which was founded in 2000, to find ways to detect gene doping and, ideally, prevent it from becoming rampant.
With gene doping, a person's genetic makeup is actually changed by injecting genes into muscle or bone cells, creating proteins that then enter the tissue or blood. If it all sounds futuristic, it isn't. A German television report on the availability of gene doping in China, which aired just a few days before the Olympics, stunned anti-doping experts. In the documentary by ARD television, a reporter posing as an American swimming coach met with a doctor who is the head of the gene-therapy department of an unnamed Chinese hospital. The hidden-camera report shows the Chinese doctor, with his face blurred, offering gene-therapy treatment to the undercover reporter in return for $24,000. The reporter tells the doctor he's seeking stem-cell treatment for one of his swimmers. "Yes. We have no experience with athletes here, but the treatment is safe and we can help you," the doctor replies (his answer was translated by the news program). "It strengthens lung function and stem cells go into the bloodstream and reach the organs. It takes two weeks. I recommend four intravenous injections—40 million stem cells or double that, the more the better. We also use human growth hormones, but you have to be careful because they are on the doping list," the Chinese doctor says. Friedmann, who was interviewed by the German TV crew for the report, says he wasn't surprised by the discovery. "I don't know how it was arranged, or what level of hospital this was, but it supports the idea that the world of athletics is very aware of gene doping and already pursuing it," the scientist says.
In another case dating back two years, a German trainer named Thomas Springsteen was allegedly found to be looking on the Internet for a source of material for a sophisticated genetic procedure. According to Friedmann, Springsteen was apparently attempting to get Repoxygen, a virus containing a gene that, when put into tissue, can in principle increase the level of erythropoietin (EPO), a hormone that activates bone marrow to produce more red blood cells. EPO is well known to many because it has been used as a performance enhancer by cyclists and other endurance athletes.
The arrival of gene doping can be traced directly to the cracking of the human genome and the emergence of gene therapy, which is used to treat a variety of diseases including cancer. According to Friedmann, WADA has established a research program that plans to design new tests for gene doping, based on technologies developed around the Human Genome Project. Historically, to discover genetic changes it was necessary to test the muscle or bone that had undergone the change. But after taking a close look at this in the lab, Friedmann believes there are effective ways of testing tissue, blood or urine to see if the body has been genetically altered. "There are interesting preliminary results, but I can't expand on that," Friedmann says. Just how soon this research will translate into a marketplace-ready test for gene doping is anyone's guess. There is no timeline because there are so many different genes involved. "This idea still needs to prove itself," Friedmann says. "But we're all encouraged by the results, and WADA very much wants to be ahead of the curve on this and has funded a dozen or more labs on gene doping."
Of course, the issue of genetics is always attended by a variety of ethical questions, especially when mixed with the questions of athletes and cheating. It makes for inevitable quandaries. For example, as gene therapy becomes more commonplace in medical treatment, many athletes will undergo such procedures legitimately, and that will show up on any test. Friedmann says these athletes should be allowed to apply for an exemption. "This is all very subjective, but the hope is that it will be a fair process that will allow the athlete who has had gene therapy for legitimate reasons to state his or her purpose for it," he says. "The sporting authorities can then either accept or reject it."
As these Olympics continue, the more "traditional" ways of cheating through doping are still what concern Olympics officials most. But gene doping is looming on the horizon. Because it is so new and complicated, it still poses great risks: a handful of patients who have undergone gene therapy for diseases like leukemia have died. So Friedmann insists that sporting authorities must err on the side of caution. "If gene doping is happening already, as we suspect, it's being done unethically and with immature technology, and that makes it inherently very dangerous," Friedmann says. "Most of the information is already published and in the medical literature, the opportunity is there, there is the pressure on these athletes to perform, and of course so much money is potentially involved. Few of us would be shocked if something were going on at these Olympics. But whether anything is discovered during these next few weeks remains to be seen." Friedmann hopes the research he's doing now will lead to such discoveries at future Games.
World - NYU's president on Abu Dhabi Campus
New York University made waves in the world of academia when it announced its plans last year to construct a new campus in the Persian Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi. After years of negotiations between NYU president John Sexton and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, the deal was signed last fall. A preliminary institute will begin teaching courses next month, and the full campus is expected to open in Fall 2010. Located on Abu Dhabi's $27-billion Saadiyat Island, NYU's neighbors on campus will include new branches of the Louvre and the Guggenheim. NEWSWEEK's Zvika Krieger spoke with Sexton in New York about his ambitious vision for the project.
NEWSWEEK: Why did you decide to create a new NYU campus overseas?
Sexton: Americans are serious victims of the disease of ethnocentrism, much to our disadvantage. Only in recent years have we begun to understand how serious a problem that is. The people who come to NYU are attracted to learning the techniques of building meaning in this "world of the other"--add whatever word you wish after "other": religion, race, gender, ideas. We are the largest private university student body in the country, and [almost] 50 percent of students spend at least a semester or a year at our overseas programs. But the talent flow in the world has begun to change--it is now multidirectional instead of just coming to the US. If we're going to be a first-class research university that wants to be in this "world of the other" and wants to be at the highest level, we need to develop a presence in a world where the talent pool doesn't come to you. That means creating an overseas anchor.
How did you settle on Abu Dhabi as the location for the new campus?
As committed to "the other" as we were, we did not have a presence in the Arab and Muslim world. And if one were to create a presence in the Arab and Muslim world, where would the optimal place be? We found it in Abu Dhabi. They share a commitment to the notion that the world is going to have 6 or 8 or 10 idea capitals in it, [each one] driven at their core by research universities. We believe New York will be one. We found in Abu Dhabi a commitment to the same notion and a desire to create one of these idea capitals. Not just an idea system for the Emirates--that they're already doing--but to create a major research university to act as a magnet for the whole region and the whole world. We were struck with how committed they were to the kind of excellence that we were interested in creating.
How much money has Abu Dhabi committed to spending on the project?
The short answer is that they're providing us with a complete physical plant, including residences for faculty and students and all facilities associated with it. They are underwriting all the costs that one associates with an academic enterprise. But the idea is to create fluidity. We want our faculty to see Abu Dhabi as their own. The crown prince has indicated that he would be willing to underwrite the expansion of a department in Washington Square in return for a department's willingness to rotate a percentage of faculty to Abu Dhabi. The crown prince is committed to helping NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Washington Square to become one of the world's 10 greatest universities by 2020. But the single thing to understand is that this is not a business investment for Abu Dhabi. This is a deep investment in creating an idea capital.
What makes this project so unique?
This is the first time that an American university has done something at this scale. Some schools have opened specific programs overseas, like computer science or art. But this is a comprehensive implantation. We anticipate ultimately 2,000 undergrads and several hundred graduate students, and a comprehensive program that would be part of the organizational life of NYU. To our knowledge, this is the first time something of this scale has been the objective.
How have the faculty reacted to a project that is such a radical departure from a traditional university?
Of the twenty NYU deans I spoke to, there isn't a dean that rated themselves under a nine in terms of support for the project--and most went above 10. We're aware of how difficult what we're trying to do is, but I think we have the right partners, and I think we're the right place for it.
Are you concerned at all about bringing your students to a place like Abu Dhabi?
Any time you move into a completely different culture, you have to take pains to describe [the differences] to the people you're sending. This is something we encounter with every overseas campus. This is always on our mind. We have indicated to Abu Dhabi that we will apply the same standards as we do in Washington Square, and they have indicated to us that they will do everything they can to work with us.
What was your first experience like in Abu Dhabi?
I took my first trip to Abu Dhabi in May 2006. As the crown prince said to me on my last visit a few months ago, it was during my first visit that he made his decision that NYU should be their partner. He had this funny comment, "Now I understand that people from Brooklyn do the same thing we do here." And he is 100 percent right. In that meeting, it was almost a spiritual experience. I just found myself transported to an intersection of humanity that is quite remarkable. For me, I view humankind's evolution as progressive evolution towards the better. I saw in that first visit the possibility of incarnating that very progressive view in a way I never saw before.
NEWSWEEK: Why did you decide to create a new NYU campus overseas?
Sexton: Americans are serious victims of the disease of ethnocentrism, much to our disadvantage. Only in recent years have we begun to understand how serious a problem that is. The people who come to NYU are attracted to learning the techniques of building meaning in this "world of the other"--add whatever word you wish after "other": religion, race, gender, ideas. We are the largest private university student body in the country, and [almost] 50 percent of students spend at least a semester or a year at our overseas programs. But the talent flow in the world has begun to change--it is now multidirectional instead of just coming to the US. If we're going to be a first-class research university that wants to be in this "world of the other" and wants to be at the highest level, we need to develop a presence in a world where the talent pool doesn't come to you. That means creating an overseas anchor.
How did you settle on Abu Dhabi as the location for the new campus?
As committed to "the other" as we were, we did not have a presence in the Arab and Muslim world. And if one were to create a presence in the Arab and Muslim world, where would the optimal place be? We found it in Abu Dhabi. They share a commitment to the notion that the world is going to have 6 or 8 or 10 idea capitals in it, [each one] driven at their core by research universities. We believe New York will be one. We found in Abu Dhabi a commitment to the same notion and a desire to create one of these idea capitals. Not just an idea system for the Emirates--that they're already doing--but to create a major research university to act as a magnet for the whole region and the whole world. We were struck with how committed they were to the kind of excellence that we were interested in creating.
How much money has Abu Dhabi committed to spending on the project?
The short answer is that they're providing us with a complete physical plant, including residences for faculty and students and all facilities associated with it. They are underwriting all the costs that one associates with an academic enterprise. But the idea is to create fluidity. We want our faculty to see Abu Dhabi as their own. The crown prince has indicated that he would be willing to underwrite the expansion of a department in Washington Square in return for a department's willingness to rotate a percentage of faculty to Abu Dhabi. The crown prince is committed to helping NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Washington Square to become one of the world's 10 greatest universities by 2020. But the single thing to understand is that this is not a business investment for Abu Dhabi. This is a deep investment in creating an idea capital.
What makes this project so unique?
This is the first time that an American university has done something at this scale. Some schools have opened specific programs overseas, like computer science or art. But this is a comprehensive implantation. We anticipate ultimately 2,000 undergrads and several hundred graduate students, and a comprehensive program that would be part of the organizational life of NYU. To our knowledge, this is the first time something of this scale has been the objective.
How have the faculty reacted to a project that is such a radical departure from a traditional university?
Of the twenty NYU deans I spoke to, there isn't a dean that rated themselves under a nine in terms of support for the project--and most went above 10. We're aware of how difficult what we're trying to do is, but I think we have the right partners, and I think we're the right place for it.
Are you concerned at all about bringing your students to a place like Abu Dhabi?
Any time you move into a completely different culture, you have to take pains to describe [the differences] to the people you're sending. This is something we encounter with every overseas campus. This is always on our mind. We have indicated to Abu Dhabi that we will apply the same standards as we do in Washington Square, and they have indicated to us that they will do everything they can to work with us.
What was your first experience like in Abu Dhabi?
I took my first trip to Abu Dhabi in May 2006. As the crown prince said to me on my last visit a few months ago, it was during my first visit that he made his decision that NYU should be their partner. He had this funny comment, "Now I understand that people from Brooklyn do the same thing we do here." And he is 100 percent right. In that meeting, it was almost a spiritual experience. I just found myself transported to an intersection of humanity that is quite remarkable. For me, I view humankind's evolution as progressive evolution towards the better. I saw in that first visit the possibility of incarnating that very progressive view in a way I never saw before.
Lifestyle - Spas harness the healing properties of Grape Vines
The sap that leaks from cut grapevines is believed to have magical properties in Bordeaux. "We say the vine is crying," says Mathilde Thomas, estate owner and pioneer of vinotherapy, the use of grapes and vines in skin care. "But these precious teardrops are enough to put a smile on any woman's face."
Grape skins and seeds have long been known to possess antioxidant powers. Thomas and her husband, who own the Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte estate outside Bordeaux, joined forces with a local pharmacology professor to figure out a way to harness their fragile polyphenols for cosmetic purposes. Today, at their Caudalie Vinothérapie Spa in Bordeaux-Martillac, guests can enjoy the Barrel Bath treatment, in which bubbling hot spring water is enriched with superfine pieces of grape skin, the Honey and Wine Wrap or the Crushed Cabernet Scrub (caudalie.com). There are also Caudalie spas in Italy's Piedmont region and Spain's Rioja valley. In October, New York's Plaza Hotel will open a center where guests will experience the full menu of treatments, as well as a wine lounge for tastings.
Other luxury spas also offer grape-based treatments. In the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, the ancient thermal-bath center Terme della Salvarola offers exfoliation and massage treatments using local Lambrusco di Grasparossa grapes (termesalvarola.it). And at the luxurious Four Seasons Spa in Carmelo, Uruguay, the Silk Wine Treatment mixes Uruguayan wines with pine oil and eucalyptus honey in a full-body-enveloping treatment (fourseasons.com/carmelo/spa). It's body pampering that will leave you drunk with euphoria.
Grape skins and seeds have long been known to possess antioxidant powers. Thomas and her husband, who own the Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte estate outside Bordeaux, joined forces with a local pharmacology professor to figure out a way to harness their fragile polyphenols for cosmetic purposes. Today, at their Caudalie Vinothérapie Spa in Bordeaux-Martillac, guests can enjoy the Barrel Bath treatment, in which bubbling hot spring water is enriched with superfine pieces of grape skin, the Honey and Wine Wrap or the Crushed Cabernet Scrub (caudalie.com). There are also Caudalie spas in Italy's Piedmont region and Spain's Rioja valley. In October, New York's Plaza Hotel will open a center where guests will experience the full menu of treatments, as well as a wine lounge for tastings.
Other luxury spas also offer grape-based treatments. In the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, the ancient thermal-bath center Terme della Salvarola offers exfoliation and massage treatments using local Lambrusco di Grasparossa grapes (termesalvarola.it). And at the luxurious Four Seasons Spa in Carmelo, Uruguay, the Silk Wine Treatment mixes Uruguayan wines with pine oil and eucalyptus honey in a full-body-enveloping treatment (fourseasons.com/carmelo/spa). It's body pampering that will leave you drunk with euphoria.
World - Are russia and the world facing a new cold war?
There's an irony in the fact that when Belgium laid out the month's "Programme of Work" at the U.N. Security Council, this last week was absent an agenda. Since Russia's invasion of Georgia, the diplomatic community has been rather preoccupied. The United States and Western Europe have flailed about, ultimately unable to check Russia's unabashed aggression. Defying a host of threats from the West, which now include military posturing in Poland, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have invaded a neighboring country with impunity.
President George W. Bush rightly reminded the world that "the cold war is over." Today's Russia is by no means the Soviet Union, and just as much, today's West is not led by Ronald Reagan's big-talking United States. Putin heads an energy-rich, autocratic country loaded with more than half a trillion dollars worth of foreign reserves (most of which are held in U.S. dollars), while the United States is faced with a worsening financial crisis and taxing military commitments overseas.
"On balance, Russia sees that they have more leverage economically over the West than the West has over Russia," says Cliff Gaddy, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. "Belatedly, this incident in Georgia is waking everybody up to a reality that's already true." That reality is that the West lacks the capacity to contain Russia in the way that it did for nearly two decades after the end of the cold war, and the invasion of Georgia signals a new era, one in which authoritarian regimes can brazenly buck the international system.
The U.S. response has continually grown more bellicose. At the beginning of the week, in concert with much of the West, Bush called for a ceasefire. Day by day, the rhetoric ramped up. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that this was not 1968--when the Soviet Union occupied Czechoslovakia--and argued that the "role Russia can play in the international community is very much at stake here." The United States scrapped war games with Russia that had been scheduled for later this month, and Bush ordered a C-17 military cargo plane full of humanitarian supplies to be sent to Georgia. After a week though, the Russians had not pulled back.
Then came the announcement that Poland had agreed to host the U.S.'s missile-defense system, a military installment that has long sparked tensions between Russia and the United States. As of Sunday, the Russians had promised to withdraw forces from some parts of Georgia, but hinted that they could continue to occupy the country. A Russian general even said that Poland had opened itself up to nuclear retaliation.
Europe has played a different hand. The continent is much more dependent on Russia economically. Russia has grown in recent years to become one of the European Union's largest trading partners, and the EU relies on Russia for a third of its oil and 40 percent of its natural gas. At the same time, Europe simply has a different outlook because of its geographic closeness to Russia. In light of its more complicated relationship, the EU has had a more restrained reaction, joining with the U.S. in suggesting that Russia's position within the G8, as well as its membership in the World Trade Organization or the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, could be in jeopardy.
"If it comes down to Russia's security versus WTO membership, there's no question what Putin will choose," says Gaddy. "Even if the West were fully unified, it still would not be enough of a threat to deter them."
The U.N. has only magnified the ineffective response. At the Security Council's fourth emergency meeting, the body remained deadlocked. This is unsurprising, because as a permanent member, Russia holds the power to veto any measure before the council; it's nearly impossible to imagine Russia accepting terms that hamper its current strategy in Georgia. At the same time, France, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, has assembled a proposal that would get the Russians to pull back, establish mediation and send peacekeepers. Few are optimistic.
"This is the first time in a long while that a permanent member [of the Security Council] has been involved in a situation the council is considering," says Shamala Kandiah, a research analyst for the independent nonprofit organization Security Council Report. "It raises the question of the council's effectiveness in such a situation."
Despite concerns over a new cold war, there's a key difference between the current situation and U.S.-Russian relations 25 or 30 years ago. In Georgia, Russia's invasion is purely strategic, an attempt to increase security along its border. It is not interested in exporting an ideology in the way that the Soviet Union wanted to spread communism. "Russia is staking its ownership regionally," says Steve Levine, author of the book "Putin's Labyrinth." "The U.S. is being challenged: 'Are you a superpower or not?'"
What is most striking is that the attempted check on Russian aggression is varied, unaligned and seemingly ineffective. The post-cold-war world has given way to yet another shift in power, one in which the U.S. doesn't wear the uniform of global policeman as it did in the 1990s. But has the era of global policing passed for good?
The U.S.'s announcement of missile deployment in Poland, west of Russia's border, looks more like a standoff than the triumph of economic interdependence and diplomacy that the advances of globalization once heralded. If that is true, then the peaceful decade of the 1990s, the talk of the end of history and the triumph of liberal ideals may be written off as the good old days. Instead, the realist conception of powerful states in competition for security may once again rear its head.
President George W. Bush rightly reminded the world that "the cold war is over." Today's Russia is by no means the Soviet Union, and just as much, today's West is not led by Ronald Reagan's big-talking United States. Putin heads an energy-rich, autocratic country loaded with more than half a trillion dollars worth of foreign reserves (most of which are held in U.S. dollars), while the United States is faced with a worsening financial crisis and taxing military commitments overseas.
"On balance, Russia sees that they have more leverage economically over the West than the West has over Russia," says Cliff Gaddy, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. "Belatedly, this incident in Georgia is waking everybody up to a reality that's already true." That reality is that the West lacks the capacity to contain Russia in the way that it did for nearly two decades after the end of the cold war, and the invasion of Georgia signals a new era, one in which authoritarian regimes can brazenly buck the international system.
The U.S. response has continually grown more bellicose. At the beginning of the week, in concert with much of the West, Bush called for a ceasefire. Day by day, the rhetoric ramped up. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that this was not 1968--when the Soviet Union occupied Czechoslovakia--and argued that the "role Russia can play in the international community is very much at stake here." The United States scrapped war games with Russia that had been scheduled for later this month, and Bush ordered a C-17 military cargo plane full of humanitarian supplies to be sent to Georgia. After a week though, the Russians had not pulled back.
Then came the announcement that Poland had agreed to host the U.S.'s missile-defense system, a military installment that has long sparked tensions between Russia and the United States. As of Sunday, the Russians had promised to withdraw forces from some parts of Georgia, but hinted that they could continue to occupy the country. A Russian general even said that Poland had opened itself up to nuclear retaliation.
Europe has played a different hand. The continent is much more dependent on Russia economically. Russia has grown in recent years to become one of the European Union's largest trading partners, and the EU relies on Russia for a third of its oil and 40 percent of its natural gas. At the same time, Europe simply has a different outlook because of its geographic closeness to Russia. In light of its more complicated relationship, the EU has had a more restrained reaction, joining with the U.S. in suggesting that Russia's position within the G8, as well as its membership in the World Trade Organization or the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, could be in jeopardy.
"If it comes down to Russia's security versus WTO membership, there's no question what Putin will choose," says Gaddy. "Even if the West were fully unified, it still would not be enough of a threat to deter them."
The U.N. has only magnified the ineffective response. At the Security Council's fourth emergency meeting, the body remained deadlocked. This is unsurprising, because as a permanent member, Russia holds the power to veto any measure before the council; it's nearly impossible to imagine Russia accepting terms that hamper its current strategy in Georgia. At the same time, France, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, has assembled a proposal that would get the Russians to pull back, establish mediation and send peacekeepers. Few are optimistic.
"This is the first time in a long while that a permanent member [of the Security Council] has been involved in a situation the council is considering," says Shamala Kandiah, a research analyst for the independent nonprofit organization Security Council Report. "It raises the question of the council's effectiveness in such a situation."
Despite concerns over a new cold war, there's a key difference between the current situation and U.S.-Russian relations 25 or 30 years ago. In Georgia, Russia's invasion is purely strategic, an attempt to increase security along its border. It is not interested in exporting an ideology in the way that the Soviet Union wanted to spread communism. "Russia is staking its ownership regionally," says Steve Levine, author of the book "Putin's Labyrinth." "The U.S. is being challenged: 'Are you a superpower or not?'"
What is most striking is that the attempted check on Russian aggression is varied, unaligned and seemingly ineffective. The post-cold-war world has given way to yet another shift in power, one in which the U.S. doesn't wear the uniform of global policeman as it did in the 1990s. But has the era of global policing passed for good?
The U.S.'s announcement of missile deployment in Poland, west of Russia's border, looks more like a standoff than the triumph of economic interdependence and diplomacy that the advances of globalization once heralded. If that is true, then the peaceful decade of the 1990s, the talk of the end of history and the triumph of liberal ideals may be written off as the good old days. Instead, the realist conception of powerful states in competition for security may once again rear its head.
World - Surprising success of Iran's Universities
In 2003, administrators at Stanford University's Electrical Engineering Department were startled when a group of foreign students aced the notoriously difficult Ph.D. entrance exam, getting some of the highest scores ever. That the whiz kids weren't American wasn't odd; students from Asia and elsewhere excel in U.S. programs. The surprising thing, say Stanford administrators, is that the majority came from one country and one school: Sharif University of Science and Technology in Iran.
Stanford has become a favorite destination of Sharif grads. Bruce A. Wooley, a former chair of the Electrical Engineering Department, has said that's because Sharif now has one of the best undergraduate electrical-engineering programs in the world. That's no small praise given its competition: MIT, Caltech and Stanford in the United States, Tsinghua in China and Cambridge in Britain.
Sharif's reputation highlights how while Iran makes headlines for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's incendiary remarks and its nuclear showdown with the United States, Iranian students are developing an international reputation as science superstars. Stanford's administrators aren't the only ones to notice. Universities across Canada and Australia, where visa restrictions are lower, report a big boom in the Iranian recruits; Canada has seen its total number of Iranian students grow 240 percent since 1985, while Australian press reports point to a fivefold increase over the past five years, to nearly 1,500.
Iranian students from Sharif and other top schools, such as the University of Tehran and the Isfahan University of Technology, have also become major players in the international Science Olympics, taking home trophies in physics, mathematics, chemistry and robotics. As a testament to this newfound success, the Iranian city of Isfahan recently hosted the International Physics Olympiad—an honor no other Middle Eastern country has enjoyed. That's because none of Iran's neighbors can match the quality of its scholars.
Never far behind, Western tech companies have also started snatching them up. Silicon Valley companies from Google to Yahoo now employ hundreds of Iranian grads, as do research institutes throughout the West. Olympiad winners are especially attractive; according to the Iranian press, up to 90 percent of them now leave the country for graduate school or work abroad.
So what explains Iran's record, and that of Sharif in particular? The country suffers from many serious ills, such as chronic inflation, stagnant wages and an anemic private sector, thanks to poor economic management and a weak regulatory environment. University professors barely make ends meet—the pay is so bad some must even take second jobs as taxi drivers or petty traders. International sanctions also make life difficult, delaying the importation of scientific equipment, for example, and increasing isolation. Until recently, Iranians were banned from publishing in the journals of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the industry's key international professional association. They also face the indignity of often having their visa applications refused when they try to attend conferences in the West.
Yet Sharif and its ilk continue to thrive. Part of the explanation, says Mohammad Mansouri, a Sharif grad ('97) who's now a professor in New York, lies in the tendency of Iranian parents to push their kids into medicine or engineering as opposed to other fields, like law. Sharif also has an extremely rigorous selection process. Every year some 1.5 million Iranian high-school students take college-entrance exams. Of those, only about 10 percent make it to the prestigious state schools, with the top 1 percent generally choosing science and finding their way to top spots such as Sharif. "The selection process [gives] universities like Sharif the smartest, most motivated and hardworking students" in the country, Mansouri says.
Sharif also boasts an excellent faculty. The university was founded in 1965 by the shah, who wanted to build a topnotch science and technology institute. The school was set up under the guidance of MIT advisers, and many of the current faculty studied in the United States (during the shah's era, Iranians made up the largest group of foreign students at U.S. schools, according to the Institute of International Education). Another secret of Sharif's success is Iran's high-school system, which places a premium on science and exposes students to subjects Americans don't encounter until college. This tradition of advanced studies extends into undergraduate programs, with Mansouri and others saying they were taught subjects in college that U.S. schools provide only to grad students.
Several Sharif alumni point to one other powerful motivator. "When you live in Iran and you see all the frustrations of daily life, you dream of leaving the country, and your books and studies become a ticket to a better life," says one who asked not to be identified. "It becomes more than just studying," he says. "It becomes an obsession, where you wake up at 4 a.m. just to get in a few more hours before class."
Iran's success, in other words, is also the country's tragedy: students want nothing more than to get away the moment they graduate. That's a boon for foreign universities and tech firms but a serious source of brain drain for the Islamic republic. There simply are not enough quality jobs for graduates in Iran, says Ramin Farjad Rad, another Sharif grad ('97) who's now an executive at Aquantia in Silicon Valley. What's worse, star students who stay in Iran and try to launch businesses complain that predatory government officials demand a cut of their profits or impose unnecessary obstacles. Thus many Iranians who can't make it to the West head to Dubai instead. As one Sharif grad in the Persian Gulf port city puts it, "Here, our education is properly valued. We are given freedom to succeed. In Iran, we are blocked."
Such frustrations augur ill for Iran's future. True, it's produced a startling number of top students in recent years. And the country's history is rich with achievement, featuring Avicenna (also known as Ibn Sina), the medieval world's greatest scientist; Muhammad al-Khwarizmi, the ninth-century inventor of the mathematical algorithm (the basis of computer science), and Omar Khayyam, the famed mathematician and astronomer. That's a fine legacy. But unless the Islamic republic changes directions soon, all of that history and potential could be squandered.
Molavi has reported from Iran for The Washington Post and Reuters, and is the author of ‘The Soul of Iran.’
Stanford has become a favorite destination of Sharif grads. Bruce A. Wooley, a former chair of the Electrical Engineering Department, has said that's because Sharif now has one of the best undergraduate electrical-engineering programs in the world. That's no small praise given its competition: MIT, Caltech and Stanford in the United States, Tsinghua in China and Cambridge in Britain.
Sharif's reputation highlights how while Iran makes headlines for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's incendiary remarks and its nuclear showdown with the United States, Iranian students are developing an international reputation as science superstars. Stanford's administrators aren't the only ones to notice. Universities across Canada and Australia, where visa restrictions are lower, report a big boom in the Iranian recruits; Canada has seen its total number of Iranian students grow 240 percent since 1985, while Australian press reports point to a fivefold increase over the past five years, to nearly 1,500.
Iranian students from Sharif and other top schools, such as the University of Tehran and the Isfahan University of Technology, have also become major players in the international Science Olympics, taking home trophies in physics, mathematics, chemistry and robotics. As a testament to this newfound success, the Iranian city of Isfahan recently hosted the International Physics Olympiad—an honor no other Middle Eastern country has enjoyed. That's because none of Iran's neighbors can match the quality of its scholars.
Never far behind, Western tech companies have also started snatching them up. Silicon Valley companies from Google to Yahoo now employ hundreds of Iranian grads, as do research institutes throughout the West. Olympiad winners are especially attractive; according to the Iranian press, up to 90 percent of them now leave the country for graduate school or work abroad.
So what explains Iran's record, and that of Sharif in particular? The country suffers from many serious ills, such as chronic inflation, stagnant wages and an anemic private sector, thanks to poor economic management and a weak regulatory environment. University professors barely make ends meet—the pay is so bad some must even take second jobs as taxi drivers or petty traders. International sanctions also make life difficult, delaying the importation of scientific equipment, for example, and increasing isolation. Until recently, Iranians were banned from publishing in the journals of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the industry's key international professional association. They also face the indignity of often having their visa applications refused when they try to attend conferences in the West.
Yet Sharif and its ilk continue to thrive. Part of the explanation, says Mohammad Mansouri, a Sharif grad ('97) who's now a professor in New York, lies in the tendency of Iranian parents to push their kids into medicine or engineering as opposed to other fields, like law. Sharif also has an extremely rigorous selection process. Every year some 1.5 million Iranian high-school students take college-entrance exams. Of those, only about 10 percent make it to the prestigious state schools, with the top 1 percent generally choosing science and finding their way to top spots such as Sharif. "The selection process [gives] universities like Sharif the smartest, most motivated and hardworking students" in the country, Mansouri says.
Sharif also boasts an excellent faculty. The university was founded in 1965 by the shah, who wanted to build a topnotch science and technology institute. The school was set up under the guidance of MIT advisers, and many of the current faculty studied in the United States (during the shah's era, Iranians made up the largest group of foreign students at U.S. schools, according to the Institute of International Education). Another secret of Sharif's success is Iran's high-school system, which places a premium on science and exposes students to subjects Americans don't encounter until college. This tradition of advanced studies extends into undergraduate programs, with Mansouri and others saying they were taught subjects in college that U.S. schools provide only to grad students.
Several Sharif alumni point to one other powerful motivator. "When you live in Iran and you see all the frustrations of daily life, you dream of leaving the country, and your books and studies become a ticket to a better life," says one who asked not to be identified. "It becomes more than just studying," he says. "It becomes an obsession, where you wake up at 4 a.m. just to get in a few more hours before class."
Iran's success, in other words, is also the country's tragedy: students want nothing more than to get away the moment they graduate. That's a boon for foreign universities and tech firms but a serious source of brain drain for the Islamic republic. There simply are not enough quality jobs for graduates in Iran, says Ramin Farjad Rad, another Sharif grad ('97) who's now an executive at Aquantia in Silicon Valley. What's worse, star students who stay in Iran and try to launch businesses complain that predatory government officials demand a cut of their profits or impose unnecessary obstacles. Thus many Iranians who can't make it to the West head to Dubai instead. As one Sharif grad in the Persian Gulf port city puts it, "Here, our education is properly valued. We are given freedom to succeed. In Iran, we are blocked."
Such frustrations augur ill for Iran's future. True, it's produced a startling number of top students in recent years. And the country's history is rich with achievement, featuring Avicenna (also known as Ibn Sina), the medieval world's greatest scientist; Muhammad al-Khwarizmi, the ninth-century inventor of the mathematical algorithm (the basis of computer science), and Omar Khayyam, the famed mathematician and astronomer. That's a fine legacy. But unless the Islamic republic changes directions soon, all of that history and potential could be squandered.
Molavi has reported from Iran for The Washington Post and Reuters, and is the author of ‘The Soul of Iran.’
India - How to save India's overcrowded schools
On the sprawling campus of Delhi University, the fear in July was as palpable as the excitement. For several weeks, prospective students rushed from college to college desperately combing admission lists for their names. Never before has India offered a better chance at a comfortable life after graduation. But never has getting a seat at one of the nation's universities been so hard. And for those who do land a spot, the troubles are just beginning.
Although India's economy and its job markets are booming, the nation's university system, which has been struggling for years, has recently hit a full-fledged crisis. The country's post-secondary schools currently offer only enough spots for about 7 percent of India's college-age citizens—about half the Asian average—and face a crushing faculty shortage. Already 25 percent of teaching positions nationwide are vacant, and 57 percent of professors lack either a master's or a Ph.D., according to a recent regulatory report. Curriculums are outdated, forcing companies to spend millions of dollars on "finishing schools" for new employees. Infrastructure is crumbling even at top schools like the famed Indian Institutes of Technology, where once cutting-edge laboratories have grown obsolete. And incompetent (or, as many allege, corrupt) regulators have let fly-by-night colleges proliferate while keeping out elite foreign universities keen to break into a potentially lucrative education market.
There is one ray of hope: for the first time in decades, the nation's leader has finally recognized the gravity of the problem. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called India's university system "dysfunctional" and embarked on the boldest educational reform program since Jawaharlal Nehru. But hamstrung by India's unwieldy bureaucracy and by ideological opponents, Singh may manage to dramatically expand the size of the country's higher education system without addressing many of its underlying problems.
Singh, himself a former economics professor at Delhi University, has promised to open 72 new post-secondary schools over the next five years, including eight new Indian Institutes of Technology, seven new Indian Institutes of Management, five new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research and 20 new Indian Institutes of Information Technology. To fund them, he's promised to boost the government's higher education spending ninefold, to $20 billion annually, during the five-year period that began in 2007.
But these changes may wind up addressing India's quantity problem without affecting its quality crisis. Already up to 75 percent of India's 400,000 annual technology grads and 90 percent of its 2.5 million general college grads are unable to find work. That's not due to a lack of jobs, according to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom)—it's due to a lack of skills. "For a long time after Independence, we were trying to solve the employment problem. Now we're trying to solve the employability problem," said Vijay Thadani, head of the Confederation of Indian Industry's committee on education. Loosening the purse strings will help Singh improve infrastructure and expand access for students, but it will take more than money to solve the faculty shortage, revamp outdated courses, encourage innovation and crack down on diploma mills. Indeed, rapid expansion could make these problems worse.
To be fair, Singh has tried to address the quality crisis. In 2005, he appointed a dream team of academics, planners and business executives to the National Knowledge Commission with a mandate to redesign India's entire education infrastructure by this October. Led by chairman Sam Pitroda—the architect of the nation's telecommunications network and thus no stranger to bureaucratic hurdles—the commission published a comprehensive set of recommendations in January 2007, focusing on "expansion, excellence and inclusion." Among its proposals, the commission advocated not only expanding the state university system but also diversifying sources of financing to include private participation, philanthropic contributions and industry links. It also suggested introducing frequent curricular revisions, moving away from the present system of standardized university-wide exams in favor of internal assessments of students by their professors, and setting up an independent regulatory authority. Yet while Singh's government has allocated a huge sum for building more universities and improving inclusiveness by expanding the quota system, it has yet to make progress on the crucial regulatory elements of the commission's plan.
That could prove disastrous. At present, India has no less than 16 different supervisory bodies for higher education, few of which are independent and all of which are of questionable efficacy. Mostly due to bureaucratic inertia, they've so far blocked attempts to modernize curriculums and methods of evaluation. They haven't done a good job at policing, either. Shoddy for-profit colleges have proliferated even as internationally respected foreign providers have been barred from opening up branch campuses and have struggled to get their joint programs certified. The All India Council of Technical Education, for example, has approved thousands of substandard private engineering colleges—many of them founded by profit-minded politicians. But it has refused to recognize the Indian School of Business, a private institution founded by former McKinsey & Co. managing director Rajat Gupta. And political wrangling at the parliamentary level (engineered by Singh's erstwhile communist coalition partners) has stymied legislation to allow foreign universities to set up campuses, even though Cornell, Columbia, and Stanford universities have all sent high-ranking delegations to the country on exploratory missions.
The will to reform remains strong, at least at the top. But the prime minister and his allies haven't succeeded in actually getting much done. In his introduction to the National Knowledge Commission's second report, published this January, Pitroda warned, "there is still resistance at various levels in the government to new ideas, experimentation ... external interventions, transparency and accountability, due to rigid organizational structures with territorial mindsets." If those obstacles can't be overcome, he wrote, "increasing resources could well result in more of the same." In other words, India could end up throwing good money—a lot of it—after bad, something this nation and its students could ill afford.
Although India's economy and its job markets are booming, the nation's university system, which has been struggling for years, has recently hit a full-fledged crisis. The country's post-secondary schools currently offer only enough spots for about 7 percent of India's college-age citizens—about half the Asian average—and face a crushing faculty shortage. Already 25 percent of teaching positions nationwide are vacant, and 57 percent of professors lack either a master's or a Ph.D., according to a recent regulatory report. Curriculums are outdated, forcing companies to spend millions of dollars on "finishing schools" for new employees. Infrastructure is crumbling even at top schools like the famed Indian Institutes of Technology, where once cutting-edge laboratories have grown obsolete. And incompetent (or, as many allege, corrupt) regulators have let fly-by-night colleges proliferate while keeping out elite foreign universities keen to break into a potentially lucrative education market.
There is one ray of hope: for the first time in decades, the nation's leader has finally recognized the gravity of the problem. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called India's university system "dysfunctional" and embarked on the boldest educational reform program since Jawaharlal Nehru. But hamstrung by India's unwieldy bureaucracy and by ideological opponents, Singh may manage to dramatically expand the size of the country's higher education system without addressing many of its underlying problems.
Singh, himself a former economics professor at Delhi University, has promised to open 72 new post-secondary schools over the next five years, including eight new Indian Institutes of Technology, seven new Indian Institutes of Management, five new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research and 20 new Indian Institutes of Information Technology. To fund them, he's promised to boost the government's higher education spending ninefold, to $20 billion annually, during the five-year period that began in 2007.
But these changes may wind up addressing India's quantity problem without affecting its quality crisis. Already up to 75 percent of India's 400,000 annual technology grads and 90 percent of its 2.5 million general college grads are unable to find work. That's not due to a lack of jobs, according to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom)—it's due to a lack of skills. "For a long time after Independence, we were trying to solve the employment problem. Now we're trying to solve the employability problem," said Vijay Thadani, head of the Confederation of Indian Industry's committee on education. Loosening the purse strings will help Singh improve infrastructure and expand access for students, but it will take more than money to solve the faculty shortage, revamp outdated courses, encourage innovation and crack down on diploma mills. Indeed, rapid expansion could make these problems worse.
To be fair, Singh has tried to address the quality crisis. In 2005, he appointed a dream team of academics, planners and business executives to the National Knowledge Commission with a mandate to redesign India's entire education infrastructure by this October. Led by chairman Sam Pitroda—the architect of the nation's telecommunications network and thus no stranger to bureaucratic hurdles—the commission published a comprehensive set of recommendations in January 2007, focusing on "expansion, excellence and inclusion." Among its proposals, the commission advocated not only expanding the state university system but also diversifying sources of financing to include private participation, philanthropic contributions and industry links. It also suggested introducing frequent curricular revisions, moving away from the present system of standardized university-wide exams in favor of internal assessments of students by their professors, and setting up an independent regulatory authority. Yet while Singh's government has allocated a huge sum for building more universities and improving inclusiveness by expanding the quota system, it has yet to make progress on the crucial regulatory elements of the commission's plan.
That could prove disastrous. At present, India has no less than 16 different supervisory bodies for higher education, few of which are independent and all of which are of questionable efficacy. Mostly due to bureaucratic inertia, they've so far blocked attempts to modernize curriculums and methods of evaluation. They haven't done a good job at policing, either. Shoddy for-profit colleges have proliferated even as internationally respected foreign providers have been barred from opening up branch campuses and have struggled to get their joint programs certified. The All India Council of Technical Education, for example, has approved thousands of substandard private engineering colleges—many of them founded by profit-minded politicians. But it has refused to recognize the Indian School of Business, a private institution founded by former McKinsey & Co. managing director Rajat Gupta. And political wrangling at the parliamentary level (engineered by Singh's erstwhile communist coalition partners) has stymied legislation to allow foreign universities to set up campuses, even though Cornell, Columbia, and Stanford universities have all sent high-ranking delegations to the country on exploratory missions.
The will to reform remains strong, at least at the top. But the prime minister and his allies haven't succeeded in actually getting much done. In his introduction to the National Knowledge Commission's second report, published this January, Pitroda warned, "there is still resistance at various levels in the government to new ideas, experimentation ... external interventions, transparency and accountability, due to rigid organizational structures with territorial mindsets." If those obstacles can't be overcome, he wrote, "increasing resources could well result in more of the same." In other words, India could end up throwing good money—a lot of it—after bad, something this nation and its students could ill afford.
World - Doctored photographs
When a mysterious creature washed up on the shores of Montauk, N.Y., in late July, it became an instant media sensation. After the photograph of the Montauk Monster ran on Manhattan media blog Gawker, local Long Island newspapers were on the story. CNN and Fox News quickly followed, hosting experts to hash out what exactly this unrecognizeable being was. Perhaps a bloated raccoon, as Discover Magazine claimed and Jeff Corwin told Fox? A dead dog that had decayed for weeks? Or, the latest spin: The creature was simply fake, a prop in a movie’s viral marketing campaign, and the media had been duped.
The public's skepticism over whether or not they can believe what they see in photographs isn't unwarranted. Just last week, Beijing organizers admitted to using “previously recorded footage” and computerized images during the Olympic opening ceremony to enhance the quality of fireworks for broadcast on television. A month before that, a doctored photograph of Iranian missiles turned up on front pages across the globe. The alteration—an extra missile added to the image—was outed within hours of the photograph's publication. "With technology, you can make the moment anything you want it to be," says John Long, the ethics committee chair for the National Press Photographers Association. "Our credibility has been stretched in so many ways, so I don't think the public has a great deal of faith in us." He admits the past year hasn't been the best for photojournalism's credibility but doesn't think the future is particularly gloomy—it just puts the burden on the photojournalist to tell the truth, rather than on the photograph itself. "Just like we trust the reporter to represent what they see accurately, we're going to have to develop that same relationship with photographers," he says. NEWSWEEK's Sarah Kliff spoke with Long about why the credibility of photojournalism has fallen, whether or not doctored photographs are more likely to get caught these days, and how photographers can reclaim the public's trust. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: A little over a year ago, you told the American Journalism Review that "The public is losing faith in us. Without credibility, we have nothing; we cannot survive." Where do you think the public faith in photojournalism is now?
John Long: It's pretty low. We definitely haven't gotten any stronger. There seems to be a sense it's bad and I don't know how much worse it can get. A lot of it is self-inflicted; we've made a mess of our professionalism. In the past, we were brought up on the concept that the moment is sacrosanct. It was a hard-and-fast two-dimensional thing. Now you can make the moment anything you want it to be. [Newer photojournalists] are looking at reality in a different way than we did.
What's your take on Beijing's use of computer graphics in the opening ceremony? Do you think NBC should have told its viewers beforehand?
They were deceiving the public and if they were deceiving the public knowingly, then that's a violation of their standards of news judgment. NBC was saying this is an image of what's happening, this is news coverage and we're showing you what is taking place. If it wasn't taking place it was a lie. What else can you call it? NBC would have been totally castigated if they said Michael Phelps got a gold medal and he didn't. That would be a lie. To add fireworks is also a lie. We have to respect the visual and the picture the same way that we respect the word.
Are there any ways to avoid the publication of doctored photos, like the photograph of the Iranian missiles? What could have been done differently in that situation?
Whoever took that photograph and put it on their wire should have checked the source on it better. When you're a photo editor, you look at about 35,000 pictures a day from the wire. You don't have time to say, "I wonder if this one is a mess." You have to be able to trust your sources. If it's coming from [The Associated Press] or Reuters, a reputable news service, you're expecting them to verify or vet or take responsibility for those images. In this case, that's where the problem was. Whoever put this picture up broke down ... they should have been more diligent in checking the sources.
Because of the higher level of scrutiny that photographs face, do you think ones that are doctored are more likely to be caught?
A lot of people are looking for it now. It used to be rare, but now people are wary. As soon as something like the missile photo came out of Iran, people immediately started questioning it. I hate to say it, but a lot of times it's warranted. So there is more scrutiny, but at the same time it's not as easy to catch. It was easier when you just had airbrushing and cut-and-paste. It's harder to see it now because it's so seamless. I hope we're catching most of them, but I have absolutely no idea. You just hope that most of what's going on isn't illicit. I hope we're catching them, but I really just don't know.
How can photojournalists regain the faith of the public, convince them that the photographs they see are truthful and unaltered?
We already did something similar years ago with words and reporters. You can lie with words, but our society evolved an expectation that the reporter would tell the truth as accurately and fairly as they saw it. That's what you do in the business of journalism. We used to believe in the photograph, but now we're going to have to believe that the photographer, like the reporter, is trying to present the moment honestly and accurately.
In the face of better, more advanced photo technology, how do you stay hopeful?
The same way we remain hopeful with writers. We trust people of integrity to be honest in their reporting. So now instead of trusting the photograph, we have to start trusting the photography. We have to trust people who work in this industry to be portraying what they see honestly, in both photographs and in words. That's the only hope we have.
You teach a class in photojournalism at Syracuse University. What do you see among younger photojournalists, in terms of whether or not it's OK to alter photographs?
I see the kids coming up and they do have a desire to be honest, and I think they'll find a way. Kids who are coming up in our profession are going to have to find a way to report honestly, but it's going to be different than what we've done in the past.
The public's skepticism over whether or not they can believe what they see in photographs isn't unwarranted. Just last week, Beijing organizers admitted to using “previously recorded footage” and computerized images during the Olympic opening ceremony to enhance the quality of fireworks for broadcast on television. A month before that, a doctored photograph of Iranian missiles turned up on front pages across the globe. The alteration—an extra missile added to the image—was outed within hours of the photograph's publication. "With technology, you can make the moment anything you want it to be," says John Long, the ethics committee chair for the National Press Photographers Association. "Our credibility has been stretched in so many ways, so I don't think the public has a great deal of faith in us." He admits the past year hasn't been the best for photojournalism's credibility but doesn't think the future is particularly gloomy—it just puts the burden on the photojournalist to tell the truth, rather than on the photograph itself. "Just like we trust the reporter to represent what they see accurately, we're going to have to develop that same relationship with photographers," he says. NEWSWEEK's Sarah Kliff spoke with Long about why the credibility of photojournalism has fallen, whether or not doctored photographs are more likely to get caught these days, and how photographers can reclaim the public's trust. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: A little over a year ago, you told the American Journalism Review that "The public is losing faith in us. Without credibility, we have nothing; we cannot survive." Where do you think the public faith in photojournalism is now?
John Long: It's pretty low. We definitely haven't gotten any stronger. There seems to be a sense it's bad and I don't know how much worse it can get. A lot of it is self-inflicted; we've made a mess of our professionalism. In the past, we were brought up on the concept that the moment is sacrosanct. It was a hard-and-fast two-dimensional thing. Now you can make the moment anything you want it to be. [Newer photojournalists] are looking at reality in a different way than we did.
What's your take on Beijing's use of computer graphics in the opening ceremony? Do you think NBC should have told its viewers beforehand?
They were deceiving the public and if they were deceiving the public knowingly, then that's a violation of their standards of news judgment. NBC was saying this is an image of what's happening, this is news coverage and we're showing you what is taking place. If it wasn't taking place it was a lie. What else can you call it? NBC would have been totally castigated if they said Michael Phelps got a gold medal and he didn't. That would be a lie. To add fireworks is also a lie. We have to respect the visual and the picture the same way that we respect the word.
Are there any ways to avoid the publication of doctored photos, like the photograph of the Iranian missiles? What could have been done differently in that situation?
Whoever took that photograph and put it on their wire should have checked the source on it better. When you're a photo editor, you look at about 35,000 pictures a day from the wire. You don't have time to say, "I wonder if this one is a mess." You have to be able to trust your sources. If it's coming from [The Associated Press] or Reuters, a reputable news service, you're expecting them to verify or vet or take responsibility for those images. In this case, that's where the problem was. Whoever put this picture up broke down ... they should have been more diligent in checking the sources.
Because of the higher level of scrutiny that photographs face, do you think ones that are doctored are more likely to be caught?
A lot of people are looking for it now. It used to be rare, but now people are wary. As soon as something like the missile photo came out of Iran, people immediately started questioning it. I hate to say it, but a lot of times it's warranted. So there is more scrutiny, but at the same time it's not as easy to catch. It was easier when you just had airbrushing and cut-and-paste. It's harder to see it now because it's so seamless. I hope we're catching most of them, but I have absolutely no idea. You just hope that most of what's going on isn't illicit. I hope we're catching them, but I really just don't know.
How can photojournalists regain the faith of the public, convince them that the photographs they see are truthful and unaltered?
We already did something similar years ago with words and reporters. You can lie with words, but our society evolved an expectation that the reporter would tell the truth as accurately and fairly as they saw it. That's what you do in the business of journalism. We used to believe in the photograph, but now we're going to have to believe that the photographer, like the reporter, is trying to present the moment honestly and accurately.
In the face of better, more advanced photo technology, how do you stay hopeful?
The same way we remain hopeful with writers. We trust people of integrity to be honest in their reporting. So now instead of trusting the photograph, we have to start trusting the photography. We have to trust people who work in this industry to be portraying what they see honestly, in both photographs and in words. That's the only hope we have.
You teach a class in photojournalism at Syracuse University. What do you see among younger photojournalists, in terms of whether or not it's OK to alter photographs?
I see the kids coming up and they do have a desire to be honest, and I think they'll find a way. Kids who are coming up in our profession are going to have to find a way to report honestly, but it's going to be different than what we've done in the past.
World - After Musharraf;Pressure on Pakistan's Coalition
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf resigned from office Monday. It was hardly a surprise, as the 65-year-old president's political allies and even the Army's top brass, which he had commanded for years, had largely deserted him in the face of certain impeachment by the heavily anti-Musharraf national Parliament. He tendered his resignation in an emotional and at times defiant nationally televised speech that lasted for more than an hour. His ouster puts squarely in the spotlight the five-month-old coalition government--and its weak performance so far. No longer will coalition leaders be able to blame so-called "conspiracies" being hatched in the presidency for the country's economic, political and security failings. Bereft of excuses, it will now have to deliver.
Musharraf, ever the combative 44-year military veteran, did not bow out meekly. He started out by giving a spirited defense of his nearly nine years of largely authoritarian rule. As he ticked off a long litany of his regime's economic, social and political achievements, it seemed that perhaps he was having second thoughts about resigning. But then he conceded the inevitable. "This is no time for individual bravado but for seriousness of thought," he said, dressed in a dark suit and flanked by two Pakistani flags. "Having reviewed the situation and having consulted my legal advisers and political supporters, and on their advice, for the interest of the nation, I have decided to resign." He added that he did not want to drag the military into the fight, and that he wanted to protect the presidency and end months of political uncertainty. "I don't want anything from anyone," he said. "My future is in the hands of the people. Let them be the judges and let them do justice."
Unfortunately for Musharraf, Pakistanis spoke loudest last February when, in the general election, the president's allies were routed--in a vote largely seen as a referendum on his years in power. The political parties of his two staunch adversaries, Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto's widower, and Nawaz Sharif, the man whom he overthrew in a bloodless coup in 1999, swept the polls and formed an uneasy, indeed fragile, coalition government. But Zardari and Sharif did unite on one issue: the need to remove Musharraf from office. On that common goal they have finally succeeded.
Having lost the presidency, Musharraf is unlikely to stay in Pakistan for very long, as NEWSWEEK reported Sunday--just in case his opponents, sensing his vulnerability, may try to instigate further legal proceedings against him. He will remain in his British-colonial-style "camp office" in the Rawalpindi army garrison for the next few days, then he is expected to leave on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, a former senior aide--whose information has proved reliable in the past--told NEWSWEEK. According to the source, Musharraf will remain outside Pakistan for two to three months while tempers cool. (The United States, which stood by Musharraf as his popularity waned, has cooled on him of late. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice indicated over the weekend that there has not been serious discussion about Musharraf seeking refuge in America.)
Musharraf sounded bitter when speaking about how he had offered a hand of cooperation and reconciliation to his two adversaries but had been rejected. "I was for reconciliation from the very beginning," he said. "Sadly, some elements have politicized the economy and the War on Terror," he added. "Instead of reconciliation we got confrontation."
Musharraf offered no apologies for what his political enemies saw as his most egregious moves: his coup against Sharif, his manipulating the Constitution to remain in power, his imposition of the state of emergency and his sacking of 60 judges last November in an effort to save his presidency. He admitted that he had erred. "I might have committed mistakes," he said. "But everything I did was with honesty and integrity." He dismissed the coalition's impeachment charges against him. "Not a single charge can be proved," he said. "I'm not worried about any charges."
He went on the offensive, saying the country's present economic crisis--25 percent inflation, power blackouts, a depreciating currency, falling stock market and lack of investor confidence--was the responsibility of the coalition government. "The economic crisis is six months old," he said. "Our economic policies drew worldwide praise." He read out a litany of his regime's economic achievements: 6 percent growth rates, billions in foreign investment, highways, canals and airports built, even high hotel occupancy rates. He also took credit for empowering women, giving them more seats in Parliament and the national assemblies, and for carrying out last February's election, which he called Pakistan's "freest and fairest ever."
He did indeed liberalize the once moribund economy, and he promoted media and cultural freedom. His economic record is a benchmark against which the new government will be measured in these turbulent times. "In his departing comments, he has articulated a legacy against which the new lot [the coalition] is going to be judged on a very constant basis," says respected political analyst Nasim Zehra. The coalition can no longer point to the presidency as the source of the country's ills. "Now they [the coalition] will be held accountable," she says. "They need to pull up their socks, put their heads down and do some real work."
One of the coalition's first orders of business in the post-Musharraf era will be to deal with the contentious issue of restoring the 60 judges, including the Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, to the bench. Zardari has long dragged his feet on the issue, even though the vast majority of Pakistanis seem to support the judges' reinstatement. Most believe that Zardari is afraid that once the maverick Chaudhry is back in office, he may declare unconstitutional the amnesty decree proclaimed by Musharraf that quashed all corruption charges against him and a host of other politicians. But restoring Chaudhry to the bench has long been Sharif's priority. "The real test of the coalition starts now," says pro-Musharraf politician Tariq Azim. "He was their common target, the reason they were united. Now we have to see whether this fragile coalition can stay together with Musharraf out of the way."
Beyond the contentious issue of the judges, Zardari and Sharif are believed to have sharply differing views on who should replace Musharraf in the presidency. It has long been rumored that Zardari covets the position for himself. Sharif certainly would prefer other candidates. Nor do the two men agree on how to pursue the struggle against Islamic extremism along the country's Western border. There, pro-Taliban Pakistani militants, largely ethnic Pashtuns, are aggressively expanding their control to most of the countryside and have implemented a harsh Taliban-style regime parallel to that of the government. While Zardari tends to side with U.S. perceptions of the danger that Islamic extremism poses to Pakistan and to Afghanistan, as well, Sharif sees the conflict as largely an American war in which Pakistan should limit its engagement.
The Army, which has suffered heavy casualties in the fight over the past few years, trusts neither man. For Pakistan's stability, all three-- Zardari, Sharif and Army chief Ashfaq Kayani--will all have to learn to cooperate. Whether they can is perhaps the biggest question facing the country after Musharraf's departure.
Musharraf, ever the combative 44-year military veteran, did not bow out meekly. He started out by giving a spirited defense of his nearly nine years of largely authoritarian rule. As he ticked off a long litany of his regime's economic, social and political achievements, it seemed that perhaps he was having second thoughts about resigning. But then he conceded the inevitable. "This is no time for individual bravado but for seriousness of thought," he said, dressed in a dark suit and flanked by two Pakistani flags. "Having reviewed the situation and having consulted my legal advisers and political supporters, and on their advice, for the interest of the nation, I have decided to resign." He added that he did not want to drag the military into the fight, and that he wanted to protect the presidency and end months of political uncertainty. "I don't want anything from anyone," he said. "My future is in the hands of the people. Let them be the judges and let them do justice."
Unfortunately for Musharraf, Pakistanis spoke loudest last February when, in the general election, the president's allies were routed--in a vote largely seen as a referendum on his years in power. The political parties of his two staunch adversaries, Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto's widower, and Nawaz Sharif, the man whom he overthrew in a bloodless coup in 1999, swept the polls and formed an uneasy, indeed fragile, coalition government. But Zardari and Sharif did unite on one issue: the need to remove Musharraf from office. On that common goal they have finally succeeded.
Having lost the presidency, Musharraf is unlikely to stay in Pakistan for very long, as NEWSWEEK reported Sunday--just in case his opponents, sensing his vulnerability, may try to instigate further legal proceedings against him. He will remain in his British-colonial-style "camp office" in the Rawalpindi army garrison for the next few days, then he is expected to leave on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, a former senior aide--whose information has proved reliable in the past--told NEWSWEEK. According to the source, Musharraf will remain outside Pakistan for two to three months while tempers cool. (The United States, which stood by Musharraf as his popularity waned, has cooled on him of late. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice indicated over the weekend that there has not been serious discussion about Musharraf seeking refuge in America.)
Musharraf sounded bitter when speaking about how he had offered a hand of cooperation and reconciliation to his two adversaries but had been rejected. "I was for reconciliation from the very beginning," he said. "Sadly, some elements have politicized the economy and the War on Terror," he added. "Instead of reconciliation we got confrontation."
Musharraf offered no apologies for what his political enemies saw as his most egregious moves: his coup against Sharif, his manipulating the Constitution to remain in power, his imposition of the state of emergency and his sacking of 60 judges last November in an effort to save his presidency. He admitted that he had erred. "I might have committed mistakes," he said. "But everything I did was with honesty and integrity." He dismissed the coalition's impeachment charges against him. "Not a single charge can be proved," he said. "I'm not worried about any charges."
He went on the offensive, saying the country's present economic crisis--25 percent inflation, power blackouts, a depreciating currency, falling stock market and lack of investor confidence--was the responsibility of the coalition government. "The economic crisis is six months old," he said. "Our economic policies drew worldwide praise." He read out a litany of his regime's economic achievements: 6 percent growth rates, billions in foreign investment, highways, canals and airports built, even high hotel occupancy rates. He also took credit for empowering women, giving them more seats in Parliament and the national assemblies, and for carrying out last February's election, which he called Pakistan's "freest and fairest ever."
He did indeed liberalize the once moribund economy, and he promoted media and cultural freedom. His economic record is a benchmark against which the new government will be measured in these turbulent times. "In his departing comments, he has articulated a legacy against which the new lot [the coalition] is going to be judged on a very constant basis," says respected political analyst Nasim Zehra. The coalition can no longer point to the presidency as the source of the country's ills. "Now they [the coalition] will be held accountable," she says. "They need to pull up their socks, put their heads down and do some real work."
One of the coalition's first orders of business in the post-Musharraf era will be to deal with the contentious issue of restoring the 60 judges, including the Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, to the bench. Zardari has long dragged his feet on the issue, even though the vast majority of Pakistanis seem to support the judges' reinstatement. Most believe that Zardari is afraid that once the maverick Chaudhry is back in office, he may declare unconstitutional the amnesty decree proclaimed by Musharraf that quashed all corruption charges against him and a host of other politicians. But restoring Chaudhry to the bench has long been Sharif's priority. "The real test of the coalition starts now," says pro-Musharraf politician Tariq Azim. "He was their common target, the reason they were united. Now we have to see whether this fragile coalition can stay together with Musharraf out of the way."
Beyond the contentious issue of the judges, Zardari and Sharif are believed to have sharply differing views on who should replace Musharraf in the presidency. It has long been rumored that Zardari covets the position for himself. Sharif certainly would prefer other candidates. Nor do the two men agree on how to pursue the struggle against Islamic extremism along the country's Western border. There, pro-Taliban Pakistani militants, largely ethnic Pashtuns, are aggressively expanding their control to most of the countryside and have implemented a harsh Taliban-style regime parallel to that of the government. While Zardari tends to side with U.S. perceptions of the danger that Islamic extremism poses to Pakistan and to Afghanistan, as well, Sharif sees the conflict as largely an American war in which Pakistan should limit its engagement.
The Army, which has suffered heavy casualties in the fight over the past few years, trusts neither man. For Pakistan's stability, all three-- Zardari, Sharif and Army chief Ashfaq Kayani--will all have to learn to cooperate. Whether they can is perhaps the biggest question facing the country after Musharraf's departure.
Lifestyle - Wastewater greens the World's gardens
An intriguing new study is out on the use of wastewater in world agriculture. If you've ever wondered where all that cruddy old water goes when you pull the bathtub plug, brush your teeth, or purge the loo, this is the report you've been waiting for. The short answer: On your salad. The big surprise is, that may not be all bad.
In a survey of 53 cities worldwide, the International Water Management Institute (IMWI), a water research and advocacy group, has found that the vast majority of produce cultivated in urban plots is irrigated with what amounts to tainted water, fetched from polluted streams and lakes or wells. True, only a fraction (say 10 percent) of global agricultural output is harvested in the cities, and only a part of that crop is consumed uncooked. Yet in these cities alone, some 1.1 million farmers produce vegetables and fruit for 4.5 million people. Projecting the numbers worldwide, no fewer than 200 million farmers rely on recycled water to sow 20 million hectares, an area twice the size of Hungary. The findings were released during World Water Week, a summit of sages and policy types gathered in Stockholm through Aug. 23 in an effort to rethink the way the world farms and flushes.
At first whiff, this all seems dire. After all, the water we dump, from sink or commode, back into an ecosystem, carries a galaxy of bugs, bacteria and germs that can cause nasty diseases from diarrhea to hepatitis. Worse, it's a good bet that most families that consume the fruit and vegetables grown with such swill do not properly wash their produce, a sure invitation to illness. Cholera outbreaks in Israel and Chile have been traced to food contaminated with wastewater.
Now it turns out that even the plumbing has a silver lining. Noisome as it seems, dirty water may be the only reason that many people around the world eat at all, especially in the poorest countries. Nearly 200,000 residents in Accra, the capital of Ghana, put produce on the table thanks largely to wastewater. Nearly a quarter of Pakistan's domestic vegetables are nurtured with wastewater. It's no exaggeration to say that "bad" water helps fill the bowls of scores of calorie depleted households around the world.
Add to that the fact that irrigating with waste adds a kind of pro bono fertilizer to the farm and also returns moisture to drying lands. "It's a great way to cope with water stress," says senior IWMI official, Pay Drechsel. The soil is also a great natural filter, "cleansing" dirty water as it seeps into the ground. There may even be a plus for the climate, as sludge-laden water returns carbon to the earth that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.
More to the point, there may be little alternative. For a time, the World Health Organization, rightly fearing the rampant spread of diseases, cautioned against using tainted water for cropping. But in time, "they realized this would put millions of farmers out of business," says Drechsel. Some 85 percent of the 53 cities studied dump their sewage and wastewater into streams and lakes. In the poorest societies, where clean water is as precious as it is scarce, diverting fresh water to the farm is to rob the drinking glass.
WHO has now adapted its approach, signing off on farming with wastewater in countries where clean water is scarce but with the caveat that authorities move aggressively to treat waste and that families thoroughly wash their produce. "With an ever greater number of emerging economies lacking resources to adequately treat their waste, this situation will continue."
So pull the plug and pass the salad. But wash, first.
In a survey of 53 cities worldwide, the International Water Management Institute (IMWI), a water research and advocacy group, has found that the vast majority of produce cultivated in urban plots is irrigated with what amounts to tainted water, fetched from polluted streams and lakes or wells. True, only a fraction (say 10 percent) of global agricultural output is harvested in the cities, and only a part of that crop is consumed uncooked. Yet in these cities alone, some 1.1 million farmers produce vegetables and fruit for 4.5 million people. Projecting the numbers worldwide, no fewer than 200 million farmers rely on recycled water to sow 20 million hectares, an area twice the size of Hungary. The findings were released during World Water Week, a summit of sages and policy types gathered in Stockholm through Aug. 23 in an effort to rethink the way the world farms and flushes.
At first whiff, this all seems dire. After all, the water we dump, from sink or commode, back into an ecosystem, carries a galaxy of bugs, bacteria and germs that can cause nasty diseases from diarrhea to hepatitis. Worse, it's a good bet that most families that consume the fruit and vegetables grown with such swill do not properly wash their produce, a sure invitation to illness. Cholera outbreaks in Israel and Chile have been traced to food contaminated with wastewater.
Now it turns out that even the plumbing has a silver lining. Noisome as it seems, dirty water may be the only reason that many people around the world eat at all, especially in the poorest countries. Nearly 200,000 residents in Accra, the capital of Ghana, put produce on the table thanks largely to wastewater. Nearly a quarter of Pakistan's domestic vegetables are nurtured with wastewater. It's no exaggeration to say that "bad" water helps fill the bowls of scores of calorie depleted households around the world.
Add to that the fact that irrigating with waste adds a kind of pro bono fertilizer to the farm and also returns moisture to drying lands. "It's a great way to cope with water stress," says senior IWMI official, Pay Drechsel. The soil is also a great natural filter, "cleansing" dirty water as it seeps into the ground. There may even be a plus for the climate, as sludge-laden water returns carbon to the earth that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.
More to the point, there may be little alternative. For a time, the World Health Organization, rightly fearing the rampant spread of diseases, cautioned against using tainted water for cropping. But in time, "they realized this would put millions of farmers out of business," says Drechsel. Some 85 percent of the 53 cities studied dump their sewage and wastewater into streams and lakes. In the poorest societies, where clean water is as precious as it is scarce, diverting fresh water to the farm is to rob the drinking glass.
WHO has now adapted its approach, signing off on farming with wastewater in countries where clean water is scarce but with the caveat that authorities move aggressively to treat waste and that families thoroughly wash their produce. "With an ever greater number of emerging economies lacking resources to adequately treat their waste, this situation will continue."
So pull the plug and pass the salad. But wash, first.
Sport - What chinese stars earn
Xu Haifeng was the first Chinese to win an Olympic gold medal. That was in the 1984 free pistol shot competition in Los Angeles, and it earned Xu the first national prize money for an Olympic champion--9,000 RMB (about $1,312) and a salary increase from 51.5 RMB ($7.50) to 98 RMB ($14) per month. "At that time, that was already considered a lot of money," says Xu, now the deputy director of China’s Cycling and Fencing Sports Administrative Center.
No longer. While Xu Haifeng might have been one of the first athletes to make any money out of his sport, China’s top-earning athlete is now NBA star Yao Ming, whose estimated income for 2007 was 380 million RMB ($55.4 million). The country’s second biggest earner is Shanghai’s Liu Xiang, whose 2004 Olympic gold medal in the 110-meter hurdles earned him 160 million RMB (about $23 million) last year. Both are beneficiaries of China’s changing economic system. Wei Jizhong, a consultant to the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, and former national sports official who led the women's volleyball team to five consecutive championships, points out that during Xu Haifeng's era, people around the country were still discussing whether or not China should adopt a free-market economic system, not the commercialization of sports. "Xu Haifeng won in 1984, but the formal decision to adopt a market economy was made after [former Communist Party leader] Deng Xiaoping's 1992 southern tour," says Wei.
The changing stakes have led to changing attitudes too. While older athletes saw their sports as more about the glory of themselves and their nation, the new generation has learned the value of packaging itself. One example of an athlete ‘on message’ is Liu Xiang as spokesman for Amway’s nutrition supplement Nutrilite. At one press conference for the brand, Liu Xiang’s first comment was a plug for the brand. "It's been my dream to represent Amway,” he said as he took his seat. “From a young age, I used Amway products my father's work unit gave to him and felt they were great." When a journalist asked about Liu's dreams for the future, the athlete did not speak about hurdles or life, but instead resolutely said, "I hope everyone will use Nutrilite."
Olympic medals don’t always bring in the money. Lu Hao, a high profile sports agent whose clients include Yao Ming, says that athletes’ market values are closely related to their media exposure and the type of sport they play. That’s why the gorgeous young athletes on the national badminton team--featured last year on a magazine cover that presented them dressed like Hollywood stars--have signed contracts with Federal Express, Bank of China, Pepsi and L’Oreal. The Chinese Ping-Pong team, by contrast, lags behind in these deals, in spite of its excellent match performances.
Most athletes, also, are still managed by state organizations. While sports like basketball and soccer are more commercialized than others, most still fall under a system called Sports for the Nation, where the value of an athlete’s brand falls largely under the domain of “state assets”. Yao Ming, who moved abroad to play, has an international team of professional money managers. Liu Xiang's "state owned" business activities, on the other hand, are managed by the Chinese Athletics Association. Intermediary organizations must pass through the Association to discuss advertising representative business. Under the state-owned athletic system, athletes' advertising earnings are allocated by provisions of China’s State General Administration of Sport. Accordingly, Liu Xiang keeps 50 percent of his earnings, with 15 percent going to his coach Sun Haiping, and 20 percent to his hometown Shanghai's sports bureau. The remaining 15 percent is allocated to the Chinese Athletics Association. Although there isn't a vast difference between the number of ads done by Yao Ming and Liu Xiang, the hurdle star’s income is less than half of the basketball star. “Yao Ming is already a professional athlete,” says Wei. “He only participates in national training for a short time when there's to be a match. Under the national system, athletes receive government subsidy and are financially taken care of by the state. So they don't entirely answer to themselves."
Chinese athletes who disobey the rules can pay a heavy price. In 2005, Sydney Olympic diving champion Tian Liang was removed from the Olympic team for participating in too many commercial events. The decision forced Tian out of the Beijing Olympics and also saw the sponsorships for the former “Sunshine Boy” fade into the twilight.
The next generation of sports stars is likely to be even savvier about marketing their achievements. Where Yao Ming’s parents refused to let him go to sports school because they felt he would not be able to make a living from his athleticism, parents like Ding Wenjun are now making enormous financial sacrifices to promote their children’s talent. Ding is the father of snooker player Ding Junhui, winner of the 2005 World Snooker China Open and the world’s Number 11 ranked player. Ding Wenjun, a former cigarette salesman, risked ruin by selling his family’s house to support his son’s career. The gamble paid off. Last year, the 21-year-old champion made 4.8 million RMB (almost $700,000) in ad and endorsement money--more than 500 times the award money Xu Haifeng received back in 1984.
No longer. While Xu Haifeng might have been one of the first athletes to make any money out of his sport, China’s top-earning athlete is now NBA star Yao Ming, whose estimated income for 2007 was 380 million RMB ($55.4 million). The country’s second biggest earner is Shanghai’s Liu Xiang, whose 2004 Olympic gold medal in the 110-meter hurdles earned him 160 million RMB (about $23 million) last year. Both are beneficiaries of China’s changing economic system. Wei Jizhong, a consultant to the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, and former national sports official who led the women's volleyball team to five consecutive championships, points out that during Xu Haifeng's era, people around the country were still discussing whether or not China should adopt a free-market economic system, not the commercialization of sports. "Xu Haifeng won in 1984, but the formal decision to adopt a market economy was made after [former Communist Party leader] Deng Xiaoping's 1992 southern tour," says Wei.
The changing stakes have led to changing attitudes too. While older athletes saw their sports as more about the glory of themselves and their nation, the new generation has learned the value of packaging itself. One example of an athlete ‘on message’ is Liu Xiang as spokesman for Amway’s nutrition supplement Nutrilite. At one press conference for the brand, Liu Xiang’s first comment was a plug for the brand. "It's been my dream to represent Amway,” he said as he took his seat. “From a young age, I used Amway products my father's work unit gave to him and felt they were great." When a journalist asked about Liu's dreams for the future, the athlete did not speak about hurdles or life, but instead resolutely said, "I hope everyone will use Nutrilite."
Olympic medals don’t always bring in the money. Lu Hao, a high profile sports agent whose clients include Yao Ming, says that athletes’ market values are closely related to their media exposure and the type of sport they play. That’s why the gorgeous young athletes on the national badminton team--featured last year on a magazine cover that presented them dressed like Hollywood stars--have signed contracts with Federal Express, Bank of China, Pepsi and L’Oreal. The Chinese Ping-Pong team, by contrast, lags behind in these deals, in spite of its excellent match performances.
Most athletes, also, are still managed by state organizations. While sports like basketball and soccer are more commercialized than others, most still fall under a system called Sports for the Nation, where the value of an athlete’s brand falls largely under the domain of “state assets”. Yao Ming, who moved abroad to play, has an international team of professional money managers. Liu Xiang's "state owned" business activities, on the other hand, are managed by the Chinese Athletics Association. Intermediary organizations must pass through the Association to discuss advertising representative business. Under the state-owned athletic system, athletes' advertising earnings are allocated by provisions of China’s State General Administration of Sport. Accordingly, Liu Xiang keeps 50 percent of his earnings, with 15 percent going to his coach Sun Haiping, and 20 percent to his hometown Shanghai's sports bureau. The remaining 15 percent is allocated to the Chinese Athletics Association. Although there isn't a vast difference between the number of ads done by Yao Ming and Liu Xiang, the hurdle star’s income is less than half of the basketball star. “Yao Ming is already a professional athlete,” says Wei. “He only participates in national training for a short time when there's to be a match. Under the national system, athletes receive government subsidy and are financially taken care of by the state. So they don't entirely answer to themselves."
Chinese athletes who disobey the rules can pay a heavy price. In 2005, Sydney Olympic diving champion Tian Liang was removed from the Olympic team for participating in too many commercial events. The decision forced Tian out of the Beijing Olympics and also saw the sponsorships for the former “Sunshine Boy” fade into the twilight.
The next generation of sports stars is likely to be even savvier about marketing their achievements. Where Yao Ming’s parents refused to let him go to sports school because they felt he would not be able to make a living from his athleticism, parents like Ding Wenjun are now making enormous financial sacrifices to promote their children’s talent. Ding is the father of snooker player Ding Junhui, winner of the 2005 World Snooker China Open and the world’s Number 11 ranked player. Ding Wenjun, a former cigarette salesman, risked ruin by selling his family’s house to support his son’s career. The gamble paid off. Last year, the 21-year-old champion made 4.8 million RMB (almost $700,000) in ad and endorsement money--more than 500 times the award money Xu Haifeng received back in 1984.
World - Asia & Mideast gain ground in Higher Education
Drive down Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai's main thoroughfare, and you'll pass the world's only seven-star hotel, its tallest building and its largest man-made resort island. But head off into the desert and you'll hit a modest-looking set of office buildings and construction cranes that promise to be just as superlative. This is the site of Dubai International Academic City: the future home of a Michigan State University campus and the center of the local effort to make the emirate into a new global hot spot for higher education. "There is a war out there for talent," says Abdulla al-Karam, director-general of Dubai's Knowledge and Human Development Authority, "and we're not going to let everyone else take the best."
Dubai, along with its neighbors, is leading a rush of countries trying to erode the dominance of Harvard, Yale and a handful of other, mainly American or British, schools. As of 2005 (the last year for which numbers are available) there were about 138 million students worldwide seeking university degrees, according to UNESCO—up 40 percent in seven years, reports the London-based Observatory on Borderless Higher Education. Traditional academic destinations—English-speaking countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia—are finding it harder and harder to meet that demand. Post-9/11 U.S. visa complications have also helped create a massive pool of international students looking for new places to learn. According to the Washington-based Association of International Educators, the market of postsecondary students studying outside their home countries grew 49 percent between 1999 and 2004, even as foreign enrollments in U.S. schools increased only 10 percent. That's created an enormous opportunity that will only grow, as the number of students seeking education abroad triples by 2025 to 7.2 million, as the Australian testing company IDP Education projects.
Many countries are eager to pick up the slack, and these efforts stand to permanently redraw the global education map. Traditional Western powerhouses seem likely to remain strong, but new centers in the Persian Gulf, China, Singapore and elsewhere are coming on fast. And those that can't adapt are quickly falling behind as schools elsewhere embark on bold new projects to increase their competitiveness, hire U.S.-trained administrators (they're the best at fund-raising), launch massive capital campaigns and put more and more courses online.
Although New Haven and London won't soon be replaced by Shanghai or Seoul, they have started to feel the heat. "We [in America] are already looking over shoulders," says Philip Altbach, director of the Boston-based Center for International Higher Education. "Academic leaders are already saying that if we don't keep up, we'll be overtaken … The U.S. still has a significant lead, but imagine if we had this discussion 40 years ago about the U.S. auto industry."
Consider China, which is leading its neighbors in the race to become an international education center. In the last six years, China has more than tripled the number of foreign students it hosts by investing heavily in its universities—including pouring more than $4 billion into its top research schools. The country has also opened its doors to international partnerships, with over 700 foreign academic programs operating in China as of 2006, according to the World Bank. Hong Kong is making a particularly strong push, increasing its cap on foreign students, offering generous scholarships and loosening employment restrictions.
Other Asian states are following China's lead, though with more mixed results. Singapore has managed to more than triple its foreign enrollments in the past five years (making international students 13 percent of its student bodies) by partnering with top Western institutions like the University of Chicago and INSEAD, the French business school, and the government hopes to attract an additional 150,000 foreign students to the country by 2015. But the high-profile closing of a number of foreign programs there due to financial concerns and complaints about academic freedom has lately raised questions about Singapore's long-term potential.
South Korea, for its part, has upped its higher-education spending to 2.6 percent of its GDP—a level second only to the United States', and more than twice the Western average. Seoul is pumping more than $2 billion over the next five years into research programs at existing universities and is building a 20,000-hectare business and education zone that has already attracted schools like the State University of New York at Stony Brook and North Carolina State University. Still, despite its massive outlay, just 22,000 foreign students enrolled in South Korea in 2006 (compared to more than 66,000 in Singapore), and 218,000 Koreans opted to study abroad. The country has also struggled to attract Western professors.
Most analysts agree that the region with the best shot at truly threatening the West is the oil-rich Persian Gulf. "The gulf is definitely the buzzword of the moment," says Veronica Lasanowski, the author of a recent report on student mobility for the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education. The tens of billions of dollars in government money being spent on education projects there dwarfs the investment in any of the other educational centers. Enormously wealthy and relatively stable, Dubai and its neighbors have already dethroned cities like Cairo, Baghdad and Beirut, creating one of the more bitter internecine rivalries within the larger global education race (following story).
Together, the emirates have devoted more than $20 billion to cultural and educational projects. Symposiums, independent media, art shows, book fairs, film festivals and other hallmarks of intellectual life are now regular features in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, transforming the gulf coast into what Daniel Balland, director-general of the Sorbonne's Abu Dhabi campus, describes as "a modern-day Andalusia"—a reference to the great intellectual center in southern Spain that flourished 1,000 years ago through the interaction of Western and Islamic culture.
A bottomless reserve of oil wealth is helping woo prestigious universities to the region. Qatar began the trend by persuading top-tier American schools such as Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Texas A&M and Northwestern to open branches in the sprawling Education City complex. Not to be outdone, Abu Dhabi has already opened a complete new campus for the Sorbonne and plans to open one for NYU in the fall; ambitious joint projects with INSEAD, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins are also in the works. Dubai, meanwhile, has partnered with Harvard, the London Business School and Boston University, as well as building the new Michigan State campus. "Others may have the vision, but they don't have the resources" for such projects, says Zaki Nusseibeh, vice chair of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage and a member of the Sorbonne-Abu Dhabi's board of trustees. "We can do it."
Indeed, the existing partnerships represent just the tip of the iceberg. Since last year, Qatar, with a population of less than a million, has begun spending $1.5 billion a year on scientific education and research. Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, recently started a $10 billion foundation—in one of the largest charitable donations in history —to "develop world-class knowledge" in the region. His emirate, along with Abu Dhabi and Qatar, is building multibillion-dollar science and technology parks to jump-start research efforts. Abu Dhabi is also pouring millions of dollars into an ambitious book-publishing project, hoping to almost triple the number of books published in Arabic every year—from about 300 to about 800—and translating up to 500 books annually, starting with authors like Milton Friedman, Stephen Hawking and, perhaps most surprisingly, Isaac Bashevis Singer.
While the sheer magnitude of academic spending makes the gulf impossible to ignore, this investment is just one factor shifting the intellectual landscape of the Middle East. Violence and instability have largely spared this corner of the region. And the benevolent and forward-looking leaders of countries like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates stand in sharp contrast to the autocrats who rule Egypt and Syria. Though the gulf states each have their own peculiarities, the emirates generally permit broad freedoms of speech and expression—especially when compared with neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which still practice draconian censorship. The emirates' governments also afford great social liberties to foreigners, with hardly any legal restrictions on dress, alcohol or gender roles.
Other initiatives are also helping. The heavy investments many of these states have made in airlines and hotels have made them unusually accessible. Visa restrictions (for everyone but Israelis) are among the most liberal in the world, and places like Dubai even offer "smart cards" to regular visitors, allowing them to pass effortlessly through "eGates" without showing a passport. This ease of travel has made conferences like last year's Festival of Thinkers in Abu Dhabi—which brought together 16 Nobel Prize winners and more than 160 intellectuals from around the world—an almost daily affair in the gulf. Last year 140 conferences took place in Qatar alone.
The ethnic and national diversity now found in the gulf has also helped attract American universities. "You can find people from South Asia, the Far East, Africa, Europe and the whole Middle East [there]," says Hilary Ballon, a former Columbia art history professor recently appointed an associate vice chancellor of New York University's Abu Dhabi campus. "That kind of cosmopolitan intersection is what drew NYU to the gulf, and it will be a great stimulus to intellectual growth."
The gulf model has drawbacks, of course, and there's no guarantee that what works in America will work there. A good school does not just "borrow a curriculum or a few teachers from another prestigious university," says Mourad Ezzine, a Middle East specialist for the World Bank who oversaw its recent report on Arab education. With a limited pool of high-caliber students, he warns, the region may run into difficulty. Mary Ann Tetreault, who taught at many of the gulf's new schools on a Fulbright scholarship, says she could offer only "light versions" of her international-affairs courses, and warns that U.S. schools are "putting in programs that [local] kids can't succeed at" due to "basic skill issues," including limited math and science training and poor study habits.
None of those issues is unique to the gulf, however, or is likely to slow its push into higher education.
And there are signs that the boom will benefit everyone. "There are more people around the world in universities today than probably went to university in all of human history combined," says Allan Goodman, president of the New York-based Institute of International Education. "These new places will be competing with America for the best and the brightest, but there are a lot more best and brightest out there." In other words, competition may be growing—but the world is growing even faster.
Dubai, along with its neighbors, is leading a rush of countries trying to erode the dominance of Harvard, Yale and a handful of other, mainly American or British, schools. As of 2005 (the last year for which numbers are available) there were about 138 million students worldwide seeking university degrees, according to UNESCO—up 40 percent in seven years, reports the London-based Observatory on Borderless Higher Education. Traditional academic destinations—English-speaking countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia—are finding it harder and harder to meet that demand. Post-9/11 U.S. visa complications have also helped create a massive pool of international students looking for new places to learn. According to the Washington-based Association of International Educators, the market of postsecondary students studying outside their home countries grew 49 percent between 1999 and 2004, even as foreign enrollments in U.S. schools increased only 10 percent. That's created an enormous opportunity that will only grow, as the number of students seeking education abroad triples by 2025 to 7.2 million, as the Australian testing company IDP Education projects.
Many countries are eager to pick up the slack, and these efforts stand to permanently redraw the global education map. Traditional Western powerhouses seem likely to remain strong, but new centers in the Persian Gulf, China, Singapore and elsewhere are coming on fast. And those that can't adapt are quickly falling behind as schools elsewhere embark on bold new projects to increase their competitiveness, hire U.S.-trained administrators (they're the best at fund-raising), launch massive capital campaigns and put more and more courses online.
Although New Haven and London won't soon be replaced by Shanghai or Seoul, they have started to feel the heat. "We [in America] are already looking over shoulders," says Philip Altbach, director of the Boston-based Center for International Higher Education. "Academic leaders are already saying that if we don't keep up, we'll be overtaken … The U.S. still has a significant lead, but imagine if we had this discussion 40 years ago about the U.S. auto industry."
Consider China, which is leading its neighbors in the race to become an international education center. In the last six years, China has more than tripled the number of foreign students it hosts by investing heavily in its universities—including pouring more than $4 billion into its top research schools. The country has also opened its doors to international partnerships, with over 700 foreign academic programs operating in China as of 2006, according to the World Bank. Hong Kong is making a particularly strong push, increasing its cap on foreign students, offering generous scholarships and loosening employment restrictions.
Other Asian states are following China's lead, though with more mixed results. Singapore has managed to more than triple its foreign enrollments in the past five years (making international students 13 percent of its student bodies) by partnering with top Western institutions like the University of Chicago and INSEAD, the French business school, and the government hopes to attract an additional 150,000 foreign students to the country by 2015. But the high-profile closing of a number of foreign programs there due to financial concerns and complaints about academic freedom has lately raised questions about Singapore's long-term potential.
South Korea, for its part, has upped its higher-education spending to 2.6 percent of its GDP—a level second only to the United States', and more than twice the Western average. Seoul is pumping more than $2 billion over the next five years into research programs at existing universities and is building a 20,000-hectare business and education zone that has already attracted schools like the State University of New York at Stony Brook and North Carolina State University. Still, despite its massive outlay, just 22,000 foreign students enrolled in South Korea in 2006 (compared to more than 66,000 in Singapore), and 218,000 Koreans opted to study abroad. The country has also struggled to attract Western professors.
Most analysts agree that the region with the best shot at truly threatening the West is the oil-rich Persian Gulf. "The gulf is definitely the buzzword of the moment," says Veronica Lasanowski, the author of a recent report on student mobility for the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education. The tens of billions of dollars in government money being spent on education projects there dwarfs the investment in any of the other educational centers. Enormously wealthy and relatively stable, Dubai and its neighbors have already dethroned cities like Cairo, Baghdad and Beirut, creating one of the more bitter internecine rivalries within the larger global education race (following story).
Together, the emirates have devoted more than $20 billion to cultural and educational projects. Symposiums, independent media, art shows, book fairs, film festivals and other hallmarks of intellectual life are now regular features in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, transforming the gulf coast into what Daniel Balland, director-general of the Sorbonne's Abu Dhabi campus, describes as "a modern-day Andalusia"—a reference to the great intellectual center in southern Spain that flourished 1,000 years ago through the interaction of Western and Islamic culture.
A bottomless reserve of oil wealth is helping woo prestigious universities to the region. Qatar began the trend by persuading top-tier American schools such as Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Texas A&M and Northwestern to open branches in the sprawling Education City complex. Not to be outdone, Abu Dhabi has already opened a complete new campus for the Sorbonne and plans to open one for NYU in the fall; ambitious joint projects with INSEAD, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins are also in the works. Dubai, meanwhile, has partnered with Harvard, the London Business School and Boston University, as well as building the new Michigan State campus. "Others may have the vision, but they don't have the resources" for such projects, says Zaki Nusseibeh, vice chair of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage and a member of the Sorbonne-Abu Dhabi's board of trustees. "We can do it."
Indeed, the existing partnerships represent just the tip of the iceberg. Since last year, Qatar, with a population of less than a million, has begun spending $1.5 billion a year on scientific education and research. Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, recently started a $10 billion foundation—in one of the largest charitable donations in history —to "develop world-class knowledge" in the region. His emirate, along with Abu Dhabi and Qatar, is building multibillion-dollar science and technology parks to jump-start research efforts. Abu Dhabi is also pouring millions of dollars into an ambitious book-publishing project, hoping to almost triple the number of books published in Arabic every year—from about 300 to about 800—and translating up to 500 books annually, starting with authors like Milton Friedman, Stephen Hawking and, perhaps most surprisingly, Isaac Bashevis Singer.
While the sheer magnitude of academic spending makes the gulf impossible to ignore, this investment is just one factor shifting the intellectual landscape of the Middle East. Violence and instability have largely spared this corner of the region. And the benevolent and forward-looking leaders of countries like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates stand in sharp contrast to the autocrats who rule Egypt and Syria. Though the gulf states each have their own peculiarities, the emirates generally permit broad freedoms of speech and expression—especially when compared with neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which still practice draconian censorship. The emirates' governments also afford great social liberties to foreigners, with hardly any legal restrictions on dress, alcohol or gender roles.
Other initiatives are also helping. The heavy investments many of these states have made in airlines and hotels have made them unusually accessible. Visa restrictions (for everyone but Israelis) are among the most liberal in the world, and places like Dubai even offer "smart cards" to regular visitors, allowing them to pass effortlessly through "eGates" without showing a passport. This ease of travel has made conferences like last year's Festival of Thinkers in Abu Dhabi—which brought together 16 Nobel Prize winners and more than 160 intellectuals from around the world—an almost daily affair in the gulf. Last year 140 conferences took place in Qatar alone.
The ethnic and national diversity now found in the gulf has also helped attract American universities. "You can find people from South Asia, the Far East, Africa, Europe and the whole Middle East [there]," says Hilary Ballon, a former Columbia art history professor recently appointed an associate vice chancellor of New York University's Abu Dhabi campus. "That kind of cosmopolitan intersection is what drew NYU to the gulf, and it will be a great stimulus to intellectual growth."
The gulf model has drawbacks, of course, and there's no guarantee that what works in America will work there. A good school does not just "borrow a curriculum or a few teachers from another prestigious university," says Mourad Ezzine, a Middle East specialist for the World Bank who oversaw its recent report on Arab education. With a limited pool of high-caliber students, he warns, the region may run into difficulty. Mary Ann Tetreault, who taught at many of the gulf's new schools on a Fulbright scholarship, says she could offer only "light versions" of her international-affairs courses, and warns that U.S. schools are "putting in programs that [local] kids can't succeed at" due to "basic skill issues," including limited math and science training and poor study habits.
None of those issues is unique to the gulf, however, or is likely to slow its push into higher education.
And there are signs that the boom will benefit everyone. "There are more people around the world in universities today than probably went to university in all of human history combined," says Allan Goodman, president of the New York-based Institute of International Education. "These new places will be competing with America for the best and the brightest, but there are a lot more best and brightest out there." In other words, competition may be growing—but the world is growing even faster.
World - Q&A with the US general in Iraq
Gen. David Petraeus is due to relinquish his role as the commanding general in Iraq in mid-September, moving up to head CENTCOM, the U.S. military's Central Command, in overall charge of the conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He sat down for an hour and a half this week with NEWSWEEK's Rod Nordland, at the general's office in the American Embassy, in Saddam's old Republican Palace. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: General, I was just down in Fallujah—with the Provincial Reconstruction Team there. Not only is it quiet but we're on our way out.
David Petraeus: It's a pretty transformed place over the last year or so. But again we have to keep our eye on it. None of these places can we take our eye off the ball along with our Iraqi partners because our presence in Fallujah is very significantly reduced. Our presence in Anbar province has been reduced from 14 maneuver battalions to six in the course of this year.
I asked tribal sheiks there whether Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) could ever come back if Sunnis fail to reach a political settlement with Baghdad, and they all said, "No, we're past Al Qaeda. We might start fighting the Americans again, but not with Al Qaeda."
I think it's true that they are past Al Qaeda. They are past ... an organization that embraces an extremist ideology, employs indiscriminate violence, and practices oppressive social actions such as forced marriage or cutting fingers off smokers.
Forget that, no smoking ...
That was the tipping point when they cut the fingers off the first person who was smoking. I mean, can you imagine an Anbar sheik being told he can't smoke? They're not necessarily past what used to be called "resistance," though, or something like that; although, look, candidly, even that, I think at this point is more political rhetoric because what are the alternatives? They know, and they will tell you in private, and they probably did, that they made a colossal error in not voting in 2005 and in boycotting the elections. They know that Iraq is no longer potentially wealthy. Iraq is an incredibly wealthy country. It has just passed a $22 billion supplemental budget because it realizes how much it's going to make because of the increased oil exports because of the improved security situation ... complemented very much by the increase of the price in oil. To enjoy their share of Iraq's bounty, they obviously have to participate. The real challenge they will always be wrestling with is ... not only to make their voice heard, but to get the most prominent place at the table that they can possibly achieve. And of course, as the Al Qaeda threat has diminished, there's been a certain amount of drama, if you will, political drama, in the relations among the tribes as well as between the tribes and, let's say, the established Iraqi Islamic Party.
We interviewed two people who claimed to be the police chief of Fallujah, two days apart.
You go through these things. You know, when you've been in Iraq for as long as actually both of us have—you know, it's coming up on four years—I think you're a little less prone to get too excited too quickly. There's a certain degree of posturing and rhetoric, and that can occasionally be quite heated, in the new Iraq, what some have termed the "emerging Iraqracy."
That's a good one, but hard to pronounce.
It is. Yes, and you have to sort of lead up to it a little bit, to talk about how it's not [just] democracy, it's Iraqracy.
We've been burned before by being overly optimistic in this war.
We have, we have. And so we have to be very careful, and we are with respect to Anbar. We know [the insurgents are] trying to come back in ... and we have picked up a number of those individuals who have tried to come back in. And of course they attacked and killed several of our marines and sheiks in the attack [June 26 in Karmah, near Fallujah]. But the fact is that the level of violence in Anbar is the lowest in our recorded history, literally, the lowest of any of our data.
And in Baghdad, too. If you take Mosul and Diyala out, the numbers are really ...
They are very small. And actually, yesterday [Aug. 18], there were 14 attacks in all of Iraq, and that includes crime. That includes everything that we're aware of. And we actually have a much broader appreciation for what's going on because we have—I mean, just in Baghdad alone we have 77 joint-security stations—combat outposts and patrol bases that didn't exist when the surge started.
And then I think unless you've been here, you don't realize the significance of another initiative, and that is that we have reduced our holding of Iraqi detainees by about 5,500 since November. And that's quite significant because they have not been re-arrested ... less than 1 percent. We learned a lot about the detainee business. And the last piece was put in place last fall, which is that you have to conduct counterinsurgency operations inside the detainee facilities just in the same way you conduct them outside. In other words, you have to separate, you have to identify the irreconcilables, the real hard core, and you have to separate them from the rest of the population. In the detainee facilities, when the hard-core Taqfiris were in there, they were training the Terrorist Class of 2008.
In so many ways, it sounds like Al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated, but the U.S. military is reluctant to say so.
You won't find a single military leader in this theater who will say that.
You could be the first.
Yeah, I could, but I won't be.
But at least can't we say "strategically defeated"?
There's no military leader who will but yeah, you can. We'll leave that to the academics.
I mean, they no longer can …
What we assess is that Al Qaeda in Iraq has been significantly diminished; their capabilities substantially degraded. But we assess that they remain lethal, they remain dangerous. They continue to be, in our view, again, what we call the wolf closest to the sled. Public Enemy No. 1. Now, there have been periods where we focus more on the [Shia] militia, frankly. But after the very significant operations against the militia in Basra, Maydan, Sadr City, elsewhere in Baghdad and so forth, there was the militia ceasefire; there's now the transformation of the militia by Moqtada al-Sadr into an organization that focuses on social services and cultural issues. And there's a wait-and-see about what happens to what used to be called the special group leaders and elements because, as you know, they went back to Iran or a couple went to Lebanon and Syria. And so right now the most significant source of violence in Iraq is Al Qaeda in Iraq and those [handful of] Sunni extremist allies that remain. But they are the ones who are carrying out the suicide-vest attacks, the car bomb attacks and so forth.
Would you agree they now lack any real central organization, and are just a bunch of disparate groups and cells?
Well, they've always had a somewhat cellular structure. They've had varying degrees of command and control; when you had a really strong leader like [Abu Mussab al-]Zarqawi, much more so ... But it still exists. They still have links to Al Qaeda senior leadership in the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan]. But those are more tenuous, they have to go to much greater lengths to communicate. And I think it is fair to say that Al Qaeda in Iraq, by and large, is on the run, that its safe havens are considerably diminished.
Mosul and Diyala are the only places where they're really putting up any fight.
Certainly a very significant, tough fight. But the level of violence, even there, is down by over half in Mosul from four months ago. That's an area where they really can't afford to lose the remaining toeholds that they have.
We've heard you've recently intercepted communications from AQI to Al Qaeda senior leaders asking them not to send any more foreign fighters because they couldn't handle them.
They actually stopped the flow, period, for a while, about two months ago. They just said, "Stop bringing in anybody."
And they were focusing on bringing in suicide bombers mostly, rather than actual fighters?
Because they were so disrupted. Yes, they said, "Just stop" … There's a variety of intelligence sources that we have that can sort of corroborate that. Now they've started again, but only about 20 a month.
Could there have been an Awakening without the surge?
Well, there could have been an Awakening, but you couldn't have exploited it ... And by the way, in the course of our surge of 30,000, the Iraqis surged by over 130,000 actually, and climbing. The Sons of Iraq [armed Sunni neighborhood volunteers], the Awakening, that's another 99,000 now. You know, we had tribal Awakenings all the way back to early 2005, actually, but they ended up with their heads chopped off. The one that endured, of course, was the one that sprung up with Sheik Sattar out by Ramadi in October of 2006. You started to see a downward trend in violence but the [military] clearance of Ramadi didn't take place until mid-March through mid-April of 2007. And in a number of cases you had to clear it first, or at least you had to be started on that road before they would dare to raise their hand and say that they were willing to help protect their country, or their neighborhood.
Beyond that, I think there was an intellectual construct. You know, it wasn't just "the surge." It wasn't just extra forces. It was the kind of conceptual guidance that was put out at the same time that we employed the additional forces ... starting with a focus on securing the population, which can only be done by living among them.
[Another] intellectual construct was ... an explicit idea that we have to identify and separate the irreconcilables from the reconcilables, but that you're not going to kill your way out of an insurgency; you got to reconcile with as many as you can. That helps guide you, and that leads to, at the local level, political reconciliation and Awakenings, and then also you're looking to see, as the security situation allows, people start focusing on laws and budgets and all the rest of that. It takes a very comprehensive approach.
Just back to Al Qaeda a little bit. Why so shy about declaring victory over them, if they're in such bad shape?
Well, first of all we truly think it would be premature, honestly. And then I think there still is a very lethal and very deadly and very barbaric enemy out there. Again, sufficiently barbaric to strap [explosive] vests onto women.
Which in a way is a sign of their weakness, too. They can't find enough men to do it.
Well, yeah, you can interpret it that way. We'll let you do that. And again, honestly, [U.S.] Ambassador [Ryan] Crocker and I explicitly, from day one, together, said that we have got to be coldly realistic and as absolutely objective as we possibly can and not let our enthusiasms or perhaps normal optimism creep into our assessments, frankly. And so we've been very, very careful to ensure that what we say is as absolutely credible as we can make it, and also not open up the assessments to charges of spinning.
But do you see any element of Iraqi society now that's pro Al Qaeda? I mean, you used to have Sunni political leaders who were openly so.
There are some that are surviving, you know, in Syria or Jordan still. There are some that still talk a bit about resistance, but even that has actually sort of become yesterday's news, I think. They are much more the old line, what you would call the hard-core Baathists and Saddamists rather than religious extremists.
You no longer hear of Sunni imams in the mosques praising Al Qaeda in Iraq.
We actually don't, come to think of it. You know, by the way, what you have just raised is an interesting point. I don't know how you can capture it, but progress in Iraq often is, in a sense, a negative. It is something that is no longer there. Remember how last year at this time you would see two-mile-long lines or mile-long lines for gas stations? Well, when you see those, you realize there's a problem. When you don't see them, you don't realize there's not a problem, you just don't see them. There are so many areas like that ... But again, you need to be cautious about that, too, because as the ambassador and I have in fact cautioned on a number of occasions that, yes, there has been significant progress, but it is still not self sustaining; there is still a degree of fragility to it, and it could be reversed.
The most telling thing to me is that people in August are back out at midnight on the streets.
Well, I mean, that's one. There's a whole host of these [indicators] ... The insurance rates for aircraft coming into Baghdad International Airport have been cut by half ... Two weeks ago there were licenses let for outside the Green Zone, a five-star hotel, a shopping mall and a commercial center in three different locations in Baghdad.
In a way you could argue that with an enemy like Al Qaeda, victory's never going to be absolute, you're never going to wipe out every last one so it's really about whether you've reached a tipping point where they don't affect society.
Security gains, obviously, help with everything. Everything is much more doable, much more possible. But still, again, we're not celebrating; the champagne bottle remains in the back of the refrigerator. There's no victory dances in the end zone because every time you start to feel really good, there will be some kind of incident. There will be a suicide-vest attack, there will be a car-bomb attack or what have you. And we have to stay very, very focused. We talk sometimes about having our teeth into the jugular of Al Qaeda, and we got to keep them there. Because they're still out there. And to some degree on the Shia side we've seen the same thing with the [Shia] militias there. As the Al Qaeda threat to the Shia neighborhoods and Shia populations has been so significantly reduced ... there's not the need for them that the population, perhaps, felt before. And so the people don't want the militias to come back either.
And now Moqtada al-Sadr says he has become a social worker.
Yeah, yeah. And again, if you look at what the militia was and what he's trying to transform it into, you have to see that as a positive step.
In some ways, Iraqi leaders are getting a bit nationalistic—resisting foreign investment in oil, delaying the Status of Forces Agreement [SOFA] with the United States.
It's probably to be predicted. What you see is a degree of self confidence that wasn't present before. And you also see a government that's been in place now for well over two years. The first year was marked by such extraordinary violence that they really found it difficult to get much done ... If you think back to June of 2007, there were 180 attacks a day on average, and there's now about 25 or so attacks in a day [Iraq-wide]. It's just such an enormous difference.
Is that new Iraqi self-confidence going to make it even harder to conclude the SOFA? And do you think that's going to be done before you leave?
I think that's all doable. There are sufficient areas of very important mutual interest that will enable the conclusion of an agreement. Iraqis know that ... while their security forces are increasingly capable, there are still significant gaps and shortcomings.
Many Iraqi political leaders are insisting on a timetable as part of this.
If you look at the serious statements; if you look at, let's say, what Prime Minister [Nuri al-]Maliki's spokesman has said, even when he's used a date, he has always used the words "hope," prior to the date. And then he's used words such as "conditions permitting" or "subject to conditions" following any date. So there's a recognition of reality, but there's also a need to play to domestic politics here.
Looking forward to Afghanistan, are you going to take a lot of what we learned here and make changes there?
Well, I think it would be premature to make that kind of statement. In fact, the big lesson I think you take away from any experience like this is how unique each situation is. Now, it does happen that I was just over in Afghanistan for two and a half days … this last week. And there clearly are significant challenges by no means all of which can be solved within Afghanistan; the extremism that emanates from the [Pakistani] border areas is a very serious threat, and it appears to be a growing threat.
There have been some days when Afghanistan's had more violent incidents than Iraq.
That has certainly been the case in many days in recent months ... One of the assessments that I presented to [Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2005] was a sense that Afghanistan was going to be the longest campaign of what was then called "The Long War." And I think that's still very much true. There may be certain aspects of the experience in Iraq that can help inform the refinements to the campaign there. But again, it would be premature on the basis of having spent two and a half days there in the last three years to state what those might be.
Will there be an Afghan surge?
Again, it would be premature. As [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates and others have all noted, there's clearly a need for additional forces, given the pressure the insurgents have exerted in this year in particular.
I guess you can't comment on the U.S. presidential …
No, I'd rather not. [Laughs.]
NEWSWEEK: General, I was just down in Fallujah—with the Provincial Reconstruction Team there. Not only is it quiet but we're on our way out.
David Petraeus: It's a pretty transformed place over the last year or so. But again we have to keep our eye on it. None of these places can we take our eye off the ball along with our Iraqi partners because our presence in Fallujah is very significantly reduced. Our presence in Anbar province has been reduced from 14 maneuver battalions to six in the course of this year.
I asked tribal sheiks there whether Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) could ever come back if Sunnis fail to reach a political settlement with Baghdad, and they all said, "No, we're past Al Qaeda. We might start fighting the Americans again, but not with Al Qaeda."
I think it's true that they are past Al Qaeda. They are past ... an organization that embraces an extremist ideology, employs indiscriminate violence, and practices oppressive social actions such as forced marriage or cutting fingers off smokers.
Forget that, no smoking ...
That was the tipping point when they cut the fingers off the first person who was smoking. I mean, can you imagine an Anbar sheik being told he can't smoke? They're not necessarily past what used to be called "resistance," though, or something like that; although, look, candidly, even that, I think at this point is more political rhetoric because what are the alternatives? They know, and they will tell you in private, and they probably did, that they made a colossal error in not voting in 2005 and in boycotting the elections. They know that Iraq is no longer potentially wealthy. Iraq is an incredibly wealthy country. It has just passed a $22 billion supplemental budget because it realizes how much it's going to make because of the increased oil exports because of the improved security situation ... complemented very much by the increase of the price in oil. To enjoy their share of Iraq's bounty, they obviously have to participate. The real challenge they will always be wrestling with is ... not only to make their voice heard, but to get the most prominent place at the table that they can possibly achieve. And of course, as the Al Qaeda threat has diminished, there's been a certain amount of drama, if you will, political drama, in the relations among the tribes as well as between the tribes and, let's say, the established Iraqi Islamic Party.
We interviewed two people who claimed to be the police chief of Fallujah, two days apart.
You go through these things. You know, when you've been in Iraq for as long as actually both of us have—you know, it's coming up on four years—I think you're a little less prone to get too excited too quickly. There's a certain degree of posturing and rhetoric, and that can occasionally be quite heated, in the new Iraq, what some have termed the "emerging Iraqracy."
That's a good one, but hard to pronounce.
It is. Yes, and you have to sort of lead up to it a little bit, to talk about how it's not [just] democracy, it's Iraqracy.
We've been burned before by being overly optimistic in this war.
We have, we have. And so we have to be very careful, and we are with respect to Anbar. We know [the insurgents are] trying to come back in ... and we have picked up a number of those individuals who have tried to come back in. And of course they attacked and killed several of our marines and sheiks in the attack [June 26 in Karmah, near Fallujah]. But the fact is that the level of violence in Anbar is the lowest in our recorded history, literally, the lowest of any of our data.
And in Baghdad, too. If you take Mosul and Diyala out, the numbers are really ...
They are very small. And actually, yesterday [Aug. 18], there were 14 attacks in all of Iraq, and that includes crime. That includes everything that we're aware of. And we actually have a much broader appreciation for what's going on because we have—I mean, just in Baghdad alone we have 77 joint-security stations—combat outposts and patrol bases that didn't exist when the surge started.
And then I think unless you've been here, you don't realize the significance of another initiative, and that is that we have reduced our holding of Iraqi detainees by about 5,500 since November. And that's quite significant because they have not been re-arrested ... less than 1 percent. We learned a lot about the detainee business. And the last piece was put in place last fall, which is that you have to conduct counterinsurgency operations inside the detainee facilities just in the same way you conduct them outside. In other words, you have to separate, you have to identify the irreconcilables, the real hard core, and you have to separate them from the rest of the population. In the detainee facilities, when the hard-core Taqfiris were in there, they were training the Terrorist Class of 2008.
In so many ways, it sounds like Al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated, but the U.S. military is reluctant to say so.
You won't find a single military leader in this theater who will say that.
You could be the first.
Yeah, I could, but I won't be.
But at least can't we say "strategically defeated"?
There's no military leader who will but yeah, you can. We'll leave that to the academics.
I mean, they no longer can …
What we assess is that Al Qaeda in Iraq has been significantly diminished; their capabilities substantially degraded. But we assess that they remain lethal, they remain dangerous. They continue to be, in our view, again, what we call the wolf closest to the sled. Public Enemy No. 1. Now, there have been periods where we focus more on the [Shia] militia, frankly. But after the very significant operations against the militia in Basra, Maydan, Sadr City, elsewhere in Baghdad and so forth, there was the militia ceasefire; there's now the transformation of the militia by Moqtada al-Sadr into an organization that focuses on social services and cultural issues. And there's a wait-and-see about what happens to what used to be called the special group leaders and elements because, as you know, they went back to Iran or a couple went to Lebanon and Syria. And so right now the most significant source of violence in Iraq is Al Qaeda in Iraq and those [handful of] Sunni extremist allies that remain. But they are the ones who are carrying out the suicide-vest attacks, the car bomb attacks and so forth.
Would you agree they now lack any real central organization, and are just a bunch of disparate groups and cells?
Well, they've always had a somewhat cellular structure. They've had varying degrees of command and control; when you had a really strong leader like [Abu Mussab al-]Zarqawi, much more so ... But it still exists. They still have links to Al Qaeda senior leadership in the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan]. But those are more tenuous, they have to go to much greater lengths to communicate. And I think it is fair to say that Al Qaeda in Iraq, by and large, is on the run, that its safe havens are considerably diminished.
Mosul and Diyala are the only places where they're really putting up any fight.
Certainly a very significant, tough fight. But the level of violence, even there, is down by over half in Mosul from four months ago. That's an area where they really can't afford to lose the remaining toeholds that they have.
We've heard you've recently intercepted communications from AQI to Al Qaeda senior leaders asking them not to send any more foreign fighters because they couldn't handle them.
They actually stopped the flow, period, for a while, about two months ago. They just said, "Stop bringing in anybody."
And they were focusing on bringing in suicide bombers mostly, rather than actual fighters?
Because they were so disrupted. Yes, they said, "Just stop" … There's a variety of intelligence sources that we have that can sort of corroborate that. Now they've started again, but only about 20 a month.
Could there have been an Awakening without the surge?
Well, there could have been an Awakening, but you couldn't have exploited it ... And by the way, in the course of our surge of 30,000, the Iraqis surged by over 130,000 actually, and climbing. The Sons of Iraq [armed Sunni neighborhood volunteers], the Awakening, that's another 99,000 now. You know, we had tribal Awakenings all the way back to early 2005, actually, but they ended up with their heads chopped off. The one that endured, of course, was the one that sprung up with Sheik Sattar out by Ramadi in October of 2006. You started to see a downward trend in violence but the [military] clearance of Ramadi didn't take place until mid-March through mid-April of 2007. And in a number of cases you had to clear it first, or at least you had to be started on that road before they would dare to raise their hand and say that they were willing to help protect their country, or their neighborhood.
Beyond that, I think there was an intellectual construct. You know, it wasn't just "the surge." It wasn't just extra forces. It was the kind of conceptual guidance that was put out at the same time that we employed the additional forces ... starting with a focus on securing the population, which can only be done by living among them.
[Another] intellectual construct was ... an explicit idea that we have to identify and separate the irreconcilables from the reconcilables, but that you're not going to kill your way out of an insurgency; you got to reconcile with as many as you can. That helps guide you, and that leads to, at the local level, political reconciliation and Awakenings, and then also you're looking to see, as the security situation allows, people start focusing on laws and budgets and all the rest of that. It takes a very comprehensive approach.
Just back to Al Qaeda a little bit. Why so shy about declaring victory over them, if they're in such bad shape?
Well, first of all we truly think it would be premature, honestly. And then I think there still is a very lethal and very deadly and very barbaric enemy out there. Again, sufficiently barbaric to strap [explosive] vests onto women.
Which in a way is a sign of their weakness, too. They can't find enough men to do it.
Well, yeah, you can interpret it that way. We'll let you do that. And again, honestly, [U.S.] Ambassador [Ryan] Crocker and I explicitly, from day one, together, said that we have got to be coldly realistic and as absolutely objective as we possibly can and not let our enthusiasms or perhaps normal optimism creep into our assessments, frankly. And so we've been very, very careful to ensure that what we say is as absolutely credible as we can make it, and also not open up the assessments to charges of spinning.
But do you see any element of Iraqi society now that's pro Al Qaeda? I mean, you used to have Sunni political leaders who were openly so.
There are some that are surviving, you know, in Syria or Jordan still. There are some that still talk a bit about resistance, but even that has actually sort of become yesterday's news, I think. They are much more the old line, what you would call the hard-core Baathists and Saddamists rather than religious extremists.
You no longer hear of Sunni imams in the mosques praising Al Qaeda in Iraq.
We actually don't, come to think of it. You know, by the way, what you have just raised is an interesting point. I don't know how you can capture it, but progress in Iraq often is, in a sense, a negative. It is something that is no longer there. Remember how last year at this time you would see two-mile-long lines or mile-long lines for gas stations? Well, when you see those, you realize there's a problem. When you don't see them, you don't realize there's not a problem, you just don't see them. There are so many areas like that ... But again, you need to be cautious about that, too, because as the ambassador and I have in fact cautioned on a number of occasions that, yes, there has been significant progress, but it is still not self sustaining; there is still a degree of fragility to it, and it could be reversed.
The most telling thing to me is that people in August are back out at midnight on the streets.
Well, I mean, that's one. There's a whole host of these [indicators] ... The insurance rates for aircraft coming into Baghdad International Airport have been cut by half ... Two weeks ago there were licenses let for outside the Green Zone, a five-star hotel, a shopping mall and a commercial center in three different locations in Baghdad.
In a way you could argue that with an enemy like Al Qaeda, victory's never going to be absolute, you're never going to wipe out every last one so it's really about whether you've reached a tipping point where they don't affect society.
Security gains, obviously, help with everything. Everything is much more doable, much more possible. But still, again, we're not celebrating; the champagne bottle remains in the back of the refrigerator. There's no victory dances in the end zone because every time you start to feel really good, there will be some kind of incident. There will be a suicide-vest attack, there will be a car-bomb attack or what have you. And we have to stay very, very focused. We talk sometimes about having our teeth into the jugular of Al Qaeda, and we got to keep them there. Because they're still out there. And to some degree on the Shia side we've seen the same thing with the [Shia] militias there. As the Al Qaeda threat to the Shia neighborhoods and Shia populations has been so significantly reduced ... there's not the need for them that the population, perhaps, felt before. And so the people don't want the militias to come back either.
And now Moqtada al-Sadr says he has become a social worker.
Yeah, yeah. And again, if you look at what the militia was and what he's trying to transform it into, you have to see that as a positive step.
In some ways, Iraqi leaders are getting a bit nationalistic—resisting foreign investment in oil, delaying the Status of Forces Agreement [SOFA] with the United States.
It's probably to be predicted. What you see is a degree of self confidence that wasn't present before. And you also see a government that's been in place now for well over two years. The first year was marked by such extraordinary violence that they really found it difficult to get much done ... If you think back to June of 2007, there were 180 attacks a day on average, and there's now about 25 or so attacks in a day [Iraq-wide]. It's just such an enormous difference.
Is that new Iraqi self-confidence going to make it even harder to conclude the SOFA? And do you think that's going to be done before you leave?
I think that's all doable. There are sufficient areas of very important mutual interest that will enable the conclusion of an agreement. Iraqis know that ... while their security forces are increasingly capable, there are still significant gaps and shortcomings.
Many Iraqi political leaders are insisting on a timetable as part of this.
If you look at the serious statements; if you look at, let's say, what Prime Minister [Nuri al-]Maliki's spokesman has said, even when he's used a date, he has always used the words "hope," prior to the date. And then he's used words such as "conditions permitting" or "subject to conditions" following any date. So there's a recognition of reality, but there's also a need to play to domestic politics here.
Looking forward to Afghanistan, are you going to take a lot of what we learned here and make changes there?
Well, I think it would be premature to make that kind of statement. In fact, the big lesson I think you take away from any experience like this is how unique each situation is. Now, it does happen that I was just over in Afghanistan for two and a half days … this last week. And there clearly are significant challenges by no means all of which can be solved within Afghanistan; the extremism that emanates from the [Pakistani] border areas is a very serious threat, and it appears to be a growing threat.
There have been some days when Afghanistan's had more violent incidents than Iraq.
That has certainly been the case in many days in recent months ... One of the assessments that I presented to [Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2005] was a sense that Afghanistan was going to be the longest campaign of what was then called "The Long War." And I think that's still very much true. There may be certain aspects of the experience in Iraq that can help inform the refinements to the campaign there. But again, it would be premature on the basis of having spent two and a half days there in the last three years to state what those might be.
Will there be an Afghan surge?
Again, it would be premature. As [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates and others have all noted, there's clearly a need for additional forces, given the pressure the insurgents have exerted in this year in particular.
I guess you can't comment on the U.S. presidential …
No, I'd rather not. [Laughs.]
World - China to overtake U.S Economy
Obsessed with rankings, Americans are bound to see the Beijing Olympics as a metaphor for a larger and more troubling question. Will China overtake the United States as the world's biggest economy? Well, stop worrying. It almost certainly will.
China's economy is now only a fourth the size of the $14 trillion U.S. economy, but given plausible growth rates in both countries, China's output will exceed America's in the 2020s, Goldman Sachs forecasts. But this is the wrong worry. By itself, a richer China does not make America poorer. Indeed, because there are so many more Chinese than Americans, average Chinese living standards may lag behind ours indefinitely. By Goldman's projections, average American incomes will still be twice Chinese incomes in 2050.
The real threat from China lies elsewhere. It is that China will destabilize the world economy. It will distort trade, foster huge financial imbalances and trigger a contentious competition for scarce raw materials. Symptoms of instability have already surfaced, and if they grow worse, everyone—including the Chinese—may suffer. China is now "challenging some of the fundamental tenets of the existing [global] economic system," says economist C. Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute.
This is no small matter. Growing trade and the cross-border transfers of technology and management skills contributed to history's greatest surge of prosperity. Living standards, as measured by per capita incomes, have skyrocketed since 1950: up 10 times in Japan, 16 times in South Korea, four times in France and three times in the United States. Significantly, these gains occurred without serious political conflict. With the exception of oil, world commerce expanded quietly. The chief sources of global strife have been ideology, nationalism, religion and ethnic conflict.
Economics could now join this list, because the balance of power is shifting. The United States was the old order's main architect, and China is a rising power of the new. Their approaches contrast dramatically.
Economically dominant after World War II, the United States defined its interests as promoting the prosperity of its allies. The aims were to combat communism and prevent another Great Depression. Countries would make mutual trade concessions. They would not manipulate their currencies to gain advantage. Raw materials would be available at nondiscriminatory prices. These norms were mostly honored, though some countries flouted them (Japan manipulated its currency for years).
China's political goals differ. High economic growth and job creation aim to raise living standards and absorb the huge rural migration to expanding cities. Economist Donald Straszheim of Roth Capital Partners estimates the urban inflow at about 17 million people annually. As he says, China sees export-led economic growth as a magnet for foreign investment that brings modern technology and management skills. Prosperity is considered essential to maintaining public order and the Communist Party's political monopoly.
At first, China pursued its ambitions within the existing global framework. Indeed, the United States supported China's membership in the World Trade Organization in 2001. But as it grows richer, China increasingly ignores old norms, Bergsten argues. It runs a predatory trade policy by keeping its currency, the renminbi, at artificially low levels. That stimulates export-led growth. From 2000 to 2007, China's current account surplus—a broad measure of trade flows—ballooned from 1.7 percent of gross domestic product to 11.1 percent. The biggest losers are not U.S. manufacturers but developing countries whose labor-intensive exports are most disadvantaged.
Next, China strives to lock up supplies of essential raw materials: oil, natural gas, copper. If other countries suffer, so what? Both the United States and China are self-interested. But the United States has seen a prosperous global economy as a means to expanding its power, while China sees the global economy—guaranteed markets for its exports and raw materials—as the means to promoting domestic stability.
The policies are increasingly on a collision course. China's undervalued currency and massive trade surpluses have produced $1.8 trillion in foreign exchange reserves (China in effect stockpiles the currencies it earns in trade). Along with its artificial export advantage, China has the cash to buy big stakes in American and other foreign firms. Predictably, that has stirred a political backlash in the United States and elsewhere. The rigid renminbi has contributed to the euro's rise against the dollar, threatening Europe with recession. China has undermined world trade negotiations, and its appetite for raw materials leads it to support renegade regimes (Iran, Sudan).
The world economy faces other threats: catastrophic oil interruptions; disruptive money flows. But the Chinese-American schism poses a dilemma for the next president. If we do nothing, China's economic nationalism may weaken the world economy—but if we retaliate by becoming more nationalistic ourselves, we may do the same. Globalization means interdependence; major nations ignore that at their peril.
China's economy is now only a fourth the size of the $14 trillion U.S. economy, but given plausible growth rates in both countries, China's output will exceed America's in the 2020s, Goldman Sachs forecasts. But this is the wrong worry. By itself, a richer China does not make America poorer. Indeed, because there are so many more Chinese than Americans, average Chinese living standards may lag behind ours indefinitely. By Goldman's projections, average American incomes will still be twice Chinese incomes in 2050.
The real threat from China lies elsewhere. It is that China will destabilize the world economy. It will distort trade, foster huge financial imbalances and trigger a contentious competition for scarce raw materials. Symptoms of instability have already surfaced, and if they grow worse, everyone—including the Chinese—may suffer. China is now "challenging some of the fundamental tenets of the existing [global] economic system," says economist C. Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute.
This is no small matter. Growing trade and the cross-border transfers of technology and management skills contributed to history's greatest surge of prosperity. Living standards, as measured by per capita incomes, have skyrocketed since 1950: up 10 times in Japan, 16 times in South Korea, four times in France and three times in the United States. Significantly, these gains occurred without serious political conflict. With the exception of oil, world commerce expanded quietly. The chief sources of global strife have been ideology, nationalism, religion and ethnic conflict.
Economics could now join this list, because the balance of power is shifting. The United States was the old order's main architect, and China is a rising power of the new. Their approaches contrast dramatically.
Economically dominant after World War II, the United States defined its interests as promoting the prosperity of its allies. The aims were to combat communism and prevent another Great Depression. Countries would make mutual trade concessions. They would not manipulate their currencies to gain advantage. Raw materials would be available at nondiscriminatory prices. These norms were mostly honored, though some countries flouted them (Japan manipulated its currency for years).
China's political goals differ. High economic growth and job creation aim to raise living standards and absorb the huge rural migration to expanding cities. Economist Donald Straszheim of Roth Capital Partners estimates the urban inflow at about 17 million people annually. As he says, China sees export-led economic growth as a magnet for foreign investment that brings modern technology and management skills. Prosperity is considered essential to maintaining public order and the Communist Party's political monopoly.
At first, China pursued its ambitions within the existing global framework. Indeed, the United States supported China's membership in the World Trade Organization in 2001. But as it grows richer, China increasingly ignores old norms, Bergsten argues. It runs a predatory trade policy by keeping its currency, the renminbi, at artificially low levels. That stimulates export-led growth. From 2000 to 2007, China's current account surplus—a broad measure of trade flows—ballooned from 1.7 percent of gross domestic product to 11.1 percent. The biggest losers are not U.S. manufacturers but developing countries whose labor-intensive exports are most disadvantaged.
Next, China strives to lock up supplies of essential raw materials: oil, natural gas, copper. If other countries suffer, so what? Both the United States and China are self-interested. But the United States has seen a prosperous global economy as a means to expanding its power, while China sees the global economy—guaranteed markets for its exports and raw materials—as the means to promoting domestic stability.
The policies are increasingly on a collision course. China's undervalued currency and massive trade surpluses have produced $1.8 trillion in foreign exchange reserves (China in effect stockpiles the currencies it earns in trade). Along with its artificial export advantage, China has the cash to buy big stakes in American and other foreign firms. Predictably, that has stirred a political backlash in the United States and elsewhere. The rigid renminbi has contributed to the euro's rise against the dollar, threatening Europe with recession. China has undermined world trade negotiations, and its appetite for raw materials leads it to support renegade regimes (Iran, Sudan).
The world economy faces other threats: catastrophic oil interruptions; disruptive money flows. But the Chinese-American schism poses a dilemma for the next president. If we do nothing, China's economic nationalism may weaken the world economy—but if we retaliate by becoming more nationalistic ourselves, we may do the same. Globalization means interdependence; major nations ignore that at their peril.
World - Swimming pool a small sign of normalcy returning to Baghdad
The summer of 2008 saw a welcome counterinsurgency effort in Baghdad, what might be called Operation Swimming Pool. In a place where afternoon temperatures routinely top 120 degrees, what better way to win a few hearts and minds than to get the city's kids back in the water? Due to security concerns that made any large gatherings a terrorist target, many of the public pools hadn't been open in years, and all had deteriorated; one complex had reverted to sheep pasture, another was a death-squad dumpsite. With suicide bombings now few and far between in the capital, pools seemed like a good idea, and the U.S. military could move quickly on them using Commander's Emergency Relief Program (CERP) funds, which allow high-ranking officers to fund vital projects without long bureaucratic delays. "Purpose: Renew confidence of the local populace that their lives are returning to normal," as a military report put it. It was, in the words of the civil-affairs officer in charge of one of the pools, Maj. Jeffrey Smith, "a major nonlethal offensive."
Unhappily, the offensive has not been completely nonlethal. Two of the pools had their reopenings marred by drownings. The largest of the first four the military rebuilt, the Zawra Park Pool near the city's zoo, closed after a few weeks--the victim of a failed pump--and is yet to reopen. And the fourth, the Al Rafadain Pool near the Jihad neighborhood, on the borderline between Sunni and Shia areas, serves only Shias. None of the four, refurbished with a total of $1.1 million in CERP funds, have started admitting women. Like all victories in a war like Iraq's, Operation Swimming Pool has been at best a qualified one.
Most striking, though, is the fact that none of the pool problems have been of the terrorists' making. In the Adhamiya neighborhood, a hard-line Sunni stronghold, the Adhamiya Swimming Pool had actually been run by an Al Qaeda operative as his personal money cow; it was dirty, expensive and little patronized. When the neighborhood Sunni group known as the Sons of Iraq turned 50 local Al Qaeda types over to the Americans, the pool operator was among those arrested.
So its reopening on July 2, after $153,000 spent on refurbishing, ought to have been a poignant moment. American troops from the nearby patrol base Apache--named during harsher times--came to the grand opening. "It's really money well-spent when you look at the thrill that it's given these kids," said Lt. Col. Daniel Barnett, the local commander. No sooner had the Americans left, however, than the body of a 12-year-old boy was found in the bottom of the pool--where he'd apparently lay undiscovered for two hours, fully clothed. "The kids were excited and there was a lack of supervision at the pool," says an American civil-affairs officer. "After that we went back and said, 'Hey, we need to get more organized.' The opening was a great day, but it was clouded with that."
Now the Adhamiya pool has six lifeguards, who on a recent day were all at poolside, watching the kids like hawks. Five years of war have left a generation of young Iraqis unable to swim, and the pools have addressed the problem by issuing life jackets to swimmers--even teenagers. "I go in to rescue someone four or five times a day," says lifeguard Abu Ali. "If I have time, I take my shirt off, otherwise I just jump in."
The pool that Major Smith's unit refurbished, the Jadida pool in New Baghdad, a Shia area, was only open two weeks when an 18-year-old drowned, at a time when hundreds of swimmers had crowded into it; his drowning also wasn't noticed until hours later. The management fired all the lifeguards, replacing them with new ones who could swim. Now the Jadida pool is functioning again, this time with a limit of 100 swimmers at a time.
Manager Hamid Abdul Hussein gives the Americans high marks for taking the initiative to redo the pool, but insists the Iraqi contractors did little for the money spent. "I don't believe they spent 135 million dinars on the few things they did," he says. Actually, the final bill was 452 million dinars ($377,000), for mostly cosmetics, cleaning, painting and some plumbing work. Hussein says they need a generator, because there isn't enough electricity to pump the water more than once a day, sewers are chronically blocked, and there's no money for chlorine. Still, he's not quibbling too much. As recently as March, Hussein pointed out, there were three or four bodies on the street outside the pool every morning, in an area controlled by the Mahdi Army and now under truce. Nine-year-old Amer, a swimmer at Jadida, has been won over entirely. "I love to see the Americans here," he says, "because without them we would not be able to swim here."
Of the four pools, Al Rafadain's reopening has been the most trouble-free--partly because its complex of three pools segregates nonswimmers. Few if any of those swimmers are from the Sunni neighborhood only 200 yards away, but still, it's a long way from where it had been a year ago. "This place was used by the [Shia] militias for killing, and many bodies were found in the pool, everywhere around here," says manager Sadq Muhammed Naji. "Reconstruction changed it from a place for death to a place for enjoyment of life." In Iraq, for the moment at least, that's victory enough.
Unhappily, the offensive has not been completely nonlethal. Two of the pools had their reopenings marred by drownings. The largest of the first four the military rebuilt, the Zawra Park Pool near the city's zoo, closed after a few weeks--the victim of a failed pump--and is yet to reopen. And the fourth, the Al Rafadain Pool near the Jihad neighborhood, on the borderline between Sunni and Shia areas, serves only Shias. None of the four, refurbished with a total of $1.1 million in CERP funds, have started admitting women. Like all victories in a war like Iraq's, Operation Swimming Pool has been at best a qualified one.
Most striking, though, is the fact that none of the pool problems have been of the terrorists' making. In the Adhamiya neighborhood, a hard-line Sunni stronghold, the Adhamiya Swimming Pool had actually been run by an Al Qaeda operative as his personal money cow; it was dirty, expensive and little patronized. When the neighborhood Sunni group known as the Sons of Iraq turned 50 local Al Qaeda types over to the Americans, the pool operator was among those arrested.
So its reopening on July 2, after $153,000 spent on refurbishing, ought to have been a poignant moment. American troops from the nearby patrol base Apache--named during harsher times--came to the grand opening. "It's really money well-spent when you look at the thrill that it's given these kids," said Lt. Col. Daniel Barnett, the local commander. No sooner had the Americans left, however, than the body of a 12-year-old boy was found in the bottom of the pool--where he'd apparently lay undiscovered for two hours, fully clothed. "The kids were excited and there was a lack of supervision at the pool," says an American civil-affairs officer. "After that we went back and said, 'Hey, we need to get more organized.' The opening was a great day, but it was clouded with that."
Now the Adhamiya pool has six lifeguards, who on a recent day were all at poolside, watching the kids like hawks. Five years of war have left a generation of young Iraqis unable to swim, and the pools have addressed the problem by issuing life jackets to swimmers--even teenagers. "I go in to rescue someone four or five times a day," says lifeguard Abu Ali. "If I have time, I take my shirt off, otherwise I just jump in."
The pool that Major Smith's unit refurbished, the Jadida pool in New Baghdad, a Shia area, was only open two weeks when an 18-year-old drowned, at a time when hundreds of swimmers had crowded into it; his drowning also wasn't noticed until hours later. The management fired all the lifeguards, replacing them with new ones who could swim. Now the Jadida pool is functioning again, this time with a limit of 100 swimmers at a time.
Manager Hamid Abdul Hussein gives the Americans high marks for taking the initiative to redo the pool, but insists the Iraqi contractors did little for the money spent. "I don't believe they spent 135 million dinars on the few things they did," he says. Actually, the final bill was 452 million dinars ($377,000), for mostly cosmetics, cleaning, painting and some plumbing work. Hussein says they need a generator, because there isn't enough electricity to pump the water more than once a day, sewers are chronically blocked, and there's no money for chlorine. Still, he's not quibbling too much. As recently as March, Hussein pointed out, there were three or four bodies on the street outside the pool every morning, in an area controlled by the Mahdi Army and now under truce. Nine-year-old Amer, a swimmer at Jadida, has been won over entirely. "I love to see the Americans here," he says, "because without them we would not be able to swim here."
Of the four pools, Al Rafadain's reopening has been the most trouble-free--partly because its complex of three pools segregates nonswimmers. Few if any of those swimmers are from the Sunni neighborhood only 200 yards away, but still, it's a long way from where it had been a year ago. "This place was used by the [Shia] militias for killing, and many bodies were found in the pool, everywhere around here," says manager Sadq Muhammed Naji. "Reconstruction changed it from a place for death to a place for enjoyment of life." In Iraq, for the moment at least, that's victory enough.
Aug 21, 2008
World - Kurdish control over Kirkuk creates a power keg
KIRKUK, Iraq — The phone rang, and it was answered by a Kurdish security commander, Hallo Najat, sitting in his office in this deeply divided city. On the line, he said, was a United Nations official wanting to know whether it was true that the Kurdish militia, the pesh merga, had left its bases in northern Iraq and was occupying Kirkuk.
No, Mr. Najat told the caller. But after hanging up, he wryly revealed the deeper truth about Kirkuk, combustible for its mix of ethnicities floating together on a sea of oil: the Kurds already control it.
“It’s true,” Mr. Najat said. “What is the need for the troops?”
Of all the political problems facing Iraq today, perhaps none is so intractable as the fate of Kirkuk, a city of 900,000 that Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens all claim as their own. The explosive quarrel over the city is one major barrier to creating stable political structures in the rest of Iraq.
Beyond that, it demonstrates that despite a recent decline in violence, Iraq’s unsettled ethnic and regional discord could still upend directives emanating from Baghdad and destabilize large swaths of the country — or even set off a civil war.
This month, legislation in the national Parliament to set the groundwork for crucial provincial elections collapsed in a bitter dispute over Kirkuk, as Arabs and Turkmens demanded that the Kurds be forced to cede some of their power here. But with the Kurds having already consolidated their authority in Kirkuk, there seemed little chance — short of a military intervention — of that happening.
Kurdish authority is visible everywhere in the city. In addition to the provincial government and command of the police, the Kurds control the Asaish, the feared undercover security service that works with the American military and, according to Asaish commanders, United States intelligence agencies.
Asaish officers are often the first to the scene of an attack and, other Kurdish officials concede, seem always to have the best intelligence. The leaders of the Asaish report only to the dominant Kurdish political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
“He’s my boss,” said Mr. Najat, the commander of the K.D.P. Asaish force in Kirkuk, glancing at a picture of Masrur Barzani, the head of intelligence for the K.D.P. and the son of the party’s leader, Massoud Barzani.
The Kurds’ control over the security forces — and their ability to use it for political purposes — was evident three weeks ago, rival groups say, after a suicide bomber attacked Kurdish demonstrators, igniting a riot that left dozens dead and hundreds wounded.
After the attack, a mob of Kurds set upon a Turkmen political headquarters, eventually firebombing the building. At some point, the Turkmen guards inside fired at the crowd. All in all, American officials say they believe, far more people were killed and wounded in the riot than in the bombing that touched it off.
Yet, while the police quickly arrested 13 Turkmens at the headquarters, charging them with firing on the crowd, they did not apprehend any of the Kurds who burned the building. One of the Turkmen guards wounded in the fighting was quickly interrogated at the hospital by the Asaish and the police. A video, in which the guard says he was ordered to fire on the crowd, soon appeared on Kurdish television.
Kurdish police commanders promise an impartial investigation of the bombing and its aftermath, overseen by officers from all of the city’s ethnic groups. But the senior Turkmen on the force, Maj. Gen. Turhan Abdul-Rahman Youssef, fears a whitewash.
“I don’t think we will have a result,” he said, describing the broadcast showing the wounded Turkmen guard as “illegal.”
The Kurds’ accumulation of power has stoked tensions with Arabs and Turkmens. “There is much fear,” said Mohammed Khalil, the leader of the Arab bloc on the provincial council. “The Asaish are saying they will annex Kirkuk by force, and that is terrifying people.” Arabs also say the Asaish carry out kidnappings, a charge Asaish officers deny.
But rival ethnic leaders also warn that the Kurds’ control of the security forces will not prevent chaos in the event of an outbreak of ethnic fighting. The city’s Arabs, Mr. Khalil said, “will not stay handcuffed by Kurdish actions.”
Under Saddam Hussein, tens of thousands of Kurdish families were ousted from Kirkuk, replaced by Arabs as part of his drive to obtain a firmer political grip on the enormous oil reserves here. But after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Kurdish militiamen reversed the process, driving out Arabs and bringing in Kurds. Arabs and Turkmens now make up about 40 percent of Kirkuk’s population, according to American military estimates
The Kurds want to fold Kirkuk into the neighboring Kurdistan region. They also warn that any plan stripping them of power will be harshly contested.
“Its fate will be failure,” said Nejad Hassan, the senior Kurdistan Democratic Party official in Kirkuk.
After the suicide bombing, that conflict was evident in a dispute about whether to bring a substantial number of Iraqi troops into the city, in a direct challenge to Kurdish supremacy.
In a series of sweeps conducted with the Americans, the Iraqi Army has helped establish stability this year in other volatile parts of Iraq. But Iraqi troops have largely stayed out of Kirkuk.
After the July 28 attacks, however, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ordered in a battalion from a nearby base. The troops took up positions in the city.
Aware that part of the proposal being debated in Baghdad was to send a far larger force from central and southern Iraq to administer security — which would mean a mostly Arab force, loyal to the Baghdad government, set against Kurdish-controlled forces — the Kurds objected strenuously.
Kurds were not the only ones opposing the deployment of a major Arab security force after the violence. The American military commander here, Col. David Paschal, said he feared that if Baghdad sent in additional troops, Kurdish leaders would retaliate by sending in their own militia from northern Iraq, creating a potentially disastrous confrontation.
“I just saw this continued escalation of force happening,” he said. Baghdad is expected to withdraw the troops, according to American commanders.
Colonel Paschal blames all the political parties for inflaming tensions to serve their interests. But he said it was difficult to comprehend the level of mistrust.
“Negotiations here are, ‘You give me everything I want, and I will walk away happy,’ ” he said. “It is hard for us to appreciate the level of ethnic hatred.”
The severity of those tensions became indisputably clear three weeks ago when thousands of Kurds poured into central Kirkuk to protest the power-sharing proposal in Baghdad.
In a video that American commanders say they believe to be authentic, a young man who the Americans say appears to be the bomber, not a woman as Kurdish officials initially said, can be seen standing in a sea of demonstrators. He ritualistically raises his hands, palms up, toward his face, then lowers them to his side. An instant later the explosion engulfs him and everyone around him.
It took only a few moments for the demonstrators to turn their fury on the Turkmens, whom they instantly blamed. One mistook a well-known Kurdish journalist, Yahya Barzanji, for a Turkmen correspondent, shouting, “He’s working for the Turkmens,” Mr. Barzanji recalled. A video captured the crowd furiously beating Mr. Barzanji, chanting: “Kill him! Kill him!”
Within minutes the mob was in front of the Turkmen party headquarters. While American and Kurdish officials agree that the Turkmen guards fired into the crowd, Colonel Paschal — who watched the skirmish unfold in a video feed from a remotely piloted aerial drone — said that the Turkmens did not appear to fire wantonly, and that they instead gradually escalated until they were firing directly into a large and growing mob that posed a threat.
All told, at least 28 people died and 213 were wounded in the suicide attack and the ensuing riot, according to the Asaish commander at the main hospital. Kurdish authorities have sought to play down the intensity of the fight between the Kurds and the Turkmens, but Colonel Paschal said most of the casualties were sustained during the riot.
Despite this outbreak, Colonel Paschal said attacks in Kirkuk had dropped by two-thirds since last summer. Kurds attribute some of that improvement to the Asaish.
“They are in direct contact with the people,” said Hemin Shafiq, a 24-year-old policeman. “They are more rapid. That is why they are much more active than the police.”
Rifat Abdullah, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan here, said: “The Asaish have lots of sources, and that’s why the Americans depend on them and the police depend on them. That might explain why they have more power.”
General Turhan admitted that the Asaish officers were, at times, more powerful than the police, and he said there were thousands of Asaish in the city, though Kurdish officials say there are no more than 1,000. “They have a major role combating terrorism, but the problem is they are loyal to the political parties,” he said.
In an interview, the provincial police chief, Maj. Gen. Jamal Taher, a Kurd, did not answer a question about whether he had the power to control the activities of the Asaish. But he praised their ability to ferret out information.
“Maybe they have better sources than me,” he said.
No, Mr. Najat told the caller. But after hanging up, he wryly revealed the deeper truth about Kirkuk, combustible for its mix of ethnicities floating together on a sea of oil: the Kurds already control it.
“It’s true,” Mr. Najat said. “What is the need for the troops?”
Of all the political problems facing Iraq today, perhaps none is so intractable as the fate of Kirkuk, a city of 900,000 that Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens all claim as their own. The explosive quarrel over the city is one major barrier to creating stable political structures in the rest of Iraq.
Beyond that, it demonstrates that despite a recent decline in violence, Iraq’s unsettled ethnic and regional discord could still upend directives emanating from Baghdad and destabilize large swaths of the country — or even set off a civil war.
This month, legislation in the national Parliament to set the groundwork for crucial provincial elections collapsed in a bitter dispute over Kirkuk, as Arabs and Turkmens demanded that the Kurds be forced to cede some of their power here. But with the Kurds having already consolidated their authority in Kirkuk, there seemed little chance — short of a military intervention — of that happening.
Kurdish authority is visible everywhere in the city. In addition to the provincial government and command of the police, the Kurds control the Asaish, the feared undercover security service that works with the American military and, according to Asaish commanders, United States intelligence agencies.
Asaish officers are often the first to the scene of an attack and, other Kurdish officials concede, seem always to have the best intelligence. The leaders of the Asaish report only to the dominant Kurdish political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
“He’s my boss,” said Mr. Najat, the commander of the K.D.P. Asaish force in Kirkuk, glancing at a picture of Masrur Barzani, the head of intelligence for the K.D.P. and the son of the party’s leader, Massoud Barzani.
The Kurds’ control over the security forces — and their ability to use it for political purposes — was evident three weeks ago, rival groups say, after a suicide bomber attacked Kurdish demonstrators, igniting a riot that left dozens dead and hundreds wounded.
After the attack, a mob of Kurds set upon a Turkmen political headquarters, eventually firebombing the building. At some point, the Turkmen guards inside fired at the crowd. All in all, American officials say they believe, far more people were killed and wounded in the riot than in the bombing that touched it off.
Yet, while the police quickly arrested 13 Turkmens at the headquarters, charging them with firing on the crowd, they did not apprehend any of the Kurds who burned the building. One of the Turkmen guards wounded in the fighting was quickly interrogated at the hospital by the Asaish and the police. A video, in which the guard says he was ordered to fire on the crowd, soon appeared on Kurdish television.
Kurdish police commanders promise an impartial investigation of the bombing and its aftermath, overseen by officers from all of the city’s ethnic groups. But the senior Turkmen on the force, Maj. Gen. Turhan Abdul-Rahman Youssef, fears a whitewash.
“I don’t think we will have a result,” he said, describing the broadcast showing the wounded Turkmen guard as “illegal.”
The Kurds’ accumulation of power has stoked tensions with Arabs and Turkmens. “There is much fear,” said Mohammed Khalil, the leader of the Arab bloc on the provincial council. “The Asaish are saying they will annex Kirkuk by force, and that is terrifying people.” Arabs also say the Asaish carry out kidnappings, a charge Asaish officers deny.
But rival ethnic leaders also warn that the Kurds’ control of the security forces will not prevent chaos in the event of an outbreak of ethnic fighting. The city’s Arabs, Mr. Khalil said, “will not stay handcuffed by Kurdish actions.”
Under Saddam Hussein, tens of thousands of Kurdish families were ousted from Kirkuk, replaced by Arabs as part of his drive to obtain a firmer political grip on the enormous oil reserves here. But after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Kurdish militiamen reversed the process, driving out Arabs and bringing in Kurds. Arabs and Turkmens now make up about 40 percent of Kirkuk’s population, according to American military estimates
The Kurds want to fold Kirkuk into the neighboring Kurdistan region. They also warn that any plan stripping them of power will be harshly contested.
“Its fate will be failure,” said Nejad Hassan, the senior Kurdistan Democratic Party official in Kirkuk.
After the suicide bombing, that conflict was evident in a dispute about whether to bring a substantial number of Iraqi troops into the city, in a direct challenge to Kurdish supremacy.
In a series of sweeps conducted with the Americans, the Iraqi Army has helped establish stability this year in other volatile parts of Iraq. But Iraqi troops have largely stayed out of Kirkuk.
After the July 28 attacks, however, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ordered in a battalion from a nearby base. The troops took up positions in the city.
Aware that part of the proposal being debated in Baghdad was to send a far larger force from central and southern Iraq to administer security — which would mean a mostly Arab force, loyal to the Baghdad government, set against Kurdish-controlled forces — the Kurds objected strenuously.
Kurds were not the only ones opposing the deployment of a major Arab security force after the violence. The American military commander here, Col. David Paschal, said he feared that if Baghdad sent in additional troops, Kurdish leaders would retaliate by sending in their own militia from northern Iraq, creating a potentially disastrous confrontation.
“I just saw this continued escalation of force happening,” he said. Baghdad is expected to withdraw the troops, according to American commanders.
Colonel Paschal blames all the political parties for inflaming tensions to serve their interests. But he said it was difficult to comprehend the level of mistrust.
“Negotiations here are, ‘You give me everything I want, and I will walk away happy,’ ” he said. “It is hard for us to appreciate the level of ethnic hatred.”
The severity of those tensions became indisputably clear three weeks ago when thousands of Kurds poured into central Kirkuk to protest the power-sharing proposal in Baghdad.
In a video that American commanders say they believe to be authentic, a young man who the Americans say appears to be the bomber, not a woman as Kurdish officials initially said, can be seen standing in a sea of demonstrators. He ritualistically raises his hands, palms up, toward his face, then lowers them to his side. An instant later the explosion engulfs him and everyone around him.
It took only a few moments for the demonstrators to turn their fury on the Turkmens, whom they instantly blamed. One mistook a well-known Kurdish journalist, Yahya Barzanji, for a Turkmen correspondent, shouting, “He’s working for the Turkmens,” Mr. Barzanji recalled. A video captured the crowd furiously beating Mr. Barzanji, chanting: “Kill him! Kill him!”
Within minutes the mob was in front of the Turkmen party headquarters. While American and Kurdish officials agree that the Turkmen guards fired into the crowd, Colonel Paschal — who watched the skirmish unfold in a video feed from a remotely piloted aerial drone — said that the Turkmens did not appear to fire wantonly, and that they instead gradually escalated until they were firing directly into a large and growing mob that posed a threat.
All told, at least 28 people died and 213 were wounded in the suicide attack and the ensuing riot, according to the Asaish commander at the main hospital. Kurdish authorities have sought to play down the intensity of the fight between the Kurds and the Turkmens, but Colonel Paschal said most of the casualties were sustained during the riot.
Despite this outbreak, Colonel Paschal said attacks in Kirkuk had dropped by two-thirds since last summer. Kurds attribute some of that improvement to the Asaish.
“They are in direct contact with the people,” said Hemin Shafiq, a 24-year-old policeman. “They are more rapid. That is why they are much more active than the police.”
Rifat Abdullah, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan here, said: “The Asaish have lots of sources, and that’s why the Americans depend on them and the police depend on them. That might explain why they have more power.”
General Turhan admitted that the Asaish officers were, at times, more powerful than the police, and he said there were thousands of Asaish in the city, though Kurdish officials say there are no more than 1,000. “They have a major role combating terrorism, but the problem is they are loyal to the political parties,” he said.
In an interview, the provincial police chief, Maj. Gen. Jamal Taher, a Kurd, did not answer a question about whether he had the power to control the activities of the Asaish. But he praised their ability to ferret out information.
“Maybe they have better sources than me,” he said.