Mumbai, Sep 20 (IANS) Actor Aamir Khan's directorial debut "Taare Zameen Par" has been selected as India's entry for the Oscar 2009 in the best foreign film category, impressing the jury with its 'perfection' in all aspects of filmmaking.
"'Taare Zameen Par' is the final choice because it has a universal appeal and it has all the elements that make a good film, in terms of its production value, script, concept and story,' filmmaker Sunil Darshan said here Saturday.
Darshan is the chairman of the 10-member jury set up by the Film Federation of India (FFI).
The movie was jointly produced by Aamir Khan Productions and PVR Pictures and starred Darsheel Safary as the protagonist. It it the story of an eight-year-old dyslexic boy and a teacher, played by Aamir, bringing the kid out of his predicament.
The other Bollywood films in competition were "A Wednesday", "Rock On", "Mumbai Meri Jaan", 'Jodhaa Akbar", "Black & White" - all of which have won critical acclaim. There were also two Marathi films "Tingya" and "Vaalu" and a Telegu film "Gamyam" in contention.
"'Vaalu' has a fantastic screenplay and 'Tingya' has a good and sound script. It is not that other films were bad, but 'Taare Zameen Par' stood out among others," Darshan added.
Another jury member Mahesh Kothare, a Marathi filmmaker and actor, was all praise for the selected film.
"As a jury, we had two basic intentions - that the chosen film must have a good chance of winning an Oscar and secondly, that it should meet certain parameters for an Oscar. These are content and cinematic excellence.
"'Taare Zameen Par' has it all. It has been made so perfectly. There is perfect direction, animation, screenplay, acting, script, and so there is no reason why it shouldn't have been choosen," said Kothare.
He also exuded confidence that the film will finally bring India an Oscar in 2009.
Sep 20, 2008
World - Pakistan;Suicide bombing at the Mariott
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber attacked the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Saturday, killing at least 40 people and turning the hotel into an inferno, police said.
As flames engulfed the hotel, which is popular with foreigners, police said there were still people trapped inside.
"A car laden with explosives rammed the gate at the Marriott and so far we have brought out 40 dead bodies, but the number could well be higher," police chief Asghar Raza Gardazi said.
Hours before the blast President Asif Ali Zardari, making his first address to parliament, a few hundred meetres to the east of the hotel, said terrorism had to be rooted out.
Dozens of cars outside the hotel were destroyed and windows were shattered in buildings hundreds of metres away.
Al Qaeda-linked militants based in hideouts in the Afghan border have launched a bloody campaign of bomb attacks in retaliation for offensives by the security forces.
The hotel has been bombed twice before but the Saturday evening blast was the most serious in the Pakistani capital since the country joined the U.S.-led campaign against militancy in late 2001.
Fire began in at least two places in the building and spread to other parts of the 290-room hotel, located at the foot of the Margalla hills in the city centre.
A crater up to 20 feet deep was blasted into the road next to the hotel's security barriers. The street was littered with debris and broken branches from roadside trees, and acrid smoke drifted in the air.
"EVERYBODY STARTED SCREAMING"
The explosion brought down the ceiling in a banquet room where there were about 200 to 300 people at a meal to break the fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
Imtiaz Gul, a journalist, was among them.
"We just ran for cover, I could see a lot of injured people lying around me," Gul said.
A waiter, Mansoor Abbasi, was inside hotel after the blast, calling out for any survivors lying in the rubble.
"I was just setting down a glass when it happened ... Everybody started screaming. I pulled out 16 wounded people," said Abbasi said, his jacket stained with blood.
A doctor at a city hospital said 70 wounded people had been brought in. An official at another hospital said 23 bodies and 97 wounded people had been brought in.
Dawn Television said several foreigners were wounded.
The owner of the hotel said the vehicle carrying the bomb was stopped at the front barrier and was being checked by guards after a bomb-sniffing dog raised the alarm.
"The guard dog alerted them and when they started searching the vehicle the man blew himself up," the owner, Sadruddin Hashwani, told reporters outside the hotel.
Zardari, the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, is close to the United States and had earlier vowed to maintain nuclear-armed Pakistan's commitment to the U.S.-led campaign against militancy, even though it is deeply unpopular.
In his address to parliament, he said Pakistan must stop militants from using its territory for attacks on other countries.
He also said Pakistan would not tolerate infringement of its territory in the name of the fight against militancy.
Zardari won a presidential election this month to replace firm U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf who stepped down in August under threat of impeachment.
As flames engulfed the hotel, which is popular with foreigners, police said there were still people trapped inside.
"A car laden with explosives rammed the gate at the Marriott and so far we have brought out 40 dead bodies, but the number could well be higher," police chief Asghar Raza Gardazi said.
Hours before the blast President Asif Ali Zardari, making his first address to parliament, a few hundred meetres to the east of the hotel, said terrorism had to be rooted out.
Dozens of cars outside the hotel were destroyed and windows were shattered in buildings hundreds of metres away.
Al Qaeda-linked militants based in hideouts in the Afghan border have launched a bloody campaign of bomb attacks in retaliation for offensives by the security forces.
The hotel has been bombed twice before but the Saturday evening blast was the most serious in the Pakistani capital since the country joined the U.S.-led campaign against militancy in late 2001.
Fire began in at least two places in the building and spread to other parts of the 290-room hotel, located at the foot of the Margalla hills in the city centre.
A crater up to 20 feet deep was blasted into the road next to the hotel's security barriers. The street was littered with debris and broken branches from roadside trees, and acrid smoke drifted in the air.
"EVERYBODY STARTED SCREAMING"
The explosion brought down the ceiling in a banquet room where there were about 200 to 300 people at a meal to break the fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
Imtiaz Gul, a journalist, was among them.
"We just ran for cover, I could see a lot of injured people lying around me," Gul said.
A waiter, Mansoor Abbasi, was inside hotel after the blast, calling out for any survivors lying in the rubble.
"I was just setting down a glass when it happened ... Everybody started screaming. I pulled out 16 wounded people," said Abbasi said, his jacket stained with blood.
A doctor at a city hospital said 70 wounded people had been brought in. An official at another hospital said 23 bodies and 97 wounded people had been brought in.
Dawn Television said several foreigners were wounded.
The owner of the hotel said the vehicle carrying the bomb was stopped at the front barrier and was being checked by guards after a bomb-sniffing dog raised the alarm.
"The guard dog alerted them and when they started searching the vehicle the man blew himself up," the owner, Sadruddin Hashwani, told reporters outside the hotel.
Zardari, the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, is close to the United States and had earlier vowed to maintain nuclear-armed Pakistan's commitment to the U.S.-led campaign against militancy, even though it is deeply unpopular.
In his address to parliament, he said Pakistan must stop militants from using its territory for attacks on other countries.
He also said Pakistan would not tolerate infringement of its territory in the name of the fight against militancy.
Zardari won a presidential election this month to replace firm U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf who stepped down in August under threat of impeachment.
Fashion - Sydney fashion show a washout as models go underwater
SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Australian fashionistas plumbed new depths on Wednesday, staging an underwater fashion show with lots of flailing arms and a mass bad hair day.
With no catwalk in sight, nine sharply dressed models climbed up a ladder and plunged into a large tank of water in Australia's first public underwater fashion shoot, delighting tourists and passers-by in Sydney's picturesque Circular Quay.
"I felt sorry for the hair and makeup artists because they spent so long doing my hair and makeup and as soon as I got in it just washed away, but it's all fun", said Jaynie Seal, a television weather presenter who was part of the show, sponsored by women's magazine Cosmopolitan and skincare label Neutrogena.
Braving cool spring temperatures, Seal and another TV presenter, Jason Dundas, waved at the cameras underwater and tried to look glamorous.
Later, Dundas stood shivering in a dripping wet suit as a team of photographers took pictures of the event.
"It's fairly hard to look glamorous under water. We had to get specialist make up that doesn't run, said the official event photographer Daniel Smith.
"The hair and the hands can go everywhere, the success rate is less, so you just take more pictures."
With no catwalk in sight, nine sharply dressed models climbed up a ladder and plunged into a large tank of water in Australia's first public underwater fashion shoot, delighting tourists and passers-by in Sydney's picturesque Circular Quay.
"I felt sorry for the hair and makeup artists because they spent so long doing my hair and makeup and as soon as I got in it just washed away, but it's all fun", said Jaynie Seal, a television weather presenter who was part of the show, sponsored by women's magazine Cosmopolitan and skincare label Neutrogena.
Braving cool spring temperatures, Seal and another TV presenter, Jason Dundas, waved at the cameras underwater and tried to look glamorous.
Later, Dundas stood shivering in a dripping wet suit as a team of photographers took pictures of the event.
"It's fairly hard to look glamorous under water. We had to get specialist make up that doesn't run, said the official event photographer Daniel Smith.
"The hair and the hands can go everywhere, the success rate is less, so you just take more pictures."
India - New breed of elite prostitutes cater to the rich
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Zeba, a 23-year-old model and actress says she's found the perfect job. The money is great, she rubs shoulders with the super rich and her working hours are convenient.
Zeba is one of thousands of high-price call girls servicing India's nouveau riche and the throng of foreign businessmen drawn to a booming economy.
"If you have a modelling assignment, you have to work hard," Zeba, who declined to give her full name in order to protect her identity, said in American-accented English.
"But over here, it's just one hour. You talk to the person for half-an-hour and then the other half-an-hour in bed. You make a lot of money and it's easy," added Zeba, who charges 200,000 Indian rupees ($4,600) for an hour's encounter, of which the escort agency keeps half.
Prostitution is illegal in India. Yet voluntary groups estimate there to be two million sex workers, most of them forced into the trade by crushing poverty. Many suffer from HIV in a country with the world's third highest HIV caseload.
Call girls such as Zeba live in a world far removed from New Delhi's infamous G.B. Road, its main red-light district, and work as prostitutes as a matter of choice, plying their trade in five star hotels rather than on the streets or in brothels.
Many high-price escorts such as Zeba are educated women from middle-class families who see prostitution as a lucrative and even glamorous profession.
"Only two to three percent of India's prostitutes enter the profession willingly. These are the high-class girls, and it is them exercising their democratic rights," said Ranjana Kumari, director of the Centre for Social Research in New Delhi.
"These high-class escorts are definitely an outcome of globalised India," added Kumari.
The growth of high-end prostitution in India underscores not only the affluence among the upper-classes who have the money to hire such prostitutes, but also the changing role of women in a deeply conservative society.
Even today, Indian women are expected to cover up in public and conform to strict societal norms. Premarital sex is taboo and Bollywood movies tease but generally stop short of kissing.
Yet the country's newfound economic affluence and expanding middle-class has also brought an insatiable appetite for the good things in life from designer clothes, to fast cars, to champagne dinners.
"With the changes in the economy and increased consumerism, the Indian woman is under pressure to conform to a highly capitalistic image which requires a lot of money to upkeep," said Anuja Agrawal, a sociologist at the University of Delhi.
"If Indian society were to really allow their women to be free, they won't be forced to conform to such a rigid behaviour."
FAST-GROWING INDUSTRY
Most high-end sex workers in India charge anywhere from 10,000 rupees ($225) to 50,000 rupees ($1,125) for an hour, but some charge many times more.
"I accommodate the rich, multi-millionaires and business entrepreneurs. Obviously it's a very big industry and in India it is especially fast-growing," said Sameer Chamadi, who runs an escort agency in India that has branches in Dubai and London.
"If the guys have money, they can have my escorts," added Chamadi. His business is one of many online escort agencies sprouting on the Internet in India.
Police in India say they try to enforce anti-prostitution laws by checking classified advertisements and the Internet for those soliciting sex. But they admit it is difficult to clamp down on high-class prostitutes and clients whose liaisons are usually arranged and conducted in private.
Chamadi and other escort agency owners insist their call girls are worth every cent and can do anything for their clients, from stimulating conversation to bondage fetishes.
"It's a major, major, class difference, and with us it's not just 'slam, bang, thank you Ma'am'. You can actually sit and have a proper conversation with us," said Zeba.
Starting out in Mumbai as a model, Zeba, a college graduate, got her break in movies through a client who was influential in Bollywood. She has no regrets about her chosen profession.
"I really hate people who put on an act about not liking something when they actually do. I mean sex is not just what men want, we women want it also," she said.
Zeba is one of thousands of high-price call girls servicing India's nouveau riche and the throng of foreign businessmen drawn to a booming economy.
"If you have a modelling assignment, you have to work hard," Zeba, who declined to give her full name in order to protect her identity, said in American-accented English.
"But over here, it's just one hour. You talk to the person for half-an-hour and then the other half-an-hour in bed. You make a lot of money and it's easy," added Zeba, who charges 200,000 Indian rupees ($4,600) for an hour's encounter, of which the escort agency keeps half.
Prostitution is illegal in India. Yet voluntary groups estimate there to be two million sex workers, most of them forced into the trade by crushing poverty. Many suffer from HIV in a country with the world's third highest HIV caseload.
Call girls such as Zeba live in a world far removed from New Delhi's infamous G.B. Road, its main red-light district, and work as prostitutes as a matter of choice, plying their trade in five star hotels rather than on the streets or in brothels.
Many high-price escorts such as Zeba are educated women from middle-class families who see prostitution as a lucrative and even glamorous profession.
"Only two to three percent of India's prostitutes enter the profession willingly. These are the high-class girls, and it is them exercising their democratic rights," said Ranjana Kumari, director of the Centre for Social Research in New Delhi.
"These high-class escorts are definitely an outcome of globalised India," added Kumari.
The growth of high-end prostitution in India underscores not only the affluence among the upper-classes who have the money to hire such prostitutes, but also the changing role of women in a deeply conservative society.
Even today, Indian women are expected to cover up in public and conform to strict societal norms. Premarital sex is taboo and Bollywood movies tease but generally stop short of kissing.
Yet the country's newfound economic affluence and expanding middle-class has also brought an insatiable appetite for the good things in life from designer clothes, to fast cars, to champagne dinners.
"With the changes in the economy and increased consumerism, the Indian woman is under pressure to conform to a highly capitalistic image which requires a lot of money to upkeep," said Anuja Agrawal, a sociologist at the University of Delhi.
"If Indian society were to really allow their women to be free, they won't be forced to conform to such a rigid behaviour."
FAST-GROWING INDUSTRY
Most high-end sex workers in India charge anywhere from 10,000 rupees ($225) to 50,000 rupees ($1,125) for an hour, but some charge many times more.
"I accommodate the rich, multi-millionaires and business entrepreneurs. Obviously it's a very big industry and in India it is especially fast-growing," said Sameer Chamadi, who runs an escort agency in India that has branches in Dubai and London.
"If the guys have money, they can have my escorts," added Chamadi. His business is one of many online escort agencies sprouting on the Internet in India.
Police in India say they try to enforce anti-prostitution laws by checking classified advertisements and the Internet for those soliciting sex. But they admit it is difficult to clamp down on high-class prostitutes and clients whose liaisons are usually arranged and conducted in private.
Chamadi and other escort agency owners insist their call girls are worth every cent and can do anything for their clients, from stimulating conversation to bondage fetishes.
"It's a major, major, class difference, and with us it's not just 'slam, bang, thank you Ma'am'. You can actually sit and have a proper conversation with us," said Zeba.
Starting out in Mumbai as a model, Zeba, a college graduate, got her break in movies through a client who was influential in Bollywood. She has no regrets about her chosen profession.
"I really hate people who put on an act about not liking something when they actually do. I mean sex is not just what men want, we women want it also," she said.
Personality - Cinderella woman;Shenaz Hussain (G.Read)
Shahnaz Husain’s day typically begins with 20 minutes of yoga and stretching exercises. “It’s good to keep the body supple,” she says. Next comes a 20-minute soak in bath water sprinkled with rose petals and drops of sandalwood oil. Ghazal music is usually playing softly. Husain washes her face with milk and graham flour. After the bath, she uses her Shaflower lotion, which counts wild turmeric and conessi bark among its active ingredients. A pedicure, manicure and facial massage with aloe vera follow.
Twice a week, Husain treats her hair with 16 egg whites mixed with lemon juice and olive oil. To keep her enormous mane a deep burgundy, she regularly applies a blend of henna powder, ground coffee beans, lemon juice, tea and as many as 20 eggs.
Nearly 40 years ago, Husain began creating simple beauty treatments in her home based on Ayurveda as well as beauty routines learnt from her mother. Today, Husain, who calls herself “princess” (a title handed down through her mother, who Husain says was a descendant of a royal Mughal family) has adroitly blended earthy tradition with aggressive modern marketing to create an ambitious little beauty empire.
The finances of the family-run company are private, but officials say it encompasses some 300 salon franchises, 53 beauty schools, 3,000 employees and nearly two dozen product lines. “If you ask anyone on the street if they know her, they’d say ‘yes’,” says Yvonne Kok, a Euromonitor International research analyst based in South Asia.
Her potions are sold through an estimated 150,000 stores in India. Internationally, the brand is available from Seoul to Dubai to London.
By drawing on ancient herbal therapies to develop beauty treatments that Husain claims will improve vision, treat decaying teeth, heal dry skin and enhance eyelash growth, among other things—and then marking them up to luxury prices—she is ringing up sales to women drawn to the natural.
Also Read Fresh catch
Husain declines to specify her age beyond saying she’s in her 60s. “You never give your age in the beauty business,” she says in her deep, gravelly voice. Last year she began a direct-selling division in India, enlisting as many as 50,000 representatives, the company says.
Now, Husain says she’s ready for the US. Currently, Shahnaz Husain products have been sold in the US online through Amazon and Indian import shops, salons and grocery stores. Over the next few months, Shahnaz Husain Group of Companies predicts it will introduce its herbal remedies and luxury skin-care lines— made with diamond dust, crushed pearls and flecks of 24-karat gold—through national chains.
“Americans desperately need me. They’ve gone on too long without me,” Husain says. She has firm ideas about what women in the US are lacking. “The American woman is the woman in a hurry,” Husain says. They “need more facials, more skin care, more manicures, more pedicures. Their femininity is very neglected”.
The hurdles are huge. Following Macy’s acquisition of May department stores, negotiating beauty-counter space is harder than ever in the US. And although other speciality retailers, home-shopping networks and drug and grocery stores have expanded their beauty product offerings, plenty of niche brands have joined the market.
Haya Morgenstern, the US distributor for Husain charged with finding a national retailer for the brand, says she plans to approach home-shopping network QVC, speciality beauty retailer Sephora and the Whole Foods grocery chain. Natural beauty products are, “no question, one of the hottest stories in the beauty business”, says Allen Burke, director of beauty merchandising for QVC, which sells a variety of cosmetics and toiletries that emphasize natural ingredients, including Bare Escentuals and Ojon. At Sephora stores, demand for natural and organic beauty products “has continued to grow significantly”, says a company spokeswoman. And at Whole Foods, a representative says that while the company hasn’t seen many ayurvedic beauty products in the market, “we’d love to see more
Recognizing perhaps how different the US market is, Morgenstern has asked product developers to tone down some of the Indian products. Natural cosmetics aficionados Stateside tend to be more sensitive to fragrances, she says, so she’s asked for lighter scents on some items along with emphasizing the essential oils. Colours in certain hair and skin-care products will also be lightened. “Shamla is dark brown; that would be hard to adjust to (in the US),” says Morgenstern, referring to a shampoo enriched with dates and Indian gooseberry.
Husain’s push abroad comes as giant multinationals are aggressively moving on to her turf. In July, Estée Lauder Cos. said it bought a stake in an Indian ayurvedic beauty brand, Forest Essentials. And Procter and Gamble says it is “closely examining the opportunities associated with ayurvedics.” Last year, L’Oréal chief Jean-Paul Agon said the company was hunting for an Indian ayurvedic line to acquire. And in 2002, Unilever’s Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Unilever, created Ayush, a line of ayurvedic beauty and health products. Hindustan Unilever is also a partner in a chain of 47 Ayush Therapy Centres that offer ayurvedic treatments.
“We believe consumers are more and more interested in natural products,” says Daniel Rachmanis, Estée Lauder’s senior vice-president of international business. “It’s a trend that’s going to continue not only in India but around the world.”
Beauty sales in India totalled $6.3 billion (Rs28,350 crore) last year, up 13% over the previous year—more than four times the growth rate of the $52 billion US beauty market, and twice that of the $270 billion global market, according to estimates by consulting and market research firm Kline and Co.
Strolling by a gleaming Forest Essentials shop in Select Citywalk, a new, upscale mall in New Delhi, Husain shrugs off her deeper-pocketed competitors. “They sell their brand; I sell myself,” she says, pointing out several other giant beauty brands that have opened shops in the bustling shopping centre, including Clinique, MAC, The Body Shop and Lancôme. “Besides, those are cosmetics. I’m selling ayurveda—civilization in a jar.”
Assessing India’s enormous beauty market presents challenges because it is highly fragmented and difficult to audit. According to Kline estimates, Husain’s company is India’s market leader for skin-care products sold in salons and through other professional channels, yet it accounts for only 2% of the $630 million natural products market here. People close to the company say the firm draws from $100 million to $200 million in annual revenue.
To chronicle her days and ensure that she always has fresh footage on hand for local media, Husain has one of her staff photographers follow her almost everywhere, often accompanied by a staff cameraman. She prefers to have the right side of her face photographed to better show off a pea-size diamond stud in her nose.
Calling herself a “workaholic”, Husain says she often works until 4am or 5am, concluding her day with a foot massage given by one of her live-in beauticians. Around 26 servants are on 24-hour call in Husain’s main New Delhi residence (according to Husain, she keeps 19 homes in New Delhi, a 35-acre farm, and houses in Mumbai and London). Her round-the-clock assistants include a florist, plumber, carpenter, electrician, phone operator, make-up artist, photographer and hairstylist, in addition to live-in cooks, drivers, housekeepers, tailors and errand runners. The daytime household staff of 60 operates by a system of small buzzers placed on Husain’s favourite chairs in each room.
Senior advisers at her company keep in regular contact with Husain via the two cellphones that she frequently speaks into at the same time, even while multiple callers stand by on her landline.
When Husain needs to call after-hours meetings with company executives, she asks her managers to bring along their families, whom she keeps entertained on a separate floor with games, food and movies. “The wives don’t feel their husbands’ absence when they get to come along,” she says. “That way everyone stays happy.”
In her primary residence, she set up the public sitting room—“the white house”, she calls it—with several white couches covered in faux white fur and dotted with gold-sequined throw pillows. Statues of horses, Buddhas, swans and cherubs, in crystal, porcelain and gold, fill tables and shelves scattered throughout the room, lit by multiple crystal chandeliers.
Husain likes to keep her reflection nearby. Most rooms have mirrors on the walls, and jewelled hand mirrors remain within arm’s reach. A mirror is also attached to the back of the driver’s headrest in her cars, so she can see herself while in transit.
Husain’s fashion taste is also elaborate. She designs all her clothes, which are sewn by four staff tailors and two embroiderers, she says. Before heading to a nearby mall to relax in her favourite New Delhi coffee shop, Husain donned a full-length brown suede jacket with a coordinating top and skirt. The ensemble featured trim and giant pockets made in Louis Vuitton’s brown leather monogram print. “I’ve probably had 11 Louis Vuitton bags cut up to decorate my clothes,” she says, pulling out what looks like a diamond-encrusted Louis Vuitton cellphone. “I’d make a great ambassador for Louis Vuitton, too.”
Reclining in the coffee shop’s lounge chair, Husain was interrupted by one of her omnipresent security guards. Her back was too close to the shop’s busy entrance, inviting an attack, the guard said. Husain says she has received death threats and now takes extra precautions: She travels in one of two cars, employs extra security and frequently changes her daily routine.
Husain was born in Hyderabad to a politically powerful, liberal-minded father and a wealthy, conservative mother. She led a sheltered childhood, which included attending boarding school and riding in chauffeured cars with curtained windows, in keeping with her mother’s view of propriety. But from an early age, Husain had a hunger for publicity. “When there was lightning, I would run outdoors,” she says. “I’d tell everyone, ‘God is taking my picture!’”
She excelled in school, making her father proud. “I lived to please him,” Husain says. But her outgoing personality troubled her mother. “‘This girl is going to get out of control; let’s get her married,’ my mother said.” By age 14, Husain was engaged; she met her fiancé only once in a supervised gathering. “I was told there was a boy here I was to marry,” she says. “I walked into the room, said hello, and then walked out. That’s all I saw of him.”
Married at 15, she became a mother within a year. Then restlessness set in. “I cried every day; I was so bored,” she recalls. To pass time, she started attending beauty classes in New Delhi. Eventually, Husain’s father arranged for her husband, who worked for the Indian government, to land a post abroad.
In London, Husain enrolled in a course at Helena Rubinstein. She also took classes offered by L’Oréal, Schwarzkopf and other beauty companies in Tehran, where her husband was eventually based. “I didn’t want to learn hair and make-up; I wanted only to do beauty treatments like massage,” she says. “I’m not a beautician; I’m a therapist.”
Husain and her husband returned to India and settled in New Delhi. Borrowing Rs35,000 from her father in the early 1970s, Husain set up shop at home. She offered free consultations and then charged for natural remedies, a novel concept for a salon at that time in New Delhi, she says. Clients flocked. “The only thing I didn’t have time to do was count all my money,” Husain jokes. Concocting facial scrubs in her store, she named her shop Shahnaz Husain Salon. “I never thought of calling it anything else.”
When clients began asking for lotions to take home, Husain started selling her products in small bottles bought at a local market that she labelled herself. One of her first creations, Shagrain, was inspired by her mother’s recipe of rice and rose petals, herbs and sandalwood oil for a nightly exfoliation. After Husain’s salon had been open five years, a Kolkata client asked her if she could open a franchise salon there. “I didn’t know what a franchise was,” Husain says. “But I agreed anyway.”
The young entrepreneur gave birth to a second child, a son. Today she speaks lovingly of the relationship that gradually blossomed with her husband. In 1987, he resigned from his government post to work with Husain on her business.
When her husband suffered a fatal cardiac arrest in 1997, she says, she nearly died of a broken heart. “I didn’t know life without him.” She also mourns their son, Samir, who died earlier this year after a plunge from his in-laws’ balcony. Husain was told the accident was a suicide. Awaiting the results of an investigation, she said she suspects otherwise.
Today, Husain is married to Raj Kumar Puri, who calls himself an investor and says he isn’t involved in running Husain’s business. She devotes herself to developing products and diversifying her company. Her men’s line, called Man Power, includes a hair-care product called Shalocks, which claims to prevent balding. “Men are the same all over,” she says. “They connect the hair on their head with their virility.” Puri credits his wife’s products for his full head of hair.
Most Shahnaz Husain products are sold at luxury prices, though one of the company’s biggest sellers is its eye kohl—a wide black eyeliner resembling a huge lipstick and crafted, according to vice-president Suresh Kumar, from carbon ash scraped from burned mustard oil mixed with almond oil (“to increase eyelash growth,” Kumar says) and trifala (“to improve vision”).
In India, her Diamond range of skin-care products sells for about Rs760. In recent years, Husain has expanded into more mass-market offerings through her line of skin-whitening cream called Fair One. Such creams are sold throughout Asia. The line had $280 million in sales last year, according to Euromonitor estimates.
Serving as president of the company is Husain’s daughter, Nelofar Currimbhoy, who closely resembles her mother. Currimbhoy is expected to succeed Husain. “She’s an aura; it’s so hard to describe her,” Currimbhoy says of her mother. “I will have very big shoes to fill.” A third generation has joined the executive ranks: Currimbhoy’s son is a vice-president.
Mother and daughter develop new formulations, collaborating with a team of chemists and ayurvedic doctors on staff. Sometimes, they consult ayurveda experts. Often, Husain weighs in. During a recent meeting with her staff, Husain rejected new packaging prototypes for a skin-care line called Shahnaz Ayurveda. The problem: The bottles didn’t bear her photo. “We’ve tried to launch products here without my face on them, and they always fail,” she says. “People need to see me.”
Twice a week, Husain treats her hair with 16 egg whites mixed with lemon juice and olive oil. To keep her enormous mane a deep burgundy, she regularly applies a blend of henna powder, ground coffee beans, lemon juice, tea and as many as 20 eggs.
Nearly 40 years ago, Husain began creating simple beauty treatments in her home based on Ayurveda as well as beauty routines learnt from her mother. Today, Husain, who calls herself “princess” (a title handed down through her mother, who Husain says was a descendant of a royal Mughal family) has adroitly blended earthy tradition with aggressive modern marketing to create an ambitious little beauty empire.
The finances of the family-run company are private, but officials say it encompasses some 300 salon franchises, 53 beauty schools, 3,000 employees and nearly two dozen product lines. “If you ask anyone on the street if they know her, they’d say ‘yes’,” says Yvonne Kok, a Euromonitor International research analyst based in South Asia.
Her potions are sold through an estimated 150,000 stores in India. Internationally, the brand is available from Seoul to Dubai to London.
By drawing on ancient herbal therapies to develop beauty treatments that Husain claims will improve vision, treat decaying teeth, heal dry skin and enhance eyelash growth, among other things—and then marking them up to luxury prices—she is ringing up sales to women drawn to the natural.
Also Read Fresh catch
Husain declines to specify her age beyond saying she’s in her 60s. “You never give your age in the beauty business,” she says in her deep, gravelly voice. Last year she began a direct-selling division in India, enlisting as many as 50,000 representatives, the company says.
Now, Husain says she’s ready for the US. Currently, Shahnaz Husain products have been sold in the US online through Amazon and Indian import shops, salons and grocery stores. Over the next few months, Shahnaz Husain Group of Companies predicts it will introduce its herbal remedies and luxury skin-care lines— made with diamond dust, crushed pearls and flecks of 24-karat gold—through national chains.
“Americans desperately need me. They’ve gone on too long without me,” Husain says. She has firm ideas about what women in the US are lacking. “The American woman is the woman in a hurry,” Husain says. They “need more facials, more skin care, more manicures, more pedicures. Their femininity is very neglected”.
The hurdles are huge. Following Macy’s acquisition of May department stores, negotiating beauty-counter space is harder than ever in the US. And although other speciality retailers, home-shopping networks and drug and grocery stores have expanded their beauty product offerings, plenty of niche brands have joined the market.
Haya Morgenstern, the US distributor for Husain charged with finding a national retailer for the brand, says she plans to approach home-shopping network QVC, speciality beauty retailer Sephora and the Whole Foods grocery chain. Natural beauty products are, “no question, one of the hottest stories in the beauty business”, says Allen Burke, director of beauty merchandising for QVC, which sells a variety of cosmetics and toiletries that emphasize natural ingredients, including Bare Escentuals and Ojon. At Sephora stores, demand for natural and organic beauty products “has continued to grow significantly”, says a company spokeswoman. And at Whole Foods, a representative says that while the company hasn’t seen many ayurvedic beauty products in the market, “we’d love to see more
Recognizing perhaps how different the US market is, Morgenstern has asked product developers to tone down some of the Indian products. Natural cosmetics aficionados Stateside tend to be more sensitive to fragrances, she says, so she’s asked for lighter scents on some items along with emphasizing the essential oils. Colours in certain hair and skin-care products will also be lightened. “Shamla is dark brown; that would be hard to adjust to (in the US),” says Morgenstern, referring to a shampoo enriched with dates and Indian gooseberry.
Husain’s push abroad comes as giant multinationals are aggressively moving on to her turf. In July, Estée Lauder Cos. said it bought a stake in an Indian ayurvedic beauty brand, Forest Essentials. And Procter and Gamble says it is “closely examining the opportunities associated with ayurvedics.” Last year, L’Oréal chief Jean-Paul Agon said the company was hunting for an Indian ayurvedic line to acquire. And in 2002, Unilever’s Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Unilever, created Ayush, a line of ayurvedic beauty and health products. Hindustan Unilever is also a partner in a chain of 47 Ayush Therapy Centres that offer ayurvedic treatments.
“We believe consumers are more and more interested in natural products,” says Daniel Rachmanis, Estée Lauder’s senior vice-president of international business. “It’s a trend that’s going to continue not only in India but around the world.”
Beauty sales in India totalled $6.3 billion (Rs28,350 crore) last year, up 13% over the previous year—more than four times the growth rate of the $52 billion US beauty market, and twice that of the $270 billion global market, according to estimates by consulting and market research firm Kline and Co.
Strolling by a gleaming Forest Essentials shop in Select Citywalk, a new, upscale mall in New Delhi, Husain shrugs off her deeper-pocketed competitors. “They sell their brand; I sell myself,” she says, pointing out several other giant beauty brands that have opened shops in the bustling shopping centre, including Clinique, MAC, The Body Shop and Lancôme. “Besides, those are cosmetics. I’m selling ayurveda—civilization in a jar.”
Assessing India’s enormous beauty market presents challenges because it is highly fragmented and difficult to audit. According to Kline estimates, Husain’s company is India’s market leader for skin-care products sold in salons and through other professional channels, yet it accounts for only 2% of the $630 million natural products market here. People close to the company say the firm draws from $100 million to $200 million in annual revenue.
To chronicle her days and ensure that she always has fresh footage on hand for local media, Husain has one of her staff photographers follow her almost everywhere, often accompanied by a staff cameraman. She prefers to have the right side of her face photographed to better show off a pea-size diamond stud in her nose.
Calling herself a “workaholic”, Husain says she often works until 4am or 5am, concluding her day with a foot massage given by one of her live-in beauticians. Around 26 servants are on 24-hour call in Husain’s main New Delhi residence (according to Husain, she keeps 19 homes in New Delhi, a 35-acre farm, and houses in Mumbai and London). Her round-the-clock assistants include a florist, plumber, carpenter, electrician, phone operator, make-up artist, photographer and hairstylist, in addition to live-in cooks, drivers, housekeepers, tailors and errand runners. The daytime household staff of 60 operates by a system of small buzzers placed on Husain’s favourite chairs in each room.
Senior advisers at her company keep in regular contact with Husain via the two cellphones that she frequently speaks into at the same time, even while multiple callers stand by on her landline.
When Husain needs to call after-hours meetings with company executives, she asks her managers to bring along their families, whom she keeps entertained on a separate floor with games, food and movies. “The wives don’t feel their husbands’ absence when they get to come along,” she says. “That way everyone stays happy.”
In her primary residence, she set up the public sitting room—“the white house”, she calls it—with several white couches covered in faux white fur and dotted with gold-sequined throw pillows. Statues of horses, Buddhas, swans and cherubs, in crystal, porcelain and gold, fill tables and shelves scattered throughout the room, lit by multiple crystal chandeliers.
Husain likes to keep her reflection nearby. Most rooms have mirrors on the walls, and jewelled hand mirrors remain within arm’s reach. A mirror is also attached to the back of the driver’s headrest in her cars, so she can see herself while in transit.
Husain’s fashion taste is also elaborate. She designs all her clothes, which are sewn by four staff tailors and two embroiderers, she says. Before heading to a nearby mall to relax in her favourite New Delhi coffee shop, Husain donned a full-length brown suede jacket with a coordinating top and skirt. The ensemble featured trim and giant pockets made in Louis Vuitton’s brown leather monogram print. “I’ve probably had 11 Louis Vuitton bags cut up to decorate my clothes,” she says, pulling out what looks like a diamond-encrusted Louis Vuitton cellphone. “I’d make a great ambassador for Louis Vuitton, too.”
Reclining in the coffee shop’s lounge chair, Husain was interrupted by one of her omnipresent security guards. Her back was too close to the shop’s busy entrance, inviting an attack, the guard said. Husain says she has received death threats and now takes extra precautions: She travels in one of two cars, employs extra security and frequently changes her daily routine.
Husain was born in Hyderabad to a politically powerful, liberal-minded father and a wealthy, conservative mother. She led a sheltered childhood, which included attending boarding school and riding in chauffeured cars with curtained windows, in keeping with her mother’s view of propriety. But from an early age, Husain had a hunger for publicity. “When there was lightning, I would run outdoors,” she says. “I’d tell everyone, ‘God is taking my picture!’”
She excelled in school, making her father proud. “I lived to please him,” Husain says. But her outgoing personality troubled her mother. “‘This girl is going to get out of control; let’s get her married,’ my mother said.” By age 14, Husain was engaged; she met her fiancé only once in a supervised gathering. “I was told there was a boy here I was to marry,” she says. “I walked into the room, said hello, and then walked out. That’s all I saw of him.”
Married at 15, she became a mother within a year. Then restlessness set in. “I cried every day; I was so bored,” she recalls. To pass time, she started attending beauty classes in New Delhi. Eventually, Husain’s father arranged for her husband, who worked for the Indian government, to land a post abroad.
In London, Husain enrolled in a course at Helena Rubinstein. She also took classes offered by L’Oréal, Schwarzkopf and other beauty companies in Tehran, where her husband was eventually based. “I didn’t want to learn hair and make-up; I wanted only to do beauty treatments like massage,” she says. “I’m not a beautician; I’m a therapist.”
Husain and her husband returned to India and settled in New Delhi. Borrowing Rs35,000 from her father in the early 1970s, Husain set up shop at home. She offered free consultations and then charged for natural remedies, a novel concept for a salon at that time in New Delhi, she says. Clients flocked. “The only thing I didn’t have time to do was count all my money,” Husain jokes. Concocting facial scrubs in her store, she named her shop Shahnaz Husain Salon. “I never thought of calling it anything else.”
When clients began asking for lotions to take home, Husain started selling her products in small bottles bought at a local market that she labelled herself. One of her first creations, Shagrain, was inspired by her mother’s recipe of rice and rose petals, herbs and sandalwood oil for a nightly exfoliation. After Husain’s salon had been open five years, a Kolkata client asked her if she could open a franchise salon there. “I didn’t know what a franchise was,” Husain says. “But I agreed anyway.”
The young entrepreneur gave birth to a second child, a son. Today she speaks lovingly of the relationship that gradually blossomed with her husband. In 1987, he resigned from his government post to work with Husain on her business.
When her husband suffered a fatal cardiac arrest in 1997, she says, she nearly died of a broken heart. “I didn’t know life without him.” She also mourns their son, Samir, who died earlier this year after a plunge from his in-laws’ balcony. Husain was told the accident was a suicide. Awaiting the results of an investigation, she said she suspects otherwise.
Today, Husain is married to Raj Kumar Puri, who calls himself an investor and says he isn’t involved in running Husain’s business. She devotes herself to developing products and diversifying her company. Her men’s line, called Man Power, includes a hair-care product called Shalocks, which claims to prevent balding. “Men are the same all over,” she says. “They connect the hair on their head with their virility.” Puri credits his wife’s products for his full head of hair.
Most Shahnaz Husain products are sold at luxury prices, though one of the company’s biggest sellers is its eye kohl—a wide black eyeliner resembling a huge lipstick and crafted, according to vice-president Suresh Kumar, from carbon ash scraped from burned mustard oil mixed with almond oil (“to increase eyelash growth,” Kumar says) and trifala (“to improve vision”).
In India, her Diamond range of skin-care products sells for about Rs760. In recent years, Husain has expanded into more mass-market offerings through her line of skin-whitening cream called Fair One. Such creams are sold throughout Asia. The line had $280 million in sales last year, according to Euromonitor estimates.
Serving as president of the company is Husain’s daughter, Nelofar Currimbhoy, who closely resembles her mother. Currimbhoy is expected to succeed Husain. “She’s an aura; it’s so hard to describe her,” Currimbhoy says of her mother. “I will have very big shoes to fill.” A third generation has joined the executive ranks: Currimbhoy’s son is a vice-president.
Mother and daughter develop new formulations, collaborating with a team of chemists and ayurvedic doctors on staff. Sometimes, they consult ayurveda experts. Often, Husain weighs in. During a recent meeting with her staff, Husain rejected new packaging prototypes for a skin-care line called Shahnaz Ayurveda. The problem: The bottles didn’t bear her photo. “We’ve tried to launch products here without my face on them, and they always fail,” she says. “People need to see me.”
Columnists - Vir Sanghvi;Roles that went on to make movie history
It’s funny how so much of the media hype surrounding the release of the new Indiana Jones movie (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) focused on Harrison Ford. Was he young enough to play the iconic role? Would he still be convincing in the action sequences? And so on.
Funny, because the role was not written for Ford. Indiana Jones grew out of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’ desire to make “a James Bond movie without all the gadgetry”. They tested several actors for the part but their heart was set on Tom Selleck. Unfortunately for Selleck, he had signed on to star in the TV series, Magnum PI, and his network would not release him — not even for Spielberg and Lucas. Desperate for a leading man, Lucas fell back on Ford who had zoomed to stardom in the Star Wars movies. Ford was not wild about Indiana Jones but then, he’d never been wild about Star Wars either. Spielberg and Lucas thought he had the necessary physicality for the role and persuaded him to star in Raiders of the Lost Ark. When that film became a hit, the Indiana Jones franchise was created and the role became indelibly associated with Ford.
Casting is one of those Hollywood mysteries. The right cast can make a movie soar. The wrong casting can destroy it. When Mike Nichols was making the movie of Nora Ephron’s best-seller Heartburn, he cast Mandy Patinkin in the Carl Bernstein role (the book was about the break-up of Ephron’s marriage to Bernstein). Patinkin walked out and Nichols affected not to mind, signing Jack Nicholson, one of the world’s biggest stars, instead. But Nicholson was too Irish for the role, never quite made his character seem convincing and his performance sank the picture. Patinkin was no star but he would have been a better choice.
Often, stars who decline roles because they realize they are wrong for them, do big favours to unknowns. David Lean wanted to cast Albert Finney as TE Lawrence in his Lawrence of Arabia. When Finney turned him down, he went for the unknown Peter O’Toole who looked nothing like the real Lawrence (who was something of a midget.) The casting worked and who can now think of the movie without thinking of O’Toole’s performance?
One other star turned Lawrence of Arabia down. Lean’s original choice for Sharif Ali was Dilip Kumar. Kumar thought abut the offer and then decided that he’d rather be king of the Bombay film industry than co-star to some Western unknown. So, Lean cast Omar Sharif who few people had heard of, even in West Asia.
Many years later, I asked Kumar if he regretted turning down the role that made Sharif an international star. He said he didn’t. But surely, I persisted, he must regret not becoming an internationally renowned actor. He was ambivalent. “How do you know I would have been convincing as a Arab?” he asked. “Maybe the film would not have done so well if they had cast me.”
Lean had bad luck with Indians, anyway. In the 1960s he was slated to direct Gandhi (which Richard Attenborough made two decades later, eventually) and asked Alec Guinness to play the title role, claiming that there was no Indian actor who could do justice to the character. The project floundered but, in the 1980s, when Lean made A Passage to India, he cast Guinness as Professor Godbole, a horrific piece of miscasting that turned the movie into a laughing stock.
But Lean was merely advancing the Western preference for white actors in brown-face that was normal practice in the film industry in those days. In Nine Hours to Rama, about Gandhiji’s assassination, Nathuram Godse was played by the German Horst Buchholz and Robert Morley played a character based on Morarji Desai! Even when Attenborough finally made Gandhi (with Indian money) he refused to cast an Indian in the lead role choosing the stage actor Ben Kingsley over say, Naseeruddin Shah (who, I think, would have been much better) and claiming that Kingsley’s Indian ancestry meant that the role had gone to an Indian.
Casting is less important in Hindi movies. Hrishikesh Mukherjee wanted to make Anand in the 1950s with Raj Kapoor. Eventually, he made it with Rajesh Khanna but it is hard to see whether the casting improved the film. Even when Karan Johar produced a virtual remake in Kal Ho Na Ho, with Shah Rukh Khan, the choice of lead actor made little difference to the subject.
On the other hand, Amitabh Bachchan owes his career to casting choices. Prakash Mehra offered the lead role in Zanjeer to the entire Bombay industry (including Jeetendra and Raj Kumar). It was only when they all turned him down that he cast Bachchan. Today it is impossible to imagine any other actor in that role — and it became the first rung on Bachchan’s journey to superstardom.
Similarly, Bachchan was not supposed to be in Sholay. While other actors were being considered, he spoke to Dharmendra who had already been cast. Dharmendra is the sort of man who never turns down anybody who asks for a favour, so he agreed to get Ramesh Sippy to cast Bachchan as his co-star.
But the real enigma of Sholay is: What would Danny Denzongpa have been like as Gabbar Singh? He was Ramesh Sippy’s original choice and it was only when Danny said he was unavailable that an unknown actor called Amjad Khan got his first break. My guess, for what it’s worth, is that Danny would have played Gabbar differently, but that he would have been as good as Amjad was.
These days I’m less and less convinced that casting matters in Hindi movies. Most films have little in the way of characterization and the roles are written so that any actor can play them. Only in Hollywood does casting still matter.
If you don’t believe me, pull out a DVD of the second Tim Burton Batman movie and see Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman. Then, watch Halle Berry’s version from the eponymous movie.
You’ll see the difference a good actor can make.
Funny, because the role was not written for Ford. Indiana Jones grew out of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’ desire to make “a James Bond movie without all the gadgetry”. They tested several actors for the part but their heart was set on Tom Selleck. Unfortunately for Selleck, he had signed on to star in the TV series, Magnum PI, and his network would not release him — not even for Spielberg and Lucas. Desperate for a leading man, Lucas fell back on Ford who had zoomed to stardom in the Star Wars movies. Ford was not wild about Indiana Jones but then, he’d never been wild about Star Wars either. Spielberg and Lucas thought he had the necessary physicality for the role and persuaded him to star in Raiders of the Lost Ark. When that film became a hit, the Indiana Jones franchise was created and the role became indelibly associated with Ford.
Casting is one of those Hollywood mysteries. The right cast can make a movie soar. The wrong casting can destroy it. When Mike Nichols was making the movie of Nora Ephron’s best-seller Heartburn, he cast Mandy Patinkin in the Carl Bernstein role (the book was about the break-up of Ephron’s marriage to Bernstein). Patinkin walked out and Nichols affected not to mind, signing Jack Nicholson, one of the world’s biggest stars, instead. But Nicholson was too Irish for the role, never quite made his character seem convincing and his performance sank the picture. Patinkin was no star but he would have been a better choice.
Often, stars who decline roles because they realize they are wrong for them, do big favours to unknowns. David Lean wanted to cast Albert Finney as TE Lawrence in his Lawrence of Arabia. When Finney turned him down, he went for the unknown Peter O’Toole who looked nothing like the real Lawrence (who was something of a midget.) The casting worked and who can now think of the movie without thinking of O’Toole’s performance?
One other star turned Lawrence of Arabia down. Lean’s original choice for Sharif Ali was Dilip Kumar. Kumar thought abut the offer and then decided that he’d rather be king of the Bombay film industry than co-star to some Western unknown. So, Lean cast Omar Sharif who few people had heard of, even in West Asia.
Many years later, I asked Kumar if he regretted turning down the role that made Sharif an international star. He said he didn’t. But surely, I persisted, he must regret not becoming an internationally renowned actor. He was ambivalent. “How do you know I would have been convincing as a Arab?” he asked. “Maybe the film would not have done so well if they had cast me.”
Lean had bad luck with Indians, anyway. In the 1960s he was slated to direct Gandhi (which Richard Attenborough made two decades later, eventually) and asked Alec Guinness to play the title role, claiming that there was no Indian actor who could do justice to the character. The project floundered but, in the 1980s, when Lean made A Passage to India, he cast Guinness as Professor Godbole, a horrific piece of miscasting that turned the movie into a laughing stock.
But Lean was merely advancing the Western preference for white actors in brown-face that was normal practice in the film industry in those days. In Nine Hours to Rama, about Gandhiji’s assassination, Nathuram Godse was played by the German Horst Buchholz and Robert Morley played a character based on Morarji Desai! Even when Attenborough finally made Gandhi (with Indian money) he refused to cast an Indian in the lead role choosing the stage actor Ben Kingsley over say, Naseeruddin Shah (who, I think, would have been much better) and claiming that Kingsley’s Indian ancestry meant that the role had gone to an Indian.
Casting is less important in Hindi movies. Hrishikesh Mukherjee wanted to make Anand in the 1950s with Raj Kapoor. Eventually, he made it with Rajesh Khanna but it is hard to see whether the casting improved the film. Even when Karan Johar produced a virtual remake in Kal Ho Na Ho, with Shah Rukh Khan, the choice of lead actor made little difference to the subject.
On the other hand, Amitabh Bachchan owes his career to casting choices. Prakash Mehra offered the lead role in Zanjeer to the entire Bombay industry (including Jeetendra and Raj Kumar). It was only when they all turned him down that he cast Bachchan. Today it is impossible to imagine any other actor in that role — and it became the first rung on Bachchan’s journey to superstardom.
Similarly, Bachchan was not supposed to be in Sholay. While other actors were being considered, he spoke to Dharmendra who had already been cast. Dharmendra is the sort of man who never turns down anybody who asks for a favour, so he agreed to get Ramesh Sippy to cast Bachchan as his co-star.
But the real enigma of Sholay is: What would Danny Denzongpa have been like as Gabbar Singh? He was Ramesh Sippy’s original choice and it was only when Danny said he was unavailable that an unknown actor called Amjad Khan got his first break. My guess, for what it’s worth, is that Danny would have played Gabbar differently, but that he would have been as good as Amjad was.
These days I’m less and less convinced that casting matters in Hindi movies. Most films have little in the way of characterization and the roles are written so that any actor can play them. Only in Hollywood does casting still matter.
If you don’t believe me, pull out a DVD of the second Tim Burton Batman movie and see Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman. Then, watch Halle Berry’s version from the eponymous movie.
You’ll see the difference a good actor can make.
India - Direct Cash Transfer no panacea by itself (V.G.Read)
Mihir Shah
Any anti-poverty programme will work only if it leads to an end to dependence on doles. To end this dependence, sustainable livelihoods must be created for the poor.
Anti-poverty programmes will work only if they lead to sustainable livelihoods and end dependence on doles. This requires stronger people’s institutions, appropriate technology, skill development, leveraging markets and adequate public investment.
Direct cash transfer (DCT) is the current buzzword on the development circuit. Economist Arvind Subramanian, in India to promote his new book, regards DCT as the “first best option” to address poverty in India (The Hindu, August 24, 2008). In a recent article in the Economic and Political Weekly (April 12, 2008), Subramanian joins Devesh Kapur and Partha Mukhopadhyay (KMS) to present a more elaborate case for DCT. As KMS say, putting together the current annual allocations for centrally sponsored schemes with food, fertilizer and fuel subsidies, we get a figure of nearly Rs. 2,00,000 crore. They ask: “Is this enormous expenditure through centralised mechanisms the best way of improving the welfare of India’s poor and achieving India’s development objectives?” Why not, instead, transfer Rs. 1 crore per annum to each gram panchayat? A mouth-watering figure, indeed!
No wonder, there is an almost irresistible seductiveness in the idea of DCT. But it is also a reflection of great intellectual, policy and political ennui. KMS suggest a two-fold path for redirecting central expenditures — outright transfers to individuals and transfers to local government. The expenditures they wish to cover this way include the Public Distribution System (PDS) for food and fuel, fertilizer subsidies, rural housing (Indira Awas Yojana) and the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY), which account for more than Rs. 70,000 crore in the 2008-09 budget.
But the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) is already based on DCT. Obviously, houses are not being transferred to the rural poor. The problem is translation of cash into houses. Thoughtless policy-making has meant that the IAY transfers crores of rupees to gram panchayats and “poor” families each year but these families routinely do not undertake quality housing with that money. One, because that money is just not sufficient to build houses. Two, because at times families have other needs that gain priority over housing. Three, because families do not have other inputs required (skilled masons, materials, etc).
A reckless exercise
Even more serious is the case of the SGSY, under which loans are provided for income-generating activities. In a typical bureaucratic drive to meet targets, little attention is paid to assessing whether families have access to technologies and markets, which would ensure that the loans work. The major consequence of such reckless direct cash transfers under the SGSY has been the conversion of many of India’s poor into bank loan defaulters, no longer able to access formal sector credit.
No magic bullet
The SGSY is a classic case study of mistaking microfinance for a magic bullet. As innumerable studies have shown, microfinance works only under very specific circumstances. The transfer of cash is hardly the constraint. There are so many concomitant conditions of success that need to be present for credit to engender sustainable livelihoods. Any anti-poverty programme will work only if it leads to an end to dependence on doles (what in a more glorified term is called direct cash transfer). To end this dependence, sustainable livelihoods must be created for the poor. And this demands skills, markets, technology, material inputs, infrastructure and institutions.
KMS believe we should learn to trust the poor to use these resources better than the state. But it is not really a question of trust at all. For, even a completely trustworthy poor person will not be able to do much with the cash directly transferred to her unless the conditions required to translate this cash into enduring outcomes are present. The question is not merely one of placing trust in the entity concerned (the poor, the bureaucracy or even gram panchayats) and leaving the rest to fate, as it were. The issue is one of setting up systems and creation of an environment that facilitates enforcement of accountability by the gram sabha on whoever is made the “trustee” of public resources. The issue is not primarily of directness or otherwise of transfer. It is much more about ensuring effective utilisation of this cash, which needs both developmental inputs (markets, technologies, skills, materials) and political ones (social mobilisation to strengthen monitoring mechanisms and institutions).
PDS inequities
As for the PDS, it is not clear how cash transfers will allow the poor to buy grain from the open market at a time of steep inflation. The problem is that the PDS is characterised by a whole range of inequities — its coverage is the weakest in the neediest regions and it fails to cover crops grown and eaten by the poorest. The way forward is to reform the PDS and extend its reach to and density in the poorest parts, where need is the greatest.
The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is upheld as a positive example of DCT. But viewing it as a mere cash transfer scheme would actually guarantee its failure. The NREGS is not an old-style famine relief kind of welfare programme. This is a development initiative providing crucial public investments, which can trigger private investment in the most backward regions. It visualises the involvement of local people in every decision — whether it be selection of works and worksites, implementation of projects or their social audit. This requires a new bottom-up, people-centred approach to planning of works and social audit. But so far the social mobilisers and technical personnel required to make this a reality have not been supplied. The Schedules of Rates remain the same that the contractor-raj used. They underpay labour and discriminate against women. If we view the NREGS merely as a means of cash transfer, we will fail to attend to these critically important dimensions that need urgent change.
Unfinished agenda
A final word of caution. It has become fashionable among scholars of rural India to wave Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs) as some kind of politically correct magic wand. A solution for all ills. We certainly see PRIs as critical to the success of programmes like the NREGS, even to the future of Indian democracy itself. But PRIs in large parts of India today are nothing more than work-in-progress. They have a very long way to go before they can become instruments of democracy and development at the grass roots. They need massive support from the state for them to be able to realise their potential. This is the whole unfinished agenda of reform of rural governance, the reform of the public sector in rural development.
Since the 1990s, India has been hailed as a great success story of reforms. India’s elevated rates of growth have been attributed to a new liberalised policy regime. It has also been acknowledged, at the same time, that this process has failed to draw into its ambit millions of rural Indians who have suffered unprecedented distress, whether in the form of hunger (malnourished children, anaemic women) or farmers’ suicide. And this has happened despite thousands of crores being spent in the name of rural development each year. A major part of the explanation for this lies in the very poor quality of implementation of these programmes. This persists because, unlike India’s corporates, our rural poor do not have a voice in pushing for reforms that matter to them. Even Left-leaning politicians across the political spectrum or civil society activists, all of whom claim to speak for the rural poor, have failed to make reforms in the rural public sector, a key ingredient of their political agenda. This means rural Indians have to continue to cope with the same corrupt and insensitive bureaucracy that has ruled their lives since independence. Rural development desperately needs infusion of professional inputs. It is high time we gave up thinking of rural development as routine administrative work. Or charity. At the same time, we need to build strong systems of transparency and accountability into anti-poverty programmes.
Without these changes, a constant reference to PRIs as the answer will only amount to buttressing abdication by the state of its responsibility for rural development. A misplaced Gandhian over-emphasis on “voluntarism” will also end up only reinforcing this tendency of the state to withdraw. It is patently unfair to burden PRIs with massive tasks of development without providing them the requisite support. Funds, functions and functionaries are all vital (as the PRI Minister likes to say). But more than that a reformed, accountable, performing system.
Thus, anti-poverty programmes to succeed demand more than cash transfers (whatever the degree of their directness). They require that simultaneously many challenges be addressed — strengthening people’s institutions, extension of appropriate technology, skill development, leveraging markets for the poor and wise and adequate public investment. Only then can sustainable livelihoods be generated and an end visualised to both poverty and anti-poverty programmes.
(An economist by training, the writer lives and works among the Adivasis of central India to help engender sustainable rural livelihoods.)
Any anti-poverty programme will work only if it leads to an end to dependence on doles. To end this dependence, sustainable livelihoods must be created for the poor.
Anti-poverty programmes will work only if they lead to sustainable livelihoods and end dependence on doles. This requires stronger people’s institutions, appropriate technology, skill development, leveraging markets and adequate public investment.
Direct cash transfer (DCT) is the current buzzword on the development circuit. Economist Arvind Subramanian, in India to promote his new book, regards DCT as the “first best option” to address poverty in India (The Hindu, August 24, 2008). In a recent article in the Economic and Political Weekly (April 12, 2008), Subramanian joins Devesh Kapur and Partha Mukhopadhyay (KMS) to present a more elaborate case for DCT. As KMS say, putting together the current annual allocations for centrally sponsored schemes with food, fertilizer and fuel subsidies, we get a figure of nearly Rs. 2,00,000 crore. They ask: “Is this enormous expenditure through centralised mechanisms the best way of improving the welfare of India’s poor and achieving India’s development objectives?” Why not, instead, transfer Rs. 1 crore per annum to each gram panchayat? A mouth-watering figure, indeed!
No wonder, there is an almost irresistible seductiveness in the idea of DCT. But it is also a reflection of great intellectual, policy and political ennui. KMS suggest a two-fold path for redirecting central expenditures — outright transfers to individuals and transfers to local government. The expenditures they wish to cover this way include the Public Distribution System (PDS) for food and fuel, fertilizer subsidies, rural housing (Indira Awas Yojana) and the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY), which account for more than Rs. 70,000 crore in the 2008-09 budget.
But the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) is already based on DCT. Obviously, houses are not being transferred to the rural poor. The problem is translation of cash into houses. Thoughtless policy-making has meant that the IAY transfers crores of rupees to gram panchayats and “poor” families each year but these families routinely do not undertake quality housing with that money. One, because that money is just not sufficient to build houses. Two, because at times families have other needs that gain priority over housing. Three, because families do not have other inputs required (skilled masons, materials, etc).
A reckless exercise
Even more serious is the case of the SGSY, under which loans are provided for income-generating activities. In a typical bureaucratic drive to meet targets, little attention is paid to assessing whether families have access to technologies and markets, which would ensure that the loans work. The major consequence of such reckless direct cash transfers under the SGSY has been the conversion of many of India’s poor into bank loan defaulters, no longer able to access formal sector credit.
No magic bullet
The SGSY is a classic case study of mistaking microfinance for a magic bullet. As innumerable studies have shown, microfinance works only under very specific circumstances. The transfer of cash is hardly the constraint. There are so many concomitant conditions of success that need to be present for credit to engender sustainable livelihoods. Any anti-poverty programme will work only if it leads to an end to dependence on doles (what in a more glorified term is called direct cash transfer). To end this dependence, sustainable livelihoods must be created for the poor. And this demands skills, markets, technology, material inputs, infrastructure and institutions.
KMS believe we should learn to trust the poor to use these resources better than the state. But it is not really a question of trust at all. For, even a completely trustworthy poor person will not be able to do much with the cash directly transferred to her unless the conditions required to translate this cash into enduring outcomes are present. The question is not merely one of placing trust in the entity concerned (the poor, the bureaucracy or even gram panchayats) and leaving the rest to fate, as it were. The issue is one of setting up systems and creation of an environment that facilitates enforcement of accountability by the gram sabha on whoever is made the “trustee” of public resources. The issue is not primarily of directness or otherwise of transfer. It is much more about ensuring effective utilisation of this cash, which needs both developmental inputs (markets, technologies, skills, materials) and political ones (social mobilisation to strengthen monitoring mechanisms and institutions).
PDS inequities
As for the PDS, it is not clear how cash transfers will allow the poor to buy grain from the open market at a time of steep inflation. The problem is that the PDS is characterised by a whole range of inequities — its coverage is the weakest in the neediest regions and it fails to cover crops grown and eaten by the poorest. The way forward is to reform the PDS and extend its reach to and density in the poorest parts, where need is the greatest.
The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is upheld as a positive example of DCT. But viewing it as a mere cash transfer scheme would actually guarantee its failure. The NREGS is not an old-style famine relief kind of welfare programme. This is a development initiative providing crucial public investments, which can trigger private investment in the most backward regions. It visualises the involvement of local people in every decision — whether it be selection of works and worksites, implementation of projects or their social audit. This requires a new bottom-up, people-centred approach to planning of works and social audit. But so far the social mobilisers and technical personnel required to make this a reality have not been supplied. The Schedules of Rates remain the same that the contractor-raj used. They underpay labour and discriminate against women. If we view the NREGS merely as a means of cash transfer, we will fail to attend to these critically important dimensions that need urgent change.
Unfinished agenda
A final word of caution. It has become fashionable among scholars of rural India to wave Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs) as some kind of politically correct magic wand. A solution for all ills. We certainly see PRIs as critical to the success of programmes like the NREGS, even to the future of Indian democracy itself. But PRIs in large parts of India today are nothing more than work-in-progress. They have a very long way to go before they can become instruments of democracy and development at the grass roots. They need massive support from the state for them to be able to realise their potential. This is the whole unfinished agenda of reform of rural governance, the reform of the public sector in rural development.
Since the 1990s, India has been hailed as a great success story of reforms. India’s elevated rates of growth have been attributed to a new liberalised policy regime. It has also been acknowledged, at the same time, that this process has failed to draw into its ambit millions of rural Indians who have suffered unprecedented distress, whether in the form of hunger (malnourished children, anaemic women) or farmers’ suicide. And this has happened despite thousands of crores being spent in the name of rural development each year. A major part of the explanation for this lies in the very poor quality of implementation of these programmes. This persists because, unlike India’s corporates, our rural poor do not have a voice in pushing for reforms that matter to them. Even Left-leaning politicians across the political spectrum or civil society activists, all of whom claim to speak for the rural poor, have failed to make reforms in the rural public sector, a key ingredient of their political agenda. This means rural Indians have to continue to cope with the same corrupt and insensitive bureaucracy that has ruled their lives since independence. Rural development desperately needs infusion of professional inputs. It is high time we gave up thinking of rural development as routine administrative work. Or charity. At the same time, we need to build strong systems of transparency and accountability into anti-poverty programmes.
Without these changes, a constant reference to PRIs as the answer will only amount to buttressing abdication by the state of its responsibility for rural development. A misplaced Gandhian over-emphasis on “voluntarism” will also end up only reinforcing this tendency of the state to withdraw. It is patently unfair to burden PRIs with massive tasks of development without providing them the requisite support. Funds, functions and functionaries are all vital (as the PRI Minister likes to say). But more than that a reformed, accountable, performing system.
Thus, anti-poverty programmes to succeed demand more than cash transfers (whatever the degree of their directness). They require that simultaneously many challenges be addressed — strengthening people’s institutions, extension of appropriate technology, skill development, leveraging markets for the poor and wise and adequate public investment. Only then can sustainable livelihoods be generated and an end visualised to both poverty and anti-poverty programmes.
(An economist by training, the writer lives and works among the Adivasis of central India to help engender sustainable rural livelihoods.)
India - Reforming property registration
Property registration in India involves a minimum of six procedures and takes 62 days and costs 7.7 per cent of the property value, says the World Bank 2008 report on “Doing Business in India.” Transparency International India’s study estimates that people, especially the poor, pay Rs.1,234 million a year as bribe to access land-related records and services. It is not surprising that India is ranked 112 among the 178 countries surveyed for efficiency in property transactions. The process of property registration is cumbersome and tedious, and the land records are fragmented, outdated and least transparent. In the past, land records were organised primarily for the purpose of land tax and when tax regime changed they lost sustained attention. These records still remain a part of the revenue department and there is no real time integration with the registration department that oversees property transactions. To add to the woes, the land survey and town survey maps are also not periodically reviewed and corrected. This situation has led to increased land disputes, burgeoning legal and transaction costs, and the buyer being left without a guaranteed title to the property.
The Union Ministry of Rural Development recently announced that computerisation of land records will be hastened and a new system that guaranteed title to the registered property will be put in place. Computerisation of land records commenced in 1991 but has not progressed well in many States. Speeding up the process is certainly the first step and, to its credit, the Centre has allotted substantial funds for this task. However, the State governments need to match this effort since land is a State subject. The reform is not just about technology upgradation. At the core of the exercise should be a thorough overhaul of the system so that it facilitates efficient registration and better land reforms. Currently, the registration system offers no further assurance or guarantee to the title beyond what the seller claims. By integrating various records and verifying them, the reforms are expected to guarantee the title of the property. This is not an easy task. Experience elsewhere has shown that it will be wise to avoid boundary verifications of property and the attendant disputes. Suggestions have been made that the system should remain focussed on title verification and record integration. Apart from technological solutions, it requires well trained staff, who will enable a quick and efficient use of records and delivery of services.
The Union Ministry of Rural Development recently announced that computerisation of land records will be hastened and a new system that guaranteed title to the registered property will be put in place. Computerisation of land records commenced in 1991 but has not progressed well in many States. Speeding up the process is certainly the first step and, to its credit, the Centre has allotted substantial funds for this task. However, the State governments need to match this effort since land is a State subject. The reform is not just about technology upgradation. At the core of the exercise should be a thorough overhaul of the system so that it facilitates efficient registration and better land reforms. Currently, the registration system offers no further assurance or guarantee to the title beyond what the seller claims. By integrating various records and verifying them, the reforms are expected to guarantee the title of the property. This is not an easy task. Experience elsewhere has shown that it will be wise to avoid boundary verifications of property and the attendant disputes. Suggestions have been made that the system should remain focussed on title verification and record integration. Apart from technological solutions, it requires well trained staff, who will enable a quick and efficient use of records and delivery of services.
India - Resist draconian measures
A persistent political myth is that tougher, more draconian laws can tackle terrorism. Subscription to the myth is an admission of failure to take the right steps to combat the menace — such as beefing up the intelligence apparatus, identifying and choking the source of funding for terrorist groups, and addressing the combination of social, political, and economic grievances that feed the growing monster. The serial bomb blasts in Delhi have led to official reactions that suggest the United Progressive Alliance government is losing its nerve, as evidenced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s announcement that he “was considering legislation to further strengthen the anti-terrorism law.” While the promulgation of a new anti-terror law has been ruled out following a Cabinet meeting, the ‘strengthening’ is apparently to be done by amending the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2004 (UAPA). There are legitimate fears that draconian provisions that bear a worrying similarity to those in the repealed Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) may creep in. For instance, among the changes reportedly being discussed are tougher bail provisions to keep the accused in jail beyond a three-month period. Under ordinary criminal law, an accused in custody can get bail if the prosecution fails to file a charge sheet within 90 days of his or her arrest.
One of the most abused provisions of POTA was that accused could seek bail only a year from the date of detention. If such provisions find their way into UAPA, the Congress-led regime will stand accused of smuggling in through the backdoor the very law it repealed. Already UAPA, which was passed to replace POTA, contains a number of sections that are virtual reproductions of the latter. What made the difference was the exclusion of some of POTA’s most draconian provisions — such as those relating to bail, confessions (admissible as evidence even if made to police), and the shifting of the burden of proof (to the accused). It is virtually certain that draconian laws will be targeted at political opponents and members of marginalised communities. Moreover, India’s decade-long experience with POTA’s equally notorious predecessor — the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act — should have taught it that they simply do not do their job. Of the 67,000 persons detained under TADA from its enactment in 1985 to August 1994, as many as 59,509 had no case brought before them. The conviction rate? Around one per cent. The UPA government must hold its nerve and not vacillate in the face of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s aggressive campaign for draconian anti-terror provisions that violate civil liberties, democratic rights, and proper standards for a fair trial.
One of the most abused provisions of POTA was that accused could seek bail only a year from the date of detention. If such provisions find their way into UAPA, the Congress-led regime will stand accused of smuggling in through the backdoor the very law it repealed. Already UAPA, which was passed to replace POTA, contains a number of sections that are virtual reproductions of the latter. What made the difference was the exclusion of some of POTA’s most draconian provisions — such as those relating to bail, confessions (admissible as evidence even if made to police), and the shifting of the burden of proof (to the accused). It is virtually certain that draconian laws will be targeted at political opponents and members of marginalised communities. Moreover, India’s decade-long experience with POTA’s equally notorious predecessor — the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act — should have taught it that they simply do not do their job. Of the 67,000 persons detained under TADA from its enactment in 1985 to August 1994, as many as 59,509 had no case brought before them. The conviction rate? Around one per cent. The UPA government must hold its nerve and not vacillate in the face of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s aggressive campaign for draconian anti-terror provisions that violate civil liberties, democratic rights, and proper standards for a fair trial.
Sports Columnist - Peter Roebuck;Kumble & McGain have a lot in common
Anil Kumble and Bryce McGain have a lot in common. Both have entered their mid-thirties as surprisingly sane people. Both eschew glamour. Put them alongside each other and try to guess which man until recently worked in a bank.
Both took up an absurdly difficult style of bowling, a style demanding a contortion of body and wrist so tricky that hardly anyone survives exposure to it.
The game is strewn with the hopes of wrist-spinners forced into submission by their calling. They live for the beauty of the perfect leg break and are sustained by occasional instances only to be driven back towards dementia when the next ball lands yards from its intended destination.
Survivors
Kumble and McGain belong to the small group of survivors. They stripped their craft to its basics much as an apprentice does the engine of a car. They understand how to put it back together.
Both are superbly accurate, a product of many hours spent toiling away, patiently seeking rhythm, gradually adding variety, slowly gaining knowledge and always wanting to remain in control. After all their calling is already a gamble. All the more reason to go about it in a calm and methodical manner.
Of course a few differences can also be found, technically, temperamentally and in terms of achievement. McGain is fresh and orthodox. His counterpart is long serving and severe.
Kumble has made his mark in the history books as one of the finest spinners the game has known. At first he was underestimated, with his flat deliveries, flippers, googlies and dry manner.
Cast as suited only to dustbowls, he was not for an unconscionable time put in the top rank. It did not bother him. He has always been able to concentrate on the next ball.
But Kumble persisted and improved and critics met him midway, admitting that on closer inspection he was a subtle operator with a wide range of deliveries to his disposal. He learnt to vary his pace on docile decks, became less reliant on pressure, more prepared to risk runs in search of wickets, more wiling to try to beat the batsmen in the air as well as off the pitch. In short he matured into a complete bowler.
Different history
McGain’s history is a little bit different. He grew up in the shadow of Shane Warne, whose attractions set him apart. And not just in his shadow, in his country, in his State, in his city.
It not so much that anyone thought badly of him. No one thought about him at all. Occasionally the Victorian selectors nodded at him but fame proved to be fleeting. Mostly he turned out every weekend for his club, landed his breakers on the spot, took wickets, combed his hair and went home.
But something kept him playing. By and large Australians stop playing club cricket in their late twenties owing to the call of wives, shopping, children and other splendid activities.
McGain gathered these attributes yet kept playing for his club. Leg-spinners are a breed apart. It is a love affair, and a torment.
Then Warne retired and the State selectors began to look around. No one had appeared in his wake. Lots had tried. So they sent for the old timer still playing in the parks.
McGain played for Victoria and landed the ball on the same spot and without ever appearing menacing took a steady stream of wickets.
Next Stuart MacGill withdrew and the field was open.
McGain is 36 and in the forthcoming series will provide the accurate spin needed to counterpoint the pace attack. Kumble is 37 and supposedly past it.
Both took up an absurdly difficult style of bowling, a style demanding a contortion of body and wrist so tricky that hardly anyone survives exposure to it.
The game is strewn with the hopes of wrist-spinners forced into submission by their calling. They live for the beauty of the perfect leg break and are sustained by occasional instances only to be driven back towards dementia when the next ball lands yards from its intended destination.
Survivors
Kumble and McGain belong to the small group of survivors. They stripped their craft to its basics much as an apprentice does the engine of a car. They understand how to put it back together.
Both are superbly accurate, a product of many hours spent toiling away, patiently seeking rhythm, gradually adding variety, slowly gaining knowledge and always wanting to remain in control. After all their calling is already a gamble. All the more reason to go about it in a calm and methodical manner.
Of course a few differences can also be found, technically, temperamentally and in terms of achievement. McGain is fresh and orthodox. His counterpart is long serving and severe.
Kumble has made his mark in the history books as one of the finest spinners the game has known. At first he was underestimated, with his flat deliveries, flippers, googlies and dry manner.
Cast as suited only to dustbowls, he was not for an unconscionable time put in the top rank. It did not bother him. He has always been able to concentrate on the next ball.
But Kumble persisted and improved and critics met him midway, admitting that on closer inspection he was a subtle operator with a wide range of deliveries to his disposal. He learnt to vary his pace on docile decks, became less reliant on pressure, more prepared to risk runs in search of wickets, more wiling to try to beat the batsmen in the air as well as off the pitch. In short he matured into a complete bowler.
Different history
McGain’s history is a little bit different. He grew up in the shadow of Shane Warne, whose attractions set him apart. And not just in his shadow, in his country, in his State, in his city.
It not so much that anyone thought badly of him. No one thought about him at all. Occasionally the Victorian selectors nodded at him but fame proved to be fleeting. Mostly he turned out every weekend for his club, landed his breakers on the spot, took wickets, combed his hair and went home.
But something kept him playing. By and large Australians stop playing club cricket in their late twenties owing to the call of wives, shopping, children and other splendid activities.
McGain gathered these attributes yet kept playing for his club. Leg-spinners are a breed apart. It is a love affair, and a torment.
Then Warne retired and the State selectors began to look around. No one had appeared in his wake. Lots had tried. So they sent for the old timer still playing in the parks.
McGain played for Victoria and landed the ball on the same spot and without ever appearing menacing took a steady stream of wickets.
Next Stuart MacGill withdrew and the field was open.
McGain is 36 and in the forthcoming series will provide the accurate spin needed to counterpoint the pace attack. Kumble is 37 and supposedly past it.
Entertainment - Hall of Fame drummer Earl Palmer dead
LOS ANGELES (AP): Earl Palmer, the session drummer whose pioneering backbeats were recorded on such classics as Little Richard's ``Tutti Frutti'' and The Righteous Brothers' ``You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin,''' has died. He was 84.
Palmer died Friday at his Los Angeles home after fighting a lengthy illness, his spokesman Kevin Sasaki said.
Born in New Orleans in 1924 and later moving to Los Angeles, Palmer worked extensively in both cities, recording with some of the music world's all-time greats on thousands of tracks.
His beats form the backdrop on Ike and Tina Turner's ``River Deep, Mountain High,'' Fats Domino's ``The Fat Man'' and ``I Hear You Knockin''' by Smiley Lewis.
From his Los Angeles home, Palmer drummed for music producer Phil Spector and Motown, and his session credits include artists as diverse as the Monkees, Neil Young and Frank Sinatra.
Palmer was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. According to the institution's Web site, Little Richard wrote in his autobiography that Palmer ``is probably the greatest session drummer of all time.''
Palmer married four times and is survived by his seven children.
Palmer died Friday at his Los Angeles home after fighting a lengthy illness, his spokesman Kevin Sasaki said.
Born in New Orleans in 1924 and later moving to Los Angeles, Palmer worked extensively in both cities, recording with some of the music world's all-time greats on thousands of tracks.
His beats form the backdrop on Ike and Tina Turner's ``River Deep, Mountain High,'' Fats Domino's ``The Fat Man'' and ``I Hear You Knockin''' by Smiley Lewis.
From his Los Angeles home, Palmer drummed for music producer Phil Spector and Motown, and his session credits include artists as diverse as the Monkees, Neil Young and Frank Sinatra.
Palmer was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. According to the institution's Web site, Little Richard wrote in his autobiography that Palmer ``is probably the greatest session drummer of all time.''
Palmer married four times and is survived by his seven children.
India - Lakhs hit by Orissa floods,22 breaches in Mahanadi
Bhubaneswar (PTI): Lakhs of people were marooned on Saturday as Orissa braced up to a grim flood situation as major rivers, including Mahanadi, caused at least 22 breaches as the army stood by to assist in rescue and relief operation.
Surging waters in the swollen Mahanadi caused 22 breaches in embankments in the complex river system in the deltaic plains as more water was gushing into the Hirakud reservoir in western Orissa, official sources said.
As many as 46 of the 64 sluices of the Hirakud dam had been opened to discharge over 6.93 lakh cusecs as the districts of Angul, Kendrapara, Puri, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur and Jajpur faced the deluge.
Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Manmohan Samal said that the breaches on the embankments of the Mahanadi and its branches in the delta have affected over 10 lakh people in 15 districts.
While three breaches had occurred on the Mahanadi embankment, the flood waters had broken through the embankments of several of the river's branches. Five breaches had occurred in the Chitrotpala river followed by two each in Devi and Luna and one each in Bhargabi, Kandala, Kathajodi, Kushabhadra, Kanei and Biluakhai.
Water resources department engineers were maintaining constant vigil on the 'Daleighai' embankment on the Devi river in Jagatsinghpur district.
This embankment, which had breached in 1955 and 1982, was the last protective barrier for a thickly populated area in the district.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who reviewed the flood situation at a meeting, is expected to make an aerial survey of the flood hit areas.
Army asked to standby
Alarmed over the situation, the state government had asked the army to stand by for relief and rescue operation besides urging Chhattisgarh to stop releasing water from the Ravishankar Barrage to prevent a complete deluge.
Two helicopters of the Indian Air Force have been provided by the centre for rescue and relief operation.
Besides the Mahanadi, the state's biggest river, other major rivers like Baitarani, Brahmani, Rushikulya and Vamsadhara were also in spate.
Around 40,000 people in seven districts have been evacuated to safer places as 14 out of the 30 districts in the state had been hit.
Thousands of people have left their homes to take shelter at safer places---flood and cyclone shelters, schools and colleges, roads and embankments--- in the coastal districts.
Sixty five free kitchens had been opened to provide them food, sources said.
Medical teams were kept ready and adequate medicines, halogen tablets and water pouches had been stored for distribution. If required, post-graduate medical college students would be pressed into service in the affected areas, they said.
The government has announced that relief would be provided for seven days in the flood-affected areas.
Surging waters in the swollen Mahanadi caused 22 breaches in embankments in the complex river system in the deltaic plains as more water was gushing into the Hirakud reservoir in western Orissa, official sources said.
As many as 46 of the 64 sluices of the Hirakud dam had been opened to discharge over 6.93 lakh cusecs as the districts of Angul, Kendrapara, Puri, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur and Jajpur faced the deluge.
Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Manmohan Samal said that the breaches on the embankments of the Mahanadi and its branches in the delta have affected over 10 lakh people in 15 districts.
While three breaches had occurred on the Mahanadi embankment, the flood waters had broken through the embankments of several of the river's branches. Five breaches had occurred in the Chitrotpala river followed by two each in Devi and Luna and one each in Bhargabi, Kandala, Kathajodi, Kushabhadra, Kanei and Biluakhai.
Water resources department engineers were maintaining constant vigil on the 'Daleighai' embankment on the Devi river in Jagatsinghpur district.
This embankment, which had breached in 1955 and 1982, was the last protective barrier for a thickly populated area in the district.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who reviewed the flood situation at a meeting, is expected to make an aerial survey of the flood hit areas.
Army asked to standby
Alarmed over the situation, the state government had asked the army to stand by for relief and rescue operation besides urging Chhattisgarh to stop releasing water from the Ravishankar Barrage to prevent a complete deluge.
Two helicopters of the Indian Air Force have been provided by the centre for rescue and relief operation.
Besides the Mahanadi, the state's biggest river, other major rivers like Baitarani, Brahmani, Rushikulya and Vamsadhara were also in spate.
Around 40,000 people in seven districts have been evacuated to safer places as 14 out of the 30 districts in the state had been hit.
Thousands of people have left their homes to take shelter at safer places---flood and cyclone shelters, schools and colleges, roads and embankments--- in the coastal districts.
Sixty five free kitchens had been opened to provide them food, sources said.
Medical teams were kept ready and adequate medicines, halogen tablets and water pouches had been stored for distribution. If required, post-graduate medical college students would be pressed into service in the affected areas, they said.
The government has announced that relief would be provided for seven days in the flood-affected areas.
Health - Alternative remedies - ancient,but how safe?
Like many people these days, Lori Potter, a 50-year-old massage therapist living on Kauai, Hawaii, has explored alternative healing for everything from headaches to skin problems. So when she wanted to boost her immune system and lower her stress levels a few years ago, she made an appointment with a visiting practitioner of ayurveda, a medical system that originated in India thousands of years ago and has gained wide popularity in the United States.
He prescribed herbal supplements, which he tested himself for impurities, to help boost her immunity. Soon, Potter said, she felt more energetic and her digestion was better. After two years, the practitioner stopped visiting the island, and she has not taken any supplements since, she said, because she has not met any practitioners she trusts.
"You never know what's really in these supplements," she said. "This is serious stuff, and you can't just take them without knowing the source."
Potter may be right to be wary. A report in the Aug. 27 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association found that nearly 21 percent of 193 ayurvedic herbal supplements bought online, produced in both India and the United States, contained lead, mercury or arsenic. Almost all of the products were sold through American Web sites. "Some manufacturers advertised that they test for metals, and their products still had them," said Robert Saper, assistant professor at the Boston University School of Medicine and lead author of the study. The average consumer, he said, "has no way of determining which supplement is free of contaminants and which isn't."
No one knows the exact numbers of arsenic, mercury or lead poisoning illnesses in the United States related to ayurvedic medicine. Saper estimated that there have been 80 cases since 1978, but he believes that is just the "tip of the iceberg." In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a total of 12 cases of lead poisoning associated with ayurvedic products in Texas, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York State and California.
While the Western medical community may be concerned about Saper's findings, many ayurvedic practitioners and holistic health centers are less so. Of the dozen spas, wellness centers and practitioners contacted for this article, all said they stood behind their products. Some suppliers said they believed that the levels of heavy metals in their ayurvedic products were no greater than in many Food and Drug Administration-approved medicines.
Kevin Casey, the chief of Banyan Botanicals, a maker of ayurvedic products in Ashland, Oregon, sells three items — mahasudarshan, shilajit and kanchanar guggulu — that are on Saper's list of contaminated supplements.
After the study came out, Casey said, some of his 15,000 clients, who include practitioners and consumers, called. He said he alleviated their fears after he explained that his products are sent to outside laboratories, and they meet "the standards that we adhere to."
He added that sales had not suffered since the study, which has "created a dialogue — people are talking about it and understanding that there is the presence of heavy metals, but it doesn't mean it's toxic or dangerous."
Saper disagreed. Even with relatively low levels of lead in the bloodstream, he said, "a person can be relatively asymptomatic but the lead can still impact their IQ It can reduce their cognitive function and increase blood pressure."
Michael McGuffin, president of the American Herbal Products Association, a trade group, said that eliminating every trace of arsenic, mercury or lead from products was not a reasonable goal. "If it was, we'd have to find an entirely new food supply," he said.
Many Americans get their first taste of ayurveda at spas. A 2006 survey from the International Spa Association reported that about 31 percent of United States spas offer ayurvedic medicine, usually limited to hot oil massages and facials. But some spas with ayurvedic practitioners, including Exhale in Santa Monica, California; the Chopra Center for Well-Being in Carlsbad, California, and Manhattan; and the Ayurvedic Rejuvenation and Wellness Center in Manhattan, also recommend that some clients take herbal supplements to boost their immune systems and alleviate everything from depression to acne.
Dawne Burrowes, the director of the Ayurvedic Rejuvenation and Wellness Center, said she bought supplements from manufacturers such as Banyan Botanicals, which has been in business for 12 years. The Chopra Center buys some goods from Bazaar of India, an importer of herbal and ayurvedic products in Berkeley, California, and the source of 17 products that Saper found contained lead, mercury or arsenic.
David Simon, the medical director of the Chopra Center for Well-Being, said he was satisfied that Bazaar of India sends its products to an independent laboratory and that the herbs they recommend are free from toxic levels of heavy metals.
John Shahani, the ayurvedic practitioner at Exhale Spa in Santa Monica, took a similar position. Two products sold at the spa made by Balance Ayurvedic Products (AyurRelief and GlucoRite) were found by Saper to contain lead, but Shahani, who is technical director of Balance, said that he had the products tested by American laboratories and was not worried about their safety. "We know everything that goes into our products," he said, adding that he has certificates from the labs to ensure that the products are lead-free.
Kush Khanna, the president of Bazaar of India, defended the safety of the 17 products that Saper listed. All of the items, said Khanna in an e-mail message, have levels of contaminants below the safety levels recommended by the World Health Organization.
Khanna declined to explain why some, but not all, of the offending products are no longer on his Web site. He said business had not suffered since the study was released.
The FDA does not specify maximum acceptable concentrations or daily dose limits for contaminants in dietary supplements. Instead, the onus is on the manufacturer to ensure that its products are safe. What's more, there are no universally accepted standards for herbal supplements. The Food and Agricultural Organization/World Health Organization Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives Secretariat recommends that a 70-kilogram, or 154-pound, person consume no more than 250 micrograms of lead, 50 micrograms of mercury and 150 micrograms of arsenic per day.
The National Sanitation Foundation International Dietary Supplement Standard, which certifies dietary supplements and ingredients for purity, suggests a daily limit of 20 micrograms of lead, 20 for mercury and 10 for arsenic. California Proposition 65 has limits of 0.5 microgram of lead per day and 10 micrograms of arsenic per day. (There are currently no guidelines for mercury.) But, as Wynn Werner, president of the National Ayurvedic Medical Association pointed out, California does not prohibit sales of these products, but "rather requires a specific warning to the consumer if a product contains these elements above its limits." None of the tainted supplements in Saper's study met the standards for lead set forth by California Proposition 65.
In fact, the presence of metals in certain ayurvedic products may be intentional. An ancient form of ayurveda called "rasa shastra" involves fusing organic and mineral compounds — including pearl, gold, diamonds, copper and mercury — into a medicine and then purifying it into what is believed to be a safe and ingestible form. But the rasa shastra products in Saper's study contained the highest levels of mercury, arsenic and lead — as much as 10,000 times over the recommended limits.
Symptoms of lead poisoning, according to Saper, can include abdominal pain, lethargy, impaired cognition, constipation and anemia.
Earlier this year, a woman named Frances Gaskell experienced some of these symptoms after taking Garbhapal Ras, an herbal supplement geared toward pregnant women, and filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Iowa against the manufacturer, Maharishi Ayurveda Products, which is based in India but distributes its products in the United States. According to the lawsuit, her blood levels were over 20 times the level considered safe by the Centers for Disease Control, said her lawyer.
Her case may be among the most extreme, but some spas are wary. Marguerite Barnett, a plastic surgeon, owns the Mandala Med-Spa in Sarasota, Florida A few years ago she added ayurvedic massages to her treatments, but she does not have an in-house ayurvedic practitioner, nor will she sell herbs or supplements. "I am not being negative toward ayurvedic medicine in general — it has a lot to offer — but we do have to raise questions about the purity of the products being used," she said.
Regardless, some are convinced that the benefits outweigh any pitfalls. In her 20's, Gina Simo, now 39 and a full-time mother, suffered from a terrible case of cystic acne. Dermatologists were not able to help her, so she went to the Pratima Ayurvedic Skincare Spa Clinic in Manhattan, run by Pratima Raichur. After three months of dietary changes and herbal supplements, the pimples had disappeared. Simo is undeterred by results of Saper's study, still visits the spa and even gives her 18-month-old daughter supplements for colds and skin allergies. "I just feel so much safer with herbs than with quote-unquote medicine."
He prescribed herbal supplements, which he tested himself for impurities, to help boost her immunity. Soon, Potter said, she felt more energetic and her digestion was better. After two years, the practitioner stopped visiting the island, and she has not taken any supplements since, she said, because she has not met any practitioners she trusts.
"You never know what's really in these supplements," she said. "This is serious stuff, and you can't just take them without knowing the source."
Potter may be right to be wary. A report in the Aug. 27 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association found that nearly 21 percent of 193 ayurvedic herbal supplements bought online, produced in both India and the United States, contained lead, mercury or arsenic. Almost all of the products were sold through American Web sites. "Some manufacturers advertised that they test for metals, and their products still had them," said Robert Saper, assistant professor at the Boston University School of Medicine and lead author of the study. The average consumer, he said, "has no way of determining which supplement is free of contaminants and which isn't."
No one knows the exact numbers of arsenic, mercury or lead poisoning illnesses in the United States related to ayurvedic medicine. Saper estimated that there have been 80 cases since 1978, but he believes that is just the "tip of the iceberg." In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a total of 12 cases of lead poisoning associated with ayurvedic products in Texas, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York State and California.
While the Western medical community may be concerned about Saper's findings, many ayurvedic practitioners and holistic health centers are less so. Of the dozen spas, wellness centers and practitioners contacted for this article, all said they stood behind their products. Some suppliers said they believed that the levels of heavy metals in their ayurvedic products were no greater than in many Food and Drug Administration-approved medicines.
Kevin Casey, the chief of Banyan Botanicals, a maker of ayurvedic products in Ashland, Oregon, sells three items — mahasudarshan, shilajit and kanchanar guggulu — that are on Saper's list of contaminated supplements.
After the study came out, Casey said, some of his 15,000 clients, who include practitioners and consumers, called. He said he alleviated their fears after he explained that his products are sent to outside laboratories, and they meet "the standards that we adhere to."
He added that sales had not suffered since the study, which has "created a dialogue — people are talking about it and understanding that there is the presence of heavy metals, but it doesn't mean it's toxic or dangerous."
Saper disagreed. Even with relatively low levels of lead in the bloodstream, he said, "a person can be relatively asymptomatic but the lead can still impact their IQ It can reduce their cognitive function and increase blood pressure."
Michael McGuffin, president of the American Herbal Products Association, a trade group, said that eliminating every trace of arsenic, mercury or lead from products was not a reasonable goal. "If it was, we'd have to find an entirely new food supply," he said.
Many Americans get their first taste of ayurveda at spas. A 2006 survey from the International Spa Association reported that about 31 percent of United States spas offer ayurvedic medicine, usually limited to hot oil massages and facials. But some spas with ayurvedic practitioners, including Exhale in Santa Monica, California; the Chopra Center for Well-Being in Carlsbad, California, and Manhattan; and the Ayurvedic Rejuvenation and Wellness Center in Manhattan, also recommend that some clients take herbal supplements to boost their immune systems and alleviate everything from depression to acne.
Dawne Burrowes, the director of the Ayurvedic Rejuvenation and Wellness Center, said she bought supplements from manufacturers such as Banyan Botanicals, which has been in business for 12 years. The Chopra Center buys some goods from Bazaar of India, an importer of herbal and ayurvedic products in Berkeley, California, and the source of 17 products that Saper found contained lead, mercury or arsenic.
David Simon, the medical director of the Chopra Center for Well-Being, said he was satisfied that Bazaar of India sends its products to an independent laboratory and that the herbs they recommend are free from toxic levels of heavy metals.
John Shahani, the ayurvedic practitioner at Exhale Spa in Santa Monica, took a similar position. Two products sold at the spa made by Balance Ayurvedic Products (AyurRelief and GlucoRite) were found by Saper to contain lead, but Shahani, who is technical director of Balance, said that he had the products tested by American laboratories and was not worried about their safety. "We know everything that goes into our products," he said, adding that he has certificates from the labs to ensure that the products are lead-free.
Kush Khanna, the president of Bazaar of India, defended the safety of the 17 products that Saper listed. All of the items, said Khanna in an e-mail message, have levels of contaminants below the safety levels recommended by the World Health Organization.
Khanna declined to explain why some, but not all, of the offending products are no longer on his Web site. He said business had not suffered since the study was released.
The FDA does not specify maximum acceptable concentrations or daily dose limits for contaminants in dietary supplements. Instead, the onus is on the manufacturer to ensure that its products are safe. What's more, there are no universally accepted standards for herbal supplements. The Food and Agricultural Organization/World Health Organization Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives Secretariat recommends that a 70-kilogram, or 154-pound, person consume no more than 250 micrograms of lead, 50 micrograms of mercury and 150 micrograms of arsenic per day.
The National Sanitation Foundation International Dietary Supplement Standard, which certifies dietary supplements and ingredients for purity, suggests a daily limit of 20 micrograms of lead, 20 for mercury and 10 for arsenic. California Proposition 65 has limits of 0.5 microgram of lead per day and 10 micrograms of arsenic per day. (There are currently no guidelines for mercury.) But, as Wynn Werner, president of the National Ayurvedic Medical Association pointed out, California does not prohibit sales of these products, but "rather requires a specific warning to the consumer if a product contains these elements above its limits." None of the tainted supplements in Saper's study met the standards for lead set forth by California Proposition 65.
In fact, the presence of metals in certain ayurvedic products may be intentional. An ancient form of ayurveda called "rasa shastra" involves fusing organic and mineral compounds — including pearl, gold, diamonds, copper and mercury — into a medicine and then purifying it into what is believed to be a safe and ingestible form. But the rasa shastra products in Saper's study contained the highest levels of mercury, arsenic and lead — as much as 10,000 times over the recommended limits.
Symptoms of lead poisoning, according to Saper, can include abdominal pain, lethargy, impaired cognition, constipation and anemia.
Earlier this year, a woman named Frances Gaskell experienced some of these symptoms after taking Garbhapal Ras, an herbal supplement geared toward pregnant women, and filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Iowa against the manufacturer, Maharishi Ayurveda Products, which is based in India but distributes its products in the United States. According to the lawsuit, her blood levels were over 20 times the level considered safe by the Centers for Disease Control, said her lawyer.
Her case may be among the most extreme, but some spas are wary. Marguerite Barnett, a plastic surgeon, owns the Mandala Med-Spa in Sarasota, Florida A few years ago she added ayurvedic massages to her treatments, but she does not have an in-house ayurvedic practitioner, nor will she sell herbs or supplements. "I am not being negative toward ayurvedic medicine in general — it has a lot to offer — but we do have to raise questions about the purity of the products being used," she said.
Regardless, some are convinced that the benefits outweigh any pitfalls. In her 20's, Gina Simo, now 39 and a full-time mother, suffered from a terrible case of cystic acne. Dermatologists were not able to help her, so she went to the Pratima Ayurvedic Skincare Spa Clinic in Manhattan, run by Pratima Raichur. After three months of dietary changes and herbal supplements, the pimples had disappeared. Simo is undeterred by results of Saper's study, still visits the spa and even gives her 18-month-old daughter supplements for colds and skin allergies. "I just feel so much safer with herbs than with quote-unquote medicine."
World - What's in a street name?Moscow is finding out
As Alexander Solzhenitsyn was laid to rest last month, President Dmitri Medvedev decreed that he be memorialized "for his extraordinary contribution" to Russian culture. Among other things, a Moscow street should be renamed for the great chronicler of Russia's turbulent 20th century.
In short order, the office of Mayor Yuri Luzhkov announced that Bolshaya Kommunisticheskaya Ulitsa, or Big Communist Street, actually one of the prettiest, quietest and most well-preserved streets in Moscow, full of elegant pre-revolutionary mansions, is now Ulitsa Solzhenitsyna, or Solzhenitsyn Street.
Medvedev had neither set a deadline nor singled out a street, but as Izvestia, the former Soviet government newspaper that still has close ties to the Kremlin pointed out, the Russian capital is still full of place names representing the ideology Solzhenitsyn spent a lifetime railing against.
"Why not rename Leninsky Prospekt, or Shosse Entuziastov?" Izvestia suggested, referring to a highway along which prisoners were marched off to distant Siberian incarceration both in czarist times, when it was known as the Vladimirsky trakt, and in the Soviet era.
Renaming a street is just one honor for the writer whose "Gulag Archipelago" is credited with revealing to the world the horrors of the Soviet system - and, ultimately, helping to bring it down.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, under whose tenure as president Stalin re-entered the school curriculum as an example of effective rule, has called for more of Solzhenitsyn's texts to be included in that same curriculum.
But while Putin's suggestion has gone relatively unquestioned, the street name has spurred a serious new round of debate about Moscow's toponymy - debates that had fizzled after a spate of renaming in the 1990s after Communism fell.
How appropriate is it, for example, that Leninsky Prospekt, which cuts through southern Moscow, runs past the Academy of Sciences building, where the wake for Solzhenitsyn was held, and near the Donskoi Monastery, where he is buried?
Or that one of the main streets perpendicular to the newly christened Ulitsa Solzhenitsyna is Marksistskaya - Marx Street, as in Karl?
"I think this is the beginning, after a long silence, of a new period of renaming," said Viktor Moskvin, director of the Russia Abroad Foundation, a repository of émigré memoirs and archives that Solzhenitsyn helped compile and strongly supported along with Luzhkov. The archive will also be named after him. "Now that Bolshaya Kommunisticheskaya, a street name with such ideological meaning, is being renamed, I think it will be easier to rename the others."
Luzhkov has made his position clear. He attended the panikhida, or memorial service, at the Donskoi Monastery on Sept. 11, the 40th day since the writer's death, and stood at the graveside with Solzhenitsyn's widow, Natalia.
Moscow Communists are up in arms. Vladimir Lakeyev, the leader of the Communist Party faction in the Moscow City Duma, the Russian capital's main legislative body, has petitioned the city's prosecutor's office to investigate the legality of the decision.
Lakeyev said in a statement that Big Communist Street is named after Bolsheviks who fell in battle there during the Revolutions of 1905 and the Great October Revolution of 1917.
Renaming the street is "inadmissible" because it "reflects the feat of communists who gave their lives for freedom, the happiness of the people and the strengthening of the state," the statement said. By contrast, it added, Solzhenitsyn was "a public figure who devoted his life to fighting the Soviet people's state and spoke out with anti-communist and anti-state positions."
Stanislav Minin, a columnist for the Nezavisimaya Gazetar, worried last week that Solzhenitsyn Street would be out of place.
"It will inevitably end up in amusing, and at times simply idiotic, contexts," he said. For example: "The Interfax agency reports that a drunken fight took place tonight on Ulitsa Solzhenitsyna."
Moscow has a street, Prospekt Akademika Sakharova, named after the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, who died in 1990.
Yevgeny Bunimovich is one of two members of the Moscow Legislature's liberal Yabloko Party faction, which wholeheartedly supports the naming of a street in honor of Solzhenitsyn, but not the manner in which it is being done, nor the confusing city laws on street names.
"Many quite famous people die in Moscow, and there's an idea right away to name a street after them," he said. "We need to think how this is to be done."
Technically, in fact, naming a street so quickly after a dead luminary violates city laws. But then exceptions have already been made - in 2004, a street on the outskirts of the city was hastily renamed after Akhmad Kadyrov, the Chechen rebel turned pro-Kremlin strongman who was killed by an assassin's bomb.
And in 2005, Malaya Kommunisticheskaya, or Little Communist Street, which adjoins its big brother, was renamed for Konstantin Stanislavsky, the pioneering theater director whose family once had a factory on the street.
The Orthodox priests of a beautiful church in the neighborhood, meanwhile, have taken matters into their own hands Affixed to their church, which served as a book repository in Soviet times, is a sign that simply returns the address to the days before the 1917 Revolution: 15 Bolshaya Alekseyevskaya.
"We shouldn't be like the Communists, who went around renaming everything," said the Reverend Valery Stepanov, who serves at the church and hosts a television show about Moscow. "But Solzhenitsyn Street is better than Big Communist Street."
In short order, the office of Mayor Yuri Luzhkov announced that Bolshaya Kommunisticheskaya Ulitsa, or Big Communist Street, actually one of the prettiest, quietest and most well-preserved streets in Moscow, full of elegant pre-revolutionary mansions, is now Ulitsa Solzhenitsyna, or Solzhenitsyn Street.
Medvedev had neither set a deadline nor singled out a street, but as Izvestia, the former Soviet government newspaper that still has close ties to the Kremlin pointed out, the Russian capital is still full of place names representing the ideology Solzhenitsyn spent a lifetime railing against.
"Why not rename Leninsky Prospekt, or Shosse Entuziastov?" Izvestia suggested, referring to a highway along which prisoners were marched off to distant Siberian incarceration both in czarist times, when it was known as the Vladimirsky trakt, and in the Soviet era.
Renaming a street is just one honor for the writer whose "Gulag Archipelago" is credited with revealing to the world the horrors of the Soviet system - and, ultimately, helping to bring it down.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, under whose tenure as president Stalin re-entered the school curriculum as an example of effective rule, has called for more of Solzhenitsyn's texts to be included in that same curriculum.
But while Putin's suggestion has gone relatively unquestioned, the street name has spurred a serious new round of debate about Moscow's toponymy - debates that had fizzled after a spate of renaming in the 1990s after Communism fell.
How appropriate is it, for example, that Leninsky Prospekt, which cuts through southern Moscow, runs past the Academy of Sciences building, where the wake for Solzhenitsyn was held, and near the Donskoi Monastery, where he is buried?
Or that one of the main streets perpendicular to the newly christened Ulitsa Solzhenitsyna is Marksistskaya - Marx Street, as in Karl?
"I think this is the beginning, after a long silence, of a new period of renaming," said Viktor Moskvin, director of the Russia Abroad Foundation, a repository of émigré memoirs and archives that Solzhenitsyn helped compile and strongly supported along with Luzhkov. The archive will also be named after him. "Now that Bolshaya Kommunisticheskaya, a street name with such ideological meaning, is being renamed, I think it will be easier to rename the others."
Luzhkov has made his position clear. He attended the panikhida, or memorial service, at the Donskoi Monastery on Sept. 11, the 40th day since the writer's death, and stood at the graveside with Solzhenitsyn's widow, Natalia.
Moscow Communists are up in arms. Vladimir Lakeyev, the leader of the Communist Party faction in the Moscow City Duma, the Russian capital's main legislative body, has petitioned the city's prosecutor's office to investigate the legality of the decision.
Lakeyev said in a statement that Big Communist Street is named after Bolsheviks who fell in battle there during the Revolutions of 1905 and the Great October Revolution of 1917.
Renaming the street is "inadmissible" because it "reflects the feat of communists who gave their lives for freedom, the happiness of the people and the strengthening of the state," the statement said. By contrast, it added, Solzhenitsyn was "a public figure who devoted his life to fighting the Soviet people's state and spoke out with anti-communist and anti-state positions."
Stanislav Minin, a columnist for the Nezavisimaya Gazetar, worried last week that Solzhenitsyn Street would be out of place.
"It will inevitably end up in amusing, and at times simply idiotic, contexts," he said. For example: "The Interfax agency reports that a drunken fight took place tonight on Ulitsa Solzhenitsyna."
Moscow has a street, Prospekt Akademika Sakharova, named after the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, who died in 1990.
Yevgeny Bunimovich is one of two members of the Moscow Legislature's liberal Yabloko Party faction, which wholeheartedly supports the naming of a street in honor of Solzhenitsyn, but not the manner in which it is being done, nor the confusing city laws on street names.
"Many quite famous people die in Moscow, and there's an idea right away to name a street after them," he said. "We need to think how this is to be done."
Technically, in fact, naming a street so quickly after a dead luminary violates city laws. But then exceptions have already been made - in 2004, a street on the outskirts of the city was hastily renamed after Akhmad Kadyrov, the Chechen rebel turned pro-Kremlin strongman who was killed by an assassin's bomb.
And in 2005, Malaya Kommunisticheskaya, or Little Communist Street, which adjoins its big brother, was renamed for Konstantin Stanislavsky, the pioneering theater director whose family once had a factory on the street.
The Orthodox priests of a beautiful church in the neighborhood, meanwhile, have taken matters into their own hands Affixed to their church, which served as a book repository in Soviet times, is a sign that simply returns the address to the days before the 1917 Revolution: 15 Bolshaya Alekseyevskaya.
"We shouldn't be like the Communists, who went around renaming everything," said the Reverend Valery Stepanov, who serves at the church and hosts a television show about Moscow. "But Solzhenitsyn Street is better than Big Communist Street."
World - Canada election tainted by bad joke
An attempt at levity by a Canadian cabinet minister over a tainted food epidemic that killed 17 people, has turned the health crisis into an unexpected issue in Canada's current election campaign.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper continued Friday to resist calls from some relatives of the dead and all of his political opponents to fire Gary Ritz, the agriculture minister, because of remarks he made during a conference call about an outbreak of listeriosis linked to lunch meats.
"This is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts?," Ritz said during a conference call with about 30 bureaucrats, scientists and political officials on Aug. 30.
Later, when someone on the call indicated that there may be a case in Prince Edward Island, Ritz said: "Please tell me it's Wayne Easter." Easter, a member of Parliament from that province, is the agriculture critic for the opposition Liberal Party.
Ritz, whose department is responsible for food safety, had been the government's public face during the outbreak of listeriosis, a bacterial disease that can be fatal to the elderly or the infirm. The outbreak prompted a nationwide recall of products produced by Maple Leaf Foods.
Although Ritz's black humor has made the government's handling of the situation a prominent campaign issue, its performance during the outbreak had already been questioned before the Canadian Press news agency reported the comments on Wednesday evening. The Canadian Medical Association Journal published an editorial on Tuesday which said, in part, that "government policy errors helped bring about this epidemic." During the height of the outbreak, Tony Clement, the health minister, was also criticized for going to Denver to attend the Democratic National Convention as an observer.
Late Wednesday night, Ritz appeared outside of an office building near Parliament Hill to apologize. Harper subsequently said that no further action is necessary.
"I suspect everybody in this room, if they're honest with themselves, will admit in private conversations they probably said things that were pretty insensitive and inappropriate," Harper said during a campaign stop in Trois-Rivières, Quebec.
Although Harper declared the matter closed, television and radio newscasts continued Friday to carry calls from the relatives of victims for Ritz's removal.
Among them is Dennis Schroh, a self-described Conservative whose mother, Elizabeth, was a resident of Ritz's electoral district in Saskatchewan when she died on Aug. 24.
"It just ticked me right off for a man of his stature to come across to say that," Schroh told the Canadian Press in a video released Friday. "So I tell Ritz: throw some more dirt on my mom's grave."
Schroh's sister, however, has accepted the minister's apology.
The editors of the medical journal and others have drawn a parallel between the Harper government's handling of the listeriosis outbreak and an outbreak of tainted drinking water that killed seven people in Walkerton, Ontario, in 2000. The Conservative government that was in power in Ontario at that time could not overcome a widespread perception that its regulatory cutbacks led to the Walkerton deaths and it was defeated in a subsequent election.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper continued Friday to resist calls from some relatives of the dead and all of his political opponents to fire Gary Ritz, the agriculture minister, because of remarks he made during a conference call about an outbreak of listeriosis linked to lunch meats.
"This is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts?," Ritz said during a conference call with about 30 bureaucrats, scientists and political officials on Aug. 30.
Later, when someone on the call indicated that there may be a case in Prince Edward Island, Ritz said: "Please tell me it's Wayne Easter." Easter, a member of Parliament from that province, is the agriculture critic for the opposition Liberal Party.
Ritz, whose department is responsible for food safety, had been the government's public face during the outbreak of listeriosis, a bacterial disease that can be fatal to the elderly or the infirm. The outbreak prompted a nationwide recall of products produced by Maple Leaf Foods.
Although Ritz's black humor has made the government's handling of the situation a prominent campaign issue, its performance during the outbreak had already been questioned before the Canadian Press news agency reported the comments on Wednesday evening. The Canadian Medical Association Journal published an editorial on Tuesday which said, in part, that "government policy errors helped bring about this epidemic." During the height of the outbreak, Tony Clement, the health minister, was also criticized for going to Denver to attend the Democratic National Convention as an observer.
Late Wednesday night, Ritz appeared outside of an office building near Parliament Hill to apologize. Harper subsequently said that no further action is necessary.
"I suspect everybody in this room, if they're honest with themselves, will admit in private conversations they probably said things that were pretty insensitive and inappropriate," Harper said during a campaign stop in Trois-Rivières, Quebec.
Although Harper declared the matter closed, television and radio newscasts continued Friday to carry calls from the relatives of victims for Ritz's removal.
Among them is Dennis Schroh, a self-described Conservative whose mother, Elizabeth, was a resident of Ritz's electoral district in Saskatchewan when she died on Aug. 24.
"It just ticked me right off for a man of his stature to come across to say that," Schroh told the Canadian Press in a video released Friday. "So I tell Ritz: throw some more dirt on my mom's grave."
Schroh's sister, however, has accepted the minister's apology.
The editors of the medical journal and others have drawn a parallel between the Harper government's handling of the listeriosis outbreak and an outbreak of tainted drinking water that killed seven people in Walkerton, Ontario, in 2000. The Conservative government that was in power in Ontario at that time could not overcome a widespread perception that its regulatory cutbacks led to the Walkerton deaths and it was defeated in a subsequent election.
India - A daughter remembers P.Ramamurthi ( G.Read)
He was a true communist, humane and selfless, with a strong belief in secularism and equality. Like other leaders of the communist movement in the early decades, he faced severe repression. For him, politics and family life were inseparable.
“If your charge is that we have conspired to overthrow the British along with the 40 crore Indians, we accept the charge.”
— P. Ramamurti’s fearless defence in 1941 as the first accused in the Madras Conspiracy Case electrified millions of young Indians. He was sentenced to four years rigorous imprisonment along with other communists – among them, C.S. Subramaniam, Mohan Kumaramangalam, and R. Umanath. If he were alive, he would be a 100 years old today.
A freedom fighter and an architect of the Indian communist movement, he was at once a leading trade unionist, a legislator, and a Marxist idealogue. He was affectionately known as PR. His actions were radical and influenced millions but he was never content with them. In the 1930s he organised Dalits living near Triplicane’s Parthasarathy Temple in Madras to get voting rights at the Temple Trust. It was a historic victory in the Madras High Court. Mahatma Gandhi, in Young India, called it a great victory for the cause but PR was dismissive. He said in an interview to the Nehru Museum Library (1978): “I laughed at it. What was the achievement, as if it was a big revolutionary thing?"
Disillusioned with ‘Congress socialism,’ PR turned to communism in 1936. After the Communist Party split in 1964, he became one of the nine founder Polit Bureau members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He was the first general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions.
A phenomenal organiser, he led the labour movement across the country. The strikes he led between 1930 and 1950 made workers in Madras refer to the Communist Party’s Broadway office as the ‘strike office.’ Working together with A.K. Gopalan, B. Sreenivasa Rao, and Manali Kandasamy, PR organised and led tenant farmers to fight oppression and exploitation by landlords. From being a handful of protestors, they became an organised force, many among them transformed into radical leaders.
PR’s campaigns led to significant law reforms between 1948 and 1956. Hundreds of tribes branded by law as criminals gained their human dignity through a denotification order, the first ever in Indian history, in 1949. Cultivating tenants earned better wages and social freedom. These actions made him so popular among agricultural labourers that Chief Minister C. Rajagopalachari remarked: “Don’t they know that I have passed the laws and not Ramamurti?”
PR came from an orthodox Brahmin family but abjured caste or class. My sister Ponni recalls that when she was 10 years old, her teacher saw PR and K. Kamaraj come to our school to take us home. The next day Ponni was asked by her teacher, “neenga enna jathi?” (which caste do you belong to?). Ponni was confused and could not answer. When she asked our father, he laughed and said “manitha jathi” (humankind).
Imprisoned again in the Madurai conspiracy case, PR was released on the eve of India’s Independence. Since the Communist Party was banned even thereafter, he was arrested again. In all, he spent nearly nine years of his life in prison and another five underground.
In 1952, while in jail, PR won his Madras Legislative Assembly seat from Madurai with a huge margin. The Communists-led coalition was on the verge of creating history to become the world’s first democratically elected communist government. The Congress was pushed to a minority. However, Rajaji who had not contested the election was nominated to the Legislative Council and invited by the Governor to become Chief Minister. The Congress began horse-trading to win over independents to prevent the Communists from coming to power.
PR immediately filed the first ever public interest writ petition in the country, challenging Rajaji’s nomination as MLC. His arguments in the Madras High Court anticipated the “basic structure” theory evolved by the Supreme Court years later. Arguing in person, he contended that Rajaji’s nomination was aimed at defeating electoral results and democracy and the court should prevent this in the public interest. Chief Justice Rajamannar and Justice Venkatarama Ayyar rejected his arguments, opining that the court could not decide political rights or enforce public interest or constitutional conventions. The very same principles PR advocated in 1952 were emphatically accepted by successive constitutional benches of the Supreme Court nearly three decades later.
He was a true communist, humane and selfless, with a strong belief in secularism and equality. The leaders of the early years of the communist movement faced severe repression. Their struggles met with adversity and were at the cost of their family lives. Their politics and family lives were inseparable. My sister and I, first generation children of Indian communists, were raised in a different milieu. As children raised in Delhi, we spent a lot of time in the party commune, where families of comrades lived in one room per family and shared common meals and other amenities.
To me the party was a large family. Party discipline percolated through the family. While in school, Ponni and I had only two sets of clothes, one to wear, the other to be washed. My mother had about five sarees. Life was spartan, but we were happy.
Since both my parents were communists and had faced imprisonment, we grew up hearing of many struggles. Facing the police without fear came naturally to us. The police raided our home in the dead of night when the communists were arrested in 1962-63 during the India-China war. They raided and rampaged our house in search of PR. Failing to get any lead from my mother who remained calm, they pulled off our sheets while we were asleep. The next day we went to school as usual. From such experiences, I learned to challenge injustice without fear.
While my schoolmates spoke of outings with their father, my sister and I could see our father only once in nearly four months. When he was home, it was hardly for a week. In the 1960s, when he was imprisoned, we did not see him for nearly three years except when he was on parole briefly. I remember how surprised he was after one such release to see I had grown tall.
He compensated in full measure whenever he was with us. He was an extremely affectionate father and his coming home was a matter of great joy. We travelled widely with him and he would tell us the history of the places we visited. Ponni and I learnt more from him than in our history and geography classes.
In keeping with his beliefs, PR gave away, long before 1947, his share in the agricultural lands in Tanjavur’s Vepathur village to the cultivating tenants. He treated families of comrades and friends as his own. Their problems were his. His growth in stature never separated him from people.
A Member of Parliament in both houses between 1960 and 1983, PR never let his sharp instincts, ever ready to face state oppression, fade. Late at night on the 25th of June 1975, we received a phone call at home in Delhi informing us about the proclamation of Emergency and the large-scale arrests of opposition leaders. Leaving behind our car, PR immediately got into a taxi to go to the CPI(M) headquarters, disguising himself in a head gear and taking me along as cover. He asked the driver to take a circuitous route and stopped the vehicle near the office’s back-gate. He then walked to the office in the dead of night to discuss counter strategy.
PR created history by replying in Tamil to the budget of 1953 in the Madras Assembly. A powerful speaker, he had the art of explaining complex economic and political issues in simple terms. His speeches were evocative, making the audience participate and drew packed crowds. I saw him address innumerable hall meetings during the Emergency; he held his audience – students, teachers, scientists, and the intelligentsia – in rapt attention.
When banks were nationalised, PR lobbied keenly in support of the move. Newspapers were agog with reports of the Supreme Court striking down the law and the quick response of Parliament in introducing the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to bring back the nationalisation measure. I was in high school then and felt an urge to understand law. During my discussions with my father, he explained to me how Parliament’s moves towards greater distribution of wealth were defeated in courts. He was my inspiration to become a lawyer and to use law as an instrument for social transformation.
PR was a strong defender of our national interests and the public sector. His 1979 speech in the Rajya Sabha opposing the BHEL–Siemens collaboration deal, for which 30 minutes were allotted, was extended to two hours as he held members in attention with his mastery of facts and analysis of the economic perils of the agreement. The rest is history. BHEL is today one our Navaratna PSUs.
PR continued to shape India’s history until his death on December 15, 1987. His political opponents respected him and he had friends across party lines. His close friend Harkishan Singh Surjeet noted: “PR had no enemies.” President R. Venkataraman said in his tribute: “With his demise, public life has lost a forceful personality and many of us a warm friend” (Hindustan Times, December 16, 1987).
PR continues to live in people’s hearts and his legacy will inspire generations to come. Ponni and I are truly privileged to be his daughters.
(R. Vaigai is a practising lawyer at the Madras High Court. She is Chennai district president of the All India Lawyers’ Union, and director of the People’s Law Centre, Chennai.)
“If your charge is that we have conspired to overthrow the British along with the 40 crore Indians, we accept the charge.”
— P. Ramamurti’s fearless defence in 1941 as the first accused in the Madras Conspiracy Case electrified millions of young Indians. He was sentenced to four years rigorous imprisonment along with other communists – among them, C.S. Subramaniam, Mohan Kumaramangalam, and R. Umanath. If he were alive, he would be a 100 years old today.
A freedom fighter and an architect of the Indian communist movement, he was at once a leading trade unionist, a legislator, and a Marxist idealogue. He was affectionately known as PR. His actions were radical and influenced millions but he was never content with them. In the 1930s he organised Dalits living near Triplicane’s Parthasarathy Temple in Madras to get voting rights at the Temple Trust. It was a historic victory in the Madras High Court. Mahatma Gandhi, in Young India, called it a great victory for the cause but PR was dismissive. He said in an interview to the Nehru Museum Library (1978): “I laughed at it. What was the achievement, as if it was a big revolutionary thing?"
Disillusioned with ‘Congress socialism,’ PR turned to communism in 1936. After the Communist Party split in 1964, he became one of the nine founder Polit Bureau members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He was the first general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions.
A phenomenal organiser, he led the labour movement across the country. The strikes he led between 1930 and 1950 made workers in Madras refer to the Communist Party’s Broadway office as the ‘strike office.’ Working together with A.K. Gopalan, B. Sreenivasa Rao, and Manali Kandasamy, PR organised and led tenant farmers to fight oppression and exploitation by landlords. From being a handful of protestors, they became an organised force, many among them transformed into radical leaders.
PR’s campaigns led to significant law reforms between 1948 and 1956. Hundreds of tribes branded by law as criminals gained their human dignity through a denotification order, the first ever in Indian history, in 1949. Cultivating tenants earned better wages and social freedom. These actions made him so popular among agricultural labourers that Chief Minister C. Rajagopalachari remarked: “Don’t they know that I have passed the laws and not Ramamurti?”
PR came from an orthodox Brahmin family but abjured caste or class. My sister Ponni recalls that when she was 10 years old, her teacher saw PR and K. Kamaraj come to our school to take us home. The next day Ponni was asked by her teacher, “neenga enna jathi?” (which caste do you belong to?). Ponni was confused and could not answer. When she asked our father, he laughed and said “manitha jathi” (humankind).
Imprisoned again in the Madurai conspiracy case, PR was released on the eve of India’s Independence. Since the Communist Party was banned even thereafter, he was arrested again. In all, he spent nearly nine years of his life in prison and another five underground.
In 1952, while in jail, PR won his Madras Legislative Assembly seat from Madurai with a huge margin. The Communists-led coalition was on the verge of creating history to become the world’s first democratically elected communist government. The Congress was pushed to a minority. However, Rajaji who had not contested the election was nominated to the Legislative Council and invited by the Governor to become Chief Minister. The Congress began horse-trading to win over independents to prevent the Communists from coming to power.
PR immediately filed the first ever public interest writ petition in the country, challenging Rajaji’s nomination as MLC. His arguments in the Madras High Court anticipated the “basic structure” theory evolved by the Supreme Court years later. Arguing in person, he contended that Rajaji’s nomination was aimed at defeating electoral results and democracy and the court should prevent this in the public interest. Chief Justice Rajamannar and Justice Venkatarama Ayyar rejected his arguments, opining that the court could not decide political rights or enforce public interest or constitutional conventions. The very same principles PR advocated in 1952 were emphatically accepted by successive constitutional benches of the Supreme Court nearly three decades later.
He was a true communist, humane and selfless, with a strong belief in secularism and equality. The leaders of the early years of the communist movement faced severe repression. Their struggles met with adversity and were at the cost of their family lives. Their politics and family lives were inseparable. My sister and I, first generation children of Indian communists, were raised in a different milieu. As children raised in Delhi, we spent a lot of time in the party commune, where families of comrades lived in one room per family and shared common meals and other amenities.
To me the party was a large family. Party discipline percolated through the family. While in school, Ponni and I had only two sets of clothes, one to wear, the other to be washed. My mother had about five sarees. Life was spartan, but we were happy.
Since both my parents were communists and had faced imprisonment, we grew up hearing of many struggles. Facing the police without fear came naturally to us. The police raided our home in the dead of night when the communists were arrested in 1962-63 during the India-China war. They raided and rampaged our house in search of PR. Failing to get any lead from my mother who remained calm, they pulled off our sheets while we were asleep. The next day we went to school as usual. From such experiences, I learned to challenge injustice without fear.
While my schoolmates spoke of outings with their father, my sister and I could see our father only once in nearly four months. When he was home, it was hardly for a week. In the 1960s, when he was imprisoned, we did not see him for nearly three years except when he was on parole briefly. I remember how surprised he was after one such release to see I had grown tall.
He compensated in full measure whenever he was with us. He was an extremely affectionate father and his coming home was a matter of great joy. We travelled widely with him and he would tell us the history of the places we visited. Ponni and I learnt more from him than in our history and geography classes.
In keeping with his beliefs, PR gave away, long before 1947, his share in the agricultural lands in Tanjavur’s Vepathur village to the cultivating tenants. He treated families of comrades and friends as his own. Their problems were his. His growth in stature never separated him from people.
A Member of Parliament in both houses between 1960 and 1983, PR never let his sharp instincts, ever ready to face state oppression, fade. Late at night on the 25th of June 1975, we received a phone call at home in Delhi informing us about the proclamation of Emergency and the large-scale arrests of opposition leaders. Leaving behind our car, PR immediately got into a taxi to go to the CPI(M) headquarters, disguising himself in a head gear and taking me along as cover. He asked the driver to take a circuitous route and stopped the vehicle near the office’s back-gate. He then walked to the office in the dead of night to discuss counter strategy.
PR created history by replying in Tamil to the budget of 1953 in the Madras Assembly. A powerful speaker, he had the art of explaining complex economic and political issues in simple terms. His speeches were evocative, making the audience participate and drew packed crowds. I saw him address innumerable hall meetings during the Emergency; he held his audience – students, teachers, scientists, and the intelligentsia – in rapt attention.
When banks were nationalised, PR lobbied keenly in support of the move. Newspapers were agog with reports of the Supreme Court striking down the law and the quick response of Parliament in introducing the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to bring back the nationalisation measure. I was in high school then and felt an urge to understand law. During my discussions with my father, he explained to me how Parliament’s moves towards greater distribution of wealth were defeated in courts. He was my inspiration to become a lawyer and to use law as an instrument for social transformation.
PR was a strong defender of our national interests and the public sector. His 1979 speech in the Rajya Sabha opposing the BHEL–Siemens collaboration deal, for which 30 minutes were allotted, was extended to two hours as he held members in attention with his mastery of facts and analysis of the economic perils of the agreement. The rest is history. BHEL is today one our Navaratna PSUs.
PR continued to shape India’s history until his death on December 15, 1987. His political opponents respected him and he had friends across party lines. His close friend Harkishan Singh Surjeet noted: “PR had no enemies.” President R. Venkataraman said in his tribute: “With his demise, public life has lost a forceful personality and many of us a warm friend” (Hindustan Times, December 16, 1987).
PR continues to live in people’s hearts and his legacy will inspire generations to come. Ponni and I are truly privileged to be his daughters.
(R. Vaigai is a practising lawyer at the Madras High Court. She is Chennai district president of the All India Lawyers’ Union, and director of the People’s Law Centre, Chennai.)
India - 'World's best' accord signed for Hyderabad metro rail project
HYDERABAD: A significant milestone in commencing work on the Rs. 12,132-crore Hyderabad Metro Rail Project (MRTS) was reached when the Andhra Pradesh government and Maytas Metro Limited (MML), special purpose vehicle constituted to implement it, signed a concession agreement here on Friday.
MML is a concessionaire company for implementation of the project on DBFOT (design, build, finance, operate and transfer) basis.
It consists of a consortium of Maytas Infra Limited, Navabharat Ventures Limited, Ital Thai Development Public Company and Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited.
The concession agreement for building the metro system spanning a length of 71 km was signed by C. V. S. K. Sarma, chairman, Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (HMRL) and B. Teja Raju, managing director, MML, in the presence of Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy. The State government will have to subscribe an equity of Rs. 250 crore in the company.
A cheque for Rs. 11 crore was presented to the Chief Minister by MML as the first instalment of the Rs. 30,311-crore revenue promised to the government over a period of 35 years.
Dr. Reddy quoted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to describe the agreement as the “world’s best” (in the public-private partnership mode). September 2012 has been fixed as the outer-limit for completing the project. The Chief Minister announced that civil works for the project would start from March.
N. V. S. Reddy, MD, HMRL, later said the sum of Rs. 2,300 crore sanctioned by the Centre would be used for allied work. The Centre sanctioned the money under the original arrangement that the Union and State governments must contribute Rs. 4,800 crore towards the project cost.
He said the consortium had made the best offer as it would get revenues from metro rail and also from 269 acres of land to be made available for construction of commercial complexes, stations and depots. The metro rail fare would range from Rs. 8 to Rs. 19 on an average and they would not deprive the APSRTC of its business.
MML is a concessionaire company for implementation of the project on DBFOT (design, build, finance, operate and transfer) basis.
It consists of a consortium of Maytas Infra Limited, Navabharat Ventures Limited, Ital Thai Development Public Company and Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited.
The concession agreement for building the metro system spanning a length of 71 km was signed by C. V. S. K. Sarma, chairman, Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (HMRL) and B. Teja Raju, managing director, MML, in the presence of Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy. The State government will have to subscribe an equity of Rs. 250 crore in the company.
A cheque for Rs. 11 crore was presented to the Chief Minister by MML as the first instalment of the Rs. 30,311-crore revenue promised to the government over a period of 35 years.
Dr. Reddy quoted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to describe the agreement as the “world’s best” (in the public-private partnership mode). September 2012 has been fixed as the outer-limit for completing the project. The Chief Minister announced that civil works for the project would start from March.
N. V. S. Reddy, MD, HMRL, later said the sum of Rs. 2,300 crore sanctioned by the Centre would be used for allied work. The Centre sanctioned the money under the original arrangement that the Union and State governments must contribute Rs. 4,800 crore towards the project cost.
He said the consortium had made the best offer as it would get revenues from metro rail and also from 269 acres of land to be made available for construction of commercial complexes, stations and depots. The metro rail fare would range from Rs. 8 to Rs. 19 on an average and they would not deprive the APSRTC of its business.
Business - Superfood or monster from the deep (G.Read)
Off the coast of Peru swim billions of sardines and anchovies: oily, smelly little fish, rich in nutritious omega-3 fatty acids. Their spot on the food chain is low; many will be caught, ground up, and fed as fishmeal to bigger animals.
But a few have a more exalted destiny: to be transported, purified and served at North American breakfast tables in the form of Tropicana Healthy Heart orange juice and Wonder Headstart bread. These new products promise to deliver the health benefits of fish oil without the smell and the taste — without, in fact, the fish.
The possible benefits of eating omega-3s include cardiovascular protection and improved neural development in children.
However, "People just aren't eating salmon or sardines twice a day," said Ellie Halevy, director for marketing of Tropicana, which is owned by PepsiCo. "But they will drink two glasses of orange juice, if it has no fishy taste and all the benefits."
Orange juice laced with anchovies is one example of the latest way major food companies are competing for health-conscious consumers: plugging one food into another and claiming the health benefits of both. Shoppers are offered green tea extracts in their ginger ale, yogurt bacteria in their salsa, and powdered beets in their peanut butter. Market staples like blueberries (high in certain antioxidants), cherries (may have anti-inflammatory benefits) and bananas (when unripe, particularly rich in fiber) are being broken down, shaken up, microencapsulated, and put to work in new ways.
These additives are often called nutraceuticals, broadly defined as ingredients that are derived from food, and that offer health benefits associated with that food. Nutraceuticals like garlic pills and cranberry capsules became popular in the 1990s, usually taken alone in the form of dietary supplements.
Now Kraft, Dannon, General Mills and many other companies are adding nutraceuticals to existing foods: "fat-burning waffles" made from a newly developed corn flour, cheese that kills intestinal parasites, even ketchup that regulates digestion, are on the shelves or in the works. New technologies in food processing, and a landmark 1999 court decision giving the makers of supplements broad leeway to advertise their health benefits, have brought this new class of enhanced foods to supermarket shelves.
These products are known as functional foods, meaning they have been modified to make them more nutritious, like genetically modified rice or fortified milk.
"One day, we believe, you will be able to walk into a supermarket and all the products could be enriched with omega-3s: milk, yogurt, tortillas," said Ian Lucas, head of marketing for Ocean Nutrition Canada, maker of the fish oil used by Tropicana.
Are we really that close to a world in which food functions as a nutrient delivery system, made possible by microencapsulation and fine-spray coating? And what would this mean for food and human nutrition?
"This whole area is far more complex than we thought just one or two years ago," said Alice Lichtenstein, a professor of nutrition science and policy at Tufts University.
Since the 1970s, as nutrition research has progressed beyond "vitamins and minerals," a variety of new compounds have been touted as the key to health: antioxidants (related to vitamins, these include lycopene, beta-carotene and other plant-based nutrients); long-chain fatty acids like omega-3s, plentiful in fish and some plants; and "probiotics," the live bacteria in yogurt and fermented vegetables.
There is significant scientific agreement — the standard the Food and Drug Administration requires before foodmakers can place unqualified health claims on packaging — on the benefits of certain nutrients, including calcium, fiber, folate, soy protein, omega-3 fatty acids, lactic acid bacteria and a few others. In food, these have proved to help protect against specific diseases (calcium against osteoporosis, omega-3 fatty acids for heart disease), and many nutritionists believe that they are beneficial in supplement form.
However, recent studies on supplemental vitamin E, beta-carotene and folate (all of which fall into the broad category of "antioxidants") surprised everyone by showing no benefits whatsoever for cardiovascular disease. "There is a great deal we don't know about how the compounds in food are made available to the body," Lichtenstein said. "Now we have to be more cautious about individual nutrients, though we should not close our minds, given the successes of the past."
Fortified food is certainly one of the great triumphs of public-health policy. When vitamin-B-enriched flour was introduced in the 1940s, rates of pellagra plummeted. Iodine-fortified salt virtually wiped out goiter, and vitamin-D-enriched milk eliminated rickets in children. But some experts say that such carefully designed campaigns have little in common with the fortified products now turning up in supermarkets.
"Those decisions were based on rigorous public-health studies," said Jeffrey Mechanick, a professor of endocrinology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "But the science hasn't been done on the new nutraceutical products, and the FDA's current labeling standards are inadequate."
The agency does not have specific rules for the labeling of functional foods. "It all depends on what type of claim is being made," said Michael Herndon, an agency spokesman. "An unqualified health claim like 'calcium reduces your risk of osteoporosis,' has to be proved in advance. A more general claim like 'X keeps your heart healthy' has to be provable by the manufacturer, but we would not require proof in advance." As with conventional foods, functional foods must clearly state the presence of allergens, like milk or fish, in the ingredients list.
The Food and Drug Administration does not conduct nutritional research. Several other U.S. government agencies do so, but functional foods are not evaluated by any specific office. "Nutraceutical products have characteristics of both food and drugs," said David A. Kessler, a former commissioner of the FDA "It's easy for them to slip through the cracks, and the industry is always ahead of the agency."
The free-market policy on claims for nutraceuticals benefits companies like LycoRed, a global provider of compounds pulled out of tomatoes that grow in desert greenhouses in Israel. LycoRed, like FutureCeuticals, National Starch, the German chemical giant BASF and other companies, produces a range of additives for the food industry.
"Everybody already knows that a tomato is healthy," said Udi Alroy, the company's chief marketer. "We don't have to sell something from Mars." But the form in which the tomato appears in LycoRed products is somewhat unearthly. Specially bred tomatoes, bright red and flavorless, are pulped and then treated to extract the valuable compounds of lycopene, beta-carotene and lutein — which are then encapsulated in "beadlets" so tiny they cannot be felt by the human tongue.
"People want their food to have the same organoleptic qualities, not be gritty or taste different or feel weird," said Kevin Stark, head of the food technology division of NineSigma, a research company that helps put clients like General Mills and Procter & Gamble in touch with scientists and technologists around the world.
The tiny capsules, made of fat, protein or sometimes plastic, can be designed to deliver foods to a particular part of the digestive tract. Some capsules can wait out long periods on shelves or even survive heat treatment, the method used to cook and sterilize most canned foods.
Other new technologies can remove the fishy smell of fish, distill a pomegranate into flavorless powder and possibly deliver the nutritional benefits of a green bean via a slice of pound cake, and major players like Dannon, Nestlé and PepsiCo are plunging in.
A new brand of peanut butter, Zap, is imperceptibly fortified with powdered beets, carrots and bananas. Nutritious Chocolate, a new product from Gary Null, a health-food marketer, includes the usual ingredients of chocolate: cocoa butter, cocoa beans, cane sugar, vanilla. Oh, and broccoli, cranberries, nectarines, parsley, pomegranates, watermelons, kale and more — a total of 30 additional plants, all in powdered form.
But whether the nutritional benefits of the original foods survive in additive form is still to be determined.
"Whether a tomato is good for you, that's one thing," Kessler said. "Whether the lycopene in a tomato is good for you, that's another. And then whether synthetic lycopene and microencapsulated lycopene are also good for you, that's yet another thing."
In a manufacturing plant outside Paris, the Danone Group, parent company of Dannon, nourishes more than 3,000 different strains of lactic acid bacteria for its lines of "probiotic" yogurts. All yogurt is fermented with live cultures, but Danone claims to have harnessed yogurt's healing potential to particular ends. "Different strains work for different problems," said Miguel Freitas, Dannon's scientific affairs director. "The one for Activia works on slow transit" — the company's elegant term for constipation — "and the one for DanActive on immunity."
Tropicana offers an orange juice tailored for bone loss, another for acid reflux, and one for weight loss. Many factors are pushing this trend toward health-specific foods: the aging population, changes in labeling rules, the general trend toward micromarketing that makes consumers accept, and soon expect, 12 slightly different Tropicana orange juices on the shelf where one used to be enough for everyone.
Additionally, with recent rising costs in raw materials, flavorings and transport, many food companies are refocusing their research and development; instead of adding expensive ingredients like sun-dried tomatoes or honey-roasted almonds to existing products, the search is on for inexpensive "value-added" products that customers will pay extra for. Mars's CocoaVia line of chocolate claims to offer health benefits because of high levels of antioxidants; an ounce of CocoaVia blueberry almond chocolate costs about $1.25, while an ounce of the same manufacturer's Dove blueberry almond chocolate costs about 75 cents. In order to get the nutritional benefits from CocoaVia, the company recommends eating two bars a day — an investment of more than $700 and 4,000 fat grams in the course of a year.
Eating the right nutrients is a complicated question, one that nutritionists say could most easily be solved by eating a wide range of basic foods.
Lichtenstein of Tufts says that the recent setbacks and surprises in nutrition research have made her rethink the whole model of adding nutrients to the diet, despite the effectiveness of vitamin fortification.
"Maybe the true benefit of eating a lot of fish is that you are actually eating less of something else, like steak," she said. "Maybe a subtraction model is the key. We have a long way to go to find out."
But a few have a more exalted destiny: to be transported, purified and served at North American breakfast tables in the form of Tropicana Healthy Heart orange juice and Wonder Headstart bread. These new products promise to deliver the health benefits of fish oil without the smell and the taste — without, in fact, the fish.
The possible benefits of eating omega-3s include cardiovascular protection and improved neural development in children.
However, "People just aren't eating salmon or sardines twice a day," said Ellie Halevy, director for marketing of Tropicana, which is owned by PepsiCo. "But they will drink two glasses of orange juice, if it has no fishy taste and all the benefits."
Orange juice laced with anchovies is one example of the latest way major food companies are competing for health-conscious consumers: plugging one food into another and claiming the health benefits of both. Shoppers are offered green tea extracts in their ginger ale, yogurt bacteria in their salsa, and powdered beets in their peanut butter. Market staples like blueberries (high in certain antioxidants), cherries (may have anti-inflammatory benefits) and bananas (when unripe, particularly rich in fiber) are being broken down, shaken up, microencapsulated, and put to work in new ways.
These additives are often called nutraceuticals, broadly defined as ingredients that are derived from food, and that offer health benefits associated with that food. Nutraceuticals like garlic pills and cranberry capsules became popular in the 1990s, usually taken alone in the form of dietary supplements.
Now Kraft, Dannon, General Mills and many other companies are adding nutraceuticals to existing foods: "fat-burning waffles" made from a newly developed corn flour, cheese that kills intestinal parasites, even ketchup that regulates digestion, are on the shelves or in the works. New technologies in food processing, and a landmark 1999 court decision giving the makers of supplements broad leeway to advertise their health benefits, have brought this new class of enhanced foods to supermarket shelves.
These products are known as functional foods, meaning they have been modified to make them more nutritious, like genetically modified rice or fortified milk.
"One day, we believe, you will be able to walk into a supermarket and all the products could be enriched with omega-3s: milk, yogurt, tortillas," said Ian Lucas, head of marketing for Ocean Nutrition Canada, maker of the fish oil used by Tropicana.
Are we really that close to a world in which food functions as a nutrient delivery system, made possible by microencapsulation and fine-spray coating? And what would this mean for food and human nutrition?
"This whole area is far more complex than we thought just one or two years ago," said Alice Lichtenstein, a professor of nutrition science and policy at Tufts University.
Since the 1970s, as nutrition research has progressed beyond "vitamins and minerals," a variety of new compounds have been touted as the key to health: antioxidants (related to vitamins, these include lycopene, beta-carotene and other plant-based nutrients); long-chain fatty acids like omega-3s, plentiful in fish and some plants; and "probiotics," the live bacteria in yogurt and fermented vegetables.
There is significant scientific agreement — the standard the Food and Drug Administration requires before foodmakers can place unqualified health claims on packaging — on the benefits of certain nutrients, including calcium, fiber, folate, soy protein, omega-3 fatty acids, lactic acid bacteria and a few others. In food, these have proved to help protect against specific diseases (calcium against osteoporosis, omega-3 fatty acids for heart disease), and many nutritionists believe that they are beneficial in supplement form.
However, recent studies on supplemental vitamin E, beta-carotene and folate (all of which fall into the broad category of "antioxidants") surprised everyone by showing no benefits whatsoever for cardiovascular disease. "There is a great deal we don't know about how the compounds in food are made available to the body," Lichtenstein said. "Now we have to be more cautious about individual nutrients, though we should not close our minds, given the successes of the past."
Fortified food is certainly one of the great triumphs of public-health policy. When vitamin-B-enriched flour was introduced in the 1940s, rates of pellagra plummeted. Iodine-fortified salt virtually wiped out goiter, and vitamin-D-enriched milk eliminated rickets in children. But some experts say that such carefully designed campaigns have little in common with the fortified products now turning up in supermarkets.
"Those decisions were based on rigorous public-health studies," said Jeffrey Mechanick, a professor of endocrinology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "But the science hasn't been done on the new nutraceutical products, and the FDA's current labeling standards are inadequate."
The agency does not have specific rules for the labeling of functional foods. "It all depends on what type of claim is being made," said Michael Herndon, an agency spokesman. "An unqualified health claim like 'calcium reduces your risk of osteoporosis,' has to be proved in advance. A more general claim like 'X keeps your heart healthy' has to be provable by the manufacturer, but we would not require proof in advance." As with conventional foods, functional foods must clearly state the presence of allergens, like milk or fish, in the ingredients list.
The Food and Drug Administration does not conduct nutritional research. Several other U.S. government agencies do so, but functional foods are not evaluated by any specific office. "Nutraceutical products have characteristics of both food and drugs," said David A. Kessler, a former commissioner of the FDA "It's easy for them to slip through the cracks, and the industry is always ahead of the agency."
The free-market policy on claims for nutraceuticals benefits companies like LycoRed, a global provider of compounds pulled out of tomatoes that grow in desert greenhouses in Israel. LycoRed, like FutureCeuticals, National Starch, the German chemical giant BASF and other companies, produces a range of additives for the food industry.
"Everybody already knows that a tomato is healthy," said Udi Alroy, the company's chief marketer. "We don't have to sell something from Mars." But the form in which the tomato appears in LycoRed products is somewhat unearthly. Specially bred tomatoes, bright red and flavorless, are pulped and then treated to extract the valuable compounds of lycopene, beta-carotene and lutein — which are then encapsulated in "beadlets" so tiny they cannot be felt by the human tongue.
"People want their food to have the same organoleptic qualities, not be gritty or taste different or feel weird," said Kevin Stark, head of the food technology division of NineSigma, a research company that helps put clients like General Mills and Procter & Gamble in touch with scientists and technologists around the world.
The tiny capsules, made of fat, protein or sometimes plastic, can be designed to deliver foods to a particular part of the digestive tract. Some capsules can wait out long periods on shelves or even survive heat treatment, the method used to cook and sterilize most canned foods.
Other new technologies can remove the fishy smell of fish, distill a pomegranate into flavorless powder and possibly deliver the nutritional benefits of a green bean via a slice of pound cake, and major players like Dannon, Nestlé and PepsiCo are plunging in.
A new brand of peanut butter, Zap, is imperceptibly fortified with powdered beets, carrots and bananas. Nutritious Chocolate, a new product from Gary Null, a health-food marketer, includes the usual ingredients of chocolate: cocoa butter, cocoa beans, cane sugar, vanilla. Oh, and broccoli, cranberries, nectarines, parsley, pomegranates, watermelons, kale and more — a total of 30 additional plants, all in powdered form.
But whether the nutritional benefits of the original foods survive in additive form is still to be determined.
"Whether a tomato is good for you, that's one thing," Kessler said. "Whether the lycopene in a tomato is good for you, that's another. And then whether synthetic lycopene and microencapsulated lycopene are also good for you, that's yet another thing."
In a manufacturing plant outside Paris, the Danone Group, parent company of Dannon, nourishes more than 3,000 different strains of lactic acid bacteria for its lines of "probiotic" yogurts. All yogurt is fermented with live cultures, but Danone claims to have harnessed yogurt's healing potential to particular ends. "Different strains work for different problems," said Miguel Freitas, Dannon's scientific affairs director. "The one for Activia works on slow transit" — the company's elegant term for constipation — "and the one for DanActive on immunity."
Tropicana offers an orange juice tailored for bone loss, another for acid reflux, and one for weight loss. Many factors are pushing this trend toward health-specific foods: the aging population, changes in labeling rules, the general trend toward micromarketing that makes consumers accept, and soon expect, 12 slightly different Tropicana orange juices on the shelf where one used to be enough for everyone.
Additionally, with recent rising costs in raw materials, flavorings and transport, many food companies are refocusing their research and development; instead of adding expensive ingredients like sun-dried tomatoes or honey-roasted almonds to existing products, the search is on for inexpensive "value-added" products that customers will pay extra for. Mars's CocoaVia line of chocolate claims to offer health benefits because of high levels of antioxidants; an ounce of CocoaVia blueberry almond chocolate costs about $1.25, while an ounce of the same manufacturer's Dove blueberry almond chocolate costs about 75 cents. In order to get the nutritional benefits from CocoaVia, the company recommends eating two bars a day — an investment of more than $700 and 4,000 fat grams in the course of a year.
Eating the right nutrients is a complicated question, one that nutritionists say could most easily be solved by eating a wide range of basic foods.
Lichtenstein of Tufts says that the recent setbacks and surprises in nutrition research have made her rethink the whole model of adding nutrients to the diet, despite the effectiveness of vitamin fortification.
"Maybe the true benefit of eating a lot of fish is that you are actually eating less of something else, like steak," she said. "Maybe a subtraction model is the key. We have a long way to go to find out."
World - Students saw in Professor Obama a pragmatist,not an idealogue
When Jaime Escuder, a University of Chicago law student, was searching for a professor to supervise an independent project on prisoners' rights, he turned to Barack Obama, but not for Obama's politics. As a student in Obama's constitutional law class in 2001, Escuder was impressed by his teacher's ability to see both sides of an argument.
"I figured Obama would respect the stance I took in the paper, whether or not he agreed with it," said Escuder, now a public defender in Illinois.
In the project, Escuder forcefully advocated for prisoners having the freedom to procreate. Obama gave him guidance on honing his argument - but never told him if he agreed. When he did venture an opinion, it was to prod Escuder to consider real-world implications. On running into Escuder one weekend morning, Obama said: "I don't think that you're giving adequate consideration to how difficult it will be for prison officials to care for pregnant women. I've been dealing with this recently, and believe me, it isn't easy." Escuder assumed Obama was talking about being a father.
Obama taught at the University of Chicago Law School for a decade before he left in 2003 to run for the U.S. Senate. He emerged as one of the Senate's most liberal members, and his voting record is often invoked in the current campaign, especially by his opponents. But the men and women who studied with him at Chicago echo Escuder's observation that Obama was much more pragmatic than ideological. Even as his political career advanced, Obama's teaching stuck to the law-school norm of dispassionately evaluating competing arguments with the tools of forensic logic.
"It was drilled into us from Day 1 that you examined your biases and inclinations," said Richard Hess, now an attorney at Susman Godfrey in Houston. "And then, when you made decisions, they were based on sound empirical reasons."
Escuder saw his professor as "a street-smart academic."
"He wanted his students to consider the impact laws and judicial opinions had on real people," Escuder said.
According to Marcus Fruchter, who took constitutional law with Obama and now practices at the law firm of Schopf & Weiss in Chicago, "You never would have known he was going to be a liberal senator based on what he said in his courses."
I recently spoke to many of Obama's former students and asked them to speculate about how the teacher they saw manage a classroom might try to manage a country. Dan Johnson-Weinberger, who lobbies for progressive causes in Illinois, said he thought his former professor was unlikely to emerge as an ideological liberal if he makes it to the White House. "Based on what I saw in the classroom," he said, "my guess is an Obama administration could be summarized in two words: Ruthless pragmatism."
Obama's status as senior lecturer in law was a rarefied one. At that time, two federal judges - Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook, both of the Seventh Circuit - held that position, and both men had been full-time, distinguished members of the Chicago faculty before joining the bench and reducing their course loads at the law school. So when the 34-year-old Obama told the law school's dean, Douglas Baird, that he wanted the same post, Baird was somewhat taken aback. "He's not a man possessed by self-doubt," Baird said with a smile.
It wasn't that he didn't think highly of Obama. Baird had recruited him from Harvard Law School, where Obama was the first African-American president of the Law Review. Baird arranged for the promising graduating student to become a law and government fellow at Chicago, providing Obama with a stipend and an office so he could complete his first book, "Dreams From My Father."
In 1996, after winning election to the Illinois Senate, Obama decided he needed to supplement the salary he would draw as a legislator. And so over dinner at the Park Avenue Cafe in Chicago one evening, he and Baird hammered out an agreement whereby Obama would become a senior lecturer and teach three classes a year.
Baird pushed hard to get Obama the senior lecturer position. The newly minted state senator would have added diversity to the law school: At the time, there was only one person of color on the full-time Chicago academic teaching staff. And Obama had proved to be a skilled teacher.
"You could tell from the course evaluations and enrollments that students had really taken to him," Baird said.
When Obama was promoted to the senior lecturer position, he had only taught his seminar on racism and the law. While his teaching schedule expanded to include constitutional law and voting rights, it was his original seminar that left the greatest impression on his students. In the class, Obama emphasized how people's experiences and backgrounds could influence their perceptions of prejudice and the possible need for government action to curb its effects.
"He wanted us to be aware of our biases so we could better avoid the pitfalls they can bring," said a former student, Bethany Lampland, who now practices in New York.
He did that in part by sharing personal stories that revealed preconceptions he himself harbored. In the autumn of 2003, for example, he told of an uncomfortable encounter he had one evening on Lake Shore Drive. An Asian driver in a souped-up Honda cut him off; when the two men reached a stoplight, Obama shot him a dirty look. The driver's response was to roll down his window and yell "nigger" at Obama before speeding off.
The professor described himself as initially shocked. But as he reflected on the episode, he told the class, he realized that the other driver wasn't the only one harboring stereotypes. "I was thinking, 'Here's some Asian kid on his way to a club,"' Obama said, according to Richard Hess, who was enrolled in the course. Obama had stereotyped the driver as the kind of person who would never call him "nigger."
Hess, who worked in Democratic politics before attending law school, told me he was impressed by his professor's ability to coolly analyze such an unpleasant confrontation. "I thought it displayed a thoughtfulness," he said. "He would talk about race in a way that I doubt anyone had heard from their professor before, or I had heard from a politician before."
The class led Tom Hynes, who took racism and the law in 1996, to consider his experiences growing up in an Irish Catholic neighborhood in racially balkanized Chicago. Under Obama's supervision, he wrote an independent paper on the history of tensions between Irish immigrants and African-Americans. He was struck, he said, by Obama's pragmatic take on race relations.
"In his mind, the real problem wasn't racist attitudes some people may hold, but the fact that some minorities were starting at such a huge disadvantage," Hynes recounted. "Issues like poor public education and the lack of access to credit seemed more glaring to him."
Dennis Hutchinson, who also teaches courses on race and the law at Chicago, pointed out that Obama's racial background gave him a certain advantage. "Let's be frank," said Hutchinson, who is white. "If you're black, and you are teaching a group of mostly white students about sensitive topics touching on race, then you're controlling the class."
But like any good law professor, Obama seems not to have used his position to produce a preconceived political result. When he lectured on a pivotal affirmative action Supreme Court case, for instance, he emphasized that white contractors who lost out to minority businesses because of racial set-asides had a legitimate grievance.
Similarly, Obama allowed that there was an argument to be made for paying out reparations for slavery. The class reading - including authors like Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington - certainly bolstered the idea that some kind of atonement was warranted. But after making the theoretical case, Obama pushed his students to think about the implications of actually cutting checks to the descendants of slaves. It was possible, he pointed out, that the move would merely create resentment. Obama kept his own thoughts on the topics he was teaching mostly to himself.
Dan Johnson-Weinberger studied voting rights with Obama. He remembers Obama as an able observer of the allocation of power in the American democratic system. As Obama shepherded students through the evolution of how Americans elect their representatives, Johnson-Weinberger said, he emphasized how important the rules of the game were in determining who won elections.
That background in voting law, the former student said, played a factor in Obama's primary triumph over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. "He understood how important the caucus states would be, and he grasped that voters in African-American Congressional districts would have a disproportionate impact in selecting the nominee," he said. "I think one of the reasons he said yes to this race is that he grasped the structural path to victory."
Johnson-Weinberger, who has championed alternative electoral systems like proportional voting in Illinois, found Obama's practical approach to be a welcome respite from traditional law-school fare. He volunteered for Obama's losing 2000 primary challenge to Representative Bobby Rush and his victorious Senate run four years later. His former professor, he speculated, would bring a similar mind-set to the White House.
"I don't think he's wedded to any particular ideology," Johnson-Weinberger told me. "If he has an impatience about anything, it's the idea that some proposals aren't worthy of consideration."
Alexandra Starr has written about politics and culture for The New York Times, Slate, The New Republic and The American Scholar.
"I figured Obama would respect the stance I took in the paper, whether or not he agreed with it," said Escuder, now a public defender in Illinois.
In the project, Escuder forcefully advocated for prisoners having the freedom to procreate. Obama gave him guidance on honing his argument - but never told him if he agreed. When he did venture an opinion, it was to prod Escuder to consider real-world implications. On running into Escuder one weekend morning, Obama said: "I don't think that you're giving adequate consideration to how difficult it will be for prison officials to care for pregnant women. I've been dealing with this recently, and believe me, it isn't easy." Escuder assumed Obama was talking about being a father.
Obama taught at the University of Chicago Law School for a decade before he left in 2003 to run for the U.S. Senate. He emerged as one of the Senate's most liberal members, and his voting record is often invoked in the current campaign, especially by his opponents. But the men and women who studied with him at Chicago echo Escuder's observation that Obama was much more pragmatic than ideological. Even as his political career advanced, Obama's teaching stuck to the law-school norm of dispassionately evaluating competing arguments with the tools of forensic logic.
"It was drilled into us from Day 1 that you examined your biases and inclinations," said Richard Hess, now an attorney at Susman Godfrey in Houston. "And then, when you made decisions, they were based on sound empirical reasons."
Escuder saw his professor as "a street-smart academic."
"He wanted his students to consider the impact laws and judicial opinions had on real people," Escuder said.
According to Marcus Fruchter, who took constitutional law with Obama and now practices at the law firm of Schopf & Weiss in Chicago, "You never would have known he was going to be a liberal senator based on what he said in his courses."
I recently spoke to many of Obama's former students and asked them to speculate about how the teacher they saw manage a classroom might try to manage a country. Dan Johnson-Weinberger, who lobbies for progressive causes in Illinois, said he thought his former professor was unlikely to emerge as an ideological liberal if he makes it to the White House. "Based on what I saw in the classroom," he said, "my guess is an Obama administration could be summarized in two words: Ruthless pragmatism."
Obama's status as senior lecturer in law was a rarefied one. At that time, two federal judges - Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook, both of the Seventh Circuit - held that position, and both men had been full-time, distinguished members of the Chicago faculty before joining the bench and reducing their course loads at the law school. So when the 34-year-old Obama told the law school's dean, Douglas Baird, that he wanted the same post, Baird was somewhat taken aback. "He's not a man possessed by self-doubt," Baird said with a smile.
It wasn't that he didn't think highly of Obama. Baird had recruited him from Harvard Law School, where Obama was the first African-American president of the Law Review. Baird arranged for the promising graduating student to become a law and government fellow at Chicago, providing Obama with a stipend and an office so he could complete his first book, "Dreams From My Father."
In 1996, after winning election to the Illinois Senate, Obama decided he needed to supplement the salary he would draw as a legislator. And so over dinner at the Park Avenue Cafe in Chicago one evening, he and Baird hammered out an agreement whereby Obama would become a senior lecturer and teach three classes a year.
Baird pushed hard to get Obama the senior lecturer position. The newly minted state senator would have added diversity to the law school: At the time, there was only one person of color on the full-time Chicago academic teaching staff. And Obama had proved to be a skilled teacher.
"You could tell from the course evaluations and enrollments that students had really taken to him," Baird said.
When Obama was promoted to the senior lecturer position, he had only taught his seminar on racism and the law. While his teaching schedule expanded to include constitutional law and voting rights, it was his original seminar that left the greatest impression on his students. In the class, Obama emphasized how people's experiences and backgrounds could influence their perceptions of prejudice and the possible need for government action to curb its effects.
"He wanted us to be aware of our biases so we could better avoid the pitfalls they can bring," said a former student, Bethany Lampland, who now practices in New York.
He did that in part by sharing personal stories that revealed preconceptions he himself harbored. In the autumn of 2003, for example, he told of an uncomfortable encounter he had one evening on Lake Shore Drive. An Asian driver in a souped-up Honda cut him off; when the two men reached a stoplight, Obama shot him a dirty look. The driver's response was to roll down his window and yell "nigger" at Obama before speeding off.
The professor described himself as initially shocked. But as he reflected on the episode, he told the class, he realized that the other driver wasn't the only one harboring stereotypes. "I was thinking, 'Here's some Asian kid on his way to a club,"' Obama said, according to Richard Hess, who was enrolled in the course. Obama had stereotyped the driver as the kind of person who would never call him "nigger."
Hess, who worked in Democratic politics before attending law school, told me he was impressed by his professor's ability to coolly analyze such an unpleasant confrontation. "I thought it displayed a thoughtfulness," he said. "He would talk about race in a way that I doubt anyone had heard from their professor before, or I had heard from a politician before."
The class led Tom Hynes, who took racism and the law in 1996, to consider his experiences growing up in an Irish Catholic neighborhood in racially balkanized Chicago. Under Obama's supervision, he wrote an independent paper on the history of tensions between Irish immigrants and African-Americans. He was struck, he said, by Obama's pragmatic take on race relations.
"In his mind, the real problem wasn't racist attitudes some people may hold, but the fact that some minorities were starting at such a huge disadvantage," Hynes recounted. "Issues like poor public education and the lack of access to credit seemed more glaring to him."
Dennis Hutchinson, who also teaches courses on race and the law at Chicago, pointed out that Obama's racial background gave him a certain advantage. "Let's be frank," said Hutchinson, who is white. "If you're black, and you are teaching a group of mostly white students about sensitive topics touching on race, then you're controlling the class."
But like any good law professor, Obama seems not to have used his position to produce a preconceived political result. When he lectured on a pivotal affirmative action Supreme Court case, for instance, he emphasized that white contractors who lost out to minority businesses because of racial set-asides had a legitimate grievance.
Similarly, Obama allowed that there was an argument to be made for paying out reparations for slavery. The class reading - including authors like Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington - certainly bolstered the idea that some kind of atonement was warranted. But after making the theoretical case, Obama pushed his students to think about the implications of actually cutting checks to the descendants of slaves. It was possible, he pointed out, that the move would merely create resentment. Obama kept his own thoughts on the topics he was teaching mostly to himself.
Dan Johnson-Weinberger studied voting rights with Obama. He remembers Obama as an able observer of the allocation of power in the American democratic system. As Obama shepherded students through the evolution of how Americans elect their representatives, Johnson-Weinberger said, he emphasized how important the rules of the game were in determining who won elections.
That background in voting law, the former student said, played a factor in Obama's primary triumph over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. "He understood how important the caucus states would be, and he grasped that voters in African-American Congressional districts would have a disproportionate impact in selecting the nominee," he said. "I think one of the reasons he said yes to this race is that he grasped the structural path to victory."
Johnson-Weinberger, who has championed alternative electoral systems like proportional voting in Illinois, found Obama's practical approach to be a welcome respite from traditional law-school fare. He volunteered for Obama's losing 2000 primary challenge to Representative Bobby Rush and his victorious Senate run four years later. His former professor, he speculated, would bring a similar mind-set to the White House.
"I don't think he's wedded to any particular ideology," Johnson-Weinberger told me. "If he has an impatience about anything, it's the idea that some proposals aren't worthy of consideration."
Alexandra Starr has written about politics and culture for The New York Times, Slate, The New Republic and The American Scholar.
Lifestyle - For UK libraries silence is no longer golden
Patrons will now be able to talk to each other as well as on mobile phones
LONDON: Libraries have been the haven of silence where the studious can retire to for serious learning in a quiet environment. Some public libraries in London however are changing their look in order to get more people through their doors.
Library patrons will now be able to talk to each other as well as on mobile phones, bring food and drink into the premises, play on computer games and watch football matches. The Society of Chief Librarians have decided it is time that libraries changed with the times otherwise they will simply die out.
The number of books borrowed from libraries across Britain in the last 10 years has fallen by 34% and 40 libraries closed down last year. The Borough of Hillingdon in West London ran a pilot programme of allowing a popular coffee shop into one of their main libraries. They found their book borrowing rose by 32 %. Hillingdon is introducing a coffee shop into all 17 of its libraries by next year.
The Borough of Camden, in North London is following in their footsteps. “It is all about improving the atmosphere of the libraries into a more relaxed space that people can feel comfortable in,” said Mike Clarke, head of libraries at Camden.
“We don’t want anybody to bring in greasy fish and chips and spill it over 15th century books. Nor do we want them coming somewhere where they can’t eat, drink or talk at all,” said Tony Durcan, president of the Society of Chief Librarians.
Critics complain that it will destroy libraries as sanctuaries for the mind. “Giving people what they have in internet cafes is not going to bring in lost book borrowers,” said Kate Muir, novelist. “Give kids the space and silence to be bored until they are inspired, and take out the intravenous computer drip and the attempt at popularisation shows a “lack of imagination from those who are supposed to be the last guardians of imagination,” she suggested.
LONDON: Libraries have been the haven of silence where the studious can retire to for serious learning in a quiet environment. Some public libraries in London however are changing their look in order to get more people through their doors.
Library patrons will now be able to talk to each other as well as on mobile phones, bring food and drink into the premises, play on computer games and watch football matches. The Society of Chief Librarians have decided it is time that libraries changed with the times otherwise they will simply die out.
The number of books borrowed from libraries across Britain in the last 10 years has fallen by 34% and 40 libraries closed down last year. The Borough of Hillingdon in West London ran a pilot programme of allowing a popular coffee shop into one of their main libraries. They found their book borrowing rose by 32 %. Hillingdon is introducing a coffee shop into all 17 of its libraries by next year.
The Borough of Camden, in North London is following in their footsteps. “It is all about improving the atmosphere of the libraries into a more relaxed space that people can feel comfortable in,” said Mike Clarke, head of libraries at Camden.
“We don’t want anybody to bring in greasy fish and chips and spill it over 15th century books. Nor do we want them coming somewhere where they can’t eat, drink or talk at all,” said Tony Durcan, president of the Society of Chief Librarians.
Critics complain that it will destroy libraries as sanctuaries for the mind. “Giving people what they have in internet cafes is not going to bring in lost book borrowers,” said Kate Muir, novelist. “Give kids the space and silence to be bored until they are inspired, and take out the intravenous computer drip and the attempt at popularisation shows a “lack of imagination from those who are supposed to be the last guardians of imagination,” she suggested.
Lifestyle - Chinese relearn merits of breastfeeding
HONG KONG: “A mother’s milk cures a hundred ailments,” goes an ancient Chinese saying. But in a country where there existed a tradition of ‘wet nurses’—nannies who breastfed babies when the mother couldn’t—there has in recent times been a striking decline in the practice of breastfeeding.
The reason: a lack of general awareness about the merits of breastfeeding, the hardsell of baby food formulas, the pressures on women to return quickly to work after childbirth, and, in some cases, a bizarre and vain misconception that breastfeeding would ruin their figure.
All that may be changing overnight, following the death or hospitalisation of babies in China after consuming tainted baby food formula.
On Internet bulletin boards and mothers’ support groups, there has been an avalanche of enquiries in recent days from mothers wanting to know more about the subject, and questioning some of the misconceptions around it.
Doctors in hospitals in Guangzhou in southern China say that a majority of mothers today cannot lactate because their excessively rigid “diet regimen” in the interests of a “beautiful figure” had pushed them to the edge of malnutrition. Dr Zhang Yujie at the Number One People’s Hospital says that young mothers also did not wish to stay “confined” for long after childbirth and typically entrusted childrearing responsibilities to the grandparents.
Beauty-obsessed women were also increasingly wearing figure-hugging bras, unaware that they could injure their mammary glands and affect their lactation after childbirth, doctors say.
The reason: a lack of general awareness about the merits of breastfeeding, the hardsell of baby food formulas, the pressures on women to return quickly to work after childbirth, and, in some cases, a bizarre and vain misconception that breastfeeding would ruin their figure.
All that may be changing overnight, following the death or hospitalisation of babies in China after consuming tainted baby food formula.
On Internet bulletin boards and mothers’ support groups, there has been an avalanche of enquiries in recent days from mothers wanting to know more about the subject, and questioning some of the misconceptions around it.
Doctors in hospitals in Guangzhou in southern China say that a majority of mothers today cannot lactate because their excessively rigid “diet regimen” in the interests of a “beautiful figure” had pushed them to the edge of malnutrition. Dr Zhang Yujie at the Number One People’s Hospital says that young mothers also did not wish to stay “confined” for long after childbirth and typically entrusted childrearing responsibilities to the grandparents.
Beauty-obsessed women were also increasingly wearing figure-hugging bras, unaware that they could injure their mammary glands and affect their lactation after childbirth, doctors say.
Entertainment - Q&A MTV India VP - Creative & Content
At 35, Ashish Patil, general manager, MTV is the oldest employee in his organisation. Yet Patil, who is also senior VP -creative and content, is as animated as ever, reflecting the youthful, exuberant energy of the MTV’s colourful office in Parel, Mumbai. He’s seen MTV evolve in India from a music channel to a youth destination, also growing in revenues and tapping the pulse of the Generation Next.
Last year, MTV underwent a major repositioning — both in branding, channel packaging and organisational culture — all of which is now bearing fruit in the form of successful programming such as Roadies, Splitsvilla. He shared his views on the channel’s strategy, targeting young audiences, survival in the music channel space in a candid conversation with DNA Money’s Arcopol Chaudhuri. Excerpts:
In India, MTV has become synonymous with spoofs. Are you making a concerted effort at moving beyond Music Television?
Some trivia first — the most successful film-making genre is the spoof. Take the Scary Movie series, Hot Shots, Naked Gun series. The investments are really low but the returns are great.
Humour is something that comes very naturally to MTV. Bakra, Semi Girebaal, Fully Faltoo are results of that. Two years back we did a theatrical release of Ghoom — a spoof on Dhoom. Even with limited shows, it was a box-office success. Every ticket you bought came along with a Saridon pill.
After watching the film, you were awarded certificates telling you that you’d achieved the impossible. These antics helped. Sahara Filmy even bought the rights of Ghoom. That’s when we realised we’re upto something. And we released it on home video.
So you’re no longer a music channel now. Your major properties like Splitsvilla, Roadies, On the Job are also non-music based…
We moved beyond music many moons ago. Now suddenly you see it, because we’ve been in overdrive promoting it, scaling up our production. If you ask people, what comes to mind when we say MTV, they’ll say Bakra, Fully Faltoo or even Malaika Arora. So it’s always been about ‘more than music’. Alternative careers, unlicensed thrills, adventure, twisted romance — we’ve now identified the hot buttons for young people. It doesn’t, however, mean that music has taken a backseat. In a way, music has become a commodity. I don’t necessarily need to watch a music channel to get my dose of music. I can tune in to the iPod or an FM station.
INX Media’s music channel 9XM claims to have the number one slot in its genre. How do you react to that?
I don’t. We’re simply more than the music, man! They (music channels) are not even a reference point for us. MTV’s competition is anything that competes with MTV for attention, eyeballs and wallets of young people. It could be Facebook, Barista, Cafe Coffee Day, a movie they want to see on a weekend, or even a show on a general entertainment channel.
Now we’ve adopted what I call ‘multiplatformication’. The criteria is that any content we make, has to gel well not only on TV screens, but also the two additional screens — mobile phone and the PC. And it’s working. One-and-half-lakh people are playing the Roadies game on Orkut, on a daily basis. Roadies, Fully Faltoo Film Festival will spin out on home video. Roadies itself will spill out into more than 15 product categories. The show is the first MTV format to be exported from India to other countries. It will soon be adapted on ARY Pakistan.
How much has MTV’s target group (TG) evolved over the years?
Some things have remained the same. The TG is still obnoxious, doesn’t respect parents, curses professors, and still doesn’t know what it wants. But they still want everything!
One fundamental change is this TG now wants instant gratification. That has influenced the way MTV cut its content, and presents stuff. Secondly, there is the option overload — career, girlfiend, entertainment. And thirdly —and I say this because Bollywood is a great barometer of social change — ‘the angry young man’ is no more. Look at the heroes of today — Rahuls, Prems, Karans — they are all born rich, successful. That’s similar with our TG today. They’re born with cable TV in their homes, mobile phones, internet connectivity and they’re obsessed with having a good time.
And very interestingly, music consumption has gone through the roof. Everyone needs a background score to their lives. So, the reference points today are not rickshaws, Rangoli, Shetty and his samosas. It is Facebook, YouTube and that we decided to reflect when we repositioned ourselves a year back.
Unlike other channels, most of your programming is produced in-house?
Yes, almost 80%. One instance where we outsourced a show (Balaji Telefilms’ production Kitni Mast Hai Zindagi) we had a fantastic experience. But eight weeks after the show went on air, we lost creative control.
Our intent was good though. In 2004, when the show happened, there was nothing called appointment viewing. People just stumbled onto a nice song, sampled some programmes and switched channels. So, we needed to build appointment viewing. I handed Splitsvilla to Colosseum, because apart from getting a good director Rajeev Lakshman, my MTV shoot crew was available.
How do you think will the existing music channels survive?
I think that both revenue pie and viewership on music is fairly small. And there’s a ceiling to it. Also a lot of other genres are getting into the music space like general entertainment channels (GECs) — most reality / talent hunt shows today are music based. So they’re already eating into your programming pie and revenue pie.
Last year, MTV underwent a major repositioning — both in branding, channel packaging and organisational culture — all of which is now bearing fruit in the form of successful programming such as Roadies, Splitsvilla. He shared his views on the channel’s strategy, targeting young audiences, survival in the music channel space in a candid conversation with DNA Money’s Arcopol Chaudhuri. Excerpts:
In India, MTV has become synonymous with spoofs. Are you making a concerted effort at moving beyond Music Television?
Some trivia first — the most successful film-making genre is the spoof. Take the Scary Movie series, Hot Shots, Naked Gun series. The investments are really low but the returns are great.
Humour is something that comes very naturally to MTV. Bakra, Semi Girebaal, Fully Faltoo are results of that. Two years back we did a theatrical release of Ghoom — a spoof on Dhoom. Even with limited shows, it was a box-office success. Every ticket you bought came along with a Saridon pill.
After watching the film, you were awarded certificates telling you that you’d achieved the impossible. These antics helped. Sahara Filmy even bought the rights of Ghoom. That’s when we realised we’re upto something. And we released it on home video.
So you’re no longer a music channel now. Your major properties like Splitsvilla, Roadies, On the Job are also non-music based…
We moved beyond music many moons ago. Now suddenly you see it, because we’ve been in overdrive promoting it, scaling up our production. If you ask people, what comes to mind when we say MTV, they’ll say Bakra, Fully Faltoo or even Malaika Arora. So it’s always been about ‘more than music’. Alternative careers, unlicensed thrills, adventure, twisted romance — we’ve now identified the hot buttons for young people. It doesn’t, however, mean that music has taken a backseat. In a way, music has become a commodity. I don’t necessarily need to watch a music channel to get my dose of music. I can tune in to the iPod or an FM station.
INX Media’s music channel 9XM claims to have the number one slot in its genre. How do you react to that?
I don’t. We’re simply more than the music, man! They (music channels) are not even a reference point for us. MTV’s competition is anything that competes with MTV for attention, eyeballs and wallets of young people. It could be Facebook, Barista, Cafe Coffee Day, a movie they want to see on a weekend, or even a show on a general entertainment channel.
Now we’ve adopted what I call ‘multiplatformication’. The criteria is that any content we make, has to gel well not only on TV screens, but also the two additional screens — mobile phone and the PC. And it’s working. One-and-half-lakh people are playing the Roadies game on Orkut, on a daily basis. Roadies, Fully Faltoo Film Festival will spin out on home video. Roadies itself will spill out into more than 15 product categories. The show is the first MTV format to be exported from India to other countries. It will soon be adapted on ARY Pakistan.
How much has MTV’s target group (TG) evolved over the years?
Some things have remained the same. The TG is still obnoxious, doesn’t respect parents, curses professors, and still doesn’t know what it wants. But they still want everything!
One fundamental change is this TG now wants instant gratification. That has influenced the way MTV cut its content, and presents stuff. Secondly, there is the option overload — career, girlfiend, entertainment. And thirdly —and I say this because Bollywood is a great barometer of social change — ‘the angry young man’ is no more. Look at the heroes of today — Rahuls, Prems, Karans — they are all born rich, successful. That’s similar with our TG today. They’re born with cable TV in their homes, mobile phones, internet connectivity and they’re obsessed with having a good time.
And very interestingly, music consumption has gone through the roof. Everyone needs a background score to their lives. So, the reference points today are not rickshaws, Rangoli, Shetty and his samosas. It is Facebook, YouTube and that we decided to reflect when we repositioned ourselves a year back.
Unlike other channels, most of your programming is produced in-house?
Yes, almost 80%. One instance where we outsourced a show (Balaji Telefilms’ production Kitni Mast Hai Zindagi) we had a fantastic experience. But eight weeks after the show went on air, we lost creative control.
Our intent was good though. In 2004, when the show happened, there was nothing called appointment viewing. People just stumbled onto a nice song, sampled some programmes and switched channels. So, we needed to build appointment viewing. I handed Splitsvilla to Colosseum, because apart from getting a good director Rajeev Lakshman, my MTV shoot crew was available.
How do you think will the existing music channels survive?
I think that both revenue pie and viewership on music is fairly small. And there’s a ceiling to it. Also a lot of other genres are getting into the music space like general entertainment channels (GECs) — most reality / talent hunt shows today are music based. So they’re already eating into your programming pie and revenue pie.
World - U.S approves of $1.7 billion spy satellite project
After the spectacular failure of the last spy satellite effort, the administration of President George W. Bush is trying once again to put a new set of government eyes in space through a $1.7 billion project approved last week whose goal is to have two new satellites in orbit by 2012.
The key players involved this time - including officials from the Department of Defense and the national intelligence director's office - said in interviews this week that they recognized that the government could not afford another stumble.
The last project, called Future Imagery Architecture, was canceled in 2005 after indecision over what kind of capabilities it should have, which delayed progress and drove up the cost. It was canceled in 2005, before even a single satellite was launched, wasting at least $4 billion.
"We have to have the capability," John Young Jr., who is under secretary of defense, said Wednesday, referring to the federal government's need to gather imagery for its spies and troops and government decision makers.
But already there has been a dispute over whether the government, under the program now called Broad Area Space-Based Imagery Collector, should be building two new satellites of its own or acquiring images from private companies.
"It is déja vu," said J. Christian Kessler, who retired this year from a State Department post where he helped oversee federal space satellite policy. "We are already on the path of repeating the failure that cost us billions the last time."
The goal of the new Defense Department satellite system is not to get the most detailed images possible; that task is handled by other classified satellites already in space.
Instead, the new federal system will have a central mirror the exact size of those already being placed into space by two private companies, GeoEye of Dulles, Virginia, and Digital Globe of Longmont, Colorado.
Once in orbit, the satellites will be used to take shots of large areas, for mapping or watching troop movements or other broader-area tasks, not unlike what the commercial companies now sell for services like Google Maps.
The newest GeoEye satellite, which was launched Sept. 6 and is scheduled to be activated this weekend, is designed to take images of an area as large as Texas in a single day, with a resolution strong enough to see objects the size of a soccer ball on a field.
The federal government is already covering half of the $502 million cost of the GeoEye project, as part of a program intended to stimulate the commercial satellite industry.
Young, in an internal Defense Department memorandum, acknowledged last month that by building its own broad-area satellites, the federal government would not be honoring a 2003 presidential directive to "rely to the maximum practical extent on U.S. commercial remote sensing space capabilities."
He also cited "competing and inconsistent concerns" raised by the different federal agencies involved in the project, like whether the National Reconnaissance Office, which was in charge of the last failed satellite project, should again be put in charge of overseeing the purchase of these new satellites, as is now planned.
Kessler said that this kind of friction, expressed by the top Pentagon official in charge of procurement, was an ominous sign for a project just getting under way.
But Young and his counterpart at the Office of the Director for National Intelligence said this effort was fundamentally different from the previous one, as the contractor would be held to a fixed price and the satellites being built were based on proven technology.
"FIA was a catastrophe," said Alden Munson Jr., the deputy director of national intelligence for acquisition, referring to the previous satellite project. "But the two bear essentially no resemblance to each other. As with this project it is like going down to the Chevy dealer to buy a Chevy."
The exact specifications of the new federal satellites have not been released.
The key players involved this time - including officials from the Department of Defense and the national intelligence director's office - said in interviews this week that they recognized that the government could not afford another stumble.
The last project, called Future Imagery Architecture, was canceled in 2005 after indecision over what kind of capabilities it should have, which delayed progress and drove up the cost. It was canceled in 2005, before even a single satellite was launched, wasting at least $4 billion.
"We have to have the capability," John Young Jr., who is under secretary of defense, said Wednesday, referring to the federal government's need to gather imagery for its spies and troops and government decision makers.
But already there has been a dispute over whether the government, under the program now called Broad Area Space-Based Imagery Collector, should be building two new satellites of its own or acquiring images from private companies.
"It is déja vu," said J. Christian Kessler, who retired this year from a State Department post where he helped oversee federal space satellite policy. "We are already on the path of repeating the failure that cost us billions the last time."
The goal of the new Defense Department satellite system is not to get the most detailed images possible; that task is handled by other classified satellites already in space.
Instead, the new federal system will have a central mirror the exact size of those already being placed into space by two private companies, GeoEye of Dulles, Virginia, and Digital Globe of Longmont, Colorado.
Once in orbit, the satellites will be used to take shots of large areas, for mapping or watching troop movements or other broader-area tasks, not unlike what the commercial companies now sell for services like Google Maps.
The newest GeoEye satellite, which was launched Sept. 6 and is scheduled to be activated this weekend, is designed to take images of an area as large as Texas in a single day, with a resolution strong enough to see objects the size of a soccer ball on a field.
The federal government is already covering half of the $502 million cost of the GeoEye project, as part of a program intended to stimulate the commercial satellite industry.
Young, in an internal Defense Department memorandum, acknowledged last month that by building its own broad-area satellites, the federal government would not be honoring a 2003 presidential directive to "rely to the maximum practical extent on U.S. commercial remote sensing space capabilities."
He also cited "competing and inconsistent concerns" raised by the different federal agencies involved in the project, like whether the National Reconnaissance Office, which was in charge of the last failed satellite project, should again be put in charge of overseeing the purchase of these new satellites, as is now planned.
Kessler said that this kind of friction, expressed by the top Pentagon official in charge of procurement, was an ominous sign for a project just getting under way.
But Young and his counterpart at the Office of the Director for National Intelligence said this effort was fundamentally different from the previous one, as the contractor would be held to a fixed price and the satellites being built were based on proven technology.
"FIA was a catastrophe," said Alden Munson Jr., the deputy director of national intelligence for acquisition, referring to the previous satellite project. "But the two bear essentially no resemblance to each other. As with this project it is like going down to the Chevy dealer to buy a Chevy."
The exact specifications of the new federal satellites have not been released.
Health - Brin,of Google,predisposed to Parkinson's
Sergey Brin, a Google co-founder, said Thursday that he has a gene mutation that increases his likelihood of contracting Parkinson's disease, a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that can impair speech, movement and other functions.
Brin, who made the announcement on a blog, says he does not have the disease and that the exact implications of the discovery are not clear. Studies show that his likelihood of contracting Parkinson's disease in his lifetime may be 20 percent to 80 percent, Brin said.
Brin, whose personal fortune was recently pegged at $15.9 billion by Forbes, ranking him as the 13th richest American, said that he may help provide more money for research into the disease.
Through a Google spokesman, Brin declined to be interviewed for this article.
Brin said he learned that he carries a mutation of the LRRK2 gene, known as G2019S. His mother, Eugenia Brin, also carries the gene mutation and has Parkinson's.
Medical experts said that those who carry that gene mutation are more likely than not to live disease-free.
"Many people with this mutation never develop the disease," said Dr. Susan Bressman, chairwoman of the neurology department at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. "He is more likely to have a normal life than a Parkinson's disease life."
Bressman, who specializes in movement disorders and genetics, said that about 30 percent of people with the gene mutation develop the disease.
Brin said he discovered that he carried the gene mutation using a service from 23andMe, a biotechnology startup co-founded by his wife, Anne Wojcicki. The company can map customers' DNA and help them find information about their ancestry and their risk of getting certain diseases. Google, where Brin is president of technology, invested $3.9 million in 23andMe in May 2007.
Parkinson's disease is typically a late-onset disorder, in which people often first exhibit symptoms in their 50s or 60s. Brin is 35.
Symptoms, which can include tremors, stiffness, slowness of movement and speech impairment, can sometimes be managed through medication and surgery. While many people with the disease continue to function at a high level for many years, the disease is not curable and highly variable. Symptoms tend to become progressively worse over time.
"This leaves me in a rather unique position," Brin wrote in his blog post. "I know early in my life something I am substantially predisposed to. I now have the opportunity to adjust my life to reduce those odds (e.g. there is evidence that exercise may be protective against Parkinson's). I also have the opportunity to perform and support research into this disease long before it may affect me."
Brin and his family have already endowed the Eugenia Brin Professorship in Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where his mother is being treated.
Analysts said they did not believe that the news about Brin would have a negative impact on Google's shares.
Brin, who made the announcement on a blog, says he does not have the disease and that the exact implications of the discovery are not clear. Studies show that his likelihood of contracting Parkinson's disease in his lifetime may be 20 percent to 80 percent, Brin said.
Brin, whose personal fortune was recently pegged at $15.9 billion by Forbes, ranking him as the 13th richest American, said that he may help provide more money for research into the disease.
Through a Google spokesman, Brin declined to be interviewed for this article.
Brin said he learned that he carries a mutation of the LRRK2 gene, known as G2019S. His mother, Eugenia Brin, also carries the gene mutation and has Parkinson's.
Medical experts said that those who carry that gene mutation are more likely than not to live disease-free.
"Many people with this mutation never develop the disease," said Dr. Susan Bressman, chairwoman of the neurology department at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. "He is more likely to have a normal life than a Parkinson's disease life."
Bressman, who specializes in movement disorders and genetics, said that about 30 percent of people with the gene mutation develop the disease.
Brin said he discovered that he carried the gene mutation using a service from 23andMe, a biotechnology startup co-founded by his wife, Anne Wojcicki. The company can map customers' DNA and help them find information about their ancestry and their risk of getting certain diseases. Google, where Brin is president of technology, invested $3.9 million in 23andMe in May 2007.
Parkinson's disease is typically a late-onset disorder, in which people often first exhibit symptoms in their 50s or 60s. Brin is 35.
Symptoms, which can include tremors, stiffness, slowness of movement and speech impairment, can sometimes be managed through medication and surgery. While many people with the disease continue to function at a high level for many years, the disease is not curable and highly variable. Symptoms tend to become progressively worse over time.
"This leaves me in a rather unique position," Brin wrote in his blog post. "I know early in my life something I am substantially predisposed to. I now have the opportunity to adjust my life to reduce those odds (e.g. there is evidence that exercise may be protective against Parkinson's). I also have the opportunity to perform and support research into this disease long before it may affect me."
Brin and his family have already endowed the Eugenia Brin Professorship in Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where his mother is being treated.
Analysts said they did not believe that the news about Brin would have a negative impact on Google's shares.
Health -We can stop the cancer epidemic
There is an epidemic of cancer today. One in three Americans will be diagnosed with cancer, often before the age of 65. I have been on the wrong side of this statistic since I was 31 years old, when I discovered I had brain cancer.
Since 1940, we have seen in Western societies a marked and rapid increase in common types of cancer. In fact, cancer in children and adolescents has been rising by 1 to 1.5 percent a year since the 1960's. And these are cancers for which there is no screening.
For most common cancers - prostate, breast, colon, lung - rates are much higher in the West than in Asian countries. Yet Asians who emigrate to the United States catch up with the rates of Americans within one or two generations. While in Asia, Asians are protected not by their genes, but by their lifestyle.
Indeed, modern studies show that at most 15 percent of cancers are due - and only in part - to inherited genetic defects. Eighty-five percent are not.
However, cancer does run in families: A landmark New England Journal of Medicine study showed that children adopted at birth by parents who died of cancer before the age of 50 had the cancer risk of their adoptive parents, not of their biological ones. What gets passed on from one generation to the next are cancer-causing habits and environmental exposures, not just cancer-causing genes.
We continue to invest 97 percent of our cancer research funds in better treatments and early detection. Only 3 percent is invested in tackling causes.
I was a founding board member of Doctors Without Borders, USA. I worked as a volunteer physician in Iraq, Guatemala, Tajikistan and Kosovo. I know about epidemics in refugee camps. No cholera epidemic can be stopped by early detection and antibiotic treatment - as effective and important as these are. That is because cases always develop at a rate faster than our ability to treat individual patients.
In the 1800s, Britain and America faced several large cholera epidemics. They were able to stop them without antibiotics. Scientists and physicians at the time had not even discovered the concept of germs, but leaders with enough foresight and concern decided to act on what seemed the most likely environmental cause: contaminated water sources in the neighborhoods with the most cases. Cholera receded.
It is ironic to think that if we had had antibiotics at the time, and had counted on them to deal with the disease as we count today on anticancer treatments, we might never have controlled cholera.
We have much more data about the most likely causes of the modern cancer epidemic than our forbears did about cholera.
The World Cancer Research Fund published a report in 2007 concluding that a majority of cancer cases in Western societies could be avoided with life-style measures: 40 percent from changes in diet and physical activity (more vegetables and fruits, less sugar, less red meat, regular walking or the equivalent activity 30 minutes six times per week), 30 percent from smoking cessation, and about 10 percent from reduced alcohol consumption.
We now even have data about how specific foods such as broccoli and cabbages, garlic and onions, green tea or the spice turmeric directly help kill cancer cells and reduce the growth of new blood vessels they need to develop into tumors.
Reducing exposure to many of the well-characterized chemical carcinogens abundant in our modern environments (pesticides, estrogens, benzene, PCBs, PVCs and bisphenol A from heating liquids in plastic containers, alkylphenols in cleaning products, parabenes and phthalates in cosmetics and shampoos, etc.) would contribute even further to lessen the cancer risk.
By neither discussing nor investing in research and preventive programs based on these established scientific facts, we are promoting a sense of hopelessness with respect to cancer.
Most people continue to view cancer as a form of genetic lottery when it clearly is not. While we should all guard against false hope in addressing cancer, we should guard even more adamantly against this false hopelessness. And we should begin to help our society, and each one of us, address the causes of this modern epidemic.
Dr. David Servan-Schreiber, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and a founding board member of Doctors Without Borders, USA, is the author of "Anticancer - A new way of life."
Since 1940, we have seen in Western societies a marked and rapid increase in common types of cancer. In fact, cancer in children and adolescents has been rising by 1 to 1.5 percent a year since the 1960's. And these are cancers for which there is no screening.
For most common cancers - prostate, breast, colon, lung - rates are much higher in the West than in Asian countries. Yet Asians who emigrate to the United States catch up with the rates of Americans within one or two generations. While in Asia, Asians are protected not by their genes, but by their lifestyle.
Indeed, modern studies show that at most 15 percent of cancers are due - and only in part - to inherited genetic defects. Eighty-five percent are not.
However, cancer does run in families: A landmark New England Journal of Medicine study showed that children adopted at birth by parents who died of cancer before the age of 50 had the cancer risk of their adoptive parents, not of their biological ones. What gets passed on from one generation to the next are cancer-causing habits and environmental exposures, not just cancer-causing genes.
We continue to invest 97 percent of our cancer research funds in better treatments and early detection. Only 3 percent is invested in tackling causes.
I was a founding board member of Doctors Without Borders, USA. I worked as a volunteer physician in Iraq, Guatemala, Tajikistan and Kosovo. I know about epidemics in refugee camps. No cholera epidemic can be stopped by early detection and antibiotic treatment - as effective and important as these are. That is because cases always develop at a rate faster than our ability to treat individual patients.
In the 1800s, Britain and America faced several large cholera epidemics. They were able to stop them without antibiotics. Scientists and physicians at the time had not even discovered the concept of germs, but leaders with enough foresight and concern decided to act on what seemed the most likely environmental cause: contaminated water sources in the neighborhoods with the most cases. Cholera receded.
It is ironic to think that if we had had antibiotics at the time, and had counted on them to deal with the disease as we count today on anticancer treatments, we might never have controlled cholera.
We have much more data about the most likely causes of the modern cancer epidemic than our forbears did about cholera.
The World Cancer Research Fund published a report in 2007 concluding that a majority of cancer cases in Western societies could be avoided with life-style measures: 40 percent from changes in diet and physical activity (more vegetables and fruits, less sugar, less red meat, regular walking or the equivalent activity 30 minutes six times per week), 30 percent from smoking cessation, and about 10 percent from reduced alcohol consumption.
We now even have data about how specific foods such as broccoli and cabbages, garlic and onions, green tea or the spice turmeric directly help kill cancer cells and reduce the growth of new blood vessels they need to develop into tumors.
Reducing exposure to many of the well-characterized chemical carcinogens abundant in our modern environments (pesticides, estrogens, benzene, PCBs, PVCs and bisphenol A from heating liquids in plastic containers, alkylphenols in cleaning products, parabenes and phthalates in cosmetics and shampoos, etc.) would contribute even further to lessen the cancer risk.
By neither discussing nor investing in research and preventive programs based on these established scientific facts, we are promoting a sense of hopelessness with respect to cancer.
Most people continue to view cancer as a form of genetic lottery when it clearly is not. While we should all guard against false hope in addressing cancer, we should guard even more adamantly against this false hopelessness. And we should begin to help our society, and each one of us, address the causes of this modern epidemic.
Dr. David Servan-Schreiber, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and a founding board member of Doctors Without Borders, USA, is the author of "Anticancer - A new way of life."
Sep 19, 2008
Mktg - Microsoft's new ads take a direct shot at Apple
Microsoft's (MSFT) big-budget effort to battle more than two years of Windows-bashing ads from rival Apple (AAPL)took a new turn Thursday.
After two weeks of three teaser ads "about nothing" featuring Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and comic Jerry Seinfeld, the company launched a new TV ad that directly addresses the long-running Apple campaign that personifies its Mac as a young, hip guy and a Windows PC as a clueless geek.
The commercial opens with a real Microsoft software designer who looks like the PC character — and is dressed to match: "Hello, I'm a PC," he says, "and I've been made into a stereotype."
The ad then cuts to a series of upbeat "I'm a PC" testimonial clips of PC users doing what they do, including a shark-cage diver, a fishmonger, a fashion designer and celebrities such as actress Eva Longoria.
That ad and others to come will showcase the "diversity" of Windows users, says David Webster, Microsoft general manager of brand and marketing strategy.
"Our competition would have you think that PCs aren't interesting and interesting people don't use them," he says. Microsoft had "to take back the PC brand and tell the truth about it."
Webster says he's not worried about reinforcing a negative image by mimicking a character and tagline created by its nemesis. "The overwhelming bulk of the ad" showcases a wide range of personalities, he says.
Other elements will include print, outdoor and online ads.
Microsoft also will tap "consumer-generated content." Starting Thursday night, PC fans could upload "I'm a PC" testimonials, including photos and videos, at Windows.com. Microsoft will use select images on a Times Square video billboard, feature them in online banner ads and post them on Windows.com.
The new ads come two weeks after Microsoft launched the offbeat teasers with the unlikely pairing of Gates with Seinfeld. The TV spots — which have no clear plotline or overt Windows branding — showed them living with a suburban family and shopping at a discount shoe store. Those ads were meant to be an "icebreaker," Webster says.
But mixed reviews from bloggers and ad pros stoked Web rumors Thursday that the new ads meant Seinfeld had been fired.
That speculation is completely off-base, says Webster. "We needed to move on and start to talk about Windows," he says. "We're ready for chapter two."
They "don't have any plans" now for more Seinfeld ads, but Webster wouldn't rule out it out. "Down the road, it wouldn't surprise me. … He really hit it off with Bill (Gates.)"
Business - Little known facts;Steve Jobs
Not many know that Steve Jobs is actually a college dropout. In 1972, Jobs graduated from Homestead High School in Cupertino, California and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. One semester later he dropped out.
He started Apple with a fellow college dropout Steve Wozniak in the Jobs' family garage in Los Altos, California on April 1, 1976. Jobs, then 21, was the pitchman, Wozniak worked as an engineer.
Wozniak said about Jobs at an Intel Corp conference in August 2008, "Every time I designed something great from when we were very young, he would say, "let's sell it." "It was always his idea to sell it."
Born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco to then unmarried graduate student Joanne Carole Schieble and a Syrian father Abdulfattah Jandali, Steven Paul Jobs was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs, a middle-class American couple who struggled to make ends meet.
"In terms of an inspirational leader, Steve Jobs is really the best I have ever met," said former Microsoft Chairman and Chief Architect, Bill Gates in January 1998 when asked to name the CEO he most admired.
"He's got a belief in excellence of products. He's able to communicate that."
The Big boss of Apple came to India in the summer of 1974 in search of spiritual enlightenment. Jobs left for India with one of his best friends from Reed College, Dan Kottke.
Deeply philosophical, Jobs wanted to study and experience spiritualism and existentialism. In India, he wanted to visit the Neem Karoli Baba at his Kainchi Ashram. Unfortunately, when they arrived they learn't that Baba had died.
One of the most admired CEOs, Jobs draws a $1 salary. His compensation came to spotlight when the company gifted him a Gulfstream airplane in 2001. He was awarded 10 million shares of restricted stock in 2003. Interestingly, Jobs has a personal fortune worth $5.4 billion according to Forbes annual survey of the world's richest people in March 2008.
In 1985, Jobs was ousted from Apple by John Sculley, whom he brought from Pepsi in 2003, after a disagreement on how to run the company. Fortune magazine, dated August 5, 1985, with cover story "The Fall Of Steve Jobs" dwelled on the Jobs exit from the company he founded: Here's an excerpt:
"From the end of May to the middle of June, Apple reorganised in a rush, fired 20 per cent of its workforce, announced that will record its first-ever quarterly loss, saw its stock hit a three-year low of $14.25 per share, and stripped Steve P Jobs, Apple's 30-year-old co-founder and Chairman of all operating authority."
"Jobs fate aroused intense speculation. Not just another young entrepreneur, he is Johnny Appleseed of personal computing. Many insiders are shocked at his removal; they fear Apple has lost the spirit, and vision that made it into a business phenomenon. No players in the drama have explained publicly why Jobs come to grief. But several of them, promised anonymity, have revealed essential details to Fortune."
"What emerges from Apple sources is a tale of adversity -- a general slump in the PC business and disappointing sales at Mac division -- driving a wedge between Sculley and Jobs. Apple's board of directors played an important role in Job's downfall. On several occasions, beginning December, the board goaded Sculley to assert his authority over the company. Even then, Sculley put off acting partly from innate caution about organisational change and partly out of concern for Jobs’ feelings." -
According to Jim Carlton, author of 'Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders', Steve Jobs chose the name Apple for his company because he admired Beatles' Apple Records. Beatles first began using an image of a Green Granny Smith apple on their recordings in the late 1960s. Apple's logo shows an image of the fruit with a bite taken out of it.
The choice led to a legal battle with Beatle's Apple Corp. Apple Corps is owned by Beatle band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono. The two sides settled the dispute in February 2007.
Jobs and Wozniak got a share of 45 per cent each, while the remaining 10 per cent went to Ron Wayne, an Atari engineer who had given hand to the duo.
Apple had its first big success with Apple II, a machine that helped popularlise the idea of computers at home. Apple sales rose from $7.8 million in 1978 to $117 million in 1980, the year Apple went public. And, by age 25, Job's was a millionaire.
Mac surpassed the success of Apple II. It was the first successful PC built around graphic user interface. Mac used icons and a mouse to allow users to pint-and-click programmes. The GUI was later adopted by Microsoft in its rival Windows.
Mac became a fashion statement among graphic artists and students
Out from Apple, Jobs, then 30, started NeXT Computer Inc. The company developed a computer rival to Mac and PCs powered by Intel chips and Microsoft's Windows software.
Though NeXT computer won admiration for its technology prowess, the company failed to create a ripple in the market when it came to product sales. The NeXT's machines kept losing money and in 1993 Steve was forced to abandon NeXT's hardware operations.
In 1986, Jobs bought the computer division of film director George Lucas' Lucasfilm Ltd for $10 million. He named the computer animation studio Pixar, and signed a distribution deal with Walt Disney.
As the CEO of Pixar animation studios, Jobs promoted computer-generated story telling with movies including Toy Story, Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life and Monster Inc. The movies were a huge success and Jobs decide to take the company Public in 1995. He was back in business.
In 2006, Disney bought Pixar for $8.06 billion. Job was Disney's largest shareholder and got a seat on their board.
In 1995, Apple Computer was at its lowest point in history. The company was facing tough competition from Microsoft. Apple's CEO, Gil Amelio, was desperately looking for a way to save the company. In December 1996, Amelio bought NeXT for $400 million and welcomed back the company's founder, Jobs, as an 'informal adviser'.
Within eight months of the acquisition, Amelio was out and Steve Jobs became Apple's interim CEO. Jobs returned to the company after Apple had losses totaling $1.86 billion in a two-year period. As part of the turnaround, Jobs unveiled an unprecedented partnership with Microsoft CEO Bill Gates in August 1997, who invested $150 million in Apple. Apple on its part included Internet Explorer browser on the Mac.
However, Jobs' biggest coup came in May 1998, when he unveiled iMac. iMac combined computer and monitor into a single unit. A stunning success, iMac helped revive Apple sales and remains one of the biggest money makers. In 2007, Mac accounted for 43 per cent of the company's revenue.
In October 2001, Apple unveiled its first iPod, the digital music player further galvanised the company's position in the market. The portable music players continue to dominate the global market.
Few know that Steve Jobs is a Buddhist and a vegetarian. Jobs has never named a successor. He told shareholders in March 2008 that the board would have a variety of executives to choose from when he steps down due to any reason. He singled out two potential leaders: COO Timothy Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer. Cook stood for Jobs during his leave in 2004
In January 2007, Steve Jobs introduced iPhone, Apple's state-of-the-art mobile phone. With iPod and its accessories, Apple TV and the iPhone, it became clear that Apple is no longer a mere computer company. Hence, went the term `Computer' from its official name. On January 7th, 2007, Jobs announced that Apple Computer Inc has become Apple Inc.
Apple iPhone hit the market in June 2007. The device got updated this year and has been introduced in 22 countries across the globe. The second-generation iPhone runs on 3G network and supports business email system
The tech czar is also probably the only corporate honcho to have the displeasure of reading his own obituary, which was fired by financial newswire Bloomberg to its subscribers.
Had the man who reinvented Apple Inc, and just about every rule in the game of personal electronics with iPod, and then in telecom with iPhone, finally lost his battle with pancreatic cancer?
No, the man was alive and kicking even as a red-faced Bloomberg -- usually sharpshooters when it comes to financial news -- had missed the mark by miles.
The gaffe happened when the American agency decided to update its 17-page stock obituary on Steve Jobs, and someone accidentally published it in the process. The story, which was meant to be sent to Bloomberg's internal wire, accidentally slipped out to its subscribers. And all hell broke loose!
The story that ran 'Hold for release' - 'Do not use' couldn't actually have been stopped as it was simply too big for global financial markets. The jitters subsided later when the agency promptly retracted it.
World - War & Drought threaten Afghan Food Supply
YAKOWLANG, Afghanistan — A pitiable harvest this year has left small farmers all over central and northern Afghanistan facing hunger, and aid officials are warning of an acute food shortage this winter for nine million Afghans, more than a quarter of the population.
The crisis has been generated by the harshest winter in memory, followed by a drought across much of the country, which come on top of the broader problems of deteriorating security, the accumulated pressure of returning refugees and the effects of rising world food prices.
The failure of the Afghan government and foreign donors to develop the country’s main economic sector, agriculture, has compounded the problems, the officials say. They warn that the food crisis could make an already bad security situation worse.
The British charity Oxfam, which conducted a provisional assessment of conditions in the province of Daykondi, one of the most remote areas of central Afghanistan, has appealed for international assistance before winter sets in. “Time is running out to avert a humanitarian crisis,” it said.
That assessment is echoed by villagers across the broader region, including in Bamian Province. “In all these 30 years of war, we have not had it as bad as this,” said Said Muhammad, a 60-year-old farmer who lives in Yakowlang, in Bamian. “We don’t have enough food for the winter. We will have to go to the towns to look for work.”
Underlying the warnings are growing fears of civil unrest. The mood in the country is darkening amid increasing economic hardship, worsening disorder and a growing disaffection with the government and its foreign backers, particularly over the issue of government corruption.
Returning refugees are already converging on the cities because they cannot manage in the countryside, and they make easy recruits for the Taliban or other groups that want to create instability, said Ashmat Ghani, an opposition politician and tribal leader from Logar Province, south of Kabul, the nation’s capital.
“The lower part of society, when facing hunger, will not wait,” he said. “We could have riots.”
The Afghan government, together with United Nations organizations, was quick to mount an appeal at the beginning of the year to prevent a food shortage as world food prices soared and neighboring countries stopped wheat exports.
The World Food Program, which was assisting 4.5 million of the most vulnerable Afghans with food aid in recent years, widened its program to include an additional 1.5 million Afghans and extended it further because of the drought to reach a total of nine million people until the end of next year’s harvest.
Several weeks ago, Oxfam warned in a letter to ministers responsible for development in some countries assisting Afghanistan that the $404 million appeal by the government and the United Nations was substantially underfinanced.
“If the response is slow or insufficient, there could be serious public health implications, including higher rates of mortality and morbidity, which are already some of the highest in the world,” the letter said.
It also warned of internal displacement of families who had no work or food, and even of civil disturbances. “The impact as a whole could further undermine the security situation,” Oxfam said.
The United States government announced this week that it would supply nearly half the emergency food aid requested in the appeal.
Susana Rico, the director of the World Food Program in Afghanistan, said last-minute contributions had come in to cover the immediate emergency. But there is still a rush to get supplies to the countryside before the first winter snows arrive next month, she said.
Development officials say that deteriorating security has made it harder to do that job in the countryside. Aid workers have become the targets of an increasing number of attacks from insurgents and criminals.
The dangers have restricted the scale and scope of aid operations, said the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella group of nongovernmental organizations.
Those dangers, the agency says, have even spread to areas previously considered relatively secure. In the first seven months of the year, it reported, 19 workers for nongovernmental organizations were killed, more than the number in all of 2007.
The agency appealed for governments to take a broad range of measures, beyond the military, to combat the escalating insurgency.
“The conflict will not be brought to an end through military means,” the agency said in a statement. “A range of measures is required to achieve a sustainable peace, including strong and effective support for rural development.”
Neglecting a lifeline as vital as agriculture has been dangerous for stability in Afghanistan, as people are unable to feed themselves, several provincial governors said in interviews.
The governor of Bamian, Habiba Sarabi, has repeatedly complained that because her province has been one of the most law-abiding and trouble-free, it has been forgotten in the big distribution of resources from international donors.
Donors, and in particular the United States government, have spent far larger amounts in the provinces in the south and southeast to help combat the dual problems of the insurgency and narcotics, she said.
Hasan Samadi, 23, the deputy administrator of Yakowlang District in Bamian Province, said, “The economic situation of the people here is very bad and the government is not focused to help.
“They focus on other provinces and unfortunately not on Bamian, and not on remote districts of Bamian,” he said.
Daykondi, adjacent to Bamian, is one of the most underfinanced provinces in the country. It receives half the budget of its neighbor to the south, Oruzgan, which has two-thirds the population and a poor record on combating insurgency and the cultivation of the opium poppy, said Matt Waldman, a spokesman for Oxfam in Kabul.
In Daykondi, 90 percent of the population relies on subsistence farming, yet the provincial Department of Agriculture has a budget of only $2,400 for the whole year, he added.
The imbalance in aid to the provinces is being corrected now, Governor Sarabi said, but in the meantime it has put great strain on the people in her province.
She estimated that a quarter of Bamian’s population would need food aid this winter because of the drought. There have already been local conflicts over water supplies in two regions, she said.
Development officials warn that neglecting the poorest provinces can add to instability by pushing people to commit crimes or even to join the insurgency, which often pays its recruits.
While the severe drought contributed to the decline of poppy cultivation in the central and northern provinces, it also pushed farmers into debt. If they do not get help now, they could turn back to poppy-growing and lose their faith in the government, said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Mr. Costa called for urgent assistance for farmers and regions that have abandoned poppy cultivation. He and others have also criticized the inefficiency of international aid.
Of $15 billion of reconstruction assistance given to Afghanistan since 2001, “a staggering 40 percent has returned to donor countries in corporate profits and consultant salaries,” the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief said in a March report.
“Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world,” Mr. Costa said during a recent visit to Kabul. “I insist on the importance of increasing development assistance, making it more effective. Too much of it is eaten up by various bureaucracies and contractors.”
The crisis has been generated by the harshest winter in memory, followed by a drought across much of the country, which come on top of the broader problems of deteriorating security, the accumulated pressure of returning refugees and the effects of rising world food prices.
The failure of the Afghan government and foreign donors to develop the country’s main economic sector, agriculture, has compounded the problems, the officials say. They warn that the food crisis could make an already bad security situation worse.
The British charity Oxfam, which conducted a provisional assessment of conditions in the province of Daykondi, one of the most remote areas of central Afghanistan, has appealed for international assistance before winter sets in. “Time is running out to avert a humanitarian crisis,” it said.
That assessment is echoed by villagers across the broader region, including in Bamian Province. “In all these 30 years of war, we have not had it as bad as this,” said Said Muhammad, a 60-year-old farmer who lives in Yakowlang, in Bamian. “We don’t have enough food for the winter. We will have to go to the towns to look for work.”
Underlying the warnings are growing fears of civil unrest. The mood in the country is darkening amid increasing economic hardship, worsening disorder and a growing disaffection with the government and its foreign backers, particularly over the issue of government corruption.
Returning refugees are already converging on the cities because they cannot manage in the countryside, and they make easy recruits for the Taliban or other groups that want to create instability, said Ashmat Ghani, an opposition politician and tribal leader from Logar Province, south of Kabul, the nation’s capital.
“The lower part of society, when facing hunger, will not wait,” he said. “We could have riots.”
The Afghan government, together with United Nations organizations, was quick to mount an appeal at the beginning of the year to prevent a food shortage as world food prices soared and neighboring countries stopped wheat exports.
The World Food Program, which was assisting 4.5 million of the most vulnerable Afghans with food aid in recent years, widened its program to include an additional 1.5 million Afghans and extended it further because of the drought to reach a total of nine million people until the end of next year’s harvest.
Several weeks ago, Oxfam warned in a letter to ministers responsible for development in some countries assisting Afghanistan that the $404 million appeal by the government and the United Nations was substantially underfinanced.
“If the response is slow or insufficient, there could be serious public health implications, including higher rates of mortality and morbidity, which are already some of the highest in the world,” the letter said.
It also warned of internal displacement of families who had no work or food, and even of civil disturbances. “The impact as a whole could further undermine the security situation,” Oxfam said.
The United States government announced this week that it would supply nearly half the emergency food aid requested in the appeal.
Susana Rico, the director of the World Food Program in Afghanistan, said last-minute contributions had come in to cover the immediate emergency. But there is still a rush to get supplies to the countryside before the first winter snows arrive next month, she said.
Development officials say that deteriorating security has made it harder to do that job in the countryside. Aid workers have become the targets of an increasing number of attacks from insurgents and criminals.
The dangers have restricted the scale and scope of aid operations, said the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella group of nongovernmental organizations.
Those dangers, the agency says, have even spread to areas previously considered relatively secure. In the first seven months of the year, it reported, 19 workers for nongovernmental organizations were killed, more than the number in all of 2007.
The agency appealed for governments to take a broad range of measures, beyond the military, to combat the escalating insurgency.
“The conflict will not be brought to an end through military means,” the agency said in a statement. “A range of measures is required to achieve a sustainable peace, including strong and effective support for rural development.”
Neglecting a lifeline as vital as agriculture has been dangerous for stability in Afghanistan, as people are unable to feed themselves, several provincial governors said in interviews.
The governor of Bamian, Habiba Sarabi, has repeatedly complained that because her province has been one of the most law-abiding and trouble-free, it has been forgotten in the big distribution of resources from international donors.
Donors, and in particular the United States government, have spent far larger amounts in the provinces in the south and southeast to help combat the dual problems of the insurgency and narcotics, she said.
Hasan Samadi, 23, the deputy administrator of Yakowlang District in Bamian Province, said, “The economic situation of the people here is very bad and the government is not focused to help.
“They focus on other provinces and unfortunately not on Bamian, and not on remote districts of Bamian,” he said.
Daykondi, adjacent to Bamian, is one of the most underfinanced provinces in the country. It receives half the budget of its neighbor to the south, Oruzgan, which has two-thirds the population and a poor record on combating insurgency and the cultivation of the opium poppy, said Matt Waldman, a spokesman for Oxfam in Kabul.
In Daykondi, 90 percent of the population relies on subsistence farming, yet the provincial Department of Agriculture has a budget of only $2,400 for the whole year, he added.
The imbalance in aid to the provinces is being corrected now, Governor Sarabi said, but in the meantime it has put great strain on the people in her province.
She estimated that a quarter of Bamian’s population would need food aid this winter because of the drought. There have already been local conflicts over water supplies in two regions, she said.
Development officials warn that neglecting the poorest provinces can add to instability by pushing people to commit crimes or even to join the insurgency, which often pays its recruits.
While the severe drought contributed to the decline of poppy cultivation in the central and northern provinces, it also pushed farmers into debt. If they do not get help now, they could turn back to poppy-growing and lose their faith in the government, said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Mr. Costa called for urgent assistance for farmers and regions that have abandoned poppy cultivation. He and others have also criticized the inefficiency of international aid.
Of $15 billion of reconstruction assistance given to Afghanistan since 2001, “a staggering 40 percent has returned to donor countries in corporate profits and consultant salaries,” the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief said in a March report.
“Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world,” Mr. Costa said during a recent visit to Kabul. “I insist on the importance of increasing development assistance, making it more effective. Too much of it is eaten up by various bureaucracies and contractors.”
Lifestyle - Saudi women find an unlikely role model-Oprah
DAMMAM, Saudi Arabia—Once a month, Nayla says, she writes a letter to Oprah Winfrey.
A young Saudi homemaker who covers her face in public might not seem to have much in common with an American talk show host whose image is known to millions. Like many women in this conservative desert kingdom, Nayla does not usually socialize with people outside her extended family, and she never leaves her house unless chaperoned by her husband.
Ms. Winfrey has not answered the letters. But Nayla says she is still hoping.
“I feel that Oprah truly understands me,” said Nayla, who, like many of the women interviewed, would not let her full name be used. “She gives me energy and hope for my life. Sometimes I think that she is the only person in the world who knows how I feel.”
Nayla is not the only Saudi woman to feel a special connection to the American media mogul. When “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was first broadcast in Saudi Arabia in November 2004 on a Dubai-based satellite channel, it became an immediate sensation among young Saudi women. Within months, it had become the highest-rated English-language program among women 25 and younger, an age group that makes up about a third of Saudi Arabia’s population.
In a country where the sexes are rigorously separated, where topics like sex and race are rarely discussed openly and where a strict code of public morality is enforced by religious police called hai’a, Ms. Winfrey provides many young Saudi women with new ways of thinking about the way local taboos affect their lives — as well as about a variety of issues including childhood sexual abuse and coping with marital strife — without striking them, or Saudi Arabia’s ruling authorities, as subversive.
Some women here say Ms. Winfrey’s assurances to her viewers — that no matter how restricted or even abusive their circumstances may be, they can take control in small ways and create lives of value — help them find meaning in their cramped, veiled existence.
“Oprah dresses conservatively,” explained Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud, a co-owner of a women’s spa in Riyadh called Yibreen and a daughter of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States. “She struggles with her weight. She overcame depression. She rose from poverty and from abuse. On all these levels she appeals to a Saudi woman. People really idolize her here.”
Today, “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” with Arabic subtitles, is broadcast twice each weekday on MBC4, a three-year-old channel developed by the MBC Group with the Arab woman in mind. The show’s guests, self-improvement tips, and advice on family relationships — as well as Ms. Winfrey’s clothes and changing hairstyles — are eagerly analyzed by Saudi women from a wide range of social backgrounds and income levels.
The largest-circulation Saudi women’s magazine, Sayidaty, devotes a regular page to Ms. Winfrey, and dog-eared copies of her official magazine, O, which is not sold in the kingdom, are passed around by women who collect them during trips abroad.
The particulars of Ms. Winfrey’s personal story have resonated with a broad audience of Saudi women in a way that few other Western imports have, explained Mazen Hayek, a spokesman for the MBC Group.
Saudi Arabia was an impoverished desert country before it was transformed by oil money and, in just a couple of generations, into a wealthy consumer society. Saudi women readily identify with “this glamorous woman from very modest beginnings,” Mr. Hayek said, in a phone interview from Dubai.
Maha al-Faleh, 23, of Riyadh, said, “Oprah talks about issues that haven’t really been spoken about here openly before.
“She talks about racism, for example,” she said. “This is something that Saudis are very concerned about, because many of us feel that we’re judged for the way we veil or for our skin color. I have a friend whose driver touched her in an inappropriate way. She was very young at the time, but she felt very guilty about it — and Oprah helped her to speak about this abuse with her mother.”
MBC edits some “Oprah” episodes to remove content banned by censors in the region, officials at the channel say. It does not broadcast segments on homosexuality, for example. But the officials say they make most episodes available to their regional viewers uncensored, including some about relations between Arabs and Westerners and about living with the threat of Islamic terrorism.
Saudi women say they are drawn to Ms. Winfrey not only because she openly addresses subjects considered taboo locally, but also because she speaks of self-empowerment and change.
Wafa Muhammad, 38, a mother of five from Riyadh, said she believed that, in their adoration of Ms. Winfrey, Saudi women are expressing a hesitant sense of longing for real change in their country.
“Many of us feel that the solutions for our problems have to come from outside,” Ms. Muhammad said. When President Bush visited Saudi Arabia in January, she continued, as an example, his presence briefly became a locus of hope for Saudi women. “A lot of women were saying that they wished they could talk to Bush about problems like forced marriage, about how our children are taken away if our husbands divorce us.”
In a country where women are forbidden to vote, or to travel without the permission of a male guardian, a sense of powerlessness can lead women to look for unlikely sources of rescue, Ms. Muhammad explained. “If women here have problems with their fathers or their brothers, what can they do but look to Oprah?” she asked. “The idea that she will come and help them is a dream for them.”
Nayla, the homemaker in Dammam, a Persian Gulf port city, says Ms. Winfrey helps her cope with a society that does not encourage her to have interests. “The life of a woman here in Saudi — it makes you tired and it makes you boring,” she said, sighing.
Like many Saudi women, Nayla struggles with obesity, a major issue in the kingdom because many women are largely confined to their homes and local custom often prevents them from participating in sports or even walking around their neighborhoods.
She says that Ms. Winfrey has inspired her to lose weight and to pursue her education through an online degree course, a method acceptable to her husband since she will not have to leave home.
As she spoke, Nayla sat on the floor of the women’s sitting room of her mother-in-law’s house. A battered wooden bureau, its top littered with hairbrushes, plastic figurines, and perfume bottles, was the only piece of furniture.
Several female relatives sat with Nayla, and the door was kept slightly ajar so that their small children, chasing one another in the hall outside, could enter. But at the sound of heavier, male footfalls approaching, the women all jumped to their feet and scurried to hide their faces behind the bureau. It would be shameful if a brother-in-law accidentally caught a glimpse of their uncovered faces, Nayla explained.
“Oprah is the magic word for women here who want to scream out loud, who want to be heard,” Ms. Muhammad said. “Look at what happened to the girl from Qatif,” she said, referring to the infamous case of a young woman who was gang-raped, then sentenced to flogging because she had been in a car with an unrelated man.
The young woman from Qatif received a royal pardon last year after her case became an international media cause célèbre.
“The Qatif girl was heard outside the country, and she was helped,” Ms. Muhammad said. “But we need to have Saudi women who help women here. We need to have women social workers, women judges.”
“We have a very male-dominated society, and it’s very hard sometimes,” Ms. Muhammad said. “But for now I have my coffee, and sit, and I watch Oprah.
It’s my favorite time of day.”
A young Saudi homemaker who covers her face in public might not seem to have much in common with an American talk show host whose image is known to millions. Like many women in this conservative desert kingdom, Nayla does not usually socialize with people outside her extended family, and she never leaves her house unless chaperoned by her husband.
Ms. Winfrey has not answered the letters. But Nayla says she is still hoping.
“I feel that Oprah truly understands me,” said Nayla, who, like many of the women interviewed, would not let her full name be used. “She gives me energy and hope for my life. Sometimes I think that she is the only person in the world who knows how I feel.”
Nayla is not the only Saudi woman to feel a special connection to the American media mogul. When “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was first broadcast in Saudi Arabia in November 2004 on a Dubai-based satellite channel, it became an immediate sensation among young Saudi women. Within months, it had become the highest-rated English-language program among women 25 and younger, an age group that makes up about a third of Saudi Arabia’s population.
In a country where the sexes are rigorously separated, where topics like sex and race are rarely discussed openly and where a strict code of public morality is enforced by religious police called hai’a, Ms. Winfrey provides many young Saudi women with new ways of thinking about the way local taboos affect their lives — as well as about a variety of issues including childhood sexual abuse and coping with marital strife — without striking them, or Saudi Arabia’s ruling authorities, as subversive.
Some women here say Ms. Winfrey’s assurances to her viewers — that no matter how restricted or even abusive their circumstances may be, they can take control in small ways and create lives of value — help them find meaning in their cramped, veiled existence.
“Oprah dresses conservatively,” explained Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud, a co-owner of a women’s spa in Riyadh called Yibreen and a daughter of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States. “She struggles with her weight. She overcame depression. She rose from poverty and from abuse. On all these levels she appeals to a Saudi woman. People really idolize her here.”
Today, “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” with Arabic subtitles, is broadcast twice each weekday on MBC4, a three-year-old channel developed by the MBC Group with the Arab woman in mind. The show’s guests, self-improvement tips, and advice on family relationships — as well as Ms. Winfrey’s clothes and changing hairstyles — are eagerly analyzed by Saudi women from a wide range of social backgrounds and income levels.
The largest-circulation Saudi women’s magazine, Sayidaty, devotes a regular page to Ms. Winfrey, and dog-eared copies of her official magazine, O, which is not sold in the kingdom, are passed around by women who collect them during trips abroad.
The particulars of Ms. Winfrey’s personal story have resonated with a broad audience of Saudi women in a way that few other Western imports have, explained Mazen Hayek, a spokesman for the MBC Group.
Saudi Arabia was an impoverished desert country before it was transformed by oil money and, in just a couple of generations, into a wealthy consumer society. Saudi women readily identify with “this glamorous woman from very modest beginnings,” Mr. Hayek said, in a phone interview from Dubai.
Maha al-Faleh, 23, of Riyadh, said, “Oprah talks about issues that haven’t really been spoken about here openly before.
“She talks about racism, for example,” she said. “This is something that Saudis are very concerned about, because many of us feel that we’re judged for the way we veil or for our skin color. I have a friend whose driver touched her in an inappropriate way. She was very young at the time, but she felt very guilty about it — and Oprah helped her to speak about this abuse with her mother.”
MBC edits some “Oprah” episodes to remove content banned by censors in the region, officials at the channel say. It does not broadcast segments on homosexuality, for example. But the officials say they make most episodes available to their regional viewers uncensored, including some about relations between Arabs and Westerners and about living with the threat of Islamic terrorism.
Saudi women say they are drawn to Ms. Winfrey not only because she openly addresses subjects considered taboo locally, but also because she speaks of self-empowerment and change.
Wafa Muhammad, 38, a mother of five from Riyadh, said she believed that, in their adoration of Ms. Winfrey, Saudi women are expressing a hesitant sense of longing for real change in their country.
“Many of us feel that the solutions for our problems have to come from outside,” Ms. Muhammad said. When President Bush visited Saudi Arabia in January, she continued, as an example, his presence briefly became a locus of hope for Saudi women. “A lot of women were saying that they wished they could talk to Bush about problems like forced marriage, about how our children are taken away if our husbands divorce us.”
In a country where women are forbidden to vote, or to travel without the permission of a male guardian, a sense of powerlessness can lead women to look for unlikely sources of rescue, Ms. Muhammad explained. “If women here have problems with their fathers or their brothers, what can they do but look to Oprah?” she asked. “The idea that she will come and help them is a dream for them.”
Nayla, the homemaker in Dammam, a Persian Gulf port city, says Ms. Winfrey helps her cope with a society that does not encourage her to have interests. “The life of a woman here in Saudi — it makes you tired and it makes you boring,” she said, sighing.
Like many Saudi women, Nayla struggles with obesity, a major issue in the kingdom because many women are largely confined to their homes and local custom often prevents them from participating in sports or even walking around their neighborhoods.
She says that Ms. Winfrey has inspired her to lose weight and to pursue her education through an online degree course, a method acceptable to her husband since she will not have to leave home.
As she spoke, Nayla sat on the floor of the women’s sitting room of her mother-in-law’s house. A battered wooden bureau, its top littered with hairbrushes, plastic figurines, and perfume bottles, was the only piece of furniture.
Several female relatives sat with Nayla, and the door was kept slightly ajar so that their small children, chasing one another in the hall outside, could enter. But at the sound of heavier, male footfalls approaching, the women all jumped to their feet and scurried to hide their faces behind the bureau. It would be shameful if a brother-in-law accidentally caught a glimpse of their uncovered faces, Nayla explained.
“Oprah is the magic word for women here who want to scream out loud, who want to be heard,” Ms. Muhammad said. “Look at what happened to the girl from Qatif,” she said, referring to the infamous case of a young woman who was gang-raped, then sentenced to flogging because she had been in a car with an unrelated man.
The young woman from Qatif received a royal pardon last year after her case became an international media cause célèbre.
“The Qatif girl was heard outside the country, and she was helped,” Ms. Muhammad said. “But we need to have Saudi women who help women here. We need to have women social workers, women judges.”
“We have a very male-dominated society, and it’s very hard sometimes,” Ms. Muhammad said. “But for now I have my coffee, and sit, and I watch Oprah.
It’s my favorite time of day.”
Lifestyle - Distractions from Text messages seen as Dangerous
LOS ANGELES — Senator Barack Obama used one to announce to the world his choice of a running mate. Thousands of Americans have used them to vote for their favorite “American Idol” contestants. Many teenagers prefer them to actually talking. Almost overnight, text messages have become the preferred form of communication for millions.
But even as industry calculations show that Americans are now using mobile phones to send or receive more text messages than phone calls, those messages are coming under increasing fire because of the danger they can pose by distracting users. Though there are no official casualty statistics, there is much anecdotal evidence that the number of fatal accidents stemming from texting while driving, crossing the street or engaging in other activities is on the rise.
“The act of texting automatically removes 10 I.Q. points,” said Paul Saffo, a technology trend forecaster in Silicon Valley. “The truth of the matter is there are hobbies that are incompatible. You don’t want to do mushroom-hunting and bird-watching at the same time, and it is the same with texting and other activities. We have all seen people walk into parking meters or walk into traffic and seem startled by oncoming cars.”
In the latest backlash against text-messaging, the California Public Utilities Commission announced an emergency measure on Thursday temporarily banning the use of all mobile devices by anyone at the controls of a moving train.
The ban was adopted after federal investigators announced that they were looking at the role that a train engineer’s text-messaging might have played here last week in the country’s most deadly commuter rail accident in four decades.
A California lawmaker is also seeking to ban text-messaging by drivers, a step already taken by a handful of other states. “We have had far too many tragic incidents around the country that are painful proof that this is a terrible problem,” said the legislator, State Senator Joe Simitian, who wrote the California law requiring drivers who are talking on a cellphone to use hands-free devices.
The fight against text messages is also reaching beyond the realm of public safety. The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s board recently upheld a 2007 ban on all text-messaging by coaches to student recruits.
“The student athlete advisory committee believed that it was unprofessional, intrusive and expensive,” said Erik Christianson, a spokesman for the N.C.A.A.
Theaters, too, long accustomed to chiding cellphone users as well as people who crumple their cough drop wrappers, have taken on texting. And, assisted by cellphone service providers, parents have moved to limit the hours in which their children can get and send text messages.
Text-messaging, also known as S.M.S. messaging (the abbreviation stands for short message service), first took off in Japan, cellphone technology experts say, in part because the cost of texting there was less than that of making cellphone calls.
In the United States, the practice has accelerated greatly in the last few years, as the technology has improved with the introduction of products like the Apple iPhone. In June, 75 billion text messages were sent in the United States, compared with 7.2 billion in June 2005, according to CTIA — the Wireless Association, the leading industry trade group.
The consumer research company Nielsen Mobile, which tracked 50,000 individual customer accounts in the second quarter of this year, found that Americans each sent or received 357 text messages a month then, compared with 204 phone calls. That was the second consecutive quarter in which mobile texting significantly surpassed the number of voice calls.
The lure of texting is self-evident. It is fast and direct, screening out the pleasantries that even standard e-mail messages call for, like “how are you.” It is used to blast information among co-workers and inform parents of their children’s whereabouts, and, as Kwame M. Kilpatrick demonstrated en route to his downfall as mayor of Detroit, is useful in expressing feelings of romantic desire. (Object lesson No. 2: text messages are also subject to subpoena.)
“It is just a super useful tool,” said Caitlin Williams, a San Francisco bakery owner whose outgoing cellphone message encourages people to send her a text.
“You can kind of cut to the chase,” Ms. Williams said. “Sometimes you just want your questions answered without having to answer a lot of questions about how your day is.”
For all her love of texting, Ms. Williams says she has seen the underbelly as well.
“Of course there is the dangerous driving while texting,” she said, “and the obnoxious person in front of you texting instead of ordering their coffee, which happened to me yesterday. We are not at a point where there are a whole lot of rules for proper etiquette for texting. I think as it becomes a more acceptable form of communication, people will regulate themselves a little more.”
Teenagers and young adults have adopted text-messaging as a second language. Americans 13 to 17 years of age sent or received an average of 1,742 text messages a month in the second quarter, according to Nielsen. And according to one survey commissioned by CTIA, 4 of 10 teenagers said they could text blindfolded
Kyle Monaco, a 21-year-old student in Chester, Pa, estimates that he sends 500 text messages a month, compared with 50 phone calls. “It’s not that I don’t like to talk on the phone,” Mr. Monaco said. “Sometimes I just want to see what’s going on, as opposed to having a conversation. So it is easier to send a text.”
Parents are often torn between their love of instant access to their children and their loathing of others’ having the same. In August, Verizon began offering a service that blocks texting during certain times of the day.
“Usage controls were developed at the request of customers,” said Jack McArtney, associate director of advertising and content standards for Verizon. “We know of some people who want to keep the kid’s phone from buzzing all night. They want them to get some sleep.”
And texting at the wrong time can be extremely dangerous. Over the last two years, news accounts across the country have chronicled the death or serious injury of people who walk into traffic while texting or who drive while doing so. Police officials said last year that a crash that killed five cheerleaders in upstate New York might have been linked to texting. A recent Nationwide Insurance survey of 1,503 drivers found that almost 40 percent of those respondents from 16 to 30 years old said they text while driving.
On Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board said its investigators had determined from phone records that the commuter-train engineer in last week’s disaster had sent and received text messages during the run in which the train ultimately collided with a freight locomotive. Twenty-five people were killed in the crash, and more than 130 injured.
Further, a group representing emergency room doctors issued a warning in July against texting while doing other activities, citing a rise in injuries and deaths seen in emergency rooms around the country stemming from texting.
As policy makers consider their options, use of the technology shows no sign of ebbing.
Joanne Kent, 62, found herself flummoxed when her two granddaughters sent her text messages she did not know how to retrieve. So Ms. Kent, a retired physician’s assistant, attended a class held by AT&T at a seniors center in Wallingford, Conn., hoping someone there could show her how.
“They’d send me a text saying, ‘Have papa come pick me up,’ and I couldn’t open it,” she said of her granddaughters. “They finally told me I had to learn.”
But even as industry calculations show that Americans are now using mobile phones to send or receive more text messages than phone calls, those messages are coming under increasing fire because of the danger they can pose by distracting users. Though there are no official casualty statistics, there is much anecdotal evidence that the number of fatal accidents stemming from texting while driving, crossing the street or engaging in other activities is on the rise.
“The act of texting automatically removes 10 I.Q. points,” said Paul Saffo, a technology trend forecaster in Silicon Valley. “The truth of the matter is there are hobbies that are incompatible. You don’t want to do mushroom-hunting and bird-watching at the same time, and it is the same with texting and other activities. We have all seen people walk into parking meters or walk into traffic and seem startled by oncoming cars.”
In the latest backlash against text-messaging, the California Public Utilities Commission announced an emergency measure on Thursday temporarily banning the use of all mobile devices by anyone at the controls of a moving train.
The ban was adopted after federal investigators announced that they were looking at the role that a train engineer’s text-messaging might have played here last week in the country’s most deadly commuter rail accident in four decades.
A California lawmaker is also seeking to ban text-messaging by drivers, a step already taken by a handful of other states. “We have had far too many tragic incidents around the country that are painful proof that this is a terrible problem,” said the legislator, State Senator Joe Simitian, who wrote the California law requiring drivers who are talking on a cellphone to use hands-free devices.
The fight against text messages is also reaching beyond the realm of public safety. The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s board recently upheld a 2007 ban on all text-messaging by coaches to student recruits.
“The student athlete advisory committee believed that it was unprofessional, intrusive and expensive,” said Erik Christianson, a spokesman for the N.C.A.A.
Theaters, too, long accustomed to chiding cellphone users as well as people who crumple their cough drop wrappers, have taken on texting. And, assisted by cellphone service providers, parents have moved to limit the hours in which their children can get and send text messages.
Text-messaging, also known as S.M.S. messaging (the abbreviation stands for short message service), first took off in Japan, cellphone technology experts say, in part because the cost of texting there was less than that of making cellphone calls.
In the United States, the practice has accelerated greatly in the last few years, as the technology has improved with the introduction of products like the Apple iPhone. In June, 75 billion text messages were sent in the United States, compared with 7.2 billion in June 2005, according to CTIA — the Wireless Association, the leading industry trade group.
The consumer research company Nielsen Mobile, which tracked 50,000 individual customer accounts in the second quarter of this year, found that Americans each sent or received 357 text messages a month then, compared with 204 phone calls. That was the second consecutive quarter in which mobile texting significantly surpassed the number of voice calls.
The lure of texting is self-evident. It is fast and direct, screening out the pleasantries that even standard e-mail messages call for, like “how are you.” It is used to blast information among co-workers and inform parents of their children’s whereabouts, and, as Kwame M. Kilpatrick demonstrated en route to his downfall as mayor of Detroit, is useful in expressing feelings of romantic desire. (Object lesson No. 2: text messages are also subject to subpoena.)
“It is just a super useful tool,” said Caitlin Williams, a San Francisco bakery owner whose outgoing cellphone message encourages people to send her a text.
“You can kind of cut to the chase,” Ms. Williams said. “Sometimes you just want your questions answered without having to answer a lot of questions about how your day is.”
For all her love of texting, Ms. Williams says she has seen the underbelly as well.
“Of course there is the dangerous driving while texting,” she said, “and the obnoxious person in front of you texting instead of ordering their coffee, which happened to me yesterday. We are not at a point where there are a whole lot of rules for proper etiquette for texting. I think as it becomes a more acceptable form of communication, people will regulate themselves a little more.”
Teenagers and young adults have adopted text-messaging as a second language. Americans 13 to 17 years of age sent or received an average of 1,742 text messages a month in the second quarter, according to Nielsen. And according to one survey commissioned by CTIA, 4 of 10 teenagers said they could text blindfolded
Kyle Monaco, a 21-year-old student in Chester, Pa, estimates that he sends 500 text messages a month, compared with 50 phone calls. “It’s not that I don’t like to talk on the phone,” Mr. Monaco said. “Sometimes I just want to see what’s going on, as opposed to having a conversation. So it is easier to send a text.”
Parents are often torn between their love of instant access to their children and their loathing of others’ having the same. In August, Verizon began offering a service that blocks texting during certain times of the day.
“Usage controls were developed at the request of customers,” said Jack McArtney, associate director of advertising and content standards for Verizon. “We know of some people who want to keep the kid’s phone from buzzing all night. They want them to get some sleep.”
And texting at the wrong time can be extremely dangerous. Over the last two years, news accounts across the country have chronicled the death or serious injury of people who walk into traffic while texting or who drive while doing so. Police officials said last year that a crash that killed five cheerleaders in upstate New York might have been linked to texting. A recent Nationwide Insurance survey of 1,503 drivers found that almost 40 percent of those respondents from 16 to 30 years old said they text while driving.
On Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board said its investigators had determined from phone records that the commuter-train engineer in last week’s disaster had sent and received text messages during the run in which the train ultimately collided with a freight locomotive. Twenty-five people were killed in the crash, and more than 130 injured.
Further, a group representing emergency room doctors issued a warning in July against texting while doing other activities, citing a rise in injuries and deaths seen in emergency rooms around the country stemming from texting.
As policy makers consider their options, use of the technology shows no sign of ebbing.
Joanne Kent, 62, found herself flummoxed when her two granddaughters sent her text messages she did not know how to retrieve. So Ms. Kent, a retired physician’s assistant, attended a class held by AT&T at a seniors center in Wallingford, Conn., hoping someone there could show her how.
“They’d send me a text saying, ‘Have papa come pick me up,’ and I couldn’t open it,” she said of her granddaughters. “They finally told me I had to learn.”
Lifestyle - Why video conferencing won't save the world
ONE of the most firmly held beliefs of the green-minded is that we will all need to change our habits if the world is to be saved from global warming. Some of the shifts that these visionaries have in mind seem unobjectionable: being careful to turn off appliances when not in use, say, or taking care not to waste heat for lack of insulation.
But some demands are more exacting. How many people are ready to heed the recent admonition of Rajendra Pachauri, head of the group of scientists advising the United Nations on climate change, to do their bit for the planet by eating less meat? And what about the most controversial green command of all—that wealthy westerners should travel less?
Happily, help with that one is at hand, in the form of “telepresence”, a gussied-up form of video-conferencing marketed by Hewlett-Packard, Cisco and various other IT firms. Their devices aim to overcome the time lags, fuzzy pictures and other technical failings that afflicted the previous generation of the technology, and so hindered widespread adoption.
Green.view can confirm that HP’s system, called Halo, works well. It consists of one half of a conference table, placed opposite three huge plasma screens in a specially designed studio. Callers in other studios appear on the screens in life-size, as if they were sitting opposite. All studios are designed with the same furniture and decoration, to aid the illusion. There are no delays: sound and image are perfectly synchronised. Users can make eye contact with one another across the continents. Sound emanates from the right direction, adding to the verisimilitude. It is not quite like being in the same room, but close enough to allow natural conversation, with all the interruptions, gestures and telling facial expressions that entails.
All this requires very clever gadgetry and huge computing power, and so comes at a cost. HP’s fully-fledged studios cost $350,000 apiece to install, and more to run. Even the scaled-down version costs $120,000. Yet HP claims that most customers will recoup their investment within a year. It calculates that staff travel between cities that do not have Halo studios grew by 3% in the first half of 2008, whereas it shrank by 11% where Halo had been installed. Within the division that manages Halo, whose staff are more aware of the device’s potential, the difference was even bigger. And HP says its clients are managing similar savings.
Halo’s environmental benefits are hard to calculate. The carbon emissions saved vary greatly for each call, depending on whether the participants are ten miles or ten time zones apart. Estimating how much a firm’s staff might have travelled without the benefit of telepresence involves some guesswork. And then there is the question of what they are doing instead of getting on a plane. If the answer involves driving off to a rock concert in an SUV, the emissions saved might not be as substantial as they first appear. Nonetheless, HP alone estimates its staff will take 20,000 fewer flights a year thanks to Halo—a change that must do the atmosphere some good.
But an 11% decline in business travel, though nothing to be sniffed at, is hardly a revolution. HP argues that telepresence’s impact will grow as it becomes cheaper and better known. And so it might. But it also concedes that business travel is not about to come to an end.
Video conferencing, however realistic, can never supplant a visit to the factory floor or a night at a fancy restaurant buttering up clients. People like getting out of the office every now and again, to say nothing of flying to Las Vegas, say, for a relaxed convention.
In fact, HP itself describes the majority of trips avoided as ones that people did not really want to take in the first place. Jerry Seinfeld, a New York comedian, famously took advantage of telepresence to avoid going to Los Angeles while working on a film. Exhausted chief executives use it to wangle free time that would otherwise be spent touring their dominions. HP’s sales pitch hinges less on the environmental benefits and more on the improvement in the quality of life of jet-lagged road warriors.
There is nothing wrong with that. Technologies that reduce emissions are likely to be adopted much faster if they bring ancillary benefits, such as cutting costs or sparing people a visit to a crowded airport. The converse, however, is also true: getting people to do things they do not want to for the sake of the environment is difficult. The gadget that will really change the world, emissions-wise, is the one that whisks people to Paris for that meeting of dubious significance without releasing any greenhouse gases—not the one that prevents the whole trip.
But some demands are more exacting. How many people are ready to heed the recent admonition of Rajendra Pachauri, head of the group of scientists advising the United Nations on climate change, to do their bit for the planet by eating less meat? And what about the most controversial green command of all—that wealthy westerners should travel less?
Happily, help with that one is at hand, in the form of “telepresence”, a gussied-up form of video-conferencing marketed by Hewlett-Packard, Cisco and various other IT firms. Their devices aim to overcome the time lags, fuzzy pictures and other technical failings that afflicted the previous generation of the technology, and so hindered widespread adoption.
Green.view can confirm that HP’s system, called Halo, works well. It consists of one half of a conference table, placed opposite three huge plasma screens in a specially designed studio. Callers in other studios appear on the screens in life-size, as if they were sitting opposite. All studios are designed with the same furniture and decoration, to aid the illusion. There are no delays: sound and image are perfectly synchronised. Users can make eye contact with one another across the continents. Sound emanates from the right direction, adding to the verisimilitude. It is not quite like being in the same room, but close enough to allow natural conversation, with all the interruptions, gestures and telling facial expressions that entails.
All this requires very clever gadgetry and huge computing power, and so comes at a cost. HP’s fully-fledged studios cost $350,000 apiece to install, and more to run. Even the scaled-down version costs $120,000. Yet HP claims that most customers will recoup their investment within a year. It calculates that staff travel between cities that do not have Halo studios grew by 3% in the first half of 2008, whereas it shrank by 11% where Halo had been installed. Within the division that manages Halo, whose staff are more aware of the device’s potential, the difference was even bigger. And HP says its clients are managing similar savings.
Halo’s environmental benefits are hard to calculate. The carbon emissions saved vary greatly for each call, depending on whether the participants are ten miles or ten time zones apart. Estimating how much a firm’s staff might have travelled without the benefit of telepresence involves some guesswork. And then there is the question of what they are doing instead of getting on a plane. If the answer involves driving off to a rock concert in an SUV, the emissions saved might not be as substantial as they first appear. Nonetheless, HP alone estimates its staff will take 20,000 fewer flights a year thanks to Halo—a change that must do the atmosphere some good.
But an 11% decline in business travel, though nothing to be sniffed at, is hardly a revolution. HP argues that telepresence’s impact will grow as it becomes cheaper and better known. And so it might. But it also concedes that business travel is not about to come to an end.
Video conferencing, however realistic, can never supplant a visit to the factory floor or a night at a fancy restaurant buttering up clients. People like getting out of the office every now and again, to say nothing of flying to Las Vegas, say, for a relaxed convention.
In fact, HP itself describes the majority of trips avoided as ones that people did not really want to take in the first place. Jerry Seinfeld, a New York comedian, famously took advantage of telepresence to avoid going to Los Angeles while working on a film. Exhausted chief executives use it to wangle free time that would otherwise be spent touring their dominions. HP’s sales pitch hinges less on the environmental benefits and more on the improvement in the quality of life of jet-lagged road warriors.
There is nothing wrong with that. Technologies that reduce emissions are likely to be adopted much faster if they bring ancillary benefits, such as cutting costs or sparing people a visit to a crowded airport. The converse, however, is also true: getting people to do things they do not want to for the sake of the environment is difficult. The gadget that will really change the world, emissions-wise, is the one that whisks people to Paris for that meeting of dubious significance without releasing any greenhouse gases—not the one that prevents the whole trip.
World - Mandela;Rugby's role in his rise
TOWARDS the end of his 27 years in jail, Nelson Mandela began to yearn for a hotplate. He was being well fed by this point, not least because he was the world’s most famous political prisoner. But his jailers gave him too much food for lunch and not enough for supper. He had taken to saving some of his mid-day meal until the evening, by which time it was cold, and he wanted something to heat it up.
The problem was that the officer in charge of Pollsmoor prison’s maximum-security “C” wing was prickly, insecure, uncomfortable talking in English and virtually allergic to black political prisoners. To get around him, Mr Mandela started reading about rugby, a sport he had never liked but which his jailer, like most Afrikaner men, adored. Then, when they met in a corridor, Mr Mandela immediately launched into a detailed discussion, in Afrikaans, about prop forwards, scrum halves and recent games. His jailer was so charmed that before he knew it he was barking at an underling to “go and get Mandela a hotplate!”
Mr Mandela’s story never fails to inspire. As a young man, he started an armed struggle against apartheid. It went nowhere, and he went to jail. While maturing behind bars, he decided that moral suasion might work where bombs had failed. It did. South Africa’s white rulers surrendered power without a civil war. Several books have been written about Mr Mandela’s crucial role in coaxing his countrymen towards a more civilised form of government. John Carlin’s is the first to tell the tale through the prism of sport.
This premise is not as odd as it sounds. It was not only Mr Mandela’s regal charm that won over white South Africans. It was the fact that he took the trouble to study and understand their culture. At a time when many blacks dismissed rugby as “the brutish, alien pastime of a brutish, alien people”, Mr Mandela saw it as a bridge across the racial chasm.
The game is not an incidental part of Afrikaner culture, like cricket is to the English. To many Afrikaners, who have grown up playing rough games on sun-baked ground so hard that every tumble draws blood, rugby is little short of everything. Mr Mandela knew that if he was to convince these people that one man, one vote would not mean catastrophe, he had to “address their hearts”, not their brains. If the fearsome terrorist on the other side of the negotiating table was a rugby fan, could he really be as bad as they thought?
Mr Carlin focuses on the decade after 1985, when most blacks thought the country was sliding into war. He draws on his experiences as the South Africa correspondent for the Independent, a British newspaper, during the transition to democracy. But the book does not climax, as a standard historical text might, with South Africa’s first proper multi-racial elections in 1994. Instead, it builds up to the rugby world cup final in 1995, which was held in South Africa and which the home team won.
This makes sense. Elections are all very well, but the moment when black South Africans started cheering for a mostly-white rugby team, when white fans in the stadium tried gamely to sing a Zulu miners’ anthem and when Mr Mandela donned the green jersey of the Springboks—“It was the moment I realised that there really was a chance this country could work,” gushes a teary-eyed rugby official.
Mr Carlin brings the story alive by telling it through the eyes of a broad spectrum of South Africans. Among these is Desmond Tutu, the Nobel prize-winning archbishop of Cape Town, who was in America on the day of the final and had to find a bar that would let him watch it at an ungodly hour of the morning. Also, Niel Barnard, a former chief spy for the apartheid regime, who used to keep a thick file on Bishop Tutu. And Justice Bekebeke, a young township firebrand who killed a policeman for firing at a child during a riot and spent time on death row.
Mr Bekebeke is the most interesting of Mr Carlin’s portraits. On the morning of the match, he is still too bitter about a lifetime of injustice to support the Springboks. But then, something changes. The surging emotion of the event sweeps him along. “I just had to give up, to surrender,” he says, “And I said to myself, well, this is the new reality. There is no going back: the South African team is now my team, whoever they are, whatever their colour.”
Many writers reveal the nuts and bolts of South Africa’s transformation to non- racial democracy. But few capture the spirit as well as Mr Carlin.
The problem was that the officer in charge of Pollsmoor prison’s maximum-security “C” wing was prickly, insecure, uncomfortable talking in English and virtually allergic to black political prisoners. To get around him, Mr Mandela started reading about rugby, a sport he had never liked but which his jailer, like most Afrikaner men, adored. Then, when they met in a corridor, Mr Mandela immediately launched into a detailed discussion, in Afrikaans, about prop forwards, scrum halves and recent games. His jailer was so charmed that before he knew it he was barking at an underling to “go and get Mandela a hotplate!”
Mr Mandela’s story never fails to inspire. As a young man, he started an armed struggle against apartheid. It went nowhere, and he went to jail. While maturing behind bars, he decided that moral suasion might work where bombs had failed. It did. South Africa’s white rulers surrendered power without a civil war. Several books have been written about Mr Mandela’s crucial role in coaxing his countrymen towards a more civilised form of government. John Carlin’s is the first to tell the tale through the prism of sport.
This premise is not as odd as it sounds. It was not only Mr Mandela’s regal charm that won over white South Africans. It was the fact that he took the trouble to study and understand their culture. At a time when many blacks dismissed rugby as “the brutish, alien pastime of a brutish, alien people”, Mr Mandela saw it as a bridge across the racial chasm.
The game is not an incidental part of Afrikaner culture, like cricket is to the English. To many Afrikaners, who have grown up playing rough games on sun-baked ground so hard that every tumble draws blood, rugby is little short of everything. Mr Mandela knew that if he was to convince these people that one man, one vote would not mean catastrophe, he had to “address their hearts”, not their brains. If the fearsome terrorist on the other side of the negotiating table was a rugby fan, could he really be as bad as they thought?
Mr Carlin focuses on the decade after 1985, when most blacks thought the country was sliding into war. He draws on his experiences as the South Africa correspondent for the Independent, a British newspaper, during the transition to democracy. But the book does not climax, as a standard historical text might, with South Africa’s first proper multi-racial elections in 1994. Instead, it builds up to the rugby world cup final in 1995, which was held in South Africa and which the home team won.
This makes sense. Elections are all very well, but the moment when black South Africans started cheering for a mostly-white rugby team, when white fans in the stadium tried gamely to sing a Zulu miners’ anthem and when Mr Mandela donned the green jersey of the Springboks—“It was the moment I realised that there really was a chance this country could work,” gushes a teary-eyed rugby official.
Mr Carlin brings the story alive by telling it through the eyes of a broad spectrum of South Africans. Among these is Desmond Tutu, the Nobel prize-winning archbishop of Cape Town, who was in America on the day of the final and had to find a bar that would let him watch it at an ungodly hour of the morning. Also, Niel Barnard, a former chief spy for the apartheid regime, who used to keep a thick file on Bishop Tutu. And Justice Bekebeke, a young township firebrand who killed a policeman for firing at a child during a riot and spent time on death row.
Mr Bekebeke is the most interesting of Mr Carlin’s portraits. On the morning of the match, he is still too bitter about a lifetime of injustice to support the Springboks. But then, something changes. The surging emotion of the event sweeps him along. “I just had to give up, to surrender,” he says, “And I said to myself, well, this is the new reality. There is no going back: the South African team is now my team, whoever they are, whatever their colour.”
Many writers reveal the nuts and bolts of South Africa’s transformation to non- racial democracy. But few capture the spirit as well as Mr Carlin.
Sports Columnist - Nirmal Shekar;Emperor strikes back
In sport, the stripping of the cloak of invincibility does not take place unnoticed as in other areas of human activity. The aura of athletic invulnerability often evaporates — excruciatingly for its proud owner — in full public gaze.
A nick here, a cut there and, suddenly, a great champion with indisputable claims to immortality looks defenceless in the face of audacious assaults from mere mortals. For the millions of fans watching this ritual at stadiums and on television, it is a vicarious emotional experience not unlike what the men and women who witnessed public executions in the dark ages might have undergone.
The process can be particularly brutal in a sport such as tennis, which is essentially a martial art. Unlike in team sports, there is nowhere to hide, as the great Roger Federer found out through most part of the 2008 season.
Predictably, ever since Federer departed from the Australian Open championship last January without a trophy in his kitbag, the sports media all over the world indulged in an extended mediation on sporting mortality — with barely contained satisfaction — in the context of the Swiss genius’ career.
The kaleidoscopic waves of responses — sometimes amusing, sometimes shocking, at other times merely banal, and often quite outrageous — to Federer’s Grand Slam drought through a major part of the season may be worthy of closer scrutiny now that the Swiss maestro has proved that obituary writers almost always get it wrong in the case of the greatest of champions.
“I don’t think it got to me, but I was aware of it,” Federer said after routing Andy Murray to win the U.S. Open title for the fifth year in a row. “I am a bit disappointed. Sometimes to a point a bit annoyed because all sorts of crazy people started writing to me, telling me I need some help, either mentally or physically. It’s just a pain.”
It is the sort of pain almost all great athletes experience at least once in their careers. And it is only six years since the man Federer has been compared to time and again and the one that he is soon expected to match and maybe leave behind — Pete Sampras — was in a similar situation in the same tournament.
Written off by the media and without a Slam title for more than 24 months, Sampras had just got past Greg Rusedski in the third round of the 2002 championship.
Can Pete win another major?
When he was asked that question, Rusedski reacted as if that was a joke, and then said Sampras would not win another round, that he was history.
A week later, the great man beat Andre Agassi in four sets in what turned out to be his last match as a professional to win his 14th Grand Slam title.
Now, of course, Sampras IS history, a piece of history that Federer himself continues to do battle against, with the Djokovics and Murrays no more than necessary props in a larger narrative.
Hearing Federer talk about the “pain”, I was reminded of Sampras’ words after the 2002 U.S. Open.
“The things which Greg says don’t faze me. I know what I can do out there. I don’t have to prove people wrong. That’s not why I am playing. I am playing to challenge myself and see if I can do it again,” said Sampras.
At Flushing Meadows last fortnight, Federer, like Sampras six years ago, was merely challenging himself, unconcerned about what was being written in the press all year, what was being whispered in the locker rooms, what was being debated in bar rooms and cafes.
For a handful of supreme sportsmen — Pele, Ali, Sobers, Jordan, Schumacher, Sampras in the past and Woods and Federer now — there comes a point when nothing is relevant but their own fire within. What is written and said does not matter. The opposition does not matter. The stage does not matter. Everything comes down to whether they, as men of surpassing greatness, can challenge themselves to do it again…and again.
“It is a different type of flavour, this one, no doubt,” said Federer who had lost the No. 1 ranking to Rafael Nadal a week before the Open.
Until he hit that final overhead and rolled on the court in sheer ecstasy, this was a hugely disappointing season for the great man — but only by his own standards.
A year ago, when he beat Djokovic for his 12th Slam title in New York, London’s bookmakers would not have offered fancy odds for Federer returning to the Big Apple without adding to that tally.
But then, in sport even transcendence is transient; it lasts as long as the legs can ward of weariness and the mind can keep away excess baggage. Fine skills can take leave of a champion sooner than summer can turn into autumn and add colour to leaves to prepare them for their imminent demise.
For over four years, like the 19th century French poet Charles Baudelaire, we greedily sought and found “beauty and the eternal” in Federer’s game, in what was essentially “transient and fleeting.”
Yet, when the man who magically lifted tennis lovers from the mundane to the exalted suddenly appeared set to fall victim to time’s arrow, the responses were all too predictable.
It seemed we just could not accept a quotidian Federer, stumbling at such little-known hurdles as Mardy Fish and Radek Stephanek, the aura suddenly gone.
Sports fans are incurable fabulists. They are inveterate myth-builders. And when a Jordan or a Sampras or a Federer comes along, their deepest fantasies appear to come true.
But then, every superman athlete is invincible or, to be precise, appears to be invincible — only until he or she can be proved to be vincible, as Federer was over eight months this season.
Athletic decline is as inevitable as night following day. A few great sportsmen quit before the process of public disrobing is put in motion by Father Time. But a vast majority lingers on, raging against the dying of the light.
Of course, in Federer’s case, the maestro is only 27 and he still has a few majors left in him after proving in New York that the shocking suggestion of a form slump that we witnessed was not going to turn into landslide that would bury the genius.
Yet, it may be equally true that we might never again see Federer dominate the game as he did from 2004 to 2007. Nor, for that matter, can we expect him to recreate, match after Grand Slam match, the impossible beauty that adorned his game when he was at his peak.
Marriages between athletic prowess and beauty are traditionally short-lived; there is no happily-ever-after, no matter how much connoisseurs and the great athletes who bring off these unions might wish there were.
True, from time to time, the dancing feet and the sweetly swishing racquet will appear to produce a consciousness-altering spectacle as in the glorious past. This was clear to everyone in the final against Murray as Federer turned the clock back magically.
Few experiences in sport might have been quite as exhilarating as the climb up the peak with the Swiss genius. Fewer still quite as dizzying at the peak. And a fortnight after the great man’s 13th Grand Slam triumph, we would hate to dwell on the descent, which is at once inevitable and depressing.
Then again, Federer too is mortal, no matter how many Slams he goes on to win — only as mortal as Bradman and Sobers and Jordan and Sampras and Woods.
Most Grand Slam finals
Ivan Lendl — 19 (won 8; lost 11)
Pete Sampras — 18 (won 14; lost 4)
Rod Laver — 17 (won 11; lost 6)
Roger Federer — 17 (won 13; lost 4)
* * *
FEDERER IN GRAND SLAM FINALS
2003
Wimbledon: beat Mark Philippoussis 7-6 (5), 6-2, 7-6 (3).
2004
Australian Open: beat Marat Safin 7-6 (3), 6-4, 6-2.
Wimbledon: beat Andy Roddick 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (3), 6-4.
U.S. Open: beat Lleyton Hewitt 6-0, 7-6 (3), 6-0.
2005
Wimbledon: beat Andy Roddick 6-2, 7-6 (2), 6-4.
U.S. Open: beat Andre Agassi 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (1), 6-1.
2006
Australian Open: beat Marcos Baghdatis 5-7, 7-5, 6-0, 6-2.
French Open: lost to Rafael Nadal 1-6, 6-1, 6-4, 7-6 (4).
Wimbledon: beat Rafael Nadal 6-0, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (2), 6-3.
U.S. Open: beat Andy Roddick 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.
2007
Australian Open: beat Fernando Gonzalez 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-4.
French Open: lost to Rafael Nadal 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Wimbledon: beat Rafael Nadal 7-6 (7), 4-6, 7-6 (3), 2-6, 6-2.
U.S. Open: beat Novak Djokovic 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2), 6-4.
2008
French Open: lost to Rafael Nadal 6-1, 6-3, 6-0.
Wimbledon: lost to Rafael Nadal 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (8), 9-7.
U.S. Open: beat Andy Murray 6-2, 7-5, 6-2.
* * *
THE TOP TWO
PETE SAMPRAS — 14
Australian Open: 1994, 1997
French Open: None
Wimbledon: 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998 1999, 2000
U.S. Open: 1990, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2002
ROGER FEDERER — 13
Australian Open: 2004, 2006, 2007
French Open: None
Wimbledon: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
U.S. Open: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
A nick here, a cut there and, suddenly, a great champion with indisputable claims to immortality looks defenceless in the face of audacious assaults from mere mortals. For the millions of fans watching this ritual at stadiums and on television, it is a vicarious emotional experience not unlike what the men and women who witnessed public executions in the dark ages might have undergone.
The process can be particularly brutal in a sport such as tennis, which is essentially a martial art. Unlike in team sports, there is nowhere to hide, as the great Roger Federer found out through most part of the 2008 season.
Predictably, ever since Federer departed from the Australian Open championship last January without a trophy in his kitbag, the sports media all over the world indulged in an extended mediation on sporting mortality — with barely contained satisfaction — in the context of the Swiss genius’ career.
The kaleidoscopic waves of responses — sometimes amusing, sometimes shocking, at other times merely banal, and often quite outrageous — to Federer’s Grand Slam drought through a major part of the season may be worthy of closer scrutiny now that the Swiss maestro has proved that obituary writers almost always get it wrong in the case of the greatest of champions.
“I don’t think it got to me, but I was aware of it,” Federer said after routing Andy Murray to win the U.S. Open title for the fifth year in a row. “I am a bit disappointed. Sometimes to a point a bit annoyed because all sorts of crazy people started writing to me, telling me I need some help, either mentally or physically. It’s just a pain.”
It is the sort of pain almost all great athletes experience at least once in their careers. And it is only six years since the man Federer has been compared to time and again and the one that he is soon expected to match and maybe leave behind — Pete Sampras — was in a similar situation in the same tournament.
Written off by the media and without a Slam title for more than 24 months, Sampras had just got past Greg Rusedski in the third round of the 2002 championship.
Can Pete win another major?
When he was asked that question, Rusedski reacted as if that was a joke, and then said Sampras would not win another round, that he was history.
A week later, the great man beat Andre Agassi in four sets in what turned out to be his last match as a professional to win his 14th Grand Slam title.
Now, of course, Sampras IS history, a piece of history that Federer himself continues to do battle against, with the Djokovics and Murrays no more than necessary props in a larger narrative.
Hearing Federer talk about the “pain”, I was reminded of Sampras’ words after the 2002 U.S. Open.
“The things which Greg says don’t faze me. I know what I can do out there. I don’t have to prove people wrong. That’s not why I am playing. I am playing to challenge myself and see if I can do it again,” said Sampras.
At Flushing Meadows last fortnight, Federer, like Sampras six years ago, was merely challenging himself, unconcerned about what was being written in the press all year, what was being whispered in the locker rooms, what was being debated in bar rooms and cafes.
For a handful of supreme sportsmen — Pele, Ali, Sobers, Jordan, Schumacher, Sampras in the past and Woods and Federer now — there comes a point when nothing is relevant but their own fire within. What is written and said does not matter. The opposition does not matter. The stage does not matter. Everything comes down to whether they, as men of surpassing greatness, can challenge themselves to do it again…and again.
“It is a different type of flavour, this one, no doubt,” said Federer who had lost the No. 1 ranking to Rafael Nadal a week before the Open.
Until he hit that final overhead and rolled on the court in sheer ecstasy, this was a hugely disappointing season for the great man — but only by his own standards.
A year ago, when he beat Djokovic for his 12th Slam title in New York, London’s bookmakers would not have offered fancy odds for Federer returning to the Big Apple without adding to that tally.
But then, in sport even transcendence is transient; it lasts as long as the legs can ward of weariness and the mind can keep away excess baggage. Fine skills can take leave of a champion sooner than summer can turn into autumn and add colour to leaves to prepare them for their imminent demise.
For over four years, like the 19th century French poet Charles Baudelaire, we greedily sought and found “beauty and the eternal” in Federer’s game, in what was essentially “transient and fleeting.”
Yet, when the man who magically lifted tennis lovers from the mundane to the exalted suddenly appeared set to fall victim to time’s arrow, the responses were all too predictable.
It seemed we just could not accept a quotidian Federer, stumbling at such little-known hurdles as Mardy Fish and Radek Stephanek, the aura suddenly gone.
Sports fans are incurable fabulists. They are inveterate myth-builders. And when a Jordan or a Sampras or a Federer comes along, their deepest fantasies appear to come true.
But then, every superman athlete is invincible or, to be precise, appears to be invincible — only until he or she can be proved to be vincible, as Federer was over eight months this season.
Athletic decline is as inevitable as night following day. A few great sportsmen quit before the process of public disrobing is put in motion by Father Time. But a vast majority lingers on, raging against the dying of the light.
Of course, in Federer’s case, the maestro is only 27 and he still has a few majors left in him after proving in New York that the shocking suggestion of a form slump that we witnessed was not going to turn into landslide that would bury the genius.
Yet, it may be equally true that we might never again see Federer dominate the game as he did from 2004 to 2007. Nor, for that matter, can we expect him to recreate, match after Grand Slam match, the impossible beauty that adorned his game when he was at his peak.
Marriages between athletic prowess and beauty are traditionally short-lived; there is no happily-ever-after, no matter how much connoisseurs and the great athletes who bring off these unions might wish there were.
True, from time to time, the dancing feet and the sweetly swishing racquet will appear to produce a consciousness-altering spectacle as in the glorious past. This was clear to everyone in the final against Murray as Federer turned the clock back magically.
Few experiences in sport might have been quite as exhilarating as the climb up the peak with the Swiss genius. Fewer still quite as dizzying at the peak. And a fortnight after the great man’s 13th Grand Slam triumph, we would hate to dwell on the descent, which is at once inevitable and depressing.
Then again, Federer too is mortal, no matter how many Slams he goes on to win — only as mortal as Bradman and Sobers and Jordan and Sampras and Woods.
Most Grand Slam finals
Ivan Lendl — 19 (won 8; lost 11)
Pete Sampras — 18 (won 14; lost 4)
Rod Laver — 17 (won 11; lost 6)
Roger Federer — 17 (won 13; lost 4)
* * *
FEDERER IN GRAND SLAM FINALS
2003
Wimbledon: beat Mark Philippoussis 7-6 (5), 6-2, 7-6 (3).
2004
Australian Open: beat Marat Safin 7-6 (3), 6-4, 6-2.
Wimbledon: beat Andy Roddick 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (3), 6-4.
U.S. Open: beat Lleyton Hewitt 6-0, 7-6 (3), 6-0.
2005
Wimbledon: beat Andy Roddick 6-2, 7-6 (2), 6-4.
U.S. Open: beat Andre Agassi 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (1), 6-1.
2006
Australian Open: beat Marcos Baghdatis 5-7, 7-5, 6-0, 6-2.
French Open: lost to Rafael Nadal 1-6, 6-1, 6-4, 7-6 (4).
Wimbledon: beat Rafael Nadal 6-0, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (2), 6-3.
U.S. Open: beat Andy Roddick 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.
2007
Australian Open: beat Fernando Gonzalez 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-4.
French Open: lost to Rafael Nadal 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Wimbledon: beat Rafael Nadal 7-6 (7), 4-6, 7-6 (3), 2-6, 6-2.
U.S. Open: beat Novak Djokovic 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2), 6-4.
2008
French Open: lost to Rafael Nadal 6-1, 6-3, 6-0.
Wimbledon: lost to Rafael Nadal 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (8), 9-7.
U.S. Open: beat Andy Murray 6-2, 7-5, 6-2.
* * *
THE TOP TWO
PETE SAMPRAS — 14
Australian Open: 1994, 1997
French Open: None
Wimbledon: 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998 1999, 2000
U.S. Open: 1990, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2002
ROGER FEDERER — 13
Australian Open: 2004, 2006, 2007
French Open: None
Wimbledon: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
U.S. Open: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
Sports - Only 17,but really gifted
If players who are very young are good enough, then surely they are old enough to be picked for their teams.
How young is too young, in football? Recently for my sins I found myself in Cardiff watching an excruciating display by Wales who scraped through 1-0 in the closing minutes against the modest Azerbaijan team. And I marvelled at the fact that the hugely experienced Wales manager John Toshack, once a Liverpool star himself, had totally ignored the 17-year-old midfield prodigy, Aaron Ramsey. This, at a moment when several of his regular players were unavailable, and the team needed all the talent it could muster.
But Ramsey wasn’t even in the squad and the only possible, if mistaken explanation must be that he was considered too young. Too young? My mind goes back to the last FA Cup Final at Wembley when Portsmouth squeezed through against second division (all right, Championship) Cardiff City. David Jones, the Cardiff manager, seemed up to a point, and to the irritation of Cardiff following journalists, to have been suffering from what one might now call the John Toshack Syndrome. In other words, he cautiously refrained from bringing Ramsey on till well into the second-half.
And Ramsey was a revelation. He seemed to possess the so-called ‘Big Match Temperament’ in spades, cool and intelligent on the ball, never intimidated by bigger, older, defensive opponents, even when he had the ball in the midst of a crowded Portsmouth penalty area. Holding up his hands and calling for the ball when he found himself in central midfield. There was one delightful episode when, holding the ball in the Pompey box, he refused to panic, do anything in haste, but turned coolly on the ball to evade his opponents and neatly laid it off to a colleague.
Since then, of course, Ramsey has been transferred to Arsenal, a move which may or may not work to his advantage. Initially, it looked as if he would be sold to Manchester United, who would then lend him back to Cardiff for another season. At Arsenal, I watched him play impressively in the so-called Emirates Cup pre-season, when the opposition was as distinguished as Juventus and Real Madrid. He showed the same cool courage on the ball, the same precocious confidence. But now that the competitive season is in full swing, he has been out of the money. Though the Gunners may have lost Flamini to Milan, they still have an abundance of central-midfield players and the fear is that Ramsey will be forced to spend his time at best on the bench.
It didn’t happen all those years ago to another phenomenon at Arsenal, Cliff Bastin. In 1929, Herbert Chapman, the legendary Arsenal manager, managed with great difficulty to persuade the 17-year-old Cliff to leave humble Exeter City of the third division and join the Gunners. When Cliff turned up for training in the late summer, a day or two later than the rest, the commissionaire on the door refused to let him in, telling him patronisingly that one day he might even be good enough to play for Arsenal!
He was more than good enough. Switched by Chapman from inside-left, always his preferred position, to the left-wing, he struck up a memorable partnership with the brains of the outfit, the little Scottish inside-left, Alex James. The following April, playing in the Cup final against Huddersfield at Wembley, he and James, as Alex had planned, combined to set up the Gunners’ first goal, from a free-kick, James running on to score one of his rare goals in what would become a 2-0 win. As for Cliff, he had won every honour in the game by the time he was 21, and in one amazing season scored no fewer than 33 League goals from the left-wing. He was certainly old enough at 17!
But, of course, the 17-year-old of all 17-year-olds was the phenomenal Pele. 17 years old was all he was when he made his sensational appearance in Brazil’s third World Cup finals game in Gothenburg in 1958. I was in Sweden then and had been told about him by marvelling Brazilian journalists. The Soviets against whom he made his World Cup debut found him — and Garrincha who also came into the team that day — pretty well unplayable. Brazil won 2-0 and, of course, went on to win the trophy.
Yet, if the strange little psychologist whom the Brazilians had brought along had had his way, neither of these two superb players would have been chosen. The psychologist submitted a memorandum, insisting that both these players were unfit to be picked. Pele was far too young and immature. He would not stand up to the pressure. Before the final at a press conference, the rumbling, plump Brazilian manager, Vicente Feola, was asked what he thought of the psychologist. Speaking on his behalf, the interpreter announced, “Senhor Feola is not saying that he wishes the psychologist would go to hell, but he is thinking it!”
Pele, in fact, technically superb, infinitely cool and calm, dangerous with foot or head — he used both to score his two goals in the 5-2 final win against the Swedes in Stockholm — proved prolific. Three goals in the semifinal against an admittedly afflicted France, deprived for most of the game of their injured centre-half Bob Jonquet. Then those magnificent two in the final, one a minor miracle of skill and courage when he, in the midst of the crowded penalty box, caught a ball on his thigh, hooked it over his head, and blasted it past the ’keeper, Svensson. Whom he later beat again with a towering header, making light of the fact that he stood only 5 foot 8.
Of course, the case of Diego Maradona may be seen as the exception which proved the rule. Like Pele, already an international, for Argentina, at 16, he was surprisingly excluded from his country’s squad at the 1978 World Cup in Buenos Aires by the very coach who had been his mentor, “E1 Flaco” Menotti. As one who was out there, I still feel he and his array of gifts — a superb left-foot, supreme elusiveness, a flair for the inspired pass — could have improved an Argentine team which may eventually have won the Cup, but only after, as it transpired, buying the Peruvian team in a vital game in the last qualifying group.
Then what of striker Norman Whiteside, even younger than Pele, at 17, when he played in the Spanish World Cup of 1982 for Northern Ireland? The youngest player ever to appear in the World Cup finals, impossible to intimidate. When an Austrian tried to do it in Madrid, he soon found himself flat on his back. If they’re good enough, then surely they are old enough. Why waste a talent as impressive as Ramsey’s?
How young is too young, in football? Recently for my sins I found myself in Cardiff watching an excruciating display by Wales who scraped through 1-0 in the closing minutes against the modest Azerbaijan team. And I marvelled at the fact that the hugely experienced Wales manager John Toshack, once a Liverpool star himself, had totally ignored the 17-year-old midfield prodigy, Aaron Ramsey. This, at a moment when several of his regular players were unavailable, and the team needed all the talent it could muster.
But Ramsey wasn’t even in the squad and the only possible, if mistaken explanation must be that he was considered too young. Too young? My mind goes back to the last FA Cup Final at Wembley when Portsmouth squeezed through against second division (all right, Championship) Cardiff City. David Jones, the Cardiff manager, seemed up to a point, and to the irritation of Cardiff following journalists, to have been suffering from what one might now call the John Toshack Syndrome. In other words, he cautiously refrained from bringing Ramsey on till well into the second-half.
And Ramsey was a revelation. He seemed to possess the so-called ‘Big Match Temperament’ in spades, cool and intelligent on the ball, never intimidated by bigger, older, defensive opponents, even when he had the ball in the midst of a crowded Portsmouth penalty area. Holding up his hands and calling for the ball when he found himself in central midfield. There was one delightful episode when, holding the ball in the Pompey box, he refused to panic, do anything in haste, but turned coolly on the ball to evade his opponents and neatly laid it off to a colleague.
Since then, of course, Ramsey has been transferred to Arsenal, a move which may or may not work to his advantage. Initially, it looked as if he would be sold to Manchester United, who would then lend him back to Cardiff for another season. At Arsenal, I watched him play impressively in the so-called Emirates Cup pre-season, when the opposition was as distinguished as Juventus and Real Madrid. He showed the same cool courage on the ball, the same precocious confidence. But now that the competitive season is in full swing, he has been out of the money. Though the Gunners may have lost Flamini to Milan, they still have an abundance of central-midfield players and the fear is that Ramsey will be forced to spend his time at best on the bench.
It didn’t happen all those years ago to another phenomenon at Arsenal, Cliff Bastin. In 1929, Herbert Chapman, the legendary Arsenal manager, managed with great difficulty to persuade the 17-year-old Cliff to leave humble Exeter City of the third division and join the Gunners. When Cliff turned up for training in the late summer, a day or two later than the rest, the commissionaire on the door refused to let him in, telling him patronisingly that one day he might even be good enough to play for Arsenal!
He was more than good enough. Switched by Chapman from inside-left, always his preferred position, to the left-wing, he struck up a memorable partnership with the brains of the outfit, the little Scottish inside-left, Alex James. The following April, playing in the Cup final against Huddersfield at Wembley, he and James, as Alex had planned, combined to set up the Gunners’ first goal, from a free-kick, James running on to score one of his rare goals in what would become a 2-0 win. As for Cliff, he had won every honour in the game by the time he was 21, and in one amazing season scored no fewer than 33 League goals from the left-wing. He was certainly old enough at 17!
But, of course, the 17-year-old of all 17-year-olds was the phenomenal Pele. 17 years old was all he was when he made his sensational appearance in Brazil’s third World Cup finals game in Gothenburg in 1958. I was in Sweden then and had been told about him by marvelling Brazilian journalists. The Soviets against whom he made his World Cup debut found him — and Garrincha who also came into the team that day — pretty well unplayable. Brazil won 2-0 and, of course, went on to win the trophy.
Yet, if the strange little psychologist whom the Brazilians had brought along had had his way, neither of these two superb players would have been chosen. The psychologist submitted a memorandum, insisting that both these players were unfit to be picked. Pele was far too young and immature. He would not stand up to the pressure. Before the final at a press conference, the rumbling, plump Brazilian manager, Vicente Feola, was asked what he thought of the psychologist. Speaking on his behalf, the interpreter announced, “Senhor Feola is not saying that he wishes the psychologist would go to hell, but he is thinking it!”
Pele, in fact, technically superb, infinitely cool and calm, dangerous with foot or head — he used both to score his two goals in the 5-2 final win against the Swedes in Stockholm — proved prolific. Three goals in the semifinal against an admittedly afflicted France, deprived for most of the game of their injured centre-half Bob Jonquet. Then those magnificent two in the final, one a minor miracle of skill and courage when he, in the midst of the crowded penalty box, caught a ball on his thigh, hooked it over his head, and blasted it past the ’keeper, Svensson. Whom he later beat again with a towering header, making light of the fact that he stood only 5 foot 8.
Of course, the case of Diego Maradona may be seen as the exception which proved the rule. Like Pele, already an international, for Argentina, at 16, he was surprisingly excluded from his country’s squad at the 1978 World Cup in Buenos Aires by the very coach who had been his mentor, “E1 Flaco” Menotti. As one who was out there, I still feel he and his array of gifts — a superb left-foot, supreme elusiveness, a flair for the inspired pass — could have improved an Argentine team which may eventually have won the Cup, but only after, as it transpired, buying the Peruvian team in a vital game in the last qualifying group.
Then what of striker Norman Whiteside, even younger than Pele, at 17, when he played in the Spanish World Cup of 1982 for Northern Ireland? The youngest player ever to appear in the World Cup finals, impossible to intimidate. When an Austrian tried to do it in Madrid, he soon found himself flat on his back. If they’re good enough, then surely they are old enough. Why waste a talent as impressive as Ramsey’s?
Me - Suggestions
Hi All,
Iam back.Thinking of starting a food blog.Will post articles from across the globe on good food/good placest to eat/good recipes/health benefits etc.Iam inviting suggestions on what should be the first post.Please do leave ur suggestions.You can also mail me at srinath.sasikumar@relianceada.com.
The blog address will be spoonfoodin.blogspot.com (thought it will be easier to remember ;-) )
So do buzz me.
Take care & Happy Readin
SZri
Iam back.Thinking of starting a food blog.Will post articles from across the globe on good food/good placest to eat/good recipes/health benefits etc.Iam inviting suggestions on what should be the first post.Please do leave ur suggestions.You can also mail me at srinath.sasikumar@relianceada.com.
The blog address will be spoonfoodin.blogspot.com (thought it will be easier to remember ;-) )
So do buzz me.
Take care & Happy Readin
SZri
World - Venezuela;Price of Cheap Petrol
EVERY weekday morning, Zarhay Infante leaves home in the Caracas dormitory town of Guarenas shortly after 5am. If the journey goes well, she reaches her office in the capital, some 30km (19 miles) away, around three-and-a-half hours later. “Three years ago, when I started doing this,” Ms Infante says, “I could get to Caracas in 45 minutes on the motorway. But it gets worse every day.”
This road congestion is tribute to an economic growth which, thanks to the rise in the oil price, has averaged around 9% a year since 2004. But it is also a failure of public policy. Caracas, a city of some 2m, is crammed into a narrow valley flanked by mountains. Many of the 3m people living in the surrounding suburbs commute to the capital each day. No new major roads have been built in the Caracas conurbation since the 1970s, while in that time the number of cars in the area has risen from 200,000 to over 1.4m. In the five years from 2002 to 2007, around a quarter of a million private vehicles were added, including 70,000 in 2006 alone. The city has become gridlocked, with rush-hours replaced by semi-permanent congestion. Travelling a mere five or six blocks can take an hour, especially when it rains.
The left-wing government of President Hugo Chávez subsidises car use by keeping the price of petrol at just 4 cents a litre (a level that rivals that of Gulf states such as Kuwait). Most public transport is chaotic, antiquated and inadequate. The government has completed one suburban railway line and a third metro line (both were inaugurated ahead of a presidential election in 2006 whilst in fact the lines were still unfinished).
But the new lines have done precious little to ease the problem. Buses, metro and trains are all run by different bodies, which have never learnt to co-ordinate their schedules. Passengers typically have to change several times to reach their destination. In an agreement signed in 2007 by Ken Livingstone, then London’s mayor, some of his officials began to advise Mr Chávez’s government on urban transport in return for fuel subsidies from Venezuela for London’s buses. This scheme was cancelled by London’s new Conservative mayor, Boris Johnson, but Mr Livingstone last month agreed to work for Mr Chávez as a consultant.
Congestion is a drag on the economy. According to one economist, cutting 30 minutes from average journey times would save up to $3 billion a year. But neither the government nor the chavista mayor of metropolitan Caracas has come up with a plan to tackle congestion. Last year, the opposition mayors of two Caracas districts banned car owners from using their cars one day a week. Traffic eased somewhat, and the ban proved popular, if controversial. But then the courts ruled it unconstitutional. And Venezuela’s polarised politics has made co-ordinated action impossible.
Mr Chávez’s latest idea is to add an upper deck to the city’s motorways (as Andrés Manuel López Obrador, another left-winger, did when mayor of Mexico City). Experts from Shandong, a province in the north-east of China, were asked to produce a feasibility study, and the government now proposes to start work. But without other measures, an extra motorway deck will merely place yet more strain on already saturated access roads. According to the Venezuelan Society of Transport and Road Engineers, the metropolitan area urgently needs at least 100km of new roads, including the completion of a ring-road—first mooted in the 1970s.
Reversing three decades of neglect will take years, as well as political will. Meanwhile, some Venezuelans try to adapt. “I waste six hours every day in traffic jams,” says Dalila Solórzano, who commutes from Guatire, to the east of Caracas. “I try to make use of the time by listening to recorded English classes.” She seems bound to become fluent.
This road congestion is tribute to an economic growth which, thanks to the rise in the oil price, has averaged around 9% a year since 2004. But it is also a failure of public policy. Caracas, a city of some 2m, is crammed into a narrow valley flanked by mountains. Many of the 3m people living in the surrounding suburbs commute to the capital each day. No new major roads have been built in the Caracas conurbation since the 1970s, while in that time the number of cars in the area has risen from 200,000 to over 1.4m. In the five years from 2002 to 2007, around a quarter of a million private vehicles were added, including 70,000 in 2006 alone. The city has become gridlocked, with rush-hours replaced by semi-permanent congestion. Travelling a mere five or six blocks can take an hour, especially when it rains.
The left-wing government of President Hugo Chávez subsidises car use by keeping the price of petrol at just 4 cents a litre (a level that rivals that of Gulf states such as Kuwait). Most public transport is chaotic, antiquated and inadequate. The government has completed one suburban railway line and a third metro line (both were inaugurated ahead of a presidential election in 2006 whilst in fact the lines were still unfinished).
But the new lines have done precious little to ease the problem. Buses, metro and trains are all run by different bodies, which have never learnt to co-ordinate their schedules. Passengers typically have to change several times to reach their destination. In an agreement signed in 2007 by Ken Livingstone, then London’s mayor, some of his officials began to advise Mr Chávez’s government on urban transport in return for fuel subsidies from Venezuela for London’s buses. This scheme was cancelled by London’s new Conservative mayor, Boris Johnson, but Mr Livingstone last month agreed to work for Mr Chávez as a consultant.
Congestion is a drag on the economy. According to one economist, cutting 30 minutes from average journey times would save up to $3 billion a year. But neither the government nor the chavista mayor of metropolitan Caracas has come up with a plan to tackle congestion. Last year, the opposition mayors of two Caracas districts banned car owners from using their cars one day a week. Traffic eased somewhat, and the ban proved popular, if controversial. But then the courts ruled it unconstitutional. And Venezuela’s polarised politics has made co-ordinated action impossible.
Mr Chávez’s latest idea is to add an upper deck to the city’s motorways (as Andrés Manuel López Obrador, another left-winger, did when mayor of Mexico City). Experts from Shandong, a province in the north-east of China, were asked to produce a feasibility study, and the government now proposes to start work. But without other measures, an extra motorway deck will merely place yet more strain on already saturated access roads. According to the Venezuelan Society of Transport and Road Engineers, the metropolitan area urgently needs at least 100km of new roads, including the completion of a ring-road—first mooted in the 1970s.
Reversing three decades of neglect will take years, as well as political will. Meanwhile, some Venezuelans try to adapt. “I waste six hours every day in traffic jams,” says Dalila Solórzano, who commutes from Guatire, to the east of Caracas. “I try to make use of the time by listening to recorded English classes.” She seems bound to become fluent.
World - How migrants fare in school,& what schools can learn from them
MOST teachers admit that occasionally, when a lesson is going badly, they suspect the problem lies not with the subject or pedagogy, but with the pupils. Some children just seem harder to teach than others. But why? Is it because of, say, cultural factors: parents from some backgrounds place a low value on education and do not push their children? Or is it to do with schools themselves, and their capacity to teach children of different abilities?
It might seem impossible to answer such a question. To do so would require exposing similar sorts of children to many different education systems and see which does best. As it happens, however, an experiment along those lines already exists—as a result of mass migration. Children of migrants from a single country of origin come as near to being a test of the question as you are likely to find.
Every three years, as part of its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a Paris-based think-tank, measures how 15-year-olds in around 50 countries do in their own languages, mathematics and science. The OECD recently sorted the data from its 2006 study of science performance according to the countries of origin of children and their parents. Four places—Turkey, China, the former Soviet Union and ex-Yugoslavia—have each sent enough citizens to enough countries for conclusions to be drawn about the quality of schooling in their host countries.
Almost everywhere immigrant students fare worse than locals—unsurprisingly, as they are often the children of poor, ill-educated parents and do not speak the local language. When data are adjusted to take account of these disadvantages, much but not all of the gap is closed (see chart). More interestingly, children from the same country do very differently, depending on where they end up.
One reason is connected with how much countries “track” pupils (ie, sort them into ability groups and teach them separately). Large numbers of first- and second-generation Turkish children go to school in Austria, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Denmark. In the first four countries, pupils are tracked on leaving primary school. But those in Austria and Germany do worse than those in Belgium and Switzerland because, it seems, tracking is earlier and more rigid in the first two, and a child’s socio-economic status has a very large effect on the track he ends up on. Most Turkish kids go to technical schools that don’t fit them for university.
Their poor showing in Denmark’s comprehensive schools, where there is no tracking and all children should in theory have access to equally good education, is a little more puzzling. Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s head of education research, speculates that their chances are damaged by the way in which poor Danish children are heavily concentrated in some schools, rather than scattered around the place. In general, countries where there is considerable difference in intake between schools tend to do worse in PISA.
Grouping children by ability is not necessarily a bad idea, though, as the experience of mainland Chinese children shows. Those who migrate to Hong Kong do very well despite being poor—and despite the fact that Hong Kong tracks school-children early and often. But there, which track a child ends up on has less to do with the parents’ wealth and education. Moreover, children can move to a different track if they do better than expected. “In general, socio-economic status has less impact in East Asian countries than in western European ones,” says Mr Schleicher.
Among the world’s best performers are Chinese children taught in Australia. The average Chinese first- or second-generation immigrant there outperforms two-thirds of all Australians (themselves no mean performers), and three-quarters of all the children who take the PISA test worldwide. Mr Schleicher praises the Australian school system for its diversity—within schools, not between them—and ability to capture the talents of all students.
The contrasting fates of children from the former Soviet Union and ex-Yugoslavia provide extra proof that the host country makes a difference, over and above the intellectual baggage immigrant children bring with them. Kids who arrive in Kyrgyzstan from other ex-Soviet lands do badly, albeit better than the locals; those who go to successful little Estonia do far better. By contrast, Yugoslav kids do much the same pretty well everywhere—whether they move to another post-Yugoslav state or some richer and more stable place. The difference is timing: the Soviet Union imploded earlier than Yugoslavia, so “ex Soviet” children spent less time in education in their home country; those from Yugoslavia less in the host one.
Wrong sort of migrants or schools?
At least in theory, the new findings should help counter some of the sillier things that policymakers say about the influence of migrants on a country’s overall attainments. “When we started to do the PISA rankings in 2000, many countries were shocked at how badly they did,” says Mr Schleicher. “And excuses we often heard were: ‘We get too many migrants,’ or, ‘we get the wrong sort of migrants.’”
Although immigrant children typically do worse at school than locals, there is no country-wide effect. The OECD’s analyses show an insignificant correlation between the number of immigrant children a country has and the average pupil’s attainment—and it is countries with more immigrant children that do (slightly) better.
As well as testing children on what they know, PISA also asks them how motivated they are: whether they think they will need the subject in question (most recently, science) for their future, and whether they like to study it for its own sake. In most countries, first-generation immigrant students are more motivated than second-generation ones, who are in turn more motivated than the children of the native-born. Germany is a striking exception: new immigrants turn up with the usual ambitions and dreams, but by the age of 15 their children have already given up hope.
That suggests that any country that figures out how to let incomers shine will reap big benefits. Immigrants, however poor, are a self-selected bunch of ambitious, hard-working people, and their children usually know that, lacking the informal networks that let locals get ahead, they must study hard to succeed. Their varying fates—helped to the top in some places, consigned to the scrapheap in others—show that although what happens outside the school gates is important, what happens in classrooms is too.
It might seem impossible to answer such a question. To do so would require exposing similar sorts of children to many different education systems and see which does best. As it happens, however, an experiment along those lines already exists—as a result of mass migration. Children of migrants from a single country of origin come as near to being a test of the question as you are likely to find.
Every three years, as part of its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a Paris-based think-tank, measures how 15-year-olds in around 50 countries do in their own languages, mathematics and science. The OECD recently sorted the data from its 2006 study of science performance according to the countries of origin of children and their parents. Four places—Turkey, China, the former Soviet Union and ex-Yugoslavia—have each sent enough citizens to enough countries for conclusions to be drawn about the quality of schooling in their host countries.
Almost everywhere immigrant students fare worse than locals—unsurprisingly, as they are often the children of poor, ill-educated parents and do not speak the local language. When data are adjusted to take account of these disadvantages, much but not all of the gap is closed (see chart). More interestingly, children from the same country do very differently, depending on where they end up.
One reason is connected with how much countries “track” pupils (ie, sort them into ability groups and teach them separately). Large numbers of first- and second-generation Turkish children go to school in Austria, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Denmark. In the first four countries, pupils are tracked on leaving primary school. But those in Austria and Germany do worse than those in Belgium and Switzerland because, it seems, tracking is earlier and more rigid in the first two, and a child’s socio-economic status has a very large effect on the track he ends up on. Most Turkish kids go to technical schools that don’t fit them for university.
Their poor showing in Denmark’s comprehensive schools, where there is no tracking and all children should in theory have access to equally good education, is a little more puzzling. Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s head of education research, speculates that their chances are damaged by the way in which poor Danish children are heavily concentrated in some schools, rather than scattered around the place. In general, countries where there is considerable difference in intake between schools tend to do worse in PISA.
Grouping children by ability is not necessarily a bad idea, though, as the experience of mainland Chinese children shows. Those who migrate to Hong Kong do very well despite being poor—and despite the fact that Hong Kong tracks school-children early and often. But there, which track a child ends up on has less to do with the parents’ wealth and education. Moreover, children can move to a different track if they do better than expected. “In general, socio-economic status has less impact in East Asian countries than in western European ones,” says Mr Schleicher.
Among the world’s best performers are Chinese children taught in Australia. The average Chinese first- or second-generation immigrant there outperforms two-thirds of all Australians (themselves no mean performers), and three-quarters of all the children who take the PISA test worldwide. Mr Schleicher praises the Australian school system for its diversity—within schools, not between them—and ability to capture the talents of all students.
The contrasting fates of children from the former Soviet Union and ex-Yugoslavia provide extra proof that the host country makes a difference, over and above the intellectual baggage immigrant children bring with them. Kids who arrive in Kyrgyzstan from other ex-Soviet lands do badly, albeit better than the locals; those who go to successful little Estonia do far better. By contrast, Yugoslav kids do much the same pretty well everywhere—whether they move to another post-Yugoslav state or some richer and more stable place. The difference is timing: the Soviet Union imploded earlier than Yugoslavia, so “ex Soviet” children spent less time in education in their home country; those from Yugoslavia less in the host one.
Wrong sort of migrants or schools?
At least in theory, the new findings should help counter some of the sillier things that policymakers say about the influence of migrants on a country’s overall attainments. “When we started to do the PISA rankings in 2000, many countries were shocked at how badly they did,” says Mr Schleicher. “And excuses we often heard were: ‘We get too many migrants,’ or, ‘we get the wrong sort of migrants.’”
Although immigrant children typically do worse at school than locals, there is no country-wide effect. The OECD’s analyses show an insignificant correlation between the number of immigrant children a country has and the average pupil’s attainment—and it is countries with more immigrant children that do (slightly) better.
As well as testing children on what they know, PISA also asks them how motivated they are: whether they think they will need the subject in question (most recently, science) for their future, and whether they like to study it for its own sake. In most countries, first-generation immigrant students are more motivated than second-generation ones, who are in turn more motivated than the children of the native-born. Germany is a striking exception: new immigrants turn up with the usual ambitions and dreams, but by the age of 15 their children have already given up hope.
That suggests that any country that figures out how to let incomers shine will reap big benefits. Immigrants, however poor, are a self-selected bunch of ambitious, hard-working people, and their children usually know that, lacking the informal networks that let locals get ahead, they must study hard to succeed. Their varying fates—helped to the top in some places, consigned to the scrapheap in others—show that although what happens outside the school gates is important, what happens in classrooms is too.
Business - Bright side of a totoal financial maret collapse (G.Read)
One of life’s rules is that there’s bad in good and good in bad. The total collapse of the US financial system is no exception. Even in the midst of the current financial despair we can look around and identify many collateral benefits.
A lot of attractive office space seems to be opening up in midtown Manhattan, for instance, and the US government is now getting paid to borrow money. (And with T-bills yielding zero per cent, they really ought to borrow a lot more of it, and quickly.)
And so as Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer John Mack blasts short sellers for his problems, and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein swans around pretending to be above this little panic, we ought to step back and enjoy the positives. To wit:
We finally get to see what’s inside these big Wall Street firms
We’ve just witnessed the largest bankruptcy in US history and we know neither the inciting incident (though there is speculation that sovereign wealth funds decided to stop lending to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc), nor the deep cause. But there’s now a pile of assets and liabilities smoldering in New York awaiting inspection.
The assets include subprime mortgages backed bonds and no doubt many other things that aren’t worth as much as Lehman hoped they might be worth. But it’s the liabilities that are most intriguing, as they include more than $700 billion in notional derivates contracts. Some of that is insurance sold by Lehman, against the risk of other companies defaulting.
The entire pile might be benign, but somehow I doubt it. We may well find out that Lehman Brothers, in liquidation, has a negative value of hundreds of billions of dollars. In that case the natural question will be: How much better could things be inside Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, both of which were engaged in the same lines of business?
We are creating the financial leaders of tomorrow
Remember when everyone believed in Alan Greenspan? When John McCain, running for president in 2000, said that if Greenspan died he’d have him stuffed and propped up against the wall at the Federal Reserve, where he’d remain chairman?
No sooner did Greenspan shuffle off the stage and sell his memoir than the financial system he helped shape fell apart. He’s left not only a mess but a void. No matter how well-educated we become in our financial affairs, we still need public officials to look up to, unthinkingly.
And there’s nothing like a government bailout to create new public-sector heroes. Hank Paulson, 62, is probably too old; in any case, he’s tarred by his association with both George Bush and Goldman Sachs. But 47-year-old Tim Geithner at the New York Fed is perfectly positioned to make Americans feel as if their financial system is in good hands for many years to come.
I have no real idea if Geithner knows what he’s doing and he may not either. (“Bail out that one. No! Not that one — the other one!”) It doesn’t matter. He’s in the middle of great events and should, by the end of them, know more about what happened than anyone.
Whatever happens to the US financial system, someone is bound to get the credit for something even worse not happening and, as no one really understands what Geithner does, he’s the obvious choice.
Ordinary Americans get a lesson in low finance
It’s been expensive but, then, so is kindergarten.
Our willingness to believe that we can hire some expert to tell us how to outperform markets is a big problem, with big consequences. It underpins Wall Street’s brokerage operations, for instance, and leads to a lot more people giving out financial advice than should be giving out financial advice.
Thanks to the current panic many Americans have learned that the experts who advise them what to do with their savings are, at best, fools. Merrill Lynch & Co, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc and all the rest persuaded their most valuable customers to buy auction-rate bonds, telling them the securities were as good as cash.
Those customers will now think twice before they listen to their brokers ever again. Many, I’m sure, are just waiting to get their money back from their brokers before they race for the exits and introduce themselves to Charles Schwab.
Bank of America Corp will soon discover that the relationship between Merrill Lynch and its customers isn’t what it used to be, but Bank of America’s loss is America’s gain.
We have lots of new houses
Not all of them have people in them, sadly, but that’s a minor detail. Even better, no one has had to pay for them, and probably never will. I’m betting that the US government will soon have no choice but to take the final step and guarantee every bad mortgage loan ever made by Wall Street.
I can hear you thinking: Doesn’t that mean the taxpayer foots the bill? That’s so negative! Sure, one day some taxpayer will foot the bill but if the government does what it does best, and continues to borrow huge sums from foreigners, it doesn’t have to be you or me.
Huge numbers of Wall Street executives will have the time to raise their children
For years now Wall Street has been far too lucrative for a certain kind of energetic and ambitious person to justify anything but the most perfunctory personal life. Now that the market for his services has collapsed, he has time to go home and figure out which of the children roaming around the mansion are actually his.
In time, he will learn to love them and they him, and they will gain the benefit of his wisdom and experience. Perhaps one day they will put it to use as traders and investment bankers, on the Wall Street of the future, where they will report to those exalted creatures of high finance: loan officers.
There, slowly, they can earn the money they will need to pay off the mortgages defaulted upon by their forebears
A lot of attractive office space seems to be opening up in midtown Manhattan, for instance, and the US government is now getting paid to borrow money. (And with T-bills yielding zero per cent, they really ought to borrow a lot more of it, and quickly.)
And so as Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer John Mack blasts short sellers for his problems, and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein swans around pretending to be above this little panic, we ought to step back and enjoy the positives. To wit:
We finally get to see what’s inside these big Wall Street firms
We’ve just witnessed the largest bankruptcy in US history and we know neither the inciting incident (though there is speculation that sovereign wealth funds decided to stop lending to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc), nor the deep cause. But there’s now a pile of assets and liabilities smoldering in New York awaiting inspection.
The assets include subprime mortgages backed bonds and no doubt many other things that aren’t worth as much as Lehman hoped they might be worth. But it’s the liabilities that are most intriguing, as they include more than $700 billion in notional derivates contracts. Some of that is insurance sold by Lehman, against the risk of other companies defaulting.
The entire pile might be benign, but somehow I doubt it. We may well find out that Lehman Brothers, in liquidation, has a negative value of hundreds of billions of dollars. In that case the natural question will be: How much better could things be inside Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, both of which were engaged in the same lines of business?
We are creating the financial leaders of tomorrow
Remember when everyone believed in Alan Greenspan? When John McCain, running for president in 2000, said that if Greenspan died he’d have him stuffed and propped up against the wall at the Federal Reserve, where he’d remain chairman?
No sooner did Greenspan shuffle off the stage and sell his memoir than the financial system he helped shape fell apart. He’s left not only a mess but a void. No matter how well-educated we become in our financial affairs, we still need public officials to look up to, unthinkingly.
And there’s nothing like a government bailout to create new public-sector heroes. Hank Paulson, 62, is probably too old; in any case, he’s tarred by his association with both George Bush and Goldman Sachs. But 47-year-old Tim Geithner at the New York Fed is perfectly positioned to make Americans feel as if their financial system is in good hands for many years to come.
I have no real idea if Geithner knows what he’s doing and he may not either. (“Bail out that one. No! Not that one — the other one!”) It doesn’t matter. He’s in the middle of great events and should, by the end of them, know more about what happened than anyone.
Whatever happens to the US financial system, someone is bound to get the credit for something even worse not happening and, as no one really understands what Geithner does, he’s the obvious choice.
Ordinary Americans get a lesson in low finance
It’s been expensive but, then, so is kindergarten.
Our willingness to believe that we can hire some expert to tell us how to outperform markets is a big problem, with big consequences. It underpins Wall Street’s brokerage operations, for instance, and leads to a lot more people giving out financial advice than should be giving out financial advice.
Thanks to the current panic many Americans have learned that the experts who advise them what to do with their savings are, at best, fools. Merrill Lynch & Co, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc and all the rest persuaded their most valuable customers to buy auction-rate bonds, telling them the securities were as good as cash.
Those customers will now think twice before they listen to their brokers ever again. Many, I’m sure, are just waiting to get their money back from their brokers before they race for the exits and introduce themselves to Charles Schwab.
Bank of America Corp will soon discover that the relationship between Merrill Lynch and its customers isn’t what it used to be, but Bank of America’s loss is America’s gain.
We have lots of new houses
Not all of them have people in them, sadly, but that’s a minor detail. Even better, no one has had to pay for them, and probably never will. I’m betting that the US government will soon have no choice but to take the final step and guarantee every bad mortgage loan ever made by Wall Street.
I can hear you thinking: Doesn’t that mean the taxpayer foots the bill? That’s so negative! Sure, one day some taxpayer will foot the bill but if the government does what it does best, and continues to borrow huge sums from foreigners, it doesn’t have to be you or me.
Huge numbers of Wall Street executives will have the time to raise their children
For years now Wall Street has been far too lucrative for a certain kind of energetic and ambitious person to justify anything but the most perfunctory personal life. Now that the market for his services has collapsed, he has time to go home and figure out which of the children roaming around the mansion are actually his.
In time, he will learn to love them and they him, and they will gain the benefit of his wisdom and experience. Perhaps one day they will put it to use as traders and investment bankers, on the Wall Street of the future, where they will report to those exalted creatures of high finance: loan officers.
There, slowly, they can earn the money they will need to pay off the mortgages defaulted upon by their forebears
India - Bad Medicine
While the debate over the safety and efficacy of clinical trials in the country continues, another controversy has surfaced. The Indian edition of the Monthly Index of Medical Specialities (MIMS) has accused the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) of allowing the marketing of an oncology drug for treating infertility among women. MIMS argues that while marketing older drugs for new cures is a well-accepted practice, the drug has to undergo a fresh set of trials.
This, MIMS says, did not happen — there were no Phase I and II trials and, as for the Phase III trials, they were conducted in private clinics instead of in large hospitals, once again bringing to the fore the whole debate over whether clinical trials were being carried out in the correct manner.
A quite separate but related issue that comes up is in respect of the safety of the drugs being sold across the country, especially since most industry experts will tell you that between 25 per cent and 40 per cent of the drugs sold in the country are believed to be spurious.
This takes place for several reasons. For one, various drug controllers across the country simply do not have enough inspectors to check the thousands of drug producers and the lakhs of chemist shops. So, banned drugs are routinely available at most chemists; in the past, there have been cases where, after the courts have ordered that certain drugs be recalled and re-issued with appropriate warnings, the drugs have been found in the market.
An associated problem is that there are no stringent punishments for firms/chemists caught making/selling spurious drugs. Indeed, most offences in this sphere are routinely bailable. While Sushma Swaraj had proposed a Bill with stringent punishment when she was minister in the NDA government, nothing came of the move. It is, of course, owing to this poor ability to police and prevent counterfeiting that ensures India remains on the US list of countries with poor protection of intellectual property.
Meanwhile, it is still not clear as to who should be in charge of the drugs regulatory authority. Today, the chemicals ministry is the administrative ministry for the industry (administering such issues as price control), whereas it is the health ministry that gives marketing approvals and regulates quality.
A group of ministers has been set up to resolve the issue. While the chemicals ministry is in favour of one integrated authority under its wing to look after all aspects, the health ministry says the quality of medicines is monitored the world over by health departments.
This, MIMS says, did not happen — there were no Phase I and II trials and, as for the Phase III trials, they were conducted in private clinics instead of in large hospitals, once again bringing to the fore the whole debate over whether clinical trials were being carried out in the correct manner.
A quite separate but related issue that comes up is in respect of the safety of the drugs being sold across the country, especially since most industry experts will tell you that between 25 per cent and 40 per cent of the drugs sold in the country are believed to be spurious.
This takes place for several reasons. For one, various drug controllers across the country simply do not have enough inspectors to check the thousands of drug producers and the lakhs of chemist shops. So, banned drugs are routinely available at most chemists; in the past, there have been cases where, after the courts have ordered that certain drugs be recalled and re-issued with appropriate warnings, the drugs have been found in the market.
An associated problem is that there are no stringent punishments for firms/chemists caught making/selling spurious drugs. Indeed, most offences in this sphere are routinely bailable. While Sushma Swaraj had proposed a Bill with stringent punishment when she was minister in the NDA government, nothing came of the move. It is, of course, owing to this poor ability to police and prevent counterfeiting that ensures India remains on the US list of countries with poor protection of intellectual property.
Meanwhile, it is still not clear as to who should be in charge of the drugs regulatory authority. Today, the chemicals ministry is the administrative ministry for the industry (administering such issues as price control), whereas it is the health ministry that gives marketing approvals and regulates quality.
A group of ministers has been set up to resolve the issue. While the chemicals ministry is in favour of one integrated authority under its wing to look after all aspects, the health ministry says the quality of medicines is monitored the world over by health departments.
India - Students get Rs 3000-cr bonanza
The UPA government today announced schemes worth more than Rs 3,000 crore for different sections of students. All these will be operational from the current financial year.
The biggest of the schemes, Inclusive Education of the Disabled at Secondary Stage (IEDSS), will have a corpus of Rs 1,260.80 crore during the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2007-12).
“Disabled children from Class VIII of government, local bodies and government-aided schools will be identified for enrolment in the secondary stage. An estimated 520,000 disabled children will be provided education in inclusive settings during the 11th Plan period. The settings would also be made disabled-friendly in terms of infrastructure, resource support, teaching learning material etc,” Finance Minister P Chidambaram said.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) also approved a Rs 1,000-crore scholarship scheme for college and university students during the 11th Plan period.
“The scheme will help meritorious students belonging to poorer sections of the society meet their day-to-day expenses while pursuing college or university education,” said Chidambaram.
Another scheme — Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE) — was approved as a component of the Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) scheme at a total cost of Rs 820 crore. This includes Rs 20 crore as the implementation cost. This scheme will provide scholarships and mentoring through summer attachment to performing researchers.
The biggest of the schemes, Inclusive Education of the Disabled at Secondary Stage (IEDSS), will have a corpus of Rs 1,260.80 crore during the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2007-12).
“Disabled children from Class VIII of government, local bodies and government-aided schools will be identified for enrolment in the secondary stage. An estimated 520,000 disabled children will be provided education in inclusive settings during the 11th Plan period. The settings would also be made disabled-friendly in terms of infrastructure, resource support, teaching learning material etc,” Finance Minister P Chidambaram said.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) also approved a Rs 1,000-crore scholarship scheme for college and university students during the 11th Plan period.
“The scheme will help meritorious students belonging to poorer sections of the society meet their day-to-day expenses while pursuing college or university education,” said Chidambaram.
Another scheme — Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE) — was approved as a component of the Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) scheme at a total cost of Rs 820 crore. This includes Rs 20 crore as the implementation cost. This scheme will provide scholarships and mentoring through summer attachment to performing researchers.
Columnists - Arun Sarin
India can and must fire on all cylinders, economically, politically, socially. Such a development would be good for all Indians. It would also be good for the rest of the world, as India takes its deserved place at the high table. But the question is, how do we make this happen?
India already is performing remarkably well, not only by its own historical standards but by global benchmarks as well. It saves a little over one-third of what it produces, and converting those savings into investment grows at around 8% a year. This compares very well with China’s performance of saving well over half of what it produces and leveraging that to generate a 10% growth rate. Average per capita income in India has been growing at over 6% a year for the last four years. Just a couple of decades ago, the growth rate of per capita income struggled to stay positive. These are impressive gains. We need to sustain the recent acceleration of economic growth for the next 20 years.
Yet these achievements are crowded out by the stark images that keep hitting any India observer. Shanties housing desperately poor people en route from spanking new airports to swanky downtowns. Communal riots and clashes that plunge members of communities into despair and bitterness. Political leaders leading agitations to close down factories that herald modernity and prosperity . We can and we must do better.
Politically, I’ve been reminded many times that India is a parliamentary democracy. We have to take our people along — and that is a good thing. But we should align on a common vision of bringing greater prosperity and fairness to all Indians. We need a long-term energy policy, investment in infrastructure, new and better jobs, better and deeper education to fulfil our vision and be competitive on the world stage, no matter the state of politics.
Socially, we must keep the momentum towards improving our multi-cultural society. We need to create a fairer and more equal society. Every Indian must feel that they can have a better tomorrow — through hard work and upgrading their skills. This is an individual and collective responsibility. Individually, we must treat people around us with respect and dignity and encourage them to shine and be their best. Collectively, we must encourage society to use ‘all the neurons of the nation,’ provide equal opportunities to women and the disadvantaged . We must all improve our sense of civics and work towards the common good. We must all raise our game and commit to improving India socially.
Economically, India needs capital, management and innovation in large quantities. Given the state of our infrastructure, we need a lot of capital, to build the India of the future. India also needs more management skills, i.e., skilled labour, entrepreneurs, leaders to provide products for India but also be competitive on a world stage. We need innovation not only in ideas for products and services, but also policy frameworks that will help India leapfrog a generation or two.
Telecom is India’s vaunted success story. But it is important for us to appreciate that the rapid spread of lifechanging tele-connectivity is no tale. This is for real. Its lessons are real. Putting enabling policies and institutional oversight has unleashed competition and entrepreneurship. Why can’t we replicate this model in the power/infrastructure sector, in education and in healthcare ? Evidence of the success of liberalisation can be seen in civil aviation, where consumers are benefiting and important infrastructure is being built.
I am optimistic about India. In a corporate context, I’m fond of saying “a brand is what a brand does” . It is equally true for Brand India. So let us do it. India has been called a place of a million mutinies. Let us make it a billion celebrations now.
India already is performing remarkably well, not only by its own historical standards but by global benchmarks as well. It saves a little over one-third of what it produces, and converting those savings into investment grows at around 8% a year. This compares very well with China’s performance of saving well over half of what it produces and leveraging that to generate a 10% growth rate. Average per capita income in India has been growing at over 6% a year for the last four years. Just a couple of decades ago, the growth rate of per capita income struggled to stay positive. These are impressive gains. We need to sustain the recent acceleration of economic growth for the next 20 years.
Yet these achievements are crowded out by the stark images that keep hitting any India observer. Shanties housing desperately poor people en route from spanking new airports to swanky downtowns. Communal riots and clashes that plunge members of communities into despair and bitterness. Political leaders leading agitations to close down factories that herald modernity and prosperity . We can and we must do better.
Politically, I’ve been reminded many times that India is a parliamentary democracy. We have to take our people along — and that is a good thing. But we should align on a common vision of bringing greater prosperity and fairness to all Indians. We need a long-term energy policy, investment in infrastructure, new and better jobs, better and deeper education to fulfil our vision and be competitive on the world stage, no matter the state of politics.
Socially, we must keep the momentum towards improving our multi-cultural society. We need to create a fairer and more equal society. Every Indian must feel that they can have a better tomorrow — through hard work and upgrading their skills. This is an individual and collective responsibility. Individually, we must treat people around us with respect and dignity and encourage them to shine and be their best. Collectively, we must encourage society to use ‘all the neurons of the nation,’ provide equal opportunities to women and the disadvantaged . We must all improve our sense of civics and work towards the common good. We must all raise our game and commit to improving India socially.
Economically, India needs capital, management and innovation in large quantities. Given the state of our infrastructure, we need a lot of capital, to build the India of the future. India also needs more management skills, i.e., skilled labour, entrepreneurs, leaders to provide products for India but also be competitive on a world stage. We need innovation not only in ideas for products and services, but also policy frameworks that will help India leapfrog a generation or two.
Telecom is India’s vaunted success story. But it is important for us to appreciate that the rapid spread of lifechanging tele-connectivity is no tale. This is for real. Its lessons are real. Putting enabling policies and institutional oversight has unleashed competition and entrepreneurship. Why can’t we replicate this model in the power/infrastructure sector, in education and in healthcare ? Evidence of the success of liberalisation can be seen in civil aviation, where consumers are benefiting and important infrastructure is being built.
I am optimistic about India. In a corporate context, I’m fond of saying “a brand is what a brand does” . It is equally true for Brand India. So let us do it. India has been called a place of a million mutinies. Let us make it a billion celebrations now.
Business - India;How Deutsche Bank transformed itself
Sometime during the course of his workday, Gunit Chadha likes to get out of his office and stroll out for a cup of coffee at a nearby cafe. When he was with Citibank in New York, it would usually be at Starbucks. Now that he’s in Mumbai, the CEO of Deutsche Bank (DB) goes over to the Barista that’s just down the road from DB House. Sometimes he’s alone and sometimes he’s accompanied by a colleague he wants to have an informal tetee-tete with. Today, he’s with me, for the final interview in a series that’s stretched over two months. The project: to detail how DB India has transformed itself from the sleepy little 500-employee bank it was five years ago to the fast-track 7,000-people player it now is.
Chadha was prone to throwing around words like ‘passion’ and ‘commitment’ when we started the project, but since then, I’ve met ten of DB’s 27 managing directors (a designation Chadha introduced to DB, which he’s obviously bestowed lavishly) and I’m now a banking expert. How much capital has DB been pumping into its Indian operations, I ask pointedly. Acknowledging my new-found mastery with a grin, Chadha says, “We recently had a capital infusion of Rs 2,155 crore — just months after we had already brought in Rs 1,125 crore. That underscores India’s significance in DB’s global scheme. It’s one of our fastest growing markets , globally.”
For most of its 28 year history in India, DB was a niche commercial bank, focused on financing trade between India and Europe. Headed by a series of expatriates who saw no great prospects in India, it actually shrank its business, selling off its retail operations to other, more aggressive, foreign banks. Its corporate clients were mostly restricted to MNCs and it eschewed upcoming Indian companies as a matter of policy. “If we’d stayed that way, we would eventually have lost market share across businesses,” says Ravneet Gill, managing director and head of corporate banking, who has been with DB for 17 years and seen its transition.
Today, DB has passionately embraced India’s corporate sector , with 60% of its corporate banking revenues coming from mid-cap companies it would not have touched with a barge pole five years ago. It has expanded operations big-time , moving into every area of banking, from equity broking and investment banking to retail and private wealth management , and it has set up four large off-shoring centres in the country. The culture of the bank has changed completely in the process and it’s not hard to see why. DB has recruited over 6,000 people in the past few years — poaching from the most aggressive American ibanks in the industry — and they’ve simply swept aside the old culture. “DB’s transformation has been through a focus on skills,” says Pavan Sukhdev, managing director and head, global markets. “The skills required in investment banking are very different from those required in commercial banking . As you build new skills, you build a new culture.”
Nikhil Kapadia is an example of the new culture. I’m in his elaborately furnished cornerroom office in DB House for over an hour and for most of this time, the managing director for private wealth management (PWM) is hustling a colleague in Singapore, trying to organise a meeting for one of his clients with DB’s investment banking arm. Kapadia joined DB from Merrill Lynch four years ago and he’s built the bank’s PWM business from a 12-people , Rs 16 crore operation to the 62-people , Rs 72 crore operation it is today . When he finally switches off his phone and lowers his big frame into an expensive-looking sofa, I ask him the question I’ve been asking everyone else: How has DB managed to transform itself over the past five years? “The bank made two important strategic moves,” he declares . “The first was hiring experienced senior business heads to run the various business lines and the second was its re-entry into retail banking,”
On the ground floor of DB House, Sanjay Sharma has just moved into a new office and his things are stacked everywhere . Fast growth inevitably leads to a space crunch, especially in a city like Mumbai, and the managing director, equity capital markets, has already moved thrice since he joined DB a year ago. Once a Merrill loyalist (he spent 14 years in the firm), Sharma was persuaded to join DB — he had said ‘no’ thrice earlier — only when he was convinced the bank was ready to hit the big league. “In i-banking , capability , commitment and comfort are the three key factors considered by corporates while appointing a bank — and comfort is the most important,” he says. “DB needed people who could provide customers with the comfort factor.”
Once considered the prerogative of the Wall Street firms, i- banking became a focus business for DB world-wide only in the mid-90 s. The timing couldn’t have better for DB India, for this was a time when Indian corporates were just waking up to the lure of global acquisitions. Another push came from Anshu Jain, a ‘proud Indian’ who quit Merrill Lynch to join DB’s top management in Frankfurt. Jain has championed the cause of growth and investment in the emerging markets since then. He’s the one who raised the bank’s profile in the Indian bschool campuses, personally conducting pre-placement talks and offering up global postings. “Till then, DB was a day-3 company at the IIMs,” says Piyush Gupta, managing director, global markets. “Then we became one of the first foreign banks to recruit from the IIMs for foreign postings. It was a calculated strategy and it lifted our public profile majorly.”
Over the past five years, DB has leveraged its global presence to swing some high visibility deals, such as Tata Steel’s acquisition of Corus. DB managed to bag the Infosys ADR deal in 2005 by flying in its hot shot lead analysts from New York to Bangalore, with the promise that it would bring in exactly the kind of investors the company wanted (read: new investors who had never bought into Infosys). Today, most of DB’s profits come from i-banking and according to Sanjay Agarwal, managing director , corporate finance, “We’ve predominantly become an investment bank. And we’re not second-tier any more.”
The importance of i-banking in DB is evident from the fact that the operation is located in DB House, the elegant heritage building that serves as its headquarters in India. Not too far away, there’s Kodak House, a less-imposing heritage building in the heart of Mumbai’s Fort area, which houses other operations like transaction banking. Launched seven years ago, DB’s transaction banking operations have taken off in the past four years and the German bank is now a market leader. For example , it’s the one that telecom companies like Airtel, Vodafone and Tata Telecom entrust with the collection of money from millions of subscribers across the country. DB has managed to build this operation through high grade IT systems and partnerships with 19 state-level banks like Federal Bank in Kerala . “The fact that DB’s so big in transaction processing is one of Indian banking’s best kept secrets . Over time, we’ve achieved the scale needed for processing large low-value transactions,” says managing director Kaushik Shaparia, who joined DB right after graduating from IIM-Ahmedabad in 1985, making him the bank’s seniormost old-timer .
DB India’s new new thing is offshoring, for which it has created two separate companies . The first, called Global Markets Centre Pvt Ltd, is akin to a rocket science institute, employing 300 mathematicians and engineers (many of them PhDs) to do analytics for DB’s trading desks across the world. The second, called DB Operations International (DBOI), is a 4,500-employee BPO operation spread across Mumbai, Bangalore and Jaipur. I’m with managing director Arindam Banerji in Andheri, talking about the impact of this huge offshoring venture on DB’s culture, when a fire drill alarm goes off and puts an end to our philosophical discussion.
Banerji set up JP Morgan’s offshoring centre in India before moving to DB four years ago to set up a similar operation , so he’s a BPO veteran, quite used to fire drills. He leads me down a stairwell and out of the building where we join thousands of other people , glad of the respite. “DB’s a late starter in offshoring,” says Banerji. “But the advantage is, we were able to leap-frog ahead of our peers in many ways. For example, we’ve come directly to India, whereas other banks first created ‘nearshoring’ hubs in places like Tampa, Florida. Did you know the town of Tampa still has over 40,000 people working for bank BPOs ?”
I shake my head in genuine surprise. But then, this is only one of the many things I didn’t know before the DB project.
Chadha was prone to throwing around words like ‘passion’ and ‘commitment’ when we started the project, but since then, I’ve met ten of DB’s 27 managing directors (a designation Chadha introduced to DB, which he’s obviously bestowed lavishly) and I’m now a banking expert. How much capital has DB been pumping into its Indian operations, I ask pointedly. Acknowledging my new-found mastery with a grin, Chadha says, “We recently had a capital infusion of Rs 2,155 crore — just months after we had already brought in Rs 1,125 crore. That underscores India’s significance in DB’s global scheme. It’s one of our fastest growing markets , globally.”
For most of its 28 year history in India, DB was a niche commercial bank, focused on financing trade between India and Europe. Headed by a series of expatriates who saw no great prospects in India, it actually shrank its business, selling off its retail operations to other, more aggressive, foreign banks. Its corporate clients were mostly restricted to MNCs and it eschewed upcoming Indian companies as a matter of policy. “If we’d stayed that way, we would eventually have lost market share across businesses,” says Ravneet Gill, managing director and head of corporate banking, who has been with DB for 17 years and seen its transition.
Today, DB has passionately embraced India’s corporate sector , with 60% of its corporate banking revenues coming from mid-cap companies it would not have touched with a barge pole five years ago. It has expanded operations big-time , moving into every area of banking, from equity broking and investment banking to retail and private wealth management , and it has set up four large off-shoring centres in the country. The culture of the bank has changed completely in the process and it’s not hard to see why. DB has recruited over 6,000 people in the past few years — poaching from the most aggressive American ibanks in the industry — and they’ve simply swept aside the old culture. “DB’s transformation has been through a focus on skills,” says Pavan Sukhdev, managing director and head, global markets. “The skills required in investment banking are very different from those required in commercial banking . As you build new skills, you build a new culture.”
Nikhil Kapadia is an example of the new culture. I’m in his elaborately furnished cornerroom office in DB House for over an hour and for most of this time, the managing director for private wealth management (PWM) is hustling a colleague in Singapore, trying to organise a meeting for one of his clients with DB’s investment banking arm. Kapadia joined DB from Merrill Lynch four years ago and he’s built the bank’s PWM business from a 12-people , Rs 16 crore operation to the 62-people , Rs 72 crore operation it is today . When he finally switches off his phone and lowers his big frame into an expensive-looking sofa, I ask him the question I’ve been asking everyone else: How has DB managed to transform itself over the past five years? “The bank made two important strategic moves,” he declares . “The first was hiring experienced senior business heads to run the various business lines and the second was its re-entry into retail banking,”
On the ground floor of DB House, Sanjay Sharma has just moved into a new office and his things are stacked everywhere . Fast growth inevitably leads to a space crunch, especially in a city like Mumbai, and the managing director, equity capital markets, has already moved thrice since he joined DB a year ago. Once a Merrill loyalist (he spent 14 years in the firm), Sharma was persuaded to join DB — he had said ‘no’ thrice earlier — only when he was convinced the bank was ready to hit the big league. “In i-banking , capability , commitment and comfort are the three key factors considered by corporates while appointing a bank — and comfort is the most important,” he says. “DB needed people who could provide customers with the comfort factor.”
Once considered the prerogative of the Wall Street firms, i- banking became a focus business for DB world-wide only in the mid-90 s. The timing couldn’t have better for DB India, for this was a time when Indian corporates were just waking up to the lure of global acquisitions. Another push came from Anshu Jain, a ‘proud Indian’ who quit Merrill Lynch to join DB’s top management in Frankfurt. Jain has championed the cause of growth and investment in the emerging markets since then. He’s the one who raised the bank’s profile in the Indian bschool campuses, personally conducting pre-placement talks and offering up global postings. “Till then, DB was a day-3 company at the IIMs,” says Piyush Gupta, managing director, global markets. “Then we became one of the first foreign banks to recruit from the IIMs for foreign postings. It was a calculated strategy and it lifted our public profile majorly.”
Over the past five years, DB has leveraged its global presence to swing some high visibility deals, such as Tata Steel’s acquisition of Corus. DB managed to bag the Infosys ADR deal in 2005 by flying in its hot shot lead analysts from New York to Bangalore, with the promise that it would bring in exactly the kind of investors the company wanted (read: new investors who had never bought into Infosys). Today, most of DB’s profits come from i-banking and according to Sanjay Agarwal, managing director , corporate finance, “We’ve predominantly become an investment bank. And we’re not second-tier any more.”
The importance of i-banking in DB is evident from the fact that the operation is located in DB House, the elegant heritage building that serves as its headquarters in India. Not too far away, there’s Kodak House, a less-imposing heritage building in the heart of Mumbai’s Fort area, which houses other operations like transaction banking. Launched seven years ago, DB’s transaction banking operations have taken off in the past four years and the German bank is now a market leader. For example , it’s the one that telecom companies like Airtel, Vodafone and Tata Telecom entrust with the collection of money from millions of subscribers across the country. DB has managed to build this operation through high grade IT systems and partnerships with 19 state-level banks like Federal Bank in Kerala . “The fact that DB’s so big in transaction processing is one of Indian banking’s best kept secrets . Over time, we’ve achieved the scale needed for processing large low-value transactions,” says managing director Kaushik Shaparia, who joined DB right after graduating from IIM-Ahmedabad in 1985, making him the bank’s seniormost old-timer .
DB India’s new new thing is offshoring, for which it has created two separate companies . The first, called Global Markets Centre Pvt Ltd, is akin to a rocket science institute, employing 300 mathematicians and engineers (many of them PhDs) to do analytics for DB’s trading desks across the world. The second, called DB Operations International (DBOI), is a 4,500-employee BPO operation spread across Mumbai, Bangalore and Jaipur. I’m with managing director Arindam Banerji in Andheri, talking about the impact of this huge offshoring venture on DB’s culture, when a fire drill alarm goes off and puts an end to our philosophical discussion.
Banerji set up JP Morgan’s offshoring centre in India before moving to DB four years ago to set up a similar operation , so he’s a BPO veteran, quite used to fire drills. He leads me down a stairwell and out of the building where we join thousands of other people , glad of the respite. “DB’s a late starter in offshoring,” says Banerji. “But the advantage is, we were able to leap-frog ahead of our peers in many ways. For example, we’ve come directly to India, whereas other banks first created ‘nearshoring’ hubs in places like Tampa, Florida. Did you know the town of Tampa still has over 40,000 people working for bank BPOs ?”
I shake my head in genuine surprise. But then, this is only one of the many things I didn’t know before the DB project.
India - Parent Parochialism
The Mumbai regional passport office rejected a 19-year-old girl's passport application form recently. The reason? The girl had mentioned only her mother's name on the form. However, according to a Supreme Court judgment delivered in the Gita Hariharan case in 1999, the mother is the natural guardian of her children. A Bombay high court judgment has since clarified the legal position on the matter. Justices P B Majumdar and Amjad Sayed have observed that society is changing and directed the regional passport authority to grant her passport as a special case, as long as she mentions her foster father's name in place of her biological father.
The point, however, is that this special case should be made general. Forms ought not to privilege the biological father; and when one parent's name is called for either father or mother should do. In the Mumbai girl's case her biological father hadn't communicated with her since birth, and putting down his name on a document establishing identity would be meaningless. Nevertheless, forms in India — whether those needed for applying for a PAN card, a mutual fund, a bank account or admission to professional bodies and educational institutions — often make the father's name mandatory but not the mother's name. This is retrograde and out of step with international practice. It's one of many ways in which gender parity is insidiously denied.
Affixing caste, community, profession or family names has for some time become more of a convenience or even curiosity. Some people prefer to go by a single name — with neither a prefix nor a suffix — and they get along just fine. Today, the individual is flush with choice. No longer does society look askance at single parents who might be so as they never married, or are divorced or lost a partner. There are families where the male partner opts to manage the household and children while the female partner goes out to work. In such a changing social milieu, not only do laws need to keep up with the times, but people's perceptions, too, need to adapt to seeing things a little differently. We must move out of the mental framework which sees the father as the sole "head of the family".
With the Navaratri season just round the corner, where the feminine principle will be celebrated, there are those who continue, Janus-like, to perpetrate gender injustice in the garb of tradition and culture. Filling out something as mundane as an application form ought not to trigger an identity crisis.
The point, however, is that this special case should be made general. Forms ought not to privilege the biological father; and when one parent's name is called for either father or mother should do. In the Mumbai girl's case her biological father hadn't communicated with her since birth, and putting down his name on a document establishing identity would be meaningless. Nevertheless, forms in India — whether those needed for applying for a PAN card, a mutual fund, a bank account or admission to professional bodies and educational institutions — often make the father's name mandatory but not the mother's name. This is retrograde and out of step with international practice. It's one of many ways in which gender parity is insidiously denied.
Affixing caste, community, profession or family names has for some time become more of a convenience or even curiosity. Some people prefer to go by a single name — with neither a prefix nor a suffix — and they get along just fine. Today, the individual is flush with choice. No longer does society look askance at single parents who might be so as they never married, or are divorced or lost a partner. There are families where the male partner opts to manage the household and children while the female partner goes out to work. In such a changing social milieu, not only do laws need to keep up with the times, but people's perceptions, too, need to adapt to seeing things a little differently. We must move out of the mental framework which sees the father as the sole "head of the family".
With the Navaratri season just round the corner, where the feminine principle will be celebrated, there are those who continue, Janus-like, to perpetrate gender injustice in the garb of tradition and culture. Filling out something as mundane as an application form ought not to trigger an identity crisis.
Lifestyle - Sexy Surprises
Ever wondered about the passion mantra of couples who keep throwing suggestive glances at each other at social dos?
Well, they don't actually possess any magical potion, but keep their love quotient strong by making an extra effort to spice up their love formula. "Any time you throw in a surprise, be it a last-minute, long drive plan, an offbeat date at an unexplored destination, an unexpected gift or acting extra bold in bed, it sends a signal from your brain's reward center which in turn stimulates the rest of your brain, including the areas that register love and bonding," says Dr. Sanjay Chugh.
Catching your partner off guard not only makes them feel lucky, but also in love. Here's how to use your imagination and give a sexy twist to your love life...
Amend that accent
Try anything from Haryanvi, Punjabi, Bengali to Italian, French or Russian when whispering sweet nothings to him or when screaming in the heat of passion. To hear a strange accent from your partner when the sexual climax is building up is an implausible turn-on. Don't bother much about what sense you are making at that time, your partner won't bother much to comprehend. Just pick the slang from local channels and get going.
Text message
Anticipation is the ultimate aphrodisiac. When going out for a family get-together, text your partner something that will make him or her lust for you all evening. Either he/she will cancel the party or they will try to stay close to you to feel the convivial ecstasy of the night ahead. Irrespective of whether you are in a long-term relationship or have recently started dating, your mate will love this superseductive surprise. You can send an erotic text listing your fantasies or simply MMS the photo of your bed with a "Meet me here after dinner...." teaser. The rationale lies in the fact that if you know your partner is up to something, it will overwhelm you with desire.
Honey! I have your remote control
This one's especially crafted for the girls! We all know what happens when guys glue their eyes to the idiot box, watching repeated telecasts of their favourite hockey, cricket and soccer matches. Surreptitiously, take away the remote while he is still stuck to channel surfing, sneak into the room behind him and turn off the telly. He may get awfully annoyed, but let him turn around to see you standing there in a sexy pose or clad in tantalising lingerie. You can also hide a love note at the places he is most likely to look for that devilish remote.
Pillow talk!
If you are one of those shy kinds whose heart starts racing the moment a little crudeness enters the bedroom, you can surprise your partner by being overtly expressive and talking suggestively. Remember, when you talk kinky, you are enacting a fantasy; and not merely surprising (or shocking) your partner and checking his/her comfort level with the whole idea. However, don't start bombarding the other with hardcore crude statements, instead, start by saying tamer things, using tamer language, for instance, "I've been wanting you all day..."
The sexy hidden note
Roll in a piece of paper into his socks/briefcase, with a note, "I want to kiss you wildly tonight" and just watch the effect. There is a strong possibility that he might not step out that day, and even if he does, he won't be able to resist your charm and will surely comeback early to experience the untamed sexual bliss you promised. A sexy note is great, but you have to make sure it is left in a very private place, like underneath the pillow, in his socks, in his wallet or in her lingerie drawer. Regardless of where you leave or hide a love note for your lover to find, writing the note and taking the time to find a unique place for it says that you are still very much in love with your spouse.
Love coupons/Invitations
If you are interested in exploring the sensual side of life, or maybe even planning a surprise, romantic evening for your love, this idea might appeal to you. As you know, communication plays a vital role in any relationship. There is, however, more than one way to communicate. An invitation saying, 'Let my lips do all the talking at 9 pm, study room' is a sure shot way of sweeping your spouse off his/her feet. Another interesting way of treating your mate is by giving them coupons every time they help you out or maybe win in a simple game. The coupons may read, "Congratulations! You win a kiss anywhere you want," or "This coupon is good for a new lingerie treat."
An ample number of creative invitations and coupons are available on the net, all you have to do is download, print and customise them. The best part of the bargain is that love coupons don't come with an expiry date and can be used any time.
Strip and tease
Striptease is the most common, yet the most perfect, unexpected treat. Don't fret if you think you can't dance to save your life or don't have an hour-glass figure as any woman can give a great striptease. Choose an attire that highlights your most striking body features, select a seductive number and lure and tease your lover. Remember to use dim lighting because it is both flattering, making you more comfortable, and more intimate. And, avoid wearing anything that's complicated to slip out off.
Routine life can get boring at times, even for you. So why don't you turn your mate on with some sexy surprises? Not only do these shared experiences make you feel excited about each other all over again, they also strengthen the bond you share. So, what are you waiting for? Use you creativity, blow your partner's mind and watch your union grow.
Well, they don't actually possess any magical potion, but keep their love quotient strong by making an extra effort to spice up their love formula. "Any time you throw in a surprise, be it a last-minute, long drive plan, an offbeat date at an unexplored destination, an unexpected gift or acting extra bold in bed, it sends a signal from your brain's reward center which in turn stimulates the rest of your brain, including the areas that register love and bonding," says Dr. Sanjay Chugh.
Catching your partner off guard not only makes them feel lucky, but also in love. Here's how to use your imagination and give a sexy twist to your love life...
Amend that accent
Try anything from Haryanvi, Punjabi, Bengali to Italian, French or Russian when whispering sweet nothings to him or when screaming in the heat of passion. To hear a strange accent from your partner when the sexual climax is building up is an implausible turn-on. Don't bother much about what sense you are making at that time, your partner won't bother much to comprehend. Just pick the slang from local channels and get going.
Text message
Anticipation is the ultimate aphrodisiac. When going out for a family get-together, text your partner something that will make him or her lust for you all evening. Either he/she will cancel the party or they will try to stay close to you to feel the convivial ecstasy of the night ahead. Irrespective of whether you are in a long-term relationship or have recently started dating, your mate will love this superseductive surprise. You can send an erotic text listing your fantasies or simply MMS the photo of your bed with a "Meet me here after dinner...." teaser. The rationale lies in the fact that if you know your partner is up to something, it will overwhelm you with desire.
Honey! I have your remote control
This one's especially crafted for the girls! We all know what happens when guys glue their eyes to the idiot box, watching repeated telecasts of their favourite hockey, cricket and soccer matches. Surreptitiously, take away the remote while he is still stuck to channel surfing, sneak into the room behind him and turn off the telly. He may get awfully annoyed, but let him turn around to see you standing there in a sexy pose or clad in tantalising lingerie. You can also hide a love note at the places he is most likely to look for that devilish remote.
Pillow talk!
If you are one of those shy kinds whose heart starts racing the moment a little crudeness enters the bedroom, you can surprise your partner by being overtly expressive and talking suggestively. Remember, when you talk kinky, you are enacting a fantasy; and not merely surprising (or shocking) your partner and checking his/her comfort level with the whole idea. However, don't start bombarding the other with hardcore crude statements, instead, start by saying tamer things, using tamer language, for instance, "I've been wanting you all day..."
The sexy hidden note
Roll in a piece of paper into his socks/briefcase, with a note, "I want to kiss you wildly tonight" and just watch the effect. There is a strong possibility that he might not step out that day, and even if he does, he won't be able to resist your charm and will surely comeback early to experience the untamed sexual bliss you promised. A sexy note is great, but you have to make sure it is left in a very private place, like underneath the pillow, in his socks, in his wallet or in her lingerie drawer. Regardless of where you leave or hide a love note for your lover to find, writing the note and taking the time to find a unique place for it says that you are still very much in love with your spouse.
Love coupons/Invitations
If you are interested in exploring the sensual side of life, or maybe even planning a surprise, romantic evening for your love, this idea might appeal to you. As you know, communication plays a vital role in any relationship. There is, however, more than one way to communicate. An invitation saying, 'Let my lips do all the talking at 9 pm, study room' is a sure shot way of sweeping your spouse off his/her feet. Another interesting way of treating your mate is by giving them coupons every time they help you out or maybe win in a simple game. The coupons may read, "Congratulations! You win a kiss anywhere you want," or "This coupon is good for a new lingerie treat."
An ample number of creative invitations and coupons are available on the net, all you have to do is download, print and customise them. The best part of the bargain is that love coupons don't come with an expiry date and can be used any time.
Strip and tease
Striptease is the most common, yet the most perfect, unexpected treat. Don't fret if you think you can't dance to save your life or don't have an hour-glass figure as any woman can give a great striptease. Choose an attire that highlights your most striking body features, select a seductive number and lure and tease your lover. Remember to use dim lighting because it is both flattering, making you more comfortable, and more intimate. And, avoid wearing anything that's complicated to slip out off.
Routine life can get boring at times, even for you. So why don't you turn your mate on with some sexy surprises? Not only do these shared experiences make you feel excited about each other all over again, they also strengthen the bond you share. So, what are you waiting for? Use you creativity, blow your partner's mind and watch your union grow.
India - Embankments - or should we say entombments
For two decades, his has been a prophetic voice on the mismanagement of overflowing rivers in Bihar. Dr. Dinesh Kumar Mishra’s Hindi book ‘Dui Patan ke Beech Mein’ (published in 2006 by People’s Science Institute, Dehradun), had already made an impact. The launch of its English translation — ‘Trapped! Between the Devil and Deep Waters’ — in Delhi recently, ironically coincided with the spectacle of a nation woefully unprepared to succour four million people affected by river Kosi breaching its embankment on August 18.
Dr. Mishra, an IIT civil engineer-turned-chronicler of the cyclical flow of rivers and human lives, stresses that perceiving this tragedy as a natural disaster is to miss the point. The flooding river is not the problem – the solution is. The past 50 years of embanking Kosi and other rivers, instead of decreasing, have actually increased Bihar’s flood-prone area 2.5 times, he says.
Capitulating to political expediency, Indian technocrats, who had supported an 80-year policy of not tampering with a river’s natural drainage, adopted artificial embanking as the solution. So, who are the 3,440 kilometres of Bihar’s embankments protecting? A breach becomes an event, but what of the annual floods which inundate populations living within the embankments?
Dr. Mishra recalls older villagers saying that earlier Kosi floods would last two days, deposit fertile silt. Kosi changed course, flowed through many channels, but with less force. With embankments, floods last for two months, water-log their lands, degrade soil and force migration. In an interview, he exposes the establishment’s doublespeak, stressing the need for experts to dialogue with people’s wisdom to prevent further disasters. Excerpts:
‘Nature’s fury’ is being touted to explain the Kosi embankment breach and resultant floods in Bihar.
Kosi carried a maximum of 9,13,000 cusecs on October 5, 1968 when the western embankment broke at five places in Darbhanga. The embankments were designed to accommodate a flow of 9,50,000 cusecs.
This year Kosi was carrying 1,44,000 cusecs when it breached the embankment. It was silted up. Inadequately maintained, the embankment breached at one-seventh its capacity. Is that nature’s fury?
Blaming Nepal is a face saving device; the responsibility for maintaining embankments rests with Bihar’s Water Resources Department.
Was anyone held responsible for earlier embankment breaches?
Yes. In 1963 and 1968, rats and foxes were accused of making holes in the embankment. In 1971, the river was blamed. The culprits in 1980 and 1984: lack of roads to transport boulders to reinforce embankments. In 1991, the embankment had eroded but the water receded fast. Had Kosi been a foot higher, 2008 would have happened then.
Post-breach the Bihar administration stated that Kosi now wants to go to its old channels to the east…
And you let it go? Why then, did you repair the embankment in time on earlier occasions and not let Kosi be free to go where it pleases?
If indeed the river ‘wants’ to go eastwards, why did Chief Minister Nitish Kumar agree to inaugurate the Kamla siphon on the western Kosi canal on August 26, considering the embankment broke on August 18?
Reports say Kosi has been ‘notorious’ for centuries bringing coarse sand and gravel from upper river systems.
When policymakers started the embankment project without public debate (1955), did they not know Kosi brings unmanageable detritus? That the sediment carried by it would settle in the bed, raising its level yearly.
Post-embankment, in 50 years Kosi has risen five inches annually in the lower reaches, climbing as high as the original embankments (18 feet).
In 1952, Bihar had 160 km of embankments (on the Gandak, vintage 1757) and a flood prone area of 25 lakh hectare.
Today, Bihar has 3,440 km of embankments and a flood prone area of 68.8 lakh hectare (1994 figures) — an increase of more than 2.5 times. It may have increased more. You call that efficient flood control?
Terming sediment treacherous is the establishment’s sinister way of deflecting attention from the flawed embankment strategy.
Before Kosi’s embankment how did villagers perceive floods and sediment?
They have a saying: ‘Ael Balan to bandhalaun dalan, gail Balan ta tutlai dalan’. (The year floods come we have a good crop, add a verandah — dalan — to the house; in a year sans flood, we lose whatever we had.) Floods would deposit fertile silt, rejuvenate water tables, enable bumper crops.
Tradition says women would pray to Kosi to come, requesting it to leave if it overstayed beyond two-three days. Finally, they would sprinkle vermilion into the virgin river as Kosi is known — unbraided one (muktveni) — threatening marriage to end her playful ways!
Our engineers who handle rivers are never taught the river’s place in people’s lives.
So every flood need not be a disaster?
Exactly. An open river encroaching on its banks has less velocity.
Villagers narrate the rain and flood sequence: the first big rain is to settle summer dust; the second for sowing paddy seedlings; the third to fill reservoirs, the fourth for paddy transplantation. A spill after that is noticed. The river doesn’t spill more than five-six times a season.
What do villagers feel about floods now?
Floods evoke fear. One villager said, “We had an equal relationship with the river. You built a wall between my river and me to control floods. Now she rises 15 feet. You have empowered the river to kill me.”
India noticed the 2008 floods because water spilled out in a major surge, affecting areas hitherto protected by embankments and thus unprepared – including urban areas.
But no one notices the floods and disasters embankments create annually.
How?
The embankments, about 15 feet wide at crest, present the highest level to escape water. Many people live between Kosi and its embankments permanently, some whose houses were swept away 14 times in the past 45 years.
Families living between Kosi and its embankments?
Yes — 9.88 lakh people in 380 villages, according to Census 2001. The average distance between embankments is 10 km. Kosi is free to spill 10 km. From these villages the river goes and spills outwards during a breach — eight times thus far. Rest 40-odd post-embankment years, these villages have faced annual deluges, without anyone noticing.
This is the invisible, continuing tragedy of Kosi’s embankment.
Yes. If the embankments stay, a million in India and 1.5 lakh people in Nepal living within them will face floods annually.
Officials say they live in the wrong place forgetting their rehabilitation site houses are water-logged. Cranky collectors sometimes refuse relief saying it is not for people living inside.
How have embankments and the consequent water-logging affected the region?
Coarsened the soil, destroyed production processes. But people have not committed suicide, not until now. They gave life a chance by migrating.
What is the solution?
A proposed dam’s construction in Nepal, says the government. How? Nepal is a sovereign country. The proposal has been hanging fire for 71 years. There are considerations about earthquake hazards and strategic safety.
It’s not a long term solution — Kosi’s sizeable catchment is downstream of the proposed dam.
Where have experts missed out?
Embankment technology is based on water levels; it does not take note of the role of sediment trapped within the walls — whose annual average load is enough for a 1m x 1m cross-section bund to circle the equator thrice.
What is the answer to embankment?
Tradition says a river’s dharma is to spread sediment, water and drain it subsequently. Deltas form that way.
We have built embankments, railway lines and roads in a scenario of over population and urbanisation without ensuring adequate drainage.
Improve drainage; check the silt load by spreading it, without interfering much with Kosi’s natural working. Some support control flooding: keeping embankments low so water and silt spread across land. Society was doing this without external aid before the embankments came. This issue needs an open debate.
Ultimately, there is no alternative to a dialogue between the engineers’ skills and people’s wisdom based on their intimate relationship with the river.
Otherwise, if it’s Kosi today, it’s Bagmati tomorrow and Mahananda the day after. Get ready to fly relief to Sitamarhi and Katihar.
Dr. Mishra, an IIT civil engineer-turned-chronicler of the cyclical flow of rivers and human lives, stresses that perceiving this tragedy as a natural disaster is to miss the point. The flooding river is not the problem – the solution is. The past 50 years of embanking Kosi and other rivers, instead of decreasing, have actually increased Bihar’s flood-prone area 2.5 times, he says.
Capitulating to political expediency, Indian technocrats, who had supported an 80-year policy of not tampering with a river’s natural drainage, adopted artificial embanking as the solution. So, who are the 3,440 kilometres of Bihar’s embankments protecting? A breach becomes an event, but what of the annual floods which inundate populations living within the embankments?
Dr. Mishra recalls older villagers saying that earlier Kosi floods would last two days, deposit fertile silt. Kosi changed course, flowed through many channels, but with less force. With embankments, floods last for two months, water-log their lands, degrade soil and force migration. In an interview, he exposes the establishment’s doublespeak, stressing the need for experts to dialogue with people’s wisdom to prevent further disasters. Excerpts:
‘Nature’s fury’ is being touted to explain the Kosi embankment breach and resultant floods in Bihar.
Kosi carried a maximum of 9,13,000 cusecs on October 5, 1968 when the western embankment broke at five places in Darbhanga. The embankments were designed to accommodate a flow of 9,50,000 cusecs.
This year Kosi was carrying 1,44,000 cusecs when it breached the embankment. It was silted up. Inadequately maintained, the embankment breached at one-seventh its capacity. Is that nature’s fury?
Blaming Nepal is a face saving device; the responsibility for maintaining embankments rests with Bihar’s Water Resources Department.
Was anyone held responsible for earlier embankment breaches?
Yes. In 1963 and 1968, rats and foxes were accused of making holes in the embankment. In 1971, the river was blamed. The culprits in 1980 and 1984: lack of roads to transport boulders to reinforce embankments. In 1991, the embankment had eroded but the water receded fast. Had Kosi been a foot higher, 2008 would have happened then.
Post-breach the Bihar administration stated that Kosi now wants to go to its old channels to the east…
And you let it go? Why then, did you repair the embankment in time on earlier occasions and not let Kosi be free to go where it pleases?
If indeed the river ‘wants’ to go eastwards, why did Chief Minister Nitish Kumar agree to inaugurate the Kamla siphon on the western Kosi canal on August 26, considering the embankment broke on August 18?
Reports say Kosi has been ‘notorious’ for centuries bringing coarse sand and gravel from upper river systems.
When policymakers started the embankment project without public debate (1955), did they not know Kosi brings unmanageable detritus? That the sediment carried by it would settle in the bed, raising its level yearly.
Post-embankment, in 50 years Kosi has risen five inches annually in the lower reaches, climbing as high as the original embankments (18 feet).
In 1952, Bihar had 160 km of embankments (on the Gandak, vintage 1757) and a flood prone area of 25 lakh hectare.
Today, Bihar has 3,440 km of embankments and a flood prone area of 68.8 lakh hectare (1994 figures) — an increase of more than 2.5 times. It may have increased more. You call that efficient flood control?
Terming sediment treacherous is the establishment’s sinister way of deflecting attention from the flawed embankment strategy.
Before Kosi’s embankment how did villagers perceive floods and sediment?
They have a saying: ‘Ael Balan to bandhalaun dalan, gail Balan ta tutlai dalan’. (The year floods come we have a good crop, add a verandah — dalan — to the house; in a year sans flood, we lose whatever we had.) Floods would deposit fertile silt, rejuvenate water tables, enable bumper crops.
Tradition says women would pray to Kosi to come, requesting it to leave if it overstayed beyond two-three days. Finally, they would sprinkle vermilion into the virgin river as Kosi is known — unbraided one (muktveni) — threatening marriage to end her playful ways!
Our engineers who handle rivers are never taught the river’s place in people’s lives.
So every flood need not be a disaster?
Exactly. An open river encroaching on its banks has less velocity.
Villagers narrate the rain and flood sequence: the first big rain is to settle summer dust; the second for sowing paddy seedlings; the third to fill reservoirs, the fourth for paddy transplantation. A spill after that is noticed. The river doesn’t spill more than five-six times a season.
What do villagers feel about floods now?
Floods evoke fear. One villager said, “We had an equal relationship with the river. You built a wall between my river and me to control floods. Now she rises 15 feet. You have empowered the river to kill me.”
India noticed the 2008 floods because water spilled out in a major surge, affecting areas hitherto protected by embankments and thus unprepared – including urban areas.
But no one notices the floods and disasters embankments create annually.
How?
The embankments, about 15 feet wide at crest, present the highest level to escape water. Many people live between Kosi and its embankments permanently, some whose houses were swept away 14 times in the past 45 years.
Families living between Kosi and its embankments?
Yes — 9.88 lakh people in 380 villages, according to Census 2001. The average distance between embankments is 10 km. Kosi is free to spill 10 km. From these villages the river goes and spills outwards during a breach — eight times thus far. Rest 40-odd post-embankment years, these villages have faced annual deluges, without anyone noticing.
This is the invisible, continuing tragedy of Kosi’s embankment.
Yes. If the embankments stay, a million in India and 1.5 lakh people in Nepal living within them will face floods annually.
Officials say they live in the wrong place forgetting their rehabilitation site houses are water-logged. Cranky collectors sometimes refuse relief saying it is not for people living inside.
How have embankments and the consequent water-logging affected the region?
Coarsened the soil, destroyed production processes. But people have not committed suicide, not until now. They gave life a chance by migrating.
What is the solution?
A proposed dam’s construction in Nepal, says the government. How? Nepal is a sovereign country. The proposal has been hanging fire for 71 years. There are considerations about earthquake hazards and strategic safety.
It’s not a long term solution — Kosi’s sizeable catchment is downstream of the proposed dam.
Where have experts missed out?
Embankment technology is based on water levels; it does not take note of the role of sediment trapped within the walls — whose annual average load is enough for a 1m x 1m cross-section bund to circle the equator thrice.
What is the answer to embankment?
Tradition says a river’s dharma is to spread sediment, water and drain it subsequently. Deltas form that way.
We have built embankments, railway lines and roads in a scenario of over population and urbanisation without ensuring adequate drainage.
Improve drainage; check the silt load by spreading it, without interfering much with Kosi’s natural working. Some support control flooding: keeping embankments low so water and silt spread across land. Society was doing this without external aid before the embankments came. This issue needs an open debate.
Ultimately, there is no alternative to a dialogue between the engineers’ skills and people’s wisdom based on their intimate relationship with the river.
Otherwise, if it’s Kosi today, it’s Bagmati tomorrow and Mahananda the day after. Get ready to fly relief to Sitamarhi and Katihar.
World - Real choice before Pakistan
Sabre-rattling among some sections of the media and the Army notwithstanding, is political opposition in Pakistan finally being tempered by the realisation that the only alternative to the current democratically elected dispensation is military rule?
There is surely no shortage of issues to oppose the elected government on: skyrocketing food inflation; law and order breakdown; power shortages; its refusal to restore the judges by executive order; rising sectarian violence and militancy; American military incursions into Pakistani territory… the list can go on.
On the other hand, there lurks the danger of a 1977-like situation when all those opposed to Z.A. Bhutto and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) — right, left and centre — came together in the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA). Many of their complaints were entirely justifiable. There were good reasons to suspect that Bhutto was taking the country towards autocracy (Nawaz Sharif made similar moves in his second term). Many PNA activists, although they were clearly for democracy, allowed their dislike of the PPP and Bhutto to cloud their judgment, creating conditions for a military takeover. Their argument that Bhutto was equally or even more responsible for the situation bears weight, but after General Zia overthrew and hanged him, many of the same PNA activists had to join hands with the PPP in the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) to oppose Zia. But by then the damage had been done.
In 1999, too, there were many grounds for complaint against Nawaz Sharif. There was great relief, particularly among liberals and left-wingers who initially applauded General Musharraf’s military takeover (with the honourable exception of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan). For the next eight years, until Musharraf suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Choudhry in March 2007, with the political leadership having been pushed abroad there was little opposition to his diktat.
The PNA movement termed Bhutto a threat to democracy (just as Benazir Bhutto’s and Nawaz Sharif’s opponents did). But, ultimately, the greater threat was Army intervention. There is now a consensus that this was a historic mistake that is best not repeated. Those who criticise the Asif Zardari presidency as a threat to democracy might consider again what the real threat actually is. Many do now seem to realise that the real issue is not who the President is but the need to keep the Army out of the political arena.
Pakistani politicians are today exhibiting a rare maturity in their apparent appreciation of the democratic process. As long as the PPP, the President and the Prime Minister stay together, the only threat to Parliament can come from outside it. For the first time in Pakistan’s history, the Army has taken a neutral political position and appears reluctant to step in. Keeping it out of politics is one of the basics of the Charter of Democracy signed by the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in May 2006 in London, although critics say the Charter is now meaningless.
The PPP, traditionally anti-establishment, finds itself in the unenviable position of protecting the system it has long been pitted against, allowing others to steal the populist thunder. But that is perhaps the need of the hour: realpolitik, ensuring that power stays in political hands.
There are other signs of political maturity. The ruling party’s refusal to restore the judges by executive order prompted its coalition partner the PML-N to withdraw from the government, something that many say should have happened long before it did. The withdrawal happened in a civilised manner. The government stayed in place, the PPP forging alliances with other former political rivals, however unpalatable they may have been. To the credit of all concerned, this change, too, is taking place peacefully, with everyone stressing the importance of taking the democratic process forward.
Most deposed judges have been ‘restored’ after taking the controversial new oath that critics say validates Musharraf’s November 3, 2007 emergency orders and legitimises the Abdul Hameed Dogar-led judiciary. The deposed Chief Justice, Iftikhar Choudhry, along with some other senior judges, has steadfastly stuck to principles, refusing to take this oath. The lawyers’ movement has lost steam but as some analysts note, the non-restoration of the judges does not necessarily mean they have ‘lost.’ The movement, mobilised by lawyers, students and civil society since March 9, 2007, can take credit in large part for catalysing the subsequent political transition. Credit also goes to the political parties, particularly Benazir Bhutto, although detractors claim otherwise. In any case, once elections had taken place and a new government had been formed, it was time to hand over the torch to the political parties.
Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, who was active in the movement, reminded the people recently that it was to restore the democratic process that they took to the streets against a military dictatorship. Not liking the outcome only underlines the need to further engage with and deepen the democratic process. “There is no short-cut. If we try too hard to find one, we might be back to another military dictatorship.” (‘The Perils of Democracy’, TNS Political Economy, September 7, 2008).
‘Religious militancy’ on the western borders and within the Pakistani heartland poses a major threat to democracy. The American military incursions into Pakistani territory on September 3 underlined not just American highhandedness and shortsightedness, but also Pakistan’s ineffectiveness in dealing with the militant threat. Pakistan has lodged a strong protest, its Army at the ready to retaliate if the raids do not end. Fair enough. But Pakistan must simultaneously step up its own efforts on this front. In any case, realistically speaking it is in no position to militarily combat the U.S. There is also the other small matter of the Army’s dependence on U.S. military aid.
The reality that this is not ‘America’s war’ but Pakistan’s, sinks in with the realisation that Al-Qaeda and the Taliban pose a threat not just to the U.S. and Afghanistan but also to Pakistan as a nation, and to any democratic system. In some areas there is a sectarian bloodbath. Thousands have had to flee their homes. This issue has to be tackled now, for our own sake, and without ambiguity. There should be no more Lal Masjids. If Pakistan cannot, or would not, tackle the matter effectively, others will surely step in. Obviously military action alone is not the answer: there must be a political roadmap. That is why it is imperative that a political government is in place.
The outcome of the February elections and the widespread support for the democratic process, visible even in the normally bickering political factions, reflect hopes that now finally the Army will be pushed back, the intelligence agencies reined in, and peace established with India and Afghanistan, the eastern and western neighbours. Despite all the risks involved, it is a good time to try for these goals because for once Pakistan’s aims are aligned with those of the U.S. The U.S. is doing this in its own interests, of course, but Pakistan stands to benefit, too.
It is imperative that Pakistan’s political leadership employ the political skill and courage (not bravado) that it needs to build public opinion and steer the country out of the imbroglio it is currently in.
There is surely no shortage of issues to oppose the elected government on: skyrocketing food inflation; law and order breakdown; power shortages; its refusal to restore the judges by executive order; rising sectarian violence and militancy; American military incursions into Pakistani territory… the list can go on.
On the other hand, there lurks the danger of a 1977-like situation when all those opposed to Z.A. Bhutto and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) — right, left and centre — came together in the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA). Many of their complaints were entirely justifiable. There were good reasons to suspect that Bhutto was taking the country towards autocracy (Nawaz Sharif made similar moves in his second term). Many PNA activists, although they were clearly for democracy, allowed their dislike of the PPP and Bhutto to cloud their judgment, creating conditions for a military takeover. Their argument that Bhutto was equally or even more responsible for the situation bears weight, but after General Zia overthrew and hanged him, many of the same PNA activists had to join hands with the PPP in the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) to oppose Zia. But by then the damage had been done.
In 1999, too, there were many grounds for complaint against Nawaz Sharif. There was great relief, particularly among liberals and left-wingers who initially applauded General Musharraf’s military takeover (with the honourable exception of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan). For the next eight years, until Musharraf suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Choudhry in March 2007, with the political leadership having been pushed abroad there was little opposition to his diktat.
The PNA movement termed Bhutto a threat to democracy (just as Benazir Bhutto’s and Nawaz Sharif’s opponents did). But, ultimately, the greater threat was Army intervention. There is now a consensus that this was a historic mistake that is best not repeated. Those who criticise the Asif Zardari presidency as a threat to democracy might consider again what the real threat actually is. Many do now seem to realise that the real issue is not who the President is but the need to keep the Army out of the political arena.
Pakistani politicians are today exhibiting a rare maturity in their apparent appreciation of the democratic process. As long as the PPP, the President and the Prime Minister stay together, the only threat to Parliament can come from outside it. For the first time in Pakistan’s history, the Army has taken a neutral political position and appears reluctant to step in. Keeping it out of politics is one of the basics of the Charter of Democracy signed by the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in May 2006 in London, although critics say the Charter is now meaningless.
The PPP, traditionally anti-establishment, finds itself in the unenviable position of protecting the system it has long been pitted against, allowing others to steal the populist thunder. But that is perhaps the need of the hour: realpolitik, ensuring that power stays in political hands.
There are other signs of political maturity. The ruling party’s refusal to restore the judges by executive order prompted its coalition partner the PML-N to withdraw from the government, something that many say should have happened long before it did. The withdrawal happened in a civilised manner. The government stayed in place, the PPP forging alliances with other former political rivals, however unpalatable they may have been. To the credit of all concerned, this change, too, is taking place peacefully, with everyone stressing the importance of taking the democratic process forward.
Most deposed judges have been ‘restored’ after taking the controversial new oath that critics say validates Musharraf’s November 3, 2007 emergency orders and legitimises the Abdul Hameed Dogar-led judiciary. The deposed Chief Justice, Iftikhar Choudhry, along with some other senior judges, has steadfastly stuck to principles, refusing to take this oath. The lawyers’ movement has lost steam but as some analysts note, the non-restoration of the judges does not necessarily mean they have ‘lost.’ The movement, mobilised by lawyers, students and civil society since March 9, 2007, can take credit in large part for catalysing the subsequent political transition. Credit also goes to the political parties, particularly Benazir Bhutto, although detractors claim otherwise. In any case, once elections had taken place and a new government had been formed, it was time to hand over the torch to the political parties.
Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, who was active in the movement, reminded the people recently that it was to restore the democratic process that they took to the streets against a military dictatorship. Not liking the outcome only underlines the need to further engage with and deepen the democratic process. “There is no short-cut. If we try too hard to find one, we might be back to another military dictatorship.” (‘The Perils of Democracy’, TNS Political Economy, September 7, 2008).
‘Religious militancy’ on the western borders and within the Pakistani heartland poses a major threat to democracy. The American military incursions into Pakistani territory on September 3 underlined not just American highhandedness and shortsightedness, but also Pakistan’s ineffectiveness in dealing with the militant threat. Pakistan has lodged a strong protest, its Army at the ready to retaliate if the raids do not end. Fair enough. But Pakistan must simultaneously step up its own efforts on this front. In any case, realistically speaking it is in no position to militarily combat the U.S. There is also the other small matter of the Army’s dependence on U.S. military aid.
The reality that this is not ‘America’s war’ but Pakistan’s, sinks in with the realisation that Al-Qaeda and the Taliban pose a threat not just to the U.S. and Afghanistan but also to Pakistan as a nation, and to any democratic system. In some areas there is a sectarian bloodbath. Thousands have had to flee their homes. This issue has to be tackled now, for our own sake, and without ambiguity. There should be no more Lal Masjids. If Pakistan cannot, or would not, tackle the matter effectively, others will surely step in. Obviously military action alone is not the answer: there must be a political roadmap. That is why it is imperative that a political government is in place.
The outcome of the February elections and the widespread support for the democratic process, visible even in the normally bickering political factions, reflect hopes that now finally the Army will be pushed back, the intelligence agencies reined in, and peace established with India and Afghanistan, the eastern and western neighbours. Despite all the risks involved, it is a good time to try for these goals because for once Pakistan’s aims are aligned with those of the U.S. The U.S. is doing this in its own interests, of course, but Pakistan stands to benefit, too.
It is imperative that Pakistan’s political leadership employ the political skill and courage (not bravado) that it needs to build public opinion and steer the country out of the imbroglio it is currently in.
India - UPA should not by myopic to world events
If diplomacy is a lot about timing, the “Malabar Exercises” have been most crudely timed. Our diplomats should have known that issues of war andpeace are hanging by a thread.
The times seem to have changed in South Block. There was a time not too long ago when the Ministry of External Affairs needed to give political clearance to interactions — all major and most minor ones — involving our armed forces with foreign countries. Maybe, with a Congress party stalwart with a Gandhian slant at the helm of affairs in the Ministry of Defence (MoD), there is no more need to consult the foreign policy establishment.
What comes to mind is the stupendous folly of the timing of the so-called “Malabar Exercises” with the United States Navy along our western coast in October. The event has been scheduled in complete isolation from the goings-on in India’s immediate neighbourhood, and it runs contrary to the larger co-relation of forces in the international arena. Can it be that a highly experienced diplomatist and statesman like Pranab Mukherjee is losing his touch not to know where Indian foreign policy should tread softly at this point in these troubled times lest it treaded on the sensitivities of the emergent world order? If diplomacy is a lot about timing, the “Malabar Exercises” have been most crudely timed. Our able, highly professional diplomats should have known that issues of war and peace are hanging by a thread. Conceivably, they have been overruled by the political leadership.
Three things come to mind. First, of course, the gathering storms in “East-West” relations. It is obvious that the two-decades-old post-Cold War era is drawing to a close. And, as it happens in twilight zones, the shadows are lengthening minute by minute. In the downstream of the conflict in the Caucasus, relations between the U.S. and Russia can never be the same again. Equally, it is clear that subterranean tensions, as old as the first term of Bill Clinton, in the relations between the two big powers have begun to froth.
The well-known American scholar on Russia, Stephen Cohen, analysed recently that these tensions are far more dangerous than the Cold War-era tensions. Mr. Cohen says that in many respects the U.S.’ 15-year containment strategy toward post-Soviet Russia has been more hostile than its Cold War-era variant. Nothing brings this out more clearly than the stunning details given out by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Germany’s ARD television channel that U.S. military advisers were present in the combat zones alongside the Georgian forces that assaulted South Ossetia in the night of August 7. Never during the Cold War had either camp shown the audacity to indulge in such high provocation.
In a subsequent interview with CNN, Mr. Putin bitterly added: “Those [in Washington] who pursue such a policy toward Russia, what do they think? Will they like us only when we die?”
Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the conflict in the Caucasus, this much can be said: that it is the latest chapter in a sustained U.S. campaign to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) eastward beyond Europe and to “contain” Russia’s resurgence. The U.S. policy is integral to its global strategy that in the New American Century any rival power even remotely capable of challenging U.S. dominance will be stopped in its tracks. Of course, casting Russia in adversarial traits as an enemy at the gates would also re-establish the U.S.’ trans-Atlantic leadership. Woven into all this is the struggle for the control of Caspian oil. NATO’s current muscle-flexing in the Black Sea underscores that this high-stakes game is far from over and that its outcome will largely determine the contours of the international system for decades to come.
These are not esoteric topics for a serious regional power like India. Even with the obsessive drive on the part of the UPA leadership to navigate the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal to its safe destination in the next few critical weeks, we cannot be so very oblivious of what is going on in the world in which we live. We aren’t one-dimensional men. At issue is the nature of the world order. At the very least, we are an interested party because Russia is an old friend and the U.S. is our present-day benefactor. Even if there is no more a bilateral treaty in vogue with Russia which places obligations on us to enter into consultations with Moscow, we are concerned about what has happened in the Caucasus for nothing else than that U.S.-Russian relations form a crucial template of the world order.
Bad taste
At the very minimum, it is a matter of bad taste that we host a massive U.S. naval fleet — involving aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and warships of high offensive capability — on our waters for friendly exercises at such a juncture. The UPA leadership should not be petrified that Washington might get irritated if we told them that the present time posed us some difficulty in conducting the “Malabar Exercises.” After all, the heavens are not going to come down on our armed forces if we don’t schedule these exercises at precisely this point in time. Haven’t we already had over 50 military exercises with the U.S. in the past seven years? Even NATO allies do not have such an intensive level of interaction with the U.S.
Then, there is a second aspect. Let us not fool ourselves that the U.S.-Iran standoff has blown over. Great standoffs in politics and history do not just wither away. They are about power and the exercise of power. They constantly strive to outwit political realism in their overreach for absolute victory. Unsurprisingly, the majority opinion amongst the “Iran watchers” is that the most critical period in U.S.-Iran tensions is just about approaching — the period between the U.S. presidential election in November and the historic departure of President George W. Bush from the White House to his ranch in Texas in January. Most observers believe that if a U.S. or combined U.S.-Israeli or “stand-alone” Israeli attack on Iran were to take place, that could most likely happen between November and January.
South Block cannot be unaware that the Persian Gulf remains a tinder-box. It is a supreme irony that we have scheduled the “Malabar Exercises” along our western coast straddling the Persian Gulf against precisely such a backdrop. Could there be a more unkindly cut aimed at Iran than what the UPA government is doing?
What is the message we are conveying to the Muslim Middle East? What has Iran done to India to earn such pitiless wrath from the UPA? As it is, it is bad enough that the UPA government lacks the courage to defy the U.S.-Israeli diktat and pursue the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project. Tehran feels disappointed that the UPA leadership does not realise that India is actually a “powerful country.” Iranian diplomats are completely devastated that Delhi uses India-Iran relations to leverage additional advantages out of Washington. Imagine this: a sudden flurry of activity on the India-Iran front; alarm bells start ringing in Washington; and one more ounce of U.S. concession to Delhi is extracted. The Iranians cite instances to show that the UPA government has been using the gas pipeline project to extract concessions out of Washington. If there is an iota of truth in all this, we should hang our head in shame. This is simply no way to treat the Persians.
A third aspect concerns the very nature of the “Malabar Exercises.” The exercises are not pro forma goodwill exercises of the sort that the Indian Navy might have with Brunei or Papua New Guinea. They are manifestly aimed at co-coordinating the offensive capabilities of the two sides — U.S. and Indian — in combat conditions. They are precisely of the sort that are required to conduct joint military operations. The U.S. has not hidden its interest in co-opting India as its junior partner in the Indian Ocean region. The U.S. National Defence Strategy spells out Washington’s expectations of India being groomed as a “stakeholder” in its global strategies. Indeed, Washington has been quite open about its intentions.
The UPA government cannot pretend that the sort of “strategic partnership” it is gearing up for — via the “Malabar Exercises” or the “Red Flag” exercise in Nevada in August — is no different from what India has with Albania. (Yes, believe it or not, this was exactly what the UPA leaders maintained with the Left parties within the four walls of their famous committee cogitating over the nuclear deal).
The point is that the UPA government is assuming a “bloc mentality” in its approach to the world order. This is not only contrary to what India has been professing — a multilateral, democratised world order — but also is sure to be challenged including by friendly countries such as Russia and Iran. Alas, a country that cannot distinguish its friends is truly myopic. The MEA should have counselled the MoD to stand down on the “Malabar Exercises” at this point in contemporary regional and world politics.
(The writer is a former Ambassador and an Indian Foreign Service officer.)
The times seem to have changed in South Block. There was a time not too long ago when the Ministry of External Affairs needed to give political clearance to interactions — all major and most minor ones — involving our armed forces with foreign countries. Maybe, with a Congress party stalwart with a Gandhian slant at the helm of affairs in the Ministry of Defence (MoD), there is no more need to consult the foreign policy establishment.
What comes to mind is the stupendous folly of the timing of the so-called “Malabar Exercises” with the United States Navy along our western coast in October. The event has been scheduled in complete isolation from the goings-on in India’s immediate neighbourhood, and it runs contrary to the larger co-relation of forces in the international arena. Can it be that a highly experienced diplomatist and statesman like Pranab Mukherjee is losing his touch not to know where Indian foreign policy should tread softly at this point in these troubled times lest it treaded on the sensitivities of the emergent world order? If diplomacy is a lot about timing, the “Malabar Exercises” have been most crudely timed. Our able, highly professional diplomats should have known that issues of war and peace are hanging by a thread. Conceivably, they have been overruled by the political leadership.
Three things come to mind. First, of course, the gathering storms in “East-West” relations. It is obvious that the two-decades-old post-Cold War era is drawing to a close. And, as it happens in twilight zones, the shadows are lengthening minute by minute. In the downstream of the conflict in the Caucasus, relations between the U.S. and Russia can never be the same again. Equally, it is clear that subterranean tensions, as old as the first term of Bill Clinton, in the relations between the two big powers have begun to froth.
The well-known American scholar on Russia, Stephen Cohen, analysed recently that these tensions are far more dangerous than the Cold War-era tensions. Mr. Cohen says that in many respects the U.S.’ 15-year containment strategy toward post-Soviet Russia has been more hostile than its Cold War-era variant. Nothing brings this out more clearly than the stunning details given out by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Germany’s ARD television channel that U.S. military advisers were present in the combat zones alongside the Georgian forces that assaulted South Ossetia in the night of August 7. Never during the Cold War had either camp shown the audacity to indulge in such high provocation.
In a subsequent interview with CNN, Mr. Putin bitterly added: “Those [in Washington] who pursue such a policy toward Russia, what do they think? Will they like us only when we die?”
Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the conflict in the Caucasus, this much can be said: that it is the latest chapter in a sustained U.S. campaign to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) eastward beyond Europe and to “contain” Russia’s resurgence. The U.S. policy is integral to its global strategy that in the New American Century any rival power even remotely capable of challenging U.S. dominance will be stopped in its tracks. Of course, casting Russia in adversarial traits as an enemy at the gates would also re-establish the U.S.’ trans-Atlantic leadership. Woven into all this is the struggle for the control of Caspian oil. NATO’s current muscle-flexing in the Black Sea underscores that this high-stakes game is far from over and that its outcome will largely determine the contours of the international system for decades to come.
These are not esoteric topics for a serious regional power like India. Even with the obsessive drive on the part of the UPA leadership to navigate the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal to its safe destination in the next few critical weeks, we cannot be so very oblivious of what is going on in the world in which we live. We aren’t one-dimensional men. At issue is the nature of the world order. At the very least, we are an interested party because Russia is an old friend and the U.S. is our present-day benefactor. Even if there is no more a bilateral treaty in vogue with Russia which places obligations on us to enter into consultations with Moscow, we are concerned about what has happened in the Caucasus for nothing else than that U.S.-Russian relations form a crucial template of the world order.
Bad taste
At the very minimum, it is a matter of bad taste that we host a massive U.S. naval fleet — involving aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and warships of high offensive capability — on our waters for friendly exercises at such a juncture. The UPA leadership should not be petrified that Washington might get irritated if we told them that the present time posed us some difficulty in conducting the “Malabar Exercises.” After all, the heavens are not going to come down on our armed forces if we don’t schedule these exercises at precisely this point in time. Haven’t we already had over 50 military exercises with the U.S. in the past seven years? Even NATO allies do not have such an intensive level of interaction with the U.S.
Then, there is a second aspect. Let us not fool ourselves that the U.S.-Iran standoff has blown over. Great standoffs in politics and history do not just wither away. They are about power and the exercise of power. They constantly strive to outwit political realism in their overreach for absolute victory. Unsurprisingly, the majority opinion amongst the “Iran watchers” is that the most critical period in U.S.-Iran tensions is just about approaching — the period between the U.S. presidential election in November and the historic departure of President George W. Bush from the White House to his ranch in Texas in January. Most observers believe that if a U.S. or combined U.S.-Israeli or “stand-alone” Israeli attack on Iran were to take place, that could most likely happen between November and January.
South Block cannot be unaware that the Persian Gulf remains a tinder-box. It is a supreme irony that we have scheduled the “Malabar Exercises” along our western coast straddling the Persian Gulf against precisely such a backdrop. Could there be a more unkindly cut aimed at Iran than what the UPA government is doing?
What is the message we are conveying to the Muslim Middle East? What has Iran done to India to earn such pitiless wrath from the UPA? As it is, it is bad enough that the UPA government lacks the courage to defy the U.S.-Israeli diktat and pursue the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project. Tehran feels disappointed that the UPA leadership does not realise that India is actually a “powerful country.” Iranian diplomats are completely devastated that Delhi uses India-Iran relations to leverage additional advantages out of Washington. Imagine this: a sudden flurry of activity on the India-Iran front; alarm bells start ringing in Washington; and one more ounce of U.S. concession to Delhi is extracted. The Iranians cite instances to show that the UPA government has been using the gas pipeline project to extract concessions out of Washington. If there is an iota of truth in all this, we should hang our head in shame. This is simply no way to treat the Persians.
A third aspect concerns the very nature of the “Malabar Exercises.” The exercises are not pro forma goodwill exercises of the sort that the Indian Navy might have with Brunei or Papua New Guinea. They are manifestly aimed at co-coordinating the offensive capabilities of the two sides — U.S. and Indian — in combat conditions. They are precisely of the sort that are required to conduct joint military operations. The U.S. has not hidden its interest in co-opting India as its junior partner in the Indian Ocean region. The U.S. National Defence Strategy spells out Washington’s expectations of India being groomed as a “stakeholder” in its global strategies. Indeed, Washington has been quite open about its intentions.
The UPA government cannot pretend that the sort of “strategic partnership” it is gearing up for — via the “Malabar Exercises” or the “Red Flag” exercise in Nevada in August — is no different from what India has with Albania. (Yes, believe it or not, this was exactly what the UPA leaders maintained with the Left parties within the four walls of their famous committee cogitating over the nuclear deal).
The point is that the UPA government is assuming a “bloc mentality” in its approach to the world order. This is not only contrary to what India has been professing — a multilateral, democratised world order — but also is sure to be challenged including by friendly countries such as Russia and Iran. Alas, a country that cannot distinguish its friends is truly myopic. The MEA should have counselled the MoD to stand down on the “Malabar Exercises” at this point in contemporary regional and world politics.
(The writer is a former Ambassador and an Indian Foreign Service officer.)
World - Pakistan close to boosting N-arsenal
VIENNA: Pakistan is close to completing a second plutonium-producing reactor, is well into building a third and these could increase its ability to make atomic bombs, a US think-tank said on Thursday.
"The wider implication ... (is that) there is a real risk this will exacerbate an India-Pakistan nuclear arms race and increase tensions more broadly between the two," the Institute for Science and International Security said in a report.
The regional arch-rivals have fought three wars, are both outside the global Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and have tested nuclear arms with Western technology imported ostensibly for peaceful atomic energy. But a 45-nation nuclear export cartel approved a waiver to its rules this month allowing trade with India as part of a civilian nuclear cooperation pact it struck with the United States.
The entire undertaking could erode the NPT, critics say. ISIS, a well-connected Washington-based group, has been a prominent tracker of nuclear proliferation issues focusing on Iran, North Korea and Syria as well as Pakistan and India. Emailed to Reuters, the ISIS report included commercial satellite images taken two weeks ago and in February and May showing construction of the second and third Khushab complexes.
Pakistan has an operating heavy-water reactor and heavy-water production plant already at Khushab. A row of cooling towers indicated the second reactor was close to completion and could be ready to operate in a year's time, according to the 10-page report. "Once completed, these reactors will increase several-fold Pakistan's ability to make weapons-grade plutonium (fuel)."
The report estimated the reactors would run on power of "about 100 megawatts or more", which could enable the two combined to yield plutonium for 8-10 atomic bombs a year. "When finished, the second and third Khushab reactors will allow a significant increase in the quantity and quality of Pakistan's nuclear weapons."
The report said India could easily match Pakistan's moves given its own ability to churn out plutonium in heavy water reactors and a fast-breeder reactor under construction.
"Rather than witnessing a wasteful and dangerous surge in the production of fissile materials for weapons in South Asia, the United States should make a key priority convincing Pakistan to join negotiations on a universal, verified Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty," the report said.
UN negotiations on such a treaty, which would ban production of nuclear weapons fuel, have made no headway for years because of a lack of consensus among nuclear powers. Pakistan built its first nuclear power station in 1972 with Canadian help. But Western countries, under pressure from Washington, later severed cooperation amid suspicion that Pakistan was covertly developing nuclear weapons.
Pakistan conducted five nuclear tests in 1998 in response to those of India, becoming a nuclear-armed state.
"The wider implication ... (is that) there is a real risk this will exacerbate an India-Pakistan nuclear arms race and increase tensions more broadly between the two," the Institute for Science and International Security said in a report.
The regional arch-rivals have fought three wars, are both outside the global Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and have tested nuclear arms with Western technology imported ostensibly for peaceful atomic energy. But a 45-nation nuclear export cartel approved a waiver to its rules this month allowing trade with India as part of a civilian nuclear cooperation pact it struck with the United States.
The entire undertaking could erode the NPT, critics say. ISIS, a well-connected Washington-based group, has been a prominent tracker of nuclear proliferation issues focusing on Iran, North Korea and Syria as well as Pakistan and India. Emailed to Reuters, the ISIS report included commercial satellite images taken two weeks ago and in February and May showing construction of the second and third Khushab complexes.
Pakistan has an operating heavy-water reactor and heavy-water production plant already at Khushab. A row of cooling towers indicated the second reactor was close to completion and could be ready to operate in a year's time, according to the 10-page report. "Once completed, these reactors will increase several-fold Pakistan's ability to make weapons-grade plutonium (fuel)."
The report estimated the reactors would run on power of "about 100 megawatts or more", which could enable the two combined to yield plutonium for 8-10 atomic bombs a year. "When finished, the second and third Khushab reactors will allow a significant increase in the quantity and quality of Pakistan's nuclear weapons."
The report said India could easily match Pakistan's moves given its own ability to churn out plutonium in heavy water reactors and a fast-breeder reactor under construction.
"Rather than witnessing a wasteful and dangerous surge in the production of fissile materials for weapons in South Asia, the United States should make a key priority convincing Pakistan to join negotiations on a universal, verified Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty," the report said.
UN negotiations on such a treaty, which would ban production of nuclear weapons fuel, have made no headway for years because of a lack of consensus among nuclear powers. Pakistan built its first nuclear power station in 1972 with Canadian help. But Western countries, under pressure from Washington, later severed cooperation amid suspicion that Pakistan was covertly developing nuclear weapons.
Pakistan conducted five nuclear tests in 1998 in response to those of India, becoming a nuclear-armed state.
India - So did the Left get it right for once ?
Our comrades appear to have saved the day for capitalism in India. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the near collapse of insurance giant AIG and fears of more US financial firms going under will no doubt leave many Indians in pain, but the impact here would be anything but devastating.
The Indian economy may slow down a bit more than was expected earlier, but it would still remain on course to post a respectable 7-7.5 per cent growth, if not more. The stock market would face the heat, while the financial system might get a dent here and there. There could be some stray acts of desperation by people whose fortunes are more tied than others to the upheavals in the US. But on the whole, India is somewhat resilient, among its peers, to this fast-deteriorating global contagion. But who should get the credit?
Seeking to soothe growing concerns over the US crisis, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday said, “there is no cause for any alarm” as the country’s banking system is “reasonably insulated”. True, Indian banks, barring a few, have little exposure to such assets that would make them vulnerable to the crisis. Also, the biggest shield that India has is the lack of full capital account convertibility, which means that Indian laws place several curbs on cross-border capital flows.
It’s the same policy dispensation that helped India tide over the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis that wreaked havoc in our neighbouring countries.
In a lighter vein, a top bureaucrat had then said, “In this country money can’t move faster than our files and the Indian bureaucracy moves the files rather slow. So, thank us.” Cut to 2008, Chidambaram should be thanking the UPA’s erstwhile Left allies, whose opposition forced authorities to drop plans to bring in a legislation that will allow dilution of government equity in public sector banks to 33 per cent. Instead, the proposed amendments to the Banking Regulation Act now peg the minimum government holding at 51 per cent.
Also, minus the leftists, the UPA government could have moved much faster in opening up the financial sector, with measures that some believe would help accelerate the growth process. But then, one can’t be sure of the cushion that we have in the face of the latest onslaught on the global financial market.
The Indian economy may slow down a bit more than was expected earlier, but it would still remain on course to post a respectable 7-7.5 per cent growth, if not more. The stock market would face the heat, while the financial system might get a dent here and there. There could be some stray acts of desperation by people whose fortunes are more tied than others to the upheavals in the US. But on the whole, India is somewhat resilient, among its peers, to this fast-deteriorating global contagion. But who should get the credit?
Seeking to soothe growing concerns over the US crisis, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday said, “there is no cause for any alarm” as the country’s banking system is “reasonably insulated”. True, Indian banks, barring a few, have little exposure to such assets that would make them vulnerable to the crisis. Also, the biggest shield that India has is the lack of full capital account convertibility, which means that Indian laws place several curbs on cross-border capital flows.
It’s the same policy dispensation that helped India tide over the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis that wreaked havoc in our neighbouring countries.
In a lighter vein, a top bureaucrat had then said, “In this country money can’t move faster than our files and the Indian bureaucracy moves the files rather slow. So, thank us.” Cut to 2008, Chidambaram should be thanking the UPA’s erstwhile Left allies, whose opposition forced authorities to drop plans to bring in a legislation that will allow dilution of government equity in public sector banks to 33 per cent. Instead, the proposed amendments to the Banking Regulation Act now peg the minimum government holding at 51 per cent.
Also, minus the leftists, the UPA government could have moved much faster in opening up the financial sector, with measures that some believe would help accelerate the growth process. But then, one can’t be sure of the cushion that we have in the face of the latest onslaught on the global financial market.
Business - Not what the doctor ordered
Ranbaxy’s travails in the United States with the quality of drugs the company produces is symptomatic of the much larger malady that plagues India. What further lowers the quality of medicines available here is the big menace of counterfeits. Year after year India tops lists of producers of fake drugs. What is a mere trickle of counterfeit medicines evading detection becomes a deluge in our countryside. The reason why such fakes exist is fairly clear cut. What takes Big Pharma a few billion dollars to move from the test tube to the pharmacists’ shelves can sometimes cost a few paise to produce. Typically, research into a drug takes several years and humungous amounts of money. But the chemicals making a pill cost a billionth part. Add to that a poor population with no social security, and you have a readymade market for counterfeit drugs. A poor man in search of an affordable remedy is not a situation that can be wished away.
The risks associated are immense. The consumer has no avenue for redress against spurious medicines. The conviction rate for those found peddling spurious drugs is virtually zero. More insidiously, the effects of fake medicines can be easily camouflaged as poor treatment by the attending physician, despite the fact that the delivery mechanism is principally routed through the pharmacist. Besides, the section of the populace these counterfeits are directed at is the most vulnerable — ignorance and poverty making a very potent dose. Finally, it undermines the process through which newer drugs are researched and produced.
Having tried — and failed — to either supply subsidised medicine directly to the poor or keep drug prices down by administrative fiat, the government cannot allow this Wild West version of the market to exist. And what is essentially a policing issue can’t be solved with proposed legislation that hands out death sentences to drug counterfeiters. The market provides answers to most of the issues it throws up, and in this case broad-based medical insurance could be one. Till that happens, spurious drugs must be weeded out of the system.
The risks associated are immense. The consumer has no avenue for redress against spurious medicines. The conviction rate for those found peddling spurious drugs is virtually zero. More insidiously, the effects of fake medicines can be easily camouflaged as poor treatment by the attending physician, despite the fact that the delivery mechanism is principally routed through the pharmacist. Besides, the section of the populace these counterfeits are directed at is the most vulnerable — ignorance and poverty making a very potent dose. Finally, it undermines the process through which newer drugs are researched and produced.
Having tried — and failed — to either supply subsidised medicine directly to the poor or keep drug prices down by administrative fiat, the government cannot allow this Wild West version of the market to exist. And what is essentially a policing issue can’t be solved with proposed legislation that hands out death sentences to drug counterfeiters. The market provides answers to most of the issues it throws up, and in this case broad-based medical insurance could be one. Till that happens, spurious drugs must be weeded out of the system.
Tech - Now,a ladies purse-sized PC
HONG KONG: A couple of days ago, Hewlett Packard unveiled an ultra small notebook PC, encased in a gleaming red peony flower pattern that was specially created by New York-based China-born designer Vivienne Tam.
While the company was not ready to reveal the specifications of the machine that will be in stores later this year, it was sized like an average ladies purse. It fell in the category of the ultra mobile PC (UMPC), which typically sports a 7-inch screen and is likely fuelled by Intel’s new chip for mobile Internet devices, the Atom – or one of its upcoming competitors.
“The notebook PC is a true reflection of the needs of a modern woman, who cares about fashion but is also passionate about her technology,” Ms. Tam said. She wanted to create a PC notebook that would appeal to women of all ages, ethnicities and income levels across the globe.
Inspired by the designer’s signature “China Chic” style, the PC comes with an embroidered protective sleeve and the peony motif spills inside all over the keyboard.
The Asia-Pacific head of the Personal Systems Group for HP confessed to a blinding flash of knowledge: “I realised almost half the world’s people were women,” See Chin Teik said at the company’s annual media and analyst showcase here.
More pertinently, 58 per cent of online shoppers were also women. Going beyond a PC as a bold fashion statement and accessory, HP has in other ways too woken up to the importance of packaging: The just-launched range of entertainment notebook PCs are offered in a suite of what it calls “Imprints” – swirling colours and designs, which one can match to the design of a Photosmart multi-function printer. Beneath the “cool” cover, lies the notebook.
While the company was not ready to reveal the specifications of the machine that will be in stores later this year, it was sized like an average ladies purse. It fell in the category of the ultra mobile PC (UMPC), which typically sports a 7-inch screen and is likely fuelled by Intel’s new chip for mobile Internet devices, the Atom – or one of its upcoming competitors.
“The notebook PC is a true reflection of the needs of a modern woman, who cares about fashion but is also passionate about her technology,” Ms. Tam said. She wanted to create a PC notebook that would appeal to women of all ages, ethnicities and income levels across the globe.
Inspired by the designer’s signature “China Chic” style, the PC comes with an embroidered protective sleeve and the peony motif spills inside all over the keyboard.
The Asia-Pacific head of the Personal Systems Group for HP confessed to a blinding flash of knowledge: “I realised almost half the world’s people were women,” See Chin Teik said at the company’s annual media and analyst showcase here.
More pertinently, 58 per cent of online shoppers were also women. Going beyond a PC as a bold fashion statement and accessory, HP has in other ways too woken up to the importance of packaging: The just-launched range of entertainment notebook PCs are offered in a suite of what it calls “Imprints” – swirling colours and designs, which one can match to the design of a Photosmart multi-function printer. Beneath the “cool” cover, lies the notebook.
Science - Plants want aspirin too
Stressed plants produce an aspirin-like chemical
WASHINGTON: Aspirin is among the most popular remedies used by people. Now it turns out that some plants prefer it, too.
Researchers at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research were surprised to discover that stressed plants produce an aspirin-like chemical that can be detected in the air above the plants.
Immune response
The chemical may be a sort of immune response that helps protect the plants, the scientists speculated.
According to the researchers, the finding raises the possibility that farmers, forest managers and others may eventually be able to start monitoring plants for early signs of a disease, an insect infestation or other types of stress.
Currently they often do not know if an ecosystem is unhealthy until there are visible indicators, such as dead leaves.
Their own mix
“Unlike humans, who are advised to take aspirin as a fever suppressant, plants have the ability to produce their own mix of aspirin-like chemicals, triggering the formation of proteins that boost their biochemical defences and reduce injury,” NCAR scientist Thomas Karl, the lead researcher, said in a statement.
“Our measurements show that significant amounts of the chemical can be detected in the atmosphere as plants respond to drought, unseasonable temperatures or other stresses.”
While researchers had known that plants in the laboratory produce a form of aspirin known as methyl salicylate, they had never looked for it in the forest.
Measuring devices
But when they set up measuring devices in a walnut grove near Davis, California, to monitor plant emissions that can affect pollution, they discovered measurable amounts of methyl salicylate.
Previous studies have shown that plants being eaten by animals also produce chemicals that can be sensed by other plants nearby.
The new findings, announced Thursday by NCAR in Boulder, Colorado, were published in the journal Biogeosciences.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor.
Measuring instruments 30 metres above the ground measured methyl salicylate from plants that were stressed by a local drought and unseasonably cool night-time temperatures followed by large daytime temperature increases.
For communication
In addition to having an immune-like function, the chemical may be a means for plants to communicate to neighbouring plants, warning them of the threat.
“These findings show tangible proof that plant-to-plant communication occurs on the ecosystem level,” says NCAR scientist Alex Guenther, a co-author of the study. “It appears that plants have the ability to communicate through the atmosphere.”
Mr. Karl added: “If you have a sensitive warning signal that you can measure in the air, you can take action much sooner, such as applying pesticides. The earlier you detect that something’s going on, the more you can benefit in terms of using fewer pesticides and managing crops better.”
On the Net, the National Centre for Atmospheric Research is at http://www.ucar.edu — AP
WASHINGTON: Aspirin is among the most popular remedies used by people. Now it turns out that some plants prefer it, too.
Researchers at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research were surprised to discover that stressed plants produce an aspirin-like chemical that can be detected in the air above the plants.
Immune response
The chemical may be a sort of immune response that helps protect the plants, the scientists speculated.
According to the researchers, the finding raises the possibility that farmers, forest managers and others may eventually be able to start monitoring plants for early signs of a disease, an insect infestation or other types of stress.
Currently they often do not know if an ecosystem is unhealthy until there are visible indicators, such as dead leaves.
Their own mix
“Unlike humans, who are advised to take aspirin as a fever suppressant, plants have the ability to produce their own mix of aspirin-like chemicals, triggering the formation of proteins that boost their biochemical defences and reduce injury,” NCAR scientist Thomas Karl, the lead researcher, said in a statement.
“Our measurements show that significant amounts of the chemical can be detected in the atmosphere as plants respond to drought, unseasonable temperatures or other stresses.”
While researchers had known that plants in the laboratory produce a form of aspirin known as methyl salicylate, they had never looked for it in the forest.
Measuring devices
But when they set up measuring devices in a walnut grove near Davis, California, to monitor plant emissions that can affect pollution, they discovered measurable amounts of methyl salicylate.
Previous studies have shown that plants being eaten by animals also produce chemicals that can be sensed by other plants nearby.
The new findings, announced Thursday by NCAR in Boulder, Colorado, were published in the journal Biogeosciences.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor.
Measuring instruments 30 metres above the ground measured methyl salicylate from plants that were stressed by a local drought and unseasonably cool night-time temperatures followed by large daytime temperature increases.
For communication
In addition to having an immune-like function, the chemical may be a means for plants to communicate to neighbouring plants, warning them of the threat.
“These findings show tangible proof that plant-to-plant communication occurs on the ecosystem level,” says NCAR scientist Alex Guenther, a co-author of the study. “It appears that plants have the ability to communicate through the atmosphere.”
Mr. Karl added: “If you have a sensitive warning signal that you can measure in the air, you can take action much sooner, such as applying pesticides. The earlier you detect that something’s going on, the more you can benefit in terms of using fewer pesticides and managing crops better.”
On the Net, the National Centre for Atmospheric Research is at http://www.ucar.edu — AP
India - Restoration time at the Madurai Meenakshi Temple
MADURAI: A major effort is under way to restore the centuries-old pillars of the Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple to their original state.
Under a restoration process using non-toxic chemicals, technicians have begun to remove multiple coats of limestone, paint and other artificial substances that have accumulated on the pillars.
Initially, 350 pillars would be covered in three months at an estimated cost of Rs. 5 lakh, K. Rajanayagam, Executive Officer, said . Painting done decades ago has resulted in accumulated coatings over the original pillars.
“In those days, people wanted the temple to be colourful during big events and painted them,” he said. Thankfully, there is more awareness on the need to preserve the original beauty of granite pillars. The natural beauty of the sculptures should be there for all to see and the present exercise would ensure that, he said.
The restoration is undertaken by a firm headed by V.R. Gunasekaran, a heritage conservator trained by the National Research Laboratory for Conservation of Cultural Property, Lucknow.
The chemicals being used, he said, would not have any adverse effect on the original structure. An appropriate mix of liquefied ammonia, non-ionic detergent and other stone-friendly materials is initially applied and then washed off by spraying plain water. The process is repeated till all additional layers are removed. A preservative coating is applied on the pillars.
It would protect the heritage structures from environmental pollution and decay, which could be caused by application of oil. The application of a preservative coating had been proposed to the temple authorities, he said.
Highlighting the difference between sand-blasting, a process prohibited in 2000, and chemical process, he said that while the former almost altered the original structure, the latter went to extreme lengths to avoid damage.
The water pressure to be used is determined after ascertaining the strength of each pillar
Under a restoration process using non-toxic chemicals, technicians have begun to remove multiple coats of limestone, paint and other artificial substances that have accumulated on the pillars.
Initially, 350 pillars would be covered in three months at an estimated cost of Rs. 5 lakh, K. Rajanayagam, Executive Officer, said . Painting done decades ago has resulted in accumulated coatings over the original pillars.
“In those days, people wanted the temple to be colourful during big events and painted them,” he said. Thankfully, there is more awareness on the need to preserve the original beauty of granite pillars. The natural beauty of the sculptures should be there for all to see and the present exercise would ensure that, he said.
The restoration is undertaken by a firm headed by V.R. Gunasekaran, a heritage conservator trained by the National Research Laboratory for Conservation of Cultural Property, Lucknow.
The chemicals being used, he said, would not have any adverse effect on the original structure. An appropriate mix of liquefied ammonia, non-ionic detergent and other stone-friendly materials is initially applied and then washed off by spraying plain water. The process is repeated till all additional layers are removed. A preservative coating is applied on the pillars.
It would protect the heritage structures from environmental pollution and decay, which could be caused by application of oil. The application of a preservative coating had been proposed to the temple authorities, he said.
Highlighting the difference between sand-blasting, a process prohibited in 2000, and chemical process, he said that while the former almost altered the original structure, the latter went to extreme lengths to avoid damage.
The water pressure to be used is determined after ascertaining the strength of each pillar
Lifestyle - Fidel Castro has slept with 35,000 women
NEW YORK: Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has slept with 35,000 women in his 82 years of life, according to an upcoming documentary.
"He slept with at least two women a day for more than four decades - one for lunch and one for supper," The New York Post quoted an ex-Castro official named "Ramon" as telling filmmaker Ian Halperin. "Sometimes he even ordered one for breakfast," the official said.
"I don''t think he would have stayed on as long as he did if not for all the incredible women he had access to as president," the official added.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz or Fidel Castro led his country from December 1959 until his resignation in February this year. Castro came to power as a result of the Cuban revolution that overthrew the dictator Fulgencio Batista, and shortly thereafter became Prime Minister of Cuba.
Although the US has tried hard to get rid of him, Castro outlasted no fewer than nine American presidents since he took power.
"He slept with at least two women a day for more than four decades - one for lunch and one for supper," The New York Post quoted an ex-Castro official named "Ramon" as telling filmmaker Ian Halperin. "Sometimes he even ordered one for breakfast," the official said.
"I don''t think he would have stayed on as long as he did if not for all the incredible women he had access to as president," the official added.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz or Fidel Castro led his country from December 1959 until his resignation in February this year. Castro came to power as a result of the Cuban revolution that overthrew the dictator Fulgencio Batista, and shortly thereafter became Prime Minister of Cuba.
Although the US has tried hard to get rid of him, Castro outlasted no fewer than nine American presidents since he took power.
Columnists - Rajdeep Sardesai;Blasts,blasts,blah
‘Awesome!’’ shrieked the young lady in front of me as she munched her popcorn. It was the final scene of A Wednesday, and aam admi-turned potential bomber Naseeruddin Shah, was at his histrionic best. ‘If the State simply stands by when we are struck by terror attacks, what do you expect the common man to do? What choice do you leave us but to take up arms and eliminate the terrorist?’ he thundered, exhorting all citizens to take up arms and bomb all those they consider ‘terrorists’. ‘Awesome!’ applauded the lady again. Move over Salwa Judum, the new face of citizen vigilantism is playing out in a theatre near you.
How easy it is to sit in an air-conditioned multiplex, sip a Pepsi and dream of bombing terrorists. Vigilante squads may be a seductive idea, but they are a little out of place in the real world of RDX bombers and hi-tech terrorists who operate in terrifying anonymity. Moreover, as the debate over Salwa Judum has shown, an armed citizenry can become a recipe for chaos and brutal anarchy. And yet, can the public be faulted for endorsing the philosophy of an ‘eye for an eye’? The Indian state looks increasingly like an ageing clown when dealing with agile mass murderers who are massacring the aam aadmi regularly and brazenly.
Take the aftermath of the Delhi serial blasts. A week on, the narrative of the blast investigation has become a caricature, a comedy, if it were not so tragic. Minutes before the blasts, news channels receive identical emails, mails in which every second sentence is embellished with the words, ‘Inshallah!’, so that no one is left in any doubt that an Islamic organisation is responsible for the attack. Soon after the blasts, an unflappable, well-groomed home minister steps out and warns that the attacks are the handiwork of ‘evil’, ‘anti-national’ forces, just in case anyone suggests that decent human beings could take innocent lives.
The Opposition, meanwhile, raises the political pitch, demanding the re-imposition of Pota and the sacking of the home minister, as if to suggest that a mere change in the statute book or a cabinet reshuffle will deter the manic terrorist. A smug-looking police release sketches of alleged ‘terrorists’, almost convinced that this is enough to crack the case. Sleepy retired security officers pontificate on the need to revamp intelligence systems, pouring forth an obscure borrowed language of ‘terror-speak’ that numbs the mind and ties up all original initiative into a tangle of vocabulary. In the midst of it all, a carnivorous news media devours every morsel of information, rarely questioning their so-called ‘sources’ or being a little sceptical of official hand-outs. And so the caricature ritual continues with monotonous regularity, till the next blast, the next terror target and the next murdered two-year-old. In the 11 major blasts since 2001, the police have not been able to get a single proper conviction. Arrests are made of the usual suspects, months later they are let off because of the shocking lack of any proper evidence.
Weaknesses in the law, we are told, is the problem. Possible, but only up to a point. If tougher laws alone could solve the problem, then why was an audacious terror attack carried out on parliament when Pota was in place? If Maharashtra with MCOCA in place still had to endure the trauma of 7/11, is there reason to believe that Gujarat will be spared if it enacts similar anti-terror legislation? Laws can assist investigations, they cannot be a deterrent or a substitute for better intelligence-gathering.
The terrorist will always win if politicians convert mass murder into an ideological issue. Criminals must be fought through the police and the state, not by politics. If the subtext of the revival of Pota remains the minority versus majority, if the idea of a Federal Intelligence Agency remains hostage to the fact that states do not want to give up power to the Centre, then we can never hope to combat motivated killers who exist in every part of the country. And if we remove a home minister without restructuring the entire home ministry, then we are unlikely to find any permanent solution to the problem.
Experts have suggested many concrete steps. Among them, shut down all mobile phone networks the minute a blast takes place; follow the forensic trail rather than fixing a target first; most importantly, learn how to assess and gather forensic evidence. Just who is the ‘terrorist’, what colour of extremist is he, can only be found out through top-class investigation. But can we expect the same police force that botches up the Aarushi Talwar case to suddenly become skilled at investigating the terrorist? Will the same corrupted judiciary, that is being inquired into by the CBI, act responsibly? When senior police officers are transferred every few months, when caste politics becomes the basis for constable recruitments, when public prosecutors and lower court judges are bought off, can we ever hope to bring the killers of children to justice?
The political class resists police and judicial reforms, yet expects the men in khaki to deal with the terrorist. We are reforming the economy without realising that an advanced economy and society needs to be guarded and protected by a reformed police and judiciary. Else, we are all in perpetual danger. A law without a modern police, will become either toothless or at worst blind. As with Tada, the conviction rate will be less than one per cent.
It’s not just the state, civil society, too, needs to reform itself. We are increasingly contemptuous of the law, yet we expect the law to catch up with the terrorist. We need a new partnership, a new social contract. Not the vigilante citizen, who gives way to prejudice and violence, but an alert and law-abiding citizen who demands that the government catch and punish the child-killers. We need a democratic citizen, who must realise that every time he breaks the law, he weakens the law and empowers the terrorist. If that happens, hey, wouldn’t that be really awesome?
Rajdeep Sardesai is Editor-in-chief, IBN networ
How easy it is to sit in an air-conditioned multiplex, sip a Pepsi and dream of bombing terrorists. Vigilante squads may be a seductive idea, but they are a little out of place in the real world of RDX bombers and hi-tech terrorists who operate in terrifying anonymity. Moreover, as the debate over Salwa Judum has shown, an armed citizenry can become a recipe for chaos and brutal anarchy. And yet, can the public be faulted for endorsing the philosophy of an ‘eye for an eye’? The Indian state looks increasingly like an ageing clown when dealing with agile mass murderers who are massacring the aam aadmi regularly and brazenly.
Take the aftermath of the Delhi serial blasts. A week on, the narrative of the blast investigation has become a caricature, a comedy, if it were not so tragic. Minutes before the blasts, news channels receive identical emails, mails in which every second sentence is embellished with the words, ‘Inshallah!’, so that no one is left in any doubt that an Islamic organisation is responsible for the attack. Soon after the blasts, an unflappable, well-groomed home minister steps out and warns that the attacks are the handiwork of ‘evil’, ‘anti-national’ forces, just in case anyone suggests that decent human beings could take innocent lives.
The Opposition, meanwhile, raises the political pitch, demanding the re-imposition of Pota and the sacking of the home minister, as if to suggest that a mere change in the statute book or a cabinet reshuffle will deter the manic terrorist. A smug-looking police release sketches of alleged ‘terrorists’, almost convinced that this is enough to crack the case. Sleepy retired security officers pontificate on the need to revamp intelligence systems, pouring forth an obscure borrowed language of ‘terror-speak’ that numbs the mind and ties up all original initiative into a tangle of vocabulary. In the midst of it all, a carnivorous news media devours every morsel of information, rarely questioning their so-called ‘sources’ or being a little sceptical of official hand-outs. And so the caricature ritual continues with monotonous regularity, till the next blast, the next terror target and the next murdered two-year-old. In the 11 major blasts since 2001, the police have not been able to get a single proper conviction. Arrests are made of the usual suspects, months later they are let off because of the shocking lack of any proper evidence.
Weaknesses in the law, we are told, is the problem. Possible, but only up to a point. If tougher laws alone could solve the problem, then why was an audacious terror attack carried out on parliament when Pota was in place? If Maharashtra with MCOCA in place still had to endure the trauma of 7/11, is there reason to believe that Gujarat will be spared if it enacts similar anti-terror legislation? Laws can assist investigations, they cannot be a deterrent or a substitute for better intelligence-gathering.
The terrorist will always win if politicians convert mass murder into an ideological issue. Criminals must be fought through the police and the state, not by politics. If the subtext of the revival of Pota remains the minority versus majority, if the idea of a Federal Intelligence Agency remains hostage to the fact that states do not want to give up power to the Centre, then we can never hope to combat motivated killers who exist in every part of the country. And if we remove a home minister without restructuring the entire home ministry, then we are unlikely to find any permanent solution to the problem.
Experts have suggested many concrete steps. Among them, shut down all mobile phone networks the minute a blast takes place; follow the forensic trail rather than fixing a target first; most importantly, learn how to assess and gather forensic evidence. Just who is the ‘terrorist’, what colour of extremist is he, can only be found out through top-class investigation. But can we expect the same police force that botches up the Aarushi Talwar case to suddenly become skilled at investigating the terrorist? Will the same corrupted judiciary, that is being inquired into by the CBI, act responsibly? When senior police officers are transferred every few months, when caste politics becomes the basis for constable recruitments, when public prosecutors and lower court judges are bought off, can we ever hope to bring the killers of children to justice?
The political class resists police and judicial reforms, yet expects the men in khaki to deal with the terrorist. We are reforming the economy without realising that an advanced economy and society needs to be guarded and protected by a reformed police and judiciary. Else, we are all in perpetual danger. A law without a modern police, will become either toothless or at worst blind. As with Tada, the conviction rate will be less than one per cent.
It’s not just the state, civil society, too, needs to reform itself. We are increasingly contemptuous of the law, yet we expect the law to catch up with the terrorist. We need a new partnership, a new social contract. Not the vigilante citizen, who gives way to prejudice and violence, but an alert and law-abiding citizen who demands that the government catch and punish the child-killers. We need a democratic citizen, who must realise that every time he breaks the law, he weakens the law and empowers the terrorist. If that happens, hey, wouldn’t that be really awesome?
Rajdeep Sardesai is Editor-in-chief, IBN networ
Entertainment - Q&A Madhuri
Madhuri Dixit received Padma Shri for her contribution to Indian cinema and the former Bollywood diva says the honour is a result of her hard work and honesty.
"It's always a wonderful feeling to have your work honoured. One has worked so hard for so many years. The Padma Shri is a culmination of all my hard work and honesty. I think I'm being honoured for doing my work sincerely," Madhuri told IANS.
Madhuri's children are in the US with her in-laws and her parents.
"They're all there. I guess my kids are lucky to have three sets of parents. My husband was here with me to share this moment. He left on Sunday."
Did Madhuri's children share her excitement about the award?
"Not the younger one. He's only three. Too young to understand, but my five-year-old son kept asking me why I was getting this award. I told him it was because I did movies in India for many years. 'You did movies. Why? Why do people call you Dixit?' he asked me.
"I think he's finally getting to know that his mom who cooks meals and puts them to bed had a life beyond the home and kids before marriage."
Bollywood's former diva admits it's hard to bridge the gap between the life she has now in the US and her long and successful innings in the film industry.
"I've gotten used to a life with my husband and kids. And to leave them behind in the US and come to Mumbai to work is tough. Although our parents take really good care of the kids, Ram and I still worry about what's happening back home when we're in India," said the actress.
She reigned the Hindi film industry in 1980s and 90s and churned out greatest hits like Tezaab, Ram Lakhan, Beta, Dil, Saajan, Khalnayak, Dil To Pagal Hai and Devdas.
Madhuri says the fact that back home people still want to see her on screen makes her happy.
"It is wonderful to know that people still think about me in my home country, although I don't live here any more. That they still want me back, it makes me feel very wanted."
Last time Madhuri was in the country, it was for the release of her comeback film Aaja Nachle. The film didn't work, but she says its failure wasn't a blow to her.
"I did my part sincerely. And I did everything I could. So did the whole team. I've worked in this field long enough to know you win some, you lose some. Sometimes you feel everything is going right and the end product still falls apart. It's okay."
So what is she doing to rectify her fans' sense of disappointment?
"Is that your way of asking if I'm doing another movie? Next time I'll ask my fans what they want to see me do on screen. The fact that I did a part for a woman specially written for an actress my age was a triumph. I'm not in India to sign another movie, not this time. I came just to receive the Padma Shri." After the Padma Shri, Madhuri is staying back in Mumbai to catch up with family friends and a whole lot of personal work.
"I do have a life beyond movies," she laughed.
I finally touch on the Madhuri Dixit aura undiminished by time, marriage, motherhood and the failed comeback vehicle.
"I never thought of what you call an aura. For me this life as a wife and mother was what I dreamt of almost all my life."
Thank God, she did at the right time.
"What's the right time?" she quipped. "If you mean the right time to have kids then let me remind you a 63-year-old woman had twins. Nothing is impossible at any age any more.
"As for me, I had always said if I meet the right person I wouldn't think twice about giving up my career. And that's exactly what I did. I never planned anything in life."
"It's always a wonderful feeling to have your work honoured. One has worked so hard for so many years. The Padma Shri is a culmination of all my hard work and honesty. I think I'm being honoured for doing my work sincerely," Madhuri told IANS.
Madhuri's children are in the US with her in-laws and her parents.
"They're all there. I guess my kids are lucky to have three sets of parents. My husband was here with me to share this moment. He left on Sunday."
Did Madhuri's children share her excitement about the award?
"Not the younger one. He's only three. Too young to understand, but my five-year-old son kept asking me why I was getting this award. I told him it was because I did movies in India for many years. 'You did movies. Why? Why do people call you Dixit?' he asked me.
"I think he's finally getting to know that his mom who cooks meals and puts them to bed had a life beyond the home and kids before marriage."
Bollywood's former diva admits it's hard to bridge the gap between the life she has now in the US and her long and successful innings in the film industry.
"I've gotten used to a life with my husband and kids. And to leave them behind in the US and come to Mumbai to work is tough. Although our parents take really good care of the kids, Ram and I still worry about what's happening back home when we're in India," said the actress.
She reigned the Hindi film industry in 1980s and 90s and churned out greatest hits like Tezaab, Ram Lakhan, Beta, Dil, Saajan, Khalnayak, Dil To Pagal Hai and Devdas.
Madhuri says the fact that back home people still want to see her on screen makes her happy.
"It is wonderful to know that people still think about me in my home country, although I don't live here any more. That they still want me back, it makes me feel very wanted."
Last time Madhuri was in the country, it was for the release of her comeback film Aaja Nachle. The film didn't work, but she says its failure wasn't a blow to her.
"I did my part sincerely. And I did everything I could. So did the whole team. I've worked in this field long enough to know you win some, you lose some. Sometimes you feel everything is going right and the end product still falls apart. It's okay."
So what is she doing to rectify her fans' sense of disappointment?
"Is that your way of asking if I'm doing another movie? Next time I'll ask my fans what they want to see me do on screen. The fact that I did a part for a woman specially written for an actress my age was a triumph. I'm not in India to sign another movie, not this time. I came just to receive the Padma Shri." After the Padma Shri, Madhuri is staying back in Mumbai to catch up with family friends and a whole lot of personal work.
"I do have a life beyond movies," she laughed.
I finally touch on the Madhuri Dixit aura undiminished by time, marriage, motherhood and the failed comeback vehicle.
"I never thought of what you call an aura. For me this life as a wife and mother was what I dreamt of almost all my life."
Thank God, she did at the right time.
"What's the right time?" she quipped. "If you mean the right time to have kids then let me remind you a 63-year-old woman had twins. Nothing is impossible at any age any more.
"As for me, I had always said if I meet the right person I wouldn't think twice about giving up my career. And that's exactly what I did. I never planned anything in life."
India - Bihar's braveheart runs biggest relief camp
At the crack of dawn, Jhulan Rai wakes up and sits on his cot outside his mud hut. The 36-year-old headman of Abhayram village sleeps under the open sky so people can wake him up easily if they need help.
Very soon, he heads straight to a mango orchard where he has set up a relief camp for nearly 22,000 villagers who began arriving in trickles from nearby areas on August 22, when the Kosi river rose to submerge an area almost the size of Belgium.
His first task is to ensure that the roughly 11,000 children in the camp get breakfast. “I doubt I will ever face a bigger challenge,” said Rai, a former jeep driver who was elected to the village council last year. He expects to continue working in public life.
There were no government officials to be seen. The apathy of the administration has given Rai an opportunity to prove his mettle.
As the refugees began pouring in, Abhayram’s 18,000 residents generously pulled out their own grain stocks to share with the newcomers. For ten days, they did this. Only then did stocks from the government begin trickling in, Jhulan said. Even now, a month later, the government’s stocks aren’t enough for all the refugees.
The indefatigable Jhalan remains unruffled. “It is a gargantuan task,” said the burly, bearded man. “But we cannot ask these people to leave, surely. Where will they go?”
Only half the refugees have received tents from the government. Yet, in Purnea town, about 60 kilometres from Abhayram, at a huge camp the administration has set up, tents are going for the asking.
“That site is convenient only for officials,” said Suresh Yadav, a refugee. “They do not bother to see how far it is for us. Our villages have been submerged. But from here, we can take boats or wade through water and feed our cattle and check on locked homes every few days.”
Original sin
The indifference of the state was on display even before the Kosi River breached its embankment. Four days before it did, villagers of Abhayram Chakla repeatedly called local officials to get them to repair a broken sluice gate. “Officials came, saw it and went back, saying there were no funds to repair it,” said Rai.
After the flood, a stream of people headed eastward for the nearest dry spot – Abhyaram. “It began with 2,000 people, then 5,000, then 10,000, 12,000, 17,000,” said villager Bhim, standing in the village’s biggest mango orchard. “People are still coming in.”
As Rai walked through rows of tents that morning, residents milled around him enthusasistically.
Jaikishan Yadav, whose ten-member family is at Abhayram, says “We are surviving because of the headman. At the big camp in Purnea, we will encounter bureaucracy. Here we feel warmth.”
Very soon, he heads straight to a mango orchard where he has set up a relief camp for nearly 22,000 villagers who began arriving in trickles from nearby areas on August 22, when the Kosi river rose to submerge an area almost the size of Belgium.
His first task is to ensure that the roughly 11,000 children in the camp get breakfast. “I doubt I will ever face a bigger challenge,” said Rai, a former jeep driver who was elected to the village council last year. He expects to continue working in public life.
There were no government officials to be seen. The apathy of the administration has given Rai an opportunity to prove his mettle.
As the refugees began pouring in, Abhayram’s 18,000 residents generously pulled out their own grain stocks to share with the newcomers. For ten days, they did this. Only then did stocks from the government begin trickling in, Jhulan said. Even now, a month later, the government’s stocks aren’t enough for all the refugees.
The indefatigable Jhalan remains unruffled. “It is a gargantuan task,” said the burly, bearded man. “But we cannot ask these people to leave, surely. Where will they go?”
Only half the refugees have received tents from the government. Yet, in Purnea town, about 60 kilometres from Abhayram, at a huge camp the administration has set up, tents are going for the asking.
“That site is convenient only for officials,” said Suresh Yadav, a refugee. “They do not bother to see how far it is for us. Our villages have been submerged. But from here, we can take boats or wade through water and feed our cattle and check on locked homes every few days.”
Original sin
The indifference of the state was on display even before the Kosi River breached its embankment. Four days before it did, villagers of Abhayram Chakla repeatedly called local officials to get them to repair a broken sluice gate. “Officials came, saw it and went back, saying there were no funds to repair it,” said Rai.
After the flood, a stream of people headed eastward for the nearest dry spot – Abhyaram. “It began with 2,000 people, then 5,000, then 10,000, 12,000, 17,000,” said villager Bhim, standing in the village’s biggest mango orchard. “People are still coming in.”
As Rai walked through rows of tents that morning, residents milled around him enthusasistically.
Jaikishan Yadav, whose ten-member family is at Abhayram, says “We are surviving because of the headman. At the big camp in Purnea, we will encounter bureaucracy. Here we feel warmth.”
World - Israel;Livini poised to be Premier
Wins the leadership vote for the ruling Kadima Party
DUBAI: Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is on track to become the next Prime Minister after she won the leadership vote for the ruling Kadima Party.
Ms. Livni, lawyer and a former Mossad agent, got 431 more votes than her closest rival, Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz. She won the election with a wafer-thin margin, securing 43.1 per cent of the votes, or 16,936. Mr. Mofaz, former Defence Minister and chief of staff of the military, got 42 per cent, or 16,505 votes.
The election became necessary because Kadima leader and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is facing multiple corruption allegations.
Ms. Livni now has 42 days to cobble together a new coalition government.
Analysts say the task would not be easy as some of her potential partners have already made hard-to-accept political demands. Leader of the ultra-orthodox Shas Party, Eli Yishai has conditioned his party’s participation in the new government to a commitment by Kadima against negotiating the status of Jerusalem in future talks with Palestinians.
“If Livni wants a government, she needs to comply with our demands,” said Mr. Yishai. The Palestinians visualise East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in the 1967 war, as their future capital.
In case Ms. Livni is unable to form government within six weeks, Israel would go to the polls in early 2009, one and a half years ahead of schedule.
Hamas expressed indifference to the vote result. Its leader Ismail Haniyeh said both Ms. Livni and her rivals deny “legitimate Palestinian rights.”
“All Israeli leaders unite in their hostile positions against our people and in denying their rights, notably Jerusalem and the refugees,” said Mr. Haniyeh.
Senior Palestinian Authority representative, Saeb Erekat, hoped the vote would return stability to Israel.
DUBAI: Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is on track to become the next Prime Minister after she won the leadership vote for the ruling Kadima Party.
Ms. Livni, lawyer and a former Mossad agent, got 431 more votes than her closest rival, Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz. She won the election with a wafer-thin margin, securing 43.1 per cent of the votes, or 16,936. Mr. Mofaz, former Defence Minister and chief of staff of the military, got 42 per cent, or 16,505 votes.
The election became necessary because Kadima leader and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is facing multiple corruption allegations.
Ms. Livni now has 42 days to cobble together a new coalition government.
Analysts say the task would not be easy as some of her potential partners have already made hard-to-accept political demands. Leader of the ultra-orthodox Shas Party, Eli Yishai has conditioned his party’s participation in the new government to a commitment by Kadima against negotiating the status of Jerusalem in future talks with Palestinians.
“If Livni wants a government, she needs to comply with our demands,” said Mr. Yishai. The Palestinians visualise East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in the 1967 war, as their future capital.
In case Ms. Livni is unable to form government within six weeks, Israel would go to the polls in early 2009, one and a half years ahead of schedule.
Hamas expressed indifference to the vote result. Its leader Ismail Haniyeh said both Ms. Livni and her rivals deny “legitimate Palestinian rights.”
“All Israeli leaders unite in their hostile positions against our people and in denying their rights, notably Jerusalem and the refugees,” said Mr. Haniyeh.
Senior Palestinian Authority representative, Saeb Erekat, hoped the vote would return stability to Israel.
Entertainment - Madhuri to return with Ek Do Teen
If our source is to be believed Madhuri Dixit is all set to return to the screen with an item song in John Matthew Matthan’s next film, A Love Iiisshtory which toplines Himesh Reshammiya and Niharika Singh.
Reportedly, Reshammiya plays a tapori in the film, a la Aamir Khan of Rangeela.
What’s more the singer-actor who’s a stuntman is a huge fan of Aamir Khan and even impersonates Munna from Rangeela.
Remixed number
“In Tezaab we saw Madhuri dancing to the chartbuster, Ek do teen. She’ll be grooving to the same tune again. The only difference is that this time Himesh will be joining her on stage,” informs the source.
When contacted Reshammiya acknowledged that he would be dancing to a remix of the Ek do teen number in A Love Iisshtory but couldn’t confirm whether Dixit had been roped in for it.
He said, “This must be a sudden development. I wasn’t aware that any actress had been finalised for this item number. You’ll have to speak to John.” The director was unavailable for comment.
Reportedly, Reshammiya plays a tapori in the film, a la Aamir Khan of Rangeela.
What’s more the singer-actor who’s a stuntman is a huge fan of Aamir Khan and even impersonates Munna from Rangeela.
Remixed number
“In Tezaab we saw Madhuri dancing to the chartbuster, Ek do teen. She’ll be grooving to the same tune again. The only difference is that this time Himesh will be joining her on stage,” informs the source.
When contacted Reshammiya acknowledged that he would be dancing to a remix of the Ek do teen number in A Love Iisshtory but couldn’t confirm whether Dixit had been roped in for it.
He said, “This must be a sudden development. I wasn’t aware that any actress had been finalised for this item number. You’ll have to speak to John.” The director was unavailable for comment.
India - ULFA turns good samaritan
JORHAT: Members of the rebel United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) have turned good samaritans by pitching in with relief material for thousands displaced by floods.
Insurgents of ULFA's 28th Battalion sent 14 truckloads of relief material to Majuli, the largest river island in the world, where 132 villages have been submerged.
"We have brought 14 trucks of relief materials for the people of Majuli seeing their hardship. The relief contains almost 1,000 quintals of rice, pulses, clothes and also medicines," said Jiten Dutta, a member of the rebel group.
"Very glad that ULFA leaders have come to Majuli for distribution of relief materials and to organise medical camp. This island has been devastated. All roads have collapsed and all communication system is disturbed," said Sudipta Gupta, a resident.
Water has swollen to almost the entire Majuli island, affecting thousands of people and disrupting communication with remote areas. More than a million people have been affected by floods in Assam after the Brahmaputra river burst its banks. So far, 15 people have been killed and 120,000 hectares of farmland submerged.
Insurgents of ULFA's 28th Battalion sent 14 truckloads of relief material to Majuli, the largest river island in the world, where 132 villages have been submerged.
"We have brought 14 trucks of relief materials for the people of Majuli seeing their hardship. The relief contains almost 1,000 quintals of rice, pulses, clothes and also medicines," said Jiten Dutta, a member of the rebel group.
"Very glad that ULFA leaders have come to Majuli for distribution of relief materials and to organise medical camp. This island has been devastated. All roads have collapsed and all communication system is disturbed," said Sudipta Gupta, a resident.
Water has swollen to almost the entire Majuli island, affecting thousands of people and disrupting communication with remote areas. More than a million people have been affected by floods in Assam after the Brahmaputra river burst its banks. So far, 15 people have been killed and 120,000 hectares of farmland submerged.
Business - India;Software majors look for gold in the rubble
HYDERABAD/ BANGALORE: Doomsday predictions notwithstanding domestic IT companies are hoping to dig for gold in the rubble from the collapse of some of the biggest financial giants in the US and perhaps in other regions that could follow.
The global financial crisis they believe could in fact result in bigger volumes of IT outsourcing they believe as the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), majors are forced to cut costs and improve efficiencies.
For instance, Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Technologies Ltd, is looking at capitalising on the “zones of frustration” of the IT clients.
That is what the company had done during the 2000-01 dotcom bust.
“We believe in converting threats into opportunities. During the previous slowdown also we did the same, we will do it again. In my view, 2008-09 will be a watershed year for the Indian IT industry, where we will see volume surge, and tech companies offering new services and entering new geographies,” said Nayar.
Srinivas Vadlamani, chief financial officer (CFO), Satyam Computer Services seconds that. The contrarian theory will come into play the same as in 2000-01.
“This situation is similar to what happened then. Though the immediate revenues had dipped due to the trouble in the US market, subsequent years saw volumes increasing and the growth coming back with a vengeance,” he said.
He is already sniffing opportunity in BFSI, which has been most hit by the current macro economic environment.
“BFSI is one of the biggest spenders on IT. Going by our earlier experience, once the trouble settles down the sector would spend more on putting the systems back on track. We see this as an opportunity,” he added.
Nayar also foresees outsourcing to only grow as companies worldwide try to reinvent their businesses to match the current milieu.
“While there has been no drop in our business, we have seen our customers reworking their contracts. Earlier, they were only looking at reducing operational cost, now they want to cut business costs - like reducing inventories, receivable days, etc,” he explained.
Infosys CFO V Balakrishnan, however, sees opportunity coming from more fundamental aspects rather than the immediate situation in the BFSI space.
“We are not working in a constrained market. The business potential is still huge as we (Indian IT companies) are only servicing 5% of the $800 billion global market,” he said.
Industry watchers too appear to back these optimistic readings of the situation.
In a report some time back, Edelweiss analysts Viju George, Kunal Sangoi and Nikhil Chakrapani said the next financial year could be a good one in terms of volumes even if incremental pricing trends downwards.
“This is because the slowdown is forcing offshore outsourcing,” they said.
However, the trio feel that a large part of the benefits from a slackened global economy may come only in the next fiscal.
“Delays and longer than usual deliberation of deal closure (especially large ones) will mean that the bulk of what the slowdown will induce by way of outsourcing may not occur in FY09 as much as in FY10,” George, Sangoi and Chakrapani wrote in their report.
But then even as the tech majors paint an optimistic scenario, the frowns are nevertheless evident particularly where sustaining their current margins is concerned.
According to some industry insiders while some IT majors have priced aggressively after the late decisions on IT budgets by American and European clients earlier this year, those vendors undercutting to bag new business could end up in dire straits in the current scenario.
One fallout of this trend is already being seen in pressure on cost reduction particularly employee compensation.
Though there may be some headroom for companies to take a further pricing cut, they can still maintain margins, felt Sasken Communications Ltd’s chief marketing officer Swaminathan Krishnan.
“That is because eve as rate per hour has dropped, we have seen higher squeezes in cost per hour because of a correction in compensation,” he added.
But then Infy’s Balakrishnan warned against companies commoditising their services failing which they will not be able to maintain their margins.
The global financial crisis they believe could in fact result in bigger volumes of IT outsourcing they believe as the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), majors are forced to cut costs and improve efficiencies.
For instance, Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Technologies Ltd, is looking at capitalising on the “zones of frustration” of the IT clients.
That is what the company had done during the 2000-01 dotcom bust.
“We believe in converting threats into opportunities. During the previous slowdown also we did the same, we will do it again. In my view, 2008-09 will be a watershed year for the Indian IT industry, where we will see volume surge, and tech companies offering new services and entering new geographies,” said Nayar.
Srinivas Vadlamani, chief financial officer (CFO), Satyam Computer Services seconds that. The contrarian theory will come into play the same as in 2000-01.
“This situation is similar to what happened then. Though the immediate revenues had dipped due to the trouble in the US market, subsequent years saw volumes increasing and the growth coming back with a vengeance,” he said.
He is already sniffing opportunity in BFSI, which has been most hit by the current macro economic environment.
“BFSI is one of the biggest spenders on IT. Going by our earlier experience, once the trouble settles down the sector would spend more on putting the systems back on track. We see this as an opportunity,” he added.
Nayar also foresees outsourcing to only grow as companies worldwide try to reinvent their businesses to match the current milieu.
“While there has been no drop in our business, we have seen our customers reworking their contracts. Earlier, they were only looking at reducing operational cost, now they want to cut business costs - like reducing inventories, receivable days, etc,” he explained.
Infosys CFO V Balakrishnan, however, sees opportunity coming from more fundamental aspects rather than the immediate situation in the BFSI space.
“We are not working in a constrained market. The business potential is still huge as we (Indian IT companies) are only servicing 5% of the $800 billion global market,” he said.
Industry watchers too appear to back these optimistic readings of the situation.
In a report some time back, Edelweiss analysts Viju George, Kunal Sangoi and Nikhil Chakrapani said the next financial year could be a good one in terms of volumes even if incremental pricing trends downwards.
“This is because the slowdown is forcing offshore outsourcing,” they said.
However, the trio feel that a large part of the benefits from a slackened global economy may come only in the next fiscal.
“Delays and longer than usual deliberation of deal closure (especially large ones) will mean that the bulk of what the slowdown will induce by way of outsourcing may not occur in FY09 as much as in FY10,” George, Sangoi and Chakrapani wrote in their report.
But then even as the tech majors paint an optimistic scenario, the frowns are nevertheless evident particularly where sustaining their current margins is concerned.
According to some industry insiders while some IT majors have priced aggressively after the late decisions on IT budgets by American and European clients earlier this year, those vendors undercutting to bag new business could end up in dire straits in the current scenario.
One fallout of this trend is already being seen in pressure on cost reduction particularly employee compensation.
Though there may be some headroom for companies to take a further pricing cut, they can still maintain margins, felt Sasken Communications Ltd’s chief marketing officer Swaminathan Krishnan.
“That is because eve as rate per hour has dropped, we have seen higher squeezes in cost per hour because of a correction in compensation,” he added.
But then Infy’s Balakrishnan warned against companies commoditising their services failing which they will not be able to maintain their margins.
Mktg - Yahoo India unveils its first brand campaign 'Log on to new'
In line with their consumer quest for ‘new’, Yahoo India! has launched its first brand campaign with the brand proposition - ‘Log on to New’. The TVC uses humour to highlight its tagline - ‘Every second counts’. Conceptualised by O&M Bangalore, the campaign signals the revamping of Yahoo Search and Yahoo Messenger.
While Prasoon Pandey, Director, Corcoise Films, has directed the TVC, Deepak Joshi, Senior Creative Director, O&M Bangalore, has written the script. The TVC broke on all news and entertainment channels on September 17.
Speaking about the launch, Nitin Mathur, Director-Marketing, Yahoo! India, said, “There is a strong and compelling reason for us to go out to the market in a much more vocal way and talk about our story. Through this campaign, we want to further strengthen our connection with the youth (16-24 age group) in India and give people a reason to make Yahoo! India their starting point to the Internet. This campaign will bring alive Yahoo!’s brand values in a contemporary manner and reinforce our leadership position as a lighthouse brand for new and first time users.”
He further said, “Yahoo India! Search will give users all the information they need on the very first page. With its increased speed, the search engine has become a very compelling product. Therefore, the TVC sports the tagline ‘Sometimes, every second counts.’ Yahoo Messenger is the leadership pillar product for Yahoo! India and, therefore, made the case for inclusion in the brand campaign.”
Commenting on the TVC, Amit Akali, Group Creative Director and Joint Creative Head, O&M Bangalore, said, “We conducted a study at O&M Bangalore for Yahoo! India and found that the youth instantly connected with anything that was new – be it upgrading a phone or a computer. This is where we embarked on the ‘Log on to new’ proposition, which is aptly demonstrated by Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Messenger.”
Malvika Mehra, Group Creative Director and Joint Creative Head, O&M Bangalore, said, “The brief we got from Yahoo! India was that sometimes every second counts when a user is searching. Keeping in mind this fact, Yahoo! Search bettered itself to generate search results faster. This was the establishing contour of the campaign. The new experience of searching and the array of new social features on Yahoo! Messenger are in sync with ‘Log on to new’.”
The TVC shows a group of sky divers readying for a jump from a plane. The instructor advises the sky divers that after jumping from the plane they should count till 10 before opening their parachutes. One overenthusiastic diver asks to be the first one to jump off the plane. However, he has a problem – he stammers. After jumping he begins counting till 10, but stammers very badly on each count, so by the time he reaches a count of 5, he is on a head-on collision course with the ground. With fear written all over his face, he desperately tries to latch on to the railing of a balcony, but misses it. And the sound of an ambulance reverberates.
The sequence of events corroborate the tagline ‘Sometimes, every second counts’. In the last scene of the TVC, the protagonist is seen stuttering ‘Yahoo’ like a wolf.
The campaign will be substantiated by a 360-degree initiative, which includes TVCs, radio, OOH and activation ideas online. The TVC of Yahoo! Messenger will break soon.
While Prasoon Pandey, Director, Corcoise Films, has directed the TVC, Deepak Joshi, Senior Creative Director, O&M Bangalore, has written the script. The TVC broke on all news and entertainment channels on September 17.
Speaking about the launch, Nitin Mathur, Director-Marketing, Yahoo! India, said, “There is a strong and compelling reason for us to go out to the market in a much more vocal way and talk about our story. Through this campaign, we want to further strengthen our connection with the youth (16-24 age group) in India and give people a reason to make Yahoo! India their starting point to the Internet. This campaign will bring alive Yahoo!’s brand values in a contemporary manner and reinforce our leadership position as a lighthouse brand for new and first time users.”
He further said, “Yahoo India! Search will give users all the information they need on the very first page. With its increased speed, the search engine has become a very compelling product. Therefore, the TVC sports the tagline ‘Sometimes, every second counts.’ Yahoo Messenger is the leadership pillar product for Yahoo! India and, therefore, made the case for inclusion in the brand campaign.”
Commenting on the TVC, Amit Akali, Group Creative Director and Joint Creative Head, O&M Bangalore, said, “We conducted a study at O&M Bangalore for Yahoo! India and found that the youth instantly connected with anything that was new – be it upgrading a phone or a computer. This is where we embarked on the ‘Log on to new’ proposition, which is aptly demonstrated by Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Messenger.”
Malvika Mehra, Group Creative Director and Joint Creative Head, O&M Bangalore, said, “The brief we got from Yahoo! India was that sometimes every second counts when a user is searching. Keeping in mind this fact, Yahoo! Search bettered itself to generate search results faster. This was the establishing contour of the campaign. The new experience of searching and the array of new social features on Yahoo! Messenger are in sync with ‘Log on to new’.”
The TVC shows a group of sky divers readying for a jump from a plane. The instructor advises the sky divers that after jumping from the plane they should count till 10 before opening their parachutes. One overenthusiastic diver asks to be the first one to jump off the plane. However, he has a problem – he stammers. After jumping he begins counting till 10, but stammers very badly on each count, so by the time he reaches a count of 5, he is on a head-on collision course with the ground. With fear written all over his face, he desperately tries to latch on to the railing of a balcony, but misses it. And the sound of an ambulance reverberates.
The sequence of events corroborate the tagline ‘Sometimes, every second counts’. In the last scene of the TVC, the protagonist is seen stuttering ‘Yahoo’ like a wolf.
The campaign will be substantiated by a 360-degree initiative, which includes TVCs, radio, OOH and activation ideas online. The TVC of Yahoo! Messenger will break soon.
Business - India;Big malls in small cities is the big trick
MUMBAI: When in a town such as Sangli, a family of 46 people goes shopping to the nearby supermarket, it means a really long queue, an even bigger shopping ticket and party time for the retailer.
Big Bazaar, one of the biggest retail chains in the country, gets the largest turnover per square foot and the largest bill sizes from small towns and not some metro.
That leaves Kishore Biyani a happy man because he bought a 120,000-square foot property in far off Kharagpur. The place is successfully selling merchandise today.
The point is simple: big mall developers and retailers have begun to eye Tier III towns even before metros have saturated.
Even though the population is less than a million in these towns, the first-mover advantage along with a receptive customer base makes it an opportunity too big to miss.
Take Chhattisgarh-based Avinash Developers, for example. In six months, the company will open a million square feet-plus mall with a multiplex and a hotel in the small city of Raipur. There are more of such huge mixed-use destinations lined up such as Bilaspur
and Saharanpur.
Anand Singhania, managing director, Avinash Developers Pvt Ltd said, “There is not much competition here, whereas the consumers are waiting for a modern retail experience. Bigger size development means lower maintenance cost on the whole and an inclusion of commercial property in the development ensures faster recovery of investments.”
To pull in the crowds, Singhania has planned 40 shops of 150-200 square feet each within the mall to bring about a local market flavour.
Roopa Purushothaman, chief economist, Future Capital Holdings (FCH) said, “Consumers in these niche cities such as Jalandhar, Faridabad and Chandigarh are spending almost as much as megacities. They have the highest asset (cars, airconditioners, refrigerators and so on) penetration and aspirants in smaller towns are more likely to own a car than those living in a metro where the tendency to save is higher.”
Purushothaman was giving a presentation on the latest report ‘The Next Urban Frontier: Twenty Cities to Watch’ which was based on a study carried out by National Council of Applied Economic Research and FCH.
There are others who have already latched on to these findings. Phoenix Mills Ltd in association with Entertainment World Developers Pvt Ltd and Big Apple Real Estate has planned mixed use development with malls being the highlight in several small cities such as Amravati, Nanded, Ujjain, Bhilai and so on. Fifty malls in the next 5-7 years and a Rs 10,000 crore investment is their plan, said company officials.
When asked if the developers felt there was a market big enough in these smaller towns, most said they were confident of their business plan and success was achievable with the right tenant mix.
Manish Kalani, managing director, EWDPL India said, “We aren’t expecting recovery in less than 7-8 years. But shopping business is more like hospitality rather than real estate and a proper understanding is required to deal with the challenges.”
Interestingly, FCH’s survey showed that the highest credit card penetration is in Surat and Jaipur and not any of the metros. The spending propensity in terms of percentage of income is the highest in Bhopal (80%) while its about 20% in Mumbai and Delhi.
But not everyone seems as optimistic about the market potential in Tier III. One of the big chain retailers said that developers would need all the luck for such ventures because with just a little bit of competition, everything can go wrong since the market is not so big.
Profitable or not, only time will tell. For now it seems like before the people of Mumbai get a fun destination centre within the city, the Bilaspurs and Raipurs are going to have at least a couple of them.
Big Bazaar, one of the biggest retail chains in the country, gets the largest turnover per square foot and the largest bill sizes from small towns and not some metro.
That leaves Kishore Biyani a happy man because he bought a 120,000-square foot property in far off Kharagpur. The place is successfully selling merchandise today.
The point is simple: big mall developers and retailers have begun to eye Tier III towns even before metros have saturated.
Even though the population is less than a million in these towns, the first-mover advantage along with a receptive customer base makes it an opportunity too big to miss.
Take Chhattisgarh-based Avinash Developers, for example. In six months, the company will open a million square feet-plus mall with a multiplex and a hotel in the small city of Raipur. There are more of such huge mixed-use destinations lined up such as Bilaspur
and Saharanpur.
Anand Singhania, managing director, Avinash Developers Pvt Ltd said, “There is not much competition here, whereas the consumers are waiting for a modern retail experience. Bigger size development means lower maintenance cost on the whole and an inclusion of commercial property in the development ensures faster recovery of investments.”
To pull in the crowds, Singhania has planned 40 shops of 150-200 square feet each within the mall to bring about a local market flavour.
Roopa Purushothaman, chief economist, Future Capital Holdings (FCH) said, “Consumers in these niche cities such as Jalandhar, Faridabad and Chandigarh are spending almost as much as megacities. They have the highest asset (cars, airconditioners, refrigerators and so on) penetration and aspirants in smaller towns are more likely to own a car than those living in a metro where the tendency to save is higher.”
Purushothaman was giving a presentation on the latest report ‘The Next Urban Frontier: Twenty Cities to Watch’ which was based on a study carried out by National Council of Applied Economic Research and FCH.
There are others who have already latched on to these findings. Phoenix Mills Ltd in association with Entertainment World Developers Pvt Ltd and Big Apple Real Estate has planned mixed use development with malls being the highlight in several small cities such as Amravati, Nanded, Ujjain, Bhilai and so on. Fifty malls in the next 5-7 years and a Rs 10,000 crore investment is their plan, said company officials.
When asked if the developers felt there was a market big enough in these smaller towns, most said they were confident of their business plan and success was achievable with the right tenant mix.
Manish Kalani, managing director, EWDPL India said, “We aren’t expecting recovery in less than 7-8 years. But shopping business is more like hospitality rather than real estate and a proper understanding is required to deal with the challenges.”
Interestingly, FCH’s survey showed that the highest credit card penetration is in Surat and Jaipur and not any of the metros. The spending propensity in terms of percentage of income is the highest in Bhopal (80%) while its about 20% in Mumbai and Delhi.
But not everyone seems as optimistic about the market potential in Tier III. One of the big chain retailers said that developers would need all the luck for such ventures because with just a little bit of competition, everything can go wrong since the market is not so big.
Profitable or not, only time will tell. For now it seems like before the people of Mumbai get a fun destination centre within the city, the Bilaspurs and Raipurs are going to have at least a couple of them.
Business - India;Government opens a new page for foreign news magazines
International news magazines like Forbes, Fortune, BusinessWeek, Time and Newsweek will soon be able to offer cheaper versions of their publications in India after the government today allowed foreign news magazines to publish local editions with local news content and advertising.
Till today, international magazines could only print and distribute their global editions in India with some local advertising.
The new norm means that companies that are registered under the Indian Companies Act 1951 can now not only apply for permission to reproduce these magazines locally but can also publish local news.
The decision applies only to foreign news magazines, not newspapers. English magazines account for over 5 per cent of the Rs 9,000-crore print advertising pie.
Foreign magazines like Fortune are currently priced at Rs 180, a hefty premium to Indian news magazines that cost Rs 10 to Rs 20 depending on their frequency.
Said a publisher who has tie ups with foreign magazines: "Of course prices will drop dramatically. After all, today’s decision will help them to get mass circulation and compete effectively with the Indian magazines."
"We welcome this decision. It is, in fact, a result of us lobbying for it for the past three years,” said Ashish Bagga, CEO of Living Media India Ltd, publishers of India Today and other magazines.
“This will encourage a number of publishers to bring in foreign news magazines. Next, we expect the government to raise the foreign direct investment limit from 26 per cent to 49 per cent for such magazines," he added.
"Several other foreign news magazines like Newsweek and BusinessWeek that have shown interest in starting a local edition will now be encouraged to launch these publications shortly," an industry source said.
These publications, however, will need to comply with the stipulations in the latest print media policy. Under these, three-fourth of the directors on the board of these companies must be of Indian origin.
Also, the applicant company will have to appoint Indians as local editorial staff.
The title of the magazine needs to be verified and registered by the Indian company from the Registrar of Newspapers for India and permission will be granted for publication of only such magazines that are being published in the country of their origin.
The government has also said that the magazines concerned “should have been published continuously for a period of at least 5 years, and the publication must have a circulation of at least 10,000 paid copies for the last financial year in the country of its origin" to be eligible for an Indian edition.
Till today, international magazines could only print and distribute their global editions in India with some local advertising.
The new norm means that companies that are registered under the Indian Companies Act 1951 can now not only apply for permission to reproduce these magazines locally but can also publish local news.
The decision applies only to foreign news magazines, not newspapers. English magazines account for over 5 per cent of the Rs 9,000-crore print advertising pie.
Foreign magazines like Fortune are currently priced at Rs 180, a hefty premium to Indian news magazines that cost Rs 10 to Rs 20 depending on their frequency.
Said a publisher who has tie ups with foreign magazines: "Of course prices will drop dramatically. After all, today’s decision will help them to get mass circulation and compete effectively with the Indian magazines."
"We welcome this decision. It is, in fact, a result of us lobbying for it for the past three years,” said Ashish Bagga, CEO of Living Media India Ltd, publishers of India Today and other magazines.
“This will encourage a number of publishers to bring in foreign news magazines. Next, we expect the government to raise the foreign direct investment limit from 26 per cent to 49 per cent for such magazines," he added.
"Several other foreign news magazines like Newsweek and BusinessWeek that have shown interest in starting a local edition will now be encouraged to launch these publications shortly," an industry source said.
These publications, however, will need to comply with the stipulations in the latest print media policy. Under these, three-fourth of the directors on the board of these companies must be of Indian origin.
Also, the applicant company will have to appoint Indians as local editorial staff.
The title of the magazine needs to be verified and registered by the Indian company from the Registrar of Newspapers for India and permission will be granted for publication of only such magazines that are being published in the country of their origin.
The government has also said that the magazines concerned “should have been published continuously for a period of at least 5 years, and the publication must have a circulation of at least 10,000 paid copies for the last financial year in the country of its origin" to be eligible for an Indian edition.
India - Law soon on rent-a-womb deals
MUMBAI: The Centre is all set to legalise commercial surrogacy through a bill to be tabled in parliament.
The first-of-its-kind bill to control and monitor cases of surrogacy in the country has been drafted by the ministry of health and family welfare, along with the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR). The bill may be submitted to parliament in the next session.
The Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill and Rules, 2008, has proposed legalisation of commercial surrogacy which was earlier restricted to the relatives of proposed parents who voluntarily agree to surrogacy out of “love and affection” for the couple.
Till date, there has been no law governing surrogacy, only guidelines issued by ICMR, practised neither in letter nor spirit. Surrogacy hardly takes place without exchange of money between the proposed parents and the surrogate woman.
Under the existing guidelines, the monetary compensation that a surrogate mother receives is for maintenance and health care. However, the draft bill states under rights and duties in relation to surrogacy, “the surrogate mother may also receive monetary compensation from the couple or individual, as the case may be, for agreeing to act as such surrogate”.
“There is no agreement on paper that says that a surrogate mother will get an ‘x’ amount or a ‘y’ amount. Whatever she gets from the parents is as a part of her health care. If this bill is passed then the surrogate can claim a certain amount for bearing the child,” said advocate Amit Karkhanis, who has drafted over 15 surrogate agreements in the last year and a half.
Professor Lakshmi Lingam of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, however, said, “Most bills do not get done the way this bill did. It is a medico-business lobby that has been behind this bill and surrogacy may just turn into a sort of recruitment.” She added a lot of women from the lower-middle class may come forward and it will eventually involve agents and middlemen.
“What concerns me is also the medical tourism linked to surrogacy which may be detrimental to women,” Lingam added. “This country probably wants to open up to the world as a country that is going ahead and commercialising surrogacy but there isn’t adequate internal thinking that has gone into drafting this bill.”
The bill, however, does not mention the minimum amount that a surrogate mother can receive, leaving the quantum of monetary compensation for the surrogate ambiguous.
Karkhanis said apart from India, proposed parents will have the option of getting surrogate mothers in USA, Canada or Australia where commercial surrogacy is legal.
“But surrogacy is far more expensive in these countries. Where a surrogacy may cost a lakh of dollars in USA, in India it may be get done at $15,000. With widespread poverty in the country, India is very likely to become a surrogacy hub.”
“If it is going to be a trade,” Lingam says, “Indian surrogate mothers should be treated at par with those abroad and should be paid as much as them.”
The first-of-its-kind bill to control and monitor cases of surrogacy in the country has been drafted by the ministry of health and family welfare, along with the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR). The bill may be submitted to parliament in the next session.
The Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill and Rules, 2008, has proposed legalisation of commercial surrogacy which was earlier restricted to the relatives of proposed parents who voluntarily agree to surrogacy out of “love and affection” for the couple.
Till date, there has been no law governing surrogacy, only guidelines issued by ICMR, practised neither in letter nor spirit. Surrogacy hardly takes place without exchange of money between the proposed parents and the surrogate woman.
Under the existing guidelines, the monetary compensation that a surrogate mother receives is for maintenance and health care. However, the draft bill states under rights and duties in relation to surrogacy, “the surrogate mother may also receive monetary compensation from the couple or individual, as the case may be, for agreeing to act as such surrogate”.
“There is no agreement on paper that says that a surrogate mother will get an ‘x’ amount or a ‘y’ amount. Whatever she gets from the parents is as a part of her health care. If this bill is passed then the surrogate can claim a certain amount for bearing the child,” said advocate Amit Karkhanis, who has drafted over 15 surrogate agreements in the last year and a half.
Professor Lakshmi Lingam of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, however, said, “Most bills do not get done the way this bill did. It is a medico-business lobby that has been behind this bill and surrogacy may just turn into a sort of recruitment.” She added a lot of women from the lower-middle class may come forward and it will eventually involve agents and middlemen.
“What concerns me is also the medical tourism linked to surrogacy which may be detrimental to women,” Lingam added. “This country probably wants to open up to the world as a country that is going ahead and commercialising surrogacy but there isn’t adequate internal thinking that has gone into drafting this bill.”
The bill, however, does not mention the minimum amount that a surrogate mother can receive, leaving the quantum of monetary compensation for the surrogate ambiguous.
Karkhanis said apart from India, proposed parents will have the option of getting surrogate mothers in USA, Canada or Australia where commercial surrogacy is legal.
“But surrogacy is far more expensive in these countries. Where a surrogacy may cost a lakh of dollars in USA, in India it may be get done at $15,000. With widespread poverty in the country, India is very likely to become a surrogacy hub.”
“If it is going to be a trade,” Lingam says, “Indian surrogate mothers should be treated at par with those abroad and should be paid as much as them.”
Mktg - Brand Dhoni
Savia Jane Pinto | afaqs! | Mumbai, September 19, 2008
What is
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it about Mahendra Singh Dhoni that attracts brands like moths to a flame? The cricket sensation and India’s ODI captain is believed to be the most cool headed, consistent player in the Indian cricket team, and wherever he goes, brands follow. Today, Dhoni or ‘Mahi’, as he is fondly called, endorses some 17 brands. And if sources are to be believed, more deals are under way.
Dhoni’s is a typical rags to riches story. In his younger days, Dhoni was a goalkeeper in his hometown’s football team. It was when his football coach sent him for a local cricket match that his wicket keeping skills were noticed and he became a regular at the Commando cricket club. This was back in 1995.
Today, after having tasted multiple successes in the field of cricket, the 27 year old endorses brands such as Big Bazaar, Brylcreem (Godrej Sara Lee), Boost (Glaxo SmithKline Beecham), Dainik Bhaskar, Exide Industries, Godrej-Hershey’s, Lafarge Cement, NDTV, Orient PSPO, Parle, Pepsi, Reebok, Royal Stage, Sonata, Siyaram’s, TVS and Videocon.
Of his three and a half year career in international cricket, the cricketer has been a brand endorser for three years. Yes, Mahi seems to be a fit for almost every category, be it energy drinks or aerated colas, chips or cement, apparel or newspapers.
After his debut in international cricket in 2004, talent management company Gameplan began handling his brand endorsements in 2005. Earlier this year, Yudhajit Dutta, managing director, Mindscape Maestros, began handling Dhoni’s endorsement deals.
According to industry estimates, Dhoni is worth Rs 4-5 crore per endorsement for one year. Dutta, his talent manager, says Dhoni has crossed all the earlier figures of per year deals and is currently one of the richest brand ambassadors; so, that figure could be outdated as well.
In a short span of time, the wicketkeeper-batsman has accomplished much to create a brand name for himself. But the real question is, how long will it all last? afaqs! spoke to several stalwarts in the field of branding, including those from the talent management side, brand consultants and creative directors, to know what they think of Brand Dhoni.
What lies beneath? Universal appeal
His small town beginnings and humility have held Dhoni in good stead. The fact that a boy from a small town has grown to attain such star status makes him role model material. “His appeal cuts across all age groups and demographics to speak to small towns as well as the metros,” says Manish Aggarwal, business director, Insights, MindShare.
Manish Porwal, chief executive officer, Percept Talent Management, offers a different view. He says, “Although Dhoni cuts across all segments, he doesn’t yet cut across all brands and yet address the top end of consumers, like Aamir Khan does.” He adds, “And not all brands need to cut across all segments.”
All the brands that Dhoni endorses are such that they either speak to the masses or the youth. Certain brands like Videocon project him in an aspirational manner, and certain others, like Brylcreem or Pepsi, portray him to be the boy next door.
Jagdeep Kapoor, CEO and MD, Samsika Marketing Consultants, says, “Any brand that wants to project itself as a fearless and leader brand will benefit from Dhoni’s association.” His fearless and calm attitude, when on field and when on screen, are attributes that put him high on a brand’s wish list.
Dhoni’s professional attitude and respect to commitment are commendable, too. Sumanto Chattopadhyay, executive creative director, South Asia, O&M, who has worked with Dhoni for Videocon and now LaFarge Cement, says, “Dhoni is someone who has done his homework well, and hence, all else follows.”
Rohit Ohri, branch head, JWT Delhi (which works on Pepsi), says that Dhoni is the epitome of Youngistaan. His acting abilities have been commended, too, in comparison to other cricketing brand ambassadors. “Ajay Jadeja was one cricketer who was a good actor, too, but Dhoni can definitely give Bollywood actors a run for their money,” says Ohri.
Dhoni recently won a lot of appreciation for the Pepsi Youngistaan ad, which showed him studying cricket pitches, bowler minds and the sport. At the end of the ad, Dhoni says that no matter what you study, what you need is the thirst to learn. Shortly after that, a local newspaper reported that Dhoni had enrolled at a college to complete his graduation. His acting skills were much appreciated even in the Videocon ad that featured both Dhoni and Shah Rukh Khan.
Another factor that cuts across is Dhoni’s style statement. Whether it is his saffron locks, or later, his long locks held back with gel, or his most recent short crop, he’s always making a statement, so much so that the youth make sure they’ve got the recent Dhoni look.
Kapoor of Samsika is of the opinion that it is Dhoni’s originality that makes him stand out – be it the numerous hairstyles that he sports, or the bravado that he displays in his performance, or the calmness that he exhibits on field as captain.
Life cycle as brand ambassador
Anirban Das Blah, CEO, Globosport, strongly thinks that Dhoni has at least three good years ahead of him as a brand endorser. He asserts that Dhoni is the biggest athlete to emerge out of India.
Only recently, Dhoni replaced Sachin Tendulkar as the brand ambassador for Pepsi’s Youngistaan. According to media reports, Tendulkar’s contract wasn’t renewed because Pepsi officials felt that the cricketer could no longer address the cola brand’s target audience – the youth. TVS is another brand that Tendulkar lost out on and Dhoni endorses.
Aggarwal of MindShare has a unique point to make here. He says, “As Dhoni is all over the place, there exists the possibility of the brand falling into the background and Dhoni emerging as a bigger brand. But despite that, most marketers will follow the policy of making hay while the sun shines.”
Dhoni’s prime moment of glory was the T20 World Cup win. “The T20 win clinched many more endorsements into Dhoni’s kitty,” confirms Aggarwal.
The fact that senior players such as Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid did not give stellar performances at the T20 Cup also added to Dhoni’s popularity and brand value. Aggarwal says that Dhoni’s boy next door image, which most other top brand ambassadors don’t have, works in his favour.
Kapoor thinks that Dhoni has many more years as an endorser for brands. “Dhoni, in his graph as a brand ambassador, is at the growing phase, and he will continue to grow for a long time to come,” says an enthusiastic Kapoor.
Disagreeing completely with Kapoor is Harish Bijoor of Harish Bijoor Consults. “Dhoni represents the peak icon of the lowest common denominator sport – T20,” he says. He calls T20 an LCD sport because the largest number of people watch it. Bijoor agrees that Brand Dhoni is saleable because of his style and persona. Also, his small town beginnings bring in a sense of identification among many consumers in many markets.
He’s all over the place
When Blah says Dhoni’s got time ahead of him as a brand ambassador, he also says that he has been overexposed and is spreading himself too thin. In this scenario, “Brand Dhoni will grow, but the brand he is endorsing will suffer”, says Blah. He thinks that certain brands which Dhoni is endorsing are “terrible”, and he needs to be consistent while selecting a brand with which he associates himself.
Bijoor is quick to add that Brand Dhoni is reaching a point of fatigue (or maturity, the way it is in a brand’s life cycle) because he’s all over the place. Ohri also agrees that though Dhoni is doing great for himself, he is spreading himself too thin. Since he has age on his side and has just started off with his cricketing career, he shouldn’t be in too much of a hurry.
Most industry experts believe that Dhoni, in his short career span, has been endorsing brands blindly, often without much thought. They think that he needs to be selective about the brands he chooses.
Dhoni recently became the endorser for LaFarge cement. He is said to be building his house in Ranchi, and since LaFarge’s primary market is Ranchi and the surrounding regions, Dhoni was chosen to be the brand ambassador. He was also appointed as brand ambassador for Mysore Sandal Soap in order to increase sales of the soap in the Northern market. However, that deal fell apart later. These seem to be rather unique endorsements for a cricketer.
Dutta refutes, explaining that Dhoni has, in fact, dropped a few brands that he feels won’t establish a good brand fit with the personality of the sportsman.
All said and done, the last words belong to Jagdeep Kapoor: “I strongly feel that the day is not far when apart from representing global brands in India, Dhoni will soon endorse global brands in their global markets as well.”
What is
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it about Mahendra Singh Dhoni that attracts brands like moths to a flame? The cricket sensation and India’s ODI captain is believed to be the most cool headed, consistent player in the Indian cricket team, and wherever he goes, brands follow. Today, Dhoni or ‘Mahi’, as he is fondly called, endorses some 17 brands. And if sources are to be believed, more deals are under way.
Dhoni’s is a typical rags to riches story. In his younger days, Dhoni was a goalkeeper in his hometown’s football team. It was when his football coach sent him for a local cricket match that his wicket keeping skills were noticed and he became a regular at the Commando cricket club. This was back in 1995.
Today, after having tasted multiple successes in the field of cricket, the 27 year old endorses brands such as Big Bazaar, Brylcreem (Godrej Sara Lee), Boost (Glaxo SmithKline Beecham), Dainik Bhaskar, Exide Industries, Godrej-Hershey’s, Lafarge Cement, NDTV, Orient PSPO, Parle, Pepsi, Reebok, Royal Stage, Sonata, Siyaram’s, TVS and Videocon.
Of his three and a half year career in international cricket, the cricketer has been a brand endorser for three years. Yes, Mahi seems to be a fit for almost every category, be it energy drinks or aerated colas, chips or cement, apparel or newspapers.
After his debut in international cricket in 2004, talent management company Gameplan began handling his brand endorsements in 2005. Earlier this year, Yudhajit Dutta, managing director, Mindscape Maestros, began handling Dhoni’s endorsement deals.
According to industry estimates, Dhoni is worth Rs 4-5 crore per endorsement for one year. Dutta, his talent manager, says Dhoni has crossed all the earlier figures of per year deals and is currently one of the richest brand ambassadors; so, that figure could be outdated as well.
In a short span of time, the wicketkeeper-batsman has accomplished much to create a brand name for himself. But the real question is, how long will it all last? afaqs! spoke to several stalwarts in the field of branding, including those from the talent management side, brand consultants and creative directors, to know what they think of Brand Dhoni.
What lies beneath? Universal appeal
His small town beginnings and humility have held Dhoni in good stead. The fact that a boy from a small town has grown to attain such star status makes him role model material. “His appeal cuts across all age groups and demographics to speak to small towns as well as the metros,” says Manish Aggarwal, business director, Insights, MindShare.
Manish Porwal, chief executive officer, Percept Talent Management, offers a different view. He says, “Although Dhoni cuts across all segments, he doesn’t yet cut across all brands and yet address the top end of consumers, like Aamir Khan does.” He adds, “And not all brands need to cut across all segments.”
All the brands that Dhoni endorses are such that they either speak to the masses or the youth. Certain brands like Videocon project him in an aspirational manner, and certain others, like Brylcreem or Pepsi, portray him to be the boy next door.
Jagdeep Kapoor, CEO and MD, Samsika Marketing Consultants, says, “Any brand that wants to project itself as a fearless and leader brand will benefit from Dhoni’s association.” His fearless and calm attitude, when on field and when on screen, are attributes that put him high on a brand’s wish list.
Dhoni’s professional attitude and respect to commitment are commendable, too. Sumanto Chattopadhyay, executive creative director, South Asia, O&M, who has worked with Dhoni for Videocon and now LaFarge Cement, says, “Dhoni is someone who has done his homework well, and hence, all else follows.”
Rohit Ohri, branch head, JWT Delhi (which works on Pepsi), says that Dhoni is the epitome of Youngistaan. His acting abilities have been commended, too, in comparison to other cricketing brand ambassadors. “Ajay Jadeja was one cricketer who was a good actor, too, but Dhoni can definitely give Bollywood actors a run for their money,” says Ohri.
Dhoni recently won a lot of appreciation for the Pepsi Youngistaan ad, which showed him studying cricket pitches, bowler minds and the sport. At the end of the ad, Dhoni says that no matter what you study, what you need is the thirst to learn. Shortly after that, a local newspaper reported that Dhoni had enrolled at a college to complete his graduation. His acting skills were much appreciated even in the Videocon ad that featured both Dhoni and Shah Rukh Khan.
Another factor that cuts across is Dhoni’s style statement. Whether it is his saffron locks, or later, his long locks held back with gel, or his most recent short crop, he’s always making a statement, so much so that the youth make sure they’ve got the recent Dhoni look.
Kapoor of Samsika is of the opinion that it is Dhoni’s originality that makes him stand out – be it the numerous hairstyles that he sports, or the bravado that he displays in his performance, or the calmness that he exhibits on field as captain.
Life cycle as brand ambassador
Anirban Das Blah, CEO, Globosport, strongly thinks that Dhoni has at least three good years ahead of him as a brand endorser. He asserts that Dhoni is the biggest athlete to emerge out of India.
Only recently, Dhoni replaced Sachin Tendulkar as the brand ambassador for Pepsi’s Youngistaan. According to media reports, Tendulkar’s contract wasn’t renewed because Pepsi officials felt that the cricketer could no longer address the cola brand’s target audience – the youth. TVS is another brand that Tendulkar lost out on and Dhoni endorses.
Aggarwal of MindShare has a unique point to make here. He says, “As Dhoni is all over the place, there exists the possibility of the brand falling into the background and Dhoni emerging as a bigger brand. But despite that, most marketers will follow the policy of making hay while the sun shines.”
Dhoni’s prime moment of glory was the T20 World Cup win. “The T20 win clinched many more endorsements into Dhoni’s kitty,” confirms Aggarwal.
The fact that senior players such as Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid did not give stellar performances at the T20 Cup also added to Dhoni’s popularity and brand value. Aggarwal says that Dhoni’s boy next door image, which most other top brand ambassadors don’t have, works in his favour.
Kapoor thinks that Dhoni has many more years as an endorser for brands. “Dhoni, in his graph as a brand ambassador, is at the growing phase, and he will continue to grow for a long time to come,” says an enthusiastic Kapoor.
Disagreeing completely with Kapoor is Harish Bijoor of Harish Bijoor Consults. “Dhoni represents the peak icon of the lowest common denominator sport – T20,” he says. He calls T20 an LCD sport because the largest number of people watch it. Bijoor agrees that Brand Dhoni is saleable because of his style and persona. Also, his small town beginnings bring in a sense of identification among many consumers in many markets.
He’s all over the place
When Blah says Dhoni’s got time ahead of him as a brand ambassador, he also says that he has been overexposed and is spreading himself too thin. In this scenario, “Brand Dhoni will grow, but the brand he is endorsing will suffer”, says Blah. He thinks that certain brands which Dhoni is endorsing are “terrible”, and he needs to be consistent while selecting a brand with which he associates himself.
Bijoor is quick to add that Brand Dhoni is reaching a point of fatigue (or maturity, the way it is in a brand’s life cycle) because he’s all over the place. Ohri also agrees that though Dhoni is doing great for himself, he is spreading himself too thin. Since he has age on his side and has just started off with his cricketing career, he shouldn’t be in too much of a hurry.
Most industry experts believe that Dhoni, in his short career span, has been endorsing brands blindly, often without much thought. They think that he needs to be selective about the brands he chooses.
Dhoni recently became the endorser for LaFarge cement. He is said to be building his house in Ranchi, and since LaFarge’s primary market is Ranchi and the surrounding regions, Dhoni was chosen to be the brand ambassador. He was also appointed as brand ambassador for Mysore Sandal Soap in order to increase sales of the soap in the Northern market. However, that deal fell apart later. These seem to be rather unique endorsements for a cricketer.
Dutta refutes, explaining that Dhoni has, in fact, dropped a few brands that he feels won’t establish a good brand fit with the personality of the sportsman.
All said and done, the last words belong to Jagdeep Kapoor: “I strongly feel that the day is not far when apart from representing global brands in India, Dhoni will soon endorse global brands in their global markets as well.”
Lifestyle - Chef cooks up trouble with human milk recipes
Swiss eatery banned from serving speciality dishes for using ingredient from ‘unauthorised sources’
GENEVA: A Swiss gastronomist has stirred a controversy in the tranquil Alpine republic after announcing that he will serve meals cooked with human breast milk. The owner of the Storchen restaurant in the exclusive Winterthur resort will improve his menu with local specialities such as meat stew and various soups and sauces containing at least 75% of mother’s milk.
The Storchen restaurant, in Iberg had advertised for mothers to sell their breast milk for the special menu. But breastfeeding counsellors had labelled the project unethical. The idea was eventually scrapped after canton Zurich food inspectors said it broke regulations, and threatened to take action. “Humans are not on the list of authorised milk suppliers such as cows or sheep,” said department head Rolf Etter.
The food control authority was initially confused by the apparent loophole in local legislation regulating the use of human milk and it was not clear whether Locher could actually be banned from serving his specialities. The restaurant has been banned from serving up dishes containing human milk on the grounds that the “ingredient” derives from an unauthorised source.
Restaurant landlord Hans Locher was unrepentant about his controversial plan and was disappointed with the ban. “The idea is over now and I think it’s totally wrong,” he said.
Locher had planned to serve up human milk in dishes of soup, antelope steak with sauce and the classic dish of Zürcher Geschnetzeltes — bite sized pieces of meat in a creamy sauce. The Storchen, which coincidentally means Stork in English, would have served up these delicacies during a series of special offer weeks.
“We have all been raised on it. Why should we not include it into our diet?” Hans Locher, who has become Switzerland most controversial restaurant owner, said. Locher had posted ads looking for women donors, who will receive just over three pounds for 14 ounces of their milk.
“Humans as producers of milk are simply not envisaged in the legislation. “They are not on the list of approved species such as cows and sheep, but they are also not on the list of the banned species such as apes and primates,” Rolf Etter of the Zurich food control laboratory said.
The human milk menu also attracted the attention of the Swiss association of breastfeeding counsellors, which objected to mothers being offered cash for milk intended for their babies. “This raises questions. It is not a good idea to pay for milk because it might tempt mothers to put profit before their children,” spokeswoman Christa Müller-Aregger said.
She also raised doubts about the scheme. “When hospitals stockpile milk banks the mothers and their milk are always given a health check. If a mother takes drugs or smokes then you find traces in the milk,” she said. “Human milk is designed for babies and not to be of nutritional value for adults.”
GENEVA: A Swiss gastronomist has stirred a controversy in the tranquil Alpine republic after announcing that he will serve meals cooked with human breast milk. The owner of the Storchen restaurant in the exclusive Winterthur resort will improve his menu with local specialities such as meat stew and various soups and sauces containing at least 75% of mother’s milk.
The Storchen restaurant, in Iberg had advertised for mothers to sell their breast milk for the special menu. But breastfeeding counsellors had labelled the project unethical. The idea was eventually scrapped after canton Zurich food inspectors said it broke regulations, and threatened to take action. “Humans are not on the list of authorised milk suppliers such as cows or sheep,” said department head Rolf Etter.
The food control authority was initially confused by the apparent loophole in local legislation regulating the use of human milk and it was not clear whether Locher could actually be banned from serving his specialities. The restaurant has been banned from serving up dishes containing human milk on the grounds that the “ingredient” derives from an unauthorised source.
Restaurant landlord Hans Locher was unrepentant about his controversial plan and was disappointed with the ban. “The idea is over now and I think it’s totally wrong,” he said.
Locher had planned to serve up human milk in dishes of soup, antelope steak with sauce and the classic dish of Zürcher Geschnetzeltes — bite sized pieces of meat in a creamy sauce. The Storchen, which coincidentally means Stork in English, would have served up these delicacies during a series of special offer weeks.
“We have all been raised on it. Why should we not include it into our diet?” Hans Locher, who has become Switzerland most controversial restaurant owner, said. Locher had posted ads looking for women donors, who will receive just over three pounds for 14 ounces of their milk.
“Humans as producers of milk are simply not envisaged in the legislation. “They are not on the list of approved species such as cows and sheep, but they are also not on the list of the banned species such as apes and primates,” Rolf Etter of the Zurich food control laboratory said.
The human milk menu also attracted the attention of the Swiss association of breastfeeding counsellors, which objected to mothers being offered cash for milk intended for their babies. “This raises questions. It is not a good idea to pay for milk because it might tempt mothers to put profit before their children,” spokeswoman Christa Müller-Aregger said.
She also raised doubts about the scheme. “When hospitals stockpile milk banks the mothers and their milk are always given a health check. If a mother takes drugs or smokes then you find traces in the milk,” she said. “Human milk is designed for babies and not to be of nutritional value for adults.”
Tech - Is the writing on the wall for paper ?
The future of paper is starting to look a little less certain, says Bill Thompson
The UK launch of the Sony Reader has sparked another round of frenzied speculation over the future of the printed book in a world of screens, networks and digital data.
Like the iLiad or the US-only Kindle, the Reader is a paperback-sized electronic book with a high-resolution display that uses "electronic ink" and looks and acts more like paper than a screen.
They have been available for a while in other nations, and I almost succumbed to the temptation to buy one on my last visit to the US.
The quality and ease of use of the new generation of readers means that they appeal to the general population rather than those who like to live at the leading edge of technological innovation, but although sales have been good they are far from spectacular.
Flood gates
Part of the problem, of course, is that they remain "ebook readers". They are not, in themselves, electronic books but devices that can be used to store and display text. A book remains a physical object, ink on paper with a cover and a presence in the world, while an ebook is just another bag of bits
Sometimes, of course, bags of bits are just what you need.
I don't have an ebook reader - yet - but I do have an iPod Touch with a screen that may be small but has excellent resolution and works just as well for text as it does for video or photos.
And thanks to the FileMagnet application I can copy documents from my desktop computer to read on the move, even when I don't have an internet connection.
This came into its own over the weekend, when I spent far too long on overcrowded trains as what should have been an easy journey to and from Newcastle was turned into an ordeal by the heavy rain and consequent flooding in the North East.
With no space to get out my laptop or a newspaper, and insufficient elbow room even to manage to turn the pages of a book, I spent most of the return journey reading from the Touch, which was small enough to hold in front of me and didn't require any complicated page-turning, a triumph of the electronic over the physical.
Paper power
But I used the time to read an excellent and stimulating essay on the future of print that left me more convinced than ever that the books and perhaps even newspapers still have a lot to offer us, at least for a while.
Hamlet's Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal was written in 2006 by William Powers, a media journalist, when he was a Sorenstein Fellow at Harvard University and had space to think about the future of his industry
The essay is a hymn in praise of paper. Paper is tangible, he says, so we have a sense of where we are in a book or essay; documents can be shuffled, pages marked and annotated, and books piled up according to their significance; and paper documents do not change when we are not looking.
What we often see as the limitations of a printed document are not limitations but capabilities. They allow printed documents to occupy a special psychological space, so that we can become immersed in books in a way we are rarely immersed in text on screens, experiencing what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls "flow", the sense of absorption where the world simply slips away.
He ends by arguing that the special properties of paper mean that it will always be with us, that ebooks will only work when they are themselves indistinguishable from paper ones.
Powers may be right, but of course the current generation of ebooks are limited in so many ways that it is unfair to expect them to challenge print in any significant way.
Screen tests
Apart from the irritating way the screen flashes black when you change page, there are many different ebook formats out there, some locked using one of the proprietary DRM schemes, and so not every reader can be used to read every book, rather as if you got a new paperback home and were told that your particular type of lightbulb could not be used to illuminate its pages
Only Amazon has realised that having to tether your ebook reader to your computer with a cable or plug in memory cards creates a serious obstacle for many users. The Kindle comes with "Whispernet", a data connection over the mobile phone network, so that you can buy a book from Amazon.com and have it seamlessly delivered to your reader.
I am less sure about the longevity of paper than Powers. I have been using computers daily for over 25 years now, and I now read far more words on screen than I do in print, but I know that all of my reading practice was shaped by paper and that the screen will always remain less efficient and effective for me. I am convinced by Powers' argument, at least for my generation.
But we could find that the particular qualities which we value in the printed book, especially the way it encourages immersive engagement, are just as possible with screen-based media too.
We are used to the passive immersion in the narrative encouraged by films and TV, but what of the active engagement we see in gaming? My 15 year old son may well find that the navigational and problem-solving skills he has picked up from hours playing Halo 3 enable him to work with on-screen texts just as efficiently as I work with printed ones.
So despite what Powers says we may, after all, be living out the last decades of the printed text a decline that will be hastened by the latest generation of screen-based "books".
Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet.
The UK launch of the Sony Reader has sparked another round of frenzied speculation over the future of the printed book in a world of screens, networks and digital data.
Like the iLiad or the US-only Kindle, the Reader is a paperback-sized electronic book with a high-resolution display that uses "electronic ink" and looks and acts more like paper than a screen.
They have been available for a while in other nations, and I almost succumbed to the temptation to buy one on my last visit to the US.
The quality and ease of use of the new generation of readers means that they appeal to the general population rather than those who like to live at the leading edge of technological innovation, but although sales have been good they are far from spectacular.
Flood gates
Part of the problem, of course, is that they remain "ebook readers". They are not, in themselves, electronic books but devices that can be used to store and display text. A book remains a physical object, ink on paper with a cover and a presence in the world, while an ebook is just another bag of bits
Sometimes, of course, bags of bits are just what you need.
I don't have an ebook reader - yet - but I do have an iPod Touch with a screen that may be small but has excellent resolution and works just as well for text as it does for video or photos.
And thanks to the FileMagnet application I can copy documents from my desktop computer to read on the move, even when I don't have an internet connection.
This came into its own over the weekend, when I spent far too long on overcrowded trains as what should have been an easy journey to and from Newcastle was turned into an ordeal by the heavy rain and consequent flooding in the North East.
With no space to get out my laptop or a newspaper, and insufficient elbow room even to manage to turn the pages of a book, I spent most of the return journey reading from the Touch, which was small enough to hold in front of me and didn't require any complicated page-turning, a triumph of the electronic over the physical.
Paper power
But I used the time to read an excellent and stimulating essay on the future of print that left me more convinced than ever that the books and perhaps even newspapers still have a lot to offer us, at least for a while.
Hamlet's Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal was written in 2006 by William Powers, a media journalist, when he was a Sorenstein Fellow at Harvard University and had space to think about the future of his industry
The essay is a hymn in praise of paper. Paper is tangible, he says, so we have a sense of where we are in a book or essay; documents can be shuffled, pages marked and annotated, and books piled up according to their significance; and paper documents do not change when we are not looking.
What we often see as the limitations of a printed document are not limitations but capabilities. They allow printed documents to occupy a special psychological space, so that we can become immersed in books in a way we are rarely immersed in text on screens, experiencing what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls "flow", the sense of absorption where the world simply slips away.
He ends by arguing that the special properties of paper mean that it will always be with us, that ebooks will only work when they are themselves indistinguishable from paper ones.
Powers may be right, but of course the current generation of ebooks are limited in so many ways that it is unfair to expect them to challenge print in any significant way.
Screen tests
Apart from the irritating way the screen flashes black when you change page, there are many different ebook formats out there, some locked using one of the proprietary DRM schemes, and so not every reader can be used to read every book, rather as if you got a new paperback home and were told that your particular type of lightbulb could not be used to illuminate its pages
Only Amazon has realised that having to tether your ebook reader to your computer with a cable or plug in memory cards creates a serious obstacle for many users. The Kindle comes with "Whispernet", a data connection over the mobile phone network, so that you can buy a book from Amazon.com and have it seamlessly delivered to your reader.
I am less sure about the longevity of paper than Powers. I have been using computers daily for over 25 years now, and I now read far more words on screen than I do in print, but I know that all of my reading practice was shaped by paper and that the screen will always remain less efficient and effective for me. I am convinced by Powers' argument, at least for my generation.
But we could find that the particular qualities which we value in the printed book, especially the way it encourages immersive engagement, are just as possible with screen-based media too.
We are used to the passive immersion in the narrative encouraged by films and TV, but what of the active engagement we see in gaming? My 15 year old son may well find that the navigational and problem-solving skills he has picked up from hours playing Halo 3 enable him to work with on-screen texts just as efficiently as I work with printed ones.
So despite what Powers says we may, after all, be living out the last decades of the printed text a decline that will be hastened by the latest generation of screen-based "books".
Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet.
Tech - Goodbye to the computer mouse ?
It's nearly 40 years old but one leading research company says the days of the computer mouse are numbered.
A Gartner analyst predicts the demise of the computer mouse in the next three to five years.
Taking over will be so called gestural computer mechanisms like touch screens and facial recognition devices.
"The mouse works fine in the desktop environment but for home entertainment or working on a notebook it's over," declared analyst Steve Prentice.
He told BBC News that his prediction is driven by the efforts of consumer electronics firm which are making products with new interactive interfaces inspired by the world of gaming .
"You've got Panasonic showing forward facing video in the home entertainment environment. Instead of using a conventional remote control you hold up your hand and it recognises you have done that," he said.
"It also recognises your face and that you are you and it will display on your TV screen your menu. You can move your hand to move around and select what you want," he added.
"Sony and Canon and other video and photographic manufacturers are using face recognition that recognises your face in real time," he said. "And it recognises even when you smile."
"You even have emotive systems where you can wear a headset and control a computer by simply thinking and that's a device set to hit the market in September."
"This" Mr Prentice said, "is all about using computer power to do things smarter."
Greatly exaggerated
Naturally enough those in the business of making mice are not wholly in agreement that the end is nigh.
"The death of the mouse is greatly exaggerated," said Rory Dooley senior vice president and general manager of Logitech's control devices unit.
Logitech is the world's biggest manufacturer of mice and keyboards and has sold more than 500 million mice over the last 20 years.
"This just proves how important a device the mouse is," said Mr Dooley.
But he also agreed that the number of ways people can interact with a computers were rising and that his own company was manufacturing many of them.
"People have been talking about convergence for years," he said. "Today's TV works as a computer and today's computer works as a TV.
"The devices we use have been modified for our changing lifestyles but it doesn't negate the value of the mouse," Mr Dooley explained.
Popularity
The mouse was invented by Dr Douglas Engelbart while working for the Stanford Research Institute. He never received any royalties for the invention partly because his patent ran out in 1987 before the PC revolution made the mouse indispensible.
With a 40 year anniversary planned for later in the year, Mr Dooley said Gartner's prediction for the mouse was too gloomy given that the developing world has still to get online.
"The mouse will be even more popular than it is today as a result," he suggested.
"Bringing technology, education and information to these parts of the world will be done by accessing web browsers and doing that in the ways that we are familiar with today and that is using a mouse.
"There are around one billion people online but the world's population is over five billion," he said.
Gesturing
So just how ready are people to wave their hands in the air or make faces at devices with embedded video readers?
Gartner's Mr Prentice says millions are already doing it thanks to machines like Nintendo's Wii and smartphones like the iPhone.
"With the Wii you point and shake and it vibrates back at you so you have a two-way relationship there.
"The new generation of smart phones like the iPhone all now have tilting mechanisms or you can shake the device to do one or more things.
"Even the multi-touch interface is so much more powerful and flexible than in the past allowing you to zoom in, scroll quickly or contract images."
For those who lament the demise of such tried and tested pieces of hardware, Mr Prentice did concede that the keyboard was here to stay for the foreseeable future.
"For all its faults, the keyboard will remain the primary text input device," he said. "Nothing is easily going to replace it. But the idea of a keyboard with a mouse as a control interface is the paradigm that I am talking about breaking down."
A Gartner analyst predicts the demise of the computer mouse in the next three to five years.
Taking over will be so called gestural computer mechanisms like touch screens and facial recognition devices.
"The mouse works fine in the desktop environment but for home entertainment or working on a notebook it's over," declared analyst Steve Prentice.
He told BBC News that his prediction is driven by the efforts of consumer electronics firm which are making products with new interactive interfaces inspired by the world of gaming .
"You've got Panasonic showing forward facing video in the home entertainment environment. Instead of using a conventional remote control you hold up your hand and it recognises you have done that," he said.
"It also recognises your face and that you are you and it will display on your TV screen your menu. You can move your hand to move around and select what you want," he added.
"Sony and Canon and other video and photographic manufacturers are using face recognition that recognises your face in real time," he said. "And it recognises even when you smile."
"You even have emotive systems where you can wear a headset and control a computer by simply thinking and that's a device set to hit the market in September."
"This" Mr Prentice said, "is all about using computer power to do things smarter."
Greatly exaggerated
Naturally enough those in the business of making mice are not wholly in agreement that the end is nigh.
"The death of the mouse is greatly exaggerated," said Rory Dooley senior vice president and general manager of Logitech's control devices unit.
Logitech is the world's biggest manufacturer of mice and keyboards and has sold more than 500 million mice over the last 20 years.
"This just proves how important a device the mouse is," said Mr Dooley.
But he also agreed that the number of ways people can interact with a computers were rising and that his own company was manufacturing many of them.
"People have been talking about convergence for years," he said. "Today's TV works as a computer and today's computer works as a TV.
"The devices we use have been modified for our changing lifestyles but it doesn't negate the value of the mouse," Mr Dooley explained.
Popularity
The mouse was invented by Dr Douglas Engelbart while working for the Stanford Research Institute. He never received any royalties for the invention partly because his patent ran out in 1987 before the PC revolution made the mouse indispensible.
With a 40 year anniversary planned for later in the year, Mr Dooley said Gartner's prediction for the mouse was too gloomy given that the developing world has still to get online.
"The mouse will be even more popular than it is today as a result," he suggested.
"Bringing technology, education and information to these parts of the world will be done by accessing web browsers and doing that in the ways that we are familiar with today and that is using a mouse.
"There are around one billion people online but the world's population is over five billion," he said.
Gesturing
So just how ready are people to wave their hands in the air or make faces at devices with embedded video readers?
Gartner's Mr Prentice says millions are already doing it thanks to machines like Nintendo's Wii and smartphones like the iPhone.
"With the Wii you point and shake and it vibrates back at you so you have a two-way relationship there.
"The new generation of smart phones like the iPhone all now have tilting mechanisms or you can shake the device to do one or more things.
"Even the multi-touch interface is so much more powerful and flexible than in the past allowing you to zoom in, scroll quickly or contract images."
For those who lament the demise of such tried and tested pieces of hardware, Mr Prentice did concede that the keyboard was here to stay for the foreseeable future.
"For all its faults, the keyboard will remain the primary text input device," he said. "Nothing is easily going to replace it. But the idea of a keyboard with a mouse as a control interface is the paradigm that I am talking about breaking down."
Tech - Mobiles combat Kenyan polio outbreak (G.Read)
A mobile phone based health application has helped to investigate and contain a polio outbreak that threatened thousands in East Africa.
Health officials in Kenya used the life saving application, EpiSurveyor, after refugees fleeing violence in Somalia introduced the first case of polio into the country in more than 20 years.
The application can be downloaded onto handheld devices to log patients' symptoms and any treatment they receive.
Kenyan health workers modified the survey forms used by EpiSurveyor to track an emergency vaccination campaign and managed to stop a potential epidemic in its tracks.
EpiSurveyor has been funded by the United Nations and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership, which is using strategic technology programmes to strengthen UN humanitarian efforts worldwide. It is free to use and is run on an open-source basis.
The trial in Kenya has been so successful that this week the World Health Organisation has announced that it is expanding the project to another 20 countries in Africa.
Outbreak success
The BBC World Service's Digital Planet radio programme spoke to Dr Patrick Nguku from the Kenyan Health Ministry where the project has been piloted.
"In 2006 after 21 years of absence of polio in Kenya, we did confirm a case in our north eastern province and this was followed by massive immunisation campaigns to try and protect susceptible children.
"We used EpiSurveyor to basically control our supplies, monitor which areas needed to be vaccinated and the quick flow of information helped us in achieving very good results", he added.
When health authorities want to collate information on the spread of disease, all they has to do was compile a form with a questionnaire which can then instantaneously be sent out across mobile networks, so data can be gathered from people on their phones.
The completed forms are then sent back to the authorities via the mobile phone network.
"If there is a vaccine shortage in a health facility 800km from Nairobi, this information is relayed in real time to the headquarters and sorted out very fast", said Dr Nguku.
In many countries, a lack of timely and accurate data is one of the greatest obstacles to overcoming long-standing public health challenges. The time taken to record epidemiological information can be slow when healthcare workers have only paper and pen to record which children have been immunized, or where vital stocks of medication have been sent.
"Paper is cumbersome, you have to carry it to wherever you are going, you have to photocopy it and enter the data.
"The EpiSurveyor programme in comparison with paper is much cheaper, better quality and easier to do", he added.
Making it mobile
As the mobile phone becomes commonplace even in many of the world's poorest countries, there is a new window of opportunity for technology to play a vital role in developing solutions to long-standing international development challenges.
"We just got back from Kenya where two weeks ago we did a field test of using Nokia mobile phones to do this kind of data collection," said Joel Selanikio, co-founder of DataDyne.org which designed the application.
"It is a huge step to be able to say we can both distribute the forms wirelessly and transmit the data back to some headquarters location wirelessly.
EpiSurveyor is an open-source application, so anyone can look at the computer code that has been used to create it and adapt it to their needs.
"Being open-source, I can tell you that the first time we got contacted by another organisation, who were not only calling us to ask how to use the software, but to say that they also had coding resources and they wanted to make some changes and would that be okay.
"We said that would be terrific and the fellow that I was speaking to said we could add those features and give me the modified code so that I could incorporate it into the general code base.
"We are hoping that as the implementation widens and the more people hear about it, the more people will contribute to the code base and improve EpiSurveyor", added Mr Selanikio.
Mobile technology has revolutionised the way contagious diseases are monitored in sub-Saharan Africa.
"I would encourage people to embrace technology," said Dr Nguku. "This is a programme that will help us do it better."
Health officials in Kenya used the life saving application, EpiSurveyor, after refugees fleeing violence in Somalia introduced the first case of polio into the country in more than 20 years.
The application can be downloaded onto handheld devices to log patients' symptoms and any treatment they receive.
Kenyan health workers modified the survey forms used by EpiSurveyor to track an emergency vaccination campaign and managed to stop a potential epidemic in its tracks.
EpiSurveyor has been funded by the United Nations and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership, which is using strategic technology programmes to strengthen UN humanitarian efforts worldwide. It is free to use and is run on an open-source basis.
The trial in Kenya has been so successful that this week the World Health Organisation has announced that it is expanding the project to another 20 countries in Africa.
Outbreak success
The BBC World Service's Digital Planet radio programme spoke to Dr Patrick Nguku from the Kenyan Health Ministry where the project has been piloted.
"In 2006 after 21 years of absence of polio in Kenya, we did confirm a case in our north eastern province and this was followed by massive immunisation campaigns to try and protect susceptible children.
"We used EpiSurveyor to basically control our supplies, monitor which areas needed to be vaccinated and the quick flow of information helped us in achieving very good results", he added.
When health authorities want to collate information on the spread of disease, all they has to do was compile a form with a questionnaire which can then instantaneously be sent out across mobile networks, so data can be gathered from people on their phones.
The completed forms are then sent back to the authorities via the mobile phone network.
"If there is a vaccine shortage in a health facility 800km from Nairobi, this information is relayed in real time to the headquarters and sorted out very fast", said Dr Nguku.
In many countries, a lack of timely and accurate data is one of the greatest obstacles to overcoming long-standing public health challenges. The time taken to record epidemiological information can be slow when healthcare workers have only paper and pen to record which children have been immunized, or where vital stocks of medication have been sent.
"Paper is cumbersome, you have to carry it to wherever you are going, you have to photocopy it and enter the data.
"The EpiSurveyor programme in comparison with paper is much cheaper, better quality and easier to do", he added.
Making it mobile
As the mobile phone becomes commonplace even in many of the world's poorest countries, there is a new window of opportunity for technology to play a vital role in developing solutions to long-standing international development challenges.
"We just got back from Kenya where two weeks ago we did a field test of using Nokia mobile phones to do this kind of data collection," said Joel Selanikio, co-founder of DataDyne.org which designed the application.
"It is a huge step to be able to say we can both distribute the forms wirelessly and transmit the data back to some headquarters location wirelessly.
EpiSurveyor is an open-source application, so anyone can look at the computer code that has been used to create it and adapt it to their needs.
"Being open-source, I can tell you that the first time we got contacted by another organisation, who were not only calling us to ask how to use the software, but to say that they also had coding resources and they wanted to make some changes and would that be okay.
"We said that would be terrific and the fellow that I was speaking to said we could add those features and give me the modified code so that I could incorporate it into the general code base.
"We are hoping that as the implementation widens and the more people hear about it, the more people will contribute to the code base and improve EpiSurveyor", added Mr Selanikio.
Mobile technology has revolutionised the way contagious diseases are monitored in sub-Saharan Africa.
"I would encourage people to embrace technology," said Dr Nguku. "This is a programme that will help us do it better."
Gaming - Stepping into the world of hurt - Warhammer
Anyone who has played role-playing games with pen, paper and dice over the last 25 years will be very familiar with the name Warhammer.
On 18 September the name will reach many who do not know it when its newest incarnation, the massively multiplayer version Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (WAR), is officially launched.
At first blush the PC game, set in the same quasi-medieval setting of the Warhammer fantasy world, resembles many other massively multiplayer online games (MMOs).
Playing it involves creating characters that carry out quests (go here, kill this, find that) that gradually turn a weakling into a hero.
Battle history
The current king of MMOs is World of Warcraft (WoW) which, its creators claim, has more than 10 million regular players.
Since WoW debuted in the US in 2004 many MMOs have been released and, so far, none have significantly dented its success.
But, said Paul Barnett, Preston-born creative director at WAR developer Mythic, much effort has gone into trying to make its title stand out.
The history of Warhammer itself, he said, has helped with this distinctiveness. Warhammer started out as a rule set for those who run tabletop fantasy battles with miniatures.
In the 25 years since that debut Warhammer has expanded to become many different things, but Mr Barnett said, it had retained its Britishness and that feel has been carried over in to the online game.
"It's got that British sensibility, that essence of Englishness running right through it," he said.
Mr Barnett explained that the different races in the games were based on cliched conceptions of certain types of British people.
He said orcs were essentially football hooligans that have no long-term plans and like hitting things, usually other people, with sticks. Dwarves were a crude caricature of Northerners in that they live down mines, drink beer and have no money. High elves were posh Brits and their arch-rivals, the dark elves, were posh folk that have taken lots of drugs. "Think Byron," said Mr Barnett.
Fight to live
The WAR game world is based around endless and eternal conflict between the humans, dwarves and high-elves on one side and on the other dark elves, greenskins (orcs and goblins) and humans corrupted by chaos
By coming late to the MMO space WAR has also been able to spot and do away with some of the drudgery or grind that seems to go hand-in-hand with many online games.
"We tried to take the suck out of it," he said. "It's got the greatest hits of MMOs - 80% of what you know but 20% is new."
Ditched in WAR has been item damage which sees weapons and armour degrade in quality as they are used until they break. Also gone is the need to ghost run from a graveyard back to a corpse when a character is killed. From the start everyone also gets a bag big enough to hold all the loot they gather.
The novel elements in WAR were aimed at the players that, before now, many games have failed to cater to.
Work done by game designer Richard Bartle in 1996 likened the different types of players to the suits in a deck of cards, said Mr Barnett.
Hearts are those that are all about socialising and grouping in guilds or on quests. Diamonds care about treasure and finding stuff in a game. Spades are all about digging deep into the lore and rules. Clubs are those that like hitting people with one.
"What WoW tends to be is a very heavy club game," he said. "It's become so big and dominant that all games go that way.
"But the other suits? That's pretty much where we have gone."
By concentrating on the club-type player WoW resembled a single-player game that many people just happen to play at the same time, said Mr Barnett.
Play together
By contrast, he said, WAR aimed to reward people for grouping together and helping their faction achieve its aims
Characters carrying out quests in their zone contribute to the overall effort of all the players in their faction to beat back opposing forces. Sufficient success by one side gives control of that region or realm to one side and earns rewards for those that helped, said Mr Barnett.
Many of the quests in the game are known as public quests open to a small number of players at the same time. They are a quick way for small groups of players to band together to achieve a small objective - be that defeating successive waves of invaders or a marauding dragon.
Players that join guilds will be able to claim territory and build strongholds that they will then have to defend from other players and computer-controlled forces. Their success or failure will contribute to those larger regional, or realm-versus-realm, conflicts.
The idea, he said, was to encourage people to join up to complete a common goal - often in defiance of their natural instincts.
"Many people are very nervous about playing other human beings," he said. "Our rewards are for grouping and doing things for people. That's what public quests and the realm-versus-realm conflict is built on."
Also, he said, anyone playing WAR did not have to wait until they get a very powerful character before they can join in the group quests or feel like they are contributing to a bigger objective than just killing a few orcs or dwarves.
WoW and many other MMOs, said Mr Barnett, were all about taking a character to the most highest level, aka levelling, so they can survive in the tough dungeons where the best loot is found.
These locations are off limits to weaker characters and those that tackle them often run through them many times to perfect their raiding abilities.
"WoW is making levelling faster and faster," he said. "The end game is the overall aim of playing. But an MMO should not be about having people play one style and getting to the end and then having to learn another style to keep playing."
The constant conflict of a world at war means that there was no closing section for WAR, said Mr Barnett.
"WAR is a 10 year project," he said. "We do not have an endgame - we have an endless game."
On 18 September the name will reach many who do not know it when its newest incarnation, the massively multiplayer version Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (WAR), is officially launched.
At first blush the PC game, set in the same quasi-medieval setting of the Warhammer fantasy world, resembles many other massively multiplayer online games (MMOs).
Playing it involves creating characters that carry out quests (go here, kill this, find that) that gradually turn a weakling into a hero.
Battle history
The current king of MMOs is World of Warcraft (WoW) which, its creators claim, has more than 10 million regular players.
Since WoW debuted in the US in 2004 many MMOs have been released and, so far, none have significantly dented its success.
But, said Paul Barnett, Preston-born creative director at WAR developer Mythic, much effort has gone into trying to make its title stand out.
The history of Warhammer itself, he said, has helped with this distinctiveness. Warhammer started out as a rule set for those who run tabletop fantasy battles with miniatures.
In the 25 years since that debut Warhammer has expanded to become many different things, but Mr Barnett said, it had retained its Britishness and that feel has been carried over in to the online game.
"It's got that British sensibility, that essence of Englishness running right through it," he said.
Mr Barnett explained that the different races in the games were based on cliched conceptions of certain types of British people.
He said orcs were essentially football hooligans that have no long-term plans and like hitting things, usually other people, with sticks. Dwarves were a crude caricature of Northerners in that they live down mines, drink beer and have no money. High elves were posh Brits and their arch-rivals, the dark elves, were posh folk that have taken lots of drugs. "Think Byron," said Mr Barnett.
Fight to live
The WAR game world is based around endless and eternal conflict between the humans, dwarves and high-elves on one side and on the other dark elves, greenskins (orcs and goblins) and humans corrupted by chaos
By coming late to the MMO space WAR has also been able to spot and do away with some of the drudgery or grind that seems to go hand-in-hand with many online games.
"We tried to take the suck out of it," he said. "It's got the greatest hits of MMOs - 80% of what you know but 20% is new."
Ditched in WAR has been item damage which sees weapons and armour degrade in quality as they are used until they break. Also gone is the need to ghost run from a graveyard back to a corpse when a character is killed. From the start everyone also gets a bag big enough to hold all the loot they gather.
The novel elements in WAR were aimed at the players that, before now, many games have failed to cater to.
Work done by game designer Richard Bartle in 1996 likened the different types of players to the suits in a deck of cards, said Mr Barnett.
Hearts are those that are all about socialising and grouping in guilds or on quests. Diamonds care about treasure and finding stuff in a game. Spades are all about digging deep into the lore and rules. Clubs are those that like hitting people with one.
"What WoW tends to be is a very heavy club game," he said. "It's become so big and dominant that all games go that way.
"But the other suits? That's pretty much where we have gone."
By concentrating on the club-type player WoW resembled a single-player game that many people just happen to play at the same time, said Mr Barnett.
Play together
By contrast, he said, WAR aimed to reward people for grouping together and helping their faction achieve its aims
Characters carrying out quests in their zone contribute to the overall effort of all the players in their faction to beat back opposing forces. Sufficient success by one side gives control of that region or realm to one side and earns rewards for those that helped, said Mr Barnett.
Many of the quests in the game are known as public quests open to a small number of players at the same time. They are a quick way for small groups of players to band together to achieve a small objective - be that defeating successive waves of invaders or a marauding dragon.
Players that join guilds will be able to claim territory and build strongholds that they will then have to defend from other players and computer-controlled forces. Their success or failure will contribute to those larger regional, or realm-versus-realm, conflicts.
The idea, he said, was to encourage people to join up to complete a common goal - often in defiance of their natural instincts.
"Many people are very nervous about playing other human beings," he said. "Our rewards are for grouping and doing things for people. That's what public quests and the realm-versus-realm conflict is built on."
Also, he said, anyone playing WAR did not have to wait until they get a very powerful character before they can join in the group quests or feel like they are contributing to a bigger objective than just killing a few orcs or dwarves.
WoW and many other MMOs, said Mr Barnett, were all about taking a character to the most highest level, aka levelling, so they can survive in the tough dungeons where the best loot is found.
These locations are off limits to weaker characters and those that tackle them often run through them many times to perfect their raiding abilities.
"WoW is making levelling faster and faster," he said. "The end game is the overall aim of playing. But an MMO should not be about having people play one style and getting to the end and then having to learn another style to keep playing."
The constant conflict of a world at war means that there was no closing section for WAR, said Mr Barnett.
"WAR is a 10 year project," he said. "We do not have an endgame - we have an endless game."
Health - Exercise 'can cut diabetes risk'
Woman at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes can increase their chances of staying healthy through exercise, according to a new study.
Researchers from Glasgow University found that insulin resistance in "high risk" women dropped by 22% after seven weeks of an exercise programme.
Insulin resistance is considered to be the most important biological risk factor for developing diabetes.
The British Heart Foundation (BHF) study will be published on Wednesday.
Dr Jason Gill, who heads the team that carried out the study, said: "The offspring of people with type 2 diabetes are about three times more likely to develop the disease than those with no family history of the disease.
"Not only is type 2 diabetes a very serious condition itself, but it can double or triple the risk of heart disease.
"In fact, more than two thirds of all people with diabetes will die from heart disease."
Dr Gill's team studied women between the age of 20 and 45 who usually did less than one hour of physical activity per week and had a sedentary job.
They tested 34 volunteers who had at least one type 2 diabetic parent against 36 volunteers whose parents had no history of the condition.
At the outset of the study the offspring of diabetics had higher
Researchers from Glasgow University found that insulin resistance in "high risk" women dropped by 22% after seven weeks of an exercise programme.
Insulin resistance is considered to be the most important biological risk factor for developing diabetes.
The British Heart Foundation (BHF) study will be published on Wednesday.
Dr Jason Gill, who heads the team that carried out the study, said: "The offspring of people with type 2 diabetes are about three times more likely to develop the disease than those with no family history of the disease.
"Not only is type 2 diabetes a very serious condition itself, but it can double or triple the risk of heart disease.
"In fact, more than two thirds of all people with diabetes will die from heart disease."
Dr Gill's team studied women between the age of 20 and 45 who usually did less than one hour of physical activity per week and had a sedentary job.
They tested 34 volunteers who had at least one type 2 diabetic parent against 36 volunteers whose parents had no history of the condition.
At the outset of the study the offspring of diabetics had higher