Chandra Ranganathan
CHENNAI: ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair got a royal welcome at the Sathyabhama Deemed University, which is hosting an international conference in space technology. Posters dotting the campus bore pictures of a victorious looking Dr Nair with the slogan, "He is a great hero, India and abroad." A sign, perhaps, of how India's lunar mission Chandrayaan has captured the imagination of the youth and upped Isro's brand value. Dr Nair, instead, focuses on the relevance of Isro's future missions, its challenges and the management lessons that India Inc could glean from the state-run space agency. ET caught up with Dr Nair a day before the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) is ejected from the Chandrayaan satellite, following which the Indian flag will crash land on the moon, literally! Excerpts:
Can Chandrayaan be termed a complete success when the MIP lands?
No, it will still amount to 95% success since we have to map the moon’s surface for the next year and a half. Mineral mapping and surface feature mapping will be paramount. We can gauge 100% success only after that. The MIP has been scheduled for Friday evening, but we haven't slotted a time yet.
How are the Chandrayaan-II, solar and Mars missions progressing?
Chandrayaan-II will be launched in 2012. We will have a lander (a space vehicle that is designed to land) on it and will drop a small robot on the moon. The robot will pick up samples and analyse and send the data back. For the solar mission, a satellite called Adithya will study solar emissions and its influence. The design has been completed and the launch will happen within two years. We are also going ahead with the study on the Mars mission.
What’s the need of a Rs 12,000-crore human space flight?
We cannot be lagging behind in our capability to access space. China, the US and Japan are going ahead with huge plans for space exploration. There are some processes involved and we will get the government’s approval consequently. The manned mission is slated for 2015.
So, is this more about national prestige? You've mentioned before that advanced scientific instruments can perform better than humans in space.
We don't want to get into a space war. There are certain functions that only humans can carry out. For example, there will be emissions or radiation, which occur when a new star is being formed or some collection in space takes place. If we wait for this information to be scanned and obtained on the ground and then react, the opportunity will be missed. On the other hand, if a person is sitting behind the instrument, he can capture it and react properly. We are putting many spacecraft, which have a shelf life of five-ten years, into orbit.
These machines will be limited by components like fuel. If we send a person with repairs kits, the life of these satellites can be extended. Also, a man could help in close observation and activation of mechanisms to keep the space free of debris.
When will space research and technology be completely opened up for private players?
We are open to their involvement. It's only for the private sector to wake up and catch up.
There has been a lot of mention about the management lessons that one can glean from the moon mission and Isro.
At Isro, there is no formal hierarchical structure wherein commands are transmitted from top to bottom. One can always think of an ideal solution that will bring perfection but we look for solutions that can be implemented in a timely and cost-effective manner.
When you break an issue into many components and divide responsibility, there is no complex issue that you cannot overcome. We exploit the expertise of every individual, like what Lord Rama did with the squirrel. We try to tap all the bits and pieces and that's how Chandrayaan like missions are accomplished.
Nov 15, 2008
Business - India;IT cos finetune HR code
Shelley Singh
NEW DELHI: Here's some good news for techies: despite the global market slump, they are not being handed out pink slips - at least for now, by big
players. However, for experienced professionals, retaining jobs and getting jobs may get tougher.
Call it tweaking the IT HR code, but here are some innovative steps that companies are taking to fight slowdown blues. Employee utilisation rates are up, the number of lateral hires is down, the number of campus hires has slowed down and wage hikes barely match inflation rate. That apart, companies are trying hard to develop a non-linear growth model, which seeks to delink revenue growth from manpower growth.
IT services companies insist that the focus will be on productivity increases and how best they can squeeze out more from their employees. For fresh engineers, this could translate into more time at work than play. And it could be bad news for experienced guys looking to jump jobs, as companies curb lateral intake. Also, freshers who just got campus offers may be asked to wait longer before they can report for either training or work.
"Companies continue to hire, though at slower rates," says Nasscom president Som Mittal. Employee utilisation rates have gone up by 4-5% across the industry while wage hikes were limited to around 8-11%.
The largest IT services company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), plans to hire 30,000-35,000 this fiscal (out of this it has already hired 18,000), but is expanding the employee base to add more entry level staff rather than hire laterally. This simply means that while there may be some jobs for freshers, the experienced guys will find the going tough.
"Strategically, we are looking to expand the employee pyramid base which implies that at least 60% of our recruitment will constitute entry level (technical campus) hiring, up from 47% last fiscal. Lateral hires will be driven by need for specific technology skills and domain expertise," says TCS vice-president & head of global HR Ajoy Mukerjee.
Ditto for Satyam Computer Services which sees a dip in campus hires from 16,800 last fiscal to around 10,000-12,000 this year while curbing lateral hires. "We are being more conservative on lateral hiring. We will take in lateral hires only for high-value work," says Satyam global head for HR SV Krishnan.
Satyam's employee utilisation rate for offshore work was 80% and onsite 96% for the last quarter. And for TCS, the utilisation rate was 81.1%
(excluding trainees) in Q2 FY09, up from 78.3% in the first quarter of this fiscal. For Infosys Technologies, it remained in the 73-75% band over the past 12 months. HCL Technologies' utilisation went up from 71% last year to 74% this year. For Wipro Technologies, it's close to 80%.
As far as hiring freshers is concerned, most companies maintain that they will stick to the offers already made at campuses. Though the joining dates of new recruits could be deferred depending on the market situation. "We are taking people in small batches and have not deferred as yet. But lateral hires are on the decline, as the focus is on enhancing employee utilisation from the existing bench," says Pratik Kumar, EVP, HR, Wipro.
Another aspect is the focus on a non-linear growth model. "We continue to look at a non-linear growth model with increased focus on enhancing employee productivity and strategic growth initiatives like asset leveraged solutions, platform-based BPO solutions, SMB solutions as well other new initiatives," says Mr Mukerjee of TCS.
Most companies have talked about delinking revenue growth from manpower growth, but are yet to make this shift significantly. For employees, it is tough times ahead, with performance being very closely monitored. For average to low performers, the coming quarters could see retaining jobs becoming tough, particularly if companies see new contracts difficult to come by.
NEW DELHI: Here's some good news for techies: despite the global market slump, they are not being handed out pink slips - at least for now, by big
players. However, for experienced professionals, retaining jobs and getting jobs may get tougher.
Call it tweaking the IT HR code, but here are some innovative steps that companies are taking to fight slowdown blues. Employee utilisation rates are up, the number of lateral hires is down, the number of campus hires has slowed down and wage hikes barely match inflation rate. That apart, companies are trying hard to develop a non-linear growth model, which seeks to delink revenue growth from manpower growth.
IT services companies insist that the focus will be on productivity increases and how best they can squeeze out more from their employees. For fresh engineers, this could translate into more time at work than play. And it could be bad news for experienced guys looking to jump jobs, as companies curb lateral intake. Also, freshers who just got campus offers may be asked to wait longer before they can report for either training or work.
"Companies continue to hire, though at slower rates," says Nasscom president Som Mittal. Employee utilisation rates have gone up by 4-5% across the industry while wage hikes were limited to around 8-11%.
The largest IT services company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), plans to hire 30,000-35,000 this fiscal (out of this it has already hired 18,000), but is expanding the employee base to add more entry level staff rather than hire laterally. This simply means that while there may be some jobs for freshers, the experienced guys will find the going tough.
"Strategically, we are looking to expand the employee pyramid base which implies that at least 60% of our recruitment will constitute entry level (technical campus) hiring, up from 47% last fiscal. Lateral hires will be driven by need for specific technology skills and domain expertise," says TCS vice-president & head of global HR Ajoy Mukerjee.
Ditto for Satyam Computer Services which sees a dip in campus hires from 16,800 last fiscal to around 10,000-12,000 this year while curbing lateral hires. "We are being more conservative on lateral hiring. We will take in lateral hires only for high-value work," says Satyam global head for HR SV Krishnan.
Satyam's employee utilisation rate for offshore work was 80% and onsite 96% for the last quarter. And for TCS, the utilisation rate was 81.1%
(excluding trainees) in Q2 FY09, up from 78.3% in the first quarter of this fiscal. For Infosys Technologies, it remained in the 73-75% band over the past 12 months. HCL Technologies' utilisation went up from 71% last year to 74% this year. For Wipro Technologies, it's close to 80%.
As far as hiring freshers is concerned, most companies maintain that they will stick to the offers already made at campuses. Though the joining dates of new recruits could be deferred depending on the market situation. "We are taking people in small batches and have not deferred as yet. But lateral hires are on the decline, as the focus is on enhancing employee utilisation from the existing bench," says Pratik Kumar, EVP, HR, Wipro.
Another aspect is the focus on a non-linear growth model. "We continue to look at a non-linear growth model with increased focus on enhancing employee productivity and strategic growth initiatives like asset leveraged solutions, platform-based BPO solutions, SMB solutions as well other new initiatives," says Mr Mukerjee of TCS.
Most companies have talked about delinking revenue growth from manpower growth, but are yet to make this shift significantly. For employees, it is tough times ahead, with performance being very closely monitored. For average to low performers, the coming quarters could see retaining jobs becoming tough, particularly if companies see new contracts difficult to come by.
World - Bush grants visa-free travel to citizens of 7 nations
WASHINGTON: US President George Bush has granted visa-free travel to the citizens of seven countries, namely Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, South Korea, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, to his country.
The President said that the US enjoyed "good, tight relations and co-operation" with the countries exempted.
"These close friends of America told me that it was unfair their people had to jump through bureaucratic hoops that other allies can walk around," the Daily Times quoted Bush as saying while announcing the decision.
Meanwhile, six European Union nations - Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Romania, and Poland - however, will remain outside the scheme, for the time being, added the paper.
The President said that the US enjoyed "good, tight relations and co-operation" with the countries exempted.
"These close friends of America told me that it was unfair their people had to jump through bureaucratic hoops that other allies can walk around," the Daily Times quoted Bush as saying while announcing the decision.
Meanwhile, six European Union nations - Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Romania, and Poland - however, will remain outside the scheme, for the time being, added the paper.
India - PSUs wooing B-School Grads
Dheeraj Tiwari
NEW DELHI: While private sector companies are cutting extra flab to cope with economic slowdown, the government is chalking out an attractive
package for B-school students to join public sector undertakings (PSUs). The department of public enterprises (DPE) will soon unveil an internship scheme to attract talent from BSchools. The exercise is also aimed at familiarising these students with the work culture in the government owned companies.
The DPE will soon invite applications from students in B-schools, post graduate and research students and those pursuing chartered accountancy. The internship period will require the students to work within the different departments of the nodal agency, DPE and various PSUs. Recently, Steel Authority of India (SAIL) had inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with IIM-Ahmedabad to meet its human resource requirements in wake of its modernisation and expansion programme.
“There is a vast talent pool in our top colleges who are reluctant to join PSUs because they feel that PSUs don’t offer competitive pay packages and challenging work atmosphere. The students who will join us for the internship period will have a better knowledge of the working of the government owned companies and thus allay the misconception about them,” said a senior official in the department of public enterprises.
The DPE will be soon contacting the top B-Schools including the IIMs and associations like the Institute of Cost and Work Accountants of India (ICWAI) for sending a list of the students who are interested to work with the nodal agency. The interns will be allocated to the various departments and PSUs as per their preferences. “The interns will be fully involved with the functioning of the public enterprises . They’ll be given exposure in process of public enterprises survey, finalisation of MoU signed between different PSUs and their administrative ministries and other functions of the department,” the official said.
NEW DELHI: While private sector companies are cutting extra flab to cope with economic slowdown, the government is chalking out an attractive
package for B-school students to join public sector undertakings (PSUs). The department of public enterprises (DPE) will soon unveil an internship scheme to attract talent from BSchools. The exercise is also aimed at familiarising these students with the work culture in the government owned companies.
The DPE will soon invite applications from students in B-schools, post graduate and research students and those pursuing chartered accountancy. The internship period will require the students to work within the different departments of the nodal agency, DPE and various PSUs. Recently, Steel Authority of India (SAIL) had inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with IIM-Ahmedabad to meet its human resource requirements in wake of its modernisation and expansion programme.
“There is a vast talent pool in our top colleges who are reluctant to join PSUs because they feel that PSUs don’t offer competitive pay packages and challenging work atmosphere. The students who will join us for the internship period will have a better knowledge of the working of the government owned companies and thus allay the misconception about them,” said a senior official in the department of public enterprises.
The DPE will be soon contacting the top B-Schools including the IIMs and associations like the Institute of Cost and Work Accountants of India (ICWAI) for sending a list of the students who are interested to work with the nodal agency. The interns will be allocated to the various departments and PSUs as per their preferences. “The interns will be fully involved with the functioning of the public enterprises . They’ll be given exposure in process of public enterprises survey, finalisation of MoU signed between different PSUs and their administrative ministries and other functions of the department,” the official said.
India - No credit cards for staff of airline,finance & realty cos
Niranjan Bharati & Rajat Guha
NEW DELHI: If you run a start-up or work in a finance company or are on the rolls of an airline or small-time realtor and want a new credit card, Bad times
chances are you may not get one. Banks are summarily rejecting credit card applications from people working in these sectors, as the deteriorating financial health of their industries and the economic downturn makes them less creditworthy.
“Several employees of my company, including me, have had credit card applications rejected. Last month, many credit card requests were turned down by different banks,” said an employee with a major New Delhi-based finance company, requesting anonymity.
The Indian arm of HSBC recently tightened its credit approval mechanism for people working for non-bank finance companies (NBFCs) and real estate companies. “HSBC monitors and reviews the policies governing its lending business and the risk factors that relate to its various products as a matter of routine, regularly,” the bank said in an e-mailed response.
The UK-based bank is not alone. Both state-run and private banks are making their credit criteria more stringent, expanding the so-called `negative list’ of applicant profiles who are denied credit. A large Mumbai-based public sector bank has stopped extending credit to small entrepreneurs, while a private bank has an even stricter scrutiny for applications from employees of airlines and call centre firms.
Until recently, the negative list of banks tended to feature reporters, lawyers, chartered accountants and junior level police and armed forces personnel, but that list is now expanding even though the law prohibits banks from denying credit to anybody based on one’s profession. But for a banking sector keen to protect itself from rising bad debts in a slowing economy and increasing job losses, this law may be difficult to follow.
NEW DELHI: If you run a start-up or work in a finance company or are on the rolls of an airline or small-time realtor and want a new credit card, Bad times
chances are you may not get one. Banks are summarily rejecting credit card applications from people working in these sectors, as the deteriorating financial health of their industries and the economic downturn makes them less creditworthy.
“Several employees of my company, including me, have had credit card applications rejected. Last month, many credit card requests were turned down by different banks,” said an employee with a major New Delhi-based finance company, requesting anonymity.
The Indian arm of HSBC recently tightened its credit approval mechanism for people working for non-bank finance companies (NBFCs) and real estate companies. “HSBC monitors and reviews the policies governing its lending business and the risk factors that relate to its various products as a matter of routine, regularly,” the bank said in an e-mailed response.
The UK-based bank is not alone. Both state-run and private banks are making their credit criteria more stringent, expanding the so-called `negative list’ of applicant profiles who are denied credit. A large Mumbai-based public sector bank has stopped extending credit to small entrepreneurs, while a private bank has an even stricter scrutiny for applications from employees of airlines and call centre firms.
Until recently, the negative list of banks tended to feature reporters, lawyers, chartered accountants and junior level police and armed forces personnel, but that list is now expanding even though the law prohibits banks from denying credit to anybody based on one’s profession. But for a banking sector keen to protect itself from rising bad debts in a slowing economy and increasing job losses, this law may be difficult to follow.
Health - Fat ain't cute
How many times have we seen more-than-chubby-children, pulled their cheeks lovingly, and exclaimed, "How cute!" It's time for a reality check.
Childhood obesity is on a rapid rise in this country, in keeping with an unhealthy global trend: in 2007, an estimated 22 million children under the age of five years were overweight according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and more are expected to join the obese club.
In an alarming report presented this week by the American Heart Association, the thickness of the artery walls of teenagers who are obese were reported to resemble the thickness of an average 45-year-old's artery walls. In other words, evidence was presented that obese children show early warning signs of heart disease. Childhood obesity is also linked to other serious health complications including juvenile diabetes. We can no longer dismiss it as a problem of the West. We might not be grappling with a problem as huge as the US where childhood obesity is considered an epidemic or the UK. But trouble is knocking on our doors, as well as those of other developing countries like China, Brazil and Thailand.
A recent `Indian Pediatrics' report makes this point. Unlike in much of the West, where childhood obesity is more prevalent among low-income groups, in India it is a malaise that afflicts the better off. The prevalence of obesity is higher in the upper socio-economic class (4.8 per cent) as compared to the lower socio-economic class (1 per cent). In urban Delhi, about 37 per cent of children are either overweight or obese. Medical experts attribute the weighty troubles of developing countries to changed dietary habits read an overdose of fast and processed foods and a steep drop in levels of physical activity.
An unhealthy diet is partly a function of the greater access and choice that the expanding middle class has. And partly because of the compulsions of modern urban life, where both parents often work and prefer quick and easy processed food options rather than cooking every meal from scratch. City children today are also more inclined to spend leisure as couch or mouse potatoes, which does not help in the battle against the bulge. Concerted efforts involving schools, families and government to tackle juvenile obesity are in order. For a start, policymakers must invest in educating parents, especially mothers, about the perils of childhood obesity. And it would be of immense help if we, as a society, got over our peculiar proclivity to associate overweight especially when it concerns children with 'well-fed' and 'healthy'.
Childhood obesity is on a rapid rise in this country, in keeping with an unhealthy global trend: in 2007, an estimated 22 million children under the age of five years were overweight according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and more are expected to join the obese club.
In an alarming report presented this week by the American Heart Association, the thickness of the artery walls of teenagers who are obese were reported to resemble the thickness of an average 45-year-old's artery walls. In other words, evidence was presented that obese children show early warning signs of heart disease. Childhood obesity is also linked to other serious health complications including juvenile diabetes. We can no longer dismiss it as a problem of the West. We might not be grappling with a problem as huge as the US where childhood obesity is considered an epidemic or the UK. But trouble is knocking on our doors, as well as those of other developing countries like China, Brazil and Thailand.
A recent `Indian Pediatrics' report makes this point. Unlike in much of the West, where childhood obesity is more prevalent among low-income groups, in India it is a malaise that afflicts the better off. The prevalence of obesity is higher in the upper socio-economic class (4.8 per cent) as compared to the lower socio-economic class (1 per cent). In urban Delhi, about 37 per cent of children are either overweight or obese. Medical experts attribute the weighty troubles of developing countries to changed dietary habits read an overdose of fast and processed foods and a steep drop in levels of physical activity.
An unhealthy diet is partly a function of the greater access and choice that the expanding middle class has. And partly because of the compulsions of modern urban life, where both parents often work and prefer quick and easy processed food options rather than cooking every meal from scratch. City children today are also more inclined to spend leisure as couch or mouse potatoes, which does not help in the battle against the bulge. Concerted efforts involving schools, families and government to tackle juvenile obesity are in order. For a start, policymakers must invest in educating parents, especially mothers, about the perils of childhood obesity. And it would be of immense help if we, as a society, got over our peculiar proclivity to associate overweight especially when it concerns children with 'well-fed' and 'healthy'.
Tech - Sony Xperia X1: A review
What kind of smart phone can Rs 44,500 buy? The luxe Xperia X1 from Sony Ericsson. At this price, it probably appeals only to recession-resistant gadget lovers, but it says something about what some gadget makers think the rest of us would want if money were no object.
Here's reviewing the new iPhone rival on the block.
Straight Specs
Out of the box, the device is pure eye candy, with a black or silver metal-and-plastic body, crisp 3-inch touch screen and slightly curved QWERTY keyboard that slides out smoothly with a satisfying click. The X1 has minimal included memory, so you'll need a sizable microSD card if you want to access lots of songs, videos and photos on it; I used a 4 gigabyte card during my testing, which was enough for plenty of content.
But even before I turned it on, I started to get nervous about the whopping number of choices I'd have to make. I felt more confused about the phone's operations than excited about the freedom to use it as I pleased.
11 buttons & a joystick
There is assortment of 11 buttons on the X1's face, including a center button that can select items or work as an optical joystick, which scrolls with a finger swipe. I often used the buttons for starting and ending phone calls, but tended to forget about the rest of the controls, including the joystick.
Beyond the button bounty, you can navigate the X1 by tapping its screen with your finger or with a stylus. The stylus was often the best way to go, as the device's many options are often presented in small text that is difficult to accurately jab at with an index finger.
Customised Apps
The X1 uses Windows Mobile 6.1 as its operating system, but Sony Ericsson developed a variety of customised enhancements that run on top of it. Most notable is the stylish panel interface, which consists of up to nine small rectangles you can customise and use to view different applications or media on the device in different ways.
The panel idea is cool, and it's a nice way to differentiate the X1 from the slew of touchscreen phones that have been released this year, since each rectangle leads to a variety of options, instead of just a single application. I used panels for conducting Google searches, listening to the built-in FM radio and checking out the songs and videos I stored on the X1.
However, the panel interface still sits atop Windows Mobile, which offers its own methods for listening to tunes or watching videos. I couldn't understand why anyone would want so many options.
Business Mail
That said, the inclusion of Windows Mobile does mean that if you're familiar with it you won't have much trouble navigating the X1 once you find and click the "Start" tab in the upper right corner of one of the panels.
Business users can synchronise the phone with their PCs and get e-mail from their Microsoft Outlook account pushed straight to the phone -- something that can make it difficult to switch to a more consumer-friendly phone like the iPhone or the G1, which uses Google Inc's Android operating system.
Better resolution than iPhone
And there are several cool features on the X1. Though the iPhone has a larger screen, the X1's touch screen sports a sharper resolution. As such, videos look quite good. You can also stream some content from the Internet, such as videos from YouTube, and adjust video sizes to make lesser-quality clips look more palatable.
The X1 also has a standard headphone jack, which is becoming increasingly common on smart phones and makes a big difference to music fans like myself.
Surfing the Web is easy on the X1, and, as with videos, online content looks very good on the screen. The phone includes the Internet Explorer Mobile and Opera Mobile browsers, and I did appreciate having more than one option here.
The built-in 3.2 megapixel camera takes good photos and can also be used for videos. The phone also has a video calling option.
Applications Slow
Mail to friend
Still, my issues with the X1 often overshadowed the fun. Many times it seemed fairly slow to open applications or complete actions, displaying the multicolored Windows processing icon while I waited.
Even without slowdown, it usually took me several steps to complete a simple action. When I wanted to change the panels on the device, I had to click a little tools icon, click the panel I wanted to change, click it again to confirm I really did want to alter it, choose a new panel, and click again to select it. After all this clicking, I could barely remember what I was trying to do in the first place.
The X1 is a gorgeous device. But even if you can afford it, dealing with its overabundance of choices would, in the words of Dewey Finn from "School of Rock," test your head and your mind and your brain, too.
-- AP
Here's reviewing the new iPhone rival on the block.
Straight Specs
Out of the box, the device is pure eye candy, with a black or silver metal-and-plastic body, crisp 3-inch touch screen and slightly curved QWERTY keyboard that slides out smoothly with a satisfying click. The X1 has minimal included memory, so you'll need a sizable microSD card if you want to access lots of songs, videos and photos on it; I used a 4 gigabyte card during my testing, which was enough for plenty of content.
But even before I turned it on, I started to get nervous about the whopping number of choices I'd have to make. I felt more confused about the phone's operations than excited about the freedom to use it as I pleased.
11 buttons & a joystick
There is assortment of 11 buttons on the X1's face, including a center button that can select items or work as an optical joystick, which scrolls with a finger swipe. I often used the buttons for starting and ending phone calls, but tended to forget about the rest of the controls, including the joystick.
Beyond the button bounty, you can navigate the X1 by tapping its screen with your finger or with a stylus. The stylus was often the best way to go, as the device's many options are often presented in small text that is difficult to accurately jab at with an index finger.
Customised Apps
The X1 uses Windows Mobile 6.1 as its operating system, but Sony Ericsson developed a variety of customised enhancements that run on top of it. Most notable is the stylish panel interface, which consists of up to nine small rectangles you can customise and use to view different applications or media on the device in different ways.
The panel idea is cool, and it's a nice way to differentiate the X1 from the slew of touchscreen phones that have been released this year, since each rectangle leads to a variety of options, instead of just a single application. I used panels for conducting Google searches, listening to the built-in FM radio and checking out the songs and videos I stored on the X1.
However, the panel interface still sits atop Windows Mobile, which offers its own methods for listening to tunes or watching videos. I couldn't understand why anyone would want so many options.
Business Mail
That said, the inclusion of Windows Mobile does mean that if you're familiar with it you won't have much trouble navigating the X1 once you find and click the "Start" tab in the upper right corner of one of the panels.
Business users can synchronise the phone with their PCs and get e-mail from their Microsoft Outlook account pushed straight to the phone -- something that can make it difficult to switch to a more consumer-friendly phone like the iPhone or the G1, which uses Google Inc's Android operating system.
Better resolution than iPhone
And there are several cool features on the X1. Though the iPhone has a larger screen, the X1's touch screen sports a sharper resolution. As such, videos look quite good. You can also stream some content from the Internet, such as videos from YouTube, and adjust video sizes to make lesser-quality clips look more palatable.
The X1 also has a standard headphone jack, which is becoming increasingly common on smart phones and makes a big difference to music fans like myself.
Surfing the Web is easy on the X1, and, as with videos, online content looks very good on the screen. The phone includes the Internet Explorer Mobile and Opera Mobile browsers, and I did appreciate having more than one option here.
The built-in 3.2 megapixel camera takes good photos and can also be used for videos. The phone also has a video calling option.
Applications Slow
Mail to friend
Still, my issues with the X1 often overshadowed the fun. Many times it seemed fairly slow to open applications or complete actions, displaying the multicolored Windows processing icon while I waited.
Even without slowdown, it usually took me several steps to complete a simple action. When I wanted to change the panels on the device, I had to click a little tools icon, click the panel I wanted to change, click it again to confirm I really did want to alter it, choose a new panel, and click again to select it. After all this clicking, I could barely remember what I was trying to do in the first place.
The X1 is a gorgeous device. But even if you can afford it, dealing with its overabundance of choices would, in the words of Dewey Finn from "School of Rock," test your head and your mind and your brain, too.
-- AP
Science - Ancestors had babies with big heads
WASHINGTON: The fossil of a wide-hipped Homo erectus found in Ethiopia suggests females of the pre-human species swayed their hips as they walked Wide at the Waist: The fossil of a wide-hipped Homo erectus female, in Ethiopia.
and gave birth to relatively developed babies with big heads, researchers said.
The finding transforms thinking about some early human ancestors and evolution and suggests that helpless babies came along relatively late in the human lineage.
“We could look at this pelvis and then, using a series of measurements, we can calculate ... how big the baby’s head could be at birth,” said Scott Simpson, a paleontologist at Case Western Reserve University who worked on the study.
Writing in Science, Simpson and colleagues said the size and shape of the 1.2 million-year-old pelvis indicates that Homo erectus females had hips wider than those of modern human females and their infants were born with heads about 30% larger than previously calculated. “What this means is the offspring were not as helpless as a modern human,” he said.
“It is not coming out walking and talking. But it was probably capable of more advanced behaviour at a younger age like grasping, like sitting up ... than we would see in a modern human.”
An extended childhood is a particularly human characteristic. Helpless babies require intensive care, not from the mothers but from an extended group, which may have spurred the development of human society and culture. Homo erectus, Latin for “upright man”, arose in Africa 1.8 to 2 million years ago, migrating to Asia and Europe before becoming extinct about half a million years ago.
and gave birth to relatively developed babies with big heads, researchers said.
The finding transforms thinking about some early human ancestors and evolution and suggests that helpless babies came along relatively late in the human lineage.
“We could look at this pelvis and then, using a series of measurements, we can calculate ... how big the baby’s head could be at birth,” said Scott Simpson, a paleontologist at Case Western Reserve University who worked on the study.
Writing in Science, Simpson and colleagues said the size and shape of the 1.2 million-year-old pelvis indicates that Homo erectus females had hips wider than those of modern human females and their infants were born with heads about 30% larger than previously calculated. “What this means is the offspring were not as helpless as a modern human,” he said.
“It is not coming out walking and talking. But it was probably capable of more advanced behaviour at a younger age like grasping, like sitting up ... than we would see in a modern human.”
An extended childhood is a particularly human characteristic. Helpless babies require intensive care, not from the mothers but from an extended group, which may have spurred the development of human society and culture. Homo erectus, Latin for “upright man”, arose in Africa 1.8 to 2 million years ago, migrating to Asia and Europe before becoming extinct about half a million years ago.
Tech - Mind reading software ?
LONDON: In a landmark research, scientists in Netherlands have developed a mind-reading state-of-the-art software, which can decipher the sounds
being spoken to a person from scans of the listener’s brain.
The researchers led by Elia Formisano of Maastricht University, found that each speaker and each sound created a distinctive “neural fingerprint” in a listener’s auditory cortex, the brain region that deals with hearing. “This is the first study in which we can really distinguish two human voices, or two specific sounds,” Formisano said.
Neuroscientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track the brain activity of 7 people while they listened to three different speakers saying simple vowel sounds. This fingerprint was used to create rules that could decode future activity and determine both who is being listened to, and what they are saying, the New Scientist reported.
The researchers hope to match recent advances in using fMRI to identify what a person is looking at from their brain activity. Until now, the best mind-reading feats extended only to differentiating between different categories of sounds, such as human voices versus animal cries.
being spoken to a person from scans of the listener’s brain.
The researchers led by Elia Formisano of Maastricht University, found that each speaker and each sound created a distinctive “neural fingerprint” in a listener’s auditory cortex, the brain region that deals with hearing. “This is the first study in which we can really distinguish two human voices, or two specific sounds,” Formisano said.
Neuroscientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track the brain activity of 7 people while they listened to three different speakers saying simple vowel sounds. This fingerprint was used to create rules that could decode future activity and determine both who is being listened to, and what they are saying, the New Scientist reported.
The researchers hope to match recent advances in using fMRI to identify what a person is looking at from their brain activity. Until now, the best mind-reading feats extended only to differentiating between different categories of sounds, such as human voices versus animal cries.
India - Offers dip at IIM A summers
Kumar Manish & Vasundhara Vyas Mehta
AHMEDABAD: Day Zero of summer placement at Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) reflected the morose mood of the world market as the
number of recruiters and offers to students of 2008-2010 batch dipped by at least 50%.
The absence of excitement was palpable on the campus, although the hottest selling offers continued to be from I-banks and consultants, minus the top recruiter Lehman Brothers. Against 36 companies which showed up on Day Zero last year, this year there were less than 20 and against 120 offers made last year, this year only 50 came.
Among the recruiters on campus were a mix of investment banks and consultancy firms. These included Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, McKinsey and Co, The Boston Consulting Group, Deutsche Bank and Bain and Co. Most of the consultancies offered domestic placements but I-banks offered placements abroad, said one of the students. The placements abroad included projects in US, UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and other locations in Asia.
The other stark feature was that companies did not divulge stipends. Usually, stipends to be paid were disclosed when the offers are made. The buzz is that the lull in the market was showing in the placements. The senior batch is hoping that things will get better by the time of final placements.
AHMEDABAD: Day Zero of summer placement at Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) reflected the morose mood of the world market as the
number of recruiters and offers to students of 2008-2010 batch dipped by at least 50%.
The absence of excitement was palpable on the campus, although the hottest selling offers continued to be from I-banks and consultants, minus the top recruiter Lehman Brothers. Against 36 companies which showed up on Day Zero last year, this year there were less than 20 and against 120 offers made last year, this year only 50 came.
Among the recruiters on campus were a mix of investment banks and consultancy firms. These included Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, McKinsey and Co, The Boston Consulting Group, Deutsche Bank and Bain and Co. Most of the consultancies offered domestic placements but I-banks offered placements abroad, said one of the students. The placements abroad included projects in US, UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and other locations in Asia.
The other stark feature was that companies did not divulge stipends. Usually, stipends to be paid were disclosed when the offers are made. The buzz is that the lull in the market was showing in the placements. The senior batch is hoping that things will get better by the time of final placements.
World - Srilanka seizes Tiger stronghold
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's military said on Saturday that it had seized the entire western coast of the Indian Ocean island, capturing the strategic
Pooneryn area where Tamil Tiger rebels' artillery had kept soldiers at bay. ( Watch )
With the military controlling Pooneryn, a strategic spit of land that runs parallel to the neck of the northern Jaffna Peninsula across a narrow lagoon, it will soon be in a position to strike the rebel capital of Kilinochchi from three sides.
"We have completely taken over Pooneryn. We have gone up to the town, and control the roads from Pooneryn to Paranthan," military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. This now means that, for the first time since 1993, the government controls a land route all the way to a ferry that can easily bring supplies to Jaffna.
That should significantly cut the high cost of living for residents who, until now, got essential supplies by sea or air.
The defence ministry said on its website troops had encountered stiff resistance as they fought through marshlands south of Pooneryn and across the Paranthan junction overnight.
Previously, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had used heavy artillery to prevent two army divisions garrisoned on Jaffna from moving south toward Kilinochchi.
"We didn't find any artillery, because they must have taken those pieces away or hidden them," Nanayakkara said.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government threw out an ill-observed 2002 ceasefire in January. It accused the LTTE of using that truce to re-arm, and pledged to wipe out the rebels.
The LTTE, on US, EU and Indian terrorism lists, says it is fighting to create a separate homeland for minority Sri Lankan Tamils.
Many Tamils complain of marginalisation by governments led by the Sinhalese majority since independence from Britain in 1948.
Pooneryn area where Tamil Tiger rebels' artillery had kept soldiers at bay. ( Watch )
With the military controlling Pooneryn, a strategic spit of land that runs parallel to the neck of the northern Jaffna Peninsula across a narrow lagoon, it will soon be in a position to strike the rebel capital of Kilinochchi from three sides.
"We have completely taken over Pooneryn. We have gone up to the town, and control the roads from Pooneryn to Paranthan," military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. This now means that, for the first time since 1993, the government controls a land route all the way to a ferry that can easily bring supplies to Jaffna.
That should significantly cut the high cost of living for residents who, until now, got essential supplies by sea or air.
The defence ministry said on its website troops had encountered stiff resistance as they fought through marshlands south of Pooneryn and across the Paranthan junction overnight.
Previously, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had used heavy artillery to prevent two army divisions garrisoned on Jaffna from moving south toward Kilinochchi.
"We didn't find any artillery, because they must have taken those pieces away or hidden them," Nanayakkara said.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government threw out an ill-observed 2002 ceasefire in January. It accused the LTTE of using that truce to re-arm, and pledged to wipe out the rebels.
The LTTE, on US, EU and Indian terrorism lists, says it is fighting to create a separate homeland for minority Sri Lankan Tamils.
Many Tamils complain of marginalisation by governments led by the Sinhalese majority since independence from Britain in 1948.
HR - Networking Tactics
Joann Lublin
Fans of Bruce Mount sang his praises to BzzAgent before he applied to become vice-president of engineering of the Boston word-of-mouth marketer. In late June, the software-development manager asked nearly two dozen present and past colleagues to tout his abilities. “Even one sentence will help!” he assured them. Their testimonials ranged from a brief haiku to a multipage missive dubbing him “a freakin’ gold mine of knowledge, ingenuity and kindness”.
Mount’s creative approach “made him stand out”, recalls Rossana Y. de la Cruz, BzzAgent’s director of recruiting. He was the front-runner among 166 prospects. And though the firm ultimately promoted an insider, de la Cruz vows to consider him again for a relevant vacancy.
Unusual times demand unusual networking tactics. Most candidates find work through networking, surveys show. But in today’s dismal job market, many feel frustrated with standard strategies such as tapping friends for referrals.
Clients of Laurence J. Stybel, a Boston outplacement counsellor, fret that acquaintances ignore their aid requests because the contacts fear they may lose their jobs. Anxious about unemployment, people hoard knowledge about openings for themselves and closest friends. Networking “is perceived to be a zero-sum game”, the president of Stybel Peabody Lincolnshire says.
“The bar has been raised on what it takes to make networking work,” concurs Scott Allen, a consultant about online networking. “Virtual interaction allows us to create the illusion of networking by making electronic links with people” but online ties are “just a starting point”. “You still need some kind of relationship,” he says.
For job hunters who use networking websites such as LinkedIn.com, Allen favours a more sophisticated approach. When you invite someone to join you on LinkedIn, he proposes including a personalized offer of help, such as an introduction to a customer or a useful link.
In the real world, you can improve your networking by finding out whether key executives of potential employers will attend a trade group meeting and then scheduling encounters during the event, recommends Brandon Gutman, vice-president of business development at Battalia Winston International, a New York search firm. “Don’t expect to just show up and bump into these people,” he cautions.
Robb Leland wanted to move into mobile marketing, which involves targeting promotions at mobile devices. He identified three concerns that were listed on an industry association’s site as being registered for the group’s March conference. He then contacted officials at the companies, including Shira Simmonds, president and co-founder of Ping Media.
Seated beside each other at a seminar, they found common ground. “That’s why I’m here today,” says Leland, who joined Ping Media as senior business- development manager in September.
There are additional ways to network more effectively at events. “Be the only person like yourself in the room,” Stybel advises. For instance, he encourages human resource managers to attend local meetings of Financial Executives International and share their expertise. Because many HR executives report to chief financial officers, those who belong to that professional organization probably hear about promising HR positions.
An offbeat but memorable “elevator pitch” will also make you stand out in a crowd, says Lorraine Howell, a public-speaking trainer in Seattle.
Several years ago, Howell coached Wimsey Cherrington, a Seattle massage therapist who unearths hidden causes of chronic pain. The therapist was having trouble describing her speciality during gatherings of a women business owners’ group. “Networking wasn’t working at all,” Cherrington remembers. Things changed after she began calling herself “a body detective”. The catchy description “at least doubled my practice”, Cherrington says.
Still frustrated? Your network may know why. Ask friends, relatives and associates to anonymously assess your strengths and weaknesses through SurveyMonkey.com, an online polling tool, suggests Diane Darling, a Boston networking specialist. The gambit worked for her. Based on her SurveyMonkey feedback, she realized her artsy-looking purple suits hindered her career because she didn’t look “corporate”. The contacts “would have never told me this in person”, Darling says. She fixed her image by buying costly, classic business suits.
Fans of Bruce Mount sang his praises to BzzAgent before he applied to become vice-president of engineering of the Boston word-of-mouth marketer. In late June, the software-development manager asked nearly two dozen present and past colleagues to tout his abilities. “Even one sentence will help!” he assured them. Their testimonials ranged from a brief haiku to a multipage missive dubbing him “a freakin’ gold mine of knowledge, ingenuity and kindness”.
Mount’s creative approach “made him stand out”, recalls Rossana Y. de la Cruz, BzzAgent’s director of recruiting. He was the front-runner among 166 prospects. And though the firm ultimately promoted an insider, de la Cruz vows to consider him again for a relevant vacancy.
Unusual times demand unusual networking tactics. Most candidates find work through networking, surveys show. But in today’s dismal job market, many feel frustrated with standard strategies such as tapping friends for referrals.
Clients of Laurence J. Stybel, a Boston outplacement counsellor, fret that acquaintances ignore their aid requests because the contacts fear they may lose their jobs. Anxious about unemployment, people hoard knowledge about openings for themselves and closest friends. Networking “is perceived to be a zero-sum game”, the president of Stybel Peabody Lincolnshire says.
“The bar has been raised on what it takes to make networking work,” concurs Scott Allen, a consultant about online networking. “Virtual interaction allows us to create the illusion of networking by making electronic links with people” but online ties are “just a starting point”. “You still need some kind of relationship,” he says.
For job hunters who use networking websites such as LinkedIn.com, Allen favours a more sophisticated approach. When you invite someone to join you on LinkedIn, he proposes including a personalized offer of help, such as an introduction to a customer or a useful link.
In the real world, you can improve your networking by finding out whether key executives of potential employers will attend a trade group meeting and then scheduling encounters during the event, recommends Brandon Gutman, vice-president of business development at Battalia Winston International, a New York search firm. “Don’t expect to just show up and bump into these people,” he cautions.
Robb Leland wanted to move into mobile marketing, which involves targeting promotions at mobile devices. He identified three concerns that were listed on an industry association’s site as being registered for the group’s March conference. He then contacted officials at the companies, including Shira Simmonds, president and co-founder of Ping Media.
Seated beside each other at a seminar, they found common ground. “That’s why I’m here today,” says Leland, who joined Ping Media as senior business- development manager in September.
There are additional ways to network more effectively at events. “Be the only person like yourself in the room,” Stybel advises. For instance, he encourages human resource managers to attend local meetings of Financial Executives International and share their expertise. Because many HR executives report to chief financial officers, those who belong to that professional organization probably hear about promising HR positions.
An offbeat but memorable “elevator pitch” will also make you stand out in a crowd, says Lorraine Howell, a public-speaking trainer in Seattle.
Several years ago, Howell coached Wimsey Cherrington, a Seattle massage therapist who unearths hidden causes of chronic pain. The therapist was having trouble describing her speciality during gatherings of a women business owners’ group. “Networking wasn’t working at all,” Cherrington remembers. Things changed after she began calling herself “a body detective”. The catchy description “at least doubled my practice”, Cherrington says.
Still frustrated? Your network may know why. Ask friends, relatives and associates to anonymously assess your strengths and weaknesses through SurveyMonkey.com, an online polling tool, suggests Diane Darling, a Boston networking specialist. The gambit worked for her. Based on her SurveyMonkey feedback, she realized her artsy-looking purple suits hindered her career because she didn’t look “corporate”. The contacts “would have never told me this in person”, Darling says. She fixed her image by buying costly, classic business suits.
Books - Review;Between the Assassinations;Aravind Adiga
Chandrahas Choudhury
This year’s Booker Prize winner takes us once again into a savage and cruel India.
In one of the stories of Aravind Adiga’s Between the Assassinations, a book that follows his Booker Prize-winning The White Tiger but was apparently written before it, we see a quack sexologist, Ratnakara Shetty, on his way to the dargah to sell his goods. As he approaches the site he comes across the familiar Indian melee of pathetic supplicants—beggars, lepers, the handicapped, including one especially grotesque specimen with a stump of a leg and “little brown stubs like a seal’s flippers” for arms. Ratnakara Shetty leaves behind this “sorrowful parade of humanity” and walks on. Soon he is surrounded by yet another group that throbs with pain and despair: those afflicted by venereal disease.
Ratnakara Shetty’s story appears late enough in Adiga’s book for us to realize that Shetty himself is part of a “sorrowful parade of humanity” of protagonists, all of whom are denizens of Kittur, a fictional south Indian town. The two assassinations of the (striking and attractive) title are those of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and her son Rajiv in 1991, and the book is an intense examination—indeed an interrogation—of a small Indian town of the 1980s: its languages, its mores, its diversity of caste, class and religion, and the many hierarchies within and between them, its white and black economies, the way its geography reveals its history, and the human encounters and non-encounters that determine the texture of its everyday life.
On a map of India Kittur would only be a finger-joint away from R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi, but the savagery of Adiga’s material and his slashing style make for an atmosphere worlds away from the older writer’s gentler ironies and greater tolerance for life’s injustices. Adiga’s great theme is power relations—between rich and poor, master and servant, high caste and low caste, majority and minority—and, as a consequence of these relations, moral perversion and subaltern rage.
All but a couple of the stories in his book are mounted on this kind of tableau of social and economic injustice, and draw their energy from its tensions. A recurring gesture in them is one person bowing before another with folded hands, feeding the power and arrogance of another with servility so as to stay afloat. Adiga’s protagonists differ from each other on the scale of their reactions to a callous and perverted system. The stories dramatize a range of responses from resigned acceptance to, even complicity with, the established order, to seething impotence and maddening rage.
Some of the stories, particularly those in the first half of the book, work very well because of the depth of Adiga’s characterization of both person and place (and Kittur is the real protagonist of his work). Adiga’s grasp of the contours of the world he is mapping seems much surer here than in The White Tiger, which posited a facile binary vision of “the Light” and “the Darkness” in 21st century India. An attractive feature of his work is the verbal tics he gives to his characters, as if to suggest that where human relations are out of joint, language too must always keep fumbling for meaning.
Ziauddin, the small, dark, chubby tea shop boy of the opening story, is always declaring his virtue and protesting his innocence in an adult world that both bullies him and laughs at him. At the bottom of Kittur’s social scale, he keeps having to insist that Muslims “don’t do hanky-panky”, and whenever someone misbehaves with him he uses exactly the same words to rebuke them. Mr Lasrado, an ineffectual teacher in a boy’s school, cannot pronounce “f”, and keeps addressing the other Jesuits as “Pather”. When the boys engineer a small explosion in his class, Lasrado’s rage has its sting drawn out by his cry of “You Puckers! Puckers!”
As is evident from these examples, Adiga’s style unites anger with incapacity, with grotesquerie. On several occasions, his characters are compared to animals, from the prisoner who leads his captors by the handcuffs, “like a fellow taking two monkeys on a walk”, to a prospective groom who is so deferential he seems “more the family’s domestic pet than the scion”. The story about Ratnakara Shetty burns with images of male genitals blackened, withered, gnawed away by disease. All these seem physical symbols of a universe in which so much is wrong, and yet the view from the top is that nothing is.
The cogency of Adiga’s anger is only weakened, even cheapened, by repetition. As his book proceeds, and we repeatedly encounter the moral crudeness of the rich and powerful (“In this life, a man is always a servant of his servants”) and the bitterness of the poor and marginalized, the contingency and the tension of conflicts between characters hardens into a position and a politics that seem the work of the narrator; a chisel swells into a cudgel.
Even so, Between the Assassinations has a genuinely distinctive world view and many exciting passages. In a way, the best sections of this book, with their wealth of anthropological detail and careful peeling back of the lives of characters, might also be held up as the most lucid criticism of Adiga’s own book The White Tiger, with its hollow protagonist, shoddily constructed plot, and banal commentary. Indeed, Between The Assassinations might be read as an indictment not only of the distorted nature of Indian reality but also of contemporary publishing, which jumped so eagerly at Adiga’s other book but allowed this much worthier sibling to languish for so long.
In Six Words: More deserving than Adiga’s Booker clincher
This year’s Booker Prize winner takes us once again into a savage and cruel India.
In one of the stories of Aravind Adiga’s Between the Assassinations, a book that follows his Booker Prize-winning The White Tiger but was apparently written before it, we see a quack sexologist, Ratnakara Shetty, on his way to the dargah to sell his goods. As he approaches the site he comes across the familiar Indian melee of pathetic supplicants—beggars, lepers, the handicapped, including one especially grotesque specimen with a stump of a leg and “little brown stubs like a seal’s flippers” for arms. Ratnakara Shetty leaves behind this “sorrowful parade of humanity” and walks on. Soon he is surrounded by yet another group that throbs with pain and despair: those afflicted by venereal disease.
Ratnakara Shetty’s story appears late enough in Adiga’s book for us to realize that Shetty himself is part of a “sorrowful parade of humanity” of protagonists, all of whom are denizens of Kittur, a fictional south Indian town. The two assassinations of the (striking and attractive) title are those of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and her son Rajiv in 1991, and the book is an intense examination—indeed an interrogation—of a small Indian town of the 1980s: its languages, its mores, its diversity of caste, class and religion, and the many hierarchies within and between them, its white and black economies, the way its geography reveals its history, and the human encounters and non-encounters that determine the texture of its everyday life.
On a map of India Kittur would only be a finger-joint away from R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi, but the savagery of Adiga’s material and his slashing style make for an atmosphere worlds away from the older writer’s gentler ironies and greater tolerance for life’s injustices. Adiga’s great theme is power relations—between rich and poor, master and servant, high caste and low caste, majority and minority—and, as a consequence of these relations, moral perversion and subaltern rage.
All but a couple of the stories in his book are mounted on this kind of tableau of social and economic injustice, and draw their energy from its tensions. A recurring gesture in them is one person bowing before another with folded hands, feeding the power and arrogance of another with servility so as to stay afloat. Adiga’s protagonists differ from each other on the scale of their reactions to a callous and perverted system. The stories dramatize a range of responses from resigned acceptance to, even complicity with, the established order, to seething impotence and maddening rage.
Some of the stories, particularly those in the first half of the book, work very well because of the depth of Adiga’s characterization of both person and place (and Kittur is the real protagonist of his work). Adiga’s grasp of the contours of the world he is mapping seems much surer here than in The White Tiger, which posited a facile binary vision of “the Light” and “the Darkness” in 21st century India. An attractive feature of his work is the verbal tics he gives to his characters, as if to suggest that where human relations are out of joint, language too must always keep fumbling for meaning.
Ziauddin, the small, dark, chubby tea shop boy of the opening story, is always declaring his virtue and protesting his innocence in an adult world that both bullies him and laughs at him. At the bottom of Kittur’s social scale, he keeps having to insist that Muslims “don’t do hanky-panky”, and whenever someone misbehaves with him he uses exactly the same words to rebuke them. Mr Lasrado, an ineffectual teacher in a boy’s school, cannot pronounce “f”, and keeps addressing the other Jesuits as “Pather”. When the boys engineer a small explosion in his class, Lasrado’s rage has its sting drawn out by his cry of “You Puckers! Puckers!”
As is evident from these examples, Adiga’s style unites anger with incapacity, with grotesquerie. On several occasions, his characters are compared to animals, from the prisoner who leads his captors by the handcuffs, “like a fellow taking two monkeys on a walk”, to a prospective groom who is so deferential he seems “more the family’s domestic pet than the scion”. The story about Ratnakara Shetty burns with images of male genitals blackened, withered, gnawed away by disease. All these seem physical symbols of a universe in which so much is wrong, and yet the view from the top is that nothing is.
The cogency of Adiga’s anger is only weakened, even cheapened, by repetition. As his book proceeds, and we repeatedly encounter the moral crudeness of the rich and powerful (“In this life, a man is always a servant of his servants”) and the bitterness of the poor and marginalized, the contingency and the tension of conflicts between characters hardens into a position and a politics that seem the work of the narrator; a chisel swells into a cudgel.
Even so, Between the Assassinations has a genuinely distinctive world view and many exciting passages. In a way, the best sections of this book, with their wealth of anthropological detail and careful peeling back of the lives of characters, might also be held up as the most lucid criticism of Adiga’s own book The White Tiger, with its hollow protagonist, shoddily constructed plot, and banal commentary. Indeed, Between The Assassinations might be read as an indictment not only of the distorted nature of Indian reality but also of contemporary publishing, which jumped so eagerly at Adiga’s other book but allowed this much worthier sibling to languish for so long.
In Six Words: More deserving than Adiga’s Booker clincher
Personality - Subhash Ghai
Sanjukta Sharma
Whistling Woods International, sprawled over about 10 acres of undulating land on the periphery of Film City, is Mumbai’s only film school. Started by director Subhash Ghai in 2006, it has just produced its first batch of students— a motley group of would-be actors, directors, and as Ghai later tells me, “very few writers”. The new batch is yet to enrol.
Star power: Ghai says Yuvvraaj will appeal to NRIs as well as small-town India. Abhijit Bhatlekar / MintIt’s the day after Ghai is through with his finishing touches to Yuvvraaj, his new film. In the foyer of the dome-like structure, some second-year students operate a film camera perched on an artificial track. Some mill around the green campus, smoking and talking. I catch snatches of their conversations while waiting for Ghai to come out of a long meeting—the topics range from intricacies of the Ariflex camera to Salman Khan to Barack Obama.
This place should be a wellspring of talent, a launch pad for new faces. After all, the man at the helm, labelled Bollywood’s “showman” decades ago, has a seasoned eye—he catapulted Madhuri Dixit, Manisha Koirala, Mahima Chowdhury and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to superstardom, a fact he still carefully reiterates.
On the top-most floor of Whistling Woods, Ghai has an office and a lounge with an attached room for his personal use. The door simply says “SG”. And he is surrounded by young men and women, his assistants and students, purposefully going about their business with “SG”.
The pre-release euphoria around Yuvvraaj is not palpable among his retinue of young office assistants. The director himself, who turned 69 in October, qualifies the film in carefully chosen words. It might well be a part of his publicity strategy this time around, since Ghai’s last successful film was Taal (1999). “I am a man in need of a hit,” he says. “I’ve kept my earlier mistakes in mind and have unlearnt certain things. This is a film that should appeal to the young and old, NRIs and small-town India.” He adds at the end of a long introduction to Yuvvraaj—where he also says, “Look for the presentation rather than the story, as you should in most of my films”—that this Salman Khan-starrer may not become a big hit, but it will be a “big film”.
An assessment of Ghai’s work, spanning 38 years and 17 films, 13 of which have been box office hits, can’t ignore his obsession with “big”. A lover of outdoor locales, grand shots and big stars, Ghai has never shied away from exploring the thrilling scale and sweep of a 35mm camera.
Karz (1980), Hero (1983), Ram Lakhan (1989), Saudagar (1991), Khalnayak (1993), Pardes (1997) and Taal (1999)—all these films bear the unmistakable Subhash Ghai stamp. Stylistic eloquence over strong storylines and tight scripts—a norm that most Hindi commercial films pretty much followed during the 1980s upto the early 2000s. In that sense, Ghai is one of the biggest catalysts of the way “Bollywood” is perceived by the world. The director considers that a compliment. “I am from a generation of film-makers that made films for posterity, to shape film ethos and sensibility. I just can’t relate to the makers of, say, Welcome or Singh is Kinng, where the goal is to make as much money as possible in two weeks. Tell me, who is going to remember Singh is Kinng 10 years from now?” Going by another logic, who, indeed, will remember Jackie Shroff and Meenakshi Sheshadri in Hero, prancing around hilly shrubs, singing “Ding dong, Oh baby sing a song”? Absurd setting, incredulous situation, even today’s film-lovers would say. But Ghai does manage to convince me that Hero is indeed a “big” film. “That’s why you remember the song,” he says.
Yuvvraaj, made with a budget of more than Rs30 crore, is set in Prague and Vienna. It is the story of a musician in a symphony orchestra, in love with a cello player (Katrina Kaif). He has to marry her in 40 days, and he has to become a millionaire before that. His brothers refuse to help him. The film rides on the protagonists’s struggles, which he overcomes to marry his lover and live happily ever after. This could be any Bollywood staple, except that here, A.R. Rahman collaborates with Gulzar for its music, recorded live with orchestra musicians. “Look what Subhash Ghai did with Taal. It is one of my favourite albums. I was very happy to write for a Ghai film,” Gulzar says.
A man somewhat at odds with the turn of the tide in Indian cinema in the last 10 years, Ghai says he has explored his strengths in Yuvvraaj and yet not lost sight of the zeitgeist. “When I first came in the early 1970s, I had to match the standards of senior film-makers. Now, I have to match that of the young sensibility. That’s where I went wrong with Kisna (2005). I told the story of a young man of the 1920s and expected his predicament to be understood by today’s generation.” In Black and White (2008), Ghai’s last film, set in old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, he took up the story of a fidayeen terrorist. The film is a comment on the nature of modern day terrorism. A flop at the box office, the best part of this small-budget film is the way Ghai captures Chandni Chowk—the multitude of people, colour and history, shot in many hues and breathtaking top-angle shots. Expect a similar cinematic flourish in Yuvvraaj.
The film’s promotions began airing on TV earlier this month and picked up momentum in the last two weeks, as with most films today. But Ghai says that modern-day promotional aggression is a part of showbiz that he is not yet comfortable with. “We are in the game, so we have to be aggressive,” says Ghai, “but Mukta Arts is run on a safe business model. We don’t take risks or pay inflated fees to stars. I will never bend over to market dynamics to promote a film.” In 2000, Mukta Arts became the first Indian film production company to go public. One more reason Ghai is desperate for Yuvvraaj to work—“You know what it’s like to be a public listed company these days.”
Meanwhile, he has hired 14 graduates from Whistling Woods’ first batch, and waits for a talent pool to emerge out of Mukta Arts. Last year, Ghai announced that he is ready to pay Rs1 crore to anyone who comes to him with a good script. That perfect story is yet to come his way.
Yuvvraaj releases in theatres on 21 November
***********************
GHAI’S BIG FIVE
Karz (1980) Echoing Bimal Roy’s ‘Madhumati’ (1958), adapted in 2007 as ‘Om Shanti Om’ and remade in 2008 as ‘Karzzz’ , this was Subhash Ghai’s first big hit. Who can forget that electronic- disco hit ‘Om Shanti Om’, performed on a stage resembling a giant gramaphone record?
Hero (1983) This love story was Jackie Shroff’s launch film. The violent climax, hummable and very successful music made it a box office success. Ghai also promoted Shroff’s launch through teaser ads on TV, unheard of then.
Saudagar (1991) Ghai’s first and only successful saga film starred legend Dilip Kumar and spanned three generations. The painfully long film was a kitschy brew of friendship, revenge, love, murder and scandal.
Khalnayak (1993) Ghai’s only controversial film. First, he portrayed a gangster and political criminal as “today’s youth”. Lead actor Sanjay Dutt’s real life became its epilogue when he was arrested for involvement in the Mumbai serial blasts of 1993. Second, an obscenity case was filed against the song, ‘Choli ke peeche kya hai’ , which BBC called the song that “had all of India hot under the collar”.
Taal (1999) Ghai’s last hit was a love triangle with Aishwarya Rai. It had over-the-top costumes, stylized choreography, arresting music and beautiful locales. Rai’s career began rolling after this film.
Whistling Woods International, sprawled over about 10 acres of undulating land on the periphery of Film City, is Mumbai’s only film school. Started by director Subhash Ghai in 2006, it has just produced its first batch of students— a motley group of would-be actors, directors, and as Ghai later tells me, “very few writers”. The new batch is yet to enrol.
Star power: Ghai says Yuvvraaj will appeal to NRIs as well as small-town India. Abhijit Bhatlekar / MintIt’s the day after Ghai is through with his finishing touches to Yuvvraaj, his new film. In the foyer of the dome-like structure, some second-year students operate a film camera perched on an artificial track. Some mill around the green campus, smoking and talking. I catch snatches of their conversations while waiting for Ghai to come out of a long meeting—the topics range from intricacies of the Ariflex camera to Salman Khan to Barack Obama.
This place should be a wellspring of talent, a launch pad for new faces. After all, the man at the helm, labelled Bollywood’s “showman” decades ago, has a seasoned eye—he catapulted Madhuri Dixit, Manisha Koirala, Mahima Chowdhury and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to superstardom, a fact he still carefully reiterates.
On the top-most floor of Whistling Woods, Ghai has an office and a lounge with an attached room for his personal use. The door simply says “SG”. And he is surrounded by young men and women, his assistants and students, purposefully going about their business with “SG”.
The pre-release euphoria around Yuvvraaj is not palpable among his retinue of young office assistants. The director himself, who turned 69 in October, qualifies the film in carefully chosen words. It might well be a part of his publicity strategy this time around, since Ghai’s last successful film was Taal (1999). “I am a man in need of a hit,” he says. “I’ve kept my earlier mistakes in mind and have unlearnt certain things. This is a film that should appeal to the young and old, NRIs and small-town India.” He adds at the end of a long introduction to Yuvvraaj—where he also says, “Look for the presentation rather than the story, as you should in most of my films”—that this Salman Khan-starrer may not become a big hit, but it will be a “big film”.
An assessment of Ghai’s work, spanning 38 years and 17 films, 13 of which have been box office hits, can’t ignore his obsession with “big”. A lover of outdoor locales, grand shots and big stars, Ghai has never shied away from exploring the thrilling scale and sweep of a 35mm camera.
Karz (1980), Hero (1983), Ram Lakhan (1989), Saudagar (1991), Khalnayak (1993), Pardes (1997) and Taal (1999)—all these films bear the unmistakable Subhash Ghai stamp. Stylistic eloquence over strong storylines and tight scripts—a norm that most Hindi commercial films pretty much followed during the 1980s upto the early 2000s. In that sense, Ghai is one of the biggest catalysts of the way “Bollywood” is perceived by the world. The director considers that a compliment. “I am from a generation of film-makers that made films for posterity, to shape film ethos and sensibility. I just can’t relate to the makers of, say, Welcome or Singh is Kinng, where the goal is to make as much money as possible in two weeks. Tell me, who is going to remember Singh is Kinng 10 years from now?” Going by another logic, who, indeed, will remember Jackie Shroff and Meenakshi Sheshadri in Hero, prancing around hilly shrubs, singing “Ding dong, Oh baby sing a song”? Absurd setting, incredulous situation, even today’s film-lovers would say. But Ghai does manage to convince me that Hero is indeed a “big” film. “That’s why you remember the song,” he says.
Yuvvraaj, made with a budget of more than Rs30 crore, is set in Prague and Vienna. It is the story of a musician in a symphony orchestra, in love with a cello player (Katrina Kaif). He has to marry her in 40 days, and he has to become a millionaire before that. His brothers refuse to help him. The film rides on the protagonists’s struggles, which he overcomes to marry his lover and live happily ever after. This could be any Bollywood staple, except that here, A.R. Rahman collaborates with Gulzar for its music, recorded live with orchestra musicians. “Look what Subhash Ghai did with Taal. It is one of my favourite albums. I was very happy to write for a Ghai film,” Gulzar says.
A man somewhat at odds with the turn of the tide in Indian cinema in the last 10 years, Ghai says he has explored his strengths in Yuvvraaj and yet not lost sight of the zeitgeist. “When I first came in the early 1970s, I had to match the standards of senior film-makers. Now, I have to match that of the young sensibility. That’s where I went wrong with Kisna (2005). I told the story of a young man of the 1920s and expected his predicament to be understood by today’s generation.” In Black and White (2008), Ghai’s last film, set in old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, he took up the story of a fidayeen terrorist. The film is a comment on the nature of modern day terrorism. A flop at the box office, the best part of this small-budget film is the way Ghai captures Chandni Chowk—the multitude of people, colour and history, shot in many hues and breathtaking top-angle shots. Expect a similar cinematic flourish in Yuvvraaj.
The film’s promotions began airing on TV earlier this month and picked up momentum in the last two weeks, as with most films today. But Ghai says that modern-day promotional aggression is a part of showbiz that he is not yet comfortable with. “We are in the game, so we have to be aggressive,” says Ghai, “but Mukta Arts is run on a safe business model. We don’t take risks or pay inflated fees to stars. I will never bend over to market dynamics to promote a film.” In 2000, Mukta Arts became the first Indian film production company to go public. One more reason Ghai is desperate for Yuvvraaj to work—“You know what it’s like to be a public listed company these days.”
Meanwhile, he has hired 14 graduates from Whistling Woods’ first batch, and waits for a talent pool to emerge out of Mukta Arts. Last year, Ghai announced that he is ready to pay Rs1 crore to anyone who comes to him with a good script. That perfect story is yet to come his way.
Yuvvraaj releases in theatres on 21 November
***********************
GHAI’S BIG FIVE
Karz (1980) Echoing Bimal Roy’s ‘Madhumati’ (1958), adapted in 2007 as ‘Om Shanti Om’ and remade in 2008 as ‘Karzzz’ , this was Subhash Ghai’s first big hit. Who can forget that electronic- disco hit ‘Om Shanti Om’, performed on a stage resembling a giant gramaphone record?
Hero (1983) This love story was Jackie Shroff’s launch film. The violent climax, hummable and very successful music made it a box office success. Ghai also promoted Shroff’s launch through teaser ads on TV, unheard of then.
Saudagar (1991) Ghai’s first and only successful saga film starred legend Dilip Kumar and spanned three generations. The painfully long film was a kitschy brew of friendship, revenge, love, murder and scandal.
Khalnayak (1993) Ghai’s only controversial film. First, he portrayed a gangster and political criminal as “today’s youth”. Lead actor Sanjay Dutt’s real life became its epilogue when he was arrested for involvement in the Mumbai serial blasts of 1993. Second, an obscenity case was filed against the song, ‘Choli ke peeche kya hai’ , which BBC called the song that “had all of India hot under the collar”.
Taal (1999) Ghai’s last hit was a love triangle with Aishwarya Rai. It had over-the-top costumes, stylized choreography, arresting music and beautiful locales. Rai’s career began rolling after this film.
Art - A.R.Rehman's Dream - KM Music Conservatory (V.G.Read)
Samanth Subramanian
The heart of the KM Music Conservatory in Chennai is a large, quite bare room on its first floor. There’s a couch lurking by one wall, and a smattering of chairs, but the room’s focus is a piano floating off-centre. On or near this piano, the Conservatory’s students rehearse through the day, the music flowing up and into the building’s arteries—its air-conditioning ducts—like warm, life-giving blood.
Sitting in a little office off that central room, Joshua Pollock hears the music and smiles. “It’s like that almost all day,” he says. “I’ll walk by at 9pm and I’ll see people playing, or helping each other out. I’ve never seen anything like it in the West.”
Pollock is the Conservatory’s violin instructor, one of the six startlingly young, freshly graduated teachers who have been recruited from music schools overseas to fulfil a long-harboured yen of A. R. Rahman. “To start a conservatory like this has been his dream for close to 10 years now,” says V. Selvakumar, managing director of the KM Music Conservatory (what the initials “KM” stand for is Rahman’s own secret. “He won’t even tell me!” Selvakumar says).
The Conservatory aims to offer (for the first time in India, its brochure claims) training courses of collegiate intensity in not only Western classical music but also in music technology and audio engineering—which is where Selvakumar comes in.
For five years, Selvakumar has owned and operated Audio Media Education, India’s first Apple-authorized training centre for digital music production. When I first meet him, he has just finished teaching a 2-hour class in an impressively equipped studio. Just outside the classroom, in a non-air-conditioned lobby, he proceeds to light and rapidly smoke four cigarettes in a row.
“People today still think that it’s risky to be a professional musician, so there’s very little advanced training available at a wide level,” Selvakumar says. “The Trinity College courses are there, but only up to a level that students in the West attain even while they’re in school.”
As a result of that, and also because of the increasingly electronic nature of most compositions, Rahman sensed a decline in the quality of live music. “Every good violinist around today, for example, is from his dad’s generation,” Selvakumar says.
“The culture of the classical orchestra has declined in India. Maybe Zubin Mehta could have revived it, but he has orchestras abroad,” Rahman says. “People have started thinking that the synthesizer can take over for the orchestra. But that’s just not true.”
It seems like an odd observation from Rahman, the man who pushed Indian film music into the electronic age, and who once said that the electronic synthesizer was his favourite instrument. His scores are characteristically as layered as bebinca, with a dozen different sounds baked seamlessly together in the oven of technology.
Indeed, Rahman’s own global fame rests very much on his capacity to create music that merges Indian and international influences without compromising on quality—fusion that sounds organic and natural, rather than contrived and slapdash. And that ability, Selvakumar says, comes from Rahman’s strong classical foundation, the sort of foundation that many musicians lack today and that Rahman wants to provide at the Conservatory.
Jyoti Nair Belliappa, the Conservatory’s administrative officer, reads an even longer-term goal into the establishment. “His main desire is to create a full-fledged symphony orchestra here in Chennai, with his own musicians,” she says. “So, for instance, we’re encouraging students to take up the violin, because you’ll need at least 24 violinists for that kind of orchestra.”
The lack of an Indian symphony orchestra has hit Rahman every time he has needed to travel abroad, to London or Prague, to record a film score. “Even Iraq has an orchestra!” he exclaims. “I’d always think: ‘Why can’t this happen in India?’ But being an introverted composer, I thought I should just do my job and somebody else would start one.”
Nobody did, of course. “I kept hearing rumours—that a corporate house was starting an orchestra, that kind of thing,” Rahman says. “Then, when nothing happened, I decided to give it a go myself.” By his estimate, KM Music should be able to produce the core of a full-fledged orchestra in three years.
Considering what a longstanding dream it was, the Conservatory seems to have gotten off the ground solely in a monumental spurt of adrenalin. In the first few days of 2008, Rahman and Selvakumar began seriously discussing the idea of this institution. “Everybody said we’d need at least two years of planning,” Selvakumar says. “But if Rahman wants something, he wants it now.”
Barely a couple of days later, on 6 January—Rahman’s birthday—a press release was drawn up. Seven months later, the first batch of students—48 full-time, 50 part-time—began their foundation year, which can be followed by a three-year bachelor’s degree. Every one of them was auditioned; one girl even sang over the phone. “There had to be a challenge, after all,” Selvakumar says, grinning. But certain challenges become easier if you are A. R. Rahman. Temporarily, the Conservatory lives today on various floors of two buildings owned by Rahman, a couple of streets away from his studio complex in Kodambakkam. The bigger of the buildings, renovated just a month-and-a-half ago, has a large classroom on each of the three levels, with little hutch-like practice rooms scrunched off to one side.
All investment in the KM Music Conservatory—equipment, hiring, the upcoming development of a larger, permanent campus—is Rahman’s as well. Rahman himself will not teach much; rather, he will hover over the institution as its benign founder-principal. “He comes around now and then,” says Shasta Ellenbogen, a faculty member. “He was at the Faculty House the other day, to watch television with us. He’s almost absurdly normal for somebody who’s so famous.”
Every member of the faculty joined the Conservatory, Selvakumar says, solely because of Rahman’s reputation and influence. But that isn’t entirely apparent at first. Perhaps because of the breathless clip at which the Conservatory was conceptualized and set up, the faculty consists largely of graduating students from other music schools, running a narrow gamut of ages from 20 to 27, all looking for interesting opportunities.
“If I hadn’t come here, I’d probably have been holding down some sort of boring job, like being a receptionist at a dentist’s office, and doing auditions on the side,” says Kavitha Baliga, who graduated with an MA in vocal performance only a few months ago from the Boston Conservatory. “This is a dream for someone coming out of college, to teach immediately like this.”
But Michael Lindsey, the 22-year-old, ear-ringed drum instructor at the Conservatory, points out that being a fresh graduate doesn’t necessarily imply a lack of teaching experience. Even when he was working towards a BA in musical performance at DePaul University in Chicago, Lindsey taught private students on the side. “I’ve taught, in one form or another, for six years now, and that’s true of a lot of others here.”
Rahman has a more irreverent way of saying the same thing. “These guys have been learning music since they were nine or 10 years old, or even before that,” he says. Then, with a grin, “Really, they’re as good as the oldies.”
Maybe it’s just as well, though, that the focus of the first year’s curriculum revolves so much around a basic concept: the Western notation. “I learnt to read notation before I learnt to read words,” Baliga says. “I can’t imagine being at this age and learning it from scratch. It’s very difficult.”
But it has to be done. Ellenbogen, the 20-year-old viola instructor, observes that Indian classical music emphasizes the aural over all else. “The kids here, they’re all great at memorizing a piece, or picking it out by ear, so they don’t see the need to read,” she says. “It’s like they have to learn this new language by immersion.”
The teachers are all on 10-month contracts, and most plan on staying for two years, but Pollock sees KM Music’s dream as an evolving organism. “To fulfil the goals of this school, it’ll take a generation or two,” he says. “But I’m so interested in seeing how Western classical music will take root in this environment. It won’t survive unless people make it their own in some way. I want to see how that will happen.”
Michael Lindsey
Percussion
‘I’d applied anyway for grant money to study at the University of Madras. But then this came along’
A lot of people think that percussion consists of just banging on drums,” Michael Lindsey says. But there are subtleties, and Lindsey is teaching them at KM Music to students of both the Western drum kit as well as Indian percussion instruments such as the tabla and the mridangam.
Lindsey came to Chennai first in December 2006, when he was 20, to study the tabla and Carnatic music. At the time, he was halfway through his undergraduate degree in music performance at De Paul University in the US. “When I was wrapping up my degree, I’d applied anyway for grant money to study at the University of Madras,” he says. “But then this came along.”
Lindsey got in touch with Rahman through a friend’s friend in the beginning of May, and they proceeded to email each other back and forth for three months before Lindsey was told that he had the job.
One of the youngest teachers at the Conservatory, Lindsey is a lanky young man with a full head of curly hair and multiple earrings. He sees himself staying in India for “probably two years or so. Then I’ll head back to the US for my master’s degree”.
At KM Music, Lindsey has five students, three of whom have played the mridangam before. “But none of them have the classic drumming technique, so I’ve had to teach that first,” he says. “They can play along fine with Carnatic music, so it’s just a matter of transferring that skill to Western notation.”
Joshua Pollock
Violin
‘When I mentioned I was coming here, there was like a snowball effect’
I n London earlier this year, Joshua Pollock stepped out of the Underground and found that his cellphone had registered a missed call. “I called back, and it turned out to be A. R. Rahman,” Pollock says. “He was calling to ask if I’d come over to his house to talk about my teaching position.”
Pollock is 29, and for the last three years he has been “agonizing” about how he could build a life in India. “I visited here in 2005, and I loved it so much that for the first time I was insecure about what I wanted and how I could get it,” he says. When he found a press release online, announcing the launch of KM Music, he sent in his CV and recordings. And then he sat back and waited for Rahman to call.
Originally from Maine, US, Pollock completed a double master’s in music and musical performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. “When I mentioned I was coming here, there was like a snowball effect,” he says. “More people applied, and another person actually signed on. People can often be afraid of exploring new frontiers, but when somebody else is doing it, that makes it easier.”
Pollock is a performer at heart, which may make his move to India—with its still-nascent circuit for Western classical performances—a little difficult to understand. “But you know, ever since I can remember, I’ve always wanted to teach the violin and perform,” he says. “Where I did that wasn’t so important.”
Alison Maggart
Harp
‘In 17 years, I’ve never gone this long without playing...’
In their move to India, the other teachers at KM Music had it easy—either they brought their instruments with them, or they picked up new ones in Chennai. But that isn’t quite as straightforward when your instrument is a whacking great harp.
Ten days after arriving in Chennai, Alison Maggart’s hands were positively itching. “In 17 years, I’d never gone this long without playing, and it proved really hard,” she says. A harp was ordered from a company in the US, and until it got there, Maggart had to sit on her hands. “I borrowed a Celtic harp, a small one, from somebody here, but it just wasn’t the same
Maggart, 22, graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont, where she studied for a liberal arts degree with a specialization in music. “The syllabus included some classes in film studies, so I had heard of A. R. Rahman, and heard some of his film scores,” she says.
When Maggart applied for a music fellowship after college, one of her interviewers, Cleveland Johnson of De Paul University, suggested that she might want to apply to the KM Music Conservatory as well. The application took a while. “My family’s really conservative, so I needed all the details lined up perfectly, like where I’d stay and so on,” she says.
Teaching the harp is only a part of Maggart’s profile. She also assists Rahman in his studio, and she is pitching to take a class on the history of listening as well. “Students here are very often not used to the sound of Western classical music,” she says. “I’d want them to learn why a particular piece of music is good, and frame that discussion in a cultural context. I think that’s a very important part of the overall process.”
Robert Koolstra
Piano
‘It was exactly what we wanted’
W hen he was a boy and just beginning to learn the organ, Robert Koolstra’s teacher set down a difficult score one day and challenged him to play it. “It took me two weeks,” he remembers. “But I did it, and the challenge made it interesting for me. It motivated me to learn.”
Koolstra, 29, is now translating that approach into his own teaching at the KM Music Conservatory, where he heads the western classical music department and gives piano, harpsichord and composition lessons. “When we began teaching notation here, we realized that it’s hard to find a book that makes notation interesting for adults,” Koolstra says. “So because we had to make it fun, we graduated from the basic text to a much more difficult book. The students got a kick out of being challenged that way.”
Koolstra, originally from the Netherlands, came to KM Music from London’s Guildhall School, where he majored in harpsichord performance at the postgraduate level. His classmate—and now his colleague—Joshua Pollock had pointed out an emerging conservatory in India, and Koolstra was hooked right away.
Keeping his performance skills alive, Koolstra often flies to Europe to give concerts, fitting in his recitals between lessons at KM Music. It is important, he says, for students to have teachers who perform, and can bequeath that particular wisdom to their wards as well.
“You know, Joshua and I had spoken so often about how we wanted to be part of a new school, where we’d have some say about what to teach and how to teach it,” Koolstra says. “We’d even talked about founding our own school some day, so when we heard about this, it was exactly what we wanted.”
Shasta Ellenbogen
Viola
‘Western classical music has become one giant cliché in the West’
It wasn’t so much that India drew Shasta Ellenbogen as that Europe drove her away. After two years at the Amsterdam Conservatory of Music and a third at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Ellenbogen began to find Europe, in a word, boring
“It all began to feel like variations on the same theme,” she says, the musical allegory quite unintentional. Then, more emphatically: “In Europe or the US, I would have been one among a mess of viola players. Then it gets to be about whose bum you kissed. I’m not one to play at that game. Western classical music has become one giant cliché in the West.”
Resemblances to a world-weary veteran notwithstanding, Ellenbogen is only 20. At KM Music, she is part of a team that teaches music theory, and she has two viola students taking individual lessons from her. “The viola isn’t very popular in India as yet, but that’s part of what KM Music is trying to do, to change the infrastructure and the way people learn.”
Her biggest teaching challenge thus far, she says, has been to get her students to think “in a Western sort of way”. “I just had a long talk with them yesterday, to explain how music was a discipline, just like being a doctor or a lawyer,” Ellenbogen says. “They have to think of it in a more analytical, bap-bap-bap sort of way” and here she forcefully karate-chops the side of one hand on her other palm three times, for effect.
But isn’t music just as much of a discipline in India as it is in the West? “I don’t think it is as regimented,” Ellenbogen says. “That’s not in their mentality. It’s still a little too airy-fairy for me.”
Kavita Baliga
Voice
‘I’d done a concert with the guitarist Prasanna...and later I found out he’d submitted my name for a faculty position’
Some of the teachers at KM Music went through many months of applications and correspondence before they landed their positions. Kavita Baliga did it in 10 days.
“At some point, I’d done a concert with the guitarist Prasanna, which was so much fun, and later I found out he’d submitted my name to K. Selvakumar for a faculty position,” she says. “It happened so fast that, within a week-and-a-half, I was here.”
Baliga, at the time, was a newly-minted graduate of the Boston Conservatory, where she got her MA in vocal performance. Being the only imported teacher of Indian origin, Baliga admits that the Rahman name was a big draw. “I grew up listening to him,” she says. “His music was always such a big part of the Indian community in the US.”
Only when she arrived at KM Music did she realize the scale of the task. “Some of the students hadn’t heard any sort of Western classical music at all before, and many of them found it difficult to depart from the Indian techniques they’d learnt.” Baliga then plunged into an intensive four-day-per-week schedule, teaching big classes but also conducting the choir and giving one-on-one voice lessons.
Baliga revels in the freedom she’s been given to frame her own syllabus. “I thought I’d start, in the first year, with some early Baroque English music before moving on to Italian or French, because it’s easier to start with a language you already know,” she says. “Right now, though, it’s still basic exercises and notation and approaches to practice. They need to learn that first.”
The heart of the KM Music Conservatory in Chennai is a large, quite bare room on its first floor. There’s a couch lurking by one wall, and a smattering of chairs, but the room’s focus is a piano floating off-centre. On or near this piano, the Conservatory’s students rehearse through the day, the music flowing up and into the building’s arteries—its air-conditioning ducts—like warm, life-giving blood.
Sitting in a little office off that central room, Joshua Pollock hears the music and smiles. “It’s like that almost all day,” he says. “I’ll walk by at 9pm and I’ll see people playing, or helping each other out. I’ve never seen anything like it in the West.”
Pollock is the Conservatory’s violin instructor, one of the six startlingly young, freshly graduated teachers who have been recruited from music schools overseas to fulfil a long-harboured yen of A. R. Rahman. “To start a conservatory like this has been his dream for close to 10 years now,” says V. Selvakumar, managing director of the KM Music Conservatory (what the initials “KM” stand for is Rahman’s own secret. “He won’t even tell me!” Selvakumar says).
The Conservatory aims to offer (for the first time in India, its brochure claims) training courses of collegiate intensity in not only Western classical music but also in music technology and audio engineering—which is where Selvakumar comes in.
For five years, Selvakumar has owned and operated Audio Media Education, India’s first Apple-authorized training centre for digital music production. When I first meet him, he has just finished teaching a 2-hour class in an impressively equipped studio. Just outside the classroom, in a non-air-conditioned lobby, he proceeds to light and rapidly smoke four cigarettes in a row.
“People today still think that it’s risky to be a professional musician, so there’s very little advanced training available at a wide level,” Selvakumar says. “The Trinity College courses are there, but only up to a level that students in the West attain even while they’re in school.”
As a result of that, and also because of the increasingly electronic nature of most compositions, Rahman sensed a decline in the quality of live music. “Every good violinist around today, for example, is from his dad’s generation,” Selvakumar says.
“The culture of the classical orchestra has declined in India. Maybe Zubin Mehta could have revived it, but he has orchestras abroad,” Rahman says. “People have started thinking that the synthesizer can take over for the orchestra. But that’s just not true.”
It seems like an odd observation from Rahman, the man who pushed Indian film music into the electronic age, and who once said that the electronic synthesizer was his favourite instrument. His scores are characteristically as layered as bebinca, with a dozen different sounds baked seamlessly together in the oven of technology.
Indeed, Rahman’s own global fame rests very much on his capacity to create music that merges Indian and international influences without compromising on quality—fusion that sounds organic and natural, rather than contrived and slapdash. And that ability, Selvakumar says, comes from Rahman’s strong classical foundation, the sort of foundation that many musicians lack today and that Rahman wants to provide at the Conservatory.
Jyoti Nair Belliappa, the Conservatory’s administrative officer, reads an even longer-term goal into the establishment. “His main desire is to create a full-fledged symphony orchestra here in Chennai, with his own musicians,” she says. “So, for instance, we’re encouraging students to take up the violin, because you’ll need at least 24 violinists for that kind of orchestra.”
The lack of an Indian symphony orchestra has hit Rahman every time he has needed to travel abroad, to London or Prague, to record a film score. “Even Iraq has an orchestra!” he exclaims. “I’d always think: ‘Why can’t this happen in India?’ But being an introverted composer, I thought I should just do my job and somebody else would start one.”
Nobody did, of course. “I kept hearing rumours—that a corporate house was starting an orchestra, that kind of thing,” Rahman says. “Then, when nothing happened, I decided to give it a go myself.” By his estimate, KM Music should be able to produce the core of a full-fledged orchestra in three years.
Considering what a longstanding dream it was, the Conservatory seems to have gotten off the ground solely in a monumental spurt of adrenalin. In the first few days of 2008, Rahman and Selvakumar began seriously discussing the idea of this institution. “Everybody said we’d need at least two years of planning,” Selvakumar says. “But if Rahman wants something, he wants it now.”
Barely a couple of days later, on 6 January—Rahman’s birthday—a press release was drawn up. Seven months later, the first batch of students—48 full-time, 50 part-time—began their foundation year, which can be followed by a three-year bachelor’s degree. Every one of them was auditioned; one girl even sang over the phone. “There had to be a challenge, after all,” Selvakumar says, grinning. But certain challenges become easier if you are A. R. Rahman. Temporarily, the Conservatory lives today on various floors of two buildings owned by Rahman, a couple of streets away from his studio complex in Kodambakkam. The bigger of the buildings, renovated just a month-and-a-half ago, has a large classroom on each of the three levels, with little hutch-like practice rooms scrunched off to one side.
All investment in the KM Music Conservatory—equipment, hiring, the upcoming development of a larger, permanent campus—is Rahman’s as well. Rahman himself will not teach much; rather, he will hover over the institution as its benign founder-principal. “He comes around now and then,” says Shasta Ellenbogen, a faculty member. “He was at the Faculty House the other day, to watch television with us. He’s almost absurdly normal for somebody who’s so famous.”
Every member of the faculty joined the Conservatory, Selvakumar says, solely because of Rahman’s reputation and influence. But that isn’t entirely apparent at first. Perhaps because of the breathless clip at which the Conservatory was conceptualized and set up, the faculty consists largely of graduating students from other music schools, running a narrow gamut of ages from 20 to 27, all looking for interesting opportunities.
“If I hadn’t come here, I’d probably have been holding down some sort of boring job, like being a receptionist at a dentist’s office, and doing auditions on the side,” says Kavitha Baliga, who graduated with an MA in vocal performance only a few months ago from the Boston Conservatory. “This is a dream for someone coming out of college, to teach immediately like this.”
But Michael Lindsey, the 22-year-old, ear-ringed drum instructor at the Conservatory, points out that being a fresh graduate doesn’t necessarily imply a lack of teaching experience. Even when he was working towards a BA in musical performance at DePaul University in Chicago, Lindsey taught private students on the side. “I’ve taught, in one form or another, for six years now, and that’s true of a lot of others here.”
Rahman has a more irreverent way of saying the same thing. “These guys have been learning music since they were nine or 10 years old, or even before that,” he says. Then, with a grin, “Really, they’re as good as the oldies.”
Maybe it’s just as well, though, that the focus of the first year’s curriculum revolves so much around a basic concept: the Western notation. “I learnt to read notation before I learnt to read words,” Baliga says. “I can’t imagine being at this age and learning it from scratch. It’s very difficult.”
But it has to be done. Ellenbogen, the 20-year-old viola instructor, observes that Indian classical music emphasizes the aural over all else. “The kids here, they’re all great at memorizing a piece, or picking it out by ear, so they don’t see the need to read,” she says. “It’s like they have to learn this new language by immersion.”
The teachers are all on 10-month contracts, and most plan on staying for two years, but Pollock sees KM Music’s dream as an evolving organism. “To fulfil the goals of this school, it’ll take a generation or two,” he says. “But I’m so interested in seeing how Western classical music will take root in this environment. It won’t survive unless people make it their own in some way. I want to see how that will happen.”
Michael Lindsey
Percussion
‘I’d applied anyway for grant money to study at the University of Madras. But then this came along’
A lot of people think that percussion consists of just banging on drums,” Michael Lindsey says. But there are subtleties, and Lindsey is teaching them at KM Music to students of both the Western drum kit as well as Indian percussion instruments such as the tabla and the mridangam.
Lindsey came to Chennai first in December 2006, when he was 20, to study the tabla and Carnatic music. At the time, he was halfway through his undergraduate degree in music performance at De Paul University in the US. “When I was wrapping up my degree, I’d applied anyway for grant money to study at the University of Madras,” he says. “But then this came along.”
Lindsey got in touch with Rahman through a friend’s friend in the beginning of May, and they proceeded to email each other back and forth for three months before Lindsey was told that he had the job.
One of the youngest teachers at the Conservatory, Lindsey is a lanky young man with a full head of curly hair and multiple earrings. He sees himself staying in India for “probably two years or so. Then I’ll head back to the US for my master’s degree”.
At KM Music, Lindsey has five students, three of whom have played the mridangam before. “But none of them have the classic drumming technique, so I’ve had to teach that first,” he says. “They can play along fine with Carnatic music, so it’s just a matter of transferring that skill to Western notation.”
Joshua Pollock
Violin
‘When I mentioned I was coming here, there was like a snowball effect’
I n London earlier this year, Joshua Pollock stepped out of the Underground and found that his cellphone had registered a missed call. “I called back, and it turned out to be A. R. Rahman,” Pollock says. “He was calling to ask if I’d come over to his house to talk about my teaching position.”
Pollock is 29, and for the last three years he has been “agonizing” about how he could build a life in India. “I visited here in 2005, and I loved it so much that for the first time I was insecure about what I wanted and how I could get it,” he says. When he found a press release online, announcing the launch of KM Music, he sent in his CV and recordings. And then he sat back and waited for Rahman to call.
Originally from Maine, US, Pollock completed a double master’s in music and musical performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. “When I mentioned I was coming here, there was like a snowball effect,” he says. “More people applied, and another person actually signed on. People can often be afraid of exploring new frontiers, but when somebody else is doing it, that makes it easier.”
Pollock is a performer at heart, which may make his move to India—with its still-nascent circuit for Western classical performances—a little difficult to understand. “But you know, ever since I can remember, I’ve always wanted to teach the violin and perform,” he says. “Where I did that wasn’t so important.”
Alison Maggart
Harp
‘In 17 years, I’ve never gone this long without playing...’
In their move to India, the other teachers at KM Music had it easy—either they brought their instruments with them, or they picked up new ones in Chennai. But that isn’t quite as straightforward when your instrument is a whacking great harp.
Ten days after arriving in Chennai, Alison Maggart’s hands were positively itching. “In 17 years, I’d never gone this long without playing, and it proved really hard,” she says. A harp was ordered from a company in the US, and until it got there, Maggart had to sit on her hands. “I borrowed a Celtic harp, a small one, from somebody here, but it just wasn’t the same
Maggart, 22, graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont, where she studied for a liberal arts degree with a specialization in music. “The syllabus included some classes in film studies, so I had heard of A. R. Rahman, and heard some of his film scores,” she says.
When Maggart applied for a music fellowship after college, one of her interviewers, Cleveland Johnson of De Paul University, suggested that she might want to apply to the KM Music Conservatory as well. The application took a while. “My family’s really conservative, so I needed all the details lined up perfectly, like where I’d stay and so on,” she says.
Teaching the harp is only a part of Maggart’s profile. She also assists Rahman in his studio, and she is pitching to take a class on the history of listening as well. “Students here are very often not used to the sound of Western classical music,” she says. “I’d want them to learn why a particular piece of music is good, and frame that discussion in a cultural context. I think that’s a very important part of the overall process.”
Robert Koolstra
Piano
‘It was exactly what we wanted’
W hen he was a boy and just beginning to learn the organ, Robert Koolstra’s teacher set down a difficult score one day and challenged him to play it. “It took me two weeks,” he remembers. “But I did it, and the challenge made it interesting for me. It motivated me to learn.”
Koolstra, 29, is now translating that approach into his own teaching at the KM Music Conservatory, where he heads the western classical music department and gives piano, harpsichord and composition lessons. “When we began teaching notation here, we realized that it’s hard to find a book that makes notation interesting for adults,” Koolstra says. “So because we had to make it fun, we graduated from the basic text to a much more difficult book. The students got a kick out of being challenged that way.”
Koolstra, originally from the Netherlands, came to KM Music from London’s Guildhall School, where he majored in harpsichord performance at the postgraduate level. His classmate—and now his colleague—Joshua Pollock had pointed out an emerging conservatory in India, and Koolstra was hooked right away.
Keeping his performance skills alive, Koolstra often flies to Europe to give concerts, fitting in his recitals between lessons at KM Music. It is important, he says, for students to have teachers who perform, and can bequeath that particular wisdom to their wards as well.
“You know, Joshua and I had spoken so often about how we wanted to be part of a new school, where we’d have some say about what to teach and how to teach it,” Koolstra says. “We’d even talked about founding our own school some day, so when we heard about this, it was exactly what we wanted.”
Shasta Ellenbogen
Viola
‘Western classical music has become one giant cliché in the West’
It wasn’t so much that India drew Shasta Ellenbogen as that Europe drove her away. After two years at the Amsterdam Conservatory of Music and a third at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Ellenbogen began to find Europe, in a word, boring
“It all began to feel like variations on the same theme,” she says, the musical allegory quite unintentional. Then, more emphatically: “In Europe or the US, I would have been one among a mess of viola players. Then it gets to be about whose bum you kissed. I’m not one to play at that game. Western classical music has become one giant cliché in the West.”
Resemblances to a world-weary veteran notwithstanding, Ellenbogen is only 20. At KM Music, she is part of a team that teaches music theory, and she has two viola students taking individual lessons from her. “The viola isn’t very popular in India as yet, but that’s part of what KM Music is trying to do, to change the infrastructure and the way people learn.”
Her biggest teaching challenge thus far, she says, has been to get her students to think “in a Western sort of way”. “I just had a long talk with them yesterday, to explain how music was a discipline, just like being a doctor or a lawyer,” Ellenbogen says. “They have to think of it in a more analytical, bap-bap-bap sort of way” and here she forcefully karate-chops the side of one hand on her other palm three times, for effect.
But isn’t music just as much of a discipline in India as it is in the West? “I don’t think it is as regimented,” Ellenbogen says. “That’s not in their mentality. It’s still a little too airy-fairy for me.”
Kavita Baliga
Voice
‘I’d done a concert with the guitarist Prasanna...and later I found out he’d submitted my name for a faculty position’
Some of the teachers at KM Music went through many months of applications and correspondence before they landed their positions. Kavita Baliga did it in 10 days.
“At some point, I’d done a concert with the guitarist Prasanna, which was so much fun, and later I found out he’d submitted my name to K. Selvakumar for a faculty position,” she says. “It happened so fast that, within a week-and-a-half, I was here.”
Baliga, at the time, was a newly-minted graduate of the Boston Conservatory, where she got her MA in vocal performance. Being the only imported teacher of Indian origin, Baliga admits that the Rahman name was a big draw. “I grew up listening to him,” she says. “His music was always such a big part of the Indian community in the US.”
Only when she arrived at KM Music did she realize the scale of the task. “Some of the students hadn’t heard any sort of Western classical music at all before, and many of them found it difficult to depart from the Indian techniques they’d learnt.” Baliga then plunged into an intensive four-day-per-week schedule, teaching big classes but also conducting the choir and giving one-on-one voice lessons.
Baliga revels in the freedom she’s been given to frame her own syllabus. “I thought I’d start, in the first year, with some early Baroque English music before moving on to Italian or French, because it’s easier to start with a language you already know,” she says. “Right now, though, it’s still basic exercises and notation and approaches to practice. They need to learn that first.”
Columnists - Vir Sanghvi;The left hasn't got it right
They had to wait two decades but the good ladies and gentlemen of the Left are finally guffawing with delight. At the end of the 1980s, when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union seemed ready to break up, most of us looked at the collapse of communism with bemusement.
Was this really the end? Had the great edifice on which the principal conflicts of the post-war world been constructed really been demolished overnight? Certainly, it seemed that way. In country after country, communist parties were thrust aside as the people eagerly grasped consumerism instead.
Even those countries that still claimed to be communist—China, for example—embraced the market with a determined enthusiasm. Socialist parties across Europe quickly changed course to follow more pro-market policies—the rise of New Labour in Britain in the 1990s was just one example of this trend.
As communism fell into disrepute, the Left licked its wounds. It could hardly hold up poor bankrupt Cuba or mad old North Korea as examples of the people’s paradises that Karl Marx had desired. So, young people who would once have been drawn to the Left now flocked to other anti-establishment causes, with the environment being the most popular.
Until now, that is.
As global capitalism faces its deepest crisis for nearly a full century, the Left is smiling again. Some old communists are even going so far as to suggest that the slide of many Western economies into recession is on par with the late-1980s collapse of communism. Our system may have failed, they are saying. But then, so has yours.
Others, especially those in India, argue that the Left has saved us from the worst excesses of the market. Had it not been for the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, it is being said, Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram would have allowed foreign banks to buy up to 76% of our banks. And then, as the foreign banks failed, ours would have followed suit.
I have been told: “All of you in the media cursed us when we opposed the Prime Minister’s enthusiasm for globalization, but actually we saved India.” In fact, the communists add, the only reason we have not been sucked into a global depression is because the CPM protected the Indian economy from foreigners.
The Left in India is more vocal than elsewhere but the same sort of idea crops up all over the world. Take the US presidential election. John McCain’s popularity bounced up after the Republican convention and he was actually a few points ahead of Barack Obama. Then, the economic meltdown occurred and America turned Left. Anybody who was associated with the free market policies that had led to the current mess suddenly lost credibility and McCain’s popularity duly dipped, setting the stage for Obama’s victory.
In England, Prime Minister Gordon Brown was regarded as a goner till the economic crisis hit. Then, the soaring popularity of David Cameron and his Conservative Party plateaued and Brits began to wonder whether it made sense to support the party of the free market when it was the free market that caused this crash. As a consequence, Brown’s ratings have gone up again.
So, what does all this mean?
Is it the case that we are rediscovering virtues in the leftist ideologies we once discarded? Is capitalism in some kind of terminal decline? Will we now be suspicious of any political party that advocates free enterprise?
My guess is that the Left is celebrating prematurely. In all that I have heard people say over the last month or so, I have not detected the slightest trace of any nostalgia for state ownership, a planned economy or any of the other policies associated with Marxism. As badly off as we are, nobody thinks we would be better off under communism.
In India, the CPM is taking too much credit. Manmohan Singh has spent his life as a civil servant in regulation-minded administrations. He has seen the Indian economy from both sides, as the government’s chief economist in the licence-quota-permit raj era and as the finance minister who introduced the reforms. The measures he had suggested were never as dramatic as the Left makes out and even if they had been implemented, India would have been in no serious danger today.
But it is foolish to deny that even if we have no nostalgia for socialism, people all over the world are more suspicious of the market today than at any time in the last three decades.
However, this is not because they have given up on capitalism and want communism. Rather, it is because they have come to question two claims advanced for the free market. One: Were international markets ever really as free as marketers made out? All too often—and especially these days—it seems as though they were fixed to benefit the rich, the influential, the people with insider knowledge and those with contacts at the expense of the poor, the un-connected and those on the outside.
And two: What constitutes a fair market anyway? We were told that companies were within their rights to sack employees in the interests of their shareholders because this is how capitalism works. But now, when shareholders face a loss of value—as in the case of the Wall Street banks—they quickly go running to the government asking for a bailout. Why is it okay for employees to be victims of market economics but not okay for shareholders to see the value of their assets destroyed by market economics?
To use an Indian example, both Kingfisher and Jet initially argued that market economics allowed them to sack employees when profits were down. But when they went to the government asking for a rescue package, they were faced with the obvious question: Why should the government keep your airlines alive if you think it’s okay to terminate the jobs of thousands of ordinary people? Why should the market work against the employees but cease to apply to airline bosses? Those who live by the sword…
So pay no attention to the gloats of the Left; their laughter is hollow. But be sure of this: The old free market model is dead. And we need to construct a new one.
Was this really the end? Had the great edifice on which the principal conflicts of the post-war world been constructed really been demolished overnight? Certainly, it seemed that way. In country after country, communist parties were thrust aside as the people eagerly grasped consumerism instead.
Even those countries that still claimed to be communist—China, for example—embraced the market with a determined enthusiasm. Socialist parties across Europe quickly changed course to follow more pro-market policies—the rise of New Labour in Britain in the 1990s was just one example of this trend.
As communism fell into disrepute, the Left licked its wounds. It could hardly hold up poor bankrupt Cuba or mad old North Korea as examples of the people’s paradises that Karl Marx had desired. So, young people who would once have been drawn to the Left now flocked to other anti-establishment causes, with the environment being the most popular.
Until now, that is.
As global capitalism faces its deepest crisis for nearly a full century, the Left is smiling again. Some old communists are even going so far as to suggest that the slide of many Western economies into recession is on par with the late-1980s collapse of communism. Our system may have failed, they are saying. But then, so has yours.
Others, especially those in India, argue that the Left has saved us from the worst excesses of the market. Had it not been for the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, it is being said, Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram would have allowed foreign banks to buy up to 76% of our banks. And then, as the foreign banks failed, ours would have followed suit.
I have been told: “All of you in the media cursed us when we opposed the Prime Minister’s enthusiasm for globalization, but actually we saved India.” In fact, the communists add, the only reason we have not been sucked into a global depression is because the CPM protected the Indian economy from foreigners.
The Left in India is more vocal than elsewhere but the same sort of idea crops up all over the world. Take the US presidential election. John McCain’s popularity bounced up after the Republican convention and he was actually a few points ahead of Barack Obama. Then, the economic meltdown occurred and America turned Left. Anybody who was associated with the free market policies that had led to the current mess suddenly lost credibility and McCain’s popularity duly dipped, setting the stage for Obama’s victory.
In England, Prime Minister Gordon Brown was regarded as a goner till the economic crisis hit. Then, the soaring popularity of David Cameron and his Conservative Party plateaued and Brits began to wonder whether it made sense to support the party of the free market when it was the free market that caused this crash. As a consequence, Brown’s ratings have gone up again.
So, what does all this mean?
Is it the case that we are rediscovering virtues in the leftist ideologies we once discarded? Is capitalism in some kind of terminal decline? Will we now be suspicious of any political party that advocates free enterprise?
My guess is that the Left is celebrating prematurely. In all that I have heard people say over the last month or so, I have not detected the slightest trace of any nostalgia for state ownership, a planned economy or any of the other policies associated with Marxism. As badly off as we are, nobody thinks we would be better off under communism.
In India, the CPM is taking too much credit. Manmohan Singh has spent his life as a civil servant in regulation-minded administrations. He has seen the Indian economy from both sides, as the government’s chief economist in the licence-quota-permit raj era and as the finance minister who introduced the reforms. The measures he had suggested were never as dramatic as the Left makes out and even if they had been implemented, India would have been in no serious danger today.
But it is foolish to deny that even if we have no nostalgia for socialism, people all over the world are more suspicious of the market today than at any time in the last three decades.
However, this is not because they have given up on capitalism and want communism. Rather, it is because they have come to question two claims advanced for the free market. One: Were international markets ever really as free as marketers made out? All too often—and especially these days—it seems as though they were fixed to benefit the rich, the influential, the people with insider knowledge and those with contacts at the expense of the poor, the un-connected and those on the outside.
And two: What constitutes a fair market anyway? We were told that companies were within their rights to sack employees in the interests of their shareholders because this is how capitalism works. But now, when shareholders face a loss of value—as in the case of the Wall Street banks—they quickly go running to the government asking for a bailout. Why is it okay for employees to be victims of market economics but not okay for shareholders to see the value of their assets destroyed by market economics?
To use an Indian example, both Kingfisher and Jet initially argued that market economics allowed them to sack employees when profits were down. But when they went to the government asking for a rescue package, they were faced with the obvious question: Why should the government keep your airlines alive if you think it’s okay to terminate the jobs of thousands of ordinary people? Why should the market work against the employees but cease to apply to airline bosses? Those who live by the sword…
So pay no attention to the gloats of the Left; their laughter is hollow. But be sure of this: The old free market model is dead. And we need to construct a new one.
Columnists - Barkha Dutt;No place to hide (G.Read)
They say that some things are too strange to be anything else but real. So we can all debate whether it is life that is imitating art or the other way around, but the elaborate and intricate set of revelations that trail every terror attack in India leave one breathless.
This time, we are being told, that a woman ascetic on a motorcycle collaborated with a serving Army officer and possibly a mahant from Jammu, to set off retributive bombs in Maharashtra. Not just that; the police now say they may have had a role to play in the bombs that went off on the Samjhauta Express and killed 66 Indians and Pakistanis on the Lahore-bound train. In 2007, when the peace train was attacked, security analysts had blamed terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba. These new allegations, if proven, will not just be embarrassing diplomatically (can’t you just see the headlines across the border?); they will challenge our very sense of self as a nation.
But will we ever really get to know the truth? Or will this investigation also get entrapped in a maze of incomprehensible detail and then inevitably fade from public focus? Will competitive politics yet again obscure the facts and leave us only with contradictory rhetoric? If the Jamia Nagar encounter — that apparently killed the men responsible for all the serial blasts last year — was devoured by the politics of denial within the UPA, the Malegaon whodunit has sections of the NDA apoplectic. And isn’t it serendipitous how the protests in either case tie in perfectly with the vote banks our politicians imagine are being targeted? So, depending on your point of view, or rather, your brand of politics, questioning the police in one case is a travesty and in the other, entirely legitimate. The rest of us — cynical and bewildered — no longer know what to believe or question. In our understanding of India, everything is just as likely true as it is false.
Perhaps, even more disturbing, than the new and easy religious tagging of terror, is the implication of a soldier in the case. We can believe that the military is capable of excesses, even brutality and violations, especially while serving in conflict zones. But never before has there even been a hint of shadow on its innate secularism. The word itself — secularism — may have become disputed, politicised, ambiguous and impossible to define. But in its most common sense and simple application, the fauj is secular. It’s the reason why when communal clashes go out of control, India often turns to the army to restore sanity. The charges against Lt. Colonel Purohit go against the very grain of what the army stands for. So, if the army believes he is innocent, it should be aggressive and unabashed in his defence. And if it believe the allegations are true, it should swiftly make an example of him. In this case, it’s tough to understand the Army’s reticence and its unwillingness go beyond public assurances of cooperating with the investigations, while privately seething. If the army has a point of view, it needs to express it without fear or favour. Because, the scary suggestion that the lines between nationalism and terrorism may have blurred, even in a single, isolated incident, is enough reason for a pluralist country to worry about itself.
In fact, I don’t want to sound like a dreary doomsday type, but these are really depressing times. Terrorism tails us like a shadow and whether you label it ‘Hindu’ or ‘Muslim’, the truth is that either way the enemy now lies within. Our most cosmopolitan city is diminishing in both spirit and spunk and is suddenly debating whether it has room for ‘outsiders.’ We can get all worked up over a racist slur about Sikhs made by a BBC radio host in Britain. But at least Sam Mason was sacked for suggesting that a turbaned taxi driver would frighten her daughter. That’s more action than we have managed to take against Raj Thackeray who has led the violent hate campaign against north Indian migrant workers. It would have been much simpler if one were able to dismiss his party as the loony fringe. But you can’t do that anymore because the sad truth is that whether it’s the Congress, the Shiv Sena or the NCP, there isn’t a politician in Maharashtra who has a fundamentally different position on the ‘Marathi first’ motto. The old political distinctions between centrist and right-wing have come to mean less and less.
Our Christian minorities have been under attack and foreign Heads of State get to question us about them. But our government can’t take a clear position on groups like the Bajrang Dal that openly perpetuate violence, because that would first require it to take a clear position on fundamentalist outfits like Students Islamic Movement of India. And that it can’t or won’t do because of the arithmetic of political survival. Naxal violence is now an everyday fact that unfolds far away from a disinterested media. If that weren’t enough, our MPs in Tamil Nadu are openly championing the cause of the LTTE, which assassinated the leader of the party they are now in alliance with. And finally, you can’t hide any of this behind the great growth story anymore. The global recession has hit where it hurts and the great economic boom can no longer disguise or soothe our other wounds.
It’s fashionable to say that India’s evolving democracy has emerged out of its chaos and thrives on it as well. Maybe so, but the fissures pulling at our faultlines these days go well beyond benign confusion. Perhaps like the Sensex, this is a cycle in which the good times will return. But for now, there is a simmering anger just beneath the surface that could crack us open. If we don’t watch it, India could implode.
Barkha Dutt is Group Editor, English News, NDTV
This time, we are being told, that a woman ascetic on a motorcycle collaborated with a serving Army officer and possibly a mahant from Jammu, to set off retributive bombs in Maharashtra. Not just that; the police now say they may have had a role to play in the bombs that went off on the Samjhauta Express and killed 66 Indians and Pakistanis on the Lahore-bound train. In 2007, when the peace train was attacked, security analysts had blamed terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba. These new allegations, if proven, will not just be embarrassing diplomatically (can’t you just see the headlines across the border?); they will challenge our very sense of self as a nation.
But will we ever really get to know the truth? Or will this investigation also get entrapped in a maze of incomprehensible detail and then inevitably fade from public focus? Will competitive politics yet again obscure the facts and leave us only with contradictory rhetoric? If the Jamia Nagar encounter — that apparently killed the men responsible for all the serial blasts last year — was devoured by the politics of denial within the UPA, the Malegaon whodunit has sections of the NDA apoplectic. And isn’t it serendipitous how the protests in either case tie in perfectly with the vote banks our politicians imagine are being targeted? So, depending on your point of view, or rather, your brand of politics, questioning the police in one case is a travesty and in the other, entirely legitimate. The rest of us — cynical and bewildered — no longer know what to believe or question. In our understanding of India, everything is just as likely true as it is false.
Perhaps, even more disturbing, than the new and easy religious tagging of terror, is the implication of a soldier in the case. We can believe that the military is capable of excesses, even brutality and violations, especially while serving in conflict zones. But never before has there even been a hint of shadow on its innate secularism. The word itself — secularism — may have become disputed, politicised, ambiguous and impossible to define. But in its most common sense and simple application, the fauj is secular. It’s the reason why when communal clashes go out of control, India often turns to the army to restore sanity. The charges against Lt. Colonel Purohit go against the very grain of what the army stands for. So, if the army believes he is innocent, it should be aggressive and unabashed in his defence. And if it believe the allegations are true, it should swiftly make an example of him. In this case, it’s tough to understand the Army’s reticence and its unwillingness go beyond public assurances of cooperating with the investigations, while privately seething. If the army has a point of view, it needs to express it without fear or favour. Because, the scary suggestion that the lines between nationalism and terrorism may have blurred, even in a single, isolated incident, is enough reason for a pluralist country to worry about itself.
In fact, I don’t want to sound like a dreary doomsday type, but these are really depressing times. Terrorism tails us like a shadow and whether you label it ‘Hindu’ or ‘Muslim’, the truth is that either way the enemy now lies within. Our most cosmopolitan city is diminishing in both spirit and spunk and is suddenly debating whether it has room for ‘outsiders.’ We can get all worked up over a racist slur about Sikhs made by a BBC radio host in Britain. But at least Sam Mason was sacked for suggesting that a turbaned taxi driver would frighten her daughter. That’s more action than we have managed to take against Raj Thackeray who has led the violent hate campaign against north Indian migrant workers. It would have been much simpler if one were able to dismiss his party as the loony fringe. But you can’t do that anymore because the sad truth is that whether it’s the Congress, the Shiv Sena or the NCP, there isn’t a politician in Maharashtra who has a fundamentally different position on the ‘Marathi first’ motto. The old political distinctions between centrist and right-wing have come to mean less and less.
Our Christian minorities have been under attack and foreign Heads of State get to question us about them. But our government can’t take a clear position on groups like the Bajrang Dal that openly perpetuate violence, because that would first require it to take a clear position on fundamentalist outfits like Students Islamic Movement of India. And that it can’t or won’t do because of the arithmetic of political survival. Naxal violence is now an everyday fact that unfolds far away from a disinterested media. If that weren’t enough, our MPs in Tamil Nadu are openly championing the cause of the LTTE, which assassinated the leader of the party they are now in alliance with. And finally, you can’t hide any of this behind the great growth story anymore. The global recession has hit where it hurts and the great economic boom can no longer disguise or soothe our other wounds.
It’s fashionable to say that India’s evolving democracy has emerged out of its chaos and thrives on it as well. Maybe so, but the fissures pulling at our faultlines these days go well beyond benign confusion. Perhaps like the Sensex, this is a cycle in which the good times will return. But for now, there is a simmering anger just beneath the surface that could crack us open. If we don’t watch it, India could implode.
Barkha Dutt is Group Editor, English News, NDTV
Columnists - Khushwant Singh;Good things to the Raj times
When I submitted a collection of articles written by English men and women, compiled by me over 30 years ago to Penguin-Viking under the title Sahibs who Loved India, I hoped it would make the top of non-fiction best-sellers list. It did not. Besides Lord Meghnad Desai’s favourable notice in Outlook, it only got a few patronising paragraphs in other journals. Lord Desai is a Britisher and a friend. I expected him to be kind to me. I was disappointed as I felt strongly that our historians had painted a negative picture of British Raj without giving it credit for its positive contribution to the making of India. They have a lot to say about the rapacity of men like Clive & Warren Hastings, about the diabolical massacre of innocents at Jallianwala Bagh, their racist arrogance, ‘Whites only Clubs’ and keeping their distance from Indians and the nasty things they had to say about everything Indian. However, there was the other side of the coin. Let me draw your attention to some of its salient features.
The British Raj made us conscious of being Indian. We were Punjabis, Awadhis, Biharis, Bengalis, Oriyas Andhras, Tamils, Malayalis, Maharashtrians, Rajputs — also Hindu, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs. We remained all these but also became Indians. All of us had one passport — Indian.
The British built us telegraph, connected our cities by roads, railways, laid networks of canals, dams to produce hydro-electricity. They started the process of industrialisation. They also introduced democratic institutions like municipalities, states and Central legislatures. During the British rule, there was more respect for the law. There were fewer riots, bandhs, and gheraos; blocking roads and rail traffic, burning buses and trains. Smashing of cars etc. was little heard of. There was less corruption. Rarely did English officers indulge in bribery. Now it is rare to find an honest, civil servant who can’t be bribed. Ask any Indian of my generation and he will confirm that life and property were safer in British times than in India today.
Comparison with Princely States is pertinent. Most ruling princes lived in huge palaces, had fleets of Rolls Royces, amassed jewellery, maintained harems of wives and concubines, squandered public money lavishly. Not even the Viceroys of India lived in the styles of our maharajas and nawabs.
Many Englishmen supported India’s freedom movement. The founder of Indian National Congress was an Englishman, A.O.Hume; Mahatma Gandhi’s closest disciple was an English woman, Mira Ben. Amongst his closest associates were Reverend C.F. Andrews and Polak. Two Englishmen were involved in the Meerut Conspiracy case to put an end to the Raj. There were dozens of other English journalists, civil servants, Boxwallahs who lent active support to our freedom movement. The British did not divide us to rule, as is often alleged by nationalist historians. Maulana Mohammed Ali was right in holding ‘We divide and they rule.” The British did not break up India when they left, they did their best to keep it together. It was our leaders who split it as they failed to get on with each other. The British left the country with good graces. They did not have to be pushed out as other European colonists like the French, Dutch & Portuguese. That is why many Indians have nostalgic memories of the Raj.
And finally, lots of English people went out of their way to befriend Indians. I was lucky in knowing quite a few and felt I should do my bit in knowing quite a few of them and my bit in setting the record right. I am an unashamed Anglo-phile.
The British Raj made us conscious of being Indian. We were Punjabis, Awadhis, Biharis, Bengalis, Oriyas Andhras, Tamils, Malayalis, Maharashtrians, Rajputs — also Hindu, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs. We remained all these but also became Indians. All of us had one passport — Indian.
The British built us telegraph, connected our cities by roads, railways, laid networks of canals, dams to produce hydro-electricity. They started the process of industrialisation. They also introduced democratic institutions like municipalities, states and Central legislatures. During the British rule, there was more respect for the law. There were fewer riots, bandhs, and gheraos; blocking roads and rail traffic, burning buses and trains. Smashing of cars etc. was little heard of. There was less corruption. Rarely did English officers indulge in bribery. Now it is rare to find an honest, civil servant who can’t be bribed. Ask any Indian of my generation and he will confirm that life and property were safer in British times than in India today.
Comparison with Princely States is pertinent. Most ruling princes lived in huge palaces, had fleets of Rolls Royces, amassed jewellery, maintained harems of wives and concubines, squandered public money lavishly. Not even the Viceroys of India lived in the styles of our maharajas and nawabs.
Many Englishmen supported India’s freedom movement. The founder of Indian National Congress was an Englishman, A.O.Hume; Mahatma Gandhi’s closest disciple was an English woman, Mira Ben. Amongst his closest associates were Reverend C.F. Andrews and Polak. Two Englishmen were involved in the Meerut Conspiracy case to put an end to the Raj. There were dozens of other English journalists, civil servants, Boxwallahs who lent active support to our freedom movement. The British did not divide us to rule, as is often alleged by nationalist historians. Maulana Mohammed Ali was right in holding ‘We divide and they rule.” The British did not break up India when they left, they did their best to keep it together. It was our leaders who split it as they failed to get on with each other. The British left the country with good graces. They did not have to be pushed out as other European colonists like the French, Dutch & Portuguese. That is why many Indians have nostalgic memories of the Raj.
And finally, lots of English people went out of their way to befriend Indians. I was lucky in knowing quite a few and felt I should do my bit in knowing quite a few of them and my bit in setting the record right. I am an unashamed Anglo-phile.
Food - Honey Facts
Jigna Padhiar
Honey, that magic, translucent potion, is now available in different flavours. The one that’s gaining popularity is the unifloral variety— nectar gathered by bees from a single kind of flower.
Some of the other flavoured kinds available are:
Jambhul: thick consistency, dark amber, slightly bitter, strong flavour, this one is the best antibacterial honey among the unifloral variety.
Karvi (Carvia / Collosa): one of the most expensive in the market, this one is purplish because it is made from Karvi flowers. It’s one of the most sought after, because the Karvi flowers bloom once in eight years. This one cures stomach ailments.
Leechi: a light coloured, creamy honey with a distinctive leechi flavour, this one is produced in Muzzafurpur’s Terrai lands.
Mahua and Palash: dark amber, this one comes from central India. Strong and sweet with an earthy flavour, it has subtle floral hints and is often used in Darjeeling iced tea.
Cashew: smooth, pungent, mildly intoxicating, it’s produced in cashew farms along the Arabian ocean coastline.
Golden Arita: valued for its medicinal properties, it is made from Arita flowers which grow in the forests of south India. It is a golden liquid with a pleasant aroma and a rose after taste.
Other flavours that could be the next attractions include ajwain, jamun, apple blossom, neem, coconut, sunflower, coffee, cotton, cardamom, kher, karanji, walnut and saffron.
Khadi Gram Udyog is a must-visit for flavoured honey. Vijaya Pastala set up Under the Mango Tree in Colaba last December. It sells organic products including unifloral honey.
Pastala says, “Most people do not differentiate between different kinds of honey because they are not aware that honey is available in different flavours.”
Pastala says that honey can be made from any seasonal flower. The new flavours she has introduced this season are sesame, mustard and bajra.
Honey, that magic, translucent potion, is now available in different flavours. The one that’s gaining popularity is the unifloral variety— nectar gathered by bees from a single kind of flower.
Some of the other flavoured kinds available are:
Jambhul: thick consistency, dark amber, slightly bitter, strong flavour, this one is the best antibacterial honey among the unifloral variety.
Karvi (Carvia / Collosa): one of the most expensive in the market, this one is purplish because it is made from Karvi flowers. It’s one of the most sought after, because the Karvi flowers bloom once in eight years. This one cures stomach ailments.
Leechi: a light coloured, creamy honey with a distinctive leechi flavour, this one is produced in Muzzafurpur’s Terrai lands.
Mahua and Palash: dark amber, this one comes from central India. Strong and sweet with an earthy flavour, it has subtle floral hints and is often used in Darjeeling iced tea.
Cashew: smooth, pungent, mildly intoxicating, it’s produced in cashew farms along the Arabian ocean coastline.
Golden Arita: valued for its medicinal properties, it is made from Arita flowers which grow in the forests of south India. It is a golden liquid with a pleasant aroma and a rose after taste.
Other flavours that could be the next attractions include ajwain, jamun, apple blossom, neem, coconut, sunflower, coffee, cotton, cardamom, kher, karanji, walnut and saffron.
Khadi Gram Udyog is a must-visit for flavoured honey. Vijaya Pastala set up Under the Mango Tree in Colaba last December. It sells organic products including unifloral honey.
Pastala says, “Most people do not differentiate between different kinds of honey because they are not aware that honey is available in different flavours.”
Pastala says that honey can be made from any seasonal flower. The new flavours she has introduced this season are sesame, mustard and bajra.
India - Maya's moving in to Kashmir
Peerzada Ashiq
As the journalists sought the views of Dalit families in the tiny village market, one boy rushed back into the row of homes, and emerged holding the hand of another.
"He is a Massi," Abu, 10, said of his 11-year-old friend Aji as they stood before a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) wall graffiti in Painthal village near Katra. He was referring to Masha, a lower caste in Jammu and Kashmir.
In a state where separatism and regional issues run deep, there is a new kid on the block in the upcoming elections in the state: caste politics. The assertion of caste identities is percolating down to many villages and Mayawati's BSP has added a new dimension to the elections.
Posters and wall writing by the BSP dot the mountain roads across the region here, even in remote areas. Inviting people to join it and vote for it, the party has painted even roadside rocks next to milestones on the dusty road stretch from Udhampur to Doda.
"The other parties have failed to eradicate poverty and unemployment in the state. It is because of this that the youth switched from the ballot to bullets," said Bhagwan Singh Chauhan, the state coordinator for BSP.
"We will raise the basic issues – bijli, sadak, paani (electricity, roads, water) – and, of
course, caste is a factor -- we shall be raising the issues of the downtrodden," Chauhan said. Mayawati held a huge public rally in Jammu last November.
For the first time, the BSP is contesting from all the 87 seats in the state in the upcoming elections, even in the Buddhist-dominated Ladakh. The party has handpicked candidates across castes and religions. Though the party contested from 33 seats the last time, it failed to win any.
Dalits have hubs across the Jammu province. There are four major sects of Dalits here -- Ram Dassi, Meg, Doom and Masha. Of them, Ram Dassis, who have joined Radha Swami sect, are economically better-off.
"They prospered because Ram Dassis gave up flesh and wine and focused on education," said Painthal resident S D Nirmohi, 72, a retired professor and author of several books on Jammu society. "They are doctors, engineers and senior administrative officers."
The BSP is drawing support in Painthal among upper caste people as well.
"She (Mayawati) is the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and intends to rule the country," said shopkeeper Sunny Khajuria who has Mayawati's posters with local leaders on his shop façade. He is quick to add: "She doesn't have a huge vote base here."
Unlike Dalits living in other parts of the country, the community has not faced widespread discrimination in the Jammu province. Upper caste boys play with lower caste counterparts in Painthal on the same ground, study in the same school and share food.
"There is nothing like that. God is equal to all," said Jai Kishan, a Brahmin priest from a local temple.
"Mayawati treated everybody equally and taught us to treat all equally," said Kishan, sitting at a shop owned by a Dalit. "She taught us to treat Dalits as brothers."
As the journalists sought the views of Dalit families in the tiny village market, one boy rushed back into the row of homes, and emerged holding the hand of another.
"He is a Massi," Abu, 10, said of his 11-year-old friend Aji as they stood before a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) wall graffiti in Painthal village near Katra. He was referring to Masha, a lower caste in Jammu and Kashmir.
In a state where separatism and regional issues run deep, there is a new kid on the block in the upcoming elections in the state: caste politics. The assertion of caste identities is percolating down to many villages and Mayawati's BSP has added a new dimension to the elections.
Posters and wall writing by the BSP dot the mountain roads across the region here, even in remote areas. Inviting people to join it and vote for it, the party has painted even roadside rocks next to milestones on the dusty road stretch from Udhampur to Doda.
"The other parties have failed to eradicate poverty and unemployment in the state. It is because of this that the youth switched from the ballot to bullets," said Bhagwan Singh Chauhan, the state coordinator for BSP.
"We will raise the basic issues – bijli, sadak, paani (electricity, roads, water) – and, of
course, caste is a factor -- we shall be raising the issues of the downtrodden," Chauhan said. Mayawati held a huge public rally in Jammu last November.
For the first time, the BSP is contesting from all the 87 seats in the state in the upcoming elections, even in the Buddhist-dominated Ladakh. The party has handpicked candidates across castes and religions. Though the party contested from 33 seats the last time, it failed to win any.
Dalits have hubs across the Jammu province. There are four major sects of Dalits here -- Ram Dassi, Meg, Doom and Masha. Of them, Ram Dassis, who have joined Radha Swami sect, are economically better-off.
"They prospered because Ram Dassis gave up flesh and wine and focused on education," said Painthal resident S D Nirmohi, 72, a retired professor and author of several books on Jammu society. "They are doctors, engineers and senior administrative officers."
The BSP is drawing support in Painthal among upper caste people as well.
"She (Mayawati) is the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and intends to rule the country," said shopkeeper Sunny Khajuria who has Mayawati's posters with local leaders on his shop façade. He is quick to add: "She doesn't have a huge vote base here."
Unlike Dalits living in other parts of the country, the community has not faced widespread discrimination in the Jammu province. Upper caste boys play with lower caste counterparts in Painthal on the same ground, study in the same school and share food.
"There is nothing like that. God is equal to all," said Jai Kishan, a Brahmin priest from a local temple.
"Mayawati treated everybody equally and taught us to treat all equally," said Kishan, sitting at a shop owned by a Dalit. "She taught us to treat Dalits as brothers."
Entertainment Columnist -Vir Sanghvi reviews Quantum of Solace
I have a confession to make. Though nearly everybody else in the world thought that Casino Royale was the greatest James Bond movie of all time, I thought it was massively over-rated. Nor did I buy the line that the series had gone back to the spirit of the Ian Fleming books or that Daniel Craig’s Bond was a throwback to the glory days of Sean Connery.
And one more thing: though many Bond fans have hated the new movie, Quantum of Solace and it has received mixed reviews, I loved it.
It’s a far, far better picture than Casino Royale.
Okay, now let’s go over all the above, step by step, shall we?
First, why didn’t I think Casino Royale was so hot?
Well, because judged purely as a film, it was too long, over-bloated and did not really hold together at all. Its various bits seemed a little like different episodes of a TV show (or a whole bunch of TV shows, actually) rather than a coherent movie.
Second, why did everybody else love it so much?
Well, largely because the James Bond series is caught in a mysterious phantom zone where it has to keep crossing the lines of time. There are people who like the sex and snobbery. They love it when Bond beds a woman and purr with delight when he orders caviar (both of which he did in a totally gratuitous scene in Casino Royale). There are others who like the idea of a dinner-jacketed Bond at the card table — remember, in the Roger Moore days, the classic photo had Bond with bow-tie and gun — and sure enough, Casino Royale had loads of all that.
But these traditional Bond movie elements seem a little incomplete in an era where James Bond seems like the grandad of two new JBs — Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer. The success of the Bourne movies has blasted the Bond franchise out of the box office listings and the producers clearly felt the need to appeal to a new audience that liked stripped-down spy movies with laconic heroes. And 24, in which Jack Bauer is the accident-prone hero, had shown them that even on TV, lots of gratuitous violence, murder and torture are what really works.
So Casino Royale was really The Bond Identity or The Bond Ultimatum. It took the character and some of the things he carried with him (the sex, the high-living, the suits etc.) and placed them in a fast-action, jump-cut kind of Jason Bourne world.
That’s why it had so many different elements and that’s why it never really held together.
But it did please everyone: fans of Bond and fans of Bourne included.
Third, why didn’t I think that Casino Royale either captured the spirit of the Sean Connery movies or the Bond of the Fleming books?
Well, because people who spout all this nonsense have a) forgotten (or never seen) the Connery movies and b) never bothered to read the Fleming books (fair enough: they have not aged well).
It is now part of mythology that all the elements we laugh at in the Bond series were added when Roger Moore took over the role. This is nonsense. All of them were in the Connery movies.
The single best Bond movie Connery ever made, From Russia With Love, was full of gadgets — a whole briefcase worth of them. The tradition of the Mao-suited villain with a massive lair is pure Connery-Bond, right from the first movie, Dr No, to Ken Adam’s influential set for the climax of You Only Live Twice. The nonsense about fine wine is Connery-Bond too — at the end of Diamonds Are Forever, he unmasks an assassin when the hit-man fails to realise that Mouton Rothschild is a claret.
The only real difference between Connery’s Bond and the ones that followed (Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan etc.) was that Connery seemed capable of cruelty and real violence (not the pretend variety). In that sense, yes, Daniel Craig is in the Connery mould. But that’s about it.
As for all this crap about how Fleming would have hated Roger Moore and had wanted a tough guy to play Bond, the truth is that Moore was a candidate for the role before Connery was selected — and this had Fleming’s approval. Fleming was horrified by the choice of Connery and his own candidates for the role were people like Cary Grant, Richard Burton and David Niven — hardly tough guys or action men.
And finally, why do I like Quantum of Solace?
Well, mainly because it holds together. It is a (largely) coherent movie that shows us a single Bond, not a character who is composite of Bond through the ages.
There’s hardly any sex (one needless scene), no snobbery, no vodka-martinis shaken not stirred (he has his cocktail with gin), no gadgets (no instant revival-from-death kit in his car), very little high living, no caricature villain who bleeds from his eyes and no big climax.
It does have a Bourne-like editing style so the action can be a little jarring if not downright confusing and the screenwriters have taken on board Bourne director Paul Greengrass’s prejudices so the CIA is on the side of the bad guys in Quantum of Solace. But these obvious borrowings do not detract from the movie’s appeal. And the nods to previous Bond movies (the desert walk from The Spy Who Loved Me and the Shirley Eaton-style death scene that references Goldfinger, for instance) are subtly done.
It’s a dark, largely sensible movie and it even passes the one test that no Bond film has for twenty years: if the character was called Joe Smith and had none of the Bond trademarks, would you still be interested in the movie?
I reckon you would. And you should.
And one more thing: though many Bond fans have hated the new movie, Quantum of Solace and it has received mixed reviews, I loved it.
It’s a far, far better picture than Casino Royale.
Okay, now let’s go over all the above, step by step, shall we?
First, why didn’t I think Casino Royale was so hot?
Well, because judged purely as a film, it was too long, over-bloated and did not really hold together at all. Its various bits seemed a little like different episodes of a TV show (or a whole bunch of TV shows, actually) rather than a coherent movie.
Second, why did everybody else love it so much?
Well, largely because the James Bond series is caught in a mysterious phantom zone where it has to keep crossing the lines of time. There are people who like the sex and snobbery. They love it when Bond beds a woman and purr with delight when he orders caviar (both of which he did in a totally gratuitous scene in Casino Royale). There are others who like the idea of a dinner-jacketed Bond at the card table — remember, in the Roger Moore days, the classic photo had Bond with bow-tie and gun — and sure enough, Casino Royale had loads of all that.
But these traditional Bond movie elements seem a little incomplete in an era where James Bond seems like the grandad of two new JBs — Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer. The success of the Bourne movies has blasted the Bond franchise out of the box office listings and the producers clearly felt the need to appeal to a new audience that liked stripped-down spy movies with laconic heroes. And 24, in which Jack Bauer is the accident-prone hero, had shown them that even on TV, lots of gratuitous violence, murder and torture are what really works.
So Casino Royale was really The Bond Identity or The Bond Ultimatum. It took the character and some of the things he carried with him (the sex, the high-living, the suits etc.) and placed them in a fast-action, jump-cut kind of Jason Bourne world.
That’s why it had so many different elements and that’s why it never really held together.
But it did please everyone: fans of Bond and fans of Bourne included.
Third, why didn’t I think that Casino Royale either captured the spirit of the Sean Connery movies or the Bond of the Fleming books?
Well, because people who spout all this nonsense have a) forgotten (or never seen) the Connery movies and b) never bothered to read the Fleming books (fair enough: they have not aged well).
It is now part of mythology that all the elements we laugh at in the Bond series were added when Roger Moore took over the role. This is nonsense. All of them were in the Connery movies.
The single best Bond movie Connery ever made, From Russia With Love, was full of gadgets — a whole briefcase worth of them. The tradition of the Mao-suited villain with a massive lair is pure Connery-Bond, right from the first movie, Dr No, to Ken Adam’s influential set for the climax of You Only Live Twice. The nonsense about fine wine is Connery-Bond too — at the end of Diamonds Are Forever, he unmasks an assassin when the hit-man fails to realise that Mouton Rothschild is a claret.
The only real difference between Connery’s Bond and the ones that followed (Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan etc.) was that Connery seemed capable of cruelty and real violence (not the pretend variety). In that sense, yes, Daniel Craig is in the Connery mould. But that’s about it.
As for all this crap about how Fleming would have hated Roger Moore and had wanted a tough guy to play Bond, the truth is that Moore was a candidate for the role before Connery was selected — and this had Fleming’s approval. Fleming was horrified by the choice of Connery and his own candidates for the role were people like Cary Grant, Richard Burton and David Niven — hardly tough guys or action men.
And finally, why do I like Quantum of Solace?
Well, mainly because it holds together. It is a (largely) coherent movie that shows us a single Bond, not a character who is composite of Bond through the ages.
There’s hardly any sex (one needless scene), no snobbery, no vodka-martinis shaken not stirred (he has his cocktail with gin), no gadgets (no instant revival-from-death kit in his car), very little high living, no caricature villain who bleeds from his eyes and no big climax.
It does have a Bourne-like editing style so the action can be a little jarring if not downright confusing and the screenwriters have taken on board Bourne director Paul Greengrass’s prejudices so the CIA is on the side of the bad guys in Quantum of Solace. But these obvious borrowings do not detract from the movie’s appeal. And the nods to previous Bond movies (the desert walk from The Spy Who Loved Me and the Shirley Eaton-style death scene that references Goldfinger, for instance) are subtly done.
It’s a dark, largely sensible movie and it even passes the one test that no Bond film has for twenty years: if the character was called Joe Smith and had none of the Bond trademarks, would you still be interested in the movie?
I reckon you would. And you should.
Books - Nandan Nilekani's Imagining India to debut on 24th November
Rajeshwari Sharma
New Delhi: Nandan Nilekani, normally unflappable, lost his cool when he was asked in an interview why he was becoming an author. What do you have left to prove? Are you playing at being an author?
“What do you mean?” Nilekani, co-founder and co-chairman of software maker Infosys Technologies Ltd, had retorted in the interview he gave for a profile published in the 2 August edition of Lounge. “I have worked hard on this. Every single idea in that book is mine. I am going out on a limb here; opening myself up to criticism; people I don’t know can take potshots at me.”
Nilekani’s much anticipated book, Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century, will be launched on 24 November in New Delhi, and in his hometown Bangalore three days later, followed by other Indian cities, including Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. The book will also be released in the US and elsewhere in 2009.
Imagining India will also mark the India debut of Penguin Books Ltd’s non-fiction imprint Allen Lane, named after the publisher’s founder. The list of authors published under the label include economists Amartya Sen, Thomas Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz; journalist Malcolm Gladwell, American film-maker Michael Moore and biologist Richard Dawkins.
“It’s a definitive book on India,” says Penguin Books’ India managing editor Udayan Mitra on Nilekani’s debut offering. “It’s the kind of book that has an international appeal. Nilekani has been in the forefront of IT revolution in India and is one of the most recognized faces globally”.
Imagining India is divided into four parts: The first dwells on topics, including globalization, India’s demographic advantage, the changing role of the entrepreneur and technology. The second is about the infrastructural challenges and the third looks at issues such as conflicting political ideologies, labour reform and higher education. The last section deals with democracy and technology, health, pensions and entitlements, the environment and energy.
The first 150-200 pages chart Indian history from the Indus Valley Civilization to British colonial rule to the present day.
“There is a slew of books on India’s future that make Indians feel good; they inculcate an air of self-congratulation,” said historian-author Ramachandra Guha, a longtime friend of Nilekani, who was one of the first to see a draft of the book. “Nandan’s book makes you think and introspect about India’s future.”
“It is a very well-written, carefully argued book,” Guha added. “He has accurately identified the problems and faultlines, and suggested solutions. Of course, anyone reading it won’t agree with it 100%, but will (nevertheless) be stimulated, provoked and informed.”
Guha said he himself doesn’t share Nilekani’s optimism because “by temperament, I am more sceptical” as historians usually tend to be.
Penguin is betting big on Imagining India. Though the publisher isn’t disclosing the precise number of copies it is printing, the book will have the biggest print run this year for a book by the publisher, says Mitra. The last biggest print for Penguin this year has been 25,000 copies, but Mitra declined to name the book.
In the next nine months, the Allen Lane imprint’s line-up in India will include former presidents A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and K.R. Narayanan, Infosys co-founder and chief mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy and author-activist Arundhati Roy.
Other non-fiction imprints available in India include Little, Brown and Co. and Weidenfeld and Nicolson from Hachette, Knopf from Random House and Fourth Estate from HarperCollins Publishers.
“Imprint strategy is a recent thing in India and it’s to be seen how many imprints can be spun out successfully here,” says Thomas Abraham, managing director, Hachette India, part of Paris-based publishing group Hachette Livre SA.
Imprints help publishers focus on a “particular genre and certain kinds of books”, says Yogesh Sharma, general manager for sales and operations at HarperCollins Publishers India Ltd. “But at the end of the day, it is the author which really matters”, Sharma says, adding: “Readers really do not care who publishes (pulp fiction author) Sidney Sheldon.”
Penguin plans to put a major effort into promoting Imagining India over the next several months, including a six-city tour by Nilekani, tie-ups with mobile service providers and a website (www.imaginingindia.com) to engage readers in a discussion on India. It also plans a separate marketing strategy for academic institutions and says it is in talks with a coffee chain for specifically reaching out to young people.
New Delhi: Nandan Nilekani, normally unflappable, lost his cool when he was asked in an interview why he was becoming an author. What do you have left to prove? Are you playing at being an author?
“What do you mean?” Nilekani, co-founder and co-chairman of software maker Infosys Technologies Ltd, had retorted in the interview he gave for a profile published in the 2 August edition of Lounge. “I have worked hard on this. Every single idea in that book is mine. I am going out on a limb here; opening myself up to criticism; people I don’t know can take potshots at me.”
Nilekani’s much anticipated book, Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century, will be launched on 24 November in New Delhi, and in his hometown Bangalore three days later, followed by other Indian cities, including Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. The book will also be released in the US and elsewhere in 2009.
Imagining India will also mark the India debut of Penguin Books Ltd’s non-fiction imprint Allen Lane, named after the publisher’s founder. The list of authors published under the label include economists Amartya Sen, Thomas Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz; journalist Malcolm Gladwell, American film-maker Michael Moore and biologist Richard Dawkins.
“It’s a definitive book on India,” says Penguin Books’ India managing editor Udayan Mitra on Nilekani’s debut offering. “It’s the kind of book that has an international appeal. Nilekani has been in the forefront of IT revolution in India and is one of the most recognized faces globally”.
Imagining India is divided into four parts: The first dwells on topics, including globalization, India’s demographic advantage, the changing role of the entrepreneur and technology. The second is about the infrastructural challenges and the third looks at issues such as conflicting political ideologies, labour reform and higher education. The last section deals with democracy and technology, health, pensions and entitlements, the environment and energy.
The first 150-200 pages chart Indian history from the Indus Valley Civilization to British colonial rule to the present day.
“There is a slew of books on India’s future that make Indians feel good; they inculcate an air of self-congratulation,” said historian-author Ramachandra Guha, a longtime friend of Nilekani, who was one of the first to see a draft of the book. “Nandan’s book makes you think and introspect about India’s future.”
“It is a very well-written, carefully argued book,” Guha added. “He has accurately identified the problems and faultlines, and suggested solutions. Of course, anyone reading it won’t agree with it 100%, but will (nevertheless) be stimulated, provoked and informed.”
Guha said he himself doesn’t share Nilekani’s optimism because “by temperament, I am more sceptical” as historians usually tend to be.
Penguin is betting big on Imagining India. Though the publisher isn’t disclosing the precise number of copies it is printing, the book will have the biggest print run this year for a book by the publisher, says Mitra. The last biggest print for Penguin this year has been 25,000 copies, but Mitra declined to name the book.
In the next nine months, the Allen Lane imprint’s line-up in India will include former presidents A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and K.R. Narayanan, Infosys co-founder and chief mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy and author-activist Arundhati Roy.
Other non-fiction imprints available in India include Little, Brown and Co. and Weidenfeld and Nicolson from Hachette, Knopf from Random House and Fourth Estate from HarperCollins Publishers.
“Imprint strategy is a recent thing in India and it’s to be seen how many imprints can be spun out successfully here,” says Thomas Abraham, managing director, Hachette India, part of Paris-based publishing group Hachette Livre SA.
Imprints help publishers focus on a “particular genre and certain kinds of books”, says Yogesh Sharma, general manager for sales and operations at HarperCollins Publishers India Ltd. “But at the end of the day, it is the author which really matters”, Sharma says, adding: “Readers really do not care who publishes (pulp fiction author) Sidney Sheldon.”
Penguin plans to put a major effort into promoting Imagining India over the next several months, including a six-city tour by Nilekani, tie-ups with mobile service providers and a website (www.imaginingindia.com) to engage readers in a discussion on India. It also plans a separate marketing strategy for academic institutions and says it is in talks with a coffee chain for specifically reaching out to young people.
Entertainment - India;Star & Jupiter form JV to tap South Indian market
New Delhi: News Corp’s Star India Pvt. Ltd and Bangalore-based entrepreneur Rajeev Chandrasekhar have teamed up in southern India’s media and entertainment market.
Star India said on Friday it had formed a joint venture (JV) with Chandrasekhar’s media and entertainment company, Jupiter Entertainment Ventures Pvt. Ltd.
Growth plans: Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s Jupiter Entertainment is looking at buying an English news channel and a regional newspaper. While Star will hold a majority stake in the venture, named Star Jupiter Entertainment Television Ltd (Star Jupiter), the venture will also pick up a majority stake in Chandrasekhar’s Asianet Communications Ltd (ACL).
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
ACL runs general entertainment channels in Kannada (Suvarna), Telugu (Sitara) and Malayalam (Asianet, Asianet Plus). Chandrasekhar will continue to run his news ventures, which include news channels in Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil, under Jupiter Entertainment. Indian laws do not allow foreign entities to hold more than 26% stake in news and current affairs ventures. Hence, the news venture has been retained under Jupiter Entertainment, fully owned by Chandrasekhar.
A Jupiter executive said the company was also looking at acquiring a national English news channel and a regional newspaper. “We are in talks with some existing national news channels and aim to acquire a leading running channel soon,” claimed K. Sanjay Prabhu of Jupiter Ventures.
For Star, the deal replaces its partnership with content producer Balaji Telefilms Ltd, under which the duo had announced the launch of several regional channels primarily focusing on the south India market. Star’s existing channel in Tamil Nadu, called Vijay TV, will now be part of the new JV.
“South India represents the next big growth story for Indian television. With this strategic partnership, we should be able to capture this growth opportunity,” said Uday Shankar, chief executive officer, Star India, in a statement.
News Corp. also owns ‘The Wall Street Journal’, which has an exclusive content partnership in India with Mint.
Star India said on Friday it had formed a joint venture (JV) with Chandrasekhar’s media and entertainment company, Jupiter Entertainment Ventures Pvt. Ltd.
Growth plans: Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s Jupiter Entertainment is looking at buying an English news channel and a regional newspaper. While Star will hold a majority stake in the venture, named Star Jupiter Entertainment Television Ltd (Star Jupiter), the venture will also pick up a majority stake in Chandrasekhar’s Asianet Communications Ltd (ACL).
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
ACL runs general entertainment channels in Kannada (Suvarna), Telugu (Sitara) and Malayalam (Asianet, Asianet Plus). Chandrasekhar will continue to run his news ventures, which include news channels in Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil, under Jupiter Entertainment. Indian laws do not allow foreign entities to hold more than 26% stake in news and current affairs ventures. Hence, the news venture has been retained under Jupiter Entertainment, fully owned by Chandrasekhar.
A Jupiter executive said the company was also looking at acquiring a national English news channel and a regional newspaper. “We are in talks with some existing national news channels and aim to acquire a leading running channel soon,” claimed K. Sanjay Prabhu of Jupiter Ventures.
For Star, the deal replaces its partnership with content producer Balaji Telefilms Ltd, under which the duo had announced the launch of several regional channels primarily focusing on the south India market. Star’s existing channel in Tamil Nadu, called Vijay TV, will now be part of the new JV.
“South India represents the next big growth story for Indian television. With this strategic partnership, we should be able to capture this growth opportunity,” said Uday Shankar, chief executive officer, Star India, in a statement.
News Corp. also owns ‘The Wall Street Journal’, which has an exclusive content partnership in India with Mint.
World - Frictions on joint recovery plan
Vaiju Naravane
The European Union’s position on the Washington financial summit differs from that adopted by emerging economies and Washington under George Bush.
On November 7, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at an informal European summit specifically called to prepare for the G-2O meeting that the European Union “should adopt a common position” on reforming the world’s financial system. Brave words. For even as Europe tried hard to work out a joint proposal to take to Washington this week-end, fresh frictions emerged between the two giants of the Euro zone – France and Germany, on whether a joint Eu ropean recovery plan is desirable, feasible or possible.
European solidarity also appeared brittle over exactly how far European nations should and could go to coordinate their efforts to reverse the current situation; and this with the backdrop of Germany, Europe’s powerhouse, officially slipping into recession. For the moment at least, European solidarity and commitment to unity appears to be paper thin.
Ever since the crisis broke this summer, Mr. Sarkozy has been striding up and down the world stage at his hyper-active best, calling meeting after meeting to meet the worst financial and economic challenge the world has faced since 1929. It was at his insistence that President Bush agreed to hold this week-end’s G-20 meeting. In scores of inflamed speeches, Mr. Sarkozy has spoken of a “great opportunity” to abandon the “hateful practices” of the past. “We cannot continue along the same lines because the same problems will trigger the same disasters … we must reform capitalism so that the most efficient system ever created doesn’t destroy its own foundations,” he said recently.
Speaking on behalf of the European Union, President Sarkozy who holds the organisation’s rotating six-month presidency, has led calls for a broad overhaul of global finance, prescribing a stiff dose of tougher regulation to fix the system’s ills. European leaders would like to see the International Monetary Fund turned into the lead agency for spotting emerging financial problems, and taking action to stop them spreading.
They also want big emerging economies such as China and Saudi Arabia brought into the system and encouraged to spend their vast cash reserves to help alleviate the crisis. Europe’s leaders want to see more regulation of the financial services industry. No sector is to be left unregulated or without supervision and that includes offshore financial havens. Another key objective is a code of conduct to control pay and bonuses in the financial sector. Governments want to shift reward away from short-term fast profit operations, towards long-term, real value creation
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said EU leaders had reached a ‘pretty detailed common position’ which they will be taking to Washington.
However, several countries in Europe expressed their displeasure at what they see as a hijacking of the situation by the EU’s big three, Britain, France and Germany. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Stockholm for one had “a number of objections” to a series of proposals France is touting as Europe’s contribution to the Washington summit, arguing in particular that “there is too much regulation.”
“It is very easy to be in such a rush to show leadership that one forgets to correctly and thoroughly analyse” the situation, Reinfeldt said. “These are very complex questions regarding how to globally work with different kinds of regulation.”
Eager for the Washington summit to be more than just a talking shop, the EU’s French presidency also wants it to be followed up with concrete proposals in the ensuing 100 days.
France and Italy are, generally speaking, far more positively inclined toward state intervention in the economy than England or even Germany. Thus, while some EU states may see the financial crisis as an occasion for governments to rein in unbridled market capitalism, others are more likely to view it as a problem to be overcome while preserving the basics of the current system.
In addition to the differing positions adopted by individual states, societies themselves, whether in Britain, the Netherlands, France, Spain Germany or Italy are sharply divided on the best course of action to follow. Left wing economists like Frenchman Alain Fitoussi feel that the response to the financial crisis should go far beyond emergency cash infusions. “There are opportunities for the left to iron out some of the social differences that plague our societies, to put it on a more egalitarian footing. This moment should be seized to change that.”
His words find echo in controversial Swiss polemicist Jean Zeigler who has sharply criticised the West with “playing with the lives” of the very poor in the developing world while enriching themselves.
But others see this as a power grabbing move by governments in the market place where they should not be present at all. “Some governments are actually quite keen to exploit the precedent that has been set to re-establish a more … interventionist industrial or economic policy,” Simon Tilford, chief economist at the London-based think tank, Centre for European Reform, said in an interview.
The Europeans’ gung-ho attitude contrasts sharply with that of Washington and the cautious, wait-and-see approach adopted by emerging nations. Many observers feel the summit will achieve little or nothing and end up being yet another talk shop essentially because President Bush has been reluctant to examine any new reform proposals and because President-elect Barak Obama has chosen not to attend.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said no concrete solutions or decisions should be expected from the summit. The goal was “to start identifying ... the underlying causes of the financial crisis,” she said.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto minimised the odds that G-20 leaders could agree, for instance, on new regulations on complex securities, such as the mortgage-backed instruments that have unhinged global credit markets. Instead, the leaders are expected to name working groups that, over the coming months, are to make recommendations on overhauling various areas of the financial system.
“It’s inconceivable that leaders...could sit down and deal with those in a weekend summit,” Mr. Fratto said. “What they can do, which is really important, is set the principles that will guide those discussions that we want to speed up.” Mr. Fratto said it will take time to develop solutions. “The last thing you want are rash decisions that lead to unintended consequences that the world isn’t prepared for,” he said.
China and the oil-rich OPEC states have reacted cautiously to European calls that their foreign exchange reserves be used to bolster the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) core financial structure. However, no EU leader has suggested power sharing reforms to go with such largesse and this has several emerging economies bristling. The IMF chief is and will continue to be European and the World Bank chief will be an American unless emerging economies can successfully bargain for change with a weakened West.
The big emerging countries that have become the main pillars of world economic growth will certainly seek to push their way into positions of power at the rich nations’ club. Brazil, Russia, India and China — the so-called BRIC countries — are determined to have their new heavyweight status recognised by the Group of Seven advanced countries, and win a say in directing the planet’s economic affairs.
The demand by the BRICs was partially conceded by the main industrialised countries at a preparatory G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in Sao Paulo last week. The group agreed that the IMF and other institutions formed from the 1944 Bretton Woods accord “must be comprehensively reformed so that they can more adequately reflect changing economic weights in the world economy.” The U.S. representative at that meeting, David McCormick, Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, said Washington has long backed giving emerging countries more say in the IMF and the World Bank.
The summit, he said, “will be an opportunity for a very focused discussion among the world leaders on the global financial market crisis, and it will lay the groundwork toward making important regulatory changes.” But so far no concrete moves for change have been made or even envisaged by the West.
The European Union’s position on the Washington financial summit differs from that adopted by emerging economies and Washington under George Bush.
On November 7, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at an informal European summit specifically called to prepare for the G-2O meeting that the European Union “should adopt a common position” on reforming the world’s financial system. Brave words. For even as Europe tried hard to work out a joint proposal to take to Washington this week-end, fresh frictions emerged between the two giants of the Euro zone – France and Germany, on whether a joint Eu ropean recovery plan is desirable, feasible or possible.
European solidarity also appeared brittle over exactly how far European nations should and could go to coordinate their efforts to reverse the current situation; and this with the backdrop of Germany, Europe’s powerhouse, officially slipping into recession. For the moment at least, European solidarity and commitment to unity appears to be paper thin.
Ever since the crisis broke this summer, Mr. Sarkozy has been striding up and down the world stage at his hyper-active best, calling meeting after meeting to meet the worst financial and economic challenge the world has faced since 1929. It was at his insistence that President Bush agreed to hold this week-end’s G-20 meeting. In scores of inflamed speeches, Mr. Sarkozy has spoken of a “great opportunity” to abandon the “hateful practices” of the past. “We cannot continue along the same lines because the same problems will trigger the same disasters … we must reform capitalism so that the most efficient system ever created doesn’t destroy its own foundations,” he said recently.
Speaking on behalf of the European Union, President Sarkozy who holds the organisation’s rotating six-month presidency, has led calls for a broad overhaul of global finance, prescribing a stiff dose of tougher regulation to fix the system’s ills. European leaders would like to see the International Monetary Fund turned into the lead agency for spotting emerging financial problems, and taking action to stop them spreading.
They also want big emerging economies such as China and Saudi Arabia brought into the system and encouraged to spend their vast cash reserves to help alleviate the crisis. Europe’s leaders want to see more regulation of the financial services industry. No sector is to be left unregulated or without supervision and that includes offshore financial havens. Another key objective is a code of conduct to control pay and bonuses in the financial sector. Governments want to shift reward away from short-term fast profit operations, towards long-term, real value creation
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said EU leaders had reached a ‘pretty detailed common position’ which they will be taking to Washington.
However, several countries in Europe expressed their displeasure at what they see as a hijacking of the situation by the EU’s big three, Britain, France and Germany. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Stockholm for one had “a number of objections” to a series of proposals France is touting as Europe’s contribution to the Washington summit, arguing in particular that “there is too much regulation.”
“It is very easy to be in such a rush to show leadership that one forgets to correctly and thoroughly analyse” the situation, Reinfeldt said. “These are very complex questions regarding how to globally work with different kinds of regulation.”
Eager for the Washington summit to be more than just a talking shop, the EU’s French presidency also wants it to be followed up with concrete proposals in the ensuing 100 days.
France and Italy are, generally speaking, far more positively inclined toward state intervention in the economy than England or even Germany. Thus, while some EU states may see the financial crisis as an occasion for governments to rein in unbridled market capitalism, others are more likely to view it as a problem to be overcome while preserving the basics of the current system.
In addition to the differing positions adopted by individual states, societies themselves, whether in Britain, the Netherlands, France, Spain Germany or Italy are sharply divided on the best course of action to follow. Left wing economists like Frenchman Alain Fitoussi feel that the response to the financial crisis should go far beyond emergency cash infusions. “There are opportunities for the left to iron out some of the social differences that plague our societies, to put it on a more egalitarian footing. This moment should be seized to change that.”
His words find echo in controversial Swiss polemicist Jean Zeigler who has sharply criticised the West with “playing with the lives” of the very poor in the developing world while enriching themselves.
But others see this as a power grabbing move by governments in the market place where they should not be present at all. “Some governments are actually quite keen to exploit the precedent that has been set to re-establish a more … interventionist industrial or economic policy,” Simon Tilford, chief economist at the London-based think tank, Centre for European Reform, said in an interview.
The Europeans’ gung-ho attitude contrasts sharply with that of Washington and the cautious, wait-and-see approach adopted by emerging nations. Many observers feel the summit will achieve little or nothing and end up being yet another talk shop essentially because President Bush has been reluctant to examine any new reform proposals and because President-elect Barak Obama has chosen not to attend.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said no concrete solutions or decisions should be expected from the summit. The goal was “to start identifying ... the underlying causes of the financial crisis,” she said.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto minimised the odds that G-20 leaders could agree, for instance, on new regulations on complex securities, such as the mortgage-backed instruments that have unhinged global credit markets. Instead, the leaders are expected to name working groups that, over the coming months, are to make recommendations on overhauling various areas of the financial system.
“It’s inconceivable that leaders...could sit down and deal with those in a weekend summit,” Mr. Fratto said. “What they can do, which is really important, is set the principles that will guide those discussions that we want to speed up.” Mr. Fratto said it will take time to develop solutions. “The last thing you want are rash decisions that lead to unintended consequences that the world isn’t prepared for,” he said.
China and the oil-rich OPEC states have reacted cautiously to European calls that their foreign exchange reserves be used to bolster the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) core financial structure. However, no EU leader has suggested power sharing reforms to go with such largesse and this has several emerging economies bristling. The IMF chief is and will continue to be European and the World Bank chief will be an American unless emerging economies can successfully bargain for change with a weakened West.
The big emerging countries that have become the main pillars of world economic growth will certainly seek to push their way into positions of power at the rich nations’ club. Brazil, Russia, India and China — the so-called BRIC countries — are determined to have their new heavyweight status recognised by the Group of Seven advanced countries, and win a say in directing the planet’s economic affairs.
The demand by the BRICs was partially conceded by the main industrialised countries at a preparatory G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in Sao Paulo last week. The group agreed that the IMF and other institutions formed from the 1944 Bretton Woods accord “must be comprehensively reformed so that they can more adequately reflect changing economic weights in the world economy.” The U.S. representative at that meeting, David McCormick, Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, said Washington has long backed giving emerging countries more say in the IMF and the World Bank.
The summit, he said, “will be an opportunity for a very focused discussion among the world leaders on the global financial market crisis, and it will lay the groundwork toward making important regulatory changes.” But so far no concrete moves for change have been made or even envisaged by the West.
Health - Diabetes & Cardiovascular disease go hand in hand
I. Sathyamurthy
How diabetes and cardiovascular disease go hand in hand.
Some 160 million people across the world suffer from diabetes mellitus (DM). This number is likely to increase exponentially in the years to come. The rate of increase may be more in India than elsewhere owing to a certain ethnic predisposition in the Indian population. The expected pandemic scale may be accounted for by higher detection rates, newer diagnostic facilities, increasing longevity and better public awareness about it. Dietary indiscipline, urbanisation, global isation and the resultant stress are other contributing factors.
Diabetes mellitus is not only a metabolic disorder but a cardiovascular disorder (CVD). Approximately 40 per cent of diabetics have an associated CVD. It is evident from various Indian registries that 40 per cent of patients who are admitted for CVD conditions such as heart attacks, or are being treated with the aid of coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) or balloon angioplasty (PTCA), have DM. CVD and DM often coexist and are like cousins. Diabetes mellitus often leads to cardiovascular diseases, manifesting as heart attacks, strokes or peripheral vascular diseases. “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” wrote Shelley in ‘Ode To The West Wind.’ If diabetes comes, vascular disease usually follows.
By the time a diabetic person comes in for tests, the vascular, or blood vessel, damage has already begun. Depending on the sugar level and the associated risk status of a patient, vascular disease is detected at various stages of such damage. So what is actually obvious at presentation is the tip of the iceberg.
DM is the most common cause of heart attacks in those below 45 years of age. In pre-menopausal women, diabetes takes away the element of gender protection that is otherwise available. Primary prevention in diabetics should be similar to secondary prevention in non-diabetics. This means that diabetics who have not suffered heart attacks should be treated on the same lines as non-diabetic persons who have suffered a heart attack. DM and CVD have common antecedents such as genetic predisposition and environmental factors — the so-called “common coil” hypothesis.
Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet: “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.” This is apt in the case of diabetes as DM brings with it other risks such as high blood pressure and lipid abnormalities (elevated levels of bad cholesterol types such as LDL and triglycerides and total cholesterol, besides low levels of HDL, the good cholesterol). Such “clustering” of risk factors compound CVD risk. Diabetics have a higher tendency for clot formation and abnormal functioning of the inner smooth lining of blood vessels, or endothelial dysfunction.
Asymptomatic coronary artery disease (CAD), involving the blood vessels supplying the heart muscles, is more common in diabetics than in others. Patients may not have any premonitory symptoms of heart attacks, as the pain perception is affected due to nerve damage caused by DM.
Early detection can prevent or delay vascular complications. The root cause of vascular damage is insulin resistance, insulin being the hormone that controls the metabolism of sugar. Insulin resistance precedes manifest diabetes by several years. The “deadly pentad” constitutes obesity, DM, high blood pressure, lipid abnormalities and CVD.
In cases of longstanding and uncontrolled DM, coronary arteries develop multiple blocks, and diffuse disease involving the entire vessel. The disease affects predominantly the ends of the vessels. The vessel caliber becomes small. These vessels are more prone to calcification. There is a high tendency for cholesterol plaques to rupture in diabetic vessels with resultant clot formation in the lumen of the vessels, which could be life threatening. Because of impaired blood supply to it, the heart’s pumping capacity comes down.
Such features, characteristic of diabetic vascular disease, will impede chances of success after treatment by balloon angioplasty (PTCA) or CABG surgery. Many patients may not even be suitable candidates for either of these procedures if they present themselves to the physician too late.
The key steps are early detection and control of blood sugar levels. Public awareness should be ensured through the media. Periodic personal health check-ups are essential. Camps can help reach out to the population for whom medical facilities are inaccessible.
Diabetic camps often tend to be one-day affairs meant for publicity and may fail to solve the problem. It is better to adopt a village or a designated population, such as an industrial population, on a long-term basis and follow up continuously over years for detection, control and prevention of complications due to DM. Non-governmental organisations and public-private partnership arrangements could help in this.
Who should follow up the patients? Physician training is important. The number of diabetologists is low in comparison to the large population of diabetics. Cardiologists are busy with the tertiary care of patients already suffering cardiovascular complications. The result is the emergence of a new breed of physicians called “cardiodiabetologists,” who are interested both in clinical cardiology and diabetology and have the ability to deliver optimal care. General practitioners should also be trained to reach out and cater to the needs of diabetic patients in the semi-urban and rural areas. At the European Society of Cardiology meeting, one hall was seen to be dedicated to the field of “Cardiodiabetology.”
In a nutshell, India faces an epidemic of DM, because of the ethnic and genetic predisposition. A majority of the cases develop cardiovascular complications. Early detection, optimal control of blood sugar levels and anticipated detection and management of complications are important. Regular follow-up and control of co-morbid conditions such as hypertension and lipid abnormalities is essential. Public awareness, physician training and specialist supervision are mandatory. Through proper measures, cardiovascular complications can certainly be delayed in diabetics.
(Dr. I. Sathyamurthy, an interventional cardiologist, is Director, Department of Cardiology, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai. He received the Padma Shri in 2000 and the Dr. B.C Roy National Award in 2001. He was conferred a D.Sc. (Honoris Causa) by the Dr. MGR Medical University, Chennai, in 2008).
How diabetes and cardiovascular disease go hand in hand.
Some 160 million people across the world suffer from diabetes mellitus (DM). This number is likely to increase exponentially in the years to come. The rate of increase may be more in India than elsewhere owing to a certain ethnic predisposition in the Indian population. The expected pandemic scale may be accounted for by higher detection rates, newer diagnostic facilities, increasing longevity and better public awareness about it. Dietary indiscipline, urbanisation, global isation and the resultant stress are other contributing factors.
Diabetes mellitus is not only a metabolic disorder but a cardiovascular disorder (CVD). Approximately 40 per cent of diabetics have an associated CVD. It is evident from various Indian registries that 40 per cent of patients who are admitted for CVD conditions such as heart attacks, or are being treated with the aid of coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) or balloon angioplasty (PTCA), have DM. CVD and DM often coexist and are like cousins. Diabetes mellitus often leads to cardiovascular diseases, manifesting as heart attacks, strokes or peripheral vascular diseases. “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” wrote Shelley in ‘Ode To The West Wind.’ If diabetes comes, vascular disease usually follows.
By the time a diabetic person comes in for tests, the vascular, or blood vessel, damage has already begun. Depending on the sugar level and the associated risk status of a patient, vascular disease is detected at various stages of such damage. So what is actually obvious at presentation is the tip of the iceberg.
DM is the most common cause of heart attacks in those below 45 years of age. In pre-menopausal women, diabetes takes away the element of gender protection that is otherwise available. Primary prevention in diabetics should be similar to secondary prevention in non-diabetics. This means that diabetics who have not suffered heart attacks should be treated on the same lines as non-diabetic persons who have suffered a heart attack. DM and CVD have common antecedents such as genetic predisposition and environmental factors — the so-called “common coil” hypothesis.
Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet: “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.” This is apt in the case of diabetes as DM brings with it other risks such as high blood pressure and lipid abnormalities (elevated levels of bad cholesterol types such as LDL and triglycerides and total cholesterol, besides low levels of HDL, the good cholesterol). Such “clustering” of risk factors compound CVD risk. Diabetics have a higher tendency for clot formation and abnormal functioning of the inner smooth lining of blood vessels, or endothelial dysfunction.
Asymptomatic coronary artery disease (CAD), involving the blood vessels supplying the heart muscles, is more common in diabetics than in others. Patients may not have any premonitory symptoms of heart attacks, as the pain perception is affected due to nerve damage caused by DM.
Early detection can prevent or delay vascular complications. The root cause of vascular damage is insulin resistance, insulin being the hormone that controls the metabolism of sugar. Insulin resistance precedes manifest diabetes by several years. The “deadly pentad” constitutes obesity, DM, high blood pressure, lipid abnormalities and CVD.
In cases of longstanding and uncontrolled DM, coronary arteries develop multiple blocks, and diffuse disease involving the entire vessel. The disease affects predominantly the ends of the vessels. The vessel caliber becomes small. These vessels are more prone to calcification. There is a high tendency for cholesterol plaques to rupture in diabetic vessels with resultant clot formation in the lumen of the vessels, which could be life threatening. Because of impaired blood supply to it, the heart’s pumping capacity comes down.
Such features, characteristic of diabetic vascular disease, will impede chances of success after treatment by balloon angioplasty (PTCA) or CABG surgery. Many patients may not even be suitable candidates for either of these procedures if they present themselves to the physician too late.
The key steps are early detection and control of blood sugar levels. Public awareness should be ensured through the media. Periodic personal health check-ups are essential. Camps can help reach out to the population for whom medical facilities are inaccessible.
Diabetic camps often tend to be one-day affairs meant for publicity and may fail to solve the problem. It is better to adopt a village or a designated population, such as an industrial population, on a long-term basis and follow up continuously over years for detection, control and prevention of complications due to DM. Non-governmental organisations and public-private partnership arrangements could help in this.
Who should follow up the patients? Physician training is important. The number of diabetologists is low in comparison to the large population of diabetics. Cardiologists are busy with the tertiary care of patients already suffering cardiovascular complications. The result is the emergence of a new breed of physicians called “cardiodiabetologists,” who are interested both in clinical cardiology and diabetology and have the ability to deliver optimal care. General practitioners should also be trained to reach out and cater to the needs of diabetic patients in the semi-urban and rural areas. At the European Society of Cardiology meeting, one hall was seen to be dedicated to the field of “Cardiodiabetology.”
In a nutshell, India faces an epidemic of DM, because of the ethnic and genetic predisposition. A majority of the cases develop cardiovascular complications. Early detection, optimal control of blood sugar levels and anticipated detection and management of complications are important. Regular follow-up and control of co-morbid conditions such as hypertension and lipid abnormalities is essential. Public awareness, physician training and specialist supervision are mandatory. Through proper measures, cardiovascular complications can certainly be delayed in diabetics.
(Dr. I. Sathyamurthy, an interventional cardiologist, is Director, Department of Cardiology, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai. He received the Padma Shri in 2000 and the Dr. B.C Roy National Award in 2001. He was conferred a D.Sc. (Honoris Causa) by the Dr. MGR Medical University, Chennai, in 2008).
World - Russia coping with financial crisis
Vladimir Radyuhin
The global crisis is adding a new urgency to reforms towards political pluralism and competition in Russia.
When the financial crisis broke out in September, the Russian government quickly moved to reassure the business community that it had enough resources to prevent a meltdown. Announcing a multi-billion rescue package, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin remarked rather sarcastically: “We have been often asked in recent years: what do we need such large currency reserves for? To feel confident [in this crisis].”
Russia set up the so-called “stabilisation fund” in 2004 to sop up excessive oil-generated cash from the market and save it for a rainy day. As of August 1, the country had the world’s third biggest currency reserves — $595.9 billion. It is out of that pot that the government has promised to dish out more than $210 billion to support the banking sector and industry.
Many economists and industrialists agree that the injection of billions of dollars into the economy may ease the debt and liquidity crunch but they say the government strategy of building up such huge reserve funds instead of promoting growth was wrong and will aggravate the fallout of the current crisis on the economy. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, the architect of the safety cushion policy, once compared himself to the biblical Joseph, who stocked up grain during seven fat years to feed his people over the next seven lean years.
Critics counter that while Joseph stored grain thereby encouraging production, Mr. Kudrin has been hoarding money taking it out of the economy and thereby slowing growth. As the government invested its currency reserves in the West in low-yield securities, Russian companies were forced to borrow from western lenders at a much higher rate. When the global crisis struck, Russian businesses owned close to $550 billion in foreign debts, which almost equalled the country’s hard currency reserves.
According to the critics, the government should have instead poured money into Russia’s still underdeveloped banking system to increase its capitalisation, which currently stands at just over 60 per cent of the country’s GDP, and enable banks to offer long-term credits at affordable interest. Had the oil windfall been used for investment to diversify away from over-dependence on oil and gas, it would have made the Russian economy more reliant on long-term Russian money, encouraged sustainable growth in non-oil industries and insulated the country from the U.S. contagion.
Penny wise and pound foolish
Mr. Kudrin’s penny wise and pound foolish policy meant Russia forfeiting a chance to build a robust manufacturing sector during the fat years and prepare the country better for the lean years ahead, independent economists say. Its 2009 budget will be in the red if oil prices dip below $70 a barrel as they did recently. The massive bailout effort now threatens to deplete the oil funds. This will jeopardise an ambitious programme of economic modernisation unveiled earlier this year when the government finally agreed to invest part of the oil money in infrastructure and high-tech sectors.
The crisis is bound to have a strong negative impact in the long term, the economists warn. Russian stocks have lost more than 70 per cent of their value since spring; the GDP growth plummeted from 7.6 per cent in January-August to 0.4 per cent in September. Net private capital outflows are expected to reach $20 billion this year, in stark contrast to the previous forecast of $40 billion in net inflow. Industries have started cutting jobs and people are spending less. The crisis threatens to wipe out the impressive economic gains of the past 10 years.
Russia’s leading economists and business lobby groups, including the Association of Russian Banks, the Russian Chamber of Trade and Industry and the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, have been urging drastic changes in monetary strategies for years. But Mr. Kudrin successfully fended off all attacks. He is the longest serving Cabinet Minister who has not only survived three Prime Ministers — he was appointed Finance Minister in 2000 — but also exerted decisive influence on shaping the economic strategy in the last eight years.
Mr. Kudrin owes his fantastic survival, in the face of massive criticism, to one man, then President and now Prime Minister Putin, who firmly believes in the financial acumen of his long-time friend and ally. Mr. Kudrin’s story points to critical flaws in the system of “managed democracy” Mr. Putin set up during his eight-year presidency. He calls it “manual control.”
When Mr. Putin became President in 2000 after a decade of post-Soviet meltdown, he faced the Herculean task of pulling the country together, reasserting Central control and rebuilding the economy. The chaotic transition from the Soviet Communist system to a market democracy under his predecessor Boris Yeltsin had all but destroyed the institutional capacity of the state to govern. This convinced Mr. Putin that law and order must be restored before democracy was introduced step by step.
Mr. Putin brought the electronic media under the Kremlin’s control, cancelled elections of regional leaders, and marginalised opposition parties by tightening election laws and controlling financial contributions to parties from businesses. The Kremlin effectively removed political parties from the sphere of state governance. Centralisation of power helped Mr. Putin establish political stability and carry out painful reforms, and set the economy on the path of revival.
But as Russia moved from economic recovery to modernisation, the lack of political competition, absence of strong opposition parties and the presence of an obedient Parliament emerged as major hurdles to faster growth. The costs of “manual control” began to outweigh the gains. Corruption has grown to staggering proportions in recent years in the absence of effective parliamentary oversight and accountability of government officials.
Experts say Russians pay a 30-50 per cent “corruption tax” added to the price of all goods and services. President Dmitry Medvedev has just unveiled a new plan to combat corruption, but sceptics say the plan is likely to fail because its implementation has been entrusted to the law enforcement agencies, which are also deeply steeped in corruption. “These methods are useless when there are no external institutional checks and balances, such as a critical and independent media, independent courts, transparent government and fierce competition from political opponents,” said Georgy Satarov, a leading anti-corruption expert. Monopoly on power has stifled the contest of ideas and led to costly mistakes, analysts say. A sweeping reform of the Soviet-era social security net undertaken three years ago was necessary but was so badly prepared that it provoked large-scale protests, forcing the government to increase social expenditure, instead of trimming it. A pension reform launched in 2001 fell through and is being overhauled again.
Several years ago, the Moscow government decided to build a new ring road to cope with the growing traffic in the capital. Experts then warned that the road would not solve the problem of congested streets fanning out from the city centre to the outskirts in a star-like pattern, but the docile city legislature approved the project backed by Moscow’s powerful Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. The new road was laid at a cost of over $4 billion but it failed to unclog city streets. Notwithstanding this, the Moscow government is about to launch the construction of yet another ring road which, the experts predict, will be just as useless.
The Kremlin’s chief ideologist, Vladislav Surkov, compared Russia’s political system in which the main pro-government party, United Russia, dominates Parliament to a one-legged man and called for the establishment of another major party, “a second leg to which society can shift its weight when the first leg goes numb.”
Towards two-party system
Two years ago, the Kremlin started building a new two-party system with the establishment of a left-of-the-centre party, Fair Russia, to compete for power with the ruling right-of-the-centre United Russia. However, the effort to promote political competition suffered a setback when Mr. Putin threw his weight behind United Russia last year. This enhanced the monopolisation of power helping United Russia win a huge constitutional majority in the parliamentary elections in December 2007, while Fair Russia captured a mere 8 per cent of the vote, just enough to cross the 7-per cent threshold. In his first state-of-the-nation address this week, Mr. Medvedev called for liberalising political life, stating democracy “on orders from above” must give way to grass-roots democracy.
“I believe that the citizens of Russia today are far more ready for freedom in professional, social and political activity than they were at the start of the reforms,” Mr. Medvedev said proposing a raft of measures to encourage the “broad involvement of citizens, political parties and other civic institutions” in dealing with the challenges of “a new phase in the country’s development.”
The global crisis is indeed adding a new urgency to reforms towards political pluralism and competition in Russia, as the wasteful system of “managed democracy” becomes too costly to maintain when oil prices are falling.
A study commissioned by Mr. Medvedev’s think tank, the Institute of Contemporary Development, earlier this year showed that the Russian political and business elites think “managed democracy” no longer meets the challenges of modernisation and must be replaced with a full-fledged democratic system.
The global crisis is adding a new urgency to reforms towards political pluralism and competition in Russia.
When the financial crisis broke out in September, the Russian government quickly moved to reassure the business community that it had enough resources to prevent a meltdown. Announcing a multi-billion rescue package, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin remarked rather sarcastically: “We have been often asked in recent years: what do we need such large currency reserves for? To feel confident [in this crisis].”
Russia set up the so-called “stabilisation fund” in 2004 to sop up excessive oil-generated cash from the market and save it for a rainy day. As of August 1, the country had the world’s third biggest currency reserves — $595.9 billion. It is out of that pot that the government has promised to dish out more than $210 billion to support the banking sector and industry.
Many economists and industrialists agree that the injection of billions of dollars into the economy may ease the debt and liquidity crunch but they say the government strategy of building up such huge reserve funds instead of promoting growth was wrong and will aggravate the fallout of the current crisis on the economy. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, the architect of the safety cushion policy, once compared himself to the biblical Joseph, who stocked up grain during seven fat years to feed his people over the next seven lean years.
Critics counter that while Joseph stored grain thereby encouraging production, Mr. Kudrin has been hoarding money taking it out of the economy and thereby slowing growth. As the government invested its currency reserves in the West in low-yield securities, Russian companies were forced to borrow from western lenders at a much higher rate. When the global crisis struck, Russian businesses owned close to $550 billion in foreign debts, which almost equalled the country’s hard currency reserves.
According to the critics, the government should have instead poured money into Russia’s still underdeveloped banking system to increase its capitalisation, which currently stands at just over 60 per cent of the country’s GDP, and enable banks to offer long-term credits at affordable interest. Had the oil windfall been used for investment to diversify away from over-dependence on oil and gas, it would have made the Russian economy more reliant on long-term Russian money, encouraged sustainable growth in non-oil industries and insulated the country from the U.S. contagion.
Penny wise and pound foolish
Mr. Kudrin’s penny wise and pound foolish policy meant Russia forfeiting a chance to build a robust manufacturing sector during the fat years and prepare the country better for the lean years ahead, independent economists say. Its 2009 budget will be in the red if oil prices dip below $70 a barrel as they did recently. The massive bailout effort now threatens to deplete the oil funds. This will jeopardise an ambitious programme of economic modernisation unveiled earlier this year when the government finally agreed to invest part of the oil money in infrastructure and high-tech sectors.
The crisis is bound to have a strong negative impact in the long term, the economists warn. Russian stocks have lost more than 70 per cent of their value since spring; the GDP growth plummeted from 7.6 per cent in January-August to 0.4 per cent in September. Net private capital outflows are expected to reach $20 billion this year, in stark contrast to the previous forecast of $40 billion in net inflow. Industries have started cutting jobs and people are spending less. The crisis threatens to wipe out the impressive economic gains of the past 10 years.
Russia’s leading economists and business lobby groups, including the Association of Russian Banks, the Russian Chamber of Trade and Industry and the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, have been urging drastic changes in monetary strategies for years. But Mr. Kudrin successfully fended off all attacks. He is the longest serving Cabinet Minister who has not only survived three Prime Ministers — he was appointed Finance Minister in 2000 — but also exerted decisive influence on shaping the economic strategy in the last eight years.
Mr. Kudrin owes his fantastic survival, in the face of massive criticism, to one man, then President and now Prime Minister Putin, who firmly believes in the financial acumen of his long-time friend and ally. Mr. Kudrin’s story points to critical flaws in the system of “managed democracy” Mr. Putin set up during his eight-year presidency. He calls it “manual control.”
When Mr. Putin became President in 2000 after a decade of post-Soviet meltdown, he faced the Herculean task of pulling the country together, reasserting Central control and rebuilding the economy. The chaotic transition from the Soviet Communist system to a market democracy under his predecessor Boris Yeltsin had all but destroyed the institutional capacity of the state to govern. This convinced Mr. Putin that law and order must be restored before democracy was introduced step by step.
Mr. Putin brought the electronic media under the Kremlin’s control, cancelled elections of regional leaders, and marginalised opposition parties by tightening election laws and controlling financial contributions to parties from businesses. The Kremlin effectively removed political parties from the sphere of state governance. Centralisation of power helped Mr. Putin establish political stability and carry out painful reforms, and set the economy on the path of revival.
But as Russia moved from economic recovery to modernisation, the lack of political competition, absence of strong opposition parties and the presence of an obedient Parliament emerged as major hurdles to faster growth. The costs of “manual control” began to outweigh the gains. Corruption has grown to staggering proportions in recent years in the absence of effective parliamentary oversight and accountability of government officials.
Experts say Russians pay a 30-50 per cent “corruption tax” added to the price of all goods and services. President Dmitry Medvedev has just unveiled a new plan to combat corruption, but sceptics say the plan is likely to fail because its implementation has been entrusted to the law enforcement agencies, which are also deeply steeped in corruption. “These methods are useless when there are no external institutional checks and balances, such as a critical and independent media, independent courts, transparent government and fierce competition from political opponents,” said Georgy Satarov, a leading anti-corruption expert. Monopoly on power has stifled the contest of ideas and led to costly mistakes, analysts say. A sweeping reform of the Soviet-era social security net undertaken three years ago was necessary but was so badly prepared that it provoked large-scale protests, forcing the government to increase social expenditure, instead of trimming it. A pension reform launched in 2001 fell through and is being overhauled again.
Several years ago, the Moscow government decided to build a new ring road to cope with the growing traffic in the capital. Experts then warned that the road would not solve the problem of congested streets fanning out from the city centre to the outskirts in a star-like pattern, but the docile city legislature approved the project backed by Moscow’s powerful Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. The new road was laid at a cost of over $4 billion but it failed to unclog city streets. Notwithstanding this, the Moscow government is about to launch the construction of yet another ring road which, the experts predict, will be just as useless.
The Kremlin’s chief ideologist, Vladislav Surkov, compared Russia’s political system in which the main pro-government party, United Russia, dominates Parliament to a one-legged man and called for the establishment of another major party, “a second leg to which society can shift its weight when the first leg goes numb.”
Towards two-party system
Two years ago, the Kremlin started building a new two-party system with the establishment of a left-of-the-centre party, Fair Russia, to compete for power with the ruling right-of-the-centre United Russia. However, the effort to promote political competition suffered a setback when Mr. Putin threw his weight behind United Russia last year. This enhanced the monopolisation of power helping United Russia win a huge constitutional majority in the parliamentary elections in December 2007, while Fair Russia captured a mere 8 per cent of the vote, just enough to cross the 7-per cent threshold. In his first state-of-the-nation address this week, Mr. Medvedev called for liberalising political life, stating democracy “on orders from above” must give way to grass-roots democracy.
“I believe that the citizens of Russia today are far more ready for freedom in professional, social and political activity than they were at the start of the reforms,” Mr. Medvedev said proposing a raft of measures to encourage the “broad involvement of citizens, political parties and other civic institutions” in dealing with the challenges of “a new phase in the country’s development.”
The global crisis is indeed adding a new urgency to reforms towards political pluralism and competition in Russia, as the wasteful system of “managed democracy” becomes too costly to maintain when oil prices are falling.
A study commissioned by Mr. Medvedev’s think tank, the Institute of Contemporary Development, earlier this year showed that the Russian political and business elites think “managed democracy” no longer meets the challenges of modernisation and must be replaced with a full-fledged democratic system.
India - Dealing with campus violence
The violence witnessed in the Dr. Ambedkar Government Law College in Chennai on Wednesday could have been dismissed as a local incident but for the larger issues of caste conflicts making their way into an educational institution, and policemen remaining mute spectators to brutal assaults. The apparent provocation for the violence that left several students seriously injured was the printing and distribution of a handbill on the occasion of Thevar Jayanthi by a group of st udents in which the name of the college was mentioned as “Government Law College,” leaving out the name of Dr. Ambedkar. In the context of Thevar-Dalit conflict in the southern districts of the State, this was interpreted as an insult to Dr. Ambedkar and a deliberate act of provocation. A showdown was waiting to happen but the college authorities did little to cool tempers.
The police have often hesitated to enter college campuses without a specific request from the college authorities, but Wednesday’s inaction is wholly indefensible. True, the onus of maintaining discipline on campuses lies with the college authorities, but the police are empowered and duty-bound to stop criminal assaults and cognisable offences anywhere. Campuses cannot be an exception. The college principal, Shridev, who has since been suspended, sought police help rather late. But this does not explain why the police personnel who were forewarned and were present on the spot chose not to intervene. As the Justice K.S. Bakthavatsalam Commission of Inquiry, which went into the students-police clash in the Law College hostel in Chennai in 2001, pointed out, the police have the right to enter a college without permission to disperse an unlawful assembly. The State government has been quick to take action against the policemen who so obviously failed in their duty, transferring out the Commissioner of Police, and suspending an Assistant Commissioner and an Inspector. By their very nature, law colleges are more politically surcharged than other educational institutions. Students wanting to make a career of politics see the law course as a stepping stone. Political parties and even the judiciary are quick to react in cases involving law students. This perhaps explains, but does not by any means justify, the hands-off approach adopted by the police in law college conflicts. The one-member Commission of Inquiry set up by the State government to look into Wednesday’s incident will need to lay down guidelines and clear police misgivings, if any, in dealing with students and preventing campus violence.
The police have often hesitated to enter college campuses without a specific request from the college authorities, but Wednesday’s inaction is wholly indefensible. True, the onus of maintaining discipline on campuses lies with the college authorities, but the police are empowered and duty-bound to stop criminal assaults and cognisable offences anywhere. Campuses cannot be an exception. The college principal, Shridev, who has since been suspended, sought police help rather late. But this does not explain why the police personnel who were forewarned and were present on the spot chose not to intervene. As the Justice K.S. Bakthavatsalam Commission of Inquiry, which went into the students-police clash in the Law College hostel in Chennai in 2001, pointed out, the police have the right to enter a college without permission to disperse an unlawful assembly. The State government has been quick to take action against the policemen who so obviously failed in their duty, transferring out the Commissioner of Police, and suspending an Assistant Commissioner and an Inspector. By their very nature, law colleges are more politically surcharged than other educational institutions. Students wanting to make a career of politics see the law course as a stepping stone. Political parties and even the judiciary are quick to react in cases involving law students. This perhaps explains, but does not by any means justify, the hands-off approach adopted by the police in law college conflicts. The one-member Commission of Inquiry set up by the State government to look into Wednesday’s incident will need to lay down guidelines and clear police misgivings, if any, in dealing with students and preventing campus violence.
World - US;When tax-and-spend becomes borrow-and-spend
Peter Bradshaw
I.O.U.S.A — a thoroughly admirable picture by documentary film-maker Patrick Creadon — takes the driest subject in the world — America’s national debt — and makes you deeply ashamed of not having been worried about it before now.
Its thesis is that America’s crack-cocaine-style debt addiction is a more serious problem than either terrorism or global warming. The budget deficit of the U.S. has risen to an eye-watering $9tn; its trade deficit is $738.6bn; its political leaders are casual about waste, and its feckless, want-it-now citizens buy stuff on credit and have abandoned the habit of saving, drummed into them by their provident parents and grandparents.
Creadon and his camera team follow General David Walker, the former U.S. comptroller as he travels across the country, attempting to tell America what it very much does not want to hear. America is spending much, much more than it earns. The result, as Mr. Micawber might have put it, is misery. Or future misery, anyhow.
It is all very well for Keynes to say that in the long run we are all dead — but our children will be alive. Mightn’t they have to pick up the bills?
Dishonest and pusillanimous politicians of both parties are terrified of unpopular tax hikes, says Creadon. So they borrow the money. During the second World War, America issued war bonds, and U.S. citizens were told that buying them was a stern patriotic duty.
Nowadays, debt is quite different. Debt is sexy; it can be repackaged and reconfigured in a hundred financial instruments that generate income. The political right, supposedly the stern guardians of financial rectitude, are as spendthrift as anyone else. Tax-and-spend has become borrow-and-spend. And naturally, only unsophisticated hayseeds who don’t understand the financial world would worry about the political consequences.
But wait — who is lending America money? Not Americans, but foreigners: largely the Chinese, who in any case enjoy a massive trade imbalance. China now has such hefty loans that these amount to what Creadon calls a “nuclear” financial weapon. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008
I.O.U.S.A — a thoroughly admirable picture by documentary film-maker Patrick Creadon — takes the driest subject in the world — America’s national debt — and makes you deeply ashamed of not having been worried about it before now.
Its thesis is that America’s crack-cocaine-style debt addiction is a more serious problem than either terrorism or global warming. The budget deficit of the U.S. has risen to an eye-watering $9tn; its trade deficit is $738.6bn; its political leaders are casual about waste, and its feckless, want-it-now citizens buy stuff on credit and have abandoned the habit of saving, drummed into them by their provident parents and grandparents.
Creadon and his camera team follow General David Walker, the former U.S. comptroller as he travels across the country, attempting to tell America what it very much does not want to hear. America is spending much, much more than it earns. The result, as Mr. Micawber might have put it, is misery. Or future misery, anyhow.
It is all very well for Keynes to say that in the long run we are all dead — but our children will be alive. Mightn’t they have to pick up the bills?
Dishonest and pusillanimous politicians of both parties are terrified of unpopular tax hikes, says Creadon. So they borrow the money. During the second World War, America issued war bonds, and U.S. citizens were told that buying them was a stern patriotic duty.
Nowadays, debt is quite different. Debt is sexy; it can be repackaged and reconfigured in a hundred financial instruments that generate income. The political right, supposedly the stern guardians of financial rectitude, are as spendthrift as anyone else. Tax-and-spend has become borrow-and-spend. And naturally, only unsophisticated hayseeds who don’t understand the financial world would worry about the political consequences.
But wait — who is lending America money? Not Americans, but foreigners: largely the Chinese, who in any case enjoy a massive trade imbalance. China now has such hefty loans that these amount to what Creadon calls a “nuclear” financial weapon. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008
India - Opening up new options
The Indian missile programme has been forging confidently ahead in recent years. On Wednesday, the Defence Research and Development Organisation successfully launched Shourya, a land-based version of the K-15 (Sagarika) ballistic missile that is designed for launch from a submarine. The Sagarika was test-fired from a submerged pontoon in February this year. An underwater launch requires gas generators that can eject missiles from the tubes in which they are carried onboard a submarine. The same technology has now been used to create a land-based missile that can be stored and fired when needed from a canister. The closed canister serves to protect the missile from temperature fluctuations, dust, and vagaries of the weather. These missiles can be easily stored, handled, and transported. The protection of the canister also gives them a longer life. In addition, the Shourya is said to be highly manoeuvrable, making it less vulnerable to interception by anti-missile defence systems.
If further tests confirm the Shourya’s reliability under operational conditions, it is conceivable that this missile and its successors would be considered for a variety of roles. For one thing, India’s strategic forces will potentially have one more avenue to ensure the survival of their nuclear-tipped missiles. Hitherto, the country’s land-based nuclear-armed missiles have been designed for mobility by road and rail so as to make it difficult for hostile forces to locate and destroy them. The Shourya test has established that placing missiles in underground silos is another option. Canister-based missiles can also be transported on and launched from mobile platforms. Thus, with a range of about 600 km, the solid-propellant-based Shourya might become a replacement for the Prithvi, a cumbersome liquid-propellant missile that has a maximum range of over 300 km. If it turns out that a canister-based missile like the Shourya has significant operational advantages, the DRDO may want to consider a similar storage mode for its long-range ballistic missiles like the 2,000-km range Agni-II and the 3,500-km range Agni-III as well as for the 5,000-km range Agni-V that is currently under development. It is worth noting that China’s two frontline solid-propellant long-range ballistic missiles, the DF-21 with a range of 3,000 km and the new DF-31 with a range of up to 14,000 km, are both canister-based. Thanks to the DRDO’s vigorous development efforts, the country is today better placed to protect itself from nuclear threats than ever before. Yet, while such technological advances enhance defence capability, the need for continuing the efforts to build bridges of friendship and trade with countries such as Pakistan and China cannot be overemphasised.
If further tests confirm the Shourya’s reliability under operational conditions, it is conceivable that this missile and its successors would be considered for a variety of roles. For one thing, India’s strategic forces will potentially have one more avenue to ensure the survival of their nuclear-tipped missiles. Hitherto, the country’s land-based nuclear-armed missiles have been designed for mobility by road and rail so as to make it difficult for hostile forces to locate and destroy them. The Shourya test has established that placing missiles in underground silos is another option. Canister-based missiles can also be transported on and launched from mobile platforms. Thus, with a range of about 600 km, the solid-propellant-based Shourya might become a replacement for the Prithvi, a cumbersome liquid-propellant missile that has a maximum range of over 300 km. If it turns out that a canister-based missile like the Shourya has significant operational advantages, the DRDO may want to consider a similar storage mode for its long-range ballistic missiles like the 2,000-km range Agni-II and the 3,500-km range Agni-III as well as for the 5,000-km range Agni-V that is currently under development. It is worth noting that China’s two frontline solid-propellant long-range ballistic missiles, the DF-21 with a range of 3,000 km and the new DF-31 with a range of up to 14,000 km, are both canister-based. Thanks to the DRDO’s vigorous development efforts, the country is today better placed to protect itself from nuclear threats than ever before. Yet, while such technological advances enhance defence capability, the need for continuing the efforts to build bridges of friendship and trade with countries such as Pakistan and China cannot be overemphasised.
Sports - India;Squash;Joshna Chinappa makes history
Chennai: Joshna Chinappa became the first Indian woman to claim a WISPA title, when she defeated Malaysia’s Low Wee Wern 11-8, 11-5, 11-3 in the final of the NSC Super Satellite (No.3) squash tournament at the National Squash Centre, Kuala Lumpur, on Friday.
Joshna, who’s been training at the ICL Academy and at England, contested her third final of the season. The 22-year-old had earlier made it to the summit clashes in the tournaments at Vietnam and China.
Her first-ever final appearance was at Hong Kong, as a 19-year-old.
“Joshna has been extremely sharp and focussed, and was in devastating form in the final. She had made it to finals before but couldn’t close it out, which is something she has worked on. This win should help her significantly move up the rankings,” said her father Anjan Chinappa.
The 37th ranked Joshna, seeded third in the tournament, upset top seed Sharon Wee in the semifinals before her dominating performance in the final. Joshna will participate in the NSC Super Satellite (No.4) event in Malaysia from Monday, where she’s been given the top billing.
Joshna, who’s been training at the ICL Academy and at England, contested her third final of the season. The 22-year-old had earlier made it to the summit clashes in the tournaments at Vietnam and China.
Her first-ever final appearance was at Hong Kong, as a 19-year-old.
“Joshna has been extremely sharp and focussed, and was in devastating form in the final. She had made it to finals before but couldn’t close it out, which is something she has worked on. This win should help her significantly move up the rankings,” said her father Anjan Chinappa.
The 37th ranked Joshna, seeded third in the tournament, upset top seed Sharon Wee in the semifinals before her dominating performance in the final. Joshna will participate in the NSC Super Satellite (No.4) event in Malaysia from Monday, where she’s been given the top billing.
Business - US;Retail sales in record fall,but sentiment up
Alister Bull
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sales at U.S. retailers suffered a record decline in October as fears of recession sapped spending, but part of the drop was due to slumping gasoline prices which helped buoy consumer confidence.
The Commerce Department said on Friday that retail sales slumped 2.8 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted $363.7 billion, the largest decline since the department's current methodology was adopted in 1992, as mounting unemployment hit shoppers' appetites.
A separate Reuters/University of Michigan November survey of consumers showed that confidence unexpectedly rebounded from a record October drop as tumbling gas prices offset worries about the economy.
While lower gas prices were welcome, declines in a broad number of retail sales categories showed consumers were still on the defensive.
"What you are seeing now is the turmoil in the credit and funding markets playing out into the consumer sector," said Kevin Flanagan, fixed income strategist, global wealth management at Morgan Stanley in Purchase, New York.
Consumer spending is a crucial driver of U.S. growth and stocks fell sharply, with the Dow Jones industrial average ending 337.94 points, or 3.82 percent lower at 8,497.31.
The dollar rose, aided from its role as a safe haven in a deteriorating global investment climate, while U.S. Treasury notes advanced in price for the same reason and because a weaker economy theoretically favors such fixed income assets.
Economists polled by Reuters forecast a 2.0 percent fall in October retail sales as the escalating financial crisis took a toll on consumers. Retail sales last month were down 4.1 percent from a year ago.
Sales excluding autos fell a record 2.2 percent in October versus a forecast of a 1.2 percent decline.
Lower gasoline prices, as crude oil retreated sharply from a July peak around $147 a barrel, helped depress sales at gas stations by a record 12.7 percent in October. As a result, a closely watched core measure of retail sales excluding autos and gasoline fell 0.5 percent in October.
"Take out cars and gas, it's a drop of half a percent. It's not good, but it's not horrific. This could have been worse; it's encouraging that it wasn't," said David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities in New York.
The sharp drop in gasoline station sales may also have reflected fewer miles driven by Americans last month.
The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its confidence index edged up to 57.9 in November from 57.6 in October. Despite the rise, sentiment remains at depressed levels, with the index below the lowest levels hit during the depths plumbed during the last two recessions.
"Lower gas prices and sizable discounts at retailers helped to slightly improve consumers' assessments of current economic conditions, while higher unemployment and a deepening recession dimmed their expectations for future gains," the Surveys of Consumers said in the report.
"You might have hoped, say gasoline was way, way down in price, that might free up money to spend on other stuff. But that didn't happen, people still spent less on other stuff. So that's not good," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at the Economic Cycle Research Institute, a New York-based independent forecasting group, put it more bluntly: "Not only is no economic recovery on the horizon, but the economy is falling off a cliff at its fastest pace in at least six decades.
Individual car makers have reported a collapse in sales since mid-September after auto-loan terms tightened sharply in the aftermath of investment bank Lehman Brothers's failure.
The Commerce Department said motor vehicle and parts sales slide 5.5 percent in October after a 4.8 percent September fall. October's performance for the category was the weakest since August 2005, when car sales were off 10.3 percent.
Majority leader Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, said he "plans to press forward" with emergency aid to American automakers and will begin debate on Monday of a $25 billion bailout. It was not clear if there was sufficient backing from Republicans to deliver the emergency aid.
General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC are furiously lobbying for $25 billion in immediate bailout money to help them survive the industry's worst financial crisis.
A report from the Labor Department showed U.S. import prices posted the largest monthly drop since 1988 in October as the cost of imported oil slid.
Separate Commerce Department data showed that stocks of unsold goods at U.S. businesses unexpectedly fell a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent in September.
(Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani in Washington and Burton Frierson in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sales at U.S. retailers suffered a record decline in October as fears of recession sapped spending, but part of the drop was due to slumping gasoline prices which helped buoy consumer confidence.
The Commerce Department said on Friday that retail sales slumped 2.8 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted $363.7 billion, the largest decline since the department's current methodology was adopted in 1992, as mounting unemployment hit shoppers' appetites.
A separate Reuters/University of Michigan November survey of consumers showed that confidence unexpectedly rebounded from a record October drop as tumbling gas prices offset worries about the economy.
While lower gas prices were welcome, declines in a broad number of retail sales categories showed consumers were still on the defensive.
"What you are seeing now is the turmoil in the credit and funding markets playing out into the consumer sector," said Kevin Flanagan, fixed income strategist, global wealth management at Morgan Stanley in Purchase, New York.
Consumer spending is a crucial driver of U.S. growth and stocks fell sharply, with the Dow Jones industrial average ending 337.94 points, or 3.82 percent lower at 8,497.31.
The dollar rose, aided from its role as a safe haven in a deteriorating global investment climate, while U.S. Treasury notes advanced in price for the same reason and because a weaker economy theoretically favors such fixed income assets.
Economists polled by Reuters forecast a 2.0 percent fall in October retail sales as the escalating financial crisis took a toll on consumers. Retail sales last month were down 4.1 percent from a year ago.
Sales excluding autos fell a record 2.2 percent in October versus a forecast of a 1.2 percent decline.
Lower gasoline prices, as crude oil retreated sharply from a July peak around $147 a barrel, helped depress sales at gas stations by a record 12.7 percent in October. As a result, a closely watched core measure of retail sales excluding autos and gasoline fell 0.5 percent in October.
"Take out cars and gas, it's a drop of half a percent. It's not good, but it's not horrific. This could have been worse; it's encouraging that it wasn't," said David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities in New York.
The sharp drop in gasoline station sales may also have reflected fewer miles driven by Americans last month.
The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its confidence index edged up to 57.9 in November from 57.6 in October. Despite the rise, sentiment remains at depressed levels, with the index below the lowest levels hit during the depths plumbed during the last two recessions.
"Lower gas prices and sizable discounts at retailers helped to slightly improve consumers' assessments of current economic conditions, while higher unemployment and a deepening recession dimmed their expectations for future gains," the Surveys of Consumers said in the report.
"You might have hoped, say gasoline was way, way down in price, that might free up money to spend on other stuff. But that didn't happen, people still spent less on other stuff. So that's not good," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at the Economic Cycle Research Institute, a New York-based independent forecasting group, put it more bluntly: "Not only is no economic recovery on the horizon, but the economy is falling off a cliff at its fastest pace in at least six decades.
Individual car makers have reported a collapse in sales since mid-September after auto-loan terms tightened sharply in the aftermath of investment bank Lehman Brothers's failure.
The Commerce Department said motor vehicle and parts sales slide 5.5 percent in October after a 4.8 percent September fall. October's performance for the category was the weakest since August 2005, when car sales were off 10.3 percent.
Majority leader Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, said he "plans to press forward" with emergency aid to American automakers and will begin debate on Monday of a $25 billion bailout. It was not clear if there was sufficient backing from Republicans to deliver the emergency aid.
General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC are furiously lobbying for $25 billion in immediate bailout money to help them survive the industry's worst financial crisis.
A report from the Labor Department showed U.S. import prices posted the largest monthly drop since 1988 in October as the cost of imported oil slid.
Separate Commerce Department data showed that stocks of unsold goods at U.S. businesses unexpectedly fell a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent in September.
(Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani in Washington and Burton Frierson in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Health - China faces new problem: Disposing of tainted milk
Audra Ang
BEIJING – China faces a new problem with the tainted milk that has sickened babies and battered public confidence: How to get rid of the toxic stuff.
It has been burned, buried and mixed into coal. One trash-hauling company dumped a load into a river, turning the waters a frothy white and raising fears about the safety of the drinking water.
Tens of thousands of tons of milk laced with melamine, a chemical used in making fertilizer and plastics, have been pulled from shelves and warehouses since September, and local governments now face the huge — and costly — problem of safely disposing of it.
The Health Ministry has not released a total figure for the amount of impure dairy products recalled or said how much has been destroyed.
But last month alone, more than 32,000 tons — enough to fill about 23 Olympic-sized pools — were disposed of in a single province, Hebei, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
At a factory in the southern city of Guangzhou, tons of contaminated milk powder were incinerated in 3,000-degree heat.
"All the remaining substance will be put into cement," said Wang Fan, director of Guangzhou's food safety office. "I can guarantee that our disposal process meets the national environmental protection requirements. It will not harm people's health."
Getting rid of dangerous contaminants can be challenging even in places far wealthier than China.
In the U.S., a vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — were found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, according to an Associated Press investigation earlier this year that found 24 major metropolitan areas affected. Researchers say the pharmaceutical residues can harm fish, frogs and other aquatic life and may be harmful to people.
In Europe, tests of sewage from several hospitals in Paris and Oslo, Norway, have also uncovered hormones, antibiotics, painkillers and heart and skin medicines.
Not known for making environmental safety a priority, China has gotten generally good marks so far from scientists and environmentalists in its efforts to dispose of the adulterated milk.
With confidence in the government's food safety standards battered by the scandal, Beijing has issued new guidelines on how to destroy the tainted products. They recommend burning the milk in large-capacity incinerators or, if such facilities aren't available, burying small amounts in landfills — as long as local environmental bureaus approve.
Burning or burying breaks down melamine and neutralizes its toxicity, said Peter Ben Embarek, a Geneva-based scientist at the World Health Organization's food safety department.
"We're talking about very large quantities so it's very important that these products are being destroyed in a proper way," he said in a telephone interview.
"Burying is OK if it is done in official, controlled waste disposal sites. We don't want to see products buried in illegal dumping places or places where you don't have a clear understanding of the soil conditions and it might lead to contamination of the water supply," he said.
In China's milk scandal, dairy suppliers are accused of adding melamine, which is high in nitrogen, to watered-down milk to make it appear protein-rich in quality tests that measure nitrogen. Tens of thousands of children were sickened and at least three babies died, according to official figures, although families say the death toll is higher.
Destroying the tainted milk remains a costly challenge. Burning it costs about $100 a ton, said Wang, the Guangzhou food safety official. Putting the milk in landfills is cheaper, he said: About $29 a ton, though there are limits on how much can be buried each day.
At the Jinniu Energy Company in Hebei's Xingtai city, some 1,200 tons of milk powder were incinerated in fiery blasts of over 1,800-degree heat over the past month.
"In the first two or three days, progress was slow due to our lack of experience, but it speeded up," said Wang Jian, a company administrator, adding that the incinerator air was treated to remove pollutants. "The furnace is totally sealed and there is no smoke or smell at all."
At a power plant in the coastal city of Qingdao, some eight tons of milk powder were poured into a towering pile of coal, which was then burned to generate electricity.
"It's a pity we had to burn the milk powder," said a company employee, who would give only his surname, Jing. "But we had no other choice because it was substandard."
There have been violations. In Guangzhou, the local government took over responsibility for disposal after one garbage company poured milk into a city river, said Wang, the food safety official, who declined to name the company but said it was fined $29,000.
The local Yangcheng Evening News said the milk was tossed into a compactor, then fed into the river. "We could see white foam on the water's surface," the report said. "If you stood close by, you could smell the sweet fragrance of the milk."
The dumping prompted calls from residents downstream worried about the safety of the water supply, said a neighborhood committee official who declined to give her name.
While urging an end to such unauthorized disposal, the WHO's Ben Embarek said fish, animals and plant life were most at risk, not people, because the river would dilute the melamine.
"You're disturbing the life cycles and the environment of the river," he said. "You're changing the ecosystem of the river, potentially affecting the life of the fish and the animal and plant life in that river."
Even the public has chimed in with suggestions of ways to get rid of the milk.
Among the recommendations phoned in to Hainan's Nanguo Metropolitan Daily newspaper were feeding it to pigs or using it to water trees — both rejected by local authorities.
"We received many suggestions about how to destroy the problematic milk powder, including making it into fertilizer," said Yang Guang, an official with the Hainan Administration for Industry and Commerce.
In the end, he said, Hainan decided to burn the powder and bury the liquid milk.
___
Associated Press researchers Yu Bing and Xi Yue in Beijing and Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.
BEIJING – China faces a new problem with the tainted milk that has sickened babies and battered public confidence: How to get rid of the toxic stuff.
It has been burned, buried and mixed into coal. One trash-hauling company dumped a load into a river, turning the waters a frothy white and raising fears about the safety of the drinking water.
Tens of thousands of tons of milk laced with melamine, a chemical used in making fertilizer and plastics, have been pulled from shelves and warehouses since September, and local governments now face the huge — and costly — problem of safely disposing of it.
The Health Ministry has not released a total figure for the amount of impure dairy products recalled or said how much has been destroyed.
But last month alone, more than 32,000 tons — enough to fill about 23 Olympic-sized pools — were disposed of in a single province, Hebei, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
At a factory in the southern city of Guangzhou, tons of contaminated milk powder were incinerated in 3,000-degree heat.
"All the remaining substance will be put into cement," said Wang Fan, director of Guangzhou's food safety office. "I can guarantee that our disposal process meets the national environmental protection requirements. It will not harm people's health."
Getting rid of dangerous contaminants can be challenging even in places far wealthier than China.
In the U.S., a vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — were found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, according to an Associated Press investigation earlier this year that found 24 major metropolitan areas affected. Researchers say the pharmaceutical residues can harm fish, frogs and other aquatic life and may be harmful to people.
In Europe, tests of sewage from several hospitals in Paris and Oslo, Norway, have also uncovered hormones, antibiotics, painkillers and heart and skin medicines.
Not known for making environmental safety a priority, China has gotten generally good marks so far from scientists and environmentalists in its efforts to dispose of the adulterated milk.
With confidence in the government's food safety standards battered by the scandal, Beijing has issued new guidelines on how to destroy the tainted products. They recommend burning the milk in large-capacity incinerators or, if such facilities aren't available, burying small amounts in landfills — as long as local environmental bureaus approve.
Burning or burying breaks down melamine and neutralizes its toxicity, said Peter Ben Embarek, a Geneva-based scientist at the World Health Organization's food safety department.
"We're talking about very large quantities so it's very important that these products are being destroyed in a proper way," he said in a telephone interview.
"Burying is OK if it is done in official, controlled waste disposal sites. We don't want to see products buried in illegal dumping places or places where you don't have a clear understanding of the soil conditions and it might lead to contamination of the water supply," he said.
In China's milk scandal, dairy suppliers are accused of adding melamine, which is high in nitrogen, to watered-down milk to make it appear protein-rich in quality tests that measure nitrogen. Tens of thousands of children were sickened and at least three babies died, according to official figures, although families say the death toll is higher.
Destroying the tainted milk remains a costly challenge. Burning it costs about $100 a ton, said Wang, the Guangzhou food safety official. Putting the milk in landfills is cheaper, he said: About $29 a ton, though there are limits on how much can be buried each day.
At the Jinniu Energy Company in Hebei's Xingtai city, some 1,200 tons of milk powder were incinerated in fiery blasts of over 1,800-degree heat over the past month.
"In the first two or three days, progress was slow due to our lack of experience, but it speeded up," said Wang Jian, a company administrator, adding that the incinerator air was treated to remove pollutants. "The furnace is totally sealed and there is no smoke or smell at all."
At a power plant in the coastal city of Qingdao, some eight tons of milk powder were poured into a towering pile of coal, which was then burned to generate electricity.
"It's a pity we had to burn the milk powder," said a company employee, who would give only his surname, Jing. "But we had no other choice because it was substandard."
There have been violations. In Guangzhou, the local government took over responsibility for disposal after one garbage company poured milk into a city river, said Wang, the food safety official, who declined to name the company but said it was fined $29,000.
The local Yangcheng Evening News said the milk was tossed into a compactor, then fed into the river. "We could see white foam on the water's surface," the report said. "If you stood close by, you could smell the sweet fragrance of the milk."
The dumping prompted calls from residents downstream worried about the safety of the water supply, said a neighborhood committee official who declined to give her name.
While urging an end to such unauthorized disposal, the WHO's Ben Embarek said fish, animals and plant life were most at risk, not people, because the river would dilute the melamine.
"You're disturbing the life cycles and the environment of the river," he said. "You're changing the ecosystem of the river, potentially affecting the life of the fish and the animal and plant life in that river."
Even the public has chimed in with suggestions of ways to get rid of the milk.
Among the recommendations phoned in to Hainan's Nanguo Metropolitan Daily newspaper were feeding it to pigs or using it to water trees — both rejected by local authorities.
"We received many suggestions about how to destroy the problematic milk powder, including making it into fertilizer," said Yang Guang, an official with the Hainan Administration for Industry and Commerce.
In the end, he said, Hainan decided to burn the powder and bury the liquid milk.
___
Associated Press researchers Yu Bing and Xi Yue in Beijing and Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.
Kim Gamel
BAGHDAD – This much is agreed — a double bombing in Baghdad struck a school bus and those responding to the first blast. But the difference in casualty figures was stark. Iraqi officials said 31 people died; the U.S. military put the death toll at five.
The conflicting reports from Monday's attack are emblematic of a spate of recent bombings that have raised fears of a resurgence in violence.
There have always been disagreements because accurately counting the dead in the chaos of Iraq's war has never been easy. Yet discrepancies appear to be widening as the political stakes grow.
U.S. officials privately say that some officials in the Shiite-dominated Interior and Health ministries could possibly have political or personal motives for inflating casualty numbers for bombings in mainly Shiite areas.
Iraqi officials insist their tallies are more accurate, saying the figures are based on death certificates issued by hospitals and the number of wounded who receive treatment.
The increase in attacks comes at a sensitive time for Iraq, with political tensions heating up ahead of provincial elections that are due to be held by Jan. 31 and are expected to shift some power to the disaffected Sunni minority.
Sunni and Shiite extremists also oppose negotiations that are under way over a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact that would extend the presence of American forces in the country beyond the end of the year.
U.S. officers acknowledge the difficulties in establishing accurate numbers but express confidence their figures come close thanks to an increased presence of American troops who have spread throughout the community to work with their Iraqi counterparts.
American soldiers race to the site of bombings, often with the Iraqi security forces that are responding to the attacks. Those troops interview witnesses as well as rescue crews to reach a consensus on casualties and the type of attack, the military said.
"We do have enough soldiers throughout the battle space that when there is an explosion, we hear it and basically we run to the sound of the gun," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad.
If the U.S. military is unable to promptly reach the scene, it depends on casualty reports from American transition teams working with the Iraqi security forces that do.
It's a change from earlier in the war, when American troops focused on fighting insurgents and often declined to provide civilian casualty information.
Adel Muhsin, a top Health Ministry official, said the Americans generally aren't getting the full picture, pointing out that victims often die of their wounds at the hospital or on the way there.
"The U.S. figures are based on the preliminary reports. Usually, the first view is not completely dependable because the site is still chaotic," Muhsin said. "Preliminary and initial figures taken shortly after the explosion tend to be small."
John Pike, a military and security analyst who runs the respected Web site GlobalSecurity.org, said methodology and politics on both sides could be at play in the differing numbers.
He noted that followers of anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a rival of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government, wield influence in the Health and Interior ministries.
"I could easily imagine that the U.S. government would want to get a low number, which would suggest that peace is at hand, and that al-Sadr might want a high number to suggest that maybe al-Maliki is not doing such a good job after all," Pike said. "You could imagine both methodological and political explanations for the discrepancy."
The issue came to the fore this week when a series of bombings targeting Shiite areas over three consecutive days rattled the growing sense of confidence among Iraqis about security gains.
Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad and researcher Jennifer Farrar at the AP News Research Center in New York contributed to this report.
BAGHDAD – This much is agreed — a double bombing in Baghdad struck a school bus and those responding to the first blast. But the difference in casualty figures was stark. Iraqi officials said 31 people died; the U.S. military put the death toll at five.
The conflicting reports from Monday's attack are emblematic of a spate of recent bombings that have raised fears of a resurgence in violence.
There have always been disagreements because accurately counting the dead in the chaos of Iraq's war has never been easy. Yet discrepancies appear to be widening as the political stakes grow.
U.S. officials privately say that some officials in the Shiite-dominated Interior and Health ministries could possibly have political or personal motives for inflating casualty numbers for bombings in mainly Shiite areas.
Iraqi officials insist their tallies are more accurate, saying the figures are based on death certificates issued by hospitals and the number of wounded who receive treatment.
The increase in attacks comes at a sensitive time for Iraq, with political tensions heating up ahead of provincial elections that are due to be held by Jan. 31 and are expected to shift some power to the disaffected Sunni minority.
Sunni and Shiite extremists also oppose negotiations that are under way over a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact that would extend the presence of American forces in the country beyond the end of the year.
U.S. officers acknowledge the difficulties in establishing accurate numbers but express confidence their figures come close thanks to an increased presence of American troops who have spread throughout the community to work with their Iraqi counterparts.
American soldiers race to the site of bombings, often with the Iraqi security forces that are responding to the attacks. Those troops interview witnesses as well as rescue crews to reach a consensus on casualties and the type of attack, the military said.
"We do have enough soldiers throughout the battle space that when there is an explosion, we hear it and basically we run to the sound of the gun," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad.
If the U.S. military is unable to promptly reach the scene, it depends on casualty reports from American transition teams working with the Iraqi security forces that do.
It's a change from earlier in the war, when American troops focused on fighting insurgents and often declined to provide civilian casualty information.
Adel Muhsin, a top Health Ministry official, said the Americans generally aren't getting the full picture, pointing out that victims often die of their wounds at the hospital or on the way there.
"The U.S. figures are based on the preliminary reports. Usually, the first view is not completely dependable because the site is still chaotic," Muhsin said. "Preliminary and initial figures taken shortly after the explosion tend to be small."
John Pike, a military and security analyst who runs the respected Web site GlobalSecurity.org, said methodology and politics on both sides could be at play in the differing numbers.
He noted that followers of anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a rival of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government, wield influence in the Health and Interior ministries.
"I could easily imagine that the U.S. government would want to get a low number, which would suggest that peace is at hand, and that al-Sadr might want a high number to suggest that maybe al-Maliki is not doing such a good job after all," Pike said. "You could imagine both methodological and political explanations for the discrepancy."
The issue came to the fore this week when a series of bombings targeting Shiite areas over three consecutive days rattled the growing sense of confidence among Iraqis about security gains.
Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad and researcher Jennifer Farrar at the AP News Research Center in New York contributed to this report.
Business - Bacteria,Fungus ? Try Copper Socks
Manuel Farias
SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Copper socks? Copper towels? How about copper subway poles? These are only a few of the uses Chile, the world's biggest copper producer, is applying to the red metal now used more in the construction and auto sectors.
Used since ancient times to make tools, weapons and even plumbing systems, investigators are experimenting in Chile with new ways to use the metal and exploit its bacteria- and fungus-fighting characteristics.
"Public transport systems, where germs can be transmitted and there are large numbers of people, there is a potential market for applications for surface-metal copper," said Jurgen Leibbrandt, head of market development for the Chilean state copper giant Codelco.
"In clothes there is another venue ... where it has excellent anti-fungus qualities," he said.
Codelco is already working with the private sector to market socks, towels, pillow cases and even underwear sewn with copper fibers that fight fungi and even help combat acne.
And the private sector is in a drive to join Chile's leading export, copper, with the salmon industry, another of its next best known exports, to cut disease in fish stocks.
Chile is the world's second largest salmon producer after Norway, but the industry has high costs because of expensive solutions to controlling infections.
"Joining these two industries to finding a solution that is economically viable is certainly viable," said Leibbrandt.
Manufacturers say copper has properties that kill bacteria and reduce threats of infections.
One Chilean entrepreneur, Joaquin Ruiz, has invented copper sponge filters to be used to purify water used on salmon farms to eliminate disease and fungi, and reduce the use of large amounts of costly antibiotics currently employed to do the same job.
"That means huge savings. Instead of using large quantities of antibiotics and germ killing agents, with this you are just putting up a simple sanitary barrier," Ruiz, the developer of the Metal Foam sponges, told Reuters.
Codelco is experimenting with bacteria-repellant cages for the industry.
Investigators are also looking where they can use the metal to reduce levels of infection in hospitals and they have found the metal helps to kill Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a bacterium responsible for difficult-to-treat infections in humans.
"If you prevent one MRSA infection, you save $21,000, so your return on investment will be very very short, perhaps one patient," said Michael Schmidt, of the University of South Carolina medical school.
"So this is going to be a fairly efficient and inexpensive solution to combat infections."
(Reporting by Manuel Farias; writing by Pav Jordan)
SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Copper socks? Copper towels? How about copper subway poles? These are only a few of the uses Chile, the world's biggest copper producer, is applying to the red metal now used more in the construction and auto sectors.
Used since ancient times to make tools, weapons and even plumbing systems, investigators are experimenting in Chile with new ways to use the metal and exploit its bacteria- and fungus-fighting characteristics.
"Public transport systems, where germs can be transmitted and there are large numbers of people, there is a potential market for applications for surface-metal copper," said Jurgen Leibbrandt, head of market development for the Chilean state copper giant Codelco.
"In clothes there is another venue ... where it has excellent anti-fungus qualities," he said.
Codelco is already working with the private sector to market socks, towels, pillow cases and even underwear sewn with copper fibers that fight fungi and even help combat acne.
And the private sector is in a drive to join Chile's leading export, copper, with the salmon industry, another of its next best known exports, to cut disease in fish stocks.
Chile is the world's second largest salmon producer after Norway, but the industry has high costs because of expensive solutions to controlling infections.
"Joining these two industries to finding a solution that is economically viable is certainly viable," said Leibbrandt.
Manufacturers say copper has properties that kill bacteria and reduce threats of infections.
One Chilean entrepreneur, Joaquin Ruiz, has invented copper sponge filters to be used to purify water used on salmon farms to eliminate disease and fungi, and reduce the use of large amounts of costly antibiotics currently employed to do the same job.
"That means huge savings. Instead of using large quantities of antibiotics and germ killing agents, with this you are just putting up a simple sanitary barrier," Ruiz, the developer of the Metal Foam sponges, told Reuters.
Codelco is experimenting with bacteria-repellant cages for the industry.
Investigators are also looking where they can use the metal to reduce levels of infection in hospitals and they have found the metal helps to kill Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a bacterium responsible for difficult-to-treat infections in humans.
"If you prevent one MRSA infection, you save $21,000, so your return on investment will be very very short, perhaps one patient," said Michael Schmidt, of the University of South Carolina medical school.
"So this is going to be a fairly efficient and inexpensive solution to combat infections."
(Reporting by Manuel Farias; writing by Pav Jordan)
Health - Post workout snack may hamper weight loss
Amanda Gardner
FRIDAY, Nov. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Elite athletes are advised to "fill the tank" with an energy bar or sports drink soon after a workout.
But for mere mortals -- folks who are simply trying to keep their weight in check or stave off heart disease -- adding calories right after burning them up could negate the benefits of the sweat, researchers say.
"If people are going to go out and exercise to benefit their health, they should not be eating back the calories immediately upon finishing, or within a couple of hours of finishing," said Barry S. Braun, director of the Energy Metabolism Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. "In order to maintain the benefits, you need to be in this calorie deficit."
"Athletes are always advised to do exactly the opposite," he continued. "That's great for athletes, but for the other 99.9 percent of the world, that's probably the wrong thing."
Braun is co-author of two papers appearing in the Journal of Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism and one paper published in the Journal of Applied Physiology that detail the findings.
Ten young, overweight men and women participated in each experiment.
For the first study, volunteers were asked to walk on a treadmill for an hour a day, burning about 500 calories each time. Half of the group were given a high-calorie carbohydrate drink immediately after their workout while the other half abstained.
Exercise increased insulin efficiency by 40 percent in those who did not eat afterwards. But the benefit was completely wiped out for those who had a high-carb drink after sweating.
These results had the researchers wondering if the type of calorie would make any difference.
For the second study, volunteers cycled for 75 minutes. Immediately after exercising, half of the participants ate a meal high in carbohydrates while the other half ate a meal low in carbohydrates but containing the same number of calories.
The ability of insulin to clear sugar from the blood was greater among people who ate the low-carb meal, the researchers found.
"It seems as though giving people back carbohydrates blunts or diminishes this exercise benefit," Braun said.
The third study was all about timing. Participants were given identical meals before, immediately after or three hours after cycling for 75 minutes.
The effectiveness of insulin was about the same no matter what the time, the study revealed.
"That really didn't make a whole lot of difference, which surprised us," Braun stated. "What did seem to matter was whether you ate back calories, and whether those calories were mostly carbohydrates."
FRIDAY, Nov. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Elite athletes are advised to "fill the tank" with an energy bar or sports drink soon after a workout.
But for mere mortals -- folks who are simply trying to keep their weight in check or stave off heart disease -- adding calories right after burning them up could negate the benefits of the sweat, researchers say.
"If people are going to go out and exercise to benefit their health, they should not be eating back the calories immediately upon finishing, or within a couple of hours of finishing," said Barry S. Braun, director of the Energy Metabolism Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. "In order to maintain the benefits, you need to be in this calorie deficit."
"Athletes are always advised to do exactly the opposite," he continued. "That's great for athletes, but for the other 99.9 percent of the world, that's probably the wrong thing."
Braun is co-author of two papers appearing in the Journal of Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism and one paper published in the Journal of Applied Physiology that detail the findings.
Ten young, overweight men and women participated in each experiment.
For the first study, volunteers were asked to walk on a treadmill for an hour a day, burning about 500 calories each time. Half of the group were given a high-calorie carbohydrate drink immediately after their workout while the other half abstained.
Exercise increased insulin efficiency by 40 percent in those who did not eat afterwards. But the benefit was completely wiped out for those who had a high-carb drink after sweating.
These results had the researchers wondering if the type of calorie would make any difference.
For the second study, volunteers cycled for 75 minutes. Immediately after exercising, half of the participants ate a meal high in carbohydrates while the other half ate a meal low in carbohydrates but containing the same number of calories.
The ability of insulin to clear sugar from the blood was greater among people who ate the low-carb meal, the researchers found.
"It seems as though giving people back carbohydrates blunts or diminishes this exercise benefit," Braun said.
The third study was all about timing. Participants were given identical meals before, immediately after or three hours after cycling for 75 minutes.
The effectiveness of insulin was about the same no matter what the time, the study revealed.
"That really didn't make a whole lot of difference, which surprised us," Braun stated. "What did seem to matter was whether you ate back calories, and whether those calories were mostly carbohydrates."
Business - Online MS store opens for US
Jennifer LeClaire
Microsoft on Friday opened an online store for U.S. customers. The company already has online marketplaces in the United Kingdom, Germany and Korea.
The home page for the Microsoft Store features the Microsoft Xbox 360 hit Gears of War 2, but also offers various flavors of the Microsoft Office productivity suite. Microsoft also features the Zune and a small ad for Vista Ultimate.
"With this launch, our customers in the U.S. are able to buy first-party software and hardware directly from Microsoft, offered in a comprehensive online catalog," Trevin Chow, Microsoft's senior program manager, wrote on his blog. "On our store, you'll find products from many categories, ranging from Office 2007 Home and Student and Zoo Tycoon 2 to Xbox 360 wireless controllers and the new Zune with that cool Buy from FM feature."
Immediate Gratification
Microsoft customers have two options: Order products online for shipment to their home or business, or, when the products are software-oriented, buy them on the spot and download them immediately.
Microsoft customers can pay for an Electronic software distribution (ESD) product the same way they would purchase orders for delivery online. However, once the payment is confirmed, they can download and install ESD products in minutes.
"There is no longer any need to pay for shipping costs and waiting for the big brown truck to drive across the country," Chow said. "You'll be able to enjoy your software almost immediately -- all it takes is the download time of the product, which will vary depending on the size of the digital download."
Pros and Cons of ESD
Buying and downloading digital files is not a foreign concept in the software market or the digital-music market. However, with software some consumers fear not having a backup on physical media to reinstall if the system crashes. Microsoft said its answer is re-downloads.
Microsoft lets customers re-download the product until mainstream support for the software ends, usually five years after the product is first released. Microsoft also grants permission to copy the downloaded products to physical media for those who don't want to take any chances, or who plan on using the product beyond its supported life cycle.
Chow points out several advantages of ESD buying. For example, he said, it offers consumers the advantage of perpetual storage of their product keys.
"For all ESD purchases on Microsoft Store, there is no longer any need to keep a software box, CD jewel case, or obscure e-mail around for future reference," he said. "Your product key is stored in your Microsoft Store account alongside your purchase history so you can use it to reinstall your software at any time."
Chow also said ESD is better for the environment. Finally, ESD makes things easier when an optical drive isn't easily accessible, he said.
Microsoft on Friday opened an online store for U.S. customers. The company already has online marketplaces in the United Kingdom, Germany and Korea.
The home page for the Microsoft Store features the Microsoft Xbox 360 hit Gears of War 2, but also offers various flavors of the Microsoft Office productivity suite. Microsoft also features the Zune and a small ad for Vista Ultimate.
"With this launch, our customers in the U.S. are able to buy first-party software and hardware directly from Microsoft, offered in a comprehensive online catalog," Trevin Chow, Microsoft's senior program manager, wrote on his blog. "On our store, you'll find products from many categories, ranging from Office 2007 Home and Student and Zoo Tycoon 2 to Xbox 360 wireless controllers and the new Zune with that cool Buy from FM feature."
Immediate Gratification
Microsoft customers have two options: Order products online for shipment to their home or business, or, when the products are software-oriented, buy them on the spot and download them immediately.
Microsoft customers can pay for an Electronic software distribution (ESD) product the same way they would purchase orders for delivery online. However, once the payment is confirmed, they can download and install ESD products in minutes.
"There is no longer any need to pay for shipping costs and waiting for the big brown truck to drive across the country," Chow said. "You'll be able to enjoy your software almost immediately -- all it takes is the download time of the product, which will vary depending on the size of the digital download."
Pros and Cons of ESD
Buying and downloading digital files is not a foreign concept in the software market or the digital-music market. However, with software some consumers fear not having a backup on physical media to reinstall if the system crashes. Microsoft said its answer is re-downloads.
Microsoft lets customers re-download the product until mainstream support for the software ends, usually five years after the product is first released. Microsoft also grants permission to copy the downloaded products to physical media for those who don't want to take any chances, or who plan on using the product beyond its supported life cycle.
Chow points out several advantages of ESD buying. For example, he said, it offers consumers the advantage of perpetual storage of their product keys.
"For all ESD purchases on Microsoft Store, there is no longer any need to keep a software box, CD jewel case, or obscure e-mail around for future reference," he said. "Your product key is stored in your Microsoft Store account alongside your purchase history so you can use it to reinstall your software at any time."
Chow also said ESD is better for the environment. Finally, ESD makes things easier when an optical drive isn't easily accessible, he said.
Business - Google Offers Search By Voice, and iPhone Gets It First
Jennifer LeClaire
Google is pushing its voice-recognition technology to Apple's iPhone first, before devices running its own Android mobile platform.
The New York Times offered photographs of Google employees Vic Gundotra and Gummi Hafsteinsoon using an iPhone for a voice search. The free application was expected to be available on Apple's App Store on Friday. Google reportedly will soon offer the technology for other devices, presumably including the T-Mobile G1, which uses Android.
"This is an expansion of types of applications Google has already been developing," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "Google has GOOG411, which is the underlying technical engine. They also have a voice-search client for the BlackBerry which is limited to maps. So this is an evolutionary step."
Inside Google Voice Search
Here's how it works: The iPhone user asks a question, such as "Where's the closest Burger King?" or "How wide is the Grand Canyon?" The user's voice is converted to a digital file and transmitted to Google's servers.
Google Search then serves up the results -- in a matter of seconds if the user has a fast wireless network, the Times reports. The search results always include any local information.
"The question with these types of technologies is how good is the speech recognition? It's getting much better, and that's why Google feels this is the right time to introduce this," Sterling said. "Google has confidence now that voice recognition is good enough to open it up to the full Web search as opposed to the much more structured search on GOOG411."
Google is playing catch-up, in a sense. Yahoo and Microsoft already offer a voice-recognition option for mobile phones. Microsoft's Tellme service offers users information in specific categories, such as movies, maps or directions. Yahoo offers voice services through its oneSearch platform.
"In one sense this is new, but it's not new, because Yahoo and Microsoft have been doing versions of voice recognition -- and so has Google -- for some time," Sterling said. "A company called Dial Directions was the first to formally introduce voice search for the iPhone, but it was limited to selected local sites through the Safari browser."
Building a Killer App
Could voice recognition be the next killer app for mobile? The market is growing at breakneck speed. Voice-recognition technology sales topped $1 billion in 2006 for the first time. Datamonitor expects that number to swell to $2.6 billion by 2009.
The market is heating up -- and going global. Voice-recognition software maker Nuance Communications earlier this month acquired Austria-based Philips Speech Recognition Systems for $96.1 million. Philips develops speech-recognition solutions in 25 languages.
Voice recognition on the mobile phone is still not completely accurate, and may not see mainstream use until it improves. But Sterling said it is ever-improving and thinks Google's voice search will be a popular mobile-phone feature.
Specifically, he sees the new Google application for the iPhone as most useful when a user might need to call directory assistance or do a simple search, but can't do it safely on a keyboard while driving. Another benefit is the ability to enter potentially long search queries that would be difficult to type. But accuracy is still a factor.
"This is an evolutionary step in the whole realm of voice search," Sterling said. "So far it has not proven to be the killer app for mobile, but it's getting there and it's very useful in selective situations."
Google is pushing its voice-recognition technology to Apple's iPhone first, before devices running its own Android mobile platform.
The New York Times offered photographs of Google employees Vic Gundotra and Gummi Hafsteinsoon using an iPhone for a voice search. The free application was expected to be available on Apple's App Store on Friday. Google reportedly will soon offer the technology for other devices, presumably including the T-Mobile G1, which uses Android.
"This is an expansion of types of applications Google has already been developing," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "Google has GOOG411, which is the underlying technical engine. They also have a voice-search client for the BlackBerry which is limited to maps. So this is an evolutionary step."
Inside Google Voice Search
Here's how it works: The iPhone user asks a question, such as "Where's the closest Burger King?" or "How wide is the Grand Canyon?" The user's voice is converted to a digital file and transmitted to Google's servers.
Google Search then serves up the results -- in a matter of seconds if the user has a fast wireless network, the Times reports. The search results always include any local information.
"The question with these types of technologies is how good is the speech recognition? It's getting much better, and that's why Google feels this is the right time to introduce this," Sterling said. "Google has confidence now that voice recognition is good enough to open it up to the full Web search as opposed to the much more structured search on GOOG411."
Google is playing catch-up, in a sense. Yahoo and Microsoft already offer a voice-recognition option for mobile phones. Microsoft's Tellme service offers users information in specific categories, such as movies, maps or directions. Yahoo offers voice services through its oneSearch platform.
"In one sense this is new, but it's not new, because Yahoo and Microsoft have been doing versions of voice recognition -- and so has Google -- for some time," Sterling said. "A company called Dial Directions was the first to formally introduce voice search for the iPhone, but it was limited to selected local sites through the Safari browser."
Building a Killer App
Could voice recognition be the next killer app for mobile? The market is growing at breakneck speed. Voice-recognition technology sales topped $1 billion in 2006 for the first time. Datamonitor expects that number to swell to $2.6 billion by 2009.
The market is heating up -- and going global. Voice-recognition software maker Nuance Communications earlier this month acquired Austria-based Philips Speech Recognition Systems for $96.1 million. Philips develops speech-recognition solutions in 25 languages.
Voice recognition on the mobile phone is still not completely accurate, and may not see mainstream use until it improves. But Sterling said it is ever-improving and thinks Google's voice search will be a popular mobile-phone feature.
Specifically, he sees the new Google application for the iPhone as most useful when a user might need to call directory assistance or do a simple search, but can't do it safely on a keyboard while driving. Another benefit is the ability to enter potentially long search queries that would be difficult to type. But accuracy is still a factor.
"This is an evolutionary step in the whole realm of voice search," Sterling said. "So far it has not proven to be the killer app for mobile, but it's getting there and it's very useful in selective situations."
Lifestyle - Can a Soccer star block searches ?
UKI GONI
Argentines clicking on the local version of Yahoo in search of information about their country's most legendary soccer star (and current national team coach) are in for a disappointment. All they'll see is a disclaimer in Spanish stating: "Due to a court order requested by private parties, we find ourselves obliged to temporarily suspend all or some of the results related to this search." The only exceptions are links to major news media sites. Nor is this peculiar result exclusive to searches for Diego Maradona. The soccer star is just one of 110 major public figures in Argentina to have secured a court order restraining the Argentine versions of Google and Yahoo from serving up search results on their names.
What worries the search engines is that the ruling's legal principle effectively holds them responsible for the content of web sites turned up in their searches.
A spokesperson for Google Argentina labeled the lawsuit "completely illogical. It would be like suing the newsstand for what appears in the newspapers it sells. Or demanding the newsstand vendor to tear out offending pages from the newspapers. The lawsuits should be against the websites carrying the information, not us." Google Argentina has appealed the court order, and says it will not filter any links until the appeal has been decided.
The lawsuit is the work of Martin Leguizamon, 48, a Buenos Aires attorney who has taken on the local versions of the two internet giants on behalf of many of Argentina's best-known actors, models, sports personalities and judges. "We started our first lawsuit two years ago," says Leguizamon. "When Maradona found out about what we were doing he came to see me and asked me to represent him as well."
Maradona, widely viewed as one of the greatest soccer players of all time, has had a career of highs and lows. His two goals against England at the 1986 World Cup - one of them scored illegally with his hand, which he famously attributed to "the hand of God" - helped to symbolically avenge Argentina's defeat in the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas war, and he went on to lead Argentina to victory over Germany in the final that year. But he was banned from the professional game in Italy in 1991 for cocaine use, and he tested positive for drugs at the 1994 World Cup tournament. He recently reclaimed the public spotlight by accepting the job of Argentina's national coach, although in keeping with his mercurial personality, within a week he was threatening to resign if he couldn't get his way on coaching-staff appointments. (See pictures of the UEFA Euro 2008 Soccer Championships.)
But it's not only Maradona and other celebrities who are looking to protect their image by joining Leguizamon's suit; the litigants also include three important judicial figures, among them high-profile judge Maria Servini de Cubria, many of whose rulings have been questioned in the blogosphere and even in the mainstream media. "She is a public official," said the Google Argentina spokesperson. "Where do we draw the line? What should we do regarding critical articles about her in the major online newspapers? Should we block those too? Her presence in the list of lawsuits has made this a political question concerning freedom of information."
To find a way around the ruling, users of Yahoo Argentina, which has complied with the ruling, need only go to the international version of the search engine (not covered by the ruling). Even entering an alternate spelling, such as "Maradon," still turns up a massive number of links to actual Maradona articles.
Google Argentina says it wants to cooperate with the courts, but that it cannot put in place a "wholesale blockage of a name search; it would be absurd, especially because the information would still be available on the web and on other search engines that are not being sued."
Leguizamon argues that the search engines do not discriminate between links to appropiate material and links to pornographic sites that use the images of some of the models he represents. Maradona claims to have seen images of himself on porn sites linked to by Google.
Although Google Argentina denies it has started filtering any links to sites with Maradona content, Leguizamon claims that in the last two months many offending links no longer appear. But the lawyer is not content merely to shut down what he deems offensive searches; he is seeking compensation both for any damages resulting from those searches and even for innocent pictures of Maradona turned up by Google's "Images" search. The lawyer says these are at odds with Argentina's legal restrictions on unauthorized commercial use of photographic portraits. Although Leguizamon would not disclose the amounts being demanded in court, sources close to the case say that the compensation being sought in each case is between 100,000 and 400,000 pesos ($30,000-$120,000), although in Maradona's case the amount is certain to be much higher.
Leguizamon says he wants to see big search engines such as Google and Yahoo filtering all their results for pornographic or other content offensive to his clients. "Search engines have the capability of doing that, and we want to see it implemented," says Leguizamon. "Without the link in Google or Yahoo," he adds, "nobody would even know these sites exist."
Argentines clicking on the local version of Yahoo in search of information about their country's most legendary soccer star (and current national team coach) are in for a disappointment. All they'll see is a disclaimer in Spanish stating: "Due to a court order requested by private parties, we find ourselves obliged to temporarily suspend all or some of the results related to this search." The only exceptions are links to major news media sites. Nor is this peculiar result exclusive to searches for Diego Maradona. The soccer star is just one of 110 major public figures in Argentina to have secured a court order restraining the Argentine versions of Google and Yahoo from serving up search results on their names.
What worries the search engines is that the ruling's legal principle effectively holds them responsible for the content of web sites turned up in their searches.
A spokesperson for Google Argentina labeled the lawsuit "completely illogical. It would be like suing the newsstand for what appears in the newspapers it sells. Or demanding the newsstand vendor to tear out offending pages from the newspapers. The lawsuits should be against the websites carrying the information, not us." Google Argentina has appealed the court order, and says it will not filter any links until the appeal has been decided.
The lawsuit is the work of Martin Leguizamon, 48, a Buenos Aires attorney who has taken on the local versions of the two internet giants on behalf of many of Argentina's best-known actors, models, sports personalities and judges. "We started our first lawsuit two years ago," says Leguizamon. "When Maradona found out about what we were doing he came to see me and asked me to represent him as well."
Maradona, widely viewed as one of the greatest soccer players of all time, has had a career of highs and lows. His two goals against England at the 1986 World Cup - one of them scored illegally with his hand, which he famously attributed to "the hand of God" - helped to symbolically avenge Argentina's defeat in the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas war, and he went on to lead Argentina to victory over Germany in the final that year. But he was banned from the professional game in Italy in 1991 for cocaine use, and he tested positive for drugs at the 1994 World Cup tournament. He recently reclaimed the public spotlight by accepting the job of Argentina's national coach, although in keeping with his mercurial personality, within a week he was threatening to resign if he couldn't get his way on coaching-staff appointments. (See pictures of the UEFA Euro 2008 Soccer Championships.)
But it's not only Maradona and other celebrities who are looking to protect their image by joining Leguizamon's suit; the litigants also include three important judicial figures, among them high-profile judge Maria Servini de Cubria, many of whose rulings have been questioned in the blogosphere and even in the mainstream media. "She is a public official," said the Google Argentina spokesperson. "Where do we draw the line? What should we do regarding critical articles about her in the major online newspapers? Should we block those too? Her presence in the list of lawsuits has made this a political question concerning freedom of information."
To find a way around the ruling, users of Yahoo Argentina, which has complied with the ruling, need only go to the international version of the search engine (not covered by the ruling). Even entering an alternate spelling, such as "Maradon," still turns up a massive number of links to actual Maradona articles.
Google Argentina says it wants to cooperate with the courts, but that it cannot put in place a "wholesale blockage of a name search; it would be absurd, especially because the information would still be available on the web and on other search engines that are not being sued."
Leguizamon argues that the search engines do not discriminate between links to appropiate material and links to pornographic sites that use the images of some of the models he represents. Maradona claims to have seen images of himself on porn sites linked to by Google.
Although Google Argentina denies it has started filtering any links to sites with Maradona content, Leguizamon claims that in the last two months many offending links no longer appear. But the lawyer is not content merely to shut down what he deems offensive searches; he is seeking compensation both for any damages resulting from those searches and even for innocent pictures of Maradona turned up by Google's "Images" search. The lawyer says these are at odds with Argentina's legal restrictions on unauthorized commercial use of photographic portraits. Although Leguizamon would not disclose the amounts being demanded in court, sources close to the case say that the compensation being sought in each case is between 100,000 and 400,000 pesos ($30,000-$120,000), although in Maradona's case the amount is certain to be much higher.
Leguizamon says he wants to see big search engines such as Google and Yahoo filtering all their results for pornographic or other content offensive to his clients. "Search engines have the capability of doing that, and we want to see it implemented," says Leguizamon. "Without the link in Google or Yahoo," he adds, "nobody would even know these sites exist."
World - China says door open to talks with Dalai Lama
LONDON – A senior Chinese official said in comments broadcast Friday that Beijing is open to further discussions with Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama following talks earlier this month.
Zhu Weiqun claimed in remarks to the BBC that "China has done everything it can to talk to the Dalai Lama." He added that "the door is still open."
Weiqun made the comments just days before a special meeting called by the Dalai Lama to discuss how the Tibetan exile communities and political organizations in Dharmsala, India, will deal with China in the future. The five day meeting begins Monday.
China insists Tibet is part of its territory. Since 2002, Tibetan representatives and Chinese officials have held several rounds of talks on the disputed territory with little apparent progress.
Earlier this week Zhu, a vice minister of the United Front Work Department, blamed the Dalai Lama and his envoys for the failure of talks held Oct. 31 to Nov. 5. In an apparent hardening of Beijing's stance, he said the Tibetan spiritual leader's calls for greater autonomy masked his desire for the Himalayan region's independence.
The Dalai Lama has said he is not seeking independence, but meaningful automony that would protect the region's unique Buddhist culture.
Zhu Weiqun claimed in remarks to the BBC that "China has done everything it can to talk to the Dalai Lama." He added that "the door is still open."
Weiqun made the comments just days before a special meeting called by the Dalai Lama to discuss how the Tibetan exile communities and political organizations in Dharmsala, India, will deal with China in the future. The five day meeting begins Monday.
China insists Tibet is part of its territory. Since 2002, Tibetan representatives and Chinese officials have held several rounds of talks on the disputed territory with little apparent progress.
Earlier this week Zhu, a vice minister of the United Front Work Department, blamed the Dalai Lama and his envoys for the failure of talks held Oct. 31 to Nov. 5. In an apparent hardening of Beijing's stance, he said the Tibetan spiritual leader's calls for greater autonomy masked his desire for the Himalayan region's independence.
The Dalai Lama has said he is not seeking independence, but meaningful automony that would protect the region's unique Buddhist culture.
Health - Why loneliness is bad
Nancy Shute
When all is said and done, the best guarantee of a long and healthy life may be the connections you have with other people. John Cacioppo, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago and coauthor of a new book, Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection (W.W. Norton, $25.95), talked with U.S. News about the latest research on how relationships affect physical health. Edited excerpts:
Why did you choose to study loneliness?
We want to understand what importance our social connections have to people's biology. Early in human history, our species's survival required the protection of families and tribes. Isolation meant death. The painful feeling known as loneliness is a prompt to reconnect to others.
You say that social isolation has an impact on health comparable to high blood pressure, obesity, lack of exercise, or smoking. Can you explain?
Loneliness shows up in measurements of stress hormones, immune function, and cardiovascular function. Lonely adults consume more alcohol and get less exercise than those who are not lonely. Their diet is higher in fat, their sleep is less efficient, and they report more daytime fatigue. Loneliness also disrupts the regulation of cellular processes deep within the body, predisposing us to premature aging.
You point out that, oddly enough, loneliness also makes us less socially adept. How?
Lonely adults have the same social skills as nonlonely adults, but they don't deploy them as appropriately. We think that lonely individuals feel threatened, and because of that feeling of threat, they're not certain they can trust others. When you see something positive happening to others, you're not sure if you're included, so you're aloof, demanding, or critical.
Is the solution to surround ourselves with people?
Loneliness isn't necessarily a result of being alone. Think about a bereaved spouse and the college freshman going away from home for the first time. They can be around a lot of people but feel completely isolated. In humans, perceived isolation is so much more important than physical isolation.
How can each of us manage our own feelings of loneliness?
In everyday life, play with the idea of trying to get small doses of the positive sensations that come from good social interactions. Just saying to someone, "Isn't it a beautiful day?" or "I loved that book!" can bring a friendly response that makes you feel better.
When it comes to friendships, some people think that in order to be less lonely, everybody has to like them. That's not true. It takes just one, two, or three people. The person who has 4,000 friends on Facebook is not necessarily the least lonely person, especially if he spends all his time maintaining his Facebook page.
I'm glad you brought up Facebook. Can virtual connections give us what we need?
as a substitute for physical means of connection, you actually get lonelier. However, if you are disabled and isolated by virtue of the disability and the Internet is permitting you to make connections, then it decreases feelings of isolation.
You say we connect with others in three basic ways, but each person has his or her own comfort level with those connections. How does that work?
Humans have a need to be affirmed up close and personal; we see this most often in marriage. But people who don't marry may find meaning elsewhere. We also have a need for a wider circle of friends and family, but we all know that close family connections can be a mixed blessing. And there's a need to feel that we belong to a larger group. Many of us tend to ignore the collective part of social connection until there is an insult or threat. An example is how, right after 9/11, Americans felt very close to one another. There was a harmony and helpfulness that was really quite surprising. Being an Obama-ite during the campaign would be another example of having a collective identity, feeling like you're part of something grand and wonderful.
People who go to church regularly live longer than nonchurchgoers. Why is that?
Churches can be very beneficial--one can feel connected to the group, the church, and to God. Those are actually different things, but both seem to have beneficial effect. God is like a supercharged friend.
You joke about how men soothe their loneliness with computers and women do it with pets. But there is indeed a difference.
We do see a distinction between men and women. Men don't understand their wives' need for girlfriends. On the other hand, as the wife walks out the door to have lunch with her friends, the husband might be watching the football game on TV all by himself. If she asks if he's lonely, he'd say, "No, I'm with my tribe. Go, Bears!"
When all is said and done, the best guarantee of a long and healthy life may be the connections you have with other people. John Cacioppo, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago and coauthor of a new book, Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection (W.W. Norton, $25.95), talked with U.S. News about the latest research on how relationships affect physical health. Edited excerpts:
Why did you choose to study loneliness?
We want to understand what importance our social connections have to people's biology. Early in human history, our species's survival required the protection of families and tribes. Isolation meant death. The painful feeling known as loneliness is a prompt to reconnect to others.
You say that social isolation has an impact on health comparable to high blood pressure, obesity, lack of exercise, or smoking. Can you explain?
Loneliness shows up in measurements of stress hormones, immune function, and cardiovascular function. Lonely adults consume more alcohol and get less exercise than those who are not lonely. Their diet is higher in fat, their sleep is less efficient, and they report more daytime fatigue. Loneliness also disrupts the regulation of cellular processes deep within the body, predisposing us to premature aging.
You point out that, oddly enough, loneliness also makes us less socially adept. How?
Lonely adults have the same social skills as nonlonely adults, but they don't deploy them as appropriately. We think that lonely individuals feel threatened, and because of that feeling of threat, they're not certain they can trust others. When you see something positive happening to others, you're not sure if you're included, so you're aloof, demanding, or critical.
Is the solution to surround ourselves with people?
Loneliness isn't necessarily a result of being alone. Think about a bereaved spouse and the college freshman going away from home for the first time. They can be around a lot of people but feel completely isolated. In humans, perceived isolation is so much more important than physical isolation.
How can each of us manage our own feelings of loneliness?
In everyday life, play with the idea of trying to get small doses of the positive sensations that come from good social interactions. Just saying to someone, "Isn't it a beautiful day?" or "I loved that book!" can bring a friendly response that makes you feel better.
When it comes to friendships, some people think that in order to be less lonely, everybody has to like them. That's not true. It takes just one, two, or three people. The person who has 4,000 friends on Facebook is not necessarily the least lonely person, especially if he spends all his time maintaining his Facebook page.
I'm glad you brought up Facebook. Can virtual connections give us what we need?
as a substitute for physical means of connection, you actually get lonelier. However, if you are disabled and isolated by virtue of the disability and the Internet is permitting you to make connections, then it decreases feelings of isolation.
You say we connect with others in three basic ways, but each person has his or her own comfort level with those connections. How does that work?
Humans have a need to be affirmed up close and personal; we see this most often in marriage. But people who don't marry may find meaning elsewhere. We also have a need for a wider circle of friends and family, but we all know that close family connections can be a mixed blessing. And there's a need to feel that we belong to a larger group. Many of us tend to ignore the collective part of social connection until there is an insult or threat. An example is how, right after 9/11, Americans felt very close to one another. There was a harmony and helpfulness that was really quite surprising. Being an Obama-ite during the campaign would be another example of having a collective identity, feeling like you're part of something grand and wonderful.
People who go to church regularly live longer than nonchurchgoers. Why is that?
Churches can be very beneficial--one can feel connected to the group, the church, and to God. Those are actually different things, but both seem to have beneficial effect. God is like a supercharged friend.
You joke about how men soothe their loneliness with computers and women do it with pets. But there is indeed a difference.
We do see a distinction between men and women. Men don't understand their wives' need for girlfriends. On the other hand, as the wife walks out the door to have lunch with her friends, the husband might be watching the football game on TV all by himself. If she asks if he's lonely, he'd say, "No, I'm with my tribe. Go, Bears!"
Entertainment - Monk is on for one last time
Natalie Finn
Los Angeles (E! Online) – After six years of getting his hands dirty and then vigilantly scrubbing them clean, Monk is gearing up—probably pretty carefully—for his last case.
USA announced Friday that it has picked up its Emmy-winning detective series Monk for an eighth and final season that will air next summer.
The "Characters Welcome" network has ordered up 16 episodes, and E! News is hearing that the finale will clue Monk in on who killed his dearly departed wife, Trudy, the tragedy that turned him into the OCD-addled mystery-solver who cable audiences have come to love.
"We want to build to a spectacular conclusion for this wonderful show," said Jeff Wachtel, executive VP of original programming for USA Network.
"By many measures, Monk is the most successful series in the history of basic cable television—and it was certainly the original tentpole of our 'Character' brand. Our fans have been extremely dedicated and season eight should prove to be a very satisfying reward."
Monk, which marked its 100th episode last month, averaged 5 million viewers per episode in 2008, so the series definitely isn't being put out to pasture on a downswing.
On whether playing such a neurotic, tic-ridden character has rubbed off on him over the years, three-time Emmy winner Tony Shalhoub told USA Weekend in June:
"I think I had low levels of those kinds of quirks, as a lot of people really do, but it's definitely grown over time. I'm not really the kind of actor who brings my work home with me so much, normally, but I sort of feel infected by this character in a way. I think about things that I normally wouldn't otherwise."
Los Angeles (E! Online) – After six years of getting his hands dirty and then vigilantly scrubbing them clean, Monk is gearing up—probably pretty carefully—for his last case.
USA announced Friday that it has picked up its Emmy-winning detective series Monk for an eighth and final season that will air next summer.
The "Characters Welcome" network has ordered up 16 episodes, and E! News is hearing that the finale will clue Monk in on who killed his dearly departed wife, Trudy, the tragedy that turned him into the OCD-addled mystery-solver who cable audiences have come to love.
"We want to build to a spectacular conclusion for this wonderful show," said Jeff Wachtel, executive VP of original programming for USA Network.
"By many measures, Monk is the most successful series in the history of basic cable television—and it was certainly the original tentpole of our 'Character' brand. Our fans have been extremely dedicated and season eight should prove to be a very satisfying reward."
Monk, which marked its 100th episode last month, averaged 5 million viewers per episode in 2008, so the series definitely isn't being put out to pasture on a downswing.
On whether playing such a neurotic, tic-ridden character has rubbed off on him over the years, three-time Emmy winner Tony Shalhoub told USA Weekend in June:
"I think I had low levels of those kinds of quirks, as a lot of people really do, but it's definitely grown over time. I'm not really the kind of actor who brings my work home with me so much, normally, but I sort of feel infected by this character in a way. I think about things that I normally wouldn't otherwise."
Business - GM may run out of gas before Obama arrives
TOM KRISHER
DETROIT – In recent months, General Motors has been burning through about $3.1 million an hour, or $52,000 — the price of a well-equipped Chevy Tahoe SUV — every minute.
How much longer can this go on? And perhaps more important, can GM hang on until Barack Obama and the new Congress can come to the rescue?
With an auto industry bailout running headlong into Republican opposition on Capitol Hill, GM's best hope of avoiding collapse might lie with the incoming administration. But the automaker is practically running on empty already, and analysts and others warn that it might be out of business by the time Obama is sworn in on Jan. 20.
The nation's largest automaker said it had $16.2 billion in cash at the end of September, raising the possibility that GM will fall below the minimum of $11 billion to $14 billion needed for day-to-day operations by the end of the year.
If that happens, GM will be unable to pay some creditors, which could seize assets that were pledged as collateral or even try to force the company into bankruptcy.
Worse yet, some suppliers could simply stop shipping parts unless they are paid cash on delivery, said Douglas Baird, a professor who specializes in bankruptcy at the University of Chicago Law School.
"That's the nightmare scenario they're worried about, and we don't know how far off that day is," he said.
Without parts, GM can't build vehicles, make money and pay its creditors. Eventually some creditors might try to push the automaker into bankruptcy.
"According to the bankruptcy code, it only takes three creditors to go into court and say this company is bankrupt in an involuntary manner. General Motors must have 25,000 to 35,000 creditors who could do that," said Harlan Platt, who teaches finance and corporate turnarounds at Northeastern University in Boston.
What's more likely than bankruptcy, according to Baird, is that GM would come to some kind of agreement with its creditors that would buy some time — enough time, perhaps, for Obama to take office and change the odds of a government bailout.
"I can guarantee you they are having those conversations now," Baird said.
Democrats in the lame-duck Congress are pressing for a bailout of Detroit's Big Three automakers with money taken from the $700 billion Wall Street rescue. But President George W. Bush and many Republicans have come out against the idea, arguing that the financial rescue package was not intended for such uses, and that a bailout would reward poor management and lead other industries to demand government handouts, too.
Obama has expressed support for Detroit's auto industry, and he will start his administration with bigger majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Still, United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said Friday that the industry can't wait for Obama.
"In my opinion, we have to move sooner rather than later," he said in an interview with Detroit radio station WWJ-AM. "If the industry should happen to go down, we without question will be facing a depression."
Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., said: "Obama will do it when he gets there, but that's two months from now — time is essential."
GM, Ford and Chrysler are seeking $25 billion from the government to get them through the economic crisis and the worst sales slump in more than 25 years. But GM appears to be in the worst shape, warning that it can't borrow from normal sources.
The Center for Automotive Research, which receives funding from the auto industry, has warned that the collapse of the Big Three — or even just GM — could set off a catastrophic chain reaction in the economy, eliminating up to 3 million jobs and depriving governments of more than $150 billion in tax revenue over the next three years.
GM has said Chapter 11 bankruptcy — under which the automaker would continue to operate while holding its creditors at bay and overhauling its finances — is not an option because that would scare away customers.
Some industry analysts say doubts about the company's chances of survival already are driving away would-be buyers, who worry that their warranties might not be honored or that they might not be able to get replacement parts.
Chapter 11 bankruptcy may be of little use anyway, Baird said, since GM may not be able to get the necessary financing to reorganize itself. That could lead to Chapter 7 liquidation, in which the automaker's assets would be sold off piecemeal.
Fitch Ratings analyst Mark Oline said GM's ability to make it until Obama can help will probably depend on its trade creditors, or those that provide parts and raw materials to make cars and trucks.
"They would have to continue to enjoy the forbearance of their trade creditors," Oline said. "It's really in the hands of the federal government and trade creditors at this point."
Normally in such cases, creditors back off, Baird said. "With the new administration coming in, with cooler heads prevailing, they'll be able to muddle through for a while," he said.
But creditors won't be patient for long, given GM's debt and history of losses, Baird said.
___
Associated Press Writer Ken Thomas in Washington and AP Auto Writer Dan Strumpf in New York contributed to this report.
DETROIT – In recent months, General Motors has been burning through about $3.1 million an hour, or $52,000 — the price of a well-equipped Chevy Tahoe SUV — every minute.
How much longer can this go on? And perhaps more important, can GM hang on until Barack Obama and the new Congress can come to the rescue?
With an auto industry bailout running headlong into Republican opposition on Capitol Hill, GM's best hope of avoiding collapse might lie with the incoming administration. But the automaker is practically running on empty already, and analysts and others warn that it might be out of business by the time Obama is sworn in on Jan. 20.
The nation's largest automaker said it had $16.2 billion in cash at the end of September, raising the possibility that GM will fall below the minimum of $11 billion to $14 billion needed for day-to-day operations by the end of the year.
If that happens, GM will be unable to pay some creditors, which could seize assets that were pledged as collateral or even try to force the company into bankruptcy.
Worse yet, some suppliers could simply stop shipping parts unless they are paid cash on delivery, said Douglas Baird, a professor who specializes in bankruptcy at the University of Chicago Law School.
"That's the nightmare scenario they're worried about, and we don't know how far off that day is," he said.
Without parts, GM can't build vehicles, make money and pay its creditors. Eventually some creditors might try to push the automaker into bankruptcy.
"According to the bankruptcy code, it only takes three creditors to go into court and say this company is bankrupt in an involuntary manner. General Motors must have 25,000 to 35,000 creditors who could do that," said Harlan Platt, who teaches finance and corporate turnarounds at Northeastern University in Boston.
What's more likely than bankruptcy, according to Baird, is that GM would come to some kind of agreement with its creditors that would buy some time — enough time, perhaps, for Obama to take office and change the odds of a government bailout.
"I can guarantee you they are having those conversations now," Baird said.
Democrats in the lame-duck Congress are pressing for a bailout of Detroit's Big Three automakers with money taken from the $700 billion Wall Street rescue. But President George W. Bush and many Republicans have come out against the idea, arguing that the financial rescue package was not intended for such uses, and that a bailout would reward poor management and lead other industries to demand government handouts, too.
Obama has expressed support for Detroit's auto industry, and he will start his administration with bigger majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Still, United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said Friday that the industry can't wait for Obama.
"In my opinion, we have to move sooner rather than later," he said in an interview with Detroit radio station WWJ-AM. "If the industry should happen to go down, we without question will be facing a depression."
Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., said: "Obama will do it when he gets there, but that's two months from now — time is essential."
GM, Ford and Chrysler are seeking $25 billion from the government to get them through the economic crisis and the worst sales slump in more than 25 years. But GM appears to be in the worst shape, warning that it can't borrow from normal sources.
The Center for Automotive Research, which receives funding from the auto industry, has warned that the collapse of the Big Three — or even just GM — could set off a catastrophic chain reaction in the economy, eliminating up to 3 million jobs and depriving governments of more than $150 billion in tax revenue over the next three years.
GM has said Chapter 11 bankruptcy — under which the automaker would continue to operate while holding its creditors at bay and overhauling its finances — is not an option because that would scare away customers.
Some industry analysts say doubts about the company's chances of survival already are driving away would-be buyers, who worry that their warranties might not be honored or that they might not be able to get replacement parts.
Chapter 11 bankruptcy may be of little use anyway, Baird said, since GM may not be able to get the necessary financing to reorganize itself. That could lead to Chapter 7 liquidation, in which the automaker's assets would be sold off piecemeal.
Fitch Ratings analyst Mark Oline said GM's ability to make it until Obama can help will probably depend on its trade creditors, or those that provide parts and raw materials to make cars and trucks.
"They would have to continue to enjoy the forbearance of their trade creditors," Oline said. "It's really in the hands of the federal government and trade creditors at this point."
Normally in such cases, creditors back off, Baird said. "With the new administration coming in, with cooler heads prevailing, they'll be able to muddle through for a while," he said.
But creditors won't be patient for long, given GM's debt and history of losses, Baird said.
___
Associated Press Writer Ken Thomas in Washington and AP Auto Writer Dan Strumpf in New York contributed to this report.
Lifestyle - UK Couple to Divorce over Affair on Second Life
WILLIAM LEE ADAMS
A woman in Cornwall, England, has filed papers to divorce her husband on the grounds of "unreasonable behavior" after she discovered that his character in the online role-playing game [ITALIC "Second Life"] had been having an affair.
Amy Taylor, 28, whose online alter ego is named Laura Skye, said that her husband's virtual infidelity exacted a pain that cut as deep as any extramarital liaison. "It may have started online, but it existed entirely in the real world and it hurts just as much," she said. "His was the ultimate betrayal. He had been lying to me."
In Second Life, users create an online persona, known as an avatar, which moves freely through the imagined world, making friends, socializing and buying property with the game's virtual currency, the Linden dollar (so named for the developers behind the game). At any given moment, 38,000 users are logged on to the site.
Taylor met her 40-year-old husband, David Pollard, in an online chat room in 2003. Their mutual interest in Second Life helped their relationship flourish, and the couple married two years later. To mark the occasion, Laura Skye married Dave Barmy, Pollard's avatar (who clearly opted for the modest lifestyle on the game, living in a chalet with a Cobra helicopter gunship parked next to it), in a lavish ceremony on Second Life. "People find love in lots of different ways," Taylor said.
Avatars need not represent players' real-life personas. Online, Laura Skye works as a club DJ and is 6 feet tall, weighs 112 lb. and has a penchant for skin-tight cowgirl outfits. In reality, Taylor, an unemployed former waitress, is 5 feet 4 inches tall, weighs 224 lb. and prefers T shirts and leggings.
Taylor may have brushed the affair aside had it not been the second time Pollard strayed. Shortly after her marriage, Taylor woke from an afternoon nap to find Pollard watching his Dave Barmy avatar having sex with a computer-generated prostitute.
"I went mad - I was so hurt," Taylor said of the Internet affair. "I just couldn't believe what he'd done. I looked at the computer screen and could see his character having sex with a female character. It's cheating as far as I'm concerned."
Disgusted, Taylor ended Laura Skye's relationship with Barmy but chose to stay with Pollard in real life. In an effort to test his commitment, Taylor hired a private investigator on Second Life named Markie Macdonald. Macdonald hatched a plan whereby a female avatar flirted with Barmy in an effort to lure him to her cyber-bed. Instead of succumbing to temptation, Barmy spoke of his strong feelings for Laura Skye.
In April of this year, however, things soured when Taylor caught Barmy getting intimate with another avatar, named Modesty McDonnell. "I caught him cuddling a woman on a sofa in the game. It looked really affectionate," she said. "I ended up going off to his mum and dad's in floods of tears."
Pollard dismisses any accusations of wrongdoing. "We weren't even having cyber-sex or anything like that," he said. "We were just chatting and hanging out together."
In fact, Pollard said, it was his wife's addiction to another fantasy role-playing game that drove him to the other avatar. "Amy never did anything around the house. She just played World of Warcraft all the time," he said. More hurtful was her refusal to give him attention. "If I wanted to spend time with her, I had to ask, but it was always too much trouble for her to come off the game to spend time with me, so the marriage was a bit of a joke." (
For both parties, though, there appears to be a silver lining. Taylor has a new boyfriend whom she met through playing World of Warcraft. And by Friday afternoon, the Daily Mail in England had reported that Pollard is now engaged to Linda Brinkley, 55, the woman behind the Modesty McDonnell avatar.
Brinkley, a twice-divorced mother of two who lives in Arkansas, said that her avatar met Pollard's at a Second Life nightclub called Holodeck where McDonnell works as a hostess - not, as in the words of Taylor, a prostitute. "When we first met, it was at a fancy-dress night on the game, and he noticed me across the room and said he felt something special," she said. Brinkley also claimed that their relationship remained platonic until Pollard formally separated from his wife. After that, their avatars married in an online ceremony attended by seven guests.
Distance and money have kept Pollard and Brinkley apart, but they chat on the phone for two hours every night and, Brinkley said, they have the same goals in life. Currently unemployed, Brinkley plans to complete an online degree in religious studies and to work as a missionary.
"I would say I'm in love with Dave," she said. "I've been married in real life before, but they weren't really good relationships, and I haven't had much luck with men until now." Given her future husband's wandering avatar, it's probably too soon to know if that luck will last.
A woman in Cornwall, England, has filed papers to divorce her husband on the grounds of "unreasonable behavior" after she discovered that his character in the online role-playing game [ITALIC "Second Life"] had been having an affair.
Amy Taylor, 28, whose online alter ego is named Laura Skye, said that her husband's virtual infidelity exacted a pain that cut as deep as any extramarital liaison. "It may have started online, but it existed entirely in the real world and it hurts just as much," she said. "His was the ultimate betrayal. He had been lying to me."
In Second Life, users create an online persona, known as an avatar, which moves freely through the imagined world, making friends, socializing and buying property with the game's virtual currency, the Linden dollar (so named for the developers behind the game). At any given moment, 38,000 users are logged on to the site.
Taylor met her 40-year-old husband, David Pollard, in an online chat room in 2003. Their mutual interest in Second Life helped their relationship flourish, and the couple married two years later. To mark the occasion, Laura Skye married Dave Barmy, Pollard's avatar (who clearly opted for the modest lifestyle on the game, living in a chalet with a Cobra helicopter gunship parked next to it), in a lavish ceremony on Second Life. "People find love in lots of different ways," Taylor said.
Avatars need not represent players' real-life personas. Online, Laura Skye works as a club DJ and is 6 feet tall, weighs 112 lb. and has a penchant for skin-tight cowgirl outfits. In reality, Taylor, an unemployed former waitress, is 5 feet 4 inches tall, weighs 224 lb. and prefers T shirts and leggings.
Taylor may have brushed the affair aside had it not been the second time Pollard strayed. Shortly after her marriage, Taylor woke from an afternoon nap to find Pollard watching his Dave Barmy avatar having sex with a computer-generated prostitute.
"I went mad - I was so hurt," Taylor said of the Internet affair. "I just couldn't believe what he'd done. I looked at the computer screen and could see his character having sex with a female character. It's cheating as far as I'm concerned."
Disgusted, Taylor ended Laura Skye's relationship with Barmy but chose to stay with Pollard in real life. In an effort to test his commitment, Taylor hired a private investigator on Second Life named Markie Macdonald. Macdonald hatched a plan whereby a female avatar flirted with Barmy in an effort to lure him to her cyber-bed. Instead of succumbing to temptation, Barmy spoke of his strong feelings for Laura Skye.
In April of this year, however, things soured when Taylor caught Barmy getting intimate with another avatar, named Modesty McDonnell. "I caught him cuddling a woman on a sofa in the game. It looked really affectionate," she said. "I ended up going off to his mum and dad's in floods of tears."
Pollard dismisses any accusations of wrongdoing. "We weren't even having cyber-sex or anything like that," he said. "We were just chatting and hanging out together."
In fact, Pollard said, it was his wife's addiction to another fantasy role-playing game that drove him to the other avatar. "Amy never did anything around the house. She just played World of Warcraft all the time," he said. More hurtful was her refusal to give him attention. "If I wanted to spend time with her, I had to ask, but it was always too much trouble for her to come off the game to spend time with me, so the marriage was a bit of a joke." (
For both parties, though, there appears to be a silver lining. Taylor has a new boyfriend whom she met through playing World of Warcraft. And by Friday afternoon, the Daily Mail in England had reported that Pollard is now engaged to Linda Brinkley, 55, the woman behind the Modesty McDonnell avatar.
Brinkley, a twice-divorced mother of two who lives in Arkansas, said that her avatar met Pollard's at a Second Life nightclub called Holodeck where McDonnell works as a hostess - not, as in the words of Taylor, a prostitute. "When we first met, it was at a fancy-dress night on the game, and he noticed me across the room and said he felt something special," she said. Brinkley also claimed that their relationship remained platonic until Pollard formally separated from his wife. After that, their avatars married in an online ceremony attended by seven guests.
Distance and money have kept Pollard and Brinkley apart, but they chat on the phone for two hours every night and, Brinkley said, they have the same goals in life. Currently unemployed, Brinkley plans to complete an online degree in religious studies and to work as a missionary.
"I would say I'm in love with Dave," she said. "I've been married in real life before, but they weren't really good relationships, and I haven't had much luck with men until now." Given her future husband's wandering avatar, it's probably too soon to know if that luck will last.
Business - Can Blu-ray save Christmas for Hollywood?
LOS ANGELES - Movie studio executives on Friday presented the best-case scenario for a winter holiday surge in the purchase of high-definition Blu-ray players as their best hope to keep the U.S. home video market's decline from accelerating past 3 percent or 4 percent this year.
The executives hosted by The Digital Entertainment Group, a consortium of movie studios and electronics manufacturers, forecast that 10.5 million households would be able to play Blu-ray videos by the end of the year — with about 2.5 million standalone players and 8 million PlayStation 3 game consoles.
That estimate is much lower than the 14.4 million households that Adams Media Research said in June would be playing Blu-rays by the end of the year. But if it is to come true, about 1 million more standalone players and 2.3 million more PS3s must be sold through the holidays.
Prices have dropped in recent months, and Blu-ray players can be found online for less than $200, encouraging hope for adoption of the format.
"The only dark cloud is the economy," David Bishop, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, told a panel. He said the consumer products side of Sony Corp. is "showing no slowdown in the adoption of the PlayStation 3."
There are 5.7 million PS3s installed in the United States now, and Sony and expects to sell 4 million to 5 million more by March.
"We remain pretty confident that we'll meet our targets for the fiscal year," said Julie Han, spokeswoman for Sony Computer Entertainment America.
These so-called "early adopters" of video technology are especially important because they tend to buy more movies than consumers who join a trend later.
"These are the heavy buyers, the heavy collectors," said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
Executives agreed it is still the early days of Blu-ray because it was only February when the high-definition format beat out Toshiba Corp.-backed HD DVD. Last week, the consortium kicked off a $25 million TV ad campaign to push Blu-ray, acknowledging in part that half the people it polled in a recent survey didn't know the format war was over.
Gains in Blu-ray revenues, including rentals and sales, are expected to counter some of the expected 6 percent decline in regular DVD revenue in the U.S. in calendar 2008.
Through the first three-quarters of the year, video rental revenue in the U.S. was down 1.2 percent at $5.6 billion and sales were down 3.5 percent at $8.6 billion, according to the industry tracker, Video Business.
Economic headwinds remain a concern.
In a survey the consortium conducted in late August and early September of 2,200 owners of high-definition TV sets in the U.S., U.K. and Japan, just 12 percent said they were likely to buy Blu-ray players in the next six months.
Another 30 percent were open to purchasing them, it said. How potential Blu-ray consumers will respond to lower prices isn't clear.
"This was done before prices started to come down and before the economy started to hit," Chris Lang, senior vice president of research firm SmithGeiger LLC, told the panel.
Those who don't yet have high-definition sets are not expected to be large contributors this season, said Bob Chapek, president of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Worldwide. Purchasing a $1,000 high-definition TV and even a moderately priced Blu-ray player may not appeal to some buyers in the slowing economy, he said.
"It's only logical to expect there'd be some economic impact," he said. But he added, "We've been pleasantly surprised so far."
The consortium said a growing proportion — now about 10 percent — of home video sales comes from Blu-ray. In October, as the U.S. financial crisis came into focus, sales of Blu-ray discs more than quadrupled to 2.2 million units, it said.
A number of upcoming titles are riding on the format, including Warner Bros.' "The Dark Knight" due out in December.
Previous top-selling titles, such as "Iron Man," "The Incredible Hulk" and "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" have had a strong appeal among PS3 owners, and that raise hopes for a December turnaround.
"Every week as the next title comes out, we're all holding our breath," Kornblau said.
The executives hosted by The Digital Entertainment Group, a consortium of movie studios and electronics manufacturers, forecast that 10.5 million households would be able to play Blu-ray videos by the end of the year — with about 2.5 million standalone players and 8 million PlayStation 3 game consoles.
That estimate is much lower than the 14.4 million households that Adams Media Research said in June would be playing Blu-rays by the end of the year. But if it is to come true, about 1 million more standalone players and 2.3 million more PS3s must be sold through the holidays.
Prices have dropped in recent months, and Blu-ray players can be found online for less than $200, encouraging hope for adoption of the format.
"The only dark cloud is the economy," David Bishop, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, told a panel. He said the consumer products side of Sony Corp. is "showing no slowdown in the adoption of the PlayStation 3."
There are 5.7 million PS3s installed in the United States now, and Sony and expects to sell 4 million to 5 million more by March.
"We remain pretty confident that we'll meet our targets for the fiscal year," said Julie Han, spokeswoman for Sony Computer Entertainment America.
These so-called "early adopters" of video technology are especially important because they tend to buy more movies than consumers who join a trend later.
"These are the heavy buyers, the heavy collectors," said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
Executives agreed it is still the early days of Blu-ray because it was only February when the high-definition format beat out Toshiba Corp.-backed HD DVD. Last week, the consortium kicked off a $25 million TV ad campaign to push Blu-ray, acknowledging in part that half the people it polled in a recent survey didn't know the format war was over.
Gains in Blu-ray revenues, including rentals and sales, are expected to counter some of the expected 6 percent decline in regular DVD revenue in the U.S. in calendar 2008.
Through the first three-quarters of the year, video rental revenue in the U.S. was down 1.2 percent at $5.6 billion and sales were down 3.5 percent at $8.6 billion, according to the industry tracker, Video Business.
Economic headwinds remain a concern.
In a survey the consortium conducted in late August and early September of 2,200 owners of high-definition TV sets in the U.S., U.K. and Japan, just 12 percent said they were likely to buy Blu-ray players in the next six months.
Another 30 percent were open to purchasing them, it said. How potential Blu-ray consumers will respond to lower prices isn't clear.
"This was done before prices started to come down and before the economy started to hit," Chris Lang, senior vice president of research firm SmithGeiger LLC, told the panel.
Those who don't yet have high-definition sets are not expected to be large contributors this season, said Bob Chapek, president of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Worldwide. Purchasing a $1,000 high-definition TV and even a moderately priced Blu-ray player may not appeal to some buyers in the slowing economy, he said.
"It's only logical to expect there'd be some economic impact," he said. But he added, "We've been pleasantly surprised so far."
The consortium said a growing proportion — now about 10 percent — of home video sales comes from Blu-ray. In October, as the U.S. financial crisis came into focus, sales of Blu-ray discs more than quadrupled to 2.2 million units, it said.
A number of upcoming titles are riding on the format, including Warner Bros.' "The Dark Knight" due out in December.
Previous top-selling titles, such as "Iron Man," "The Incredible Hulk" and "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" have had a strong appeal among PS3 owners, and that raise hopes for a December turnaround.
"Every week as the next title comes out, we're all holding our breath," Kornblau said.
Entertainment - Stars watch horrified as luxury Calif. homes burn
Alex Dobuzinskis
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A wildfire raging through the celebrity enclave of Montecito on Friday hit too close to home for many stars, who if they were not escaping the flames kept close tabs on its progress from afar.
"Back to the Future" actor Christopher Lloyd reportedly lost his Montecito home in the fire. The small Southern California community, in hills with sweeping ocean views, is also home to talk show host Oprah Winfrey, director Steven Spielberg, comedian Steve Martin and actor Rob Lowe.
Comedian Ellen DeGeneres once owned a multimillion dollar home in the area, but sold it to Google executive Eric Schmidt.
For Winfrey, who was in Chicago working on her show as she monitored the fire's spread near her 42-acre estate, a chief concern was her dogs.
"We already had a plan for getting the dogs out and going to the Four Seasons (hotel) because they take dogs," she said on her talk show on Friday.
"When it's in your neighborhood, when it's your friends, when it's your house you feel differently about it. You see it differently," she said.
Nestled at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, Montecito is only about 90 miles from Los Angeles and entertainers happily call the quiet and peaceful community of 10,000 residents home.
But that quiet was shattered by the wildfire, which started on Thursday evening and destroyed more than 100 homes over 2,000 acres overnight.
Winfrey described how the fast-moving fire caught residents off-guard. "Some of my friends left their homes with only their dogs last night as I was calling," she said.
Lowe told Winfrey that as he and his son had to make a quick getaway from their Montecito home, which appears to have been spared, and saw flames engulf the nearby mountain.
"We got in the car and pulled out of the driveway and the entire mountain behind us was (in) flames 200 feet high, shooting into the air," the "Brothers & Sisters" actor told Winfrey by telephone. "It was like Armageddon."
The caretaker for Lloyd fled for his life in the fire but the actor was not at home, a realtor who manages the property told the Los Angeles Times.
The eight acres surrounding the Lloyd house were torched and the house, valued at around $11 million, was partially burned.
Timm Delaney, a Montecito real estate agent, said the community's perfect weather and location between the ocean and the mountains makes it an ideal home.
"It's an exclusive, sophisticated small coastal town," Delaney said. "It's kind of an ideal place for the rich and famous to live."
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Jill Serjeant)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A wildfire raging through the celebrity enclave of Montecito on Friday hit too close to home for many stars, who if they were not escaping the flames kept close tabs on its progress from afar.
"Back to the Future" actor Christopher Lloyd reportedly lost his Montecito home in the fire. The small Southern California community, in hills with sweeping ocean views, is also home to talk show host Oprah Winfrey, director Steven Spielberg, comedian Steve Martin and actor Rob Lowe.
Comedian Ellen DeGeneres once owned a multimillion dollar home in the area, but sold it to Google executive Eric Schmidt.
For Winfrey, who was in Chicago working on her show as she monitored the fire's spread near her 42-acre estate, a chief concern was her dogs.
"We already had a plan for getting the dogs out and going to the Four Seasons (hotel) because they take dogs," she said on her talk show on Friday.
"When it's in your neighborhood, when it's your friends, when it's your house you feel differently about it. You see it differently," she said.
Nestled at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, Montecito is only about 90 miles from Los Angeles and entertainers happily call the quiet and peaceful community of 10,000 residents home.
But that quiet was shattered by the wildfire, which started on Thursday evening and destroyed more than 100 homes over 2,000 acres overnight.
Winfrey described how the fast-moving fire caught residents off-guard. "Some of my friends left their homes with only their dogs last night as I was calling," she said.
Lowe told Winfrey that as he and his son had to make a quick getaway from their Montecito home, which appears to have been spared, and saw flames engulf the nearby mountain.
"We got in the car and pulled out of the driveway and the entire mountain behind us was (in) flames 200 feet high, shooting into the air," the "Brothers & Sisters" actor told Winfrey by telephone. "It was like Armageddon."
The caretaker for Lloyd fled for his life in the fire but the actor was not at home, a realtor who manages the property told the Los Angeles Times.
The eight acres surrounding the Lloyd house were torched and the house, valued at around $11 million, was partially burned.
Timm Delaney, a Montecito real estate agent, said the community's perfect weather and location between the ocean and the mountains makes it an ideal home.
"It's an exclusive, sophisticated small coastal town," Delaney said. "It's kind of an ideal place for the rich and famous to live."
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Jill Serjeant)
World - US;Obama weighs Clinton, Richardson as sec. of state
NEDRA PICKLER
WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama has interviewed primary election rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Richardson for secretary of state, according to Democratic officials who revealed his secret meetings with both as he weighed the decision on folding former foes into his new administration. Obama met with Richardson late Friday afternoon, a day after conferring one-on-one with Clinton at his Chicago office, said several Democratic officials.
He plans to meet there Monday with his Republican opponent, John McCain, but advisers to both of the general election rivals say they don't expect Obama to consider McCain for an administration job.
The meeting with Clinton, revealed to The Associated Press Friday, excited a burst of speculation that Obama would transform the former first lady and his fierce campaign foe into one of his top Cabinet officials and the nation's chief diplomatic voice. But where she stands in contention for the post came into question as other Democrats, also speaking on condition of anonymity about the private discussions, said Richardson was brought in as well.
The two are not the only candidates Obama has talked to about the job, Democrats said. One senior Obama adviser said the president-elect has given no evidence whom he is favoring for the post.
Obama asked Clinton directly whether she would be interested in the job, said one Democrat, who cautioned that it was no indication that he was leaning toward her.
Obama was deciding on his presidential staff as well, naming longtime friend Valerie Jarrett as a White House senior adviser. Jarrett met Obama when she hired his wife for a job in the Chicago mayor's office years ago and has been a close confidante to the couple ever since.
Obama was silent and out of sight in Chicago. On Friday evening, he attended a birthday party for Jarrett at a high-rise building in the city. Clinton, a New York senator, addressed a transit conference in her home state and said emphatically, "I'm not going to speculate or address anything about the president-elect's incoming administration, and I'm going to respect his process."
Obama's aides say he would like to have McCain as a partner with him on legislation they both have advocated, such as climate change, government reform, immigration and a ban on torture.
All this fits with an idea that Obama often talked about on the campaign trail, as he praised the presidency of Abraham Lincoln as described by presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in her book "Team of Rivals."
"Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his Cabinet because whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was: How can we get this country through this time of crisis?" Obama said at one point.
Lincoln appointed three of his rivals for the Republican nomination to his Cabinet. Obama turned to one rival for vice president, picking Democratic primary candidate Joe Biden even though Biden had questioned whether Obama had the experience to be president.
In his first two weeks as president-elect, Obama has struck a bipartisan tone. He paired a Republican and a Democrat to meet with foreign leaders this weekend on his behalf in Washington, for example.
It's far from clear how interested Clinton would be in being his secretary of state. She'd face a Senate confirmation hearing that would certainly probe her husband's financial dealings — something the Clintons refused to disclose in the presidential campaign.
But remaining in the Senate may not be Clinton's first choice, either, since she is a junior senator without prospects for a leadership position or committee chairmanship anytime soon.
Democratic officials, speaking only anonymously about private negotiations, say Clinton asked Sen. Edward Kennedy to establish a subcommittee that she would lead that would allow her to shepherd health care reform through the Senate. But Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, wants to lead the effort as a capstone to his career, and there also are other members with more seniority than Clinton whom he wouldn't want to bypass.
Being secretary of state could give Clinton a platform for another run at the presidency in eight years. Obama could also get assurances from her that she wouldn't challenge him in four years.
And, unlike the vice presidency that Obama never seriously considered her for, as secretary of state she would serve at his pleasure.
Clinton didn't give any clues to her thinking when she addressed the public transit industry conference Friday in Albany, beginning with a joke about news accounts of her trip to Chicago.
"I'd like to start by saying I'm very happy there is so much press attention and interest in transit, especially questions about my own," she said. She ignored reporters trying to question her about a possible post as she left.
Richardson is the governor of New Mexico and has an extensive foreign policy resume. He was President Bill Clinton's ambassador to the United Nations and has conducted freelance diplomacy for the U.S. in such hot spots as Sudan and North Korea.
Richardson also served in Clinton's Cabinet as energy secretary and angered his former boss when he endorsed Obama after ending his own primary campaign this year.
Another Democrat emerged as a possible contender for an administration post Friday — Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle was contacted by Obama's transition team, according to a gubernatorial spokesman who did not disclose details. Doyle, a two-term governor and former state attorney general, was an early backer of Obama.
An alliance between Obama in the White House and McCain in the Senate could help both sides — Obama by having a Republican ally on some issues and McCain by helping rebuild his own power. The two men spoke about getting together when McCain called Obama to concede on the night of the election, advisers on both sides say.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a McCain confidant, and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois Democrat whom Obama has chosen to be his White House chief of staff, also plan to be at Monday's meeting in Chicago.
"It's well known that they share an important belief that Americans want and deserve a more effective and efficient government, and will discuss ways to work together to make that a reality," Obama spokesman Stephanie Cutter said in announcing the meeting.
___
Associated Press writers David Espo, Jim Kuhnhenn and Liz Sidoti in Washington, Richard Richtmyer in Albany, N.Y., and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama has interviewed primary election rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Richardson for secretary of state, according to Democratic officials who revealed his secret meetings with both as he weighed the decision on folding former foes into his new administration. Obama met with Richardson late Friday afternoon, a day after conferring one-on-one with Clinton at his Chicago office, said several Democratic officials.
He plans to meet there Monday with his Republican opponent, John McCain, but advisers to both of the general election rivals say they don't expect Obama to consider McCain for an administration job.
The meeting with Clinton, revealed to The Associated Press Friday, excited a burst of speculation that Obama would transform the former first lady and his fierce campaign foe into one of his top Cabinet officials and the nation's chief diplomatic voice. But where she stands in contention for the post came into question as other Democrats, also speaking on condition of anonymity about the private discussions, said Richardson was brought in as well.
The two are not the only candidates Obama has talked to about the job, Democrats said. One senior Obama adviser said the president-elect has given no evidence whom he is favoring for the post.
Obama asked Clinton directly whether she would be interested in the job, said one Democrat, who cautioned that it was no indication that he was leaning toward her.
Obama was deciding on his presidential staff as well, naming longtime friend Valerie Jarrett as a White House senior adviser. Jarrett met Obama when she hired his wife for a job in the Chicago mayor's office years ago and has been a close confidante to the couple ever since.
Obama was silent and out of sight in Chicago. On Friday evening, he attended a birthday party for Jarrett at a high-rise building in the city. Clinton, a New York senator, addressed a transit conference in her home state and said emphatically, "I'm not going to speculate or address anything about the president-elect's incoming administration, and I'm going to respect his process."
Obama's aides say he would like to have McCain as a partner with him on legislation they both have advocated, such as climate change, government reform, immigration and a ban on torture.
All this fits with an idea that Obama often talked about on the campaign trail, as he praised the presidency of Abraham Lincoln as described by presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in her book "Team of Rivals."
"Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his Cabinet because whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was: How can we get this country through this time of crisis?" Obama said at one point.
Lincoln appointed three of his rivals for the Republican nomination to his Cabinet. Obama turned to one rival for vice president, picking Democratic primary candidate Joe Biden even though Biden had questioned whether Obama had the experience to be president.
In his first two weeks as president-elect, Obama has struck a bipartisan tone. He paired a Republican and a Democrat to meet with foreign leaders this weekend on his behalf in Washington, for example.
It's far from clear how interested Clinton would be in being his secretary of state. She'd face a Senate confirmation hearing that would certainly probe her husband's financial dealings — something the Clintons refused to disclose in the presidential campaign.
But remaining in the Senate may not be Clinton's first choice, either, since she is a junior senator without prospects for a leadership position or committee chairmanship anytime soon.
Democratic officials, speaking only anonymously about private negotiations, say Clinton asked Sen. Edward Kennedy to establish a subcommittee that she would lead that would allow her to shepherd health care reform through the Senate. But Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, wants to lead the effort as a capstone to his career, and there also are other members with more seniority than Clinton whom he wouldn't want to bypass.
Being secretary of state could give Clinton a platform for another run at the presidency in eight years. Obama could also get assurances from her that she wouldn't challenge him in four years.
And, unlike the vice presidency that Obama never seriously considered her for, as secretary of state she would serve at his pleasure.
Clinton didn't give any clues to her thinking when she addressed the public transit industry conference Friday in Albany, beginning with a joke about news accounts of her trip to Chicago.
"I'd like to start by saying I'm very happy there is so much press attention and interest in transit, especially questions about my own," she said. She ignored reporters trying to question her about a possible post as she left.
Richardson is the governor of New Mexico and has an extensive foreign policy resume. He was President Bill Clinton's ambassador to the United Nations and has conducted freelance diplomacy for the U.S. in such hot spots as Sudan and North Korea.
Richardson also served in Clinton's Cabinet as energy secretary and angered his former boss when he endorsed Obama after ending his own primary campaign this year.
Another Democrat emerged as a possible contender for an administration post Friday — Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle was contacted by Obama's transition team, according to a gubernatorial spokesman who did not disclose details. Doyle, a two-term governor and former state attorney general, was an early backer of Obama.
An alliance between Obama in the White House and McCain in the Senate could help both sides — Obama by having a Republican ally on some issues and McCain by helping rebuild his own power. The two men spoke about getting together when McCain called Obama to concede on the night of the election, advisers on both sides say.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a McCain confidant, and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois Democrat whom Obama has chosen to be his White House chief of staff, also plan to be at Monday's meeting in Chicago.
"It's well known that they share an important belief that Americans want and deserve a more effective and efficient government, and will discuss ways to work together to make that a reality," Obama spokesman Stephanie Cutter said in announcing the meeting.
___
Associated Press writers David Espo, Jim Kuhnhenn and Liz Sidoti in Washington, Richard Richtmyer in Albany, N.Y., and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., contributed to this report.
Tech - Future goggles and vehicle lights may be made from sugar
Washington, November 14 (ANI): Natural raw materials like sugars, alcohols, or fatty acids may soon find application in the production of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), better known as acrylic glass that is widely used as a lightweight alternative to glass to make protective goggles and vehicle lights.
Dr. Thore Rohwerder, from the University of Duisburg-Essen, and his mentor Dr. Roland Muller, from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), say that they have found an enzyme that can be used for the biotechnological production of a precursor of methyl methacrylate (MMA), polymerising which is the key to PMMA's manufacture.
The researchers say that the biotechnological process they rely upon is far more environmentally friendly than the previous chemical production process.
They have revealed that the new enzyme discovered by them is called 2-hydroxyisobutyryl-CoA mutase, and that it makes it possible to turn a linear C4 carbon structure into a branched one.
The team say that compounds of this type are precursors of MMA. (ANI)
Dr. Thore Rohwerder, from the University of Duisburg-Essen, and his mentor Dr. Roland Muller, from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), say that they have found an enzyme that can be used for the biotechnological production of a precursor of methyl methacrylate (MMA), polymerising which is the key to PMMA's manufacture.
The researchers say that the biotechnological process they rely upon is far more environmentally friendly than the previous chemical production process.
They have revealed that the new enzyme discovered by them is called 2-hydroxyisobutyryl-CoA mutase, and that it makes it possible to turn a linear C4 carbon structure into a branched one.
The team say that compounds of this type are precursors of MMA. (ANI)
Me - Must Watch movie for the week - Vaaranam Aayiram
Hello,
Saw Vaaranam Aayiram yesterday.It surely is a must watch movie for everyone who understands Tamil.One of the best films of the year.So go to a theatre near you and watch it today
5 Reasons you should watch Vaaranam Aayiram (Translated as 1000 elephants)
1. Surya - Best Performance of his Career
2. Rathnavelu - Director of Photography
3. Rajeevan - Art
4. Gautham Menon - Director
5. Harris Jayaraj - Rockin Music!
6. For the Leading Ladies - Simran,Divya,Sameera
Take Care and Enjoy the Movie !
Watch the trailer here - http://www.galatta.com/Moviename/vaaranamaayiram/trailer.html
SZri
Mktg - A dog named Condom launches campaign
New Delhi, Nov 14 (IANS) India Friday launched an advertisement involving a dog named 'Condom' to popularise contraceptive usage, nearly six months after a "condom condom" mobile ring tone commercial boosted its sale by 85 million.
"There is still a huge problem in promoting condom usage. There is a lot of hesitation and there is a need to popularise its use and increase its acceptability. Hence these advertisements," said K. Sujatha Rao, head of the National AIDS Control Society.
"Many sex workers tell our officers (involved in popularising the contraceptive) that men would rather pay more than use a condom," she said, adding "contraceptive usage is very important to curb the AIDS threat".
In the new advertisement, a pesky parrot irritates the puppy named "Condom" and an old lady comes to the dog's rescue. The campaign produced by BBC World Service aims at adult Indian men.
"The lady proclaims support for condom and the campaign summarizes this in the tagline 'Jo Samjha Wohi Sikander (the one who understands is a winner)," a health official said.
India is home to 2.5 million HIV/AIDS patients including 70,000 children below the age of 14.
The lady reinforces the message that condoms mean good sense and those who know it are the real winners in life! The advertisement will be seen on television and in cinemas nationally from mid-November.
Earlier the ring tone campaign, which chants "condom, condom, condom", became a massive success in India and abroad, with nearly 500,000 requests to download it in India.
Another 160,000 people, mainly from outside India, downloaded the ring tone from a popular website. Recently, the ring tone campaign made it to the top of the list of five most innovative condom campaigns in the world on CNN.com.
Currently over a billion condoms are being sold in a year in India and a sale of three billion is being targeted by 2010.
"There is still a huge problem in promoting condom usage. There is a lot of hesitation and there is a need to popularise its use and increase its acceptability. Hence these advertisements," said K. Sujatha Rao, head of the National AIDS Control Society.
"Many sex workers tell our officers (involved in popularising the contraceptive) that men would rather pay more than use a condom," she said, adding "contraceptive usage is very important to curb the AIDS threat".
In the new advertisement, a pesky parrot irritates the puppy named "Condom" and an old lady comes to the dog's rescue. The campaign produced by BBC World Service aims at adult Indian men.
"The lady proclaims support for condom and the campaign summarizes this in the tagline 'Jo Samjha Wohi Sikander (the one who understands is a winner)," a health official said.
India is home to 2.5 million HIV/AIDS patients including 70,000 children below the age of 14.
The lady reinforces the message that condoms mean good sense and those who know it are the real winners in life! The advertisement will be seen on television and in cinemas nationally from mid-November.
Earlier the ring tone campaign, which chants "condom, condom, condom", became a massive success in India and abroad, with nearly 500,000 requests to download it in India.
Another 160,000 people, mainly from outside India, downloaded the ring tone from a popular website. Recently, the ring tone campaign made it to the top of the list of five most innovative condom campaigns in the world on CNN.com.
Currently over a billion condoms are being sold in a year in India and a sale of three billion is being targeted by 2010.
Health - First at-home test for vasectomized men proves accurate, easy
Washington, Nov 14 (ANI): Researchers from University of Virginia Health System have found that SpermCheck Vasectomy, the first-at-home test for detecting low concentrations of sperm, can spot sperm count with 96 percent accuracy.
The new study led by University of Virginia Health System researcher John C. Herr confirmed that the test for vasectomized men is accurate as well as easy to use.
With help of the SpermCheck, the researchers evaluated a cohort of 144 post-vasectomy semen samples.
The test achieved an accuracy rate of 96 percent in identifying whether sperm counts were greater or less than a threshold of 250,000 sperm per ml - a level associated with little or no risk of causing pregnancy.
While, proved 100 percent accurate in identifying whether sperm counts were greater or less than 384,000 sperm per ml.
According to the experts, when the sperm count is below 1,000,000/ml, there is only a remote chance of achieving pregnancy without assisted reproductive techniques such as intra-uterine insemination, in-vitro fertilization and intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection.
Traditionally, the process has involved bringing semen samples to a physician's office or laboratory at two- and three-month intervals after the procedure, but with the new test men would be able to monitor the sperm count on their own, that to sitting at home.
Monitoring is important because vasectomies are not 100 percent successful, and men who have had them can experience recanalization, or the spontaneous healing or restoration of the vas deferens, which restores their fertility.
"SpermCheck Vasectomy is similar in size and function to a women's home pregnancy test," said Herr.
"It's designed to help couples monitor and confirm that post-vasectomy sperm concentrations have reached infertile levels and avoid any surprises if recanalization occurs," he added. (ANI)
The new study led by University of Virginia Health System researcher John C. Herr confirmed that the test for vasectomized men is accurate as well as easy to use.
With help of the SpermCheck, the researchers evaluated a cohort of 144 post-vasectomy semen samples.
The test achieved an accuracy rate of 96 percent in identifying whether sperm counts were greater or less than a threshold of 250,000 sperm per ml - a level associated with little or no risk of causing pregnancy.
While, proved 100 percent accurate in identifying whether sperm counts were greater or less than 384,000 sperm per ml.
According to the experts, when the sperm count is below 1,000,000/ml, there is only a remote chance of achieving pregnancy without assisted reproductive techniques such as intra-uterine insemination, in-vitro fertilization and intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection.
Traditionally, the process has involved bringing semen samples to a physician's office or laboratory at two- and three-month intervals after the procedure, but with the new test men would be able to monitor the sperm count on their own, that to sitting at home.
Monitoring is important because vasectomies are not 100 percent successful, and men who have had them can experience recanalization, or the spontaneous healing or restoration of the vas deferens, which restores their fertility.
"SpermCheck Vasectomy is similar in size and function to a women's home pregnancy test," said Herr.
"It's designed to help couples monitor and confirm that post-vasectomy sperm concentrations have reached infertile levels and avoid any surprises if recanalization occurs," he added. (ANI)
Sport - Tennis;Murray - No regrets in beating Feddie
Nick Mulvenney
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Andy Murray said beating Roger Federer in the Masters Cup on Friday was worth every ounce of effort he expended, even if it costs him a place in the final of the season-ending championship.
The British world number four knocked the holder out of the $4.45 million tournament after three hours of gripping drama in a match he did not need to win, having already secured a place in Saturday's semi-finals.
Had he lost, Murray would have faced Serbia's world number three Novak Djokovic for a place in Sunday's final but, as it is, he will meet Russian Nikolay Davydenko in the last four.
"I didn't care if I played Djokovic or Davydenko," said the Scot. "I was playing against Federer. I wanted to win. I'm not going to go over against him and let him beat me easily.
"Psychologically, a win like that is going to be huge for me next time I play him, especially in big matches... he's one of the greatest players of all time, so it meant a lot for me to win that one."
THREE TIMES
The 21-year-old became only the third player to beat Federer three times in one season after Argentine David Nalbandian and the man who took the number one ranking off the Swiss this year, Spain's Rafael Nadal.
Murray has tasted defeat just once since his loss to the Swiss in the U.S. Open final in early September and he baulked at the suggestion his victory on Friday was due to a major decline in Federer's play.
"He's still playing great. I mean, he's number two in the world," Murray said.
"Nadal's had one of the best years in tennis over the last 20 years and he (Federer) is still not that far behind him. So he's maybe lost a few more matches than normal, lost to guys that he doesn't normally lose to.
"But it's not totally surprising. He's normally losing like seven matches a year, which is ridiculous."
The match had taken its toll, Murray said, but he would not know how much it would effect him until he woke up.
"I'm probably going to be a bit tired tomorrow," he said. "It depends physically how I feel. If I feel good, then I have a good chance of winning. If not, then it's going to be tough."
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Andy Murray said beating Roger Federer in the Masters Cup on Friday was worth every ounce of effort he expended, even if it costs him a place in the final of the season-ending championship.
The British world number four knocked the holder out of the $4.45 million tournament after three hours of gripping drama in a match he did not need to win, having already secured a place in Saturday's semi-finals.
Had he lost, Murray would have faced Serbia's world number three Novak Djokovic for a place in Sunday's final but, as it is, he will meet Russian Nikolay Davydenko in the last four.
"I didn't care if I played Djokovic or Davydenko," said the Scot. "I was playing against Federer. I wanted to win. I'm not going to go over against him and let him beat me easily.
"Psychologically, a win like that is going to be huge for me next time I play him, especially in big matches... he's one of the greatest players of all time, so it meant a lot for me to win that one."
THREE TIMES
The 21-year-old became only the third player to beat Federer three times in one season after Argentine David Nalbandian and the man who took the number one ranking off the Swiss this year, Spain's Rafael Nadal.
Murray has tasted defeat just once since his loss to the Swiss in the U.S. Open final in early September and he baulked at the suggestion his victory on Friday was due to a major decline in Federer's play.
"He's still playing great. I mean, he's number two in the world," Murray said.
"Nadal's had one of the best years in tennis over the last 20 years and he (Federer) is still not that far behind him. So he's maybe lost a few more matches than normal, lost to guys that he doesn't normally lose to.
"But it's not totally surprising. He's normally losing like seven matches a year, which is ridiculous."
The match had taken its toll, Murray said, but he would not know how much it would effect him until he woke up.
"I'm probably going to be a bit tired tomorrow," he said. "It depends physically how I feel. If I feel good, then I have a good chance of winning. If not, then it's going to be tough."
India - Medicines may get costlier
Pharmaceutical companies have sought the government's permission to increase medicine prices due to rising cost of bulk drugs, thanks to a 20 per cent devaluation of rupee against the US dollar this year and increase in raw material prices due to inflation. Most of the raw materials and bulk drugs are imported from China.
For example, prices of Albendazole, used in making of a variety of worm infestation medicines, have increased 57 per cent since the end of April. It now costs Rs 1,650 per 25 kg.
"Prices of bulk drugs have increased by 25 to 30 per cent over the past few months in the wake of the depreciation of the rupee hitting business margins of the pharma industry," said Daara Patel, secretary general of Indian Drug Manufactures Association (IDMA). "Unless the government revises the prices fast, there won't be any immediate recourse for companies," Patel said.
Worldwide, prices of raw materials have increased due to inflation. Bulk drug prices were expected to reduce but higher demand compared to supplies and their added expenditure towards meeting strict environmental norms has hampered any such reduction.
"Most of the bulk drugs and APIs come from China and with the rising dollar, it will affect companies at present and in the quarter to come. Once the companies who have stocks, exhaust their supplies, they will have to face this pressure," said Patel.
Prices of bulk drugs in segments like vitamins, cardiovascular and lifestyle related disorders are to increase said IDMA..
For example, prices of Albendazole, used in making of a variety of worm infestation medicines, have increased 57 per cent since the end of April. It now costs Rs 1,650 per 25 kg.
"Prices of bulk drugs have increased by 25 to 30 per cent over the past few months in the wake of the depreciation of the rupee hitting business margins of the pharma industry," said Daara Patel, secretary general of Indian Drug Manufactures Association (IDMA). "Unless the government revises the prices fast, there won't be any immediate recourse for companies," Patel said.
Worldwide, prices of raw materials have increased due to inflation. Bulk drug prices were expected to reduce but higher demand compared to supplies and their added expenditure towards meeting strict environmental norms has hampered any such reduction.
"Most of the bulk drugs and APIs come from China and with the rising dollar, it will affect companies at present and in the quarter to come. Once the companies who have stocks, exhaust their supplies, they will have to face this pressure," said Patel.
Prices of bulk drugs in segments like vitamins, cardiovascular and lifestyle related disorders are to increase said IDMA..
Business - India;Tata Tele to roll out GSM network by Jan 2009
Mumbai, Nov.14 (ANI): Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata has announced that Tata Teleservices would roll out next generation technologies including the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) by January 2009.
"It is a great pleasure and privilege for the Tata Group to partner with NTT DoCoMo (of Japan) at this time and I hope to give together, give the public a wider range of products and excellent bases of service not only in current technologies but in the technologies yet to come," Tata Group's Chairman, Ratan Tata told reporters at a press conference here.
Our partnership with NTT DoCoMo is going to be a long-term partnership. NTT DoCoMo for its technology, its value-added services and very high ethical standards and value systems, Tata said.
"The cooperation between CoCoMo and TTSL across marketing, handset development and technical support expected to create new opportunities for both companies," TTSL's Managing Director, Anil Sardana said.
Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) and Tata Sons Ltd announced their strategic alliance with NTT DoCoMo on Wednesday.(ANI)
"It is a great pleasure and privilege for the Tata Group to partner with NTT DoCoMo (of Japan) at this time and I hope to give together, give the public a wider range of products and excellent bases of service not only in current technologies but in the technologies yet to come," Tata Group's Chairman, Ratan Tata told reporters at a press conference here.
Our partnership with NTT DoCoMo is going to be a long-term partnership. NTT DoCoMo for its technology, its value-added services and very high ethical standards and value systems, Tata said.
"The cooperation between CoCoMo and TTSL across marketing, handset development and technical support expected to create new opportunities for both companies," TTSL's Managing Director, Anil Sardana said.
Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) and Tata Sons Ltd announced their strategic alliance with NTT DoCoMo on Wednesday.(ANI)
World - Barack tipped to be Time Magazine's Person of the Year
New York, November 14 (ANI): U.S. President-elect Barack Obama was once again the locus of discussions at Thursday's Time lunch, where guests agreed that the Democrat had a lock on becoming the magazine's Person of the Year.
Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Senator from North Carolina John Edwards, said that Obama had come to seem "more like a symbol than a man ... I hope he's big enough to get us through the hard times," reports the New York Daily News.
John Slattery of "Mad Men" said that "There's nowhere to go but up."
Declining suggestions that his Harvard Law School buddy might name him attorney general, Democratic politician Artur Davis also agreed that Obama was 2008's likely Person. (ANI)
Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Senator from North Carolina John Edwards, said that Obama had come to seem "more like a symbol than a man ... I hope he's big enough to get us through the hard times," reports the New York Daily News.
John Slattery of "Mad Men" said that "There's nowhere to go but up."
Declining suggestions that his Harvard Law School buddy might name him attorney general, Democratic politician Artur Davis also agreed that Obama was 2008's likely Person. (ANI)
World - US:Army appoints first female four-star general
Washington, Nov 15 (DPA) A US Army officer Friday became the first woman in American history to be promoted to the rank of a four-star general, the highest rank in the service.
General Ann Dunwoody received her fourth star in a ceremony at the Pentagon with Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Army Chief of Staff General George Casey.
The promotion marked the steady trend of shattering racial and sexual barriers in the United States, coming less than two weeks after Barack Obama became the first African American to win the White House.
'Although it's taken a long time, probably longer than it should have, what's happening here today is something our entire Army can celebrate and take pride in,' Casey said.
Dunwoody comes from a long history of Army families. Dunwoody generations have fought in every US war since the War of Independence, Casey said.
'Today, we're lucky to live in extraordinary times, times that propel us closer to the ideals we stand for, live by, and defend,' Casey said.
Dunwoody will head the Army Materiel Command, one of the Pentagon's largest outfits that is responsible for worldwide logistical and supply operations.
'I wish I could begin to describe the incredible feelings of gratitude, humility, and love that are absolutely consuming me at this very moment,' Dunwoody said. 'But it's impossible.'
General Ann Dunwoody received her fourth star in a ceremony at the Pentagon with Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Army Chief of Staff General George Casey.
The promotion marked the steady trend of shattering racial and sexual barriers in the United States, coming less than two weeks after Barack Obama became the first African American to win the White House.
'Although it's taken a long time, probably longer than it should have, what's happening here today is something our entire Army can celebrate and take pride in,' Casey said.
Dunwoody comes from a long history of Army families. Dunwoody generations have fought in every US war since the War of Independence, Casey said.
'Today, we're lucky to live in extraordinary times, times that propel us closer to the ideals we stand for, live by, and defend,' Casey said.
Dunwoody will head the Army Materiel Command, one of the Pentagon's largest outfits that is responsible for worldwide logistical and supply operations.
'I wish I could begin to describe the incredible feelings of gratitude, humility, and love that are absolutely consuming me at this very moment,' Dunwoody said. 'But it's impossible.'
Tech - India's lunar proble lands on the moon
MUMBAI (Reuters) - A lunar probe from India's first unmanned moon mission Chandrayaan-1 has landed on the moon and started sending its first images, officials at the Indian Space Research Organisation said on Friday.
The Moon Impactor Probe detached itself from Chandrayaan-1 (moon vehicle) about 100 km from the moon's surface and crash-landed on the south pole of the moon at 1501 GMT, officials said in Bangalore.
"It was a flawless operation," said SK Shivakumar, director of ISRO Telemetry's tracking and command network.
The Probe, to be named "Aditya", aimed to kick up some dust, which instruments in the craft would analyse. It has started sending images to the mother ship, Shivakumar said.
A principal objective is to look for Helium 3, an isotope which is very rare on earth but is sought to power nuclear fusion and could be a valuable source of energy in the future.
It is thought to be more plentiful on the moon, but still rare and very difficult to extract.
India launched Chandrayaan-1 on Oct 22, joining the Asian space race in the footsteps of rival China and reinforcing its claim to be considered a global power.
Chandrayaan-1, a cuboid spacecraft built by ISRO, is also seen as a boost for the country's ambitions to gain more global space business.
In April, India sent 10 satellites into orbit from a single rocket, and ISRO says it plans more launches before a proposed manned mission to space and then on to Mars in four years' time.
The Moon Impactor Probe detached itself from Chandrayaan-1 (moon vehicle) about 100 km from the moon's surface and crash-landed on the south pole of the moon at 1501 GMT, officials said in Bangalore.
"It was a flawless operation," said SK Shivakumar, director of ISRO Telemetry's tracking and command network.
The Probe, to be named "Aditya", aimed to kick up some dust, which instruments in the craft would analyse. It has started sending images to the mother ship, Shivakumar said.
A principal objective is to look for Helium 3, an isotope which is very rare on earth but is sought to power nuclear fusion and could be a valuable source of energy in the future.
It is thought to be more plentiful on the moon, but still rare and very difficult to extract.
India launched Chandrayaan-1 on Oct 22, joining the Asian space race in the footsteps of rival China and reinforcing its claim to be considered a global power.
Chandrayaan-1, a cuboid spacecraft built by ISRO, is also seen as a boost for the country's ambitions to gain more global space business.
In April, India sent 10 satellites into orbit from a single rocket, and ISRO says it plans more launches before a proposed manned mission to space and then on to Mars in four years' time.
India - Heavy construction ahead of 2010 games make Delhi dimmer
Frenzied constructions ahead of the Commonwealth Games may be responsible for the Capital getting dimmer, smoggier, and unhealthier.
A recent study by the Central Pollution Control Board for Delhi reveals that despite the CNG conversion of commercial transport vehicles in the city, Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) and Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM) - the major air pollutants - have gone up. The study echoes another one, just released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which warns that "cities from Beijing to New Delhi are getting darker".
"Man-made atmospheric brown clouds (is) being formed over 13 megacities in the world," the UN study reiterates.
And at least part of the problem in Delhi is particles raised by constructions, say experts from the Delhi Pollution Control Committee. "SPM and RSPM are particles less than the size of 10 microns suspended in air. These are often ingested in human trachea (or windpipe)," a pollution control board members says.
"In Delhi, though, vehicular pollution is not responsible for the high RSPM and SPM. They are also, and now primarily, caused by the high level of construction in the city."
The CPCB report finds that RSPM has gone up by 21 per cent between 2000 and 2008: from 159 miligram per metre cube to 192 mg per metre cube. The UN report says: "Brown clouds (formed over Delhi) contain a variety of toxic aerosols, carcinogens and particles, including particulate matter of less than 2.5 microns in width."
The report warns that these pollutants are linked with several health hazards, including respiratory disease and cardio-vascular problems.
The UNEP report has also warned that the city is getting dimmer as the brown clouds block sunlight. The brown cloud over Asia, which stretches between Beijing and Delhi, can also thwart the monsoon because adequate sunlight may not reach the surface.
WARNING: DARK DAZE AHEAD RSPM IN DELHI AIR2006: 155 miligram per metre cube 2007: 169 miligram per metre cube2008: 192 miligram per metre cube72% decrease in sulphur dioxide and 50% decrease in carbon monoxide between 2000 and 2008, suggesting converting public transport to CNG has helped
'BROWN CLOUD' HOTPOTSBangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Dhaka, Karachi, Kolkata, Lagos, Mumbai, NEW DELHI, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tehran
Soot levels found at 10% of total mass of all human-made particles in these megacities
(Source: UN Environment Programme report)
A recent study by the Central Pollution Control Board for Delhi reveals that despite the CNG conversion of commercial transport vehicles in the city, Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) and Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM) - the major air pollutants - have gone up. The study echoes another one, just released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which warns that "cities from Beijing to New Delhi are getting darker".
"Man-made atmospheric brown clouds (is) being formed over 13 megacities in the world," the UN study reiterates.
And at least part of the problem in Delhi is particles raised by constructions, say experts from the Delhi Pollution Control Committee. "SPM and RSPM are particles less than the size of 10 microns suspended in air. These are often ingested in human trachea (or windpipe)," a pollution control board members says.
"In Delhi, though, vehicular pollution is not responsible for the high RSPM and SPM. They are also, and now primarily, caused by the high level of construction in the city."
The CPCB report finds that RSPM has gone up by 21 per cent between 2000 and 2008: from 159 miligram per metre cube to 192 mg per metre cube. The UN report says: "Brown clouds (formed over Delhi) contain a variety of toxic aerosols, carcinogens and particles, including particulate matter of less than 2.5 microns in width."
The report warns that these pollutants are linked with several health hazards, including respiratory disease and cardio-vascular problems.
The UNEP report has also warned that the city is getting dimmer as the brown clouds block sunlight. The brown cloud over Asia, which stretches between Beijing and Delhi, can also thwart the monsoon because adequate sunlight may not reach the surface.
WARNING: DARK DAZE AHEAD RSPM IN DELHI AIR2006: 155 miligram per metre cube 2007: 169 miligram per metre cube2008: 192 miligram per metre cube72% decrease in sulphur dioxide and 50% decrease in carbon monoxide between 2000 and 2008, suggesting converting public transport to CNG has helped
'BROWN CLOUD' HOTPOTSBangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Dhaka, Karachi, Kolkata, Lagos, Mumbai, NEW DELHI, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tehran
Soot levels found at 10% of total mass of all human-made particles in these megacities
(Source: UN Environment Programme report)
Sports -Tennis;Federer exits after Murray epic
Nick Mulvenney
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Roger Federer failed to reach the semi-finals of the Masters Cup for the first time after losing an extraordinary final group match 4-6 7-6 7-5 to Briton Andy Murray on Friday.
The 27-year-old Swiss, who was chasing a record-equaling fifth title, needed to win his final round-robin match to progress to the knockout stage but succumbed to the Scot's eighth match point after an enthralling three-hour contest.
"I don't quit once I step on court," said Federer, who had a stomach bug earlier this week and treatment to his back before the deciding set.
"My body was hurting, normally the best of three sets is peanuts and it's a shame I couldn't handle it today ... of course I'm disappointed."
Murray, the only unbeaten player in the $4.45 million event, had already qualified for the last four and will meet Russian Nikolay Davydenko on Saturday for a place in the final.
"Although I'm going to probably be a bit tired tomorrow, a win against him in a match like that is worth similar to winning the Masters Cup," said Murray, who improved to a 4-2 career record against Federer. "It was a great match."
France's Gilles Simon earlier beat Czech Radek Stepanek 6-1 6-4 but faced an anxious wait before being confirmed as the fourth semi-finalist. He will play Serbia's Novak Djokovic.
Federer, who had looked sluggish in his first two matches, was back close to his best in the first set, frequently coming into the net to disrupt the Scottish baseliner and grabbing a break for 3-1.
Murray, however, has been playing the best tennis of his life recently -- losing just once since his defeat to Federer in the U.S. Open final in September -- and broke straight back to set the template for a match of attrition.
Federer clinched the set with his second break when Murray netted a simple volley but any thoughts that the 21-year-old would roll over to save his energy for the weekend were banished when he took a 5-2 lead in the second set.
The Swiss lost the world number one spot this year and was not going to give up his Masters Cup crown easily, battling back with some flashes of brilliance to force a tie-break.
He fought back again after Murray took a 3-1 lead but the Briton was not going to give up either, evening the match up when Federer went long.
The third set was a blockbuster in itself, punctuated with long rallies and featuring tennis of the highest quality as well as frequent errors -- Federer made 65 and Murray 40 in the match.
Murray surged to a 3-0 lead in the decider but the Swiss reeled off four games in a row to go a break up himself before the third seed again responded with a break to level at 4-4.
The Scot then piled huge pressure on the Swiss when he was serving to save the match at 4-5.
Murray had seven match points in a game featuring 10 deuces but Federer saved them all.
Two games later, though, the 13-times grand slam champion went wide and exited the group stage of the Masters Cup for the first time in seven straight appearances.
The 23-year-old Simon won his ticket to the season finale when world number one Rafael Nadal withdrew injured and beat Federer in their opening match.
"It would be bad luck if I'm not in the semi-final after winning two matches in the round robin," he said after beating the world number 27, a late replacement for the injured Andy Roddick.
(Editing by Miles Evans)
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Roger Federer failed to reach the semi-finals of the Masters Cup for the first time after losing an extraordinary final group match 4-6 7-6 7-5 to Briton Andy Murray on Friday.
The 27-year-old Swiss, who was chasing a record-equaling fifth title, needed to win his final round-robin match to progress to the knockout stage but succumbed to the Scot's eighth match point after an enthralling three-hour contest.
"I don't quit once I step on court," said Federer, who had a stomach bug earlier this week and treatment to his back before the deciding set.
"My body was hurting, normally the best of three sets is peanuts and it's a shame I couldn't handle it today ... of course I'm disappointed."
Murray, the only unbeaten player in the $4.45 million event, had already qualified for the last four and will meet Russian Nikolay Davydenko on Saturday for a place in the final.
"Although I'm going to probably be a bit tired tomorrow, a win against him in a match like that is worth similar to winning the Masters Cup," said Murray, who improved to a 4-2 career record against Federer. "It was a great match."
France's Gilles Simon earlier beat Czech Radek Stepanek 6-1 6-4 but faced an anxious wait before being confirmed as the fourth semi-finalist. He will play Serbia's Novak Djokovic.
Federer, who had looked sluggish in his first two matches, was back close to his best in the first set, frequently coming into the net to disrupt the Scottish baseliner and grabbing a break for 3-1.
Murray, however, has been playing the best tennis of his life recently -- losing just once since his defeat to Federer in the U.S. Open final in September -- and broke straight back to set the template for a match of attrition.
Federer clinched the set with his second break when Murray netted a simple volley but any thoughts that the 21-year-old would roll over to save his energy for the weekend were banished when he took a 5-2 lead in the second set.
The Swiss lost the world number one spot this year and was not going to give up his Masters Cup crown easily, battling back with some flashes of brilliance to force a tie-break.
He fought back again after Murray took a 3-1 lead but the Briton was not going to give up either, evening the match up when Federer went long.
The third set was a blockbuster in itself, punctuated with long rallies and featuring tennis of the highest quality as well as frequent errors -- Federer made 65 and Murray 40 in the match.
Murray surged to a 3-0 lead in the decider but the Swiss reeled off four games in a row to go a break up himself before the third seed again responded with a break to level at 4-4.
The Scot then piled huge pressure on the Swiss when he was serving to save the match at 4-5.
Murray had seven match points in a game featuring 10 deuces but Federer saved them all.
Two games later, though, the 13-times grand slam champion went wide and exited the group stage of the Masters Cup for the first time in seven straight appearances.
The 23-year-old Simon won his ticket to the season finale when world number one Rafael Nadal withdrew injured and beat Federer in their opening match.
"It would be bad luck if I'm not in the semi-final after winning two matches in the round robin," he said after beating the world number 27, a late replacement for the injured Andy Roddick.
(Editing by Miles Evans)
Nov 14, 2008
Mktg - More consumers shop online
Mike Shields
There may be reason for some retailers to be hopeful about the upcoming, expected-to-be-quite-gloomy holiday shopping season -- if your brand sells products on the Web, that is.
According to new @Plan report issued by Nielsen Online, Web shopping is mainstream behavior, as 78 percent of adult online consumers purchased something on the Internet over the last six months. Perhaps not surprisingly, travel was the top online shopping category, as 38 percent of users made some sort of travel-related purchase over the past six months, according to Nielsen's latest @Plan report, which is based on surveys of close to 36,000 U.S. Internet users 18 and older.
While credit card management and online banking placed second and third in Nielsen's survey, more encouraging to retail brands are the large number of users who continue to shop for products on the Web despite the rough economic conditions of late. Nielsen found that 40 million unique users -- or 28 percent of the online audience -- purchased at least one item of clothing on the Web over the past sixth months. Similarly, 26 percent of users purchased a book. Hotel reservations (18 percent), auction purchases (16 percent) and events (14 percent) all rated high in the report.
Whether this trend toward more regular online shopping translates to more holiday shoppers turning to the Web for bargains this season remains to be seen. But clearly the majority of consumer barriers and concerns about online shopping have been lifted. "Most consumers see online retail as a primary benefit of the Internet," said Nachi Lolla, research director, commerce, Nielsen Online. "The sheer convenience of being able to comparison shop from your home or office has become all but irresistible."
Added Lolla: "Possible early concerns about online security have been sufficiently addressed, and consistent on-time delivery and reasonable shipping costs have bolstered consumer confidence. The challenge for retailers is no longer how to lure shoppers online, but how to differentiate their brand among all others. Heading into this competitive holiday shopping season, selection, price and customer service are the key areas [in which] retailers can shine."
Which online retailers have drawn the most shopping traffic over the last six months? Nielsen's top five: eBay (49.2 million visitors), Amazon (48.3 million) Wal-Mart (25.3 million), Target (23.8 million) and Netflix (14.3 million).
Adweek is a unit of the Nielsen Co.
There may be reason for some retailers to be hopeful about the upcoming, expected-to-be-quite-gloomy holiday shopping season -- if your brand sells products on the Web, that is.
According to new @Plan report issued by Nielsen Online, Web shopping is mainstream behavior, as 78 percent of adult online consumers purchased something on the Internet over the last six months. Perhaps not surprisingly, travel was the top online shopping category, as 38 percent of users made some sort of travel-related purchase over the past six months, according to Nielsen's latest @Plan report, which is based on surveys of close to 36,000 U.S. Internet users 18 and older.
While credit card management and online banking placed second and third in Nielsen's survey, more encouraging to retail brands are the large number of users who continue to shop for products on the Web despite the rough economic conditions of late. Nielsen found that 40 million unique users -- or 28 percent of the online audience -- purchased at least one item of clothing on the Web over the past sixth months. Similarly, 26 percent of users purchased a book. Hotel reservations (18 percent), auction purchases (16 percent) and events (14 percent) all rated high in the report.
Whether this trend toward more regular online shopping translates to more holiday shoppers turning to the Web for bargains this season remains to be seen. But clearly the majority of consumer barriers and concerns about online shopping have been lifted. "Most consumers see online retail as a primary benefit of the Internet," said Nachi Lolla, research director, commerce, Nielsen Online. "The sheer convenience of being able to comparison shop from your home or office has become all but irresistible."
Added Lolla: "Possible early concerns about online security have been sufficiently addressed, and consistent on-time delivery and reasonable shipping costs have bolstered consumer confidence. The challenge for retailers is no longer how to lure shoppers online, but how to differentiate their brand among all others. Heading into this competitive holiday shopping season, selection, price and customer service are the key areas [in which] retailers can shine."
Which online retailers have drawn the most shopping traffic over the last six months? Nielsen's top five: eBay (49.2 million visitors), Amazon (48.3 million) Wal-Mart (25.3 million), Target (23.8 million) and Netflix (14.3 million).
Adweek is a unit of the Nielsen Co.
Entertainment - India;Broadcasters shy away from new Bollywood releases
Sonali Krishna
MUMBAI: The cash crunch plaguing the money market has now come to hit Bollywood. Seeing an apparent lack of value, broadcasters have stopped buying Recent movies
More Pictures
television rights for movies. Sony Entertainment Television, among them, feels that the prices should fall by at least 60% for any transaction to emerge.
Studios like Yashraj, Eros and Indian Film Company (IFC) have so far not managed to sell any of their recently released films. Films such as Drona, U Me Aur Hum, Bachna Aae Haseeno, EMI, Yuvraj, Tashan, Glomaal Returns, Roadside Romeo and Heroes are yet to find takers among broadcasters.
“This has essentially happened because of the greed of the producers who were not looking at a sensible business model. There was a period when a bunch of people went over the top with their promises to investors, who were ready to pay any price. The situation now is that the buyers have vanished, but the producers still seem to be living in the past, quoting figures of Rs 15-20 crore for a single movie,” said Uday Shanker, CEO, Star India. He added that broadcasters have now realised that the recoveries at such high prices are next to impossible.
Echoing similar views, Kunal Dasgupta, CEO, Sony Entertainment Television, said: “It’s just not viable any more to buy movies at these prices. Movies prices will have to come down by a minimum of 60% for us to start looking at buying films again.”
“The satellite market has crashed and the big buyers have abstained from making any deals. Earlier, deals were signed on the terms and conditions dictated by producers. However, it is now a buyers’ market. The crash has also been triggered due to the box office failure of films,” Venkatesh Iyer, former CFO of Yashraj Films and now an independent consultant, said.
The exclusive television exhibition of films does not work any longer with the advent of the syndication model, which means that the producer seals multiple deals with different broadcasters for a limited number of airings. So, while one channel may sign on for the first three screenings, another signs for the fourth and fifth, further diluting recoveries.
Siddharth Roy Kapoor, chief executive of UTV Motion Pictures agreed that the pressure has been mounting on producers. “The satellite market has taken a beating, considering the liquidity crunch. Most broadcasters want to play the wait-and-watch game to see if the movies do well with audiences before buying satellite rights as opposed to the earlier practice of buying satellite rights of a film even before the completion its shootings.”
However, he added that he didn’t see the prices of films going down any further, considering the intense competition among broadcasters. India Films Company CEO Sandeep Bharghava refused to comment on the subject.
MUMBAI: The cash crunch plaguing the money market has now come to hit Bollywood. Seeing an apparent lack of value, broadcasters have stopped buying Recent movies
More Pictures
television rights for movies. Sony Entertainment Television, among them, feels that the prices should fall by at least 60% for any transaction to emerge.
Studios like Yashraj, Eros and Indian Film Company (IFC) have so far not managed to sell any of their recently released films. Films such as Drona, U Me Aur Hum, Bachna Aae Haseeno, EMI, Yuvraj, Tashan, Glomaal Returns, Roadside Romeo and Heroes are yet to find takers among broadcasters.
“This has essentially happened because of the greed of the producers who were not looking at a sensible business model. There was a period when a bunch of people went over the top with their promises to investors, who were ready to pay any price. The situation now is that the buyers have vanished, but the producers still seem to be living in the past, quoting figures of Rs 15-20 crore for a single movie,” said Uday Shanker, CEO, Star India. He added that broadcasters have now realised that the recoveries at such high prices are next to impossible.
Echoing similar views, Kunal Dasgupta, CEO, Sony Entertainment Television, said: “It’s just not viable any more to buy movies at these prices. Movies prices will have to come down by a minimum of 60% for us to start looking at buying films again.”
“The satellite market has crashed and the big buyers have abstained from making any deals. Earlier, deals were signed on the terms and conditions dictated by producers. However, it is now a buyers’ market. The crash has also been triggered due to the box office failure of films,” Venkatesh Iyer, former CFO of Yashraj Films and now an independent consultant, said.
The exclusive television exhibition of films does not work any longer with the advent of the syndication model, which means that the producer seals multiple deals with different broadcasters for a limited number of airings. So, while one channel may sign on for the first three screenings, another signs for the fourth and fifth, further diluting recoveries.
Siddharth Roy Kapoor, chief executive of UTV Motion Pictures agreed that the pressure has been mounting on producers. “The satellite market has taken a beating, considering the liquidity crunch. Most broadcasters want to play the wait-and-watch game to see if the movies do well with audiences before buying satellite rights as opposed to the earlier practice of buying satellite rights of a film even before the completion its shootings.”
However, he added that he didn’t see the prices of films going down any further, considering the intense competition among broadcasters. India Films Company CEO Sandeep Bharghava refused to comment on the subject.
Business - Broadcasters to face tough time in 2009
Ashish Sinha
With slowdown hitting the advertising industry, the revenue growth projection for broadcasting firms is likely to come down by 17 percentage points to 26 per cent in 2009 compared with 2008, says the latest analysis by Media Partners Asia (MPA).
MPA is a Hong Kong-based independent media research agency that brings out reports on media companies and the advertising industry in the Asia-Pacific region.
According to estimates, the revenue of about 15 broadcasters in 2007 stood at $1.4 billion (about Rs 6,400 crore), which went up by 43 per cent to $1.9 billion (about Rs 8,900 crore). However, in 2009, it is expected to grow about 26 per cent to $2.4 billion (about Rs 11,215 crore).
According to MPA, there will be a significant slowdown in the advertising industry’s growth next year compared with 2007. It says the industry registered an impressive growth of 22.1 per cent in 2007. This, it adds, is likely to slow down to 17.6 per cent this year before plummeting to 12.1 per cent in 2009.
The report says that with rising carriage fees and no sharp increase in subscription revenue, short-term climate for new entrants such as Colors, 9X and NDTV Imagine will remain difficult. “Those waiting in the wings (Alvas/Time Warner, Reliance Big Broadcasting and Balaji, among others) will either continue to ‘wait and see’, exit or push for consolidation,” says the report.
The report says the revenues of broadcasting companies are expected to grow up to a maximum of 26 per cent next year versus 43 per cent in 2008 (January-December period). “But cost increases, moderating advertising growth and insufficient subscription fees (for most TV networks) will mean a 7 per cent earnings decline in the next calendar year (January-December 2009),” the report said.
The profit margins of broadcasting firms will also continue to decline, falling from a sector average of more than 25 per cent in 2007 to a low of 13 per cent in 2009, before recovering to 18 per cent in 2010, says the report.
Singling out Star TV India and Zee TV, the MPA report says these two leading broadcasters will tend to find more comfort in stronger subscription fees.
Future funding for Colors, a joint venture between IBN18 and Viacom, remains important, with annualised costs running at around $120 million (about Rs 564 crore), while ad sales in a year are likely to reach only about $50 million (about Rs 235 crore). “Breakeven is expected once advertising potentially scales up to more than $150 million (about Rs 700 crore) within the next two-three years,” says the report.
With slowdown hitting the advertising industry, the revenue growth projection for broadcasting firms is likely to come down by 17 percentage points to 26 per cent in 2009 compared with 2008, says the latest analysis by Media Partners Asia (MPA).
MPA is a Hong Kong-based independent media research agency that brings out reports on media companies and the advertising industry in the Asia-Pacific region.
According to estimates, the revenue of about 15 broadcasters in 2007 stood at $1.4 billion (about Rs 6,400 crore), which went up by 43 per cent to $1.9 billion (about Rs 8,900 crore). However, in 2009, it is expected to grow about 26 per cent to $2.4 billion (about Rs 11,215 crore).
According to MPA, there will be a significant slowdown in the advertising industry’s growth next year compared with 2007. It says the industry registered an impressive growth of 22.1 per cent in 2007. This, it adds, is likely to slow down to 17.6 per cent this year before plummeting to 12.1 per cent in 2009.
The report says that with rising carriage fees and no sharp increase in subscription revenue, short-term climate for new entrants such as Colors, 9X and NDTV Imagine will remain difficult. “Those waiting in the wings (Alvas/Time Warner, Reliance Big Broadcasting and Balaji, among others) will either continue to ‘wait and see’, exit or push for consolidation,” says the report.
The report says the revenues of broadcasting companies are expected to grow up to a maximum of 26 per cent next year versus 43 per cent in 2008 (January-December period). “But cost increases, moderating advertising growth and insufficient subscription fees (for most TV networks) will mean a 7 per cent earnings decline in the next calendar year (January-December 2009),” the report said.
The profit margins of broadcasting firms will also continue to decline, falling from a sector average of more than 25 per cent in 2007 to a low of 13 per cent in 2009, before recovering to 18 per cent in 2010, says the report.
Singling out Star TV India and Zee TV, the MPA report says these two leading broadcasters will tend to find more comfort in stronger subscription fees.
Future funding for Colors, a joint venture between IBN18 and Viacom, remains important, with annualised costs running at around $120 million (about Rs 564 crore), while ad sales in a year are likely to reach only about $50 million (about Rs 235 crore). “Breakeven is expected once advertising potentially scales up to more than $150 million (about Rs 700 crore) within the next two-three years,” says the report.
India - Brave new world beckons in 'child-friendly' villages
Nandita Sengupta
Razia Sultan's eyes sparkle. Just 11, she is already a mix of power-lady and princess. Nothing in her mien gives away the fact that the eldest of
nine siblings toiled for four hours every day after school to stitch footballs in Meerut for two years till 2004.
But Razia's come a long way since those days. Her village, Nanglakhumba, on the outskirts of Meerut in west UP, has been a child-friendly village, or bal mitra gram, for four years now. And Razia is an elected member of the bal mahapanchayat, a national body that deals with children's issues such as labour and early marriage. She is the oldest among her nine siblings and clearly a beacon of sorts for her peer group.
Razia's transformation from football-maker to child activist who has ensured separate toilets for girls in her school, is a story of hope. It is the tale of what village communities can achieve once shown the way. Like thousands of others, Nanglakhumba village was a hub of child labour till villagers rooted out the practice and recognized that the road to a better future cannot be built on the labour of children.
The shift in the villagers' mindset was an outcome of an initiative by Bachpan Bachao Andolan working with a group of foreign NGOs for a project called Building Child Friendly Villages. The concept of such a village is simple, if difficult to actualize. Villages with intensive child labour are identified, followed by extensive awareness and goal-oriented programmes where villagers are weaned away from acceptance of child labour. Enrolment in schools is ensured and village-level surveillance is mounted so that no unscrupulous person exploits children.
The panchayat is usually the first to acknowledge the evil of child labour. Community-level intervention leads to compulsory education. Every village where child labour is rooted out has its own bal panchayat, which interacts with the adults.
The results are remarkable. In a report, child rights activist Bhuwan Ribhu says that in conservative Tewari village near Jaipur, an alert panchayat welcomed the initiative and one of its first actions was to shoot off complaint letters about the absence of a health worker and teachers in the local government school. The realization that villagers themselves can work towards improving their lot has raised the community's self-esteem. An active bal panchayat here vociferously advocates withdrawing children from work and curbing child marriage.
But it's easier said than done. Activists report facing stiff resistance in every village, but in the 10 years since the project has been implemented in India, 238 villages have become child-labour free, and at present 43 are in the process of conversion, says Umesh Gupta, an activist with Bachpan Bachao Andolan. It takes an average of two years to rid a village of the practice and make it a bal mitra gram.
Nangalkhumba's bal panchayat is headed by 11-year-old Ubed, the youngest of eight brothers. Pradhan Ubed, as he is called, is happy to record that his panchayat has pushed parents of 48 kids to enroll this year alone. He has a steely gaze and understated confidence. He wants to be a doctor.
Razia asserts she will become a samajsevika. She is preparing for a meeting with the district magistrate on Nov 25. There are issues, she says, that need to be tackled. There's no missing the purpose in her voice.
Razia Sultan's eyes sparkle. Just 11, she is already a mix of power-lady and princess. Nothing in her mien gives away the fact that the eldest of
nine siblings toiled for four hours every day after school to stitch footballs in Meerut for two years till 2004.
But Razia's come a long way since those days. Her village, Nanglakhumba, on the outskirts of Meerut in west UP, has been a child-friendly village, or bal mitra gram, for four years now. And Razia is an elected member of the bal mahapanchayat, a national body that deals with children's issues such as labour and early marriage. She is the oldest among her nine siblings and clearly a beacon of sorts for her peer group.
Razia's transformation from football-maker to child activist who has ensured separate toilets for girls in her school, is a story of hope. It is the tale of what village communities can achieve once shown the way. Like thousands of others, Nanglakhumba village was a hub of child labour till villagers rooted out the practice and recognized that the road to a better future cannot be built on the labour of children.
The shift in the villagers' mindset was an outcome of an initiative by Bachpan Bachao Andolan working with a group of foreign NGOs for a project called Building Child Friendly Villages. The concept of such a village is simple, if difficult to actualize. Villages with intensive child labour are identified, followed by extensive awareness and goal-oriented programmes where villagers are weaned away from acceptance of child labour. Enrolment in schools is ensured and village-level surveillance is mounted so that no unscrupulous person exploits children.
The panchayat is usually the first to acknowledge the evil of child labour. Community-level intervention leads to compulsory education. Every village where child labour is rooted out has its own bal panchayat, which interacts with the adults.
The results are remarkable. In a report, child rights activist Bhuwan Ribhu says that in conservative Tewari village near Jaipur, an alert panchayat welcomed the initiative and one of its first actions was to shoot off complaint letters about the absence of a health worker and teachers in the local government school. The realization that villagers themselves can work towards improving their lot has raised the community's self-esteem. An active bal panchayat here vociferously advocates withdrawing children from work and curbing child marriage.
But it's easier said than done. Activists report facing stiff resistance in every village, but in the 10 years since the project has been implemented in India, 238 villages have become child-labour free, and at present 43 are in the process of conversion, says Umesh Gupta, an activist with Bachpan Bachao Andolan. It takes an average of two years to rid a village of the practice and make it a bal mitra gram.
Nangalkhumba's bal panchayat is headed by 11-year-old Ubed, the youngest of eight brothers. Pradhan Ubed, as he is called, is happy to record that his panchayat has pushed parents of 48 kids to enroll this year alone. He has a steely gaze and understated confidence. He wants to be a doctor.
Razia asserts she will become a samajsevika. She is preparing for a meeting with the district magistrate on Nov 25. There are issues, she says, that need to be tackled. There's no missing the purpose in her voice.
India - Pune's Adoption Story;Favouring the girl child
Chithra Nair
PUNE: Cases of female foeticide are still being reported from various parts of the country, but the adoption scene in Pune has a different story. Biju Kuriakose and his wife Susan play with their adopted daughter, Aashka, at the Bharatiya Samaj Seva Kendra in Koregaon Park on Thursday. TOI Photo by Sadanand Godse
More and more parents are keen to adopt baby girls, as statistics of various adoption centres reveal. As if this is not enough, there are waiting lists at the centres here.
Roxana Kalyanvala, director of Bharatiya Samaj Seva Kendra (BSSK), says, “We have always taken a larger number of girls since the time we started working, but that was because we had a bigger number of girls coming into the centre.” However, there has been a notable increase in families wanting to adopt a girl child in the past couple of years, the number being almost on a par, if not more, with boys, she adds.
“This change can be attributed to the young and educated working class who are making decisions more independently without any family pressure. Also, the fact that girls are said to be warmer, more caring and sensitive as compared to boys only influences their decision,” says Maina Shetty, assistant director of BSSK.
Shetty also speaks about how the number of girls coming into the centre has decreased significantly over the past year. “Today, we have more boys than girls in our centre,” she says.
It has been four months since teacher Sonali Rode registered with BSSK. And she is firm on adopting a girl child as the first one. “Girls are more loving and caring and, of course, I like girls,” she smiles.
Rode has the support of her husband and father-in-law who, she says, took some time to accept the idea. “We have been asked to wait for a year as there is a long waiting list but I’m fine with it. During the year, we will learn how to take care of a child and will attend a number of workshops on the subject,” she says.
Madhuri Abhyankar, director of the Society of Friends of Sassoon Hospital (SOFOSH), too, speaks of a similar situation at the Shreevatsa adoption centre. “The number of kids, especially girls, available for adoption is decreasing as opposed to the number of families who want to adopt, which is increasing.”
This is because of an increase in awareness with regard to family planning, prevention of unwanted pregnancies and the changing face of society that does not look at the female sex as weak, Abhyankar says. “Girls are perceived to be more caring, affectionate and warm. They are in no way less than a boy. They work and shoulder the responsibility of their families.”
Both ‘Shreevatsa’ at SOFOSH and ‘BSSK’ are among the biggest adoption centres in the city. One of the smaller centres, Priya-Darshini Shishu Gruha, too has seen a notable increase in families in the past two years who want to adopt a girl child.
“Every couple or family coming here asks for a girl child. Of the approximately 30 kids that we have placed in the last couple of years, about 18-19 were girls,” says Prajwala Nendane, a social worker with the adoption centre. She, too, credits this increase to the growing awareness among people and the recognition of a girl as an individual who will take care of her parents in their old age.
“Awareness is a good thing, but what we are also doing right now is promotion of adoption for both the genders. We request parents to adopt a kid irrespective of its gender, if it is their first child,” says Abhyankar.
Eighteen-year-old Ragini (name changed) was adopted from SOFSOH when she was only seven months old. Today she is a national-level sportsperson and credits all her success to her adoptive parents. “I was told about my adoption when I was in the seventh grade and did get upset. But I got over it quickly because I do not see how that has changed my equation with my parents,” she says. Ragini is the only child of the family.
But one thing that Abhyankar rues is the lack of awareness when it comes to adoption. “Maybe cities like Pune and Mumbai have a high level of awareness but rural areas are lacking. To counter this, we organise adoption awareness weeks, one of which is from November 14 to 21 this year.” she says.
PUNE: Cases of female foeticide are still being reported from various parts of the country, but the adoption scene in Pune has a different story. Biju Kuriakose and his wife Susan play with their adopted daughter, Aashka, at the Bharatiya Samaj Seva Kendra in Koregaon Park on Thursday. TOI Photo by Sadanand Godse
More and more parents are keen to adopt baby girls, as statistics of various adoption centres reveal. As if this is not enough, there are waiting lists at the centres here.
Roxana Kalyanvala, director of Bharatiya Samaj Seva Kendra (BSSK), says, “We have always taken a larger number of girls since the time we started working, but that was because we had a bigger number of girls coming into the centre.” However, there has been a notable increase in families wanting to adopt a girl child in the past couple of years, the number being almost on a par, if not more, with boys, she adds.
“This change can be attributed to the young and educated working class who are making decisions more independently without any family pressure. Also, the fact that girls are said to be warmer, more caring and sensitive as compared to boys only influences their decision,” says Maina Shetty, assistant director of BSSK.
Shetty also speaks about how the number of girls coming into the centre has decreased significantly over the past year. “Today, we have more boys than girls in our centre,” she says.
It has been four months since teacher Sonali Rode registered with BSSK. And she is firm on adopting a girl child as the first one. “Girls are more loving and caring and, of course, I like girls,” she smiles.
Rode has the support of her husband and father-in-law who, she says, took some time to accept the idea. “We have been asked to wait for a year as there is a long waiting list but I’m fine with it. During the year, we will learn how to take care of a child and will attend a number of workshops on the subject,” she says.
Madhuri Abhyankar, director of the Society of Friends of Sassoon Hospital (SOFOSH), too, speaks of a similar situation at the Shreevatsa adoption centre. “The number of kids, especially girls, available for adoption is decreasing as opposed to the number of families who want to adopt, which is increasing.”
This is because of an increase in awareness with regard to family planning, prevention of unwanted pregnancies and the changing face of society that does not look at the female sex as weak, Abhyankar says. “Girls are perceived to be more caring, affectionate and warm. They are in no way less than a boy. They work and shoulder the responsibility of their families.”
Both ‘Shreevatsa’ at SOFOSH and ‘BSSK’ are among the biggest adoption centres in the city. One of the smaller centres, Priya-Darshini Shishu Gruha, too has seen a notable increase in families in the past two years who want to adopt a girl child.
“Every couple or family coming here asks for a girl child. Of the approximately 30 kids that we have placed in the last couple of years, about 18-19 were girls,” says Prajwala Nendane, a social worker with the adoption centre. She, too, credits this increase to the growing awareness among people and the recognition of a girl as an individual who will take care of her parents in their old age.
“Awareness is a good thing, but what we are also doing right now is promotion of adoption for both the genders. We request parents to adopt a kid irrespective of its gender, if it is their first child,” says Abhyankar.
Eighteen-year-old Ragini (name changed) was adopted from SOFSOH when she was only seven months old. Today she is a national-level sportsperson and credits all her success to her adoptive parents. “I was told about my adoption when I was in the seventh grade and did get upset. But I got over it quickly because I do not see how that has changed my equation with my parents,” she says. Ragini is the only child of the family.
But one thing that Abhyankar rues is the lack of awareness when it comes to adoption. “Maybe cities like Pune and Mumbai have a high level of awareness but rural areas are lacking. To counter this, we organise adoption awareness weeks, one of which is from November 14 to 21 this year.” she says.
Entertainment - India;In conversation with Subhash Ghai
Ritujaay Ghosh
Larger than life is a tag one associates fairly easily with Subhash Ghai. Not for nothing has his brand of cinema been termed the ultimate desi masala. That he is still a name to reckon with after all these years in a notoriously fickle industry is an achievement in itself. A key to his enduring appeal probably lies in his passion for, and involvement in, his films. A few days before the release of his new film Yuvvraaj, he is as busy as on the first day of the shoot.
His last two films, Kisna and Black & White, were two of the biggest duds in his career, and Ghai knows exactly how much is riding on the success of Yuvvraaj. “Watch the film because it’s Subhash Ghai cinema… watch it because it carries a lot of expectations,” he says.
His conviction is infectious. But he knows his job well and knows also that the biggest stars in the industry want to work with him despite the flops, which gives him faith in Yuvvraaj. “I make all my films with equal passion and there’s always the emotional quotient. Yuvvraaj is no different,” he says. Immediately after which he adds that it isn’t his biggest film, reserving that description for the likes of Karma and Saudagar.
With a cast featuring Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, Katrina Kaif and Zayed Khan, and with music by AR Rahman, Ghai’s observation may cause scepticism, but he is nothing if not practical. Remind him of the hits he has churned out in the past, like Hero, Ram Lakhan, Saudagar, Pardes or Khalnayak in an attempt to draw parallels with Yuvvraaj, and Ghai’s disclaimer is swift. “Don’t expect too much because it’s commercial cinema, but expect a lot because it’s Subhash Ghai cinema,” he keeps saying. This is probably Ghai’s way of indicating that Yuvvraaj has all the ingredients to put him back in the race.
Which brings us to the budget. Ghai may insist that Yuvvraaj is not his biggest film, but its mega budget has already made it a talking point. Admittedly, Ghai is no stranger to big budgets, but he says, “Yuvvraaj isn’t the biggest release from (his production house) Mukta Arts.”
So that’s that. The other point of interest is what kind of surprise Ghai will spring, since he specialises in them. Be it the revival of the angry young man through Jackie Shroff in Hero or the resurgence of the anti-hero through Sanjay Dutt in Khalnayak, a twist in the tale is mandatory in any Mukta Arts production.
In response, Ghai launches into a plot summary. Turns out Yuvvraaj is a tale of three brothers battling to inherit their father’s property. “It’s a lot like Ram Lakhan… brotherhood wins in the end,” he says. His reliable warhorse Anil Kapoor plays the eldest brother, though Ghai finds his protagonist in Salman Khan, who he hasn’t worked with earlier. “But Anil’s is the most delicate role,” Ghai clarifies quickly. “And the story isn’t about three characters but four. You will see Katrina in her best role so far.”
That may come as a real surprise. Not even her best friend would call Katrina, bless her flawless face, a thespian. But acting opposite beau Salman for one of the few times in her career may bring out the best in her. As for Salman, he certainly has much to live up to. “I tried to bring out the actor in him,” says Ghai. That might surprise a few people, too.
In what could be a smart move, Ghai has given Salman a look that may remind us of the star’s early days. “I present Salman and Katrina the way they are in real life… they love, they fight... It reminds you of the Dharmendra-Hema Malini chemistry,” he says.
Wrapped up in Yuvvraaj, Ghai hasn’t seen the remake of his classic Karz. But he is happy to accept it as a compliment. “I won’t remake my films but I would love remakes by others.” Fair enough.
Larger than life is a tag one associates fairly easily with Subhash Ghai. Not for nothing has his brand of cinema been termed the ultimate desi masala. That he is still a name to reckon with after all these years in a notoriously fickle industry is an achievement in itself. A key to his enduring appeal probably lies in his passion for, and involvement in, his films. A few days before the release of his new film Yuvvraaj, he is as busy as on the first day of the shoot.
His last two films, Kisna and Black & White, were two of the biggest duds in his career, and Ghai knows exactly how much is riding on the success of Yuvvraaj. “Watch the film because it’s Subhash Ghai cinema… watch it because it carries a lot of expectations,” he says.
His conviction is infectious. But he knows his job well and knows also that the biggest stars in the industry want to work with him despite the flops, which gives him faith in Yuvvraaj. “I make all my films with equal passion and there’s always the emotional quotient. Yuvvraaj is no different,” he says. Immediately after which he adds that it isn’t his biggest film, reserving that description for the likes of Karma and Saudagar.
With a cast featuring Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, Katrina Kaif and Zayed Khan, and with music by AR Rahman, Ghai’s observation may cause scepticism, but he is nothing if not practical. Remind him of the hits he has churned out in the past, like Hero, Ram Lakhan, Saudagar, Pardes or Khalnayak in an attempt to draw parallels with Yuvvraaj, and Ghai’s disclaimer is swift. “Don’t expect too much because it’s commercial cinema, but expect a lot because it’s Subhash Ghai cinema,” he keeps saying. This is probably Ghai’s way of indicating that Yuvvraaj has all the ingredients to put him back in the race.
Which brings us to the budget. Ghai may insist that Yuvvraaj is not his biggest film, but its mega budget has already made it a talking point. Admittedly, Ghai is no stranger to big budgets, but he says, “Yuvvraaj isn’t the biggest release from (his production house) Mukta Arts.”
So that’s that. The other point of interest is what kind of surprise Ghai will spring, since he specialises in them. Be it the revival of the angry young man through Jackie Shroff in Hero or the resurgence of the anti-hero through Sanjay Dutt in Khalnayak, a twist in the tale is mandatory in any Mukta Arts production.
In response, Ghai launches into a plot summary. Turns out Yuvvraaj is a tale of three brothers battling to inherit their father’s property. “It’s a lot like Ram Lakhan… brotherhood wins in the end,” he says. His reliable warhorse Anil Kapoor plays the eldest brother, though Ghai finds his protagonist in Salman Khan, who he hasn’t worked with earlier. “But Anil’s is the most delicate role,” Ghai clarifies quickly. “And the story isn’t about three characters but four. You will see Katrina in her best role so far.”
That may come as a real surprise. Not even her best friend would call Katrina, bless her flawless face, a thespian. But acting opposite beau Salman for one of the few times in her career may bring out the best in her. As for Salman, he certainly has much to live up to. “I tried to bring out the actor in him,” says Ghai. That might surprise a few people, too.
In what could be a smart move, Ghai has given Salman a look that may remind us of the star’s early days. “I present Salman and Katrina the way they are in real life… they love, they fight... It reminds you of the Dharmendra-Hema Malini chemistry,” he says.
Wrapped up in Yuvvraaj, Ghai hasn’t seen the remake of his classic Karz. But he is happy to accept it as a compliment. “I won’t remake my films but I would love remakes by others.” Fair enough.
India - Haryana minister is country's richest woman
Jaideep Sarin
A low-profile minister in the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in Haryana has emerged as the richest woman in the country.
Savitri Jindal, 58, who is the chairperson of the Jindal Group, has been named as the richest woman in India in the latest Forbes list of richest Indians.
Jindal is minister of state in the Hooda government looking after revenue, disaster management, consolidation, and rehabilitation and housing ministries.
According to Forbes, Savitri Jindal has a net worth of US$2.9 billion, and is ranked 12th overall among the top-40 richest Indians who include the likes of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, expatriate steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, Reliance-ADAG chairman Anil Ambani and realty baron K.P. Singh.
Jindal's net worth, according to Forbes, came down from $8.5 billion in 2007 to 2.9 billion, mainly owing to the global financial meltdown. Last year, she was ranked 11th.
The only other woman to figure in the list is Times of India Group's chairperson Indu Jain (17th).
Jindal is the mother of Congress member of parliament from Kurukshetra and industrialist Navin Jindal. She has three more sons and five daughters.
Her late husband, O.P. Jindal, had set up the Jindal empire from Hisar town in Haryana nearly four decades ago.
O.P. Jindal, who himself was a cabinet minister in the Hooda government, died when his private helicopter crashed near Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh Mar 31, 2005. His cabinet colleague Surender Singh, son of former Haryana chief minister and union defence minister Bansi Lal, was also killed in the crash.
The Rs.150 billion Jindal group has interests in the iron, steel and power sectors. The group has nearly 50 plants in India and abroad, including South American countries like Chile, Bolivia and Peru.
Savitri Jindal was inducted as a minister of state with independent charge in the Hooda government just weeks after her husband died. She contested the Hisar assembly seat, earlier represented by her husband, in the 2005 by-election and won it by a huge margin.
The Jindal family mainly operates from Hisar, 300 km from Chandigarh. The family runs a well known school, Vidya Devi Jindal School, in the town.
A low-profile minister in the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in Haryana has emerged as the richest woman in the country.
Savitri Jindal, 58, who is the chairperson of the Jindal Group, has been named as the richest woman in India in the latest Forbes list of richest Indians.
Jindal is minister of state in the Hooda government looking after revenue, disaster management, consolidation, and rehabilitation and housing ministries.
According to Forbes, Savitri Jindal has a net worth of US$2.9 billion, and is ranked 12th overall among the top-40 richest Indians who include the likes of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, expatriate steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, Reliance-ADAG chairman Anil Ambani and realty baron K.P. Singh.
Jindal's net worth, according to Forbes, came down from $8.5 billion in 2007 to 2.9 billion, mainly owing to the global financial meltdown. Last year, she was ranked 11th.
The only other woman to figure in the list is Times of India Group's chairperson Indu Jain (17th).
Jindal is the mother of Congress member of parliament from Kurukshetra and industrialist Navin Jindal. She has three more sons and five daughters.
Her late husband, O.P. Jindal, had set up the Jindal empire from Hisar town in Haryana nearly four decades ago.
O.P. Jindal, who himself was a cabinet minister in the Hooda government, died when his private helicopter crashed near Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh Mar 31, 2005. His cabinet colleague Surender Singh, son of former Haryana chief minister and union defence minister Bansi Lal, was also killed in the crash.
The Rs.150 billion Jindal group has interests in the iron, steel and power sectors. The group has nearly 50 plants in India and abroad, including South American countries like Chile, Bolivia and Peru.
Savitri Jindal was inducted as a minister of state with independent charge in the Hooda government just weeks after her husband died. She contested the Hisar assembly seat, earlier represented by her husband, in the 2005 by-election and won it by a huge margin.
The Jindal family mainly operates from Hisar, 300 km from Chandigarh. The family runs a well known school, Vidya Devi Jindal School, in the town.
Entertainment - DreamWorks sets priority lineup
Steven Zeitchik and Jay A. Fernandez
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - With its separation from Paramount complete, DreamWorks is putting a handful of projects on its high-priority list.
The writers, directors and actors the studio is talking with or already have attached are a diverse and prominent group, ranging from Clint Eastwood to Len Wiseman to Steve Carell to the writing team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.
While there are many deals still to be negotiated and many green lights yet to be handed out, the studio is expected to move quickly as it builds its Reliance-funded and Universal-distributed slate -- more quickly than originally planned. Some movies could even go into production well ahead of DreamWorks' original fall '09 target.
DreamWorks communications exec Chip Sullivan declined to discuss specifics, but these projects are increasingly active:
-- "Motorcade": Big names are looking to join the convoy on this story of terrorists commandeering the presidential motorcade in Los Angeles. The studio is in talks with "Underworld" helmer Wiseman to direct Billy Ray's script. The ICM-repped Wiseman is on a hot streak after his "Live Free or Die Hard" earned $380 million worldwide.
-- "Hereafter": The supernatural-themed original screenplay by the Oscar-nominated Peter Morgan has been a priority at the new studio. And it could soon have a director, Eastwood, to whom the studio has reached out. Such a pairing would have the added appeal that it could go into production quickly given the helmer's habit of shooting scripts after a minimum of development.
-- "Dinner for Schmucks": With original star Sacha Baron Cohen's involvement wavering, the studio has reached out to another hot, and very busy, comedic actor: Carell. And director Jay Roach, who had long been attached, is considering coming back on board.
-- "The Trial of the Chicago 7": With a number of directors associated with it during the past year, DreamWorks hopes to attach a helmer quickly and get this high-priority project -- which Steven Spielberg himself at one time was eyeing to direct -- moving forward. Ben Stiller, fresh off the success of "Tropic Thunder," recently has become the prime candidate.
-- "Cowboys and Aliens": The large-scale comic book adaptation is now being penned by writer-executive producers Kurtzman and Orci ("Transformers," "Star Trek"), who took on the gig from "Iron Man" co-writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. Imagine is producing, and director-producer Ron Howard, who remains a long shot to lens the film, is developing the project for attached star Robert Downey Jr.
-- "Real Steel": The futuristic boxing movie is being penned by "Dante's Peak" scribe Les Bohem, who created and wrote the Spielberg-executive produced Sci Fi Channel show "Taken."
-- "The 39 Clues": The project is a potential Spielberg directing vehicle, though it's still in script phase, with Jeff Nathanson only recently hired to adapt the first novel, "The Maze of Bones," in the 10-book "Clues" series.
-- "Button Man": "Eagle Eye" co-writer Hillary Seitz has turned in her latest draft of this adaptation of a graphic novel written by Arthur Ranson and John Wagner. There's one key advantage to it moving forward: Mark Sourian, DreamWorks' new co-president of production, was the original exec on the project.
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - With its separation from Paramount complete, DreamWorks is putting a handful of projects on its high-priority list.
The writers, directors and actors the studio is talking with or already have attached are a diverse and prominent group, ranging from Clint Eastwood to Len Wiseman to Steve Carell to the writing team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.
While there are many deals still to be negotiated and many green lights yet to be handed out, the studio is expected to move quickly as it builds its Reliance-funded and Universal-distributed slate -- more quickly than originally planned. Some movies could even go into production well ahead of DreamWorks' original fall '09 target.
DreamWorks communications exec Chip Sullivan declined to discuss specifics, but these projects are increasingly active:
-- "Motorcade": Big names are looking to join the convoy on this story of terrorists commandeering the presidential motorcade in Los Angeles. The studio is in talks with "Underworld" helmer Wiseman to direct Billy Ray's script. The ICM-repped Wiseman is on a hot streak after his "Live Free or Die Hard" earned $380 million worldwide.
-- "Hereafter": The supernatural-themed original screenplay by the Oscar-nominated Peter Morgan has been a priority at the new studio. And it could soon have a director, Eastwood, to whom the studio has reached out. Such a pairing would have the added appeal that it could go into production quickly given the helmer's habit of shooting scripts after a minimum of development.
-- "Dinner for Schmucks": With original star Sacha Baron Cohen's involvement wavering, the studio has reached out to another hot, and very busy, comedic actor: Carell. And director Jay Roach, who had long been attached, is considering coming back on board.
-- "The Trial of the Chicago 7": With a number of directors associated with it during the past year, DreamWorks hopes to attach a helmer quickly and get this high-priority project -- which Steven Spielberg himself at one time was eyeing to direct -- moving forward. Ben Stiller, fresh off the success of "Tropic Thunder," recently has become the prime candidate.
-- "Cowboys and Aliens": The large-scale comic book adaptation is now being penned by writer-executive producers Kurtzman and Orci ("Transformers," "Star Trek"), who took on the gig from "Iron Man" co-writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. Imagine is producing, and director-producer Ron Howard, who remains a long shot to lens the film, is developing the project for attached star Robert Downey Jr.
-- "Real Steel": The futuristic boxing movie is being penned by "Dante's Peak" scribe Les Bohem, who created and wrote the Spielberg-executive produced Sci Fi Channel show "Taken."
-- "The 39 Clues": The project is a potential Spielberg directing vehicle, though it's still in script phase, with Jeff Nathanson only recently hired to adapt the first novel, "The Maze of Bones," in the 10-book "Clues" series.
-- "Button Man": "Eagle Eye" co-writer Hillary Seitz has turned in her latest draft of this adaptation of a graphic novel written by Arthur Ranson and John Wagner. There's one key advantage to it moving forward: Mark Sourian, DreamWorks' new co-president of production, was the original exec on the project.
Entertainment - India;Neetu Singh to comeback with Rishi Kapoor
Ashok Rai
At long last, after a break of 26 years, Neetu Singh Kapoor has signed up to act in a movie. And it will feature her as the wife of a mathematics teacher portrayed by real-life husband Rishi Kapoor.
The movie is titled Do Dooni Char. The ultra-selective Neetu has agreed to be in the project after nixing scores of offers down the years. This one’s a feel good movie which will feature her as “a Panju housewife of Delhi Jangpura who’s quite like me, actually,” says the perky actress who was last seen in such movies as Sherni, Ganga Meri Maa, Raj Mahal and Teesri Aankh back in the early 1980s.
Back then
She opted for marriage at the age of 21 to her co-star Rishi Kapoor with whom she had entranced the nation in such delightful entertainers as Raffoo Chakkar, Amar Akbar Anthony and Khel Khel Mein. In sum, she had acted in approximately 55 films, including Do Kaliyan as a child artiste.
An animated Rishi Kapoor is excited about the film which is being produced by Arindam Chaudhary of Planman. It will be directed by Habib Faizal who was working at Yash Raj and earlier as a film assistant director and writer-director of such TV serials as Karina Karina.
The film’s theme is about a maths teacher and his wife who have to deal with various contemporary issues, including inequities in the pay for teachers and the growing up dilemmas of their teenaged children. The teenagers are being currently talent-scouted in Delhi.
Impressed
Rishi Kapoor says that he was gung-ho about the script as soon as Faizal narrated to him over four hours. Faizal had come to meet the Kapoors — via the recommendation of director Siddharth Anand — in the hope of signing up Neetu Singh for the pivotal role of the housewife. She wasn’t sure about returning to the shooting grind again. But her husband said that it was an ideal comeback project for her, and he would be thrilled also to be a part of it.
Faizal had toyed with the idea of casting Juhi Chawla as the teacher’s wife.. but that was only if Neetu had nixed the project. Do Dooni Char will be shot in Delhi from January to February.
Back to the grind
A bubbly Neetu Singh says, “Actually I can’t believe that I’ll be back before the camera. I’m looking forward to it. The role’s the thing.. and the script’s sweet, simple..cute. Also life was becoming much too boring, sitting at home. Friends and fitness.. aur kya? Ranbir’s out of the house, working.. when I told him about Do Dooni Char, he couldn’t stop smiling.. yes ma, go for it. And in Delhi, I’ll be with Riddhima. So see, it’s all fallen into place.”
At long last, after a break of 26 years, Neetu Singh Kapoor has signed up to act in a movie. And it will feature her as the wife of a mathematics teacher portrayed by real-life husband Rishi Kapoor.
The movie is titled Do Dooni Char. The ultra-selective Neetu has agreed to be in the project after nixing scores of offers down the years. This one’s a feel good movie which will feature her as “a Panju housewife of Delhi Jangpura who’s quite like me, actually,” says the perky actress who was last seen in such movies as Sherni, Ganga Meri Maa, Raj Mahal and Teesri Aankh back in the early 1980s.
Back then
She opted for marriage at the age of 21 to her co-star Rishi Kapoor with whom she had entranced the nation in such delightful entertainers as Raffoo Chakkar, Amar Akbar Anthony and Khel Khel Mein. In sum, she had acted in approximately 55 films, including Do Kaliyan as a child artiste.
An animated Rishi Kapoor is excited about the film which is being produced by Arindam Chaudhary of Planman. It will be directed by Habib Faizal who was working at Yash Raj and earlier as a film assistant director and writer-director of such TV serials as Karina Karina.
The film’s theme is about a maths teacher and his wife who have to deal with various contemporary issues, including inequities in the pay for teachers and the growing up dilemmas of their teenaged children. The teenagers are being currently talent-scouted in Delhi.
Impressed
Rishi Kapoor says that he was gung-ho about the script as soon as Faizal narrated to him over four hours. Faizal had come to meet the Kapoors — via the recommendation of director Siddharth Anand — in the hope of signing up Neetu Singh for the pivotal role of the housewife. She wasn’t sure about returning to the shooting grind again. But her husband said that it was an ideal comeback project for her, and he would be thrilled also to be a part of it.
Faizal had toyed with the idea of casting Juhi Chawla as the teacher’s wife.. but that was only if Neetu had nixed the project. Do Dooni Char will be shot in Delhi from January to February.
Back to the grind
A bubbly Neetu Singh says, “Actually I can’t believe that I’ll be back before the camera. I’m looking forward to it. The role’s the thing.. and the script’s sweet, simple..cute. Also life was becoming much too boring, sitting at home. Friends and fitness.. aur kya? Ranbir’s out of the house, working.. when I told him about Do Dooni Char, he couldn’t stop smiling.. yes ma, go for it. And in Delhi, I’ll be with Riddhima. So see, it’s all fallen into place.”
Entertainment - The Dostana Review
Gaurav Malani
Dostana essentially employs the comedy of errors code, though not in terms of mistaken personalities but preferences. Karan Johar extends his legacy of kanta-ben humor as the crux of the story.
The setting is in Miami where Samir (Abhishek Bachchan) and Karan (John Abraham) almost turn homo in quest for a home. Together they pose as a gay couple to gain rental accommodation in a swanky apartment owned by Neha (Priyanka Chopra). Neha has no qualms about sharing her flat with the male duo thanks to their happy-and-gay ways. The trio team up to become the best of buddies.
Friendship expectedly ends up into love in Bollywood and, as anticipated, Samir and Karan are both besotted by their beautiful roommate. Since Saajan styled sacrifices are no more the order of the day, this love triangle evades the path followed by Amitabh and Shatrughan in Yash Johar’s 3-decade-old Dostana . Son Karan Johar prefers traversing the David Dhawan track of one-upmanship from films like Deewana Mastana and Mujhse Shaadi Karogi .
While each one attempts to outdo the other, their competition is only multiplied with Neha falling for her colleague Abhimanyu (Bobby Deol). As one thing leads to another the film reaches a wild climax.
Dostana would have ended up as a regular love-triangle if not for the intelligently-incorporated gay angle. Furthermore it survives significantly and skillfully throughout the film springing up smart surprises every now and then. Amongst the best of the gay gags is Kirron Kher’s scandalized outlook towards her son’s (Abhishek) gay relationship and subsequently coming to terms with his partner-preference. The cultural spoof that ensues is hilarious and the wacky conceptualization of the uproarious song ‘Maa-Da-Laadla’ deserves brownie points.
The actual story initiates in the second half and the screenplay adopts a multi-dimensional approach with sufficient twists and turns that steers away any monotony. It starts as a tug-of-war between Abhishek and John but soon the duo team up to outshine potential contender Bobby. This ensures cordial chemistry between the male leads. As the scene gets all emotional in the pre-climax, the film opts for a time-leap exactly like Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna . And while you foresee the end much before it actually arrives, the feral finish makes up for the predictability.
While Tarun Mansukhani proves his credentials as a competent writer and director, he also has a keen eye on exploiting the best from his cast. For all desi gals who have been drooling over Daniel’s derriere, John ‘flashes back’ with a hint of his butt cleavage. For a change a Hindi film heroine admits to her real age onscreen. That’s modesty! And Abhishek never ever gets off his shirt. That’s self-realization! However a Shilpa Shetty item number isn’t the best of ideas to kick-start a film, which you easily overlook as the story takes over.
High on technical proficiency, the cinematography by Ayananka Bose is menthol-cool and the casual clothing line by Aki Narula and Manish Malhotra complement the characters perfectly. Vishal Shekhar’s musical score is groovy though brutally techno at times. The background score comprising of ‘What the *uck’ sounds and also deriving from Jahan Teri Ye Nazar Hai (Kaalia) support the screen antics ably.
The screen chemistry between the Abhishek-Priyanka-John trio is palpably cozy. Priyanka Chopra looks gorgeous and is perfectly poised in her performance. She never under-acts or goes over-the-top. John has more to show-off than his chiseled physique. He is easygoing in his role of the dominant male. Abhishek Bachchan is splendid in his sissy act (in the initial reels) and even otherwise is impressive. Bobby Deol thankfully underplays his character. Boman Irani is accurate in his gay act though his petty portion was avoidable. Kirron Kher repeats the Om Shanti Om act with precision.
Dostana redefines the ‘ feel-gud’ genre and makes up for some ‘homo-genius’ entertainment.
Dostana essentially employs the comedy of errors code, though not in terms of mistaken personalities but preferences. Karan Johar extends his legacy of kanta-ben humor as the crux of the story.
The setting is in Miami where Samir (Abhishek Bachchan) and Karan (John Abraham) almost turn homo in quest for a home. Together they pose as a gay couple to gain rental accommodation in a swanky apartment owned by Neha (Priyanka Chopra). Neha has no qualms about sharing her flat with the male duo thanks to their happy-and-gay ways. The trio team up to become the best of buddies.
Friendship expectedly ends up into love in Bollywood and, as anticipated, Samir and Karan are both besotted by their beautiful roommate. Since Saajan styled sacrifices are no more the order of the day, this love triangle evades the path followed by Amitabh and Shatrughan in Yash Johar’s 3-decade-old Dostana . Son Karan Johar prefers traversing the David Dhawan track of one-upmanship from films like Deewana Mastana and Mujhse Shaadi Karogi .
While each one attempts to outdo the other, their competition is only multiplied with Neha falling for her colleague Abhimanyu (Bobby Deol). As one thing leads to another the film reaches a wild climax.
Dostana would have ended up as a regular love-triangle if not for the intelligently-incorporated gay angle. Furthermore it survives significantly and skillfully throughout the film springing up smart surprises every now and then. Amongst the best of the gay gags is Kirron Kher’s scandalized outlook towards her son’s (Abhishek) gay relationship and subsequently coming to terms with his partner-preference. The cultural spoof that ensues is hilarious and the wacky conceptualization of the uproarious song ‘Maa-Da-Laadla’ deserves brownie points.
The actual story initiates in the second half and the screenplay adopts a multi-dimensional approach with sufficient twists and turns that steers away any monotony. It starts as a tug-of-war between Abhishek and John but soon the duo team up to outshine potential contender Bobby. This ensures cordial chemistry between the male leads. As the scene gets all emotional in the pre-climax, the film opts for a time-leap exactly like Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna . And while you foresee the end much before it actually arrives, the feral finish makes up for the predictability.
While Tarun Mansukhani proves his credentials as a competent writer and director, he also has a keen eye on exploiting the best from his cast. For all desi gals who have been drooling over Daniel’s derriere, John ‘flashes back’ with a hint of his butt cleavage. For a change a Hindi film heroine admits to her real age onscreen. That’s modesty! And Abhishek never ever gets off his shirt. That’s self-realization! However a Shilpa Shetty item number isn’t the best of ideas to kick-start a film, which you easily overlook as the story takes over.
High on technical proficiency, the cinematography by Ayananka Bose is menthol-cool and the casual clothing line by Aki Narula and Manish Malhotra complement the characters perfectly. Vishal Shekhar’s musical score is groovy though brutally techno at times. The background score comprising of ‘What the *uck’ sounds and also deriving from Jahan Teri Ye Nazar Hai (Kaalia) support the screen antics ably.
The screen chemistry between the Abhishek-Priyanka-John trio is palpably cozy. Priyanka Chopra looks gorgeous and is perfectly poised in her performance. She never under-acts or goes over-the-top. John has more to show-off than his chiseled physique. He is easygoing in his role of the dominant male. Abhishek Bachchan is splendid in his sissy act (in the initial reels) and even otherwise is impressive. Bobby Deol thankfully underplays his character. Boman Irani is accurate in his gay act though his petty portion was avoidable. Kirron Kher repeats the Om Shanti Om act with precision.
Dostana redefines the ‘ feel-gud’ genre and makes up for some ‘homo-genius’ entertainment.
Sport - F1;Shanghai may axe GP
SHANGHAI: Shanghai is considering axing the loss-making Formula One Grand Prix after its contract runs out in 2010, a senior official said.
Qiu Weichang, deputy director of the Shanghai Administration of Sports, said a decision would be announced next year.
"We're doing the assessment. By next year we should be able to give you an answer," he said in an interview late on Thursday.
China's biggest city spent 240 million dollars on the state-of-the-art Shanghai International Circuit and hosted its first Formula One race in 2004.
But the event has been plagued by poor ticket sales and Qiu said its fate was in the balance.
"We want to create a win-win situation, for our side and for Bernie (Ecclestone) and the F1 organisers as well," he said.
"If this is something we can do, and our cooperation is very happy and smooth, we will consider it.
"Of course we would like at least to break even. But there are two factors, one is the assessment, the other part is the win-win situation that we can create."
Qiu Weichang, deputy director of the Shanghai Administration of Sports, said a decision would be announced next year.
"We're doing the assessment. By next year we should be able to give you an answer," he said in an interview late on Thursday.
China's biggest city spent 240 million dollars on the state-of-the-art Shanghai International Circuit and hosted its first Formula One race in 2004.
But the event has been plagued by poor ticket sales and Qiu said its fate was in the balance.
"We want to create a win-win situation, for our side and for Bernie (Ecclestone) and the F1 organisers as well," he said.
"If this is something we can do, and our cooperation is very happy and smooth, we will consider it.
"Of course we would like at least to break even. But there are two factors, one is the assessment, the other part is the win-win situation that we can create."
Columnists - Rajdeep Sardesai;On Sourav Ganguly
In the first innings of the Nagpur Test, as Sourav Ganguly was batting with remarkable assurance,
an excited senior government official rang up. “You guys in the media have to start a campaign to stop Ganguly from retiring. We can’t let Dada go like this when he is batting like a champion!” In this season of high-pitched cricketing emotion, there has been no farewell quite as dramatic as that of Sourav ‘Dada’ Ganguly. As reams are written, songs are composed and TV images of a bare-bodied Ganguly are endlessly beamed, it’s almost as if his departure from international cricket has become the final episode of a long-running soap that has captivated a nation for 13 tumultuous years.
What is it about Sourav that has struck this emotional chord? It isn’t just the mountain of runs he scored and the matches he won. Although he is easily the finest left-hander to play for the country, there have been other even better players who haven’t quite received the same adulation. Perhaps, the key lies in the fact that Ganguly has been a very different character to the constellation of other great cricketers — the so-called Fab Five — assembled around him. Sachin Tendulkar has always been ‘The Master’, a cricket deity to be worshipped from afar. Rahul Dravid has been ‘The Wall’, solid and dependable, the kind you want as a son-in-law. VVS Laxman has always been Very, Very Special, a man of few words who prefers to let his bat do the talking. Anil Kumble was ‘The Silent Assassin’ who, like Laxman, spoke with his deeds.
Ganguly, on the other hand, is both ‘Maharaj’ and ‘Dada’: feudal lord and paara (neighbourhood) gang leader, both protector and aggressor. He has been alternately perceived as arrogant (remember the stories that were spread of how on his first tour he was not too keen on carrying the drinks trolley) and resilient (has anyone made as many successful comebacks as Ganguly?). He has looked the mighty Aussies in the eye — including the famous incident when he kept Steve Waugh waiting for the toss — and yet has been accused of shying away from fast bowling. At home, he is a most gracious host. And yet he is remembered as the captain who bared his torso on the balcony of Lords. He has pushed for Greg Chappell as coach and has also fought with him. He has been criticised for being selfish, yet arguably no other Indian captain has backed his players more firmly. Perhaps, it’s the complex nature of his personality that makes Ganguly so attractive, a fallible human in a cricket universe populated by robots.
For the Bengali, Ganguly has been a badge of identity in a changing world. New India with its manic aggression and unbridled ambition has little space for the high culture that once defined the Bengali bhadralok. Twenty-five years ago, if there was an opinion poll on who is the greatest living Bengali, there is a fair chance that Satyajit Ray and Amartya Sen would have been the front-runners, both epitomising a Tagorean tradition of fine art and learning. If the Punjabi prided himself on his machismo, the Bengali male thrived on his aesthetic superiority. It prompted a private secretary to Lord Curzon to famously remark that, “Bengalis have the intellect of the Greeks, and the grit of a rabbit.” Sourav broke the stereotype, and how.
Till he arrived on the scene, Bengal’s relationship with cricket was confined to nostalgic tales of Pankaj Roy in the 1950s, and to watching the game passionately at the Eden Gardens. Cursed by political agitation and economic stagnation, Sourav as the ‘Prince of Kolkata’ offered hope to an entire generation of Bengalis, itching to move ahead at Nano speed.
But Sourav has been much more than just a brand ambassador of a new Bengal. Indeed, it is ironic that a cricketer once seen as a beneficiary of a regional quota system was himself above the parochialism of Indian cricket. Perhaps, Ganguly’s greatest contribution is that he was the first captain to look beyond regional loyalties. It’s no coincidence that the rise of Ganguly as captain also saw the emergence of new talent from outside the traditional centres of the sport. For it was Ganguly who provided a ready platform to Indian cricket’s Generation Next, channelling their small-town bravado into on-field success.
Till Ganguly took over the captaincy, the Indian team was usually led by men who preferred to see their role as gentlemen first, players later. Bishen Bedi and Sunil Gavaskar did symbolise player power. But they couldn’t quite change the elite order of the sport. Ganguly was able to achieve the transformation, supported by a group of ambitious cricketers. It wasn’t always edifying. But in a way it was necessary. The act of shirt-removal at Lords may have been inadvertent. But it was a defining moment. It marked the end of the domination of the sport by those who believed they had the divine right to decide on how it was to be played. This was aspirational New India, unwilling to be lectured to, and desperately keen to shake off the burdens of a long-standing inferiority complex. It was as if a boy from Behala was screaming for attention on the world stage, demanding recognition based on merit not lineage.
It is perhaps entirely appropriate then that Mahendra Singh Dhoni was captaining Sourav in his last Test. For like Ganguly, Dhoni, too, has made self-belief and aggression his calling card. The baton may have changed hands, but the Sourav legacy lives on.
Rajdeep Sardesai is Editor-in-chief, IBN network
an excited senior government official rang up. “You guys in the media have to start a campaign to stop Ganguly from retiring. We can’t let Dada go like this when he is batting like a champion!” In this season of high-pitched cricketing emotion, there has been no farewell quite as dramatic as that of Sourav ‘Dada’ Ganguly. As reams are written, songs are composed and TV images of a bare-bodied Ganguly are endlessly beamed, it’s almost as if his departure from international cricket has become the final episode of a long-running soap that has captivated a nation for 13 tumultuous years.
What is it about Sourav that has struck this emotional chord? It isn’t just the mountain of runs he scored and the matches he won. Although he is easily the finest left-hander to play for the country, there have been other even better players who haven’t quite received the same adulation. Perhaps, the key lies in the fact that Ganguly has been a very different character to the constellation of other great cricketers — the so-called Fab Five — assembled around him. Sachin Tendulkar has always been ‘The Master’, a cricket deity to be worshipped from afar. Rahul Dravid has been ‘The Wall’, solid and dependable, the kind you want as a son-in-law. VVS Laxman has always been Very, Very Special, a man of few words who prefers to let his bat do the talking. Anil Kumble was ‘The Silent Assassin’ who, like Laxman, spoke with his deeds.
Ganguly, on the other hand, is both ‘Maharaj’ and ‘Dada’: feudal lord and paara (neighbourhood) gang leader, both protector and aggressor. He has been alternately perceived as arrogant (remember the stories that were spread of how on his first tour he was not too keen on carrying the drinks trolley) and resilient (has anyone made as many successful comebacks as Ganguly?). He has looked the mighty Aussies in the eye — including the famous incident when he kept Steve Waugh waiting for the toss — and yet has been accused of shying away from fast bowling. At home, he is a most gracious host. And yet he is remembered as the captain who bared his torso on the balcony of Lords. He has pushed for Greg Chappell as coach and has also fought with him. He has been criticised for being selfish, yet arguably no other Indian captain has backed his players more firmly. Perhaps, it’s the complex nature of his personality that makes Ganguly so attractive, a fallible human in a cricket universe populated by robots.
For the Bengali, Ganguly has been a badge of identity in a changing world. New India with its manic aggression and unbridled ambition has little space for the high culture that once defined the Bengali bhadralok. Twenty-five years ago, if there was an opinion poll on who is the greatest living Bengali, there is a fair chance that Satyajit Ray and Amartya Sen would have been the front-runners, both epitomising a Tagorean tradition of fine art and learning. If the Punjabi prided himself on his machismo, the Bengali male thrived on his aesthetic superiority. It prompted a private secretary to Lord Curzon to famously remark that, “Bengalis have the intellect of the Greeks, and the grit of a rabbit.” Sourav broke the stereotype, and how.
Till he arrived on the scene, Bengal’s relationship with cricket was confined to nostalgic tales of Pankaj Roy in the 1950s, and to watching the game passionately at the Eden Gardens. Cursed by political agitation and economic stagnation, Sourav as the ‘Prince of Kolkata’ offered hope to an entire generation of Bengalis, itching to move ahead at Nano speed.
But Sourav has been much more than just a brand ambassador of a new Bengal. Indeed, it is ironic that a cricketer once seen as a beneficiary of a regional quota system was himself above the parochialism of Indian cricket. Perhaps, Ganguly’s greatest contribution is that he was the first captain to look beyond regional loyalties. It’s no coincidence that the rise of Ganguly as captain also saw the emergence of new talent from outside the traditional centres of the sport. For it was Ganguly who provided a ready platform to Indian cricket’s Generation Next, channelling their small-town bravado into on-field success.
Till Ganguly took over the captaincy, the Indian team was usually led by men who preferred to see their role as gentlemen first, players later. Bishen Bedi and Sunil Gavaskar did symbolise player power. But they couldn’t quite change the elite order of the sport. Ganguly was able to achieve the transformation, supported by a group of ambitious cricketers. It wasn’t always edifying. But in a way it was necessary. The act of shirt-removal at Lords may have been inadvertent. But it was a defining moment. It marked the end of the domination of the sport by those who believed they had the divine right to decide on how it was to be played. This was aspirational New India, unwilling to be lectured to, and desperately keen to shake off the burdens of a long-standing inferiority complex. It was as if a boy from Behala was screaming for attention on the world stage, demanding recognition based on merit not lineage.
It is perhaps entirely appropriate then that Mahendra Singh Dhoni was captaining Sourav in his last Test. For like Ganguly, Dhoni, too, has made self-belief and aggression his calling card. The baton may have changed hands, but the Sourav legacy lives on.
Rajdeep Sardesai is Editor-in-chief, IBN network
World - US;How Roosevelt checked the Supreme Court during Great Depression
T. R. Andhyarujina
His court packing bill encountered opposition. Though he lost the battle, he won the war to change the attitude of the Supreme Court judges.
The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated 10 vital New Deal laws
In 1937, Roosevelt announced a Bill to change the Court’s composition
The present world economic crisis originating from the United States and measures to tackle it there brings back memories of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the New Deal legislation of President Roosevelt to overcome it. One of the gripping chapters of that saga is how the U.S. Supreme Court initially thwarted important parts of the New Deal legislation of President Roosevelt by declaring them unconstitutional and how the President attempted to overcome the judicial obstruction to the New Deal laws by packing the Court with judges of his choice.
When President Roosevelt of the Democratic Party came to office in 1932 for his first term, 7 out of the 9 judges of the U.S. Supreme Court had been appointed by earlier Republican Presidents. From 1935 onwards a majority of conservative judges of ages over 70 of the Supreme Court invalidated 10 vital New Deal laws that were enacted by the Congress to overcome social and economic insecurity arising from the Great Depression, notably the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Railroad Retirement Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The Court held these laws violated the freedom of contract of individuals and due process of law. President Roosevelt strongly criticised these decisions as an overreach of judicial authority frustrating the social and economic forces needed to combat the Great Depression.
Critics of the Court singled out four of the judges, Justices Van Devanter, McReynold, Sutherland and Butler as the “Four Horsemen of Reaction.” Together with the swing vote of Justice Owen Roberts they created a majority of 5 judges to 4 to invalidate important New Deal laws.
Roosevelt made these decisions of the Supreme Court thwarting the New Deal laws his re-election manifesto and promised to overcome the judicial veto when re-elected. On November 3, 1936 Roosevelt was re-elected with an electorate landslide and on February 5, 1937, he announced his Judiciary Reorganizing Bill 1937 to change the Court’s composition of the adverse majority to his programmes. This came to be known as the notorious Court Packing Plan of Roosevelt.
The essence of this proposed legislation was to replace every sitting judge of the Supreme Court over the age of 70 and six months with a new judge. Roosevelt would then have the chance to appoint six more judges, presumably having his philosophy of being favourable to the New Deal legislation and thereby increasing the size of the Court to 15 judges.
Roosevelt promoted this law in one of his “Fireside Chats” on the national radio to the nation on March 9, 1927. It remains today as the most outspoken and withering criticism of a nation’s Supreme Court of judicial overreaching into domains of the executive and legislature. His words are worth recalling.
Roosevelt said, “In the last four years the Court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policy-making body. When Congress has sought to stabilise national agriculture, to improve the conditions of labour, to safeguard business against unfair competition, to protect our national resources, and in many other ways, to serve our clearly national needs, the majority of the court has been assuming the power to pass on the wisdom of these acts of Congress — and to approve or disapprove the public policy written in these laws.”
He went on to say “The Court has improperly set itself up as a third house of the Congress — a super-legislature, reading into the Constitution words and implications which are not there, and which were never intended to be there. We have, therefore, reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself. We must find a way to take an appeal from the Supreme Court to the Constitution itself. We want a Supreme Court, which will do justice under the Constitution and not over it. In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men.”
Roosevelt’s court packing bill rightly encountered strong opposition in the nation as subverting the independence of the highest court and it failed to pass into law. Although Roosevelt lost the battle he won the war to change the attitude of the judges of the Supreme Court. Within a few days of Roosevelt’s Fireside chat, on March 29, 1937, Justice Owen Roberts, who held the decisive swing vote position, changed his previously held view of opposition on an important New Deal regulation relating to minimum wages thus enabling the court by 5 to 4 to hold it valid. This was the famous “Switch in time that saved the Nine” in judicial history of the U.S.
There followed important changes in the Court’s view on the National Labour Act and Social Security tax which the Court now held to be valid and constitutional. Shortly, thereafter, the leader of the four Horsemen Justice Van Devanter resigned realising as one observer said that “the jig was up.” Six months later Justice Sutherland also resigned. The complexion of the Supreme Court totally changed without Roosevelt’s court packing plan. Roosevelt went on to appoint five new justices in his second term in usual course. With these changes Supreme Court’ s attitude to economic reform laws changed for all times to an understanding deference in policy matters of government.
This interlude in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court has lessons for all democracies governed by the rule of law. First is that even the highest judiciary at times tends to overstep its limits and intrude into policies of government with disastrous results for the nation. Secondly, methods to pack the court by government to obtain favourable verdicts can never be the means to correct the court verdicts even if they are egregiously wrong.
(The writer is a senior advocate and former Solicitor-General of India.)
His court packing bill encountered opposition. Though he lost the battle, he won the war to change the attitude of the Supreme Court judges.
The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated 10 vital New Deal laws
In 1937, Roosevelt announced a Bill to change the Court’s composition
The present world economic crisis originating from the United States and measures to tackle it there brings back memories of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the New Deal legislation of President Roosevelt to overcome it. One of the gripping chapters of that saga is how the U.S. Supreme Court initially thwarted important parts of the New Deal legislation of President Roosevelt by declaring them unconstitutional and how the President attempted to overcome the judicial obstruction to the New Deal laws by packing the Court with judges of his choice.
When President Roosevelt of the Democratic Party came to office in 1932 for his first term, 7 out of the 9 judges of the U.S. Supreme Court had been appointed by earlier Republican Presidents. From 1935 onwards a majority of conservative judges of ages over 70 of the Supreme Court invalidated 10 vital New Deal laws that were enacted by the Congress to overcome social and economic insecurity arising from the Great Depression, notably the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Railroad Retirement Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The Court held these laws violated the freedom of contract of individuals and due process of law. President Roosevelt strongly criticised these decisions as an overreach of judicial authority frustrating the social and economic forces needed to combat the Great Depression.
Critics of the Court singled out four of the judges, Justices Van Devanter, McReynold, Sutherland and Butler as the “Four Horsemen of Reaction.” Together with the swing vote of Justice Owen Roberts they created a majority of 5 judges to 4 to invalidate important New Deal laws.
Roosevelt made these decisions of the Supreme Court thwarting the New Deal laws his re-election manifesto and promised to overcome the judicial veto when re-elected. On November 3, 1936 Roosevelt was re-elected with an electorate landslide and on February 5, 1937, he announced his Judiciary Reorganizing Bill 1937 to change the Court’s composition of the adverse majority to his programmes. This came to be known as the notorious Court Packing Plan of Roosevelt.
The essence of this proposed legislation was to replace every sitting judge of the Supreme Court over the age of 70 and six months with a new judge. Roosevelt would then have the chance to appoint six more judges, presumably having his philosophy of being favourable to the New Deal legislation and thereby increasing the size of the Court to 15 judges.
Roosevelt promoted this law in one of his “Fireside Chats” on the national radio to the nation on March 9, 1927. It remains today as the most outspoken and withering criticism of a nation’s Supreme Court of judicial overreaching into domains of the executive and legislature. His words are worth recalling.
Roosevelt said, “In the last four years the Court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policy-making body. When Congress has sought to stabilise national agriculture, to improve the conditions of labour, to safeguard business against unfair competition, to protect our national resources, and in many other ways, to serve our clearly national needs, the majority of the court has been assuming the power to pass on the wisdom of these acts of Congress — and to approve or disapprove the public policy written in these laws.”
He went on to say “The Court has improperly set itself up as a third house of the Congress — a super-legislature, reading into the Constitution words and implications which are not there, and which were never intended to be there. We have, therefore, reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself. We must find a way to take an appeal from the Supreme Court to the Constitution itself. We want a Supreme Court, which will do justice under the Constitution and not over it. In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men.”
Roosevelt’s court packing bill rightly encountered strong opposition in the nation as subverting the independence of the highest court and it failed to pass into law. Although Roosevelt lost the battle he won the war to change the attitude of the judges of the Supreme Court. Within a few days of Roosevelt’s Fireside chat, on March 29, 1937, Justice Owen Roberts, who held the decisive swing vote position, changed his previously held view of opposition on an important New Deal regulation relating to minimum wages thus enabling the court by 5 to 4 to hold it valid. This was the famous “Switch in time that saved the Nine” in judicial history of the U.S.
There followed important changes in the Court’s view on the National Labour Act and Social Security tax which the Court now held to be valid and constitutional. Shortly, thereafter, the leader of the four Horsemen Justice Van Devanter resigned realising as one observer said that “the jig was up.” Six months later Justice Sutherland also resigned. The complexion of the Supreme Court totally changed without Roosevelt’s court packing plan. Roosevelt went on to appoint five new justices in his second term in usual course. With these changes Supreme Court’ s attitude to economic reform laws changed for all times to an understanding deference in policy matters of government.
This interlude in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court has lessons for all democracies governed by the rule of law. First is that even the highest judiciary at times tends to overstep its limits and intrude into policies of government with disastrous results for the nation. Secondly, methods to pack the court by government to obtain favourable verdicts can never be the means to correct the court verdicts even if they are egregiously wrong.
(The writer is a senior advocate and former Solicitor-General of India.)
Health - Diabetes prevention as a priority
V. Mohan
A call to focus on tools and strategies to counter the disease in a preventive mode, on World Diabetes Day, today.
Diabetes poses a huge economic burden on India
Prevention can be undertaken at four levels: primordial, primary, secondary, tertiary
India faces a double burden on the health front. Communicable diseases (CDs) such as tuberculosis and malaria are still rampant. Meanwhile, chronic lifestyle-related or non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have emerged as an even bigger hazard. According to the World Health Organisation report 2005, NCDs (excluding injuries) contributed to 52 per cent of all deaths in India, and the figure will rise to 70 per cent by 2025. These include diabetes, obesity, hypertension and coro nary artery disease, which are referred to as “metabolic NCDs,” and chronic obstructive respiratory disease, cancer, mental illness and injuries, classified as “non-metabolic NCDs.” The metabolic NCDs, specifically diabetes which can be taken as a model of metabolic NCDs as most of the risk factors are common to the metabolic NCDs, are in focus here.
Worldwide, there are an estimated 246 million people with diabetes, and this number is set to reach 380 million by 2025. Diabetes was traditionally considered to be a disorder affecting the affluent and the elderly. This is no longer true. By 2025, more than 80 per cent of all deaths will be in the developing countries. India holds the unenviable position of being the world leader with 40 million diabetics in 2007. This number is set to reach 70 million by 2025. This will represent almost 20 per cent of all cases of diabetes in the world.
Population-based studies done by the author and his colleagues in Chennai have shown that nearly one in five of all patients with diabetes has one or more complications arising from the disease. It has emerged as a leading cause of blindness, kidney failure, amputations and heart attacks in India. Recognising the gravity of the situation, the United Nations General Assembly passed a historic declaration on diabetes in December 2007. The only other disease for which the U.N. has passed a declaration is HIV/AIDS: that was almost a decade ago.
Diabetes poses a huge economic burden on India. A recent paper showed that of five countries studied, namely the U.S., the U.K., Finland, China and India, India spends the highest share of GDP on diabetes. But more than the economic impact, it is the social impact that is of greater concern. The age at onset of Type 2 diabetes is progressively decreasing and the disorder now affects a significant number of adolescents and children. The onset of diabetes-related complications typically occurs 10 to 20 years after the disorder is diagnosed. Thus, if the onset occurs in an individual at 50 years, one needs to worry about its complications around the age of 65-70 years. Considering that life expectancy in India today is around 68 years, perhaps this will not be a matter of grave concern. However, if the onset occurs around age 20, the possibility of people in their 30s and 40s developing complications is high. This will be a disaster not only for the individual and his or her family but also to society and the nation at large. The adage, “prevention is better than cure,” is apt in the case of diabetes.
Prevention can be undertaken at four levels. Primordial Prevention refers to reduction of risk factors such as obesity, physical inactivity and stress, thereby reducing the risk. Primary Prevention refers to prevention (or postponement) in those in a pre-diabetes stage such as impaired glucose tolerance. Secondary Prevention refers to prevention of complications in those who have developed diabetes. Tertiary Prevention is used to describe limiting physical disability and preventing progression to end-stage complications in those who have developed diabetic complications.
Doctors mostly focus on secondary and tertiary prevention, for that is the stage at which patients come to hospitals or clinics. They rarely attempt primordial or primary prevention as this would mean screening a healthy population and instituting preventive measures. Doctors simply do not have the time for this, already overworked as they are attending to sick patients.
Identification of high-risk individuals is the first step in primary prevention. This requires screening of a healthy population, which is a challenge as the disorder is totally asymptomatic at this stage. This is where public health or community medicine specialists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can play a role.
How can we identify those at risk? This can be done by using a simple tool called the “Indian Diabetes Risk Score (IDRS)” developed at the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation. To use this, one needs to answer three questions: what is your age, does your father, mother or both have diabetes, and do you have adequate physical activity. In addition, a waist measurement needs to be done with measuring tape. IDRS, which costs virtually nothing, can help identify the risk of developing diabetes with a high degree of accuracy. Once the high-risk individuals are identified, they can be screened with blood sugar tests to identify subjects with diabetes or pre-diabetes. This is a cost-effective strategy for primary prevention.
There is evidence to show that Type 2 diabetes can be prevented in up to 60 per cent of individuals with “pre-diabetes” by means of simple lifestyle modification steps such as going for a healthy diet, doing exercise and achieving modest weight reduction. The Prevention, Awareness, Counselling and Evaluation (PACE) Diabetes Project carried out by us with the support of the Chennai Willingdon Corporation Foundation has demonstrated how awareness levels could be improved in a whole city (Chennai) through massive education programmes, with media support.
However, if primary prevention is to become a reality in India, a multi-sectoral approach involving several stake-holders is needed. This should include measures such as improving urban infrastructure with more pathways for bicycles and pedestrians, more open spaces or parks to increase physical activity, encouraging healthy eating with increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, and involving governmental and non-governmental organisations to reach the right message to the masses. Prevention of diabetes and other metabolic NCDs can only happen if the youth are targeted and compulsory physical education is introduced in schools and colleges. Workplaces should be made healthier with the introduction of healthier diet options in canteens. Physical activity and stress reduction programmes should be introduced for employees. Incentivising weight reduction in obese patients has proved successful in some organisations.
Ultimately, diabates prevention needs “political will,” societal and community support and behavioural change on the part of individuals and their families. Now is the time for India to wake up to the imminent problem of diabetes and NCDs and act — before it is too late.
(Dr. Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre in Chennai is a WHO Collaborating Centre for Noncommunicable Diseases.)
A call to focus on tools and strategies to counter the disease in a preventive mode, on World Diabetes Day, today.
Diabetes poses a huge economic burden on India
Prevention can be undertaken at four levels: primordial, primary, secondary, tertiary
India faces a double burden on the health front. Communicable diseases (CDs) such as tuberculosis and malaria are still rampant. Meanwhile, chronic lifestyle-related or non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have emerged as an even bigger hazard. According to the World Health Organisation report 2005, NCDs (excluding injuries) contributed to 52 per cent of all deaths in India, and the figure will rise to 70 per cent by 2025. These include diabetes, obesity, hypertension and coro nary artery disease, which are referred to as “metabolic NCDs,” and chronic obstructive respiratory disease, cancer, mental illness and injuries, classified as “non-metabolic NCDs.” The metabolic NCDs, specifically diabetes which can be taken as a model of metabolic NCDs as most of the risk factors are common to the metabolic NCDs, are in focus here.
Worldwide, there are an estimated 246 million people with diabetes, and this number is set to reach 380 million by 2025. Diabetes was traditionally considered to be a disorder affecting the affluent and the elderly. This is no longer true. By 2025, more than 80 per cent of all deaths will be in the developing countries. India holds the unenviable position of being the world leader with 40 million diabetics in 2007. This number is set to reach 70 million by 2025. This will represent almost 20 per cent of all cases of diabetes in the world.
Population-based studies done by the author and his colleagues in Chennai have shown that nearly one in five of all patients with diabetes has one or more complications arising from the disease. It has emerged as a leading cause of blindness, kidney failure, amputations and heart attacks in India. Recognising the gravity of the situation, the United Nations General Assembly passed a historic declaration on diabetes in December 2007. The only other disease for which the U.N. has passed a declaration is HIV/AIDS: that was almost a decade ago.
Diabetes poses a huge economic burden on India. A recent paper showed that of five countries studied, namely the U.S., the U.K., Finland, China and India, India spends the highest share of GDP on diabetes. But more than the economic impact, it is the social impact that is of greater concern. The age at onset of Type 2 diabetes is progressively decreasing and the disorder now affects a significant number of adolescents and children. The onset of diabetes-related complications typically occurs 10 to 20 years after the disorder is diagnosed. Thus, if the onset occurs in an individual at 50 years, one needs to worry about its complications around the age of 65-70 years. Considering that life expectancy in India today is around 68 years, perhaps this will not be a matter of grave concern. However, if the onset occurs around age 20, the possibility of people in their 30s and 40s developing complications is high. This will be a disaster not only for the individual and his or her family but also to society and the nation at large. The adage, “prevention is better than cure,” is apt in the case of diabetes.
Prevention can be undertaken at four levels. Primordial Prevention refers to reduction of risk factors such as obesity, physical inactivity and stress, thereby reducing the risk. Primary Prevention refers to prevention (or postponement) in those in a pre-diabetes stage such as impaired glucose tolerance. Secondary Prevention refers to prevention of complications in those who have developed diabetes. Tertiary Prevention is used to describe limiting physical disability and preventing progression to end-stage complications in those who have developed diabetic complications.
Doctors mostly focus on secondary and tertiary prevention, for that is the stage at which patients come to hospitals or clinics. They rarely attempt primordial or primary prevention as this would mean screening a healthy population and instituting preventive measures. Doctors simply do not have the time for this, already overworked as they are attending to sick patients.
Identification of high-risk individuals is the first step in primary prevention. This requires screening of a healthy population, which is a challenge as the disorder is totally asymptomatic at this stage. This is where public health or community medicine specialists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can play a role.
How can we identify those at risk? This can be done by using a simple tool called the “Indian Diabetes Risk Score (IDRS)” developed at the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation. To use this, one needs to answer three questions: what is your age, does your father, mother or both have diabetes, and do you have adequate physical activity. In addition, a waist measurement needs to be done with measuring tape. IDRS, which costs virtually nothing, can help identify the risk of developing diabetes with a high degree of accuracy. Once the high-risk individuals are identified, they can be screened with blood sugar tests to identify subjects with diabetes or pre-diabetes. This is a cost-effective strategy for primary prevention.
There is evidence to show that Type 2 diabetes can be prevented in up to 60 per cent of individuals with “pre-diabetes” by means of simple lifestyle modification steps such as going for a healthy diet, doing exercise and achieving modest weight reduction. The Prevention, Awareness, Counselling and Evaluation (PACE) Diabetes Project carried out by us with the support of the Chennai Willingdon Corporation Foundation has demonstrated how awareness levels could be improved in a whole city (Chennai) through massive education programmes, with media support.
However, if primary prevention is to become a reality in India, a multi-sectoral approach involving several stake-holders is needed. This should include measures such as improving urban infrastructure with more pathways for bicycles and pedestrians, more open spaces or parks to increase physical activity, encouraging healthy eating with increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, and involving governmental and non-governmental organisations to reach the right message to the masses. Prevention of diabetes and other metabolic NCDs can only happen if the youth are targeted and compulsory physical education is introduced in schools and colleges. Workplaces should be made healthier with the introduction of healthier diet options in canteens. Physical activity and stress reduction programmes should be introduced for employees. Incentivising weight reduction in obese patients has proved successful in some organisations.
Ultimately, diabates prevention needs “political will,” societal and community support and behavioural change on the part of individuals and their families. Now is the time for India to wake up to the imminent problem of diabetes and NCDs and act — before it is too late.
(Dr. Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre in Chennai is a WHO Collaborating Centre for Noncommunicable Diseases.)
India - Nehru & the Mountbattens
K.Natwar Singh
Jawaharlal Nehru had a soft corner for the Mountbattens. This at times clouded his judgment on vitally important national issues.
While Lord Mountbatten was still Governor-General of India, Prime Minister Nehru sent the following communication to King George VI. The language of the Nehru epistle was out of character and the Raj phraseology stands out:
New Delhi
21st May, 1948
Shri. Jawaharlal Nehru presents his humble duty to His Majesty and invites attention to the relinquishment by His Excellency Earl Mountbatten of Burma of the office of Governor-General of India with effect from June, 1948. As India’s last Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten made an outstanding contribution to the early and peaceful realisation of Indian Independence; as her first Governor-General, his advice and aid to his Ministers have been equally notable for their wisdom, sympathy and understanding.
In her own sphere, the Countess Mountbatten has been equally active and the men, women and children of India, especially those whom partition uprooted from their established homes under the most cruel circumstances, owe her a great debt of gratitude.
For the services, perhaps unique in the history of Indo-British association, rendered by Lord and Lady Mountbatten to the Government and people of India and to the cause of friendship between India and the United Kingdom, it is earnestly suggested that His Majesty be graciously pleased to confer upon the retiring Governor-General and his lady, some mark of recognition commensurate with those services.
Sd/- Jawaharlal Nehru,
Prime Minister & Minister for External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations.’
On June 17, 1948, the Private Secretary of the King writes to the Prime Minister of India from Windsor Castle:
My dear Prime Minister,
The King commands me to thank you sincerely for your letter of May 21st.
His Majesty read it with pleasure, and with high appreciation of the tribute that you pay to the services which both Lord and Lady Mountbatten have rendered to India, and to Indo-British relations.
The King will certainly bear in mind the suggestion contained in the last paragraph of your letter, and I expect to receive His majesty’s instructions to write to you further on this matter.
On July 21, 1948, the Secretary General of the Ministry of External Affairs sent a message to Krishna Menon, High Commissioner of India in the U.K., in which he asks him to convey to the King’s Private Secretary the following:
The Prime Minister of India presents his compliments to Sir Alan Lascelles and, referring to his letter of 17th June, would be glad to know when he may expect a further expression of His Majesty’s wishes with regard to the subject matter of his minute dated 21st May, 1948.
The Secretary General, Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, gave the following information to Krishna Menon:
Prime Minister suspects that a campaign of public vilification of Lord Mountbatten, which began with Ghulam Mohammed’s press conference in London and has since been continued in India by some Pakistani Ministers and, in particular, newspaper Dawn which, in its issue of yesterday, has an unfriendly article on his share in the negotiations on our behalf with Hyderabad, is designed (a) to prevent any public recognition by His Majesty of his services to India and (b) to discredit his pronouncements of Indo-Pak relations and on India generally as biased. P.M. is therefore, particularly anxious that action on the recommendation which he made to the King should not be delayed.
On July 29, 1948, the King’s Private Secretary, Lascelles, wrote to Prime Minister Nehru as follows:
My dear Prime Minister,
The King has given careful consideration to the suggestion put forward in your letter of May 21st.
While His Majesty is fully sensible of the distinguished service given to the crown and to India by Lord and Lady Mountbatten throughout the former’s tenure of the Viceroyalty and Governor-Generalship, he is of the opinion that adequate recognition of that service has already be given, and that any further recognition of it now would not be justified.
What else could the King have done? He could not possibly disregard the Pakistani views in the matter. I am a genuine admirer of Jawaharlal Nehru but this correspondence does him no good. He made an entirely unnecessary, emotional, subjective recommendation, which the King rightly turned down. That the Prime Minister of independent India — a great hero of the freedom struggle and a vastly popular leader — should have placed himself in such an awkward position is, even after 60 years, incomprehensible.
Jawaharlal Nehru throughout the freedom movement was vigorously opposed to independent India having anything to do with the British Commonwealth. There is little doubt that the Mountbattens talked him into changing his mind. Similarly, Mountbatten influenced Nehru to take Kashmir to the United Nations.
Edwina Mountbatten was a free spirit. She fell head over heels for the refinement of intellect, sensitivity, and heroic personality of the exceptionally handsome 56-year-old Prime Minister. For him, Edwina was very special. When she died in 1960, he paid tribute to her in Parliament.
The Nehru-Edwina correspondence is vast. They wrote to each other with rapturous frequency but the most intimate letters will never be available to scholars and historians. Nehru was a lonely man and Lady Mountbatten filled a void in his life.
Enough has been written on this titillating subject in a number of books, particularly in Janet Morgan’s biography of Edwina Mountbatten. M.J. Akbar too has not skirted the romance. Philip Zeigler, in his magisterial book on Mountbatten, is careful but not dismissive. The French writer, Catherine Clement, has written a novel about this relationship and it sold nearly a million copies.
I once asked Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Nehru’s sister, if the rumours about her brother having an affair with Edwina Mountbatten were true. She was herself a diva and uninhibited in her conversation. She said to me: “Of course he did. And good for him.”
Jawaharlal Nehru had a soft corner for the Mountbattens. This at times clouded his judgment on vitally important national issues.
While Lord Mountbatten was still Governor-General of India, Prime Minister Nehru sent the following communication to King George VI. The language of the Nehru epistle was out of character and the Raj phraseology stands out:
New Delhi
21st May, 1948
Shri. Jawaharlal Nehru presents his humble duty to His Majesty and invites attention to the relinquishment by His Excellency Earl Mountbatten of Burma of the office of Governor-General of India with effect from June, 1948. As India’s last Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten made an outstanding contribution to the early and peaceful realisation of Indian Independence; as her first Governor-General, his advice and aid to his Ministers have been equally notable for their wisdom, sympathy and understanding.
In her own sphere, the Countess Mountbatten has been equally active and the men, women and children of India, especially those whom partition uprooted from their established homes under the most cruel circumstances, owe her a great debt of gratitude.
For the services, perhaps unique in the history of Indo-British association, rendered by Lord and Lady Mountbatten to the Government and people of India and to the cause of friendship between India and the United Kingdom, it is earnestly suggested that His Majesty be graciously pleased to confer upon the retiring Governor-General and his lady, some mark of recognition commensurate with those services.
Sd/- Jawaharlal Nehru,
Prime Minister & Minister for External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations.’
On June 17, 1948, the Private Secretary of the King writes to the Prime Minister of India from Windsor Castle:
My dear Prime Minister,
The King commands me to thank you sincerely for your letter of May 21st.
His Majesty read it with pleasure, and with high appreciation of the tribute that you pay to the services which both Lord and Lady Mountbatten have rendered to India, and to Indo-British relations.
The King will certainly bear in mind the suggestion contained in the last paragraph of your letter, and I expect to receive His majesty’s instructions to write to you further on this matter.
On July 21, 1948, the Secretary General of the Ministry of External Affairs sent a message to Krishna Menon, High Commissioner of India in the U.K., in which he asks him to convey to the King’s Private Secretary the following:
The Prime Minister of India presents his compliments to Sir Alan Lascelles and, referring to his letter of 17th June, would be glad to know when he may expect a further expression of His Majesty’s wishes with regard to the subject matter of his minute dated 21st May, 1948.
The Secretary General, Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, gave the following information to Krishna Menon:
Prime Minister suspects that a campaign of public vilification of Lord Mountbatten, which began with Ghulam Mohammed’s press conference in London and has since been continued in India by some Pakistani Ministers and, in particular, newspaper Dawn which, in its issue of yesterday, has an unfriendly article on his share in the negotiations on our behalf with Hyderabad, is designed (a) to prevent any public recognition by His Majesty of his services to India and (b) to discredit his pronouncements of Indo-Pak relations and on India generally as biased. P.M. is therefore, particularly anxious that action on the recommendation which he made to the King should not be delayed.
On July 29, 1948, the King’s Private Secretary, Lascelles, wrote to Prime Minister Nehru as follows:
My dear Prime Minister,
The King has given careful consideration to the suggestion put forward in your letter of May 21st.
While His Majesty is fully sensible of the distinguished service given to the crown and to India by Lord and Lady Mountbatten throughout the former’s tenure of the Viceroyalty and Governor-Generalship, he is of the opinion that adequate recognition of that service has already be given, and that any further recognition of it now would not be justified.
What else could the King have done? He could not possibly disregard the Pakistani views in the matter. I am a genuine admirer of Jawaharlal Nehru but this correspondence does him no good. He made an entirely unnecessary, emotional, subjective recommendation, which the King rightly turned down. That the Prime Minister of independent India — a great hero of the freedom struggle and a vastly popular leader — should have placed himself in such an awkward position is, even after 60 years, incomprehensible.
Jawaharlal Nehru throughout the freedom movement was vigorously opposed to independent India having anything to do with the British Commonwealth. There is little doubt that the Mountbattens talked him into changing his mind. Similarly, Mountbatten influenced Nehru to take Kashmir to the United Nations.
Edwina Mountbatten was a free spirit. She fell head over heels for the refinement of intellect, sensitivity, and heroic personality of the exceptionally handsome 56-year-old Prime Minister. For him, Edwina was very special. When she died in 1960, he paid tribute to her in Parliament.
The Nehru-Edwina correspondence is vast. They wrote to each other with rapturous frequency but the most intimate letters will never be available to scholars and historians. Nehru was a lonely man and Lady Mountbatten filled a void in his life.
Enough has been written on this titillating subject in a number of books, particularly in Janet Morgan’s biography of Edwina Mountbatten. M.J. Akbar too has not skirted the romance. Philip Zeigler, in his magisterial book on Mountbatten, is careful but not dismissive. The French writer, Catherine Clement, has written a novel about this relationship and it sold nearly a million copies.
I once asked Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Nehru’s sister, if the rumours about her brother having an affair with Edwina Mountbatten were true. She was herself a diva and uninhibited in her conversation. She said to me: “Of course he did. And good for him.”
World - Present crisis & way forward
Prabhat Patnaik
The need of the hour is the injection of demand through direct fiscal action by governments across the world.
The current world economic crisis is perceived almost exclusively as a sequel to the collapse of the housing bubble in the United States. This certainly has been its immediate provocation, but an important structural factor underlying it must not be overlooked: the stimulus for booms in contemporary capitalism has come increasingly from such bubbles. The U.S. whose size and strength make it, in the current regime of trade liberalisation, the main determinant of the pace of expansion of the world economy, has increasingly come to rely on such bubbles to initiate and sustain booms.
John Maynard Keynes, writing during the Great Depression, had suggested an alternative stimulus, namely, a comprehensive “socialisation” of investment, whereby the state acting on behalf of society always ensured a level of investment in the economy, and hence a level of aggregate demand, that was adequate for full employment. This entailed not only a jettisoning of the free market system in favour of state intervention, but also restraints on the free global mobility of finance, since meaningful state intervention could not be undertaken if the nation-state faced internationally-mobile capital. “Let finance be primarily national,” he had said.
The Keynesian stimulus was adopted in the post-war period, during what has been called the “Golden Age of Capitalism.” But the process of globalisation, involving above all the globalisation of finance, which began during the period of Keynesian demand management itself, put an end to that stimulus, and removed a host of regulatory measures that characterised the Keynesian regime. Boosts to aggregate demand now come increasingly from the stimulation of private expenditure, associated with the creation of bubbles in asset prices, rather than from an adjustment of public expenditure within the context of reasonably stable asset prices. Not surprisingly, the frequency of financial crises, associated with the bursting of these bubbles, has increased greatly after 1973. The current crisis underscores the need for a new stimulus. Till now, governments have only injected liquidity into the system for stemming the crisis. They initially planned to do so by purchasing “toxic” securities, but eventually had to inject liquidity against equity, through part-nationalisation of financial institutions.
But such injection is not enough. Credit does not start flowing simply because banks can access more liquidity; there has to be adequate demand for credit for viable projects by solvent borrowers. This is absent. Since the injection of liquidity does not improve the solvency of firms saddled with “toxic” securities, the risk associated with lending to them remains prohibitively high. Besides, the anticipation of a recession makes borrowers chary of borrowing and lenders chary of lending.
This anticipation derives from several factors. The bursting of one bubble is not necessarily succeeded by the immediate formation of another. Moreover, the very scale of the current financial crisis gives rise to an anticipation of a prolonged recession. Finally, since the recession has already started, the prospects of crisis-prevention now through the usual monetary instruments (including liquidity injection) appear distinctly dim. The mutually reinforcing tendencies, of increased liquidity preference on the part of private individuals and institutions, and of the real economy sliding downwards, have already started, and will continue, unless governments now act to inject demand into the economy directly.
The third world countries will not escape the effects of this crisis. Many of them whose financial systems are still not sufficiently “opened up” will escape the direct impact of the world financial crisis, but they certainly will have to face the impact of the recession of the real economy. Their export earnings, both merchandise and invisibles, will be hit, causing unemployment and output contraction on the one hand, and foreign exchange crisis, exchange rate depreciation and accentuated inflation on the other. (The latter will be aggravated by the outflow of speculative capital that had come in earlier to the “newly emerging markets” under the aegis of Foreign Institutional Investors).
Two areas are of special concern here. One is the inevitable decline in the terms of trade for primary commodities that will occur in a recession, which will push cash-crop growing peasants into even greater distress. The other is the loss of food security over much of the third world that will inevitably occur.
The loss of food security will occur for several reasons: first, the loss of foreign exchange earnings owing to the decline in exports and in the terms of trade will cause a decline in foodgrain availability in food-importing countries. Secondly, even if food availability is somehow maintained, the decline in the incomes of exporting peasants, small producers and the unemployed will mean inadequate purchasing power in their hands to buy necessary food. And thirdly, if the terms of trade of non-food primary commodities decline relative to food, as has been happening, then both the above problems will be greatly aggravated.
There is a tragic irony here. The booms fed by asset price bubbles not only did not benefit the large mass of peasants, petty producers, agricultural labourers, craftsmen, and industrial workers in the third world, but were actually accompanied by an absolute deterioration in their living standards. This happened not despite the boom but because of it. With the interlinking of global financial markets, asset price booms in the U.S. tended to produce stock market booms, and more generally financial sector booms, even in third world countries, where banks and other financial institutions withdrew from productive sector lending to speculative lending, from rural lending to urban lending, and from agriculture and small-scale sector lending to consumer credit to the affluent, and loans against securities. This damaged the productive base of the peasant and small-scale sector. Secondly, the changed role of the state in the new dispensation where it was more concerned with supporting the financial sector boom than with sustaining peasant and petty production, entailed a withdrawal of state support from the latter sector: input subsidies, the price support system, essential public investment, and state spending on rural infrastructure and on social sectors were all drastically curtailed, to the detriment of the entire small producer economy.
Between 1980-85 and 2000-05 the per capita cereal output in the world declined absolutely by 8 per cent, which also meant an absolute decline in per capita world cereal consumption. But since, taking both direct and indirect consumption into account, the advanced countries witnessed an increase, the decline was particularly sharp in the third world. Even China and India which experienced remarkably high GDP growth rates, did not escape this trend.
Paradoxically, this decline was not accompanied by any rise in relative cereal prices. In fact between these two years the terms of trade of cereals vis-À-vis manufacturing in the world economy declined by nearly 40 per cent, which suggests that the squeeze on the purchasing power of the masses in the third world was even greater. The other side of the speculative boom therefore was a drastic squeeze on the living standards of the masses, especially in the third world (which is why describing the U.S. as the “locomotive” of the world economy is so inapposite: this locomotive while pulling some coaches, pushed back some others). But even though the third world masses suffered from the effects of the speculative boom, they would also suffer additionally from the effects of its collapse.
The need of the hour is the injection of demand through direct fiscal action by governments across the world. For activating governments for this, two conditions have to be satisfied. The first is control over cross-border financial flows, for otherwise governments will continue to remain prisoners to the caprices of globally-mobile speculative finance capital. The second is the setting up of an international financial facility, operated on principles different from the Bretton Woods Institutions, which not only makes concessional finance available to developing economies, but also enables them to substitute long-term loans for their current short-term borrowing.
The general objective of larger government spending must be the reversal of the squeeze on the living standards of the people everywhere. In India, China and other third world countries, however, in addition to welfare state measures, larger government expenditure has to be oriented towards a substantial increase in agricultural, especially foodgrains, output.
In short, the new paradigm must entail inter alia a foodgrain-led growth strategy (on the basis of peasant, not corporate, agriculture), sustained through larger government spending, which simultaneously rids the world of both depression and financial and food crises. The trade and financial arrangements of the world economy have to be oriented towards achieving this end.
(Based on a presentation by Professor Patnaik at the United Nations General Assembly on October 30 as a member of the Interactive Panel of the UNGA on the Global Financial Crisis.)
The need of the hour is the injection of demand through direct fiscal action by governments across the world.
The current world economic crisis is perceived almost exclusively as a sequel to the collapse of the housing bubble in the United States. This certainly has been its immediate provocation, but an important structural factor underlying it must not be overlooked: the stimulus for booms in contemporary capitalism has come increasingly from such bubbles. The U.S. whose size and strength make it, in the current regime of trade liberalisation, the main determinant of the pace of expansion of the world economy, has increasingly come to rely on such bubbles to initiate and sustain booms.
John Maynard Keynes, writing during the Great Depression, had suggested an alternative stimulus, namely, a comprehensive “socialisation” of investment, whereby the state acting on behalf of society always ensured a level of investment in the economy, and hence a level of aggregate demand, that was adequate for full employment. This entailed not only a jettisoning of the free market system in favour of state intervention, but also restraints on the free global mobility of finance, since meaningful state intervention could not be undertaken if the nation-state faced internationally-mobile capital. “Let finance be primarily national,” he had said.
The Keynesian stimulus was adopted in the post-war period, during what has been called the “Golden Age of Capitalism.” But the process of globalisation, involving above all the globalisation of finance, which began during the period of Keynesian demand management itself, put an end to that stimulus, and removed a host of regulatory measures that characterised the Keynesian regime. Boosts to aggregate demand now come increasingly from the stimulation of private expenditure, associated with the creation of bubbles in asset prices, rather than from an adjustment of public expenditure within the context of reasonably stable asset prices. Not surprisingly, the frequency of financial crises, associated with the bursting of these bubbles, has increased greatly after 1973. The current crisis underscores the need for a new stimulus. Till now, governments have only injected liquidity into the system for stemming the crisis. They initially planned to do so by purchasing “toxic” securities, but eventually had to inject liquidity against equity, through part-nationalisation of financial institutions.
But such injection is not enough. Credit does not start flowing simply because banks can access more liquidity; there has to be adequate demand for credit for viable projects by solvent borrowers. This is absent. Since the injection of liquidity does not improve the solvency of firms saddled with “toxic” securities, the risk associated with lending to them remains prohibitively high. Besides, the anticipation of a recession makes borrowers chary of borrowing and lenders chary of lending.
This anticipation derives from several factors. The bursting of one bubble is not necessarily succeeded by the immediate formation of another. Moreover, the very scale of the current financial crisis gives rise to an anticipation of a prolonged recession. Finally, since the recession has already started, the prospects of crisis-prevention now through the usual monetary instruments (including liquidity injection) appear distinctly dim. The mutually reinforcing tendencies, of increased liquidity preference on the part of private individuals and institutions, and of the real economy sliding downwards, have already started, and will continue, unless governments now act to inject demand into the economy directly.
The third world countries will not escape the effects of this crisis. Many of them whose financial systems are still not sufficiently “opened up” will escape the direct impact of the world financial crisis, but they certainly will have to face the impact of the recession of the real economy. Their export earnings, both merchandise and invisibles, will be hit, causing unemployment and output contraction on the one hand, and foreign exchange crisis, exchange rate depreciation and accentuated inflation on the other. (The latter will be aggravated by the outflow of speculative capital that had come in earlier to the “newly emerging markets” under the aegis of Foreign Institutional Investors).
Two areas are of special concern here. One is the inevitable decline in the terms of trade for primary commodities that will occur in a recession, which will push cash-crop growing peasants into even greater distress. The other is the loss of food security over much of the third world that will inevitably occur.
The loss of food security will occur for several reasons: first, the loss of foreign exchange earnings owing to the decline in exports and in the terms of trade will cause a decline in foodgrain availability in food-importing countries. Secondly, even if food availability is somehow maintained, the decline in the incomes of exporting peasants, small producers and the unemployed will mean inadequate purchasing power in their hands to buy necessary food. And thirdly, if the terms of trade of non-food primary commodities decline relative to food, as has been happening, then both the above problems will be greatly aggravated.
There is a tragic irony here. The booms fed by asset price bubbles not only did not benefit the large mass of peasants, petty producers, agricultural labourers, craftsmen, and industrial workers in the third world, but were actually accompanied by an absolute deterioration in their living standards. This happened not despite the boom but because of it. With the interlinking of global financial markets, asset price booms in the U.S. tended to produce stock market booms, and more generally financial sector booms, even in third world countries, where banks and other financial institutions withdrew from productive sector lending to speculative lending, from rural lending to urban lending, and from agriculture and small-scale sector lending to consumer credit to the affluent, and loans against securities. This damaged the productive base of the peasant and small-scale sector. Secondly, the changed role of the state in the new dispensation where it was more concerned with supporting the financial sector boom than with sustaining peasant and petty production, entailed a withdrawal of state support from the latter sector: input subsidies, the price support system, essential public investment, and state spending on rural infrastructure and on social sectors were all drastically curtailed, to the detriment of the entire small producer economy.
Between 1980-85 and 2000-05 the per capita cereal output in the world declined absolutely by 8 per cent, which also meant an absolute decline in per capita world cereal consumption. But since, taking both direct and indirect consumption into account, the advanced countries witnessed an increase, the decline was particularly sharp in the third world. Even China and India which experienced remarkably high GDP growth rates, did not escape this trend.
Paradoxically, this decline was not accompanied by any rise in relative cereal prices. In fact between these two years the terms of trade of cereals vis-À-vis manufacturing in the world economy declined by nearly 40 per cent, which suggests that the squeeze on the purchasing power of the masses in the third world was even greater. The other side of the speculative boom therefore was a drastic squeeze on the living standards of the masses, especially in the third world (which is why describing the U.S. as the “locomotive” of the world economy is so inapposite: this locomotive while pulling some coaches, pushed back some others). But even though the third world masses suffered from the effects of the speculative boom, they would also suffer additionally from the effects of its collapse.
The need of the hour is the injection of demand through direct fiscal action by governments across the world. For activating governments for this, two conditions have to be satisfied. The first is control over cross-border financial flows, for otherwise governments will continue to remain prisoners to the caprices of globally-mobile speculative finance capital. The second is the setting up of an international financial facility, operated on principles different from the Bretton Woods Institutions, which not only makes concessional finance available to developing economies, but also enables them to substitute long-term loans for their current short-term borrowing.
The general objective of larger government spending must be the reversal of the squeeze on the living standards of the people everywhere. In India, China and other third world countries, however, in addition to welfare state measures, larger government expenditure has to be oriented towards a substantial increase in agricultural, especially foodgrains, output.
In short, the new paradigm must entail inter alia a foodgrain-led growth strategy (on the basis of peasant, not corporate, agriculture), sustained through larger government spending, which simultaneously rids the world of both depression and financial and food crises. The trade and financial arrangements of the world economy have to be oriented towards achieving this end.
(Based on a presentation by Professor Patnaik at the United Nations General Assembly on October 30 as a member of the Interactive Panel of the UNGA on the Global Financial Crisis.)
India - To be No.1 in population by 2050
Gargi Parsai
NEW DELHI: India is projected to be the most populous country by 2050, overtaking China, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said in a report released on Wednesday.
Its population, now 118.6 crore, is projected to be 165.8 crore in 2050 as against 140.8 crore projected for China.
India’s population growth rate is projected at 1.5 per cent during 2005-10 compared to 0.6 per cent for China.
India’s current fertility rate is 2.78 compared to 1.73 in China.
Pakistan’s population of 16.7 crore will become 29.2 crore in 2050.
Sri Lanka would witness a negative growth, from 1.94 crore to 1.87 crore.
The ‘State of World Population Report, 2008’ report, released here by Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed, says the world population will increase from 674.9 crore to 919.1 crore by 2050.
The theme of the report is ‘Reaching Common Ground: Culture, Gender and Human Rights.’
NEW DELHI: India is projected to be the most populous country by 2050, overtaking China, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said in a report released on Wednesday.
Its population, now 118.6 crore, is projected to be 165.8 crore in 2050 as against 140.8 crore projected for China.
India’s population growth rate is projected at 1.5 per cent during 2005-10 compared to 0.6 per cent for China.
India’s current fertility rate is 2.78 compared to 1.73 in China.
Pakistan’s population of 16.7 crore will become 29.2 crore in 2050.
Sri Lanka would witness a negative growth, from 1.94 crore to 1.87 crore.
The ‘State of World Population Report, 2008’ report, released here by Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed, says the world population will increase from 674.9 crore to 919.1 crore by 2050.
The theme of the report is ‘Reaching Common Ground: Culture, Gender and Human Rights.’
Personality - Prince Charles;Turns 60
LONDON: Talk about an apprentice. By the time he turns 60 on Friday, Prince Charles will have spent 56 years waiting to become king.
That has put him in quite a bind. The longest-waiting heir in British history only ascends to the throne when his beloved mother dies or decides to step down.
Queen Elizabeth II was hosting a birthday party for her son on Thursday at Buckingham Palace.
The Philharmonia Orchestra, of which the prince is patron, is due to play for invited members of the extended royal family and assorted society figures. Charles’ wife Camilla was throwing a more private bash on Saturday at Charles’ rural estate, complete with a performance by rocker Rod Stewart.
But the queen will not be giving Charles the present many believe he craves most — the crown. She has indicated informally that she plans to keep the job for life and some people think the 82-year-old monarch intends to live forever, or at least as long as her mother, who died at 101.
“It can’t be easy,” said historian Andrew Roberts. “Most of us can look forward to our new jobs, but the circumstances under which her reign comes to an end means that he can’t, emotionally and psychologically.”
If the queen remains in good health, Charles may be nearing 80 — or past it — when he fulfils the unique destiny that was his at birth.
But shed no tears for old Charles and his predicament. He has made being Prince of Wales a pretty good thing.
Experts, associates and friends say he realised decades ago that he would make his mark as Prince of Wales rather than as an octogenarian king, and so decided to expand that undefined role and use it to pursue causes dear to his heart.
Mr. Roberts said Charles has transformed the traditionally weak role of Prince of Wales — which the historian compared to the vice-presidency of the United States — by using it as a bully pulpit.
“He’s made a real job of it,” Mr. Roberts said. “He’s spoken out on what matters most to him, championing organic food over genetically modified crops, backing architecture that is human in scale, pursuing better relations between the Islamic world and other faiths, and starting the Prince’s Trust, which has helped many young people in trouble.”
The princely role offers a few advantages over being monarch. Some say the money is better, because the Prince of Wales controls the lucrative Duchy of Cornwall, the 55,000-hectare estate established in 1337 by King Edward II to provide income for his heir. Official accounts show the prince’s property and investments brought in £16 million last year.
And a prince is much more able to speak his mind than a king or queen because of constitutional restraints placed on the person heading the House of Windsor.
Patrick Jephson, former private secretary to Princess Diana, said Charles’ income from the Duchy of Cornwall allows him to spend a “colossal” amount of money building his empire and pursuing his interests and causes. “In effect, he is king now in his own kingdom,” he said.
“He has all the trappings and enjoys all the perks and one might argue none of the responsibility. This takes some of the sting out of having to wait. You can say it’s awful because your promotion depends on your mother’s death, but we’ve all had parents die and not benefited so spectacularly from it.”
Mr. Jephson finds Charles arrogant in many ways. But he has some sympathy for the aging prince. “He is trapped between an immovable object, his mother, and the ever rising profile of his photogenic and sexy children,” he said. “That’s all the more reason to feather your nest while you can and enjoy being master of all you survey.”
There is no doubt that Charles is less popular than the queen, who commands wide respect throughout Britain for her unswerving devotion to duty for more than half a century. She became queen on the death of her father George VI in 1952. Charles, the eldest of her four children, was not yet four.
Charles’ detractors see him as a slightly potty eccentric who talks to his plants and is so committed to environmental causes that he converted his Aston Martin to run on surplus wine.
Some still fault him for the spectacular flameout of his marriage to Princess Diana and his not-too-carefully-concealed extramarital affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, now his second wife.
His image has been hurt by unauthorised leaks about his gilded lifestyle, including reports that one of his aides squeezes his toothpaste onto his toothbrush for him.
This negative view has led a boomlet of support for the idea that Charles should forgo the chance to become king at an elderly age and instead pass the crown to Prince William, his dashing eldest son.
But that idea will never fly, said Vernon Bogdanor, a Professor of government at Oxford University who has written extensively on constitutional matters. “That’s not possible without legislation in Britain and 15 other Commonwealth monarchies,” he said. “The monarchy is not seen as something you can choose to accept or not.”
Prof. Bogdanor concedes that Charles’ reputation was at a low point after his disastrous divorce from Diana, and polls show he remains less popular than the queen. The Daily Mirror summed up many Britons’ feelings on Thursday in an editorial. “Happy birthday, Charles,” it said, “but long may the queen reign over us.” — AP
That has put him in quite a bind. The longest-waiting heir in British history only ascends to the throne when his beloved mother dies or decides to step down.
Queen Elizabeth II was hosting a birthday party for her son on Thursday at Buckingham Palace.
The Philharmonia Orchestra, of which the prince is patron, is due to play for invited members of the extended royal family and assorted society figures. Charles’ wife Camilla was throwing a more private bash on Saturday at Charles’ rural estate, complete with a performance by rocker Rod Stewart.
But the queen will not be giving Charles the present many believe he craves most — the crown. She has indicated informally that she plans to keep the job for life and some people think the 82-year-old monarch intends to live forever, or at least as long as her mother, who died at 101.
“It can’t be easy,” said historian Andrew Roberts. “Most of us can look forward to our new jobs, but the circumstances under which her reign comes to an end means that he can’t, emotionally and psychologically.”
If the queen remains in good health, Charles may be nearing 80 — or past it — when he fulfils the unique destiny that was his at birth.
But shed no tears for old Charles and his predicament. He has made being Prince of Wales a pretty good thing.
Experts, associates and friends say he realised decades ago that he would make his mark as Prince of Wales rather than as an octogenarian king, and so decided to expand that undefined role and use it to pursue causes dear to his heart.
Mr. Roberts said Charles has transformed the traditionally weak role of Prince of Wales — which the historian compared to the vice-presidency of the United States — by using it as a bully pulpit.
“He’s made a real job of it,” Mr. Roberts said. “He’s spoken out on what matters most to him, championing organic food over genetically modified crops, backing architecture that is human in scale, pursuing better relations between the Islamic world and other faiths, and starting the Prince’s Trust, which has helped many young people in trouble.”
The princely role offers a few advantages over being monarch. Some say the money is better, because the Prince of Wales controls the lucrative Duchy of Cornwall, the 55,000-hectare estate established in 1337 by King Edward II to provide income for his heir. Official accounts show the prince’s property and investments brought in £16 million last year.
And a prince is much more able to speak his mind than a king or queen because of constitutional restraints placed on the person heading the House of Windsor.
Patrick Jephson, former private secretary to Princess Diana, said Charles’ income from the Duchy of Cornwall allows him to spend a “colossal” amount of money building his empire and pursuing his interests and causes. “In effect, he is king now in his own kingdom,” he said.
“He has all the trappings and enjoys all the perks and one might argue none of the responsibility. This takes some of the sting out of having to wait. You can say it’s awful because your promotion depends on your mother’s death, but we’ve all had parents die and not benefited so spectacularly from it.”
Mr. Jephson finds Charles arrogant in many ways. But he has some sympathy for the aging prince. “He is trapped between an immovable object, his mother, and the ever rising profile of his photogenic and sexy children,” he said. “That’s all the more reason to feather your nest while you can and enjoy being master of all you survey.”
There is no doubt that Charles is less popular than the queen, who commands wide respect throughout Britain for her unswerving devotion to duty for more than half a century. She became queen on the death of her father George VI in 1952. Charles, the eldest of her four children, was not yet four.
Charles’ detractors see him as a slightly potty eccentric who talks to his plants and is so committed to environmental causes that he converted his Aston Martin to run on surplus wine.
Some still fault him for the spectacular flameout of his marriage to Princess Diana and his not-too-carefully-concealed extramarital affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, now his second wife.
His image has been hurt by unauthorised leaks about his gilded lifestyle, including reports that one of his aides squeezes his toothpaste onto his toothbrush for him.
This negative view has led a boomlet of support for the idea that Charles should forgo the chance to become king at an elderly age and instead pass the crown to Prince William, his dashing eldest son.
But that idea will never fly, said Vernon Bogdanor, a Professor of government at Oxford University who has written extensively on constitutional matters. “That’s not possible without legislation in Britain and 15 other Commonwealth monarchies,” he said. “The monarchy is not seen as something you can choose to accept or not.”
Prof. Bogdanor concedes that Charles’ reputation was at a low point after his disastrous divorce from Diana, and polls show he remains less popular than the queen. The Daily Mirror summed up many Britons’ feelings on Thursday in an editorial. “Happy birthday, Charles,” it said, “but long may the queen reign over us.” — AP
Business - Unlicensed stories reel in Net readers
SAN FRANCISCO: Here is a reason for newspapers and magazines to wince: On average, the audience perusing unauthorised online copies of their articles is nearly 2.5 times larger than the readership on their own websites, according to a study being released on Thursday.
However, the problem, flagged by copyright cop Attributor Corporation, could turn into a golden opportunity if media companies figure out a way to mine advertising revenue from the traffic flocking to their pirated stories posted on blogs and other sites.
Attributor, which makes software that searches the Internet for copyright violations, estimates the average Web publisher could collect more than $150,000 in revenue by selling ads alongside its unlicensed material.
It is an unscientific estimate, based on an assumption that advertisers would pay $1 for every 1,000 pages of unauthorised material viewed on websites that are not owned by the copyright owners.
If anything, Attributor believes its calculations understate the opportunity. The California-based company is working with a few media companies that could generate more than $1 million in annual advertising by enforcing their online copyrights, said Rich Pearson, Attributor’s vice president of marketing.
There is a whiff of self-interest in Attributor’s findings. The privately held company stands to profit if it can persuade potential customers that the Internet is riddled with copyright abuses that could translate into more revenue if the poachers are identified. Attributor’s current customers include The Associated Press, Reuters and The Financial Times.
In the most extreme cases, the copyright backlash has triggered bitter legal battles like the one that culminated in the demise of the music sharing service Napster. In a showdown still unfolding, Viacom is suing Internet search leader Google for alleged copyright infringement on its video-sharing site, YouTube.
The worst copyright headaches diagnosed in Attributor’s study occurred in stories about automobiles, travel and movie reviews. The readership of unlicensed stories in those three categories was four to seven times higher than on the websites where the content originated.
Attributor’s study reviewed 30 billion Web pages hosting copies of stories from more than 100 major websites.. — AP
However, the problem, flagged by copyright cop Attributor Corporation, could turn into a golden opportunity if media companies figure out a way to mine advertising revenue from the traffic flocking to their pirated stories posted on blogs and other sites.
Attributor, which makes software that searches the Internet for copyright violations, estimates the average Web publisher could collect more than $150,000 in revenue by selling ads alongside its unlicensed material.
It is an unscientific estimate, based on an assumption that advertisers would pay $1 for every 1,000 pages of unauthorised material viewed on websites that are not owned by the copyright owners.
If anything, Attributor believes its calculations understate the opportunity. The California-based company is working with a few media companies that could generate more than $1 million in annual advertising by enforcing their online copyrights, said Rich Pearson, Attributor’s vice president of marketing.
There is a whiff of self-interest in Attributor’s findings. The privately held company stands to profit if it can persuade potential customers that the Internet is riddled with copyright abuses that could translate into more revenue if the poachers are identified. Attributor’s current customers include The Associated Press, Reuters and The Financial Times.
In the most extreme cases, the copyright backlash has triggered bitter legal battles like the one that culminated in the demise of the music sharing service Napster. In a showdown still unfolding, Viacom is suing Internet search leader Google for alleged copyright infringement on its video-sharing site, YouTube.
The worst copyright headaches diagnosed in Attributor’s study occurred in stories about automobiles, travel and movie reviews. The readership of unlicensed stories in those three categories was four to seven times higher than on the websites where the content originated.
Attributor’s study reviewed 30 billion Web pages hosting copies of stories from more than 100 major websites.. — AP
Lifestyle - India;Arjun Rampal's angels
Shubha Shetty Saha
On Children’s day, Arjun Rampal talks to Shubha Shetty-Saha about the two ‘miracles’ of his life —daughters Mahikaa and Myra
Mahikaa (6) and Myra (3) obviously have two totally different personalities — while Mahikaa is more subdued and graceful, Myra is vivacious and naughty. Doting papa Arjun says, “That’s the nicest part. Both have their own personalities. They are similar in many ways but are completely individualistic. They have strong tastes…”
It is also obvious that papa spoils the daughters. Arjun says sheepishly, “Yeah, I spoil them rotten perhaps because of the kind of schedule I have…”
Though as celebrity parents, Arjun and wife Mehr (Jessia) did find it a little difficult to give them a normal life, Arjun says that they try and be as normal at home.
“Mahikaa did ask us a lot of questions earlier. At one point of time, my hair was longer than Mehr’s and Mahikaa asked me why I have long hair when all her friends’ parents have short hair? But otherwise they have adapted very well to our professions and lifestyle.”
Arjun says his daughters’ arrival has totally changed his life. “I look at them as these little miracles, gifts from God. After their arrival, we have become more selfless. It’s amazing how you can feel unconditional love for someone. It is a very spiritual experience. Once you get children, you realise what your parents must be feeling for you and your equation with your parents also changes for the better,” he says.
There is something about his own childhood that Arjun wants to instill in his children’s lives.
“I feel very upset that today’s children don’t have much of outdoor activities. I make it a point to take them outdoors and encourage them to take part in different kind of sports.
Sport was an integral part of my childhood and that was the most fun part. It taught me how to be competitive and also how to lose gracefully. That’s one thing I try to teach my children — be competitive but know where to draw the line,” he says.
Arjun tries to spend a lot of time with the girls, “You can never have enough time with your kids. But at the same time I believe that we should not spend too much time with them. You should just let them be,” he says.
Arjun and Mehr are, like most other parents, careful about how they behave in front of their daughters. Arjun says, “Children are like sponges. They are watching you all the time. Sometimes you see them behaving in a particular manner, and suddenly you think, wow, I need to change that about myself!” he says with a smile.
There is something else that the couple is most particular about. “I think the worst thing to do is put fear in a child. I never stop them when they are attempting to jump from somewhere or are trying out something new. Even if they get hurt, they will learn it the hard way and will know next time how to do it better. That makes them independent…”
But right now, the girls have made a driver out of Arjun forcing him to take them on a ride on their flashy red bike!
Business - India;VCs eye mobile advertisement firms
K Rajani Kanth
With the country’s mobile operators adding close to 9-10 million subscribers every month, venture capital firms are exploring the mobile advertising space for investment opportunities.
“Mobile advertising companies today operate as mobile versions of advertising agencies. This trend will continue until the introduction of relevant mobile applications that drive huge traffic and stickiness. Once the market has killer mobile applications, mobile advertising network will truly be able to provide an optimised service to their end clients. There is an opportunity for this for sure,” says Gautam Patel, a partner with US-based Battery Ventures, which has $3-billion capital under management in eight funds.
Another US-based VC fund which sees good investment potential in mobile advertising is Clearstone Venture Partners. Clearstone began as a vehicle for investing in opportunities created by the maturation of the Internet and has $650 million of committed capital for investment. It has been investing in India since 2006 and focuses on sectors like telecom, financial services, gaming, media and entertainment and business and consumer services.
“We are yet to invest in this space though we have been in talks with a couple of interesting companies. We are typically comfortable investing up to $10 million in a company over its lifetime with an initial investment of under $5 million. Our return on investment (ROI) expectations are commensurate with our stage of investment and we are typically targeting a return of greater than 25 per cent,” says Rajan Mehta, venture partner at Clearstone.
The telecom carriers have pursued the spam SMS channel in the last few years with not much success. This has created numbness in the user’s mind towards SMS spam. Battery Ventures feels that there is an opportunity in permissive or contextual marketing via mobile mainly through SMS.
“If you compare direct marketing data in more developed markets and India, it shows the market is hugely underserved in direct marketing. However, permission or context-based direct marketing will effectively monetise this opportunity. We are actively looking at direct marketing businesses that are using the mobile channels and are planning to make a couple of investments in this space in the next one year,” Patel adds. Battery Ventures’ investments typically range from $5,00,000 to $50 million.
Direct marketing in the US against the total marketing spend is 50:50, whereas in India it is only 10 per cent of the total marketing spend. If the Indian ad spend is $4 billion, print and TV take a lion’s share of 70 per cent. However, Internet and mobile ad spends will be two of the fastest growing categories in the next few years, he feels.
The exciting growth story of mobile advertising — though a Rs 40-crore market in India now, it is expected to reach Rs 500 crore by 2012 — doesn’t end here as even digital marketing companies are gearing up to plunge into this arena.
For instance, Ybrant Digital, an over $25-million Hyderabad-based online marketing company, is looking at acquiring a content-based mobile advertising firm in the US for $100 million. The company is close to signing a letter of intent and expects to seal the deal sometime this fiscal. The zero-debt company would fund the buyout through a combination of debt and equity for which it is currently working out modalities.
“Advertisers, after targeting TV and personal computers, are now gearing up to reach out to their target audience on the third screen — mobile — as it brings together internet, video, text, gaming, music and more. The key lies in publishers creating ‘media on mobile’ based on SMS and permission from the subscribers. We believe the biggest digital marketing in India and China is in mobile marketing,” says Suresh Reddy, chairman of Ybrant Digital.
With the country’s mobile operators adding close to 9-10 million subscribers every month, venture capital firms are exploring the mobile advertising space for investment opportunities.
“Mobile advertising companies today operate as mobile versions of advertising agencies. This trend will continue until the introduction of relevant mobile applications that drive huge traffic and stickiness. Once the market has killer mobile applications, mobile advertising network will truly be able to provide an optimised service to their end clients. There is an opportunity for this for sure,” says Gautam Patel, a partner with US-based Battery Ventures, which has $3-billion capital under management in eight funds.
Another US-based VC fund which sees good investment potential in mobile advertising is Clearstone Venture Partners. Clearstone began as a vehicle for investing in opportunities created by the maturation of the Internet and has $650 million of committed capital for investment. It has been investing in India since 2006 and focuses on sectors like telecom, financial services, gaming, media and entertainment and business and consumer services.
“We are yet to invest in this space though we have been in talks with a couple of interesting companies. We are typically comfortable investing up to $10 million in a company over its lifetime with an initial investment of under $5 million. Our return on investment (ROI) expectations are commensurate with our stage of investment and we are typically targeting a return of greater than 25 per cent,” says Rajan Mehta, venture partner at Clearstone.
The telecom carriers have pursued the spam SMS channel in the last few years with not much success. This has created numbness in the user’s mind towards SMS spam. Battery Ventures feels that there is an opportunity in permissive or contextual marketing via mobile mainly through SMS.
“If you compare direct marketing data in more developed markets and India, it shows the market is hugely underserved in direct marketing. However, permission or context-based direct marketing will effectively monetise this opportunity. We are actively looking at direct marketing businesses that are using the mobile channels and are planning to make a couple of investments in this space in the next one year,” Patel adds. Battery Ventures’ investments typically range from $5,00,000 to $50 million.
Direct marketing in the US against the total marketing spend is 50:50, whereas in India it is only 10 per cent of the total marketing spend. If the Indian ad spend is $4 billion, print and TV take a lion’s share of 70 per cent. However, Internet and mobile ad spends will be two of the fastest growing categories in the next few years, he feels.
The exciting growth story of mobile advertising — though a Rs 40-crore market in India now, it is expected to reach Rs 500 crore by 2012 — doesn’t end here as even digital marketing companies are gearing up to plunge into this arena.
For instance, Ybrant Digital, an over $25-million Hyderabad-based online marketing company, is looking at acquiring a content-based mobile advertising firm in the US for $100 million. The company is close to signing a letter of intent and expects to seal the deal sometime this fiscal. The zero-debt company would fund the buyout through a combination of debt and equity for which it is currently working out modalities.
“Advertisers, after targeting TV and personal computers, are now gearing up to reach out to their target audience on the third screen — mobile — as it brings together internet, video, text, gaming, music and more. The key lies in publishers creating ‘media on mobile’ based on SMS and permission from the subscribers. We believe the biggest digital marketing in India and China is in mobile marketing,” says Suresh Reddy, chairman of Ybrant Digital.
Business - India;FM radio gung-ho over political ads
Seema Sindhu
Revenue growth expected after EC nod
Advertising agencies handling campaigns for political parties have begun approaching radio channels to formulate their advertising plans, even as the Election Commission (EC) is yet to give its nod to such ads on the medium.
Pallavi Burman, national sales head, Fever FM, says: “There’s still some ambiguity about the approval. If allowed, it will definitely be a win-win for all. The radio industry might get between 2 per cent and 4 per cent of the political parties’ advertising budget.” Abraham Thomas, COO, Red FM 93.5, is more upbeat. “Radio can give very good reach at the local level. I expect 10 per cent of the total political advertising budgets to come to radio for that reason.”
Experts feel that the regional language channels may bag more political advertising to disseminate the message across non-Hindi belts. Tarun Katial, COO, Big 92.7 FM, feels that radio could generate “Rs 30 crore revenue from political advertising during this jumbo political season.” He claims a channel could air 10 to15 political spots a day. Yet others mention the possibility of airing four ads per hour. “The reach of radio across demographics gives it an edge over other media like print and TV. Barack Obama used radio very efficiently in the US elections, so can Indian politicians,” says Katial.
The radio industry has already lobbied with the ministry of Information and Broadcasting and got its go-ahead on political ads. It is now waiting for the EC verdict on political campaigns on radio banned four years ago.
Says Fever’s Burman: “In the past, the ministry raised concerns about political advertising on radio on the pretext that there was a lack of a monitoring mechanism. But if it’s allowed on TV what’s stopping it on radio.”
Ranjan Bargotra, president Crayons, says: “Radio cuts through barriers and has a 99 per cent reach. It will help us to plan segment-specific campaigns — youth, urban, rural, etc. When print is so expensive, radio could give us more value for less.”
Revenue growth expected after EC nod
Advertising agencies handling campaigns for political parties have begun approaching radio channels to formulate their advertising plans, even as the Election Commission (EC) is yet to give its nod to such ads on the medium.
Pallavi Burman, national sales head, Fever FM, says: “There’s still some ambiguity about the approval. If allowed, it will definitely be a win-win for all. The radio industry might get between 2 per cent and 4 per cent of the political parties’ advertising budget.” Abraham Thomas, COO, Red FM 93.5, is more upbeat. “Radio can give very good reach at the local level. I expect 10 per cent of the total political advertising budgets to come to radio for that reason.”
Experts feel that the regional language channels may bag more political advertising to disseminate the message across non-Hindi belts. Tarun Katial, COO, Big 92.7 FM, feels that radio could generate “Rs 30 crore revenue from political advertising during this jumbo political season.” He claims a channel could air 10 to15 political spots a day. Yet others mention the possibility of airing four ads per hour. “The reach of radio across demographics gives it an edge over other media like print and TV. Barack Obama used radio very efficiently in the US elections, so can Indian politicians,” says Katial.
The radio industry has already lobbied with the ministry of Information and Broadcasting and got its go-ahead on political ads. It is now waiting for the EC verdict on political campaigns on radio banned four years ago.
Says Fever’s Burman: “In the past, the ministry raised concerns about political advertising on radio on the pretext that there was a lack of a monitoring mechanism. But if it’s allowed on TV what’s stopping it on radio.”
Ranjan Bargotra, president Crayons, says: “Radio cuts through barriers and has a 99 per cent reach. It will help us to plan segment-specific campaigns — youth, urban, rural, etc. When print is so expensive, radio could give us more value for less.”
Mktg - India;Dostana & In film brands
Abhilash Ojha
A cosmetics company and a travel portal vie for brand recall through Dostana
It’s a Rs 15-crore marketing blitzkrieg. And it shows. After all, Arun Nair, head of marketing at Dharma Productions, director-producer Karan Johar’s film company, has worked hard at branding his latest flick Dostana, starring John Abraham, Priyanka Chopra and Abhishek Bachchan. Releasing today, the film is clearly targeted at a younger audience. While there’s a separate web page on the film on Facebook, its ad on the social networking site is more interactive with audiences getting invited to create their own “gang” of friends and uploading their details and photographs.
“It’s clear that this film doesn’t target the 45-plus age group,” says Nair. The marketing of Dostana started getting planned a year before the release. Approximately 35 per cent of the marketing spend came from co-branding and in-film advertising. MTV, the film’s exclusive music partner, also kicked off its new division Celebrity Content, Acquisitions and Talent along with the release of the film.
Dostana’s in-film branding is clever. Besides weaving the story of Neha, a character in the film played by Priyanka Chopra, as a staff member of a fashion magazine, the story also encompasses the cosmetics brand Maybelline that is promoting Chopra’s look. So much so that there is a special ‘Dostana kit’ which essentially brings together the different makeup tools and colours that Chopra uses in the film. Besides Dostana cosmetics, the film’s outfits (worn by the stars, naturally) will also be available at Pantaloon’s 45 outlets all over India.
Travel portal makemytrip.com is also associated with the film. The film is shot completely in Miami and viewers may have seen the promos of the film on television screens with a makemytrip.com logo. In the promo, actors Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham implore viewers to log on to the website.
The film is being released with 700 prints, a number that Ranjan Singh, head of marketing, PVR Pictures, says, might go up after the first three days. “We are told that most brands have been integrated keeping the storyline of Dostana in mind,” Singh says. He adds that the film is all set to open to packed houses.
A cosmetics company and a travel portal vie for brand recall through Dostana
It’s a Rs 15-crore marketing blitzkrieg. And it shows. After all, Arun Nair, head of marketing at Dharma Productions, director-producer Karan Johar’s film company, has worked hard at branding his latest flick Dostana, starring John Abraham, Priyanka Chopra and Abhishek Bachchan. Releasing today, the film is clearly targeted at a younger audience. While there’s a separate web page on the film on Facebook, its ad on the social networking site is more interactive with audiences getting invited to create their own “gang” of friends and uploading their details and photographs.
“It’s clear that this film doesn’t target the 45-plus age group,” says Nair. The marketing of Dostana started getting planned a year before the release. Approximately 35 per cent of the marketing spend came from co-branding and in-film advertising. MTV, the film’s exclusive music partner, also kicked off its new division Celebrity Content, Acquisitions and Talent along with the release of the film.
Dostana’s in-film branding is clever. Besides weaving the story of Neha, a character in the film played by Priyanka Chopra, as a staff member of a fashion magazine, the story also encompasses the cosmetics brand Maybelline that is promoting Chopra’s look. So much so that there is a special ‘Dostana kit’ which essentially brings together the different makeup tools and colours that Chopra uses in the film. Besides Dostana cosmetics, the film’s outfits (worn by the stars, naturally) will also be available at Pantaloon’s 45 outlets all over India.
Travel portal makemytrip.com is also associated with the film. The film is shot completely in Miami and viewers may have seen the promos of the film on television screens with a makemytrip.com logo. In the promo, actors Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham implore viewers to log on to the website.
The film is being released with 700 prints, a number that Ranjan Singh, head of marketing, PVR Pictures, says, might go up after the first three days. “We are told that most brands have been integrated keeping the storyline of Dostana in mind,” Singh says. He adds that the film is all set to open to packed houses.
World - US;Obama's strict standards for plum jobs
Stephen Collinson
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Anyone who wants one of the dizzying array of jobs in president-elect Barack Obama's administration had better be ready to lay bare their most closely-guarded secrets.
Applicants for government posts must respond to an exhaustive seven-page questionnaire probing deep into hidden corners of their personal and professional lives as well as those of their spouses and grown children.
What may be the most detailed burrowing ever into the background of potential government employees appears to be a bid by Obama's team to avoid personnel scandals that have plagued other presidential transitions.
Aides say the questionnaire, first reported by The New York Times, is in keeping with the president-elect's campaign promise to purge Washington of seamy influence peddling.
Transgressions like tax problems, criminal convictions, business snafus or membership in clubs which bar members due to race or gender could be a problem for potential nominees, if the questionnaire is to be believed.
Internet indiscretions may also bar someone from one of the thousands of jobs in the federal government turning over with the new administration.
"If you have ever sent an electronic communication, including but, not limited to an email, text message or instant message that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the president-elect if it were made public, please describe."
Potential applicants are also asked to detail every speech, newspaper column or blog post they have written and must even provide the URL of any websites in which they feature including Facebook or MySpace.
They must also list every cohabitant for the last 10 years and say whether they have ever owned a gun.
They must also testify that any domestic helpers they have employed were eligible to work in the United States. Several nominees of the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations foundered on such a technicality.
Stephanie Cutter, Obama's transition spokeswoman said the painstaking list of questions gelled with the president-elect's vow to clean up government.
"President-elect Obama made a commitment to change the way Washington does business and the vetting process exemplifies that," she said.
Obama has also published stringent new rules governing the terms under which lobbyists who petition the federal government can work on his transition.
If they are not put off by the stringent personal disclosures required, potential government workers can pore through the "Plum Book," a listing of over 7,000 senior level government jobs released on Wednesday.
Four thousand of the jobs are political appointments, and 1,100 require confirmation by the Senate.
The listings by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee -- of which Obama is a member -- include such top jobs as US Representative to the United Nations and administrator for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The tough posting of US coordinator for Afghanistan is listed as vacant, as Obama insists that the United States must refocus its military strategy on battling Taliban and Al-Qaeda remnants.
But there are also more obscure appointments up for grabs.
Someone is wanted for the post of deputy assistant director for endangered species in the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Over a week after his historic election victory on November 4, Obama stayed out of sight in his hometown of Chicago Thursday, working on putting together his administration before his inauguration on January 20.
The president-elect took his daughters to school in a Secret Service sports utility vehicle before heading off for his regular morning workout, then spent time at his transition headquarters in the city.
Later, he issued a statement resigning his Senate seat effective Sunday. Given his stratospheric rise to the pinnacle of US politics, he served less than one full term for Illinois, after winning the Senate seat in 2004.
"It has been one of the highest honors and privileges of my life to have served the people of Illinois in the United States Senate," Obama said in a statement.
"In a state that represents the crossroads of a nation, I have met so many men and women who've taken different journeys, but hold common hopes for their children's future.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Anyone who wants one of the dizzying array of jobs in president-elect Barack Obama's administration had better be ready to lay bare their most closely-guarded secrets.
Applicants for government posts must respond to an exhaustive seven-page questionnaire probing deep into hidden corners of their personal and professional lives as well as those of their spouses and grown children.
What may be the most detailed burrowing ever into the background of potential government employees appears to be a bid by Obama's team to avoid personnel scandals that have plagued other presidential transitions.
Aides say the questionnaire, first reported by The New York Times, is in keeping with the president-elect's campaign promise to purge Washington of seamy influence peddling.
Transgressions like tax problems, criminal convictions, business snafus or membership in clubs which bar members due to race or gender could be a problem for potential nominees, if the questionnaire is to be believed.
Internet indiscretions may also bar someone from one of the thousands of jobs in the federal government turning over with the new administration.
"If you have ever sent an electronic communication, including but, not limited to an email, text message or instant message that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the president-elect if it were made public, please describe."
Potential applicants are also asked to detail every speech, newspaper column or blog post they have written and must even provide the URL of any websites in which they feature including Facebook or MySpace.
They must also list every cohabitant for the last 10 years and say whether they have ever owned a gun.
They must also testify that any domestic helpers they have employed were eligible to work in the United States. Several nominees of the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations foundered on such a technicality.
Stephanie Cutter, Obama's transition spokeswoman said the painstaking list of questions gelled with the president-elect's vow to clean up government.
"President-elect Obama made a commitment to change the way Washington does business and the vetting process exemplifies that," she said.
Obama has also published stringent new rules governing the terms under which lobbyists who petition the federal government can work on his transition.
If they are not put off by the stringent personal disclosures required, potential government workers can pore through the "Plum Book," a listing of over 7,000 senior level government jobs released on Wednesday.
Four thousand of the jobs are political appointments, and 1,100 require confirmation by the Senate.
The listings by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee -- of which Obama is a member -- include such top jobs as US Representative to the United Nations and administrator for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The tough posting of US coordinator for Afghanistan is listed as vacant, as Obama insists that the United States must refocus its military strategy on battling Taliban and Al-Qaeda remnants.
But there are also more obscure appointments up for grabs.
Someone is wanted for the post of deputy assistant director for endangered species in the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Over a week after his historic election victory on November 4, Obama stayed out of sight in his hometown of Chicago Thursday, working on putting together his administration before his inauguration on January 20.
The president-elect took his daughters to school in a Secret Service sports utility vehicle before heading off for his regular morning workout, then spent time at his transition headquarters in the city.
Later, he issued a statement resigning his Senate seat effective Sunday. Given his stratospheric rise to the pinnacle of US politics, he served less than one full term for Illinois, after winning the Senate seat in 2004.
"It has been one of the highest honors and privileges of my life to have served the people of Illinois in the United States Senate," Obama said in a statement.
"In a state that represents the crossroads of a nation, I have met so many men and women who've taken different journeys, but hold common hopes for their children's future.
Lifestyle - US smoking rate under 20% for first time
Will Dunham
The number of U.S. adults who smoke has dropped below 20 percent for the first time on record but cigarettes still kill almost half a million people a year, health officials said on Thursday.
About 19.8 percent of U.S. adults -- 43.4 million people -- were smokers in 2007. That was a percentage point below the 2006 figure and followed three years of little progress, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report.
Smoking and secondhand smoke kill 443,000 people annually from cancer, lung disease, heart disease and other causes, the CDC said. Half of all long-term smokers, especially those who start as teens, die prematurely, many in middle age.
And smoking burns a large hole in the economy. Including direct health care expenditures ($96 billion) and productivity losses ($97 billion), the economic burden of smoking on the United States hit $193 billion per year, the CDC said.
"Even though we've come a long way, there's a long way to go," said Dr. Matthew McKenna, director of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health.
Smoking became widespread in the United States when soldiers fighting in Europe in World War I were given cigarettes, which by that time were made by machines rather than by hand. After the war, smoking by women also became more accepted socially.
U.S. health officials began systematically tracking smoking rates in the 1960s. When U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued a landmark report on health hazards of smoking in 1964, 42 percent of U.S. adults were smokers. His revelations triggered a long but gradual decline.
Thomas Glynn of the American Cancer Society said the rate was now the lowest since just after World War I.
"We've begun to come full circle on this," Glynn said.
Glynn cited three major recent factors in driving down smoking: smoking bans in public places, higher taxes that drive up prices and more medications to help people quit.
The CDC said smoking still causes at least 30 percent of cancer deaths, including more than 80 percent of lung cancer deaths, as well as 80 percent of deaths from the lung ailment chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The CDC report found that 17 percent of women smoke compared to 22 percent of men. Whites (21 percent) smoked at higher rates than blacks (20 percent) or Hispanics (13 percent). Asian Americans were lowest (10 percent) and American Indians and Alaska natives were highest (36 percent).
Among people who never graduated high school, 25 percent smoked in 2007. Among those with undergraduate degrees, 11 percent smoked, while 6 percent of those with graduate degrees smoked.
"The tobacco industry is very good at creating confusion and misinformation. And the more education people have, the less likely they are to believe some of the myths and misinformation that the industry promulgates," McKenna said.
(Editing by Alan Elsner)
The number of U.S. adults who smoke has dropped below 20 percent for the first time on record but cigarettes still kill almost half a million people a year, health officials said on Thursday.
About 19.8 percent of U.S. adults -- 43.4 million people -- were smokers in 2007. That was a percentage point below the 2006 figure and followed three years of little progress, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report.
Smoking and secondhand smoke kill 443,000 people annually from cancer, lung disease, heart disease and other causes, the CDC said. Half of all long-term smokers, especially those who start as teens, die prematurely, many in middle age.
And smoking burns a large hole in the economy. Including direct health care expenditures ($96 billion) and productivity losses ($97 billion), the economic burden of smoking on the United States hit $193 billion per year, the CDC said.
"Even though we've come a long way, there's a long way to go," said Dr. Matthew McKenna, director of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health.
Smoking became widespread in the United States when soldiers fighting in Europe in World War I were given cigarettes, which by that time were made by machines rather than by hand. After the war, smoking by women also became more accepted socially.
U.S. health officials began systematically tracking smoking rates in the 1960s. When U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued a landmark report on health hazards of smoking in 1964, 42 percent of U.S. adults were smokers. His revelations triggered a long but gradual decline.
Thomas Glynn of the American Cancer Society said the rate was now the lowest since just after World War I.
"We've begun to come full circle on this," Glynn said.
Glynn cited three major recent factors in driving down smoking: smoking bans in public places, higher taxes that drive up prices and more medications to help people quit.
The CDC said smoking still causes at least 30 percent of cancer deaths, including more than 80 percent of lung cancer deaths, as well as 80 percent of deaths from the lung ailment chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The CDC report found that 17 percent of women smoke compared to 22 percent of men. Whites (21 percent) smoked at higher rates than blacks (20 percent) or Hispanics (13 percent). Asian Americans were lowest (10 percent) and American Indians and Alaska natives were highest (36 percent).
Among people who never graduated high school, 25 percent smoked in 2007. Among those with undergraduate degrees, 11 percent smoked, while 6 percent of those with graduate degrees smoked.
"The tobacco industry is very good at creating confusion and misinformation. And the more education people have, the less likely they are to believe some of the myths and misinformation that the industry promulgates," McKenna said.
(Editing by Alan Elsner)
Tech - Frozen Semen Works in Rhinoceros Artificial Insemination
Jeanna Bryner
Senior Writer
LiveScience.com
A female white rhinoceros has successfully given birth to a calf after being artificially inseminated with frozen semen, researchers announced today.
This is the first live birth of a rhinoceros resulting from artificial insemination with frozen and thawed semen, adding the rhino to the list of fewer than 30 animals for which artificial insemination with frozen-thawed semen has resulted in live offspring, the researchers say.
The first live birth of an artificially inseminated rhinoceros occurred in 2007, but that involved fresh semen from a male rhino in the same zoo.
The new feat involved using semen collected from a roughly 36-year-old Southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum), frozen for two to three years and then thawed. Two attempts were made to fertilize the eggs of a 30-year-old female rhinoceros with that thawed semen. The second attempt resulted in the female getting pregnant and giving birth to a healthy calf.
At the time of conception, the female rhino lived at the Budapest Zoo in Hungary, and the male donor resided at Colchester Zoo in the United Kingdom.
The success has implications for conservation of rhinoceroses. While rhinos have existed on Earth for more than 50 million years, comprising an array of species, today only five rhino species survive. And nearly all are on the verge of extinction.
Currently, only 3,100 black, 11,700 white, 2,400 Indian, 300 Sumatran and 60 Javan rhinos live in the wild, with a global captive population of about 1,200 animals, according to the Smithsonian National Zoological
Senior Writer
LiveScience.com
A female white rhinoceros has successfully given birth to a calf after being artificially inseminated with frozen semen, researchers announced today.
This is the first live birth of a rhinoceros resulting from artificial insemination with frozen and thawed semen, adding the rhino to the list of fewer than 30 animals for which artificial insemination with frozen-thawed semen has resulted in live offspring, the researchers say.
The first live birth of an artificially inseminated rhinoceros occurred in 2007, but that involved fresh semen from a male rhino in the same zoo.
The new feat involved using semen collected from a roughly 36-year-old Southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum), frozen for two to three years and then thawed. Two attempts were made to fertilize the eggs of a 30-year-old female rhinoceros with that thawed semen. The second attempt resulted in the female getting pregnant and giving birth to a healthy calf.
At the time of conception, the female rhino lived at the Budapest Zoo in Hungary, and the male donor resided at Colchester Zoo in the United Kingdom.
The success has implications for conservation of rhinoceroses. While rhinos have existed on Earth for more than 50 million years, comprising an array of species, today only five rhino species survive. And nearly all are on the verge of extinction.
Currently, only 3,100 black, 11,700 white, 2,400 Indian, 300 Sumatran and 60 Javan rhinos live in the wild, with a global captive population of about 1,200 animals, according to the Smithsonian National Zoological