T N Ninan / New Delhi December 13, 2008, 0:46 IST
The World Bank’s chief economist has certified that we are going through the “worst recession since the Great Depression”. Global trade is forecast to shrink for the first time in a quarter century. World oil demand, it is said, will “collapse” next year. The only thing one reads or hears about, now that the financial crisis has morphed into a broad and possibly extended recession, are job cuts, falling sales, and companies in desperate straits. You have to look hard for some corner where there is good news.
Actually, it’s staring us in the face. Every macro-economic crisis that has hit India in the last 35 years has been provoked by an oil shock, starting 1973. And, guess what? Oil prices have dropped to less than $40/barrel—the level of four years ago. That saves India next year the extra 3 per cent of GDP that we have paid to the Arabs this year for their oil. In turn, it means our trade deficit will shrink next year. And because the oil companies don’t have to be subsidised any more, it saves the government a pile of cash and cuts the fiscal deficit. As commodity prices recede, inflation too will drop to the Reserve Bank’s comfort zone of 5 per cent in the next few months. In short, the big macro-economic imbalances of this year (a stretched fisc, record trade deficits and the highest inflation in a decade) will belong to the past.
As for this being the worst recession in 70 years, that may be true of the west, not India—at least, not so far. Even if growth this year and the next average no more than 6 per cent (lower than any forecast till date), that compares with four years in the 1997-2002 phase when growth was significantly lower (down to 3.8 per cent in one year) and another stretch of low growth in 1991-94. So India’s problem is not a macro-level crisis of the kind no one has seen in 70 years; however, the news is getting rapidly worse on industrial production and exports, and doubtless this will be reflected in the corporate numbers for the third quarter.
The underpinning that the Indian economy has going for it are high savings and investment levels. The rapid growth of the past five years was the result of a spurt in the rate of capital formation—from 25 per cent of GDP in 2002-03 to an estimated 37.6 per cent so far this year. That will now take a hit—because people who are nervous about their jobs will not invest cash in long-term assets like housing; and companies with wobbly sales graphs will not invest in new capacity. With the “wealth effect” having been killed by the stock market crash and the fall in real estate prices, the watchword will be cautious financial behaviour. The trick is to engineer a return of that ephemeral quality: confidence in the future.
The tools for doing this are the standard stuff for dealing with a downturn: the government should spend more money (which is easier when fiscal pressures on account of oil have eased), and private spending should be encouraged with lower interest rates, which will also push money into equities and facilitate a stock market revival. Troubled sectors need special attention. The important point is that the better macro-economic situation today allows these tools to be deployed more freely. We need to make sure they are; the sharp drops now being reported in tax collections, auto sales and exports (all strong danger signals) and the decline in industrial production and power consumption mean that there is no time to lose.
Dec 13, 2008
Business - India;IndiGo flies past KF to claim 3rd spot
Low-cost carrier IndiGo has landed a double whammy to Kingfisher Airlines. Not only has the airline wrested the third largest position from Kingfisher, it has also replaced Kingfisher Red as the largest LCC.
IndiGo gained a market share of 14.7 per cent, closely followed by Kingfisher Red at 13.3 per cent whereas Kingfisher slipped two notches to the fifth position at 11.6 per cent. Kingfisher stood at No.3 in October, followed by Kingfisher Red and IndiGo at fourth and fifth, respectively.
"We do not comment on market share," said a spokesperson from Kingfisher Airlines. IndiGo's increased market share is a result of a jump in load factors to 73 per cent from 66 per cent in October-November period. Since capacity deployed by both carriers remained constant during the period, IndiGo's increased market share was a result of a shift in load factors, according to industry sources.
Barring Paramount and MDLR — both of which operate only smaller aircraft — IndiGo earned the highest load factor of 73 per cent, while the industry averaged loads of 63.55 per cent this month. This happened at a time when the LCC segment snared a greater part of the market share from the Big Three — Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher.
Domestic traffic declined by a whopping 21 per cent in November compared to the year-ago period. For the 11 months ended November this year, domestic traffic has declined by 3.9 per cent from 39.1 million to 37.6 million. Experts said that if December followed the same trend, domestic traffic for the entire year could see a decline of 4-5 per cent compared to last year. In terms of load factors and market share, LCCs performed better as a result of lower prices. SpiceJet's share increased from 9.5 per cent in October to 10.8 per cent in November, while its load factors jumped from 61 per cent to around 65 per cent.
Among others, JetLite saw a minor decline in market share from 8.1 per cent in October to 7.7 per cent in November.
IndiGo gained a market share of 14.7 per cent, closely followed by Kingfisher Red at 13.3 per cent whereas Kingfisher slipped two notches to the fifth position at 11.6 per cent. Kingfisher stood at No.3 in October, followed by Kingfisher Red and IndiGo at fourth and fifth, respectively.
"We do not comment on market share," said a spokesperson from Kingfisher Airlines. IndiGo's increased market share is a result of a jump in load factors to 73 per cent from 66 per cent in October-November period. Since capacity deployed by both carriers remained constant during the period, IndiGo's increased market share was a result of a shift in load factors, according to industry sources.
Barring Paramount and MDLR — both of which operate only smaller aircraft — IndiGo earned the highest load factor of 73 per cent, while the industry averaged loads of 63.55 per cent this month. This happened at a time when the LCC segment snared a greater part of the market share from the Big Three — Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher.
Domestic traffic declined by a whopping 21 per cent in November compared to the year-ago period. For the 11 months ended November this year, domestic traffic has declined by 3.9 per cent from 39.1 million to 37.6 million. Experts said that if December followed the same trend, domestic traffic for the entire year could see a decline of 4-5 per cent compared to last year. In terms of load factors and market share, LCCs performed better as a result of lower prices. SpiceJet's share increased from 9.5 per cent in October to 10.8 per cent in November, while its load factors jumped from 61 per cent to around 65 per cent.
Among others, JetLite saw a minor decline in market share from 8.1 per cent in October to 7.7 per cent in November.
Business - India;Many car makers plan January price rise
Swaraj Baggonkar
Potential car buyers celebrating price cuts after the government slashed central value added tax four percentage points last week may be in for a jolt.
Car makers said they are planning to raise prices 2 to 3 per cent in January, almost neutralising the December cuts. The move is being considered primarily to improve margins and, in for cars with high import content, to cover the cost of a weakening rupee against the dollar.
Some analysts, however, suggest that car-makers threaten price rises every January in a bid to clear calendar year-end inventory. “There is always a threat from auto companies, usually in January, on a price increase in an attempt by them to clear the inventory. Sometimes, the ploy is never exercised,” said Mahatesh Sabarad, a Mumbai-based analyst with Centrum Broking.
The bid to clear December inventory may have grown urgent given the significant slowdown in sales.
THE PRICE DRIVE
Company Price fall (Rs)
Sales in Nov (%)
Maruti Suzuki 6,500-23,000 -26.90
Hyundai Motors 8,834-44,792 -23.30
Tata Motors 12,000-36000 -12.00
Honda Siel 19,000-31,000 -15.00
Toyota Kirloskar 23,980-121,330 -48.00
SkodaAuto 12,500-51,000 -46.21
Nevertheless, industry estimates that prices of at least 31 models — from compact cars to premium sedans and sports utility vehicles from Maruti Suzuki, Toyota Kirloskar, Honda Siel Cars, General Motors India (GM) and Ford India — will rise. Hyundai Motor India and Czech car maker Skoda Auto did not cite specifics but said they also reconsider their pricing strategy.
“With increasing input costs, it will be difficult to hold current price levels,” said Mayank Pareek, executive officer (marketing and sales), Maruti Suzuki. The company has already raised prices twice this year
Chevrolet, the brand through which troubled US auto giant General Motors operates in India, said it will raise prices Rs 7,000 to Rs 57,000 across models. Most car makers say their decisions are driven by the weaker rupee.
For instance, Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI) plans to raise prices of models like City, Civic, CR-V and Accord significantly. Up to 75 per cent of components for the Accord premium sedan and about 50 per cent for other models are imported.
“There has been an unprecedented fluctuation in the value of the rupee which has forced us to raise prices. We will consider a price hike for car models later on, but at the moment the price of the CRV sports utility vehicle will be raised by Rs 1 lakh in January, said Jnaneswar Sen, senior vice-president (marketing) of Honda Siel.
The weaker rupee is also likely to see prices of Toyota models like the Corolla Altis, Innova, Camry and Prado go up between Rs 20,000 and Rs 30,000.
“Since we are importing our engines and transmission, we have been facing cost pressure. The new Corolla Altis has an import content of about 60 per cent and the Innova about 50 per cent,” said Sandeep Singh, deputy managing director (sales and marketing), Toyota Kirloskar Motors.
Potential car buyers celebrating price cuts after the government slashed central value added tax four percentage points last week may be in for a jolt.
Car makers said they are planning to raise prices 2 to 3 per cent in January, almost neutralising the December cuts. The move is being considered primarily to improve margins and, in for cars with high import content, to cover the cost of a weakening rupee against the dollar.
Some analysts, however, suggest that car-makers threaten price rises every January in a bid to clear calendar year-end inventory. “There is always a threat from auto companies, usually in January, on a price increase in an attempt by them to clear the inventory. Sometimes, the ploy is never exercised,” said Mahatesh Sabarad, a Mumbai-based analyst with Centrum Broking.
The bid to clear December inventory may have grown urgent given the significant slowdown in sales.
THE PRICE DRIVE
Company Price fall (Rs)
Sales in Nov (%)
Maruti Suzuki 6,500-23,000 -26.90
Hyundai Motors 8,834-44,792 -23.30
Tata Motors 12,000-36000 -12.00
Honda Siel 19,000-31,000 -15.00
Toyota Kirloskar 23,980-121,330 -48.00
SkodaAuto 12,500-51,000 -46.21
Nevertheless, industry estimates that prices of at least 31 models — from compact cars to premium sedans and sports utility vehicles from Maruti Suzuki, Toyota Kirloskar, Honda Siel Cars, General Motors India (GM) and Ford India — will rise. Hyundai Motor India and Czech car maker Skoda Auto did not cite specifics but said they also reconsider their pricing strategy.
“With increasing input costs, it will be difficult to hold current price levels,” said Mayank Pareek, executive officer (marketing and sales), Maruti Suzuki. The company has already raised prices twice this year
Chevrolet, the brand through which troubled US auto giant General Motors operates in India, said it will raise prices Rs 7,000 to Rs 57,000 across models. Most car makers say their decisions are driven by the weaker rupee.
For instance, Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI) plans to raise prices of models like City, Civic, CR-V and Accord significantly. Up to 75 per cent of components for the Accord premium sedan and about 50 per cent for other models are imported.
“There has been an unprecedented fluctuation in the value of the rupee which has forced us to raise prices. We will consider a price hike for car models later on, but at the moment the price of the CRV sports utility vehicle will be raised by Rs 1 lakh in January, said Jnaneswar Sen, senior vice-president (marketing) of Honda Siel.
The weaker rupee is also likely to see prices of Toyota models like the Corolla Altis, Innova, Camry and Prado go up between Rs 20,000 and Rs 30,000.
“Since we are importing our engines and transmission, we have been facing cost pressure. The new Corolla Altis has an import content of about 60 per cent and the Innova about 50 per cent,” said Sandeep Singh, deputy managing director (sales and marketing), Toyota Kirloskar Motors.
Business - India;25 winters ago,M-800 was born
Adil Jal Darukhanawala
tiny car, but a towering national presence. Indian motoring history reached its fabled inflexion point on a wintry December morning in 1983 when a Best cars to own and drive |
Rebates being offered
tiny car was rolled out of a factory in Gurgaon. Indian roads have never been the same ever since. With virtually 90% of the world's biggest automobile brands already plying their trade on Indian roads today, Sunday (December 14) marks an important milestone in India's automotive history.
Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of Maruti 800, a car that literally put Indians on an automotive diet, which continues unabated as the first, true-blue , Indian people's car. Call it a cultural icon, a social symbol, or even a national emblem of sorts, the Maruti 800 has remained a mainstay of personal mobility for the masses. Its ownership transcended class and economic barriers, and its story goes way beyond mere numbers.
Speaking of which, time for some quantitative perspective. In its 25-year life, Maruti Udyog has produced 27,36,046 units of the 800, of which exports accounted for 1,92,914 units. What it means is that Maruti rolled out an impressive number of 800s every year - over 100,000 units per year on an average - for which any car maker would be willing donate an arm and a leg.
What is truly impressive about these figures is that the 800 came in at a time when the Indian automotive output stood at close to 40,000 units per annum. Within a year of its launch, the industry nearly doubled and, thereafter, kept at it for a few more years. In certain cases, the market also happened to favour the competition solely because MUL was unable to keep production to match with pent up demand! Rarely has the automotive world seen such a scenario play out, on such a large scale.
In the 25 years that the Maruti 800 has been in production, it has had just two model changes. The very first ran from inception in 1983 till 1997, when the present day car was introduced. The engine capacity has remained the same at 796cc. But, what's amazing is the fact that Maruti and Suzuki offered a single overhead camshaft engine when everybody else had push-rod actuated overhead valves; even newer rivals like Ford, who came in the early 1990s, had archaic technology. Constant technological upgradation of components not only helped masses of car buyers freak out with fuel-efficient, zippy and very reliable Suzukis, the Indian component industry got a massive shot in the arms as MUL's localisation juggernaut rolled along.
While the Hindustan Motors's Ambassador may be older and have the longest production run of any Indian automobile to date, the tiny 800 not only set Best cars to own and drive |
Rebates being offered
Indians on the move, it also spawned a whole new culture. At the time of its advent, the 800 commanded a premium twice that of its list price. It came with a top-end luxury model with full leather interiors and it was not out of place to see chauffeur-manned 800s driving "sahibs to work".
From a human psychological perspective, it suddenly made 800 buyers as owners of their own destinies - an option which they could never exercise with the three-pointed star, given its unobtanium pricing then. For Maruti and Suzuki, it laid the foundation of a giant in the Indian automotive sphere, the tiny 800 spurring on no less than 12 distinctly different models in the last quarter century.
So, today if you revel in the joys of a SX4 with tyre-shredding performance or indulge in the cut-and-dash of city traffic in a Swift, or you want to experience small car motoring updated to 2009 norms with an A-Star , you know that it all began with a small tiny hatchback in 1983. Should you like to revisit it, the 800 is yet on sale to this day, technically updated as per legislation and as relevant today as it was in a December 25 winters ago.
The writer is editor-in-chief – Times Zigwheels
tiny car, but a towering national presence. Indian motoring history reached its fabled inflexion point on a wintry December morning in 1983 when a Best cars to own and drive |
Rebates being offered
tiny car was rolled out of a factory in Gurgaon. Indian roads have never been the same ever since. With virtually 90% of the world's biggest automobile brands already plying their trade on Indian roads today, Sunday (December 14) marks an important milestone in India's automotive history.
Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of Maruti 800, a car that literally put Indians on an automotive diet, which continues unabated as the first, true-blue , Indian people's car. Call it a cultural icon, a social symbol, or even a national emblem of sorts, the Maruti 800 has remained a mainstay of personal mobility for the masses. Its ownership transcended class and economic barriers, and its story goes way beyond mere numbers.
Speaking of which, time for some quantitative perspective. In its 25-year life, Maruti Udyog has produced 27,36,046 units of the 800, of which exports accounted for 1,92,914 units. What it means is that Maruti rolled out an impressive number of 800s every year - over 100,000 units per year on an average - for which any car maker would be willing donate an arm and a leg.
What is truly impressive about these figures is that the 800 came in at a time when the Indian automotive output stood at close to 40,000 units per annum. Within a year of its launch, the industry nearly doubled and, thereafter, kept at it for a few more years. In certain cases, the market also happened to favour the competition solely because MUL was unable to keep production to match with pent up demand! Rarely has the automotive world seen such a scenario play out, on such a large scale.
In the 25 years that the Maruti 800 has been in production, it has had just two model changes. The very first ran from inception in 1983 till 1997, when the present day car was introduced. The engine capacity has remained the same at 796cc. But, what's amazing is the fact that Maruti and Suzuki offered a single overhead camshaft engine when everybody else had push-rod actuated overhead valves; even newer rivals like Ford, who came in the early 1990s, had archaic technology. Constant technological upgradation of components not only helped masses of car buyers freak out with fuel-efficient, zippy and very reliable Suzukis, the Indian component industry got a massive shot in the arms as MUL's localisation juggernaut rolled along.
While the Hindustan Motors's Ambassador may be older and have the longest production run of any Indian automobile to date, the tiny 800 not only set Best cars to own and drive |
Rebates being offered
Indians on the move, it also spawned a whole new culture. At the time of its advent, the 800 commanded a premium twice that of its list price. It came with a top-end luxury model with full leather interiors and it was not out of place to see chauffeur-manned 800s driving "sahibs to work".
From a human psychological perspective, it suddenly made 800 buyers as owners of their own destinies - an option which they could never exercise with the three-pointed star, given its unobtanium pricing then. For Maruti and Suzuki, it laid the foundation of a giant in the Indian automotive sphere, the tiny 800 spurring on no less than 12 distinctly different models in the last quarter century.
So, today if you revel in the joys of a SX4 with tyre-shredding performance or indulge in the cut-and-dash of city traffic in a Swift, or you want to experience small car motoring updated to 2009 norms with an A-Star , you know that it all began with a small tiny hatchback in 1983. Should you like to revisit it, the 800 is yet on sale to this day, technically updated as per legislation and as relevant today as it was in a December 25 winters ago.
The writer is editor-in-chief – Times Zigwheels
Business - Maruti turns 25, sets eyes on becoming top global player
W DELHI: At a time when the Indian automobile industry is passing through one of its worst phases, the country's largest car-maker, Maruti Suzuki
India, will celebrate its 25th anniversary and is aiming to be a global player.
"Twenty-five years ago, when we set out on our journey, the objective was to modernise the Indian automotive industry and bring about a change in personal transportation. I can say proudly we have achieved that," Maruti Suzuki India Chairman R C Bhargava told PTI.
He said in the 25 years to come, the company's objective would to be to take its mission forward and become a global player.
"Now we want to be a global player in every sense ... from research and development and designing cars to manufacturing; we want to be among the best in the world," he said.
Bhargava said although the current market conditions are tough, they would not deter the company in striving to achieve its goals.
"The future will be even more challenging, but we are up for it," he added.
Since the rollout of the first Maruti 800 (M800) from its Gurgaon plant on December 14, 1983, the company has so far sold over 70 lakh cars of 12 models with over 100 variants, with the M800 alone accounting for 27,36,046 units, of which 25,43,132 units were in the domestic market and the rest abroad.
India, will celebrate its 25th anniversary and is aiming to be a global player.
"Twenty-five years ago, when we set out on our journey, the objective was to modernise the Indian automotive industry and bring about a change in personal transportation. I can say proudly we have achieved that," Maruti Suzuki India Chairman R C Bhargava told PTI.
He said in the 25 years to come, the company's objective would to be to take its mission forward and become a global player.
"Now we want to be a global player in every sense ... from research and development and designing cars to manufacturing; we want to be among the best in the world," he said.
Bhargava said although the current market conditions are tough, they would not deter the company in striving to achieve its goals.
"The future will be even more challenging, but we are up for it," he added.
Since the rollout of the first Maruti 800 (M800) from its Gurgaon plant on December 14, 1983, the company has so far sold over 70 lakh cars of 12 models with over 100 variants, with the M800 alone accounting for 27,36,046 units, of which 25,43,132 units were in the domestic market and the rest abroad.
Lifestyle - Facebook under fire for racial slur
SYDNEY: Social networking site Facebook has come under fire from Australian users for ignoring racial vilification on the site and allowing in
racist groups which have been marked as offensive.
Alex Gollan, a Sydney-based Facebook user, who campaigned against the racist groups, has been threatened with violence, and he now fears that the site will be used to rally people for violence.
This week the site permanently banned one offender, but only after the racism issue came under the spotlight after revelations that Scots College and Kambala students had created anti-Semitic groups on the site.
Some of the racist Facebook groups are, "F--- Islam", "I hate Israel", "You're in Australia ... Speak English!", "Aussie Pride! Love it or Get The F--- Out", "Learn the Aussie Language, Respect Our Way Of Life, It's Not Hard!", "Respect Australia or F--- Off!", "Asian drivers should be forced to display A-Plates" and "I cannot tolerate South African Accent".
Some of the postings that were posted were full of racial epithets, derogatory remarks and threats and taunts for Muslim users to blow themselves up or leave the country.
"I have personally had groups which have been set up for the appreciation of where I live ... which have had rude and racial pictures uploaded by members in a hope to spark some sort of 'online fight' where people become all hard and tough behind their computer screens and say things they would never say if they were put in person," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Sydney Facebook user David Cohen as saying.
Aboriginal Facebook user Chris Bonney and several of his friends tried for months to convince Facebook to shut down the group "I'm not apologising for shit u f-- abo's - this is our country now!", however, he received no response from the site.
Bonney said he eventually resorted to contacting people who appeared on the friends list of the group's moderator, informing them of the racism.
"He eventually closed down the site because of our work ... but the main issue is Facebook didn't do one thing to stop this sort of behaviour," Bonney said.
Asked to respond to the claims that it was not doing enough to stamp out racism on the site, Facebook said it took all complaints by users seriously and there was a "dedicated team" investigating such complaints, which can be made through the "report" function on any page of the site.
"Facebook is a platform, and as such we sometimes see users posting about, debating and discussing controversial issues," the company said.
"However, this alone is not a reason to disable a group. Facebook will investigate, and will remove any content that violates our Terms of Use," the company added.
racist groups which have been marked as offensive.
Alex Gollan, a Sydney-based Facebook user, who campaigned against the racist groups, has been threatened with violence, and he now fears that the site will be used to rally people for violence.
This week the site permanently banned one offender, but only after the racism issue came under the spotlight after revelations that Scots College and Kambala students had created anti-Semitic groups on the site.
Some of the racist Facebook groups are, "F--- Islam", "I hate Israel", "You're in Australia ... Speak English!", "Aussie Pride! Love it or Get The F--- Out", "Learn the Aussie Language, Respect Our Way Of Life, It's Not Hard!", "Respect Australia or F--- Off!", "Asian drivers should be forced to display A-Plates" and "I cannot tolerate South African Accent".
Some of the postings that were posted were full of racial epithets, derogatory remarks and threats and taunts for Muslim users to blow themselves up or leave the country.
"I have personally had groups which have been set up for the appreciation of where I live ... which have had rude and racial pictures uploaded by members in a hope to spark some sort of 'online fight' where people become all hard and tough behind their computer screens and say things they would never say if they were put in person," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Sydney Facebook user David Cohen as saying.
Aboriginal Facebook user Chris Bonney and several of his friends tried for months to convince Facebook to shut down the group "I'm not apologising for shit u f-- abo's - this is our country now!", however, he received no response from the site.
Bonney said he eventually resorted to contacting people who appeared on the friends list of the group's moderator, informing them of the racism.
"He eventually closed down the site because of our work ... but the main issue is Facebook didn't do one thing to stop this sort of behaviour," Bonney said.
Asked to respond to the claims that it was not doing enough to stamp out racism on the site, Facebook said it took all complaints by users seriously and there was a "dedicated team" investigating such complaints, which can be made through the "report" function on any page of the site.
"Facebook is a platform, and as such we sometimes see users posting about, debating and discussing controversial issues," the company said.
"However, this alone is not a reason to disable a group. Facebook will investigate, and will remove any content that violates our Terms of Use," the company added.
India - Your car may become costlier
Chanchal Pal Chauhan
NEW DELHI: Customers in Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan may end up paying more for buying cars despite the 4% cut in excise duty by Best cars to own and drive |
Rebates being offered
the Central government. These states are likely to levy new local-level taxes, which would offset the benefit of the excise cut.
These states are expected to follow Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka who had recently increased local levies in the range of up to 3% on all motorised vehicles. As a result, prices of cars in these states had gone up by Rs 5,000 to Rs 25,000 on different models.
Tamil Nadu has increased road tax from 6% to 8%. Similarly, octroi, a local tax, has been increased to 3% for all cars above Rs 10 lakh and doubled to 2% for car up to Rs 10 lakh in Pune in Maharashtra. Customers in Gujarat will have to shell out an extra 20% surcharge on VAT on all cars.
Potential customers of all car segments have been impacted by these recent changes in state levies. But consumers looking to buy small cars such as Hyundai i10, Maruti A-Star and Chevrolet UV-A were hit harder as the price cut on account of excise relief was lower than the price hike due to higher state taxes.
For instance, the price of Maruti Alto in some states like Karnataka was increased by around Rs 7,000 in October but excise cut resulted into a price drop of Rs 6,593. So net net a customer buying Alto in a city like Bangalore has to pay more today compared to September despite the cut in excise duty.
The incremental burden of state taxes is higher as they are levied on the ex-showroom price of cars, which is much higher than the ex-factory price on which excise duty is imposed. For instance the ex-factory price of Maruti Alto (standard model) the largest selling car in India is around Rs 2 lakh, while its ex-showroom prices in Delhi is around Rs 2.5 lakh.
Car makers are wary of increase in taxes in other states too. Honda Siel Cars India vice-president (sales & marketing) Jnaneshwar Sen said, “The relief in excise duty from the Central government will offset some of the burden of the states levies. If more states increase taxes, the industry may lose the benefit of recent price cut.”
Sales of automobiles are already under pressure with rising cost of ownership and new buyers facing credit crunch as banks have enforced tighter lending norms. Passenger car sales dropped 19.38% to 83,059 cars in November from 1.03 lakh cars in the same month last year.
NEW DELHI: Customers in Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan may end up paying more for buying cars despite the 4% cut in excise duty by Best cars to own and drive |
Rebates being offered
the Central government. These states are likely to levy new local-level taxes, which would offset the benefit of the excise cut.
These states are expected to follow Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka who had recently increased local levies in the range of up to 3% on all motorised vehicles. As a result, prices of cars in these states had gone up by Rs 5,000 to Rs 25,000 on different models.
Tamil Nadu has increased road tax from 6% to 8%. Similarly, octroi, a local tax, has been increased to 3% for all cars above Rs 10 lakh and doubled to 2% for car up to Rs 10 lakh in Pune in Maharashtra. Customers in Gujarat will have to shell out an extra 20% surcharge on VAT on all cars.
Potential customers of all car segments have been impacted by these recent changes in state levies. But consumers looking to buy small cars such as Hyundai i10, Maruti A-Star and Chevrolet UV-A were hit harder as the price cut on account of excise relief was lower than the price hike due to higher state taxes.
For instance, the price of Maruti Alto in some states like Karnataka was increased by around Rs 7,000 in October but excise cut resulted into a price drop of Rs 6,593. So net net a customer buying Alto in a city like Bangalore has to pay more today compared to September despite the cut in excise duty.
The incremental burden of state taxes is higher as they are levied on the ex-showroom price of cars, which is much higher than the ex-factory price on which excise duty is imposed. For instance the ex-factory price of Maruti Alto (standard model) the largest selling car in India is around Rs 2 lakh, while its ex-showroom prices in Delhi is around Rs 2.5 lakh.
Car makers are wary of increase in taxes in other states too. Honda Siel Cars India vice-president (sales & marketing) Jnaneshwar Sen said, “The relief in excise duty from the Central government will offset some of the burden of the states levies. If more states increase taxes, the industry may lose the benefit of recent price cut.”
Sales of automobiles are already under pressure with rising cost of ownership and new buyers facing credit crunch as banks have enforced tighter lending norms. Passenger car sales dropped 19.38% to 83,059 cars in November from 1.03 lakh cars in the same month last year.
India - TRAI to intervene if SMS tariff not slashed
NEW DELHI: TRAI chairman Nripendra Misra has warned telecom operators that the regulator would be forced to intervene if they did not slash SMS
charges and address issues related to call drops.
“The request for SMS tariff reduction has been pending with the operators since almost a year. This is the time when we feel the need to intervene. If telcos do not act, we will float a consultation paper soon in this regard,” Mr Misra told reporters on the sidelines of an industry meet.
TRAI had earlier made several appeals to the telecom operators to reduce SMS tariffs in a phased manner, but operators have so far failed to reduce SMS tariffs. Along with the SMS tariff issue, TRAI will also look into the current billing system, which is done on a per minute basis.
This implies if a call is disconnected in 15 seconds, the user will pay on a per second basis only. At present, billing is done on a per minute basis — that is, even a 15 second call is treated as a 1-minute call and billed for the same. “Caller must pay for the time used for the service and not for the whole minute,” Mr Misra said.
TRAI sources say that the regulator has been forced to take up this issue on account of the increasing number of call drops experienced by customers.
Call drops, which happens when the call is disconnected due to network related issues such as congestion and spectrum crunch, is amongst the major problems experienced by consumers. Lashing out at the operators over call drops, Mr Mishra said,
“The issue is a matter of concern and has to be addressed soon. The consumer cannot be allowed to suffer due to this.” The regulator also plans to come out with another consultation paper this month on call termination charges. The government last month had asked the regulator to review the five-year-old termination charges for fixed and mobile telephony.
An operator on whose network a call originates pays termination charge to the operator on whose network the call terminates. Currently, a 30 paise charge is levied on operators as termination charges.
The present termination charge of 30 paise a minute per call for mobile telephony is considered high, especially by the new players.
This is because, was fixed five years ago and since then cost parameters have changed considerably.
charges and address issues related to call drops.
“The request for SMS tariff reduction has been pending with the operators since almost a year. This is the time when we feel the need to intervene. If telcos do not act, we will float a consultation paper soon in this regard,” Mr Misra told reporters on the sidelines of an industry meet.
TRAI had earlier made several appeals to the telecom operators to reduce SMS tariffs in a phased manner, but operators have so far failed to reduce SMS tariffs. Along with the SMS tariff issue, TRAI will also look into the current billing system, which is done on a per minute basis.
This implies if a call is disconnected in 15 seconds, the user will pay on a per second basis only. At present, billing is done on a per minute basis — that is, even a 15 second call is treated as a 1-minute call and billed for the same. “Caller must pay for the time used for the service and not for the whole minute,” Mr Misra said.
TRAI sources say that the regulator has been forced to take up this issue on account of the increasing number of call drops experienced by customers.
Call drops, which happens when the call is disconnected due to network related issues such as congestion and spectrum crunch, is amongst the major problems experienced by consumers. Lashing out at the operators over call drops, Mr Mishra said,
“The issue is a matter of concern and has to be addressed soon. The consumer cannot be allowed to suffer due to this.” The regulator also plans to come out with another consultation paper this month on call termination charges. The government last month had asked the regulator to review the five-year-old termination charges for fixed and mobile telephony.
An operator on whose network a call originates pays termination charge to the operator on whose network the call terminates. Currently, a 30 paise charge is levied on operators as termination charges.
The present termination charge of 30 paise a minute per call for mobile telephony is considered high, especially by the new players.
This is because, was fixed five years ago and since then cost parameters have changed considerably.
Business - Nokia plans to design handsets for disabled
Writankar Mukherjee
KOLKATA: In an effort to take the mobile phone to the next billion worldwide, Nokia has started research to roll out handsets, specifically
designed for the disabled. The world’s largest handset vendor plans to undertake extensive research in India to understand the consumer behaviour of people with visual or hearing problems, towards the mobile phone.
Nokia is exploring ways to make the mobile phone friendly for such consumers. This could be done through using a different user interface, using icons and pictures in the menu and the phonebook instead of text, using large fonts, louder ringing tones and voice commands.
These phones might have a different design aspect where India will also play a vital role. Talking to ET during his recent visit to India, Nokia global director, product group (entry business unit, mobile phones) Heikki Koivu said the challenge to sustain growth will be to reach out to consumers who do not use a mobile phone.
“We then have to address issues like physical disabilities, low vision, poor hearing and illiteracy. We also need to design phones that can support hearing aids,” he said. Mr Koivu said India is a focus market for Nokia to understand consumer behaviour of mobile phones among the disabled.
“It is due to the sheer size of the population in this country. We have started adapting such features in some entry-level handsets like Nokia 1650 shipped to emerging countries like India. But, this will now attain more bigger scale,” said Mr Koivu.
India and China are two of Nokia’s largest markets for entrylevel phones. The entry-level portfolio includes handsets, which are priced between Rs 1,500 and Rs 5,000. Nokia is also planning to bundle its internet services ‘Ovi’ in the entrylevel phones sold in India.
“We are planning to bundle most of the Ovi applications in handsets shipped to India, including the music services Nokia Music Store. All such integration will take place over the next three years for the entry-level handsets. We need to simplify these applications to suit the consumer preferences in emerging markets,” said Mr Koivu.
KOLKATA: In an effort to take the mobile phone to the next billion worldwide, Nokia has started research to roll out handsets, specifically
designed for the disabled. The world’s largest handset vendor plans to undertake extensive research in India to understand the consumer behaviour of people with visual or hearing problems, towards the mobile phone.
Nokia is exploring ways to make the mobile phone friendly for such consumers. This could be done through using a different user interface, using icons and pictures in the menu and the phonebook instead of text, using large fonts, louder ringing tones and voice commands.
These phones might have a different design aspect where India will also play a vital role. Talking to ET during his recent visit to India, Nokia global director, product group (entry business unit, mobile phones) Heikki Koivu said the challenge to sustain growth will be to reach out to consumers who do not use a mobile phone.
“We then have to address issues like physical disabilities, low vision, poor hearing and illiteracy. We also need to design phones that can support hearing aids,” he said. Mr Koivu said India is a focus market for Nokia to understand consumer behaviour of mobile phones among the disabled.
“It is due to the sheer size of the population in this country. We have started adapting such features in some entry-level handsets like Nokia 1650 shipped to emerging countries like India. But, this will now attain more bigger scale,” said Mr Koivu.
India and China are two of Nokia’s largest markets for entrylevel phones. The entry-level portfolio includes handsets, which are priced between Rs 1,500 and Rs 5,000. Nokia is also planning to bundle its internet services ‘Ovi’ in the entrylevel phones sold in India.
“We are planning to bundle most of the Ovi applications in handsets shipped to India, including the music services Nokia Music Store. All such integration will take place over the next three years for the entry-level handsets. We need to simplify these applications to suit the consumer preferences in emerging markets,” said Mr Koivu.
Tech - Google 'hero' Nishar to join LinkedIn
CHICAGO: Dipchand Nishar, an Indian American engineer who helped Google start its mobile business, is joining the social networking group LinkedIn
to help it develop new products and strategies.
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kharagpur and the University of Illinois, Nishar was instrumental in developing Google's backend infrastructure and was also overseeing the Asia Pacific market.
“The kinds of things LinkedIn is doing are truly shaping the way professionals work,” said 40-year-old Nishar, whose colleagues at Google have often described him as an “unsung hero” of the company.
He said he wanted to leave Google because he wanted to move on from the role of building “impactful products” to an “impactful company”. He will be vice president of products at LinkedIn.
The Wall Street Journal also prominently covered his new appointment.
“We wanted to find someone who knows how to build a large organisation, but also has an entrepreneurial background,” said Kay Luo, a spokesperson for the company, adding: “Deep fills that role.”
Prior to Google, Nishar worked for Siebel System, which he joined after he sold Pataki Networks, a web-based software integration services company, which he had founded. He was also associated with the Boston Consulting Group.
“We are grateful for Deep's contributions over the last five and a half years, and wish him well in his new job,” said Jane Penner, a spokeswoman at Google.
Backed by companies like Goldman Sachs, LinkedIn, which recently raised over $75 million in fresh funding, is adding some 500,000 new members to its social networking site every week.
It has some 30 million users who use it to connect with friends, classmates, business associates and colleagues.
to help it develop new products and strategies.
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kharagpur and the University of Illinois, Nishar was instrumental in developing Google's backend infrastructure and was also overseeing the Asia Pacific market.
“The kinds of things LinkedIn is doing are truly shaping the way professionals work,” said 40-year-old Nishar, whose colleagues at Google have often described him as an “unsung hero” of the company.
He said he wanted to leave Google because he wanted to move on from the role of building “impactful products” to an “impactful company”. He will be vice president of products at LinkedIn.
The Wall Street Journal also prominently covered his new appointment.
“We wanted to find someone who knows how to build a large organisation, but also has an entrepreneurial background,” said Kay Luo, a spokesperson for the company, adding: “Deep fills that role.”
Prior to Google, Nishar worked for Siebel System, which he joined after he sold Pataki Networks, a web-based software integration services company, which he had founded. He was also associated with the Boston Consulting Group.
“We are grateful for Deep's contributions over the last five and a half years, and wish him well in his new job,” said Jane Penner, a spokeswoman at Google.
Backed by companies like Goldman Sachs, LinkedIn, which recently raised over $75 million in fresh funding, is adding some 500,000 new members to its social networking site every week.
It has some 30 million users who use it to connect with friends, classmates, business associates and colleagues.
Tech - Google releases finished version of Chrome browser
SAN FRANCISCO: Google on Thursday yanked the "beta" test label off Chrome, quickly putting a stamp of approval on its Web browser released in a
direct challenge to Microsoft's ubiquitous Internet Explorer.
The California online search titan - known for leaving new software offerings in beta, or test, modes for what seems like ages - says Chrome proved its merits, and in a relatively brief 100 days.
Google's free web-based Gmail service still bears a "beta" label even though it was launched nearly five years ago.
Chrome has gone through 15 iterations since its launch with fixes and modifications engineered based on feedback from some of the more than 10 million people worldwide that have started using the browser.
"We're excited to announce that with today's 50th release we are taking off the 'beta' label," Google engineering director Linus Upson and product management vice president Sundar Pichai wrote in an online posting.
"We have removed the beta label as our goals for stability and performance have been met but our work is far from done."
Improvements which users called for, and reportedly got, include better video viewing, faster data loading, and strict privacy and security controls.
Google and Microsoft have been in an escalating war, with the Redmond, Washington-based software goliath striving to unseat Google as king of Internet search and advertising.
Google, meanwhile, is striking at the heart of Microsoft's empire by offering software free online as services supported by advertising.
direct challenge to Microsoft's ubiquitous Internet Explorer.
The California online search titan - known for leaving new software offerings in beta, or test, modes for what seems like ages - says Chrome proved its merits, and in a relatively brief 100 days.
Google's free web-based Gmail service still bears a "beta" label even though it was launched nearly five years ago.
Chrome has gone through 15 iterations since its launch with fixes and modifications engineered based on feedback from some of the more than 10 million people worldwide that have started using the browser.
"We're excited to announce that with today's 50th release we are taking off the 'beta' label," Google engineering director Linus Upson and product management vice president Sundar Pichai wrote in an online posting.
"We have removed the beta label as our goals for stability and performance have been met but our work is far from done."
Improvements which users called for, and reportedly got, include better video viewing, faster data loading, and strict privacy and security controls.
Google and Microsoft have been in an escalating war, with the Redmond, Washington-based software goliath striving to unseat Google as king of Internet search and advertising.
Google, meanwhile, is striking at the heart of Microsoft's empire by offering software free online as services supported by advertising.
Lifestyle - India;Most googled
Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif is the most searched person online in India, while social networking site Orkut is the most searched keyword in the country, according to Google’s India Zeitgeist – a survey of online search terms.
“Different people find different things to do on the Web, so these lists are a good representation of the unique ways in which users mine the Internet,” said Vinay Goel, Head of Products, Google India.
Following Orkut in the ‘Most Popular Searches’ category were ‘Gmail’ and ‘Yahoo’. The seventh most popular term in the list was ‘Indian railways’ – whose official site was also the most popular government portal in the year.
"Given the popularity of mobiles, we also looked at what was searched for while on the move," Goel said. The country can’t seem to get enough of social networking, it seems, as Orkut was the most searched term in this category too.
In addition, the report also looked at the top 10 fastest rising keywords in India, by comparing 2008’s searches with their popularity in the previous year. Video-sharing site ‘Youtube’ won this title, followed by Orkut and Katrina Kaif.
In the list of most popular Bollywood celebrities, Kaif was followed by Aishwarya Rai and Salman Khan. And Jodhaa Akbar edged out Dasavatharam and Singh Is King as the most searched movie.
In other categories, tennis star Sania Mirza outplayed cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and footballer Cristiano Ronaldo; while Mahatma Gandhi was the most searched politician, ahead of Raj Thackrey and US Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
The country also seems to be focusing on keeping fit, as ‘how to lose weight’ was the most searched term in the ‘how-to’ category.
‘Goa’ was listed as the most popular holiday destination, and ‘Independence Day’ as the most popular day of the year.
“Different people find different things to do on the Web, so these lists are a good representation of the unique ways in which users mine the Internet,” said Vinay Goel, Head of Products, Google India.
Following Orkut in the ‘Most Popular Searches’ category were ‘Gmail’ and ‘Yahoo’. The seventh most popular term in the list was ‘Indian railways’ – whose official site was also the most popular government portal in the year.
"Given the popularity of mobiles, we also looked at what was searched for while on the move," Goel said. The country can’t seem to get enough of social networking, it seems, as Orkut was the most searched term in this category too.
In addition, the report also looked at the top 10 fastest rising keywords in India, by comparing 2008’s searches with their popularity in the previous year. Video-sharing site ‘Youtube’ won this title, followed by Orkut and Katrina Kaif.
In the list of most popular Bollywood celebrities, Kaif was followed by Aishwarya Rai and Salman Khan. And Jodhaa Akbar edged out Dasavatharam and Singh Is King as the most searched movie.
In other categories, tennis star Sania Mirza outplayed cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and footballer Cristiano Ronaldo; while Mahatma Gandhi was the most searched politician, ahead of Raj Thackrey and US Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
The country also seems to be focusing on keeping fit, as ‘how to lose weight’ was the most searched term in the ‘how-to’ category.
‘Goa’ was listed as the most popular holiday destination, and ‘Independence Day’ as the most popular day of the year.
India - Chidambaram prefers budget airline this time to travel
NEW DELHI: P Chidambaram preferred to take a commercial flight for the third time while on an official tour to Chennai after becoming the Home
minister unlike his predecessor Shivraj Patil who flew only in special aircraft.
Chidambaram took a budget airline rather than flying first class, for which he is entitled, to inaugurate Bharat Kalachar Mahotsav in the Tamil Nadu capital. And, the Home Minister travelled without any of his personal assistant.
After taking over the charge of the Home Ministry, Chidambaram flew out of Delhi for the first time to Mumbai on December 5 for an assessment of the situation following the terrors trikes on November 26.
On December 8, the Home Minister went to Kolkata to review the law and order scenario in West Bengal. On both the occasions, he took commercial flights, sources said.
Shivraj Patil, during his four and half years tenure as Home Minister rarely travelled in a commercial plane for official work, sources said.
Patil used BSF aircraft -- mostly an Embraer -- which is at the disposal of the Home Ministry.
"Taking a special plane involves a reasonable cost which Chidambaram is avoiding. Besides, the tradition of a big team of senior officials and staff accompanying the Home Minister was also dispensed with by the new Minister," a Home Ministry official said.
minister unlike his predecessor Shivraj Patil who flew only in special aircraft.
Chidambaram took a budget airline rather than flying first class, for which he is entitled, to inaugurate Bharat Kalachar Mahotsav in the Tamil Nadu capital. And, the Home Minister travelled without any of his personal assistant.
After taking over the charge of the Home Ministry, Chidambaram flew out of Delhi for the first time to Mumbai on December 5 for an assessment of the situation following the terrors trikes on November 26.
On December 8, the Home Minister went to Kolkata to review the law and order scenario in West Bengal. On both the occasions, he took commercial flights, sources said.
Shivraj Patil, during his four and half years tenure as Home Minister rarely travelled in a commercial plane for official work, sources said.
Patil used BSF aircraft -- mostly an Embraer -- which is at the disposal of the Home Ministry.
"Taking a special plane involves a reasonable cost which Chidambaram is avoiding. Besides, the tradition of a big team of senior officials and staff accompanying the Home Minister was also dispensed with by the new Minister," a Home Ministry official said.
India - Taj hotel to reopen Dec 21
MUMBAI: The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel announced on Saturday that it will reopen Dec 21, exactly 25 days after it was targeted by terrorists
who India says came from Pakistan.
Indian Hotels Co Ltd managing director and CEO Raymond Bickson said in a statement here: "We dedicate our reopening to the city of Mumbai as affirmation of the values of courage, resilience and dignity."
Bickson said that reopening the Taj with such speed displayed the management's resolve to commemorate "all the innocent and brave people who lost their lives" in the terrorist attacks.
The Tower section of the hotel, close to the landmark Gateway of India, will resume normal operations from 7 pm Dec 21, he said.
Ten staffers of the Taj, which was under siege for nearly 60 hours Nov 26-29, were killed and another 11 injured.
Taj was one of the 13 locations in south Mumbai attacked by terrorists which left 179 people dead including 26 foreign nationals and another 294 people injured.
who India says came from Pakistan.
Indian Hotels Co Ltd managing director and CEO Raymond Bickson said in a statement here: "We dedicate our reopening to the city of Mumbai as affirmation of the values of courage, resilience and dignity."
Bickson said that reopening the Taj with such speed displayed the management's resolve to commemorate "all the innocent and brave people who lost their lives" in the terrorist attacks.
The Tower section of the hotel, close to the landmark Gateway of India, will resume normal operations from 7 pm Dec 21, he said.
Ten staffers of the Taj, which was under siege for nearly 60 hours Nov 26-29, were killed and another 11 injured.
Taj was one of the 13 locations in south Mumbai attacked by terrorists which left 179 people dead including 26 foreign nationals and another 294 people injured.
Mktg - Lee Cooper promotes discrimination by design
Kapil Ohri
Lee Cooper, the denim wear brand, has created a special microsite called LcClan.in.com targeted at the Indian youth.
The microsite, which is an extension of Lee Cooper’s current print and outdoor campaign, was created to provide a platform for the youth to come together and create a community of consumers who believe in the Lee Cooper philosophy of discrimination by design.
What's the Lee Cooper philosophy, which has been extended from the ad campaign to its microsite? Ameet Panchal, chief executive officer, Lee Cooper India, tells afaqs!, “Lee Cooper believes in the ideology of discrimination based on design, style and fashion, and not by sex, caste or creed. The campaign is aimed at the identification, segregation and exposure of cool youth from those who are not cool. We believe that stylish and fashionable people will prevail in society.”
Panchal adds, “The idea behind discrimination by design is based on consumer insights which indicated that discrimination still exists in society as people are often judged by what they wear and the brands they use.” In just 10 days of its launch, around 1,100 consumers have already joined the website or online community.
Is there any point in creating a community of users who just believe in wearing stylish clothes? The brand is not running the microsite just to inform its target audience about its brand philosophy or brand history. Instead, it is trying to build an engagement with its TG and acquaint users with its brand philosophy of discrimination by running a month long contest.
Users who join the Lee Cooper website can upload and share their photos and videos in stylish clothes. Once uploaded, other users can judge the images or videos and vote for the ones they think are the most stylish.
Interestingly, the contest will not end with the voting process on the microsite. The apparel brand has plans to take the contest offline. It will select the users who get the most votes and ask them to provide inputs to Lee Cooper designers. A special range of denim wear, including jeans and jackets, will be manufactured based on their inputs. The range will be displayed and be available for sale in major stores across India.
The contest is not aimed at fashion designers per se and the company is targeting the microsite and the contest at youth in the age group of 16-35 years who wear denim.
The microsite will be promoted through online banner ads on social networking sites such as Facebook.com and Orkut.com and on horizontal portals such as Yahoo!, Rediff.com and MSN.com. Email marketing will also be used. The URL of the microsite will be promoted at various display points at Lee Cooper retail stores and on print and outdoor campaigns.
The microsite has been hosted on In.com and developed by a team from In.com along with McCann Erickson Mumbai, Lee Cooper's creative agency.
Lee Cooper, the denim wear brand, has created a special microsite called LcClan.in.com targeted at the Indian youth.
The microsite, which is an extension of Lee Cooper’s current print and outdoor campaign, was created to provide a platform for the youth to come together and create a community of consumers who believe in the Lee Cooper philosophy of discrimination by design.
What's the Lee Cooper philosophy, which has been extended from the ad campaign to its microsite? Ameet Panchal, chief executive officer, Lee Cooper India, tells afaqs!, “Lee Cooper believes in the ideology of discrimination based on design, style and fashion, and not by sex, caste or creed. The campaign is aimed at the identification, segregation and exposure of cool youth from those who are not cool. We believe that stylish and fashionable people will prevail in society.”
Panchal adds, “The idea behind discrimination by design is based on consumer insights which indicated that discrimination still exists in society as people are often judged by what they wear and the brands they use.” In just 10 days of its launch, around 1,100 consumers have already joined the website or online community.
Is there any point in creating a community of users who just believe in wearing stylish clothes? The brand is not running the microsite just to inform its target audience about its brand philosophy or brand history. Instead, it is trying to build an engagement with its TG and acquaint users with its brand philosophy of discrimination by running a month long contest.
Users who join the Lee Cooper website can upload and share their photos and videos in stylish clothes. Once uploaded, other users can judge the images or videos and vote for the ones they think are the most stylish.
Interestingly, the contest will not end with the voting process on the microsite. The apparel brand has plans to take the contest offline. It will select the users who get the most votes and ask them to provide inputs to Lee Cooper designers. A special range of denim wear, including jeans and jackets, will be manufactured based on their inputs. The range will be displayed and be available for sale in major stores across India.
The contest is not aimed at fashion designers per se and the company is targeting the microsite and the contest at youth in the age group of 16-35 years who wear denim.
The microsite will be promoted through online banner ads on social networking sites such as Facebook.com and Orkut.com and on horizontal portals such as Yahoo!, Rediff.com and MSN.com. Email marketing will also be used. The URL of the microsite will be promoted at various display points at Lee Cooper retail stores and on print and outdoor campaigns.
The microsite has been hosted on In.com and developed by a team from In.com along with McCann Erickson Mumbai, Lee Cooper's creative agency.
Mktg - Sony Bravia creates a 'domino' effect
Savia Jane Pinto
In September last year, Bates 141 Singapore won the highly coveted Sony Bravia account for the Southeast Asia region, following a multi-agency pitch. The business was earlier handled by DY&R Singapore.
During the pitch process, four teams from Bates 141 offices in the region – Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and India – were called to work on the pitch.
"We were very keen to win the account as Sony is a very prestigious account to work on," says Sonal Dabral, regional executive creative director, Asia, Bates 141. Sony Bravia has a legacy of some great creative work done by Fallon London and DY&R Singapore. Fallon has worked on campaigns such as Paint, Balls, Rabbits, while DY&R Singapore worked on the Pyramid campaign.
The latest campaign, Domino City, is based on the same philosophy – ‘Colour Like No Other’. The ad has been shot in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan.
The brief given to Bates 141 was simple and single-minded – that it must speak of the colour capabilities of the new Bravia (Full HD 1080) range and must also have an iconic feel to it.
That's when Jaisalmer came into the picture. Dabral is fascinated with the city because of its richness and history. In fact, this is the third film that he has shot there. The first one was for National Handlooms, while he was at Lintas (Lowe Lintas now), and the second was for Asian Paints, while he was at O&M.
The minute-long film starts early in the morning in a city in Rajasthan and follows the city’s people through little lanes, temples, forts and palaces. People are busy with their everyday chores, while dominoes of varying colours are falling one after another in a cascade. The dominoes are falling right next to the people, who don’t seem to notice them. In the final scene, the falling dominoes open up as a rosette with the colours of a rainbow.
Why Jaisalmer, we ask? "It provided the much needed backdrop to highlight the spectacular colour and movement," explains Dabral. Since Rajasthan is a very monochromatic environment, with lots of shades of beige, the colours in the city come from the attire the people wear, the colourful turbans and skirts. And when the coloured dominoes fall beside the city folk, it offers a greater visual appeal.
The film has been shot by Nic Finlayson, who treated it in a very observational manner. "That is why the ad looks more like a documentary than an ad film. There aren't too many sudden moves by the camera or zooming in and out of scenes," says Dabral.
Though it is shot in an Indian locale, the background score is very international. "This was purposefully done because, while watching the ad, people shouldn't feel that it's an ad made just for India. The ad must hold universal appeal," specifies Dabral.
Rob Barbato, who belongs to a band called Darker My Love, has done the sound, while Song Zu, Singapore, has provided the soundtrack.
Close to 160 dominoes, 8 feet by 4 feet, each weighing about 30 kg, were used. These were made of plywood in Delhi and carted in five trucks to Jaisalmer. A number of carpenters, too, were transported to the location so that damaged dominoes could be repaired quickly.
The ad includes three locations in Rajasthan: Jodhpur, Pushkar and Jaisalmer. There is also a shot of the Taj Mahal, but the dominoes around the area are computer-generated images, as are the final rosette dominoes. The post-production work and animation was done by Oktobor in New Zealand.
Two teams worked continuously during the five-day shoot. One team set up the dominoes and worked with the carpenters through the night for the next day’s shoot, while the second team worked on the shoot itself. Dominoes, in colourful order, had to be arranged equidistantly and had to be held by people, so that they didn't fall off before the count and fell only in a chain effect.
China was one of the locations initially selected, where the Great Wall of China would have been the natural choice. However, the idea was scrapped because the Olympics were being held at around the same time. India was then chosen. The commercial is being aired in Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, some parts of Africa and the Gulf countries.
Dabral shares some of the difficult moments they had while shooting this ad. He says, "While in the Thar Desert, the winds were blowing very strongly and the dominoes just would not stay. The teams would prop them up and wait until the director said ‘action’ and then just pray that the dominoes wouldn't give way beforehand."
Close to 70 per cent of the film has been shot real world and computer graphics have been used for the rest.
R. Balakrishnan, chairman and chief creative officer, Lowe Lintas, is of the opinion that the ad is okay. "I didn't find this very spectacular. The earlier ads, especially the Paint one, were great, probably because it was one of the first in the series of Sony Bravia ads."
He thinks that the premise of colour needs something more hard hitting to stand out really well.
In September last year, Bates 141 Singapore won the highly coveted Sony Bravia account for the Southeast Asia region, following a multi-agency pitch. The business was earlier handled by DY&R Singapore.
During the pitch process, four teams from Bates 141 offices in the region – Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and India – were called to work on the pitch.
"We were very keen to win the account as Sony is a very prestigious account to work on," says Sonal Dabral, regional executive creative director, Asia, Bates 141. Sony Bravia has a legacy of some great creative work done by Fallon London and DY&R Singapore. Fallon has worked on campaigns such as Paint, Balls, Rabbits, while DY&R Singapore worked on the Pyramid campaign.
The latest campaign, Domino City, is based on the same philosophy – ‘Colour Like No Other’. The ad has been shot in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan.
The brief given to Bates 141 was simple and single-minded – that it must speak of the colour capabilities of the new Bravia (Full HD 1080) range and must also have an iconic feel to it.
That's when Jaisalmer came into the picture. Dabral is fascinated with the city because of its richness and history. In fact, this is the third film that he has shot there. The first one was for National Handlooms, while he was at Lintas (Lowe Lintas now), and the second was for Asian Paints, while he was at O&M.
The minute-long film starts early in the morning in a city in Rajasthan and follows the city’s people through little lanes, temples, forts and palaces. People are busy with their everyday chores, while dominoes of varying colours are falling one after another in a cascade. The dominoes are falling right next to the people, who don’t seem to notice them. In the final scene, the falling dominoes open up as a rosette with the colours of a rainbow.
Why Jaisalmer, we ask? "It provided the much needed backdrop to highlight the spectacular colour and movement," explains Dabral. Since Rajasthan is a very monochromatic environment, with lots of shades of beige, the colours in the city come from the attire the people wear, the colourful turbans and skirts. And when the coloured dominoes fall beside the city folk, it offers a greater visual appeal.
The film has been shot by Nic Finlayson, who treated it in a very observational manner. "That is why the ad looks more like a documentary than an ad film. There aren't too many sudden moves by the camera or zooming in and out of scenes," says Dabral.
Though it is shot in an Indian locale, the background score is very international. "This was purposefully done because, while watching the ad, people shouldn't feel that it's an ad made just for India. The ad must hold universal appeal," specifies Dabral.
Rob Barbato, who belongs to a band called Darker My Love, has done the sound, while Song Zu, Singapore, has provided the soundtrack.
Close to 160 dominoes, 8 feet by 4 feet, each weighing about 30 kg, were used. These were made of plywood in Delhi and carted in five trucks to Jaisalmer. A number of carpenters, too, were transported to the location so that damaged dominoes could be repaired quickly.
The ad includes three locations in Rajasthan: Jodhpur, Pushkar and Jaisalmer. There is also a shot of the Taj Mahal, but the dominoes around the area are computer-generated images, as are the final rosette dominoes. The post-production work and animation was done by Oktobor in New Zealand.
Two teams worked continuously during the five-day shoot. One team set up the dominoes and worked with the carpenters through the night for the next day’s shoot, while the second team worked on the shoot itself. Dominoes, in colourful order, had to be arranged equidistantly and had to be held by people, so that they didn't fall off before the count and fell only in a chain effect.
China was one of the locations initially selected, where the Great Wall of China would have been the natural choice. However, the idea was scrapped because the Olympics were being held at around the same time. India was then chosen. The commercial is being aired in Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, some parts of Africa and the Gulf countries.
Dabral shares some of the difficult moments they had while shooting this ad. He says, "While in the Thar Desert, the winds were blowing very strongly and the dominoes just would not stay. The teams would prop them up and wait until the director said ‘action’ and then just pray that the dominoes wouldn't give way beforehand."
Close to 70 per cent of the film has been shot real world and computer graphics have been used for the rest.
R. Balakrishnan, chairman and chief creative officer, Lowe Lintas, is of the opinion that the ad is okay. "I didn't find this very spectacular. The earlier ads, especially the Paint one, were great, probably because it was one of the first in the series of Sony Bravia ads."
He thinks that the premise of colour needs something more hard hitting to stand out really well.
Columnists - Vir Sanghvi;Why the Joker is the terrorist of our times (G.Read)
It came to me when I was watching the navy’s commandos hold their famous, televised press conference about their role in the operation to clear out the Taj Mahal hotel. Why does all this sound so familiar, I wondered. Where have I heard it before? Then, I knew: at the movies. In some way, the siege of the Taj Mahal hotel was straight out of the first Die Hard film in which terrorists take over a skyscraper. Die Hard has been imitated many times over the last decade (not least by the other Die Hard movies in the franchise!). And so, the idea of terrorists taking over a building and holding hostages has become familiar to us.
Of course, there are important differences. The most obvious one is that in real life, Bruce Willis does not come along to save us. But the other one is that in nearly all movies, the terrorists are after something. In the Die Hard films, it is usually money. Alan Rickman, playing the villain, laughs at Willis for mistaking him for a political activist. In other films of this genre (Air Force One, for instance) the terrorists want political prisoners released or territorial changes to international borders.
In that sense, the 1999 hijacking of IC814 to Kandahar followed the movie plots—till the last reel began. The terrorists seized control of the aircraft, they killed passengers, they demanded the release of their comrades who were in jail and they threatened to blow up the aircraft with all its passengers if their demands were not met.
Of course, in the final reel, real life did not follow the movies. There should have been a last-minute rescue and a shoot-out that resulted in the death of the terrorists and the release of the hostages. Instead, we meekly gave in, released the prisoners the terrorists wanted and secured the freedom of the passengers.
For a while, during the siege of Mumbai, I waited for the terrorists to issue their demands from inside the Taj and the Oberoi (I didn’t think the ones who held the rabbi and his family would bother: The Israelis do not negotiate with terrorists). Were they going to threaten to kill hostages unless their friends were released from jail? Was there an agenda linked to Kashmir?
By the second day, when it became clear that the terrorists had no demands and no financial greed, I wondered if the Hollywood parallels still held.
That’s when I thought of Batman and the Joker. When The Dark Knight was released in the US earlier this year, many critics explained its phenomenal box-office success by saying that it was actually an allegory for America’s political predicament.
I’m usually intensely suspicious of people who try and read deep meaning into comic books and into movies featuring comic book characters so I paid no attention to the claims of topical relevance.
But now, after Mumbai’s three days of terror, I am beginning to wonder if perhaps there was something to that interpretation of The Dark Knight.
Consider the plot of that film. Gotham City is gripped by a wave of terror. The motive of the criminal does not appear to be money—in one memorable scene, the Joker sets fire to a mountain of cash—and there are no demands made of the authorities. The villain causes mayhem and murder simply because he can.
Nor do the usual methods work. When the Joker is arrested, the police leave him alone in a room with Batman who beats him up to find out what his plans are. But no amount of violence—even from as powerful a figure as Batman—makes any difference. The Joker is past the stage where he cares about pain.
In that sense, the Joker is the crime fighter’s ultimate nightmare: a villain with no wants or desires, with no agendas and no obvious weaknesses. He kills because he likes it. He keeps Batman alive because he enjoys the battle.
Now, consider the situation we found ourselves in during the siege of Mumbai. We had nothing to negotiate with the terrorists. They did not care about money and they had no political demands. We could not engage them in conversation, listen to their demands and then slowly whittle them down as hostage negotiators usually do.
Nor did they take hostages in the traditional sense. Judging by eyewitness accounts, they entered the hotels and shot as many people as they could. The civilians the commandos referred to as hostages were actually human shields. The terrorists wanted to surround themselves with innocents to make it more difficult for the commandos to get at them. They had no intention of taking hostages and then releasing them when their demands were met.
They were also oblivious to the traditional pressure tactics used by the police. In such operations, you try and make terrorists fear for their lives. But how can you scare a man who has embarked on his mission fully intending to give up his life? He doesn’t care if he dies and so, is not scared of you.
And wasn’t India in some sense like Batman? Strong, powerful, admired, with many resources and yet, frustratingly unable to get to the terrorists. What could we have done? We couldn’t have threatened to bomb Pakistan in retaliation (as many Page 3 types went on TV to suggest) because that would have served no purpose. Thousands of innocent Pakistanis would have died and thousands of new terrorists would have emerged from the rubble.
So, perhaps The Dark Knight is the terrorist movie for our times. It doesn’t focus on the relatively easy stuff—heroics, commando operations, hostage negotiations, etc.—but captures the essential frustration of dealing with terrorists who have no national loyalties, no weaknesses, no greed, no desire to live and no political ambition.
They simply want to kill as many people as they can and cause as much destruction as possible. That is an end in itself.
What strange times we must live in when a Batman movie more accurately reflects the real world than any action thriller.
Of course, there are important differences. The most obvious one is that in real life, Bruce Willis does not come along to save us. But the other one is that in nearly all movies, the terrorists are after something. In the Die Hard films, it is usually money. Alan Rickman, playing the villain, laughs at Willis for mistaking him for a political activist. In other films of this genre (Air Force One, for instance) the terrorists want political prisoners released or territorial changes to international borders.
In that sense, the 1999 hijacking of IC814 to Kandahar followed the movie plots—till the last reel began. The terrorists seized control of the aircraft, they killed passengers, they demanded the release of their comrades who were in jail and they threatened to blow up the aircraft with all its passengers if their demands were not met.
Of course, in the final reel, real life did not follow the movies. There should have been a last-minute rescue and a shoot-out that resulted in the death of the terrorists and the release of the hostages. Instead, we meekly gave in, released the prisoners the terrorists wanted and secured the freedom of the passengers.
For a while, during the siege of Mumbai, I waited for the terrorists to issue their demands from inside the Taj and the Oberoi (I didn’t think the ones who held the rabbi and his family would bother: The Israelis do not negotiate with terrorists). Were they going to threaten to kill hostages unless their friends were released from jail? Was there an agenda linked to Kashmir?
By the second day, when it became clear that the terrorists had no demands and no financial greed, I wondered if the Hollywood parallels still held.
That’s when I thought of Batman and the Joker. When The Dark Knight was released in the US earlier this year, many critics explained its phenomenal box-office success by saying that it was actually an allegory for America’s political predicament.
I’m usually intensely suspicious of people who try and read deep meaning into comic books and into movies featuring comic book characters so I paid no attention to the claims of topical relevance.
But now, after Mumbai’s three days of terror, I am beginning to wonder if perhaps there was something to that interpretation of The Dark Knight.
Consider the plot of that film. Gotham City is gripped by a wave of terror. The motive of the criminal does not appear to be money—in one memorable scene, the Joker sets fire to a mountain of cash—and there are no demands made of the authorities. The villain causes mayhem and murder simply because he can.
Nor do the usual methods work. When the Joker is arrested, the police leave him alone in a room with Batman who beats him up to find out what his plans are. But no amount of violence—even from as powerful a figure as Batman—makes any difference. The Joker is past the stage where he cares about pain.
In that sense, the Joker is the crime fighter’s ultimate nightmare: a villain with no wants or desires, with no agendas and no obvious weaknesses. He kills because he likes it. He keeps Batman alive because he enjoys the battle.
Now, consider the situation we found ourselves in during the siege of Mumbai. We had nothing to negotiate with the terrorists. They did not care about money and they had no political demands. We could not engage them in conversation, listen to their demands and then slowly whittle them down as hostage negotiators usually do.
Nor did they take hostages in the traditional sense. Judging by eyewitness accounts, they entered the hotels and shot as many people as they could. The civilians the commandos referred to as hostages were actually human shields. The terrorists wanted to surround themselves with innocents to make it more difficult for the commandos to get at them. They had no intention of taking hostages and then releasing them when their demands were met.
They were also oblivious to the traditional pressure tactics used by the police. In such operations, you try and make terrorists fear for their lives. But how can you scare a man who has embarked on his mission fully intending to give up his life? He doesn’t care if he dies and so, is not scared of you.
And wasn’t India in some sense like Batman? Strong, powerful, admired, with many resources and yet, frustratingly unable to get to the terrorists. What could we have done? We couldn’t have threatened to bomb Pakistan in retaliation (as many Page 3 types went on TV to suggest) because that would have served no purpose. Thousands of innocent Pakistanis would have died and thousands of new terrorists would have emerged from the rubble.
So, perhaps The Dark Knight is the terrorist movie for our times. It doesn’t focus on the relatively easy stuff—heroics, commando operations, hostage negotiations, etc.—but captures the essential frustration of dealing with terrorists who have no national loyalties, no weaknesses, no greed, no desire to live and no political ambition.
They simply want to kill as many people as they can and cause as much destruction as possible. That is an end in itself.
What strange times we must live in when a Batman movie more accurately reflects the real world than any action thriller.
Business - India;KF to pay 3% commission to travel agents
Mumbai: Kingfisher Airlines said it would pay a 3% commission on the total ticket price to travel agents following a similar move by Jet Airways.
“The commission would come into effect from Friday,” a Kingfisher spokesman said.
Kingfisher has also withdrawn its transaction fee on tickets, which was introduced following the abolition of a 5% commission to travel agents.
“The commission would come into effect from Friday,” a Kingfisher spokesman said.
Kingfisher has also withdrawn its transaction fee on tickets, which was introduced following the abolition of a 5% commission to travel agents.
Lifestyle - Carnatic music now in new media formats
Samanth Subramanian
Chennai: Once or twice a month, depending upon his schedule, Sanjay Subrahmanyan leaves his apartment and walks over to a recording studio just across the street. But Subrahmanyan, an eminent Carnatic music vocalist, is not there to sing—is not there, in other words, to do what one would expect him to do in a studio.
Instead, he sits at his microphone to talk and to interview guests, creating podcasts for The Sanjay Subrahmanyan Show (Sanjaysub.libsyn.com), which is also hosted on his blog (Sanjaysub.blogspot.com).
The podcast and blog are part of a paroxysm of Internet activity that Subrahmanyan has been engaged in since May—and also part of a larger flurry of nifty new media innovations that have marked the Carnatic music community over the last couple of years.
These projects, many of them firsts for the classical arts in India, have emerged in various guises: Subrahmanyan’s podcasts, blogs by musicians as well as listeners, Wiki-enabled databases of lyrics, tutorials on Skype, Facebook communities, online transliteration tools and notation typesetters, and Twitter feeds.
Subrahmanyan himself was one of the vanguards of Carnatic music in the age of Web 1.0. With a partner, he set up Sangeetham.com, a hugely popular website, with always-buzzing forums, that nevertheless imploded when it became a victim of the dotcom bust.
“We weren’t running it as a profit centre at all, which was the real problem,” Subrahmanyan says. “After Sangeetham closed, I was inactive online for four years or so, but the recent Web 2.0 concepts really started to intrigue me.” He wasn’t the only one; at least four other musicians have recently started blogs, although they are updated with varying degrees of ardour.
Also Read MP3s are the new menace in Chennai’s music season
“When Carnatic musicians began to tour overseas regularly, they started to see how Western musicians were getting out of their shell and reaching out to the world through these mediums,” says Sikkil Gurucharan, a vocalist whose blog is dormant but on the cusp of being relaunched. “Also, in a sense, musicians earlier were separate from their audiences, but that gap has now narrowed.”
Subrahmanyan was drawn in particular to the format of the podcast after he downloaded and listened to numerous episodes of other shows. “I’d listen to podcasts on board games, and the technology podcasts of Leo Laporte,” he says. Every episode of Subrahmanyan’s own chatty, freewheeling show, on average, is now downloaded 800-1,000 times, by listeners in India but also in the US and other countries. Indeed, the constituents of the south Indian diaspora, many of them cut off from the classical music that they grew up with and love, are the primary progenitors of these innovations; unsurprisingly, a large number of them are computer programmers in the US.
A sterling case in point is Ramadorai Arun Kumar, a Chicago-based computer engineer who is now in Chennai for the music season.
Last year, over a couple of months, Arun Kumar put together a piece of Unicode software to transliterate lyrics in one language into any of six other languages.
Perhaps looking for a keener challenge, he then spent many weekends and late nights developing an automated system to notate music.
“I think a lot of us take pride in the fact that Carnatic music is very ordered and very scientific, so maybe that culture itself acts as a catalyst for people to do something along these lines,” says Arun Kumar. “In a Hindustani music forum, I once asked about similar systems, but there was a very weak level of interest.”
Inevitably, these projects turn out to be collaborative. Arun Kumar enlisted the help of other members of a Carnatic music forum to work on the languages he did not know. Sunil Mudambi and Sai Prasad Viswanathan, young professionals living in Singapore and the US, built an extensive audio database of 725 songs of the 19th century composer Tyagaraja, without ever having met each other.
“Tyagaraja composed thousands of songs, but we have an existing list of 800, and we hear only 200-odd sung in concerts today,” says Mudambi. “If that trend continues, we may just lose the remaining songs. The idea of the website is to propagate the entirety of his compositions.”
Simultaneously, Viswanathan worked with a dozen people across the world on a Wiki that compiled the lyrics and explanations to more than 400 songs of another composer, Muthuswami Dikshitar. “When we started, we’d have over 100 edits daily, but now it’s slowed down to once a week or so,” he says. “We’ve begun to get a lot of emails from people who say they’re using the lyrics to teach or learn the music.”
In a pleasant twist, these endeavours can sometimes become the listener’s way of giving back to the musician. “Every time I search for lyrics with Google, I get results from these databases that are accurate eight times out of 10,” says Gurucharan. “And it’s always great to go online and see all these forums where people are actively discussing Carnatic music, wanting to learn more about it.”
This is the second of a series on Chennai’s music season. The first part was on bootleg audience-recorded versions of concerts, courtesy small MP3 recorders.
Next: The little company that could.
Chennai: Once or twice a month, depending upon his schedule, Sanjay Subrahmanyan leaves his apartment and walks over to a recording studio just across the street. But Subrahmanyan, an eminent Carnatic music vocalist, is not there to sing—is not there, in other words, to do what one would expect him to do in a studio.
Instead, he sits at his microphone to talk and to interview guests, creating podcasts for The Sanjay Subrahmanyan Show (Sanjaysub.libsyn.com), which is also hosted on his blog (Sanjaysub.blogspot.com).
The podcast and blog are part of a paroxysm of Internet activity that Subrahmanyan has been engaged in since May—and also part of a larger flurry of nifty new media innovations that have marked the Carnatic music community over the last couple of years.
These projects, many of them firsts for the classical arts in India, have emerged in various guises: Subrahmanyan’s podcasts, blogs by musicians as well as listeners, Wiki-enabled databases of lyrics, tutorials on Skype, Facebook communities, online transliteration tools and notation typesetters, and Twitter feeds.
Subrahmanyan himself was one of the vanguards of Carnatic music in the age of Web 1.0. With a partner, he set up Sangeetham.com, a hugely popular website, with always-buzzing forums, that nevertheless imploded when it became a victim of the dotcom bust.
“We weren’t running it as a profit centre at all, which was the real problem,” Subrahmanyan says. “After Sangeetham closed, I was inactive online for four years or so, but the recent Web 2.0 concepts really started to intrigue me.” He wasn’t the only one; at least four other musicians have recently started blogs, although they are updated with varying degrees of ardour.
Also Read MP3s are the new menace in Chennai’s music season
“When Carnatic musicians began to tour overseas regularly, they started to see how Western musicians were getting out of their shell and reaching out to the world through these mediums,” says Sikkil Gurucharan, a vocalist whose blog is dormant but on the cusp of being relaunched. “Also, in a sense, musicians earlier were separate from their audiences, but that gap has now narrowed.”
Subrahmanyan was drawn in particular to the format of the podcast after he downloaded and listened to numerous episodes of other shows. “I’d listen to podcasts on board games, and the technology podcasts of Leo Laporte,” he says. Every episode of Subrahmanyan’s own chatty, freewheeling show, on average, is now downloaded 800-1,000 times, by listeners in India but also in the US and other countries. Indeed, the constituents of the south Indian diaspora, many of them cut off from the classical music that they grew up with and love, are the primary progenitors of these innovations; unsurprisingly, a large number of them are computer programmers in the US.
A sterling case in point is Ramadorai Arun Kumar, a Chicago-based computer engineer who is now in Chennai for the music season.
Last year, over a couple of months, Arun Kumar put together a piece of Unicode software to transliterate lyrics in one language into any of six other languages.
Perhaps looking for a keener challenge, he then spent many weekends and late nights developing an automated system to notate music.
“I think a lot of us take pride in the fact that Carnatic music is very ordered and very scientific, so maybe that culture itself acts as a catalyst for people to do something along these lines,” says Arun Kumar. “In a Hindustani music forum, I once asked about similar systems, but there was a very weak level of interest.”
Inevitably, these projects turn out to be collaborative. Arun Kumar enlisted the help of other members of a Carnatic music forum to work on the languages he did not know. Sunil Mudambi and Sai Prasad Viswanathan, young professionals living in Singapore and the US, built an extensive audio database of 725 songs of the 19th century composer Tyagaraja, without ever having met each other.
“Tyagaraja composed thousands of songs, but we have an existing list of 800, and we hear only 200-odd sung in concerts today,” says Mudambi. “If that trend continues, we may just lose the remaining songs. The idea of the website is to propagate the entirety of his compositions.”
Simultaneously, Viswanathan worked with a dozen people across the world on a Wiki that compiled the lyrics and explanations to more than 400 songs of another composer, Muthuswami Dikshitar. “When we started, we’d have over 100 edits daily, but now it’s slowed down to once a week or so,” he says. “We’ve begun to get a lot of emails from people who say they’re using the lyrics to teach or learn the music.”
In a pleasant twist, these endeavours can sometimes become the listener’s way of giving back to the musician. “Every time I search for lyrics with Google, I get results from these databases that are accurate eight times out of 10,” says Gurucharan. “And it’s always great to go online and see all these forums where people are actively discussing Carnatic music, wanting to learn more about it.”
This is the second of a series on Chennai’s music season. The first part was on bootleg audience-recorded versions of concerts, courtesy small MP3 recorders.
Next: The little company that could.
Science - Hydrogen 'balls': Safe fuel of future?
Narayani Ganesh
UPPSALA: The car of the future could be powered by small "ping-pong balls" filled with hydrogen gas. If the project takes off commercially, this
could be a signal contribution from Sweden towards reducing the world's dependence on fossil fuel for transport. This is what astronautics professor and inventor Lars Stenmark of the department of materials science, Angstrom Laboratory, at Uppsala University envisions for a green future.
By storing hydrogen gas in small balls, Stenmark hopes to overcome the risk of fires and explosions. "By storing the gas in round, spherical form, it can withstand twice the pressure that a cylindrical form can. If the car crashes and the tank breaks, the hydrogen-filled balls would just spread out and roll away, and the gas from any broken balls would simply seep out and disappear into the atmosphere without causing harm," he says.
This is just one among many cutting edge research undertaken by faculty at Uppsala, focusing on energy research and new materials.
Maria Stromme, professor of nanotechnology, an engineering physicist, has found a way to extract cellulose from green algae bloom — a poison that is polluting coastlines and killing fish — and convert it into lithium-free batteries. Each fibre is covered with conducting polymer. The sheets so created have a large surface area that is coated with salt water for ion exchange. The sheets are flexible; they can be rolled up or cut into smaller sheets and stacked. Used in textiles, the fibre can make it possible for clothes to change colour! "We need to now extend it from the lab scale to industrial scale," says Maria: "You can even use the cellulose sheets to filter dangerous molecules from polluted water, since you need to treat large surface areas."
How to create inexpensive, "green" batteries with high storage capacity? A 15-member team led by Kristina Edstrom and Josh Thomas, of the department of materials chemistry, is experimenting with new materials to make this possible. Doctoral student Anton Nyten left the battery experiment he was conducting and rushed off to take his wife to the maternity hospital where she gave birth to their daughter, Nelly. He returned five weeks later to find the battery still alive: The "Nelly Effect" refers to the new cathode material discovered for lithium ion batteries using iron and silicon, considerably cheaper than cobalt-based materials.
This amounts to a major step towards enabling manufacture of cheap, environmentally friendly hybrid cars as well as the possibility of cleaner, more efficient heating, creating the potential for larger format batteries that can power vehicles.
UPPSALA: The car of the future could be powered by small "ping-pong balls" filled with hydrogen gas. If the project takes off commercially, this
could be a signal contribution from Sweden towards reducing the world's dependence on fossil fuel for transport. This is what astronautics professor and inventor Lars Stenmark of the department of materials science, Angstrom Laboratory, at Uppsala University envisions for a green future.
By storing hydrogen gas in small balls, Stenmark hopes to overcome the risk of fires and explosions. "By storing the gas in round, spherical form, it can withstand twice the pressure that a cylindrical form can. If the car crashes and the tank breaks, the hydrogen-filled balls would just spread out and roll away, and the gas from any broken balls would simply seep out and disappear into the atmosphere without causing harm," he says.
This is just one among many cutting edge research undertaken by faculty at Uppsala, focusing on energy research and new materials.
Maria Stromme, professor of nanotechnology, an engineering physicist, has found a way to extract cellulose from green algae bloom — a poison that is polluting coastlines and killing fish — and convert it into lithium-free batteries. Each fibre is covered with conducting polymer. The sheets so created have a large surface area that is coated with salt water for ion exchange. The sheets are flexible; they can be rolled up or cut into smaller sheets and stacked. Used in textiles, the fibre can make it possible for clothes to change colour! "We need to now extend it from the lab scale to industrial scale," says Maria: "You can even use the cellulose sheets to filter dangerous molecules from polluted water, since you need to treat large surface areas."
How to create inexpensive, "green" batteries with high storage capacity? A 15-member team led by Kristina Edstrom and Josh Thomas, of the department of materials chemistry, is experimenting with new materials to make this possible. Doctoral student Anton Nyten left the battery experiment he was conducting and rushed off to take his wife to the maternity hospital where she gave birth to their daughter, Nelly. He returned five weeks later to find the battery still alive: The "Nelly Effect" refers to the new cathode material discovered for lithium ion batteries using iron and silicon, considerably cheaper than cobalt-based materials.
This amounts to a major step towards enabling manufacture of cheap, environmentally friendly hybrid cars as well as the possibility of cleaner, more efficient heating, creating the potential for larger format batteries that can power vehicles.
Lifestyle - Decode your lover's body language
Divya Kapoor
No matter where you bump into your eye candy - at a friend's house, at a bar, a restaurant or even in the midst of a crowded market, the questions Understand your partner's body language clues (Getty Images)
remain the same: "What on Earth is he/she thinking? Does he/she really like me? Do I stand a chance?"
But do you know that men and women both are pre-programmed to send out physical clues when they're interested in the opposite sex? A huge advantage of becoming aware of your love interest's body language is that you can now read her mind and predict their next move. Here's how you can understand body language clues...
Her Body
Eye Contact : It all starts with an eye lock, doesn't it? Eyes telegraph unspoken messages and the female species definitely knows how to use this part of their body to their advantage. "I use this trick when I want to attract a guy's attention and no matter how clichéd it sounds, this trick always works!" says Sunaina Sharma, a student. "My first interaction with my wife started through eye contact. She was sitting with her friends on a staircase in college and I was a newcomer. It won't be wrong to say that she literally used her eyes as weapons to trap the prey (me)!" shares Prabhu a corporate executive.
Hot tip : "An eye contact can vary from curiosity, cool assessment to a coy interest in someone. When a girl makes eye contact that lasts longer than a furtive glance, it is a positive move on her part. If a girl looks deeply into a guy's eyes, she's telling him that he's the most charming person in the room. However, a full frontal stare is risky. It may come across as too bold to those men who get freaked out by direct behavior by a woman," says Dr. Upadhyaya.
Exposing : Yes, we know that most women love indulging in skin show, but here we're talking about a particular area: their long and smooth neck. "There was a girl in my office who was infamous for indulging in sex talks with male colleagues. She would always sit with her hair on one side of her shoulder, revealing her slender and perfumed neck. In fact, some of her friends told me once that she purposely did this as she felt it made her look sexy and was a nice way of luring someone for dirty talks," reveals Shailja Thakur, a business analyst.
Hot tip : "When you're reading a woman's body gestures, observe if she tosses her hair over one shoulder frequently. If your answer is in the affirmative, then be assured that the lady has fallen hard for you," says Dr. Akhouri. "It's an indirect act of submission and it not only exposes your neck, but also screams for attention," he adds.
Leg Crossing : The next time you get the chance to sit with your eye candy, observe her leg movements very carefully. While crossing her legs, if her top leg always points in your direction, treat it as a win-win situation. "I personally feel that a woman's whole personality changes as soon as she crosses her legs... it creates a goddess-like aura around her. On my last date, the girl sat with her legs crossed sexily all through the date and occasionally rubbed her thighs. Not only did I got broad hints, but it also was a big turn on for me," says Manu Vohra, a marketing manager.
Hot tip : According to Dr. Upadhyaya., "Leg crossing is suggestive of a nervous or provocative gesture. Often, woman can't help crossing their legs in front of the guy they have the hots for. It is a subconscious gesture that clearly says a man is getting on to her."
Arm Crossing : Crossing of arms by a woman has numerous meanings. "The receptionist in my old office used to sit with her hands and legs Understand your partner's body language clues (Getty Images)
crossed every time I was around. Initially, I thought her to be an arrogant lass, but it was only when she asked me out one day that I realised what that meant," says Sagarmani Dhakal, a corporate executive. "The best way to highlight your assets in front of a man is to cross your hands right below your chest and the guy is bound to notice you!," suggests Puja Khanna, a marketing executive. "Whenever I want something more from a guy than just talking and shopping, this is the trick that I apply," she quips.
Hot tip : "Crossed arms signal a woman's vulnerability and it can also be a way of telling a guy that she doesn't like him and doesn't want him around at all. Crossing of arms over her chest is also a clever way of drawing attention towards her assets," explains Dr. Upadhyaya.
Leaning : If you catch your ladylove practically leaning towards your shoulders most of the times she's around you, there is very little chance that she is not madly in love with you! "I went with my colleague for a movie and throughout the film, I could feel her hair on my neck and shoulders. The hint was enough for me to understand that I wasn't a mere colleague for her anymore," says Sunny Kudav, a programmer.
So the next time you want your guy to know he means a lot to you, just put your head on his shoulder, close your eyes and relax! "When my husband and I were just friends, and wanted to graduate to the level of lovers, I kept dropping hints like these. I would quietly lean over his body and say nothing. I wanted him to know that I was dependent on him and that his company was soothing and that life without him would now be difficult," says Shailja Sharma, a housewife.
Hot tip : "There is nothing more pleasurable than to make your love confession indirectly to your man. If a woman leans on a man, it's a sign of acceptance. It means she thinks the guy is dependable and trustworthy. She has found in you her dream man," tells Dr. Akhouri.
HIS BODY
Eyebrow flash : Pay attention to your crush's eyebrows the next time you meet him, for this gesture can convey his likeability for you. "Whether you walk the corridor of a corporate office or go shopping in a crowded street, you will find at least a dozen men staring at you with their raised eyebrows. This gesture is too obvious to go unnoticed," says Drishika Chowdhry, a model.
Hot tip : "When the person we're attracted to comes before us, our first reaction is that of raising our eyebrows", says Dr. Pramod Upadhyaya. "It lasts about a fifth of a second and it happens to everyone," he adds.
He's checking out your body : His eyes take a tour of your body, stopping for a moment to scan the sexiest parts. "
time. I remember a guy from final year whom I dated for a couple of months. He would make it a point to scan my body as soon as I entered the class. And the strangest part was that he would want to me see his act," holds Ritu Rauthan, an MCA student. "If one wants to end up in bed with a girl, he needs to throw strong signals and the best way to do it is to let her see you when you are exploring every part of her body with your eyes," says Vishal Khandelwal, a web designer.
Hot tip : "When a guy lets you see him checking out your body, it's a way of indirectly telling the opposite sex: 'I'm considering you as a sexual partner'," says Dr.Tapas K Akhouri, a body language trainer.
His hands are on your body : This means the guy is subconsciously drawing your attention to his assets. Whichever part a man aims at is the most meaningful part to him. "My boyfriend used to position his chest towards me while talking and sometimes he would put his hands in his back pockets and walk. When we grew close he told me that these were the areas where he loves my touch the most," says Anu, a hotel receptionist.
Hot tip : "Guys generally do this to highlight their physical size and body confidence," mentions Dr. Upadhyaya. "Men point at their best sexual assets and at the parts of the body where they would most like to be touched. For example, if during a conversation, he stands with his hands on his hips, he wants you to touch and admire his bottom," he adds.
He'll start playing with circular objects : Ever wondered why? They remind him of a woman's assets. "My best friend had a habit of fiddling with rolled magazines, newspapers, paper weights and any round object he could lay his hands upon, whenever we were together. Once he caught me in private and tried to get physical. I was bewildered. Later I read about this body language cue in a magazine and realized what his gestures meant. He always had sexual thoughts on his mind," says Priya, (name changed on request), a BPO worker.
Hot tip : "Men sometimes start playing with round objects while talking to the girl they have a liking for. They may squeeze a glass or start rolling it. The reason being their sexual inclination towards that particular girl," explains Dr. Upadhyaya.
He touches his face a lot : One of the ways in which a man's body speaks of his ardent feelings is the way he touches his ears, rubs his chin and pats his cheeks with the back of his fingers in front of his lady love. "I touch my face and neck quite a lot in front of the girls I have the hots for. It is something that happens involuntarily with me...mostly when I am nervous," says Jitender Bharadwaj, a BPO employee.
Hot tip : "It's a mix of nervousness and excitement. Attraction is a dangerous matter and our body can knowingly or unknowingly reveal it in ways that are quite unfamiliar to most of us. Out lips and mouth become sensitive to touch and other stimulations," says Dr. Akhouri.
No matter where you bump into your eye candy - at a friend's house, at a bar, a restaurant or even in the midst of a crowded market, the questions Understand your partner's body language clues (Getty Images)
remain the same: "What on Earth is he/she thinking? Does he/she really like me? Do I stand a chance?"
But do you know that men and women both are pre-programmed to send out physical clues when they're interested in the opposite sex? A huge advantage of becoming aware of your love interest's body language is that you can now read her mind and predict their next move. Here's how you can understand body language clues...
Her Body
Eye Contact : It all starts with an eye lock, doesn't it? Eyes telegraph unspoken messages and the female species definitely knows how to use this part of their body to their advantage. "I use this trick when I want to attract a guy's attention and no matter how clichéd it sounds, this trick always works!" says Sunaina Sharma, a student. "My first interaction with my wife started through eye contact. She was sitting with her friends on a staircase in college and I was a newcomer. It won't be wrong to say that she literally used her eyes as weapons to trap the prey (me)!" shares Prabhu a corporate executive.
Hot tip : "An eye contact can vary from curiosity, cool assessment to a coy interest in someone. When a girl makes eye contact that lasts longer than a furtive glance, it is a positive move on her part. If a girl looks deeply into a guy's eyes, she's telling him that he's the most charming person in the room. However, a full frontal stare is risky. It may come across as too bold to those men who get freaked out by direct behavior by a woman," says Dr. Upadhyaya.
Exposing : Yes, we know that most women love indulging in skin show, but here we're talking about a particular area: their long and smooth neck. "There was a girl in my office who was infamous for indulging in sex talks with male colleagues. She would always sit with her hair on one side of her shoulder, revealing her slender and perfumed neck. In fact, some of her friends told me once that she purposely did this as she felt it made her look sexy and was a nice way of luring someone for dirty talks," reveals Shailja Thakur, a business analyst.
Hot tip : "When you're reading a woman's body gestures, observe if she tosses her hair over one shoulder frequently. If your answer is in the affirmative, then be assured that the lady has fallen hard for you," says Dr. Akhouri. "It's an indirect act of submission and it not only exposes your neck, but also screams for attention," he adds.
Leg Crossing : The next time you get the chance to sit with your eye candy, observe her leg movements very carefully. While crossing her legs, if her top leg always points in your direction, treat it as a win-win situation. "I personally feel that a woman's whole personality changes as soon as she crosses her legs... it creates a goddess-like aura around her. On my last date, the girl sat with her legs crossed sexily all through the date and occasionally rubbed her thighs. Not only did I got broad hints, but it also was a big turn on for me," says Manu Vohra, a marketing manager.
Hot tip : According to Dr. Upadhyaya., "Leg crossing is suggestive of a nervous or provocative gesture. Often, woman can't help crossing their legs in front of the guy they have the hots for. It is a subconscious gesture that clearly says a man is getting on to her."
Arm Crossing : Crossing of arms by a woman has numerous meanings. "The receptionist in my old office used to sit with her hands and legs Understand your partner's body language clues (Getty Images)
crossed every time I was around. Initially, I thought her to be an arrogant lass, but it was only when she asked me out one day that I realised what that meant," says Sagarmani Dhakal, a corporate executive. "The best way to highlight your assets in front of a man is to cross your hands right below your chest and the guy is bound to notice you!," suggests Puja Khanna, a marketing executive. "Whenever I want something more from a guy than just talking and shopping, this is the trick that I apply," she quips.
Hot tip : "Crossed arms signal a woman's vulnerability and it can also be a way of telling a guy that she doesn't like him and doesn't want him around at all. Crossing of arms over her chest is also a clever way of drawing attention towards her assets," explains Dr. Upadhyaya.
Leaning : If you catch your ladylove practically leaning towards your shoulders most of the times she's around you, there is very little chance that she is not madly in love with you! "I went with my colleague for a movie and throughout the film, I could feel her hair on my neck and shoulders. The hint was enough for me to understand that I wasn't a mere colleague for her anymore," says Sunny Kudav, a programmer.
So the next time you want your guy to know he means a lot to you, just put your head on his shoulder, close your eyes and relax! "When my husband and I were just friends, and wanted to graduate to the level of lovers, I kept dropping hints like these. I would quietly lean over his body and say nothing. I wanted him to know that I was dependent on him and that his company was soothing and that life without him would now be difficult," says Shailja Sharma, a housewife.
Hot tip : "There is nothing more pleasurable than to make your love confession indirectly to your man. If a woman leans on a man, it's a sign of acceptance. It means she thinks the guy is dependable and trustworthy. She has found in you her dream man," tells Dr. Akhouri.
HIS BODY
Eyebrow flash : Pay attention to your crush's eyebrows the next time you meet him, for this gesture can convey his likeability for you. "Whether you walk the corridor of a corporate office or go shopping in a crowded street, you will find at least a dozen men staring at you with their raised eyebrows. This gesture is too obvious to go unnoticed," says Drishika Chowdhry, a model.
Hot tip : "When the person we're attracted to comes before us, our first reaction is that of raising our eyebrows", says Dr. Pramod Upadhyaya. "It lasts about a fifth of a second and it happens to everyone," he adds.
He's checking out your body : His eyes take a tour of your body, stopping for a moment to scan the sexiest parts. "
time. I remember a guy from final year whom I dated for a couple of months. He would make it a point to scan my body as soon as I entered the class. And the strangest part was that he would want to me see his act," holds Ritu Rauthan, an MCA student. "If one wants to end up in bed with a girl, he needs to throw strong signals and the best way to do it is to let her see you when you are exploring every part of her body with your eyes," says Vishal Khandelwal, a web designer.
Hot tip : "When a guy lets you see him checking out your body, it's a way of indirectly telling the opposite sex: 'I'm considering you as a sexual partner'," says Dr.Tapas K Akhouri, a body language trainer.
His hands are on your body : This means the guy is subconsciously drawing your attention to his assets. Whichever part a man aims at is the most meaningful part to him. "My boyfriend used to position his chest towards me while talking and sometimes he would put his hands in his back pockets and walk. When we grew close he told me that these were the areas where he loves my touch the most," says Anu, a hotel receptionist.
Hot tip : "Guys generally do this to highlight their physical size and body confidence," mentions Dr. Upadhyaya. "Men point at their best sexual assets and at the parts of the body where they would most like to be touched. For example, if during a conversation, he stands with his hands on his hips, he wants you to touch and admire his bottom," he adds.
He'll start playing with circular objects : Ever wondered why? They remind him of a woman's assets. "My best friend had a habit of fiddling with rolled magazines, newspapers, paper weights and any round object he could lay his hands upon, whenever we were together. Once he caught me in private and tried to get physical. I was bewildered. Later I read about this body language cue in a magazine and realized what his gestures meant. He always had sexual thoughts on his mind," says Priya, (name changed on request), a BPO worker.
Hot tip : "Men sometimes start playing with round objects while talking to the girl they have a liking for. They may squeeze a glass or start rolling it. The reason being their sexual inclination towards that particular girl," explains Dr. Upadhyaya.
He touches his face a lot : One of the ways in which a man's body speaks of his ardent feelings is the way he touches his ears, rubs his chin and pats his cheeks with the back of his fingers in front of his lady love. "I touch my face and neck quite a lot in front of the girls I have the hots for. It is something that happens involuntarily with me...mostly when I am nervous," says Jitender Bharadwaj, a BPO employee.
Hot tip : "It's a mix of nervousness and excitement. Attraction is a dangerous matter and our body can knowingly or unknowingly reveal it in ways that are quite unfamiliar to most of us. Out lips and mouth become sensitive to touch and other stimulations," says Dr. Akhouri.
Lifestyle - US unemployment grows,beard too
NEW YORK: The stress of financial turmoil is literally showing on the faces of Americans, with many unemployed individuals growing beard in the
country.
"Call it the face of freedom," said The Wall Street Journal and added that the facial hair is showing up on more former corporate types.
"It's one of those tiny luxuries unleashed by unemployment, a time when people are briefly released from workaday habits and may wish to take stock of their lives before setting out anew," the daily reported in an article published online yesterday.
Quoting Jorge Hendrickson who lost his job at a Manhattan hedge fund a few weeks ago, it said, he stopped shaving.
"I have shaved for so long, and it is nice to be able to look at the positive side (of losing a job)... I am changing my lifestyle while I can," he was quoted as saying.
Pointing out that Nobel laureate Al Gore grew a beard after losing the presidential election of 2000, the daily said that neatly trimmed "it looked cozy and anti-establishment as he pursued creative projects on his way to Nobel Peace Prize".
The WSJ said that 35-year-old investment analyst Scott Berger, stopped shaving in October after being laid off from hedge fund Laurus Capital Management.
For most office workers, the look remained too daring -- until they had nothing left to lose, as per the report.
"For many men, growing that unemployment beard is akin to a tame dance at a bachelor party -- a momentary freedom enjoyed while the rules are suspended. Many of today's beards may be as short-lived as the holidays," the daily said.
Berger shaves for job interviews, then re-grows his beard, which takes about two weeks, the WSJ noted and quoted him as saying, "I can't go on an interview with a beard."
country.
"Call it the face of freedom," said The Wall Street Journal and added that the facial hair is showing up on more former corporate types.
"It's one of those tiny luxuries unleashed by unemployment, a time when people are briefly released from workaday habits and may wish to take stock of their lives before setting out anew," the daily reported in an article published online yesterday.
Quoting Jorge Hendrickson who lost his job at a Manhattan hedge fund a few weeks ago, it said, he stopped shaving.
"I have shaved for so long, and it is nice to be able to look at the positive side (of losing a job)... I am changing my lifestyle while I can," he was quoted as saying.
Pointing out that Nobel laureate Al Gore grew a beard after losing the presidential election of 2000, the daily said that neatly trimmed "it looked cozy and anti-establishment as he pursued creative projects on his way to Nobel Peace Prize".
The WSJ said that 35-year-old investment analyst Scott Berger, stopped shaving in October after being laid off from hedge fund Laurus Capital Management.
For most office workers, the look remained too daring -- until they had nothing left to lose, as per the report.
"For many men, growing that unemployment beard is akin to a tame dance at a bachelor party -- a momentary freedom enjoyed while the rules are suspended. Many of today's beards may be as short-lived as the holidays," the daily said.
Berger shaves for job interviews, then re-grows his beard, which takes about two weeks, the WSJ noted and quoted him as saying, "I can't go on an interview with a beard."
World - 1st energy mkt in India
Nitin Sethi
NEW DELHI: India will have the world's first market for trading in energy savings. Under the National Action Plan on Climate Change, the power
ministry has prepared the blueprint for trading in energy by industrial plants that save energy beyond the targets set for them.
Under the plan, formulated by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) under the National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency and earlier announced in principle by the PM's climate change council, the government will set mandatory targets to be achieved by each large industrial unit and plant in energy intensive sectors, which include cement, aluminium, steel, power, textiles, fertilizers, railway, paper and pulp industries. The plan, which is to be brought soon before the PM's climate council for the final approval, will set in place the first such open market in the world for energy savings.
Under the global compact on climate change under UN aegis, there exists an international trade in greenhouse gas emission reductions.
But India, which has extremely low emissions as compared to the industrialized countries, has taken the stand that the only steps it needs to take, that too domestically, is to further strengthen its energy security which will automatically bring co-benefits of reduction in the global warming causing emissions.
Named the 'Perform, Achieve and Trade' or PAT scheme, energy reduction targets would be set in terms of the 'specific energy consumption' for each plant individually to ensure that there are no blanket benchmarks that create an uneven turf for different sizes and type of players.
While the methodology for ascertaining the energy consumption in each identified sector has been finalized, it will take a year to ascertain the target for each large unit.
Once the targets are set by end of 2009, the industry will be given three years to achieve them. Those units that surpass their targets will be provided 'energy certificates'. These certificates will be tradable on the existing power exchanges in the country. Companies that fail to meet the targets set for them will have to buy these certificates under an open market mechanism.
If the failed units do not meet their target either by achieving energy savings or by buying the energy certificates, they would be penalized by the government under the Energy Conservation Act.
Under the plan, BEE will accredit private agencies to audit the actual energy consumed by the industrial units and retain the powers to carry out random checks.
NEW DELHI: India will have the world's first market for trading in energy savings. Under the National Action Plan on Climate Change, the power
ministry has prepared the blueprint for trading in energy by industrial plants that save energy beyond the targets set for them.
Under the plan, formulated by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) under the National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency and earlier announced in principle by the PM's climate change council, the government will set mandatory targets to be achieved by each large industrial unit and plant in energy intensive sectors, which include cement, aluminium, steel, power, textiles, fertilizers, railway, paper and pulp industries. The plan, which is to be brought soon before the PM's climate council for the final approval, will set in place the first such open market in the world for energy savings.
Under the global compact on climate change under UN aegis, there exists an international trade in greenhouse gas emission reductions.
But India, which has extremely low emissions as compared to the industrialized countries, has taken the stand that the only steps it needs to take, that too domestically, is to further strengthen its energy security which will automatically bring co-benefits of reduction in the global warming causing emissions.
Named the 'Perform, Achieve and Trade' or PAT scheme, energy reduction targets would be set in terms of the 'specific energy consumption' for each plant individually to ensure that there are no blanket benchmarks that create an uneven turf for different sizes and type of players.
While the methodology for ascertaining the energy consumption in each identified sector has been finalized, it will take a year to ascertain the target for each large unit.
Once the targets are set by end of 2009, the industry will be given three years to achieve them. Those units that surpass their targets will be provided 'energy certificates'. These certificates will be tradable on the existing power exchanges in the country. Companies that fail to meet the targets set for them will have to buy these certificates under an open market mechanism.
If the failed units do not meet their target either by achieving energy savings or by buying the energy certificates, they would be penalized by the government under the Energy Conservation Act.
Under the plan, BEE will accredit private agencies to audit the actual energy consumed by the industrial units and retain the powers to carry out random checks.
Lifestyle - Coming Soon - Tasteful Sex Toys
A ‘tasteful’ range of new generation sex toys is being designed for middle-aged couples. Coming soon, 'tasteful' sex toys!
And the brain behind ‘Relationship Care’ is Dutch multinational Koninklijke Philips Electronics (Royal Philips Electronics).
The company said it would launch the range in Selfridges and Boots stores.
Jayson Otke, a Philips spokesman, said the products are designed to enhance couples'' sexual well-being, and are specifically target the hitherto "neglected" group of sex toy users aged between 35 and 55.
Otke said the three new products will be called collectively the Intimate Massage Range, consisting of the Warm Intimate Massage, the Warm Massage and the Intimate Dual Massage.
"They are attractive to look at, targeted at the over-35 market, designed like beautiful stones with contours that vibrate and in a tasteful purple case," Telegraph quoted him, as saying.
"You would not be embarrassed to leave the product in full view of the family. The products are marketed for couples, are none-penetrative, not phallic shaped and are not meant to replace the partner but to enhance the sex life of both partners,” he added.
The company is so confident about its new venture that it is predicting a 70 million euro profit in its first 12 months of trading.
And the brain behind ‘Relationship Care’ is Dutch multinational Koninklijke Philips Electronics (Royal Philips Electronics).
The company said it would launch the range in Selfridges and Boots stores.
Jayson Otke, a Philips spokesman, said the products are designed to enhance couples'' sexual well-being, and are specifically target the hitherto "neglected" group of sex toy users aged between 35 and 55.
Otke said the three new products will be called collectively the Intimate Massage Range, consisting of the Warm Intimate Massage, the Warm Massage and the Intimate Dual Massage.
"They are attractive to look at, targeted at the over-35 market, designed like beautiful stones with contours that vibrate and in a tasteful purple case," Telegraph quoted him, as saying.
"You would not be embarrassed to leave the product in full view of the family. The products are marketed for couples, are none-penetrative, not phallic shaped and are not meant to replace the partner but to enhance the sex life of both partners,” he added.
The company is so confident about its new venture that it is predicting a 70 million euro profit in its first 12 months of trading.
World - At Headquarters of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba
Harinder Baweja
"You are in an educational complex, but you are from India and you work for Tehelka, so it will take you time to change your mind."
That's what Abdullah Muntazir, (my guide and the spokesperson for the foreign media), told me within minutes of reaching Muridke, commonly believed to be the headquarters of the Lashkar-e-Taiyyebba (LeT).
It was for the first time that due permission had been granted to any Indian journalist to visit the sprawling campus that lies forty km out of Lahore. The barricade that leads to the complex is heavily guarded and no one can enter without prior consent.
The guided tour took me through a neatly laid out 60-bed hospital, schools for boys and girls, a madarsa, a mosque, an exorbitantly large swimming pool and a guest house.
Nestled between tall trees and a meshed wire boundary, the 75-acre complex has manicured lawns, turnip farms and a fish-breeding centre. The students who enroll in the school pay a fee while those who study in the madarsa and pass out as masters in Islamic studies can come for free. Learning English and Arabic from class one on is elementary and so is a course in computers.
Trimmed lawns and microscopes
The administrators of the complex, drawn from the LeT's political wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, are clearly at pains to disassociate themselves from the group widely believed to be behind the terror attack in Mumbai on 27/11. Other foreign journalists were guided through the complex a few days before my visit and during their orchestrated tour, saw students working in chemistry and physics laboratories, peering into microscopes and connecting electric circuits.
None of us went there thinking we would see firing ranges or target shooting in progress, but the tour itself is surreal. As you walk through the neatly trimmed lawns and veer left or right to see the hostel or the mosque or the hospital, the conversation itself is dotted entirely with words like terrorism, Lashkar and in my case, Kashmir.
Even though the gates have been opened - after clearance from Pakistan's security agencies (read ISI) - to dispel the impression of Muridke being the training camp that "India has made it out to be," the conversation is not about the school syllabus but wholly about how India is an enemy.
A day after I visited Muridke, I met a family whose sister-in-law lives right next to the complex. "But of course it's a training ground. You can hear slogans for jehad blaring out of loud speakers in full volume and you can also sometimes hear the sound of gunfire,'' members of this family confided. But during the two hours that I spent within the complex, there was enough conversation about jehad even if there were no signs of it being a sanctuary not just for the Lashkar-e-Taiyyebba but also believed to have been used as a hideout by al-Qaeda operatives, including Ramzi Yousef, one of the conspirators of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.
'Without doubt, you are the enemy'
Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist who was captured alive in Mumbai, is supposed to have studied here, according to his interrogators, and it's time to ask some straight questions.
So did Kasab study here, in Muridke?
"Even if he did, we are not responsible for what any one of our students do after passing out."
Do you support the Lashkar-e-Taiyyebba?
"We used to."
You used to?
"Yes, we were like-minded but the group was banned after Indian propaganda following the attack on its Parliament which was done by the Jaish-e-Mohammad and not the LeT. We use to provide logistical help to the Lashkar, collect funds for them and look after their publicity."
Did you also provide them with arms?
"They must have bought weapons with the money we gave them. They were obviously not using the money to buy flowers for the Indian army."
The Lashkar has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Red Fort in Delhi and the airport in Srinagar.
"We do not consider Kashmir to be a part of India. It is a part of Pakistan. Those who attack the security forces are not terrorists, they are freedom fighters."
President Musharraf moved away from the position that Kashmir either secede or be given independence. He proposed joint control.
"Musharraf did not have any legitimacy. He had no business making such proposals."
Do you consider India an enemy?
"Without doubt. India is responsible for the attack on Islamabad's Marriot hotel, for the bomb blasts in Peshawar. Sarabjit Singh has been convicted for being a RAW agent."
Your Amir, Hafiz Sayeed has given calls for jehad.
"He supports the freedom movement in Kashmir. We think it is right. It is ridiculous to call him a terrorist. Even when a thorn pricks India, the whole world stands up. Why did Condoleeza Rice not put pressure on India for handing over Narendra Modi after the Gujarat carnage?"
Kashmir is no longer entirely indigenous. Foreign fighters like Maulana Masood Azhar were arrested in Anantnag.
"He was a journalist and still is an inspirational writer. Anyone from here can go to Kashmir. We don't see it as part of India."
Did you sanitise this place before bringing me in?
"This is an educational complex and the Jamaat ud Dawah is a charitable organisation. There are very few people here because of the Eid break."
Does the ISI support you?
He just laughs.
A Pakistani Hamas
Jamaat ud Dawah, banned by the US in 2005 for being a Lashkar alias, draws patronage from the ISI and though proscribed abroad, has a free run in Pakistan. It has branches all across the country and is as famous for its social work as for its terror activities. It sees itself as a movement and not an organisation and has appeal to many in rural and urban areas.
When a correspondent from London's The Observer newspaper went to Kasab's village in Faridkot, close to the border with India, to establish if he indeed was a Pakistani, he was told that "religious clerics were brainwashing youth in the area and that LeT's founder Hafiz Sayeed had visited nearby Depalpur. There was a LeT office in Depalpur but that had hurriedly been closed down in the past few days. The LeT paper is distributed in Depalpur and Faridkot."
The Jamaat ud Dawah has a wide base and operates 140 schools and 29 seminaries in different towns and cities of Pakistan. According to the Jamaat's website: "Islam does not mean following a few rituals like performing prayers, keeping fasts, performing the pilgrimage to the Ka'ba (Hajj), giving alms (Zakat), or donating to charitable works, but in fact, it is a complete "Code of Life".
That is why Jamaat-ud-Dawah's struggle is not limited to any particular aspect of life only; rather, Jamaat-ud-Da'wah addresses each and every field of life according to the teachings of Islam. Jamaat-ud-Dawah is a movement that aims to spread the true teachings of Islam, and to establish a pure and peaceful society by building the character of individuals according to those teachings."
Its appeal extends to urban professionals like doctors who were out in large numbers in Muzaffarabad (the capital of Azad Kashmir or POK, depending on which side of the line of control you are on) in 2005, after a devastating earthquake. Unlike the Taliban, the Jamaat is modelled after Hamas and is not merely an army with gun-toting members but a complex and intricate organization with a social and political agenda. It has a huge following and reports have often indicated that in its annual congregations, where Hafiz Sayeed gives a call for jehad, , as many as 100,000 people are present in the sprawling Muridke compound.
It is groups like the Jamaat and the Jaish-e-Mohammad -- started by Maulana Masood Azhar soon after he was set free in Kandahar - which both India and Pakistan are up against.
Not the time to pick a fight
The complete U-turn, post 9/11 when General Musharraf lent complete support to George Bush, saw Pakistan take a slow but sure journey that has today placed it in a dangerous crosshairs.
While Musharraf joined the war against terror - forced to by Bush who had infamously said you are either with us or against us - he also got isolated from the his own people. They took to the streets, openly protesting his support of America that was bombing and strafing civilians, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq.
The last straw came when his own Army stormed the Lal Masjid in Islamabad in mid-2007. Reports of machine guns being used against innocents who got trapped in the Masjid, converted many within the Army and the ISI and those who had retired from these outfits.
It was the tipping point, said former ISI chief, Lt Gen Assad Durrani: "It was the most blatant homage paid to the Americans. The mosque is located under the nose of the ISI headquarters, and you can't first allow it to become a fortress and then fire on people who were willing to surrender. "
The storming of the Lal Masjid was a tipping point in more ways than one. If the release of Masood Azhar and the subsequent formation of the Jaish saw the advent of fidayeen attacks in Kashmir, the Lal Masjid operation led equally to the birth of intense attacks by suicide bombers.
The suicide attacks were not just targeting civilians, they were seeking men in uniform and the figures, in fact, tell the story. The first half of 2007 saw 12 such attacks all over Pakistan between January and July 3, and an estimated 75 people were killed. But after the Lal Masjid operation which reduced large parts of it to rubble, 44 suicide attacks took place between July and December, killing 567 people, mostly the members of the military and para-military forces, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and the police. December also saw the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a grim reminder of the fact that the militants had declared a war against their ex-masters. The attack on Islamabad's Marriot Hotel, the city's most high-profile landmark, only confirmed the fact that terror can strike at will, any time and anywhere. It confirmed also that terror was not restricted to Pakistan's tribal belt alone. President Musharraf himself had in fact also survived three assassination attempts and now lives under extremely tight security. The terror threat in Pakistan, can in fact, be gauged from the fact that both President Asif Zardari and the Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, in a complete first, offered Eid prayers at their respective residences on December 9.
The wave of suicide attacks in Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan does not just testify to the revival of al Qaeda and the Taliban networks but as Ahmed Rashid, strategic writer and author of several books on the jehadi networks, said: "The army is embroiled in fighting these forces in the Frontier and one third of the country is not even in the state's control. This is hardly the time to pick a fight with India."
More Lashkar than Lashkar: Retired soldiers
The ratcheting up of tension and animosity between India and Pakistan after the Mumbai terror attack on 27/11, points to another dangerous faultline - while the Pakistani Army joined the global war against terror, it never completely gave up its support to the jehadi network that is active on its border with India.
Even after the Lashkar and Jaish were banned, neither was their back accounts frozen, nor was they're any attempt at forcing them to shut shop. The Army and the ISI continued to support fronts like the Jamaat-ud-Dawah, which does more than just equip men with arms.
It motivates and indoctrinates minds and as Rashid pointed out, "Musharraf used to place Hafiz Sayed and Masood Azhar under house arrest for Western consumption. He may have stopped infiltrating them into Kashmir too under international pressure but there was no attempt to stop their activities in Pakistan after they were banned. They were just allowed to hang loose." Former interior secretary, Tasneem Noorani, said: "There was no effort to mainstream the radicals."
Kasab's journey from a remote village in Faridkot to Mumbai is a testimony to this. So is his revelation to his interrogators that a 'Major' trained him.
Zardari may have been right when he attributed the Mumbai attack to 'non-state actors' because the Major does not necessarily have to be a serving officer employed with the ISI.
"Retired ISI officers are helping the Pakistani Taliban and they have become more Lashkar than the Lashkar,'' said Rashid. Any number of strategic and security analysts will testify to this dangerous trend - to how ex-ISI officers are still in business because they have now attached themselves as advisors to militant organizations like the Lashkar and the Jaish.
"You don't need large training camps," admitted one such analyst who prefers not to be named. "Ex servicemen are imparting arms training within the compounds of their homes. Different officials are attached with different groups."
The switch from one alias to another - Lashkar-e-Toiba, Markaz-e-Toiba, Markaz-e-Dawah-Irshad, Jamaat ud Dawah - speaks of the Establishment's (the Army and ISI combine are referred to as the Establishment in Pakistan) more than subtle support of groups that are used against India. The long-standing relationship between the Establishment and the India-bound militants is now under pressure. The overriding message from America after the Mumbai attack is for these groups to be reigned in and this is testing not just the Army's carefully crafted support for the militants but has also focused attention on yet another faultline - the equation between the Establishment and the civilian government.
The effect of Indian television
Committed to better relations with India, Pakistan's top-most civilian representatives responded instinctively to the horror in Mumbai, in keeping with what Zardari had told the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, held a few days before the gun and grenade battle at Nariman House and the Taj and Oberoi hotels.
In what took the Indian government by surprise, Zardari committed Pakistan to a no-first-use of nuclear weapons. It was the first major security-related statement to come from Pakistan's government after the February 18 election and more than just surprise the Indian government; it caused unrest amongst its own Establishment.
The next statement, made by Prime Minister Gilani - and confirmed through a press release issued by his office - pertained to the civilian government agreeing to sending its top most ISI officer, Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha to India on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's request.
The sequence of events following Gilani's offer and Zardari's quick retraction, saying they had agreed to send a director and not director general Pasha, in fact speaks of the internal battle of supremacy between the Establishment and the civilian authorities, especially on the crucial issue of national security which the Army believes to be its exclusive domain. As Imtiaz Alam, a peacenick and head of the South Asian Free Media Association, who had dinner with Zardari a day after the Mumbai attack explained: "Zardari is very firm on terrorism. He thinks democracy is a better weapon but the terrorists have succeeded in creating a psychological gulf between India and Pakistan. Instead of Pakistan fighting the jehadis, it has become a fight between India and Pakistan."
Senior journalists in Pakistan admitted that briefings from the ISI changed the post-Mumbai discourse. Reacting perhaps to the loud, jingoistic demands on Indian television channels, for action against Pakistan, the ISI told a select group of journalists that India had in fact 'summoned' their Chief. Jamaat ud Dawah Amir, Hafiz Sayeed - with a clear nod from his handlers - appeared on one news channel after another, making the same points: that the list of 20 most wanted which also includes him, was old hat, that India was playing the blame game without evidence, that India had its own band of 'Hindu terrorists' and India should give freedom to Kashmir and end the matter once in for all.
The leak soon after, of the hoax call, purportedly made by Minister of External Affairs Pranab Mukherji to President Zardari, sealed the debate - India bashing was back in business. The jingoism overtook the more important debate of the threat Pakistan itself faced from terror networks flourishing on its soil.
Who's in Charge? Not Zardari
Pakistan's news channels went on overdrive and as some even blared war songs, the question that gained importance through the entire din, was - who really runs Pakistan? Who is in control?
The answers to the questions are both easy and complex. Mushahid Hussain, Chairman, Foreign Affairs Committee in the Senate was clear about the answer: "War on terror, national security and relations with India, Afghanistan and China are the domain of the army. Thanks to India, the army has been rehabilitated and the war bugles are all over. No one person, no one institution is running Pakistan. Musharraf ran a one-window operation and the Army and the ISI used to report to him but now decision-making is murky and that is causing confusion. The hoax call and the DG ISI controversy are symptomatic of that."
There are other examples. Only a few months ago, Zardari quickly retracted his effort to bring the ISI under the control of the Interior Ministry. And even as the Pakistan government's response to Indian pressure to rein in the terror networks, plays itself out on a day to day basis, it is evident that the civilian authorities have had to embrace the Establishment's point of view vis a vis India. Therefore, the talk that India should provide concrete evidence. Therefore, Zardari's statement that the guilty - if found guilty - will be tried on Pakistani soil. That the 20 most wanted will not be handed over. Even on sourced reports, put out in the local media, that Masood Azhar had been put under house arrest, Prime Minister Gilani went on record to say that no such report had come to him yet.
If India believes that Pakistan's response has been poor - two Lashkar men, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Zarrar Shah have been arrested in Muzaffarbad - it is because the Establishment and pressure from its own people tie down the government here. It cannot be seen to be buckling under pressure either from India or America.
Some moves seem to be on the cards, including the banning of the Jamaat ud Dawah. But Lashkar was banned in the past as was the Jaish. Prime Minister Gilani has committed to not allowing Pakistani soil to be used for terror attacks, but then Musharraf had made the same exact promise on January 12, 2002 soon after the Parliament was attacked in Delhi.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has gone as far as to say that "Pakistan needs to set its own house in order'' (see interview) but he is in the Opposition and he can afford to make such statements. If Pakistan has begun to resemble a house of terror, it is because the Army and the ISI are yet to change their stance, not just vis a vis India but vis a vis the terrorists it creates and supports. Until then, the sprawling compound in Muridke will continue to remain in business. If the Jamaat ud Dawah does get banned, all it will need is another alias.
"You are in an educational complex, but you are from India and you work for Tehelka, so it will take you time to change your mind."
That's what Abdullah Muntazir, (my guide and the spokesperson for the foreign media), told me within minutes of reaching Muridke, commonly believed to be the headquarters of the Lashkar-e-Taiyyebba (LeT).
It was for the first time that due permission had been granted to any Indian journalist to visit the sprawling campus that lies forty km out of Lahore. The barricade that leads to the complex is heavily guarded and no one can enter without prior consent.
The guided tour took me through a neatly laid out 60-bed hospital, schools for boys and girls, a madarsa, a mosque, an exorbitantly large swimming pool and a guest house.
Nestled between tall trees and a meshed wire boundary, the 75-acre complex has manicured lawns, turnip farms and a fish-breeding centre. The students who enroll in the school pay a fee while those who study in the madarsa and pass out as masters in Islamic studies can come for free. Learning English and Arabic from class one on is elementary and so is a course in computers.
Trimmed lawns and microscopes
The administrators of the complex, drawn from the LeT's political wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, are clearly at pains to disassociate themselves from the group widely believed to be behind the terror attack in Mumbai on 27/11. Other foreign journalists were guided through the complex a few days before my visit and during their orchestrated tour, saw students working in chemistry and physics laboratories, peering into microscopes and connecting electric circuits.
None of us went there thinking we would see firing ranges or target shooting in progress, but the tour itself is surreal. As you walk through the neatly trimmed lawns and veer left or right to see the hostel or the mosque or the hospital, the conversation itself is dotted entirely with words like terrorism, Lashkar and in my case, Kashmir.
Even though the gates have been opened - after clearance from Pakistan's security agencies (read ISI) - to dispel the impression of Muridke being the training camp that "India has made it out to be," the conversation is not about the school syllabus but wholly about how India is an enemy.
A day after I visited Muridke, I met a family whose sister-in-law lives right next to the complex. "But of course it's a training ground. You can hear slogans for jehad blaring out of loud speakers in full volume and you can also sometimes hear the sound of gunfire,'' members of this family confided. But during the two hours that I spent within the complex, there was enough conversation about jehad even if there were no signs of it being a sanctuary not just for the Lashkar-e-Taiyyebba but also believed to have been used as a hideout by al-Qaeda operatives, including Ramzi Yousef, one of the conspirators of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.
'Without doubt, you are the enemy'
Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist who was captured alive in Mumbai, is supposed to have studied here, according to his interrogators, and it's time to ask some straight questions.
So did Kasab study here, in Muridke?
"Even if he did, we are not responsible for what any one of our students do after passing out."
Do you support the Lashkar-e-Taiyyebba?
"We used to."
You used to?
"Yes, we were like-minded but the group was banned after Indian propaganda following the attack on its Parliament which was done by the Jaish-e-Mohammad and not the LeT. We use to provide logistical help to the Lashkar, collect funds for them and look after their publicity."
Did you also provide them with arms?
"They must have bought weapons with the money we gave them. They were obviously not using the money to buy flowers for the Indian army."
The Lashkar has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Red Fort in Delhi and the airport in Srinagar.
"We do not consider Kashmir to be a part of India. It is a part of Pakistan. Those who attack the security forces are not terrorists, they are freedom fighters."
President Musharraf moved away from the position that Kashmir either secede or be given independence. He proposed joint control.
"Musharraf did not have any legitimacy. He had no business making such proposals."
Do you consider India an enemy?
"Without doubt. India is responsible for the attack on Islamabad's Marriot hotel, for the bomb blasts in Peshawar. Sarabjit Singh has been convicted for being a RAW agent."
Your Amir, Hafiz Sayeed has given calls for jehad.
"He supports the freedom movement in Kashmir. We think it is right. It is ridiculous to call him a terrorist. Even when a thorn pricks India, the whole world stands up. Why did Condoleeza Rice not put pressure on India for handing over Narendra Modi after the Gujarat carnage?"
Kashmir is no longer entirely indigenous. Foreign fighters like Maulana Masood Azhar were arrested in Anantnag.
"He was a journalist and still is an inspirational writer. Anyone from here can go to Kashmir. We don't see it as part of India."
Did you sanitise this place before bringing me in?
"This is an educational complex and the Jamaat ud Dawah is a charitable organisation. There are very few people here because of the Eid break."
Does the ISI support you?
He just laughs.
A Pakistani Hamas
Jamaat ud Dawah, banned by the US in 2005 for being a Lashkar alias, draws patronage from the ISI and though proscribed abroad, has a free run in Pakistan. It has branches all across the country and is as famous for its social work as for its terror activities. It sees itself as a movement and not an organisation and has appeal to many in rural and urban areas.
When a correspondent from London's The Observer newspaper went to Kasab's village in Faridkot, close to the border with India, to establish if he indeed was a Pakistani, he was told that "religious clerics were brainwashing youth in the area and that LeT's founder Hafiz Sayeed had visited nearby Depalpur. There was a LeT office in Depalpur but that had hurriedly been closed down in the past few days. The LeT paper is distributed in Depalpur and Faridkot."
The Jamaat ud Dawah has a wide base and operates 140 schools and 29 seminaries in different towns and cities of Pakistan. According to the Jamaat's website: "Islam does not mean following a few rituals like performing prayers, keeping fasts, performing the pilgrimage to the Ka'ba (Hajj), giving alms (Zakat), or donating to charitable works, but in fact, it is a complete "Code of Life".
That is why Jamaat-ud-Dawah's struggle is not limited to any particular aspect of life only; rather, Jamaat-ud-Da'wah addresses each and every field of life according to the teachings of Islam. Jamaat-ud-Dawah is a movement that aims to spread the true teachings of Islam, and to establish a pure and peaceful society by building the character of individuals according to those teachings."
Its appeal extends to urban professionals like doctors who were out in large numbers in Muzaffarabad (the capital of Azad Kashmir or POK, depending on which side of the line of control you are on) in 2005, after a devastating earthquake. Unlike the Taliban, the Jamaat is modelled after Hamas and is not merely an army with gun-toting members but a complex and intricate organization with a social and political agenda. It has a huge following and reports have often indicated that in its annual congregations, where Hafiz Sayeed gives a call for jehad, , as many as 100,000 people are present in the sprawling Muridke compound.
It is groups like the Jamaat and the Jaish-e-Mohammad -- started by Maulana Masood Azhar soon after he was set free in Kandahar - which both India and Pakistan are up against.
Not the time to pick a fight
The complete U-turn, post 9/11 when General Musharraf lent complete support to George Bush, saw Pakistan take a slow but sure journey that has today placed it in a dangerous crosshairs.
While Musharraf joined the war against terror - forced to by Bush who had infamously said you are either with us or against us - he also got isolated from the his own people. They took to the streets, openly protesting his support of America that was bombing and strafing civilians, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq.
The last straw came when his own Army stormed the Lal Masjid in Islamabad in mid-2007. Reports of machine guns being used against innocents who got trapped in the Masjid, converted many within the Army and the ISI and those who had retired from these outfits.
It was the tipping point, said former ISI chief, Lt Gen Assad Durrani: "It was the most blatant homage paid to the Americans. The mosque is located under the nose of the ISI headquarters, and you can't first allow it to become a fortress and then fire on people who were willing to surrender. "
The storming of the Lal Masjid was a tipping point in more ways than one. If the release of Masood Azhar and the subsequent formation of the Jaish saw the advent of fidayeen attacks in Kashmir, the Lal Masjid operation led equally to the birth of intense attacks by suicide bombers.
The suicide attacks were not just targeting civilians, they were seeking men in uniform and the figures, in fact, tell the story. The first half of 2007 saw 12 such attacks all over Pakistan between January and July 3, and an estimated 75 people were killed. But after the Lal Masjid operation which reduced large parts of it to rubble, 44 suicide attacks took place between July and December, killing 567 people, mostly the members of the military and para-military forces, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and the police. December also saw the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a grim reminder of the fact that the militants had declared a war against their ex-masters. The attack on Islamabad's Marriot Hotel, the city's most high-profile landmark, only confirmed the fact that terror can strike at will, any time and anywhere. It confirmed also that terror was not restricted to Pakistan's tribal belt alone. President Musharraf himself had in fact also survived three assassination attempts and now lives under extremely tight security. The terror threat in Pakistan, can in fact, be gauged from the fact that both President Asif Zardari and the Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, in a complete first, offered Eid prayers at their respective residences on December 9.
The wave of suicide attacks in Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan does not just testify to the revival of al Qaeda and the Taliban networks but as Ahmed Rashid, strategic writer and author of several books on the jehadi networks, said: "The army is embroiled in fighting these forces in the Frontier and one third of the country is not even in the state's control. This is hardly the time to pick a fight with India."
More Lashkar than Lashkar: Retired soldiers
The ratcheting up of tension and animosity between India and Pakistan after the Mumbai terror attack on 27/11, points to another dangerous faultline - while the Pakistani Army joined the global war against terror, it never completely gave up its support to the jehadi network that is active on its border with India.
Even after the Lashkar and Jaish were banned, neither was their back accounts frozen, nor was they're any attempt at forcing them to shut shop. The Army and the ISI continued to support fronts like the Jamaat-ud-Dawah, which does more than just equip men with arms.
It motivates and indoctrinates minds and as Rashid pointed out, "Musharraf used to place Hafiz Sayed and Masood Azhar under house arrest for Western consumption. He may have stopped infiltrating them into Kashmir too under international pressure but there was no attempt to stop their activities in Pakistan after they were banned. They were just allowed to hang loose." Former interior secretary, Tasneem Noorani, said: "There was no effort to mainstream the radicals."
Kasab's journey from a remote village in Faridkot to Mumbai is a testimony to this. So is his revelation to his interrogators that a 'Major' trained him.
Zardari may have been right when he attributed the Mumbai attack to 'non-state actors' because the Major does not necessarily have to be a serving officer employed with the ISI.
"Retired ISI officers are helping the Pakistani Taliban and they have become more Lashkar than the Lashkar,'' said Rashid. Any number of strategic and security analysts will testify to this dangerous trend - to how ex-ISI officers are still in business because they have now attached themselves as advisors to militant organizations like the Lashkar and the Jaish.
"You don't need large training camps," admitted one such analyst who prefers not to be named. "Ex servicemen are imparting arms training within the compounds of their homes. Different officials are attached with different groups."
The switch from one alias to another - Lashkar-e-Toiba, Markaz-e-Toiba, Markaz-e-Dawah-Irshad, Jamaat ud Dawah - speaks of the Establishment's (the Army and ISI combine are referred to as the Establishment in Pakistan) more than subtle support of groups that are used against India. The long-standing relationship between the Establishment and the India-bound militants is now under pressure. The overriding message from America after the Mumbai attack is for these groups to be reigned in and this is testing not just the Army's carefully crafted support for the militants but has also focused attention on yet another faultline - the equation between the Establishment and the civilian government.
The effect of Indian television
Committed to better relations with India, Pakistan's top-most civilian representatives responded instinctively to the horror in Mumbai, in keeping with what Zardari had told the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, held a few days before the gun and grenade battle at Nariman House and the Taj and Oberoi hotels.
In what took the Indian government by surprise, Zardari committed Pakistan to a no-first-use of nuclear weapons. It was the first major security-related statement to come from Pakistan's government after the February 18 election and more than just surprise the Indian government; it caused unrest amongst its own Establishment.
The next statement, made by Prime Minister Gilani - and confirmed through a press release issued by his office - pertained to the civilian government agreeing to sending its top most ISI officer, Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha to India on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's request.
The sequence of events following Gilani's offer and Zardari's quick retraction, saying they had agreed to send a director and not director general Pasha, in fact speaks of the internal battle of supremacy between the Establishment and the civilian authorities, especially on the crucial issue of national security which the Army believes to be its exclusive domain. As Imtiaz Alam, a peacenick and head of the South Asian Free Media Association, who had dinner with Zardari a day after the Mumbai attack explained: "Zardari is very firm on terrorism. He thinks democracy is a better weapon but the terrorists have succeeded in creating a psychological gulf between India and Pakistan. Instead of Pakistan fighting the jehadis, it has become a fight between India and Pakistan."
Senior journalists in Pakistan admitted that briefings from the ISI changed the post-Mumbai discourse. Reacting perhaps to the loud, jingoistic demands on Indian television channels, for action against Pakistan, the ISI told a select group of journalists that India had in fact 'summoned' their Chief. Jamaat ud Dawah Amir, Hafiz Sayeed - with a clear nod from his handlers - appeared on one news channel after another, making the same points: that the list of 20 most wanted which also includes him, was old hat, that India was playing the blame game without evidence, that India had its own band of 'Hindu terrorists' and India should give freedom to Kashmir and end the matter once in for all.
The leak soon after, of the hoax call, purportedly made by Minister of External Affairs Pranab Mukherji to President Zardari, sealed the debate - India bashing was back in business. The jingoism overtook the more important debate of the threat Pakistan itself faced from terror networks flourishing on its soil.
Who's in Charge? Not Zardari
Pakistan's news channels went on overdrive and as some even blared war songs, the question that gained importance through the entire din, was - who really runs Pakistan? Who is in control?
The answers to the questions are both easy and complex. Mushahid Hussain, Chairman, Foreign Affairs Committee in the Senate was clear about the answer: "War on terror, national security and relations with India, Afghanistan and China are the domain of the army. Thanks to India, the army has been rehabilitated and the war bugles are all over. No one person, no one institution is running Pakistan. Musharraf ran a one-window operation and the Army and the ISI used to report to him but now decision-making is murky and that is causing confusion. The hoax call and the DG ISI controversy are symptomatic of that."
There are other examples. Only a few months ago, Zardari quickly retracted his effort to bring the ISI under the control of the Interior Ministry. And even as the Pakistan government's response to Indian pressure to rein in the terror networks, plays itself out on a day to day basis, it is evident that the civilian authorities have had to embrace the Establishment's point of view vis a vis India. Therefore, the talk that India should provide concrete evidence. Therefore, Zardari's statement that the guilty - if found guilty - will be tried on Pakistani soil. That the 20 most wanted will not be handed over. Even on sourced reports, put out in the local media, that Masood Azhar had been put under house arrest, Prime Minister Gilani went on record to say that no such report had come to him yet.
If India believes that Pakistan's response has been poor - two Lashkar men, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Zarrar Shah have been arrested in Muzaffarbad - it is because the Establishment and pressure from its own people tie down the government here. It cannot be seen to be buckling under pressure either from India or America.
Some moves seem to be on the cards, including the banning of the Jamaat ud Dawah. But Lashkar was banned in the past as was the Jaish. Prime Minister Gilani has committed to not allowing Pakistani soil to be used for terror attacks, but then Musharraf had made the same exact promise on January 12, 2002 soon after the Parliament was attacked in Delhi.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has gone as far as to say that "Pakistan needs to set its own house in order'' (see interview) but he is in the Opposition and he can afford to make such statements. If Pakistan has begun to resemble a house of terror, it is because the Army and the ISI are yet to change their stance, not just vis a vis India but vis a vis the terrorists it creates and supports. Until then, the sprawling compound in Muridke will continue to remain in business. If the Jamaat ud Dawah does get banned, all it will need is another alias.
World - Vatican calls morning-after pill sin
VATICAN CITY: The Vatican on Friday said life was sacred at every stage of its existence and condemned artificial fertilisation, embryonic stem-cell
research, human cloning and drugs which block pregnancy from taking hold.
A long-awaited document on bioethics by the Vatican's doctrinal body also said the so-called "morning after pill" and the drug RU-486, which blocks the action of hormones needed to keep a fertilised egg implanted in the uterus, fall "within the sin of abortion" and are gravely immoral.
"Dignitas Personae" (dignity of a person), an Instruction of Certain Bioethical Questions," said that human life deserved respect "from the very first stages of its existence (and) can never be reduced merely to a group of cells."
It condemned in-vitro fertilisation, saying the techniques "proceed as if the human embryo were simply a mass of cells to be used, selected and discarded."
The document said that only adult stem cell research could be considered as moral because embryonic stem cell research involved the destruction of embryos. In the document, the Vatican also defended its right to intervene on such matters.
research, human cloning and drugs which block pregnancy from taking hold.
A long-awaited document on bioethics by the Vatican's doctrinal body also said the so-called "morning after pill" and the drug RU-486, which blocks the action of hormones needed to keep a fertilised egg implanted in the uterus, fall "within the sin of abortion" and are gravely immoral.
"Dignitas Personae" (dignity of a person), an Instruction of Certain Bioethical Questions," said that human life deserved respect "from the very first stages of its existence (and) can never be reduced merely to a group of cells."
It condemned in-vitro fertilisation, saying the techniques "proceed as if the human embryo were simply a mass of cells to be used, selected and discarded."
The document said that only adult stem cell research could be considered as moral because embryonic stem cell research involved the destruction of embryos. In the document, the Vatican also defended its right to intervene on such matters.
Sport - Cricket;Inaugural Twenty20 Champions League called off
Shrinivas Rao
MUMBAI: The Twenty20 Champions League has been cancelled and all those who were gearing up to be a part - the eight teams, four cricket boards, br
oadcasters, telecasters, sponsors, advertisers and of course the organizers - will now have to wait for another year for the tournament to see the light of day.
Officials from Cricket South Africa, Cricket Australia and CL chairman Lalit Modi had a teleconference on Friday where the decision was reached. "We are very disappointed but the reality is that the ICC’s Future Tours Program (FTP) just doesn’t have a gap (to accommodate the event)," Modi told TOI.
The founding boards discussed each possible window available.
The idea of tweaking the ODI series between SA and Australia was considered but that clashed with Australia’s domestic tournament, something the CA wasn’t willing to compromise on. The T20 Cup in Australia, involving six state teams, is scheduled to be played between Dec 26 and Jan 24, something that CA cannot avoid keeping the interests of domestic sponsors in mind.
In February, if India doesn’t travel to Pakistan as scheduled, that space could have been utilized. However, as tournament director Dheeraj Malhotra explained, "A formal decision on the India-Pak series hasn’t been made as yet and we had a deadline to decide. We couldn’t have waited to see if India’s tour to Pak is going ahead or not."
The participating teams will change next year, with the eight teams scheduled to take part in this year’s event having lost their chance. The finalists of next year’s respective domestic T20 events will now qualify.
Western Australia and Victoria from Australia (finalists of the KFC Cup), Dolphins and Titans (top teams from South Africa’s ABN-Amro T20 tournament), Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings (IPL finalists) along with two visiting teams Middlesex and Sialkot Stallions (winners of England and Pakistan’s domestic T20 tournaments) were scheduled to take part this year.
"Whichever teams qualify next year will now be a part of the tournament," Malhotra said.
It was mutually decided between all parties concerned, broadcasters ESPN (who have a $975m contract going for ten years) included, to schedule it for next year.
MUMBAI: The Twenty20 Champions League has been cancelled and all those who were gearing up to be a part - the eight teams, four cricket boards, br
oadcasters, telecasters, sponsors, advertisers and of course the organizers - will now have to wait for another year for the tournament to see the light of day.
Officials from Cricket South Africa, Cricket Australia and CL chairman Lalit Modi had a teleconference on Friday where the decision was reached. "We are very disappointed but the reality is that the ICC’s Future Tours Program (FTP) just doesn’t have a gap (to accommodate the event)," Modi told TOI.
The founding boards discussed each possible window available.
The idea of tweaking the ODI series between SA and Australia was considered but that clashed with Australia’s domestic tournament, something the CA wasn’t willing to compromise on. The T20 Cup in Australia, involving six state teams, is scheduled to be played between Dec 26 and Jan 24, something that CA cannot avoid keeping the interests of domestic sponsors in mind.
In February, if India doesn’t travel to Pakistan as scheduled, that space could have been utilized. However, as tournament director Dheeraj Malhotra explained, "A formal decision on the India-Pak series hasn’t been made as yet and we had a deadline to decide. We couldn’t have waited to see if India’s tour to Pak is going ahead or not."
The participating teams will change next year, with the eight teams scheduled to take part in this year’s event having lost their chance. The finalists of next year’s respective domestic T20 events will now qualify.
Western Australia and Victoria from Australia (finalists of the KFC Cup), Dolphins and Titans (top teams from South Africa’s ABN-Amro T20 tournament), Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings (IPL finalists) along with two visiting teams Middlesex and Sialkot Stallions (winners of England and Pakistan’s domestic T20 tournaments) were scheduled to take part this year.
"Whichever teams qualify next year will now be a part of the tournament," Malhotra said.
It was mutually decided between all parties concerned, broadcasters ESPN (who have a $975m contract going for ten years) included, to schedule it for next year.
Sport -F1;Hamilton receives winner's trophy
Lewis Hamilton received his trophy as Formula One's youngest champion on Friday and the 23-year-old Briton said he had fulfilled a childhood dream.
"This year has been a very special one in my life, the fulfillment of a dream I've had since childhood and an ambition that has taken my family and me on an amazing journey," Hamilton said at the International Automobile Federation gala awards dinner.
"The fact that I won the drivers' world championship on the very last lap of the very last race is something that makes me so proud of our efforts in 2008," added the sport's first black champion.
"We pushed to the limit on every lap, from Melbourne to Brazil, and it's that determination and spirit that ultimately won us the world title."
Ferrari's Brazilian Felipe Massa, beaten by a single point after winning his home race last month, celebrated his team's constructors' crown and saw his own achievements in a positive light.
"We are already looking to a new season and I will do my utmost to come back here to Monaco next year to claim the prize which today has gone to Lewis," he said.
Singapore, host of Formula One's first night grand prix this year, was awarded the race promoters' trophy.
"This year has been a very special one in my life, the fulfillment of a dream I've had since childhood and an ambition that has taken my family and me on an amazing journey," Hamilton said at the International Automobile Federation gala awards dinner.
"The fact that I won the drivers' world championship on the very last lap of the very last race is something that makes me so proud of our efforts in 2008," added the sport's first black champion.
"We pushed to the limit on every lap, from Melbourne to Brazil, and it's that determination and spirit that ultimately won us the world title."
Ferrari's Brazilian Felipe Massa, beaten by a single point after winning his home race last month, celebrated his team's constructors' crown and saw his own achievements in a positive light.
"We are already looking to a new season and I will do my utmost to come back here to Monaco next year to claim the prize which today has gone to Lewis," he said.
Singapore, host of Formula One's first night grand prix this year, was awarded the race promoters' trophy.
Sport - India;Passport office shatters Saina's dream
HYDERABAD: A day after she considered herself lucky to qualify for the world’s top badminton tournament, teen sensation Saina Nehwal was in for a rud
e shock when she was told by the regional passport office here that her passport could not be renewed before next Monday. ( Watch )
Saina was jumping with joy on Thursday after hearing that she had been included in the main draw of the Yonex-Sunrise BWF World Super Series Masters Final to be held in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, from December 18 to 21.
Little did she know that people of her own city would be so insensitive as to deny her the chance to play in the prestigious event.
Saina had applied for the renewal of her passport on December 2 and was given a December 10 date for delivery. However, the RPO failed to keep its promise and ever since, Saina has been making rounds of the RPO.
When she got the news of her qualification, she sought an appointment with the passport officer on Friday but her request was brushed aside, with the officer’s secretary telling her to come on Monday.
Deeply shocked, Saina told TOI that she had lost all hope of participating in the Masters Final. "I am terribly shocked. I will be missing a chance to participate in the best event in the world. Even if I manage to get the passport on Monday, I don’t think I can make it as I have to obtain a visa from Chennai," said Saina.
Wondering how she could have persuaded the RPO staff, Saina said, "I told her I am the country’s top shuttler and this is a rare opportunity, but she would not listen. I was treated very badly. This is not the way to treat sportspersons. I am deeply hurt."
The 18-year-old is shaken because this opportunity comes at a time when she is in great form. "I am in great shape now. I thought I can do something great in this particular tournament," said Saina.
Only the eight best players in the world make the cut for this $5 lakh prize money tournament, the highest ever, and Saina qualified after China pulled out all its players from the event.
e shock when she was told by the regional passport office here that her passport could not be renewed before next Monday. ( Watch )
Saina was jumping with joy on Thursday after hearing that she had been included in the main draw of the Yonex-Sunrise BWF World Super Series Masters Final to be held in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, from December 18 to 21.
Little did she know that people of her own city would be so insensitive as to deny her the chance to play in the prestigious event.
Saina had applied for the renewal of her passport on December 2 and was given a December 10 date for delivery. However, the RPO failed to keep its promise and ever since, Saina has been making rounds of the RPO.
When she got the news of her qualification, she sought an appointment with the passport officer on Friday but her request was brushed aside, with the officer’s secretary telling her to come on Monday.
Deeply shocked, Saina told TOI that she had lost all hope of participating in the Masters Final. "I am terribly shocked. I will be missing a chance to participate in the best event in the world. Even if I manage to get the passport on Monday, I don’t think I can make it as I have to obtain a visa from Chennai," said Saina.
Wondering how she could have persuaded the RPO staff, Saina said, "I told her I am the country’s top shuttler and this is a rare opportunity, but she would not listen. I was treated very badly. This is not the way to treat sportspersons. I am deeply hurt."
The 18-year-old is shaken because this opportunity comes at a time when she is in great form. "I am in great shape now. I thought I can do something great in this particular tournament," said Saina.
Only the eight best players in the world make the cut for this $5 lakh prize money tournament, the highest ever, and Saina qualified after China pulled out all its players from the event.
India - Crorepatis more likely to become MLAs: Study
Nandita Sengupta
NEW DELHI: Crorepati banega MLA. The more money you have, greater the chances of winning a seat. That's the mantra emerging from the recent
assembly elections in five states in a study of candidates' affidavits filed with their nomination papers.
Crorepati candidates have won 40% seats in the elections from a total of 629 seats across the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Delhi. Fewer than 3% candidates, with assets less than Rs 5 lakh, have triumphed, shows the report prepared by Association for Democratic Reforms as part of the New Election Watch campaign. ADR is a collective of more than 1,200 NGOs and citizens groups working for electoral reforms.
The average Delhi assembly MLA of 2008 is worth Rs 2.86 crore. There isn't much to choose financially between the average BJP (Rs 2.8 cr) and the Congress (Rs 2.7 cr) MLA. Interestingly, the average asset of the six BSP MLAs in Rajasthan works out to a whopping Rs 3.45 crore.
In Delhi, 31% of crorepatis with assets above Rs 5 crore emerged successful whereas no candidate with less than Rs 5 lakh won. The contrast is sharper in Chhattisgarh where 50%, or every second contesting crorepati with assets more than Rs 3 crore, prevailed. In comparison, among candidates with kitties of less than Rs 5 lakh, only 2% were victorious.
There is a clear link between high finance and the chance of bagging a seat, say experts. "We found that the more money you have, better the chances of winning,'' says Anil Bairwal, national coordinator of ADR. Well-known activist Nikhil Dey illustrates the point. "The trend shows polls are almost a game of kaun banega crorepati. If you compare the figures with last time's elections, you will find assets have increased by an average of Rs 1 cr in five years of holding office,'' he says.
A party-wise analysis shows the Congress fielded 121 crorepati winners and the BJP 110 in these polls. The candidates' declarations can be taken with a pinch of salt. In Rajasthan, for instance, an MLA with less than Rs 1 lakh assets owns a high-end car. "The study is based on their declarations and they may be lower than the actual assets,'' says Bairwal, whose study also concludes that the number of MLAs with criminal records has gone up since the 2003 polls.
In Delhi, for instance, compared to 2003, the number of MLAs with criminal records has gone up from 24 to 27. That means now, 40% of newly-elected MLAs in the 69-seat Delhi assembly have criminal records.
As per the affidavits, a total 549 candidates with criminal records contested in these elections. Of them, 124 won. That's about 23%. While MP has a maximum of 54 such MLAs, Rajasthan is second with 30, Chhattisgarh 11 and Mizoram 3.
That deep pockets and crime go hand-in-hand is shown by Rajasthan, where the nine MLAs with serious criminal charges against them are all crorepatis.
An assembly of crorepatis
In Delhi all MLAs in current assembly are either lakhpatis or crorepatis. There are a total of 46 crorepatis. Congress has 24, BJP 19 and the BSP 2. One is an Independent.
In MP, 12 crorepati MLAs do not have PAN numbers.
12 Delhi MLAs with asset declaration of more than Rs 1 crore said they own no vehicle.
NEW DELHI: Crorepati banega MLA. The more money you have, greater the chances of winning a seat. That's the mantra emerging from the recent
assembly elections in five states in a study of candidates' affidavits filed with their nomination papers.
Crorepati candidates have won 40% seats in the elections from a total of 629 seats across the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Delhi. Fewer than 3% candidates, with assets less than Rs 5 lakh, have triumphed, shows the report prepared by Association for Democratic Reforms as part of the New Election Watch campaign. ADR is a collective of more than 1,200 NGOs and citizens groups working for electoral reforms.
The average Delhi assembly MLA of 2008 is worth Rs 2.86 crore. There isn't much to choose financially between the average BJP (Rs 2.8 cr) and the Congress (Rs 2.7 cr) MLA. Interestingly, the average asset of the six BSP MLAs in Rajasthan works out to a whopping Rs 3.45 crore.
In Delhi, 31% of crorepatis with assets above Rs 5 crore emerged successful whereas no candidate with less than Rs 5 lakh won. The contrast is sharper in Chhattisgarh where 50%, or every second contesting crorepati with assets more than Rs 3 crore, prevailed. In comparison, among candidates with kitties of less than Rs 5 lakh, only 2% were victorious.
There is a clear link between high finance and the chance of bagging a seat, say experts. "We found that the more money you have, better the chances of winning,'' says Anil Bairwal, national coordinator of ADR. Well-known activist Nikhil Dey illustrates the point. "The trend shows polls are almost a game of kaun banega crorepati. If you compare the figures with last time's elections, you will find assets have increased by an average of Rs 1 cr in five years of holding office,'' he says.
A party-wise analysis shows the Congress fielded 121 crorepati winners and the BJP 110 in these polls. The candidates' declarations can be taken with a pinch of salt. In Rajasthan, for instance, an MLA with less than Rs 1 lakh assets owns a high-end car. "The study is based on their declarations and they may be lower than the actual assets,'' says Bairwal, whose study also concludes that the number of MLAs with criminal records has gone up since the 2003 polls.
In Delhi, for instance, compared to 2003, the number of MLAs with criminal records has gone up from 24 to 27. That means now, 40% of newly-elected MLAs in the 69-seat Delhi assembly have criminal records.
As per the affidavits, a total 549 candidates with criminal records contested in these elections. Of them, 124 won. That's about 23%. While MP has a maximum of 54 such MLAs, Rajasthan is second with 30, Chhattisgarh 11 and Mizoram 3.
That deep pockets and crime go hand-in-hand is shown by Rajasthan, where the nine MLAs with serious criminal charges against them are all crorepatis.
An assembly of crorepatis
In Delhi all MLAs in current assembly are either lakhpatis or crorepatis. There are a total of 46 crorepatis. Congress has 24, BJP 19 and the BSP 2. One is an Independent.
In MP, 12 crorepati MLAs do not have PAN numbers.
12 Delhi MLAs with asset declaration of more than Rs 1 crore said they own no vehicle.
Entertainment - Q&A Asin;Ghajini Fame
Hiren Kotwani
Bets are on. Can she knock Katrina Kaif and her ilk out of the top heroine race? We should know soon with the upcoming release of Ghajini. Till then, Asin sails smoothly through an interview with Hiren Kotwani. Or at least tries to.. read on
Is there a feeling of done-that-before while acting in a remake?
Not at all, there was a completely different team and set-up. Some changes have been made to appeal to a wider audience. In fact, I’d say it’s perfect for my first baby steps in Bollywood.
Did Aamir Khan ever prove to be overbearing? Or is that a silly question to ask?
(Supremely politically correct) It was a great pleasure to work with an experienced actor like him. He’s very passionate about his work.. simple and open to ideas.
His involvement in a project is believed to be another word for ‘interference’.
Seems a portion was reshot in Panchgani at his say so.
He’s a director’s actor. Of course, he does give his creative inputs but he was never imposing. He’s a flexible person. We didn’t reshoot any song or scene. A small part was shot.. to fill a gap and avoid an edit jump.
Talk is that Jiah Khan called Aamir Khan up when she learnt that he was editing her role. Aren’t you worried, too, about how your role will shape up?
I completely trust the film’s makers. I don’t know about such talks. I’ve no issues with anyone. I shared a great working relationship with Jiah, too. I’m completely secure about the role I’ve done and the person I am.
Only Aamir Khan was present for the ‘first look’ of Ghajini. Apparently, you had a talk with him since he has allowed you to interact with the media now.
I’m just following the marketing and the promotion campaign which has been thought out by a team which knows the pros and cons of a strategy. Now that the film is releasing, I have something to talk about. What could I have said earlier?
Although Jiah Khan was present at the Jaane Tu.. premiere, you weren’t. Was it Aamir Khan’s diktat to keep you under wraps till Ghajini was complete?
I wasn’t around in Bombay.. so I couldn’t attend the premiere. You’ll have to ask Aamir if he wanted to keep me under wraps.
Okay, Ghajini has been delayed for quite a while. First Aamir Khan suffered an injury, then he was busy promoting Taare Zameen Par and Jaane Tu.. Don’t you feel lousy about declining other projects in the interim?
(Cuts in) It was worth the wait, in every way. Two months early or a month late, the delay won’t affect the audience response which matters finally.
Kangana Ranaut and Ayesha Takia were considered for the other role. Considering they’re already established here, you must have felt relieved that eventually Jiah Khan, relatively speaking a newcomer, was finalised.
Even if it were Kangana or Ayesha, I wouldn’t have felt insecure at all. It doesn’t matter if it’s Jiah or anyone else. She’s doing her role, I’m doing mine. I’ve no issues with Jiah.
How did London Dreams come your way? Did you have to consult Aamir Khan before signing it?
While working for Ghajini, I got a call from the producers and Vipul Shah. After I met them, I wanted to do the project. I didn’t have to consult Aamir.. nor were there any contractual restrictions.
After working with Aamir Khan, how was it working with an unpredictable Salman Khan?
It was exciting working with another Khan, a professional like Ajay Devgan and a cool director like Vipul. I’m looking forward to the next schedule.
Salman Khan seems to have taken a liking for you. He gave you a gift on Onam and you gave him a present on Eid.
How I wish that was true! But there has been no exchange of gifts. We weren’t shooting on Onam, in fact we were travelling. On Eid, we were shooting. So, I got no gifts from Salman, neither did I gift him anything in return.
Salman Khan, it’s said, is helping you to buy an apartment in Mumbai.
I’ve been in Mumbai for more than a year now. I moved into my house in Lokhandwala in January this year. So why should anyone help me to find another home? What would I do with so many homes?
Can you tell me about your Walt Disney-produced movie?
It’s a multi-lingual project. 19 Steps is being directed by Bharat Bala, with Kamal Haasan and a Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano.
After Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, and ads with Saif Ali Khan and Zayed Khan, isn’t Shah Rukh Khan on your wish list?
It would be fabulous to work with Shah Rukh Khan if a project comes along.
Salman Khan appears to be the only guy you’ve been linked with. Apparently, Katrina Kaif is not too pleased with his growing friendship with you.
I find these reports funny. Those who spread such stories should become scriptwriters for a pukka Bollywood masala movie.
Bets are on. Can she knock Katrina Kaif and her ilk out of the top heroine race? We should know soon with the upcoming release of Ghajini. Till then, Asin sails smoothly through an interview with Hiren Kotwani. Or at least tries to.. read on
Is there a feeling of done-that-before while acting in a remake?
Not at all, there was a completely different team and set-up. Some changes have been made to appeal to a wider audience. In fact, I’d say it’s perfect for my first baby steps in Bollywood.
Did Aamir Khan ever prove to be overbearing? Or is that a silly question to ask?
(Supremely politically correct) It was a great pleasure to work with an experienced actor like him. He’s very passionate about his work.. simple and open to ideas.
His involvement in a project is believed to be another word for ‘interference’.
Seems a portion was reshot in Panchgani at his say so.
He’s a director’s actor. Of course, he does give his creative inputs but he was never imposing. He’s a flexible person. We didn’t reshoot any song or scene. A small part was shot.. to fill a gap and avoid an edit jump.
Talk is that Jiah Khan called Aamir Khan up when she learnt that he was editing her role. Aren’t you worried, too, about how your role will shape up?
I completely trust the film’s makers. I don’t know about such talks. I’ve no issues with anyone. I shared a great working relationship with Jiah, too. I’m completely secure about the role I’ve done and the person I am.
Only Aamir Khan was present for the ‘first look’ of Ghajini. Apparently, you had a talk with him since he has allowed you to interact with the media now.
I’m just following the marketing and the promotion campaign which has been thought out by a team which knows the pros and cons of a strategy. Now that the film is releasing, I have something to talk about. What could I have said earlier?
Although Jiah Khan was present at the Jaane Tu.. premiere, you weren’t. Was it Aamir Khan’s diktat to keep you under wraps till Ghajini was complete?
I wasn’t around in Bombay.. so I couldn’t attend the premiere. You’ll have to ask Aamir if he wanted to keep me under wraps.
Okay, Ghajini has been delayed for quite a while. First Aamir Khan suffered an injury, then he was busy promoting Taare Zameen Par and Jaane Tu.. Don’t you feel lousy about declining other projects in the interim?
(Cuts in) It was worth the wait, in every way. Two months early or a month late, the delay won’t affect the audience response which matters finally.
Kangana Ranaut and Ayesha Takia were considered for the other role. Considering they’re already established here, you must have felt relieved that eventually Jiah Khan, relatively speaking a newcomer, was finalised.
Even if it were Kangana or Ayesha, I wouldn’t have felt insecure at all. It doesn’t matter if it’s Jiah or anyone else. She’s doing her role, I’m doing mine. I’ve no issues with Jiah.
How did London Dreams come your way? Did you have to consult Aamir Khan before signing it?
While working for Ghajini, I got a call from the producers and Vipul Shah. After I met them, I wanted to do the project. I didn’t have to consult Aamir.. nor were there any contractual restrictions.
After working with Aamir Khan, how was it working with an unpredictable Salman Khan?
It was exciting working with another Khan, a professional like Ajay Devgan and a cool director like Vipul. I’m looking forward to the next schedule.
Salman Khan seems to have taken a liking for you. He gave you a gift on Onam and you gave him a present on Eid.
How I wish that was true! But there has been no exchange of gifts. We weren’t shooting on Onam, in fact we were travelling. On Eid, we were shooting. So, I got no gifts from Salman, neither did I gift him anything in return.
Salman Khan, it’s said, is helping you to buy an apartment in Mumbai.
I’ve been in Mumbai for more than a year now. I moved into my house in Lokhandwala in January this year. So why should anyone help me to find another home? What would I do with so many homes?
Can you tell me about your Walt Disney-produced movie?
It’s a multi-lingual project. 19 Steps is being directed by Bharat Bala, with Kamal Haasan and a Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano.
After Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, and ads with Saif Ali Khan and Zayed Khan, isn’t Shah Rukh Khan on your wish list?
It would be fabulous to work with Shah Rukh Khan if a project comes along.
Salman Khan appears to be the only guy you’ve been linked with. Apparently, Katrina Kaif is not too pleased with his growing friendship with you.
I find these reports funny. Those who spread such stories should become scriptwriters for a pukka Bollywood masala movie.
Entertainment - Kareena Kapoor faints,says no to size zero
Subhash K Jha
Size zero is out for actress Kareena Kapoor. And certainly after collapsing on the sets on Rensil D'Silva's untitled film. In her next release, Kambakht Ishq, she plays a surgeon who moonlights as a supermodel and for it she has put on extra pounds.
"I weigh 54 kg now, which for a girl of my height is quite fine. People used to wonder what 'size zero' is and I'd joke, 'Just look at me'. I don't want that any more. I want to look like a normal healthy girl. My forthcoming releases required me to get back to a fuller shape," said Kareena, who sported size zero in Tashan and Golmaal Returns.
"In Kambakht Ishq, my character flies to Italy to become a supermodel to support herself financially. I didn't want to play the character looking like an international model because she's basically in another profession. So she can't really have the figure of Victoria Beckham, can she? I had to look more filled up," she told IANS.
In Mr & Mrs Khanna too, Kareena is sporting the same look.
"Again, for my next release Mr & Mrs Khanna with Salman Khan, I play a wife. So I wanted to look more filled up. Not that wives can't be curvaceous. The one I played in Golmaal Returns certainly was," she said.
(With inputs from Agencies)
Size zero is out for actress Kareena Kapoor. And certainly after collapsing on the sets on Rensil D'Silva's untitled film. In her next release, Kambakht Ishq, she plays a surgeon who moonlights as a supermodel and for it she has put on extra pounds.
"I weigh 54 kg now, which for a girl of my height is quite fine. People used to wonder what 'size zero' is and I'd joke, 'Just look at me'. I don't want that any more. I want to look like a normal healthy girl. My forthcoming releases required me to get back to a fuller shape," said Kareena, who sported size zero in Tashan and Golmaal Returns.
"In Kambakht Ishq, my character flies to Italy to become a supermodel to support herself financially. I didn't want to play the character looking like an international model because she's basically in another profession. So she can't really have the figure of Victoria Beckham, can she? I had to look more filled up," she told IANS.
In Mr & Mrs Khanna too, Kareena is sporting the same look.
"Again, for my next release Mr & Mrs Khanna with Salman Khan, I play a wife. So I wanted to look more filled up. Not that wives can't be curvaceous. The one I played in Golmaal Returns certainly was," she said.
(With inputs from Agencies)
Entertainment - John Abraham is sexiest Asian in the world for 2008
Bollywood actor John Abraham has been adjudged the sexiest Asian man in the world in 2008.
In the annual round conducted by Eastern Eye, a leading British Asian weekly, Abraham emerged the top in a shortlist of 10.
The weekly sent judges a shortlist of 10 names. The judges then ranked the names according to their individual preferences and the newspaper then compiled the results to produce a final list.
"John Abraham made up for a quiet year with a sensational look in Dostana, with one of the greatest physiques ever seen on the big screen. His body helped to make the film a hit with Asian women," Hamant Verma, editor of Eastern Eye, said.
The judges included Brianna Ragel, editor of Asian Woman Magazine, Che Kurrien, editor of GQ India and the former editor of FHM India, Farhad Dadyburjor.
2007's top guy actor Shah Rukh Khan stood at third place after Hrithik Roshan in second place. Abraham was at third place last year.
Newcomers to the 2008 list include TV presenter Rav Wilding (20) and actors Harman Baweja (22) and Stephen Uppal (21).
Britons on this year's list include Upen Patel (five), Jay Sean (nine) and boxer Amir Khan (ten).
The top ten sexiest male includes, John Abraham, Hrithik Roshan, Shah Rukh Khan, Ali Zafar, Upen Patel, Ranbir Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Imran Khan (actor), Jay Sean and boxer Amir Khan
In the annual round conducted by Eastern Eye, a leading British Asian weekly, Abraham emerged the top in a shortlist of 10.
The weekly sent judges a shortlist of 10 names. The judges then ranked the names according to their individual preferences and the newspaper then compiled the results to produce a final list.
"John Abraham made up for a quiet year with a sensational look in Dostana, with one of the greatest physiques ever seen on the big screen. His body helped to make the film a hit with Asian women," Hamant Verma, editor of Eastern Eye, said.
The judges included Brianna Ragel, editor of Asian Woman Magazine, Che Kurrien, editor of GQ India and the former editor of FHM India, Farhad Dadyburjor.
2007's top guy actor Shah Rukh Khan stood at third place after Hrithik Roshan in second place. Abraham was at third place last year.
Newcomers to the 2008 list include TV presenter Rav Wilding (20) and actors Harman Baweja (22) and Stephen Uppal (21).
Britons on this year's list include Upen Patel (five), Jay Sean (nine) and boxer Amir Khan (ten).
The top ten sexiest male includes, John Abraham, Hrithik Roshan, Shah Rukh Khan, Ali Zafar, Upen Patel, Ranbir Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Imran Khan (actor), Jay Sean and boxer Amir Khan
India - If on a winter morning
Varghese K George
Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor are the latest Bollywood stars to criticise the government for failing to tackle terrorism and protect citizens. Both said they were “disgusted” with politicians “who provide no leadership” while arming themselves “with so many security guards”
HT City, December 6
Film stars Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor recently got a taste of the tight security at the domestic terminal of the IGI Airport in New Delhi. As they were about to step into the lounge, the CISF inspector on duty asked Kareena Kapoor to present identity proof. While the lady appeared a tad embarrassed, Khan asked the inspector, “Aap inhe nahin jaante, kis duniya mein rahte hain (You don't know her? Which world do you live in?)” At this point, another CISF jawan on duty stepped forward and questioned Saif, “Arrey, aap kaun hain (Who are you?)” much to the amusement of other passengers lined up in the queue.
Hindustan Times, October 25
Seven years ago today, seven people were killed by terrorists who planned a massacre inside the Indian Parliament. The terrorists had targeted Parliament for a specific reason: to wipe out India’s top political leadership that would have destabilised the nation.
As the country now recovers from the Mumbai terror attack, an articulate and influential section of our society continues to demand that our politicians and democracy system are done away with. Luckily, there is a silver lining: a majority of Indians, particularly its poor and dispossessed, look up to the political process to drive change. The turnouts in the recent elections will tell you that story.
Doing away with security protection for political leaders is No. 1 on the ‘We hate politicians’ list. Shouldn’t someone tell these agitated souls that eliminating political leaders has been a primary terrorist tactic across the globe? Between 1985 and 1995, some 2,000 leaders of the Congress and hundreds of others from the BJP and even the Akali Dal fell to the bullets of terrorists in Punjab.
This is, of course, in addition to the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. They, too, were murdered because of the strong ideological and/or administrative offensive they mounted against terror of different hues. A sitting Chief Minister Beant Singh was killed for the same reason. Several CMs — N. Chandrababu Naidu, Farooq Abdullah and Budhadev Bhattacharjee are recent examples — have narrowly escaped death by terrorist attacks. All this, despite their security cover.
So is it a case that all politicians should be left to fend for themselves — while harrumphing celebrities fight terrorism by demanding Pakistan be ‘carpet-bombed’? Is one arguing here that had terrorists succeeded on December 13, 2001 to take out our politicians inside Parliament, we would have been better off?
An effective, representative and inclusive political system is our most effective defence against terrorism and extremism. So instead of simply deriding all politicians and democracy, Indians should rally around their political representatives and strengthen our nation.
And yes, the likes of Saif Khan and Kareena Kapoor can certainly provide leadership by showing their identity proofs to the security personnel at airports without too much fuss.
Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor are the latest Bollywood stars to criticise the government for failing to tackle terrorism and protect citizens. Both said they were “disgusted” with politicians “who provide no leadership” while arming themselves “with so many security guards”
HT City, December 6
Film stars Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor recently got a taste of the tight security at the domestic terminal of the IGI Airport in New Delhi. As they were about to step into the lounge, the CISF inspector on duty asked Kareena Kapoor to present identity proof. While the lady appeared a tad embarrassed, Khan asked the inspector, “Aap inhe nahin jaante, kis duniya mein rahte hain (You don't know her? Which world do you live in?)” At this point, another CISF jawan on duty stepped forward and questioned Saif, “Arrey, aap kaun hain (Who are you?)” much to the amusement of other passengers lined up in the queue.
Hindustan Times, October 25
Seven years ago today, seven people were killed by terrorists who planned a massacre inside the Indian Parliament. The terrorists had targeted Parliament for a specific reason: to wipe out India’s top political leadership that would have destabilised the nation.
As the country now recovers from the Mumbai terror attack, an articulate and influential section of our society continues to demand that our politicians and democracy system are done away with. Luckily, there is a silver lining: a majority of Indians, particularly its poor and dispossessed, look up to the political process to drive change. The turnouts in the recent elections will tell you that story.
Doing away with security protection for political leaders is No. 1 on the ‘We hate politicians’ list. Shouldn’t someone tell these agitated souls that eliminating political leaders has been a primary terrorist tactic across the globe? Between 1985 and 1995, some 2,000 leaders of the Congress and hundreds of others from the BJP and even the Akali Dal fell to the bullets of terrorists in Punjab.
This is, of course, in addition to the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. They, too, were murdered because of the strong ideological and/or administrative offensive they mounted against terror of different hues. A sitting Chief Minister Beant Singh was killed for the same reason. Several CMs — N. Chandrababu Naidu, Farooq Abdullah and Budhadev Bhattacharjee are recent examples — have narrowly escaped death by terrorist attacks. All this, despite their security cover.
So is it a case that all politicians should be left to fend for themselves — while harrumphing celebrities fight terrorism by demanding Pakistan be ‘carpet-bombed’? Is one arguing here that had terrorists succeeded on December 13, 2001 to take out our politicians inside Parliament, we would have been better off?
An effective, representative and inclusive political system is our most effective defence against terrorism and extremism. So instead of simply deriding all politicians and democracy, Indians should rally around their political representatives and strengthen our nation.
And yes, the likes of Saif Khan and Kareena Kapoor can certainly provide leadership by showing their identity proofs to the security personnel at airports without too much fuss.
Columnists - Barkha Dutt;Building blocks
In many ways, for India, this week has felt like the morning after someone you love suddenly dies or goes away. You wake up feeling like you must have dreamt it; then you reach out to realise the person really isn’t there and then begins the struggle with the disbelief, anger, fear, sadness and horrible sense of injustice. Why me, you ask the version of God you believe in. Just as India is demanding to know: why us?
In some ways, we do know why they hate us. Our multi-religious, multi-ethnic nation-State defies the petty logic of any dogma. In our very existence, we virtually dare fanatics who define themselves by narrow identities. We are held together as a nation-State by profound political and cultural intangibles (our democracy, our music our cricket, our love for chaos and opinion) that are befuddling to those who make a living out of manufacturing enemies. No wonder then that we believe it wasn’t just the Chhtrapati Shivaji Terminus or the Taj and Oberoi hotels that were attacked. This was an invasion of the idea of India.
We know that we will brush the dust off our knees, jump up and walk again. We are determined to not let our self-image as a nation take more than a minor knock. If anything, we believe this will only make us stronger. But — and this is the difficult part — it must make us better too. All of us have learnt important and difficult lessons this past week.
These could well be our new ten commandments:
* Politician-bashing may be emotive, but is often over-simplistic and incorrect. Yes, in many ways public anger pushed the political establishment into action and apologies. If the rage had not been as raw as it was, perhaps we would have still been having futile debates over whether we need a new Home Minister. Perhaps Parliament would not have come together to speak in a splendidly unified voice, had it not been acutely conscious of the public gaze. To that end, the anger served a cause. But, as the turn-outs in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Rajasthan Assembly polls have shown, people are still deeply invested in the political system. And that’s how it should be. We have a right to demand accountability from our netas, but not if we refuse to be stakeholders ourselves.
* Let us respect our soldiers. Not just by sending in passionate text messages to scroll under the next TV debate on the state of the Army, but in real ways — in how we treat them, pay them and reward them. There is something schizophrenic about a country that routinely votes for the Indian soldier as its most-favoured hero, but where the military is battling to make the numbers add up. Our regard needs to go beyond sentiment. The state of snow shoes, night-vision devices, bullet-proof vests and the lack of dedicated aircraft can no longer be the subject of ex-post facto analysis.
* Stop the blame game. One of the most heartening things that happened in Parliament this week was that the Prime Minister and the Home Minister both said sorry. An apology will not dent the sense of loss, but it is a welcome beginning. Others should take the cue. We don’t want to see our armed forces and intelligence agencies at public war. If there has been an official admission of a “systemic collapse” which one of them will be brave enough to stand up first and take responsibility?
* Make our investigations transparent and fair. It infuriates us when Pakistan’s politicians question the legitimacy of the evidence. The world recognises how entrenched groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba have become in sections of Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus. But when they point fingers at how we conducted the probe into the Samjhuata Express blasts (in which scores of Pakistani citizens died) how should we respond? We began by pointing a finger across the border. But, two weeks ago, investigators were suggesting that it could be an inside job (the Sadhvi and the Colonel). Such contradictions only weaken our own case.
* Never politicise terror again. It is playing with a fire that will definitely devour us all. We are not interested in politics that bats for the majority or appeases the minority. Due process of law should settle investigations; not politicians.
* Build a brand-new interface between the media and the State. Clearly, these terror attacks caught both sides unprepared. Let us learn from that. If operational sensitivities during a terrorist encounter need a 20-minute delay in telecasting, let’s put that down as an emergency code we can all agree on.
* Let’s watch what we say. In an age of 24-hour news and the unfettered Internet, words are weapons. And sometimes, they can unwittingly become weapons of mass destruction. So before we exhort our country into war, make sweeping statements on “carpet bombing” another nation, target another religion or look for passionate and pithy slogans that will collate our grief and anger, let’s just pause, and think. We may just need a brand new vocabulary.
* Value the middle ground. It is where sanity resides. In the past week, Pakistan-bashers and peaceniks alike have been angry at the public discourse. One sides finds it too inflammatory, the other too weak-kneed. Truth is, the age of extremes is over.
* Cherish our democracy. Dangerous murmurs have begun over how India needs to be like Singapore or China. India needs to be like India, only better. Our vote is our most powerful weapon. Let’s use it more and more.
* Do more than be angry: In the past week, our anger has shown shadows of hate, malice and religious prejudice. If we allow this to multiply, we would have lost before the fight has even begun.
(Barkha Dutt is Group Editor, English News, NDTV)
In some ways, we do know why they hate us. Our multi-religious, multi-ethnic nation-State defies the petty logic of any dogma. In our very existence, we virtually dare fanatics who define themselves by narrow identities. We are held together as a nation-State by profound political and cultural intangibles (our democracy, our music our cricket, our love for chaos and opinion) that are befuddling to those who make a living out of manufacturing enemies. No wonder then that we believe it wasn’t just the Chhtrapati Shivaji Terminus or the Taj and Oberoi hotels that were attacked. This was an invasion of the idea of India.
We know that we will brush the dust off our knees, jump up and walk again. We are determined to not let our self-image as a nation take more than a minor knock. If anything, we believe this will only make us stronger. But — and this is the difficult part — it must make us better too. All of us have learnt important and difficult lessons this past week.
These could well be our new ten commandments:
* Politician-bashing may be emotive, but is often over-simplistic and incorrect. Yes, in many ways public anger pushed the political establishment into action and apologies. If the rage had not been as raw as it was, perhaps we would have still been having futile debates over whether we need a new Home Minister. Perhaps Parliament would not have come together to speak in a splendidly unified voice, had it not been acutely conscious of the public gaze. To that end, the anger served a cause. But, as the turn-outs in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Rajasthan Assembly polls have shown, people are still deeply invested in the political system. And that’s how it should be. We have a right to demand accountability from our netas, but not if we refuse to be stakeholders ourselves.
* Let us respect our soldiers. Not just by sending in passionate text messages to scroll under the next TV debate on the state of the Army, but in real ways — in how we treat them, pay them and reward them. There is something schizophrenic about a country that routinely votes for the Indian soldier as its most-favoured hero, but where the military is battling to make the numbers add up. Our regard needs to go beyond sentiment. The state of snow shoes, night-vision devices, bullet-proof vests and the lack of dedicated aircraft can no longer be the subject of ex-post facto analysis.
* Stop the blame game. One of the most heartening things that happened in Parliament this week was that the Prime Minister and the Home Minister both said sorry. An apology will not dent the sense of loss, but it is a welcome beginning. Others should take the cue. We don’t want to see our armed forces and intelligence agencies at public war. If there has been an official admission of a “systemic collapse” which one of them will be brave enough to stand up first and take responsibility?
* Make our investigations transparent and fair. It infuriates us when Pakistan’s politicians question the legitimacy of the evidence. The world recognises how entrenched groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba have become in sections of Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus. But when they point fingers at how we conducted the probe into the Samjhuata Express blasts (in which scores of Pakistani citizens died) how should we respond? We began by pointing a finger across the border. But, two weeks ago, investigators were suggesting that it could be an inside job (the Sadhvi and the Colonel). Such contradictions only weaken our own case.
* Never politicise terror again. It is playing with a fire that will definitely devour us all. We are not interested in politics that bats for the majority or appeases the minority. Due process of law should settle investigations; not politicians.
* Build a brand-new interface between the media and the State. Clearly, these terror attacks caught both sides unprepared. Let us learn from that. If operational sensitivities during a terrorist encounter need a 20-minute delay in telecasting, let’s put that down as an emergency code we can all agree on.
* Let’s watch what we say. In an age of 24-hour news and the unfettered Internet, words are weapons. And sometimes, they can unwittingly become weapons of mass destruction. So before we exhort our country into war, make sweeping statements on “carpet bombing” another nation, target another religion or look for passionate and pithy slogans that will collate our grief and anger, let’s just pause, and think. We may just need a brand new vocabulary.
* Value the middle ground. It is where sanity resides. In the past week, Pakistan-bashers and peaceniks alike have been angry at the public discourse. One sides finds it too inflammatory, the other too weak-kneed. Truth is, the age of extremes is over.
* Cherish our democracy. Dangerous murmurs have begun over how India needs to be like Singapore or China. India needs to be like India, only better. Our vote is our most powerful weapon. Let’s use it more and more.
* Do more than be angry: In the past week, our anger has shown shadows of hate, malice and religious prejudice. If we allow this to multiply, we would have lost before the fight has even begun.
(Barkha Dutt is Group Editor, English News, NDTV)
Sport - Cricket;Will this story have a happy ending ?
Kadambari Murali Wade
It's terribly difficult to question greatness. It’s equally difficult to try and distance yourself from the distasteful hatchet jobs that are running on channels and yet know that if you don’t ask questions now, there’s no point asking questions ever.
So the question has to be asked —where does Rahul Dravid, nearly 10,370 Test runs in all and scores of 11, 11, 0, 3 & 3 in his last five innings go from here? The problem really, is that it isn't the last five innings, it’s the last two years.
At the beginning of the 2006-07 series in South Africa, Dravid’s career average was an outstanding 58.59. But since then, he’s dropped nearly one point per series (other than the Bangladesh one), a startling drop for someone with his aggregate of runs.
In the 48 innings he’s batted in over the two years since December 2006 in Johannesburg, he’s had 28 sub-20 scores (though three were not out) and only nine 50-plus scores.
This period has also seen just two centuries, one against Bangladesh and the other at home against South Africa.
Coming from the man who was the architect of India’s most famous wins abroad, this cannot be considered a regular slowdown, it’s the worst kind of depression.
And it isn’t just the lack of runs that is galling for those of us who have waited expectantly for Dravid to come to the middle, smug in the knowledge that one of history’s greatest No. 3s stood between the opposition and any sniff of an Indian collapse.
It’s also the way he’s been batting.
Even making allowance for the fact that Dravid at the start of his innings is rarely the prettiest of batsmen, he has never looked as tentative, as fallible as he looks these days. And this is without taking into account the fielding lapses.
So what is wrong with Dravid? Who knows, how can any of us understand what’s going on in his mind, what torment he is inflicting on himself each time he walks out to bat these days? We can only watch from a distance and sympathise, wonder when and how this story will end.
He has repeatedly said he’s still feeling good, it’s just a question of getting those runs.
Well, there’s still the second innings. And the Mohali Test. Most of us who’ve watched Rahul Dravid play from that 1996 debut at Lord’s, will find ourselves hoping, as much for Dravid’s own sake as India’s, that he somehow rediscovers the art of run-making.
For when he finally bids adieu to international cricket, it should be as the legend who made that decision on his own terms, not as a man who had no choice in the matter.
It's terribly difficult to question greatness. It’s equally difficult to try and distance yourself from the distasteful hatchet jobs that are running on channels and yet know that if you don’t ask questions now, there’s no point asking questions ever.
So the question has to be asked —where does Rahul Dravid, nearly 10,370 Test runs in all and scores of 11, 11, 0, 3 & 3 in his last five innings go from here? The problem really, is that it isn't the last five innings, it’s the last two years.
At the beginning of the 2006-07 series in South Africa, Dravid’s career average was an outstanding 58.59. But since then, he’s dropped nearly one point per series (other than the Bangladesh one), a startling drop for someone with his aggregate of runs.
In the 48 innings he’s batted in over the two years since December 2006 in Johannesburg, he’s had 28 sub-20 scores (though three were not out) and only nine 50-plus scores.
This period has also seen just two centuries, one against Bangladesh and the other at home against South Africa.
Coming from the man who was the architect of India’s most famous wins abroad, this cannot be considered a regular slowdown, it’s the worst kind of depression.
And it isn’t just the lack of runs that is galling for those of us who have waited expectantly for Dravid to come to the middle, smug in the knowledge that one of history’s greatest No. 3s stood between the opposition and any sniff of an Indian collapse.
It’s also the way he’s been batting.
Even making allowance for the fact that Dravid at the start of his innings is rarely the prettiest of batsmen, he has never looked as tentative, as fallible as he looks these days. And this is without taking into account the fielding lapses.
So what is wrong with Dravid? Who knows, how can any of us understand what’s going on in his mind, what torment he is inflicting on himself each time he walks out to bat these days? We can only watch from a distance and sympathise, wonder when and how this story will end.
He has repeatedly said he’s still feeling good, it’s just a question of getting those runs.
Well, there’s still the second innings. And the Mohali Test. Most of us who’ve watched Rahul Dravid play from that 1996 debut at Lord’s, will find ourselves hoping, as much for Dravid’s own sake as India’s, that he somehow rediscovers the art of run-making.
For when he finally bids adieu to international cricket, it should be as the legend who made that decision on his own terms, not as a man who had no choice in the matter.
India - Three accused of acid attack shot dead in encounter
In a new turn in the case involving acid attack on two engineering girl students, police have shot dead the three accused boys, claiming the police party was attacked by them.
The main suspect Srinivas and accomplice Sanjay and Harikrishna were shot dead when they allegedly attacked the police party which went to recover a motor cycle used by them in the incident at Mavunoor on Friday night, district Superintendent of Police Sajjanar said.
The police action comes in the wake of a huge public outcry over the acid attack in which the faces of the two girls were disfigured and they were in a critical condition.
Two police officials were suspended yesterday for failing to act promptly on a complaint by the father of one of the girls who is battling for life after being subjected to acid attack by a jilted lover in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh.
Yesterday, home Minister K Jana Reddy was gheraoed by angry activists of women organisations when he visited the private hospital where Swapnika, a final year B.Tech student and her friend are undergoing treatment.
Swapnika and Pranitha were injured when Srinivas threw acid while they were going home on a bike last Wednesday.
The main suspect Srinivas and accomplice Sanjay and Harikrishna were shot dead when they allegedly attacked the police party which went to recover a motor cycle used by them in the incident at Mavunoor on Friday night, district Superintendent of Police Sajjanar said.
The police action comes in the wake of a huge public outcry over the acid attack in which the faces of the two girls were disfigured and they were in a critical condition.
Two police officials were suspended yesterday for failing to act promptly on a complaint by the father of one of the girls who is battling for life after being subjected to acid attack by a jilted lover in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh.
Yesterday, home Minister K Jana Reddy was gheraoed by angry activists of women organisations when he visited the private hospital where Swapnika, a final year B.Tech student and her friend are undergoing treatment.
Swapnika and Pranitha were injured when Srinivas threw acid while they were going home on a bike last Wednesday.
Columnists - Khushwant Singh;United we stand,divided we fall
My son Rahul who lives in Colaba rang up at 9.30 pm on November 26 to tell us of the bomb blasts and assure us that he was safe. I switched on my TV. I saw flames billowing out of windows of the Taj hotel and its dome enveloped in smoke. I had lived close by for many years and was a daily visitor to its health club. I saw the Oberoi, where I had stayed a few times, surrounded by Indian commandos and guests looking out of windows. I saw the devastation caused to the Jewish enclave, Victoria Terminus, Cama Hospital and the airport. I was numb with disbelief. I had spent many happy years in the city. My first reaction was of impotent rage: ‘Hang the bloody bastards on Marine Drive and let the world see how we deal with murderers of innocent people.’
I cooled down and watched scenes repeated over and over again. They had no leads about the perpetrators. All I could gather was that they knew their ways about Mumbai very well, had been fully trained and equipped with the most lethal weapons. They must have also known there was little chance of their ever getting back to their homes. By the time I switched off the TV, the death toll was over 90, including two police officers investigating the Malegaon blast case. They also reported that one of the culprits had been shot dead. I hoped and prayed that the examination of his body did not reveal he was a Muslim.
Alas. He was a Muslim. So also were the rest of the gang. All Pakistanis. From the meticulous way the operation was carried out, it was evident that they had been rehearsing it in minute detail for many weeks, if not months, on Pakistani soil. Pakistan’s rulers have a great deal to explain to the world as the victims include many foreign nationals.
We should be unanimous in our response to the Mumbai attack. It has dealt a heavy body blow to those who have been trying to build bridges between the people of India and Pakistan. This process must continue. At the same time we must do our very best to put down those who are likely to exploit the murderous assault in Mumbai to spread Islamophobia. Many Indian Muslims were killed; all of them condemn it, as do other Indians – Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis. If we do not stand united in our reactions to what had happened in Mumbai, the murderers will have achieved what they wanted to achieve. We must not allow this to happen. We are one nation. We must give them one answer: to hell with you! You will never succeed in dividing us.
I cooled down and watched scenes repeated over and over again. They had no leads about the perpetrators. All I could gather was that they knew their ways about Mumbai very well, had been fully trained and equipped with the most lethal weapons. They must have also known there was little chance of their ever getting back to their homes. By the time I switched off the TV, the death toll was over 90, including two police officers investigating the Malegaon blast case. They also reported that one of the culprits had been shot dead. I hoped and prayed that the examination of his body did not reveal he was a Muslim.
Alas. He was a Muslim. So also were the rest of the gang. All Pakistanis. From the meticulous way the operation was carried out, it was evident that they had been rehearsing it in minute detail for many weeks, if not months, on Pakistani soil. Pakistan’s rulers have a great deal to explain to the world as the victims include many foreign nationals.
We should be unanimous in our response to the Mumbai attack. It has dealt a heavy body blow to those who have been trying to build bridges between the people of India and Pakistan. This process must continue. At the same time we must do our very best to put down those who are likely to exploit the murderous assault in Mumbai to spread Islamophobia. Many Indian Muslims were killed; all of them condemn it, as do other Indians – Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis. If we do not stand united in our reactions to what had happened in Mumbai, the murderers will have achieved what they wanted to achieve. We must not allow this to happen. We are one nation. We must give them one answer: to hell with you! You will never succeed in dividing us.
India - Saving lives,with condoms
Aurangzeb Nagshbandi
A type of condom used by people unable to control their bladders is being utilised in a Kashmir hospital to regularise the flow of oxygen in life-saving oxygen cylinders.
Authorities at the Sri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital — the main referral hospital of Kashmir and the foremost associated hospital of the Government Medical College, Srinagar — are using condom catheter instead of standard manometers in oxygen cylinders.
A Kashmiri doctor, working in West Asia, had taken pictures of oxygen cylinders fitted with these catheter condoms during his recent visit to the hospital.
“It is unacceptable. How can these catheter condoms regulate the flow of oxygen and remain sterilised? Infants and patients with respiratory problems can die of oxygen excess,” the doctor told Hindustan Times on condition of anonymity.
Hindustan Times repeatedly called up the SMHS medical superintendent, Dr Waseem Qureshi, on his mobile phone and landline, but nobody answered the calls.
Condom catheter is a useful and simple device for the control and treatment of urinary incontinence in men, particularly those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. A drainage tube is attached to the condom that allows the urine to pass into a urinary storage bag. The bag’s contents can later be emptied into the toilet.
The doctor said the oxygen flow had to be regularised as per the blood gases of the patients. Also, oxygen had to be humidified before delivery.
“Hospitals in Kashmir are decades behind as far as modern technology is concerned. I was ashamed to see all this,” he added.
Established in 1948 as a government-owned hospital, it claims to have well-organised and fully equipped diagnostic, therapeutic and support service departments.
A type of condom used by people unable to control their bladders is being utilised in a Kashmir hospital to regularise the flow of oxygen in life-saving oxygen cylinders.
Authorities at the Sri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital — the main referral hospital of Kashmir and the foremost associated hospital of the Government Medical College, Srinagar — are using condom catheter instead of standard manometers in oxygen cylinders.
A Kashmiri doctor, working in West Asia, had taken pictures of oxygen cylinders fitted with these catheter condoms during his recent visit to the hospital.
“It is unacceptable. How can these catheter condoms regulate the flow of oxygen and remain sterilised? Infants and patients with respiratory problems can die of oxygen excess,” the doctor told Hindustan Times on condition of anonymity.
Hindustan Times repeatedly called up the SMHS medical superintendent, Dr Waseem Qureshi, on his mobile phone and landline, but nobody answered the calls.
Condom catheter is a useful and simple device for the control and treatment of urinary incontinence in men, particularly those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. A drainage tube is attached to the condom that allows the urine to pass into a urinary storage bag. The bag’s contents can later be emptied into the toilet.
The doctor said the oxygen flow had to be regularised as per the blood gases of the patients. Also, oxygen had to be humidified before delivery.
“Hospitals in Kashmir are decades behind as far as modern technology is concerned. I was ashamed to see all this,” he added.
Established in 1948 as a government-owned hospital, it claims to have well-organised and fully equipped diagnostic, therapeutic and support service departments.
Entertainment - Q&A;Shah Rukh Khan
Vajir Singh
Is this your new look for Karan Johar’s My Name is Khan?
Yeah it is. I think they’ll comb my hair a little more when they start shooting.
A new look seems to be quite a vogue nowadays.
I don’t know about the others but if I do one film at a time, I go for a look according to my director’s wish. Farah (Khan) asked me to get a six pack for a song, so I did.
Shimit (Amin) wanted me to look different in Chak De! India. Adi (Aditya Chopra) wanted two different looks for Rab ne Bana di Jodi. When my directors asks me to go in for a new look, I do.. when they don’t, I remain the way I am.
What’s your take on the financial crunch affecting film production?
Not just the film industry, everyone has been affected.. whether it’s real estate or any other business. Even basic requirements like iron and steel have been affected. So far, cosmetics and entertainment have been the least affected businesses.
Several films have already been shelved.
Recession will hit everyone including the film industry. I’ve done three films this year — Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi — which fortunately didn’t get shelved. Billoo the Barber has been produced by me. The shooting of My Name is Khan starts from December 18. I haven’t heard of any film getting shelved.
But the kind of prices actors were demanding will be affected. Actors, directors, writers, musicians, producers.. all their fees will be affected. We’ll have to make our products more cost-effective. If the audience can’t afford a Rs 250 ticket, everyone involved in filmmaking has to bring down his price. Plain logic!
The terror attacks have aggravated the filmmaking situation.
Itna toh bola maine TV par, yaar. What else can I say? You must have seen me on TV talking.
Yes. And you made a potentially controversial remark — that there’s an Islam from Allah but very unfortunately, there’s an Islam from the mullahs.
(Cuts in) What controversy? There’s Hinduism from the Geeta and there’s Hinduism from the pandits. When I say pandit or mullah, I’m talking about those who are conversant with religion.
I know the religion, so I’m a mullah. Mere bachon ko main religion sikhaunga, so I’m their mullah. Teacher mullah hota hai. I’m just pleading that if you have a child.. you’re their first teacher. The first thing parents need to tell their children is, “ Listen son, this is our faith and it’s a very good faith. It will lead us to the truth..it will help us to know whether we will go to heaven or to hell.”
And that Shah Rukh Khan, he says this in Urdu to his children.. he says the same thing in English..and in Shabar gurwani. Languages are different but the meanings are the same.
People are hesitant to go to the cinema halls in the wake of the terror attacks. Does the release of Rab Ne Bana di Jodi make sense in such circumstances?
See, for last two weeks, Adi and I stopped the film’s publicity. We felt we shouldn’t be talking about entertaining people. Having said that, somewhere down the line, life has to go on.
We’re taking a chance. What can I offer to the people who’re in a depressed state of mind? All of us can offer a part of our work. As a writer, you can give hope to your readers. From our work, I’m assuming we are making an offer — listen maybe this is not the nicest of times but this two-and-a-half hour film may help you to overcome some of your depression.
Are you apprehensive?
No I’m never apprehensive. If the film has to be affected negatively then it will be. If it has to have a normal run, it will get one. I go by Adi’s sensibility. We also believe that Rab is involved in this film.. I think Rab will take care of us.
The hep guy you’re playing in the film seems to have a weird sense of dressing.
He’s over the top and vulgar. He’s someone who wants to be a fashion guru but doesn’t know what fashion is. He’s a wannabe cool dude. Both the characters I play in the film are based on real guys I met during the shoot of Kya Aap Panchvi Paas se Tez Hain. Surinder and Bobby.
I asked Surinder Sahni what he would do if wins Rs 5 crore? He said he’d give it to the poor people. When I asked him why he wouldn’t want to keep the money, he said, “I know what it is to be poor. I want to give it to someone who’s poorer.”
The other guy was Bobby, he was carrying a guitar but didn’t know how to play it.When I asked him why, he said, “It looks cool.” When I asked him what do you want to be in life? He said, “I’m told I look like John Abraham.. so I want to be John Abraham.”
Aditya Chopra is not exactly known for accepting his actors’ ideas. So how did he go along with yours?
Do you know Adi? Adi is not known by anyone. Today, if we announce that there’s no person called Aditya Chopra, people will believe that. Because there’s no person called Aditya Chopra. Yashji uses a pseudonym to make movies. He doesn’t have a son called Adi.
Ha ha!
Well, Adi is a cool guy. He’s always busy with work. He comes back home from work after midnight, at one o’clock maybe and plays games till five in the morning.
But people have formed their own opinions about Adi. I keep hearing about his marriages. I’m like how? I know him the best, Karan knows him best of all.. but we don’t get to meet him.
Many think that Adi doesn’t like any interference. On my part, I can say that occasionally I tell him, “Adi main aisa karunga.” And he will say, “ Achha toh kar de chal.” Adi and I think alike.
Adi and I are very ordinary, boring persons since we only like to work. As an actor, I’ve to go to various places... interact with people.. everyone think I’ve a sense of humour. But in my personal life, I’m very boring.
You’re the first actor to be conferred the Malaysian title, Datuk (often equated with the British knighthood). However, the local talent there wasn’t too happy about this.
I’m not aware of the objections. Some awards are given to create a cultural bridge. Malaysia is very close to India. Very few people are aware of the fact that Malacca is actually a principality founded by the Indian king, Parmeshwara, in 1400 AD.
But of course, local talent will always have this kind of an issue. It could have happened. I truly believe that the title is an honour to our country. It’s a very beautiful place..you should go there for a holiday.
It’s recession time.. I don’t think I can afford to go there.
(Smiles) You can always find some controversial story and go there. It’s the easiest thing in the world to cook up a controversy out of nothing nowadays.
Is this your new look for Karan Johar’s My Name is Khan?
Yeah it is. I think they’ll comb my hair a little more when they start shooting.
A new look seems to be quite a vogue nowadays.
I don’t know about the others but if I do one film at a time, I go for a look according to my director’s wish. Farah (Khan) asked me to get a six pack for a song, so I did.
Shimit (Amin) wanted me to look different in Chak De! India. Adi (Aditya Chopra) wanted two different looks for Rab ne Bana di Jodi. When my directors asks me to go in for a new look, I do.. when they don’t, I remain the way I am.
What’s your take on the financial crunch affecting film production?
Not just the film industry, everyone has been affected.. whether it’s real estate or any other business. Even basic requirements like iron and steel have been affected. So far, cosmetics and entertainment have been the least affected businesses.
Several films have already been shelved.
Recession will hit everyone including the film industry. I’ve done three films this year — Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi — which fortunately didn’t get shelved. Billoo the Barber has been produced by me. The shooting of My Name is Khan starts from December 18. I haven’t heard of any film getting shelved.
But the kind of prices actors were demanding will be affected. Actors, directors, writers, musicians, producers.. all their fees will be affected. We’ll have to make our products more cost-effective. If the audience can’t afford a Rs 250 ticket, everyone involved in filmmaking has to bring down his price. Plain logic!
The terror attacks have aggravated the filmmaking situation.
Itna toh bola maine TV par, yaar. What else can I say? You must have seen me on TV talking.
Yes. And you made a potentially controversial remark — that there’s an Islam from Allah but very unfortunately, there’s an Islam from the mullahs.
(Cuts in) What controversy? There’s Hinduism from the Geeta and there’s Hinduism from the pandits. When I say pandit or mullah, I’m talking about those who are conversant with religion.
I know the religion, so I’m a mullah. Mere bachon ko main religion sikhaunga, so I’m their mullah. Teacher mullah hota hai. I’m just pleading that if you have a child.. you’re their first teacher. The first thing parents need to tell their children is, “ Listen son, this is our faith and it’s a very good faith. It will lead us to the truth..it will help us to know whether we will go to heaven or to hell.”
And that Shah Rukh Khan, he says this in Urdu to his children.. he says the same thing in English..and in Shabar gurwani. Languages are different but the meanings are the same.
People are hesitant to go to the cinema halls in the wake of the terror attacks. Does the release of Rab Ne Bana di Jodi make sense in such circumstances?
See, for last two weeks, Adi and I stopped the film’s publicity. We felt we shouldn’t be talking about entertaining people. Having said that, somewhere down the line, life has to go on.
We’re taking a chance. What can I offer to the people who’re in a depressed state of mind? All of us can offer a part of our work. As a writer, you can give hope to your readers. From our work, I’m assuming we are making an offer — listen maybe this is not the nicest of times but this two-and-a-half hour film may help you to overcome some of your depression.
Are you apprehensive?
No I’m never apprehensive. If the film has to be affected negatively then it will be. If it has to have a normal run, it will get one. I go by Adi’s sensibility. We also believe that Rab is involved in this film.. I think Rab will take care of us.
The hep guy you’re playing in the film seems to have a weird sense of dressing.
He’s over the top and vulgar. He’s someone who wants to be a fashion guru but doesn’t know what fashion is. He’s a wannabe cool dude. Both the characters I play in the film are based on real guys I met during the shoot of Kya Aap Panchvi Paas se Tez Hain. Surinder and Bobby.
I asked Surinder Sahni what he would do if wins Rs 5 crore? He said he’d give it to the poor people. When I asked him why he wouldn’t want to keep the money, he said, “I know what it is to be poor. I want to give it to someone who’s poorer.”
The other guy was Bobby, he was carrying a guitar but didn’t know how to play it.When I asked him why, he said, “It looks cool.” When I asked him what do you want to be in life? He said, “I’m told I look like John Abraham.. so I want to be John Abraham.”
Aditya Chopra is not exactly known for accepting his actors’ ideas. So how did he go along with yours?
Do you know Adi? Adi is not known by anyone. Today, if we announce that there’s no person called Aditya Chopra, people will believe that. Because there’s no person called Aditya Chopra. Yashji uses a pseudonym to make movies. He doesn’t have a son called Adi.
Ha ha!
Well, Adi is a cool guy. He’s always busy with work. He comes back home from work after midnight, at one o’clock maybe and plays games till five in the morning.
But people have formed their own opinions about Adi. I keep hearing about his marriages. I’m like how? I know him the best, Karan knows him best of all.. but we don’t get to meet him.
Many think that Adi doesn’t like any interference. On my part, I can say that occasionally I tell him, “Adi main aisa karunga.” And he will say, “ Achha toh kar de chal.” Adi and I think alike.
Adi and I are very ordinary, boring persons since we only like to work. As an actor, I’ve to go to various places... interact with people.. everyone think I’ve a sense of humour. But in my personal life, I’m very boring.
You’re the first actor to be conferred the Malaysian title, Datuk (often equated with the British knighthood). However, the local talent there wasn’t too happy about this.
I’m not aware of the objections. Some awards are given to create a cultural bridge. Malaysia is very close to India. Very few people are aware of the fact that Malacca is actually a principality founded by the Indian king, Parmeshwara, in 1400 AD.
But of course, local talent will always have this kind of an issue. It could have happened. I truly believe that the title is an honour to our country. It’s a very beautiful place..you should go there for a holiday.
It’s recession time.. I don’t think I can afford to go there.
(Smiles) You can always find some controversial story and go there. It’s the easiest thing in the world to cook up a controversy out of nothing nowadays.
Entertainment - Jennifer Aniston strips for magazine cover
Former Friends star Jennifer Aniston has appeared in her most sultry photo shoot till date to grace the front cover of American GQ magazine.
The 39-year-old actress poses provocatively in nothing but a striped necktie in the picture, reports dailymail.co.uk.
This is not the first time Aniston has stripped for a publication. She had earlier been pictured on the front cover of the same magazine in 2005 when she appeared in nothing but a short denim skirt.
The magazine hits the stores December 23.
Me - See it here - http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2008/12/jennifer-anisto.html
The 39-year-old actress poses provocatively in nothing but a striped necktie in the picture, reports dailymail.co.uk.
This is not the first time Aniston has stripped for a publication. She had earlier been pictured on the front cover of the same magazine in 2005 when she appeared in nothing but a short denim skirt.
The magazine hits the stores December 23.
Me - See it here - http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2008/12/jennifer-anisto.html
World - Japan announces new $255 b economic stimulus package
TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso on Friday announced a new 23 trillion yen ($255 billion) stimulus package to shore up his country’s economy, with measures to spur employment, encourage lending and inject capital into financial markets.
“The global downturn is said to be a recession on a scale that comes once in a century,” Mr. Aso said.
The new package includes 10 trillion yen ($111 billion) in tax breaks and public financing, and provides for up to 13 trillion yen ($144 billion) to address the credit crunch, including capital injections for lenders and other financial institutions.
As the global financial picture continues to darken, governments are fast-tracking massive stimulus plans to shore up their economies. European Union leaders looked set to back a $260 billion package on Friday, after plans announced in recent weeks in India, China and the U.S.
Friday’s announcement comes on the heels of 27 trillion yen in measures announced in October, which included expanded credits for small businesses and a cash payout to every household to spur spending. “Since then the economy has worsened beyond our expectations,” Mr. Aso said.
The total comes to at least 40 trillion yen, with some overlap in the two sets of financial measures. Mr. Aso pointed to falling stocks and the surging yen, and said the newest package was needed to boost employment and stabilise Japan’s economic system. He said it would provide support including tax breaks for workers affected by the economic slowdown and home buyers, as well as funds for injection into markets and support for mid-sized businesses.
Before Mr. Aso’s announcement on Friday, the yen surged to a 13-year high against the dollar.
The U.S. currency sank to 88.16 yen in afternoon trading in Tokyo, its lowest level since August 2, 1995. Japanese stocks plunged as the yen surged; the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average slid 5.6 per cent to 8235.87.
A strong yen is especially painful for Japan’s export-driven economy as it cuts into profits made abroad, even as slowing demand drags down sales.
The new stimulus plan was announced as Mr. Aso and leaders from China and South Korea were preparing for their first trilateral summit, to be held on Saturday in the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka. The summit was expected to be dominated by financial issues. — AP
“The global downturn is said to be a recession on a scale that comes once in a century,” Mr. Aso said.
The new package includes 10 trillion yen ($111 billion) in tax breaks and public financing, and provides for up to 13 trillion yen ($144 billion) to address the credit crunch, including capital injections for lenders and other financial institutions.
As the global financial picture continues to darken, governments are fast-tracking massive stimulus plans to shore up their economies. European Union leaders looked set to back a $260 billion package on Friday, after plans announced in recent weeks in India, China and the U.S.
Friday’s announcement comes on the heels of 27 trillion yen in measures announced in October, which included expanded credits for small businesses and a cash payout to every household to spur spending. “Since then the economy has worsened beyond our expectations,” Mr. Aso said.
The total comes to at least 40 trillion yen, with some overlap in the two sets of financial measures. Mr. Aso pointed to falling stocks and the surging yen, and said the newest package was needed to boost employment and stabilise Japan’s economic system. He said it would provide support including tax breaks for workers affected by the economic slowdown and home buyers, as well as funds for injection into markets and support for mid-sized businesses.
Before Mr. Aso’s announcement on Friday, the yen surged to a 13-year high against the dollar.
The U.S. currency sank to 88.16 yen in afternoon trading in Tokyo, its lowest level since August 2, 1995. Japanese stocks plunged as the yen surged; the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average slid 5.6 per cent to 8235.87.
A strong yen is especially painful for Japan’s export-driven economy as it cuts into profits made abroad, even as slowing demand drags down sales.
The new stimulus plan was announced as Mr. Aso and leaders from China and South Korea were preparing for their first trilateral summit, to be held on Saturday in the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka. The summit was expected to be dominated by financial issues. — AP
Business - India;‘No respite from industrial slowdown till 2009-end’
NEW DELHI: With the country’s industrial growth contracting by 0.4 per cent in October this year for the first time since April 1993, the fear is that the Index of Industrial Production would continue to slide further till the end of 2009 and a recovery could only set in later. Commenting on the negative growth, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) Chairman Suresh Tendulkar noted that the industrial slowdown would have a bearing on the country’s overall GDP (gross domestic product) growth as well. And, therefore, the Council would revisit the GDP growth figures, which it has now pegged at 7.7 per cent for 2008-09. “We are taking stock of the situation and we will revise our forecast accordingly,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has already scaled down India’s GDP growth projection to seven per cent from its earlier estimate of 7.4 per cent for calendar year 2008 on account of the global financial crisis directly impacting the banking system and financial markets in the country.
As for calendar year 2009, the ADB has forecast a further decline in economic growth to 6.5 per cent from its earlier projection of seven per cent. “India, South Asia’s most dynamic economy in recent years, is reeling from the direct effect of the global financial crisis on its banking systems and financial markets. The growth projection for India has been revised down to seven per cent in 2008 and 6.5 per cent in 2009, from nine per cent in 2007,” the Bank said.
ADB’s forecast, however, is still better than the World Bank which on Tuesday projected the Indian economy to grow by 6.3 per cent in 2008 and by 5.8 per cent in 2009. For the first half of 2008-09, the economy has posted a growth of 7.8 per cent as compared to a growth of 9.3 per cent in the same period a year ago.
Meanwhile, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has already scaled down India’s GDP growth projection to seven per cent from its earlier estimate of 7.4 per cent for calendar year 2008 on account of the global financial crisis directly impacting the banking system and financial markets in the country.
As for calendar year 2009, the ADB has forecast a further decline in economic growth to 6.5 per cent from its earlier projection of seven per cent. “India, South Asia’s most dynamic economy in recent years, is reeling from the direct effect of the global financial crisis on its banking systems and financial markets. The growth projection for India has been revised down to seven per cent in 2008 and 6.5 per cent in 2009, from nine per cent in 2007,” the Bank said.
ADB’s forecast, however, is still better than the World Bank which on Tuesday projected the Indian economy to grow by 6.3 per cent in 2008 and by 5.8 per cent in 2009. For the first half of 2008-09, the economy has posted a growth of 7.8 per cent as compared to a growth of 9.3 per cent in the same period a year ago.
World - Germany suddenly isolated on key issues
Ian Traynor
CAUTIOUS: German Chancellor Angela Merkel is out of step with her partners on NATO expansion and Afghanistan.
Angela Merkel arrived in Brussels on Wednesday night a lonely figure. For years, German chancellors have been consensual participants at EU summits, drawing on Germany’s formidable status as the paymaster of Europe and the powerhouse of its economy.
Not any more. The pastor’s daughter from east Germany suddenly finds herself isolated on the biggest issues of the times — economic gloom and global warming. She is out of step with her partners on NATO expansion and Afghanistan. She disagrees with the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, over how to rescue economies facing recession. She is at odds with the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, on everything from the EU’s relations with non-Mediterranean countries to the single currency and the independence of the European Central Bank.
The confluence of disputes may be no coincidence. After decades of self-effacing, low-profile projection of German national interests, Merkel appears to be putting Germany first.
“There’s now a much more assertive position for Germany in international relations,” said Jan Techau, Europe analyst at the German Council on Foreign relations. “It’s getting much easier for Germany to further its interests. This is a good sign, the sign of a normal country.”
For years, unlike the other big EU countries, Germany has been the patron of the European Commission and also the protector of the smaller member states. That appears to have changed. Berlin increasingly acts like Paris or London.
It is not difficult to see why. Ms Merkel’s policy choices reflect what’s good for Germany. The problem is that others such as Mr. Brown and Mr. Sarkozy see her decisions as not so good for them. Directly or indirectly, one job in seven in Germany depends on the car industry, so in the current disputes over bailouts and climate change policy Merkel has fought to soften new EU laws curbing car emissions.
In the row over “fiscal stimulus,” Germany also has widely divergent priorities from Britain and France. The traumas of the economic chaos and wheelbarrow inflation of the 1920s, which paved the way for Hitler, have bequeathed a fear of living beyond your means and vast public spending programmes.
As the world’s champion exporter and with an industrial and manufacturing sector bigger than Britain and France’s combined, Germany sees less utility in cutting taxes or reducing VAT. Some 60 per cent of German economic output derives from selling things abroad. Unlike Britain, there is little shopaholic culture, relatively little use of credit cards, no boom and bust property markets, low rates of home ownership and mortgage-lending. If, broadly speaking, German households save and British households spend, VAT cuts might spur economic activity in Reading, but they are unlikely to in Dusseldorf.
All of these factors colour the German approach to crisis management of an economy that constitutes about a fifth of the EU whole of 27 countries. The fact that Germany was out of step was reinforced when, last Monday, Merkel was not invited to a mini-European summit in Downing Street. Europe’s biggest country and strongest economy was excluded from a meeting devoted to “global Europe.”
Ms Merkel has also become sceptical about the carbon trading and auctioning system that is the heart of the EU’s climate change package being argued over last night because it could hurt German industrial competitiveness and cost jobs.
On foreign policy, Ms Merkel has taken on George Bush and won, blocking the U.S. push to put Georgia and Ukraine on the path to membership of NATO. The Germans are also in dispute with the Americans over Afghanistan and the role of the Bundeswehr’s troops there.
They don’t want to enlarge NATO, unlike the U.S. They don’t want to enlarge the EU, unlike Britain. But most strikingly of all, Germany wants a close and special relationship with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Germany is intertwined with Russia like no other country. While thousands of German companies are operating in Russia and exporting there on a scale more than five times that of the U.S., for example, Germany is the biggest market for Russian gas supplies. Berlin salivates at the prospect of a grand strategic bargain with Moscow that marries Russian raw materials with German industrial might.
This causes goose pimples in central and eastern Europe, particularly in Poland and the Baltic states who have a wretched history of being battered, partitioned, and occupied by the giant neighbours to their east and west. “We’re now at a bit of a watershed, with the emergence of a new German Ostpolitik towards Russia,” said Ulrike Guerot, of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Berlin wants the other European countries to take the German line on Russia, rather than Germany adopting the European line.”
The expansion of the EU from 15 countries only a few years ago to 27 and growing has also shifted the German perspective, putting Berlin in the centre of the union, rather than on its eastern frontier, and weakening the centrality of the Franco-German alliance that has been the backbone of the EU. French and German leaders have always fought over European policy, Guerot points out, but ultimately with a joint purpose in mind. That has changed, she said.
Munich’s Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper complained on Wednesday that the summit in Brussels would be a wasted opportunity unless Paris and Berlin put aside their differences. “Europe has only ever been strong when Germans and French pulled on the same string in the same direction,” it said. But Guerot said: “These [Franco-German] disputes are no longer embedded in the achievement of a common goal. Their national interests are diverging.”
It is difficult for the two core EU countries, for example, to develop a common European energy policy when France is largely nuclear-powered and Germany is committed to giving up nuclear power.
Analysts say that the trend for Germany to put itself first is hardly surprising and was started by Ms Merkel’s predecessor, Gerhard Schroder. He was the first chancellor with no direct experience of the Nazi era and less encumbered by German postwar guilt. Within months of leaving office he worked for the Kremlin as head of a consortium building a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea and bypassing the countries of eastern Europe.
Ms Merkel, said Techau, had spoilt her reputation in Europe by not subscribing to Mr. Sarkozy’s and Mr. Brown’s activism on the economic crisis. “She’s much more cautious. That reflects her personality, but it also reflects the way Germans prefer to react to a crisis. It’s all partly Germany getting a normal sense of itself.”
CAUTIOUS: German Chancellor Angela Merkel is out of step with her partners on NATO expansion and Afghanistan.
Angela Merkel arrived in Brussels on Wednesday night a lonely figure. For years, German chancellors have been consensual participants at EU summits, drawing on Germany’s formidable status as the paymaster of Europe and the powerhouse of its economy.
Not any more. The pastor’s daughter from east Germany suddenly finds herself isolated on the biggest issues of the times — economic gloom and global warming. She is out of step with her partners on NATO expansion and Afghanistan. She disagrees with the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, over how to rescue economies facing recession. She is at odds with the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, on everything from the EU’s relations with non-Mediterranean countries to the single currency and the independence of the European Central Bank.
The confluence of disputes may be no coincidence. After decades of self-effacing, low-profile projection of German national interests, Merkel appears to be putting Germany first.
“There’s now a much more assertive position for Germany in international relations,” said Jan Techau, Europe analyst at the German Council on Foreign relations. “It’s getting much easier for Germany to further its interests. This is a good sign, the sign of a normal country.”
For years, unlike the other big EU countries, Germany has been the patron of the European Commission and also the protector of the smaller member states. That appears to have changed. Berlin increasingly acts like Paris or London.
It is not difficult to see why. Ms Merkel’s policy choices reflect what’s good for Germany. The problem is that others such as Mr. Brown and Mr. Sarkozy see her decisions as not so good for them. Directly or indirectly, one job in seven in Germany depends on the car industry, so in the current disputes over bailouts and climate change policy Merkel has fought to soften new EU laws curbing car emissions.
In the row over “fiscal stimulus,” Germany also has widely divergent priorities from Britain and France. The traumas of the economic chaos and wheelbarrow inflation of the 1920s, which paved the way for Hitler, have bequeathed a fear of living beyond your means and vast public spending programmes.
As the world’s champion exporter and with an industrial and manufacturing sector bigger than Britain and France’s combined, Germany sees less utility in cutting taxes or reducing VAT. Some 60 per cent of German economic output derives from selling things abroad. Unlike Britain, there is little shopaholic culture, relatively little use of credit cards, no boom and bust property markets, low rates of home ownership and mortgage-lending. If, broadly speaking, German households save and British households spend, VAT cuts might spur economic activity in Reading, but they are unlikely to in Dusseldorf.
All of these factors colour the German approach to crisis management of an economy that constitutes about a fifth of the EU whole of 27 countries. The fact that Germany was out of step was reinforced when, last Monday, Merkel was not invited to a mini-European summit in Downing Street. Europe’s biggest country and strongest economy was excluded from a meeting devoted to “global Europe.”
Ms Merkel has also become sceptical about the carbon trading and auctioning system that is the heart of the EU’s climate change package being argued over last night because it could hurt German industrial competitiveness and cost jobs.
On foreign policy, Ms Merkel has taken on George Bush and won, blocking the U.S. push to put Georgia and Ukraine on the path to membership of NATO. The Germans are also in dispute with the Americans over Afghanistan and the role of the Bundeswehr’s troops there.
They don’t want to enlarge NATO, unlike the U.S. They don’t want to enlarge the EU, unlike Britain. But most strikingly of all, Germany wants a close and special relationship with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Germany is intertwined with Russia like no other country. While thousands of German companies are operating in Russia and exporting there on a scale more than five times that of the U.S., for example, Germany is the biggest market for Russian gas supplies. Berlin salivates at the prospect of a grand strategic bargain with Moscow that marries Russian raw materials with German industrial might.
This causes goose pimples in central and eastern Europe, particularly in Poland and the Baltic states who have a wretched history of being battered, partitioned, and occupied by the giant neighbours to their east and west. “We’re now at a bit of a watershed, with the emergence of a new German Ostpolitik towards Russia,” said Ulrike Guerot, of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Berlin wants the other European countries to take the German line on Russia, rather than Germany adopting the European line.”
The expansion of the EU from 15 countries only a few years ago to 27 and growing has also shifted the German perspective, putting Berlin in the centre of the union, rather than on its eastern frontier, and weakening the centrality of the Franco-German alliance that has been the backbone of the EU. French and German leaders have always fought over European policy, Guerot points out, but ultimately with a joint purpose in mind. That has changed, she said.
Munich’s Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper complained on Wednesday that the summit in Brussels would be a wasted opportunity unless Paris and Berlin put aside their differences. “Europe has only ever been strong when Germans and French pulled on the same string in the same direction,” it said. But Guerot said: “These [Franco-German] disputes are no longer embedded in the achievement of a common goal. Their national interests are diverging.”
It is difficult for the two core EU countries, for example, to develop a common European energy policy when France is largely nuclear-powered and Germany is committed to giving up nuclear power.
Analysts say that the trend for Germany to put itself first is hardly surprising and was started by Ms Merkel’s predecessor, Gerhard Schroder. He was the first chancellor with no direct experience of the Nazi era and less encumbered by German postwar guilt. Within months of leaving office he worked for the Kremlin as head of a consortium building a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea and bypassing the countries of eastern Europe.
Ms Merkel, said Techau, had spoilt her reputation in Europe by not subscribing to Mr. Sarkozy’s and Mr. Brown’s activism on the economic crisis. “She’s much more cautious. That reflects her personality, but it also reflects the way Germans prefer to react to a crisis. It’s all partly Germany getting a normal sense of itself.”
India - Beyond the ‘no security, no taxes’ slogan
Harish Khare
NEW PHENOMENON: Mumbaikars take part in a protest rally against the recent terror attacks. The currently fashionable anti-politician and anti-political-class anger can only embolden authoritarian figures and their anti-democratic ambitions.
Within two days of the terrorist attack on Mumbai, billboards were up in the city with the slogan, “no security, no taxes.” This theme was heard loud and clear on Wednesday, December 3, when Mumbaikars gathered in solidarity and protest at the Gateway of India. Courtesy one television channel, the country was given an elaborate discourse on the “no security, no taxes” thesis by actor Preity Zinta. She wanted to know why citizens like her should be p aying taxes when she and millions of others were being made to feel helpless and insecure in public places. She also catalogued a number of supposedly sound decisions which could have been taken, and some presumably ill-advised decisions which were shoved down the security forces’ organisational throat.
This “no security, no taxes” slogan reflects the larger mood of anger and disappointment with the political class, whether they occupy governing slots in Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad or Thiruvananthapuram. The officers and men who laid down their lives in Mumbai are the new national heroes. The Chief Minister of Kerala has been pilloried for his less than graceful comments about a slain officer’s family in Bangalore, while the Chief Minister of Gujarat was chastised for playing politics outside the Taj Mahal Hotel even as the security personnel were engaging the terrorists inside. The new mood is to insist on some semblance of accountability from those who claim to represent and speak for the “masses” on the strength of choosing to get involved in the “dirty” electoral politics.
Ironically, the “no security, no taxes” sentiment has come at time when, perhaps for the first time since Independence, the Central government did not feel diffident about its taxation regime. Over the last two years or so, the Union Finance Ministry has sponsored a public campaign exhorting citizens to pay taxes due from them to the government, by citing all the visible developmental projects that were being financed from the revenues so generated. This exhortation was predicated on the confidence of an honest job honestly done in the larger public interest. Taxes and their collection was no longer a coercive imposition but a necessary and justifiable exercise of the sovereign functions of the state; and compliance with tax demands was an obligatory element of good citizenship.
The “no security, no taxes” slogan, in fact, suggests that it is now the citizen’s turn to demand of the government to reciprocate with the requisite competence and commitment. The demand carries with it a suggestion that it is not enough that the citizens as voters get a chance, once in five years, to unseat a government that fails to instil a sense of confidence and security. The demand is an expression of anger against the political-bureaucratic establishment that remains satisfied with its minimalist performance. It would be worth everyone’s troubles if political leaders across party lines get jolted out of their self-created comfort zones. Only two years ago the Prime Minister held out a dream of making Mumbai another Shanghai. That dream lies shattered. And if we are not careful, Mumbai could become the metaphor for an ungovernable India.
It is imperative to use the new anger in a healthy and constructive manner so as to reinforce and renew the democratic institutions rather than weaken our collective capacity to face the terrorists’ challenge. If we allow the post-Mumbai anger to de-legitimise democratic politics, we may end up becoming another Pakistan with no institution retaining the credibility or the respectability to stand up to the practitioners of violence.
For example, for the first time the serving chief of an armed force has felt emboldened to question the performance of the electronic media during the Mumbai siege. Admittedly, the electronic media cannot take any pride in its performance, but there can be no doubt that the Chief of the Naval Staff must have felt he had the licence given the new mood of celebration of “martyrdom.” Certainly no political leader could take such a liberty.
The very raison d’etre of the modern state is its obligation to protect territorial integrity and secure the safety of its citizens in the face of challenges from within and outside; it is in pursuit of this responsibility that the state claims for itself the right to put in place stringent laws and to use available instruments of coercion to secure compliance with those laws and regulations. And, in times of war the modern state arrogates to itself the right to demand of its young men and women to go to the battlefield and, if necessary, die in defence of the motherland.
The Indian state has had no difficulty in asking its young men and women to shed blood in defence of its territorial integrity. Nor, for that matter, has the political leadership class found it distasteful to send armies into battlefields. Even military reverses such as the 1962 India-China engagement and the 1999 Kargil invasion, were used to whip up emotional bonding. Lata Mangehskar’s immortal song, Aaye mere vatan ke logo jara aak me bharlo pani, performed first in 1963, continues to move to this day. Traditional wars, fought between regular armies, garner glory and kudos for the political leadership.
The modern-day terrorist, however, has introduced a new element in this equation between the state and the citizen. The Indian state finds itself having to fight a faceless enemy, yet having to reassure its citizens of their safety. It is the terrorist, particularly of the jihadi breed, who is demonstratively willing to die, whereas the state finds it difficult to demand of its citizens the same degree of intensity of loyalty and obedience. The post-Mumbai mood, expressed and being instigated in the “no security, no taxes” campaign, could end up giving an upper hand to the terrorist.
Notwithstanding the very unreal “soft-versus-hard-on-terror” argument among the political parties and leaders, there has been a vast expansion of security outfits and personnel but without any sensible debate on the nature of the terrorist and what it would take to defeat him. Because of a partisan and divided political class, the security agencies, including intelligence agencies, have been happy to take the leaders for a ride. For nearly a decade, a section of the intelligence establishment has convinced a significant part of the political leadership that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence was the source of all of India’s troubles. In the process, the gullible leadership never acquired the nerve to ask the agencies to perform better and in a different manner. It may be that if the political leadership has not been able to make more exacting demands on the vast security apparatus it is because the entire architecture of democratic governance has developed visible credibility cracks. While it is entirely natural that the post-Mumbai anger is used to send down a message that “business as usual” would not do, it cannot serve any lasting purpose if in the process we end up depleting the legitimacy of the governing arrangement.
The nation has already witnessed the disquieting, if only an isolated, expression of a serving officer of the Army getting involved with those who think in terms of a majoritarian vigilante response to “minority” terror. Let us recall the argument that was being bandied about till a few days before Mumbai, 26/11. Hemant Karkare of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, who took the terrorists’ bullet on November 26 and who is now being serenaded as a hero, was sought to be vilified because he was close on the heels of unravelling a “Hindu terror” strategy. The argument was that since the government(s) would not move against the presumed jihadi elements, it was up to groups from within the majority community to wield the truncheon. The temptation for such vigilantism is primarily predicated on the Indian state’s inefficacy in putting a permanent end to the terrorist.
This “Abhinav Bharat” itch may grow if the post-Mumbai mood is allowed to deplete further the legitimacy of democratic institutions. The currently fashionable anti-politician and anti-political-class anger can only embolden authoritarian figures and their anti-democratic ambitions. While it is morally defensible to insist that the state and its functionaries perform their obligations to govern in an effective and competent manner, it will be short-sighted and dangerous to create an ideological justification for private armies settling private scores.
The jihadis who attacked Mumbai on November 26 will have achieved a much bigger degree of success than they did if we talk ourselves into becoming a lesser democracy. The “no security, no taxes” campaign should be halted immediately. In a democracy, public anger must be steered into restoring the legitimacy of the state’s instruments.
NEW PHENOMENON: Mumbaikars take part in a protest rally against the recent terror attacks. The currently fashionable anti-politician and anti-political-class anger can only embolden authoritarian figures and their anti-democratic ambitions.
Within two days of the terrorist attack on Mumbai, billboards were up in the city with the slogan, “no security, no taxes.” This theme was heard loud and clear on Wednesday, December 3, when Mumbaikars gathered in solidarity and protest at the Gateway of India. Courtesy one television channel, the country was given an elaborate discourse on the “no security, no taxes” thesis by actor Preity Zinta. She wanted to know why citizens like her should be p aying taxes when she and millions of others were being made to feel helpless and insecure in public places. She also catalogued a number of supposedly sound decisions which could have been taken, and some presumably ill-advised decisions which were shoved down the security forces’ organisational throat.
This “no security, no taxes” slogan reflects the larger mood of anger and disappointment with the political class, whether they occupy governing slots in Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad or Thiruvananthapuram. The officers and men who laid down their lives in Mumbai are the new national heroes. The Chief Minister of Kerala has been pilloried for his less than graceful comments about a slain officer’s family in Bangalore, while the Chief Minister of Gujarat was chastised for playing politics outside the Taj Mahal Hotel even as the security personnel were engaging the terrorists inside. The new mood is to insist on some semblance of accountability from those who claim to represent and speak for the “masses” on the strength of choosing to get involved in the “dirty” electoral politics.
Ironically, the “no security, no taxes” sentiment has come at time when, perhaps for the first time since Independence, the Central government did not feel diffident about its taxation regime. Over the last two years or so, the Union Finance Ministry has sponsored a public campaign exhorting citizens to pay taxes due from them to the government, by citing all the visible developmental projects that were being financed from the revenues so generated. This exhortation was predicated on the confidence of an honest job honestly done in the larger public interest. Taxes and their collection was no longer a coercive imposition but a necessary and justifiable exercise of the sovereign functions of the state; and compliance with tax demands was an obligatory element of good citizenship.
The “no security, no taxes” slogan, in fact, suggests that it is now the citizen’s turn to demand of the government to reciprocate with the requisite competence and commitment. The demand carries with it a suggestion that it is not enough that the citizens as voters get a chance, once in five years, to unseat a government that fails to instil a sense of confidence and security. The demand is an expression of anger against the political-bureaucratic establishment that remains satisfied with its minimalist performance. It would be worth everyone’s troubles if political leaders across party lines get jolted out of their self-created comfort zones. Only two years ago the Prime Minister held out a dream of making Mumbai another Shanghai. That dream lies shattered. And if we are not careful, Mumbai could become the metaphor for an ungovernable India.
It is imperative to use the new anger in a healthy and constructive manner so as to reinforce and renew the democratic institutions rather than weaken our collective capacity to face the terrorists’ challenge. If we allow the post-Mumbai anger to de-legitimise democratic politics, we may end up becoming another Pakistan with no institution retaining the credibility or the respectability to stand up to the practitioners of violence.
For example, for the first time the serving chief of an armed force has felt emboldened to question the performance of the electronic media during the Mumbai siege. Admittedly, the electronic media cannot take any pride in its performance, but there can be no doubt that the Chief of the Naval Staff must have felt he had the licence given the new mood of celebration of “martyrdom.” Certainly no political leader could take such a liberty.
The very raison d’etre of the modern state is its obligation to protect territorial integrity and secure the safety of its citizens in the face of challenges from within and outside; it is in pursuit of this responsibility that the state claims for itself the right to put in place stringent laws and to use available instruments of coercion to secure compliance with those laws and regulations. And, in times of war the modern state arrogates to itself the right to demand of its young men and women to go to the battlefield and, if necessary, die in defence of the motherland.
The Indian state has had no difficulty in asking its young men and women to shed blood in defence of its territorial integrity. Nor, for that matter, has the political leadership class found it distasteful to send armies into battlefields. Even military reverses such as the 1962 India-China engagement and the 1999 Kargil invasion, were used to whip up emotional bonding. Lata Mangehskar’s immortal song, Aaye mere vatan ke logo jara aak me bharlo pani, performed first in 1963, continues to move to this day. Traditional wars, fought between regular armies, garner glory and kudos for the political leadership.
The modern-day terrorist, however, has introduced a new element in this equation between the state and the citizen. The Indian state finds itself having to fight a faceless enemy, yet having to reassure its citizens of their safety. It is the terrorist, particularly of the jihadi breed, who is demonstratively willing to die, whereas the state finds it difficult to demand of its citizens the same degree of intensity of loyalty and obedience. The post-Mumbai mood, expressed and being instigated in the “no security, no taxes” campaign, could end up giving an upper hand to the terrorist.
Notwithstanding the very unreal “soft-versus-hard-on-terror” argument among the political parties and leaders, there has been a vast expansion of security outfits and personnel but without any sensible debate on the nature of the terrorist and what it would take to defeat him. Because of a partisan and divided political class, the security agencies, including intelligence agencies, have been happy to take the leaders for a ride. For nearly a decade, a section of the intelligence establishment has convinced a significant part of the political leadership that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence was the source of all of India’s troubles. In the process, the gullible leadership never acquired the nerve to ask the agencies to perform better and in a different manner. It may be that if the political leadership has not been able to make more exacting demands on the vast security apparatus it is because the entire architecture of democratic governance has developed visible credibility cracks. While it is entirely natural that the post-Mumbai anger is used to send down a message that “business as usual” would not do, it cannot serve any lasting purpose if in the process we end up depleting the legitimacy of the governing arrangement.
The nation has already witnessed the disquieting, if only an isolated, expression of a serving officer of the Army getting involved with those who think in terms of a majoritarian vigilante response to “minority” terror. Let us recall the argument that was being bandied about till a few days before Mumbai, 26/11. Hemant Karkare of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, who took the terrorists’ bullet on November 26 and who is now being serenaded as a hero, was sought to be vilified because he was close on the heels of unravelling a “Hindu terror” strategy. The argument was that since the government(s) would not move against the presumed jihadi elements, it was up to groups from within the majority community to wield the truncheon. The temptation for such vigilantism is primarily predicated on the Indian state’s inefficacy in putting a permanent end to the terrorist.
This “Abhinav Bharat” itch may grow if the post-Mumbai mood is allowed to deplete further the legitimacy of democratic institutions. The currently fashionable anti-politician and anti-political-class anger can only embolden authoritarian figures and their anti-democratic ambitions. While it is morally defensible to insist that the state and its functionaries perform their obligations to govern in an effective and competent manner, it will be short-sighted and dangerous to create an ideological justification for private armies settling private scores.
The jihadis who attacked Mumbai on November 26 will have achieved a much bigger degree of success than they did if we talk ourselves into becoming a lesser democracy. The “no security, no taxes” campaign should be halted immediately. In a democracy, public anger must be steered into restoring the legitimacy of the state’s instruments.
India - Judicial compensation for legislative weakness
Arvind Sivaramakrishnan
The ineffectuality of parliaments is one of the main problems in several parliamentary democracies today. It was glaringly obvious in the case of Iraq invasion.
Annual lectures at learned societies are not often the venues or vehicles for direct attacks on the actions of governments, but the 2008 Grotius Lecture, delivered by Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the recently-retired senior British Law Lord, at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in London on November 17, may well come to be seen as a classic of its kind, not least because it also gives rise to a number of very important questions for any democracy.
Lord Bingham was direct and unsparing in his attack on the defining act of Tony Blair’s 10 years as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, namely the invasion of Iraq which the United States and the United Kingdom led in March 2003. Adding his own legal weight to the already very substantial and long-standing body of international legal opinion to the effect that the invasion could not be justified under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, Lord Bingham said that the British government’s position, which was stated by the then Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith in a written answer to Parliament on March 17, 2003, that Resolution 1441 had been materially breached by Iraq and that the use of force was therefore justified, was ‘flawed in two fundamental respects.’
The first flaw was that there was no hard evidence of such material breaches, of non-compliance by Iraq sufficiently serious to warrant the use of force. The U.N. weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix were only a few months short of the completion of their extensive investigation of Iraq’s alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction; they had found none until then, and none have been found since the invasion. The claimed factual grounds for the invasion of Iraq did not exist.
The second fundamental flaw was a legal one, and lay in Lord Goldsmith’s conclusion, in the statement of March 17, 2003, that Resolution 1441 did not require the Security Council to make any further decision to authorise the use of force against Iraq. Goldsmith’s claim for this was that if 1441 had required a further decision, it would have contained such a requirement. This reasoning, Lord Bingham said, ‘simply passes belief.’ It amounts to saying that the Security Council did not need to discuss whether or not Iraq had failed so significantly to comply with the earlier Resolution 678 that force was needed. In effect, Lord Goldsmith had arrogated to his own government both the power to conclude that Iraq had materially failed in respect of 678 and the consequent power to invade. President Bush and the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair had, as one British commentator says, made themselves investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury, all in one.
In any case, it has been known well enough for some years that Bush and Blair had collusively decided several months earlier to invade Iraq, and that they had simply ignored the overwhelming amount of legal opinion to the effect that an invasion would be a breach of international law. That body of opinion made no practical difference, and, as one British newspaper says now, neither has Lord Bingham’s lecture, both because he is no longer a serving judge and because it is highly unlikely that any government will contemplate a repeat performance of the Iraq invasion for a very long time to come. Even in the British domestic context, it is also very unlikely that any prime minister or individual minister will in the foreseeable future perpetrate such a gross breach of the U.K. ministerial code, which requires all British ministers to comply with the law, whether in domestic, international, or treaty forms.
The impact of Lord Bingham’s lecture will indeed be indirect rather than direct. Lord Bingham, who as the senior Law Lord was the closest approximation to a chief justice in the British judicial system, has since his retirement ceased to be a serving judge, but he remains a life member of the upper chamber of the British parliament, the House of Lords, and can therefore continue to debate and vote on legislation and to serve on the appropriate parliamentary committees. Whatever he says on any major public issue will be taken very seriously.
To start with, Lord Bingham’s argument in the Grotius lecture is on very strong ground. Paragraph 1 of Resolution 1441 asserts that Iraq was and remained in breach of its disarmament obligations under the relevant Security Council resolutions, but paragraph 2 affords Iraq ‘a final opportunity to comply’ therewith. It is highly significant that both the U.S. and the U.K. stated in the formal explanations of their respective votes on Resolution 1441 that it involved no ‘automaticity’, no ‘hidden triggers’; the British explanation even says that if there were any ‘further Iraqi breaches of its disarmament obligations’ the matter would return to the Security Council for discussion — as indeed 1441 requires in its own paragraph 12. Furthermore, Lord Goldsmith had himself been equivocal about the legality of an invasion for a year, until he suddenly changed his line in March 2003. Many attribute Goldsmith’s volte-face to pressure from Tony Blair and the U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney; the British government is also appealing the U.K. Information Commissioner’s ruling on the Cabinet minutes for the relevant period in March 2003.
If Lord Bingham is right, then the only conclusion is that Blair — acting for the United Kingdom — flagrantly broke the law. Blair’s government, by passing new legislation on public inquiries before Blair left office, also ensured that its conduct over Iraq would probably never be fully exposed.
In addition, the fact of Lord Bingham’s attack on the invasion of Iraq exemplifies the importance of a public culture in which public servants and other public officials act on a reasoned commitment to the law, and — in a wider sense — the state. Over Iraq in particular, anxiety about the legality of the invasion permeated all the British armed forces, even to the extent that the then First Sea Lord, the seniormost naval officer, took private legal advice on the matter. The then chief of the defence staff also wanted to be sure that if he were to be charged in the International Criminal Court then the political leaders who ordered the invasion would be charged as well.
This kind of public commitment can serve as a counterweight to a party-dominated and therefore often executive-dominated political process. One of Lord Bingham’s judicial predecessors had — unattributably — told an academic seminar some fifteen years previously that the British senior judiciary were becoming much tougher at judicial review because Parliament was useless as a check on the executive.
The ineffectuality of parliaments is one of the main problems in several parliamentary democracies today, and was glaringly obvious in the case of the Iraq invasion. In the U.K., it is public knowledge that 95 per cent of the then 400-plus Labour MPs in a 659-seat chamber were against the invasion; but in the end only 139 voted against it. All the Labour MPs had been given the – significantly fictitious and now infamous – dossier claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which could be deployed against the U.K. in 45 minutes, but a substantial proportion of them had not read it. One Labour MP, apparently unaware of what he was revealing about himself, said later that he had trusted Tony Blair ‘implicitly’, and a Blair aide said that even the dossier in question contained enough uncertainties to convince any serious reader that the invasion should not proceed.
Unfortunately, parliamentary ineffectuality is not confined to major events like the Iraq invasion. Neither is it confined to the U.K. alone, where much public criticism has been voiced for some years of the poor quality of legislative debate in the elected chamber, the House of Commons.
It follows that public-service officials often have to step in when legislatures fail to do what they should do. This is a feature of any democracy whether parliamentary or presidential; it is likely to be just as important in the forthcoming months as it was over Iraq, because President-elect Obama and the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown plan an intensification of military activities in an even more intractable series of conflicts than those in Iraq, namely those in Afghanistan. Mr Obama and Mr Brown will almost certainly look for other states in the region to assist them, and if the elected assemblies in South Asia do not perform their constitutional duty of scrutinising their respective governments’ responses thoroughly then unelected public servants will have to perform that duty instead.
The ineffectuality of parliaments is one of the main problems in several parliamentary democracies today. It was glaringly obvious in the case of Iraq invasion.
Annual lectures at learned societies are not often the venues or vehicles for direct attacks on the actions of governments, but the 2008 Grotius Lecture, delivered by Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the recently-retired senior British Law Lord, at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in London on November 17, may well come to be seen as a classic of its kind, not least because it also gives rise to a number of very important questions for any democracy.
Lord Bingham was direct and unsparing in his attack on the defining act of Tony Blair’s 10 years as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, namely the invasion of Iraq which the United States and the United Kingdom led in March 2003. Adding his own legal weight to the already very substantial and long-standing body of international legal opinion to the effect that the invasion could not be justified under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, Lord Bingham said that the British government’s position, which was stated by the then Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith in a written answer to Parliament on March 17, 2003, that Resolution 1441 had been materially breached by Iraq and that the use of force was therefore justified, was ‘flawed in two fundamental respects.’
The first flaw was that there was no hard evidence of such material breaches, of non-compliance by Iraq sufficiently serious to warrant the use of force. The U.N. weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix were only a few months short of the completion of their extensive investigation of Iraq’s alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction; they had found none until then, and none have been found since the invasion. The claimed factual grounds for the invasion of Iraq did not exist.
The second fundamental flaw was a legal one, and lay in Lord Goldsmith’s conclusion, in the statement of March 17, 2003, that Resolution 1441 did not require the Security Council to make any further decision to authorise the use of force against Iraq. Goldsmith’s claim for this was that if 1441 had required a further decision, it would have contained such a requirement. This reasoning, Lord Bingham said, ‘simply passes belief.’ It amounts to saying that the Security Council did not need to discuss whether or not Iraq had failed so significantly to comply with the earlier Resolution 678 that force was needed. In effect, Lord Goldsmith had arrogated to his own government both the power to conclude that Iraq had materially failed in respect of 678 and the consequent power to invade. President Bush and the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair had, as one British commentator says, made themselves investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury, all in one.
In any case, it has been known well enough for some years that Bush and Blair had collusively decided several months earlier to invade Iraq, and that they had simply ignored the overwhelming amount of legal opinion to the effect that an invasion would be a breach of international law. That body of opinion made no practical difference, and, as one British newspaper says now, neither has Lord Bingham’s lecture, both because he is no longer a serving judge and because it is highly unlikely that any government will contemplate a repeat performance of the Iraq invasion for a very long time to come. Even in the British domestic context, it is also very unlikely that any prime minister or individual minister will in the foreseeable future perpetrate such a gross breach of the U.K. ministerial code, which requires all British ministers to comply with the law, whether in domestic, international, or treaty forms.
The impact of Lord Bingham’s lecture will indeed be indirect rather than direct. Lord Bingham, who as the senior Law Lord was the closest approximation to a chief justice in the British judicial system, has since his retirement ceased to be a serving judge, but he remains a life member of the upper chamber of the British parliament, the House of Lords, and can therefore continue to debate and vote on legislation and to serve on the appropriate parliamentary committees. Whatever he says on any major public issue will be taken very seriously.
To start with, Lord Bingham’s argument in the Grotius lecture is on very strong ground. Paragraph 1 of Resolution 1441 asserts that Iraq was and remained in breach of its disarmament obligations under the relevant Security Council resolutions, but paragraph 2 affords Iraq ‘a final opportunity to comply’ therewith. It is highly significant that both the U.S. and the U.K. stated in the formal explanations of their respective votes on Resolution 1441 that it involved no ‘automaticity’, no ‘hidden triggers’; the British explanation even says that if there were any ‘further Iraqi breaches of its disarmament obligations’ the matter would return to the Security Council for discussion — as indeed 1441 requires in its own paragraph 12. Furthermore, Lord Goldsmith had himself been equivocal about the legality of an invasion for a year, until he suddenly changed his line in March 2003. Many attribute Goldsmith’s volte-face to pressure from Tony Blair and the U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney; the British government is also appealing the U.K. Information Commissioner’s ruling on the Cabinet minutes for the relevant period in March 2003.
If Lord Bingham is right, then the only conclusion is that Blair — acting for the United Kingdom — flagrantly broke the law. Blair’s government, by passing new legislation on public inquiries before Blair left office, also ensured that its conduct over Iraq would probably never be fully exposed.
In addition, the fact of Lord Bingham’s attack on the invasion of Iraq exemplifies the importance of a public culture in which public servants and other public officials act on a reasoned commitment to the law, and — in a wider sense — the state. Over Iraq in particular, anxiety about the legality of the invasion permeated all the British armed forces, even to the extent that the then First Sea Lord, the seniormost naval officer, took private legal advice on the matter. The then chief of the defence staff also wanted to be sure that if he were to be charged in the International Criminal Court then the political leaders who ordered the invasion would be charged as well.
This kind of public commitment can serve as a counterweight to a party-dominated and therefore often executive-dominated political process. One of Lord Bingham’s judicial predecessors had — unattributably — told an academic seminar some fifteen years previously that the British senior judiciary were becoming much tougher at judicial review because Parliament was useless as a check on the executive.
The ineffectuality of parliaments is one of the main problems in several parliamentary democracies today, and was glaringly obvious in the case of the Iraq invasion. In the U.K., it is public knowledge that 95 per cent of the then 400-plus Labour MPs in a 659-seat chamber were against the invasion; but in the end only 139 voted against it. All the Labour MPs had been given the – significantly fictitious and now infamous – dossier claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which could be deployed against the U.K. in 45 minutes, but a substantial proportion of them had not read it. One Labour MP, apparently unaware of what he was revealing about himself, said later that he had trusted Tony Blair ‘implicitly’, and a Blair aide said that even the dossier in question contained enough uncertainties to convince any serious reader that the invasion should not proceed.
Unfortunately, parliamentary ineffectuality is not confined to major events like the Iraq invasion. Neither is it confined to the U.K. alone, where much public criticism has been voiced for some years of the poor quality of legislative debate in the elected chamber, the House of Commons.
It follows that public-service officials often have to step in when legislatures fail to do what they should do. This is a feature of any democracy whether parliamentary or presidential; it is likely to be just as important in the forthcoming months as it was over Iraq, because President-elect Obama and the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown plan an intensification of military activities in an even more intractable series of conflicts than those in Iraq, namely those in Afghanistan. Mr Obama and Mr Brown will almost certainly look for other states in the region to assist them, and if the elected assemblies in South Asia do not perform their constitutional duty of scrutinising their respective governments’ responses thoroughly then unelected public servants will have to perform that duty instead.
World - US;Bringing public officials to book
“I am like any other man,” remarked Al Capone infamously. “All I do is supply a demand.” America’s most notorious gangster lent Chicago its grim reputation in the Roaring Twenties as a centre for the mafia, violence, corruption, and crime. Much has changed for the better in this city, the largest in Illinois, the populous mid-western state with a long and unenviable legacy of lawlessness. But as the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich suggests, some things — that cosy mix of crony capitalism, crime syndicates, influence peddling and political corruption — have remained more or less the same. Mr. Blagojevich, who was handcuffed and hauled before a magistrate, has been charged with conspiracy and bribery for attempting to sell a U.S. Senate seat vacated by no less than President-elect Barack Obama. He may, in Capone’s scheme of things, have only been trying to supply a demand. Of course, he was also not opposed to demanding some supplies. FBI wiretaps of his phone conversations recorded him seeking campaign contributions in exchange for sanctioning money and approving projects, exploring ways of getting a lucrative corporate sinecure for his wife, and persuading a newspaper’s owner to fire editorial writers critical of him.
Mr. Blagojevich’s indiscretions have been described as “shocking” and a “corruption spree.” He has been accused of taking public service to a “new low,” but this should be seen in the context of a political milieu in Illinois that is plagued by a giddy succession of scandals. The man he succeeded as Governor, George Ryan, was convicted of corruption for routing state contracts to political insiders when he was Illinois Secretary of State. Two other Governors, Dan Walker and Otto Kerner, have served prison terms in the last four decades for such things as bribery and fraud. In 2006, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that at least 79 Illinois public officials have been found guilty of a crime since 1972 — a list of worthies that included 15 state legislators, 27 aldermen, and 19 judges. At one level, it is a record of a state that is a hotbed of cronyism and corruption. At another, it is a record of a criminal justice system that has succeeded in bringing a string of corrupt public officials to book. Consider the situation in India, where selling seats in legislatures, securing sinecures for relatives, arm-twisting the press, and doing sweetheart deals with businessmen are routine occurrences. In fact, the likes of Mr. Blagojevich may well be able to learn a thing or two from some of our political leaders. What we need to learn from Illinois is a way of holding public officials, high and low, accountable to the law.
Mr. Blagojevich’s indiscretions have been described as “shocking” and a “corruption spree.” He has been accused of taking public service to a “new low,” but this should be seen in the context of a political milieu in Illinois that is plagued by a giddy succession of scandals. The man he succeeded as Governor, George Ryan, was convicted of corruption for routing state contracts to political insiders when he was Illinois Secretary of State. Two other Governors, Dan Walker and Otto Kerner, have served prison terms in the last four decades for such things as bribery and fraud. In 2006, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that at least 79 Illinois public officials have been found guilty of a crime since 1972 — a list of worthies that included 15 state legislators, 27 aldermen, and 19 judges. At one level, it is a record of a state that is a hotbed of cronyism and corruption. At another, it is a record of a criminal justice system that has succeeded in bringing a string of corrupt public officials to book. Consider the situation in India, where selling seats in legislatures, securing sinecures for relatives, arm-twisting the press, and doing sweetheart deals with businessmen are routine occurrences. In fact, the likes of Mr. Blagojevich may well be able to learn a thing or two from some of our political leaders. What we need to learn from Illinois is a way of holding public officials, high and low, accountable to the law.
India - A natural choice
As is typical of many a Congress denouement in which election victories are often followed by intense intra-party factional haggling over the choice of the leader, Ashok Gehlot’s election as leader of the legislature party in Rajasthan was wrested from three days of ugly wrangling. Union Minister Sis Ram Ola threw his hat in the ring as did State Congress chief C.P. Joshi. The police claim that their supporters sustained no injuries in the clashes would have been com ic had the matter not been the serious one of choosing a Chief Minister. The selection process was long and tedious with the Pradesh Congress Committee expectedly turning for guidance to Sonia Gandhi, and she, in turn, leaving the decision to a team of observers from Delhi. Was the fuss avoidable? Definitely, because there was little doubt that the soft-spoken Mr. Gehlot was the natural choice for the job. The Ola faction not only made outrageously casteist claims on behalf of the Union Minister, it threatened a Jat backlash should Mr. Gehlot, from the OBC Mali (gardener) community, become Chief Minister. Yet for the Congress to give in to this blackmail would have been to ignore Mr. Gehlot’s positive governing record. In his earlier term as Chief Minister (1998-2003), Mr. Gehlot was credited with having run a caring and competent administration, earning laurels in particular for his deft management of the crippling drought of 2002-03. He had emerged as the Congress’ key strategist in the political battle with the Vasundara Raje-led Bharatiya Janata Party.
The bitter factionalism that almost stymied Mr. Gehlot’s choice as Chief Minister is also the reason why the Congress has stopped short of an absolutely majority in the new Rajasthan House. Crossing the halfway mark ought to have been easy for the State Congress given that the BJP was beset with problems. For the better part of 2007-08, Rajasthan was torn asunder by violent Gujjar-Meena clashes that claimed about 70 lives. A further setback to the Raje government was the September 2008 stampede in the Chamunda Devi temple in Jodhpur which killed nearly 200 pilgrims. Ms Raje earned opposition ire for the repeated instances of police firing. Meanwhile, it was an open secret that many in her own party worked against her. The outgoing Chief Minister was thought to be hard working, and she did deliver to an extent on her promise of development. But she was perceived as distant and remote, an image her rivals in the BJP exploited to the hilt. Hence, it is not at all surprising that the unassuming Mr. Gehlot won the day.
The bitter factionalism that almost stymied Mr. Gehlot’s choice as Chief Minister is also the reason why the Congress has stopped short of an absolutely majority in the new Rajasthan House. Crossing the halfway mark ought to have been easy for the State Congress given that the BJP was beset with problems. For the better part of 2007-08, Rajasthan was torn asunder by violent Gujjar-Meena clashes that claimed about 70 lives. A further setback to the Raje government was the September 2008 stampede in the Chamunda Devi temple in Jodhpur which killed nearly 200 pilgrims. Ms Raje earned opposition ire for the repeated instances of police firing. Meanwhile, it was an open secret that many in her own party worked against her. The outgoing Chief Minister was thought to be hard working, and she did deliver to an extent on her promise of development. But she was perceived as distant and remote, an image her rivals in the BJP exploited to the hilt. Hence, it is not at all surprising that the unassuming Mr. Gehlot won the day.
World - US;Steven Chu for Energy Secretary
Beijing: China’s media are cheering U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s pick of Chinese-American Steven Chu for the post of Energy Secretary, saying it bodes well for future cooperation between the two countries.
Photographs of Mr. Chu, who was born in St Louis to Chinese parents, were printed on the front pages of major newspapers on Friday, illustrating the pride China takes in the achievements of the vast Chinese diaspora.
The state-owned China Daily cited Chinese academics as saying Mr. Chu’s ethnic background would increase cooperation between China and the US.
Mr. Chu, currently Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, has been a frequent visitor to China. The Nobel Prize-winning physicist has been a vocal advocate of more research into alternative energy, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combat global warming. —AP
Photographs of Mr. Chu, who was born in St Louis to Chinese parents, were printed on the front pages of major newspapers on Friday, illustrating the pride China takes in the achievements of the vast Chinese diaspora.
The state-owned China Daily cited Chinese academics as saying Mr. Chu’s ethnic background would increase cooperation between China and the US.
Mr. Chu, currently Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, has been a frequent visitor to China. The Nobel Prize-winning physicist has been a vocal advocate of more research into alternative energy, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combat global warming. —AP
World - US;Obama deals with Blagojevich fallout
Suzanne Goldenberg
Washington: Barack Obama denied on Thursday that any member of his staff had ever tried to strike a deal with the scandal-tainted Illinois Governor accused of trying to sell Mr. Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat. But in his most expansive comments to date on the scandal, the President-elect did not entirely dispel lingering questions about contacts between his staff and the Governor, Rod Blagojevich.
Mr. Obama said he had not spoken to Mr. Blagojevich and was confident that no one from his White House transition team had been involved in inappropriate haggling over his replacement in the Senate. “What I am absolutely certain about is that my office had absolutely no involvement in any deal-making about my Senate seat. That I am absolutely certain about,” he told a press conference on Thursday.
However, Mr. Obama admitted that he still needed to “gather all the facts” about the nature and extent of his transition team’s contacts with the Governor. He said he would make that information available in the coming days.
The President-elect had hoped on Thursday to focus on his promised health reforms. But instead, he was forced for a third successive day to deflect questions about the widening scandal.
The Governor, who has sole authority under Illinois law to appoint Mr. Obama’s successor, is accused by the FBI of trying to extract payment in return for backing a preferred candidate or contenders for the Senate seat. On Wednesday Jesse Jackson Jr, a congressman and son of the civil rights leader, acknowledged he was the person identified in the FBI wiretaps as “Senate candidate five”. Mr. Jackson denied wrongdoing.
The FBI has said Mr. Obama and his team are not accused of wrongdoing in the scandal involving Mr. Blagojevich. But the President-elect has faced criticism since the scandal erupted for his failure to condemn Mr. Blagojevich in more forceful terms. There have also been questions about Mr. Obama’s decision to endorse the Governor’s run for re-election in 2006, when he already faced allegations of corruption.
Mr. Obama took steps to speak out against Mr. Blagojevich in clearer terms on Thursday. “I think the public trust has been violated,” he said. “This Senate seat does not belong to any politician to trade.” He repeated his demand that the Governor stand down.
Aides, consultants and fundraisers for Mr. Obama figure prominently in the FBI affidavit — despite the agency’s disavowal of any wrongdoing by Mr. Obama’s team.
The affidavit quotes from wiretaps showing Mr. Blagojevich erupting in rage over the Obama camp’s refusal to go along with his scheme to obtain payment for making the Senate appointment.
Mr. Obama noted that frustration on Thursday, saying that kind of deal-making had no part in the new politics that have been at the core of his campaign. “That would be a violation of everything that this campaign has been about,” he said. But he did not address the question of whether his camp had at any point notified the authorities of Mr. Blagojevich’s efforts to extract bribes for naming the next Illinois Senator.
Mr. Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod said on November 23 the President-elect had spoken to Mr. Blagojevich about the Senate seat and other issues. The campaign issued a press release late on Tuesday saying Mr. Axelrod had misspoken.
Mr. Blagojevich has clung to office despite pressure to quit. On Thursday the Illinois Attorney-General Lisa Madigan told CNN that she would move to have the Governor declared unfit for office if the State Legislature did not impeach him.
A session is scheduled for Monday at which leaders of the Legislature are to strip Mr. Blagojevich of his power to pick a new U.S. Senator. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008
Washington: Barack Obama denied on Thursday that any member of his staff had ever tried to strike a deal with the scandal-tainted Illinois Governor accused of trying to sell Mr. Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat. But in his most expansive comments to date on the scandal, the President-elect did not entirely dispel lingering questions about contacts between his staff and the Governor, Rod Blagojevich.
Mr. Obama said he had not spoken to Mr. Blagojevich and was confident that no one from his White House transition team had been involved in inappropriate haggling over his replacement in the Senate. “What I am absolutely certain about is that my office had absolutely no involvement in any deal-making about my Senate seat. That I am absolutely certain about,” he told a press conference on Thursday.
However, Mr. Obama admitted that he still needed to “gather all the facts” about the nature and extent of his transition team’s contacts with the Governor. He said he would make that information available in the coming days.
The President-elect had hoped on Thursday to focus on his promised health reforms. But instead, he was forced for a third successive day to deflect questions about the widening scandal.
The Governor, who has sole authority under Illinois law to appoint Mr. Obama’s successor, is accused by the FBI of trying to extract payment in return for backing a preferred candidate or contenders for the Senate seat. On Wednesday Jesse Jackson Jr, a congressman and son of the civil rights leader, acknowledged he was the person identified in the FBI wiretaps as “Senate candidate five”. Mr. Jackson denied wrongdoing.
The FBI has said Mr. Obama and his team are not accused of wrongdoing in the scandal involving Mr. Blagojevich. But the President-elect has faced criticism since the scandal erupted for his failure to condemn Mr. Blagojevich in more forceful terms. There have also been questions about Mr. Obama’s decision to endorse the Governor’s run for re-election in 2006, when he already faced allegations of corruption.
Mr. Obama took steps to speak out against Mr. Blagojevich in clearer terms on Thursday. “I think the public trust has been violated,” he said. “This Senate seat does not belong to any politician to trade.” He repeated his demand that the Governor stand down.
Aides, consultants and fundraisers for Mr. Obama figure prominently in the FBI affidavit — despite the agency’s disavowal of any wrongdoing by Mr. Obama’s team.
The affidavit quotes from wiretaps showing Mr. Blagojevich erupting in rage over the Obama camp’s refusal to go along with his scheme to obtain payment for making the Senate appointment.
Mr. Obama noted that frustration on Thursday, saying that kind of deal-making had no part in the new politics that have been at the core of his campaign. “That would be a violation of everything that this campaign has been about,” he said. But he did not address the question of whether his camp had at any point notified the authorities of Mr. Blagojevich’s efforts to extract bribes for naming the next Illinois Senator.
Mr. Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod said on November 23 the President-elect had spoken to Mr. Blagojevich about the Senate seat and other issues. The campaign issued a press release late on Tuesday saying Mr. Axelrod had misspoken.
Mr. Blagojevich has clung to office despite pressure to quit. On Thursday the Illinois Attorney-General Lisa Madigan told CNN that she would move to have the Governor declared unfit for office if the State Legislature did not impeach him.
A session is scheduled for Monday at which leaders of the Legislature are to strip Mr. Blagojevich of his power to pick a new U.S. Senator. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008
World - Gaza on verge of humanitarian disaster
London: Anyone who thinks that the status quo in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is acceptable should talk to a doctor from Gaza. There is an acute shortage of all drugs, and a complete lack of all cancer and cystic fibrosis medication. The hospitals have generators, but often no fuel, and switching from mains to an emergency supply wrecks the equipment.
One of the strip’s three CT scanners is bust because of fluctuations in current. This also makes the temperature control of incubators for newborn babies unreliable. There have been some transfers of the sick to Israeli hospitals, but none to Egypt. According to one source, more than 230 patients died last year waiting for a permit to leave.
The list goes on: the majority of Gaza’s children present the symptoms of mild or severe post traumatic stress disorder. About 45 per cent of children under five have iron deficiency from lack of fruit and 18 per cent of children have stunted growth. There is one other statistic: 71 per cent of children interviewed at a school recently said they wanted to be a “martyr.”
A six-month ceasefire, or a period of “quiet” between Israel and Hamas, exists in name only.
The current volley of raids and rockets started on November 4 when Israel said it uncovered a tunnel Hamas was planning to use to capture soldiers. Israeli forces have killed at least 10 Hamas gunmen, and as the rockets rained down on Sderot and Ashkelon, the gates of Gaza were locked.
They were opened on Tuesday when 45 trucks of food, medical supplies, cooking gas and fuel were let through. Israel says it will stop its blockade the moment the rockets cease and defends itself from the charge that its actions amount to collective punishment by drawing comparisons with other sanctions regimes. But Israel is not the only player.
Conditions in Gaza are daily news in the Arab media and Egypt is coming under pressure to open its border with Gaza. British Ministers may protest about the border closures, but the whole world community is complicit with the policy of punishing Palestinians for having elected Hamas.
There is no defence for Hamas’ use of rockets against Israeli civilian targets. Making Israeli children cower in concrete shelters is not “resistance.”
But nor can one justify the policy of keeping 1.5 million Palestinians on life support and then turning the ventilator off from time to time. Even less should it be tolerated by the incoming Obama administration. One cannot point, as Dennis Ross has done, to the dangers of Gaza becoming a failed state, while supporting policies which ensure the state continues to fail.
Keeping Gaza perched on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe should not appeal to a U.S. President who intends to use his middle name to reach out to the Arab world. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008
One of the strip’s three CT scanners is bust because of fluctuations in current. This also makes the temperature control of incubators for newborn babies unreliable. There have been some transfers of the sick to Israeli hospitals, but none to Egypt. According to one source, more than 230 patients died last year waiting for a permit to leave.
The list goes on: the majority of Gaza’s children present the symptoms of mild or severe post traumatic stress disorder. About 45 per cent of children under five have iron deficiency from lack of fruit and 18 per cent of children have stunted growth. There is one other statistic: 71 per cent of children interviewed at a school recently said they wanted to be a “martyr.”
A six-month ceasefire, or a period of “quiet” between Israel and Hamas, exists in name only.
The current volley of raids and rockets started on November 4 when Israel said it uncovered a tunnel Hamas was planning to use to capture soldiers. Israeli forces have killed at least 10 Hamas gunmen, and as the rockets rained down on Sderot and Ashkelon, the gates of Gaza were locked.
They were opened on Tuesday when 45 trucks of food, medical supplies, cooking gas and fuel were let through. Israel says it will stop its blockade the moment the rockets cease and defends itself from the charge that its actions amount to collective punishment by drawing comparisons with other sanctions regimes. But Israel is not the only player.
Conditions in Gaza are daily news in the Arab media and Egypt is coming under pressure to open its border with Gaza. British Ministers may protest about the border closures, but the whole world community is complicit with the policy of punishing Palestinians for having elected Hamas.
There is no defence for Hamas’ use of rockets against Israeli civilian targets. Making Israeli children cower in concrete shelters is not “resistance.”
But nor can one justify the policy of keeping 1.5 million Palestinians on life support and then turning the ventilator off from time to time. Even less should it be tolerated by the incoming Obama administration. One cannot point, as Dennis Ross has done, to the dangers of Gaza becoming a failed state, while supporting policies which ensure the state continues to fail.
Keeping Gaza perched on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe should not appeal to a U.S. President who intends to use his middle name to reach out to the Arab world. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008
India - ARC suggests lower age limit for civil services aspirants
Aarti Dhar
NEW DELHI: The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) has recommended lowering of the upper age limit and reducing the number of attempts for civil services aspirants with some relaxations for reserved categories.
The Tenth report of the Commission on “Refurbishing of Personnel Administration — Scaling New Heights,” released here on Friday, suggested doing away with the present system of evaluation of performance based on annual confidential report (ACR). Instead, it came up with a concept of annual performance agreements to be signed between the Minister concerned and the Secretary or head of the department, providing physical and verifiable details of the work to be done during a financial year. The actual performance should be assessed by a third party.
Addressing a press conference, Commission chairperson M. Veerappa Moily said the panel favoured reducing the upper age limit for writing the civil services examination to between 21 and 25 for general candidates, 28 for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and 29 for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates as also those who were physically challenged.
The number of permissible attempts in the civil services examinations should be 3 years, 5 years and 6 years for the general candidates, OBC, and SC/ST and physically challenged aspirants, the panel has suggested.
At present, the upper age limit is 30 years for the general candidates with 4 attempts. But there are relaxations for the OBC and SC/ST aspirants.
According to the report, a Post-School Grooming System for civil services aspirants and a formal degree course in public policy would be of great help and also discourage the system of coaching centres which have tended to distort the formal education system.
While recommending the establishment of National Institutes of Public Administration to run degree courses in public administration, the report has said an expert committee should work out the modalities of the proposed system.
For a transparent system of appointments in the government, covering all ranks, the Commission has suggested the setting up of a Central Civil Services Authority. The panel is also in favour of introducing competition for all senior positions by opening these to services. The Authority, the panel says, should be a five-member body with the chairperson appointed by the President on the recommendations of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to make it totally apolitical.
The Commission is of the view that in order to avoid any conflict of interest, government officials should not be allowed to go on deputation to private commercial organisations.
Periodic review
In order to increase accountability, the Commission suggested a periodic review of the performance for which it recommended a system of two intensive reviews — one on completion of 14 years of service and the other on completion of 20 years. The first review will primarily serve the purpose of intimating individual about his/her performance and the second is mainly to assess the fitness of the officer for his/her future continuation in service. The employees found unfit after 20 years should be dispensed with and a provision in this regard should be made in the proposed Civil Services Law, Mr. Moily has said.
NEW DELHI: The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) has recommended lowering of the upper age limit and reducing the number of attempts for civil services aspirants with some relaxations for reserved categories.
The Tenth report of the Commission on “Refurbishing of Personnel Administration — Scaling New Heights,” released here on Friday, suggested doing away with the present system of evaluation of performance based on annual confidential report (ACR). Instead, it came up with a concept of annual performance agreements to be signed between the Minister concerned and the Secretary or head of the department, providing physical and verifiable details of the work to be done during a financial year. The actual performance should be assessed by a third party.
Addressing a press conference, Commission chairperson M. Veerappa Moily said the panel favoured reducing the upper age limit for writing the civil services examination to between 21 and 25 for general candidates, 28 for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and 29 for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates as also those who were physically challenged.
The number of permissible attempts in the civil services examinations should be 3 years, 5 years and 6 years for the general candidates, OBC, and SC/ST and physically challenged aspirants, the panel has suggested.
At present, the upper age limit is 30 years for the general candidates with 4 attempts. But there are relaxations for the OBC and SC/ST aspirants.
According to the report, a Post-School Grooming System for civil services aspirants and a formal degree course in public policy would be of great help and also discourage the system of coaching centres which have tended to distort the formal education system.
While recommending the establishment of National Institutes of Public Administration to run degree courses in public administration, the report has said an expert committee should work out the modalities of the proposed system.
For a transparent system of appointments in the government, covering all ranks, the Commission has suggested the setting up of a Central Civil Services Authority. The panel is also in favour of introducing competition for all senior positions by opening these to services. The Authority, the panel says, should be a five-member body with the chairperson appointed by the President on the recommendations of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to make it totally apolitical.
The Commission is of the view that in order to avoid any conflict of interest, government officials should not be allowed to go on deputation to private commercial organisations.
Periodic review
In order to increase accountability, the Commission suggested a periodic review of the performance for which it recommended a system of two intensive reviews — one on completion of 14 years of service and the other on completion of 20 years. The first review will primarily serve the purpose of intimating individual about his/her performance and the second is mainly to assess the fitness of the officer for his/her future continuation in service. The employees found unfit after 20 years should be dispensed with and a provision in this regard should be made in the proposed Civil Services Law, Mr. Moily has said.
Business - Gold dearer than Platinum
NEW YORK/LONDON: Gold rose to its highest level in two months on Thursday, surpassing platinum for the first time in 12 years.
Entertainment - Rahman's nominated for Golden Globes
New Delhi: British director Danny Boyle’s film Slumdog Millionaire, about a Mumbai teenager’s rags-to-riches story, has received four nominations for the 66th Golden Globe Awards, with music director A.R. Rahman nominated for Best Original Score.
“It’s good to hear about all these nominations,” Rahman told reporters, on the sidelines of a press conference. “I always feel that I am just one of the elements and then combining it with other elements it becomes something else. So with the same instinct I had done the music in two to three weeks,” he said. — PTI
“It’s good to hear about all these nominations,” Rahman told reporters, on the sidelines of a press conference. “I always feel that I am just one of the elements and then combining it with other elements it becomes something else. So with the same instinct I had done the music in two to three weeks,” he said. — PTI
Entertainment - Movie Review;Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi
Khalid Mohamed
How now. Meet Punjab Power Company's employee Surinder Sahni aka Suri. He crunches his breakfast toast, hangs out with a barber dost, and occasionally digs into a murgh musallam roast. He's a nice, ordinary sort of bloke on whom life has played a cruel joke. Croak?
No, no, not at all. You don't have to pity the bespectacled, Clark Gable-moustachioed Suri of Aditya Chopra's Rab ne Bana di Jodi. In fact, the Amritsar-domiciled Suri is a soul brother to the mousy Clark-Kent-cum-Superman. And of other dual-personality-toting wonders from a wild variety of sources such as V Shantaram's Navrang, Raj Kapoor's Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Golmaal (Hrishikesh Mukherjee's, please), and even a faint shade of Jerry Lewis' Nutty Professor. In effect, you get two SRKs for the price of one. A kind of Satyam Shahrukham Surinderam.
Our Simple Surinder-turned-Rocking Raj makes you laugh and sob alternately. Honestly, after quite a long famine you're treated to a banquet of entertainment. For most part of the way, the spread is fun, feel-wonderful and perhaps expectedly, shouldered by a 10-on-10 performance by Shah Rukh Khan. Often when the screenplay flags, he keeps you engaged with his effortless schizophrenic shifts from a mild-mannered nerd to a jazzy Joe.
Indeed, you wonder how the actor pulls it all off with conviction even when Aditya Chopra's story, at its very concept, is absolutely implausible. You keep worrying why a woman can't tell the difference between Surinder and Raj (not even the good old fake 'massa' or birth pimple here). Is she plain blind, short-sighted or ditzy? And why does the director eventually lapse into utterly regressive stuff towards the finale with the woman falling at the man's feet? She even equates him with God. They don't use the words pati parmeshwar. Yet, Chopra's chauvinistic slip shows. Not done.
Quite clearly, the plot is as improbable as a flying kangaroo and as antiquated as a dinosaur. There are tacky interludes, too, like the sumo wrestling bout and the special effects lights switched on and off in Amritsar. Also, the running time is too lengthy. And the finale dance competition - both in its prize and in its presentation (too many flashback inserts) - is not even in the dramatic, suspense-fraught league of the TV Baliyes and Dikhlajas. Moreover, the self-congratulatory references to one's own hits (Dilwale Dulhaniya.., Dhoom) just don't spell class.
With so many rock-strong reservations, then, why is your heart still upbeat? That's because at the core, there's something very sensitive and supportive being said about the little David who has to fight the big Goliaths every day, the biggest one being his own anxieties and personality imbalances. That's Surinder Sahni (Shah Rukh Khan), who's been trundling along in a dispiriting 9 to 5 desk job till he's coerced into a marriage with a younger woman (Anushka Sharma). He likes her, she likes him not. Slow and steady, like the tortoise he hopes she will give him love some day. Maybe, maybe not.
More metaphorical than 'real', the conflict is between a girl who believes in grandeur, dance and monsoon drives, and a common man who strives to fit into her wonder world. A line of dialogue encapsulates it all. "Neither do I have any great hopes of finding love, nor do I have any great need for it," Suri says. Frankly, as a dialogue writer Chopra scores much higher than he does in the other writing departments.
The barber friend's characterisation is just about passably etched but finely performed by Vinay Pathak. In terms of negative virtues, the absence of a back story for Surinder (what no tais, daais and khandaan koonba?) is a welcome relief. Ditto, the exile of gossip spewing mohalla stereotypes.
Ravi C Chandran's camerawork is efficient. Salim Suleiman's music score is remarkable essentially for the title song. The set designs are serviceable, with the Dil To Pagal Hai hangover persisting over the disco-practice hall. Incidentally, the movie medley number is imaginatively choreographed by Shiamak Davar, with Kajol, Bipasha Basu and Rani Mukherji adding to the boogie allure. Preity Zinta and Lara Dutta look totally out of sorts in this sequence though.
Debutante Anushka Sharma is assured and upright but you wouldn't kill to eat paani puris with her, the way Suri-cum-Raj does. Incontestably, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is an SRK show. The end credits with snapshots is a delight, don't miss them. The actor sends you home with a smile and a tear. So, here's a must-grab-ticket to SRK.
How now. Meet Punjab Power Company's employee Surinder Sahni aka Suri. He crunches his breakfast toast, hangs out with a barber dost, and occasionally digs into a murgh musallam roast. He's a nice, ordinary sort of bloke on whom life has played a cruel joke. Croak?
No, no, not at all. You don't have to pity the bespectacled, Clark Gable-moustachioed Suri of Aditya Chopra's Rab ne Bana di Jodi. In fact, the Amritsar-domiciled Suri is a soul brother to the mousy Clark-Kent-cum-Superman. And of other dual-personality-toting wonders from a wild variety of sources such as V Shantaram's Navrang, Raj Kapoor's Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Golmaal (Hrishikesh Mukherjee's, please), and even a faint shade of Jerry Lewis' Nutty Professor. In effect, you get two SRKs for the price of one. A kind of Satyam Shahrukham Surinderam.
Our Simple Surinder-turned-Rocking Raj makes you laugh and sob alternately. Honestly, after quite a long famine you're treated to a banquet of entertainment. For most part of the way, the spread is fun, feel-wonderful and perhaps expectedly, shouldered by a 10-on-10 performance by Shah Rukh Khan. Often when the screenplay flags, he keeps you engaged with his effortless schizophrenic shifts from a mild-mannered nerd to a jazzy Joe.
Indeed, you wonder how the actor pulls it all off with conviction even when Aditya Chopra's story, at its very concept, is absolutely implausible. You keep worrying why a woman can't tell the difference between Surinder and Raj (not even the good old fake 'massa' or birth pimple here). Is she plain blind, short-sighted or ditzy? And why does the director eventually lapse into utterly regressive stuff towards the finale with the woman falling at the man's feet? She even equates him with God. They don't use the words pati parmeshwar. Yet, Chopra's chauvinistic slip shows. Not done.
Quite clearly, the plot is as improbable as a flying kangaroo and as antiquated as a dinosaur. There are tacky interludes, too, like the sumo wrestling bout and the special effects lights switched on and off in Amritsar. Also, the running time is too lengthy. And the finale dance competition - both in its prize and in its presentation (too many flashback inserts) - is not even in the dramatic, suspense-fraught league of the TV Baliyes and Dikhlajas. Moreover, the self-congratulatory references to one's own hits (Dilwale Dulhaniya.., Dhoom) just don't spell class.
With so many rock-strong reservations, then, why is your heart still upbeat? That's because at the core, there's something very sensitive and supportive being said about the little David who has to fight the big Goliaths every day, the biggest one being his own anxieties and personality imbalances. That's Surinder Sahni (Shah Rukh Khan), who's been trundling along in a dispiriting 9 to 5 desk job till he's coerced into a marriage with a younger woman (Anushka Sharma). He likes her, she likes him not. Slow and steady, like the tortoise he hopes she will give him love some day. Maybe, maybe not.
More metaphorical than 'real', the conflict is between a girl who believes in grandeur, dance and monsoon drives, and a common man who strives to fit into her wonder world. A line of dialogue encapsulates it all. "Neither do I have any great hopes of finding love, nor do I have any great need for it," Suri says. Frankly, as a dialogue writer Chopra scores much higher than he does in the other writing departments.
The barber friend's characterisation is just about passably etched but finely performed by Vinay Pathak. In terms of negative virtues, the absence of a back story for Surinder (what no tais, daais and khandaan koonba?) is a welcome relief. Ditto, the exile of gossip spewing mohalla stereotypes.
Ravi C Chandran's camerawork is efficient. Salim Suleiman's music score is remarkable essentially for the title song. The set designs are serviceable, with the Dil To Pagal Hai hangover persisting over the disco-practice hall. Incidentally, the movie medley number is imaginatively choreographed by Shiamak Davar, with Kajol, Bipasha Basu and Rani Mukherji adding to the boogie allure. Preity Zinta and Lara Dutta look totally out of sorts in this sequence though.
Debutante Anushka Sharma is assured and upright but you wouldn't kill to eat paani puris with her, the way Suri-cum-Raj does. Incontestably, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is an SRK show. The end credits with snapshots is a delight, don't miss them. The actor sends you home with a smile and a tear. So, here's a must-grab-ticket to SRK.
Health - A ray of hope for HIV-infected
Ramya Kannan
CHENNAI: Researchers at Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University, Atlanta, US, have shown that it is possible to restore immunity in lab macaques infected with the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), providing hope of evolving similar mechanisms for HIV infection in humans.
In a paper that was published in Nature journal on December 10, Vijayakumar Velu et al showed that using an antibody to block a protein “programmed death 1” (PD1) — which dulls immune responses — results in rejuvenating the CD 8 T cells or killer cells, thereby restoring immunity and reducing the viral load.
Rama Rao Amara, one of the authors, speaking to The Hindu, said, “What PD1, present on the infected cell, does is to bind itself on to the killer cell and send it a negative signal, hypnotising the killer cell to believe it is a friend. The killer cell is fooled into not functioning and immunity is compromised.”
The team, including co-first author Kehmia Titanji, working on the HIV-like disease in macaques, sent the antibody in to latch itself onto the PD1.
This antibody blocked PD1’s interaction with the killer cell, thereby allowing the killer cell to function normally, demolishing the infected cells. The nine monkeys that were treated developed none of the characteristic symptoms up to eight months. The five animals that formed the control group, however, developed symptoms within four-five months, demonstrating the normal course of the disease. “In an infected monkey, we have shown that it is possible to convert non-functional killer cells to functional cells. And what is better, there is a substantial multiplication of these cells,” Dr. Amara says. “What we have seen in the monkey – it is too good to be true.”
The findings have great value in HIV, where the immune system is compromised by the virus, Dr. Amara says. It could well be the first step towards developing a therapeutic vaccine for HIV infections. The trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, has also resolved safety issues concerning the use of the antibody – the animals have been given four doses over 10 days.
The team will take up a follow-up trial of 2-3 months of treatment to examine safety issues further. He adds that a similar procedure is being adopted by scientists researching cancer and Hepatitis C in humans and was being tolerated well. “We strongly feel that combining the treatment with anti-retrovirals and/or therapeutic vaccination could help improve outcomes,” Dr. Velu said in a telecon from Atlanta.
CHENNAI: Researchers at Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University, Atlanta, US, have shown that it is possible to restore immunity in lab macaques infected with the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), providing hope of evolving similar mechanisms for HIV infection in humans.
In a paper that was published in Nature journal on December 10, Vijayakumar Velu et al showed that using an antibody to block a protein “programmed death 1” (PD1) — which dulls immune responses — results in rejuvenating the CD 8 T cells or killer cells, thereby restoring immunity and reducing the viral load.
Rama Rao Amara, one of the authors, speaking to The Hindu, said, “What PD1, present on the infected cell, does is to bind itself on to the killer cell and send it a negative signal, hypnotising the killer cell to believe it is a friend. The killer cell is fooled into not functioning and immunity is compromised.”
The team, including co-first author Kehmia Titanji, working on the HIV-like disease in macaques, sent the antibody in to latch itself onto the PD1.
This antibody blocked PD1’s interaction with the killer cell, thereby allowing the killer cell to function normally, demolishing the infected cells. The nine monkeys that were treated developed none of the characteristic symptoms up to eight months. The five animals that formed the control group, however, developed symptoms within four-five months, demonstrating the normal course of the disease. “In an infected monkey, we have shown that it is possible to convert non-functional killer cells to functional cells. And what is better, there is a substantial multiplication of these cells,” Dr. Amara says. “What we have seen in the monkey – it is too good to be true.”
The findings have great value in HIV, where the immune system is compromised by the virus, Dr. Amara says. It could well be the first step towards developing a therapeutic vaccine for HIV infections. The trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, has also resolved safety issues concerning the use of the antibody – the animals have been given four doses over 10 days.
The team will take up a follow-up trial of 2-3 months of treatment to examine safety issues further. He adds that a similar procedure is being adopted by scientists researching cancer and Hepatitis C in humans and was being tolerated well. “We strongly feel that combining the treatment with anti-retrovirals and/or therapeutic vaccination could help improve outcomes,” Dr. Velu said in a telecon from Atlanta.
Business - India;Negative industrial growth in 15 years
Ashok Dasgupta
NEW DELHI: After a gap of 15 years, the country’s industrial growth has slipped into negative territory with a 0.4 per cent year-on-year decline in October 2008.
This clearly reflects the deepening impact of the global economic downturn. Such a grim scenario prevailed in April 1993.
The figure, contained in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data released on Friday, marks a sharp slump from the robust 12.2 per cent growth recorded in October last year. In September 2008, it was 5.45 per cent.
“Disappointing”
With over 12 per cent drop in exports in October, a deceleration in industrial growth during the month was expected. But what took the policymakers by surprise was the bigger than expected decline. “These figures are more disappointing than what we expected,” Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council chairman Suresh Tendulkar said.
The authorities, however, are optimistic that the December 7 economic stimulus package that included a 4 percentage point across-the-board reduction in excise duty would arrest any further decline in production and trigger fresh consumer demand at lower prices.
Despite the slump in industrial production, the Indian economy, unlike some others in the West, is nowhere near recession as the industries captured in the IIP constitute just about a third of the GDP (gross domestic product) basket and the major chunk is accounted for by the agriculture and services sectors.
The IIP data shows that manufacturing — comprising nearly 80 per cent of the index — posted a negative growth of 1.2 per cent in October, compared to the 13.8 per cent output increase in the same month a year ago.
Moreover, the production growth in two out of the four segments that make up the manufacturing index — intermediate and consumer goods — shrank to minus 3.7 per cent and minus 2.3 per cent from a robust growth of 13.9 and 13.7 per cent respectively.
Even within the consumer goods segment, consumer durables and non-durables posted negative growth rates of minus 3 and minus 2 per cent respectively.
NEW DELHI: After a gap of 15 years, the country’s industrial growth has slipped into negative territory with a 0.4 per cent year-on-year decline in October 2008.
This clearly reflects the deepening impact of the global economic downturn. Such a grim scenario prevailed in April 1993.
The figure, contained in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data released on Friday, marks a sharp slump from the robust 12.2 per cent growth recorded in October last year. In September 2008, it was 5.45 per cent.
“Disappointing”
With over 12 per cent drop in exports in October, a deceleration in industrial growth during the month was expected. But what took the policymakers by surprise was the bigger than expected decline. “These figures are more disappointing than what we expected,” Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council chairman Suresh Tendulkar said.
The authorities, however, are optimistic that the December 7 economic stimulus package that included a 4 percentage point across-the-board reduction in excise duty would arrest any further decline in production and trigger fresh consumer demand at lower prices.
Despite the slump in industrial production, the Indian economy, unlike some others in the West, is nowhere near recession as the industries captured in the IIP constitute just about a third of the GDP (gross domestic product) basket and the major chunk is accounted for by the agriculture and services sectors.
The IIP data shows that manufacturing — comprising nearly 80 per cent of the index — posted a negative growth of 1.2 per cent in October, compared to the 13.8 per cent output increase in the same month a year ago.
Moreover, the production growth in two out of the four segments that make up the manufacturing index — intermediate and consumer goods — shrank to minus 3.7 per cent and minus 2.3 per cent from a robust growth of 13.9 and 13.7 per cent respectively.
Even within the consumer goods segment, consumer durables and non-durables posted negative growth rates of minus 3 and minus 2 per cent respectively.
World - Pakistan;Ajmal is a Pakistani;Geo TV
Nirupama Subramanian
ISLAMABAD: Geo News television is the latest to confirm that the lone gunman captured during the Mumbai carnage does indeed belong to a village in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
The channel’s 9 p.m. news report on Friday showed footage of people at Faridkot in Deepalpur tehsil, Okara district in south Punjab talking about Mohammad Ajmal Amir (‘Kasab’) as a boy from the village who had last been seen four or five months ago.
“He told his mother to give him her blessings as he was going for jihad,” one old man told the Geo reporter.
Another man said he had seen him playing with children outside a school on his last visit home, challenging them to catch hold of him. “He was showing off some karate moves,” the man said.
After days of dismissing Indian media reports on the Faridkot-Mumbai connection as “unsubstantiated,” and as a campaign to defame their country, the Pakistani media have started doing their own legwork on the allegations.
Earlier, Dawn newspaper managed to trace Ajmal’s father in Faridkot. The man who said he was Amir ‘Kasab’, confirmed to Dawn that the youth whose face had been beamed over the media was his son.
“I was in denial for the first couple of days, saying to myself it could not have been my son,” he told Dawn in the courtyard of his house in Faridkot, a village of about 2,500 people just a few kilometres from Deepalpur on the way to Kasur. “Now I have accepted it.”
The report, published in Friday’s edition of the paper, was a confirmation of a report by The Observer last weekend. The London weekly tracked down Ajmal’s grandfather in Faridkot and managed to lay its hands on electoral records that showed his mother and father to be residents of the village.
PTI reports:
Amir, a father of three boys and two girls, said his son disappeared from home four years ago. “He had asked me for new clothes on Eid that I couldn’t give him. He got angry and left,” he said. Reports said Ajmal went to Lahore in search of a job. After a brush with crime in that city, he reportedly joined the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
As Amir was talking to Dawn’s correspondents, Ajmal’s two sisters and a younger brother stood nearby. Their mother, wrapped in a ‘chador’, lay on a charpoy.
“Her trance was broken as the small picture of Ajmal lying in a Mumbai hospital was shown around. They appeared to have identified their son. The mother shrunk back in her chador, but the father said he had no problem talking about the subject,” the Dawn reported.
Amir said he settled in Faridkot after arriving from the nearby Haveli Lakha many years ago. He owned the house the family lived in and made a living selling ‘pakoras’ on the streets of the village.
“This is all I have,” he said pointing to a handcart in one corner of the courtyard. “I shifted back to the village after doing the same job in Lahore.”
“My eldest son, Afzal, is also back after a stint in Lahore. He is out working in the fields.”
Amir said he had little say in Ajmal’s life since the day his son walked out on him. He calls the “people who snatched Ajmal from him his enemies, but has no clue [to] who these enemies are.”
Asked why he did not look for his son all this while, he said: “What could I do with the few resources that I have?”
Though mild-mannered, Amir became agitated at the “mention of the link between his son’s actions and money.”
Media reports had said that Ajmal’s handlers had promised him that his family would be compensated with Rs.1,50,000 after the completion of the Mumbai mission. “I don’t sell my sons,” Amir said.
ISLAMABAD: Geo News television is the latest to confirm that the lone gunman captured during the Mumbai carnage does indeed belong to a village in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
The channel’s 9 p.m. news report on Friday showed footage of people at Faridkot in Deepalpur tehsil, Okara district in south Punjab talking about Mohammad Ajmal Amir (‘Kasab’) as a boy from the village who had last been seen four or five months ago.
“He told his mother to give him her blessings as he was going for jihad,” one old man told the Geo reporter.
Another man said he had seen him playing with children outside a school on his last visit home, challenging them to catch hold of him. “He was showing off some karate moves,” the man said.
After days of dismissing Indian media reports on the Faridkot-Mumbai connection as “unsubstantiated,” and as a campaign to defame their country, the Pakistani media have started doing their own legwork on the allegations.
Earlier, Dawn newspaper managed to trace Ajmal’s father in Faridkot. The man who said he was Amir ‘Kasab’, confirmed to Dawn that the youth whose face had been beamed over the media was his son.
“I was in denial for the first couple of days, saying to myself it could not have been my son,” he told Dawn in the courtyard of his house in Faridkot, a village of about 2,500 people just a few kilometres from Deepalpur on the way to Kasur. “Now I have accepted it.”
The report, published in Friday’s edition of the paper, was a confirmation of a report by The Observer last weekend. The London weekly tracked down Ajmal’s grandfather in Faridkot and managed to lay its hands on electoral records that showed his mother and father to be residents of the village.
PTI reports:
Amir, a father of three boys and two girls, said his son disappeared from home four years ago. “He had asked me for new clothes on Eid that I couldn’t give him. He got angry and left,” he said. Reports said Ajmal went to Lahore in search of a job. After a brush with crime in that city, he reportedly joined the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
As Amir was talking to Dawn’s correspondents, Ajmal’s two sisters and a younger brother stood nearby. Their mother, wrapped in a ‘chador’, lay on a charpoy.
“Her trance was broken as the small picture of Ajmal lying in a Mumbai hospital was shown around. They appeared to have identified their son. The mother shrunk back in her chador, but the father said he had no problem talking about the subject,” the Dawn reported.
Amir said he settled in Faridkot after arriving from the nearby Haveli Lakha many years ago. He owned the house the family lived in and made a living selling ‘pakoras’ on the streets of the village.
“This is all I have,” he said pointing to a handcart in one corner of the courtyard. “I shifted back to the village after doing the same job in Lahore.”
“My eldest son, Afzal, is also back after a stint in Lahore. He is out working in the fields.”
Amir said he had little say in Ajmal’s life since the day his son walked out on him. He calls the “people who snatched Ajmal from him his enemies, but has no clue [to] who these enemies are.”
Asked why he did not look for his son all this while, he said: “What could I do with the few resources that I have?”
Though mild-mannered, Amir became agitated at the “mention of the link between his son’s actions and money.”
Media reports had said that Ajmal’s handlers had promised him that his family would be compensated with Rs.1,50,000 after the completion of the Mumbai mission. “I don’t sell my sons,” Amir said.
India - house arrest, sealing won’t do
Sandeep Dikshit
Dismantle terror infrastructure, Pakistan told
NEW DELHI: India has told United States interlocuters that it remains unimpressed with the house arrest of the chief of the Jamat-ud-Dawah and the reported sealing of some of the offices of this front organisation of the Laskhar-e-Taiba. The steps initiated by Pakistan should be taken to their logical conclusion, including dismantling of the terror infrastructure. This was conveyed during a telephonic conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on Wednesday and during meetings with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte on Friday.
Pointing out that its penal code was the same as Pakistan’s, India said it did not think the restraint orders on the men identified as terrorists by the United Nations Security Council were sufficient steps. For, this was done briefly earlier also by Islamabad after the Parliament House attack in 2001.
The Indian position was also endorsed by Germany, which said the arrest of the LeT chief was not sufficient and Pakistan must do more to ensure that its territory was not used for committing violence in third countries. German Home Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told journalists that, “forbidding an organisation is one thing and to avoid crimes is another.” While advising Pakistan to “ensure that nobody commits terrorist attacks or other crimes,” he admitted that it was a “difficult situation” for Islamabad and wondered if there was any alternative.
Mr. Schaeuble who, among others, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan, said he was told that the intention behind the several acts of terror that rocked India was to provoke Hindus and Muslims and cause tension. He appreciated India’s response that did not include the option of military strikes and saw dialogue and cooperation with Pakistan as the only solution.
Meanwhile, Mr. Negroponte, in his meetings with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and Mr. Narayanan, agreed that the attacks should be thoroughly investigated and those responsible for perpetrating these incidents brought to account.
“A positive step”
PTI reports from Washington/Islamabad:
Ms. Rice, Mr. Negroponte and State Department spokesman Sean McCormack spoke in tandem, sending a strong signal to Pakistan that more needed to be done to prevent future terror attacks. Mr. McCormack, however, termed the crackdown in Pakistan on radical elements a “positive step.”
Diplomatic sources told PTI in Islamabad that Mr. Negroponte assured the Pakistani leadership that the U.S. would prevent any military action as long as Pakistan continued taking action against banned terror groups.
Dismantle terror infrastructure, Pakistan told
NEW DELHI: India has told United States interlocuters that it remains unimpressed with the house arrest of the chief of the Jamat-ud-Dawah and the reported sealing of some of the offices of this front organisation of the Laskhar-e-Taiba. The steps initiated by Pakistan should be taken to their logical conclusion, including dismantling of the terror infrastructure. This was conveyed during a telephonic conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on Wednesday and during meetings with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte on Friday.
Pointing out that its penal code was the same as Pakistan’s, India said it did not think the restraint orders on the men identified as terrorists by the United Nations Security Council were sufficient steps. For, this was done briefly earlier also by Islamabad after the Parliament House attack in 2001.
The Indian position was also endorsed by Germany, which said the arrest of the LeT chief was not sufficient and Pakistan must do more to ensure that its territory was not used for committing violence in third countries. German Home Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told journalists that, “forbidding an organisation is one thing and to avoid crimes is another.” While advising Pakistan to “ensure that nobody commits terrorist attacks or other crimes,” he admitted that it was a “difficult situation” for Islamabad and wondered if there was any alternative.
Mr. Schaeuble who, among others, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan, said he was told that the intention behind the several acts of terror that rocked India was to provoke Hindus and Muslims and cause tension. He appreciated India’s response that did not include the option of military strikes and saw dialogue and cooperation with Pakistan as the only solution.
Meanwhile, Mr. Negroponte, in his meetings with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and Mr. Narayanan, agreed that the attacks should be thoroughly investigated and those responsible for perpetrating these incidents brought to account.
“A positive step”
PTI reports from Washington/Islamabad:
Ms. Rice, Mr. Negroponte and State Department spokesman Sean McCormack spoke in tandem, sending a strong signal to Pakistan that more needed to be done to prevent future terror attacks. Mr. McCormack, however, termed the crackdown in Pakistan on radical elements a “positive step.”
Diplomatic sources told PTI in Islamabad that Mr. Negroponte assured the Pakistani leadership that the U.S. would prevent any military action as long as Pakistan continued taking action against banned terror groups.
Dec 12, 2008
Me - Not a great week
Hello,
Sorry for the drop in the number of posts this week.Have been travelling quite a bit.So haven't had time for posting as many as i would have liked to.Will be back to our usual share of posts from tommorrow.Hope everyone is doing great and hope all of you have a great weekend
Take Care
SZri
Sorry for the drop in the number of posts this week.Have been travelling quite a bit.So haven't had time for posting as many as i would have liked to.Will be back to our usual share of posts from tommorrow.Hope everyone is doing great and hope all of you have a great weekend
Take Care
SZri
Dec 10, 2008
Mktg - Luxury brands: In a downturn, go back to basics
As 2009 shapes up to be the most challenging year in more than a generation for luxury items such as high-end apparel and fragrances, marketers’
plans for targeting aspirational 16-year-olds and expanding rapidly into the new money hubs of Russia or the United Arab Emirates are suddenly “out,” according to a panel at the recent Wharton Marketing Conference. What’s now “in” for marketing luxury in this difficult era is pampering the wealthiest and most loyal customers with everything from monogrammed shirts to personal in-home visits.
“I really think the foundation of luxury is customer service — that is what we are hearing,” said panelist Cori Galpern, worldwide marketing and advertising director for Tom Ford International, the designer’s growing chain of fashion houses. “I think what we’ll see because of the economic crisis is that you lose a certain amount of that aspiration customer. Somebody who will buy a couple pairs of shoes over the course of the year is making other choices. The core for a luxury brand is a customer with very considerable wealth.”
The issue of who will remain wealthy over the next two years, and how they might spend their disposable cash, was very much on the minds of the panelists, including top marketers with experience at some of the most storied names in luxury items and apparel — from Gucci and Prada to Tom Ford and L’Oréal .
UPHOLDING YOUR BRAND
The panelists agreed that in a recession in which even upscale consumers may find themselves strapped for disposable cash, it is a bad strategy to chase customers too far down the economic ladder.
“We don’t want to see huge price cuts that will create a lower-priced brand,” said Brad Farrell, skincare brand manager for L’Oréal Paris. “That’s because you don’t want to tarnish your brand. When this is all said and done, you still have your brand reputation to uphold.” Indeed, the deepening economic slowdown was such a hot topic for these luxury marketers that there was surprisingly little discussion of the panel’s planned topic: “Targeting the New Luxury Consumer in a Flat World: Identifying Opportunities for Growth in a Global Luxury Market.”
Several of the panelists said their firms remain hopeful that the next couple of years will bring expansion into some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, including the socalled BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as the oil-rich Middle East.
But they added that the rapidly evolving financial turmoil could hinder some of their most ambitious ideas. Alexandra Gillespie, who launched her own FLR Group for luxury marketing after a stint as senior vice president of Gucci, warned about “focusing too much on the luxury sector in emerging markets” because they, too, have been deeply affected by the economic downturn.
Many experts believe that the economic pain of the deepening recession could fall disproportionally on these marketers of highend perfumes, trendy
clothing or sleek fashion accessories. A study by Bain released in October found signs of a slowdown already in the personal luxury goods sector that includes shoes, jewelry and fashion; it predicted that sales could drop by as much as 3% to 7% in 2009 if current trends continue.
Gillespie flatly predicted that “2009 will be the worst year on record for the luxury sector.” The parent of her former employer, Gucci, just reported its worst third quarter since 2005 because of the slowdown. Conspicuous consumption seems practically un-American in these troubled times, according to some observers. Renowned trend analyst Faith Popcorn recently said that “[ i]f you go up Madison Avenue [in New York], past Fendi and Prada, those stores are empty. Women are shopping in their own closets. You feel shame in buying even if you can buy.”
But that glum tone wasn’t evident at the Wharton panel discussion. Several participants noted that their core customer base, the truly wealthy, may cut back some on their discretionary spending but will not eliminate luxury purchases altogether. According to Randy Kabat, executive vice president of marketing and advertising for Prada USA, roughly 50% of the firm’s sales come from just 5% of its customers, although she is worried about the potential loss of some so-called “aspirational” middleclass consumers — 16-year-old girls spending a small fortune on the “it” handbag — during a recession.
As a result of the hard times, the panelists suggested that consumers are likely to see some moves aimed at selling high-end products at a slightly lower cost. L’Oréal’s Farrell suggested that one obvious step would be to sell fragrances in smaller containers, as long as the actual product is not diluted. “You can still maintain your brand integrity, but you’re selling at a price point that’s more accessible for the consumer in today’s market.”
A similar move, Farrell added, is to ensure that some version of your key products are more available in midmarket retailers like Target or even — in the case of skincare products — drugstores like CVS, because during a recession even upscale Americans are likely to do more shopping in such stores.
The key is not to make any move that will diminish the value of a brand with a well-established name for luxury. “Good management weathers good times and the difficult times, and fashion doesn’t change,” said Patrick Abouchalache, who analyzes the retail industry as a managing director at Roberts Mitani, a New York-based investment firm. “You have to stay the course.”
Panelists agreed that marketing and branding issues are very different for high-end luxury companies than for large mass-market consumer goods firms, which typically seek to identify sizable voids in the marketplace and then create new products in an effort to fill them. For luxury goods, they noted, the business plan places trust in the artistic vision of a designer — and hopes that will lure customers.
“With high end fashion, you’re buying into a lifestyle,” said Prada’s Kabat. “You’re buying into someone’s point of view, and that’s reflected in
the products that are created.” Miuccia Prada, the Milan designer who began creating the current incarnation of the company in the 1970s, is content to leave the business side of marketing new products to others so that she can focus on European runway shows, Kabat pointed out. “She had the freedom to produce newness — and a new point of view in her fashion.”
NO BILLBOARD ON TIMES SQUARE
Because of the luxurious image they must portray, these marketers said they also need to guard their brands in ways that mass-market companies do not. Tom Ford’s Galpern notes that her company rejected an idea for a digital billboard in Times Square as insufficiently high-brow. Tom Ford sees its fragrances as competing with Chanel — and “would Chanel have a billboard in Times Square?”
That does not mean, however, that luxury firms do not want their products to reach a fairly broad audience. Indeed, Kabat had words of praise for a trend she described as “Targetization,” in which the coast-to-coast mass retailer Target offers something of a higher design aesthetic to customers who are slightly more upscale than those of rival chains. Still, she noted that the United States can develop its appreciation for good design much further.
“In Europe, fashion and design [are the] fabric of the culture, but [they are] not a part of the fabric of our domestic culture.”
Indeed, luxury marketers believe that their success in establishing an aura of desirability is what will ultimately get them through the financial crisis. It may be counter-intuitive , but Abouchalache said that demand for a consumer product like Cheerios cereal is finite, in a way that the need for a luxury item is not. “When it’s a tough day and you’re on the way home and you have to buy that handbag ... it’s just a different factor driving that purchase. A customer could always use another purse.”
But to boost the bottom line, fashion firms are likely to focus now on pampering their best and most loyal consumers, using computer technology to increasingly customize upscale products that will be designed or tailored especially to their needs. The success of individualized luxury goods — such as designer clothes or eyewear — is a development that could keep a customer repeatedly coming back for more, according to the panelists.
“Everybody wants to be a lifestyle — and they’re going to want to stay for 10 or 15 years with your product,” said Abouchalache. Among the designer trends in customization are monogrammed handbags, personalized options for a color or a fabric in accessories, or a wider array of fragrances that are “personalized.” According to Kabat, Prada — which started its success with a simple but well-designed nylon backpack — is focusing on a similar approach, one in which “customization makes the purchaser feel special and unique.”
“This is not a time to panic,” added Gillespie, referring to the difficult fiscal environment. “This is a time to define and redefine the brand.”
Ironically, while the panelists were not particularly enthusiastic about the short-term prospects for emerging overseas markets , their companies continue to position themselves for when the time is right.
Tom Ford International, for example , has already awarded franchises for stores in Beijing, Hong Kong and Dubai as it weighs a much larger presence in Asia; the firm has also spoken of plans to market made-to-measure Middle Eastern men’s robes called dishdashas.
L’Oréal’s Farrell noted that a lot of demand in Europe is coming from Eastern Europeans and especially from Russia, which has been swimming in oil wealth because of the price spikes in crude in 2007 and 2008. But he worried that the bubble of financial growth in such markets could burst quickly, adding that “you really have to be careful.”
Still, regardless of where the global economy winds up, luxury marketers say their principle mission will remain the same: Selling a more glamorous way of life to aspiring consumers. “You’re buying into that dream,” Kabat said. “And you’re buying into that grand theme, which is our job.”
plans for targeting aspirational 16-year-olds and expanding rapidly into the new money hubs of Russia or the United Arab Emirates are suddenly “out,” according to a panel at the recent Wharton Marketing Conference. What’s now “in” for marketing luxury in this difficult era is pampering the wealthiest and most loyal customers with everything from monogrammed shirts to personal in-home visits.
“I really think the foundation of luxury is customer service — that is what we are hearing,” said panelist Cori Galpern, worldwide marketing and advertising director for Tom Ford International, the designer’s growing chain of fashion houses. “I think what we’ll see because of the economic crisis is that you lose a certain amount of that aspiration customer. Somebody who will buy a couple pairs of shoes over the course of the year is making other choices. The core for a luxury brand is a customer with very considerable wealth.”
The issue of who will remain wealthy over the next two years, and how they might spend their disposable cash, was very much on the minds of the panelists, including top marketers with experience at some of the most storied names in luxury items and apparel — from Gucci and Prada to Tom Ford and L’Oréal .
UPHOLDING YOUR BRAND
The panelists agreed that in a recession in which even upscale consumers may find themselves strapped for disposable cash, it is a bad strategy to chase customers too far down the economic ladder.
“We don’t want to see huge price cuts that will create a lower-priced brand,” said Brad Farrell, skincare brand manager for L’Oréal Paris. “That’s because you don’t want to tarnish your brand. When this is all said and done, you still have your brand reputation to uphold.” Indeed, the deepening economic slowdown was such a hot topic for these luxury marketers that there was surprisingly little discussion of the panel’s planned topic: “Targeting the New Luxury Consumer in a Flat World: Identifying Opportunities for Growth in a Global Luxury Market.”
Several of the panelists said their firms remain hopeful that the next couple of years will bring expansion into some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, including the socalled BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as the oil-rich Middle East.
But they added that the rapidly evolving financial turmoil could hinder some of their most ambitious ideas. Alexandra Gillespie, who launched her own FLR Group for luxury marketing after a stint as senior vice president of Gucci, warned about “focusing too much on the luxury sector in emerging markets” because they, too, have been deeply affected by the economic downturn.
Many experts believe that the economic pain of the deepening recession could fall disproportionally on these marketers of highend perfumes, trendy
clothing or sleek fashion accessories. A study by Bain released in October found signs of a slowdown already in the personal luxury goods sector that includes shoes, jewelry and fashion; it predicted that sales could drop by as much as 3% to 7% in 2009 if current trends continue.
Gillespie flatly predicted that “2009 will be the worst year on record for the luxury sector.” The parent of her former employer, Gucci, just reported its worst third quarter since 2005 because of the slowdown. Conspicuous consumption seems practically un-American in these troubled times, according to some observers. Renowned trend analyst Faith Popcorn recently said that “[ i]f you go up Madison Avenue [in New York], past Fendi and Prada, those stores are empty. Women are shopping in their own closets. You feel shame in buying even if you can buy.”
But that glum tone wasn’t evident at the Wharton panel discussion. Several participants noted that their core customer base, the truly wealthy, may cut back some on their discretionary spending but will not eliminate luxury purchases altogether. According to Randy Kabat, executive vice president of marketing and advertising for Prada USA, roughly 50% of the firm’s sales come from just 5% of its customers, although she is worried about the potential loss of some so-called “aspirational” middleclass consumers — 16-year-old girls spending a small fortune on the “it” handbag — during a recession.
As a result of the hard times, the panelists suggested that consumers are likely to see some moves aimed at selling high-end products at a slightly lower cost. L’Oréal’s Farrell suggested that one obvious step would be to sell fragrances in smaller containers, as long as the actual product is not diluted. “You can still maintain your brand integrity, but you’re selling at a price point that’s more accessible for the consumer in today’s market.”
A similar move, Farrell added, is to ensure that some version of your key products are more available in midmarket retailers like Target or even — in the case of skincare products — drugstores like CVS, because during a recession even upscale Americans are likely to do more shopping in such stores.
The key is not to make any move that will diminish the value of a brand with a well-established name for luxury. “Good management weathers good times and the difficult times, and fashion doesn’t change,” said Patrick Abouchalache, who analyzes the retail industry as a managing director at Roberts Mitani, a New York-based investment firm. “You have to stay the course.”
Panelists agreed that marketing and branding issues are very different for high-end luxury companies than for large mass-market consumer goods firms, which typically seek to identify sizable voids in the marketplace and then create new products in an effort to fill them. For luxury goods, they noted, the business plan places trust in the artistic vision of a designer — and hopes that will lure customers.
“With high end fashion, you’re buying into a lifestyle,” said Prada’s Kabat. “You’re buying into someone’s point of view, and that’s reflected in
the products that are created.” Miuccia Prada, the Milan designer who began creating the current incarnation of the company in the 1970s, is content to leave the business side of marketing new products to others so that she can focus on European runway shows, Kabat pointed out. “She had the freedom to produce newness — and a new point of view in her fashion.”
NO BILLBOARD ON TIMES SQUARE
Because of the luxurious image they must portray, these marketers said they also need to guard their brands in ways that mass-market companies do not. Tom Ford’s Galpern notes that her company rejected an idea for a digital billboard in Times Square as insufficiently high-brow. Tom Ford sees its fragrances as competing with Chanel — and “would Chanel have a billboard in Times Square?”
That does not mean, however, that luxury firms do not want their products to reach a fairly broad audience. Indeed, Kabat had words of praise for a trend she described as “Targetization,” in which the coast-to-coast mass retailer Target offers something of a higher design aesthetic to customers who are slightly more upscale than those of rival chains. Still, she noted that the United States can develop its appreciation for good design much further.
“In Europe, fashion and design [are the] fabric of the culture, but [they are] not a part of the fabric of our domestic culture.”
Indeed, luxury marketers believe that their success in establishing an aura of desirability is what will ultimately get them through the financial crisis. It may be counter-intuitive , but Abouchalache said that demand for a consumer product like Cheerios cereal is finite, in a way that the need for a luxury item is not. “When it’s a tough day and you’re on the way home and you have to buy that handbag ... it’s just a different factor driving that purchase. A customer could always use another purse.”
But to boost the bottom line, fashion firms are likely to focus now on pampering their best and most loyal consumers, using computer technology to increasingly customize upscale products that will be designed or tailored especially to their needs. The success of individualized luxury goods — such as designer clothes or eyewear — is a development that could keep a customer repeatedly coming back for more, according to the panelists.
“Everybody wants to be a lifestyle — and they’re going to want to stay for 10 or 15 years with your product,” said Abouchalache. Among the designer trends in customization are monogrammed handbags, personalized options for a color or a fabric in accessories, or a wider array of fragrances that are “personalized.” According to Kabat, Prada — which started its success with a simple but well-designed nylon backpack — is focusing on a similar approach, one in which “customization makes the purchaser feel special and unique.”
“This is not a time to panic,” added Gillespie, referring to the difficult fiscal environment. “This is a time to define and redefine the brand.”
Ironically, while the panelists were not particularly enthusiastic about the short-term prospects for emerging overseas markets , their companies continue to position themselves for when the time is right.
Tom Ford International, for example , has already awarded franchises for stores in Beijing, Hong Kong and Dubai as it weighs a much larger presence in Asia; the firm has also spoken of plans to market made-to-measure Middle Eastern men’s robes called dishdashas.
L’Oréal’s Farrell noted that a lot of demand in Europe is coming from Eastern Europeans and especially from Russia, which has been swimming in oil wealth because of the price spikes in crude in 2007 and 2008. But he worried that the bubble of financial growth in such markets could burst quickly, adding that “you really have to be careful.”
Still, regardless of where the global economy winds up, luxury marketers say their principle mission will remain the same: Selling a more glamorous way of life to aspiring consumers. “You’re buying into that dream,” Kabat said. “And you’re buying into that grand theme, which is our job.”
Business - Kishore Biyani aims to be a branded player across segments by 2012
Rajiv Banerjee & Ratna Bhushan
It was like any other press conference, yet quite unlike any other. It was to announce the Future Group’s decision to create brands in the FMCG,
consumer durables and apparel spaces. However, beneath the typical hurlyburly of power point presentations, projections , numbers, speeches and product displays, something else was evident: a calm, cold, calculated call to battle from Kishore Biyani, founder CEO, Future Group.
Any doubts of Biyani’s intent were laid to rest at the sight of those accompanying him at the press conference. From Rajan Malhotra to Damodar Mall, Santosh Desai to Shashi Kalathil, Sadashiv Nayak to Sandeep Tarkas, every trusted lieutenant was in attendance, as Biyani threw down the gauntlet of notching up revenues of Rs 10,000 crore from these new businesses by the end of 2012. Four years from now, that is.
It’s anything but unusual hearing corporate honchos bandy all sorts of fancy figures around and make lofty projections. But when someone like Biyani, who’s often been hailed as the Rajah of Indian Retail, talks about these things, one tends to listen. That said, the sheer nature of the task ahead for the Future Group makes the entire proposition interesting — and extremely challenging.
Creating a retail network and controlling the performance of store labels within a protected environment is one thing. But creating brands that will compete with rivals in the rough-and-tumble of the marketplace is quite another. Could the Future Group have bitten off more than it can chew? Biyani doesn’t think so. “We are attempting to do what was long considered the preserve of manufacturing companies — creating brands. Let’s see how it pans out,” he answers.
The demeanour may seem nonchalant, but the man and his team are definitely following a plan. Own labels like John Miller, Bare, DJ&C (all apparel), Tasty Treat, Care Mate, Fresh n Pure (all FMCG), Dreamline (general merchandise category) and Koryo (consumer durables) are already up and running within the Future Group formats.
So it’s not as if everything has to start from scratch. “It is a statement of ambition. We have already done 20 brands and now we want to aggressively scale up in the next three-four years,” asserts Damodar Mall, group customer director, Future Group. The sentiment is echoed by Santosh Desai, CEO, Future Brands. “Conventional classification is melting down. The whole notion that manufacturers create brands is an outdated one,” he says, adding that the overall belief stems from the fact that in certain categories , there are very few strong brands. “In categories like footwear and apparel, there are no national brands. And even if there are, they are shallow brands. They have some recall but minimal connect,” Desai explains.
Biyani also believes the announcement couldn’t have been made at a better time. “Commodity prices are down and there’s always the opportunity to create a niche in a depressed market,” he says, adding that in times of a slowdown , consumers look up to brands for direction . “It’s this sentiment which we want to tap,” Biyani explains
The incubation of brands in a controlled manner is possible within the Future Group formats. The stores, shelves and the footfalls enable tweaking
and necessary course correction . Thus, the conventional ‘brand creation’ time gets crunched within the Future Group ecosystem. “We have volume through many stores across 100 cities across a dozen formats. So if demand is there and point of connect is there, creating brands is definitely possible,” says Shashi Kalathil, CEO, Future Consumer Products Ltd (FCPL), which is working on brands like Sach, a label that the group has created in association with Sachin Tendulkar.
The real challenge, though, will arise when the brands start getting retailed outside the Future formats, where each brand’s traction will be severely challenged by already established brands. That the free-for-all that ensues will test the mettle of Future Group is an understatement . “Right now the Future Group has the advantage of price, but it’s more ‘commodity’ than in the branded category space,” says Shripad Nadkarni, founder director, Market-Gate Consulting, adding that open-market competition will be severe.
Nevertheless, in the wake of Biyani’s announcement , there are telltale signs that the group’s moves are being watched with interest by manufacturers. While some are understandably nervous, others are confident of being able to hold their ground. Says Chander Sethi, CMD of Reckitt Benckiser: “In the face of any competition , Reckitt Benckiser will continue to build equity and work on making our brands the No 1 choice of consumers. We will also continue to utilise our global resources and be the leaders through market innovation.”
Many, though, are typically skeptical about the entire game plan. According to a senior marketing official from a leading FMCG company, significant contribution from outside the owned-and-operated stores is the key to building a consumer goods business on the scale that’s been envisaged . “It could also fall into the trap of building a business of scale that delivers only to the topline,” says the official. Executives at Future Group seem unfazed by such remarks, though.
“As of now they (the manufacturers) don’t understand what’s being attempted. Most marketers rely on past relationship or international standards as benchmarks. So they don’t know how to react to this development. Nervousness will come later,” remarked one senior group official . Another executive points out that since it’s an expanding pie, it’s a zero-sum game with no threat perception as of now. “But it’s possible as our objective is to be a branded player. The brands add 10 percentage points to the margins which is helpful to us,” the official states.
Despite all the hoopla, most marketers believe that the Future brands will remain, at best, own labels within the Future Group formats. “Private labels can succeed if Future Group or Reliance Retail or Shoppers Stop can go beyond mere price differentiation. If they can identify gaps in the branded space, that would help improve margins and contribute to store-pull ,” says one senior official from an FMCG company.
Officials at Future, however, refute that the fight will be fought on just the pricing plank alone. Desai believes that the crux of taking the
brands outside will be based on establishing a strong consumer connect — and not just on price. “We won’t fight on price alone; we will spend on advertising and marketing investments as well,” he says. Mall, for his part, says that it’s only in the manufacturers’ minds that these are own labels. “These brands don’t carry the crutches of the format’s labels with them. So, in a sense, they are competing against others on shelves on their own steam,” he states.
In private, manufacturers are also scornful of the kind of market shares that these own labels purportedly have within the Future formats. For instance, the group claims that snacking label Tasty Treat chips has a 22% share and is ranked No 2. Tasty Treat nankeens, on the other hand, has a 21% share and is the top-seller , the group says.
Fresh n Pure cooking oil has 9% share while Fresh n Pure ghee has 33% share. “They do a lot of consumer promotions and look to liquidate the stock. So when there’s an offer, the customer might take it. But the pull will last only for those 6-10 days,” remarks a senior official from a beverage company.
Observers believe that the stiffest challenge for the group will be establishing a distribution network that can reach across the length and breadth of the country. “The challenge would be setting up efficient, large-scale , trade-level and distribution models because that’s where the clout of established players (ITC being a good example) comes into play, giving them the edge,” remarks an official from a consumer durable company.
An analyst from a leading consultancy firm adds that setting up a distribution setup means incurring huge costs. “It is 1000 stores versus distributing across one million outlets. When costs balloon and margins shrink, suddenly it doesn’t seem so attractive,” he states. A senior official from ITC points out that the group has to keep in mind the cost of logistics as the products are in the highspace-occupying category. “So in a wholesale market, they can succeed only if there’s brand pull or fantastic margins,” he says.
Officials at Future Group believe that the company’s own logistic network — through Future Logistics — will come in handy while distributing the brands. Mall believes that the distribution plan doesn’t have to be through normal trade.
“The distribution paradigm will also undergo a transformation. Modern trade will undertake the change and we will ride it,” he says. While the plans are still being firmed up, Mall indicates that brands will be distributed either through cash-n-carry , modern trade or general trade. “Retailers are being served by cash-n-carry formats, so that’s one unconventional way. Also, brands are being retailed through Aadhar, and KB’s fair price shops are targeting a different set of customers,” he explains.
Industry observers state that instead of enveloping the entire market, the company could decide to undertake focused distribution, sticking close
to the areas near its retail formats.
The next four years will be critical not only for the Future Group, but also for marketers of brands that Future’s brands will run up against. The attempt clearly is to move the cheese, but what would be worth watching is who rises to take the bait. And also who, if anyone, decides to bell the cat.
It was like any other press conference, yet quite unlike any other. It was to announce the Future Group’s decision to create brands in the FMCG,
consumer durables and apparel spaces. However, beneath the typical hurlyburly of power point presentations, projections , numbers, speeches and product displays, something else was evident: a calm, cold, calculated call to battle from Kishore Biyani, founder CEO, Future Group.
Any doubts of Biyani’s intent were laid to rest at the sight of those accompanying him at the press conference. From Rajan Malhotra to Damodar Mall, Santosh Desai to Shashi Kalathil, Sadashiv Nayak to Sandeep Tarkas, every trusted lieutenant was in attendance, as Biyani threw down the gauntlet of notching up revenues of Rs 10,000 crore from these new businesses by the end of 2012. Four years from now, that is.
It’s anything but unusual hearing corporate honchos bandy all sorts of fancy figures around and make lofty projections. But when someone like Biyani, who’s often been hailed as the Rajah of Indian Retail, talks about these things, one tends to listen. That said, the sheer nature of the task ahead for the Future Group makes the entire proposition interesting — and extremely challenging.
Creating a retail network and controlling the performance of store labels within a protected environment is one thing. But creating brands that will compete with rivals in the rough-and-tumble of the marketplace is quite another. Could the Future Group have bitten off more than it can chew? Biyani doesn’t think so. “We are attempting to do what was long considered the preserve of manufacturing companies — creating brands. Let’s see how it pans out,” he answers.
The demeanour may seem nonchalant, but the man and his team are definitely following a plan. Own labels like John Miller, Bare, DJ&C (all apparel), Tasty Treat, Care Mate, Fresh n Pure (all FMCG), Dreamline (general merchandise category) and Koryo (consumer durables) are already up and running within the Future Group formats.
So it’s not as if everything has to start from scratch. “It is a statement of ambition. We have already done 20 brands and now we want to aggressively scale up in the next three-four years,” asserts Damodar Mall, group customer director, Future Group. The sentiment is echoed by Santosh Desai, CEO, Future Brands. “Conventional classification is melting down. The whole notion that manufacturers create brands is an outdated one,” he says, adding that the overall belief stems from the fact that in certain categories , there are very few strong brands. “In categories like footwear and apparel, there are no national brands. And even if there are, they are shallow brands. They have some recall but minimal connect,” Desai explains.
Biyani also believes the announcement couldn’t have been made at a better time. “Commodity prices are down and there’s always the opportunity to create a niche in a depressed market,” he says, adding that in times of a slowdown , consumers look up to brands for direction . “It’s this sentiment which we want to tap,” Biyani explains
The incubation of brands in a controlled manner is possible within the Future Group formats. The stores, shelves and the footfalls enable tweaking
and necessary course correction . Thus, the conventional ‘brand creation’ time gets crunched within the Future Group ecosystem. “We have volume through many stores across 100 cities across a dozen formats. So if demand is there and point of connect is there, creating brands is definitely possible,” says Shashi Kalathil, CEO, Future Consumer Products Ltd (FCPL), which is working on brands like Sach, a label that the group has created in association with Sachin Tendulkar.
The real challenge, though, will arise when the brands start getting retailed outside the Future formats, where each brand’s traction will be severely challenged by already established brands. That the free-for-all that ensues will test the mettle of Future Group is an understatement . “Right now the Future Group has the advantage of price, but it’s more ‘commodity’ than in the branded category space,” says Shripad Nadkarni, founder director, Market-Gate Consulting, adding that open-market competition will be severe.
Nevertheless, in the wake of Biyani’s announcement , there are telltale signs that the group’s moves are being watched with interest by manufacturers. While some are understandably nervous, others are confident of being able to hold their ground. Says Chander Sethi, CMD of Reckitt Benckiser: “In the face of any competition , Reckitt Benckiser will continue to build equity and work on making our brands the No 1 choice of consumers. We will also continue to utilise our global resources and be the leaders through market innovation.”
Many, though, are typically skeptical about the entire game plan. According to a senior marketing official from a leading FMCG company, significant contribution from outside the owned-and-operated stores is the key to building a consumer goods business on the scale that’s been envisaged . “It could also fall into the trap of building a business of scale that delivers only to the topline,” says the official. Executives at Future Group seem unfazed by such remarks, though.
“As of now they (the manufacturers) don’t understand what’s being attempted. Most marketers rely on past relationship or international standards as benchmarks. So they don’t know how to react to this development. Nervousness will come later,” remarked one senior group official . Another executive points out that since it’s an expanding pie, it’s a zero-sum game with no threat perception as of now. “But it’s possible as our objective is to be a branded player. The brands add 10 percentage points to the margins which is helpful to us,” the official states.
Despite all the hoopla, most marketers believe that the Future brands will remain, at best, own labels within the Future Group formats. “Private labels can succeed if Future Group or Reliance Retail or Shoppers Stop can go beyond mere price differentiation. If they can identify gaps in the branded space, that would help improve margins and contribute to store-pull ,” says one senior official from an FMCG company.
Officials at Future, however, refute that the fight will be fought on just the pricing plank alone. Desai believes that the crux of taking the
brands outside will be based on establishing a strong consumer connect — and not just on price. “We won’t fight on price alone; we will spend on advertising and marketing investments as well,” he says. Mall, for his part, says that it’s only in the manufacturers’ minds that these are own labels. “These brands don’t carry the crutches of the format’s labels with them. So, in a sense, they are competing against others on shelves on their own steam,” he states.
In private, manufacturers are also scornful of the kind of market shares that these own labels purportedly have within the Future formats. For instance, the group claims that snacking label Tasty Treat chips has a 22% share and is ranked No 2. Tasty Treat nankeens, on the other hand, has a 21% share and is the top-seller , the group says.
Fresh n Pure cooking oil has 9% share while Fresh n Pure ghee has 33% share. “They do a lot of consumer promotions and look to liquidate the stock. So when there’s an offer, the customer might take it. But the pull will last only for those 6-10 days,” remarks a senior official from a beverage company.
Observers believe that the stiffest challenge for the group will be establishing a distribution network that can reach across the length and breadth of the country. “The challenge would be setting up efficient, large-scale , trade-level and distribution models because that’s where the clout of established players (ITC being a good example) comes into play, giving them the edge,” remarks an official from a consumer durable company.
An analyst from a leading consultancy firm adds that setting up a distribution setup means incurring huge costs. “It is 1000 stores versus distributing across one million outlets. When costs balloon and margins shrink, suddenly it doesn’t seem so attractive,” he states. A senior official from ITC points out that the group has to keep in mind the cost of logistics as the products are in the highspace-occupying category. “So in a wholesale market, they can succeed only if there’s brand pull or fantastic margins,” he says.
Officials at Future Group believe that the company’s own logistic network — through Future Logistics — will come in handy while distributing the brands. Mall believes that the distribution plan doesn’t have to be through normal trade.
“The distribution paradigm will also undergo a transformation. Modern trade will undertake the change and we will ride it,” he says. While the plans are still being firmed up, Mall indicates that brands will be distributed either through cash-n-carry , modern trade or general trade. “Retailers are being served by cash-n-carry formats, so that’s one unconventional way. Also, brands are being retailed through Aadhar, and KB’s fair price shops are targeting a different set of customers,” he explains.
Industry observers state that instead of enveloping the entire market, the company could decide to undertake focused distribution, sticking close
to the areas near its retail formats.
The next four years will be critical not only for the Future Group, but also for marketers of brands that Future’s brands will run up against. The attempt clearly is to move the cheese, but what would be worth watching is who rises to take the bait. And also who, if anyone, decides to bell the cat.
Mktg - Celebs Tout NYTimes.com
NEW YORK NYTimes.com has launched nytimes.com/conversations, a new marketing campaign designed to highlight the Web site's news, multimedia and interactive features.
The campaign features celebrities sharing their favorite sections on NYTimes.com in 12 unscripted videos. Personalities appearing in the campaign include Kenneth Cole, Padma Lakshmi, John Leguizamo, John Cameron Mitchell, Isaac Mizrahi, Bebe Neuwirth, Cynthia Nixon, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Lynn Redgrave, Eric Ripert, Ben Stein and Justin Tuck.
With each video, there is a drop-down menu that relates each celebrity's interests with features on NYTimes.com. The video menus highlight online polls, cooking videos, and health topics available on the newspaper Web site.
"The goal of this campaign is to powerfully convey the wide range of interactive multimedia features that make NYTimes.com much more than just the newspaper online -- and to do it in a way that is engaging, viral and, we believe, unique," senior vice president of marketing and circulation for the Times, Yasmin Namini, said in a statement.
The effort was crafted, in part, by Your Majesty, a New York-based marketing. Renowned photographer and documentary maker, Douglas Keeve, directed the videos.
The campaign features celebrities sharing their favorite sections on NYTimes.com in 12 unscripted videos. Personalities appearing in the campaign include Kenneth Cole, Padma Lakshmi, John Leguizamo, John Cameron Mitchell, Isaac Mizrahi, Bebe Neuwirth, Cynthia Nixon, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Lynn Redgrave, Eric Ripert, Ben Stein and Justin Tuck.
With each video, there is a drop-down menu that relates each celebrity's interests with features on NYTimes.com. The video menus highlight online polls, cooking videos, and health topics available on the newspaper Web site.
"The goal of this campaign is to powerfully convey the wide range of interactive multimedia features that make NYTimes.com much more than just the newspaper online -- and to do it in a way that is engaging, viral and, we believe, unique," senior vice president of marketing and circulation for the Times, Yasmin Namini, said in a statement.
The effort was crafted, in part, by Your Majesty, a New York-based marketing. Renowned photographer and documentary maker, Douglas Keeve, directed the videos.
Mktg - Who's drinking what
Mark Dolliver
NEW YORK Some stereotypes are accurate, to judge by a GfK Custom Research survey conducted for The Wall Street Journal Europe about drinking habits in Europe and the U.S. For instance, the French really are a nation of wine drinkers. But some other findings from the survey, conducted during the fall, are less predictable.
About three in 10 of the poll's European respondents said they shun alcoholic drink altogether, as did four in 10 of the survey's Americans. Despite their countries' prominence as wine producers, "50 percent of Italians and Portuguese do not drink any alcohol." In Turkey, with its mainly Muslim population, the non-drinking figure tops 80 percent. At the other end of the spectrum, 14 percent of Greek and Swedish respondents identified themselves as teetotalers. The figure was just slightly higher in the Netherlands (15 percent) and Germany (18 percent).
Among people who do drink, the study's respondents in Western Europe were more likely to choose wine (including sparkling wine) than beer as their favorite alcoholic beverage, by 43 percent to 34 percent. Relatively few respondents in that region cited spirits (9 percent), cocktails/alcopops (8 percent) or liqueurs/fortified wines (6 percent) as their favorite. Wine was the favorite of 50 percent of respondents in both France and Belgium, and the favorite of 62 percent in both Italy and Switzerland. Beer topped wine by a significant margin in Germany (48 percent vs. 39 percent), but it did so by an even wider margin in Spain (49 percent vs. 24 percent).
In Central/Eastern Europe, beer was the favorite of 50 percent of respondents, with wine a distant runner-up (22 percent) and spirits just making it into double figures (10 percent). Russia was the one country in which respondents were about as likely to cite spirits (rather than beer or wine) as their alcoholic-beverage category of choice, with 30 percent picking it, vs. 35 percent for beer and 30 percent for wine.
In the U.S., beer had the most partisans (37 percent), but wine made a respectable second-place showing (28 percent), ahead of cocktails/alcopops (22 percent), spirits (10 percent) and liqueurs/fortified wines (3 percent).
NEW YORK Some stereotypes are accurate, to judge by a GfK Custom Research survey conducted for The Wall Street Journal Europe about drinking habits in Europe and the U.S. For instance, the French really are a nation of wine drinkers. But some other findings from the survey, conducted during the fall, are less predictable.
About three in 10 of the poll's European respondents said they shun alcoholic drink altogether, as did four in 10 of the survey's Americans. Despite their countries' prominence as wine producers, "50 percent of Italians and Portuguese do not drink any alcohol." In Turkey, with its mainly Muslim population, the non-drinking figure tops 80 percent. At the other end of the spectrum, 14 percent of Greek and Swedish respondents identified themselves as teetotalers. The figure was just slightly higher in the Netherlands (15 percent) and Germany (18 percent).
Among people who do drink, the study's respondents in Western Europe were more likely to choose wine (including sparkling wine) than beer as their favorite alcoholic beverage, by 43 percent to 34 percent. Relatively few respondents in that region cited spirits (9 percent), cocktails/alcopops (8 percent) or liqueurs/fortified wines (6 percent) as their favorite. Wine was the favorite of 50 percent of respondents in both France and Belgium, and the favorite of 62 percent in both Italy and Switzerland. Beer topped wine by a significant margin in Germany (48 percent vs. 39 percent), but it did so by an even wider margin in Spain (49 percent vs. 24 percent).
In Central/Eastern Europe, beer was the favorite of 50 percent of respondents, with wine a distant runner-up (22 percent) and spirits just making it into double figures (10 percent). Russia was the one country in which respondents were about as likely to cite spirits (rather than beer or wine) as their alcoholic-beverage category of choice, with 30 percent picking it, vs. 35 percent for beer and 30 percent for wine.
In the U.S., beer had the most partisans (37 percent), but wine made a respectable second-place showing (28 percent), ahead of cocktails/alcopops (22 percent), spirits (10 percent) and liqueurs/fortified wines (3 percent).
Business - Big TV bets on MDUs to gain DTH subscribers
BANGALORE: Big TV, Reliance Communications' DTH arm, will make the next big offensive in garnering subscribers by offering Multi-Dwelling Unit (MDU) installation service across India.
Claiming a subscriber base of one million in just three months of launch, Big TV now plans to drive large group deals in residential clusters, hospitality businesses and business parks through the MDU installations.
Big TV is targeting a market share of 40 per cent in the MDU segment within the first year of operations. The direct-to-home service provider claims to have already installed MDUs at over 1,500 locations while it is in installation process in close to 4,000 sites.
Says Reliance Communications President Mahesh Prasad, "MDUs are a natural extension of a DTH service. Our MDU service offers a perfect solution to residential complexes which are not too keen to have too many dish antennas peeking out of balconies and where the Line of Sight to the satellite is not very clear. As part of our marketing and sales strategy, the MDU service will help generate volumes in residential clusters."
As part of its aggressive push to generate MDU volumes, Big TV has set up a dedicated pan-India network of 350 Direct Sales Agents (DSAs) and a 500-member installation team. It is conducting a series of road shows across India as part of its marketing efforts to generate awareness and drive subscription sales in these markets.
Big TV will provide the MDU connection to the entire residential complex through a single large dish antenna linked to individual set-top boxes (STBs) in various households within the premises. The MDU dish size varies between 90 cms and 120 cms depending on the number of households it services.
The cost of hardware will be borne by Big TV. Each household participating in the scheme gets one STB as a part of Big TV's MDU scheme.
Despite the common dish antenna being installed, each household will have the freedom to choose their own channel package including the free regional pack offered with the inaugural channel pack. Subscribers will also have the option of opting for any of the various entry offers that are available for them to choose from.
The MDU is a customised DTH solution targeted to tap various sections of societies, commercial complexes and new townships where a single dish antenna can provide the DTH connection to multiple households. This circumvents the need for installing individual dish antennas for every household connection.
Claiming a subscriber base of one million in just three months of launch, Big TV now plans to drive large group deals in residential clusters, hospitality businesses and business parks through the MDU installations.
Big TV is targeting a market share of 40 per cent in the MDU segment within the first year of operations. The direct-to-home service provider claims to have already installed MDUs at over 1,500 locations while it is in installation process in close to 4,000 sites.
Says Reliance Communications President Mahesh Prasad, "MDUs are a natural extension of a DTH service. Our MDU service offers a perfect solution to residential complexes which are not too keen to have too many dish antennas peeking out of balconies and where the Line of Sight to the satellite is not very clear. As part of our marketing and sales strategy, the MDU service will help generate volumes in residential clusters."
As part of its aggressive push to generate MDU volumes, Big TV has set up a dedicated pan-India network of 350 Direct Sales Agents (DSAs) and a 500-member installation team. It is conducting a series of road shows across India as part of its marketing efforts to generate awareness and drive subscription sales in these markets.
Big TV will provide the MDU connection to the entire residential complex through a single large dish antenna linked to individual set-top boxes (STBs) in various households within the premises. The MDU dish size varies between 90 cms and 120 cms depending on the number of households it services.
The cost of hardware will be borne by Big TV. Each household participating in the scheme gets one STB as a part of Big TV's MDU scheme.
Despite the common dish antenna being installed, each household will have the freedom to choose their own channel package including the free regional pack offered with the inaugural channel pack. Subscribers will also have the option of opting for any of the various entry offers that are available for them to choose from.
The MDU is a customised DTH solution targeted to tap various sections of societies, commercial complexes and new townships where a single dish antenna can provide the DTH connection to multiple households. This circumvents the need for installing individual dish antennas for every household connection.
Entertainment - Q&A WSG South Asia CEO
With the Indian Premier League (IPL) in its catch, the World Sport Group (WSG) is sitting pretty. Even as it plans to cash in on the new T20 format that is set to change the cricket economy, the sports marketing company has also set its sights on the growing popularity of soccer and golf.
In an interview with Indiantelevision.com's Ashwin Pinto, WSG South Asia CEO Venu Nair unveils the dynamics of the sports business.
Excerpts:
How far has World Sport Group progressed in India?
When we set up our office in India two years back, we had a plan to establish a credible business over a three-year period. We looked at cricket, soccer and golf. We decided to develop each of them independently. Cricket and golf has grown phenomenally. However, with soccer it is still an uphill task.
We changed our football outlook to a five-year plan. We own all the rights and work closely with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), with whom we have been working since 1992. Our current contract runs till 2011. The fact that we have worked with them for so long to promote soccer across Asia speaks of the fact that we are long term players.
How have you grown the cricket business?
We have brought in professionalism into the management of the title and central sponsorship rights. We tell clients what they can avail of over a year. From a brand perspective it works, as they are able to plan forward. This gave us an entry into cricket at the highest level.
During 2006, the BCCI's sponsorship rights were available. We paid Rs 1.8 billion for it. Prior to us, these rights were vested with corporates and not with a proper sports marketing company.
How is this deal with the BCCI working out?
We work on a margin of 15-20 per cent. When we acquired the rights, we bought it at a premium. Two years down the line we have managed to stay at par with our revenue targets.
Where are the opportunities for WSG in cricket other than the BCCI and IPL?
There are opportunities to represent other boards. People are looking inward into India and they see the job we have done for the BCCI. As far as IPL is concerned, we have aggregated the media rights and sold it outward.
But aren't sports bodies working directly with broadcasters?
Broadcasters are limited by the region that they want to serve. They often tend to sell the rights outside their interests to other parties. This puts the broadcaster into an agency position, which is not often a comfortable area to be in as it is not their core expertise. So, to say that sports bodies increasingly work with broadcasters is an anomaly.
Fifa, for instance, works very closely with sports marketing agency Infront.
WSG managed a coup with the IPL rights. What targets have you set?
We expect to start making money by the end of the third year. We have sold rights it to many territories including the US and Canada. We have let some territories sample the product like Sky in Italy. We sold IPL to the Southeast Asian countries including Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
Are these deals long term?
We have sold everything with the ability to re-look at periodic intervals at the contract. We will see how it is working. It had to be a partnership model. The format was something new.
How does the IPL build in club loyalty and sustain viewership interest?
Teams will have to build more local heroes. Catchment areas have to expand. If the IPL franchise owners treat it just as a balance sheet-led proposition, then it may not survive in the long run.
The IPL will face competition from other boards. England wants to start a league in 2010. Australia, South Africa and New Zealand want to start a joint league in 2011. How does this affect the IPL?
In soccer different leagues like the EPL, Spanish league, and German Bundesliga are played at the same time. But the EPL is most watched. The IPL is a home grown product and has the first mover advantage. More home grown talent will take centre stage. Foreign players might want to play the IPL to shore up their revenues. They will then reach a stage where they might want to play in another league to enhance their skill. The player migration seen in soccer will happen here as well.
But when other leagues come up, won't some monies shift from IPL to them?
No! 100 per cent of the IPL revenues come from home grown clients. They want the local audience and so they will not invest in an Australian or an English league.
In India sponsorship revenue is higher than ticketing revenue. In England it's the reverse. However, a time will come in India where ticketing revenue will grow. Hospitality is another area which, if developed properly, can be a solid, successful revenue stream. Soccer clubs in Spain and England make a huge line of revenue from this area.
If the revenue potential is so strong, then why are owners already selling stakes so soon?
They are looking to sell a stake at a premium. They are not looking at funding their working capital needs.
Will Test cricket and ODIs lose some of their lustre as T20 comes up?
That is the market reality. Next year there are around 120 games, which include IPL, T20 World Cup, Champions T20 League. And one would not have known about it two years back.
You will have to put allocated monies on this new format and squeeze monies on the other two formats. Even from a viewer's experience how many takers are there for a Test Match! The purists are in a minority. Cricket is now more about entertainment. T20 has taken that window; you can watch a game in three hours.
The PCB got $140 million for its rights. So isn't there still value in the traditional formats?
In bilateral events, the icon series will get money. If it is India versus Pakistan, then advertisers and viewers will chip in. The whole value of the deal with the PCB comes from these two series that are present in the contract. At the same time, there is no guarantee that they will get the same value. They will probably get the same monies as in 2004 when India toured Pakistan after a long time.
However, the acquisition costs have shot up. In advertising you may not see a corresponding incremental value as it could get diverted to T20. The escalation may not happen.
Is there a danger of some broadcasters going bust due to a huge escalation in rights fees?
Yes! Ideally, ad rates should double which probably is not going to be the case. The rights fee has gone up disproportionately due to the need for content in a calendar year. The challenge for broadcasters is to figure out where the business is going. You also need to take care of distribution. In India sports channels have to have a certain number of events in a year. Otherwise the cable operator may stop beaming you. Cricket is reaching a saturation level and there will be a tapering down of values.
The mad race to get cricket rights has created a bubble that will eventually burst. For example, tennis went through this huge bubble a few years back. It also happened with soccer.
Broadcasters who have bought rights at high rates will have to sit down with their books at the end of next year and strike out the red. Market forces will pull prices down as the high price cannot be sustained. As a sports marketing company, I can bid a certain amount but if it is not in touch with the reality, then I stand to lose.
Sports bodies, however, have to realise that the value that sponsors attach to the older formats of the game will increasingly be less. A sports body, though, will not lose money as it will get transferred from one format of the game to the other.
Even the 2010 soccer World Cup rights went for a five-fold rise. Why?
You cannot underestimate the fact that soccer is catching up. This is especially the case in urban India which has been fed a diet of quality football from world leagues.
The awareness of global soccer icons due to the media coverage is also high. This is why premier tournaments are time bound. It has the carnival atmosphere. People follow certain teams. Once people watch it, advertisers also want to be in on the action.
You wanted to do a league around soccer with AIFF and use the franchise model. What happened to that?
We worked on a plan around a year ago. We did not go anywhere because of a combination of reasons. Firstly there already exists a certain kind of league. The soccer development process in India is not as robust as it should be.
If the AIFF actually chalks out a 20-year plan to grow soccer at the grassroots level and has a realistic target, it can work. It is not about sending the team to the next World Cup.
Cricket has been managed well at the administrative level. Cricket has also had periodic highs like winning the 1983 World Cup. This ensures that interest stays. After the 1950s, there has not been a high in soccer. Even followers of the sport do not have role models to look up to. If the AIFF comes up with a proper plan, then I am sure that there are enough corporates out there who are willing to invest.
Bharti Airtel has committed Rs 100 crore. If it is spent in the right manner, it will give you results in 10-15 years. But thinking about reaching the 2010 World Cup final is a folly when you cannot reach a South Asian tournament.
How has your work with the AFC been progressing?
It has done well. The Asia Cup is held every four years. The AFC Champions League happens every two years. Everybody plays it. Australia has come through. We work with the Australian Football Association also on their leagues. Australia reaching the soccer World Cup was a culmination of many years of work. The sport has been revived as the body had a long term plan.
What activities does WSG do in Golf?
We acquired the rights for the Indian Open which is the most prestigious event. The deal is for six years and slowly we have been able to increase the prize money. The Indian Open is now a million dollar product. Next year we will add $250,000 more to the event.
Our aim is to take the prize money to $5 million given the fact that Golf is slowly growing in appeal in India. Our goal is to develop another multi-million dollar golf property in the first half of the year. We want to have two Indian Golf events that occupy a prominent position on the Asian Tour calendar.
What is working in our favour is the fact that marketing managers today want to invest to reach different levels of the strata.
What are the plans in the player representation business?
In India cricket is intricately linked to player management. You cannot stay away from this. We figured that small entrepreneurs were running this business. There was no professional marketing company running athletes in India. To a large extent this is still the case.
We manage Sachin Tendulkar. We have a five-year deal with him so that we can monetise his brand. Since Sachin has aged, we have moved away from brands that he was endorsing in the past. He is a family man; his core values are honesty, integrity and long-term commitment. That is why you have brands like Aviva, Royal Bank of Scotland and Canon. We are looking at brands that can go past his playing days.
Are you looking at more stars?
Yes, but a decision will only be taken after the second season of the IPL gets over. Player management is a tricky business. We have to be convinced that the player wants a long-term partnership rather than a short term money-making venture.
What impact will the economic downturn have on the business of sports marketing?
There will certainly be an impact. What the extent will be is early to say. Numbers will get reduced by 15-20 per cent. It will depend on the extent that the global economic crisis has on India.
We may have to look at our cost basis. We have to re-look at future acquisitions; we will have to work with experts to get a fix on what the economy might look like three or five years down the line before making another acquisition. Our buys will be made on the basis of market realities.
In an interview with Indiantelevision.com's Ashwin Pinto, WSG South Asia CEO Venu Nair unveils the dynamics of the sports business.
Excerpts:
How far has World Sport Group progressed in India?
When we set up our office in India two years back, we had a plan to establish a credible business over a three-year period. We looked at cricket, soccer and golf. We decided to develop each of them independently. Cricket and golf has grown phenomenally. However, with soccer it is still an uphill task.
We changed our football outlook to a five-year plan. We own all the rights and work closely with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), with whom we have been working since 1992. Our current contract runs till 2011. The fact that we have worked with them for so long to promote soccer across Asia speaks of the fact that we are long term players.
How have you grown the cricket business?
We have brought in professionalism into the management of the title and central sponsorship rights. We tell clients what they can avail of over a year. From a brand perspective it works, as they are able to plan forward. This gave us an entry into cricket at the highest level.
During 2006, the BCCI's sponsorship rights were available. We paid Rs 1.8 billion for it. Prior to us, these rights were vested with corporates and not with a proper sports marketing company.
How is this deal with the BCCI working out?
We work on a margin of 15-20 per cent. When we acquired the rights, we bought it at a premium. Two years down the line we have managed to stay at par with our revenue targets.
Where are the opportunities for WSG in cricket other than the BCCI and IPL?
There are opportunities to represent other boards. People are looking inward into India and they see the job we have done for the BCCI. As far as IPL is concerned, we have aggregated the media rights and sold it outward.
But aren't sports bodies working directly with broadcasters?
Broadcasters are limited by the region that they want to serve. They often tend to sell the rights outside their interests to other parties. This puts the broadcaster into an agency position, which is not often a comfortable area to be in as it is not their core expertise. So, to say that sports bodies increasingly work with broadcasters is an anomaly.
Fifa, for instance, works very closely with sports marketing agency Infront.
WSG managed a coup with the IPL rights. What targets have you set?
We expect to start making money by the end of the third year. We have sold rights it to many territories including the US and Canada. We have let some territories sample the product like Sky in Italy. We sold IPL to the Southeast Asian countries including Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
Are these deals long term?
We have sold everything with the ability to re-look at periodic intervals at the contract. We will see how it is working. It had to be a partnership model. The format was something new.
How does the IPL build in club loyalty and sustain viewership interest?
Teams will have to build more local heroes. Catchment areas have to expand. If the IPL franchise owners treat it just as a balance sheet-led proposition, then it may not survive in the long run.
The IPL will face competition from other boards. England wants to start a league in 2010. Australia, South Africa and New Zealand want to start a joint league in 2011. How does this affect the IPL?
In soccer different leagues like the EPL, Spanish league, and German Bundesliga are played at the same time. But the EPL is most watched. The IPL is a home grown product and has the first mover advantage. More home grown talent will take centre stage. Foreign players might want to play the IPL to shore up their revenues. They will then reach a stage where they might want to play in another league to enhance their skill. The player migration seen in soccer will happen here as well.
But when other leagues come up, won't some monies shift from IPL to them?
No! 100 per cent of the IPL revenues come from home grown clients. They want the local audience and so they will not invest in an Australian or an English league.
In India sponsorship revenue is higher than ticketing revenue. In England it's the reverse. However, a time will come in India where ticketing revenue will grow. Hospitality is another area which, if developed properly, can be a solid, successful revenue stream. Soccer clubs in Spain and England make a huge line of revenue from this area.
If the revenue potential is so strong, then why are owners already selling stakes so soon?
They are looking to sell a stake at a premium. They are not looking at funding their working capital needs.
Will Test cricket and ODIs lose some of their lustre as T20 comes up?
That is the market reality. Next year there are around 120 games, which include IPL, T20 World Cup, Champions T20 League. And one would not have known about it two years back.
You will have to put allocated monies on this new format and squeeze monies on the other two formats. Even from a viewer's experience how many takers are there for a Test Match! The purists are in a minority. Cricket is now more about entertainment. T20 has taken that window; you can watch a game in three hours.
The PCB got $140 million for its rights. So isn't there still value in the traditional formats?
In bilateral events, the icon series will get money. If it is India versus Pakistan, then advertisers and viewers will chip in. The whole value of the deal with the PCB comes from these two series that are present in the contract. At the same time, there is no guarantee that they will get the same value. They will probably get the same monies as in 2004 when India toured Pakistan after a long time.
However, the acquisition costs have shot up. In advertising you may not see a corresponding incremental value as it could get diverted to T20. The escalation may not happen.
Is there a danger of some broadcasters going bust due to a huge escalation in rights fees?
Yes! Ideally, ad rates should double which probably is not going to be the case. The rights fee has gone up disproportionately due to the need for content in a calendar year. The challenge for broadcasters is to figure out where the business is going. You also need to take care of distribution. In India sports channels have to have a certain number of events in a year. Otherwise the cable operator may stop beaming you. Cricket is reaching a saturation level and there will be a tapering down of values.
The mad race to get cricket rights has created a bubble that will eventually burst. For example, tennis went through this huge bubble a few years back. It also happened with soccer.
Broadcasters who have bought rights at high rates will have to sit down with their books at the end of next year and strike out the red. Market forces will pull prices down as the high price cannot be sustained. As a sports marketing company, I can bid a certain amount but if it is not in touch with the reality, then I stand to lose.
Sports bodies, however, have to realise that the value that sponsors attach to the older formats of the game will increasingly be less. A sports body, though, will not lose money as it will get transferred from one format of the game to the other.
Even the 2010 soccer World Cup rights went for a five-fold rise. Why?
You cannot underestimate the fact that soccer is catching up. This is especially the case in urban India which has been fed a diet of quality football from world leagues.
The awareness of global soccer icons due to the media coverage is also high. This is why premier tournaments are time bound. It has the carnival atmosphere. People follow certain teams. Once people watch it, advertisers also want to be in on the action.
You wanted to do a league around soccer with AIFF and use the franchise model. What happened to that?
We worked on a plan around a year ago. We did not go anywhere because of a combination of reasons. Firstly there already exists a certain kind of league. The soccer development process in India is not as robust as it should be.
If the AIFF actually chalks out a 20-year plan to grow soccer at the grassroots level and has a realistic target, it can work. It is not about sending the team to the next World Cup.
Cricket has been managed well at the administrative level. Cricket has also had periodic highs like winning the 1983 World Cup. This ensures that interest stays. After the 1950s, there has not been a high in soccer. Even followers of the sport do not have role models to look up to. If the AIFF comes up with a proper plan, then I am sure that there are enough corporates out there who are willing to invest.
Bharti Airtel has committed Rs 100 crore. If it is spent in the right manner, it will give you results in 10-15 years. But thinking about reaching the 2010 World Cup final is a folly when you cannot reach a South Asian tournament.
How has your work with the AFC been progressing?
It has done well. The Asia Cup is held every four years. The AFC Champions League happens every two years. Everybody plays it. Australia has come through. We work with the Australian Football Association also on their leagues. Australia reaching the soccer World Cup was a culmination of many years of work. The sport has been revived as the body had a long term plan.
What activities does WSG do in Golf?
We acquired the rights for the Indian Open which is the most prestigious event. The deal is for six years and slowly we have been able to increase the prize money. The Indian Open is now a million dollar product. Next year we will add $250,000 more to the event.
Our aim is to take the prize money to $5 million given the fact that Golf is slowly growing in appeal in India. Our goal is to develop another multi-million dollar golf property in the first half of the year. We want to have two Indian Golf events that occupy a prominent position on the Asian Tour calendar.
What is working in our favour is the fact that marketing managers today want to invest to reach different levels of the strata.
What are the plans in the player representation business?
In India cricket is intricately linked to player management. You cannot stay away from this. We figured that small entrepreneurs were running this business. There was no professional marketing company running athletes in India. To a large extent this is still the case.
We manage Sachin Tendulkar. We have a five-year deal with him so that we can monetise his brand. Since Sachin has aged, we have moved away from brands that he was endorsing in the past. He is a family man; his core values are honesty, integrity and long-term commitment. That is why you have brands like Aviva, Royal Bank of Scotland and Canon. We are looking at brands that can go past his playing days.
Are you looking at more stars?
Yes, but a decision will only be taken after the second season of the IPL gets over. Player management is a tricky business. We have to be convinced that the player wants a long-term partnership rather than a short term money-making venture.
What impact will the economic downturn have on the business of sports marketing?
There will certainly be an impact. What the extent will be is early to say. Numbers will get reduced by 15-20 per cent. It will depend on the extent that the global economic crisis has on India.
We may have to look at our cost basis. We have to re-look at future acquisitions; we will have to work with experts to get a fix on what the economy might look like three or five years down the line before making another acquisition. Our buys will be made on the basis of market realities.
Lifestyle - 'Work marked in red harmful to psyche'
SYDNEY: Teachers using red pen to mark students' work could be harming their psyche as the colour is too aggressive, according to education
strategies drafted by an Australian state government.
The "Good Mental Health Rocks" kit, which was distributed this month to about 30 schools in Queensland state, offers strategies such as "don't mark in red pen (which can be seen as aggressive) - use a different colour."
strategies drafted by an Australian state government.
The "Good Mental Health Rocks" kit, which was distributed this month to about 30 schools in Queensland state, offers strategies such as "don't mark in red pen (which can be seen as aggressive) - use a different colour."
Food - Use honey for salad dressings
WASHINGTON: Honey, a natural preservative is also a healthy alternative to chemical additives and refined sweeteners in salad dressings.
"To capitalise on the positive health effects of honey, we experimented with using honey in salad dressings," said Nicki Engeseth, associate professor of food chemistry at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
"We found that the antioxidants in honey protected the quality of the salad dressings for up to nine months while sweetening them naturally."
Engeseth's study substituted honey for EDTA, an additive used to keep the oils in salad dressings from oxidizing, and high-fructose corn syrup, used by many commercial salad-dressing producers to sweeten their salad dressing recipes, according to an Illinois release.
"We chose clover and blueberry honeys for the study after an analysis of the sweetening potential, antioxidant activity, and phenolic profiles of 19 honeys with varying characteristics," said the scientist.
The dressings were also compared to a control dressing that contained ingredients found in current commercial salad dressings, she said.
Engeseth explained a problem the scientists encountered in using honey in a salad dressing system. "Salad dressings are emulsions - they contain oil and water; and to keep these ingredients together in one phase, manufacturers rely on emulsifiers and thickening agents to avoid thinning of the dressing and separation of the oil and water phase," she said.
When the researchers found that enzymes in the honey broke the emulsion by attacking the starch that was used to thicken the dressing, they came up with a new formulation that used xanthan gum as a thickening agent, which they then used in all the dressings, she said.
The researchers then stored the dressings under various conditions, including 37 degree Celsius (accelerated storage) for six weeks and 23 degree Celsius and four degree Celsius for one year, followed by an evaluation of their oxidative stability.
"After nine months of storage, both types of honey were as effective as EDTA in protecting against oxidation or spoilage. Blueberry honey performed slightly better than clover," she said.
Engeseth said that many consumers prefer products with natural ingredients and that salad dressings made with honey should appeal to these consumers.
The study was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
"To capitalise on the positive health effects of honey, we experimented with using honey in salad dressings," said Nicki Engeseth, associate professor of food chemistry at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
"We found that the antioxidants in honey protected the quality of the salad dressings for up to nine months while sweetening them naturally."
Engeseth's study substituted honey for EDTA, an additive used to keep the oils in salad dressings from oxidizing, and high-fructose corn syrup, used by many commercial salad-dressing producers to sweeten their salad dressing recipes, according to an Illinois release.
"We chose clover and blueberry honeys for the study after an analysis of the sweetening potential, antioxidant activity, and phenolic profiles of 19 honeys with varying characteristics," said the scientist.
The dressings were also compared to a control dressing that contained ingredients found in current commercial salad dressings, she said.
Engeseth explained a problem the scientists encountered in using honey in a salad dressing system. "Salad dressings are emulsions - they contain oil and water; and to keep these ingredients together in one phase, manufacturers rely on emulsifiers and thickening agents to avoid thinning of the dressing and separation of the oil and water phase," she said.
When the researchers found that enzymes in the honey broke the emulsion by attacking the starch that was used to thicken the dressing, they came up with a new formulation that used xanthan gum as a thickening agent, which they then used in all the dressings, she said.
The researchers then stored the dressings under various conditions, including 37 degree Celsius (accelerated storage) for six weeks and 23 degree Celsius and four degree Celsius for one year, followed by an evaluation of their oxidative stability.
"After nine months of storage, both types of honey were as effective as EDTA in protecting against oxidation or spoilage. Blueberry honey performed slightly better than clover," she said.
Engeseth said that many consumers prefer products with natural ingredients and that salad dressings made with honey should appeal to these consumers.
The study was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Lifestyle - Gujarat to have 'fish malls'
VADODARA: Gujarat Fisheries Central Cooperative Association Limited (GFCCL) has approached several municipal corporations in the state seeking
allotment of land for construction and development of ‘fish malls’, GFCCL sources said on Wednesday.
GFCCL has written to the Vadodara Municipal Corporation requesting it to allocate land for construction of a 2500-square-foot mall. Similar requests have been made to Surat and Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioners, GFCL sources said.
Gujarat Agriculture and Fisheries Department has entrusted GFCCL with the responsibility of developing these malls and making available several varieties of fishes in retail and bulk quantities, sources said.
The body has sought the lands from the civic bodies at token rates for a long period of time, sources said.
The fish malls would benefit all those seeking various kinds of fishes by being a one-stop-shop for several varieties and also those who are in the fishing business, they said.
GFCCL is a state government promoted body with 277 cooperative societies and 2927 individuals as its members.
The GFCCL gradually plans to take this concept to all coastal cities in the state where demand for fishes is higher.
allotment of land for construction and development of ‘fish malls’, GFCCL sources said on Wednesday.
GFCCL has written to the Vadodara Municipal Corporation requesting it to allocate land for construction of a 2500-square-foot mall. Similar requests have been made to Surat and Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioners, GFCL sources said.
Gujarat Agriculture and Fisheries Department has entrusted GFCCL with the responsibility of developing these malls and making available several varieties of fishes in retail and bulk quantities, sources said.
The body has sought the lands from the civic bodies at token rates for a long period of time, sources said.
The fish malls would benefit all those seeking various kinds of fishes by being a one-stop-shop for several varieties and also those who are in the fishing business, they said.
GFCCL is a state government promoted body with 277 cooperative societies and 2927 individuals as its members.
The GFCCL gradually plans to take this concept to all coastal cities in the state where demand for fishes is higher.
Sport - Formula One expected to embrace low-cost engine
LONDON: Formula One looks likely to accept radical plans for a low-cost standard engine when teams and the governing FIA meet in Monaco this week to map out a survival strategy for the sport.
Formula One sources said on Tuesday that five teams, including former champions Renault, had expressed interest in the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA)'s proposals.
A Renault spokeswoman declined to comment. The FIA confirmed, however, that there had been considerable interest since the latest details were outlined by Max Mosley last week.
"Since the President's letter last Friday, there has been a very positive response from the Formula One teams regarding our engine proposals," said a spokesman.
"It would however be inappropriate to comment on the status of any individual teams or to give any further details in advance of the World Motor Sport Council meeting on Friday."
Friday's meeting follows talks between the teams's association FOTA and FIA President Max Mosley in the Mediterranean principality on Wednesday.
It also comes after Honda's shock decision last week to quit the championship, a move that would leave just nine teams and has prompted fears of other manufacturers being blown out by the global economic storm.
One team source said the meetings were crucial for the long-term future of the sport.
REAL URGENCY
"They (the teams) are certainly making an effort," Mosley said last week after FOTA met to discuss their own cost-cutting plans. "The question in my mind is whether they are attacking this in a sufficiently root-and-branch way.
"I don't think there's any doubt now that there's a real sense of urgency."
Mosley said he would like to see costs come down to 10 or 20 percent of what they are now, with annual budgets reduced to around the $40 million bracket from well in excess of $120 million at present for the smallest of teams.
The FIA has put forward the option of a low-cost powertrain, provided by Cosworth, Xtrac and Ricardo Transmissions, from 2010.
Mosley said the cost to each team taking up the option would be an up-front payment of 1.68 million pounds ($2.49 million) followed by 5.49 million per season - a fraction of the price of a current engine supply.
While the cost was dependent on at least four teams signing up for the powertrain by the end of business on Thursday, manufacturers would also have the option to build their own engines to the same specification as the Cosworth or have their existing units pegged to its performance.
The World Motor Sport Council may also discuss Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone's proposal for the drivers' championship to be decided by Olympic-style medals rather than points.
However, the response from teams and the FIA to the idea has appeared lukewarm.
Formula One sources said on Tuesday that five teams, including former champions Renault, had expressed interest in the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA)'s proposals.
A Renault spokeswoman declined to comment. The FIA confirmed, however, that there had been considerable interest since the latest details were outlined by Max Mosley last week.
"Since the President's letter last Friday, there has been a very positive response from the Formula One teams regarding our engine proposals," said a spokesman.
"It would however be inappropriate to comment on the status of any individual teams or to give any further details in advance of the World Motor Sport Council meeting on Friday."
Friday's meeting follows talks between the teams's association FOTA and FIA President Max Mosley in the Mediterranean principality on Wednesday.
It also comes after Honda's shock decision last week to quit the championship, a move that would leave just nine teams and has prompted fears of other manufacturers being blown out by the global economic storm.
One team source said the meetings were crucial for the long-term future of the sport.
REAL URGENCY
"They (the teams) are certainly making an effort," Mosley said last week after FOTA met to discuss their own cost-cutting plans. "The question in my mind is whether they are attacking this in a sufficiently root-and-branch way.
"I don't think there's any doubt now that there's a real sense of urgency."
Mosley said he would like to see costs come down to 10 or 20 percent of what they are now, with annual budgets reduced to around the $40 million bracket from well in excess of $120 million at present for the smallest of teams.
The FIA has put forward the option of a low-cost powertrain, provided by Cosworth, Xtrac and Ricardo Transmissions, from 2010.
Mosley said the cost to each team taking up the option would be an up-front payment of 1.68 million pounds ($2.49 million) followed by 5.49 million per season - a fraction of the price of a current engine supply.
While the cost was dependent on at least four teams signing up for the powertrain by the end of business on Thursday, manufacturers would also have the option to build their own engines to the same specification as the Cosworth or have their existing units pegged to its performance.
The World Motor Sport Council may also discuss Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone's proposal for the drivers' championship to be decided by Olympic-style medals rather than points.
However, the response from teams and the FIA to the idea has appeared lukewarm.
Lifestyle - UK;Young women 'have more sexual partners than men'
It seems that girls do get on top of their partners when it comes to sex, for a study has found that young women have more bed sharers than men.
Researchers have carried out the study and found that young women are more promiscuous than men and the average 21- year-old is notching up for nine sexual partners as compared to seven in case of males.
In fact, they have based their findings on a survey of 2,000 people. The poll revealed that young women are twice as likely to cheat and more than 70 per cent have had a one-night stand, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported.
In fact, according to the survey, one in four young women has slept with more than ten people, compared with one in five men who had done the same.
What's more interesting is that the survey found that few young women today hold to traditional views on sexual morality -- just one per cent of young women said they would want to get married before having sex, with the majority losing their virginity at the age of 16.
More than half said they were not in love with their first partner, and only one in three believe it is important to be in love with someone before going to bed with them.
In addition, 60 per cent said they would be prepared to do a "kiss-and-tell", and would sell their account of a one-night-stand with a famous person for 20,000 pounds, the researchers found.
Four out of ten confessed they would marry for money or sleep with their boss if it meant they would get promoted, while a quarter would have an affair with a married man.
The survey also found that young women are taking "huge risks" with their health, with 38 per cent not using a condom with a new partner and 16 per cent having contracted a sexually transmitted disease.
And, the average young woman has sex three times a week but would prefer to do it five times.
"Our results show that after decades of lying back and thinking of England, today's twenty-something women are taking control of their sex lives and getting what they want in bed," Lisa Smosarski, the Editor of 'More', which commissioned the survey, was quoted as saying.
Researchers have carried out the study and found that young women are more promiscuous than men and the average 21- year-old is notching up for nine sexual partners as compared to seven in case of males.
In fact, they have based their findings on a survey of 2,000 people. The poll revealed that young women are twice as likely to cheat and more than 70 per cent have had a one-night stand, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported.
In fact, according to the survey, one in four young women has slept with more than ten people, compared with one in five men who had done the same.
What's more interesting is that the survey found that few young women today hold to traditional views on sexual morality -- just one per cent of young women said they would want to get married before having sex, with the majority losing their virginity at the age of 16.
More than half said they were not in love with their first partner, and only one in three believe it is important to be in love with someone before going to bed with them.
In addition, 60 per cent said they would be prepared to do a "kiss-and-tell", and would sell their account of a one-night-stand with a famous person for 20,000 pounds, the researchers found.
Four out of ten confessed they would marry for money or sleep with their boss if it meant they would get promoted, while a quarter would have an affair with a married man.
The survey also found that young women are taking "huge risks" with their health, with 38 per cent not using a condom with a new partner and 16 per cent having contracted a sexually transmitted disease.
And, the average young woman has sex three times a week but would prefer to do it five times.
"Our results show that after decades of lying back and thinking of England, today's twenty-something women are taking control of their sex lives and getting what they want in bed," Lisa Smosarski, the Editor of 'More', which commissioned the survey, was quoted as saying.
World - Sweden Cleanest,Saudi Dirtiest
POZNAN: Sweden does the maximum to tackle greenhouse emissions while Saudi Arabia does the least, according to a barometer published on Wednesday by
watchdogs at the UN climate talks here.
But the annual "Climate Change Performance Index" placed Sweden only fourth on its list, for no prizes were allotted for the top three places.
"Not a single country is to be judged as satisfactory with regard to protecting the climate," the NGOs Germanwatch and Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe said.
No country had shown willingness "to engage themselves more strongly" to avoid dangerous climate change, they explained.
The groups categorised dangerous climate change as an increase in temperature beyond two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.
Sweden's fourth place was followed by Germany, France, India, Brazil, Britain and Denmark.
The bottom 10 were listed in descending order as Greece, Malaysia, Cyprus, Russia, Australia, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, the United States, Canada and Saudi Arabia.
The Climate Change Performance Index compares 57 states that together emit more than 90 percent of the world's annual output of carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas.
The benchmark is derived from 12 national indicators, based on the emissions level, emissions trend and climate policy.
In last year's index, the top three places were awarded to Sweden, Germany and Iceland and the bottom three to Australia, the United States and Saudi Arabia.
The 2 C (3.6 F) warming target is embraced by the European Union (EU) as well as many green groups. Scientists are generally circumspect, saying there is no guarantee that achieving this figure will avoid inflicting bad damage to Earth's fragile climate system.
watchdogs at the UN climate talks here.
But the annual "Climate Change Performance Index" placed Sweden only fourth on its list, for no prizes were allotted for the top three places.
"Not a single country is to be judged as satisfactory with regard to protecting the climate," the NGOs Germanwatch and Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe said.
No country had shown willingness "to engage themselves more strongly" to avoid dangerous climate change, they explained.
The groups categorised dangerous climate change as an increase in temperature beyond two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.
Sweden's fourth place was followed by Germany, France, India, Brazil, Britain and Denmark.
The bottom 10 were listed in descending order as Greece, Malaysia, Cyprus, Russia, Australia, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, the United States, Canada and Saudi Arabia.
The Climate Change Performance Index compares 57 states that together emit more than 90 percent of the world's annual output of carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas.
The benchmark is derived from 12 national indicators, based on the emissions level, emissions trend and climate policy.
In last year's index, the top three places were awarded to Sweden, Germany and Iceland and the bottom three to Australia, the United States and Saudi Arabia.
The 2 C (3.6 F) warming target is embraced by the European Union (EU) as well as many green groups. Scientists are generally circumspect, saying there is no guarantee that achieving this figure will avoid inflicting bad damage to Earth's fragile climate system.
Lifestyle - Women feel they are sexiest at 34
LONDON: Being sexy is often perceived to be a key essence of femininity. And, now a new study has found that women feel most sexy at the age of 34.
Researchers have based their findings on a survey of over 1,000 women who were questioned about their sex lives - the majority of respondents said that it was at the age of 34 when they had felt more sexy.
The survey also revealed that middle-aged women have half as much sex as they did when they were younger - in fact the researchers found that that on average women aged 45 to 60 have sex 4.5 times a month, compared to 10.4 times a month in their 20s and 30s.
However, 56% of the respondents said they enjoyed it now more than they did when they were younger, British newspaper the Daily Telegraph reported.
Sex and relationship advisor Dr Catherine Hood said: “Many of us make the assumption that older people have less sex than the young, and this research appears to confirm this.
However, it does show that women are still enjoying great sex lives as they get older.
“Women’s sexual needs, libido and lifestyle change over time, but there is absolutely no reason why older women can’t enjoy an extremely fulfiling sex life in their middle age and well into their senior years.
“The fact that over half of those quizzed said they had better sex now than in their 20s and 30s suggests that these women are more confident and self-assured than they were in their younger days and aren’t afraid of getting what they want.”
The research commissioned by moisturiser brand Astral questioned 1,031 women about their sex lives.
Researchers have based their findings on a survey of over 1,000 women who were questioned about their sex lives - the majority of respondents said that it was at the age of 34 when they had felt more sexy.
The survey also revealed that middle-aged women have half as much sex as they did when they were younger - in fact the researchers found that that on average women aged 45 to 60 have sex 4.5 times a month, compared to 10.4 times a month in their 20s and 30s.
However, 56% of the respondents said they enjoyed it now more than they did when they were younger, British newspaper the Daily Telegraph reported.
Sex and relationship advisor Dr Catherine Hood said: “Many of us make the assumption that older people have less sex than the young, and this research appears to confirm this.
However, it does show that women are still enjoying great sex lives as they get older.
“Women’s sexual needs, libido and lifestyle change over time, but there is absolutely no reason why older women can’t enjoy an extremely fulfiling sex life in their middle age and well into their senior years.
“The fact that over half of those quizzed said they had better sex now than in their 20s and 30s suggests that these women are more confident and self-assured than they were in their younger days and aren’t afraid of getting what they want.”
The research commissioned by moisturiser brand Astral questioned 1,031 women about their sex lives.
India - Irritated by Taj Mahal copy
India's embassy in Bangladesh on Wednesday voiced its displeasure over a life-size copy of the Taj Mahal, saying it would investigate to see if any copyright laws had been breached. Pics: Taj and its replica
"You can't just go and copy historical monuments," fumed a spokesman at the Indian High Commission in Dhaka.
"Someone will go out there and have a look. The reports we are reading say it is an exact replica. This is a protected site we are talking about so we need to find out if it really is the exact size," he told AFP.
Bangladeshi film director Ahsanullah Moni unveiled his $ 58 million replica, located about 30 kilometres (20 miles) northeast of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, this week.
Moni began building it five years ago but came up with the idea in 1980 when he first visited the real "Monument to Love" in Agra, India.
He imported marble and granite from Italy, diamonds from Belgium and used 160 kilos (350 pounds) of bronze for the dome.
"Everyone dreams about seeing the Taj Mahal but very few Bangladeshis can make the trip because it's too expensive for them," he said.
The Taj Mahal was built by Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth in 1631.
"You can't just go and copy historical monuments," fumed a spokesman at the Indian High Commission in Dhaka.
"Someone will go out there and have a look. The reports we are reading say it is an exact replica. This is a protected site we are talking about so we need to find out if it really is the exact size," he told AFP.
Bangladeshi film director Ahsanullah Moni unveiled his $ 58 million replica, located about 30 kilometres (20 miles) northeast of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, this week.
Moni began building it five years ago but came up with the idea in 1980 when he first visited the real "Monument to Love" in Agra, India.
He imported marble and granite from Italy, diamonds from Belgium and used 160 kilos (350 pounds) of bronze for the dome.
"Everyone dreams about seeing the Taj Mahal but very few Bangladeshis can make the trip because it's too expensive for them," he said.
The Taj Mahal was built by Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth in 1631.
India - Rajo Devi mother at 70
Devendra Uppal
Last week, Rajo Devi, from Alewa village in Haryana’s Jind district, became the proud mother of a baby girl — after 50 years of marriage. Rajo Devi became the world’s oldest woman — she is 70 years old and her husband Bala Ram is 72 — to have a child, thanks to In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF).
In 2006, Adriana Iliescu, a Romanian, had become the oldest woman to give birth at the age of 67.
Dr Anurag Bishnoi of National Fertility Centre at Bishnoi Hospital, said: “Rajo Devi and Bala Ram approached the Centre for treatment and the embryo transfer was done on April 19. The baby girl was born on November 28. Both the mother and child are in good health.”
“More than 15 per cent of the Indian population is facing infertility problems, said Bishnoi, who
had closely monitored Rajo Devi’s treatment. “There are more than
200 IVF centres in the country and general awareness is growing among couples.”
“IVF has revolutionised the way we looked at infertility. Infertility is no longer a social taboo or a divine curse. It can be treated scientifically,” Bishnoi added.
Last week, Rajo Devi, from Alewa village in Haryana’s Jind district, became the proud mother of a baby girl — after 50 years of marriage. Rajo Devi became the world’s oldest woman — she is 70 years old and her husband Bala Ram is 72 — to have a child, thanks to In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF).
In 2006, Adriana Iliescu, a Romanian, had become the oldest woman to give birth at the age of 67.
Dr Anurag Bishnoi of National Fertility Centre at Bishnoi Hospital, said: “Rajo Devi and Bala Ram approached the Centre for treatment and the embryo transfer was done on April 19. The baby girl was born on November 28. Both the mother and child are in good health.”
“More than 15 per cent of the Indian population is facing infertility problems, said Bishnoi, who
had closely monitored Rajo Devi’s treatment. “There are more than
200 IVF centres in the country and general awareness is growing among couples.”
“IVF has revolutionised the way we looked at infertility. Infertility is no longer a social taboo or a divine curse. It can be treated scientifically,” Bishnoi added.
World - Swraj Paul first Asian deputy speaker in Britain's House of Lords
LONDON: Leading NRI entrepreneur Lord Swraj Paul has scripted history by becoming the first Asian deputy speaker of the British House of Lords. NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul has been appointed the first Asian deputy speaker of UK's House of Lords.
Though people of Indian origin have held ministerial berths in the British cabinet, this is the first time an Indian has been appointed to such a high position in UK's parliament. ( Watch )
"I am honoured," said Lord Paul in his reaction to the announcement.
He said it was an honour "for a person who comes from a freedom fighters' family from India. In fact, my name Swraj was given because this was a slogan of Mahatma Gandhi - We want Swaraj (freedom)," Lord Paul, founder of multinational national company Caparo, said last night.
"It speaks a great deal about British and the British system of democracy and is also a tribute to the country of my origin (India). I am looking forward to serving the Parliament."
The Speaker or Deputy Speaker presides over the house of Lords session, sitting on the Woolsack, a large red seat stuffed with wool, at the front of the Lords Chamber.
Conferred the Peerage in 1996 and honoured with the Padma Bhushan by President of India in 1983, 77-year-old Lord Paul is one of the most famous Indian origin entrepreneurs based in Britain.
He is the founder of the multinational company Caparo, the UK-based steel and engineering group, with an annual turnover of 1.5 billion pounds.
Lord Paul was born in Jalandhar in 1931. His father ran a small foundry, which made steel buckets and farming equipment.
Paul graduated from the Punjab University and subsequently obtained a Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA.
After his return to India, Paul joined the Apeejay Group, which his father had founded.
Destiny brought him to London in 1966 in search of treatment for his daughter Ambika, who was suffering from leukemia and after her untimely death, he stayed on.
Lord Paul started his business in Britain in 1968. After acquiring one steel unit, he went on to acquire more units and founded the Caparo group in the year 1978. Caparo developed into one of the leading producers of welded steel tube and spiral-welded pipe in the UK.
In 1996, Lord Paul stepped down from the management of the Caparo group and handed over the reins to his three sons.
Lord Paul has won several honours and awards. He wrote the biography of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and later he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1983.
Currently British Ambassador for Overseas Business, Lord Paul is Chancellor of two universities -- the University of Westminster and the University of Wolverhampton.
A philanthropist, Lord Paul donated one million pounds to the London Zoo to save it from closure in 1993.
Lord Paul was also appointed as Chairman of the Olympic Delivery Committee with the key task of providing infrastructure for the London Olympics 2012.
Though people of Indian origin have held ministerial berths in the British cabinet, this is the first time an Indian has been appointed to such a high position in UK's parliament. ( Watch )
"I am honoured," said Lord Paul in his reaction to the announcement.
He said it was an honour "for a person who comes from a freedom fighters' family from India. In fact, my name Swraj was given because this was a slogan of Mahatma Gandhi - We want Swaraj (freedom)," Lord Paul, founder of multinational national company Caparo, said last night.
"It speaks a great deal about British and the British system of democracy and is also a tribute to the country of my origin (India). I am looking forward to serving the Parliament."
The Speaker or Deputy Speaker presides over the house of Lords session, sitting on the Woolsack, a large red seat stuffed with wool, at the front of the Lords Chamber.
Conferred the Peerage in 1996 and honoured with the Padma Bhushan by President of India in 1983, 77-year-old Lord Paul is one of the most famous Indian origin entrepreneurs based in Britain.
He is the founder of the multinational company Caparo, the UK-based steel and engineering group, with an annual turnover of 1.5 billion pounds.
Lord Paul was born in Jalandhar in 1931. His father ran a small foundry, which made steel buckets and farming equipment.
Paul graduated from the Punjab University and subsequently obtained a Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA.
After his return to India, Paul joined the Apeejay Group, which his father had founded.
Destiny brought him to London in 1966 in search of treatment for his daughter Ambika, who was suffering from leukemia and after her untimely death, he stayed on.
Lord Paul started his business in Britain in 1968. After acquiring one steel unit, he went on to acquire more units and founded the Caparo group in the year 1978. Caparo developed into one of the leading producers of welded steel tube and spiral-welded pipe in the UK.
In 1996, Lord Paul stepped down from the management of the Caparo group and handed over the reins to his three sons.
Lord Paul has won several honours and awards. He wrote the biography of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and later he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1983.
Currently British Ambassador for Overseas Business, Lord Paul is Chancellor of two universities -- the University of Westminster and the University of Wolverhampton.
A philanthropist, Lord Paul donated one million pounds to the London Zoo to save it from closure in 1993.
Lord Paul was also appointed as Chairman of the Olympic Delivery Committee with the key task of providing infrastructure for the London Olympics 2012.
Entertainment - Q&A Deepika Padukone
Jigar Shah
Deepika Padukone’s pearls of wisdom for Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi girl Anushka and a lot more...
Was it tough to do your first action film — Chandni Chowk To China?
I think in an action film, there are bound to be risks. I’ve never done an action film before so I didn’t know what all goes into it. But while shooting for the film, I’ve gone through a lot of death defying stunts.
Tell us about the risks involved...
I hurt my ankle, not once but three times. It’s part and parcel of the job. We had an expert, BB from Hong Kong, to help us in our stunts. He had already worked on action blockbusters like Kill Bill, The Matrix etc.
Did you have any action sequence with Akshay?
Akshay and I’ve a very interesting fight sequence and I’m really looking forward to seeing it on the big screen. I would also like to believe that I’m going to be the next female Akshay Kumar.
What’s your role in Chandni Chowk To China?
The film traces the journey of a cook from Chandni Chowk to China. He is a victim of mistaken identity and in his eventful journey, he falls in love — with yours truly.
Ranbir as a dancer and Akshay in action. Make a choice.
Ranbir is a wonderful dancer but I think it’s a life time opportunity to do action with Akshay. I’m very thankful to Nikhil Advani for giving me the opportunity.
What training did you undertake before the shooting of the film?
I practiced with my Hong Kong based trainer for four-five months. I undertook intensive training for eight hours a day, but it was completely worth it.
You made a successful debut with Shah Rukh Khan in Om Shanti Om. Now Anushka is doing the same in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Any pearls of wisdom for Anushka?
Well, I know Anushka. We both did stints of modelling in Bangalore. She is confident and fortunate and I really wish that her career picks up as well as mine did.
— Bollywood News Service
Deepika Padukone’s pearls of wisdom for Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi girl Anushka and a lot more...
Was it tough to do your first action film — Chandni Chowk To China?
I think in an action film, there are bound to be risks. I’ve never done an action film before so I didn’t know what all goes into it. But while shooting for the film, I’ve gone through a lot of death defying stunts.
Tell us about the risks involved...
I hurt my ankle, not once but three times. It’s part and parcel of the job. We had an expert, BB from Hong Kong, to help us in our stunts. He had already worked on action blockbusters like Kill Bill, The Matrix etc.
Did you have any action sequence with Akshay?
Akshay and I’ve a very interesting fight sequence and I’m really looking forward to seeing it on the big screen. I would also like to believe that I’m going to be the next female Akshay Kumar.
What’s your role in Chandni Chowk To China?
The film traces the journey of a cook from Chandni Chowk to China. He is a victim of mistaken identity and in his eventful journey, he falls in love — with yours truly.
Ranbir as a dancer and Akshay in action. Make a choice.
Ranbir is a wonderful dancer but I think it’s a life time opportunity to do action with Akshay. I’m very thankful to Nikhil Advani for giving me the opportunity.
What training did you undertake before the shooting of the film?
I practiced with my Hong Kong based trainer for four-five months. I undertook intensive training for eight hours a day, but it was completely worth it.
You made a successful debut with Shah Rukh Khan in Om Shanti Om. Now Anushka is doing the same in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Any pearls of wisdom for Anushka?
Well, I know Anushka. We both did stints of modelling in Bangalore. She is confident and fortunate and I really wish that her career picks up as well as mine did.
— Bollywood News Service
Sport - Cricket;Yuvraj Singh included in playing XI
Yuvraj Singh will play his first Test in eight months after the dashing middle order batsman was on Wednesday included in India's playing XI for the first cricket Test against England.
Yuvraj replaces Sourav Ganguly in the team who has retired from international cricket after the recent Test series against Australia. That is the only change from the team that had played the last Test against Australia in Nagpur.
Yuvraj, who had played his last Test against South Africa at Kanpur in April, has been in sizzling form with two centuries in the recent ODI series against England before it was called off following the terror attacks in Mumbai.
Tamil Nadu batsmen S Badrinath and Murali Vijay, paceman Munaf Patel and left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha, who are part of the 15-member squad, have been left out for the first Test beginning at the M A Chidambaram stadium tomorrow.
Yuvraj's inclusion means that the home team will go into the game with seven batsmen and four specialist bowlers.
While the in-form Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma will spearhead the pace attack, Harbhajan Singh and leg spinner Amit Mishra, who has come into the team after the retirement of former captain and ace spinner Anil Kumble, will shoulder the spin bowling responsibility.
The team:
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma.
Yuvraj replaces Sourav Ganguly in the team who has retired from international cricket after the recent Test series against Australia. That is the only change from the team that had played the last Test against Australia in Nagpur.
Yuvraj, who had played his last Test against South Africa at Kanpur in April, has been in sizzling form with two centuries in the recent ODI series against England before it was called off following the terror attacks in Mumbai.
Tamil Nadu batsmen S Badrinath and Murali Vijay, paceman Munaf Patel and left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha, who are part of the 15-member squad, have been left out for the first Test beginning at the M A Chidambaram stadium tomorrow.
Yuvraj's inclusion means that the home team will go into the game with seven batsmen and four specialist bowlers.
While the in-form Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma will spearhead the pace attack, Harbhajan Singh and leg spinner Amit Mishra, who has come into the team after the retirement of former captain and ace spinner Anil Kumble, will shoulder the spin bowling responsibility.
The team:
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma.
World - Indian cos 4th-worst bribe payers, globally: Transparency Intl
Indian firms are ranked as the fourth-worst bribe payers across the world, with companies based in emerging economies routinely engaging in bribery while doing business abroad, says a report.
According to civil society organisation Transparency International's 2008 Bribe Payers Index (BPI), emerging economic giants show high levels of corporate bribery overseas.
The latest index ranks 22 leading international and regional exporting countries, out of which five of the worst bribe payers across the world are from emerging economies like Russia, which has an average score of 5.9, China has 6.5, Mexico (6.6), India (6.8) and Brazil (7.4).
Meanwhile, Belgium and Canada shared first place in the 2008 index with a score of 8.8 out of a thoroughly clean 10, indicating that Belgian and Canadian firms are seen as least likely to bribe abroad. The Netherlands and Switzerland shared third place on the index, each with a score of 8.7.
The higher the score for a country, the lower the chances that companies from this country would engage in bribery while doing business abroad, and the vice-versa.
"The BPI provides evidence that a number of companies from major exporting countries still use bribery to win business abroad, despite awareness of its damaging impact on corporate reputations and ordinary communities," Transparency International Chair Huguette Labelle said.
The index also shows public works and construction firms to be the most corruption-prone when dealing with the public sector and most likely to exert undue influence on the policies, decisions and practices of governments.
According to civil society organisation Transparency International's 2008 Bribe Payers Index (BPI), emerging economic giants show high levels of corporate bribery overseas.
The latest index ranks 22 leading international and regional exporting countries, out of which five of the worst bribe payers across the world are from emerging economies like Russia, which has an average score of 5.9, China has 6.5, Mexico (6.6), India (6.8) and Brazil (7.4).
Meanwhile, Belgium and Canada shared first place in the 2008 index with a score of 8.8 out of a thoroughly clean 10, indicating that Belgian and Canadian firms are seen as least likely to bribe abroad. The Netherlands and Switzerland shared third place on the index, each with a score of 8.7.
The higher the score for a country, the lower the chances that companies from this country would engage in bribery while doing business abroad, and the vice-versa.
"The BPI provides evidence that a number of companies from major exporting countries still use bribery to win business abroad, despite awareness of its damaging impact on corporate reputations and ordinary communities," Transparency International Chair Huguette Labelle said.
The index also shows public works and construction firms to be the most corruption-prone when dealing with the public sector and most likely to exert undue influence on the policies, decisions and practices of governments.
World - Pakistan nuclear scientist to reveal all
ISLAMABAD: A new documentary on disgraced Pakistani scientist A Q Khan, under house arrest for the past four years after admitting to nuclear proliferation, will reveal former President Pervez Musharraf's reasons for detaining him.
The documentary, being made by the Jang media group and the Geo News channel, will focus on the life and achievements of Khan. The film will be "full of disclosures about the restrictions imposed" on the scientist, the media group said Tuesday.
Khan will appear in the documentary to give details of the reasons why he has been detained and subjected to "constant stress and pain".
Experts, scientists and politicians will also provide their views in the film.
Khan was confined to his home in Islamabad after he confessed on state-run television to running a proliferation network that supplied nuclear equipment and know-how to
several countries, including North Korea and Libya.
The documentary, being made by the Jang media group and the Geo News channel, will focus on the life and achievements of Khan. The film will be "full of disclosures about the restrictions imposed" on the scientist, the media group said Tuesday.
Khan will appear in the documentary to give details of the reasons why he has been detained and subjected to "constant stress and pain".
Experts, scientists and politicians will also provide their views in the film.
Khan was confined to his home in Islamabad after he confessed on state-run television to running a proliferation network that supplied nuclear equipment and know-how to
several countries, including North Korea and Libya.
Sport - Cricket;IPL sowing seed of jealousy in side, fears NSW management
MELBOURNE: Worried about the ramifications of Kolkata Knight Riders' whopping USD 300,000 signing of rookie player Moises Henriques the New South Wales management is afraid that the Indian Premier League is sowing seeds of jealousy which could eventually split the squad.
Cricket NSW chief executive Dave Gilbert has warned the players not to allow the IPL split the team and felt Henriques' staggering IPL contract would have a massive impact on the cricket set-up in Australia.
"During pre-season I addressed the entire squad and told them what I thought would happen in terms of contracts in India," Gilbert said.
"I warned them not to let IPL jealousies get in the way of our team or our objectives. We don't want a situation where one player earns X and another earns Y and there are problems," he was quoted as saying by the 'Sydney Morning Herald'.
With frontline Australian players missing much of the action in the first edition of the IPL, there has been a shift in the focus of the franchises which are now eyeing young Australian talents without the burden of national duty.
Two of Henriques' teammates, explosive batman David Warner and all-rounder Steven Smith, are also about to take the plunge and Gilbert said he was worried about its ramifications.
"At the moment we have not seen this thing fully play out. I don't think anyone yet really understands the ramifications of what we are seeing," he said.
"In Warner, you have a guy who has shown an incredible ability to hit the ball, and hit it out of the ground, and that's what people want to see. As an administrator in the game, you can't argue with that. The game must move forward and remain relevant to its viewers.
"Twenty20 rates the house down and fills stadiums all over the world. It's as simple as that. I am a traditionalist all the way, but there is no escaping the fact that we have an extraordinary product here in Twenty20 and people really love it. Moises might be just the beginning," he predicted.
The NSW official said it was all but natural for player like Warner to fall for the lure of IPL money.
"You can't blame him. He is a state-contracted player earning a modest income and for a 22-year-old, some of the figures that are being tossed around must be mind blowing. We have no issues at all with him (negotiating with IPL franchises)...We just don't want it to impact on our own domestic leagues," he said.
The NSW players in IPL include Brett Lee and Simon Katich (Kings XI Punjab), Nathan Bracken (Bangalore Royal Challengers) and Dominic Thornely (Mumbai Indians).
Kolkata Knight Riders have already roped in Henriques and are in negotiation with Warner and Smith. Besides, the Shah Rukh Khan-owned outfit has NSW coach Matthew Mott as its assistant coach
Cricket NSW chief executive Dave Gilbert has warned the players not to allow the IPL split the team and felt Henriques' staggering IPL contract would have a massive impact on the cricket set-up in Australia.
"During pre-season I addressed the entire squad and told them what I thought would happen in terms of contracts in India," Gilbert said.
"I warned them not to let IPL jealousies get in the way of our team or our objectives. We don't want a situation where one player earns X and another earns Y and there are problems," he was quoted as saying by the 'Sydney Morning Herald'.
With frontline Australian players missing much of the action in the first edition of the IPL, there has been a shift in the focus of the franchises which are now eyeing young Australian talents without the burden of national duty.
Two of Henriques' teammates, explosive batman David Warner and all-rounder Steven Smith, are also about to take the plunge and Gilbert said he was worried about its ramifications.
"At the moment we have not seen this thing fully play out. I don't think anyone yet really understands the ramifications of what we are seeing," he said.
"In Warner, you have a guy who has shown an incredible ability to hit the ball, and hit it out of the ground, and that's what people want to see. As an administrator in the game, you can't argue with that. The game must move forward and remain relevant to its viewers.
"Twenty20 rates the house down and fills stadiums all over the world. It's as simple as that. I am a traditionalist all the way, but there is no escaping the fact that we have an extraordinary product here in Twenty20 and people really love it. Moises might be just the beginning," he predicted.
The NSW official said it was all but natural for player like Warner to fall for the lure of IPL money.
"You can't blame him. He is a state-contracted player earning a modest income and for a 22-year-old, some of the figures that are being tossed around must be mind blowing. We have no issues at all with him (negotiating with IPL franchises)...We just don't want it to impact on our own domestic leagues," he said.
The NSW players in IPL include Brett Lee and Simon Katich (Kings XI Punjab), Nathan Bracken (Bangalore Royal Challengers) and Dominic Thornely (Mumbai Indians).
Kolkata Knight Riders have already roped in Henriques and are in negotiation with Warner and Smith. Besides, the Shah Rukh Khan-owned outfit has NSW coach Matthew Mott as its assistant coach
Lifestyle - After-sex cuddles matter most to women
WELLINGTON: When it comes to getting physically intimate, foreplay is just a start; it's what comes after sex that matters most to women, according to a new study.
In a survey involving more than 5,600 Japanese women, almost 50% of the respondents revealed that they wanted longer continuation of intimate interactions with their partner after sex.
In contrast, 44% said they wanted longer foreplay while 38% of women said they wanted longer intercourse.
Despite this, 38.8% said they had never discussed their favourite sexual practices with their partners. Further, over 30% of the women rated their partners’ performance in bed as either "very selfish" (6.9%) or "selfish" (25.5%).
"Women consider longer foreplay and after-play to be more important," the New Zealand Press Association quoted the study as saying. The study, which suggested that women would benefit by being more forthright in expressing their sexual desires to their partners, is published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.
In a survey involving more than 5,600 Japanese women, almost 50% of the respondents revealed that they wanted longer continuation of intimate interactions with their partner after sex.
In contrast, 44% said they wanted longer foreplay while 38% of women said they wanted longer intercourse.
Despite this, 38.8% said they had never discussed their favourite sexual practices with their partners. Further, over 30% of the women rated their partners’ performance in bed as either "very selfish" (6.9%) or "selfish" (25.5%).
"Women consider longer foreplay and after-play to be more important," the New Zealand Press Association quoted the study as saying. The study, which suggested that women would benefit by being more forthright in expressing their sexual desires to their partners, is published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Lifestyle - India;No Potbelly please
Preethi Nagaraj
MYSORE: Pot (beer) belly and flat-foot are a big no-no for Mysore police now. Threat of terror has sturned them into fitness freaks for over a week now.
More than 200 policemen in Mysore --inspectors, sub inspectors and first line constables--- are slogging two hours every morning to make themselves fit. The session, headed Deputy Commissioner of Police V S D' Souza, has brisk walking some four kilometers, trekking or basics of rock climbing and Yoga.
Interestingly, D'Souza, a known teetotaler who took to Yoga early in his life, also assumes their instructor role sometimes. With his experience in the anti-terror squad, D'Souza and the Commissioner of Police Dr S Parashivamurthy have decided to make their constabulary fit as fiddle. More than 300 select policemen have already been put on commando training to manage any emergencies.
An astute follower of Yoga, D'Souza says, Yoga is a complete form of exercise for policemen since it does not exhaust them but makes them alert to perform their duties better.
The sudden love for exercise is borne out of the Mumbai terror attack and threats of terror to Mysore. "Intelligence reports suggest more than 100 persons have entered the country by sea. The officials have been told to keep strict vigil and be prepared for any eventuality. The number of intelligence officials posted across the city has increased, an officer said.
MYSORE: Pot (beer) belly and flat-foot are a big no-no for Mysore police now. Threat of terror has sturned them into fitness freaks for over a week now.
More than 200 policemen in Mysore --inspectors, sub inspectors and first line constables--- are slogging two hours every morning to make themselves fit. The session, headed Deputy Commissioner of Police V S D' Souza, has brisk walking some four kilometers, trekking or basics of rock climbing and Yoga.
Interestingly, D'Souza, a known teetotaler who took to Yoga early in his life, also assumes their instructor role sometimes. With his experience in the anti-terror squad, D'Souza and the Commissioner of Police Dr S Parashivamurthy have decided to make their constabulary fit as fiddle. More than 300 select policemen have already been put on commando training to manage any emergencies.
An astute follower of Yoga, D'Souza says, Yoga is a complete form of exercise for policemen since it does not exhaust them but makes them alert to perform their duties better.
The sudden love for exercise is borne out of the Mumbai terror attack and threats of terror to Mysore. "Intelligence reports suggest more than 100 persons have entered the country by sea. The officials have been told to keep strict vigil and be prepared for any eventuality. The number of intelligence officials posted across the city has increased, an officer said.
Entertainment - NDTV Imagine enters movie production in South
MUMBAI: NDTV Imagine Film Company today announced its foray into movie production in South India with a Tamil action thriller titled 'Madhurai Sambhavam'.
The movie, which is being produced by the company in alliance with Wide Angle Creations, will star Harikumar, Anuya
Bhagwat and Karthika in the lead.
The film is scheduled to go on floors this month and is being shot in Madurai, depicting the distinct flavour of the
region.
The other cast includes Radha Ravi, Raj Kapoor, Kadhal Dhandapani, Ilavarasu, Santhana Barathi, Balu Anand and
Thimiru Mayi.
The flick is being directed by Youreka, who has also written the story, screenplay, dialogues and lyrics of the
movie, while the cinematography is by Sugumar, music by John Peter, stunts by Annal Arasu, choreography by Sudhakar Vasanth
and art direction by Kamal.
Speaking on the venture, Sameer Nair, Director NDTV Imagine Film Company said, "film making is a collaborative
effort, we are extremely happy to have partnered with Wide Angle Creations to mark our foray in the Tamil film industry."
"The team at Wide Angle Creations has created some very good and award winning films in the past, and we are looking
forward to a long and fruitful relationship," he said.
George Pius, who heads Wide Angle Creations said, "the Tamil film industry is seeing an increased level of
participation from corporates who bring with them a much broader platform via which our movies are presented."
"In NDTV Imagine we saw a like minded partner who not only understood the sensibilities but is equally passionate
about cinema," he said.
"As we get into action with 'Madhurai Sambhavam' we have simultaneously started nurturing high concept entertainers
with NDTV Imagine. We could hope to see an interesting bouquet of movies rolling out in times to come," he added.
George Pius has produced films like 'Phir Milenge', 'Chupke Chupke' and 'Malamaal Weekly'.
Apart from this film NDTV Imagine Film Company is partnering with directors and filmmakers of national repute, as well as upcoming talent, he added.
"With over 30 projects in varying stages of development, the film company plans to produce and release 6-8 films in one
year," Nair said.
'Via Darjeeling', produced by the film company was released this year while its underproduction untitled film is
directed by Saurabh Shukla starring Vinay Pathak and Neha Dhupia and is slated for April 2009 release.
The movie, which is being produced by the company in alliance with Wide Angle Creations, will star Harikumar, Anuya
Bhagwat and Karthika in the lead.
The film is scheduled to go on floors this month and is being shot in Madurai, depicting the distinct flavour of the
region.
The other cast includes Radha Ravi, Raj Kapoor, Kadhal Dhandapani, Ilavarasu, Santhana Barathi, Balu Anand and
Thimiru Mayi.
The flick is being directed by Youreka, who has also written the story, screenplay, dialogues and lyrics of the
movie, while the cinematography is by Sugumar, music by John Peter, stunts by Annal Arasu, choreography by Sudhakar Vasanth
and art direction by Kamal.
Speaking on the venture, Sameer Nair, Director NDTV Imagine Film Company said, "film making is a collaborative
effort, we are extremely happy to have partnered with Wide Angle Creations to mark our foray in the Tamil film industry."
"The team at Wide Angle Creations has created some very good and award winning films in the past, and we are looking
forward to a long and fruitful relationship," he said.
George Pius, who heads Wide Angle Creations said, "the Tamil film industry is seeing an increased level of
participation from corporates who bring with them a much broader platform via which our movies are presented."
"In NDTV Imagine we saw a like minded partner who not only understood the sensibilities but is equally passionate
about cinema," he said.
"As we get into action with 'Madhurai Sambhavam' we have simultaneously started nurturing high concept entertainers
with NDTV Imagine. We could hope to see an interesting bouquet of movies rolling out in times to come," he added.
George Pius has produced films like 'Phir Milenge', 'Chupke Chupke' and 'Malamaal Weekly'.
Apart from this film NDTV Imagine Film Company is partnering with directors and filmmakers of national repute, as well as upcoming talent, he added.
"With over 30 projects in varying stages of development, the film company plans to produce and release 6-8 films in one
year," Nair said.
'Via Darjeeling', produced by the film company was released this year while its underproduction untitled film is
directed by Saurabh Shukla starring Vinay Pathak and Neha Dhupia and is slated for April 2009 release.
Sport - Cricket;Mitchell Johnson set to take IPL plunge
MELBOURNE: Now that he has cemented his place in the Australian squad, left-arm pacer Mitchell Johnson is set to take the plunge and join the Indian Premier League.
Rivalling Brett Lee as Australia's most lethal bowler, Johnson is no longer a fringe player. His exploits with the old ball has redefined his role in the side and his manager Sam Halvorsen confirmed the pacer would seek a contract with one of the IPL franchises after skipping last year's auction.
"He was just focused on trying to consolidate his place in the Australian team last year and devote the time to building strength and training and trying and lock in his position long term," Halvorsen told 'The Age'.
"Physically he has become a lot stronger. If they (Australia) go to Pakistan (for an ODI series) they won't be playing anyway, but in the event that they don't...it's an alternative he can handle," said Halvorsen.
The pacer himself feels he is more at peace with his role in the Australian side and that was showing in his performance.
"I don't know if you can call me a senior player but I feel a lot more comfortable and definitely know my role in the team," said Johnson.
"When you start out, you are still working out your role but now I feel I have figured that out and I feel a lot more positive with my bowling. I'm always backing myself now. I just go out and try to win for the team and do my best," he said.
Rivalling Brett Lee as Australia's most lethal bowler, Johnson is no longer a fringe player. His exploits with the old ball has redefined his role in the side and his manager Sam Halvorsen confirmed the pacer would seek a contract with one of the IPL franchises after skipping last year's auction.
"He was just focused on trying to consolidate his place in the Australian team last year and devote the time to building strength and training and trying and lock in his position long term," Halvorsen told 'The Age'.
"Physically he has become a lot stronger. If they (Australia) go to Pakistan (for an ODI series) they won't be playing anyway, but in the event that they don't...it's an alternative he can handle," said Halvorsen.
The pacer himself feels he is more at peace with his role in the Australian side and that was showing in his performance.
"I don't know if you can call me a senior player but I feel a lot more comfortable and definitely know my role in the team," said Johnson.
"When you start out, you are still working out your role but now I feel I have figured that out and I feel a lot more positive with my bowling. I'm always backing myself now. I just go out and try to win for the team and do my best," he said.
Lifestyle - Men prefer Women with long wavy hair
LONDON: Long wavy hair is often said to be the best feminine trait a women can possess. And, now a new study has revealed that blokes get attracted to the fairer sex with a longish mane.
Researchers have based their findings on a survey of 3,000 men, which has found that males prefer women with long wavy hairstyle as they find the tresses the sexiest hairstyle on a blonde.
In the survey, the feminine look worn by television presenter Kelly Brook and X-Factor singer Judge Cheryl Cole came top with a staggering 43 per cent of men voting it their favourite hairdo.
'Friends' actress Jennifer Aniston's long straight hairstyle came second followed by the classic short bob seen on Umbrella singer Rihanna.
Straight mid-length styles, similar to Radio One host Fearne Cotton and actress Gwyneth Paltrow came fourth while the pixie crop, famously sported by Victoria Beckham finished the top five, the British media reported.
"Hair is such a defining part of a woman's appearance. Long hair is traditionally strongly linked to femininity which we're sure is the reason that almost half of men have singled out this long, wavy hair as their number one sexiest style.
Despite men choosing long, natural looking wavy hair as their top style, most women would have to create this style using styling tools as not many are naturally blessed with these lovely locks.
It's interesting to see that men still favour the traditional stereotypical looks for women, with long hair coming out on top despite the massive popularity of shorter styles like 'the Bob' and Agyness Deyn style crops with women," Karen Moore of TRESemme Philips hair appliances said.
Surprisingly though, men claim to prefer the natural look when it comes to styling, with more than a third saying they hate it when women have perfectly groomed hair. Men also appeared to have a strong preference for shiny hair -- with 72 per cent billing it as sexy over hair without gloss.
Moore added: "While men strongly favour the soft, natural, touchable styles over smarter, groomed looks, little do they know that these long luscious curls and straight sleek styles are the ones which take the most effort to achieve.
"Women everywhere rely on the innovation of hair dryers, straighteners and tongs as well as styling products to get these effects. Men should be greatful that new technology means creating these styles is easier than ever compared to
years gone by -- or the wait would've been longer, while their other halves got ready."
Half of the men questioned also said they like girls who wear their hair down rather than in a smart up-do. Other styles to feature in the poll was the bowl cut, recently worn by Katie Holmes, and the 1960s beehive, seen on actress and model Brigitte Bardot.
Researchers have based their findings on a survey of 3,000 men, which has found that males prefer women with long wavy hairstyle as they find the tresses the sexiest hairstyle on a blonde.
In the survey, the feminine look worn by television presenter Kelly Brook and X-Factor singer Judge Cheryl Cole came top with a staggering 43 per cent of men voting it their favourite hairdo.
'Friends' actress Jennifer Aniston's long straight hairstyle came second followed by the classic short bob seen on Umbrella singer Rihanna.
Straight mid-length styles, similar to Radio One host Fearne Cotton and actress Gwyneth Paltrow came fourth while the pixie crop, famously sported by Victoria Beckham finished the top five, the British media reported.
"Hair is such a defining part of a woman's appearance. Long hair is traditionally strongly linked to femininity which we're sure is the reason that almost half of men have singled out this long, wavy hair as their number one sexiest style.
Despite men choosing long, natural looking wavy hair as their top style, most women would have to create this style using styling tools as not many are naturally blessed with these lovely locks.
It's interesting to see that men still favour the traditional stereotypical looks for women, with long hair coming out on top despite the massive popularity of shorter styles like 'the Bob' and Agyness Deyn style crops with women," Karen Moore of TRESemme Philips hair appliances said.
Surprisingly though, men claim to prefer the natural look when it comes to styling, with more than a third saying they hate it when women have perfectly groomed hair. Men also appeared to have a strong preference for shiny hair -- with 72 per cent billing it as sexy over hair without gloss.
Moore added: "While men strongly favour the soft, natural, touchable styles over smarter, groomed looks, little do they know that these long luscious curls and straight sleek styles are the ones which take the most effort to achieve.
"Women everywhere rely on the innovation of hair dryers, straighteners and tongs as well as styling products to get these effects. Men should be greatful that new technology means creating these styles is easier than ever compared to
years gone by -- or the wait would've been longer, while their other halves got ready."
Half of the men questioned also said they like girls who wear their hair down rather than in a smart up-do. Other styles to feature in the poll was the bowl cut, recently worn by Katie Holmes, and the 1960s beehive, seen on actress and model Brigitte Bardot.
Business - TAG Heuer to retail products online
Suvi Dogra
Bullish on the potential of the internet as an economical selling and distribution model besides a potent marketing one, Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer — part of French luxury goods group Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) — is planning to retail its products online.
The move also follows on the back of the worldwide slowdown and the company's plans to go slow on establishing new Tag Heuer exclusive boutiques. “We don't have enough boutiques across the globe to retail these exclusive products. And we don't want to sell them through the watch and jewellery stores as they are more mass channels,” said Jean-Christophe Babin, president and CEO, TAG Heuer.
The company wants to develop high-end luxury accessories for exclusive retailing though the internet. “We are exploring the opportunity to sell not only our mobile phones but also exclusive luxury items and techno-design accessories developed especially for retailing through the internet,” said Babin.
TAG Heuer has already designed memory sticks, external hardware and other techno-accessories for men. “These accessories are made with advanced technology from the TAG Heuer stables and we are currently testing these products,” he added. The company also hopes that given the small size of these new products, the shipping charges will be less and not act as a deterrent to online selling.
Globally, TAG Heuer has already forayed into the e-commerce arena by tying up with select online retailers to sell its watches — an initiative that made it the first brand to offer an entire line of luxury watches for secure purchase online. The company plans to capitalise on internet advertising in a more focused manner. While traditional channels are still growing, internet advertising has witnessed around 40 per cent growth, according to industry estimates.
“An average person spends two hours on the internet and 10 minutes reading newspapers. Therefore, in terms of advertising, it is natural to divert some of your money to internet channels,” Babin said.
TAG Heuer recently launched its online campaign in the country wherein one can see the TAG logo displayed on select web portals. The company has also displayed an analog clock with its logo telling corporate executives to ‘tag’ with TAG Heuer time on websites such as Google, MSN Lifestyle and others.
Despite the economic slowdown, Tag Heuer registered a double-digit growth in the country, becoming the third-largest brand in the country. “Our average purchase value has gone up from Rs 45,000 to above Rs 100,000, an indication of what our growth prospects are in the country,” said Babin.
The company retails in 24 cities, through 74 outlets in the country and sold around 11,000 watches last year.
Bullish on the potential of the internet as an economical selling and distribution model besides a potent marketing one, Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer — part of French luxury goods group Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) — is planning to retail its products online.
The move also follows on the back of the worldwide slowdown and the company's plans to go slow on establishing new Tag Heuer exclusive boutiques. “We don't have enough boutiques across the globe to retail these exclusive products. And we don't want to sell them through the watch and jewellery stores as they are more mass channels,” said Jean-Christophe Babin, president and CEO, TAG Heuer.
The company wants to develop high-end luxury accessories for exclusive retailing though the internet. “We are exploring the opportunity to sell not only our mobile phones but also exclusive luxury items and techno-design accessories developed especially for retailing through the internet,” said Babin.
TAG Heuer has already designed memory sticks, external hardware and other techno-accessories for men. “These accessories are made with advanced technology from the TAG Heuer stables and we are currently testing these products,” he added. The company also hopes that given the small size of these new products, the shipping charges will be less and not act as a deterrent to online selling.
Globally, TAG Heuer has already forayed into the e-commerce arena by tying up with select online retailers to sell its watches — an initiative that made it the first brand to offer an entire line of luxury watches for secure purchase online. The company plans to capitalise on internet advertising in a more focused manner. While traditional channels are still growing, internet advertising has witnessed around 40 per cent growth, according to industry estimates.
“An average person spends two hours on the internet and 10 minutes reading newspapers. Therefore, in terms of advertising, it is natural to divert some of your money to internet channels,” Babin said.
TAG Heuer recently launched its online campaign in the country wherein one can see the TAG logo displayed on select web portals. The company has also displayed an analog clock with its logo telling corporate executives to ‘tag’ with TAG Heuer time on websites such as Google, MSN Lifestyle and others.
Despite the economic slowdown, Tag Heuer registered a double-digit growth in the country, becoming the third-largest brand in the country. “Our average purchase value has gone up from Rs 45,000 to above Rs 100,000, an indication of what our growth prospects are in the country,” said Babin.
The company retails in 24 cities, through 74 outlets in the country and sold around 11,000 watches last year.
Business - India;Companies line up single malts for connoisseurs
Suvi Dogra
United Spirits, Diageo, Moet Hennessey and Pernod Ricard have launched over half a dozen brands. More will follow.
There is more Johnnie Walker sold in India than is made in the whole of Scotland, so the joke went. The imbedded point was, Indians only knew of one Scotch whisky: Johnnie Walker.
That was some years ago. With economic advancement has come refinement. Well-heeled Indians now look for something above the ordinary in their Scotch. Result? The market for single malts — the glamour boy of scotch whisky — has begun to gather steam.
Large players like United Spirits, Diageo, Moet Hennessey and Pernod Ricard have started to push their single malt brands in the country.
Single malt Scotch is distilled from a single malted grain, barley, and is not mixed with whisky from any other distillery, while blended Scotch contains a combination of whiskies from over 50 different malt and grain distilleries. The percentage of malt used determines the quality and smoothness of taste and character of the Scotch. The normal ratio of malt to grain is 40 malt and 60 per cent grain.
Currently, the single malt market in the country is pegged at around 30,000 cases per year and is estimated to be growing at 15-20 per cent annually. Clearly, it caters to the high-end of the liquor market. “It is still a niche category in India, though it has picked up pace and is likely to register better growth in the coming years,” says All India Distillers’ Association Director General VN Raina.
After it acquired Whyte & Mackay last year, the Vijay Mallya-controlled United Spirits has introduced the 160-year old popular single malt Scotch The Dalmore. There are three variants – the Dalmore 12 Year Old, The Dalmore Gran Reserva and The Rare Dalmore 40 Year Old, priced at Rs 4,450, Rs 5,500 and Rs 2.5 lakh, respectively. The company will next introduce Isle of Jura 40 and Dalmore 1973.
The company has also revamped the packaging for Dalmore to make it visually more appealing. “The new packaging will act as an interface between luxury and the consumer. The stag head on the Dalmore exudes a more masculine appeal. The use of this unique iconography will give exceptional shelf stand-out in both on- and off-trade,” says United Spirits Business Head (luxury brands) Anant Iyer.
Diageo, which boasts of a wide range of malts in its international portfolio, has already introduced Talisker 18 Year Old (Rs 6,352) and Lagavulin 16 Year Old (Rs 6,408) in India. With the aim to introduce one malt from every region of Scotland, Diageo has expanded its Indian portfolio with brands such as Cragganmore, Caol Ila, Glen Ord, Glen Elgin, Clynelish, Cardhu, Glenkinchie and Singleton of Glen Ord. The brands are at present available in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad at hotels and through Johnnie Walker Select stores.
“While the seasoned scotch consumer will continue to fuel the demand for single malts, we hope to educate other discerning consumers and gradually ease them into malt drinking,” says Diageo India Director (marketing) Santosh Kanekar. “With the Customs duty down, the sales of malts have only helped grow the market.” Single malts already contribute 15 per cent to the total sales from the reserve division (luxury division) for Diageo.
Players like Moet Hennessy and Pernod Ricard too are present in the category with Glenmorangie and The Glenlivet, respectively. Duty-free stores, hotels and high-end restaurants continue to be the favoured channels of sales for these high-end brands. “The consumer today is willing to understand and experiment with malts. Hence, it is not hard to find people willing to spend the same amount of money on a glass of a luxury brand for which they could have bought 3-4 glasses of blended scotch,” notes an industry observer.
United Spirits, Diageo, Moet Hennessey and Pernod Ricard have launched over half a dozen brands. More will follow.
There is more Johnnie Walker sold in India than is made in the whole of Scotland, so the joke went. The imbedded point was, Indians only knew of one Scotch whisky: Johnnie Walker.
That was some years ago. With economic advancement has come refinement. Well-heeled Indians now look for something above the ordinary in their Scotch. Result? The market for single malts — the glamour boy of scotch whisky — has begun to gather steam.
Large players like United Spirits, Diageo, Moet Hennessey and Pernod Ricard have started to push their single malt brands in the country.
Single malt Scotch is distilled from a single malted grain, barley, and is not mixed with whisky from any other distillery, while blended Scotch contains a combination of whiskies from over 50 different malt and grain distilleries. The percentage of malt used determines the quality and smoothness of taste and character of the Scotch. The normal ratio of malt to grain is 40 malt and 60 per cent grain.
Currently, the single malt market in the country is pegged at around 30,000 cases per year and is estimated to be growing at 15-20 per cent annually. Clearly, it caters to the high-end of the liquor market. “It is still a niche category in India, though it has picked up pace and is likely to register better growth in the coming years,” says All India Distillers’ Association Director General VN Raina.
After it acquired Whyte & Mackay last year, the Vijay Mallya-controlled United Spirits has introduced the 160-year old popular single malt Scotch The Dalmore. There are three variants – the Dalmore 12 Year Old, The Dalmore Gran Reserva and The Rare Dalmore 40 Year Old, priced at Rs 4,450, Rs 5,500 and Rs 2.5 lakh, respectively. The company will next introduce Isle of Jura 40 and Dalmore 1973.
The company has also revamped the packaging for Dalmore to make it visually more appealing. “The new packaging will act as an interface between luxury and the consumer. The stag head on the Dalmore exudes a more masculine appeal. The use of this unique iconography will give exceptional shelf stand-out in both on- and off-trade,” says United Spirits Business Head (luxury brands) Anant Iyer.
Diageo, which boasts of a wide range of malts in its international portfolio, has already introduced Talisker 18 Year Old (Rs 6,352) and Lagavulin 16 Year Old (Rs 6,408) in India. With the aim to introduce one malt from every region of Scotland, Diageo has expanded its Indian portfolio with brands such as Cragganmore, Caol Ila, Glen Ord, Glen Elgin, Clynelish, Cardhu, Glenkinchie and Singleton of Glen Ord. The brands are at present available in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad at hotels and through Johnnie Walker Select stores.
“While the seasoned scotch consumer will continue to fuel the demand for single malts, we hope to educate other discerning consumers and gradually ease them into malt drinking,” says Diageo India Director (marketing) Santosh Kanekar. “With the Customs duty down, the sales of malts have only helped grow the market.” Single malts already contribute 15 per cent to the total sales from the reserve division (luxury division) for Diageo.
Players like Moet Hennessy and Pernod Ricard too are present in the category with Glenmorangie and The Glenlivet, respectively. Duty-free stores, hotels and high-end restaurants continue to be the favoured channels of sales for these high-end brands. “The consumer today is willing to understand and experiment with malts. Hence, it is not hard to find people willing to spend the same amount of money on a glass of a luxury brand for which they could have bought 3-4 glasses of blended scotch,” notes an industry observer.
Business - India;FMCG companies turn the heat on retailers
Sapna Agarwal & Raghavendra Kamath
Slash supplies to payment defaulters.
Major fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies such as Godrej, Marico and Dabur have curtailed supplies to select leading modern trade retailers, following default in payments.
"We have curtailed supplies to those modern retailers who are not paying according to terms of the contract," confirmed Adi Godrej, chairman, Godrej Group. He, however, was reluctant to share names of the companies that are defaulting on grounds that these are "long-term relationships". Marico's Chief Executive Officer (Consumer Products Business) Saugata Gupta, too, affirmed that his company was being cautious in dealings with such retailers. "Select retailers are facing liquidity problems and we are being cautious in our dealings with them," he said.
FMCG companies work on tight credit cycles. On the other hand, modern trade retailers such as Aditya Birla Group's More, RPG's Spencer, Mukesh Ambani group's Reliance Fresh, Subhiksha and Vishal have been expanding aggressively over the last couple of years.
Due to the economic slowdown and tight credit squeeze, "a few retailers are seeing their working capital cycles get stretched as they struggle with high real estate, rental prices and face a slowdown in business offtake," explained Anand Shah, an FMCG sector analyst with Angel Broking.
Purnendu Kumar of business consultancy firm Technopak Advisors noted, "The working capital for retailers is normally stuck for one or two months as retailers expand their stores, buy inventories and book properties."
To beat the liquidity crunch and to stay afloat, modern trade retailers are now looking at getting more bargaining power with FMCG companies. "We are negotiating for credit lines of a month with FMCG companies and two-and-a-half months with apparel and other suppliers," said Manmohan Agarwal, chief executive, corporate affairs at Delhi-based Vishal Retail.
FMCG companies, on their part, are doubtful of certain business models of modern retailers. For instance, most retailers such as Subhiksha and Reliance Fresh have their presence in close proximity to each other.
"Organised retailers are competing for a limited density of population in a crowded market space. Hence, they have a low velocity in movement of goods and are facing payment issues," explains an executive from a leading FMCG company who has also curtailed supplies to select stores and certain retail chains.
A McKinsey report states that organised retailing accounts for around 5 per cent of the estimated $350-billion Indian retail market, and is expected to expand its share to 14-18 per cent by 2015.
"The tug of war between FMCG and retail sectors will continue as modern trade picks up in the country and we ask for better terms and conditions," says Agarwal.
Meanwhile, consumers visiting modern retail outlets may find their favourite brands at their neighbourhood kirana stores rather than the major retail outlets.
Slash supplies to payment defaulters.
Major fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies such as Godrej, Marico and Dabur have curtailed supplies to select leading modern trade retailers, following default in payments.
"We have curtailed supplies to those modern retailers who are not paying according to terms of the contract," confirmed Adi Godrej, chairman, Godrej Group. He, however, was reluctant to share names of the companies that are defaulting on grounds that these are "long-term relationships". Marico's Chief Executive Officer (Consumer Products Business) Saugata Gupta, too, affirmed that his company was being cautious in dealings with such retailers. "Select retailers are facing liquidity problems and we are being cautious in our dealings with them," he said.
FMCG companies work on tight credit cycles. On the other hand, modern trade retailers such as Aditya Birla Group's More, RPG's Spencer, Mukesh Ambani group's Reliance Fresh, Subhiksha and Vishal have been expanding aggressively over the last couple of years.
Due to the economic slowdown and tight credit squeeze, "a few retailers are seeing their working capital cycles get stretched as they struggle with high real estate, rental prices and face a slowdown in business offtake," explained Anand Shah, an FMCG sector analyst with Angel Broking.
Purnendu Kumar of business consultancy firm Technopak Advisors noted, "The working capital for retailers is normally stuck for one or two months as retailers expand their stores, buy inventories and book properties."
To beat the liquidity crunch and to stay afloat, modern trade retailers are now looking at getting more bargaining power with FMCG companies. "We are negotiating for credit lines of a month with FMCG companies and two-and-a-half months with apparel and other suppliers," said Manmohan Agarwal, chief executive, corporate affairs at Delhi-based Vishal Retail.
FMCG companies, on their part, are doubtful of certain business models of modern retailers. For instance, most retailers such as Subhiksha and Reliance Fresh have their presence in close proximity to each other.
"Organised retailers are competing for a limited density of population in a crowded market space. Hence, they have a low velocity in movement of goods and are facing payment issues," explains an executive from a leading FMCG company who has also curtailed supplies to select stores and certain retail chains.
A McKinsey report states that organised retailing accounts for around 5 per cent of the estimated $350-billion Indian retail market, and is expected to expand its share to 14-18 per cent by 2015.
"The tug of war between FMCG and retail sectors will continue as modern trade picks up in the country and we ask for better terms and conditions," says Agarwal.
Meanwhile, consumers visiting modern retail outlets may find their favourite brands at their neighbourhood kirana stores rather than the major retail outlets.
Entertainment - Discovery in India
K Rajani Kanth
Discovery Channel is piggybacking on Ultimate Discovery – a one-hour time band programme that airs shows ranging from science, technology, history, natural world, adventure and exploration from 9 pm to 10 pm every day – to increase its eyeball tally in India.
“In six weeks of the launch of Ultimate Discovery on October 1 this year, about 19 million people watched the programme, increasing Discovery’s viewership by 18 per cent in India. Besides, our viewership grew 25 per cent in the 9 pm slot post the launch of Ultimate Discovery. We want to capitalise on this by airing 11 refreshing insightful shows on Ultimate Discovery that will take viewers on an uncharted journey into the real world,” Rajiv Bakshi, director (marketing and communications), Discovery Networks (Asia Pacific), told Business Standard.
The new genre-defining programmes that are slated to be premiered in India between January and March 2009 include Discover India, a 13-title show that travels across the diverse landscapes of India narrating festivities of Diwali, the gripping story of a girl with eight limbs, the beauty of Ladakh and an account of the highly controversial career of Indian cricket team’s former coach Guru Greg.
Also on offer are Cool Stuff-How It Works that unravels the hidden facts about how some amazing inventions work including exploring the mechanics of a wingless human flight in a giant wind tunnel, how a 3D ultrasound has revolutionised hear surgery and how fire-proof suits withstand 2000-degree flames, and Into the Unknown with Josh Bernstein, where this international explorer takes the viewers on a journey to remote locations filled with mystery and hidden treasures.
The non-fiction entertainment channel had started a nationwide campaign – TV, print, online and 20 outdoor tours – with a tagline ‘Real World Real Entertainment’ from December 8 to promote its new offering. The channel, which reaches out to over 36 million households in India, is now ahead of NDTV by 268 per cent and has got 3.5 times higher viewership than CNN-IBN in the 9 pm band post Ultimate Discovery. Its lead over Star Movies has jumped from 35 per cent to 53 per cent, according to Television Audience Measurement (TAM) India data.
“We have always been ahead of all the English-genre channels in India. While our market share stood at 15 per cent for the whole of 2007, we have already surpassed 18 per cent so far this year. We expect this to grow further through Ultimate Discovery,” Bakshi said.
What’s next for India after March? “We will be starting a new programme – Time Warp – in the next two quarters that shows the secrets of everyday events in slow motion – from capturing the force as a face is punched, what happens when a matchstick snaps and how a runner avoids breaking his legs after a two-storey leap,” he added.
Discovery Channel is piggybacking on Ultimate Discovery – a one-hour time band programme that airs shows ranging from science, technology, history, natural world, adventure and exploration from 9 pm to 10 pm every day – to increase its eyeball tally in India.
“In six weeks of the launch of Ultimate Discovery on October 1 this year, about 19 million people watched the programme, increasing Discovery’s viewership by 18 per cent in India. Besides, our viewership grew 25 per cent in the 9 pm slot post the launch of Ultimate Discovery. We want to capitalise on this by airing 11 refreshing insightful shows on Ultimate Discovery that will take viewers on an uncharted journey into the real world,” Rajiv Bakshi, director (marketing and communications), Discovery Networks (Asia Pacific), told Business Standard.
The new genre-defining programmes that are slated to be premiered in India between January and March 2009 include Discover India, a 13-title show that travels across the diverse landscapes of India narrating festivities of Diwali, the gripping story of a girl with eight limbs, the beauty of Ladakh and an account of the highly controversial career of Indian cricket team’s former coach Guru Greg.
Also on offer are Cool Stuff-How It Works that unravels the hidden facts about how some amazing inventions work including exploring the mechanics of a wingless human flight in a giant wind tunnel, how a 3D ultrasound has revolutionised hear surgery and how fire-proof suits withstand 2000-degree flames, and Into the Unknown with Josh Bernstein, where this international explorer takes the viewers on a journey to remote locations filled with mystery and hidden treasures.
The non-fiction entertainment channel had started a nationwide campaign – TV, print, online and 20 outdoor tours – with a tagline ‘Real World Real Entertainment’ from December 8 to promote its new offering. The channel, which reaches out to over 36 million households in India, is now ahead of NDTV by 268 per cent and has got 3.5 times higher viewership than CNN-IBN in the 9 pm band post Ultimate Discovery. Its lead over Star Movies has jumped from 35 per cent to 53 per cent, according to Television Audience Measurement (TAM) India data.
“We have always been ahead of all the English-genre channels in India. While our market share stood at 15 per cent for the whole of 2007, we have already surpassed 18 per cent so far this year. We expect this to grow further through Ultimate Discovery,” Bakshi said.
What’s next for India after March? “We will be starting a new programme – Time Warp – in the next two quarters that shows the secrets of everyday events in slow motion – from capturing the force as a face is punched, what happens when a matchstick snaps and how a runner avoids breaking his legs after a two-storey leap,” he added.
India - Phase III FM radio: Operators will have to bear infrastructure costs
The government has said that in Phase III of private FM radio licensing, since there are many cities where the land and towers of Prasar Bharati are not available, the cost of collocation and common tower infrastructure (CTI) will have to be borne by the private operators.
Prasar Bharati infrastructure was available at almost all places in Phase II. At the five places where the infrastructure was not available, the government provided the money to set it up. That will not happen in Phase III, it says now.
In its earlier recommendations, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had said that all successful bidders should be mandated to collocate their transmitters within the existing facilities of All India Radio (AIR), if available.
And if AIR facilities are not available, TRAI said that the successful bidders could form a consortium and set up the required infrastructure for the collocation of all the transmitters identified for that district. They could also mutually decide infrastructure sharing methodology, a commercial revenue-sharing model, a service-level agreement and the methodology for the upkeep of such infrastructure within a period of three months.
During this setup, if there is no consensus among the successful bidders on the various issues regarding the collocation and erection of towers, then all the successful bidders should be mandated to have collocation with facilities to be developed by Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd (BECIL).
Nevertheless, the government has affirmed that in cities where there is a vacant channel from Phase II and CTI has been created by BECIL, no such choice can be given and collocation at that site and utilisation of the CTI there will be mandatory.
Prasar Bharati infrastructure was available at almost all places in Phase II. At the five places where the infrastructure was not available, the government provided the money to set it up. That will not happen in Phase III, it says now.
In its earlier recommendations, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had said that all successful bidders should be mandated to collocate their transmitters within the existing facilities of All India Radio (AIR), if available.
And if AIR facilities are not available, TRAI said that the successful bidders could form a consortium and set up the required infrastructure for the collocation of all the transmitters identified for that district. They could also mutually decide infrastructure sharing methodology, a commercial revenue-sharing model, a service-level agreement and the methodology for the upkeep of such infrastructure within a period of three months.
During this setup, if there is no consensus among the successful bidders on the various issues regarding the collocation and erection of towers, then all the successful bidders should be mandated to have collocation with facilities to be developed by Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd (BECIL).
Nevertheless, the government has affirmed that in cities where there is a vacant channel from Phase II and CTI has been created by BECIL, no such choice can be given and collocation at that site and utilisation of the CTI there will be mandatory.
Mktg - India;JuxtConsult builds online research panel of 115,000 consumers
Kapil Ohri
The market research company, JuxtConsult, has created an online panel of more than 115,000 members in India. The company claims that when extrapolated on the basis of the Government of India’s Census data, the panel is capable of representing 86 per cent of the total urban population, currently 337 million people.
Speaking to afaqs!, Sanjay Tiwari, director, JuxtConsult, says, “We will use this panel to carry out our online market research studies and also offer it to other market research firms, consumer brands and advertising agencies, which can use it to run their own consumer market surveys over the Internet.”
Tiwari explains, “We position our panel as a set of consumers who are available online and ready to undertake any type of consumer surveys administered through the Internet. Their online availability should not be confused with the fact that they can participate in surveys which require Internet users.”
He adds, “Various types of surveys such as brand-track, ad-track, consumer satisfaction and product usage can be carried out through our panel. Nokia, Virgin Mobile and LG have already started using our panel to carry out their customised consumer surveys on the Internet. JWT Singapore is also using it for a survey in India.”
JuxtConsult reveals that the panel consists of 88,383 men and 17,038 women. Around 40,899 members of the panel are aged 18-24, while 38,638 members are aged 25-34. Some 59,508 members belong to SEC A, while 29,190 members belong to SEC B. Around 54,081 members stay in towns with 10 lakh+ population. The panel has representation from all parts of India with 40,428 members from West India, 27,959 from North India and the rest from East and South India.
Apart from collecting the geographic, demographic and psychographic details of its panellists, JuxtConsult is also gathering information such as housing, family composition, shopping, vehicle ownership, mobile ownership, health, traditional media usage and brand preferences.
Tiwari says, “We have collected more details of the panellists because we want to enable our clients to pick up more targeted or precise samples of respondents on whom they want to administer their survey and make it more representative. In random sampling, you can easily pick up the wrong set of respondents.”
As a market research firm, JuxtConsult is offering a complete online survey package to it clients: It designs the study, administers the survey using its panel and provides the client an analytical report at the end of the exercise. If a market research firm, ad agency or consumer brand wants to use its panel to only administer its online survey, the company charges them according to the number of respondents it uses in the study.
JuxtConsult is using a website called GetCounted.net to build its online panel. Interested consumers can register with the site and opt to become a part of the panel and participate in online market surveys. Once registered, a consumer can log in on GetCounted.net and check out the various surveys being carried out at that moment. To make sure that a consumer does not participate twice in a survey, JuxtConsult is using a technology which displays the survey only till such time as the consumer has not participated in it.
The company offers financial incentives, such as monthly prizes, to keep the respondents motivated to participate in surveys.
JuxtConsult is promoting GetCounted.net through search marketing. It is using the Google AdWords program to advertise GetCounted.net across various websites and publishers in India. The company claims that it is adding 10,000 members every month to the panel.
In the future, JuxtConsult will use the same panel to figure out Internet audience measurement and traffic trends as well.
The market research company, JuxtConsult, has created an online panel of more than 115,000 members in India. The company claims that when extrapolated on the basis of the Government of India’s Census data, the panel is capable of representing 86 per cent of the total urban population, currently 337 million people.
Speaking to afaqs!, Sanjay Tiwari, director, JuxtConsult, says, “We will use this panel to carry out our online market research studies and also offer it to other market research firms, consumer brands and advertising agencies, which can use it to run their own consumer market surveys over the Internet.”
Tiwari explains, “We position our panel as a set of consumers who are available online and ready to undertake any type of consumer surveys administered through the Internet. Their online availability should not be confused with the fact that they can participate in surveys which require Internet users.”
He adds, “Various types of surveys such as brand-track, ad-track, consumer satisfaction and product usage can be carried out through our panel. Nokia, Virgin Mobile and LG have already started using our panel to carry out their customised consumer surveys on the Internet. JWT Singapore is also using it for a survey in India.”
JuxtConsult reveals that the panel consists of 88,383 men and 17,038 women. Around 40,899 members of the panel are aged 18-24, while 38,638 members are aged 25-34. Some 59,508 members belong to SEC A, while 29,190 members belong to SEC B. Around 54,081 members stay in towns with 10 lakh+ population. The panel has representation from all parts of India with 40,428 members from West India, 27,959 from North India and the rest from East and South India.
Apart from collecting the geographic, demographic and psychographic details of its panellists, JuxtConsult is also gathering information such as housing, family composition, shopping, vehicle ownership, mobile ownership, health, traditional media usage and brand preferences.
Tiwari says, “We have collected more details of the panellists because we want to enable our clients to pick up more targeted or precise samples of respondents on whom they want to administer their survey and make it more representative. In random sampling, you can easily pick up the wrong set of respondents.”
As a market research firm, JuxtConsult is offering a complete online survey package to it clients: It designs the study, administers the survey using its panel and provides the client an analytical report at the end of the exercise. If a market research firm, ad agency or consumer brand wants to use its panel to only administer its online survey, the company charges them according to the number of respondents it uses in the study.
JuxtConsult is using a website called GetCounted.net to build its online panel. Interested consumers can register with the site and opt to become a part of the panel and participate in online market surveys. Once registered, a consumer can log in on GetCounted.net and check out the various surveys being carried out at that moment. To make sure that a consumer does not participate twice in a survey, JuxtConsult is using a technology which displays the survey only till such time as the consumer has not participated in it.
The company offers financial incentives, such as monthly prizes, to keep the respondents motivated to participate in surveys.
JuxtConsult is promoting GetCounted.net through search marketing. It is using the Google AdWords program to advertise GetCounted.net across various websites and publishers in India. The company claims that it is adding 10,000 members every month to the panel.
In the future, JuxtConsult will use the same panel to figure out Internet audience measurement and traffic trends as well.
Mktg - Battle against terror goes ‘outdoor’ in Mumbai
Surina Sayal
Following the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, angry citizens are venting their feelings and opinions in the form of blogs, candlelight vigils and protests. Now, hoardings about fighting terrorism have sprung up across the city.
One of the first messages seen on hoardings read “Enough is Enough” and announced the peace rally held on December 3 at the Gateway of India, close to the Taj Hotel, where one of the terror attacks took place. The hoarding generated a buzz because it featured the name of no brand, company or person. Citizens gathered at the Gateway of India in large numbers with handheld signs and candles, voicing their views on the attacks.
DNA has launched a campaign in Mumbai, putting up hoardings that read “Enough of tolerance? Speak up.” and “Spirit of Mumbai. For how long?” The campaign, which is called DNA Eyes and Ears – People Protection Group, will provide people with a fast and decisive means of getting in touch with the concerned authorities in a crisis situation.
Sheena Saji, head, marketing, DNA, says, “We wanted people to write back and get involved. We wanted to reach out to people – to do something for the city. Instead of running from pillar to post, all a citizen now has to do is send an SMS to DNA and we'll check up on the complaint.”
Saji adds that print was used for the campaign, but since Mumbai does not imply only DNA readers, outdoor was also used significantly to reach out to as many people as possible.
The Times of India, too, has launched an outdoor campaign, with the hoarding saying, “Mumbai cares. Because all we have is us.” The campaign encourages people to contribute in terms of time and money.
These campaigns have made use of other media as well. So, why the focus on outdoor? Jayanta Sengupta, director, Skills Bridge, brand consultancy, says simply, “For the same reason that they would advertise any other product or service. Outdoor ensures very quick visibility and is literally an 'in your face' medium.”
He adds, “The effectiveness of the outdoor medium does not vary with the nature of the message. The way the lay audience consumes media is independent of the message – the only determinant in consuming behaviour is timing. The horrible incidents in Mumbai are highly top-of-mind now and if a brand wishes to do something about it, this is a good time to send out a message. Three months later, it will be old hat.”
Nabendu Bhattacharyya, president, Ogilvy Action, believes that the hoarding campaigns have helped create awareness. “In fact, internationally, they put up images of terrorists on hoardings so people know who the perpetrators are,” he says.
Bhattacharyya says that he thinks that the hoardings need to be much more interactive. They can be placed at high congregation points such as railway stations, malls and multiplexes. At malls and multiplexes, a small stall can be put up to inform the public of any development and to remind them to be patient during security checks.
The Mumbai hoardings are proof that whether they sport commercial messages or social messages, the power of the outdoor medium cannot be underestimated.
Following the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, angry citizens are venting their feelings and opinions in the form of blogs, candlelight vigils and protests. Now, hoardings about fighting terrorism have sprung up across the city.
One of the first messages seen on hoardings read “Enough is Enough” and announced the peace rally held on December 3 at the Gateway of India, close to the Taj Hotel, where one of the terror attacks took place. The hoarding generated a buzz because it featured the name of no brand, company or person. Citizens gathered at the Gateway of India in large numbers with handheld signs and candles, voicing their views on the attacks.
DNA has launched a campaign in Mumbai, putting up hoardings that read “Enough of tolerance? Speak up.” and “Spirit of Mumbai. For how long?” The campaign, which is called DNA Eyes and Ears – People Protection Group, will provide people with a fast and decisive means of getting in touch with the concerned authorities in a crisis situation.
Sheena Saji, head, marketing, DNA, says, “We wanted people to write back and get involved. We wanted to reach out to people – to do something for the city. Instead of running from pillar to post, all a citizen now has to do is send an SMS to DNA and we'll check up on the complaint.”
Saji adds that print was used for the campaign, but since Mumbai does not imply only DNA readers, outdoor was also used significantly to reach out to as many people as possible.
The Times of India, too, has launched an outdoor campaign, with the hoarding saying, “Mumbai cares. Because all we have is us.” The campaign encourages people to contribute in terms of time and money.
These campaigns have made use of other media as well. So, why the focus on outdoor? Jayanta Sengupta, director, Skills Bridge, brand consultancy, says simply, “For the same reason that they would advertise any other product or service. Outdoor ensures very quick visibility and is literally an 'in your face' medium.”
He adds, “The effectiveness of the outdoor medium does not vary with the nature of the message. The way the lay audience consumes media is independent of the message – the only determinant in consuming behaviour is timing. The horrible incidents in Mumbai are highly top-of-mind now and if a brand wishes to do something about it, this is a good time to send out a message. Three months later, it will be old hat.”
Nabendu Bhattacharyya, president, Ogilvy Action, believes that the hoarding campaigns have helped create awareness. “In fact, internationally, they put up images of terrorists on hoardings so people know who the perpetrators are,” he says.
Bhattacharyya says that he thinks that the hoardings need to be much more interactive. They can be placed at high congregation points such as railway stations, malls and multiplexes. At malls and multiplexes, a small stall can be put up to inform the public of any development and to remind them to be patient during security checks.
The Mumbai hoardings are proof that whether they sport commercial messages or social messages, the power of the outdoor medium cannot be underestimated.
Entertainment - India;GECs back with a bang
Sapna Nair
Following the lull that resulted from the producers-workers’ stand-off, which led to a blackout of fresh content, general entertainment channels (GECs) have launched new shows and are expected to launch more in the coming weeks.
All the GECs had to put their new programming lineups on hold, courtesy the strike. Now, the last two weeks have seen new launches in the genre. Colors has four new shows in its programming basket – two fiction shows and two reality shows.
On December 1, Colors launched Uttaran (a story about an underprivileged child and her dreams) and Jaane Kya Baat Hui (a drama about a married woman who takes a lover), to replace Bigg Boss, which ended on a high note on November 22 during the strike.
Colors will also launch two reality shows, Dancing Queen and Chhote Miyan, which will be aired on weekends. Dancing Queen is a dance reality show featuring women celebrities paired with ordinary people, while Chhote Miyan will have kids unleashing their humour quotient.
“We wanted to launch these shows in phases, but because of the strike, we had to hold them back,” says Ashwini Yardi, programming head, Colors.
STAR Plus phased out two of its daily soaps, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi (KSBKBT) and Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki. It had to wait through the dispute period to replace one of them. Aap Ki Kachehri, a reality show in which supercop Kiran Bedi helps to settle social and moral disputes, was launched on the day fresh content returned on the GECs. It replaces KSBKBT.
Zee TV launched a new show, Chhoti Bahu, in its 7.30 pm slot on weekdays. This, too, was scheduled to be launched earlier, but was put on hold until the strike was called off. NDTV Imagine will launch Oye It’s Friday this week; the show has director-actor Farhan Akhtar as its host.
With repeats taken off the air and new episodes and new programming initiatives, the broadcasters hope to regain their lost viewership.
Sudha Natrajan, chief operating officer and joint president, Lintas Media Group, believes that loyal viewers will return to their favourite shows and the older shows will get better stickiness for the channels. “It will be at least two or more weeks before the GECs can reclaim their share of the viewership,” she says.
Following the lull that resulted from the producers-workers’ stand-off, which led to a blackout of fresh content, general entertainment channels (GECs) have launched new shows and are expected to launch more in the coming weeks.
All the GECs had to put their new programming lineups on hold, courtesy the strike. Now, the last two weeks have seen new launches in the genre. Colors has four new shows in its programming basket – two fiction shows and two reality shows.
On December 1, Colors launched Uttaran (a story about an underprivileged child and her dreams) and Jaane Kya Baat Hui (a drama about a married woman who takes a lover), to replace Bigg Boss, which ended on a high note on November 22 during the strike.
Colors will also launch two reality shows, Dancing Queen and Chhote Miyan, which will be aired on weekends. Dancing Queen is a dance reality show featuring women celebrities paired with ordinary people, while Chhote Miyan will have kids unleashing their humour quotient.
“We wanted to launch these shows in phases, but because of the strike, we had to hold them back,” says Ashwini Yardi, programming head, Colors.
STAR Plus phased out two of its daily soaps, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi (KSBKBT) and Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki. It had to wait through the dispute period to replace one of them. Aap Ki Kachehri, a reality show in which supercop Kiran Bedi helps to settle social and moral disputes, was launched on the day fresh content returned on the GECs. It replaces KSBKBT.
Zee TV launched a new show, Chhoti Bahu, in its 7.30 pm slot on weekdays. This, too, was scheduled to be launched earlier, but was put on hold until the strike was called off. NDTV Imagine will launch Oye It’s Friday this week; the show has director-actor Farhan Akhtar as its host.
With repeats taken off the air and new episodes and new programming initiatives, the broadcasters hope to regain their lost viewership.
Sudha Natrajan, chief operating officer and joint president, Lintas Media Group, believes that loyal viewers will return to their favourite shows and the older shows will get better stickiness for the channels. “It will be at least two or more weeks before the GECs can reclaim their share of the viewership,” she says.
Tech - Intel Completes Work on 32nm Chip Technology
Intel on Wednesday said it finished development work on manufacturing technology that will allow it to produce chips with circuitry just 32-nanometers in size, a billionth of a meter, by the fourth quarter of next year.
The new production technology will enable the company to lower costs and power consumption in chips, while adding more speed and functionality. In general, microprocessing speeds are directly related to the number of transistors on a chip, and the smaller the transistor, the more can be packed together on a single chip die. Smaller production technology lowers costs by enabling companies to increase output.
The development also means Intel will for the fourth consecutive time match its "tick-tock" strategy, a target to introduce an entirely new microprocessor architecture alternating with new production technology roughly every twelve months.
The new production technology will enable the company to lower costs and power consumption in chips, while adding more speed and functionality. In general, microprocessing speeds are directly related to the number of transistors on a chip, and the smaller the transistor, the more can be packed together on a single chip die. Smaller production technology lowers costs by enabling companies to increase output.
The development also means Intel will for the fourth consecutive time match its "tick-tock" strategy, a target to introduce an entirely new microprocessor architecture alternating with new production technology roughly every twelve months.
Tech - ComiXology comic book app released for iPhone
ComiXology has released ComiXology for the iPhone and iPod touch, available for purchase and download from the App Store for $3.99.
ComiXology is a Web site chock full of information about the comic book market. Designed to appeal to comic book enthusiasts looking detailed information about their favorite titles and hoping to discover new publications that
ComiXology is a Web site chock full of information about the comic book market. Designed to appeal to comic book enthusiasts looking detailed information about their favorite titles and hoping to discover new publications that