The religious right should target the capitalist system rather than gays

America’s religious right is emotionally and culturally lost. As it sees it traditional mores and culture giving way to a new liberal culture that pays little attention to religious issues, it is trying to reverse the change, for example, by influencing the country’s choice for President.

It is also spawning a whole lot of groups on the lunatic fringe, people like the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas who picketed the funerals of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Church claims God is punishing the U.S. because of its tolerance for gays, according to this report in CNN.

America and a lot of other cultures and countries have promoted unbridled capitalism and consumerism, often at the expense of traditional value systems. The breakdown of traditional culture and value systems is in a sense part of the grand design of capitalism to stress on integrated and homogenous markets for which it is more efficient to produce and more efficient to distribute. McDonald’s and its attempts at global homogenization has been the symbol of this attempt to neutralize cultural and yes religious differences in the interests of the markets.

This neutralization of local culture is being resisted in many countries, and often takes the form of anti-American sentiment. In America too, the religious right is now reacting to attempts of capitalist society to homogenize and control tastes, values and lifestyles. You may ask what do lifestyles and culture have to do with religion ? In the past, they have all moved together with religion, culture, and lifestyles influencing one another. You can’t neutralize or modify one, without pulling down the entire superstructure.

The religious right have made homosexuality and abortion rights their key issues. But they have conveniently avoided taking on the real cause of their problems – the breakdown of culture, religion, and values by mass consumerism, and the consequent anomie.

The fringes of the religious right are the real problem, as they are lunatic attempts to cope with the social and cultural anomie beget by modern consumerist society.

The religious right, which has typically voted Republican and in favor of the glorification of the current capitalist value system, has in a sense contributed to the social and cultural anomie in American society. They cannot blame homosexuals and abortionists for America’s problems. The devil is in the system – the capitalist system, and the value system it promotes to perpetuate its existence.

The religious right will probably look at these issues through their traditional demonology. They will probably say, “Hey, here is another self-serving homosexual”. I am not a homosexual. I believe that the religious right should put aside its witch-hunting of homosexuals and go after the big Satan – the system itself of which they are both the supporters and the victims.

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Media companies see the light with Hulu

Hulu, an online video service from two large media companies, News Corp. and General Electric's NBC Universal, started testing its service Monday. Using an advertising based business model, Hulu will have programming from a number of media companies including now shows from Sony Pictures Television and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios.

The move by these companies to move their programming online indicates the growing popularity of online video, as is evident from the success of Google Inc.’s YouTube. Besides adding a revenue stream for these companies, the programming online may also prove to be a promotional medium, providing users a sample of movies and other video that they could then buy on DVDs or view at the local theatre.

Along with Hulu's own site, the company said its videos would be available through partners such as America Online Inc., MSN and MySpace.com, although links for Hulu on these sites were not apparent at the time of writing, according to a report by Computerworld.

The companies involved are likely to ensure tight control over their copyrights on content, including discouraging download and distribution of their content. Leading Internet and media companies announced earlier this month a set of guidelines for user-generated content (UGC) services, without infringing copyrights.

Among the measures proposed is the implementation of filtering technology with the goal to eliminate infringing content on UGC services, including blocking infringing uploads before they are made available to the public.

Given that the high Internet bandwidth required for the services proposed by Hulu is not available even in some parts of the US, Hulu will likely be more popular for viewing short clips from movies, and other short content, rather than as an alternative to television, and other medium for watching TVs.

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Why Turkey should not cross the border into Iraq

Turkey’s proposed invasion of Iraq to flush out terrorists could provide a dangerous precedent for other countries handling separatist terrorist movements.

Just as the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan to flush out the Taliban, who were protecting Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, it would at first blush appear reasonable that the Turkish army crosses the border into Iraq and flushes out terrorists from the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK) who are using Iraq as a base for terrorist attacks into Turkey.

The Turkish government is under pressure from its citizens to cross the border. The country has a significant Kurdish population, which by some estimates is as high as 20 percent. The PKK aims to establish a separate Kurdish state in a territory (traditionally referred to as Kurdistan) consisting of parts of southeastern Turkey, northeastern Iraq, northeastern Syria and northwestern Iran.

The Turkish people find that the PKK is operating from within the Iraqi border, with neither the self-governing Iraqi Kurds or the government in Baghdad able to, or trying seriously enough, to stop them.

However, once this policy of invasion to settle scores with terrorists is established as acceptable, it could lead to a number of wars around the world, as countries invade other countries to chase terrorists hiding there.

India could, for example, build a case to attack and flush out Kashmir separatist terrorists who take refuge in Pakistan. In fact, India claims that its has evidence that the Pakistani intelligence agencies are involved in training Kashmiri terrorists, and other Islamic fundamentalists, who then cross the border into India to kill and maim.

Kurdish terrorists from Iran have also used Iraq as a base to attack Iranian positions. So Iran may also feel justified to attack Iraq from another frontier.

An attack by Turkey into Iraq, and the consequent political disruption, could also lead to the PKK, and its separatist agenda, winning popular support among Kurds living in various countries. It could disrupt US efforts to bring the Iraqi Kurds into the country’s political mainstream, as a lot of Kurds may now see a separate nationhood as an alternative. The Kurds are already close to it in Iraq, where they already enjoy considerable autonomy.

In India, lots of spending on poor quality

Over the weekend in Bangalore, I had promised my daughter I would take her to an up market store that sold a variety of breads with exotic names and ingredients ranging from olives to sunflower seeds.

On Saturday morning, we braved the maniacal traffic and went to this place, only to find that the breads were two or three days old. The cheese-and-garlic loaf, a favorite in our household, was three days old, according to the label. An employee graciously recommended the wheat bread that was only a day old.

Close by is a Chinese restaurant that serves Indo-Chinese food, a mix of Chinese flavors and a pungent Indian idiom. The “ drums of heaven” there are usually soggy, while their noodles can be very sticky.

But the bakery and the Chinese restaurant continue to attract customers by the droves. They stand in queues outside, something unthinkable say a decade ago when most of Bangalore eat home-cooked food. A number of restaurants, with claims to offer Thai, Spanish, Italian, Provencal, Egyptian and other varieties of cuisine have also sprouted across the city. The fare is in most cases indifferent, but that does not deter customers from queuing up and paying exorbitant prices.

That had me surprised until I recalled an old, but no less relevant it seems, concept in sociology. An eminent Indian sociologist, M.N. Srinivas, observed in his field studies among one some of the communities in India, that the castes positioned lower in the hierarchy tend to imitate and modify their culture to resemble that of the dominant caste in the locality. Srinivas called the phenomenon Sanskritization, as the values and culture that tend to get imitated by the new social upstarts were the Sanskrit, Brahmanical ones.

What does this have to do with the large number of crowded restaurants and malls in Bangalore ? A lot, I think. Unlike previous upstarts, who believed that assimilating Brahmin and Sanskrit culture, rituals, and customs was key to their social climbing, the new upstarts have in a strange twist decided on American culture as the dominant culture to be imitated and assimilated.

These days Indians have wine tasting parties, to refine their taste for something they never consumed earlier. You have chefs of five-start hotels and other, usually self styled gourmands, writing in the society pages of newspapers on the finer points of rare delicacies like caviar and truffles.

A lot of affluent Indians are turning their back to their own rich and ancient traditions in food, dressing, and other aspects of culture, to a new world of mainly American kitsch. They are getting there rudderless and without discernment, creating an opportunity for a new set of consultants and purveyors of culture, most of them parvenu. Add to them snooty restaurateurs and five-star chefs. If you find the pasta sticky, don’t complain to the chef. He is more likely to turn around and tell you, without batting an eyelid, that is how pasta is eaten by the Italians. Probably he is learning too.

Maybe this is a transitional phase, but these days in Bangalore, and most of urban India, good food is a rarity, particularly if the idiom is not Indian.

More recalls of China made toys

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)in the US has announced more recalls of products made in China, that violated lead paint standards. The products range from Halloween pails with Witch decorations from the Family Dollar Stores to toy gardening tools from Jo-Ann Stores Inc. of Hudson, Ohio, according to this listing on the CPSC website. Fisher-Price is also recalling 38,000 of its “Go Diego Go Animal Rescue Boats” on account of excessive lead in the paint.

The companies have variously offered to replace the faulty products or give customers a refund. Jo-Ann, for example, promises a full refund for the gardening tools at their stores.

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, companies are acting very irresponsibly. Instead of ensuring without doubt that there isn’t lead above permissible levels in their products, they seem to believe that a product recall and free refund or replacement is a good enough measure.

The fact is that these lead contaminated products were in the hands of children, and there could have been irreversible damage to the children.

Recalls don’t make good corporate citizens. Prevention does, and in this regard companies were caught napping. Consumer patience may be running out.

Products from some of the companies like RC2 Corp. and Mattel Inc., who have announced product recalls because of excessive lead in their products, are also sold in countries outside the US, either directly by vendors or by independent importing companies.

These countries may not have a monitoring agency like the CPSC or the standards prescribed in the US. This does not however absolve vendors from the responsibility to ship non-hazardous products worldwide.

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George Bush to prove he is a leader

“You know Condi, folks question my leadership capabilities these days. Wish it was the World War II, and then like Winston Churchill I could flash a “V” sign that would get famous, and yes maybe I could even start smoking a cigar.”

“ Not to worry Mr. President. As you said the other day, if Iran has a nuclear bomb, we will certainly have World War III”.

“Can you remind me how that was to unfold ? The Iranians would nuke Israel, and then we would nuke Iran. But then Iran would stay nuked. Doubt I can have World War III”

“Or maybe you could nuke the Russians for not being as critical of Iran as we would have liked, and then they will nuke us ---- all the ingredients of WWIII Mr. President.”

“Gee, I just can’t wait for that, but how do we get Iran to make a nuclear bomb ? “

“ Maybe we should provoke them with more sanctions, call them names, blame them for everything that is going wrong for us, say they are supporting terrorists, promoting sodomy, punishing homosexuals etc etc.”

“Ok Condi, go ahead, call the media, and make the announcement. I’ll just pop along and pick up some Havanas. Wasn’t that what Churchill puffed on ?”

" Don’t buy too many. Don't forget we have sanctions on Cuba as well Mr. President."

An hour or so later, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made this statement:

"The Iranian government continues to spurn our offer of open negotiations, instead threatening peace and security by pursuing nuclear technologies that can lead to a nuclear weapon; building dangerous ballistic missiles; supporting Shia militants in Iraq and terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories; and denying the existence of a fellow member of the United Nations, threatening to wipe Israel off the map," according to this report

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In Afghanistan no end in sight…..

British prime minister Gordon Brown is calling on the international community to share the burden of the military campaign in Afghanistan, according to a report in the BBC.

"We cannot allow the Taleban to be back in control of such an important country. And the work that has been done in the last six years to build a democracy in Afghanistan is an important bulwark against terrorism everywhere in the world," Brown said, during a visit to Downing Street by Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

Six years after the US and UK invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban regime that was providing sanctuary to the Al Qaeda, including its leader, Osama Bin Laden, the war in Afghanistan is far from over. The Taliban is having a revival of sorts, and the country has emerged as a major dealer of opium as drug cartels induce poor farmers, struggling for a livelihood, to take up illegal poppy cultivation. Some NATO countries have also deployed troops in the country.

The invasion of Afghanistan in October, 2001 is generally regarded as a military intervention by the US and the UK that was morally justified. After the attacks by terrorists on the US on September 11, 2001, the attack on Afghanistan was seen as a collective act of self-defense, and backed by appropriate resolutions of the UN.

Sending soldiers and ordnance to Afghanistan can only be one part of an overall program to weed out the Taliban, and extend the influence of Karzai outside Kabul. Development funds have to reach the people and generate employment and long-term means of livelihood. However, rampant corruption, local war lords, and renewed fighting with the Taliban have proven to be a major obstacle in rehabilitating the masses of the country.

Much ado about a Jewish nose

Americans are so concerned about being politically correct, that they could be losing their sense of humor, their ability to laugh at themselves. For a country that prides on being a "melting pot" for various races, communities, and ethnic groups, race or community are surprisingly becoming touchy issues.

Actress Halle Berry has apologized for making a joke about the appearance of Jewish people, according to various reports, including this one from the BBC.

If you are wondering what Berry said that could be seen as an affront to the Jews, hold your breath ! She said during US chat show Tonight with Jay Leno that a distorted photo of herself with a huge nose made her look like her "Jewish cousin".

That was a poor joke, and it doesn’t make me laugh, but I don’t think any Jews in their right mind should have objected to it. A huge nose is not part of an offensive stereotype of the Jew. In fact a number of Jewish writers do refer to Jewish characters in their books as having long, and even beaky noses.

To be sure, some will argue that this is fuel to anti-Semitism. Unfortunately anti-Semites and all other types of racist people will co-opt anything into their stereotypes of the folks they are prejudiced against whether it is “slit-eyed” Chinese, or the Indian “brown skin”.

That does not change the fact that the Chinese have slit eyes and Indians have brown skins, and yes, Jews tend to have long noses. Nothing pejorative about it. It are the facts of life, and the earlier we are willing to laugh about it (if the joke is good), and take it in our stride, the better.

Mr. Bush, Cuba’s politics is none of your business !

US President George Bush’s commitment to promoting democracy worldwide has turned out to be no more than an opportunity for petty scoring of points with traditional foes.

Bush, with an eye to the Hispanic population of the US, is planning to issue a stern warning Wednesday that the United States will not accept a political transition in Cuba in which power changes from one Castro brother to another, rather than to the Cuban people, according to a report in the New York Times.

Bush will say that while much of the rest of Latin America has moved from dictatorship to democracy, Cuba continues to use repression and terror to control its people.

It is cynical that Bush is concerned about democracy and change in government in Cuba but not in Saudi Arabia, that he is concerned about suppression of democracy in Iran but not in Pakistan.

This selective concern about democracy makes a mockery of freedom and democracy, and attempts to manipulate it to serve the US’s pet peeves and geopolitical concerns.

It is embarrassing for us in the free world to find that the most vocal and often quoted advocate of democracy is a cheap trickster, who invokes people’s freedom only when it suits him, and his meddling in other affairs.

Bush is also violating principles of national sovereignty. What happens in Cuba is none of his business ! Cuba is a sovereign country, and the new government came to power in a revolution against the brutal dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista supported by the US.

Nor is the US record in promoting democracy in Latin America even-handed. The US used a variety of economic and political levers to replace the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile by that of the military dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Bush should also put his own house in order, before positioning the US as a beacon and advocate of freedom and democracy. The torture of detainees by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), the snooping on calls in the US, the growing impotence of Congress, and the emergence of an imperial presidency, do not speak well for US democracy. Probably the Castros and Bush have a lot in common after all.

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Indian outsourcers have to head home

Indian outsourcing companies are facing shortages of good quality staff, particularly in the call centers and business process outsourcing businesses. The attrition rate in these two businesses can be as high as 50 percent, according to some reports.

Most staff are leaving to join other companies for better terms. But some staff are leaving because of burn-out, including the long commute time to and from work. Some others are women who leave their jobs to start a family. India’s traditional joint families, in which entire generations lived in one household, are falling apart in the cities, reducing the traditional support systems offered to new mothers.

Indian outsourcers could have access to more workers if they would allow more staff to work from home. Apart from young mothers, a lot of other categories of people, including freelancers and pensioners may be willing to join the workforce, if given the option to work from home.

In this way, the outsourcers would go a long way towards empowering a whole section of Indian society. They would also save on transporting staff to and from work, providing them meals in the campus cafeteria, and other perks employees have come to expect.

To be sure, customers will not take kindly to calls being taken from homes with the dog barking, the door bell ringing, or a child crying in the background. But once home workers see the opportunity they will make the adjustments necessary to ensure that the customer gets top quality service, undisturbed by any extraneous noises.

None of the suggestions outlined here are startlingly new. They have been tried extensively in the US and the UK. They are new in the Indian context, where surprisingly Indian and multinational services companies have been hesitant to move away from proven techniques and processes to exploring new sources of staff.

But there are still a lot of challenges going forward. Mothers and pensioners in India are less likely to own personal computers. Outsourcing companies use their computers over three staff shifts. Giving a computer to a single home worker would therefore lead to an underutilized asset. Probably companies can enter into an agreement with home workers whereby they take a computer on a bank loan, on assurance of business from the outsourcer. High quality telephone and VOIP (voice-over-Internet-protocol) links are available, and outsourcers can probably buy the capacity in bulk and distribute that out to the home workers.

The biggest sticking point is however likely to be data security, the fear that outside company monitored facilities, home workers could misuse confidential information such as credit card and social security numbers.

Companies are already masking at their facilities the data that could be used to compromise the customer. In many cases because of data security laws in their home countries, customers themselves are already filtering what information is available to a call center agent.

So outsourcing companies will probably have to rely less on physical monitoring using closed circuit TVs (CCTVs) and other technologies, and focus more on masking the data that is accessible to the home worker. There are also a lot of processes in business process outsourcing that do not require handling information that is confidential and liable to misuse.

Google’s power is exaggerated

In the old days, if you wanted to research a topic, or if you wanted to find out if a medicine is good for your kid, or if you wanted to buy a music system, you had to hop various locations ranging from a visit to the library, to a visit to the drug store for a long chat with a knowledgeable person there, to a visit to the local electronics store.

Along came Google Search and changed all that. I can research a topic, find out all the information available on a medicine, and comparison shop a music system, if I use Google. I need to have a lot of patience, as most of the results thrown up by Google Search are totally irrelevant to my immediate needs.

However intelligent Google may have made search, it is still only an algorithm fetching information from a whole variety of sources, based on the keywords I have typed.

With Google having the dominant share for search, it gives Google enormous power on how information, including commercial information, flows to the user. That is one of the reasons publishing houses are increasingly seeing Google as a competitor for advertising revenue. Rather than pay an online newspaper for an advertisement of their latest laptop, a vendor may be better off bidding for keywords that would ensure that their advertisement shows up whenever somebody does a search for “laptop”.

Does this mean that Google will be the ultimate arbiter of what a consumer buys ? I think that would be exaggerating Google’s role as a search engine. When I am searching the net using Google, all that Google throws up is a lot of text and links containing my keywords. Google Search cannot provide context. More importantly it cannot provide guidance.

Even as Google throws open the web to users looking for information, it also floods you with irrelevant information. What that means is that increasingly people will need gatekeepers who will sift the good stuff from the not-so-good, and the lousy.

Recognizing this opportunity there are a number of web sites and blogs that position themselves as buyer guides to everything from cameras to music systems, to automobiles to gardening gear. Not unexpectedly these sites have ads placed by Google on them, as well as ads from vendors.

So humongous is the web today, that we now need a new super-set of gatekeeper sites that will guide us through these various comparison shopping and peer review web-sites. How do I know whether a site is recommending a laptop from a particular brand, because that brand has long –term advertising contracts with the web site ? What do I know about the integrity or for that matter the maturity and qualifications of the reviewers ?

In the final analysis, it will be the well-known brands that will provide us our guide-posts. For laptops, for example, we are more likely to go to sites like Cnet.com or PCWorld.com to make an informed choice.

Google Search, and those sponsored links Google puts on top and on the right hand side every time you search for a term, may however be relevant when folks are buying a product they already know well, a product with either a known brand or well-known specifications. Then people are only looking for the online vendor that can provide the product quickly and conveniently. If people are looking for anything more sophisticated than that, they will look for gatekeepers and editors to counsel and guide, a role Google Search is ill-equipped to play.

Google can also ill-afford to be partial on search results whether in general search or in news. If I am looking for the latest news on Iraq, and I can’t get it from some of the better known and popular newspapers after I do a Google search, I will head straight to their web sites. If I search for laptops, and the key vendors or the key buyer guides I know are not listed, again I will look at Google as unreliable, and head for the web sites of the vendors I know.

If Google wants to make money on search it has to continue giving reliable results, and not play gatekeeper. Google knows that is not its role.

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Now showing: Bin Laden on Al-Jazeera

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden called on insurgents in Iraq to unite and avoid divisions in a new audiotape aired Monday on Al-Jazeera television, according to reports, including by the Associated Press.

The message, issued to commemorate the Eid, is part of a longer message that is expected to be released through the internet shortly, said anti-terrorism experts Laura Mansfield on their site.

Today's audiotaped message, released through Al Jazeera, was directed specifically to the "mujahideen" of Iraq. The message calls for them to unite and join forces, and avoid sectarian fighting within the jihadist groups, Laura Mansfield added.

"Some of you have been lax in one duty, which is to unite your ranks," bin Laden said in the audiotape. "Beware of division ... The Muslim world is waiting for you to gather under one banner."

The authenticity of the tape could not be immediately confirmed, but the voice resembled that of bin Laden in previous messages. Al-Jazeera did not say how it obtained the tape, according to the Associated Press.

Bin Laden’s last message was a threat to President Musharraf of Pakistan. Ahead of the commemoration of 9/11, Al Qaeda distributed a video appeal to Christians to convert to Islam, attempting to point similarities between the two faiths.

In his new avatar, Laden did not directly threaten the American people, instead focusing on convincing his listeners that they and the Muslims were on the same side, all victims of the capitalist system.

The US has claimed that it has been able to win over the Sunni opposition to Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia in Iraq. Bin Laden is probably referring to this split in his speech, or to divisions in the ranks of the Al Qaeda itself.

The frequency of communications by Bin Laden does however raise doubts that he may be losing his touch. He is beginning to come across as a fading film star, refusing to let the curtain come down on his act.

If he wanted to unite insurgents in Iraq, he had access to other means, besides a televised audiotape. Splits in any movement are kept a closely guarded secret, more so in a terrorist outfit. Bin Laden is either losing his hold on Al Qaeda, and is trying to prove otherwise by these communications, or is trying to distract attention from something more sinister he and Al Qaeda are planning.

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After WMDs , Bush is now talking about WW III

“It is not propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success,” said Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda from 1933 to 1945.

The latest we hear from Washington is that the President of the US, the largest superpower, is running scared that Iran will trigger of World War III.

The plot, as hinted by President George Bush, is that Iran, armed with a nuclear bomb, will attack Israel, which by the official line is unarmed and without nuclear capability. By some strange logic known only to Bush, the attack by Iran will spark off WW III.

The corollary to this twisted logic is that of course the US and/or Israel should preempt Iran by attacking the country, or destroying its nuclear capability.

Bush, at a news conference on Wednesday, said, "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

"The President was not making any war plans, and he wasn't making any declarations," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino quickly clarified Thursday. "He was making a point, and the point is that we do not believe - and neither does the international community believe - that Iran should be allowed to pursue nuclear weapons."

Like in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, when the world was mislead into believing that Saddam Hussein had terrible weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Bush and his coterie now intend to convince Americans and the world at large that the best way to protect the world from WW III is by attacking Iran, because one never knows when they will cross the threshold and make a bomb.

Bush’s theory of a belligerent and nuclear-armed Iran potentially leading to WW III is disingenuous and unintelligent. For one, Iran does not have a nuclear bomb. Also, self preservation would ensure that Iran will not use a bomb against Israel or any other country. The country knows it would be pounded by the nations of the free world, including the conventional and nuclear military power of the US.

Iran it looks like is going to get pounded in any case. The battle plans, it appears, are being drawn, and Bush and co. are just building up the hysteria preparatory to an attack, an attack that would unleash death on a whole lot of people in Iran, and spark off a backlash of Shia terrorism. Like in Iraq, George Bush is opening a Pandora’s box, and the whole world will suffer from it.

Unfortunately, what the public of the world think about the current administration’s actions matter little to Bush and coterie. We saw it in the case of Iraq when the US and allies occupied Iraq without a supporting resolution from the UN. This time too it is unlikely the Iran adventure will clear the vetoes of the Russians and the Chinese.

What is more surprising is that the opinion of the country’s people and its Congress seems to matter even less to the US president. As pointed out in my previous posts, by voting on partisan lines, rather than as statesmen and elected representatives of the people, Congress has rendered itself impotent as a countervailing force against a Presidency that seems very much out of control.

In search of an agenda, the Republicans are taking shelter behind Bush’s presidency. The Democrats have stolen the thunder from the Republicans on the Iraq war, on tax policy, and on welfare and other benefits aimed at revitalizing America’s middle class.

If the Republicans in Congress do not distance themselves from Bush now, Iran will be another millstone Bush will have passed on to the Republicans to shoulder.

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God is dead, and I am not feeling too well myself

Karl Marx described religion as the opium of the people, as the religious pie-in-the-sky came in the way of the proletariat realizing their revolutionary potential. A new school of thought, and a rash of books have emerged over the last one year, that are clearly anti-religion and atheistic, and put the blame for society’s ailments entirely on religious beliefs.

Religion is a delusion, according to these writers, including Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, and is responsible for the fundamentalism and divisions in today’s world. In contrast the scientific method, applied thoroughly, will usher in a brave new world.

There is an element of déjà vu to these new theories. This time over however the new wave of secular, nay atheistic writings, are a reaction to the mayhem and violence that the world is seeing in the name of religion.

One thing is clear is that despite Hume, the empiricists and the logical positivists, religion continues to thrive. By dismissing ethical statements as mere ejaculations, and religious statements as meaningless sentences, philosophy restricted its area of activity to being the handmaiden of science, providing the logical framework for science, without answering the questions about eternal truths that was the primal impetus for philosophy.

Logical positivists like A.J. Ayer disenchanted the world, and killed God by dismissing any questions about the supernatural as meaningless.

I remember how dogmatically the logical positivists clung on to this circumscribed version of truth. When I asked my philosophy professor, a logical positivist, what one makes of my own consciousness, which is not empirically verifiable, he turned around to me and said that consciousness had no place in philosophy. When I insisted that I was conscious when I spoke to him, and could not hence exclude consciousness out of the discussion, he promptly chided me for picking up my knowledge from “popular magazines” like the Reader’s Digest. The discussion was closed as far as the professor was concerned.

Not unexpectedly, logical positivism had taken philosophy into a sterility. If the positivists had decided that questions about God were meaningless sentences, other schools of philosophy decided that logical debate on God was impossible. Some of the existentialists like Sartre went along with the disenchantment of the world, and built a philosophy around the meaningless and emptiness of life. Taking a leaf from Søren Kierkegaard before them, other thinkers attempted to restore subjectivity into philosophical discourse, and the “leap of faith” into understanding God. God was in the realm of subjectivity, and so was morality.

Demolishing God and religion has serious consequences on social and cultural life. It makes ethics and morality relative --- my expression of likes and dislikes is as good as the next person’s. If there is no agreed moral truth, we cannot reason together. All truth becomes subjective or relative, no more than a construction.

Enforcement of morality becomes even more tenuous, without the fear of God. Many will argue that despite the Holocaust, and other cruelty against humanity, that man is naturally moral, and does not need the Bible or other religious books to guide him on what is right or wrong. Maybe, but the historical evidence ensures that the jury is still out on this issue.

As dangerous as moral relativism would be the breakdown of organized religion. For all its faults, organized religion provides the basis for community, shared experience, shared values. The breakdown of religion, approved by the neo-atheists, in fact leads to attempts to re-enchant the world through new religious cults that focus more on subjectivity than on community, more on a personal morality, than social morality.

The proclamation of the death of God, or the need to get him out of the picture is not new, but its revival at this juncture in history is positively dangeorus. In a world that is already divided by nationalities, ethnicity, language, and a whole host of other factors including the fringe elements of organized religion, the disenchantment of the world can only lead to nihilism of catastrophic proportions.

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In Pakistan, a spectacle turns to gore

Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming was designed to be a spectacle, a show of strength. The former prime minister boasted to an Indian television channel, NDTV, before her departure to Pakistan that she would meet with a groundswell of popular support in her country.

In organizing a spectacle of this scale, with over 200,000 people accompanying her motorcade from the airport in Karachi, Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) however took tremendous risks.

A crowd of that size was sure to be unmanageable, and a huge security risk -- a point not missed by the suicide bombers who attacked her convoy killing more than 125, and injuring more than 150.

The recrimination has now begun. Bhutto’s supporters say that the government did not provide adequate security to the procession. There are also dark hints that the Pakistani police and intelligence may have been involved in the attack.

Much is also being made of the radicalization of Pakistan, of the proliferation of Islamic fundamentalism. These arguments will surely buttress President Pervez Musharraf’s bid to stay in power, and will also ensure that Ms. Bhutto, regarded as pro-West by sections of the US and European media, will be regarded as the best hope of the US and the West to lead a transition to a democratic, pro-Western government in Pakistan.

That a bunch of terrorists were able to attack Bhutto’s procession is not an indication of widespread support for Islamic terrorists in Pakistan. It may be just that Bhutto’s temptation to make an impact on her first day in Pakistan created a security risk, an opportunity for the terrorists to fulfill their murderous mission.

It is difficult to put the blame at this point on the security provided by the government. When there are over 200,000 people shouting and yelling and jumping around in jubilation , management of these crowds can be a nightmare for security forces, and it is easy for a terrorist to infiltrate the crowds. At a press conference on Friday, Bhutto said she had been warned of terrorist attacks, with very specific information.

In a cynical sort of a way the terrorists have made a “martyr” of sorts of Bhutto, while embarrassing Musharraf.

This is not to say that radical Islam is not getting popular in Pakistan. It will in fact get worse, if a transition to democracy does not happen soon enough. If the US insists on maneuvering a pro-West government in Pakistan, over the heads of Bhutto’s opponents like Nawaz Sharif, it risks once again antagonizing large sections of Pakistanis. The US has to realize that it does not need pro-West government to fight Islamic fundamentalism. It needs democratically elected governments.

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The Indo-US nuclear deal was flawed from the start

India’s communists are these days being blamed for the failure of the implementation or “operationalizing” of the 123 Agreement that would give India access to nuclear fuel and reactor technology for civilian applications.

First, the positive side of the agreement. Although India is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), under the 123 Agreement it would get access to nuclear fuel for civilian reactors, even as it maintain a nuclear arsenal. There is a section of opinion that believes that the NPT itself is iniquitous as it perpetuates the dominance in the nuclear weapons area of countries that tested nuclear weapons before 1967.

India’s communists typically see only through ideological blinkers. They never look for the broad picture.. They stood by former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, as she trampled political rights and imposed an emergency in the country in 1975, raising the bogey of communal forces. The communists now have a knee-jerk reflex to anything proposed by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which draws a considerable part of its support from Hindu fundamentalists.

This time over, the Congress, triggered a knee-jerk reflex, by trying to do a nuclear deal with the Americans. Through the communist blinkers, the Americans can only appear as “imperialists”.

However if we keep ideological issues out of the debate, there are still reasons for concern about the impact on India’s sovereignty from signing the 123 Agreement. Yes I am referring to the “United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act” of 2006, which in fact forms the legal framework for the proposed 123 agreement. The Act by the US was devised to exempt a nuclear cooperation agreement with India from certain requirements of the Atomic Energy of 1954.

The Act does not however entirely protect India’s right to take decisions on its own on its non-civil nuclear program. It states for example that “a determination and any waiver under section 104 shall cease to be effective if the (US) President determines that India has detonated a nuclear explosive device after the date of the enactment of this title”. Click here for the text of the Act.

What this provision in the Act means is that all the waivers extended to India could disappear at one go if India tests a nuclear device. It does not require the US to prove that fuel or technology meant for India’s civilian program was diverted to the country’s military program.

If there are doubts as to how the situation will unfold if India detonates a nuclear device, then one has to look to the 123 Agreement for the details. Click here for the text of the proposed 123 Agreement

At Article 14 of the proposed 123 Agreement, it says that “Either Party shall have the right to terminate this Agreement prior to its expiration on one year's written notice to the other Party.” So if India detonates a nuclear device, under the “United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act” of 2006, the US can, among other actions, immediately withdraw its waiver to India, and call for a termination of the 123 Agreement

“Following the cessation of cooperation under this Agreement, either Party shall have the right to require the return by the other Party of any nuclear material, equipment, non-nuclear material or components transferred under this Agreement and any special fissionable material produced through their use”, according to the 123 Agreement.

That would leave India’s civilian nuclear program starved for fuel. There have been hints that the US would in such a situation come to India’s rescue, by arranging for alternate supply from third countries.

But a country’s civilian nuclear program cannot be built on vague promises of good-will. If 123 Agreement is to go forward, the US will have to incorporate into the proposed agreement a clause stating that notwithstanding anything in earlier agreements and Acts of the US government, the supply of fuel from the US to India will not be affected by any developments in India’s military nuclear program.

By insisting that all is alright with the deal, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may be doing a dis-service to India.

Media companies announce plans to protect copyright online

Leading Internet and media companies announced Thursday a set of guidelines for user-generated content (UGC) services, without infringing copyrights.

Among the measures proposed is the implementation of filtering technology with the goal to eliminate infringing content on UGC services, including blocking infringing uploads before they are made available to the public.

The companies supporting these principles include CBS Corp., Dailymotion, Fox Entertainment Group, Microsoft Corp., MySpace, NBC Universal, Veoh Networks Inc., Viacom Inc. and The Walt Disney Company, according to statements issued by these companies.

The ease of uploading video content on the Internet has led to the creation of millions of original works by new creators – works that range from scripted programs, to virtuoso musical performances and to humorous skits and social parody, the companies said. It also has resulted in the proliferation of uploaded content that infringes copyrighted works, they warned.

For details of the new content identification and filtering program advocated by these media and Internet companies click this link.

Interestingly the companies say that they are willing to accommodate fair use of copyrighted content. For example, when sending notices and making claims of infringement, copyright owners should accommodate fair use, according to the new principles. Fair use has however not been defined in the principles.

Google Inc., which runs the popular YouTube video sharing site is not a participating member of this program. Google and YouTube are facing a number of copyright-infringement legal suits, including a US$1 billion action filed by Viacom Inc. The company however unveiled on Tuesday content filtering technology, called Video Identification. The technology does not yet allow the blocking of copyrighted content from being uploaded, according to reports.

Google may have to go along with the Internet and media companies, as it has always said that it would like to protect copyrights.

Putting controls on copyrighted content, while allowing for a liberal interpretation of fair use would ensure that YouTube and other such sites continue to be tools for innovation and creativity.

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US Congress a lame duck !

Three of the largest US telephone companies declined to answer questions from the US Congress about President George Bush’s administration’s efforts to spy on Americans' phone calls and e- mails, saying the government forbade them from doing so, according to a report in Bloomberg.

What that means is the in the US today the President, and agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) can do what they want to undermine democracy, including undermine Congress, which by the way also consists of elected representatives of the people.

This is not the first time that information about the executive branches of the government has been refused to Congress.

Verizon and Qwest said the Justice Department prohibited them from offering any substantive comment on their roles in the spy program. AT&T said Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell invoked the state-secrets privilege to prevent the carrier from commenting, according to the report in Bloomberg.

Whether it is phone tapping or alleged torture of detainees by the CIA, the Congress seems to be almost always the last to know. Even when Congress has demanded information, the administration has procrastinated. And yet Congress votes typically along party lines, when Congress as a whole, as an entity has been belittled.

Earlier this month, the New York Times revealed the use of torture on prisoners by the CIA. The interrogation techniques endorsed by a 2005 Justice Department memo were some of the harshest ever used by the CIA, according to the New York Times. They included head-slapping, exposure to freezing temperatures and simulated drowning, known as water-boarding.

As shocking as the revelations, were the reactions from the elected representatives on Capitol Hill who knew nothing about what was going on.

“I find it unfathomable that the committee tasked with oversight of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program would be provided more information by The New York Times than by the Department of Justice,” Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, a West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote to the acting attorney general, Peter D. Keisler, asking for copies of all opinions on interrogation since 2004, the New York Times said.

With centralization of power in the President and the executive of the government, democracy has been reduced in the US to a once in four years charade when the people elect their President, and surrender control of their lives to the person elected. Congress has become impotent.

More frightening is that in the name of fighting terror, the President of the US and his officials in government have consolidated, nay arrogated power, by a series of laws and regulations, including laws on surveillance of people, and a domestic spying program. Some of these rules, particularly the secrecy rules, have even deprived Congress of the right to know what is happening.

Make way for an imperial presidency and a lameduck Congress.


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Can Musharraf ride the tigress ?

Benazir Bhutto is scheduled to return to Pakistan on Thursday, with a wink and a nod from President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and some say the Americans too.

Bhutto, a former prime minister of the country, will be received by hundreds of thousands of supporters who are gathering in the port city of Karachi to greet her, when she returns, after eight years of self-imposed exile, according to a report in The Times.

The former prime minister return to Pakistan is in sharp contrast to that of another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, whose return to Pakistan last month was marked by arrests and lathi-charge of his supporters. Sharif was immediately deported to Saudi Arabia after the Pakistan government claimed that Sharif had signed an agreement to stay out of Pakistan for 10 years.

In contrast, the Government has deployed 3,500 soldiers and as many as 8,000 policemen are on duty to protect Benazir’s route from the airport to a rally near the tomb of Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah tomorrow, according to The Times. A shipping container strengthened with bullet-proof glass was being prepared to take her through Karachi, it added.

Musharraf’s government has already passed an ordinance granting amnesty to her and other politicians on charges of corruption. That amnesty has been challenged in court. Musharraf’s own election as President earlier this month has not been declared officially, pending the disposal by the Supreme Court of petitions challenging the President standing for elections while in uniform. Musharraf has promised he will quit as army chief if he retains the post of President, and has already nominated his successor.

Into this chaos steps in Bhutto, attempting to claim the mantle of the democratic movement. Musharraf needs her to give his government legitimacy, and also to help him counter a tide of popular disaffection against his government. That will be particularly important when a new Parliament is elected.

Bhutto will in turn demand an amendment to rules prohibiting her from standing for a third term as prime minister. She will also demand more powers to the prime minister, including amendments to the constitution that prevent the President from dissolving Parliament.

On the face of it a superb deal, brokered by the US. The Americans get to keep Musharraf, an ally in the US war against terror, as President, while using Bhutto as a safety valve for democratic forces.

Benazir pledges to fight to restore democracy in Pakistan. In an interview to NDTV, an Indian TV channel, she however declined to commit herself on the return of Sharif to Pakistan, saying it involved a friendly country, Saudi Arabia. With Sharif out of the way, Bhutto evidently aims to fashion democracy in her own way in Pakistan.

Where will Musharraf figure in the new dispensation ? He suits Bhutto well to help remove the obstacles in her way, in return for his political legitimacy.

But Bhutto and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) can hardly afford to be seen to be too close to the President who is unpopular in Pakistan after years of his rule as head of the army and the government.

Bhutto is hence likely to push for an early election, reduction of the President’s power, and a third term for herself as Prime Minister. Her agenda will however be served only if she can keep the army in the barracks.

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Will you buy potatoes on the Net ?

Once again we are hearing rumblings that online sales are killing brick-and-mortar sales. That story, if you remember, fueled the dotcom boom, which busted soon after.

Now many years later, people are more net savvy, there is a lot of stuff folks can buy online, but for a variety of reasons including technical and cultural, it may be again premature to talk about the imminent demise of the brick-and-mortar store.

Movie Gallery Inc., the second-largest U.S. video-rental chain, sought bankruptcy protection from creditors, citing increased competition from Blockbuster Inc. and Netflix Inc., according to a report from Bloomberg.

The point here is that Movie Gallery may have lost out to guys like Netflix, which save you the walk to a Movie Gallery store by letting you select online from a large repertoire. But the delivery of the DVDs is still done offline to the customer. So it is not a case of a brick-and-mortar play losing out to a pure online play.

A pure online play offering high quality, low-cost video downloads alone may not be as successful as Netflix, because that assumes large Internet bandwidth pipes to the home, which are not there yet across the US, and less so around the world.

In music too, don’t expect online music to wipe out the CD business. It is true that online music stores provide access to a much larger repertoire than a large brick-and mortar store can ever offer. But after the first flush of excitement over quick gratification, folks are going to take a long hard look at sound quality.

They will not only look at encoding bit rates, but at the encoding formats for downloaded music. These formats like MP3 are lossy, because to make files sizes smaller and manageable, they lop out a lot of music information that you would ordinarily find on CDs.

A lot of folks may go back to buying CDs if only because they offer better sound quality. A not-so-fringe benefit is that currently most CDs are not covered by DRM (digital rights management). I got back a week ago to buying CDs, after a downloading frenzy. The downloaded MP3 files were okay on a portable digital music player like an iPod, but the lossy character of the format really showed when the file was played on a home music system.

Finally, would folks buy potatoes and other groceries on the Net ?

I doubt it. Not a lot of folks buy vegetables without feeling them for solidity, consistency, and to spot out for those pernicious insects that tend to get to vegetables. They would rather go to the nearby store, or call up the store that has delivered reliably, quickly, and top quality stuff over the years. What is the buyer’s incentive to shift to buying online ?

Would folks buy art online, after taking a look at digitized images of a painting or sculpture ? Would die-hard shoppers give up the real-world shopping experience for clicks on a computer ?

Some categories like packed and branded products, we have bought and tried before, will most probably be purchased online. Coke cans for example, but certainly not designer wear, or furniture. Well known books by authors with impeccable credentials may be bought online if the store nearby does not stock it. Most people would still like to flick through the pages of a new book before they buy it.

Some of the conditions that proved the prophets of the online retail (etail) boom wrong in the late 1990s still hold good.

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Armenian genocide vote losing to cynical calculations

It was a grand and appropriate gesture, befitting statesmen, by the US House of Representatives to officially dub the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks as “genocide”. The US need not have made the first move on this, but it did it in line with its assumed role as a global leader, as a beacon of freedom to the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, reality hit the House representatives, real hard. It is not the truth that prevails, even if it is a genocide. Usually it are the hard, cynical ground realities that win.

Turkey understood that well when it warned the US that its special relationship with Turkey was at stake if the resolution was passed. That would mean loss of Turkish logistical support for the US war in Iraq. That could also mean that Turkey would go ahead, despite pleas for restraint from the US, and invade Iraq to flush out its Kurd rebels.

Worried about antagonizing Turkish leaders, House members from both parties have begun to withdraw their support from a resolution backed by the Democratic leadership that would condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians nearly a century ago, reports The New York Times.

Earlier President George Bush had asked the House to reconsider passing the resolution, because of its repercussions on relations with Turkey.

A brave effort by the House seems now doomed. Bush seems to understand global realities and play them better than the House representatives. The US does not have the moral leadership of the world, nor should it try to adopt that posture.

In the months to come, the US will bluff and bluster, rant at Russian and Iran, say it is promoting democracy, justice and freedom around the world. But as the folks in the White House already know, this is only propaganda. The folks in the House were naïve enough to take it seriously, and tried to be genuine promoters of good causes around the world.

Turkey has promised to turn over documents and support a conference to determine whether there was a genocide of Armenians. That conference would take years to convene, and maybe years to arrive at any conclusion. But it may now provide the House of Representatives a fig-leaf of an excuse to get out of the embarrassment their idealism got them into.

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Radiohead: unwitting players in an imaginary revolution

When Radiohead announced that it would allow downloads of its new In Rainbow album, fans and the media talked about a revolution in the music industry. Not only was the band by-passing the music labels, and offering its music directly to users, but it was offering the music for download in MP3 format at a price chosen by the user.

This move certainly appealed to the residual hippie in all of us, and also cheered up a lot of folks who have been chafing under DRM (digital rights management), and hoping for a revolution in the music industry.

It turns out that the downloads came at a sound quality that was not optimum, as it was encoded at a bit rate of 160 kbps (kilobits per second), according to a report in USA Today.

Contrary to earlier reports, the downloads were only promotional, and the CDs of In Rainbow, with top quality sound, will be on the shelves in January, according to the report. In fact, when I visited www.inrainbows.com last week, there was an option to pre-order for £40 a discbox.


In an interview to MusicWeek, the band’s managers Chris Hufford and Bryce Edge described the downloads as a mere “promotional tool”.

Far from being enthusiastic about digital downloads, both managers strongly favour the compact disc as a format of superior quality, according to MusicWeek. “CDs are a fantastic bit of kit,” Edge told MusicWeek. “You can’t listen to a Radiohead record on MP3 and hear the detail; it’s impossible.” Edge recommends labels get aggressive about promoting CD, according to MusicWeek.

The interview in MusicWeek was published October 8, ahead of October 10 when the downloads were available. It is hence tought to justify that Radiohead ot its managers did a con job. It is just that these days users and the media are hoping for a revolution in the music industry, to the point of imagining and contriving one.

This week there was again widespread coverage on Led Zeppelin offering their music for the first time online next month.

To my mind nothing earthshaking about that. Like the music labels, the British rock group is exploring alternative channels as CD sales have been flagging. Don’t look for revolutionary meanings between the lines ! This is a plain business decision. "The addition of the digital option will better enable fans to obtain our music in whichever manner that they prefer," guitarist Jimmy Page said Monday, according to this report.

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Russia reacts to American unilateralism

The end of the Cold War was one of the best things that happened to the US. No longer deterred by a belligerent Soviet Union, the US seized the opportunity to consolidate its position worldwide as a global policeman, deciding which countries should go into an international blacklist, and even occupying Iraq without an UN resolution enabling the attack.

The US is even now reported to be planning an attack on Iran, because Iran is allegedly developing nuclear weapons, and it is supporting rebels within Iraq.

Now Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has come out strongly against the US view of the world. During a visit to Iran, Putin said force should not be used in the Caspian region, which includes Iran, and countries in the region should not be used as a base for attack on another country in the Caspian.

Last week he told reporters, “We have no objective evidence to claim that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, which makes us believe the country has no such plans", thus putting him directly in opposition to the US.

This is not the first time that Russia has indicated it will not go along supinely with the US.

"We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state's legal system," he told a conference in Munich on security policy in February, at which US secretary of defense, Robert Gates was in attendance, according to a report in The Guardian.

The US government has typically reacted to Putin with its sanctimonious holier-than-thou attitude, including castigating Russia for the breakdown of democracy and freedom in Russia.

Which all adds up to US arm-twisting the world to coming around to its view of the world on all issues. Russia has already indicated it will not go along with that.

It is not yet clear what Russia will do if the US does attack Iran.

But recent moves by Putin, including his visit to Iran, suggest that Russian wants to play a bigger role in the world, if only to counter American unilateralism. That will also make Putin very popular in Russia which has historically reacted strongly to political slights.

Putin also recognizes that to have and keep friends around the world it has to deliver on its friendship – stand by them through thick and thin. Else Russia will be reduced to a cipher in global politics.

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Google says don’t shoot the messenger

Google Inc. is agitated that the Indian government may retain a provision in its Information Technology Act., that makes intermediaries such as ISPs (Internet Service Providers), website hosting companies, search engines, email services, social networks liable for illegal user content. See here the comments from a policy analyst at Google India.

Google has reasons to be worried about “intermediary liability”. Recently a cantankerous political party in Mumbai, called the Shiv Sena, demanded that Google’s social networking site, Orkut, should be banned in India, and prosecuted, after some users posted content considered defamatory of the party’s leader.

There is a precedent of sorts for that. In 2004, Avnish Bajaj, the then CEO of eBay’s Indian subsidiary was arrested in connection with the sale of a pornographic video clip on the online auction portal. Bajaj was arrested under the provisions of the Information Technology Act relating to intermediary liability.

I agree that intermediaries should not be held responsible for illegal content. Google’s policy analyst, Rishi Jaitly, says a telephone company is not held responsible if two people use a telephone call to plan a crime.

The argument about the telephone is specious and does not recognize that the times have changed. The content of a phone call between two housewives slandering somebody remains between the two, or if it spreads it will be a few persons at a time.

In contrast, because of the viral nature of content on the Internet, if somebody takes a young girl’s naked picture, using a spy camera, or he takes her face shot and adds someone else’s naked body to it, that picture will be all over the world in seconds.

By the time the aggrieved person discovers that it has happened, and reports it to Google, and then Google goes through its internal procedures to decide whether the content should be brought down or not, that picture will be all over the Internet, and the young lady’s honor and privacy in shambles.

Folks like Google and other Internet service providers have been pushing social networking and online communities without coming up with appropriate ways to counter misuse of these large-scale communication platforms. “It would be technologically infeasible for ISPs and web companies to pre-screen each and every bit of content being uploaded onto our platforms, especially as the amount of information coming online increases exponentially in India and around the world,” says the Google policy analyst.

Fair enough, but what this means is that technology innovation and new applications like social networking, touted as part of the brave new Web 2.0, have thrown up new problems. Like Google and a lot of other people, Indian Parliament's Standing Committee on Information Technology is also fumbling in search of a solution. Don’t blame them. Work with them, because as government they are more concerned about the individual. Perhaps the government worries that if intermediaries are not at all held liable for content, they may be more inclined to turn a blind eye to such content.

Instead Google decides to harangue the government with its self-serving view on Internet freedom and economic development. “More importantly, imposing such a burdensome standard (of intermediary liability) would crush innovation, throttle Indian competitiveness, and prevent entrepreneurs from deploying new services in the first place, a truly unfortunate outcome for the growth of the Internet in India,” says the Google policy analyst.

Internet growth is not the topmost priority for all people. More important to most of them is protecting their modesty and privacy, and that of their children.

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AOL: business is fine, but sorry you are sacked

The pink slips are flying at AOL as the company tries to make a transition from a subscription-based ISP (Internet Service Provider) to an advertisement supported portal company.

Over the next couple of months, AOL will lay off 2,000 people out of a worldwide workforce of 10,000, according to a letter to company employees sent by CEO Randy Falco today, said a report in The Washington Post. These staff reductions begin Tuesday.

In a mail to AOL employees, Falco said, “Importantly, we're taking the business global. We're extending AOL's reach into seven new countries this year while globalizing our product development efforts. By the end of next year, AOL will have a presence in 30 countries. That's a remarkable achievement in a relatively short period of time”.

For all his self congratulation, Falco by expanding into other markets may be over-committing AOL, taking it further down the tube. Outside the US, AOL does not have a strong brand or the stickiness that a portal requires. In the US, a lot of users still swear by AIM, AOL’s Instant Messenger, and some use its email service too.

But in most other countries, instant messengers and email services from Yahoo Inc., MSN, and Google Inc. already have a head start. These are the applications that generally bring users to a portal.

Unless AOL comes up with a new killer application, there isn’t a way they can dislodge the current players in each market. Many countries have their own very strong local players.

AOL.com has a traffic rank of 51 to Yahoo.com’s first place, according to traffic rankings from Alexa Internet Inc.

Media, analysts love to knock down Indian outsourcers

It is probably got to do with the success of the Indian outsourcing industry, or can be perhaps put down to an unconscious resentment that the Indians are close to challenging big global services companies. Or maybe they are just plain lousy in their forecasts.

The fact is that a story about Indian outsourcers going down the tube, or almost down the tube, sells.

It started with stray incidents of data theft in Indian call centers. Adopting a shocked and sanctimonious stand, the media and analysts tried to embarrass not only the outsourcer affected by the data leak, but the entire Indian industry. The media quite forgot that there are more incidents of data theft in call centers in the UK and in the US. Reporting on data theft got less popular after an exasperated Nasscom lay bare these comparative figures on data theft.

Perhaps to be fair to the media and analysts, it was only goading India to do better. After strong measures by Nasscom, a local trade body which believes that India should raise the global bar on best practices, there haven’t been incidents of data theft reported in recent months from India.

As India got successful, and not only Indian outsourcers but multinational technology companies like Dell Inc., Intel Corp., SAP A.G., and Oracle Corp. started expanding their operations in India, the prophets of doom started forecasting over two years ago that Indian workers were getting too expensive, were getting too difficult to hire. The upshot: India was going to lose its competitive edge to China, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

They miscalculated on a number of counts. Yes, Indian engineers and other workers were getting a little expensive, but where else do you find such a vast talent pool to set up development centers or call centers with thousands of staff ? Even if Indian staff is getting expensive, the quality still seems to be in the favor of the Indians, else it gets tough to explain the continued expansion in India by multinational companies.

The proverbial last straw for the Indian outsourcer was said to be the weakening of the dollar. Indian outsourcers were expanding outside India because the strong Rupee was killing them. Once again it was overlooked that setting up some near-shore centers to Europe and the US would not dramatically change the economics for Indian outsourcers, but were only designed to improve customer comfort-levels with the outsourcer.

Instead dramatic cost-cutting, which Indian outsourcers are good at with their process focus, seems to have done the trick.

Less than a week after Infosys Technologies Ltd., said it had improved its margins despite the weaker dollar, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. on Monday said that it had got around the currency impact by hedging and cost cutting. TCS’ revenue and profits grew 45 percent in the quarter ended September 30.

Wonder what the pundits will come up with next ?

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Universal Music short on ideas to take on iTunes

Universal Music has plans to allow vendors of digital music players to bundle unlimited downloads of its music for free to users, according to a report in BusinessWeek.

Universal will make its money by charging the device makers for the monthly subscriptions to the music. Makers of music players and mobile phones may then have a decent chance to overthrow iPod’s dominance of the digital music player market, as they can package downloads from Universal’s vast inventory of titles, as well as potentially from Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group, the report suggests.

But the deal is not likely to be a threat to the iPod any time soon. I doubt users are going to buy a second tier device just for the free music, even if it is “all you can eat”. Music fans want the entire experience – that is a good player with excellent music.

Currently the iPod is perceived to be the best player, and a strong iconic brand as well. Users have put up with a lot of crap from Apple Inc., including its various proprietary locks, but that is because they love the iPod.

Consider the figures. Apple had sold over 100 million iPods from the product’s launch in 2001 to April this year. In contrast, for all its marketing muscle, Microsoft Corp. has sold only 1.2 million units of its Zune since November. Will free music downloads change that ? I doubt it.

It is also not clear whether Universal’s Total Music will be free of DRM (digital rights management). If it is, the music is more likely to be downloaded for Total Music devices, and end up getting played by iPods users who never paid for the devices or the music. To avoid that, device makers will certainly insist on some kind of DRM. That will most likely mean that this music won’t play on iPods, and yes the non-DRM music on iTunes will not play on these devices. Once again the outcome will be fragmentation and chaos.

Universal, Sony BMG, and Warner Music are better off setting up an online store for non-DRM music of their own, that offers the basement rates the companies are willing to offer device makers. That way, like eMusic, another digital music download service, the music labels will have access to iPod users as well as users of other devices.

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It takes more than theology to bring Muslims, Christians together

A group of Muslim scholars and religious leaders have made an overture to Christian leaders including Pope Benedict XVI, by pointing out similarities between Islam and Christianity, particularly the belief in one God, and the injunction to love one’s neighbor.

However on these two points of similarity alone, it is unlikely that Christians and Muslims will be kissing each other on the streets. The similarities are also only apparent. While Christianity believes in the Holy Trinity as one God, Muslims believe in one God.

The injunction to love one’s neighbor is there, implicitly or explicitly, in most religions, and that did not prevent the Crusades. It did not prevent Catholics and Protestants from killing each other in Northern Ireland. It hasn’t prevented Muslims and Hindus from killing each other in India. It did not prevent 9/11.

The upshot is that it takes more than a theological dissertation to bring communities together. You have to able to wipe out history, a lot of which is traumatic to both communities. You have to able to wipe out old hatreds and suspicions. Here too, the Christian injunction on forgiveness, will not change bitter feelings and memories on the ground.

There is also the issue that these Muslim leaders do not represent all of Islam. Unlike Christian churches who have heads, like the Pope, Islam is far more amorphous in its leadership structure. Like Christianity it has a lot of sects and divisions, the most distinct and known being that between the Sunnis and the Shias.

The hand of peace from the Muslims to Christian leaders is therefore welcome, even if the theological argument begs the question.

A more compelling argument for peace, I think, is pointed out at the very outset in the letter from the Muslim leaders to Christian leaders: “Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world’s population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world. The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians.”

Can religious leaders on either side deliver that peace, when extremists on both sides, including notably Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden are not signatories to this letter ?

To be sure the hand of peace from Muslim scholars, and not their dissertation on theological similarities holds out promise. If moderates take the lead in sufficient numbers surely the extremists in the community will have to re-evaluate their strategies.

To be effective however, the moderates, will have to recognize that the popularity of Islamic extremism, does not have its roots in religious differences alone, but in injustice, poverty, hurt, and the perceived feeling that this is the outcome of a conspiracy between Christians and Jews. Try telling the Palestinians that they should love their Israeli neighbors who occupy their land ! Try telling them that America is Christian and that Islam enjoins them to be tolerant of Christianity !

That feeling among Muslims of persecution surfaces in the letter too when it says “As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them—so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes”.

A rapprochement between Muslims and Christians can only come by a combination of political, social, and cultural moves, and not by attempting to find out similarities between the two religions. That is not a precondition. Hindus and Christians don’t usually kill each other in India in a religious frenzy. Although Hinduism is polytheistic while Christianity is not, the two communities generally respect each other’s right to worship different gods.

The text of the letter is available on a web site which calls itself the Official Website of A Common Word.

Al Gore wins Nobel; good to go for US presidency

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and lay the foundations for counteracting it, according to an Associated Press report.

Meanwhile people claiming to be grass-roots Democrats plan to draft Gore to contest the Democratic nomination and eventually the US presidency. They have asked sympathizers to sign a petition to Al Gore on their web site called draftgore.com.

Going by his track record on Iraq and his leadership stand on environment issues, Al Gore may in fact give America a chance to play a leadership role worldwide, a leadership built on civic initiatives, rather than on the power of arms, that the country has been associated with under President George Bush.

In my opinion Al Gore has some advantages. One he is not a Clinton nor a Bush. If Gore gets elected as president of the US, it will prove that the country is not short of leaders outside the Bush and Clinton dynasties.

Gore may also help make the world a safer place.

Hillary Clinton voted authorizing the war in Iraq, and has now back-tracked with the naïve line that she didn’t know George Bush would mess it up. In contrast, Gore has criticized the invasion of Iraq as way back as 2002. On consistency he scores over Clinton, but he is on par with Barack Obama.

Gore however breaks from the pack of Presidential wannabes as he comes across as a man with a vision. His commitment to environment issues, and his active participation in a variety of forums on other serious issues like the role of the Internet, makes Gore clearly statesman material, unlike the rest who have yet to articulate a vision of what they stand for politically, socially, and on the environmental front.

Al Gore has so far shown no interest in running again for the Presidency. From his current position as a statesman, he would be getting into the rough and tumble of daily administration, bipartisan politics, and other challenges, including extricating the country out of Iraq and maybe Iran if Bush has already got there by January, 2009. His election is also by no means a foregone conclusion with Hillary Clinton once again aiming for the White House. She has raised cash and set up a campaign organization, that Gore may find tough, though not impossible to match at this point.

But if he changes his mind, he can perhaps help make the world both a safer and cleaner place.

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When celebrity mush passes off as business reporting

In the days of my grandfather, if you weren’t in show business or in politics, your reputation (or brand) as a professor, or a doctor or writer was built assiduously and as an accidental by-product of your competence and performance. A teachers’ reputation was spread by word-of-mouth by students, a top thinker collected around him a group of other thinkers who in turn carried the message forward.

Martin Heidegger or Carl Gustav Jung did not have paid publicists. They had devoted followers, and yes a lot of detractors too, which all added up to making them very famous.

The spin-doctors have generally turned this thinking on its head. You first build brand, and then find something intelligent to say and do.

Or so it seems if you look at the way they are trying to convert ordinary corporate executives, presumably just doing their duty, into celebrities. Since many of the men don’t have the biceps or the looks of a Brad Pitt, and the women don’t come any close to the looks and audacity of Paris Hilton, they have invented new buzzword like “thought leader”.

The folks anointed to help them build those larger-than-life brands are, you guessed right, journalists.

So you have unsolicited mails to journalists saying that so and so is an expert on outsourcing, because he runs an outsourcing company, and he would like to comment on anything you plan to write on outsourcing. Or so and so is a legal expert, and available for comment, if you are doing a story on the legal aspects of the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition”. And yes, if you are doing a story on “extramarital sex” they have views on that too.

The upshot of this is that flacks fill a journalist’s mail box daily with solicitations about a corporate executive you never knew, and never cared to know. Or you will have an invite to a presser where the flack will tell you “and by the way XYZ is in attendance”, where XYZ is not a stripper or an entertainer or a speaker of depth, but just a boring corporate executive peddling his wares.

These brand exercises by the spin doctors create “little monsters” too. There was one executive who aroused my curiosity because I saw at least ten interviews with him in various publications around the world in the span of seven days. It turned out that the guy wanted a change of job, and his frequent visibility helped him land one.

The flack and the spin doctors are doing their job. The corporate executive is having a joy ride at company expense. But do you know who is left holding the can, doing all the dirty work, just an instrument in the hands of spin doctors and corporate executives. The gullible reporter !

I just think that a company’s key “takeaways”, to use a popular corporate speak, should not be the alleged cerebral glow of its executives but its business strategy, its products, its financials, and everything related to the business.

The corporate executive as celebrity is irrelevant to the business, because what investors, consumers, and employees want to know is not whether the executive had a closed door meeting with the President of the country, but about what the company can deliver to them – the investors, consumers, and employees. I once attended a presentation by a corporate chief to investors, and it was short on business plans, but heavy with snaps of him posing with political dignitaries.

The danger is that if you make the corporate executive a celebrity, he could turn into a “big monster” too, arrogant and unaccountable, with starry-eyed folks unwilling to tell the new-age emperor that he has no clothes.

Have we forgotten what the celebrities at Enron and Tyco, and many other companies did to the people they were supposed to serve ? People then focused on the celebrity, rather than on the deliverables that matter, and lost a lot of money in the bargain.

China’s Internet censorship unparalleled, says report

China now has more than 160 million Internet users and at least 1.3 million websites. But the Internet’s promise of free expression and information has been nipped in the bud by the Chinese government’s online censorship and surveillance system, according to a joint study by Reporters Without Borders and Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a Chinese Internet expert working in IT industry.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the government have deployed colossal human and financial resources to obstruct online free expression, according to the study. Chinese news web sites and blogs have been brought under the editorial control of the propaganda apparatus at both the national and local levels, it added.

The study comes ahead of the 17th National Congress of the CCP, which opens this week in Beijing. It is also less than a year to the Olympic Games in Beijing, when China will attempt to present the best side of the country.

The Chinese government controls traditional news media like TV, radio, and print, but finds that its control is eroded by the Internet. The Internet has emerged as a new forum for dissident activity in countries like Myanmar and China where information flow is controlled by the authorities. During the recent crushing by the military in Myanmar of an agitation by Buddhist monks and students, blogs and videos posted on the Internet were the main information source on the army brutality for the outside world.

Foreign Internet businesses have been quite willing to go along with the Chinese government, if only to get market access. Their pet line is that they have to play by the rules, and that they actually help by being in China, by providing the Internet tools for people to communicate and collaborate.

In 2005, Yahoo was accused by Reporters Without Borders of supplying information to China which led to the jailing of a journalist for "divulging state secrets", according to this report in the BBC.

In 2006, Google said it would censor its search services in China in order to gain greater access to China's fast-growing market, according to this report. Those that don’t cooperate like online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, find themselves sporadically blocked out.

For a PDF version of the study see here

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Indian outsourcers not yet hit by weak dollar

Infosys Technologies Ltd., India’s second largest outsourcer said Thursday that its margins have actually improved in spite of the appreciation of the Indian Rupee against the US dollar. Yesterday another outsourcer, iGate, said its performance was not affected by the weakening dollar.

A weakening dollar impacts Indian outsourcing companies because over 50 percent of their business comes from the US, and is billed in dollars. The work is delivered offshore from India, where the payments to staff and other services are in Indian Rupees. Because of the weakening dollar, Indian companies now have fewer Rupees for every dollar earned abroad.

Indian outsourcers have however taken drastic cost-cutting measures and hedged on currency. In a business model that is cost-plus, where the key cost and input is software developers, the company cannot reduce its hires. But it can increase their productivity, and also shorten the bench – the number of staff kept idle to be able to meet any peaking in customer demand.

Infosys and iGate have also been aided by the willingness of customers to raise prices.

Infosys said its revenue for the July-September quarter was US$1 billion, up by 37 percent from the corresponding quarter last year. The company’s net income grew by 36 percent to $271 million during the quarter. iGate said net income went up 127 percent in the quarter, but revenue actually dipped. The company said there had been a delay in customers placing orders.

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS) and Wipro Ltd, India’s largest and third largest outsourcing companies, are scheduled to announce their results next week. They may also report that they have countered the impact of the weak dollar by good currency hedging, and cutting costs.

For Indian outsourcers, the current problem is a sharp reminder of a problem that they knew all along. You can’t depend on one country for a majority of your business, even if it is the US. Indian outsourcers are now attempting to mitigate that risks by focusing on other markets like Europe and S.E. Asia. It comes at a good time when Europe is opening up to offshore outsourcing.

They are also looking closely at the Indian market, which they de-focused earlier because it didn’t pay well enough, and in dollars. Folks like IBM and Hewlett-Packard have in the meantime made deep inroads into the market.

These are trying days for Indian outsourcers, but these companies excel in their ability to respond quickly to the business environment, because of the strong processes they have in place. The Rupee is meanwhile expected to continue to appreciate as foreign capital inflows into India increase, and the country’s economy is booming.

Indian outsourcers not floundering, not migrating

The Armenian genocide, and Turkish denials

Despite the evidence, Turkey denies the genocide of the Armenians during the first World War.
Like the Germans after World War II, Turkey should accept that there was a genocide on its soil, apologize for it, make reparations where required, and move forward. Then only can it claim to be part of the civilized world.

As the successor to the Ottoman empire, the modern Turkish state has instead spent millions of pounds on public relations and lobbying to dissuade western governments from labeling the events of 1915 - 1917 a genocide, according to The Guardian. It cancelled defense contracts with France last year when its national assembly voted to make denial of the Armenian holocaust a crime.

Against the protests of US President George Bush, who is worried about retaliation from Turkey, the US Congress is planning to officially recognize as a genocide the forced deportations and massacre of Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey does not accept that there was a genocide against the Armenians arguing instead that the Armenians were killed in widespread fighting.

But critics within and outside Turkey insist that the country come to terms with this gory and controversial element of its past. Turkish author, and Nobel prize winner Orhan Pamuk was prosecuted in Turkey after he referred to the Armenian issue. "What happened to the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 was a major thing that was hidden from the Turkish nation; it was a taboo," he told the BBC in 2005 after he returned to Turkey to face charges against him.

Turkey’s reign of terror against the Armenians was an attempt to destroy the race, and the Armenian death toll was almost a million and a half, according to Robert Fisk in his book “The Great War for Civilization.” On September 15, 1915, Fisk writes, the then Turkish interior minister Talaat Pasha, cabled an instruction, of which a carbon copy still exists, to his prefect in Aleppo, telling him that he had already been informed that the government “had decided to destroy completely all the indicated persons living in Turkey”.

Fisk found from eyewitness that in Margada on the Turkish-Syria border over 50,000 Armenians had been killed. Turks tied together Armenian men, women, and children, starved and sometimes naked, and pushed them off the hill of Margada into the river, and shot one of them, according to Fisk. The body of the person shot then dragged the others down into the water, at the expense of a single bullet.

There are innumerable parallel that can be drawn between Margada and Auschwitz, and between the Ottoman Empire and Nazi Germany. Where the paths differ is that while Germany acknowledges and repents for the Holocaust, the Turks insist that there wasn’t a genocide of the Armenians. It resorts to blackmail of countries that would refer to the killings as genocide.

Throwing computers at the digital divide won’t help

Every other multinational technology company these days has a strategy for bridging the digital divide, which in many emerging economies usually adds up to bridging the rural divide. While students and the rest of the people in the cities have access to the Internet, and consequently to information, rural economies do not, goes the story line.

The spiel continues: If only rural economies have access to the Internet, and consequently to information, that would eliminate middle men when farmers sell their produce, help farmers get the best price for their produce, ease out the village money-lender, and generally usher pastoral bliss.

Thus you have low-cost technologies like the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project's XO laptop, and Intel’s Classmate PC, and Internet Kiosks aiming at the new big market – bridging the digital divide in rural markets.

The management guru they often quote is C.K. Prahalad, author of the famous book “ The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”, which argues that there is money to be made at the bottom of the economic pyramid as well, if only goods are packaged in the right way, and at the right price points.

There are however a number of faulty assumptions in the strategy for bridging the digital divide adopted by multinational companies for emerging economies like Brazil and India. The divide in these countries is not only digital, but fundamentally one of inequality. It covers lack of access to sanitation, housing, electricity, education, and a whole lot of other things that the elites in these countries enjoy.

Thus technology, and the information it brings, is likely to be the least among the priorities among the poor and the governments in these countries. Perhaps that is the reason why the Indian government declined to join the OLPC project. It would rather spend money on setting up more schools, and outfitting them with blackboards, benches, and inexpensive writing equipment, than invest in a laptop for each child.

Prahalad has often been misunderstood by technology pundits. The management guru was largely talking about companies re-packaging and pricing necessities and small-value luxuries for rural masses. Thus Lever introduced its shampoos in small, single-use and low-cost sachets rather than in the costlier, gigantic packs they sell to well-heeled consumers. You just can’t re-package technology in small dollops and try to pass it off as a necessity to poor users who still can’t take advantage of it because they are illiterate, and whose primary concern is still their next meal.

A more appropriate metaphor is the public call offices (PCOs) set up in both urban and rural India by the government under license to small-time entrepreneurs. These phone booths were a success for one, because it met a felt need for communications among India’s urban and rural masses. India’s rural masses often migrate to the city for work, and need to stay in touch with their family back home. They can’t write letters, because they are illiterate. So they rely on messages sent through acquaintances, and the telephone, which does not require people to be literate to use them.

Illiteracy and poverty, and not lack of access to the Internet, is one of the more pressing and urgent problems in many developing economies.

The plans by tech companies to bridge the digital divide may in fact accentuate inequalities in rural economies. The computers and the Internet, and the information that it provides, may well go to the rural elites, rather than the rural poor, who are by the way mainly illiterate.

To the middlemen already holding sway in the rural economies, the tech companies may well help add another set of middlemen – those with access to information. Throwing computers at the digital divide, besides being fruitless, could even be dangerous.

In India, killing the corner shop

When in India, if you have forgotten to pack toothpaste, or you have run out of cigarettes, you can just step out, and buy it from a small shop, around the corner. The store is usually open past 10:30 pm in the night, and if the person running the store does not have what you want, he will offer to deliver it to you.

The landscape of India’s cities and small towns are dotted by these small shops, most of them pop-and-mom outfits. They are very personalized operations that know you and your family, and may even let you pay the next day if you are short of cash, or in a hurry. They are also places for the people of the neighborhood to congregate for an evening chat.

Now these retailers feel threatened that they could be driven out of business by Western style super markets like Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco who have an eye on the Indian market.

So far the Indian government has kept the foreign retail chains out of the market, by blocking foreign retail giants out of India, but local retailers already face competition from recent forays into large-scale retail business by big Indian groups like Reliance of Mumbai, which is setting up a chain of Reliance Retail stores, across the country, ahead of foreign competition.

More than 20,000 traders, farmers and shopkeepers protested on Wednesday against the entry of private retail giants like Wal-Mart into India which they say would destroy millions of livelihoods, according to a report from Reuters.

Retailers are large vote banks. Reliance too would perhaps want to delay the entry of foreign retailers until after they have their act together, and the business house has strong connections with the Indian government.

In the long-term though, the Indian market will not be able to resist the entry of multinational retail chains. What will that do to the traditional retailer ?

It seems that the corner shops will still have their traditional customer base. Folks will not drive some miles to a supermarket, and stand in serpentine queues to buy a tube of toothpaste or a pack of biscuits. Besides corner shops offer relationships that the large supermarkets do not. It is true that large supermarkets will offer loyalty cards and coupons and a variety of schemes, but that in itself will not remove the sheer convenience of the corner store.

The large multinational retail chains may however squeeze out the small retailer by a stronger control over the supply chain. Because of the volumes they will purchase, they will be able to offer the best produce from the farmers, cut off intermediaries, and generally make sure the best merchandise at the best price comes to their chain of stores. That would mean that people are more likely to do their volume purchasing at the supermarkets, to take advantage of the discounts.

Will there be enough of daily business still left over for small retailers ?

It is too early to sing an ode to the corner retail store. But the day these shops roll down shutters will be a very sad day indeed not only for the retailer but for his customers. It will be the end of a timeless tradition in the country, that served well both the retailer and the consumer.

Who will rein in the CIA if not the Supreme Court ?

By refusing to hear the appeal from Khaled El-Masri, an illegal detainee of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), the US Supreme Court may have passed up an opportunity to rein in the CIA, and restore faith in the American way of life. El-Masri had appealed after the decision of lower courts not to hear his case against the CIA on national security grounds.

Last week, the New York Times revealed that a 2005 Justice Department memo endorsed interrogation techniques were some of the harshest ever used by the CIA. They included head-slapping, exposure to freezing temperatures and simulated drowning, known as water-boarding.

That was torture by any interpretation of the term, but frankly pales in its audacity and brutality when compared to the alleged torture of El-Masri under a CIA program called “extraordinary rendition”.

To get around US federal and international conventions, the CIA is said to have invented the concept of “extraordinary rendition”, the unlawful kidnapping of foreign citizens, and their transfer to secret prisons in countries that have little regard for human rights and legal niceties.

Suspects are detained and interrogated either by US personnel at US-run detention facilities outside US sovereign territory or, alternatively, are handed over to the custody of foreign agents for interrogation, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In both instances, interrogation methods are employed that do not comport with federal and internationally recognized standards, ACLU added.

El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese origin, by his account was abducted in Macedonia in 2003 and flown to Afghanistan for interrogation, under the “extraordinary rendition” program. The 44-year-old alleges he was tortured during five months in detention, four months of which were spent in a prison in Kabul, Afghanistan, nicknamed the "salt pit".

On his flight to Afghanistan, he says, he was stripped, beaten, shackled, made to wear "diapers", drugged and chained to the floor of the plane.

By his account, he was finally released in Albania after the Americans realized they had got the wrong man. For a copy of El-Masri’s petition before US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia see here.

There are a number of people kidnapped tortured by the CIA under “extraordinary rendition”, according to civil liberties unions. Some were probably terrorists, but that does not make “extraordinary rendition” justified. If the US and other free countries do not follow norms of fair play, detention, and interrogation, and instead look for subterfuges, they will lose the high moral ground they have taken with regard to the terrorists. The free world is appearing to be just a brutal as the terrorists.

Rather than give the CIA cover under the "state secrets" privilege, US courts should have seized the opportunity to bring some accountability into the CIA and the US government.

There are dangerous man at large, and not all of them are Islamic terrorists. Some of them are in the pay of the US government.

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A Google phone. So why the fuss ?

Tracking tech companies these days is like tracking movie stars and other celebrity. Will she marry that handsome dude she has been seeing of late ? Does that mean she has fallen out with that gorgeous hunk she was seen with last week at the Ritz ? And by the way, any truth to reports that she had had a silicone implant ?

There is abundant speculation in the mainline newspapers, trade publications and blogs that Google may be bringing out a mobile phone. Surely Google Inc. is loving it, as did Apple Inc. when all that speculative frenzy built up around the iPhone. Folks save them a lot of advertising bucks by doing their work for them. We had pre-announced the iPhone based on crumbs Apple fed us, and we are now trying to pre-announce the Google phone – whether it is a real phone or only software.

If Google brings to market a phone, that is nice. It is also nice every time Nokia Corp. or Motorola Inc. bring out a phone with some new feature. But it is nothing to get into a paroxysm about.

Yes, the PC changed the world in many ways, but another mobile phone will not.

In fact the mobile service providers will ensure that the phone does not go very far. Mobile service providers want control, and they will want control over everything that goes into that phone. Apple wrested control from AT&T by offering it exclusivity, but, despite the popularity of the product, remember it runs on only one network in the US.

The only way Google can play this game to its advantage is to buy wireless spectrum, and allocate it to buddies who will invest in mobile communications companies. There are reports they are going to do just that. But getting into the service provider business to make sure its content and applications is on the phone, is akin to starting up a PC company that ships only Google apps. Google does not seem to know what to do with its cash just now.

I am more inclined to take the view that Google like Microsoft Corp. may emerge as a provider of software and reference design to mobile phone makers like Nokia and Motorola. Miguel Helft at the New York Times is one of a number who are coming around to this view.

Microsoft hasn’t been very successful in this market because cell phone makers have always been wary of large companies invading their turf. That is the reason Nokia has invested in Symbian, a developer of software for phones. Google too will be seen as an upstart by entrenched phone makers.

Besides, if folks like Nokia use the Google software, they will still be required to tweak it for the operator, who may decide he wants Yahoo’s application, rather than Google’s.

But all this hasn’t answered my question. Why is everyone going ga-ga over Google’s new phone/phone software ? Are we so starved for excitement ?

From the mouths of children

One of my daily routines is to tell a story at bedtime to my child. I decided to tell her about Che Guevara, the man in Latin America, who wanted to help the poor by throwing out the rich and cruel landlords, and the evil dictators. “You have got it all muddled up pop,” my child protested. “That is Robin Hood you were talking about, and he and his men no longer exist.”

I then picked up one of her books to begin to read. The story we were reading was about a young man, called Jeff, who when not at work, was sought after by kids and adults in the neighborhood for his infectious sense of humor, his innumerable anecdotes, and his uncanny ability to take a dig at himself.

Jeff, it turns out, was a favorite because he was always around to help kids fix their broken toys, and thought them how to cycle and play ball. He also helped the elder in the neighborhood with their chores, when he could.

My child, interrupted me midway to ask, “These days, where do we find a person like this ?”. “Read me something about people we know”, she demanded.

Vowing to be as close to reality as possible, I began:

There was a man called Kirk who was the head of a company. He wore swanky suits, and was driven to work every morning in a luxury car. He was a man of many words, usually about his company, and its products, and how well they sold. In fact, he never passed up an opportunity to talk about these things.

His duty was to make money for the people who owned the company – they call them shareholders - and he did that very well.

He must have been an important man, because he had lots of people working for him. Everybody laughed when he said something funny. There were a lot of newspaper reporters and TV camera men running behind him. He was a “thought leader” and what he said was considered very important. He was always dressed right, always with a smile for the cameras.

He had people – they call them a public relations firm - that reminded newspapers all the time about his company, his work, and yes, his thought leadership. He traveled a lot, worked a lot, his company organized functions where he gave speeches a lot, he was away from home a lot. His company rewarded him with vacations in exotic locations, lots of money....

My child was snoring before I could finish the story. She never asked me again to read to her at bedtime.

Instant Happiness

Che Guevara: from revolutionary to commercial icon

Commercial interest and advertising companies have systematically appropriated and transformed symbols of protest, while robbing them of their original content and meaning.

The most glaring instance is a snap of Ernesto "Che" Guevara taken by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda, which inspired Jim Fitzpatrick, an Irish artist, to make pictures of the revolutionary, based on that photograph.

The iconic snap and the pictures have Che Guevara in his long hair and beard, sporting his beret with a single star on it - a picture not many would have missed.

Guevara was executed by the Bolivian Army on October 9, 1967. A number of Latin American countries plan memorials this week in his honour.

In the west the pictures have been used as a decoration for products from tissues to underwear, reports the BBC. With time Che Guevara the image and Che the revolutionary got separated.

Ironically, the widespread commercial use of the pictures is partly due to a decision by Fitzpatrick not to take a copyright on his poster.

The poster, produced by Fitzpatrick under his own imprint in 1968, achieved worldwide circulation and he was quite famous as a result. But because he made the image copyright-free, he earned nothing from it personally, nor did he wish to, Fitzpatrick is quoted as saying on his web site.

As for the original photo by Korda, he allowed it to be used without charging for royalties because he thought that the more the picture spread, the more would Che Guevara’s ideals.

But in 2000, 40 years after he took the picture, he sued an advertising agency, and the company that supplied the photograph for use in an advertisment for a vodka brand, according to Famous Pictures: The Magazine.

To use the image of Che Guevara to sell vodka was a slur on his name and memory, as he never drank himself, he was not a drunk, and drink should not be associated with his immortal memory, Korda told the media according to this report. He was able to affirm his ownership of the photo and won an out-of-court settlement of US$50,000, which he donated to the Cuban medical system, according to Famous Pictures: The Magazine.


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Thoughts on Che Guevara and the cruelty of capitalism

Thoughts on Che Guevara and the cruelty of capitalism

The pain and cruelty generated by the free market and capitalism is no single person’s fault. As most people will tell you, it is the “invisible hand” more efficiently balancing supply and demand, including the demand and supply of factors of production, even if one of those factors - human beings - can often feel pain, joblessness, insecurity, and powerlessness.

The capitalist world at large absolves itself from the pain and cruelty by blaming it on “the system”. It is the way things are, and sorry you just lucked out. Sorry you lucked out and lost your job when some US companies decided to send your job to India or China, because they were only following capitalist principles of finding the lowest cost factor of production.

You could take some cold comfort in the theory that this is just a structural adjustment, and that progressively the American economy will move to higher value-added jobs, for which incidentally you were never skilled. Tell that to your hungry kids when they are whining for the food you can no longer put on the table.

The Indians and the Chinese are now on a spending spree, yes on acquired tastes like Cabernet and caviar, and all things branded. The American worker should not crib, apologists say, because they are these days buying all things American, and helping boost the US economy. Unfortunately all things American are not longer manufactured in the US, but in China.

Take ten years from now, Indian workers, including software engineers may also find their jobs on the block, as companies move to lower cost locations, or expand to other markets. Once again the theorists of capitalism will tell them that their pain, their powerlessness are only temporary effects of a structural change.

Have you ever wondered why the Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara inspires many people in a vague sort of a way, even 40 years after his death ? It is not that these people support Marxism, or for that matter some of Che Guevara’s controversial actions, including his summary executions of supporters of General Fulgencio Batista in Cuba after the Marxists seized power in 1959.

Che Guevara and revolutionaries like him strike a mild sympathetic chord in many of us, because despite the odds, they did what we may never do.

Instead of being powerless victims of a cruel system, they chose to question and to overthrow the feudalism coupled with neo-capitalism in parts of South America. And they were not alone. In other countries around the world too there have been people who have stood out to fight systems that are unjust and oppressive.

Today it may be the turn of people in capitalist societies, aiming to restore their power and autonomy. As citizens, people have the right to influence the political process so that the wealth that is generated is distributed more equitably, and people are empowered.

This is not about overthrowing the capitalist system. It is not about “economic populism” which Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board, says has caused many an economic disaster in Latin America. This is about moderating the system – getting governments to spend more on the welfare of their people, getting capitalism to get less rapaciously greedy, and protecting vulnerable sections of society who have neither the skills nor the capital to compete.

Take the plight of workers in capitalist economies. Currently in most of these economies, if the CEO of a company cuts staff, the company’s shares spike on the stock market, and later the CEO’s salary also jumps. The CEO can now keep fewer staff and make them work longer, many of them driven by the fear that their jobs could be lost. The CEO and his top management have benefited, and so have the shareholder, and you as the consumer. But you as a worker are out of a job, no longer able to participate in the orgy of consumption.

Do companies have to maximize profit at the expense of workers, or are they doing so mainly because a lot of industries are not unionized ? The pet argument is that if CEOs are not given the freedom to do as they please, they will lose out to competing companies. Lost in this dogma is the possibility that you can still pay and treat your people better, without making your products costlier, and still winning in the market. You can do that by shooting for reasonable profits, rather than exorbitant profits !

If the stock market would put less pressure on CEOs to generate profits, CEOs could continue to please the consumer, and yes, even the worker. CEOs may even allow trade unions and higher worker empowerment.

The cult of equity, and the celebrity status accorded to CEOs who help drive that stock up, has also translated into wide disparities between the salaries and perks of the CEO and his top management and the rest of the organization. Can’t that gap be perhaps reduced, so that the rest of the organization also benefits from capitalism ?

Apologists for capitalism will say that the key strength of capitalism is that you too can strive to be CEO. That line is cold comfort to the unemployed guy on the dole. Others will say that the outrageous salaries earned by CEOs and top management are an incentive to perform. Pray do only CEOs need an incentive to work ? What about the stiff who catches a bus or train to work each day, with nothing to look forward to except his daily routine ?

Nothing about what has been outlined so far is fool-proof. It may not work, or there may be people who don’t want it to work. But it is only by thinking of empowerment, thinking of humanizing the system, and organizing around these principles, that the process of change can begin.

Che Guevara is more than a handsome face on a T-shirt. His example dares us to dream of empowerment, of taking control of our lives.

Marxism may be dead as an ideology, but revolutionaries like Che Guevara can inspire us to think about ways of countering our powerlessness in a capitalist system.

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Corrupt bloggers: part of the dark underbelly of the Internet

Blogs and bloggers have always been romanticized as the ultimate example of freedom of expression. Citizen journalists, with fire in their belly, were expected to give their own unique perspective on events, new information that the traditional media had missed out, and a freshness of outlook and analysis. Information, we were told, would be really free, both as in unpriced and uncontrolled.

Unfortunately some corrupt bloggers are quickly turning that dream to dust. Some bloggers are putting up content on their blog posts up for sale to the corporate sector and other buyers. Their line: pay me and I will put up your news release.

Marketing communications managers in companies currently budget payments to bloggers that, depending on the popularity of the blogs, range from hefty checks to not-so-hefty checks, or even just a meal at an expensive restaurant.

“Soon after we issue a press release or make a product announcement, there are a large number of bloggers calling to discuss payments for running the story on their blogs”, said the communications manager of a leading multinational Internet company.

Why do companies pay ? Blogs are competing as news sources for the public because of their viral nature and quicker time to getting a story online. A good report helps a company, as it goes that much further, and more quickly, across cyberspace. By the same token if one of the more popular blogs ignores the news or publishes a competitor’s news item, the company that didn’t pay up stands to lose.

Bloggers are quickly realizing their importance, and some of them now demand that they be invited for press conferences, media briefings, and even company-paid junkets to exotic locations.

In an earlier posting, I had quoted Google Inc.’s president and chief Internet evangelist Vinton Cerf as saying that the Internet is a mirror to the population that uses it. “When you have a problem in the mirror you do not fix the mirror, you fix that which is reflected in the mirror”, Cerf said while rejecting regulation of the Internet.

The dark under-belly of society has moved to the Internet, but now more powerful, more viral because of the reach, and anonymity that the Internet offers.

There have been many instances through the decades of some small town journalists and publishers, and even some big city journalists and publishers, corrupted by handouts from politicians and companies. I knew a publisher who brought out his newspaper with a circulation of about 5,000 every time a company or a political party had an axes to grind through his newspaper.

But for these few black sheep, there are solid doyens of journalism, both publishers and journalists, committed to delivering to the reader a great, interesting, and accurate story.

This pattern too will likely emerge on the Internet, but the numbers are so many, that separating the wheat from the chaff is an impossible task for readers online. And there are more news and commentary blogs and product review blogs getting added each day. That is because the barriers to entry to becoming a purveyor of news and opinions has come crashing down.

If in the old days you needed to have a degree in journalism, and required an appreciation of the finer points and the ethics of the profession before you were credible, now anybody with an Internet account and access to a blog hosting site can set up a news blog.

Citizen journalism therefore is fraught with danger. I am worried not only of citizen journalism promoting corporate interests, but of citizen journalism promoting political interests, promoting disharmony between religions, at a price. Aggrieved folks may sometimes be able to slap the blog with a “cease and desist”, but the problem with such orders is that by the time your lawyer has finished drafting it out, various versions of the story may be on hundreds, nay a million other blogs.

My guess is that a confused public will eventually go back to their traditional gatekeepers of the news, like online editions of some of the established newspapers, and narrow down to a few blogs they have thoroughly vetted for quality. But until then it will be corruption and chaos in the blogosphere.

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They torture prisoners in Myanmar, Iran, and yes the US

The revelations this week by the New York Times on the use of torture on prisoners by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) shows once again that when a people are threatened by an enemy, fear brings out the worst in human beings.

The disclosure by the New York Times, and subsequent reactions also show how democracy does not seem to be working too well in the US.

The interrogation techniques endorsed by a 2005 Justice Department memo were some of the harshest ever used by the CIA, according to the New York Times. They included head-slapping, exposure to freezing temperatures and simulated drowning, known as water-boarding.

It is surprising that elected representatives of the people knew nothing about it. Democrats on Capitol Hill demanded to see the classified memorandums, disclosed Thursday by The New York Times, that gave the Central Intelligence Agency expansive approval in 2005 for harsh interrogation techniques, according to a follow-up report in the New York Times.

“I find it unfathomable that the committee tasked with oversight of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program would be provided more information by The New York Times than by the Department of Justice,” Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, a West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote to the acting attorney general, Peter D. Keisler, asking for copies of all opinions on interrogation since 2004, the New York Times said.

More frightening is that in the name of fighting terror, the President of the US and his officials in government have consolidated, nay arrogated power, by a series of laws and regulations, including laws on surveillance of people, and a domestic spying program.

Some of these new rules even exclude Capitol Hill from knowing what is going on. A pet line already making the rounds is that a disclosure of interrogation techniques would help terrorists train their cadres to resist these techniques.

Once again US President George Bush invoked the potent imagery of terror on Friday. Voice of America quoted the President as saying "The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack. And that is exactly what this government is doing. And that is exactly what we will continue to do." Bush however said that interrogations were conducted by trained professionals who did not use torture.

The alleged torture of prisoners, and some other measures by the Bush government, that effectively circumvent civil rights, are grist for the propaganda machines of the terrorists. One of the aims of terrorism is to expose what it believes is the dark under-belly of democracy. The torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib , the detentions at Guantanamo Bay, and now the report of the tortures by the CIA help reinforce these views.

The free world can hold the moral high ground against its opponents only if it shows that civility, decency, human rights, and democracy will never be compromised under any threat. Else we are not very different from them.

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The Internet helps RIAA squeeze profits

Internet technology has made it easier to track sharing of copyrighted content, and music labels and the powerful Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) are making the most if it to clamp down, no drive to bankruptcy, individuals who are only following an age-old tradition of sharing.

Jammie Thomas, a Native American from Minnesota, has to pay whopping fine of US$220,000 to record companies for offering songs online through a Kazaa file-sharing network. The sum is equivalent to about five times her annual salary, and will surely drive her bankrupt, according to a report in The Times of London.

Jammie’s first mistake was that she thought that the world was still a place where people shared nice things, without monetary gain. Her other mistake was to take on RIAA and the powerful music labels, who get away with their usurious prices on music.

RIAA will certainly argue that you have to pay for the music whatever the rates, or compose your own music, because they have the copyright laws behind them. Besides, sharing is no longer fair use because RIAA and company can now track you down on the Internet, and make money from you.

If you buy a print magazine and pass it around to your office colleagues, and your neighbors, nobody can do anything about it. But once you go on the Internet and download a digital edition of the magazine, the company that manages the downloads, evidently in agreement with the publishers, allows you one download, and maybe even allows you to give a friend a free copy. But any distribution beyond the set limit attracts digital rights management (DRM) and the weight of copyright law.

By the same token, iTunes from Apple Inc. allows you to rip CDs and burn new ones, but digital music downloads from its online store attract a whole lot of restrictions, including what player you can use to play the music. Now that is double standards !

Technology has made it possible for music companies, publishing houses, and other content providers to put more restrictions on consumers, and make them enforceable.

If I buy a CD, I can rip it using iTunes or any other media player software, and burn scores of CDs from it. Ordinary people don’t usually do it. They may at the most pass the CD to a friend to listen or burn a copy to give to that friend. That is part of a culture of sharing and fair use.

Note that is not an argument against copyright. It is an argument to support a culture of sharing and fair use on copyright, that has been around for decades. We share recipes, we share an interesting poem, or a touching prayer as well. We sometimes record a nice song playing on the radio. Do you really want me to call up the radio station, and submit a lengthy form to take permission to record the song ?

Today if I download a file from audio books downloading site Audible.com, the file that is downloaded has my name on it. My use of the downloaded audio book can be tracked, as also my alleged misuse.

As the terms for purchase of music, books, and content are far more liberal offline than online, maybe many of us will now go back to hassle-free consumption of offline content like CDs, print books and newspapers, and even DVDs. The controls on the Internet are just too many.

Or maybe I will buy at online stores that sell non-DRM content. They are offering non-DRM content because they see the writing on the wall, because they recognize that many like me are decent folks, because they recognize that sharing is social glue which the money-grabbing barbarians can never understand.

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In Pakistan, Bhutto gives in to Musharraf ?

One day ahead of his bid for re-election, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has got the legitimacy he was seeking – a deal with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

The government and Bhutto’s party said they had both agreed on a national reconciliation accord which would be made public later Friday, according to a report from AFP in Khaleej Times.

It appears however, at this point, that with Bhutto’s blessings, Musharraf will seek re-election on October 6 from a Parliament whose term is running out. This is just what Musharraf wanted, although his opponents wanted him to seek re-election after a new Parliament and provincial assemblies were elected.

The accord gives an amnesty for politicians active in Pakistan between 1988 and 1999 -- effectively clearing Bhutto of the corruption charges that forced her into exile eight years ago, according to AFP.

That clears the way for Bhutto, but it is not clear yet whether another former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is also in the clear. Will the Pakistan government still insist that he finish his 10 year term of exile ? That would leave the field open in the next parliament elections to Bhutto.

It also appears that the President will seek re-election even as he holds the post of chief of army staff. He has indicated that he will quit his army post if re-elected. Either way this ensures Musharraf stays in power.

From available information the deal seems one-sided, and unless it includes all the parties including that of Nawaz Sharif, it will look like a desperate Bhutto struck a deal with the President to further her own interests, rather than that of the country. It could also strengthen extremist elements in the country.

An agreement to be durable must also work out the modalities to send the army back to the barracks, and keep them out of politics. Else this deal will be one of many abortive and short-lasting moves by civilians to get power from the country's military.

Musharaff is still not in the clear as Pakistan's Supreme Court has to still rule on new petitions challenging his re-election. The agreement with Bhutto has to still be promulgated by the President.

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Globalization is nice, but……

Most people endorse free trade, multinational corporations and free markets, but they are also concerned about inequality, threats to their culture, threats to the environment, and threats posed by immigration, depending on which country you come from.

These latest findings of the latest Pew Global Project Attitudes survey of more than 45,000 people in 47 countries are not startling, but in fact a sober confirmation of what many political analysts and economists have been saying all along. Globalization is accepted as inevitable today, and how you respond to it depends on how you are impacted by it.

Thus India and China whose economies are benefiting from large scale outsourcing of software and contract manufacturing from the US, Europe, and other countries, are positive about economic globalization. “There is near universal approval of global trade among the publics of rising Asian economic powers China and India”, reports the Pew Research Center.

In contrast, “there are signs that enthusiasm for economic globalization is waning in the West -- Americans and Western Europeans are less supportive of international trade and multinational companies than they were five years ago”, according to the survey results released October 4.

As Americans and Europeans find their jobs moving to India, as multinational companies look for lower cost locations, they are bearing the brunt of economic globalization, and they are not unexpectedly resenting it.

Even as the response to economic globalization is along expected lines, there are some worrisome pointers too. In nearly every country surveyed, people worry about losing their traditional culture and national identities, and they feel their way of life needs protection against foreign influences, according to the survey. They are also worried about immigration, and a lot of that worry comes from concerns about losing their culture and traditions, it added.

A number of authors including Benjamin R. Barber in “Jihad vs. McWorld” have said that confronting “McWorld tied together by technology, ecology, communications, and commerce” is Jihad defined by the resurgence of “parochial identities”.

Until recently, it was thought that the re-assertion of parochial cultures and identities was primarily happening in the Middle East, Asia, and part of the Balkans, buffeted by globalization and multinational companies aiming at global homogenization and neutralizing local culture, in favor of mass-produced culture, usually of American origin.

The assertion of local identities has now spread to the West too where sections of traditional populations feel alienated and threatened by the culture of migrants. Even in the US there have been reports of small towns trying to control the expanding influence of Hispanic culture. In Germany, a proposal for a new mosque sparked of a debate on the rights of Muslim women, and the need to meld Islamic and local, predominantly Christian, culture.

Fully eight-in-ten in Italy and 72 percent in Spain agree that their way of life needs protection from foreign influence, according to Pew Research. Narrow majorities in Great Britain (54 percent) and Germany (53 percent) agree that their way of life needs protection. Opinions are almost evenly divided in France, a country famous for vigilantly protecting its language and culture, according to the survey. In the US and Canada 62 percent believe that their way of life must be protected.

Even as the world wants to be economically close knit, it still wants to be culturally separate and maintain its identity. That could potentially be a source of tension and conflict moving forward.

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Jajah shooed out of eBay

Internet telephony provider Jajah has been offering since last week “click-to-call” buttons that could be used by customers and friends to call subscribers toll-free. Jajah expected these buttons to go into online commerce sites, social networking sites, and yes auction sites like eBay.

On Thursday, however, the company’s plans seem to have run foul of eBay Inc., which owns another Internet telephony company, called Skype.

In some countries eBay informed Jajah sellers that the Jajah voice communication service is not allowed on the marketplace, according to release on Thursday by Jajah.

The release says that eBay's email to Jajah seller's states: "The listing was removed because it violated the eBay Inappropriate Links policy... links or other connections to live chat systems are not permitted."

EBay has not yet commented on this development, which on the face of it appears like a restrictive trade practice favoring eBay’s Skype.

On Monday, eBay, of San Jose, California, said it was taking a US$1.43 billion charge related to its acquisition of Skype, and said it may have paid extra for the buy.

While Jajah got positive feedback from within eBay in several countries, in other countries it saw eBay removing listings that contain Jajah buttons, said Jajah co-founder Roman Scharf. The company did not specify in which countries the Jajah buttons had been removed.

A spat with eBay could give Jajah much needed mileage and publicity, as it will be likely seen as the under-dog in the dispute.

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Alas, yet another Clinton presidency

After a first flush of success, the downslide seems to have begun for Senator Barack Obama in his bid for the Democratic nomination. First was the news that the Senator had raised US$20 million in the third quarter, lower than $27 million for key rival Senator Hillary Clinton.

A new poll by Washington Post-ABC News this week suggests that Clinton has pulled away from the rest of the pack, with 53 percent of Democrats saying that they would vote for Clinton if a presidential caucus or primary was held in their state now. In contrast, only 20 percent of the Democrats polled said they would vote for Obama.

The poll, which has a three-point error margin, was conducted by telephone between September 27-30, among a random national sample of 1,114 adults, including additional interviews with randomly-selected African Americans, for a total of 212 black respondents.

With Obama well behind her in the poll, Clinton also seems to be quite a strong candidate to take on Rudy Giuliani, the strongest Republican contender so far. If the presidential elections were held now, 51 percent said they would vote for Clinton as against 43 percent for Giuliani.

With the Republicans with their back to the wall over Iraq, and President George Bush unlikely to come up with any imaginative resolution to the Iraq issue ahead of the elections, and probably compounding problems with an attack on Iran, the path to the presidency may be clear for Clinton.

Nostalgia for husband Bill Clinton seems to be pretty high with 66 percent in the poll approving of the way he handled his job as president. To be sure, Clinton presided over a period of relative domestic calm and economic expansion in the US.

Senator Clinton’s remarks about Obama’s lack of experience in politics may also have found their mark. Voters may have probably decided that being a first lady, and one known to nosy into matters of state, counts for political experience.

The interesting point is that neither Clinton nor Obama have outlined a clear strategy on how they would run foreign affairs, except for Obama saying he would talk to renegade leaders like the Iranian president, and Clinton saying she wouldn’t. Neither have proposed their specific plans for withdrawing troops from Iraq, and strategies for handling other hot spots, nor any dramatic moves in domestic policy.

Obama caught the imagination of the public for a while because he is not white, and also by his claim that he was the outsider who was going to clean up Washington of its shenanigans. Everybody loves change, particularly when it is Washington getting a makeover, but Obama has never been specific about the changes he would like to make. Just being an outsider didn’t help evidently.

The upshot is that it appears that America is terribly short of leadership outside of two families – the Bush and the Clinton family. We used to think that dynastic politics was something that happened in immature democracies in developing countries like India, and Sri Lanka. But it is now likely to happen in the US too, with a whole generation knowing only a Bush or a Clinton as president.

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NASSCOM says no slowdown in outsourcing to India

India’s National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) in Delhi said that India is on track to achieve US$60 billion in exports by 2010, despite the appreciation of the Indian Rupee, according to a report by AFP.

NASSCOM’s President Kiran Karnik said Wednesday that it does not see an export slowdown, but added the appreciation of the rupee could weigh on margins and profits, according to the report.

The rupee has risen by more than 11 percent this year against the dollar, leading to speculation that Indian outsourcers, who get over 60 percent of their revenue from the US, may be badly hit. There was also speculation that Indian outsourcers were setting up operations outside India to counter the appreciation of the Rupee, and higher wages in India.

However, as pointed out in this blog in September, India’s outsourcing industry is in fine fettle, but for possibly a few percentage point drops in their whopping profitability and Rupee earnings. The post said:

“But even as (Indian outsourcers) realizations are going down, their costs of keeping staff on-site at client sites in the US is also coming down. Other dollar denominated costs are also coming down. This is not to say that these companies won’t be affected at all, but expect a few percentage points drop in margins.

As usual the top players like Infosys Technologies Ltd., Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS), and Wipro Ltd. will report next month robust quarterly revenue and profits growth, that are the envy of their peers in the US and Europe.”

The slow-down in the sub-prime mortgages market in the US may have also impacted some Indian outsourcers, but only marginally, and the staff were quickly shifted to other clients.

Confident of the outlook for the industry, Indian outsourcers now say that the appreciation of the Rupee and the slow-down in the sub-prime mortgages market are part of normal risks they have to deal with in the business.

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Free markets do not necessarily mean democracy or quality of life

“The kind of economic organization that provides economic freedom directly, namely, competitive capitalism, also promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables the one to offset the other.”
---- Milton Friedman in “Capitalism and Freedom”

Friedman’s attempts to link political freedom and free markets were belied even in his time in some economies outside the US. India, for example, had a vibrant democracy from the 1950s, even though the country had adopted a socialistic, public-ownership route to economic ownership and development.

Friedman, writes Robert B. Reich in his new book “Supercapitalism”, traveled to Chile during the rule of military dictator, Augusto Pinochet, to urge Pinochet’s junta to adopt free-market capitalism. In lectures in Chile, Friedman spoke on his pet theme – that free markets were a pre-condition to political freedom and sustainable democracy.

Pinochet took Friedman’s free-market advice, but his brutal dictatorship lasted another 15 years, according to Reich.

India has since the 1990s liberalized its economy for economic reasons, starting with a balance of
payments crisis. But the economic prosperity of the country has not reached its vast number of poor, and arguably also weakened the political process.

One of the offshoots of liberalization and the economic boom in India is that a sizeable section of the middle class, a bulwark of the country’s democracy, have got transformed into producers or consumers from their original role also as active participants in the political process.

A successful software engineer in India, for example, has neither the inclination nor the time to discuss political issues. In part the middle class may have also got alienated from the political process often by their own will, because of disgust with the rampant corruption in the political class, and a sense of “powerlessness”.

India’s neighbor China has adopted free-market principles, and is enjoying an economic boom. But this prosperity has not been coupled with political freedom and democracy. Nor has economic prosperity made democracy a more distinct possibility.

A common theme running through most free-market ideology is that markets left to themselves can solve about anything, by their ability to efficiently organize , resources, production, and consumption.

But free markets as we have found out cannot guarantee equity, or environment protection, or better quality of life. That is the work of public policy and in a democracy, policy is more likely to be influenced by citizens.

In “ Supercapitalism”, Reich, former Secretary for Labor under US President Bill Clinton, says that the US economy has been on a roll since the 1970s. Consumers have been treated to a vast array of goods like iPods, while cost of standard goods and services have declined.

However CEOs of companies cannot be counted on to be munificent, and statesmen-like as in the past. Deregulation, technology, and foreign competition have transformed the limited competition in traditional capitalism to hyper-competitiveness in a “supercapitalism”. CEOs and senior corporate executives have been instead forced by investor and consumer demands to become ruthless, profit-obsessed managers.

While consumers and investors in the US have scored big wins, this was achieved by a break down of the democratic process.

Some of the first signs of the breakdown of democracy was the weakening of the trade-unions, which was to the advantage of the individual as consumer or investor. As access to government and the ability to influence public policy becomes a competitive advantage for companies, individuals are finding themselves powerless, Reich says.

Big business is running the US as in many other countries. Contrary to Friedman’s thesis, economic and political power do not offset each other any longer, but economic power influences political power.

The answer, I think, is not in more government, but in greater, and transformed public participation in government. It is not enough to shout and be heard. You have to be able to influence. A lot of Americans, for example, oppose the Iraq war and are demanding the scaling down of US troops in Iraq, but they have not been able to influence US government policy. This is because the US, and for that matter most democracies around the world, have become once in four years, or once in five year events, when you vote or reject a government.

The need is for continuous democracy. The institutions for that will have to be created. We as citizens will have to evolve new processes for coming together as active citizens, and arriving at a consensus on issues. We will have to devise new tactics, including boycotts, protests, and demonstrations. To start with, we have to stop thinking as consumers, and start thinking about our freedom, quality of life, and issues of environment degradation and inequity.

Since only people can be citizens, only people should be allowed to participate in democratic decision making, Reich points out.

New Zune players to compete with iPod

Microsoft Corp. unveiled three new models of its Zune player, including two versions with flash, which will ship November for the holiday season.

The company has also launched an online music community called Zune Social. Taking a leaf from Apple Inc.’s iTunes and Amazon.com’s new digital music store, it is also offering more than 1 million songs on its Zune Marketplace that are not protected by DRM (digital rights management).

Microsoft however has an uphill task battling against the iPod. The company has reported sales of 1.2 million Zune devices since November last year. That is a lot less than a total of 100 million iPods sold from 2001 to April this year.

The company announced three new models of the Zune portable digital media players: a black Zune 80GB hard-drive model with an estimated retail price of US$249.99; an ultraportable Zune 4GB which is expected to retail at $149.99; and a Zune 8GB, costing $199.99. The last two models are flash models.

The new Zune devices feature the Zune Pad navigation button, with its touch-sensitive surface, Microsoft said in a statement late Tuesday.

Consumers can flick their thumbs over the pad to fly through lists of songs or albums or to fast-forward through picture slide shows or videos, it said. For those who need to pause, advance or adjust the volume on the device without looking, they can also navigate the Zune Pad using physical cues by pressing on the four sides or the center of the button to adjust the volume or choose the next track, according to Microsoft.

The new devices also offer wireless synchronization over the home wireless network, and new software that automatically imports broadcast content recorded on Microsoft Windows Media Center for Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate, so consumers can sync them onto their Zune media player and watch them on the bus, in their car or wherever they want when they’re out and about, Microsoft said.

Existing Zune owners will automatically receive new software features, the redesigned PC and device software and access to the new Zune Marketplace when the products and software are released to the public in mid-November.

The new Zune players have some nice new additions, but is not a dramatic makeover from the earlier Zune devices, according to analysts. Zune also does not have as strong a brand as the iPod.

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Theatre of the absurd in Pakistan

In an eventful day, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf appointed his successor as army chief, even as Pakistan’s opposition quit Parliament for his seeking re-election as President while holding the post of chief of army staff.

In yet another move the Pakistan government has dropped various corruption charges against former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, according to this report.

Gen. Ashfaq Kiani, a former intelligence chief, will become vice chief of the army on Monday but will take the top job of chief of the army only after Musharraf vacates it, according to a report by the Associated Press.

This may be a tactical move by Musharraf ahead of his re-election bid on October 6. By indicating his successor, he hopes to deflect criticism from the opposition about his holding two posts, and makes it easier for him to do a deal with Bhutto. However his opponents want him to quit his army post ahead of the election.

Bhutto may also be doing a terrible political mistake in cutting a deal with Musharraf. For one, Musharraf is seeking re-election from a parliament and provincial councils that are due for re-election this year, and are packed with Musharraf’s cronies. The opposition has been demanding that the election of the President should be after the Parliament election.

Also by leaving another Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif out of the new dispensation, Musharraf is confirming that his new avatar is not genuine, but only reflects his aim to continue cling to power. Sharif is currently in political exile in Saudi Arabia.

Being exonerated of corruption charges by a President who took over in a coup will not also help Bhutto’s image. She may prefer to fight it out in court instead, rather than be seen to be in debt to Musharraf.


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Why does eBay need Skype ?

Agreed that Skype under performed, that its quality can be sometimes quite indifferent. But what was eBay doing in the first place, paying US$2.6 billion for Skype, which was offering a service that was fast commoditized, in a market where competition was coming from multiple categories of players ?

It is not that Skype brought to eBay customers for its core auction business. Nor would auctioneers and bidders stop doing business on eBay if they couldn’t click-and-call through Skype. It is when a company starts wanting to own all the plumbing and fixtures, which is not part of its core business, that problems begin. Internet telephony is certainly not eBay’s core business.

On Monday, eBay, of San Jose, California, said it was taking a $1.43 billion charge related to the acquisition of Skype, according to a report in the International Herald Tribune.

Since the purchase in 2005, Skype's membership rolls have swelled past 220 million. But the company has not had as much success making money as it has had growing. Skype does not charge its users for calls to other Skype users. There is only a small fee for calls to landline numbers and cellphones, according to the International Herald Tribune.

In the event, Skype earned $90 million during the second quarter of 2007, far below eBay's projections.

Skype was one of the first movers in the pure-play VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) market, but its share of international VOIP traffic was in 2006 smaller than that of the international carriers it was expected to displace, according to TeleGeography, a research division of PriMetrica Inc. While the volume of international traffic routed via Skype was significant, the quantity was still small when compared to a global switched and VoIP traffic base of 264 billion minutes, it said in a report. Computer-to-computer traffic between Skype users in 2005 was equivalent to 2.9 percent of international carrier traffic in 2005 and approximately 4.4 percent of total international traffic in 2006.

The company’s business is said to have flagged because of less-than expected business in its paid VOIP calls business to landline and mobile phones, even as Skype-to-Skype calls boomed.

It appears that VOIP services offered by carriers, and PSTN calls, continue to dominate the market, despite forecasts that VOIP would ease out PSTN. It may be true that VOIP, because it is cheaper, will progressively ease out PSTN. But the new business will probably go to the large carriers who have the capital to invest in infrastructure, an existing stable customer base, and existing originating and terminating connections for calls.

That is why we have a new crop of VOIP service providers that prefer to work with the big telcos, providing the VOIP piece, while originating calls and terminating calls through the telcos. “ We put money in the telcos pockets. We wouldn’t have fight with the telcos because they are established and strong,” a Jajah Inc. executive told Network World some months ago.

The success of pure play VOIP is as yet not certain. TMCnet reports that Paul Budde Communication, an independent global telecommunications research and consultancy company, has released a report, called 2007 North America — Telecoms, Broadband and Mobile Statistics, which points out that North American cable providers are reaping the benefits of a consumer market looking for less expensive phone service coupled with added features and ease of billing.

The competition to pure-play VOIP service providers is hence multi-pronged.

Which brings me back to my question – what is eBay doing slugging it out in the patently unpredictable VOIP market. What benefits does it expect from deviating from its core online auction business ?

To be sure, some auctioneers may like to have “click-to-call” features on eBay. But eBay needn’t have bought a large VOIP firm to deliver that. Whether eBay encourages it or not, any number of VOIP players are offering click-to-call “buttons” and other services on eBay, social networks, blogs, wherever you want. In the end they meet eBay’s fond desire to offer click-to-call. But first eBay may have to spit out Skype to folks more at ease, and street smarter in the VOIP market.

Why Mahatma Gandhi never got the Nobel Peace prize

In India, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, better known as the Mahatma (great soul), is regarded as the “Father of the Nation”, even if his teachings are not particularly observed in letter or spirit.

Martin Luther King, American civil rights leader, acknowledged he had been inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent form of mass protest. King went on to win the Nobel prize for peace in 1964.

Yet his mentor, Mahatma Gandhi, never won the Nobel prize though nominated five times for the prize, because the Nobel Committee judged that he was “neither a real politician nor a humanitarian relief worker,” according to a report on Indian television channel IBNLive.

The Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation in Sweden, Michael Sohlman, says that it was a mistake by the Norwegian Peace committee, according to the TV channel. “We missed a great Laureate and that’s Gandhi. It’s a big regret,” he said.

In India, like New York, a proposal for a traffic congestion tax

The Indian city of Mumbai, formerly called Bombay, may implement a kind of congestion tax. Drivers will have to pay to drive on some of the city’s key roads during peak traffic hours, the city’s traffic management consultants, Mastek say, according to a report by an Indian TV channel IBNLive.

The plan of action involves setting up cameras and scanners on major congested roads to detect the car's registration number, the TV channel reported. Special software will be used to determine the car owner, the owner will then be sent a bill based on his road usage, and electronic payment systems will be set up to make bill payment easier, it added.

Key Indian cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore are facing traffic jams and long delays because of an increase in population, and the number of vehicles on the road.

In April, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, unveiled plans for a congestion charge on cars entering the busiest parts of Manhattan. That move has been stalled by New York state legislators who hold that a congestion charge on driving in Manhattan will lead to congestion in areas around Manhattan, where people going to Manhattan will park their cars, to avoid the charge.

In Mumbai, the reduction of congestion of its main roads may also shift the burden to other parts of the city which already face heavy flow of traffic. Unlike Bangalore, Mumbai has a well-connected suburban railway system, which gives most of its residents the option of using the train rather than drive to work.

London moved to congestion charging in February 2003. The zone was extended into west London and doubled in size in April, according to a recent report in The Guardian. Other cities like Singapore and Oslo have entry tolls and other forms of congestions pricing.

American secularism stripped ?

I always suspected that when heave came to shove, Americans would go searching for their Christian roots and give secularism the go-by. The heave and shove seems to have come from the growing influence of Islam and other religions in the country, and yes, perhaps the audacity of a person with a Muslim name to aim for the country’s Presidency.

Truly, the US had an Indian priest, Rajan Zed, read a prayer to the Senate, to protests from some Christians in the galleries Yet the Hindu prayer in the Senate boiled down to more of good form rather than real secularism.

Else what is one to make of US Presidential candidate and Senator John McCain telling beliefnet in an interview that, “I think the number one issue people should make [in the] selection of the President of the United States is, 'Will this person carry on in the Judeo Christian principled tradition that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?'”

It is easy to dismiss McCain as a rare bigot. I am however worried he is one of many Americans who hold this view. His mistake was he shot himself on the foot by being frank.

McCain may in fact be reflecting the view of a large number of Americans who believe that the US constitution and political tradition is based on Christianity and Christian values. No place here for jihad, I guess, but certainly place I guess for strong Christian traditions like the Crusades and the Inquisition. You know what, it are these double standards, and arrogance about Christian tradition that riles other religious communities !

Sixty-five percent of Americans believe that the nation's founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation, and 55 percent believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation, according to the “State of the First Amendment 2007” national survey released Sept. 11 by the First Amendment Center, a nonprofit organization focused on education and information about First Amendment issues in the US.

Rick Green of WallBuilders, an advocacy group that believes the US was built on Christian principles, told USA Today that the poll doesn't mean a majority favors a "theocracy" but that the Constitution reflects Christian values, including religious freedom. "I would call it a Christian document, just like the Declaration of Independence," he told USA Today.

One redeeming result of the survey was that the right to practice one’s own religion was deemed “essential” or “important” by nearly all Americans (97%). This figure speaks for American tolerance, but not for real secularism, I think. What the people surveyed, and McCain seem to be saying is “this is a Christian country, but of course we are tolerant of other faiths”.

It is not dissimilar from the UK, where the country claims to be secular, but the monarch takes the oath to protect the Anglican faith. Of course the UK too tolerates other religions within its constitution, inspired as it is by Anglican principles.

As non-Christian religions with their cultural baggage threaten the American’s Christian way, not only by violence but in most cases by peaceful co-existence and assimilation, the country’s secular foundations may be giving way. From secularists, Americans may be moving to tolerance. Bigotry, albeit subtle, may not be far way.

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