“Sorry” is not in George Bush’s lexicon

After the joint report of US intelligence agencies reported that Iran had stopped its nuclear program in 2003, the most appropriate approach for US President George Bush would have been to say “ Sorry, but we goofed”.

If he wanted to pass the buck, Bush could have of course blamed the 2005 intelligence report that said that Iran’s leaders were working tirelessly to acquire a nuclear bomb.

Instead, the US President on Tuesday warned that Iran was still a threat – referring to Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which the Middle East country claims is for its civilian program. All this is reminiscent of the hysteria the Bush administration successfully whipped up about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) ahead of the US invasion of Iraq.

This time over it may not be so easy, unless the US totally disregards public opinion both within the country and abroad. There are a number of inconsistencies in Bush’s stand.

Why should the community of nations, led by the US and its allies, impose sanctions on Iran if it is now believed that Iran is enriching uranium for its civilian programs ? How does this approach of the US and its allies sit with its bonhomie with Pakistan’s generals, who have lots of nuclear bombs, which may be used against Pakistan’s enemies like India, and are in far greater risk of falling into terrorist hands ?

This “ my buddy can do no wrong” approach with Pakistan flies in the face of common sense, and only goes to show that the US is harassing Iran, and trying to trigger a war there, because Iran will not toe the US line.

As the US uses this one-sided policy to expand its sphere of influence, and threaten nations that don’t toe its line, countries around the world are unabashedly backing its policies on Iran, as they did earlier in Iraq. Iran is the menace – that is the agreed point of view – though there have only been differences on how to tackle a country that has been prejudged a “menace”.

To be sure, Iran’s human rights record is abominable, but so is the record of many countries the US will not go to war with, and still continues to do business with, like China, like Pakistan. So frankly, what is the justification now to harass Iran with sanctions, and even military action ?

After WMDs, Bush is now talking about WW III

Yahoo’s settlement with families of Chinese dissidents may not change its ways in China

Internet company Yahoo Inc. has settled a lawsuit brought by the families of a Chinese dissident and a journalist, who claim they were jailed after the company cooperated with Chinese authorities, according to a report in CNN.

Yahoo's decision to settle comes a week after the company was criticized in Congress, with one congressman accusing the company of being moral pygmies. "While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies," House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, said at a hearing.

Yahoo and other Internet companies have maintained that to operate in countries like China they have to play by local rules. This stand has however come in for criticism that when it comes to business interests, Internet companies like Yahoo and Google give democratic norms the go by.

In this instance, the Chinese government demanded from Yahoo the name of the account holder who was using a Yahoo account to send out pro-democracy documents, and Yahoo complied.

Tom Lantos called on Internet companies to "resist any attempts by authoritarian regimes to make them complicit in cracking down on free speech, otherwise they simply should not do business in those markets", according to this report by the Associated Press.

In interviews, Yahoo executives have said that their refusal to comply could land their local employees in China in trouble. They add that the technologies for online community and sharing that they offer will in the final analysis promote democracy in countries run by repressive regimes.

There may be some merit to this argument. During the violent repression in Myanmar earlier this year, the Internet has proven to be an useful conduit to the world for people to communicate the atrocities to the rest of the world. Even as Pakistan places curbs on traditional media and television in Pakistan, the Internet has emerged as a key alternative.

Yahoo and other Internet companies have argued that it is not for one company to challenge the system in China. It requires an inter-governmental resolution between the US and Chinese governments.

It is not clear at this point whether the settlement by Yahoo reflects a change in the company’s position on how it operates in China. At this point it seems that the company settled to avoid further embarrassment and scrutiny in the US.

The company may now be in a better position legally in the US after it handed over the management of its Chinese operations to Alibaba.com in which Yahoo has a 40 percent stake. It is now more likely to argue that it has no control over Alibaba.com in which it holds a minority stake.

On nuclear deal, India’s communists move from “No” to “Maybe”

India’s communists, who had threatened to scuttle its coalition government with the Congress party over the nuclear deal with the US, is now softening its stance. The Left, which had earlier said that the government should not operationalize the deal, including negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is now saying that the government can go ahead and negotiate with the IAEA, provided it does not finalize an agreement.

Communist Party of India (CPI) General Secretary A B Bardhan told Indian TV channel NDTV that the government could go to the IAEA, the UN's atomic body as long as they don't finalize any agreement, according to this report.

Now why should the Indian government and the IAEA go ahead and negotiate, when according to the Left there can be no deal ?

Clearly what the Left seems to be saying at this point is that in the interest of holding together the coalition government it may eventually go along the whole hog with the Congress on the nuclear deal with the US.

The reasons for the Left’s stance are quite obvious. One, it does not want to bring down the government. Traditionally its fear of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and other rightist parties have made it gloss over the flaws of the Congress party. Secondly, the Left’s opposition to the nuclear deal, and the underlying anti-American sentiment, has also not gone down well in the West. The Left, particularly in West Bengal, has been assiduously cultivating an image of being pro-business and investor friendly. So after the initial knee-jerk anti-American reflex, pragmatism has evidently got the better of the Left.

Even as the Left now finds it politically expedient to go along with the Congress on the nuclear deal, some of the substantial issues it raised against the 123 Agreement remain. These pertain to long-term national interests, and the Left cannot abandon them for its short-term political gains and for US investment in West Bengal.

As pointed out in an earlier blog, the Indo-US nuclear deal was flawed from the start.

I refer to “United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act” of 2006, which in fact forms the legal framework for the proposed 123 agreement, and was 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”. So if India detonates a device, the 123 Agreement goes up in smoke, and India will have to return nuclear fuel and other technology it obtained under the agreement.

So the 123 Agreement, in effect places limits on India’s ability to pursue a military nuclear program. When deciding to support the Agreement, the government and the communists should hence weigh the benefits for India’s civilian nuclear program against the risks for its military program. There may be no point in arguing that US supplies to India's civil program will free nuclear resources for use in the defense program, if the defense program is itself circumscribed by US rules.

That we take the right call on this becomes all the more important in the wake of instability and unpredictability in Pakistan, which has nuclear bombs, and also China’s own nuclear arsenal.

Related article:

The Indo-US nuclear deal was flawed from the start

American self-esteem in a flat world

I recall sitting with an American friend at a top-notch restaurant in Bombay (now called Mumbai) in the early 1990s. At a table close to us were some Indian female models. My American male friend boasted that he could pick up one of them anytime. “ They will certainly join me if they know I am an American,” he added very casually.

In Taipei, a couple of years later, a Taiwanese girl was chatting animatedly with an Indian. We were all part of a large multinational group. An American, whose amorous interest in the Taiwanese girl was well known, was overheard from the other end of the table, “What does she see in that guy ? He is only a bloody Indian”.

First world self-perceptions of invincibility are taking hard knocks in Asia and around the world. All the top US companies, including IBM and Intel, had Americans or Europeans in top positions in Asia, and many of them enjoyed a position and lifestyle akin to colonial viceroys of yore.

Today not only are most of the top positions occupied by Asians, but Asians are occupying top positions in the US as well. Now Cisco plans to have 20 percent of its top management in India, most of whom will be hired locally.

Why was the American knocked off from the pedestal. I think it was the boom in the Asian economies, and dollops of national pride in these countries. The resurgence in national pride started in the early 1990s in countries like Malaysia, which admired the American model, but did not see the need to be pliant to Americans.

As local markets grew, it became quite clear to multinational companies that they had to adapt and get more inclusive, appoint local bosses. After a number of abortive joint ventures with American and European companies, Asian companies also saw the virtues of going it alone. In a radical shift in attitudes, that reflected the economic success of Asia, companies in China, India, and rest of Asia started to be wooed by Americans and Europeans for business.

Offshore outsourcing also tore into the American veil of invincibility. The American’s job could be done as well, if not better and more cheaply in Asia. There were brainy guys there too, as was evident from the large number of Indian and Chinese engineers who made it big globally.

Attitudes towards the American and America has also changed to a large measure in Asia. The greenback lost its sheen to local currencies, some of which were only getting stronger. If earlier, educated people from Asia made a beeline to the US for jobs, now there is a queue back as the local economy is generating jobs that are lucrative in the local context. To be sure there are those for whom living in America is still the ultimate dream, but these are getting fewer by the day.

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.

Related article:

RC2 Corp. recalls toys again, patience runs thin

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 ?

Related articles:

Indian outsourcers not yet hit by weak dollar
Indian outsourcers not floundering, not migrating

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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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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Free markets do not necessarily mean democracy or quality of life

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.

Olympic Games, and the diplomatic charade over Myanmar

The think tanks have come up with a way to get the army in Myanmar to heel. Get China, which is a large investor in the country, to intervene. If China, declines to intervene, European Union countries should boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Now that gives the Chinese something to think about !

The upshot is that the diplomatic community is passing the buck to China as it finds itself impotent against a repressive regime in Myanmar that at this point cares for nothing else than its survival in power.

The boycott of the Olympics is however unlikely to pan out, because other interests, stronger than the fate of the democratic movement in Myanmar, will come to the fore. Will the US for example agree to a boycott of the Olympics ? It views China as a strategic partner in Asia, far more important than old ally Taiwan, and has turned a blind eye to Chinese repression at home. Nor will the European countries like the UK and France agree to boycott the Olympic games, and give China a stinging rebuke over Myanmar.

The regime in China, and the army in Myanmar know that caught up in their business interests, the world has become impotent to fight against repression. So you will find China making some polite remonstrations while the army in Myanmar gets on with its brutal work. After it is done, it may even announce that it has backed off at the request of the Chinese.

In recommending a boycott, vice president of the European Parliament Edward McMillan-Scott, has shown a large heart. “The civilized world must seriously consider shunning China by using the Beijing Olympics to send the clear message that such abuses of human rights are not acceptable,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

But political decisions by large nations are not from the heart, but conceal cynical long-term calculations. As the nations of the world debate on a boycott, the massacre in Myanmar will be over. So our only option may be to sit back and watch the massacre. We did that in 1988.

UPDATE: Internet connectivity has been cut off in Myanmar, even as the army intensifies its crackdown on protesters. Blogs, instant messenger, and video sharing sites had provided locals an opportunity to get information on the clampdown to the world outside.

Related Articles:

In Myanmar, impotence against a brutal regime
India shouldn’t hide behind diplomatic niceties on Myanmar

RC2 Corp. recalls toys again, patience runs thin

RC2 Corp., the vendors of Thomas & Friends wooden railway toys, has recalled another 200,000 of these toys, as the surface paints on the toys can contain excessive levels of lead, violating the federal lead paint standard, according to a statement from The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

This recall by RC2 Corp., of Oak Brook, Illinois comes three months after the company recalled 1.5 million toys in the Thomas & Friends series, after finding lead paint on the surface of the products, CPSC said in July.

In both cases the toys, said to have high lead content in their paint, were made in China, adding to concerns about the safety of toys and other products made in China, including those made in China for big US brands.

Mattel Inc., another toy maker surprisingly apologized last week for damaging China's reputation by its recall of toys made in China. 2.2 million toys were recalled over impermissible levels of lead, according to a statement issued by Mattel, though it said that its lead-related recalls were overly inclusive, including toys that may not have had lead in paint in excess of US standards.

Another 17.4 million toys from Mattel were also recalled because of loose magnets, but Mattel put it down to a flaw in its design.

This “mea culpa” by Mattel, exonerating the Chinese, seems surprising, even as companies like RC2 Corp. are still reporting high lead in the paint for their toys.

The fact remains that blue-chip American companies have been shipping products that have been hazardous for the kids who played with them. The toys covered under RC2’s recall of September 26, 2007 include stuff that was sold through toy stores and various retailers nationwide from March 2003 through September 2007 ! That means toys with lead paint were still shipped up to September 2007, even though the company found and recalled other toys with lead as way back as in June, 2007. Wasn’t RC2 supposed to check for lead the whole lot of toys it had on retail shelves ?

A recall does not absolve the companies of responsibility. They have to make sure that these incidents don’t happen again. If there is a problem with the Chinese supplier, please sort it out. If there are problems with your designs, sort that out too, and make sure your designs are foolproof.

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

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Mattel apologizes for defaming the Chinese !

India shouldn’t hide behind diplomatic niceties on Myanmar

India had this to say, even as the army in Myanmar has started a clampdown in the country:

“India is concerned at and is closely monitoring the Myanmar situation. It is our hope that all sides will resolve their issues peacefully through dialogue. India has always believed that Myanmar’s process of political reform and national reconciliation should be more inclusive and broad-based,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Navtej Sarna said, according to a report in The Hindu, a newspaper in India.

This diplomatic gloss over the repression in Myanmar is an insult to pro-democracy protesters in the Myanmar.

Worried about business interests in Myanmar, India is passing up the opportunity to play a leadership role in the region.

It is too much to expect from India to launch an attack on Myanmar, in the name of supporting the democracy movement in Myanmar. That sets a bad precedent, and unlike in the US invasion of Iraq, India doesn’t have the “weapons of mass destruction” fig leaf to try to justify its actions.

But India could at least come out openly against the brutal regime in Myanmar. This is a time for statesmanship, not political wheeler-dealing with neighbors.

India’s neighbors are looking to it and to China for leadership ! They are looking more to India, because India is a democracy !

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In Myanmar, impotence against a brutal regime

In Myanmar, impotence against a brutal regime

It is chilling and scary, and a re-run of similar such violations of people’s rights worldwide in our times, and in history. The shocking part of it is that the global community comes across as being as helpless as on most of the other occasions.

Myanmar security forces raided two Buddhist monasteries early Thursday, beating up and hauling away more than 70 monks after a day of violent confrontation with monk-led protesters left at least one dead, Buddhist clergy said, according to a report in the International Herald Tribune.

The army has begun a vicious crackdown against peaceful protesters, that largely include Buddhist monks and students. The army runs that country, and if they decide to beat up and brutalize hundreds of protesters they well can, and will do it.

We can do nothing about it ! Except watch in impotent rage.

We are no worse off than our leaders. The US, the European Union have issued a joint statement decrying the assault on peaceful demonstrators and calling on the junta to open talks with democracy activists. Other countries too have issued their protests. But the army does not falter in its resolve to repress the people’s movement.

It is a sad commentary on the way the world is organized, that the rulers in Myanmar can do just what they want within the country they run.

Something similar happened in 1989 against student protesters in Tiananmen Square in China. It happened before in Myanmar in 1988 when pro-democracy demonstrators were massacred. Is it that international conventions, treaties and laws prevent us from stopping this oppression ? Or is that despots have a better feel of world opinion and our leaders – that for all the proclamations of distress, leaders and countries do not find Myanmar democrats are worth struggling over.

China and Russia, among the few countries with influence over the junta, yesterday blocked U.S. and European efforts in the United Nations Security Council to condemn the regime for its crackdown, according to Bloomberg. India is plain watching from the sidelines. These countries have business interests in Myanmar, and clout with the junta there.

The world has not changed, not at all.

If Net Neutrality goes, the world may no longer be flat

Network neutrality has ensured so far that we are able to access any web site we want, at the same speed, whether it is a corporate web-site in the US, the site of an out-of-garage operation, or the web site of a vendor in India, Ghana, or anywhere in the world.

This neutrality ensured that the Internet was a great leveller. Besides giving a fillip to businesses selling into the US and other developed economies, including small operations like garment and handicraft makers, it also gave a fillip to blogging, because now we were communicating with anybody, anywhere in the world at little or no cost.

The world may however no longer be flat if new rules come into force in the US aiming to create a two-tier Internet. The Internet service providers (ISPs), who have invested in the big pipes that transfer Internet packets, plan to speed up or slow down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.

If you want traffic to your site to be faster, you will have to pay the owners of the pipes for premium, high speed movement of data to and from your site. It also means that video and audio content providers that pay for this premium service, or services operated by the owners of the pipes, would have access to the faster lane, while merchants, bloggers, and various content providers who can’t afford the fast lane, will just have to putter along the slow lane.

Once again an opportunity to create an equal opportunity society may be missed. Not only will the digital divide in the US get excarcebated, but it will have global ramifications, between the “haves” and “have nots” among countries.

Economies like India, China, which tend to be US-centric in their markets, may find themselves perhaps slipping into the slow-lanes of network traffic, and consequently the slow-lane of business.

The removal of net neutrality will also make cable and telephone companies like AT&T and Time Warner the filters, the gatekeepers in the two-tier Internet economy, deciding which traffic will flow faster, and which won’t, based purely on considerations of profit. Free access and disemmination of information could be in jeopardy, as also probably consumer choice and the free market.

The battle is just beginning. Weighing in favor of the network operators, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) on Thursday said that “some regulatory proposals offered by various companies and organizations in the name of “net neutrality” could deter broadband Internet providers from upgrading and expanding their networks to reach more Americans.” The DoJ was responding to a US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Notice of Inquiry regarding broadband practices.

The DoJ said in a statement that precluding broadband providers from charging content and application providers directly for faster or more reliable service could shift the entire burden of implementing costly network expansions and improvements onto consumers. If the average consumer is unwilling or unable to pay more for broadband Internet access, the result could be to reduce or delay critical network expansion and improvement.

The Internet has until now been about freedom of expression (blogs etc.), freedom of communication (email, instant messenger etc.), freedom to socialize (social networking sites), and freedom of choice (online commerce). That could fade away or get compromised going forward. We are all up against commercial realities, unless US lawmakers intervene. The party may be getting over.

Wikipedia blocked again in China

Wikipedia's English site has been again blocked in China, in an ongoing saga which has seen this site frequently blocked by the Chinese government.

Read here Wikipedia's account of the frequent blocks of its site in the country.

The Chinese government frequently blocks sites with information that the regime considers controversial, such as the Falun Gong religious cult and independence for Taiwan and Tibet, according to a report by the IDG News Service in ComputerworldUK. The current blocking may be related to the upcoming Communist Party Congress, which begins Oct. 15 in Beijing, IDG said Thursday.

Wikipedia holds that its site has been blocked since Aug 31, though IDG quotes users saying that the latest block fell into place this week.

While Wikipedia's English site is occasionally available, its Chinese-language sites are almost permanently blocked, IDG News Service added.

The online community developed encylopedia has been suffering both from censorship by governments, and by attempts by companies and people to embellish references to them in Wikipedia. Its credibility was challenged by recent disclosures that the site has been frequently edited by self-serving interests including companies modifying write-ups on themselves.

Getting listed on Wikipedia has emerged as a new sign of having arrived in your field. The provision for easy addition of entries has ensured that a number of people have created write-ups on friends and family. Very often these folks would not figure by a stretch on an administered encylopedia like the Brittanica. Wikipedia, of course, holds that its technology allows others to make changes and add to Wikipedia content, a provision that is part of its community focus, which is at times misused.