Interesting News Articles

Here are some recent articles I found interesting ...

This article in the International Herald Tribune is about more that the mobile phone business. It shows how expanding to India and China is doing more than just cutting costs or opening new markets; it is transforming American companies too. One example:

"If we're going to be successful in Asia, we have to be successful in small cars," [Nick Reilly, president of GM Asia Pacific] added. "And that will give us the potential products to go back into our traditional markets of Europe and the U.S. with smaller cars, which we haven't had before."

Another article from the IHT - this time, about Asian enrollment in American universities. Here's the number that stunned me - this fall and last, the number of Asian-American freshmen at Berkeley has been at a record high, about 46 percent.

A Dallas food chain is starting to accept Mexican pesos instead of American dollars. While this will obviously outrage immigration opponents, this is interesting from a business perspective, especially for a company which caters predominantly to immigrants.

I was really terrified to read about this man losing his retirement savings due to identity theft. J.P.Morgan did refund his balance, but it hightlights the very real risks we face in a connected world. I called my broker, Scottrade and checked on their security policies, specifically under what circumstances they would send a check to a third party, and would suggest you all do the same.

Shameful!

A recent UNICEF report finds that abortion rates for female fetuses have been rising in India despite the improved economic conditions, and actually increasing faster in richer states and among richer communities with access to medical technology that allows the determination of the sex of the baby. While India loves to flout their recent successes, this is a shocking failure of all spheres of life - the government, social groups and the populace at large. Needless to say, the federal government expressed "alarm" ... and yet they fail to do a damn thing. Want to stop this nonsense - become serious about prosecution. Declare a sex-based abortion as murder of highest priority, launch a special police force to target doctors who support the practice, and other enforcement actions. But also do more to improve the lot of women. Establish a variety of sops that make it financially beneficial to have girls, starting with (and this is hard for a conservative to say) subsidies for farmers for every girl child they have, and other aggressive actions.

Ok, that wasn't particularly specific, but my point is that a nation that can build a nuclear bomb, and grow its economy at 8% a year can come up with solutions for the female infanticide problem, if it was placed as a national priority!

Road Trip

'Home Sweet Home' is a special series on my visit back home to India after 3 years, hoping to document not just macroscopic changes in the world's populous democracy, but my own emotions on being back. While originally intended to be posted as events occurred, I was too busy to go online while in India, and I'm now posting these after my return to the US.

There are changes in India that become evident only when you take a road trip. For one, the choices of quality cars available is phenomenal, and several with good gas mileage to boot. Our choice was my brother's Tata Indica V2 , a homegrown 70 hp compact. While 70 horses seems a bit too few on American roads, Indians seem to do well on Indian roads with lower power. The Indica under real conditions gives about 10 kmpl (23 mpg) under real city conditions, even though under test conditions, it is rated at 14 kmpl (32mpg).

The National Highways are far improved from my days in India, thanks to the phenomenal Golden Quadrilateral project and other big infrastructure investments under the previous government. The GQ is a system of interstates linking the four largest cities in India by top-notch freeways. As we discovered on our drive to Bangalore, much of the freeway is now a toll road, but the Rs 150 ($3.20) spent on using the tolled highway saved us plenty of travel time.

Maybe it's a fiction of my imagination, but it does seem villages along the GQ are less impoverished than I remember. With rural centers now better connected to commercial hubs, I guess it's logical to expect the rural economy close to the distribution system is booming.

We stop at Natrampalli, a village that was my dad's first posting back in 1969, and now a town of just under 10,000 people. Let that number not fool you - in India, where populations are measured in rather large units, a town of just under 10,000 people is still a town in the middle of nowhere. So we were indeed surprised to walk into the bank and see an air-conditioned office, filled with computers. We learn that they will be inaugrating the ATM later that week .... imagine that, an ATM in the middle of nowhere! The branch manager also tells us they are part of the centralized computer banking system, that allows these villagers to access an account located anywhere in India. What change!

But lest we get too euphoric, a touch of reality. We go over to the Ramakrishna Mission premises. The Mission is an order of monks attempting to change the world, but unlike the wealthy religious groups of today, they still maintain an austerity, and still believe in a mission to improve spirituality, to make the Hindu a better Hindu, the Muslim a better Muslim, the Christian a better Christian. Our purpose though is not a religious one. We talk to the gentleman in charge of the Mission office, and he tells us of their efforts in education, with the percentage of children passing up from 8% to 30%. However, getting them to a level where they can go to college is a difficult task. The challenge is finding teachers willing to come for low pay to a remote village like Natrampalli.

After much discussion, the gentleman, in a reference to the previous government's electoral slogan 'India Shining', says, 'India is Shining, but only in the cities and highways'. He points out that when you get away from the highway, there are still myriad problems requiring solution. I still am an optimist, and I leave hopeful that the new successes in the economy will allow tutors from cities to come down for 1-2 weekends a month to help these children.

Jet Airways

My brother insists my experience on Jet Airways was atypical, and the crowds that swell India's airports mean that even a labor-ready country like India has started to incentivize electronic check-in with free frequent-flyer miles and the like. Just how much has travel increased? In 1996, there was one flight a day between Chennai and Bangalore (two cities about a half-hour flight apart) and one train line, both operated at some loss by the federal government. Today, there are no less than 31 flights, 4-5 train lines, countless sleeper and nonsleeper buses, almost all by private operators, and yet it's virtually impossible to get a ticket on any of these modes of transport on short-notice.

Even the flight attendants on my Jet Airways flight reflected a change from the India of past. They were attractive women dressed in skirts rather than the traditional garb of a sari, although at least one of them seemed not to appreciate her natural aesthetics, donning enough makeup to serve as an endorsement for a budding rouge maker.

The meal ... yes, Indian air operators still offer more than peanuts ... was delicious, leaving me tempted to ask if I could buy another serving, and was served on china and with silverware - a welcome fact for a food-loving tree-hugger like myself.

The Nation's Capitol

'Home Sweet Home' is a special series on my visit back home to India after 3 years, hoping to document not just macroscopic changes in the world's populous democracy, but my own emotions on being back.

There were claps all around. As the acceleration kicked in our solar plexus, we were all glad to be off the ground. It had been a long 4.5 hours, sitting on the tarmac at Newark International, as rains had prevented us from taking off. Especially rough when you are at the start of a 14-hour flight to Delhi. Some time earlier, we were told that if we didn't make it by 53 minutes past midnight, we would have to call the whole venture off. As the deadline loomed, many of us were praying hard ... a cancellation would have been disastrous for me, with another local flight to catch in India. The takeoff was hence all the more exhilarating! Later, I managed to have a great chat with the head steward of the flight, talking about procedures and donut holes - no, not the food, but the fact that pilots are required by federal law to retire at 60, but can't claim pension benefits till 65! Turns out if we had returned to the gate under inclement weather, federal law would have required a new crew, which could have delayed departure even further. Hmm, a reminder that sometimes things aren't as simple as they seem ... I wish one of those serial complainers ("why can't they just return to the gate and reboard when they are ready to leave") could have heard!

I got into Delhi well past midnight, and was rather excited to catch up with an aunt of mine. She works for a large publishing company and represents an interesting generation of worker caught between a traditional and a new aggressive paradigm. The new model, inspired by the new breed of MBAs, seek short-term explosive growth, often at the expense of a core business of some heritage value, and a lot of social values. What is the purpose of a business, and what are its social commitments? This is an interesting question even in mature economies like the US, but especially in a nascent economy like India where you cannot depend on governments alone to address the problems that plague the country.

The next morning, I headed to Delhi's domestic airport, only to be shocked by the plethora of airlines operating. When I left India for the US, a private competitor had just come on to take on the federally run monolith, Indian Airlines. Now several private players controlled the market, and the effect was obvious. I waited for checking-in less than 10 min (something even operators in the US can't manage) and boarding was a breeze. I waited to board in a hall more reminiscent of a Greyhound bus stop than a plush airport (although a lot cleaner and with none of the seedy characters that dominate the landscape of the bus terminus in the US). The waiting room of the airport is an interesting place to watch people, and I think I got some perspective on Indian life, but none more interesting than that from a kid!

This kid was playing on the ground and periodically engaging strangers including yours truly. If this had been in the US, the mother would have freaked out and held on to the child tight, but here the mother actually seemed to be encouraging the child to interact more ("what's that uncle's name?" and other such nudges). As it turned out, the family sat next to me on my Jet Airways flight, and I pointed out my observation to them. The lady was surprised that any parent would not allow their child interaction with the public phase. We love it when he plays with strangers, she said, it means he's learning important social skills.

The family themselves represented an interesting demographic. He ran an Eicher dealership selling tractors, trucks and buses. Business had been very good recently, thanks to a booming economy, and they said there was no place better to see it than Faridabad, a sprawling industrial town outside of Delhi. I had noted the flood of new cars in Delhi, but they tell me it's peanuts compared to what's happening in the small towns, where industrial small businesses (as opposed to service workers) are truly reaping the benefits, and more importantly, spending money like never before. The change in spending patterns is new, and while at least partly represents a desire for present comforts over defered gratification, in some degree represents a confidence that the present boom isn't a cyclical uptick.

This has become a long post, what with the lack of time to write, and I have a speech to prepare, to give at a local school on environmental issues, so the blogging will have to wait till I'm a little more in control of that.

Home Sweet Home

I will be blogging a special series titled 'Home Sweet Home', about my current visit to my homeland, India after 3 years. While much of it is couched in nostalgia and may be trivial information unworthy of anyone's attention but my own, my intent is to log my own experiences as sentiments to be able to revisit to get a sense for the nature of change and staticism in this dynamic land.

Perspectives on Terror

The world has seen two very different responses to acts of terror in recent days. While Israel sought to attack Lebanon to recover its kidnapped soldiers, India has thus far maintained a much less aggressive tack after the Mumbai blasts that killed 200, at last count. Till earlier this evening, I wished India would adopt Israel's aggression, striking militant camps in Pakistan rather than waiting for its neighbor to seek them out. Over dinner, watching the Newshour gave me another perspective.

I would encourage you to listen to or read the comments of Hisham Melhem, the Washington bureau chief for the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar, and host of a weekly program on the Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya on the Newshour. He made a lot of sense about how retaliation pushes the moderates out of the political space. For example, in the Lebanon case, he argued that the Lebanese government is not in a position to do anything about Hezbollah, not because they don't want to, but because Hezbollah is militarily more powerful than the government itself. The Lebanese government then has to try to coax the militant group to lay down its arms, something the recent offensive makes a lot more difficult.

Postscript Soon after I posted this, I read this column by Saisuresh Sivaswamy arguing for a aggressive response, just as the US had done in the days after 9/11.

Time for Action

The recent blasts in Mumbai, India are a grim reminder that the barbarian threat of terror still looms large. In the days to come, there will be much print dedicted to individual horror stories, and much condemnation of the gruesome acts. None of this is new. And yet, if every country condemning the acts were sincere, we have to ask if groups such as LeT and JeM would exist. And what of that most-wanted Dawood Ibrahim, terrorist financier, sought by India for well over a decade and a half now? And it is time the Indian political class go beyond photo-ops after rushing to the scene of the terror, and put the weight of the nation's largest democracy and second-most populous nation to exert pressure on the countries that allow these thugs to exist (read Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and a handful of Gulf nations).

The retarded Home minister, Shivraj Patil was on record as stating that an attack was expected, but no specifics were available as to location and timing. Why then were public places not put on high alert? Could it be that the pols were more busy with populism, be it quotas or bureaucratic battles, to bother about the issues that truly affect people?

History Repeats Itself?

You've been hearing it all the time recently - the rise of India and China, how the US is losing out to the competition, how the Asian Tigers are where all the action, and profits, are. Oh, and China is manipulating it's currency, and if we just impose anti-dumping tarrifs on Chinese imports, American manufacturing will be A-OK. Well, in line with my recent obsession to learn from history's lessons, I have been reading (ok, only a few pages at a time) Bill Emmott's historic book, 'The Sun Also Sets'. Why historic? Because writing at the height of the Japanese boom, he called for a collapse in the Japanese economy. OK, I haven't gotten to that part, but it amazes me how much alike the Japan story of those days is to India and China today - booming economies, increased consumer spending and the wealth effect, speculative asset bubbles in stocks and real estate ... Oh, and let's not forget Washington politicians accusing the Japanese of manipulating the yen rather than tackling America's self-made problem with trade deficits.

To be sure, there are several differences between the Japan of past and India and China today, not least of which are size and demographics. Nevertheless, the next time you come across a story suggesting you learn Chinese, you may just want to pass.

Bribe the People

As I fret about the pervasiveness of populism, be it in the capitalist model-state of the United States, or in the still-ambivalent New World, including my own India, I came across this quotation from Alexis de Tocqueville that struck a chord:

The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.

Bribe the people indeed! In my home state of Tamil Nadu in India, the DMK party won the recent state elections by promising subsidized rice, a free television for every family and a variety of such pork that would make a conservative shudder. No one ever asked why the party was unwilling instead to commit to provide a robust economy that would alleviate the need for subsidized rice or free TVs.

Here in the US, as our governments rack up record deficits from being unable to cut out our spending sprees, we would do well to remember those words.

Don't Let the Terrorists Win!

In India this week, we got a stark reminder that with all the good news, the people are still victims of terror, as an explosion in the holiest city of Varanasi killed many worshippers. The opposition leader, Lal Kishan Advani ranted some typical cliches about appeasement of Muslims and terrorism, but it is positive that the blasts have not triggered, as best as I could tell from my limited diet of Indian news, any serious communal clashes. India is in a sweet spot economically and politically (in international terms, that is), and does not have to return to the agenda of the past.

That's not to say a weak response to the terrorists. I'd like to see Prime Minister Manmohan Singh come on TV and say we're gonna smoke the guys who did this! But aggression against these criminals must not spill over to the streets. If it does, the terrorists will have won ...

Mark Warner at Asia Society

A few days back, after reading the Bush speech at the Asia Society (see previous post), I had visited the Asia Society web site and looked at the recent speeches. One of them was Mark Warner. Now, I'm always interested in anything to do with Mark Warner not just because he was Virginia's hugely popular governor, but also a potential candidate in '08, and maybe, just maybe, a Democrat I might be able to support (of course, that may change when he starts talking about the myriad issues he has been silent on to date). But reading this speech, I was pleased to note that here is a Democrat who is not talking Benedict Arnolds Kerry-style, but rather recognizes changing paradigms and as governor, sought to realign Virginia in the new model rather than clinging onto protectionism. Here's one fact I found particularly surprising...

That was a large Indian company, Essel Propack, that actually picked Danville, Virginia-the heart of the tobacco region in our Commonwealth-to put a major manufacturing facility. That manufacturing facility in Danville has done more to change the feelings of people in Southside Virginia about some of the upsides of international trade than anything else.

Wow, Indian companies are actually setting up shop in the US! This is something you don't hear about too often in the press. Anyway, I like Warner's emphasis on technical education rather than regulation. I like that we finally have a Democrat who realizes that we don't need to be going back to the jobs of the 20th century, that we need to be staying ahead of the curve in technological and service jobs.

There was one anecdote of his trip to Delhi, India that sounded suspiciously like something I had heard from Bill Gates several years ago, but I'll give him the benefit of doubt that he went to the same project Gates did. So anyway, here's that anecdote:

I visited an NGO called the Hole in the Wall project. This Hole in the Wall project was simply where the NGO had come in and put a series of computers into a brick wall-and would turn them on in the morning and turn them off at night. There were no teachers, no training. It was definitely to see what would happen. I mean I'm a visiting American dignitary and they had rolled out the red carpet and a young kid named Samir grabbed me and said, "Tell me your name, tell me your name." I said, "My name is Mark. Why do you want me to tell you my name?" He said, "Well, I want to Google you to find out if you're important."

President Bush at the Asia Society

I read a wonderful speech by President Bush at the Asia Society talking about India and Pakistan. You can read the transcript here (or click on the 'Video' link for video, although I prefer reading to watching!). It's a good reflection of the two nation's importance in the world. Here are a few excerpts I really liked:

India's work in Afghanistan is a good example of India's commitment to emerging democracies. India has pledged $565 million to help the Afghan people repair the infrastructure and get back on their feet. And recently, India announced it would provide an additional $50 million to help the Afghans complete their National Assembly building. India has trained National Assembly staff, and it's developing a similar program for the Assembly's elected leaders. The people of America and India understand that a key part of defeating the terrorists is to replace their ideology of hatred with an ideology of hope. And so we will continue to work together to advance the cause of liberty.

For all those people who cry about outsourcing to India, here is why India is great for the US.

merica's economic relationship with India is strong and it's getting better. Last year, our exports to India grew by more than 30 percent. We had a trade surplus of $1.8 billion in services. India is now one of the fastest-growing markets for American exports, and the growing economic ties between our two nations are making American companies more competitive in the global marketplace. And that's helping companies create good jobs here in America.

Further on the topic, he expands on the demand for American products in India.

We must also recognize that India's growth is creating new opportunities for our businesses and farmers and workers. India's middle class is now estimated at 300 million people. Think about that. That's greater than the entire population of the United States. India's middle class is buying air-conditioners, kitchen appliances, and washing machines, and a lot of them from American companies like GE, and Whirlpool, and Westinghouse. And that means their job base is growing here in the United States of America. Younger Indians are acquiring a taste for pizzas from Domino's -- (laughter) -- Pizza Hut. And Air India ordered 68 planes valued at more than $11 billion from Boeing, the single largest commercial airplane order in India's civilian aviation history. Today India's consumers associate American brands with quality and value, and this trade is creating opportunity here at home.

OK, there were a lot more I could excerpt, but you'd be better off reading the whole speech. Even if you don't care for Bush, you'll find this speech revealing because it is about the strategic importance of two nations that will be vital players in the global environment.

French Women Do Get Fat

I was sitting at my local Barnes and Noble, reading the latest issue of the Economist today, when I was surprised to find that, contrary to popular perceptions (and the title of a book that was featured on many of the morning shows here in the US) that France has an obesity problem. Yes, it is admittedly less severe than that in the US, where about one in three people are obese, and two in three overweight. But with over 40% of French people estimated to be overweight, this is a serious problem for them too. A Google search revealed an old story in the Washington Times that reported that 1 in 10 children of age 10 are obese! YUCK!

And with obesity comes other issues like diabetes. In my native India, some 27 million people already suffer from diabetes, a number that is expected to grow to 57 million by 2025, according to this article in the British newspaper, the Gaurdian.

The source of all this global obesity pandemic? Well, it seems there is something the US still does export.

Populism at Work in India

Score one more for populism in India. The Parliament is in the process of passing a bill which will require most private educational institutions, even those without federal or state support, to reserve a certain number of seats for people who have historically been socially backward. It's affirmative actiion with actual quotas. What's wrong with that? Well, for starters, the track record of such a policy in state colleges has been abysmal. Rather than actually benefitting the classes it is intended to, it eliminated seats from play because of insufficient applications from members of a certain community, and also eliminates any level of academic standards for those that make it through. These students are then completely unprepared for any kind of performance-based system, and usually fall through the cracks (if they don't, there's some chance they will get similar reserved spots in hospitals or public works departments, which would explain the killer state-run hospitals and crumbling infrastructure in India).

But this is also a depressing reminder of populism thriving in India. For all the great economicspeak about India, elections are won by pandering to your base, and when your uneducated base doesn't realize how much your pols are screwing you to keep you down, they think these half-brained schemes are in their interest. So we'll continue to have doomed-to-fail schemes like a National Employment Guarantee, a Right to Primary Education bill and other progressive-sounding bills and initiatives, even when they are just a front for a bulging bureaucracy siphoning taxpayer money, never mind the skyrocketing deficits and lack of actual progress.

Check Your Charity

'Tis the season to give, but be sure your dollars are spent wisely. ABC had a special on how programs targeting the poor are getting less and less money, while nonprofits servicing the opera or a museum are awash in cash. Now is a good time to reevaluate your priorities, and think of those unfortunate brethren suffering the winter.

On that note, do take the time to investigate the charity you plan to give to. Some of the web sites to do this are Charity Navigator, and Give.org to name a couple. I was surprised by some information I found on the former site:

• Habitat For Humanity gets a one-star rating, spending only about 75% of its money on program expenses (i.e. actual charity work)! It spends 22 cents on fundraising for every dollar it gets!
  
• The American Red Cross does get 4 stars, but still spends 18 cents on the dollar on fundraising, and has a CEO making a salary in excess of $450,000!
  
• By and large, the smaller charities do a better job, in my opinion. For example, among charities that do work in India (where I'm from), one of the standout groups, Asha for Education, spends just a cent on a dollar on fundraising, spends almost 98% of its budget on program expenses, and does not pay its CEO!
  

That's not to condemn any of the larger charities, just to say do your homework. And remember, as my friend's dad used to tell him,

Make all you can,
Save all you can,
Give all you can.

Socialism In Action

This story speaks to the inefficiencies in socialist economies - an analysis of the Delhi Jal Board, the water utility of India's capital city Delhi. Even my non-Indian readers will want to read this, especially the comparison between the performance of the utility companies in "booming" India and the forgotten Ivory Coast. This is the reality that you need to keep in mind the next time you think the government should take over an industry (think Democratic calls to have the Feds run refineries to compete with those 'evil capitalists' profiting from Hurricane Katrina). The reality is efficiency is the product of a need to survive. Think if you were guaranteed an 'A' in a course without having to study, how much time would you invest in the course?

Some notes before you read the link: 1 crore = 10 million, Rs 50 is just over a dollar, although I find a conversion of 8X works better in adjusting for purchasing parity (so someone making Rs 800,000 a year truly makes about $16,000, but lives like someone who would make $100,000)

Earthquake Victims

Our prayers and thoughts are with the victims of the terrible quake in Kashmir and the tragic loss of life. I hope the inept bureaucracies of India and Pakistan can get their acts together to prevent a further exxageration of their misfortune.

Tree Climber

I thought about this story yesterday, and while I have posted it a while back, I decided I wanted to post it again, and not just a link to the old post. So here goes my rant again ...

While I am often bothered by the nature of disparity, I was particularly moved by something that happened this week. I went to bed reading the story of a panaiyeri nadar, a tree-climber in my home state of Tamil Nadu, a story typical for many in his profession. His job is to extract date palm jaggery from the trees, for which purpose he has to climb the tree, extract the juice with a knife, and on to the next tree. He has no safety harness or other protective gear, and a fall guarantees death, or worse serious injury that could spiral his family into serious debt. He often has to climb upto 150 trees, each at least 15 to 20 feet in height. That's about the same as climbing 250 floors up a staircase, except he has no staircase or even ladder - just his bare palms and legs. He starts working at 3 am in the morning, and gets done about 6 in the evening. The fruits of his labor? About Rs. 5-8 (under US 20 cents!) a day ... oh and muscle pains, asthma and a host of other ailments!!

I woke up the next morning, and turned on my TV to discover it was National Splurge Day - and we were being shown how we could splurge (if we had the money!) ranging from caviar to $200,000 diamond earrings to a Merc wheels that set you back close to 400 grand! Sure, spend, revel in luxury ...

This bothers me a whole deal, and I'm no commie or leftie! I don't believe the Government should necessarily be a constant presence in our lives. But I do believe that we are humans, and humanity is what distinguishes us from the beasts of the jungle. How can people not be bothered by the extreme poverty that besets so many in the world? And I don't mean just the rich. How far would the $2000 you spent on a home theater system gone in those parts? How many palaiyeri nadars would have had access to a more supportive system?

Yes, governments are supposed to do that, but it's obvious that for many in the Third World, governments have failed them. But ask yourself, if a loved one were in need of medical attention, and the state-sponsored medical system (Medicare in the US) refused to provide any assistance, would you turn a blind eye to their plight?

Religions love to talk about the great attributes of their leaders. And yet, how is it that so many who tout the virtues of Christ, Mohammed, Rama, Buddha fail to attempt to replicate their compassion?

How about envisioning a year, nay a day as a panaiyeri nadar?

Born Into Brothels

This weekend, I saw the wonderful documentary, Born Into Brothels, a moving story of children born in the world's oldest brothel, Sonagachi in Kolkotta, India. I often found myself tearing up, and was swept off my feet by the kids featured. It's essentially a tale of Zana Briski, a NY-based photographer who teaches the kids of the brothel photography and tries to use their art to get them out of the brothels and into a decent school. It was truly a wake-up call for me for the needs of so many children, for school, for a decent life, for love ... the children we forget while focussing on meaningless crap from movies to sports. This movie moved me, but I only hope I can keep it in mind rather than allowing myself to drift into the same old habits.

You can learn more about the movie and the kids at the Kids with Cameras website