Author Archives: Ennis Singh Mutinywale

Armistice day

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Veterans day has its roots in Armistice day, the holiday that once marked the end of the “Great War” (WWI) on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 [Link].

Over 138,000 Indian troops fought in Belgium and France during World War I, many of them Sikhs. More than one quarter of these soldiers would became casualties.

In the first battle of Ypres at Flanders in 1914 a platoon of Dogra Sikhs died fighting to the last man, who shot himself with his last cartridge rather than surrender.

After the bloody battle of Neuve Chapelle in 1915 the Sikh regiments had lost 80% of their men, 3 regiments stood at only 16% of their original compliment. [Link]

Encarta: Indian Soldiers in France

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A Bellygraph Test to Ascertain the Gut Truth of the Matter

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Desis know that the seat of all emotions isn’t the heart but the belly – why else would we spend so much time catering to its needs? Based on that principle some clever desi-americans have come up with a better truth test, one almost as effective as having your mother look you in the eye and tell you that she knows what you did, so you better be honest about it. Instead of a polygraph, they used an electrogastrogram to measure changes in the digestive tract associated with stress.

Manish reluctantly posed for this photo …

… when 16 volunteers were hooked up to heart and digestive tract monitors, the researchers were surprised to find that lying had a closer correlation with stomach changes than with heart changes.

When the subjects lied, their heart rates increased, but it also did so at other times. On the other hand, lying was consistently associated with a decrease in the slow waves of the digestive tract. [Link]

Why is a stomach test more accurate? Because, as any auntie will tell you, the heart is a fickle creature, led around by hormones:

“The heart is unreliable because it’s affected by not only by your brain, but by many other factors, such as hormones,” says Pankaj Pasricha, who is leading the team. “The gut has a mind of its own – literally. It has its own well-developed nervous system that acts independently of almost everything except your unconscious brain.” [Link]

The Pasricha Family: Where nobody dares tell a lie!
This discovery had classically desi roots, it started with a father helping his daughter with a science project (the final version was called “Liar, Liar, Your Stomach’s on Fire”):
The study began as a high school project for Dr. Pasricha’s daughter, Trisha, who is listed as an author. (Dr. Pasricha’s wife is a former F.B.I. agent.) [Link]

Her mom’s a former F.B.I. agent and she just helped her dad come up with a better lie detector test? Boy, she’s really not planning on dating in high school, is she?

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Uncle Gallows-wallah

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Singapore’s hangman is a semi-retired 73 year old desi named Darshan Singh. This man, who looks like any other jolly uncle on the street, has executed over 850 prisoners in his 46 years at the job.

Darshan Singh holds the world’s record for executions: 18 men in one day, three at a time. He takes real pride in his work, bragging that he has never botched an execution. The government pays him $312 for each execution and he gets to dress casually at his job, “often just a T-shirt, shorts, sports shoes and knee-length socks.” [Link]

His next execution is likely to be that of convicted Australian drug trafficker Van Tuong Nguyen.

Nguyen will meet Mr Singh a few days before he is executed and will be asked if he would like to donate his organs.

On the day before his execution, Mr Singh will lead him to a set of scales close to his death-row cell to weigh him.

Mr Singh will use the Official Table of Drops, published by the British Home Office in 1913, to calculate the correct length of rope for the hanging. “I am going to send you to a better place than this. God bless you.”

On the day of Nguyen’s execution, Mr Singh will be picked up by a government vehicle and driven to the prison, arriving at 2am local time (0400 AEST) to prepare the gallows.

Shortly before 6am, he will handcuff Nguyen’s hands behind his back and lead him on his final short walk to the gallows, just a few metres from the cell.

… Darshan Singh will place a rope around the 25-year-old’s neck and say the words he has spoken to more than 850 condemned prisoners during his 46 years as Singapore’s chief executioner.

“I am going to send you to a better place than this. God bless you.”

[According to his colleague:] “Death has always come instantaneously and painlessly. In that split second, at precisely 6am, it’s all over.” [Link]

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Rock musicians get really high for charity

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Few stories with the words “rock” “band” “huge stone” and “high” are news, but this piqued my interest. Recently, five british musicians, from five different bands, joined together for a charity gig at Everest Base Camp, 5,545m above sea level.

The 40-minute concert, in front of about 100 mountaineers, was to raise money for children victimised by armed conflict in Nepal…. [It] raised almost £30,000 overall to help Nepalese children…. a shelter and skills centre will be set up for the conflict-affected children at Dhulikhel, east of capital Kathmandu…

Rights groups say almost 400 children have died in the nine-year-old armed conflict in Nepal. [Link]

The concert was the highest rock concert in the world. This was actually the second world record set by the organizing charity, British charity The Nepal Balabalika Trust (Trust for Nepalese Children). In September, another group of musicians set the world record for the longest concert by “by performing continuously for almost 44 hours in a bar in London’s Soho district.” [Link]

For more on this story, see their webpage: The Worlds Highest Gig – October 2005

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Is brain drain bad for India? How about the rest of the world?

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As children of the brain drain (literally as well as figuratively) we are conditioned to think of India’s million-strong brain drain represents just 4.3% of its vast graduate populationthe free market in labor as a good thing for all parties involved. Certainly, free movement of talented professionals has been good for migrating professionals and for the people of the first world — 25% of the doctors in North America, Britain and Australia are immigrants who attended medical school abroad. [Link]

A trickier question concerns the implications of the brain drain for the people in the sending country, the country that the doctors are being drained from. The effects of the brain drain there can be ambiguous – while it leeches away many talented professionals, it also creates incentives for others (who might not have seen education as lucrative before) to get educated, and can therefore create a more educated population than would have existed without brain drain. Some people argue that this is why India has benefitted from/despite brain drain while other countries have been damaged by it. According to the Economist:

Indian students had little reason to learn computer coding before there was a software industry to employ them. But such an industry could not take root without computer engineers to man it. The dream of a job in Silicon Valley, however, was enough to lure many of India’s bright young things into coding, and that was enough to hatch an indigenous software industry where none existed before.

India’s valley-dwellers represent just one contingent in a much larger diaspora. According to the most exhaustive study of the brain drain, released last month by the World Bank, there were 1.04m Indian-born people, educated past secondary school, living in the 30 relatively rich countries of the OECD in 2000. (An unknown number of them acquired their education outside their country of birth, the report notes.) This largely successful diaspora is more than just something to envy and emulate. Its members can be a source of know-how and money, and provide valuable entrées into foreign markets and supply chains.

But Messrs Kapur and McHale think India’s relatively happy experience with its educated emigrés is more likely to be the exception than the rule. Its million-strong brain drain represents just 4.3% of its vast graduate population, according to the Bank. By contrast, almost 47% of Ghana’s highly educated native sons live in the OECD; for Guyana, the figure is 89%. This is not a stimulative leeching of talent; it is a haemorrhage. [Link]

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Diwali Schlock Contest!

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All holidays are filled with schlock. Even the most lactose intolerant amongst us becomes cheesy over the holidays; even the most militant vegetarian schmaltzy. Recognizing this shouldn’t stop us from having fun at the expense of the purveyors of the least pulchritudinous presents and the buyers of the least beautiful booty.

What examples have you noticed this Diwali of egregious bad taste? What are the tackiest Diwali cards you’ve seen on-line? Was there anything that made you embarrassed to be brown? Gentlefolk, start your browsers, and tell all below …

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Eelam Idol

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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a guerrilla group in possession of a national flower, must also be in want of a national anthem. The Tamil Tigers, having selected the poisonous Gloriosa Lily as their national flower last year, are now holding a contest for a new patriotic song. [Since 1990 they’ve been raising their flag to the appropriately titled “Look the Flag is Rising”]

Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka are advertising for “bards and minstrels with patriotic fervour” to write a catchy national anthem. The anthem should “symbolize the history of our struggle and victories to future generations,” the rebel statement says.

The lyrics should extol the “virtues of those who sacrificed their lives in Tamil struggle, celebrate the unique qualities of exclusiveness and resourcefulness of the Tamil homeland, and manifest the resoluteness, dedication and the aspirations of the Tamil people for freedom and dignity.”

“It should contain 18 lines – catchy and lively and in immaculate Tamil.”

Budding poets have until 27 November, “Tamil Eelam Martyrs Remembrance Day”, to come up with a suitable anthem. [Link]

Personally, I think that they’re missing an important opportunity here. Not only should the anthem be catchy and lively, but the entire process of anthem selection should also be appositely hip. To that end, I suggest the creation of Eelam Idol, a TV show designed to ensure that the resulting anthem is the people’s favorite. Hosted by MIA, Simon Cowell and a high Tamil Tiger official, the three judges could offer ascerbic commentary on the performances of the singer songwriters who volunteer to perform their proposed new version of the national anthem. The show would get killer ratings, both in Jaffna and abroad, and the new anthem would instantly top the charts! Guys, if you’re reading this, the idea is yours gratis. No really, there’s no need to meet for lunch …

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Merry Diwali, quoth the taxman

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The Indian government faces a chronic problem with tax compliance. Nobody pays income tax. Tax rates are relatively high, and the tax system is byzantine. The entire economy is structured in such a way as to help people keep their income off the books. As a result, the government has trouble collecting revenue:

It is estimated that only about 3% of India’s one billion-strong population pay income tax.

“There are only 75,000 to 85,000 people with an income of one million rupees ($22,140) who pay taxes,” Finance Minister P Chidambaram told journalists. [Link]

The text message reads: “Pay your taxes, file your returns and hold your head high. Happy Diwali!” To root out tax evaders, the revenue service is watching people’s behavior during the one time of year when they can’t help but spend money — Diwali. As much as most Diwali-celebrating Indians hate paying taxes, the social consequences of being seen as cheap during a period of conspicuous consumption and status competition are far worse.

Diwali is a time when most Indians loosen their purse strings, buying gifts and making major purchases such as buying a car, and the finance minister said big spenders would be watched.

People with credit card transactions of more than 200,000 rupees a year ($4,435) will be checked by the tax department to see if they have filed their taxes or not.

Similar checks will be run on people who make cash withdrawals of one million rupees ($22,179) or more, or who have bought mutual funds worth more than 200,000 rupees. [Link]

My favorite aspect of this campaign goes after shoppers where it hurts – their mobile phone usage. What kind of Indian shopper can resist gabbing away on their mobile to their friends? The longer they shop, the larger the phone bill will be, thus altering the authorities to the presence of a wealthy person who, in all likelihood, has not paid their tax bill.

Mobile phone users who run up a bill in excess of 1,000 rupees ($22) a month can expect to receive a text message from the finance ministry to pay up.

“Pay your taxes, file your returns and hold your head high. Happy Diwali,” reads the message. [Link]
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Mukhtar Mai Update Part II

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UPDATE: Mukhtar Mai is here. [Thanks Vidster]

Earlier we reported that the US Government has stepped in to ensure Ms. Mai’s passage outside of the country. However, given our inability to make the Pakistani government do anything, I wasn’t holding my breath waiting for her to show up in the US.

The latest news is that she is planning on coming to America in November to receive an award from Glamour magazine. Mukhtar Mai has a US visa, but she’s still not sure if the Pakistani government will approve:

“I shall go if the government does not prevent me from travelling abroad,” she said. [BBC]

In the past, Pervez Musharraf didn’t want Mukhtar Mai to go abroad because he feared that her visit might tarnish Pakistan’s image. This was a delightfully ironic comment, given how much his own comments on women’s rights have contributed to Pakistan’s image as a banana-less banana republic. In response to this concern, Ms. Mai has said:

“I am a Pakistani and I have no intention of tarnishing the country’s image. But I will speak on the plight of women in rural areas,” she told Reuters news agency. [BBC]

Perhaps to sweeten the deal, she has also promised to:

“… use this occasion to highlight the plight of quake victims in Pakistan and also motivate the Americans and the Pakistanis staying there to contribute and raise funds for them,” Ms Mai said. [BBC]

Will she actually make it? Will Dr. Rice have to intervene again? Will Kristof have to write another NYT piece to embarass Pakistan? Will Pakistan listen? Will anybody care? Tune in here for the continuing adventures of “The Perils of Pauline the Pakistani Woman!”

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