Author Archives: vinod

What’s up in the UK?

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An interesting set of stats posted on the SM news tab talks about workforce participation amongst South Asians in the UK –

Six million Britons are living in households where nobody works – costing the taxpayer almost £13 billion a year in benefits alone, a spending watchdog report reveals today.

…The problem is concentrated in cities including inner London – where one in four households are workless – Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester, and is worse among some ethnic groups. Pakistani and Bangladeshi households are the most likely to be workless at 22.3 per cent, while Indian households are the least likely, at 6.8 per cent.

Internationally Britain has one of the worst rates of worklessness. Around 13.5 per cent of the UK population live in workless households, compared with compared with 11 per cent in France, five per cent in the United States and less than 3 per cent in Japan.

For next door neighbors to be both the worst and the first on this sort of distribution is pretty interesting. Anyone (Razib?) know what diffs in immigration patterns b/t Pakistani & Bangladeshi’s vs. Indian’s to the UK might be?

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Econ 101 Works… Eventually

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With all the brouhaha about outsourcing last election season, I thought this article provided an interesting snapshot of what techie outsourcing looks like today –

Silicon Valley has helped power India’s outsourcing boom by shifting technology jobs to that country. Three months ago, Munjal Shah reversed a bit of that shift.

Shah, who leads a California start-up called Riya Inc., had opened an office in India’s technology capital of Bangalore in 2005, hiring about 20 skilled software developers. The lure was the wage level: just a quarter of what experienced Silicon Valley computer engineers make.

Then Indian salaries soared. Last year, Shah paid his engineers in India about half of Silicon Valley levels. By early this year, it was 75%.

75% of an average US Engineering salary goes FAR in India. Nevertheless, the big picture point remains true — salaries eventually normalize around productivity and, given the fiercly competitive global tech market, infinite pools of 3rd world workers aren’t exactly lying in wait (of course, the right policy mistakes can make this happen, but let’s not go there for now). It is, on the otherhand, pretty impressive and a testament to modern tech + capitalism that it’s happened this fast.

My company, Roundbox, has some similar, interesting anecdotal experience with outsourcing…

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More Syriana Justice

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The horrible treatment South Asian workers receive in Arab nations has been receiving more and more press coverage of late. Hopefully, the spotlight will ensure that something changes for the better but until then, it’s our job to bring forward stories like this –

The imminent execution of a teenage maid in Saudi Arabia drew fierce criticism yesterday…According to the Saudi authorities, Rizana Nafeek admitted strangling the four-month-old boy while feeding him with a bottle.

But Nafeek, whose job was not meant to include child care, has denied making any such admission. She claims the child had begun to choke before losing consciousness in spite of her desperate efforts to clear his airway.

Tonight is the deadline for appeals in the case.

This criminal trial is especially ghastly on 2 counts —

Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK, said: “It is an absolute scandal that Saudi Arabia is preparing to behead a teenage girl who didn’t even have a lawyer at her trial. The Saudi authorities are flouting an international prohibition on the execution of child offenders by even imposing a death sentence on a defendant who was reportedly 17 at the time of the alleged crime.“

Prior SM coverage here and here and here.

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The Enemy of My Enemy is???

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How do you solve a problem like Maria Musharraf? It’s so dang hard to figure out what we should (much less can ) do with him. Lets be clear, by nearly any measure, he sounds like a pretty awful leader. And yet, perhaps he’s a Stalin in our conflicted time — someone we’d otherwise hate but whom other, more pressing international circumstances force us to extend a bit more, uh, courtesy than we’d like. If his umpteen missteps have brought us to the verge of actively “regime changing” him (a great read, BTW!), then perhaps this latest diatribe from the Hitler of our time (no, not Bush, sheesh) wins Mushie back a few more points –

Not in the Musharraf Fan Club Either

I talk to you today on the occasion of the criminal aggression carried out by Musharraf, his army and his security organs – the Crusaders’ hunting dogs – against Lal Masjid in Islamabad, and on the occasion of the dirty, despicable crime committed by Pakistani military intelligence – at the orders of Musharraf – against Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi when it showed him on television in women’s dress.

This is a message of blinding clarity to the Muslims in Pakistan, the Pakistani Ulema, and indeed, the Ulema in the rest of the Islamic world, and this crime can only be washed away by repentance or blood. I call on the Ulema in Pakistan and tell them: this is what you are worth to Musharraf, and this is the treatment that awaits you in the prisons of Musharraf’s hunting dogs, and this is what you are worth to the Crusaders. Musharraf and his hunting dogs have rubbed your honor in the dirt in the service of the Crusaders and the Jews, and if you don’t retaliate for your honor, Musharraf won’t spare any of you, and won’t stop until he eradicates Islam from Pakistan. Lowly Musharraf, who has sold his honor and religion to the Crusaders and Jews, is arrogant with you in the extreme and regards you with the utmost contempt, and treats you like animals and dogs, and only is satisfied by portraying you in the lowliest and most despicable light.

This is an eloquent message [from Musharraf] to every scholar and every free and honorable person in Pakistan: that resisting Musharraf, confronting him and demanding that he adhere to Islam and refrain from worshiping the Crusaders and Jews will only get you the worst types of contempt, humiliation and degradation.

Of his litany of complaints, it’s almost comical that perp-walking Ghazi on TV in a dress ranks quite so highly. Perhaps there’s some insight here into the Honor/Shame dynamic commentators have noted in the shadowy corners of Arab society that breed Zawahiris…. Whatever the case, if the other guys think he’s out to destroy Islamism, then perhaps there’s another twist to this Gordian Knot. A tough problem to solve indeed.

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Cheek Swabbing Can Be Fun… Bay Area Mega Drive

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Ultrabrown posted some picts from last weekend’s cheek swab fest in NYC. Vinay Chakravarty and his wife showed up and, as Manish points out, it’s almost weird how much revelry the event managed to create…

Additional events are happening all over the country to help Vinay, Sameer and countless others in the future.

In particular, this weekend, Bay Area volunteers are hosting their MEGA DRIVE spanning over a dozen sites.

So here’s a little game to liven things up & help get the word out — snap a pict or 2 of you and your friends getting your cheeks swabbed and/or holding up your donor cards, send ’em to ME (vinod@vinod.com), and, in the spirit of the Desi Dad project, we’ll post some of our fav mug shots on SM and Ultrabrown alongside these folks –

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Corruption and Country Politics…

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p>I’m a big fan of Bryan Caplan & Arnold Kling over at EconLog and in particular thought mutineers would be interested in this blogpost. Caplan analyzes a paper from Rafael Di Tella (HBS) and Robert MacCulloch (Princeton) which models the relationship between a country’s perceived level of corruption and its political orientation –

We find evidence consistent with the hypothesis that governments in poor countries have a more left wing rhetoric than those in OECD countries…The empirical pattern of beliefs within countries is consistent with this explanation: people who perceive corruption to be high in the country are also more likely to lean left ideologically and to declare to support a more intrusive government in economic matters.

Put simply, more perception of corruption = more likely to be an economic lefty. Bryan brings up the all-too-obvious consequential impact — increasing the role of govt in the economy, particulary in the midst of corruption, should increase the level of corruption overall. Caplan quotes Anne Kreuger who coined the term Rent Seeking back in 1973 –

If the market mechanism is suspect, the inevitable temptation is to resort to greater and greater intervention, thereby increasing the amount of economic activity devoted to rent seeking. As such, a political “vicious circle” may develop. People perceive that the market mechanism does not function in a way compatible with socially approved goals because of competitive rent seeking. A political consensus therefore emerges to intervene further in the market, rent seeking increases, and further intervention results.

Di Tella and MacCulloch duly note, however, that the Indian electorate seems far more intelligent about this issue and presents a very interesting exception to their general observation –

When the analysis is carried out at the individual country level an interesting exception occurs: India. In this country there is a positive and significant correlation between the perception of corruption and placing one’s views on the right end of the political spectrum, not the left.

Perhaps it’s because Desi’s have been uniquely well acquainted with the combination of

  • 40 years of empty, albeit well intentioned rhetoric
  • widely lauded business acumen

The Founding Fathers were quite prescient that the lack of angels amongst men both created and limited the scope of government; unfortunately, for the rest of the 3rd world, it seems, the population is rather swayed by appeals to use government power to bring about Cosmic Justice…

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Indian Superman – The Sequel?

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Back in SM’s youth, we brought you the story of Indian Superman (posted in 2004! We was the OG playas on the Desi Blogging scene yo).

It takes a lot of brylcreem to get that curly lock just so…

IMHO, despite the massive competition afforded by Bollywood, Indian Superman takes the cake as one of the craziest movies I’ve ever heard about. A reviewer at the time noted –

[Indian Superman] is one of those rare movies that manages to offend on every level. It is badly acted, badly directed, badly filmed, and makes no sense whatsoever. And just to add that extra level of offensiveness, the whole project is probably illegal.

Why Illegal? Well, here’s the most direct / literal reason –

The movie starts with thundering music playing over the sight of a cityscape from some advanced alien civilization – hey, wait a minute! That music is from the American Superman movie! So are those special effects shots!

Ah, the beauty of cut & paste

’04 was the pre-YouTube Internet and, at the time, we weren’t able to post any clips of the flick. Luckily, the world has evolved and clips are now far easier to find (here’s one, presumably from the film’s climactic ending where Superman saves an otherwise-doomed Indian Airlines flight).

Of new interest to long time mutineers, however, it appears that Puneet Issar and Dharmendra Deol have passed the Superman baton on to a host of desi sequels…

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All Hail the Amby

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Pimp My Desi Ride

Mutineer Panyananda points us at an LAT article titled “India’s Ugly Icon of the Road” which pays homage to the humble Hindustan Motors Ambassador –

…describe the most famous car strutting along India’s roads today, think of some of the qualities associated with hot automotive design….Sleek. Sporty. Sexy. Fast.

Now throw them out….None of those words applies to the Ambassador.

And in the Amby, we find a microcosm of Indian economic history –

TRACE the car’s journey through the last half-century and you can chart the rise of India’s post-colonial ruling class, its flirtation with socialism and its recent economic boom that has the world abuzz.

…As I journeyed all over India,” wrote Singh, who died in 1999, “I came to understand that if one thing can be singled out to stand for the past 50 years of India and its closed economy, now open and moving into the new millennium, it has to be the Ambassador.”

As they say, sometimes a dog’s so ugly, it’s actually cute and perhaps when a car is & remains this backwards, it’s easy to wax nostalgic. Whatever the case, the humble Ambassador turns 50 this year and given the transience of modern life, it’s hard not to take notice…

You can’t be desi and have spent anytime in da homeland without being able to relate to stories like this – “…police in north India once stopped an Ambassador with 27 people on board” Continue reading →

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Sometimes, There’s a Match.

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Meenu Bedi is saving a life she’s never met…

The posts about Vinay and Sameer make it worthwhile to highlight and remind people that there *are* success stories out there. As many nonprofit volunteers can tell you, the single best cure for donor fatigue is a tangible example. For Vinay & Sameer, our local SF press highlighted this very recent one –

Bedi said she was “honored and ecstatic” when she found out her stem cells were a match.

“It was a privilege to do it for someone,” she said. “I would hope that they would do the same for me, if I was in their shoes.”

…”I know she’s 54 years old and that she has leukemia,” Bedi said. “They won’t release her ethnicity, but, yeah, she’s East Indian.”

Meenu was registered via a Team-in-Training program sponsored by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

As rare as matches are, what’s even more sad is the occasional response to a match (a problem which, sadly, Vinay appears to have run into) –

“We often get a lot of people to sign up,” [Program Director] Vlume said, “but the unique problem is getting people to say ‘yes’ after we’ve made a match.”

She said that sometimes, as many as 70 percent of people deemed matches decline to go through with the process.

“They want to look like they’re doing a good thing, they want to show they support the community, but in the end they never really wanted to do it in the first place,” Vlume said.

Sometimes, attitudes are a far worse problem than numbers. Good luck Vinay & Sameer.

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Help Vinay & Sameer – SF

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Unfortunately, Vinay isn’t alone in needing your / our help. Sameer Bhatia has also recently been diagnosed with AML, needs a bone marrow transplant, and is joining forces with Vinay to get South Asians registered. Mutineer Anna’s been fantastic about getting the word out for NYC and DC marrow registration drives, but West Coasters should know about an upcoming drive & fundraiser in SF — TONIGHT.

When: Thursday, June 28, 7pm to 10pm

Where: Dolce in San Francisco

www.dolcesf.com

Contact: Deepa Prasad and Harini Madhavan; deepaprasad@hotmail.com or hvmadhavan@hotmail.com

At the second event, we will be holding a donor drive as well as raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. We would love to see you there as well. Please spread the word and bring as many people as you can to both events. It should be a great time as well as an important and meaningful cause.

If you can’t make it up to SF, there are other drives tonight in Sacramento, Seattle, Sunnyvale and NYC and a LARGE LIST of future drives all across the country. With 1 in 20,000 odds of finding a suitable match, every little cheek swab helps. Continue reading →