Cat’s Out of the Bag

The Times/UK launches a brilliant piece of investigative journalism that confirms what we’ve already known – that US forces have been pursuing the Global War on Terror from inside Pakistani territory as early as October 2001. What they judiciously add to the global knowledgebase is an exact location within Pakistan and composition of those forces

Attention Brave Taliban! The Infidel Are Here!

The CIA is secretly using an airbase in southern Pakistan to launch the Predator drones that observe and attack al-Qaeda and Taleban militants on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan, a Times investigation has found.

The Pakistani and US governments have repeatedly denied that Washington is running military operations, covert or otherwise, on Pakistani territory — a hugely sensitive issue in the predominantly Muslim country.

…Shamsi lies in a sparsely populated area about 190 miles southwest of the city of Quetta, which US intelligence officials believe is used as a staging post by senior Taleban leaders, including Mullah Omar. It is also 100 miles south of the border with Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand and about 100 miles east of the border with Iran.

Aiding theTimes/UK’s hunt was the array of investigative tools more generally available to an ambitious first world reporter than a trapped-in-a-cave Jihadi – Continue reading

Flight from Dubai

SM enjoys occasionally keeping tabs on diaspora members worldwide and the brothers-in-arms in the Gulf are a particularly interesting, if occasionally sad case. Lured by much greater economic opportunity but often forced to deal with 2nd class citizen status (and worse) – their tales really help show the lengths some folks will go to to eke out a few bucks for the fam.

Fewer Lights in the Future?

Now, with the global collapse of the closely intertwined construction and finance industries, the Gulf has been particularly hard hit. An interesting leading indicator of sorts is the shape of traffic at the airport

For many expatriate workers in Dubai it was the ultimate symbol of their tax-free wealth: a luxurious car that few could have afforded on the money they earned at home.

Now, faced with crippling debts as a result of their high living and Dubai’s fading fortunes, many expatriates are abandoning their cars at the airport and fleeing home rather than risk jail for defaulting on loans.

Police have found more than 3,000 cars outside Dubai’s international airport in recent months. Most of the cars – four-wheel drives, saloons and “a few” Mercedes – had keys left in the ignition. Some had used-to-the-limit credit cards in the glove box. Others had notes of apology attached to the windscreen.

Not surprisingly, Desis are a large % of the folks fleeing

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Before Cartoons were PC…

Back when I was a kid, cartoons meant the Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera franchises rather than Dora the Explorer, Simpsons & Spongebob and they occasionally carried less than model minority stereotypes.

A friend of mine recently posted this cartoon on his facebook wall. Although originally published in 1971, I’ve got hazy memories of it still being on the air in the late 70s / early 80s (dating myself.. I know) –

Classic animation short from Sesame Street’s third broadcast season. An Indian guru counts from 1 to 20 on his four arms, accompanied by sitar music and a lot of psychedelic visuals. As a bonus, there’s a recap in Spanish!

One other desi portrayal I remember from the era was Johnny Quest’s sidekick Hadji – an arguably positive character. On a similar note, although mistaken for Afro-American, Little Black Sambo was actually about a Tamilian boy but, AFAIK, was never made into a TV toon. A different, non-PC example I particularly remember wasn’t desi but definitely pushed ill Mexican stereotypes was Slowpoke Rodriguez (Slowpoke was Speedy’s less famous, less athletically-inclined cousin and although he appeared in fewer cartoons, for some reason I recall him a bit better).

So, I thought I’d cast the net open and see if mutineers had examples of non-PC desi portrayals in TV cartoons back in the day? Before 3rd grade name callers invoked Apu, what other ill desi cartoon characters fed our childhood angst?

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Even Steel Goes Soft…

As the global, finance-led recession winds its way through world markets, some particularly exposed sectors have been construction, durable goods and their suppliers – notably steel. As a consequence, one SM favorite, Lakshmi Mittal, has seen his fortunes take quite a hit of late

“Son, global steel production is a game I’m confident we can play & win… American politics on the other hand…”

Over the past eight months, Lakshmi Mittal, Britain’s wealthiest man, has lost around $51bn (£35bn). Mittal, who controls steel producer Arcelor Mittal, has profited from the construction boom of the past decade, driven by the emerging economies of China and India. His stake in the business in June was worth $65bn. But, as demand for steel has crashed, so has the Arcelor Mittal share price. His holding is now worth $14bn – a staggering loss, although he is not exactly on the streets yet.

And, as if punishment from the market wasn’t enough, a strongly Democratic Congress, empowered by a frenzied effort to pass a hastily-conceived stimulus may be ushering in new protectionist winds

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No Really, South Asians Against Obama ;-)

In stark contrast to Anna’s picts of pro-Obama Pakistani kids, Reuters recently published some picts of less than happy Pakistani adults –

Obama! Keep Your Hands off my “Tribs”!

Supporters of the Pakistani Islamist party Jamat-e-Islami protest in Karachi, January 25, 2009. The protest was organised by Jamat-e-Islami party against military operations and drone attacks in tribal areas. U.S. drones fired missiles into Pakistan late on Friday killing 17 people, intelligence officials and residents said, in the first such strike since Barack Obama became U.S. president. REUTERS/Athar Hussain (PAKISTAN)

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India’s Israel Envy

Former UN USG Shashi Tharoor recently published a provocative piece titled “India’s Israel Envy” exploring the seemingly unlikely sympathy for Israel from India –

Shashi Tharoor

As Israeli planes and tanks exact a heavy toll on Gaza, India’s leaders and strategic thinkers have been watching with an unusual degree of interest – and some empathy.

India’s government has, no surprise, joined the rest of the world in calling for an end to the military action, but its criticism of Israel has been muted…

Both countries face terrorists launching attacks from neighboring, ostensibly sovereign territory and both suspect that authorities lend different shades of support to the behavior. With Israel biting the bullet and invading Gaza to (hopefully) curtail the rocket downpour, India might be tempted to do something similar to Pakistan. However, Tharoor argues, India has far more effective international leverage to bring down upon its misbehaving neighbor than the Israeli’s do and hence could / should make use of that avenue first.

Perhaps due to his UN heritage, I think Tharoor overly focuses on geopolitics as the source of the “empathy” – e.g. both India and Israel are in similar transnational situations. I’ve done some work in Israel over the years and have personally noted a far more broadbased alignment between Israel and India. One response to Tharoor tracks this shift over the last 50 yrs-

Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) — Israel hasn’t won much praise for invading the Gaza Strip. This unpopularity abides even though Israel is bombing Gaza to stop Qassam rockets from hitting its own towns. Still, Israel has at least some supporters in what might seem an unlikely place: India. Not official support, mind you.

…Still, a growing mutual admiration between India and Israel is showing up at levels both commonplace and lofty…This Israel-India link is a change. Born at the same time, the two nations at first stood out for their differences…Over the next decades, a shift commenced. India discerned that it had little to gain by keeping Israel at a distance, since Arab nations would surely back Pakistan over India regardless of the latter’s policy on Jerusalem.

My assertion is that beyond the strategic relationship to Islamic states, both countries have also become surprisingly socio-politically aligned internally and thus the “envy” runs far deeper than the current situation.

How so?

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The Kerala Model – At Risk?

The “Kerala model of development” is often cited as a path for developing nations to secure strong human development indices (literacy, health, etc.) but without first adopting the “Washington Consensus” (essentially higher, per capita GDP via free markets). Today’s Economist Blog has a brief update on the model and the risk posed to it by the global economy and it reminded me of an old-ish article I never got around to blogging…

Back in September ’07, NYT described the Kerala model and its adherents this way –

TRIVANDRUM, India — This verdant swath of southern Indian coastline is a famously good place to be poor. People in the state of Kerala live nearly as long as Americans do, on a sliver of the income. They read at nearly the same rates.

With leftist governments here in the state capital spending heavily on health and schools, a generation of scholars has celebrated the “Kerala model” as a humane alternative to market-driven development, a vision of social equality in an unequal capitalist world.

…It also gained a reputation as a place hostile to business, with heavy regulation, militant unions and frequent strikes. There are fishing jobs but little industry and weak agriculture. Government is the largest employer; many people run tenuous businesses like tea shops or tiny stores.

However, if there’s one thing economists of all stripes agree on, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. They further note –

…far from escaping capitalism, they say, this celebrated corner of the developing world is painfully dependent on it.
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The Force is Strong in the Young One

The chessworld is “all agog” about the youngest player to ever upset a Grand Master – 9 year old Hetul Shah

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” – Mark Twain

New Delhi (IANS): Nine-year old Hetul Shah created history in the first round of the seventh Parsvnath International Open Chess tournament, defeating Grand Master Nurlan Ibrayev of Kazakhstan on Sunday.

…Hetul was a class act Sunday afternoon as he not only recorded his biggest victory but also ensured a name in the record books. Hetul is the youngest ever to beat a Grandmaster, bettering the Indian record set up by Parimarjan Negi by more than a year.

The Hindustan Times gives us this player profile –

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The Economist’s Economists

The Economist recently posted its newest “bright young economists to watch” list. In addition to the tremendous visibility given by a top tier pub like The Economist, past list alumni have gone one to great things –

Raj Chetty

TWENTY years ago The Economist wrote about eight young economists who were making a big splash in their discipline and beyond. One of them, Paul Krugman, recently won the Nobel prize for his models of international trade and economic geography. Ten years later we tried to repeat the trick, identifying another eight young stars, many of whom were taking their discipline far off-piste. One has since achieved even greater fame than anticipated. Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago became a household name as co-author of “Freakonomics”, a bestselling book published in 2005.

This year, 2 economists of mutinous importance made the cut.

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Trickle Down Recessionomics

The NYT has an interesting story on how the US’s recession will affect the folks in the Desh most directly linked to our economy –

The DJ ain’t gettin’ as much play

BANGALORE, India — After years of being blamed for job losses in America and elsewhere, India’s high-tech companies and outsourcing firms are going through a downturn of their own. The global slowdown is forcing them to reduce hiring, freeze salaries, postpone new investments and lay off thousands of software programmers and call center operators.

Of course, as with many things in life, an economic “crisis” is often a relative thing. In the 70s & 80s, for example, the Natural and NAIRU rates (essentially the lowest possible unemployment rate w/o screwing other things up) were widely thought to be around 6%. Our recent 6.5% uptick in unemployment, by those standards, would have been seen as a blessing. And in a global context, the most recent US unemployment rate would literally be a godsend. For ex., France’s official unemployment rate – even in boom times – is way above this and the unofficial rate is probably closer to 10%.

So with that economic relativism in mind, what does a crisis look like through the eyes of Infosys? A mere 13-15% growth –

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