The usual image is of Western nations swooping in with a whirlybird and saving their expats from a banana republic disaster. But last week, Infosys airlifted its employees from Houston in advance of the hurricane (thanks, Sumita):

With Hurricane Rita hurtling towards the Texas coast, Indian IT major Infosys has evacuated over 86 people including employees and their families from Houston on a chartered flight… Infosys officials at the company’s headquarters in Bangalore said that the decision to charter a plane for the evacuation of employees and their families was made after reports that roads from Houston were blocked as scores of people attempted to flee. [Link]

In a similar vein, for Texans fleeing Rita, that friendly voice on the telephone may be desi (via SAJA):

A call centre in Gujarat has been fielding scores of distress calls from Texas residents about Hurricane Rita, the unit’s director said on Sunday. The call centre located in Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar, started fielding around 20 calls an hour…

“I received a frantic call from Robert Hurst, a senior judge in Texas on Friday night,” Jim Iyoob, the centre’s director in Gujarat and a resident of Texas. “He requested me to set up a helpline at the Business Process Outsourcing centre to help evacuees in Texas find a temporary shelter from the hurricane… All calls from our Texas office are being diverted to India,” says Iyoob who is helping anxious callers and updating them on the situation by monitoring various Web sites and maps. [Link]

And, of course, India and Sri Lanka offered aid in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Related posts: one, two, three, four, five

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Break out your copy of Hatful Of Hollow, I’m about to depress you with this story from the BBC:

A 12-year-old Indian girl committed suicide after her mother told her she could not afford one rupee – two US cents – for a school meal.

Sania Khatun lived with her mother in a village north of Calcutta under a tarpaulin sheet provided by the state.

Sania usually starved at school; her widowed mother, Jainab Bewar, provided for her by bringing home food from the houses she worked in as a maid. On Friday, Sania

was tempted by the sight of classmates eating puffed rice and oil cakes.

When Sania asked her mother for a rupee, she was rebuked because the family couldn’t spare it:

She and her sons never earn more than $13 a month combined, she says.

Sania’s mother later found her hanging via a sari.

This is all I can think of, when I read stories like this:

India has seen unprecedented economic growth in recent years but many remain untouched by the improvements.

Decades ago, my parents were factually correct when they guilted me into finishing my dinner by reminding me of all the starving children in India:

A recent UN report said half of India’s children were still malnourished.

Tragic. No other word for it. Continue reading →

Time Magazine’s Asia edition features an article on the ambitions of multinational media conglomerates and their efforts to grab a piece of the the Indian newspaper market, which has always been difficult to penetrate:

It’s a sign of the times that one of the hottest IPOs in India this year was that of a newspaper company. Shares in HT Media–which publishes Hindustan, a major Hindi daily, the Hindustan Times, an English-language newspaper, and two magazines–listed on the Bombay stock exchange on Sept. 1 after raising about $90 million through a public stock sale. The IPO marked the climax of an extraordinary year for the Indian newspaper industry, which has seen new editions launched, turf wars fought and sensational stories broken. All this exuberance is a heart-warming sight for newspaper publishers. In most countries, sales and profits of dailies have been declining for years, a slide that has been hastened recently by a surge of fresh competition from the Internet and TV. That’s why, as a newspaper boom rages in India, investors and media executives across the world are looking for a way to penetrate what is probably the world’s last great newspaper market.

Watching the Indian newspaper scene is like taking a trip in a time machine to early 20th century America, when newspapers ruled life and politics. Sales of most Indian newspapers are increasing, and advertising is soaring. There are some 50,000 newspapers in this country of more than 1 billion inhabitants. Although circulation data is often controversial and hard to verify, one recent survey suggests that the number of Indians who read a daily newspaper shot up by 14% in the past three years to 176 million. (Most of them are reading newspapers in languages other than English–the Times of India, the top-selling English newspaper, is only the 12th largest.) It’s not hard to see the reasons for the boom: literacy is still expanding in India, and has increased by 21% over the past three years. A growing readership has combined with India’s other strengths–a vital economy and democratic culture–to make it a serious rival to China for the attention of global media investors. While there’s more advertising money in the Middle Kingdom, “India is less regulated than China and it’s easier to make money here,” says Vivek Couto, executive director of Media Partners Asia, a Hong Kong-based industry consultancy.

It’s obvious that if Times of India, with its often shockingly poor quality, is the top-selling English newspaper in India, then there is plenty of money to be made if the government loosens enough restrictions.  Current restrictions include the requirement that foreign media can sell only international editions that don’t contain local content or advertising and that foreign owners can only maintain a 26% share of the company.

And speaking of penetrating the Indian media market, via Tiffinbox (thanks for the tip Sendhil) we learn that Media Transasia is launching an Indian edition of Maxim.  I am bitter because I thought of this idea YEARS ago but I had no capital to make it happen.

Media Transasia is all set to bring international titles to India. First off their list is ‘Maxim’, the general interest magazine for men. ‘Maxim’ is targeted exclusively at men and will be launched by the end of 2005…

Commenting on the magazine, Sharma says, “The Indian edition of ‘Maxim’ will be similar to the international edition in terms of design, layout and tone, but the content will be adapted to suit Indian sensibilities…” [Link]

If you were the owner and director of an aquarium, what better name could you possibly have than “Moby.”  Dr. Moby Solangi, owner and director for the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport, MS, is a very happy man today.  The Times explains why:

Amid all the stories of devastation and death emerging from Hurricane Katrina, one happy chapter was written yesterday — courtesy of eight bottlenose dolphins.

They had lived in a marine aquarium for decades and were domesticated — three were born in captivity — but were washed miles out to sea when the hurricane hit Mississippi. Their owner feared that they lacked the skills of the wild to survive in the Gulf of Mexico.

But in a feat of navigation that has stunned their trainers, all eight have been discovered huddled together in fetid water a few hundred yards from land, having found their way back to the site in Gulfport where their aquarium once stood.

Their owner, Moby Solangi, speaking to The Times from a boat as he fed the dolphins last night, said: “We thought they were lost. They have all been in captivity for between 30 and 40 years. We didn’t think they had any navigation skills, and yet they are back here. We never thought we would find them, all together, so quickly.”

The chart on the right displays body weight vs. brain weight in some common animals.  The farther to the northwest of the solid central line, the more intelligent the creature.  As you can see there isn’t much of a difference between the owner of the aquarium and his prized dolphins.  These dolphins did exactly what I would have done: wait out the storm in a pack and then try to find my way home.  They’ve lost weight and they’ll get no help from FEMA (although you can help), but at least they survived and are now chillin’ at the Holiday Inn (sippin’ some Hen’).  Voice of America has the video.

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