Category Archives: Politics

The Backlash that Wasn’t

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Great little article in Newsweek about the short lived fury around the “giant sucking sound” of American jobs to India. We’re all rediscovering that economics (unlike politics) is almost never a zero sum game –

…Not long ago, what seemed most possible was that India would steal the jobs of American workers. But as George W. Bush visits there this week, he’ll find a maturing economy that is no longer all about call centers and basic tech support. Now big American investment banks and drugmakers are joining tech firms on the passage to India. R&D centers are springing up so fast that there’s now a shortage of Indian engineers. And the stigma of outsourcing jobs to India is disappearing.

…What happened to the outsourcing backlash? It has been muted by the fact that India didn’t suck Silicon Valley dry after all. Actually, U.S. tech employment is growing. There are 17 percent more tech workers in the United States today than back in the bubble days of 1999, says a new study by the Association for Computing Machinery. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the U.S. economy will add 1 million tech jobs over the next decade, a 30 percent increase. “Everyone was worried about the offshoring bogeyman,” says Moshe Vardi, an author of the ACM study. “But the big whoosh of jobs to India never happened.”

Amen.

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Now is the time in Torino when we dance

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Check out this video of an Armenian ice dancing couple performing to a Hare Krishna bhajan in Torino (thanks, Masked Tipster). I don’t think the Blue One looked quite like this. Nothing says religion to me like than a half-naked dancer hanging upside down off a man’s shoulders flashing mudras

‘Sex sells,’ said American Jamie Silverstein, 22, referring to itty-bitty costumes… Anastasia Grebenkina of Armenia wore a backless outfit except for a small swath of cloth that covered her bottom. [Link]

For the dance enthusiast, an ice dancing performance is like a five-minute clip of “Strictly Ballroom” – on acid. Incredible holds, tight twizzles and … hydroblading? Hell yes.

For the chick-flick fan, ice dancing is all the drama without the shitty, sub-par dialogue. When Italian pair Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio stumbled into a heap of sheer, neon Lycra, they stood on the ice for almost a minute, shooting each other the classic “f– you and your sequined appliqués” look. They didn’t speak for more than 24 hours after. “Beaches,” “Hitch” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding” don’t have a blade to stand on.

And men will find themselves enchanted by the ladies’ bare-it-all, barely there leotards of ice dancing, where salsa meets slutty and strategically placed daisies are the only things preventing Armenian skater Anastasia Grebenkina from landing on the cover of a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue. [Link]

Grebenkina and Vazgen Azrojan didn’t medal with this acrobatic routine. But with only four competitors from India, two from Pakistan and one from Nepal, sadly, it actually increased the Olympics’ sepia quotient. Continue reading →

The Buddha of Ruralia

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Sploid, the Gawker Media website that offers “news with a tabloid mentality,” reports (shout-out to tipster Aliya) that the state of Minnesota has fined a religious cult led by a 65-year-old scientist from Orissa for illegally undercutting the price of gasoline.

Say what?

Midwest Oil is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dr. R.C. Samanta Roy Institute of Science and Technology. Samanta Roy, and Indian and former Hindu, was once known as Brother Rama Behera. He leads a reclusive religious organization out of Shawano, Wisconsin, preaching a mixture of Christianity and Judaism.

Apparently Midwest was able to sell gasoline below the minimum price (that the state imposes to protect small service stations from large chains that can sell below cost) because its devotee-employees work for free.

An October 2005 story in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel tells us more about the life and times of Dr. Samanta Roy:

The reclusive 65-year-old immigrant from the historic Orissa state of India has exerted an influence in Shawano, a North Woods gateway town of 8,300 about 40 miles northwest of Green Bay, since the early 1970s. He is rarely seen and almost never heard from outside his cloistered group of adherents, none of whom responded to interview requests. Public records examined for this story reveal no estimates of the group’s size. …
It all began with the purchase of several acres in adjoining Wescott that served as a worship place for the group transplanted from the Twin Cities area. They were commonly called the Disciples of the Lord Jesus and operated in a style described in The Milwaukee Journal at the time as ascetic and critical of mainstream Christianity.

Samanta Roy called himself Brother Rama and had conversations with the prophet Elijah while sitting on the toilet: Continue reading →

Baby steps

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The recent verdict in a scandalous Delhi killing argues the well-connected can still literally get away with murder. Our Most Favored Flatulation Guy Trebay summarized the case in the Village Voice in ’99:

A man refused a late-night drink at a tony hot spot pulls out a gun and fires it twice… the alleged killer was the son of a former cabinet minister, his victim was a onetime model, the bar was in the most stylish shopping complex in the city, and the murderer waltzed away in front of hundreds…

Demanding whiskey, Sharma was told by Malini Ramani that he could have a sip of her drink for 1000 rupees, or about $35, her sister claims. “It was a normal remark, and I guess only a madman would react in such a violent way,” Malini would later say. Sharma apparently approached Lal next and, when she told him the bar was closed, pulled out a .22 and fired. It was the second bullet that caught Lal in the forehead. Sharma then walked to the courtyard and smiled his way out through the crowd. [Link]

Seven years on, it’s not that the tabloids beat the broadsheets, it’s that every broadsheet has turned into a tabloid:What India lacked until lately: a headless body in a topless bar

Since liberalizing its trade policies in the early ’90s, the vast subcontinent has become a kind of dumping ground for Western culture. It’s a phenomenon observable in everything from the upper-class vogue for New Age anodynes (reiki and Viennese voodoo are currently the rage) to the more obvious glut of MTV.

What India lacked until lately… was Amy Fisher­-Joey Buttafuoco­-style saturation coverage. It lacked a headless body in a topless bar. In the weeks since Lal’s shooting, the capital’s major papers have printed dozens of stories daily under headlines that wouldn’t be out of place in the Post… In a country where Hindu newspapers still print pages of ads for traditionally arranged marriages, and where such stop-the-presses headlines as “Pachyderm Tramples Tigress” are commonplace, there’s an unfulfilled hunger for the Dynasty-style dross of the West. Not since the days of serial killer Charles Sobhraj has a crime so deliciously fit the bill. [Link]

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Posted in Law

Holy hai

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The Beeb is running some absolutely gorgeous photos of a major Jain festival which only comes around every 12 years. Jains from all over India and the diaspora gathered in Shravanabelagola, Karnataka for the Mahamastakabhisheka festival. They washed and anointed a 58-foot-high, 1,000-year-old statue of Bahubali with haldi, kumkum and rice flour.

[Bahubali] is considered to be the originator of the concept of ahimsa or non-violence by the Jains, the basic tenet of their religion… he was the first to have attained salvation…

One thousand and eight small metal vessels containing water are placed neatly in the courtyard below the gigantic sculpture, considered divine. At day break, a select group of priests, chanting hymns, arrange the pots in a traditional geometrical pattern. Devotees then lift these vessels and climb up the 600 stairs to the top of the enormous statue… The statue is bathed with unending quantities of milk, sugarcane juice, pastes of saffron, sandal wood, and therapeutic herbal lotions. Powders of coconut, turmeric, saffron, vermilion and sandal wood are then sprayed on the statue. Precious stones, gold, silver, petals and coins are offered in reverence. The spectacular finale to this 10-hour ceremony is a shower of flowers from a helicopter. [Link]

The digambara (nude) form of Bahubali represents the complete victory over earthly desires… [Link]

Perhaps it was to prevent these charismatic scenes of religious ecstasy that the Puritans to the west took a rocket launcher to the Bamiyan Buddhas.

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Three-ring circus

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The press now has accounts of the extraordinary security measures that are being enacted in preparation for Bush’s visit to India:

About 5,000 personnel including snipers, commandos and U.S. marines using helicopters, bomb detectors and electronic jammers will protect President George W. Bush during his visit to India this week, officials said on Monday.

The personnel would be part of a three-ring security cordon around the U.S. president and First Lady Laura Bush who are due to arrive in New Delhi for their maiden visit to the subcontinent on Wednesday, they said.

“He is a much-threatened VVIP. We are fully geared,” Manish Agarwal, a top Delhi police officer involved in security operations, told Reuters…

Besides the inner-ring of security forces, an outer cordon would be deployed “as deep as possible” to thwart any attack by a rocket launcher, Agarwal said.

“A rocket launcher normally has a 1,000-metre (3,300 ft) range so we would be deployed in forests around venues,” he said. “We will have 360-degree rooftop surveillance around all the venues…” [Link]

I would hate to be a Secret Service agent on this trip. My brother once got a chance to meet Clinton but he was stopped by an agent while his two female companions were motioned forward. Another time an agent warned him that a sniper on the roof of the Chinese embassy had him in his sites. Just imagine being an agent in a whole country full of brown people! 🙂

There are already protests in India. Where will these people be with respect to the “three rings.”

Traffic in many areas in the capital will come to a near standstill on March 2 when Bush travels to his engagements from the Maurya Sheraton hotel to Hyderabad House, where he will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and Rashtrapati Bhavan, where President A P J Abdul Kalam will host a dinner for his American counterpart.

Traffic is also likely to be affected by the proposed demonstrations against the Bush visit planned by the Communists, the Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal-Secular.

The Maurya Sheraton, where Bush and his entourage will stay, has been converted into a fortress with the US Secret Service screening every visitor.

Hotel employees have been issued special passes, which have to be produced along with their identity cards when they arrive on duty. [Link]

All the security precautions are sure to rub local law enforcement the wrong way. Even when Bush went to Britain a few years ago the local authorities felt bullied by his security detail:

An unconfirmed report claims that American security officials wanted to handle Air Traffic Control themselves when Air Force One, the Presidential aircraft, arrives in New Delhi but the bizarre proposal was turned down. Indian engineers, they’ve been told, are capable of handling the situation but it would not be surprising if American officials are allowed to be around.

See related posts: Media Roundup: The Trip Part 1, Media Roundup: The Trip Part II

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Media Roundup: The Trip Part II

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With the visit only a couple of days away there are of course ever increasing stories on the Presidential visit to India and Pakistan. Again this roundup is in no way comprehensive, and some mutineers may or may not cover one or more of these articles in greater detail.

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Playing Monopoly

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As Abhi posted earlier, there’s a big outcry in the U.S. over the sale of a British port operator to one based in Dubai. What few people have pointed out is that in the international edition of Monopoly, when you buy P&O, you get India for free:

Yet nowhere else has the deal for P.& O., as the company is known, drawn much anxiety… in other countries it will vastly increase the company’s reach. In India, for instance, Dubai will take control of about half the country’s container shipping operations, but there has been little public outcry there. [Link]

Through this deal the Gulf-based company will have in its kitty India’s three major container terminals… Mumbai… Chennai… and… Gujarat; apart from a share in… Vishakapatnam.

Also, with the development… by Dubai Ports in Kochi, a majority of the Indian container shipping is expected to be in the hands of the Gulf-State backed company… “Dubai Ports is going to rule the India container industry…” [Link]

The deal’s purported security risk would affect desi Canadians as well as Americans via Vancouver:

But what’s at stake, specifically, is the Centerm hub in Burrard Inlet, which handles about a quarter of the shipping containers passing through Canada’s third-largest city. Centerm is where P&O — and soon, Dubai Ports World — makes money by loading and unloading shipping containers…

Vancouver’s ability to safeguard against terrorism is crucial for the continent… In 1999, Algerian al-Qaeda member Ahmed Ressam cooked up a massive bomb in Vancouver… he had been hoping to… [set off] the bomb in… Los Angeles Airport. In 1985, Sikh terrorists placed deadly bombs aboard two Air-India jets at Vancouver’s airport. [Link]

Flat-earther Tom Friedman piles in for the free-marketers:“This is about keeping ‘a bunch of Arabs’ out of our country”

“I think it’s a shameful and has slightly racist overtones to it… This is about keeping ‘a bunch of Arabs’ out of our country, that’s what this is really about. And it’s a bad thing, not only because it doesn’t reflect our real values.”

Friedman points out that American companies like IBM, FedEx or UPS run around doing business in the Arab world. “What if they then turn around and say, ‘You’re not going to take ours, well, we’re not going to take yours…’ ”

“Both sides are guilty of it. When people ransack a Danish embassy in Damascus and the government allows it.. We have nativists in our country. They have nativists in their country that are going to always want to push these issues. Government’s job is to restrain that.” [Link]

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Hingrish

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The LA Weekly journalist who attempted a Rang De Basanti review has apparently never used a film database in his life:

Veteran character actor Atoll Kukri (Chanting Bar) is equally impressive… The students, whose ranks include superstar Aimer Khan (Lagan)… [Link]

As fun as a ‘chanting bar’ sounds, he means Atul Kulkarni (Chandni Bar) and Aamir Khan (Lagaan). But the mistakes aren’t a language thing, they’re a sloppiness thing. He even gets the British lead’s name wrong:

… a group of slackers at Delhi University is hired by a British indie moviemaker (Alice Payton) to portray the heroes of the terrorist phase of the Indian independence movement… [author:] David Chute… [Link]

This quality review was brought to you by the Yeh Le Wickly’s Daoud Choot.

First of all, the key characteristic of terrorism is targeting civilians rather than military or political figures — unlike the miscreants in Iraq, Kashmir and Sri Lanka, the events of Indian independence covered in this film hardly qualify. And second, that’s Alice Patten, 25-year-old daughter of Chris Patten, the last British governor-general of Hong Kong:

… her father Chris Patten… had absolutely encouraged her to do the film. He told her it would be a life-affirming [experience]… [Link]

Alice first drew world wide attention when she stood sobbing during the ceremonial British handover of Hong Kong… [Link]

… Prince Charles… was “really sweet” when he fixed her a stiff gin as Britannia sailed out of Hong Kong on June 30, 1997… I cannot resist reminding her of the lugubrious final moments of the handover of Hong Kong. The bagpipe droned, the rain poured down, the Patten girls sobbed. “Sssh!” says Alice. While Prince Charles and her father (with the help of a Vick’s inhaler) maintained dignified control and her mother achieved a certain composure, the girls did not. So the cameras focused on them, because their distress seemed best to capture the poignancy of the moment when the Royal yacht – and with it the British Empire – sailed out of Hong Kong harbour and into history. [Link]

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Mass literacy can be fun

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Dr. Brij Kothari had an idea. Instead of being satisfied with the thought that Bollywood films served their purpose as a cheap and effective way to entertain the masses, why not put them to work so that they could actually be useful. The result of his idea is Planet Read (thanks for the tip Kiran). Kothari describes his venture on Google’s Blog:

NOW I get it.

My organization, PlanetRead, works in Mumbai and Pondicherry, India. We have developed a “Same-Language Subtitling” (SLS) methodology, which provides automatic reading practice to individuals who are excluded from the traditional educational system, or whose literacy needs are otherwise not being met. This is an educational program rooted in mass media that demonstrates how a specific literacy intervention can yield outstanding, measurable results, while complementing other formal and non-formal learning initiatives of the government, private sector, and civil society. We are fortunate to have just been selected as a Google Foundation grantee.

More than 500 million people in India have access to TV and 40 percent of these viewers have low literacy skills and are poor. Through PlanetRead’s approach, over 200 million early-literates in India are getting weekly reading practice from Same Language Subtitling (SLS) using TV. The cost of SLS? Every U.S. dollar covers regular reading for 10,000 people – for a year.

I hit upon this idea in 1996 through a most ordinary personal experience. While taking a break from dissertation writing at Cornell University, I was watching a Spanish film with friends to improve my Spanish. The Spanish movie had English subtitles, and I remember commenting that I wished it came with Spanish subtitles, if only to help us grasp the Spanish dialogue better. I then thought, ‘And if they just put Hindi subtitles on Bollywood songs in Hindi, India would become literate.’

Awesome. I hate Bollywood flicks but I still found myself going through some of the example clips on Planet Read’s website. Shah Rukh’s lip syncing has never sounded so good. I taught myself to read Hindi a few years back but have mostly forgotten. Watching the clips I could actually remember some of the script. The site also contains folks songs in languages such as Telugu.

Here are some other great examples you can learn along to.

If you want to make a donation to Planet Read you can do so here.

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