Pandit in the Citi

Posted on by

One of the great and tragically misunderstood virtues of capitalism is Creative Destruction. Joseph Schumpeter and others famously pointed out that, perhaps perversely, one of the real measures of dynamism in an economy is the rate of failure. Firm failure (and, the symbiotically related measure “ease of entry”) is important for rejiggering the status quo and setting the stage for testing new ideas, structures, and, most importantly, people.

The Next Head of Citibank? Vikram Pandit

The subprime mortgage “crisis” is clearly shaking up a segment of the economy and, in its wake, one of the largest and most venerable blue chip financial institutions in the country, Citigroup –

A longtime banking analyst said late last night that Citigroup may be forced to cut its dividend or sell assets to stave off what she said was a $30 billion capital shortfall, moves that could pull down its shareholder returns for several years.

…”We believe the stock will be under significant pressure and could trade in the low $30s,” she wrote. That would be as much as a 28 percent decline from yesterday’s $41.90 closing price for Citigroup shares.

If correct, the findings could be yet another blow to Citigroup’s chairman and chief executive, Charles O. Prince III, who has endured a barrage of criticism in the last few years for his failure to control costs and improve results.

If Prince is forced out, as Wall Street odds makers strongly believe, one of the top internal candidates for replacing Prince will be superstar Investment Banker and minor legend on the Street – Vikram Pandit.

Continue reading →

Sikh-Face — Today’s Version of Blackface

Posted on by

This week’s episode of NBC’s My Name is Earl (thanks, anonymous tipster) features a neighbor in the trailer park who is supposed to be a Sikh. But he looks more like the usual “turbaned” convenience store clerk/taxi driver stock caricature who shows up in Hollywood movies and TV shows from time to time.

sikh face my name is earl.jpg

Is it offensive? Going by just the image, I would say yes, and not just to Sikhs. I think it’s offensive to all South Asians, perhaps even to all immigrants. In a sense the “Sikh” neighbor here stands in for all funny-looking/sounding foreigners in the imaginary world of My Name is Earl, just as Apu does in The Simpsons. It’s not just the wrong-looking turban and the glued on beard, it’s the accent — he’s even wearing a Sherwani suit! (While living in a trailer park!)

On the other hand, it could be pointed out that this particular episode is making fun of the anti-terrorist hysteria that swept the U.S. after 9/11 (the conceit is that the show is actually an episode of “Cops” filmed in 2002 — and the claptrap about catching terrorists is of course all the more absurd since the show is set in a small town). It shows law enforcement officers as particularly incompetent and clueless in their attempt to “profile” suspected terrorists, including the character above. But if your goal is to make fun of hysteria using silly caricatures that actually reinforce the ignorance you’re supposedly satirizing, what are you really doing?

It could also be pointed out that a show like My Name is Earl is so generally politically incorrect (and self-conscious about that political incorrectness — “Look, see, we’re being politically incorrect!”) that getting offended about this one thing seems out of place. (Look at how women are represented in the show, for instance.) I’m not sure — but one does think of the recent controversy over the reference to the Philippines in a recent episode of Desperate Housewives, which got a fair amount of media coverage; this, it seems to me, is much more offensive.

You can watch the show on NBC.com here; it’s episode 307. The “Sikh” character (he self-identifies as a Sikh) shows up briefly in the beginning, and then again in the last third of the show.

What do you think? Is it offensive? Are you planning to write NBC?

[UPDATE: One other thing — in case you’re wondering “what self-respecting Desi would take this role?” — the Sikh character is played by an actor named Alex Endeshaw, who is ethnicity isn’t entirely clear to me from Ethiopia originally.] Continue reading →

Two Conferences this Weekend (tooting apna horn)

Posted on by

Normally a post like this would go on the Events Tab, but some SM bloggers are involved in one event, so perhaps it’s not too out of place to put it here. Both events have their main speakers this Saturday (11/3), though SAWCC actually has a reading/performance on Friday night and creative workshops and panels on Saturday.

First, for people in and near Washington DC, you may wish to attend the SALTAF festival, which features Madhur Jaffrey, Amitava Kumar, Thrity Umrigar, Rishi Reddi, and Canadian filmmaker Vic Sarin (whose film, Partition, is screening at the festival). Kicking off the festival as a whole is the much-hyped Hindi film, Loins of Punjab Presents, which I’ve been waiting to see for months, damnit.

In New York, it’s the SAWCC conference, which this year has the charming title, “Electric Ladyland.” SAWCC participants are younger and more “Up-and-coming,” and the conference itself (which I attended last year) is very much a hands-on, get-involved type of event — you don’t just sit back and sample the wine-and-samosas. I am on a panel called “Pop/Politics,” with Mira Kamdar, Sita Bhaskar, and Sunita Mukhi. I am not 100% sure what I’m talking about yet — probably something involving Bobby Jindal and the Tehelka/Gujarat spycam affair. And SM blogger Anna is on a panel called “Eat, Pray, Love: Writing/Crafting/Cooking the Personal Narrative,” with food writer Chitrita Banerji, and Janki Khatau.

I probably won’t be in New York long enough to participate in an official meetup, but it would be great to see/meet some SM readers at the SAWCC event itself. The panels, incidentally, are FREE.

Incidentally, if you’re interested in the creative writing workshops on Saturday morning, you should email sawcclitfest@gmail.com (they may already be filled up; the workshops are limited to 12 people each). Continue reading →

Must it be Halloween everyday?

Posted on by

darth_vader_2.jpg

Since it’s Halloween, and I have not yet overdosed on Starburst and Snickers, I started to wonder how what role fear has in 2007. We seem to want to be scared, which is why horror movies are so popular, although I am not a fan of torture-porn flicks like Saw and Hostel. Catwoman was scary enough.

But what about using fear for non-entertainment purposes? It can often be used in situations where it may not be the best approach. Like a parent who warns, “Study hard, or you won’t get into the Ivy League and you’ll have no future.” Well, I studied hard, didn’t get into the Ivy League, and am doing OK.

It may sound naïve, but hope really is a better sales pitch than fear. And if all you have to offer is fear, or it’s close relations such as cynicism, paranoia, etc. – you start to become unpleasant company after awhile.

Continue reading →

Diversity in the Indian Constitution (Guha Chapter 6)

Posted on by

[Part of an ongoing series on Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi. Last week’s entry can be found here. Next week we will skip a chapter, and go directly to Chapter 8, “Home and the World,” which explains how India evolved its “non-aligned” status.]

I’ve actually written a longish post on the idea of “secularism” in the Indian constitution in the past, but of course there’s more to say. The entire proceedings (more than 1000 pages of text!) of the Constituent Assembly have been posted online by the Indian Parliament here. Guha’s account comes out of reading through those proceedings, and is also deeply influenced by Granville Austin’s classic book, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, which is still as I understand it the definitive book on the subject.

As many readers may be aware, the Indian Constitution was worked out over the course of three years (1946-1949), by a Constituent Assembly that contained 300 members, including representation by religious minorities, members of marginal groups (i.e., Adivasis), as well as a small but vocal group of women.

Three of the profound disagreements that the members of the Assembly had to resolve included: 1) the proper role of Gandhian philosophy in defining the new nation, 2) the question of “reservations” for Dalits and Tribals (Scheduled Castes and Tribes), and 3) the status of Indian languages, and the idea of an “official” language. Continue reading →

Making the most of Halloween

Posted on by

Think about it. Once a year a bunch of impressionable young children come to your door and give you their undivided attention. This presents the PERFECT opportunity to proselytise. It’s like a reverse Jehovah’s Witness-type situation. While many of the world’s other religions are clever enough to take advantage of this amazing opportunity, Hindus are left behind (mostly due to a lack of creativity it seems). Beliefnet has a great feature that gives us a tasty sampler of some of the divine candy out there, and also provides us insight into why Hinduism faces an uphill battle when it comes to creating converts of the young:

First up is the Christian “Scripture Candy:”

Once you pop, you can’t stop! These scripture-wrapped mints are downright addictive. Not too minty, yet soft enough to melt in your mouth. According to the maker, these mints were created to turn “a pagan holiday into something to glorify God…” [Link]

Why can’t someone make candy with Gita passages?

Next we have Star of David pops:

I’d eat a chocolate Hanuman pop if it existed. I’m just sayin’.

Continue reading →

"He Speaks So Well"

Posted on by

If you are a regular viewer of the Sunday morning news shows then you will have taken note that Bobby Jindal has now graduated into that honored circle. You are not a real politician in this country until you’ve gone a round or two with the Sunday morning punditocracy. Tim Russert’s Meet The Press is the big leagues with This Week with George Snufalufagus coming in second. Slightly more inviting and easy for a first-timer like Republican Bobby Jindal is Fox News Sunday. Here is Jindal’s full interview from this past Sunday’s episode:

He makes a pretty convincing pitch for why he would be a boring (no corruption or titties) governor which is what he says the people of Louisiana have long been waiting for after decades of corruption and mismanagement. He also talks a little about the “Bubbas for Bobby” that helped him win. This was his first big interview since he won so check it out.

Continue reading →

Don’t count your chickens

Posted on by

In our new and improved news tab, I saw a story posted by Chachaji about how Mukesh Ambani was now, at least temporarily, the richest man in the world!

Not actually the richest man in the world, but he is in the top five.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani today became the richest person in the world, surpassing American software czar Bill Gates, Mexican business tycoon Carlos Slim Helu and famous investment guru Warren Buffett, courtesy the bull run in the stock market.

Following a strong share price rally today in his three group companies…the net worth of Mukesh Ambani rose to 63.2 billion dollars (Rs 2,49,108 crore). In comparison, the net worth of both Gates and Slim is estimated to be slightly lower at around 62.29 billion dollars each, with Slim leading among the two by a narrow margin. [Link]

If this was true, I thought, it was a meteoric rise. In 2006 he was ranked 56th richest in the world according to Forbes, in March of 2007 he was still only number 14. That got Rajni the monkey fact checker curious, so she poked around further.

It turns out that Ambani isn’t the really richest man in the world, although he may be in the top 5 along with Carlos Slim, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Lakshmi Mittal:

Reliance Industries moved swiftly on Tuesday to deny a report that company chief Mukesh Ambani has become the world’s richest man thanks to a surge in stock market. An agency report putting his wealth at $63.2 billion hailed his rise as another triumph for the nation’s booming economy. But Reliance said Ambani was not quite so rich after all, with a net worth of somewhere in the region of $50 billion. [Link]

This is still a huge increase, seeing as he was worth only $20 billion in March, but it doesn’t put him at the top of the heap either.

Honestly though, to me this is all arcane like counting angels on the head of a pin. Once you’re wealthier than Midas, it doesn’t matter to me how much you have. My question is, when will Ambani and Mittal become philanthropists at the level of Buffett and Gates?

Related posts: Today’s Carnegies?, Forbes names India’s richest, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and …

Continue reading →

Hard Kaur = the Desi Missy Elliott (a theory)

Posted on by

Watching the following video (from the Hindi film Johnny Gaddaar), it occurred to me that Hard Kaur is in some ways the British/Desi equivalent of Missy Elliott:

Like Missy, Hard Kaur depends a lot on the producers she’s worked with. In this case, the song wouldn’t be much at all without the ideas and beat from the legendary Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. In Missy’s case, of course, the wizard behind all of her big hits has been Timbaland. Admittedly, neither Missy nor Hard Kaur could be called serious “auteurs” — but then, they’re not trying to be Radiohead, they’re trying to make money.

Like Missy, Hard Kaur has become a success based on her talent and street swagger, not so much her looks. (Though I really don’t want to get into a “hot or not” discussion of looks if it can be avoided; my point is, there are plenty of pretty pop princesses out there whose careers have gone nowhere, while Hard Kaur is crossing over into Bollywood like a bullet.) Just like Missy, there’s something about Hard Kaur’s rapping that has nothing to do with clever production tricks or computer software; there’s a realness and hip hop confidence (i.e., “hardness”) there that can only come from the street. Finally, both Missy and Hard Kaur have a particular fondness for a) “songs that make you dance,” and b) songs about intoxication (alcohol or drugs).

I’m not saying that Hard Kaur is ever going to make as much money as Missy Elliott, but I don’t think she quite gets the props she deserves for her originality. Is it because she’s too ‘beisharam’ (shameless)? Are people threatened by this Punjabi Kuri who writes songs about getting drunk, and her need for “Sexy Boys” (who should be, as she says, “thora sa lafanga/I need a gangster”)?

In effect, what I’m saying is that I, for one, am a fan of Ms. Hard Kaur — though I concede I may be the only one here. (I also still like Missy, though in my view she hasn’t done anything inspired in awhile.) Continue reading →