Ripening Relationship with Bangladesh

+00002010-02-02T21:11:54+00:00282010bUTCTue, 02 Feb 2010 21:11:54 +0000 2, 2008 at 7.27 p02 (Uncategorized)

Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh is a natural ally for India. When her father was fighting for freedom, India helped adequately. To repay the debts she wants cordial relationship with her neighbor. But how far India is ready to take forward her genuine desire? She was well received and awarded Indira Gandhi peace prize recently. This is not sufficient. India should move up to dispel the wrong impressions created by it and by the opposition parties in Bangladesh about its interests in the Eastern nation . As a bigger nation, India should give wider concession to Bangladesh keeping long term benefits and geo political strategies in mind.
Mahfuz Anam writes in the Times of India on 2 February 2010
The history of mutual suspicion, petty bickering on trade negotiations, cavalier attitudes on border killings, dangerous gamesmanship with arms smuggling, etc, of the last three decades of Bangladesh-India relations would not normally justify the agreements that Sheikh Hasina penned sometime ago in Delhi. Only vision would. A vision of a South Asia doing what ASEAN did several decades ago, of trusting neighbours rather than of subverting them, of fighting poverty and not using it to justify other failures, of a thriving marketplace of goods and services rather than of counting items in the negative list. In the latest agreement, Bangladesh has moved towards such a vision. Has India responded? For us, the jury is still out.
Take the two biggest concerns of the two sides: for India they are security and connectivity with the north-east; for Bangladesh water sharing and trade imbalance. There is a feeling that the clarity and precision with which Bangladesh responded to its neighbour’s concerns were not reciprocated in equal measure by India.
On Indian security concerns, Bangladesh’s commitment was unequivocal: it will not permit the use of Bangladeshi soil for activities inimical to any other country, basically meaning India. It was in dramatic contrast to the past when India’s worries about terrorist links and arms transit fell on deaf ears. India desperately needed friendly borders in the east that Bangladesh has now assured and is following up by decisive deeds. Sheikh Hasina has launched the most determined and widespread actions against internal militants and extremists and is systematically dismantling the terrorist infrastructure.
The permission for the use of the Chittagong and Mongla ports for shipment of Indian goods to the north-east is a very important step forward. With Bangladesh’s present position on Asian highway and railway routes, the regional and sub-regional connectivity scenario is set to undergo a fundamental change.
On Bangladesh’s priorities water sharing and trade imbalance there is no dramatic progress. On Teesta water sharing, the positive development is that the ministerial level joint river commission meeting will be held within March, 2010. But it still leaves us with an uncomfortable ambiguity about the outcome.
On the Tipaimukh dam issue, sadly, there was nothing new. The Indian prime minister reiterated his government’s earlier stand that India will do nothing that will harm Bangladesh’s interest. Such broad and generalised expression of good intention is definitely welcome. However clearer wording that further activity on Tipaimukh would only be undertaken after consultation with Bangladesh would have helped assuage remaining worries.
On enhancement of economic and trade relations, especially giving Bangladeshi exports (which are meager to start with) zero tariff access, the issue remained mired in the politics of an ever narrowing negative list which will now come down by 47 from 260 items, which earlier was higher still. The absurdity is that India earns a meagre $10 to $15 million in taxes from exports from Bangladesh of around $300 million. That is what it would have cost India to give Bangladesh zero tariff.
The promise of rebuilding of our railways, roads, bridges including the two ports, is welcome. The $1 billion credit line will serve to stimulate early action. However, all these are ancillary to both the functionality and efficiency of connectivity, which is a euphemism for ‘transit’. The offer of 250 MW of electricity is of extreme relevance and among the most significant gains Bangladesh stands to make. Another hopeful sign is the agreement to amicably demarcate our maritime boundary.
Predictably, the Bangladeshi opposition, led by Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party and supported by Jamaat-e-Islami, have called the agreements a total surrender of Bangladesh’s interest to India. They have called for opposition unity and are clearly marking time for an appropriate moment to strike against Sheikh Hasina’s government.
Manmohan Singh’s government must guard against the agreement getting entrapped in a bureaucratic maze, implementing its provisions soon. As a first step, India should formally assure that, as an upper riparian state, it will always consider Bangladesh’s interest and display maximum openness and transparency on water sharing. Killings on the border must immediately stop and the promised 24-hour access to Tin Bigha implemented. On maritime boundary, it should go for a liberal interpretation and allow Bangladesh access to all available hydrocarbon and fish resources. Zero tariff access must be granted to all Bangladeshi exports. This must be followed by elimination of all inter-state taxes and non-tariff barriers. We must institutionalise annual summit and informal meetings in-between, for a few hours on one-day trips, as EU heads of governments have done. Such a step will do wonders for our relations.
The moment is opportune for India and Bangladesh to lay the foundation of a durable, mutually beneficial relationship that will transform the region’s strategic and security scene. Now is the moment for grand visions and grander actions. If Bangladesh was guilty of being shackled to the mindset of the past, let India not be accused of having failed to think outside the box when opportunity beckoned.
The writer is editor, Daily Star, Bangladesh.

Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh is a natural ally for India. When her father was fighting for freedom, India helped adequately. To repay the debts she wants cordial relationship with her neighbor. But how far India is ready to take forward her genuine desire? She was well received and awarded Indira Gandhi peace prize recently. This is not sufficient. India should move up to dispel the wrong impressions created by it and by the opposition parties in Bangladesh about its interests in the Eastern nation . As a bigger nation, India should give wider concession to Bangladesh keeping long term benefits and geo political strategies in mind.
Mahfuz Anam writes in the Times of India on 2 February 2010
The history of mutual suspicion, petty bickering on trade negotiations, cavalier attitudes on border killings, dangerous gamesmanship with arms smuggling, etc, of the last three decades of Bangladesh-India relations would not normally justify the agreements that Sheikh Hasina penned sometime ago in Delhi. Only vision would. A vision of a South Asia doing what ASEAN did several decades ago, of trusting neighbours rather than of subverting them, of fighting poverty and not using it to justify other failures, of a thriving marketplace of goods and services rather than of counting items in the negative list. In the latest agreement, Bangladesh has moved towards such a vision. Has India responded? For us, the jury is still out.
Take the two biggest concerns of the two sides: for India they are security and connectivity with the north-east; for Bangladesh water sharing and trade imbalance. There is a feeling that the clarity and precision with which Bangladesh responded to its neighbour’s concerns were not reciprocated in equal measure by India.
On Indian security concerns, Bangladesh’s commitment was unequivocal: it will not permit the use of Bangladeshi soil for activities inimical to any other country, basically meaning India. It was in dramatic contrast to the past when India’s worries about terrorist links and arms transit fell on deaf ears. India desperately needed friendly borders in the east that Bangladesh has now assured and is following up by decisive deeds. Sheikh Hasina has launched the most determined and widespread actions against internal militants and extremists and is systematically dismantling the terrorist infrastructure.
The permission for the use of the Chittagong and Mongla ports for shipment of Indian goods to the north-east is a very important step forward. With Bangladesh’s present position on Asian highway and railway routes, the regional and sub-regional connectivity scenario is set to undergo a fundamental change.
On Bangladesh’s priorities water sharing and trade imbalance there is no dramatic progress. On Teesta water sharing, the positive development is that the ministerial level joint river commission meeting will be held within March, 2010. But it still leaves us with an uncomfortable ambiguity about the outcome.
On the Tipaimukh dam issue, sadly, there was nothing new. The Indian prime minister reiterated his government’s earlier stand that India will do nothing that will harm Bangladesh’s interest. Such broad and generalised expression of good intention is definitely welcome. However clearer wording that further activity on Tipaimukh would only be undertaken after consultation with Bangladesh would have helped assuage remaining worries.
On enhancement of economic and trade relations, especially giving Bangladeshi exports (which are meager to start with) zero tariff access, the issue remained mired in the politics of an ever narrowing negative list which will now come down by 47 from 260 items, which earlier was higher still. The absurdity is that India earns a meagre $10 to $15 million in taxes from exports from Bangladesh of around $300 million. That is what it would have cost India to give Bangladesh zero tariff.
The promise of rebuilding of our railways, roads, bridges including the two ports, is welcome. The $1 billion credit line will serve to stimulate early action. However, all these are ancillary to both the functionality and efficiency of connectivity, which is a euphemism for ‘transit’. The offer of 250 MW of electricity is of extreme relevance and among the most significant gains Bangladesh stands to make. Another hopeful sign is the agreement to amicably demarcate our maritime boundary.
Predictably, the Bangladeshi opposition, led by Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party and supported by Jamaat-e-Islami, have called the agreements a total surrender of Bangladesh’s interest to India. They have called for opposition unity and are clearly marking time for an appropriate moment to strike against Sheikh Hasina’s government.
Manmohan Singh’s government must guard against the agreement getting entrapped in a bureaucratic maze, implementing its provisions soon. As a first step, India should formally assure that, as an upper riparian state, it will always consider Bangladesh’s interest and display maximum openness and transparency on water sharing. Killings on the border must immediately stop and the promised 24-hour access to Tin Bigha implemented. On maritime boundary, it should go for a liberal interpretation and allow Bangladesh access to all available hydrocarbon and fish resources. Zero tariff access must be granted to all Bangladeshi exports. This must be followed by elimination of all inter-state taxes and non-tariff barriers. We must institutionalise annual summit and informal meetings in-between, for a few hours on one-day trips, as EU heads of governments have done. Such a step will do wonders for our relations.
The moment is opportune for India and Bangladesh to lay the foundation of a durable, mutually beneficial relationship that will transform the region’s strategic and security scene. Now is the moment for grand visions and grander actions. If Bangladesh was guilty of being shackled to the mindset of the past, let India not be accused of having failed to think outside the box when opportunity beckoned.
The writer is editor, Daily Star, Bangladesh.

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Private investment or disinvestment in education?

+00002010-02-01T13:29:34+00:00282010bUTCMon, 01 Feb 2010 13:29:34 +0000 2, 2008 at 7.27 p02 (Uncategorized)

Private investors are queuing up to lock their wealth in the galloping education sector. Will this new found craze for educational returns for the investors will pay their gamble? or the recent steps by the union government to crack whip on the extra charging private educational providers will dent the interest among the private investors in education? One needs to wait and watch the results.
Reeba Zachairah writes in The Times of India on 1 February 2010
The evergreen and recession-proof characteristics of the education sector are drawing interest among private equity firms. Billed to be a $80-billion market, the number of private equity deals in the education space has grown four-fold in the last four years.
According to Venture Intelligence, a Chennai-based research firm focused on private equity and mergers & acquisitions, eight deals worth $121 million were sealed in 2009, compared with just two deals worth $73 million in 2006.
The first educational institute to get venture capital funding in India was Career Launcher from Intel Capital as early as in 2000. And last week, India Equity Partners invested Rs 172 crore for a 26% stake in IL&FS Education and Technology Services, which provides training to schools, colleges and to the government and corporate sector.
Unlike other sectors such as steel and automobiles which bore the brunt of economic slowdown, the education sector stood out as many professionals chose to go back to school as they waited for the gloomy scenario to change. Moreover, the government’s thrust that every child should have the right to education and the enhanced outlay to develop infrastructure reflect the growth potential of the sector.
Also, education occupies a top slot in a typical Indian household budget. A cursory look around any neighbourhood would highlight the mushrooming of educational institutes and coaching centres in the last few years.
Says Rajesh Singhal, managing partner, Milestone Religare Investment Advisors, “The sector offers investment opportunities across the entire value chain, from basic to higher education, training and skills development.”
Milestone Religare has invested in IMS Learning Resources, a test preparation firm for aspiring students across management, engineering and law streams. According to Singhal, the annualised return on investment could be between 25% and 30%. Funds typically have an investment horizon of 5-6 years.

Private investors are queuing up to lock their wealth in the galloping education sector. Will this new found craze for educational returns for the investors will pay their gamble? or the recent steps by the union government to crack whip on the extra charing private educational providers will dent the interest among the private investors in education? One needs to wait and watch the results.
Reeba Zachairah writes in The Times of India on 1 February 2010
The evergreen and recession-proof characteristics of the education sector are drawing interest among private equity firms. Billed to be a $80-billion market, the number of private equity deals in the education space has grown four-fold in the last four years.
According to Venture Intelligence, a Chennai-based research firm focused on private equity and mergers & acquisitions, eight deals worth $121 million were sealed in 2009, compared with just two deals worth $73 million in 2006.
The first educational institute to get venture capital funding in India was Career Launcher from Intel Capital as early as in 2000. And last week, India Equity Partners invested Rs 172 crore for a 26% stake in IL&FS Education and Technology Services, which provides training to schools, colleges and to the government and corporate sector.
Unlike other sectors such as steel and automobiles which bore the brunt of economic slowdown, the education sector stood out as many professionals chose to go back to school as they waited for the gloomy scenario to change. Moreover, the government’s thrust that every child should have the right to education and the enhanced outlay to develop infrastructure reflect the growth potential of the sector.
Also, education occupies a top slot in a typical Indian household budget. A cursory look around any neighbourhood would highlight the mushrooming of educational institutes and coaching centres in the last few years.
Says Rajesh Singhal, managing partner, Milestone Religare Investment Advisors, “The sector offers investment opportunities across the entire value chain, from basic to higher education, training and skills development.”
Milestone Religare has invested in IMS Learning Resources, a test preparation firm for aspiring students across management, engineering and law streams. According to Singhal, the annualised return on investment could be between 25% and 30%. Funds typically have an investment horizon of 5-6 years.

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Devilish Status Updates: Perils of Social Networking Sites

+00002010-02-01T13:07:38+00:00282010bUTCMon, 01 Feb 2010 13:07:38 +0000 2, 2008 at 7.27 p02 (Uncategorized)

Presidents, Prime Ministers, ministers, high officials, anyone and everyone are in the social networking sites. They don’t just spent their leisure time in these sites. From the time they take position in their offices till they get out, updating status, playing poker, commenting on friends photos and sharing sensitive information are routine affairs among the high profile official cyber citizens. The danger is that they are leaking official information and it is available for the public information. A terrorist can peak into their status updates and take enough hints to attack.

It is high time to end the kiddish play of people in high positions to save the world from the perils of cyber terrorism. The first step is to be block these social networking sites in offices and public places. Any officer still doing it should be punished adequately. The government must issue an order immediately regrading this problem.

The Economic Times writes on 1 February 2010

Could you get arrested, fired, or even get divorced because of a humorous status message or innocuous tweet? You just might, say cyber

lawyers, as status messages and tweets are admissible as electronic evidence under Indian IT laws.

Even as Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Barack Obama joined the Twitter fraternity this week, a dozen other celebs have been creating controversies over the Web. People are even getting arrested for creating contempt of court, by tweets or wall posts, or creating trouble for governments, notwithstanding the Desi Tharoor saga.

However, for the common Tweeter or Facebooker, daily updates about what’s on his or her mind may lead to robberies, thefts, arrests, break-ups and of course a divorce, suggest statistics.

UK-based Divorce-online last month said that 20% of all divorce petitions it is handling currently contain references to Facebook status messages. “One can also take a print out or screenshot of a Twitter or Facebook post and can use it in any court proceedings either against or for you. Cases where social interactions on internet are used as evidence will only rise in the near future in India,” says cyber lawyer Pavan Duggal.

But more than courts and spouses, your innocuous Tweet or status messages are being scanned by employers, before doling out job offers. While LinkedIn is a common social networking tool for professionals, employers sneak on the Facebook or Twitter personality of the candidate to read — “what’s on his mind”.

“Assessing the soft skills of a person is very important both for the HR manager and the recruiter. It shows how a candidate communicates to people around him. It also shows his interests on a daily basis. Often the demand for profiling social networking behaviour comes from the client’s side,” says Vikram Bhardwaj, CEO of executive search firm Redileon.

On the other hand, just updating your location every time on web 2.0 sites and sharing it might not be a great idea. While you might be busy posting the beach photos while on a vacation with family, your house may be getting burgled in the meantime. A man in Arizona recently blamed his social updates, as a reason behind the theft at his house.

Experts, however advise, that it’s best not to add your boss on your network, and even if you have already done, its best to put her in a separate list. Close family members like a spouse, should be avoided. A status message implying single even though you are married or in a relationship can definitely cause a turmoil in your home network, if not the social network, says Bangalore-based Parvati Kumar, an avid social networker.

Defence personnel and spies too are not allowed to reveal their field location or unit or its commander’s name. Posting pictures in a uniform is not allowed. But many army and intelligence officials are often seen on Facebook with their profile and photo completely hidden.

Ironically, discussion forums related to Indian intelligence works and their job postings are available on some Facebook groups. Even though a user may post any objectionable or anti-national content or even organise a rally against the state, on Twitter or Facebook, the new laws make them immune to action.

“The social networking sites hosting such content are not liable to penal action under the recent amendments to Section 79 of the Indian IT Act notified in October, last year,” says Vivek Sood, a Delhi-based cyber lawyer.

Meanwhile sociologists say that the web 2.0 behaviour will increase in coming years. “Human beings are generally gregarious. Since, now the shackles of family are breaking down, people want to express themeselves more often, even what they are thinking. It is a compensatory mechanism for the non-existence of face-to-face communities. The phenomenon will increase,” says Dipankar Gupta , professor of sociology at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.

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Social Networking Sites are Dangersous: Children Don’t Care

+00002010-01-29T13:11:51+00:00312010bUTCFri, 29 Jan 2010 13:11:51 +0000 2, 2008 at 7.27 p01 (Uncategorized)

Children were addicted to video games in the past. Now they are swapping their addiction to social networking sites with a bang. None other than the Google founders, Garry Page who is starting and buying a social networking site (SNW) every day is expressing anguish over the children’s maddening engagement with the SNWs. Not only SNWs but only anything in excess is dangerous for the health of human beings. Capitalising on the addictive habits of human beings online business houses are thriving. I found SNWs as a vital tool to conduct my cross country and cross cultural research to document the developments in digital society from 2000. Then it was a minor happening in the cyber space without much sensation. Today any one and every one is dancing in the SNWs. From grand ma to grand child, Face Book, Orkut, myspace are the ones where there is life. This craze will end one day like other sensational fashion tech developments. But when is that one day? The Times of India writes Google founders have warned that social networking sites are proving to be the biggest threat to While hitting back at critics who accused the search engine of “spying” on users, Larry Page, one of the founders, said that social networking sites are the biggest threat to people’s privacy on the internet. “The No 1 privacy issue is stuff that gets posted on networking sites,” the Mirror quoted Page, as saying. “Especially if you’re young and go to parties and get drunk and people take pictures, these things can pop up and hurt you. “There’s also an issue with people posting things about people that turn out not to be true,” he added. Page had set up Google with pal Sergy Brin in 1998. The statement came after Google was blasted for allowing clips of people having epileptic fit to appear on its You Tube site. “I don’t know about the epilepsy thing but I imagine if I saw someone who was going into a seizure and I wanted to be able to diagnose them it could be very useful to see a video on line that shows me what a seizure looks like,” said Brin. The critics have also blamed Google of giving user details to advertisers, however the founders strongly deny. “Some companies have aggressively pursued commercial deals and done things in a creepy, scary way that has set back the industry. But we need people to trust us and can’t compromise the business in that way,” said Brin Though he admitted that he holds a responsibility to users, he said that it was impossible to monitor everything. “There’s something like 10 hours of content uploaded on You Tube every minute,” he said. “But we have good guidelines which are enforced by everybody. “If you see a video you don’t like you can just tag it and we may take it down,” he added

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Inability to Handle Emails

+00002009-12-17T17:56:22+00:00312009bUTCThu, 17 Dec 2009 17:56:22 +0000 2, 2008 at 7.27 p12 (Uncategorized)
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Too many emails, forwards, spams and junks are crushing the instant communication network through email. Despite all anti spam wares and anti junk filters there are many unwanted messages keeping jamming our inboxes. Mostly our office updates, mass emails, birthday reminders, event reminders, anniversary wishes and social network updates are the major villains of the electronic communication system. I spend more than 30 minutes to delete the junk messages. Most of these forwards are repeated by friends. No wonder Netizens are not able to handle this trouble. This problem is common among the public figures, bureaucrats and professionals. Those who have wide network also face the same problem. times of India writes on 17 December 2009, Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House emails from the administration of President George W Bush and the Obama administration is searching for dozens more days’ worth of potentially lost email from the Bush years, according to two groups that filed suit over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record keeping system. The two private groups — Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive — said they were settling the suits they filed against the president’s office in 2007. It will be years before the public sees the emails as they will go through the National Archives’ process for releasing presidential records.

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Time Killing Social Networking Sites

+00002009-12-13T18:35:23+00:00312009bUTCSun, 13 Dec 2009 18:35:23 +0000 2, 2008 at 7.27 p12 (Uncategorized)
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Social networking sites are the current trend setters and techno fashion definers. But the craze for social networking sites has crossed all the limits. These sites are not only killing work time of the office employees but also damaging the health of the onliners. Too many games and interest pulling subsites are eating heavy time of the netizens. Soon netizens are going to say ‘na na networking’.

Times of India writes on 11 December 2009

Facebook makes you despair? Social networking makes you want to end it all? You may be ready for online ritual suicide with the aid of a “Impress your friends, disconnect yourself,” is the slogan on www.seppukoo.com, a site that aims to subvert Facebook by offering its millions of users a glorious end and a memorial page to match. “Rather than fall into the hands of their enemies, ancient Japanese samurai preferred to die with honour, voluntarily plunging a sword into the abdomen and moving it left to right in a slicing motion,” the site notes.

This form of ritual suicide was known as “seppuku”.

“As the seppuku restores the samurai’s honour as a warrior, seppukoo.com deals with the liberation of the digital body,” the site says.

Today the enemy is not other bands of noble warriors but corporate media who use viral marketing to make huge profits by connecting people across the globe.

“Seppukoo playfully attempts to subvert this mechanism by disconnecting people from each other and transforming the individual suicide experience into an exciting ‘social’ experience.”

The site, which uses its own viral marketing strategy to lure in disgruntled social networkers, is part of a protest wave that sees Facebook as a potentially dangerous entity beholden to corporate interests.

But seppukoo.com has some way to go before it attracts anything near the more than 300 million users Facebook currently boasts. On Wednesday it pulled in only half a dozen Facebookers ready to end it all.

Its owners said by email that over 15,000 people had done the deed and over 350,000 Facebook users had received an invite to follow suit.
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Emission Cuts and Copenhagen Talks

+00002009-12-07T12:04:55+00:00312009bUTCMon, 07 Dec 2009 12:04:55 +0000 2, 2008 at 7.27 p12 (Uncategorized)
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All roads lead to Copenhagen this fortnight. World leaders, scientists, journalists, policy makers and stakeholders are converging in the Danish capital to chart out strategies to control climate change. Whether it is going to be an effective summit or another empty talking time is to be watched. From the current diplomatic war over climate change there is less one can read about the genuineness of the world leaders to sort out this complex matter. Every nation and its leader is keen on scoring popularity points rather than finding a long lasting solution to the climate change. George Manbiot writes in The Times of India on 6 December 2009 Climate change is humankind’s most pressing challenge; unless we can reduce the amount of global warming gases we release into the atmosphere, the heating they cause will melt the world’s glaciers, create both droughts and floods, drive many people from their homes as sea levels rise and threaten the world’s ability to feed itself. So why are so few people trying to stop it? We have left the task to governments and experts. Public protests demanding action have been small and muted. Because there is so little public engagement, the governments meeting in Copenhagen are proposing only a fraction of the cuts needed to prevent disaster. They bailed out the banks but seem prepared to let the world’s ecosystems collapse. Surely the world’s people should be hammering on their doors, insisting that they act? I think there are several reasons why this hasn’t happened. The first is a campaign of disinformation by the fossil fuel companies, whose investments will lose value if a strong climate deal is struck. For 20 years the energy industries have sponsored “experts” to tell the public that climate change either isn’t happening or is no big deal. Some corporations have paid astroturf groups — fake grassroots campaigns — to lobby against action on climate change. They have successfully sown doubt and confusion in people’s minds. Another reason is that the most common human response to any crisis is denial. Denial is a survival strategy: if we really came to terms with our own mortality, or with the evils of the world, we wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. The firmer the evidence of climate change has become, the more people have gone into denial; now in some countries nearly half the population insists that global warming is just a scare story, even though you can see the early impacts almost everywhere. But perhaps the most important reason is that the issue — and the terms used to describe it — are so complex and buried in jargon that many people simply switch off before they’ve understood its importance. When someone tells you that “unless we reduce Kyoto basket greenhouse gas emissions to maintain atmospheric concentrations below 450 parts per million carbon dioxide equivalent, anthropogenic warming will initiate biospheric feedbacks”, you could be forgiven for staring at them blankly. That sentence describes a critically important global issue. But it’s hardly a catchy slogan, is it? Both the science and the policies needed to deal with manmade climate change are inherently complex. As soon as you get beyond the simple story — that the planet is warming up because we’re burning fossil fuels and destroying natural carbon stores — you start to get bogged down in mind-numbing detail. The fact that some scientists seem to be incapable of speaking any human language doesn’t help, but even when they do talk clearly it’s often hard to grasp. I believe there is a real democratic problem here, that is not confined to climate change. As we know ever more about the world, as experts become ever more specialized and governments rely ever more heavily on experts, it becomes harder for ordinary citizens to engage with the issues that affect their lives. In Shakespeare’s day, one person could attain the entire sum of human knowledge. You probably could have got it onto a couple of CDs. Today even the specialists can’t keep up with their own field of knowledge. Arthur C Clarke said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. He might have added that any sufficiently advanced expertise is indistinguishable from gobbledegook. We are shut out, by sheer complexity, from the important issues that affect our lives and so can play an ever less meaningful role in their resolution. This allows governments and other powerful players to hide behind jargon. As issues become more complex it becomes easier to bamboozle us. What can be done about it? I believe that all experts whose work might have an impact on public policy have a duty to speak and write as clearly as possible. I believe that governments have a duty to keep their citizens informed as well as they can, spelling out complex issues in terms that most people can grasp. I believe the media has a special responsibility for investigating and explaining complex stories as objectively as possible. But not everyone who informs us has our best interests at heart. Where climate change is concerned, some of those who communicate most clearly — the PR companies hired by fossil fuel companies — seek to mislead us. Citizens also have a duty: to be as well-informed as possible, so that they can make sensible democratic choices. But we have to accept that this will become ever more difficult as life becomes more complex. George Monbiot is the UK-based author of the bestselling books, ‘Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning’ and ‘ The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order

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Teenage Troubles

+00002009-12-04T20:36:27+00:00312009bUTCFri, 04 Dec 2009 20:36:27 +0000 2, 2008 at 7.27 p12 (Uncategorized)
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The biggest challenge today for parents is bringing up children. Apart from offering the children best possible education and nutrition, parents are facing difficulties in monitoring children’s ethical behaviour. Apart from social ethics learnt from educational institutions children too learn from the family. Learning from the family has been labelled by sociologists like Talcott Parsons as “primary socialisation”. But socialisation is under constant threat by technology and consumerism. Whatever ethical norms and behavioural patterns codified by parents and grandparents are on and off broken by the fast moving peers. Curbing this trouble will be the most crucial challenge in the coming days. Amrit Dhillon writes in The Times of India on 2 December 2009 It’s easy to visualise the Pune teenager who arranged to meet her boyfriend the day before Friendship Day recently. Just 15, she must have been flushed with excitement at the prospect of feeling special and desirable, and coming home later from the rendezvous floating in that delicious dreamy delirium that characterises the early days of a relationship. But the boyfriend brought along three friends for some ‘fun’ and they raped her in turns. The following day, the girl hanged herself. In their tragic interplay, i imagine she was seeking love while he wanted sex. Her humiliation and death reveal how the dating game in India is going horribly wrong because boys and girls are playing by different rules. Girls are eager to explore their newfound social freedom to experience the headiness of loving and being loved. Physical desire is obviously an important part of this exploration because the hormones of a teenage girl are fizzing just as furiously as those of any young male. But girls venture into this new world almost utterly defenceless and, as mostly small-town ingenues, are vulnerable to the first predator who comes along. So girls are filmed undressing by their boyfriends. The MMS clips are sent to friends or used for blackmail. Girls who end relationships have acid thrown on them. Girls who reject boys’ advances are stalked and threatened. In the West, young girls absorb vast amounts of information about relationships before acquiring their first boyfriend. From TV programmes and debates, magazines, playground gossip and conversations with mothers and elder sisters, they develop a sixth sense for detecting a false note or a whiff of aggression that could endanger them. More than information, certain ideas have entered their minds. The theories of the feminist movement from the 1970s onwards in the West made women aware of the power dynamic between men and women. The ideas of Germaine Greer, Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedman filtered down into popular consciousness. No doubt, they were diluted and reduced to slogans by the time they reached the woman on the street but they nevertheless coloured the landscape of her mind. This process has been absent in India where such debates have been largely confined to women’s groups and magazines such as Manushi. Here, girls plunge into the dating game intellectually blindfolded, groping (excuse the pun) for signposts as they navigate this new terrain. They possess none of the psychological tools to discriminate between genuine and fake interest. Having had arranged marriages themselves, their mothers and elder sisters are of no help. Quite apart from the limited help available from their families, even the wider culture around them fails to imbue girls either with sense or suspicion. How can it? For centuries, social norms have imposed strict social segregation. The new freedom for the sexes to mix is so new that society has barely woken up to its implications. Whereas in the West, relations between the sexes evolved gradually, over decades, in India, the process has been squeezed into 10-15 years, jumping from Jane Austen to Paris Hilton in the blink of an eye. As girls, without being forewarned, rush into the arms of their beaux, they misread the signals. Exacerbating their vulnerability is the desire for male attention that virtually consumes girls at this age. Not all young men, of course, are hell-bent on abusing their new access to women. Plenty of them treat their girlfriends with respect. But many, just like the girls, misread the cues. They see a woman in a bar wearing attractive clothes as ‘available’ because they have never been educated by literature, films, books and newspapers to grasp the notion that a woman can be drunk, dressed revealingly and behave suggestively but if she says ‘no’ to sex, it means no. They too are confused. All the old familiar rules have gone and it’s a free-for-all. Just the other day, at least in some circles, they were taught to believe that any woman who displayed pleasure during lovemaking, even with her own husband, was a whore. Now they have to learn that women can pose semi-naked, smoke and drink and yet must be treated as respectfully as they treat their mothers. India has moved from segregation to mingling between the sexes without any of the attendant debates on sex, feminism and contraception. There has been no transition. Many men have leapt from believing that women should be sequestered inside the home to expecting their girlfriends to take responsibility for contraception. Girls pop the ‘morning after’ pill casually, rather than as an emergency measure. The boyfriends are happy to be carefree and few even bother to find out whether there could be repercussions on the girl’s health. Young Indian women need to realise that many of the new sexual freedoms that were hailed initially as ‘liberating’ in the West (such as the availability of the pill) turned out to carry a heavy price. When neither side knows the rules because the rules are still being worked out, the dating game becomes potentially lethal.

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+00002009-12-04T20:22:33+00:00312009bUTCFri, 04 Dec 2009 20:22:33 +0000 2, 2008 at 7.27 p12 (Uncategorized)
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Everyone is eager to see technology solving all the problems faced by humanity. But the response to this mass expectation has been dismal. Bio technology which is touted as the one stop solution for all problems is yet to prove its credentials in a big way. Its achievements so far cannot be belittled. However there is a big mismatch between the hopes and reality.

Along with the developments in bio technology there is a parallel growth of controversies. Especially the food products and medicines. It is up to the bio technologists to sort out these troubles and prove to the world that they are savious of future.

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw writes in The Times of India on 3 December 2009

Biotechnology is aptly described as the “technology of hope” for its promise to deliver food security, life-saving drugs, alternate energy and environmental sustainability. India has many assets in its strong pool of scientists and engineers, vast institutional network and cost-effective manufacturing. Over 100 national research laboratories employ thousands of scientists. More than 300 college-level educational and training institutes offer degrees and diplomas in biotechnology, bio-informatics and the biological sciences, producing nearly 5,00,000 students annually. About 3,00,000 postgraduates and 1,500 PhDs qualify in biosciences and engineering each year. According to reports, outside of the US, India ranks the highest with 61 USFDA-approved plants and in excess of 200 GMP certified pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities.

The Indian government’s national biotechnology development strategy is a comprehensive road map for this emerging sector. The document recognises the challenges of building both scale and critical mass in pursuing a global leadership profile. The biotech industry is poised to deliver a size of $5 billion by 2010 with biopharma driving the growth trajectory. However, funding, infrastructure, regulation and skill competency mapping pose obstacles in this path to the future. Conversely, India is uniquely placed to build a strong competitive edge. It offers an attractive cost arbitrage in research & development at roughly a third of that in the western hemisphere. Key enablers include a large, qualified English-speaking workforce, a network of reputed research laboratories and state-of-the-art pharmaceutical labs and manufacturing facilities. Further, the patient population offers a large, diverse pool for effective clinical research and development.

Ever-increasing cost and time involved in drug discovery and development, fierce competition and pricing pressure are all spurring western pharma companies to have an India strategy. A large number of blockbuster drugs are also set to go off-patent, giving the sector here tremendous opportunities. The industry is collaborating with global giants in clinical trials, discovery and development research, and manufacturing, thus rapidly moving up the value chain. In this age of hyper competition and wafer-thin margins, India’s biotech sector is poised at an inflection point.

Yet the industry continues to face numerous challenges. Foremost is finance. Venture funding has abstained from investing in this sector on account of its high risk profile. Aversion to risk is also seen within the sector, which prefers low risk ventures based on services and generics, shying away from an innovation-led business model. The department of biotechnology has plugged this deficiency through a number of funding schemes. It is for entrepreneurs to avail of these funds and rise to the challenge of innovation.

The sector also faces the same infrastructural hurdles affecting Indian industry. The country continues to fall short on critical enablers such as quality roads and uninterrupted supply of power and potable water. However, beyond these common issues, the sector has its own problems. It requires a streamlined regulatory framework to accelerate commercialisation of products. Numerous regulatory agencies pulling in different directions slow down the process of growth. Bt Brinjal is a good example of how years of intensive research investment are unable to guarantee commercial returns. Human clinical trials are still an unresolved aspect. Further, essential strong industry-academia connections are sadly lacking.

The government can lead the way in facilitating growth by treating biotechnology as a priority sector. R&D is the bedrock on which biotech rests. The government must enable international patenting, which curiously does not qualify for tax deduction, and encourage investment. A regulatory environment that helps the drug discovery process and approves products without delays is urgently required. A five-year tax holiday on new products developed in-house can be a great incentive for R&D. Profits on such products can be mandated for reinvestment in R&D to encourage development of newer and better drugs at lower costs.

The biotech sector needs creativity to harness its potential and assume global leadership. There exists a huge opportunity for growth but only if innovation becomes part of the business ethic and a primary enterprise driver. It is no longer enough to produce clones of pharma products that have saturated the market, which do nothing to add value. Benchmarks must be set high and out-of-the-box thinking must become the norm. Profit margins can be maintained through contract discovery and manufacturing for foreign firms.

Extensive research requires expensive equipment that needs to be imported. The government can step in again by exempting or reducing import duties. It can also approve the Association of Biotech Led Enterprises’s (ABLE) recommendation to set up a biotech fund to support first-generation biotech entrepreneurs up to the ‘proof of concept’ stage. ABLE has also urged the government to exempt venture funds investing in the sector from capital gains tax. That can act as a reward for longer-term investment cycles.

Already a major hub, India has all that it takes to become a global biotech leader. This will not only spur economic growth and provide much-needed jobs, but also ensure that we find answers to modern-day challenges in healthcare, energy, food security, and the environment. However, biotechnology’s promise and India’s potential can be realised only if government and industry work together and draw up a road map to facilitate innovation.

The writer heads a biotech company.

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18 More Months in Afghanistan

+00002009-12-04T20:11:13+00:00312009bUTCFri, 04 Dec 2009 20:11:13 +0000 2, 2008 at 7.27 p12 (Uncategorized)
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Afghanistan has been America’s curse for the past one decade. What was the last decade misdeeds of America has been paid back. In 80s America trained Afghans with weapons and sophisticated technology to crush Russian forces. The same training is giving nightmares to America for a decade. Unable to get out of the Afghanistan mess the White House establishment has been clueless. Barack Obama the promised savior of America is trying his best to put an end to the American embarrassment in the troubled Asian soil. He might have bought another 18 months to crush the Al Qaeda network but the troubles will continue to complicate his image and leadership. It is better to phase out Allied troops in 18 months the time he had sought and leave it to the managerial skills of decade long trained Afghan nationals. If America cannot deliver the results and make Afghans to take care of their country it is utter shame. Ten years is not less time for this. Times of India writes on 3 December 2009 US president Barack Obama’s outlined plan for a troop surge in Afghanistan, coupled with an exit strategy setting July 2011 as the kickoff point for the withdrawal of US forces, is likely to attract criticism from both sides. Domestic public fatigue with the war may cause some to say he committed too much, while those wanting the US to stay the course will say he didn’t commit enough. But Obama has probably made the best of a bad situation. There are no easy answers in Afghanistan after seven years of mismanagement. Now, to obviate the danger of the Taliban deciding to simply wait out the US presence, a few focus areas are important. The first is ensuring that the Afghan government is in a position to deal with the Taliban once the US withdrawal starts. And for that, the prime necessity is an effective administration in Kabul. Without good governance, Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s government will lack the legitimacy it needs to succeed against the Taliban. How exactly Washington can apply pressure without making Karzai seem a US stooge is problematic, but Obama hinted at it in his speech when he spoke of reaching out to local leaders and elders. It will serve both to build effective local governance systems and exert pressure on Karzai to clean up his act if he does not wish to be left out in the cold. Another important facet of beefing up the Afghan government is bolstering the Afghan police and military’s size and capabilities. At the same time, the complementary task of degrading the Taliban’s strength must be undertaken. For this too, reaching out to local leaders is important. But perhaps the crucial factor is Pakistan. If Islamabad allows militants safe havens, all the American efforts will be wasted. A US withdrawal with the Taliban’s Quetta shura still intact would mean that a decade of war and loss of life was for nothing. As for hardliners in Islamabad, they would do well to remember that July 2011 is simply the starting point for the withdrawal. The actual pace of the drawdown will depend on the situation on the ground. New Delhi must not cavil if large amounts of civilian aid flow into Pakistan, since that would shore up anti-militancy forces. It must, on the contrary, stay closely engaged with Washington and with Kabul, keep reminding Washington and other international capitals of the urgency of the task of turning Afghanistan around, and itself remain ready to help.

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