The Talibanization of Pakistan-I

Read my take on the past and the present of the Talibanization of Pakistan published here. The next article in this series will explore what future may mean for the country.

Book Update : Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell). I had always wanted to read this one. A wonderfully written love story against the backdrop of the old south, the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. A tale of survival and determination. The perspective is slightly tainted, through the eyes of rich white landlords. Nevertheless, it does capture the pain and hardships war caused in the Southern states of America. Having read it my only regret is why didn't I read it earlier. Imminently inspiring & re-readable over and over again.

Are Sri Lankan Tamilians children of a lesser God Pakistanis?

Maybe they are. Sri Lankan Tamilians are children of a lesser God because their country does not share a border with Afganistan. The discrimination and the quiet are horrifying. UN wants greater aid for Pakistan's refugees where the military offtensive against the Taliban is less than a few week old and it ignores what has been happening in Sri Lanka for months now. Thousands, probably millions of civilians trapped in a narrow belt which the government has been shelling to oust the rebels. The Lankan government has banned international media while an unabated genocide continues. The best UN could do there was to express a sentinent over the high number of civilians killed. As if offering speeches over the matter will solve the problem. Countries like UK and Norway seem to have done better than the UN.

Though I am for humanitarian relief whereever there be a need, why such discrimination against Sri Lankans ? And why are Pakistani refugees get a better treatment ? Isn't it a reflection of the motivation of the money that the agency is giving out ?

The coverage : Sri Lanka warned on 'war crimes'
UN calls for massive Pakistani aid

Slumdog Millionaire: When the movie is better than the book

Last November (2008), I watched Slumdog Millionaire. I don’t think I can express how I  felt. Maybe it was one of those bad days when things are not going too well in your world. The movie was heavy with the harsh realities of the life of more than a third of the Indian population. I left the theatre with a strong desire to do something to make a difference and a desire to read the book on which the movie is based. This post reviews the book and the movie (maybe I will post an update on what I have done since then if it does end up making a difference in some one's life).
Slumdog Millionaire is based on the novel, Q&A written by Vikad Swarup, an Indian diplomat. Vikas Swarup, in an interview, mentioned that when Danny Boyle, the director of Slumdog Millionaire, told him that he would preserve the body of his book, Swarup should have realized that Danny would kill the soul. This heightened my expectations of the book. Such a dramatic and powerful movie can only be based on really well written-book, or so I thought. Maybe I should mention that I belong to the old school where books are better than movies, even if the movie has won six Oscars.

Anyway I got a chance to lay my hand on Q&A, now republished as Slumdog Millionaire last week, and I have the following comparison to offer. The movie is indeed based on book’s content and follows the structure of the book, as a series of questions on the popular show -Who wants to be a billionaire? That’s where the similarity ends. The book is no more than a collection of loosely bound short stories while the movie is solid commentary on Indian society with a focus on urban Indian poor. Unfortunately the book does not develop its characters, focusing instead on a series of disparate events, some of them unbelievable. While the movie floors you not only with its characters, but also by vividly capturing the life of Dharavi, believed to be Asia’s biggest slum, in the heart in India's financial capital Mumbai. If the purpose of the author was to make a generic commentary on India, he needed even more meat on the bones, which the book does not have. The author’s way of capturing the role religion plays in Indian society, through a protagonist with the name ‘Ram Mohammed Thomas’ (RMT) is far more unrealistic & ineffective than the movie’s depiction of a mob.
There are lots of other changes that the movie’s screenplay makes, small big and other small. It omits stories of RMT aka Jamal Khan (the name of the movie’s protagonist) as a bartender and his adventures in Delhi at an Australian Diplomats house. It also twists the story line, introducing an under world don while omitting a contract killer. Overall, the screenplay effectively makes a collection of short stories into a coherent movie, one that rises above its individual characters while reflecting the reality of life of the urban Indian poor. It however does this while ensuring that the characters are well developed. In this case the movie is far better than the book.

Both Democracies - Yet Poles Apart

Last year I spent a lot of time following the US Presidential election. The Indian elections this year have made me compare notes: How do elections in the world's largest democracy compare with elections in world's largest economy.?

For a start, I was really intrigued by the involvement of the ordinary American into the political process and the fact the campaign was fought on real issues. Yes, there were diversions about Bill Ayers and the religion of present President of the US but the majority of the campaign was on matters that affected the life of an ordinary American - healthcare, economy, pro-choice or pro-life (can't understand why this should be a election issue), Iraq , Afganistan and such. Turn the globe about 180 degrees to India and you fail to spot a single national issue in this election. A string of regional parties splitting, resplitting, aligning to the point where your head spins with confusion.

The two men contesting the king's chair aka Presidency of the World's largest economy, even at their most bitter, treated each other with respect. Incontrast, the two old men at the helm of two of India's largest parties have hurled insults and abuses at each other. And once you move a little lower in the ranks of the parties you are shocked at hatred and virulous remarks that you hear.


Last but probably the most important, because it explains some of the above, is the apathy of the middle class Indian towards the elections. Infact a majority of Indians think what they can achieve in their lives is despite the government rather than because of it. They can not relate to the politicians who them. On top of that is the age and generation gap. 40% of India's billion plus population is young but unfortunately young political parties have old and middle age people at the helm of affairs and in their 2nd line of command. Manmohan Singh & L K Advani and both more than 70 years old.
This article from the New York Times offers a perspective (requires a free signup)

Movie Update : The Fast and the Furious - IV . Some really great action sequences and car chases. Keeps you at the edge of that seat
State of the Play : Average to Interesting.

Of NRI Marriages

My post on this subject does not belong here, so its a good idea to read it where it got published. Link

Working in a foreign land

In reference to my last post on February 15, the business week article by Vivek Wadhwa,(Senior Research Associate at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School), is a good read for facts & figures about legal foreign workers on H1-B & other visas in America

Wadhwa quotes research to point that H1 B's have aided innovation and made a significant contribution to patents. But what struck me was the fact that how even the legal migrant workers, even in the so called high skilled category are shortchanged - be it money, quality of work, benefits or promotions. With so many people still keen on coming and continuing to work here, I wonder if tougher immigration laws thus have the reverse effect then i.e, once people get in, they try to stay longer because its difficult to get in. Nevertheless, I am still amazed at people who consider themselves smart and intelligent taking professional discrimination just to stay here. I guess a lot of factors contribute, including personal. A female friend who is married to a migrant gave up a hugely successful career in India to come here. She joined the US operations of her company later, only to find second grade treatment along with the decrease in her responsibilities and stature. She now says that she has given up on career advancement.

Read the article, not just the body but also the comments to get perspective on immigration from both sides

Banks find accounting tougher than non-profits?

An important take-away, from  last hearing of the congress committee where the nine top bank CEOs presented their case regarding the update on new loans and how the bailout funds were spent, was the banks stand that the money that has been injected into their balance sheets can not be tracked separately.

   

Have been catching up a little bit on the non-profit space these days. Interestingly this article here article explains that, what banks claim as impossible, non-profits do on an everyday basis. 

Apparently it a basic requirement in non-profit accounting to track the money received for any particular project is spent on that project only. The link here.

The article calls it, soup-kitchen accounting. Interesting right? But hold on before you blame the banks, maybe the never received the money at all. This may sound quirky but another article points that the government has been actually injecting capital into bank holding companies and not banks. With banks barely managing to stand upright, shareholders have non incentive to inject the money into those subsidiaries. Link

Maybe we all have been whipping the wrong poster boy.

Making the case for being an open economy

While it may seem counter-intuitive at first, the most profitable imports for any economy are the skills and talents that it gets from other countries. USA has raced ahead as imported talent from all over the world innovated to take the country on the road to development. I remember brain-drain to the developed west and ways to stop it used to a common debate topic in school and college in India



Thomas Friedman makes the case for staying away from the protectionist urges in NY times editorial that quotes two Indians.

“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.”

“If you do this, it will be one of the best things for India and one of the worst for Americans, [because] Indians will be forced to innovate at home,” said Subhash B. Dhar, a member of the executive council that runs Infosys.. , the well-known Indian technology company that sends Indian workers to the U.S. to support a wide range of firms

Link to the Thomas Friedman's article.

The 'threat of protectionism is being recognised across the world with the UK prime minister Gordon Brown advising against it in the Wold Economic Forum at Davos this year & the director general of WTO Pascal Lamay calling for free flow of trade information in this hour of crisis

Link

Unfortunately its difficult not to be populist when your people are hurting and its often difficult to explain how being open to trade, immigration and employment could be the best policy.

Update : Had just finished this post when I saw a new update from marketwatch that the G-7 nations have made a pledge to avoid protectionism amid turmoil. Link

2009: Clouds of a long recession ?

Central Park, New York on a cloudy winter afternoon. The dull sky bespeaks of the upcoming gloom, only silver lining being a slight hint of color.

Its just that I have not been able to capture the color yet in the news around me, not as yet. In fact things seem to be becoming gloomier in real life. Brace for a dark night.

2009 : The burden of an year

“What can be said in New Year rhymes,

That's not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,

We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,

We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,

We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,

We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,

And that's the burden of a year.”

                                      Ella Wheeler Wilcox (American Poet & Writer, 1850-1919)

Movie Update : 

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Highly Recommended

Yes Man : Average

Money for free

Today the 'Bernanke helicopter' seems to have landed into uncharted territories. The chairman of Federal Bank who was expected to lower rates by 50 basis points actually reset it to 'ZERO'. Yes this is bizarre headline.  The fed chairman set the fed target rate from  zero to twenty-five basis points, effectively saying that banks will be able to borrow from fed at no price.  If this is not enough to make banks lend, he announced something more, that it will buy mortgage back securities from banks.  

The only other example in history of such low, or rather no interest rates is Japan. The example has not been successful. Money in USA now comes free. But think of this way, what if this does not work. Even if the cost of money is zero, no body wants it. There are two basic problems here

a) Even with money at no price, the banks don't want to lend it furthur. The balance sheets are so messed up that they need a clear head & some time to clean things up. Even in the case of America the previous cuts by the fed have not translated into lower interest rates for the end buyers. 

b) Then there is the gradual unwillingness to spend, the shaken confidence in the system with a lower number every week. Job cuts & threats of job cuts have taken the fun of holiday season and consumption other-wise.

On top of that all this actually reeks of the policy that actually built the bubble from 2002-2007. Isn't  this how the system built so much leverage in the first place. Years of administration policy providing people with easy money.America accounts for 60% of world's consumption and when the American consumer sneezes, no wonder the world catches a cold.  

But to put this in a perspective of time. Monetary policy moves generally take about two quarters (12 to 15 months is the accepted time frame) generally or more to play out. So the affect of these policy moves will be felt at the earliest only, in third quarter of 2009. But the stock markets have already given a thump up sign. The DJIA & S&P 500 & NASDAQ were all up more than 4%.

Another point here is where will fed get the money. Will it keep printing dollars, till it runs out of green ink, as one analyst said. What happens to the exchange rates then ? As of today the European Central bank & central bank of England have both stayed short of both what the Federal Bank has does done. No wonder the dollar fell against both currrencies.

Movie Update : 

'Gran Torino', (Clint Eastwood packs a so much straight forwardness , american-ness and intensity into this movie that even non-americans like me loved it). Read the new york times review here

Slumdog Millionaire  (A great movie, with amazing potraits of everyday life from India packed into a dramatic story) 

British couple says CNN compromised them

Continuing from my last post, here is the official complaint by an British couple that thier safety was compromised by CNN, who broadcasted their cell phone conversatio. Now back home safely, Mrs Shaw says that they were safe till CNN stepped in.

  But the reason I would not want to talk to anyone is because our safety was actually compromised   by CNN, which broadcast where we were. The terrorists were watching CNN and they came down from where they were in a lift after hearing about us on television. For that reason I would appeal to the media to be very careful about what they broadcast. 

The couple's full story in  Walesonline & Huffington Post

Also there is this article in the Hindu citing the one captured terrorist that the goup had a state of the art GPS, several mobile phones & the fact that the Lashkar headquarters remained in touch with the group on a voice-over-internet (VOIP) service 

Mumbai terror attack - Are there any standards in Journalism ?

A tragedy of epic proportions and an indication how far & deep has terror taken roots in our society. A city hostage for three days. Gunmen out loose at ordinary citizen

The terror attacks in Mumbai took hostages in the city and outside. Guests in the Taj, Oberoi & the Jewish houses, Mumbaikers in the city & Indians in country & the diaspora worldwide, all glued to any communication they could get from anywhere. News channels Indian & those worldwide, newspapers national & international and the Internet & all other media of communication, all hostage to sights of terror.

But as I watched, I wondered how many of those deaths were caused the footage hungry media and common-senseless politicians. Indian home minister Shivraj Patil gave the exact number NSG personal & commandos sent to counter terrorists & also, the exact time when the operation would began. Sorry, but that not called sending men for an operation. Its probably like sending then on a death mission. Don't these politicians have any respect, any concern for men who risk their lives for the country.

The rest of damage was done by news channels. They have long got over any sense of responsibility to anyone I think. Consider those live accounts of operations, 'the operation is now on this floor', 'this many policemen & commandos coming in with directions'. It was done better than the masterminds of operation would have ever imagined when they were planning this. They relayed coverage with accounts of guest's whereabouts in Taj leading to the killing of more than one. The story was repeated again at the hostage crisis in the Jewish house. 'Yes there are hostages, these are the details of the men hostage & our information on the terrorists inside'. And if that was not all, we were fed with the detail that the Indian police, army & commandos  have decided to tackle the Taj & Oberoi first so the terrorists in Jewish Center could take a nap & rest be fresh before the combat. Of course the media would give them a timely warning before the operation were to begin, complete with the visuals of helicopter dropping of commandos and the exact number.that were coming. 

Imagine being a terrorist inside the building, all that information directly playing on the TV in front of you, or maybe the smart phone with which you watch TV on the Internet or if all that was not possible just a normal phone and someone relaying all that live coverage for you.  When told not to broadcast in live we had a jerk jouralist on NDTV 24X7 tell that the footage is not live as requested by the army. He proudly went on to add that , 'Its delayed by 6 minutes'. 

All this makes me wonder at the standards of Indian journalism. Do these people not know what should be broadcast and what shouldn't ? Or, do we only have men who can talk along and those can take camera footage? All of them without an iota of commonsense.  Or maybe its worse than that. They know all this and they chose to ignore it for high TRPs (viewers ratings). It is eyeball hungry journalism with no regards for the ethics of profession.

Almost 200 people dead & number of those injured varying with accounts as the exact count is unverifiable. 

Publish Post

I feel sorry for all this but most of all I am sorry for the death of morality, ethics & standards in journalism. May it rest in peace. And I worry, for the repeat of all this when a moment of crises comes next, for the someone whose morality is dead, wouldn't even realise when they make the same mistake yet again.

What could $ 700 bn do!

 $700 bn is only 14% of the $14 trillion of the Mortgage Debt out in the US market

A huge chunk of the problem is thus out in the open. With about $250 out to capitalise banks, there is not much of money left there. Money goes a long way & you can't really over emphasise the how far can $700,000,000,000 take the world. 

In America you could buy Universal Health Coverage & pay health insurance premiums for all US citizens for six years.

In Africa fight hunger and poverty for 10 years. They only need $72 bn every year in UN funding.

Pay salaries of 22 million american workers for an year.

Finance Germany's annual budget (@$ 420 bn) for more than an year or buy Denmark (GDP less than $350 bn), twice.

This and so many other things that can be done with $ 700 bn are here. But we will end up spending it to pay the price of the asset bubble that has gone burst.

Life is not fair afterall.

End of Capitalism as we know it ?

Ben Bernake addressing the 'The Economic Club' in New York. His statements indicate a shift of long term US policy as we have known it  

a.  Monetary policy has its limits in addresses crises like these and innovative solutions are needed

b.  We need to create systematic authorities to address large non-bank firms that pose systematic risk

c.   We did not have a mechanism;  no body, no authority, no markets for all those securities

d.   There is a problem that these assets do not trade, there is no liquidity and no independent  price discovery. 

If all this retrospection were to be translated into policy talk, he means that policies which let financial firms have there own models to evaluate assets values & risks need to be re-evaluated. The assets should be traded in exchanges & have market determined values. This part of it, to have  a clearing house and an exchange for these assets, is a much agreed view by now.

 

Statement a evaluates a current situation and, statement c clearly indicates part of the helplessness of the US policy as it was, to prevent this situation and provide a way forward. Probably indication of new separate regulatory bodies for non-banks (unlike a situation earlier where Investment Banking firms had no regulatory authorization)

Now add up c , d & the latest actions of US treasury

1. To take a stake in banks

2. To put conditions like 

           a.  No more golden parachutes .,

            b.  Limits on executive compensation (top 5)

            c.  Limits on risk 

            d.  And, government to have voting rights on matters that affect the investment.  

All this together symbolises a distinct shift in from the free for all market to a more centralised one. The reluctance of the US government, adequately pointed out time & again in various statements underscores the point even more. Total communism as was practised by the erstwhile Soviet Union died long time ago and now is the time of reckoning for complete capitalism and free markets. 

This is the system that they have moved to back home in India,  there are markets and there are regulatory bodies - some government owned and quite a few self regulatory ones like AMFI. We decided to move away from the socialist view of Nehrus after about four decades of being independent, leading to about a decade and half of higher growth but we have still maintained a hold on things. The risk taken are far lower. The banks have a minimum capital ratio of 9% stipulated by RBI unlike the US banks where the minimum is only 4% and a bank is supposed to be well capitalised at above 6%. And none of this applied to Investment Banks, a institution category that no longer exists in the US financial system.  This is also the thought shared by some of those European & Asian economies for who moved from extremes on either side to the centralised point of view.