India's Election

Reflections on India at election time
ND Batra
The public trust in leaders in India is limited by their parties’ narrow-minded regional-and-caste based ideologies, rampant corruption and unscrupulous opportunism despite their occasional Madison Avenue style public relations image-building. According to the Association for Democratic Reforms, of the 1425 candidates 222 have criminal records including “charges of murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, extortion,” and other heinous crimes. The scars and burns of the Gujarat communal massacre in 2002 and the mass killings of poor helpless Sikhs in Delhi 1984 are still seared into people’s visual memories. Thanks to television and global media, we saw how ugly and inhuman people can become at times and felt ashamed of ourselves. This is what the media revolution does to a democratic society like India. It never lets you forget the past and it also fuels the desire for change at a rapid pace. Dr. N. Bhaskara Rao, writing for the Center for Media Studies, observed that “in the last fortnight of March 2009 there were more than a dozen instances from around the country that we saw news channels showing cash in large volumes being transported or distributed by political leaders in the context of Lok Sabha poll.” Although this kind of anecdotal observation needs to be vetted by empirically verifiable evidence, perception is reality in the public mind.
While the Internet makes India global, it is television that mirrors the actual realities and can uncover hidden problems including corruption and criminality. Television gives everyone easy access to information and even the most complex topic has to be simplified into terse statements, sound bites and visual moments. Television turns the abstract into the concrete and the visual. It can make corruption and injustice visible. An uneducated worker or a farmer can easily understand what is happening; and given the Indian habit of building quick grapevine communication, eventually every topic ends up in political discussion, and into the voting booth. So when television shows some parts of India clean and bright, naturally the voters, the urban and rural poor, may ask, what about us, the slumdogs? With cell-phone cameras everywhere, every “note for vote,” to borrow Dr. Rao’s phrase, can be captured for the 24/7 television.
It is legitimate for a farmer on the verge of suicide to ask the question: How can you leave us behind? Trickle down economy has not been good enough even for the United States; but for India the economic growth must reach every nook and cranny, the lowly and the humble, the rag pickers of Dharavi-Mumbai and the rat eaters, Musahars, of Bihar. I regard it as an assertion of the people’s right for equal access and equal opportunity to share the good life that one sees on television, soap operas and commercials. In other words, the pace of economy cannot be slowed down; rather it has to quicken to meet the rising aspirations created by television news media in India.
Since globalization, privatization and free market have begun to create more jobs, there’s no reason why any government, communist or otherwise, could afford to oppose the trend and still stay in power. On the contrary, one sees a growing trend in various states in India for generating competitive advantages to attract direct foreign investments and collaboration. I have always wondered why Kolkata lost Tata’s Nano, the little beautiful car which has become part of the global chatter. Competition: This is the global paradigm shift that Indians must understand. So if Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai rise, can Ahmedabad with Nano in its workshop remain far behind? In a competitive environment of the free marketplace, the states, communists or communalists, have to position themselves to attract private investments and encourage entrepreneurship. Information technology industry in India has reached a critical mass and in spite of the Satyam scandal it will continue growing. But India needs balanced development including massive emphasis on agriculture and rural development to spread wealth and reduce disparities. This is not to minimize the importance of information technology as an engine of economic growth. The change of government will not adversely affect the information technology base and the trust that Indian knowledge workers have been building for more than a decade. The Satyam hiccup would not change the fundamentals that India is a reliable source of off-shoring for major companies like General Electric, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and others, who value India’s knowledge workforce. One can say with confidence that the technology sector will continue to receive the excellent support that it has been have receiving regarding infrastructure and developmental policies. ITs foreign collaborators and partners need not have any concern. In fact whatever party or coalition comes to power in New Delhi, it will certainly make all-out efforts to ensure a growth friendly environment to attract foreign investment.
But at the same time we should keep in mind that since not everyone can go to IIT or IIM, jobs off-shored to India from the United States and Europe would play a marginal role in lifting people out of poverty and raising them into the growing middle class. There has to be something else, something much more dynamic like the rise of millions of cell-technology mobile small entrepreneurs who can grow like giants. The next leadership must forge millions of levers to lift India out of poverty.
This much I know that once again India’s millions of electorate will regretfully affirm that the age of giants, those larger than life men and women, Jawaharlal Nehru (Tryst with destiny), Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (Integration of states) and Indira Gandhi (Liberation of Bangladesh, accession of Sikkim, bank nationalization that has protected India from global financial crisis today), is over forever. Nonetheless, Dr. Manmohan Singh has been good enough for the country. He has kept the hurly-burly political alliance together for five years, persuaded the country to accept the path-breaking nuclear deal with the United States, braved the Mumbai terrorist attack, and on the top of it he has managed to keep up the average economic growth around 8 percent. Now it is the age of exploration of space, outer space, rural space and cyberspace, for which India needs bravehearts, men and women with courage, integrity and imagination. (ND Batra teaches communication and diplomacy at Norwich University. Readers can follow him at Twitter (http://twitter.com/NDBatra) and access his blog at http://globaldiplomat.blogspot.com)

Song of Tagore

Thou Hast Made Me Endless

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941 AD) the Nobel Laureate of 1913 was introduced to the West primarily through the collection of English translation of some of his poems/songs captioned as ‘Gitanjali’ (=Offering of Songs).More translations of his works followed by the poet himself and others after he had won the Nobel, including poems/songs, dramas, short stories etc. However, such efforts were sporadic and sluggish, mostly on individual initiative, which still remain so.As a result, a vast volume of the poet’s works remains un-translated while, it appears, it is an impossible proposition to translate even a substantial part of the poet’s total works to permit those, not privileged by the knowledge of Bengali language, a reasonably broad view of his myriad creations where unfathomable perceptional depth of top grade aesthetics runs through, literally true to his song “Thou hast made me endless / Such is Thy pleasure”.Notwithstanding this, an upsurge of Tagore translation took place in the last decade of the twentieth century by virtue of a good number of eminent poets/translators e.g. William Radice, Joe Winter, Ketaki Kushari Dyson, to name a few, all of whom left their valuable contribution to this oeuvre and my book
THE ECLIPSED SUN is a modest addition to this. I have put stress on a few aspects of the poet’s works, particularly those in his twilight years, which seemed to me quite inadequately covered so far. The followings are presented mostly based on this book. RAJAT DAS GUPTA: Calcutta: e-mail: rajatdasgupta@yahoo.com & dasguptarajat@hotmail.com
Rabindra Sangeet – Songs of Rabindranath Tagore: (Part 2) – 6 samplesTranslator’s note: The songs of Rabindranath Tagore are known as Rabindrasangeet which number approx. 2500. It is no exaggeration to say that Rabindrasangeet has explored every corner of human emotion and perception to give them best possible expression. Their philosophical depth also is unparalleled in the music world. It may be claimed, Rabindrasangeet has climaxed wording of the ineffable in literature of all time. Anybody not knowing Bengali definitely miss this aesthetic treasure. A translation can at best explain the central idea of a song, but cannot surface the wonderful matching of music with the original poesy so intimate with its philosophical/spiritual canvas. Unfortunately, therefore, the best of Rabindrasangeet, with all its humanistic appeal of highest order, will remain confined within the Bengali circle. It may be possible, some highly talented musicians endowed with literary command also, will emerge with versions of Rabindrasangeet in other languages, equally appealing. Such experiment in Hindi has not been disappointing and has gained popularity. Hindi is of course quite close to Bengali which must have been a contributory factor to such success. But the Western languages are likely to pose insurmountable challenge to any such effort. While hoping that some highly talented musicians will some day perform this magic of perfect cloning of Rabindrasangeet even in the Western languages, a sensible suggestion in the meantime appears to be to keep its translation handy while the Westerners (and in general all not having access to Bengali) will give their ear to the original Bengali song and try to perceive its import. Those knowing Bengali can only sympathize those not so privileged for such a plight in their struggle to enjoy a song! Below appears translations of some Rabindrasangeets, with a few initial lines of the original Bengali given in Roman script to enable the listeners to relate the translation to the song.Amra dujana swarga khelana garibo na dharanite
Mugdho lalito asrugalito geete
………………………………………….
………………………………………….
[Notes: The song was composed in early thirties of 20th Century, presumably dedicated to the great revolutionary Jatindra Mohan Sengupta and his foreign (Irish, I guess) wife Nellie Sengupta, who had worked shoulder to shoulder with her husband in the freedom struggle for India. In 1932, on his return voyage from Europe, Jatindra was arrested by the British police near Bombay. He was since interned and eventually breathed his last on 22 July 1933 at Ranchi (in Eastern India). Many a couple dedicated to freedom struggle had similar plight at that time and, naturally we may assume, this song was directed to them all. Yet, its appeal extends universally, beyond a particular milieu, to all the couple whose objective is far beyond a mere happy family life to respond to the cause of service of the people at large.]

To compose the toy of heaven
Is not our aim craven –
In emotional songs occult
The nuptial night to exalt
In nostalgic charm
With a heart infirm
To beg at Fate’s feet
All our imploring to meet –
Is not for us intrepid
Both standing firm in our daring bid.

The banner of love we’ll hoist high
Along craggy path our perilous mission to vie;
The distress of the cruel day
Overwhelm us may;
Yet, for peace to languish
Or consolation we’ll not wish.
If the radar is broke, the sail torn,
To us this will be ever known,
That both of us are there
Even when Death at us will stare.

Both of us to vision the Earth there
And each other;
The desert heat to bear
Not to rush for the mirage mere
Evading truth to self beguile
This glory be ours all the while;
This message oh dearest
Be our heart’s closest –
Till we die
That you’re there; so am I.

* * * * * * * * * * * ** ** *
Tumi hatath haway bheshe asha dhan
Tai hatath paoyae chamke othe mon
…………………………………….
……………………………………..
[Note: God’s revelation to us is off and on in course of our life, without notice or ritualistic processes, but even through the simplest objects of Nature if we keep our perceptions open.]

Thou art my treasure windfall
So my mind does startle.
On my secret travel
Thy abrupt reveal I marvel –
In the wind fragrant
On Thy fancies errant.

Daily as we come and go
Each other we do not know;
Kicking up dust visit many
To convey message hardly any;
All of a sudden Thy flute yonder
Alerts the lost passenger.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * *
Tomar holo shuru, amar holo shara
Tomay amay mile emni bahe dhara
…………………………………….
…………………………………….

[Note: Among the Hindu gods, Vishnu is the protector of Creation while e Shiva is for its destruction. One will agree, concepts of Vishnu and Shiva are more philosophical, rather than religious, to perceive this dual faces of Existence. This song brings out this very philosophical perception.]

You set out as I end;
Such a stream founts as we blend.
For you the light does glitter,
At home with mate you are.
For me is the night,
The stars above only I sight.
You have the shore,
For me the seas roar.
You have station,
Mine is motion.
You preserve, I undo,
You fear, I brave in lieu.

* * * * * * * * * * * * **
Bhenge mor gharer chabi niye jabi ke amare, Bandhu amar
Na paye tomar dekha aka aka din je amar kate nare
…………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………….
[Note: While we are confined to the narrow limits of our life, we pine for a bigger significance of our existence beyond our mundane boundaries. This song wonderfully brings out the distress of the human soul seeking exit beyond its confinement and, in the case of the Poet, I believe the eternal Truth is his quest.]

Who’ll break loose oh
My room’s lock for my bondage to go,
That from me does fend
Thou, oh my friend!
Without Thy sight
Lone days are my plight.
Is the night over
The Sun soon to appear
At the horizon Eastern
My rescue to earn;
By the long road ahead
Thy chariot to my door will be led?
In the sky stars countless
Stare at me blink less
Awaiting the dawn
With Thy floodlight to be gone.
The travelers in the morning
All come amidst din;
Pass their pageants with music
Thy glory to seek
In the flowers blooming
Tunes struck by the Sun’s golden string.

* * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * ** **
Charanrekha tabo je pathe dile lekhi
Chinnha aji tari apani ghuchale ki
…………………………………
………………………………
[Note: Everything beautiful in our life is only transitory. Yet. the Poet’s conviction is that only the eternal Truth manifests in these temporal.]

On the path Thou left Thy footprints
To-day to blot out all its hints.
Pollens of Ashoka (*) rendered Thy dust crimson (*= tree)
Only to be lost in the grass on Thy lawn.
Ends flowering,
Birds forget to sing;
The southern wind ceases
Oblivious, self-forfeits as it pleases.
Yet, the Immortal did they not carry,
In death will end its memory?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He nutan dakha dik arbar
Janmero prathama subhakshan
……………………………….

[Note: There has been a boom of celebration of birthday parties of young and adults alike in the Western style even in our country with the trite song ‘Happy birthday to you …..etc.’ preceded by the ritual of cutting/eating of delicious birthday cakes to be followed by sumptuous dishes and, of course, the incumbents are flooded with costly gifts from their guests. Thus, the birthday parties do provide plenty of enjoyment. However, it may be interesting to compare this ethos with that which pervades the whole of Bengal during the Kabi Paksha (Poet’s fortnight) which starts on the 25th day of Baisakh (this month in the Bengali calendar synchronizes with the mid April to mid May period), the birthday of the Poet, when the entire clime here is inundated with Tagore’s songs/recitals etc. in various functions taking us deep into the perception of Creation’s mystery, which we badly miss in our said birthday rituals which, one may feel, are in utter mediocrity once one has experienced the ecstasy and philosophical height in Kabi Paksha. Out of many other recitals relevant to the profundity of ‘birthday’ the following song is sure to be heard on this occasion ]

O Ever New, may Thee reappear
Through Life’s holy primal hour;
With the mist torn
Like Sun be Thy manifestation.
From the midst of inane
Thy victory be over its bane.
Let be hailed by Thy glow
And my heart’s trumpet blow;
Music of Life’s marvel
Infinity’s eternal wonder to reveal;
The clarion call to the Ever New be sent
At the advent
Of Baisakh the twenty fifth
For its un-blighting gift.

Obama and Afghanistan

Obama’s War
Milton Bearden writes in Foreign Affairs:
“Since the United States first dispatched troops to Afghanistan in October 2001, the war in Afghanistan has been an orphan of U.S. policy. But with the release last week of a revamped U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, the conflict has, by default, become Barack Obama's war.”
Read the full article …

Obama as global shepherd

President as global shepherd

ND Batra
From The Statesman

Reflecting on the G-20 meeting in London, it would appear that world leaders of the most powerful economies had succeeded in realising that concerted action was needed to halt the precipitous global economic slide and begin taking concrete steps to effect global recovery, regardless of the primary source of the trouble; which of course everyone knows started with the United States banking system’s disastrous financial innovations like sub-prime lending, credit default swaps, liar’s loans, et cetera.

Although the time for finger pointing and mutual recriminations, as some Asian and European leaders had been doing earlier, seemed to be over, the contentious issue was what would work the best to lift all boats, for example, whether to inject fiscal stimulus to let credit flow again and kick start the recovery or to erect regulatory frame work to control Wall Street’s rapacious capitalism. That was the great Atlantic divide the G-20 communiqué tried to bridge with rhetorical flourishes such as “The era of banking secrecy is over.” Much credit is being given to President Barack Obama for parlaying his well-honed campaign-style charm offensive into global diplomacy, which certainly is true.

Wherever Mr Obama and his graceful lovely wife Michelle Obama went, they won people’s hearts and minds. Through their grand symbolic gestures, eloquent speeches and transparent smiles, America seemed to be refurbishing its image sullied by the Iraq war and the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

But no less could be said of other leaders also including the powerful European duo, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Markel Angela of Germany, who asserted that the Anglo-Saxon form of unbridled marketplace capitalism is dangerous for the new world order, especially now when the global economy has become so integrated that a single Wall Street investment bank failure could cause worldwide financial tsunami. The world just cannot leave the United States to its own financial devices, however innovative they may be.

With Prime Minister Gordon Brown, like his predecessor Tony Blaire, being secure in the American safe haven of “special relationship,” the new Europe is essentially a Franco-German Europe. And in the ultimate analysis, French and German leaders prevailed in their views that mandatory stimulus spending by individual countries as the US and the UK have been insisting, would not work without a global regulatory structure.

Although China and Russia, prior to the Summit, made lot of noise about creating a new global currency under the tutelage of the IMF, they had no takers. As Nobel economist Paul Krugman said in his New York column, China is in a dollar trap. The IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) is a convertible mechanism based on a basket of currencies including the dollar, pound, euro and Japanese yen. Nothing should worry China more than the value of the dollar, whose collapse will wipe out China’s massive, rather frightening, foreign exchange reserves.

China and other developing countries have to determine the optimum level of foreign exchange reserves beyond which the accumulation becomes more of a liability than an asset. China’s excessive dependence upon exports and obscene accumulation of foreign exchange reserves is as much responsible for global financial crisis as the US fraudulent and criminal lending practices.

China and the United States have let down the world, but Mr Obama would not say so much so bluntly. Measured as he is always in his public utterances, Mr Obama said in his post-Summit radio-Internet address: “Ultimately, the only way out of a recession that is global in scope is with a response that is global in coordination.” In broad terms, there was an agreement that banks need to start lending again in order to stimulate growth and generate jobs, but Europeans were unsure about the wisdom of infusing their economies with massive multi-billion dollar stimulus packages, the kind of seemingly bold steps that the Obama administration has announced, for example, to buy toxic bank assets and shore up their finances so that they start lending again.

European leaders see the global crisis primarily as a consequence of lack of financial controls and most of the G-20 communiqué is about establishing the regulatory framework, including the closure of tax havens (Switzerland, Hong Kong, Macao, Mauritius, for example) and close supervision of hedge funds and private equity firms. But it was the eye-catching amount of $1.1 trillion through the IMF and World Bank in loans and guarantees to help developing countries, who have been badly affected by economic downturn, that answered the question, Where is the beef? “The whole world has been touched by this devastating downturn, and today, the world’s leaders have responded with an unprecedented set of comprehensive and coordinated actions,” said Mr Obama, calling the agreement “a turning point in our pursuit of global economic recovery.” The market responded to his optimism with a surge and the Dow closed over 8,000 in spite of the increasing US unemployment figures. Looking from a glass half-full half-empty perspective, the Obama stimulus package for the global economy through domestic spending, which was rejected by the Europeans, might be seen as being funneled though the International Monetary Fund ~ in spite of the IMF’s dubious reputation of being an organisation whose actions in the past, some believe, have caused more harm than good to the recipients of its loans. But beggars have no choice.

Although Mr Obama’s all embracing inclusive diplomacy shepherded the G-20 Summit superbly, it was essentially an European theatrical performance. The so-called BRIC countries were seen but not heard much.

(ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University)

Advertisment can stimulate the economy

When the economy is down, call the adman

CYBER AGE ND Batra
From The Statesman

In spite of the fact that unemployment has been rising, more than 90 percent Americans still have their jobs. But people are not spending liberally as they used to do. In this season of recession here and depression there, the adman’s song and dance is becoming extremely loud and captivating.
In the United States, advertising since long has been a most important mode of social, political and economic discourse; it is partly so because the adman knows how to cut through the glut of information and hit the target audience with promises of fulfillment of needs and desires.

The adman knows who you are: your taste in wining and dining; your preferences for the car; whether you love kids or pets or both; what’s in your medicine cabinet; what’s in your refrigerator; whether you play golf or video games. He knows what you do each part of the day and how to reach you through your demographic-psychographic profile. The adman researches people not as individual human beings but clusters of interests, preferences and tastes; as communities of shared values, seeking similar pleasures. The adman is a cultural spy as well as promoter of culture.

You need to observe how the adman cleverly propels millions of children to toy stores in order to get to the parents’ pocket books. He does it through after-school television programmes and Saturday morning cartoons, programmes that alternate with commercials so rapidly that the kids can’t make sense whether they are watching programmes or commercials. And at the same time kids feel fascinated with imaginative characters from SpongeBob SquarePants to Power Rangers.

Few parents know how to withstand the pressure from their children, ranging from outright grumpiness to passive-aggressive non-communication. Even in these difficult days when household budgeting is a challenge for many families, children come first. Children and teenagers’ consumer market is huge. Adman turns everything into “cool,” and that is the buzzword.

But imagine how the adman is dealing with a most rational group in the United States, the physicians. Direct-to-the patient “Ask Your Doctor” ads about prescription drugs, which are mostly aimed at the elderly and women, have become so common that sometimes you wonder if Americans suffer from every global disease ranging from allergies and erectile dysfunction to sagging breasts in urgent need for uplifting.

A typical “Ask Your Doctor” advertisement, for example, Detrol, which is used for incontinence and overactive bladder, may show a happy middle-aged couple walking on the beach hand in hand, so happy because they have discovered Detrol through their doctor; or middle age buddies who can sit through an entire baseball game without rushing to the bathroom.

Through these direct-to-patient ads that seem to give vital and authoritative information, the adman uses persuasion to elbow people to take the initiative and ask their physician why this drug is right for them. Of course in a rapid-fire speed-reading mode, the narrator issues warnings for the drug’s side-effects.

In a behavioural advertisement, the adman appeals directly to people’s emotions and tickles the image they have of themselves especially when he sells a value product such as an expensive luxury car to uppity rising people trying to catch up with their neighbours. But by mixing both kinds of appeals, emotional and informative, many pharmaceutical companies make a direct pitch to patients from “If Viagra isn’t everything you hoped for, don’t give up” because there is Cialis for 36 hours and even for daily use to “Now I trust my heart to Lipitor”; and so on.

Many drug manufacturers are using television celebrities to push their prescription drugs, a strategy that might make a physician wonder if it’s worthwhile to resist the pressure and lose his or her patients to another healthcare provider.

The adman’s approach to these two large and almost captive markets, children and the elderly, is quite similar. To get to parents, the adman, like a magician, snares children by creating what is “cool”; to get to physicians, he goes to their patients by using a direct and immediate health benefit appeal. Both appeals use subtle emotional pressures, pushing on ethical boundaries.

But in spite of all his faults, the adman is indispensable to a free market society. The adman impacts society in multifarious ways by bringing buyers and sellers together in the marketplace of goods, services and ideas, and thereby helps distribute economic and intellectual resources of the society.

The social discourse today is all about stimulating the economy through buying and selling because in a consumer society like the United States if the trips to shopping malls diminish, so would the economy. Sooner or later, therefore, the adman would get us because he can take us everywhere we want to be. And he keeps the economy moving even in these times of recession when our lives have become rather fearful of tomorrows. The American adman may be President Obama’s best ally in fighting the economic downturn.

(ND Batra is professor of communications at Norwich University)

China, US, India

Battle of ideas shall continue

CYBER AGE - ND BATRA
From The Statesman

Before the global financial meltdown began last September, the whole world watched with fascination the unstoppable rise of China as a model of economic progress. China as a global workshop ~ that exports, exports, and exports ~ became an exemplar of the energy born of nationalistic commercialism.

Except for those pesky Tibetans and their conniving agents abroad, it looked China had become a global brand with a single dominant story of harmony and peaceful rise. But now because these bankrupt Americans and Europeans are not buying much, many factory sites in China look like a vast wasteland. The euphoria of Asian values and uniqueness is no longer visible. China of course is not crumbling like a cookie but it is also not speeding like a shining silver bullet train.
China as an idea has to compete with others in the international marketplace of ideas. So you can never say that the battle of ideas has been finally won. For example, we did not realise that the end the Soviet Union was not the end of the battle of ideas but rather the beginning of new ones. Think of history as a dynamic landscape where the battle of ideas continues.

Some people, especially those trained in propaganda believe that all that a country needs is a new image and therefore it must re-brand itself. It is not that easy. Even a most authoritarian nation cannot control the message and its image even though it may be the sole source of information about itself. Of course you can never control the image of an open society because there are so many independent actors, institutions and corporations competing for attention.

For example, the Slumdog Millionaire image of India can never be done away. When some of my colleagues ask me as to how accurate is the portrayal of India in the movie, I say it’s a beautiful and accurate “misrepresentation” of India. But Mumbai slumgdogs are better than Mother Teresa’s hopeless downtrodden. Add to this tapestry, the millions of Indians who are using their mobile phones to become entrepreneurs; and the Tata Nano; and the rise of silicon whiz kids in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Kolkata, et al, and you have a throbbing compelling image of India.

Similarly, Hollywood, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Wal-Mart and all others contribute to the US image abroad. But now you add to this mélange the financial meltdown, increasing joblessness, and the bloody news from Afghanistan! The US image abroad is the materialisation of what the USA is doing at home and abroad.

Foreigners who see only Hollywood violent movies and video games are likely to have a distorted image of the USA. But if you bring them to university campuses, cultural centres, and workplaces, you would see the image of the USA in their minds change radically. Keeping the dynamic nature of the emergent image, it should not be difficult to understand why the public perception of the USA differs from one country to another. The image depends upon the quality and the extent of its presence and its usefulness to the host country.

Even the smartest public diplomacy campaign won’t change perceptions overnight especially when America is deeply engaged in multiple missions abroad. Events might occur beyond its control, which could further blur the image in some countries. China’s presence in the USA is huge but poor quality China-made toys, tainted pet foods and defective tyres have shattered its image of a reliable manufacturer. No amount of public relations or threat of going to WTO as it recently tried to do with India over toys would help China unless it realises that good products are manufactured by countries where the Press is free, where there is political and corporate transparency.

The always-on 24-hour global communication, blogs, instant messaging, and news cycles, make it impossible for practitioners of public relations to devise a central strategy to impose a message control, as it can be done in advertising campaigns for a product or a political candidate. In an environment of unbridled communication, you might still control the message, but you cannot control the meaning when instant alternative interpretations are available.

Each nation is different, so what works in Indonesia may not work in Pakistan. The challenge is to find the right vehicle to carry the message for a specific local audience. Public diplomats must use local leaders to champion and advance their cause and they should do so in such a manner that it makes the local people feel good while at the same time generating goodwill towards the country that is using information culture to foster goodwill. Hollywood is still the best cultural export, but US popular culture, due to proliferation of senseless violence and explicit sex, creates negative impressions in foreign audiences, in spite of the fact the world has been spending billions of dollars importing American entertainment.

The paradox is that in spite of negative feelings about American popular culture that it depicts profanity, nudity, mayhem and crime, the popularity of mass culture, even in the Islamic world, remains strong. In countries like India and the USA, corporations, educational institutions, and non-profits organisations represent most precious values such as individual initiative, innovativeness, entrepreneurship, freedom of speech, and competition. Google and Apple, for example, embody as much of what America stands for as does Hollywood.

India’s massive general election starting 16 April in which an electorate of 714 million would participate makes the idea of India very persuasive and appealing. I would rather have free and fair elections in India than a glamorous summer Olympics.

(ND Batra blogs at http://globaldiplomat.blogspot.com and teaches communications at Norwich University.)

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Song of Tagore

Thou Hast Made Me Endless

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941 AD) the Nobel Laureate of 1913 was introduced to the West primarily through the collection of English translation of some of his poems/songs captioned as ‘Gitanjali’ (=Offering of Songs).More translations of his works followed by the poet himself and others after he had won the Nobel, including poems/songs, dramas, short stories etc. However, such efforts were sporadic and sluggish, mostly on individual initiative, which still remain so.As a result, a vast volume of the poet’s works remains un-translated while, it appears, it is an impossible proposition to translate even a substantial part of the poet’s total works to permit those, not privileged by the knowledge of Bengali language, a reasonably broad view of his myriad creations where unfathomable perceptional depth of top grade aesthetics runs through, literally true to his song “Thou hast made me endless / Such is Thy pleasure”.Notwithstanding this, an upsurge of Tagore translation took place in the last decade of the twentieth century by virtue of a good number of eminent poets/translators e.g. William Radice, Joe Winter, Ketaki Kushari Dyson, to name a few, all of whom left their valuable contribution to this oeuvre and my book THE ECLIPSED SUN is a modest addition to this. I have put stress on a few aspects of the poet’s works, particularly those in his twilight years, which seemed to me quite inadequately covered so far. The followings are presented mostly based on this book. RAJAT DAS GUPTA: Calcutta: e-mail: rajatdasgupta@yahoo.com
ajarch@cal3.vsnl.net.in
Rabindra Sangeet – Songs of Rabindranath Tagore:

Translator’s note: The songs of Rabindranath Tagore are known as Rabindrasangeet which number approx. 2500. It is no exaggeration to say that Rabindrasangeet has explored every corner of human emotion and perception to give them best possible expression. Their philosophical depth also is unparalleled in the music world. It may be claimed, Rabindrasangeet has climaxed wording of the ineffable in literature of all time. Anybody not knowing Bengali definitely miss this aesthetic treasure. A translation can at best explain the central idea of a song, but cannot surface the wonderful matching of music with the original poesy so intimate with its philosophical/spiritual canvas. Unfortunately, therefore, the best of Rabindrasangeet, with all its humanistic appeal of highest order, will remain confined within the Bengali circle. It may be possible, some highly talented musicians endowed with literary command also, will emerge with versions of Rabindrasangeet in other languages, equally appealing. Such experiment in Hindi has not been disappointing and has gained popularity. Hindi is of course quite close to Bengali which must have been a contributory factor to such success. But the Western languages are likely to pose insurmountable challenge to any such effort. While hoping that some highly talented musicians will some day perform this magic of perfect cloning of Rabindrasangeet even in the Western languages, a sensible suggestion in the meantime appears to be to keep its translation handy while the Westerners (and in general all not having access to Bengali) will give their ear to the original Bengali song and try to perceive its import. Those knowing Bengali can only sympathize those not so privileged for such a plight in their struggle to enjoy a song! Below appears translations of some Rabindrasangeets, with a few initial lines of the original Bengali given in Roman script to enable the listeners to relate the translation to the song.

Ganer bhitar diye jakhan dekhi bhubankhani
Takhan tare chini ami, takhan tare jani
……………………………………….

[Note: Music of highest aesthetics and philosophical values starting from the Vedic hymns down to folksongs inundate the Poet’s university Viswa-Bharati at Santiniketan. The Poet’s own songs Rabindrasangeets, approx. 2500 in number, have freely drawn from India’s and also from West’s various musical traditions which gift us a new look to the world for our deepest perception of the creative wonder behind it. Maybe, the few songs translated here will give one glimpse of it, though not having access to the original Rabindrasangeets due to linguistic barrier.]

Through music the world as I see,
I know it, reveals its intimacy.
Language of its light
Fills sky in loving delight;
Its dust speaks the innate
Divine words ultimate;
Ceases to be external
In my soul melodies to spell;
On its grass
My heart’s throbs pass;
Beauty shapes up, flows the nectar
My own bounds to blur;
With all then I see
My camaraderie.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Amader Shantiniketan, Se je sabar hote apan,
Tar akash bhara kole, moder dole hriday dole
…………………………………………….

[Note: In various celebrations/functions of Santiniketan, the University of the Poet, this song is sung in chorus. Is there a better paean for any institution anywhere in the world?]

Our Santiniketan,
She is our very own;
Lapping our heart
Her sky rocks it to spurt
To see her novel again
In our renewed vein.
The rows of her trees
Our frolic in the field sprees;
Affection of the blue above
Dawn to dusk showers love.
In the shades of our Shawl trees
Music from the wood conveys the breeze.
The Amlaki (*) bowers gay *
With dancing leaves play.
Where we ramble for pleasure,
That never eludes from us far.
In our mind the Sitar (**) of love **
Is tuned to put us hand in glove
With my brothers
Who are one with me and others.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
(*) tree (**) musical instrument

Purano sei diner katha bhulbi kire hai
O sei chokher dekha, praner katha
Se ki bhola jai.
………………………………..
…………………………………
[Note: This song as a rule is heard in the alumni associations of the educational institutions of Bengal when old mates meet after a long time gap after they have left their Alma Mater. There could not be a better outlet of their emotions at that moment than this song. Of course, this song is not the exclusive preserve for the alumni and may be appropriately used in similar other get together]

Will you forget that yore,
Our sighting then and heart’s talk that still lure;
O mate, come once more,
To my heart’s core;
Let’s talk our weal and woe
To quench our soul parched so.

At dawn we plucked flower,
Cradled in our bower,
Played flute under the Bakul tree
And sang in musical spree.
In between was our departure –
One from the other flung far;
If we’ve met again,
Be within my heart lain.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Amra sabai raja amader eai rajar rajatwe
Naile moder rajar sane milbo ki swatte?
………………………………….
………………………………….
[Note: In God’s kingdom all his subjects are one with their King. While we are bound by His axioms, we never feel the bondage, while the human kings or even the rulers in a democracy tend to be tyrants, maybe with a difference in degree.]

We all are kings in our King’s kingdom
Else how we be one with Him on what other term?
We are arbitrary
Yet, His cravings carry,
Not bound in slave’s bondage
To fear His rage.
He gives honour to all
That bounces on Him to fall;
None is there us to stunt
With any untruth blunt;
We go on our own
To meet the path He had shown;
We won’t die
In the whirl futile.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Austrian Culture

A darker side to Austrian culture
“When I moved to Austria last September to research a book on the Fritzl case I found a flat in Vienna’s Judenplatz, where Rachel Whiteread’s imposing monument dedicated to the Jewish victims of Austrian fascism was unveiled in 2000,” says Stefanie Marsh in Times (London). Read more..

US Global Pre-eminence

Obama and emerging American values

CYBER AGE - ND Batra
From The Statesman
IN every country there is always some or the other cultural struggle going on. When the struggle becomes too fierce to be contained in civil discourse, it becomes a cultural war that is fought in the media, legislature, or even in the streets. Jihad is essentially a cultural struggle over the interpretation of what Islam means; and when some extremists believe in the absoluteness of their interpretation, they think it is righteous to use violence to impose their meaning on others. But this is not limited to Islam. Culture-driven sporadic violence occurred during Valentine’s Day in India, for example.

For a long time a cultural war has been going on in the USA over gay marriages, abortion rights and stem cell research. Americans are no less fierce in their views than are Islamists, except that they use the ballot box rather than the gun in prevailing over their opponents. Most Americans, for example, believe in the traditional concept of marriage, that it should be a union between a man and a woman; but at the same time they condemn discrimination against gay couples, according to several polls. Some states, such as my home state Vermont, have enacted civil union laws that give same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual married couples enjoy, for example, health insurance benefits.

Massachusetts has made gay marriages legal. The gay marriage battle is being fought in every state but in the course of time most states would recognise some form of civil union. The 14th Amendment’s equal protection and due process clause that was originally meant to give equal rights to blacks after the Civil War is being invoked by gay rights advocates.

Last November, Californians passed Preposition 8 that banned gay marriages, which is now being challenged in the California Supreme Court. President Barack Obama has an open mind on gay marriages, which means he will go with the flow. As a presidential candidate he promised to fight hard for equal rights for gay couples in civil unions but now, as the President, he is confronted with the 1996 Defence of Marriage Act that extends health insurance benefits only to heterosexual spouses of federal employees. And let’s recall: the invocation at the January 20 presidential inauguration for Mr Obama was delivered by the anti-gay evangelist Reverend Rick Warren. The Obama big-tent politics accommodates so many contradictions.

Though Mr Obama, like most Americans, seems to be conflicted over the equal rights protection, including the right to marry for the gay community, he is more certain about abortion rights and life-enhancing embryonic stem cell research. Deep divisions no doubt continue about when life begins and the rights of the unborn from the petri dish to the womb; nonetheless the abortion rights of American women (vide Roe v. Wade decision) are not only intact but Mr Obama has struck down the Bush Administration rule which prohibited US money from being used to fund international family planning clinics that promote and offer abortion, provide counselling or referrals about abortion services. The right to life movement nonetheless continues to be very strong in the USA but its proponents have to use some other methods of persuasion rather than depend upon the power of the White House.

Although the controversy over embryonic stem cell research, which necessitates the destruction of human embryos but holds great promises for fighting diseases, continues more or less, Mr Obama has reversed George W Bush’s policy and removed all restrictions on the use of federal money for research using embryonic stem cells. Of course, when the health care benefits arising from embryonic stem cell research are commercially exploited by the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, even the most social conservative diehard pro-lifers would pipe down their shrill criticism. Embryonic stem cell research would eventually revolutionise healthcare and disease management and has an immense potential for the pharmaceutical industry. To some extent, the marketplace drives American values, which is perhaps true of other societies also.

Americans are absolutely undivided over the value they treasure and esteem the most: the USA’s pre-eminence in the world. Nor have they lost faith in the value of free market capitalism, in spite of the crash of the financial markets. Americans want the whole world be open to them so that they could look at what is going on. Shut doors intimidate Americans. Just consider China-US relations. In spite of its high economic growth and global ambitions, much of China’s foreign exchange reserve ($727.4 billion) found its way into US treasuries. China has no choice but to keep its door ajar. Disputes over trade and Taiwan and Tibet human rights can be managed diplomatically. Last week, the US House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution asking China to restore to Tibet its human rights. China huffed and puffed and lodged a protest but the USA will not give up its moral right to speak against human rights violation. China will not be able to shut the door on Tibet even if it agrees to buy a trillion dollars more of US treasuries.

Indo-US relations have been growing. The outsourcing of technology jobs has made India a breeding ground for knowledge workers, but at the same time it is a kind of co-dependent relationship that Americans have built up with China. India is now looking for development in biotechnology, auto outsourcing, civilian space programmes and nuclear energy, ambitious plans that would require transfer of advanced technology from the USA. India cannot opt out of this soft power mutually beneficial relationship with the USA. Nor can Mr Obama deviate much from the existing co-dependent relationship, whether it is India or China.

The USA is re-establishing its global pre-eminence through the principle of dominant co-dependency, which no other great power has ever done before. This is the new emerging value in American foreign policy.

(ND Batra teaches communication and diplomacy at Norwich University.)

Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan Conundrum

Obama’s diplomatic initiative on Iran

CYBER AGE - ND Batra
From The Statesman

So far the USA’s focus has been shoring up unstable Pakistan with billions of dollars in direct aid as well as occasional bombing by drones the Taliban-controlled border region in order to stabilise Afghanistan.

The strategy is not working. Much more is needed. For example, it is being realised that ignoring Afghanistan’s historic neighbour, Iran, would not bring about lasting peace in the region.

In a new diplomatic initiative, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Iran would be invited to an international summit meeting on Afghanistan. Under the auspices of the United Nations, the Netherlands would host what Mrs Clinton called “a big-tent meeting” on 31 March. Iran’s response to the proposal has not been negative.

Unlike in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan against Al-Qaida and the Taliban is supposedly the NATO’s war, though the USA has a major commitment including 38,000 troops, while the rest of NATO has contributed 30,000 troops. President Barack Obama has decided to send another 17,000 troops by the summer, but the number would increase substantially as the US presence in Iraq decreases over the next eighteen months, according to the Obama withdrawal plan.

Since the 1979 revolution under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the toppling of the Shah and the holding of 52 American hostages for 444 days, Iran and the USA have treated each other, rhetorically at least, as mortal enemies. The diplomatic relations were broken off in 1980 after which the USA imposed trade embargo on Iran. Added to these cold war hostilities has been the Iranian support for the radical Islamic groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, which the USA regards as terrorist organisations. But what worries the USA most is Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons programme, though Iran claims that the nuclear programme is only for peaceful power generation purposes, which is hardly convincing.

At the same time, Iran cannot but realise that a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, with opium flowing freely in all directions, would not be in its best national interest. Bringing about reasonable governmental functionality and political stability to Afghanistan would make Iran’s backyard safe. Geopolitically Iran’s diplomatic face is turned towards West Asia where it would like to play its historic role and exercise its influence, though it has growing trade relations with India and China.

A failing and chaotic state like Afghanistan ruled by drug lords and the Taliban (supported by Pakistan’s ISI) would be a terrible threat for Iran. So if Iran and the USA could cooperate in Afghanistan in pursuit of their common interests, so goes the rationale, there might be some thaw in the long frozen diplomatic relations. Eventually some acceptable international solution to Iran’s so-called peaceful nuclear programme might be reached.

Iran-US relations have always been marked with complexity and opportunism since the British-US engineered coup d’état against Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq in 1953 brought Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power in Iran, who continued to rule the country authoritatively, albeit secularly, until he fled the country after the Khomeini revolution in 1979.

In 1986, the Reagan administration entered into a secret arms-for-hostage deal with Iran (through Israel) in order to get the release of American hostages held by pro-Iran militant organisation Hezbollah in Lebanon. At that time Iran was also fighting the long lingering war against Iraq under Saddam Hussein, who was ironically being supported by the USA.

During the brutal Taliban regime in Afghanistan (1996-2001), Iran supported the Northern Alliance, which after the 9/11 terrorist attacks became a US-NATO ally in the fight against the Taliban. Perhaps the US-Iran relations might have improved but in January 2002 President George W Bush in his messianic zeal clubbed Iran with other countries that formed “an axis of evil,” accusing it of clandestinely working on nuclear weapons.

The coming of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power as Iran’s president ~ with his rhetoric of Holocaust denial and a bizarre vision of a West Asia without Israel ~ further aggravated the relations. Nonetheless, Mr Obama in his new approach to global diplomacy expressed his willingness to talk with Iran, if it “unclenched its fist”.

The important point to keep in mind is that Americans are seldom shy of discarding dysfunctional political principle; rather they are eager to find new diplomatic ways to seek a workable solution to a difficult international problem. Consider this: Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 normalised relations between the two most ideologically extreme countries, which eventually hastened the end of the Vietnam war.

No principle is more sacred to Americans than their paramount national interests. Today the Obama administration is determined to stabilise Afghanistan by eliminating the Taliban and Al- Qaida regardless of the cost because Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, presents an existential threat to the USA.

So it may be necessary to develop working diplomatic relations with Iran whatever the carrot and stick strategy is needed. Although our attention is drawn to Afghanistan-Pakistan badlands that provide sanctuary to Islamic militants, Afghanistan’s trade relations with Iran have been flourishing since the overthrow of the Taliban. The new road network, one built by Iran that connects Herat to the Iranian border and the other built by India that gives Afghanistan access to the Iranian port of Chah Bahar and the Arabian Sea, has substantially enhanced trade between the two countries. This could be the beginning of the US-Iran cooperation for stabilising Afghanistan. Pakistan is the only problem for Afghanistan. “The whole question about Afghanistan and Pakistan is one that we’ve given a great deal of thought to,” Mrs Clinton said in Brussels after the NATO foreign ministers meeting, according Reuters. “It is clear that the border areas between the two countries are the real locus of a lot of the extremist activity. It’s becoming obvious that Pakistan faces very serious internal threats, and that Afghanistan faces continuing external threats that emanate out of Pakistan.”

So the biggest challenge for Mr Obama is to explore what would work in Pakistan, a country that gives the nightmarish impression that neither President Asif Ali Zardari nor the all-powerful Army (including ISI) is in complete control of the whole country, considering what happened in Swat.

Building bridges between Iran and the USA might be a challenging diplomatic role for India for which the rewards will be immense.

(ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University)

Bansi: Tagore

Bansi (Flute)
Parishesh (The End)
1932

Rabindranath Tagore, (1861 AD to 1941 AD) Nobel Laureate of 1913.

Translator: RAJAT DAS GUPTA, Calcutta
rajatdasgupta@yahoo.com & rajarch@cal3.vsnl.net.in
‘Phone: 91 33 2571 3699 & (M) 9874135773

[Translator’s note: Many take Tagore as an aristocrat who was by succession a Zemindar (=landlord), away from the hard realities faced by the common people close to the poverty line. This poem negates this idea and shows his deep insight into the tragedy of the deprived class of the society. Those who think that his sympathy for the poor was a poetic luxury, will be well advised to visit particularly Sriniketan, close to Santiniketan, where his Visva Bharati University situates, for a glimpse of the fantastic work he did for development of rural economy by way of promotion of vocational training on various crafts side by side with his mass educational programmes within all the constraints of his time. This may be convincing that he was not a ‘ivory tower’ poet.]

At Kinu Milkman’s Lane
I stay quite to my bane
In a building two storied,
On the ground floor the gate is grilled;
In my room wayside
Walls eroded, do not hide
Their brickwork, with sand shed
Here and there, and graffiti of damp displayed.
A portrait of Lord Ganesh
On a canvas no way fresh,
Who helps us achieve a score
Or so supposed, is fixed on the door.
Besides me, another creature
There, on the same rent, does feature;
A lizard it is;
Difference, it gets its meal more at ease.

A junior clerk at a merchant office,
My salary twenty five rupees.
With their son’s tuition blessed,
At Datta’s my meal is dished.
At Sealdah station
I spend the evenings for no emotion,
But to save the cost of light;
Bear with the engines’ sibilant or such plight,
As they whistle, the passengers’ hurry,
And the porters’ scurry.
Ten thirty as the clock will show,
To my dark recess I’ll go.

Lives in a village my auntie
By the river Dhaleswari;
Daughter of her brother-in-law,
The hour was without flaw
For her wed with this destitute
That auntie planned astute.
Indeed the hour brought luck
As judged by the almanac;
That very hour I did abscond;
Thus the lass eluded my bond;
And I backed to square one
Her passage to my abode to shun
To my dismay;
Though she visits my mind every day
Clad in a Dhakai Sari
Forehead with vermillion smeary.

At the thick of monsoon,
Again, no way a boon,
Cost rises for tram ride
With salary cuts by its side;
The nabs of the street
Mango skin, fish fins, kitten corpse et al greet
To pile and ferment
Their pungency to vent.
The umbrella with many a hole
As my fined salary, meets no goal.

Attired for the office,
Gopikanta Gonsai still does not miss
His sense of humour
From which I’m far.
The dark of the rainy day
Makes its way
Into my damp room
To trap me in a morbid doom,
With a world in limbo
As days and nights go.

At the turn of the lane
Stays Kantababu who would fain
To dress his long hair,
Posh, his round eyes stare –
Plays cornet as his hobby
In the loath of this lane shabby;
At times at dead of night
Or at dawn’s twilight;
Even in the light and shade
As in the afternoon the day will fade;

Or of a sudden in the evening
Sindhu Baroan (*) would spring (* an Indian Raga)
To flood the whole sky
With eternal separational sigh,
At once it is obvious,
This lane is a falsity enormous;
Like the drunk’s rigmarole –
Suddenly the message does unroll –
Between Akbar Badsha and Haripada clerk
Stands no dividing mark.
The music’s compassion
To the same utopia leads on.
The bruised umbrella and the royal one
Both for the same fate done.

Where this music holds true
In the eternal dusk that never knew
A break in the flow
Of Dhaleswari, and waits so
One at the yard,
That the river’s shore neared,
By the Tamals (*1) shaded deep;
She, through her veil keeps peep
Clad in Dhakai Sari
Forehead with vermillion smeary. (*2)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
(*1 A type of Indian tree)
(*2 As per Bengali ritual the Bridegroom smears
the forehead of the Bride with vermillion at the nuptial hour.)

Obama: Give Me A Lever Long Enough...

Only if the market would listen!

From The Statesman
CYBER AGE - ND Batra

President Barack Obama does not believe in taking small steps for mankind or the American people. He has been saying repeatedly that he will rebuild and renew America, whatever it takes.

“Now is the time to act boldly and wisely to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity,” he said addressing the joint session of Congress last Tuesday. Democrats cheered, as did most of the American people. Republicans were sullen. More energised today than he ever was during his long grueling presidential campaign, Mr Obama has seized the economic crisis as a God-sent opportunity to bring about fundamental changes in American society. His budget would usher in an era of universal healthcare covering the 47 million uninsured; make higher education accessible to every American through enhanced Pell Grants; and build cleaner energy by capping carbon levels and auctioning permits for greenhouse gases emissions that would raise billions of dollars. His tax plan would build an economy that lifts the bottom up rather than let wealth drip down from the rich to the poor ~ all this and much more for a handful of (trillion) dollars of governmental spending. Will it work? Where will the money come from?

Mr Obama reminds me of an optimistic and pragmatic international businessman from South Africa who said, “There is never enough money lying around to do a job… but money is never a problem. Money is a consequence of your activity.” So what is a few trillion dollars for a country whose minor hiccup causes a global earthquake? By pulling up the United States from the economic quagmire, the result of its profligate ways, Mr Obama might also save rest of the world from economic chaos and the consequent political instabilities. Weak states from Pakistan to Mexico threaten the peace; and breed terrorism, the jihadist and the narco.

Archimedes, mathematician and inventor of ancient Greece, said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” Mr Obama wants to turn the hypothetical into a new economic reality. With his $ 3.6 trillion budget proposal Mr Obama not only plans to revive ~ pardon the change of metaphor ~ the etherealised patient lying motionless on the table but also wants to make him a global front runner once again. Embodying the spirit of American exceptionalism, he says he can do it and he will do it. Mr. Obama thinks boldly and walks tall and dwarfs all uppity comers. With Democratic majority in the House as well as the Senate, and his popularity stratospheric after the address to Congress, Mr Obama will most likely succeed in having his multi trillion dollar budget passed. But the global financial and economic system, albeit dominated and beaten by the United States, is not a mechanical system that could be moved by an American (Archimedean) lever-fulcrum. The global marketplace is a complex dynamic system always on the verge of disequilibrium, and chaos.

Before Mr Obama took office six weeks ago, the Bush administration had already infused $350 of the $700 billion Congress had sanctioned to strengthened the financial institutions; but the system did not move. The bail out money disappeared like sand through the hourglass. A couple of weeks ago Congress approved the Obama stimulus package for $787 billion but Wall Street fell into deeper depression. Nevertheless, Mr. Obama is not giving up. His rhetoric is awe inspiring. “Even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency and a determination that perseveres, a willingness to take responsibility for our future and for posterity,” he told Congress. His opinion polls looked up.

His budget proposal is more than an economic revival plan. Republicans say that it has a subversive agenda, and to the shocking dismay and puzzlement of most Americans, some Republican governors have decided not to partake in the Obama massive stimulus package. For Democrats, it is a break from the past, a great paradigm shift, a fundamental change in thinking about the role of the government in people’s lives, a profound ideological transformation of the United States that would impact the world. There is no substitute for a good government, Mr. Obama asserts. The budget blueprint is a warning to the American people that the present economic crisis is “neither the result of a normal turn of the business cycle nor an accident of history. We arrived at this point as a result of an era of profound irresponsibility that engulfed both private and public institutions from some of our largest companies’ executive suites to the seats of power in Washington, D.C.” He knew what he was getting into when he chanted from coast to coast, Yes We Can.

Mr Obama believes that the function of the government is to lead and become the solution to the people’s problems. This is a total reversal of what Ronald Reagan, a most admired Republican US president, said in his inaugural that the “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Like President Reagan, Mr. Obama is a great communicator and has the ability to touch people across all strata of society; nonetheless, his political philosophy of governance is totally different. By lifting people from bottom up, where most African-Americans are situated, Mr Obama believes that the whole country could rise again. Only if the marketplace with its own stubborn mind and incomprehensible logic would listen to Mr Obama’s messianic rhetoric!

(ND Batra blogs at http://globaldiplomat.blogspot.com and teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University)

A Tale of Two Anthems

By Rajat Das Gupta

[Courtesy- Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Gol Park, Kolkata 700 029, INDIA- published in their monthly bulletin of May 2007 issue]

In early 2003 ‘Vande Mataram’ was declared to be the second most popular national anthem, the topmost being the Irish one. The news was first broadcast by the BBC World Service Radio, which really bewildered those who are habituated to listening it in the morning. While the thunderous ‘Vande Mataram’ call used to send shivers down the spine of the British in the Raj days, are they themselves now broadcasting this news! Were they really tuned to the BBC? Yes, they had to rub their ears to ensure that.
To look back, the song was composed around 1875 by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the pioneer of modern Bengali literature. It was later inserted into his novel ‘Anandamath’ in1882 where it became a war cry for the crusading Vaishnavite monks in the famine afflicted Bengal against the backdrop of the dwindling Nawab dynasty and the rising British power in the 18th century. Later it became the war cry of the revolutionaries, both violent and non-violent, rising against the British Raj for independence of India. Thousands went to the gallows voicing this patriotic song which was a major motivating force at that time for the freedom struggle of India. It goes with the compliment- “The greatest and most enduring gift of the Swadeshi movement was ‘Vande Matram’, the uncrowned national anthem” (The Cambridge History of India, Vol: IV, p. 608- courtesy, website TUHL Indian / Hinduism Home Page. The status eventually given to it is ‘national song’ as has been elaborated below). However, nothing can depict the spirit of ‘Vande Matram’ better than the following song of Tagore- ‘Ek sutre bandhiachi sahasrati mon / Ek karye sampiachi, sahasra jiban…/ Vande Matram…’- which, even in my inept translation does not possibly lose all its fervour:

In one string we stitch
Many a thousand mind to pitch;
In one mission we devote
On the divine hymn to float-
‘Vande Matram’ (=Hail Mother / Motherland)
Amidst disastrous storm,
Facing many a hurdle
Our daring heart will not fail;
‘Vande Matram’ –
Undaunted by fright’s myriad form,
Hurricane violent, sea in billow
Will not put us low,
Many a million wave
We’ll brave;
This life ephemeral
We’ll not care to bail;
Yet will remain unsnapped,
The solemnity that us trapped-
‘Vande Matram’
To dispel our hibernation.

‘Vande Matram’ drew attention of the Indian National Congress since the beginning. In its annual conference held in Calcutta in 1896, the song was sung and was tuned by Tagore and later on by several others. Again, in its annual conference in 1905, it was accepted as our national anthem.
As it should be obvious from the reference in the song itself to a population of 7 crore (=70 million, as determined by the census of 1881 to be the strength of Bengalis, including the Muslims, in the eastern part of the country), ‘Vande Matram’ speaks more of ‘Mother Bengal’ rather than the whole of India. Yet, its appeal transcended this narrow geographical concept surfacing in its original wordings obviously because ‘Mother Bengal’ has been identified here with the Goddess Durga who is an inspiration to all Hindus where no regionalism stands. Besides, the 7 crore was edited to 30 crore around 1905 (the then Indian population) by those concerned with the song to extrapolate it in the new national scenario. Now, as the original 7 crore included the Muslims (so does the figure 30 crore) also living in the then Bengal, the song itself may be absolved of the charge of communal bias, particularly when it boosted our nationalistic spirit sweeping away all our narrowness. It is a different matter that the song was voiced by the crusading monks who stood against the misrule of the then Muslim Nawabs of Bengal. Eventually, they also had preferred British rule to the Nawabs’, not to swap Islam for Christianity, but to hail good governance to replace the wobbly one. Again, the narrow geographical concept of Bengal, as found in the ‘Anandamath’, should not disqualify the song as a national anthem of India. It would be ridiculous to presume that Bhabananda, the monk character in the novel, indulged in a nationalistic megalomania by inflating 7 crore to 30 crore or so. It appears, Bankim figured his song quite discreetly to fit it well into the plot of his novel. This aside, the fact is, India was never a ‘nation’ in the Western sense before the advent of the British rule which, along with its gradual expansion to the rest of India, starting from Bengal, with atrocity and Western enlightenment also as its integral part, fuelled our nationalistic sentiment. To criticize the original format of ‘Vande Matram’ on the ground of regionalism is to miss this historical relevance in which context, its said extrapolation to our modern national psyche has been only judicious, without diluting its original core inspiration in the enlarged horizon.

Fundamentalist viewpoint

Nevertheless, religious fundamentalism raised its head and some Muslim clerics and politicians (irrespective of religion) argued that as this anthem indulged in deity worship, it was against the spirit of Islam and was therefore unacceptable to its followers. A compromise was then arrived at by accepting only the first two stanzas (vide website TUHL Indian / Hinduism Home page) of the song as our national anthem editing therein the said 7 crore to 30 crore, and where Goddess Durga also does not occur. Notwithstanding this, the ghost of ‘deity worship’, if not regionalism also, ambushes even to-day to mar the true spirit of the song to the extent that has been accepted as our anthem. While I fail to be overwhelmed by the wisdom of such zealots, I also fail to appreciate the highhandedness of the Govt. trying to impose this song on our various institutions in 2006, on the occasion of its being the centenary year, as our national anthem. After all, a song is an aesthetic creation and should be left to the judgment of one’s finer faculties.
Rabindranath Tagore composed ‘Jana gana mano…’ sometime in 1911 which was officially accepted as the national anthem of independent India. Since then, in an attempt to distinguish it from ‘Vande Mataram’, the latter is often referred to as ‘national song’ while the former as the ‘national anthem’. However, this hardly affected the appeal of any of these songs. It may be noted that in case of ‘Jana gano mano’ also only the first two stanzas out of five have been accepted as our national anthem.
Now, while ‘religion’ was the bone of contention in the anti- ‘Vande Mataram’ tirade, the aim of invectives against ‘Jano gano mono’ was Tagore’s alleged sycophancy of King George V who had visited India in 1911, which happens to be the year of composition of the song too that provided scope for such calumny. However, Tagore himself denied such allegation and I never could find any details as to who felicitated George V with this song, if at all he was, and who were the organizers and if at all Tagore himself was involved in it. Yet, it may be speculated if Tagore tried to entice the King to draw his support for some international accolade for him, say, the Nobel. There also, facts in no way involve the King. It was Rothenstein, a British scholar, who was a great admirer of Tagore’s nephew Abanindranath, a renowned artist. He came to ‘Thakurbari’, the ancestral house of Tagore family, to meet the artist. In the gathering Rabindranath was present and his beaming personality attracted Rothenstein who learnt from Abanindranath that Rabindranath was a poet. This took place around 1911. However, Rothenstein gradually felt the pull of Rabindranath and talked highly about him to the British poets / scholars of that time. Now, I quote Tagore’s own words from Maitrayee Devi’s book ‘Mangpute Rabindranath’ (=Rabindranath in Mangpu, near Darjeeling which was the workplace of her husband), translated with the title ‘Tagore By Fireside’ by the authoress herself. The poet said to her:

“When I first started translating them (poems of Gitanjali, on which basis he was awarded the Nobel) into English, I never thought they would be readable. Many have insinuated that Andrews was doing it for me. Poor Andrews felt sorry and ashamed. When Yeats arranged a meeting of distinguished people at Rothenstein’s house, I cannot tell you how embarrassed I felt. Yeats would not listen to me. He was undaunted. A galaxy of people came. Gitanjali was read. They never said a word. They listened in silence and in silence they left- no criticism, no approbation, no favourable remark, no encouraging comment. Blushing in shame and disgrace, I wished the Earth would have opened and swallowed me. Why did I ever listen to Yeats? How could I write English, had I ever learnt it? I was filled with remorse, I could not raise my head. Next day letters started coming, they flooded in, overwhelming with enthusiasm. Everyone wrote. Then I realized they were so moved that evening that they dared not talk. English people are reserved, it is their nature. It was not possible for them to express their feelings at once. What a surprise it was, unexpected and unimaginable. Friend Yeats was pleased.”

The event took place in 1912 on 30 June or in early July. It is this group of scholars / poets who had recommended Tagore’s name to the Nobel Committee in Sweden. However, I badly miss King George V in the entire episode!
Other relevant facts are that Tagore gave underhand support to the then ‘terrorists’ who had fought for India’s freedom and was a suspect of the British Government. His novel ‘Char Addhaya’ (=Four Chapters) on this theme of terrorism proves this.
Secondly, Tagore’s dialogue with Maitrayee Devi may again be quoted in respect of his renouncing his Knighthood in protest against the Jalianwallabag carnage by the British police in 1919. Tagore said: ‘They (British people) took it as a great insult. In England people are very loyal. So, this disavowal of the King did hurt them very much…..’
Again, Tagore himself led some of the processions on the Calcutta roads in protest against the partition of Bengal by Curzon singing in chorus with thousands of his followers ‘Amar sonar Bangla, ami tomay bhalobasi / Chirokal tomar akash, tomar batash amar prane bajay bansi’ (=Oh my golden Bengal, I love Thee / Thy azure, Thy breeze play flute forever in me). Eventually, the British Government was forced to redress the partition on that occasion. Now, how are these compatible with the story of Tagore’s sycophancy of George V as had been spun?
All these razzamatazz was due to our fiddling with the truncated first two stanzas of the song adopted as our national anthem, overlooking the rest of it as if that did not matter in determining the real intent of the poet. But some people are not cursory like a learned correspondent, who highlighted the penultimate stanza of the song in his letter to the Editor of a Calcutta daily (The Statesman) published on 15 September 2006. There is a line in that stanza- ‘Duhsvapne atanke raksha korile anke snehamoyee Mata.’ This, according to the faithful translation of the correspondent, comes to- ‘O affectionate Mother! You have protected me so long in your lap from all nightmarish terror’. Now, the correspondent leaves the question to us if George V would like to be addressed as ‘Affectionate Mother’! My conviction is, such effeminacy would be a contempt of the top royal personality (a male at that time!) and Tagore would instantly find himself behind the bar for this offence, which he never did! Hopefully, this hits the last nail in the coffin of the ‘sycophancy thesis’. However, it may be wiser no to escalate this point further as nothing stops one from arguing that ‘Mata’ in this song smacks of ‘deity worship’ for which its forerunner ‘Vande Mataram’ was put on the dock.
Yet, some highly relevant points need stress. Even a dunce cannot miss that the ‘Eternal Charioteer’ in the third stanza of the song leading ‘the travelers through ages along the ups and downs of the rugged path resonant with His chariot wheels’ could not be a flesh and blood entity, but a spiritual one illuminating India’s people over millenniums aiming proliferation of peace, benignity, welfare and harmony among humanity across the world not ‘fragmented by parochial walls’. This internationalism that Tagore evinced since the late 19th century, as opposed to the politico-commercial noises we hear nowadays in the name of ‘globalization’, manifests again in the second stanza of the song- ‘East and West come / By the side of Thy throne…’. Of course, ‘throne’ smacks of a ‘king’ and the sleuths in their relentless effort to detect George V here may jump up to cry ‘Eureka!’ We should be content only with our envy for them for the extra grey matter they are endowed with. Now, leaving the sleuths aside, we may further observe that no other national anthem thus looks beyond its concerned national boundary and ego, not even our ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Sare Jahanse Acchha’ (by Iqbal), all of which are myopic in their eulogy for a certain population within a geographical limit. Such international overtone flashes in a large number of poems /songs of Tagore, including patriotic ones, a widely quoted one being- ‘Where mind is without fear…’.
All these, by no means acquit ‘Jana Gana Mano’. In early 21st century a legal petition was moved to drop the word ‘Sindhu’ from the text of the song as Sind is no more a part of India after its partition. The Supreme Court, however, gave its verdict against the petition.
These two anthems, much pilloried for decades, however, still retain their charisma and dignity due to their great intrinsic values. All invectives against these have undergone thorough scrutiny of highly eminent and knowledgeable persons many times and nullified also, after which these should have become non-issues long before. One may wonder, why they have not! We have already observed above that it is the British who had forged ‘nationalism’ in India, not an unmixed blessing though, but it heightened our best human qualities like patriotism, courage, determination, self-sacrifice, foresight, etc., whereas, after Independence, with our earlier trials and tribulations gone, our evil propensities are surfacing. Our long persisting tangle on this non-issue is only a symptom of the forces which are fast disintegrating our nation, if not pushing us to the pre-British days. In fact, history never records an anthem which had united as well as divided a nation at different points of time more that this duo.
___________________________________________________ Rajat Das Gupta is the author of a few books including ‘The Eclipsed Sun’, a translation of Tagore’s poems and songs.

Buy America, Lose the World

Can we go back to the future?

CYBER AGE - ND Batra
From The Statesman

Creating hope for the hopeless, saving home for the homeless, that’s what President Barrack Obama has been doing during his first month in the White House. He is keeping America thinking and moving in a new direction, diplomatically, economically and culturally. Americans are economically down, but underneath the pall of gloom there is quiet confidence, especially among the die-hard optimists, that the country would get out of the slump, albeit gradually; but as it does, it would be a renewed and re-organised America, though no one knows what it will be like. Never has the future been so raw, so uncertain. To have his $787 billion stimulus package passed by Congress, Mr Obama logged thousands of miles for face to face, town hall to town hall, meetings with the people who have been adversely affected by the recession and also reached millions of others through his blogs and social networking. It is his way of bypassing the gatekeepers and power-brokers and bringing the American people directly into what is happening in Washington DC.

His political style is closer to that of Ronald Reagan and Franklin D Roosevelt, which means reaching out to people for support for his political and economic programmes. No one can underestimate the political capital he built during his masterful presidential campaign using all forms of persuasion, rhetorical and technological. But what is its worth if it cannot be used?

After much haggling, Democratic majority Congress passed the package, however, without the bipartisan support Mr Obama had been asking for; which of course was a great disappointment. So the President has been trying to transcend the divided Congress by going directly to the constituents who could put pressure on their elected leaders.

No sensible politician or economist is against the need to stimulate the economy; but Republicans want to manipulate a different set of economic levers in order to first stop the downward spiral and secondly to pull up the economy. The Republican stimulus emphasis is upon major tax cuts so that American businesses and investors could re-invest to fuel the economy. They argue that the Obama stimulus plan will lead to wasteful pork-barrel spending rather than trigger long turn growth of the economy.

Economists don’t agree whether tax cuts or spending creates more jobs. But since the stimulus package includes both tax cuts and spending, the impact on the economy could be substantial unless there are other factors that we don’t understand. One of the provisions of the package is that a family earning up to $150,000 a year will get $800 tax credit. But if this amount is given to a family as a lump sum, the amount might go into its saving account with no impact upon the economy. That is what happened with the Bush stimulus packages. The Obama package gives Americans money back in their weekly, biweekly or monthly paychecks. If a family gets $16 extra in its weekly paycheck, the amount is more likely to be spent rather than go into a saving account. The increased consumer spending, little by little, week by week, will have tremendous multiplier effect upon the economy. That’s how some smart economists argue, but can you trust any economic theory today?

To my simple mind it seems that like stars in heaven, the marketplace is another universe and our learned economists with their computer-generated mathematical models are no different from our astrologers with their heavenly charts. No wonder Mr Obama has been careful in raising any excessive hope of a quick recovery. As he said, this is a step in the right direction to “set our economy on a firmer foundation.” Unfortunately the market, which seems like a parallel universe running on its inscrutable logic, has not been listening to his hum-ho rhetoric of hope and change. Dow plunged again and again, and one does not know where the bottom is. Another stimulus might be needed, depending upon the progress. “Nor does it constitute all of what we have to do to turn our economy around,” Mr Obama cautioned at the time of the signing ceremony, which took place in Denver, Colorado, far from the maddening crowd of Washington. “But today does mark the beginning of the end, the beginning of what we need to do to create jobs for Americans scrambling in the way of layoffs.”

Mr Obama’s plan aims to create 3.5 million jobs for the next two years, though the most urgent need today is stopping job losses that are occurring daily. Last month alone, 598,000 Americans lost their jobs. Since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, total job loss has been 3.6 millions. More painful is the fact that half of these jobs vanished during the last three months, according to the US Department of Labour. The package includes financial aid for first-time home-buyers and those who are struggling to pay their mortgages and facing foreclosures. But with the threat of unemployment looming over everyone’s head, incentives to buy homes or keep paying for homes whose value has plunged may not work to the extent they are supposed to work. It may be the beginning of the end of the recession as Mr Obama hopes, but how long will it take before we go back to where we were two years ago? Or with the prospects of bank nationalisation and creeping “Buy America” to keep jobs at home sentiments, will this be the end of free market capitalism and globalisation as we know it?

(ND Batra is professor of communications at Norwich University)

Cyber Age

Columns published in The Statesman 2001-2008

Can India rebuild global trust?

Section: Perspective Date:Feb 04,2009The challenge of Satyam is the challenge for a rising economy, a rising nation that wants to play a global role: how to go beyond the trust based on family ties, old boys’ network, caste and religion, especially in a diversified and multicultural world…

Matrix of smart power
Section: Perspective Date:Jan 28,2009CYBER AGE - ND Batra The Obama administration is orchestrating its foreign policy in a new key, one based not on any political ideology such as the mission of spreading of democracy as the Bush administration attempted halfheartedly, but one based on …

View from the top
Section: Perspective Date:Jan 21,2009CYBER AGE - ND Batra This is how the United States of America or any civilised nation ought always to be: A nation where its people will “not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character”. These words of Martin Luther King

Salvaging Satyam
Section: Perspective Date:Jan 14,2009CYBER AGE - ND Batra Is Satyam Computer Services Ltd, India’s fourth largest information technology company that specialises in business software and back-office services, too important to be allowed to fail? What kind of rescue does it need? Can India
Afghanistan and the new military doctrine
Section: Perspective Date:Jan 07,2009CYBER AGE - ND Batra It is unthinkable that President-elect Barack Obama would give up on the historic legacy of the US as the most decisive and responsible global power in spite of the rise of others, for example, aspirant China and resurgent Russia.
Will 2009 be the year of China or the USA?
Section: Perspective Date:Dec 31,2008This may be a defining year for both China and the US. Both are in trouble. The US is in recession. China’s export-driven economy has slowed down significantly. How each one comes out of the trouble will determine its future. The US cannot keep borrowing
Corruption in India is a form of terrorism
Section: Perspective Date:Dec 24,2008CYBER AGE - ND Batra Economic growth averaging 8.5 per cent during the last five years made us forget about corruption and crime in India. So it was very refreshing to read what former President APJ Abdul Kalam said recently. “My message to you is this:
Fighting terror is not for wimps
Section: Perspective Date:Dec 17,2008CYBER AGE - ND Batra Mr KPS Gill, a most highly regarded former policeman, told the Ladies Study Group in Kolkata last Thursday (11 December): “If 10 terrorists can hold the entire city of Mumbai to ransom for three whole days, I must admit that whoever
Securing India day and night
Section: Perspective Date:Dec 10,2008Cyber Age - ND Batra As soon as he assumed his new role as a terrorist czar, Mr Palaniappan Chidambaram, India’s new home minister, assured the people that “we will respond with determination and resolve to the grave threat posed to the Indian nation”.

Give India weapons of self-protection
Section: Perspective Date:Dec 03,2008CYBER AGE - ND Batra
India needs weapons of mass self-protection, not the false sense of security of regionalism as is being proposed in some quarters. Mr Ahmed Rashid, the renowned Pakistani journalist and author, dumps the entire region extending from....

What business schools need to do
Section: Perspective Date:Nov 26,2008CYBER AGE - ND Batra

Business schools emphasise quantitative analysis and sophisticated computer modelling as if real life in the street could be enclosed in a Gaussian Bell Curve and events could be predicted within margins of error. But modern tools of
Downtown America is downturning
Section: Perspective Date:Nov 19,2008Cyber age - ND Batra
We are heading toward a long weekend of vacation when millions of Americans will travel by trains, planes and automobiles to share with family and friends the joys of a Thanksgiving meal of roasted turkey with stuffing and cranberry
The flight of the black swan
Section: Perspective Date:Nov 12,2008
The whole world is waiting for President-elect Barack Obama, one of the most inspiring orators of modern times, to hear what he will say to the American people, now in deep economic distress, as he enters the White House on 20 January 2009. Perhaps no one
Everyman America too needs a bailout Section: Perspective Date:Nov 05,2008Joe the Plumber, America’s Everyman fictionalised and popularised by both Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama during their fiercely contested presidential elections, cannot pay his credit card bills. After the elections, he will be forgotten but
Everyman America too needs a bailout Section: Perspective Date:Nov 05,2008CYBER AGE - ND BATRA Joe the Plumber, America’s Everyman fictionalised and popularised by both Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama during their fiercely contested presidential elections, cannot pay his credit card bills. After the elections, he
Everyman America too needs a bailout Section: Perspective Date:Nov 05,2008Joe the Plumber, America’s Everyman fictionalised and popularised by both Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama during their fiercely contested presidential elections, cannot pay his credit card bills. After the elections, he will be forgotten but
A world beyond our control Section: Perspective Date:Oct 29,2008CYBER AGE ND BATRA The idea that markets are always right was a mad idea. ~ President Nickolas Sarkozy of France It seems the words of comfort or condemnation by world leaders do not mean much to the financial world. The two-day Europe-Asia heads of t
Random thoughts on the prospects of post-Bush USSection: Perspective Date:Oct 16,2008The present global financial crisis that threatens to undo decades of economic growth has made it crystal clear that the US alone cannot set the world right. To lead the world, since it is still the only power that can play that role and is willing to do
Random thoughts on the prospects of post-Bush USSection: Perspective Date:Oct 15,2008The present global financial crisis that threatens to undo decades of economic growth has made it crystal clear that the US alone cannot set the world right. To lead the world, since it is still the only power that can play that role and is willing to do
Heavenly and earthly seductionsSection: Perspective Date:Oct 01,2008Is militant Islam creating psychological conditions under which a person’s desires and dreams become compelling needs? According to psychologist Abraham Maslow, there is a hierarchy of five primal needs that drive human beings to action to seek satisfact
Spotlight on healthcare workers’ safetySection: India Date:Sep 29,2008Ajita Singh NEW DELHI, Sept. 28: The safety of health workers is becoming an area of concern with increased dependence on invasive techniques for healthcare delivery, diagnosis as well as medical treatment. Though healthcare workers’ safety has rarely b
Spotlight on healthcare workers’ safetySection: India Date:Sep 29,2008Ajita Singh NEW DELHI, Sept. 28: The safety of health workers is becoming an area of concern with increased dependence on invasive techniques for healthcare delivery, diagnosis as well as medical treatment. Though healthcare workers’ safety has rarely b
Surviving the financial tsunamiSection: Perspective Date:Sep 24,2008What will be US President George W Bush’s legacy to the world: an unfinished war on terrorism and global financial meltdown? In a subdued voice all that he could say initially was: “The American people are concerned about the situation in our financial ma
Surviving the financial tsunamiSection: Perspective Date:Sep 24,2008What will be US President George W Bush’s legacy to the world: an unfinished war on terrorism and global financial meltdown? In a subdued voice all that he could say initially was: “The American people are concerned about the situation in our financial ma
The US is a nation divided for good reasons Section: Perspective Date:Sep 17,2008The American people observed the seventh anniversary of the 11 September terrorists’ attacks under the patriotic triangulation of God, the USA and Terrorism. The triangulation, the equivalent of space-age global positioning systems, enables the American p
NSG waiver: This day will live in glory for IndiaSection: Perspective Date:Sep 10,2008If you had any doubt about the global power and reach of the US diplomacy, you should ponder the one-off waiver that the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) gave in connection with the India-US nuclear deal in Vienna on Friday. The NSG was established in 1974 a
Letters To The EditorSection: Editorial Date:Sep 03,2008Move to paint Orissa as a rogue state lacks objectivity Sir, ~ The reaction in the western world as reflected in its media and voiced by the Vatican to the Kandhamal violence does not take into account the full picture. There was a cause and effect si
Deconstructing Arundhati Roy and her tribeSection: Perspective Date:Sep 03,2008Ms Arundhati Roy, writing in The Guardian (UK) about the trouble in Kashmir, makes an interesting self-observation, with an aura of exceptionalism, saying, “For someone like me, who is not a Muslim”, the Islamic idea of freedom is hard to accept. Ah! But
Becoming a sustainable corporation Section: Perspective Date:Aug 27,2008Tata Motors’s Nano project’s difficulties in Singur triggered in my mind a stream of random thoughts as to how a global corporation should build a sustainable enterprise that takes into account not only the government but all stakeholders including the hu
If Musharraf couldn’t do it, who could?Section: Perspective Date:Aug 20,2008Pakistan and its humongous problems won’t go away. In fact they are spilling into neighbouring countries and beyond. In its six decades of bloody history, one of the country’s prime ministers Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged like a thug and two others, Na
Beyond Beijing Olympics Section: Perspective Date:Aug 06,2008China seems to be a nation that is inebriated with great expectations about its future, while rest of the world is just struggling to get along with bad debts, spiralling prices and random bursts of terrorism. From die-hard communism to marketplace capi
TIDBITSSection: Lifestyle Date:Aug 02,2008Dancing shoes Sanjeeda Sheikh has won the Natraj Award from Saroj Khan. She won many a heart during Nach Baliye 3 and she continues to win accolades for her dancing skills. “Sarojji was friendly towards Aamir and myself on the sets of the dance sho
How business can be media smart Section: Perspective Date:Jul 30,2008I am invariably asked how a company should deal with rabid journalists for whom “If it bleeds, it leads” makes a good story. The news media have begun to play a very significant role in the conduct of both national and international business, as you see
How business can be media smart Section: Perspective Date:Jul 30,2008I am invariably asked how a company should deal with rabid journalists for whom “If it bleeds, it leads” makes a good story. The news media have begun to play a very significant role in the conduct of both national and international business, as you see
Blocking fraudsters, hackers and cyber militiasSection: Perspective Date:Jul 23,2008A few months ago I received a very unusual email message from a well-regarded friend saying that he had lost his bag in Kuala Lumpur, where he had gone to attend an international conference on HIV, and asked if I could wire him some money which he would r
Iran sends a long-range messageSection: Perspective Date:Jul 16,2008It was a spectacular display of missile firepower exceeded only by the Revolutionary Guard air force commander General Hossein Salami’s rhetoric. According to the official IRNA news agency, he said Shahab-3 and other missile tests should leave no doubt in
LETTERS TO THE EDITORSection: Editorial Date:Jul 15,2008The great betrayal, but in the good books of the USA Sir, ~ Historically, the Congress party has betrayed the nation. In 1947, it agreed to the Partition after initially refusing to allow any division of the country. Mahatma Gandhi, who had declared that
The great betrayal, but in the good books of the USASection: Editorial Date:Jul 15,2008Sir, ~ Historically, the Congress party has betrayed the nation. In 1947, it agreed to the Partition after initially refusing to allow any division of the country. Mahatma Gandhi, who had declared that the country would be ‘divided over his dead body’, di
Letters To The EditorSection: Editorial Date:Jul 15,2008ThAe great betrayal, but in the good books of the USA Sir, ~ Historically, the Congress party has betrayed the nation. In 1947, it agreed to the Partition after initially refusing to allow any division of the country. Mahatma Gandhi, who had declared tha
US can’t bulldoze democracy into unready soil Section: Perspective Date:Jul 09,2008Islamic conservatism, as practised in Saudi Arabia and most Muslim countries, and nationalistic authoritarianism successfully exemplified by China and Russia, are the two powerful alternatives to democracy as political organising principles. Spreading dem
Free to die in gun violenceSection: Perspective Date:Jul 02,2008On several issues the US Supreme Court is as divided as the country itself. On the bench there are some justices who might be called constitutional fundamentalists or literalists, who believe that the Constitution means what it says, and they know it. On
Thai PM slammed for conceding sovereignty Section: World Focus Date:Jun 26,2008The Nation/ANN Bangkok, June 25: Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej yesterday accused Democrat Party chief Abhisit Vejjajiva of fuelling tension between Thailand and Cambodia, even as the opposition leader accused the administration of compromising the
Thai PM slammed for conceding sovereignty Section: World Focus Date:Jun 26,2008The Nation/ANN Bangkok, June 25: Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej yesterday accused Democrat Party chief Abhisit Vejjajiva of fuelling tension between Thailand and Cambodia, even as the opposition leader accused the administration of compromising the
Thai PM slammed for conceding sovereignty Section: World Focus Date:Jun 26,2008The Nation/ANN Bangkok, June 25: Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej yesterday accused Democrat Party chief Abhisit Vejjajiva of fuelling tension between Thailand and Cambodia, even as the opposition leader accused the administration of compromising the
Thai PM slammed for conceding sovereignty Section: World Focus Date:Jun 26,2008The Nation/ANN Bangkok, June 25: Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej yesterday accused Democrat Party chief Abhisit Vejjajiva of fuelling tension between Thailand and Cambodia, even as the opposition leader accused the administration of compromising the
Pursuing the American dream without racial preferencesSection: Perspective Date:Jun 25,2008Senator Barack Obama’s rise in the US political firmament has been captivating global audiences, though it is too early to say that he will enter the White House. Many commentators see him metamorphosing American society in the manner of John F Kennedy. H
AM I SMARTER THAN YOU?Section: 8th Day Date:Jun 22,2008If you’re a meat-eater, the answer’s yes, says Maneka Gandhi THE British Medical Journal has reported a study done by Southampton University of 8,179 people. Researchers found those who had become vegetarian by the age of 30 had a higher IQ
Indians lagging behind in corporate social responsibilitySection: Perspective Date:Jun 18,2008Last week BBC World News carried a report on how in the midst of plenty hundreds of thousands of children in India are dying of malnourishment. The dinnertime videos of wasting children in Madhya Pradesh were heart-wrenching. The same day, The New York Ti
Letters To The EditorSection: Editorial Date:Jun 14,2008Puppets and performers can’t coexist Sir, ~ This is with reference to the informative and thought-provoking article, “Decline of IAS and IPS” by BP Saha (17 May). I have some submissions on two counts. Firstly, offer and acceptance of bribe is not a matt
Letters to the EditorSection: Editorial Date:Jun 04,2008Competent people left out Sir, ~ Your editorial, “Welcome, but...” (27 May) on the extension of the East-West Metro to the airport raises so many issues that it could potentially spawn a series of investigative reports. In the first place, why should the
Mining wisdom from Web 2.0 collaboration Section: Perspective Date:Jun 04,2008The wisdom of the government is limited by its hierarchical structure, which restricts free flow of ideas, thus creating myopia. That is perhaps one of the reasons for recurrent man-made catastrophes, for example, terrorist attacks. Every time there is an
Why a ‘Jaipur’ will never happen in the USASection: Perspective Date:May 27,2008Unlike their Indian counterparts, American law-enforcement authorities are absolutely convinced that terrorism can be prevented. Whenever an attack occurs anywhere in the world, the US Homeland Security authorities redouble their vigilance and refurbish
Gay unions: Time to take a standSection: Perspective Date:May 20,2008This is an election year and no politician who seeks public office can escape the question of gay marriage. President George W Bush has said unequivocally that marriage is between a man and a woman, but he is not running for office. The Democrat president



India must broaden nuclear freedomSection: Perspective Date:May 14,2008Last week Russia and the US signed an unprecedented civilian nuclear power deal under which companies in both countries would have access to nuclear technology through joint ventures. The pact opens Russia’s massive uranium reserves to US companies and gi
Species loss hurts medical progressSection: Perspective Date:May 07,2008A new generation of antibiotics, new treatments for thinning bone disease and kidney failure, and new cancer treatments may all stand to be lost unless the world acts to reverse the present alarming rate of biodiversity loss. The natural world holds secre
It’s gloomy in the USASection: Perspective Date:May 07,2008I asked one of my graduating students if she had received an encouraging response from any prospective employer. Not yet, she said, though she had sent resumés to several and was still waiting. She is not the only one. There are thousands of others who ha
Species extinction poses threat to medical scienceSection: World Focus Date:May 07,2008The Star/ANN Kuala Lumpur, May 6: A new generation of antibiotics, new treatments for thinning bone disease and kidney failure, and new cancer treatments may all stand to be lost unless the world acts to reverse the present alarming rate of biodiversity l
Let’s talk about little childrenSection: Perspective Date:Apr 30,2008Long before children in the US enter school, they have already been exposed to thousands of hours of television shows including commercials. Seventy per cent of day-care centres use television, according to KidsHealth, a website giving medical information
Speaking in two voices: The pope, Islam and TibetSection: Perspective Date:Apr 23,2008Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the US came at a very critical time. Just before his visit, the American people had witnessed massive global protests about the Olympic torch, which has increasingly become a symbol of Chinese repression against Tibetans and t
As security increases, would freedom decline? Section: Perspective Date:Apr 16,2008Last Wednesday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved a plan for a nationwide text messaging system that would alert Americans on their cell phones about terrorist attacks, natural disasters, campus shootings (like the one that occurred in
Becoming a global brand and keeping it Section: Perspective Date:Apr 08,2008It is doubtful if Ford Motor Company would have sold a high-profile brand portfolio like Jaguar and Land Rover to a Chinese auto company. Tata is embedded in a multicultural open society where workers’ rights cannot be easily trifled with. Besides, Tata kChina’s enemy in cyberspaceSection: Perspective Date:Apr 02,2008The ongoing struggle in Tibet shows how new Web technologies — cell phones, digital photography, texting and e-mail — are making it harder for the Chinese Communist authorities to control the struggle for self-rule and freedom. Wireless global networks ar
Bhajan Lal disqualified from HouseSection: India Date:Mar 26,2008Press Trust of India Chandigarh, March 25: Former Haryana chief minister Mr Bhajan Lal, who rebelled against the Congress, was today disqualified from the state Assembly under the anti-defection law and his Adampur seat declared vacant. The order of Spe
Globalisation of Tibet Section: Perspective Date:Mar 26,2008China will once again succeed in crushing the Tibetan uprising which has spread from the politically reorganised region known as the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) to the outlying provinces, Gansu, Sichuan, and Qinghai, where Tibetans have a significant pr
Unfolding political drama in AmericaSection: Perspective Date:Mar 19,2008Since the Republican presidential nomination race has been finally settled in favour of the 71-year-old Vietnam War veteran Senator John McCain, all that he has to do is to keep himself alive in the media so that during the intense and protracted primary
Lynching still defines lawless BiharSection: India Date:Mar 16,2008Manoj Chaurasia PATNA, March 15: The value of human lives is less than a cow, buffalo or goat in Mr Nitish Kumar’s Bihar that had promised good governance, delivery of justice and rule of law on assuming power in November 2005. This is the impression one
Carvalho stays and so does GillSection: Sport Date:Mar 14,2008Press Trust of India NEW DELHI, March. 13: India's beleaguered chief coach Mr Joaquim Carvalho may get another brief coaching tenure as the Indian Hockey Federation stated clearly today that his resignation will not be accepted. However, the IHF accepted
Kids of the mobile revolution Section: Perspective Date:Mar 12,2008Kids of the mobile generation want to be connected with their friends through social networks, MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube, though they may not be always aware of the risks of exposure. But don’t blame the parents; they just can’t stop worrying that th
Recession is worse than terrorismSection: Perspective Date:Mar 05,2008CYBER AGE / ND BATRA One word that frightens Americans most today is not terrorism; it is recession. As if trying to stop the spiral of gloomy news, President George Bush told reporters on Thursday that the US economy is not in peril, not on the brink o
Pakistan transformed, really? Section: Perspective Date:Feb 27,2008Looking at the election results of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province that hugs Waziristan and Afghanistan, a region notorious for the Taliban and Al-Qaida sanctuary and terrorists’ breeding ground, one might wonder if the earlier intelligence that t
Building trust in GooglistanSection: Perspective Date:Feb 19,2008A recent Pew/Internet report regarding the privacy implications of digital mobility said that many people in the United States “are jumping into the fast, mobile, participatory Web without considering all the implications.” Of course that is true of oth
Millennial musings of a non-millenial manSection: Perspective Date:Feb 13,2008Our BlackBerrys, the Internet anywhere and wireless global connectivity do give us a sense of freedom but they may also be diminishing face-to-face interactions and engagement from the realities of life. Sometime it takes a natural calamity to bring us ba
Can a smart campus make its professors smart? Section: Perspective Date:Feb 06,2008Today an institute of higher education with graduate and post-graduate research programmes needs a sophisticated environment of virtual learning that allows its students and faculty to access not only its own databases but also global intellectual resourc
The rising power of new EuropeSection: Perspective Date:Jan 30,2008Let’s see how Microsoft gets out of trouble this time. Once again the European Commission, instigated by complaints from Norwegian Web browser Opera and a group of technology companies, including IBM, has decided to look at the global giant’s business pra
Change, but what change? Section: Perspective Date:Jan 22,2008One kid dreams of fame and fortune One kid helps pay the rent One could end up going to prison One just might be president…. Only in America ~ From Brooks and Dunn “I have so many ideas for this country, I just don’t want to see us fall backwards,”
Man-machine embedded intelligenceSection: Perspective Date:Jan 09,2008The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the informatio
Man-machine embedded intelligenceSection: Perspective Date:Jan 09,2008The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the informatio
Man-machine embedded intelligenceSection: Perspective Date:Jan 09,2008The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the informatio
Man-machine embedded intelligenceSection: Perspective Date:Jan 09,2008The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the informatio
Uninterrupted ActionSection: Lifestyle Date:Jan 05,2008What will make Akshay Kumar survive 2008? Sincerity to his job and a loyal fan base, writes Derek Bose Akshay Kumar has become omnipresent. He is everywhere ~ sprinting across billboards on terrace tops, popping out of magazine covers, grinning on televi
Pakistan factors in US presidential race Section: Perspective Date:Jan 02,2008Benazir Bhutto’s assassination has hit the US presidential neck-to-neck race like a thunderbolt. Foreign policy credentials and experience have become suddenly very important as the Iowa caucuses begin on Thursday (3 January) and then a few days later the
Will you buy Jaguar at Wal-Mart? Section: Perspective Date:Dec 26,2007What will happen to the Jaguar brand image if it is acquired by Tata Motors, a company that is associated with tractor-trailers, full-size SUVs, and now getting ready to manufacture the world’s cheapest automobile? India may tolerate contradictions, slum
Emerging virtual landscape Section: Perspective Date:Dec 19,2007Japanese prefer to use their cells for text messaging probably because it is considered rude to talk in public places, buses and train. According to a Reuter report, the Chinese sent 429 billion text messages last year, a country where there is limited fr
Iran War a non-starter?Section: Perspective Date:Dec 12,2007The rhetoric of war against Iran has become muted. The hawks are in disarray. US Vice-President Mr Dick Cheney has been boxed and shoved into a corner for now. Democrat and Republican presidential candidates are scrambling to come up with new policy postu
Uncle Sam and the merchant of ArabiaSection: Perspective Date:Dec 05,2007With the rise of crude oil to $90-100 a barrel, the camel is overloaded with the greenback. And there is no better place for the Arab merchant to unload his petrodollars than to lend it Americans who juggle their daily lives between credit cards and debit
The future is hereSection: Perspective Date:Nov 28,2007The recent breakthrough in stem cell research carried out independently in Japan and the USA, by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and James A Thomson with his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, shows another path to human rejuvenation, includin
Deadly fish pair trappedSection: Bengal Plus Date:Nov 26,2007Kanchan Siddiqui BURDWAN, Nov 25: A pair of giant catfish, popularly known as American Magur (Clarias Batrachus), which had been wrecking havoc in a Burdwan pond over the past two years, was finally trapped today while it was trying to drag a duck into
A moment of meditation on Pakistan Section: Perspective Date:Nov 21,2007Pakistan is not a failed state but at present it is in a state of dynamic instability, which could spin out of control if the situation is not handled wisely by its neighbours, international allies, and all-weather friends. And what makes Pakistan an int
Digital natives collaborating Section: Perspective Date:Nov 14,2007The challenge for the academia lies in tapping and pooling the brainpower within academic units as well as outside and creating an environment of synergy and enthusiasm for collaboration. That is how you develop what is called “swarming intelligence.” As
GAP in consumer awarenessSection: Perspective Date:Nov 07,2007I gaped in amusement a few days ago when I received Diwali greetings from a telecom company. Someone wanted to help me to save my money only if I would switch over from my present long-distance carrier to them. Lightheartedly I said I was more interested
Global civic engagement through technology Section: Perspective Date:Oct 31,2007As the ravaging fires in California burnt hundreds of homes and killed several people, a small public radio satiation KBPS-FM San Diego, which was knocked off the air, used its ingenuity and decided to serve the public by publishing on its website maps of
What can India do for Pakistan?Section: Perspective Date:Oct 24,2007Benazir Bhutto represents a future that must happen: a progressive, liberal and secular Pakistan that should become a model for rest of the Islamic world. That is in India’s national interest. Weak and unstable neighbours cannot make India strong. Pakista
Behold the power and glory that is China! Section: Perspective Date:Oct 17,2007Earlier the salesman pitch used to be: “You cannot afford not to be in China.” But now corporate CEOs are so eager to apologise to China for its own egregious behaviour. Last month Mattel’s executive vice-president Thomas A Debrowski delivered a well-st
When our daily lives become hyper-personal Section: Perspective Date:Oct 10,2007Google knows whether a person is a dirty trickster, an older man trying to seduce a younger woman; a gender-swapping woman playing with big boys in a cave in Second Life; or a teenager posing as a medical expert. Google is becoming the keeper of surfers’
Building a global supply-chain of knowledge Section: Perspective Date:Oct 03,2007In a knowledge-driven world, collaboration is of the essence, though most of us are obsessed with a lone genius like Thomas Edison working in his laboratory, Henry Ford designing assembly-line auto manufacturing, Albert Einstein transforming space-time di
Shamelessness or transparency?Section: Perspective Date:Sep 26,2007Last week a flamboyant student Andrew Meyer raised a ruckus at a meeting held at the University of Florida by Senator John Kerry, who in 2004 lost the presidential election to George W Bush. During the question answer time, Meyer in a length tirade accuse
China surveillance copies USASection: Perspective Date:Sep 19,2007George Orwell’s 1984 failed to materialise, but Keith Bradsher of the New York Times recently wrote how Wall Street has been colluding with the Chinese authorities to turn China into a total surveillance society. Bradsher wrote: “China Security and Surv
Oh dear, you’re so valuable in cyberspace Section: Perspective Date:Sep 12,2007Savvy businesses see cyberspace as a repository of valuable information left by surfers that could be turned into databases for target marketing, which eliminates wasteful advertising and lowers costs. A company like Google is much more than a search engi
Something like US Patriot Act will save India Section: Perspective Date:Sep 05,2007An Indian minister was quoted in rediff.com, as saying: “Do you want us to keep vigil on all the chaat-eating people? How many chaatwallahs can we guard?” What a contemptuous disregard for the hoi polloi! How shameful! Terrorism is a local and national sc
A bridge of friendship Section: Perspective Date:Aug 29,2007T he civilian nuclear deal is a bridge to the world of sophisticated technology not only in the United States but also in Japan, Europe and Russia. Access to high-end technology depends upon trust. The world can trust India. Indian diplomats had to overc
The never-ending battle of ideas Section: Perspective Date:Aug 22,2007On his recent visit to the United States, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: “We must undercut the terrorists’ so-called ‘single narrative’ and defeat their ideas. At home and abroad we must back mainstream and moderate voices and reformers, emphas
Young, vigorous and creative at 60 Section: Perspective Date:Aug 15,2007Last week, the Wall Street Journal carried a front-page story about how Kishore Biyani adapted India’s culture of order-in-disorder to transform his company Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd. into the largest retailer in the country. Biyani’s shopping malls ar
India at 60 is home sweet home Section: Perspective Date:Aug 08,2007Freedom from fear is the freedom I claim for you my motherland! ~ Tagore For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail? ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson There is so much common between India and the United States that I can’t love one wi
Facing the YouTube generation Section: Perspective Date:Aug 01,2007Hardly has the conspiratorial expression “Let’s Google him” settled in as a sizzling hot potato on the American tongue-in-cheek civic discourse when there is another linguistic gatecrasher “YouTubing” into American culture and consciousness, as last week’
BriefsSection: India Date:Aug 01,2007Ban on Maoists extended HYDERABAD, Aug. 1: The Rajashekar Reddy government today renewed the ban on CPI (Maoists) for another year starting 17 August. Six frontal organisations of the underground group have also been outlawed for another year at today’s
ASIAN VOICESSection: World Focus Date:Jul 30,2007Thai lawmakers the clowns of Asean Parliamentarians’ lack of knowledge on regional issues weakens Thailand’s role in the grouping. It is incredible that members of Thailand’s Parliament had the audacity to hold a conference specifically talking about i
ASIAN VOICESSection: World Focus Date:Jul 30,2007Thai lawmakers the clowns of Asean Parliamentarians’ lack of knowledge on regional issues weakens Thailand’s role in the grouping. It is incredible that members of Thailand’s Parliament had the audacity to hold a conference specifically talking about i
The art of being a corporate diplomat Section: Perspective Date:Jul 25,2007The days of autocrat corporate CEOs are gone. Even a powerful man like Rupert Murdoch, the most powerful global media tycoon who is trying to take over Dow Jones, the company that owns the **Wall Street Journal**, is conducting himself as a superb corpora
Bush stands firm like a rock Section: Perspective Date:Jul 18,2007President George W Bush - not public opinion polls - is the prime political mover in the United States. Foreign policy of course cannot run on public opinion polls, which go up and down so often that it will be politically unwise to be solely guided by th
A strong global reputation matters Section: Perspective Date:Jul 11,2007Let’s see how long it will take China, Inc. to refurbish its sullied image of selling contaminated toothpaste, farm-raised catfish, shrimp, eel, pet foods (responsible for numerous deaths), toys (with lead paint), electric goods, and poor quality tyres re
Keep innovating or you’ll perishSection: Perspective Date:Jul 04,2007Technological and economic forces are generating innovations like iPhones. They are creating new opportunities, new wealth and new billionaires. Global corporations must be opportunistic. They must always be on the lookout for new ideas and the possibili
Letters to the EditorSection: Editorial Date:Jul 03,2007Dr BC Roy could feel the pulse of the people Sir, ~ In response to your editorial “In memoriam ~ BC Roy” (26 June) senior citizens like me must congratulate you for exposing the hypocritical outcry of the CPI-M leader, Mr Biman Bose, in obseLetter from university campus Section: Perspective Date:Jun 27,2007When I look at the face of a student sitting in my class, I do not think that one day he might become a corporate killer, a drug peddler or a suicide bomber. I firmly hope my students will become proud and successful professionals, parents and responsible
Not easy sleeping with a friend like ChinaSection: Perspective Date:Jun 20,2007China is not an easy country to deal with. Chinese diplomats are tough negotiators; they use whatever leverage they have and in the process create more opportunities for themselves, as the American, Australian and European experiences show. On a recent v
Short Story: WAITINGSection: 8th Day Date:Jun 17,2007Sushil Chadha ...Sanjay was disturbed by a scream and the yelling of “Help, Help” pierced through the night. The shrieks had come from the ground floor. Sanjay thought of Neha, grabbed his wife’s walking stick and rushed downstairs sho
Keeping global knowledge workers happy Section: Perspective Date:Jun 13,2007“It’s foolish to believe today that the smartest people are in one nation,” said Henning Kagermann, chief executive of SAP (Germany) in an interview with Steve Lohr of The New York Times. SAP has 3,000 software engineers in India. And thank God there is n
Teaching in a virtual worldSection: Perspective Date:Jun 05,2007Virtual teaching has made me a global teacher, though not necessarily a great one. My graduate students are scattered all over, in Africa, North America, Asia and Europe. I am in touch with them all the time in cyberspace. A report about technology and p
Mulayam ‘fixer’ at Amar homeSection: India Date:Jun 04,2007Ians NEW DELHI, June 4: Delhi police today nabbed from Samajwadi Party general secretary Mr Amar Singh’s residence a man who allegedly offered help in settling a court case against party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mr Mulayam Singh
Mulayam ‘fixer’ at Amar homeSection: India Date:Jun 04,2007Ians NEW DELHI, June 4: Delhi police today nabbed from Samajwadi Party general secretary Mr Amar Singh’s residence a man who allegedly offered help in settling a court case against party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mr Mulayam Singh
Posco’s people diplomacy in India Section: Perspective Date:May 29,2007Posco of South Korea seems to be doing all the right things for its $12 billion massive steel project in India, if you look at it from a global prospective. But the company cannot afford to say that resistance is futile. It must continue its people diplom
Brigadier’s MBBS son held for fake PRCSection: India Date:May 23,2007Statesman News Service JAMMU,MAY 22: If you want admission into medical or engineering courses in Jammu and Kashmir, or even if want a job in the state services, all you need is a Permanent Resident’s Certificate as per the special status given to the st
Americans reeling under credit card debtSection: Perspective Date:May 23,2007In the United States, cash only life style has long been gone, as dead as the dodo. A graduate student, let us call him Johnny Footloose, told me the other day that money was his least worry, though he would be under debt to the extent of $150,000 by theHeed the voice of Dawn’s Haroon Section: Perspective Date:May 16,2007Pakistan is undergoing political and cultural turmoil unnoticed by rest of the world, says Hameed Haroon, the publisher of the Dawn group of newspapers, in a piece published in the Wall Street Journal last week. People opposing the high-handedness of Pres
BriefsSection: India Date:May 15,2007Amar Singh New Delhi, May 14: Mr Amar Singh, who has been suffering from kidney ailment, was today admitted to Batra Hospital. Mr Singh, in a TV interview, also reportedly dared the UP CM to arrest him. n PTI Shilpa move NEW DELHI, May 14: Shilpa Shetty
No way the US can abandon IraqSection: Perspective Date:May 09,2007George Tenet, the former CIA director, who was awarded the presidential medal of freedom (for providing intelligence about Afghanistan and Iraq) has come out with a book in which he states that the Bush gang, Vice-President Dick Cheney and former secretar
Challenge of wirelessly mobile masses Section: Perspective Date:May 03,2007India’s phenomenal growth in cell phone users, now totaling to 166 million, will have tremendous political and cultural repercussions. Last year 67 million new users were added and by the year 2010, at this rate of growth, India will have more than 400 mi
When university campus goes bang, bang, bang Section: Perspective Date:Apr 25,2007Virginia Tech like most university campuses is a digital beehive. Through blogs, instant messaging, video cell phones, MySpace, Facebook and YouTube, no one should have been left behind but the whole academic community was caught unaware. Jamal Albarghout
American handyman keeps tinkering Section: Perspective Date:Apr 18,2007Last Wednesday, the US Senate passed yet another resolution easing restrictions on stem cell research. Early in the year the House of Representative had passed a similar resolution. But President George Bush will veto the bill again because, he said, it c
Donation box stolen from templeSection: North Bengal & Sikkim Date:Apr 18,2007Statesman News Service COOCH BEHAR, April 17: The donation box of Madan Mohan Temple, Dinhata, was stolen last night. The incident has created tension in Dinhata town. Members of Cooch Behar Debatra Trust Board (DTB) have lodged a complaint with the Dinha
Temple theftSection: North Bengal & Sikkim Date:Apr 18,2007COOCH BEHAR, April 17: The donation box of Madan Mohan Temple, Dinhata, was stolen last night. The incident has created tension in Dinhata town. Members of Cooch Behar Debatra Trust Board (DTB) have lodged a complaint with the Dinhata police station. The
Engaging Iran through diplomacy and moreSection: Perspective Date:Apr 11,2007Prime Minister Tony Blair will be retiring after the May elections and should be indeed thankful for diplomacy to have succeeded, regardless of any under the table quid pro quo, in the return of fifteen British sailors and marines. Never did Britain seem
Build trust in the global marketSection: Perspective Date:Apr 04,2007The challenge for a rising economy is how to go beyond the trust based on family ties, clubs, neighbourhood, caste and creed, especially in such a diversified and multicultural society as India, so that investors can repose their faith in the system ~ a sMotherhood any which waySection: Perspective Date:Mar 28,2007ND BATRA Last December, 28-year-old Louise Brown, who created a global hullabaloo by being the world’s first test-tube baby, became the mother of her own first child. She did it the old-fashioned way. But the door, which her test-tube birth opened, has cr
Letters to the EditorSection: Editorial Date:Mar 23,2007A govt without a trace of humility or repentance Sir, ~ Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has no moral right to continue as the chief minister after the state-sponsored genocide. In his analytical and thought-provoking article “A govt gone wrong”, (
Global power shift in digital ageSection: Perspective Date:Mar 21,2007ND BATRA The recent stock market gyration triggered by the meltdown in Chinese stock market on 27 February showed how little control any one has over global phenomena. Chinese have begun to invest in the stock market with the hope of getting high returns
Would Hillary break the glass ceiling?Section: Perspective Date:Mar 14,2007Behold! Women are on the rise in the United States of America. A few months ago, Harvard University selected Dr Drew Gilpin Faust, a historian of American civilization, as the first woman president in its 371-year history. She would replace Larry Summers
Why is Bush failing in Pakistan?Section: Perspective Date:Mar 07,2007On a desperate unannounced diplomatic mission to Pakistan, a week ago on Monday, Vice-President Dick Chaney told President Pervez Musharraf that he was not doing enough to prevent Al Qaida and Taliban from rebuilding and strengthening the infrastructure o
Diplomacy in a fractured worldSection: Perspective Date:Feb 28,2007Even if it were possible to eliminate Islamic jihadism, some new dangerous ideology would arise to threaten peace and our most cherished ideals of freedom and equality. There would never be a time when we can say that we have won the war of ideas. It is a
USA’s white elephantSection: Perspective Date:Feb 21,2007In 2002, the US Congress authorised President George W Bush to go to war in Iraq based on Intelligence about weapons of mass destruction that later turned out to be inaccurate. It was expected that with the removal of the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein
Married families dwindle in USASection: Perspective Date:Feb 14,2007Married people in the USA are in a minority now. In 2005, according to the latest report released by Census Bureau, only about 49.8 per cent of households were families with traditional (heterosexual) married couples with or without children. Six years ag
Married families dwindle in USASection: International Date:Feb 14,2007Married people in the USA are in a minority now. In 2005, according to the latest report released by Census Bureau, only about 49.8 per cent of households were families with traditional (heterosexual) married couples with or without children. Six years ag
Digital freedom structuredSection: Perspective Date:Feb 07,2007While most digital media companies think inside the box and try to protect their works with copyrights, patents, trademarks and contractual laws, apart from using technological means such as trusted systems and digital rights management, Open Source movemGlobal corporate communicationsSection: Perspective Date:Jan 31,2007Global companies have a lot to say and promises to keep, whether it is the new AT&T ready to deliver the world to your touch pad, Cisco’s human network making you the centre of creativity, or Intel with its new wondrous nanometer chip that will make
US imperium under Chinese brollySection: Perspective Date:Jan 24,2007About two weeks ago, China shook the world when it destroyed one of its own ageing, weather satellites by hitting it with a ballistic missile 500 miles into space, thus, signalling its intentions to weaponise space. Satellite networks are the global eyes
Blogging as a communications toolSection: Perspective Date:Jan 17,2007The other day I wandered into bloggers’ land and came across an interesting blog by Jonathan Schwartz, CEO and president of Sun Microsystems, which truly made me like the man, albeit, I never met him. Schwartz talked about five things that he wanted the r
Corporate India & the news cycleSection: Perspective Date:Jan 10,2007The news media, including the Internet, has begun to play a significant role in the conduct of international business. Television news is converging with the Internet, making events live and spontaneous beyond anyone’s control. The rise of bloggers, onlin
One for all:Section: Campus Date:Jan 10,2007Health care in India should constitute a basic right and not a commodity, writes Sharmistha Mukherjee THE success of a nation is judged by its government’s capability of providing basic services to the people. Health care is one of these as it is one of
Green signal for private playersSection: Business Date:Jan 05,2007Statesman News Service NEW DELHI, Jan. 4: In a significant step which is likely to add a new dimension to Indian Railways’ efforts at privatisation, 14 container operators today signed concession agreements with the railway ministry bringing down curtains
No light at the end of the tunnelSection: Perspective Date:Jan 03,2007The death by hanging of Saddam Hussein would not immediately provide the USA with any opportunity to win the hearts and minds of the people, especially in the Arab and Muslim world, unless the sectarian violence and insurgency were suppressed and peace re
Bless them all, gay & straightSection: Perspective Date:Dec 27,2006‘We must recognise that many gay and lesbian couples in New Jersey are in committed relationships and deserve the same benefits and rights as every other family in this state,” said Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey at last week’s Bill-
Think digitally, act globallySection: Perspective Date:Dec 20,2006For most businesses, the best digital strategy is to look for an innovative technology, an idea or a business method that creates something new, a cyber-niche that never existed before, and establish market dominance, as long as possible or until another
You can’t hide in the digital worldSection: Perspective Date:Dec 13,2006It is a transparent world. You can neither hide nor run.When jobs could be moved from one digital hub to another, one never knows where the axe might fall. Or who might run away with company secrets. Since most office workers use the Internet and communic

Chinese visit was just sweet nothingsSection: Perspective Date:Nov 29,2006President Hu Jintao’s repeated statement during his four day visit that India and China were “partners for mutual benefits,” rather than “rivals or competitors” was nothing more than what a year and half ago Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s had said at
China: A global role model?Section: Perspective Date:Nov 22,2006President Hu Jintao of China is visiting the Indian subcontinent this week to bolster trade ties with India as well as re-establish balance of power between India and Pakistan by offering the latter, according to reports, nuclear energy deals. China has
Bush can’t be a lame duckSection: Perspective Date:Nov 15,2006The US mid-term election has swept Democrats into power both in the House and the Senate raising hopes that the excesses of the Bush administration, which to a great extent arose out of the events of 9/11, would be corrected. The election was in fact a se
Experts for iron ore policy reviewSection: Business Date:Nov 14,2006Statesman News Service BANGALORE, Nov. 13: The need for reviewing the current practice of spot market sales of iron ore to the Chinese in favour of long-term agreements, mergers and consolidation of smaller mines to make them economical and investment fr
Bald truth about BPO menSection: Pageone Date:Nov 13,2006Press Trust of India NEW DELHI, Nov. 12: Job aspirants beware! Working in the BPO sector can make you follicly challenged. A survey of patients visiting a prominent hair-care clinic shows that 27 per cent of balding men seeking treatment are from the BP
Bonfire of the Rumsfeld DoctrineSection: Perspective Date:Nov 08,2006One of the most serious problems a first class power like the US military faces is how fast they can move forces from one trouble spot to another. The answer: swift and lethal forces, equipped with precision-guided weapons, with on the spot intelligence-g
Can rhetoric change reality?Section: Perspective Date:Nov 01,2006At the time of mid-term congressional elections, President George W Bush has been trying to answer the question that most Americans have been asking: How are you going to get us out of the bloody mess in Iraq? The deadly statistics are staggering but th
Growth through synergySection: Perspective Date:Oct 25,2006Recently when a friend in Mexico e-mailed to me: “I would Skype you at 10 a.m.,” I was not sure whether like “google” a new verb was quietly slipping into the American tongue, but I surely felt synergy rising due to the convergence of television, computer
A gentler, kinder face of IslamSection: Perspective Date:Oct 18,2006Given a chance everyone could get out of poverty. Human beings are essentially entrepreneurial in spirit. Entrepreneurship, which means innovating and building new tools for opening new frontiers - not merely a struggle for survival - has been the ultimat
Private investment in railways soughtSection: Business Date:Oct 17,2006Statesman News Service NEW DELHI, Oct. 16: Reiterating his resolve to “make Indian Railways one of the best in the world” the railway minister, Mr Lalu Prasad, today called for increased private sector investment and participation in “n
A sex scandal dogsSection: Perspective Date:Oct 11,2006A Congressman’s sex scandal is dogging the November mid-term elections in the USA. The smooth talking and affable Mark Foley (Republican from Florida) resigned from his House seat after being confronted by ABC News and his admission that he had been sendi
Railways on investment spreeSection: Business Date:Oct 08,2006SNS & PTI NEW DELHI, Oct. 7. — Ruling out “blind” privatisation in Railways, the government today said it will go in for a massive investment of Rs 3.5 lakh crore in the next 10 year for infrastructure development and modernisation whil
Three hours of idealism for Bihar’s policemenSection: India Date:Oct 06,2006Statesman News Service PATNA, Oct 5: The chief minister, Mr Nitish Kumar, visited the Ashok cinema hall here on 14 September, the second time in the past nine months, this time to watch the premier show of Ram Gopal Verma’s Shiva, depicting the Indian po
End of the road for a murdererSection: India Date:Oct 06,2006Statesman News Service SHIMLA, Oct 5: The Himachal Pradesh police, in a joint operation with the Haryana police, have caught a criminal accused of murders and robberies in the region. They also claim to have solved, in the process, the mystery of the gru
Honest brands create good fortuneSection: Perspective Date:Oct 04,2006CYBER AGE by ND Batra Last month, the world’s biggest retailer Wal-Mart sent a wave of joy by announcing that it would sell about 300 generic prescription drugs ranging from allergy medication to antibiotics at $4 for a month’s supply. Not to fall behind Devil taken control of logosSection: Perspective Date:Sep 27,2006CYBER AGE by ND Batra Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on CBS “60 Minutes” news magazine that a US diplomat had threatened to turn “the Land of the Pure” into the “stone age” if his government did not fully and unconditionally cooperate with the
Cyber AgeSection: Perspective Date:Sep 20,2006ND Batra Checks and balances for Bush In spite of the fact that now a majority of Americans believe that the Iraqi invasion was a mistake, George W Bush continues to believe that toppling Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do to prevent Iraq from beco
How much information can you stand?Section: Perspective Date:Sep 13,2006Ceaseless information pollutes our minds. There was a time when production, distribution and processing of information, news and movies existed in a state of balance. We consumed and assimilated what was produced. And then there was time for silence, for
What digital paradise makes of usSection: Perspective Date:Aug 30,2006The Internet has created a new media environment that not only enables people to communicate, discuss and exchange information, give and receive feedback, but also provides an interactive, collaborative environment in which words can become deeds and spee
Surveillance: Getting used to it?Section: Perspective Date:Aug 23,2006Search companies like Google, Yahoo, AOL and others collect and archive huge amounts of personal data from which can be profiled the behaviour of the user. A few weeks ago, America On Line, an Internet search company inadvertently released from its archi
Surveillance: Getting used to it?Section: Perspective Date:Aug 23,2006Search companies like Google, Yahoo, AOL and others collect and archive huge amounts of personal data from which can be profiled the behaviour of the user. A few weeks ago, America On Line, an Internet search company inadvertently released from its archi
Freedom under the shadow of hope and terrorSection: Perspective Date:Aug 17,2006On the occasion of India’s Independence Day observed yesterday, while the world has plunged into gloom because of the pre-emptive discovery of the terrorist plot to blow up ten transatlantic airlines ~ only a month after the horrific train attacks i
Warwan’s salvation ArmySection: India Date:Aug 09,2006Statesman News Service WARWAN (Doda), Aug. 8: Not very long ago, the remote valley of Warwan in Doda was a trekkers’ paradise which attracted tourists. Located at an altitude of 10,000 feet and featuring meadows and rivulets, it offers breathtaking view
Make TV children-friendlySection: Perspective Date:Aug 09,2006What happens in the cradle is much more important than what is happening in the killing fields of Iraq and Lebanon. Children’s brain undergoes rapid development in the early years and exposure to violent and sexually explicit television might interfere
Letters to the editorSection: Editorial Date:Aug 07,2006Real will needed to check infiltration Sir, ~ Apropos of your editorial “Unctad report” (27-28 July) the steady infiltration of Bangladeshis into India and that more than 20 million (official figures) of them are residing here illegally was first highlig
The story of a bridgeSection: India Date:Aug 02,2006Kavita Suri AMAN SETU (Kaman Post), Aug. 1: Long ago, on the historic Srinagar-Muzaffarabad- Rawalpindi axis, there was a small bridge known as Khaliyaan Da Khaas ahead of Uri village. In those pre-Partition days, Muzaffarabad was one of the biggest tow
Going nuclear peacefullySection: Perspective Date:Aug 02,2006Those of us who watched the debate over the USA and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act, 2006 in the House of Representatives had tense moments at the closing. Mr Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and Mr Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, introduce
Going nuclear peacefullySection: Perspective Date:Aug 02,2006Those of us who watched the debate over the USA and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act, 2006 in the House of Representatives had tense moments at the closing. Mr Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and Mr Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, introduce
LETTERS TO THE EDITORSection: Editorial Date:Jul 31,2006Unpleasant truths about the Begum’s lair Sir, ~ The editorial “Mischief with Tatas” (20 July) reveals certain unpleasant truths that India should take note of in its dealings with Bangladesh. Ever since Khaleda’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party came to powe
Lessons for India in homeland securitySection: Perspective Date:Jul 26,2006CYBER AGE by ND Batra India has much to learn how comprehensively and efficiently the United States of America goes about managing its homeland security by keeping a hawk-eye on the Islamic jihadi menace. Last week, two men from Georgia ~ Syed Haris Ahme
Pre-emption needed, not despairSection: Perspective Date:Jul 19,2006CYBER AGE by ND Batra A nation that has been gradually and steadily building up its economic and technological strength to raise a billion people to a decent standard of living and seek a rightful place in the global community cannot allow itself to be d
A just societySection: Perspective Date:Jul 12,2006The American dream is some kind of El Dorado, a state of immense wealth and achievement which when attained, enables a person to exclaim, “Ah! It’s good to be an American.” You can see it in the life of a man like Andy Grove who survive
LETTERS TO THE EDITORSection: Editorial Date:Jul 09,2006Banks & banking during the Raj Sir, ~ The front-page report, “Historic figures and their banking habits” (3 July) bristles with inaccuracies. The correspondent has paid scant attention to dates while compiling the report. It states that Warre
Infiltration continues unabated in J&KSection: India Date:Jul 05,2006Kavita Suri SRINAGAR, July 4: Infiltration is continuing unabated in Kashmir. The latest infiltration bid on the Line of Control took place on Friday in the Keran sector Kupwara district when the Army killed eight terrorists. In the past couple of month
Clipping the excesses of US powerSection: Perspective Date:Jul 05,2006Cyber age by ND Batra The US Supreme Court majority ruling that President Bush exceeded his authority by establishing military tribunals for the trial of Al-Qaida detainees held in the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, came as a rude shock to the
Be all you want in cyberspaceSection: Perspective Date:Jun 28,2006ND BATRA On the Internet nobody knows whether a person is a dirty old man trying to seduce teenagers, a gender-swapping woman playing with big boys in a virtual game room, or a teenager posing as an expert. It is also true that eventually no one can hide
Bill Gates is retiring... So what?Section: Perspective Date:Jun 21,2006ND BATRA The market shrugged off Mr Bill Gates’ announcement that he would give up the commanding heights of Microsoft, the digital empire he co-founded with his friend Mr Paul Allen in 1975. Gates plans to focus on philanthropy, especially global health
Harvard v the VaticanSection: Perspective Date:Jun 14,2006Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? ~ TS Eliot, Choruses from the Rock When South Korean Scientist Dr Hwang Woo Suk admitted last December to hav
Eight ultras killed in KashmirSection: India Date:Jun 07,2006Statesman News Service SRINAGAR,June 6: In a major operation on the Line of Control in Kashmir, the Army troops today foiled a major infiltration bid and killed eight hardcore terrorists in Machhal Sector of north Kashmir. In what could be termed as “a s
CYBER AGE: For a just & competitive societySection: Perspective Date:Jun 07,2006ND BATRA Quotas and reservations in India are merely populist measures to win votes for the next election; they would never churn up the backward classes to the fore. Even if some people were put on the creamy surface, they would go down unless they are
Ultra’s diary blows lid off militancySection: Pageone Date:Jun 05,2006Kavita Suri SRINAGAR, June 4: A diary recovered from a top Hizbul Mujahideen militant has made sensational revelations on the amount of money being pushed into Jammu and Kashmir for keeping the militancy pot boiling and hints at a nexus between the ultra
CYBER AGE: Building corporate characterSection: Perspective Date:May 31,2006ND BATRA Last week, Kenneth Lay, former chairman of the defunct energy company Enron, and Jeffrey Skilling, former president of the company, failed to convince the jury that they had done nothing wrong personally, that Enron was a good company stampeded
Going digital at full speedSection: Perspective Date:May 24,2006N D Batra The enthusiasm about the Internet among the young and the old all over the world has been increasing steadily. Memories of the deflated dotcom balloon have faded. The digital age is rising on a solid foundation as more and more users begin to re
Lalu assures Pany on rail ticketsSection: Orissa Plus Date:May 11,2006Statesman News Service ANGUL, May 10: Railway minister Mr Lalu Prasad has assured the Rajya Sabha member, Mr Rudra Narayan Pany, that he would look into the problems raised by him with regard to the non-availability of railway tickets in various parts o
Darjeeling, Basmati, ScotchSection: Perspective Date:May 10,2006CYBER AGE by ND Batra Recently, when I visited my colleague, he offered me a cup of Darjeeling brew. And whenever I used to visit my cousin in Mumbai, he would offer me Scotch. I anticipated the pleasure and knew what I was getting. The recent Delhi Hig
Advice for golfing CEOsSection: Perspective Date:May 03,2006Cyber Age by ND Batra While we were waiting to tee off, my golf buddy who happens to be the CEO of a global company, asked me how a company should deal with journalists for whom bad news makes a good story. The news media, I agreed, have begun to play
Railways on revenue trainSection: Pageone Date:Apr 30,2006Dipankar Chakraborty / SNS NEW DELHI, April 29. — After clearing the decks for private players in the container sector, in another move that is unlikely to make the Left parties any happier, the railway ministry has decided to let private advertising age
China ~ myth of immensity?Section: Perspective Date:Apr 26,2006CYBER AGE by ND Batra Is China like the Greek mythological figure Icarus flying too close to the sun on wings of feathers and wax? From Long March to Mao’s Thoughts to Cultural Revolution to no-holds-barred mercantile capitalism is quite a flight. China
Magic mushrooms & mistaken killingsSection: India Date:Apr 19,2006Kavita Suri SRINAGAR, April 18: Since ages, Kashmiris have been going into the wild to collect the exotic and expensive variety of mushrooms locally known as “Gucchi” that grows only in the forest areas. These delicious mushrooms for which Kashmir is w
CYBER AGE: Women in cyberspace ~ so desirable, so vulnerableSection: Perspective Date:Apr 19,2006ND BATRA The dotcom world is rising again. Companies that survived the last crisis have revamped their business models by turning cyberspace into an extended turf of their existing businesses. Cyberspace has become a goldmine of valuable information lef
A MODERN MILITARYSection: Editorial Date:Apr 16,2006Our young warriors are excellent but their morale and motivation has been damaged. The fault lies with those who purport to lead them. By Subroto Roy THE first line of defence in a major modern war is the air force, and any air force is only as good as i
Mistaken identity: Boy killed in Army firingSection: India Date:Apr 12,2006Statesman News Service JAMMU, April 11: In an incident of mistaken identity, a boy was killed while his mother and brother critically injured, when the armed forces fired at them late last night. The trio was walking at night at Warnu, Lolab in Kupwara
CYBER AGE: Handling corporate crisesSection: Perspective Date:Apr 12,2006ND BATRA Wal-Mart, according to a New York Times report, has been looking for a couple of wise guys who could help the global retailer to brighten its public image and to also fight its dirty battles the way politicians do during election times, for exa
The always on info worldSection: Perspective Date:Apr 05,2006ND Batra There was a time when production, distribution and processing of information, news and entertainment, existed in a state of balance. We consumed and assimilated what was produced. And then there was time for silence, for gossip, and for imaginat
Killing field of American popular cultureSection: Perspective Date:Mar 29,2006ND Batra Movies, television programmes and popular music do not always spur viewers to spontaneous immediate action, but their delayed, cumulative effects are immense. Television commercials, for instance, impact viewers and keep the market economy thriv
Power of persuasionSection: Perspective Date:Mar 22,2006By ND Batra In its bid to take over Arcelor, Mittal Steel needs a better communication strategy and more effective global corporate diplomacy to persuade Europeans that the Mittals are no stealers and come as friends. As corporate India expands globally,
Ideas could make you richSection: Perspective Date:Mar 16,2006A recent IBM ad, a company that has been trying to re-invent itself as the foremost global solution company, talks of “houses that make doctor calls”, sensitive cars that enable you to drive safely, “power grids that fix themselves” and “silos that talk t
Mistaking trees for a forest?Section: Perspective Date:Mar 08,2006By ND Batra Harvard faculty, finally, got rid of their inconvenient president, Mr Lawrence Summers, who has a wonderful habit of calling a spade more than a spade. All that Mr Summers wanted to do was to improve undergraduate education, especially in sci
Godhra train fire accidental: panelSection: Pageone Date:Mar 04,2006SNS & PTI NEW DELHI/AHMEDABAD, March 3. — In a report which may have far-reaching political consequences and bring the Opposition BJP and the ruling UPA face to face, the railway ministry-appointed Justice UC Banerjee Committee today concluded that the 27
Cyber Age — ND Batra: Partnership based on principle & pragmatismSection: Perspective Date:Mar 01,2006Last week Ronen Sen, India’s ambassador to the United States, lamented that the American non-proliferation high priesthood and Indian go-it-alone self-reliant nuclear brotherhood have highjacked the debate and clouded the real issue: whether it is possibl
Cartooning is not the way to change mindsSection: Perspective Date:Feb 22,2006By ND Batra The Danish cartoons and their subsequent recrudescence in several newspapers, television, and the Internet about Prophet Mohammad might have been a fundamental right to exercise freedom of speech; but they have turned out to be a premeditated
Cyber Age: US work culture: in perpetual motionSection: Perspective Date:Feb 15,2006ND Batra Business Week reported recently that the US economy is much stronger than what the doomsayers have been telling us. The reason is simple: the old statistical system used by the Bureau of Economic Analysis is not good enough to capture the econom
Meditation on American cultureSection: Perspective Date:Feb 08,2006By ND Batra Culture may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living. — T S Eliot (Notes Towards a Definition of Culture ) Lee Gomes of the Wall Street Journal wrote sometime ago, “why no one has yet run for office by campaigning agai
Meditation on American cultureSection: Perspective Date:Feb 08,2006ND Batra (cyber Age) described simply as that which makes life worth living. — T S Eliot (Notes Towards a Definition of Culture ) Lee Gomes of the Wall Street Journal wrote sometime ago, “why no one has yet run for office by campaigning against the com
Jharkhand, Bengal cops scan forests togetherSection: Bengal Date:Feb 05,2006BANDWAN (Purulia), Feb. 4. – A joint raid was conducted today by Jharkhand and West Bengal Police in dense forests here and other areas along the border between the two states. The raid was led by Mr Anil Batra, SP, Singhbhum and Mr Rangaswami Sivakumar,
Good reputation equals good businessSection: Perspective Date:Feb 01,2006ND Batra (Cyber Age) In the digital age, a company is nothing but its reputation and maintaining it is a big challenge. Reputation is the foundation of trust and loyalty, which gives stakeholders confidence in dealing with the company. A company’s id
Good reputation equals good businessSection: Perspective Date:Feb 01,2006ND Batra (Cyber Age) In the digital age, a company is nothing but its reputation and maintaining it is a big challenge. Reputation is the foundation of trust and loyalty, which gives stakeholders confidence in dealing with the company. A company’s id
Supreme Court mirrors American valuesSection: Perspective Date:Jan 18,2006Cyber Age, ND Batra US Supreme Court mirrors America’s conflicting values “to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every
Cyber age: Corporate America’s rotten applesSection: Perspective Date:Jan 11,2006ND BATRA Wal-Mart is in the news again. Its former vice-chairman Thomas Coughlin would plead guilty for misappropriating “$500,000 from Wal-Mart through fraudulent re-imbursements and improper use of gift cards,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
Corporate America's rotten applesSection: Perspective Date:Jan 11,2006ND Batra (Cyberage) Wal-Mart is in the news again. Its former vice-chairman Thomas Coughlin would plead guilty for misappropriating “$500,000 from Wal-Mart through fraudulent re-imbursements and improper use of gift cards,” according to The Wall Street J
cyber age: ND Batra: Credit card conundrumSection: Perspective Date:Jan 04,2006During the holiday weeks, millions of American consumers used credit cards to charge their gifts. Now that the bills have begun to pour in, many of them won’t know how to pay them. In spite of the recent legislation in the USA that makes personal bankrupt
Cyber Age: When security trumps everythingSection: Perspective Date:Dec 28,2005ND BATRA Multinationals spin and hype to push the envelop of our expectations of absolute security — not only physical security but also of our health. They tickle our fantasies and seed our dreams. In slogans and jingles they capture our hidden When security trumps everythingSection: Perspective Date:Dec 28,2005ND Batra (Cyberage) Multinationals spin and hype to push the envelop of our expectations of absolute security — not only physical security but also of our health. They tickle our fantasies and seed our dreams. In slogans and jingles they capture our hid
Indian hockey plays hookeySection: Sport Date:Dec 28,2005Mario Rodrigues in Mumbai A last place finish in the recent six nation Champions Trophy at Chennai juxtaposed besides the outburst of International Hockey Federation chief Ms Els van Breda Vriesmann’s against the Indian Hockey Federation for its “apathy
Cyber Age: ND Batra: Global interdependenceSection: Perspective Date:Dec 21,2005Today, India is a much friendlier place to live and do business in than it was a few years ago. There is tremendous optimism in the country that poverty can be reduced and widespread prosperity is achievable. Although this does not diminish the bold forei
Global interdependenceSection: Perspective Date:Dec 21,2005Cyber Age (ND Batra) Today, India is a much friendlier place to live and do business in than it was a few years ago. There is tremendous optimism in the country that poverty can be reduced and widespread prosperity is achievable. Although this does not d
Cyber Age:ND Batra Restore civil libertiesSection: Perspective Date:Dec 07,2005The USA Patriot Act hastily enacted in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks has diminished civil liberties, though the American people accepted it stoically as a necessary evil to secure their lives and civil liberties. The Act gave enormous powers to
Cyber Age:ND Batra Restore civil libertiesSection: Perspective Date:Dec 07,2005The USA Patriot Act hastily enacted in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks has diminished civil liberties, though the American people accepted it stoically as a necessary evil to secure their lives and civil liberties. The Act gave enormous powers to
Terms of endearmentSection: Perspective Date:Nov 30,2005West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was reported to have asked at a meeting of business leaders in October, “Why do we need Wal-Mart to come?” That’s a good question, which Wal-Mart has yet to answer. There is a genuine apprehension that
Age of corporate diplomacySection: Perspective Date:Nov 23,2005When American Airlines, the second US carrier to start a nonstop service to India, planned its Chicago O’Hare to New Delhi flight, its management realised that open skies do not necessarily mean open hearts and minds, in spite of the excellent business cl
Cyber Age: ND Bathra: Age of corporate diplomacySection: Perspective Date:Nov 23,2005When American Airlines, the second US carrier to start a nonstop service to India, planned its Chicago O’Hare to New Delhi flight, its management realised that open skies do not necessarily mean open hearts and minds, in spite of the excellent business cl
Cyber age: ND BATRA:Saddam’s trial as public catharsisSection: Perspective Date:Nov 16,2005The trial of Saddam Hussein might turn out to be the trial of President George W Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair in the court of global public opinion whether they were justified in invading Iraq in the absence of weapons of mass destruction. It couldcyber age: ND Batra: Teaching virtuallySection: Perspective Date:Nov 09,2005There is a misplaced feeling on the American campus today that old faculty members are generally resistant to pedagogical technology and feel stressed by it. But who wouldn't feel the pressure especially when every year vendors relentlessly push software
cyber age: ND Batra: Info leaks as weapons of destructionSection: Perspective Date:Nov 02,2005The wages of disinformation have to be paid sooner or later, as the Bush White House and some celebrity journalists are learning painfully. In 2003, the CIA asked diplomat Joseph Wilson to investigate whether Saddam Hussein procured uranium (yellow cake
Spotlight: Drawing The Eye, tickling the mindSection: 8th Day Date:Oct 31,2005JAMA MASJID: CALL OF THE SOUL By NL Batra Niyogi Offset, New Delhi 2005 181 pages, price not stated KOLKATA CANVAS Photographs: Sunil K Dutt Text: Goutam Ghose Alchemy, 2005 110 pages, price not stated If there are some books delving into hi
Spotlight: Drawing The Eye, tickling the mindSection: 8th Day Date:Oct 31,2005JAMA MASJID: CALL OF THE SOUL By NL Batra Niyogi Offset, New Delhi 2005 181 pages, price not stated KOLKATA CANVAS Photographs: Sunil K Dutt Text: Goutam Ghose Alchemy, 2005 110 pages, price not stated If there are some books delving into hi
cyber age : ND Batra: It’s a dog’s life sans freedomSection: Perspective Date:Oct 26,2005China has been growing at the rate of 8-9 per cent for the past two decades or so, and is expected to become an economic and military heavyweight, if not a superpower, in the coming decades. Since the authoritarian rule has not held back China from growin
Down but not outSection: Perspective Date:Oct 23,2005The earthquake may have flattened many of the terrorist camps in PoK, sensational killings in Jammu and Kashmir cannot be ruled out though, writes KAVITA SURI All these years, Muzaffarabad ~ capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir ~ has been in the news f
Beyond the game theorySection: Perspective Date:Oct 19,2005Life is more than a game theory. Sometimes it is an act of faith. In the USA, a person can have another chance to get out of his sordid past and start a new life. It is indeed a country of second chance. When Arnold Schwarzenegger, now California Governo
Keep your hat onSection: Lifestyle Date:Oct 16,2005When the bald pate peeks, men yearn to go under cover. Their optimism takes a beating in spite of Bruce Willis, says Ritusmita Biswas Mihir Bhatia had tried everything. From hibiscus juice to Chinese concoctions to homeopathy, allopathy and naturopathy;
Keep your hat onSection: Lifestyle Date:Oct 16,2005When the bald pate peeks, men yearn to go under cover. Their optimism takes a beating in spite of Bruce Willis, says Ritusmita Biswas Mihir Bhatia had tried everything. From hibiscus juice to Chinese concoctions to homeopathy, allopathy and naturopathy;
cyber age: ND Batra:Q&A: Iran-India diplomacySection: Perspective Date:Oct 12,2005Would it be in India’s national interest for Iran to develop nuclear weapons? Although India is not a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty, in spirit, however, it is committed to the international treaty. The 18 July agreement with the USA, which wacyber age: ND Batra: Advantage India: High quality guaranteedSection: Perspective Date:Oct 05,2005India’s $700 billion economy, growing at a leisurely pace of seven per cent, is a small potato for a billion people, even if you add to it another $ 350 billion of the shadow economy. India needs a sustained growth of eight per cent or more to be ab
Looking for the next big little thing?Section: Editorial Date:Sep 28,2005The venturesome fear that they might miss out on the next big little thing, a Google, the self-organising information universe; Skype, a conversation-sharing website bought by e-Bay; or MySpace, a social network, acquired by NewsCorp. Money is seldom a p
Looking for the next big little thing?Section: Perspective Date:Sep 28,2005Cyber Age/ ND Batra The venturesome fear that they might miss out on the next big little thing, a Google, the self-organising information universe; Skype, a conversation-sharing website bought by e-Bay; or MySpace, a social network, acquired by NewsCorp.
When India goes wireless and footlooseSection: Perspective Date:Sep 21,2005Said to be the fastest growing mobile nation, with each month 2.5 million more Indians being added to the existing 63 million mobile market, India is ingeniously transcending its infrastructural limitations. The cultural, political and commercial conseq
When India goes wireless and footlooseSection: Perspective Date:Sep 21,2005Said to be the fastest growing mobile nation, with each month 2.5 million more Indians being added to the existing 63 million mobile market, India is ingeniously transcending its infrastructural limitations. The cultural, political and commercial conseq
Black Thunder over JharkhandSection: India Date:Sep 20,2005Statesman News Service RANCHI, Sept. 19. — Operation Black Thunder is underway and has started showing results, claim the top-brass of Jharkhand police. A major offensive against Naxalite rebels in and around the Saranda Forest area led by the Central R
Terror trove unearthedSection: India Date:Sep 20,2005Statesman News Service JAMMU, Sept. 19. — In a major recovery in Jammu and Kashmir, the Army eliminated an infiltration column in Machhal sector by killing five terrorists. In addition to arms, ammunition, incriminating documents and war-like stores, the
Cyber age: ND BatraL Changing USA’s imageSection: Perspective Date:Sep 14,2005There will never be a time when we could say that we have won the war of ideas. That was the mistake the USA made when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989 and the Cold War was over. It was a false dawn; and to some influential but misguided scholars it see
cyber age ND BATRA: Of human bonds in the digital ageSection: Perspective Date:Sep 07,2005In this digital age of loosening human bonds and transitory attachments to disembodied groups that rise and disappear in cyberspace, sense and sensibility of place, its physical and cultural geography, is becoming important to people. The feeling of bei
Cyber Age: Brave new world of snoopy laptopsSection: Perspective Date:Aug 31,2005My networked laptop snoops on me, so does Google. I am not afraid because I have nowhere to go. In these fluid times, when earth is becoming flatter every day and jobs may be moved from one digital hub to another, one never knows where the axe might fall

Better security means more freedomSection: Perspective Date:Aug 24,2005On a recent flight to Chicago, the airport security inspector said to me with a wry smile on his face, “You have been randomly selected to undergo special search.” Why me? Of course, I look different. And with my dark-brown tanned un-American face, I co
CYBER AGE: ND Batra: Learning to live in ‘Londonistan’Section: Perspective Date:Aug 17,2005In the wake of last month’s London bombing, President Pervez Musharraf asked Britain to take strong steps to curb terrorism instead of blaming of Pakistan. As if on a hint from the Pakistani ruler, Prime Minister Tony Blair just did exactly that, announci
Enhancing lifeSection: Perspective Date:Aug 10,2005President Bush said he would veto any Bill for using federal money “to promote science that destroys life to save life.” In this respect, much of the country is not with him. According to a recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, 53 per cent Americans favour em
Bangladesh as a dangling metaphorSection: Perspective Date:Aug 03,2005CYBER AGE ND BATRA There is a reason for Bangladesh textile exporters to be optimistic about the long-term outcome of China’s revaluation of the yuan. Of the $7.57 billion export last year, its textile accounted for 75 per cent; but since the phasi
CPM sniffs Vajpayee kin in CentaurSection: India Date:Jul 28,2005Press Trust of India NEW DELHI, July 27. — Fuelling further the deepening controversy over disinvestment of Mumbai-based Centaur hotel, the Communist Party Marxist today demanded a CBI probe into links of Mr Ranjan Bhattacharya, foster son-in-law
Satpathy denies allegationSection: Sport Date:Jul 28,2005Press Trust of India BHUBANESWAR, July 27. — The manager of the Indian hockey team which participated in the recently concluded junior World Cup at Rotterdam today strongly denied allegations that seven of the players who participated in the championship
Partnership for prosperitySection: Perspective Date:Jul 27,2005By offering India “full civilian nuclear cooperation nuclear energy,” President Bush has made a bold move in establishing long term strategic and economic relations with a country that many US experts perceive as a reliable global partner. Mr Bush did no
Section: Perspective Date:Jul 20,2005In 2003 CIA asked diplomat Joseph Wilson to investigate whether Saddam Hussein procured uranium (yellow cakes) from Niger. Wilson found no evidence and was publicly critical of the Bush administration for making such a claim. Immediately after Wilson’s c
Revenge politics and Press freedomSection: Perspective Date:Jul 20,2005In 2003 CIA asked diplomat Joseph Wilson to investigate whether Saddam Hussein procured uranium (yellow cakes) from Niger. Wilson found no evidence and was publicly critical of the Bush administration for making such a claim. Immediately after Wilson’s c
Fascism of foodSection: Editorial Date:Jul 13,2005The French were crestfallen after Paris lost to London in the 2012 Summer Olympics bid and more so because a day earlier French President Jacques Chirac had said about Britain that it’s difficult to trust people who eat such “bad food” and whose only cont
Fascism of foodSection: Perspective Date:Jul 13,2005The French were crestfallen after Paris lost to London in the 2012 Summer Olympics bid and more so because a day earlier French President Jacques Chirac had said about Britain that it’s difficult to trust people who eat such “bad food” and whose only cont
Diversity mattersSection: Perspective Date:Jul 06,2005This is an age of smart ideas. Ideas are potential assets. Creativity matters and sets a nation apart. There’s a new frenzy for reaching customers through newer modes of communications, including product placement in television programmes. The busiest
cyber age: ND Batra: Digital spies, nowhere to hideSection: Perspective Date:Jun 29,2005From time to time many US Senators say how deeply concerned they are the way the USA is gradually slipping into a low-intensity surveillance society. Since the terrorist attacks four year ago, there’s a diffused sense of insecurity, which flares up occasi
cyber age: ND Batra: Ethical cleansing: All that’s newsSection: Perspective Date:Jun 22,2005This is the Internet age. News spreads instantly. To set the world on fire, you don’t need six degrees of separation. In May, Newsweek’s report about the Koran being desecrated was based on an anonymous government source, which turned out to b
India and knowledge economy — Cyber Age by ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Jun 15,2005Recently, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the establishment of a National Knowledge Commission, “on matters relating to institutions of knowledge production, knowledge use and knowledge dissemination”. Which is recognition of th
Section: Kolkata Plus Date:Jun 09,2005Statesman News Service KOLKATA, June 8. — It took the brilliance of a Mithun Chakraborty – not the reel-life hero – of South Point High School to restore the city to the top position on the unofficial merit list of this year’s
cyber age: ND Batra: Globalisation exposes India’s dilemmasSection: Perspective Date:Jun 08,2005Globalisation has raised the curtain on India, exposing its strength and its weaknesses. So it is not unusual to come across a person asking a question, such as: If Indians are so smart, why are there so many poor? The quick answer is that corruption an
TRAVEL: WILDLIFE CORNUCOPIASection: 8th Day Date:Jun 07,2005Lalima Bose Sri Lanka is moving beyond tragedy and looking ahead. The devastation of last December’s Tsunami was overwhelming but the country has come a long way. The entire nation has gone into an overdrive to bring tourists back. And over 2.2 bil
TRAVEL: WILDLIFE CORNUCOPIASection: 8th Day Date:Jun 06,2005Lalima Bose Sri Lanka is moving beyond tragedy and looking ahead. The devastation of last December’s Tsunami was overwhelming but the country has come a long way. The entire nation has gone into an overdrive to bring tourists back. And over 2.2 bil
CYBER AGE India’s strength and ingenuity: ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Jun 01,2005India is becoming an integral part of the globalised economy and is clearly thriving on the synergy between multinational corporations and its indigenous strengths, which come from a high quality of education from its top universities, democratic institut
CYBER AGE India’s infrastructural woes BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:May 25,2005In the early 1990s, power generation was thrown open to the private sector but India still suffers from frequent blackouts and brownouts, which makes me wonder whether the goal of electric power for everyone in the country by 2012 would be easily reached.
Batra joins fraySection: Sport Date:May 23,2005KOLKATA, May 22. — With Mr Narinder Batra, Indian Hockey Federation senior vice-president and leader of the anti-KPS Gill camp announcing his candidature for both the top posts, some of the suspense which hung over the IHF elections here has dispelled. Th
HC seeks clarificationSection: Sport Date:May 21,2005NEW DELHI, May 20. — Accusing the Centre of concealing the then Sports Minister Miss Uma Bharati’s order on limiting the tenure of office-bearers of sports bodies, Indian Hockey Federation senior vice-president, Mr Narinder Batra, today sought initiation
CYBER AGE An India that does BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:May 18,2005India has been exciting the world’s imagination for sometime and many investors have begun to have a fresh look at the country and explore its potentials as an alternative to China. George Evans, the director of international equities at the Oppenheimer
Uma’s fiat gives new twistSection: Sport Date:May 18,2005Press Trust of India NEW DELHI, May 17. — In a new twist to the on-going power struggle in the Indian Hockey Federation, the Centre today told the Delhi High Court that the then sports minister Miss Uma Bharati had in 2002 ordered to keep in abeyance th
CYBER AGE BY NDA BATRA Trustworthy news enables good governanceSection: Perspective Date:May 11,2005Reporting news is a hazardous job. In 2004, 53 journalists were killed, 1,146 were maltreated, and more than 600 news organisations were censured worldwide, according to the UN. Last week (3 May) was the 15th World Press Freedom Day, celebrating the theme
Kanti ready with college autonomy reportSection: Kolkata Plus Date:May 05,2005KOLKATA, May 4. — The state school education minister Mr Kanti Biswas and the chairman of the committee on autonomy in higher education institutions today put the final touches to the committee report. The report would be formally handed to the Union huma
Hollywood horrors-N.D> BatraSection: Perspective Date:May 04,2005Hollywood groans with pain, thanks to new DVD players with built-in editing features that can cut out scenes from a movie that might be deemed obscene and inappropriate for family viewing. Democratisation of digital technology is taking away the artistic
Sino-Indian army heads vow to follow PanchsheelSection: India Date:May 01,2005STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE JAMMU, April 30. — As things are looking up with regard to Sino-Indian relations after Chinese Premier Mr Wen Jiabao’s recent visit to India, both the countries have made a firm commitment to resolve pending issues, inc
CYBER AGE Something about China and Japan BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Apr 27,2005After selling its ThinkPad to a Chinese company, Lenovo Group Ltd, IBM has begun to admonish us about the inevitability of China’s rise and the need to harness its strength for corporate America. A recent full-page ad crowed, “The future is a India’s national interest and ChinaSection: Perspective Date:Apr 20,2005Nothing could have been more deceptive than what India’s Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said at a press conference in New Delhi at the conclusion of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s visit. “India and China are partners, and they are not rivals. We do no
CYBER AGE BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Apr 13,2005Let’s not blame it all on TV The school bully is a universal menace. Though no one has attempted to write a history of school bullying, one might surmise that it must have begun the day the first school began anywhere in the world. Threats and inti
Court orders doctors’ panel for Kanshi RamSection: India Date:Apr 09,2005Press Trust of India NEW DELHI, April 8. — Accepting the plea of family members of ailing BSP founder Mr Kanshi Ram, the Supreme Court today directed AIIMS to constitute a team of doctors to examine the leader who is undergoing treatment at the residence
cyber age: ND Batra: Power of being digitally mobileSection: Perspective Date:Mar 30,2005I do not know whether the people of Kyrgyzstan used mobile digital technologies to organise their opposition to the dictatorial regime of President Askar Akayev and whether democracy would take roots there. But on 20 January 2001, President Joseph Estrada
CYBER AGE: Building an ownership society BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Mar 23,2005Ownership society is a beautiful idea. Everyone should own some property. The only way to build an ownership society, about which George W Bush speaks with such gusto, is to build first a solid foundation of trust, most of all corporate trust. Growth and
CYBER AGE: Why can’t women do Einstein? BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Mar 09,2005Fearing it may be politically incorrect to speak about it, I have been keeping anecdotal evidence to myself as to how temperamentally and intellectually different women are, until Harvard’s president Lawrence Summers, in effect, said: Hey, what’s holding
CYBER AGE: Wife swapping to information swapping BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Mar 02,2005The current season of the television sitcom Hope and Faith introduced a double episode about wife swapping, which despite its suggestive open marriage indecency wasn’t as naughty as it sounds. In fact Wife Swap is a separate reality show, where two housew
Dark side of digital ageSection: Perspective Date:Feb 24,2005What would you do if you found someone shouting: “Everything’s horrible, I want to die. Who will die with me?” That’s how Reuters read the message in a Japanese Internet chatroom after four people varying in age from 19 to 30 were
CYBER AGE: Dark side of digital age BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Feb 23,2005What would you do if you found someone shouting: “Everything’s horrible, I want to die. Who will die with me?” That’s how Reuters read the message in a Japanese Internet chatroom after four people varying in age from 19 to 30 were found to have committed
cyber age: ND Batra: Scandals of corporate USASection: Perspective Date:Feb 16,2005The unceremonious firing of Carly Fiorina, the glamorous globetrotting CEO of Hewlett Packard, one of the few women who broke the proverbial glass ceiling – some would say by sheer guts and grits – has been an odd occurrence in the annals of corporate Ame
cyber age: ND Batra: Bold strokes to change the world?Section: Perspective Date:Feb 09,2005Probably the most touching moment during President Bush’s State of the Union address on Wednesday night occurred when the entire assembly gave a standing ovation to two women, Safia Taleb al-Suhail of Iraq and Janet Norwood of Texas. The women embraced ea
cyber age: ND Batra: Global brain emerging?Section: Perspective Date:Feb 02,2005Some of the biggies of the computer world, including IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems, announced they are forming a consortium to educate the corporate world to adopt open-source grid computing for commercial applications. The impulse isn&
CYBER AGE By ND BATRA How much freedom does a man need?Section: Perspective Date:Jan 26,2005‘And then there came a day of fire,” Bush said during his second inaugural, indirectly referring to terrorists’ attacks that pulled the USA out of a long slumber. Rather too soon, the end of Communism had brought about a sense of complac
CYBER AGE Bush’s second term: Making elephants fly BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Jan 19,2005Although the ghost of weapons of mass destruction has been finally laid to rest with the release of the latest official report, George Bush has shown no regret for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein. In spite of the fact that now a majority of Amer
Former coach says IHF a mad house, Gill hits backSection: Sport Date:Jan 14,2005NEW DELHI, Jan. 13. — Terming the Indian Hockey Federation as a ‘big mad house’, former hockey team coach Mr Gerhard Rach today unleashed a spate of attacks on the IHF secretary Mr K Jyotikumaran. “After the Olympics, Mr Gill was happy with me but Mr Jyot
cyber age: ND Batra: When the earth goes out of balanceSection: Perspective Date:Jan 12,2005A few days ago my neighbour Cindy called to say hello and asked if my family in India was doing okay. And the next day the school principal phoned to inquire about a little girl, Medha Gopal, in our neighbourhood who had gone to India with her parents and
Cyberage by ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Jan 05,2005The American Tongue I can’t stop wondering how the American tongue wags, twists and turns to create new expressions, reinforcing its dynamic character that reflects the restless innovative temper of the American people. Grammarians and linguists t
CYBER AGE Diplomatic immunity for e-Bay, Baazee.com?Section: Perspective Date:Dec 29,2004By ND Batra The arrest of Avnish Bajaj, the CEO of e-Bay’s Indian subsidiary Baazee.com, in connection with the posting for auction of a teenage-sex video, should not have become a matter of such grave concern as it has been made out to be in the Indian
Dragon makes a move & Americans are all shook upSection: Perspective Date:Dec 23,2004WHAT’S in a name? A lot. Brand is the thing, the real thing in the global economy. Suddenly the old question, “Guess, who is coming to dinner?” has assumed a new meaning. Chop sticks, please. We’re Chinese. Although no security alert or red flag went up
cyber age: ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Dec 22,2004Dragon makes a move & Americans are all shook up WHAT’S in a name? A lot. Brand is the thing, the real thing in the global economy. Suddenly the old question, “Guess, who is coming to dinner?” has assumed a new meaning. Chop sticks, please. We’re Chinese
When global corporations go bubble and bustSection: Perspective Date:Dec 15,2004Corporations exist to make money, not to spread capitalism, freedom or democracy. One of the best ways of making money is to dominate the market by eliminating competition. So corporations expand through mergers and acquisitions. Or they make unique produ
American tongue-in-cheekSection: Perspective Date:Dec 08,2004CYBER AGE By ND Batra Lee Gomes of the Wall Street Journal wonders: “Why no one has yet run for office by campaigning against the computer. After all, you couldn’t ask for a better sin-delivery system than a PC with a fast Web connection.” Well, you migh
Drug companies too can killSection: Perspective Date:Dec 02,2004Drug companies might have killed more people than all the terrorists put together. But who is counting? Raymond V Gilmartin, CEO of the pharmaceutical giant, Merck & Co., said in an open letter the company “is continuing to offer to refund patients for th
Drug companies too can killSection: Perspective Date:Dec 01,2004Drug companies might have killed more people than all the terrorists put together. But who is counting? Raymond V Gilmartin, CEO of the pharmaceutical giant, Merck & Co., said in an open letter the company “is continuing to offer to refund patients for th
America’s face to the worldSection: Perspective Date:Nov 24,2004Condoleezza Rice, the new US secretary of state, has a world to heal, without giving up the fight against global terrorism. As a most trusted confidante of President Bush, whom she is said to have helped form a vision of the world based on freedom and dem
Revisiting Bush’s policy of pre-emptionSection: Perspective Date:Nov 17,2004Cyber Age/ ND Batra The USA needs deeper engagement with the world through international economic aid, building up democratic institutions and strengthening weaker or failing states so that they don’t become havens for terrorists. It cannot depend
Bush unbound?Section: Perspective Date:Nov 10,2004The US presidential election ended gracefully and with clarity. It was a celebration of democracy. And if, as they say, the end is the beginning of something new, Bush’s second term could be more productive at home and less destructive abroad. But that wo
Outsourcing healthcare and other American problemsSection: Editorial Date:Nov 03,2004A few days ago I shocked one of my colleagues when I showed him a Washington Post story how a 53-year old man Howard Staab, suffering from a life-threatening heart problem, could not afford $200,000 for heart surgery and instead went to New Delhi’s
Outsourcing healthcare andSection: Perspective Date:Nov 03,2004A few days ago I shocked one of my colleagues when I showed him a Washington Post story how a 53-year old man Howard Staab, suffering from a life-threatening heart problem, could not afford $200,000 for heart surgery and instead went to New Delhi’s
America’s most (un)civil warSection: Perspective Date:Oct 27,2004by ND BATRA The USA is a fierce democracy; non-violent may be, but brutal. Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry said the “W” in George W Bush’s name stands for wrong – wrong on war, wrong on peace, wrong on budget, wrong on social security
Democracy’s work is never doneSection: Perspective Date:Oct 20,2004by ND Batra The continued insurgency in Iraq has unfortunately distracted our attention from some positive developments in Afghanistan. The election in Afghanistan held under the auspicious of the United Nations and international observers is the first sm
Seductions of cyberspaceSection: Perspective Date:Oct 13,2004As the legend goes, on the Internet nobody knows whether a person is a dirty old man trying to seduce teenagers; a gender-swapping woman playing with big boys in a virtual MUD room; or a teenager posing as an expert. As a New Yorker cartoon by Peter Stein
cyber age: ND Batra: Who would do a better job in Iraq?Section: Perspective Date:Oct 06,2004The political war about war in Iraq has heated up to the point that other domestic issues including economy, jobs, social security, education and health care have been sidetracked. The daily flow of images of car bombs and suicide explosions in Baghdad, i
cyber age: ND Batra: Who would do a better job in Iraq?Section: Perspective Date:Oct 06,2004The political war about war in Iraq has heated up to the point that other domestic issues including economy, jobs, social security, education and health care have been sidetracked. The daily flow of images of car bombs and suicide explosions in Baghdad, i
cyber age: ND Batra: Doing away with business patent methodsSection: Perspective Date:Sep 29,2004Vivius, Inc., based in Minneapolis, is a most recent example of companies rushing to patent their unique methods of doing business, thus creating impenetrable walls to hide ideas that should be tested and debated in public. The company, according to Busin
PEOPLE & PLACESSection: Perspective Date:Sep 22,2004A shot of Kalashnikov? LONDON – A shot from a Kalashnikov need no longer be life-threatening, though one too many could still prove debilitating. In one of the more macabre moves of modern marketing, a serial entrepreneur called John Florey has enlisted
CYBER AGE: Being there when you’re not: ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Sep 22,2004I don’t know whether it would help us make a better sense of the world, whether it would improve our awareness and responsiveness to the human condition if we were able to surf the Web through eyeglasses or do instant messaging through picture cellphones.

Cyber Age/ ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Sep 15,2004America should stop romancing Chechnya A massacre of children worthy of Herod is not a coded invitation to peace negotiations. On 11 September 2001, we wept in sympathy with America; after Beslan we have to dry our tears and try to build genuine ties wit
Is Bush doing enough?Section: Perspective Date:Sep 08,2004Cyber Age ND Batra Just as George Bush was declaiming at the Republican Convention in New York – not far from the spot where terrorists had rammed through the WTC three years ago – why the war against Iraq was absolutely necessary, Chechen Is
Cyber Age/ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Sep 01,2004Going negative pays in US politics In a bitter war of negative political ads, George W Bush has been attacking his Democratic rival, Senator John Kerry, as someone who is wrong on defence, wrong on taxes, in short, a wrong man to be the Commander-in-ChieCYBER AGE Play it again, Uncle Sam BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Aug 25,2004Can the United States military really metamorphose into a light and lethal 21st century global force that would “fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee”? President George W. Bush thinks the United States has no choice and it must. That see
‘I’m no item number’Section: Lifestyle Date:Aug 22,2004Ria De A heady mix of brain and brawn, the “Vaid”-ic factor hardly fails to impress. The effect no-doubt is titillating to the auditory organs when the communication is limited to a 15-minute sonic tete-a- tete over the phone. Arguably, one of the sexies
CYBER AGE : Living with the fake and the real: ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Aug 18,2004In the world of 24/7 instant media flow, news organisations sometimes give up their gatekeeping functions too hastily and abuse our trust, with far reaching consequences. I am not only talking about the Bush administration’s pre-war propaganda about
Suicide twist to fatal fireSection: Kolkata Plus Date:Aug 14,2004Statesman News Service KOLKATA, Aug. 13. — The discovery of livestock inside the one-room house of Nur Afsan Bibi, where she and her three daughters were charred to death on Wednesday night at Sanapara in Batra, has baffled local police. When locals
cyber age: ND Batra: Smart intelligence systemsSection: Perspective Date:Aug 11,2004Last week when I called my Internet service provider, a smooth computerised human voice asked my phone number, presumably to check my identification from its database, and then said, “Probably I could help you, if you tell me the problem.” It
Good wivesSection: Lifestyle Date:Aug 08,2004They have left Bollywood and its constant glare to lead relatively anonymous, yet more productive lives. Ruchi M Roy catches up with some of the golden girls of the Hindi film industry Marriage is miraculous; it has the power to change. For Meenakshi S
CYBER AGE : Setting the agenda for the next US President : ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Aug 04,2004It was an awesome spectacle, a grand political theatre, last Thursday when Senator John Kerry, tall and gaunt, waded through the Democratic Convention hall, touching hands with hordes of delegates as he climbed the stage to accept the party’s nomina
CYBER AGE Of ‘girlie men’ and ‘bushwhooping’ women BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Jul 28,2004In this hypersexed society, of Vagina Monologues and Sex and the City, the heat of verbal pyrotechnics is on. A John Kerry Democratic supporter from Hollywood compared George Bush with her private parts and another one from the tinsel town, an actor-turne
CYBER AGE American values at home & abroad BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Jul 21,2004A cultural war has been raging in the USA over gay marriages, abortion rights and stem cell research. As the presidential election approaches, Republicans and Democrats are using their political platforms to win over swing voters by touting as to who embo
CYBER AGE US elections: No easy way out ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Jul 14,2004For Republicans, the world is a dark and dangerous place and one can’t be too careful. In one of the Republican campaign ads, spokesperson Senator John McCain says this war against terrorism is “between right and wrong, good and evil. And shouCYBER AGE: Tear down the wall at Wal-Mart BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Jun 30,2004Big events don’t necessarily portend the future. People live with hurricanes and earthquakes. Lives don’t change fundamentally. The Twin Towers are gone. New York continues, probably livelier and better prepared for future eventualities. Amer
cyber age: ND Batra: Oh, these American presidents!Section: Perspective Date:Jun 23,2004One can never get enough of them, US presidents, living, dead and retired. Mass media, especially television, has turned the US presidency into a public obsession. Sometimes it seems to distort the real life in the USA, life outside the Beltway – vast, sp
Cyber age: ND Batra: ‘Special providence’ in Reagan’s end?Section: Perspective Date:Jun 16,2004Much has be said about Ronald Reagan’s intriguing legacy, his sunny cheerful disposition that made one feel the USA is a promised land; his denunciation of the Soviet Union as an evil empire and the call to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev,
Good rhetoric... but will it work? CYBER AGE: ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Jun 09,2004John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is saying all the right things about the USA’s foreign policy and yet his credibility is not going up. He invoked Teddy Roosevelt, saying, “America should walk softly and carry a big stick… if a
Natural History ~ facts and odditiesSection: Voices Date:Jun 04,2004Did you know? 1. Antlers are made of bone and are shed and regrown each year, while horns are made of keratin and are grown for life. 2. The fiddler crab, unlike most other crabs uses only one claw to transfer food into its mouth. To feed itself it is co
Restoring people’s confidenceSection: Perspective Date:Jun 03,2004Concluding part of the speech by AS ANAND delivered on the occasion of the commemoration of Asutosh Mookerjee Decisions on such matters as the right to protection against solitary confinement as in Sunil Batra’s case; free legal aid to the poor pris
Facilitating access to justiceSection: Perspective Date:Jun 02,2004Part II of the speech delivered by AS ANAND on the occasion of the commemoration of Asutosh Mookerjee Perhaps one of the first PIL causes considered by the Supreme Court after 1976 was Hussainara Khatoon’s case. A series of articles were published
CYBER AGE: Looking for the next killer application? BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Jun 02,2004For most businesses, the best digital strategy is to look for a killer application, a technology, an idea or a business method that creates new “marketspace,” a cyber-niche, that never existed before, and establish market dominance until anoth
A course correctionSection: Perspective Date:May 26,2004‘Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough and I will move the world.’ Archimedes, 220 BC. Once again the Indian electorate has affirmed that the era of giants, larger-than-life-heroes like Nehru and dominant figures like Indira Gandhi, is over for
CYBER AGE/ ND BATRA Another reality show?Section: Perspective Date:May 19,2004The world is becoming a digital theatre, a place of grand and cruel gestures in cyberspace. A well-rehearsed and structured tableau of victims and perpetrators in action, for example, could be uploaded for instant global polysynchronous reactions, of curs
cyber age: ND Batra: Ba’athists, Bush and democracySection: Perspective Date:May 12,2004Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, has asked some of Saddam’s old officers to return to the military uniform and help him restore law and order, especially in Fallujah in the Sunni triangle and other trouble spots like Najaf in the Shia area
CYBER AGE Season of hot political tracts BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:May 05,2004During the presidential election, political discourse in the USA is being carried on at several levels, of which the most exciting has been the appearance of two books by Washington insiders. One, by former intelligence analyst Richard Clarke, points an a
CYBER AGE : ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Apr 28,2004Beyond reality television Civilised behaviour, the desire to avoid ugliness, and the fear of legal repercussions prevent us from telling our underlings, “You are fired.” So company bosses concoct circuitous ways of saying the same: “We’re downsizing; we
cyber age: ND Batra: TV: Children’s friend or foe?Section: Perspective Date:Apr 21,2004Television causes violent behaviour in children. Television causes obesity in children. And now we learn from the results of a recent study published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics that early exposure to television increases the risk
Cyber Age : ND BATRA Offshoring is brain-sharingSection: Perspective Date:Apr 14,2004Corporate America is primarily beholden to its investors and would do whatever it takes to stay competitive and profitable in the global marketplace. If staying financially healthy means offshoring jobs to India and other places, so be it. That was the co
CYBER AGE ND BATRA Testing time for faith & courageSection: Perspective Date:Apr 07,2004Call it a victory of the US public opinion. After months of dithering, President Bush agreed to let his national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, testify under oath before the independent commission investigating why the USA failed to protect itself fr
Shooters bang on targetSection: Pageone Date:Apr 03,2004Press Trust of India ISLAMABAD, April 2. — Despite the absence of top stars including Anjali Vedpathak Bhagwat and Rajyawardhan Singh Rathore, India continued their fine performance in the 9th South Asian Federation Games shooting picking up all four gol
Swimmers make a splashSection: Sport Date:Apr 01,2004Associated Press ISLAMABAD, March 31. — The Indian swimmers made a clean sweep of all the four gold medals on offer today, setting two meet records on the second day of the ninth SAF Games here. With the shooters grabbing three more gold, India retained
CYBER AGE/ ND BATRA Bloodier by the hour: It’s election yearSection: Perspective Date:Mar 31,2004Today Americans are as much confused as is much of the world about them. Spaniards booted out the USA-allied Popular Party – presumably pushed to edge by the Madrid train bombings. They installed a leader who said in no uncertain terms that he would
CYBER AGE: A year after Iraq, the battle continues by ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Mar 25,2004The USA is still absorbing the shock of the terrorist attacks in Spain that killed 202 people, though not so much because of the devastating impact on the country’s general elections that unexpectedly brought the socialists to power. It’s moreIn the line of fireSection: Lifestyle Date:Mar 21,2004Whoever said the Indian Army is always on its toes, wasn’t too far from the truth. We saw the jawans at the First Army Unit in Pokhran literally doing so the other night on NDTV’s Jai Jawan. The moment Rani Mukherjee told them “Aati Kya Khandala?”, they b
Giving democracy a chance in IraqSection: Perspective Date:Mar 17,2004CYBER AGE/ ND BATRA It is the dawn of a new freedom for Iraq. For the first time in the history of the region, an Arab nation would make an experiment to govern itself by the free will of its people, embracing all its diversity and divisiveness rather th
Glitter in politics Bollywood joins the tamashaSection: Editorial Date:Mar 11,2004A link between film stars and politicians is not new, nor is it restricted to just Ronald Reagan, a matinee idol of Hollywood who went on to become president. The current governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger also qualifies. Not to speak of our own
cyber age: ND Batra: A Hindu looks at The Passion of the ChristSection: Perspective Date:Mar 10,2004For me, Christianity has always been the face of Mother Teresa. I met her more than two decades ago in Ahmedabad for a magazine piece I was working on. She looked at me with her benign smile and said, “Speak truth always, son.” In thoughts and deeds, Moth
CYBER AGE ND BATRA Outsourcing: Good for both sidesSection: Perspective Date:Mar 03,2004I once said jokingly to Raymond Jennett, principal in a small accounting firm who prepares my annual income tax returns, “I hope you’re not sending my income tax papers to some outsourcing outfit in India.” I was expecting a loud guffaw
Crime and punishment in high placesSection: Perspective Date:Feb 25,2004Cyber Age ND Batra Once upon a time in the Nehru era, when India was building dreams, Bhakhra Nangals, Hindustan Machine Tools and IITs, exhaling and inhaling self-reliance and socialism and nonalignment, Time magazine, never shy of sniping at India, pub
digest: Kolkata debutSection: Entertainment Date:Feb 21,2004Bhawanipur Sursringar Society has been holding periodical classical music soirees in the city over the years. This association recently presented young Sayeed Zaffar Khan in a sitar concert held in the residence of the president of the society, PC Mahtab
Shourie attacks CAG over CentaurSection: Pageone Date:Feb 20,2004Statesman News Service NEW DELHI, Feb. 19. — The Comptroller and Auditor-General’s method of computing the notional loss is “idiotic”, the Union disinvestment minister said today while reacting to the CAG’s adverse remarks a
cyber age: ND Batra: Bless them Lord, whether it’s Adam & Eve or Adam & SteveSection: Perspective Date:Feb 18,2004One of the greatest fears of American parents is, as I am sure it must be in India too, that their child might be gay. The biblically minded Americans believe that their children would never crouch toward Sodom and Gomorrah. Contrary to scientific evidenc
CYBER AGE/ ND BATRA Perils of poor intelligenceSection: Perspective Date:Feb 11,2004A nation with poor intelligence coupled with a state of paranoia about its own survival could be a great threat to the rest of the world. The defused panic could lead to actions with irreversible consequences, while real dangers might lurk somewhere else CYBER AGE/ ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Feb 04,2004When chaos rules & Ali Baba and Co. are the nuclear carpetbaggers The danger to the world comes from scientists turned carpetbaggers willing to sell nuclear secrets to whoever could pay for them. If there is loss of central control, due to corruption a
CYBER AGE: Bush does the balancing actSection: Perspective Date:Jan 28,2004Criticism against George Bush by his Democratic opponents has been getting strident every day: the war on terrorism has not been going well; Bush’s unilateral action in Iraq by hyping the intelligence about weapons of mass destruction has diminished
CYBER AGE Another giant leap for mankind?Section: Perspective Date:Jan 21,2004No nation has ever been left behind when it thinks boldly and acts courageously. John F Kennedy said, let’s go to the moon; and a decade later America took “a small step” that held the promise of becoming “a giant leap for mankind.
CYBER AGE Digital trawl for security, freedomSection: Perspective Date:Jan 14,2004BY ND BATRA Eventually India and other nations too might feel persuaded to use the security measures that the USA has taken up recently: digital fingerprinting and photographing of approximately 24 million foreigners entering and leaving the country from
CYBER AGE Yes, Musharraf can do itSection: Perspective Date:Jan 07,2004By ND BATRA It’s not easy being Pervez Musharraf. Even during the not-so-bad times in its bloody history, one of the country’s prime ministers was hanged like a common criminal and two others were ousted and have been living and scheming in ex
Goodwill hunting in the New Year by ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Dec 31,2003As we chant Joy to the World and ring in the New Year, we must explore new directions in international relations instead of using pre-emptive power. There is a growing realisation that, especially since the capture of Saddam Hussein, the time has come for
Calling call centres BY ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Dec 17,2003Traffic jams and toll-free calls shape our lives today. A stand-up comedian once remarked, “If you want to go to hell, press four, otherwise stay on the line, we shall take you there.” That’s crude; nonetheless, it summed up the frustrat
Glass is half full, getting fuller — ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Dec 10,2003Something positive is happening. NASDAQ the technology heavy stock market momentarily touched 2000 before it retreated. After the dotcom bubble bust, it seemed the new economy would be left for dead. The Dow Jones Industrial average has been zigzagging an
CYBER AGE Exercising soft powerSection: Perspective Date:Dec 03,2003By ND BATRA THE new US ambassador to India, Mr David Mulford, could have enough opportunity to display a different facet of American power, what Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, calls “soft power.R
CYBER AGE Exercising soft powerSection: Perspective Date:Dec 03,2003By ND BATRA THE new US ambassador to India, Mr David Mulford, could have enough opportunity to display a different facet of American power, what Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, calls “soft power.RCYBER AGE Exercising soft powerSection: Perspective Date:Dec 03,2003By ND BATRA THE new US ambassador to India, Mr David Mulford, could have enough opportunity to display a different facet of American power, what Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, calls “soft power.R
Torn between KFC & Victoria’s Secret — ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Nov 26,2003Since I was not invited to the Victoria’s Secret fashion parade, I consoled myself by watching the show on television. Even at the risk of being told that I might have had a sour-grape syndrome, I indeed felt that the show was nothing but soft porno
CYBER AGE Unscripted life on televisionSection: Perspective Date:Nov 19,2003BY ND BATRA Few would remember the plump, tanned and (digitally misted) butt-naked Richard Hatch who in the summer of 2000 walked away with a million dollars through sheer guile, cunning and physical stamina, after spending 39 days with a group of 16 cas
CYBER AGE Unscripted life on televisionSection: Perspective Date:Nov 19,2003BY ND BATRA Few would remember the plump, tanned and (digitally misted) butt-naked Richard Hatch who in the summer of 2000 walked away with a million dollars through sheer guile, cunning and physical stamina, after spending 39 days with a group of 16 cas
CYBER AGE Code-breaking for public goodSection: Perspective Date:Nov 12,2003By ND BATRA In the analog world, apples are apples and oranges oranges. In the digital world, however, apples and oranges are the same; and to evaluate them you must break their underlying digital code. But breaking the code could be challenged as an infr
CYBER AGE McDonald’s in Paradise?Section: Perspective Date:Nov 05,2003By ND BATRA How advertisement, one of the most widely practiced forms of indoctrination through seduction, creates and transforms our desires and wants into compelling needs is a fascinating field of study that should not have been ignored by counter-terr
CYBER AGE The collective unconscious?Section: Perspective Date:Oct 29,2003BY ND BATRA Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, notorious for calling a spade more than a spade, outraged the international community with his vitriolic anti-Semitic comments as to how Jews “rule the world by proxy: They get others to fight and di
Indian women create ripplesSection: Sport Date:Oct 26,2003HYDERABAD, Oct. 25. — India began their metal hunt in the Afro Asian Games, at the swanky aquatics complex in the GMC Balayogi sports arena at Gachibowli, with three silver and two bronze medals. The timings clocked in the pool were, however, far from th
China risingSection: Perspective Date:Oct 22,2003By ND Batra When Shenzhou 5, Divine Vessel, spacecraft landed safely in the grassland of Inner Mongolia, China glowed with more than “me too” pride. And deservedly so, because managing a complex project like the launching of a manned space flight require
CYBER AGE ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Oct 15,2003California calling Americans are still absorbing the shockwaves let loose by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s electoral victory as California’s governor. Only a few days before the recall election, the governor-elect, a former body-builder and Hollywood action herBuilding pillarsSection: Perspective Date:Oct 08,2003By ND Batra In the prevailing state of chaos, violence and daily killing, one might wonder what the USA is trying to accomplish in Iraq and Afghanistan, apart from restoring law and order. Building roads, bridges and telecommunications is necessary, no d
Bush still standing tall?Section: Perspective Date:Oct 01,2003By ND Batra The grim resolve, what the French might have called improper haste, with which President Bush won quick victories in Afghanistan and Iraq should have translated into domestic political advantages to ensure a second term in the White House. Th
CYBER AGE Diplomatic turn of leafSection: Perspective Date:Sep 10,2003BY ND BATRA IN a sharp turn-around motivated by complex domestic and international factors, the USA has begun to do what it should have done long ago – ask for a substantial involvement of the United Nations in rebuilding peace and civil society in Iraq b
CYBER AGE Bamboo-fence homeland securitySection: Perspective Date:Sep 03,2003BY ND BATRA WHEN one tragic event follows another in quick succession, one does not know which one to mourn less: the death of 39 pilgrims who were killed in a stampede in the Godavari Kumbh Mela or that of 52 people in the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, fo
CYBER AGE Power of another kindSection: Perspective Date:Aug 27,2003BY ND BATRA ‘IT could happen to you,” as they say, but let’s praise the New Yorker for behaving in a most civilised way during the massive blackout that enveloped millions of people in eight states from the Big Apple to the Midwest as we
Cyber Age by ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Aug 13,2003Homeland security begins abroad WHEN a bomb explodes in Jakarta, Americans feel threatened and rightly so, which means Indonesia needs more help and greater US presence. Homeland security, not neo-imperialism, is driving the US diplomacy and is pushing
CYBER AGE The tide of democracySection: Perspective Date:Aug 06,2003By ND BATRA IN spite of the impatience of the American people with the slowness of events in Iraq, they haven’t lost their optimism. They still believe what Iraq’s administrator L Paul Bremer recently told Tim Russert of the NBC Meet the Press programme,
The brave new world of sensor technologySection: Perspective Date:Jul 16,2003By ND Batra A NEW world of sensate surroundings in which nothing would remain incommunicado is arising. Based on emerging and converging sensor technologies, law enforcement and anti-terrorism experts would deal with terrorism, among other problems, in a
Spam and serendipitySection: Perspective Date:Jul 09,2003Cyber Age ND Batra THERE is some one in Nigeria, South Africa or somewhere else who desperately wants to strike a multimillion-dollar deal with me. Why me, I wonder, and then I find to my consternation that that someone has picked up one of my female stu
Cyber Age by ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Jul 02,2003Thus spake the US Supreme Court I COULD not stop thinking about caste and religious relations in India when I read US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s opinion on the University of Michigan’s admission policy of affirmative action: “In order to
Cisco Systems president quitsSection: Business Date:Jun 26,2003Business Standard NEW DELHI, June 25. —Manoj Chugh has resigned from his post of president, India and SAARC, Cisco Systems. Owen Chan, vice-president, Asia-Pacific, Cisco Systems has taken over Chugh's responsibilities till a new president is appointed. C
Cyber Age by ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Jun 25,2003Hillary’s passion WHATEVER Hillary’s critics might say about her, it’s impossible not to be touched by her passion for the plight of women and children and her desire to turn compassion into political action. On her visit to India in 1995 as the then Fir
Cyber Age by ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Jun 18,2003The face that launched a thousand products WHEN a woman’s public face becomes the company, what happens when she loses her face? You might say there is no sense of shame in the USA because public relations image builders can spruce you up; but that is n
Cyber Age by ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Jun 11,2003It’s an untidy world GOVERNING an untidy world — where in some cases national sovereignty lets terrorism breed willy-nilly and SARS spreads unchecked through cover up of the information for political reasons — is not easy. If you look around, you will s
Cyber Age by ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Jun 04,2003Advantage Bush, maybe THE singleminded aggressiveness with which President George Bush waged war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussain in Iraq is being morphed into a domestic political campaign to ensure him a second term in the White Ho
CYBER AGE : Let’s talk about the almighty dollarSection: Perspective Date:May 28,2003By ND BATRA THE other day a media talking-head let out a cynical wisecrack that the USA is letting the dollar fall in order to punish the French and the Germans — the real euro powers, aka “old Europe” — for their non-cooperation in the Iraq war. Of cours
CYBER AGE : Let’s talk about the almighty dollarSection: Perspective Date:May 28,2003By ND BATRA THE other day a media talking-head let out a cynical wisecrack that the USA is letting the dollar fall in order to punish the French and the Germans — the real euro powers, aka “old Europe” — for their non-cooperation in the Iraq war. Of cours
Whose turn is it nextSection: Perspective Date:May 21,2003By ND Batra SOMETIMES it is possible to predict tornadoes; but they cannot be stopped. Nor does one know where precisely the next one would strike and the extent of damage it would cause. That’s what is happening with Al Qaida terrorism, except that it i
CYBER AGE Been there, done that, do it again anywaySection: Perspective Date:May 14,2003By ND BATRA LONG standing conflict over Kashmir has not only poisoned relations between India and Pakistan but more importantly it is also a major source of continuous communal tension between the Hindus and the Muslims in India. The common-sense of a man
Cyber Age: ND Batra: No longer the sound of musicSection: Perspective Date:May 07,2003THE young and the restless don’t want to pay for online music. They want to download it free and share it with their friends. That’s what they tell me every semester when I ask them the question about the ethical and legal aspects of Internet music sharin
Neo-imperialism and its perilsSection: Perspective Date:Apr 30,2003Cyber Age ND Batra HAVING won in Iraq, the temptation for the USA to have a permanent presence there is great, in fact irresistible, because of the country’s huge oil reserves, the second largest in the world, after Saudi Arabia. For Americans, it is cru
India & the Rumsfeld doctrineSection: Perspective Date:Apr 23,2003CYBER AGE: ND BATRA THE Rumsfeld Doctrine for the twenty-first century warfare sounds like a military version of a slogan of one of the world’s most famous boxers, Mohammad Ali: “I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” As part of the Bush Doctrine o
CYBER AGE Building lives and limbs in post-war IraqSection: Perspective Date:Apr 16,2003BY ND BATRA IN an age where images continue streaming upon us live from wherever an action is unfolding, two images of the Iraqi war will remain indelible in our memories. The most striking image was that of the 60-foot statute of Saddam Hussain being yan
Rebuilding Iraq and healing the worldSection: Perspective Date:Apr 09,2003By ND Batra EVEN some of those who have vehemently opposed the war, as I have been doing in this space, now want the USA to finish the work speedily to avoid further sufferings. Whether one calls the conclusion a victory or not, it is important to get al
WOMEN: Share & share alikeSection: Accent Date:Apr 08,2003When it comes to female bonding, caste, creed and country are irrelevant, This was apparent at the second International Social Communication Cinema Conference, recently held in Kolkata, where documentary films on women’s issues made by women directors lef
The power of the unexpectedSection: Perspective Date:Apr 02,2003Cyber Age by ND Batra WAR is a brutal thing, we are reminded every time diplomacy fails or is not allowed to work. But its brutality becomes more palpable when someone you know personally is going to the frontline and there is the chance that he may not
Hey Bangalore, can software beat terrorismSection: Perspective Date:Mar 12,2003CYBER AGE ND BATRA IS it possible for a data mining system to discern a passenger’s evil intention before he boards a plane? Since 11 September 2001 Americans have given a lot of thought to air travel security and accepted many inconveniences. Much more i
The Ides of MarchSection: Perspective Date:Feb 26,2003By ND Batra PRIME Minister Tony Blair, who has stood loyally behind President George Bush’s every move against Iraq and in the process has divided the Labour Party, alienated most Brits and even jeopardised his own political future, has done so by taking
CYBER AGE Been there, done that, do it again anywaySection: Perspective Date:May 14,2003By ND BATRA LONG standing conflict over Kashmir has not only poisoned relations between India and Pakistan but more importantly it is also a major source of continuous communal tension between the Hindus and the Muslims in India. The common-sense of a man
Cyber Age: ND Batra: No longer the sound of musicSection: Perspective Date:May 07,2003THE young and the restless don’t want to pay for online music. They want to download it free and share it with their friends. That’s what they tell me every semester when I ask them the question about the ethical and legal aspects of Internet music sharin
Neo-imperialism and its perilsSection: Perspective Date:Apr 30,2003Cyber Age ND Batra HAVING won in Iraq, the temptation for the USA to have a permanent presence there is great, in fact irresistible, because of the country’s huge oil reserves, the second largest in the world, after Saudi Arabia. For Americans, it is cru
India & the Rumsfeld doctrineSection: Perspective Date:Apr 23,2003CYBER AGE: ND BATRA THE Rumsfeld Doctrine for the twenty-first century warfare sounds like a military version of a slogan of one of the world’s most famous boxers, Mohammad Ali: “I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” As part of the Bush Doctrine o
CYBER AGE Building lives and limbs in post-war IraqSection: Perspective Date:Apr 16,2003BY ND BATRA IN an age where images continue streaming upon us live from wherever an action is unfolding, two images of the Iraqi war will remain indelible in our memories. The most striking image was that of the 60-foot statute of Saddam Hussain being yan
Rebuilding Iraq and healing the worldSection: Perspective Date:Apr 09,2003By ND Batra EVEN some of those who have vehemently opposed the war, as I have been doing in this space, now want the USA to finish the work speedily to avoid further sufferings. Whether one calls the conclusion a victory or not, it is important to get al
WOMEN: Share & share alikeSection: Accent Date:Apr 08,2003When it comes to female bonding, caste, creed and country are irrelevant, This was apparent at the second International Social Communication Cinema Conference, recently held in Kolkata, where documentary films on women’s issues made by women directors lef
The power of the unexpectedSection: Perspective Date:Apr 02,2003Cyber Age by ND Batra WAR is a brutal thing, we are reminded every time diplomacy fails or is not allowed to work. But its brutality becomes more palpable when someone you know personally is going to the frontline and there is the chance that he may not
Hey Bangalore, can software beat terrorismSection: Perspective Date:Mar 12,2003CYBER AGE ND BATRA IS it possible for a data mining system to discern a passenger’s evil intention before he boards a plane? Since 11 September 2001 Americans have given a lot of thought to air travel security and accepted many inconveniences. Much more i
The Ides of MarchSection: Perspective Date:Feb 26,2003By ND Batra PRIME Minister Tony Blair, who has stood loyally behind President George Bush’s every move against Iraq and in the process has divided the Labour Party, alienated most Brits and even jeopardised his own political future, has done so by taking
Space travel on a wing and a prayerSection: Perspective Date:Feb 12,2003By ND Batra SUDDENLY I realised the beauty of an old Hindi song I used to hum in my youth that, roughly translated, would read: Death becomes beautiful when the whole world watches (Maut wohi jo duniya dekhe). That’s how Kalpana Chawla, whom an ABC TV ne
The Brighter Side Of Body OdourSection: Science & Technology Date:Feb 06,2003Scientific research, writes Raj Kaushik, suggests that pheromones can inflict a romantic effect SHILPA Shetty is turned off by it. Puja Batra hates it. In fact, up to 90 per cent of the female respondents involved in sex surveys point out that male body
Confrontation as diplomatic communicationSection: Perspective Date:Jan 22,2003By ND Batra North Korea’s choice of confrontation as a mode of diplomatic communication with the United States was not unexpected, especially in the light of the fact that President George Bush had included the communist nation in “the axis of evil,” alo
Total intelligence for comprehensive national securitySection: Perspective Date:Jan 15,2003cyber age ND Batra There are so many parallels between the United States and India that when I write about American society, I am trying to wrestle with issues that India will inevitably face in the future, if it is not already doing so. In 2002, for exa
Temptations of the imperialist mantleSection: Perspective Date:Jan 01,2003CYBER AGE ND BATRA A British historian Niall Ferguson who is moving from Oxford to New York University next year argues that the United States may not have much choice but to assume the British imperialist mantle to maintain peace in the world. “True, th
Bowing out from public lifeSection: Perspective Date:Dec 25,2002cyber age/ ND Batra It is the Christmas time. It is the holiday season. It is the time to reflect. Al Gore, former Vice President who had fought a bitter presidential election in 2000 and won the popular vote, nonetheless, losing to George W. Bush becaus
Allies’ threat on divestmentSection: India Date:Dec 19,2002Statesman News Service NEW DELHI, Dec. 18. — The government today faced a threat in the Lok Sabha not only from the Opposition but also from its allies over the proposed sale of profit making public sector enterprises, particularly the two oil companies.
US war games & diplomacySection: Perspective Date:Dec 18,2002Cyber Age ND Batra The USA is right in demanding that Iraq offer irrefutable evidence that preparations for weapons of mass destruction have been halted permanently and the facilities dismantled. As if in response, Iraqi General Amir al-Saadi says the 12
Cong may not be hard on sell-offSection: India Date:Dec 11,2002Statesman News Service Dec. 10. — The Congress today indicated it wants to exploit the disinvestment issue politically but is undecided whether to take the “anti” line other Opposition parties are taking. In particular, the party is deciding whether to s
Turning ideas into assetsSection: Perspective Date:Dec 11,2002From the day after Thanksgiving through Christmas is the busiest shopping season in the USA, but this year the holiday shopping season began a week late because Thanksgiving was slow in coming. The delay has led to an advertising and marketing frenzy neve
Freedom to tinker with Open SourceSection: Perspective Date:Dec 04,2002By ND Batra While most of the creative people think inside the intellectual property box and try to protect their works with copyright, trademark and contractual laws, apart from technological means such as trusted systems, the Open Source or the free so
Polls may put off PSU sale meetSection: India Date:Dec 01,2002STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, Nov. 30. — The three-month freeze on oil PSU disinvestment slated to end on 7 December is likely to continue. This time, the reason is the Gujarat elections. Privatisation of oil PSUs BPCL and HPCL was stalled after a h
Creating trust in cyberspaceSection: Perspective Date:Nov 27,2002By ND Batra Everything we do in real space — for example, building cities, highways, shopping malls and village commons — is an artificial construction protected by man-made laws, technology and social ethics. And so are the social relations built on the
NDA MPs to raise sell-off in HouseSection: India Date:Nov 25,2002Sanjay Singh in New Delhi Nov 24. — NDA MPs will question the disinvestment policy in the Rajya Sabha and attempt to nail the government on issues like “undervaluation” of Mumbai’s Centaur hotel”. A group of NDA MPs in the Rajya Sabha including Shiv Sen
Centaur sale forces Shourie re-lookSection: India Date:Nov 20,2002Sanjay Singh in New Delhi Nov. 19. — The disinvestment controversy is set to deepen with Mr Arun Shourie’s ministry taking a re-look at the resale of Centaur Hotel by Batra Hospitalities. Centaur was sold to Batra by the government for Rs 83 crore and
The warrior President CYBER AGE/ ND BATRASection: Perspective Date:Nov 20,2002The Americans are a pragmatic down-to-earth people who prefer leaders who can talk to them at their own level. This is especially true now when they feel threatened at home and abroad, when their foes are cocooned in sleeper cells, corporate boardrooms,
What’s President Bush going to do?Section: Perspective Date:Nov 13,2002CYBER AGE ND BATRA Now that George W Bush commands and controls the nation, including both chambers of Congress, would he make fortress America secure from terrorists, corporate plunderers, snipers and church child abusers? Pardon me, but I forgot to men
Samata, BJP spar over divestmentSection: India Date:Nov 07,2002Statesman News Service New Delhi, Nov. 6. — The Samata Party today criticised the disinvestment ministry on two counts — the sale of Centaur Hotel in Mumbai and handing over of public sector oil company IPCL to Reliance through strategic sale. The party d
The kinship of fearSection: Perspective Date:Nov 06,2002CYBER AGE ND BATRA Only a few weeks ago, the crisp sunny autumn air was full of fear. The ghosts and goblins of Halloween might have turned trick-or-treat fun into a nightmare. But children are laughing, biking and playing again. Football, soccer and vol
Let Mickey Mouse be freeSection: Perspective Date:Oct 30,2002WHAT would happen if the Disney Corporation sets Mickey Mouse free? I suspect the loveable rodent would scurry and scamper, stand on his hind legs, flap his big ears, and join humanity’s cultural commons, alongside the Arabian Nights, Shakespeare, the MahCalcutta University overall championsSection: Sport Date:Oct 28,2002Statesman News Service KOLKATA, Oct. 27. — Calcutta University annexed the All-India Inter-University waterpolo title beating Amaravati University 14-5 at Subhas Sarobar Swimming pool here today. Kerala University captured the third place defeatin
Cyber AgeSection: Perspective Date:Oct 23,2002Ask Larry Flynt what to do with Jerry Falwell ND BATRA When an American Baptist preacher lit a match, provoked by the CBS “60 minutes” confrontational style ambush interview, a Hindu-Muslim flare-up killed eight innocent people thousands of miles away
Shourie salvo on PSU saleSection: Pageone Date:Oct 20,2002STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, Oct. 19. — The divestment war was renewed with a bang today when Mr Arun Shourie charged the Shiv Sena with influence-peddling, and challenged Ms Uma Bharati to fight the Prime Minister. A combative disinvestment minist
No privatisation without democratisationSection: Perspective Date:Oct 16,2002Market fundamentalism, the extreme form of capitalism that leaves all problems to be solved by the market forces of supply and demand and was credited with fuelling unprecedented growth in the 1990s — has bogged down in corporate scandals. There has been
Divestment meet on PSU valuationSection: India Date:Oct 15,2002Sanjay Singh in New Delhi Oct. 14. — Valuation methodologies of PSUs for sale will be a key issue in the next meeting on disinvestment likely to be convened by the Prime Minister. The highlighting of valuation processes comes following reports that th
US political scene, globally speakingSection: Perspective Date:Oct 09,2002Americans approach the November mid-term elections with anxiety on several fronts. First, there is the persistent economic downturn and the end does not seem to be in sight. Every time a company announces layoffs, and they are not infrequent, it sends a
Use pre-emption if diplomacy failsSection: Perspective Date:Oct 02,2002Cyber Age By ND Batra President George W Bush is convinced that the only way the USA can be secure and keep the peace in the world is through pre-emptive actions against the enemy. The report to Congress, “The National Security Strategy of the Unite Sta
Iraq has a fighting chance for peaceSection: Perspective Date:Sep 25,2002By ND BATRA It must be conceded that Iraq’s prompt response to President George W Bush’s speech to the UN General Assembly demanding that Iraq fulfil its obligations under various Security Council resolutions, passed since the end of the Gulf War has mute
In this sordid age of transparencySection: Perspective Date:Sep 18,2002Until last year when he retired from the company, General Electric’s superman Jack Welch was the toast of the corporate world. During his tenure as CEO, the total market capitalisation of the company rose by $400 billion. On the occasion of his retireme11 Sept and IndiaSection: Perspective Date:Sep 11,2002By ND Batra I wonder why all deaths do not evoke the same kind of emotions in us. The methyl isocyanate gas leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal killed 4,000 people on 2 December, 1984 with a death toll of 14,400 as of today. But it did not create t
Our digital environmentSection: Perspective Date:Sep 04,2002I never fully appreciated an oft-quoted saying about the callous attitude of ancient rulers toward their people, for example, Nero fiddled while Rome burned, until I read a brief report by Nirmala George of the Associate Press regarding the attitude of t
Why USA should not attack IraqSection: Perspective Date:Aug 28,2002It is not uncommon wisdom to point out that the multibillion-dollar information technology business between India and the USA played a significant role in pulling India back from the brink of war against Pakistan. The pressure of doing business in the gl
Surveillance unlimitedSection: Perspective Date:Aug 21,2002Cyber Age By N D Batra Senator Richard Shelby (Republican) of Alabama, like most Americans, is deeply concerned about how we are slipping into a low-intensity surveillance society. Since 9/11 our sense of insecurity, both physical and economic, has incre
Age of perpetual anxietySection: Perspective Date:Aug 14,2002By ND BATRA America today is a worried nation, worried about the long-term consequences of the invasion of Iraq, which seems inevitable; worried about foreign investors running away from Wall Street because of the scandals going on about executive behavi
War and diplomacySection: Perspective Date:Jul 31,2002By ND Batra As the dust and debris of war begin to settle down in Afghanistan, it is becoming clear that precision-guided aerial bombardments against Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces were not as surgically accurate as appeared initially. Hundreds of civilians
Letters to the editorSection: Editorial Date:Jul 29,2002Musharraf’s trip to Dhaka crucial Sir, — Indians who are concerned with the fast deteriorating sub continental politics shall offer a thousand thanks to The Statesman’s editorial “Musharraf for Dhaka” (22-23 July). General Musharraf’s visit must be v
Castles of sandSection: Perspective Date:Jul 24,2002Yes, the only certainty in life nowadays is that everything is so uncertain. What we took for granted as rock solid stands upon a foundation of sand. I am not talking about Wall Street, which is in wild gyration; or multinationals which are in disarray. N
Cracking the whip on Big BusinessSection: Perspective Date:Jul 17,2002Cyber Age By ND Batra President George W Bush spoke forcefully on Wall Street last Wednesday but Wall Street was not listening. As the President became increasingly eloquent about corporate malfeasance, including inside trading, creative accounting, misu
Drums of nationalismSection: Perspective Date:Jul 10,2002Abdul Kalam is a part of a controversial chapter of India’s history as also Lakshmi Sahgal for her role in an unresolved and contentious segment of the Freedom Struggle. They are icons of an aggressive nationalism, writes PARIMAL BHATTACHARYA The Left p
One nation indivisibleSection: Perspective Date:Jul 10,2002Cyber Age ND Batra Driving through the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside, a first-time visitor would find it hard not to notice the billboard admonishing: “Everyone shall give an account of himself to God.” The US dollar bill says, “In God We Trust.” When s
Absolute IndiaSection: Perspective Date:Jul 03,2002By ND Batra In this dog-eat-dog world of market-driven American journalism, it is tough for a news magazine like Time to maintain its market niche without thick layers of juicy sensationalism. What would pass as gossip, rumour and slander in a grocery s
What’s corporate America talking about?Section: Perspective Date:Jun 26,2002BY ND Batra Dotcoms have failed. Telecoms have failed. Cable and energy companies have failed. Accounting firms are under investigation. Share prices have hit deep sand bunkers. Investors’ confidence is downhill despite the fact that the economy has bee
CYBER AGE One country at a timeSection: Perspective Date:Jun 19,2002By ND BATRA It is much safer to live in India, believe me, than in the USA. So, if you were wondering whether to join the irrational exodus on the remote possibility that nuclear war might engulf the subcontinent but nonetheless you did not panic, it was
CYBER AGE Look who’s talking?Section: Perspective Date:Jun 12,2002By ND BATRA ‘If we wait for threats to fully materialise, we will have waited too long....We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge....The only path to safety is action, and this nation will
Some Americans don’t get itSection: Perspective Date:May 29,2002Al-Qaeda is alive and kicking everywhere. Based on the high level of chattering noises picked up by intelligence agencies, Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and others have drawn a painful conclusion: that Al-Qaeda will stri
Memories of public life (letters to the editor)Section: Editorial Date:May 24,2002Sir, — I am one of the countless readers of The Statesman who look forward to CR Irani’s Caveats which have a flavour all their own — they are unmatched for their thorough objectivity, deep understanding of the complex issues involved, precise and penetra
Supercomputing brainpower through GlobusSection: Perspective Date:May 22,2002By ND Batra When I turn off the computer and go home, no one can use the computing power locked in on my office desktop. Nor can the unused cumulative computing power of hundreds of other computers be utilised or leased by the university to anyone, which
The pain of losing a childSection: Perspective Date:May 15,2002CYBER AGE ND BATRA I often meditate on the pain of parents who have lost their children. The pain swells up at most unexpected moments, at a happy meal, the smile of a child, a word of sympathy, a love song, anything that reminds the parents of the lost
Out of cloister, towards a freer, modular worldSection: Perspective Date:May 08,2002Cyber age ND Batra What has struck me most about the recent argument in the case against Microsoft is a demand of the litigating states that the company should sell a modular version of the Windows operating system so that consumers would have the freedo
Hinduism isn’t just VedantismSection: Editorial Date:May 06,2002letters to the EDITOR Sir, — In his two-part article “What is Hinduism?” (19-20 April) RK Dasgupta has rightly observed that the Hindu religion has no link with fundamentalism and that the concept of Hindutva of the Sangh Parivar is virtually an attempt
You again, Mr Gates!Section: Perspective Date:May 01,2002CYBER AGE by ND BATRA Can Bill Gates pull Windows out of the market and get away with it? Last week he told Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly hearing the anti-trust case against Microsoft, “We’d be in an awful situation where we’d be under a court order that
UGC to curb ‘inbreeding’ of talentSection: Pageone Date:Apr 24,2002Sougata Mukhopadhyay in Kolkata April 23. — Consider this: Students will no longer be allowed to join their own university as teachers in UGC-funded posts. The University Grants Commission, in its attempt to curb “inbreeding regarding recruitment of te-a
CYBER AGE Heed the voice of citizen Mallika SarabhaiSection: Perspective Date:Apr 24,2002Embedded in the public interest litigation admitted by the Supreme Court of India is a unique prayer by the petitioners, Mallika Sarabhi and journalists, Digant Oza and Indukumar Jani, that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and BJP as well as the state government
Terrorism and attorney-client privileged communication — Cyber Age ND BatraSection: Perspective Date:Apr 18,2002US Attorney-General John Ashcroft created a sensation last week when he announced that the government had indicted a woman defence lawyer, Lynne Stewart, with three persons for abetting terrorism. Ms Stewart has earned notoriety as a fearless defender of
Freedom to tinker with Open SourceSection: Perspective Date:Apr 12,2002By ND Batra While most of the creative people think inside the intellectual property box and try to protect their works with copyright, trademark and contractual laws, apart from technological means such as trusted systems, the Open Source or the free so
Letters to the editorSection: Editorial Date:Apr 06,2002Sir, — Apropos of the report “Vajpayee worried over saffron shade” (28-29 March), it was a piece of superb serio-comic acting by our honourable Prime Minister. Even as Mr Vajpayee tries his best to convince us that he wants to “keep a distance” from the k
Letters to the editorSection: Editorial Date:Apr 06,2002Sir, — Apropos of the report “Vajpayee worried over saffron shade” (28-29 March), it was a piece of superb serio-comic acting by our honourable Prime Minister. Even as Mr Vajpayee tries his best to convince us that he wants to “keep a distance” from the k
Letters to the editorSection: Editorial Date:Apr 06,2002Sir, — Apropos of the report “Vajpayee worried over saffron shade” (28-29 March), it was a piece of superb serio-comic acting by our honourable Prime Minister. Even as Mr Vajpayee tries his best to convince us that he wants to “keep a distance” from the k
Boss may be snooping your e-mailSection: Perspective Date:Apr 03,2002Since most American office workers use the Internet and communicate via e-mail nowadays, bosses are watching closely how their employees use the company’s electronic resources. Several court decisions regarding workplace privacy indicate that in the USA
Are women vulnerable in cyberspace?Section: Perspective Date:Mar 27,2002Cyber age by ND Batra The disillusionment about cyberspace that it might not be a perpetual source of unlimited wealth had set in more than a year ago. Many dotcom companies died like summer insects. The collapse turned innumerable millionaires into jobs
No sirree, train is not for burningSection: Perspective Date:Mar 20,2002CYBER AGE ND BATRA Trains in India are a symbol of freedom. Freedom to leave home and explore the vastness and density of India that might begin or end with the next town, Godhra or Kolkata. It feels so good when the train arrives on the station, soone
Call the American handymanSection: Perspective Date:Mar 13,2002While the whole world is watching how the Americans are fighting terrorism and helping to rebuild torn societies in Afghanistan, the Philippines and Indonesia, and hopefully in the Middle East, there are some other extraordinary events taking place that w
How terrorism is chilling freedom of informationSection: Perspective Date:Mar 06,2002By ND Batra The very openness of the United States, many Americans believe, has become the greatest source of its vulnerability. When next time terrorists launch an attack, they might do so through information portals; and so if you can’t shut the portal
CYBER AGE Beware of Americans bearing newsSection: Perspective Date:Feb 27,2002By ND BATRA The courage to investigate the truth under the surface and report it accurately, regardless of the consequences, is what makes journalism a noble profession, though at times a dangerous calling, as it happened in the case of Daniel Pearl, a re
Let's roll, he saidSection: Perspective Date:Feb 06,2002cyberage ND BATRA With his public approval ratings soaring into stratosphere, it seems President George W Bush can do no wrong. There has been a feeling of elation lately that American power, when applied wisely, can do some good to the world. Like a my
Dhillon leads Cup teamSection: Sport Date:Feb 02,2002Statesman News Service NEW DELHI, Feb. 1. – ‘Go for glory, go for gold’, that’s precisely what the Indian hockey team will try to do as they seek to repeat the feat achieved by India in their only World Cup triumph at the same venue of Kuala Lumpur in 19
Information and data shreddingSection: Perspective Date:Jan 30,2002Cyber Age ND Batra “Good news, chief, a computer virus destroyed all our documents.” – New Yorker Cartoon. A few years ago, when the American people discovered that identity thieves we

To (mis)understand American capitalism, analyse EnronSection: Perspective Date:Jan 23,2002By ND Batra Lawyers and spin doctors are busy in manufacturing gobbledygook to distance and protect their clients from the toxic fallout of the collapse of Enron, the energy giant that once boasted on its website: “Most of the things we do have never bee
CYBER AGE Sense of place in the digital ageSection: Perspective Date:Jan 16,2002By ND BATRA In this digital age of loosening bonds and transitory attachments to disembodied groups that exist in cyberspace, the sense and the significance of the place, its physical and cultural geography, is becoming very important to people. The feel
Cyber Age Bush and the sub-continentSection: Perspective Date:Jan 09,2002By ND Batra The 21st century began with the political struggles of George Bush, whose deceptive weakness at the time of his election and the question of his legitimacy as the newly elected President perhaps tempted the Al-Qaida network to launch the horri
What makes Americans so inventive?Section: Perspective Date:Jan 02,2002The “can-do” spirit and the “readiness to adapt to circumstance is one of America’s most enduring characteristics and is what makes the American social environment more amenable to innovation than any other, because America sees change as an opportunity r
What makes Americans so inventive?Section: Perspective Date:Jan 02,2002The “can-do” spirit and the “readiness to adapt to circumstance is one of America’s most enduring characteristics and is what makes the American social environment more amenable to innovation than any other, because America sees change as an opportunity r
Cyber Age: New Arthashastra for IndiaSection: Perspective Date:Dec 26,2001ND Batra War is an option provided India could win it conclusively, as it was done during the Bangladesh War of Independence. Let’s reflect for a moment. Afghanistan has been liberated from the clutches of Al-Qaida and the Taliban, thanks to the astute m
Emerging trends and lurking omensSection: Perspective Date:Dec 12,2001In the post-September 11 era of excessive patriotism and ceaseless search for enemies within, the question,“Have you been scanned yet?”might have seemed rather ominous, a foretaste of things to come in a nation at its wit’s end. But this was only a full-p
Cyber age Women and the war against terrorismSection: Perspective Date:Dec 05,2001ND BATRA The war against the Taliban has begun to take an unexpected turn and is turning out to be a campaign against the Taliban’s oppression of women in Afghanistan. The new twist began with a heart-wrenching documentary, Beneath the Veil, by a British
RSS teaches the written word ... is wrongSection: India Date:Nov 27,2001SANJAY K SINGH STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, Nov. 26. – A teacher tells a student “I am teaching you ‘this’ but this is factually incorrect”. Is this a new way of teaching? Some schools run in the Capital by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have been
Poto in India, military tribunals in AmericaSection: Perspective Date:Nov 26,2001WHILE India ponders about the long-term effects of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance on civil society, the USA is moving ahead to “secure its liberties” by adopting draconian measures, used only in war times. Some civil libertarians believe that Presire searching their garbage cans to retrieve carbon copies of their cNew York, virtual New YorkSection: Perspective Date:Nov 19,2001By N D BATRA IN spite of the crash of the American Airlines flight that killed 265 people, the anthrax nightmare and the terrorist attacks on 11 September, there is no place like New York. Ask and New York will give you. That’s the new ad campaign that
LETTERS TO THE EDITORSection: Editorial Date:Nov 15,2001DISSENT IS HEALTHY CONSENSUS BETTER SIR, — I agree with ND Batra’s assertion (Cyberage 12-13 November) that dissent is the sign of a healthy democracy — I’d extend that to all democracies, not just the American one — and that a defining value, for better
CYBER AGE Wounded democracySection: Perspective Date:Nov 12,2001By N D BATRA THE vice-principal of the college where I did my undergraduate work used to say that it never bothered him when his children argued and squabbled among themselves, but it worried him sick if they began to speak with one voice and stopped fig
Win Chadha dies after heart attackSection: Pageone Date:Oct 25,2001STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, Oct. 24 . – Mr Win Chadha, a key accused in the Bofors pay-off case, died after a heart attack in his farmhouse in south Delhi this morning. He was 78. Mr Chadha, former agent of AB Bofors, had been suffering from cancer
CYBER AGE N D BATRASection: Perspective Date:Oct 22,2001On guard and determined to exterminate terrorism THE daily threat of another terrorist attack has made the American people go about their workday life with eyes wide open. There is diffused anxiety but no mass panic. Some are reported to be buying gas ma
CYBER AGE N D BATRASection: Perspective Date:Oct 08,2001Microsoft and national crisis JUST a few days before the Bin Laden terrorists perpetrated their carnage in the USA, it seemed Microsoft was free, though not free to kill. The siege had been lifted; the enemy had fallen back and was raising the white flag
Emerging realities in the Indian subcontinentSection: Perspective Date:Oct 01,2001By N D BATRA INDIA should welcome and encourage the US presence in Pakistan because it will eventually lessen terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and also reduce the threat from the Pakistan-China alliance. Pakistan cannot have it all, continue to be a sanc
Hard times for India and the USASection: Perspective Date:Sep 24,2001CYBER AGE N D BATRA THE methodology of terrorist attacks, the modus operandi, in India could be different from that in the USA, but the end results would be the same. Death and destruction multiplied thousand times by an
CYBER AGE : To live and die in freedom, that’s AmericaSection: Business Date:Sep 22,2001N D BATRA IF the terrorists aimed to create widespread panic among the American people and paralyse the US government, they have been a terrible failure – in spite of their daring and spectacular success in ramming two hijacked civilian jets into the soa
To live and die in freedom, that’s AmericaSection: Perspective Date:Sep 17,2001IF the terrorists aimed to create widespread panic among the American people and paralyse the US government, they have been a terrible failure – in spite of their daring and spectacular success in ramming two hijacked civilian jets into the soaring twin tA Russian in American cyberspaceSection: Perspective Date:Sep 10,2001CYBER AGE N D BATRA DMITRI Sklyarov, a Russian computer programmer, was arraigned on 4 September in a federal district court in California for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 that makes it a crime t
CYBER AGE N D BATRA The case of the missing moon goddessSection: Perspective Date:Sep 04,2001SOME guru or a good-natured neighbour might have told Dr Robert Levy and Susan Levy that their daughter looked like the Hindu moon goddess; so they gave her a Sanskrit name, Chandra, when she was born 24 years ago. Chandra disappeared from Washington DC
Public interest litigation as aid to protection of human rightsSection: Perspective Date:Sep 03,2001WE have a written Constitution. It has a Preamble which encapsulates the basic objective of the Constitution-makers to build a new socio-economic order where there will be social, economic and political justice for everyone and equality of status and oppo
CYBER AGE N D BATRASection: Perspective Date:Aug 27,2001The egg, not the womb, should decide motherhood A FEW weeks ago, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided an unusual case regarding a divorced couple who in the good old days of great expectations had resorted to in vitro fertilisation to have a child. Than
Tale from South Africa: have mercy, take my $42 millionSection: Perspective Date:Aug 20,2001By N D BATRA THE e-mail is conspicuously different from the normal junk I routinely receive about second mortgage, refinance, credit cards, debt relief, etc. This is more like an epistle from a fictional character in a 19th century novel of mystery a
Meditation on the 15th of AugustSection: Perspective Date:Aug 13,2001CYBER AGE N D BATRA ON the eve of Independence Day, I find there is so much in common between India and the USA that I can’t love one without the other. Freedom deeply rooted in secularism makes every one a productive cit
Americans debate stem cells and India should listenSection: Perspective Date:Aug 06,2001CYBER AGE N D BATRA WHEN does life begin and what to do with it? When President George Bush, during his recent visit to Europe, met Pope John Paul II at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, he knew that the pontiff would refer to the stem cell
Between the young and the old, there’s a digital divideSection: Perspective Date:Jul 30,2001THE enthusiasm about the Internet among the young and the old remains very high, according to a recently released Markle Foundation report, “Toward a Framework for Internet Accountability,” which reinforces my faith that the deflated dotcom balloon, as m
Seven years to BeijingSection: Perspective Date:Jul 23,2001CYBER AGE ND BATRA CHINA is a nation intoxicated with its future: “Rise up, people who do not want to be slaves.” “Motherland, 10, 000 years.” From Long March to Cultural Revolution and Mao’s Thoughts to the Summer Games 2008 is quite a journey. Cle
Towards global justiceSection: Perspective Date:Jul 16,2001CYBER AGE N D BATRA THE trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague and General Electric Co and Honeywell International Inc’s failed merger at Brussels because of the anti-competitive action of the European Union’s executivePolice and sanctity of the American homeSection: Perspective Date:Jul 09,2001CYBER AGE N D BATRA THE police want us to believe that they do no evil, even when they use brutal force, eavesdrop on our conversation, tap our telephones and use surveillance technology to invade our privacy. It is for ou
Watching children in cyberspaceSection: Perspective Date:Jul 02,2001By N D BATRA “AT what age should children be taught computers,” asks an inquiring mind from the Government of Delhi. The assumption behind the question is that like cars, guns, drinking, and sex, computers can be dangerous and the user must have certain
Subhas boasts of party’s supportSection: Bengal Date:Jun 30,2001STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE KOLKATA, June 29. – Defiant in the face of controversy, Mr Subhas Chakraborty today claimed he had the full support of his party and the government. On his return to Writers’ Buildings late this afternoon after discussing with
LETTERS TO THE EDITORSection: Editorial Date:Jun 10,2001Sir, — ND Batra in his column (28-29 May) has poignantly depicted the “Vanishing American family” with an impressive account of the factors responsible. Traditional households in US are giving way to assorted groupings like unmarried couples, unwed mother
The vanishing American familySection: Perspective Date:May 28,2001CYBER AGE N D BATRA MUCH has been vanishing from the good old America. The American family may be one of the disappearing institutions, if the present trends become irreversible. Work as a primary source of self-identity
Hackers’ right to free speechSection: Perspective Date:May 21,2001HARDLY had the recoding industry coped up with the challenge of Napster’s music swapping system through a court challenge, when another challenge has sprung up from a Norwegian teenager, Jon Johensen, who developed a programme to decrypt an encrypted film
Creative destruction and cultural dragSection: Perspective Date:May 14,2001CYBER AGE N D BATRA CREATIVE destruction is a nutty oxymoron that goes to one’s head like a shot of Bourbon. You feel you can change society by subjecting it to creative destruction, but unfortunately it is not an enginee
Hollywood horrorsSection: Perspective Date:Nov 30,1999Hollywood groans with pain, thanks to new DVD players with built-in editing features that can cut out scenes from a movie that might be deemed obscene and inappropriate for family viewing. Democratisation of digital technology is taking away the artistic