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Eight
Indian Americans in Forbes' Midas list
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Eight
Indian American entrepreneurs have made
it to the Forbes' 2007 Midas list, an annual
ranking of the US' top 100 tech dealmakers.
Leading the Indian pack is tech wizard Ram
Shriram, placed fourth on the list released
last week. Two years ago, Shriram was one
of just two Indian Americans to find a place
in the Forbes' list of 400 richest Americans,
the other being acoustics pioneer Amar Bose.
Behind Shriram is Arjun Gupta at number
37. An MBA from Stanford, he is the founder
and managing partner of TeleSoft Partners,
a venture capital firm that focuses on high-tech
start-ups. Other Indian Americans on the
Midas list include Parag Saxena (38), Rob
Soni (42), Promode Haque (52), Navin Chaddha
(58), Srinivas Akkaraju (84) and Ravi Mhatre
(95). Shriram's claim to fame has been his
association with Google, where he has been
a founding board member, director and angel
investor. In 2005, his net worth was put
at $1.3 billion. A technology industry insider
for over 25 years and a former executive
with Netscape and Amazon, Shriram founded
his own company, Sherpalo, in California
in 2000. Forbes' latest recognition of Shriram
comes for his funding of Naukri.com, India's
leading classified site dealing with jobs,
matrimony and real estate. He has also invested
in Mumbai's PayMate and travel site Cleartrip.
'If new deals are any indication of future
exits, we will soon see many more acquisitions
and IPOs (initial public offerings) of fledgling
firms from China, India, Korea and Eastern
Europe,' says Forbes, which has focused
on individuals who deploy venture capital
to create wealth for their investors and
build valuable, long-lasting companies.
'These are heady times indeed for the venture
capital market. Venture firms raised $25
billion in new money last year. In the past
three years, the length of a typical investment
cycle, they have raised $75 billion. Expect
plenty of blockbusters - and grand busts
- in the near future,' says the magazine.
The top five on the Forbes list are Michael
Moritz of Sequoia Capital, L. John Doerr
of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Andreas
von Bechtolsheim of Sun Microsystems, Ram
Shriram of Sherpalo, and David Cheriton
of Stanford University. Next was Ronald
Conway, ranked sixth in the annual listing,
followed by Michael Grimes of Morgan Stanley,
Lawrence Sonsini of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich
& Rosati, Jay Hoag of Technology Crossover
Ventures, with Thomas Ng of Granite Global
Ventures at number 10.
Courtesy:
www.yahoo.com, January 30, 2007
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Indian-origin
SAfricans prosper more than other races
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Through
their entrepreneurial skills and networking,
South Africans of Indian origin have prospered
more than any other race in the country's
non-racial democratic society, a new study
has found. The research project 'FutureFact'
looked into the lives of business people
who have risen to the top over the past
13 years and found that Indians, in particular,
were climbing up the class ladder faster
than other races. Indians strongly believed
in doing things themselves rather than waiting
for authorities' directions and also supported
each other socially and economically, it
observed. "Indians were the group showing
the most changes in class organisation in
the new South Africa. This is possibly due
to the restrictions they were subjected
to in the previous dispensation," said Jos
Kuper, director of FutureFact. "While even
in those days they had good average income
and education levels, they were nonetheless
relegated to second-class status. What has
changed is that opportunities have opened
up for them, both in reality and in their
own sense of belonging to the new democracy,"
she added. The study points out the instance
of one Rajen Reddy, a 46-year-old man from
Durban who rose from the ranks of a brick-layer
to become one of the most successful oil
barons. Reddy, who heads the Tamil Business
Forum in South Africa owns "KZN OIL" with
a turnover of more than USD 100 million
a year. He attributes his success to equal
opportunities that have been provided in
the new South Africa. "We are no longer
settling for the proverbial corner shop,
we have moved into major business. I was
encouraged, by democracy, to think out of
the box and it paid off in ways I could
never even imagine," he said
Courtesy:
www.zeenews.com, January 28, 2007
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Ajeet
Bajaj Ist Indian to unfurl tricolour at
S-Pole
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Adventurer
Ajeet Bajaj unfurled the tricolour at the
South Pole as India celebrated Republic
Day today, achieving the unique feat of
becoming the first Indian to go to both
North and South Poles. Forty-year-old Bajaj,
who had successfully reached the North Pole
in April last year, arrived at the South
Pole after a month-long expedition. "I would
first like to wish all Indians a very happy
and peaceful Republic Day," the adventurer
told from South Pole. Bajaj was part of
a four-member team, the other three being
Americans. "I am just unfurling the national
flag here and that was a very proud moment
and I consider myself proud to be an Indian
and I feel there are no challenges we Indian
are not capable of taking on," he said.
"We have to work together as a team, strive
for excellence and also do whatever we can
to put the Indian flag on top," Bajaj said.
The temperature at South Pole when the team
reached there was -35 degree celsius and
the wind chill was about -45 degree celsius.
Asked to compare the two poles, Bajaj said
unlike the north pole, which is a wilderness,
there is a big American research station
in South Pole, where a lot of research is
done. He also said the South Pole is higher
at 3,300 feet. "It is colder and higher.
There is less oxygen here, but the north
pole is technically more difficult," Bajaj
said.
Courtesy:
www.zeenews.com, January 26, 2007
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Mom's
match point rubs off on daughter
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They
are an acclaimed mother-daughter duo who
love creating records. Anuradha Gupta, a
diehard phillumenist, has a collection of
over 30,000 matchboxes while her 10-year-old
daughter Kanika has more than 5,000 erasers
and 17,000 name slips in her kitty. A teacher
in a west Delhi school, Anuradha has never
had things easy. "From financial crunch
to instability in the family, I have seen
it all. Yet my passion to do something different
and creative has kept me going," Anuradha
told IANS. What started as a pastime in
childhood took a serious turn when she started
getting acclaim for her work. Her name appeared
in the Limca Book of Records in 1993 as
the only Indian woman phillumenist to have
such a varied and huge collection of matchboxes.
Ten years down the line, in 2003, her daughter
entered the Limca Book of Records as the
youngest collector of over 5,000 erasers.
Not interested in hand-me-downs, Kanika
was determined to do something as special
as her mother and put together her collection
in three months. "Of course, it was difficult
and needed a great amount of investment
as well. But at least I am glad that my
child is channelling her energies toward
something creative, instead of watching
the idiot box," says the proud mom. "I have
erasers from China, South Korea, Thailand,
Britain and many other countries but I won't
stop until I have one from every country
of the world," says Kanika. Her favourite,
though, is a simple eraser with 'I Love
India' inscribed on it. As if revealing
their record-breaking passion, a huge frame
of Lord Ganesha made of more than 80,000
matchsticks and probably a million beads
hangs in their house. Kanika is now eyeing
another entry in the Limca Book of Records
again this year for her name slip collection.
"I have collected over 17,000 name slips
from different countries of the world. From
animals and cartoon characters to airlines
and people, my name slips have it all,"
she says.
Courtesy:
www.teluguportal.net, January 24 2007
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Less
sleep may weaken your memory
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Do
not blame the education system every time
your child does badly in the exams. The
reason may lie a few years ago in his cradle.
A research conducted by the University of
Chile on 1,600 infants has found that irregular
sleep patterns among infants affect their
intelligence and significantly reduce their
potential to learn and perform. Dr Patricio
Peirano, international sleep expert and
Head of Sleep and Functional Neurobiology
at the University of Chile who headed the
research, was recently in the city to talk
about his findings. "The potential to learn
and repeat, capacity to integrate and competence
of a child gets severely affected because
of disrupted sleep patterns," said Dr Peirano.
His team has been monitoring 1,600 infants
from various parts of the world right from
their birth till they are 15 years of age.
The research will conclude this year. Pediatricians
believe that babies between six months to
two years must have 11-13 hours of sleep.
Statistics provided by Dr Peirano also said
globally 92 per cent babies got less than
12 hours of sleep, while 50 per cent of
them wake up at least once a night. According
to Dr Peirano, the sleep-wake pattern in
babies disrupts some of the cerebral functions
and hampers the development of sensory nerves
and secretion of hormones. "Several functions
that occur during sleep cannot be completed
if the child frequently wakes up and that
hampers the development of the child to
her full potential," he added. He said that
uninterrupted sleep also helped in de-stressing,
building immunity and recovering energy.
Pediatrician and sleep expert from Hinduja
Hospital Dr Indu Khosla said inadequate
sleep delayed the motor skill development
and spurred neuro-cognitive problems like
trouble with memory, unclear thinking and
poor concentration in a child. The study
showed that infants who had a history of
irregular sleep patterns were more vulnerable
to high blood pressure, obesity and other
cerebral problems. India has 45 million
babies, the highest in the world followed
by China with 27 million. Still, there is
hardly any research on the sleep patterns
of infants in India. Apart from hunger and
wetness, external factors such as sleep
posture, uncomfortable clothing, temperature
extremes and thirst have been identified
as reasons for frequent sleep interruptions.
Dr Khosla said that opposed to the Indian
culture of forcing the baby to sleep, babies
should be encouraged to put themselves to
sleep, "so that even if they wake up at
midnight, they know how to go back to sleep."
Courtesy:
www.hindustantimes.com, January 18, 2007
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Gurudaspur
(Dharmavir malhar) Name: Budh Singh, Age:
118 years. This name may be new for you
but people of village Samra, Tehsil Dera
baba Nanak take pride in it. Today when
self-interest is over-riding all relations,
118 years old Budh Singh and his 112 years
old wife Sawan Kaur are living together
in a joint family consisting of 99 members.
The family has become an example in itself.
Budh Singh and his wife Sawan Kaur avoid
queries about number of people living together
in the joint family. The family is engaged
in dairy business. They are maintaining
a 52-seater bus for carrying family members
and guests instead of a car or jeep. Budh
Singh told us that he is keeping good health
at this age due to affectionate care of
his family. Eyes and teethes of Budh Sing
and his wife Sawan Kaur are perfectly ok.
His wife Sawan Kaur told us that she feels
that her family is most fortunate in the
world. During elections, political parties
do approach them, but they exercise their
franchise as per constitutional norms.
Courtesy:
www.jagran.com, January 11, 2007
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World
leaders to celebrate Mahatma Gandhi`s `Satyagraha`
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Hundred
years after Mahatma Gandhi introduced 'Satyagraha'
-- the non-violent force of truth -- as
a means of unshackling the world of miseries
and bondage, leaders from across the world
will converge here to celebrate the occasion
next week. Leaders and freedom fighters
from 83 countries will assemble at a conference
to share their views on relevance of Gandhi's
ideology and values in the present world
ridden with violence and conflicts. The
two-day conference -- 'peace, non-violence
and empowerment: Gandhian philosophy in
the 21st century' -- is being organised
by the congress party to celebrate the centenary
of one of the greatest movements of the
world. The charisma of the apostle of peace
will be recalled and re-emphasised at the
conference to be inaugurated by Congress
president Sonia Gandhi on January 29, senior
Congress leader and Minister of State for
External Affairs Anand Sharma said here
today. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will
address the conference. The aim of organising
the conference is to acknowledge the historical
contribution made by Gandhi and the values
espoused by him, said Sharma, who heads
the organising committee.
Significantly,
the centenary celebrations will be attended
by some senior leaders from Pakistan, including
chief of Awami National Party Asfandyar
Khan and Muttahida Quami Movement leader
Farooq Sattar. Among the prominent world
leaders attending the conference are Nobel
laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mohd
Yunus, noted South African freedom and Ahmed
Kathrada. Prime ministers or senior ministers
from several countries, including Sri Lanka,
Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Spain, Italy,
Sweden, South Africa and Slovenia will also
be attending the conference. "The event
will provide an occasion to renew the commitment
of our people to the noble mission of the
father of the nation of building a world
that is in peace and harmony with itself,"
Sharma said. "The need for peace and non-violence
is very dearly felt in today's world which
is seeing violence through terrorism and
conflicts," he said, adding the conference
is aimed at providing a "second awakening".
The conference will see deliberations on
issues like conflict resolution and peace-building,
towards a nuclear weapons free and non-violent
world order and dialogue among peoples and
cultures. The event will conclude with a
'Satyagraha centenary declaration'. An exhibition,
symbolising the life of Mahatma Gandhi and
progress of Satyagraha, will also be held.
Courtesy:
www.zeenews.com, January 19, 2007
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A
lady with chandan tilak and bhagwa clothes
solemnising a marriage cermony and asking
the bride and groom to stand up for the
sacred pheras. This may sound bizarre but
punditai is fast becoming a hot profession
for young women. Now women are entering
an arena which was considered essentially
a male preserve. In several parts of Uttar
Pradesh, specially in eastern UP the number
of women pundits performing religious ceremonies
is on fast rise. But the figure is only
10 per cent as compared to 90 per cent males
in the field. It is learnt that in the next
ten years, the percentage of woman astrologers
and pundits could swell to 25 per cent.
Interestingly, many young girls are also
aspiring to go abroad to pursue this profession.
The market for pundits is quite hot as people
of Indian origin who swear by traditional
norms constitute a rich clientele in Europe
and America. The trend of hiring women pundits
for solemnising marriages has been observed
in lucknow recently. No wonder that educated
women are increasingly making a mark in
this field. With the University Grants Commission
introducing a fresh course on "Functional
Sanskrit" in the universities, the ancient
tradition of women conducting poojas and
rituals is experiencing a second coming,
say staff members of the Department of Functional
Sanskrit Lucknow University. The attitudes
of people who are increasingly inviting
female pundits might have changed, but male
purohits are annoyed with the trend as they
feel that birth, namkaran (name giving ceremony),
mundan, Janeu (sacred thread wearing) and
marriage should be performed only by male
brahmins. Nilima Sharma who is pursuing
Master's Degree in Astrology from Lucknow
University says, "It is nowhere mentioned
in any religious text that only male pundits
have a right to perform various religious
rituals. In my view, pundits of all castes
should be acceptable, for, the meaning of
the term pundit is a knowledgeable person
or a person having sound knowledge of religion.
Dr Asha rai, D.Litt in Dharmashastra, who
teaches the subject in Lucknow University
feels that the field should no longer be
a male domain and gender bias must end.
"Touching a woman purohits feet should not
be considered an insult. In ancient times
women used to perform rituals and various
types of poojas." Faculty members of Functional
Sanskrit of various other U.P. universities
opine, "It is good to see women taking up
jobs in this discipline. Religious scriptures
in fact prefer women first, but down the
centuries, the role of women has been relegated.
But there is still a long way to go as gender
bias still persists. Even male pundits are
not comfortable with their daughters performing
rituals at ceremonies as they think it is
against religious norms.
Courtesy:
www. hindustantimes.com, January 18, 2007
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State
gets one more Project Tiger
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Dandeli
Wildlife Sanctuary and the adjoining Anshi
National Park have been granted the special
status of Project Tiger. With this, Karnataka,
which boasts of three Project Tiger sanctuaries,
has now got a fourth. The Centre and the
State governments will implement this jointly.
The Dandeli sanctuary and the Anshi National
Park together have around 40 tigers. Madhya
Pradesh is the only other State which has
five Project Tiger areas including one which
has the famed white tigers. Among the southern
States, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have one Project
Tiger each. Kerala has also sought project
Tiger status for Parambikulam, which is
pending approval. It has been a long-drawn
demand of the State Forest Department and
the wildlife conservationists here to safeguard
the tiger habitat in the Dandeli region.
The Centre gave the "in-principle clearance"
for the fourth Project Tiger in the State
in 2006. The Dandeli Project Tiger (inclusive
of Anshi) spreads over 825 sq.km., and along
with the Mahaveer Wildlife Sanctuary of
Goa covers an area of over 2,000 sq.km.
Chief Minister H.D.Kumaraswamy told The
Hindu that he was delighted that the State's
effort at protecting the forest wealth and
wildlife habitat had been rewarded with
another Project Tiger area. Official sources
said the final notification was issued a
few days ago. The new wildlife sanctuary,
which has a large area and home to a variety
of flora and fauna, is expected to be inaugurated
in about a month. Bandipur, which adjoins
the Wyanad forests of Kerala and the Mudumalai
sanctuary of Tamil Nadu; Rajiv Gandhi National
Park at Nagarhole; and Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary
are the three existing Project Tiger parks
in the State, which together have 400 tigers.
According to Principal Chief Conservator
of Forests (Wildlife), A.K.Varma the status
of Project Tiger will mean enhanced funding
for infrastructure, improvements to the
habitat and adequate availability of water
within the core areas. As of now, the allocation
for the Dandeli and the Anshi sanctuaries
was around Rs. 30 lakh per year, and it
would now be raised to around Rs. 15 crore.
Mr. Varma said that a fresh survey of the
tiger population along with that of deer
and bison would be conducted. Officials
here feel that with the Project Tiger programme
coming under review by the Prime Minister
himself, a lot more can be done to save
the "big cats" and retain India's status
as one of the major sanctuaries of the tiger.
Courtesy:
www.hindu.com, January 17, 2007
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Three
Jharkhand 'Star Girls' in Unicef calendar
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Three
gutsy tribal girls from Jharkhand are featured
in Unicef's 2007 calendar. They have risen
above their poverty to educate themselves
and become "Star Girls" and also shown the
way to others in their villages. The Unicef
calendar titled "Star Girls", distributed
here, features Laxmirani Manjhi, Jyoti Rose
Tirkey and Suryamani Bhagat from the state.
They were born in the backwaters of Jharkhand
and managed to establish themselves in different
fields. These girls have broken the myth
that girls from tribal areas can only work
as domestic help outside the state. Laxmirani,
17, is an international level archer and
a cadet at Tata Sports Academy, Jamshedpur.
A resident of Bagula village of West Singhbhum
district, Laxmirani was leading a life of
abject poverty. But she was keen to study.
She is one of the few tribal girls of her
village who went to school. She opted to
become an archer. "I travel to different
parts of the world and my education has
helped me achieve what I wanted to become,"
says a happy Laxmirani. Jyoti Rose Tirkey
also comes from a poor family. She opted
for singing as her profession after going
through many difficulties. At present she
is a newsreader with the state-run Doordarshan
television. Suryamani Bhagat works as an
activist of a non governmental organisation.
Her village, Kotari in Ranchi district,
is located deep in the jungles where Maoists
call the shots. Bhagat, a graduate in Sanskrit,
founded Taranag, an NGO to fight for the
rights of tribes people and promote tribal
culture. She also works for the Save The
Forest movement. Commenting on the achievement
of the Jharkhand girls, Vasvi, a social
worker-cum-writer, said: "Jharkhand can
produce more such stars if opportunity is
given to the state's girls to prove themselves."
The achievement of the girls is all the
more striking as thousands of Jharkhand
girls migrate every year to metropolitan
cities like New Delhi, Mumbai and Chandhigarh
just to work as domestic help. Many of them
return exploited, raped and some carry the
HIV virus. In Jharkhand, the female literacy
rate is just around 40 percent and of tribal
girls it is 20 percent. The Unicef calendar
features girls from other states too. The
other nine girls whose achievement, names
and photographs have appeared are from Bihar,
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
Courtesy:
www.newindpress.com, January 16, 2007
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Compulsive
gamblers should be treated on NHS, say doctors
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Sarah
Hall
Compulsive
gambling should be recognised as an addiction
that requires treatment on the NHS, doctors
leaders said yesterday, as they warned of
a sharp increase in problem betting. The
"explosion" in internet betting sites and
the overhaul of the gambling laws, which
comes into force in September, means the
number of people who gamble is expected
to escalate. But GPs receive no training
in how to spot gamblers and are probably
unaware of them, according to a hard-hitting
report by doctors at the British Medical
Association (BMA), which anticipates a "very
significant rise in problem gambling". Many
addiction services fail to screen people
for gambling, and even when the problem
is recognised there is "almost no treatment",
says the BMA's board of science in the report.
It also calls on the £9bn gaming industry
to contribute at least £10m a year for treatment.
And in a separate report, police warned
that planned supercasinos would cause an
escalation in crime and anti-social behaviour.
Doctors should screen patients being treated
for other addictions, such as smoking or
alcohol, and should question whether children
known to play truant also have gambling
problems.
The
report calls for a review of the law on
slot machines and suggests banning anyone
under 18 from using them. Research shows
that 17% of adolescents play fruit machines
at least once a week, and that up to 6%
of adolescent fruit machine players are
"pathological gamblers". While seven out
of 10 people gamble, the report identifies
300,000 adults as problem gamblers. But
the figure dates to 2000, before the rise
of gambling websites. There are now around
a million online gamblers in the UK, with
women - who account for a quarter of gamblers
- set to match men within 20 years. Launching
the report, the BMA's head of science and
ethics, Vivienne Nathanson said: "Problem
gambling is associated with a number of
health problems and the BMA is concerned
that there are insufficient treatment facilities
available. Psychological problems can include
anxiety, depression, guilt and suicidal
thoughts. There needs to be treatment for
problem gambling available on the NHS similar
to drug and alcohol services. "Doctors should
be thinking about problem gambling when
they see other addictions. They should also
link it with other problem behaviours in
adolescents, such as truanting. We can't
afford to wait and see if the numbers spiral
upwards, as is predicted by every expert
in the area." The report's co-author, Mark
Griffiths, professor of gambling studies
at Nottingham Trent University, said gambling
had only been recognised as an addiction
since the 1980s. "GPs routinely ask how
much people drink or smoke, and if they
take illicit drugs, but they never ask about
gambling. Last year's government white paper
on health didn't even mention it. The NHS
as an entity hasn't recognised gambling
as an addiction." Provision of treatment
on the NHS is currently "patchy". Gamblers
Anonymous would not discuss government provisions,
but one recovering compulsive gambler said
the NHS faced a dilemma. "If you say should
they spend the money on Herceptin for a
woman with breast cancer, or on a compulsive
gambler, it should go to the woman with
the cancer." A Department of Health spokeswoman
said the decision to provide treatment was
down to each trust. "Anybody with a gambling
problem who seeks help from the NHS will
be offered support and, if necessary, treatment
to help them overcome their addiction,"
she said. But the Liberal Democrat culture
spokesman Don Foster said: "This report
highlights just how inadequate the government's
approach to services for gambling addiction
has been."
Courtesy:
www.guardian.co.uk, January 16, 2007
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'Indian
farmers can face the world'
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They
call economics a dismal science, but it
need not be so, when Dr Jagdish Bhagwati
discusses it. The Columbia professor, who
has long been a frontrunner for a Nobel
prize, liberally mixes inter-disciplinary
thinking, pragmatic wisdom and his unique
brand of wit to come up with telling insights.
He challenged the UPA's pet themes - neglect
of the farm sector and the case for job
guarantee schemes - on Monday as he bantered
over coffee with senior editors of Hindustan
Times, but was gracious enough to concede
ground to the difficulties political leaders
face. "I don't like to double guess them
because they have to walk a minefield,"
the global guru of free trade said. Bhagwati,
as a grand Indian success story in the US
- and a frequent consultant for global policymakers
- spoke of how Indians were the new Jews
in America, successful in all fields, except,
perhaps the mafia. "That is because they
have not been discovered yet," he joked.
Surprisingly for some, Bhagwati, who was
due to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
and Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, said it
was a fallacy to think Indian farmers would
be swamped by global competition. India
should be ready for freer trade, as it has
in the case of manufacturing, he said. "My
hunch is we can do it," Bhagwati said, calling
for studies to verify the position. "There
is some sense of neglect of agriculture.
Facts are that poverty in rural areas has
also gone down. But what they (politicians)
believe is important."
He
said employment guarantee schemes (EGS)
were likely to be corruption-prone, as its
effects were difficult to measure. "EGS
is not going to be productive." But at the
same time, he stressed that economic growth,
while necessary to remove poverty, needed
other steps like emphasis on healthcare
and education. "I think we have learnt the
growth process but we need to improve the
access to growth," he said. Bhagwati's recipe
for success in this is a cocktail of democracy
and free market policies, and pragmatic
policies to address poverty without policy-makers
being bogged down in academic measurements
in defining who the poor are. "Poverty is
like pornography. When you see it, you know
it." Bhagwati is not quite a radical poster
boy like his Columbia colleague Joseph Stiglitz,
who has questioned globalisation. In his
own words, he is a real-world economist
who uses what he calls Gujarati pragmatism
to inform his science. He is not sure if
India can sustain the nine per cent GDP
it is showing in the current year. "It doesn't
seem supportable to me. I think it will
need substantial opening up on the infrastructure
side." If his views on India are tempered,
Bhagwati's tone on China is downright critical.
He said China's growth was on shaky ground
as it was at a heavy environmental cost,
with no NGOs, judiciary or political opposition,
as in India, to countervail communist commissars,
who, he said, were effectively involved
in a state-run land grab - while infrastructure
remained poor. That may be heartening to
India, as would be the fact that he considers
New Delhi's leaders more prone to independent
thinking and multilateraism than counterparts
in stronger economies like South Korea.
Bhagwati came out strongly against US attempts
to manoeuvre bilateral and regional agreements
that undermine the WTO's efforts. His next
book, Turmoils in the trading system, would
show how Washington and the EU distort the
free trade they champion, and how Asia is
paying them back in their own coin. For
all the knocks his dream of multilateral
trade is taking, Bhagwati may still have
reason to be happy, because he sees progress
in global migration as Western populations
decline to make way for cooperative inflow
of workers from nations like India. This,
he said, could boost Indian immigration
into Italy, and in the process, throw up
an Indian-born leader to counter Sonia Gandhi's
role in New Delhi. "We will have taken our
revenge," he joked.
Courtesy:
www.hindustantimes.com, January 15, 2007
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Fruits
make you indomitable, literally. Several
studies show that eating five helpings -
five cupfuls - of raw fruit prevent cancers,
heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis.
In citrus fruits such as oranges, mandarin
and lemons, the health benefits lie in of
the presence of pectin, a natural compound
that helps prevent prostate and other cancers,
reports a study in the Journal of Agriculture
and Food Chemistry. The study was done by
Dr Bhimu Patil, director of Texas A&M University's
Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Centre,
and colleagues. During a one-day stop in
New Delhi, Patil spoke about his groundbreaking
work that proved pectin worked against cancer
cells and held promise as a dietary preventative
for disease. "Pectin is a complex carbohydrate
found in many plants, but is most abundant
in citrus fruits. It has already been shown
to reduce cholesterol and blood sugar. While
our study focused mainly on prostate cancer,
pectin may show similar benefits in inhibiting
other types of cancer," Patil told Hindustan
Times. Another study done by Patil's team
shows that orange and grapefruit juice given
regularly prevented osteoporosis, a debilitating
disease that causes bones to become brittle
with age and break. The study was published
in Nutrition, which ran the research as
its lead article.
Few
people are aware about the health benefits
of fruits on bone health. "One of the reasons
for reduced bone density is the increase
in cell-damaging oxidants produced by the
body's metabolic process. Our studies showed
that both grapefruit and orange juice increased
antioxidants in the rats' systems, which
protects the bone cells from damage," he
explains. Earlier studies have shown that
pectin can also help reduce levels of artery-blocking
"bad" cholesterol (low density lipoprotein
or LDL) in the blood and maintain blood
sugar at a healthy concentration. "Citrus
fruit are a vast reservoir of anti-carcinogens
and a storehouse of health-promoting nutrients,"
says Patil, who received his undergraduate
degree at the University of Agricultural
Sciences in Bangalore before moving to the
US. If locally grown, a whole fruit packs
in a lot more nutritional punch than its
juice. The fibre in a whole fruit also fills
people up, so they tend to eat less. "Fruits
need to be stored at temperatures below
15 degrees centigrade - nine degrees in
the case of citrus - to ensure they retain
their nutritional value. Up to 60 per cent
vitamin C is lost within two months of the
fruit being plucked, which is the time it
takes for artificially-ripened fruit to
reach the market in many parts of the world,"
says Patil. If you are not sure about how
fresh the produce is, it may be a good idea
to opt for juices for the nutritional value
and get the fibre from other sources, recommends
Patil. The nutritional components of many
packaged juices are preserved because the
fruit is freshly picked and juiced. PepsiCo,
the makers of Tropicana, say some, like
mandarins and oranges, are squeezed with
the skin to maximise nutritional content.
"Independent studies that compared commercially
squeezed juice with domestic squeezed juice
found the levels of beneficial phytochemical
and flavonoid to be higher in commercially
squeezed juice," says Yashna Harjani, nutrition
specialist, Asia PepsiCo. But don't go for
citrus alone. "In general, people should
eat different coloured fruit to get all
of the beneficial compounds. And make sure
you eat them fresh," says Patil.
Courtesy:
www.hindustantimes.com, January 13, 2007
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India's
"Wireless Wonder" Sunil Mittal tops is Asia's
best
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Naming
India's Sunil Mittal as Asia's Businessman
of the Year, Fortune Magazine calls him
a "Wireless Wonder" who has built a mobile-phone
empire by turning outsourcing on its head.
Now the founder and CEO of India's leading
mobile company, Bharti Airtel, is plotting
a retail revolution with a new partner -
Wal-Mart, said the magazine in the cover
story of its international edition. India's
No. 1 mobile provider with subscriptions
shooting past the 30 million mark is expected
to report revenue of more than $4 billion
in the fiscal year ending March, up from
$509 million in 2003. Bharti, which lost
money every year until 2003, has posted
rising profits every year. Its stock is
on a tear, rising to more than $14 a share
on the Mumbai exchange in late December,
a fivefold gain since 2003. With a market
capitalisation of $26 billion, Bharti has
emerged as India's fourth-most-valuable
firm, and Mittal one of India's richest
men. How did Mittal rise to the challenge
of managing breakneck growth? By taking
a quintessentially Indian solution - outsourcing
- and standing it on its head. Egged on
by his CFO and a core of in-house technology
specialists, Mittal resolved to give away
his network, Fortune said.
In
2004 he signed contracts worth $400 million
to hand over operation of Bharti's entire
phone network to Sweden's Ericsson, Germany's
Siemens (Charts) and Finland's Nokia (Charts).
The deal means Bharti no longer has to worry
about buying and maintaining equipment.
Instead it pays the European vendors a fee
determined by customer traffic and the quality
of service the firms provide. That same
year, Mittal signed a ten-year, $750 million
contract with IBM (Charts), farming out
the bulk of Bharti's information-technology
services, including billing, management
of customer accounts and even operation
of the Bharti intranet. The IBM contract
is a revenue-sharing arrangement, but the
objective is the same as the deal with the
European equipment vendors: freeing Bharti
to do what it does best - marketing, devising
new services for its customers, and searching
for new business opportunities. Now Mittal
is forging his most audacious foreign partnership
yet, Fortune said. In November he announced
that Bharti Enterprises will team with Wal-Mart
(Charts) to transform India's underdeveloped
retail market. Terms of the alliance, structured
to end-run Indian restrictions barring foreign
investment in any retail operation offering
customers more than one brand, grant Bharti
full ownership of stores selling directly
to Indian consumers under the Wal-Mart name.
Bharti and Wal-Mart will form a separate
joint venture to take on back-end activities
in which overseas investment is permitted,
including wholesale, logistics, supply-chain
management and distribution. The companies
haven't disclosed who will own how much
of the joint venture. But Fortune citing
Mittal says he will open hundreds of stores
over the next five years in formats ranging
from super centre to neighbourhood market,
and he predicts investment in the venture
will exceed $1 billion. Wal-Mart spokeswoman
Elizabeth Keck hails the partnership as
a "perfect match," the magazine said. Bharti,
she says, "excels at meeting customer needs
in India, while Wal-Mart excels in logistics,
sourcing and supply-chain management."
Courtesy:
www.teluguportal.net, January 13, 2007
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Authors
love Gandhi, 'the sinner'
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A
German psychologist, a Swiss philosopher,
a British historian and scores of Indian
intellectuals are among the many people
who have written a book that tries to explain
a phenomenon called Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi. Put together, they will surely outweigh
the man himself. But even a thousand of
books later, have the intellectuals been
able to capture the essence of the man Gandhi
was? What is it about Gandhi that makes
him so irresistible to the audience? Adding
another pound to the existing collection
is Mahatma, A true story of a man, his people
and an Empire, authored by Gandhi's grandson
Rajmohan Gandhi. In his latest offering,
Rajmohan tries to humanise the Mahatma and
in the process, writes about the Mahatma's
secret love affair with a Bengali woman
Sarladevi, quoting candidly from Gandhi's
letters.
Here's
an excerpt from one of the letters: "Have
we that exquisite purity, that perfect merging,
that trustfulness? For me, it is only an
aspiration. I'm unworthy of that companionship
with you. With dearest love I still subscribe
myself. Your L.G." Rajmohan says "LG" in
the letter stands for "Law Giver", a name
Sarladevi used to tease Gandhi with, obviously
referring to his strict laws. In another
book. Mira and the Mahatma, psychoanalyst
Sudhir Kakkar delves deep into the desires
that lay buried in the Mahatma's heart.
On its pages, a hero pines for the company
of his Mira who is away from him. "You are
on the brain. I look about me, and I miss
you. I open the charkha and miss you," goes
an excerpt from Kakkar's book. And then
there are many more works zooming into that
side of Gandhi, which he did not reveal
in his autobiography Experiments with Truth,
not to mention a play on his assassin that
backfired. For many Indians, Me Nathu Ram
Godse Bolte was not an attempt to look at
Gandhi in a new light, but an act of contempt.
Or the movie that made Gandhi hip and happening.
Gandhi has once again come alive, out of
the libraries, onto the streets and is walking
hand in hand with a new generation, and
the authors and their publishers can't stop
smiling. "Controversy always sells," says
publisher Anuj Bahri. Gandhi once said you
should hate the sin, but love the sinner.
It seems today's Indian has fallen head
over heels for Gandhi the sinner.
Courtesy:
www.ibnlive.com, January 12, 2007
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Gandhigiri?
I'm terribly impressed:Rajmohan
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by
Nina Martyris
The
Gandhi in Lage Raho Munnabhai was Authentic'
The
library at Mani Bhavan already has 50,000
books on Gandhi that provide a measure of
the man in every possible facet. Why would
anyone wish to write the 50,000lst book?
The question is put to the Mahatma's grandson,
Rajmohan Gandhi, who is in Mumbai to release
his book- Mohandas, A True Story Of A Man,
His People And An Empire (Penguin Viking).
"I
have been asked that question frequently,"
agrees the writer, a tall, distinguished
fIgure in khadi and thick black sneakers.
"You see, some of the best biographies on
Gandhi -by B R Nanda, Louis Fischer, Geoffrey
Ashe, Tendulkar, Pyarelal-were written immediately
after the assassination and therefore do
not have access to many illuminating documents
on his life that were discovered later.
Very often, people ask me to recommend a
definitive book on Gandhi, and I've found
myself at a loss. With this book, I have
attempted to write an A to Z volume - about
Gandhi, his associates, and his adversaries
like Churchill, Jinnah, Ambedkar and Savarkar."
A 700-page tome, Mohandas is a lucidly written
historiography; rich with diary extracts
and first-person accounts that help interrogate
the Mahatma's personal and political personas.
In the introduction, Rajmohan Gandhi, who
teaches at the University of Illinois at
Urbana- Champaign, asks a series of questions:
"Who was he, this timid lad who became a
century's conscience? Was he a politician
or a saint? Was he, as critics have alleged,
someone who broke a pledge that he would
rather die than accept Partition? Was he
not an unfeeling husband and father? A man
who did strange things in the name of chastity?
Or emasculated India in the name of non-violence?
Or patronised Dalits without empowering
them?"
That's
a quiverful of inconvenient questions. Inflected
as it is with this spirit of enquiry the
book does bring out the many Gandhis: the
young Rajkot Mohan, the London (dandy) Gandhi,
the Mahatma, Mr. Gandhi (as Jinnah insisted
on addressing him, finding the title Mahatma
pious and somewhat fatuous), Maulana Gandhi
(as the Hindu right sneeringly called him),
and the most familiar and ironic of all,
Bapu, the father of a nation but a man who
had a tragically conflicted relationship
with his own son, Harilal. Rajmohan Gandhi
also addresses the other oft-asked question:
the relevance of Gandhi in a nuclear India
so in thrall of the lodestar of industrialisation
that the snap of the farmer's neck in a
cotton field is heard no more.
"There
is something in us that aspires to nobility
and something is us that places a heavy
lid on compassion," says the writer, who
acknowledges that changing India has resulted
in both good and bad -more opportunity but
also a roofless pursuit for materialism.
"I do recognise that the market with all
its harshness is, on balance, better than
the government managing the; economy, but
I also feel the state should do far more
than it is doing for the underprivileged.
And, finally I want to say that India is
meant to have the US as a friend, and not
as its lord and master."
Commenting
on how one component from his new book,
dealing with the romance between his grandfather
and Saraladevi, has been unnecessarily blown
up in the media, the writer says, "There
is no denying that the 50-year-old Gandhi
had fallen for the; 47-year-old Saraladevi
(Tagore's niece and a Bengal revolutionary),
but it is equally clear that there was no
sex. He had the frailty to fall for her
but the toughness to break a deepening relationship.
It's a very human story and there's no shame
in it. The reason that Gandhi did not include
it in his autobiography was that he did
not want to inflict any more pain on Saraladevi.
She did not include it in her autobiography
either. I have tremendous respect for the
way she dealt with the ending of the relationship,
when Gandhi wrote to her saying that she
was like his spiritual wife. She, too, is
a hero of this book." On a lighter note,
what does the writer think of Gandhigiri
and Munnabhai? The response is unequivocal.
"Fabulous. The Gandhi presented in the film
was authentic. I couldn't get over the intuitive
skill of the story writer in getting to
the heart of this remarkable man. I must
say, I was terribly impressed."
Courtesy:
www.teluguportal.net, January 12, 2007
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