Minority Report ... ACTA

Efforts to criminalize the acts of infringement in stages of inception or planning, fashioned as Imminent Infringement, is being pushed. It is the first non-Anti-State thought crime being envisaged. India, for reasons of keeping Medical Companies' profiteering hopes alive is opposing such an effort, and the fallouts shall be beneficial for technology and innovation.



References:

India to sabotage ACTA

China, India To Raise Concerns At WTO About “TRIPS-Plus” Measures, ACTA

India Steps up to Plate to Fight US ACTA Piracy Pact

Opening up to the source of creativity ...

Then why does Indian Government have to spend on MS Windows licensing ?!! The Delhi High Court uses Vista, so do many government offices. We sure lack political will to eradicate profiteering and enforce judicious use of taxpayers' money.



References:

California blesses open source as 'acceptable'

California Warms Up to Open Source Software in Government

A hand that leaves the plough for the pen never returns to holding the plough ...

A hand that holds the pen moveth to the gun and sword easily than it may, though an impossibility, take to the plough ...




References:

Whither Rural India?

Indian agriculture is in deep trouble

Surging food prices reinforce tightening view

Disguised Retrenchment: New Industrial Disease

About 3,500 Airport workers have been gradually transferred out of Mumbai and Delhi airports to other places after the private consortium GMR took over the operations and management in 2006.

I have been following this disguised retrenchment since a month now and am amazed to see very little or no media coverage on the issue. Possibly it is not as deserving as the IPLs and General Elections (especially the snappy irrelevant chat between L.K. Advani and Rahul Gandhi, neither of them addressing the real issues of this country) that forsake this country!!!



References:

Government should begin talks with AAI employees: Yechury

Airport staff calls off nationwide strike

AAI employees defers nation-wide agitation

The Irony of the "best" !!!

Being the best should also account for best in human interest and relations, or have I got it all up-side-down!!!



References:

Infosys fires two thousand employees

Infosys ranked top IT infrastructure; may sack 2100 employees news

Infosys postpones campus hiring from sixth to eighth semester

The world is not enough? ... or is it?

I say it is more than enough. What have we actually done for this earth that we now aim to head elsewhere at astronomical expenditures that could well be used for earth's betterment environmentally as well as socially. Otis - Gandhi belongings auction has shown this shameless dichotomy of thought and actions as no other event in history has ever spat in the face of so called torch bearers of progress. Governments are ready to spend crores of their currency on procuring what symbolizes progress and honor but actually is nothing more than vanity and in vain.

Gandhi would not have approved of such high price purchase of his belongings by the country he lived and died for when we see blatant socio-economic deprivation on the other side of the story. It is ANTI-GANDHIAN to purchase his belongings at an auction even by the richest Indian, the belongings of a man who lived simply and without wealth in a country that still is poor, no matter what its GDP or rate of growth is.

On the other hand NASA thinks it is doing good by spending trillions while US citizens suffer in the face of unemployment and burst of their economic powder-cake.

How different are we from the dark ages when Kings and Temples/Churches amassed wealth while the poor remained static. They too were the golden ages of their times as described by those rulers. Shame on us all who think we are progressing.



References:

Otis offers to donate more Gandhi items

Moon not high enough: India aims for the sun

Nasa probe to seek planets supporting life

US sheds 6,51000 jobs in Feb; jobless rate touch 25-yr high

US unemployment rate hits 8.1 percent

ISRO sun mission Aditya in 2012, to cost Rs 500 million

India should still see growth at near 7%: Kamath

Sympathy only for the devil!

Resorting to the Homeowners & Bank Protection Act, 2007 the US government now has brought about a total moratorium on foreclosures by lending institutions of home owners who have been diligent in repayment of their home loans. This shows the political will behind straining out the actual bad debts incurred by lenders due to speculative lending and actual defaulters who have been severely hit by the economic downturn.

India on the other hand continues to harbor and promote speculative lending and investment by allowing unrestricted FDI inflow (without an regard to nascent demand creation by way of employment generation), total ignorance towards sustainable energy generation (by concentrating only on social fallout driven nuclear power), allowing F&O in many sensitive commodities such as Essential Commodities (wheat, sugar, etc. as scheduled under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955), F&O and derivatives of currency, especially the $-Rs. and without forcing private banks to bring down interest rates that are still 3-5% higher than the rates of 2006 - early 2007, still allowing corporate tax evasion through tax haven jurisdiction (when what the Indian exchequer needs is liquidity for social spending); just to name a few. Besides fuel prices as of now can further be reduced, except only when the government wants to pull an ace up its sleeve just before the Parliamentary elections.

R&D on fuel cell can not be furthered and there have been no tax incentives for manufacturers such as Honda and Reva to roll out cheap yet effective electric/hybrid vehicles so as to reduce out flow of $ and also to generate employment at home (not to mention the need for cleaner than CNG public transport, namely, electric buses!). Our energy independence would not only serve for economic insulation, but would also ensure real and actual growth in scientific, manufacturing and various other related sectors.

Indian government seems to have sympathy only for the devil!


References:

Obama pumps in $75 billion to save US homeowners

Jan. 30, 2009 HPI Daily Wire

An Economy based on Tradition!

It has been rightly said:

... if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles ...

- Sun Tzu

It is encouraging that Ayurvedic, Uniani and Siddha formulations are being recorded by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) into what they call a Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL). Now at least with the European Patent Office the TKDL database would be available for establishing prior art.

Then why is it that we have failed to establish our economic growth on traditional knowledge. We should not only guarantee healthcare but also formulate an insurance coverage on such systems of medicine so as to encourage people to adopt these systems and help the economy grow. Yet these systems are considered to be "unproven systems" under all the insurance coverages that we come across today. Besides even stem cell research based cure is excluded from such coverage!



Reference:

India logs over 2 lakh traditional medical formulations

Bailout not for the rich!

There is nothing surprising if this is not what is also running through the minds of Indians when each time the government announces a bailout and the next week nothing happens in real terms to uplift the employment situation. We too need a change!!!



Reference:

House angry at bailout; Obama team makes pledges

Castles into the sand whereforth they rose ...

So the cracks have begun to show. Hope what would Montek say about this. Is it 7% growth story in 2009 or is it just a slower slowdown or a gradual and sluggish movement towards eventual doom?!


References:

Bharat Forge slips into the red...

Ranbaxy reports net loss of Rs 806 cr

Reliance Q3 net profit down 9.8%

Refining margins pull RIL down

Reliance Infra Q3 net dips 16.71 pc at Rs 251 cr

Fuel the fire ...

Fuel the fire ... enough to heat, inadequate to burn.

What will we do with so many new IITs, IIMs and Law Schools when we can not quench the thirst of a few. Rightly so, there is only one Harvard Business School, one NYU School of Law and one MIT. Hope NID, Ahmedabad learns a lesson and refrains from expansion. The curve is no more exponential in the right direction.

Reference:

Techies get 4 days to join Wipro BPO

A crude cut ... public pays, privateurs profit

Prophetic was the last post, realization comes true. I wonder how's the oil pool deficit doing!!! The government helps private entrepreneurs rather than serving public good. Who does the one chosen of the people, by the people and for the people serve? Entrepreneurial enslavement of government is the new norm. Needn't say more ...

Reference:

Oil companies to earn more profits

Golden fleecing ...

We are being fleeced. It is no secret that a Toyota Camry would cost Rs.10 lacs on full and actual $-Rs conversion and the Honda Civic a mere Rs.8 Lacs, yet the prices are so steep. I kept quiet when Honda launched its Civic Hybrid at Rs.21.5 lacs. The Civic was the flagship Honda car, and still is, but only abroad, an icon of affordability. No, but not in India. This land has seen many average and below average priced cars from the west become status symbols. The VW Jetta. Its no joke that a weaker car without getup or show is priced for the foolish Indian customer higher than the Civic.

But now this recession has convinced me that most manufacturers would certainly reduce their 1000% profits at least down to 300% to woo the customers. With Honda of all doing so, the brand that never ever reduced its prices to boost its sale volume has for the first time stooped. With the Civic hybrid price reduction I hope many other cars would be sold cheaper, at least at prices nearing contemporary western markets.

Live with a man forty years, share his house, his meals, speak on every subject. Then tie him up and hold him over the volcano's edge and on that day, you will finally meet the man.

- Modu Shanyu

We sure need to do the same with these corporations, or once in a while by the cause of recession these corporations would reveal their true selves to both its customers and employees.



References:

Civic Hybrid cheaper by Rs 8 lakh

2009 Toyota Camry

Honda Civic Family - 2009 - the Official Honda Web Site

The Methodology of Bailout ...

Applying medication ONLY where it hurts. Try this:

1. keep the bailout restricted to employee pay slips,

2. freeze hiring and firing,

3. reduce management remuneration by 50-60%,

4. eliminate corporate tax evasion (both exemptions and through tax heavens) in order to bring on record all known assets and liabilities of the corporation,

5. utilize the liquidity resulting from points 1 and 3 above to reinvigorate the corporation,

6. handout additional funds only if liquidity in point 5 is insufficient.

So where does the problem lie? ... Honor v. State Craft

HONOR: Fighting in battle, [the king] should not kill his enemies with weapons that are concealed, barbed, or smeared with poison or whose points blaze with fire. (see Laws of Manu Chapter VII, Verse 90).

STATE CRAFT: Use of poison, spies, spread of discord, lies and economic sabotage is justified (see Kautilya, who judged the means by the result, a result he sought for the general good of his kingdom .. or was it so? for the Kingdom or for the Kingdom?).

Such is the difference between an honorable and a pragmatic approach. Pragmatism has replaced courage, self-interest has taken the place of sacrifice and honor is now a term only in dictionaries. And rightly so has the usage of pragmatic as meaning "officious; meddlesome; interfering" and "dogmatic; opinionated" been forgotten and become archaic. (see pragmatic definition |Dictionary.com)

One often wonders whether there is an actual problem to begin with or is this just a global take on large scale corporate restructuring in the garb of a global crisis resulting in laying-off of workers employed by corporations who one fine morning realized that their plans of the past had all gone wrong and that they could not sustain their swelling profits to swell any longer and thus are now "being forced" to dispense with human capital like non-living matter.

Wrong assessments galore ... ?

Finance Minister, Prime Minister and RBI Governor. Educated in Oxford, Cambridge and the like. Even Krugman could be wrong despite the Nobel prize. (When Krugman spoke of closing weak banks in India)

Economics is the most dangerous two edged sword wielded by nations and international bodies alike. Personal gains are the only aim; besides the sincere effort to make the present effort look better than the previous solution. (... Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss ...)

Is there a perfect solution or are we to be hung by the very governments that we create? Are these very governments going to tax us (just because we voted for them) and serve the interests of those who have retrenched us?

The the taxpayers' money is being risked on salvaging private interests of corporates (see Effort to halt financial crisis costs governments two trillion pounds, "... the huge cost to taxpayers of bailing out the financial system is likely to be felt for many years -and possibly decades - into the future") while corporations effortlessly evade being taxed by the governments that rescue them (see UK Banks Should Shut Tax Haven Units, Cable Says (Update1)), just because those corporations fund our political system and political parties in it. It seems like quid pro quo for election and kick-back money as distinguishable from tax we pay to the government for services it would or might render us, that is not to be quid pro quo. Is it fair? Is it just? Is it honorable? Or just state craft?

It's not enough ...

Not Enough Money in the World: The Real Monster in the Meltdown Closet

RBI's Rs 20000-cr package not enough, say mutual funds

Reforms are not enough anymore, Hungary needs stabilisation too ...

Brown urges more global reforms - bank stabilization "not enough"

Structural changes not enough to solve SANS problems: BND

Europe' Bank Bailout: Is It Enough?


Well said by The Who in their album Endless Wire

It's not enough
Whatever you give

A little bit more
You always need
A little more man
A little more seed

It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It's never enough

I gave you cash
I gave you love
All that I heard
Was "It's Not Enough"

I work so hard
It gets so tough
Whatever I give
Never feels like enough
It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It's never enough

When I'm on my knees
I keep taking your stuff
Make sure that you know
It's never enough

You said you'd go as far
As to turn to my friend
Who once warned me of you
Said you'd hasten my end
Because I have lent
Every ounce of my juice
My essence is spent

You'll always want
A little more pink
I'll always need
A little more ink

It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It's never enough

However I praise
However I puff
Though you may smile
It won't be enough

Right at the end
When I start to bluff
An' the lift's going down
An' I start acting tough

It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It's never enough

I'll find someone else
To finish filling me up
I'll smile and admit
You were never quite enough

Like Brigitte Bardot
In Godard's Les Mepris
I can't love you enough
To make you complete
You appear in my dreams
With some new courtier
You need me there to see
What you need to convey

It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It'll never be enough

No hysterical scene
You will never play rough
I'm the one who will scream
But it won't be enough

It's never enough
It's never enough

It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It'll never be enough

I'll never hold you
How can I scold you?

It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It'll never be enough