American crises & Indian IT companies

The great meltdown has begun. Americas top 3 financial companies out of business and the rest also in serious problems, share market across the globe tumbling down , in china almost 66 % and other developing countries including India up to 40% doesn’t provide a rosy picture of the financial situation.

Many asked me how it’s going to affect India in general and IT sector in particular. They were worried about the lay offs with Satyam leading the pack with 4500 layoffs. Frankly speaking even I am worried by the recent developments. But still there is some hope. The situation is not so bad.

The current crisis is man made it’s a long awaited correction happening in the consumer America. The problem is of credit crises and liquidity crunch. No major financial institution is ready to lend capital to others. The financial sector has lost the confidence. This is the reason the major national banks like Federal Reserve is pouring billions of dollars into financial sector to cool it down. (I know it didn’t strike a chord with most of you. Reading too much finance news? :D)

As far as India is concerned, she will also feel the heat but since the market is not so tightly coupled with US financial market, she can survive. For the next couple of quarters the profit margin of the major companies even IT companies will come down but then it has to go up. In this crisis everybody is talking of efficiency and improvement and the Indian outsourcing & IT companies are providing that to the world. As far as layoffs are concerned well that’s happening almost every year. Satyam might have given the pink slip to 4500 but they are recruiting around 12000. So that should cool you all.

India in nuclear club; third largest emitter of CO2

According to Center for Global Development (CGD) India is in the third position in the list of biggest CO2 emitter through power generation after China and the United States.

In the recent years, India’s energy consumption has been increasing at one of the fastest rates in the world due to population growth and economic development. Another study shows that by 2017, India's energy requirement is expected to be 335 GW. This is a quite big number. This is going to put severe demand pressure on the traditional energy source of the planet. China and India will directly compete with the developed countries for fuel. Imagine what will happen then? Ever increasing fuel cost, high emission of green house gases, not a pleasant view huh? Now itself India is the 3rd largest emitter of green houses gases in power sector with the state owned NTPC leading the march. And this trend is upward.

In this context Nuclear power is the good source (Cant say how safe it is, still we don’t know how to handle nuclear waste properly).It is a clean source that can reduce the dependence on traditional energy source. India didn’t get the NSG waiver because of this. The writing is on the wall. Companies like Blackstone Group, GE and many other corporations are eying the lucrative energy sector of India. Once approved by the respective countries they can sign contracts worth multi billion of US dollars. I don’t think there is anybody, who don’t want their hand in the plum? It’s a scramble for energy sector much like the defense contracts of India. It’s a win- win situation for all. But then by doing so aren’t we creating a wrong precedence? What happens if tomorrow another rogue country comes up with similar arguments (India has a clean history of nuclear non-proliferation which even some of the nuclear super powers can’t claim?). This is a sensitive issue with world energy market in one side and nuclear non-proliferation in another side of the balance. Let’s hope that everything goes fine.

Public support for nuclear power had dramatically decreased after couple of high-profile accidents, such as at the Three Mile Island reactor in the US in March 1979 and the Chernobyl reactor in April 1986 in the erstwhile Soviet Union.

However, in recent years, the nuclear industry has become less defensive about its safety record. The World Nuclear Association (WNA) website, for instance, points out that these are the only major accidents to have occurred in more than 12,700 cumulative reactor-years of commercial operation in 32 countries. The risks from western nuclear power plants, in terms of the consequences of an accident or terrorist attack, are minimal compared to other commonly accepted risks. Nuclear power plants are very robust, it asserts.

But we should look & develop other source of energy also like the wind energy, solar energy, tidal energy. These are much better and clean than the nuclear energy.

It’s a beginning… Let’s see how much we move forward.

Honor killing no honor at all

Its a fashion now - Honor killings but what sense of honor is achieved by these murders? Every other day we hear about many such glorified deaths.The perpetrators unpunished

Honor crimes are not specific to any religion, nor are they limited to any one region of the world. Fathers, brothers, uncles, relatives, community everybody kills for one reason or other. Some justifying tradition , sect, religion. Are they glorifying it or destroying the very fabric of its survival ? They don't know and of course the dead will never know about it. Who is to blame ?

Reports submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights show that honor killings have occurred in Bangladesh, Great Britain, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, and Uganda. In countries not submitting reports to the UN, the practice was condoned under the rule of the fundamentalist Taliban government in Afghanistan, and has been reported in Iraq and Iran.

In Jordan, if a woman seeks protection from the police because she fears that her family wants to kill her, she will be held in indefinite detention in a local prison. It is important to note that once a woman has sought protection from the government and has been placed in prison, she is prohibited according to the government's policy from leaving the prison even though she has committed no crime. Ironically, women can only be released into the custody of a family member -- perhaps the very persons trying to kill them. If these women are killed, they are buried in unmarked graves and their very existence denied.

The noble values of dignity and seniority are neglected. Instead, the only focus is on the woman’s body and her virginity. According to this definition, the woman is an object owned by the man who assumes responsibility for her behavior and her life. The social traditions lead to the isolation of the woman in her home. She is required to cover her entire body in order to maintain the honor of the man. A decent honorable man has to have a decent honorable woman. The major factor in this theory is the body of the woman that is capable of bringing new members for the family, so that it can extend and live longer. Thus, the woman’s body is the private property of her husband. By maintaining and protecting it, there will be no confusion between families in the community. The family, and men in particular, have the responsibility to defend the honor of ‘their’ woman. (Al-Turki and Zuraiq, 1995, Page 104)

Honor crimes are a clear violation of women's human rights and states are bound to protect women from such violations. Nonetheless, in many countries, honor crimes are either condoned through government inaction or defended as legitimate cultural practices

Links

• The Dynamics of Honour Killings : http://www.unfpa.org/publications/detail.cfm?ID=320&filterListType=
• Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing
  

Beaten and buried alive for choosing life partner !!!

Well this was a news item which i could stop my self from posting … no comments required. Its a real horror

Issue not debated in Senate in deference to “tribal traditions”

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Five women from Umrani tribe in Balochistan were shot at and later buried alive

Though incident took place on July 14, case registered only on Monday

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ISLAMABAD: Following a national outcry, the government scrambled on Monday to arrest four people suspected of involvement in burying five women alive in Balochistan and exhumed two bodies for investigations.

The Senate, Parliament’s Upper House, thoroughly embarrassed by two of its veteran members, who last week put up a staunch defence of the “honour killings” as a “tribal tradition,” also sought to make amends.

The House had a lengthy discussion on the issue and passed a resolution condemning the burial, demanding that those who behind the crime should be tried and punished.

The five women belonged to the Umrani tribe. Among them, three were teenagers who wanted to marry men of their choice. The two other women were the mother of one girl and an aunt, who supported the decision of the girls.

According to a report by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), the women were abducted by a group of men belonging to the Umrani tribe and taken to a remote spot in Jaferabad in eastern Balochistan.

There, the men first sprayed bullets at the teenagers, and while they were still breathing, are reported to have pushed their bodies into a ditch and started throwing mud and stones at them. When the two older women protested, they were pushed into the ditch too and buried with the others.

Though the incident happened on July 14, a case was registered only on Monday morning. The AHRC and newspaper reports alleged the police did not take note of the killings because the brother of a provincial Minister, a member of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was involved.

1. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/five-women-beaten-and-buried-alive-in-pakistan-honour-killing-915714.html
2. http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/02/stories/2008090260641400.htm
3. http://infidelsarecool.com/2008/09/01/pakistan-honor-killing-3-teenagers-buried-alive-for-attempting-to-choose-their-own-husbands/

Online petition: Stop the Genocide in Darfur

To US President George Bush and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon

As many as 400,000 people have been killed in Darfur. Another 2.5 million have been driven from their homes and into danger. The threat of rape, torture, murder and malnutrition pursue the women and children of Darfur wherever they flee. World leaders must unite now to end the genocide and establish a lasting peace in Darfur.

I therefore ask you to:

1. Make ending the crisis in Darfur one of your top priorities;

2. Push for the fastest possible deployment of the hybrid U.N.-A.U. peacekeeping force authorized by the U.N. Security Council in July 2007;

3. Pressure contributing nations to fully and immediately meet their pledges of troops, funding, equipment, and logistical support;

4. Work to ensure the Sudanese government’s full participation in a just and inclusive peace process, and to overcome any attempts to obstruct or delay the protection of civilians or the peace process;

5. Increase humanitarian aid and ensure access for its safe delivery.

Thank you for your leadership on this urgent matter.

http://action.savedarfur.org/campaign/savedarfurcoalition