Thursday, November 29, 2007
Thought crimes act of US?
Here is something really bizaare but could be quite real that has come out of as the most coveted free nation of the world goes about fighting the real and imagined war on terrorism. The writer makes an interesting case about interpreting a Democratic California Rep. Jane Harman's new salvo in the war on terror through her bill Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007," as being a pointless one but one that could also be equally damaging if taken to the logical extreme in attempting to get at radical ideas. "Homegrown terrorism" and "violent radicalization," as defined here, may encompass thoughts, ideas, and plans, not just acts or conduct.The point of this new legislation isn't just to interrupt existing homegrown terror plots but to do something about the radical ideas that inspire them. That may be a worthy goal, but it's assuredly a goal that implicates protected speech, the writer Dahlia Lithwick at Slate.com says
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
India should dissociate from Commonwealth!
NO WEALTH IN COMMONWEALTH
There is a lot of fuss being made about Commonwealth Games being held in Delhi from (October 3-14, 2010). An unprecedented mammoth activity is underway with all the agencies of the Delhi government and the centre coming together to spruce up the city before the games. There is no usual budgetary constraint and no one can estimate at this stage as to how much money is being poured into Delhi beautification drive. Just one agency, namely the Delhi Jal Board is spending Rs 1000 crore to “clean up the water sources” in Delhi before the Games. The Delhi metro is scheduled to complete its entire project before the Games to begin. There are bigger and smaller projects going on everywhere and in case any slum gets cleared and thousands become homeless overnight, it is of little concern to anyone. Yamuna Pushta adjoining the Yamuna basin where for decades on end there was a flourishing colony of tens of thousands of poor houses is now a sleek freeway and the venue for a metro station. Did anyone ask where these hapless people went? In any case no delhite would want to complain as the bonanza of amenities is too good to believe.
Celebrations are fine and the pride that India has been chosen to host the Games is equally something but somewhere there is this nagging issue of what is that we are celebrating? What is this “commonwealth” business all about. Why there is so much of fuss about this organistaion and its activities? What is so "common" among the member nations of this Commonwealth of countries?
Look close—and it is absolutely necessary for any self respecting Indians to do so while the frenzy of the Sports is picking up—and you might find that the Commonwealth represents a reminder of the blot of history in the member nations of the 53 nation strong Global body, would want to forget, namely their slavery to the British empire. The common aspect of every single member nation of the Commonwealth is that they were once a former colony of the Empire!
The above is an excerpt from the website without any comments. Any intelligent person can draw a conclusion about the real import of what it means to be a member of Commonwealth, never mind the apparent economic benefit, the educaiton aid, food aid and so on which the member nations are bestowing on each other through the common kitty created by their contributions in the Commonwealth.
There is a lot of fuss being made about Commonwealth Games being held in Delhi from (October 3-14, 2010). An unprecedented mammoth activity is underway with all the agencies of the Delhi government and the centre coming together to spruce up the city before the games. There is no usual budgetary constraint and no one can estimate at this stage as to how much money is being poured into Delhi beautification drive. Just one agency, namely the Delhi Jal Board is spending Rs 1000 crore to “clean up the water sources” in Delhi before the Games. The Delhi metro is scheduled to complete its entire project before the Games to begin. There are bigger and smaller projects going on everywhere and in case any slum gets cleared and thousands become homeless overnight, it is of little concern to anyone. Yamuna Pushta adjoining the Yamuna basin where for decades on end there was a flourishing colony of tens of thousands of poor houses is now a sleek freeway and the venue for a metro station. Did anyone ask where these hapless people went? In any case no delhite would want to complain as the bonanza of amenities is too good to believe.
Celebrations are fine and the pride that India has been chosen to host the Games is equally something but somewhere there is this nagging issue of what is that we are celebrating? What is this “commonwealth” business all about. Why there is so much of fuss about this organistaion and its activities? What is so "common" among the member nations of this Commonwealth of countries?
Look close—and it is absolutely necessary for any self respecting Indians to do so while the frenzy of the Sports is picking up—and you might find that the Commonwealth represents a reminder of the blot of history in the member nations of the 53 nation strong Global body, would want to forget, namely their slavery to the British empire. The common aspect of every single member nation of the Commonwealth is that they were once a former colony of the Empire!
It is an irony that even almost 140 years after the first colony was released from the British Empire, namely Canada in 1867, they are to be reminded about their bondage by virtue of their membership to this body. India celebrating its newly found muscle as economic power, by being an active member of the commonwealth is only reminding itself time and again that it once was a member of the British empire as a slave nation. There cant be anything more demeaning than this which leaves a bad taste in the mouth whenever one sees the Commonwealth Games posters and the festoons heralding the advent of the Games.
According to the official site of Commonwealth, though the modern Commonwealth is just over 50 years old, the idea took root in the 19th century.
In 1867, Canada became the first colony to be transformed into a selfgoverning 'Dominion', a newly constituted status that implied equality with Britain. The empire was gradually changing and Lord Rosebury, a British politician, described it in Australia in 1884 as a "Commonwealth of Nations"
Other parts of the empire became Dominions too: Australia (1900), New Zealand (1907), South Africa (1910) and the Irish Free State (1921). All except the Irish Free State (that did not exist at the time) participated as separate entities in the First World War and were separate signatories to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Subsequently, they became members of the League of Nations.
After the end of the First World War, the Dominions began seeking a new constitutional definition and reshaping their relationship with Britain. The Conferences of Dominions begun in 1887 were resumed and at the Imperial Conference in 1926, the prime ministers of the participating countries adopted the Balfour Report which defined the Dominions as autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate to one another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
This definition was incorporated into British law in 1931 as the Statute of Westminster. It was adopted immediately in Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland (which joined Canada in 1949) and South Africa. Australia and New Zealand followed. India, Britain's largest colony at the time, had still not achieved self-government and remained a Dominion under the India Act of 1935 until its independence in 1947.
Modern Commonwealth
After the Second World War, the shape of the British empire began changing drastically. India gained independence in 1947, the new state of Pakistan was simultaneously created, and a wave of decolonisation followed which saw several colonies become independent and sovereign states.
The London Declaration of 1949 was a milestone on the road to developing the modern Commonwealth. India provided an interesting test case: it desired to become a republic yet wanted to remain a member of the Commonwealth and this posed a fresh challenge to the entire concept. Would Commonwealth membership only be for countries "owing an allegiance to the Crown" as the Balfour Report had stated? A conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers in 1949 decided to revise this criterion and to accept and recognise India's continued membership as a republic, paving the way for other newly independent countries to join. At the same time, the word 'British' was dropped from the association's title to reflect the Commonwealth's changing character.
The first member to be ruled by an African majority was Ghana which joined in 1957. From 1960 onwards, new members from Africa, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and the Pacific joined, increasing the diversity and variety that has enhanced the Commonwealth to this day.
With its commitment to racial equality and national sovereignty, joining the Commonwealth became a natural choice for many new nations that were emerging out of the decolonisation process of the 1950s and 1960s. Since then, the Commonwealth has grown in size and shape, expanding its reach and range of priorities. It is now involved in a wide spectrum of activities, all feeding the greater goals of good governance, respect for human rights, and peace and co-operation in the member countries and beyond.
In 1867, Canada became the first colony to be transformed into a selfgoverning 'Dominion', a newly constituted status that implied equality with Britain. The empire was gradually changing and Lord Rosebury, a British politician, described it in Australia in 1884 as a "Commonwealth of Nations"
Other parts of the empire became Dominions too: Australia (1900), New Zealand (1907), South Africa (1910) and the Irish Free State (1921). All except the Irish Free State (that did not exist at the time) participated as separate entities in the First World War and were separate signatories to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Subsequently, they became members of the League of Nations.
After the end of the First World War, the Dominions began seeking a new constitutional definition and reshaping their relationship with Britain. The Conferences of Dominions begun in 1887 were resumed and at the Imperial Conference in 1926, the prime ministers of the participating countries adopted the Balfour Report which defined the Dominions as autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate to one another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
This definition was incorporated into British law in 1931 as the Statute of Westminster. It was adopted immediately in Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland (which joined Canada in 1949) and South Africa. Australia and New Zealand followed. India, Britain's largest colony at the time, had still not achieved self-government and remained a Dominion under the India Act of 1935 until its independence in 1947.
Modern Commonwealth
After the Second World War, the shape of the British empire began changing drastically. India gained independence in 1947, the new state of Pakistan was simultaneously created, and a wave of decolonisation followed which saw several colonies become independent and sovereign states.
The London Declaration of 1949 was a milestone on the road to developing the modern Commonwealth. India provided an interesting test case: it desired to become a republic yet wanted to remain a member of the Commonwealth and this posed a fresh challenge to the entire concept. Would Commonwealth membership only be for countries "owing an allegiance to the Crown" as the Balfour Report had stated? A conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers in 1949 decided to revise this criterion and to accept and recognise India's continued membership as a republic, paving the way for other newly independent countries to join. At the same time, the word 'British' was dropped from the association's title to reflect the Commonwealth's changing character.
The first member to be ruled by an African majority was Ghana which joined in 1957. From 1960 onwards, new members from Africa, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and the Pacific joined, increasing the diversity and variety that has enhanced the Commonwealth to this day.
With its commitment to racial equality and national sovereignty, joining the Commonwealth became a natural choice for many new nations that were emerging out of the decolonisation process of the 1950s and 1960s. Since then, the Commonwealth has grown in size and shape, expanding its reach and range of priorities. It is now involved in a wide spectrum of activities, all feeding the greater goals of good governance, respect for human rights, and peace and co-operation in the member countries and beyond.
The upshot is clear, free thinking independent nations like India should set an example by first dissassociating with Commonwealth and if necessary found a new organisation for developing countries within the ambit of the United Nations or strengthen the existinig ones like SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) or ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) or any other regional or global body that serves the interest of developing nations. It is illogical and downright insulting to continue to foster the idea of a Commonwealth which subserves the interest of the British hegemony. Remember India is a free country and the second largest democracy and its newly minited generation does not need any reminder that British were once the nation’s masters. Three cheers and all that for the Commonwealth Games 2010!
Ranting about Ranking!
A friend Rajesh Haldipur sent a link to me about a Times article on Ranking
an excerpt from this article
"This year, some educators in the United States began to question the impact of rankings on the college admissions process, due in part to the March 11, 2007 Washington Post article ‘The Cost of Bucking College Rankings’ by Dr Michele Tolela Myers, former president of Sarah Lawrence College. He quoted director of data research at U.S. News as saying, “In the absence of real data, they will make up a number,” in the same article. In higher education, college and university rankings are listings of universities and liberal arts colleges in an order determined by any combination of factors. Rankings can be based on subjectively perceived “quality,” on some combination of empirical statistics, or on surveys of educators, scholars, students, prospective students, or others. Rankings are often consulted by prospective students and their parents in the university and college admissions process. In addition to rankings of institutions, there are also rankings of specific academic programmes, departments, and schools. Rankings are conducted by magazines and newspapers and in some instances by academic practitioners. For instance, for ranking of law programmes, see Law School Rankings. Rankings may vary significantly from country to country. A Cornell University study found that the rankings in the United States significantly affected colleges’ applications and admissions.[citation needed] In the United Kingdom, several newspapers publish league tables which rank universities. Critics of ranking methodologies maintain that any published rankings should be viewed with caution for the following reasons: Rankings limit the population size to a small number of MBA programmes and ignore the majority of schools, many with excellent offerings. The ranking methods may be subject to biases and statistically flawed methodologies (especially for methods relying on subjective interviews of hiring managers). The same list of well-known schools appears in each ranking with some variation in ranks, so a school ranked as number one in one list may be number three in another list. Rankings tend to concentrate on the school itself, but some schools offer MBA programmes of different qualities (e.g. a school may use highly reputable faculty to teach a daytime programme, and use adjunct faculty in its evening programme). A high rank in a national publication tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some critics object even to publications who now offer lists ranked different ways: by salary, GMAT score of students, selectivity, and so forth. They contend that while this practice is useful, these rankings still are not tailored to individual needs, and their value is diminished if they use an incomplete population of schools, fail to distinguish between the different MBA programme types offered by each school, or rely on subjective interviews."
There has been mounting criticism about Ranking and Rating of business school despite also the increasing popularity of such services by the media. In India itself since 1999 when the first ranking of 50 schools was made by late Prof Dharni Sinha in Business Today followed by the largest ever such ranking and rating done in the media in the year 2000 by Business India, there has been as many as eight such offering at the national level and at least a dozen more at regional and state levels.
The Rankings are usually for 50 schools to a 100 schools and Business India for instance uses 20 ranks and the rest of the schools are rated.
Rankings andratings may be controverial but at the moment they serve the primary purpose of providing information about schools more than classifying them into respective categories. The reader/user of today namely the students andthe corporate have their own yardstick andalso sources of information and they may not easily be swayed by such rankings by media.In fact ironically, it is the same ranking which is riled is the basic source for both thecompanies and students to form their opinion. Increasingly blatant hypes about schools and their ranking to a much higher category than they actualled belonged is easily caught out by the users which only leads to the undermining of thecredibility of the media which publishes such rankings.
Clearly policing the ranking is best left to the reader of the media except that one should demand that the media uses its reach to provide more information and bring greater transparency in publishing data and information about the schools and not sing paens and praises of a few leaving out the rest or worse still selectively jack up the ranking of some schools leaving out the rest in the lurch. This would call for responsibility and a lot of hardword and committment on the part of media.
an excerpt from this article
"This year, some educators in the United States began to question the impact of rankings on the college admissions process, due in part to the March 11, 2007 Washington Post article ‘The Cost of Bucking College Rankings’ by Dr Michele Tolela Myers, former president of Sarah Lawrence College. He quoted director of data research at U.S. News as saying, “In the absence of real data, they will make up a number,” in the same article. In higher education, college and university rankings are listings of universities and liberal arts colleges in an order determined by any combination of factors. Rankings can be based on subjectively perceived “quality,” on some combination of empirical statistics, or on surveys of educators, scholars, students, prospective students, or others. Rankings are often consulted by prospective students and their parents in the university and college admissions process. In addition to rankings of institutions, there are also rankings of specific academic programmes, departments, and schools. Rankings are conducted by magazines and newspapers and in some instances by academic practitioners. For instance, for ranking of law programmes, see Law School Rankings. Rankings may vary significantly from country to country. A Cornell University study found that the rankings in the United States significantly affected colleges’ applications and admissions.[citation needed] In the United Kingdom, several newspapers publish league tables which rank universities. Critics of ranking methodologies maintain that any published rankings should be viewed with caution for the following reasons: Rankings limit the population size to a small number of MBA programmes and ignore the majority of schools, many with excellent offerings. The ranking methods may be subject to biases and statistically flawed methodologies (especially for methods relying on subjective interviews of hiring managers). The same list of well-known schools appears in each ranking with some variation in ranks, so a school ranked as number one in one list may be number three in another list. Rankings tend to concentrate on the school itself, but some schools offer MBA programmes of different qualities (e.g. a school may use highly reputable faculty to teach a daytime programme, and use adjunct faculty in its evening programme). A high rank in a national publication tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some critics object even to publications who now offer lists ranked different ways: by salary, GMAT score of students, selectivity, and so forth. They contend that while this practice is useful, these rankings still are not tailored to individual needs, and their value is diminished if they use an incomplete population of schools, fail to distinguish between the different MBA programme types offered by each school, or rely on subjective interviews."
There has been mounting criticism about Ranking and Rating of business school despite also the increasing popularity of such services by the media. In India itself since 1999 when the first ranking of 50 schools was made by late Prof Dharni Sinha in Business Today followed by the largest ever such ranking and rating done in the media in the year 2000 by Business India, there has been as many as eight such offering at the national level and at least a dozen more at regional and state levels.
The Rankings are usually for 50 schools to a 100 schools and Business India for instance uses 20 ranks and the rest of the schools are rated.
Rankings andratings may be controverial but at the moment they serve the primary purpose of providing information about schools more than classifying them into respective categories. The reader/user of today namely the students andthe corporate have their own yardstick andalso sources of information and they may not easily be swayed by such rankings by media.In fact ironically, it is the same ranking which is riled is the basic source for both thecompanies and students to form their opinion. Increasingly blatant hypes about schools and their ranking to a much higher category than they actualled belonged is easily caught out by the users which only leads to the undermining of thecredibility of the media which publishes such rankings.
Clearly policing the ranking is best left to the reader of the media except that one should demand that the media uses its reach to provide more information and bring greater transparency in publishing data and information about the schools and not sing paens and praises of a few leaving out the rest or worse still selectively jack up the ranking of some schools leaving out the rest in the lurch. This would call for responsibility and a lot of hardword and committment on the part of media.
Friday, November 9, 2007
MPs and CEOs
A close friend whom I am very fond of sent me a mail about how MPs are such a waste of money when compared with the CEOs and the later's salaries should not be a concern of the government. Her note is appended to this blog at the end! My reply to her!
Dear Bhanu
your note about the salary of MPs is fascinating but you should compare with the work and responsibilities they carry vis a vis a corporate executive whose only reason for existence is not to provide quality product but to maximise profits at all costs. The salary of a corporate executive is directly proportional to the profits he or she generates and the higher salary he or she seeks to earn the greater would be the burden on the consumer as this cost would be passed on to the ultimate consumer.
Also the perspective you should have is that for a one crore plus population we have just around 600 representatives and even assuming that each of us put in Rs 1 per day for upkeep and maintenance of our representative we would have covered their costs but we must remember that we may be investing not less than rs 5000 to rs 10,000 in extra costs that we have to spend for our products because the companies have to earn profit. Just one example, take the toothpaste. an average toothpaste tube of 50 gm would cost u Rs 40 and the cost of manufacturing of this tube would be hardly 30 per cent of the price and the rest would go for advertising and profit margin.
check this news headline
"Colgate Reports Strong 1st Quarter EPS up 14% to $ .56 on 6% Unit Volume Growth Highest Dollar Sales Growth in Seven Years"
This amounts to 54 per cent profit margin! Why are we made to pay so much because the average earning of a CEO as a percentage of total revenue of any industry is more than 12 per cent
"In 2004, the average CEO of a major company received $9.84 million in total compensation , according to a study by compensation consultant Pearl Meyer & Partners for The New York Times. This represents a 12 percent increase in CEO pay over 2003. In contrast, the average nonsupervisory worker?s pay increased just 2.2 percent to $27,485 in 2004."
What we should be looking at should be how to engage these "illiterate" representatives of people to do some good work for us as after all an illiterate Kamaraj was one of the kingmakers who made a lot of difference for us as Indians and one "illiterate" MGR and Karunanidhi have been successful chief ministers of Tamil Nadu ditto for AP (NTR).
Bhanu's forwarded note!
Have a look at this Salary & Govt. Concessions for a Member of Parliament (MP)
Monthly Salary : 12,000 Expense for Constitution per month : 10,000 Office expenditure per month : 14,000 Traveling concession (Rs. 8 per km) : 48,000 ( eg.For a visit from kerala to Delhi & return: 6000 km) Daily DA TA during parliament meets : 500/day
Charge for 1 class (A/C) in train: Free (For any number of times) (All over India )
Charge for Business Class in flights : Free for 40 trips / year (With wife or P.A.)
Rent for MP hostel at Delhi : Free
Electricity costs at home : Free up to 50,000 units
Local phone call charge : Free up to 1 ,70,000 calls.
TOTAL expense for a MP [having no qualification] per year : 32,00,000 [i.e. 2.66 lakh/month]
TOTAL expense for 5 years : 1,60,00,000 For 534 MPs, the expense for 5 years : 8,54,40,00,000 (nearly 855 crores)
AND THE PRIME MINISTER IS ASKING THE HIGHLY QUALIFIED, OUT PERFORMING CEOs TO CUT DOWN THEIR SALARIES…..
This is how all our tax money is been swallowed and price hike on our regular commodities.......
Dear Bhanu
your note about the salary of MPs is fascinating but you should compare with the work and responsibilities they carry vis a vis a corporate executive whose only reason for existence is not to provide quality product but to maximise profits at all costs. The salary of a corporate executive is directly proportional to the profits he or she generates and the higher salary he or she seeks to earn the greater would be the burden on the consumer as this cost would be passed on to the ultimate consumer.
Also the perspective you should have is that for a one crore plus population we have just around 600 representatives and even assuming that each of us put in Rs 1 per day for upkeep and maintenance of our representative we would have covered their costs but we must remember that we may be investing not less than rs 5000 to rs 10,000 in extra costs that we have to spend for our products because the companies have to earn profit. Just one example, take the toothpaste. an average toothpaste tube of 50 gm would cost u Rs 40 and the cost of manufacturing of this tube would be hardly 30 per cent of the price and the rest would go for advertising and profit margin.
check this news headline
"Colgate Reports Strong 1st Quarter EPS up 14% to $ .56 on 6% Unit Volume Growth Highest Dollar Sales Growth in Seven Years"
This amounts to 54 per cent profit margin! Why are we made to pay so much because the average earning of a CEO as a percentage of total revenue of any industry is more than 12 per cent
"In 2004, the average CEO of a major company received $9.84 million in total compensation , according to a study by compensation consultant Pearl Meyer & Partners for The New York Times. This represents a 12 percent increase in CEO pay over 2003. In contrast, the average nonsupervisory worker?s pay increased just 2.2 percent to $27,485 in 2004."
What we should be looking at should be how to engage these "illiterate" representatives of people to do some good work for us as after all an illiterate Kamaraj was one of the kingmakers who made a lot of difference for us as Indians and one "illiterate" MGR and Karunanidhi have been successful chief ministers of Tamil Nadu ditto for AP (NTR).
Bhanu's forwarded note!
Have a look at this Salary & Govt. Concessions for a Member of Parliament (MP)
Monthly Salary : 12,000 Expense for Constitution per month : 10,000 Office expenditure per month : 14,000 Traveling concession (Rs. 8 per km) : 48,000 ( eg.For a visit from kerala to Delhi & return: 6000 km) Daily DA TA during parliament meets : 500/day
Charge for 1 class (A/C) in train: Free (For any number of times) (All over India )
Charge for Business Class in flights : Free for 40 trips / year (With wife or P.A.)
Rent for MP hostel at Delhi : Free
Electricity costs at home : Free up to 50,000 units
Local phone call charge : Free up to 1 ,70,000 calls.
TOTAL expense for a MP [having no qualification] per year : 32,00,000 [i.e. 2.66 lakh/month]
TOTAL expense for 5 years : 1,60,00,000 For 534 MPs, the expense for 5 years : 8,54,40,00,000 (nearly 855 crores)
AND THE PRIME MINISTER IS ASKING THE HIGHLY QUALIFIED, OUT PERFORMING CEOs TO CUT DOWN THEIR SALARIES…..
This is how all our tax money is been swallowed and price hike on our regular commodities.......
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