January 30, 2004
 

Politics

It is becoming increasingly clear that governments headed by Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and Pervez Musharraf have been ignoring clandestine nuclear weapons technology export to North Korea.

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Economy

Boom time in India, featured by the New York Times.

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Science & Technology

Clayton M Christensen, Harvard Business School professor and Infosys Chairman and Chief Mentor N R Narayana Murthy chat about the challenges Indian companies face as they try to go global

Scientists at the Univ of Colorado, in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology have created a new form of matter!

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Personal

Today was my final appointment with the dentist for my root canal treatment. I had my crown fitted in place of where my molar used to exist. I could have gone in for a molar from Kolar or one where porcelain was fused to metal (nickel or chromium alloys typically). However I'm now ceramically fitted. It doesn't feel that odd, perhaps if it was a metal crown I'd have a feeling there was a foreign object in my mouth!

Labels: aq khan, proliferation

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January 29, 2004
 

Politics

Richard Muller offers arguments wondering if Osama bin Laden is alive or not.

The New York Times has an editorial on the need for an independent investigation that looks into all aspects of the apparent intelligence failures on Iraq.

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January 28, 2004
 

Science & Technology

A captive African grey parrot has a vocabulary of 950 words and shows signs of a sense of humour! The BBC's Nature site is really quite fascinating.

It is revealed that former US President Bill Clinton did not have textual relations with any email!

Amidst all the furore over the US Senate passing a bill which restricts government contractors from sub-contracting work overseas, Wired magazine has a feature on India's software revolution. Since this clearly does go against concepts like liberalisation, free economy, open markets etc., perhaps it is time to call upon George Fernandes to throw Coca Cola out yet again!

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Politics

Former Pakistani army general, Mirza Aslam Beg gives his views on the recent allegations against Pakistani nuclear scientists.

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Posted @ 2:06 PM

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January 27, 2004
 

Politics

Jim Hoagland wrote a few days back in the Washington Post about how romantic it'd be if Vajpayee and Musharraf were given the Nobel Peace Prize.

Frankly, I think this really is jumping the gun. All it takes is for one explosion either in India or in Pakistan for the whole relationship to plummet yet again. In fact if they had any sense they'd decline the peace prize. Yitzhak Rabin and Anwar al-Sadat haven't exactly had long lives after they received the peace prize for their efforts at bringing peace to Israel and Egypt respectively.

The BJP has been exhorting the CMs of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Bihar to have early Assembly elections coinciding with the general election, so that public money would be saved. Clear hypocricy. Valuable public money could have been saved by not dissolving the Lok Sabha nearly 6 months in advance. If every government only lasted 4.5 years instead of 5, then over a span of 45 years we'd have gone to the polls 10 times rather than just 9. Besides if the BJP (or NDA) is in favour of simultaneous polls, why not go through the entire 5 year term and have elections coinciding with the Assembly elections for those 3 states in November? Why wasn't the LS dissolved in November last year to coincide with the Assembly polls of a few states?

Pramod Mahajan is at it again. Now he says neither Priyanka nor Rahul Gandhi should be allowed to become Prime Minister because they dont satisfy the newly created rule that both parents need to be of Indian origin. Given that Advani's antecedents were in Pakistan, does that rule him out? Perhaps MGR should never have been Tamil Nadu's CM given that he was born to a Malayali father in Sri Lanka. Try forming an alliance with 'Amma' now, Mr. Mahajan.

Just as we go to press, I notice that the AIADMK no longer owns the aiadmk.org domain. Instead it is now owned by some unofficial Kerala police site. Hmm ... the mallu connection, eh?

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Cricket

In an interesting move, the Zimbabwe Cricket Union has directly written to English counties about the possible ramifications of the ECB cancelling the tour to Zimbabwe.

Where do I stand on the issue? I think England (or other countries) are justified in cancelling tours based on security issues. Moral issues are untangible. Security is not. However England are completely unjustified in promising Zimbabwe a tour to ensure that the Zimbabwe cricket team would fill the ECB's coffers earlier last year and now backing out. The ECB deserves any punishment/penalty that is imposed on them. I hope the ECB forfeits the right to host the ICC Champions Trophy, to be held in England, in a few months, which would really deny them millions of sponsorship and advertising revenue.

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Technology

Well not entirely technical, except that WH Gates III has been given a honorary knighthood for "his outstanding contribution to enterprise, employment, education and the voluntary sector in the United Kingdom." as well as "significant contributions to poverty reduction in parts of the Commonwealth and elsewhere in the developing world."

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General

Germaine Greer, a noted feminist author, on why she felt that the average Australian couldn't be bothered about important matters of life or philosophy.

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January 23, 2004
 

Cricket

CricInfo has started an RSS feed of cricket news, I suppose it wont be too long before we see live cricket scores too!

David Hookes' death a few days ago outside a Melbourne pub was certainly an extremely sad event. But Brett Lee dedicating the win to Hookesy is quite unpalatable. Lee's babbling hits a high when he claims that somebody was watching and helping Australia last night during the last couple of balls. Australia are tough to beat when they're 11. Add in the two umpires (no, Bucknor doesn't count as 2 Aussies!) and the spirit of Hookes and they're now 14. However you need to subtract Martyn who definitely wasn't playing for Australia. So Australia contravened the laws of cricket by having 13 playing for them! And I'm not even counting Parthiv for Australia, as Anil Dharker did.

Posted @ 12:54 PM

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January 22, 2004
 

Cricket

Well its actually politics + cricket + morality + riding-high-horses. The ECB have more or less decided to call off England's forthcoming tour of Zimbabwe on moral grounds, on the recommendations of Des Wilson, chairman of the ECB's corporate affairs and marketing committee.

The ICC have indicated that there could be legal implications if England pull out. Tours are typically arranged between the boards of the countries involved and do not really come under the purview of the ICC, except perhaps as a facilitator. However Zimbabwe could sue the ECB if moral issues are raised rather than security.

Henry Olonga and an anonymous former Zimbabwean player are against Zimbabwe touring. On the other end of the spectrum, there is Lord Sebastian Coe, the famous British middle distance runner who defied calls to boycott the Moscow 1980 Olympics, who says that boycotts don't really work.

There are a gamut of issues involved. However what needs to be remembered is Zimbabwe toured England in 2003. The tour had been in jeapordy ever since England refused to play in Zimbabwe in the 2003 World Cup. Zimbabwe had threatened to call off their tour of England in mid-2003. The ECB allegedly managed to extract a commitment from the ZCU that if Zimbabwe toured England, England would tour Zimbabwe in 2004. Clearly this is a promise broken, if it was made in the first place. It is selfishness of the highest nature. England clearly benefitted monetarily from having Zimbabwe tour England. They shamelessly benefitted from the gate receipts, sponsors etc. Yet when it comes to England touring Zimbabwe, it is a moral issue.

What does baffle me is that England are refusing to tour Zimbabwe when an Indian team is all set to tour Pakistan. If India can tour Pakistan, any other team can tour any other place. Surely the danger to Indians in Pakistan is infinitely greater than the danger faced by Englishmen in Zimbabwe. It is another matter though, that I still feel India shouldn't be touring Pakistan, purely for security reasons. The reasons have in fact increased manifold since September 2003 when I wrote that piece. Musharraf has had a couple of attempts on his life in December, followed by a blast in Karachi.

Technology

What's in a name, did you say? Well, Microsoft doesn't quite think the same of Mike Rowe who setup his site called mikerowesoft.com. Microsoft claimed copyright infringement and asked him to change his domain name. Mike Rowe asked for $10,000 to change it, Microsoft offered him $10.

Now the big bad behemoth feels that they may have taken the trademark and copyright a little too seriously and that they were in the process of resolving the issue.

Posted @ 11:39 AM

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January 21, 2004
 

Politics

US President George Bush delivered the annual State of the Union address yesterday. I suppose Iraqis and other people in the Middle-East can look forward to getting reliable news and information, sans hateful propaganda, from American TV stations like CNN, CBS, NBC etc. Do you want to drink to the State of the Union address?

Politics and cricket

I've always wondered about how US President George Bush and Australian captain Ricky Ponting look so alike each other, have you? World dominators, both! How about Russian President Vladimir Putin and former England captain Nasser Hussain? Both rivalries continue to the looks arena too!

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Techonology

CNET interview with Nandan Nilekani on a whole gamut of off-shoring related issues. He makes a very good point when he says that when the developed economies talk of globalization, it does involve job losses when multi-national banks, insurance companies or airlines come in, some people in the local companies will probably lose their job. So globalization works both ways. The flip-side to the argument, in my opinion, is that in case of globalization happening in a developing nation, while jobs are lost, there are jobs created as well and importantly, those are locally created jobs. But in case of off-shoring, the jobs aren't created in say the USA, they're created in India, China, Phillipines or say, Kyrghyzstan.

Posted @ 8:39 AM

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January 20, 2004
 

Cricket

Yesterday was a sad day for cricket. David Hookes, former Australian batsman and currently Victoria coach as well as high-profile commentator, died of head injuries after being assaulted by a Melbourne pub bouncer. Here are some of the reactions from the cricketing world.

• Steven Lynch on the shooting star of the Centenary Test.
  
• Greg Baum on how it made no sense at all.
  
• Greg Chappell on someone who was a brash young man, full of confidence and bravado.
  
• Adam Gilchrist on the honest chap who spoke his mind.
  
• Chris Ryan on how good Hookes really was.
  
• Martin Gough on how statistics fail to tell the real story about Hookes.
  
• David Hookes photo gallery
  
• Malcolm Conn on a man of strong will and of strong opinions.
  
• Derek Pringle on Hookes
  

Zdravco Micevic, the chap who assaulted Hookes (eventually killing him), is currently out on bail. I think he really should get the maximum punishment possible under Australian law, both for what he did to Hookes as well as the torture we suffer while trying to pronounce his name.

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Link of the day

Well it isn't really a link, but this really had me laughing.

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Science & Technology

Fascinating views of Valles Marineris, a giant canyon on Mars.

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January 19, 2004
 

Politics

Now Britain's 'The Observer' newspaper does an expose of the illegal global market in nukes and how the trails from Iran, Libya and North Korea all lead back to Pakistan.

Well this is politics and science. Last week US President Bush announced a new vision for the USA's space exploration programme, including missions to the Moon and Mars. As with most things the US government is upto nowadays, there's more beneath the announcement. What happens to the existing space shuttles, space stations? and is American imperialism now going beyond the planet?.

Hey, have you ever wondered why we always say the Moon but Mars, Jupiter, Pluto etc.? No usage of the article for planets?

The French are mad at the Yanks again, this time because French air staff who were born in a select list of Islamic countries are being subject to further interrogation at American airports on arrival.

Movies

Bollywood, Hollywood ... what's the difference?. Nothing much, if you go by a new documentary about the pressures various top actresses face as women working in the entertainment industry.

Labels: iran

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January 18, 2004
 

Politics

Arundhati Roy wonders at the World Social Forum in Bombay if turkeys enjoy thanksgiving.

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January 17, 2004
 

Politics

Fairly tumultous day in Pakistan today. First, Musharraf is heckled bigtime first speech in parliament. In a possibly related incident, a high-profile member of parliament claims she was prevented from attending the session when her flight to Islamabad was diverted without any explanation offered.

All this amidst a focus on the Pakistani government's role in a plot by a South African businessman to export nuclear bomb triggers. As usual, Pakistan denies it all.

Posted @ 9:59 PM

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January 16, 2004
 

Cricket

I was in Madras for a day to celebrate Pongal when I realized that the BCCI has effectively done away with a tradition which has more or less been in place for well over 50 years. I'm talking about the concept of having Test matches during a festive occasion. For a long time, Calcutta had a Test match around New Year's Day (15 out of the 32 Tests) while Madras had a Test match during Pongal (9 out of the 26 Tests at Madras). I wasn't able to see any particular pattern for Tests at Bombay or Delhi. But at a time when Australia insists on not touring but playing its Boxing Day and New Year's Tests at Melbourne and Sydney, with the rising cricketing (and economic) power that India is being made out to be, shouldn't the BCCI put its foot down and say that the Indian team will not tour any country during specific parts of year? New Zealand and South Africa have Boxing Day and New Year's Tests as well. You seldom see them touring during that period. Admittedly, the fact that all these three countries are in the Southern Hemisphere does make it easier for them to host games during their summer. However the weather in India from July to March is certainly good enough to play Test cricket at home.

Let's assume India hosts 2 teams for 3 Test series each at home as well as a triangular tournament. The first tour could start sometime around the 1st week of October. The first Test starts during Navaratri/Dassehra in some part of North India, say Mohali (Delhi would be a great candidate for a Dassehra Test but unfortunately the Kotla really does suck), around the 10th of October or so. Then there're a couple of 3 day tour games, 1 from the 17th and the other from the 22nd. The 2nd Test starts just before the end of October. The 3rd Test starts from around the end of the 1st week of November. Since Diwali doesn't really have a fixed date and pops in either in the last few days of October or during early November, the Diwali Test could either be the 2nd or the 3rd Test. The Diwali Test could be held at Bombay while the other one could be at say Kanpur/Ahmedabad.

The 2nd tour starts around the 20th of December with a tour game. Then we could have a Christmas/Boxing day Test at Bangalore from the 25th/26th of December. The 2nd Test could start at Calcutta during New Year's time and end around 5th/6th January. Then there'd be a tour game till around the 10th. The Pongal Test at Madras from around the 13th of January would be the last Test in India's home calendar.

There'd be nearly a 1 month gap between the end of the last Test of the 1st tour and the start of the 2nd tour. A triangular one-day series could easily be fitted in that timegap with enough travel and recuperation time for both teams.

Look at the immense tourism potential. By tying in cricket with various festivals, there is an enormous opportunity for the BCCI, the travel industry as well as the hospitality industry to make a lot of money while at the same time creating an awareness of the multiple hues that is India.

The BCCI would need to ensure that India finished its touring commitments by September before the 1st home series got underway and also committed the team to tour only after mid-January. Of course, I know none of this is ever likely to happen. It IS just a random rambling rant.

General

Amnesty International's report on the death penalty in Singapore urges the government to abolish the death penalty, impose a moratorium on all executions, convert all pending sentences to those of imprisonment, make public the details of those executed, have debates (in Parliament and amongst the public) about the penalty, increase the transparency in the clemency granted, review several laws and acts which have the death penalty as a punishment, ensure that all trials in capital punishment cases observe international standards and ratify international human rights treaties. Singapore though has steadfastly held all along that the death penalty was not a human rights issue.

Posted @ 1:47 PM

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January 14, 2004
 

Link of the day

In another day and age, say 20 years ago, reading someone's diary would have been among the most intrusive things you could do. Emily Nussbaum writes about the democratisation of the online diary/journal, once a preserve of writers, authors, journalists and domain experts.

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January 13, 2004
 

Politics

The Hindu's delayed editorial and comment piece on Pakistan's role in nuclear proliferation.

The US VISIT programme causes a guy-next-door Madras based businessman to be thought of as an Al-Qaeda terrorist.

With the government deciding to be majorly patronizing towards PIOs and NRIs, I wrote this wondering if it was time to expand the umbrella even further.

Labels: al-qaeda, aq khan, proliferation

Posted @ 11:45 AM

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January 12, 2004
 

Link of the day

Monday seems to be a good day to find new stuff on the web.

The USA's military budget increase of $48 million is larger than the annual military budget of any other country!

The 20 Macs that mattered most according to Wired, during the 20th anniversary after the first Apple Mac came out.

Doug Engelbart, the inventor of the device we now call the mouse on what it felt like to launch the point-and-click revolution 15 years before the Mac. Oh, and he also did some work on videoconferencing, hyperlinks, networked collaboration and digital text editing.

The Worldwatch Institute's magazine which says that while annual ice cream consumption in Europe last year was $11 billion, clean drinking water for the entire planet could have been provided by spending $10 billion. Rather revealing! Madras denizens would no doubt argue that as little as .5% of that amount (Rs. 23 crores approx) would solve a significant portion of their water problems.

NB: Free registration required to access some content on the Worldwatch site

On the occasion of Tintin's 75th birthday, the BBC on his enduring appeal.

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Politics

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill on CBS' 60 minutes programme talks about the lack of democracy in US cabinet meetings on the war on terror.

Labels: apple

Posted @ 12:37 PM

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January 09, 2004
 

Link of the day

Charles Moore on why he lives Microsoft free.

Posted @ 6:50 PM

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January 08, 2004
 

Link of the day

If you've been reading this blog for a while (or indeed other blogs as well!), I'm sure you've wondered "Why on earth does this chap blog?!"

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Politics

The adage that there are no permanent enemies in politics has been proved true yet again today. The Congress(I) and the DMK have formed an alliance for the 2004 Lok Sabha polls. The last time the two parties were allies was in 1980. In subsequent elections, the Congress(I) either piggybacked on the AIADMK/ADMK or went alone. After Rajiv Gandhi's assassination by the LTTE in 1991, the Congress(I) became vehemently anti-DMK because of the DMK's support of the LTTE. Evidently Rajiv Gandhi's death was too long ago to matter, even for Sonia Gandhi?

The situation becomes even more murky because there is a possibility for the MDMK to also be part of the coalition fighting the 'communal' forces. The MDMK broke away from the DMK a few years ago but now their ideologies converge. However several MDMK leaders were indicted by the Jain Commission for their involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi.

What next? The BJP allying with VP Singh yet again?

Labels: lok sabha, ltte

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January 06, 2004
 

Cricket

So its all oWaugh! Sorry about the pun. The end of a superb Test series with a draw at the SCG. Sourav Ganguly and his men maybe thinking about whether the 1st innings declaration came a little too late or whether the followon should have been enforced, but that'd be hindsight. However India can take a lot of credit from the way they fought this series which really did swing one-day to the other nearly every couple of days. In the end, even though the drawn match (and series) seems a tough result to stomach given that India scored 700 runs, the series result was possibly a fair call. Even though India had a few opportunities to drive the nail in, they couldn't quite stamp the opposition out, the hallmark of a great side. There were opportunities at Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney but they weren't grasped. Undoubtedly though, the team will be much better for the experience gained from the tour. The aim of the team management should be to take this team to the next level. Border & Simpson attribute the successes of the Aussies of the late 1980s-early 1990s to the way they fought and tied the Madras Test in 1986. They followed it up with the World Cup win in 1987. Ashes victories then started happening and they nearly managed to defeat West Indies in the 1992/93 series in Australia. It is interesting to note that the last time a side went through two consecutive series against Australia undefeated in both (in India's case, it won one of them) was 2 drawn series for South Africa in 1993/94.

The successes from this tour must be used by Wright, Ganguly, other team members, the selectors, the administrators in the BCCI etc. to ensure that the only way this team now goes is up. After the last series v Australia, the Indian team performed quite poorly in Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and were thrashed in South Africa and barely managed to win against England at home. There must be an effort to make sure success isnt taken for granted.

I think the turning point of the tour was Waugh running Martyn out. That gave India an unlikely wicket and when Waugh's hitwicket followed, it was the icing on the cake. It also helped that the Australian team (and Waugh and Martyn in particular) were under tremendous pressure with the media constantly quizzing them about the runout. In a sense, the media attention got deflected off the Indians', which was good because the moment you get the opposition country's media to start talking about the faulty actions of their own players, you must be doing something right! Ganguly's superb century suddenly brought back the focus on the team but in a positive way! The media was suddenly effusive in praise and no longer called him haughty and unmindful of tradition.

The next task is to focus on the VB oneday series (involving Australia and Zimbabwe as well) and take it stage by stage, match by match. It'd be quite ridiculous if India didn't make the finals with Zimbabwe being the third team.

Labels: ind v aus 2003

Posted @ 5:31 PM

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January 05, 2004
 

Politics

The embarassments continue to pile up for Pervez Musharraf. A recent investigation by the NY Times reveals that the establishment's claims of not having indulged in nuclear technology transfer to 'rogue' are far from what the truth really is. The brochure (see below) has AQ Khan's photo on it as well as a "Government of Pakistan" seal!



Yet George Bush (and the US government) continues to adopt an ostrich-like defensive approach by dismissing questions on Pakistan's (and Musharraf's) sincerity on nuclear weapons technology transfer by focussing on the fact that Musharraf had been a key ally in their war against terrorism. It is bound to boomerang upon them at some point of time or the other. The argument the administration offers is that Musharraf's government wasn't responsible for the leaks. Western diplomats have wonderfully described the actions of Pakistan's nuclear establishment by saying that it seemed like the scientists were running Nukes 'R' Us!

Labels: aq khan, proliferation

Posted @ 4:37 PM

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January 04, 2004
 

Cricket

Steve Waugh's dream farewell is now officially a nightmare. He may have milked his farewell tour to the best of his ability (in terms of publicity, money etc.), but certainly the cricketing angle has gone horribly wrong. By making 705, the chances that Australia save the Sydney Test, let alone win it, were extremely slim. Then Australia slumped to 342/6 at close, still needing to make 164 runs to make India bat again. I still think we could have declared overnight, if not after crossing 600 yesterday. Perhaps Ganguly erred on the side of caution.

The game has however been a statistical delight (if you're Indian, that is!).

• This was India's highest innings total and the 9th highest of all-time.
  
• After England's 903/7d at The Oval in 1938, this was the first time Australia conceded 700+ runs and failed to bowl out the opposition.
  
• There was yet another triple-century partnership involving VVS Laxman (word is that the Aussies want to call him Very Very Sickening Laxman henceforth!).
  
• Tendulkar's 241 notout is the 2nd highest score by an Indian and highest abroad.
  
• Steve Waugh's being dismissed caught Parthiv bowled Irfan must be one of the rare instances where the combined ages of the bowler and fielder are less than the batsman dismissed.
  

Ok, now that I've done the Mohandas Menon impersonation, its really hard to think of an earlier occasion when the Australians looked so bereft of ideas. Well, is it? Not quite. Rewind to Adelaide 2 games ago or Antigua last year or Calcutta 3 years ago. But the fact is that Waugh and the Aussies have been denied the services of McGrath and Warne. Warne may not have been too much of a problem against India, because India's batsmen (and the uncharitable few may mention tail-enders too!) have taken him apart too often to mention. McGrath definitely is someone the Indian batsmen hate to face, unlike say Gillespie (you only need to see him off for the first couple of Tests, he's bound to get injured) or Lee (Do meteorological stations warn people living by the coastline when Lee is about to bowl? His radar just doesn't function!). But the very fact that people point out the absence of two of Australia's all-time great bowlers when Australia's bowling seems so poor, is an indicator that perhaps Waugh's captaincy (or handling of his bowlers) isn't that great after all.

There're a great many West Indies haters who claim that Clive Lloyd was no great captain. He had the best fast bowling armoury in history at his disposal (and with more warheads sitting on the bench) and so he just needed to look at around the field at one of his bowlers and they'd conjure up a wicket. Wouldn't that be equally true of Waugh?

As an aside, I wonder how come among the brother sets who've played international cricket, the older one is typically the gutsy, pragmatic chap while the younger one is cavalier, pleasing to watch, charming and sometimes infuriatingly inconsistent. Compare Ian and Greg Chappell, Steve and Mark Waugh, Jeff and Martin Crowe, Andy and Grant Flower, Mohinder and Surinder Amarnath (although Surinder's career never really took off) and the Mohammad brothers - Hanif, Sadiq and Mushtaq (don't know about Wazir). There's definitely a pattern.

Labels: ind v aus 2003

Posted @ 3:48 PM

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January 02, 2004
 

Link of the day

All about George Bush at the Bush In 30 Seconds site. Create your own political ads on the internet, a new phenomenon.

Also, 101 ways to save the internet, a tech wishlist for 2004.

Posted @ 12:23 PM

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