Europe Rising

The rising power of new Europe

From The Statesman
ND Batra

Let’s see how Microsoft gets out of trouble this time. Once again the European Commission, instigated by complaints from Norwegian Web browser Opera and a group of technology companies, including IBM, has decided to look at the global giant’s business practices, especially regarding the Office suite of business applications, its browser Internet Explorer, and Outlook, claiming that programme bundling chokes competition. The Commission would like Microsoft to sell its products separately from its operating system so that they could be used on a free open source platform such as Linux rather than Windows. Last September, in a 6-3 ruling the Court of First Instance, Europe’s second highest after the European Court of Justice, affirmed the 2004 decision that Microsoft had violated anti-competitive rules by bundling its Media Player with Windows, and the company had to pay fines totaling $1.6 billion.

The European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), the technology coalition, wants to see the fulfillment of the initial promise of the Internet, that is, all systems should be interoperable so that the user could segue from one platform to another and documents could be exchanged across operating systems without loss of information. But that will destroy the business model of hi-tech companies, mostly US, that make money through niche creation and market domination as Microsoft has done through its Windows operating system used by more than 80 per cent desktops. European anti-trust regulators have also clobbered other hi-tech companies, including Qualcomm, MasterCard, Google, and most recently Apple’s i-Pod who agreed to sell digital songs in UK at a cheaper rate.

The problem, however, is that if every rising power, India, China, EU, for example, were to make its own anti-competitive rules, the pace of globalisation would be retarded.

In 2001, the European Union rejected General Electric Co.’s planned $42 billion acquisition of Honeywell International Inc. GE failed because it could not appreciate fully the emerging European culture. Europe might seem to be a house divided against itself, but when it comes to dealing with US global corporations like GE, Microsoft, Apple, et al, or a mercantilist country like China, EU takes a united stand.

TR Reid wrote in his book, The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy: “The Europeans were concerned with bigness itself – the fear that a company with an overwhelming presence in certain markets would use its sheer size to drive out competitors, and then drive up prices for consumers. The GE-Honeywell merger was a classic example of the difference in antitrust theory of opposite sides of the Atlantic.” It was a big blow to GE’s former Chief Executive Jack Welch, who could get away with everything in the United States, but hit a stone wall in Europe.

According to Reid, “…Brussels was flexing its regulatory muscles long before Jack Welch sought approval for his merger. By the time the GE-Honeywell deal arrived in Brussels for consideration, the Directorate-General for Competition had already squelched business plans proposed by such titans of American business as Microsoft, Intel, and Coca-Cola. In 2000, the directorate killed the WorldCom/MCI-Sprint merger before US antitrust officials even got around to ruling on it.”

The biggest mistake GE made was to use the White House to push through the deal, which as Reid wrote was “The last thing the Europeans were willing to stand for – particularly at a time when corporate America was awash in charges of executive crime and dishonest accounting – was an American President lecturing them on the right way to regulate corporate behaviour.”
Lesson: Do not underestimate the growing power of Brussels.

Although legal battles cannot be avoided, it is also time for global business diplomacy. Instead of getting help from the government, global corporations should develop their own foreign relations; call it by any name you wish. All major corporations, Boeing, Microsoft, Google, for example, have their own corporate diplomats who use the same tools and talents as political diplomats do in making deals and dealing with international crisis. Many of them are retired ambassadors, state department officials, and military officers; and they know how to communicate with global stakeholders, including governments.

In a globalised economy, some level of openness and transparency is important. Financial reporting is subject to auditing and official scrutiny, nonetheless, corruption occurs. Although corporations do not have to declare themselves to be socially responsible, their dominant presence raises expectations in the public. Reporting about their social responsibility that can stand public scrutiny should be the goal, if it does not significantly hurt the bottom line.

Some corporations use their social responsibility activities as a tool of corporate diplomacy to build social capital and goodwill, something which hi-tech companies such as Microsoft and Google have just begun to do. Social capital is an intangible wealth that could be used when a corporation is hit with a crisis. If a corporation has a code of ethics, let it be known to the public how it is following the code. Of course, every corporation should have a code of ethics. The European Union code of business ethics is: Thou shall not kill the competition. But Americans believe in creative destruction. Who would abridge the Atlantic Ocean?

(ND Batra teaches communication and diplomacy at Norwich University)

America Today

US primary persuasions

One kid dreams of fame and fortune
One kid helps pay the rent
One could end up going to prison
One just might be president….
Only in America

From Brooks and Dunn

Americans want change, but what change?
"I have so many ideas for this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards," the New York Senator Hillary Clinton said with misty eyes, choking on her words. "It's about our country, it's about our kids' futures." She promises change on the bedrock of her experience in public life and as former First Lady. "Some of us are right, some of us are wrong," she continued, regaining her self-control, referring to Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, who some thought might crush her dreams for the White House. "Some of us are ready, and some of us are not. Some of us know what we'll do on day one and some of us don't."

That was a day before the New Hampshire primary when the news media, pollsters, pundits and prognosticators, based on the results of Iowa caucuses, predicted that she would lose to Senator Obama by a wide margin; but as it turned out, the results confounded every one. She beat Senator Obama 39% to 37%, throwing the Democratic presidential nomination race wide open.

From the caucuses' results in Iowa, an almost all-white rural state frozen in a sub-zero winter and hardly an American microcosm, it seemed that caucus-goers, Republicans and Democrats, wanted some kind of change but weren't sure what they wanted, so they ended up supporting a Republican preacher and a Democratic dreamer. Democratic Iowans catapulted 46-year old Senator Obama, a first generation black American, (his Kenyan father married a white woman from Kansas), who with his youthful face, grand gestures and poetic eloquence swayed independents, women and younger people into believing that his idea of change was more potent and meaningful than his rivals' former Senator John Edwards and Senator Hillary Clinton, who got pushed down to second and third positions respectively. (Both caucuses and primaries elect delegates for a party's nomination convention, though the procedures are different. Most of the delegates are, however, elected through primaries).

In the first winnowing of candidates for Democratic nomination, the lesser known aspirants, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware and Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut got quickly sucked out of the race. Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a very affable person with long diplomatic experience, lingered on for the New Hampshire primary but then dropped out. Former Senator Edwards, a successful trial lawyer and son of a mill worker from the South, too would call it a day to return to his family to nurse his sick wife who has been suffering from breast cancer, as his campaign ideas become increasingly co-opted by his rivals and his funds and energy dissipate gradually. The epic battle for Democratic nomination will be left between Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, both well-provided with money and organizational machinery, both claiming to the agents of change in Washington, economy, Iraq and rest of the world. Some say it is going to be a contest between style and substance, talk of change and change with experience. It has to be seen how long Senator Obama's charisma endures on hopes and dreams of a new America as he moves from one primary to another; or whether Senator Clinton can break "the highest and hardest glass ceiling" in America.

Above the din of the Democrats chanting for change, there was another voice, loud and clear, "Mac is back." For Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, riding on the crest of opinion polls, the New Hampshire Republican primary was a great morale booster. He beat former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney by a decisive margin. A week before, Republican Iowan caucus-goers, especially born-again and evangelical Christians, more interested in national security, social stability, immigration and taxation, chose a Baptist preacher and former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee, a folksy down-to-earth politician with limited knowledge of the world. He trounced his nearest rival former Governor Romney, a rich man who spent millions of dollars of his own money to convince Iowans that he is a kind of born-again conservative (He changed his views on abortion, among other issue) and a good Christian, though he is a Mormon. A home grown religion, the Church of Latter Day Saints, popularly known as Mormonism, was once a polygamous community, but gave up the practice and has been gradually mainstreaming itself to look like other Christian denominations. But most Americans regard Mormons as different, albeit they accept the Bible and Jesus Christ as accoutrement to their own unique belief system. Senator McCain who scraped a third place in Iowa was Mitt Romney's main rival in the New Hampshire primary. Governor Huckabee fell by the way side, as did former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani who is pinning his hopes on a bigger prize, Florida.

One person who realizes the limit to what one can do about bringing change is Bill Clinton, who while campaigning in New Hampshire for his wife said, "What's Hillary to do? I can't make her younger, taller, male— there's a lot of things I can't do. But if you want a President and you need one, she would be by far the best." A woman becoming the president of the United States of America will be the biggest change this country will ever see since its founding. And if it so happens, Mr. Clinton will become the First Gentleman. Only in America, as they say, "Where we dream as big as we want to/We all get a chance/Everybody gets to dance."

(ND Batra is professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University, Vermont. He is working on a new book, This is the American Way)

Man-machine embedded intelligence

Man-machine embedded intelligence

From The Statesman
ND Batra

The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the information-handling machines we know today (JCR Licklider in "Man-Computer Symbiosis").

Jobs in the future will be lost not to countries with cheap educated labour, but to networks with embedded intelligence. When I called my Internet service provider, a soothing female human voice asked my phone number, presumably to check my identification from its database, and then said: “Perhaps I could help you, if you tell me the problem.”

It was a shock because I was expecting a person with an accent who after taking some preliminary information would have passed me on to a technical expert. My curiosity was aroused whether it was an exception or an emerging trend in outsourcing, so I called my vendor and once again I encountered a female computerised voice eager to help me.

Since I was not sure why my laptop was acting crazy, the computerised voice at the other end said: “Please wait. Let me locate a technical expert for you.” In a moment I saw the future of outsourcing.

Harvey Cohn, president of Strategy Analytics, said in a report regarding its Emerging Frontiers programme: “In the next wave there will be an employment threat involving substitution of emerging systems with embedded intelligence for many first-level jobs in service industries, resulting a net loss of customer service, help desk, directory assistance, and related support function positions... Although today politicians and workers are worried about job outsourcing due to globalisation, the real future challenge to policy makers ~ and strategic opportunities for business investment ~ will come from machines with an increasing degree of embedded intelligence.”

On the bright side, many Indian technicians will be released from the outsourcing drudgery and eventually will take up more creative and value-added work for better wages. And no one is more eager to develop smart intelligent systems than the US Military’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency in order to upend the military’s first response capabilities and keep the personnel out of danger as much as possible. Many of these smart intelligent systems have been successfully put into operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Eventually the concept of first response capabilities based on embedded intelligence would find applications in business, law enforcement and anti-terrorism.

Technological innovations mutate and creep into other areas. A new world of sensate surroundings in which nothing would remain incommunicado is arising. Based on converging sensor and intelligent technologies, law enforcement and anti-terrorism experts are dealing with terrorism, among other problems, in altogether different ways and perhaps more effectively. The inside of the airplanes of the future would be embedded with sensors that record and transmit any unusual activity to a monitor and control centre for pre-emptive action.

Scientists at QinetiQ, a commercial offshoot of the UK’s Ministry of Defence, have developed a working model of sensor-embedded airplane seat that’s capable of capturing signals of physiological changes in a passenger and transmitting the information to a cockpit monitor. The signals could enable the crew to analyse whether the person is a terrorist or someone who is suffering from thrombosis of the deep vein, for example.

The smart seat would eventually be able to register signs of any emotional stress a passenger feels during the flight. Hidden seat sensors would provide unobtrusive in-flight surveillance and have the potential for actionable intelligence about the activities including the health status of in-flight passengers. More importantly, the information would enable plain-clothed air marshals to take preventive action in case there is a danger of terrorists contemplating blowing up or hijacking the plane. The cockpit would become an anti-terror cell.

Technologies are seldom stand-alone in this age of digital networking. They have a recombinant potential and tend to converge and splice with others to form newer technologies, which could be used in ways the original inventors never imagined. For example, if you combine QinetiQ’s smart seat technology with “sympathetic haptics” technology developed a few years ago at the Virtual Reality Laboratory at the University at Buffalo, New York, you would see how feelings of stress could be precisely transmitted via the Internet.

If a bomber fidgets or a person is having a heart attack, the physical movements that accompany the stress and distress would be transmitted to the cockpit monitor and also to the homeland secure monitors via the wireless Intranet. The two convergent technologies would turn an airplane seat into a virtual-reality surveillance system that would silently record every physical motion of the occupant for instant analysis.

Since we have become accustomed to various kinds of intrusive searches at the airports, we would not object to sitting in data collecting smart seats if the purpose is to enhance security. We know the security cameras are on us; but we do not feel self-conscious that we are being spied upon when we go to ATM or a bank teller for a transaction.

This is the price we pay for security and convenience. So perhaps we wouldn’t mind sitting in a sensor-embedded train or bus if that takes us safely to our destination where we can enjoy all the privacy we want.

Human beings won’t be replaced altogether but they would be integrated into intelligent systems. Of course it will be long before man-machine embedded intelligence could save a brazenly audacious politician like Benazir Bhutto in a public place from a suicide bomber.

(ND Batra, the author of Digital Freedom, is professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University, Vermont. )

Tagore

Thou Hast Made Me Endless

Part X

Poem by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941 AD) the Nobel Laureate of 1913.

Translator:RAJAT DAS GUPTA: Calcutta: e-mail: rajatdasgupta53@yahoo.com
rajarch@cal3.vsnl.net.in
Tagore the Historian (Contd..3)
In continuation-2 in this series published on 14 December 2007, we have seen Tagore as a dispassionate historical analyst comparing Guru Govind Singh with Shivaji, particularly underlining the failures of the former, slipping from the ideals of humanism preached by Nanak. However, Tagore never missed how Govind inspired the Sikhs against the atrocities of the Mughols and all social inequalities of that time which this poem illustrates. Possibly, nobody realized the positive sides of Govind more than Tagore.

Poem: Guru Govind of the book Katha (Legends) written in 1888.

[Courtesy – THE SIKH REVIEW – August 2001 issue]

[Translator’s note: GuruGovind Singh was the last and 10th Guru of the Sikhs. The first one Guru Nanak was born in 1469. He preached the doctrines of equality of all human beings. However, culmination of the religious and social liberalism initiated by Nanak took place only under Guru Govind Singh in the 17th Century. In parallel, the Sikhs have a glorious history of struggle against the Mughol’s inhuman torture over centuries which gained momentum mainly from Guru Govind’s inspiration. When he was only 14 years of age, his father Teg Bahadur, the 9th Guru, had his martyrdom during the reign of Aurengzeb, for revenge of which Govind took oath. To quote from Tagore’s dissertations- “But nothing can be achieved in a hurry for which right time must be patiently awaited and determination built up on ceaseless deliberation. Those who do not have patience, want to achieve results by gimmicks. But they are not great men, neither their work lasts. They may spare a short time for their country, but not their whole life, to earn credit of the great. Govind was not that type. About 20years he spent in the solitude at the bank of Yamuna to learn Persian language and various scriptures to solidify his determination and plans while awaiting the right opportunity for action.” The poem is on this stage of Guru Govind’s life. (History records that it was Guru Govind’s father Teg Bahadur who was on exile for 20 years. Guru Govind;s exile was for a much shorter period as I gather from some authorities on Sikh history. However, this factual error should not stand on the way of the inspiration the Poet wants to evoke based on Govind’s life.)]

“Friends, go back home –
Still you have to wait much” –
On the Yamuna shore at dawn,
Hillocks and woods around the vast lawn,
To his six followers
Quoth Guru Govind such –

“Go Ramdas, Lehari Sahu,
Go back all of you;
Tempt me not to take dive
Into the busy stream of life;
Let still remain far
All human fervour.

“I’ve turned face, plugged my ear
In the wilderness to take shelter;
The distant human sea vast wanton
There the billows roar of their passion,
Here in solitude all my attention
Will be on my secret mission.

Calls me human heart
From the distant habitat;
Amidst my slumber at night
For my response does incite;

My body and soul pine
To fall in the turbulent line;
At your sight
My heart longs a flight;
The blood fire in many a flame
Snakes up, the restless sword encased, clanks to blame.

Ah! What a delight I’d find
To leave this solitude behind;
Taking up the trumpet in hand,
Rush amidst the mass to stand;
The king and empire
To smash and re-build there,
The monstrous torture
To knife sharp and overpower.

Blind is the fate,
Aiming that to negate
The rein to hold in my hand
All hazards that on my way stand,
To overcome those, the destiny to force
To come to my course;
Those who confront
Will daunt,
Else have defeat
The beguiled fenders to split;
Footprints furrow behind,
The sky in disastrous smoke blind.

Hundred of times across death
To the shore of life I cometh;
The star blink less at a height
Guides in the dark of night;
On both sides soar
The foaming human streams in uproar.

At times the night is pitch dark,
Or the scorching sun blazing stark;
Else all over the sky
The thunderous clouds vie;
On the head breaks
The storm merciless.

“Come on all”
Is everybody’s call –
Their rush none to douse
Doors break open at every house
For the enormous human outpour
All bondages they tore;
No more they pine
For happiness, fortune or fondness fine.
The five rivers in the ocean fall
So the hearts of my devotees all
To meet mine; all through Punjab
Their wild frenzy to bustle up.

“O coward! Where will you hide?”
Thus will them my voice chide;
In the morning at my call
Workmen to forget their task all;
At night their drowsy spell
The cruelty to quell.

Ahead as I go
More crowds follow;
Their pride and prejudices
Fall to pieces;
Laying down their lives at ease,
Brahmins’ dignity does cease
That marked them superiors
To the Jats and others.

But let alone this dream,
Time does not yet for it seem;
Long sleepless night
Is still my plight;
To count hours blink less
Rise of the crimson sun to witness.
Fancy still these are,
My capital in the wood here,
Only silent intent,
Passive dedication patient;
Day and night to sit on
For my supreme perception.

So, along Yamuna shore
Alone I go for the lore;
Amidst the rugged terrain
My manhood to train;
Tunes of my lyric
To resonate Nature’s music;
My mind to flower on its own
For competence in my mission.
Thus passed twelve years
More to go it appears –
The death to conquer
Drop by drop I’ve to gather
Immortality from all around
Till within me my wholeness found;
When I can say
Without dismay,
I’ve known the ultimate,
No more do hesitate
To follow me you all
It is your Guru’s call –
My life is for your sake
At my call let the country awake.

No more suspense or fear.
Retreat or ahead no more to veer,
There is the Truth, the final path lay,
The whole earth to give way,
Life and death to lose relevance
As our noblest mission will commence.
In my heart sounds the oracular diction
‘Stand up in self-illumination.’

Look ahead from far
Millions rush to you for surrender.
Listen there, their streaming heart
You keep steady and alert
Like the lamp not to laze;
At this night if you daze
Go back they will,
Their grief never to heal.

Look at the horizon does surge
A ruthless calamity looming large;
Soon to lash us a hurricane
To spell the deadly bane.

So in the temple of my heart
I’ll lit up a lamp ever girt;
Any storm to baffle
To torch mankind its flame eternal.

So Sahu, Ramdas and all,
Go back friends to await my call;
Now as we break up
May our faith we harp;
Let’s all say, “To Guruji
All his glory be!”
Let be cry of our rebellion
“Alakha Niranjan!” (=The Holy Spotless)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Bhutto's assassination and the US

Pakistan factors in US presidential race
From The Statesman
ND Batra

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination has hit the US presidential neck-to-neck race like a thunderbolt. Foreign policy credentials and experience have become suddenly very important as the Iowa caucuses begin on Thursday (3 January) and then a few days later the candidates head to the New Hampshire primaries.

In dealing with domestic and international issues, the candidates of both parties have been harping on change versus experience ~ political catchphrases that have assumed a new significance in the light of the fact that nuclear-armed Pakistan, now in the grip of Al-Qaida and Taliban militancy, might explode into an Iraq like insurgency. Strength and experience gained as the First Lady when she played an active role in Bill Clinton’s administration has been Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s strongest claim to the White House against her chief Democratic rival Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, whose fresh youthful face, poetic eloquence and rhetoric of change have lifted him up in public opinion polls as someone who could shake up things in Washington.

Suddenly Benazir Bhutto, after her assassination, has become the symbol of a future ~ a democratic Muslim country ~ that did not happen, and dealing with Pakistan has become the biggest challenge. During her campaign in Iowa, Senator Clinton said: “This is a terrible loss ~ certainly on a personal level ~ for those of us who knew her. It certainly raises the stakes high for what we expect from our next President. I know from a lifetime of working to make change.” And she added that President Pervez Musharraf has no credibility and an international independent inquiry be held to investigate the assassination of Benazir. The sentiment was echoed by many other Democrats scurrying for a position in the tight primary races. The unkindest cut against Senator Clinton came from Senator Obama’s camp.

Senator Obama’s campaign strategist David Axelrod said that because of Senator Clinton’s support of President Bush’s Iraq war, Al-Qaida has gotten emboldened and is hitting back in Pakistan with vengeance and destabilising the country. “She was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, which we would submit, was one of the reasons why we were diverted from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Al-Qaida, who may have been players in this event today, so that’s a judgment she’ll have to defend.” She was not the only Democrat Senator who supported the war based on information about weapons of mass destruction available at that time. But this is an election time and candidates are at each others’ throats with half-truths, distortion and attack ads.

Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain of Arizona has always been strong on the issue of national security and a steadfast supporter of President Bush’s Iraq war. He is one of the few American politicians who has unreservedly defended President Musharraf after the unexpected killing of Benazir.

Before Musharraf took over the reins of power, Senator McCain said: “Pakistan was a failed state. They had corrupt governments and they would rotate back and forth and there was corruption, and Musharraf basically restored order. So you’re going to hear a lot of criticism about Musharraf that he hasn’t done everything we wanted him to do, but he did agree to step down as head of the military and he did get the elections.”

The Senator’s top priority is to see a thorough failsafe security of the nuclear arsenal; and then of course to urge President Musharraf to hold the planned elections at the earliest convenience.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, another leading candidate among the Republicans, is running on the strength of his 11 September, 2001 credentials of braving the chaos and fighting terrorism. It was under his leadership that New York after the terrorists’ attacks began to recover and rebuild itself with alacrity and today it is one of the safest cities to live in the United States. Benazir’s assassination re-enforces his view that the world is a dangerous place and the United States needs a determined leader like him to fight terrorism. Arkansas former Governor Mike Huckabee, another Republican front-runner and a Christian conservative, gives the impression of having very little knowledge of what is happening in the world. In the wake of the assassination, he said that illegal Pakistani immigrants were pouring in from the Mexican border, an irresponsible remark from a presidential hopeful when most Americans are wondering how to prevent Pakistan from descending into a living hell.

While Republican and Democratic candidates are scrambling to strike postures of strength in dealing with the growing Al-Qaida and Taliban might in Pakistan, the Bush administration finds itself to be at its wits’ end as to how to help President Musharraf to quell street violence and re-establish a sense of security in the country. Holding fair and free elections, many in the administration still believe, would have created the possibility of forming a broad-based army-civilian participatory government, which would have been in a better position to fight the growing menace of Al-Qaida and the Taliban. That hope died with Benazir’s assassination; but the question is if the plan can be resurrected from the wreckage.

The United States, in its own self-interest, cannot stand aside helplessly and let the country slide into chaos and anarchy and let Al-Qaida and the Taliban take control of Pakistan and eventually Afghanistan. Nor can India afford to keep aloof by simply sealing its borders. The enemies of Pakistan are India’s enemies too.

(ND Batra is professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University, Vermont. He is the author of Digital Freedom.)

Is India at peace with itself?

HK Dua says, Let’s have an India at peace with itself


"Whatever the banal and hackneyed utterances of the political leaders about Indian ethos of tolerance, forgiveness and compassion, India is increasingly becoming a violent nation. ...The growing violence should worry the leaders of every political party and those running the administration but they are unable to see that unchecked violence can create more tensions, sharpen divides, cause political instability and unsettle the democratic system. ..."
Read more

Jaguar at Wal-Mart price?

Will you buy Jaguar at Wal-Mart?

From The Statesman
26 December 2007

ND Batra

What will happen to the Jaguar brand image if it is acquired by Tata Motors, a company that is associated with tractor-trailers, full-size SUVs, and now getting ready to manufacture the world’s cheapest automobile?

India may tolerate contradictions, slums and high towers in the same neighbourhood, but the global marketplace does not.

Writing in The New York Times, Heather Timmons commented: “Jaguar dealers in the United States have expressed concern about an Indian buyer, which they believe would devalue the luxury brand name.” But the Tata business empire also includes Tata Consultancy Services, one of the world’s largest providers of information technology, consulting services and business-process outsourcing with presence in 47 countries.

Last year, the Tata Group bought the Anglo-Dutch company Corus, making it the world’s sixth largest steelmaker. The Time magazine called it one of the top ten business deals of 2007.

Protecting brands is important, especially when the global market is becoming crowded with cheaper goods and it is difficult to distinguish between one product and another, though of course, you won’t confuse a Land Rover with a “One-Lakh Car”.

In the struggle for shelf space in the buyer’s imagination, branding has become indispensable. Brands create loyalty by offering identity, prestige and security, though the quality of a brand name product may not be much higher than its non-brand twin. And as non-brands and copycats themselves become recognizable names, the need to strengthen brand loyalty through its intensification becomes imperative.

Ulrich Steger says in his book Corporate Diplomacy: “Today brands indicate a life style, aspirations, a set of ideas or a social cachet.” Most people feel satisfied with pizza but some do want to have caviar. But will they go to Pizza Hut for caviar if it were available there? Some of the attributes of a good brand include originality, quality, reliability and personality. Quoting Naomi Klein, Steger says: “As companies become weightless, focusing on marketing and design only (but reaping with this bulk of the profit), they are shifting production into sweat shops elsewhere.”

So even if Jaguar and Land Rover will continue to be manufactured in Britain, thanks to the vote of confidence by its powerful union, Tata Motors cannot ignore the problem of image management and product reputation by association. India may not be a “land of tigers, jungles and cobras,” but you cannot hide the slums.

The survival of a strong brand in a competitive environment of meaning and identity creation is a serious question. A scandal could raise social protests and destroy a brand, unless brand values are deeply shared and lived by the whole company. “Always Low, Always” Wal-Mart’s slogan, for example, was being interpreted as putting the employees low.

The gap between promises and reality of a company’s behaviour gives critics opportunities to strike at the company.

Reputation of a company is as important as its other assets, including the country in which it is embedded.

The question is: Will European and American buyers continue buying the luxury brands Rover and Jaguar if they were sold, in a manner of speaking, through K-Mart or Wal-Mart?

Will the cool soon become a passing fad as it changes hands? Marguerite Rigoglioso, reporting the research done by Stanford business professor Chip Heath and Jona Berger of Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in Stanford GSB online that “as soon as chic goes mainstream, or geeks start sporting the clothes of jocks, items are dropped like passé hot potatoes by the kings and queens of cool.”

Rupert Murdoch, the Australian global media tycoon, faced a serious problem when he tried to buy the Wall Street Journal, whose brand value exceeds its intellectual value. Murdoch had to bend his knees and promise not to mess up with the editorial independence and integrity of the Journal. He had to accept a most humiliating condition: the establishment of a self-perpetuating independent editorial board to oversee the integrity of the newspaper.

Of course Jaguar will not be sold at bargain basement prices, and the Tata Group has a better reputation than Murdoch; nonetheless, the company has to understand that selling a Corus steel structure is not the same thing as selling a Jaguar convertible, which sits on your driveway. The Jaguar brand has a social meaning beyond its value.

As Wharton’s Professor Berger says: “Companies need to manage meaning. Brands need to attend to who is adopting their products, because these adopters can change what purchasing or using the product signals, and can lead other consumers to abandon it. If you want your brand to retain caché, you might want to think about protecting or segmenting meaning. Brands can constrain the type of consumers who can easily find it, or can use sub-brands or limited edition options that allow the company to sell to the mainstream while also maintaining the desired signal for the taste leaders.”

Let me rephrase the question: Will Europeans and Americans buy Champagne from the slums of Mumbai? The Tatas, the Mittals, the Ambanis and their billionaire kinds, as they go on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) sprees abroad, should also help clean up the slums of India.

Unlike Indians, Europeans and Americans have little tolerance for cognitive dissonance.

Living Virtually

Emerging virtual landscape

From The Statesman
ND Batra
Japanese prefer to use their cells for text messaging probably because it is considered rude to talk in public places, buses and train. According to a Reuter report, the Chinese sent 429 billion text messages last year, a country where there is limited freedom of the Press.

If researchers could do content analysis of the totality of the messages, they might discover the emerging mindset of the Chinese people. Different cultures use the same technology differently.

Americans love to talk and they do it everywhere regardless of how others feel. Music mobility is big in the United States and cell phones and mobile music devices have begun to converge. Similarly, Indian culture in its own way is affecting life and work now that mobile technology is rapidly penetrating even rural areas connecting millions of isolated people. But as villagers increasingly become wirelessly mobile, they would use it primarily to improve their human condition, including access to the market for their products and services as well as healthcare.

The consequences of the chirping revolution are unfathomable as wireless computer chips get embedded into everyday technologies. Wireless networks are abridging space and time, turning geographic space into cyberspace, and are bringing people together for collaboration in workplaces and cultural spaces. The experience of the presence of others in a virtual environment created by networked communication is a new social experience for many; those who use MySpace, Facebook and Second Life know the feeling.

Virtual presence could become active political presence. Isolated activists could organise virtually and become smart mobs and strike anywhere. Every human activity from porn to the most complex mathematical calculations is potentially nothing but information in the digital format.

So whatever activity that takes place in the analogue world can be turned into digital data, and can instantly be distributed globally through computer networks, thus extending the reach of human communication. That’s how we came to know the simmering rage of the Myanmarese Buddhist monks.

Imagine if millions of Tibetans get access to cell phones! Digital data cannot only be stored and retrieved instantly anywhere, but they can also be transformed into predictive intelligence about human behaviour regarding commerce, national security or any other social or political activity. Books, music files, or terrorist messages become indistinguishable as they converge in a digital stream and surge through cyberspace; but they can be mined and analysed.

US Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Programs, about which Congress has expressed concerns, are already doing it. Convergence, instantaneity and feedback interactivity make the Internet the most powerful medium of communication ever developed. Since the traditional media, including books, television, newspapers, magazines, radio, music and interpersonal communication are converging on the Internet as multimedia streams into which anyone can plug in, their power increases manifold and in ways whose implications we still don’t understand.

Outsourcing, for example, has given India a constant state of virtual presence in the global political and corporate discourse. Unlike the offshoring of manufacturing, outsourcing of research and development and other forms of intellectual and professional work is bringing India, Europe and the United States into a virtual world of global supply chain where brainpower and creativity are shared and enhanced, for example, as in Hollywood-Bollywood animation venture Shrek2 and Madagascar.

The Internet thus is transformative in the sense that it is lowering barriers for cooperative coexistence of cultures. It is a stuff of the legend how GE contributed to the seeding of the digital revolution in India and how India is saving billions of dollars for corporate America and in the process enriching itself. Cultures prosper when they cooperate as well as compete. Historically speaking, a new medium of communication creates a cultural shift and changes our concept of space and time with far-reaching consequences, wrote the Canadian scholar Herald Innis in The Bias of Communication.

Although ancients tried to abridge space and time by sending messages through drums and smoke signals, not until the invention of telegraph was it possible to think about communication in terms other than transportation. Like goods, messages were communicated from place to place at a speed that the best transportation system of the time, for example, the pony express or the railroad made it possible. Telegraph altered the geography-based metaphor of communication, which ceased to be synonymous with transportation.

As telegraph triggered the development of new technologies in the early part of the 20th century and telephone, radio, and television became universal, communication became increasingly liberated from the constraints of space and time. Computer networks and the Internet have further altered our view of how we look at ourselves. A networked organisation or an individual with instant messaging and e-mail has a different feel of space and time than the people of the pre-digital era. Mouse is the door to cyberspace and once you are there, you are in a world that is simultaneously synchronous and asynchronous, a world that gives a greater sense of freedom and control than the real world.

For the digital generation, activities in a virtual universe are as real as they are in physical space. With mobile digital energy we could see the emergence of collective brainpower to solve complex problems. As more and more people experience activities in cyberspace through virtual presence, they would see that what is local is becoming global; what is Bollywood is becoming Hollywood; and vice a versa.

(ND Batra is Professor of Communications, Norwich University, Vermont USA)

Too Much Popularity Can Make Items Uncool: Research: News: Stanford GSB

"In a recent paper, Stanford researchers found that consumers may abandon products if they start being favored by the masses, or by members of certain social groups. In other words, as soon as chic goes mainstream, or geeks start sporting the clothes of jocks, items are dropped like passé hot potatoes by the kings and queens of cool." Read more... Too Much Popularity Can Make Items Uncool

Tagore on History

Tagore

Thou Hast Made Me Endless Part IX

From RAJAT DAS GUPTA
Calcutta

e-mail: rajatdasgupta53@yahoo.com
rajarch@cal3.vsnl.net.in


Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941 AD) the Nobel Laureate of 1913 was introduced to the West primarily through the collection of English translation of some of his poems/songs captioned as ‘Gitanjali’ (=Offering of Songs). More translations of his works followed by the poet himself and others after he had won the Nobel, including poems/songs, dramas, short stories etc. However, such efforts were sporadic and sluggish, mostly on individual initiative, which still remain so.As a result, a vast volume of the poet’s works remains un-translated while, it appears, it is an impossible proposition to translate even a substantial part of the poet’s total works to permit those, not privileged by the knowledge of Bengali language, a reasonably broad view of his myriad creations where unfathomable perceptional depth of top grade aesthetics runs through, literally true to his song “Thou hast made me endless / Such is Thy pleasure”.Notwithstanding this, an upsurge of Tagore translation took place in the last decade of the twentieth century by virtue of a good number of eminent poets/translators e.g.William Radice, Joe Winter, Ketaki Kushari Dyson, to name a few, all of whom left their valuable contribution to this oeuvre and my book THE ECLIPSED SUN is a modest addition to this. I have put stress on a few aspects of the poet’s works, particularly those in his twilight years, which seemed to me quite inadequately covered so far. The followings are presented mostly based on this book. RAJAT DAS GUPTA: Calcutta: e-mail: rajatdasgupta53@yahoo.com
rajarch@cal3.vsnl.net.in
Tagore the Historian (Contd..2)

In my introductory note in the first part published in the first week of Nov. ’07 to illustrate Tagore as a historian, it was stated that through a number of his inspiring poems Tagore had extracted and presented us hot the human emotions, ego, uprightness, virtuosity, malice, evil etc. which had propelled our history. But Tagore was no less competent than any other historian as a dispassionate historical analyst which the following essay illustrates.

Essay: SHIVAJI AND GURU GOVIND SINGH (Courtesy: P. R. COMMUMICATION AGE, Calcutta, December 1999 issue.)

[Translator’s note: This write up is a translation of an essay in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore which he had written in mid-twenties. I read it decades back which was long lost in oblivion. Yet, this essay rang me a bell while I recently attended a function of the Sikhs at Delhi in celebration of the Tercentenary of Khalsa and also read a few publications there on this occasion where I noted the unqualified esteem of the Sikh community for Guru Govind Singh which is shared equally by the non-Sikhs as well, at least those who read about re-vitalization of the Sikh spirit under his leadership through a number of inspiring poems/essays of Tagore on the Sikhs and/or from other sources. Yet, in this essay Tagore has dispassionately compared Guru Govind Singh and Shivaji, particularly with Guru Nanak to highlight their slips from the broader humanism with which Nanak set his ball of Sikhism rolling. I am very much hopeful, my Sikh friends will take the critique of the Poet of their highly esteemed Guru Govind in its true spirit for an objective analysis of the Sikh history. It is notable that the Poet himself realizes that Guru Govind’s tailoring of Nanak’s liberalism was out of historical and social compulsions of that time. Yet, the Poet cannot help his disappointment with Sikhism having to discount the eternal human values propounded by Nanak where martial values had elbowed in, that also failing to assume an all India dimension in the Shivaji line while that too flopped for want of a strong national base. However, the remnants of Sikhism is still precious to us and had the Poet been among us, he would certainly be happy to note to-day’s endeavor for its preservation, as is being particularly notable in North India in 1999, the year of the said Trecentenary.]

The main difference of the Sikh history with the Marathas’ is that Shivaji, the leader of the latter launched his movement with the clear objective of establishing a Hindu sovereignty. His conquests, expansion of empire and elimination of enemies were all part of this all India master plan

On the other hand, the Sikh history started as one of spirituality. The liberty which Baba Nanak perceived was not of a statehood. The iconic religion confined with geographical limits, racial concepts and rituals to which the entire mankind does not have a right, was not Nanak’s. His heart was liberated of all such fetters and he dedicated his life preaching this spirit. Those who fell for it and accepted his baptism, were known as Sikh (a disciple). Irrespective of caste or creed everybody had a right to it. That a racial history would emerge out of Nanak’s followers, was not evident at the beginning.

But the brutal tortures of the Mughols congregated those disciples into an identifiable community. Putting a halt to their religious mission amidst the mass at large, they concentrated on self defence. The said external pressures resulted in their emergence as a cohered race.

The last Guru of the Sikhs dedicated himself particularly to this task. He felt the need of building up the Sikhs as a powerful race at the cost of Nanak’s concept of religious mission for humanity at large. Indeed this is not the task of a prophet but an army general’s, and/or politician’s. Guru Govind had these virtues. With his outstanding perseverance he converted his religious community into a martial one and vacated the seat of Guru. He upstaged Nanak’s perception of human liberty and stamped deep in the minds of his followers the urge for being relieved of all animosity around. No doubt this sparked up the Sikh might for a few moments in our history and that did generate high martial skill. But a lot of the capital with which Baba Nanak set them on their pilgrimage was spent up on this diversion with their objective lost/

The subsequent history is only of battles and territorial expansion. More the Mughol power was on the decline, more successful the Sikhs were, followed by increasing temptation for sovereign expansion.

So long the opponents are stronger, the motive for defence remains supreme which acts as the uniting force. As the external pressure eases out what can hold the arrogance of triumph? The martial power that builds up in the process of self defence, who can rein it then for self development instead of hurting others? For sake of short term need, Guru Govind put down that faculty which might have. Instead of Guru, he gifted the Sikhs sword. When he passed away, the supreme truth that Nanak preached got captive in Granth Sahib. No more it flowed through Guru legacy into the life stream for fruition among human society at large. It stagnated at a point.

Their power in this situation turned out to be a genie out of the bottle. Rampant became scramble and faction amidst which up rose Ranjit Singh. He held the Sikhs together for sometime but that was with muscle power alone. As he was the strongest, he could quell the rest.

He who unites by might, does it by mayhem. Besides, he accomplishes his task by crippling love which alone is the eternal foundation of unity. Ranjit Singh held firm all the Sikhs together by all trickery for his self interest. He did not inspire the Sikhs with any noble idea that might bind them even after he would pass away. He was an example of self dedication even based on rampant deceit. His greed was unbounded. His only credit was, he achieved whatever he had wanted. He controlled himself only where the British had dictated so. However, on the whole, he was successful. But nothing imperils one more than one’s success, while it obscures wisdom and boosts greed. It is then as good as suicidal. Nanak, the pioneer of Sikhism, is a bright example of failure. For that he had had enough reprimand from his merchant father. The setback in his salt trade at Nanak’s hand is well known. He was poor. But the inspiration which enabled the Jat peasants to slight all sufferings including death, and to grow into a mighty institution, was nourished by this poor hermit/

On the other hand, the Maharaja, who is an example of success, who suppressed all the enemies of the Sikhs undaunted by all adversities, eruption of whose fire set afire the evening sky of the setting sun of the Mughol empire at the advent of the rise of the British, what did he leave behind for the Sikhs? It was disunity, mistrust and lack of discipline.

Those in the forefront among the Sikhs, learnt from their ‘successful’ king that ‘might is right’. They did not learn sacrifice and modesty, they forgot the maxim – victory lies where holy principles do; that is- the spiritual power with which modest Nanak held them, the almighty king gutted it out resulting in extinction of the ‘Sikh’ star in the sky of human history after its brief glitter. To-day, the Sikhs have stagnated, reduced to a small community. No more they are growing; over a few centuries they did not gift mankind with a human Guru any more; they did not add any more to the man’s treasure of wisdom and spiritual dedications.

No doubt, Nanak’s disciples are competent warriors to-day. But I don’t think that sole glory of Nanak’s posterity was destined to be in their martial engagements in various parts of the globe as we find to-day (the Poet obviously refers to the periods of the world wars – Translator). Nanak’s dedication was not for their parades in the army barracks alone in the wide arena of humanism. (I am sure, the Poet would have been very happy to see how the Sikhs to-day are dominating the mainstream of our national life also, besides the army barracks, if he were among us. – Translator)

Nanak’s call to his disciples was to be free from self-centeredness, sectarian religion and spiritual numbness – to give the widest accomplishment to their humanism. Guru Govind moulded the Sikhs for a specific need and so that it does not slip into oblivion, he firmly stamped this need in their nomenclature and attire. Thus, he harnessed the Sikh’s strong current of humanism from diverse courses to a particular one. Thus, the Sikhs were caught in the mould of that specific need and of course attained solidarity.

When the Sikhs thus became ‘useful’ instead of being liberal humans, the powerful rulers utilized their skill toward their own end and till now such exploitation is going on. At Sparta, when Greece shrank its humanism for a particular purpose, it was indeed able to fight, but only upon pruning itself – as competence for battle is not man’s ultimate goal. There are a lot of such examples of man dwarfing his nobility for the immediate need and sacrifice of humans at the altar of the urge for shortsighted gain is going on. The icon thirsty of human blood may happen to be the society, state, religion or any other so called ‘cause’ that spoils human virtues with its mass hypnotism.

To me, the end of Sikh history seems sad. When the river with destination sea emerges from the snow white peak of lofty mountain only to be lost into a midway desert and loses its momentum forgetting its own music, that futility is tragic. Similarly, when the holy impulse founts from the devotees’ heart to fertile the earth with spirituality, it is sad it perverts into the mud crimson red with the soldiers’ blood, with its early glory no more left. The Sikh history had its slips, due to temptation of revenge or other narrow objectives, from a wider fulfillment in the field of humanism, neither had lesser success within national limits. The empire of Ranjit Singh was his exclusive. Govind Singh’s struggle with the Mughols was only of Sikh community. He could not transmit their resolution further beyond.

The difference of the Sikh history with the Marathas’ is notable here. Shivaji’s endeavour was not confined to a small community. His objective to liberate the Hindus and their religion from the Muslim tyranny was far flung unlike Guru Govind’s which remained confined among his disciples. No doubt, Shivaji’s goal was to rebuild the history of the entire Indian sub-continent. Guru Govind and Shivaji were more or less contemporaries while the liberalism of Akbar declined resulting in provocation by the Mughols of all non-Muslim religions and communities for a defensive stand.

All the internal and external shocks at that time sponsored a religious enterprise at various places in India. The turmoil in the Hindu religious life then crystallized around various saints, particularly in the Deccan, and had manifestation in various missions. Amidst this consciousness, stoked up by the torturous Aurengzeb, emergence of a hero like Shivaji to earn victory for India’s primeval religion was natural.

Again, in the west, the new inspiration of Sikhism overflowed the hearts of the Sikhs. That is why, the Mughol atrocities could not stifle it. On the contrary, it fanned up like a fire. Notwithstanding the identical external blows and the internal inspirations, their manifestations through Guru Govind and Shivaji were different in nature.

Guru Govind had many battles with the Mughols, but in a haphazard manner. Revenge and self-defence were their main objectives. [History records that Guru Govnd’s father iTeg Bahadur was put to death by Aurengzeb for his refusal to embrace Islam in 1675 A.D. His two sons were slain before his eyes in a battle. Govind’s determination to avenge these deaths was largely behind his relentless fight against the Mughols, as some historians observed which obviously misled Tagore. A quote from Dr. Trilochan Singh’s book ‘Hymns of Guru Teg Bahadur’ may take us nearer to truth –
“These historians fail to study Guru’s concept of martyrdom and of Saviour with the sword who is convinced that he is commissioned by God to establish righteousness, punish the wicked, chastise the tyrants, which also means that the Guru was determined never to use sword for revenge or aggression” – Translator]
But those of Shivaji were in logical steps, not for preposterous avenge, but far sighted for a colossal organization in right sequence. It was not manifestation of a communal emotion, but an enterprise for a great objective. [It is difficult to accept the Poet’s view that the Sikh;s worked for communal interest alone while their history is replete with examples coming as saviours of the Hindus also from Muslim atrocities – Translator].

Yet, both Sikh and Maratha history ended in similar futility. The reason for this is, an objective cannot be pervasive countrywide based on the dreams of a few. Shivaji could not link his heart with his countrymen’s. So, despite all his move, his intent could not come up as the entire country’s.

If the welfare meant for all cannot be established in their heart, but remains confined among few, it loses its character and turns into a menace for all. What was pure in Shivaji’s mind, became polluted by selfishness of the Peshwas. It could not be so had the communication channels of this ideal among the masses remained open. In that case the great inspiration would get its nourishment in its great receptacle, as the fire of a near extinguishing piece of wood may catch another for its flare up if placed in a stack.

Repeatedly we have noted in our country uprising of vitality only to lose its continuity. Great men come and pass away as the natural advantages to hold and nourish their inspirations are missing here. The reason for this is disunity. Wind borne seeds may drop on loose soil unable to hold manure and, thus, do not sprout there effectively. Our land has endless diversities, be it in our religion, deed, food, language or anywhere for that matter. That is why, floods of emotion pour down, but dry up in dreary sand; energy sparks up only to extinguish with a bit of smoke; notable endeavours do not become great ones; the great men pass away only glaring the incompetence of the mass.

As we compare the rise and fall of the Marathas and the Sikhs, it may be seen that the Sikhs once united on inspiration from a highly noble intent which brought a message of truth without any geographical or ritual confinement neither generated out of a momentary impulse, but is an eternal belonging to mankind at large, to broaden human rights, to liberate their soul, and to reckon where lies man’s fullest glory. At the magnanimous call of this liberal religion of Nanak, for several centuries the Sikh ideal expanded amidst various sufferings. Perception of such a religion amidst all their glorious ordeals, the Sikhs unwittingly laid down the foundation of a unity on a wide scale.

Guru Govind harnessed this spiritual unity of the Sikhs for the purpose of their task at hand. For their ephemeral need, he pruned down this spiritual unity with the goal of a statehood. He uprooted the caste system which stood on his way. Of course, he could do it as Nanak’s liberalism already eroded parochialism from the base which fell into pieces at the very first stroke of Guru Govind. Without this prior preparedness he would not be able to achieve it, however essential, neither this intent to dissolve this all futile divisiveness would shape up in his mind.

But Guru Govind, while strengthening unity, dethroned the very power (i.e. religiosity/ spirituality) which made it feasible, or at least, did coronate its rival partner (i.e. martial values), to corner the former. As a result, some immediate purposes were achieved, but what was advancing toward an absolute liberation, was stranded midway. The Sikhs were thick among themselves, but lost the momentum for the said advance. Their march for man’s ultimate glory halted at soldiery. There the Sikh history terminated.

The objective to which Shivaji dedicated himself was not ephemeral, for which the influence of religious Gurus at Deccan already prepared a ground. So, his inspiration could percolate down the entire Maratha race.

A pot with holes cannot hold water though for a while it may be overflowing. Our society is full of holes, incapable of holding great ideals, resulting in abundance of lifeless parched rituals. In his contemporary Maratha/ Hindu populace Shivaji introduced an inspiration powerful enough to keep its momentum for sometime. But he failed to solidify its receptacle, rather did not even attempt it. He set sail in the stormy sea with his leaky vessel, as its need was imminent. In fact, he wanted these very leaks across. The Hindu society which he aimed to win over the Mughol invasion, ritualistic cracks were at the base of it, which he aimed to turn triumphant in India. Shivaji never stood on any ideal which might heal up all these basic disintegration. His grievance that his own religion was being raped by external forces was natural, but to capitalize that alone to turn his religion as the victor all over India was bound to be futile, as it was being ruptured from within, continuously splitting and insulating man. He never looked inward to realize this menace but took itself as our holy religion. It is beyond man to establish sovereignty of such a fragmented monastic order in such a vast country like India as it cannot be any divine design. A nation merely infuriated by external blows cannot be great or victorious so long it is not conscious of the prudence of unity and its power will not motivate it, at heart and externally also, for an integration on a great ideal. Until then, no external blow, neither the personality or valor of any talent can make it compact or vivacious.

[Publication of this essay of Tagore at this time will be quite relevant to the Tercentenary of Khalsa movement this year – Editor, P. R. COMMUNICATION AGE]

Indian story

CORRUPTION IN INDIA IS TOXIC

"Rather, it is corrosive, debilitating corruption, which runs through all levels of society from the lowest to the highest, and creates a massive barrier to the deployment of foreign capital and the development of efficient markets. Yet it is an issue few Indian business and political leaders are prepared to even talk about let alone confront."
Read more...in The Indepenednt
India: where the credit crisis is but distant thunder - Independent Online Edition > Business Analysis & Features

Peaceful Iran?

Iran War a non-starter?

Frrom The statesman

ND Batra

The rhetoric of war against Iran has become muted. The hawks are in disarray. US Vice-President Mr Dick Cheney has been boxed and shoved into a corner for now.

Democrat and Republican presidential candidates are scrambling to come up with new policy postures toward Iran, whom they continue to regard as an unfriendly country, albeit not an evil one, that could provoke World War III, as President George W Bush warned in October.Europeans who have been reluctantly cooperating with the USA are baffled by the revelations. Russia and China are hastening to go back to their cozy commercial relations with Iran. India says its stand that the Iran nuclear issue should be handled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and not by the UN Security Council has been vindicated.

This is a rare example of how information put together as a well-constructed report free from political bias can change overnight the mindset of almost an entire nation. What happened to the Intelligence community’s earlier conclusions that Iran was in the advanced stages of highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons? Perhaps, Intelligence became smarter and developed new insights.

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a report based on the findings of the 16 agencies of the US Intelligence community, has concluded “with a high level of confidence” in its report released last week that Iran is not engaged in the development of nuclear weapons today. Teheran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, though it continues pursuing nuclear energy development for civilian energy purposes. What a relief! But what happened? Several factors such as the US invasion of Iraq and the subsequent chaos and destruction of the country, Libya’s giving up of its nuclear weapons development programme under US and UK pressures, the dismantling of Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear bazaar operated by AQ Khan from which Iran had benefited, and the rising drumbeat of the Axis of Evil might have persuaded Iran to reconsider its options and so it decided to freeze its programme.

There is no doubt that Iran has the necessary scientific, technological and industrial base and knowledge to make nuclear bombs. Suspending the programme does not mean, however, that Iran has altogether given up its intention to build a nuclear arsenal in the pursuit of its strategic interests in the region. At least for the time being, it is not doing it.

The report says, “Our assessment that Iran halted the programme in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Teheran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach, rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs.” Of course, the national interest calculus includes both short and long term cost-benefit analyses. And Iran taking into account the ruthless determination of the Bush administration that it displayed in the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq might have thought it to be unwise to continue with its nuclear weapons programme.

But the US Intelligence community did not know about Iran’s suspension of its nuclear programme; nor was it convinced about the regime’s protestations that it is pursuing nuclear development only for civilian uses.

That explains perhaps why the 2005 Intelligence estimate said: “Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure.” The 2005 report gave the Bush administration the rationale for persuading its European allies as well as Russia and China to impose effective sanctions on Iran. The latest Intelligence report, which was commissioned by the Democrat-controlled Congress, is said to have used more rigorous methods of Intelligence gathering and analysis so that the previous Intelligence fiasco regarding Iraq’s development of weapons of mass destruction should not be repeated. Faulty Intelligence in the hands of a frightened nation, as the USA had become after 9/11, can have terrible global consequences.

In 2002, accurate and reliable Intelligence about Iraq might have persuaded the USA to adopt some other method of dealing with Saddam Hussein. The new Intelligence report, which contradicts the previous alarming findings about Iran’s intentions, buttresses the arguments of non-hawkish Americans, Republicans and Democrats, who believe that concerted international diplomacy would work.The report recommends that “some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressure, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might ~ if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible ~ prompt Teheran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons programme”.

According to the IAEA, Iran continues to operate 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for civilian nuclear energy purposes, which could give it enough fissile material to produce nuclear weapons in less than a decade if its intentions change and it can get away with international scrutiny and pressure. With the long-range Ashoura and Shahab series, Iran has a well developed ballistic missile development programme.With its immense oil and natural gas resources and nuclear capabilities, Iran is a significant power in the region. But no single power should be allowed to dominate the Gulf region through which millions of barrels of oil flow every day.

Now that war is off the table, dealing with Iran’s geopolitical ambitions becomes a great diplomatic challenge not only for the next US administration but also for the international community. As French President Mr Nicolas Sarkozy said after the NIE report was released, “The threat exists”.

Engaging Iran at multiple levels will open up this ancient civilisation. The next US President should take the first step in this direction.

(ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University, USA)

China censorship

Kathrin Hille of Financial Times says:

"Ang Lee has acknowledged that he edited his latest film for political reasons to allow it to be shown in China. The award-winning Taiwanese director said he changed the dialogue at the climax of Lust, Caution, which won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival this year, to accommodate Chinese censors’ requests that the female lead’s patriotic character should not be compromised."
Read more: FT.com / Asia-Pacific / China - Taiwan director bowed to China censors

Muslim Women in India Seek Secular Justice

Muslim Women in India Seek Secular Justice


Aditi Bhaduri says:
"After years of silence, Muslim women in India are loudly battling repressive religious laws. The case of one semi-literate woman, a survivor of rape, ignited their cause. Second in a series on the changing role of women in India."

The Merchant of Arabia

Uncle Sam and the merchant of Arabia

From The Statesman
ND Batra

With the rise of crude oil to $90-100 a barrel, the camel is overloaded with the greenback. And there is no better place for the Arab merchant to unload his petrodollars than to lend it Americans who juggle their daily lives between credit cards and debit cards, home equity loans and foreclosures. But it is not only the Joe Six-pack who is in trouble. His lenders too are sleepless.

Like other American financial institutions, Citigroup, the global financial giant, has been reeling under billions of dollars mortgage-and-subprime related losses. The Citigroup board, instead of responding to merger overtures from other financial institutions, went in search of Arab petrodollars and obtained $7.5 billion cash flow from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the government’s sovereign wealth fund, for a 4.9 per cent equity stake plus 11 per cent annual interest rate, making it one of the biggest investors in the bank.In this age of globalisation, you might say, so what?

Not everyone seems to be happy about the Citigroup deal with the Arab merchant. In an editorial titled “Citi of Arabia”, The Wall Street Journal wrote: “We hate to spoil the party, but it strikes us as unfortunate, if not a tragedy, that America’s largest bank had to go hat in hand to the Arab sheikhs because of bad management and blundering US monetary policy.” Many transnational corporations and international businesses try to develop an early awareness system, which picks up weak signals that might become a raging storm later. An early awareness system helps prepare a company to nip the evil in the bud. But American financial institutions did not foresee any sign of trouble.

Nobody understood what havoc subprime lending might create.Nor does anybody fully understand how the global wealth is shifting to other regions. Irwin Stelzer, director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute wrote in Times Online: “The world has changed. Wealth has moved into new hands. Morgan Stanley estimates that the world’s sovereign wealth funds hold some $2.5 trillion in assets, more than the global hedge-fund industry.And they are adding about $500 billion to their assets every year. One Goldman Sachs banker told me that until recently he had never been to West Asia; now he makes several trips each month.”

The widespread hostility against globalisation is unfortunately prevalent in the USA. In the Internet age, there is a tremendous mobility of factors from foreign direct investment to job outsourcing to state-controlled sovereign wealth funds equity investment. In this sense the world, instead of becoming flat as The New York Times columnist Tom Friedman believes, is rather developing peaks and valleys, dungeons and dragons. The fear of “MacDonaldisation” is being replaced by the fear of secretive Arab and Chinese sovereign wealth funds and state-controlled companies nibbling at American assets, which are becoming cheaper to acquire, thanks to the fall of the dollar.

The Arabs own 10 per cent of Citigroup and their voice will eventually be heard in the boardroom. Recently, Dubai and Abu Dhabi made significant investments in Advanced Micro Devices, a leading semiconductor company that handles many defence contracts. Globalisation is a dynamic process of creating interdependencies in economics, international trade and culture, and is likely to create instabilities. It is much more than bilateralism because a country has to be opened to the flow of influences from all around.Transnational corporations stride the world like a colossus. Their business depends upon their reputation, which makes them extremely vulnerable not only to the government of the host country but also to the news over which the government has no control, especially in a democratic society.

In authoritarian countries, where the news media is controlled by the government, transnational corporations have a much easier time doing business. That is one of the most important reasons transnational corporations find it easy to do business in China.They have to deal with one authority, that of the central government. They don’t have to deal with environmental degradation, oil spills and uprooting of people without compensation to build new buildings. The news media plays no part and international NGOs have no say. And for the same reason, when a state-controlled Chinese company or an Arab sovereign wealth fund buys American assets, Americans become paranoid because of the lack of transparency.

The government’s impact upon economic activities is limited because in the global village there are so many actors, and the government cannot control all of them. Government has limited control over the mobility of capital. Key instruments of monetary and fiscal policy, exchange rates and import barriers are not totally under government control. Globalisation creates comparative choices and highlights inefficiencies both in the government and corporations. But just as governments are constrained by forces beyond their control, so are transnational corporations.

Microsoft had to face anti-trust regulations both in the USA and the European Union. Similar controls might have to be applied to secretive sovereign wealth funds if they seek to buy assets in the USA and other open societies. A case in point is the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which explains why Americans are worried about the merchant of Arabia. In 1991, BCCI was found by regulators in the USA and the UK to have been involved in arms dealing, money laundering, bribery, support of terrorism, tax evasion, smuggling, illegal immigration and the sale of nuclear technologies. The Emir of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the father of the present ruler, controlled the bank, which was closed after the investigation.

In this environment, corporate diplomacy is imperative. International corporations and sovereign wealth funds must become culturally attractive to host country publics. Unless sovereign wealth funds from West Asia and state-controlled global companies from the Middle Kingdom become transparent and publicly accountable, they must be watched and scrutinised.

(ND Batra is professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University, Vermont.)

Best Practices of Global Innovators — HBS Working Knowledge

Best Practices of Global Innovators — HBS Working Knowledge

China: “Red Foreigner” Sings Red Songs Naked

China: “Red Foreigner” Sings Red Songs Naked

Global Voices Online » China: Report from Hong Kong on sweatshop

China: Report from Hong Kong on sweatshop

The Future is Biotech

The future is here

From The Statesman

The recent breakthrough in stem cell research carried out independently in Japan and the USA, by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and James A Thomson with his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, shows another path to human rejuvenation, including a cure for many incurable diseases.

By reprogramming a human skin cell, the researchers have been able to bring it back to its original pure embryonic stage, a pluripotent stage from where the cell could be coaxed to become any of the 220 specialised human cells, for example, heart, lungs, brain, muscle cells, which could be used for customised therapeutic healing. A brain-injured person could live a full, healthy life again. That is the future, perhaps.

The awesome beauty of this discovery is that the process of reversion of a skin cell to its de novo embryonic stage does not involve the destruction of embryos, which many pro-life people from President George W Bush to the late Pope John Paul II condemned as immoral. President Bush has steadfastly denied the use of federal funds “to promote science that destroys life to save life,” despite the fact that most Americans have never been with him on this issue.

Dr Bill Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon by training, who was Senate majority leader (2003-2007), for example, spoke for most Americans, when he said: “I am pro-life, I believe human life begins at conception. I also believe that embryonic stem cell research should be encouraged and supported.” Former First Lady Nancy Reagan said: “Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to alleviate so much suffering. Surely, by working together we can harness its life-giving potential.” Her husband, President Ronald Reagan, spent the last years of his life in Alzheimer’s limbo.

President Bush, nonetheless, repeatedly said, "my way or the highway". You see the power of presidential leadership; and also its limitations because he could not stop the private funding of embryonic stem cell research by states, biotechnology companies, and private universities who have been pursuing the research regardless of the opposition. For example, in 2004 California voters approved a $3-billion bond to promote research in the state.

Since last year, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute has been doing research using the Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer process to create specific cell lines from cloned human embryos, which again raised hopes for millions of people suffering from incurable diseases. Harvard research is said to be diseases specific; for example, the nucleus of a skin cell of a diabetic patient is inserted into an unfertilised donor egg, from which the nucleus has been removed. The newly engineered composite egg is nurtured in a Petri dish to develop into an early embryo from which embryonic stem cell lines is developed and guided into becoming healthy insulin producing pancreatic islet cells to replace the diseased ones, for example, in a child suffering from juvenile diabetes.

It is painful to imagine how much a child with juvenile diabetes suffers; or how much the family members endure as they see the wasting away of their loved one with the knowledge that one day if the stem cell research continued there might be hope for a most emaciating human illness. Anytime an older person forgets the name of his own children, you wonder if this could be the beginning of a slow end. In the USA, people look to science and medicine for salvation. They know embryonic stem cells could be the beginning of a new life for persons suffering from fatal ailments. Stem cells that are derived from aborted and discarded embryos could be potentially directed to grow into any kind of specialised cells to repair damaged human parts and trigger a self-regenerative process in the human body. It is an example of how killing life can save lives.

Choosing life over potential life is practical ethics at its best, it has been argued.

Though many people favour embryonic stem cell research, pro-lifers argue that research in regenerative and therapeutic medicine and technology should not be left to the marketplace because somewhere in the process life begins. The late pope John Paul II urged that a “free and virtuous society, which the USA aspires to be, must reject practices that devalue and violate human life at any stage from conception until natural death.”

The Pope was afflicted with Parkinson’s, one of the millions of sufferers of the debilitating disease but he never wavered, and warned “how a tragic coarsening of consciences accompanies the assault on innocent human life in the womb, leading to accommodation and acquiescence in the face of other related evils such as euthanasia, infanticide…”

That’s why many Americans could not ignore the late Pope’s warning that the destruction of embryos to extract stem cells, even when the purpose is to fight diseases and reduce human suffering, would dehumanise us. Stem cell revolution is as momentous as was the smashing of an atom; therefore, it needs safeguards to harness its benefits without the coarsening of our conscience.

The recent development of reprogramming skin cells into embryonic stages offers scientists an equally fertile method of developing cell therapy, which will make destruction of embryos unnecessary. Science has solved its own ethical dilemmas. The discovery also illustrates the concept of “equifinality” in general systems theory, according to which a dynamic system, if challenged, could reach the same goal by other means. There is always an alternative.

And thereby hangs another question: Is human body nothing but an information system that could be reprogrammed cell by cell? We will talk about human soul some other time.

(ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University. The author of Digital Freedom, he is working on a new book, This is the American Way.)

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