1 India’s ‘tired regime runs out of ideas’ (Jayati Ghosh in
The Guardian) India's ruling coalition has been rocked after its second-largest
partner withdrew this week. The latest round of political instability comes
about because prime minister Manmohan Singh announced a number of economic
measures without consulting his allies. The announcements – that diesel prices
were to be raised, and that India's retail and domestic aviation sectors were
to be opened up to overseas companies –
were the government's attempt to woo back foreign investors who had become
cynical about India's growth prospects.
The popular anger against the rise in diesel prices is easy
to understand – Indian prices of this essential fuel are already among the
highest in the world. This increase will affect all other prices, raising
farmers' costs and causing already high food prices to soar. If the government
is really concerned with controlling inflation, this is a foolish and unjust
measure, bound to cause further inflation without delivering much in public
savings.
Most sectors are already open to foreign investors to
varying degrees, but the proposals to allow foreign investment in this area
have evoked strong responses on both sides and generated massive public debate.
The international evidence suggests that the greater market power of large
supermarket chains actually leads to higher marketing margins and exploitation
of small producers.
The employment impact is likely to be very negative. The
retail trade in India employs about 40 million – mostly very small-scale
traders who are largely self-employed, who would not be able to compete with
large organised corporations. So the hue and cry about opening up retail trade
in India is hardly surprising. What is more surprising is the government's
insistence on pushing through this relatively minor "reform" barely a
month after it had promised parliament it would do so only by consensus. The
entire episode speaks of a tired regime that has run out of ideas.
2 In iPhone 5 fever, don’t count Samsung out (The New York
Times) By many measures, Samsung Electronics should be on the ropes. Last
month, it lost an important patent battle with its rival Apple after a jury in
the United States ruled that Samsung had illegally copied aspects of Apple’s
groundbreaking iPhone. Apple introduced its newest model, the iPhone 5, to
enthusiastic reviews and a worldwide consumer frenzy. This week, Apple shares
hit a record high and cracked the $700 threshold. So why is Samsung not only
holding its own, but thriving?
Even as the Apple juggernaut has rolled over Research in
Motion, which makes BlackBerry handsets, and Nokia, Samsung reported record earnings
for its latest quarter, which ended June 30. Its handset profits, fueled by the
introduction of its high-end Galaxy S III model in May, leapt 75% over the
previous year. Samsung’s stock has gained over 65% in the last year.
Samsung can’t claim the intense media coverage, the
passionate fan base or the cult of personality that grew up around Steve Jobs.
But the giant South Korean manufacturer has built an impressive lead in global
mobile phone sales. The research firm IDC reported that Samsung had 24.1% of
the global handset market compared with Apple’s 6.4% at the end of the last
quarter. Samsung also had a commanding lead in the lucrative smartphone market:
32.6% compared with Apple’s 16.9%, although the gap is likely to narrow because
of the iPhone 5’s introduction.
3 Sign of the times: ‘Serial mastery’ (The New York Times) Going
back to school for months or years is not realistic for many workers, who are
often left to figure out for themselves what new skills will make them more
valuable, or just keep them from obsolescence. In their quest to occupy a
useful niche, they are turning to bite-size instructional videos, peer-to-peer
forums and virtual college courses. Lynda Gratton, a professor of management
practice at the London Business School, has coined a term for this necessity:
“serial mastery.”
“You can’t expect that what you’ve become a master in will
keep you valuable throughout the whole of your career, and you want to add to
that the fact that most people are now going to be working into their 70s,” she
said, adding that workers must try to choose specialties that cannot be
outsourced or automated. “Being a generalist is, in my view, very unwise. Your
major competitor is Wikipedia or Google.”
Businesses have responded by pouring more money into
training, even in the current economic doldrums. They have experimented by
paying employees to share their expertise in internal social networks, creating
video games that teach and, human resources consultants say, enticing employees
with tuition help even if they leave the company.
4 Is tec h destroying San Francisco? (San Francisco
Chronicle) The latest salvo in the debate over San Francisco’s tech boom 2.0
comes in the October issue of “San Francisco” magazine. In a piece entitled
“How Much Tech Can One City Take?” Salon.com founder David Talbot writes: The
unique urban features that have made San Francisco so appealing to a new
generation of digital workers—its artistic ferment, its social diversity, its
trailblazing progressive consciousness—are deteriorating, driven out of the
city by the tech boom itself, and the rising real estate prices that go with
it.
Talbot, a longtime
San Francisco journalist and author of a recent book that delves into S.F.’s
more turbulent times, goes beyond rent. He says tech CEOs and companies aren’t
engaging the community and City Hall policies favor tech over the arts.
Talbot’s rallying cry is hardly targeted at the tech workers
themselves, as he says “…one gets the sense that this latest generation of
strivers has only the barest understanding of what has long made the city such
a cool, gray oasis.” But maybe San Francisco’s soul is just being laid out on
Instagram now. Tech workers don’t love the city? A million pics of the Golden
Gate Bridge, Four Barrel coffees and Giants games show otherwise.
5 A movie and the limitations of the US President (Irfan
Husain in Dawn) As thousands demand that he hang the producer of the film
Innocence of the Muslims, and enact laws to prevent others from carrying out
similar acts of blasphemy, the US government is actually quite impotent in the
matter. Despite being the most powerful man on the planet, in reality the
president of America’s powers to act domestically are very limited.
In this case, the First Amendment to the US constitution
specifically guarantees the freedom of speech to all American citizens. To
enact a law limiting this fundamental right, the amendment would have to be
altered, and for that, Obama needs a far bigger Democratic majority in the
federal and state legislatures than he enjoys.
An indication of the limits to Obama’s powers lies in the
fact that Google, the owner of the video website YouTube, where clips from the
film first appeared, has refused the government’s request to take down the
offensive footage. As an explanation, Google has referred the White House to
its website laying down what is permissible on the site.
A fundamental difference between Western and Muslim
perceptions is the fact that most Muslims belong to states that are, or until
recently were, authoritarian. They just cannot believe that an American
president cannot issue orders to lock somebody up when he wants to. In their
experience, rulers can do anything they feel like to their citizens.
6 Sam Becile and imbeciles (Pinky Daniels in Khaleej Times) They
say his name is Sam Becile, and he has eight personas, that‘s eight aliases. I
have named him I. M. Becile. He is the coward who posted a clip from his
outrageous film that turned the world into a sad, confused place. Freedom of
speech he claimed, it’s in the American Constitution. Really? And some innocent people have to pay
for your right to make a mockery of freedom of speech? Like our dead ambassador
in Libya who loved the Middle East, and whose people loved him back. Like the
four other Americans who were killed in the protest. And the others, for there
are others and there will be more sadly.
Shame and baloney I say. Here in America we do not use the
so-called ‘N’ word. It is an insulting, ugly description of our African
Americans. And, if you do use the ‘N’ word, be prepared to pay the price pal
because there will be one. We won’t go into the terror at the Wisconsin
Gurdwara that was the result of ignorance and fanaticism, yes that too.
It’s all too
depressing to say the least. What’s more this is an election year and our
President Barack Obama is trying hard to be the best he can for the sake of the
people, both here and elsewhere. Now he, and to be fair, his opponent, are
stuck with the actions of an imbecile.
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