1. New York Times comparing Thomas Alva Edison and Steve Jobs. Both men worked in several product areas, but entertainment-related technology was a major portion of their product portfolios. This prompts a question: Would the public’s relationship to Edison have been essentially the same without the phonograph and without movies? Or with Mr. Jobs, if Apple had remained just Apple Computer? Jobs was the far shrewder businessman, even if he never talked about wealth as a matter of personal interest. When Edison died, he left behind an estate valued at about $12 million, or about $180 million in today’s dollars. His friend Henry Ford had once joked that Edison was “the world’s greatest inventor and the world’s worst businessman.” Jobs was worth a commanding $6.5 billion.
2. An equally interesting comparison of Manmohan Singh and Barack Obama in Dawn. Obama counts Singh as a close friend, saying that he often turns to the latter for advice. The two men make an odd couple. Separated by age, Obama is a stunning speaker, Singh, oh, well. The former revels in the spotlight, the latter shies away. That they are intellectual, one a lawyer, the other an economist, bonds them perhaps. But both are in deep trouble now.
For Obama, the economy has refused to budge, and in 2010, his party lost control of the US Congress, a result he bewailed as a ‘shellacking’. In India, governance has come to a virtual stop. Singh spends all his days, and many of his nights, trying to douse flames. Both Obama and Singh need a substantive achievement to get back on track. Strangely enough, herein Pakistan could be key.
3. BBC on the secret of optimists. A study published in Nature Neuroscience suggests the brain is very good at processing good news about the future. However, in some people, anything negative is practically ignored - with them retaining a positive world view.
4. Johannesburg Times report on the outrage over Japan raising its whale hunt budget by 54%. Japan plans to increase its annual "whale research" budget in 2012, in a move that has outraged animal rights' activists, who argue that the country exploits the research proviso to bring whale meat to its market. Japanese hunters are accused of capturing whales under the pretence of research, but then sell the meat and blubber on markets nationwide.
5. Dawn bemoaning the restrictive Press laws in Pakistan. Day in and day out, Guardian readers are regaled by the sight of a condom over PM David Cameron’s head, and often in the company of the Chancellor, George Osborne (depicted as a pig), discussing the issues of the day. In contrast, Pemra, Pakistan’s electronic media regulator, has recently “taken serious notice of satirical programmes”. According to Pemra, they indulged in “character assassination, humiliation and defamation of dignitaries”. A Pemra spokesman announced that ads would soon be issued “to direct the channels to stop airing funny portrayals of dignitaries”.
6. Khaleej Times on the rights of surrogate mothers. Since 2002, when commercial surrogacy was legalised in India, the surrogacy industry has boomed. The cost of surrogacy for prospective parents is about $14,000 in India, compared with an estimated $70,000 in the US. A 2008 study valued the assisted reproductive industry in India at $450 million a year. But the boom masks growing concerns about the rights of the women, many of them from poor homes and sometimes illiterate, who choose to become surrogate mothers. Manju, 29, a domestic helper in Delhi, said she had thought about surrogacy ever since her sister-in-law gave birth to a surrogate baby two years ago. A month ago, Manju was approached by the representative of an unlicensed surrogacy clinic. She said she might take them up on their offer. “It’s good money,’’ she said. “Risks? What risks? Any fool can have a baby, it takes a smart woman to get paid for it.’’
7. Sydney Morning Herald article, Executive pay: the high cost of market failure. Chief executives and their assorted lobby groups are fond of saying “That’s the market” when it comes to defending the massive salaries. “Look at America,” they cry. “You have to pay top dollar to attract the best talent!” Indeed, look at America. The Wall Street protests are now in their fourth week. And even though the protesters have struggled to identify, let alone voice a clear message, they know something is awry. When it comes to executive remuneration, pay has failed to match performance for 20 years – ironically ever since the mandatory disclosure of salaries was introduced in the early 1990s.
8. Wall Street Journal on son-preference in Asia. There are over 160 million “missing women” in Asia. But why are they missing? There are three possibilities: either they were never born due to sex selective abortion, or suffered infanticide, or died prematurely relative to the comparable death rates for males, presumably because of factors such as neglect. At the root of all of these possibilities is the cultural fact of “son preference,” which is widespread throughout Asia including India.
9. The Economic Times and Mint reporting that September quarter results will reveal profit pressure. Maruti Suzuki, Ambuja Cement and Sterlite Industries will lead the earnings fall for Nifty companies in the September quarter, the first in more than two years as rising funding costs and higher raw material prices begin to bite.
10. Arun Maira writing in The Economic Times on the Gini coefficient of inequality rising in India, leading to a louder knocking on the windows of the rich.
11. Business Standard story, ‘Who moved my labour?’ The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has led to increase in wages and labour shortage, says the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
12. Business Line story on the dubious-sounding figures of the Coffee Board. The Board’s data shows coffee export last season was 3.57 lakh tonnes while total production was estimated at 3.02 lakh tonnes. (Not very unlike figures put out by many other boards in the country.)
13. ‘Steve Jobs, who?’ in Business Line, saying hardly anyone in Ritchie Street, considered the capital of electronics trade in Tamil Nadu, has heard that name.
14. Arindam Bhattacharya of BCG India writing in Financial Express on two labour strikes in the north and south of the country – at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant and at Bosch’s unit outside Bangalore. The two companies are known for their good management practices and high emoluments to staff, and yet face labour strife. He sees Indian companies are reacting to labour unrest by more automation, and in some cases by shifting investments out of the country.
15. Mint’s quick edit on how Chinese pressure may have influenced South Africa to deny Dalai Lama a visa.
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