1 Finance is not evil (The New York Times) When I spoke at a college recently, I was startled by one question: Is it immoral for students to seek banking jobs? The corollary question is this: Is it unethical to make millions in private equity? My answer to both questions: no. I’ve been sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street movement, but, look, finance is not evil. Banking has contributed immensely to modern civilization. By allocating capital to more efficient uses, banking laid the groundwork for the industrial revolution and the information revolution.
Likewise, the attacks on private equity seem over the top. Private equity firms like Bain Capital aren’t about destroying companies and picking over the carcasses. Rather, the aim is to acquire poorly managed companies, make them more efficient (sometimes by firing people but often by rejiggering the business model) and then resell them at a profit. That’s the merciless, rugged nature of capitalism.
When young people go into finance, I hope that they’ll show judgment, balance and principles instead of their elders’ penchant for greed and rigging the system. Just as Communists managed to destroy Communism, capitalists are discrediting capitalism. So university students would be wrong to mock their classmates who choose Citigroup over CARE. Banking and private equity aren’t evil, and I would never urge college students to stay away. Maybe today’s young socialist sympathizers, along with healthy regulation and a loud public outcry, can help rescue capitalism from the crony capitalists.
2 Apple seeks $10bn textbook industry on iPad (San Francisco Chronicle) The size of the US textbook industry is $ 10bn, according to the Association of American Publishers. The market has become a tantalizing target for Apple, which is trying to replace paper books with iPad versions. Apple also wants to empower "self-publishers" to create new kinds of teaching materials, people familiar with the matter say.
3 Windows revenues decline 6% (The Guardian) Microsoft has suffered a 6% decline in revenues at its Windows division, as competition from smartphones and tablet computers combined with the impact of floods at components factories in Thailand dented worldwide sales of personal computers. Windows revenues fell to $4.7bn in the three months ending 31 December, down from $5bn during the same period in 2010.
4 India’s child cotton workers (BBC) Civil rights activist Jignesh Mevani describes the conditions endured by India's child cotton workers: The noise was deafening and air in the factory in northern Gujarat was so thick with cotton dust it was like a snowstorm at night. Women and girls, some no more than 10 or 11, fed machines with raw cotton picked from the nearby fields. It is a process known as ginning - one end of a commercial supply chain that ends up as clothes and textiles in high street shops around the world. Globally, annual revenues from the industry are measured in the trillions of dollars.
"The workers' lives are terrible," said Mevani, an activist who was our guide. "They are not paid the minimum wage. There are no safety precautions. There are many children." One was Kali Gamar. She thought she was 10, but wasn't sure. She was with her older sister, Ashi, who said she was 20. "We came here four or five months ago from Rajastan," said Ashi. "Now we live here. The work is hard. We don't know where our parents are. They are working somewhere." Some estimates put the number of cotton child workers in India as high as half a million. None of the retailers we contacted agreed to be interviewed on this issue. In response to the BBC findings in Gujarat, the British government said businesses were encouraged to remain vigilant about the work conditions for products they buy from overseas.
5 Sale of Saddam’s ‘buttock’ (BBC) A company director has been arrested on suspicion of illegally keeping part of a statue of Saddam Hussein taken from Iraq in 2003. Jim Thorpe, director of Trebletap, was questioned over the company's plans to sell the 2ft bronze piece of buttock. The piece was brought to the UK by the firm's founder Nigel Ely but failed to sell at an auction in Derby after failing to meet its reserve price. Derbyshire police said the Iraqi government had made a complaint to the Metropolitan Police last week via the Iraqi Embassy. Mr Thorpe was questioned on suspicion of breaching Section 8 of the Iraq (UN Sanctions) Order 2003 before being released on bail pending further inquiries. Under the order, anyone possessing Iraqi cultural property must give it to the police. Mr Ely, a former SAS soldier, used a sledgehammer and chisel to remove the portion when the statue was brought down in central Baghdad at the end of Hussein's reign. He said he planned to sell it to raise money for charity but withdrew it from sale at an auction in October after it failed to meet its £250,000 reserve.
6 Islam’s pluralism (The Dawn) While Islam stresses on the unity of humanity, it also recognises human diversity and gives valuable principles to deal with ethnic, racial and religious differences in society. However, this pluralistic dimension of Islamic teachings has received little attention in our time. There are several verses in the Quran that underline human pluralities, such as social, biological and religious differences. According to the Quran, all human beings are from the same soul but they have been created with differences. The following verse beautifully depicts human plurality: “O humankind We [God] have created you male and female, and made you into communities and tribes, so that you may know one another. Surely the noblest amongst you in the sight of God is the most God-fearing of you. God is All-Knowing and All-Aware” (49:13).
7 I love India, but can’t live here (Khaleej Times) Dilli O Dilli. A city with ancient history stamped with the intense imprints of myriad marauding cultures. In the “new” Delhi, beggars with maimed children knock on the frosted car doors of rich businessmen in Mercs and BMWs. Bentleys and Lamborghinis are also in evidence. While there on vacation, India’s first Formula One car race was under way with great fanfare. The inimitable Lady Ga Ga was performing. While I was there, the world’s seven billionth person was born in the populous state of Uttar Pradesh. And all this while, the multitudes of rural poor continue to stream into this tumultuous city, hoping to find jobs, squatting under the flyovers that link and link and link till one can go round and round getting lost in all the endless traffic.
Sitting in the lush Gymkhana Club lunching with four ladies all of whom have lived, at some point, in the UAE, we sipped our delicately spiced lemon and coriander soup and talked about how our lives had changed since we left the Emirates to settle down in India or North America. None of us can say with certainty that we don’t miss the wonderful life in the UAE. The hot topic of the day was if India should indulge in the Formula One and spend millions of dollars while a huge chunk of the population lives on less than $1 per day. Meanwhile, on the second day of my trip, my laptop got stolen. By then I was paranoid and driving my daughter nuts with my safety/security concerns. “Mom,” said my 26-year old daughter who was born in Sharjah but now has made Canada her home, “I love India but I don’t think I can live here.”
8 Social media burnout among Indian youth (Business Standard) Youngsters in urban India have started experiencing social media fatigue, logging on less frequently to social networks like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Orkut, Linkedin, Myspace, Friendster, Hi5 and BigAdda than when they initially signed up, according to a survey. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) conducted the survey to examine current usage trends among youngsters. Assocham representatives interacted with about 2,000 youngsters (an equal number of males and females) in the age group of 12 to 25 years in the urban centres of Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, the Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune between October and December, 2011.
"Tech overload is apparent among youth and their fixation with social media seems to be eroding as they have started focusing on more important things than grooming their digital identities," said Assocham Secretary General D S Rawat while releasing the findings of the survey. About 75% of the total sample said they created a profile or an account on almost each of these websites, which was a fad when they were just launched. However, most of them said they barely use them anymore and prefer sticking to a single site. "Although social networking is the most popular online activity, youngsters have started finding social media boring, confusing, frustrating and time-consuming as they surf these websites less frequently and tend to surf other informative websites, send e-mails, search the internet and play games instead of accessing their accounts, hardly responding to comments and other material posted on their walls," said the survey.
9 Race for Muslim votes in Uttar Pradesh (Business Line) Maulana Syed Kalbe Jawad, one of the most important Shia leaders in the country and Member, All India Muslim Personal Law Board, is not cagey, but genuinely circumspect, when he says, seated in his house on a windy and freezing night in Lucknow: “The UP Muslims are totally undecided on who to support in this election. They are not confused, but hesitant, about backing this party or that, because, honestly, no party has done anything for their welfare.”
Muslim youth suffer a sense of insecurity, he says. “The police can knock any time on their door, pick them up under false charges, imprison them. The courts may declare them innocent after five years, but their lives are ruined for ever. And those who wrongly implicated them are not punished.” Of the four main contenders in UP, the BJP is the only one without any designs on the substantial 18% Muslim vote — Maulana Jawad claims it is actually 20%. Of the other three — the Samajwadi Party, Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party — vying for Muslim vote, the SP has really promised them the moon this time — 18% reservation. Muslims are expected to influence the outcome of the UP results in at least 130 constituencies where their numbers are concentrated. Keeping this in mind the BSP has fielded 84 Muslim candidates, the SP 75 and Congress 61.
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