Internet freedom plummets in India; Soon-to-be Twitter zillionaires; In India, as they sow ... ; General Giap: Man who humbled France, US

1 Internet freedom plummets in India (Atish Patel in The Wall Street Journal) India had the largest decline in Internet freedom in the year to April 2013, according to a new report on state censorship of online content in 60 countries, raising fears that restrictions on free speech in the country were tightening. US-based Freedom House, an independent monitoring group,  scored countries between zero and 100 according to how open  access to the Internet was for citizens and the level of online censorship. The higher the number, the lower the amount of freedom afforded.

The report gave India a score of 47, down from 39 the previous year. It was the biggest drop of all the countries assessed. In three democracies – India, the United States and Brazil – Freedom House said it had seen troubling declines in Internet freedom. Iceland had the greatest degree of web freedom of the countries analyzed, while the report said Iran, Cuba and China were the most restrictive.

The study revealed that most countries in the world, including India, have enhanced their surveillance powers over the past year. Over half – 35– of the 60 countries scrutinized have obtained more sophisticated technology and increased the number of people being monitored, Freedom House said. It also expressed concern over the Central Monitoring System, which India began to roll out this year to allow the government access to phone calls, text messages, emails, social media conversations and online searches in real time.


http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/10/04/report-internet-freedom-plummets-in-india/?mod=WSJBlog&mod=irt

2 Soon-to-be Twitter zillionaires (Jim Edwards in San Francisco Chronicle) Investors have put $1.16 billion into Twitter since it was founded by Ev Williams and Biz Stone back in 2006. The company has also shelled out $640 million in cash and stock for acquisitions. With the IPO set to roll, Twitter's venture capital investors, longtime employees, and other stockholders are about to see all their paper equity turned into actual liquid stock and/or cash. Some of them are going to be suddenly very, very rich.

Here's a look at who got what. For argument's sake, we're assuming an opening price of $29 per share, the most recent reported estimate. The S-1 says the most recent share valuation is $20.62, so the actual numbers could be lower than our estimates here.

Jack Dorsey, executive chairman: $679 million Total shares owned: 23,411,350 Estimated value: $679 million. Dorsey is one of the founders and owns 4.9% of the company. Dick Costolo, CEO: $220 million Total shares owned: 7,589,608 Estimated value: $220 million. Ev Williams, founder: $1.65 billion. Total shares owned: 56,909,847. Estimated value: $1.65 billion. Williams owns 12%, the largest individual stakeholder.

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Twitter-s-IPO-Will-Make-All-These-People-4868319.php 

3 In India, as they sow ... (Khaleej Times) In the seven years from 1990 that Lalu Prasad Yadav was chief minister of India’s Bihar state, his supporters coined a triumphant catch phrase: As long as there are potatoes in samosas, (a popular Indian fritter), there will be Lalu’s government in Bihar. But just two decades later, the cookie has crumbled. The strong man of Bihar is now behind bars with a five-year jail sentence, his past having finally caught up with him. A special court this month finally found Yadav guilty of corruption in a deal that lost the state treasury millions of rupees in the name of buying cattle feed. 

Thanks to a Supreme Court judgement, convicted lawmakers now stand to lose their parliament membership and can’t contest elections for six years. And the consequences are not limited to Bihar. Yadav has been a friend of the Congress party, which leads India’s United Progressive Alliance. Political expediency made the Congress turn a blind eye to his blemishes and indeed, the blemishes of other allies as well as its own members, many of whom have criminal records or escaped conviction by the skin of their teeth.

So there is something biblical about the current discord in the Congress fold. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh famously received an indirect attack from Congress young turk Rahul Gandhi for trying to push an ordinance that would have nullified the Supreme Court judgement and helped reinstate Yadav. While Gandhi apparently opposed the proposed ordinance, his mother and de facto prime minister Sonia Gandhi had approved it. So along with Yadav, India’s ruling party also stands exposed as unprincipled and time-serving.

http://khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=/data/editorial/2013/October/editorial_October7.xml&section=editorial

4 General Giap: Man who humbled France, US (Straits Times) General Vo Nguyen Giap, who died on Friday aged 102, was considered one of history's greatest military strategists and was the architect of Vietnam's stunning battlefield victories against France and the United States. Second only to late revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh as modern Vietnam's most revered figure, the former history teacher's first military lesson came from an old encyclopedia entry about the mechanism of a hand grenade.

The son of a poor scholar, he went on to defeat Vietnam's colonial masters in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu, the battle that ended French rule in Indochina and started direct US involvement leading to the Vietnam war. Over the next two decades the founding father of the Vietnam People's Army, whose guerrilla tactics inspired anti-colonial fighters worldwide, again led his forces to victory with the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/se-asia/story/vietnams-greatest-military-hero-humbler-the-west-20131004