1 Samsung forecasts drop in profits (BBC) Samsung
Electronics, the world's biggest maker of TVs and mobile phones, has forecast a
drop in profit for the second quarter in a row. It expects to make an operating
profit of 8.4 trillion won ($7.9bn) for the January-to-March quarter, down 4%
from the same period last year. This follows a 6% decline in operating profit
in the previous quarter. The drop indicates the challenge faced by Samsung to
boost its earnings amid falling prices of smartphones.
Young Park, an analyst with Hyundai
Securities said that Samsung's profits were being hurt by falling margins for
smartphones as well as a slowdown in the growth rate of the sector. The success
of Samsung's Galaxy range of smartphones has been one of the biggest drivers of
its growth in recent years. But is has been facing rising competition as
companies look to tap into the sector's growth. Rivals Apple, HTC and Chinese
manufacturers such as Lenovo, ZTE and Huawei have all been looking to boost
their market share.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26933449
2 Neither female nor male (Julia Baird in
The New York Times) The global third-gender movement is gaining momentum with a
startling rapidity that our laws and language are scrambling to keep pace with.
Some prefer the term “androgynous.” Other words considered in the case were
“neuter,” “intersex” and “transgender,” but an Australian court decided on
“nonspecific.” The “nonspecific” category is broad, mind-boggling and
potentially hugely subversive in terms of the way we think about boys and
girls, men and women, and our habit of dividing people into two distinct,
gendered groups. Now it’s Adam, Eve — and nonspecific.
This is what lies next for nonspecifics: Do
laws prevent someone “nonspecific” from marrying a man? Same-sex marriage is
illegal in Australia. But can a xie marry a he? Having freed themselves from
one large lump of legal kryptonite, nonspecifics need to find out.
3 Demographics and the India election
(Jason Burke in The Guardian) Over the next six weeks more than half a billion
Indians will go to 930,000 polling stations in the 16th general election since
the country won independence from Britain in 1947. The exact impact of the 120
million first-time voters expected to cast their ballots is hotly debated. What
is undisputed is that young generation will decide their nation's future.
First there are the sheer demographics: a
third of the population is under 15, more than half under 24; every third
person in an Indian city today is between 15 and 32; the median age in India is
27; around 150 million people are eligible to vote for the first time in the
coming polls.
Then there is the wider story of
present-day India. The powerful growth that boosted incomes and significantly
reduced poverty has faltered in recent years. Traditional values and customs
have given way to a new uncertainty. Much is changing, and the process of
transition is traumatic for millions. India's youth could be a
"demographic dividend", ensuring stability and prosperity for decades
to come – or a disaster, condemning the country to years of deep social
tensions, drift and fear. For if, as a recent report by the United Nations(PDF)
commented, if there is a "vibrancy" among young people, there is
great anger too.
Educational institutions are grossly
over-subscribed and hugely under-resourced. Worse, perhaps, there is little
guarantee of satisfactory employment whatever the investment of time and money.
According to Indian government data, although growth averaged 8.7% from 2005 to
2010, only 1m jobs were created, leaving 59 million new entrants on to the labour
market with nothing. Graduate unemployment can touch 30% for women in rural
areas. Even for men in towns, it is at least 17%.
There is also violence. As elsewhere in the
world, 18- to 25-year-olds in India are disproportionate victims, and
perpetrators, of violence. So-called "honour killing" does not just
involve parents, but siblings too. Young women living more independent lives
than their mothers suffer systematic sexual harassment, and sometimes assault,
in public and, increasingly, in the workplace.
Perhaps the greatest challenge for India's
often elderly policymakers lies in managing expectations. B Narayanaswamy, of
Ipsos Indica, a leading local market research company, traces four generational
shifts since India gained its independence in 1947. In the early 1950s,
patriotism and self-sacrifice were dominant as values, with young people
wanting to be teachers. Twenty years later, after the 1971 war with Pakistan
and with the autocratic Indira Gandhi committed to a socialist programme, the
most popular professions were in the military. By the early 1990s, there came
an identity-based reaction to a globalisation both channelled and encouraged by
a newly resurgent Hindu nationalist ideology. Finally, today, values are
increasingly determined by urbanisation.
"The new sets of beliefs and
behaviours are all urban. The jobs and the prospects are to be found in cities.
There's a big shift away from hierarchy, and feudal mindsets. Success is
defined in economic terms – a salary, a car, a mobile. It's more about a hand-up
than a handout," said Narayanaswamy. Many have pointed out that this is a
generation for which doctrinaire arguments pitting socialism against
capitalism, the developing world against the west or even events such as the
destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, in 1991 have little,
or at least less, relevance.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/07/india-election-demographic-dividend-disaster
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