A four-day, maiden road trip in Uttarakhand on India’s National Highway 58 past Haridwar toward Devaprayag, which carries tens of thousands of piligrims and tourists toward the first signs of the Ganges, among other attractions, isn’t a good reason to rethink my views on the death penalty. Nor is it a good way to pass judgement on the state of many of India’s well traveled roads or the corruption that turns these roads, year after year, into death traps. But the anecdotal sense of the horrifying conditions of roads allegedly “built”... (more...)
A weekly look at the good, bad and ugly when it comes to headlines. Heads Above 1. From The Economist, the home to some of the most cutting edge headline writing. A story about former US Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards admitting to an affair with a campaign colleague says “Tale Between His Legs” in the contents page. Oddly, the headline became Tail Between His Legs on the story page itself. Still clever and pulling no punches. Rating: 7/10. 2. From The Economic Times. A Page 1 story that brilliantly uses tata which also means goodbye... (more...)
On Saturday 30 August in Bangalore, an interesting new book Corporate Disclosures 1553-2007 AD: The Origin of Financial and Business Reporting by Shankar Jaganathan is being released. Shankar is a former Wipro Ltd corporate treasurer and has looked at the history of corporate governance in forty ‘episodes.” It also has detailed case studies on both Wipro and Infosys Technologies Ltd. (Read more on the book at its website here) I didn’t know this, but the very first instance of corporate disclosure was apparently all the way back in 1533 to... (more...)
Credit Hindustan Times with a fascinating Page 1 story on 27 August headlined “And a Gold for Press: How boxer Jitender’s split chin was kept a secret.” Reporter Saurabh Duggal reveals how the Indian media contingent at the just concluded 2008 Beijing Olympics was asked by Indian chief national coach Gurbux Singh Sandhu to not report the fact that Indian boxing medal hope Jitender Kumar had suffered a deep cut under his chin during his flyweight (51kg) pre-quarterfinal victory over Tulashboy Doniyorov of Uzbekistan and received 10 stitches. (Read full... (more...)
Got to love what US elections and politics have become in the home of capitalism. It is intensely personal and the bottom line is, well, about the bottom line. Here are a couple of emails from the Barack Obama campaign from the Democratic Convention in Denver. —– Original Message —– From: Michelle Obama [info@barackobama.com] Sent: 08/25/2008 07:20 PM AST To: raju narisetti Subject: Behind the scenes in DenverFriend — My mom, the girls, and I left home in Chicago and got to Denver yesterday. What a beautiful city! The convention... (more...)
Here are some morning news items to read, pictures to see and mull over in India on 26 August. 1. KASHMIR, India: Police shot and killed at least three demonstrators on Monday, as authorities tried to enforce a curfew in Kashmir in the face of some of biggest protests in two decades against India’s rule. Police had detained three separatist leaders before protests planned for Monday. Troops enforced a curfew in the summer capital of Srinagar, where a separatist rally had been planned, and armoured vehicles patrolled mainly deserted streets. But outside Srinagar, thousands... (more...)
A recent Romantic Realist blog on gay rights in India titled Words Mean Little When It Comes To Gay Rights in India (Read it here) as well as a recent Mint editorial on the topic Homosexuality Is Not A Crime (Read it here) generated two very contrasting comments from readers. “I read the article on Homosexuality in Live Mint and wanted to post this view. I am a student at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and received the Traub-Dicker Fellowship to research gay rights in India. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes homosexuality,... (more...)
A news article in The Times of India on 24 August about salary packages proposed for new, paid selectors who will pick cricket teams for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (Read this BCCI story here) made me wonder about how skewed our national priorities are in light of an earlier posting on this blog about what the Indian government wants to pay for the next director of the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (See that post and related comments here). The BCCI, relatively free of government control and rather rich, is proposing an annual salary of Rs2.5... (more...)
Amid reports that the steep prices for iPhones in India–at least three times more than what they retail for in the US with service restrictions–have kept launch week response muted, here is an interesting factoid that has emerged. Citing the example of a rather disappointed Pankaj Bajoria, who was unsuccessful in buying an iPhone because the color he wanted wasn’t available at an Airtel shop in Gurgaon on Friday, Mint’s R. Jai Krishna quotes Bharti Airtel Ltd CEO Manoj Kohli as saying: “Most consumers seem to prefer the black iPhone, unlike... (more...)
foray • noun 1 a sudden attack or incursion into enemy territory. 2 a brief but spirited attempt to become involved in a new activity. Sometimes you come across a word so many times in newspapers that you don’t realize how inappropriate the usage has become over time. I was reminded of this recently when a headline about Telugu film star Chiranjeevi had him making a foray into politics. The facts where that the actor had dithered about jumping into politics for so many months that it wasn’t a sudden attack and I can bet he isn’t... (more...)
