Blue Marble Earth

Nasa has released never seen before beautiful images of the earth. Large files are available in Nasa's flickr account.
Doesn't this make you wonder if we should try to colonize the Moon and Mars or save our planet from the greed of man?

Social Media, Diplomacy, Governments and Dissidents

M.J.Akbar feels the ‘Power of Wealth’

I got a little curious when I saw M.J.Akbar’s article in the Times of India withdrawn. A google search led me to the original article in his personal blog. Starting with his usual BJP bashing he goes on to compare the settlement between the Ambani brothers with the medieval English mode of settlement. He says “… unacceptable in more egalitarian times, but in our country the elder brother still has the edge. This is why Mukesh Ambani received nearly three-fourths of the Dhirubhai empire, and Anil accepted such an unequal settlement”. He continues, “Businessmen are often called barons or the new 'Moghuls', but this is not a license to behave like a Mughal, consolidating power by eliminating kin”. If you think he has too much love for Anil, his next paragraph sets it right.

He contrasts the Ambani family with another unnamed media Moghul family (Goenkas of Indian Express?) who he says possess the 'wealth of power’ (as opposed to the ‘power of wealth’ of the Ambanis) and have “turned a kingdom into an empire in exemplary harmony, offering a template”.

There is no prize for guessing why the Times of India withdrew this article.

Hyderabad – Is your BCP in place?

The Pro-Telangana parties have announced an indefinite bandh from December 29th if the center fails to announce a specific timeframe for the formation of Telangana. Leaving politics aside, this is a serious issue for the companies that have operations in Hyderabad. Hyderabad has been tense for the last 3 days though the pro-Telangana groups had postponed the band due to Christmas.

There are no signs of normalcy returning soon. The Home Ministry too seems to have recognized this and has asked the CII to move its Partership Summit to Chennai, from Hyderabad where it was scheduled to be held from January 21st to 23rd. So it is clear that the government does not expect normalcy to return even by January 21st. This may become the biggest test for the Business Continuity Processes (BCP) of companies having operations in Hyderabad. Though companies have well defined BCPs, the last time when it was put to use was during the Mumbai floods of 2005 which was for a relatively shorter period of time. While it may be easier for the IT and services companies to use other centers, Hyderabad has a number of pharmaceutical companies which may be worst affected. This is yet another instance of mishandling of a political issue by the government resulting in losses for the private sector.

When Andhra and Rayalaseema regions were agitating against Telangana, Hyderabad was relatively quiet. But any agitation in Telangana is bound to affect Hyderabad as Hyderabad is in the heart of Telangana. Apparently the government has failed to take the concerns of the Hyderabad industry into consideration or the Hyderabad industry has failed to put pressure on the government to solve the issue without it getting affected.

Forced marriage of 15 year old Hindu girl legal under Muslim law!

The Calcutta High Court has given bail to a Muslim man, who allegedly forcibly married a 15 year old Hindu girl. While allowing the bail the high court has accepted that the marriage is perfectly legal under the Muslim Personal Law. While the possibility of the girl herself eloping with the man cannot be discounted, we need to consider the fact that if the man was not a Muslim the marriage would have been annulled due to the simple fact that the girl is a minor. This issue raises some questions.

• How can child marriages be allowed for a specific religion while it has been outlawed for others due to the fact that it is harmful to the physical and psychological wellbeing of a child/adolescent?
• How can the marriage of a Hindu girl come under Muslim Personal Law even if the guy is Muslim?
• If the girl had converted before marriage, how does the law allow the conversion of a minor while holding that they are not mature enough to even vote before they are 18?
• If child marriages are legal under the Muslim Personal Law, can anybody convert to Islam, marry and then reconvert to their original religion? Is this not a loophole in the law that was meant to protect children from this social evil?

Though this issue raises these important questions it has largely been ignored by the media which runs it under a rather nondescript headline. Where are the human rights activists? Where are the child rights activists?

How to prevent your works from being plagiarised?

Of late I am seeing many bloggers complaining about their articles and images being used without permission or proper citation even by the mainstream media. Shrinidhi Hande tells about his experience with HT Brunch here. Then I came across this article from spyrestudios, that explains how you can prevent your works from being plagiarised. Jon Phillips has given some good ideas and links to prevent copyright theft. A must read.

Do Smaller States Lead to Better Growth?

After the announcement of the formation of Telangana this is the question that is asked by many in the blogosphere and the media. Recently I made a comment on Sush’s blog for the question and I saw the same discussion in Shantanu’s blog too. While Shantanu had raised the question whether smaller states will lead to better governance, Sush had also raised the question whether smaller states will lead to better infrastructure and so better progress as capital cities need better infrastructure. Many pointed to the success of small states like Uttarakhand, Haryana and Himachal and the poor state of Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. Here is my comment on this.

Smaller states may be efficient but we cannot say that it is always true. Division cannot be done on caste/ethnic/religious lines. All demands need to be considered but all demands need not be accepted. There should be a limit on the minimum size required for a region to be state. A state cannot be created out of a district. Creation of a state may not always mean better infrastructure. My brother-in-law recently went to Patna and he was shocked to find that there is no proper public transport even in the capital of Bihar. It may lead to more fiscal deficit, as governments are spendthrifts. It may also lead to the domination of one group which is majority in the state as smaller states tend to have lesser groups that normally balance against each other in larger states. This is a very important factor that we need to consider.

Another important factor I noticed was that the GDP Per Capita of a state directly correlates with  the literacy ratio, except for north-eastern states+Bengal+Orissa. For Uttarakhand too the GDP per capita is slightly less than the national average though its literacy ratio is higher than the national average. This may be due to the fact that it is a relatively young state.

The low GDP of Bengal, Orissa and north-eastern states may be due to factors such as government inaction, government’s inability to attract industries, and other factors like geographical remoteness, long term militancy, lack of proper connection with the main land, etc.

On the other hand all the states with literacy ratio less than the national average invariably have a GDP Per Capita that is less than the national average.

Andhra Pradesh with its literacy rate of 63.7% has a Per Capita GDP of Rs 30,480. In Andhra Pradesh it is Telangana that has the lowest literacy rate. So if Telangana is to be a success the new government coming up there should focus on education.