Terror sans frontiers

The recent car bomb scare in central London last week has brought the terrorism to a new level. This is the first time when a person of Indian origin was found in terrorist related activities. It just end at that, the person invovled were all doctors. Traditionally, high skilled people including doctors and engineers were always viewed as low risk as they are not the typical mercenaries or brain washed people trained to kill or do suicide bombings. This has certainly elevated it to a new level.
This reminds me of the Al Banna's brotherhood in Egypt, which was made up of middle class muslims most of whom were professionals inclding doctors, engg, architects etc... Sayyid Qutb the guide for the brotherhood is also supposed to have inspired Osama in his early days.
On one hand this seems to be an amateur operations and not backed by Al Qaeda and the likes as he seems to have done his research and operated on his own, the comment by one of AQ leaders saying "Those who cure you will kill you" could mean a possibe connection. Even if not, thier network seemed to have caught this that the MI-5 did not.
The bigger concern is the Indian muslims had never been involved in the world of terror outside. This Indian connection seems to be scary... Al qaeda seems to be spreading like a Mc Donald franchise. They are backing up groups from Indonesia to Kashmir to Iraq to London. I think we need to re-think and take a new approach to curb this terrorism. But one thin is certain; Contrary to the generally accepted dogma, education does not stop terrorism !

"The Dogs Of War"
- Pink Floyd
Dogs of war and men of hate
With no cause, we don't discriminate
Discovery is to be disowned
Our currency is flesh and bone
Hell opened up and put on sale
Gather 'round and haggle
For hard cash, we will lie and deceive
Even our masters don't know the web we weave
One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world ... One world
Invisible transfers, long distance calls,
Hollow laughter in marble halls
Steps have been taken, a silent uproar
Has unleashed the dogs of war
You can't stop what has begun
Signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion
We all have a dark side, to say the least
And dealing in death is the nature of the beast
One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world ... One world
The dogs of war won't negotiate
The dogs of war don't capitulate,
They will take and you will give,
And you must die so that they may live
You can knock at any door,
But wherever you go, you know they've been there before
Well winners can lose and things can get strained
But whatever you change, you know the dogs remain.
One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world ... One world

Ban Chinese take out!!!

Be it India or the US, you can't be a mile away from a chinese take out. There are more hakka noodle stalls in Mumbai than the junka bhaker stalls.

Yesterday's ban on Chinese made tooth paste in the US is yet another to the list of tainted food materials being discovered over the past few weeks.

A poison used in anti-freeze and brake fluids was found in toothpaste. FDA has asked consumers not to use Chinese made toothpaste and has withdrawn the toothpaste from the market. US estimatedly brought $3.3 Million worth of tooth paste last year.

Last month the market was flooded with the withdrawal of pet foods after a banned chemical was found in the pet food. This seems to have come thr' the use of melamine in the protien supplement. This also started a scare as similar protien glutamates are supposedly used in the cereal bars too.

Even though these are the one's that made news and might bring a lot of companies into legal pursuits, the list does'nt end here. There were 107 food imports from China that was detained by the FDA, along with over a 1000 shipments of chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfiet chinese medicines.
This includes
Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical
Frzen catfish laden with banned antibiotics
scallops and sardines with petrefying bacteria
Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides

With the chinese imports in the food sector crossing $7 billion this year, this raising a big concern. Even though the senate went to the extreme of considering banning all food imports from China, the lure of the cheap imports is too much for the US capitalistic market. The FDA is negotiating with Chinese diplomats to add more stringent tests and regulations on the imports. They want to impose more tests in the shop floor so as to avoid huge contaminations.
What would this mean to the consumers? Would the food items be more expensive just because it needs to go thr' all these tests? Should we go more organic?

But in the interim, should I resist the chinese take out!!!

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
- Albert Einstein

Socialistic Myth

In continuation of my previous two blogs on how the so called socialism can turn against you; here's yet another parable that depicts our so called socialistic justice.

________________________________________________

OLD VERSION.....

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MODERN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house.
Medha Patkar goes on a fast alongwith other grasshoppers demanding that grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter.
Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticizes the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the grasshopper.
The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance).
Opposition MP's stage a walkout. Left parties call for "Bharat Bandh" in West Bengaland Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry. CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among ants and grasshoppers.

Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Rath'.
Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act [POTAGA]", with effect from the beginning of the winter.

The ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and,having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it "a triumph of justice". Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice'. CPM calls it the 'revolutionary resurgence of the downtrodden'
Koffi Annan invites the grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.

*****************************************************
Many years later...
The ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi billion dollar company in silicon valley.

100s of grasshoppers die of starvation somewhere in India.
_______________________________________________
So Mr Prime Minister, you want to make sure that you stay on the right course. We are at a stage where the brain drain is on a low and a lot of guys are looking at making a come back to India. You do not want this trend to stop.

Jago manMohan Pyare

Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!

I have immense respect for our Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. He has been an extraordinary technocrat who has always kept the country ahead of himself (except for the political compromizations thanks to Sonia Gandhi!!). However, I am terribly dissapointed by the comment he made in the latest CII meeting where he quoted the following:
- The CEO's are paid way too much
- They shoudl not do a lavish display of money in society for family events and weddings etc..
- Media should not display these vulgar display of wealth
- rising income and wealth inequaltiies, if not matched by corresponding rise of income across the nation, can lead to social unrest.

Let me tell you the basic facts
The CEO's as well as the entrepreneurs are the people who help the society by providing jobs, creating wealth for the nation, keeping us on par with the world, making us competetive with the rest of the world.
Simple economics tells us that the mroe the people (read rich) spend the better the economy as the money flows down the chain. If they just saved and saved then the service industry, the tourism industry, the infrastructure etc.. would all be affected.
Thier vision, focus and execution is important to keep us in the race.

The general public should look up to these leaders and get inspired by them and not instigated by thier social standing. We are not in socialistic old Russia. Entrepreneurs and CEO's should be rewarded. I am inspired by them and wish to follow on thier footsteps. Let's learn to generate wealth and not be a leacher.

The government should make policies that help conduce a better environment for entreprenual spirit. They should decrease red tapism, corrupt administration, vulgar spending on loss making government enterprise, excessive IAS babus.
They should promote entrepreneurship, make pur policies more flexible to encourage new business, promote FDI into newer sectors including infrastructure and energy, try to put a long term plan to social security, better health initiatives accessbile to all.

It is not right to curb down the business man to bring thier income down coz the govt failed to provide polciies to increase the income of the poor.

Dr Singh, you turned around our economy by opening up our economy and making us globally competetive. Why try to take a step back!!! Don't go left Mr President.

The poor do not need charity; they need inspiration. Charity only sends them a loaf of bread to keep them alive in their wretchedness, or gives them an entertainment to make them forget for an hour or two. But inspiration can cause them to rise out of their misery. If you want to help the poor, demonstrate to them that they can become rich.

Taxation Demystified

An article pulled off the net but awesome.....

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve.

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings) .
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings) .
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got TEN times more than I!"
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We! didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, dear people, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

This was developed by Prof.David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D. Professor of Economics, University of Georgia