India's Claim to Fame in the Olympics

For a country of 1.1 billion people, India's claim to fame when it comes to the Olympics is that we have won 17 medal combined (gold, silver and bronze) since the year 1900 when the Olympics first started. Field Hockey accounts for half of these medals (8 medals). And the irony is that the Indian Field Hockey team will not be part of the Olympics in Beijing as they failed to qualify for this years event.

Keeping us company in this hall of shame are Venezuela with 10 medals, Israel with 6 medals, Taiwan with 15 and Peru with 4 medals.

Read my other Sports related postings.

Link obtained from Churumuri

Politicization and Incompetence of the Federal Government

With an internal investigation of the US Department of Justice revealing that top aides in the department took political and ideological affiliations into consideration when making decisions on hiring career attorney's, it calls into question the competence of the different departments under the current Bush administration and also begs the question "Under the current Bush administration, which department has not been politicized"?.

There is the Housing Development Authority whose secretary Alphonso Jackson had to resign after being accused of favoritism involving HUD contractors for two years. Also there is an ongoing investigation by the FBI and the Justice Department into whether he steered business to friends. All of this when the US housing market is facing its worst downturn in history.

Then there is the EPA where three prominent US Senators are calling for administrator Stephen Johnson to resign. The charge, he sided with polluters instead of fighting global warming and other ecological problems. In addition there were reports that a White House official altered memos highlighting the seriousness of Global Warming.

And who can forget the embattled former FEMA director Michael Brown and Bush's famous remark Brownie You Are Doing a Heck of a Job. All of this when the entire city of New Orleans was inundated with the flood waters from Hurrican Katrina.

These are but a few examples of the Bush administrations approach when it comes to selecting political appointees for different positions in the Federal Government. Instead of looking for competence and experience in their respective fields, candidates were screened based on their political affiliations and their ability the further the administrations ideological positions.

Shanties Pose Security Threat?

New Delhi police want some 1500 residents of a shanty town located behind the residence of Member of Parliament Rahul Gandhi to be removed as they pose a security threat to him. According to CNN IBN the presence of these shanties, which are located in the back lanes of houses of various Members of Parliament (MP's) and other VVIPs, has been giving sleepless nights to security agencies that are working overtime to maintain security.

God forbid if something were to happen to our MP's and VVIP's then who would run this country? It doesn't matter that scores of common people die in bomb blasts and other violent incidents. Who cares about their security? It is the security of the privileged few, whom we the people elect as our representatives, that is of utmost importance. Let the billion people who elected them go to hell till its time for the next election.

East Meets West

To The Best of Our Knowledge,a weekly news program from Wisconsin Public Radio had an interesting discussion about the so called Clash of Civilizations as proposed by Samuel Huntington.

In addition the program also features a talk with the author of the bookThe Reluctant Fundamentalist, Moshin Hamid.

Are Indonesia's Forests Worth More Alive Then Dead?

This past week I watched a documentary on PBS titled Burning Season. Burning season follows a 29-year-old Australian “green” entrepreneur named Dorjee Sun as he pitches his ideas about reducing green house gas emission by selling Indonesia's carbon credits to polluters in the West. The idea is fairly simple. For every ton of carbon dioxide that you generate, you will pay Dorjee Sun's company a certain amount of money which he will invest in protecting the forests of Indonesia and selling their carbon credits which will then offset the carbon produced by others.

If global warming continues to be the hot button issue that it is today, then carbon will be in new gold in the near future and carbon trading will be the next big industry. Entrepreneur like Dorjee Sun are making the right moves so that when time comes, they will be well positioned to be the dominant players in the global carbon trading markets.

Hospitals Killing ER Patients?

Slate had an article by two Emergency Room Physicians about how the Emergency Rooms across the country are having a problem with large waiting time for patients to be seen by the physicians and boarding of patients (patients wait in the ER's for an Inpatient bed due to the Inpatient beds been full) in the ER's. According to the authors, hospitals have a huge financial incentive to keep the patients boarded in the ER.

Having worked in a local ER in Columbus, OH for the last three years, trying to tackle this same issue, I had to chime in with my two cents on this topic. Below is my response to the article which is also posted on Slate.

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Though I agree that boarding of patients in the ER is a huge problem in all of the ER's across the country, I disagree with the authors point of view that patients are boarded in the ER because there is a financial incentive to do so.

Assuming the authors point that boarded patients are mostly uninsured or underinsured, which can be disputed as well, aren't the boarded patients occupying ER resources in terms of nursing and physician time for which the hospital is responsible for if the patient cannot pay for the same. Also they are occupying a valuable ER bed which can be used for treating the next patient coming in.

Ultimately 99% of these boarded patients will be transferred to the Inpatient floors where they will consume the same amount of resources, as they would have before, if they were not boarded. So I do not see the financial incentive of keeping these patients boarded in the ED. Infact I see the opposite or more of an incentive to get the patients out because they will be consuming more resources then is necessary.

Patients are boarded in the ER not because a hospital has a financial incentive to do so, but because there are so many inefficient and redundant processes both in the ER and on the inpatient floors. There are a lot of factors that contribute to these inefficiencies including when physicians round on the floor, mismatch between the peak discharge time and peak admission time, poor communication between the various individuals involved in moving the patients through the system including ER and Inpatient nursing, bed cleaning, transportation etc.

Attributing boarding to a financial incentive would be a wrong way to approach this problem. Infact the focus should be on ironing out the inefficiencies and improving the processes in the ER and Inpatient floors.
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Why Terrorists Hit So Often in India?

* May 13, 2008: Eight blasts rock Jaipur in a span of 12 minutes leaving 65 dead and over 150 injured.
* January 2008: Terrorist attack on Central Reserve Police Force camp in Rampur kills eight.
* October 2007: 2 killed in a blast inside Ajmer Sharif shrine during Ramadan, in Rajasthan.
* August 2007: 32 dead, 35 hurt in Hyderabad 'terror' strike.
* May 2007: A bomb at Mecca mosque in Hyderabad kills 11 people.
* February 19, 2007: Two bombs explode aboard a train bound from India to Pakistan, burning to death at least 66 passengers, most of them Pakistanis.
* September 2006: 30 dead and 100 hurt in twin blasts at a mosque in Malegaon, Maharashtra.
* July 2006: Seven bombs on Mumbai's trains kill over 200 and injure 700 others.
* March 2006: Twin bombings at a train station and a temple in Varanasi kill 20 people.
* October 2005: Three bombs placed in busy New Delhi markets a day before Diwali kill 62 people and injure hundreds.

The above list is but a few of the most recent terrorist attacks to hit various cities in India. As can be seen from the list above, terror has struck at temples, mosques, trains, markets etc. And with Bangalore being added to the list of places where terror has struck, it begs the question, "Why are terrorist attacks so common in India?"

E.R. Ramachandran in an excellent article on Churumuri explores the reasons why India gets hit by terror so often.

What is Neoconservatism?

Ever wondered what Neoconservatism is and what do NeoCons stand for? Joe Klein in his weekly political column for the Time magazine writes and I quote, "Neoconservatism in foreign policy is best described as unilateral bellicosity cloaked in the utopian rhetoric of freedom and democracy."

Read the complete political column.

The Indo-US Nuclear Deal Debate

The ruling UPA may have obtained the majority vote in the two day debate on the Indo-US nuclear deal in the Indian Parliament. But was the debate really about debating the merits of the Indo-US nuclear deal? Heck no... It was a political mud-slinging match to see which party can paint the other in a poor light so that they can have an upper hand in next years parliamentary elections.

But nothing was more dramatic and shameful then when the three BJP Members of Parliament stormed the well of the house displaying wads of cash claiming it was paid to them by one of the ruling coalition parties to abstain from voting on the deal.

It seemed as if every person in the August Hall of the parliament was motivated to get his or her pound of flesh at the expense of the other, so that he can be nominated by his or her party to contest the next election.

Krishna Prasad of churmuri fame put it best
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The fear of losing the nearest election is the only thing that motivates our netas. There is no higher, no greater, no nobler objective. And that applies to the Left to the Right and every shade of centre. Which is why so little of the two-day debate was about the intricacies of the agreement, and so much of it was about making the most out of now.
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Ban on Fast Food to Reduce Obesity

City of Los Angeles is considering a legislation that would ban opening of new fast food restaurants in the 32 miles stretch of the city. This raises many questions on the involvement of government regulation in choosing what we eat. Though I understand the obesity epidemic that is prevalent in most of the United States, but is not allowing fast food restaurants the right way to fight the problem of obesity.

In a truly free markets driven by buyers and sellers, market forces will take care of what type of food is right for a particular market. If consumers determine that fast food is bad for them then the demand for that would automatically go down and in turn there would not be a necessity of opening new fast food restaurants. In addition if restaurants determine that the demand for fast food does not exist, then that would force them to think about their menu forcing them to shift to a healthier menu. In fact this may be happening right now where most of the traditional fast food restaurants are offering healthier options like salads as part of their menu in response to consumer demand.

Artificially limiting the demand of certain types of food by government regulation is a step in the wrong direction. There are other better ways to approach this topic and one of them is providing better education on the nutritional value of the foods that we eat so that consumers can make better informed decisions on what is good and bad for them. And the money spent in providing this education is money well spent.

Read the complete article On Franchising

Thumbing Your Nose at High Gas Prices

In a satirical commentary for NPR, humorist Brian Unger reports on how Americas are thumbing their noses and displaying their displeasure at the high cost of gas.

Blogging as a Career

Who would have thought that Blogging would be this lucrative. MacRumors, a blog started by Dr. Arnold Kim, a physician by profession just as a hobby to trade gossip, facts and rumors about Apple has grown so popular that he has quit his career as a physician and starting blogging full-time.

New York Times reports that Dr. Kim’s Web site now attracts more than 4.4 million people and 40 million page views a month, according to Quantcast, making it one of the most popular technology Web sites.

Read the complete New York Time article at Blogging as a Career

Fannie and Freddie - Too Big to Fail?

Last few weeks on Wall Street have been as eventful as you can get. Concerns over the financial viability of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have taken a heavy toll on their stock price. Together they guarantee about $4.2 trillion in home mortgages or close to half of all the mortgages generated in the US.

But the events of last few weeks and the staggering amount involved have led the Bush administration to create some sort of a taxpayer backed bailout package. This is the second bailout package after the one offered to Bear Stearns. But this raises questions like are Fannie and Freddie too big to fail? Should the taxpayers be on the hook for all the bad decisions made by a few on Wall Street?

A New York Times article takes this a step further and questions if the United States a nation too big to fail.

Subprime Mortgage Crisis - The Funny Side

A satirical look at the Subprime Mortgage Crisis from a British point of view.




Watch other satirical Bird and Fortune videos

Universal Healthcare - A Reality

If you are thinking that I am day dreaming, then let me clarify that I am talking about Western Europe and not the United States when I mention Universal Healthcare.

With healthcare been a hot issue in this years presidential elections, and about 47 million Americans uninsured and many more underinsured, NPR is running a series on how countries in Western Europe have achieved Universal Health Care at a far lesser cost then that of the United States.

There are pros and cons in how each country has achieved this universal coverage. But there are some best practices that the US can adopt from the Western European model.

The Politics of Fear?

The satirical cover on the current issue of the New Yorker magazine raises some serious questions. Does the cartoon confirm the rumors that Barack Obama is a Muslim or does it dispel them? Does this cartoon further the politics of fear that has been played on the American public since the 9/11 attacks? Even though it is a satire, is there a line that needs to be drawn as to how far a satire can go? Will the American people see it cartoon as a satire or will they take it literally? How will this image affect Obama's political future and his presidential campaign? Should there be limits on the freedom of expression and speech?

The Ever Reliable Dabbawala

The Mumbai Dabbawalas or meal carriers have become the talk of the management consulting and Western Business world due to their efficient and error free rate of delivery of 170,000 meals to their destination each day. So famous have the dabbawalas become that Harvard Business School has produced a case study on them and their efficient logistics system which mostly relies on "human and social ingenuity" and does not use any technology.

Read the article on the dabbawalas in management trends section of the Economist magazine.

Where the World is Headed?

In this article published in Yale Global, Immanuel Wallerstein, discusses why a multipolar world must prepare for a relative decline in US power and the turbulence that may follow.

Nothing sums up the article better then the following few sentences
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We’ve moved into a truly multipolar world where the power of relatively weaker states is suddenly much greater. The Middle East this year is but one example: Turkey brokers long dormant negotiations between Syria and Israel. Qatar brokered a negotiated truce between fiercely opposed factions in Lebanon. Egypt seeks to broker negotiations between Hamas and Israel. The Palestinian Authority has resumed negotiations with Hamas. And the Pakistani government has entered into a de facto truce with the Taliban inside the zones bordering Afghanistan. What’s significant about each of these actions is that the United States opposed all of these negotiations and has simply been ignored - without serious consequences for any of the actors.
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This is Pretty Funny

Laloo Prasad Yadav the current railway minister in India is a comedians delight.

Watch this video of Laloo Yadav recite a poem in his Bihari twang about how he turned around the Indian Railways to a profitable enterprise and then translate that into English. Pretty funny.



Link obtained from Churumuri

Left's Demise?

The left parties decision to withdraw support to the UPA government in India over the Indo-US Nuclear Deal brings to a close a four year alliance that was brought together just to keep the communal parties i.e. BJP at bay.

When the UPA government came to power four years ago, the Left parties accounted for 22% of the ruling coalition providing them with an opportunity to establish themselves on the national stage. But alas as the last four years have proven, not only has the Left been a sour team player on the national stage, it has also lost its way in its traditional stronghold of West Bengal with defeats in the panchayat elections in Nandhigram and Singur and defeats in the civic body elections

In a blog posting for CNN IBN, Sagarika Ghosh writes an Open Letter to the Left highlighting the same topic.

Biofuels Caused Food Crisis

A secret report prepared by the World Bank, which has not been made public yet, cites that 75% of the world food prices increase can be attributed to increased use of biofuels.

According to the Guardian newspaper, Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush. It is a known fact that the current US administration blames the food crisis on rising demand in China and India

Time Magazine also had an article on how Ethanol is not a clean energy source it is made out to be.

Read the complete Guardian article biofuel caused food crisis

Also read my previous posts on Ethanol

Will India's Economic Boom End?

With inflation in India hitting a whopping 11.63%, questions have been raised about the long term sustainability of India's current economic boom. In his weekly column, Eye on India for the magazine Live Mint, columnist Nirvikar Singh argues that India can continue to sustain its growth rate despite what happens to the global economy provided the right set of policies are in place.

Read the complete article Surviving the Next Crisis

What a way to run the world

In today's world of globalization and shifting powers from the West to the East, the Economist magazine in its most recent editorial raises some very real questions.

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CLUBS are all too often full of people prattling on about things they no longer know about. On July 7th the leaders of the group that allegedly runs the world—the G7 democracies plus Russia—gather in Japan to review the world economy. But what is the point of their discussing the oil price without Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest producer? Or waffling about the dollar without China, which holds so many American Treasury bills? Or slapping sanctions on Robert Mugabe, with no African present? Or talking about global warming, AIDS or inflation without anybody from the emerging world? Cigar smoke and ignorance are in the air.
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Current challenges facing the world i.e. global warming, food crisis, oil crisis and terrorism etc, require genuine cooperation and a development of trust between the different continents. Its time to stop playing the blame game and the time to recognize that every country has a stake in fixing these problems. None of these problems can be fixed unilaterally and no country should make the mistake of thinking that it can tackle these problems unilaterally. This is even more reason to include the key stakeholders from the developed, developing and not so developed world. The future of the world depends on it.

Malnutrition getting worse in India

In a special report on the rising cost of food, BBC reports on the rising malnutrition in children in India. If you are interested in statistics, then about 60% of all the children in the state of Madhya Pradesh are malnourished. Thats abut 6 million children in a single state.

Adding insult to injury, a recent article in The Times of India reports that about one million tonnes of food grains were damaged when in storage in the Food Corporation of India storage facilities. According to this article, these grains could have fed 10 million people for an entire year. In other words, the wasted food grains could have fed all of the children in Madhya Pradesh for an entire year potentially saving them from malnutrition and may be even saving lives.

This would have saved mothers of these children from making a choice between seeing their child alive and thinking about where the next meal for this child is going to come from. This is a choice which no mother should need to make.

The War in Iraq - The Role of the US Media

In a weekly commentary titled the Listening Post on Al Jazeera TV , this video looks at the role of the US media in the lead up to the US invasion of Iraq.

With the release of a new tell all book by the former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, the role of the free press in the functioning of a democracy and its role in holding the government accountable for its actions is been debated.

Lawsuit over Ban on Guns at Atlanta Airport

When you are not allowed to carry guns on flights, a new state law allowing visitors to carry firearms at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport sounds ludicrous at best. In todays world of terrorist threats, when a simple mention of the word "bomb" can lead you to be detained, I can only imagine what would happen if you enter the airport with a gun in your possession.

Also why would anyone need to carry a gun with them to pickup or drop off a passenger. If somebody is worried about their personal safety, then the best alternative is to stay at home and not be at the airport.

Read more at Guns in Atlanta airport