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Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardane are loved by millions of cricket fans. They are gentle off the field but ferocious warriors on it. The ICC T20 World Cup ongoing in Dhaka, Bangladesh will be a fitting farewell to those legendary batting arms. May the best team win!!!
…..
If Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s Indians win,
they will become the first team to hold all three major limited-overs
titles, having won the 50-over World Cup in 2011 and the Champions
Trophy last year.

Sri Lanka will seek an end to an inexplicable
losing streak in title matches, after being beaten twice in World Cup
finals in 2007 and 2011 and the World Twenty20 finals in 2009 and 2012.

A
fitting farewell to veterans Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene in
their last T20 international game and a million-dollar winning bonus
offered by officials back home will further inspire the Sri Lankans.
….
regards

IOO map is not well thought out….India (and South Asia) is much more religiously diverse than Canada (or Australia) for example. Also in our opinion the religious diversity in Islamic countries and in particular Iran is undercounted (Bahais for example may fear exclusion).

…
While being a Muslim majority country, Pakistan is more
religiously diverse than 48 other countries of the world including
Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Maldives, Romania and the Vatican City, says a
new study.

According to the Pew Research Center study,
Pakistan does rank amongst the countries with low religious diversity,
but its population makeup keeps it ahead of 48 nations.
The
country scores a total of 0.8 on a scale of 0 to 10, with 96.4 per cent
of its population Muslims, 1.9 per cent Hindus, 1.6 per cent Christians,
and all other religions less than 0.1 per cent.

The Religious
Diversity Index (RDI) calculates diversity based on national population
shares of eight major world religions (Buddhists, Christians, folk
religions, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, other religions considered as a group,
and the religiously unaffiliated).

The index divides the
countries into four ranges: very high (the top 5 per cent of scores),
high (the next highest 15 per cent of scores, which works out to 16 per
cent because of tie scores), moderate (the next 20 per cent of scores)
and low (the bottom 59 per cent of scores). A score of 10 indicates the
maximum possible diversity if each of the eight groups constitutes an
equal share of the population.

The countries ranking the highest
on the index include Singapore 9.0, Taiwan 8.2, Vietnam 7.7, Suriname
7.6, Guinea-Bissau 7.5, Togo 7.5, Ivory Coast 7.4, South Korea 7.4,
China 7.3, Hong Kong 7.2, Benin 7.2, Mozambique 7.0.

With a score
of 4.0, India ranks amongst countries with moderate religious diversity.
Countries on the moderate range include the US, UAE, Russia, Nepal, and
the UK, among others.

The three countries with the least
religiously diverse population are the Vatican City, Morocco, and
Tokelau – all with a score of 0. They are followed closely by Iran,
Romania, Tunisia, Timor-Leste, Somalia and Afghanistan.
 ….
regards

It is most impressive that an Ummah that is unable to join up in mitigating large-scale injustices can nevertheless find time (and unity) for banning movies. The virus has now spread to other communities as well for behaving in an equally foolish manner.If religious people are so offended by (presumably) even respectful depictions of their religion and idols then they should stop watching movies, reading books and listening to music. Why make life miserable for everybody else??

….
Malaysia
has joined other Islamic countries in banning the Hollywood biblical
epic “Noah” starring Russell Crowe, decrying it as irreligious and
saying it violates Islamic law against depicting prophets.

The
film has already angered some Christian institutions in the United
States over Crowe’s reportedly unconventional portrayal of Noah, who is
regarded as an important figure in both Christianity and Islam.

Malaysia’s home ministry’s Film Censorship Board unit chairman Abdul
Halim Abdul Hamid said a decision to ban the Noah film was made about
two weeks ago. “Yes, I can confirm that it has been banned by
the board, the movie can cause quite a lot of anger and distress if it
is shown in Malaysia,” he was quoted as saying by The Malay Mail Online.

Neighbouring Indonesia, Egypt and United Arab Emirates have banned the film because of scenes they say contradict Islam. Malaysia has censored other movies on religious grounds in the past,
including Brokeback Mountain and The Passion of the Christ
….

regards

The momentum is unquestionably with the Man. And unless massive amount of cooking the books is going on by corporate media (not out of the question) then the signals are flashing danger. Be afraid, be very afraid.

It is almost as if the “vote for secularism” mantra being preached by virulent communalists to their sheep like folk is causing the (equally foolish) Hindu masses to join up in mass revolt. It is a sign of the times and nothing good will come from polarizing communities.  

The original credit for this development of ghetto mentality of course belongs to the proponents of the 2-nation theory. If you sow the wind-seeds for fracturing communities be prepared to reap the whirlwind of communal massacres. If you tilt at windmills of “Islam khatre mein” then be prepared to face the real dark forces head on (and the worst enemies are actually lined up behind you).

The
NDA could come within touching distance of the majority mark in the Lok
Sabha, two separate polls done for TV channels predicted on Friday.
While one gave the BJP and its allies 259 seats, just 13 short of the
272 needed for a majority, the other gave the saffron alliance between
234 and 246 seats.

A key difference between the two polls is
that while the first one, done by Hansa Research for NDTV, includes the
TDP among the BJP’s allies, the second one, conducted by CSDS-Lokniti
for CNN-IBN does not. Considering that the CNN-IBN poll predicted 13-19
seats for TDP, including this would mean both polls are making almost
exactly the same predictions, at least at the pan-India level.

The BJP on its own will win 214 seats predicted the poll done by Hansa
Research for NDTV, and the one done by CSDS-Lokniti for CNN-IBN forecast
a similar tally of 206-218. If these predictions come true, Narendra
Modi will certainly be India’s next prime minister riding on the
strongest ever showing by his party in a general election.

The
UPA will win 123 seats according to the NDTV poll and 111-123 according
to the CNN-IBN poll. Of this, the Congress will win 104 or 94-106 seats,
depending on which poll one looks at. Either way, it would be the
party’s lowest tally in a Lok Sabha election eclipsing the previous low
of 114 in 1999.

…..

regards

When the first cold war ended, it was the Golden Arches that rolled past the gates of Sevastopol.

A new cold war is about to start and the first shot heard round the world is a Burger Royale strike in Crimea. In retaliation Russia is proposing to close all McD outlets in the Father-land.
……
“Due to operational
reasons beyond our control, McDonald’s has taken the decision to
temporarily close our three restaurants in Simferopol, Sevastopol and
Yalta,” a spokeswoman said. The Crimean outlets are not franchises, but owned and operated by McDonald’s itself.

The closures follow Geneva-based Universal Postal Deutsche Post’s
announcement that it was no longer accepting letters bound for Crimea as delivery to the region was no longer guaranteed.

Economic relations between Russia and Ukraine have worsened since
Russia annexed Crimea last month in response to the ousting of
Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovich after months of street
protests in Kiev.

Targeted sanctions imposed on a number of
prominent Russians by the United States and the European Union have
alarmed some foreign investors.

Russia raised the price it
charges Ukraine for gas on Thursday for the second time this week,
almost doubling it in three days by cancelling previous discounts. While
that may hurt Russian sellers, it piles pressure on a Ukraine teetering
on the brink of bankruptcy.

Russian riot police last month took control of a factory belonging to a
Ukrainian confectionery magnate in the city of Lipetsk as part of an
investigation into the company’s affairs, the Ukrainian government has
said.

Ukraine this week temporarily banned seven Russian food companies from selling some of their products on Ukrainian territory.

McDonald’s said it hoped to resume work as soon as possible but said it
would help relocate staff to work in mainland Ukraine, signaling it did
not expect its Crimean businesses to reopen in the near future.

The company’s decision was welcomed by the deputy speaker of the
Russian parliament, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, known for his anti-Western
rhetoric, who demanded that McDonald’s pull its business out of Russia
entirely. “It would be good if they closed here too … if they
disappeared for good. Pepsi-Cola would be next,” Russian media quoted
Zhirinovsky as saying.

McDonald’s, which currently operates more than 400
restaurants in Russia, was the first international fast-food chain to
tap the Russian market when it opened in Moscow’s Pushkin Square before
the collapse of the Soviet Union. That branch had the highest sales and served the most customers of any McDonald’s outlet in 2012.

A Russian backlash again McDonald’s products would have a significant
impact on company profits. McDonald’s sees Russia as one of its top
seven major markets outside the United States and Canada, according to
its 2013 annual report.

However Russian moves to shun
McDonald’s burgers could easily backfire, according to Russian newswire
RBK, which detailed Russian food suppliers to McDonald’s that would
suffer as a result. 

….

regards

A few months before, we happened to see Bhutto in Kot Lakhpat prison. We had gone there to meet my uncle (who was locked up there for trying to launch an earlier coup against Bhutto!) and Bhutto and family and his lawyer Yahya Bakhtyar happened to be in the entrance corridor of the prison. My father stepped foward said salam and Bhutto smiled and salaamed back. I dont remember if there was any other conversation. But he looked over us and nodded and smiled. My mother was anti-Bhutto those days (because he had put her brother in jail) but for several minutes after that she was just speechless. His charisma was very striking. I have not hobnobbed with any great leaders, but Zia came to our parents day ih school and I explained our model of a nuclear power plant to him (I was president of the chemistry club and nuclear power was the patriotic thing)  and he was the furthest thing from “charisma”. Bhutto on the other hand had an absolutely electric presence. I have no clue why or how. My father, who was pro-Bhutto, had a field day with my mother’s having succumbed so completely to his charm with just one smile and Salam.

A friend from south Punjab wrote this comment about his memory: That was very sad day, very sad. I was in school in Bahawal Nagar. I remember my dad was going to for a wedding but he returned home, about half an hour after he left home. He said something is not right, there is something very bad in atmosphere, he noticed movements of army in the town. …….. When the news came out, I saw women wailing on the streets, literally like someone close, a brother, father or son had died. People were so sad, they cancelled any joyful activity. That day in Bahawal Nagar I hardly saw any eye without tears. I did not understand well enough then, but now I know how much he was genuinely loved by people, poor people whom he gave recognition, a voice, an identity.

Another friend from Lahore had this to say: Hero for some in Punjab and Sindh but villain for all Balouch & Bengal, he is the person who declared Ahmadis a minority, murdered political workers in Balochistan, ordered ban on Alcohol, opium & Bhang and helped establish control of organisations like Jamaat Islami supported JTI in educational institutions, the list is very long.

After the above comment, I thought one could add the fact that Bhutto was the big daddy of both the Kashmir war of 1965 (and therefore of the “hard separation” of pakistan and India that only became fact after that, and of the later Kashmir Jihad) and the Afghan Jihad (not called Jihad back then…the CIA and ISI came up with that term later…at the time it was just a Paknationalist operation against Afghanistan run by the “Afghan cell” that recruited such luminaries as Islamist acid-thrower Gulbuddin Hikmatyar to start activities against the pro-Pakhtoonistan regime of Mohammed Daood in Afghanistan). He was also the one who put the emphasis on Pan-Islamism to compensate for the “loss” of Bangladesh and organized the “Islamic summit” in Lahore. These trends were never his sole property, but he certainly worked for all of them. I am sure there are others I am missing right now. But he was also killed by Zia, which compensates for many many crimes. Now safely dead, he is a martyr for people who are generally against all of these evil things…

In any case, the feelings he evoked in people and the kind of people he mobilized into politics are a separate issue and may still evoke a warm glow when many of his own actual choices do not. I am thinking also of the way many third world leftists felt (or can still feel) about terrible events like the Soviet revolution and the Chinese revolution and about mass murderers like Stalin and Mao who killed millions and destroyed the life and culture of so many captive nationalities…. The feelings of the admirers can be sincere and well meaning and can even evoke sympathy when the actions of the “leaders” were not at all what their distant fans imagined them to be. …I have to flesh this thought out. But this connects with the thought that in countries like Pakistan where “people’s revolution” is not even a distant possibility, the role of the “Left” is frequently positive. They stand for human rights, for protection against police brutality and high-handedness, for worker’s rights, for women’s rights, for better public education and better basic healthcare, for the rights of smaller nationalities and minority religions. They are at the forefront of efforts to support the language and culture of Pakistan’s nationalities against the imposition of Paknationalist monoculture. They do a lot of good work, especially in resisting the dominant Paknationalist cultural fascism. Suppose one could continue all that without slipping too far into higher level “class-based political analysis” and other such formulaic jokes (not an impossible task…many leftists repeat those formulas but actually work for mainstream parties and function pretty normally in mainstream “bourgeois politics”).. it would not make anyone happy, but….
Its just a thought.

It is right and proper to have this patriotic news stored away in the recesses of your brain, it is even better to share with your top 1% friends (if you have the good fortune to know any).

 Language, familiarity with
western culture and a willingness to move are the key reasons Indians
are getting more top jobs in the US than the Chinese, who see more
opportunity and good pay at home.

So suggests a Wall Street
Journal report citing the success of chief executives such as PepsiCo’s
Indra Nooyi, Deutsche Bank’s Anshu Jain and MasterCard’s Ajay Banga and
the recent appointment of India-born Satya Nadella as Microsoft CEO.

While “language and familiarity with Western culture are the obvious
reasons” for their successes in the US, the Indians are also “more
willing to move than Chinese”, it says citing headhunters.

Chinese pay is just
one-fifth lower than the average level in the US, according to a survey
of technology companies by Aon Hewitt, a human resource consulting
company cited by the newspaper.

“While India remains a tough
place to live, China has become more comfortable in recent years,
ranking as the No. 1 country for expatriates in an HSBC survey,” it
says.

Even those Chinese executives who move away to escape
pollution and a slowing economy are more likely to land in Hong Kong or
Singapore than get real international experience in markets such as
Southeast Asia or Latin America, the Journal said. .
…

regards

It is true enough that being a girl in India is a fate-bed strewn with thorns. Still while illegal torture by random monsters is hard, nothing is as ghastly as the state taking on the role of Daddy monster (and dont you know that the dictums are for the good of women…).

…
A 10-year-old girl who is pregnant with twins after she was raped by a
neighbour has been forced to continue with her pregnancy after human rights campaigners lost their fight to secure a legal route to abortion.

The
plight of the girl, who is five months pregnant and lives in Ziguinchor
in the south, highlights the heavy cost women and children are paying
for a Napoleonic law on abortion that is still in force in the former French colony.

“She
is going to have to go through with the pregnancy,” said Fatou Kiné
Camara, president of the Senegalese women lawyers’ association. “The
best we can do is keep up pressure on the authorities to ensure the girl
gets regular scans and free medical care.

“Senegal’s abortion law is one of the harshest and deadliest in Africa.
A doctor or pharmacist found guilty of having a role in a termination
faces being struck off. A woman found guilty of abortion can be jailed
for up to 10 years.”

“For
a termination to be legal in Senegal, three doctors have to certify
that the woman will die unless she aborts immediately. Poor people in
Senegal are lucky if they see one doctor in their lifetime, let alone
three,” Camara said.

“A single medical certificate costs
10,000 CFA francs ($20), which is prohibitive. We had a previous case of
a raped nine-year-old who had to go through with her pregnancy. We paid
for her caesarean but she died a few months after the baby was born,
presumably because the physical trauma of childbirth was too great.”
The women lawyers’ association is lobbying MPs to align Senegal’s abortion legislation with the African charter on women’s rights, which the country ratified 10 years ago. Its provisions – legal medical abortion in cases of rape and incest, or where a woman’s physical or mental health is threatened – have never been added to the statute book.

“Most of the calls are from rural people and
concern property rights and access to land,” said Aminata Samb, 25, a
law graduate who works with the association. “This morning a woman rang
to say her husband had married another woman and was no longer taking
care of her and her children. I inform the callers of their legal rights
and tell them where to turn, should they want to exercise them. But
many women just want to tell their story again and again. It makes them
feel better.”
…

regards

Amartya Sen can now get a second Nobel prize by pointing out that while democracies on the whole manage to avoid famines, they can still manage to condemn people to malnutrition, while the equivalent wheat production of Australia manages to rot away or worse.
….
Most of you may know that India produces
more food than we can consume. In fact, India has been self sufficient
in food for at least the last three decades, having “achieved self- sufficiency in food production in the late 1970s (1)”. And yet hunger in India remains at alarming levels. More children remain malnourished in India than any part of the world (almost 40% of the world’s total according to some estimates).


What most of you may not know is that India wastes a quantity of wheat equivalent to the entire production of Australia every year, of which 21 million tonnes perishes every year due to a lack of inadequate storage and distribution (2). Worse, up to 40 percent of the country’s food harvest rots before it gets to the market, thanks to inadequate cold storage facilities and transport bottlenecks.

 

A report from 2008 highlighted the scale of mismanagement and callous neglect of food storage:  “Over
10 lakh tonnes of foodgrains worth several hundred crores of rupees,
which could have fed over one crore hungry people for a year, were
damaged in..(FCI) godowns during the last one decade (between 1997 – 2007).”

Shockingly, “Rs 2.59 crore was spent just to dispose off the rotten foodgrains”.  

 
Responding to an RTI query last year, FCI admitted that “over 17,500 tonnes of foodgrain lying in its godowns got destroyed in the last three years (alone)”. This abysmal state of affairs has seen foodgrains being stored in classrooms, grains being burnt and stocks being infested with worms.
 
A pernicious side-effect of rotten grains in godowns is the sight
of good quality grains being left in the open since valuable space has
been taken up by grains unfit for consumption.

 
Ironically, even as food production has soared in the last few years, storage capacity has actually decreased. This report by Kamayani Mahabal mentions
how Government owned storage capacity actually fell to 32.1 million
tonnes in 2009 from 36.7 million tonnes in 2004. This was UPA-I.

UPA-II was not much of an improvement. While “..total foodgrains
stock in the Central Pool recorded an increase of 45.8 million tonnes
between 2006-07 and 2011-12; FCI increased its storage space through
hiring or owned space only to the extent of 8.4 million tonnes (18
percent)…Its owned storage capacity increased by mere 0.4 million
tonnes during the period” (3).

What’s worse, even the existing capacity – woefully inadequate as it was – was not being utilised fully. “The
auditor (CAG) observed that utilization of existing storage capacity in
various states and union territories was less than 75% in the majority
of the months between 2006-07 and 2011-12.” 

In case of fruits and vegetables – items that perish easily – lack of proper storage makes the situation worse. An ASSOCHAM Study from 2013 estimated that “at least 30% of fruits and vegetables were rendered unfit for consumption due
to spoilage after harvesting, negligent attitudes, absence of food
processing units and unavailability of modern cold storages”. The study
also noted that barely 22% of produced fruits and vegetables reach the
wholesale market in India.


Dr JP Narayan of LokSatta has noted that “Post-harvest losses of perishable commodities exceeds Rs 100,000 crores or Rs one trillion per annum”.
…

regards

The figures are in and they are truly impressive (given the horrible market condition). The Mahindra and Mahindra Scorpio wins the top spot defeating the Renault Duster and the Ford Ecosport. We are actually surprised, we thought that the Eco Sport was very good looking and very well priced and Ford was actually having difficulty in ramping up their production (which is perhaps one reason for lower sales volume). Nevertheless amidst all the extreme gloominess the SUV market has managed to remain in (relatively) better shape.


Unlike FY13, when the utility vehicle (UV) segment was growing by over 50%
to half a million units, the segment has been struggling since the
beginning of FY14 due to constant rise in diesel prices. The UV segment,
between April and February of FY14, posted a decline of 5% year-on-year
to 4.77 lakh unit.