Things Blight and Beautiful

India's Anti-Terrorism Medicine Is Worse Than The Disease

2011-12-14T14:34:00.000-08:00

It looks like terrorists merely have to start disrupting life for Indians and the authorities will finish the job for them. The damage done by them is too often magnified by the official response. I see more of this in my present visit to India and have been greeted with these instances since arriving here a few days back:

My Indian prepaid cell phone didn't work. My service had been blocked because my carrier is required to re-verify and obtain documentation of proof of address and identity plus a new picture of the owner after a while (6 months? A year? Two years? The frequency isn't clear.)

Visitors from abroad simply cannot get cell phones in their name even if they have valid documents and proof of identity. All carriers "officially" advised me to get it in the name of a local resident (I chose an uncle). The alternative is to pay international roaming fees that cost 50 to 100 times as much as an India based phone. As if paying an extra few hundred dollars will deter actual terrorists. The Nov. 26, 2008 Mumbai attackers used satellite phones anyway, and none of the steps taken prevents this.

I went to draw some rupees from my bank account with paltry balances only to find my bank account was on hold pending submission of documents. The bank folks explained this was required under a new KYC (Know Your Customer) policy thrust upon them by the Reserve Bank of India. And never mind I'd gone through this routine 11 months back with two branches - some fresh guidelines required me to produce copies of papers submitted two decades ago at the time of opening of the account. Plus, this process of "re-verification" is to be repeated every two years.

This "KYC" ordeal is for all bank account holders, not just foreigners. My 92 year old father-in-law in Pune suffered a protracted back and forth, having to produce fresh documents for his bank accounts that were opened and in regular use for over 30 years. And Anita's 83 year old uncle is being pressed for "official" documentary evidence to prove his marriage to his wife of 50+ years to avoid a freeze of his decades old and continuously used joint account with her. Most Indians don't obtain marriage licenses, at least didn't in the past.

A close friend in IBM (of Indian origin, now a US citizen) traveled to India on work, then left to attend a meeting in Malaysia. He then had problems re-entering India because of the new policy barring re-entry of Indian visa holders within 60 days of leaving the country. The then Indian Foreign Minister of State Shashi Tharoor had rightly derided this policy by his own ministry through his much publicized tweet "26/11 killers had no visas."

Such new restrictions are ostensibly to curb and prevent terrorists from funding their activities and carrying out attacks on Indian soil. But as Tharoor pointed out (much to the annoyance of his seniors, the Foreign and the Home Ministers) they'd hardly deter actual extremists while adding to the bureaucratic hell faced by ordinary Indians and foreign visitors.

Why does this happen? Having been in the Indian government for over a decade I know how this can be as much a result of ulterior power grabbing as of bone-headed decision making. In a milieu of widespread restrictions officials can relish their discretion to interpret, enforce or to relax burdensome rules. They can use their power to help those around them in exchange for gratitude or gratification, and become more relevant than in a freer, more smoothly functioning environment. Of course the problem can also be created or compounded by a bumbling administration that's under pressure to show that "strong" steps are being taken in response to militant attacks.

The trauma of the terrorist attacks probably prompted the leadership to seek the advice of its security apparatus for preventive measures. The latter apparently didn't let this crisis go to waste, using it as an excuse to reintroduce "inspector raj" type controls that had been drastically loosened during Indian economic and administrative reforms of the 1990s.

I hope that smarter and more enlightened people at the top are aware of this dynamic and reverse such trends. A tragic loss of a few hundred innocents at the hands of fanatics shouldn't bring on these strangely drastic yet ineffective measures that gum up the lives of a billion.

On Anna, Manmohan and Sonia

2011-09-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

I rarely talk about Indian politics because (a) I'm not close enough to them, and (b) with their complexity it can become a never-ending discussion (even more so than in the US.) But I was drawn into some exchanges recently.

It started out simply enough with college pal "OK" posting a simple query on my Facebook wall about Sonia Gandhi coming to the US for medical treatment. Why not get treated in India, "OK" asked, if the hospitals there are so good as to attract Western medical travellers?

My response to him was picked up on by some other of my high school and college friends and devolved into a semi-serious back and forth of riffs and political jabs. Most comments were not too sympathetic to Sonia and her circle, and seem interesting enough to share below:

The Hindu : News / National : Sonia undergoes successful surgery www.thehindu.com

Congress president Sonia Gandhi was on Friday recovering in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a US hospital where she underwent successful surgery for an undisclosed ailment.

Me: I'd guess on two good reasons (for coming to the US), (a) for cancer or non-standard treatment where the top US institutions like Sloan Kettering are the best, and/or (b) to maintain privacy/secrecy.
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OK: I suppose (b) is impossible in India!
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IB: So she has cancer?

PD: How can she have cancer when she is the cancer?
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SS: From attending functions in Bangladesh to sudden serious ailment to US to surgery to recovery.... rubbish, say many. It was a sudden dash to the US to salvage .... before Jan Lokpal became a reality. If anyone is really so ill as to have to dash off to a foreign country for emergency operation, the only son and the only daughter will not be smiling half way thru India, attending public / political functions, rallies etc.., In Any normal family, the kids will definitely like to be by the mother's side, not on the other side of the globe. POINT TO PONDER...
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Me: You guys are so rough on this fine lady... :-)
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PD: The fine lady is so rough on us.
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IB: Sandip define "fine"? it has many meanings.
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OK: Yes. Did Sandip mean meter-maid?
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Me: Good jabs there. My poor Sonia. Quoting Shakespeare, "You blocks, you stones, you cruel men of Rome" - I mean India. :-)
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SS: Not on "SCHINDLER'S LIST", but on "SWINDLERS LIST".... how can you sympathize with such types, Sandip? Besides, anyone "fine" would be a total misfit for politics. The person has to be all and anything but "fine". If you mean a "fine scourge and all and everything unprintable", for most politicians, that would be more apt. Agree or disagree?
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Me: Disagree. :-) I haven't seen evidence of her own personal dishonesty. Indians have been voting for splinter groups and regional parties so Manmohan and Sonia types are perhaps forced to form questionable alliances and are too weak to control corruption. In this milieu I doubt their opponents are, or can do better. That said, I'm admittedly quite removed from Indian politics. :-)
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IB: Sandip, you quoted: "You blocks, you stones, you cruel men of Rome" -- but from what I remember it went like: "You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things"---
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OK: IB, I noticed that too but I let it pass as Sandip speaks from the heart not from memory! :) Or perhaps he did not want to call us "worse than senseless things", being our kind friend? It's not that we love Sonia less...
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And so it went, showing I've erudite friends and most aren't fans of the Gandhi dynasty or current leadership under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

I also get many emails forwarded by friends in rapturous praise of Anna Hazare, the 74 year old social-political activist that his admirers liken to Mahatma Gandhi. Anna has gone on fasts unto death to demand that a super authority (Lokpal) be set up in India that can investigate for corruption and remove anyone in public office that it finds guilty including the Prime Minister and judges of the Indian Supreme Court.

When I call my father-in-law in Pune he marvels at Anna's immense popularity and asks what I think of him and how the Indian government should respond. I half jokingly suggest that the government should let him starve himself to death so they can move on to more substantive issues.

To my mind rampant corruption in India is not for want of more legal institutions or of more checks and balances. We may already have too many that gum up the process of decision making. The problem is that all of these may be corrupt and require pay-offs. So having one more like a Lokpal with oversight of India's highest elected offices and consequent ability to blackmail such leadership may add to India's problems instead of solving them.
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Bose, one of my gym buddies who recently returned from a trip to India talked of the vast "new money", the related corruption in politics as well as the huge Anna Hazare following he witnessed at first hand. On his perceptions about Anna's core supporters he drily remarked that they're probably seeking power to get their turn at the money till.
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As I said in my Facebook exchange, India's problems appear to be compounded by its narrowly focused and ill informed voters failing to elect and give strong majorities to good leaders of national stature. Such voters are swayed more by parochial and caste considerations that lead to fragmented parties and shaky alliances with elected representatives looking for quick payoffs in exchange for their support.
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The solution may lie in an electorate exercising better judgement and a resurgence of nationalistic parties. Or India may be better suited to a different democratic system like a directly elected US style President (only stronger, though chances of this happening are almost nil and we're seeing its downsides in the US gridlock, too.) But an appointed Lokpal who can remove the elected Prime Minister and judges of India's top court as the Hazare folks demand hardly seems to be the answer.

Obama: Centrist or Weakling?

2011-08-02T12:50:00.000-07:00

President Obama made most of the concessions to Republicans and Tea Party hardliners that have led to the debt ceiling deal that averted a US default. He gave way to most demands of the Tea Party faction of the Republicans - deep spending cuts and no revenue increases by raising taxes or closing tax loopholes for the rich. The Democrats had little choice but to go along or else crash the US economy.

But they are not happy. In his Aug. 1 NYTimes column "The President Surrenders" Paul Krugman scathingly explains why Obama's capitulation is a catastrophe in both economic and political terms. Joe Nocera in his companion "The Tea Party's War on America" talks of this group and the Republicans taking the country hostage and being rewarded with near-complete capitulation by Obama. Even William McGurn in the right wing WSJ today calls the accord a "conservative victory" and a "striking achievement."

There is a difference between a Bill Clinton type centrist who compromises and someone who is reluctant to take a stand, and when forced to do so repeatedly backs away to become the appeaser in chief. Emboldened by their successful brinksmanship Republicans are likely to take Obama's (abject) pliability for granted in future negotiations on key issues. That said, I've a couple of additional observations:

The US government may not be "of the people" or "for the people" in the sense that the Administration and Congress are adequately acting in the interests of the populace, rather than key special interests. That's why approval rates for Obama are at 45% and of Congress at an all time low of 14% according to the latest CNN/ORC poll. But the US government is still "by the people." Voters put Obama in office in 2008 (particularly those supporting him against Hillary in the primary) and elected many Tea Partiers in 2010. So at least Americans are fully responsible for the state of their national economy and polity, unlike people living in countries with repressive regimes.

As a corollary to the above the US won't get political accountability if the voters remain befuddled about who's responsible for their plight. Despite the Tea Party and Republicans plunging the nation into a contrived debt crisis an ABC poll today shows Americans lashing out at both parties. 68% and 67% of them disapprove of Republicans and Democrats respectively. Paul Krugman partly ascribes this to the media, deriding its false sense of balance in his July 28 NYTimes column for tending to blame both sides equally no matter who's actually at fault. Still, there's enough information out there for Americans to judge their leaders and vote in their own best interest, but many don't. Take the Tea Party that vehemently opposes tax increases even for households making over $250,000 a year. It should logically attract only the 2% of Americans who are above this threshold, yet over 20% belong to this group.

Obama's actions may have weakened Democrats and given away too much of the store for average Americans, but they haven't affected his own re-election chances. To Democrats and a majority of independents he'll likely be the lesser of two evils when faced with a Republican nominee elected by an increasingly radicalized GOP. There's also no viable Democratic primary challenger or a third candidate (like NY mayor Michael Bloomberg) on the horizon yet. So to the GOP rhetoric about making Obama a one term President and the above ABC poll showing him at par nationally and behind Mitt Romney in the key state of Pennsylvania, time will tell. But I'd place my odds on seeing him in office, with or without a spine, till 2016.

Right Wing Judges Have Their Uses

2011-06-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

I've generally taken a dim view of the conservative majority of the US Supreme Court, especially since their partisan 2000 ruling against Al Gore that stopped the Florida vote recount and made GWB President. There's been the (so far unrealized) fear that they'd overturn Roe v. Wade to give abortion foes an upper hand. In January 2010 they aided special interests and electoral corruption by removing restrictions on corporations from spending freely on supporting or opposing candidates. Going forward when it ultimately comes to them they may undo the 2010 health care reforms by (among other things) striking down the vital mandate for everyone to get insurance coverage.

But this same conservative wing also plays a key role in curbing class action lawsuits, expanding interpretation of anti-discrimination laws, and left wing activism that unfairly burdens our businesses and the economy.

On June 20 the Supreme Court threw out the largest class action sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart with the conservative wing also making it difficult to file such class actions in the future. This is welcome as such cases are generally a boon for trial lawyers while imposing huge costs on businesses that are hard put to defend against a wide variety of claims, many of them frivolous. Businesses pass on such costs to Americans in the form of higher prices, and this also makes the US a less desirable place to hire workers or operate in. So in this way the conservative judges have helped not just businesses but also the economy and American consumers by reducing unnecessary litigation.

In this same case the conservative majority did businesses another favor by indirectly rejecting "proof by quota" as I call it. This is an argument by trial lawyers and bodies like the EEOC that the simple fact of lower average pay or under-representation of ethnic groups or gender is proof of discrimination. For example, if women in Wal-Mart on average earn less than men, or their proportion in management positions is much below 50% then this alone proves Wal-Mart's discriminatory conduct. It ignores (or shifts the burden to defendants to prove) other possible reasons like women working less hard or for fewer hours due to their family commitments, or interrupting careers to raise children. Or having fewer applicants with the required skills or willingness to work long, non-standard hours. The conservative judges required proof of some employer conduct or instructions that's common to all discrimination claims to allow them to be clubbed and litigated.

The Supreme Court can restrict "proof by quota" even more explicitly, particularly by public agencies like the EEOC whose actions can hobble businesses even if their orders are eventually overturned on appeal. I like the role of our right leaning judges in at least three other areas:

Curbing pro-union partisanship and bias. On April 22 I've talked of excesses by unions and the undesirable NLRB steps to try forcing Boeing to shift its 787 plane assembly from South Carolina to expensive, heavily unionized Washington. Employers should be free to factor in labor relations and costs as well as labor disruptions to assess profits and viability, without the NLRB calling their resultant plant location an anti-union retaliation. Even if it ultimately loses in a conservative Supreme Court (assuming the case goes that far) the NLRB's litigation is creating enough headaches for Boeing in the intervening period. It would be a lot worse if a liberal Supreme Court actually sided with the NLRB.
Countering the excesses of anti-discrimination laws. As mentioned above, affirmative action can easily slip into quota based appointments and promotions that undermine a meritocracy and cause reverse discrimination. Back on April 8, 2009 I mentioned the offshoot of anti-age discrimination leading to barring employers (with a few exceptions) from having a mandatory retirement age, no matter how high. I've already talked about why I consider these developments unfortunate from an economic and jobs viewpoint, and would like to see conservative judges bring the balance back even if our politicians won't. Liberal judges through their judicial activism on the other hand may perpetuate or even extend such misplaced anti-discrimination measures.
Being tough on crime. Crime shouldn't pay, and "justice" should imply proportional consequences for major offenders. On Sep. 3, 2009 I had espoused justice for violent and serious criminals to be weighted more towards deterrence, restitution and even retribution, instead of rehabilitation and reform. When public resources are severely strained we see some courts forcing authorities to ease overcrowding, provide proper health care, spend more on inmates, or else to release them. Conditions within prisons seem to be better than those for many outside of it. Conservative judges are more in tune with the majority of Americans who prefer "true" justice to a coddling of criminals.

So there's at least a silver lining to these "right-minded" gentlemen of the court.

Justice Or Lynching Of DSK?

2011-05-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

Anita's frail and gentle 80 year old uncle living by himself in Pune (India) is deathly afraid of changing his maid who has been giving him grief. He cites many accounts of maids falsely alleging sexual assault by (even elderly) male employers when there were disputes or in revenge for perceived grievances. He also quoted news of a rising trend of women in ones and twos hitching rides with unsuspecting male motorists and then demanding cash and valuables failing which they'd raise an alarm about attempted molestation.

Many years ago during my own IAS training, Mr. M.K. Kaw, one of our illustrious senior officials cautioned: "If you have a woman in your office make sure there's a third person around." I took that advice to heart and repeated it to others, including a mid level forest official many years later when I was inquiring into a sexual harassment complaint against him by one of his female employees. He was lucky to be cleared because of inconsistencies in her statements and evidence of her involvement with his enemies in influential circles.

It's the same in the US. For example rape accusations were made up and vigorously pursued against three Duke lacrosse players in 2006. And some may recall the media circus around the 1991 rape trial and acquittal of JFK's nephew, William Kennedy Smith.

We hear much about how difficult it can be for a rape victim to press charges, and how the proceedings questioning her and going into her own background can hurt her twice. That needs to be balanced with the way improper handling can severely and irreversibly damage the falsely accused even if he is eventually cleared.

I have long had issues with the US justice system per my Sept. 3, '09 post, which coddles convicted criminals while paying lip service to presumption of innocence and needlessly humiliating the accused. This brings me to the sexual assault charges against IMF (ex-)chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) who's hardly a sympathetic figure. He's widely known to be a womanizer and philanderer, though he may be in an open marriage - his wife has gone to great lengths to bail him out and to support him. More disturbing is his supposedly consensual affair three years ago with a subordinate and former IMF economist that could involve sexual harassment. While DSK got off then with a reprimand I agree with the view that this made him unsuitable to head the IMF.

But considering just the current allegations there's little doubt that the accusing hotel maid performed a sex act on him - the DNA evidence confirms this and the defense has not denied it. The key question is whether he forced himself on her or was the act consensual. Polls show a little over half the Americans believe the former while a majority of the French believe the latter (and that DSK was set up by his opponents as he was likely to become the next French President.)

I am with the French and skeptical of the sexual assault allegations. Here's why:

DSK is a 5'7" flabby, pasty 62 year old who looks like he'd be bested by a younger woman in a physical struggle, leave alone being able to corner, subdue and force himself upon her. And remain aroused through all this.
Young women have teeth. DSK had no weapons to cow the maid into complying with oral sex. She could have interrupted proceedings while inflicting serious damage by biting down hard. Wouldn't DSK be aware of this risk and be deterred by it?
DSK has a reputation for seduction, but this is very different from a rapist physically forcing himself on a woman. DSK is rich enough to pay for sex which is what I suspect was the deal that day (or so he thought.) If so, he still has a problem telling the truth and facing criminal consequences of abetting prostitution. I favor decriminalizing the world's oldest profession as long as it does not involve minors, coercion or trafficking, but that's not how the law stands in New York.
The police cite DSK's previous conduct including hitting on other staff and inviting two receptionists to his room the previous evening for a drink as supporting "proof" of his criminal state of mind. But the implications can be just the opposite. If the staff shared their experience with others, it would be widely known that he was seeking out women, and give his enemies a good way to set him up.
The maid should not have had this room on her cleaning list because DSK was supposed to check out that day. Hotels have routine systems in place that flag rooms for cleaning only after the guest has left. So did the hotel make a mistake, or was she not supposed to enter in the first place? Another curious coincidence is that she was not supposed to be working on that floor, but volunteered to do so in place of an absent colleague.
The maid further seems to have ignored protocol by not knocking loudly and repeatedly before entering the suite. By her account she then went deep enough into the suite before noticing it was occupied as to be prevented from leaving when DSK emerged naked from the bathroom.

The police and prosecutors aware of all this should have been cautious in their approach. I'd imagine they at least had the maid take a polygraph (lie detector) test to satisfy themselves even though it's inadmissible in court.

We saw the police parading DSK in handcuffs in media glare in a humiliating "perp walk" that is banned in Europe and even by a Supreme Court order in a developing country like India. Worse, the initial judge Melissa Jackson abused her discretion in denying DSK bail because he is a flight risk. Is her action stemming from sheer stupidity or pomposity combined with an ego kick at bringing down an international leader and reveling in media attention?

What age are she and the police living in? With DSK wearing an electronic ankle monitor, under police guard and surveillance, and his passport seized, how did they find the prospect of DSK pulling a Houdini and escaping realistic? I think this judge is a disgrace and unfit to hold office. A superior court eventually granted DSK bail with home confinement but I wish there was a system in place for immediate appeal or review of the first judge's decision so DSK wasn't sent to Riker's Island jail in the first place.

Even if DSK is acquitted of sexual assault (and I'd lay the odds on that despite a lot of noise to the contrary) the damage is already done. He's already had to resign from the IMF and a future presidential bid looks dead.

The solace we can take is that in his case two wrongs may have made a right. His romp with his subordinate in the IMF in 2008 should have cost him his IMF job, but didn't, and the latest allegations should not have severely damaged him until they were proved, but did.

Union Bashing - Good Or Bad?

2011-04-22T15:07:00.000-07:00

How do I perceive unions, particularly public employee unions?

My childhood memories are of the already slow and congested life in Calcutta (now Kolkata) coming to a halt during general strikes called "bandhs" that occurred all too often. On the good days workers would take time off after their lunch break to stage demonstrations in support of "worker rights" that meant more pay, less work, and more additions to already bloated payrolls.

We then moved to the scenic hill station of Darjeeling (of tea fame) with little union activity where I spent my middle and high school years. But union activity and strikes were much in fashion when I entered college at the University of Delhi. Most colleges in our 110,000 strong University used to be closed for a couple of weeks a year due to strikes by students and non-teaching staff (called "karamcharies".)

The University karamcharies earned about 50% more than their counterparts in the private sector. Our college education was publicly funded and nearly free and few of us were aware of what exactly were the demands of the striking students. To most it seemed a way to avoid classes and inject a little excitement by clashing with authorities. Our own St. Stephen's College with 1000+ students was one of the very few (of the nearly 100 colleges and departments comprising the University) that refused to take part in any strikes. So police would be posted outside our gates to guard against trouble by outside strikers who resented our non-involvement.

Years later after joining the IAS I was on the other side, with my fair share of handling public union negotiations, agitations and strikes. One of my later stints was as Municipal Commissioner (city manager) of Shimla city that had one of the most militant public unions. They would strike or disrupt services about twice a year in spite of the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) that made these jail-able offenses. That's because ESMA was never invoked, or action under it was rapidly withdrawn as a precondition for any settlement. Of our 1100 employees, we had over 600 sanitation workers as part of previous concessions to the union though we needed no more than 400. Their pay and benefits were double of those in the private sector.

Early in my Shimla MC tenure the union went on strike and their staff threw buckets of human feces in my office in appreciation of my engaging temporary replacements to keep the city going. It took me and my team almost a year to draw up contingency plans and train home guards to distribute water and run other facilities in case of future stoppages. In a subsequent strike, I used these preparations to maintain services, deployed armed police to guard our strategic installations against sabotage and invoked ESMA to penalize strikers and restore normalcy. It was the first time this had happened in the (then) 120 year history of Shimla, and put a stop to labor troubles for the next three years.

By then I had come to the "capitalist" US and expected things to be very different here, but there are commonalities. Political leaders here also tend to make deals with public unions to smooth their own tenure even while giving away long term benefits that devastate budgets down the road. Then there are the illegal strikes disrupting essential services that are barred by US laws (also all too often failed to be invoked by the authorities). For example the New York transit strike of 2005 disrupted life for millions and violated the Taylor Law (similar to ESMA) but the violators received a mere slap on the wrist. Then there are the airline pilots unions who get around strike bans by staging mass sick-outs. Employees avoiding duty by falsely claiming to be sick can be fired, and the management can easily require medical testing by an independent board in such circumstances, yet this abuse is taken in stride.

Even in the broader philosophical context one can question the value and social contributions of unions. Collective bargaining had a big and useful role to play in the old days when a few large and powerful employers could collude to keep wages and benefits artificially low. Or when a race to the bottom (in costs) could cause unsafe conditions or extreme hardship in the absence of public safety laws.

But most or all of this is now inapplicable since mechanisms are in place for protecting workers through anti-trust laws, OSHA, the Minimum Wage Act and the like. It is these laws that ensured a five day work week, stopped child labor and promoted worker safety much more than the unions, contrary to claims by film maker Michael Moore on Stephen Colbert on his March 29 show, or by union leader Richard Trumka in a WSJ Op-Ed on March 4.

Almost by definition so long as there is no employer collusion or monopoly, union activity is an attempt to secure wages and benefits over and above the free market level. In the latter the workers are free to go (or be wooed away) to where they get the best compensation for their services, according to their perceived worth. Instead, collective bargaining can look a lot like collective blackmail, as when workers at the GM plant making engine transmissions threaten or go on strike bringing most production to a halt. No wonder US manufacturers want to diversify production globally to make them less vulnerable, and it's not just to go to where labor costs are lowest.

So yes, I'm not a fan of unions nor view them as net contributors to public welfare, as their raising of US labor costs has contributed at least partially to the current level of unemployment. There are some pro-union laws and practices that beg for change. For example, see how the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is trying to force Boeing to locate its Dreamliner assembly plant in heavily unionized Washington State, instead of in South Carolina. In 2008 Boeing workers in Washington went on a 58 day strike that cost Boeing $1.8 billion. So Boeing management understandably wanted to instal new plants in less unionized and more business friendly locations. The NLRB interpreted this as illegal retaliation against union activity. The WSJ in its April 21 Opinion pages rightly deplores NLRB's sandbagging of Boeing and calls for a change in such a system.

And what of Republican efforts to restrict bargaining by public unions on matters other than their salaries, or do away with compulsory contributions by workers to their union funds? In principle I find little wrong with that. We already know that politicians are not mindful of future liabilities that their concessions to unions can impose on future administrations. That's a big reason why our states and local governments are in budgetary crises. As far as union contributions go, why should workers be forced to contribute if they don't want to? That's the situation in the "right to work" states in the South that employers find more attractive, and such forced contributions did not commonly exist even in more socialist countries like India.

On the other hand I'm perfectly fine with the unions launching concerted drives to mobilize public opinion against Republican union busters, and trying to recall elected representatives as they are doing in Wisconsin. Besides, Governor Scott Walker and his fellow Republicans in Wisconsin have been quite weaselly in their actions. For instance, they have specifically exempted police and firefighter unions from the new restrictions, apparently because these union members traditionally lean Republican. These uniformed personnel that are vital to maintaining security and safety should be specifically barred from union activity, as they are, even in India, let alone favored with special exemptions.

Indiana and Ohio states under Republican leadership have also moved to curb the scope of collective bargaining by public employees. But they have sought a more uniform implementation without picking any favorites, so their actions are fairer and a better blueprint for change than those of Walker & Co. in Wisconsin.

Aftermath Of Friend's Murder

2011-04-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

Last week I received a call from someone who requested anonymity, and I'll call him Charlie. He had seen my post of April 18, 2008 about the murder of my childhood friend Aasha Chhabra and her husband Brij in Troy, Michigan. He wanted to update me with news about their killers so as to afford closure to the family. (We haven't got in touch with the Thadani's young daughter, their only child, though.)

The murders had been arranged by Narayan Thadani who had betrayed Aasha's complete trust in him by selling her landed property in India and stealing the proceeds of over $2 million. He was about to lose it all in a court case and hired two men from El Salvadore for the killings. Narayan pleaded guilty and he as well as the two hit men all received life terms in prison in October 2010 while another accomplice got 30 years after turning state's evidence.

Charlie himself is an ex-convict who met Narayan in the Houston prison where he is now serving his sentence. Charlie called Narayan an evil and scary person who while awaiting trial almost nonchalantly sought help from fellow inmates to hire a hit man to kill the FBI agent who was investigating his case. Narayan apparently bore that agent a grudge and also thought the killing would remove a vital prosecution witness and help his court defense. His fellow prisoners instead tipped off the authorities. He was put in touch with an undercover FBI agent posing as a contract killer, and caught.

Charlie sent me the docket containing the charges for the murders of the Chhabras for which Narayan pleaded guilty, as well as for attempted murder of the FBI agent, which didn't really carry any additional downside as Narayan will spend the rest of his life behind bars anyway.

While it's good that Narayan and the three others got caught and punished, I'm still bothered by our justice system coddling perpetrators of such terrible crimes, as I opined in my September 3, 2009 post. There is not even any lingering doubt about the guilt of all these men yet they don't get to pay the ultimate price. The gentle and thoroughly decent Chhabras have been murdered, and their ruthless killers spend their lives in prison conditions that are better than that of much of humanity on the outside.

Rehabilitation should of course play a role depending on the circumstances. Charlie's own crimes were a lot less serious (why they mix prisoners whose degrees of offenses are so disparate is beyond me.) He came across as a well spoken person who had turned his life around, and I wish him well.

The Rajat I Know

2011-03-29T14:34:00.000-07:00

A rather sanctimonious mass email I've received is prompting this post. Rajat Gupta, former head of McKinsey has been widely praised and admired though he is now in the news for passing material non-public information to Raj Rajaratnam (RR) of the Galleon hedge funds.

The email titled "How Much is Enough?" echoed some other chatter about how the wealthy and highly respected Rajat let greed get the better of him and ruin his reputation by abetting insider trading.

I feel compelled to balance the picture about Rajat whom we know personally since 1991 when I had just come to the US for PhD studies at the University of Chicago. I knew nothing of McKinsey or what he did at that time, and we drove to his house simply to deliver a gift from India sent through us by one of my favorite ex-bosses in the IAS. That was Mr. P.K. Mattoo, Chief Secretary of HP state till 1987, and uncle of Anita Mattoo Gupta, Rajat's wife and a warm, wonderful person whom he met as a fellow student at IIT Delhi.

I've rarely seen anyone more gracious, modest and personable than Rajat, in spite of his brilliance and success at McKinsey. He was that way in all the subsequent times we met him, and Mr. Mattoo told me how Rajat was ever ready to sleep on the floor when he and family would visit and stay with them in India. In 1994 after Rajat became head of McKinsey, my friend Harsh from the University of Chicago who joined McKinsey told me about how he and other fresh recruits met Rajat at a welcoming party for them. He said the recruits were blown away when Rajat came up to them individually, put out his hand and diffidently said, "Hi, I'm Rajat Gupta," before chatting with them. "As if anyone in the gathering didn't know who he was," Harsh marveled, "And he was on the cover of many major magazines."

We saw Rajat and family after a gap of of over 10 years in June 2009 at a high school graduation party for the daughter of Sunil, Mr. P.K. Mattoo's son. Rajat was as unassuming and cordial as ever, and introduced us to his daughter and her African American husband who had been warmly welcomed into the family. We also learned about Rajat's hectic schedule, working for free with non-profits, including with the Gates Foundation (that he's now stepped down from) to help eradicate malaria.

While he certainly violated confidentiality as a Goldman Sachs director in his conversations with Raj Rajaratnam, he seems to have done it out of a misplaced sense of friendship, without profit to himself. I saw SEC's most damning evidence against him, this 18 minute transcript of his call with RR. The disclosure seems incidental to the main conversation, and as a result of RR pumping him for information.

The other striking incident cited is Rajat calling RR seconds after a Goldman board meeting where Warren Buffet's $5B investment was disclosed. Minutes later RR placed bets on Goldman shares that netted Galleon $900,000. To me, it's very out of character for Rajat to call someone just after receiving confidential information to tip them off for illicit gain. Even a March 7 Times article referred to some curious aspects of the SEC's case against Rajat.

The kind of scenario I'd envision is that RR tracked scheduled board meetings and timed messages requesting a call back to Rajat accordingly. After meetings are over the attendees typically get to their other activities, including returning calls, as Rajat did with RR. Then in the course of other conversation that was ostensibly the purpose of RR's contact, he casually asked Rajat some leading questions about Goldman, and pounced on any resultant cues. RR is obviously sharp as a whip, but his laid back style and humor interspersed with personal chats could disarm a friend into revealing more than he should. Rajat's amiable and forthcoming nature could make him hesitate to clam up and pointblank refuse to answer RR's "incidental" questions.

In sum Rajat's approachability and helpfulness has apparently proved to be his undoing. His lack of motive or ill intent seems to be why he hasn't been criminally prosecuted, though he's had to resign all his board positions and suffer ignominy.

Sometimes bad judgment or carelessness can land very good people in trouble. I'm sorry to see Rajat in this plight and hope he gets out of this okay.

Much Ado About My Junk

2011-02-10T14:33:00.000-08:00

The "Don't Touch My Junk" guy became a kind of folk hero last November, something like an unstable and rude flight attendant at Jet Blue did a few months earlier.

We've people objecting to new airport search procedures and pat downs, even as the TSA is scrambling for innovations to safeguard privacy. I had talked about over-sensitivity to profiling in my August 10, 2009 post as well. Two weeks ago Jesse Ventura sued the TSA over his pat-downs. The comments below that report overwhelming support Ventura and cheer him on. While two-thirds of Americans support full body scans it is still disturbing that a third don't, and that half object to enhanced pat downs.

Terrorism and crime are serious threats, and Americans should decide if they want to focus on safety or be distracted by trivia. What about concerns about invasion of privacy? To me none of these measures are particularly intrusive, especially if the operations are performed by someone of the same gender. We have our sports and gym locker rooms where we walk around naked in full view of others, that's a lot more "revealing" than these airport searches.

Perhaps it's cultural, but I never even gave a second thought to these pat downs that have occurred for a long time in India at airports and now at the Delhi Metro stations, and even some malls and hotels. In fact I'm thankful that they do this quickly and keep us safe.

It took me a lot longer to get used to the aforesaid locker rooms when I first came to the US. As well as the "open" stalls in public restrooms where the WCs are enclosed only with half panels so you can see a lot of the lower extremities of the users and fully hear them. That's not the case in public toilets I've seen in Asia or even in Europe.

So I suppose perceptions vary and things are relative. I imagine myself regarding Americans objecting to such "unreasonable" searches almost the way these people would think of Middle Eastern women being made to dress in head to toe burqas.

Rubina Weds Shaun

2010-11-16T15:09:00.000-08:00

Last month on Sunday, October 17, Rubina and Shaun were married in Middletown, CT preceded by small, intimate gatherings of the immediate family, the bridal party and some out of town guests on earlier days. Sheena was the maid of honor and Shaun's sister Shannon was another of the bridesmaids. The wedding and celebrations which were largely planned by Shaun and Rubina went very well.

Here was something interesting. Our first preference for the wedding was for a Saturday, but with the Saturdays booked in the venue of our choice we had settled on a Sunday. It turned out for the best. After the cold and rain on Friday and a chilly Saturday, the weather improved dramatically and the sun came out to make for a great wedding day.

Rubina and Shaun in their wedding planning did an excellent job of fusing American and Indian traditions. For example, they combined the Indian / Hindu rituals of circling a sacred fire seven times (with an explanation of its significance in English) with more typical American ceremonies and reciting of vows. They also wisely kept focus on the primary objective of everyone attending having a good time, rather than getting the proceedings just right. That all the ceremonies went off smoothly and well was icing on the cake.

One major difference between typical Indian weddings back home and ones in the US is in the size and composition of the guest list. In India the invitee list is much larger and includes people who are close to the parents, even if they don't know the bridal couple too well. But in the US as in our case those invited and attending with few exceptions were close to the couple, with the invitations going out from them rather than from the parents. This distinction can probably help non-Americans understand why the Obama's were not invited to Chelsea Clinton's wedding.

We as Rubina's parents are happy that Rubina and Shaun are so right for each other. Shaun is a wonderful, caring person with a warm and close knit family that Rubina (and we) immensely enjoy being around.

The couple went for a short but enjoyable honeymoon to New Orleans as they had to return to attend another wedding in Shaun's family the following week. They're settling down well since, and plan to go on a second phase of their honeymoon trip next year.

Here are some bridal party pictures of the mehndi (henna hand painting) celebration on October 15 and the wedding on October 17.

Why a Mosque at Ground Zero?

2010-09-15T04:52:00.000-07:00

The latest poll shows Americans nationwide think 70% to 25% that Muslims have the right to build a mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero, but oppose it 63% to 28% as inappropriate. New Yorkers oppose it 51% to 41%.

The non-Muslim supporters of the proposal are upholding 1st Amendment rights and the proud US tradition of tolerance and respect for all religions. They also think this profound gesture of inclusiveness will mitigate ill feelings towards the US. It is remarkable to see NY Mayor Bloomberg, a Jew and till recently a Republican, buck public opinion as a high profile and vocal supporter, at the cost of a steep drop in his popularity. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is similarly facing heat from within his own Republican Party for implied support by cautioning against an overreaction.

I appreciate such principled stands and my respect for Mayor Bloomberg has gone up immensely. I also think a lot better of Gov. Christie whom I had regarded as a poor choice by NJ voters to replace Democrat Jon Corzine.

Still, I hold a different view, in line with most Americans who have a gut feeling about this. I am opposed to the present location of the mosque for the following reasons:

Why here? The site was deliberately chosen right next to Ground Zero. The decision to locate the mosque here is not in spite of the tragedy at Ground Zero, but because of it. In other words, if there had been no 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, there would not have been any plans for the mosque right here.

The stated intent behind building the mosque here is not believable. The planners claim to want to foster better relations between others and Islam, and to help people have a better understanding of this faith. How can they not have anticipated the adverse reaction? They say they are surprised by it, and Imam Rauf claims had they known this would happen they wouldn't have proposed this. Even assuming that is true, now that they do, they should look elsewhere. Rauf a couple of days back said he opposes this as it would create a violent Muslim backlash round the world. That reasoning again sounds false. What's the religious significance of Ground Zero for Islam, that its proponents insist on building right here?

Sensitivities to a mosque next door have a subtle aspect. They go beyond the fact that the 9/11 attackers all happened to be Muslims. It's that they committed this act in the name of Islam. Of course the vast majority of Muslims found this to be reprehensible, but they will empathize and won't mind if the mosque is a located a few blocks further away.

Erecting a mosque here is unlikely to discourage terrorism, and could arguably work the opposite way. Who said the jihadists and religious terrorists are perfectly reasonable, rational people? The planners say the gesture of allowing a mosque here would weaken or win over radicals because the US would be seen as Islam-friendly. That could certainly be the way many Islamists may see it. But jihadist recruiters could also feed religious fanatics the line that the "sacrifices" of the 9/11 attackers led to this mosque being built, and more of such "pious" acts are needed to help spread Islam.

Where do we go from here? Laws are imperfect, and the mosque planners seem to have taken advantage of this and US freedoms in an affront to the 9/11 victims and their families. The solution can be to fix or modify the laws as situations like this arise.

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission could have nipped the controversy in the bud if they had given landmark status to Ground Zero, instead of unanimously turning it down. Then they could have done something like barring all new religious buildings within a half mile radius. Perhaps a measure with similar consequences can now be passed by some other body. This may be needed even though the planners and Rauf now show signs of backing away. This is because other mischief mongers could take their place, if for no other reason than to yank peoples' chains, or because this issue attracts so much publicity.

Still, we should reassure Muslims of equal treatment of their religion and their needs. To this end I saw this interesting proposal to even have a Muslim place of worship within a Ground Zero building. The difference? It will presumably be one of the several places of worship for people of different faiths, stressing respect and equality for all. It will also be under the overall control of a centralized management not associated with any particular religion.

Whom Would You Choose - Sully or Slater?

2010-08-14T11:54:00.000-07:00

A good thing about news online or in hard copy is that you can pick the stories you want to read, and ignore the rest. You can't do that with the TV (where I also watch the news.) Even switching channels often doesn't work because they're fixating on the same inane thing. It can be a balloon boy hoax one time or a flipped out flight attendant another.

Captivity to such TV coverage apart, this hoopla about Steven Slater cussing out a passenger and deploying the emergency chute to walk off his Jet Blue job gets to me in other ways. The Huffington Post online poll shows almost half the readers regard him as a folk hero. This may not be a representative sample of Americans as this readership is very liberal. But Slater also has 100,000+ fans on Facebook, tee shirts sold in his name, and has a media fixture for the past four days.

The deeds are nowhere comparable but I'm reminded somewhat of the hundreds of women who write love letters or send marriage proposals to serial murderers or rapists in prison. In a free country everyone gets to have apologists, even amongst strangers. If only these women could be advanced to the head of the victim line instead of the other poor hapless souls targeted by such predators. In the same way if only Slater fans on their flights could be privileged to have only crew members like him in attendance.

Joseph Lopez who was a flight attendant himself cites his difficulties and challenges as a rationale for Slater's behavior in an August 14 piece in the Washington Post. But I'd agree a lot more with Rich Lowry in his August 14 opinion in the Salt Lake Tribune. He lauds the quiet heroism of Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger in landing his US Air plane in the Hudson River, and contrasts that with Slater's self-indulgent excess that "is not in the least bit admirable."

On my own air trips I'd hate to have someone like Slater aboard. To add to my July 13 post on airline experiences I've witnessed my share of surly, brusque or stone-faced flight attendants, especially on American Airlines. One snapped "what do you want?" to a diffident old lady sitting across the aisle from me when she pressed the attendant light button to request for some water to take her medication after we had boarded. The same attendant wore a scowl for the most part of the flight - a passenger on my other side wondered if this was because their flight attendant union had just agreed to wage concessions in bankruptcy talks. On another trip a flight attendant glowered at a young mother who had requested water for her restless infant after boarding, and took 20 minutes to bring it.

In both cases I toyed with the idea of quietly noting the errant attendants' names and sending feedback to the airline after getting home. But their name tags that they are required to wear on their uniform were missing - this was probably not accidental. I also observed their far more cordial and gracious colleagues on the same flight and wished there was a way to track and reward good and conscientious staff while penalizing bad conduct.

But in the aftermath of the chute exit drama it seems these workers just needed to behave more shockingly and egregiously to win accolades and fans among a sizable chunk of regular Americans. I'd instead much prefer airlines to "Sully" their image after wiping their Slate(rs) clean. And I'd like TV broadcasts to focus more on real news.

Landmark Half-Measures

2010-08-02T15:52:00.000-07:00

This is just the latest of the Obama (and Congress) half-measures that have been widely labeled as "historic", "unprecedented" and "landmark". I'm referring to the Financial Reforms Bill signed into law on July 21st.

It started with the $800B economic stimulus package of Feb. '09 that Paul Krugman warned even at the negotiation stage as being very inadequate,and reiterating these concerns after Congressional agreement. His fears of a stalled recovery have been realized. Next we had the Afghanistan surge of troops, but with delays and declaration of a withdrawal starting in July 2011 - signaling intentions to embolden the enemy though leaving some leeway. Then of course there's the health care overhaul of Mar. '10 but without even the public option, leave alone the far more appealing and cost effective "Medicare for all" (aka "single payer") push.

Which brings me back to the financial reforms law. It is huge and complex, yet leaves almost all the important safeguards against a meltdown to be put in place through subsequent regulations by government agencies. That's great for bankers and their lobbyists who can get all the loop holes and escape clauses inserted while working with regulators. If they can win over hundreds of lawmakers, why not a few dozen regulators behind closed doors? Krugman points to further timidity by the Obama team - they are even dithering over nominating an obviously great fit like Elizabeth Warren to head the new consumer financial protection agency.

But that's not all. Regulations can be changed by successive administrations, without further legislative oversight. That means that even if the present crop of regulators do their job well and insert the right checks and balances, all this can be undone by a future Bush clone who assumes the Presidency. Knowing this, even the Republicans beholden to bankers and supporting them may not be quite so upset with the new law. And as seen in the current crisis, it can take many years for the negative consequences of lax oversight to surface, while banks can start to profit almost immediately.

This means that a future regime that loosens regulations that unfairly helps banks can benefit from their patronage. Yet such an administration can quite possibly escape (or at least get the benefit of the doubt for) the blame for planting the time bomb that causes a financial disaster on a successor's watch.

Other instances of the Obama and the Congressional Democrats collectively lacking courage are in enacting effective energy legislation, and perhaps immigration reform. In energy we couldn't even have the weak cap and trade system passed, leave alone a stiff gasoline tax that can fund alternative fuel development as espoused by Thomas Friedman for years.

My take even on Obama "victories" is generally of his doing a lot when cornered into having to act, yet without doing enough. It's almost like trying to save half the patient. And it's not a question of being a centrist, but being ineffective. I believe his taking the lead and acting more vigorously and decisively on contentious issues would help rather than hurt the Democrats in the 2010 mid-term elections. It would not only rally his disheartened Democratic base, but also win the respect of more independents.

But some initiatives did work well. The response to the H1N1 "swine" flu epidemic was good overall, and overestimating the demand for the swine flu shots and the resultant oversupply was much better than if they'd underestimated it. On the gulf oil spill the Obama team could have acted faster and forced more skimmers to be mobilized, including those from other oil companies. But it did force BP to pay into a $20 billion fund despite Republican condemnation and appointed Kenneth Feinberg to administer compensation (with luck speedily and impartially) from it.

Hopefully they can build more upon these types of successes in the time to come.

Some Perceptions on Travel Outside the US

2010-07-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

A friend recently emailed me asking about booking travel from the US to India, and experiences with airlines. I offered my personal (and very limited) perspectives to her two questions, and thought I'd share them here. This is about personal travel by coach with a close eye on the budget. Anything you'd like to add is welcome.

Q: I'm planning a trip to India. Do you know and use any good travel agents, or do you just book online?

A: I do know of good travel agents (and supplied that information to our friend.)

However, the online options have improved a lot over recent years and I've found very good deals on http://www.kayak.com/ and http://www.orbitz.com/ in that order. The fares fluctuate and the best ones may be available for just an hour or so before they are snapped up. So if you've time it is best to check multiple times every 4 - 5 hours, and/or at odd times like early morning or late night.

The other thing is that for international travel their systems don't work well in real time. So just like Travelocity has problems even in domestic flights, these sites often display low fares that they later say are no longer available when you proceed to book your travel. You do sometimes get those lower fares when you try subsequently.

Frequent flier miles sometimes come in very handy. Daughter Sheena got a business / first class ticket for her forthcoming trip from Austin, TX, to Lima, Peru on American Airlines for relatively few (60K) AAdvantage miles. This is on dates when paid fares even in coach are very high.

Q: Which airline have you mostly been flying? Are you happy with it? Have you ever taken the Air India nonstop? (i.e., the direct flight from New York or Chicago to Delhi or Mumbai.) I'm curious about it, and also about its quality aspects.

A: Some of my recent trips to India have been on Delta non-stop from JFK (since discontinued), American-Swiss combos via Zurich, Air France via Paris, and Thai Airways. The US airlines typically have the skimpiest service, especially American, while the European (and Thai) airlines have better food and cheerier attendants. Continental is better among the US carriers, though. They took great care of us in Frankfurt when we were stranded for 3 days due to bad snowstorms in the US.

In contrast, when we flew American Airlines and missed a connection in Zurich due to a late incoming flight, they wrongly blamed this on the weather and we stayed a day at our own expense without any help from them. They ultimately paid up months later, but that's a long story.

There are mixed reviews about Air India but my experience on all 6-7 trips on it has been very good. A couple of times passengers tended to be unruly or unsophisticated - a Sardarji swaying drunkenly after several free drinks, and some passengers getting up from their seats on landing while the plane was still taxiing on the runway. But those were sources of amusement rather than inconvenience for me / us.

To us personally the Air India crew has been very attentive, polite and gracious, emblematic of typical Indian hospitality. On one occasion after we were airborne a flight attendant noticed I had long legs and of her own re-seated me (and Anita) in a more spacious section. At other times the flight attendants have plied me with multiple alcoholic drinks when I requested for one (may be I look like a boozer.)

And those traveling non-stop from the US to on Air India have generally liked it a lot even in coach - plenty of leg room, good food, unlimited drinks, polite crew, etc. Jet Airways invariably receives rave reviews though I've not used it for international travel myself, and they don't offer non-stops to India. In general it's better, faster and less uncertain (due to delays and missed connections at intermediate airports, volcanic ash in Europe, etc.) to travel non-stop from US to India. So I'd recommend it, on Air India or whatever.

Moreover, the crews are individuals so experiences can vary - I've often seen great attendants and got service to match even on my lowest ranked airline, American Airlines.

Guarding Your Tail

2010-07-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

Imagine you are running a $100B company. Your personal salary is 2% of the excess earnings (over and above the safe treasury rate) of your company. You secretly bet your company's fortune so you get an extra 1% of return on investment with 98% probability, but your company can lose everything with a 2% probability.

Any bookie can see these are terrible odds for the company since the "expectation" is (0.98 X 1) - (0.02 X 100) = -$1.02B. In other words your actions will cause your firm to lose $1.02B a year on average over a long period of time.

But if you are mainly concerned about about your own earnings during your 5 year tenure at the top, then making this bet makes perfect sense. There is an over 90% chance that your company gets that 1% for all five years, netting you $20M every year. If they are unaware of the chances you've taken, then your investors will attribute your "success" to your superior managerial capability. And if that calamity does occur wiping out your investors, you personally get to walk away paying nothing. You even keep your past earnings, go yachting and getting your life back, as BP's CEO Tony Hayward would say.

That in essence is why people can have strong incentives to take on tail risks defined as very unlikely but catastrophic events. Instances of such tail risk taking include:
a) The aforementioned BP spill, where cutting corners and ignoring safety imperatives can save oil companies hundreds of millions of dollars a year. While the other oil chiefs solemnly swear to the complete safety of their practices, they know the chance of any such false claims being exposed on their watch is very low. Just as it was for Tony Hayward who was unlucky enough to have lost the reverse lottery. But the the risk of something terrible happening is very high, when aggregated over all the operating companies and the tens of thousands of wells operating under loose regulations.
b) The financial meltdown led by the collapse of the sub prime mortgage loans market. The easy money architects like Alan Greenspan thought the risk was very low. Many lenders, traders and money managers (backed by their rocket scientist quant analysts) knew that a drop in real estate prices could be catastrophic to the derivatives market. They just figured that the bubble wouldn't burst in their short term trading horizon, and someone else down the line would take the fall. Or if they were too big to fail, that they could collect on the upside while a lot of the downside would be borne by taxpayers. They were right on many counts. Even Goldman Sachs which famously dodged the bullet would have done badly if the housing price collapse had started a year earlier, before they unwound their positions.
c) Hurricane Katrina and the damage to New Orleans. Generations of politicians and lawmakers avoided raising and strengthening New Orleans' barriers. These would have guarded against the very unlikely possibility (in their watch) of a Category 5 hurricane directly hitting the city. They instead could divert such resources for popular "pandering" projects that would win them accololades and political support, with no one the wiser about the risk that did not materialize. But a city's life should be measured in centuries (think of the Netherlands' dikes) and over that horizon the risk was very high.
d) Other as yet unrealized disasters like nuclear accidents (assuming Three Mile Island wasn't bad enough and a while back) or earthquakes where safety codes are not strong or enforced enough.

The common factor in all these instances is that the people taking the risks on average derive a huge benefit from doing so, even if this is severely detrimental to the affected populace. That's why leaving the regulation and policing to the private industry can be so harmful. These special interests can lobby fiercely, or use a portion of their expected benefits to bribe or buy support and intimidate opposition that wants tighter controls.

At "my" University of Chicago the majority academic view leaned heavily towards private enterprise and self regulating markets. It went way beyond the concept of "efficient markets" relating to stock, etc. prices that makes intuitive sense. Many of the arguments and reasoning I heard in support of this more extreme "private and unregulated is generally the best" view was not convincing to me. It generally cited historical correlations between free enterprise and economic prosperity. Many of these no longer hold as even Andy Grove pointed out on July 1 in BusinessWeek in a different context of job creation and the rise of China and other controlled economies.

Still, to its credit the University of Chicago does tolerate dissent and fosters diversity of opinion. Paul Krugman in his April 9, 2009 NYT column, pointed to Raghuram Rajan of this school presciently warning back in 2005 of the risk of a financial meltdown, absent adequate controls. Now we just need to have lawmakers and politicians step up to the plate and have the right government safeguards to watch our collective back - and tail.

Sheena's Latest Pastime - Take Two

2010-06-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

Three months ago I had talked about daughter Sheena's varied interests including her latest one - aerial silk dancing, and added a YouTube link to her first performance on Feb. 14.

On April 27 she had her second performance. Her improvement is evident, as is the fact that in physical prowess her acorn fell far from the family tree, particularly on my side. I'm talking of her flexibility as well as comfort with heights.

About the first, I'm stiff enough to have caused considerable amusement all around during my few attempts at even the most basic of Yoga poses. I'm happy just to touch my toes and can barely manage to sit cross-legged on the floor for a couple of minutes in our traditional Indian gatherings. Yet Sheena's flexibility has been evident since childhood.

Her second performance is at some height off the ground, and much greater drops haven't bothered her. She showed no nervousness when we both first bungee-jumped in Vegas off a 180 foot platform. That was when I was inwardly frozen with fear. I saw her smiling broadly in a subsequent video of a bungee jump off a bridge to an apparently much deeper drop.

Back to her 2nd aerial silk dancing performance, here's a YouTube link to her video - the image is small but not bad for a night shot taken with her miniature Canon SD780 camera. She has a better close-up version on her Facebook account (for anyone who's her "friend" there.)

More J&J Shenanigans

2010-05-10T09:56:00.000-07:00

As I suspected my Listerine experience mentioned in the last post was not just a one-off by J&J. It looks to be part of a pattern created by the top management placing quick growth and profits over ethics and long term reputation and performance.

Here are other recent instances:

The Justice Department in January accused J&J of bribing nursing home drug procurer Omnicare with tens of millions of dollars to buy and promote its drugs. The kickbacks allegedly increased J&J's sales through Omnicare from $100 million annually to $280 million. The inappropriately administered drugs like Risperdal increased the risk of death for many patients with dementia.
A subsequent March 11 BusinessWeek article (March 22-29 issue) reports an "explosion of litigation" by states against J&J over illegally marketing Risperdal for unapproved uses. The practices included getting paid doctors to plant questions from the audience so they could talk about off-label uses. J&J may end up paying billions to settle this.
Last week J&J recalled 40 of its pain and allergy drugs for children including children's Tylenol. These drugs were contaminated or had the wrong strength of ingredients, and J&J's may be guilty of criminal (not just civil) misconduct. It's ironical that the government is advising consumers for their children's safety to switch from branded J&J products to their generic equivalents.
BusinessWeek on April 29 reported J&J will pay over $81 million to settle criminal and civil cases over improper promotion of its drug Topamax.

J&J of course is not alone in cutting corners and acting improperly. It's just no better now than the rest, and the loss of its reputation is likely to cost it much after its current management and CEO have departed. To consumers that means being wary of it, and regret its exit from the small pool of iconic brands that we over the decades had learned to trust.

Beware of New Listerine Claims and Products

2010-04-30T13:27:00.000-07:00

For over 17 years I have used Listerine mouthwash continuously on the recommendation of my periodontist, after getting religion on dental care. Its current maker and distributor Johnson & Johnson (J&J) bought the brand from Pfizer in 2006.

I had thought highly of J&J after reading a business case of the way it had handled a major crisis. It had launched a massive campaign, recalled 31 million bottles and reassured its customers following the 1982 Tylenol poisoning murders. That was 28 years ago.

Now it's very different. J&J seems (like Pfizer) to be all too willing to engage in deceptive marketing and mislead customers so long as it doesn't technically violate the law. Take Listerine.

Advanced Listerine was introduced in 2005 amidst much hype as an improvement over regular Listerine, with "the same germ killing power", "plus it controls tartar for cleaner, brighter teeth." It cost almost twice as much as regular Listerine. After switching to Advanced Listerine I one day happened to compare its back label with that of (regular) Cool Mint Listerine. To my amazement they both had exactly the same four active ingredients, in exactly the same proportion.

This way Listerine managed to make customers overpay for essentially the same product (except for the flavoring) with its misleading claims. I figure consumers eventually caught on, and the Advanced Listerine has quietly retreated from store shelves, but not before making millions in this rip-off.

Now here's the latest. Two months back I saw that the regular Listerine had been replaced in our local Costco store shelves by Listerine Total Care Anticavity Mouthwash. It was a different color (purple) and cost 25% more. The package had bold claims about protecting teeth and promoting dental health in six ways and gave the impression that this new product was all of the regular mouthwash and more.

I bought this and (wary from the previous experience) compared the label with that of the regular Listerine. Imagine my surprise when I found that its only active ingredient was sodium flouride, the same stuff you found in virtually all toothpastes sold in the stores. Since the fluoride in the toothpaste is sufficient for most users, the new Listerine is essentially useless for most folks, except for its alcohol content (same as in the regular variety) that kills germs.

So I returned the new Listerine and (at the urging of the nice Costco customer service folks) sent my feedback to Costco management. Many others must have done the same, because now the regular Listerine is back on the shelves, and I'm sticking with it. That's a product that I'd recommend any day, but beware of more marketing tricks and deceptions by these companies.

Another Uniquely American Feature

2010-03-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

Last month I picked up my parents returning from India at New York JFK airport. That's when I learned that the luggage cart rental has been increased there from $3 to $5. This apparently happened in February 2009 at both NYC airports.

Welcome to the US. Most fellow passengers of my parents were quite upset, and many avoided using the carts and struggled with their bags. Back in the late '80s and early '90s this charge was $1 to $1.25. I suspect Smarte Carte, the private company that operates and rents these carts, has a pretty cozy relationship with the airport authorities. This company's website as well as JFK's official one studiously omit disclosing these rates.

The parallel between these cart charges and non-universal US health care (at least as it existed till today) is obvious. It also points up the inefficiencies of this private, fee for service arrangement that makes everyone except this private company worse off. While passengers are being ripped off we also may be nearing a high cost death spiral as also explained by Krugman in a health care context. That means the exorbitant cart rates will decrease demand for them so much that the overhead costs will be spread over fewer carts, creating a push for even higher rates.

In all airports outside of the US luggage carts are "free", meaning these are included in normal airport charges that should work out to a few cents per passenger. So almost everyone uses carts and the per unit cost is a small fraction of that here. It's high time the airports (like health care authorities) learned from such better practices outside the US.

Sheena's Varied Interests, Including This Latest One

2010-03-09T09:31:00.000-08:00

Most of our US born nephews and nieces were deeply channeled into specific after class activities from early childhood, with heavy investment of time and effort by them as well as their parents. They gained considerable proficiency and competitive accomplishments in their respective pursuits, including debating, ballet, golf, piano recitals, swimming and martial arts.

Our older daughter Sheena wishes we had pushed her more in this way, too. But we like most parents in our circle in India largely let our kids find their own interests, attended their performances and helped transport them to and from their activities.

In this background, Sheena developed a variety of pastimes, some of them quite atypical. In addition to playing musical instruments, singing and dancing she also became very good at chess and its tandem variant "bughouse."

In our trip to Las Vegas a while back she was taken up with bungee jumping off an 18 story high platform. I as dad felt obliged to go first to ensure it was safe. Though I hid it I was paralyzed with fear before my first jump, but Sheena laughed and joked with the operators while following suit.

What's more, she has kept up and expanded her activities since graduating and working in Austin. For a software engineer her pursuits have ranged well beyond the nerdy. She is accomplished in various modern dances, has been part of a women choir, and played Ultimate Frisbee tournaments in three continents.

Six weeks ago we came to know about Sheena's latest interest when Rubina and her fiancee Shaun visited Austin to celebrate Sheena's birthday. As a birthday present Shaun got and helped install an aerial silk rope through Sheena's home ceiling. Since the past few months she took up aerial silk dancing that was new to us. While a beginner, here's the video of her first performance jointly with good friend Sumina.

The Silver Lining - Rising Above It All

2010-03-03T14:13:00.001-08:00

A lot of Anita's folks including my parents-in-law live in Mumbai and Pune, so I pay special attention to developments there.

Two recent adverse events were the Shiv Sena agitation against popular Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan ("SRK") in Mumbai, and the German Bakery blast in Pune. These are of course vastly different in terms of severity and criminality. But the reaction they evoked (or lack of it) speaks well for Indians, who will hopefully keep this up.

SRK was right in criticizing the snub of Pakistani cricketers by the Indian Premier League, an antithesis of "ping pong diplomacy" where sports help improve country relations. In response the Shiv Sena which is seldom (if ever) up to any good tried to damage SRK by disrupting the screening of his latest film "My Name is Khan." They announced a "boycott", intimidated movie halls,tore off posters and threatened violence.

But the movie has done very well in Mumbai where it played to packed houses, and in the rest of the country. This notwithstanding its serious theme and lack of box office "masala" that typically lures the masses. Deliberate or not, it also carries a message, sensitizing viewers to some Muslim sentiments which should strengthen communal amity. While the major source of this movie's revenues is domestic, it has broken records in the Middle East and other Islamic markets, as well as in the rest of the world.

In contrast to the Shiv Sena's antics against SRK that are merely a nuisance, the German Bakery blast in Pune was an act of malicious terrorism claiming 17 innocent lives and injuring over 50 others. A little over a year ago I visited this place every other day for almost a month while Anita's parents were in Inlaks Hospital a few hundred yards away.

The victims couldn't have been further removed from any jihadist angst. The patrons of this modest eatery were typically carefree young people or foreigners of limited means seeking peace and solace in the nearby Osho Ashram. Like in the Mumbai Nov. 26, '08 carnage, what would have really played into the terrorists' hands would have been a backlash against India's Muslim community. The main purpose of these acts seems to be to disrupt the India-Pakistan renewed talks as well as to create a communal divide in India.

That has not happened, and the credit for that goes to Hindus and Muslims of India alike. This has also elicited praise in the Western media (like from Tom Friedman after the 2008 Mumbai attacks.) There's no guarantee for the future but every successive instance of collective restraint and a mature response to provocations augurs well for this country's greatness.

Of course it has not always been like this. After the 2002 Godhra violence and communal riots in Gujarat (with alleged state government lapses) the good times started in the time of Prime Minister Vajpayee. Though he headed a nationalistic and supposedly pro-Hindu government, he helped select the widely respected Muslim scientist Abdul Kalam as President of India.

Despite the inevitable hiccups and dissent, further developments have strengthened the climate of inclusiveness and tolerance. In his now famous November 2009 speech, Shashi Tharoor describes the 2004 appointment of Dr. Manmohan Singh to prime minister. Here was a Sikh chosen to lead a predominantly Hindu India, sworn in by a Muslim President, and all this made possible by an Italian woman Sonia Gandhi who headed the largest Indian political party. What could be more eloquent testimony than this?

The (Lack Of?) Mind Of The Voter

2010-01-27T10:07:00.000-08:00

Both Democrats and Republicans have die hard core constituencies. They each average almost a third of the voters, with the proportions varying in Blue and Red states, and rarely stray from their party. Both parties can rely on these bases, so long as they to turn out to vote.

In Republican Scott Brown's surprise victory over Martha Coakley for the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat it was the swing of independent voters towards Brown that made the difference. This was unexpected in a solidly Democratic constituency when most voters knew about the high stakes involved in giving Republicans the 41st "filibuster enabling" Senate vote.

What led to this voter behavior? Pundits talk about dissatisfaction with the economy and lack of jobs, anger at a do-nothing government (even though Republicans as a block were largely responsible) and anxiety over "bad" health reforms. I've this to add:

Trivials can matter a lot. Scott was out there campaigning vigorously. He was in front of the cameras. He is telegenic. Martha was lax. She celebrated her Christmas at home and shunned "standing in the cold" at Fenway Park. She flubbed with some silly sports comments. She took voters for granted. So they punished her.

Do not underestimate voters - part 1. That is, underestimate their ability to make wrong judgments or outright mistakes. Americans re-elected George Bush in 2004. I supported Joe Lieberman in 2006. Democrats chose Obama over Hillary in 2008 (okay, I couldn't resist this cheap shot.) They do that - just take it in stride.
Do not underestimate voters - part 2. That is, underestimate their ability to blame the wrong people. The economic and jobs debacle was created in GWB's time (with some roots going as far as in Clinton's time.) AIG was bailed out along with Wall Street players with 100% coverage of counterparty commitment also during the Republican era. Obama's administration and Congress opted for too small and misdirected a stimulus package despite Paul Krugman's early and repeated warnings because of solid Republican (and some Blue Dog) obstruction. Ditto for the long and torturous evolution of the convoluted health reforms bill. But voter anger is rewarding the bad guys.
But there are hopeful lessons, including from elsewhere. In India voters are often ignorant and seem irrational. Convicted murderers, bandits and thugs have been elected as Members of Parliament. In some states corrupt and inept governments are successively elected for decades at a stretch. Voters frequently are driven by very narrow considerations (like caste) that don't reflect their larger interests and longer term preferences. But in the last election last year even they seem to have rewarded the Manmohan Singh / Sonia Gandhi Congress government for trying to do the right thing. People are the same. If Indian voters with a 66% literacy rate and under 1.5% of US per capita income can ultimately "get it", then why not US voters?

So it's good for the Obama administration to read the Massachusetts outcome to adjust strategy and message as Bob Herbert suggests in his NYT OpEd today. But they shouldn't be spooked away from bold policy initiatives. Obama said as much in his State of the Union speech today, and we'll know soon enough how much he means it.

Thanksgiving at Our Home

2009-12-11T00:35:00.000-08:00

A little personal update with some family pics.

I reached Delhi yesterday after taking a flight from Pune. Two weeks back on Nov. 26 we celebrated Thanksgiving at our home in Danbury with family and friends. Rubina and Shaun were the first to arrive from NYC, followed by Sheena on a flight from Austin.

Then Anita's close friends (now mine too :-) ) from New Jersey, Neeta and Sunil Dudani joined us in the evening. They were accompanied by their daughters Sonam and Tanya, and their cousin (also Anita's nephew) Karthik who was visiting from Chicago. The last to arrive was good sport Champa who made it despite having a hectic schedule ahead of her departure the next day for a month long trip to Munich and India.

As in earlier Thanksgivings we followed the meal with a celebration of Rubina's birthday that's close enough date wise. Shaun's folks had their post-Thanksgiving get-together in Massachusetts that was attended by Shaun, Rubina and Sheena who later took a flight back to Austin from Boston. Rubina, Shaun and his sister Shannon briefly stopped at our place on their way back to New York, and Anita had them try on some Indian dresses.

All said, we had a very good, enjoyable weekend, and here are the pictures to show for it.

Rubina's Engagement Update

2009-11-24T09:16:00.000-08:00

About six weeks ago we announced to our close family and friends our daughter Rubina's engagement to Shaun Fillion. We are all very happy. I'm repeating the information while adding a couple of updates.

Shaun earned his bachelor's from New York University and his master's from the CIA (not THAT one - this is the California Institute of Arts.) He is now lighting designer in a specialist firm that works on large buildings and high rises in the US and internationally. He is of Irish American descent, and grew up in Bedford, MA, near Boston. Rubina is a graphics editor in the Wall Street Journal since March of 2008.

Last month on October 10 we had Shaun's family (parents Kathy and Tim, and sister Shannon) over at our home in Danbury. We had a great time - though we had met and spent time together over two months ago this was the first time after the official engagement. To my amusement Rubina several months back had described Shaun as "the least cynical guy in New York." His family is as warm and wonderful as he. Here's a link to some pictures from our October get-together:

http://picasaweb.google.com/smadan/ShaunFamilyVisit_101009#

We missed Sheena but she will be joining us over Thanksgiving on Nov. 26 as are Rubina and Shaun. On Saturday, Nov. 28 all three will go to Springfield, MA to meet Shaun's family and extended family for a post-Thanksgiving get-together.

Since last month we've remained in touch with Shaun's family, and along with Rubina and Shaun had been looking for wedding venues and dates. Though I had heard about this all these years, I was still somewhat surprised to see how so many of the wedding places get all booked up over a year in advance. Rubina and Shaun preferred a Fall wedding since the Northeast fall foliage will be a bonus for those attending the ceremony.

The planned wedding will be decent sized by US standards, though small in comparison to typical Indian ones. After visiting a few wedding places, the couple (and Shannon and us parents too) liked one of these a lot that Anita had first located on the internet. It is a mansion south of Hartford, CT, that is under an hour's drive from our Danbury home and quite close to Boston and central Massachusetts area as well where a lot of Shaun's folks stay. It was heavily booked but available on Sunday, October 17, 2010 which should be peak fall season, so we lost no time reserving this place for that day.

So the decision about the place and date has been made. It'll be fun for us all deciding on the mix of ceremonies, plus making other plans and arrangements over the coming months.

No Returning to GEICO

2009-09-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

This is a consumer alert for Americans considering GEICO after watching those brilliant and funny ads featuring the gecko lizard and cavemen.

We carried GEICO auto insurance for several years till they heavily jacked up rates when we changed one of our cars for a new one. That's apparently a common way for insurers to reward loyal customers that they figure will stick around no matter what. So we switched to AllState that offered much lower rates.

If we do want to switch again some time we'll probably steer clear of GEICO even if they offer low premium rates. This is because of their ineptness and questionable practices that we experienced at first hand. Some instances:

Our car driven by daughter Sheena was lightly hit in the rear side by a car jumping a red light. That other driver was deemed at fault and ticketed by the investigating police officer. We reported the incident to GEICO and were assured this wouldn't reflect adversely on our record. The operator advised us to let GEICO fix our car in their own workshop and they'd recover expenses from the other driver's insurer. The car was repaired all right at a cost of $700. We then received a letter that GEICO had decided not to pursue the claim with the other insurer as the amount involved was too small and billed us the deductible of $100. Years later we learned that GEICO had without our knowledge recorded this claim in the insurers' common database, showing our daughter to be at fault. Why? Because this way we would get higher rate quotes from competing insurers.
GEICO has its claims adjusters who assess damages and then offer the claimant the choice of a cash settlement , or proceeding to a GEICO designated workshop for getting the repair done. The problem I saw is that adjusters typically offer a very low cash settlement, forcing the car owner to go to the designated workshop that vastly inflates the claim after the drop-off, which the GEICO adjuster then readily allows. The workshop obviously has a kickback arrangement with the adjuster. This is corruption remniscent of practices in a third world country. The inflated repair charges adversely affect the claims history of the policy holder. They also affect GEICO's bottom line since the amount paid out may be far higher than claimants would have agreed to receive in fairer settlements.
We saw a surprising number of clerical errors (e.g., in recording VINs, coverage and billing) in the policies issued. When I called to seek correction we'd typically get a lot of duplicate and contradictory mailings. It sometimes took multiple iterations for them to get things right, only to have the process repeated when even minor changes were required to be made.

GEICO is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway which is founded by the legendary and admirable Warren Buffett. Improving GEICO's operational structure and execution to match its marketing and advertising creativity shouldn't be so hard. For example they can compile data on cost escalations for their designated and third party workshops that will help flag their crooked claims assessors / adjusters. They can track the numbers and cost of mailings and compare it to industry averages to improve efficiency, and also track the average number of customer calls made to resolve an issue. These measures are almost so easy that even a caveman can do it.

How Did He Get It So (Largely) Right?

2009-09-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman's article last week in the Times "How Did Economists Get It So Wrong" was remarkable in two ways.

First, it neatly captured the essence of how two schools of economists (which includes finance academics) differ in their approach to markets. Krugman presented this so skillfully that it can be grasped by readers without a background in economics. At the same time it was immensely useful and interesting as a recap and to put issues in perspective even for practitioners in the field.

Second, the article is fully eight pages long - much longer than his Op-Eds, and I thought it would be too "heavy" for most readers. Yet to my surprise it was the most popular and emailed article for a couple of days. That's as much of a tribute to the caliber of the Times' readership as to Krugman's writing. I strongly recommend this piece to anyone who wants to get an insightful overview (admittedly from Krugman's eyes) of the rival schools of thought and of the issues separating them.

Though I studied at Chicago, I find myself agreeing with much of what Krugman says. This is particularly so in regard to the Keynesian belief in helping the economy through temporary stimulus spending, and events showing markets can be grossly inefficient for long periods of time. In fact, in my post back on Feb. 10 I had voiced strong misgivings about the statements of some prominent Chicago professors who opposed the fiscal stimulus plans.

However, Krugman is still a little unfair to the Chicago school by painting them as largely unified against Keynesian beliefs, firmly believing in efficient markets, and lumping them all as "freshwater" economists. Krugman did acknowledge that the danger of a financial market meltdown was first pointed out by another Chicago economist, Raghuram Rajan. But Krugman didn't mention that a leading academic of the theory of "behavioral economics" (rival to efficient markets theory) also belongs to the Chicago school. That professor is Richard Thaler who is at least as well known as the other proponent of behavioral economics, Robert Shiller, whom Krugman repeatedly mentioned.

In fact, during my time there I had found it great about Chicago that rival theories could be freely and vigorously debated in the weekly finance workshops and other academic forums. I remember how Eugene Fama (dubbed "the father of the efficient market theory") in his highly popular fnance class had included Thaler's papers as required reading. And though a lot of friendly riffs about opposing beliefs were exchanged, Thaler used to be invited to Chicago's finance workshops to discuss his papers even when he taught at MIT or Cornell. Then about 10 years ago he was welcomed into Chicago as a tenured professor.

But apart from setting the record straight about Chicago and other other schools (about their not having monolithic, misplaced beliefs) I really like and commend Krugman's article.

Changing Our Criminal Justice System

2009-09-03T09:34:00.000-07:00

I am unhappy with several aspects of our US criminal justice. But I'm on the left or the right depending on the practice in question. Broadly speaking, I'm with the left when it comes to presumption of innocence and treating those not yet convicted of crimes with dignity. And I'm with the right for more powers for investigating crimes, treatment of convicted offenders and lowering the taxpayer tab on prison inmates.

This is where I'd want a more liberal shift:

Avoid handcuffing non-violent suspects before they obtain bail. Why did Martha Stewart, Michael Jackson, or the two Bear Stearns fund managers have to be handcuffed and confined before appearing in court when (a) they seem highly unlikely to pose physical danger to the arresting officers, and (b) had ample advance notice of impending charges, so they could be allowed to do something about it? Being handcuffed would be very humiliating and an affront to our dignity for most of us - something that can't be undone even if we're subsequently cleared. Since 1980 the Indian Supreme Court has barred handcuffing of suspects who are not likely to be violent or dangerous. There is also a clear provision for anyone to approach the court and seek anticipatory bail to avoid needless humiliation and inconvenience. If a developing country like India can have these safeguards, why not the US?
Have much stricter gun control. What age are we living in? The 2nd Amendment giving the right to bear arms is an anachronism, though this will be hard to repeal because of entrenched beliefs. It's almost inconceivable for someone coming from India (and I'm sure most developed countries) to see how easily any punk in the US can acquire a firearm. Even assault weapons can be bought, with the NRA and the loony gun-toting fringe vigorously defending this right in the name of self-protection. And there should be strict background checks and stringent penalties for disqualified applicants possessing illegal firearms. Thanks to guns the US has a much higher homicide rate than other first world countries. With shootings at Columbine, Virginia Tech, Washington Beltway sniping, "going postal" and other workplace violence, perhaps the average American is now ready for more Europe style arms restrictions.
Freely let DNA evidence and new techniques be used to revisit old cases of conviction to reassess guilt. Some of these convictions have been successfully challenged, DNA tests allowed and convictions reversed. But we know how jury verdicts can be so flawed and arbitrary - why assign a false sanctity to such verdicts and not allow DNA tests in all such cases?
Decriminalize victimless crimes like acts between consenting adults, or using (as opposed to dealing with) drugs. What former NY Gov. Elliott Spitzer did in hiring a call girl may be bad for his family life, but shouldn't have been a crime.

Here's where I favor a marked shift to the right:

Much stiffer penalties for criminals. True to our sense of fair play, justice should be retributive, not just reformative or a deterrent as liberals maintain. There's no reason to take capital punishment off the table for egregious murders so long as guilt is established beyond all lingering doubt (say with 99.99% certainty), not just reasonable doubt. There also shouldn't be a blanket minimum age or intelligence threshold for capital punishment. After all, a juvenile showing extreme cruelty or sadism while knowingly committing crimes is more, not less, likely to become an even bigger monster as he grows older.
A tougher and lower cost jail environment. There's something wrong about criminals (especially hardened ones) sentenced to punishment spending their time watching TV, pumping iron, eating well and enjoying better medical care than many people outside the prison. Criminals should repay their debt to society through work and depending on the gravity of their offenses (think Dahmer, Bundy, the Beltway snipers, or the killers of my childhood friend Aasha) as a resource for medical testing and organ donation against payment to the state. These measures will at least lower the taxpayer burden, and if they act as some kind of a deterrent against crime, that's a bonus. (The Chinese till recently were harvesting and selling organs of executed prisoners. That disturbed many of us because we weren't sure if (a) those people had actually committed crimes deserving of the death penalty, and (b) if the profit from organ sales was itself an incentive for executing prisoners.)
Close monitoring of inmates and strict punishments for offenses committed in jails. I've don't understand how prison rapes and inmate on inmate violence can still go undetected given our advances in technology. We can cheaply video monitor (and record) every cell, every square foot of prison space, and every movement by every inmate. Any offenses can be easily proved by playing back the recordings and inmates severely punished, preferably in a revenue positive fashion (see point above.) Guards who fail to act can also be identified and disciplined. This will also crimp in-prison gang activity and prevent the worst and most dangerous inmates from victimizing weaker ones.
Furthering limiting or completely eliminating trials by jury. The US is one of the few countries where jury trials, which are highly wasteful with often arbitrary verdicts, are still widely prevalent. Other countries use just judges, whose verdicts can be appealed to superior judges and panels of judges. Given our multicultural society with ethnic divides and loyalties, jury trials are even more vulnerable to unfair outcomes, especially when the alleged crimes cross racial boundaries. Remember how O.J. Simpson was let off for double murder by a mostly black jury in 1994, and lost in the subsequent civil case decided by a mainly white jury (though this case admittedly required a lower burden of proof.)
Requiring every US resident to submit a DNA sample and to carry a national ID card. Objections by the ACLU to maintain privacy have little merit, since safeguards can be imposed to ensure the information is used only to detect or prevent major crimes. Besides, consider the huge upside of such measures. Any DNA on a crime scene can be matched against a national database of the entire populace to solve crimes. Terrorism can be severely limited with a national ID, possibly combined with biometrics. The system can be carefully designed of course to protect most privacy, but this exercise to guard against "Big Brother" excesses should be very feasible.

There may be nuances, but a majority of Americans likely agree with my thinking.

Clunker Mania and its Aftermath

2009-08-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

Stubbornness sometimes pays off. For years I had resisted getting rid of our 1992 Chrysler Town & Country minivan. It served as our (and occasionally our friends') spare car, and my father's car whenever my parents came visiting. It was also good for hauling five plus passengers or bulky home supplies when needed.

Then this Cash for Clunkers (CARS) program was launched last month. Anita and I happily traded in our minivan for a fuel efficient SUV, getting a $4,500 rebate from Uncle Sam in the process.

Nationally in the US, this $3 billion taxpayer funded program has benefited automakers, dealers and about 700,000 buyers like us. The implementation by the government could have been a lot better, especially in avoiding internet outages and speed of processing claims. But overall this was a huge success and has boosted the recession-hit auto industry. This clunker mania also drew in many shoppers to dealerships who did not qualify for rebates, but were enticed to buy cars anyway.

What now? Consider three factors. First, some pundits have predicted that with the ending of this program the sales of autos will slump. Second, a lot of owners of old sedans are feeling left out. That's because only the old cars and light trucks with a rated gas consumption of 18 mpg or less qualified for the rebate, and this excluded most sedans. Third, some eligible clunker owners couldn't buy a new car because of shortages of popular fuel efficient models due to the enthusiastic response to the program.

The following steps by the Obama administration and Congress can address all these issues:

A new version of the program raises the mileage ceiling for clunkers so it includes many more sedans. Say, the EPA mileage ceiling for clunkers can be raised from 18 mpg to 21 mpg. This will create a second wave of new car buyers, as well as help those who were eligible but couldn't complete their transactions under the just ended program.
At the same time the rebate per vehicle can be slightly reduced so that the same public funds cover more cars. For example, the rebate can be $3,000 for the new car's fuel economy improvement of 6 mpg or more (4 mpg for new SUVs), and $2,000 for 4 - 6 mpg (2 - 4 mpg for new SUVs.)
The implementation should be considerably improved this time around. With even halfway decent capacity planning there was no reason to have website crashes or overloads. Just 700,000 claims with each file of a few MBs size were being uploaded over a period of several weeks. Any decent data vendor could have made many times such capacity available even at short notice. The same applies to human claims processors using back of the envelope calculations, especially now, with the benefit of hindsight.

Another aspect bothers me, though I've no solid solution. Some experts have decried the requirement that the engines of the old traded vehicles be disabled to take them permanently off the road. This in a macro sense is a destruction of value since some of these vehicles may have many years of useful life left. It is worse if the vehicle in question now happens to be a car with somewhat better fuel efficiency than the existing 18 mpg threshold.

Can we spare such cars, and only require them to be converted so they can use compressed natural gas (CNG) that is much cheaper and less polluting than gasoline? This conversion is very popular in India and costs $1,500 - $2,000. Can such converted used cars be allowed to be exported to countries like India, so that the US owner bringing them in gets a much higher trade in value, in addition to the government rebate? That can draw more owners of less old cars to avail of the CARS program and buy new vehicles. But I haven't thought this through and it needs more study.

Another Look At Howard Dean

2009-08-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

I was underwhelmed by Howard Dean's Democratic Presidential bid in 2004. Even before the Iowa primary and his much publicised "scream" (a total non-factor for me) Dean was my fourth preference, behind Wesley Clark, John Edwards and John Kerry, in that order.

I had paid inadequate attention to what Dean had to say and thought he leaned too far left on some issues at that time. But as 2008 rolled along I was impressed by his articulation of Democratic values and even-keeled stance as DNC chairman during the Hillary - Obama primary slug fest. And now he's been making direct, succinct and insightful comments in TV news shows on health reforms, including on the issue of the public option that he strongly supports.

In the Morning Joe program on MSNBC he offered this very interesting perspective on death panels and why Obama seemed to be backing away from the public option ahead of a Senate vote. He said this was a way to get a bill past the Senate with 60 votes when Democrat senators like Ben Nelson and Kent Conrad are sabotaging the public option provision. This provision can then be re-introduced through a "reconciliation process" with the House of Representatives bill that then needs only 50 votes to pass. If that's truly what Obama has in mind then I won't be so hasty in judging him.

Others have also noticed how Dean is such an effective voice for health reforms and for batting down misinformation by opponents. Here is a YouTube clip by a group called The Young Turks showing how Dean counters three arguments against key reform provisions. The commentator wonders why Dean isn't the Health and Human Services Secretary. Now that he's done being DNC chairman I hope he gets to assume another high public office. And yes, if I could revisit 2004 he'd be my top choice among those presidential candidates.

Is Some Profiling Okay?

2009-08-10T02:31:00.000-07:00

I think much better of President Obama now though I'm not always his fan. I voted for him last November thanks in large part to the person to whom he owes a huge debt of gratitude. I'm referring of course to Sarah Palin. Her post-election antics and recent comments (e.g., "Obama death panels could decide if her parents and her baby, Trig, who has Down’s Syndrome, will live or die") confirm that voters like me chose well.

Following the Henry Gates arrest in his own home I had the same initial reaction about probably stupid police behavior as Obama articulated to his cost. So I sympathize with him and his need amidst the media circus to make amends through a beer fest. The Cambridge police union had a nerve asking for Obama's apology. How does a uniformed law and order force get to have a union anyway? In India such a practice is rightly banned. It is interesting to see the racial divide on who people think was at fault.

My views on this incident and the larger issue of profiling are unlikely to please either camp.

First, I think the policeman James Crowley acted improperly in arresting Gates and was much more at fault. When Gates said he lived in the house Crowley clearly should have realized how an African-American Gates would be upset about his perceived profiling by the police. Gates probably assumed that cops happening to pass by had stopped to challenge him simply because they saw a black man getting into this upscale house. All Crowley had to do was to civilly inform Gates that the police had received a 911 call about a possible break-in so they needed to verify identity. Instead, Crowley mechanically repeated orders in this just-do-as-I-say-since-I'm-a-cop manner that inflamed Gates who was probably unaware of why the police were there. Too bad Crowley's misconduct was rewarded with beer in the White House, though I completely understand Obama's recognizing political realities and defusing an unexpected firestorm.

At the same time I think that some forms of ethnic profiling can be reasonable, useful and appropriate if done right. At our University of Chicago campus which is surrounded by some rough neighborhoods, in almost all muggings, break-ins and other crimes the perpetrators were black. So our campus police on patrol would frequently watch for black youths without book bags to enquire as to where they were heading to ensure they were on bona fide business. Were they wrong to do so? The chance of the accosted youth being up to no good was very low, say, 1 in 200. But for non-blacks that probability would be more like 1 in 20,000. So what's a more efficient use of limited resources? The only thing is, the university police went out of their way to be polite, pleasant and apologetic once the subject of their attention was confirmed to be okay.

Take also the case of South Asians and Middle-Easterners, including myself, after the 9/11 attacks. I know many of my fellow-Indians and especially Muslims were livid when they were pulled aside for detailed searches at airports. I had much more than my fair share of such searches, but I thought differently. How can I blame the poor security personnel? From my looks I could easily be a Middle-Easterner, and even Anita says I can have an intimidating gaze. So even if the absolute probability is minuscule, I'm a 100 or 1000 times more likely to be a fanatical hijacker than your average homegrown American traveler.

During and after my full searches at airports I'd put screeners at ease and thank them for keeping us safe, and mostly got a lot of gratitude and goodwill in return. Some screeners would then confess to being stressed by the indignant reaction of many passengers pulled out for this special treatment. Subsequently, to achieve balance and perhaps political correctness I'd see random passengers including teenage girls being identified for additional searches. There's some merit to this approach, but using it to supplant (rather than supplement) the traditional way including profiling is likely to make us more vulnerable.

Rubina a Graphics Editor - What's That?

2009-07-21T06:26:00.000-07:00

For the couple of years after graduating from the Columbia School of Journalism our daughter Rubina has worked as a graphics editor, the last 18 months with the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

What does she do as a graphics editor? She obtains the data and material and then uses it to create charts, tables, inset summaries and other visuals (except pure photographs) that accompany news stories. For her and her colleagues it can be a charged - some will say stressful - environment with tight deadlines. But she has a passion for it.

For the most part she and her colleagues walk into work in the morning, learn about developing stories and then conceive of the graphics in consultation with reporters, columnists and editors. Then it's data and materials search, verification, creation, iterations and all to be completed before "press time" by late evening.

They each do anything from two to five graphics on a typical day, depending on the complexity and the workload. To maintain an efficient and collaborative environment without worries about who gets credit the graphics folks generally do not put their names on their creations. We don't know about her precise handiwork till she tells us, though we can make some guesses.

Want to see a sample of Rubina's work? Unfortunately, most of the online versions are not the same as the ones in print, and need a subscription to view. If you have one, here's one from May 12 that she did on the US federal highest bracket tax rates going back all the way to 1913. The print version was better. It is overlaid with the terms and pictures of US Presidents. Rubina had to work with some IRS folks to get a major part of the information. When the story came out the IRS called to compliment the WSJ on the graphic.

Addendum on July 22: Today, Rubina had a graphic on childhood obesity so I thought I'll add it. Here's what she had to say:
I have a U.S. map on today's Currents page on child obesity rates by state. Rather than color-coding the states like we usually do, we decided to make the heights of the states correspond to their obesity rates. This was done using a program called Cinema 3-D, which I used for the first time on Monday. You can see the print version on page A11 or online here by clicking on the small map: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124821547930269995.html

Much Ado About Trivial Congress Expenses

2009-07-10T04:03:00.000-07:00

There should be a journalistic equivalent of the Razzies, a kind of an anti-Pullitzer Prize, awarded for the worst of the prominent media stories. For this I'd like to nominate a series of front page Wall Street Journal (WSJ) articles on Congressional travel and other expenses that have been appearing since mid-May. These have obviously been inspired by the British MP expense controversy that should have been a non-event if only the public were more astute. But it isn't, and the resultant scandal ended the political careers of many MPs and Ministers.

Of all papers, business-oriented ones like the WSJ should make the case as I did about compensation for US lawmakers being substantially boosted in line with their responsibilities. They should also have a public funding option for their election campaigns if they agree to forego private fundraising through campaign contributions. Even at salaries of $1 - $2 million annually and an equivalent amount for election expenses the annual taxpayer tab will be $3 billion. That's money well spent to reduce lawmaker vulnerability to petty Abramoff style inducements and lobbyist influence. It's a natural extension of campaign finance reform efforts, for which McCain and Feingold deserve a lot of credit even if they've had very limited success.

As I've said before, the WSJ has instead tried to whip up a UK style news storm about lawmaker "splurges" in the US. To some extent it has succeeded. Starting with its May 16 article, Expensing It, the US Way" the WSJ has played up travel and office expenses of at most a few thousand dollars per individual Congressmen that also happen to conform to all the rules and are available for public scrutiny in hard copy. But the WSJ wants to go further and sought full online disclosure of every expense detail. After its strident articles and reporting of May 20, May 30, June 1, June 3, Nancy Pelosi decided on June 4 to require all expense details to be posted online, with the Senate promising to follow suit.

All this detracts from the lawmakers focusing on infinitely more serious matters facing the country. Such journalism reflects poorly on a prestigious publication like the WSJ, and yet it hasn't stopped there. It has continued with these front page expose's including on July 2 highlighting the foreign travel tab of lawmakers of a whopping $13 million in 2008 (costing the average American 4 cents) and a July 3 article about such official records understating these expenses. Even so, the listed expenses are so trivial as to be laughable, but politicians know too well that they shouldn't over-estimate the wisdom of (at least a significant proportion of) the readers.

Ridicule by another part of the media may be the best way to stop such cheap and irrelevant reporting. Any takers, Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert?

Deepak Chopra on Michael Jackson

2009-06-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

I was always sympathetic and supportive of Michael Jackson, even through his court trials and "Wacko Jacko" labels used by the media while covering some of his later activities. Now that he's gone, it's good to see that in the broader populace positive memories and feelings for him far outweigh any negativity. He and Madonna have been my favorite pop icons and his untimely death ahead of his comeback concert is tragic.

Of all the interviews about Michael that I saw on TV the one I liked best is this one last night by Deepak Chopra with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. It not only gives great insights into Michael's psyche, life and the trauma that he faced, but also shows Deepak to be forthcoming, as well as a true and caring friend.

Gay and Diverse Celebration

2009-06-14T12:30:00.000-07:00

Anita's young female relative graduated from high school last week, and Anita and I had a great time attending the festivities. At a private dinner in a New Haven restaurant we met a nice young couple - one the step-sister of our graduate and the other her woman spouse, along with their two year old daughter.

The cute toddler ran around, being minded and doted upon by her two moms (one the biological mother through sperm donation) as well as her grandpa, a cheerful and mild-mannered cardiologist. He and his wife introduced the female couple as their daughter and daughter-in-law.

Considering that it was a family affair with everyone related by blood or marriage, our group of 10 was remarkably diverse. Five distinct mother tongues - English, Gujerati, Hindi, Malayalam and Panjabi. A mix of four Indian ethnic groups and one Caucasian. Four different religions - Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. In answer to Rodney King's question two decades ago, yes, we can all get along beautifully.

The female couple talked of their quest, hope and anxieties about getting recognized as spouses. They first got married in San Francisco, then last month in Massachusetts and are now looking forward to legalization of same sex marriage in New York where they live. They sought marriages in multiple states because of uneven laws recognizing these, and the validity being subject to referendums and court challenges. One of them talked about the hurt she felt when her uncle (the cardiologist's brother) whom she was very close to didn't attend their wedding.

I've supported gay marriage in a "why-not-if-it-makes-people-happy" sense, brushing aside those religious objections as meaningless. But I didn't consider it very different from civil unions and was hence not too invested in the issue. Now having seen it up close and personal, I am much more sympathetic to the cause and hope it gains universal acceptance.

More Ado About Nothing

2009-06-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know what's more deplorable. The awful journalism or the misplaced outrage of the public that reacts to such stories. First there's this continuing fallout from the UK lawmaker's so-called expense scandal that has put the hapless British PM Gordon Brown's career in severe jeopardy. I've already expressed my disgust at this storm in a teacup and want lawmakers to be paid a lot more so they can do their job better, without falling victim to petty temptations or distractions.

Now across the pond a top paper like the WSJ began orchestrating a move to require all members of the US Congress to post their expenses online. The Congressmen's expenses are already available in hard copy for anyone who is interested, but this apparently isn't enough. In three front page articles (imagine, they thought THIS was the most important news to report) the WSJ had big scoops about some members using their allowances on certain items. These included a lease of Lexus or other cars costing an average of $640 a month, 7 HD screens costing $2K each, uniform shirts costing $12K (total, not each) and so on...

You call THIS in the WSJ articles sensational or top news? The WSJ and other media drumbeat ultimately succeeded on June 4 in getting the House to agree to post all expenses online. Whoopee. I'd have liked some prominent journalists or leaders to point out how misplaced and ridiculous this whole coverage is. There's some hope. Mayor Bloomberg opined that the US President is grossly underpaid. There were predictable howls of indignation but at least one journalist Dan Thomasson supported his views and also advocated much higher pay for other public servants.

I'd like such views to be the rule rather than the exception.

Misplaced Outrage - The UK Scandal That Isn't

2009-05-29T07:59:00.000-07:00

So what do you think about the UK's MP expenses scandal that has forced the resignation of Speaker Michael Martin and several Ministers and MPs? The media reports talk of public outrage about these excesses and one poll shows the effect on UK voters. 63% have not been swayed by all this coverage and it won't change their voting preference, but a whopping 27% say that it has.

I think this whole controversy is deplorable, and a commentary on the quality of our media coverage. In an August 2007 post I disagreed with criticism of what we pay our lawmakers. I am strongly of the view that we should pay our apex lawmakers well, considering the enormous responsibilities and the public trust we place upon them.

That's not only fair but also expedient, as it will insulate them somewhat from the petty blandishments (like sports event tickets, rides on private jets, or stays in vacation homes of people seeking favors.) This won't prevent misdeeds by the heavily corrupt, but at least give the fundamentally decent lawmakers (hopefully the majority) the financial cushion to better follow their conscience. I'd also like to reduce the dependence of candidates to Congress (or Parliament in the case of UK or India) on special interests for raising funds for elections. This can be achieved, for example, by providing them public funding to contest elections, with the amount depending on their poll performance.

So how much should we pay them? I'd say $1 - $2 million a year to US members of Congress, and about 1 million GBP annually to UK MPs. For UK's 646 MPs it will work out to about 1 billion GBP including associate expenses, a drop in the bucket as compared to the UK central budget of 600 billion GBP. In the current MP scandal the total amount claimed by all MPs put together was 92 million GBP, not all of it improper. Given UK's population of 61M, that's less than 2 pounds per capita.

So yes, I consider this whole scandal to be a storm in a tea cup. And I know of no opinion leader or journalist of standing who has had the sense - or the courage - to pronounce it as such.

When Free Choice is Terrible

2009-04-29T16:03:00.000-07:00

Thank God for the Republicans for opposing this. And may be some centrist Democrats, including the recently inducted Sen. Arlen Specter. I thought no sane, objective person could support the proposed Employee Free Choice Act (aka "card-check".) Yet it is favored by Jagdish Bhagwati and even more so by Paul Krugman, both outstanding economists. Apart of course by Obama and most Democratic lawmakers as a matter of political necessity to appease unions that helped in their election.

Despite its noble sounding name this deliberately misnamed Act subverts workers' free choice about whether to unionize or not. Instead of voting by secret ballot, this Act also requires unions to be formed and recognized if half or more of the workers in an establishment sign pledge cards in support of this. So say, Tony Soprano style thugs knock on workers doors, stare across the dining table and hold the pledge card for workers to sign. Those who refuse can be intimidated, and everyone knows who is unwilling, leaving them open to retaliation down the line, or ostracism by fellow workers, or other unpleasant consequences.

So how do Krugman & Co. favor this over a free and fair vote by secret ballot? They essentially say that the means however imperfect justify the end, which is more unionization. This in turn will improve the lot of workers by extacting concessions from employers, and better redistribute wealth, thus narrowing the gap between the classes. If such ends justify the means, how about allowing the poor to extort money from the rich, or burglarize their homes to achieve redistribution?

Thankfully, it looks like card-check won't be able to clear the Senate with a filibuster-proof majority. Though many people take it as a given, I question the value of unions in many situations, or at least the premise that the pros outweigh the cons.

Unions to me are the most needed when through collective bargaining they are a counterweight to (mostly tacit) collusion by employers to keep wages and benefits below what would prevail in a free market. One example is of US hospital chains that were hit with a lawsuit over colluding to keep nurses' salaries artificially low, despite a national shortage of nurses. Another is of players' unions in professional sports (even though players may be super-rich.) They bargain with a handful of sports team owners that collectively decide on salary caps or player pay structure. But such employer collusion is relatively rare, and generally illegal.

Other pluses of unions include workplace safety, health and social benefits that they can win from employers through collective bargaining and the threat of strikes. I'm certainly for such health and safety measures, but for most of them they are better realized through passage of broader laws applying to all, instead of individually won through unions with the most leverage for their limited set of workers. Thus we have OSHA, or the Workmen's Compensation Act, and even the Minimum Wage Act and can go further along this route.

On the downside unions can severely distort free market efficiencies, hurt consumers who are forced to pay higher prices, and reduce the international competitiveness of US goods and services. Unions are at least as much to blame as the management for the woes of the Detroit Big Three automakers. Wal-Mart opposes unionization (hopefully with entirely legal means) at a high cost to its image and political capital because it understands the threat to its competitive position.

Then there are illegal strikes like the 1981 Air Traffic Controllers strike, the 2005 New York city transit strike and fake "sickouts" by pilots and other airline staff. Except for the controllers whom Reagan rightly fired, the workers get away with holding the public to ransom and breaking laws aimed at protecting essential services. These, and even the legal 2008 American Axle strike where a few UAW workers crashed GM production seem like acts of collective extortion rather than collective bargaining.

Still, in a free society and functioning democracy I realize the need to allow the creation and existence of unions, even if (like trial lawyers) they do more harm than good. Only they should be created where workers exercise genuine free choice through vote by secret ballot, not through the charade of a deceptively named law.

Laws Gone Wild - Banning Old Age

2009-04-08T12:54:00.000-07:00

To me this is another of the flawed anti-discrimination laws leading to absurd consequences. I'm talking of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967 and its subsequent amendments.

We hear much more about countering discrimination against minorities and women, and resultant affirmative action. Despite vigorous denials from its liberal advocates this often becomes a drive to fill quotas. Barack Obama last month quoted some gender disparities in pay and top executive positions to imply unequal treatment of women. Now if there is any real bias or violation of the principle of "equal pay for equal work" I'm all for vigorous corrective action. But just the numbers being thrown around do not establish this, and there are more benign explanations.

The fact that many working women opt for a better balance between work and family, and take some years off to raise children can explain their making 78 cents for every dollar that men make. Similarly, there may be very few women who are prepared to put in 14 hour workdays to have a shot at the corner office. That, rather than a glass ceiling, may largely be why only 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. To use these statistics to equate salaries or senior executive elevations among the genders may very well be reverse discrimination against men.

Other countries like India have quota-based intake of disadvantaged groups (like caste-based reservations) into government or public sector jobs, or into many educational institutions. So similar US practices do not surprise me as much as the "protections" against age discrimination. In India I never questioned the logic of having a mandatory retirement age. It used to be 58 years for most government jobs, and was subsequently raised to 60 years. For a few, mainly high positions, it extends to 62 or 65 years. After that, retirees who are willing and able to work can seek employment as contractors or consultants, or even be re-employed in the public sector as special cases. Private companies are free to have or not have mandatory retirement policies.

These practices make a lot of sense. Employees are recognized for their years of useful service while accepting the effects of age, and are given a cordial send-off after reaching a threshold. They leave with their memories and morale intact, making way for younger, more vigorous successors. Employers are free to retain exceptional workers past that point. But the rank and file know and accept the retirement age as a natural conclusion of this stage of their careers. If they want to work more they'll see no shame or a blow to their self-image to seek lighter or different, less paying work that may be more suited to their present stage of life. Even usually more liberal Europe recognizes the right to set an age for forced retirement.

This was pretty much the case in the US as well, till the ADEA of 1967 was amended in a series of steps from 1978 till 1993 to bar mandatory retirement in most sectors. Remarkably, the biggest blow was struck in the sweeping restrictions of the 1986 amendment when a Republican (Ronald Reagan) was President. Ideology notwithstanding it's hard to resist signing legislation favoring a key voting bloc like seniors ahead of the next Presidential election (that was won by Bush Sr.)

Adverse consequences of the US ban on mandatory retirement (many of which I've seen at first hand) include:

Older employees drawing the highest salaries have reason to stick it out as long as they can. Employers have to push them out for bad performance after documenting negative evaluations. Not only do the departing seniors feel humiliated at this ignominous end to their long career, but this can also hurt employees morale all around.
Managers in these situations have to give negative evaluations and terminate employees which subjects them to needless stress. Incidents of workplace violence and other fears of retaliatory action make the managers' job even harder.
Reducing "natural" turnover adversely affects the career prospects of promising younger employees, which can create friction among employees and again affect morale.
Older employees who manage to coast or "get by" are not replaced for many years by better, cheaper and more energetic younger employees. This makes for suboptimal company performance that aggregates to a drag on the economy, making it less competitive.

Bad, populist laws like these are politically hard to resist and block. Worse, once they are passed they're almost impossible to undo. Anyone attempting to do so despite the merits is likely to be painted as "anti-senior " and risks political suicide. So despite the pressures it is still much better to stop such laws before they are enacted.

I hope lawmakers (particularly Democrats) draw this lesson while considering the proposed Employee Free Choice Act ("Card Check Law.") This awful law being pushed by unions and liberals would allow unions to be formed without needing workers to vote their preferences by secret ballot. But that's another story.

Change They Don't (Want Us To) Believe In

2009-02-25T10:12:00.000-08:00

I was surprised to see these two articles by reputed and brilliant professors in "my" University of Chicago Booth School of Business. One argues against capping CEO / executive pay in taxpayer bailed out companies, and the other against the government spending as part of the Obama fiscal stimulus plan.

The first by Steven Kaplan appearing in a Feb. 17 Op-Ed in The Chicago Tribune warns that "Restricting bank executives' pay would stall recovery." He acknowledges that high and flawed financial incentives were at the root of high risk-taking and illusory profits that brought down these banks, and that the massive taxpayer bailout justifies "some" government say in executive compensation. But he then asserts, "Even though $500,000 is a lot of money, banking executives have a different salary market. They would find the compensation low, and that is likely to create four problems:

Banks would avoid accepting government assistance unless the situation is grave. Only the worst firms would accept government help.
Many executives would leave the "bailed-out" banks for jobs that pay more, and the best employees would leave the troubled firms at exactly the wrong time.
It would be difficult to hire new executives because the best ones would choose other opportunities.
Stronger firms that have accepted federal money would give it back to avoid the restrictions.

All these factors would slow the recovery of the financial system."

I find these arguments to be deeply flawed. To his first and fourth points, most banks seeking and continuing to receive government help, even the so-called stronger ones, have little discretion in the matter. They know full well that their failure to do so will expose them to a ruinous bank run or its equivalent with depositors. Their leeway can be further curtailed by imposing regulatory capital requirements that forces them to seek timely government help. Further, the push towards better governance and heightened awareness of potential conflicts of interest will make vigilant bank boards compel their management to do the right thing.

Mr. Kaplan's second and third points are anchored on a "greed is best" premise that the most suitable executives for bank turnaround are lured by outsized financial awards alone. But it is this brand of managers and the existing compensation structure that substantially contributed to the crises in the first place. They stood to make enormous fortunes by fudging numbers, taking massive gambles with other people's money and limiting themselves to short-term "on my watch" perspectives. Instead, we need managers who want to establish their legacy of building or rescuing great institutions. A lack of outsized compensation structure is more likely to attract these types of managers, encourage sounder decisions and reduce their temptation to gamble. Just compare the CEO salaries and the fortunes of Japanese and US automakers. Or consider if hiking the annual pay to a billion dollars will really get us a much better US President.

So I largely disagree with Mr. Kaplan though there is ambiguity in the stimulus amendment limiting top executive pay as reported in a Feb. 14 CNN story. That can lead to some loopholes and confusion even if the measure is directionally correct.

The other article is a Jan. 21 Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal by Alberto Alesina of Harvard and Luigi Zingales of Chicago Booth. They repeat the Republican refrain of stimulating the economy by cutting taxes, homing in on the complete elimination of capital gain taxes in 2009, and to the exclusion of government spending. Here's a quick counter to their main contentions:

a) Regardless of it starting as a financial / credit crisis, the US economy obviously now fits their description of a "bad equilibrium." That's where layoffs and job loss fears lower consumer demand that makes firms cut back that causes more layoffs that... They concede government spending can change this "bad" equilibrium into a "good" one, yet they still oppose it.

b) Their proposed solution of tax cuts (eliminating all capital gains for investments "begun" during 2009, etc.) is an extension of the Bush efforts for the past eight years. Where did that get us? Plus they want to make all capital expenditures and R&D investments tax deductible. Wouldn't that mean losing a lot of government revenue on the bulk of such expenditures that the companies would have incurred anyway, incentive or no incentive?

They see their role here "... to courageously propose the right economic policy, even when it is unpopular." I wouldn't call it particularly courageous for business academics to write in support of the finance industry and business interests that directly or indirectly sustain them. My friend RS wryly alluded to this equation as one hand washing the other.

To be fair RS thinks highly of Luigi Zingales and his writings in general, and considers this particular WSJ Op-Ed by him to be an anomaly.

Other writings by the Chicago business professors are more insightful and objective, including those relating to the current state of the economy. For example here's a good commentary in the Feb. 12 New York Times by Doug Diamond, Anil Kashyap and Raghuram Rajan on the Geithner Plan. They express reservations about elements of the plan, in particular the public-private partnership to buy up toxic assets, though they don't come up with an alternative. That's why I find Paul Krugman (alas, not of Chicago) to be better. In his Feb. 22 Op-Ed in the New York Times (among other writings) he makes a clear and cogent case for the temporary nationalization of banks. I'd like anyone opposing his proposals including the Chicago crowd to address his arguments head on.

Prophecy Gone Wrong

2009-02-13T07:32:00.000-08:00

My brother Viranjit, aka Kaku who is a high-tech engineer, has a surprisingly deep interest in socio-economic issues, with thoroughness to match. Seeing my last post about the Cato ad he explored "my" University of Chicago website and found two papers of interest for different reasons.

The first (and the one I'll focus on) is an authoritative paper opposing more regulation of the financial derivatives market, which includes sub-prime mortgages and CMOs. It was written about 10 years back by 1990 Nobel laureate (in Economics) Prof. Merton Miller.

He says that: a) Regulating this market further will impose an undue burden and stifle it, and drive away business from the US to overseas competitors. b) There will of course be winners and losers, but no chance of a system wide failure because of the strong and well capitalized institutions participating in this market, the tough oversight by the SEC, and the rigorous credit rating of the participants by S&P, Moody's, etc. c) The customers are mostly sophisticated institutions that need to freely use this market for hedging or risk-based investment purposes. They ought to know how the securities work and the attendant risks, and if they don't they'll learn to do so in a decade or so as the market matures. d) The valuation of these financial derivatives is typically very complex and dependent on the model being used, so it is very hard to specify disclosure requirements.

As Kaku says, "it is almost comical to see Prof. Miller's arguments so completely refuted by the causes of today's financial crisis" and wonders if "he is man enough to eat his words (which are still used as evidence by so many on the right)."

I've been taught by and interacted with Prof. Miller up close, and he was as fine, brilliant and witty a person that you could meet, with a heart to match. His paper here should not detract from his seminal work in finance that earned him the Nobel prize (including the famous Modigliani and Miller theorem of dividend irrelevance that's a staple in finance classes.) He passed away in 2000 at age 77, and so cannot retract his words.

I also think he deserves some benefit of the doubt as his stance was based on market conditions in the mid 1990's. He didn't see the explosion of sub prime mortgages and CMOs in the early 2000's that made Paul Krugman rightly and urgently call for more regulation, and for Greenspan to wrongly and disastrously oppose this. Had Miller been alive and observed the new developments, he may just for all we know have changed tack and weighed in on Krugman's side.

Here are the condensed reasons for blaming lack of regulations for letting the financial crisis occur, contrary to Miller's assessment:

a) The principal - agent problem. The "agent" here is the mortgage originator who gets paid on selling mortgages, even over-valued ones to financially unsound borrowers. Or it's the fund manager who makes large and risky bets on CMOs. If the bet pays off the fund manager gets filthy rich, and if it doesn't, it's the investor loses heavily and the fund manager pays nothing. In either case the "agent" has incentives not to act in the Principal's (investor's) interest.

b) The information asymmetry problem. The buyer or investor does not know or understand the risks involved in the funds like the originator does. This is especially true when the securities involved are highly complex and what is in them is not revealed. So the buyer is at a disadvantage unless regulations force greater transparency.

c) The time horizon mismatch. This can cause agents like fund managers with near term outlook to take risks or pump up short term performance that is not sustainable. The consequences eventually catch up with the investors, but by then the agent (hopes that he) has left.

d) Cozy regulator and rating agency relationships with their target entities. The S&P and Moody's are hired and paid by the very firms whose credit they rate - an inherent conflict of interest. Miller lauds "the two way nature of the flow of top regulators and top executives" within the industry, but this can be a curse instead of a virtue, as such connections weakens oversight.

e) Systemic shocks. Everyone is happy and buoyed up by bubbles in stocks or the rising tide of real estate prices. But a reversal of this trend causes a downward spiral that (absent of safeguards) sinks a lot of boats.

f) Letting the ignorant and the stupid self-destruct. This is a harder sell, but we may need laws to protect the ignorant from their own bad decisions, just as we have laws to compel use of seat belts while driving, or those banning the use of heroin or crack.

Moreover, special interests and right-wingers have bastardized the term "free markets." It should mean freely traded goods and services in a competitive setting without the burden of distorting taxes, duties or undue restrictions. What it shouldn't mean is lack of checks on deception, the selling of spurious products, withholding information about what's being sold, or failure to mandate safety standards. Regulations compelling transparency in where money is being invested and in the detailed disclosure of returns, and better scrutiny enhances free markets, not detract from them. It may also prevent the havoc wreaked by future Bernie Madoffs, or ill-conceived CMOs.

The other U. of C. paper that Kaku looked up is titled "Are CEOs Rewarded for Luck? The Ones Without Principals Are." Note the spelling of "Principals" as they're referring to main investors, not ethics. This topic needs a separate discussion, and this academic paper is (as typical) fairly long and involved. You can see the conclusions at p. 23 - 24: essentially that a major chunk of the CEO salary depends on luck (the fortunes of that industry rather than individual performance) and the problem is worse for poorly governed firms. It undercuts some big arguments for large US-style CEO compensation.

The findings aren't surprising. For instance, compare the salaries in past years of the CEOs of the Big Three US automakers with their Japanese (Toyota, Honda, etc.) counterparts who make a fraction of that. Look at the fortunes of these respective companies now. Still, there are defenders of the US (and detractors of the Japanese) system: see for example this Feb. 23 BusinessWeek article titled "Japan: No Model For Executive Compensation." I am underwhelmed by the logic and the case sought to be made out here, though.

Surprising Detractors Of Economic Recovery Plan

2009-02-10T14:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal I saw a full page ad by the conservative Cato Institute slamming the whole concept of Obama's economic recovery plan. This (apparently repeat) ad is signed by hundreds of economists and financial academics.

Denying the need for the "right" government stimulus plan seems so preposterous that I expected the signatories to be clueless economists from lightweight institutions. Or charlatans and political hacks who are selling debunked ideology for their narrow ends.

But I see Nobel laureates and prominent figures from top universities like "my" University of Chicago in this list. They include two renowned professors who were on my Ph.D. dissertation committee, and one of these professor's son-in-law who is a top academic in his own right. Why they have signed on is beyond me, as I totally subscribe to Paul Krugman's rationale of the need for massive governmental intervention to get us out of this economic crisis. Krugman actually argues that the current economic stimulus plan is too small and misdirected towards Republican causes to do the job.

On the Cato website there is more of this criticism of Obama and the Democratic efforts. On the lower right of this web page there is a YouTube presentation with sleazily deceptive arguments against the Obama / Democratic approach. Reagan's virtues are extolled while Obama's approach is likened (of all people) to that of George W. Bush whose overspending drove the economy to ruin.

I can't address all of the Cato fallacies here. But some comments:
(a) Heavy spending (and ill-conceived at that) in GWB's time could not counteract bad governance and lack of oversight that landed us in this mess.
(b) Japan's "lost decade" of stagnant growth in the 1990's is widely ascribed to its failure to quickly overhaul its ailing banks and credit infrastructure. That was a necessary condition that didn't happen, for other measures (like public spending on infrastructure) to work. Keep this in mind the next time you hear a Republican mouthing off on Japan's lost decade in spite of spending 6 trillion yen on infrastructure.
(c) We therefore need better governance and more regulation to complement a heavy fiscal stimulus.
(d) I'd heed Krugman and drop this nostalgia for Reagan. Even the "supply side" linkage that Republicans like to make between tax cuts and revenue increases in the Reagan era is misconceived.
(e) Reagan's nearer term focus and budget deficits created cumulative problems that haunted his successor.
(f) In the debate on stimulus options tax cuts have the value of immediacy as they get more money across to the consumer quickly. But the recession-wary consumer may save rather than spend most of it (a personal virtue but it defeats the objective of a stimulus.) Government projects and continuing grants to cash-strapped state and local governments on the other hand will spend the allocations dollar for dollar.
(g) To my knowledge none of the Cato signatories warned against the consequences of insufficient regulation of mortgage lenders, or deplored Alan Greenspan's role in opposing such regulation. Nor did they see the housing crisis and the bursting of the bubble coming. Krugman did all three and years ago, way before it happened. So to me he deserves his 2008 Nobel prize (officially given for unrelated research done decades earlier) as well as greater credibility than the Cato crowd.

While our University of Chicago is synonymous with the ideas of free markets and deregulation we had plenty of faculty teaching and researching the concepts of necessary government oversight and intervention, public goods and anti-trust responsibilities. I'm perplexed to see so many respected economists including some of my U. of C. professors having signed on to the Cato ad. I hope they have better arguments than the YouTube presentation on the Cato website.
Meanwhile, today's (Feb. 10) issue of The Journal has the more nuanced views of two other U. of C. economists, Nobel laureate Gary Becker and Prof. Kevin Murphy. In "There's No Stimulus Free Lunch" they concede that government stimulus measures can create net jobs and expand GDP, especially during a recession. At the same time they warn that such benefits will dissipate once the economy recovers and works closer to full capacity, and that such measures carry a price.

No one is arguing against that, or we'd have a permanent stimulus budget for every past, present and future year. The stimulus package is being worked now to fix our present recession and job losses. And that part about it not being absolutely "free", the question is, do we want to starve by forsaking a substantial lunch just because it carries a small price, or to go for it since the benefits far exceed the costs?

Mumbai Pre-Wedding Celebration Pics

2009-01-15T09:08:00.000-08:00

Anita and I returned from Delhi to Pune on Jan 4, and Sheena joined us there a day later. Over the next three days all was fine and stable at my in-laws and we then headed to Mumbai to attend the wedding festivities spread over 3 - 4 days of our (Anita's) niece Ira.

Anita and I stayed in Mumbai with her cousin Ashok and were (as usual) very well looked after, while Sheena stayed in the suite in NSCI Club that was reserved for Ira, the bride. There were lots of fun events and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It was also a great opportunity to hang out and reconnect with Anita's extended family and friends.

We (mainly Sheena) took many pictures. I'm adding the link here to the ones taken Jan 8 - 10 in the lead up to the actual wedding day of Jan 11 that will be posted separately. There are 200+ pictures of which a handful have been labeled.

Our Delhi And Shimla Trips

2009-01-06T13:20:00.000-08:00

While Rubina couldn't get vacation and accompany us to India on our recent trip, I'm glad that Sheena could do so. Here I'm touching on the Delhi and Shimla legs of our trip with some pictures in the Dec. 28 - 31, '08 period. I seldom think of taking the camera along and using it, and most pics here are thanks to Sheena. A lot of my relatives and close friends are in Delhi, as are close friends and former IAS etc., colleagues in Shimla. Another city we generally visit in north India is Chandigarh, but there wasn't enough time on this trip.

In the late afternoon of Dec. 28th when we flew into Delhi from Pune, I called up my fast friends and IAS batchmates, Rajan Katoch and Jitesh Khosla. True to form they were game to meet over dinner despite the lack of prior notice. Jitesh hosted it in the Delhi 'O' Delhi restaurant of The Habitat Center. It was a fun meeting and great catching up.

The first three pictures in this link are of all of us (Jitesh and wife Rashi, Rajan and wife Kirti, Anita and I, and one includes Sheena who took the other two) after the meal. The remaining five feature Laboni the following morning, the first two with her dad Dharmi, then one by herself and the last two with Sheena. She's amazingly bright and does parents Dharmi and Bidisha proud.

Then Anita, Sheena and I drove up to Shimla. Indu and Yogesh Khanna (IAS '73, retd., now the regulator for the HP Electricity Board) had graciously insisted that we stay with them in Shimla and we spent two very comfortable and enjoyable days with them. On December 30th we visited our still unfinished house in Shimla. Then Anita and Sheena spent the afternoon with Anita's long time friend and former St. Bede's College faculty colleague Anuja Sharma in Theog, and then went shopping in Shimla. I visited friends and former colleagues in the HP Secretariat.

In the evening we headed to a dinner hosted by Yogesh and Indu and attended by old friends who were braving the Shimla winter. (Over half the people we know typically leave for the milder weather of Delhi or other plains.) Again much fun and laughter. In these pictures from our Shimla trip I missed many folks. Among them Anju and Daljit Minhas (our good friend from the IPS) had left our dinner gathering early before we started clicking.

We returned to Delhi late on New Year's eve and hurried to a party in the home of Anu and Ravi Sachdev. Ravi is a good college friend whom Anita and I hadn't met since 1984, and it was even longer since I'd met inveterate world traveler Rahul Sud, another college comrade who was also there. So it was a great reunion. Ravi's son and his daughter-in-law whisked Sheena off to a farm bash attended by about a 150 people and they enjoyed partying past 5 am. Quite remarkable considering that Sheena left for a visit to Sri Lanka that same day.

For Anita and I the remaining two days in Delhi flew by, and included a dinner at the Gymkhana Club with my parents and friends besides smaller gatherings before we returned to Pune on Jan. 4. On our last morning we finally visited the impressive Akshardham Temple in Delhi, currently the largest Hindu Temple in the world. I wish our stay in North India could've been longer but I'm thankful that we can regularly make it there.

American Airlines Bad, Zurich Good

2008-12-25T20:05:00.000-08:00

On our way from JFK to Mumbai Anita and I were stranded in our connecting city Zurich for a day. A winter storm in the Northeast US area including New York had ended the previous night. The weather was clear and flights were departing normally when we boarded our 5:25pm American Airlines flight from JFK (New York) to Zurich.

But then there were an hour of cargo loading delays in which time light snow of about half an inch started falling. That led to need for de-icing our plane which was expected to take about 40 minutes as we were 4th in line. Instead, because of equipment failure and other snarl-ups we were on the ground for almost four hours and missed our connecting flight at Zurich.

To our surprise American Airlines miss-classified the entire cause of delay as weather-related. This way their staff escapes responsibility and enables them to cite their rules to avoid taking care of stranded passengers. Their staff at Zurich rebooked us for the same flight the next day without arranging or helping with any accommodation or paying a cent for stay or incidentals.

This was in stark contrast to our experience the previous year with Continental Airlines in Frankfurt where we were stranded for three days for genuine weather related reasons. Continental had put us up in a decent Frankfurt hotel for three days, paid for meals, and took such good care that I had sent them a letter praising their staff.

Back to Zurich, we made friends with a nice couple (New Jersey based, of Indian origin) in the same situation, along with and their remarkably turned out son (born and raised in the US, yet fluent in Marathi) who is a senior at Northwestern University. They contacted friends in Zurich who picked them up and put them up in their picturesque countryside home.

Anita and I also made the best of our halt by checking into a nearby hotel and taking a local train to see Zurich Downtown. It was a great opportunity for our first visit to a Swiss city. Zurich is a much better and enjoyable city than we had expected, combining modernity with rich historical architecture. Though it was a Sunday, the shops were open and there were crowds of revelers because of Christmas time.

Later at night in downtown we came across a devoted Gujerati son taking his visiting parents out for a walk. For dinner he recommended a well known restaurant called HillTL which served very good vegetarian cuisine with a lot of Indian fare. (By remarkable coincidence the next morning these parents were seated just across from us in our flight from Zurich to Mumbai.)

While entering HillTL we greeted a Sikh gent who was coming out. We started chatting and he became so friendly that he accompanied us back into the restaurant, waited as we ate, then gave us a tour of all 3-4 floors of it with a view of its open glass-walled kitchens. He then showed us other parts of Zurich downtown for the next hour or more, and was an excellent guide, filling us in on the background of various shops and landmarks. His name is Paramjit Bharj, and amazingly he's a devout and fully observant Sikh speaking fluent Panjabi even though he hasn't been to India since his birth. He was raised in Uganda and then came to Zurich over 30 years ago when Idi Amin expelled people of non-African origin. He had interesting views and we enjoyed his company.

Posted here are pictures one of a "singing Christmas tree" with live singers making up its branches, then one of Anita in front of this, one of me with Paramjit, and finally of Anita and I together. All in all it turned out well despite the disruption in our travel.

Mumbai Terrorism - It's A Small World

2008-12-04T14:58:00.000-08:00

The Mumbai terrorist attacks have caused worldwide outrage that hopefully extends to Islamic countries and societies. Much of Anita's extended family lives in Mumbai. It's a city of 20 million, so despite the large number of victims including 163 killed we hoped that no one we knew was affected.

While people within our innermost circle are safe, we are hearing tragic stories about those very close to our extended family and good friends. Through a dribble of chance conversations we so far know of eight such people killed as well as some harrowing escapes. More connections will almost certainly emerge once we're in Mumbai where we're headed shortly.

For instance two days back I happened to call Anita's cousin Indru whom I've also mentioned in my previous post, about an unrelated matter. She sounded somber, and I learned that two victims whose stories were also carried in The New York Times and other media were a couple who are Indru's and her husband Gul's best friends. They were Ashok Kapur, chairman of Yes Bank and his wife Madhu who hung out with Gul and Indru almost daily and they used to vacation together worldwide. Ashok and Madhu were in an Oberoi Hotel restaurant when they were attacked and pursued by the terrorists. They fled and were separated. Madhu managed to escape after hiding out for several hours, but Ashok was killed - something Madhu and the authorities learned about much later. Now Indru, Gul and other friends and relatives are trying to support the shattered Madhu as much as they can.

Anita's cousin Rita (also mentioned in my last post) had gone from Mumbai to Pune to look up and stay with my in-laws. She left by train from the historic VT train (now called Shivaji Station) just three hours before it was stormed by the terrorists and 54 people killed there. Not wanting to take chances, her husband Dilip sent their car and driver to fetch her back to Mumbai three days later.

Any incidents touching us personally are a microcosm of the general coverage and commentary in the media. A couple of instances I'd like to highlight relate to reactions in Pakistan.

The first is this link to a Pak TV broadcast that my cousin Poppy received and passed on - many similar ones are posted on YouTube. It reflects the state of denial among Pakistanis who refuse to acknowledge or condemn the role played by the terrorists based in Pakistan. The TV show's anchor and two guests talk of how Indians brought this problem upon themselves and are now falsely linking this to some activities in peaceloving Pakistan. This mindset is of course not limited to Pakistanis or Islamists. It's remarkable how people's prejudices and perceptions can distort reality. But I also came across this (hopefully not too rare) clip showing a much more objective assessment on Pak TV by a Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy. He is courageous in contradicting some other participants and acknowledging that some rogue elements within Pakistan are responsible and should be firmly curtailed. If there are enough of such people on both sides then there's hope for our countries coming together.

The other item is a (as usual?) beautiful Dec. 2 Op-Ed of Tom Friedman in The New York Times. He calls on Pakistanis to take to the streets and declare, "as a collective, that those who carry out such murders are shameful unbelievers who will not dance with virgins in heaven but burn in hell. And they (should at least) do it with the same vehemence with which they denounce Danish cartoons (of the Prophet Muhammed)."

It is heartening to see no backlash (so far) against India's Muslim community, which would have played right into the hands of the terrorists. We should continue doing more to reassure Indian Muslims, and credit goes to political and community leaders who have involved them in condemning these attacks. There are likely home grown elements that have substantially participated in these attacks, but a crazy fringe should never tarnish the broader community. A fifth of the Mumbai casualties are Muslims, and so is the Mumbai police chief. Whatever comes of it there's symbolism in this reported move by some Indian Muslims to deny the slain terrorists burial in Muslim cemetries.

Relatives Help and Visit Pune

2008-11-17T15:13:00.000-08:00

In Anita's extended family (as may be typical in large ones) interactions range from little or no contact with some relatives for decades, to having very close bonds. We're fortunate to find many in the latter category.

But people lead busy lives and we don't expect them to disrupt these on our account. This is especially so when we're not seeking any help, and assuring relatives that any situation we're facing is firmly under control.

So on our recent trip to Pune we were overwhelmed by the outpouring of warmth, support and help from Anita's folks, who're mostly my good friends too.

When I first arrived to tend to my in-laws' medical emergency I only sought advice and contact information from the three Pune-based uncles and aunts about good hospitals and doctors. That was enough for me to move Daddy and Mummy to the hospital, lock up their apartment and get their treatment under way. Most of Anita's relatives live in Mumbai, and I emphatically told them I needed nothing else and that they shouldn't bother coming to Pune.

But they'd have none of it. Now I know from where Anita gets her stubborn streak (and those other qualities that made me woo her decades ago.) When we come to India we typically stay a few days in Mumbai to meet up and spend time with relatives living there. This time we stayed put in Pune, yet a lot of Mumbaiites that we care about come to us in Pune.

In the process, the visits were a big morale booster for Daddy and Mummy, and our doctors said that these probably significantly helped their recovery. And there was more.

Here are some highlights:

Anita's cousins Ashok, Gul, Indru, Jagdish, Kavita, Meena (with daughter Tanny) and Rita specially made the 8 -10 hour round trip from Mumbai to Pune just to look up my in-laws and spend time with us

Aunt Duru and Uncle Hira cancelled / put off all their travel and holiday plans despite our protestations, to help, regularly visit and advise us in Pune till my in-laws were home

Again, despite my dissuasion Rita with maid in tow left her husband Dilip (who is miserable without her and vice versa) for six days to join me in Pune to tend to Daddy and Mummy in hospital. As it turned out her help was invaluable because I wasn't expecting to be so heavily occupied with Daddy's emergency surgery. Rita's company and consultations apart, I was also able to leave Mummy to her care in this time before Anita had joined me

Dilip himself made repeated calls to get me to agree to his visiting Pune and taking me back in his car to Mumbai for the flight back to USA. I instead asked him to postpone his trip so he could look up Daddy and Mummy some time after I and Prakash had gone. Dilip agreed and his trip on Nov. 17 - 18 provides valuable coverage, as did Kavita's second trip on Nov. 8th. This way there's always someone dropping in and checking on Daddy and Mummy as they're steadily getting better

Ashok lent a vital cell phone and datacard for internet connectivity on our laptops from anywhere. India's anti-terrorism measures include dumb provisions that make it very difficult for those of us visiting from abroad to obtain cell phones and data cards in our own names. So Ashok's help proved very useful

Ashok (and owners Gul and Indru) repeatedly offered all the resources at the 5 star Sun-n-Sand Hotel in Pune which is a short walk from Inlaks. When Anita landed in Mumbai, she was brought to Pune by Ashok and Indru. Then we were ensconced in the penthouse suite of Sun-n-Sand for the next two weeks with the full run of all facilities. It was like living in two worlds, transitioning daily from the hubbub and frenetic activity of the hospital to the lavish luxury of the hotel. There were 300 exotic dishes to try in the hotel's multiple restaurants, a nice gym to work off (half) the calories we took in, and a retinue of smiling staff to attend to our needs
Moti Uncle and his wife Mooma lived in Pune for decades till recently, called regularly to enquire about Daddy and Mummy, and give valuable advice. They also had a good 50th wedding anniversary bash in Mumbai on the same evening that I was arriving from Pune to catch my flight back to USA. I went with Meena and Tanny to the party and spent a wonderful 45 minutes meeting and revelling with the assembled clan before leaving for the airport

So despite the serious purpose of our visit and some hectic activity, Anita and I had a memorable trip interspersed with these warm get-togethers, and helpful relatives. (For poor Prakash, Anita's brother and the dutiful son who relieved me in Pune, it was just a lot more of work, which he cheerfully did without having time to meet many people.)

When marrying Anita, I hadn't realized I'd gain such a nice extended family of hers as dowry.

Close Indian Neighbors

2008-11-06T12:52:00.000-08:00

For those living in the US who are used to cordial but occasional contact with neighbors, the experience in India can be quite revealing.

My in-laws (Daddy and Mummy) live in a closed apartment community in Pune, India which is called a (housing) "society". I have been struck by the warm and close interactions with neighbors in their society. This became even more evident recently.

A couple of times Mummy tried to walk and fell in the small hours of the morning, and Daddy wasn't able to get her back up. Their neighbors not only rushed to their help in those times but also rallied to monitor and care for them for several days subsequently.

I (and subsequently Anita) arrived from the US and had both my in-laws hospitalized. In the next several weeks they overcame a number of conditions on the road to recovery. In this time as well the close involvement of neighbors was striking. Some examples:

Some neighbors visited Daddy and Mummy in the rather distant hospital. Many more were intending to do so but heeded my request about no visitors so we could concentrate on their treatment

Immediate neighbors took charge, discontinued part-time help and stopped delivery of supplies, newspapers, etc., to my in-law's apartment during their hospital stay. I hadn't anticipated any of this in the midst of the medical emergency

After their return home, Daddy and Mummy had streams of visiting neighbors to welcome them back. Many brought along children or grandchildren to help cheer them up. I was impressed seeing these kids under 10 years of age patiently and respectfully spending time with my in-laws when they could be doing more fun things elsewhere

Many came forward with local information and advice that was helpful to us in making arrangements and settling my in-laws back down

This Mira Society has over a thousand residents, yet a third of them seemed to know about our predicament, and who I was. I'd cross and greet apparent strangers walking in the internal streets here and they'd stop me to ask about my in-laws, and how long I planned to remain in Pune

Life in Mira Society is of course not typical of that in other places. In Delhi and Mumbai we see neighbor interactions that more closely mirror those in the urban US.

My in-laws have stayed in Mira Society for over 30 years, and I can understand their reluctance to move to a service apartment as we have urged, that is more suited to elderly care.

The other remarkable thing is the way Anita's extended family came together to our help. I'll describe some of that in the next post.

Choice of Palin has Sealed McCain's Fate

2008-10-30T00:37:00.000-07:00

To turn an old saying around, it's far better (for Obama) to have a foolish opponent than a wise friend. And McCain has totally obliged.

Forget GWB's abysmal ratings. Forget the economy. Forget the Iraq war. Till the end of the Democratic Convention McCain still had a more than even chance of occupying the White House. His biggest card was the split among the Democrats, and Hillary supporters just wanting an excuse to vote for him.

Basic politico-economic theory and conventional wisdom both required him to veer to the center. Any of the speculated VP choices would have been fine - Tom Ridge, Joe Lieberman, even Mitt Romney and just may be Tim Pawlenty, as they all had their respective strengths.

A stance that would dilute the pro-life message, raise the prospect of restoring taxes for the ultra-rich, call for more regulation and expanded healthcare would turn off the hardcore right, but not enough to withdraw or switch support, when they see Obama as the alternative. Yet McCain could this way pick up a lot of the disgruntled Hillariites, and the undecided and independent voters.

But then he went ahead and picked Sarah Palin. What was he thinking? That just because she has the right plumbing (as a Hillary supporter put it to me) she'd get the Hillary women to back the ticket?

In addition to her obvious lack of experience she's so far to the right as to be almost a caricature of the ideology that's distateful to Democrats and most independents. McCain seemed smugly happy about the surprise he had pulled off, and about her almost rapturous reception by the hardcore right. "Trust McCain to shake things up" said a lackey on TV as Sarah's introduction started just ahead of the Republican Convention. But you need to shake things up when your outlook is bleak and the current course seems to be failing, and not when you have so many strong cards in your suit.

There are of course many other deficiencies in his campaign. When the economy is the number one concern you don't see a single economist of repute among his advisers. Ditto on other issues. The negative ads are horribly conceived and destroy his clean guy image without getting an effective message across. But these blunders I think pale in comparison to Palin (pun intended.)

The end result is obvious now, with McCain trailing Obama by 8 points nationally just six days before election day. Hillary supporters and independents have been shocked back into Obama's camp, and talk of voting against Obama out of spite has all but evaporated. I had anticipated this as my comments of September 1st and September 15 (when McCain was still doing well in the polls) on my August 1st post show. To a large extent McCain's choice of Palin is indicative of the quality of his decision-making as President. The maverick has turned ultra conservative, which I see as an act of misplaced expediency and even cowardice. McCain is paying the price and has only himself to thank for it.

I'm guessing Obama is silently but ardently thanking him too.

Rubina At The Journal

2008-08-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

New York parlance or universal acronyms? Only recently did I realize that "The Journal" unequivocably means The Wall Street Journal, and "The Times" refers to The New York Times. Both of these are great publications, and getting to work here is pretty good for aspiring journalists like Rubina.

So we were happy when Rubina got an opportunity to join The Times as a freelance graphics editor last year, and then subsequently at The Journal. In case you're wondering what she does as a graphics editor, it is gathering the information for visuals that are not just photos, and then creating them. This includes charts, tables. diagrams, schematic summaries and maps that usually accompany news stories or articles.

Newspapers are facing a tough environment trying to hold on to readership and ad revenues in the face of competition from the internet. They are pressured on headcount and typically take on only freelancers or people on temporary contract. Rubina is passionate about her work so her working this way without any job security or benefits was fine. She creates about 2 - 3 graphics daily and we used to cut and save all these till the novelty of this declined somewhat. We knew she enjoys her work and is productive and appreciated by her group and supervisors. It's also great experience so that was good.

Then I got her call a few days back. The editor of the front page of The Journal said he wanted to talk to her. Don't worry, he said, it's good news. Then over lunch he offered her a regular, full time position. She's very happy and so are we (Anita, Sheena and I - her family) especially since she loves living in Manhattan. I saw she hasn't yet updated her personal website in respect of her employment status at The Journal since she's still going through the formal process, and will probably do so subsequently.

Currently she's working on the "A" (main) section of the paper. Her group traditionally do not put their name on their graphics, but typically one third of the ten or so of them are hers.

Offshore Drilling And Poor Journalism

2008-08-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

I often wonder at the failure of these US multi-billion news agencies to address the most basic questions that arise from the very news that they cover. Here is an example.

For the past couple of months we've heard arguments flying back and forth about lifting the ban offshore drilling around the US. Given the skyrocketing crude prices and that we're not going to avoid importing oil 10, 20 or 30 years out, I'm now all for it. Safety and pollution concerns are now very low, and we don't have the same wildlife refuge conservation considerations in offshore drilling as in ANWR.

The Democratic leadership (till recently including Obama) have opposed lifting the ban. They say that it won't help in the short term, and that oil companies have plenty of offshore areas that they can use first.

The first argument is silly - does it mean Congress and government should only limit itself to the most short-term measures? But the second argument about idle leases merits serious consideration, and no news agency that I know has asked the oil companies or Republicans to respond to this specific point, and then reported upon it. Instead the election coverage on energy issues by the likes of CNN is an endless blather of cross-talk among candidates, their surrogates and political pundits.

One place where I found a partial rebuttal to this "use idle leases first" argument is on this QandO blog. In short it says that leases take a very long time to work, are held up by many procedural steps, and require a lot of capital investment that is costly or hard to come by. It's only a partial rebuttal because it doesn't fully answer the question: if the oil companies have their hands so full that they can't get through these existing leases, then where will they find the capacity to explore the new areas?

Still, at least this little blog tries to answer this most obvious of questions. That's a lot more than has been done by the large and sophisticated media outlets.

All is not lost. Some new programs with welcome depth are coming on air. My favorite is CNN's Fareed Zakaria's GPS (Global Public Square) that started a few weeks ago and covers central global and foreign issues.

Does A President Need Principles?

2008-08-01T17:30:00.000-07:00

A good thing about the upcoming elections is that either presidential candidate will be a huge improvement over Bush. The race is surprisingly close at this point, given Obama's highly successful foreign tour, favorable press coverage and inspiring speeches as compared to McCain's gaffes and senior moments. Many more voters view Democrats favorably as compared to Republicans. Obama is an inspirational speaker with quick wit and charm. He is also highly intelligent and organized.

Yet according to CNN's "Poll of Polls" today Obama is at 47% to McCain's 44% with 9% undecided. What gives?

One reason McCain is so close may be that he is still widely thought of as decent and principled despite his share of flip-flops. The Washington Post today carried a long article about how emotion and ambition have always guided McCain's behavior. But even such negative coverage may only humanize him and not tarnish his overall standing with voters.

Obama appeals to the idealism of his enthusiastic supporters with his message of change and hope. Yet in his life there seems little or nothing of principle he's done, or made sacrifices, that compromised his own interests.

Then there have been his rapid switches on issues after winning the Democratic nomination. These move him to the center or even into Republican territory, like his wooing of evangelicals and decrying a Supreme Court ruling against the death penalty in non-homicidal cases.

Such tactics while smart help shape perceptions. Half the voters (myself included) think Obama will do or say whatever gets him elected or furthers his personal interests. But even assuming that is true, how much does it matter? It largely depends on what the candidate hopes to achieve by becoming President.

The significance of being the first black / minority President shouldn't be lost on Obama. Here is his chance to go down in history as a great leader with path-breaking accomplishments. If that's his objective then his actions and decisions driven by pure self-interest will largely converge with what is good for the country. He will surround himself with good people, and take decisions on their merits in the national interest to secure his legacy.

Companies seek the smartest and most capable CEOs who are not necessarily nice guys. The system of compensation, rewards (and punishments in case of wrongdoing) tries to align the CEOs' self-interest with that of the companies.

This private company analogy can apply to Obama even if his incentives for being a good President are different. So while Obama has his core following of wide-eyed admirers it will be interesting to see how the preferences of the more skeptical swing voters unfold in the coming months.

McCain's Strategy: Stupid Or Ultra Smart?

2008-07-16T19:25:00.000-07:00

At first I thought John McCain has lost it. But now I'm not so sure. I'm referring to his behavior and policy stances after securing the Republican nomination, and particularly after Barack Obama became the official Democratic nominee.

Every veteran of two party politics should know about the "race to the center" strategy. This is also formally taught in introductory game theory courses in the economics department of the University of Chicago, where Obama's advisor Austan Goolsbee is a professor.

The theory here is for mercenary politicians to take more extreme right or left positions during the primaries to win support of their respective bases, and then each moves to the center to try to win most voters in the general election. By "mercenary politicians" is meant those who are simply focused on winning, and untethered to internal commitments or prior promises.

Obama has all this down pat. That's why you saw him gallop towards supporting the death penalty even for some non-homicidal crimes; courting evangelicals; qualifying troop withdrawal commitments in Iraq; lecturing blacks on personal responsibility; and so on. He may ease off the pace of transition a bit because of left-wing reactions, but his base is pretty much in the bag and you know where he's heading. Even Jesse Jackson's much publicised private diatribe against Obama actually helps drive some undecided whites into Obama's fold.

But what about McCain? He seems firmly stuck on the right of even where he has been in the past several years on issues ranging from (a lack of) women's reproductive rights to taxes to healthcare coverage. Moreover, he flubs his speeches and country names, and is the anti-thesis of Obama's eloquence. He's well behind Obama in the opinion polls. So he seems to be following a really dumb and ineffective game plan, right?

That's possible, but there's an alternative explanation. After all McCain has some of Karl Rove's closest associates advising him. Obama is a formidable opponent but one thing that can work for McCain is Hillary's disaffected supporters who can either vote McCain or not vote at all.

Obama can heal the divisions simply by taking on Hillary as his running mate, and though I had my doubts it looks like she's amenable to this. The only thing is, with all the bitterness during the primaries process, he's apt to choose her only if he feels he needs her. But what if he were confident that he could win without her? Then he'll choose someone else, and that's the only way for McCain to beat him.

If that's the calculation then McCain should let Obama get substantially ahead in the polls till Obama chooses his running mate, someone other than Hillary. Only after that should McCain turn to more centrist themes and go full throttle in his campaign. His earlier rightist stance will endear him to the Republican base who contribute to his campaign. This base will also be more understanding of his late shift to the middle if he's lagging in the polls and "has" to adjust positions to catch up with Obama. Also, McCain's tepid campaign style and listless speeches earlier on will lower expectations, which will make it easier for him to beat them in the all-important debates and final run-up to the elections.

So back to the question: Are McCain and his team being absurdly foolish or brilliantly clever? Their subsequent actions, say after the Democratic convention, may supply the answer. At this time it is hard to tell.

Watching Sex

2008-06-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

I mean watching the movie "Sex And The City" in case the title is misleading.

Wife Anita asked if we could see it together and I agreed, despite its unflattering reviews in The New York Times, and also in The Wall Street Journal. The critics at Rotten Tomatoes also gave it a failing grade (below 60% positive) though the general viewers were more generous. Gender seems to play a big role. The women love it, the men don't.

I said to Anita that it is our going out together that matters and not the particular movie that we watch. She responded that she'd never accompany me to my "men-type" of horror, sci-fi, action or similarly inane movies. That's honesty and lack of false promises or mushiness for you.

The 8:50pm show on Saturday that we saw was full of women. There were only seven men (me included) out of an audience of over 150 with a surprisingly high proportion of young females.

The movie itself was very well received, with a lot of "oohs", "ahs" and laughter. At the end many people (all women) clapped in applause - the first time I've seen this happen in Danbury. While leaving we heard four women tell their two male companions, "Oh, thanks so much for coming. We're sorry you didn't enjoy it as much as we did!"

About our own reactions Anita liked it a lot. But so did I, contrary to our expectations going by the reviews. Beneath my boorishness and practicality I may have a soft and sensitive core that would appeal to the four main women characters in this movie. Or maybe not.

Stopping Email Pollution

2008-05-16T19:56:00.000-07:00

Do you get flooded with spam and chain messages? Often malware is carried by emails that infect when you unsuspectingly click on links or open attachments. There are simple ways we as senders can avoid contributing to this. Here is my count down of the four biggest email nuisances that we can control. The last one is the most innocuous and widespread because so few realize it, and yet it's capable of the most damage.

No. 4: Hackneyed jokes and quotes repackaged in large PowerPoint presentations. These are not only often stale but waste time to open and view. They may also carry viruses or spyware. Good jokes come across well even in simple inline text. The others seldom improve much with the addition of colors and sounds, emoticons or inane animations. Not all attachments are bad. Visual cartoons and striking pictures or video clips can be exceptions to this.

No. 3: Chain mails and online petitions. Some claim to bring luck, others are pleas for money , most have been circulating for years, and almost all are a waste of recipients' time.

No. 2: Unverified health tips, virus warnings, "true" stories and sensational pictures. Most of these are hoaxes or distortions. Before forwarding any of these we owe it to our recipients to check their veracity on sites like http://www.snopes.com/ or www.truthorfiction.com.

No. 1: Forwarding attachments or links without "signing" your message. I used to routinely forward such stuff to my grouped recipients without comment till my brother alerted me to the danger. This is the biggest menace of all so let me explain.

By now most of us know that email supposedly coming from you may actually be auto-generated by a virus program that contains malicious code. It is triggered when you open an infected attachment or click on a "poisoned" link, and is sent to everyone on your address list. If you routinely forward stuff without comment, your unsuspecting recipients will not be able to tell this malicious message apart from your other ones. It's like a case of repeatedly crying "Wolf" till your recipients ignore the danger when the real one appears. By opening it they'll get infected and spread it further.

If you send any messages or forwards ESPECIALLY those with attachments or web links, please remember to sign your messages. What does signing mean? It means typing in your name or initials or nickname, ideally something that an automatic virus program would not include. For example I sign my forwards by including my initials SM in an introductory line at the top.

Some friends of mine insert their names in the "auto-signature" feature of their email and think this is a smart shortcut. It's quite the opposite and defeats the whole purpose, since a virus program will also pick it up and send on this signature. Worse, this can fool the recipient into thinking the email has been consciously signed and sent. If you feel you must have it, then at least add the title "AUTO-SIGNATURE" (preferably in CAPs) at the top of your auto-signature content so that your recipients are warned if they receive poisoned auto-generated content from your account. And when you consciously send something, you can simply delete this word AUTO-SIGNATURE from your message.

I tend to delete without reading any unsigned messages with attachments and links and suggest you do the same unless you like playing Russian roulette with malicious code. Note that even a signed email just indicates it has been consciously sent, and is no guarantee that the attachment or link is safe from malware or spyware.

I have focused here on forwarded emails, and left out other abuses like phishing. Also omitted here is how we can protect ourselves as recipients and/or using anti-virus or anti-spyware programs.

You can educate your own circle about all this. It's partly the reason I'm creating this post so I can send this link when required. We cannot eradicate email pollution but can help by not contributing to it and protecting our own recipients.

Bad Things Happen To The Best People

2008-04-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

Last month my father-in-law ("Daddy") informed us about the murder of Asha (aka Aasha) and her husband Brij Chhabra in Troy, Michigan. Asha was the only child of Daddy's best friend and cousin, S.K. Mirchandani who had passed away a few years ago. She had inherited a sizeable estate in India worth over $2 million.

Now in the US with her family, Asha let a close family friend still maintaining Indian connections manage the property for her. This person whom she trusted completely was Narayan Thadani, who now lived in Texas. Well, Thadani secretly sold off her estate and stole all the proceeds. When he was exposed and on the verge of losing a lawsuit in Texas, he hired two El Salvadoreans to kill Asha and her husband. As this news story reports , by sheer chance the two were caught following a routine traffic stop after they drove away from the crime scene.

Their deaths were horrible news to us, though Anita recalled little if anything about Asha and I hadn't met her or her husband. Or so I thought. But Daddy said my own parents knew the family of Mr. S.K. Mirchandani well. When I called with the news my parents said that I too had known Asha well from way back. I was surprised.

They told me Asha's dad Mr. S.K. Mirchandani was my dad's boss for about two years when he first joined the Indian government long before I was born. Mr. Mirchandani was one of the finest and upright of people so my Dad was devoted to him, and remained friends long after their official association ended. My parents said we'd visit the Mirchandanis often in Delhi, and I loved playing with Asha.

Then it hit me who Asha really was. She was the first person that I had asked to be my best friend (she accepted) when I was five and she was eight years old. She was bubbly and caring and fun. My favorite play then was simply to run and she'd laughingly run alongside. Or we'd play tag on her lawn. I'd eagerly look forward to going to her house. I was too young to have been a true playmate for her, but she indulged me with gusto and kept me so happy and excited that I'd hate to leave.

I last saw her when I was eight, after quite a gap because of my parents' preoccupation with other family matters. I was excited to see her again and noticed how much she'd changed. She must have hit a growth spurt because she was now a few inches taller than I. She had become graceful and lady-like and with her large eyes and now shoulder-length hair looked to me like an angel. While we didn't play physical games like before, she showed me interesting things in her room and responded to my chatter. I remember how she laughed at my fascination with flashlights and produced one for us to play with.

Till now I was unaware that I had ended up marrying her second cousin. Her family (maiden) name Mirchandani hadn't registered in my young mind when I knew her or I'd have made the connection much earlier. Now she and her husband are tragically gone, and I've heard they were every bit as nice as what I recalled about her. This other news item other details of the killing and its immediate aftermath . There are also pictures of them and their killer(s) on the internet - just search Google images. My heart goes out to their young daughter Suman that they left behind.

I'd like their cold-bloodied killers (including the family friend who ordered the hit) to be punished under the fullest extent of the law. But this won't bring Asha and her husband back.

Supreme Court Under-Delivers In Gere Case

2008-04-03T23:12:00.000-07:00

On March 14, 2008 the Indian Supreme Court finally acted on that arrest warrant against actor Richard Gere which had become an object of concern and derision around the world. Gere's alleged offense was playfully kissing actress Shilpa Shetty on her cheek at an AIDS awareness gathering in Delhi on April 15, '07 that I discussed in my May 9, '07 post.

Some may be relieved that the Supreme Court suspended the arrest warrant so Gere is free to visit and travel around India again. But the courts and/or the legislature should have done much more to prevent such abuse in the future. Here's why I am so dissatisfied with the outcome:

This case should have been used to lay down jurisdictional guidelines by the Indian Supreme Court which would have been binding on all lower courts. In Gere's case an obscure judicial official based in another state (Rajasthan) hundreds of kilometers away from the incident in Delhi started the proceedings and issued the arrest warrant. Just because media footage is aired in some place should not give the local judiciary the authority to summon or proceed against people who were never within their physical jurisdiction. For interstate occurrences there should be a clear single jurisdiction court. That way you need to only depend on the good sense and judgement of that court instead of being hostage to the whims or shenanigans of any one of the thousands of courts.
This arrest warrant and proceedings should have been nipped in the bud by Rajasthan's own higher courts. There's the District and Sessions Judge of Jaipur, and above that the Rajasthan High Court that could have taken suo motto (i.e., of their own) notice to quash the proceedings and to admonish this lower official. Instead, Gere's lawyers had to go all the way to the highest court of the land, and I can imagine all the hassle and expense this entailed.
The Supreme Court did not issue any strictures (i.e., rebuke) against the judicial official which would impact his service record and discourage similar actions in the future. The Supreme Court instead chose just to scold the original complainants which is a hollow action.
The Supreme Court has only "indefinitely suspended" the arrest warrant, instead of quashing the entire case against Gere.
The Supreme Court ruling came after 11 long months. In this time the original judicial official succeeded in his primary objective of harassing a celebrity and garnering importance and publicity for himself.

Sadly, there has been a pattern in the Indian judiciary of protecting their own and to expand their powers. Over twenty years ago began this trend of higher courts taking up so-called "Public Interest Litigation" (PIL) and to make executive decisions or legislate from the bench in the guise of court orders. In Himachal state I had also seen judges filing cases with each other and passing judgements granting themselves bigger budgets, better housing or other benefits.

The Supreme Court judges in Gere's case apparently sympathized with him but were not neutral arbiters of justice. They were unwilling to lay guidelines however justified to curb judicial overreach and diminish the capacity of their junior colleagues to do mischief. Ideally, the Legislature can step in and at least lay down the juridictional parameters for this purpose. The lawmakers have other preoccupations, and are currently too fragmented politically to act. But I hope this situation changes soon.

Hillary For 2008, Or Is It 2012?

2008-02-16T14:46:00.000-08:00

It's three weeks before the Ohio and Texas primaries, so Hillary still has a chance to reverse the Obama tide. She is more qualified, and voters may just grasp this in time.

She currently faces "momentum" and herd instinct (aka peer pressure) that disproportionately influences younger people, which is working for Obama. He also has the African Americans favoring him by 80% or more, without a backlash among other Democrats.

But I also see something that I touched upon in the third bullet point of my January 5th post. This is Republicans who have no intention of choosing Obama in a general election nevertheless voting for him in the primaries simply to undermine Hillary who's more likely to beat McCain. I've long suspected this to be one of the reasons for the unusually large turnouts in Democratic primaries that favor Obama. This is why I strongly favor closed primaries in all states, open only to voters registered for that party way earlier.

Instead, the Democratic primary of Ohio is open (or semi-open which is essentially the same thing), as is that of Texas. Most TV networks are curiously silent about this. But a couple of days ago Dick Morris who's now a bitter enemy of the Clintons talked on Fox News about this manipulation by Republicans. He did this to support his prediction that Hillary will fare worse than expected in both these states. He may well be right.

There's little Hillary can do about this so where does she go from here? In the days ahead she certainly needs to reshape her message. For example, she should change those "35 years of experience" and "ready to be President on day one" lines that were weak and off the mark to start with. She's now looks to be doing this and stressing her more significant advantages, like her substance over his rhetoric, or achieving solutions instead of just making good speeches.

Beyond that, how should she act once she wins or loses the nomination?

If Hillary wins she should immediately ask Obama to be her running mate. Whatever her personal feelings about him, she now needs him as part of the "dream team" to unify their bases, including the youth and the African American vote. For his part, Obama should accept. The VP stint will give him the standing and the experience to become an odds-on Presidential favorite in subsequent elections, when he'll still be young. It is actually in his interest to accept the VP slot much earlier, if the Democratic primaries outcome looks to be headed to a stalemate by end of March, or early April.

And what if Obama wins the nomination, or looks to be certainly headed there with committed super-delegate support? Then Hillary and Bill should say nice things about Obama, call on the entire Democratic party to support him, and then both retire from the scene for the remainder of 2008. If Obama offers Hillary the VP spot, she is better off graciously declining him. She has nothing to gain. After eight years of an Obama Presidency she will be less electable at age 68, and any missteps by the Obama Administration in the meantime will rub off on her.

More than this, contrary to the sayings of pollsters and TV pundits, I expect Obama to lose to McCain unless McCain says or does something very stupid. You saw it for the first time here - in case of an Obama - McCain matchup without Hillary in the picture, I predict Obama will lose by five points or more.

In that case Obama post-2008 will be little more attractive than other general election losers: Dukakis after 1988, Gore after 2000, Kerry after 2004 - you get the idea. In the past 60+ years I recall only one instance when a prior general election loser won subsequently. That was Richard Nixon in 1968, who won in unusual circumstances after Democratic frontrunner Robert Kennedy was assassinated. So here's my take in case Obama wins the nomination now: Hillary should just wait for 2012 and hope the Democrats choose better then.

United Airline's Unfriendly Skies

2008-02-02T02:07:00.000-08:00

About six years ago United Airlines had the best frequent flier program. I was prepared to pay up to $50 extra to fly United just for this reason. Now a lot of that has changed. I want to caution fellow US travellers so that they don't get burned.

But first here's what I had liked about the old program:

If there was a seat available on a flight you wanted, you could get it even at short notice for just 25K miles. Easy availability and no sneaky "fees"
If you booked your "free" (or Mileage Plus award) ticket and your plans changed, you could change bookings on the same itinerary without charges or penalties, so long as seats were available
You could go to the airport and fly standby on a different date on forward or return legs without any charges and restrictions, so long as seats were available and you were sticking to your original itinerary (same departure and destination airports)
Your miles did not lapse so long as there was some activity in your account in the preceding 36 months
If your your account had no activity for close to 36 months, you would get a cautinary notice from United a few months in advance about the impending loss of miles

Now consider the changes in United's program. None of these has been announced except for the one about the period of account inactivity that triggers forfeiture of miles being reduced from 36 months to 18 months:

Now very few (and sometimes none) seats per flight are available for "saver" award fares of 25K miles. After that some other seats are available for "standard" award fares of 50K miles. And you may get neither even if the plane has plenty of vacant seats because their set "quota" of designated award seats has been allocated
You can still change your dates without charge on your original itinerary, but only if award ticket seats in that category (like "saver") is available on that flight. Good luck finding that though
Trying to go standby on a different date is no longer allowed, even if the flight you want to go on is empty
The no activity period in your account after which you lose miles has been reduced from 36 months to 18 months from the beginning of this year (2008)
This is really sneaky. They no longer warn you of impending forfeiture of your miles. In fact the monthly and quarterly statements they send you do not even contain a "last activity date" or date when miles lapse, unlike any of the other airlines.

All my daughter Rubina's miles were quietly taken away last month. She had not been traveling on United in the past 18 months because her flight destinations were inconvenient on United's flights, and their prices were significantly higher. Leave alone sending a warning, United deliberately does not mention the mileage expiration date in the monthly statement that they email or mail to members.

I called up customer service to point this out while requesting her miles be restored. They refused, saying this is their new policy. They said customers should log into their Mileage Plus accounts and then track their expiration dates. They offered to sell her back her lapsed miles - at a price amounting to $350 for a "free" saver fare, or $650 for a "free" standard fare. Thanks a lot. I asked United customer service why they don't mention the mileage expiration date or last activity date on their emailed/mailed statements like other major carriers do. No answer.

Other airline programs have negative features as well. Air Tran and Southwest frequent flier benefits are useless unless you accumulate enough miles for a free ticket within a 12 month period, because they all lapse otherwise. Delta and American charge fees of $85 and $50 respectively if you book tickets less than 20 days in advance, with even higher fees for booking within 7 days. Many airlines offer 25K awards only on the routes with least demand. But at least you don't feel they're stealing your miles outright.

I'll still fly United or Air Tran or Southwest, but may go with other airlines with better mileage programs if their fares are less than $25 - $50 higher.

Reagan Amidst The Democratic Race

2008-01-22T09:48:00.000-08:00

I've always been underwhelmed by Reagan and wonder why he's so lauded by the Republicans. I was in India for most of the time he was President (that is, till August 1987) but read enough about international and US affairs to form an opinion about him even way back then.

His admirers say he "defeated" the Soviet Union and "won" the Cold War though they're quite vague about how he did it. Outspent the communists in an arms race? Dragged down the Soviets in Afghanistan by building up the Bin Ladens and the precursors to the Taliban against them? Some of these explanations for Reagan's supposed success sound quite bizarre. I think he was mainly lucky that enlightened leaders like Gorbachev realized the value of market driven systems and Democracy, and their reforms overlapped with Reagan's tenure. True, he didn't do anything stupid like GWB may have done in launching military adventures to re-unite the communist block against the US and halt their reforms. But that's hardly saying much.

On the domestic front, Reagan's policies were even less creditworthy. His tax cuts and build up of deficits created a temporary boom that borrowed against the future and pushed economic woes in the lap of his hapless successor, George H.W. Bush. I couldn't understand the Reagan nostalgia, but didn't have the words to articulate this. Then last year I came across this March 19, 2007 column by Paul Krugman in the New York Times which (to paraphrase Hillary) found my voice. He's since written many columns that drive the point of Reagan's fake legend home.

I'd have expected a literate and well-read person like Obama to have seen all this. So I was quite surprised like many others to see Obama compare Reagan and his Reagan years favorably to the Clinton years. I can understand his taking pot shots against Bill Clinton in order to get at his wife Hillary (I've always been skeptical about Obama's "clean campaign" promises) but this is the worst way to do so. Last night in the CNN Presidential debate in South Carolina Obama tried to qualify what he had said earlier, but it isn't enough. His comments prompted Krugman to write another column yesterday (January 21, 2007) about debunking the Reagan myth.

Last night Obama also took a cheap shot at Hillary mentioning he was doing all those grand things in the community while she was sitting on the corporate board of Wal Mart. Hillary returned the favor by referring to his work for a Chicago slum lord who is a campaign contributor. The exchange was unseemly and I may be prejudiced but Mr. (purported) Clean is the one who started it, and she'd have suffered if she had not retaliated.

So far Obama seems to be having it both ways on the racial front. He's winning the African American support simply because of skin color (even though ironically he doesn't share any of the typical African American history) and skillful references to issues like the Jena 6. Think about it - if all else was exactly the same, would Oprah have endorsed and campaigned for him the way she did if he was white? At the same time his other supporters don't yet seem turned off either by his subtle play of the race card, or by his lack of substance.

The polls show Obama will sweep South Carolina because of the African American vote, and I'd expect the Hillary camp to be braced for this. Hopefully, she'll be able to recover adequately for Super Tuesday on Feb. 5th when over half of the total delegates will be elected.

Unexpected Quarter Exposes Obama

2008-01-14T20:22:00.000-08:00

Of late in regard to the Democratic primaries race I've been pleasantly surprised by Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics at Princeton and a top New York Times columnist. I've always admired his incisive logic, compelling reasoning and biting sarcasm that lays bare the bankruptcy of several Bush policies.

At the same time I thought Krugman would be too liberal to appreciate Hillary, and would instead favor more populist candidates like Obama and the "new farther left" John Edwards. Till some months back Krugman had been openly distrustful of Hillary, fearing for instance that she may be too beholden to drug companies and health insurers who have contributed to her campaign.

But he seems to have taken a lot of pains to understand each candidate's position and proposals on issues, and makes well-founded pronouncements. Hillary seems to have now won his respect, with the "turnaround" starting in September on healthcare issues. On the other hand, he has been increasingly troubled by Obama's stances on several hot button issues including approaches to the economy, healthcare, and social security. And I thought I was the only one who saw through Obama!

Seriously though, see Krugman's past five columns dating back to mid November that expose Obama's shallowness and policy shortcomings:

Nov. 16, 07 Op Ed where he disses Obama for playing the sucker on the Bush / Republican hype of "reforming" (read curtailing) social security
Nov. 30, '07 Op Ed on the major shortcoming of Obama's healthcare plan, and why Hillary and Edwards plans that mandate coverage are so much better
Dec. 7, '07 Op Ed again attacking Obama's shortsightedness on healthcare issues
Dec. 17, '07 Op Ed criticism of Obama's call to resolve all major issues through negotiations (though unlike Krugman I believe that some negotiations CAN yield very good results in areas like healthcare)
Jan. 14, '08 Op Ed that praises Hillary's and Edwards' economic stimulus proposals while discounting those of Obama and the Republican field

In case you're wondering, I haven't "cherry-picked" Krugman's columns here, by omitting any since September 2007 that praise Obama or criticise Hillary. So there you have it. Paul Krugman sees through Obama's rhetoric and appreciates those offering more substance, even if they're centrists like Hillary who are not his natural allies. The question is: will the voters in general?

Thank You, New Hampshire

2008-01-09T11:53:00.000-08:00

I was pleasantly surprised by the Democratic election results last night in the New Hampshire primaries. Most pundits and polls had predicted a huge win for Obama, so it was good to see that NH voters did not ape Iowa. Hillary's slender victory has obviously huge implications though her path to nomination is still uncertain.

I also welcome the McCain win in NH on the Republican side. He's my favored candidate on the Republican side though well behind Hillary because I do not share his stances on taxes, healthcare or choice vs life issues.

A nice graphic created by daughter Rubina for the New York Times today shows the detailed profile of New Hampshire voters supporting both the Democratic as well as Republican candidates.

While I'm happy about Hillary in NH, here are my other comments:

I regard Obama to be superficial (especially compared to Hillary) even though he's a great talker. Still, I'll give him his due. His concession speech last night was gracious, as were his comments on today's news shows. This is something Hillary can emulate. And yes, someone who can speak so well without notes as Obama has to have good clarity of thought.
Why is Hillary so keen to project confidence in the outcome of the primaries? I was turned off to see her campaign manager babble about how they expected to win NH on the eve of the elections because of the enthusiasm of the crowds who greeted her. Hillary in news show appearances also said something about how she was the only one predicting victory when all others didn't. I think it'll be more honest and also better in winning voter goodwill and sympathy if they admitted to their worries and anxiety, and then said how gratified they are by the outcome. Doesn't political psychology 101 say that it is good to play the underdog, lower expectations and then beat them? That's accepted wisdom in debates, so why not in poll outcomes? Over-confidence and a I-knew-it-all-along refrain comes across as arrogant, while a little humility wins voter sympathy and support.
Hillary's emotional moment and her fighting back tears was a genuine and unplanned act, in my view, despite allegations to the contrary in some of the media. It seems to have won over voters for her, which supports my contention above. Few people doubt her strength, so she doesn't have to hide her emotions to prove it. So many in the media say that she comes across as so much warmer and likable in smaller private gatherings. I hope she opens up more in public appearances as well from now on.

The outcomes are wide open. Thanks to you, NH, exciting (and hopefully happy) days are ahead.

Post-Iowa Rejoicing - Count Me Out

2008-01-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

I'd almost recovered from jet lag following our India trip when the Iowa primaries results came in. It is good news for Republicans on both fronts. Their Republican winner Mike Huckabee is not only personable and likable, but also a truer Conservative who more consistently reflects their core values than Mitt Romney. They should also welcome the Democratic outcome as their most formidable opponent Hillary Clinton suffered a blow by coming in third place. Obama would be easier to beat as a Democratic nominee since people like me will either switch support to the Republican candidate, or simply sit it out at home.

Partly for reasons touched on in my October 18th post I voted with Republicans in some significant races in the last two elections. I supported Joe Lieberman in November '06 in the senate general elections (as did 70% of Republicans) after he was rejected as a Democratic nominee (my June 6th post has some painful details). In the process Democrats lost a senate seat since Lieberman is now an Independent. Then last November it was Republican Thomas Boughton who was re-elected Mayor of our Danbury city which otherwise leans Democrat. Boughton secured two-thirds of the votes both because of his good performance record and because his Democratic opponent was so weak. Now it'll likely be a three-peat for me (not voting Democrat) if Obama gets the Democratic nomination.

So why don't I like Obama? It's not about the issues, since he and Hillary are pretty close on those. It's about his personality, which ironically is supposed to be his strong suit among most Americans. To me he hasn't come across as anything more than a great talker. Hillary isn't perfect by any means but she's shown a lot more depth and understanding on the issues, especially while answering questions. I also see strong character and determination in her that should make her effective. And okay I'll admit it - it's also because she's the wife of Bill Clinton whom I like a lot.

Obama won Iowa mainly on the strength of his overwhelming support amongst the youngest voters. That's not surprising - they're the most naive and hence likely to be taken in by him. Okay, I'm half-kidding. I know enough older people even in my closest circle of family and friends who are normally sane and rational folks, who happen to like Obama.

It's interesting how the results in one little state like Iowa have so much influence on others, starting with New Hampshire. That's why these initial primaries carry inordinate weight. The U.S. became a superpower largely because of the independent and entrepreneurial thinking of its people. Are the current generations losing these traits of their forebears? Right now the polls show that Obama's support since the Iowa primaries has surged and that he is tied or slightly ahead of Hillary in New Hampshire. My own decisions are hardly based on what other people think - why can't more Americans be like me? Half-kidding again.

But seriously, I'll close with some other observations:

Why do candidates try to project themselves as sure winners? Hillary proclaimed in a recent TV interview "I WILL win" and I remember Kerry trumpeting the same confidence in 2004 even when the polls showed him to be trailing. I disagree with the pundits and think that this is a bad tactic. This over-confidence tends to turn people off, and is almost a matter of reverse psychology, if you will. I'd advise more humility for Hillary. Remember, Huckabee surged in the polls and took Iowa with his lower key approach.
I also disagree with the pundits who say Hillary would need to sharpen her attacks on Obama after the Iowa debacle, as he's surging in New Hampshire. Such negative campaigning tarnishes the image of the attacker, and Hillary with her likability issues is particularly vulnerable to such perceptions. I think she should effectively counterattack if criticised for sure, but otherwise continue taking the high road and win support through her clarity of vision, honest and in-depth answers to questions, and all this mixed with a little self-deprecating humor.
I suspect there could be plenty of manipulation to sabotage the opposite party in the current system of voting by independents and wonder why no one else has brought this point out. Say that I am a Iowan (or New Hampshire) Republican at heart and am registered as an independent since this is the most advantageous. Then if I know that Hillary is the Democrats' most formidable candidate I'll simply go and vote for Obama (or Edwards) in the Democratic polls just to undermine Hillary. I suspect some (may be a lot) of this has happened in Iowa and may be repeated in New Hampshire. The solution is to only allow party card holders to vote in their respective primaries (as is the case in our CT state) and to have a cooling off period for those who want to switch parties.
Why do we have this system where the order of the primaries in the states remains fixed? This makes the pocket states of Iowa and New Hampshire unduly important on a permanent basis, and is unfair to other states. While Iowa and NH naturally like the status quo, why don't the other states use their clout in the national convention to push for a more equitable roster system where other states get their chance to be first in subsequent elections? It's not relevant in the current election cycle but the states and the two Parties should considering this longer term.

Iowa disappointed from my perspective. And I don't have that much faith in New Hampshire. Let's see how the primaries turn out there in two days.

Green Ideas Of My Favorite Journalist

2007-11-14T16:08:00.000-08:00

The journalist I admire the most is Thomas Friedman, columnist at the New York Times, and bestselling author of "The World Is Flat."

Earlier his writings on globalization, free trade and competition in an ever closely connected world attracted international acclaim. These hopefully affect US and worldwide policy in a major and positive way. Now a lot of his emphasis is on green energy, conservation and ways to reduce dependence on oil. I couldn't agree with him more, including on the need for higher and permanent taxes in the US on gasoline. This will discourage excessive consumption, fund alternative energy R&D and can offset other taxes.

Today his OpEd in the New York Times talks of how much we have already lost by failing to curb oil consumption through a $1+ per gallon gas tax over the past six years. Read his article since he puts things so much better than I can. The opportunity to lower demand for oil in the US could have significantly lowered crude oil prices which are currently hovering around $95 a barrel. After all, the US consumes a fourth of the world's oil at a time when supplies are increasingly constrained so slight global shortages make prices spike up. If our own reduced oil consumption lowers prices we benefit not just ourselves but also most of the rest of the world that imports oil.

Of course Friedman has been talking about a lot more than simply taxing gasoline and looking at crude oil imports. You can see his many writings on going green through his NYT columnist page (now available online for free in a welcome change of NYT policy.) It's still not too late. Friedman obviously hopes that his views can influence the Democratic presidential candidates who can then follow the right policies after the next elections (don't expect Bush & Co to do anything meaningful in their remaining time.)

I doubt any leading candidates including Hillary and Obama will advocate a higher gas tax in their campaigns, and they'll be wise to avoid this. It's too risky and unlike Friedman I've less faith in the ability of the average voter to think straight on this. Still, it's what the President and lawmakers do after the election that matters, and people like Friedman may yet become a decisive influence. Let's see.

Daylight Saving Follies

2007-11-12T05:46:00.000-08:00

I've never liked this Daylight Saving Time. The twice yearly disruptions are not worth the claimed 1% of energy savings (through less lighting) or the other purported benefits listed in a website tracking its history and rationale. Moreover, our power usage - and potential savings - on lighting is dropping as we switch to fluorescent bulbs that consume a fourth of the power of conventional incandescents.

Still, the maximum benefit of this time shift is during the height of summer. I tolerate the switches on the first Sunday of April and the last Sunday of October because it's at least in synch with most of Europe. But now George Bush slipped in a three week extension of this Daylight Savings Time in his Energy Policy Act of 2005 that took effect in 2007. So for three weeks this year we moved out of whack with Europe, causing problems on some international flights, plus other headaches like needing to install patches on computers and electronic gadgets. I don't expect the change to do any good either. Most of us turn on our lights on getting up in the morning in late October and late March so the benefit of "extra" light in the evenings is exactly zero.

Then there's the whole irony of the politics of distraction. An effective energy policy should include measures like higher mileage standards, higher gasoline taxes, or funding research and development of renewable energy sources. Instead the Bush administration comes up with meaningless "solutions" like moving the hands of our clocks out of step with other countries. Though a minor irritant, these actions also fit the "go it alone" GWB approach typified by his rejection of the Kyoto protocol and the invasion of Iraq.

There's one possible relief. In the 2005 Act the Congress retained the right to revert to the earlier Daylight Saving Time schedule if the changes prove unpopular or don't result in the expected savings. I'd like this reversal as soon as possible. To be forced to get up in the dark in the years ahead and be reminded of Bush is adding insult to injury.

The Right's Best Hope Is -- The Far Left?

2007-10-18T23:26:00.000-07:00

Instead of sticking to my boring centrist stance let me project our past and upcoming presidential elections from the Right's standpoint.

The credit for our GWB's 2000 presidential victory goes largely to Al Gore himself. He gave the election to us by distancing himself from that Bill Clinton. Of course Ralph Nader, Jeb Bush's operatives in Florida and our Republican appointed Supreme Court gave some crucial support.

But in 2004 it was Howard Dean and his enthusiastic supporters who really helped our cause by forcing Kerry to veer sharply left to counter Dean in order to win the Democratic primaries. Thereafter Kerry never recovered enough ground to win the face-off with GWB. Our Karl Rove of course brilliantly helped in painting Kerry as a flip-flopper when he tried to return to the center.

The same dynamic may work this time around. Polls may not look too bright for our 2008 hopefuls, but it's still early. Democratic polls show Hillary pulling ahead of her rivals, but the General Election polls show her in a statistical dead heat with our Rudy Giuliani. Our far left and liberal friends may again come to our aid. They already see Hillary as too much of a centrist, and our labelling her as "calculating" has influenced many impressionable women and some men.

The New York Times and Jon Stewart's Daily Show are also helping us by regularly sniping at her and promoting Barack Obama. Just look at NYT's Maureen Dowd who is one of Hillary's fiercest critics and an Obama loyalist. Among her numerous efforts here's her nice attack of September 30 which cleverly lumps Hillary with GWB, and another piece of October 10. Even Paul Krugman who's been a thorn in our side has been undermining Hillary - the man has his uses.

Obama for his part was brilliant on the Jay Leno show on October 17, lobbing carefully rehearsed barbs while making them sound spontaneous. And they think Hillary is calculating! For example when asked if Hillary had taken an insurmountable lead he correctly pointed to how the Iowa polls outcome can change everything, then added "This is not a first time a leader has declared 'Mission Accomplished' and been proven wrong." In one stroke he portrayed Hillary as overconfident and lumped her with GWB. The enthusiastic young Leno audience exploded in laughter and applause.

Of course, Hillary is actually cautious and even paranoid about the primaries, and has never said or implied that she's sure about being nominated. But Obama has learned from our Karl Rowe and Dick Cheney - don't worry too much about being factual, and you can get a lot of mileage from inaccurate implications. Useful guy, this Obama. He can either weaken Hillary so Rudy (or maybe another GOP nominee) can beat her, or if he actually secures the Democratic nomination he'll be so much easier to beat. But Shhhhh, make sure to call him a tougher opponent to encourage Democrats to vote for him.

So take heart, Republicans. An enemy's enemy is a friend. Have faith, including in the liberal and far left factions. After all, they helped the American people choose our current President a second time. Why not this time around as well?

Rubina's Openers At The New York Times

2007-09-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

Interesting things have happened since my last post, many of them to do with daughter Rubina. First, she had knee surgery in mid-August and can now largely manage without crutches. More happily she started work as a graphics editor on contract basis at The New York Times on September 4th.

A couple of days earlier she moved into a shared Manhattan apartment in the hip (as I now know) East Village side. It's a 5th floor walk-up so it was pretty brave of her opting for it after the knee surgery, but she managed fine and it's no longer an issue. Helping her move into that (unfurnished) apartment turned out to be easier than I thought. The biggest challenge in Manhattan seems to be to secure a suitable apartment - it's almost like applying for a job, with loads of paperwork. She has two nice room-mates, each having a decent bedroom and good common spaces, so that's worked out well.

But back to the NY Times: as a graphics editor Rubina is a reporter who plans and very often herself makes the pictures (other than photographs) that accompany news stories. It is interesting work and rounds out her journalism experience. And a picture is better than a thousand words..... They didn't waste time utilizing her. In the two weeks since she started Rubina has already had four pieces of her work appear in both the print as well as the online editions.

Here are links to three of her works (the fourth appeared in the September 18 print edition on page A24 but we can't find the URL. It compares and contrasts Hillary Clinton's healthcare plan with that of John Edwards and Barack Obama - so it's useful and interesting, even more so to me.):

- Her first graphic in the paper on September 5 which describes the dichotomy (and commonalities) on Iraq assessment between the two wings of the Bush Administration. It appeared in gray in the newspaper and orange online. It's more text-heavy than her other ones will be... You can see it by clicking "multimedia" after first clicking here.

- Her first credited graphic published on September 9th in Sunday Business. It's on Second Life. Pretty simple, but it involved some reporting because she had to find all the items, take pictures (screen shots), edit them and do some other research. Click on "multimedia" to see "A Luxurious Second Life" but after first clicking and getting to the article here.

- A census snapshot capturing some interesting features of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut states that appeared on September 18th.

In sum Rubina is having a good time, being productive, gaining experience and making us happy in the process. By the way, I'm writing this from Paris, two days before Anita and I return to the US. Enjoyable city with nice people who are more polite to English-only speakers than I'd been led to expect.

So What Would You Pay Our Lawmakers?

2007-08-17T06:14:00.000-07:00

I don't want to influence your initial reaction so I'll reserve my comments till you see this email I've received multiple times. (The US context and debates in the press are similar. For those unfamiliar with India, $1 = Rs 40, i.e., a US dollar is worth 40 indian rupees, and a "crore" equals ten million, i.e., a one followed by seven zeroes. Also, an MP is elected every 5 years, and is like a cross between a US Senator and a Congressman.) Here goes:

----

I want to be an MP in India....

Salary & Govt. Concessions for a Member of Parliament (MP)
Monthly Salary: Rs. 12,000
Expense for Constitution per month: Rs. 10,000
Office expenditure per month: Rs. 14,000
Traveling concession (Rs. 8 per km): Rs. 48,000
(e.g., For a visit from kerala to Delhi & return: 6000 km)
Daily DA TA during parliament meets: Rs. 500
Charge for 1 class (A/C) in train: Free (For any number of times) (All over India )
Charge for Business Class in flights: Free for 40 trips / year (With wife or P.A.)
Rent for MP hostel at Delhi: Free
Electricity costs at home: Free up to 50,000 units
Local phone call charge: Free up to 1,70,000 calls.

TOTAL expense for a MP per year : Rs. 32,00,000
TOTAL expense for 5 years : Rs. 1,60,00,000
For 534 MPs, the expense for 5 years : Rs. 8,54,40,00,000 (nearly Rs. 855 cores)

Do they really deserve this? And they are elected by THE PEOPLE OF INDIA , by the largest democratic . process in the world, not intruded into the parliament on their own or by any qualification. This is how all our tax money is been swallowed and price hike on our regular commodities....... Think of the great democracy we have.............

-------

Here are my comments - let's look at all these numbers another way:

Rs. 855 crores is Rs. 8.55 billion even if you accept all these aggregations.

India's population is 1.13 billion.

So all the MPs put together cost an average indian less than Rs. 8 or under 20 cents for 5 years.

Another way of looking at it: So we spend Rs. 1.6 crores per MP every 5 years. How much do candidates spend to get elected? Counting all the major candidates per contest I'm figuring it's between Rs. 10 and 100 crores.

The media plays up the same kind of story here in the US as well. It becomes big news when the lawmakers vote themselves a salary increase, and their health benefits are criticised as being too generous. Instead, I'd argue that it is better to pay Congressmen and Senators handsome salaries and benefits, say $1-2 million a year each. The total tab will come to $1 -2 billion annually, which is miniscule compared to the multi-trillion dollar federal budgets and decisions that Congress votes upon. Then lawmakers are less likely to be bought over Abramoff style with pettty bribes like games show tickets or rides in private jets.

This is one reason why I found the You-Tube CNN debate questons posed to democratic presidential candidates so inane. Candidates were asked if they'll be willing to accept minimum wages as their presidential salary if elected. Couldn't CNN choose any better questions in the final 30+ to air, when they had received almost 4,000 entries? If we want good, smart, enlightened leaders for our president, why would we pay them the lowest wage?

What do you think?

Mixed Feelings About Democrat YouTube Debate

2007-07-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

Did you watch the Democratic presidential CNN/YouTube debate on June 23?

The positives were that it was an interesting new format and Anderson Cooper did a good job of (sometimes successfully) trying to get candidates to stay on topic and answer the questions asked. To the latter point he sometimes asked a good follow up question to get the candidate to clarify an earlier answer. It was also appropriate that the front runners got to answer more questions and get more speaking time, while the second-tier got their due. Another plus was that some of the questioners were present in the debate to react to the candidate responses.

The negatives partly related to the choice of the final 39 questions picked by CNN out of the 3000+ submissions. Several of the 39 questions were indistinctly mumbled or of poor sound quality, or hard to see as in the case of a guy using poster slides. When broadcasting nationally CNN should throw out all the videos with poor audio or visual quality. Especially since none of those questions were knockouts in content either.

Also, some questions were plain stupid even if they were designed to put candidates in a spot. A guy asked if the candidates would be willing to be paid the minimum wage (implying it was too low) if they were elected President. The candidates answered politely, though the response in my head was, "Listen, turd, why should the person with the wisdom, talent and abilities to lead the whole nation be paid the lowest wage of any American?" I guess I'll never win political office. :-) Another hollow question, this a follow-up by Anderson on wasteful practices - how many candidates flew in for the debate by private jet? Yeah, big deal. With their crush of activities and so much at stake they should be wasting long hours (not to mention security implications) catching commercial flights. Yet one more question - did candidates send their children to private schools? If they have millions, why shouldn't they?

So who did best? I was most impressed by Hillary's direct, intelligent and realistic answers that did not sound canned. I already like her and am not a neutral judge. Most CNN and MSNBC commentators reflect my view though 11 of the 12 focus groups polled by CNN felt Obama did best (one plumped for Richardson.) Obama did have some very nifty lines, speaks well and keeps his composure. May be that's why he's so popular with the younger (and the Hillary-hating) set who are easily swayed and lack maturity. :-)

I was pleasantly surprised by Biden even if he's lagging too far behind in the polls to matter. Edwards did okay in spite of some platitudes and stump lines (e.g., his son of a mill worker spiel.)

Anyone have different perceptions? The Republic CNN/YouTube debate is on September 17.

Lead Foot Drivers Or Light-Headed Politicians?

2007-07-21T03:52:00.000-07:00

I've always deplored using traffic enforcement as a way to raise revenues rather than ensuring safety and smooth driving conditions. Unfortunately it happens all the time. Ever noticed how the traffic police seem most active in issuing tickets when traffic volumes are low and driving conditions are good? In other words, when the conditions for driving fast are the safest?

Many of the traffic police either have quotas or financial incentives for issuing more tickets, though they try not to disclose this. That's why there's the "gotcha" mentality that makes me (and I'm guessing a majority of you) think negatively about speed cops.

Now look what these Virginia politicians have done. The Republicans opposed measures like a 1 cent increase in gas taxes to fund state highway projects, and instead pushed for raising revenues through draconian traffic penalties, like charging drivers at least $1,050 for going 20 miles over the limit. The main proponent of this legislation, State Rep. David Albo (R) is the senior partner in a law firm dealing with traffic offenses, which should experience a nice uptick in business.

Oh, and it's not just Republicans to blame. Democrat Governor Tim Kaine fully went along with this idea. Now that the new law took effect on July 1st, there's been a public outcry. There's pressure on lawmakers to call a special session to repeal the new provisions. Tim Kaine is opposing it - so far. All the state lawmakers face elections this fall. If those among them who voted for the new penalties get re-elected, Virginian drivers will lose a lot of my current sympathy for them.

Scooter Pardon Musings

2007-07-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

I have mixed feelings about how the Plame-Wilson-Libby affair has played out. The Libby pardon is hardly a surprise. GWB and Co. have done much worse in the past, and with the current 26% approval rating no longer have much of a reputation to protect. And one good shield deserves another. They owe it to their henchman to shield him from the consequences of shielding them from exposure.

I think about four aspects of the case.

First, it's about those who lash out at Bill Clinton for deploring the pardon because of his own rash of pardons near the end of his presidency. The two acts are different because Clinton didn't pardon anyone who was covering up for him or his administration.

Second, despite my occasional digs at Republicans it shows there are plenty of decent and straight ones around. Special prosecutor Fitzgerald and federal judge Walton are both Republicans and proved they're no hatchet men. Fitzgerald probably gave VP Cheney a break by not compelling damaging testimony from him under oath, but has been upstanding on the whole. Judge Walton didn't give Libby any undue breaks and it can even be said his sentence was on the harsher side.

Third, Libby may not be that bad a guy and one can empathise with his situation. He was put on the spot and lied or obstructed the investigation to protect the boss out of a sense of loyalty. He sacrificed himself knowing he could go to prison and no one would bail him out. (Oh, wait. )

Lastly, just like in that Clinton impeachment drama, probably too much has been made out of this case. The motive in exposing Plame wasn't revenge as much as an attempt to discredit Wilson's revelations by painting him and his wife as anti-GWB partisans. What was the damage done by outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent? Probably only that she could never do a covert job again.

So can't it go this way: the Administration and the CIA say to Plame "oops, we're so sorry about goofing up on this. Here's $5 million (or $10 million) and a promotion to compensate you for our gaffe." End of story. Valerie's quite a babe and will improve the image of the CIA, so to speak. Those who feel taxpayers shouldn't pay so much for the Administration's mistakes should look at the billions of dollars of overspend on no-bid Iraq / Katrina contracts and other wastages inherent in the government. Also the special prosecutor's activities have cost more than this amount.

So in sum, while the Plame leak and Libby pardon affair confirms the seamy side of GWB-Vice politics, it's not that big a deal as to unduly exercise us.

Hillary Update; My Take On Bloomberg

2007-06-29T09:15:00.000-07:00

I'll be honest. I started out liking Hillary in large part because she is Bill Clinton's wife, and the "Two For One Deal" logic worked for me.

But as I see her in debates and news coverage of her positions, I like what I hear (so far at least.) She listens to the questions and gives thoughtful answers with a good mix of overview and detail, and that are not motherhood and apple pie generalities. The matters on which she prefers to be silent (Imus, Scooter Libby pardon) are ones where she's resisting playing to the gallery which goes to her credit. So I don't find MSNBC's labeling her an "artful dodger" as fair when she chose to avoid scoring cheap political points by playing to the influential Democrat left. I hope she maintains enough of a lead to be not forced to pander.

Talking of leads the latest democrat nomination polls shows her widening it a bit. Even the latest one by the tricky Fox News for June 26-27 shows Hillary:Obama:Edwards at 42:19:10 up from 36:23:12 on June 6-7. This is with Gore running, and without Gore the Hillary:Obama: Edwards numbers are 47:21:13 on June 26-27, versus 41:26:15 on June 6-7.

The general election polls also show Hillary now leading all the Republican contenders, though some leads are very slender and within the margin of error.

There has been some speculation in the comments following my earlier post of June 15th about how Michael Bloomberg as a third party candidate can change the dynamics. I went out on a limb there to give him under 1 in 50 odds of making President, and under 1 in 5 of spoiling it for the Democrat nominee. If anything, I think he'll help Hillary by splitting the votes of the centrists who (irrationally) hate her. Anyone think differently?

If I were Bloomberg, I'd jump into the fray only if both Giuliani AND Hillary did not secure their respective party nominations. That's because with a farther left Democrat and a farther right Republican squaring off, a centrist like Bloomberg would become more appealing to the mainstream. As I've said I think well of Bloomberg and can see myself supporting him in that eventuality, or even in preference to Giuliani. Just so long as polls show that Bloomberg voters are not throwing away their vote like those Naderites or Perotists of old.

Sheena's Mexico Trip And Pictures

2007-06-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

Our elder daughter Sheena has always been rather adventurous and fearless, and has some unusual interests.

For example she was very interested in chess while in school and at college, and became quite profficient at it and its bastardized American variant, bug-house. She'd organize or attend all sorts of chess and bug-house tournaments where nerdy boys were the overwhelming majority of participants.

When we were in Las Vegas 10 years ago, to my consternation she wanted to do bungee jumping off a rickety looking steel platform way up in the air. They dropped you from a height equivalent to an 18-storey building down to within 6 ft off the ground. I had to really strive to overcome my fear of heights to check out everything and bungee jump before she did. I was secretly petrified before my first jump, but she chuckled and giggled her way through the whole experience.

But Sheena's favorite game for the past few years has been ultimate frisbee. Though she plays it for fun, she's become quite good at it, and has been outside of the US six times to play in tournaments (twice to Europe, three times to Mexico and once to Canada), aside from inumerable outings within the US. The last time she went on the Memorial Day weekend three weeks ago to San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Her team won the first prize (though I'm sure she'd have enjoyed it immensely even if they came last.)

She sent me the link to the pictures in this tournament. She's included all pictures of hers including those with formidable expressions (beating those when she's arguing with me. :-) ) So you can glimpse the competitive spirit that sometimes lurks beneath that innocently smiling face. She's the one in the last picture in the red tee shirt, beating the other girl to the frisbee.

Hillary Rising - For Now

2007-06-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

Hillary has widened her lead over Obama 39%-25% in the latest NBC/WSJ poll compared to 36%-31% in April. Or a more modest rise to 39%-19% according to American Research Group as compared to 39%-22% last month.

As significantly, she's also beating Republican hopefuls in polls, leading Giuliani 48%-43% after trailing him 42%-47% a couple of months ago.

A lot can of course change between now and 2008. Hillary may go back down, or on the other hand be able to further soften the hostility of the anti-Hillary crowd and win more support.

She's managed to stay pretty much on a centrist message except for her May 25 senate vote against Iraq War funding (like Obama) to appease the left, where it may have been political suicide to vote otherwise. That was a symbolic vote anyway since funding was approved 80-14.

I was intrigued when Paul Krugman mentioned in the middle of his column in the NY Times that she had received large contributions from the drug and the health insurance industry. Is she going to sell out on the vital issues of (a) government negotiating drug prices, and (b) universal coverage? But all indications presently are that she's firmly committed to both.

Let's see how it all plays out. Anyone care to predict how things will stand in say, Sept-Oct '07 so we can compare notes at that time? It's risky business, but I'll venture she'll widen her lead very slightly among Democrats for the primaries race and tip over 50% in the general elections polls keeping the same 6% margin as more of the "unsure" people make up their minds.

In Defense Of Paris Hilton

2007-06-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

The vast majority of the vociferous minority demanded that Paris Hilton serve her full jail time "like the rest of us would" for driving on a suspended licence and a public-pandering judge obliged them in this Paris Hilton saga.

The "vociferous minority" I'm talking about are the self-righteous indignants on the left and the right. They're the type who demanded Don Imus's head despite his apologies over his "nappy headed ho's" comment, or made those furious calls to the FCC about Janet Jackson baring her breast at the '04 Superbowl. They demand their pound of flesh and condemn any leniency in jail time or special treatment for Paris because she's a celebrity.

Here's why I disagree with them:

Celebrities may give more to the community, so factoring this in during sentencing for minor offenses can be justified. Even Paris with her lavish and vacuous lifestyle provides us with news and entertainment. (Not to mention her widely circulated '03 sex tape that's the first thing I associate with her. I haven't seen it but it couldn't be bad.)
Being a celebrity comes with it's own problems, like lack of privacy, chases by the paparazzi, getting accosted by obnoxious fans or publicity seekers, etc. So why grudge them a little consideration (again for minor offenses) that makes up for this downside?
Jail time IS much harder for celebrities. So a jail stay is a far stiffer punishment for Paris who is used to an ultra luxuriant and protected lifestyle, than for a run of the mill offender where the "inside" is not much worse than the outside.
Want to make sentencing uniform for all in minor cases? Then how about something like a 45 day jail term or $2 million in fines. Then ordinary offenders go to prison while rich celebrities pay a hefty sum into the city coffers that benefits the community.
Paris' licence should arguably not have been suspended in the first place. Her blood alcohol level in that earlier incident was at 0.08 which is exactly at the new threshold, down from the 0.10 of a few years ago. I think most people would have contested this borderline result but she didn't because the trial have been too much bother. So in a way this is a case of reverse discrimination.

By the way, Rubina and her friends were wondering why people like Mel Gibson or Paris get caught driving drunk when they can easily afford to be chauffered around.

The recent music video about Paris in jail is quite funny. Shouldn't she get time off for providing all this entertainment? If she doesn't, she'll likely get off on June 26th after serving 23 days.

Rubina's First AP Story

2007-06-08T07:44:00.000-07:00

How many of you know that the first capital of the US was Philadelphia and that George Washington operated from there as the first President? It may have been in my sub-conscious somewhere but I'd have flunked an open-ended quiz show question on this.

No more. Just last Friday I dropped off Rubina in Philadelphia for her summer assignment with AP (Associated Press) and she started work four days back on Monday.

So we were pleasantly surprised to learn that her first story while at AP about slaves owned by George Washington has already been published nationally:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/07/AR2007060701655.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-washingtons-slaves,1,6593195.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19100886/
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/06/07/ap3800752.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6692506,00.html

The story has been published in papers in Australia and China as well. Typing her name (Rubina Madan) in Google News gets the full list.

We're proud of her. At this time I don't even mind that she thinks well of Obama. :-)

Betrayed By My Daughter

2007-06-06T21:37:00.000-07:00

Rubina just laughed at the pain and anguish she caused me.

It began last July when she was home and about to go to Columbia University. I found that our US Senator from Connecticut (CT), Joe Lieberman was trailing 45% to 55% in the Democrat primary polls, behind a Ned Lamont whom I'd never even heard of.

Rubina and I both liked and respected Lieberman as did much of CT, and Rubina as a college undergrad had been in touch with him. He had national stature, been Al Gore's running mate as VP in the 2000 Presidential election, and was briefly Democrat Presidential candidate for 2004.

But he had supported the Iraq War and as a Democrat had often reached across the aisle and worked with Republicans and George Bush. So the liberal Democrats were out to get him.

Many Democrats had been wrong about the war so I didn't think Lieberman should be ousted for that reason. Plus, I had rather liked his ability to shed partisanship and work with Republicans on several issues. CT is a small state and for the first time I felt our vote mattered.

"Lieberman needs our help" I told Rubina, "so let's register to vote." She nodded and we went together to Danbury City Hall for the purpose. I switched from Independent to Democrat (the only way I could vote in the Democrat primaries) and Rubina registered as a Democrat. "At least two more votes for Lieberman" I thought with some satisfaction as we left.

You can guess what happened next. That night Rubina said she liked some things about Lamont and wasn't so enthusiastic about Lieberman. To my increasing mortification over the next few days she switched to Lamont despite my admonitions and arguments. Why don't children listen to their parents? We went to the Democrat primaries voting together on August 8 to neutralize each other's Lieberman - Lamont votes, with her laughing at my reproachful looks on our way in.

Lieberman lost those primaries 48%-52%, but won the general elections in November as an "Independent Democrat" with sizable Republican support. That time I helped Rubina process her postal ballot since she had gone to Columbia. Like digging my own grave I said in my email and she responded with "ha ha."

And now it is Hillary versus Obama. Rubina told me last week that two of her friends were Obama state campaign coordinators, one for Illinois and the other for Georgia. We argued semi-seriously after I looked heavenwards and said "what's wrong with them?" This time I'm not sure if Rubina's all for Obama or merely defending her friends.

I don't think Obama is that bad, but he is likely to force Hillary more to the left during the Primaries so that she is weakened for the general election. Much like that Howard Dean created trouble for Kerry & Co. in 2004. If Obama were to actually win, I'd probably prefer Giuliani though I've reservations about him.

But whether it's sour grapes or not I'm now beginning to think that Obama in the race is not that bad. That's because John Edwards is now firmly to the left, so Obama and Edwards may divide the anti-Hillary votes that can work to her advantage. She will still have to deal with all the anti-Hillary sentiments in the general elections, but enough people may change their perceptions in time to understand her and start liking the poor dear...

Fox Outfoxed In Falwell Death Debate?

2007-05-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

The (ultra-)liberals and I think differently on many issues, but distaste for Sean Hannity types is not one of them. Hannity, for those who don't know about him, is the pompous and obnoxious host of "Hannity and Colmes" program on Fox News, who is the toast of the right-wingers, the narrow-minded, the Creationists, the Bushies and the Evangelicals (all these terms describe the same group of people. :-)) His sparring partner on the show is poor Alan Colmes who generally offers fairly weak rebuttals (by Fox design, I'm sure) meant to reflect the leftist view.

Well, following religious idealogue Falwell's recent death, the atheist Christopher Hitchens basically said "good riddance" about him and "Hannity and Colmes" brought him to defend such mean spirited comments. Hannity (like Bill O'Reilly, another Fox host) generally manages to beat down guests who hold views different from him. But Hitchens seems to have withstood his attacks quite well and land in some choice comments of his own. All without raising his voice like Hannity does.

My daughter Rubina sent me this link covering the exchange on YouTube. Hope you can see this before Fox compels YouTube to pull it.

By the way, Fox insists it is "Fair and Balanced" and not a right-wing / Bushy apparatchik. Then how do you explain or justify this show being called "Hannity and Colmes" when the names should be switched per alphabetic order?

Crime And (Low) Punishment

2007-05-19T04:16:00.000-07:00

The Columbia Journalism graduation ceremony on May 16 was long as each of the 250 students walked up to receive their diplomas, and we had settled back into a kind of semi-stupor after our own Rubina was done.

The sudden loud applause and standing ovation of one student towards the end of the ceremony took us by surprise. Then I guessed who it was. Rubina later confirmed that this girl was indeed her friend (only four days apart in age and living a few blocks away from Rubina) who some weeks back had been brutally raped and tortured for 19 hours by an ex-convict. Among the horrible things he did to her (not all made public) was slitting her eyelids and leaving her to die by setting her apartment on fire (to cover up any clues) with her tied to her futon bed. The attacker's subsequent arrest was carried by many papers in follow up of the initial story.

This brave girl was hospitalized for weeks and we're glad she could attend her graduation. But note this - her attacker had spent just 8 years for nearly kiling a neighbor by shooting the victim four times. He had a long rapsheet even before that and was considered dangerous at the time he served his full sentence and had to be released. The reason for that paltry eight year sentence? That's the maximum penalty that can be imposed in New York for attempted murder.

While in prison this guy would throw his faeces at the guards and attack other inmates. Such activities could not be grounds for lengthening his sentence. All they did was prevent his release on parole. After he eight years he had to be turned loose, and even his activities could not be monitored, say by requiring him to disclose his whereabouts or wear an electronic ankle bracelet.

There are many similar stories - this is just one that affected Rubina's friend. New York laws seem particularly soft on offenders but I'd want tougher provisions across the country.

I differ from the liberals (many in my own family) who in my view over-emphasize reform and rehabilitation over meting out justice and having a criminal repay his debt to society. When we talk of (or hope for) rewarding good and punishing evil in the after-life, why not start here on earth? There are also be the deterrent effects of punishment though statistics can be presented either way by partisans to draw different conclusions on issues like capital punishment.

Here are some measures I'd support:

All states should have the death penalty, even if it's only for the most heinous and vicious crimes/murders and when there is no doubt at all about guilt (not just "beyond reasonable doubt.") There should be an ultimate penalty for the likes of Dahmer and Bundy.
There should be truth in sentencing - not these provisions that allow a convict sentenced to "life" or hundreds of years to get out in twenty or less. And what's all this about "concurrent sentences" where the additional punishments are meaningless?
Convicts considered dangerous at the end of their sentences can be allowed to be monitored in their activities and the community informed about them. This can be done by laws analogous to those passed for sex offenders.
Inmate-on-inmate crimes should be vigorously investigated and offenders punished just as much or more than if they were committed outside prison. Why should the weaker prisoners be victims of things like prison rape while the worst offenders thrive at the top of the food chain? With modern technology it should be possible to monitor every move of every prisoner so these Oz-like goings on don't ever happen. And don't tell me this violates privacy.
Prisons are for punishment, not for coddling prisoners. They should earn their upkeep instead of limbering up in gyms and watching TV. Yes, the system should aim to rehabilitate as well and find honest jobs when convicts get out, but inmates should have a strong disincentive to return.
Don't use tender age as a basis for imposing lighter sentences unless the offender didn't fully grasp what he was doing. If a 16 year old brutally murders someone he should get the same sentence (including death) as a 30 year old. One can almost argue that if he has become such a monster at 16 he's likely to become worse later.
Same as above largely goes for mental retardation or childhood abuse.
Reform / abolish the system of trials by jury (more on this in a subsequent post.)

I probably disappoint those who lauded my reconciling with a former school bully. But simple bullying by adolescents is not comparable to the crimes I'm talking about here.

At the same time I'd like to see:

Strict gun control and stringent penalties for violations of such laws
Due process and safeguards for the accused. Those at Guantanamo for instance should certainly get legal representation and humane treatment. Also the innocent caught in the net should be speedily cleared, and generously and expeditiously compensated for their hardships.

A tough crime policy was a crucial plank that helped Bush Sr. beat Dukakis in 1988. Remember those Willie Horton Ads? Since then it has receded as an election issue. I wonder if it will resurface in 2008.

The Graduate(s)

2007-05-17T13:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my parents, Anita and I attended our younger daughter Rubina's graduation from the Columbia School of Journalism. Amidst the fun and revelry I found almost all of Rubina's classmates that we met to be remarkably pleasant and friendly. They were bright as I expected of Columbia students, and (from all the hugs enthusiastic hugs exchanged) had warm family ties.

Columbia may have done a good job profiling and selecting the right people into the program but is there also a self-selection dynamic at work here? Journalism is typically a tough career with lousy pay. So it may attract people for whom money is less important, and have a sense of idealism or a passion for sharing their news and views. So could such profession/schools attract more of the "nicer" types? This is analogous to the Anita's belief that school teachers tend to be nice people. Not that all journalists or media are ethical or objective by a long shot. Think Fox News. While in public service in India I saw a couple from The Indian Express (one of whom's now a bureau chief) who concocted news to make sensational headlines and try extorting favors.

So I do have some concerns about the type and nature of media coverage. But at least these graduating students show that many people of good caliber and outlook are entering and sustaining the profession in the US and abroad.

Here are some pictures of the graduation and related events (click left for more.) I'm glad my parents could attend this graduation ceremony - their first in the US. Rubina's in most of them, with a couple of our family (sans Sheena who is in Austin.)
http://www.divshare.com/download/667819-c3b

See No Bullying, Hear No Bullying

2007-05-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

Today I saw a post on the blog of my good friend, schoolmate and best selling author David about how and why there was no bullying in our own elementary-to-high school in Darjeeling:
http://david-mcmahon.blogspot.com/2007/05/no-bully-beef.html#links

I want to set the record straight from my first hand experience. But let me first say that David is an extraordinarily amiable and popular person so that's why he was neither the bully nor the victim. He also sees the bright side of everything and bullying often occurs covertly so he could miss seeing it. Finally he was two years behind me in school so his cohort may have had very different experiences, though somehow I doubt it.

Through my six years in this school I saw plenty of bullying. For me personally it worsened from the sixth grade till the tenth and then plateaued almost till I graduated. Segregating the students into three "divisions" as David mentions (the "primary", "lower" and "upper" divisions) doesn't really help much because bullying also occurs among peers. Plus, a 9th grader can still be targeted by an 11th grader, or a 6th grader by an 8th grader, and so on. Most US schools as well as those in other places are split completely into elementary, middle and high schools that mirror the divisions we had within our school. That hasn't stopped bullying here.

The boys in our school closely followed an "honor" code against "sneaking" and social ostracism followed for anyone breaking it. "Sneaking" (akin to snitching) meant reporting to the authorities (teachers or our "father" priests) anything improper done by a fellow student, whether it was breaking rules, or harming another student, including by bullying. I now see press coverage of a similar taboo against reporting anything to the police among large swathes of the US African American community, which exacerbates black on black crimes.

Anyway, this anti-"sneaking" code made it very easy for bullies to thrive without detection by our well-intentioned authorities. I was a good target because I was (a) thin and nerdy, so not good at defending myself, (b) tall, so a bully did not seem to be picking on someone smaller, and (c) neither very submissive, nor pleasant like David. The "headboys" or "prefects" had no punitive role. They'd at most stop something happening under their noses so bullies simply operated elsewhere.

Bullies came in various shades and stripes. In my 10th class a particular classmate came almost every day to step on my toes and grind his heels into them, daring me to retaliate. He also took pleasure in bending my fingers back from the knuckles till they were injured enough to make it hard for me to write - for days. Others sometimes noticed what was happening but didn't want to get involved since he was a "tough" guy. The couple of times I tried to fight back ended in disaster (picture the comic character Sad Sack getting pounded by the Sarge.)

Two years after high school I finally hit my post-pubertic stride, gained 50lbs and became a "big ape" in classmate (now wife) Anita's words. (Why didn't that happen 4 years earlier?) But my past experiences affected my attitude to this day. As a college upper-classman I opposed the then-brutal practice of physical "ragging" or "hazing" of incoming freshmen. In my days as a law enforcer in the IAS I had the local "gundas" or tough guys booked or "processed" by the police with an intensity that surprised those around me. I saw them as extensions of our own school bullies. I'm still apt to look for bullying behavior and counter it if I can.

I recounted my experiences to a couple of ex-schoolmates recently and half-jokingly referred to my school tormentor of yore as "Biff" from "Back To The Future." Happily though, when this person and I re-established contact some years ago, my notions of getting even with him vanished (slowly!) and we maintain friendly contact.

We NorthPointers have a wonderful school that we're very proud and happy to be part of. I have a lasting bond with it and fellow alumni. But bullying is widespread and no place is immune from it. It can occur close to us without our being aware of it. And here I haven't even talked of bullying through mental abuse (like in "Mean Girls") that is even more pervasive. All of us should be looking out for it and preventing it (yes, including the current authorities at our school.)

Mothers Gone Wild

2007-05-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

The phone rings off the hook in our home today as it is Mother's Day. Mother's day wishes come pouring in for my wife and mom (happily for us my parents are staying with us at this time.) But neither my mom nor we have two dozen children. It is just that Mother's Day (and Father's Day) has gone beyond a time for kids to express appreciation for their parents to a time when everyone is expected to wish people close to them for being parents.

The campaign has probably exceeded all expectations of Hallmark, which is rumored to have started this day to boost their business and now has all sorts of cards for "third party" senders. Am I one of the few who thinks this has mutated to an over-generalized practice (isn't that what Christmas and New Year greetings are for?)

But at least I find this preferable to those automated birthday greetings via email. Here a general request goes from a sender to all people on the address list to enter their birthdays and contact particulars into a data card so that those people can get this "birthday" spam on their birthday and then be expected to individually thank the sender for her/his automated greetings. I consider filling up such requests as an invitation to dig your own grave so you can be shot and buried in such birthday spam. So if anyone who has sent such a request to me has been bothered that I haven't responded, please understand that I (and others like me) are equal opportunity decliners. Much as I may love and care for you I've never filled such a request.

Talking of this increase in the number of special days I was joking with someone who thinks as I do. We're wondering if it will be a good idea to have a Kid's Day so that we can all congratulate each other for having a mother and a father (till cloning makes this a less universal process.)

But back to Mother's and Father's Day. Can we take back the day and have it restricted to a special child-to-own-parent communication? Probably not as these ritualizations tend to have a momentum of their own. I just returned a call today to a business associate. After the initial hello's the first words out of my mouth were good wishes to his wife (whom I've met once) for Mother's Day...

In Defence Of Hillary From Two Criticisms

2007-05-11T19:58:00.000-07:00

This last weekend we were dining out with friends and the talk turned to why one of them, a Democrat / Independent so disliked Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate. She said she not only found Hillary to be "calculating" but more than that she couldn't forgive her for sticking with "that creep" Bill Clinton after what he did with Monica. I happen to like the creep but that's beside the point. I'll just talk about these two observations without any broader discussion of preferences regarding the candidates.

I had read about this last criticism (mainly by women) in news articles but it remains beyond me why Hillary's act of forgiveness is held against her. The critics say she isn't doing it for love but out of convenience or to further her ambitions. How do we know? A person wronged has to weigh all the factors before deciding what to do, but since when do we supplant sympathy with scorn for her? Aren't commitment to marriage and forgiveness supposed to be virtues? Few would ascribe Hillary's "failure to act" at that time as a result of a weak will - she's proved herself plenty tough in that department. I personally think better of her for having faced all the pain and public humiliation with grace and dignity, and recovering from it all.

The other criticism about Hillary's "calculating" nature was also echoed by our younger daughter recently. I find nothing wrong with a leader (or person) being calculating if that means coolly assessing what can work best and considering all the odds and options before deciding how to proceed. It does not mean being unscrupulous or throwing away one's values or changing course only out of expediency. I don't believe Hillary is guilty of any of these last three. Yes, Hillary may well act with her head, but why should that be considered to preclude her from having a good heart? Here's a post from last night of a Hearst columnist that says a lot of things for me aside from commenting on the most recent polls showing an uptick for Hillary after the first Presidential debate (though polls of course keep changing and it's way too early):
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4797441.html

Indian Courts - Gere'd For Change

2007-05-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

Here's an aspect of the Gere drama that I haven't seen covered anywhere. What can be done to prevent a bigoted or incompetent or just plain publicity hungry judicial official among thousands in one part of India from hassling celebrities in any other part of the country?

When protests and demonstrations were staged following Richard Gere's playfully tangling with Shilpa Shetty at an AIDs awareness gathering, I was embarassed as an Indian but not particularly bothered. After all there will always be the ultra conservatives and whackos in a country of a billion plus. Their right to free speech even if distasteful to me and contrary to majority view is an affirmation of our democratic values.

But it is very different when one magistrate (or subordinate judge) sitting in Jaipur issues arrest warrants and initiates proceedings for something that occurred in Delhi. The merits of the action aside just because media footage is aired in some place should not give the local judiciary the authority to summon or proceed against people who were never within their physical jurisdiction. For interstate occurrences there should be a clear single jurisdiction court. That way you need to only depend on the good sense and judgement of that court instead of being hostage to the whims or shenanigans of any one of the thousands of courts.

The required long term remedy needs legislative action by Parliament perhaps in consultation with the Judiciary and they should get to it. They can include some other pressing reforms like rolling back this rash of public interest litigation into this effort - but that's for a separate discussion.

Meanwhile, the additional chief judicial magistrate who acted against Gere and Shetty is Dinesh Gupta who has since been transferred out of Jaipur to a small little town.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070503/ap_en_mo/people_gere

That is a good step but - as we were repeatedly told in government while I was part of it - a transfer should not be taken as any punishment. There should be some official proceedings to discipline this judge and affect his career and service records, That will deter similar actions by others. But the judiciary tends to be protective of its own and I wouldn't hold my breath on this happening.

The superior courts should also take "suo motto" (on their own) notice and quash the groundless proceedings without requiring the defendants to jump through further procedural hoops.

NRA: Give benefit of doubt - and guns - to terror suspects

2007-05-08T06:37:00.000-07:00

This news item about NRA opposing a proposed ban on sale of guns to terror suspects initially surprised me:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18494626/

But then I began to understand their logic. Simply because someone is a suspected or would-be terrorist is no reason to deny him something as essential as an assault weapon or hand gun. One should be considered innocent till proven guilty, say, by actually committing a rampage a la Cho Seung or offering other compelling evidence.

Simply appealing a refusal and clearing one's name before a terror suspect is allowed to buys firearm would cause so much hardship. Imagine living for some time without having a firearm for target practice or shooting deer, rabbits, or pesky anti-terrorism agents who come snooping around to investigate your involvement in terror activities. A day without guns is one day too many, as compared to lives lost to protect the second amendment.

NRA urges you not to overreact to the VA Tech or other campus shootings. Or to the study (http://www.athealth.com/Consumer/issues/gunviolencestats.html) that found that guns kept in the home for self-protection are 43 times more likely to kill a family member or friend than to kill in self-defense. I don't know what the NRA stand would be on the authorities being alerted the moment a terrorism suspect buys or tries to buy a firearm. I won't be surprised if they cite the gunowner's right to privacy to oppose such notifications.