Proposed New Microsoft Office In Bangalore

photo creditI guess all those rumors about stopping outsourcing to India are false.

Taj Mahal Tour

For a virtual tour of the Taj Mahal, go here.

RELIGIOUS MERGER CREATES 900 MILLION HINJEWS

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Attainment of Nirvana Still Goal, But Not So Important That You Should Miss Cousin Vijay's Bar Mitzvah

New Delhi, India (SatireWire.com) — Hinjew leaders today conceded the merger of Hinduism and Judaism has not worked out as planned, as instead of forming a super-religion to fight off the common Islamic enemy, they have instead created a race of 900 million people who, no matter how many times they are reincarnated, can never please their mothers. [snip]

Source

Watch out for Mom's complaints about table manners!

Dive

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There's no description on the website where I found this picture so I don't know for sure if it's from India. But it could be.

Punjab

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This superlative photo fits many American's idea of India. It was leeched from this website. Perhaps parts of India are as undeveloped as this section of Punjab. But I didn't see them. The India I saw was a century ahead of this picture.

The photographer describes his picture:

Life is a struggle for survival. The Lahore - Kasur road features many small entrepreneurs offering up their wares and services. What I did not realize about the Punjab, until I lived there in 2002 and 2003, is that the area produces a considerable quantity of fruit. Numerous varieties of oranges, and apples, plus pomegranates and even strawberries - all in season.

Actually, most of Punjab these days is in Pakistan. It once was in India. But if you're looking for atmosphere, this picture gets prizes.

You've Been in India Too Long When....

I can relate to this list:
Chattanooga to Chennai by sirensongs

You've Been in India Too Long When....

You know you've been in India too long when... 1. You can argue over 3 rupees (approx. 5.5 cents US). 2. --- ----- and you win. 3. You frequently take the public bus - sometimes with your luggage. 4. You can get a Chennai autorickshaw driver to go somewhere for 10 rupees. 5. You carry your luggage on your head. 6.. You call an elevator a lift, a hot water heater a geyser (pron. 'geezer'), speed bumps rumblers, pharmacies medical shoppes, say kindly instead of please, call waiters boss, all men over age 50 uncle and refer to any non-Indian (including Japanese ) as 'Westerners.' 7. You no longer bother to say excuse me. 8. You can walk barefoot down a city street without wincing. 9. You view restaurant paper napkins as a source of free toilet paper. 10. you no longer involuntarily exclaim 'oooohhhh' when the power fails. 11. The Hindus only temples don't look twice at you upon entering. 12. Sidewalk hawkers and legless beggars know instinctively not to bother you. 13. You can distinguish the spoken sounds and printed alphabets of Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam and Telegu. 14. People express surprise that you don't speak Hindi. 15. You can say leave me alone in four languages, other than English. 16. You express gratitude for the temperature dropping to 90 degrees. 17. You stop carrying your antibacterial soap with you everywhere.

Indian Turkey

Here's an interesting excursion into philology (the origin of words). It includes India, Turkey, Israel, France, Africa, Russia and a whole lot of other parts of the world. All the quotes come from this website. See if you can follow.

The Hebrew word for turkey is tarnegol hodu תרנגול הודו - often shortened to hodu הודו. Hodu is the Biblical word for India, and therefore tarnegol hodu means "Indian chicken".

Many European languages refer to the bird we call 'turkey' by using a local variation on the name India.

Russian indiuk, Polish indyk, French dinde and Yiddish indik. Even in Turkey they call the bird hindi.

Wait a second here. The fowl we call 'turkey' didn't come from India, it came from North America and was introduced to Europe by Columbus. How did people confuse turkeys with India?

The English name "turkey" comes from an incorrect identification of the bird with an African guinea-fowl, which entered Europe through Turkey. The connection to India was due to another misunderstanding - as is well known, the first Europeans who reached the Western Hemisphere thought they were in India (hence the name Indians for the native peoples.)

The Biblical Hebrew word for India is 'hodu'. As if that isn't complicated enough, the Hebrew word most likely came from the Persian word 'hindu', but the 'n' sound was dropped by Hebrew. The area called 'Hodu' originally referred to the area near the Indus river (in today's Pakistan, not India; sometimes referred to as 'Hindustan'), from which it gets its name. In Sanskrit the area is 'Sind', but the Persian (Farsi, if you want to be technical) dropped the Sanskrit "s".

If you're really, really motivated, on maplandia (sort of like Googlemaps) you can find a small town in Rajasthan State in India named Hodu.

Had enough? Your head spinning? I thought so.

Internet And Wireless Sell in India

Young Indians like Vatsank are attracted to the web -- photo credit
A recent article by the BBC draws attention to internet and wireless use in India, especially among young people. The market is growing steadily, even with many bumps in the road. The market potential is huge.

Anyone with any sort of interest in India should be using internet and wireless as a connection with potential customers.

The mobile phone company [Reliance], and a number of its rivals, have decided that the best way to link up hard-to-reach areas of India is through their wireless network.

"Wherever you can make a Reliance mobile call you certainly get on to the internet," explains the company's president Mahesh Prasad.

He adds that by going wireless, the company can reach up to 98% of the country, and has priced its product in such a way that it is affordable to most Indians, including those living in smaller towns and cities, as well as less developed rural areas.

How does that sound? If you want to reach 98% of your customers go wireless. Sounds good to me.

How To Drape A Sari

Here's some very useful information. I always wanted to know.

PAKISTAN: Christians, Hindus and Sikhs forced to pay the Taliban “protection” money

From this news source:

Non-Muslims in villages along the northern Afghan-Pakistani border are forced to pay the jizya. Lashkar-e-Islam wants a thousand rupee per adult male to allow non-Muslims to live there with the right to travel. In Orakzai area the Taliban take over two stores and various houses owned by Sikhs. Some families are forced to pay up to 20 million rupees in order to stay.

Islamabad (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Non-Muslims must pay the Taliban protection money if they want to stay in their own homes. Lashkar-e-Islam, a militant Muslim organisation based in Bara, about 10 kilometres south-west of Peshawar, wants Christians, Hindus and Sikhs to pay the jizya, the poll tax for non-Muslims.

To read the entire article go here. Don't forget to come back.

Indian colleges ban jeans to 'protect' girls

Students at a girl's college in Allahabad, in Uttar Pradesh state, seen here in 2001. Colleges in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh said Wednesday that female students would be banned from wearing jeans and other Western clothes to halt sexual harassment by male classmates.
Hot off the net:

Colleges in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh said Wednesday that female students would be banned from wearing jeans and other Western clothes to halt sexual harassment by male classmates.

"Girls who choose to wear jeans will be expelled from the college," Meeta Jamal, principal of the Dayanand girls' college in Kanpur city told AFP. "This is the only way to stop crime against women."

Here's my guarantee: every comedian in America will try to milk this story. It will get boring very soon.

Tata Nano In The News

A very popular American blog had the following comment recently:

A LOOK AT the Tata Nano and what other famous car it resembles. Since they’re cheap, I’m going to buy two, so people can say “nice Tatas!” Er, or maybe not.

Very cute (if you understand American slang).

Trouble In Oz

Reuters

Indians living in Australia hold a placard at a protest in Melbourne May 31, 2009, while demanding that the Australian government and police do more to protect students from India from violence.
According to this source:

Melbourne: Australian Police Tuesday denied racial motive behind a string of violent attacks on Indian students recently in Sydney’s west, even as the community members organised an angry protest rally in Harris Park of the city last night.
Around 200 Indian students, some of them armed with baseball bats and hockey sticks, gathered at the main street of Harris Park to protest against the recent racial violence, according to Skynews TV channel.

Australia is losing credibility in the Indian market. Let's hope this situation sorts itself out soon.

India Over China

BusinessWeek, an important American business magazine, has an article comparing the development of the telecom market in China to India. India comes out ahead in the comparison.

Not often that you see someone comparing China's telecom sector unfavorably to India's. China has the world's largest cellular market and, in China Mobile, the world’s largest cellular operator. India is growing fast but it got a much later start and it’s nowhere close to the size of the Chinese market. So have a look at Telecom Asia blogger Robert Clark’s take on yesterday's 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing. Clark ties the June 4 crackdown leading to the government censorship and ownership limits that have had a stifling impact on what he calls China's “second-rate” telecom industry. Because of the regime’s interest in maintaining control, he writes, “China cannot permit the growth of an open and competitive telecom industry. It refuses to allow private or – in breach of its WTO commitments - foreign players into the market.”

It seems politics--and the desire for freedom--matter. In some ways India is chaotic and China is neat. Those 'virtues' can pack a larger punch.

PS, if I were the blog author Robert Clark, mentioned above, I wouldn't plan on spending an untroubled vacation in China any time soon.

Lakshmi Prayer

From the chalisa.in website I recently wrote about, here's the Lakshmi Chalisa (Prayer).

Online Hindu Prayers

For all your online Hindu prayer needs, go to chalisa.in Chalisa is the Hindu word for prayer.

I leeched the website's logo, which you can see in the picture above. It's kind of small on this website, so go to the original website to see a larger, clearer version.

India .... has laid the foundation for a genuine economic boom

Here is an economics newsletter that gushes about India. There is hardly a superlative the newsletter does not use to describe India's economic prospect. For example:

India has everything going for it. It has a relatively young population. Its workforce will be growing for decades. It has the government institutions in place to protect property rights to support a capitalist economy.

The case for India's comparative youth is an important part of the newsletter's reasoning. Half of India's population today is under 25 years of age. Almost every other economic power today --the US, China, Russia, Europe--has an aging population close to retirement age. That means India has many young workers with long futures ahead of them and many years ahead of them of producing value for the country's economy. Almost every other major economic power faces an aging population close to retirement age. Their workers will soon be a drain on their economies since they will be working less and drawing funds out of retirement programs and banks.

Another factor in India's favor is the relatively free-market economics under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's tenure. While Singh has been in office, the Indian economy has grown 400%, a result to be envied. This week's re-election is good sign that India gets the point and is moving away from its history of statism and state control.

The newsletter is worth a look. But like any newsletter or advice given about economics and the market, it must be taken with a grain of salt. Please do your own due diligence.

Women Pilots In The Indian Military

From this website:

...the Indian armed forces conducted studies of women in combat, and concluded that there was no practical reason for keeping women from these duties. There are currently nearly 2,000 female officers in the Indian armed forces. Most are in the army, but 39 percent are in the air force, and over fifty of them are pilots.

[snip]

India, and even Pakistan (which graduated its first female pilots in 2006) are having a hard time keeping male pilots in uniform. Too many of the men depart for more lucrative, and less stressful, careers as commercial pilots. Women may not be the solution. Currently, only about half of women officers stay in past their initial five year contract. Indian women, even military pilots, are under tremendous social and family pressure to marry. Those that do may still be pilots, but married women are under a lot of pressure to have children. The Indian Air Force provides its female officers with ten months leave for this, six months during pregnancy, and four months after delivery. The air force does this because pilots are very expensive to train. Fuel costs the same everywhere, as do spare parts. So what India may save in lower salaries, is not enough. A good pilot costs over half a million dollars for training expenses, and takes over five years. So the Indians are betting a lot of money, and time, on their female pilots. Many women are willing to take up the challenge. But they have already heard from their peers in Western air force, that motherhood and piloting can be a very exhausting combination.

India, What India?

Leeched from Forbes.com:

Obama Must Stop Neglecting India

Tunku Varadarajan, 05.18.09, 12:01 AM EDT

The president should reach out quickly to the government in New Delhi.

While it's possible to be critical--scathing, even--of Barack Obama's handling of the financial crisis, his stewardship of America's foreign and security policy has been surprisingly deft. He's played a cautious, humble hand on Iraq, taken bold steps on Afghanistan, striven manfully to help Pakistan put out the flames that are threatening to burn that place down, and, most recently, made a seemingly inspired choice in his ambassador to China. In all these theaters, he's shown an ability to see the big picture while keeping a close eye on those pesky little pixels. [snip]

The writer of this article gives Obama much more credit than I would. On the other hand, which Obama? Obama has taken so many contradictory positions on so many issues, it's hard to figure the guy out.

Don't Leave Me

photo credit
This wonderful, evocative photo was taken in Mumbai and posted here.

At first glance, the picture looks like a couple parting. It suggests the end of a loving time together. But looking more carefully, one can see the guy is holding a cellphone in his hand and is paying more attention to the call than to his beloved. In other words, the time-tested man-woman problem is complicated by the cellphone, which opens up a new dimension in human relations.

I wonder who is one the other end of the phone call.

Move to India or lose your job

Move to India or lose your job, French firm tells workers

May 11, 2009 - 6:50AM

A French textile firm has caused outrage by telling nine of its workers that they have the choice between the sack and redeploying to an Indian factory and taking a gigantic pay-cut.

Carreman told its workers at a plant in the southwestern town of Castres that it would offer them pay of 69 euros ($122.37) a month if they moved to Bangalore, union officials said at the weekend. [snip]

Source

The article does not mention the real reason the move to India would be considered an indignity by the French workers: they would have to give up mild French food for spicy Indian food. Now, that's going too far!

Gaza, PA Get Millions from India

The Palestinian Authority received one million dollars for Gaza humanitarian aid and ten million dollars for budget assistance from the government of India, according to a report in Times of India. The PA praised India for the help, calling it a “true friend”

"It (India) has proved itself a true friend and well wisher of the Palestinian masses by being among the first ones to provide the Palestinian Authority (PA) with budgetary support," PA deputy Foreign Minister Ahmed Soboh said. Among the first to contribute aid Gaza, India’s donations are channeled through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Reported: 09:36 AM - May/10/09

Child Marriage

An interesting article on a difficult problem is presented here.

Child Marriage

More than sixty years ago, girls were married off at a very young age, as young as seven or eight years old.
And in those days,there were many child widows. Through no fault of theirs, they lived a lonely life, dependent on others- they lost thier childhood and their youth.
Boys were also married at a very young age, but if their wives died, they could get married again.
Times changed, girls started going to school, but still marriage was what they were born for! [snip]

The author is Lakshmi M Bhat. The author takes the position that child marriage, especially for newly-pubescent young girls, is bad.

One of the readers of the article, Ravi, comments and suggests that the old ways were not necessarily so bad. The commenter finds some positive in the old ways:

When we look at the society from our angle of educated, enlightened mass, yes child marriage is a curse. There is another angle to it. Crimes like rapes were scarce on those days. Why? The moment a boy or girl gets sexual urge (say at the age of 13 or 15) they get a partner to ease their mental pressure. So it became a habit for them to look always inwards for a solution rather than outwards. If Gandhiji was not married at the age of 13, we would have lost a Mahatma. Read his autobiography. Not in a position to contain his urge he was with his wife when his father was dying. If there was no wife, what would have happened to him? [snip]

It is very hard for a modern reader to conceive the idea that the old ways actually made a certain amount of sense. The preferred way of dealing with the old ways these days is to assume they failed and make no sense anymore. Well, maybe.... or not......

Israeli company offers liquid know-how to India

Engineers from Agri Projects at work building high-tech greenhouses
Monsoons in India are both a blessing and a curse. As the heavy rains pour down, they provide the season's much-needed water for irrigating crops. But monsoons also wipe out entire villages. They cause mudslides, and contaminate potable water. Diseases fester and spread quickly.

Now an Israeli company is using its expertise in water management to try to help Indians living in the Cherrapunjee region in the Indian state of Meghalaya - known as the wettest place on earth - to store rainwater and reforest.

Agri Projects, which is based in Petah Tikvah, combines clean technologies from about 15 major Israeli water companies like the Israeli firm, Plastro Irrigation, with other Israeli water management technologies to build clients in countries ranging from India, to the Ukraine, Thailand and Mexico, complete turn-key solutions in water management, and greenhouse construction and cultivation, offering people who need it most, the opportunity to grow food year round. [snip]

By Karin Kloosterman May 03, 2009

Source

Indus Script

From this article in The Hindu:

There is solid archaeological and linguistic evidence to show that the Indus script is a writing system encoding the language of the region (most probably Dravidian). To deny the very existence of the script is not the way towards further progress.

What is being talked about here is evidence found over a century ago in India. This evidence was associated with the Indus civilization, considered the precursor of Indian civilizations. The Indus was by far the largest civilization of the ancient world during the Bronze Age (roughly 3000 – 1500 BCE). It covered more than a million sq km in area, very much larger than the contemporary West Asian and Egyptian civilizations put together.

Some scholars claim the snippets, as shown above, were part of a written language. Other scholars ridicule that claim.

If you want to start a good fight, take oe or the other side in this debate.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

No, there's nothing wrong with your eyes or your computer monitor. This is a delightful picture of a gorgeous fashion model. The picture appears deep in the website of the venerable and sober Times of India.

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If one has absolutely nothing more pressing to do on one's schedule, one can click the word Photogallery on the front page of the Times of India. A few clicks later one will find a collection of photos labelled Most Viewed. Perhaps I am wrong, but I assume these are the photos most viewed by readers of the Times of India.

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The photos are, shall we say, easy on the eye. Indeed the models are fabulous.

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But there is something disquieting about the Times of India's collection of Most Viewed photos.

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The majority of models are blond haired and blue eyed. There is a scattering of Indian-appearing dark haired models (and a few Indian male models groveling at their feet). But there is no mistaking that the Most Viewed photos are not of obviously Indian looking models.

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Hey, Indian guys!!! What's wrong with you? Do your eyes betray your heritage and your future? .

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Home is where the heart is. It really ought to be where the eyes are too. I mean, blond haired blue eyed models are nice to look at and all, but looking at them too long will make you miss the ravishing talent at your doorstep. It sure seems to me you're missing the the splendors of your local talent.

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To give the picture in this post its proper credit it's titled Fresh bath: A model in the bathtub of flowers and the source is Fashion Photographer Akash Das www.akashdas.com

Why should India be different?

From today's Times of India:

2 divorces for every 5 knots in Mumbai

MUMBAI: For every five weddings registered in Mumbai and Thane since 2002, family courts have received two applications for divorce.

Exactly 104,287 marriages were registered in Mumbai and Thane between January 2002 and October 2007. During the same period, the family courts in the two districts received 44,922 applications for divorce.......

It's called 'modernization.'

Vegetarians Beware

Have you ever had this much pleasure watching someone eat a carrot?

Watch This

Indian Images

photo credit
photo credit
I found these wonderful photos/illustrations on the Sulekha.com website. They are the work of Cyrencelin. Unfortunately, I could not find explanations. So my mind wandered. I imagined the top picture, Brahma, to be an Indian wife handling hubby's paycheck. And the bottom picture, Sarawathi, to be a tribute to Indian housewives, who need all those extra arms to keep the household running on schedule. You don't think so? OK, come up with better explanations.

Brahma can be found here. Saraswathi can be found here.