Arvind Adiga Wins Bookers Prize

Arvind Adiga, a writer and resident of Mumbai, India has just won a bookers prize for his book The White Tiger: A Novel

Arvind is a graduate of oxford university and a former Time megazine reporter. He is also the second youngest winner of bookers prize at the age of 33 after Ben Okri who won at the age of 32.

Michael Portillo, a former cabinet minister and the chairman of this year’s panel of judges, praised Mr. Adiga’s novel, saying that the short list had contained a series of “extraordinarily readable page-turners.” However, Mr. Adiga’s book had prevailed, he said, “because the judges felt that it shocked and entertained in equal measure.”

Mr. Adiga said his book was an “attempt to catch the voice of the men you meet as you travel through India — the voice of the colossal underclass.”

The other authors that were shortlisted were Irish writer Sebastian Barry, 53, whose book “The Secret Scripture” is the story of an Irish patient in a mental hospital sharing her shocking family history with her psychiatrist, “Sea of Poppies” by Amitav Ghosh, “The Clothes on Their Backs” by Linda Grant, “The Northern Clemency” by Philip Hensher and “A Fraction of the Whole” by Steve Toltz.


According a kerry walterz a reviewer of Adiga's book on amazon.com, 


The plot centers around Balram Halwai, a laborer born and raised in a small village utterly controlled by crooked and feudally powerful landlords. The village is located in 'the Darkness,' a particularly backward region of India. Balram is eventually taken to Delhi as a driver for one of the landlord's westernized sons, Ashok. It's in Delhi that Balram comes to the realization that there's a new caste system at work in both India and the world, and it has only two groups: those who are eaten, and those who eat, prey and predators. Balram decides he wants to be an eater, someone with a big belly, and the novel tracks the way in which this ambition plays out.


You can find more information about The White Tiger and buy it on Amazon.com

Congratulations Arvind!

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When Capitalism Isn't "That Capitalistic" But Socialism Still Sucks

Wikipedia Mentions Capitalism as:

"Capitalism is the economic system in which the means of production are owned by private persons, and operated for profit^[1] and where investments, distribution, income, production and pricing of goods andservices are predominantly determined through the operation of a free market^[2], rather than by central economic planning."

While Wikipedia Mentions Socialism as:

Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and the creation of anegalitarian society.

So what am i refering to?

I am refering to the recent interventions from governments, especially the US government in the functioning of markets. The US government has recently announced a bailout package of $700 billions and previously bailed out freddie and fannie bank, merill lynch,  AIG.

The point of this post is if companies are bailed out like this by governments that pride themselves as the keepers of capitalism, doesn't this bcome socialism of sorts?

USA has been pressurising, pleading, lobbying to get developing countries like India, China, Brazil and others to cut subsidies on various sectors, including oil, agriculture, banking sector. While these countries hold government control and regulations on ownership and investment in many sectors and themselves manage and run many sectors for example railways in China & India, USA and its representatives have always been unhappy with this stand.

India was about to lift up its foreign investment limit in the banking and insurance sector in 2009. And we should thank god that the current crisis has come to the forefront before that. 

But things are a little different now. US goverment will buyout troubled assets of many banks and mortgage landers freeing them of bad assets and making available some cash. But 700$ Billions isn't that much, is it?

By the way while i was researching to find out how a economic bailout can help boost economy, i came across, keynesian theory.This theory was coined by British economist John Maynard Keynes in early twentieth century somewhere around the economic depression. 

According to him, some people may have a liquidity preference which would see them rather hold money than buy new goods or services, which therefore raised the prospect that the Great Depression would not end without what he termed in the General Theory "a somewhat comprehensive socialization of investment."

In other words, a goverment intervention is required to help a economy come out of a depression. 

We don't know if this theory works or not, but we will soon find out. From what ever history i know, US came out of the last depression because of world war 2 when they got the chance to supply allied armies with military hardware.

So i am just hoping this theory will work out for them and we do not have to deal with the second option!. 

Coming back to the topic, the US government is certainly acting like a socialist state. In a freemarket, true to capitalist principles, these troubles companies should be allowed to go bankrupt. Thats how a free market functions, surivive or die. 

So do we all finally agree that its ok to be a little socialistic once in a while? George ?

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Google and Yahoo Ad Deal Delayed By A Month

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google Inc, will not be pleased by a delay in the ad deal with yahoo because of a inquiry by justic department as reported by washingtonpost

The justice department is looking at the deal to see if it will create a monopoly in the online advertising market. Not yet, it wont.

If Yahoo marries Google, it would.

Will it happen? Yes.

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FutureVision: Ni Hao, Welcome to Moon, This is year 2050 and this is Moon, Republic of China

While i was on the topic of China, i just cldn't help mention that China has had a successul mission to space. They also plan a manned mission to Moon soon and create a space station on Moon by 2020.

US & Russia both have landed on Moon previously in an attempt to outsmart each other and wasted bilions of tax payers money for no real gains. Though they did setup international space station, they did not do it on Moon, which led to the speculation that there are aliens on moon already.

Come to think of it, setting up a space station on moon, should be easier than having a space station that is orbiting like satellites right?


If China does infact setup space station on moon, will they proclaim the land on moon as theirs. Space tourism will be a great revenue maker in the time to come and surely China would want a pie out of that.

But this will be a problem for people who have already bought land on moon. Apparently there are companies that are letting people buy land on moon and even sending them certificates of ownership. Gimme a break. Actually i want to know what is the current real estate price there.

But China isn't alone. It takes more than one fool to have a race right. India is launching its own mission to space soon called chandrayaan. I know people would argue that this is a display of our technological innovation(or russias?) but i just have one thing to say. Feed all first. Still got an argument?


But this is nomore a country thing, the popular payment processing company papypal's former co founder, started a company called spaceX, which had its first successful run in space recently.

Everything is ok, i mean China wants land on moon, good, they need it. Actually we need it too. Its ironical, Canada has so much land, no people, India & China have so many people, no land. 


I just hope they dont find lot of natural resources there, specially radioactive material. If they do, two things will happen.


1. Moon will be abused to get all its natural resources.
2. Moon will becoming the dumping ground for radiactive waste.

And like we always do, we would not realise the implications of this on the enviorment till its too late.

But this is not the worse that could happen, i mean China loves cutting of access right? What if it cuts off our access to moon light?


Update: Did you know Google Inc. has moon contest of 30 Million Dollars?

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Google's Got Charity On Its Mind With Project10to100 Or Has It?

Google Inc. has announced a new initiative called Project10^100 . Its home page says "Project 10100 is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible." Here's what Andy Berndt, Managing Director, Google Creative Lab has to say about this intiative on google blog from Google Inc.


And The Reactions..

I was reading Thomas Claburns this article on InformationWeek's in which Thomas says "If you have a good idea, a really good idea, the sort of brilliant idea that might win Google's contest -- a way to produce a $0.01 straw that removes all impurities from contaminated water, for example -- why give that valuable idea away when you could commercialize it? You could start a company to support your idea, provide jobs to people, and help humanity at the same time."

Thomas gets pretty much bashed up by most commentors in the article and you gotta salute InformationWeek for approving those comments but i feel sorry for Thomas since he mentions a valid point and still gets bashed, a point that has not been addressed by Google Inc.'s terms and service agreement for this particular initiative.


Concerns that are raised(or should be raised if they are not raised yet)


1. Will Google make or can make its own commercial product from the ideas  submitted?

2. What happens to the ideas that are not selected, can Google or its partners or employees use     that data to spin off products for commercial interests without the original creator getting     anything?

3. Google gets publicity worth a billion dollars, while the guy who gave the idea, gets "Good     Karma"(as mentioned in the faqs here)

4. If something of commercial interests spins off the ideas(winner or not) do they get anything at     all out of it?

5. Why are the orginal creators not part of the implementation plan?

6. Why isn't this sounding like a incubation thing when it is in a way?

7. There seems to be something about this things that is "half baked" and "hurried"?


Anyways the better part and the most interesting are the Intellectual property rights, it says


Google Says:

1. As between you and Google, you retain ownership of any intellectual and industrial property rights (including moral rights) you have in and to your submission.

Which means:

If you already have an IP right you retain them, for most submissions, they will just be ideas and will not hold any IP rights. So to answer the question, Do i own the idea?. Well, No.

Google Says:

2. As a condition of participation, you grant Google, its subsidiaries, agents and partner companies, a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non- exclusive license to use, reproduce, adapt, modify, publish, distribute, publicly perform, create a derivative work from, and publicly display your submission and the proposal provided therein (1) for the purposes of allowing Google, the advisory panel and users to evaluate your idea for purposes of the call for submissions, (2) in connection with advertising and promotion via communication to the public or other groups, including, but not limited to, the right to make screenshots, animations and video clips available for promotional purposes and (3) for the purposes of putting your submitted proposal into effect.


Which means:
Google can take your idea, modify it, claim it, use it. Ok not just Google but even its partners, employees, door cleaners, chef etc etc. Ofcourse there are chances they won't but this atleast is not taken care off in the terms of services.

Google Says:
3. You agree that Google has final authority regarding this call for submission and the selection of the ideas to be considered for implementation. You acknowledge that your submission might be similar to ideas submitted by other participants and/or proposals independently developed by Google, and that Google does not need to recognize your submission should your idea not be the source of the proposal or proposals ultimately implemented. You further acknowledge that even if your proposal is selected by Google, Google is not compelled to implement your proposal in its entirety, or at all. Google reserves the right in its sole discretion to incorporate your proposal or any other ideas into the project or projects finally selected for implementation.

Which basically means:
We can take your idea and develop on your idea and commercialise it. They also mention that Google might choose not to implement even the winning idea. After all the billion dollar publicity, 10 millions dollars could land back to google bank account.

What Worries Me
I am actually worried, not about the ideas that win, but about the ideas that will not see the light of the day(and those will be millions of commerically viable ones being submitted). I get a feeling those will indeed be used for building a commercial product without the original creator getting anything. Not even acknowledgement.


Just to be fair here, it could be that none of this happens and Google doesn't use any of those ideas. But i still feel the idea winners should atleast get some monetary benefit and the ideas that don't win should be protected.

Google inc. could have used an outside neutral agency like KPMG to validate the process and make sure the ideas that do not win get disposed off in the right way and not become the personal property of Google employees or owners.


What Ideas You Should Submit:

Lastly i would say you should only submit your ideas in the contest if you have a philanthropic idea that's non commercial but would benefit a lot people and is difficult to implement by yourselves.

That's the only way everyone can benefit from this contest. DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR COMMERCIAL IDEAS.

But you know what, i get a feeling, Google has a lot of legal issues coming its way next year. Wonder why..hmm..still wondering...

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G1 Phone launched at 170$ in US, IPhone still costs 715$ in India

T-Mobile launches google phone or G1 in US for 170$.  Meanwhile Apples Iphone struggles to create any kind of stir in the Indian market.

Some people are already speculating that g1 will take Iphones marke share while some others think its too early. Interestingly google ex product marketing manager is criticising how g1 looks and as always techcrunch over exaggerates the whole issue.

With all i have heard an read i think we will still have to wait for the right smart phone in India, Iphone is too over priced(with US folks paying 199$ and Indians paying 715$ - what the heck aren't we supposed be a 3rd world country anymore?, wheres the cheap stuff?) and g1 is too "for google lovers only" phone.


Nokia 96 would be good though.

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Lehman Down, Whose next? AIG? Citi? JP Morgan?

Lehman brothers is the latest casuality of US recession. Lehman brother filed for bankruptcy.
The details of the chapter 11 filing  state no other subsidary of affliate of lehman brothers holdings was included in the filing.

Troubles arent over yet as media speculates over whose next to fall down. 


If AIG falls down it will be  a huge blow for the insurance sector in India as Tata-Aig is supposed to become one of the top insurers in India over the coming years. But if somehow AIG manages to stay afloat for some more years the returns from India alone could see it through.

lets see if AIG can manage to survive this storm.

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Googles Chrome, its impact and why you shdn't worry too much about it for now

Google finally did the obvious and launched its own web browser. Its called chrome, its open source and its in trouble as soon as it launched.

The UI isn't any special compared to FireFox, Opera or even the latest version of IE or safari but its simple and well its blue like pretty much everything else Google.

But never mind that looking beyond there are somethings about Google chrome that are just not right.

For one it says the entire browser wldn't crash if one tab fails which is the case in conventional browser but indeed it does crash and it crashed on more than one occasion.

Google claims to test chrome on millions of website i bet they didn't test it on hundreds of users but.

This issue was brought to notice on full disclosure security bulletin.


continued...

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