life in financial markets & general: marauders in disguise!

The latest issue of Down To Earth magazine (issued dated July 31, 2008) has covered in great detail the issue of Posco (a South Korean steel company) plants in Orissa. Its an enlightening read and connects to many of the events I have highlighted in earlier posts of mine here.

The story, on the magazine's website, is spread across a few pages --here, here, here, here, here and here. Below, at the end, is a summary of the story in question. Alongside, is an map-image of the company's site in Orissa taken from one of the pages in the links given above. The story on the South Korean company is not the only major one that is reflective of the issues raised therein. Vedanta group (Sterlite Industries, etc.) and their operations in Jharkhand, Orissa and Goa is another representative of the deadly trend.

In my understanding, India's Congress party-led government in India in its existing term (having completed four out of five years) has been criminally responsible, through its mindless pampering of industry, for the devastation of the livelihoods of remote, tribal, rural people in many states in the country and also devastated fragile ecologies in many nature-rich parts of the country. Not that the BJP or other parties would have fared any better. As I have said before, as an Indian citizen and resident, I am trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Here is the Down to Earth's summary of the story-in-question: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/section.asp?sec_id=9&foldername=20080731

1,620.361 ha of discontent

Special economic zones and sit-ins. Mega-projects and marches. Public-private partnerships and pitched battles. Precociously, because they are desperate, state governments are willing to hand land, forest, water over to industry.
Raucously, because they are really desperate, people all over India have begun to use all available means to contest the usually coercive intrusion of the State into their lives, and livelihoods.
Consider, as symptom, the Orissa government’s deal with Korean steel-making giant POSCO. The devil here, as ashutosh mishra reports, lies only in the details. It is credible to ask: is violence the inevitable effect of corporate investment, indigenous or foriegn? Is deliberate sellout the only route state governments can take to attract companies?
What vision is it that has completely blinded the State to its brazen loss of credibility? Who matters, people or voters?
These questions are neither rhetorical nor emotional. Merely see the countrywide scenario arnab pratim dutta has compiled. India’s new road to growth, interpreted by the State as an imperative to simply industrialise, today leads…where?

life in journalism: fragile egos of editors in indian media

Many editors (editor-in-chiefs, executive editors, deputy editors) have fragile egos that is causing great harm to journalism in India. Readers of newspapers, magazines and viewers of television news channels don't get to know of it. In fact, even publishers of many publications and TV news companies do not bother -- they are only interested in profits (or less losses) no matter what else happens within the organisation.

So the above-described editors get away with treating the journalists and junior editors unfairly and at times with contempt. I have said this in some of my earlier posts here but I will say it again -- there is no accountability, in Indian journalism, of the Editor-in-chiefs, Executive Editors and Deputy Editors as far as their handling of their editorial staff is concerned. I don't know about other countries but as an Indian journalist I know that the Indian media will never truly serve the readers and viewers unless these editors are made accountable to their editorial staff.

To elaborate, I say they have no accountability simply because there is no one above them to audit their behaviour. Many publishers, as I said above, would care less if the journalists are treated unfairly as long as the advertisements keep coming. Sucking up to companies and politicians efficiently seems to be the only qualification many publishers want from their top editors.

There are exceptions to the above but they are very far and few and even they are not consistent.

life in general: politics of hate & politics of religion

Serial bomb blasts yesterday (26 July '08) in Ahmedabad and day before yesterday (25 July '08) have brought forth the tragic consequences of the politics of hate and the politics of religion.

Politicians of India will now use these events to further divide the people more on the lines of religion (Hindus vs Muslims) and the citizens of India, could again let their minds be manipulated.

Both the above blasts, as per what I have read from the details out so far, appear to me the handiwork of a Muslim militant group who misleadingly think they are avenging the horrors committed on Muslims in Gujarat in February-March 2002. But a recent development (last 3-4 years), which the Indian media has criminally neglected to probe and report on, is the rise of similar Hindu groups. I wrote about this in the last two paras of my blog post two months back.

Two things strike my mind when I try to make sense of the violence in India that occurs through the bomb blasts and the state-sponsored pogroms of minorities. The horridness of the violence of a private small militant group committed under the watch of a large state machinery is less than the horridness of the violence of the state itself (seen in the state use of militant Hindu groups, the communalised police force or the anti-tribal/anti-poor administrative bureaucracy) on various sections of the population. Then, there is the skewness of the Indian justice system (the police and the courts). More often that not, on the one hand, it tilts towards protecting the perpetrators of the state-sponsored violence from being bought to justice, and on the other hand, not only does it leave any stone unturned in bringing to justice the perpetrators of the private small militant groups but also commits serious transgression of some innocent people's rights in the process (through torture of suspects and abusing their family members' dignity).

I pray for peace to prevail in people's minds and for the purging of all thoughts of mis-directed revenge.

life in general: korean street food in seoul

I was in Seoul in South Korea for two days last month (3-5 June '08) and on the night of 4 June went alone to a textile market area named 'Gwangjang' late in the night. The 24-second video that I share below is of the food stall in a bylane inside the market where I had my dinner. I went here because this place was among the few whose food reviews I read on the internet and it was the closest to the hotel where I was staying.




I also wrote something on Korean street food in the magazine I work for. Here is what I wrote:

Korean street food

Can you imagine a Gujjubhai liking any food other than the typical Indian fare? Hard to believe but food from South Korea is liked by some Gujaratis who happen to travel there for work or sight-seeing. "I am a strict vegetarian but when I visit my maternal grandparents I do not feel restricted on the food front because the choices are decent and suits our taste buds," says Pratik Yogi, 20-year old son of a Gujarati father and a Korean mother who live in Bombay.

Korean food is not about Kimchi as many travel guides might have you believe. For a country that is less than half of India's size, the variety of food – veg or non-veg, steamed or fried, spicy or non-spicy – is just amazing.

The street food in Seoul is representative of this similar to Indian cities' street food. If you are in Seoul do not miss the numerous food stalls on the streets and bylanes cutting across two textile markets near Cheonggycheon stream, Gwangjang and Dongdaemun. Here, you get everything.

"My favourite snack food of all is Dduck-bbocki (dduck means rice cake, and bbocki means fried)," says Yujin Whang, a young Korean woman who works as an independent professional translator for companies. These are long cylindrical rice cake pieces cooked in thick red gravy by adding chilli paste, brown sugar and other condiments. "It's like a national obsession especially for young women in Korea and very cheap too," says Yujin. "It's full of carbs but I don't care."

Like Indians, Koreans are spoilt for fried snacks as well and these are made well such that they are not easy to resist just like you can't resist an Indian alu tikki served on Delhi's mean streets. In non-veg dishes you can splurge on daksanjeok that are boneless chicken fillets skewered (like kebabs in India) with a vegetable (such as leek) and marinated with a sauce that is both sweet and spicy at the same time. Fish paste sausages and bacon sausages are also skewered and served.

For vegetarians, there is the mung bean pancake and bungeo pang that is a carp cake crispy on the outside and with red beans filling inside. There is also the corn cobs, available steamed or grilled.

Small eateries are a great feature of Korean city life. You can have a bowl of rice with almost any side dish, veg or non-veg. Ask Dyland, a Malaysian-Chinese, currently based in Hong Kong and who worked in Seoul from 2003 to 2005 and blogged on http://fatman-seoul.blogspot.com. "I enjoy a good jae-yuk boggeum bap, which is spicy stir-fried pork," he told BW in an email. "There is also soon-dubu jiggae (spicy tofu stew) and dwenjang jiggae (spicy fermented soy bean paste stew) and I love all of these and more."

Do we say any more?

life in financial markets: trading in electricity

Conventional wire-based transmission of electricity requires intensive co-ordination between energy producers, energy suppliers and energy buyers. An organised electronic exchange can help in bringing efficiencies in the process.

Here is something connected to this I wrote for the magazine I work for:

Power-full potential

Electricity producers and users are keenly watching the impact of the operationalising of the two spot power exchanges in the country—Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) and Power Exchange of India (PXI).
IEX, promoted by Financial Technologies (India) and PTC India, was set up last year and got approval from Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) to commence operations on 9 June and trading started on 28 June. Between 10 mega watts per hour (MWh) and 50 MWh for an electricity supply period of around 2-3 hours have got intermittently traded per day in the first few days of trading on IEX.
PXI, promoted by National Stock Exchange and National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange, got in-principal approval from CERC last month. It has commenced membership subscription and is likely to go live in about three months.
Liquidity is unlikely to be high initially on both exchanges. "In the interim, liquidity would most likely be added by surpluses held by captives and the power exchanges will have a significant role to play in unlocking the same," says Rupa Devi Singh, CEO of PXI. "Capacity additions, removal of transmission constraints and distribution reforms can lead to multi-buyer multi-seller market."
Interesting times lie ahead for the power sector.

life in financial markets: spy dairy

I wrote something for my magazine that pertained to a spying case on a civil rights organisation. I share it below. Spying by companies only reveals their insecurities at being put under the torchlight.

Here is my write-up:

Spy dairy

All hell might not have broken loose after the night of 12 June when a television network in Switzerland broke the story of Nestle hiring a private security firm, Securitas, to infiltrate and spy on the operations of the Swiss chapter of civil campaigns group Attac (www.suisse.attac.org). But a week later Attac filed legal complaints including a civil one with the country's Data Protection Office, and Nestle, though denying the allegations, could face prosecution and penalties.

The lady agent joined Attac, infiltrated a subgroup that was working on a book on Nestle's attitude regarding genetically modified crops and water privatisation and then passed this information to Nestle. In fact, as recent as 23 June, Nestle's CEO, Peter Brabeck was urging European policymakers to cut down their opposition to GM crops.

Nestle's official response has only been to say that it hired Securitas to protect its office and staff during the G-8 summit of world leaders on 1-3 June 2003. Attac counters this by saying the subgroup on the book started work only in autumn of 2003 and that the lady agent's surveillance continued till the summer of 2004.

Espionage is not new to corporate world and spying on civil groups is not new either. For instance, in June 2001, The Sunday Times of London had a front page top story on how BP and Shell had hired Hakluyt, a consultancy firm started by former M16 officials, to get inside details of Greenpeace's plans to take on oil giants. It was successful in thwarting.

life in general: free hawaii islands from USA's forced statehood & occupation

Not many are aware of the true histories of our own--and other--countries. While I was broadly aware of many US states not being voluntary members of the US confederation, this 30 June newsreport (given in its entirety below), brings forth to our attention the issues involved through the news of Hawaii's original tribes going on a peaceful satyagraha and proclaiming independence from US occupation.

Here then is that newsreport:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/hawaii/2218343/Queen-of-Hawaii-demands-independence-from-%27US-occupiers%27.html?service=print

Queen of Hawaii demands independence from 'US occupiers'

By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles

Last updated: 12:26 AM BST 30/06/2008

The United States is an illegal occupying force that should hand the 132 islands of Hawaii back to the monarchy overthrown more than a century ago, according to members of a Native Hawaiian sovereignty movement.

For almost two months, the self-proclaimed Hawaiian Kingdom Government has peacefully occupied the grounds of the Iolani Palace, residence of the islands' last two monarchs, operating a shadow government from a tent erected in its stately grounds.

Her Majesty Mahealani Kahau, a descendant of Hawaii's last king who was elected "head of state" by the group, and her ministers gather each day to debate how to achieve their goal of restoring Native Hawaiian rule.

"We are here, we are real, we are in business," declares the group's website, which outlines its aim to "remove all laws, policies, rules and regulations" of the "occupying power" and "return Hawaii's independent status".

The group, which claims 1,000 followers, is demanding the dissolution of the State of Hawaii and the return of land and bank assets totalling billions of dollars.

Hawaii has about 200,000 Native Hawaiians, or kânaka maoli, out of a population of 1.3 million. The Hawaiian Kingdom Government is just one of a number of sovereignty groups, many with similar names, waging independence campaigns.

All aim to "right the wrong" inflicted on Native Hawaiians in 1893 when a small, mostly American group of sugar plantation owners and other businessmen overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy with the support of US troops sent ashore from a Navy warship.

The then monarch, Queen Liliuokalani, gave up her throne "to this superior force of the United States of America" and was imprisoned in the Iolani Palace in Honolulu, built by her brother King Kalakaua. In 1898, Hawaii was annexed by the United States and in 1959 became the 50th US state.

"The Hawaiian kingdom was unlawfully taken over by a coup d'etat and then those that took it over formed an illegal government and then ceded Hawaii to the United States," said Leon Siu, minister of foreign affairs for the Hawaiian Kingdom, another sovereignty group that shares many of the Hawaiian Kingdom Government's aims.

"There was never a lawful transfer of either jurisdiction or title, therefore what we are doing is asserting that the Hawaiian Kingdom still exists." Mr Siu said he was engaged in discussions with several countries as well as the United Nations as part of a bid to achieve "international recognition of our nation", in part by reviving treaties Hawaii had with other nations, including Britain, in the 19th century.

Sovereignty groups cite the so-called "Apology Resolution" signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993 which acknowledged the 100th anniversary of the overthrow and apologised to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the US.

"The legal cause for the restoration of the kingdom is air-tight," said Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois, who has been advising Hawaiian independence groups since 1992.

In addition to devising a draft constitution for one group, the Nation of Hawaii, Professor Boyle sued the US in the US Supreme Court in 1998, demanding the restoration of Hawaiian independence and reparations "for all the harm inflicted on the Kingdom of Hawaii".

He said rather than dismissing the case as "something totally frivolous" the court met several times to discuss it before determining the kingdom "was a non-recognised sovereign that does not have access to the US courts".

"Based on this experience I simply told them that we would have to wait until the Kingdom of Hawaii has achieved substantial diplomatic recognition and then I could file something in the international court of justice."

He described the occupation of Iolani Palace as "a very significant step in terms of their struggle to restore their kingdom their dignity and their land" and remains confident that Hawaii will at some stage achieve independence.

"Native Hawaiians operate in accordance with the Aloha spirit, which is similar to Mahatma Gandhi's Satyagraha force, and I take the position that if Gandhi can throw the mighty British Empire out of India with Satyagraha, Native Hawaiians can throw the mighty American empire out of Hawaii with Aloha."

Sovereignty groups reject as divisive and inadequate legislation being pursued by the state's Office of Hawaiian Affairs that would grant Native Hawaiians partial self -governmence akin to that of American Indian tribes.

The State of Hawaii has so far turned a blind eye to the peaceful gatherings of Hawaiian Kingdom Government. No-one has been arrested and members have been careful not to break any laws. "As long as they comply with the permit conditions, they may continue to request permits to meet," Deborah Ward, of the state's Department of Land and Natural Resources, told the Associated Press.

Story from Telegraph News:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/hawaii/2218343/Queen-of-Hawaii-demands-independence-from-%27US-occupiers%27.html

life in general: (part 2) ecology conservation steps

Earlier this month (1 June), I started a series of posts in which I will put up tips and suggestions for those who are sensitive towards the protection of our planet's environment and ecology. All of them will be based on my own implementation of my sensitivity that began 3-4 years ago. My first post of 1 June talked about reducing the use of cooking gas.

This is the second part and I am going to briefly touch upon an issue of the enormous wastage of water happening all around our planet by our mindless use of water. In this water post, I only touch upon our use of water from taps, showers etc in our daily lives. There are other uses of water that I am not going into in this post (one of them relates to rainwater harvesting on which i had written a long piece in 2004). The wastage is in our keeping the taps or the showers running at a high speed that is way beyond necessary. The high speed flow of water means much a lot of water goes into the drains (see an example of such wastage in the photo to the right... i picked it up on the internet from here). When we are washing our hands or our bodies we need not have a lot of water flowing to be able to clean our hands or bodies. We can make do with half the speed of the water flow (see an example of this in the photo below to the left.... i picked it up on theinter net from here).

Homes and hotels are the two places where the wastage of water in fast-flowing water taps is the most. Even hotels that incorporate timed water taps do not help because the time given to the water flow before it stops is very high. So if one wants to just use 2-3 seconds of slow flowing water the automated water taps will still throw out 5-10 seconds of fast-flowing water.

The other thing is the time factor -- how long do we keep our taps and showers running. We can immediately stop keeping taps on when brushing our teeth or shaving (for men). We can immediately stop keeping the shower on when we are applying soap on our bodies or shampoo on our hair (i have a lot to say about cutting by 50-90% of our use of soaps and shampoos, but that will follow in a later post). We can do even better. I have seen men keeping the water taps on while combing their hair or applying a few drops of water to wet their hair. This can be curbed with immediate effect.

I think we all can easily avoid excessive and longer run of water from taps and showers. Our water footprint can easily be reduced by 20-30 per cent by doing this.

life in financial markets: no point in blaming oil speculators

My initial observation tells me that it is not correct to blame traders and speculators in energy markets for the rise in prices of crude oil worldwide. Now it is the turn of Saudi Arabia's self-imposed rulers to blame the oil speculators -- read this newsreport, one among many today.

Last week, USA's commodities market regulator, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), forced the IntercontinentalExchange Futures Europe (ICE Futures Europe) to impose position limits on the futures contracts on West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Light Sweet Crude Oil. This crude is processed by US refineries and sold to American fuel-guzzlers.

This move by CFTC followed perceived fears of heavy speculation in the futures trading causing the WTI crude prices to rise sharply. There are couple of reasons why oil speculators need not be blamed for the price hike. This newsreport highlights some.

Additionally, see below a trading volume chart (click on the image for clear resolution) I prepared from ICE Futures Europe trade data below comparing WTI crude futures with Brent crude futures and showing there is no unusual surge in daily trading volume. From the beginning of this year to 18 June the daily volume has largely ranged between 150 million barrels per day (mbpd) and 350 mbpd. The trading, in fact, has been higher in the ICE Brent Crude futures contract that has seen daily volume go as high as 500 mbpd in the last two months. Brent crude is largely processed in northwest European refineries and sold to European fuel-guzzlers.

life in general: sunrise effect 10 km above ground!

This photo was taken by me from a window seat of the 3 June 2008 Bombay-Seoul Korean Air flight (i was traveling to seoul in south korea where i stayed for two days). The time was 5.15 am and we were above north-east India at this time.

The view is of the west/northwest side (I was sitting on the left side of the plane). The sun had just begun to rise in the East. The effect of the sunrise was beautiful on the western side! The white clouds below should not be mistaken for Himalayas!

As an aside, I found it baffling that, except me, almost every passenger on this flight who were sitting on window seats had kept their window shutters down and were sleeping! Our flight had taken of at about 3.30 am from Bombay and within 90 minutes almost all the plane passengers, except me, were sleeping! There is so much of beauty in the views outside that a lot of air travelers fail to see! Wake up, people!

What was worse was that even when the passengers on my flight were awake by 8 am, half of them still kept their window shutters fully down for the rest of the journey (total flight time was only 7 hours).