اخبار 1

One of the great degrading experiences in life is to be without a job, apply hopefully for one, and not even get a response. The sense of emptiness, the feeling of no hope, is a low point in life. If you are in a position of being able to hire, at least send a rejection note politely worded and pointing out why they didn't fit your requirements. Call as many as possible for an interview (just the mere fact of being called is a climb out of the pit of despair) . Treat them fairly even if you are not going to hire them. Please. When there is a clear discrimination against you, it becomes even worse, and really hard to bear. All through the past, gender discrimination was a big issue. It's now still there, but has at least reduced, so much so that its not the biggest discriminating factor I believe. Two other categories suffer worse discrimination - The "old". If you are above 45, you have no hope of getting a new job if you have lost your current one - Those with a gap ...

In Rendezvous with Rama, arguably the greatest science fiction book of all time, the spacecraft is called Rama. Arthur C Clarke, the legendary science fiction writer, casually throws in that since all the names of the Greek and Roman Gods had already been taken in astronomy, they had turned to Hindu names - and hence Rama. Arthur C Clarke was a great predictor of future events, although he wrote fiction.  He was the predictor of geostationary satellites, long before it became a reality. So perhaps his  prediction of Hindu names might come true as well. Well, astronomical names are still monopolised by the Greeks and Romans, but at least in the field of computer engineering, Indian names have started to  peep in. Kaveri, AMD's latest APU (whatever an APU means) is really the inspiration for this post. - what a nice and easy sounding name Kaveri is. Intel chips are boringly named ( madam , are you listening) - Pentium, x86, Core and LGA are sleep inducing as hell. Apple is horrendous...

Next January, I am thinking of going to Las Vegas. No; not for the showgirls, but to go to the Consumer Electronics Show - the annual jamboree of the tech industry. This has been a feature for a number of years, showcasing all the new technologies that companies are working on, or the new products about to be launched. I have little interest in all this new technology (seriously, we can do with a little less technology), but I would love to ogle at the weird and wacko stuff that these geeks think of. Take a sampling of some of the crazy stuff that was displayed at the just concluded 2014 event. Let's start with the Kolibree toothbrush that is blue tooth enabled ! Apparently it has accelerometers and gyroscopes to accurately analyse your brushing habit and then relay the results via bluetooth to a smart phone app that will then tell you how to brush your teeth better. Would you like a Sen.se Mother ? Its apparently the controller that can sense everything that you do around the hous...

When I am given a freebie, its a perfectly justified economic act (and I will riot on the streets if it is withdrawn) , but if you are given a freebie, then its economic mismanagement, populism, wasteful expenditure, etc etc. This is the economic philosophy of most Indians, and in reality, most of the people in this world. This post is a response to the criticism of the raft of freebies granted by the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi. For non Indian readers, the Aam Aadmi Party, a completely new political outfit formed by non politicians and riding on an anti corruption platform has come to power in the state of Delhi. This is a huge breath of fresh air in the murky politics of India. But they are left of centre and desperately need an Economics 101 course. The two first acts on assuming power was to grant everybody 666 litres of free water and then to halve the power tariff for low volume users. In this blogger's opinion the Party is brilliant politically and disastrous economically. The ...

This blogger was listening to his favourite programme From Our Own Correspondent on the BBC - easily one of the finest radio programmes the world has ever seen. One of my favourite correspondents, Humphrey Hawksley was filing from Hyderabad on the plight of those who work in brick kilns.  And then he casually hinted that British companies might somehow be held accountable for this ! This set me thinking on the thorny issue of global corporations (alright, the appropriate dirty word is multinationals ) and the issue of human rights. What is a business corporation really responsible for ? - that it should not condone human rights abuses in its operations is indisputable. That is should likewise do so in its supply chain is also in principle correct, but in practice, where do you draw the line of its supply chain ? Humphrey Hawksley was hinting at the following logic. Let us construct a hypothetical example. GlaxoSmithkline, a "British company", outsources its back office work ...

If you have seen, or heard about, China's wonderful infrastructure, have you wondered where the money is coming to finance all this ?  The laws of economics apply equally to China, as to the rest of the world. There is no free lunch. So where is the money really coming from ? This is a complicated question ; China's economic model is not easy to grasp for any outsider, but perhaps we can take a peek at it. Infrastructure spending is not necessarily a profitable business - returns to investors are meagre from roads, railways, etc etc. In China, as in most countries, the government is the one that invests in, and builds infrastructure.  Since 1980, China has been growing at double digit rates. That growth resulted in big increases in tax revenues to the government. Chinese are also a nation of big savers. With growing incomes, came growing savings which were all vacuumed into the state banking system. The government spent a lot of it on infrastructure - banks are all under govern...