Desicritics Author: Venkatesh Sridhar

Why the Nuclear Deal is Bad for India

Venkatesh Sridhar — Thu, 3 Jul 2008 11:39:15 EDT

For the past 2-3 weeks, there has been one issue that has dominated much of media attention in India. That singular issue is the Nuclear Deal between US and India. Now, everyone knows what I feel about the Left, but this time strangely I agree with them that India should not sign the deal as it is not in India's interest to do so, though I have strong factual reasons to do so unlike the more ideologically bent opposition of the Left.

The reason why this post comes so late in the day - now that it's almost a given that the Government of India (GoI) will go ahead with the deal despite the opposition to the deal by its coalition partner; the Left with the PM now officially going to the G8 meet, is because I have spent a lot of time in finding out information and framing a fact oriented opinion.

My opposition to this deal centers on the following grounds, questions which the media has not bothered raising and neither the opposition:

1. Shift of dependencies: Oil & Gas is a form of energy that is used worldwide in everything from agriculture to electricity generation. Oil is controlled by a cartel called OPEC. For nuclear energy creation, you need Uranium, India does not have enough Uranium resources so India needs this deal for access to Uranium. Now, that would mean being dependent on another cartel - the NSG - Nuclear Supplier's Group. Will this provide energy self independence?

2. Why rely on another nation?: Do you know that another fission material that can be used for generation of Nuclear Energy is thorium, India has 24% of the world proven thorium reserves in the world. India is conducting cutting edge research on how to use thorium in producing nuclear energy. This research will lose its importance and significance when you are going to be getting the Uranium from somewhere else. Now, why should you spend strategic forex reserves outside of the country to benefit another nation. If India needs nuclear energy so much (India does need alternative forms of energy as India will be short of 412 gigawatts by 2050 and the need to import 1.6 billion tonnes of coal will be needed to fulfill this energy) then India can increase the allocation in the budget to thorium research and increase the strategic importance.

3. Minor benefits in the short term: India currently produces 4000 MWe of nuclear energy after this deal, it will rise to 20,000 MWe in a DECADE, yes in a DECADE. So, it is not a short term solution to the energy crisis in India. Also, construction of a nuclear reactor is a time consuming process.

4. Water usage in nuclear energy production: Nuclear energy, though considered one of the cleanest forms of energy, you require a lot more water - which is another resource that is depleting worldwide - for production and storage.

5. Strategically swallowing a bullet: Let's get to strategic issues, as per the Hyde act as amended by both the Senate and the House of Representatives in the US (Bills: H.R. 5682 and S. 3709, a comparison of the two can be found here) and passed in the final version clearly dictates the following if you go through the congressional record S.11021 on November 16,2006:

i. India's ties with Iran. As per Section 105 (8) of H.R. 5682 as passed by the Senate (with text of S. 3709 as engrossed amendment), Requires India’s full & active participation in U.S. and international efforts to dissuade, sanction, and contain Iran for its nuclear program consistent with U.N. Security Council resolutions (source). So, this puts us in a bind w.r.t to the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline which will provide us with much needed cheap gas. Because, if construction begins in 2009, the gas can be supplied starting September 2012 (source). According to Jorge Hirsch - a physics professor at the University of Chicago, who initiated a letter to George Bush Jr., to prevent the US from adopting a hawkish stance towards Iran which will inevitably lead to use of Nuclear weapons against Iran - feels that unlike Russia and China, "India could indeed be bought off by US incentives like the nuclear deal, because its shortsighted leaders don't recognize that they are committing national suicide by entering into this nuclear deal with the US." (emphasis mine).

ii. In an event of a nuclear test by India, the US President will have the right to end the deal on the spot and demand return of the materials supplied and guess who wanted this clause in the bill - Senator Barrack Obama of Illinois and the presumptive Democrat Party nominee for the President of United States of America. From the congressional record S.11021 on November 16,2006, this is what Barrack Obama said:

Mr. OBAMA. On a related note, is it the chairman’s interpretation of the legislation that, in the event of a future nuclear test by the Government of India, nuclear power reactor fuel and equipment sales, and nuclear technology cooperation would terminate; other elements of the United States-India nuclear agreement would likely terminate; and the United States would have the right to demand the return of nuclear supplies? (emphasis mine)

Mr. LUGAR. Yes, under our bill, the only requirement which is waived is that in section 123.a(2) of the Atomic
Energy Act of 1954, for full-scope safeguards. India’s 123 agreement would still have to meet the requirement of section 123.a(4), which requires that in the event of a test by India of a nuclear
explosive device the United States shall have the right to request the return of supplies as you have stipulated. (emphasis mine)

Read it again, this is the Democratic Presumptive Nominee for the post of the President of the United States of America asking very clearly whether the US has the right to end this deal and ask for return of supplies if India does a nuclear test. Based on his question, what do you think he would do if he was the President and India does a nuclear test. Do not forget as of today he has a 50% chance of being the US president considering that only he and McCain are realistic candidates to be the President.

6. Lag in gaining benefits from this deal: India will have to wait for some years before it can actually get to use the Nuclear energy, I believe a reasonable time frame will be 5-10 years - considering that it involves going to so many governmental organizations, the NSG, the IAEA, the time it takes to construct additional nuclear reactors. Now, meanwhile our dependency will not reduce on Oil and Gas. Iran who has been a longtime friend of India. India and Iran have long cordial relations. India and Iran are talking with regards to a gas pipeline from Iran to India. The act of signing the deal means that India will have to forego this deal, read point 5(i). Period.

7. Economic costs: Commercially, the cost of producing Nuclear energy will be high considering the capital cost of setting up the Nuclear reactor, understand that you cannot produce electricity till the reactor is completely up which means the cost of production can vary anywhere between US$ 2,950/kWe to to a Moody's Investors Service (read para 9 in the link) conservative estimate of between $5,000 and $6,000/kWe. According to a BusinessWeek report, "...,the [US] industry is aiming to build new plants for $1,500 to $2,000 per kilowatt of capacity,...". However, they also added, "Trouble is, the cheapest plants built recently, all outside the U.S., have cost more than $2,000 per kilowatt." For further information go to the wikipedia entry on economics of nuclear energy). There are a few costs no one is willing to factor in. Who will pay for the costs of ensuring compliance and the safeguards and all other reporting elements that are critical to the functioning of the deal after signing it. It is common sense that it will cost more.

8.Alternative energy creation: India has a stated goal of achieving energy independence by 2012, don't see that happening with this deal for reasons explained above. India introduced the Jatropha incentives to encourage production of bio diesel using Jatropha seeds. Jatropha can grow in the wastelands. GoI has already identified 400,000 sq.km. of land where Jatropha can be grown. A much more prudent and truly long term solution to India's energy crisis than the Nuclear deal, as India is a big consumer of diesel especially in rural areas.

9. Safety considerations: The world has already seen the impact of two major nuclear accidents, the famous Chernobyl disaster in former Soviet Union and current Ukraine and the Three Mile Island disaster in the US. Just as the Richter scale is used to measure the magnitude of Earthquakes, there is the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). Chernobyl was rated 7, a non nuclear event that can be rated 7 is the Bhopal disaster in India and Third Mile was rated 5. Now, India's nuclear reactors are close to two major cities in India - Mumbai (Tarapore) and Chennai (Kalpakkam), as the Chernobyl disaster The radioactive debris of the Chernobyl reactor covered an area more than 5,000 square kilometres. Imagine the damage it will cost if something goes wrong. Thank God, nothing has gone wrong so far, but still it should be an important consideration. India has not framed a Nuclear liability framework, what if something goes wrong, who will bear the brunt of clean up work, the economic cost and other such issues. We have not learnt our lessons from the Bhopal disaster as the clean up work continues to be stuck. Yet, the Government is silent on this issue.

Now, Dr. Manmohan Singh, may go right ahead and sign this deal, because he is hell bent on this deal as he views this as his personal stake being on the line plus this is the legacy he wants to leave behind, as he has nothing much to show as being the Prime Minister, except maybe be known as the most compromised Prime Minister.

Also, he has chosen a very good time - there is about 6 months left for the next General elections in February 2009, and even if his Government falls, it would take the Election Commission atleast 6 months to prepare itself for elections. As an economist he knows that India's inflation problem - which will be a key poll issue cannot be solved in the 6 months timeframe without compromising serious growth, hence he has sensed his opportunity and decided to push for it regardless of the Left's threat to withdraw support.

As I have outlined, overall it is not in our interests to go ahead with the deal and if the PM does sign the deal, the legacy he would leave behind will not be of securing India, a place as a Nuclear Weapon State but it will be of selling India's nuclear independence.

Apple is Wrong About the Safari Update via iTunes

Venkatesh Sridhar — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:19:57 EDT

Recently, Apple shipped out an update via iTunes that included the installation of Safari, the default browser on the Mac OS X, which is also available for Windows. Now, if you read it once again, with a bit of concentration you would see that, Apple went ahead and included the installation file and also pre-selected it for the user. (Photo Courtesy CNET)

As you can see in the image above, a 22.65 MB installation file for Safari was included in the update. This lead to a lot of uproar in the blogosphere led by Mozilla's CEO John Lilly, who went so far as to say that Apple was pushing malware to its customers.

Though, I do not completely agree that Apple was pushing malware, but I strongly believe what Apple did with this update was ethically wrong, The reason why is that a majority of users will not bother to read through the text and will just implicitly go ahead and install both the items. Now, imagine that a 22.65 MB file has taken that much bandwidth plus the time for something the user may rarely use. I mean, if someone really wants to use Safari, then they will go over to Apple's Web site and download it, install it and use Safari.

This has been widely criticized in the blogosphere, because many are livid at Apple's tactics and see this as misusing the dominance of the iPod+iTunes Platform. As you know, anyone who owns an iPod or an iPhone has to use iTunes to sync content between your PC/Mac to your iPod or iPhone. Now, whenever you install iTunes, you install the Apple Software Update, which is like the Windows update all PC users are very familiar with.

Now, the job of a software updater should be just that - update software. Now, all software on all Operating Systems have bugs - a software update allows the vendor to address it.

John Lilly explains it better in his post about the Safari fiasco:

Keeping software up to date is hard — hard for consumers to understand what patches are for, how to make sure they’re up to date.

It’s also critically, crucially important for the security of end users and for the security of the Web at large that people stay current. If people don’t update software regularly, it is impossible for them to remain safe; good software developers are creating improvements constantly. That’s why Mozilla spends so much time making sure our own Automatic Update Service works, and why we spend so much time agonizing over the user interface for the updates. We look at the data every time we do an update; we obsess about what we call “uptake rates” — the percentage of Firefox users who are on the most current version of the browser a day or a week or a month after release. As a result, Firefox users are incredibly up to date, and adopt very quickly.

There’s an implicit trust relationship between software makers and customers in this regard: as a software maker we promise to do our very best to keep users safe and will provide the quickest updates possible, with absolutely no other agenda. And when the user trusts the software maker, they’ll generally go ahead and install the patch, keeping themselves and everyone else safe.

Anyone who uses iTunes on Windows has Apple Software Update installed on their machines, which does just what I’ve described above: it checks for new patches available for Apple-produced software on your Windows machine, alerts the user to the availability, and allows updates to be installed. That’s great — wonderful, in fact. Makes everyone more likely to have current, patched versions of Apple’s software, and makes everyone safer.

The problem here is that it lists Safari for getting an update — and has the “Install” box checked by default — even if you haven’t ever installed Safari on your PC.

That’s a problem because of the dynamic I described above — by and large, all software makers are trying to get users to trust us on updates, and so the likely behavior here is for users to just click “Install 2 items,” which means that they’ve now installed a completely new piece of software, quite possibly completely unintentionally. Apple has made it incredibly easy — the default, even — for users to install ride along software that they didn’t ask for, and maybe didn’t want. This is wrong, and borders on malware distribution practices.

It’s wrong because it undermines the trust that we’re all trying to build with users. Because it means that an update isn’t just an update, but is maybe something more. Because it ultimately undermines the safety of users on the web by eroding that relationship. It’s a bad practice and should stop.

He is right on the money as far as I am concerned, simply because of the trust issue. I mean I am sick of having to install QuickTime too when I have to use iTunes (only for syncing content with my iPod or iPhone). I do not use iTunes as my music player on my PC anyway and I do not intend to do so ever. I do not like it that I cannot use iTunes to do a backup of either my iPod or my iPhone.

But, what Apple did with Safari was highly unethical. I do not want to be shipped out programs under the guise of a security update. I think Apple should realise that it is playing with fire as things like this will surely prick the ears of the antitrust authorities in the US and EU. Especially, EU which is far more aggressive at policing considering its stance vis a vis Microsoft, Apple has been dragged to court in the US over iTunes + iPod and the EU followed it up with an investigation of its own into iTunes and the territorial restrictions (you can only buy if you have a card from a bank in a country where iTunes Store is available) that are placed on the consumers and this Safari fiasco just aggravates the situation.

Why do I say so? Because, the defense (which was quite strong) that Apple had in all of these cases was that it was not a monopoly in the digital music market and it did not abuse it as it built up the market based on merits. Microsoft was not fined for having a monopoly position in the OS market but for abusing it by prevent other OEM's from using any other browser apart from Internet Explorer when they shipped Windows. That was abuse of a dominant position in the OS market to push another product down the consumers throat.

That is what Apple did with Safari too, pushing an unrelated application under the guise of software update. Now, this pains me a lot to see why my favorite company Apple is doing something so dangerous and is actually mimic our rivals up north in Redmond (read: Microsoft). This fiasco actually led Ed Bott at ZDnet to write a post titled, "What Microsoft can teach Apple about software updates" He compared both the Apple Software Update and the Windows Update in a gallery showcasing the difference with the conclusion that Microsoft's process was more opt-in, i.e. the consumer had the choice and the right over what was being downloaded onto his machine and Apple's process was more opt-out, i.e. the consumer had to be alert and vigilant and of course knowledgeable enough to opt-out.

Probably, Microsoft learnt the hard way because I remember Microsoft once sent me an update for Windows Media Player 10 when I was using Windows Media Player 9, but I did not want to install it at that point as it was too new and my strategy with Microsoft's products is to wait a bit before installing it (yes, I still run XP SP2 and I have zero plans to change to Vista anytime soon, most probably will move to Mac OS X Leopard and will install XP using either Parallels or Fusion.)

Now, why opt-out so bad and something Ed did not cover in his post was because of what John said - Consumers instinctly, implicitly and intrinsically trust a vendor like say an Apple or a Microsoft when it comes to security updates, because for the vast majority of users, security update descriptions are mumbo jumbo, they don't understand how a bug in the system can be exploited and they don't care about all this mumbo jumbo, they just know its bad so what they do is just tick all and install all updates, I personally have done this many times.

I sincerely hope that Apple for its own good does not keep repeating this and that it really keeps the antitrust authorities at bay. I would like Apple to render an unconditional apology for having done this and promise not to repeat it, it would do wonders for Apple (I know this is more of wishful thinking but hey what the heck!).

Is the Communist Party of India Extinct or Getting There?

Venkatesh Sridhar — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:15:22 EST

I was doing something that I normally do, surfing the Internet and was checking the Times of India website and what do I come across on the front page of the site - Left demands ban on Twenty20 cricket. I was intrigued by this really stupid demand from the Left, but well what else can we expect out of India's commie brigade. On reading further I found out that there is a comrade named Gurudas Dasgupta (photo).

The government should ban Twenty20 cricket and ascertain the source of income for the BCCI-backed multi-billion dollar Indian Premier League, veteran CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta demanded on Saturday.

Describing Twenty20 cricket as a "gamble" involving "widespread betting" and "free investment of unaccounted money", Dasgupta alleged that a cabinet minister was involved in the "caricature of the game and looting cricket lovers."

Now, one can forgive Mr. Dasgupta for raising such a loud bang over a small matter because as he is a veteran member of the Left, he has absolutely no idea how the IPL works. It is for the first time in India, that we are having franchisee teams like the US has in its NFL, NHL, etc or how the football(soccer) clubs in Europe work. You have owners for each team and they run the finances and manage the operations of the team in terms of deciding who plays, how much to pay the players, etc. The BCCI makes money by being the organizer so it gets cut from all the participating teams and manages the broadcasting rights of the tournament and other such logistical stuff. You can read how the IPL works here.

But, the reason for the title of this post is the barrage of comments that showed the Left in poor light. It basically boiled down to this, the Left has become a party that has been attributed the following characteristics:

Negative
Non Performing
Anti-Development and Anti-Reform
Intellectually Bankrupt
Run by oldies who have lost it

These characteristics that the Left is now identified with shows that it is inching towards extinction, because if you all remember, the Left at the peak of communism in Soviet Union looked towards Soviets and commented about its might and strength and attributed it to communism then after Soviet Union collapsed and they broke up into individual states, the Left started commenting about China and about its strengths and suddenly China created its own brand of communism by encouraging reforms and became the World's Manufacturing HQ. The Left parties of India suddenly had no role model to look upto, it was unable to do anything constructive in its 40+ years of rule in West Bengal and they have a CM who leads the path of reforms by burning down bridges and by being arrogant towards those who do not subscribe to his ideas and philosophies.

The Left is heading towards extinction with everyone upset with the way it has dealt with issues. I may have hatred for the Left for all the wrong and stupid things it stands for, but one thing I appreciate is the fact that the Congress would have fucked India by signing the Nuclear Deal, which gives the US President the right to impose sanctions on India incase of a Nuclear test. Do not believe me pay close attention to Section 110 of the Henry J Hyde Act. The text reads and I quote,

Section 110 - Deems any determination under section 105 and any waiver under section 104 of this Act ineffective if the President determines that India has detonated a nuclear explosive device after the date of the enactment of the Act.

Read that one more time and this time very closely, especially the one that is bold, italicised and underlined by me - emphasis purely mine.

The Left for once was doing something good, but it had become the boy-shepherd in the famous story where the boy would always cry "wolf wolf" and the villagers would come running to protect him only to find that a prank was played and when the real wolf came no one came to his rescue.

I believe this is what is happening with the Left and unless they decide to rectify it, they are going to be extinct.

Why do I think so? Because of one simple reason, the Indian voter is now getting very sick and tired and frustrated with all this shit that is happening with our politicians thanks to our Indian media's obsession for breaking news, san sani khabars and other such marketing terms to increase its TRP ratings and thereby its advertising rates and thereby its revenues.

The Left has tried to portray itself to be a aam aadmi's party when its actually a trade unionist's party, only the unions love the Left and not the aam aadmi.

The Left needs to reinvent itself or it will be India's Dodo party and as they say, "to go the way of the dodo" means to become extinct or obsolete, to fall out of common usage or practice, or to become a thing of the past.

Is the Left on the way to become a party of the past?

Thoughts on the Sydney Test

Venkatesh Sridhar — Mon, 7 Jan 2008 05:39:24 EST

India lost the second test in Sydney, Australia today. As many of us who followed the match know by now that the match is and will always be marred by the dubious decisions that directly impacted the outcome of the match and now the ban imposed on Harbhajan Singh for 'racially abusing him'.

It makes me wonder whether match officials are unduly favoring Australia? I will explain why:

1. The ban on Harbhajan: The most interesting and amazing aspect of this decision is that Mike Procter, the Match Referee took Andrew Symonds's word for it and decided to rule in his favor without having the evidence presented that he called him so. Also, how come he took the words of the Aussies when the talk was just between him and Harbhajan and if at all it was said why was it that Tendulkar who was the closest did not hear it?

Also, the stump mikes can pick up whatever is said on the pitch and it is muted by the broadcasters as they are liable for any abusive language being transmitted over the air as once explained on Tony Greig on air. So, there should have been audio evidence - none was presented.

Another thing that surprises me is that Nigel Peters, a legal expert was attending the hearing and what stuns me is that he did not comment on the lack of evidence.

2. Umpiring: The umpiring was pathetic, I mean it was almost as if it was a local college match and the umpires had been paid off, especially the case when Ponting played a ball going well down the leg side and edged it and the sound was heard in the normal speed only to be caught by Dhoni. The Indians appealed and were turned down. Andrew Symonds bowls to Dravid and Dravid pushes his pads forward and snuggles his bat nicely in between his pads and the ball hits the pads and goes into Gilchrist's gloves, Australians appeal and it is upheld.

There are people like Ian Chappell who say that over a long period of time, the good decisions and bad decisions weigh each other. It is a fair comment, but the fact is in this test match, it was fully tilted in the favour of one team - the whole reason behind the neutral umpires scenario is because the Aussies, the Pommies felt that the subcontinental umpires were biased towards the home team and that was the major reason why they could not win on subcontinental tours, even Imran Khan once opted to get neutral umpires to play against England for the very same reason.

If the decisions had gone against the Aussies and they had not won this 16th test in a row, then the Australian media would have gone on attack and lambasted the umpiring standards.

3. Ponting's Integrity: Ricky Ponting answered an Indian Journalist by saying thus,

"Sorry I think you have got something wrong. There's no way that I
would have grounded that ball and I think if you are actually
questioning my integrity in the game, you should not be standing here.
What I did in the first innings doesn't that explain the way I play the
game. Well okay I am 100 per cent sure that catch of Dhoni today. As it
turned out wasn't that given not out. Am I right or wrong?"

while responding to persistent questioning if he had cleanly caught Mahendra
Singh Dhoni off the bowling of Brad Hogg, Australian skipper Ricky Ponting had reacted angrily and asked an
Indian reporter if he was questioning his (Ponting's) integrity, which led to the Indian media complaining to the BCCI about his behaviour. Ponting, talking about the fact that his integrity beyond question is wrong, because of my piece on the umpiring. Where he was clearly out and he did not walk. Also, Ricky we have video evidence of that happening, that you grounded the ball. Even Ian Chapell, one of Australia's greatest cricketers and outspoken commentators commented that it was not out. So, what do we believe Ricky, your word for it or the evidence we have.

I am neither dumb nor stupid like Mike Procter, Steve Bucknor or Mark Benson to take your word for it against logic.

4. Clarke's behavior at Ganguly's Second Innings Dismissal: By now, everyone knows that another dubious decision was the way Mark Benson handled the entire Ganguly's Second Innings dismissal. There was this video segment which was being shown on TV where Mark Benson asks Ricky Ponting if it is out. And in the background, Clarke who is right next to Ponting when the question is asked shuffles backwards and is at least two-three foot steps away from the huddle of the Aussie players. Now, why is this piece every important, I would like to take you back to the Michael Slater-Rahul Dravid incident, where Slater blew it by ordering Dravid to walk off because he had caught, what Slater did was wrong or right is a different question altogether, but the thing is that he was so assertive that he had taken the catch. Contrast this reaction and Clarke's and you see a completely opposite reaction.

Maybe, I am reading too much into it, but if Clarke caught it, why didn't Clarke say that he took it why was it that Ponting was the one who said it. Also, while discussing this with one of my friends, he said that when he say Ponting run towards Clarke, he was waving his index finger as if to say Ganguly was out, it could even have been him asking whether he caught it or not.

But, all this argument should not have been in place, as Mark Benson, should have consulted Steve Bucknor and if Bucknor was unsure, then go to the Third Umpire. I doubt whether that could have helped as in this test match all the umpires including the third umpire who sits with the Match referee bungled badly in the Aussie First Innings.

5. The Brad Hogg Allegation: Now, the Indian Team has lodged a protest against Brad Hogg for abusing Dhoni and Kumble. I feel that India should have lodged the protest even before the hearing begins. In fact, Kumble should have mentioned it in the press conference itself. Now, it looks as if the Indians are doing it as if it's a tit for tat.

6. India's Poor Batting: Let us be objective, India should have played well and should have managed to survive two sessions under pressure. But, the 'great' Sachin once again flopped when needed badly and it was for the much criticized 'Wall' Dravid to put up a fight, probably what Jaideep Varma blogs about Dravid being the greatest Indian player ever.

(My vote is with Dravid, he is India's greatest cricketer, because he is a much better team man than Tendulkar, why is it that Sachin never opens in a test but is glad to do so in an ODI, many cricket pundits will rise to his defence that opening in the two versions is completely different, precisely why Dravid is more important than Sachin, because he is ready to move up to a very difficult and specialist position and play. He may have not scored runs, but remember he is in poor form and yet still opened. That shows his character. I digress as this topic alone is worth a separate post.)

What hurt the most was the loss of the last 3 wickets in such quick sucession and it really hurt that it was Micheal Clarke. If I was Kumble, I would have taken time between balls, I would have asked for change of bats, gloves and what not just to deny the Aussies victory, but probably Kumble is too much of a gentleman to do so.

But, the bottomline is India's hyped batting line up needs to come to party daily not once but twice in the remaining two tests.

7. Team composition: I strongly believe that India needs to remove Yuvraj and replace him with Irfan Pathan as you need a swing bowler in Perth and Irfan has the previous experience of playing here too or if Yuvraj wants to play he should open. Probably, get Jaffer (he is more comfortable with the short pitch stuff than Sehwag and also it is unfair for Sehwag who is also struggling to bring him on in the Perth wicket) and Tendulkar to open and attack from word go. Dravid is inching his way into form, evident from the opulent strokes he played in the second innings.

8. 16th Test wins in a row for Australia: The Aussies have done it once again, but I had more respect for Steve Waugh's team than for Ricky Ponting's team as I believe Steve will always be a better captain than Ricky. Also, the contrast is stark, probably success has gone to their heads but Ricky Ponting's team is very arrogant compared to Steve's especially the comment by Hayden on end of Day 4 that India cannot win this match from here. If I were in the dressing room, I would have resolved to cream the Aussies in the match and go for the win.

9. The Impotent BCCI: The BCCI has once again proven that it is impotent by deciding to continue the tour and that if Indian cricket has to improve than the BCCI needs to be revamped and first of all we need throw politicians out of sports bodies in India and I am sure progress would definitely be made. The BCCI says it has great relations with Australia and wants to keep it that way fair enough, but the question is who is the BCCI most responsible and answerable to - its players or Cricket Australia. What if the entire Indian team decides not to play, what would the BCCI do, what would happen if the Indian team walked in with black armbands got out not playing shots, stood 5 feet from the wicket. The tour will go on, but will the revenues that the BCCI is so hungry after will it go on??

10. What I expect the Indian team to do: If the spineless BCCI, appeals against Harbhajan which it will certainly do and the Indian team continues with the tour, India should go out and beat the crap out of the Aussies, and if any one Aussie opens his mouth, report him - let's see what the match officials do.

Come on India, beat the crap out of the Aussies, we stopped their world run once and we can do it again, but this time in their own backyard and that at a ground where they have not lost.

Come on, India!

Would You Choose Not to Vote?

Venkatesh Sridhar — Wed, 5 Dec 2007 00:21:06 EST

As per Section 49-O of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1969 Act, you can legally choose not to vote in any election.

I quote,

"49-O. Elector deciding not to vote.-If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark."

Would you go with this option? It does not help you in anyway but to make sure that there is no illegal voting in your name.

There is a proposal by the Election Commission of India that will allow us to make a difference in how we get to elect those who are supposed to protect the best interests of our country. Reportedly, the proposal is that in a ward, if a candidate wins, say by 123 votes, and the number of "49-O" votes in that particular ward is more than 123, then that polling will be canceled and will have to be re-polled.

Not only that, but the candidature of the contestants will be removed and they cannot contest the re-polling, since the people have already expressed their decision on them.

This has been around the blogosphere and in emails being forwarded, so why am I writing this today? We need to change the way we elect people and the sooner we do it, the better it is for the nation. I think we should learn from the mistakes we have made in the past 60 years. We have not been able to realise the vision that the Father of the Nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had when India got independent.

"When a woman can walk safely at midnight in India, that is when I will consider India to have attained true freedom."

Well forget about all over India - in New Delhi, the capital, a woman cannot walk alone after dark for fear of being abducted and raped.

I believe it's time India wakes up to its true potential by taking out the criminal element in its politics. Do you think this proposal will work out or will it die like Gandhi's vision?

Thoughts?

Why Apple Should Change Its Strategy Towards Java

Venkatesh Sridhar — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:28:44 EST

Apple has always been a company which has tried to retain as much control as it possibly can on anything that goes into its OS. A major reason why Apple prevents users from installing its famed OS on non-apple manufactured devices, is because the performance of its OS is very tightly coupled with the hardware that goes on its devices.

Java rose to prominence in the early and the mid 90s by promising the 'code once run anywhere' doctrine. But, this promise has been largely unfulfilled. Partly due to the fact that in the early and mid 90s the industry was split across platforms and it was a major headache for developers to write code for different systems. Java promised to solve this major problem of developers, but Microsoft saw the imminent threat and tried to create its own version of Java. Apple at that time was immensely struggling and was in the midst of a major turnaround and when Jobs returned and signed the agreement with Microsoft where they put IE as the sole browser on the Mac OS, Apple has sounded a death knell for the promise of Java as IE at that time carried the Microsoft written interpretation of Java.

The Mac OS X arrived based on NextStep and had an Unix core. This seemed liked the perfect time for Apple to adopt Java and also allow developers to develop across platforms. But times had changed, Apple had now renewed energy and the exciting turnaround effected by Jobs resulted in Apple doing a la Microsoft and ended up developing their own edition of Java so they can be sure what kind of stuff goes in.

Macs were and to a greater extent still are not preferred for most industries except in Apple dominated traditional DTP and Media industry. The major reason was that you were unable to run the enterprise applications that you have to necessarily use for eg.:SAP, Oracle Apps, etc. Apple then deviated from its tradition and moved onto Intel processors and even allowed Windows to be installed and then there were some smart solutions like Parallels for Mac, VMware Fusion, Codeweavers CrossOver, which allowed you to run windows on a mac without booting. This skyrocketed Apple sales as people were happy that they could now transition in a phased manner to a new OS.

Also, many felt they would then be able to use their enterprise applications in those virtual win boxes. But, I believe its a self defeating proposition for Apple because Apple allows only genuine Windows to be installed using its BootCamp, but that just means additional sales for Redmond and that is why Microsoft has no problem with this.

Enterprise Applications like SAP have J2EE compatibility. But SAP does not have a version for the Mac.

Head over to sourceforge.net and in the software map head over to Enterprise Applications and you would find many applications including open source ERP's which proclaim that they support Mac OS X, but ask them about how they feel about its stability, they have no clue as there are not many testers available who can test these apps for any developer in Mac OS X.

This is my major problem with Apple's strategy related to Java as they are closing themselves from hitting at the heart of Windows installed bases which is compatibility with Enterprise Applications, I know that Apple does not consider the enterprise market as its core market, but is foraying into server business in a big way with the launch of Leopard server, if Cupertino changes its strategy towards Java, then it will be extremely beneficial for Apple as then it would find that the number of developers available for its OS, its iPhone, iPod Touch and any future product developments. By doing so, Apple will prove to be a leader and will definitely help solve the software industry's biggest problems of having to develop differently for different platforms, the possibilities are endless.

Java is the only industry proven cross platform development language and Apple definitely needs to change its attitude and strategy towards Java. Apple and Sun need to come together soon, but will Steve and Scott make it happen?

Why I Am Upset With the Indian Media

Venkatesh Sridhar — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:26:06 EST

This post might come as a shock to many. But, this time I am going public with my opinion on the ineffectiveness of our Indian media. I am getting frustrated with them more and more as I finished reading the story of Watergate Scandal in the book, All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. These are the two journalists of The Washington Times. The entire scandal was unraveled by them. Imagine something of this sort happening in India. Considering the current bunch of nincompoops in the media in our country, there is a real fat chance of it happening.

The reason for my outburst against the media is pretty simple. I feel that they lack the kind of aggression that journalism requires. I feel the media is making a mockery of the people of India's time, it began with this stupid and crazy obsession about Abhi - Ash wedding as the media termed it. I was like WTF man? A guy is getting married to a gal, big deal that he is the son of India's legendary actor, so f&%^&$* what? And the worst is the same shit all over the place.

Then came the circus around the coach fiasco and it was the good for the media that the BCCI mumbled, fumbled and jumbled its way around this, but yet no aggressive questions were asked.

Look at the newspapers, I find so much shit today in our newspapers that I loathe reading, they are more like the tabloids than the newspapers and the revered The Times of India also has become a tabloid.

Then come the Hindi channels who have nothing but 'san sani khabars', which can be anything like a guy scratching his crotch in the middle of the road to a cow giving birth to 12 calves to an actress kissing another actor on stage, come on!!!

What the hell, if your IQ levels are low, don't assume mine are either.

Then the circus over the Presidential elections. NOT ONE OF INDIA'S "AWARD" WINNING JOURNALIST ever had the GUTS TO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS.

Recently saw an interview by Arnab Goswami on Times Now of J. Jayalalitha. She was mentioning that having the Prime Minister and the President controlled by one foreign power (read as Sonia Gandhi) was bad for the country, Arnab never asked the logical question, "If Jayalalitha and her third front are so worried about the nation, why don't they support Bhairon Singh Shekhawat to save India and leave their political problems aside." No, he did not ask these kind of questions he was more interested in asking her about her personality and about how he likes her smile and all that crap, dude I am not going to spend time watching you flatter a lady, come on!!! And if you go through the corporate profile of Arnab, you would see them talking about incisive questioning, new age thinking and other razzmatazz you would expect in a corporate profile, makes me roll my eyes and go YEAH RIGHT!!!

The Left Front, the most IRRESPONSIBLE FRONT OF INDIA, says it is ok with a non political Vice President but wants a political president, WTF oldies, you lost your brains or what? But, no one will ask them why this double standard.

The Shiv Sena will never be asked why it is allowed to break the laws, while it can advise others to follow the law.

The media hyped about voting the Taj Mahal into the new 7 wonders of the world. And then argued and fought over whether the hype was needed in the first place!!!!

Then, they went overboard over an image which is INCONCLUSIVE about Bipasha Basu kissing Manchester United player, Cristiano Ronaldo. Then, the hype by India TV about a peck planted on Bips's cheeks by Ronaldo and since Bips was hosting, she called Ronaldo on stage and the India TV dude saying, (transliterated in English) - "Bips called Ronaldo on stage with a lot of excitement and urged the crowd to cheer for him." Now, the event was in Lisbon, Portugal and Ronaldo is Portuguese so it was natural and she was doing her job. The peck was a form of greeting. Gawd, do I need to put this kind of sense into their fucking head???

The worst is the shitty news channel - India TV. It's an insult to the viewer who watches it, I hate the fact that my cable operator keeps fiddling with the list of channels and this leads to me stumbling onto these mind numbing shit. I have noticed that if I have to bear the torture of this channel for even a split second and it splits my brain into infinite pieces and makes me lose my temper like right now. I am sure you can feel my blood boiling.

The anger is getting way too much. So, I guess that's a good time to wrap the post and go and see some good comedy movie or something of that sort, need to get my brain working again.