Tag Archives: Barack Obama

When American Babus Go the Indian Way

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Chances of getting a work-related visa to the United States becomes harder day by day and the row over the visa policies gets deeper every time. Indians are unfairly treated when it comes to work visas to the U.S. and according to the findings of an American think tank, India-born professionals are denied visas at higher rates than nationals of other countries, an action often done quite arbitrarily.

Indians are the new Mexicans, writes Seema Sirohi, a Washington-based journalist in Firstpost, who feels that denial rates of professionals from both the countries match. She makes an interesting comparison of American babus with their Indian counterparts and says both make a formidable match in exercise of discretionary power. Proving her point, she says the law has not changed at all but the interpretation of which has seen various versions since the recession. And this is the only way one can explain the dramatic increase in denial rates of H-1B and L-1 visas to Indian professionals.

While no apparent reason can be given for this deliberate discrimination, the only possible triggering point is the heated political climate in the country that laments over the jobs offshored and promises greater measures of protectionism.

The immigration and consular officers play a vital role in the increasing denial of H-1B and L-1B visas to Indian. The study by a non-partisan public policy organization, the National Foundation for American Policy, revealed that 2.8 percent of Indians seeking L-1B visas were denied in 2008. They came under the category of “transfer of those with specialized knowledge” within the same company. This rate went up drastically to 22.5 percent in 2009 and the study found that more Indian L-1B petitions (1640) were denied in 2009 alone than in the last 9 years combined (1341). Comparing to other countries, the denial rate remained same, at a very low range, for countries such as Britain, France, Germany and Japan. For Canadians, the Canadians rose marginally from 2 percent to 2.9 percent and for Chinese, it jumped from 2 percent in 2008 to 5.9 percent in 2009.

The most obvious reason cited is U.S. President Barack Obama’s style of governance and the ongoing campaign where he often stirs up the issue of outsourcing to gather the supper of certain unions and lobbies.

Many firms in the U.S. strongly believe that certain newly-made unwritten arbitrary standards that go beyond the statute and regulations are now applied since there is no change in the existing law, writes Sirohi. The officers, in many cases, make the process much harder, unpredictable and lengthy by demanding the applicants and their sponsoring companies to provide extra evidence and in a certain cases, they even demand the applicants to prove their ‘extraordinary ability’ for L-1B by producing a patent, says the article. Many who own patents are also denied visas.

Since 2009, the companies are not applying in as large numbers as before because of the known displeasure of the consular and immigration officers. The unpredictability of getting a visas have cause many a bad business scenarios for many Indian IT companies as their projects often get delayed due to the inability to sent qualified personnel to the U.S. The rising denials add more pain to the already hiked visa fees, which went up by $2,000 for H-1B and the law is framed in such a manner that basically hurt India IT firms, the article says.

This is a matter of real concern for India and so the issue was on the top list of Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai’s agenda when he visited the United States last week. During his address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mathai has categorically stated that it is a “non-tariff barrier” and it has become quite easy to shoot down the spirits of aspirting Indians for heavy visa fees and eventually turn them down. Over the last five years, a whooping amount of $200 million has been spend on visa fees by Indians and an estimated $30-50 million worth of visas were rejected. “According to a back of envelope calculation – Indians paid over $200 million in visa fees. Perhaps $30-50 million has been taken from young aspiring Indians working in businesses whose U.S. visas were rejected. The pink slip has become a greenback!” Mathai said. “It needs reiteration that the targets of these discriminatory actions are precisely those who have contributed intellectually to the climate of reform in India, and who have been votaries of strong India-U.S. relations,” foreign secretary was quoted as saying in PTI.

Stressing on the need to eradicate discriminatory actions, Mathai said that the Indian IT industry in the U.S. has contributed $15 billion in taxes alone in the last five years. He also quoted a NASSCOM report saying that Indian industry employs over 100,000 in the U.S. up from 20,000 six years ago, which supports 200,000 other jobs, including indirect ones, apart from enhancing the competitiveness of some the U.S. industries. On top of all these, Indian workers in U.S. pay an estimated $1 billion in social security when they are there and none of these would help then when they retire. The author also mentions that the U.S. government has time and again refused to even discuss about an agreement and dreaming about a deal to pay back social security is not worth hoping for.

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India has More to it than Poverty, Feels Oprah Winfrey

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The traffic manners may have left her aghast, but the world’s most celebrated talk show host Oprah Winfrey says she was impressed by India‘s “glorious” family tradition and would love to return to the country which had much more to it than filth and poverty.

“What most impressed me here was the family tradition in the country and the fact that you take care of your parents, your grandparents,” said the 57-year-old media moghul, who turned up at the Jaipur Literary Festival wearing a yellow-green embroidered salwar paired with ankle grazing western styled pyjamas.

Her first visit to India, she said, was driven by her first image of the country – a picture featuring a woman on a camel – which she put on her visit board reading ‘Come to India’.

And after witnessing first hand the “paradox” that is India, and being left “awestruck” by the traffic manners of the country, she would definitely like to return, she said.

“Having been to a family of four generations, I got a sense of how glorious it is,” she said.

The media moghul spent time in Mumbai, visiting a slum, an ashram for widows, besides attending a high-profile dinner with Bollywood personalities before coming to Jaipur.

While she got a glimpse of both the extremes of India, she said, she would like to portray the country as a whole and not “just show the filth”.

“It was important to go to slums but not necessary to show the the worst of the worst, what I wanted to portray is that there is poverty but there is still a sense of hope,” she said.

And while she was much impressed by many things in India, traffic manners was not one of them.

“What is it with the red lights here. Is it there just for your entertainment? she asked to bursts of laughter from the audience.

“There is a red light on and everybody just keeps going,” she said.

And she returned to the subject before finishing her talk. “Texting while driving is stupid. But in India it is insane,” she said, tongue in cheek.

Oprah’s meeting with the widows too left her quite moved and according to her “caused a shift in my consciousness”.

She said she was all the more surprised by the fact that women who lose their husbands can be discarded in a country where families do so well to take care of their elders.

“I couldn’t understand this paradox that a country where families have so much love for their elders could discard its women just because they did not have husbands,” she said.
Source: PTI

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Reasons Why India Can’t Censor the Internet

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In just 24 hours, in the Facebook alumni group of St Stephen’s College, Communications Minister Kapil Sibal‘s ratings crashed faster than that of US President Barack Obama or what former telecom minister A. Raja, now in judicial custody over second generation (2G) spectrum case, ever had.

Reasons Why India Can't Censor the Internet

In a survey to pick star alumni for a big debating clash with counterparts from the rival college across the road, Sibal was on the top five a week ago — among other stellar Stephanians like Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, former federal minister Mani Shankar Aiyar or former UN diplomat Shashi Tharoor. No longer!

As the #Idiot hash-tag topped Twitter trends, some withdrew their votes for Sibal, and there were posts like “Chuck him across the road” — a scathing insult, equivalent to the Parsis’ excommunication.

Just a preview of the global firestorm over the next two days!

The fire wasn’t from anonymous teens. Seasoned analysts blasted Sibal. Investor Mahesh Murthy posted: “Censor this! :) ! Five of the top 10 Twitter trends in India right now are: #IdiotKapilsibal, #KapilSibal, #Censorship, #FreeSpeech and #FreedomOfSpeech.”

All this, for just one statement from a politician not unknown for his foot-in-mouth disease? Not quite. For, he has the power to misuse and try to make it happen.

During the Anna Hazare movement, Sibal summoned representatives of the social networks. In a king-and-subjects interaction, he kept them waiting, then kept them standing in his room; gave them a pre-emptive dressing down; and snapped: “I don’t want any anti-government stuff on your networks. Fix it.” There was no room for discussion.

So here’s a five-point Internet 101 for the illustrious Mr. Sibal.

1. The Internet cannot be edited: Duh! In an early Dilbert strip, the pointy-haired boss demanded that Dilbert “download” the Internet and fax it to him. A decade down, it’s not so funny any more.

The Internet is not traditional media. India’s 1975 emergency and the media clampdown was possible because of the linear, broadcast nature of the old media. New media is distributed. No copy desk or censor board can “fix” it. There is no editor to arrest. And, most content is hosted outside India’s jurisdiction.

2. User-generated content cannot be filtered: That would slow down the global Internet to a crawl, with posts appearing after days — even assuming so many “editors” could be hired by, say, a Facebook or a Twitter.

Are phone operators responsible for “content” carried on their networks — or their CEOs arrested if someone made a terror threat over a phone call? No, the telco is simply asked to help with the investigation — into who made the call.

Yes, Internet content has the permanence and public-impact potential that a phone call does not, but equally, it lends itself brilliantly to self-regulation.

3. Peer review works: Wikipedia is the best example. Who could have imagined that a user-created encyclopedia could be so objective, and comprehensive? Yes, anyone can go in and edit anything (barring entries like “Kapil Sibal”, which have been locked due to vandalism!).
If you make an inappropriate change, someone will come in and correct it. And so it is on Facebook or Twitter. Abusive posts will be reported, blocked, and the individuals knocked out of the site.

4. Draconian controls are not necessary: In this age of global cooperation on terror, companies cooperate. A rational request from India to Google or Facebook to bring down offensive content will be heard — regardless of jurisdiction.

5. Yes, there are precedents for Internet control, but…: Such censorship is in countries India doesn’t want to be — China, Pakistan, Myanmar or Saudi Arabia. Pakistan became a laughing stock when it issued a list of banned words for SMS messages. (That list is now standard reading for anyone wanting a quick lesson in present and future abuses that aren’t in any dictionary.)

 The big daddy of “regulation” is China, where everything is filtered, and if you break those filters, you are charged with treason. What a role model.

But wait.
Kapil Sibal knows all this, right? So why is this bright star from Harvard Law School and St. Stephen’s college now sounding so anachronistic in the Internet age? Is it the old “thou shalt display higher loyalty to the royal family than the prince himself” mantra?

If Kapil Sibal is to defend himself against the charge of sycophancy, he is on a weak footing. There were many prior potential triggers for tackling social media, including fanatic religious posts, derogatory comments by Pakistan sympathisers, Anna Hazare, and more. That he finally picked a post that targeted Sonia Gandhi suggests that this was not out of serious, objective concern about India’s stability, security or secular fabric.

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Andy Rooney, wry ’60 Minutes’ commentator, dies

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Andy Rooney so dreaded the day he had to end his signature “60 Minutes” commentaries about life’s large and small absurdities that he kept going until he was 92 years old.

Even then, he said he wasn’t retiring. Writers never retire. But his life after the end of “A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney” was short: He died Friday night, according to CBS, only a month after delivering his 1,097th and final televised commentary.

Rooney had gone to the hospital for an undisclosed surgery, but major complications developed and he never recovered.

“Andy always said he wanted to work until the day he died, and he managed to do it, save the last few weeks in the hospital,” said his “60 Minutes” colleague, correspondent Steve Kroft.

Rooney talked on “60 Minutes” about what was in the news, and his opinions occasionally got him in trouble. But he was just as likely to discuss the old clothes in his closet, why air travel had become unpleasant and why banks needed to have important-sounding names.

Rooney won one of his four Emmy Awards for a piece on whether there was a real Mrs. Smith who made Mrs. Smith’s Pies. As it turned out, there was no Mrs. Smith.

“I obviously have a knack for getting on paper what a lot of people have thought and didn’t realize they thought,” Rooney once said. “And they say, ‘Hey, yeah!’ And they like that.”

Looking for something new to punctuate its weekly broadcast, “60 Minutes” aired its first Rooney commentary on July 2, 1978. He complained about people who keep track of how many people die in car accidents on holiday weekends. In fact, he said, the Fourth of July is “one of the safest weekends of the year to be going someplace.”

More than three decades later, he was railing about how unpleasant air travel had become. “Let’s make a statement to the airlines just to get their attention,” he said. “We’ll pick a week next year and we’ll all agree not to go anywhere for seven days.”

In early 2009, as he was about to turn 90, Rooney looked ahead to President Barack Obama’s upcoming inauguration with a look at past inaugurations. He told viewers that Calvin Coolidge’s 1925 swearing-in was the first to be broadcast on radio, adding, “That may have been the most interesting thing Coolidge ever did.”

“Words cannot adequately express Andy’s contribution to the world of journalism and the impact he made — as a colleague and a friend — upon everybody at CBS,” said Leslie Moonves, CBS Corp. president and CEO.

Jeff Fager, CBS News chairman and “60 Minutes” executive producer, said “it’s hard to imagine not having Andy around. He loved his life and he lived it on his own terms. We will miss him very much.”

For his final essay, Rooney said that he’d live a life luckier than most.

“I wish I could do this forever. I can’t, though,” he said.

He said he probably hadn’t said anything on “60 Minutes” that most of his viewers didn’t already know or hadn’t thought. “That’s what a writer does,” he said. “A writer’s job is to tell the truth.”

True to his occasional crotchety nature, though, he complained about being famous or bothered by fans. His last wish from fans: If you see him in a restaurant, just let him eat his dinner.

Rooney was a freelance writer in 1949 when he encountered CBS radio star Arthur Godfrey in an elevator and — with the bluntness millions of people learned about later — told him his show could use better writing. Godfrey hired him and by 1953, when he moved to TV, Rooney was his only writer.

He wrote for CBS’ Garry Moore during the early 1960s before settling into a partnership with Harry Reasoner at CBS News. Given a challenge to write on any topic, he wrote “An Essay on Doors” in 1964, and continued with contemplations on bridges, chairs and women.

“The best work I ever did,” Rooney said. “But nobody knows I can do it or ever did it. Nobody knows that I’m a writer and producer. They think I’m this guy on television.”

He became such a part of the culture that comic Joe Piscopo satirized Rooney’s squeaky voice with the refrain, “Did you ever …” Rooney never started any of his essays that way. For many years, “60 Minutes” improbably was the most popular program on television and a dose of Rooney was what people came to expect for a knowing smile on the night before they had to go back to work.

Rooney left CBS in 1970 when it refused to air his angry essay about the Vietnam War. He went on TV for the first time, reading the essay on PBS and winning a Writers Guild of America award for it.

He returned to CBS three years later as a writer and producer of specials. Notable among them was the 1975 “Mr. Rooney Goes to Washington,” whose lighthearted but serious look at government won him a Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting.

His words sometimes landed Rooney in hot water. CBS suspended him for three months in 1990 for making racist remarks in an interview, which he denied. Rooney, who was arrested in Florida while in the Army in the 1940s for refusing to leave a seat among blacks on a bus, was hurt deeply by the charge of racism.

Gay rights groups were mad, during the AIDS epidemic, when Rooney mentioned homosexual unions in saying “many of the ills which kill us are self-induced.” Indians protested when Rooney suggested Native Americans who made money from casinos weren’t doing enough to help their own people.

The Associated Press learned the danger of getting on Rooney’s cranky side. In 1996, AP Television Writer Frazier Moore wrote a column suggesting it was time for Rooney to leave the broadcast. On Rooney’s next “60 Minutes” appearance, he invited those who disagreed to make their opinions known. The AP switchboard was flooded by some 7,000 phone calls and countless postcards were sent to the AP mail room.

“Your piece made me mad,” Rooney told Moore two years later. “One of my major shortcomings — I’m vindictive. I don’t know why that is. Even in petty things in my life I tend to strike back. It’s a lot more pleasurable a sensation than feeling threatened.

“He was one of television’s few voices to strongly oppose the war in Iraq after the George W. Bush administration launched it in 2002. After the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, he said he was chastened by its quick fall but didn’t regret his “60 Minutes” commentaries.

“I’m in a position of feeling secure enough so that I can say what I think is right and if so many people think it’s wrong that I get fired, well, I’ve got enough to eat,” Rooney said at the time.

Andrew Aitken Rooney was born on Jan. 14, 1919, in Albany, N.Y., and worked as a copy boy on the Albany Knickerbocker News while in high school. College at Colgate University was cut short by World War II, when Rooney worked for Stars and Stripes.

With another former Stars and Stripes staffer, Oram C. Hutton, Rooney wrote four books about the war. They included the 1947 book, “Their Conqueror’s Peace: A Report to the American Stockholders,” documenting offenses against the Germans by occupying forces.

Rooney and his wife, Marguerite, were married for 62 years before she died of heart failure in 2004. They had four children and lived in New York, with homes in Norwalk, Conn., and upstate New York. Daughter Emily Rooney is a former executive producer of ABC’s “World News Tonight.” Brian was a longtime ABC News correspondent, Ellen a photographer and Martha Fishel is chief of the public service division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Services will be private, and it’s anticipated CBS News will hold a public memorial later, Brian Rooney said Saturday.

courtesy – AP

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The Muslim Leaders That U.S. Killed

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Muammar Gaddafi‘s death is celebrated as the success of a new U.S. foreign policy, on which the Obama administration backed the NATO action, demanded Gaddafi to go and finally he is gone forever. It was a policy of lead from behind, a policy makeover which is sometimes seen as an uncomfortable mix of realism and idealism.

Gaddafi

It was in 2008 Gaddafi made a prophetic warning about the possible invasion or indirect involvement of America in the politics of the Middle East. At a speech in the Arab League summit in Damascus, he said, “A foreign power occupies an Arab country and hangs its leader while we all stand watching and laughing. Your turn is coming soon,” a warning the audience including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who doesn’t dare to laugh now as his turn is foreseen in the ongoing popular uprising.

Except his short stay with the Americans during President George W Bush‘s war on terror, most in U.S. see him as a villain whom they often associate with the Lockerbie bombing. Realizing the need to take a backseat to prove that the country is not imposing its will using physical force over the Arab, the United States would be more than happy that Muammar Gaddafi has gone, but they would be more delighted by the fact that the world would celebrate this as a victory for the Libyan people.

As a matter of fact, the American policy must have taken a revamp at the realization of the fact that the country cannot afford to do everything, everywhere, and that the policy should shrink to do only what matters most. Going by the same line, Obama had stated that no American troops would be there on the ground and the French and British did the major job. The European powers were leading the movement as it meant a lot for them, the U.S. decided stay at the shadow for Libya was not a vital national interest the world police.

Saddam

If it was bullets for Gaddafi, it was the gallows the U.S. prepared for the ironman of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. It took a little more than a few months for the invading American forces to topple Saddam’s kingdom, which the Unites States had always viewed a threat to the stability of the region. The war that was started on as a hunt for weapons of mass destruction ended with the fall of Saddam’s regime and his capture a few months later. After three years of trials for war crimes, he was hanged against his wish to be shot on 30 December 2006. Both his sons, Uday and Qusay were killed in a six-hour firefight. However, U.S. had to spell trillions of dollars and have to sacrifice the lives its thousands of soldiers. The Economist described Saddam as “one of the last of the 20th century’s great dictators, but not the least in terms of egotism, or cruelty, or morbid will to power.”

osama

A fleet of four choppers slicing through the dark skies over Islamabad from a U.S. military base in Afghanistan finished the job code named ‘Geronimo-E KIA’ in which the United States killed its most wanted man, Osama bin Laden just 40 miles outside Pakistan’s capital. Upon the end of this long and painful chapter, U.S. President Barack Obama saluted the U.S. commandos and said, “Job well done. The mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks which left nearly 3,000 people dead, Osama has been in FBI’s lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists and was a major target of the United States in its War on Terror with $25 million bounty by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As the president once called, ‘al-Qaeda’s leader and symbol, was often termed as un-Islamic by many Islamic scholars; however, Michael Scheuer, in his famous book ‘Osama bin Laden,’ notes that Laden’s 1998 fatwa was signed by fully credentialed Islamic scholars, thus giving it religious authority’. Laden in his fatwa called on the world Muslims to kill Americans and their allies both civilian and military and proclaimed that it’s an individual duty for every Muslim.

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Iran would face a possible ban on sanctions – OBAMA

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U.S. President Barack Obama warned Iran on Thursday it would face the toughest possible sanctions for an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, as officials eyed action against its central bank.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday accused Iran of fomenting instability but pledged a “measured response” over the alleged plot that has heightened tensions between OPEC’s two top oil producers.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said, on a visit to Austria, that the evidence showed “Iran is responsible” for the alleged plot and said Tehran had tried to “meddle” in the affairs of Arab states before.

In Washington, Obama told a news conference that the United States would not take any options off the table in dealing with Iran, a phrase U.S. officials regularly use toward Tehran that is diplomatic code for the possibility of military action.

“This is part of a pattern of dangerous and reckless behavior by the Iranian government,” Obama said in his first public comments on the affair.

U.S. authorities on Tuesday said they had broken up a plot by two men linked to Iran’s security agencies to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. One was arrested last month while the other was believed to be in Iran.

Iran called the accusations a fabrication designed to hurt its relations with its neighbors .

The U.S. Treasury Department said it was weighing more sanctions against Iran’s central bank to tighten the financial screws and deepen the country’s estrangement from the international financial community.

Obama came to office in 2009 promising to seek diplomatic engagement with Iran.

But his outreach failed to halt Iran’s nuclear advances and he has instead spearheaded several packages of international sanctions. The plot raises tensions to a new level between the Obama administration and Iran, which says its nuclear work is peaceful and aimed at generating electricity.

Obama told reporters during a news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak the United State would continue “to apply the toughest sanctions and continue to mobilize the international community to make sure that Iran is further and further isolated and pays a price for this kind of behavior.”

“Now, we don’t take any options off the table in terms of how we operate with Iran, but what you can expect is that we will continue to apply the sorts of pressure that will have a direct impact on the Iranian government until it makes a better choice in terms of how it’s going to interact with the rest of the international community,” Obama said.

‘RULES OF THE ROADS’

U.S. financial institutions are already generally banned from doing business with any bank in Iran, including the central bank. But the U.S. Treasury said more action, if it had international support, could further isolate the institution.

The White House has persistently sought to highlight the disparity between Iran’s support for popular uprisings against other autocratic regimes in the region and its brutal treatment of protesters at home, and Obama repeated this message.

“We will continue to work to see how we can bring about a Iranian government that is actually responsive to its people but also following the rules of the roads that other countries and the international community follow,” he said.

Iran denied the charges and expressed outrage at the accusations.

“We hold them (Iran) accountable for any action they take against us,” Prince Saud said in Vienna, where he was discussing opening a religious dialogue center. “Any action they take against us will have a measured response from Saudi Arabia.”

“The goal is pretty clear — they want to throw up problems, break good relations and foster instability in international relations,” he added. “It hurts us very much. Iran is one of our neighbors, it is an Islamic land, and we had never thought that Iran could take such a step and plan such an attack.”

Asked what actions Saudi Arabia might take, he said: “We have to wait and see.”

Iran meanwhile painted the accusation as a plot to create rifts between the two Middle East powers.

“We have no problem with Saudi Arabia. … Though our interpretation of regional developments are different … I hope Saudis are aware of the fact that our enemies do not want us to have convergence and cooperation,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told state radio on Thursday.

Some Iran experts were skeptical about the plot, saying they could not see the motive for such an assassination. Iran has in the past killed its own dissidents abroad, but an attempt to target an ambassador of another country would be a highly unusual departure.

Iran said the allegations threaten stability in the Gulf — where Saudi Arabia and Iran, the biggest regional powers, are fierce rivals and Washington has a huge military presence.

Russia, which built a nuclear power plant for Iran, expressed concern over reports of the alleged plot.

The reports “have been treated with concern in Moscow,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement late on Wednesday.

Russia has used pressure on Iran as a diplomatic tool in its relations with Washington, which have improved in recent years.

Relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran soured after the 1979 revolution that brought Shiite Muslim clerics to power on the other side of the Gulf. Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi’ite Iran consider themselves protectors of Islam’s two main rival sects.

The rift sharpened this year after Saudi Arabia deployed troops to the Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain to crush a Shi’ite-led uprising there.

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell, Angus McDowall and Sylvia Westall; Editing by Will Dunham)

- Reuters

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The World Calls On Anna For Leadership

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After successfully persuading the Government for a strong Lokpal bill, the Anti-graft Gandhian crusader Anna Hazare has not only become popular in India, but has also won millions of hearts abroad.

Anna Hazare

A two-member delegation from Pakistan called on Anna at his Ralegaon Siddhi home. The delegation comprised retired Pakistan Supreme Court Judge Nasir Alam Zahid and Karamat Ali, the Director of Pakistan Institute for Labor. The high profile visitors sought Anna’s “guidance and opinion” on commencing a similar movement in Pakistan to unite people against anti-corruption.

Speaking to PTI, Anna said, “The delegation told me that their country is facing a problem similar to that in India. Neighboring countries must join hands to fight corruption. In fact measures are needed to reduce corruption across the world.” The delegation also urged Anna not to limit his anti-corruption crusade to India, but extend it to all over South Asia. “The delegation has invited me to Pakistan. I will travel there when I am fit and get time from my schedule,” Anna said.

Delegate

One of the delegates, Karamat, meanwhile stated that they honored Anna Hazare for the steps he had taken to wipe out corruption in India. Like India, Pakistan is also beset with corruption, he noted. Karamat also added that they didn’t have the likes of Anna Hazare in their country, and they wanted him to visit Pakistan to propel people to fight against corrupt practices of the government there. They wanted Anna to guide them in fighting corruption. Inspired by Hazare, an Islamabad-based businessman is already on a hunger fast against graft, from September 12, Karamat revealed.

Leave alone Asia and the sub-continent, the influence of Anna has begun to echo globally. The U.S. President Barack Obama admired the efforts being taken in Indian villages to empower citizens and promote transparency in governance. Speaking at a global forum aimed at supporting transparency and fighting corruption, he said, “From Tanzania to Indonesia, and as I saw first hand during my visit to India, villages are organizing and making their voices heard, and getting the public services that they need.” Obama favored a similar movement in U.S.

Obama

Meanwhile, Anna’s strong determination has forced many a politicians to bend to their views. Congress MP and spokesperson Manish Tewari tendered a written apology to Anna Hazare, saying he regretted his remarks accusing the anti-corruption crusader of indulging in corruption. Tewari’s apology comes two weeks after a legal defamation notice was slapped against him on September 8. Copies of the written apology were sent to Anna and his lawyer Milind Pawar.

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10 Possible Changes In The World After The Death Of Osama Bin Laden

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Is it really a full stop to 10 year of unremitting manhunt of Osama bin Laden? What is the possible reaction of different elements of the world on this? Will the world be able to live in peace now? Does the death of Al-Qaeda leader mark an end to all the fiasco which is occurring in the world currently?. These are the possible questions which I am sure will be roaming about in every one’s mind now. Osama was killed as a repercussion of a successful joint-operation of Pakistan and USA in Abbottabad. It was no doubt a result of effective and pragmatic intelligence information that enabled this long sought target to be killed. Barrack Obama has officially confirmed the news and different leaders from world over have also commented on this. They term this a success of the Allied forces and praised their remarkable performance.
Guys, this event just came out of blue for everyone and God knows what awaits for this world at the far end corner of the tunnel. But I would like to tell you some possible implications of this scenario.

osama is dead 10 Possible Changes In The World After The Death Of Osama Bin Laden

10. CHANGE OF PLANS

Tehrik-e-Taliban spokesman said that their primary target has changed now from USA to Pakistan. To be precise, they said that the Pakistan army, President Asif Ali Zardari and other key personnel are their main target now. Was this the outcome Pakistan was looking for?

9. WASHINGTON AND ISLAMABAD

USA has been claiming repeatedly that Osama bin Laden is somewhere in Pakistan but the Pakistani officialdom has denied this fact. Ah! It was a city of Pakistani where the Al-Qaeda leader has been killed recently. What do you have to tell now Mr.Zardari ? This will obviously affect the already vitiating Pak-US relation and will it be a positive impact or negative is yet to be seen.

8. WORLD STOCK MARKET

It has been a long time since the world stock markets have taken a nosedive and the situation is constantly declining. Many analysts attribute this plummeting situation to the overall terrorism which has covered the globe like a thick cloud. But now that the symbol of terrorism is no more in existence, stock market will show a very positive trend and will gain investor’s confidence to a much greater extent. It is time to see the green upward arrows against each stock! Do you have any?

7. THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS

This event has proved to be a double treat for the American President Obama as it is going to uphold his image in the upcoming elections in front of the public. It is a investment of Obama in the 2012 elections and has earned a great popularity for Barrack Obama. Congratulations Mr.Obama and keep up the good job!

6. DRONE STRIKES

No clear view can be established regarding this issue as it is still very debatable and ambiguous issue for both Pakistan and USA. Pakistan claims that it is against the sovereignty of the country to allow the USA drone attacks to infiltrate the Pakistan border and bombard a area without any restrictions. On the other hand, USA may now claim that it is due to these drone strikes that Bin laden has been identified and ultimately killed in an operation. The drone strikes have fuelled many anti-American sentiments in the general public of Pakistan. Let us see which direction it takes

5. A BIG QUESTION MARK FOR JIHADIS

What are they going to do now when their so revered and effective leader is no longer alive and in between them to guide them? Do they need to hold on for some time or they should continue with their activities and immediately choose a new leader for themselves? Let us leave this to be decided by they themselves.

4. IS IT JUST THE TRIBAL REGION OR SOMETHING MORE…?

Yes guys, USA has a strong argument to start operations within the country because as they found and killed the Al-Qaeda leader Bin laden in Abbottabad, a city of Pakistan, then there must be some other important figures somewhere inside the country. What is ISI going to do now? What should be the policy towards America should be now?

3. TIME TO GO HOME FINALLY!

I think it is a valid justification for the American troops to exit Afghanistan and mark this historic event as the end of the long lasted war in Afghanistan. Now Obama should be considering about the exit strategy seriously and they are now victorious warriors and not any exhaustive group of troops who have left the battlefield in the middle of nothing. The national heroes must be planning to meet their loved ones back at their country. It is party time!

2. FUTURE OF PAKISTAN

What can be possibly predicted about this? This can have either effect on the terrorist groups. It can be that their main leader has lost his life in a very abrupt situation and they have lost their morale and motivation to plan any further terrorist activities or it can be that they are blood-thirsty now and want revenge of their leader, But from WHOM? Is it USA or if I am not wrong is it Pakistan? Are the people of Pakistan safer or have been plunged into more danger?

1. Is Al-Awlaki the next Bin Laden?

It is a wakeup call for the world. This time it is Al-Awlaki who is fomenting the air of terror and intends to be the replacement of Bin laden. He has the ability to plan on various terrorist attacks and is a new emerging threat to the Allied forces. Do we have any strategy for this man? If not, then we should think fast because we may be running out of time before any big attack from their side. May be a life of some innocent is in danger…

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Obama’s $447 billion reelection plan

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Screenshot of Recovery.gov, which went live af...

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There’s been much speculation that President Barack Obama will spend $1 billion to get reelected. Turns out those guesses were off by $446 billion.

What Americans heard last night was a $447 billion political plan, not an economic one. It’s purpose was to a) fire up the demoralized Democratic base and b) show independents that Obama is trying to do something – anything – to reduce unemployment, not just slash needed “investment” like those heartless, pro-austerity Republicans.

Now all the usual suspects will claim the American Jobs Act will create more growth and more jobs through $250 billion in temporary payroll tax cuts and $200 billion in infrastructure spending, unemployment benefits and aid to state and local government.

Take Moody’s economist Mark Zandi, a favorite of the White House and congressional Democrats. Zandi’s research says the original $800 billion Obama stimulus created or saved some 2-3 million jobs. And he likes Stimulus 2.0 just as much. He claims it would “add two percentage points to GDP growth next year, add 1.9 million jobs, and cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point.”

Really? Seriously?

1) Of course, such analysis is based on garbage in, garbage out, Keynesian economic models. The results were already baked into the cake.  Better to see what actually happened as gleaned from government statistics. In a recent paper, Stanford University economist John Taylor simply looked at whether, as a result of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, consumers actually consumed and whether government actually spent in a way that produced real growth and jobs. Turns out, they didn’t:

Individuals and families largely saved the transfers and tax rebates. The federal government increased purchases, but by only an immaterial amount. State and local governments used the stimulus grants to reduce their net borrowing (largely by acquiring more financial assets) rather than to increase expenditures, and they shifted expenditures away from purchases toward transfers. Some argue that the economy would have been worse off without these stimulus packages, but the results do not support that view.

2) Economists from George Mason University also looked at the real-world results of  the ARRA by surveying employers. Their findings:

Hiring isn’t the same as net job creation. In our survey, just 42.1 percent of the workers hired at ARRA-receiving organizations after January 31, 2009, were unemployed at the time they were hired. More were hired directly from other organizations (47.3 percent of post-ARRA workers), while a handful came from school (6.5%) or from outside the labor force (4.1%). Thus, there was an almost even split between “job creating” and “job switching.” This suggests just how hard it is for Keynesian job creation to work in a modern, expertise-based economy: even in a weak economy, organizations hired the employed about as often as the unemployed.

3) And let’s not forget what Milton Friedman might have to say about this sort of deal, which gets to the heart of why Keynesian stimulus doesn’t work (via Wikipedia):

The permanent income hypothesis (PIH) is a theory of consumption that was developed by the American economist Milton Friedman. In its simplest form, the hypothesis states that the choices made by consumers regarding their consumption patterns are determined not by current income but by their longer-term income expectations. The key conclusion of this theory is that transitory, short-term changes in income have little effect on consumer spending behavior.

Team Obama thinks the whole package could boost growth by two percentage points. But the  infrastructure spending and unemployment benefits will be a tougher sell. Republicans may well substitute their own stimulus ideas for those items so that the package ends up composed entirely of tax cuts.

The most likely addition is a temporary reduction in the taxes on foreign earnings brought back to the U.S. by its multinational corporations. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates such a tax holiday could boost growth by a full percentage point next year. White House economists criticize idea as providing too little bang for the buck, but it could be the price for getting a deal. But an agreement can get probably get done, which would enhance perception of Obama as a leader and boost his approval ratings. Just don’t expect it to do much for America’s sputtering economic recovery.

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