March 2005 Archives

Yes, asia is slowly surrendering to it.. its fast spreading. Even faster than SARS, and even deadlier. The world is caught up with infrastructure fever.

Every business, every enterpreneur, every employed individual, is thinking about acquiring land, buildings, apartments, or some extra space than what they have got.

Its fast catching up in China, india, and almost all asian countries.

In Chennai, India
I used to see ads in the paper for buyers .. for buying finished buildings or under-construction spaces, or posh commercial complexes.

But this week i saw something different.. lots of ads on paper requiring land for construction in chennai.. every popular building promoter and construction company advertized requesting land owners/ old building owners to react, promising more-than expected money, without a condition, if neccessary "will pay in cash" was the word.

That's huge demand... That's when you start begging, and will surrender more than it deserves.

What triggered the demand?

So much Money around...
Chennai is now filled with money makers..business has been good and growing multi-fold last year, and already this year. I thought it was just software, but every business was thriving in demand. People got more money, well-paid salaries, growing businesses, and good demand for good products.

Though... surprisingly, prices have not been increasing because of the demand(except for real-estate).. thats good. it helps the demand survive longer.

Theres more money inflow.. flowing into chennai, by way of more people migrating into the city. More businesses are establishing their branches here overwhelmed by the growth.

So many people needing more space...
More people are migrating into chennai, 99% of them on job transfers and because their business spread. This catapulted by lower infrastructure interest rates about 6-9%(not very low compared to many countries offering loans at 2-3%), has had everyone think real-estate. More money in hand always tempts. People are buying houses for their own, businesses are buying huge amounts of land for constructing their offices. Businesses already having good offices in chennai, are also getting on the bus and expanding business spread with new office spaces.

"Growth needs space"
As things grow, they eat up more space.. or only when theres more space, can something in it grow bigger.

Minds need more space to think better and manage bigger, growing businesses. People need more living space to fit their family and everyone in, and still have space to stretch.

The infrastructure fever is got to make asian countries bigger and better developed. The western countries had this fever a long time back, while asians were very resistant to growth and lived with the what was available.

Now that, western countries find a space crunch, and their spaces are almost saturated, they are getting their investments flowing into us...countries like india and china. This money shifts hands as bigger salaries, bigger costs on products, and make way to indian pockets.

Labour costs and infrastructure development costs are low in asia compared to the western reality. So, this investment is getting the western countries their due of business, more work outsourced and completed cheaper. So they are not minding losing the money to indian pockets.. for sometime.. till they start getting their ROI.

While its a win-win both sides, its always the investor who takes back the bigger pie. It might be different with Asia though.

Asians, having deprived for a long time of learning good business, and earning bigger salaries, will find it easier to work the demands of these investors, earn higher, and very importantly learn the job better than the investor.

In Asia, growth needed space.. but was not feasible so long... now, we will witness asia grow as bigger as its size in comparison to size of other continents... literally.

Today's blog is about pakistan. Why? For many reasons.

Its a complexly built nation. Atleast thats how the rest of the world see it. It joins the league of muslim nations like Iran, Afganisthan, and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan does share the reputation that generally muslim nations have, on affairs related to Terrorism.

Being an Indian myself, I am more tempted to see pakistan as a threat rather than a neighbour of India. And as you might have heard of these problems India and Pakistan have on kashmir, on ethics of each other's core religious population and the likes, India politically would rate pakistan more on the Threat side than the Friend side of the scale.

With this writing, I am not trying to bridge any gaps between India and pakistan. Neither do I sympathise for the people of that country, because they dont need my sympathy.

Pakistan is a matured muslim country. Its people are a tolerant lot. Its economy slightly weaker than some of its neighbours. Its businesses are of comparable quality. Its technology leadership levels.. notable (for every now and then one of my friends or the other reminds me that the first computer virus was written in pakistan in those days).

Against popular belief, people of pakistan, are workable with, and make good pals.

Just because somebody is tolerant and because they arent able to do anything faster about the terrorist outfits operating from there, it doesnt mean they support terrorism.

Also, however these people are grouped, I don't think even a handful of them would support a motion of considering pakistanis alone the population of the world... ...while, there may be some countries where quite a lot of people openly say that they are the world.

Of Pakistani Software
Ah.. The world is smaller.. said somebody.. how true.. you wouldnt agree less if i said theres only one kind of people in this world who link and communicate together away from their country's politics, their religious beliefs, their agreements-disagreements, .. yep and that's people who use computers regularly.

Pakistan is working hard to make up its software majors big enough to compete the biggies of software. The pakistan software industry's representative body is P@sha.
Leading software companies include,
— Network Solutions (Netsol) (Founded in 1998 in Lahore). Listed in NASDAQ since June 2000
— Align Technologies (Founded in 1997, based in Lahore). Listed in NASDAQ since August 2000

Chief attraction: No Income tax on IT exports until the year 2015

Of Pakistan - People & Places
Maps- http://www.multimap.com/index/PK.htm
Tourist info- http://www.tourism.gov.pk/ Useful Links by bizbrowse
News- Dawn - Pakistani english newspaper

Pakistan Photos
Kenzemach pakistan photos - A very interesting link, especially 'Assorted photos' in this site.
Great mirror - photos
TrekEarth -Print quality photographs
PeterLanger - claims to have over 4000 photos of pakistan

This blog entry -Photo courtesy : TrekEarth PeterLanger

As for Saddam Hussein, We really dont know where he is. As last heard, he is being kept in a secret secured prison in the US and is well taken care-of. Taken care in such a manner that he doesnt have any contacts with the outside world, especially he is stripped of any media. He cant read any newspaper, or watch Television or hear Radio.

But Recently, saddam has got into one of John Grisham's novels.. "The Tyrant".

The Tyrant
These are brief reviews of the book. (As seen on brokenewz.com)
"Mesmerizing... with an authority and originality... and with a grasp of literary complexity that makes Gulf War I by comparison -- Grisham returns." -- San Francisco Chronicle.

"Compelling... Powerful... The Tyrant will make readers think long and hard about invading other countries who we think are bad, and probably are, but not really sure, so we go and find out they are sorta bad, so it really probably was the right thing……right?" -- USA Today.

"His best yet." -- The Houston Post.

Saddam's men to be tried next month
News is that sometime around next month five of Saddam's loyal men are going to be tried on a case of mass execution. While it has not been pointed out that saddam will be questioned on this case, there is a chance that he gets out there in the courtroom and the media might get a snap of him...because this case indirectly links him. Not just because the men being tried are his loyals, but the killings happened when an assasination attempt on saddam was made.

An U.S. Embassy official in Baghdad described the course of events that led to the mass executions more than two decades ago. On July 8, 1982, Saddam was passing through the agricultural town of Dajil, Iraq, near Balad, when an unsuccessful assassination attempt was launched against him.

Although the evidence demonstrates that the attempt was "a crime of opportunity where a few people attempted to fire at Saddam Hussein," the official said the backlash was "devastating" and targeted the entire village. Saddam's men executed some 143 men on charges of being members of the outlawed Dawa party. In addition, they incarcerated an estimated 1,500 residents for up to four years without charges, destroyed many of their homes, and stripped the surrounding land so it could no longer be used for farming.

The irony is here : (Throughout the trial,) "innocence is presumed," the official said.

Iraqi Judge on Saddam Hussein Case, and his Lawyer brother Assassinated - March 1, 05
( as read on: periodico26.cu)
Baghdad, March 2 (RHC)-- An Iraqi judge on the special tribunal that will put former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and several of his associates on trial was assassinated Tuesday night in Baghdad. According to media reports on Wednesday, unidentified gunmen shot Barawiz Mahmoud in front of his house in northern Baghdad's Azamyiah district on Tuesday. His brother Aryan, a lawyer with the tribunal, was also killed.

Judges on the special tribunal were never identified in public for security concerns, and Mahmoud's role on the tribunal was never made clear, but the law establishing it called for up to 20 investigative judges and up to 20 prosecutors.

The judge's assassination came as hundreds of Iraqis rallied in the town of Hilla on Tuesday, demanding better security measures and accusing local police of failing to prevent a massive car-bomb explosion that killed 115 people on Monday.

As for Iraq, the country is going through a very difficult time of installing democracy. They had the elections where traditional shia muslims got a clear majority to form the government. The victory of Shia's isn't giving the right signs to the Rest-of-the-World who are expecting Iraq grow into a responsible democratic nation.

But this may be the only thing close to an acceptable government formation because Iraqis will not accept governance by anybody other than the shia's. They can trust only the shia's because most of the Iraqis haven't understood the rest of the world for the way saddam ruled the country, and so wont trust anyone other than men from their own community.

And the security condition in the country is getting such worser that, everyday Iraqi people are being killed, torn to pieces, bursted like crackers on the streets of iraq through car bombs, and other explosions. The explosions are in a way protests made by people who can't understand democracy and who are probably "misled and misused" by arrogant, power-hungry terrorist bosses and honchos in Iraq.

And when will this killings stop?

...Only when these guys use up all their ammunition and weapons stocks which they accumulated over the years of saddam's rule.

As for my opinion,
Democracy is a process and trying to install it at a shot has its consequences like we have seen so far in Iraq.

A little slower means of silencing the guns and bringing down saddam could have been implemented, with the people power and the military power of the United Nations.

Other than being serious about the support of the US and UK leaders, The United Nations should have been more serious about the fact that if a war happens it will kill more innocent people(for they don't hide or watch out well) than the targets. Killing of the innocents have brought up new forces of protest to the system.