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A report from MIT (massachusetts institute of technology) released yesterday, and available on their website says,

...aircraft pollution above North America and Europe -- where air travel is heaviest -- adversely impacts air quality in India and China. That is, even though the amount of fuel burned by aircraft over India and China accounts for only 10 percent of the estimated total amount of fuel burned by aircraft across the globe, the two countries incur nearly half -- about 3,500 -- of the annual deaths related to aircraft cruise emissions. The analysis also revealed that although every country in the Northern Hemisphere experienced some number of fatalities related to these emissions, almost none of the countries in the Southern Hemisphere had fatalities.

This report is possibly yet to be reported on Indian newspapers.

A popular online magazine FastCompany, on its website says,

... perhaps everyone involved should spend more time researching low-emissions biofuels for future flights...

The breaking news in India in the past week is that Mr.Suresh Kalmadi, the chairman of the Commonwealth games India 2010 organizing comittee has some secrets that the entire Nation wants to know.

Looks like Mr.Kalmadi took the CommonWealth games in both letter and spirit.. and has assumed that all wealth that the country puts into the games is also his wealth and he can manage it alongwith his colleagues. His colleagues who are in the ministry.

All that has to happen now is not that the entire nation grow alarmingly hot on the issue and break Mr.Kalmadi into pieces.. but somebody having the smallest courtesy in explaining Mr.Kalmadi that CommonWealth doesn't mean its his wealth and he can keep some of it for himself. That would be helpful in correcting the problem I guess. What Say!

Google is an inspiring company.. no doubt..

If you are a techy, especially ones who love developing web applications, and are amazed by how maps.google.com works and all.. you..

should

try

the wave.

It is a new thing Google is going to launch - this year end.

What does it do? Stuff you *should* see for yourself.

http://wave.google.com/ - see the demo there. .

For non-techys too, the demo in the above link will be interesting.. but if you have a skill of ignoring selective words spoken to you.. the tech words that the presenters use.

You would have heard about the recent restrictions that US government is putting on outsourcing services and export trade for other countries.. majorly affecting Indian and Chinese interests in the US market.

I subscribe to a newsletter from a non-government, non-profit 'National US INDIA chamber of commerce', which reports 'clear-and-accounted' lobbying of some Indian companies in the US for easing US stand on its restrictions..

India Inc paying millions on lobbying in U.S.

Wednesday,6th May 2009

Washington: Indian companies, including top corporate entity RIL and industry body Nasscom, are paying thousands of dollars on lobbying with lawmakers and government departments in the U.S. on issues ranging from immigrant visas to bilateral trade and individual business ventures.

Four Indian entities - Reliance Industries, Nasscom, Sun Pharma and Orchid Chemicals - have together paid close to $2,75,000 (about Rs 1.4 crore) towards lobbying their causes during the first three months of 2009, says the disclosure reports filed by lobbyists firms with the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Out of this, RIL has paid $1,90,000 to BGR Holding, a high-profile lobbyist group that has many Fortune 500 firms and foreign governments as its clients, for providing 'strategic counsel on issues related to trade.'

Incidentally, the U.S. Congress and House of Representatives are currently considering new legislations to penalize companies that supply petroleum products to Iran, which includes RIL. The penalty could include a ban from doing business in the U.S. Besides, Nasscom has paid $70,000 to the same lobbyist, BGR, in the first quarter of 2009 for lobbying on international technology and immigration issues.

Indian software industry has reacted sharply to the recent moves by the U.S. administration to put curbs on H1-B visas, a skilled foreign worker visa that have largely been given to Indian IT professionals in the past.

While the payment made by Sun Pharma in Q1 2009 is below $5,000, Orchid Chemicals has paid $10,000 for lobbying on issues related to the U.S. drug regulator FDA's policies. Sun Pharma's lobbying issues have been related to the citizens' petitions and FDA reforms. While there are no past disclosures about RIL's lobbying attempts, Nasscom, Sun Pharma and Orchid have been quite active on this front in the past.

Purnima Voria, Founder/CEO
National US India Chamber of Commerce (NUICC)

My take:

US 's recent restrictions on trade is more so like war-time Restrictions / Sanctions which could have very serious reverberating summary effect on the industries.. especially in India, because India's software industry and general economy itself is very much dependent on business with the US.

While US is doing this as a economy-saving measure for themselves, they are actually making it worser for them without realizing it, because these restrictions would mean many US industries or products built there will be more costly than in recent past, though there will be advantage that unemployment problems in US will get a breathing, and also US people will grow more mature to have competitive salaries in their jobs and more drive to make cheaper products or services.. rather than thinking cheaper always means outsourcing or allowing the markets to import.

An important thing of Note about US: I don't know How and Why the US legalises things like Lobbying the senate and lawmakers, spending billions for election campaign taking money through donor companies/industries itself, and all..

If bribing a senator to help work on a law is accounted as legal as 'Lobbying' or such people as 'Lobbyists', accounting those costs, then it is like just running a Casino.. not a government I think.

Also, if companies/industries can donate huge sums legally (after paying taxes) to the republicans or democrats, and if the parties can spend any amount for election campaigns, then I think they are just making all their hard earned money flow into forming a government which will then run the casino.. and all politicians and lobbyists make lot of money, and people make "nothing".. all this legal.

It is typically a routing that politicians in america have created over the years to bring all the money to their coppers.

There are presidential campaign reported expenditure websites and accounted statements online, which have something like 20-60 billion US$ being spent by the ruling party's next presidential campaign. That is a horrifying canal route bleeding every American's pocket to make that sum. The capitalist organizations bleed the people by over-pricing their products, then donate it to presidential campaign funds. .. This happens in every country.. but then, it will only be a few hundred millions.. not any close to the figures that americans pay to their president and his people.

First Americans have to correct all this, rather than stupidly thinking that buying services from India / China is costing them their economy. Buying from these countries could only make their economy stronger because of cheaper costs.. Is it real that they don't understand that ?, and they still believe all their president's and governments words about where all the money has gone ?..

I can't believe I missed the news on this.. Tata Nano the people's car.. had a people's car type launch, mostly because everybody of Auto industry turned out to be critics of the dream of Ratan Tata.

Ratan Tata has done a show to launch the car, on 10th of this month in Delhi.. Some videos of this are posted on youtube.com here

p.s. You may not be able to view the video already from youtube because either youtube.com has deleted it, for copyright reasons or for avoiding too many hits. I was able to view two parts of the video, but the 3rd returned a 'sorry' message from youtube

More than the car, I was worried about the inspiring, but aeging Ratan Tata.. he definitely seemed unhealthy and I-may-fall-anytime kind of postures during the entire show at the launch. Bless him well.. and here are some pics.

Though probably this will be my first auto-review post.. I am so encouraged to type my opinion of Nano if you care, I guess Nano will have a slow start.. and might take an year or two to have expected kind of boom in numbers in sales.. because of the friction every innovative product has in india (remember indians are a demanding audience).. How big a success and revolution Maruthi 800 created when it was launched and for so many years later that.. is something we all know... so we can expect a repeat of that kind of history very very much with nano.

The car, to be honest, to keep away my or even your critical / sceptic thoughts about it.. in comparison to cars and their costs like a Maruthi or Hyundai or Ford ones... nano looks good, affordable, as safe and economic as a Maruthi or Hyundai or Ford is. Not bad or sceptic at all like we careful, demanding indians critic about.

Another thing I observed on the launch function was, almost all employees of Ratan Tata seem to share a fright to get near him or be near him, probably not fear but having worked for him, they know the bigness of him and respect him so. Anyways, nice to see a dream indian project completed, that too when the whole world challenged that it is not possible.. I remember how somebody said from some country they are going to make a $100 laptop, and never were able to keep the promise.

I am going to remember the last photo above.. Tata with the Nano like a pet by his side.. look at the size of them.. cute little creature it is.