*michael parekh on IT*

ON GOD MAKING A COMEBACK

BIGGER THAN EVER

"God is Back" has got to be one of the best titles ever for a new book.  The review of the book by the New York Times promises more between the covers as well:

"Not all that long ago, the great minds of Europe predicted a future with little or no religion. Science would make us highly skeptical of miracles. Psychiatry would direct all of our awe and wonder inward. Changing roles for women would weaken the patriarchal structure that props up clerics. Whatever script for modernity one followed, it had God playing a bit role.

As we all know, it didn’t happen that way. Modernity arrived and improvised new starring roles for God. The Americans led the way by becoming both “the quintessentially modern country” and a very devout one, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge write in their new book, “God Is Back,” and most of the world has followed that model.

In rich countries and poorer ones, democratic and undemocratic, primarily Islamic and primarily Christian — everywhere, basically, except Europe — devotion to God has remained surprisingly robust.

“The very things that were supposed to destroy religion — democracy and markets, technology and reason — are combining to make it stronger,” write Mickle­thwait, editor in chief of The Economist, and Wooldridge, the magazine’s Washington bureau chief, who together have written previous books about globalization and American conservatism, two ­similarly sweeping topics."

Here's the bit that surprised me from the review:

"While fundamentalists of all kinds get most of the attention, the authors zero in on another phenomenon: the growth and global spread of the American megachurch. With no state-sanctioned religion, American churches began to operate like multinational corporations; pastors became “pastorpreneurs,” endlessly branding and expanding, treating the flock like customers and seeding franchises all over the world. The surge of religion was “driven by the same forces driving the success of market capitalism: competition and choice.”

Definitely a side of religious expansion that's not been in the mainstream view.  Just added "God is Back" to my Kindle reading list.

ON A NEW TAKE ON OLD FEARS

STUCK IN A RUT

Roger Cohen has an interesting op-ed in the New York Times today titled "Israel, Iran and Fear", where he makes some thought-provoking points about Israel:

"Uncertainty does not so much hang over the country as inhabit its very fiber.
Existential threats — from Iran, from Hamas and Hezbollah, from demography — are forever invoked. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses — for now — to support even the notion of Palestinian statehood..."
"As Gary Sick, the prominent Middle East scholar and author, suggested to me recently: “The biggest risk to Israel is Israel.”
"A core contradiction inhabits Israeli policy. While talking about a two-state solution — at least until Netanyahu redux — Israel has gone on building the West Bank settlements that render a peace agreement impossible by atomizing the 23 percent of the land theoretically destined for Palestine.

As Ehud Barak, now the defense minister, remarked in 1999: “Every attempt to keep hold of this area as one political entity leads, necessarily, to either a non-democratic or a non-Jewish state, because if the Palestinians vote, then it is a binational state, and if they don’t vote it is an apartheid state ...”

There are no easy solutions out of this well-known and understood rut.  Just pushing it along doesn't seem to point to a way forward any more.

ON NO MORE SHELTERED WEB

GOING, GOING...

As they say, all good things come to an end.  The thought comes to mind reading this pieced titled "WWW.Salestax.gov" in the New York Post:

"The days of buying online to avoid paying sales taxes may soon be over.

A bill is expected to be introduced to Congress this week that would force retailers like eBay and Amazon.com to start collecting sales taxes on behalf of states from people who shop online or through mail order.

It's not a new effort: Attempts to close the online tax "loophole" have been going on for at least a decade.

But supporters of the bill think Congress may finally give in to their demands because of their own pressure to lend support to financially battered state governments."

Remember when the Internet was still dewy fresh and exciting enough that the Federal government decided to do it's all to shelter and nourish it's growth by keeping all types of tax-hands off it?

It wasn't all that long ago.  Those indeed, were the days.

ON THE NO. 2 CONTRIBUTOR TO GLOBAL WARMING

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

The New York Times has a piece reminding us that developing nations also have significant contributions to make when it comes to dealing with global climate change.  It's not just on the shoulders of developed nations. 

The piece takes us thousands of miles away to India, visiting a village with barely any electricity or emission spewing automobiles:

"As women in ragged saris of a thousand hues bake bread and stew lentils in the early evening over fires fueled by twigs and dung, children cough from the dense smoke that fills their homes. Black grime coats the undersides of thatched roofs. At dawn, a brown cloud stretches over the landscape like a diaphanous dirty blanket.

In Kohlua, in central India, with no cars and little electricity, emissions of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas linked to global warming, are near zero. But soot — also known as black carbon — from tens of thousands of villages like this one in developing countries is emerging as a major and previously unappreciated source of global climate change.

While carbon dioxide may be the No. 1 contributor to rising global temperatures, scientists say, black carbon has emerged as an important No. 2, with recent studies estimating that it is responsible for 18 percent of the planet’s warming, compared with 40 percent for carbon dioxide. Decreasing black carbon emissions would be a relatively cheap way to significantly rein in global warming — especially in the short term, climate experts say. Replacing primitive cooking stoves with modern versions that emit far less soot could provide a much-needed stopgap, while nations struggle with the more difficult task of enacting programs and developing technologies to curb carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.

In fact, reducing black carbon is one of a number of relatively quick and simple climate fixes using existing technologies — often called “low hanging fruit” — that scientists say should be plucked immediately to avert the worst projected consequences of global warming."

What's surprising about all this is the next bit:

"But the awareness of black carbon’s role in climate change has come so recently that it was not even mentioned as a warming agent in the 2007 summary report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that pronounced the evidence for global warming to be “unequivocal.” Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of environmental engineering at Stanford, said that the fact that black carbon was not included in international climate efforts was “bizarre,” but “partly reflects how new the idea is.” The United Nations is trying to figure out how to include black carbon in climate change programs, as is the federal government."

The piece is worth reading in it's entirety, if only to understand better what the whole global village can and must do to deal with this problem together.

ON RAMPING UP RAIL

BACK TO THE FUTURE

America may get serious about high-speed rail again, given the perfect storm of events that now seem ready to propel a spate of rail investments around the country.  As the Wall Street Journal reports:

"President Barack Obama on Thursday called for spending at least $13 billion to launch a "new era" of high-speed passenger rail transportation, sparking competition among states and providing a potentially rich new market for rail equipment makers.

Besides allocating $8 billion in stimulus funds for high-speed rail, Mr. Obama said he would seek to budget $5 billion more over the next five years.

Sounding an ambitious theme akin to President Dwight Eisenhower's push for the interstate highway system, Mr. Obama spoke of "a new system of high-speed rail in America" that "will be faster, cheaper and easier than building more freeways or adding to an already overburdened aviation system." The interstate system contributed to the growth of the U.S. auto industry in the 1950s and, along with cheaper air travel, consigned passenger rail to third-class status in the U.S. transportation system."

So far so good, but that's the analogy only goes so far.  The highway system of course was far more extensive than the proposed rail systems.  Even the goal of emulating the high-speed rail systems in Europe will require far greater investment, as the article goes on to highlight:

"Building a high-speed rail network like the one in Western Europe would likely cost hundreds of billions of dollars, but Mr. Obama called the $13 billion effort "a first step."

And it'll take a few years to get rolling.  Hope they don't forget to equip the trains with broadband wireless.

ON RE-LEARNING LESSONS FROM COLUMBINE

FRESH EYES
The Wall Street Journal has a thoughtful piece in the wake of the tenth anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings.  Some background:

"The carnage at Columbine High on April 20, 1999, prompted a swift and aggressive response around the U.S.

Hundreds of millions of dollars flooded into schools after two seniors stalked the halls of Columbine in trench coats, killing 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide in the school library.

The money -- federal, state and local -- bought metal detectors, security cameras and elaborate emergency-response plans. It put 6,300 police officers on campuses and trained students to handle bullying and manage anger.

Ten years later, the money is drying up. The primary pot of federal grants has been cut by a third, a loss of $145 million. The Justice Department has scrapped the cops in schools program, once budgeted at $180 million a year. States are slashing spending, too, or allowing districts to buy textbooks with funds once set aside for security measures."

But here's the encouraging bit:

"But as those programs fall victim to funding shortfalls, some educators are asking whether they might be able to take up the slack not by spending more money, but by reforming school culture to nurture closer bonds between students and adults..."

""A lot of what we learned coming out of Columbine didn't [require] large sums of money," said William Modzeleski, who runs the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. "School safety is more than cameras, metal detectors and police officers."

The whole piece is worth reading on the lessons learned and apparently taken to heart.  Now if we only started to look for common sense lessons from the post-9/11 era of airport security.  Maybe we won't need to take off our shoes before boarding a flight in America...sometime in this life-time.

ON COSTA RICA'S ECO-ECONOMICS

HAVING IT ALL

Talk show host Chris Matthews has a regular section on his show where he asks the panelists of the day "Tell me something I don't know".  That question came to mind for me, as I read Thomas Friedman's latest op-ed on how Costa Rica is apparently balancing the conflicting demands of environmentalism and economic growth.  He elaborates:

"More than any nation I’ve ever visited, Costa Rica is insisting that economic growth and environmentalism work together. It has created a holistic strategy to think about growth, one that demands that everything gets counted..."

Admirable goal, something along the lines of wishing one could eat all the cheese-burgers one wants and lose weight.  But here's where he delivers something I didn't know:

"The process began in the 1990s when Costa Rica, which sits at the intersection of two continents and two oceans, came to fully appreciate its incredible bounty of biodiversity — and that its economic future lay in protecting it. So it did something no country has ever done: It put energy, environment, mines and water all under one minister.

“In Costa Rica, the minister of environment sets the policy for energy, mines, water and natural resources,” explained Carlos M. Rodríguez, who served in that post from 2002 to 2006. In most countries, he noted, “ministers of environment are marginalized.” They are viewed as people who try to lock things away, not as people who create value. Their job is to fight energy ministers who just want to drill for cheap oil.

But when Costa Rica put one minister in charge of energy and environment, “it created a very different way of thinking about how to solve problems,” said Rodríguez..."

Certainly an out-of-the box solution, and apparently has been executed on for a while now, as the piece goes on to explain .  Definitely something worth knowing at first glance.
*Image source.

ON A FOCUS ON ASIA

NEW BEGINNINGS

The Economist introduces a new column on Asia this week in an article titled "In the Shade of the Banyan Tree", with this background:

"SOME 165 years, 161 years and 114 years since its correspondents first filed reports respectively from Calcutta, Shanghai and Yokohama, The Economist this week launches a column on Asian affairs. We have taken a while, but is this not, after all, to be the Asian century? We think probably so..."

"the search for an Asian identity is growing. It forms the backdrop to the annual East Asia Summit, held this year in Thailand from April 10th, grouping the ten South-East Asian countries with not just their partners in China, Japan and South Korea but India, Australia and New Zealand as well. The powerful impulse for co-operation is materialism based on rapid economic development..."

Looks like the Economist will have a lot of material to work with for the new column.

Why the Banyan Tree? The piece goes on to explain:

"A dearth of pan-Asian images speaks volumes, but the banyan tree serves better than most, for it or similar trees are found somewhere in most Asian countries. The banyan spans Asia’s spirituality and its entrepreneurialism. The Bodhi tree, under which Buddha attained enlightenment, was a banyan by another name. Gujarati merchants conducted business under it, and the Portuguese lent their name, banyan, to the tree. It stuck."

"...An ancient connection exists between public business and the banyan tree, as between its huge overarching shade and its deep intertwining roots. In South-East Asia, and Java in particular, the shade was a place of learning and a site where rulers vowed justice. Those are Asian values to which Banyan will happily subscribe." 

As an Indian born kid, I remember going through a phase of sketching one Banyan tree after another.

So it seems appropriate as a title for this new experiment.  Here's to reading much more about Asia underneath this Banyan Tree.

ON HIGH NOON FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

HEAD WINDS

The Wall Street Journal reports on yet another thing we need to worry about in the medium to long-term:

"The number of Chinese and Middle Eastern students applying for fall admission to U.S. graduate programs surged, while applications from India and South Korea fell, according to a survey to be released Tuesday by the Council of Graduate Schools.

The council, which represents more than 500 higher-education institutions in the U.S. and Canada, said foreigners' applications for 2009 graduate-school admissions rose 4% from the year before. That compares with increases of 6% in 2008, 9% in 2007 and 12% in 2006. Foreigners' applications to doctoral programs rose 5%, but declined 17% for master's degrees."

Reasons for these trends include:

"The mixed results point to a meeting of new realities in the global economy: On the one hand, some countries have improved their educational systems to keep students closer to home or woo those from other countries who might have otherwise chosen the U.S. On the other, the global recession -- and some signs of resistance to employing immigrants in the U.S. -- means U.S. tuitions are increasingly out of reach for some, while others fear jobs won't be waiting for them upon graduation."

Why should we worry about this?

"Historically, U.S. graduate schools were the graduate schools for the world," said council president Debra W. Stewart. "Now, we cannot simply assume it's going to be a matter of turning on the spigot and the most talented people in the world will flow in." She and others in higher education say it is too soon to know the true effects of the financial crisis on higher education until enrollment numbers are available..."

"Other countries, such as the U.K., Australia and Canada, have enacted policies that make it easier for students to go from the classroom to the workplace without reapplying for a visa, said Ursula Oaks, a spokeswoman for the Association of International Educators. Meanwhile, amid a high unemployment rate, some U.S. government agencies and recent legislation are discouraging recruitment of foreign workers."

Just like the U.S. reigned supreme globally  in automobiles a few decades ago, we currently do the same in higher education.  But given the secular demographic and economic changes globally, we're going to actually have to compete in this arena going forward. 

Our politicians really need to understand the long-term implications and importance of these trends for our economic well-being.

* Image source.

ON SAFE NUKES AROUND THE WORLD

THINK REALLY DIFFERENT

For a minute I thought it was a belated April Fool's headline and so re-read it to make sure:

"Oil-Rich Arab State Push Nuclear Bid with U.S. Help"

But it's a real story, and goes on to explain:

"The mating of the words "nuclear" and "Persian Gulf" normally sets off alarm bells in Washington. Yet this oil-rich Arab state just across the gulf from Iran is on a crash course to develop nuclear power with U.S. backing. Dozens of American engineers, lawyers and businessmen have converged on Abu Dhabi in recent months to help the United Arab Emirates get the Arab world's first nuclear-power program running by 2017."

It's part of a larger initiative to promote "safer" nuclear proliferation around the world..."

"The U.A.E.'s push represents a test for nuclear-power advocates who want countries across the globe to go nuclear -- so long as they play by the rules. The U.S. and United Nations officials are championing the U.A.E. as a role model for other developing countries and as a counterexample to Iran..."

"...To build support, the U.A.E. is agreeing to buy approved nuclear fuel on the international market, rather than enriching uranium or reprocessing plutonium, both of which can be made into weapons-grade material. It will also open its facilities to random international inspections."

"...Both Saudi Arabia and Egypt have recently announced their desire to develop nuclear-power programs with U.S. assistance.

Western and Asian companies are already salivating at the chance for lucrative contracts with the U.A.E., which has set the end of April as the rough deadline for bids. General Electric Co. and Westinghouse Electric Co. are among the U.S. firms interested in the initial $20 billion in reactor work, say officials familiar with the bidding process. GE and Westinghouse declined to comment."

It could be a win-win approach that could be a terrific model to use around the world if it works.  But we sure picked a non-intuitive place to start.