by the meltingpot: Lost 10 days

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Indeed, what is at work in the recent return of realism is the revenge of geography in the most old-fashioned sense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, before the arrival of political science as an academic specialty, geography was an honored, if not always formalized, discipline in which politics, culture, and economics were often conceived of in reference to the relief map. Thus, in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, mountains and the men who grow out of them were the first order of reality; ideas, however uplifting, were only the second.
And yet, to embrace geography is not to accept it as an implacable force against which humankind is powerless. Rather, it serves to qualify human freedom and choice with a modest acceptance of fate. This is all the more important today, because rather than eliminating the relevance of geography, globalization is reinforcing it. Mass communications and economic integration are weakening many states, exposing a Hobbesian world of small, fractious regions. Within them, local, ethnic, and religious sources of identity are reasserting themselves, and because they are anchored to specific terrains, they are best explained by reference to geography. Like the faults that determine earthquakes, the political future will be defined by conflict and instability with a similar geographic logic. The upheaval spawned by the ongoing economic crisis is increasing the relevance of geography even further, by weakening social orders and other creations of humankind, leaving the natural frontiers of the globe as the only restraint.
So we, too, need to return to the map, and particularly to what I call the “shatter zones” of Eurasia. We need to reclaim those thinkers who knew the landscape best. And we need to update their theories for the revenge of geography in our time.
Here is the link for the whole write up.

Now at 2nd place

My view is that relations between countries in the coming decades are most likely to reflect their cultural commitments, their cultural ties and antagonism with other countries rather than other factors. Quite obviously, power will continue to play a central role in global politics, as it always does. But usually there is something else behind conflicts. In the 18th century in Europe, the issues to a large extent involved questions of monarchy versus the emerging republican movements, first in America and then in France. In the 19th century, it involved states identifying themselves through nationalism. In the 20th century, ideology came to the fore, largely, but not exclusively, as a result of the Russian Revolution. We had fascism, communism and liberal democracy competing with each other. Well, that’s pretty much over. Liberal democracy has come to be accepted, in theory at least, around the world, if not always in practice. So the question really is what will be the central focus of global politics in the coming decades? My argument remains that cultural identities, antagonisms and affiliations will not only play a role, but play a major role in relations between states. The full interview is here.

This is the 3rd

Every citizen in the City of Richardson will be able to access 756 Kbps of internet connectivity for free, from anywhere in the city. They will be able to access the internet from their homes, schools, restaurants and parks using standard wi-fi connections which are now installed on almost every notebook computer. That is almost as fast as many so-called high speed broadband connections that one pays dearly for today, and several times faster than the various hotspots at your local coffee shops. And I should note that the tax-payers of the City of Richardson are not paying one penny for this, and in fact are going to see additional revenues as a benefit. ... At the beginning of this letter, I suggested that this would be one of the fastest worldwide rollouts of a technology ever seen. It was just 20 years ago that the first cellular systems were being built. The rollout for mesh wireless systems is going to make that look slow. There are several reasons I make this assertion. But they all center on the facts that installing mesh systems will be cheaper and easier than any previous system and the economics in both the developed and especially the developing world will be so radically compelling. Throw in the fact the any astute politician will want to be at the front of this parade (They will all want to say, "I was the man who helped bring free internet to everyone!") and the groundwork is laid for rapid deployment. In Richardson and elsewhere, MeshLinx is offering the basic infrastructure for free. This avoids all the time consuming, political budget battles in the cities. When a service is offered for free, much of the mandated competitive process is eliminated. Next is the low cost of installation of the system. As noted above, Richardson is a city of roughly 100,000 people living in 27.4 square miles. It will "only" cost about $2,000,000 today to lay the wireless blanket I mentioned above. It will cost a great deal less in the future, as MeshLinx is building the pods at a pace of 100 a month today. The maximum output of the US pilot assembly line is 500 a month. When the demand exceeds this (and it will in a very short time) discussions have been held to move volume production to China. Of course, the world will need tens of millions of pods. The cost for a pod will be a fraction of today's cost, with that installation number for a city like Richardson soon being half (or less) the cost of today. What does that $1 or 2 million get you? The infrastructure to be an internet connection, telephone, security, entertainment provider and a whole lot more company. As noted, it will get cheaper as the number of pods being made each month rises, thus lowering their costs dramatically. This technology does have scale. The cost of physically putting up a pod is not a large part of the equation, as you simply need to run a power line, attach a few bolts to a mount on the side of a building or light pole and then off to the next point. Think about the 40,000 homes and businesses in Richardson. If and (hopefully) over time when 10% decide to pay $50 a month for 10-20 Mbps high speed internet access you could see a revenue of $2.5 million a year just from internet access. Now add in all the other income possibilities (phone, entertainment, security and don't forget advertising revenue on the free service!). Think about your town or country. What would service like this be worth? If you are a small city that does not have high speed connections available, how many businesses that could bring jobs do not come your way because they need reliable communications for their work and their employees? If you are in a developing country, where internet access is difficult and expensive, it will open whole new vistas. Couple that with the various programs which want to give cheap laptops to kids in poor countries, and you could see significant social progress in a generation. Here is the link.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Lost 10 days

There was a sudden hailstorm in Imphal on the 1st day of this month and my phone was knocked out of service by it. I dutifully reported it to the phone company on the following day. But there were so many bandhs and holidays in between that I managed to remind the phone company of my complaint only on the 7th and their ‘linesmen’ visited me on the 9th. On the afternoon on the 9th, they checked my phone lines only upto the DP on the telephone pole on the opposite side of the street of my place. They found the lines ok on their DP and they simply went away without even meeting me! Most probably they reasoned the fault occurred on the lines within my own premises, which in turn, was supposed to be my responsibility.

I don’t know what DP stands for but it is the point on the public telephone poles from where the lines enter individual household. In another words, it is the point form where the ‘last mile’ part starts.

So, this afternoon, I climbed on the rooftops and made repairs to my phone lines! What a change it was!! But I got it done. Now my phone is working.

It is sad but I have already lost 10 days because of the inefficiencies of a phone company and the underdevelopment of a society.

In the meantime, so many things have happened.

For one thing, Manipur People’s Party is in the striking distance of forming the next government in Manipur. It is a very surprising political development here.

And here I should also take this opportunity to correct myself. In several of my earlier posts I said that it was the works of the rebels to resurrect the Manipur People’s Party and positioned it in the present state from where they are in the striking distance of grabbing power in the State. I was wrong in my assessment.

Now I think that there have been these ongoing swings in the public moods. And the rebels are either smarter than most of us or they have their ears closer to the ground that they quickly got winds of the ongoing swings of the public moods and try to capitalize on that. Resurrecting MPP by merging two other regional parties, Federal Party and DRPP was the first step in that direction. I think it was a smart move.

Now in every sense of the term, this election is already proving to be a watershed in the political history of Manipur. The rebels are deploying considerable resources to influence the voters so that MPP returned with a majority of the seats in the next Assembly. They are doing it indirectly but are using all the tricks in their bags. Their main strategy seems to be to slow down as many active Congress Party workers as possible. And right now there are mostly straight fight between the candidates of the MPP and the Congress candidates in most of the constituencies. So slowing down active Congress Party workers would mean empowering the MPP candidates. But the rebels are proving to be far too smart than they are usually credited for. They are deploying all these tricks so unobtrusively!

I’ll come more on these in the following days. But here I should not fail to mention that the hailstorm of the 1st have a remarkable effect on the electioneering, at least! The hailstorm brought drizzles to Imphal and it only subsided two days back. It was cold and wet and terribly depressing. So depressing that we could not find even a remote hint that there would be an election after 10 days—so completely quite!!

Even tonight, as I’m typing this, it is so quite in Imphal. It appears that most of the voters have already decided who would be the winners! We should try to be humble in front of the collective wisdom of the folks—the power of the crowd!!

by the meltingpot

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Now at 2nd place

This is the 3rd