by the meltingpot: Another point

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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, May 21, 2006

Another point

This ‘another point’ concerns a situation which is truly alarming in its implications. It’s about the school-going kids. Almost all of them (except for some minuscule percentage of kids whose parents have the time to bring them to schools) have to give finishing touches to their home works (which are carried over from the previous night), take a bath, get dressed and stand, with their heavy backpacks, on the roadsides waiting for their car pool. Their car pools, in turn, never have the time to wait for any kids who are not already standing there waiting.

All of these tasks have to be accomplished latest by 7.30-8.00 in the morning. Whatever a little amount of foods they can manage to put into little mouths, I suspect, serve only as the psychological props which are needed by their parents to think that their kids are indeed eating. Nothing more than that.

What about their Tiffin?

In most of the cases, tiffin consist of one boiled egg, an apple and some noodles plus a 10-rupees note which the kids use up buying junk foods in the schools campus.

But, they urgently need all the nutrients for their rapidly growing up muscles, bones and brain cells. Looking from this angle, it is truly an alarming situation—we are indeed witnessing an emergence of a whole new generation which is under nourished in all sense of the term.

Incidentally, in yesterday’s papers, I saw a photograph which show some foods in a tiffin box—it is to be distributed free among school children in the UK as a part of a Government run programme. Much like midday meal in school here. But even a cursory look at the tiffin in the photograph brings out the prominence of fruits.

But here midday meals for the school children means feeding them with boiled rice. From the rice supplied by the government from it’s badly maintained godowns. So badly maintained that anything inside them is in different stages of rot. It’s sheer madness to feed the children with such low quality foods. And I bet it is not the case of UK being a richer country than India. I mean, at the moment, there are a lot of funds from Govt of India for school children—the confusion is most probably in the domain of lack of knowledge of what constitutes a properly nutritious pack for a kid. Lack of actionable knowledge, I mean.

Here, I’ve to remind you again that in our way of life rice occupied (and still does) the centrality of our diets. But—it’s important—rice was supported by fresh fish and vegetables and sprouts and, of course, by fruits, though the last item do not directly enter our kitchens, meaning they are eaten outside our kitchens.

And, what about now? Let me give you a personal anecdote. Recently, I was held up in a friend’s place for some business and, as it was getting late, he insisted on having dinner with him. I was sitting down with whole of his family—his sons, his sister, his nephews (no wife because he was separated from his wife as his sister was from her husband). Discounting that there was lesser amounts of rice because there was a guest (big portion of rice is extremely unfashionable!) their plates contain too little of everything. There is no way that kind of foods should give all the nutrients required by a growing kid. One particular kid, a nephew of my friend’s, took exactly two mouthfuls of rice, pushed away his plate and announced that he was full! I was indeed quick to ask him to eat a little more but his mother intervened saying that it was the trend for the present-day kids. She even said, with a tinge of pride, that she saw documentaries in TV showing the ‘same trend’ even in the kids in UK! All this time, the kid simply sat there watching us and munching his packets of potato chips! I wanted to shout that there were some serious eating disorders in that child. But I was a guest, you know.

My friend, who is educated and smart, is also equally blind to the fact that such kind of foods would not make his sons into full-bodied men. Such magnitude of deficiencies would serious retard them in every wakes of their life. They would not be equal to the tasks that are demanded of them in the more competitive of their times.

Hey, this post is becoming too long. I promise to give you the conclusion tomorrow. Promise!

by the meltingpot

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Now at 2nd place

This is the 3rd