Charles Goyette of American Breaking Point and international bestselling author of The Dollar Meltdown joins Daily Paul Radio with Kurt Wallace for ‘Iran and India Oil for Gold’ to discuss the impact of a direct exchange between India and Iran bypa... Read more »
Are Skyscrapers Linked With Financial Collapse?
So says the BBC. On various continents, and going back for over a century, the construction of new record-nearing skyscrapers seems to be a consistent canary in a coal mine indicating that an economic bubble exists and a financial crash will soon occur in a given society:
Read more »There is an “unhealthy correlation” between the building of skyscrapers and subsequent financial crashes, according to Barclays Capital.
Examples include the Empire State building, built as the Great Depression was under way, and the current world’s tallest, the Burj Khalifa, built just before Dubai almost went bust. China is currently the biggest builder of skyscrapers, the bank said. India also has 14 skyscrapers under construction.
“Often the world’s tallest buildings are simply the edifice of a broader skyscraper building boom, reflecting a widespread misallocation of capital and an impending economic correction,” Barclays Capital analysts said.
The bank noted that the world’s first skyscraper, the Equitable Life building…
Facebook tells India it won’t help censor the Web
Various groups and governments would like to censor content on the web. Recently Indian Communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal asked companies such as Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Twitter to censor content. Facebook has declined to help.Read | ... Read more »
India launches Aakash tablet computer
The devices are subsidized by the Indian government to keep the price down. They include a three-hour battery life, two USB ports, and not much more. The devices may be made available in the U.S. at a higher price.Read | Permalink Read more »
Gibson Guitars Vs. the U.S. Government
Via Brooklyn Vegan and Gibson.com:
The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department's interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India. On August 24, 2011, around 8:45 a.m. CDT, agents for the federal government executed four search warrants on Gibson's facilities in Nashville and Memphis and seized several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. Gibson had to cease its manufacturing operations and send workers home for the day, while armed agents executed the search warrants. Gibson has fully cooperated with the execution of the search warrants.Read more »
This Week in Internet Censorship: China, India, and Faith-Based Censorship
Opposition to India's New Intermediary Liability Regulations The world’s largest democracy has been known to censor online content from time to time, typically under the guise of national security or obscenity. The Indian Computer Emergency Response... Read more »
India’s Illegal ‘Human Safari Park’
Andaman Islands. Photo: _e.t (CC)
Via Wanderlust:
Read more »The Andaman Trunk Road was ordered to be closed by India’s Supreme Court in 2002 but it still remains open and poses a high threat to the indigenous community who have a population of just 365.
‘Survival’, an organisation which campaigns for tribal people’s rights worldwide, has called for travellers to boycott the road which runs through the Andaman Islands, a destination growing in popularity among tourists.
Rules to protect the Jarawa reserve and its community are routinely broken and thousands of tourists — both Indian and international — travel along the road each month, making the reserve in effect, a human safari park.
The hunter-gatherer Jarawa, have only had friendly contact with outsiders since 1998 so there is a high risk of tourists passing on diseases to the community who have little immunity.
In 1999 and 2006, the Jarawa suffered an outbreak of measles, which historically has decimated…
Pakistan and the Mumbai Attacks: The Untold Story (Kindle Single)
Pakistan and the Mumbai Attacks: The Untold Story (Kindle Single) The 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai supply a rare picture of the ties between Pakistan’s intelligence service and the militant group Lashkar-i-Taiba. The trail of two key figures, an accused Pakistani mastermind and his American operative, traces the rise of a complicated, international threat. (38 [...] Read more »
Americanization Training At An Indian Call Center
The most marketable skill in India today is the ability to abandon your identity and slip into someone else’s.
An American spends his summer at an Indian call center, including a boot camp in which new employees try to change their nationality in three weeks by shedding their accents, gazing at photos of Walmart, watching Seinfeld, and eating pepperoni. Via Mother Jones:
Read more »I am waiting for a company cab, now an hour and a half late, to drive me across town to a call center, where an Indian “culture trainer” will teach me how to act Australian. For three weeks, a culture trainer will teach us conversational skills, Australian pop culture, and the terms of the mobile-phone contracts we’ll be peddling.
Bright recent college grads pore over flashcards and accent tapes, intoning the shibboleths of English pronunciation—”wherever” and “pleasure” and “socialization”—that recruiters use to distinguish the employable candidates from those still suffering from…
New Indian Internet Intermediary Regulations Pose Serious Threats to Net Users’ Freedom of Expression
by David Rizk, EFF Legal Intern As the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression noted recently “[Internet] Intermediaries play a fundamental role in enabling Internet users to enjoy their right to freedom of expression and access to... Read more »
