Desis spell better than other Americans

Apparently South Asians (Desis) are doing exceptionally well at the classic American institution known as the spelling bee. The English language is very difficult to learn because it is so inconsistent. Spelling is especially difficult because you pretty much need to memorize (memorise) the way a word is spelt (spelled) ,and the spelling of a word varies from country to country.

I don’t know if this is yet another sign of rise of the Desi generation in America. Louisiana decided that it needed the state over to a 30-something Desi. A lot of companies (Pepsi, Citigroup) have Desi CEOs. Disney is shooting a pseudo-Bollywood teen movie. When I see kheer flavored ice cream at Baskin Robbins I’ll know the rise is nearly complete.

Anyway, Desis won’t be coming up due to spelling. That’s because spelling is overrated. It is being replaced by shortcuts, acronyms and symbols, LOL.

 

 

Trickle down theory not working in India

While “trickle down theory” hasn’t received wide appeal in India, you could make the case that it isn’t appropriate with what’s happening. From the land of the man who owns a billion dollar house, and other moguls (especially appropriate term!) According to the BBC, About 60% children in Madhya Pradesh state are malnourished.

“In the past year food prices have increased significantly, but people’s incomes haven’t improved,” says Dr Agarwal. “Like wheat, earlier they used to buy it at eight rupees a kilogram, now it’s 12 rupees.”

Children wait for a meal outside an Anganwadi centre in Chitori Khurda

“Because of the increase in food prices a mother cannot buy an adequate quantity of milk, fruits and vegetables. So their staple diet has become wheat chapattis,” she explains.

“A child cannot survive on wheat chapattis alone. About 80% of mothers and children are anaemic because they can’t get good quality food.”

To see why things are so bad, we headed out into the villages around Shivpuri. The drought zone stretches across this part of central India. The land is parched and barren. The air hot and heavy.

The village of Chitori Khurda is a ramshackle collection of 80 stone and mud huts on a rocky plain. The villagers here come from the bottom rung of India’s social scale.

Among the lowest of the low in India’s caste system are the Scheduled Tribes, just above them come the Other Backward Castes.

Some links:

Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project (MPRLP)

Government understates poverty rate

India: Madhya Pradesh lags in Millennium Development Goals

 

 

Curry westerns?

 Vinod Chopra  is set to make a movie in New Mexico:

Chopra’s Broken Horses, with a screenplay based on an original story by Chopra himself, is the work of several award-winning writers including Abhijat Joshi (Lage Raho Munnabhai, Eklavya and 64 Squares) and Jason Richman (Bangkok Dangerous, Swing Vote) and legendary BAFTA winner and Academy Award nominated screenwriter and executive producer, Nick Pileggi as script consultant (Goodfellas, Casino and American Gangster). Chopra has recently returned from script and development meetings in Los Angeles and scouting locations in New Mexico…

I can’t find anywhere on the Net what the plot of the movie is. It has a Western filming location, and a Western name, so maybe it’s a Western.

Vinod Chopra Films and Reliance Big Entertainment have inked a multiple film production deal to co-produce feature films over the next three years.

Reliance Big Entertainment , owned by Anil Ambani (one of the world’s richest men), counts George Soros as an investor. RBE, as its name suggests, has some big plans :

Indeed, this trend is being fuelled by the international ambitions of cash-rich Bollywood production and world distribution sector players.

RBE has swung development deals with companies owned by Hollywood stars Nicholas Cage, Brad Pitt, Jim Carey, Tom Hanks and George Clooney.

These strategic partnerships, says RBE’s creative consultant Prasoon Joshi, could in the long run yield "Hollywood films with Indian stories".

100,000 farmer suicides?

I read this article on India’s current budget woes, and the article mentions more than 100,000 farmers’ suicides . Obviously the agriculture sector isn’t benefiting from the tech boom. Apparently loan debt is a leading cause. Apparently no subprime loan bailouts for Indian farmers. Official figures say "According to the National Crime Records Bureau, at least 87,567 farmers committed suicide between 2002 and 2006."

Blame the Green Revolution ? One of the great food production success stories of all time that garnered a Nobel Prize  for its father ? Well, it was too good for rural farmers. Farmers had to borrow money to buy chemicals and seeds. "The changes caused higher operating costs and production that created a market glut exceeding demand at home and abroad. To remain in business, many farmers were forced to take out loans at high interest rates. Once credit had been exhausted, they turned to private lenders, who charged even more exorbitant interest rates."

Also blame US farm subsidies and biotech companies . "As the world’s largest cotton producer, the United States provides massive subsidies that allow American farmers to undercut overseas competition by selling at an artificially low cost. Moreover, many Indian farmers are now using genetically engineered Bt cotton seeds made by U.S.-based Monsanto Co., which produce higher yields. The seeds and fertilizer, however, must be bought each year, costing farmers thousands of dollars."

I doubt this is a US and Indian elite engineered plot  to reduce world population levels, if anything because the Iraq example shows that we aren’t that good. There is a plan to help bail out the farmers with a $15 billion rescue package, but it only helps the ‘middle class’ of farmers, since "excluding farmers with more than five acres, it leaves out those who are most at risk. "

"While well intentioned , the new budget’s lavish loan forgiveness scheme will not help those farmers who most need relief: 80 percent of India’s farmers have no access to formal credit, and it is bank loans that are to be forgiven. Moreover, since farmers who do have access to formal credit will have less incentive to repay their loans, banks will become more reluctant to lend to any farmers at all."