Smug Alert!

Both the Mumbai-related Op-Ed pieces in today's New York Times seem to be mirroring my thoughts in the last two posts so am wondering whether to feel vindicated or guilty for (allegedly) being a bleeding-heart liberal in these tense times. I think i'll settle for smug!

Tom Friedman calls out to moderate Pakistanis, some of whom I pointed to in the previous post, while guest columnist Amitav Ghosh warns about reacting to Mumbai in a similar fashion to 9-11 which is on the lines of my argument earlier.

Wits & Twits: Pakistanis on Mumbai Terror

Just like in India, there are both morons and enlightened folks across the border.

Fatima has a great post linking to the best Pakistani blogging during the past few days and in another example of Social Media feeding the mainstream,  the Indian Express article a day after the post, draws heavily on that list.

The morons are easy to find. Just search out some of the Pak newspaper sites or even the big social networks and you'll see lots of vitriolic anti-India sentiment. But special mention must go to a Pak news program called "Brasstacks" which has a wannabe Che Guevara called Zaid Hamid keeping an intensely straight face, while proclaiming that the entire attack was an Indian conspiracy on the lines of "the Jews planned 9-11".  In case you don't have time to check out all the parts of the hour-long programme, the last clip, Part 4 is especially hilarious/disgusting,

I suggest that this channel iTV enter into a content-sharing alliance with our very own iTV aka India TV (unofficial blog highly reccomended) which comes up with "Exclusives" like this:

Battling Terror: Learn from USA, Israel? Not Entirely ...

As the fallout of the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai leads to the inevitable war-mongering and baying for Pak blood from the hardliners, (and of course from 98% of the commenters on rediff.com) it would do us no harm to take a deep breath and act rationally- something that actually seems counter-intuitive right now.

(Pic Courtsey Vinu@Flickr)

There are two major gung-ho schools of thought drawing 'inspiration' from our new partners in the war on terror ie. the US and Israel.

DANGEROUS ARGUMENT No.1: We need to emulate the US' (supposed) hardline response to 9-11.

Answer: Absolutely not! The US has been drawn into two wars that it is losing, an economic quagmire and global isolation. Sure, it has prevented attacks on its own soil but at the cost of countless lives in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as losing moral authority with Guantanamo et al.

Prof Juan Cole has a great piece on his blog, exhorting us not to go down that path:

"Most Indian observers, however, were critical in 2001 (and after) of how exactly the Bush administration (i.e. Dick Cheney) responded to September 11. They were right, and they would do well to remember their own critique at this fateful moment" ... FULL ARTICLE

DANGEROUS ARGUMENT No.2: We need to become a 'hard state' like Israel where every citizen is a commando and which (supposedly) crushes terror.

Answer: What has it got them? The Jewish state is no safer than it was in the last 60 years and in fact risks nuclear annihilation from the likes of Iran and possibly even Pakistan. 

And would you believe it, one of their most hardline, right-wing political icons, Ehud Olmert has done a stunning U-turn on his way out as Israeli Prime Minister and admitted that there is no military solution to the Middle-East crisis.

“We could contend with any of our enemies or against all our enemies combined and win,” Olmert said. “The question that I ask myself is, what happens when we win? First of all, we’d have to pay a painful price. And after we paid the price, what would we say to them? ‘Let’s talk.’ ” ... FULL ARTICLE

So should we line-up troops on the borders once again like the last time around or think about this with some amount of pragmatism? Heck, maybe even re-open the 'debate' started a few months ago by the nation's top columnists (links to both pieces at PressTalk) on 'gasp' considering a trifurcation of J&K and thus finding a real solution to the Kashmir issue.

PC Magazine: Another One Bytes The Dust!

The venerable PC Magazine is dead, long live the magazine ... All hail pcmag.com!

I guess the only person chuckling about this is "micropersuader" Steve Rubel of Edelman PR who got into a bit of a twitter-tangle last year after admitting that he no longer bothers with the physical mag, much to the annoyance of the Editor, who even threatened a boycott of Rubel's PR firm.

I guess at some level veteran tech hack Alice Hill feels vindicated too, though the irony of the piece she wrote on CNET nearly 10 years ago is that CNET itself couldn't keep up with the Web 2.0 wave and sold out to CBS earlier this year.

So basically, the rise-glory-fall cycle is getting quicker than ever before thanks to them internets! It took a long time for print to get out of fashion, shorter for network television and no time at all on the web. I mean wasn't Jerry the messiah just like ... yesterday?

iPhone 3G Reviewed!

Well, I thought it couldn't get better than the dream debut but it does! My first gadget review for the paper is none other than the iConic iPhone. Yeah sure, its the 3G version but for us in India its as good as a (slightly improved) regular 'jesus phone' - desi version pic below - and the first one we can use legally!

The review appeared in today's Economic Times and there are three different versions online.



NEW DELHI: After a few days of playing around with the new iPhone 3G, I'm convinced that Apple's iconic piece of gadgetry is a misnomer. The "mobile phone" is clearly the most unimpressive and probably the most unimportant part of the second generation iPhone. It's a great computer; to be more specific, a great mobile Internet device probably the best ever made - and it's a pity that it's debuted in the country before 3G networks are up and running.

ET tu Nokia?

I couldn't have asked for a better way to debut in the country's largest (and in fact the WORLD's second largest) business paper! A front-page scoop shared with a dear friend who happens to be the nation's crack telecom hack!



NEW DELHI: Nokia, the country's dominant handset player, is plotting to steal Apple's thunder. The company is set to launch its latest high-end phone, the N96 which Nokia calls a 'killer product' on Tuesday in India, three days before the much-awaited 3G-enabled iPhone's debut here. The N96 was tipped to be launched globally in October and this may perhaps be the handset maker's first global launch in India.

Industry experts say Nokia is rushing the N96 to India to counter the hype associated with the iPhone 3G, which will be offered by Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar. While Nokia is expected to launch the product in Delhi on Tuesday, the handset is likely to be available in the market from the first week of September. MORE

Z back from India? Expect a controversy soon…

Mark Zuckerberg seems to have given the Indian media the slip. Facebook PR assured me that he wasn't giving any official interviews and it seems no one managed to win the TechGoss reward for snaps/info of him in India.

Well, if this was indeed just a holiday/spiritual tour, then history suggests the first thing he'll do, when he gets back, is get embroiled in a controversy! Confused? Hear me out on this one:

1. Steve Jobs visits India in 1974 for some spiritual nirvana and bums around a bit. He goes back to Atari and (allegedly) shafts poor Steve Wozniak while working on 'Breakout'. The incident becomes part of tech folklore...

2. Jimmy Wales visits India in January 2008 and after an interview at IIT Bombay, tells me he's headed to the Himalayas for a few days of peace and solitude. He comes back to the US and gets into a mess after (allegedly) trying to influence his (then) paramour's Wikipedia entry.

(Image courtesy Gus Freedman of Wikimedia Foundation under CC-BY-SA license)

3. Google Founders backpack around India 'like a couple of sophmores' in October 2004. They get back and Google is soon faced with an extended run of controversies.

So now that we officially have a 'three-is-a-trend' conspiracy theory, expect the Z to be fire-fighting soon (Does this count?) If he takes the advice of a Guru on the IPO as suggested by Joy of Tech, it would definitely be controversial ...