IT or a time to get LIT?
Shakir Husain February 3, 2002
#49 Posted by harimau on February 12, 2002 11:34:14 am
Ref Layman #: 46
[I read this guy`s article earlier and think this Moran deserves a swift kick in the butt. India is nobody`s card to play. This `Moron` is mistaking India with UK, Saudi, Pakistan and other countries in America`s `Card Game`.]
Ha, ha, ha, ha! Delusions of grandeur, I see.
Just remember one thing: if there is an Indo-Pak war tomorrow, the US would be passing real-time information on India`s troop deployment collected from its overhead satellites to Pakistan. It would get there faster than reports from your front-line commanders would get to Vajpayee.
The US can make India the equal of Pakistan anytime it chooses. Until you have a military that can threaten immeasurable harm to the US, you will get no respect from the US and you are just a card to play in the game of geopolitics.
[I read this guy`s article earlier and think this Moran deserves a swift kick in the butt. India is nobody`s card to play. This `Moron` is mistaking India with UK, Saudi, Pakistan and other countries in America`s `Card Game`.]
Ha, ha, ha, ha! Delusions of grandeur, I see.
Just remember one thing: if there is an Indo-Pak war tomorrow, the US would be passing real-time information on India`s troop deployment collected from its overhead satellites to Pakistan. It would get there faster than reports from your front-line commanders would get to Vajpayee.
The US can make India the equal of Pakistan anytime it chooses. Until you have a military that can threaten immeasurable harm to the US, you will get no respect from the US and you are just a card to play in the game of geopolitics.
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#48 Posted by semipreciousme on February 12, 2002 11:34:14 am
anNy
“and to think i need the passport to travel to a youth forum to REPRESENT pakistan.”
….that sounds interesting….where’re you going?….just don’t let them see you eating…we don’t want them to think all of us have bottomless pits for stomachs ;)..
“and to think i need the passport to travel to a youth forum to REPRESENT pakistan.”
….that sounds interesting….where’re you going?….just don’t let them see you eating…we don’t want them to think all of us have bottomless pits for stomachs ;)..
#47 Posted by fairdinkum on February 12, 2002 8:46:40 am
Shakir,
Like yourself, i have recently moved to Pakistan...about a ten months ago... fortunately or unfortunately i sometimes work very closely with MOST... I have so far worked on two govt. funded projects. The organization i work for is also partially govt. funded and helps gop implement some of its IT projects / policies.
So, tell us a bit more about the state bank of pak project.... what is it all about.. the specs...which of the local software compaines are capable of doing the job? and why do you think they were overlooked?
I would appreciate your response.
Kind regards
Like yourself, i have recently moved to Pakistan...about a ten months ago... fortunately or unfortunately i sometimes work very closely with MOST... I have so far worked on two govt. funded projects. The organization i work for is also partially govt. funded and helps gop implement some of its IT projects / policies.
So, tell us a bit more about the state bank of pak project.... what is it all about.. the specs...which of the local software compaines are capable of doing the job? and why do you think they were overlooked?
I would appreciate your response.
Kind regards
#46 Posted by Layman on February 12, 2002 3:01:04 am
cutandpaste #45:
`Why we should play the India card` by Michael Moran.
I read this guy`s article earlier and think this Moran deserves a swift kick in the butt. India is nobody`s card to play. This `Moron` is mistaking India with UK, Saudi, Pakistan and other countries in America`s `Card Game`.
`Why we should play the India card` by Michael Moran.
I read this guy`s article earlier and think this Moran deserves a swift kick in the butt. India is nobody`s card to play. This `Moron` is mistaking India with UK, Saudi, Pakistan and other countries in America`s `Card Game`.
#45 Posted by cutandpaste on February 11, 2002 10:20:11 pm
Software programmers at work at Planet Asia, an Indian software company, in Bangalore, India. Cisco, IBM and Microsoft are just a few companies to have made recent investments in India`s high tech industry.
Why we should play the India card
An opportunity squandered
By Michael Moran
MSNBC
NEW YORK — They are the two most populous nations in the world, both struggling to get the heavy hand of the state out of their fast-growing economies, both also, incidentally, aiming nuclear missiles at one another. These two Asian giants also are both desperately wooing American private sector investment, especially in burgeoning high tech sectors. One, India, is a democracy. The other, China, is a communist dictatorship. Guess which one American corporations prefer?
CHINA AND its storied market of 1 billion-plus consumers has been the dream of American multinationals since Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit. Yet like Nixon’s visit, which sought to recruit China in a tacit alliance against the Soviet Union, there’s an ulterior motive for today’s U.S.-China trade relationship: the idea that market reform and dollars ultimately will break the Communist party’s monopoly on power.
For this and a few lesser reasons, the U.S. “engages” China to the tune of $40 billion in direct investment in the year 2000. Meanwhile, India, a democratic nation that regards China as a potential enemy, received a paltry $3.5 billion in direct investment from U.S. corporations, according to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. To put that into perspective, that’s roughly what American companies invested in Denmark last year. Nothing against our Danish friends, but there’s something rotten here.
Chinese workers assemble a Buick at Shanghai General Motors, one of the centerpiece investments of U.S. industry in China.
Those who followed the recent too and fro over the EP-3 spy plane that China’s clumsy Air Force accidentally brought down know all too well the dilemmas facing American presidents with regard to China. Sure, presidents talk tough about human rights abuses, trade preferences or our ability to veto loans at the World Bank or IMF. But the fact is, American companies now have so much invested in China’s economy that no president — and especially no Republican president — can discount the interests of the China lobby. In effect, a threat against Beijing risks a charge against future revenues for thousands of America’s largest corporations — among them, Boeing, General Motors, General Electric, Microsoft and AOL-Time-Warner.
But what if President Bush, instead of threatening to take action against China, instead took steps to make investments in India more attractive? Indeed — let’s blue sky this — what if Bush sent an envoy to India proposing to quadruple in a matter of three years the amount of direct foreign investment India receives in exchange for further liberalizations in India’s economic system?
The likelihood of a “perfect” deal — or even a public, binding one — is slim. But such a dialogue would serve the interests of three major players in this game — the U.S. and Indian governments, and the U.S. multinationals. And, frankly, it wouldn’t hurt China to realize that there is nothing inevitable about the flow of American dollars into its economy.
A NO-BRAINER
A pictorial history of China since the revolution.
For some time now, the idea that the United States should play “the India card” has been the foreign policy version of a no-brainer. Putting it this way, of course, is fairly offensive to India - a nation noted for taking deep and lasting umbrage when its national pride is tweaked. Fortunately, there is a lot more than puffed up Kissingereque power politics behind the idea of closer Indo-American relations. Even a short list of these reasons is tremendously compelling:
Both the United States and India feel threatened by China’s growing power;
Both point with alarm (India, understandably, with somewhat more alarm) to the deep and efficient assistance China provided to turn Pakistan into a nuclear-armed state;
Both have been targeted by Osama bin Laden’s band of zealots and regard the Taliban and other forms of extreme Islamic militancy as a menace to Asian and global stability;
Both have placed their faith in future economic growth in the global economy, and more specifically, the high-tech sector.
The most important reason of all — that both are enormous, dynamic, multi-ethnic democracies — is largely irrelevant to American multinational corporations, which make their own decisions about whose market to target and whose cheap labor to exploit. But the U.S. government is not completely powerless in this vein to create incentives that encourage investment in Country A rather than Country B. For instance, American tax credits can be set aside for such investments, much as they have been for firms willing to set up shop in places like Northern Ireland, Haiti or Bosnia. In this way, the U.S. has tried to harness the economic muscle of corporate America to bolster its peace diplomacy. It’s high time that power is harnessed for strategic purposes in Asia.
OUTDATED THINKING
Why has happened already? The answer is complex, but certainly part of the problem is the lingering effects of Cold War thinking on America’s foreign policy establishment. The United States has a long history of focusing too closely on the Indian-Pakistani conflict and not giving enough weight to India’s larger, more strategic rivalry with China.
The Cold War’s intellectual straight-jacket - (India was “theirs,” Pakistan “ours’) - fed this problem and it helped turn the desperately poor, newly independent Indian democracy, which had understandable socialist leanings, into a leading critic of the United States. India wound up as a founding member of the “non-aligned” movement, but in practice, became a MiG-flying, anti-capitalist client of the Soviet Union.
SLOW TURNING
After 1991, things began to change, but not quickly enough. As the Soviet Union was breathing its last, India realized it needed to join the world economy. With one eye on the rapid reforms underway in its regional rival, China, India unleashed capitalism and, not coincidentally, its economy has grown as a clip of about 6 percent ever since.
A glacially slow courtship dance between Washington and New Delhi began soon afterward. The Indian decision to test and deploy nuclear weapons in 1998 — again, a decision that has as much to do with China as Pakistan — brought American sanctions that again chilled relations. But sanctions have been lifted and, last year, President Clinton’s trip to India marked a new high water mark. Indeed, improved ties with India may turn out to be the most important foreign policy achievement of Clinton’s administration. Suddenly, the U.S. is more active in seeking to mediate between India and Pakistan, and has not recently chided India for failing to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A new dialogue between the two militaries also is developing.
Still, both sides remain wary. Indian leaders must wean their population off of decades of anti-American slogans. American Cold Warriors — some suddenly influential again — still tilt toward Pakistan, citing its useful location next to the troublesome Afghans and the oil of Central Asia, yet overlooking its collaboration with China and North Korea on missiles and nuclear weapons, its support for exceedingly violent terrorist groups in Kashmir and elsewhere and its alliance with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The overthrow of Pakistan’s democratic government last year by the Army general who now calls himself president, Pervez Musharraf, should have been the last straw.
CHASING THE DREAM
Honest people can differ on whether American economic engagement of China will ever translate into democracy. What can’t be denied is that American dollars have become the primary fuel for China’s economic modernization, a fact that not only strengthens budding entrepreneurs and their spirit of individuality, but also China’s communist leadership (and by extension, the military hard-liners who export nuclear technology to Pakistan and plan for the coming showdown with America).
Taiwan: The breakaway island off the coast of China is the most sensitive issue in China-U.S. ties. Washington has had no diplomatic relations with Taipei since 1979, but remains the country’s biggest arms supplier. China claims the island and has threatened to invade if Taiwan declares independence or drags its feet on reunification talks.
Human rights: The United States is pushing for U.N. Commission on Human Rights censure of China for alleged repression of Tibetans, unregistered Christians, members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement and pro-democracy activists.
Beijing has bitterly rejected U.S. assertions that China’s human rights record has worsened over the last year.
Missile defense: China is staunchly opposed to U.S. plans to build a National Missile Defense system that Washington says is necessary to ward off ballistic missiles from hostile states such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq. Beijing fears such a system would negate its modest strategic arsenal.
World Trade Organization: China`s 15-year quest to join the WTO ended on Dec. 11, 2001, when it became a member of the international trading system. Its ascension to the world trade body prompted Washington to formally grant permanent trading relations to Beijing effective Jan. 1, 2002 — a move that helped to bridge Sino-U.S. rifts over the 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and the mid-air collision of a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet in 2001.
Detentions: China has detained, charged and convicted several U.S.-affiliated Chinese academics for `spying` for rival Taiwan. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell managed to win freedom for three scholars, including one Chinese-born U.S. citizen, ahead of a visit to Beijing in July 2001. However, several other academics still remain behind bars.
Whatever one’s position on engagement, though, it would be foolish to overlook the opportunity costs of current American investment trends: the squandered chance to help Asia’s other major power — the democratic one — secure its own future.
The executives of the great American corporations cannot be expected to think this way. Indeed, the laws governing publicly traded corporations specifically require them to put the interests of their shareholders above such abstractions as American national interests or the future of democracy in Asia.
It is up to American government to create the proper incentive. Even if India’s economic reforms make it a slightly less attractive site for investment, it is still a nation with an educated, English-speaking middle class which now has as many members as the U.S. has people. If we’re going to chase dreams, why not chase one more in line with our own?
Michael Moran is senior producer, special reports at MSNBC and was the site’s international editor from 1997-2000.
Why we should play the India card
An opportunity squandered
By Michael Moran
MSNBC
NEW YORK — They are the two most populous nations in the world, both struggling to get the heavy hand of the state out of their fast-growing economies, both also, incidentally, aiming nuclear missiles at one another. These two Asian giants also are both desperately wooing American private sector investment, especially in burgeoning high tech sectors. One, India, is a democracy. The other, China, is a communist dictatorship. Guess which one American corporations prefer?
CHINA AND its storied market of 1 billion-plus consumers has been the dream of American multinationals since Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit. Yet like Nixon’s visit, which sought to recruit China in a tacit alliance against the Soviet Union, there’s an ulterior motive for today’s U.S.-China trade relationship: the idea that market reform and dollars ultimately will break the Communist party’s monopoly on power.
For this and a few lesser reasons, the U.S. “engages” China to the tune of $40 billion in direct investment in the year 2000. Meanwhile, India, a democratic nation that regards China as a potential enemy, received a paltry $3.5 billion in direct investment from U.S. corporations, according to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. To put that into perspective, that’s roughly what American companies invested in Denmark last year. Nothing against our Danish friends, but there’s something rotten here.
Chinese workers assemble a Buick at Shanghai General Motors, one of the centerpiece investments of U.S. industry in China.
Those who followed the recent too and fro over the EP-3 spy plane that China’s clumsy Air Force accidentally brought down know all too well the dilemmas facing American presidents with regard to China. Sure, presidents talk tough about human rights abuses, trade preferences or our ability to veto loans at the World Bank or IMF. But the fact is, American companies now have so much invested in China’s economy that no president — and especially no Republican president — can discount the interests of the China lobby. In effect, a threat against Beijing risks a charge against future revenues for thousands of America’s largest corporations — among them, Boeing, General Motors, General Electric, Microsoft and AOL-Time-Warner.
But what if President Bush, instead of threatening to take action against China, instead took steps to make investments in India more attractive? Indeed — let’s blue sky this — what if Bush sent an envoy to India proposing to quadruple in a matter of three years the amount of direct foreign investment India receives in exchange for further liberalizations in India’s economic system?
The likelihood of a “perfect” deal — or even a public, binding one — is slim. But such a dialogue would serve the interests of three major players in this game — the U.S. and Indian governments, and the U.S. multinationals. And, frankly, it wouldn’t hurt China to realize that there is nothing inevitable about the flow of American dollars into its economy.
A NO-BRAINER
A pictorial history of China since the revolution.
For some time now, the idea that the United States should play “the India card” has been the foreign policy version of a no-brainer. Putting it this way, of course, is fairly offensive to India - a nation noted for taking deep and lasting umbrage when its national pride is tweaked. Fortunately, there is a lot more than puffed up Kissingereque power politics behind the idea of closer Indo-American relations. Even a short list of these reasons is tremendously compelling:
Both the United States and India feel threatened by China’s growing power;
Both point with alarm (India, understandably, with somewhat more alarm) to the deep and efficient assistance China provided to turn Pakistan into a nuclear-armed state;
Both have been targeted by Osama bin Laden’s band of zealots and regard the Taliban and other forms of extreme Islamic militancy as a menace to Asian and global stability;
Both have placed their faith in future economic growth in the global economy, and more specifically, the high-tech sector.
The most important reason of all — that both are enormous, dynamic, multi-ethnic democracies — is largely irrelevant to American multinational corporations, which make their own decisions about whose market to target and whose cheap labor to exploit. But the U.S. government is not completely powerless in this vein to create incentives that encourage investment in Country A rather than Country B. For instance, American tax credits can be set aside for such investments, much as they have been for firms willing to set up shop in places like Northern Ireland, Haiti or Bosnia. In this way, the U.S. has tried to harness the economic muscle of corporate America to bolster its peace diplomacy. It’s high time that power is harnessed for strategic purposes in Asia.
OUTDATED THINKING
Why has happened already? The answer is complex, but certainly part of the problem is the lingering effects of Cold War thinking on America’s foreign policy establishment. The United States has a long history of focusing too closely on the Indian-Pakistani conflict and not giving enough weight to India’s larger, more strategic rivalry with China.
The Cold War’s intellectual straight-jacket - (India was “theirs,” Pakistan “ours’) - fed this problem and it helped turn the desperately poor, newly independent Indian democracy, which had understandable socialist leanings, into a leading critic of the United States. India wound up as a founding member of the “non-aligned” movement, but in practice, became a MiG-flying, anti-capitalist client of the Soviet Union.
SLOW TURNING
After 1991, things began to change, but not quickly enough. As the Soviet Union was breathing its last, India realized it needed to join the world economy. With one eye on the rapid reforms underway in its regional rival, China, India unleashed capitalism and, not coincidentally, its economy has grown as a clip of about 6 percent ever since.
A glacially slow courtship dance between Washington and New Delhi began soon afterward. The Indian decision to test and deploy nuclear weapons in 1998 — again, a decision that has as much to do with China as Pakistan — brought American sanctions that again chilled relations. But sanctions have been lifted and, last year, President Clinton’s trip to India marked a new high water mark. Indeed, improved ties with India may turn out to be the most important foreign policy achievement of Clinton’s administration. Suddenly, the U.S. is more active in seeking to mediate between India and Pakistan, and has not recently chided India for failing to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A new dialogue between the two militaries also is developing.
Still, both sides remain wary. Indian leaders must wean their population off of decades of anti-American slogans. American Cold Warriors — some suddenly influential again — still tilt toward Pakistan, citing its useful location next to the troublesome Afghans and the oil of Central Asia, yet overlooking its collaboration with China and North Korea on missiles and nuclear weapons, its support for exceedingly violent terrorist groups in Kashmir and elsewhere and its alliance with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The overthrow of Pakistan’s democratic government last year by the Army general who now calls himself president, Pervez Musharraf, should have been the last straw.
CHASING THE DREAM
Honest people can differ on whether American economic engagement of China will ever translate into democracy. What can’t be denied is that American dollars have become the primary fuel for China’s economic modernization, a fact that not only strengthens budding entrepreneurs and their spirit of individuality, but also China’s communist leadership (and by extension, the military hard-liners who export nuclear technology to Pakistan and plan for the coming showdown with America).
Taiwan: The breakaway island off the coast of China is the most sensitive issue in China-U.S. ties. Washington has had no diplomatic relations with Taipei since 1979, but remains the country’s biggest arms supplier. China claims the island and has threatened to invade if Taiwan declares independence or drags its feet on reunification talks.
Human rights: The United States is pushing for U.N. Commission on Human Rights censure of China for alleged repression of Tibetans, unregistered Christians, members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement and pro-democracy activists.
Beijing has bitterly rejected U.S. assertions that China’s human rights record has worsened over the last year.
Missile defense: China is staunchly opposed to U.S. plans to build a National Missile Defense system that Washington says is necessary to ward off ballistic missiles from hostile states such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq. Beijing fears such a system would negate its modest strategic arsenal.
World Trade Organization: China`s 15-year quest to join the WTO ended on Dec. 11, 2001, when it became a member of the international trading system. Its ascension to the world trade body prompted Washington to formally grant permanent trading relations to Beijing effective Jan. 1, 2002 — a move that helped to bridge Sino-U.S. rifts over the 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and the mid-air collision of a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet in 2001.
Detentions: China has detained, charged and convicted several U.S.-affiliated Chinese academics for `spying` for rival Taiwan. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell managed to win freedom for three scholars, including one Chinese-born U.S. citizen, ahead of a visit to Beijing in July 2001. However, several other academics still remain behind bars.
Whatever one’s position on engagement, though, it would be foolish to overlook the opportunity costs of current American investment trends: the squandered chance to help Asia’s other major power — the democratic one — secure its own future.
The executives of the great American corporations cannot be expected to think this way. Indeed, the laws governing publicly traded corporations specifically require them to put the interests of their shareholders above such abstractions as American national interests or the future of democracy in Asia.
It is up to American government to create the proper incentive. Even if India’s economic reforms make it a slightly less attractive site for investment, it is still a nation with an educated, English-speaking middle class which now has as many members as the U.S. has people. If we’re going to chase dreams, why not chase one more in line with our own?
Michael Moran is senior producer, special reports at MSNBC and was the site’s international editor from 1997-2000.
#44 Posted by tahmed321 on February 11, 2002 6:33:04 pm
anNy #41 Reminds me of the time I was assigned the pleasant task many years ago when I was a student to get two attractive female students from Iran registered at Panjab University. The clerk assured me that he could be bribed to make the process as time-consuming as I wanted. So: see this as a compliment that these people were prolonging the agony of getting a passport.
#43 Posted by tahmed321 on February 11, 2002 6:33:04 pm
shakir69 #42 I can understand your frustration with the government. If it is any consolation (and of it is not), the government pays a very heavy price for the lack of procurement systems. That is, in Pakistan (as in many other developing countries) the government pays 10 percent, or sometimes even more (i.e. manifold), above the going market price for goods and services (if they do business with the government at all). In the US, on the other hand, the GSA prices (which is the price goods are sold to the government) are significantly LOWER than market prices. Now sit down on a chair (so you dont fall down when you get the result of this) and multiply this price difference with the huge volume of govenrment procurement. This is the amount the government, and therefore the nation, is paying for poor procurement practices and systems in countries in developing countries.
#42 Posted by shakir69 on February 11, 2002 1:23:42 pm
tahmad321 - the indians have done a phenominal job of their knowledge-based industries....we`re just in the embryonic stages. i`m still tickled over this SBP thing...as company policy we dont bid for government gigs as they`re predetermined and dont depend on any sort of merit. thinking about a slush fund so we can buy ppl out, but hey...
semipreciousme - hey tell me about bureaucracy. but it`s part of the game. the point of this article wasn`t to whine and complain; rather to illuminate the picture on the ground as opposed to the fantastic press releases we`re treated to every week.
semipreciousme - hey tell me about bureaucracy. but it`s part of the game. the point of this article wasn`t to whine and complain; rather to illuminate the picture on the ground as opposed to the fantastic press releases we`re treated to every week.
#41 Posted by anNy on February 11, 2002 1:23:42 pm
hullo shakir
were it possible to do through the net, id kinda salute you...i have been trying to get my passport which has expired fixed since the last one week...inspite of my dads insistence that i give it to him to get in order, i refused....`sahee channels sae karoongee`...yetserday when the lecher manhoos aadmee behind the counter asked me to get the 25th thousand thing verifed (irrelevent things like my inter certificate...that my brothers exist..that i was born in pakistan..ALL of which had previously been proven) i didnt threaten to have his ass hauled but did the next bad thing..i dropped my passport off to my dad...within a days time i had a bright new spanking passport in my hands..and to think i need the passport to travel to a youth forum to REPRESENT pakistan..i almost cried of sheer frustration in the whole process..the men there just sat behind the desks and smoked and joked..it was as though we in the lines were just not there...i literally had to stop myself from screaming and throttling those men..can u imagine how it is for the man who cannot afford the fees or doesnt have the connections? im not surprised people turn to terrorism in the process...note that you will not have a connected man killing people..it will always be someone who has no money, no connections...the system just sukks so bad
good luck in whatever you do shakir
best,
anNy
were it possible to do through the net, id kinda salute you...i have been trying to get my passport which has expired fixed since the last one week...inspite of my dads insistence that i give it to him to get in order, i refused....`sahee channels sae karoongee`...yetserday when the lecher manhoos aadmee behind the counter asked me to get the 25th thousand thing verifed (irrelevent things like my inter certificate...that my brothers exist..that i was born in pakistan..ALL of which had previously been proven) i didnt threaten to have his ass hauled but did the next bad thing..i dropped my passport off to my dad...within a days time i had a bright new spanking passport in my hands..and to think i need the passport to travel to a youth forum to REPRESENT pakistan..i almost cried of sheer frustration in the whole process..the men there just sat behind the desks and smoked and joked..it was as though we in the lines were just not there...i literally had to stop myself from screaming and throttling those men..can u imagine how it is for the man who cannot afford the fees or doesnt have the connections? im not surprised people turn to terrorism in the process...note that you will not have a connected man killing people..it will always be someone who has no money, no connections...the system just sukks so bad
good luck in whatever you do shakir
best,
anNy
#40 Posted by semipreciousme on February 11, 2002 3:17:52 am
…shakir, bureaucracy and red tape and that too in a third-world country would be enough to drive anyone insane….but it must feel great to accomplish smt under these circumstances….keep it up…we need more ppl like you here…
#39 Posted by ali1 on February 9, 2002 2:55:19 am
Reply #: 36 shakir69
[recently when dr. eqbal ahmed passed away there was more of a response to the man and his writings abroad than in Pakistan. The average Pakistani doesnt even know who eqbal ahmad was.]
Eqbal Ahmad is as respected (and relavant) to an average Pakistani as his friend Naom Chomsky is to an average American. Chmosky is not even on the fringes of American political discourse, although he is well known abroad. I admire the average Pakistani for rejecting Eqbal Ahmad and his political ideology.
[recently when dr. eqbal ahmed passed away there was more of a response to the man and his writings abroad than in Pakistan. The average Pakistani doesnt even know who eqbal ahmad was.]
Eqbal Ahmad is as respected (and relavant) to an average Pakistani as his friend Naom Chomsky is to an average American. Chmosky is not even on the fringes of American political discourse, although he is well known abroad. I admire the average Pakistani for rejecting Eqbal Ahmad and his political ideology.
#38 Posted by tahmed321 on February 8, 2002 3:07:03 pm
shakir69 #36 You are right about eqbal ahmed. I learnt of the house he lived in in Islamabad after he died: this was a house I had passed by many times without knowing it while he was living. On IT: What stops an IT outfit in Pakistan from competing for contracts in the global market place? They say the Indian IT industry grew because the government bureacrats did not understand the business and so (thankfully) could not figure out how to interfere. The same is true in Pakistan. While I dont thing the government can do much to build up this industry other staying out of the way (including getting out of the telecomm business but providing the necessary regulatory functions). The rest is up to people like you to make sure you make commitments you can meet, ensure repeat customers, and thus buildup a global reputation. Simply losing one contract (SBP) should mean nothing one way or another.
#37 Posted by cutandpaste on February 8, 2002 3:07:03 pm
Sun shifts core Java unit from US to Bangalore
BANGALORE: Sun Microsystems, the global computing giant, has set the spotlight on its India engineering centre in Bangalore.
In a significant development, the $10-billion tech major has moved its Java tools and libraries division, a high-end engineering division which offers the technology platform to millions of Java developers across globe to build applications, from its Palo Alto technology centre to Bangalore.
Sun decided to shift the core work to Bangalore due to three key factors: to optimally use the engineering skill-sets available here, to beat the slowdown and to stay closer to the market. In India alone, over 1.6 lakh engineers are engaged in developing Java-based applications.
Leveraging the brand strength of India Inc. seems to be a new trend among the global tech companies. It may recalled that i2 Technologies has recently announced to relocate around 150 engineers from its US office to Bangalore.
One year back, Cisco, No. 1 networking company, moved a bunch of its engineers from its US office centre to Bangalore when it started its India development centre.
i2 The prime objectives of this development are to optimally utilise technology talents of the Indian engineers and reinforce the importance of the India engineering centre.
To steer the activity here, around six top notch engineers of Indian origin working in the same division in USA have opted to work at the Bangalore centre.
Speaking to The times of India, Dale E. Ferrario, director of product engineering, Java software in Sun Microsystems, said: ``The Java core tools and libraries are the ones which every programmer will depend on to build applications. It is a core piece of work that every application needs.``
Simply put, while Java tools are the compilers that help in packaging applications, libraries include three main areas: Java.io (input and output), Java.util (utilities) and Java.lang (language).
Out of its total workforce of around 400 engineers in the centre here, over 55 technocrats are engaged in defining and creating Java platform in areas like Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), Java Standard Edition (J2SE) for desktops, Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) for mobile platform. The other developers doing work for Sun One, network storage, Solaris, Star Office eventually build applications on these platforms.
Sun India on J2ME
In a key development, Sun India engineering centre has engaged a dedicated team of 10 engineers to develop the J2ME platform, which will deliver the Java-based location-specific wireless technologies to the device makers. The team works in collaboration with developers based in Sun`s engineering centres in Sweden and Israel.
According to Dale Ferrario, director of product engineering (Java Software), the shipment of J2ME-enabled handsets is just 18 months away. The market for these products is estimated to touch $1.6 billion by 2006.
The competing standards in this space include IBM`s Brew and Microsoft`s Stinger
BANGALORE: Sun Microsystems, the global computing giant, has set the spotlight on its India engineering centre in Bangalore.
In a significant development, the $10-billion tech major has moved its Java tools and libraries division, a high-end engineering division which offers the technology platform to millions of Java developers across globe to build applications, from its Palo Alto technology centre to Bangalore.
Sun decided to shift the core work to Bangalore due to three key factors: to optimally use the engineering skill-sets available here, to beat the slowdown and to stay closer to the market. In India alone, over 1.6 lakh engineers are engaged in developing Java-based applications.
Leveraging the brand strength of India Inc. seems to be a new trend among the global tech companies. It may recalled that i2 Technologies has recently announced to relocate around 150 engineers from its US office to Bangalore.
One year back, Cisco, No. 1 networking company, moved a bunch of its engineers from its US office centre to Bangalore when it started its India development centre.
i2 The prime objectives of this development are to optimally utilise technology talents of the Indian engineers and reinforce the importance of the India engineering centre.
To steer the activity here, around six top notch engineers of Indian origin working in the same division in USA have opted to work at the Bangalore centre.
Speaking to The times of India, Dale E. Ferrario, director of product engineering, Java software in Sun Microsystems, said: ``The Java core tools and libraries are the ones which every programmer will depend on to build applications. It is a core piece of work that every application needs.``
Simply put, while Java tools are the compilers that help in packaging applications, libraries include three main areas: Java.io (input and output), Java.util (utilities) and Java.lang (language).
Out of its total workforce of around 400 engineers in the centre here, over 55 technocrats are engaged in defining and creating Java platform in areas like Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), Java Standard Edition (J2SE) for desktops, Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) for mobile platform. The other developers doing work for Sun One, network storage, Solaris, Star Office eventually build applications on these platforms.
Sun India on J2ME
In a key development, Sun India engineering centre has engaged a dedicated team of 10 engineers to develop the J2ME platform, which will deliver the Java-based location-specific wireless technologies to the device makers. The team works in collaboration with developers based in Sun`s engineering centres in Sweden and Israel.
According to Dale Ferrario, director of product engineering (Java Software), the shipment of J2ME-enabled handsets is just 18 months away. The market for these products is estimated to touch $1.6 billion by 2006.
The competing standards in this space include IBM`s Brew and Microsoft`s Stinger
#36 Posted by shakir69 on February 8, 2002 11:36:07 am
taahmad - salam was not the only one in pakistan. recently when dr. eqbal ahmed passed away there was more of a response to the man and his writings abroad than in Pakistan. The average Pakistani doesnt even know who eqbal ahmad was. quite sad. my problem isnt with the ``ghar ki mrghi daal barabar`` issue, it`s with the fact that so much lip service is paid to ``IT`` like it`s some sort of magic mantra, when there are few real changes on the ground.
#35 Posted by tahmed321 on February 7, 2002 12:09:36 pm
shakir #69 A bit off the subject, but yesterday some private letters in the 1950`s between Neils Bohr and Heisenberg (Hitler`s head of the Nazi atomic bomb project) were made public for the first time. In one of these, our own (although disowned by the mullahs) Abdus Salam is mentioned (in letter from Heisenber to Bohr): ``By the way, I have since had yet a special pleasure: the relative parity of the Sigma and Lambda particles, about which I disagreed with Salam and others in Aix en Provence and Brussels, has in the meantime been measured in California, and it turns out to be odd, just as it came out in Dürr’s and my calculations. Thus, we now begin to understand the complicated spectrum of elementary particles.``
So, clearly Salam was very much among the leading scientists of the world even back in the 1950`s (even though his name is mentioned here only in disagreement). The manner in which he was treated in Pakistan was shameful. It is time we stopped treating ``ghar ki murghi, dal barabar`` and gave talent - in IT or basic sciences or anything else - the respect it deserves.
So, clearly Salam was very much among the leading scientists of the world even back in the 1950`s (even though his name is mentioned here only in disagreement). The manner in which he was treated in Pakistan was shameful. It is time we stopped treating ``ghar ki murghi, dal barabar`` and gave talent - in IT or basic sciences or anything else - the respect it deserves.
#34 Posted by harimau on February 6, 2002 11:33:52 am
Ref Layman #: 33
[shankar #31:
``{{Shankar is a South Indian all right. He may have lived in Bombay but is a Tamilian.}}
``Actually I`m a Saraswat Brahmin. My mother-tongue is konkani. It is such a small community that even most Indians arent aware of our existence:)``
Oops! Apologies Shankar, Romair.]
No need to apologize. From his self-hatred, you diagnosed him to be a TamBrahm.
[shankar #31:
``{{Shankar is a South Indian all right. He may have lived in Bombay but is a Tamilian.}}
``Actually I`m a Saraswat Brahmin. My mother-tongue is konkani. It is such a small community that even most Indians arent aware of our existence:)``
Oops! Apologies Shankar, Romair.]
No need to apologize. From his self-hatred, you diagnosed him to be a TamBrahm.
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