Slashdot Mirror

Example: Click on any news story at www.rediff.com and it throws a pop up even in firefox.

Here's 2004 in review. As you can see (scroll down to see the graph) there was a crash in mid-2004 immediately following the election results, as a socialistic party with communist allies came into power. Support for the government grew after it was announced that two of India's best finance ministers in recent times were going to have prominent roles in the government, one of them as the prime minister. Also, as the leftist partiest didn't interfere with government policy, the market rose, hitting new highs towards the end of the year.

It's now at around 6500, so it hasn't changed much since last December.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/feb/19pak.htm

for all you pakis out there, we'll help Baluchistan and Pakhtunistan gain freedom.

Time is on our side, yes it is. :)

Google India launches Google India Code Jam 2005 with a payoff of Rs. 3lakh (roughly enquivalent to $20k (my estimate after adjusting for cost of living and annual salaries)). This contest is also being organized by TopCoder.

The Google India News page also links to this news article about Anurag Acharya, a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technlogy and the engineer behind Google Scholar. Incidentally, Krishan Bharat the Principle Scientist at Google who created Google News is also an IIT graduate.

In 2003 the Gates Foundation was commiting $200 million in AIDS funding to India alone. Gates Foundation hikes AIDS grant to $200 million I can't believe Slashdot has the foggiest notion of the scale on which the Gates Foundation operates.

An abusive call made by two prominent radio jockeys to a call centre in India has outraged listeners and prompted demands for the duo's resignation.

The live call, made during the Philadelphia-based morning show of RJs Star and Bucwild, ended with one of the RJ's repeatedly calling the female call centre employee a 'bitch' and a 'rat eater' and threatening to choke her.

Star, whose real name is Troi Torain, initiated the call under the pretext of inquiring into an order he had placed for a product known as 'Quick Beads', hair beads marketed primarily to girls outside the black community (Star and Bucwild are black). Midway through the call, Star became aggressive with the call centre representative, Steena.

And its not just about the abusive language! Broadcasting it live for many American listeners will obviously spread hatred for Indians. Such racist activites are the reason why you see some American teenagers burning up Sikh Gas Stations or murdering/assaulting Indians in Night. Will someone take any action?

You sure it's not a Korn field?

$35000000 - amount committed to help victims
100000 - conservative death toll
= $350 - spent to aid each victim

But then it seems Mr Bush has said more is to come, let us wait and see.

As an Indian citizen, in the middle of these dark days of our own, I do feel a tiny bit of pride on reading that the Indian government, poor and 'third world' that it is, is providing assistance to Sri Lanka & Maldives while coping with its own disaster at the same time. That is logistical aid as well as money, some USD 20 million to Sri Lanka and USD 1 million to Maldives, see http://us.rediff.com/money/2004/dec/29tax.htm. (a 'crore' is 10 million, and some 45 rupees make a dollar at today's rates).

Yes, I too intend to get out and donate tomorrow. And happily pay the 'Tsunami cess' in my taxes next year. It is our corner of the world, and we are all in it together.

http://www.rediff.com/money/2003/sep/26richest.htm

Why should middle class american tax payers deep in debt be forced to bail out india?

Especially in third-world countries. We're outsourcing jobs there and not to Canada or Britain for a reason, which often seems to be forgotten. India and the US are not equivalent. Consider just for a second the political turmoil and goings-on in the USA, a first-world nation, before you comprehend that India is barely even a democracy. It's often on the brink of dictatorship, like its neighbor Pakistan.

The upshot of this is that the populace are unconcerned with patent laws not because of first-worldesque apathy, but rather because the majority of the population has more important things to worry about, starting with basic survival. The fact that their political opinions ultimately don't matter is just icing on that cake, to use a horribly inappropriate pun.

Some time later, Ravi Raj Singh, a college student from IIT Delhi, offered his VCD of the 157-second clip for sale on Baazee.
Ravi Raj is a student of IIT Kharagpur. Check out here and here

In this case, it's India's IT Act which has allowed this crap of holding the service provider responsible for all acts of it's users. This story from the same newspaper shows the aptitude & intelligence of Indian cops and lawmakers when it comes to technology.

This is not a story when technology failed..

This is a story of corruption, of not having any fail safe mechanisms or adequate safety measures, of negligence, of politicians willingly selling their souls and of those who they represent and of a system which failed to protect its own.

A thousand fingers could be pointed and in this horrible disaster, anywhere you point, you can find guilty who are still sheltered by the law, by the money they have willingly spent for their own defense and none for the people who suffered.

Union Carbide / Warren Anderson and Dow Chemical - Till now, they have chosen not to accept any form of responsibility and instead suggest sabotage. Union Carbide had spent a paltry sum before they agreed to pay 470 million of which hardly one third has been paid to its victims for the lack of any judicial oversight and sadly, corruption at the heart of the system. Even the 470 million that hopefully will be disbursed one day, hardly 2000 dollars will go to the families of those who died and 500$ to those who lost everything but their lives. Hardly a sum for the cost of a human life...

Union Carbide's response cleverly attempts to distance itself from the tragedy by calling the Bhopal plant owned by an indian firm. Clever, but it also serves to belittle the scope of this disaster and the lives that were snuffed out.

Would this be the same outcome if this had happened elsewhere, or in the developed world? And wouldnt a proper clean up in order or long completed if this were anywhere else.

Warren Anderson never saw the inside of a prison and still lives quite contently in Florida or NY and the US judicial system has done its part by denying the extradition requests by India. The Indian system on the other hand has comfortably chosen to neglect the cries for justice and has happily moved on..

Rediff.com has a sombre look at the tragedy, its victims, those who were forgotten, and those who still suffer.

One more reason not to trust corporations..

Also no additional compensation is planned and Dow has not apologized or owned up to this tragedy as the last part of the slashdot post. It is a hoax and was unknowingly perpetrated by a BBC interview. Read the AP article first (it drips accountability which is the last thing Dow or any corporation would do)and the proof its a hoax

This is not a story when technology failed..

This is a story of corruption, of not having any fail safe mechanisms or adequate safety measures, of negligence, of politicians willingly selling their souls and of those who they represent and of a system which failed to protect its own.

A thousand fingers could be pointed and in this horrible disaster, anywhere you point, you can find guilty who are still sheltered by the law, by the money they have willingly spent for their own defense and none for the people who suffered.

Union Carbide / Warren Anderson and Dow Chemical - Till now, they have chosen not to accept any form of responsibility and instead suggest sabotage. Union Carbide had spent a paltry sum before they agreed to pay 470 million of which hardly one third has been paid to its victims for the lack of any judicial oversight and sadly, corruption at the heart of the system. Even the 470 million that hopefully will be disbursed one day, hardly 2000 dollars will go to the families of those who died and 500$ to those who lost everything but their lives. Hardly a sum for the cost of a human life...

Union Carbide's response cleverly attempts to distance itself from the tragedy by calling the Bhopal plant owned by an indian firm. Clever, but it also serves to belittle the scope of this disaster and the lives that were snuffed out.

Would this be the same outcome if this had happened elsewhere, or in the developed world? And wouldnt a proper clean up in order or long completed if this were anywhere else.

Warren Anderson never saw the inside of a prison and still lives quite contently in Florida or NY and the US judicial system has done its part by denying the extradition requests by India. The Indian system on the other hand has comfortably chosen to neglect the cries for justice and has happily moved on..

Rediff.com has a sombre look at the tragedy, its victims, those who were forgotten, and those who still suffer.

One more reason not to trust corporations..

Also no additional compensation is planned and Dow has not apologized or owned up to this tragedy as the last part of the slashdot post. It is a hoax and was unknowingly perpetrated by a BBC interview. Read the AP article first (it drips accountability which is the last thing Dow or any corporation would do)and the proof its a hoax

kids from a school in india manage to build a rocket. initially it was a secret project - but got the backing of the principal and then the indian space agency got interested in thier work.(they happend to stumble upon canadian rocket enthusiast Richard Nakka's website, which got them interested)

http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/dec/01karna.htm

We ship the waste to India and let them take care of it.

It unfortunately IS the current practice.

Link1 Link2 Link3

Bill Gates world's most spammed man
CNN and Rediff are reporting that Bill Gates gets 4 million e-mails a day, making him world's most spammed person. However, unlike lesser mortals, he has an entire department dedicated to filter unsolicited e-mails and only a few of them actually get through to his inbox, said Steve Ballmer at a Microsoft Research event in Singapore. Other sources are also reporting the breaking news story.

If you have any problems at your polling place, call the Election Protection hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683). This is not the time for complaisance.

"Take India, for example. While they may have pop singers and the like who are enormously popular domestically, the global market for such music doesn't even begin to approach that of America's."

This reeks of blissful ignorance. Lets get some facts straight. Repeat after me: India's population is slightly higher than North America and Europe put together.

Consequence ? Even if they sell one CD outside india, the "global" sales can far outstrip any artist in US. You think Britney is popular ? How about Madonna ? Ever heard of Rahman ? Quoted from the article: "In terms of sales, Rahman is already bigger than the biggest. His music has already sold over 200 million cassettes. That's more than Madonna and Britney Spears put together."

... And thats just one artist. Obviously Rahman is more motivated than Britney and Madonna to protect his IP. And taken solely in terms of music sales, Rahman's "IP" is as valuable as Madonna's and Britney's put together. The reason that India lags behind in generating Tech IP is that it is nowhere near the US in terms of industrialization. But please, lets not talk about Movie or Music IP.

And besides, there is some truth to it. The problem is we in India, though are tought english from the first grade, rarely use it in everyday converstaion , so our conversation skills are limited.

We can't create simple short meaningful sentences. We use words like "basically", "actually", "technically" etc. ad nauseam and all at wrong places.

If we really want to keep these "outsourced" jobs we need to buckle up and improve our skills , rather than accuse Americans of being racist.

a) Face it, we speak a different English dialect, a dialect that I, for one, beginning to be proud of. See, the way I speak English defines me as an Indian; the moment I start speaking, people know I am from India. See, that's instant linguistic brand recognition, and that's something that not all English-speaking populations have.

b) Indeed, Ind-glish is one dialect with a chequered history; we've had Indian-origin words in English from the first OED itself.

c) Racial stereotyping == racism. You may find it funny, but the fact remains that the OP chose to portray that all Indians speak like that. That, of course, is simply not true; given my earlier point about being proud of Ind-glish, you'll probably understand why people like me would find it insulting as well.

Let me repeat my point once again:- racial stereotyping, even if you find it funny, is racism.

From my prespective we should rather do RnD stuff, for our own benefits rather than pacify some pissed of customer 7 seas across, who can barely figure out what we are speaking.

http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2004/may/19google.h tm/
Yep.

Something isn't right. A new suburb in Bangalore costs $2bn, an expressway costs $87m and a mission to moon just $88m!

What was the moral you were espousing again?

India's former defense minister was strip-searched twice on US airports. He has vowed never to return to US. And you wonder why the world hates you.

Check the Rediffmail. They are offering 1GB now, not just promises.

Sorry dude...medicine is .....next.."What to do, we are like this only" - Late 20th Century Indian Proverb....

He frequently answers children's questions and

E-mail to President saves students career

Apparently, a 17 year old student got very bad results in Physics, while he expected a high score. He sent an email to the prez, who read the email among hundreds/thousands and instructed people to investigate the matter. The matter was resolved in favor of the student - there'd been a glitch in the calculations.

Ooops, you're right AC. I had forgotten about that! And yet the man officially lives less than 10 km away from me...
However, Ingvar Kamprad denies reports that he has surpassed Billy Boy.

If you sign up for Spymac mail or Rediffmail you don't have the backing of a major corporation that has an infrastructure in place to support future growth, investors looking for the company to *not* fold, and a dedicated staff just for your data.

I have absolutely no idea on this Spymac, but Rediff has been around for quite long now (6-8 years I think). Slashdot has linked to Rediff many times in the past - it is an Indian news and e-Commerce site. Rediff is traded on NASDAQ (not that its current stock price is anything to write home about), and is backed by a bigger media company conglomorate, Rediffusion.

Binand

I already got an account! send me all the freakin spam and meaningless chain letters you can muster up! I've got a whole gig to waste on the stuff now.

clickey.

Indian free webmail provider Rediff is offering 1 GB space and 10 MB attachments already. Lets see when MSN hops on.

China is currently facing the dilemma of joining the world community yet somehow maintaining it's authoritarian (yes they are still communist) government.

Look's like yet another slashdotter failed social studies. China is a Socialist nation, not a Communist one. And thier elected President would be shocked to hear otherwise.

Let me guess, you thought China was still ruled by Chairman Mao. Before you comment on world politics, you should learn about the governments you are insulting.

Here are some pics from last years event!

Actually Dikshit (pronounced Dhik-Shith) is a very respectable Indian (last) name :-)

There's even a Chief Minister (Indian equivalent of a state governor) with that name.

I think the BBC is an object unlike any other in the world.

Take the company I work for.. We deal in disposing waste. Some of our revenue comes from taking care of the local government's home waste recycling centres. They outsource to us essentially.

Now just because part of our revenue stream is based on these contracts that doesn't mean that we're in some way an instrument of the state. Even if all our revenue [1] came from these centres we still wouldn't be an instrument of the state.

The BBC is a corporation in this sense. It's like the government outsourced the job of making an independant media to a company.

Just like our (council) taxes pay for these home waste recycling centres which get outsourced to us. The government taxes the people who watch TV to pay the BBC.

The BBC is different in that it's a company who's existance is mandated in a statute. Does this make the BBC an arm of the state? Well, I don't think that's a question you can answer objectively. I think the best thing to do is look at how successful they are in (part of) their (full) mandate to provide impartial news.

Take the Iraq issue and the Hutton report. The BBC took an anti-government stance with regard to iraq and accussed the government of sexing up the 'dodgy' dossier.

The Hutton report blamed the BBC for the tragedy but it is my opinion (and that of the majority of British) that Hutton wasn't told the whole truth.

In both cases the BBC stood firm against the government. This is what is important! A media that is independant of government and not a whore to a business model. The BBC isn't perfect but it's superior to most other models.

Take a look at Italy if you need more convincing.

Simon

[1] It's quite possible to have all your revenue come from these centres. There are around a thousand of them in England and acquiring the contract for just one site adds an average of 300,000 to your turnover.

India gives aid to US. Maybe they can donate some EVMs too...

Just as a modern PDA is just "slightly different" from a 1980s non-programmable pocket calculator.

The systems in India have simpler hardware and software, That's a huge understatement. See here and here for example: the machines cannot be reprogrammed without inserting a new chip on which you have burned the new machine-language program, and even then they have tamper-detection mechanisms. No touchscreens, no Microsoft Windows, just push-buttons and rather simple electronics. That's really all you need.

Just as a modern PDA is just "slightly different" from a 1980s non-programmable pocket calculator.

The systems in India have simpler hardware and software, That's a huge understatement. See here and here for example: the machines cannot be reprogrammed without inserting a new chip on which you have burned the new machine-language program, and even then they have tamper-detection mechanisms. No touchscreens, no Microsoft Windows, just push-buttons and rather simple electronics. That's really all you need.

Its interesting to note that "Socialist Democracies" like Europe have also been quick to embrace free economies. Indeed, the history of Europe has been characterized by the breaking down of trade barriers in the economy.

Being socialist (providing for the people through taxes) does not mean you cannot be capitalist (trying to maximize overall value of the economy). You have to make some compromises here and there, but overall, you can make out pretty well. Check out the list of the 10 freest economies in the world. Note how many of those countries have strong social policies. Hell, Denmark has a 60% top tax rate! Also compare the top-10 freest economies (nice places to live) with the bottom-10 freest economies (like Iran, etc).

US gets more BPO work than India: US commerce dept
US commerce department data quoted in a news article in The Wall Street Journal show that a lot more work is being outsourced to the US in comparison with other countries like India.

http://us.rediff.com/money/2004/mar/18bpo.htm?head line=US~gets~more~BPO~work~than~India

read what the Indians think of their own abilities here.

BTW, "Coolie" is a word that roughly translates into menial laborer.

Magnus.

I actually read about this a few months ago here. The music is going to be done by a Bollywood composer and a Finnish folk group, guaranteeing that the music will sound like it comes from another planet.

Considering conditions in India are far better than in the USA (crime, violence, poverty, terrorism).

Fundamental concerns in India include the ongoing dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir, massive overpopulation, environmental degradation, extensive poverty, and ethnic and religious strife... Population below poverty line: 25%

The US intelligence also failed to detect India's nuclear bomb tests in 1998.

Links:
Why the CIA failed to detect plans for Pokhran
How the Indian `bomb team' outwitted CIA

Assembly to machine code is a direct translation, i.e. assembly code is every bit as efficient as machine code, not like compiling. Nobody writes in ones and zeros.

Then, you have the problem that if the code is written in assembly language, it is going to be very, very hard for any auditors to check that there is no election rigging going on

These machines have been used since the 1980s. Rather hard to customise them to rig an election that won't take place for a decade.

Two more articles on their specs and why they're tamper proof.

Assembly to machine code is a direct translation, i.e. assembly code is every bit as efficient as machine code, not like compiling. Nobody writes in ones and zeros.

Then, you have the problem that if the code is written in assembly language, it is going to be very, very hard for any auditors to check that there is no election rigging going on

These machines have been used since the 1980s. Rather hard to customise them to rig an election that won't take place for a decade.

Two more articles on their specs and why they're tamper proof.

You're woefully wrong when you talk about a lack of accredited facilities in India. I'm sorry to say, but it's apparent that you speak out of an unfound prejudice that discounts the quality of Indian medical institutions.

I've only recently returned from that country and how it is progressing. This Harvard Medical associated facility is just the first of many similarly affiliated facilites coming up all over the country. John Hopkins has associates in the Indian market too.. I just can't recall their names. And there may be so many more initiatives underway that I'm not even barely aware of.

Agreed that even all this infrastructure available today doesn't amount to much, but it's more that a step in the right direction for that country.

And more importantly, for those in developed countries that can't afford to pay the high-cost of private healthcare, India offers a teriffic option to get treatment at a fraction of that cost.

A nice photo feature on KC here.