THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

I read an article by a nuclear scientist which said that nuclear  energy was unsafe for South Asia, primarily because extremists had  always managed to attack even the most highly guarded military areas, and that the chances of an attack by a religious extremist group was a  high probability. I think he could also have added that nuclear waste was going to be a  big problem. So far, India hasn't even figured out how to dispose of  human waste of 1.3 billion people--let alone nuclear waste generated by  large number of generators. I've always been against nuclear energy--Fukushima also brought home  what could happen to the soil, agriculture, and life of communities in  the event of a disaster. But taking part at the Watson International Center's Advanced Research Institute at Brown University last summer, what came out through our  discussions is that nuclear power was an easy option for many  countries trying to fulfill energy ne...

The ancients had codes of conduct in war. In ancient India, the Law of Manu stated that one should not attack a sleeping enemy—even a child can understand that attacking someone who’s sleeping brings no glory because no courage is required. No doubt the ancients Romans, Greeks and others had their own codes of war. Fighting sneakily and without showing your hand was in general considered cowardly—you had to fight with a sword in your hand, clearly visible by the enemy. The two World Wars remain prominently in people’s memories because they were, besides the epochs of human bestiality, also the epochs of human bravery and courage. The millions of stories of people who behaved humanely during these moments, with the correct code of conduct, is what makes people turn back, time and again, to the memories of those brutal years. Sadly those times seemed to have passed. Now technological war in which healthy, beefy young men sit in computer cubicles from thousands of miles ...

In case you missed it, the American banking system has been giving out massive amounts of loans to foreign companies. This has good, and bad, consequences. Because the American banking system had a limitless amount of cash and credit (so it appeared), it was willing to loan out these quick and easy loans to businesses in China and India, amongst other emerging economies. But now, with the American dollar going up, the exchange rates have become sharply assymetrical. Any emerging economy business trying to pay its loans is going to find that the amount they need to pay has sharply increased in local currency. With the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, these companies may find it difficult, or impossible, to pay the loans back. There’s always Chapter 11, leading to a massive wave of defaults across the world. Apparently around a trillion dollars may be at stake here. The Federal Reserve cannot keep interest rates artificially low for ever. Then there’s also their m...