THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

On March 15th, I wrote a blog post titled “Fourteen Drunk People.” It was about how the domain registration organization ICANN is controlled by the US government. Seems there’s been a change in Internet governance. According to Deutsche Welles: It was hardly a surprise. People had been calling for it for ages. But when the US Department of Commerce finally announced it was planning to relinquish control of a vital part of ICANN - and with it, the Internet - by October 2015, the chatter really began. The announcement, says the same article from DW, has “"electrified" this week's ICANN 49 meeting in Singapore.” The Republicans, of course, are not happy. According to the Hill: A group of House Republicans introduced a bill Thursday that would prohibit the Obama administration from moving forward with its announced plans to relinquish oversight of the technical side of the Internet's Web address system. The Internet ...

According to Reuters’s 29 th March article titled “ Dollar reserve role secure but set to shrink: BIS ” : The dollar's share of central bank reserves may fall by as much as 10-15 percentage points in coming years without threatening its role as the world's main reserve currency, a senior official from the Bank of International Settlements said on Saturday. Always fascinating to find out the machinations and webs of finance. These institutions that regulate currency, drive its prices up and down, buy and sell currency, enrich and bankrupt countries are always so obscure so its always a curiosity when you find out about one. According to Wikipedia, the “Bank of International Settlements” is: The   Bank for International Settlements   (BIS) (in French,Banque des règlements internationaux   (BRI)) is an international organization   of   central banks   which "fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for   ...

I’m always happy when people from the Third World do well in the USA. But then there are those disturbing moments, like the time I learnt what my beautiful Ethiopian flatmate, who fed me ingera and had a lovely laugh, was doing in Brown University’s engineering laboratories. One day she told me she was designing a bullet that could go through bulletproof material. Granted, to be doing research in your early twenties is a triumph—but at what cost, I often thought. As I get more immersed in Buddhist philosophy, and the “Do No Harm” secular counterpart of the Dharmic “Don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t lie” continues to resonate in my head, it is clear that the right livelihood is as important as one’s career triumphs or the salary one draws in one’s job. So when I read about Arati Prabhakar, it was with a mixture of scepticism and unease. Aarati is Obama’s handpicked chief of DARPA, the US’s defence research agency. A profile at WIRED magazine gives her background-she’s a techie a...

With the USA re-inserting itself centerstage with the sanctions against Russia, you could almost think the drama has shifted elsewhere. Did you hear Edward Snowden sliding out of the news, obfuscated in the noise and confusion of the Ukraine/Crimea moment? These distractions are useful. They make us think the richest country in the world is still the one with the trillions to do whatever it wants, wherever--whether it is unprovoked attacks on Iraq and Afganisthan; or torture of its own and other countries ‘ citizens; or worldwide surveillance of phones, computers and other shady downloads of personal information that is still to be revealed ;   or stealing/hacking of worldwide data with the absolute assurance that it is completely above the law in doing this. Not to mention what appears to be an increasingly blanket check it has given itself to install and operate technologies of torture (which include sleep deprivation targeted towards minorities) in not just in own, but a...

The schoolyard bullies have thrown Russia out of their little gang. Seems like Russia doesn’t need to be worried about being ousted by the Richie Rich Club. Even the New Yorker says the G8 was a washout. Don’t cry for the G8: It was mostly a waste of time , says the venerable institution. Of course these days if you get out of one Rich Man’s Club, there’s another one right around the corner to join. These are democratic days, and there are choices. The other club is even Bigger and Better—with 20 members and I’m sure flashier red leather sofas and Cartier watches on display. The Group of 20, however, seems to have gotten infected by the Group of 8 exclusivity virus. Julie Bishop, of Australia, has apparently suggested Russia should be booted out of the next summit. No, no, no, say the BRICS. You can’t make unilateral decisions like this, Australia, say the BRICS. Russia’s of course a popular country (Mr Putin has been out and about shaking hands and drinking vodka with pe...

According to the Financial Times: Motivated by fierce nationalism and a deep sense of historic injustice, for which he blames the west, Russian president Vladimir Putin has been lashing out with little apparent regard for the consequences. If cornered, he will be tempted to use all the levers at his disposal to retaliate against western sanctions. Where has Putin been lashing out? Maybe I missed the news. Mostly it appears to be the Americans lashing out to Putin. Then there’s a lovely op-ed today, reprinted in the Kathmandu Post from “Project Syndicate,” about “The Post Russian World Order” by one Giles Merritt, who predicts a funeral for Russia, as well as a BRIC bloc without Russia. He also says: “Russia is also set to sideline itself from the global economy, and by doing so it will usher in a new era in international relations. “ (A bit of Blah blah here…) And then he says: “…so the Russian economy will progressively be cut off from international trade and investment ...

The maize crop has failed again in parts of Southern Nepal. Thousands of farmers are protesting and asking for compensation, but who's going to hear them?   The seeds were imported hybrid seeds, brought from India. The Rajkumar variety of hybrid seeds, while impressively named and hinting to royal origins, could easily have been genetically modified seeds, sold by shadowy international companies whose stocks keep on rising in the stock market. The X-92 and Sandhya are equally well named—one hinting to scientific certitude, the other to some feminine quality nested in the seeds. The branding was great but the product was fake. Unfortunately, Nepal doesn’t have the investigative capacities to figure out where these seeds actually originate from. Why are these seeds being sold publicly to farmers when it is clear, over and over, that “hybrid” seeds sold commercially are of questionable origins,  possibly of genetically modified backgrounds, and they continue to fail specta...

The CIA has broken the law. And the USA Congress is pissed off.   Senator Harry Reid has ordered an investigation. Guess what the CIA answered? "We are a far better organization because of congressional oversight, and we will do whatever we can to be responsive to the elected representatives of the American people," CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said. Does that seem odd to you? The first line of that paragraph, I mean? We are far better looking because we use Dove soap. And L’Oreal shampoo too. But that’s not the relationship between the Congress and the CIA, is it? Isn’t there something called “checks and balances”, in which the CIA has to directly report to, and be legally accountable to, the US Congress? Surely the Congressional oversight is not just so the CIA can be “better”? If they wanted to be better, they could hire McKinsey and Company, or some management consultants to do the job, surely. Or they could go to church and confess their crimes. U...