Tsunamical Ignorance

Yesterday's (Monday) Tsunami scare across South East Asia showcased almost all nations’ preparedness. At the same time, it also revealed how naive and ignorant are some of our news anchors.

Here is an example, NDTV's Rajdeep Sardesai-- dubbed as one of India's best news anchor/media personality-- asked this question to a meteorologist. "If there is nothing before 1 A.M, can we take it that there will be no Tsunami." Rajdeep, give us a break, its nature and any school kid will know that ruling it out or ruling it in, is simply not human.

Next, Rajdeep retorting to Union Science and Tech minister (India)Kapil Sibal's reply on the possibility of a Tsunami, Are you trying to say that the Indian Government believes a Tsunami is there!

Heights of ........

Soviet Democracy

Russia may not be referred to as the actual proponent of democracy. But at least Putin and his cronies are not derailing another county's free will.

After Georgia and Ukraine, it is the turn off of Kyrgyztan to throw out self- proclaimed elected leaders. And of course one knows where the backing came from.

Putin favoured Kyrgyztan president Akayev could have used power, military-- reminiscent of the Soviet era-- to quell the opposition uprising. Akayev for all the bad press he has attracted functioned as a true democrat. He ordered the home guard to stay away from using force and instead he fled the country.

So much for U.S and its cry for free world. What happened in Iraq? and what probably can happen in Iran, North Korea?

Baby, J&J is not for you

ET had this

Maharashtra Food and Drug Authority has issued notice to Johnson and Johnson, asking the company to remove the word "baby" from several of its products meant for infants, terming it as `misleading'. The company was issued notice yesterday for "misleading" use of the word baby on the labels of its products, as chemicals used in the producs were in no way different from those used in other cosmetic products, FDA commissioner A Ramakrishnan said. "Infact, some of the carcinogenic matter in these products can cause reaction in babies," he said and added that promotion of such products as those meant for babies was misleading. He said atleast six products, including baby shampoo and baby oil came under FDA scanner following complaints. The official, however, added that baby soap did not have any harmful chemical in it.

Borrowing from J&J's one time punchline "What does your father know", possibly the company also thought what does the baby know!

Gobbledygook

If the English inculcated officialese and with it letters starting with "Vide your letter dated......please be advised that blahblah or we are in receipt of your letter blah blah" then the IT revolution in the country is shunning it out, only to replace it with Jargonese.

In my work, i increasingly meet IT workers and their conversation is punctuated by ITish words like matrix for a section or a set, management contingencies for problems etc..

The way it is embracing the population, it looks like Jargons will be the way of life.

People are taught and begin to believe that this is the proper language. It's like a virus; it simply spreads and no one notices that they are infected

In Switch, Pepsi MakesDiet Cola Its New Flagship.
This story definitely has some juice in it. The catch is, will Pepsi follow it up in India as well or do a McDonald’s or KFC feeding Indians with fattened food, while tagging the calorie conscious westerners line by filling the retail line with diet variants

The next "Pepsi Generation" likely will be drinking diet cola.
In a major break with the traditional soft-drink hierarchy, PepsiCo Inc. is making Diet Pepsi the star of the company's U.S. marketing efforts -- and trimming advertising spending on sugar-sweetened Pepsi-Cola. The move reflects the continued loss of fizz by Pepsi-Cola, which was invented in 1898 and is the second-biggest brand in the soft-drink aisle.
"We are treating Diet Pepsi as the flagship brand," says Dave Burwick, chief marketing officer for Pepsi-Cola North America. "It's a big step for us."
As part of the reordered priorities, Diet Pepsi will be marketed as a hip, cool brand for everyone, including teenagers and Baby Boomers. Meanwhile, Pepsi is narrowing its sales pitch for regular Pepsi-Cola to soda drinkers younger than 25, Latinos, African-Americans and sports fans.Pepsi says it plans to double its marketing spending on Diet Pepsi this year, while the budget for Pepsi-Cola will fall slightly. The company doesn't disclose figures, but TNS Media Intelligence says that means the company will spend more than $60 million this year on Diet Pepsi, while the budget for regular Pepsi will be below last year's $156 million. Regular Pepsi still has nearly double the U.S. market share of Diet Pepsi in volume terms, so the company isn't about to drastically cut its marketing of its main product.

Are we blogging blokes risking our careers.

An Associated Press story in today's Economic Times

"Flight attendant Ellen Simonetti and former Google employee Mark Jen have more in common than their love of blogging: they both got fired over it. Simonetti had posted suggestive photographs of herself in uniform, while Jen speculated online about his employer's finances. In neither case were their bosses happy when they found out. Though many companies have Internet guidelines that prohibit visiting porn sites or forwarding racist jokes, few of the policies directly cover blogs, or Web journals, particularly those written outside of work hours. "

for the full version read Bloggers beware! You may get sacked.

Some intersting facts from the story

1) Currently, some 27 per cent of online U.S. adults read blogs, and 7 per cent pen them, according to The Pew Internet and American Life Project.
--How many in India?

2) If free publishing coined the terms blogs and blogging, then it in turn has reared 'dooced', meaning "to have lost one's job because of one's Web site" Thanks to Simonetti and her blog dooced.com

Life's Like That

Give 100 percent. If you cant't stay away.

A small slip up, was all it took to put me in the "correction" list at the world's top wire service. And what did i do wrong - instead of keying in Nasdaq i put in New York Stock Exchange (No crime at all in any of the top Indian business dailies. For you had time till late evening to reset it.)

My fortune, the usually careful filer let it pass through and here i'm staring at a corrections and several pitiful glances from my colleagues.

The thought and tone of Readers Digest's column -Life's Like That, provides me with a little solace.

Okonomos- Vintage Chidambaram
Business Standard Columnist T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan comments on P Chidambaram's Fringe Benefit Tax (Announced as part of Indian union budget 2005-06).

"In 1988, when he was a minister of state of home, P Chidambaram brought in the defamation bill. Such a bill was needed, but not in the way he did it.
In 1997, he brought in the Minimum Alternate Tax, of which the same can be said. Ditto for the Securities Transaction Tax last year.
And now comes the Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT). As with the other things, the idea is all right but the execution is pure Chidambaram — unsound because it is so imperious. "

There is no dearth for columnist in the top four Indian financial dailies (ET, Business Standard, Financial Express and Business Line). But most of them are sector specific.

There are big names though, who write on a plethora of areas. Here are a few names, The Times Group's Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar- Swaminomics, Business Standard's TN Ninan -Weekend Ruminations & T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan and not till long ago I did read Financial Express Dr Baru's columns.

March 4 .
The official day set by the United States Constitution for presidential inaugurations.

And March 4 marks Passing shots rebirth. You will see a much younger blog face, -- the new look is an attempt for just that-- but promise the same crap will flow incessantly.

After an eight month drought, passing shots deserves an end on a high note. As am incapable of that, I’ll flip through Abraham Lincoln’s March 4, first inaugural address.

"I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion (The long blog absence) may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave t, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad (Blog) land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union (bloggers), when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. " -Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.

Fellow bloggers keep visiting passing shots