Do you want to live in real style? I realize that one can live a life in New Delhi these days, which was rather impossible few years ago.




I remember pretty well some years ago that it was impossible to eat and live well in India and there were a number of people who went to foreign shores to seek a better lifestyle.  Now, it seems to me that a good lifestyle can be had even here.

I would like to start with a small example. Last year, I thought I would eat apples the entire ...<< MORE >>

Now, if we had to translate the fruit 'mariposa' or 'plum mariposa' into Hindi as it is now available and grown in India, what are the problems that the translator, or specifically the Hindi translator, likely to face? Mind you, it isn't a plum--it is a cross between a plum and an apricot. So, it should be called mariposa [मेरिपोज़ा] in Hindi.
...<< MORE >>

Today, I bought Mariposa from a store in the city. I had bought it once earlier. Mariposa or plum mariposa is a cross between the plum and the apricot. It is maroon-red from outside and deep red inside. It is very juicy and sweet.

                    This is the picture:

 

The interesting thing is that this fruit isn't imported but grown in India. It cost me Rs. 150 [$3.75] a kilo. Well, these days, you can buy anything in New Delhi, the only thing you need is some money and some imagination.

        

The stock markets are fluctuating these days. The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) was up by 2000 points and then it fell by 500 odd points. The global uncertainties have spooked the markets and then there are local uncertainties too. These are bad days in the markets and only the strong-hearted would do well.


...<< MORE >>

I found a very interesting article on the nature of religion by Ajit Dongre. I am going to quote the source and post it
here.

Today, while I was surfing, I found the article at http://www.truthandviews.com/religion/1.html and it is reproduced below:

The Evil of Religion
By Ajit Dongre 12/11/2001

Religion is evil. It leads to violence and hatred among people.

A religion is not history; it is the embodiment of the metaphysical and spiritual thoughts of a society at the seminal point in the course of that religion. In this socio-anthropological perspective, Man created religion out of the twin needs for (a) a code for moral or ethical thought and behavior and (b) spiritual tranquility and salvation. The major religions of the world evolved out of these needs felt by various societies over the millennia. The creation of each religion was, of course, not a conscious act, and each was influenced by the particular socio-cultural milieu out of which it arose.

Our tribal ancestors had to struggle to survive in the face of limited resources. Separated from other tribes by distance and culture, they often took recourse in violence against members of other tribes in order to protect their own kind. As human societies grew in size, the notion of "we" (vs. "they") had to be constantly expanded. Different religions codified this tension between "we" and "they" in words specific to that society at that juncture in time. In addition to the various edicts prescribing or proscribing violence in the name of goodness, other culture-specific trappings also found themselves in each religion in the form of additional verbiage.

We humans are creatures of our evolution. Behavior helping, and benignant to, our kin and fellow tribesmen was conducive to our survival as a species and so has become etched in our genes. Our religions reflect these attributes of ourselves - morality, compassion, love, etc. - which can be generically called humanitarianism. Unfortunately, most religions have a lot of other baggage in them beside a codification of these human values. Some of this baggage may have occasionally been marginally useful when that religion served a small society isolated from others, but in these modern times, of a single worldwide society, the non-humanitarian aspects of the world religions are inimical to that global society. In this sense, religions are like cancers attached to the healthy tissue of humanitarianism.

Many people think of their religion as being full of peace and brotherly love but imbue other religions with some kind of fault. More than xenophobia is at play here: it is easy for an outsider to spot the arbitrariness, internal inconsistencies and the lack of logic (the "mumbo-jumbo") in other religions. However, since such mumbo-jumbo is always intertwined with messages of love, compassion and goodness (values humans are inherently attracted to by virtue of their evolution), when people learn their own religion they become blind to the mumbo-jumbo of that religion. In fact, many become enslaved by the mumbo-jumbo and imagine the humanitarian values as actually arising out of, or at least being inherently part of, the mumbo-jumbo. Further, many consider their religious tracts as actual, authentic history and become zealots over these religious idiosyncrasies.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks by Muslim terrorists, Islam especially has come under scrutiny by non-Muslims. To Muslims, the concept of jihad signifies the struggle to overcome oppression within or without. Because the extremists among them can interpret the concept of jihad to sanction wreaking unspeakable horror on fellow humans who the jihadi decide to be the perpetrators of the oppression, jihad is often sighted by non-Muslims to justify their non-tolerance or hatred of Muslims. But there are many other concepts in Islam which to the non-Muslim appear just as silly, inhuman, arbitrary or internally inconsistent.

The problem, however, is not with Islam alone. The other religions that originated in the Middle East, Judaism and Christianity, are equally riddled with their versions of mumbo-jumbo. Inherent to Christianity, for example, are concepts of "Original Sin" and hellfire and damnation. Believing Christians have rationalized and reconciled to these concepts in a variety of ways, but to non-Christians they do not follow logically from any fundamental principles necessary for human survival or understanding.

But it's not as if these three so-called "Abrahamic" religions are the only ones that mix moral messages with irrational gobbledygook. The other two major religions, originating in Asia, Hinduism and Buddhism, also have their own healthy (or unhealthy!) share of tortured logic. For example, Hinduism in its most essential tract, the Bhagwad Geeta, goes to some length to explain monotheism embodied by thousands of avatars, "justified killing", and "dispassionate need-fulfillment" - concepts which evoke skepticism, distrust, or ridicule among non-Hindus.

Some religions, in addition to prescribing personal thought and conduct, also prescribe civic behavior of a society and thus butt heads with the laws of a nation and those between nations. Many Muslims, for example, think of partitioning religion and civic codes (i. e., "separating Church and State") as antithetical to religion itself. This further complicates the orderly government of people because the question of who calls the legal shots is never resolved.

World's great religions are good and desirable precisely to the extent that they embody brotherly love, compassion and good deeds. Beyond that boundary, they only divide people and confuse ethical and logical thought processes by injecting silly drivel or downright violent orthodoxies in human discourse and interaction. But the invention of god and the creation of religion are unnecessary to promulgate the virtues of love, compassion and good deeds. These virtues are inherent in our common humanity, not in religion - let alone in a particular religion. All we need to do is to articulate these universal virtues without the trappings of religion, in a sort of least-common-denominator version of the Ten Commandments of all the great religions of the world.

But what about the spiritual hunger that impels many to follow their religions? How can this hunger be satisfied in the absence of religion? While not everyone feels this hunger, a vast majority appears to, so this hunger must also be considered part of our evolutionary make-up. And following the codes of thoughts and behavior of a specific religion appear to satisfy the spiritual needs of many people. If religions are abandoned, where can these people turn for spiritual peace? It is true that other behaviors such as meditation and social service satisfy the spiritual needs of some people. But why should these behaviors replace religious practices for those people who are perfectly content with their religion?

The problem is the one we started with: praying to different gods divides people. While a majority of people are perfectly content with letting others pray their own way, others are not. What the world needs, therefore, is a new overarching religion, or a non-religion, which codifies the spiritual aspirations of Man. Is the creation of such a religion practical? Of course not. But that doesn't stop the humanitarian dreamer from dreaming of a new order when religion stops being a destructive, divisive influence on the modern world.

        

It is really interesting to observe the high prices of oil. Today, oil closed at $136 per barrel, which is $3 less than the peak of $139 that it touched a couple of days ago. Let us first look at recent developments--some points and counter-points.

The CEO of Gazprom, the Russian oil company, had said in January that he expects oil to touch $250 in 2009. And soon thereafter, there was a rebuttal of this price by the Chairman of British oil major, BP.

Then I am sure we have heard of Mr. Arjun Murti who works at Goldman Sachs and he's well known for predicting seemingly impossible oil prices and in the last couple of years, his predictions have been proved right to a number of people, who thought he was being too speculative. I don't know how he is able to work it out. But then I guess he is a specialist in his field and you must allow the specialists that kind of freedom, where they should be worth their word. There is a very interesting link on the website of the Society of Petroleum Engineers Gulf Coast Section, where we have details about a talk by Arjun Murti where he predicted a price of $105 a barrel on March 30, 2005. If you look up this link, you can read that even in March 2005, the prediction had sent shock waves throughout the industry. Then you have a December 19, 2005, piece on $105 oil and Murti at Bloomberg website. This also makes for very interesting reading. If I am correct and if what I deduce from the article is correct, then on December 19, 2005, the price of oil was $58. Let us take it at $60. So, in the last two and a half years, oil has gone up by about 2.5 times. e haven't had such runaway inflation or we haven't had such a great fall in the US$ in the last three years which justifies such a peak in oil prices.

The reason for this latest rise is the news that US supplies have fallen unexpectedly for a fourth week. Here is the Marketwatch story.

The OPEC members have repeatedly said that there is no shortage of oil in the market. The billionaire investor George Soros said recently that he believes oil to be caught up in a speculative bubble. The major oil producing nations have also said that there are other reasons behind the oil spike and that there are no supply-side fears.

One reason for the hike in oil prices is a fall in the US $. Oil prices have always been linked to the dollar. The currencies of the UAE have been pegged to the US$. Most of the world's oil is produced in the Persian Gulf but it is sold in New York in the US dollar, which has kept its prominence as an international currency. It is this lack of sheen in the dollar that is aggravating the crisis. But what is this connection between the fall of the US dollar and the rise in oil prices? Let me explain. The dollar has been the most stable currency in historical terms. Most nations have their foreign currency reserves in dollars or dollars form a major part of their reserves. When the dollar drops, the second most stable thing to buy is oil futures. This is also a hedge against the fall in the dollar. So, the more the dollar falls, the more there are fears in the markets and the more oil would become expensive irrespective of the oil supplies. Also, other commodities would become costly as well. The fall of the dollar also leads to a rise in gold prices for the same reason.

So, how do the Americans rein in the fall in the dollar? That's a tough question. They would need to restore confidence in the stock markets. There are problems galore in the US stock markets--there was the subprime, and there have been too many job losses. It is indeed frightening. I wouldn't like to work in the United States and feel I am quite lucky to be working in India.

I teach this course called English for Media Communications to journalism students at MCRC in my University, which is one of the most premier media institutes around. Last year, I had given an assignment to the students where they were given few articles to read and then write a feature based on those articles or on further reading that they might have done. One set of articles were on Energy. I had culled a number of articles from the Financial Times, London, for their excellent coverage. I remember an article published on November 9, 2007, by Ed Crooks, where he says:

The price of oil is a temperature gauge for the world’s energy system – and at $95 a barrel for US crude, it is showing that the system is seriously overheated...China and India between them have accounted for about 70 per cent of the increase in global oil consumption over the past seven quarters, with oil-producing countries accounting for much of the rest.

On November 14, 2007, I read in the Financial Times that the OPEC had rejected US calls for an increase in production. Let me quote the Opec Secretary General:

Abdulla El-Badri, Opec secretary general, said that there was “no shortage of oil” in the market and deferred any decision on production to the next ministerial meeting of the oil producers’ cartel in Abu Dhabi in December.

Mr El-Badri said, however, that the the “US should help to resolve the problem” and enumerated several factors, among them bottleneck in refining, geopolitical concerns and the weakness of the US dollar, that were affecting the oil price.

“The US has not invested in refining capacity in 30 years. The refineries are operating at 80 per cent. That is not adequate,” Mr El-Badri said. “We have also the problem of the dollar,” the secretary general added.

So, it seems that the Opec is quite genuine about what it says. And despite what a respected investor like George Soros says, I am sure that the oil prices are going to be on the higher side for the whole of 2008. Unless, they come down to $110-$115 levels, I don't foresee any fall. So, even if we are really caught in a speculative bubble, we are there and we need to face it. And there may not be short term, quick fix solutions to the problem. There should be good, long term solutions.

Those would surely help.

        

I opened by blog at blogspot, taking advantage of the free service provided by Google in May 2008. I think it's good and I like it. But I have now decided that I am going to migrate it to my website. I did realize with dismay that I would not be able to import my entries from my blog at Google. So, I'll need to do some intelligent thinking on how to work that out.

I feel it would be much better in terms of my personal visibility if I were transfer the blog to my website. For those, who would like to look at the old blog, you could find it here--> http://roomynaqvy.blogspot.com

Roomy

        

Download | Duration: 00:00:27

I hope you like listening to this sample podcast. Do let me know if it works for you and I would like to make it a regular feature.

        

Dear Folks
This is an experiment of trying to create a blog on my own site. I hope it works.