The IPC 377 (Indian Penal Code – Section 377) is draconian in nature. It states:
Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.
The section not only decrees homosexual love not just illegal, but also criminal. For a country with a population of 1.2 billion (a fifth of the world’s population), a 4% homosexuality gets you 48 million criminals. This is just sad.
It took Anjali Gopalan of the Naz Foundation and other organizations eight long years to persuade the Delhi High Court to decriminalize homosexuality between consenting adults. What matters now is how the fundamental and non-secular strata of the society takes it.
For starters, the head cleric of Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque, criticised the ruling. Dominic Emanuel of India’s Catholic Bishop Council said the church did not “approve” of homosexual behaviour.
The main bone of contention for these people is that they consider homosexuality as unnatural. It is not their fault: The Indian law till some time ago, considered homosexuality unnatural. Homosexuality is both common and highly essential in the lives of a number of species.
Male lions sometimes band together with their brothers to lead the pride. To ensure loyalty, they strengthen the bonds by often having sex with each other. The dwarf-chimpanzees, our closest evolutionary neighbors exhibit homosexuality too. Over 1,500 species exhibit homosexual behavior. Calling homosexual behavior unnatural is plain falsification of facts.
Now let us come to the cultural (and religious) custodians who like to argue that homosexuality is not a part of Indian culture. The IPC 377 is a remnant of a 148-year-old colonial legislation (circa 1860) drafted by Lord Macaulay. Someone else’s point of view is our law and there’s certainly nothing “Indian” about it.
Also, chapter 11 of the Kamasutra, an ancient Indian text widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behavior, goes into great detail on homosexuality and homosexual relationships. In the Hindu narrative tradition, stories of gods and mortals changing gender occur. Sometimes they also engage in sexual activities as different genders. These stories and erotic art on temples wouldn’t germinate if homosexuality wasn’t a part of Indian culture.
The average Indian with his stigmatized mind is often confused about his own antecedents and identity. It is he who is trampling over the rights of freedom and choice of a minority. He has to wake up from his slumber and ignorance to rediscover what Indian Culture was before the atrocities of the British and other colonial powers. Nothing is more criminal than leading a life of lies.
As for the likes of Anjali Gopalan and Celina Jaitley, may their tribe increase.
Posted in Culture.
Tagged with Animals, Anjali Gopalan, Celina Jaitley, Dominic Emanuel, Homosexuality, IPC 377, Jama Masjid, Kamasutra, Lord Macaulay, Naz Foundation.
By Amol Hatwar
– July 3, 2009
France is already in a heated debate over the ban on head scarves in schools and public buildings since 2004. At the same time, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin made his remarks in India, where he faced severe opposition over the issue regarding the Sikh community wearing turbans. After talks in New Delhi he had promised:
I am sure we are going to find a solution that will be satisfactory for the Sikh community in France.
This only happened because several dozen Sikhs and Muslims held protests in the Indian capital ahead of Mr De Villepin’s talks with his Indian counterpart, Yashwant Sinha, at which the new law was discussed. Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh maintains that we are in talks with France. However, there has been no visible solution so far.
Coming back to the burqa, French President Nicolas Sarkozy sparked another debate off-late by calling the burqa, a head-to-toe Islamic garment, “a sign of subjugation… of debasement” that is “not welcome on French territory”. Sarkozy’s comments came after a recent win for UMP in the EU elections and André Gerin’s, a Communist, call for a parliamentary inquiry into the wearing of the burqa, with the view of a possible ban. The French Parliament has launched a cross-party mission to report back in six months.
While it can be argued that the burqa is a “dated custom”, but I believe women in France are empowered enough to resist donning it by force. However, if they are doing it to show faith in their religion, it becomes an entirely different issue altogether. The French State should have no right or reason to govern what a citizen should, or for that matter, should not, be wearing.
I feel Barack Obama was right in his recent speech in Cairo where he said:
It is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practising religion as they see fit—for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear.
I am sure there are more important issues for France at hand than muslim women wearing burqas. It is time Mr Nikolas Sarkozy shed his blurry burqaesqe and non-liberal view. It is time he woke up and smelt the coffee.
Posted in Culture, Politics.
Tagged with André Gerin, Barack Obama, Burqa, Dominique de Villepin, France, Manmohan Singh, Musilm, Nikolas Sarkozy, Yashwant SInha.
By Amol Hatwar
– June 27, 2009
On March 24, 2008 Zhou gave a speech titled Reform the International Monetary System, and argued for a gradual but a certain change from the US Dollar to IMF’s SDR. The Special Drawing Right (SDR) was created by the IMF in 1969 to support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system. At that time, one SDR was equivalent 0.888671 grams of fine gold—which, was also the value of one U.S. dollar. However, after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1973, the SDR was redefined as a basket of currencies consisting of the euro, Japanese yen, pound sterling, and U.S. dollar.
On one hand Beijing is urging it’s trade partners to use the Yuan in transactions, and on another Zhou is calling for a stronger “super-sovereign reserve currency” managed by the IMF; thus, putting pressure on the dollar. An alternative for the dollar is gathering momentum world-wide. But unless China lets its currency trade freely and lifts capital controls on the money going in and out of China, Yuan as a global currency, will just be a pipe-dream. Strengthening the SDR, however seems very much possible.
To do this not only SDR’s basket of currencies will have to be widened, but a lot accounting in world-wide financial markets and large asset pricing will have to be done in SDRs. Some airlines are already insuring passengers in SDRs. Such a system will be largely immune from the economic conditions in one country. Such a scheme has already got buyers in Russia and Brazil. I wonder what India is doing: The SDR composition gets reviewed in sometime in late 2010.
Posted in Business, Economy.
Tagged with Beijing, Bretton Woods, IMF, Reserve Currency, SDR, The People's Bank of China, US Dollars, US Economy, Zhou Xiaochuan.
By Amol Hatwar
– June 20, 2009
What really captures imagination and concerns of a majority of Indians are prices of daily consumables. There are wide-spead concerns that the Indian economy may go into deflation by the second quarter of financial year 2009-10 as there are fears of inflation going below zero per cent in the face of unprecedented fall in crude and commodity prices. Commodity stocks are already out of flavour.
Inflation fell to more than six-year low of 2.43 per cent for the week ended February 28 mainly on account of fall in prices of manufactured products and some food items. The wholesale price index stood at a nine-month low of 6.61 per cent from this year’s peak of 12.91%. For an analytical mind, this brings us to the question how are these figures calculated?
As for me, I have long believed that the methods that Indian Government utilizes in calculation inflation is grossly wrong. It is based more on the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) rather than the Consumer Price Index (CPI). You can learn more about both the indices here. To sum it up, the WPI doesn’t take the cost of a haircut into account, and, a fourth of the commodities used in WPI are no longer relevant to the common man. As a result, the inflation figures are grossly skewed. That said, falling inflation will give RBI more space to signal further cuts in interest rates to prop-up general demand and growth. This will trigger a revival in sectors such as automobiles, cement, steel and infrastructure and this would help an economic recovery. Yes, the worst when it comes to domestic demand will finally be over.
What worries me more that the Center might still be in denial. A fitting response in rate cuts, if delayed, will end up harming the industry in the long term.
Posted in Economy.
Tagged with CPI, Deflation, Indian Economy, Inflation, WPI.
By Amol Hatwar
– March 20, 2009
Since the heydays, my friends and I called Internet Explorer as Internet Exploder – it literally broke our carefully made layouts and pages; while every other browser worth it’s salt worked. The IE problems haven’t left Microsoft. In a developer conference in Australia, a student put Microsoft CEO – Steve Ballmer on the hot seat by asking him:
“Why is IE still relevant and why is it worth spending money on rendering engines when there are open source ones available that can respond to changes in Web standards faster?”
My heart goes out to that student, the question was well-homed. Apple uses the Open Source rendering engine called: WebKit for Safari on the Mac as well as the iPhone. Hell, Nokia uses WebKit too. Google has also joined the game with Google Chrome and Android. Besides, there are a plethora of rendering engines in the public domain. But yes, coming back to the student’s question, Ballmer seems to have replied:
“That’s cheeky, but a good question, but cheeky.”
He then went on to add, “Open source is interesting. Apple has embraced WebKit and we may look at that, but we will continue to build extensions for IE 8.” I’m sure that question caused Mr Ballmer some heart-burn. It was the IE6 to IE7 transition that delayed Vista and caused endless pain and misery for Microsoft Developers. The trouble is, despite all the effort and money that Microsoft spends on Internet Explorer, it doesn’t even adhere to basic standards.
But now, Web developers have taken things into their own hands. Several large websites in Norway have launched an advocacy campaign urging Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 users to upgrade their outdated web browsers. The phenomenon seems to be spreading with sites in Sweden, Indonesia and Australia joining in. Surprisingly, Microsoft is supporting the ban too. They want users to upgrade to IE7 and get in to a bigger can of worms.
I’ve stopped using Internet Explorer and most Microsoft software a long time ago. My Internet browsing experience has become less frustrating; the alternatives are much better than what Microsoft will ever be able to create.
Posted in Technology.
Tagged with Australia, Indonesia, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Norway, Steve Ballmer, Sweden.
By Amol Hatwar
– February 20, 2009
What connects ArcelorMittal and Ispat; besides steel of course? Rumor has it that there are talks about a merger. Some ArcelorMittal officials did visit Ispat’s steel plants.
While it is nice to see M&A news (gives some hope in tough times like these) what beats me totally is why would ArcelorMittal do something like this.
Firstly, most of ArcelorMittal’s estimates and projections have gone plain wrong. Their debt-obligations are high and there is a good possibility of the Brazilian operations going on the block. The output in Brazil has already been reduced.
I’ll be utterly surprised if this rumor has any ring to it. Wait and watch on this one.
Posted in Business.
Tagged with ArcelorMittal, Brazil, India, Ispat, Steel.
By Amol Hatwar
– February 14, 2009
Passwords are good. But when you subscribe to a lot of services, you start swimming in the so-called “password soup”. I have friends who prefer keeping one password for everything, they probably don’t care about what might happen when that one password gets out. That’s why we have password managers. Recently, I tried SplashID for the Mac and the iPhone. I liked what I saw and purchased it straightaway. I soon realized that there are plenty of them password managers out there, nearly 40 or so. It seems that 1Password is the tool that the world is using. Dang!
Ditto for iPhone applications. For any given function, there are just too many of them. All this reopened a line of thinking that I had quite a few years ago. It basically dealt with choice and freedom. In a post-industrial consumption-based society, more choice definitely means more freedom. Freedom is good, but is having lots and lots of choice good? To simplify things a bit, I feel it comes down to the difference between custom-tailoring and mass produced ready to wear clothes. Basically a manufacturer of name-brand clothes says something like so:
Just because we don’t have time to measure you, we’ll make clothes in all shapes and sizes. Plus we’ll manufacture it so cheaply, that we’re sure there is someone out there who is ready to buy it at a good markup and suck it up. We will then use our profits to influence him and make him come back for more, and then some…
On the other hand, my tailor passes a comment on gaining some weight, tells me what will look good on me, gives me a choice of cuts and fabrics and measures me up before stitching and fitting something. The end result, is not only what I am comfortable in, but it also makes me look good and feel happy. Besides being a quantity vs. quality argument, it also becomes wanting what you already have rather than wanting what you don’t have. You treasure what you have a great deal more. The only problem is that the whole process takes a lot of time.
But our original question still remains: Is more choice good? Well, I just found out how to put this case in plain simple English: Watch Barry Schwartz give an absolutely great talk on the paradox of choice. If one gets over accepting that more choice equals more freedom, the rest of his logic is extremely conclusive.
Posted in Psychology.
Tagged with Choice, Freedom, TED.
By Amol Hatwar
– February 7, 2009
The recession is a bad thing, but McDonald’s seems to be loving it and how. In 2006, they couldn’t earn enough profits, but the sales were up nonetheless. Thanks to the swelling ranks of jobless people: Eating out isn’t affordable anymore. The result is plain and simple. Sales jumped 7.2% worldwide in the third quarter and the operating income rose to 11%. Chief Executive Jim Skinner commented that, “McDonald’s is recession-resistant”.
But that is not all, the same-store chain is planning to open at least 1,000 new outlets in 2009 and will spend $2.1 billion in constructing them. With real estate down, right now is just about the right time.
Seems that Ray Kroc was right after all.
Posted in Business.
Tagged with McDonald's, Ray Kroc, Restaurant.
By Amol Hatwar
– February 2, 2009
During the boom time in 2006, Hearst Corporation was on a spending spree. It got itself a swanky new glass and steel office space at Manhattan at $500 million, and 20% of Fitch, the financial ratings company, at $600 million. A privately-held, buttoned-up organization, few people will know that it is one of United States’ most diversified media companies. Newpapers, Print, Online, TV, Radio, Production and Real Estate – they do it all.
At one time, not having to report to investors or shareholders was considered as of its main advantages. Today, the company is struggling for survival. Take the fate of the Seattle PI for instance, an esteemed Hearst property is now on the block for sale since January this year. If it can’t find a buyer by March 2009, the print operations of P-I will have to be shut down, putting an abrupt end to it’s 145 years of history.
As corporate spending in advertisements reduces across the board, no doubt it’s Print as well as Online revenues will dip. Since late 2008, print revenues have been diving more steeply than ever before. Online is no different, even The New York Times has been scrambling for online traffic for a good amount of time now. And, according to this eMarketer Report, mainstream newspaper publishing seems to be in a steady decline.
Only time will decide whatever happens to Hearst Corporation. Niche publications and magazines may have some time to play with, but mainstream print newspapers are in crisis.
Publish online, reducing costs by collaboration and contribution seems to be the only sustainable way forward.
Posted in Business.
Tagged with eMarketer, Fitch Ratings, Hearst Corporation, Manhattan, Newspapers, Print Media, Seattle Post Intelligencer.
By Amol Hatwar
– January 31, 2009
Organizations like Shri Ram Sena need to be banned. Around 15-20 activists of this group were involved in beating up boys and molesting girls in a pub in Mangalore. When TV channels picked it up, the founder of the organization, Mr Pramod Muthalik maintained that this is a small incident and doesn’t deserve national coverage. Mr Pramod Muthalik is now under arrest, but not for the Mangalore incident. About 25 activists involved or related to the incident are already behind bars.
The organization has apologized for its behavior, but has insisted that even though the methods were wrong, the message needs to be focused on. Their message is simply that, Indian women shouldn’t be allowed to dress provocatively, drink and dance around in pubs and bars, as it is not a part of prevalent culture.
What Shri Ram Sena fails to understand is that the law of the land doesn’t allow them to enforce “their view” of culture on others, especially in a democracy. But that is not all, I suspect that the organization is actively involved in misinforming youth and their activists in the name of god.
Take their Website for instance, it has a page titled, Political Economy of the Indian Mass Media. The post talks about Indian Newspapers and TV News Channels being owned by foreign Christian and Muslim Institutions. The facts in the posts are totally baseless. The current Indian laws don’t allow for more than 49% FDI in media companies. Simply put, a Newspaper can’t be majority owned, and thus operated, by foreign entities and nationals.
It is organizations like these that lead to Talibanization of nations – the organization rightfully ought to be banned. I’ve flagged the blog for site for objectionable content. You should do so too.
Posted in Culture.
Tagged with FDI, Mangalore, Media, Moral Police, Newspapers, Pub, Shri Ram Sena, TV News Channels.
By Amol Hatwar
– January 28, 2009
