Digest: India’s Red Schism

Not as uniform as it looks

India is one of the rare nations to have a tradition of democratically-elected regional Communist governments.  The state of West Bengal has been ruled by the Marxists and their allies for over 30 years (BBC, 2009), the longest period that a Communist party has held power via democratic means.  Communism is peacefully manifested in both West Bengal and the southern state of Kerala, the most literate and least corrupt state in India.  Indeed, it seems that the Indian school of Marxism fits rather well in the democratic machine that makes up the nation, a far cry from the stereotypical revolutionaries made famous by Lenin, Castro, and Mao.  However, there is another element in India’s mosaic of political affilations that adheres to the Communist stereotype in a rather more linear fashion – the Naxalites.

 

Technologia: Palm Pre

These days when talking about different kinds of cellphones one cannot ignore the ever popular iPhone from Apple. It revolutionized cell phones at the time and we can see the waves of influence in the current generations of phones trying to live up to the iPhone. HTC, Samsung and even RIM have been trying to compete with the iPhone, but it seems they cannot make a product that can beat it. In comes the Pre.

 

Digest – Commerce: the Shogun fights deflation

 

No belly for Aso to rub

With the latest announcement of an increase in allotted funds, the Aso government has pledged over 500 billion dollars to the package as an effort to rescue Japan’s ailing economy (BBC 2008).  The Nikkei has plunged over the past few months, tipping the Japanese economy into a period of recession, and does not seem to be on a path for natural re-alignment.  The falling through of the recent bailout plan for the Big Three automakers in America caused finicky investors to be even stingier in the Japanese markets than they were being before, as the Nikkei began a new plunge with the news of the Senate’s rejection of the plan (BBC 2008).  The export-based Japanese industry has been gravely damaged by the global financial crisis, as the yen-dollar and yen-yuan ratio has increased, resulting in less money for exporters.   As governments around the world announced bailouts for their economies, it was not clear what exactly the incapacitated Aso administration was going to do.

 

 

Digest: Asia – Obama and South Asia [Part One]

The new president-elect of the United States is a ground breaking candidate in more ways than one.  The first African American president also seems to be the most popular president-elect outside of the United States.  As evidenced by The Economist’s Global Vote 2008 online feature, Mr. Obama is overwhelmingly more popular around the world than Mr. McCain (The Economist 2008).  Mr. Obama was clearly the supported candidate in both the New and Old Worlds, with overwhelming support stretching from Central America through Europe to East Asia.  An area where Mr. Obama himself has shown particular interest is South Asia.

 

Digest: Americas – The facts lie

How much has there really been?

It seems that what was once a distant dream – a youthful, liberal, African-American senator ascending through the ranks of the bureaucrats to become president – may be materializing into a reality.  The most recent poll puts Barack Obama some 9 percent ahead of John McCain (Washington Post 2008) less than two weeks before the election.  However, many have started questioning the validity of these polls and an old spectre has manifested itself in a different guise – racism in politics.  Could some white American voters have personal racial reservations with a black candidate and be masking it when they are questioned?  Could some black American voters be backing the candidate of their racial background publicly in order to conform with their societies?

 

Science Digest: The LHC’s problem – setback, or saving grace?

Higgs, oh Higgs boson, wherefore art thou?

Everyone had their eyes on the Large Hadron Collider on September 10th as they circulated the first particle beams under the Franco-Swiss border.

The LHC or Large Hadron Collider is a particle accelerator complex.  The particle accelerator has been utilized for hundreds of years, originally in the CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) of Ferdinand Braun (CNET 2007).  In this basic particle accelerator, an ‘electron gun’ produces a stream of electrons (negatively charged fundamental particles of matter) (CNET 2007).  These electrons are directed towards a flourescent screen by either an electric or magnetic field (Physics Online, 2006).  When the electrons ‘collide’ with the flourescent screen, the electrons’ energy is released as light and, with repetition and multiplication of the aforementioned technique, images are produced upon the screen.

 

Digest: Ecology – Reforming the fire empties the frying pan? Who knew?

A new craze has been sweeping the West, but no worries, the rich and famous haven’t decided to abandon the idea of adopting African babies or anything radical. The need to go green has recently become the right thing to in the States, Canada, and Europe.  A primary front in the war against climate change (in the Hummer-friendly world, at least) is the cutting down of petroleum and diesel use as fuel.  There have been, and still are many approaches, and biofuels have become a big strategy in the campaign to go green and become more environmentally friendly, governments (including the American one) recently began to subsidise farmers who sell their crop to develop bio fuels instead of selling them for consumption – an effort to curb dependance on foreign oil, and to do the world some good.  Recently, the 34^th G8 summit was held in Toyako, Hokkaido, Japan – and one of the main concerns discussed was the global rise in the cost of living.  This is not just confined to oil – a more dangerous crisis for the inhabitants of the developing world has also arisen – the price of food.   What the summit concluded on was that the price of food increasing could be somewhat pinpointed to the fact that farmers in developed nations are enticed to sell their crops to bio fuel production, and this decision echoes in unison with global low harvests to form the primary reason for the food crisis. 

 

Digest: Technology – Worldwide Developers Conference 2008 (a.k.a. ITSANEWAPPLEPRODUCTGIMME)

We’ve all waited, and it’s finally here. The Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco has just kicked off today at 10 a.m. PST and everyone’s eagerly refreshing pages to check for updates. What can be in store for one of the biggest companies in the IT world at this conference, some may wonder. With the first day all wrapped up, many items have been announced and everyone is buzzing with news about the conference.

 

Digest: Asia – Lest we remember the Saffron Revolution

The news corporations are awfully busy this month. In the past month, natural disasters have devastated Myanmar and China. The down-to-the-wire Democratic race still dominates the news and current affairs in America. In all this, news of the month preceding this – issues that are still ongoing – is gone. Events like the Iraq conflict seem to have taken a backseat – and whatever happened to the noble ideal of freeing Tibet? Taking it back much further, w
ould the present Burmese aid-donation crisis be averted if the world had maintained its pressure upon the junta during the weeks of monk-led protest?