Don’t touch my typewriter!

By Alex Derry - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 8:45 AM - 0 Comments

As one of the world’s most advanced economies, India has an IT industry employing millions. But while the subcontinent has gone high tech, its labyrinthine and paper-centric bureaucracy has made the typewriter de rigueur among the country’s clerical workers. It is also a necessity for people who cannot afford a laptop or who live in regions without power. There is also a kind of national reverence for the typewriter, according to the Los Angeles Times, which originated in the 1950s when then-prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru called it a symbol of modernity and independence.

But as younger generations are predominantly using computers, a dying market and the impact of the global financial crisis have taken their toll on typewriter production. Mumbai-based Godrej and Boyce, the last company in the world making new machines, announced in 2010 they were down to their last 200 models and would no longer be manufacturing them. Nevertheless, India’s typewriter enthusiasts hope that with enough repair know-how and hardware, the carbon ribbons will keep flying and carriages will continue to ring across the page. “The computer is lifeless, but there’s a sheer joy in manual typing,” says Mumbai’s Abishek Jain, who set a world typing record in 1993. “It’s a kind of music.”

17 killed in Mumbai bombings

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 2:17 PM - 0 Comments

17 people were killed by 3 separate but nearly simultaneous bomb blasts in Mumbai’s financial district on Wednesday, the Globe and Mail reports. The first bomb decimated the Jhaveri Bazaar, a famous jewelry market, at 6:54 p.m., followed by a second explosion one minute later in the Opera House district, and another at 7:05 p.m. in the central Mumbai neighbourhood of Dadar. Indian Home Minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram says the close proximity and timing of the attacks lead the government to believe a terrorist group is responsible. This is the first major attack on Mumbai since November 2008, when 10 militants terrorized the city for 60 hours, killing 166 citizens.

The Globe and Mail

Score one for the stars

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 9:26 AM - 3 Comments

Last week, the high court in Mumbai ruled that astrology is a science. That decision came in a case involving a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking action against astrologers. The PIL, filed by Janhit Manch, a judicial NGO, questioned the validity of predictions by “swamiji, tantrik and mantrik who in the garb of their spiritual robe, claim to cure acute ailments by mantra or by so-called precious stones,” and was designed to “check and curb the widespread superstitions prevailing among the masses.” Included in the PIL’s evidence were astrologers’ wrong predictions for Indian prime ministers, including Indira Gandhi and Charan Singh.

But in dismissing the suit, the judges took on record an affidavit submitted by India’s ruling Union government that said astrology does not fall under the purview of the 1954 Drugs and Magical Remedies (Objectional Advertisements) Act, which would ban any articles, ads, and practices related to the subject. “Astrology is a trusted science and is being practised for over 4,000 years,” says the affidavit filed by the deputy drug contoller in India, reported the Times of India. In fact, the judges recalled a 2004 court directive to consider adding astrology to university syllabi as a subject.

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 22, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Guess who?
Always controversial, Sri Lankan musician Maya Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., donned a niqab for Spike TV’s Scream Awards. Whether it was a comment on burqa-banning fever everywhere from France to Quebec to Syria, or just a fashion statement, was left unsaid; M.I.A. gave photogs a black-gloved middle finger.

One local boy to another
After 27 years, Vancouver’s B.C. Pavilion Corp. is pulling the plug on its controversial pink and green beaux arts Terry Fox Memorial Arch, the city’s lone memorial to Terry Fox. It will go, as part of an ongoing $563-million renovation of B.C. Place. Vancouverites who have griped quietly about the garish memorial—made of tile, brick and stainless steel, and featuring four fibreglass lions—may be heartened to know that Vancouver artist Douglas Coupland, who wrote 2005’s touching tribute, Terry, has signed on to design the new one. Coupland’s latest piece of public art, “Digital Orca,” is being shown outside the Vancouver Convention Centre.

Eyes right
Angela Merkel left pundits round the world slack-jawed with a weekend speech claiming German multiculturalism had “utterly failed.” It was an illusion, the German chancellor added, to think that Germans and the country’s immigrant class could “live happily, side by side” without newcomers assimilating. Immigrants, she said, “should learn to speak German.” Even centre-right daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung seemed cool to Merkel’s new hardline stance. Newcomers, it argued, “should be made to feel welcome.” But the hard right, whose support Merkel needs, feels differently. Merkel, once Europe’s most popular leader, is facing a conservative revolt within her centrist Christian Democratic Union party and, with a poor showing in regional elections this spring, could lose the leadership altogether.

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India’s really, really small apartments

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 4:40 PM - 14 Comments

Tata, the Indian conglomerate that launched the “world’s cheapest car,” announced last month that it plans to build 1,000 apartments in an industrial enclave outside Mumbai. And like the $2,500 Nano, the units in the Shubh Griha development will be sold at rock-bottom prices.

Real estate prices in Mumbai are among the steepest in the world—apartments in South Mumbai, for example, can fetch up to $1,200 a square foot. Tata’s apartments, by contrast, will go for between $10,000 and $16,000 apiece. The catch? They’ll be downright tiny. The smallest dwelling will come in at 228 sq. feet, with the largest topping out at 465 sq. feet. Along with the Nano car, they represent one of the most aggressive attempts by a major company to corner the market on goods aimed at what management guru C.K. Prahalad calls the “bottom of the pyramid”—that is, the world’s hundreds of millions of poor people.

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Trail of terror

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 9:00 AM - 5 Comments

It is unlikely that Muhammad Ajmal Kasab drew a second glance from onlookers when he walked into Mumbai’s historic Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station a little after 9 p.m. on Nov. 26. The 21-year-old man’s upper body was heavily muscled, but his clean-shaven face was broad and youthful, softened by the remnants of baby fat. He wore sneakers, a pink wristband, baggy cargo pants and a T-shirt with a Versace designer label across the chest. With a blue backpack slung across his shoulder, he looked like a typical college student enjoying a bit of carefree travel—perhaps on his way to Goa, a favourite destination a little further down the coast.

But in his backpack, in addition to dried fruit and a mobile phone, Kasab carried grenades and ammunition magazines for the AK-47 assault rifle he had managed to conceal as well. When he reached crowded platform 13, Kasab and his partner Ismail Khan began shooting indiscriminately at commuters and diners in the train station café. The crowd panicked and those who could, fled. One of two police at the station tried to return fire while hiding in an alcove, but he was armed with a Second World War-era rifle and was forced to scramble for shelter while Kasab and Khan blazed away from their hips with automatic weapons.

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Mumbai attacks: evidence from the lone surviving terrorist

By Michael Petrou - Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 9:51 PM - 1 Comment

The BBC and the Telegraph have good summaries of what is known so far.

"You don't plan operations like this in some safe house."

By Michael Petrou - Friday, November 28, 2008 at 2:40 PM - 2 Comments

This afternoon, the World Desk spoke with Bruce Hoffman, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University who has studied terrorism and insurgencies for more than three decades. He was formerly a scholar-in-residence at the Central Intelligence Agency, advised the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, and has recently returned from Pakistan. I have written briefly about Hoffman in a previous post. I consider him an insightful source.

While cautioning that it’s still too early to draw firm conclusions about the identity of the attackers, Hoffman says the sophistication of the attacks, which required high levels of training, manpower, and logistical coordination, points to “outside planning.” The terrorists assaulted several targets simultaneously; they took and kept hostages; and they carried enough weapons and ammunition to fight for several days. Pulling this off would have required planning and practice.

“It’s not like planting a bomb,” he said. “You don’t plan operations like this in some safe house.”

Hoffman confirmed that links between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency and local Islamist terror groups are “very close,” but noted that this doesn’t mean the ISI played a role, or even knew about, the Mumbai attacks. “It could mean that far down the road in the past, these groups got the training they needed from the ISI,” he said.

The Pakistani government, through the ISI spy agency, was behind the creation of several of South Asia’s most violent Islamist militant groups, including the Taliban in Afghanistan and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Kashmir. But the Pakistani government doesn’t necessarily control the ISI, and the ISI doesn’t necessarily control its guerilla offspring. There’s a lesson here about not sowing the wind, but it’s a little late for Pakistan to learn it now. The entire country is at risk of being torn apart by the same brand of Islamist terror that was almost certainly behind the atrocities in Mumbai.

Bruce Hoffman says he believes Pakistan’s new president, Asif Ali Zardari, is sincere in his belief to advance peace between India and Pakistan and cooperate against the Islamist militants who threaten both countries. Terrorists assassinated Zardari’s wife, Benazir Bhutto, so his motivations might be personal. He may also be enough of a realist to recognize he doesn’t have much choice.

The Commons: Gaming the system

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 6:37 PM - 18 Comments

The Scene. No recession. No deficit. No need to worry. Just support the troops and buy more stock. In the midst of an election campaign, it was easy. Win the news cycle, win the day, win the week, just get to the end.

Then October 15 came.

The recession set in. A deficit became unavoidable. Job losses piled up. The stock market fell hundreds of points more. The extent of our losses in Afghanistan became clearer. And after a few days of relative calm, this government’s critics in the House of Commons began to howl.

Unable to manage such realities, Stephen Harper’s government has apparently now decided the best thing to do—perhaps the only thing it can do—is bankrupt its opposition.

“The greatest histories,” Jim Flaherty mused about a half hour into explaining the state of the national economy, “are written in the toughest times.”

Shortly thereafter, he was finished. And shortly after his final words, he and the Prime Minister took their leave, long gone by the time Scott Brison, Gilles Duceppe, Jack Layton and Thomas Mulcair got round to blistering the Commons paint with indictments of the story just told. Continue…

A looming confrontation between India and Pakistan

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 4:16 PM - 1 Comment

The Times of India, without naming sources, claims it is “suspected” that the Pakistan Marine Agency helped terrorists hijack a fishing trawler which was then used to transport the attackers from Karachi, Pakistan, to the Indian coast. 

The Indian major-general leading operations against the militants in Mumbai has also said they came from Pakistan.

The Pakistani president and prime minister have meanwhile offered condolences to their counterparts in India.

There are several disturbing implications if al Qaeda is found to have behind the Mumbai attack. First, and most obviously, it would demonstrate that the terror group, which has suffered setbacks of late, remains capable of coordinating sophisticated and simultaneous assaults on a wide variety of targets.

Secondly, and perhaps more seriously, it would suggest an al-Qaeda foothold in India. India had been considered largely free of al-Qaeda, despite a Muslim population of more than 150 million. No Indians were captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, for example, nor have there been any Indian inmates at Guantanamo Bay. But the country has been in al-Qaeda’s crosshairs for at least three years. In April of 2006, Osama bin Laden for the first time referred to a “Crusader-Zionist-Hindu conspiracy against the Muslims.” Around the same time, Indian intelligence agencies began reporting an al-Qaeda presence in Kashmir. An al-Qaeda hand in Mumbai would suggest that the international terrorist group has opened up a new front. Continue…

For the latest on what's happening in Mumbai …

By kadyomalley - Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 1:55 PM - 4 Comments

Check in with Michael Petrou at The World Desk. Updates from international news sources here.

For Mumbai news…

By Paul Wells - Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 1:47 PM - 6 Comments

…our Michael Petrou is blogging every development in a fast-moving day here. Philippe Gohier has links to news updates from other news organizations here. Both Mike and Philippe will be updating frequently.

Canadians wounded in Mumbai

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 1:41 PM - 3 Comments

Two Canadians, actor Michael Rudder and yoga teacher Helen Connolly, are among the wounded in Mumbai.

Beyond Mumbai: Terrorism in India

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 1:16 PM - 0 Comments

The South Asia Terrorism Portal, as well as the United States National Counterterrorism Center, provide some useful context for the Mumbai attacks by reminding us how frequently, and with what horrific results, India has been hit. In 2007, according to the National Counterterrorism Center, India ranked behind only Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan for deaths caused by terrorist attacks.

Mumbai—a city under siege

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 1:01 PM - 1 Comment

Canadians may be among hostages

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 12:48 PM - 0 Comments

Canadian Press today reported that six Canadians are among the hostages held by terrorists in Mumbai.

Lawrence Cannon, minister of foreign affairs, released the following statement:

I am now able to confirm that a number of Canadians are staying in hotels targeted by the attackers. However, our information does not confirm whether any Canadians are among the injured or killed, or among the hostages.

All consulate staff have been accounted for, and are actively seeking to locate and assist Canadians in Mumbai.

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