Re: [silk] Bangalore Meetup on May 16?
On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 4:39 PM, Amit Varma amitbl...@gmail.com wrote: Silklister Amit Varma is touring [1] in support of his new book, and will be in Bangalore to do an event in Crossword on May 16, which conveniently happens to be a Saturday evening. Anyone up for a drink with Amit, myself, and whoever else turns up on that evening, somewhere in the vicinity? Thanks Udhay! I'm looking forward to meeting Silklisters, it's my first trip to Bangalore after joining Silk. Couple of quick notes: * Just to confirm, since there are multiple Crossword stores in Bangalore: this event is at the one on Residency Road, according to the obligatory facebook event page [1]. * May 16th is the day that the official Election vote tally takes place, so it may (not sure yet) be a dry day. In which case we need some alternate suggestion for where to congregate after the event at Crossword. Ideas, anyone? Udhay [1] http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=78894968725ref=ts -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
Re: [silk] Bangalore Meetup on May 16?
Count me in too. * May 16th is the day that the official Election vote tally takes place, so it may (not sure yet) be a dry day. In which case we need some alternate suggestion for where to congregate after the event at Crossword. Ideas, anyone? Well, if you guys don't mind being slightly cramped, we could meet at my apartment on Lavelle Road. Cheers, Venky (the Second). -- One hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong.
[silk] America's Sri Ram Sena
Like I said, we got 'em too. So concerned with repressive control that they miss the essential points of their religions. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090508/ap_on_re_us/us_school_dance_flap
[silk] Indian IP laws are the world's most consumer friendly
Indian IP laws are the world's most consumer friendly Wed, May 6 01:12 PM Bangalore, May 6 (IANS) India has been ranked as the country with the world's most consumer friendly intellectual property (IP) laws since its copyright regulations allow citizens great freedom to access and utilise information for educational and development purposes. This emerged in a study of 16 countries, including economically advanced ones, undertaken by the Malaysia-based Consumers International, which calls itself the 'world's only global consumer advocacy body'. Consumers International said its first IP Watch List focused on copyright - which has 'the most immediate impact on consumers' access to knowledge and thereby on their educational, cultural and developmental opportunities'. In the listing which saw India come out on top, the other countries with good ratings were South Korea, China, the US and Indonesia. At the bottom of the list were Britain, Thailand, Argentina, Brazil and Chile. India was rated high (with a B average on a scale of A to F) in terms of its scope and duration of copyright as well as the freedom of access and use it gave to home users, content creators, the press and those in public affairs. However, despite topping the list, India didn't do so well and got a C scale in terms of the leeway it allows for disabled users to access copyrighted work. Likewise, it got only a D when it came to freedom to access and use copyrighted work by libraries. Consumers International called for a 'balanced copyright regime in which the importance of copyright flexibilities and of the maintenance of a vibrant public domain are upheld'. India's strengths and weaknesses of its copyright laws - from a consumer's perspective -were closely studied and the detailed analysis made available online at http://a2knetwork.org/reports2009/india. The study praises India's Copyright Act as being 'a relatively balanced instrument that recognises the interests of consumers through its broad private use exception, and by facilitating the compulsory licensing of works that would otherwise be unavailable'. It points out that 'neither has India rushed to accede to the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) Copyright Treaty, which would expose India's consumers to the same problems experienced in other jurisdictions that have prohibited the use of circumvention devices to gain access to legally acquired copyright material'. The study acknowledges that copyright infringement, particularly in the form of physical media, is widespread in India. It adds though that this must be taken in the context that India, although fast-growing, remains one of the poorest countries in the world. 'Although India's cultural productivity over the centuries and to the present day has been rich and prodigious, its citizens are economically disadvantaged as consumers of the culture to which they have contributed,' says the study, which goes counter to the dominant trend of pushing for tighter copyright rules and enforcement. It points to certain limitations - not all libraries can copy works that cannot reasonably be obtained commercially. Only public libraries can do so and they can make only three copies of such works. No explicit rule exists to allow libraries to copy works for users for the purpose of research or study. Only limited permission is given for the reproduction of unpublished works by libraries. No provisions allow for libraries to make preservation or archive copies of material in their collection. Of the significant findings, Consumers International said: 'The list of countries that best support the interests of consumers is dominated by large Asian economies but they are in odd company with the US, which has regularly criticised those same countries for failing to adequately protect and enforce intellectual property rights.' It suggested that this 'reflects the fact' that US policy makers 'apply double standards when comparing their own copyright system to systems from abroad'. It said countries with copyright regimes that 'most disregard the interests of consumers' was also an 'odd grouping'. This included the country in which the copyright law was first developed in the 16th century - Britain. Together with it were 'developing and transitional economies, whose outdated copyright laws fail to take advantage of all the flexibilities that international law allows them to benefit local consumers'. Frederick Noronha http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20090506/836/tbs-indian-ip-laws-are-the-world-s-most.html -- FN * http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com http://twitter.com/fn M +91-9822122436 P +91-832-2409490 http://fredericknoronha.multiply.com/ http://goa1556.goa-india.org After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless. - The Tao Of Programming
Re: [silk] Statistics on development taken by politicos
On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 5:01 PM, Zainab Bawa bawazaina...@gmail.com wrote: Can you point out where Arvind has made this statement? I am keen to know. In an interview on one of the news channels i was surfing across, which is still hearsay. to PWC and the Bank's meddling in appointing PWC, were the result of this tactical use of RTI. Arvind himself mentioned to me in a meeting that RTI provided the sheen of legitimacy to a tactical act. [snip] I am citing this story to indicate that everything don't exist in black and white and that instead of viewing politics, law, policy and democracy in normative and black and white terms, it is important to consider these in terms of balances of power and comparative justices. If we take democracy, law, policy and politics from normative pedestals and bring them down to everyday issues of contestations, then we may be able to move beyond lament and rant. Actually his opinions during the interview didnt come across as a rant, rather the opposite. Even if Arvindco made tactical use of the RTI (for a public cause?) it does not seem evil, considering the typical machiavellianism and apathy one lives with on a regular basis. I was definitely impressed by his account of a female volunteer who was working with them on the Delhi's PDS system, who refused to crumble to her family pressure (to tie the knot to a US groom) even after her throat was slashed. Hers was the 6th or 7th attack and they were on the verge of giving up but the girl persisted. Perhaps corruption and dirty politics is so brazenly woven into the fabric of daily life that we have no choice but accept and live with it. Is there no scope for change? :( Like said, this is what the usual story is. How do we move beyond this? Most discussions on politics end in such laments or otherwise rants!?!?!?! Would love to hear how too but I'd prefer to not judge those who dont want to devote their lives for a social cause either. There are so many issues here that one can get overwhelmed and choose to live life instead of going against the tide. Not everyone can be like the lady Arvind cited. While there may be folks who in their entire life in India have _never_ paid a wee bit extra money to get the job done, i'm yet to meet them :) Case would take a few years to be heard? It was just a shut case the moment the MMRDA told us to buzz off. Information on issues which can expose governments is hard to come by. In this case, the person filing the RTI was not only asking for information, but by virtue of asking for it, he was clearly indicating that something was going wrong in the way TDRs were being issued y MMRDA and used by builders. One also has to understand the political economy of land and of institutions such as MMRDA which was literally ruled over by Chief Ministers. In Mumbai, mention land and even a kid would agree that it is something of a scarce commodity. Yards away from where my ancestors lived, there was lotsa empty land, some marshy, some reserved for public parks and some private (iirc, belonged to a Parsi trust) and some public land with illegal structures (not excluding slums). Today, each of those spaces has a multi-storeyed structures (both commercial and residential), the public parks (three such spaces) have been occupied by different religious bodies belonging to different communities. Private buildings have cropped up on land reserved for general public utilities. One foreign business house got acres of government land de-reserved and transferred to facilitate the industrial progress and business growth (of Mumbai, ofcourse). Fighting these lobby's (or any other for that matter) is not a singular task and its harder because money has a way of silencing even the best of good intent. On that note, why is this issue being compared with Kasab's case? The issue A co-relational thread drift to the slow, hence delayed justice via the indian legal system!? On another list called the Sarai Reader List, I find that discussions around every post eventually veer on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits even when the original intent of the making the post was to discuss other issues. I'm not on the sarai list but since you mention the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, i'll extrapolate with the feed-back heard from the refugees. The Kashmiri Pandits (i know) feel they are treated as refugees in their own country. They tend to compare the attention the media reserves for other religions/communities and are upset that despite being suddenly thrown out of their homes in Kashmir the rest of India/world doesnt care enough. Reminding them that most Indians are temporarily outraged[1] does not soothe their ire. Adding to the drift here from Jagannathan's column, http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1253540 For India, which faces several insurgencies and revolts, the first lesson to learn is this: it must display determination and muscle early in any war. Otherwise,
Re: [silk] America's Sri Ram Sena
On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 9:55 PM, Ravi Bellur rav...@gmail.com wrote: Like I said, we got 'em too. So concerned with repressive control that they miss the essential points of their religions. would the breakaway LDS[1] fall into that category too? some years ago a program on them was aired. but in the US today?? shocking and unexpected, considering that child-marriage was a horrid Indian past. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter_Day_Saints -- .
