Eradicating the poor?
Applying the “shampoo sachet” paradigm to affordable housing, rather than evictions and demolitions
Professor C K Prahalad's much celebrated book entitled The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid was launched on the Independence Day two years ago. The book is about how to eradicate poverty through profits. For more than a decade, Prahalad has urged business leaders and leading capitalists to see the poor as individuals and consumers. The poor represent a huge market waiting to be tapped. If you sell products and services in small portions, at affordable prices, your business can multiply a hundred fold. This is the kind of thinking that spawned an industry of shampoo and pickle sachets. Of course such innovations that serve products in micro quantities are nothing new. After all, we are the only country where cigarettes are still sold in “singles” at paanwallas. But technology now makes it possible to extend this concept to health insurance (daily premium of Re 1), microfinance (loan of Rs 1,000) or telecom (a refill of Rs 10 on your cell phone). Can we now apply this concept to housing as well? In some small way that may already be happening. We have seen sprawls of low income housing coming up in distant suburbs like Nala Sopara and Virar, which are fast becoming dormitory towns. Various slum rehabilitation schemes across the city are now successfully putting up one room tenements costing less than Rs 1 lakh. Thus low income families can now legally own a dwelling for an affordable price, although the number we need to build are mind boggling. But what about a provision of housing “services” in small doses? What if someone just needs to rent a place for a couple of months, and is willing to pay, say a rent of Rs 500 a month? Is there a legal thriving market for this? Can we expect a shampoo sachet revolution in low cost rental housing in cities like Mumbai? This question is relevant in the context of this week’s Supreme Court judgement which said that encroachers have no right, whatsoever, on public land. In essence the SC said that poverty is no excuse to become squatters or pavement dwellers. Unfortunately in the cities, if you are very poor, your dwelling place is almost surely illegal. Legally speaking, the poor have no right to occupy public lands, and certainly they cannot occupy private land (unless they buy those Nala Sopara like tenements). But unfortunately there is simply no market for renting a room at Rs 10 a day, even though the idea is economically feasible. There are several reasons why the shampoo sachet framework does not work for housing, and mostly it is because of various laws related to housing, rent control, TDRs, property tax, stamp duty and so on. The current SC verdict also seems to be inconsistent with another famous SC judgement from 1984, involving eviction of pavement dwellers in Mumbai. In that case, the court was more sympathetic to the plight of the pavement dweller, who is typically a migrant from an even more impoverished hinterland of the country. It observed, “The right to live and the right to work are integrated and interdependent and, therefore, if a person is deprived of his job as a result of his eviction from a slum or a pavement, his very right to life is put in jeopardy. It is urged that the economic compulsions under which these persons are forced to live in slums or on pavements impart to their occupation the character of a fundamental right.” It thus made right to shelter a fundamental right. In that same landmark judgement the court had stayed demolitions and rather boldly said that, “A state which has failed in its constitutional obligation to usher in a socialistic society has no right to evict slum and pavement dwellers who constitute half of the city's population.” It is clear that removing the poor from the streets of a city cannot solve the poverty problem.

Ajit Ranade on the wheels that make Mumbai run, money and economy

Members of a family collect their belongings after their home in a slum area in Delhi was demolished
(Mumbai Mirror/13th May 2006/pg30)

Sci-fi gets real!
From communicators to cell phones, from Dr Bones’ sick bay to modern health facilities – thanks to Star Trek, man is finally going where he never thought he could go before...
The irreverent documentary How William Shatner Changed the World, to be telecast on the US edition of the History Channel, features the actor examining the ways Star Trek technology inspired real-life innovators, whose inventions include communicator-like flip phones and medical equipment reminiscent of the starship Enterprise’s sick bay. The documentary studies how Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi series helped energise scientific explorers who created gadgets we could only dream about when Star Trek aired in the 60s. Shatner chats up researchers who, to quote Kirk’s Vulcan sidekick Spock, found fascinating the tricorders, communicators, medical scanners and other devices Roddenberry put in the hands of the 23rd century Star Trek gang. Viewing this brave new world of technology, then staring around a real world where clunky c o m p u t e r s filled entire rooms and talking longd i s t a n c e meant tethering yourself to a rotary phone, these impressionable young minds set out to make what they saw on TV a reality. “They were deadly serious about Star Trek, “ Shatner said. “Scientists are a strange group in that they catch glimpses of something that is mysterious and wonderful. They can’t quite put their finger on it, so they grasp at something.” “It’s a step-by-step process. You climb on the backs of giants. Only rarely are there leaps. Scientific advances mostly are incremental. So here we are 30, 40 years after Star Trek, and it looks like it was extraordinary, the advances we’ve made.” While we’re not yet having our scrambled molecules beamed from place to place, the documentary reviews Trek-like technology that has come into being, including cell phones resembling the show’s communicators, laser scalpels and other non-invasive medical gear. The show also features talks with researchers inspired by the show to miniaturise computers, study time-travel and search for alien life. ‘AN IRONIC VIEW OF LIFE’ Based on Shatner’s book I’m Working on That, in which he explored the connections between Star Trek technology and real science, How William Shatner Changed the World takes the tongue-in-cheek approach Shatner often applies to over-serious fandom of the shows. As scientists recount ideas and inspiration they gained from the show, Shatner struts, blusters and soliloquises about the impact of the show, hamming it up as he did as Captain Kirk. “I’ve always had sort of an ironic view of life,” the 75-year-old Shatner said. “My belief system is that when this is over, it’s over. What I believe is that your molecules continue and in due time become something else. That’s science. “And that works for me. So that if this is it, you better take it at its right proportion. That there are serious things, but most things are temporal and ephemeral, and you should cultivate that attitude. That joy and love and all the verities are what counts. So I try not to take too many things seriously, and if I find myself caught up in the seriousness of the moment, I’m able to cajole myself out of it.” While best known as the fearless Capt Kirk, Shatner does not share the rosy view of technology and humanity’s future that motivated Star Trek creator Roddenberry. “Technology has brought us to this point of self-destruction,” Shatner said. “It’s the dichotomy of our curiosity and greed, which are hardwired – greed, because we had to survive because we were always hungry, so we had to gather things, and curiosity, which brought us out of the trees. “In small amounts, they’re the difference between us and the animal world. In large amounts, they’re causing the destruction of everything. And I think technology has put us in a position of destroying the planet as we know it, and us along with it. I’m very pessimistic about the future of mankind based on all the things that are going on now and our lack of will to correct it.” AP

Characters from Star Trek having a video conference on a flat-screen display at a time when neither was thought of

Legendary characters Spock and Captian Kirk, played by Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner respectively pose in front of a model of thier starship, Enterprise
(Mumbai Mirror/29th March 2006)

Meet Babybot: The robot that learns just like a baby

Meet Babybot: The robot that learns just like a baby
LONDON: Scientists have developed a robot that learns to interact with the world in the way a human baby would. The robot called Babybot has been created by roboticists from Italy, France and Switzerland. It experiments with objects and learns how to use them, the online edition of New Scientist reported. The robot, which could provide researchers with fresh insights into biological intelligence, consists of a torso, a pair of cameras for eyes and a grasping hand. It has an in-built desire to physically experiment with objects on the table in front of it and an ability to assess different forms of interaction and learn from mistakes. For example, if the robot fails to grasp an object securely, it tries a different strategy next time. An unbidden skill developed by Babybot was the ability to roll a bottle across the table, the report said. Its “brain” is actually a cluster of 20 computers, running several neural networks. This is software that mimics a biological neural system and learns in a similar way – by establishing and altering the strength of links between artificial neurons. By adjusting the neural network software and observing the robot’s learning behaviour, the roboticists can test different neuroscience models. “We started with knowledge from developmental psychologists and neuroscientists,” said Giorgio Metta of Genoa University in Italy, a member of the research team. “What we are doing is the same as what neuroscientists do, but from an engineering perspective,” he explained. “The goal is to build a humanoid two-year-old child, which will have all of Babybot’s abilities,” he said. IANS

(Mumbai Mirror/7th May 2006/pg30)

ROBOTIC WARRIORS

ROBOTIC WARRIORS
Advances in unmanned aerial vehicle technology makes these robots more dangerous than any human terrorist or soldier, say experts
It may sound like science fiction, but the prospect that suicide bombers and hijackers could be made redundant by flying robots is a real one, according to experts. The technology for remote-controlled light aircraft is now highly advanced, widely available – and, experts say, virtually unstoppable. Models with a wingspan of five metres, capable of carrying up to 50 kilograms, remain undetectable by radar. And thanks to satellite positioning systems, they can now be programmed to hit targets some distance away with just a few metres short of pinpoint accuracy. Security services the world over have been considering the problem for several years, but no one has yet come up with a solution. “We are observing an increasing threat from such things as remote-controlled aircraft used as small flying bombs against soft targets,” the head of the Canadian secret services, Michel Gauthier, said.. According to Gauthier, “ultra-light aircraft, powered hang gliders or powered paragliders have also been purchased by terrorist groups to circumvent groundbased countermeasures.” Armed militant groups have already tried to use unmanned aircraft, according to a number of studies by institutions including the Centre for Non-proliferation studies in Monterey, California, and the Centre for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies in Moscow. In August 2002, for example, the Colombian military reported finding nine small remotecontrolled planes at a base it had taken from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (RAFC). On April 11, 2005 the Lebanese Shiite militia group, Hezbollah, flew a pilotless drone over Israeli territory, on what it called a “surveillance” mission. The Israeli military confirmed this and responded by flying warplanes over southern Lebanon. Remote-control planes are not hard to get hold of, according to Jean-Christian Delessert, who runs a specialist model airplane shop near Geneva. “Putting together a large-scale model is not difficult – all you need is a few materials and a decent electronics technician,” says Delessert. In his view, “if terrorists get hold of that, it will be impossible to do anything about it. We did some tests with a friend who works at a military radar base: they never detected us... if the radar picks anything up, it thinks it is a flock of birds and automatically wipes it.” Japanese company Yamaha, meanwhile, has produced 95-kilogram (209-pound) robot helicopter that is 11.8 feet long and has a 256 cc engine. It flies close to the ground at about 20 kilometres per hour, nothing but an incredible stroke of luck could stop it if it suddenly appeared in the sky above the White House – and it is already on the market. Bruce Simpson, an engineer from New Zealand, managed to produce an even more dangerous contraption in his own garage: a mini-cruise missile. He made it out of readily available materials at a cost of less than 5,000 dollars. According to Simpson’s Web site (www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile), the New Zealand authorities – under pressure from the United States – forced him to shut down the project – though only after he had already finished making the missile. Eugene Miasnikov of the Centre for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies in Moscow said these kinds of threats must be taken more seriously. “To many people, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) may seem too exotic, demanding substantial efforts and cost compared with the methods terrorists frequently use,” he said. “But science and technology is developing so fast that we often fail to recognise how much the world has changed.” AFP
(Mumbai Mirror/9th May 2006/pg30)

I sthe electronic smog from household gadgets endangering our health?

HEALTH FLASH
Is the ‘electronic smog’ from household gadgets endangering our health?
SEAN POULTER Daily Mail
Your health may be at risk from a ‘smog’ generated by electrical devices, campaigners in the UK warn. Electromagnetic fields stemming from gadgets such as kettles, computers and microwaves, contribute towards a cloud of unseen emissions — even when they are switched off. Although each field is small and decreases with distance, there are constant background levels and these are rising. Radio frequency fields from mobile phone masts and TV transmitters add to the effect. It is believed that the smog puts some vulnerable groups at risk. Some say it could be a cause of ME and may explain so-called Sick Building Syndrome. Concerns about the smog’s effects have been recognised by the Health Protection Agency and the World Health Organisation. The agency recently set up a group to develop advice on the issue. Spokesman Dr Jill Meara said household appliances could be health hazards to some. She advised those with a condition called electrical sensitivity to stay away from such devices such as kettles and microwaves. Electrosensitivity UK, a selfhelp group for sufferers, believes three per cent of Britons experience symptoms, which may include lethargy, numbness in limbs, palpitations, dizziness and confusion. The WHO, meanwhile, has described electrical sensitivity as ‘one of the most common and fastest growing environmental influences’. It ‘takes seriously’ concerns about the health effects, adding that ‘everyone in the world’ is exposed to the emissions, while ‘levels will continue to increase as technology advances’. The smog comes from devices such as home entertainment systems, cordless phones, electric blankets and toothbrushes, washing machines, mobiles and MP3 players. The wiring used in any device creates an electromagnetic field, even when it is turned off. When it is operating, there is a second field. Mobile phone masts and radio and TV transmitters provide a third layer. There can also be more specific forces associated with electricity power lines. It emerged recently that UK ministers are considering issuing public health warnings over the dangers of living near electricity pylons. In 2004, the National Radiological Protection Board warned the risk of leukaemia in children may increase with exposure to magnetic fields. Professor David Carpenter, of the State University of New York, believes the smog may be responsible for 30 per cent of childhood cancers.

Electromagnetic fields stemming from gadgets such microwaves, contribute towards a cloud of unseen emissions
(TOI/11th May/BT7)

CHILDHOOD STRESS: NEW DIMENSIONS

CHILDHOOD STRESS: NEW DIMENSIONS
Childhood stress, unlike adult stress, has very subtle manifestations, and hence is not often recognised by the parents. BT finds out more
DR P V VAIDYANATHAN
Childhood and stress should actually be mutually exclusive terms, but somehow today, one group of individuals who are very much stressed out, are children. Try telling any parent that his or her child is stressed, and chances are that either they would react with shock, surprise, or maybe even burst out laughing. Unfortunately, children are no longer immune to stress and pressure — factors that have already taken their toll on the adult population. Adults mostly react to stress with anger, irritability, insomnia, loss or excess of appetite, headache, increasing their consumption of tobacco and alcohol, a diminished sexual drive, and eventually develop the stress related illnesses like blood pressure, acidity, heart problems, and diabetes. Children, on the other hand, often show non-specific symptoms like recurrent stomach pains, decreasing academic performance, falling ill a bit too often, grinding their teeth or babbling in their sleep, loss of urinary control, isolation, becoming quiet, vomiting, violence, and anger. What causes these children, who are supposed to be carefree and playful, to be stressed? There are a host of reasons for this. Unlike earlier, the joint family system has given way to the nuclear family, and this invariably results in children being taken care of by servants and caretakers. With both parents working, the absence of family members, like uncles, aunts or grand parents, is felt acutely, for they are in a much better position to offer the child solace, safety and security. Added to this is the intense competition that children face in their academic lives, as well as in their social lives. Along with school, tuitions, classes and after spending a few hours on viewing television and in playing computer games, the child is mentally drained and exhausted, by the end of each day. Another factor, which is rarely recognised by parents as a causative factor, is the change of residence or school. Sometimes, such a change is inevitable, as one or both parents are transferred to another city or state. The loss of one’s bearings, one’s familiar surroundings and one’s friends, often leads to deep emotional hurt and stress in these children. Many of them are not able to fathom why their parents have shifted them to an unfamiliar surrounding, and are not able to get over this change, even after years. In many other cases, it has been noticed that the parents, often at the behest of a friend, colleague or neighbour, decide to change the child’s school, as they feel that a particular school is better than the current one. This is often done without the consensus of the child. This shift of school is a major culture shock of sorts for the child, and he or she tends to be completely at sea, for quite a long period of time. The resentment towards the parents intensifies, and the child gets highly stressed out. So, how does one reduce childhood stress? First and foremost, the parents should understand that each and every child is unique, and quite different from another. Comparisons and competitions only serve to add pressure on the child. Parents must be perceptive about their child’s outlook, personality and potential. Enrolling the child in too many structured activities often leaves no time for just being himself or herself. The child often needs to just ‘be’ rather than ‘be doing’ something all the time. Periods of daydreaming often tend to act as ‘destressors’ for the child, and help in increasing their powers of imagination and creativity. Also, one must give a lot of thought to shifting one’s residence or the child’s school, for these can often have a very deleterious effects on the child’s mind. Taking the child’s opinion on matters that concern him or her, and arriving at a consensus often helps. And keeping all channels of communication open with one’s child, and being tuned in to the child’s dayto-day changes in behaviour, will go a long way. And in rare cases, taking recourse to a child psychologist also helps. Ten years ago, child specialists used to refer a child to a psychologist once in a blue moon. Today, the references have gone up to as much as one or two every week. It’s high time parents woke up and realised that children too have their own bag of woes.

Periods of daydreaming often tend to act as ‘destressors’ for the child, and help in increasing their powers of imagination and creativity
(TOI/11th May 2006/BT7)

ORKUT FINDS FANS IN BRAZIL

ORKUT FINDS FANS IN BRAZIL
By Seth Kugel
Ask internet users in Rio de Janeiro what they think of Orkut, the twoyear-old Google social networking service, and you may get a blank stare. But pronounce it “or-KOO-chee,” as they do in Portuguese, and watch faces light up. “We were just talking about it!” said Suellen Monteiro, approached by a reporter as she gossiped with four girlfriends at a bar in the New York City Center mall here. The topic was the guy whom 18-year-old Aline Makray had met over the weekend at a Brazilian funk dance, who had since found her on Orkut and asked her to join his network. Orkut, the invention of a Turkish-born software engineer named Orkut Buyukkokten is nothing short of a cultural phenomenon in Brazil. About 11 million of Orkut’s more than 15 million users are registered as living in Brazil—a remarkable figure given that studies have estimated that only about 12 million Brazilians use the internet from home. Expect Brazilian Portuguese dictionaries to add “orkut” to upcoming editions. O Globo, Rio’s biggest daily newspaper, refers to it without further explanation. And the Brazilian media routinely measures the popularity of music groups and actors by the number of user communities dedicated to them on Orkut. “Surto,” a popular comedic play showing in Rio de Janeiro, is peppered with references to Orkut. And the site’s jargon has entered the Brazilian lexicon, like “scrap” (pronounced “SKRAH-pee” or “SHKRAHpee”), meaning a note that one user leaves in another’s virtual scrapbook for everyone to see. But the sheer popularity of Orkut, which people can join by invitation only, has had several unexpected consequences. Almost as soon as Brazilians started taking over Orkut in 2004—and long before April 2005, when Google made Orkut available in Portuguese—English-speaking users formed virulently anti-Brazilian communities like “Too Many Brazilians on Orkut.” And, more darkly, Orkut’s success has made it a popular vehicle for child pornographers, pedophiles and racist and anti-Semitic groups, according to Brazilian prosecutors and nonprofit groups. Hatemongering on Orkut has also been decried in the United States and elsewhere, but it is in Brazil where the biggest effort is under way to halt the problem and confront Google’s seemingly tight-lipped attitude. SaferNet Brasil, a nongovernmental organisation founded late last year, tracks human rights violations on Orkut and has generated much press coverage of illegal activity on the site. SaferNet’s president, Thiago Nunes de Oliveira, a professor of cyberlaw at the Catholic University of Salvador, said the problem had exploded in the last few months. “In 45 days of work, we identified 5,000 people who were using the internet, and principally Orkut, to distribute images of explicit sex with children,” he said. In February, after several failed attempts to contact Google’s Brazil office, Nunes de Oliveira said, SaferNet Brasil filed a complaint with federal prosecutors in São Paulo. Prosecutors summoned Google’s Brazilian sales staff to a meeting on March 10 and asked them for help identifying users breaking Brazilian human rights laws. Google declined a reporter’s requests for a direct interview with Buyukkokten, but a spokeswoman forwarded some of Buyukkokten’s responses by e-mail. The Brazilian office, he said, handles ad sales and does not even work with Orkut, which produces no revenue. “Orkut prohibits illegal activity (such as child pornography) as well as hate speech and advocating violence,” he wrote. “We will remove such content from Orkut when we are notified.” But Nunes de Oliveira said that removing the content was not what they were asking for. “The incapacity of the authorities to investigate these crimes is principally the lack of cooperation by Google in identifying those users,” he said. He also worried that Google was not archiving evidence of crimes as it deleted offending pages. Thamea Danelon Valiengo, part of a team of federal prosecutors working on cybercrime cases in São Paulo, agreed. She said that prosecutors had asked judges to order Google to turn over information on users who perpetrate crimes. So far, she said, Google has agreed to send a lawyer to Brazil for a meeting in May. Buyukkokten wrote by e-mail that Google would cooperate with the authorities, but did not specify whether, for example, it would provide logs allowing users to be traced by their Internet address, as prosecutors have asked. A Google spokeswoman, Debbie Frost, said by e-mail that in four to six weeks, Orkut would deploy a tool that would “better identify and remove content that violates our terms of use.” In general, though, Orkut fanatics seem undisturbed by illegal activity on the site, which most of those interviewed said they had never come across personally. They were more interested in finding long-lost classmates and friends, one of the site’s most lauded abilities. Schools, workplaces, even residential streets have “communities” joined by people who have studied, worked or lived there. No one quite knows why Orkut caught on among Brazilians and not Americans, although the fact that it is an invitation-only network might explain why it exploded in Brazil. In a 2005 interview with the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, Mr. Buyukkokten said it might be because Brazilians were “a friendly people,” and perhaps because some of his own friends, among the first to join the network, had Brazilian friends. NYT News Service
(TOI/13th April2006/31)

Google helps you make money too!
Bloggers and small web site owners can now get on to Google’s secret payroll. All they have to do is run ads by Google Adsense, says Kavita Kukday
Popular belief says metros are the only place to be to make money, but Deepesh Agarwal, thinks otherwise. Agarwal is the owner of a tiny cyber café in Mount Abu, a hill station in Rajasthan. Mount Abu is not a particularly affluent city—the average earning of the residents here is only about $300 (approx Rs 13,500) a year. But Agarwal’s monthly earnings match those of white collared executives in the metros—he makes a whopping packet of about $1,500 (approx Rs 67,500) a month. How? In his spare time, Agarwal runs a free software download web site that runs ads by Google Adsense on his homepage. Google Adsense is a program that pays web site owners for advertising space. When visitors click on the ads on Agarwals’s web site, Google makes profit from the advertisers and in turn, pays a percentage of that profit to people like Agarwal. But Agarwal is not alone. Hundreds of thousands of people are making similar profits just by starting blogs, forums or other informational sites and getting paid for posting ads on Google’s behalf. Take for instance Jimmy Wadhera in Chandighar, who despite being grounded for health reasons, earns about $400 (approx Rs 18,000) a month from Adsense. Wadhera runs a web site called india4deals and advertises Adsense ads on all his pages to support his family. Ajay Dutta from Mumbai has a similar story. He and a group of friends run a free computer help forum called Techenclave in their spare time. The forum ran into trouble due to insufficient funds, but being on Google’s secret payroll has helped them salvage the site. “We recently began running ads between threads of discussions as part of Google Adsense and now we make enough money to get by.” They make about $300 (approx Rs 13,500) per month with Google Adsense, and are planning to use the money to make their site better. “Since its launch in 2003, the Google Adsense program has revolutionised web publishing, turning blogs and personal web sites into potentially lucrative ventures,” says Mahesh Murthy, CEO of Pinstorm, a search engine marketing firm. The service is easy to join. A blogger or a site owner has to simply fill up an online Adsense form. Google then starts scoring your content and places ads on the site just like the ones that appear next to Google searches. The ads are contextually matched to content on the web site, so if you are running a blog on gadgets, you would have technology-related ads, whereas if your web site caters to foodies, then you would have ads of food-related products. Anyone with a site is eligible. And there are tons of success stories from around the world—of small online entrepreneurs placing ads on their sites and watching checks from Google trickle in. “But the trickledown effect from Google does not stop at small-time entrepreneurs,” says Murthy. “A growing number of biggies are also profiting. Take for instance the job site Naukri.com that makes about Rs 1 crore a year.” “The program is a golden goose for Google too,” says Vivek Bhargava, managing director of Communicate2, a pay-per-click and Google paid search professionals company. Google revenues from AdSense were said to be about $2.7 billion last year. “Contextual advertising is the way to go these days,” he adds, “and this works for Google mainly because search advertising has a some limitations. That’s because the number of advertisements a company can display is limited by the number of searches its users conduct. By contrast, millions of small sites about all kinds of material are mushrooming on the web. This expands Google’s horizons greatly.” However, it’s not a smooth sail for everyone on Google’s secret payroll. One big area of concern is that of adblockers. “Our earnings are limited as compared to other smaller sites. This is mainly because our site is for tech enthusiasts and people visiting our sites are tech-savvy enough to use adblocking software,” says Dutta of Techenclave. Another concern is about being able to pull in enough crowds to the web site, “The content has to be compelling enough to drive the traffic,” says Murthy. So, say you are running a blog on Politics—you won’t find many people wanting to click on ads of Congress of BJP. But if you were running a gadget blog, many would want to look up the gizmos advertised on your web site even if it is only to check out the detailed specifications. But even then the fact remains that Adsense is bringing smiles to hundreds of faces in India for the time being. “No matter what anyone says, this is still a good enough opportunity that puts Indians on par to participate with other web sites around the world,” says Agarwal. TNN
(TOI/13th April2006/pg31)

Kids are being 'robbed of their childhood'

Kids are being ‘robbed of their childhood’
By Sarah Harris
London: Teachers on Tuesday attacked the rampant consumerism which is “robbing youngsters of their childhood’’. They said young girls are being urged to believe it is no longer ‘cool’ to be a child and they should aspire to wear ‘sexy’ underwear and expensive trainers instead. Instead of enjoying their childhood years they are being bombarded with marketing which encourages them to grow up too soon. Many parents are also failing to preserve the “precious’’ innocence of growing up. As a result, families are increasingly giving in to “pester power’’ and buying youngsters inappropriate items for example, T-shirts and handbags emblazoned with the word ‘bitch’ . Delegates at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers’ conference in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, claimed that the growing trend is making life in schools more difficult. This is because children are being turned into fashionably dressed mini-adults who are fully aware of their rights but have little understanding of their responsibilities. They approved a motion claiming that youngsters should have a “right to childhood’’. Kay Johansson, head of art at Rhyl High School, Denbighshire, North Wales, told the conference, “None of this is helping teachers to do their job. We are increasingly faced with children who see no value in education because they know it all, have no idea of deferred gratification because they have it all and see no reason why they should respect adults because adults don’t respect them.’’ “Children are being robbed of their childhood. They are being forced to enter the adult world too soon and as a consequence they are missing out on that crucial period of time when the mind and personality develops.’’ Johansson, 58, who has a 22-yearold son, insisted that childhood was “the most vital part of human development.” But she had witnessed a “steady erosion” of this ‘precious time’ during her 37-year career. She said, “These days what I see is confusion. In the schoolyard where I used to see children playing games that would keep them fit, teach them social skills and stimulate their creativity, I now see groups of children standing around discussing who has the most expensive trainers or the latest mobile phone.” “They seem afraid to play. To be a child is so not cool.” Johansson claimed that children gain a glimpse of the adult world through the television and Internet. But if parents do not take time to explain what they see, they can get a “distorted” view. She warned that the “more and more that children gain access to the adult world the more they believe they are adult”. “This idea is happily reinforced by the type of companies that produce sexy undies and seductive party clothes for sixyearolds and cheeky ringtones for their phones,” she said. “However, what frightens me most is the way all of this is becoming acceptable. The way adult expectations of children are getting lower and lower.” Daily Mail Statistics distort the truth Recent trends have suggested that girls are rapidly becoming more violent while the bad behaviour of boys has not changed much. But the numbers are deceiving, some researchers say. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) shows arrests of juvenile females for assaults and violent crime from 1980 through 2003 rose from 20% to more than 30% of the total. The media have latched onto the statistic with glaring headlines. A book released in February carries the catchy title See Jane Hit and offers tips on how to deal with violent girls. An article last year in the Boston Globe was headlined ‘Violence raging among teen girls.’ Newsweek called the phenomenon ‘Bad Girls Go Wild.’ The real change is in how police and society deal with acts that used to be viewed as relatively minor, says Darrell Steffensmeier, a professor of sociology and criminology at Penn State. “Other national sources of information on youth violence do not support the increase,’’ Steffensmeier said on Tuesday. “Several changes in violence prevention policies by police or at schools have widened the net, boosting the arrests of girls.’’ In a study, girls accounted for 20% of the crimes in 1980 and 19% in 2003.The surveys involved national samples from the youth population and are independent of criminal justice biases, the researchers note. “Some commentators have blamed the perceived change on greater stress in girls’ lives,” Steffensmeier said. Agencies
(TOI/13th April 2006/page29)

I sip, therefore I am: Author studies life in coffee shops

I sip, therefore I am: Author studies life in coffee shops
London: A cup of coffee is just a drink. But a frappuccino is an experience. So believes Bryant Simon, a historian who is searching for the meaning of modern life amid the round tables and comfy sofas of Starbucks coffee shops. Simon, who teaches at Philadelphia’s Temple University, thinks that by spending time at Starbucks—observing the teenage couples and solitary laptop-users, the hurried office workers and busy baristas—he can learn what it means to live and consume in the age of globalisation. “What are we drinking, and what does it say about who we are?” Simon asked during a recent research trip to London. His research has taken him to 300 Starbucks in six countries for a caffeine-fueled opus titled ‘Consuming Starbucks’ that’s due for publication in 2008. Simon, whose last book, Boardwalk of Dreams, was a study of Atlantic City, New Jersey, estimates he has spent 12 hours a week in coffee shops for more than a year. “I try to limit myself to two to three coffees a day,” he said. He is one of several academics studying a type of 21st century cafe culture—Italian coffee in an American package—that has spread rapidly around the world. Founded in Seattle in 1971, Starbucks Corp now has 11,000 outlets in 37 countries, including 500 in Tokyo. The company expects to open 1,800 new stores this year and aims eventually to have 30,000 outlets, half of them outside the US. British historian Jonathan Morris said that even in Britain—a stalwart bastion of tea drinking where there are now almost 500 Starbucks stores—the chain has become entrenched in daily life. While British coffee consumption lags far behind most other European nations, sales of “premium” coffee drinks like lattes and cappuccinos are on the rise. “I’m not sure how much Starbucks is American any more for British customers,” said Morris, a University of Hertfordshire professor who is leading a research project called ‘The Cappuccino Conquests’ about the global spread of Italian coffee. Starbucks and other coffee houses, Simon believes, fill “some kind of deep desire for connection with other people.” But unlike the coffee houses of 18th century London or the bohemian java dens of 1950s New York, “Starbucks makes sure you can be alone when you’re out if you really need to be,” he said. “You get the feeling you’re out in public, but you don’t need to talk to anyone.” Simon’s research has made him finely attuned to the many varieties of the Starbucks customer, from the twentysomething female friends at a nearby table to the middle-aged man hunched over his laptop computer. “This kind of guy is renting space,” said Simon, a boyish 44-year-old who visited 25 Starbucks during four days in the British capital. “He bought a cup of coffee in order to have some space. These two women in front of us—where else can women meet in urban settings? I was at a Starbucks up the street, and there were kids downstairs making out.” Simon believes Starbucks succeeds by “selling comfort” in an anonymous, often dislocating world. He says he has lost track of the number of times people have told him that when they traveled to a strange country, “the first thing I did when I got off the plane was go to Starbucks.” He said, “There’s a deep sense of unpredictability in the modern world, and what Starbucks provides a lot of people is predictability.” However, there are regional variations. Starbucks introduced green tea frappuccinos in Taiwan and Singapore in 2001. They proved so popular, they’re now on the American menu. AP

(Times of India/13th April 2006/page 28)