“Here's the deal: It's not their damn business,” he said.

The U.S. Secret Service is at it again asking journalists about their race. This is getting kind of annoying.

A telling sentence in Eun-Kyung Kim's article suggests a shift in the way credentials for journalists are being handled now: “Credentials for the 2000 presidential debates were handled by the Senate Press Gallery. Applications did not ask for race information.”

My question is – why is race so important? Well, the article also states rather glibly that the infomation is necessary for the FBI database to cross-check “identifiers.” Are you satisfied with the official response?

Via New York Times

Richard G. Butler, founder of the Aryan Nations, a white supremacist organization died on September 8. As an aeronautical engineer Mr. Butler spent some time in India working for the Royal Indian Air Force. [Is that what it was called?] There, the article suggests, Mr. Butler “became aware of the caste system and the idea of racial superiority.”

The article quotes Butler:

“I noticed all the maharajahs were much whiter than the average Indian,” he told The Los Angeles Times in an article published in 1999. “As you went up the hierarchy, the lighter they got. It all got me to thinking, and when I came home from overseas, I had a feeling that we, the white race, were losing the war.”

Talk about a warped line of thinking! I was aghast to learn that the racist ideologies and actions of the Aryan Nations had its beginning in India!

According to National Public Radio there were some 1700 arrests over the course of the Republican National Convention. Photojournalist Moises Saman who works for Newsday in NYC was one of them.

Another highly subjective arrest was of activist and artist Joshua Kinberg. Watch this interview on Hardball with Ron Reagan on Sunday August 29, 2004.

And then there is this article about Arun Venugopal's experiences at the RNC.

I wonder who is more out of control.

Over the weekend we received a wedding invitation from a couple in New Jersey. Wrapped elegantly around the beautifully and tastefully designed invite was a strip of red paper tethered with gold tassels.

The inscription on the paper read:

“I have made you the polar star of my existence;
Never again can I lose my way in the voyage of life.”

– Rabindranath Tagore

This blog post is dedicated to Sangeetha, my wife, who has allowed me to gaze into her beautiful soul and made my life that much more richer.

Forbes and The Washington Post have stories out that Reuters will now outsource some 20 jobs to Bangalore, India.

“The journalists will be responsible for compiling tables, writing short research alerts based on analyst reports, and polling analysts for earnings forecasts.”

While on the one hand I feel that Indians ought to be getting into a diverse set of professions, this back-office type of work may not be such a great idea for any of the parties involved. For one, where will the buck stop when things go awry? Who will fall off this money-tree? I am just afraid that the Indians who sign up will end up getting the short end of the stick; not only will their salaries be lower than their counterparts but they have to also bear the brunt of whimsical fiscal cycles in a country where there are no unemployment benefits. Based on the bottom line, Reuters and others may feel free to hire and fire people, but the jolt to our society will come at much too great a cost. Yes, I know in this case we are talking of “only” 20 jobs. While 20 jobs may not stall an economy, this relationship between Western capitalist interests and South Asians needs to be reexamined.

Didn't the British come looking for cheaper resources and eventually colonize much of South Asia? While it may be politically incorrect to say so, isn't the current model of doing business just an avatar of colonization? I am curious to know when we (South Asians) will get off our asses and create a uniquely South Asian model for doing business. Right now it appears all too dictated from the West and that spells trouble. The dependence on an outside entity is always dubious.

It might be appropriate to also point out a July 5 article in The New Yorker that addresses the issues surrounding outsourcing from the perspective of a young tech-worker in Chennai, India.

Prashant – I know you are off to India for a bit, but when you read this, please feel free to comment. And, Vinod, too. I would love to know what percent of India's economy is dependent on this outsourcing business model (I suspect it is quite small).