On the Labour Issue

Comments on this blog entry in One Big Construction Site

Most of the constuction companies in UAE are controlled and managed by few well known groups and individuals here. If the government decides to control the system, it would again come down to the same management here. After all, not everyone can manage a constuction company, fewer in "locals". Moreover, the government needs to get out of businesses, not involve in more. As far as a social system is concerned, forget expats; these guys are slowly learning to take care of their own social needs (of locals) in many aspects.Recent disability laws are proof in that direction.

The issue with non-payment and ill treatment of labours in UAE has more to do with incompetent embassies and middle men between the native village in india/pakistan/etc and final job. Most of these people take up huge debts to come to the gulf, and the repayment plan prevents them to say "f**k off" to their incompetent employers. Unfortunely, the worst treatment occurs in cases where indian works for an indian-managed company etc.

I believe, the solution to this problem lies in good-old competition. Let forign companies (having western standards) compete for constuction projects including actual contruction. (Right now, most of the companies are based out of UAE, with sub-continent labour.) And allow free movement of labour from one company to another. Laws like the six-month ban for unskilled labour do not allow free flow of labour in UAE, especially for unskilled labour. Hopefully, competition will improve the situation for all.

BSE at 13000 by end of July?

Recently the Indian Stock Market index hit a high of 11,000; recent surge mainly due to policy changes regarding full currency convertability. The government is hoping to allow free flow of currency convertability, i.e, money can move in and out of the stock markets within minutes.

Full currency convertability has been an issue for developing markets around the world. It was this ability to move away from financial markets in a giffy that resulted in the asian crisis of 1997. The whole episode was triggered by a general thinking that asian markets are going to crash, which utimately led to the crash of the 1997. More information on the asian crisis can be found here.

The government of India asssured the public on the stability of indian markets during the crisis mainly pointing to the fact that indian currency was not freely convertable. But a decade is a looong time in finanicial markets.With the proposed full convertability, indian markets have no more the tools to stop such drastic measures.

One the other hand, the move demonstrates the confidence of the government on the fundamentals of the boom. They would argue that indian markets are not dooming due to external funds rather due to domestic investment and savings. Having one of the highest current accounts surplus in the world right now also gives a good deal of confidence.

Finally i would like to end this by quoting a recent Buttonwood column in economist...

India and China might well remain Asia’s great growth stories over the coming years, but Buttonwood is not going to recommend their stockmarkets. In India’s case, that is partly because he sits too far away; partly because its valuations are—possibly justifiably—higher than they are farther east; but mainly because India’s growth story is fast becoming one in which rising asset prices (land, stockmarkets) fuel demand growth, which in turn fuels rising asset prices. India’s stockmarket, in other words, is coming to resemble Japan’s in the 1980s or the rest of Asia’s in the early 1990s. Judging when the inevitable blowout will come requires a sense of timing with which Buttonwood is not equipped.

Indian Names

Like most indians who go out of their state, my full name gives rise to many a confusing moments. This is specially true for south indians whose naming pattern are very different from the normal western standards (Although not unqiue, as many african names follow similar patterns). There is such a wide varity of names in india, that naming conventions for whole of india is quite a study. Here is one link to get you started.

Open Source Business

For those of you not in the loop, Open Source is a system most prevelent in software writing communities, whereby each person contributes a certain set of "code" to a project purely as a community service of sorts. The pleasure is ofcourse seeing your vision come to life along with thousands of fellow programmers.

As usual, economist has an article on the effects of open source in various aspects of business. and if it will sustain itself in the long run.

New York Times Op/Ed

I had to link this op/ed article published in new york times on 15th of March.

I haven't talked about DP world/Globalization/protectionism in this blog, but i can generally say that Americans are facing similar issues with globalization as did the British after the second world war. The movement of technology,industry and money across the Atlantic was fast by historical standards of that time, however that will seem like ages compared to what is now possible, both technologically as well as institutionally. The only difference is that the British had little to no say in their rapid decline from "hegemonic" position thanks to their losses in the world war. Don't expect the Americans to move from their position so easily.

Art of Making Human Organs!!

Economist has an article on the progress of making human organs genitically for usage instead of liver/heart/etc transpant from others (usually the dying). It is the simplity of the production that amazes me...

So the idea of being able to create replacement organs from scratch, using a patient's own tissues—and hence preventing rejection—has considerable allure. Dr Atala, a pioneer in the field, is now working with Tengion, a biotech firm based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. It is one of several firms pursuing the idea of making organs to order, but seems to have made the most progress. Already, a handful of patients in America have been quietly fitted with new bladders made using Dr Atala's technology.

The approach is simple, but it has taken decades to refine. Healthy progenitor cells (the precursors to particular cell types) are extracted from the patient, isolated and multiplied in culture. They are then placed into a scaffolding structure, made of collagen, which is sculpted to resemble the required organ. This in turn is then placed into a soup of nutrients in an incubator, resembling an aquarium, that simulates the conditions found inside the human body. “Four to six weeks later, you have a ‘neo-bladder' that can then be placed into the patient,” says Dr Atala. The immune system senses nothing untoward, allowing the body to stimulate the remaining growth necessary for full functionality. The collagen scaffolding is gradually reabsorbed into the body.

The Theory Of Happiness and its History

I am presently reading the book, "The Art of Happiness" . And the book follows on the theories setforth in the long tradition in theorizing what is happiness and how can we be happy.

The history of what can a human being achieve in terms of "Happiness" itself is quite varied according to time and space. I came across this book review on the economist which talks further on the same subject. The Name of the book is "Happiness: A History"Including where did the simely face came from? :-)

Quite Interesting Subjects

Too funny!!

This Movie shows how the call center system really works!!

http://www.callcentermovie.com/