Headline, March16, 2014

"' ^THE HARD -THE HARDER- > THE 

HARDEST PATH : ALWAYS ! "'

Marugappa Group of India,  -which ranks about 20th among Indian family groups by sales, is on the rise and has been flirting with the very biggest league for about a century plus.

It is unusual in a number of ways. It doesn't do ostentation.

"I wouldn't want to drive around in a Ferrari,"  says A Vellayan, its boss. It is from south India; the controlling family are  Chettiars,  a group of villages in Tamil Naidu, who in colonial times became financiers in South East Asia, particularly, Myanmar.

It has a reputation for clean governance  -"The best run firm in India," says a foreign fund manager. And it specialises in unglamorous industries, making everything from bicycles and abrasives to sugar and fertilizers.

Many other dynasties prefer  higher-profile  businesses such as property, infrastructure, and natural resources,  where cronyism is very rife.

So how profitable is the hard-harder-hardest more virtuous path?

Marugappa's  sales have grown by an annual compound rate of  19%  over the past five years, helped by acquisition:

They are now $4.1 billion plus. About  40%  of that comes from the group's home state of Tamil Nadu; that is half the level of two decades ago.

The firm has entered  higher-margin  areas close to its core businesses: It has opened hundreds of shops that sell agricultural goods to farmers, as well as outlets that sell its bicycles.

However, these are tricky industries, with volatile raw-material costs, cyclical revenues and, in the case of sugar and fertilisers, cranky regulatory regimes.

Compare all this with Godrej, another family group mainly in the more stable consumer-goods industry. It has a similar sales to Marugappa's but a market value of $6 billion

But before I go any farther, let me now return to the post:

Drawing on hundreds of interviews, Anita Raghavan  reconstructs how Mr Gupta fell into Mr Rajartanam's orbit:

At first, he was impressed by how much the billionaire gave to charity. Then he joined him in setting up a  private-equity fund. Finally, he was seduced into feeding him inside information about Goldman Sachs, a bank on whose board Mr Gupta sat.

He was convicted over two years ago and sentenced to two years behind bars. He remained free while appealing against the verdict.

The backdrop for this drama is the extraordinary success of Indian immigrants since 1965, when America started letting in more than a tiny handful.

The cause of this success is no mystery. Only the brainiest Indians have more than a lottery-ticket chance of obtaining an American Visa.

""An Indian in America is  10,000   times more likely to have a PhD than an Indian in India,  according an expert that Anita quotes.""

The author, an  Indian-American  born in Malaysia,  has a feel for the Indian Diaspora. Her book is packed with examples of Indian brainpower,  from the executives Mr Gupta advised to the prosecutor who skewered him.

She notes the power of immigrant networks,  for good and ill: most of Mr Rajaratnam's tips seem to have come from people of South Asian origin.

However,  she exaggerates the importance of her subjects:

She gushes that Mr Gupta   "cleared an eight-thousand mile path to the united States for hardworking Indian emigrants."   Hardly; there were plenty of other role models.

She quotes Ghurcharan Das,  a former boss of  Procter &  Gamble's Indian arm, lamenting that Mr Gupta:

"Has started the Indian story"......... Nonsense.

No reasonable person would judge a billion Indians, or even  3m  Indian-Americans,  simply because  two of them erred>

David Ben-Gurion's view,  also quoted by Anita Raghavan, is fairer. Israel's founder reckoned  that a nation  "has to have its own burglars and prostitutes".

Some day,  someone will write a great book about the rise of Indian-Americans.

In the meantime, this is a rollicking story of hubris and suffering it brings.

With respectful dedication to the Indian-Americans. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

With greater dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of India. See Ya all on !WOW! :

"' On The Side Of Time  "'

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless

Rocky makes strong debut on Broadway

Rocky The Musical has opened on Broadway, with technical wizardry triumphing over "non-descript" music.

The musical - based on the Oscar-winning movie - is co-written by the film's star Sylvester Stallone.

Set in 1975 Philadelphia, it follows an amateur boxer who gets a surprise shot at the heavyweight championship.

"The finale fight is so visceral and exhilarating that it sends the audience out on a high," writes David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter.

"Any grumbling about the musical's shortcomings give way to open-mouthed wonder in its spectacular final 20 minutes," adds Rooney.

The final scene sees Rocky battle world champion Apollo Creed in the ring.

"[Alex] Timbers and the creative team have successfully repurposed many of the movie's most iconic moments for the stage, which are greeted with a roar of approval from the audience."

Jamaica dancehall star Vybz Kartel guilty of murder

Popular Jamaican dancehall and reggae star Vybz Kartel has been found guilty of murder in a high-profile trial.

He and three co-defendants were convicted under tight security of killing an associate, Clive Lizard Williams, in a row over a missing gun.

Parts of the capital Kingston were cordoned off in advance of the verdict and police patrols were stepped up.

Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer, is one of the biggest names in Jamaican dancehall reggae.

The BBC's Nick Davis in Kingston says that Kartel's bleached skin - covered by tattoos - made him stand out from the crowd - and the "World Boss" as he called himself also often glorified violence in his music.

The 65-day trial was the longest running criminal hearing in the history of Jamaica's circuit court system, local media reported.

Police cordoned off streets around the Supreme Court before Thursday's session started, seeking to prevent any disruption by fans supporting the entertainer.
Illegal guns

Shortly before the jury started to deliberate in the afternoon, about 200 people briefly broke through barricades at one intersection shouting "Free Kartel!"

FDIC Sues 16 Big Banks For Rigging LIBOR Rates

(Reuters) - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation sued 16 of the world's largest banks on Friday, accusing them of collusively suppressing interest rates.

The lawsuit, filed in the federal district court in New York, was the latest to accuse financial institutions of conspiring to manipulate Libor, or the London Interbank Offered Rate.

The FDIC said the defendants' conduct caused substantial losses to 38 banks that the U.S. regulator had taken into receivership since 2008, including Washington Mutual Bank and IndyMac Bank.

Among the banks named as defendants include Bank of America Corp, Barclays PLC, Citigroup Inc, Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings PLC, JPMorgan Chase & Co, the Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and UBS AG.

The lawsuit also named as a defendant the British Banks' Association, the U.K. trade organization which during the period at issue administered Libor.

Backstreet Boys Announce 2014 Tour Plans (Still Vague On Meaning Of Being Lonely, Though)

In news that's larger than life for anyone who grew up in the 1990s, The Backstreet Boys announced plans to bring the group's world tour to North America beginning in May.

"Due to overwhelming demand on Facebook and Twitter, Backstreet's back, all right!" sang the group -- comprised of Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, AJ McLean and Kevin Richardson -- on Friday's episode of "Good Morning America." While the famed boy band did not provide the meaning of being lonely, they did offer ticket sale information. Fans can find that at the Backstreet Boys' website. Also of note: Avril Lavigne will tour with The Backstreet Boys, because what the hell?

The Boys also announced the tour on Facebook:

7 Historical Facts That Completely Challenge What You Think You Know About The World

Just when you think you understand how the world works, you learn...

1. The swastika was actually a symbol of good -- until the Nazis got ahold of it.

The swastika has been around for over 3,000 years and commonly symbolized goodness and luck, up until its use by the Nazis in Germany. The now reviled image was used by cultures all over the world, including early Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and even Native Americans.

In more recent history, the swastika was still prominent just before the rise of the Nazi party. A few American uniforms featured the symbol in World War I, Coca Colaused it in advertising and, as seen above in this picture of the Edmonton Swastikas,sports teams even took its name. The Nazis deeply complicated the swastika's long existence as a symbol for good, and looking back upon its thousands of years of prominence in cultural history can yield some results that appear incredibly strangewith contemporary eyes. To salvage the image, it has been proposed that the clockwise version of the swastika should represent evil while counterclockwise would represent goodness.

2. Drunk debates were once a key aspect of any important decision-making process.

Perhaps you don't have to be Don Draper to believe in the necessity of alcohol at the work place. When famous Greek historian Herodotus, travelled to Persia around 450 B.C., he found a culture that deeply valued the wisdom that comes while being drunk. The Persians he encountered would make sure that particularly important arguments were debated both while sober and drunk, as only ideas that made sense in both states were truly worthwhile. This process went both ways: Arguments originally had while drunk would be debated again the next day in soberness, and dry arguments would be followed up with discussions over wine.

C.S. Lewis expanded upon this idea in his "Letters to Malcolm," when he wrote:

I know this is the opposite of what is often said about the necessity of keeping all emotion out of our intellectual processes – 'you can’t think straight unless you are cool.' But then neither can you think deep if you are. I suppose one must try every problem in both states. You remember that the ancient Persians debated everything twice: once when they were drunk and once when they were sober.

Image: WikiCommons

3. The Olympic Games used to award medals for art.

Maybe artists deserve varsity jackets, too. From 1912 to 1948, the Olympics heldcompetitions in the fine arts, with medals being awarded for architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture. The art produced was required to be Olympics-themed, so gold-winning pieces had names like, "Knockdown" and "Étude de Sport." The first winning work of literature was actually written by the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin, who supposedly wrote the piece, "Ode to Sport," under a pseudonym.

According to Frédy, adding an arts component to the modern Olympics was necessary because the ancient Greeks used to hold art festivals alongside the games. Over the years, dancing, film, photography and theatre were all proposed as additional events, but none of these ever became medal categories. In total, 151 medals were awarded before the Olympics removed the art competitions in favor of requiring host cities to provide cultural events to accompany the games.

Image: WikiCommons

4. Pink wasn't always a girl's color and blue a boy's color -- in fact, it was once the other way around.

The distinction of blue for boys and pink for girls didn't take full hold until the middle of the 20th century. Many people already know that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wore dresses as a child, but this was common practice for the time. Children would wear gender neutral, mostly white clothing that was easy to bleach clean, and wouldn't get haircuts until around the age of six or seven. It wasn't until department stores started marketing gender-specific colors that parents began to worry about making sure their children were wearing the "right" outfits.

Even when mass marketing began, the messages were mixed. The trade publication "Earnshaw's Infants' Department" featured an article suggesting, "the generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”

5. English was once a language for "commoners," while the British elites spoke French.

Despite the severity with which some contemporary English-speakers vehemently attack "incorrect" uses of the language, English used to belong to the people. In the formative years of the language, it was only spoken by "commoners," while the English courts and aristocracy mostly spoke in French. This was due to the Norman Invasion of 1066 and caused years of division between the "gentlemen" who had adopted the Anglo-Norman French and those who only spoke English. Even the famed King Richard the Lionheart was actually primarily referred to in French, asRichard "Coeur de Lion."

To further mess with your preconceptions about the English language, the "British accent" was actually created after the Revolutionary War, meaning contemporary Americans sound more like the colonists and British soldiers of the 18th century than contemporary Brits. Of course, accents vary greatly by region, but the "BBC English"or public school English accent (which sounds like Austin Powers) didn't come about until the 19th century and was originally adopted by people who wanted to sound fancier.

6. Money was once designed to discourage people from having too much of it.

Perhaps having quick and easy money isn't truly in our best interests. According to Greek historian Plutarch, in his "Life of Lycurgus," the Spartans used long and heavyiron rods as their currency in hopes that it would discourage them from pursuing large amounts of wealth. This unusual currency was called "obeloi" and was supposedly so cumbersome that carrying multiple rods would require oxen.

A couple other things that might change the way you think about contemporary money: American presidents weren't originally supposed to be on the nation's currency, as that was seen as a practice of monarchies. Also, the idea civilizations relied on established barter systems before the rise of physical currency is probably incorrect. People may have traded things, but one of the only well-known bartering practices was more of a bonding and sex ritual between tribes in Northern Australia called the dzamalag.

Image Left: WikiCommons. Image Right: Getty

7. A good night of sleep used to mean waking up sometime in the middle.

Are we sleeping all wrong? According to growing research about sleeping habitsbefore the 20th century, people didn't always sleep in one long block, but would briefly wake up in the middle to split the slumber into two sessions. During this time, people would reportedly engage in all sorts of activities, with the more scholarly using the time to read and write, while couples might spend the break having sex.

The two-part sleeping pattern was the product of people going to bed much earlier before the invention of electricity, which meant the world actually went dark when the sun set. For those who assumed candles were regularly lit at night before electric lights, historian Craig Koslofsky points out in his book, "Evening's Empire," that we tend to overestimate their importance. He writes, "even the wealthy, who could afford candlelight, had better things to spend their money on. There was no prestige or social value associated with staying up all night."

Contemporary society seems to have adjusted to the single session of sleep, but that doesn't mean the transition has been entirely smooth. It has been suggested that those who consistently wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling back asleep, may simply have bodies that yearn for the way we used to operate.

- huffingtonpost.com

Missing Plane Was Hijacked, Malaysian Official Says

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Investigators have concluded that one or more people with significant flying experience hijacked the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, switched off communication devices and steered it off-course, a Malaysian government official involved in the investigation said Saturday.

No motive has been established and no demands have been made known, and it is not yet clear where the plane was taken, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media. The official said that hijacking was no longer a theory.

"It is conclusive," he said.

He said evidence that led to the conclusion were signs that the plane's communications were switched off deliberately, data about the flight path and indications the plane was steered in a way to avoid detection by radar.

The Boeing 777's communication with the ground was severed just under one hour into a flight March 8 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Malaysian officials previously have said radar data suggest it may have turned back toward and crossed over the Malaysian peninsula after setting out on a northeastern path toward the Chinese capital.

Earlier, an American official told The Associated Press that investigators are examining the possibility of "human intervention" in the plane's disappearance, adding it may have been "an act of piracy."

While other theories are still being examined, the U.S. official said key evidence suggesting human intervention is that contact with the Boeing 777's transponder stopped about a dozen minutes before a messaging system on the jet quit. Such a gap would be unlikely in the case of an in-flight catastrophe.

The Malaysian official said only a skilled aviator could navigate the plane the way it was flown after its last confirmed location over the South China Sea. The official said it had been established with a "more than 50 percent" degree of certainty that military radar had picked up the missing plane after it dropped off civilian radar.

Why anyone would want to do this is unclear. Malaysian authorities and others will be urgently investigating the backgrounds of the two pilots and 10 crew members, as well the 227 passengers on board.

Some experts have said that pilot suicide may be the most likely explanation for the disappearance, as was suspected in a SilkAir crash during a flight from Singapore to Jakarta in 1997 and an EgyptAir flight in 1999.

A massive international search effort began initially in the South China Sea where the plane's transponders stopped transmitting. It has since been expanded onto the other side of the Malay peninsula up into the Andaman Sea and into the Indian Ocean.

The plane had enough fuel to fly for at least five hours after its last know location, meaning a vast swath of South and Southeast Asia would be within its reach. Investigators are analyzing radar and satellite data from around the region to try and pinpoint its final location, something that will be vital to hopes of finding the plane, and answering the mystery of what happened to it.