Re: [silk] India's dangerous capitalism
On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 1:57 PM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: Sainath (to me, at least) is a case of someone who is so blinded by his chosen set of blinkers that he has no perspective at all on anything. Some background on the feelings of at least some of the members of this list can be seen by researching the twitter hashtag #WFaDiV [1]. That's hardly a criticism; almost every expert becomes attached to their pet theories and ideas. The real criticism is that India doesn't have more Sainaths. This is true of world journalism too, the rich get all the column inches. The media just this week faithfully informed me about Aishwarya Rai's extra pounds, Eduardo Saverin's supposed tax dodge and Tendulkar's upper house entry complications. I don't see too much time spent on the poor and marginalized. Al Jazeera has an excellent documentary series called Risking it all - every episode is worth watching [0]. The year 1857 holds special importance for all Indians, the year India fought back, the year when 2000 Indians were killed for every British officer killed, and yet when you search online for '1857 massacre' the more cited and quoted reports are about a Mormon massacre in USA involving about 120 dead. The rich have always written history. This lack of perspective you cite - what would a more balanced perspective look like? [0] http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/riskingitall/2011/05/201151073240594854.html
Re: [silk] India's dangerous capitalism
On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.comwrote: The year 1857 holds special importance for all Indians, the year India fought back, the year when 2000 Indians were killed for every British officer killed, Just to be clear, Cheeni, you are comparing number of Indians (Mutinying Sepoys, Civilians, revolting Indian kings and their soldiers) killed to number of British *officers* killed, right? You are not including the women raped and killed in Cawnpore in the British side of the equation? Does it include the deaths in the blackhole of Calcutta? Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo! Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders
Re: [silk] India's dangerous capitalism
Deepak Shenoy [22/05/12 07:45 +0530]: ass. I would still say Roy and Sainath are just shrill, and just too blinkered. They also often ignore (or maliciously omit?) statistics that work against their theories, which is just as bad as the government. suppresio veri suggestio falsi take your pick. People who engage in propaganda like to do both, whichever wing of the political spectrum they come from Whether it is the eff etc types, or the tea partiers, or rai / p sainath types versus the usual suspect hindutva ideologues .. rebellion, a struggle for freedom etc. That brings in a lot more google results, but it doesn't prove that history was written by the poor :) Agree.
[silk] Help!--linguistic brain-tapping needed, please
Hello! So I was reading an essay about Indian food, when they mentioned the adoption of Sanskritized Hindi. Can someone explain what that is? I thought Hindi draws roots from Sanskrit, but this seems to be more complicated than that. Will offer thanks for now, and drinks when we find each other in the same neighbourhood. Chew Lin
[silk] On Saverin (was: Re: India's dangerous capitalism)
Re: Supposed: Hmm. . . Amusing and intriguing. Is there anybody besides Severin and his lawyer who asserts with a straight face that his renunciation of USian citizenship wasn't a tax dodge? It's true that I don't know much about either Eduado Saverin or US tax law as pertains to very wealthy people their transnational movements of capital, but I do confess that Saverin's protestations (Who, me?) remind me of the fellow who killed his mother and father and then begged for leniency from the court on the grounds that he was an orphan. But maybe I'm missing something. jrs Is there any On May 21, 2012, at 7:10 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan wrote: Eduardo Saverin's supposed tax dodge
Re: [silk] Help!--linguistic brain-tapping needed, please
Chew Lin Kay [22/05/12 12:16 +0800]: In brief, that phrase is used to separate it from Urdu. Is there a linguistic/political/geographical/whatever reason why it's not just called Hindi or Urdu? religious urdu derived from languages such as arabic, farsi and turkish, and was a sort of lingua franca for the mughal armies that came to India, and included people of various islamic ethnicities (those as well as uzbeks, tajiqs, pashtuns etc), as well as people drawn from the local population. It is written in arabic script, but the words are, generally, widely used in colloquial forms of hindi. The hindi dialects in several places (cities such as hyderabad and lucknow) that have a largely mixed population are heavily urdu flavored compared to the hindi spoken in some other places, so there's a geographic / locational element as well. A hindu religious right winger or in some much rarer cases a linguistic purist will deliberately refrain from using urdu words when he speaks hindi, and consciously use synonyms for those words that have a sanskrit etymology Similarly, narendra modi makes it a point not to use any arabic / urdu derived words when he speaks gujrati, for much the same reason If you want a (probably fictitious) analogy closer to home, think of an umno / pas islamic + malay nationalist type who will deliberately avoid speaking any version of bahasa that has chinese or tamil words in it [though the very word bahasa is derived from bhasha, the hindi / sanskrit word for language..] srs
Re: [silk] On Saverin (was: Re: India's dangerous capitalism)
John Sundman [22/05/12 00:17 -0400]: capital, but I do confess that Saverin's protestations (Who, me?) remind me of the fellow who killed his mother and father and then begged for leniency from the court on the grounds that he was an orphan. the classic definition of chutzpah - but you're quite right
Re: [silk] On Saverin (was: Re: India's dangerous capitalism)
On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 9:47 AM, John Sundman j...@wetmachine.com wrote: Re: Supposed: Hmm. . . Amusing and intriguing. Is there anybody besides Severin and his lawyer who asserts with a straight face that his renunciation of USian citizenship wasn't a tax dodge? Is there a problem with his doing so as a tax dodge? He lives in Singapore. From people who know him, his primary grouse was not the facebook thingy, but the fact that the IRS wanted to closely follow and tax even his Asian investments (the US taxes citizens even on their income earned if they are not resident in the US). So if he bought into an Asian company, he'd have to pay US taxes on the gains he makes, despite his living in Asia and investing here. Singapore charges no capital gains taxes. IMHO if it was a tax dodge, it wasn't about Facebook. And dodging taxes - legally - is fine according to the whole world and Vodafone, isn't it? On Facebook: If the US wants, it can charge Saverin capital gains when he exits. Except the US does not charge foreign (non US Citizen) residents any capital gains taxes. Therefore Saverin, as a non-US national non-resident will get charged no US taxes for this facebook gains, and I wouldn't either if I bought and sold FB shares. But he does get taxed on the day of renouncement of citizenship; The US assumes he sold all his assets on the day of renouncement and the market value on the renouncement day is assumed to be the price obtained (even if Saverin did not actually sell on that day) That means he paid capital gains upto that price. Now that price was lower than the Facebook price on its IPO, so some people are outraged that Saverin didn't wait till the IPO to pay the HIGHER capital gains tax he would have paid. Which is ridiculous as an argument, even if you consider that Facebook shares have now fallen more than 10% from the IPO price anyhow. In any case, the US can change cap gains laws to charge any non-resident non-citizen also, on any gains made in the US markets. It's strange to do (countries like India charge it, but provide exceptions like Mauritius) but then the rule would apply to everyone, not just Saverin. Strange that no one is asking for it. Hey it could even be retrospective (like India did). The tax dodge argument: consider that corporations do it all the time, moving their income into other subsidiaries abroad when it suits them. Relinquishing citizenship is done often, even by Indians who were benefited by the low cost IITs that were subsidized from the taxes of the many, and there can be no shame in it.
