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News Updates - May 2005
India - the holy land - The Miami Herald
Queen of tech starstruck by
India - Fortune magazine
India – The Holy Land
28 May 2005, THE
MIAMI HERALD,
By Jennifer Santiago
VARANASI - Om Namah Shivay. Om Namah Shivay. The words echo in the still of a predawn Indian sky. It is a voice I have never heard before, though it is my own. Then, I release the flower, a candle burning in its center. The flower-on-fire floats on a river, drifts somewhere sacred, joining hundreds more. Moments later the sun reaches that place in the sky that flicks on the light. A city is finally revealed. Varanasi -- ''city where the supreme light shines.'' Varanasi -- as sacred as it is strange.
Varanasi is one of the oldest living cities in the world, dating to the 9th century B.C. This is the place that the supreme Hindu lord, Shiva, chose as his earthly residence, and today it is home to 2,000 temples and shrines, 2 million people. This is, after all, the place where the dead and dying converge. Sadhus renounce all earthly pleasures, living a solitary life wherever they roam. On the front of a wooden door, the sign for ''om'' -- the sound made when the universe was created, say Hindus. It is the same sound that echoes in the thick air above.
Devout Hindus believe that a bath in the Ganges will wash away their sins. Within feet of the famous Manikarnika ghat, the largest cremation ghat -- a series of stone steps leading directly to the water -- along the holy Ganges. Cremation within inches of the river guarantees moksha, a release from the endless cycle of birth and death. There is an odd beauty to this death scene and its mournful music. It is my 11th day in India, a land so difficult, so intoxicating, I've forgotten everything I thought was true. Inspite of the chaos, sanctity is everywhere.
India
to gain from China-Japan spat
India
stands to benefit from the recent spat between China and Japan. In a new
report, Gartner said should the China-Japan spat continue, Japanese
companies might consider India as a low-cost destination and transfer high
technology works to India from China which does a bulk of manufacturing for
the Chinese companies. Dion Wiggins, Vice-President and Research Director of
Gartner said.
The Reigning Queen of Tech starstruck by India
Carol Bartz is the most prominent woman in American technology. CEO of Autodesk for the past 13 years, no CEO who is not a founder has served longer at any major tech company. When asked by Fortune magazine, for any impressions about a recent trip went to India - ”I’m starstruck by India. The Indians are optimistic. There will come a time when it will be harder and harder to do business in China because they will want to do everything themselves. But India, with its federal system and a style that we better understand, and of course its huge population, will be a nice way to counterbalance the strength of China.”
Chairman & CEO sees surge in GE business in
India
G.E.'s revenue in India is expected to leap to more than $5 billion by 2010 from $800 million now. Describing India as a "rising star," Jeffrey Immelt said that "We believe that India is at the beginning of a growth cycle." The company currently employs more than 20,000 people in India. In Bangalore, for instance, G.E. has its biggest research and development center outside the United States. Mr. Immelt announced in New Delhi that G.E. would join with an Indian health care company, MediCity, to build a $250 million medical center, modeled after the Mayo Clinic, in Gurgaon.
A movie on an Indian Revolutionary Gains
Favor Gandhi remains a revered figure, the saintly "father of the nation" whose portrait hangs in classrooms and government offices. But in recent years Indians have embraced a more muscular sort of nationalist hero. In 2002, audiences flocked to see "The Legend of Bhagat Singh," an Indian revolutionary who was hanged by the British in 1931 at age 24 after detonating a bomb in the British-controlled national assembly. But the biggest reason for Bose's renewed popularity probably has more to do with India's changing self-image, from an underdeveloped, aid-dependent champion of the Non-Aligned Movement to a rising economic power with nuclear weapons and an increasingly important role on the world stage. In that context, Bose - a militant nationalist and revolutionary - has become for many Indians a more compelling symbol of India's independence struggle than the ascetic and pacifist Gandhi, especially among the fast-growing middle class. Bose wrote that “Gandhiji wants to change human beings, and all I want to do is free India.” |
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