Category: Daily Dose

Check out Arundhati Roy’s article on the recent tragedy is Mumbai.

If there is a controversy around can Arundhati Roy be far behind?  The article is very long but as always brilliantly written so you could read easily without ever feeling that the author is rambling.

Arundhati Roy’s eternal anti-establishment radar is firmly in tact. So as expected she blames India and its religious Hindu-right. However, if you read the entire article, towards the end you will notice that she is partly responding to a tirade against her on TV.

While the Sangh Parivar does not seem to have come to a final decision over whether or not it is anti-national and suicidal to question the police, Arnab Goswami, anchorperson of Times Now television, has stepped up to the plate. He has taken to naming, demonising and openly heckling people who have dared to question the integrity of the police and armed forces. My name and the name of the well-known lawyer Prashant Bhushan have come up several times. At one point, while interviewing a former police officer, Arnab Goswami turned to camera: “Arundhati Roy and Prashant Bhushan,” he said, “I hope you are watching this. We think you are disgusting.” For a TV anchor to do this in an atmosphere as charged and as frenzied as the one that prevails today, amounts to incitement as well as threat, and would probably in different circumstances have cost a journalist his or her job.

Apart from this part of the article which is clearly in defense of the personal attack against her, the rest of the article brilliantly captures all aspects of the recent Mumbai attacks and its aftermath as well as the larger context with specific reference to past events. Definitely worth reading!

Check out this listing of potential ideas for who should lead Yahoo from Ex-Yahoos.

I think the most interesting idea I got from all the many former Yahoos I spoke to was that Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs swoop in and buy Yahoo.

This a wild card idea. Nevertheless a really cool one. Jobs clearly resurrected Apple and turned it once again int an exciting company. Considering that there are rumors about his health and the fact that Apple has its own share of challenges, this would be a huge stretch. Yahoo surely needs a savior, and a really big savior. Its not surprising in the least bit that someone thought of Steve Jobs.

Illinois Governor, Blagojevich was willing to trade the US Senate seat to replace President-elect Obama for cash and other favors. Check out some excerpts from the  “Blagojevich tapes“.

Giving the Governor the authority to appoint a Senator is way too much power and its not surprising that there are those who choose to misuse this power. It remains to be see what the fallout of this scandal is going to be and whether Mr. Obama himself or any of his high powered team are going to be drawn into this in some form given that the President-elect and some of his associates are themselves products of the infamous world of “Chicago Politics”. Finally, the Republicans have something to smile about and go to town with!

Check out the interview in the WSJ with Steve Ballmer and Qi Li (the new import from Yahoo to MS). If you read this interview it is hard to imagine that the two companies are not discussing a deal. Unfortunately for Yahoo with the stock at less than one-third the original MS offer and Jerry Yang’s recent bail out, they are in a horrible position to negotiate. On the hand Microsoft could not be better placed. iIf you read Steve Ballmer’s interview he wants to get it done and move on!

We’re fully prepared to compete without any partnership with Yahoo. We don’t need to act. Would it be advantageous for both of us to make a deal? Look, the fundamental basis for doing the search deal with Yahoo has to do with critical mass in the advertising marketplace. It doesn’t have to do with technology, or any of these other things, it really is a market phenomenon. Together we would have more advertisers….which means we’d have more relevant ads on our page. We’d have higher monetization levels possible in front of us because there would be more people bidding on more key words. Most importantly, Google would have perhaps a real credible competitor sooner. I think good ideas are usually better done quickly than slowly, so it would probably be better for both us, and certainly for Yahoo, if we were to do it sooner than later. But at the end of the day, that would have be something Yahoo would be as interested in as I have expressed our interest.

At the moment it is hard to imagine Yahoo selling just its search piece. If it sold the entire company in the current climate, Microsoft is bound to walk away with a sweet deal. On the other hand, if Yahoo! chooses to stay independent they are going to quickly have to find a new CEO and come up with credible plan that satisfies share holders. That’s a tall order. Sad to see a Silicon Valley icon struggle this way.

The Latino community is apparently upset that President-elect Obama didn’t offer the job of Secretary of State to New Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson.  With all due respect to Governor Richardson, it was next to impossible for Senator Obama to unite the Democratic party without reaching out to Senator Clinton. No doubt, Governor Richardson helped garner the Latino vote, but President-elect Obama can’t overlook the fact that Senator Clinton almost landed the party nomination!

Besides, its hard to imagine Latinos voting overwhelmingly for the Republicans given the party’s anti-immigration stance. While Richardson would have certainly fit the role as Secretary of State, there simply was too much at stake for President-elect Obama to pass over Senator Clinton for a plumb post in his cabinet.

Read this report this morning. Not sure how much truth there is to this. Getting rid of recruiters is a sure sign that hiring is on the decline. In the current climate this is not surprising. But layoffs of actual employees at Google sounds a little surprising. If the guys who have for the last several years been literally “printing money” have to cut back on their staff then there is no greater scary sign for the economy. Lets hope this report is not entirely true!

The world is crumbling with an economic crisis. Yet Dubai seems to be in world of its own. The Antlantis opened this week in Dubai with $20 million bash!

The excesses of recent times are most visible in Dubai – endless constructions, eternal traffic jams, and mindless spending. No wonder Dubai is headed for some difficult times. Check out  report in the WSJ.

Dubai is the most “vulnerable” sheikdom in the Persian Gulf to a downturn in the economy amid concern over its real-estate industry and debt financing, Citigroup Inc. said in a report.

Another report suggests that Abu Dhabi might need to bailout Dubai!

Ok, add one more to the bail out queue!

Muhammad Sven Kalisch, a Muslim convert and Germany’s first professor of Islamic theology, fasts during the Muslim holy month, doesn’t like to shake hands with Muslim women and has spent years studying Islamic scripture. Islam, he says, guides his life.

So it came as something of a surprise when Prof. Kalisch announced the fruit of his theological research. His conclusion: The Prophet Muhammad probably never existed.

See this report in the WSJ for the entire article. Also check out. The Prof. is soon going to be publishing a book in English based on his research.

My position with regard to the historical existence of Muhammad is that I believe neither his existence nor his non-existence can be proven. I, however, lean towards the non-existence but I don’t think it can be proven. It is my impression that, unless there are some sensational archeological discoveries — an Islamic “Qumran” or “Nag Hammadi” — the question of Muhammad’s existence will probably never be finally clarified.

Also check this out for an online petition of support for the Prof. (the site is mostly in German). Not surprisingly given that his personal security is likely to be immediately at risk. Irrespective of whether there is truth to his conclusions or not, the Prof. deserves credit for speaking up despite the obvious risks to his personal security among other challenges.

The stock market is relieved to see Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang step aside. It’s not in the least bit surprising.  After turning down an offer from Microsoft at almost three times the current stock price, the only real surprise is that Jerry Yang survived this long!

The Yahoo! Board made a huge error in judgment by appointing Jerry as the CEO. Having been with the company since its inception and never having taken the job, its a clear sign that this was a job the Jerry never really cared for. In hindsight, when Terry Semel quit, it might have been far more prudent to name Jerry the interim CEO while continuing the search for a permanent CEO . This would have given both the Board and Jerry Yang a good chance to try and make some changes (or at least some plans) while the search was still on. Next, not making cuts sooner earned the wrath of Wall Street. Turning down the Microsoft offer simply made it worse. The “falling through” of the Google deal and the drop in the share price amidst the financial meltdown simply destroyed Jerry Yang’s hope of turning the company around.

Its sad to see Yahoo! struggle. Its even worse that it has a leadership crisis in the midst of these tough times. Will Microsoft (whose search strategy is yet to make a dent) step forward again given that it can possibly buy Yahoo at less than half its original offer?