Casualty of war: Child soldiers in Yemen

Many Houthi child fighters either return from the battlefield in bodybags or seriously wounded 

According to UNICEF, children comprise up to one-third of all fighters in Yemen (AFP) 

Nasser Al-Sakkaf-Tuesday 18 August 2015

SANAA - "I wish that I had received my child dead, not just injured," said Um Sultan, whose 15-year-old son was injured in the battle of Taiz between the Houthis and the Southern Popular Resistance in August.

Sultan Abdulwali joined the Houthis in June 2015. Although his entire family - especially his mother - was not happy with his support for the Houthis, they could not prevent him from joining their forces. Having mixed feelings about her son's decision, Um Sultan told Middle East Eye: "I know that my son is a Houthi supporter and I tried so hard to stop him from joining their ranks, but I failed with every attempt because he was so influenced by his friends, and many of the kids in the neighbourhood are Houthi fighters."

By the end of July Sultan had joined the Houthi rebels without the knowledge of his family. They soon left Sanaa for Taiz. Shortly after, the Popular Resistance targeted Abdulwali's military vehicle. Eight fighters were killed and two were wounded, including Abdulwali.

Wounded, Sultan was returned back to his mother in Sanaa. "Sultan is my only son. While I have four daughters, I loved him more than his sisters. Every day I pray that Allah will take him, because even though he is still injured and I pay so much for his treatment, he disobeys me and still supports the Houthis," Um Sultan said.

Um Sultan says she suspects that the Houthis used magic to attract her only son, stating that none of her family members could persuade her son to leave their ranks and return to school.

Sultan's father is working in Saudi Arabia, so he cannot help the family and be there to influence his son. "I am now in my 40s and I cannot control my son. Many times he has tried to hit me if I attempt to prevent him from doing something wrong, but his sisters stop him when he tries to harm me."

Like other Houthi fighters, Sultan was given a rifle for the battlefield. But according to Um Sultan, child soldiers use the rifles to threaten their friends and families as well.

According to UNICEF, children with the Houthis and other armed groups comprise up to one-third of all fighters in Yemen.

Child soldiers insist on fighting

Sultan became disabled and cannot walk due to a severe leg injury during the attack in Taiz. An additional shell fragment also hit him in the back.

"If I recover soon I will join the battle in Taiz again to fight againt al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP] and Islamic State [IS] fighters in Taiz," Sultan told MEE 

All that Sultan knows is that the Houthis are fighting AQAP and IS fighters in Taiz - the details of Yemen's complex political situation are over his head.

In November 2012, the head of the Houthis, Abdulmalik Badr al-Deen al-Houthi, pledged to work toward stopping the use of child soldiers.

Naif Nor Addin, a sociologist based in Taiz, told MEE that it is not only the Houthis who recruit children, but all warring sides, because it is easy to pursuade children to fight.

"Children, especially between the ages of 13 and 16, like to do new things, often for attention. Fighters often take advantage of this by giving rifles to the children at this age."

Nor Addin also said that this age is a time when children are often swayed more by the words of their peers than by their parents. One boy can often persuade several others to join up, especially if their parents are unaware of what is going on.

Inside the capital city, several children stand at Houthi checkpoints. Many are also seen in Houthi military vehicles.

'I hope parents watch their sons carefully'

The way 55-year-old Ahmed Murshed sees it, if a boy is older than 13, he is not a child. Rather, he is a man who knows very well what he is doing. 

Murshed is originally from the Raimah province, but he works in Sanaa as a guard. He is illiterate and says that this is why he allowed his 16-year-old son Fahd to drop out of school three years ago.

Fahd Murshed used to work in construction in Sanaa, but when the Houthis started recruiting last March, he was happy to join their ranks, even if his father was not happy with his decision.

"Without my knowledge, Fahd left Sana'a towards Taiz in the beginning of August. When I phoned him to ask where he was, he told me that he was at work in Hajja province. I believed him because I thought he was a man." Murshed told MEE.

Murshed did not follow the whereabouts of his son. He was under the impression that he had gone to Hajja to collect money in order to could buy a motorcycle, something that for he had spoken of for long. But in truth he had joined the Houthis.

"On 12 August, a Houthi car came to my house and two Houthis started to talk with me about the blessing of being a martyr," Murshed told MEE. "Then I understood that something bad had happened to my son. I asked them, 'Where is Fahd?'h They said, 'He is with his God in Paradise.'"

"Then they showed me the dead body of my son, asking me to take him home, but I refused to receive it, not because I hate my son, but to let them know that they stole my son without my knowledge and also to let them know that people do not support the recruiting of children."

He told MEE that it was after Fahd had been killed that he came to understand that he was still just a child, that he wasn't a man, and didn't understand what he was doing.

"I hope that all parents watch their sons very carefully and refuse to let them go anywhere without their knowledge. I regret that I did not watch my son more carefully.”

Amal Mamoon contributed to this article.

Islamic State reportedly beheads antiquities scholar, 82, who oversaw Palmyra ruins

This March 2014 photo shows the ancient city of Palmyra, 215 kilometers northeast of Damascus. The head of Palmyra’s antiquities was killed by Islamic State militants Tuesday, officials said. (JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images)

By Sarah Kaplan-August 19 

Khaled Asaad was a bespectacled scholar who had devoted more than five decades of his life to preserving the ruins of Palmyra, a majestic 2,000-year-old city in the Syrian desert.

On Tuesday he was beheaded by Islamic State extremists, his body left to hang from one of the stone columns in the ancient city’s central square, activist groups and officials told reporters, according to the AP and Reuters.

Palmyra was captured by Islamic State this May, prompting fears that the jihadists would destroy the UNESCO world heritage site about 130 miles northeast of Damascus. The group has demolished ancient landmarks and looted cultural treasures throughout the swaths of Syria and Iraq under its control — experts say that pre-Islamic artifacts and symbols of multiculturalism are considered sacrilegious by the Islamic State’s puritanical interpretation of Islam.

[Islamic State says ‘historical monuments’ of Palmyra are safe – except for the statues]

In June, the militants blew up two of Palmyra’s ancient shrines that were not part of its Roman-era ruins, but there is no other evidence that the rest of the heritage site has been ransacked. Instead, the group’s violence in the area has been directed toward people, like the 82-year-old Asaad.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told the Associated Press that Asaad was killed in a square outside the modern town’s museum. His body was then taken to the ruins of the ancient city.

“Just imagine that such a scholar who gave such memorable services to the place and to history would be beheaded … and his corpse still hanging from one of the ancient columns in the center of a square in Palmyra,” Syrian state antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters. “The continued presence of these criminals in this city is a curse and bad omen on [Palmyra] and every column and every archaeological piece in it.”

According to Abdulkarim, Asaad had been detained and interrogated by militants for more than a month before he was killed.

Asaad has authored scholarly works on Palmyra, where he served as head of antiquities. Abdulkarim told Reuters that he also worked with American, French, German and Swiss archaeological missions to excavate and research the city’s ancient tombs and temples.

Sarah Kaplan is a reporter for Morning Mix.

White and Guilty of the Crime of History?

No. I’m Not Going to the Reeducation Camp

by John Stanton

( August 18, 2015, Virginia, Sri Lanka Guardian) “…if you sit around and wait for the one who is in power to make up his mind that he should end it, you’ll be waiting a long time. And in my opinion the young generation of whites, blacks, browns, and whatever else there is, your are living in a time when there has to be a change…a better world needs to be built…And I will join in with anyone, I don’t what color he is, as long as he wants to change the miserable condition that exists on this earth.” Malcolm X at Oxford, 1964

“Out here in the fields. I fight for my meals. I get my back into my living. I don’t need to fight to prove I’m right, I don’t need to be forgiven.” Baba O’Reilly, The Who , 1971

“And then they would have to determine how to build their suburbs on something other than human bones, how to angle their jails toward something other than a human stockyard, how to erect a democracy independent of cannibalism. I would like to tell you that such a day approaches when the people who believe themselves to be white renounce this demon religion and begin to think of themselves as human.” Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2015

When did my genes and “I” become guilty of thinking that they were white?

According to genetic testing results I am part of the Haplogroup R1; specifically, R1a1. Information accompanying the test results indicated that “I”, or the group my genes belong to, “appears to have arisen in the Near East or present-day Pakistan during the peak of the Ice Age about 18,000 years ago. Until the Ice Age began to wane about 15,000 years ago, it may have been limited to the area around the Black Sea, a region that remained relatively ice-free and hospitable while much of Eurasia was covered by glaciers and tundra.”

Then events transpired so that my genes “decided” they would become “white” and privileged some 12,000 years ago. “R1 is the dominant Haplogroup in Europe today, accounting for well over half of all men. After being confined to the continent’s southern fringes during the Ice Age, it expanded rapidly in the wake of the receding glaciers about 12,000 years ago. Various branches of R1 also trace the many migrations that have shaped Europe since then, from the arrival of farmers between about 10,000 and 7,000 years ago to the movements of ethnic groups such as the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings.”

Neanderthal Man

I also now know that 3.0% of my DNA comes from the Neanderthal line. I know, too, that “my” son’s mother’s genes traveled, from what is now called Africa, the opposite direction from my genes, through what is now known as Asia, to what is now the West Coast of North America and, hugging the coast, made their way to Northern Brazil to the mouth of what we now call the Amazon River. Those genes which became known as Amazonian Indian merged with genes from a pool of genes from Portugal. My son’s genes will likely merge with those of his wife from what we now call Trinidad by way of what is now known as India and from wherever those genes originated from.

None of this was planned.

And none of this makes any difference to those from the many bands of the human spectrum who make sure to label me White and Middle Class, just as those from other parts of the spectrum chose to tag others as Black, Asian, Pacific Islander and Latino belonging to Upper, Middle and Lower classes.

In the book Between the World and Me, Coates, I think—though I may be wrong—is saying, in part, that the Species has to stop thinking it is a color, or maybe even a class, but that one must know his/her history. This made me wonder why is it that when many describe the supreme quality of a person they tend to pause and say “human being” and not the tired old clichés belonging to leadership texts? Is this what Coates means when he says “think of themselves as human”? Or is he saying that being White is to be inherently evil? Or is it that Capitalism, the American Myth, and Whiteness fused into one monstrous American Democracy, with Western European origins, is destroying us all? Yet Coates seems to find solace and a sort of contradictory peace in a bastion of Western European culture now known as Paris, France.

I know my skin color is White and what that means in the most dominant economic, military and cultural power in the United States of America where roughly 17 percent are Hispanic, 12 percent Black, 4 percent Asian, 1 percent Native Americans, and 65 percent White. I do not know what it is like to be anyone else and I would not want to be like anyone else with any other history other than my own and those of my genes.

I know the history of the genocide, slavery and the rape and pillage of Blacks in Africa and America, and the destruction of the Native Peoples in North, Central and South America. I know, generally, of the ancient wars of the Pharaoh’s, the Romans, the Muslims and the Greeks and the wanton slaughter and savaging of women and children in those times. I know that the slaves of the ancients were described by Varro as “speaking tools.” That belief persisted in the United States for most of the country’s history. I know the history of the Jewish Holocaust, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the Rape of Nanking, Stalin and Mao’s purges and executions, the human sacrifices of the Inca’s, the public hangings of Blacks in America’s South, the millions killed by the Belgians, and so on. I have seen what was once a human rendered into pieces.

How should I apply this knowledge?

Is it the System?

Should I attribute the sins of the world to Whiteness? Or should I conclude that the Species itself and the dominant economic and ruling methodology of Capitalism combine to make the “demon” that Coates refers to and the “system” that Malcolm X wants us all to change: That American system, born largely of the British, Roman and Greek Systems, that relies on absurd contradictions and irony. A system that makes those from NWA and Straight Out of Compton, with all the female bashing lyrics, now part of the One Percent elite of corporate America; or the principals of the George W. Bush Administration clearly guilty of war crimes still cashing in on public office; or the poor and largely Black people that can’t make $500 bail and waste away in jail; or the White miners in West Virginia killed because the mining company ignored safety rules and is found not guilty of negligence on a legal technicality; or the citizens of Detroit City denied, by a lone judge, the right to clean drinking water. And what should I make of an American society that does not care about corporate surveillance (for profit) and government monitoring of all forms of communication (to maintain security and stability for the corporations to make profits)? Where were the White Rockers, Black Rappers, and Country Music stars when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan raged on or the beach head for the corporate and government’s invasion of privacy was the home?

They, all of them, were co-opted by a political, economic and cultural system we deny every day but in which we also live, procreate, operate and profit. With all of our complaints, we don’t have a functional alternative to offer. The ballot-box provides no remedy. Presidential and Congressional elections are polluted by money and interests, foreign and domestic, over which voters have no control. Politicians are bought and sold like horses prior to a race. It took a 2016 Republican presidential candidate in Donald Trump, who regularly buys and sells politicians, to acknowledge this fact. The corporate and government elite was shocked and aghast that one of their own would, well, expose Coates’ “demon” so openly.

With the extremes of the American Identity Culture, social media, ubiquitous voice and audio recording, surveillance video weaving their way into all facets of American life, speech has become an action to be exercised with caution. It is an interesting coincidence that this comes on the heels of Edward Snowden’s revelations of the extent of corporate and government collaboration on tracking the intimate details and movements of Americans. A poster should be made that reads, “You are to be seen but not heard and you are to speak only when spoken to. Measure your thoughts before releasing them for the record.”

Fragmented, Tribal Nation

America continues its push to a more perfect Panopticon. The Atlantic Magazine reports that “A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense.” The World Socialists point to the dropping of Democratic Party fundraisers known formerly asJefferson-Jackson Days. Dismissing Jackson correctly as a dumb, wealthy brut, The World Socialist’s state, “Like any other historical figure, Jefferson could not catapult himself out of the times in which he lived. If he embodied more than any other leader the contradictory character of the American Revolution, which posed for the first time the claim of full human equality but had no means of establishing it, this only adds to his fascination as a historical figure. As for hypocrisy, one wonders if Wilder and Jefferson’s other critics are prepared to turn over the gains they have made by speculating on the surging stock market of recent decades—money intimately bound up with the super-exploitation of the working class. Unlike Jefferson, who could say with the other revolutionists of ’76 that they had staked “our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor” on a “glorious cause,” Jefferson’s haters in 2015 have staked absolutely nothing on their subjective and deeply a-historical attacks.”

Where is American society/culture going with all this? It is certain that in this most Capitalist of societies, there will be commodification and cash to be made in the Identity Industry. The corporations have been target marketing for some time now to Blacks, Whites, Asians, Mixed, and LGBT: Fragmented markets for a fragmented nation: Just so.

Perhaps Identity Papers complete with genetic testing results are in order, or maybe public self-flagellation for those being White and therefore guilty of the woes that beset the Species and the environment. Reeducation Camps might be an option, or is college becoming the modern day reeducation camp?

Safe Spaces carried to far turn the confines of the home into that space in which people communicate with society only via the Internet and with a false identity. Nearly two million American children are being home schooled and that trend is increasing. Between corporate privatization and parental frustration with traditional 19th Century based K-12 learning modes—in both public and private schools—home schooling is on the rise.

With the religion of the mythic Judeo-Christian Gods demolished, the religion of the secular and its human gods is ascendant. Watching or reading the bombastic media and its featured commentators and guests brings the feeling of sitting in a Catholic confessional booth. “Bless me Father for I have sinned somehow and if I did not consciously sin then one of my ancestors, or my genes, did, and, in the future might.”

Who will be the judges and guides in this new America that aims to be classless and colorless, and aims to reeducate all of America? It would be an extraordinary day when all Americans think that they are of no color or class, just a collection of histories and genes assembled into one United States. I’m all for it. But the history of the Species speaks against the successful implementation of a such a blank slate society.

I don’t think I’m White. I think I am a human being. I don’t know what it is like to be rich and in the top 20 percent of money makers in the USA. I know that I’m color-labeled as White and class-labeled as Middle by the identity and false consciousness hunters that roam the American landscape.

I know I agree with Dave Chappelle, famed comedian with $10 million in the bank, who is labeled as Black and Wealthy. But I’m not a smart guy and I think that he is a human being and really funny guy with great observations of the human condition. I think that way of George Carlin, Chris Rock and the late Robin Williams. According to Chappelle “I support anyone’s right to be who they want to be. My question is: To what extent do I have to participate in your self-image?’

Nope, “I” don’t need to be forgiven and neither do my 18,000 year old genes.

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer. Reach him at captainkong22@gmail.com

Palestinian liberation is “key matter of our time,” say Black leaders

Over the past year, strengthened resilience and joint struggle have emerged between Black and Palestinian liberation movements.

 Tess ScheflanActiveStills

The Electronic Intifada 18 August 2015

More than 1,000 Black activists, artists, scholars, students and organizations have released this statement reaffirming their “solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and commitment to the liberation of Palestine’s land and people.”

Palestinian Liberation is “Key Matter of Our Time,” Say Black Leaders by Thavam Ratna

Arundhati Roy’s Note in Solidarity with Soni Sori & Linga Kodopi and the People of Bastar

August 18, 2015

Following is the text of a note by writer-activist, Arundhati Roy, which she read out during a press conference at Press Club of India, Delhi, today to express solidarity with Soni Sori & Linga Kodopi and the People of Bastar. Adv. Prashant Bhushan, Adv. Vrinda Grover,Annie Raja and Himanshu Kumar also addressed the Press Conference.

The Mining companies are getting restless. The MOUs that were signed handing over Adivasi land to them have not been actualized because of the resistance from local people. Operation Green Hunt continues as Operation No-Name. The Salwa Judum is being re-constituted. Once again SPOs are beginning to kill villagers and call them Naxalites. Anybody who criticizes or impedes the implementation of State policy is called a Maoist. Thousands of Dalits and Adivasis, thus labeled, are in jail absurdly charged with crimes like Sedition and Waging War against the State under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA. While villagers languish for years in prison, with no legal help and no hope of justice, often not even sure what crime they have been accused of, the State has turned its attention to what it calls ‘OGWs’—Overground Workers.

The Ministry of Home Affairs spelled out its intentions clearly in its 2013 affidavit filed in the Supreme Court. It said: “The ideologues and supporters of the CPI(Maoist) in cities and towns have undertaken a concerted and systematic propaganda against the State to project it in a poor light…it is these ideologues who have kept the Maoist movement alive and are in many ways more dangerous than the cadres of the People’s Liberation Guerilla Army.”

The harassment of Soni Sori, Linga who have already spent many years in jail, the arrest of Professor G.N. Saibaba who was recently released on bail and is still in hospital, the harassment of Himanshu Kumar who has been hounded out of Bastar, are all part of this Operation. I have just heard that the Odisha Police in Malkangiri District are hunting down a documentary filmmaker and human rights activist Deba Ranjan. I know Deba Ranjan very well. He has made excellent films on the communal violence I Kandhamal and the assault on adivasi homelands in Malkangiri. He has worked with K, Balagopal on several fact-finding missions. He is in Malkangiri, in South Odisha, the district abutting Sukma in Bastar—so roughly the same area. The police have filed seven criminal cases against him. He is underground now, fearing for his life. Either way, whether they arrest him or they do not, they have stopped his work.

The last time Soni Sori and Linga came to Delhi, addressed tribunals and Press conferences, we were unable to save them. Soni was arrested and despite pleading with the magistrate in a Delhi Court to not be sent back to Jagdalpur for fear of torture, she was sent back. And both she and Linga were brutally tortured. They have spent years in prison, both of them came close to death. The media did play a part in managing to get them released. And now they are here again. Hounded by the same terror that is backed by the same commercial interests.

Ankit Garg, the policeman who Soni Sori says supervised her torture—which included, among other things, pushing stones up her vagina—in police custody, was awarded a Police Gallantry Award by the President of India, on Republic Day in 2012. Many people were outraged and condemned this. Personally, given the state of affairs in this country, I thought it was an honest declaration of intent by the Indian State. I only wish the award citation had been honest too. In cases like this one, the citation could have said: “This Award is hereby conferred on Officer XYZ for bravely supervising the torture and sexual molestation of a dangerous Adivasi school teacher.”

Pakistan invites Kashmiri separatists for meeting

Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Chairman of a hardliner faction of All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference (APHC), shouts slogans during an anti-election rally in Srinagar April 10, 2009.-REUTERS/DANISH ISMAIL/FILES

Pakistan has invited separatists from the disputed Kashmir region for a meeting in a move that risks further straining efforts to restart a peace dialogue between the two nuclear-armed nations.

Wed Aug 19, 2015

Kashmiri separatist spokesman Ayaz Akbar said that hardline leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani is among those invited to the Pakistan High Commission (embassy) in New Delhi on Aug. 23 -- the same day as talks between Indian and Pakistani security officials are due to start.

Manzoor Ali Memon, a spokesman for the Pakistani embassy, confirmed the invitation and declined to comment further.

An Indian official said the government is monitoring the situation and would respond appropriately. The person did not say what action that may involve.

India called off peace talks with Pakistan a year ago after its neighbour consulted the separatists before a meeting between their foreign secretaries. At the time, India accused Pakistan of interfering in its domestic affairs.

"This is deliberate attempt to irritate India," said S. Chandrasekharan, director of the South Asia Analysis Group in New Delhi.

Earlier Indian governments had grudgingly tolerated meetings between Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi, elected last year, signalled he would not.

Majority-Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan have fought three wars since becoming separate nations in 1947, two of them over Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule in part.

Modi has taken a tougher approach to Pakistan and clashes on the disputed border have intensified.

Indian and Pakistani troops traded gunfire and mortar rounds along their frontier earlier this week, killing eight people.

Hopes for warmer ties rose last month when Modi and his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, met on the sidelines of a summit in Russia and agreed that their national security advisers would hold talks.

(Reporting By Fayaz Bukhari, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Germans to run Greek regional airports in first wave of bailout privatisations

Fraport AG taking over 14 airports in deal worth €1.23bn that is among requirements as Greece receives billions in loans to keep it afloat

 Thessaloniki airport, one of 14 in Greece to be run by a German company as a condition of bailout funding. Photograph: Sakis Mitrolidis/AFP/Getty

Associated Press in Athens-Wednesday 19 August 2015

Greece has agreed to sell to a German company the rights to operate 14 regional airports. The deal is the first in a wave of privatisations the government had until recently opposed but must make to qualify for bailout loans.

The decision, published in the government gazette on Monday night would hand over the airports including several on popular tourist island destinations to Fraport AG, which runs Frankfurt Airport, among others across the world.

The deal, worth €1.23bn euros (£0.9bn/$1.37bn), is the first privatisation decision taken by the government of Alexis Tsipras, who was elected prime minister in January on promises to repeal the conditions of Greece’s previous two bailouts.

The government initially vowed to cancel the country’s privatisation programme but Tsipras caved in to win a deal on a third international bailout for Greece, worth €86bn. Without the rescue loans Greece would default on its debts and risk being forced out of the euro.

Mytilene airport Odysseus Elyitis on Lesvos (top left), Rhodes airport Diagoras (top right), Chania airport Daskalogiannis, Kavala airport Megas Alexandros, Thessaloniki airport Macedonia and Aktion aiport are part of the deal with German company Fraport, the operator of Frankfurt airport. Photograph: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA

Separately the government slightly relaxed its restrictions on banking transactions, allowing small amounts to be sent abroad for the first time in about two months.

The finance ministry’s amendments, also published in the government gazette, include allowing Greeks to send up to €500 abroad per person per month, and allowing up to €8,000 per quarter to be sent to students studying abroad to cover accommodation costs.

Greeks can now also open new bank accounts that will have no withdrawal rights, in order to repay loans, social security contributions or tax debts.

The government restricted banking transactions in late June to prevent a bank run after Tsipras announced a referendum on creditors’ terms for a new bailout.

The bailout deal is getting its final approvals in parliaments in several European states. Lawmakers in Spain and Estonia approved it on Tuesday while those of Germany and the Netherlands are expected to do so on Wednesday.

Tsipras is widely expected to call a confidence vote in his government this week, after dozens of Syriza lawmakers voted against him during the ratification of the new bailout deal in Parliament last Friday.

Why Are So Many of the World’s Best Companies Run by Indians?

And why aren’t more of those companies in India?

BY RUPA SUBRAMANYA-AUGUST 18, 2015

In  the popular imagination, India is perhaps best known for its exports of curry, yoga, and Bollywood films. But another product is becoming a winner, too: chief executives of major multinational companies, including several based in the United States. The most recent to join this growing group is Indian-born Sundar Pichai, just named chief executive of Google after its reorganization. He joins Satya Nadella, the Indian-born head of Microsoft, who got the top job there last year; and chief executives of Indian origin have or continue to run major firms such as Citibank, MasterCard, and PepsiCo.

According to a study in Harvard Business Review, as of mid-2013, India’s export share of Fortune Global 500 company CEOs — that is, CEOs who are heads of companies headquartered in a country not their own — is 30 percent. That places India in territory comparable to countries like Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Because of the visibility of these posts, the success of Indian-born chief executives in the cutthroat global arena is quite striking to their fellow Indians. To think that a country that until recently was considered synonymous with poverty and destitution is now producing world-beating chief executives at iconic global companies is a source of national pride.

Yet for the most part, individuals like Nadella and Pichai obtained their graduate training and management expertise at top universities and firms in the United States, not in India.In other words, the success of Indian-born CEOs in America is as much about what’s right with America — or at least what used to be right before immigration became more restricted after 9/11 — as what’s right with India. In fact, it may be more about what’s gone wrong on the subcontinent.

One point of pride, at least for Indians, is that this is one area where they’re beating their archrival China. Indeed, after Nadella’s appointment to Microsoft in February 2014, there was more than a bit of soul-searching in China: According to data from mid-2013, three Indian-origin chief executives were leading Fortune Global 500 companies outside India, while China had zero. The three Indians were Lakshmi Mittal of the steel giant ArcelorMittal, Anshu Jain of Deutsche Bank, and Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo; Nadella and Pichai have now raised the total to five.

There are some simple reasons for why China fares poorly in this regard. College-educated Indians tend to speak good English and are comfortable with American business culture; that isn’t the case for many of their Chinese counterparts. And in the case of tech companies such as Microsoft and Google, there’s a natural affinity with the rich tech culture back in India that nurtured business leaders like Nadella and Pichai.

But part of the reason why you’ll see far fewer Chinese than Indians, not only as chief executives but also in the upper management tiers of large Western multinationals, is far from a positive for India. Rather, it speaks to the relative strength of the Chinese economy and areas where India continues to lag behind.

For example, large Chinese firms pay salaries to upper management that are roughly the same or only somewhat less generous than for similar positions in the United States; whereas Indian salaries, converted at the actual exchange rate rather than at the purchasing power of the Indian rupee, still lag behind. According to a 2014 survey by consulting firm Towers Watson, pay for top executives in China was on average more than double that in India when converted into dollars.

Also, perhaps surprisingly, despite concerns about pollution in China (though India’s is comparable, if not worse), China wins hands down as a favored destination for expats. In a 2013 survey by HSBC, China ranked number one overall out of a total of 37 countries as a preferred expat destination.

In fact, firms in India seem to have little desire to tap the global labor market for top managers. Large Indian firms remain heavily dominated by local chief executives, often family members of the firm’s original management. Indian business even at the highest level — and among companies that are heavily globalized — remains largely autarkic and inward-looking. And there is good reason for this, though it does not necessarily speak well of the Indian economy.

A few years back, when Ratan Tata, head of the Tata conglomerate, stepped down after a protracted search for a replacement, his successor ended up being not a foreigner, as some had speculated, but Cyrus Mistry, a consummate insider and member of the extended Tata clan. If even the most cosmopolitan of Indian multinationals thought it wise to stick with a member of the family, rather than pick a star chief executive from abroad, then specific local knowledge and networks — including connections to powerful bureaucrats and government ministers — must remain hugely important at the top levels of Indian management. In this respect, India is much more similar to Japan or China than to the United States or United Kingdom.

So before Indians pat themselves on the back for exporting star chief executives, they might want to consider how this reflects the country’s failures. How can India produce a business environment that nurtures and provides incentives and opportunities to high-performing individuals like Nadella or Pichai, leveling the playing field with Western multinationals? And second, how can India foster a more competitive and innovative environment, one that produces new companies like Microsoft and Google?

While Indians bask in the reflected glory, the real winners are Indian-Americans. They’ll see role models they can emulate without worrying about a glass ceiling — a very American success story after all. And Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would do well to reflect on this as he prepares for a visit to Silicon Valley next month.

Photo credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

E-cigarettes could be prescribed by the NHS

In a study examining the effects of vaping, experts found that e-cigarettes were 95 percent less harmful than cigarettes containing tobacco.

WEDNESDAY 19 AUGUST 2015

The report, carried out by academics for Public Health England, claimed that the controversial devices should be prescribed by doctors to help smokers quit. But what are the devices as does everyone agree?

Why is this a big deal?

Currently there are eight million smokers in the UK. If all of them switched to vaping around 75,000 lives a year could be saved, according the report's authors.

Their findings suggest e-cigarettes are 20 times less dangerous than tobacco. This has led Public Health England to recommend that e-cigarettes should be prescribed to help smokers quit on the NHS, which currently spends £2bn a year treating smoking related diseases.

How soon will they be available?

Not that soon. GP's and stop smoking services have welcomed the findings of the report, but as no e-cigarettes products are currently licensed for medical purposes they can't be given out by health professionals.

However, experts hope the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency will speed up the licensing process, which would allow the product to be prescribed by the end of the year.

Isn't anything labeled as a cigarette harmful and to be avoided?

Yes and no. Both cigarettes and E-cigarettes are harmful to your health, but the report recommends that e-cigarettes should be used by smokers as a gateway to quitting.

Both electronic and traditional cigarettes contain some toxins so are potentially harmful. However, unlike traditional cigarettes, which are filled with tobacco and tar, e-cigarettes don't contain tobacco and (the study claims) pose no risk of nicotine poisoning when inhaled.

Why doesn't everyone smoke E-cigarettes then?

Just under half of the population (44.8 per cent) do not realise that e-cigarettes are much less harmful than smoking, according to the report. Prof Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England, said he believed it was important to tackle "harmful myths".

He said, "E-cigarettes are not completely risk-free but when compared to smoking, evidence shows they carry just a fraction of the harm. The problem is people increasingly think they are at least as harmful and this may be keeping millions of smokers from quitting."

That's not to say that they're not popular though, currently 2.6 million adults vape in Britain.

Does everyone support the study's findings?

No. The Welsh Government favors curbs on vaping. It has banned smoking E-cigarettes in enclosed places such as restaurants, pubs and at work, under a law which will come into force in 2017. It says it worries the devices may re-normalise smoking and could prevent a danger to children.

The British Medical Association has also expressed concern that the widespread use of e-cigarettes could undermine existing smoking laws and make the devices attractive to children.

The World Health Organisation is also skeptical. It recommends that smokers should first be encouraged to quit smoking by using existing, approved treatments. It points to evidence which says the vapour from E-cigarettes can pose a threat to adolescents and to the fetuses of pregnant mothers who use the devices.

It's also worth noting that many e-cigarettes are manufactured by the tobacco industry. This could mean that the NHS gives money to the same companies that created the smoking problem in the first place.

CID Unearths More Details

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) is still conducting a comprehensive investigation into the abduction of six Tamil youths from Colombo allegedly by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) officers.

Three SLN officers have already been taken into custody by the CID in connection with the abduction of six Tamil youths from Colombo during the latter part of the war, Police spokesman ASP Ruwan Gunasekera said.

“These abductions have taken place during the latter part of the war and they had been detained at Navy camps in Trincomalee and at Chaithya Road in Colombo.

National identity cards of these abducted youths had been found in the possession of one Navy officer at the time of his arrest,” he said.

According to the police spokesman, some Navy officers who have given evidence to the CID had stated that these youth had been abducted from Mt. Lavinia and how a senior Navy officer abducted these youths and took them away in a white van.

“Out of these three navy officers two had gone on retirement when they were arrested, while the other was in service. It is also stated that some, who are still in service, are making efforts to safeguard the suspects,” the police spokesman said.

What next? Part 2: Deconstructing Transitional Justice

This is the second part of a three part series. You can read part 1 here, and part 3 will be available here when it is published tomorrow.

The human aftermath of the shelling of the No Fire Zones will not be as easy to clear away

Deconstructing Transitional Justice

Aug 18, 2015

Sri Lanka needs a comprehensive approach to dealing with the past which incorporates accountability, truth telling, and reconciliation. Sadly such an approach does not appear to be on the cards. Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan government would like nothing more than to present a blueprint for what they will claim is a comprehensive, solely domestic, mechanism, and so close down other avenues for accountability.

What Next Part 2 Deconstructing Transitional Justice by Thavam Ratna