What the World is Reading

The Economist, which once again places Russian President Vladimir Putin on the cover to question his democratic credentials, leads it business section with a provocative question: “Is India’s computer-services industry heading for a fall?” India’s information technology sector, it notes, has thrived on a mix of demand and supply factors: “On the demand side, Western companies needed to cut costs, but their computer systems still required a lot of human labour. On the supply side, there was an army of well trained, English-speaking engineers demanding only a fraction of a Western salary. Fast fibre-optic links brought both sides together and a favourable exchange rate made this global connection even more attractive: customers paid in dollars, and employees were paid in rupees.” The obvious challenge posed by the recent appreciation of the rupee against the dollar, says the report, accentuates the need for some structural changes. One, there are infrastructural problems in terms of roads, etc, that curtail mobility and in terms of higher educational institutions. The talent shortage is already showing itself in rapid salary increases. Two, there is growing competition from regions like Central Europe. Three, an economic slowdown in the US could cut IT spending by companies.

Time indulges in that comforting year-end ritual, list-making. It’s top 10 news stories of 2007, in order: transition in Pakistan, the American mortgage crisis, protests by Burmese monks, publication of the seventh, and last, Harry Potter book, David Petraeus’s stint as America’s top commander in Iraq, the Chinese-made toy recall, the Virginia Tech shooting, the stemcell breakthrough in November whereby human embryos may not be required, American Barry Bond’s baseball record, the iPhone frenzy.

The weekly also looks ahead to Thailand’s December 23 general election. Since the then prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, was overthrown in a coup in September 2006, his Thai Rak Thai party has reappeared as the People Power Party. Shinawatra is still barred from returning to Thailand but the PPP carries his trademark agenda, primarily making itself appealing with the promise of cheap loans and healthcare. The question is, if the PPP does, as per predictions, win, how will the generals react to moves to bring Shinawatra back?

Vanity Fair’s January issue takes a recently discovered map by T.E. Lawrence (or, Lawrence of Arabia) in which he proposed a post-Ottoman partition plan for the Middle East. Submitted to the British Government in 1918, it foresaw “Irak” as being made up of separate Kurdish and Arabic states. Vanity Fair invited four regional hands - David Fromkin, Dennis Ross, Kenneth Pollack and Daniel Byman - to get them to map their Middle East. Their social and cultural landscape has 14 entities, including Balochistan, Tetrapolis (which has the cities of Aleppo, Damascus, Amman and Gaza), Kurdistan, the Levant and the Crescent (on the northern parts of the Persian Gulf to include ethnically Arab Shias). Anticipating criticism, the map-makers say their exercise is descriptive, not prescriptive.

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