US and them

State funding of elections, so that 8216;8216;politics may attract a nicer class of person8217;8217;? Would a system of proportional representation work, 8216;8216;to break the link between constituency and candidate8217;8217;? The Economist emphasised the urgent need to overhaul the criminal justice system in India, 8216;8216;which at present seems to produce fewer convictions than ministers8217;8217;.

Blowing cold

The world took a desultory note of the India-Pak agreements on nuclear restraint. Given the frenzied enthusiasms that attended the flaring of the flashpoint in the summer of 2002, the reaction was remarkably low key. The Washington Post described the CBMs as a 8216;8216;small but helpful nudge to a nascent peace process8217;8217;. There was no 8216;8216;apparent progress8217;8217; on the 8216;8216;broader strategic issues8217;8217;.

And once again this week, Britain8217;s Financial Times sent out a reminder that the world is watching India most closely for its budget. In an editorial, the paper reiterated its conviction that the rout of a 8216;8216;politically divisive8217;8217; but 8216;8216;economically reformist Hindu nationalist government8217;8217; was not a vote against reform. It was a vote against 8216;8216;the complacency of urban elites who had neglected the countryside8230;8217;8217;.

The FT does not doubt the 8216;8216;intention8217;8217; of Messrs Singh and Chidambaram who, after all, have 8216;8216;impeccable reform credentials8217;8217;. But can they do it again, in a landscape dotted with coalition constraints, populists and communists? The challenge, it said, is to move ahead, from cutting red tape to deepening reforms at the federal level, while devising new ways to introduce 8216;second generation8217; reforms at the state level.

Jobs, it still is

The clamour over outsourcing has waned in the US. A recent Labor Department report, the first government effort to quantify the impact of 8216;8216;offshoring8217;8217;, which suggested that it may be responsible for only 2.5 per cent of the job losses in the first quarter of this year, may have something to do with the lull.

Statistical revisions suggest that job creation, which appeared weak a few months ago despite strong economic growth, is now healthy, said The Washington Post. After suffering a net loss of 2.7 million jobs between March 2001 and August 2003, the US economy has gained 1.4 million jobs.

But wait. According to John F. Kerry, victor of the Democratic primaries, while job creation may have recovered, wages are the real problem, they have gone down and prices have gone up. Kerry and his party are building up a new election year debate, this time over the quality of jobs.

Surely, India is off the hook on this one?

In the Post, a senior economist detected a clear pattern: the average wage in industries that gained jobs over the past three years was 30 per cent lower than the average wage in industries that lost jobs 8212; a sharp reversal from the previous five years. The real issue, he said, is not the flow of jobs abroad but the impact of those labour markets at home. 8216;8216;The threat of labor competition in China and India is preventing workers in the United States from bargaining up wages, even as the economy begins growing in earnest.8217;8217;

In The New York Times, under the headline 8216;Father Outsources Best8217;, Bruce Stockler wrote a letter to his children on Father8217;s Day. 8216;8216;Dear A.,J.,B. 038; H.8217;8217;, it began. 8216;8216;Thank you for the book, DVD and James Gandolfini beach blanket, but I will forward them to Mr Gupta, your new father, who lives in Bangalore, India.8217;8217;

P.S.: IS 8216;Bikram8217; doing to yoga what fast food has done to the culinary world? The Economist profiled Bikam Choudhury, who goes only by his first name, and is the new celebrity guru in the western marketplace. His distinctive style invites abundant scorn from 8216;8216;yoga8217;s gourmets8217;8217;. His USP: a series of 26 postures taught in a room heated to 41 degrees celsius, with mirrors on all sides, buzzing with profane preachings over the microphone.

But it is Bikram8217;s unprecedented intellectual-property strategy that is touching off the larger questions. For instance, can the asanas postures and the pranayama breathing techniques, which have been in the public domain, on caves and on temple walls in India for thousands of years, be owned, transferred, franchised, trademarked, copyrighted? He wants to franchise his style of yoga. He has trademarked phrases such as 8216;8216;Bikram Yoga8217;8217;. He claims copyright for his 8216;8216;dialogue8217;8217; and the 26-pose sequence.

The Economist took the claim seriously enough to pass a verdict: 8216;8216;Intellectual property law is crucial to economic success. But extending it to yoga will8230; prove too much of a stretch8217;8217;.

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