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Charging at Windmills

What would life be without US government officials? Pretty dull, I would imagine. Now we have a wise guy CIA officer claiming that India and Israel appeared to be the "most likely sources" of malicious code written under the guise of Y2K modifications aimed at threatening Washington's security! Nothing less!

Who needs to threaten Washington's security, when it has such quixotic dollar head CIA officers on its payroll! Keep the laughs coming man!

Space Imaging

Space Imaging is a US based company that markets satellite imagery from commercial satellites. Hitherto it has relied on India's IRS satellites for the satellite images. Recently Space Imaging setup shop in Ecuador to provide high quality IRS images to Latin American countries.

The current version of the IRS series provides images with resolution of upto 5m. Only US military satellites have better imaging capabilities then the IRS, but these images are not commercially available. However, that is set to change now with the launch of IkonosII satellite which is owned by Space Imaging itself. Equipped with a 61 inch telescope, Ikonos will provide images with resolutions of upto 1m.

Despite the launch of Ikonos the market for IRS images is not likely to diminish for two reasons. The Ikonos images are going to cost customers a lot more than IRS images and not all space imaging applications require 1m resolution. In addition, India is planning to improve its imaging capability with the launch of the next IRS satellite next year which will have a resolution of 2.5m.

Any bets that Pakistan, lacking any such indigenous satellite imaging capability will be a hot favorite as a customer for Ikonos imagery?

To take a look at the quality of IRS imagery visit this link at Space.com

A Staged Show?

NIIT, LTD and Indian company, was bestowed the first ever 'Master Entrepreneur of the Year' award by Ernst & Young India at a ceremony in New Delhi on Sep 16, 1999. To me the award smacks of a staged event because NIIT is so typical of desi IT companies that thrive by taking no risks, rely on numbers rather than quality and peddle skills rather than products. However, you have to give NIIT credit for the fact that they did pioneer the IT education business in India and now have a market capitalization of $2 billion. Who says success is always based on brilliance?

Earth

Deepa Mehta's Earth, in English and in Hindi with English subtitles has been released in the US. Starring Aamir Khan, Nandita Das, Rahul Khanna and Maia Sethna the film is receiving less than rave reviews. If you are a film maker with high brow pretension the Indian partition will forever provide you a rich plot with a message. The British by leading the then political protagonists of the country to an eventual partition in 1947 may have doomed an entire subcontinent to everlasting misery but they can always claim credit for having provided and endearing plot for our film makers.

Thin Smokes

Guess what is the latest craze amongst school kids in the US? Beedis! No kidding! Forty percent of middle and high school kids in the Boston area have experimented with Beedis. Eight percent are heavy smokers! Where do the Beedis come from you ask? India, of course! However, they aren't as smelly as the ones at home. Kids are attracted to them primarily because they are a lot cheaper than cigarettes. However, some choose them over cigarettes because they subscribe to the myth that Beedis are safer to smoke than cigarettes. Later...we will bitch again!