Sepia Mutiny

The Great Khali Returns

A few weeks ago I did a post on The Great Khali, an Indian WWE wrestler, who has recently risen to stardom of a sort on American TV.

Last week he visited India, and generated a fair amount of excitement and interest from Indian fans. No one seemed to be bothered by the way the WWE exploits orientalist mythology to cast The Great Khali as the bad guy. No one seemed to mind the bowdlerization of Hinduism represented by his name, “Khali,” which is a kind of tweak on the feminine “Kali,” or the anomaly of a male wrestler naming himself after a female deity.

No one, as far as I can tell, used the words “anomaly” or “orientalism” at all.

Mostly, they just cheered on the 400 pound behemoth who eats five full chickens a day (how many calories is that?). In Himachal Pradesh, where Dalip Singh Rana is from, they honored him. In Bombay, he met with underprivileged school children. T-shirts with his face on them have been selling wildly. Even the great cricketer Sachin Tendulkar found himself taking his family to pay homage to Khali at the wrestler’s hotel room. Finally, a visit to his former employers, the Punjab police. I was surprised to learn from some of the coverage that Rana, when he left India in 2006 to join the WWE, did not quit his day job. In fact, though he is surely making much, much more money now than he ever did before, he is technically only on “sick leave” from his job as a policeman in India.

Of course, the most intriguing article on The Great Khali’s Return I’ve come across is this one, on CNN-IBN: “Is it sport? Is it fake? What is WWE?” The journalist seems to be under some confusion as to whether the fighting in WWE is real or not:

But every wrestler in the business has to be classified under two categories. He is either a babyface or “good guy” for whom the crowd cheers â like Hulk Hogan â or he’s the bad guy or a heel as per wrestling terminology â someone like our very own Khali â whom the crowd loves to hate.

And just like in the movies when a babyface is pitted against a heel, the fight is on.

But what makes pro-wrestling really interesting is that with time, the characters keep evolving â good guys turn bad and vice versa. Interesting storylines, heated rivalries and unexpected twists in the show keep the viewer hooked.

A character’s popularity is determined by the amount of POP â a wrestling term for the reaction that a wrestler gets on his entrance â he gets.

And no, most of the fighting is not fake. (link)

Not fake, huh. You could have fooled me.

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Food Price Kerfluffle: "Why Do Americans Get to Eat More than Indians?"

On May 2, George W. Bush explained that the current spike in food prices worldwide is primarily a consequence of rising demand from China and India: “when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.” The quote was widely seen in the English-language Indian media as “blaming” Chindia for the problem, and was met with outrage.

Some of that outrage is collected in a recent IHT article on the President’s controversial statement. Some of the best, most snarky comments are by Pradeep Mehta, who works for a private economic research organization in India:

The food problem has “clearly” been created by Americans, who are eating 50 percent more calories than the average person in India, said Pradeep Mehta, the secretary general of CUTS Center for International Trade, Economics and Environment, a private economic research organization based in India with offices in Kenya, Zambia, Vietnam and Britain.

If Americans were to slim down to even the middle-class weight in India, “many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates,” Mehta said. The money Americans spend on liposuction to get rid of their excess fat could be funneled to famine victims instead, he added. (link)

And somewhat more measured comments, along with some more statistics on caloric consumption, are here:

Americans eat an average of 3,770 calories per capita a day, the highest amount in the world, according to data from the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, compared to 2,440 calories in India. They are also the largest per capita consumers in any major economy of beef, the most energy-intensive common food source, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The United States and Canada top the world in oil consumption per person, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“George Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics,” Jairam Ramesh, the minister of state for commerce, told The Press Trust of India after Bush’s remarks, which he said proved again how “comprehensively wrong” Bush is.

“To say that demand for food in India is causing increase in global food prices is completely wrong,” Ramesh said.

Politicians and academics in India cite various other reasons: diversion of arable land in the United States and Europe into ethanol production; trade subsidies by the United States and Europe; and the dollar’s decline. (link)

Those latter factors (ethanol production, trade subsidies, dollar’s decline) have also been cited by a number of economists in the west. Still, the President and Condoleezza Rice (who made a similar statement a couple of weeks ago) are presumably right when they say that there has been a rise in global demand, though I have a strong feeling that that demand started to rise more than a decade ago. It’s those other factors that, as I understand it, have really converged this year to drive up prices. (Does anyone really know? Is this an economics problem that can be solved?)

Consumption-wise, I admittedly look like an ordinary American: my own caloric intake is probably closer to 3000 than 2000 (though I’ve admittedly never been able to count it out… how many calories in roti? rajma-chaval? chicken biryani?). Still, on this issue, I can’t help but see things from the Indian point of view: “Why do Americans think they deserve to eat more than Indians?”

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Warrior-scholar falls

Last week the nation lost Michael Vinay Bhatia to the war in Afghanistan (an IED of course). To say he was a unique breed of “soldier” would be an understatement:

Michael Vinay Bhatia, 31, was serving as a social scientist embedded with troops in the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain Systems program.

HTS program manager Steve Fondacaro said, “He was an example of a brilliant scholar who could have made his job and done well in the U.S., but who of his own accord discovered our program and volunteered to participate as a team member fully understanding the risks. This makes him a hero three, four times over…”

A magna cum laude graduate of Brown University, Bhatia was a doctoral candidate at Oxford University. “He had a lot of integrity as a scholar in terms of studying conflict and its impact on civilians and he was willing to take that into an operational field,” said Sarah Havens, a former Brown classmate. “He was adamant that that was the right thing to do.”

Bhatia’s dream of making a difference also took him to war-torn East Timor. But friends said they believed Bhatia was looking forward to a peaceful life back home. “I got the sense this was the last hurrah for him,” Havens said. “He was building his nest egg and looking for academic positions in the States for when he came back…” [Link]

I first heard about the Human Terrain Systems Program in an NPR story a few months ago (worth listening to). The idea is quite brilliant, the type of idea that our disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could use more of if we want to see a real turn around. The basic purpose of the HTS teams is to learn about the people and customs of a region so that they can advise the military on how to win hearts and minds, not through bluster, but through mutual understanding:

HTS was developed in response to identified gaps in commanders’ and staffs’ understanding of the local population and culture, and its impact on operational decisions; and poor transfer of specific socio-cultural knowledge to follow-on units.
The HTS approach is to place the expertise and experience of social scientists and regional experts, coupled with reach-back, open-source research, directly in support of deployed units engaging in full-spectrum operations.
HTS believes that achieving national security objectives is dependent on understanding the societies and cultures in which we are engaged. [Link]

Among the outpouring of grief and remembrance that arose on various blogs in the past week was this one by a classmate of Bhatia’s at Brown University:

“I wish to pass on some bad news: Michael Bhatia was killed in Afghanistan.”

For twenty minutes, I managed to push it out of my mind and finish my meeting. As soon as I left The Landing, I fell apart.

As the day went on, I talked to other friends and colleagues of Mike’s and gathered more information. Apparently Mike was killed by a roadside bomb in Khost. He was stationed at FOB Salerno and advising the 82nd Airborne Division as part of the Human Terrain program. It was a controversial program and Mike told me he faced some criticism from colleagues for his decision to participate, but ultimately he believed he could do some good.

Mike and I were classmates at Brown, but we didn’t know each other well then. He came back to Providence in 2006 to become a visiting professor at the Watson Institute at Brown and we reconnected. If you google Mike, you’ll read a lot about his scholarly work around the world, especially in Afghanistan. Mike was a true academic, but in many ways he was more like Indiana Jones. Mike didn’t sit around and do research. He spent his time in the field: in Kosovo, East Timor, Afghanistan and more. Mike was a genius. He was an Oxford scholar, his book The Gun in Afghanistan was just published and there’s no doubt he knew his stuff when it came to international relations. You can find academics and experts around the globe who will sing his praises. They can do a far better job than I can explaining exactly why Mike’s research was so important.

I knew Mike in a far different capacity. To me, he wasn’t an author or a professor or a scholar. To me, he was a friend. For about a year Mike and I hung out on an almost daily basis. Last summer, Mike would come over to my place and we’d drink scotch and play Halo 2 until three in the morning (he’d routinely kick my ass). I would listen to him complain about his job and he’d endure my endless moaning about the trials and tribulations of starting a new company. We would go to the Wickenden Pub with our friend Chris and debate religion or head to the Wild Colonial to commiserate about women. We watched Entourage and Firefly together. Mike was a guy’s guy, a partner in crime. The kind that you could call any day of the week and he’d be down to go out at a moment’s notice. [Link]

Coincidentally, the author of the blog entry above was one of my closest friends growing up.

The best way to understand Bhatia’s work, and the reason why people are mourning the loss of his intelligence as well as his friendship, is to read this photoessay of his published last year.

Another one of his friends wrote in to SM as well:

A scholarship fund was established in Michael’s memory. The purpose of the fund will be to provide opportunities for undergraduates to obtain experiences working abroad similar to those Michael was able to undertake. Although the precise contours of the scholarship will be developed in the coming months, a fund already exists in his name. Those who would like to contribute to this fund may do so by writing checks payable to Brown University, clearly indicating that the gift is in memory of Michael Bhatia, and mailing the contribution to the following address:

Brown University
Gift Cashier
P.O. Box 1877
Providence, RI 02912

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Terrorists Bomb Jaipur

A series of explosions went off in Jaipur’s old city today, killing at least 60 people and wounding another 150 (thanks, Rob). Via CNN:

The seven explosions started at about 7:30 p.m. (1400 GMT, 1000 ET) and detonated within 12 minutes of each other, police said.

The bombs exploded within about 500 meters (0.3 mile) of each other in Jaipur’s old city, which is frequented by tourists…

An eighth bomb was defused, according to H.G. Raghavendra, a Jaipur city official. He described all the bombs as “medium intensity.”

“There is no reason to panic,” he told CNN-IBN. “Everything is under control.”

The Associated Press says it was actually six bombs and the seventh was defused. I’ve also seen different numbers for how many casualties the bombing caused.

Ruthless timing:

One of the blasts in Jaipur hit a market near a temple dedicated to the Hindu monkey god Hanuman, according to police. Tuesday is the day of worship set aside for Hanuman, and the temple was packed with people offering prayers on the way home from work.[AP]

No group has stepped forward yet to claim credit for the horrific, dastardly act, which Reuters said is “the deadliest bomb (attack) in India in nearly two years”. If you have relatives in, friends visiting or are otherwise connected to the Pink City, you are in my thoughts.

Developing…

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Smells Like Teen Entrepreneurial Spirit

Cool kid alert: Teen entrepreneur Anshul Samar, age 14. This fiesty entrepreneurial spirit will be one of the key speakers at tomorrow’s Second Annual Teens in Tech Conference, sponsored by Sun, Microsoft, HP, and others.

Anshul is the founder and CEO of Alchemist Empire, Inc. He has created a fantasy role-playing chemistry board game, Elementeo: “Our aim is to combine fun, excitement, education, and chemistry, all in one grand concoction! We don’t want to create a fantasy wizard world or create a boring education textbook world, but combine the two where fun and learning come together without clashing!” [more]

MSN recently featured Anshul in “Whiz Kids: 10 Overachievers Under 21” (thanks to newstab posters garbanzobean and anmdavadi). How did he get started? In in his own words:

Entrepreneurship is cool, and so is chemistry! Both have lots of actions, reactions, explosions, experimentation, and most importantly, the joy and excitement of creating something new! Creating a company has been on my mind for a long time, but it was only in the 5th grade when the idea of a chemistry based card game struck me. I must have created and thrown away dozens of prototypes to get just the right concoction of education and fun. … Elementeo is a game where you create compounds, combat elements, and conquer chemistry… A game of battle, chemical reactions, and powerful scientists… And a game that kids, teenagers, college students, teachers, scientists, parents, and grandparents can all play and have fun.

The excitement Anshul has poured into his maiden entrepreneurial voyage (the game will be released this month!) is evident at his company’s homepage which is very much written in his voice … and in this video from Mark Coker of VentureBeat, taken at the 2007 TieCon conference in Silicon Valley.

Here’s to his motto of “Create, Combat, Conquer!”

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The end of the flying Beefeater

In a rather surprising move, British Airways announced this week that it will no longer be serving beef aboard its (often Hindu-filled) flights in economy (a.k.a. “cattle”) class:

What will become of me now? What will they pay me in if not in beef?

British Airways has ditched beef for economy class passengers this summer in an attempt to appeal to a more international passenger base.

The familiar cabin crew inquiry of “chicken or beef?” will not be heard in economy after the airline ditched the national dish in favour of what it calls a lighter, healthier option.

Critics will suspect that the relentless pressure to cut costs that all airlines are facing is behind the move, although BA said cost was not a factor…

“We can only serve two options and beef and pork obviously have religious restrictions,” the spokesman added. BA’s second-biggest long-haul market, after transatlantic routes, is to India. [Link]

As might be expected, many Brits were not happy about this. For one thing, what the hell are all the Beefeaters going to do?

The decision to scrap the nation’s favourite fare was described as a “great shame” by the English Beef and Lamb Executive, formerly part of the Meat and Livestock Commission.

A spokesman said: “It is regrettable that Britain’s flag carrier is not proposing to serve Britain’s national dish.

“It is a meal we are rightly proud of. Roast beef and beefeaters are symbols or Britain used to promote tourism.

“Our beef is also much in demand overseas. It is predominately grass fed and highly praised for its flavour. [Link]

What is really regrettable, in my opinion, is that moves like this, made under the guise of multicultural sensitivity, more often than not backfire and may increase resentment of Hindus living in England. “Just another British tradition being erased by the immigrants.” In reality, British Airways did this to save money, not to be sensitive:

… as any Jew, Muslim, Hindu or vegetarian knows, meals that conform to religious belief or personal choice can be ordered in advance. That is why bacon sandwiches are handed out on early-morning shuttle flights without causing a riot.

So something is fishy and it is not just the pie. No, what we have here is space-saver wheel syndrome, or another example of the way the consumer is hoodwinked under the guise of efficiency, health, safety, security or conservation, while the reality of big business is always bottom line, bottom line, bottom line. British Airways may dissemble, but beef being available to those who wish to pay means that better living and religious sensitivity do not enter into it. Beef prices have risen from Â£2,500 per tonne to Â£4,000 per tonne in the past three months. If BA was upfront with its public, the announcement would read: if you can’t afford it at home, you ain’t getting it on us. At least then you would know where you stood. [Link]

For British Airways it is easier to “blame” the loss of beef on Hindus than to admit that cost cutting is necessary. A third way of looking at this is that getting rid of the beef on BA flights is actually good for the environment and will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is how British Airways should have justified the decision:

Meet the world’s top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.

A United Nations report has identified the world’s rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs. [Link]

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Dancing in the Family

He is tall, slim, and strikingly long limbed. Dressed in jewel-colored silk tunics and antique ornaments that are family heirlooms, he looks more like a handsome young maharaja than a traditional South Indian dancer. Newsweek

Yes, I know, vomit, it sounds like more exoticizing pablum from a mainstream media source. But getting past the opening drivel, this article (posted in the news tab, thanks Brij01!) turned out to be about a rather fascinating family:

Aniruddha Knight is the ninth generation heir of a 200-year-old family of professional dancers and musicians from Chennai, India. He is also half American. His father, Douglas Knight, married into this artistically rich family when he studied classical drumming on a South Indian mridangam at Wesleyan University, where Aniruddha’s late grandmother—T. Balasaraswati, India’s prima danseuse—and her two musician brothers had taught since 1962.

Aniruddha followed his mother and grandmother, continuing the family’s bharatanatyam tradition:

Knight is fluent in Tamil, his mother’s language, and spends half a year in India, performing and learning from aunts and cousins who had worked with his mother. He has established a school and an archive of family history in Chennai. (The Smithsonian boasts an archive of Bala’s performances, too.) It houses all the records of his grandmother’s performances.

About his mixed parentage:

“It’s isolating to identify with two cultures, it creates a split personality. I can never be just one or the other, it’s a heartwrenching lonely process. But then, what I have, many don’t have.”

Those against mixed marriages often cite fear of waning traditions, culture, language, etc., as a reason to date within one’s own ethnic community. So it’s heartwarming to see this family’s artistic legacy continuing on, and even thriving, under the stewardship of its youngest, half-desi member. But do other half-desis feel the same sense of loneliness and isolation?

Most that I’ve known feel as though they have a deeper connection to both, not an alienation from either, but it’s clearly a personal path. I’m curious to hear any stories readers might have to share on this topic.

Also, I watched a bit of his performance here, and I’m not sure what to make of it. I’m a rank ignoramus about bharatanatyam, so perhaps I’m just used to the more typical form:

However, the version that Knight dances is stylistically unique. It originated as a temple offering performed by young women who were dedicated to serving God by retelling ancient Hindu myths through music and dance in the temple courtyard.

He sings while dancing as well, which threw me off a bit. But, again, this could be entirely due to my own lack of knowledge. His hand movements are beautiful though…I encourage anyone with a bharatanatyan background to please take a look and share your thoughts.

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"Vote Both": Sam Arora

Many people have been dismissive of a Democratic “dream ticket,” with Barack Obama as the presidential candidate and Hillary Clinton in the VP slot. For example, DailyKos, which is strongly pro-Obama, has been sharply dismissive of the idea, for a number of reasons. First, Obama has been putting himself forward as the “change” candidate, and the Clintons represent the opposite of “change.” Second, as a Senator from New York, Clinton doesn’t deliver “geographically” the way someone like Governor Bill Richardson (New Mexico) might [but what about Arkansas?]. Third, she is way too big a personality to be comfortable sticking to whatever message and strategy the Obama campaign is likely to devise. Fourth, all this talk of Hillary supporters defecting to McCain seems rather suspect — when it comes down to it, are committed Democrats really going to vote for someone who is pro-Life, pro-Iraq War, etc.? And finally, most people presume the two of them, by now, can’t stand each other.

Sam Arora thinks otherwise. He was, until recently, a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton, and is still described as a “Hillary-ite,” though he is no longer with the Clinton campaign. He and some other Hillaryites have started a site called “Vote Both,” to promote the idea of a Democratic dream ticket, with either of the two candidates on top. Their project has gotten some media attention, and profiles in articles like this one. Sam Arora was also interviewed on TV here (check it out — he’s a pretty smooth talker!).

SM had a post on Sam Arora (the same Sam Arora?) here, when he was a contestant for a reality TV show. Sam was also one of the “50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill” a couple of years ago (see this). (I will leave it to others to ascertain whether Sam Arora really is, in fact, “hot,” as he has often been described.)

I was earlier skeptical about the joint ticket idea, but now I’m starting to think it could work, as long as the two of them can come to agreement on strategy and message (and agree that Bill should go back to Chappaqua, and stay there until January 2009). Obama is still a “change” candidate, but after Reverend Wright, he no longer seems quite as fresh or revolutionary as he once appeared, and I don’t think working with Clinton will tarnish his image. Finally, any personal bitterness the two of them might feel for one another would undoubtedly go out the window if they were to win the election in November.

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I.C.E.D better than GTA-IV

I really wish I could have been playing the new video game Grand Theft Auto IV this week. Unfortunately I don’t own a gaming system. I used to be an obsessive gamer as a kid so its best that I don’t go near one now that I have real responsibilities (like blogging). I can however, get my fix online. I’ve been trying my hand at a game that looks similar to GTA-IV. Instead of smacking hos and jacking cars, I’ve been learning about “my” rights as an immigrant child. The game is I.C.E.D. (I Can End Deportation):

Breakthrough’s video game, ICED, puts you in the shoes of an immigrant to illustrate how unfair immigration laws deny due process and violate human rights. These laws affect all immigrants: legal residents, those fleeing persecution, students and undocumented people.

ICED has been featured in overwhelming amounts of press including: MTV News, Game Daily and has been covered on popular blogs including, Gothamist and The Huffington Post. To get a full list of media, please look at the left-hand tool bar.

How do you play?

THE OBJECT OF THE GAME IS TO BECOME A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES

Game Play:
As an immigrant teen you are avoiding ICE officers, choosing right from wrong and answering questions on immigration. But if you answer questions incorrectly, or make poor decisions, you will be detained with no respect for your human rights. [Link]

Is your knee jerk reaction that you think this game might exaggerate the plight of immigrant kids, especially those brought over by undocumented parents? Think again. More about that later, after the fold.

I picked the character of Suki to make my way through this cruel world:

I tried to apply for a job at a restaurant (I needed money because I was hungry). They denied me because I didn’t have proper documents (I used forged ones). Then I tried to jack a car because I was feeling hopeless. I ended up in a detention center because of that. A man there offered to join me in the shower. Even in the video game detention was a pretty sad place and I ended up being deported. In real life it’s worse:

Another lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security was filed in Federal court today [April 30th, 2008], this one is over prison conditions for detained immigrants. The plaintiffs are former detainees and several advocacy groups who say conditions in immigration prisons are wildly variable and too often inhumane. So, with help from Yale Law School, they’re asking a federal judge to force the government to create new regulations and hold itself accountable. WNYC’s Marianne McCune has more.

REPORTER: The harshest treatment of immigrants in detention has made big news in recent years: harassment by dogs at Passaic County jail in New Jersey; the death of an immigrant who went untreated for more than 20 minutes after suffering a hard attack in Louisiana; or the physical abuse of some immigrants held in Brooklyn after the September 11th attacks. But the lawsuit being filed today is more focused on the everyday. Paromita Shah of the National Lawyer’s Guild’s National Immigration Project says complaints range from inflexible visiting hours to inadequate medical care.

SHAH: Even today I had two calls from friends and family members who said this person had fallen down and he’d been taken to the hospital. But when he came back he said his back was swollen his leg was swollen. It’s been a week now and they haven’t checked up on him. He wasn’t sure what was happening, he was very agitated and he didn’t know what to do. [Link]

Some of these detention centers are run by corporations for profit. Yes, a subsidiary of Haliburton is involved in this business in case you even had to ask. More to come on this soon.

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Hell in the time of the Junta

The news out of Myanmar/Burma keeps getting worse. On Thursday evening the British paper The Sun is blaring the following headline: THE death toll in cyclone-ravaged Burma could hit 500,000 - more than TWICE the total killed by the Boxing Day Tsunami. The biggest problem right now is that the effort to fly in precious water and food are being thwarted by the paranoid military junta that runs the country and is too suspicious and inept to grant visas to aid workers:

With up to 1.5 million people in Myanmar now believed to be facing the threat of starvation and disease and with relief efforts still largely stymied by the country’s isolationist military rulers, frustrated United Nations officials all but demanded Thursday that the government open its doors to supplies and aid workers…

“The situation is profoundly worrying,” said the United Nations official in charge of the relief effort, John Holmes, speaking in unusually candid language for a diplomat. “They have simply not facilitated access in the way we have a right to expect…” [Link]

The Tsunami was unimaginably bad…BUT at least the rest of the world wasn’t as impotent then as we are now. Considering the massive devastation in 2004, the world actually responded relatively quickly to minimize deaths after the actual event (certainly faster than the Hurricane Katrina response). This however, is just frustrating. Children are dying of thirst because visas aren’t being granted! For my part I am doing what I can. I found out that the relief organization CARE International was one of the first to have boots on the ground in Myanmar since they had an office there. They are actually disbursing aid. I also know that the first of the checks that our Uncle Sam is sending our way to help with the U.S. economic recovery will be hitting our bank accounts this week. I know it flies in the face of a sound economic strategy to send money meant to boost our economy straight overseas, but I’m willing to upset those “elite” economists. I just sent a chunk of change to CARE. I’ll just pretend there was no rebate. UNICEF is a good bet too.

Part of what is so aggravating about this situation is that India actually gave Myanmar a warning about the cyclone. If the junta had simply communicated that warning effectively then at least some lives could have been saved.

Indian meteorologists have said they had given neighbouring Myanmar 48 hours’ warning before a cyclone slammed into the country, killing more than 22,000 people and leaving over 40,000 missing.

The comments from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) came amid US allegations that Myanmar’s military junta failed to warn its citizens of the impending storm.

“Forty-eight hours before (tropical cyclone) Nargis struck, we indicated its point of crossing (landfall), its severity and all related issues to Myanmarese agencies,” IMD spokesman B.P. Yadav told AFP Tuesday.

The department is mandated by the United Nations World Meteorological Organisation to track cyclones in the region.

”Our job is to give warnings and in advance, and we take pride in saying that we gave warnings much, much in advance and there was enough time to take precautionary measures such as evacuation,” he added. [Link]

Not only will untold thousands die in Myanmar, it will also virtually wipe out their precious rice exports sending already high prices even higher. Thus, to some extent, hunger will radiate outward from the Myanmar tragedy:

Cyclone damage to rice crops and inventories in Myanmar’s Irrawaddy delta and other areas may impair its exports of the grain in 2008 and further tighten the world rice market, the U.N. food agency said on Wednesday.

The storm, which battered five states accounting for 65 percent of the former Burma’s rice output, may trigger “localised food shortages” and require imports from neighbours, it said. [Link]

NASA has posted some satellite imagery which shows the region before and after the cyclone hit.

Just what is Than Shwe, the “leader” of Myanmar thinking? Unfortunately, he may be getting advice from his fortune tellers:

A fortuneteller’s warning that blood would spill in the city of Yangon prompted the general in 2005 to shift the country’s capital from there to Naypyidaw, a jungle outpost 300 kilometers (186 miles) inland, said Irrawaddy News, a weekly that covers Myanmar from Thailand….
“The amount of superstitious beliefs, the following of soothsayers make it difficult to understand why they act in a certain way,” said Christopher Roberts, a post-doctoral fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies who specializes in Myanmar politics. [Link]

If any readers have other suggestions for how one can aid the people of Myanmar, let’s here it.

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