Driving through Bangalore’s Whitefield, it’s easy to miss MediVed Innovations’ office tucked away in a corner building. But there’s something about the work it does that makes the tech revolution pale in comparison. MediVed’s facilities make pacemakers, which while in existence for years, have been difficult to produce. MediVed is among a clutch of mid-sized Indian companies which includes Trivitron Healthcare and Opto Circuits who are taking on global leaders like Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific and Hologic with affordable alternatives to life-saving medical equipment. MediVed plans to test the waters in Greece, Balkans, and China next year, while Opto further makes inroads in the US market while increasing its manufacture of the lucrative ‘invasive’ products.

:: via indiatimes.com

The outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has set up bases in China and other foreign countries with the help of money extorted in the state, two senior ULFA leaders have told police interrogators. This is the first time the ULFA, which is fighting to secede the oil-rich Assam from India, has accepted setting up bases in China. Several foreign agencies and NGOs provided logistic assistance to the ULFA leaders in foreign countries.

:: via yahoo.com

The environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, said if the world abandoned beef consumption, emissions would be dramatically reduced and global warming would slow down. "The solution to cut emissions is to stop eating beef. It leads to emission of methane which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide," he said. His comments follow a call last month by Lord Stern, the author of a British Government study on climate change, for people to give up eating meay to reduce emissions. "Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases," said Lord Stern. "It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better."

:: via telegraph.co.uk

BANGALORE -- Hair tucked into a surgical cap, eyes hidden behind thick-framed magnifying glasses, Devi Shetty leans over the sawed open chest of an 11-year-old boy, using bright blue thread to sew an artificial aorta onto his stopped heart. As Dr. Shetty pulls the thread tight with scissors, an assistant reads aloud a proposed agreement for him to build a new hospital in the Cayman Islands that would primarily serve Americans in search of lower-cost medical care. The agreement is inked a few days later, pending approval of the Cayman parliament.

:: via wsj.com

THERE is something important about the question of what to do with Thanksgiving leftovers, the aftereffects not only of bounty and abundance but also — let’s face it — of overdoing it. We’ve got all this stuff, what are we going to do with it now? Sandwiches may be delightful, but those happen Thursday night. By Friday, you may have had enough of traditional American food and may be craving something on the opposite end of the spectrum, something with a bit of spice. Something, perhaps, with curry powder and coconut milk: a turkey curry.

:: via nytimes.com

The most striking aspect of the Headley case is his profile: unlike other militant suspects, he is middle-aged, speaks fluent English, and lives in Chicago. The son of a Pakistani diplomat and an American woman, he went to cadet college in Pakistan before moving to the US when he was 16. In 1997, he was jailed for 15 months for trying to smuggle heroin into the US, according to court documents. Yet by simply changing his name in 2006, he stayed under the radar on at least nine visits to India over the past three years. The FBI says that in the alleged activities he was helped by Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin who studied at the same cadet college, and was also arrested in the US last month. Mr Rana’s immigration agency, which has offices in Chicago, helped to arrange Mr Headley’s trips and provided his cover story, according to the FBI. To burnish his fake Jewish credentials, Mr Headley even carried a book called How to Pray like a Jew, the FBI says. The FBI appears to have placed him under surveillance after noticing his frequent movements between India, Pakistan, the Gulf and Europe.

:: via timesonline.co.uk

India has 150 million cows, each of them giving an average of less than 200 litres of milk per year. If they could be fed and looked after, they can give 11,000 litres, as Israeli cows do. That would provide milk for the whole world. The milk we produce today is the cheapest in the world. With enhanced production we could become the world’s largest exporter of milk and it could be India’s biggest foreign exchange earner. Our West-influenced intellectuals sneer at the mention of the cow. The same intellectuals first sneered at yoga. Now it is a fashion to do pranayama at cocktail parties. They sneered at our sanyasis as ‘godmen’. Now they flock to ashrams with their white friends ever since the Beatles. Who knows, they may soon have a cow in their backyards. For those of us who are desi by pedigree and conviction, I place some facts about the cow in the perspective of modern Hindutva.

:: via expressbuzz.com

Language is such a beautiful system in its logic, its variability, its sense of order and its ability to surprise. What is logical and what is pathological is sometimes so difficult to pin down. One is reminded of a story about the great Irish writer James Joyce, whose Ulysses was a work of genius for its sense of English language. Joyce once visited the psychologist Carl Jung. He took his son along. Joyce spoke, talking rapturously of his son’s adventures with the words claiming that he was also a genius with language. Jung listened quietly to the young man and turned to Joyce and said, you might be a genius but your son is a schizophrenic. Something of the double sides of this story follows the debates of language. Linguistic Chauvinism is the tyranny of language which destroys its own plurality. I Linguistic Chauvinism is the sibling of electoral democracy, where the dominant or majoritarian group uses language as a strategy of exclusion. The likes of Thackeray argue that they represent social interests. But more than their violence, it is the illiteracy of the bullyboy sociology that is pathetic.

:: via expressbuzz.com

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrives in Washington on Monday for a state visit set to boost the burgeoning economic relationship between two countries, which had relatively marginal commercial dealings a decade ago. Following are key aspects of economic ties that took off with the end of the Cold War and the embrace of economic reforms by India -- an adoption of market-friendly policies in which Singh played a prominent role earlier in his career: BILATERAL TRADE - Two-way trade, just $5 billion in 1990, reached $14 billion in 2000 and rose to nearly $50 billion last year, according to U.S. figures, making the United States India's largest trading partner. The United States sells India aircraft and parts, advanced machinery, cotton, fertilizers, and computer hardware.

:: via expressbuzz.com

reasonable article - relevant to ongoing discussion on indian economy. A bit vague in parts, a more careful analysis would be of much more interest and value.

:: via nytimes.com