Daily News Mail - News of 30/03/2015

Stephen Hawking will trademark his name

• British physicist Stephen Hawking is getting his name trademarked, joining the ranks of celebrities like J.K. Rowling and David Beckham, who have turned their names into brands.
• Professor Hawking, 73, has applied to the Intellectual Property Office to have his name formally registered, while another English physicist, Brian Cox, has already made the move.

Stephen Hawking

The legacy of the architect of Singapore

• Lee Kuan Yew is no more. But the city state will be there to tell the story of his work — the transformation of Singapore from a Third world country to a First world nation. There are several pillars that have promoted the transformation.
• One major accomplishment of the founding Prime Minister was in practically eradicating corruption, which was the key ingredient in effective governance. Singapore stands at rank 7 on the Corruption Perceptions Index 2014; there are 167 countries below it on the index. India is ranked 85. How could Singapore do it? It was done not via endless litigation, but by demonstrating that corruption will not tolerated, come what may. For example, in 1975, the Minister for Environment, returning from a holiday, was arrested at the airport for accumulating some ill-gotten wealth, and in 1989, the Minister for National Development committed suicide after being informed about investigations into corruption charges.

Disciplined workforce

• The second pillar holding the prosperity fort has been a workforce that has the discipline of adhering to productivity-linked wages and bonuses. Non-performers seldom get away in Singapore under the guise(an external form, appearance) of workers’ solidarity. Singapore’s National Trades Union Congress is a shining example of a centre that is truly working for the welfare of workers. The provident fund system that assures decent retirement benefits also helps in times of an economic crisis. The contribution rates are toned down to assure that overall wage costs ensure competitiveness. The third pillar has been economic policies favouring a strong Singapore Dollar. It helped in keeping the domestic inflation rate as low as it was feasible, while orderly wage rises combined with skill development and productivity growth have helped in maintaining competitiveness.
• The fourth pillar is internal security. No young woman feels insecure while standing at a bus stop at night in Singapore. The fifth — which is, for many reasons, the most crucial pillar — is equality of educational opportunity: excellent government schools catering to the first 12 years of education, and Cambridge A-level exams that effectively eradicated the need for sundry entrance tests. The high calibre of students entering the undergraduate programmes, and the implicit demand for excellent professors is what has helped the country climb world rankings for higher education. The National University of Singapore ranks 25 while the relatively younger Nanyang Technological University ranks 61 in the World University Rankings, 2014-2015.

Pragmatism in policymaking

• The list of pillars supporting the nation can go on — the development of excellent infrastructure, a work culture that discourages more talk and less work, a no free lunch philosophy. It’s because of believing in pragmatism as the ideology in policymaking that Singapore capitalised on foreign direct investment and trade, when practically the entire developing world was inimical(harmful) to both.
• A final point worth noting is Singapore’s respect for individual freedom to pursue one’s religion on the understating that politics is kept far away from religious discourse.

The war in Yemen

• Yet another Arab nation faces a humanitarian crisis following military conflict, as the localised war between various forces in Yemen has taken on a regional dimension. After the besieged Yemeni government requested help, the Gulf Cooperation Council, led by Saudi Arabia, launched air attacks against Houthi rebel positions in Yemen on March 26. The Saudis have deployed a large force with help from Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan and others such as Pakistan and Sudan. This military action — without UN sanction — has also involved logistical help from the United States. The ostensible reason for the Saudi intervention is to temper the rising Iranian influence in its immediate neighbourhood. The U.S. involvement — which seems to have bipartisan support in the U.S. polity — is more of a reflexive reaction to register support for its Saudi allies and for the besieged transitional government in Yemen. Saudi Arabia and its allies who have joined the effort allege that the Houthis are being funded and armed by Iran.

• The Houthis are a Zaidi Shia group that had participated in uprisings against former Yemeni President and long-time ruler Abdullah Saleh and who had felt left out from the transitional government that followed Saleh’s rule. It is the failure of the transitional government — which was set up with help from the Gulf Cooperation Council in 2012 — to accommodate the Houthis’ interests that fuelled the insurgency. The Houthis have a large degree of control over many areas of northwestern Yemen, including over the capital, Sana'a. The Houthi-led insurgency is not the only military conflict raging in Yemen. The al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leads another insurgency in the southeast along with the Ansar al-Sharia; this one is a Sunni Islamist rebellion. The regional intervention against the Houthis is bound to strengthen the AQAP. The inability of the ineffectual transitional government to effectively govern a nation that has steadily been divided on sectarian lines, and the weakening of the economy, have helped the various insurgent forces strengthen themselves. The Houthi forces’ consolidation in the south could have presented an opportunity for a new, more inclusive and legitimate government following a ceasefire, but that option is now ruled out as the conflict has been effectively regionalised with the Saudi intervention. Yemen increasingly appears to be heading towards Syria’s fate — a nation torn asunder into enclaves controlled by sectarian and fundamentalist groups and constantly at war among one another. What started as yet another promising chapter of the Arab Spring has now taken a turn that follows events elsewhere in the region — regression into a harsh Arab Winter.

Congratulations to Australia

• My congratulations to the Australians for being crowned World Champions. They completely outplayed New Zealand in what was a one-sided contest, to become champions for the fifth time.
• In many ways, this was a disappointing final because the occasion deserved a better and closer contest. However, it was Australia’s day, and their performance was outstanding. They handled the pressure better than New Zealand. Sadly for the Black Caps, they played their worst game of the tournament.
• The motivation for both teams was the extreme desire to be World Champions. Both teams wanted the honour and glory of being the best team in the world, but only one team could get there and it wasn’t New Zealand.
• This was a great opportunity for the Black Caps to do something historic for NZ cricket. They had gone beyond what ten previous New Zealand teams had done by reaching the final for the first time. But they wanted more, they wanted to win. They wanted to beat ‘big brother’ who were the No.1 ranked team in world cricket.
• Having been undefeated in the tournament with eight wins in a row they wanted the big prize. They wanted to send Daniel Vettori out on a winning note as he has now retired from International cricket after 18 years of great service to the game. Brendon McCullum wanted his team to play well, and play for all New Zealanders who had supported them throughout this campaign.
• For Michael Clarke, it was his last ODI and the team wanted to send him out on a high, and they did. Australia always said they were the best team in the competition and could win the World Cup.
• After playing in seven World Cup finals they knew how to rise to the occasion and win. The thought of losing to New Zealand would have been unbearable.

Srinivasan handing over World Cup Trophy to Australian Team