All are unequal, but some are more unequal than others!

There has been enough discussion especially in the  'West' about inequality - Piketty's book and the alarming surprise - it is an alarming surprise only if people have been blind all along.  I read - Professor Janet Gornick (GC Political Science and Sociology), who serves as Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Center Director and Director of LIS in Luxembourg, delivered a keynote address to the United Nations General Assembly, on Tuesday, October 7. Her keynote address was hosted by the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) of the UN General Assembly.  I happen to see the video and was once again disappointed.


What is US/UN 'concerned' about, all of a sudden?  Definitely it is not about the 'world'.  Both Piketty and Gornick, disregard the 'state' of more than half the world's population.

Like Piketty, Janet's 'concern' is yet again about the 'high and upper middle income countries'.  Her first slide itself is a give-away - and a big yawn for those who are in the red, in the image above (pun intended).

It is hard to ignore a racist 'neutrality' in even dealing with inequality.  South Africa incidentally ranks the highest among income inequality among 'high and upper middle income countries'.  Let us not go into Apartheid!  If there is enough 'inequality' to cause a roar in countries, which only have a fraction of the population that China or India have, shouldnt all these 'inequality' experts be living in China or India to do live 'study', if not 'research'?  Or is it that they consider China, with its 'communist' Government, and India, with its 'socialistic' principles enshrined in its constitution naturally 'devoid of inequality'?

Inequality needs a global perspective and we have to go beyond the you-are-richer-than-me or manager-is-richer-than-worker mindset, which often provoke immediate and instant chord with most people.  This leads to a systemic and orchestrated diversion from the focus on the elephant in the room.  Middle class itself is not a monolith

Asia’s middle classes, poor by US or EU standards, are globalization’s winners

US is definitely in the focus, because population in US is increasing mainly because of immigration.  Immigration statistics clearly show that the population growth is not simply because  of increased fertility in Americans.  For example, China has a 'one child' policy and Chinese immigrants into US obviously can reap the benefits of 'escaping' from their country.  Unlike say India, where immigrants into US can claim lack of 'colleges' or 'opportunities' in their home land, reasons given by Chinese to migrate into US cannot be the lack of 'facilities' or 'infrastructure'.  In semiconductors, for instance, most of the fabrication happens in the Chinese mainland.  Walmart and the likes procure most of their wares from China, which has become more of a production warehouse.

As population increases, through immigration or otherwise, there is an increased or frantic search among people to 'differentiate' from others.  Inequality is the only way they can differentiate from others and there is a definite and systemic way to perpetuate inequality.  Whether it is high costs for education, lack of funding of primary education, schools etc grabbing from poor the 'Right to Education' and 'Right to Information'.  Strive towards perpetuating inequality is reinforced, not by the rich themselves, but more often by the noveau-riche or wannabe-rich.  Nepotism is the starting point of corruption and inefficiency - because one way to get a 'favorable' treatment is to act like masters, be servile to their thoughts and deeds and more importantly, turn a blind eye to their 'errors' of judgement (who knows, we may have to run back to them for a favor tomorrow?).  Inequality pushes people into the zone of asking for favors, not on merit but on everything except merit.  Inequality is thus the fountainhead of corruption.

Sign of times in the sands of time

Not that I aimed to blog regularly when I started to blog. Given my inherent nature, rather distaste to stick to a 'routine', it would be indeed shocking if my posts were 'regular' and on 'selected' topics. I guess since my return to Chennai, I have been preoccupied with lot other mundane or rather mechanical events of life. To summarize on things that happened since my last post, I am inclined to think that we are well and truly in the stage of post-postmodernism, rather pseudo modernism.

triteness and shallowness resulting from the instantaneous, direct, and superficial participation in culture made possible by the internet, mobile phones, interactive television and similar means: “In pseudo-modernism one phones, clicks, presses, surfs, chooses, moves, downloads.”

I should add - I personally find it disgusting where people's beliefs are being fed into and Goebbel's truth is being institutionalized.

Postmodernism is apparently a 'narrative' where apparent realities are only social constructs, as they are subject to change inherent to time and place. I never knew what these 'modernism', 'post modernism', 'post postmodernism' etc are and in fact I instinctively detested 'ism's. Now reading about them, they look to be like an exercise of giving some name to trends. I think the next trend has to be or is already a phase where people will look out for 'quick solutions' (click, move press etc) and there will be lot of p...s, I mean providers to pander, I mean cater to these 'services'. The tragedy of it is that I have to witness it in real time :( With the likes of Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev and Goebbels of spectrum etc, we are truly well set, if not already into it.

Mount Vishnu of Mount Road extols further

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh fields questions when he travels abroad but has held only two press conferences and two interactions with editors in Delhi in the past seven years. As for interviews, he has allowed himself to be questioned by an Indian newspaper only once and never by an Indian news channel. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, too, has not really been heard from at close quarters except for the briefest of triumphal soundbites just after the Rajya Sabha passed the Women's Reservation Bill. These are extraordinary facts by any yardstick.

You should not only govern, but most importantly seen and heard to govern. To sound like Krugman, it is hard NOT to be cynical.

What is the next media ‘bite’?

India won the World Cup ‘as expected’ but no, no month long celebrations. We simply cannot afford such things, rather BCCI cannot afford to waste time without milking the cash cow. The next show, i.e. IPL IV has to begin and 'story less' media will catch up with that. Starting a TV channel is a pain, but watching it is miserable! There are nearly 40 Tamil channels (maybe even more!) but most of them are not independent. Sun News and Sun go together, Kalaignar News and Kalaignar TV go together, Jaya News and Jaya TV go together etc. It is the so-called ‘national’ TV channels which are having a real problem. I am not sure of the intention of starting news-channels that too in English! They discussed the 'toss' issue for hours when the World Cup finals was going on :D

Having started it, 'news' channels have no option but to ‘sensationalize’ anything and everything possible under the sun. Now it is ‘Anna Hazare’ time, I am not at all surprised that they have made something out of nothing issue. When I first saw the headlines ‘Supports swells up for Anna’ early this week, with TN elections around the corner, I thought may be someone has ‘insulted’ Annadurai, late CM of TN. Then I heard that he is driving out politicians from his place of fasting, I dismissed him from my mind as some sort of ‘eccentric’ and not at all surprised to see

He is described as obstinate and impractical.

It looks like the media has no one else to go behind and they have taken up this ‘story’. I just looked up as to who he is and what he was upto. I was 'spot on'-found it really weird and in particular looking at the new Lokpal bill

Lokpal will have powers to initiate suo moto action or receive complaints of corruption from the general public.
Lokpal will be much more than an Advisory Body. It should be granted powers to initiate Prosecution against anyone found guilty.
Lokpal will have police powers. To say that it will be able to register FIRs.
Lokpal and anti corruption wing of CBI will be one Independent body.
The punishment should be minimum 7 years and maximum up-to life imprisonment.

I guess this Anna Hazare has falled in love with the Tamil film அந்நியன் and demands such provisions. As if the existing courts are have hardly any case, as if the existing policemen have hardly any case to investigate, this new ‘movement’ has gone into it. Not surprising, young-patriotic-Indians have gone full steam behind Anna!

I heard that lot of IT professionals (கறைஜீன்சு) are queuing up to rally behind Anna Hazare and down-down the politicians (கரைவேட்டி). I am reminded of a mail that was sent to me long back-

கரைவேட்டியும் கறைஜீன்சும் சந்தித்தன எதிர்பாராமல்

கரை :"வணக்கம்"
கறை :"மன்னிக்கவும். அரசியலும் அரசியல்வாதியும் எமக்கு பிடிக்காது"
கரை :"ஹா ஹா..தம்பி, இதுவும் அரசியல் தான்"
கறை :"விட்டுவிடுங்களேன் வேண்டாம்.."
கரை :"காரணம் சொல் தம்பி"
கறை :"அடுக்கிக்கொண்டே போகலாம்"
கரை :"எங்கே ஒன்று, இரண்டு, மூன்று என்று வரிசைப்படுத்து"
கறை :"சொல்லில் சுத்தமில்லை. சொன்னதை சொன்னாற்போல் செய்வதில்லை"
கரை :"நீங்கள் உறுதியளிக்கும் தேதியில் பணியை முடித்ததுண்டா?"
கறை :"சரி..அடிக்கடி கூட்டணிமாற்றம், கட்சிமாற்றம்?"
கரை :"அடிக்கடி கம்பெனி மாற்றம்?
கறை :"நாங்கள் மாறுவது தொழில் வளர்ச்சிக்கு (career growth)"
கரை :"நாங்க ள் மாறுவதும் கட்சிவளர்ச்சிக்கும் கொள்கைக்கும்.."
கறை :"இல்லை பின்னால் இருப்பது பணமல்லவோ?"
கரை :"உங்களுக்கு எப்படி???"
கறை :"லஞ்சம், இதற்கென்ன பதில்?"
கரை :"வரியை குறைக்க எத்தனை தில்லுமுல்லு சொல்லு?"
கறை :"இப்படி பொதுவாக பேசக்கூடாது.."
கரை :"அதே..அதே.."
கறை :"விடுங்கள்…சட்டமன்றத்தில் எப்போதும் வெட்டி பேச்சு"
கரை :"அட..நீங்கள் மின்னஞ்சலில் பேசும் பேச்சு?"
கறை :"அதென்ன..நினைத்தால் வெளிநாட்டு பயணம்"
கரை :"அதென்ன கஸ்டமர் நினைக்காமல் அவரிடத்திற்கு திடீர் பயணம்.."
கறை :"பார்டீ பார்டீ(கட்சி)… இது தானா எப்போதும்.."
கரை :"பிறந்தா பார்டீ, போனா பார்டீ, வந்தா பார்டீ.. இரவில் பார் (BAR) , பகலில் டீ."
கறை :"அய்யா ஆளை விடுங்கள்..என்ன வேணும் சொல்லுங்கள்"
கரை :"ஒட்டு போடு தம்பி. உங்க கையில தான் இருக்கு எங்க தலையெழுத்தும், இந்த நாட்டோட தலையெழுத்தும்.ஒரு சாதாரண.கைநாட்டுக்கு இருக்கிற கடமை உணர்வு உனக்கில்லையேப்பா. உங்க வோட்டு வைக்குமே தப்பான அரசியலுக்கு வேட்டு..கறை கண்டுபிடிப்பதென்றால் வெள்ளை துணியிலும் கண்டுபிடிக்கலாம்..ஓட்டு போடு…இல்லையெனில் ஓ போடு (49 ஓ)...

Well, this too shall pass, the media will get another biscuit to bite and the soap goes on and on...

Born in England, died in India.

They say that World Cup has started in India. I heard that people died of heart attack seeing the first three matches of the World Cup. I would advise ICC not to hold such nail-biters because people will eat others head off :D By the end of 40-odd days of this so-called World Cup, some thousand records will be created which will keep some idiots happy.

The best part of it was that I did not have to even watch one full over in any of the matches. Just a look at the score card shows how much I missed :D Some may be happy to see Sehwag has 'equalled' Kapil's record in World Cup for the highest score in the match against Bangladesh. I was curious/clueless about New Zealand's apparently 'wretched' form these dayss and wanted to catch some minutes in their match against Kenya but before I could get to catch it on TV, I saw that it was over :D I guess one of the goals of the minnows is to 'postpone' their obvious defeat. First thing that they seem to do is to give some batting practice to the 'bigger' team. So that the match will definitely go to say 60 overs! That seemed to be the achievement of at least Canada in their match against Sri Lanka.

So-called experts were pretty late in even thinking, forget doubting, if ODIs have a future.

I think the part of the problem with 50-over cricket is that it is becoming very formulaic, and I think the Powerplays are contributing to that. I think the batting side is saying that we are going to go like hell in the power-plays and in the overs in between we are going to try and pick five or six runs an over without taking much risk so that we have wickets in hand. And if you've got a game of cricket where the batting is playing without risk and the fielding captain is allowing them to do that, then you've got a boring game on hands.

I guess a boring World Cup is written all over.

Update: 30 Mar 2011, 15:14 hrs IST

People can call me a 'cynic' for suspecting that the World Cup is 'fixed' to ensure that Sachin, oops Chennai Super Kings, oops Dhoni lifts the World Cup at Eden Gardens at Kolkota, oops Wankhede at Mumbai. I still feel that the entire thing is being 'orchestrated' to ensure Sachin's 'list of credentials' has a World Cup. At least to 'suspects' like me ;), the cat was out of the bag during the semifinals wheen it was shown on TV - . Well the match between India and Pakistan has started I guess just a few minutes ago, but why bother playing when the result is known. To add some 'authenticity', the Pakistani Minister warns his players not to get involved in match fixing. Dont bother guys, fixing has been taken care of :D

In Parallel…

If I thought of Cook-Levin as ‘doable’, then the issue of programming for multi-cores is more ‘contemporary’ if not imminent. Dr Dobbs Journal recently brought out an article where it cautioned that the ‘free lunch is indeed over’. I am not surprised because my article in IEEE Potentials last year mentioned the very same thing. In fact I had ‘reference’d the article by Larus of Microsoft. To quote, my point was simply this

It needs little emphasis that in 1978, 29,000 transistors running at 5 MHZ in Intel 8086 shot up in 2006 to 291 million transistors running at 2.93 GHZ in Intel Core 2 Duo, but Moore's dividend can increase only when systems and software really exploit the same. More importantly, future systems and software must be designed with the topology and architecture of the hardware and how best to exploit it.

I had told at least my friends long back when this ‘Core Duo’ (Intel’s) came, it was simply a waste of time and effort because unless compilers are going to use, applications are NOT going to see any benefit. Of course as I mentioned in the article,

Operating systems in conjunction with the hardware can off-load many of the software tasks to the hardware.

This too may not be effective for individual programs which will continue with the same ‘runtime’. ‘Think parallel’ is a bit more complex and follows the ‘not-so-obvious’ paradigm. ‘Structured thinking’ and thereby ‘structured programming’ is strictly sequential. Though the head is still one can we use multiple hands? That is THE question.
One of the key components of many algorithms (sorting to name one) is the swap functionality. Ranging from primitive (additive functions) to the not-so-obvious XOR capability, swap is critical. In college days, I used to write the swap of two variables in C without using an ‘intermediary’ variable as below

a^=b;
b^=a;
a^=b;

Now this also involves execution of three instructions – if there is a ‘swap’ instruction, it may be just a macro for three similar instructions. So the run time is the run time of three instructions.
I think multiple cores can solve this problem easily and do the same in one cycle. To just take two cores, Core 1 reads ‘a’ at rising edge of clock and writes into ‘b’ at falling edge. Core 2 reads ‘b’ at rising edge of clock and writes into ‘a’ at falling edge of clock. We thus use two cores sharing the memory to do the swap in just one cycle. This is effective usage of multiple cores. There may be many other macros or assembly instructions which could be ‘reworked’ to effectively exploit the hardware and thus run faster.

I don’t think there is any catch and would suspect at least Intel to be already heads up on this.

Cocoons! Here we come!

I joined Texas Instruments, Bangalore (before it became Bengaluru) on 3 Jan 2000 as a project trainee. It was my first day and so may be thinking that I was still a college student just on a 'visit', the first day was ‘off’. I think the first person to whom I TALKED was the librarian since I was there till lunch. TI had a good library – obviously I am not going to look at technical books on the first day. The first article that I read was ‘How to be a Star Engineer?’ – an IEEE article. It resonated a lot within me because I too didn’t feel anything was ‘tough’. It was the trivial issue which often takes up more of our time. A simple fact that I don’t like my colleague could delay my tasks! The tasks per se are not as challenging as say a ‘hard Sudoku’! A company would not recruit me for doing something which with all their expertise and manpower couldn’t do for years!

The ‘mass’ vs ‘class’ jargon was/is often used in films (especially in Telugu) and to draw a parallel with something higher, ‘HOTS’ vs ‘MOTS’ is something I could immediately strike a chord with as I studied in CBSE. So even when we were in college, even in ‘software’, ‘application’ software was called ‘mass’ and ‘systems software’ was called ‘class’. ‘TCS’ or ‘Infosys’ or ‘Wipro’ was called ‘mass’ while ‘Oracle’ or ‘HP’ or ‘Cisco’ was called ‘class’ mainly because of the large numbers that former selected and the fewer the latter chose. I was never a gregarious person and so it is obvious that I would have preferred company with fewer colleagues over a ‘mass company’. I was probably the first ever MCA student to be recruited in Texas Instruments and the only other MCA student too joined our adjoining team (later the teams were merged). The initial months or years were more interesting because it is always nice to be raring to go to office to ‘prove something’. Especially as a non-engineer, I was keen to ‘prove something to somebody’ (to put in ‘Citizen Kane’ terms). Even before I officially became an employee, my paper was accepted in VDAT conference. I learnt about some ‘device drivers’ to equipments in the fab (mainly ATEs) faster than ‘expected’, at least according to some. From conference at ‘national’ level, the next move was obviously go to international conference level. Though I was one of the co-authors in a paper in 2002, the paper for which I was the ONLY author in 2004 gave me probably more satisfaction. After having filed an application at USPTO, I was DONE! To quote Ian Chappell on captaincy

And the thing about this job is that it can wear you down pretty quickly. I just wrote about this a few weeks ago where I mentioned that I lasted four years as Australia's captain and I was done by the end of it, probably a little before the four years.

Not surprisingly, I left Texas Instruments at the end of four years because I didn’t feel that there was anything ‘new’ to it and it had become sort of ‘formulaic’ and MOTS. Anything which involves an usage of ‘grey matter’ often interested me and this ‘assembly’ line work is of now use. In fact, when I was in TI they used to call ‘Physical Design’ as ‘layout factory’. My problem with factories was always that I was always never going to do well among cadets and one among many ‘workers’. Getting lost in the crowd was not my way of looking to the future. In my opinion, I was not restricted by my inability. I always felt that I could learn anything. If a person who has learnt NOTHING academically about electronics can file a patent from a semiconductor giant, that person should be given the benefit of doubt in any field. I was always cooking though I was not born with a silver spoon ;) I concur with Sanjiv Kapoor's interview recently -

Books for brides tend to spell out the simplest procedures. Does the “Wedding Collection” also start from scratch?

These are not recipes for people who don't even know how to switch on the gas. When people say ‘I can't even boil rice or make tea', they are not apologetic. They say it with some sense of pride, which is actually a shame.
This book is for this generation, for people who are interested in food and have some confidence in the kitchen. Yes, we do some handholding.

If at all there was any handholding for me, it was in the form of my grandmother giving instructions when I was 13 years old or so. I don’t remember my mother having any doubt over my cooking ability though I never really cooked when she was around.
Having moved to Chennai to work in a company at a lower pay with very few, if not none, knowledgeable guys around, if not for the financial factor (we need something to live after all!), there is nothing that mandates my persistent employment. I also see that with the current ‘depression’, companies wanted people to be like what Krugman had wanted Obama’s team to be.

One thing's for sure: The next administration's economic team had better be ready to hit the ground running, because from day one it will find itself dealing with the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression.

I think that there is a serious leadership vacuum in every aspect of life. The more tragic part of it is that people don’t seem to know what leadership is, itself. MBAs are only going to aggravate the problem because I remember asking my ‘bil’ who apparently did his MBA from a premier college in US – what do MBAs bring to table? What can they do which others cant? He said ‘structured thinking’. I think that is precisely the problem. They can only deal with situations which they already know. It is like the MOTS problem. As long as you have seen the problem before, you can solve it. What if it is an altogether new problem? In my opinion, leadership is all about DECISION MAKING. Period. You do not need any degree or in fact any schooling to make a good decision. It is just putting yourself in the best possible position to face any situation.

The dependence on ‘classroom’/’textbook’ coaching is actually detrimental to not just students, but all humans. To quote Ian Chappell yet again -

ANDREW DENTON: Is it fair to say you basically lived and breathed cricket? That’s where your head was most of the time?

IAN CHAPPELL: I’d like to think that I was thinking about a few other things. But I didn’t realise, actually, until I’d been retired about 18 months, and I said to my wife, Barbara Ann, I didn’t realise how I was simmering just below boiling point the whole time.

ANDREW DENTON: About what?

IAN CHAPPELL: I think it’s part of being competitive. I mean, I wasn’t trying to do it or anything,

IAN CHAPPELL: I think, as a cricketer or as a sportsman probably, or a sportswoman, to be successful you do have to live in a bit of a cocoon. You do have to, sort of, be a bit in your own world.

Also, I guess the other advantage that we had over the current cricketers is the fact that we had to work, which might sound a bit strange saying it’s an advantage, but I think it was because it was good for your cricket because you’d go to work, having made a duck, and you’d walk in and one of the guys who’s working in sales with you would say, “Oh what a useless so and so you are. I see you got nought on Saturday,” you know?

ANDREW DENTON: Yes.

IAN CHAPPELL: And so you weren’t, sort of, quite living in that cocoon where you only heard from your team mates what you wanted to hear.

I think we cannot let the future generations to be in the rosy comfort zone where they hear what they wanted to hear and blame ‘others’ for everything that went wrong. Having said that, I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. Companies nowadays want the students to hit the ground running. This means that the student in his/her college life will practically have no time to look at anything else. It is often said about an American engineer – they know in and out of what they work with and nothing out of what works outside. ‘How to be a Star Engineer?’ has to be rewritten because cocoons are the one likely to succeed in the future.

State of the Union!

I have considered myself to 'chance' upon some events for no reason; events which range from mind-blowing to shocking. Events which often reaffirm my notions which often border on my 'intuitive' perception or 'gut feel'. The point is often I dont know why I did what I did to be the witness. Some events were really exciting most often on sports. The ones on top of my mind is Lara's classic match-winning knock and Nathan Astle's almost sucker shocker punch! Watching live, rather breaking news of 9/11 was equally sensational but somehow US was always 'far away'.

Today morning I watched the State of the Union LIVE. It seemed to reaffirm my perception of US! BBC summed it very well - what was expected to be a Presidential address that will give direction to the country in the current crisis, a damp squib would be a gross understatement. It was a big yawn to put it mildly. The US Prez spoke what was 'expected', atleast from me!

We believe that in a country where every race and faith and point of view can be found, we are still bound together as one people; that we share common hopes and a common creed;

In America, innovation doesn't just change our lives. It is how we make our living.

Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik

That's what Americans have done for over 200 years: reinvented ourselves.

Look to Iraq, where nearly 100,000 of our brave men and women have left with their heads held high.

Of course, as we speak, al Qaeda and their affiliates continue to plan attacks against us.

We will not relent, we will not waver, and we will defeat you.

I will travel to Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador to forge new alliances across the Americas.

In south Sudan — with our assistance — the people were finally able to vote for independence after years of war.

The United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia, and supports the democratic aspirations of all people.

Brandon started a company in Berlin, Pennsylvania, that specializes in a new kind of drilling technology. And one day last summer, he saw the news that halfway across the world, 33 men were trapped in a Chilean mine, and no one knew how to save them.

We do big things.

Anodynes are fine, but if I thought I didnt get anything out of the 'State of the Union' speech, so too felt Krugman.

Overall, however, I have no idea what the vision here was.

I always thought Americans think too much of themselves and even more comical is the world media going gaga over Obama's election! I felt that Europeans rubbed it further by giving Nobel Peace Prize to Obama because of his 'intent' :)) If at all, there was any respect/dignity left in Nobel Prize, this took it. I remember reading few pages of 'The audacity of hope' in a bookstore in Indianapolis and was impressed with how Obama wrote (I know it will be 'proofread' and 'word-smithed').

Having said that it was ridiculous to see the world 'expecting' or 'cheering' Obama. I mean, I dont care who is the chief minister of Jharkhand or Madhya Pradesh. Why should I care about President of USA? :o It was even funnier to see desis support a Democrat. Desis should support a Republican because only Republicans have relaxed immigration policies. No surprises, one of the first things that happened after Obama entered White House was restricitions on entry to US. I didnt think anybody or any party can change a country over night or in a single term (Well, I dont think Obama will be Prez in the next term!). There will be not be much of a difference between Congress and BJP in India or Republican or Democrat in US. Didnt Clinton send so many troops ('Wag The Dog' you see!)? For starters, Obama showed that he is a 'stuntman' by taking oath on some Lincoln Bible! Anyway to sum Obama's 'speech' up in 'latest Tamil jargon' - சூர மொக்கை :D

TN elections are coming soon and I cant imagine any Tamil political leader worth his/her salt talking anything beyond Tamil Nadu borders. It would be really comical if they talk like Obama about Sudan. Even talking about Sri Lanka has lost its apparent zing decades ago. For all that I remember Rajdeep Sardesai's column in Deccan Herald comparing 'sprightly' Obama and the American 'audacity' with the 'senile' and 'family biased' Karunanidhi. No wonder, all Hinglish channels have been talking for decades about Jayalalithaa being a 'Prime Minister' candidate. Karunanidhi has at least never lost an election. Jayalalithaa has lost even an Assembly seat contesting at the term at the end of her term as Chief Minister. Maybe these TV channels will cover and analyze 'foreign news' much better than local news :(