Twitter\'s Free Speech Defender

September 3, 2012, 2:18 am

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Alexander Macgillivray, Twitter's chief lawyer, says that fighting for free speech is more than a good idea,” Somini Sengupta wrote for The New York Times. “He thinks it is a competitive advantage for his company.”

That explains why Mr. Macgillivray spends so much time and money “going toe to toe with officers and apparatchiks both here and abroad,” she wrote, including wrestling with “Indian government officials seeking to take down missives they considered inflammatory.”

“We value the reputation we have for defending and respecting the user's voice,” Mr. Macgillivray said in an interview here at Twitter headquarters. “We think it's important to our company and the way users think about whether to use Twitter, as compared to other services.”

It doesn't always work. And it sometimes collides awkwardly with another imperative Twitter faces: to turn its fire hose of public opinion into a profitable business. That imperative will become far more acute if the company goes public, and Twitter confronts pressures to make money fast and play nice with the governments of countries in which it operates; most Twitter users live outside the United States and the company is already opening offices overseas.

That transformation makes his job all the more delicate. At a time when Internet companies control so much of what we can say and do online, can Twitter stand up for privacy, free expression and profitability all at the same time?

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Aliens With Dance Moves and the Midas Touch

September 3, 2012, 1:51 am

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

“There might be a utopian vision inside Shirish Kunder's ‘Joker,' a Bollywood comedy about establishing contact with extraterrestrials,” Andy Webster wrote in The New York Times. “But if so, it's buried under a mountain of static.”

In Shirish Kunder's comedy, a California scientist is called back to his hometown on the India-Pakistan border, where he creates ploys to save the area from economic hardship. “The stratagems - fake crop circles; dressing as aliens and putting on a show for the camera crews; and, apparently, musical production numbers - grow desperate, much like the humor,” Mr. Webster wrote.

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Pitch on the Pasture: Cricket in the Cowboy State

September 3, 2012, 12:59 am

By NINA SWAMIDOSS MCCONIGLEY

The heart of the University of Wyoming's campus in Laramie is Prexy's Pasture, a big, grassy area surrounded by blue spruce and mountain pine. According to university lore, the pasture was where students grazed their horses in the late 19th century; a standing university rule dictates that the president, or “prexy,” has sole rights to the area for livestock grazing.

The pasture is bordered on one side by the College of Agriculture, while the southwest corner is dominated by the Cheney International Center and the Dick and Lynne Cheney Plaza, named after the former U.S. vice president (an alumnus) and his wife. The pasture is also where, several evenings a week, barring snow, the Universi ty of Wyoming Cricket Club practices and plays.

On a recent evening, less than 24 hours after arriving in Laramie from New Delhi, Vishal Nangla, 26, was playing - though he had barely settled in, much less acclimated (Laramie sits at an elevation of 7,200 feet, compared to about 700 for New Delhi). He and his new roommate, Vijay Sabawat, who was also on the field, are working toward their PhDs in civil engineering.

Mr. Sabawat recalled that when he first arrived in Wyoming, he thought, “There's nothing here. Where did I come to?” But that same week, he said, “I came to Prexy's and saw them playing cricket, and then I made friends.” Cricket, he said, is “the major entertainment here” for South Asian students.

Amit Thakar, the club's faculty leader and a senior researcher in neuroscience, has made cricket into a club sport at the university. Close to 50 Indian, Sri Lankan, Nepalese and Bangladeshi students make up the team. Originally from Gujarat, Dr. Thakar played cricket competitively in India before becoming a scientist. He has been in Wyoming since 2005.

For Indian students arriving in Laramie, “Cricket is the gateway to the Indian community,” Dr. Thakar said. He estimates that at least 10 languages can be heard when they play, but cricket itself provides a common language for the Guajaratis, Punjabis, Bengalis, Tamils and other Indians in Laramie. There are roughly 75 Indian students on the campus of 13,000. The whole state of Wyoming, whose population is slightly more than half a million, has an Asian population of less than 1 percent.

The students play three times a week at Prexy's, except during Wyoming's frigid winters, when they use a basketball court (and play with tennis balls). For some of the players, it is their first time on a real team. Despite this, the club won the Colorado T20 Tennis Ball Premiere League Cricket championship last year. The Colorado lea gue has 16 teams, many of them from businesses rather than universities; some teams come from as far away as Nebraska and New Mexico to play.

Many of the Indian students in the club have never played cricket seriously before. Now “they are getting the chance,” Dr. Thakar said. “But even if they haven't played, they've watched.”

But it's not just lack of experience that can pose difficulties. For players unaccustomed to the altitude, “You get tired faster. You have to build up your stamina,” said Dr. Thakar.

Mr. Nangla, after playing for about 20 minutes, sat down sweating, his breath labored. “Now I feel the altitude,” he admitted.

Many of the Indian students say they find Laramie a welcoming place, despite the cold and the isolation.

Krishna Pakala, a PhD in mechanical engineering from Hyderabad, said he appreciated the virtues of a small town. “Laramie is so nice,” he said. “In a big city, nobody cares.”

Karan Man has, from Thane, outside Mumbai, added, “It's safe. It's quiet.” Playing cricket, he said, “feels like home. You meet so many Indians. We are with our own people.”

Seeing cricket played on Prexy's Pasture sometimes surprises other students, most of whom are from Wyoming. “You've got exchange students who are making incredible strides in their personal careers and in their research in the university, but at that very moment, all that really seems to matter is the ball hitting the bat,” said Mike Morris, a recent graduate from Cheyenne. “I didn't pick up on any sense of alienation or cultural isolation,” he added. “These guys were all right at home out there on Prexy's.”

Students passing by often ask, “What are the rules?” Dr. Thakar said. “We always tell them it's similar to baseball, but not exactly.”

Even the university's president, Tom Buchanan, who said he's often paused to watch students playing, admitted, “I know very litt le about the sport.” Still, he said, “it reminds me once again of the rich cultural context that our international student population brings to our campus.”

“It's lovely to come out on a Friday afternoon and see this,” said Tom Hill, an Australian researcher in the university's agriculture department. “Here I am in Wyoming seeing a bunch of Indian guys playing cricket. It's a statement of the internationality of our world. Laramie is a town of surprises. You can never assume anything.”

Newswallah: Long Reads Edition

September 2, 2012, 5:54 am

By MALAVIKA VYAWAHARE

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold Ajmal Kasab's death sentence has once again brought into focus the death penalty debate in India. Frontline, in its cover story, “A Case against the Death Penalty,” analyzes some gray areas in the debate.

The author, V. Venkatesan, pegged his piece on an appeal made to the president by prominent former judges to commute the death sentences of 13 convicts who, according to the Supreme Court, had been awarded the death penalty erroneously. Mr. Venkatesan argued that there are ambiguities in the interpretation of the clause “rarest of the rare,” which allows for such “errors.”

The judges in their appeal expressed appr ehension that “executions of persons wrongly sentenced to death will severely undermine the credibility of the criminal justice system and the authority of the state to carry out such punishments in future.”

Mr. Venkatesan suggests that while abolishing capital punishment deserves serious consideration, the pressing concern is to ensure that people are not being executed due to flaws in the existing criminal justice system. It would not only be a miscarriage of justice for the individuals but not serve the purposes of the state, he said.

As the parliamentary paralysis continued, the editor of Tehelka magazine, Shoma Chaudhury, interviewed the senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader, Arun Jaitley, questioning him about the obstructionist tactics of the B.J.P. The interview clarifies the main opposition party's position on the culpability of the prime minister in the coal scandal and why they refuse to call for a no-confidence motion, which is the constitutional m ethod of seeking to remove the prime minister. Mr. Jaitley said they are not seeking a no-confidence motion because of the government's “tremendous ability to manipulate the political parties” which may end up affording “comfort” to the ruling party, if the vote goes in their favor. He also discussed other strategies open to the B.J.P. if the standoff continues.

Ali Sethi in his column in The New Yorker titled “The Seer of Pakistan” shares an interesting take on the life and works of Saadat Hassan Manto, a prolific Urdu writer who was credited with redefining the short story genre. The popularity of the Amritsar-born writer, who migrated to Pakistan after partition, transgressed boundaries in the subcontinent, and so did his writing. Mr. Ali believes it transgresses time as well, which leads him to revisit Mr. Manto's texts and life “in search of signs of a seer.”

The author finds in the theater of contemporary Pakistani society, marked by widespr ead social unease, a “hysterical synchronicity” which is reminiscent Mr. Manto's works.

Many of the reigning narratives of Mr.  Manto's time, Mr Ali wrote, “the ‘two-nation theory' that eternally separates India from Pakistan, the Soviet-style Communism of the progressive writers, the pacts of mutual interest between America and Pakistan” have played out in a way that make it seem as if Mr. Manto possessed an otherworldly power to see what the future holds.

In Open Magazine's feature section Aanchal Bansal profiled India's only licensed falconer, Shahid Khan. (What does a falconer do, one wonders, that requires a license? It is a “license to practice falconry, or breed birds of prey in captivity and train them for hunting,” Ms. Bansal wrote.)

According to Khan, falconry is believed to have originated in Mongolia and Iran four millennia ago.  Man learnt to use falcons and hawks to chase away pests and locusts that would often att ack crops. This gradually developed into a royal sport of game hunting in India; Mughal Emperor Akbar is also said to have practiced falconry.

Unesco awarded this “art form” the “global cultural heritage” status last year, but Mr. Khan “has all but given up, having pulled out of the sport over the past couple of years. He may have a license certifying his skill in this ancient art, but it finds few takers anymore in the modern world.”