Month: June 2001

Andhra Pradesh’s Controversial Sterilization Program

The New York Times recently profiled the sterilization program used by the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh which has proven extremely successful, but also controversial.

India’s fifth largest state has seen a dramatic rise in the number of sterilizations. Five years ago, a little over 500,000 people were sterilized. Last year, more than 800,000 were sterilized. More than half the women in Andhra Pradesh have their tubes tied — one of the highest rates in the world. As a result of the massive increase in sterilization, Andhra Pradesh’s population growth has been falling faster than any other large Indian state.

The methods to achieve the high rates of sterilization are, however, controversial. The state sets specific quotas for the number of sterilizations and uses incentives to persuade recalcitrant people to agree to sterilization. People who are sterilized after having their first or second children move the front of the line for loans, housing and other government assistance.

The Times describes, for example, that the Vizianagaram district was short of its quota of 25,000 sterilizations near the end of the year. So it enlisted civic groups to donate clocks, steel, pots and other goods which it then offered as an incentive to encourage people to get sterilized. As a result the district did meet its targets.

Women’s groups and some health experts are highly critical of the policies saying they verge on coercion in such a poor area. One activist told The Times, “I’ve met people who work in villages there who tell me women were offered gold chains to get their tubes tied. if that isn’t coercion, what is?”

The sterilization efforts are also reminiscent of sterilization camps that were set up in the 1970s after Indira Ghandi suspended democracy in India. Many people believe Indian men were forcibly sterilized in such camps.

Source:

Relying on hard and soft sells, India pushes sterilization. Celia Dugger, The New York Times, June 22, 2001.

Dave Winer Doesn’t Get It Either

Another person misreading the Appeals Court ruling is Dave Winer, but Winer has to go on and make one of his typically loopy suggestions,

Now it seems the next step is for a new trial, and although I’m not a lawyer it seems only reasonable, given the number of violations of antitrust law that Microsoft has been found guilty of, that some protections be put in place immediately to stop Microsoft from doing more harm while the new trial is proceeding.

Let me get this straight. The government needs to conduct a legal proceeding to come up with a more realistic penalty for Microsft, but it should go ahead and institute a penalty before it actually gets around to instituting a penalty.

Besides which, there isn’t going to be another trial. One thing I forgot to add before is that a settlement is also in the Justice Department’s interest. Given the unanimous verdict by the appellate court, any judge named to oversee a new penalty phase is going to be looking over his or her shoulder. There is always the possibility that Microsoft could wind up with a lighter penalty than it might be willing to agree to in a settlement.

New Hybrid Rice

Researchers with the West Africa Rice Development Association have introduced a hybrid strain of rice, Nerica, which will allow African farmers to obtain higher yields without significantly altering current farming practices.

The hybrid is a combination of an African rice strain that is highlight resistant to weeds and harsh African conditions as well as an Asian rice strain that gives high yields. The combination is the result of 10 years of research on various strains of rice.

Although the rice doesn’t require additional fertilizers or insecticides, ironically it has been slow to catch on because African farmers assume that any new hybrid will require such expensive additional resources. The researchers who developed the new strain of rice are trying to obtain more seed in order to try to spread the popularity of the hybrid.

Source:

Rice hybrid raises African hopes. Corrine Podger, The BBC, June 18, 2001.

Will The UN AIDS Fund Accomplish Anything?

There have been a number of stories in recent days about the failure of the UN to raise the $10 billion it wants for its AIDS fund. Salon.Com’s Daryl Lindsey recently conducted an interview with public health expert Carole Collins which does a pretty good job of outlining why the AIDS fund will have very little effect on the pandemic even if it comes close to the $10 billion. As Bill Clinton might have put it, It’s the poverty, stupid.

Unfortunately, Carole Collins can’t quite see the forest for the trees and falls back on the old “we need more foreign aid” saw. That strategy will work only if the aid can be routed around the corrupt regimes that have caused the poverty in the first place. If you want to do something about AIDS in Zimbabwe, for example, the last thing you want to do is allow Robert Mugabe anywhere near the money (Mugabe’s taken Zimbabwe from a shining example of what is possible on the African continent down to the depths of economic disaster).

In fact, when you look at the countries that have the highest incidence of AIDS, the tend to be those nations in Africa that are the most non-democratic. Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Namibia, Malawi (Botswana and South Africa break the rule here, but the legacy of apartheid has made it extremely difficult for those countries to respond to the AIDS crisis).

Gillmor Doesn’t Get It

Dan Gillmor doesn’t have an e-mail address listed on his site or I’d e-mail him, but I think he and others who are trying to put an anti-MS spin on the Appeals Court ruling just don’t get it.

The court’s treatment of “tying” Internet Explorer to the operating system is surprising, too, in that it doesn’t absolve Microsoft. Instead, the court returned this piece of the case — a crucial one — to the trial court for further consideration.

So the breakup is out. But remedies for anti-competitive behavior are not. And the all-important findings that Microsoft has and abused its monopoly remain intact.

What Microsoft has won is time. It can continue its brutal practices for a while longer, building into Windows and Internet Explorer and Office any and all technologies that will further solidify the monopoly. It can extend its reach into new markets, using its $30 billion in cash (which grows by a billion dollars a month. The company surely figures that it’ll be entirely above the law by the time the law catches up.

Sure, and pigs might fly. First, the Appeals Court outright reversed the finding of fact that Microsoft had attempted to monopolize the browser market. Then it remanded back to a new judge the issue of whether or not integrating IE into the OS was legal or not.

But how is the DOJ going to prove that integration of IE into the Windows OS is violates the antitrust law when the appeals court has already ruled that the reasons outlined by Judge Jackson for concluding so don’t meet an acceptable standard of proof? Is the DOJ just going to pull additional evidence out of its hat? I doubt it. Furthermore, with Jackson off the case and being cited for his improper ex parte communications, a new judge is probably going to give Microsoft a lot more leeway to present their case than Jackson did in his court.

As for the remedies, they’re headed toward Microsoft but what are the odds this case will ever go before another judge? Very, very low. With the Appeals Court making a breakup impossible, Microsoft now has the leverage it needs to reach an advantageous settlement. This is a prospect the Justice Department is going to be very amenable to since it seems clear that John Ashcroft and the rest of the Bush administration don’t want this case.

This whole thing will almost conclude with a slap-on-the-wrist-fine and some meaningless agreement in which Microsoft promises not to enter into exclusionary deals with ISPs and to stop threatening competitors like Intel who want to enter into deals with Microsoft’s competitors.

Meanwhile, the legal coast is essentially as clear as it is ever going to be for Microsoft’s .Net plans for world domination.

Primitivism.Com

You have to love the irony of a web site devoted to Primitivism. Anyway, there were a couple links to their site on Permaculture which reminds me of an amusing (well at least I thought it was amusing) anecdote.

My wife likes to shop in health food stores, and I like to tag along because most such stores include a section of brochures, fliers, etc. that are just plain nutty. I struck paydirt on the last such visit with a small, typed brochure put together by some folks who want to start a permaculture-style planned community on some land that is for sale just outside of town.

So I’m reading this and laughing out loud, and Lisa’s asking me what’s so funny. I point out that the fee for the seminar these folks are planning to hold is ridiculously expensive (several hundred dollars), but that it might be worth it because among the things they plan to do is to create a system where the land produces more than they put into it (as opposed to the evil capitalist system of manipulation which takes more out than goes in).

As far as I’m concerned, a few hundred bucks is cheap to learn about the latest revolution in physics.