Evil: Hitler's Food-Taster & Sexual Abuse Online

Today I found two varied and interesting pieces about evil in different forms. 

The first one, from Der Spiegel, captures the story of Margot Wölk, who was one of the food-tasters of Adolf Hitler. Forced to be a food-taster for Hitler for more than two years, the 95-year-old German says that she lived in constant fear. "I just wanted to say what happened there," she says. "That Hitler was a really repugnant man. And a pig." 

The second one makes for scary reading, especially because it talks about women who are being threatened online with rape and other forms of sexual abuse. Here's an excerpt: 

Kavita Krishnan, a prominent Delhi-based women's activist, was attacked viciously during a recent online chat on violence against women on Rediff.com, one of India's leading news websites.

"It began well. I had answered a few interesting questions. And then one person, with the handle @RAPIST, started posting abusive comments. He then asked me where he could come to rape me using a condom," she said.

Mr Jaishankar, who counsels victims of cyber crime along with his colleague and lawyer Debarati Haldar, says that Indian users online are largely male introverts who have found the web a place where they can express themselves freely and anonymously.

"These men could be respectable professionals such as doctors, lawyers or professors in real life but online, they tend to show a darker side."

Read the complete BBC piece here. 

Sunday Reads

This Sunday there will not be any Reads collection, as I am traveling.

However, let me share one interesting article: this is about how the Super Rich are hated in China. 

Keep learning!

Violence & Buddhism

Death does not discriminate. But in life, discrimination is rife and all-pervading. It permeates all walks of our lives: birth, education, work and all social aspects.

In most global, regional and local conflicts, religion is the most potent discriminatory tool being used by all involved to further their aims.

Be they the radical Islamists, belonging to various sects (Sunni/Shia) and organisations (Al-Qaeda) or the Christian fundamentalists (ultra-orthodox evangelical churches, especially in the U.S.) or the Hindu radical fringe groups (like the Ram Sena), they all have centred their ideology on the religion they claim to profess and protect.

While no religion preaches violence, Buddhism stands apart in one major aspect: non-violence is the foundation of its tenets. Non-violence, especially compassion and tolerance toward all living beings, is the cornerstone of Buddhism.

But then why are the peace-loving Buddhist monks leading violent mobs against Muslims in Sri Lanka and Myanmar? Aren’t Buddhist monks meant to be the good guys of religion, asks the BBC Magazine.

Aggressive thoughts are inimical to all Buddhist teachings. Buddhism even comes equipped with a practical way to eliminate them. Through meditation the distinction between your feelings and those of others should begin to dissolve, while your compassion for all living things grows.

Of course, there is a strong strain of pacifism in Christian teachings too: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," were the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

But however any religion starts out, sooner or later it enters into a Faustian pact with state power.

Christian crusaders, Islamist militants, or the leaders of "freedom-loving nations", all justify what they see as necessary violence in the name of a higher good. Buddhist rulers and monks have been no exception.

If you wish to know the story behind the violence between the Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar, then click here (links to The Nation news site). 

Spain's Pain Getting Worse

Badly battered by the all-enveloping eurozone crisis, Spain's economy has shrunk, again. In the January-March 2013 quarter, the economy contracted by -0.5%, as against contraction by -2% in the corresponding quarter last year. This means the country’s economy has contracted for seven consecutive quarter now.

The government in Madrid believes that growth will falter again this year, as it announced that the economy will contract by -1.3% in this financial year. Ever since the euro crisis began in 2008, Spain, which witnessed its massive real estate bubble burst, has struggled to stay afloat, especially in the face of mounting debts and rising unemployment.

Rising unemployment

Rising unemployment is eating into domestic demand, thus setting in motion a vicious cycle of low demand-falling revenues-low generation of jobs-rising unemployment, which, in turn, meant that fewer people would have income that would help them buy stuff.

In other words, unemployment rates typically move in a cyclical way as they are largely related to business cycle, especially in the short and near medium long term. In addition to business cycles, government policy (especially labour policy), population trends, and to some extent, global economic environment (especially in case of export-oriented economies) determine the rates and levels of unemployment in the long run.

(Read The Explainer: The eurozone Debt Crisis)

According to Eurostat, among the eurozone member states, Spain has the second highest unemployment rate, at 26.6%, just behind another badly bruised eurozone member, Greece, where the unemployment rate is hovering around 27.2%.

In fact, if Spain’s National Statistics Office is to be believed then it already has the highest unemployment rate at 27.2% of the workforce.

To make matters worse, the youth unemployment rates are even worse, with over 55% of young Spaniards not able to find work.

It is unlikely that Spain will come out of recession anytime soon. Till it emerges out of the economic doldrums, the suffering of the Spaniards will continue.

Stories of suffering

The BBC website carried a collection of stories of ordinary Spanish folks hit hard by a triple whammy caused by the serious downturn in their country’s economy: huge debts to pay, lack of jobs, and thus lack of income. I share the story of one such family:

Angel Moran is 53 and has been out of work now for five years. His wife, Conchi, is 48 and has been unemployed for four. Their home is one of 1.9 million in Spain in which no-one has a job, according to the latest unemployment figures.

They receive state benefits of 426 euros (£358) a month and rely on food handouts from the Red Cross.

"Our gas has been cut off and we can hardly pay the water. After paying the rent, there's nothing left for food."

Their daughter Noelia is 26 and she is also unemployed. Her 25-year-old boyfriend also lives in the house and he is also unemployed.

"I can't get my own place with my boyfriend," she says. "I can't afford to have kids. And you just have to think about every cent you spend."

Read more of such stories here.

Sunday Reads - How safe is your daughter & In the dark

• Boston carjack victim recounts his harrowing night. (Boston Globe)
• 50 Machines you would need to rebuild civilization. (ClimateerInvest)
• How safe is your daughter? (New Indian Express) 
• In the dark: dark matter is the commonest, most elusive stuff in the universe. Can we grasp this great unsolved problem in physics? (aeon)

Watch this 13-minute Jaguar ad video. Brilliant. (Hat Tip: Mohan Ramiah)

Pak Films: Holding a Mirror to Society

India is obsessed with films. Not surprisingly, India is home to the largest film industry in the world. Some films hold a mirror to the happenings in the society; for some, films provide an escape into fantasy from the same harsh realities.

But can films shape a nation’s destiny? Yes, says Nadeem Paracha, a columnist for Pakistani newspaper, Dawn. In an interesting and humourous piece titled, Evil Popcorn, Paracha picks three Pakistani films made in the 1980s and 1990s, and shows how they both shaped and reflected the deepening of the Jihadist mentality in the Pakistani society.

Here’s an excerpt:

I went looking for them to investigate a possibility of finding the cultural roots of what grew into religious and ideological extremism and myopia in Pakistan.

One can pin-point almost all of Ziaul Haq’s Machiavellian farce in the name of Islam as containing the main roots of the social and political extremism that now plagues the nation.

I will not go into the academic and scholarly details of this observation, but rather discuss the issue by reviewing the three films that I rediscovered. Two were made and released in the 1990s and one in 1980. They are interesting examples of the kind of mindset that many common Pakistanis started to develop at the conclusion of the anti-Soviet ‘Afghan jihad’ in the late 1980s. (End of excerpt)

Read the complete piece here. Highly recommended.

The Shifting Great Chinese Middle Class

China’s middle class is growing, and growing big. Almost all demographic estimates point to a startling statistic: by 2030, the size of China’s middle class will be more than 700 million, the largest in the world. It is believed that currently 25% of the overall population is middle class while in urban areas the number goes up to nearly 40%. 

As more people move up the income ladder, consumer spending will only increase. As we know, it is the nouveau riche class which is aspirational and has a consumerist bent of mind. In other words, higher disposable income (greater purchasing power) will only make for greater discretionary spending, which means big bucks for global brands.  

Ever since the Chinese government opened the economy in 1977, economic development has more or less been concentrated in the eastern parts of the country, especially along the east coast. As manufacturing boomed, it attracted migrant workers from the less-developed western areas and the large hinterland. The consistently high economic growth rates over the last three decades brought wealth and riches to the urban classes, thus raising the economic status of hundreds of millions of Chinese. 

However, the middle class demographic pattern of concentration is changing. The infographic (below) from the Reuters blog shows the shifting demographic patterns of the Chinese middle class. As the text on the graphic says, “today, China’s middle class urban households are mostly concentrated along the eastern seaboard. By 2020, following the rapid growth of cities in the interior, they will be spread throughout much of China. Today’s graphic shows middle and affluent urban households as a percentage of total urban households in 2012 and projections for 2020.”