Global index provider Dow Jones Indexes and Dharma Investments, a private investment firm, today announced the launch of the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes measuring the performance of companies selected according to the value systems and principles of dharmic religions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism.

The series includes the Dow Jones Dharma Global Index and four country Indexes for US, UK, Japan and India. The indices are designed to track financial products such as exchange-traded funds and other investable products that enable investors to participate in the performance of companies compliant with dharmic traditions. [BusinessStandard]

So what constitutes as “dharmic”? Well, it’s easier to start with what’s not dharmic:

Excluded from the index are companies from sectors that are deemed unacceptable due to the nature of their business activities and operations. Excluded are also companies that have exposure to unacceptable business practices. Some examples of unacceptable sectors are aerospace and defense, brewers, casinos and gaming, pharmaceuticals, tobacco. Some examples for unacceptable business practices are alcohol, adult entertainment, animal testing and genetic modification of agricultural products. [AlBawaba]

It seems that touting your company as “socially responsible” is a big draw for investors all around the world. I suppose that’s a good thing.

Worldwide, socially responsible investing (SRI), as it is known, has taken off in a big way with assets increasing from $639 billion in 1995 to $2.29 trillion in 2005. In the US, SRI assets represent over 10% of the total assets under management. [BusinessStandard]

So being listed on the Dharmic Index would mean that your company can adopt a holier-than-thou attitude towards the competition. The Economic Times has a quote from the CEO of Dharma Investments, with an interesting typo.

“The Down Jones Dharma Indexes bring together a combination of environmental, social, governance and traditional sin sector filters.

As such, the index is unique and will not just have appeal to the religious, but to a far broader audience as well,” Dharma Investments CEO Nitesh Gor told the media. [EconomicTimes]

What exactly is a “traditional sin” anyway? And what’s a non-traditional one, for that matter?

Mr. Premji’s rise is already inspiring some Indian Muslims to embrace the modern, globalized world…[But t]hough the country’s economy is growing at 9% a year, the vast majority of India’s estimated 150 million Muslims — the largest Islamic population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan — remain socially marginalized, badly educated and mired in deep poverty.

How badly are the Muslims faring? The answer is minutes away from Premji’s home in Bangalore.

A Muslim school a half-hour’s drive from Mr. Premji’s Bangalore home reveals the chasm between this globalist success story and the country’s Muslim masses. Students sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Masjid e Takwa madrassa spend their days memorizing the Quran in Arabic — a language that neither they nor their teacher understand.

But Premji is not affected by these things.

Mr. Premji bristles impatiently when the plight of the broader Muslim populace is cited. “This whole issue of Hindu-Muslim in India is completely overhyped,” the 62-year-old executive says.

He is, in fact, quite removed from religion entirely.

Mr. Premji has mentioned his Muslim background so rarely in public that many Indian Muslims don’t even know he shares their heritage.

…Mr. Premji scoffed at the idea he should display his Muslim identity or champion the cause of Muslim advancement in India. “We’ve always seen ourselves as Indian. We’ve never seen ourselves as Hindus, or Muslims, or Christians or Buddhists,” he said.

How does that show up in his company?

None of Wipro?s senior managers aside from Mr. Premji himself are Muslims. The company maintains normal working hours on Islamic high holidays. Among its 70,000 employees, there?s only a ?sprinkling? of Muslims, according to Sudip Banerjee, president of a division that accounts for a third of revenue.

Yet, the company balks when discrimination is mentioned.

…company officials say they seek to hire the best regardless of creed. They say that among the reasons few Indian Muslims meet Wipro’s stringent standards is that they often study in Urdu rather than English, and rarely pursue engineering degrees. Urdu, which is also the official language of Pakistan, is intertwined with Islamic identity on the subcontinent. In southern India, where most of the country’s technology industry is based, Hindus speak a number of regional languages and are more likely to study English.

“All our hiring staff are trained to interview in English,” Mr. Premji says. “They’re trained to look for Westernized segments because we deal with global customers.” Out of every 100 r?sum?s received, only one or two usually come from Muslim applicants, according to a former manager in Wipro’s human-resources department. [link]

I don’t think Wipro is discriminating against Muslims, but I do think that there are fewer opportunities available to them, which prevents them from obtaining a job in one of India’s top companies.

Besides, I think two inequities are highlighted here. First off, is the obvious Hindu-Muslim imbalance. But then, there’s also the rich-poor divide. Obviously, Premji’s family wealth gave him his education (St. Mary’s school + Electrical Engineering at Stanford) which, in turn, gave him him access to a plethora of opportunities to which other poorer Indians, and Muslim Indians in particular, have no access. And that has also led to his secular outlook on life in India, and his belief that the “whole issue of Hindu-Muslim in India is completely overhyped”. I disagree with that particular statement – the Hindu-Muslim issue needs to be brought up to the surface, and not pushed further down. But I applaud his secular view and his position as India’s richest Muslim is a great place from which to perpetuate it.

Yet, it seems more and more to me that just as literacy was a huge issue for India in the twentieth century, income inequality (between, as well as amongst, Hindus and Muslims) will be the next big problem to resolve for the twenty-first century. Here’s the last paragraph of the article:

Many [Al-Ameen college, a progressive Islamic school] graduates have already gotten jobs at companies like Wipro and Infosys, says the college’s principal, Mr. Javeed, and have started to earn salaries well above those offered outside the booming technology industry. “This has brought awareness to the Muslim community about the need to pursue higher education,” he says. “People are beginning to realize that education is power, that education is money, that education is an opportunity.”

This is what the first paragraph reads:

The State of Maharashtra is the third largest and the most progressive and industrially advanced state in India….Mumbai, country’s leading financial, trading and service centre warrants aviation facilities of highest order. To meet the ever increasing demand of aviation, it is proposed to develop a modern state-of-the-art second international airport for Mumbai at Navi Mumbai.

Well, I say, it’s about damned time. This is great news. Maybe this will mean a smoother walk-through and less harassment from Customs and Immigration (without having to call Officer So-and-So, who’s a friend of my neighbour’s dog-walker’s brother’s wife). It’s also a positive sign that our economic infrastructure is being strengthened. And maybe, just maybe, this time we’ll stop welcoming visitors into the country with the fragrant smell of urine.

Yes, I’m certainly all for it and look forward to flying in to the New Bombay International Airport (I refuse to say “Navi Mumbai”). Who knows? Perhaps by the time it’s finished, the esteemed Balasaheb will have long past reached the ultimate tiger fiefdom above and for once, an airport won’t be called “Chattrapati Shivaji”.

As Beijing?s influence in Asia and around the world has grown, their common interests have forced Tokyo and New Delhi to begin warming their historically chilly relationship and to start forging closer economic ties. ?The key issue facing the whole region is how to accommodate the rise of China,? said Suman Bery, the director general of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, a New Delhi research group. Indian economists estimate that Japanese investment in India will reach $5.5 billion by 2011, compared with just $515 million in the 2006 fiscal year. [link]

…somebody has just shown me a thing called ?Facebook?, which they say is being used by lots of new graduates. I have been told that the economic value of my ?network? is not what it was. What is going on?

The Economist (Tim Harford) replies:

…simple arithmetic ignores an offsetting effect: diminishing marginal returns. The first mobile phones were used to conduct multi-million-dollar deals. One more mobile phone today is one more source of classroom text messages. Many people who sign up to Facebook quickly find they have no use for it. [link]

Hear, hear. Count me in as one of those. I was coaxed into joining by several different people, and did so in the hopes I could network professionally. But except for reconnecting with old school chums in India (and the associated short-term thrills), it served little purpose to me. In fact, there were even some negative externalities since I was forced to deal with certain people who I was quite comfortable keeping ten thousand miles away, both physically and mentally.

(via)

Without a stable population of Caucasian faces to populate imaginary discothèques, ranks of British soldiers, and Hare Krishna converts, casting agents and film crews often find themselves scouring the city for anyone who looks Western. Some people who had never given a thought to being in films have discovered potential acting careers.

So what are you waiting for? Call now, and, if you’re lucky you’ll get to act side-by-side with THE iconic token-white-man in Hindi cinema: Tom Alter!

Read more here at Wired News.

On recent English teams, for instance, half of the elite teenage soccer players were born in January, February or March, with the other half spread out over the remaining 9 months. In Germany, 52 elite youth players were born in the first three months of the year, with just 4 players born in the last three.What might account for this anomaly? Here are a few guesses: a) certain astrological signs confer superior soccer skills; b) winter-born babies tend to have higher oxygen capacity, which increases soccer stamina; c) soccer-mad parents are more likely to conceive children in springtime, at the annual peak of soccer mania; d) none of the above.

Whichever one you think it is, you’re wrong. You’re going to have to read the article to find out. Damn fine read. Useless information, but, then again, what isn’t?

The United States could hardly ask for a more cost-effective way to advance knowledge and ultimately improve our lives. In a world where former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay (an economics Ph.D.!) paid himself millions of dollars before bankrupting his firm, postdocs deserve a round of huzzahs for creating so much of value and charging so little that they themselves are the ones risking bankruptcy. Huzzah! Huzzah!

*Sigh!* Alas, if only I shared his enthusiasm. For you see, as I mentioned earlier, my graduation is imminent and I have no prospective source of income yet. One possibility (and I shudder to accept this) I might consider is to do a post-doc. “But you should be happy!” you say, enthusiastically. I suppose I should. But the thought of being grossly overworked for meagre pay yet again is, to put it mildly, quite distressing.

Still, being of the resident alien variety means that I need sponsorship. And if only I had the consolation of Sigourney Weaver whooping my ass, but us aliens are not even given that luxury. Companies are loathe to provide sponsorship while universities are not. Also, my advisor might have some good contacts in academia which would make it easier for me to get a post-doc position.

And that’s the state of affairs as they are…

Migration lies at the center of global problems today. Rich countries are trying to attract skilled immigrants and keep unskilled ones out; poor countries are trying to keep skilled labor at home. Both sides are doomed to fail. Governments must stop trying to curtail migration and start managing it to seek benefits for all.