Kiran Bedi is indeed wrong, but when media persons sit to judge her it is a bit of a laugh. Clearly, they do not look in the mirror. Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to question all sorts of voluntary agencies and their modus operandi, we have a situation where a person is pinned down for wrongdoing without a backward glance at how the whole NGO business works, often with the media’s involvement. Kiran Bedi has been fudging her bills, where she charged inflated amounts from her hosts. The main source was airline tickets. She would travel by economy class, that too at a discount because of her gallantry award, and charge business class fares. We now have these sanctimonious NGOs tell us that they took it at “face value”. Most NGOs send the tickets themselves. So, why did they let her use her travel agent? And what sort of auditing departments do they run? The reason for keeping quiet is not that they were afraid of Ms. Bedi’s wrath – they obviously did not mind shelling out Business Class fares – but because their finances will lead to many question marks. This is my point. The media and certain activists have taken a convenient yo-yo stand on the Jan Lokpal Bill campaign. They propped him up and were completely besotted by Team Anna. After they were done with the photo-ops of the caps and the fasting and dancing, they realised that there were chinks in the armour. No one was interested in the deeper questions – it came down to superficial put-downs. Let us get this fudging business clear. Kiran Bedi has admitted to it and says she will return the excess money that she wanted to use for her own NGO. Where do the NGOs get this kind of money that they can afford to invite people from different cities for seminars? I have often posed this query when we rubbish other institutions. Do you know that most of the activists themselves travel Business Class, stay at fancy hotels, and order the best food – for what? To gupshup about the state of the nation, the homeless, female foeticide, dowry, terrorism, communalism? Check out the number of people who have left their high-paying corporate and bureaucratic jobs to “serve the nation” or, “become useful members of society” or, “fight communalism”. They could do all of these by continuing to work. The reason is that activism has become a paying proposition. Have you seen the huge ads put up in newspapers inviting you to attend some conclave or the other? Is it affordable or even appropriate to shell out this kind of money on overheads? Besides government grants, there is a good deal of foreign sponsorship and donations from industrial houses. While the international ‘intervention’ often comes with some amount of side-effects (pushing of substandard products and services clubbed with the do-good, feel-good stuff), some of the Indian business black money that is not stashed away in banks abroad is routed to charitable organisation, with income tax exemption. Why does the media not raise a voice about this? Has the media ever questioned journalists who attend these same seminars? Oh yes, the same journalists who give inflated bills to their accounts departments for their travels and hotel stays and “related expenses”. Journalists who sit at the desk and make phone calls but charge taxi fare for the quotes. Journalists who try to get tickets and freebies because they think they are in a position to ‘arrange something’. Journalists who do not have to spend a paisa at restaurants and spas because they just might mention it, in passing, in their next column. Journalists who give us scoops that are fed to them by interested parties or who conduct sting operations that are again paid for by interested parties. Of course, it is not only the media at fault, but also those who host such talks. Corporate India’s ladies who lunch get a big high when they invite a person who can indeed talk and add to their resume. They flash such people as trophies to display their own worth as ‘aware citizens’. That some media people are doing their evening show with this group should be an eye-opener rather than a can-opener. If, as some commentators wish to know, why people from public office enter the fray late in the day to become part of NGOs, then one might wish to ask them why they have timed their queries now and not for all these years. Do they ponder about it when they go on government-sponsored junkets? The problem is that this whole Anna Hazare campaign has been a sham, and revealed more shams both on the inside as well as on the outside. It showed us how the ruling party and the opposition got to pay politics; the arrests also reveal a lot about those who got away without a scratch to their reputations. It is rather disingenuous of Digvijay Singh to say that if Kiran Bedi can offer to return the money, then every bribery case can be closed by saying the bribe-taker will return the money, including, A. Raja.This is some gumption. A minister in the government of India is caught in a scam of frightening proportions and another government person uses this as an analogy. He is also quite gung-ho about such a thing happening at the highest level. The 2G Spectrum scam is not just about bribes, but also about how the nation was taken for a ride with the government, big industrialists and lobbies involved. It is about how the government functions and not merely who took how much. This case has come under scrutiny; many others do not. If political agencies get a chance, they try to co-opt the activist groups. Most are willing to go along because it is the easy option. In some cases where they need the government to act, it does become a crucial mutual involvement. Therefore, if a political party invites activists, and they fudge figures about travel expenses, then what will the political parties do? Why not question the complete lack of balance by media groups? One can understand individual commentators taking a particular position, but why do they blatantly follow the newspaper/TV channel line? Where is their independence? Those who talk about objectivity should really look in their own backyards. There is favouritism everywhere and the media indulges in it as much as politicians, and the ‘activist’ role of the media should also come under scrutiny. Tavleen Singh, Indian Express columnist, while raising some important points, makes a rather shocking comment:“My own observation is that many NGOs working in India appear to be funded by organisations bent on ensuring that India never becomes a developed country… In order for India to become a halfway developed country, we need new roads, airports, ports, modern railways and masses more electricity. In addition, according to experts, we need 500 more cities by 2050. The odd thing is that the NGOs who oppose steel plants, nuclear power stations, dams and aluminum refineries in India never object to the same things in China.”Is this the definition of development, and the only model? As I have already said, many NGOs do have an agenda, but not only if they are funded by organisations that do not wish to see a developed India. By this logic, Gujarat should have no NGOs. And why must Indian NGOs object to what happens in China? Has the Indian government opposed the self-immolation of Tibetan monks and nuns in support of the Dalai Lama’s return? Has the BJP done so? Has the media done so? Forget the NGOs for a while. Think about how these plants were to come up, who was to be uprooted and how it would affect the environment. If this development is only for those setting up factories and making India technologically advanced, then why are we still the hub of western-powered outsourcing? Are the NGOs involved here? Why absolve the fat cats of business only to hit out at the NGOs unless they are specifically playing dirty? How many media people have taken free jet rides, attended fancy wedding functions abroad and written glowing accounts of them? Will they be sanctified as the facilitators of development? Or do they need to get closer to the seats of such power or perhaps such development? These are trick or treat queries. Ask them we must, for there is much beyond Kiran Bedi, whose banshee persona was in fact given a boost by the media when they needed her sound bytes. They were birds of a feather, until she was grounded. The still-feathered ones have taken wing and are giving us a bird’s eye-view. (c) Farzana VerseyAlso published in Countercurrents- - -My earlier related piece on such superficiality: Kiran's Dance, Illiteracy and Symbolism

Facebook is asking third-party Open Graph app developers to voluntarily add a private mode to their apps if necessary. Its developer blog post outlines how Spotify and Yahoo! News are tackling Open Graph privacy issues by giving users other options. Without a private mode, some users who initially opted in to sharing their activity may choose not to use an app to listen to an embarrassing song or read a controversial article rather than have that news published.

By getting developers to implement their own private modes, Facebook won’t have to build more privacy controls on its side that might add too much friction to apps that don’t require it, such as those that only share benign content or rarely share at all. An option to retract previously shared activity will also reduce the backlash from users who feel like Facebook infringed on their privacy even though they authorized what a third-party app could share and with whom.

It seems that Facebook’s “frictionless sharing” may have been too frictionless for some. The new app authentication flow announced at f8 lets users permit apps to publish all their future activity without asking them again. While this relieves users from constantly filling out sharing prompts, it occasionally could reveal somewhat sensitive information or cause a chilling effect where users opt not to engage with an app at all rather than share.

Users could always restrict app content to only be shared with certain friends.  The could also visit their profile’s activity log to delete past activity, but only after it had already been shared and possibly seen by friends in the Ticker. Facebook may now look to move away from the term “frictionless sharing” to reduce criticism around privacy.

Following f8, Spotify grew quickly thanks to listening activity published to the Facebook home page Ticker. It also heard user complaints about not wanting news of their listening to guilty pleasures shared to Facebook. It began rolling out a software update that lets users switch into “Private Listening” from the desktop app’s menu. Until they switched back, no listening activity would be shared.

Yahoo! News has implemented a more powerful privacy system that lets users turn “social” on and off, similar to The Independent’s privacy controls we reviewed earlier this month. Users can view a list of their recently read articles and delete that activity from Facebook right from the Yahoo! website. An option to be reminded of one’s privacy settings can also be enabled.

Facebook is taking a Platform-focused approach to privacy. Rather than overlay a one-size-fits-all privacy widget that wouldn’t adapt to different apps, Facebook is asking developers to build what’s right for their audience. This might mean strong controls for apps dealing with sensitive content, or no additional controls for those with a low risk of offending people through sharing.

Facebook already has its own Open Graph privacy controls. What was needed was controls right on the apps themselves, and this blog post should guide developers in that direction. However, if apps don’t voluntarily implement privacy controls when needed and Open Graph app sharing continues to hurt Facebook’s image, it may have to implement a mandatory privacy control system.

Facebook is granting all developers access to a new application authentication flow today that was announced at f8 last month. Developers can now add a description of their app that will be displayed in a redesigned publishing permissions dialog. Extended permissions have been broken out into a second authentication step that explains why an app needs certain data, and lets users revoke specific permissions. Data about publishing permissions dialog impressions and accepts, sources of users, and extended permissions conversion rates are now included in Facebook’s app Insights analytics tool.

The changes will make it clearer to users what permissions they are granting applications, and give them more control of their privacy. The two-step authentication process could increase app install friction in a way that could hurt app growth. However, in the long-run, the revised authentication flow could increase user confidence in the Platform such that users become more comfortable experimenting with new apps.

Facebook has also changed the way it measures active user counts to only publicly report authenticated users, rather than all users. We’ve written a separate article discussing how this will cause a one-time dip in active user counts that does not actually mean apps have lost users, and explaining how this impacts our AppData tracking service.

Redesigned Permissions Dialog
Previously, users only had to accept one extended permissions dialog to give an application publishing privileges and access to their data. The permissions dialog didn’t explain what that data would be used for, or what the app would publish to a user’s profile. This meant users would sometimes grant privileges they didn’t understand and would get angry when they saw the app had published on their behalf.

The redesigned authentication flow aims to solve this problem. First, users see a dialog asking for permission to install the app and allow it to publish Open Graph activity. It shows users:

The name  and logo of the app
A tag line about the app
A privacy selector for choosing who it can share with
A list of the data types it requires
An “About this app” description of its purpose
Open Graph aggregations previews that show what it can add to a user’s profile Timeline
A link to the Facebook terms of service and privacy policy
A tiny link to report the app as spam
Friends who’ve installed the app
A “Log In and Add t0 Facebook” accept button

Developers can configure what appears in the dialog and the default privacy setting by entering the Developers app and selecting Settings -> Auth Dialog. Once they’ve properly configured the dialog, they can implement it by enabling “Enhanced Auth Dialog” in the Migrations section of the Developers app’s “Advanced Settings”. Facebook says all apps will be migrated to the redesigned dialog by the end of 2011, though it hasn’t released exact migration dates.

Open Graph app developers reorder the aggregation previews. These previews of what an app will publish represent a significant step forward in increasing transparency in the app install process. Facebook could further improve transparency by including a sample Ticker or news feed story from the app in the previews.

Separate Extended Permissions Dialog and Authenticated Referrals
Apps requiring additional, optional privileges such as the ability to publish check-ins or post to a user’s wall will display a second extended permissions dialog after users complete the initial install dialog. This step includes clear descriptions of what each permission means and the option to deny the app these non-essential privileges. Below, the dialog is an explanation provided by the developer for why it requires these permissions.

Before the redesign, users had to grant apps all the extended permissions and then dig into their app privacy settings to revoke certain permissions. This can now be handled as users install an app. Developers should reference the tutorial Facebook posted this week to ensure their apps run properly if some permissions are revoked.

This granular control may improve app install rates from users who are sensitive about a certain type of privacy, such those who don’t want to provide contact information or have content published to the stream on their behalf.

Authenticated Referrals is another option available in the Auth Dialog settings that when enabled causes users clicking a link to an app to see the authentication flow in-line being being brought to the app. This is useful for apps that require user data or permissions to function. It allows them to remove the awkward pre-permissions landing page and provide a personalized experience when users first arrive.

Authentication Data in App Insights
App Insights now displays impressions and accepts, sources of users, and the what privacy setting users are selecting for the authentication dialog and authenticated referrals. The authentication conversion rate will help developers determine if they are asking for too many or unnecessary permissions, or that they need to reword their their explanation for asking for permissions.

Extended permissions are each listed separately in Insights, and display their impressions, click through rate, and how many times they’ve been accepted. Developers can then identify extended permissions with low conversion rates that they may want to stop asking for.

The way applications use or abuse the permissions process has been a problem for Facebook in the past. Without enough transparency, some users would end up regretting that they installed an app that published or content or used their data in ways they didn’t want. They might then blame the Facebook Platform rather than the developer, leading them to avoid using applications in the future.

This increase in transparency and enhanced granular app privacy controls should give users a much clearer sense of what and with who they’re sharing. With time, Facebook may be able to remove the privacy stigma around apps and create a Platform more users want to engage with and more developers want to work on.

Even with the group of vocal critics, when the audience voted on priorities for the Bay Area, the top five were: daily needs close to home, clean air, convenient access to jobs, water conservation and lower carbon emissions. “Large homes with big yards” was near the bottom.



Sign of the times? As an old Indian proverb says, a little knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge. I refer, of course, to the title of this post.

"Apple should not charge to put applications you’ve written onto your personal iPad (or iPhone, for that matter). If you purchase one of these devices, you should be able to install software of your own creation on it without any intervention or approval on Apple’s part, other than creating a free developer account. Essentially, take today’s iPhone/iPad developer program, and make it free."

A veteran of many battles against the authority, Shourie, discusses philosophy, politics and policies in a freewheeling conversation with Mahesh Sarma, editor, Careers360.

Because of his state's longstanding reputation as a basket case, Kumar, perhaps more than any other, has shown that even India's darkest corners can make progress against crime, corruption, and caste- and creed-based demagoguery. In recent days, Kumar faced a rebellion from within his own party that may illustrate one of the costs of dismantling the patronage system. But if he can hold onto power in the state elections this fall, and perhaps even if he can't, the trendsetter state will confirm that India's democracy and its voters have reached a new stage of evolution.

How do we design and build to accommodate changing economics, family sizes, and employee and student populations? How can we merge online technologies with physical architecture to more directly serve our real-time needs? Data-visualization capabilities can’t solve all the problems, but it’s hard to overestimate the extent to which this information can help us to think about larger systems and their interrelationships, so that we see a building as not just a building but an ecological infrastructure.

Haiti needs business, not business as usual. Haitians can emerge out of the physical debris, as they have done after many hurricanes. But who will clear the socio-political barriers in their path?

Did no one ever consider that in places where computers need to be cranked to powered there might be more pressing issues than getting on the internet and using Twitter? Such as; Electricity? Medicine? Clean water?

At least software dev. clients don't think they can do it themselves and not pay you in the end.

Dubai was meant to be a Middle-Eastern Shangri-La, a glittering monument to Arab enterprise and western capitalism. But as hard times arrive in the city state that rose from the desert sands, an uglier story is emerging

"What struck us most during this field trip is that most Indian innovators — both large and small — are now single-mindedly targeting the rural market, which accounts for 70% of India's population."

There's a reason that India's $10 Sakshat computer is just $10. It does almost nothing. What we thought would be a humming notebook equipped with Wi-Fi and 2GB RAM turns out to be little more than a box with sockets -- no keyboard, no monitor.

CHINA and India are in a struggle for a top rung on the ladder of world power, but their approaches to the state and to power could not be more different.

The Question Box is a project from UC Berkeley's Rose Shuman to bring some of the benefits of the information on the Internet to places that are too remote or poor to sustain a live Internet link.

Neuroscientists said many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development. That effect is on top of any damage caused by inadequate nutrition and exposu

Development of life never fails to amaze me.

Quite an interesting discussion in the comments.

They [Fryer & Levitt] found that while black children lagged their white counterparts at three, there was little difference in mental function at age one.