Bernie's January Haul Is Mighty Impressive

The Democrats Face a Revolution

In Sarandon’s telling, the unkempt socialist senator from Vermont is the Barack Obama of 2016. To many Sanders supporters, Obama’s successes—from the Iowa caucuses to tough two national elections—render moot the argument Clinton is once again making that she’s the only one who can win. ...... Sanders is sharply ideological, beloved mostly by white liberals, and represents the party’s 1960s protest-movement past more than its techno-utopian future. .....

a field of Republican candidates that is “so weak and so weird,” he said, many Democrats believe the presidency is theirs no matter who they nominate—so why not go with their hearts?

....... It’s one thing to draw thousands of kids to a Vampire Weekend concert on a college campus, as Bernie would do a few days hence. It’s another to bring them out here. ...... The 2016 campaign’s twin unexpected phenomena—the parallel rise of Sanders and Donald Trump, who currently command an eerily similar 37 and 36 percent of their parties’ national vote in poll averages—have taken by surprise the pundits and wise men and party establishments who fundamentally underestimated partisans’ desperate desire for extremes. ......

If Sanders pulls out a win on Monday, he will have proven yet again that what seemed far-out was actually the party mainstream.

....... “I’m also a socialist,” John Dallas, a goateed Mason City housepainter, told me matter-of-factly. “I mean, how’s that capitalism working out in the United States? It’s fine for the top one-tenth of one percent, but the other 90 percent of us aren’t doing so well.” ....... And so Sanders has exposed the left-wing ideals in the hearts of a substantial portion of Democrats, just as surely as Trump has illustrated liberals’ stereotypes about Republican nativism and xenophobia. A Democratic Party that strained for decades to position itself as moderate, and to ostracize its radical voices, has instead seen its long-suppressed liberal energy burst to the fore. ....... How severe are the Democrats’ divisions? The factions seem nowhere near as tribal and mutually incomprehensible as the Republican crackup;

most Sanders supporters I met said they respected Clinton, even if they didn’t trust her, and Clinton supporters said they get where the Sanders people are coming from

......... It’s still a mystery why, exactly, Clinton lost control of this race. As of mid-December, she seemed to be sitting pretty, winning the debates, leading in Iowa, and catching up to Sanders in New Hampshire. But sometime around the new year that changed, and Sanders surged. ........

the professionals behind Team Clinton reacted to this surprise development with all the grace and equanimity of a mule that’s just been bitten by a deerfly and is thrashing wildly around.

Clinton attacked Sanders with wild implausibility, insisting he was both too left-wing to win and not liberal enough on certain issues, primarily gun control. When Sanders lashed rather mildly back, her campaign flew off the handle, accusing him in dire terms of a viciousness ill-befitting his gentle reputation......... Most D.C. Democrats still do not believe Clinton to be in much real peril. .......

Sanders, however, hopes an Iowa-New Hampshire one-two punch will set off a chain reaction, dominos falling unstoppably as Clinton relives her miserable experience of 2008.

..... This is Clinton’s challenge: to argue for an extension of the status quo at a time when few people are satisfied with the way things are. .......

Clinton’s stay-the-course appeal felt like a postcard from another era when sensible centrism was still the rule in politics.

........ Clinton, in her speech, cast herself as the candidate of dogged incrementalism and detailed, specific proposals. ...... She spoke briskly and cogently, in well-practiced paragraphs ...... She cast Sanders’s grand plans for things like single-payer health care as destabilizing. She hugged a woman who’d lost her home. ...... Clinton said, as cameras clicked away, capturing the rare moment of intimacy. ......

we live in a time of revolution, unsettled and restive.

President Bill Clinton's closing argument for Hillary: “She’s the best changemaker I’ve ever met." Watch the new video ⬇️

Posted by Hillary Clinton on Saturday, January 30, 2016

Donald Trump Said Something Nice About Indians

A few days back Donald Trump said something nice about Indians. That was the first time. Otherwise he has not said anything nice about anybody, not Mexicans, not Muslims, not the Chinese, not white women. But he is trying to play nice with Indians. That’s a breath of fresh air.

What The Donald does not seem to understand is there are more Muslims in India than anywhere else in the world. Muslims came to India because there was too much sand where they were, and this was before oil, and so they came for the green. They came, they saw, they conquered. There are more Muslims on the Indian sub-continent than anywhere else in the world. India is the number one Muslim hub in the world. Muslims rule Bollywood, for example. India has had two Muslim presidents so far compared to only one black president in America. Don’t even get me started on Akbar. Akbar Birbal stories are still sold on the footpaths of India at dirt cheap prices. Akbar’s propaganda machine is still running full throttle. Compare that to the Soviet propaganda machine. Long gone. Gone with the wind.

Conversely, there are more people from India than from anywhere else in the world in the now Arab countries. Talk about people to people contact.

So, Donald, you can’t do right by Indians, and talk shit about Muslims. Can not do. Eepikaiye!

For Putin Assad Is Himself
What Donald Trump Thinks About India

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump thinks India is doing well, but that the country isn’t getting the attention it deserves....... “India is doing great. Nobody talks about it,” Mr. Trump told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Monday...... Mr. Trump’s brief praise for the fast-growing South Asian economy was a reaction to comments he made in a 2007 interview with Mr. Blitzer, in which he expressed concern about the U.S. economy being overtaken by India and China. ...... “We’ve gone from a tremendous power that is respected all over the world to somewhat of a laughing stock and all of a sudden, people are talking about China and India and other places,” Mr. Trump said at the time. ........ On Monday, he asserted: “That was the beginning of China. That was the beginning of India.” ..... His praise for India followed in the same breath. “By the way, India is doing great. Nobody talks about it. I have big jobs going up in India. But India is doing great,” he said....... India’s $2-trillion gross domestic product is a fraction of China’s, at $10 trillion, and that of the U.S. at $17 trillion, according to the World Bank. GDP per capita in the U.S. is around $55,000, while in India it is about $1,500 and in China it is $7,400...... Harvard University economists have projected that India’s economy will grow at an average of 7% through 2024, the fastest of any major economy. ...... A recent World Economic Forum survey found that 17% of India’s population was undernourished. The prevalence of undernourishment in China was about 11%. ....... The 69-year-old billionaire has been trying for years to capitalize on his brand in India, teaming up with local property developers. In 2014, he announced the launch of Trump Tower Mumbai, an 800-foot skyscraper with 75 stories tobe erected in city’s upscale neighborhood of Worli by Indian developer Lodha Group. ...... “It has been my desire for many years to be involved in a great project in Mumbai, and it is my honor to bring the Trump lifestyles to the citizens of this truly global metropolis,” he said in a statement at the time. ...... Priced from $1.6 million, the three- and four-bedroom apartments in this property advertise indoor Jacuzzis, Poggenpohl kitchen cabinets and automatic toilets. ...... Before that, in August 2012, developer Panchshil Realty announced another luxury residential property with the Trump name, in Pune, a city about 90 miles from Mumbai. The Trump Towers Pune feature two towers with 23 stories each. Initially expected to be completed by the end of 2015, the project is still under construction. ..... According to the findings of a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, a third of people who said they would vote in a Republican primary said they favored Mr. Trump to be the GOP nominee, followed by Texas senator Ted Cruz at 20% support and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 13%.

Saudi Arabia: SuperPower?

इस धरती पर तो कुछ नहीं

या अल्लाह, ए भगवान
इस धरती पर तो कुछ नहीं
रणभुमि में मरुभुमि में
सब जगह तु ही तु
कर्म के पथ पर
मैं समा जाऊँ
मैं समाहित हो जाऊँ
ये काम जो करना है
तेरे को समर्पित
मैं उस धरती पे
जिस धरती पर तो कुछ नहीं
दे ताकत
रणभुमि पर मैं कुद परुँ
बिगुल की आवाज
सुनाइ दे रही मुझे
तेरी प्रार्थना करते वक्त
मैं रोया था

US News (5)

Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Nomination

Mrs. Clinton’s main opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist, has proved to be more formidable than most people, including Mrs. Clinton, anticipated. He has brought income inequality and the lingering pain of the middle class to center stage and pushed Mrs. Clinton a bit more to the left than she might have gone on economic issues. Mr. Sanders has also surfaced important foreign policy questions, including the need for greater restraint in the use of military force. ....... His boldest proposals — to break up the banks and to start all over on health care reform with a Medicare-for-all system — have earned him support among alienated middle-class voters and young people. But his plans for achieving them aren’t realistic ....... Her economic proposals for financial reform reflect a deep understanding of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform act, including the ways in which it has fallen short. She supports changes that the country badly needs, like controls on high-frequency trading and stronger curbs on bank speculation in derivatives. ........ Her lifelong fight for women bolsters her credibility in this area, since so many of the problems with labor law hit women the hardest, including those involving child care, paid sick leave, unstable schedules and low wages for tipped workers. ...... Mrs. Clinton is keenly aware of the wage gap for women, especially for women of color. It’s not just that she’s done her homework — Mrs. Clinton has done her homework on pretty much any subject you’d care to name. ....... She was the secretary President Obama needed and wanted: someone who knew leaders around the world, who brought star power as well as expertise to the table. .......

Certainly, the Israeli-Palestinian crisis deepened during her tenure, but she did not cause that.

...... Mrs. Clinton has honed a steeliness that will serve her well in negotiating with a difficult Congress on critically important issues like climate change. It will also help her weather what are certain to be more attacks from Republicans and, should she win the White House, the possibility of the same ideological opposition and personal animus that President Obama has endured. Some of the campaign attacks are outrageous, like Donald Trump’s efforts to bring up Bill Clinton’s marital infidelity. Some, like those about Mrs. Clinton's use of a private email server, are legitimate and deserve forthright answers. ....... Hillary Clinton is the right choice for the Democrats to present a vision for America that is radically different from the one that leading Republican candidates offer — a vision in which middle-class Americans have a real shot at prosperity, women’s rights are enhanced, undocumented immigrants are given a chance at legitimacy, international alliances are nurtured and the country is kept safe.

What Happens If Bernie Sanders Wins Iowa

If you’re dreaming of Bernie Sanders beating Hillary Clinton, you know how the movie begins (he wins Iowa on Monday1), how it ends (he accepts the nomination to a Simon & Garfunkel tune), and one of the major plot lines (black, Hispanic and moderate Democrats, who for now prefer Clinton to Sanders, begin to #feelthebern). ........ Sanders is highly competitive in the first two states, Iowa (where he’s only narrowly behind Clinton) and New Hampshire (where he leads her). However, those states are favorable for Sanders demographically, with Democratic turnout dominated by Sanders’s base of white liberal voters. ......

The first challenge for Sanders is that he appears to be trailing in Iowa. Our “polls-only” forecast gives Clinton a 68 percent chance of winning the state, compared with 32 percent for Sanders, on the basis of her being about 4 percentage points ahead in our weighted polling average.

Our “polls-plus” forecast, which assigns some additional credit to Clinton because of her massive lead in endorsements, has Clinton as a 76 percent favorite........ suppose Sanders does win Iowa. The next step is relatively easy: He’ll probably also win New Hampshire ......

No candidate (Democrat or Republican) has lost the nomination after winning both Iowa and New Hampshire since Ed Muskie in 1972.

...... Sanders’s success in Iowa and New Hampshire might be a reflection of their Sanders-friendly demographics rather than a harbinger of Clinton’s doom. That seems to match the polling we’re seeing in other states, where (for instance) Sanders is doing relatively well in Wisconsin, which also has plenty of white liberals, but struggling in North Carolina, which has fewer. ...... even if Sanders gained a lot of momentum after the early states, he could have trouble closing the sale with voters who think he’s a little too far to the left. ......

The other factor is that Clinton has the Democratic machine more or less fully behind her.

....... In 1992 .. Clinton was billed as the “comeback kid” despite losing each of the first four states ........ But Sanders would have an avalanche of momentum going for him after wins in Iowa and New Hampshire. ...... One factor helping Sanders: Voters who had been attracted to his message before, but who weren’t sure he could win, would mostly have their doubts removed after he beat Clinton twice. .....

It’s also possible that Democratic party elites would panic.

....... One state that doesn’t look good for Sanders is South Carolina, where Clinton is ahead by 31 points and where the Democratic electorate is majority black and relatively conservative. If Sanders wins there, or comes within a few points of doing so, that will be an unambiguous sign that Clinton is in deep trouble. ......

What if Sanders loses Iowa? ...It’s probably over.

.... If Sanders can’t win Iowa, he probably won’t be winning other relatively favorable states like Wisconsin, much less more challenging ones like Ohio and Florida.

Why don’t boomer women like Hillary Clinton?
https://t.co/AoSULb2O8w via @nytopinion pic.twitter.com/2NmLb65sho

— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 29, 2016

"Like Trying To Interview A Ball Of Mercury"

When I arrived to do interviews, children would be sent to fetch an older man, someone with the authority to speak to me. Someone would drag over a chair, an honor reserved for dignitaries or bureaucrats. And those I wanted to speak with, the women, would slide down onto the ground, which was the only place they could sit when older men were present, or disappear into the dark interior spaces where they did their chores.

It was like trying to interview a ball of mercury.

........ Last summer, the increase in female employment in the village had erupted into a raw power struggle, with the conservative male caste leaders demanding that the women resign from their jobs. ...... We spent so much time in the village that the people there began to regard us with sincere pity........ Then they began to ignore us. This is when the work began to bear fruit. We became professional eavesdroppers. Four months into our reporting, we were in the village for a series of tense, clamorous late-night meetings, in which the elders grudgingly decreed that the women could return to work........... That night, the headman, Roshan, pushed us out of the village with his hands pressed against our backs; later he admitted that he had done so because he did not want us to witness violence. We returned to New Delhi and almost immediately learned that a large group of villagers had assaulted Geeta and her friends, also leaving her husband badly injured. We returned to find our subjects utterly changed — unhurt for the most part, but

humiliated and shrunken

. One teenage girl never forgave us for failing to protect her.

Fox News Will Not Survive The Donald Onslaught

I don't expect Fox News to survive The Donald Onslaught. It is pretty brutal.

How To Turn Patna Into A Smart City For Free

Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, was in India last year wanting to help spread internet access through the TV spectrum. You broadcast the internet like you broadcast TV waves. Nitish could talk to Satya and offer Patna as an experimental space for the initiative. If the entire city of Patna can be blanketed with internet broadcast over the TV spectrum, paid for by Microsoft, Patna will end up the smartest city in India. Nitish already has a great personal relationship with Bill Gates. Time to cash on it, maybe?

Nitish laments absence of Bihar on smart cities’ list



Bihar CM Nitish Kumar attacks Centre for 'ignoring' Bihar in Smart City list

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today hit out at the Centre for not selecting any city from Bihar in the the list of 20 smart cities and said the BJP-led Union government has no consideration to maintain regional balance. ...... "There is no rule or law before them...something other is going in the country these days," he said........ "There is no 'maryada' (decency), 'niyam' (rules), neither they have any consideration to maintain regional balance," Kumar, who is senior leader of JD(U) said. ....... "This is example of 'andher nagri' (misrule)," the Bihar CM said.

Microsoft wants to bring cheap broadband to 500,000 Indian villages

Last November, the company began experimenting with the unused spectrum between TV channels, known as ‘white space‘, to provide internet services to a school in the Srikakulam district in the state of Andhra Pradesh. ...... It’s now extended its pilot testing to the city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. Nadella said Microsoft plans to work with the central and state governments to bring connectivity using this technology to 500,000 villages across the country. ...... That could be huge for India, where roughly 70 percent of the population inhabits nearly 640,000 villages. ...... Between Nadella’s announcement and Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s plan to bring public Wi-Fi to 400 train stations in India, it looks like Narendra Modi’s visit to Silicon Valley is proving to be rather fruitful for the millions of citizens who are yet to log on to the Web for the first time.

Report: Google testing 5G drones that deliver internet 40 times faster than 4G

Google is testing solar-powered drones at Spaceport America, a New Mexico facility that formerly played host to Virgin Galactic. ....... The project, codenamed SkyBender, aims to test several prototype transcievers and drones using millimeter wave radio transmissions. ...... Millimeter transmissions occupy the 28GHz frequency and although the range is shorter than that of current 4G technologies, the speeds are incredible. ..... Theoretically milimeter wave technology can transfer multiple gigabits of data per second, up to 40 times more than current 4G LTE systems.

Microsoft plans to provide free Internet across India using ‘white space’ TV spectrum

Microsoft has announced its plans to bring Internet connectivity across the country completely free of cost. ...... Microsoft has proposed to make use of

the “white space” or the unused spectrum between two TV channels

, to make Internet connectivity to a vast population an economically-viable solution. .......

Unlike Wi-Fi, which has a range of only about 100 metres, the 200-300 MHz spectrum in the white space can reach up to 10 km. This spectrum currently belongs to the government-owned Doordarshan TV channel and is not used at all.

....... The initiative seems to have come right in time when PM Narendra Modi has announced his Digital India project. The project that would cost $1.2 billion aims to connect 250,000 gram panchayats in order to make Internet connectivity accessible to every part of the country. The project has garnered the interest of several tech giants, including Facebook and Microsoft, who have shown their willingness to offer support to make it a reality.

White spaces (radio)

National and international bodies assign different frequencies for specific uses, and in most cases license the rights to broadcast over these frequencies. This frequency allocation process creates a bandplan, which for technical reasons assigns white space between used radio bands or channels to avoid interference. In this case, while the frequencies are unused, they have been specifically assigned for a purpose, such as a guard band. Most commonly however, these white spaces exist naturally between used channels, since assigning nearby transmissions to immediately adjacent channels will cause destructive interference to both. In addition to white space assigned for technical reasons, there is also unused radio spectrum which has either never been used, or is becoming free as a result of technical changes. In particular, the switchover to digital television frees up large areas between about 50 MHz and 700 MHz. This is because digital transmissions can be packed into adjacent channels, while analog ones cannot. This means that the band can be "compressed" into fewer channels, while still allowing for more transmissions. ...... In the United States, the abandoned television frequencies are primarily in the upper UHF "700-megahertz" band, covering TV channels 52 to 69 (698 to 806 MHz). U.S. television and its white spaces will continue to exist in UHF frequencies, as well as VHF frequencies for which mobile users and white-space devices require larger antennas. In the rest of the world, the abandoned television channels are VHF, and the resulting large VHF white spaces are being reallocated for the worldwide (except the U.S.) digital radio standard DAB and DAB+, and DMB.

White Space, the next internet disruption: 10 things to know
White Space has started spreading internet access to unconnected areas. Here's what you need to know about this confusing, widely-hyped, emerging technology.

In even the most developed countries, there are huge gaps in internet access. Fixed broadband access is unaffordable for 3.9 billion people around the world. In the U.S., about 72 percent of people have home broadband internet access, but 60 million people are still living without it. ....... White Space stands to transform the way we purchase and use wireless internet. It isn't yet widely adopted, but this unlicensed, free form of broadband is gaining traction. ........... Typical home Wi-Fi can travel through two walls.

White Space broadband can travel up to 10 kilometers, through vegetation, buildings, and other obstacles.

Tablets, phones, and computers can all access this wireless internet using White Space through fixed or portable power stations. The actual amounts of spectrum vary by region, but White Space spectrum ranges from 470 MHz to 790 Mhz........ In 2011, Wilmington, North Carolina implemented White Space technology to connect the city's infrastructure, allowing public officials to remotely turn lights on and off in parks, provide public wireless broadband to certain areas of the city, and monitor water levels. At West Virginia University, White Space technology is used to power a "super Wi-Fi network". It started in 2013 with wireless internet on the campus public transit platform, which transports about 15,000 students a day. WVU is the first campus to utilize White Space broadband internet. ....... "The Gigabit Libraries program is using TVWS devices to deliver Internet service to local libraries and a number of operators in rural areas are using these devices to provide service to homes and businesses in rural areas" .........

Google and Microsoft are already chasing the emerging White Space market in Africa, where only 16 percent of the population is online. Because the waves can travel up to 10 kilometers in radius, it is great for remote, off-the-grid villages.

...... Microsoft's 4Afrika initiative is focusing on White Space technology throughout the continent, hoping to bring millions of people online, and has projects in place in Tanzania and South Africa. ...... Rural areas, both in the U.S. and abroad, are often inhibited from wireless access because they are inaccessible and off the local power grid. Cell towers are difficult to install and can't connect, either. Fortunately, White Space power stations can be charged with solar panels, and the excess electricity generated can also power other institutions in the area such as schools....... With a cell tower or other device, the White Space technology can travel 10 kilometers and service many more customers at one time. ....... Microsoft has implemented White Space projects throughout Asia, including a recent deployment in Singapore through partnerships with Singapore government research agencies and a UK wireless service provider in areas where vegetation makes wireless access difficult. In conjunction with its projects in Europe, Microsoft is also creating a database for White Space in the U.S., much like Google's. ........

Internet service providers were ranked the lowest customer service satisfaction of any industry in America, according to American Customer Satisfaction Index's most recent survey. The two largest providers, Comcast and Time Warner, were ranked the lowest out of all internet service providers.

...... So far, the FCC has allowed very few internet service providers to license the White Space spectrum. Hopefully, they will continue to be cautious about who they allow to purchase the spectrum so that it can be a disruptive force in connecting more people to the internet.

How new 'white space' rules could lead to an urban super-Wi-Fi

White space, or buffer channels, refers to the unused channels between the VHF and UHF spectrum. In the pre-cable era, when over-the-air broadcasts ruled the day, these buffers were used to prevent broadcasters from interfering with one another. We all know how prevalent over-the-air broadcasting is now; today this spectrum is largely unused. ...... a super Wi-Fi network knitted together with next-generation TV or smart remotes. ...... wireless data could be transmitted over UHF channels during active TV broadcasts without interference. ......

The UHF spectrum, which ranges from 400 to 700 MHz, is superior to the higher-frequency signals used for existing Wi-Fi hotspots

...... as these signals carry for miles and are not blocked by walls or trees.

TV white space will connect the internet of things

White spaces in the radio spectrum can now be used for anything from wireless flood defences to city-wide Wi-Fi. Services using the technology could appear before the end of the year with surplus spectrum filling in gaps where Wi-Fi and Bluetooth fail. ........ The spare spectrum comes from bands currently shared by digital TV and wireless microphones. ..... Broadly the technology will allow internet of things devices to communicate with one another and the internet. White space spectrum could also improve broadband coverage in rural areas and boost Wi-Fi signals in crowded cities. ...... King's College London is currently researching how white space spectrum could be used to improve broadband coverage by linking white space connections between buildings. The technology could also be used to add extra capacity to crowded networks.

@NitishKumar How To Turn Patna Into A Smart City For Free https://t.co/dTag4WGzpY @RJDforIndia @JDUCENTRAL

— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) January 30, 2016

@satyanadella How To Turn Patna Into A Smart City For Free https://t.co/dTag4WGzpY @BillGates @Microsoft @sundarpichai @google

— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) January 30, 2016