China

First the sweet part of my blog. So before I jump into the serious news about South East Asia, the hot topic of discussion in Bollywood was Oprah’s Show with Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchen as the guests. Both are claimed to be the hottest Bollywood couple, though some disagree and say that they are getting too much international fame while there are more deserving people on the block.  Irrespective of all the criticism, the show was excellent and Ash and Abhi looked gorgeous together.

Since this aims to be a technology blog, I thought I would pass along this story in the Wall Street Journal about how Chinese and Russian hackers have accessed the United States power grid.

Hacking facinates me (if you haven't already noticed), so much so that I'm writing a research paper on the topic.

This is an important story to follow, because there are many national security concerns here, but also because combating and repairing attacks is costly.

A couple of days before the Senate passed President Obama's $3.5 trillion budget, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show asked guest, Peter Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, "So, who will finance this deficit?".
 
The deficit in question is $15 trillion in about a decade from now, a figure projected by Orszag's office.
 
Again, who will finance this deficit?
 
"Who would you call?" asked Stewart.
 
"Foreign creditors," replied Orszag.
 

 
A couple of days back, Tata Motors, the largest automobile company in India, announced the launch of Nano, the cheapest car in the world, with the basic version available for approximately $2500!
 
The basic model, however, costs what it does because it truly is a basic model, no air-conditioning, power steering or power windows. You can, however, get all this if you pay a little more for the higher versions.
 

According to a news report in New York Times, China recently rejected a $2.5 billion bid made by Coca Cola to buy a Chinese juice maker. This is clearly a case of China preventing foreign entry into a non-strategic industry. The question is why? Especially when Chinese government-owned companies are venturing into sensitive industries abroad.