Hey, Melissa here. 

Perhaps I'm jumping the gun for my Indian readers, since India doesn't get to see Slumdog Millionaire for another week and a half (it's out Jan. 23, fyi), but in light of the glitzy award show this weekend, thought I would ask people a couple questions about the movie.

I watched Danny Boyle's flick over Christmas with my family in the US.  The theater was packed and it was likely few people had ever set foot in India.  This could be a gross assumption, but it was also likely, that--aside from Monsoon Wedding, Gandhi, and Darjeeling Limited--this was one of the first movies that really took them to India.  Still, it's not that surprising that people are so drawn to the film.  It's a great film--not total classic, I'll watch every chance I get to digest the great, subtle layers--but fun, romantic action with a hero you'll cheer for, not just because his huge ears stick out in a compellingly cute fashion.

However, there are plenty of people grumbling in India already about the fact that this movie propogates major cliches about India. I say it's Dickensian that way: there's just no way one boy can suffer all the major travesties possible in Indian life.  Sure, one child may have suffered from the Mumbai riots in 1992.  Another may have gotten involved with major gangsters.  Another may have encountered X, or Y, or Z.  But X and Y and Z?  Not likely.

Does that mean the movie isn't a good depicition of India?  Does that mean it's another Westerner imposing a straight jacket on Indian life?

I don't think so.  I think it's a great way to get people talking about India, and intrigued by India. In fact, I cried at the end.  Not because of the content of the movie, but because the Victoria Terminus plays a huge role in the movie and just months after the movie released, the beautiful train station saw a horrific terrorist attack.  The movie pays homage to the place prior to the violence, and for that, I was glad my family got to see the place. 

Have you seen the movie?  What do you think about it?  If you're Indian, do you want to see it?  And do the cliches bother you?

Hi, this is Melissa Bell.  I'm an American working at Mint and I had the pleasure of pestering LiveJournal during the American election, so I'm back to annoy you all in the global forum.

After two years of living in India, my parents (Californians by birth who have gotten frighteningly comfortable in their home state) are finally making the long trek to visit me in my new home. It hasn’t been without some cajoling on my part. And just when they announced their plans, a week later, Mumbai fell victim to a heinous terrorist attack. My parents then read weeks of front-page US coverage and watched images of the burning Taj hotel and seriously worried about their trip out here.  

When I started planning their trip, I thought it would be great to go skiing in Kashmir.  The resort has perfect snowfall, few fellow skiers and the Himalayas as the backdrop. It sounds pretty perfect. I also thought we should stop in Mumbai.  I love the old decrepit charm of the Portuguese buildings falling down in Colaba, the masses of blue and white homes in the fishing village on the tip of the city, the majesty of the great mass of colonial charm in Victoria’s Terminus.

The parents were not so keen on the plan: “We’d like to go somewhere that hasn’t seen violence recently.”

Sadly, in India, those places are few and far between. Bombs exploded in the park I eat my lunch in last September. The insanely overly-saturated tourist trap of Jaipur had its own bomb blasts in May.  My friend’s ancestrol home state of Assam just was hit last week.

We seem to move on from the attacks pretty quickly in India.  The Mumbai blasts saw an eruption of anger for the first month, but the hotels are back open and people are moving on.  But for foreigners, has the sheen of New India been permanently darkened? The New York Times recommends India as one of the top 43 places to visit in 2009.  But how many people will come?  Would you come?

Will the Satyam episode lead to tighter regulation and greater compliance costs, as happened in the US after Enron and WorldCom?

The rapid fall from grace of Satyam Computer Services - one of India's foremost IT outsourcing companies has raised some important concerns around Corporate Governance. Satyam, which was the winner of the Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Governance for 2008, first grabbed headlines when it tried to acquire large chunks of Maytas Infrastructure and Maytas Properties, owned by founder Ramalinga Raju's sons. The move was withdrawn after huge investor backlash, causing shares to fall by 55% on the New York stock exchange, and raising issues on transparency and disclosure.  What made matters worse was the fact that the meeting in which the contentious decision to acquire shares of Maytas was chaired by the independent directors of Satyam.

The role of an independent director, is to protect the shareholder from the "family" of the company doing as they please. In Satyam's case these directors were all big name academics and industrialists. 

The indian rules say that "not being related to a promoter or having a direct economic benefit from a company, makes a director independent". It however ignores the fact that CEOs, and Academics could become board members purely for the prestige that accompanies the association and can in fact be empathetic to top management. (Read this entry on the blog Initial Private Opinion that discusses some of the fringe benefits accorded to the Satyam Independent Directors)

What is the role of an independent director on a corporate board?

The international community is stepping up attempts to boot Robert Mugabe from office.

In Britain, the government and the Church of England have gone further than ever before in the strength of their language against Africa's great survivor.  The question is, how far would you go to remove Mugabe?  Are words and modest sanctions enough, or is there time for a new tack?  Might having an American President with roots in East Africa make a difference?

Or, indeed, is it anything to do with us?