Salary Raises in 2011 - Is History Starting to Repeat?

The other day as I drove home listening to public radio one particular story made my ears perk up. The radio newsreporter was talking about the average salary raises that an American employee and CEO received and the disparity thereof. I somehow couldn't find that article again to cite here but I managed to find a whole lot of other news sources that present more or less the same statistics for this year.

According to CBS News: "The CEOs of most S&P 500 companies raked in an average compensation of $11.4 million in 2010, amounting to a 23 percent pay raise over 2009, according to a new study from labor union coalition the AFL-CIO." That means despite the flagging economy that has resulted in a record unemployment rate of 10 percent CEOs continue to enjoy their benefits and have not compromised on their pay raises and bonuses.

The other end of spectrum, struggling employees of these corporations. Those who have unprotestingly taken the brunt of the economy and have been working hard at their jobs, taken on additional responsibilities, and put in extra hours just to keep their jobs, received pathetic raises, if at all. Another news article on the same subject published in the USA Today mentions that an average American employee received a salary raise of just 2.1%. The article goes on to mention that corporations did not really make large profits to award high raises and bonuses to CEOs, rather they just laid off large number of employees so that they can pay their CEOs.

I believe this is nothing but exploitation of the American worker. Awarding pathetically low salary raises to few employees and laying off many more, while the executives make tons of money is simply exploitation. I wonder how long this kind of corporate exploitation can continue in the US. Of course unions, workers movements, and mass mobilization is not allowed or shunned by the Americans because they represent communist ideology. If that is true then this kind of exploitation of the workers represents what America stood for before the Civil War - "Slavery, Exploitation and Murder of the poor by the rich and powerful"

Computer Games

I have been a gamer from the day of 286 computers. I am pretty sure many of those online haven't even heard about those obsolete machines that had only monochrome monitors and the only sound one heard was that of the fan whirring inside the CPU. Computers and technology has come a long way since then. Now everything is online on the internet and so is this cool game creation platform. I used the platform to create a game with three levels. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Goa bans on foreigner's entry into temples!!!

I read this news report in the online edition of the Times of India and my first reaction was to check out what the readers have to say. Most of the readers are either Indian citizens or people of Indian origin living elsewhere in the world, interested to know what is going on in their home country.

Anyway having lived in the US for the past nearly four years I have seen several different kinds of religiosity. Time and again I have made cross-cultural comparisons and wondered how it would be. Say at any Christian event, men dress up in suits, women in fine dresses. This applies even to the weekly routine Sunday church service. The scene anywhere else is totally different, people dress up in all kinds of clothes, keeping in mind the latest trends.

Now when these people travel to India how is it that they think it is ok to go to a temple wearing bikini's. Agreed that Indian temples are not air conditioned like American churches. Indian churches are not air conditioned either, would they go to one of their own religious spaces in such clothes?

So if Hindu temples decide to impose a dress code or ban entry of foreigners into their religious spaces there is nothing wrong. If the intent of visiting a temple is tourism, then they don't need to go there. If it is spiritual learning then devotees need to be dressed appropriately.