Slumdog Millionaire (The Review)

One might say genre categorisation exists to give the prospective audience an inkling in to what sort of emotions they should expect the film to evoke. Yet British director Danny Boyle asks an elementary question; why? Why limit a film to one set of emotions when it has the potential to explore so much more?
His question is hypothetical, because he has already provided us with the answer. That answer is Slumdog Millionaire; a truly remarkable film that manages to be harrowing, stirring, tear-jerking, exhilarating and joyous all within its 120 minute runtime. You won’t need a lifeline to tell you that this is modern cinema at its most supreme.
The lights dim, the thematic music kicks in and the crowd applaud to signal the biggest moment of Jamal Malik’s (Dev Patel) life; he has reached the last question on India’s ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’. But how has a boy from the slums of Mumbai made it further on the show than the brightest minds have in the past? It’s a question that leads to Jamal’s arrest, under the suspicion of cheating. To prove his innocence, Jamal is forced to reveal the sometimes joyous but often tragic events of his childhood living in the slums with his older brother Saliem (Madhur Mittal) and friend Latika (Freida Pinto) and how their journey of survival lead him to the answer of each question.

Based on the novel Q and A by Vikas Swarup, Simon Beaufory’s screen adaptation intertwines the past with the present, splendidly building in suspense as the million dollar question looms closer. However, it’s the fairytale journey of hope and humanity leading up to the final question that is most captivating. Told in three different time frames, we first meet an adolescent Jamal in the most confrontational matter; being tortured in a cell in a hope he will reveal how he cheated. “He’s a tough guy”, the guard proclaims after he can’t get Jamal to talk. No wonder; we soon learn that most of Jamal’s life has been torture. His mother was killed during a anti-Muslim raid when he was a child, leaving him and his brother to beg and steal for food before returning to the junkyard they called home. With an admirable sense of optimism and belief in destiny, a young Jamal finds happiness from his newfound friend Latika, forming the foundation for a future love.
With a character this endearing, it’s near impossible not to get fully absorbed in Jamal’s story. It helps that each portrayal of Jamal is as excellent as the next, credibly developing the complexities of Jamal’s character and his unsteady relationship with his brother; a troubled boy torn between survival, greed and the responsibilities of being an older brother. Frieda Pinto as Latika also makes for a convincing love interest, if not simply for her radiant beauty, making the romantic sub-plot of destined love one of the most cordial of the year. Expect to see a lot more from this young cast in the future.

It doesn’t matter what director Danny Boyle is depicting –be it unsettling scenes of child exploitation or moments of melodramatic joy - it’s infinitely entertaining. Boyle’s direction has a remarkable energy that manages to seamlessly and satisfyingly blend together each and every dramatic shift in chronology, locale and sentiment. With a lucrative career not bound to a specific genre, Boyle uses his knowledge from each of his previous films to craft a truly unique experience. Certain scenes, such as those taking place on the Millionaire game show, lend from the slick visual presentation of his underrated sci-fi thriller Sunshine. The sweeping long-shots of India’s terrible poverty and unsightly trash field plains relate back to unsettling emptiness of the city streets in Boyle’s Zombie flick 28 Days Later. Yet the chase sequences in Slumdog carry the humour and energy of the directors most celebrated film Trainspotting. Last but not least, Boyle injects the humanity and charm ever present in his family film Millions into Jamal’s character and the films satisfying conclusion. So satisfying a conclusion, might I add, that it had me completely overcome with tears of joy.Collectively, this vibrant blend of cinematic techniques is somewhat reminiscent of Baz Luhrmann’s modern and stylistic take of Romeo + Juliet. Yet unlike Luhrmann deliberately did, Boyle doesn’t overdo the melodrama to the point where it glosses over the often unsettling reality of each situation and setting. Instead, he strikes a solid balance between the two, turning what could have been a hard-hitting, solemn film into a tasteful crowd pleaser.

Making Capitalism More Creative

By Bill Gates
Time, Thursday, Jul. 31, 2008

Capitalism has improved the lives of billions of people — something that's easy to forget at a time of great economic uncertainty. But it has left out billions more. They have great needs, but they can't express those needs in ways that matter to markets. So they are stuck in poverty, suffer from preventable diseases and never have a chance to make the most of their lives. Governments and nonprofit groups have an irreplaceable role in helping them, but it will take too long if they try to do it alone. It is mainly corporations that have the skills to make technological innovations work for the poor. To make the most of those skills, we need a more creative capitalism: an attempt to stretch the reach of market forces so that more companies can benefit from doing work that makes more people better off. We need new ways to bring far more people into the system — capitalism — that has done so much good in the world.There's much still to be done, but the good news is that creative capitalism is already with us. Some corporations have identified brand-new markets among the poor for life-changing technologies like cell phones. Others — sometimes with a nudge from activists — have seen how they can do good and do well at the same time. To take a real-world example, a few years ago I was sitting in a bar with Bono, and frankly, I thought he was a little nuts. It was late, we'd had a few drinks, and Bono was all fired up over a scheme to get companies to help tackle global poverty and disease. He kept dialing the private numbers of top executives and thrusting his cell phone at me to hear their sleepy yet enthusiastic replies. As crazy as it seemed that night, Bono's persistence soon gave birth to the (RED) campaign. Today companies like Gap, Hallmark and Dell sell (RED)-branded products and donate a portion of their profits to fight AIDS. (Microsoft recently signed up too.) It's a great thing: the companies make a difference while adding to their bottom line, consumers get to show their support for a good cause, and — most important — lives are saved. In the past year and a half, (RED) has generated $100 million for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, helping put nearly 80,000 people in poor countries on lifesaving drugs and helping more than 1.6 million get tested for HIV. That's creative capitalism at work.Creative capitalism isn't some big new economic theory. And it isn't a knock on capitalism itself. It is a way to answer a vital question: How can we most effectively spread the benefits of capitalism and the huge improvements in quality of life it can provide to people who have been left out?
The World Is Getting Better
It might seem strange to talk about creative capitalism when we're paying more than $4 for a gallon of gas and people are having trouble paying their mortgages. There's no doubt that today's economic troubles are real; people feel them deeply, and they deserve immediate attention. Creative capitalism isn't an answer to the relatively short-term ups and downs of the economic cycle. It's a response to the longer-term fact that too many people are missing out on a historic, century-long improvement in the quality of life. In many nations, life expectancy has grown dramatically in the past 100 years. More people vote in elections, express their views and enjoy economic freedom than ever before. Even with all the problems we face today, we are at a high point of human well-being. The world is getting a lot better.The problem is, it's not getting better fast enough, and it's not getting better for everyone. One billion people live on less than a dollar a day. They don't have enough nutritious food, clean water or electricity. The amazing innovations that have made many lives so much better — like vaccines and microchips — have largely passed them by. This is where governments and nonprofits come in. As I see it, there are two great forces of human nature: self-interest and caring for others. Capitalism harnesses self-interest in a helpful and sustainable way but only on behalf of those who can pay. Government aid and philanthropy channel our caring for those who can't pay. And the world will make lasting progress on the big inequities that remain — problems like AIDS, poverty and education — only if governments and nonprofits do their part by giving more aid and more effective aid. But the improvements will happen faster and last longer if we can channel market forces, including innovation that's tailored to the needs of the poorest, to complement what governments and nonprofits do. We need a system that draws in innovators and businesses in a far better way than we do today.Naturally, if companies are going to get more involved, they need to earn some kind of return. This is the heart of creative capitalism. It's not just about doing more corporate philanthropy or asking companies to be more virtuous. It's about giving them a real incentive to apply their expertise in new ways, making it possible to earn a return while serving the people who have been left out. This can happen in two ways: companies can find these opportunities on their own, or governments and nonprofits can help create such opportunities where they presently don't exist.

What's Been Missed
As C.K. Prahalad shows in his book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, there are markets all over the world that businesses have missed. One study found that the poorest two-thirds of the world's population has some $5 trillion in purchasing power. A key reason market forces are slow to make an impact in developing countries is that we don't spend enough time studying the needs of those markets. I should know: I saw it happen at Microsoft. For many years, Microsoft has used corporate philanthropy to bring technology to people who can't get it otherwise, donating more than $3 billion in cash and software to try to bridge the digital divide. But our real expertise is in writing software that solves problems, and recently we've realized that we weren't bringing enough of that expertise to problems in the developing world. So now we're looking at inequity as a business problem as well as something to be addressed through philanthropy. We're working on projects like a visual interface that will enable illiterate or semiliterate people to use a PC instantly, with minimal training. Another project of ours lets an entire classroom full of students use a single computer; we've developed software that lets each student use her own mouse to control a specially colored cursor so that as many as 50 kids can use one computer at the same time. This is a big advance for schools where there aren't enough computers to go around, and it serves a market we hadn't examined before.Cell phones are another example. They're now a booming market in the developing world, but historically, companies vastly underestimated their potential. In 2000, when Vodafone bought a large stake in a Kenyan cell-phone company, it figured that the market in Kenya would max out at 400,000 users. Today that company, Safaricom, has more than 10 million. The company has done it by finding creative ways to serve low-income Kenyans. Its customers are charged by the second rather than by the minute, for example, which keeps down the cost. Safaricom is making a profit, and it's making a difference. Farmers use their cell phones to find the best prices in nearby markets. A number of innovative uses for cell phones are emerging. Already many Kenyans use them to store cash (via a kind of electronic money) and transfer funds. If you have to carry money over long distances — say, from the market back to your home — this kind of innovation makes a huge difference. You're less tempting to rob if you're not holding any cash.This is how people can benefit when businesses find opportunities that have been missed. But since I started talking about creative capitalism earlier this year, I've heard from some skeptics who doubt that there are any new markets. They say, "If these opportunities really existed, someone would have found them by now." I disagree. Their argument assumes that businesses have already studied every possible market for their products. Their attitude reminds me of the old joke about an economist who's walking down the street with a friend. The economist steps over a $10 bill that's lying on the ground. His friend asks him why he didn't take the money. "It couldn't possibly be there," he explains. "If it were, somebody would've picked it up!" Some companies make the same mistake. They think all the $10 bills have already been picked up. It would be a shame if we missed such opportunities, and it would make a huge difference if, instead, researchers and strategists at corporations met regularly with experts on the needs of the poor and talked about new applications for their best ideas.Beyond finding new markets and developing new products, companies sometimes can benefit by providing the poor with heavily discounted access to products. Industries like software and pharmaceuticals, for example, have very low production costs, so you can come out ahead by selling your product for a bigger profit in rich markets and for a smaller profit, or at cost, in poor ones. Businesses in other industries can't do this tiered pricing, but they can benefit from the public recognition and enhanced reputation that come from serving those who can't pay. The companies involved in the (RED) campaign draw in new customers who want to be associated with a good cause. That might be the tipping point that leads people to pick one product over another.There's another crucial benefit that accrues to businesses that do good work. They will find it easier to recruit and retain great employees. Young people today — all over the world — want to work for organizations that they can feel good about. Show them that a company is applying its expertise to help the poorest, and they will repay that commitment with their own dedication.

Creating New Incentives
Even so, no matter how hard businesses look or how creatively they think, there are some problems in the world that aren't amenable to solution by existing market incentives. Malaria is a great example: the people who most need new drugs or a vaccine are the least able to pay, so the drugs and vaccines never get made. In these cases, governments and nonprofits can create the incentives. This is the second way in which creative capitalism can take wing. Incentives can be as straightforward as giving public praise to the companies that are doing work that serves the poor. This summer, a Dutch nonprofit called the Access to Medicine Foundation started publishing a report card that shows which pharmaceutical companies are doing the most to make sure that medicines are made for — and reach — people in developing countries. When I talk to executives from pharmaceutical companies, they tell me that they want to do more for neglected diseases — but they at least need to get credit for it. This report card does exactly that.Publicity is very valuable, but sometimes it's still not enough to persuade companies to get involved. Even the best p.r. may not pay the bill for 10 years of research into a new drug. That's why it's so important for governments to create more financial incentives. Under a U.S. law enacted last year, for example, any drug company that develops a new treatment for a neglected disease like malaria can get a priority review from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for another product it has made. If you develop a new drug for malaria, your profitable cholesterol drug could go on the market as much as a year earlier. Such a priority review could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It's a fantastic way for governments to go beyond the aid they already give and channel market forces so they improve even more lives.Of course, governments in developing countries have to do a lot to foster capitalism themselves. They must pass laws and make regulations that let markets flourish, bringing the benefits of economic growth to more people. In fact, that's another argument I've heard against creative capitalism: "We don't need to make capitalism more creative. We just need governments to stop interfering with it." There is something to this. Many countries could spark more business investment — both within their borders and from the outside — if they did more to guarantee property rights, cut red tape and so on. But these changes come slowly. In the meantime, we can't wait. As a businessman, I've seen that companies can tap new markets right now, even if conditions aren't ideal. And as a philanthropist, I've found that our caring for others compels us to help people right now. The longer we wait, the more people suffer needlessly.

The Next Step
In June, I moved out of my day-to-day role at Microsoft to spend more time on the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. I'll be talking with political leaders about how their governments can increase aid for the poor, make it more effective and bring in new partners through creative capitalism. I'll also talk with CEOs about what their companies can do. One idea is to dedicate a percentage of their top innovators' time to issues that affect the people who have been left behind. This kind of contribution takes the brainpower that makes life better for the richest and dedicates some of it to improving the lives of everyone else. Some pharmaceutical companies, like Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, are already doing this. The Japanese company Sumitomo Chemical shared some of its technology with a Tanzanian textile company, helping it produce millions of bed nets, which are crucial tools in the fight to eradicate malaria. Other companies are doing the same in food, cell phones and banking.

In other words, creative capitalism is already under way. But we can do much more. Governments can create more incentives like the FDA voucher. We can expand the report-card idea beyond the pharmaceutical industry and make sure the rankings get publicity so companies get credit for doing good work. Consumers can reward companies that do their part by buying their products. Employees can ask how their employers are contributing. If more companies follow the lead of the most creative organizations in their industry, they will make a huge impact on some of the world's worst problems.More than 30 years ago, Paul Allen and I started Microsoft because we wanted to be part of a movement to put a computer on every desk and in every home. Ten years ago, Melinda and I started our foundation because we want to be part of a different movement — this time, to help create a world where no one has to live on a dollar a day or die from a disease we know how to prevent. Creative capitalism can help make it happen. I hope more people will join the cause.

Valentine's Day, Celebrating of Love?

Valentine's Day or Saint Valentine's Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14 by many people throughout the world. In the West, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine's cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.
The day is most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of "valentines". Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten notes have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards. The sending of Valentines was a fashion in nineteenth-century Great Britain, and, in 1847, Esther Howland developed a successful business in her Worcester, Massachusetts home with hand-made Valentine cards based on British models. The popularity of Valentine cards in 19th century America was a harbinger of the future commercialization of holidays in the United States.
The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, behind Christmas. The association estimates that, in the US, men spend on average twice as much money as women.
Conflict with religious fundamentalists
In India, Valentine's Day is explicitly discouraged by Hindu fundamentalists. Each year there are violent clashes between shopkeepers dealing in Valentine related items and Shiv Sena die-hards. Especially in Mumbai and surrounding areas Bal Thackeray and others sent out signals before the day warning people not having to do anything with Valentine. Those who violate this are dealt with harshly by baton-holding brigands of Shiv Sena who lark in public places especailly parks etc. chasing young people holding hands and others suspected to be lovers.
Today in Iran Valentine's Day is currently celebrated in Iran despite some restrictions made by government. Young Iranians are seen on this day going out and buying gifts and celebrating.
In Saudi Arabia in 2008, religious police banned the sale of all Valentine's Day items, telling shop workers to remove any red items, as the day is considered an un-Islamic holiday. This ban created a black market of roses and wrapping paper.
In Indonesia in 2009, MUI started the ban warning Valentine day for Muslims. Based on historical, Valentine day is not same as universal love day, but it is a warning against Valentine of someone who in the eyes of a Christian act on the basis of love. In addition, the warning days love is feared will be the negative things for teenagers, the development of free sex is the name of love.

What You Don't Know About Gaza

The New York Times , January 8, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinion/08khalidi.html
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR------ By RASHID KHALIDIN

EARLY everything you've been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much of which has taken place in the press, about Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip.

THE GAZANS. Most of the people living in Gaza are not there by choice. The majority of the 1.5 million people crammed into the roughly 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip belong to families that came from towns and villages outside Gaza like Ashkelon and Beersheba. They were driven to Gaza by the Israeli Army in 1948.

THE OCCUPATION. The Gazans have lived under Israeli occupation since the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel is still widely considered to be an occupying power, even though it removed its troops and settlers from the strip in 2005. Israel still controls access to the area, imports and exports, and the movement of people in and out. Israel has control over Gaza's air space and sea coast, and its forces enter the area at will. As the occupying power, Israel has the responsibility under the Fourth Geneva Convention to see to the welfare of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

THE BLOCKADE. Israel's blockade of the strip, with the support of the United States and the European Union, has grown increasingly stringent since Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006. Fuel, electricity, imports, exports and the movement of people in and out of the Strip have been slowly choked off, leading to life-threatening problems of sanitation, health, water supply and transportation.The blockade has subjected many to unemployment, penury and malnutrition. This amounts to the collective punishment with the tacit support of the United States of a civilian population for exercising its democratic rights.

THE CEASE-FIRE. Lifting the blockade, along with a cessation of rocket fire, was one of the key terms of the June cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This accord led to a reduction in rockets fired from Gaza from hundreds in May and June to a total of less than 20 in the subsequent four months (according to Israeli government figures). The cease-fire broke down when Israeli forces launched major air and ground attacks in early November; six Hamas operatives were reported killed.

WAR CRIMES. The targeting of civilians, whether by Hamas or by Israel, is potentially a war crime. Every human life is precious. But the numbers speak for themselves: Nearly 700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since the conflict broke out at the end of last year. In contrast, there have been around a dozen Israelis killed, many of them soldiers. Negotiation is a much more effective way to deal with rockets and other forms of violence. This might have been able to happen had Israel fulfilled the terms of the June cease-fire and lifted its blockade of the Gaza Strip.This war on the people of Gaza isn't really about rockets. Nor is it about "restoring Israel's deterrence," as the Israeli press might have you believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: "The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people."

Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia, is the author of the forthcoming "Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East."

`Give` always better than `Receive`

It is need for Religion-Generosity always emphasized the religious world and sometimes the "imposed" on the followers so much to `give` more than to `receive`. Many factors that underlie the religious and the suggestion that the follower be magnanimous and take it. There`s an argument from the perspective of social relationships.

First, in the context of social relationships, the most generous people are usually the most popular in the neighborhood. No matter if he was the "evil" or better. Robinhood story, the master of thieves, for example, shows that a villain will also still loved the environment surrounding the benefactor. Oloan, somekind a king of gambling civilian, also known philanthropist. And therefore, it is also popular among his community not only because his criminal attitude, but also playful his curiosity to people who need helps.
In good social (social virtue) universal, occupy the generosity ranking highest among the other goodness. A "good person" in everyday conversation certainly mean is "philanthropist." Or "He is not stingy."
However khusyu-worship rituals we diligently pray five times for the Moslem, or diligently to church every sunday for the Christian-course we still will not be considered as a "good person" by the surrounding environment if we stingy. Instead, the ritual of the boomerang is so, as we often hear gossip in a chat, "He get diligent pray, but still stingy, too bad." Or, words do other similar means.
Second, every religion always recommend the followers even forced to be generous, among other things, human beings have a tendency to parsimonious. Selfishness or devotion to the man himself was at the humane and profitable in the sense that certain elements of this someone you want to continue pushing forward and always exist and the "win" in the competition-one of the elements of human civilization to make you move forward and grow, unlike some animals, but if not reserve and can reach an extreme level of negative impact on the surrounding social order. Do extraordinary corruption in our country, among others, caused by the elements do not restrained selfishness among (mostly) of the bureaucrats.
Third, the tendency for stingy or generous, in an insting individual. However, if the situation continues to be champain and constrained condition-such as policy by the state, he could be a trend in a nation or national trends. For example, in the West, particularly in the United States there is a trend among to charity for the rich or make a social foundation to help the poor, finance the research projects of disease / drugs, etc. as the foundation of social belonging to Bill Gates, or the Alfred Nobel Foundation, the Ford Foundation scholarship foundation, etc.. One of the elements kondusifnya is because the West, particularly in the United States, such as the social foundation is not charged tax. Generosity, in my understanding, of course, is not only limited to the "willingness to provide material threatening to others without expecting some reply," but also generosity in attitude, especially from senior to subordinate: a diplomat do some voluntary attend the event I held a local staff or students (read, the people), I consider attitudes in other forms of philanthropy. Nevertheless, the material in the form of philanthropy is "most people can understand."
How some poor people eager to give, but they do not have a material can be donated? Stay kept the desire to give, because it will make you (you poor at this time) has a strong determination to have the facilities to be rich to give. At least, a strong desire to give will not make us having human mental as like as beggars mental. In addition, determination will sharpen our awareness of our soul in the harsh environment of the day by day. Is a generous person circumstances surrounding the matter.

Inspirational articles by fatihsyuhud

First Hope...

Bismillah...
In the name of Allah (author`s God), I start to make hope...
To spread hopes ...
In this life...
My life ... and our lives ...
Amin.