Us will have to nuke Iran. That is the only way they will be able to leave Iraq and save american lives. Iran is moving as fast as possible to develop nuclear weapons which will make them invincible and able to dominate the entire Gulf area and posibbly oil supply. Saddam was the best friend the americans had but now they can only lose. If peace happens the Shias will control Iraq which will give Iran influence and access right upto the borders of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. If the troubles continue Iran has shown what it can do through the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Also seems to me that whenever the americans want to test new weapons they choose to do it in Asia. Thus we had atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, napalm in Korea and Vietnam, dioxin in Vietnam and depleted uranium in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now they need to test a new generation of tactical nukes a Iran is in Asia. They give amusing names to their bombs such as Fat Boy, Daisy Cutter and so on so that their victims will die happy and innocent children blown to bits are called collateral damage like tables, chairs or garbage. Unfortunately Asian countries are so blinded by hatred against each other that they are oblivious. Iran watch out.

The govt has last published some rules for cablewallahs when they have been in business for over 10 years. There are still no rules for DTH ( satellite tv ). About four years ago the second son of the Media Tycoon visted India and rumour has it that he made offers to politicians that they could not refuse. The reason is that at present there is no way of knowing which channel people are watching and the total number of subscribers are presumed to watch every channel which is absurd. So every channel is charging subscrition and selling commercial time thus short changing both consumers as well as advertisers. Now the Supreme Court has mandated the set top box by first of January so the govt is isuing guidelines for cablewallahs after we have had to tolerate torture for years. The cablewallah would suddenly change channels or the signal would suddenly disappear and complaints would be treated with contempt. Last night I was watching a football match when the commentary suddenly changed to Hindi. Watching a Premier League match with Hindi commentary is hoorible for two reasons. One, the commentators are clearly not in the stadium but somewhere in India probably Jhumritalia. Second, all terms such as goal, offside, centre forward, foul, penalty etc are in English and have no translation. Nothing we can do as the cable system is based on monopoly and the politicians have been blocking DTH.

India is one of the most corrupt countries in the world but why? Law and order are maintained by the police, the judiciary and by lawyers. If you visit any court in India you will find scores of lawyers in dirty black jackets sitting under trees and tin sheds on broken chairs or benches. No other profession practices in such surroundings and only two professions have touts standing outside trying to catch clients. One is the law profession and the other is prostitution. Is it any wonder that lawyers are hated and despised and regularly make news for rape, cheating and swindling. I cannot make any comment about the judiciary for fear of being in contempt but would like to point out that judges are recruited from lawyers and where in the world can yopu obtain 'anticipatory bail'. Imagine getting bail in anticipation of committing a crime. One of the collaborators in a Delhi murder obtained anticipatory bail from Manipur. As for the police they are a mafia in uniform. They are brutal, crooked and feared by the people. It suits the politicians and civil servants to have an ieffective police because they continue to loot with impunity. Unlike the pampered and increasingly corrupt defence forces the police are paid a pittance, are treated like servants by ministers and do not even have medical cover even though they risk their lives a lot more than the army in peace time. A police inspector cannot afford asthma inhalers for Rs. 280 so I do not know how to treat him. I am told by a friend that when the Southern Fat Lady phones the police chief stands up. That India still survives is a tribute to the sick police.

15th August was celebrated as Independence Day. All crooked politicians were in lecture mode. People travelling from Jaipur to Delhi were trapped in a massive traffic jam for at least six hours because the toll booth had been shut down because some idiot was giving a speech. Imprisoned in cars for six hours to celebrate independence. It is time to reduce the power of the poiticians and civil servants. Politicians think that they are entitled to behave as emperors when in fact they have been elected to serve the people. In a democracy the terms VIP and VVIP are abominations. They have to be amd to understand that they are SERVANTS of the people and not masters as they seem to think. They do not own roads, railways or any of the public assets. We do. They promise free electricity, free water, cheap rice to win elections when they have no right to benefit from handouts of our tax money. Recently this fellow won a state election promising free colour tvs to everyone of the electorate. Who is going to pay for this? If he uses tax money then it is criminal plunder and he should be put away. If he or his party is to pay then he is breaking the ceiling on election spending and his win should be declared void. A few years ago the Southern Fat Lady spent millions of public funds for the marriage of her foster son when everyone knows that he is her bastard son from the Film Star. Stop the plunder now I say.

Went to Corbett Tiger Park at the foothills of Ranikhet and have understood why the number of tigers are going down. I think tigers are committing suicide. A tiger is a perfect sanyasi. It lives in forests in solitude, does not talk unless looking for a mate, accepts heat, cold or rain with equanimity, is philosophical to the dangers offered by the forest, eats only what it can and does not indulge, does not accumulate treasure, has no enemies, is a good mother but is not possessive of its children. It is majestic, honest and has a dignity which humans cannot have. Imagine 30 jeeps entering the park at 6 AM everyday so that humans can invade its privacy and disturb its sleep. Imagine a typical north Indian family, dad with a tummy sticking out, a solid gold chain and the ubiquitous mobile phone which has a ring tone of the latest hindi movie. Mom at least 20 kilos overweight and a voice loud enough to frighten an elephant. Two revolting children eating masala flavoured potato crisps out of a large bag and loudly demanding to see a tiger because it has been promised. Is it not enough to drive anyone to suicide? At least the tiger which was brought out for Clinton was rendered unconscious by a cocktail of drugs so it was spared its life. Hard to imagine how the security goons of the US President would have reacted had it twitched its tail. Time we respected the privacy of animals and left them alone.

The relation between Indian muslims and Arabs is complex. Arabic is the only language of Heaven and the Quran is in ancient Arabic and all muslim prayers have to be in that language. Unfortunately 99% of muslims in the subcontinent do not understand Arabic and have to depend on Arabs to explain the laws of Sharia which govern their actions. A Saudi muttawa ( priest ) told me that on judgement day every person will be resurrected exactly as he or she is in this life. Thus a tailor will remain a tailor, a plumber will remain a plumber and so on. Which means that when called upon to explain their actions in Arabic no one will be able to answer. They will then be put on a wall, on one side of which is Hell while onthe other side Heaven, and given some time to come up with answers. The questions will then be asked again and again they will be unable to answer and they will be pushed into Hell. Here a person is dipped in boiling oil which burns the skin, then he is lifted out and the skin regrows only to go back into oil again. This till eternity. The Arabs reckon that since all Indian muslims will end up in hell anyway why give them any respect in this life. This also explains why muslims keep saying that theirs is a religion of peace but keep killing Hindus, Jews, Christians, atheists, Commies in fact everybody.

Thinking about Congress. For 50 years they have exploited the poverty in India and extended it. This has allowed them to be socialists and control everything from banks to steel, from airlines to telephones. Keep people poor, ineducated, hungry and in poor health with a life span of 40 years abd they are grateful for subsidised kerosene and inedible rations. Import restrictions, sky high taxes, licences to relatives or cronies to create monopolies and keep the middle class under control. Deny people telephones, gas connections or building permits and they will be humbly begging to pay bribes. When I returned to India in 1987 I had to wait 4 years for a telephone. A colour TV cost RS.40000, an AC RS. 36000. Today they are Rs. 10000. Remember the loan melas when bundles of cash were distributed to party workers and public sector banks left with NPAs of 15%. Today Congress is fighting for our farmers by collapsing the WTO talks. These poor wretches who have been trying to scratch a living from poor quality soil and committing suicide in droves. Why not by cheap wheat subsidised by US and EU taxpayers and organise the farmers into huge cooperatives to grow two or three cash crops a year for export. Rubbish talk? Until around 1995 milk sweets would be banned in Delhi during summer. Thanks to Amul India is awash in milk today. Lijjat Papad and the Dabbawallahs of Mumbai are others. First though we have to break our shackles. 'C' stands for crime, corruption, cancer, Communists and Congress and of course charity which enriches their homes

Thank you Pipi, Ach and Devta. I am sorry that I cannot get online everyday and have to think about my answers so that they are logical. Ah the Congress. This party ruled India almost unchallenged for almost 50 years and brought us to the brink of bankruptcy in 1991. Unlike the present lot the politicians at idependence were all scholars yet they kept 60% of the population illiterate for all these years so as to be able to exploit them economically and politically. Nehru was an Englishman educated at Oxford yet did not see that education is compulsory for all children below the age of 16 years. Now the same party has added 3% to all taxes as Education Cess. No sharam, no izzat. Our freeloading press keeps lauding Mr. M. Singh liberalising the economy as Finance Minister under Narasimha Rao. What they conveniently forget is that they were forced by the fact that we were bankrupt and having signed the WTO had to reduce import duties. As for the telecom miracle, this was forced on us by the Americans who were angered by having to pay millions of dollars for connection charges to govt. controlled companies. They threatened sanctions and forced Singh to liberalise.

I was watching Binyamin Netanyahu, previous soldier and prime minister, presently Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset in Israel being interviewed on BBC. George Alegaya was persistently trying to pin him down but he was firm, logical and steadfast. He said,' I know you are trying to get me to criticise the govt. and you are very good at your job but we are at war and I will not do it.' Later in the programme Hartalk he staunchly defended the actions of his country in hitting Hezbollah. What a difference with our politicians who were trying to make political capital after the Mumbai blasts where so many innocents were butchered. As expected last week parliament passed a motion critical of Israel's attempt to defend itself. I remember in the 70s when my parents got their passports their was a rubber stamp saying that the passport was not valid for travel to Israel, Albania and South Africa. Growing up in Nehru's India all I saw was unstinting support for the Palestinians and hostility to Israel although Israel always wanted to be friends with us. So what did we get for all this support? Every time we fought with Pakistan the Arabs would support the Pakis with money and arms. Even now the terrorists who are killing innocents are being financed by the Arab countries. The terrorists who are carrying out such slaughter do not realise that Arabs look down on muslims in the subcontinent. In Saudi Arabia muslims from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are routinely humiliated, beaten and given the most filthy work. Arabs have 2 words for friend, 'rafiq' which is used for low class and 'sadiq' which is used for equals. Muslims from here are always addressed as rafiq. Only once did a rich Saudi make the mistake of addressing me as rafiq and I told him that he, his family and his entire blankety blank country were rafiqs. He ran from there. A muslim would never dare.

Pipi thankyou. You are right in that the politicians do not care about middle class votes but they care deeply about our money. If we stop buying big ticket items for a few months the indirect tax collections will drop and that might concentrate a few minds. Of course it may affect profit margins of companies and their share prices but this will only be temporary because the pent up demand will c0mpensate in the end. It is not just taxes that you pay when you buy anything because you have to provide your income tax number or the Permanent Account Number ( PAN ) which then gives the income tax babus the opportunityto harass you.
You have to understand that here politicians and civil servants commit crimes but the punishment is suffered by innocent citizens and tax payers. For instance there is a very high level of traffic accidents on our roads with consequent deaths and injuries. The reason is that no one knows how to drive because everyone gets a licence by paying and few people actually take a driving test. Who issues driving licences? The police. So how do they propose to cut the number of accidents. They build speed breakers or bumps in the road anywhere they like and some so high that my car scrapes its underside no matter how slow I drive. So I suffer enormous frustrations as a punishment for police corruption. Similarly terrorists and gangsters regularly have 3 or 4 passports under different identities. Who issues passports? Civil servants in the Home Ministry. So what is the solution. Indians are the only people who have to suffer the humiliation of immigration check when returning home. Even in a police state like Saudi Arabia its citizens just walk through but here we have to queue for hours. How do we let the blood suckers know that enough is enough? Hit them where it hurts I say.

Pipi thankyou for your comment. It is great to know that someone has read what I had to say. Firstly no one asked the British at the time what was instrumental in their leaving India. Gandhi undoubtedly had a great part to play but we do not know the value of armed resistance. Almost every family in Bengal lost someone. It was not just Bose but people like Khudiram, Binoy, Badal, Dinesh, Masterda and many others who might have made the British decidedly unwelcome. Calcutta used to be the capital of the Raj at one time but the British shifted to Delhi which has had a long history of welcoming conquerors and enemies of India. Mohd. bin Tuglak, Nader Shah, the Moguls to name a few. Unfortunately the school curriculum today teaches only about Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad thus changing history.
General Cariappa is reputed to have asked for only 24 hours to liberate Kashmir but Nehru chose to go to the UN. It might have something to do with Lady Pamela but let us move on. We had Panchsheel with China and recognised their hold on Tibet only for them to attack us. They still occupy about 50000 sq. miles today. There was a war with the Pakis ( forget the year ) when we fought with outdated arms against Patton tanks. Little Gnat airplanes against F14s. We won because of the sheer bravery and scrifice of our troops. We were sitting on the banks of the Ichogil Canal lookin at Lahore. Lal Bahadur Shastri gave it all away at Tashkent for nothing. In 1971, 95000 Paki soldiers surrendered to India terrified of being captured by the Bangladeshis. Indira Gandhi released them for nothing. Today's Bangladeshis are probably illegitimate children of Paki rapes and hate India. Remember these people believe in 'eye for an eye' stuff and probably see us as weak and contemptible. What do you think?