Another political assassination and another mystery. The story seems to differ depending on who you listen to or read. According to the CNN fellow, he was standing in front of Benazir Bhutto's car taking photographs. She got into the car and stood up through the sunroof which is borne out by video footage taken at the time. The car started moving forward slowly and then suddenly surged forward at which this fellow had to take evasive action. At this time three shots rang out and Bhutto slumped inside the car and the the shooter blew himself up. Another version in today's paper says that she opened a car window to speak to her supporters and was then hit by shrapnel. I think the previous version is correct because video pictures taken just moments before show her head and the upper half of her torso above the roof of the car. The first government version said that she was hit by shrapnel but this morning the Paki spokesman was saying that she was hurled against a 'lever', which operated the sunroof, by the force of the bomb blast. Seems strange that the government does not want Bhutto's death to be due to gunshot wounds. The shooter certainly was a marksman. To be able to hit half a target in a moving car and with thousands of people milling round would seem to suggest professional assassin. However professionals do not blow themselves up which would suggest that he in turn was set up. Either his motorbike had been rigged or a jehadi had been instructed to blow him up at the right time. There will be many conspiracy theories but of one thing we can be sure, we will never get the right answer. Only time will tell if this is the end of Pakistan. God help the world if there is civil war in that country.

The first cricket testmatch between India and Australia started this morning and is being broadcast on Star Sports. Since it is being transmitted from outside the country our very own Doordarshan is unable to steal it. Neo Sports, a private channel, bid for and secured the rights to broadcast all cricket matches played in India but the government passed a law which compels the company to share its feed with Doordarshan. This is done apparently in public interest because the aam aadmi is unable to afford cable or satelite connection. Fact is the aam aadmi is so busy keeping his skin on his bones by slaving all day that he has no time to watch cricket. Not having paid a paisa for the broadcasting rights Doordarshan shamelessly makes huge money from commercial often missing the last and first balls of succeeding overs. If this is not an example of grand larceny I do not know what is. Up until about fifteen years ago Doordarshan had broadcasting monopoly in India but chose to dish out so much garbage on its two channels that apart from Ramayan and Mahabharat there was nothing to watch all day. Once private channels came in it has expanded to over fifteen channels some broadcasting 24/7. Still its filthy habits have not gone. About ten years I went to pay my telephone bill in Delhi. It was half past ten in the morning and at least twenty people stood sweating in a queue but the counter was closed because the fellow had still not come. When he arrived he sat under a tree and had a cup of tea before deigning to take our money. Today with private telephone channels offering better customer care the sarkari fellows are scrambling to save their jobs. Filthy habits die hard. If you try to phone one of the sarkari numbers from a private line you will find it almost impossible to get connected possibly because they block it on purpose. Politicians and sarkari fellows, hard to imagine a more evil collection.

Just read that Tony Blair has converted to Catholicism. Presumably he has been a Church of England protestant till now. A year or so ago a mixed school was opened in Northern Ireland, the scene of killings for decades between catholics and protestants. A little girl was being interviewed on BBC and she was saying how excited she was to be learning about a different religion. We should be forgiven for not understanding how people who call themselves Christians can claim to be following different religions and justify killing in its name. After all there was only one Jesus who pardoned his enemies while on the cross. For that matter Jews, Christians and Muslims all claim to follow the same God while differing in the legitimacy of prophets who were human. They have been killing each other for millenia completely ignoring the commandment given directly by God ordering them not to kill. Scholars have spent lifetimes speculating on the whereabouts of the Arc of the Covenant and Indiana Jones went chasing all over the world looking for it but when it comes to its commands they are completely ignored. And they dare to call us Hindus names such as kafir, heathens or pagans. We have many Gods and Goddesses but we do not fight each other saying my God is bigger than yours. We do not go around claiming to be greater than others and killing to convert them to our faith. Yet stupid freeloading joournalists are always abusing Hindus while keeping totally silent on the butchery of others.

Seems that the government in Delhi is thinking about applying tolls to 'two lane highways'. This a euphemism for tracks built in the distant past and repaired infreqently. The highway between Rourki in Uttarakhand and Delhi is a prime example. It is an extemely busy road which passes big cities such as Muzzafarnagar and Meerut in UP and leads to Dehradun and Mussoorie on the one hand and to Haridwar, Rishikesh on the other. It is, therefore, used by tourists going to the hills and by millions of pilgrims going to Haridwar and then on to Kedarnath and Badrinath, all extremely important sites for Hindu pilgrims. This highway is a single carriageway with frequent villages encroaching from both sides of the road, bullock carts, tractors, even chidren defaecating on the road. There are frequent indiscriminate speed breakers in the form of humps so high that cars scrape their undersides. After the monsoon rains massive potholes appear and in parts the entire surface disappears. To charge toll for such a filthy road is an act of monstrous banditry. With economic growth millions of Indians are buying cars, motorbikes and mopeds and paying trillions of rupees in road tax. The m0ney disappears into a black hole without any accounting of where it has gone. Since this government was formed with a coalition of some twenty ragtag parties new ministries were created to bribe poltical partners. These pseudo ministers demand government bungalows, armed guards and kleptocrats to loot the exchequer. There is an insatiable demand for more tax collection to pay for these parasites and so taxes keep going up. I will not be surprised if there is a secret committee whose sole work is to dream up new taxes or increase those in existence. We can easily get rid of 75% of the kleptocrats and pay triple salaries to the ones that remain which will increase efficiency and decrease bribery. To think that out freeloading journalists keep advertising that the Prime Minister is a noted economist.

There has been no water supply in the south of Delhi in areas such as Vasant Kunj for the last three days. As usual there was no warning, residents were not informed as to the cause of the failure or when normal supplies will resume. Also as usual all phones were taken off their hooks while Jal Board officials enjoyed three days of extra holidays. Whether they came to work at all is not known but no attempt was made to help residents. Water tankers made a killing selling 1000 litres of water for Rs. 500 when the normal rate is Rs. 100. How the booty was divided will never be known but we can assume the kleptocrats will not have missed such an opportunity. Fights broke out between residents desperate to survive. Filling your tank is also not the answer because your water will be stolen when you are out. Residents upstream have fitted what is known locally as 'online boosters' which are pumps attached to the mainline and pulls water at a greater rate. This means that those downstream receive less water because the pressure drops to a trickle. Downstream residents have disconnected their ball valves to increase the flow rate which means that when supply is adequate enormous quantities of water overflows into the drains. Delhi is normally a dry place and such waste water is a great loss. Very soon I foresee someone being killed over water. Then politicians will rush round like headless chickens and a commission of enquiry set up. A retired kleptocrat will earn a lot of taxpayers money by prolonging the enquiry to several years by which time it will be completely irrelevant and no one will read its report. I think next year is election time in Delhi. These same politicians will be round with folded hands asking to be reelected. No sharam, no izzat.

Couple of days back in Gurgaon, Haryana two fourteen year old boys had an argument with a classmate. One boy then pulled out a gun and shot his classmate four times in the back as he was climbing the school bus. He then passed the gun to his friend who fired a final shot into the already dying boy. A few days back a seventeen year old school boy received a new motorcycle from his father. That evening he was driving at great speed with a friend sitting at the back and crashed head on with another motorcycle carrying two other boys. All four died. It is a common site to see children, some as young as eleven years old driving cars and motorbikes often with passengers. What kind of monstrous parents would allow an underage child to drive or carry guns. Strangely you will never see police stopping and arresting underage drivers but they are busy catching legitimate car owners and fining them for not renewing thier pollution certificate every three months. Strange how everything comes down to politicians and the kleptocrats. These people and their friends have vast quantities of black money and do not know how to show their wealth. India has more property dealers per square mile than any other country in the world. Most of these are criminals engaged in land grabbing, illegal construction, selling the same property to many different people and crimes of similar nature. They generate the money which is used to finance their elections whereupon they become ' elected representatives of the people ' and immune from prosecution. No wonder ordinary people are also becoming increasingly violent. Reports of thieves or pickpockets being beaten to death is common. Traffic accidents are frequently followed by local people attacking the police. Such is the suspicion and hatred for all politicians that people will not allow companies like Posco and Tata to set up steel plants because they are afraid their land will be forcibly handed over by sarkari fellows. Hence Nandigram. Perhaps we will end up as a country of bandits.

The government has just passed a bill which will punish people who neglect thier elderly parents. Is it possible to make people more caring by threatening them with three months in jail and a fine of Rs 5000. Would it be possible to make politicians honest by passing a bill threatening them with jail? I think not. One old man, about eighty five years old, lived around here. He had prostate cancer and had to take frequent injections for relief of pain. He lived with his old wife and one son who was a drinker. Another son lives in Delhi while a third lives in the US. The drinker son developed cirrhosis of the liver and huge ascites which is water in the abdomen. He was gradually going downhill and last month was admitted to hospital in a moribund condition. The old man was so upset at the prospect of losing a son that he had a heart attack and died on Diwali day. The son died a few days after him leaving behind a wife a a four year old child. Now the two surviving sons came over from Delhi and the US. The first thing they did was to put their mother, who had just lost her husband and a son, in and ashram in about 200 km away and then started abusing their sister in law to make her leave the house so that they could sell the house and divide the money. I find it hard to understand how anyone can be so cruel and devoid of any sympathy even for his mother. The other question that comes to mind is why all three sons were such monsters. Is it because the old man and his wife treated their own parents badly and the boys grew up thinking that this was the correct thing to do. We are moved by the plight of the old and the infirm but have no way of knowing if they had been good parents in their younger days. If children grow up to hate their parents no amount of laws can make them care. Animals instinctively care for their young but most humans make lousy parents.

A new law has come into effect whereby anyone using an internet cafe has to provide full name, address, phone number and number of a photo identification card. It is now illegal to open an email account under a pseudonym. This is complete destruction of privacy and will no doubt will be used to hunt down anyone the sarkari fellows do not like as has already happened in China. No doubt they will claim that this is being done for our protection and to track down terrorists and criminals. Nearly all terrorists operating in India are under control of Pakistani intelligence and surely can open any number of email accounts abroad. Anyway they usually have large numbers of false papers and can change identity at will. They can easily obtain passports in India by bribing the same sarkari fellows. In the Bombay blasts case a police officer was convicted of allowing a truck full of explosives to pass for a relatively small amount of money. Clearly this is a way of surreptitously obtaining data on innocent and respectable citizens. To be fair India is not the only country which is spying on its citizens. The US has been doing it for years and is also snooping on telephone an internet traffic of the citizens of its allies. The UK is proposing to have a DNA record of all its citizens. All the more frightening because the British have lost personal details of 25 million people which was contained on two disks and now opens the way for identity fraud. No wonder people all over the world trust politicians the least.

Indians have always valued poverty because renunciation of material wealth is at the heart of our spiritual teaching. Our movies have shown how the hero, who is brought up by a widowed mother struggling to survive, is totally honest, patriotic and incorruptible. The truth unfortunately is not so romantic. Most poor people in India have a sense of hurt because the government ( govt ) is not doing enough for them. They are convinced that poverty is an entitlement and that they should be helped to a higher living standard without any responsibility. They do not see any value in education and are reluctant to put in the hard work to get a degree. Thus they will vote for anyone that promises them reservation in govt jobs without necessary qualification. We are told by the bleeding hearts that they have so many children because they want some insurance for old age because there is no social security in India. The truth is that they are well aware that their life expectancy being less than fifty years they are unlikely to want geriatric care. They have so many children so that they can send them out to work by the time they are ten years old and live on their earnings. Most violent crimes are committed by the poor often against their own kind. It is true that rich people cheat on taxes and commit other financial crimes but these do not directly threaten our person or property. Poor people vote for short term gain and have no sense of morality. Thus they will vote for a convicted murderer if he distributes free saris and bottles of booze. This is why we have so much scum calling themselves VIPs. Unfortunately it is in the interest of the same scum to keep the poor people illiterate and poor so that they can be exploited for generations. Is their anyway to force people to become less poor and more educated?

Big day today. Musharraf will cast aside his uniform and appear in civilian garb. As long as he does not not appear in his regulati0n boxers it is okay with me. He has been castigated as a dictator and Pakistan has been suspended from the Commonwealth, not for the first time. Only the British and the BBC seem to think that membership of the Commonwealth is important, nobody else gives a toss. All countries, except Britain, belong to the third world and meetings give the leaders an opportunity to go shopping with their wives at taxpayers expense. To me Musharraf does not seem to be any more of a dictator than Bush is or Blair has been. They all claim to have won free and fair elections and to have 'popular mandate'. In the case of Bush we know he won less votes than Al Gore and was elected through the means of Electoral College and hanging chads in Florida whose governor was and is his brother. Not to mention the biased Supreme Court packed with conservatives. As for Blair, he did win three elections with large majorities but with less than half the people exercising their right to vote he can hardly claim to have support of the majority. Also in the 'first past the post' system a candidate might win despite getting a minority of votes because opposition votes are split between the Liberals and the Conservatives. Despite all this it did not stop the duo from killing half a million people in an illegal war in Iraq. If you ask them they will claim to have the people's mandate just as Musharraf does. Berlusconi won quite illegaly by controlling the media and succeeded in subverting investigations into criminal activities by claiming immunity as Prime Minister. Jacques Chirac also claimed immunity from investigation because he was President. His predecessor Mitterand was able to suppress strong rumours of his involvement in the Vichy regime. Despite their despotic behaviour these gentlemen at least had the decency not to claim to be a Very Important Person or VIP. Whatever their actions they tried to maintain an outward show of humility and respect for the law. Not so our lot. These have labelled themselves not only to be very important but very, very important and cause a lot of grief and money with their security. No sharam no izzat.

There was no aam aadmi at independence. This was created in the last sixty years in four steps. Step 1. Keep people illiterate. More than half the people in the first Cabinet after independence were barristers educated in the UK and yet they do not seemed to have noticed that all children in the UK have to go to school compulsorily upto the age of 16 years. Step 2. Waste all tax collection on a huge army of donothing kleptocrats and ignore infrastructure. No roads, electricity, water or sanitation. If a man has to go to an open ground by railway tracks in the morning and bare the lower half of his body he loses his self respect and dignity. When he sees animals defaecating at the same spot with him he loses his humanity. Step 3. Keep saying ' India is a poor country ' and inflict crippling taxation on a list of ' luxury ' goods such as televisions, air conditioners etc so that they are beyond reach of all but a handful of citizens. After pressure of the WTO sales taxes have come down so new taxes called service taxes are being imposed. About fifteen years ago you would wait four years for a telephone connection and a call from Delhi to Chandigarh would cost Rs.100 per minute. Now every tea seller and his aunt has a mobile and a call to the US costs Rs. 5 per minute. This is giving too much freedom to the aam aadmi and is unacceptable so Service Tax was introduced at 8%. This has gone upto 12.5 % and may be pushed upto 20%. So everyone may own a mobile but fewer people will afford to use it. Step 4. Charity at tax payers expense. A politician will go to a village and announce free electricity or saris or televisions and the illiterate, dehumanised, despairing populace will come and touch his feet while he stands with hands upraised in benediction and a smile on his face ugly with debauch. The aam aadmi is here and politicians think they are Gods.

An American thinktank has said that Pakistani nuclear weapons are under American control since 2001. Apparently after the Twin Tower attacks President Bush issued an ultimatum to President Musharraf to place his nukes under US control or they would be destroyed with Indian help. It is natural that Musharraf would want to hide that fact but why were the Americans play acting all these years? Did they inform Indian leaders about what was going on so that India would feel reassured? After all we are the biggest sufferers of Islamic terrorism and Pakistan is the biggest state sponsor of terrorists. Countries such as Iran and Syria have been isolated for decades because they have been described as supporters of terrorists and Libya was under serious sanctions until recently but Pakistan has always been feted by the West. Of course I have some doubt as to whether Pakistan has ever been able to produce its own nukes or whether it has been supplied by China. After India tested its own nukes the then Paki Foreign Minister rushed over to Beijing and it is possible that the Chinese handed over six outdated nukes to him, three of which exploded and three did not. In that case the present report is rubbish and designed to create further chaos in Pakistan. But to what purpose? So we have Indian politicians, a lot of whom are convicted criminals, President Musharraf the criminal behind Kargil and a dictator and George Bush who talks to God playing football with nukes. In the background, the Chinese who like to crush students under tanks and create an economic boom by allowing their citizens to be used as slaves. We, the aam aadmi are probably less important than sacrificial lambs.

In recent months there has been a lot of debate about the nuclear deal with the US and the blocking tactics of the communists. Our freeloading journalists have written reams on perfidy of the commies, on how they are against progress at any cost and are taking India back to the dark ages. Some have alleged that the commies are taking orders from China to scuttle the deal because it is so good for India that it will make us immensely powerful and on par with the Chinese. If the commies are indeed taking orders from the Chinese to cause national harm they are guilty of treason and should be tried for such. However, no one has said if this delay and debate has been good or bad for the country. I have not read the details in the treaty but lots of pundits have gone through the details and most scientists seem to be of the view that it is good for India. In so far that it has drawn attention to what we have to give for nuclear assistance it is a good thing. After all we have to remember the record of the Congress party since independence. Apparently the first Chief of the Indian Army, General Cariappa, begged for twentyfour hours to repel all infiltrators from Kashmir but Nehru did not oblige. Instead he went to the UN and we have been left with the problem ever since. It was also Nehru who signed Panchsheel with Chou En Lai and coined the phrase 'Hindi Chini bhai bhai '. Well we know what happened and not only is China still occupying over fifty thousand square miles of Indian territory it is demanding Arunachal which is a part of India. Lal Bahadur Shastri signed away all Pakistani territory occupied by India at great cost for nothing in return and Indira Gandhi returned over 90,000 prisoners of war after the infamous Shimla Agreement which Bhutto had no intention of honouring. Although the intentions of the commies are suspect it was good to draw attention to what the Congress Prime Minister had signed.

Politicians are such liars. The whole world suddenly seems to have woken upto the fact that Gen. Musharraf is a dictator and has been for the past decade. Everyone is lecturing him for declaring a state of emergency in Pakistan but he seems quite relaxed and appears to be enjoying all the attention. After all look at his opponents. Main opposition is led by lawyers who are crooks anyway. Benazir Bhutto is a bull**** artist. Her husband, Zardari, was known as Mr. Ten Percent for skimming money off all govt. contracts. She is demanding that the constitution be changed so that she can have a third term as prime minister. So much for democracy and the sanctity of the Constitution. Nawaz Sharif is a big landowner and his whole clan is knee deep in the stinking stuff. Maybe Musharraf will be replaced by another army fellow who will continue along the same path. This is on the west. On the east it is altogether different. Burma is ruled by a bunch of ugly, lowlife thugs prancing around in uniforms. There is no way they are going to allow anyone to take power because they cannot afford to. They have committed so many atrocities and killed so many people that giving up power would mean trials and long jail terms. They will be looking at what happened to Generals Pinochet and Galtieri who thought they had immunity but were publicly humiliated. The thugs in Burma are much worse and uglier. India, unfortunately is stuck in the middle.

Oil will breach $ 100 a barrell within the next few days which will increase gas prices in the US and add to transport costs of everything, from food to toothpaste. The dollar is dropping to new lows against most currencies which should increase the price of imports. Meanwhile more people are finding jobs because of increase in exports and booming tourism. This should cause inflation but the Fed cut rates for the second time and has pumped more than forty billion dollars to relieve the credit crunch. Seems that they believe that recession is a bigger possiblity than inflation. Maybe that money is coming to the east because markets here are jumping from one record to another. Mumbai, Shanghai, Hong Kong all appreciating like mad. China Oil has become a trillion dollar company on listing after its IPO. Ali Baba dot com, also a Chinese company, is at 130 its projected earnings. Meanwhile Merrill Lynch have lost nearly eight billion dollars as have Citi Bank on subprime mortgages. General Motors have lost a mind boggling 36 billion dollars in the mortgage market. No one knows what the final bill is going to be and what effect it will have. Speculators and hedge funds move vast billions at the speed of wire transfer and globalisation has removed any controls that governments used to have. In this morning's paper it says that more than ten billion dollars have been invested in Indian stocks through PNs ( Participatory Notes ) which are use by anonymous investors. Some people fear this is terrorist money being laundered through the Indian stock market or it could be drug money. No one knows. No doubt it is hot money and could vanish overnight. Meanwhile ministers are smiling at the phantom market capitalisation of Indian companies. No controls and no one knows. Frightening way to run the world. A very happy Diwali to all my fellow citizens of the world.

I have often thought that teaching history in school is a waste of time. No one learns anything from the events of the past and the same stupidities get repeated over and over resulting in civil unrest or war with consequent destruction of lives and property. This time it is Pakistan. Musharraf thought he was too clever and pretended to be against Islamic terrorists while encouraging them to infiltrate into India and plant bombs. Americans had helped shape the Taliban phenomenon to trouble the Russians and are still paying the price. Americans have a long history of encouraging dictators such as Saddam Hussein and are now reaping the rewards. All this was happening right on Musharraf's doorstep but he thought he could get US money for helping the war on terror and support of the Islamic parties for killing innocent Indians for no reason. He may have to pay a heavy price. Will other countries learn from this. I do not think so. Even at this moment China is protecting the regime in Burma and will not support any sanctions against Iran. They are busy giving no-strings aid to dictators in Africa so as to get their hands on scarce minerals and oil. They are probably the largest investors in Sudanese oil industry and will block any sanctions on Khartoum regardless of the number of people dying in Darfour. They must be feeling pretty smug about their growng economy and power but they will surely pay in the future. The sooner that happens better for India.

Just got my driving licence renewed in Delhi. My British licence is valid till the age of seventy years but the Delhi licence has to be renewed every five years. First you have to drive fifteen kilometres to Janakpuri in West Delhi. The roads are potholed and the entire building is filthy. There is no public toilet so men use the back wall and the stench is so pungent that it is impossible to breathe. What poor women do I have no idea. You queue up at one counter to pay some fees then at other counters to pay for the photo fellow, for finger printing, for photograph, to submit your form and then wait at a point on the verandah for over an hour when suddenly a fellow appears and begins shouting out names and handing out new licences. By then most people are reduced to wrecks and pocket their licences gratefully, never mind the mistakes. As close to hell as you can imagine. Naturally touts abound and the officials earn twice their salaries in bribes. In Delhi all new cars have to follow European standards of emission to reduce pollution. All cars have fuel injection systems and you cannot tune your car higher like in the carbrettor. Still everyone has to get a pollution check certificate every three months which means wasting time at one of these places and paying Rs. 50 for the privilege. Nice way to earn money for friends of politicians and unnecessary harassment for people. Even new cars are not exempt. If a car gets stolen and the police find it they will only return after stamping the registration document with ' superdari'. Naturally you have to run around to get it cancelled before you can sell your car. Clearly you do not need guns to be a police state. India aspires to be a soft power in the world, it is already a soft police state.

Fellow come to the clinic with his wife who is complaining of dizziness. Fellow is eighteen years old, works as day labour and has been married two and a half years. The girl does not know her age. Looks about fifteen years old and would have been about twelve or thirteen when she was married off. Turns out she is pregnant. I get furious and tell the fellow he should be hanged but he looks completely blank. He has no idea that he has committed a crime by marrying an underage girl and is guilty of rape under Indian law. The girl looks bewildered not having any idea what pregnancy means or what the future holds. Even after thirty years of medicine it is heart breaking. Repeated pregnancies, chronic malnutrition, a long miserable struggle to bring up children and may be a merciful early death. Next day I attend the Annual Sports day at a local school. Girls of all ages laughing, screaming and bouncing around the sports field while proud parents took photographs. No confusion here. These girls looked happy in the present and confident of the future. Unfortunately such girls are in the minority in India. Even among the middle classes boys are prized while girls are seen as liability. Among poor paople girls are seen as curses and millions are aborted or killed just after birth. No one seems to realize that without women you cannot have sons. Two women are in the news this week. Both married without parental consent, one of them married a fellow of different religion who was found murdered. Although volumes of pious words will be written most people will think that these are prime examples of how girls bring shame on families and destroy honour. Is it better to be aborted, not to be born rather than face a life of hardship and misery? Wish I knew.

A item on the online BBC news site on Tuesday, 23 October, 2007 says that money collected for disaster relief has gone missing. Mr. Rehman, an employee of Coal India Ltd. says that all employees of that company had donated one day's wages for victims of Gujarat earthquake, Kargil war and the Asian tsunami but the money never reached the Prime Minister's Relief Fund. He found this out by persistently asking for information under the Right to Information Act. I doubt that any Indian will be surprised at this news. Few years back an American of Indian origin wanted to donate money to the college he had passed from but the then minister, Murli Manohar Joshi decreed that he could not donate directly to his college but had to go through the ministry. The fellow donated the money to an American college instead. Such is the mistrust and contempt for politicians and civil servants tht no self respecting Indian will have anything to do with them. Do these people feel insulted that they are seen as scum by their countrymen? Not at all. When they are able to commit any crime and live a life of luxury at tax payers expense they can afford to have skins thicker than that of a rhinoceros. Do mafiosi feel insulted by being called criminals? Some educated Indians say that a period of army rule would benefit the country by executing all politicians and civil servants but that would be even worse than what we have at present. There seems to be no solution.

So South Africa managed to beat England in the Rugby World Cup. What relief. I would probably have stopped watching the game had England managed to remain champions. Although they have the prescribed fifteen on the park, England have managed to make it a nine man game - eight big forwards and one goal kicker. Their game plan is simple, effective, extremely negative and boring. Kick long into the opponents half, disrupt their lineouts, prevent clean ball possession at rucks and hope that the referee will give a penalty for some silly reason such as coming in from the side. If the opponents knock on then use your weight advantage in the scrum and lay the ball back for a drop goal attempt. South Africa beat England at their own game. Their forwards disrupted English lineouts on at least three occasions, kicked long into English half whenever they had possession and defended with discipline to avoid giving away stupid penalties. Habana and Pietersen used their pace to tackle English backs forcing them to hold on and give away penalties. In Percy Montgomery they had a goal kicker as good as Johnny Wilkinson so they won by kicking five out of six penalties for fifteen points to Wilkinson's two penalties and one missed drop goal attempt. No tries and boring. If the authorities of Rugby Union want other countries to play and watch the game they must do something to encourage try scoring. For example they could have two types of panalties, three points for dangerous play such as high tackles or stamping in rucks and two points for silly reasons such as coming in from the side. This might discourage England from using their negative tactics and look to making it a fifteen man game.

So Nokia decided to recall forty million faulty batteries. Large advertisements in leading dailies promised that new batteries would come in the post if you promised to return the old ones in the envelopes provided. I registered online and filled in the correct name address and all details required. Another person in Delhi registered by text messaging and was promised that the new batteries would come by post in three weeks. Of course this being India that did not happen. After waiting for a month and a half I went to the Nokia service centre in Dehradun and was told that all batteries had finished and they did not know when new ones would come. So last week I went to a service centre in Delhi where I was told the same thing. Eventually after we became angry our batteries were changed. Would Nokia dare to treat customers in Europe or America with such contempt. There is no doubt that they saved a lot of money by not sending batteries by post. Whether they thought that all Indians are dishonest and would fail to return the old batteries I do not know. I also do not know if the company service centres had been instructed to say that they had run out of batteries but they definitely wasted a lot of our valuable time and caused great inconvenience. It is not uncommon for Indians to be treated with such contempt by foreigners who make a great deal of money in our country. Sadly there is nothing we can do and they know it. After all our politicians class themselves as VIPs which makes all other citizens unimportant.

The whole world is watching aghast as the despicable criminal junta in Burma kill and torture innocent people and defile monasteries. It is not the killing of a hundred, two hundred or even a thousand citizens that is most awful but the conversion of ordinary people into terrified monsters capable of shooting a Japanese photographer in cold blood at point blank range or inform on friends or brothers. Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao did the same thing to their people. The same phenomenon is taking place in India though in a much more subtle manner. People are being transformed into fearsome beasts capable of any crime however heinous it may be. Everyday newspapers carry stories of crimes whose brutality reach new nadirs beyond imagination. This morning's story is about the kidnap and murder of a ten year old for ransom. Yesterday it was about the murder of a 25 year old woman for dowry. Rape, incest, murder, paedophilia, served with your morning tea. Why not if the politicians do the same and get away with it. The police and other investigating agencies such as the CBI are toothless. Forensic experts corrupt evidence to secure release of the rich and powerful. Instead of improving the investigation and prosecution of criminals the govt tries to curtail free speech. First they tried to sneak in a Broadcasting Bill but stepped back because of enormous opposition. Now a parliamentary committee is recommending that Internet Service Provider (ISP) will be liable to criminal prosecution for third party content. Which means my ISP could face jail for this blog. Since it is not possible for anyone to monitor what millions of people are writing it means that ISPs will just have to shut down. Ergo no more blogs so no dissemination of information or criticism. Must admit our politicians learn quickly from the Chinese and the Burmese.

Last week in Bangalore a group of young men and a few women were out celebrating . One fellow had qualified as a lawyer from the prestigious National Law School and had just landed a job in Bombay. Around midnight they decided to go to a local lake. On the way their car developed a problem and they were waiting by the road side when a group of local louts came by. An argument developed and this young man was stabbed to death. When contacted the first question the police asked was why they were going to a secluded lake at that time of the night with young women. This was the first question that came to my mind when I read the news report. Had a bunch of young men gone to a dark lake there would probably be no danger but the presence of girls made it infinitely dangerous. It was an invitation to the thugs, probably high on alcohol, to show their machismo and try to teach 'educated fellows' a thing or two. It seems that girls today have no appreciation of appropriate behaviour. They seem to think that they can do what men can get away with. Had they gone to the lake it is possible that they would have been picked up by police and charged with indecent behaviour or even raped by the police themselves. This kind of thing happens regularly but girls do not seem to notice. Most women say that men are beasts and that they have a right to go anywhere at any time of the day or night. This is the stupidest thing to say. Theft is a crime and no one has a right to steal our property. Yet we have bars on our windows, elaborate locks on our doors and imported gear locks in our cars. Surely women should take care of their bodies as they take care of their possessions. Yet they would like to be more macho than men. Unfortunately men and women are completely different species and three billion years of evolution cannot be undone by ten years of globalisation.

There has been a spate of deaths in Delhi when people have been mowed down by buses run by private operators, the so called ' Blue Line buses ', so called because they are coloured a light shade of blue to distinguish them from the green ones of Delhi Transport, the sarkari fellows. Following headlines in newspapers politicians have come out with their usual lies and smokescreen. They talk about phasing out Blue Line buses which is utter nonsense because without private operators public transport will be crippled. Moreover the same fellows will paint the buses a different colour and start operating again. This has happened previously when Red Line buses were banned and the Blue Line ones started. The problem is that transport companies are owned by politicians who will never allow their profits to fall regardless of the number of people killed. Yet the problem is so easy to solve. A strict law that enforces proper maintenance of all public buses and heavy punishment for owners if vehicles are found to be faulty. Secondly all commercial licences should be centralised and the driving test stored on video to eliminate bribes. All licences in Delhi already demand prints of index fingers of both hands so it should be easy to compare prints of new applicants against the data bank to prevent applying for a new licence under a different identity. So easy yet impossible because the law concentrates on pollution control of cars with small engines every three months because this earns money and lets people be murdered by buses. Politicians need to enjoy.

Seems that a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court ( CJI ) helped his sons while on the bench. His sons were working for a company constructing shopping malls. The CJI ordered sealing of shops and businesses operating in residential areas and the razing of buildings considered to be built illegally. This resulted in panic and huge rises in the prices of shopping malls as businesses frantically looked to relocate. These orders have now been suspended. Three journalists of a tabloid, Mid Day, have been punished by the Delhi High Court for contempt of court. Apparently by publishing this story they sought to cast the entire judiciary into disrepute. The Court made no attempt to verify the truth behind the story so the judgement means that whatever the crime committed by a judge no one is allowed to talk about it. The Minister of Information and Broadcasting tried to introduce a bill which has united all journalists in opposition. They say that the bill is aimed at reducing the right to free speech. Meanwhile in Burma army thugs are beating up monks and nuns for expressing dissatisfaction with the criminal junta. Last year the Chinese had to release a blind activist, who had been jailed for protesting against corruption, because of the international outcry. No one would dare to criticise Ahmadinejad in his own country Iran but he had to sit and listen to the bad mannered rantings of the boorish Dean of Columbia University. Third world leaders have to understand that unless they respect their own people they will be insulted abroad.

Yesterday I was mugged inside Reliance Webworld where I go every Sunday to check my mail and update this site. The weapon used is called ' validity ' which wiped off Rs. 400 from my account because I was a day late in renewing it. The small internet cafes are safe. They charge Rs. 10 per half hour after you finish. This weapon is used by the big boys - Reliance, Satyam and so on. They will not let you do anything unless you open an account. Then you have to buy time for example 100 minutes for Rs. 100 or whatever is on offer. You think that since you have bought and already paid for those minutes you may use them whenever you like but therein lies the catch. There is a period of validity upon expiry of which your money disappears into a black hole never to return. To keep your account valid you must renew within the stipulated period whether you have used any time or not. This is like saying that the new car you are buying will be valid for, say, two years following which, if you do not pay some more, the engine will seize up. I had renewed on the 23rd of last month and was going to renew yesterday which was also 23rd. But sadly my validity expired on the 22nd and my balance of Rs. 400 was wiped out. If this is not larceny I do not know what is. Yet it must be costing little to maintain customer accounts indefinitely. After all Hotmail is free for billions of people and this site is provided free by Google, both enormously profitable. It is just greed on the part of Reliance and a contempt for its customers. In India the customer is a sucker to be sucked dry.

Hallelujah, India is the most perfect economy in the world. A substandard flat built by the Delhi Development Authority cost just over Rs. 3 million five years back but is now a cool Rs. 17 million. The Sensex has risen from around 3000 about two years ago to over 16000 two days back, after the FED rate cut and the talk is of 19000 soon. Vegetable prices have more than doubled in the last year and prices of commodities such as cement and steel are up about 50%. Basmati rice, which sold for Rs. 35 a kilo last year, cost Rs. 48 a few days ago. Potatoes were Rs. 10 last year but are Rs. 24 today. the list goes on. Miraculously and fortunately the government's inflation figure remains at around 5% year on year. Thank God for that. Had the inflation been any higher the beloved aam aadmi would have suffered terribly. Even at 5% India's inflation is twice that of the US. Unlike China, which has huge fiscal surplus, India runs a current account deficit due to increased import of capital goods and increasing oil prices. With all these figures you would expect the rupee to fall in value against the dollar but, in fact, the opposite is happening. The rupee has strengthened from 48 to 40 against the dollar and fell below 40 in yesterday's trading. The wise govt. is bailing out the exporters who are used to a continually depreciating rupee and are bleating in distress. All this is down to the wise policies of our genius politicians. I owe a sincere apology to Goldilocks. I did not think she existed.

Two large headlines in today's newspaper. One said that the government is going to increase taxes on new cars and on petrol. New cars will cost 8% more and a cess of Re.1 will be added to petrol. These new taxes will raise Rs. 50 billion which will be used to improve public transport in large cities in India. Alongside this piece of cheering news is another headline which says that Rs. 315 billion have been stolen from the Public Distribution System (PDS) in the last two years. The other name for PDS is Rationing and this was started in the 1960s when there was famine in India and we had to be rescued by the US (PL480). At that time everyone had a ration card and gradually this functioned as an identity card and proof of address and was required for obtaining a passport, car registration and in other interaction with govt. agencies. From the beginning it was ridden with corruption. The quality of rice and wheat was so poor that we found them inedible and ration shop owners used to mix gravel with rice resulting in many a broken tooth. As the green revolution succeeded anyone who could afford it started buying rice and wheat from the open market. A few years ago the govt. decided that rations would be only for the genuine poor. As we can see they have been stealing from the poor and one of the worst states is West Bengal where the commies are always going on about the poor. In the last three years the Central Govt. has been Congress supported by the Communists and they have been adding taxes frantically while the plunder goes on. No sharam, no izzat.

With the economy improving foreigners are arriving in increasing numbers to India. Imagine an Englishman arriving at IGI Airport, Delhi to be welcomed by a typical Delhiite. I imagine the conversation would go something like this - ' Good evening sirjee, myself Manish. Your good name John Makepiss? Welcome sirjee. You want bathroom? You want to do toilet or latrine? Don't know? Must be gas. My neighbourer had pijja and lady finger for lanch and was having terrible gas. Doctor said he has inphection of the cowlon. He died. Sad no? Now I am having his car. I buy it form his misses for 50000 bucks. It has no stepney and its self and shockers are slightly broken. My cobrother get me a driving licence for Rs. 500. Good to pay and get licence otherwise the RTO fellows send you up to the wall. No problem, all part of the game. My cobrother likes sports so I buy him two nikkers so he can play with his friends. Here is my car, sirjee. You sit in the front and I will put your suitcase in the backside. Don't worry sirjee, my dicky is very big.'
It is a fact that trade with the UK is not growing as the government would like.

Hundreds of millions of Indians are stupidly passionate about cricket. Repeated failures do not seem to reduce their enthusiasm. They have already forgotten the ignominy of the World Cup. In the recent Nat West series against England India were 3-1 down but recovered to 3-3, much to the delight of the broadcaster and the cricket boards, only to capitulate pathetically in the final at Lords. Because of these stupid millions sports channels keep showing cricket all day long. They show old matches from their archives, which cost them nothing, and rake in the profits. Genuine sports lovers are deprived of live sports. For instance only one sports channel is broadcasting selected matches of the ongoing Rugby World Cup even though regular matches are played in Calcutta and Bombay. Teams such as Calcutta Police, Armenians, LMOB, CFC, Bombay Gymkhana and teams from Sri Lanka play against each other but the sports channels ignore the sport thinking all Indians are stupid. A sizable chunk of these idiots bet illegaly ( called satta ) on the result of the matches and on such statistics as to whether Tendulkar will score a century. Instead of making betting legal and collecting a tax on it our criminal politicians have made it illegal. Result is that satta is controlled by criminal gangs, mainly that of Dawood Ibrahim. Dawood, in turn, is controlled by the Inter Services Intelligence ( ISI ) of Pakistan. Thus the vast amounts of money generated by satta is being used to finance terrorist activities in India. Pakistan does not have to spend any of its own money to kill Indians because idiots are hooked on cricket. There seems to be no solution.

Indians are understandably proud of our achievements in telecom. From the time when you had to wait at least 4 years to get a connection and, very often, only after dishing out heavy bribes to now when even a labourer whips out a mobile casually is indeed a great improvement. A call from Delhi to Chandigarh, a distance of 250 km, was a trunkcall at Rs. 100 per minute and you had to go through an operator, invariably a disgusting woman who barked at you while now you can call the US for about Rs 6 per minute. Unfortunately fellows at the other end have remained the same and therein lies the problem. You see thick fog out of your window and phone Delhi Airport to find out if flights are still landing and a fellow tells you that every flight is on time. When you reach the airport after a fingernail chewing, heart thumping drive you see on all the monitors that all flights have been delayed. You phone the helpline of the bank and cancel your credit card because you are going abroad and you are assured that you will not be getting any more bills. When you return you find that you have been sent a new card and then the bank starts a process of harassment and threats to make you pay Rs. 700 which is the yearly subscription. Since no one is recording the phone conversation you have no proof of cancellation. Happened with a foreign and a public sector bank. Foreign banks would not dream of treating customers in their home countries the way they treat us but they follow government controlled public sector banks in bullying us and giving substandard service. Celebrating sixty years of independence

Junior doctors at All India Institute for Medical Sciences ( AIIMS ) in Delhi have been on strike because they have not received their degree certificates for two years. This is a most crucial time for these young people because their careers and lives are at stake. The Health Minister is refusing to sign the certificates for reasons that have not appeared in newspapers. The High Court in Delhi instructed the Minister to sign the documents immediately but we will have to wait and see if he will do so secure in the knowledge that he can do anything he likes including destroying the valuable lives of so many young people. So what has His Majesty, the Health Minister done during his time in office. He has banned smoking in Indian films and he has been trying his level best to destroy AIIMS, the only premier medical institution in the country. He is trying to increase reservation for undeserving candidates and thus lower standards and he has been needling the Director, trying to get him to resign so that he can get his own man in. Has he done anything to improve the standard of medical care or reduce unethical marketing by drug firms? Where is the time for anything constructive?

Seems that in 1961 the Americans wanted India to develop a nuclear weapon before China so that China would not become too powerful. Unfortunately Nehru was against nuclear weapons and vetoed the idea. China repaid that by attacking us and is still occupying about 50000 squre miles of Indian territory. They annexed Tibet and India recognised their claim that Tibet used to be a part of China without any benefit in return. Now China is planning to divert the Brahmaputra river towards its own land with the threat of catastrophic changes in the North East. By facilitating the immigration of Han Chinese to Tibet in huge numbers it is marginalising the local population. The refugee Tibetans in India will probably never see their native land will will become permanent residents of India. Even now we see monks and nuns trekking for weeks through extremely hostile territory to reach India. Some of the stories are horrific tales of being shot at, beatings, rape, hiding in caves and trekking through dangerous snow bound paths for days while surviving on snow. Not just the people, even the wildlife of India is paying the price of Nehru's folly. Like cockroaches Chinese eat virtually every living creature and insist on the right to make 'medicines' from animal parts. Inidan tigers, bears, snakes and rhinos are being slaughtered to extinction by poachers to provide for their stupid medicine inspite of irrefutable proof that they are inactive. The same Congress party is now trying gain popularity for a nuclear pact with the US. Sadly for us it is 46 years too late.

One NFL quarterback has pleaded guilty to dog fighting charges and killing dogs cruelly. He will probably go to jail and pay a fine but there seems to be an outcry to ban him from the NFL for life. It is disgusting to cause pain to any living creature and rightly he is being punished but I fail to understand why he should not be allowed to play foorball again. Hunting deer and wild boar is allowed in the US as is shooting birds. An animal shot and wounded may suffer from untold agony while trying to escape from the hunter. Shotguns are used for shooting birds which spray pellets over a wide area. Wounded birds fall to the ground and flop around desperately trying to fly while in pain and panic. Vice President Dick Cheney accidently shot his friend while out shooting birds and is now a butt of jokes. However, no one is asking him to resign for cruelty to birds. Cattle and sheep are stunned and then butchered to reduce suffering but fish are hauled out of water and allowed to slowly suffocate to death. Lobsters scream when they are thrown live into boiling water before being dressed and served in posh restaurants. Is there any evidence that dogs suffer more pain than birds, fish or lobsters? I am not advocating that everyone should turn vegetarian but it is one thing to kill a living organism for food and quite another to kill for sport. Deep sea fishing is only for rich people. Hire a boat on a summer's day, take food and beer, hook a marlin and play it for a couple of hours before hauling it out of water to suffocate to death. Great fun to let the fish run a little before jerking it back time and again. Unbelievable cruelty and great enjoyment, worth spending thousands of dollars for. What is nauseating is the hypocrisy and selective blindness. No wonder the gun lobby is unbeatable. Killing innocent students by a crazy fellow brings a shrug of shoulders but killing dogs causes a national outcry. Nuts.

There is a lot of silly talk coming out of Washington about American withdrawal from Iraq. The south of Iraq constitutes 60% of the population and is Shia. This area also has most of the Iraqi oil. The south of Iraq shares its borders with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan thus Iran will be sitting on the borders of these countries through its proxy militias. Kuwait, Saudi and Jordan are Arabs and thus ancient enemies of Persian Iran. More pertinent they are Sunnis and bitterly hate the Shias of Iran. These three countries must be terrified of any American withdrawal because they will be at the complete mercy of Iran which has a huge and very committed army. More importantly Iran will be able to control most of the Gulf oil if it should so choose to do. That is surely intolerable for the US and its friends in Europe and Asia. The only credible way the Americans can leave Iraq without creating a gigantic geopolitical mess is to take out Iran and hope to bring about regime change by engineering some revolt after destroying its defence capabilities by massive bombing. We hear that millions of dollars of arms have gone missing in Iraq and no one knows how. Surely it would not be easy to move tons of arms through American checkpoints without anyone noticing. Can we assume that these have gone to Iranian dissidents for future use? After all the Americans are supplying arms to Sunnis who were their previous enemies. Is it possible that Arabs will join the US in bombing Iran with Israel grinning in the background. ? Delicious thought. Go for it George.

Gentleman I know in London had a urine infection about two months back. He is about 65 years old and would be a candidate for prostate problems. He was given a course of antibiotics by his GP but had another infection after two weeks at which time the GP referred him to a hospital consultant for further investigations. Urinary infections are uncommon in men and two episodes within a short time demands further investigations. He was seen by a consultant who advised a urine exam and a PSA, presumably to see if cancer was a possiblity. However they have not carried out an ultrasound examination which is non invasive, completely safe and could give a load of information such as size of prostate, degree of obstruction, if any, and if anything like a stone is responsible for the symptoms. Seems that there are huge waiting lists for ultrasounds and this can only be done if absolutely necessary. In India an ultrasound costs about $12, CT scan of the brain about $35 and an MRI about $120. Medicines are about one tenth what they would cost in other countries. Unfortunately healthcare is still poor in India. The wretched poor cannot afford even these paltry amounts and the middle classes, especially here in the northwest, are reluctant to spend money on health. They seem to believe that health is God given and should be free. Also the people in this part of India are compusive liars and do not believe doctors. Thus blood pressure and diabetes remain uncontrolled because they do not cause pain. Sadly health will remain less important than the latest gizmo wherever we go.

Not many people in India understand the minutiae of the nuclear with the US but the general consensus seems to be that it suits our needs. In any negotiation there is some give and take and in this case the balance seems to be about right. The nuclear scientists, who were dead against the deal originally, have now been won over and most journalists seem to be supportive. Unfortunately the BJP and the Communists are dead against it and there is talk of a snap general election. The criminal politicians are so focused on self gain that they have no consideration for the welfare of the country and the aam aadmi for whom they profess such devotion at every opportunity. The opposition is not there to oppose everything the government does but to keep a check on unfair legislation and any attempt at reducing the fundamental rights of the people. Unfortunately politicians hate to see their opponents gain any popularity for any good that they do and so will oppose what is good for the country for fear of losing the next election. This is cynicism and selfishness at its worst. If the BJP wants to be considered as a serious contender for the main party in government then it has to show that its priority is the welfare of India and not merely be a party of plunder as others have been. As for the Communists the suggestion is that they are taking orders from China which is an avowed enemy of India. Surely it is treason to take orders from India's enemy to cause grave harm to the country. Every country in the world including those which have got rid of the death penalty for murder still retain it for treason. There is uniform consensus that treason is a much worse crime than even serial killing. It is a shame for me that it is Bengal that has been electing these filthy traitors to power for over twentyfive years.

One of the things I find extremely irritating is when I am told that I should be talking proper Hindi because it is my mother tongue. Firstly I am a Bengali and I think Bengali is much superior in its literature, poetry and music than Hindi. Secondly Hindi was imposed suddenly on the country by Nehru to give Hindiwallahs an unfair advantage in government jobs and because the Nehru-Gandhi family is elected from some part of Uttar Pradesh. It would have been much more fair to make Sanskrit the national language. Sanskrit is, after all, the mother of all Indian languages and every child would learn English, Sanskrit and mother tongue ( Tamil, Oriya or Hindi ) in school. That would have integrated the country instead of dividing it as Hindi has done. Also if everyone knows Sanskrit then there would be no need for pundits. The reason why Brahmins were able to maintain their superiority in caste through the centuries is because of their knowledge of Sanskrit and hence their control of the scriptures. We cannot buy a house, get married or even die without the services of a Brahmin at considerable cost. Knowledge of Sanskrit would enable everyone to perform their own puja or ritual and make all castes equal. Why would anyone call himself a Dalit when he has equal knowledge of scriptures as Brahmins do at present? After all God does not belong to anyone and did not sanction castes. But without castes politicians would be unable to divide society and exploit the weak so the class war will continue. What would we have achieved if such divisions did not exist.

Stock markets fell heavily yesterday although the Dow made a late recovery and ended only 15 points down but the Asian markets are falling heavily again today and governments are injecting more money in a bid to increase liquidity and stop the falls. Pundits appearing on news channels are usually analysts working for banks and finance companies and their bonuses are linked to profits made from bull markets. They, not unsurprisingly, claim that the market is heavily oversold and will rebound strongly. Politicians are habitual liars anyway and only interested in the short term with eyes firmly fixed on the next election date. No one seems to have any idea as to the size of the sub prime defaults and which banks are likely to be hit next. I am not an economist but as a small time investor would like to know what will happen if the falls continue. If investors in the US start redeeming money from funds will they sell in emerging markets to pay American investors? In which case how far will the Sensex fall and will it drag down the housing market with it? If the Fed reduces interest rates will there be a run on the dollar? If oil prices go up for whatever reason how will the central banks tackle inflation as well as reduce interest rates? If the US goes into recession will China also catch cold and result in world wide recession? Seems to me noone can control events any more. Globalisation is a genie which can send markets or currencies up or down without control and without anyone being able to predict which way it will go. All they keep saying is that fundamentals are strong and Goldilocks will be here shortly. Instead of going for the spectacular if Al Qaeda were to attack a few oil tankers on the open seas the entire house of cards could come tumbling down. Terrifying. Thank God I do not know economics.

Tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of our independence and a lot of hot air and lies will flow from politicians but I do not feel independent at all. First there is the hierarchy. On top are Very Very Important People or VVIPs followed by VIPs. Then there are twopenny, thieving civil servants who have official cars with siren and flashing lights. They drive at double the speed limit and scare me off the road. They must be plain IPs. Then there are Scheduled Castes and Tribes followed by Hindiwallahs whose language we are forced to learn. You think that makes a very grateful 7th class taxpaying citizen but not so fast. If any of the above VVIPs or VIPs were to shoot and kill a cow, any ordinary dry cow, there will be massive riots for the murder of sacred 'Gau Mata' but if any criminal politician or thieving civil servant or his drug crazed, criminal son were to shoot me in broad day light inside a police station the police will do their utmost to destroy evidence and the fellow will go free. Politicians do what they like. Pass stupid laws which insult our intelligence, increase taxes at will and plunder the exchequer to go on foreign shopping trips where their fat, ugly, greedy wives shop with our hard earned money. No, I do not feel independent. Instead I am in a permanent state of appehension that I might be harmed in some way by a filthy sarkari fellow just for sport. British boots may not be trampling Mother India but criminal chappals surely are.

Bush refunds taxes and runs up huge fiscal deficits. The Fed prints more dollars to finance Bush's folly. The dollar should fall against other currencies but this is prevented by Central Banks buying up dollars to protect exports. This increased liquidity along with low interest rates leads to a huge asset price bubble, in turn leading to a lending frenzy. Excess leads to hangover, so inflation followed leading to rising interest rates, leading to tightening of liquidity, leading to collapse of the sub prime market. Now the share markets are getting jitters. Of course the pundits are saying the usual things such as ' the fundamentals are very strong ' and ' corrections are good for the market ' but we have heard all this when the dot com bubble collapsed. If this is only a ' good correction ' why did the European bank dole out 130 billion dollars into the system while the Fed injected 24 billion? Sounds like panic to me. What if the dollar keeps dropping in value? China is sitting on 1.3 trillion dollars, Japan on one trillion and India has 250 billion dollars. All Asian countries are sitting on huge dollar deposits and securities. How will they square their losses? What if China decides to diversify into Euros? Since the Yuan is tied to the dollar it will go down equally and will not affect Chinese exports. I hope and pray that the global economy is not so huge that it has developed its own momentum and is impossible to control or direct. I hope that our lot has some idea about what is going on.

This woman had a boy last year. Husband works as a driver and still has not cleared last year's bill. She is pregnant again, severely anaemic and her blood group is O negative which means it is very difficult to find donors for her. The obstetrician refers her to other hospitals but is refused by everyone so she is brought back to the clinic. In desperation the doctor phones the local army base and two jawans with the same blood group are found to donate blood. As per law each unit has to be tested for HIV, Hep B and C, malaria and so on and this costs around Rs. 900 per unit of blood even though the donation is free. The doctor pays for the tests out of her own pocket and a healthy baby girl is delivered normally. After delivery and transfusion of two units of blood her haemoglobin is 5 Gm. What of the husband in all this drama? He made her pregnant, did not take her for any antenatal care and dumped her in the clinic when she was about to deliver. The woman could have died, the doctor actually lost money to treat this serious patient and two jawans lost blood in peace time. The husband takes no responsiblity for anything and who is to say that the same drama will not be repeated again next year or may be the woman will die the next time. Should he not be punished? Fines are of no use as he has no money anyway and putting him in jail is also useless. He will just enjoy free food and medical care at the taxpayers expense while the family will starve. The only punishment he will understand is caning. This is already done in some countries like Singapore and we should adopt it. Let the bleeding hearts bleat.

One Ashok Malhotra got the permission for selling tea and snacks in the Assembly building in Delhi. Over the years he got to know politicians and civil servants and was able get more than 5000 plots allotted to him with multiple false identities. These were small plots meant for resettlement of slum dwellers and presumably one for each family. This was so lucrative that he runs a dozen luxury cars with customized number plates. When the story broke officials at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi ( MCD ) tried to burn more than 2500 files to get rid of evidence. Will anybody be punished for this scam? Unlikely. With so many employees it will prove well nigh impossible to pin any blame and after some time the story will disappear. The best course of action will be to sack all employees of MCD and New Delhi Municipal Corporation ( NDMC ) and privatise services with strict penalties for any deficiency. Of course, it will be heartless to allow so many crooks and their families to starve so I suggest that all employees should be paid their full salaries not to come to work and when each retires he or she be paid pension as per service rules. This can be done easily through local banks. This may sound daft but I am betting that by getting rid of all the crooks in one fell swoop we, the taxpayers can get excellent service and actually save money. At the same time the bleeding hearts will have no cause to rent their hair. Will this happen? Will politicians give up such fantastic sources of plunder? Hilarious.

One day of heavy rain and our capital city Delhi came to a halt. Waterlogging and broken roads led to massive traffic jams leading to extreme discomfort for the peaple. This is the same story every year because the municipality does not clean the drains after promising to do so. Unlike other cities Delhi has no shortage of agencies. There is the NDMC which is the municipal corporation for central Delhi where all the ' VVIPs ' ( sic ) live. The MCD looks after us, the aam aadmi, of outer Delhi. Then there is the State Government complete with an Assembly and a Chief Minister and, of course, the Central Government. So many agencies, so many people to feed. Where is the time or money to give any service to the citizens. Delhi is one of the most hostile places on earth. Upto 46 celsius in summer and down to 5 celsius in winter. In winter constant fog and a biting wind make it unbearable. March and November are nice but then out come legions of mosquitoes with malaria, dengue, chikangunia and other unknown viruses. But even worse than all the microbes are the people of Delhi. Liars, cheats, with teeth bared like rabid dogs they are the worst I have seen anywhere. They will stoop to any gutter for profit and then will show off their black money. No wonder every invader from Tuglak, Moguls to the British have found this the best place to establish their capitals. The present politicians are no different from the marauders of the past. Wonderful it is not.

Got a phone call from my son's friend in the US yesterday afternoon when it must have been around 5 AM over there. His friend, a young American lady is visiting Mumbai and has developed severe diarrhoea and vomiting. An extremely common story for visitors coming to India especially during these months. As an Indian I feel humiliated that our guests should suffer so and that we are unable to provide clean food and water. So for foreigners and Indians born abroad a few words of advice. The best time to come to India is between October and March when the weather is pleasantly cool and there are no flies to spread bacteria. Once here water is most important. Most Indians have water purifying systems at home so this should be safe. While travelling one should drink only bottled water. Chlorine tablets called Aquapure are available at most chemists and will make water safe to drink in a few hours. All fruits except bananas should be washed thoroughly before eating. A common mistake is to think that fruits which can be peeled, such as mangoes, do not need to be washed. Wrong. Hands should be washed before eating as also all eating utensils. Food should be kept in a fridge whenever possible or at least covered so that flies cannot get at it. If eating out choose a restaurant which is busy which will mean that there is a quick turnover of food and nothing is lying around long enough to get infected. Eat only hot food. Salads and other cold preparations should be avoided unless washed personally. Ice creams should be had in a big restaurant with backup electric supply. Life grows abundantly in the tropics and bacteria are also living. These monsoon months of heat and high humidity are perfect for bacterial growth. I hope all visitors to India will enjoy there stay here without any necessity to see a doctor although top class medical care is cheapest in India than anywhere else. Just be sensible.

In a sting operation in 2004 some journalists got a magistrate in Gujarat to issue arrest warrants against the President and Chief Justice of India. The magistrate has since been suspended for two years. Last week an angry Supreme Court asked the journalists to applogise for bringing the entire judiciary into disrepute. A three bench court headed by the Chief Justice said a rare mistake was blown out of proportion to tarnish the image of the judiciary in the minds of the public. The Court also pointed out that a magistrate handles 200 cases everyday and an occasional mistake is pardonable. With respect I would like to point out to the Honb'l Court that the Indian public does not consist of imbeciles who will be swayed by just one case of sensational journalism. Instead we realise that justice is only for politicians, the wealthy and the connected. Apparently over 30 million cases are pending in Indian courts, some for decades. 90% of cases relate to property disputes which drag on for years because lawyers keep on getting continuations and judges keep on agreeing. I have rejected countless requests for false medical certificates to people who wanted to avoid court appearances. If judges became stricter and started handing out ex parte judgements against aggressors and corrupt lawyers 90% of work will disappear. May I humbly suggest that the Honb'l Court put its house in order. You, sir, will have to decide where the buck stops.

The woman is some 26 years of age. She is married about five years and has a daughter of four years of age. She fell in love and married this fellow against the wishes of both families. He is an only child and used to live in his parents' house but they have probably kicked him out because he is now living with the woman's family. In India living with your wife's family is probably the most dishonourable thing a man can do. Being a ' ghar jawain ' robs you of all respect and dignity. Anyway the fellow is a layabout and reluctant to take on hard work. He does a little tailoring work and spends the m0ney on drinks. The w0man does nothing. Little wonder there is no money to send the daughter to school. Then the woman gets pregnant again. She probably went to the government hospital and was advised an ultrasound. There is little money for food for her pregnancy so an ultrasound is out of the question. When she is near term her brother pays for an ultrasound and they find that the baby has microcephaly or an abnormally small head and brain. Had this been detected earlier she could have been offered an abortion and would not have had to carry the baby for the entire nine months with all the attendant risks. Anyhow a lady doctor helps her deliver a baby boy without charge. The baby dies at birth. The mother is distraught especially because the baby was a boy. This woman raised a lot of questions in my mind. Why does this woman stay on with a loser? Why does she not get a job? With two people working they could give good food, all vaccines and an education to the daughter. Why does she want a son? With poor nutrition and no money for medical care she is unlikely to see old age so why the need for a son? Is the urge to have a son only an Indian disease and if so what is the treatment? I find it inexpicable.

Why do Indians never learn? They live abroad for years, get many degrees and become very successful in their chosen fields but they fail to learn any manners. When they are living abroad they keep their houses and gardens clean, do not drop litter on roads and never skip traffic lights. The moment they land at an Indian airport they start spitting, throw dirty diapers on the floor and generally behave like some rabid animal. Worse than this they are always late and never answer mails. You are invited to dinner at 8 PM sharp but if you are stupid enough to reach before 9.30 PM you will be told by the maid that your host and hostess are still in the shower. This will be very embarassing because you are wondering whether they are showering together or separately and do not know whether to wait or go for a walk in the heavy rain. Then you will be given a story of how they had a very important business meeting with the Ambassador of some island with a population of 157 people which you realise is complete bull****. If you write a letter or send a mail to anyone in any Western country it will be answered promptly and with relevant information. However you will not get any answer from an Indian. The common excuse is ' I was very busy '. There are 168 hours in a week which is equivalent to 10080 minutes. Too busy to take out 10 minutes to answer a mail. Indians are probably the only people who do not respect their own country men. Sad.

Musharraf has declared that he is going to wage war on the terrorists after the Lal Masjid fiasco. Oh, really. This immediately begs the question as to why he has not done this before. For years he has been playing games with the US, promising support against Al Qaeda, while protecting the top leaders in Pakistan. Pakistan is a dirt poor country and $ 25 million should have been enough to tempt at least a few to betray these fellows. Dialysis requires highly skilled medical care and most of the disposables have to be imported. How is Bin Laden able to get such sophisticated care in the wild lands of Waziristan where primary medical care is almost non existent? Either he is hiding in some big city or a special clinic has been built in the mountains. Either way it would not have been possible without government help. The US is paying $ 2 billions every year to the Pakis for their support in the war against terror. Maybe some of that money is financing Bin Laden's treatment. Meanwhile we are told that the Lal Masjid operation was due to Chinese pressure. Apparently some Chinese girls had been abducted by some of the female jehadists and we know that beneath their suits and smiles the Chinks are still barbarians. They gave hell to Mush who could not refuse. What a country. Obsessed with illogical hatred for India, training ground for jehadists and kicked by Yanks and Chinks. When will Bush realise that Pakistan is part of the problem and not the solution? Bush and Mush, they may bring about the end of the world that the Christian fanatics keep anticipating.

Four years back a govt engineer, Satyendra Dubey was murdered for exposing corruption in the national highway construction programme. Then two years ago the bullet riddled body of Shanmughan Manjunath, who was a manager of a state owned oil company, was found in the back seat of his car. His crime was that he exposed how petrol was being adulterated. Sadly a few persons of principle still persist. A Karnataka bureaucrat, M.N.Vijayakumar has been chastising his colleagues for taking bribes, stealing and other acts of corruption which come so naturally to our civil servants. He has been transferred seven times in the last nine months which apparently is a warning to stop. His wife J.N.Jayashree, alarmed at the danger to her husband, has started a website called fightcorruption.wikidot.com. By informing the entire world of the criminals in our civil service she hopes to ' create a fortress of people ' around him so that the villains do not dare to touch him. Brave lady. Transparency International ranks India at 68th in its index of corruption below Bulgaria and Columbia. Only people of vile intent enter politics and the civil service and will do anything for money. After all policemen in Mumbai allowed terrorists to carry explosives into the city for money. For money police will prolong any investigation, destroy evidence while criminals threaten potential witnesses into retracting their testimonies. This makes these people feel omnipotent and able to carry out murders without the slightest anxiety. All we can do is pray.

At last the chickens are coming home to roost. For decades Pakistan has been sponsoring terrorists against India thinking that they could channel the homicidal tendencies of these sociopaths against Hindus and pretend to be ignorant about what was going on. Following 9/11 the Pakis thought they had a great opportunity of miking large amounts of money from the US by killing small fry while protecting the masterminds all the time. Well Lal Masjid has shown the dangers of dealing with homicidal fanatics. The US thought it was being clever helping the Taliban defeat the Soviets and paid a big price for it. Pakistan has got away with its murderous lies for too long and it is time it paid with blood. The shameful fact is that the US has always supported the dictators in Pakistan inspite of clear evidence of their support for terrorists. How would the US react if India signs a defence pact with Iran when this country is supplying explosives to terrorists in Iraq? Why is it wrong for terrorists to kill Yanks but fine if Indians are killed? How is it possible for Bush to claim to talk to God and continue to lie and deceive? It is no surprise that politicians are despised everywhere but the tragedy is that it is we common people that pay for their lies with our lives. I wonder if it would be possible to devise a system of government without politicians.

In the last week several people have been killed by public buses in Delhi. As usual the freeloading press is full of articles about killer buses and the politicians have promised tough action against 'Blueline' buses which are privately owned and operated. Predictably bus owners went on strike yesterday causing enormous inconvenience to the public and windfall profits for auto rickshaw drivers. In all this no one is speaking the truth which is that buses do not kill but drivers and owners do. Buses and trucks are poorly maintained to save costs and it is not unusual to see a fully laden bus or truck pointing at an angle to the direction in which it is moving. This is probably due to its chassis having been badly damaged in a previous accident and a new body built on the same. This would make it difficult to control especially if fully laden. Secondly every vehicle licensing office or RTO is full of touts who promise to get you any licence for a fee and obviously commercial drivers find it easier to pay the touts to avoid any hassle or scrutiny. In Delhi it is mandatory to provide prints of both index fingers to get a driving licence so it should be easy to check the antecedents of any applicant for a commercial licence. Also the vehicle should have a thorough check by automobile experts after an accident and the owner severely punished for running defective vehicles. Easy you say? Lives more important than money you say? Buses and trucks are owned by politicians or friends and relatives and they are licensed to kill. So there.

Seems to me everytime there has been a revolution the leaders have specifically targeted 'intellectuals' such as teachers, engineers, doctors and so on. It happened during the French revolution, the October revolution and is happening now in Afghanistan. Although there is a lot of political violence in India we cannot say that a revolution is about to happen, yet the government tries to make the lives of the middle class as unbearable as possible. You get up on old morning and there is no electricity which means the geyser will not work. So you struggle for the next hour heating water in cooking pans on the gas fire in the kitchen. You drive out in plenty of time but get stuck in a traffic jam because some minor municipal official has got some labourers painting the side walk at the busiest time of the day. Or it is summer and there has been no water supply for three days. Being desperate you decide to buy water but have to wait at home until the tanker turns up which means your entire day is ruined. You go to pay your phone bill and find yourself standing in the sun behind twenty people while the fellow at the counter sits having tea without the slightest concern. You have to receive your son at five in the morning at Delhi Airport and notice very thick fog blanketing the entire city. You phone the airport and are told that the flight would definitely be landing on time. So at great risk to life and limb you drive at five miles an hour all the way to the airport to find all the monitors showing that the airport is closed and no flights will be landing in the foreseeable future. Seems to me that the Enforcers want our lives to be such a miserable struggle that we would not have any time to organise any challenge to them. Meanwhile in today's news, the government is very happy for having collected a record amount of Service Tax. Enjoy.

In 2005 some journalists organised a sting operation in which they paid cash to Members of Parliament to ask questions as specified by the journalists. This ' cash for queries ' scandal resulted in eleven members being disqualified by the Speaker, a punishment which was supported by the Supreme Court. Today's newspaper carries a report that the present govt. has issued orders to the police to prosecute those journalists on charges of ' abetment of corruption '. The politicians of India have become so used to plunder, rape and murder with complete impunity that they find it difficult to accept that punishment might occasionally catch up with them. They must be pining for the good old days of Congress rule when they could make easy money doling out telephone and gas connections or cement permits to suitably grateful recipients. It also shows that politicians of India are disgusting slimebags. I am pleased that this has happened because these same journalists did not support Tehelka which was bankrupted by a string of false charges using taxpayers money. Not one politician went to jail and the Shameless Rakhel is still claiming that the Tehelka tapes were doctored even though three laboratories have said that they are genuine. Meanwhile Shibu Soren, a convicted murderer, is living in great comfort in a hospital cottage in Ranchi instead of in a jail. No sharam no izzat.

Seems a bit difficult to understand what is happening in Britain. First there were the deadly suicide bombings on London Underground on what is known as 7/7 in which more than fifty people died. After that we have had a succession of failed attempts, more Pink Panther type than Al Qaeda. 7/7 was followed by train bombs which were duds, then toothpaste and soft drink bombs on airplanes, then cars loaded with fertilisers which merely smelled by did nothing else and now car bombs which were damp squibs. Car bombs have been spectacularly successful in the past in the World Trade Center, in Oklahoma, in Bali and daily in Iraq over the last few years but in London they just sat for the police to find them. How did the police know that those cars had bombs in them because, from what I understand from CNN, there was no phoned warning. I might have forgotten other failed attempts. Then two jokers set themselves on fire and failed to drive through glass doors at Glasgow Airport. Police blew up a car in the car park of the hospital where one of the jokers is being treated for burns. After every failure security goes up to critical, a group called Cobra huddle together and police and politicians give out statements on how deadly the terrorists are. If the terrorists are that deadly how come they keep failing. I can think of only two reasons, 1. they may be using rubbish made in China or 2. the British education system is turning out a bunch of blithering idiots.

I live in a rented flat right at the end of a lane measuring about 400 metres in length. At some unknown time in the past the Municipality decided that the lane was to be cemented with concrete. As with everything done by any government agency it would have taken a considerable amount of time to call for tenders and award the contract to the stupidest person but none of the residents had a clue about the decision until suddenly a few poor labourers started digging up the lane around the middle of March, 2007. Three months have passed and the work is still in progress. The lane has been impassable for three months and it seems that it will take another month. I have been unable to take out my car in all this time which has caused me enormous difficulty. My repeated requests to allow me to drive out once or twice a week have fallen on deaf ears. Instead these sadistic creatures taunt me with big smiles every time they see me walking with bags of groceries or vegetables. I have talked to other residents but have received no support. I have pointed out that if any person developed a heart attack there would be no way of getting the person to hospital because just as we are unable to take out our cars, no ambulance would be able to get in. There is no righteous indignation in North India. Majority of people here have no sense of right or wrong. Lies and immorality provoke no sense of outrage. These coward wimps never protest against official arrogance and wrong doing. Instead their attitude is ' sab chalta hai ' or ' everything goes '. Unforunately these people outnumber Indians from east, west and south and so have been misruling the country since independence. Since the ratio will remain the same for the foreseeable future what hope do we have? Depressing what?

Why is the Congress Party against President Kalam? He is a scientist interested in education. He does not belong to any political party and is probably neutral. Their is no corruption charge against him and, as far as we know, he has not accumulated millions in black money. He is popular and children love him. Apart from his barber the man does not need to change anything to be perfect for the President's post. Why then is the Congress dead set against him? I have a vague memory of him returning a bill which he thought to be against fundamental rights. So is it pure vindictiveness or are the Congress leaders scared of his popularity? What if people people start demanding that every one should be as honest things could quickly get out of hand. Instead Mrs. Gandhi has recommended a faceless apparatchik who will do as she is told and already there are allegations of financial irregularities on her part and of murder against her brother. It is time that the President of India is elected directly by the people so that we are not shamed by little people occupying the highest office. Meanwhile Ms. Mayawati has declared assets of Rs. 520 million and she is the self proclaimed leader of Dalits. 'Dalit' means 'oppressed'. Can a woman with half a billion rupees describe herself as oppressed? Daughter of a postal clerk she used to be a teacher in a govt school. Where did she get so much money? Has she paid taxes on her wealth? Also she has become Chief Minister of UP without standing for election and will get in through the Upper House. As Trinny Lopez sang, 'Woe is me. Shame and scandal in the family.' Despair is our lot.

A congratulatory article, featuring a photograph of the Finance Minister, in an English daily on 23rd June claimed that inflation rate in India has come down to 4.28% and proceeded to give a list of all the items whose prices are holding steady. In an interview with Sharanjit Leyl on the programme, Asia Business Report, on the BBC on 21st June a finance executive ( forget his name ) said that while wholesale inflation has indeed dropped to below 5% consumer inflation was more than 8%. So much for our freeloading press. In the view of this expert India needs to cut down growth rate to 7% from the current 9% for inflation to start falling. This, he said, could be achieved by 1. letting the rupee appreciate further in value, 2. increase interest rates and 3. increase the cash reserve ratio (CRR) for banks. Already the garment industry is losing customers to China and Bangladesh and further increase in the rupee exchange rate will seriously hit export industries. Also by making imports cheaper domestic producers will also see pricing pressure. Auto sales have fallen because of increasing interest rates and any further increase will hurt all companies. Increasing interest rates and CRR may hit the property bubble and cause a collapse in prices. Since the Enforcers and friends have invested a large portion of their black money in property any collapse in prices will seriously inconvenience them. Yet lies will not convince the aam aadmi who is bleeding because of inflation and elections are coming up. What are the economic terms for a rock, a hard place and the deep blue sea?

Yesterday a fifteen year old boy performed a Caesarian section on a woman in a private nursing home in Tamil Nadu while his doctor parents watched. Apparently the lives of the woman and the baby were endangered because the parents want the boy to be listed in the Guinness Book of Records. An editorial in today's english daily was very indignant about risking a patient's life without informed consent. I fail to understand what the excitement is about. Surely India has the largest number of quacks in the world, people without any knowledge of anatomy, physiology, pathology or pharmacology calling themselves doctors and prescribing any drug with complete impunity. Fellows with dubious degrees in homeopathy, ayurveda, unani even acupuncture have clinics with huge boards proclaiming Dr. So and so with a string of meaningless letters after their names intended to fool the illiterate and the gullible. A semiliterate fellow owns a large nursing home in posh Saket area of Delhi. The board outside his room says Dr. -- . MD which apparently stands for Managing Director but patients naturally think Doctor of Medicine. Physiotherapists and chemists call themselves doctors and treat anyone with any illness. Sadly the biggest quacks are my surgical colleagues. Most surgeons are stupid enough to think that they can be physicians and do not refuse medical problems such as tuberculosis, hypertension, diabetes or coronary artery disease. Mistakes are common and when things get out of hand they quickly get rid of the patient. Everyday we see patients on inadequate, inappropriate or plainly dangerous medicines but there is nothing we can do. As a life member of the Indian Medical Association I have asked the office bearers to improve patient care in the country but no one is interested. For the politicians, who have been unable to provide even basic medical care to the aam aadmi, quacks are heaven sent. If the aam aadmi is stupid whose fault is that? Meanwhile what of our 'Dougie Howser' and his parents? Some people must be ecstatic today, imagine the scope for bribes.











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A fascinating game is in progress. Fellow called Biti Mohanty from Orissa has been charged with rape of a woman. He jumped bail and has gone into hiding such that Rajasthan Police are unable to find him. His father B. B. Mohanty is DGP ( which means Director General of Police? ) of Home Guards in Orissa. Rajasthan Police allege that he was instrumental in his son jumping bail and is actively helping him to avoid arrest. The police obtained an arrest warrant for dad but when they reached Orissa they found that he was on medical leave and they returned without serving the warrant. Today's paper says that the police have obtained another bailable warrant for Biti but, of course, since they have no idea where he is they will be unable to serve the warrant. Meanwhile the woman, whose life was destroyed by the rape, must be laughing her head off at all this fun and games. If I were her I would be mystified as to why another bailable warrant has been issued for a person who has already jumped bail. How can a serving police officer be helping a person charged with a heinous crime? Why is he not being sacked or given other types of punishment such as losing his pension? Will the court take this behaviour as admission of guilt when the fellow is eventually arrested? Meanwhile Mr. Sonia Gandhi, who is effectively running the government, is busy trying to get a female nonentity selected as President of India. Surely India is the funniest country on earth.