To stop the conservatives from foaming at the mouth let us call them Citizens Management Companies or CMCs instead of trade unions. There should be at least five of these to encourage competition. They should have millions of members across the whole country. Members will pay fees according to salary. Company tax to be reduced to 10% or less and 30% of dividend declared would be paid to the relevant CMC. This would make all pay disputes unnecessary and workers would have an incentive in increasing profitability. Government schools do not work anyway so all these schools to be handed over to private institutions. A certain minimum of the GDP would be handed over to the CMCs who will pay schools for all children thereby ensuring all children regardless of caste or class get the same top class education. If a school fails to deliver the quality required children would be shifted to another one. The same with healthcare. The govt will hand over money to the CMCs who will buy comprehensive health insurance for all. The CMCs will have lawyers who will fight for justice and against all forms of extortion. Since they will be all over the country they will be best suited to match the best candidates to vacancies in jobs. They can facilitate easy movement of people across the country by arranging mortgages, sales and purchase of properties. Since they will have investigated and registered each property as legal people will not be at the mercy of crooked property dealers. Of course all these services will generate revenues which the CMCs will be able to use for other services such as old age care. I feel this is the only way to give genuine power to the people and get corrupt government off our backs.

Thank you Moonlight. Lot of people are pushing for the option of 'none of the above' on all ballot papers in elections. I do not think that it is going to solve the problem. Fewer and fewer people are bothering to cast their votes the world over. In India too educated and middle class people, especially under 30 years of age, have decided that elections are irrelevant because the choice is between different criminals who will continue with the same stupid policies. In India I do not think there is any minimum number that is required to get an MP elected. Theoretically there could be a situation where ninety out of only hundred people vote for a particular politician while five hundred thousand exercise the option of 'none of the others' but the politician will claim a landslide with ninety percent of the vote. No sharam or izzat. In our party system the party which controls the legislature forms the executive. The judiciary though independent is swamped with over 30 million cases still waiting to be heard. Moreover lawyers in India are completely without any ethics, know very little law and routinely take money to lose a cases. Only those students who cannot get into any good course take up law which means that the vast majority are rubbish and will do anything to survive. Besides this Westminster style of government was set up some four hundred years ago and needs to be updated. I think we need a fourth organ whose only assets will be its members and will be independent of politicians. Call them trade unions, citizens councils, whatever. There will be four or five such unions structured like companies with a CEO and a board elected from its members. Run out of space.

Thank you Moonlight. 31st March is not far away and all taxpayers in India are spending sleepless nights trying to figure out how to reduce their tax bills. We slog day and night to earn more money to pay increasing varieties of taxes such as income tax, service tax, value added tax, excise tax, customs duties, property tax, wealth tax and sweet little add ons called education cess, road cess and other excesses that we pay without knowing. Politicians and civil servants spend our money any which way they like without any accountability. Ordinary people have no way of checking on these criminals and voting in another set of crooks every five years does not empower us. This system of legislature, executive and judiciary is clearly not working. We need a fourth organ to represent the people and it can only be trade unions, not the corrupt organisations controlled by political parties that we have now but ones built like MNCs. They will be apolitical and work with companies to increase profits of companies. Company taxes should be brought down to say 10% but 30% of dividends will go to the union. This will give the workers a direct stake in improving productivity and reduce the likelihood of strikes for increased pay. Members will also pay fees depending on salaries. Unions will use this money to buy medical insurance for all, pay school fees for all children in private schools, advise on investments, and maintain a legal team to protect individuals against exploitation and bullying. There is a lot more to it but space is short. People are so fed up with the present system that in most countries fewer people are voting in elections because once the counting is over they have no further say in how the country is run. Power to the people.

Am I going mad or is there something seriously wrong with our entire system? My son just opened an account in one of our large private banks. First we recieved a letter giving us an account number and a customer id number which, the letter said, is very important and must be kept secret. Inside there was a sealed paper which has the pin number for the ATM card. The instruction says that once the sealed envelope is opened the four digit number printed inside must be memorised and the envelop destroyed. A few days later we received another envelope containing a cheque book, an ATM card and two more sealed envelopes containing secret numbers to be memorised for phone banking and net banking. Five numbers just for one account. To take advantage of varying interest rates and investment opportunities one may open three or four such accounts which would mean remembering fifteen to twenty numbers. Then there is the mandatory PAN or Permanent Account Number for filing income tax returns, a passport number, driving licence number, numbers on your car number plates, your telephone number and perhaps telephone numbers of spouse and children. Some of these such as telephone numbers have ten to twelve digits. Only some one like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man could possibly remember so many ridiculous numbers. So either we genetically engineer brilliant but autistic people or the scientists have to come up with an encrypted system based on biometrics which would entail remembering just one number and would be impossible to hack into. We could be talking about the first trillionaire of the world.

Driving from Delhi to Gurgaon yesterday I was surprised to see that all the buidings on both sides of the road were empty and partially demolished. Previously these same buildings had housed upmarket shops selling everything from clothes to jaccuzzis and fancy restaurants. Apparently all these buildings were unauthorised ( Indian political euphemism for illegal ) and were demolished by order of the courts. My question is why were these buidings allowed to be built in the first place? Which politicians and civil servants took bribe to allow them to be built? Have they been punished? Stupid questions. Today we read in the papers that well known politicians owe at least Rupees 50 million in back rent and the Supreme Court has had to intervene. Non Resident Indians or NRIs, as the Indian diaspora is known in official lingo, are an unhappy lot. They have written to the President saying that the awards dished out at the recent held Pravasi Divas were rigged and went to friends of the Minister involved. There are many other tales of political and beureaucratic crimes but the space here is too short too make a list of all. So what is being done to address this problem. One Minister has banned the tv channel AXN for showing sexy ads. I have not seen them but can imagine that they must have had scantily dressed women. The human body was designed by 3 billion years of evolution or by God according to your taste. It is a thing of mind boggling complexity and efficiency. It is also beautiful. An Indian politician concerned about morals. I would laugh if it was not so tragic.

The annual circus called the Budget is here again. We are told that all tax exemptions will be withdrawn no doubt increasing the burden yet again. We are also told that expenditure on primary education will be reduced. At the same time ministers had a meeting with industrialists to start reservation of jobs in the private sector for low caste candidates. Even from the gutter politicians of India this kind of cynical contempt for the people is hard to digest. Reservation helps only those children who have passed high school and is of no benefit to the vast army of illiterates. It helps the drug taking, violent children of politicians and civil servants and divides people along caste lines. Divide and rule was learnt from the British and the Congress has been using it for the last 60 years with other parties joining in. At the same time the son of a police official from Orissa has skipped bail after being charged for rape of a foreigner. The father denies any knowledge of the whereabouts of his son and rest of the police force seems helpless. I am sorry I do not buy it. Sack the father, cancel his pension and keep him jail until the son shows up and then give him life for skipping bail. It is this callous indifference to justice and fair play that gives rise to the grisly rape and murder of children in Noida. Is it any wonder that the police have made a mess of the evidence and the killers may go free? Was it done on purpose? Were politicians involved perhaps?

Yesterday's headline that India has 63% of all cases of rabies in the world is no surprise. India probabaly has the largest number of HIV cases and certainly has the largest number of 'chamchas' in the world. Of course rabies is preventable if one takes a course of vaccines immediately. Each dose costs Rs. 290 so five doses along with doctor's fees and a shot of Tetanus Toxoid comes to nearly Rs. 2000 over one month. This may seem a small amount to prevent a certain death but for labourers earning Rs. 150 a day it is a severe financial strain. If the dog is obviously rabid, dies within a week of the bite or the bite is in the head/neck area then Rabies Immunoglobulin is mandatory costing Rs. 14000 for an adult. No hope for a poor man. The solution seems simple get rid of feral dogs, cats and monkeys esp. dogs whose numbers are growing. It can be done in a very humane manner taking care that the animals do not suffer in the least and with today's technology that would be easy but a group of stone hearted, selfish people led by this female politician will not let that happen saying it is cruelty to annimals. They want to immunize, vasectomize millions of feral dogs at tax payers expense. This in a country where people go hungry. I think we should make these callous people pay for vaccines for the poor and then we shall see how much they love annimals.

I like to start the day with a large cup of tea and a look at the daily newspapers. Every day the news is depressing. Children murdered and cannibalised in Noida, people killed in battles between communists and farmers in Bengal over land acquisition, a sixteen year old girl killed by spurned suiter, Biharis killed in Assam by anti Hindi terrorists, unknown number killed in Somalia by U.S. bombing of phantom Al Qaeda, and of course the ever present Iraq. Yesterday was the same and no doubt tomorrow will also bring a new list of murder and mayhem, only the countries may be different. Old timers like to talk about the 'good old days' but were the old days really so good. History is replete with wars and revolutions. There was the thiry year wars, the hundred year wars, the French revolution, the October revolution and countless others. Then there were the heroes. Achilles, Hannibal, Alexander, Nepoleon, Robin Hood, Patton, warriors all. A visit to the room exhibiting the instruments of torture at the Tower of London will illustrate what I mean. War, rape and plunder were a way of life, a million today carry the genes of Chengis Khan. I think that sociopaths, psychos and assorted nutters are born in every generation since the beginning of time. In the olden days a war would happen every 30 or so years when all the nutters gathered at one place and hacked at each other with swords. When all were cleared out people lived in peace. Today they use missile from a distance or use remote controlled devices. I suggest that an island be set aside under UN control. All nutters will go there and fight only with swords or small arms. Neocons can devise strategy. UN will cordon off the island so that only the severly wounded will be allowed out. This way the nutters can satisfy their urge to kill while we wimps carry on with our peaceful if mundane.

You can walk into a room and say that you love to listen to Engelbert Humperdinck, or eat raspberry yoghurt or wear a kilt in bed and chances are that although the majority might think you slightly weird you will find a kindred spirit. But can anyone walk into a room and say that he likes to torture and murder children and eat their organs? Across the Jamuna river from Delhi police have discovered the bones of upto thirty children and women who were raped, tortured, murdered and then had their organs eaten by two men. One was an English school and college educated Sikh and the other his illiterate man servant from the north. For years people of this area, who are mostly very poor, have been complaining of missing children and women but the police the police simply shrugged their shoulders saying that the children must have run away from home. When the remains were discovered and parents recognised the clothes of their missing children they, understandably, were incensed. Not for them any psychiatric help or support from politicians who promise the moon before elections. They were beaten up with truncheons and U.P. government officials are conducting expensive DNA tests to see if they deserve compensation of 100 to 200 dollars for each dead child. We are constantly being told how how proud we should be of the progress the country is making. Perverted monsters who enjoy necrophilia and cannibalism have always existed and will continue to exist in the future but how does one such monster find another one like himself in a population of one billion? I would greatly appreciate an answer to this mystery.

For Indians it is that time of the year again. It is that stupid circus called the 'Budget' when all sorts of people go cap in hand to the Finance Minister who sits like a God promising to be magnanimous with the tax payers money while increasing taxes every year. We wake up to learn that another forty odd services will attract tax no doubt to finance luxurious living and foreign travel for the politicians and their foot-washing civil servants. Meanwhile in the south Delhi colony of Vasant Kunj water supply has dwindled to about 300 litres per family per day. This inspite of opening of a new wateer treatment plant and grandiose promises of 24 hour water supply for all. Supply did improve for a few days thus decimating the trade of water tankers. No doubt money changed hands and the water supply has been reduced to levels less than what we used to get. So bought 2000 litres of water this very morning for Rs. 210 of which ten rupees is service tax. I think he should have charged more, perhaps he forgot the 3% education cess. My suggestion still stands. Put 100% service tax on all medical services and when people die in great numbers then start a 10% tax on cremation, plus 3% education cess. Clean up on tax collection and reduce population in one fell swoop. Meanwhile a politician has suggested that the sexual torture and serial killing of thirty children in Noida, on the outskirts of Delhi, is a minor event. Of course it is. For these vultures who are sucking our blood for the last sixty years. It is shocking that some old people who have memories of British occupation say that life was better in those days.

Moonlight thankyou for your wishes. I wish you a very happy and prosperous new year and hope that you find reward for your efforts. I had gone to Bahrain for a month and returned the day Saddam was hanged after a kangaroo trial. All his fault really. Had he put up a bit of a fight and taken just five hundred Americans in the first days of the attack the Americans would have given up. He could have flooded the desert with oil and set fire to it when American tanks rolled in, he could have mined the highway, he could have targeted the first and last vehicles of the supply convoys and then attacked the trapped soldiers in the middle or he could have booby trapped his palaces to take as many enemy as possible. He definitely should have blown himself up with his captors but he did nothing. He did not even bother to switch off the lights on the highways so that the Americans had a clear drive on beautifully signposted highways straight on to Baghdad. I think it is disgusting that you hand over your country to invaders without any resistance whatsoever. Maybe dictators are not so clever after all. Maybe he was more afraid of his generals than he was of the Americans, hoping they would never find him or convinced that they would not dare to kill him against Arabic opinion. In the event the Americans were clever enough to find him and stupid enough to get him lynched by Shia militia after a grossly unfair trial presided over by a Kurd. Shows a Texan redneck is no cleverer than a murdering dictator. At least Saddam was brave at the end and has left a big headache for his enemies in the form of a video.