Continuing on. Sitting in Tel Aviv and Washington it makes eminent sense in neutralising Iran. It will accomplished by long range bombing without any troops on the ground thus making the entire operation temptingly safe. Once the Iranian air force and retaliatory capacity are taken out the government will be forced to negotiate/surrender or risk severe damage to infrastructure and hardship to its people. The resulting loss of face will cause the hardline govt. to fall or become severely weakened and thus susceptible to regime change in the future. With Iran out of the way Syria will become isolated and forced to accede to demands of ceasing its help to Iraqi militants, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Hamas in Palestine. Without Iran and Syrian support Hezbollah may be dismantled and its 20000 rockets destroyed thus making Israel safer and protecting the present pro western govt of Lebanon. Hamas is already in a corner because of sanctions and its inabilty to pay salaries and keep govt. functioning. Without its backers it will have no option but to give up terrorism and accept Israel's right to exist if it is to play any part in govt. Sure Iran will try to target oil installations in the Gulf and today's newspapers say that Arab governments are installing Patriot missiles to protect their assets. Oil prices will jump to over $100 dollars a barrel and the world economy will crash but if the action is shortlived, as the presumption is, then there will be a quick rebound. What a spectacular fall of dominoes with everyone a winner. Only problem is that no one can see the future and surprises have a habit of kicking you in the backside. Wonder if Sunita Williams will be able to see the fireworks from space.

Legally Iran has every right to enrich uranium. There is no obligation under any treaty it has signed under the NPT or CTBT, may be even DDT, that forbids it the right to enrich uranium. Indeed under NPT the nuclear weapon states were supposed to move towards a nuclear weapon free world which they have steadfastedly refused to do. This is like saying that we are a superior race entitled to kill you but you have no right to retaliate. Seem to think I have heard that one before, from our old friend Adolf. The Security Council is a totally unrepresentative, unjust and perverted creation lording over the world. It has four white countries and a fifth which is the biggest hegemon today ruled by a criminal government not averse to slaughtering its own citizens to stay in power as in Tiananmen Sq. Each member may do as it wishes and avoid censure by using the veto. The most powerful member can totally ignore the council and attack any country it wishes, Grenada, Panama, Iraq. Now this illegal Council is trying to take away Iran's legal right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. I love it. Of course the English news channels are part of the propaganda assault using the old tactics of inspiring fear with outright lies. Iran, of course, is controlled by a coterie of fanatical beards who do not have the intelligence of President Musharraf, swearing eternal allegiance while protecting Al Qaeda. Surprising since Persians are supposed to be very clever. Maybe the really clever ones are in India eg Tata, Godreg and such. How does an illegal body enforce an illegal demand. Bomb the hell out of Iran of course. Suggest we give them 00 prefixes eg 00US and 00UK, licenced to kill. Music please.

Yesterday while Blair was announcing British troop withdrawal from Iraq a bronze statue of Margaret Thatcher was being unveiled in the lobby of the same House of Commons. The big mystery to me is why Blair behaved like Bush's poodle all these years. People who get to be Prime Ministers must have a tremendous hunger for power to sit through years of boring speeches, shake sweaty hands and confer with people with halitosis. Why would Britain be a catamite in a one way sado-masochistic special relationship? Could it be because of the Falklands? Twenty years ago Thatcher was deeply unpopular and would surely have lost the next election. Then the Argentinians attacked Falklands. British trroops were loaded into ferries and cruise ships, sitting ducks in the water, and sent to fight. The Argentine navy dared not leave the port because the Americans were monitoring their movement by satelite and might hve quietly threatened them. Britain won and in the succeeding jingoism Thatcher called and early election and went on to become the Iron Lady. Why did America help Britain against a country in their own backyard? This inspite of Secretary of State, Al Haig calling the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington a 'duplicitous bastard'. What did Thatcher promise in return? After all America did not help the British during the Suez crisis when the prize was huge and it was an impoverished Arab country ruled by Nasser, an avowed Soviet ally. Did Ronald Reagan, everybody's favouite uncle make her sign away the sovereignty of Britain? What a delicious irony.

Good comment. Krishna says do your karma and I will give you result. Since independence the polity has become progressively more corrupt. Although during Nehru's time every politician was a scholar and had been abroad they did not make education free and compulsory choosing instead to keep more than 60% of people illiterate. It is only because people sacrificed to send their children to private schools that the number of illiterates was no higher. Huge sums were allocated to family planning and systematically looted. Socialism allowed politicians to control state assets which gave them huge power over people and the opportunity to make vast illicit fortunes. I remember my parents suffering insults and abuse when trying to get a permit to buy cement to build our house in Calcutta. We applied for telephones in 1986 and got connection in 1990. Politicians charged huge bribes to give out of turn phone or gas connections or permits for petrol pumps. Changing laws meant that no politician or civil servant can be prosecuted. The excuse of poverty has been constantly used for sky high taxes to finance foreign tours for the bastards, their fat ugly wives and drug addled criminal children. High taxes also keep people poor and easy to exploit with lies. People constantly fighting to survive without electricity, water and roads have no energy left to challenge the bastards. The good thing is that India is one of very few countries coming out of colonial tyrrany which has regularly held elections to allow the people to change one set of thugs for another. Countries such as Pakistan, Kenya, Zimbabwi and others have collapsed into dictatorships. This mixture of crime and virtue has meant that India suffers whatever happens in the world but can somehow weather it.

To get its soldiers out of Iraq, to protect Sunni Arab regimes against Shia Persians and protect Gulf oil supplies America will have to bomb Iran. To calm Democrat anger and to appear to have been dragged in unwillingly the US will ask Israel to start proceedings and then take over the main action. Many reports suggest that the targets have been selected and preparations are almost complete. Rumour has it that an Israeli general has said that planes are ready and the selected pilots have been told that they will, in all probability, not be coming back. I think the perfect window will be in spring when heating requirements will be low and the summer driving season still a few months away. Though far away the effect on India will be catastrophic. As the first bomb lands the price of oil will shoot up to $100 a barrel and the Indian economy will go into freefall. With inflation already in double digits prices of everything will go shooting up. Interest rates will have to increase. House prices will crash as increasingly people will be unable to afford loan repayments. Banks will see huge defaults on loans and will be unable to recoup their money because of falling asset values. Already Iran has cut off gas supplies to India because of our vote against its nuclear programme. Factories in Noida are having to generate electricity by using diesel instead of gas and are making losses. Finding itself in deep s*** the govt is buying Russian Sukhois instead of US planes hoping to get a few drops from Sakhalin. Putin will surely want his pound of flesh. Where that leaves the nuclear deal with the US who knows. What karma has cursed us with such politicians?

I read in today's newspaper that Richard Branson is offering $ 25 millions for ideas to reduce greenhouse gases from the earth's atmosphere. Hereby I stake first claim for the prize money with a simple but very effective idea. My idea depends on the fact that carbon dioxide freezes directly to solid dry ice at around minus 40 degrees celsius while oxygen and nitrogen stay as gases till about minus 180 degrees celsius. I propose that a geostationary capsule be sent up to a spot at the margin of earth's gravity. It will dangle two pipes into the earth's atmosphere and a pump will suck air up one pipe and pump down the other back into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide will freeze to dry ice and stay in the capsule while essential oxygen and nitrogen will be returned clean. This dry ice can then be thrown out into space where it will just dissipate. Solar power will keep the pumps working 24 hours a day and hundreds of such capsule may be deployed to reduce greenhouse gases to low levels. Countries will pay according to the amounts of pollution they generate but cost should not be a problem. This is not to replace measures to reduce greenhouse gas production such as using clean fuels and switching to renewable sources of energy such as wind power. There are two dangers to this idea. One, people will become complacent and stop spending on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and two, we might overdo the reduction of carbon dioxide and tip the world into an ice age which would not be very clever. Now my problem will be how to spend so much money.

So the inflation rate is 6.5% when everyone knows that it is above 10%. Food and vegetable prices have increased at least 30% in the last one year. Then there is tax inflation which is not taken into account. For instance tax on patrol is on an ad valorem basis which means that everytime the oil price rises the tax also increases but the tax on air tickets is a fixed which means that when a low cost airline offers tickets for Rs. 10 the customer pays about Rs. 2000 because tax is not calculated on percentage of the price. This blood sucking is because in a coalition government the partners have to be paid astronomical sums for their support. And if you are not in power you cannot plunder. This money paid in cash is 'black' so cannot be deposited in a bank account or invested in any conventional instrument. Part of this money is being invested in property where 60% of the price is paid in cash which means black. This accounts for the phenomenal rise in property prices, upto 300% in some areas. Part of the black money is used for round tripping where the money is transferred abroad through hawala operators and then comes back as Foreign Institutional Investor (FII) or Non Resident Indian (NRI) through Mauritius. This is now white money and can be invested in the share market whcih accounts for the Sensex rising from 3000 to near 15000 today. No other market has given such returns. The Reserve Bank is trying suck the liquidity out of the market but the Finance Ministry is doing the opposite probably because they are terrified of a collapse in both the Sensex and house prices. Question is: can a boom driven by black money continue its growth by morphing into a virtuous cycle?

For us Indians to feel human the first requirement is law and order. At the moment police are controlled by politicians who can murder, rape or plunder the exchequer without any fear. Cases go on for years and many an aggrieved person has died before getting justice. We must have strict laws to ensure that the weakest is protected and the strong are punished severely. All guns must be banned. There is no need for guns in a civilised democracy and India does not have any stupid amendment to encourage this. All cases must finish within two years except those involving complicated international laws. No one will be allowed more than two postponements for any reason. At the moment crooked lawyers keep on asking for further dates for stupid reasons and judges go along. I have been approached many times for false medical certificates so as to postpone a hearing. I always refuse. Anyone who is not ready after two postponements loses automatically. 90% of cases are regarding property and these can be easily resolved without lawyers. The judge will see all the papers ask experts about their authenticity and decide in favour of one. No need for lawyers. However we need a district attorney system where good lawyers will oversee police investigation so that criminal cases are presented perfectly and the guilty cannot escape. We must have fool proof witness and whistle blower protection. Finally what the hell is a First Class Jail? Why should a criminal politician have air conditioned, luxury apartment with food from expensive restaurants for having plundered tax payer's money?

To survive the first change we need is proper law and order. At present politicians, civil servants, judges and relatives therof cannot be arrested or charged. A politician should have immunity for anything he says inside the parliament but definitely not for rape or murder. If a politician were to shoot another of his ilk inside the Houses of Parliament he should still face prosecution as anybody else. Police must be made independent of political interference but answerable to the people. Police salaries, accommodation and medical benefits must be equivalent to those enjoyed by the army. However a special force much like Internal Affairs would investigate the police for every complaint and rogue officers severely punished. State of the art forensic labs must be set up for every police force. Traffic police, criminal division and armed police must be separated. Experts, if necessary, from foreign forces must be brought in to train them. Most importantly they must be trained in manners and to treat everyone with respect and not with abuse and violence as they do now. Civil servants probably cause more damage to us than any other part of the government. They have enormous powers, there are vast numbers of them making it impossible to pinpoint the crooks and their jobs are permanent. They have to be made accountable. They must answer every application or letter within a finite period, say a week. They must approve every application promptly or give valid reasons for refusal. This will reduce opportunities for harassment and bribes. Only one or two persons must handle each file so that crooks will be easily identified and punished. Punishment must be severe including sacking and withdrawal of pensions. Retired officers must be equally punished and guilty officers must be made to pay heavy compensation. We desperately need freedom from the everyday torture from civil servants.