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.