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.