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.