Seems that the government fellows are beginning to panic. They are unable to control inflation and have no idea on what course to follow. Having inherited a growing economy from the BJP four years ago they milked it for all it was worth. Value Added Tax rates were increased, new services were taxed, old rates such as the tax on share transactions were increased and blatant larceny in the form of a tax on withdrawals from banks were introduced. This money was not used productively as, for instance, on new roads and power plants but on social programmes which means that most of the money was stolen. This is shown by phenomenal rise in property prices and a massive contruction boom driving the economy to higher growth rates in the last few years. While liquidity is a problem for the rest of the world there is excess liquidity in India. Inflation is in double digits. Cars, two wheelers and white goods are showing reduced growth pointing to a sl0wing economy. The increase in the salary of government employees will give a one time stimulus to the economy but may lead to increase in inflation. With stagflation a real possibilty politicians will be loath to risk an election at this moment and will try to stay in power for the full term so as to maximise their personal gains. This probably mens that the nuclear deal with the US will not be concluded. Perhaps only people with bad karma are born in this country.

There is little doubt that Robert Mugabe will steal the elections. If he is down while the votes are being counted the officials will ensure that he wins because their lives may depend on that. Western news channels will heap abuse and scorn on Mugabe but what is the man to do. He has murdered thousands of opponents and engineered massacres in Matabeleland. He has systematically beaten up opponents and stolen previous elections. He has brought the economy to its knees. What was once the bread basket of southern Africa is now unable to feed its own people. He knows that if he loses power then he may end up in a prison cell and feels he is to old to clean out the jail toilet. Taking refuge in another African country may not protect him because of what has happened to Charles Taylor. He is also sure that other African leaders will protect him because they are equally corrupt and have committed heinous crimes. From Mubarak in Egypt and Omar Bashir in Sudan down to Zimbabwe every president is a dictator and is clinging on for dear life because to lose power may mean the hangman's noose. Fortunately South Africa has term limits on its president so Mbeki will step down. A cartoon in the Times of India showed Sonia Gandhi congratulating the King of Bhutan for voluntarily stepping down as monarch and bringing democracy to his country to which the King replies 'when will India give up its Monarchy and bring in democracy'. Term limits are absolutely essential so that we can get rid of these ugly old garbage and bring in some younger garbage. Maybe they will stink less.

The shame of it. China has applauded India for its stand on the Tibetan crisis. India has reiterated its stand that Tibet is an internal problem for China and has arrested Tibetan exiles living in India so that they are unable to demonstrate in front of the Chinese embassy. This is a country that is still occupying upto 50, 000 squre miles of Indian territory in Kashmir and in the North East Frontier Province. It still claims that Arunachal Pradesh should be handed over to it. It will block any attempt by India to get a seat on the UN Security Council. It denounced the nuclear tests carried out by India while supplying Pakistan at the same time. Its people are like rodents in that they will eat anything that moves, from rats to human fetus. Chinese demand for tiger parts and rhinoceros horns are decimating polpulations of these animals. In short it is hard to imagine a greater enemy for our country. So one would have thought that the government would allow silence to show its displeasure at the genocide taking place in Tibet and allow peaceful protests by the Tibetan refugees. Instead it has sought to muzzle protests and support the murdering Chinese government. After all it was the Congress which refused a Security Council seat and allowed China to get it by default. And it is now in power with the arch traitors, the Communists. What have we done to diserve this lot?

Heather Mills walked out of a London court with a big smile having been given over 40 million dollars in divorce settlement from Sir Paul McCartney. In his judgement the judge called her a lying gold digger given to emotional mood swings. She proves male fears of having to pay huge sums of money for having been fool enough to marry a woman. Better to pay a whore who has at least some business ethics. On the other hand Britney Spears has been asked to pay over 300,000 dollars to the lawyer of her ex husband. She has lost her children that she bore after hours of labour pains and probably painful stitches and has had to pay 20 million dollars in divorce settlement. Maybe Spears was naive, even foolish but her punishment is extreme and has driven her into a psychiatric hospital. It shows that divorce laws are stupid and make marriage a crime worse than fraud. As women go higher up their career ladders there will be increasing numbers of women falling victim to the insane divorce laws. Thus for every unscrupulous Heather Mills with a wide grin on her face there will be a Britney Spears in a psychiatric hospital. The only people who benefit from this are the lawyers, vultures who fatten on the carion of other people's miseries.

Communists love conspiracies. They steal, plunder and kill but if anyone resists it is a CIA conspiracy. There are two juicy conspiracies concerning China for the comrades to ponder. The first is that China was set up by being awarded the Olympic games. Once the games are in sight encourage the Tibetans and, maybe, the Falun Gong to go on the rampage. Being inherently brutal the Chinese would respond brutally thereby giving the western countries excuse to boycott the games and humiliate the country. The second is economic. For years the West has been asking China to revalue the Renminbi to reduce the trade deficit but the Chinese have refused steadfastedly. So engineer a huge fiscal deficit by giving insane tax refunds which produces downward pressure on the dollar. Asian countries, including China, respond by buying dollars from the market to maintain competitive advantage of their currencies. Then give subsidy to the biofuel industry so that farmers divert their crops away from wheat thereby pushing up food prices across the world. The subprime crisis and the drought in Australia just hastened matters nicely. Now China is caught between runaway inflation if they leave their currency at the present level or risk losing market share if they allow it to revalue. Hopefully China will implode and break up like Yugoslavia, Chechoslavia and the USSR. Ancient Chinese curse - 'May you live in interesting times'. Interesting times ahead for the comrades, methinks.

The yearly circus, the Budget, is over and economists and commentators are exercised over the 600 billion rupees loan waiver for farmers with small holdings. People are debating whether this will win the coming general elections for the Congress party and whether this will halt a spate of suicides by indebted farmers. Only one commentator pointed out that this was an immoral act because it rewards people who have not repaid their debts, encourages all farmers to refuse to repay loans and wait for future amnesties. In short it will make every farmer a thief and will make rural banks reluctant to lend to farmers. Also it does nothing to help people who have borrowed from money lenders and used their land as collateral. The main reason why farmers become poor is because they produce large number of children. Thus if you own 10 acres and have five children then each child inherits only two acres. Within a couple of generations each family is dependant on little plots insufficient to feed their needs. Instead of rewarding honest farmers with small families the Minister is misusing taxpayer money for cynical electioneering. The Congress party is shamelessly holding large rallies trumpeting the loan waiver as a service to poor farmers. Had they given their own money I would also have aplauded but charity with our money is surely disgusting. No sharam, no izzat.

About a couple of days back a judge at the Delhi High Court asked the government to take serious action on doctors at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, AIIMS, for having gone on strike on three separate days in the last one year even though the court had asked them not to in view of the suffering caused to patients. It is nice to see the judge's heart bleeding for the suffering of patients but it would be little more credible if the judge had asked the government why, after sixty years of independence, people still lacked basic medical care. He should have asked why doctors had to resort to this extreme step which most doctors hate doing. They have to do this for their own protection because assault on doctors and molestation of lady doctors are common occurrences. The judge did not make it mandatory for the authorities to guarantee their safety while on duty. The judge should have asked why it is alright for members of parliament to disrupt proceedings on a regular basis and do very little work. He should have asked why lawyers frequently resort to strikes without any punishment. More than 30 million cases are pending in courts but that does not cause any shame. Last week judgement was delivered in a property dispute after 70 years of litigation. When the law is seen to be the tool of repression by scum politicians then people turn to Naxals. Before taking away the basic right to life away from doctors the judge should have remembered that Che Guevara was a doctor.

The Republican controlled media in the US have been very gentle with Barak Obama while trashing Hillary Clinton all the time. Now that John McCain is the chosen Republican candidate for November's election they are turning some heat on to Obama as the front runner and he does not seem to relish the challenge any more. Last I saw, Clinton was on course to win Ohio and neck and neck in Texas so she is still on course. Had she been a confirmed candidate she would have won against the aged warrior, McCain by cashing in on anti Bush feeling and her husband's economic record. Instead she has to expend her energies and money in fighting this Republican trojan horse, Obama. He is full of hot air. He talks about change and then talks about building a consensus with the Republicans to end partisan politics which essentially means more of the same. All he has ever done is to vote against the Iraq war and, since we cannot read his mind, we cannot know if wanted to save American lives or Iraqi ones. I am sure Mr. Rove is rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of Obama as candidate. Already McCain has used the word 'patriotism' several times. So while McCain conserves his energy and builds up his war chest the Democrats are tearing themselves apart. Good for India if McCain wins.

In an article in the Times of India Mr. Ronojoy Sen makes the point that Inidans have no regard for the law and will break the law if they can get away with it. He says that Americans and Europeans always stop at traffic lights, even in the middle of the night but Indians will jump red lights if there is no policeman around. He feels that we are somehow primed to be irresponsible and only respond to the 'danda' as during the emergency during Indira Gandhi's time. I do not know who Mr. Sen is but his article gives me the feeling that he is part of the ruling mafia, either a politician or a bureaucrat, who feels that the masters are entitled to pass laws, however stupid, and the people had better obey. There are two main reasons why Indians drive badly. The first reason is that no one knows the rules because everyone pays bribes to get a licence. And who is responsible for issuing driving licences? Why, the police of course. Even the police do not know traffic rules which is obvious if you see any accident on the roads. The second reason why Indians flout the law is because they have a deep contempt for authority and a deep rooted anger at the corruption in every branch of government. They see politicians, kleptocrats and rich people getting away with murder and rape everyday and do not see why they have to obey any law passed by this scum. Indians feel, with justification, that either everyone has to be answerable or no one at all. This is also the reason why we have armed insurrection in 160 of about 600 districts in the country. Unfortunately voting for another party is of no use because every party is equally crooked. There is a saying in Bengali, ' s*** smells the same from every side.' Crude but oh so true.