I feel sympathy for Ms. Susan Schwab, the US Representative at the WTO talks which collapsed yesterday. Her predecessor at the GATT round of talks at Uruguay got whatever he or she demanded. He was able to maintain agricultural subsidies at current levels and was able to open up developing world markets without giving anything in return. Africa was really screwed. They were made to open up their services including utilities such as water supplies with disastrous results. Western firms took control, increased prices so people could not afford supplies and made profits on the backs of poor people including children. High tariffs on finished products decimated African industries while Western companies got raw materials such cocoa, coffee and minerals at rock bottom rates and were then able to sell finished products back to the same people at hugely inflated prices. Massive corruption at every level of government made it easier for them to do whatever they pleased. The US reneged on whatever promises they had made of opening up its markets by the clever use of the ' green box ', a magical device which makes commitments vanish into outer space. Now developing countries are refusing to believe what they are told, are reading every fine print and refusing to kowtow to the white ' massa '. Ms Schwab is hugely frustrated. How is the world to function if third world people want to progress so that they are equal to Americans? Peter Mandelson of the EU expressed deep sympathy for the poor of the world who, he feels, will suffer because of Indian and Chinese intransigence. The tears of the crocodile have never flowed so freely as now.

First in Bangalore and then yesterday in Ahmedabad, multiple bombs have killed at least 40 people in two days. Our freeloading press is quick to pour scorn on Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat and calls the BJP, a Hindu Nationalist Party as though being a Hindu is a crime deserving of death at the hands of the filthy muslims. There will be much hand wringing and pontificating on how the muslims should be embraced with love and given more money because they have been excluded from the main stream since independence. However, their hatred is not borne out of some recent injustice but is hundreds of years old and part of the religion. A succession of Muslim invaders, Nader Shah, Taimur Lang, Tuglak and others murdered Hindu men, raped women and desecrated our temples only because we are Hindus. The Quran says that ' if you meet a kafir woman try to convert her and if she resists marry her' which means rape. Then it says ' if you meet a kafir man try to convert him and if he refuses kill him'. Everyday we are told that Islam is a religion of peace on the principle that a lie repeated a million times will be believed. Is there one place on earth where there are more than a hundred muslims and there is peace? We Hindus are helpless. Our only hope is the ongoing war between the Judaeo Christian alliance and the Muslims. Will they be able to wipe out billions of these murderers? At some point the Alliance will realise that they cannot win by conventional means and drop nuclear weapons on the holy sites making them radioactive for ever. Only then will the world experience true peace.

At last after thirteen years of hiding Radovan Karadzic has been arrested in Serbia and will, in all probability, be transferred to the Hague for trial at the War Crimes Tribunal. Watching the coverage on BBC and CNN one cannot help feeling nauseated at the hypocrisy of these white Anglo Saxon channels. Reporters are recounting all his alleged crimes at length and emphasing what a monster he is. And so he is. He is probably responsible for the death of at least 10000 civilians, including children, in Bosnia and that makes him a mass murderer deserving the severest punishment on offer. However, for us sitting thousands of miles away, justice would really have been served if Bush and Blair were standing alongside this man in the dock. If Karadzic is responsible for 10000 deaths, Bush and Blair are surely responsible for hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq where they have been fighting an illegal war based on lies about WMDs. At least Bush has an excuse. He attacked Iraq because Saddam was a bad man who had insulted his daddy and he had discussed everything with God beforehand anyway. Since he had taken permission from the Big Guy up there he can be forgiven. There is no excuse for Blair. He is a lawyer by profession so must have known that the war is illegal. He lied to the Commons about weapons ready to be fired within 45 minutes and has repeatedly lied to the nation. His support provided the fig leaf that Bush needed and he is therefore guilty of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed. But he is not facing any prosecution. Instead he has a highly paid job as peacemaker between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The lesson seems to be that if you kill 10000 then you will be punished but if you kill ten times that number you will be rewarded. No wonder people are predicting apocalypse any time soon.

The politicians in Delhi are a sleepless lot these days. The Commies have withdrawn support from the government of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and a vote of confidence is to take place shortly. One politician has suggested that Congress is promising 250 million rupees to each member of smaller parties to vote in support of the government. If the government loses then a general election should be held to give the public a voice in who forms the next government but the politicians are terrified of elections. If booted out all opportunities of looting the exchequer disappears instantly. Already various slimy creatures are crawling out of dark places to claim leadership of the next government of convenience and others are promising support in a desperate attempt to shed some light on their obscurity. As usual we, the people, will probably have no say in the matter even though our money will be used to buy support of the political whores. Newspapers featured the photographs of seven men serving sentences for various heinous crimes, from assault with deadly weapons to murder, but astonishingly these men are still members of parliament and so will be realeased to vote on the motion. Surely convicted criminals should be disbarred from any elected office forever but these are the same people who would have to pass the law to disqualify themselves and they would never do that. With the government in suspended animation, inflation out of control and the possibility of economic disaster looming the future looks bleak. But if people get really fed up they may summon up the courage and energy to bury the present rotten lot. Who knows, good may yet come out of this mess.

Recently news on television has been dominated by the happy smiling face of Ingrid Bettancort who was being held as hostage by the FARC terrorists in Columbia for the last six years. France had never given up on efforts to get her released and President Sarkozy seemed to make it a personal mission. Before that Sarkozy got Chad to release over hundred members of an NGO who were accused of trying to kidnap local children and smuggle them into Europe. Although convicted by a Chadian court of a grievous offence the government was forced to release them. This shows that western governments place enormous value on each of their citizens, a lesson lost on third world leaders. Leaders of third world countries build palaces for themselves, travel in huge cars and like to show themselves as Gods dispensing alms to their naked and hungry populace. They think that by showing how people bow and scrape in front of them their prestige is somehow increased. They do not realise that they are seen as cheap thugs and held in the deepest contempt by the western leaders. The indictment of Omar Bashir of Sudan at the International Court of Justice is an example. Regardless of all the slogan shouting by his supporters he has been badly humiliated. Similarly the Indian government has been slapped in the face by dirty Chinese chappals. Not a single member of the government has been invited to the Beijing Olympics, only Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. When will they ever learn.

Seems that tax collections, both direct and indirect, were sharply up last fiscal. The Finance Minister shows a great deal of satisfaction in announcing this fact to the suffering people of India. So what is happening to all this money extorted out of the tax payer? For a start an astronomical amount is being thrown away in forgiving bank loans of farmers. This is pure loot and bribe, a shameless cynical ploy to try and win the coming general election by swindling the tax payer. Of course, this does not help the urban poor and the majority of farmers, who have borrowed money from money lenders rather than banks, so farmer suicides have not been reduced. The second use of this money was revealed in yesterday's newpapers. Seems that bllions of rupees are being spent in buying posh, centrally air conditioned properties with tasty restaurants to house tax offices and airconditioned buses to ferry tax officers to work. Got to keep the leaches satisfied to suck more blood. Meanwhile a tax officer in Bangalore has been found to possess one hundred and twenty cars which is officially described as disproportionate assets while millions cannot afford proportionate food. Result of all this profligacy is deteriorating fiscal deficit which in turn has resulted in Standard and Poors threatening to reduce India's sovereign rating fromm BBB to junk. With oil prices threatening to go above $150 it may be prudent to lose the next election.

Two reporters wrote an article alleging that the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Mr Sabharwal, miused his authority as a judge by ordering closure of hundreds of high street shops so as to direct shoppers to newly built malls to the profit of both his sons. The law says that a judge may not be prosecuted for any judgement he delivers from the bench however pernicious or immoral it may be. Citing this law the government refuses even to investigate the truth of the allegations in case they turn out to be true and the judge is shamed. Meanwhile a judge of the Delhi High Court jailed the two journalists on a farcical charge of contempt of court and this judge also cannot be challenged for flagrant suppression of the right to free speech. A judge in UP has confessed to embezzling millions of rupees from the PF ( ? Provident Fund ) and has named 23 other judges involved in the scam. However the Supreme Court will only allow the police to send questionaires to the named judges and not allow direct questioning to keep the affair out of media glare so as to guard the reputation of the judiciary. Almost the same number of elite policemen died off the coast of Orissa when the boat they were in was fired at by Naxal, Maoist terrorists. More than 160 districts of the total of 600 in India are infested by Naxals and they are spreading. When people see that corruption in the rich and the powerful goes unpunished they resort to the gun. The hand that wrote on the wall in ancient Babylon may be about to make a return.

The G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan concluded yesterday with little progress on global warming. The biggest polluter, the US refuses to sign any treaty unless India and China also pledge to reduce pollution which they are loath to do. When Bush says that India is a producer of green house gases he has a point but not what he thinks it is. Every person in India confesses to suffering from 'gas' and every ailment from headache to pain in the knees and anything in between is blamed on gas. It is very difficult to convince a patient that he is having a heart attack. Inspite of an ECG showing massive changes his relatives will insist that it is gas and that a noisy exit from either end will cure the problem. However, even after so long, it is still mystifying to me that when a patient is unconscious with an obvious paralysis on one side of the body pointing to a stroke, the relatives still insist that it is gas putting pressure on the brain. So much gas in a population of more than a billion people is surely contributing to global warming. The solution is simple - clean water. Every Indian tries to have some water purifying mechanism at home. People use various filtering devices or boil water if they have the time. But these methods do not get rid of dissolved salts of calcium, magnesium and even heavy metals. The rich have started using Reverse Osmosis systems. If the government ensures clean water at the taps we can reduce our emissions of green house gases and feel better physically. However politicians continue to exploit the people by producing copious amounts of noxious gases and they will not stop. If only Bush offered us a 'gas' deal instead of a nuclear one how nice that would be.

Congress is the largest party of the Central government in India and the economy is again under great stress. It is a familiar story. Of course, they blame the OPEC countries for the record high oil prices, the US for the record high food prices and steel companies for the sky high inflation. Anyone but themselves, secure in their knowledge that public memory is short, the free loading press is not going to expose their lies and with half the population uneducated they will get away with it. It was the same in the late nineties. House prices were rocketing and inflation was out of control. The interest rates were so high that banks were giving 14.5% on fixed deposits and triple A rated companies such as Tata Steel were raising money from the market at 18%. The Sensex was high and then it all fell apart. In the initial years of this government growth was high because interest rates were low all over the world, money was cheap and the effects of the previous BJP government were still working through the system. Four years of Congress and stagflation stares us in the face. How do we get rid of them?