During Nehru's time every Indian passport came with a rubber stamp which forbade travel to South Africa, Albania and Israel. India was a whole hearted supporter of Arabs and the Palestinian cause. Yet every time we had trouble with the Pakis the same Arabs supported the Pakis and declared jihad on India. Even today Saudi Arabia is financing the Islamic terrorists who continue to kill innocent Indians. In the 60s King Hussein of Jordan ordered his army to chase Palestinians out of the kingdom. During the first Gulf war Palestinians living in Kuwait were responsible for all the loot and rape on Kuwaitis forgetting the hospitality they had been receiving for decades. Two years back the Lebanese army had to fight for weeks to get rid of criminal elements from a Palestinian refugee camp. The anti semitic British and Europeans are taking the side of the Palestinians and asking Israel to stop their bombing forgetting that it was Hamas which has been firing rockets into Israel for years. Their argument is that since rocket firing has not stopped inspite of the bombing Israel should just accept status quo which is the most stupid argument I have heard in a long time. 3 million people surrounded by 300 million Arabs, if not for the US they would be wiped out.

In India businesses evolve in a similar way. A person sets up a company privately. As the business improves he goes public and lists his company on the market to raise capital for expansion. At this time he is referred to as a Promoter which is like being God. He appoints the so called independent directors to the board who agree to whatever he says because they are handsomely paid for nodding their heads. Gradually the person dilutes his holding in the company until he is an extremely minority holder but retains his complete control because laws in the country prevent takeover. Satyam is a profitable IT company listed on the Nasdaq. Its Promoter Mr. Raju, who holds just 8.6% of the company, propsed to invest $ 1.6 billion or Rs. 68 billion to buy two property companies belonging to his two sons. According to analysts at today's prices the assets held by both companies would be about half of what Mr. Raju proposed to pay. Needless to say the Board unanimously agreed. Unfortunately other shareholders raised a huge stink and a British company has filed a case in a US court. Satyam shares halved in value in a matter of days. Shocked by the uproar Mr. Raju has cancelled the proposed purchase and is pondering exting the company. I am reminded of Lord Conrad Black who is serving a long prison sentence in the US for treating Hollinger International as his personal property. Could such a thing happen in Incredible India? Rubbish. Next people would be asking for politicians and kleptocrats to be punished. What cheek.

Say you have a grown up daughter studying in university. You give her a handsome allowance which allows her to rent a nice apartment and lead a comfortable life. You find out that she is in love with a criminal who has been involved in murder, robbery and other crimes. You tell her not to associate with the thug but she goes ahead and marries him anyway. So you stop her allowance. The thug comes and threatens your life if you do not pay up. Do you not have a right to shoot at him in self defence or do you give in because your daughter has the right to 'love' anyone she wants? The Palestinians were given billions in international aid but instead of building a viable state the money was wasted due to massive corruption and hostility to Israel. While people starved Soha Arafat went shopping in Paris. Then Ariel Sharon withdrew all settlers from Gaza but instead of voting for peace the Palestinians voted for Hamas, a terrorist organisation committed to the total destruction of Isarael. They are holding an Israeli soldier they kidnapped, encouraging indiscriminate firing of Kassam rockets aimed at civilians and are killing Palestinians belonging to the Fatah group. The Palestinians in Gaza are totally dependent on UN aid for food, fuel and medicines but instead of gratitude they claim that the world should negotiate with Hamas because they have been 'democratically' elected. Democracy does not end with marking a paper. Democracy means rule of law, respect of human rights and peace with neighbours. However Israel must make sure that Palestinians are not seen as victims by the international community by limiting their response to criminals and avoiding any civilian casualty.

The President of Guinea who died a couple of days ago said on tv that he was the head of state for life and that there would never be any transition in that country. Robert Mugabe said in a speech recently ' Zimbabwe is mine. I will never, never, never, never surrender.' Clearly he means that Zimbabwe is his personal property to do as he pleases and the people are his slaves to abey his orders and if they died of hunger or cholera then he did not care. Surely this is not the case in India? After all we loudly maintain that we are the largest democracy in the world by which we mean that elections are held every few years where millions of dispossessed illiterate people are bribed with promises of cheap rice or free electricity to vote for whichever criminal that has the largest number of goons to frighten the electorate. The criminals in India have understood that once you win an election you can control the police and loot the exchequer without any fear of being detected let alone
being brought to trial. The irony is that the police are then guarding the same criminals instead of putting them in handcuffs. Yesterday a Member of the Legislative Assembly, MLA, of UP beat an engineer to death because he refused to donate Rs. 5 million for Mayawati's birthday celebrations and then in total contempt of the law he dropped the body at a police station instead of taking the man to hospital. There are two points here. First the MLA probably thought that the engineer being a sarkari employee must have taken a lot of bribes and would have the necessary black money. The second point is that he must have thought that the police would probably cover up his crime. And to make sure that their loot continues every politicaian makes sure that his criminal children get prominent positions in the parties. The only way to survive would be to have genuine democracy where we the citizens have genuine power. That can only be done by building citizens' corporations who will have the power to challenge politicians and kleptocrats. Of course the filthy crooks will fight never to let that happen.

Seems that the government has decided on elections in May when its term ends. With oil and commodity prices rock bottom the politicians are sure of inflation falling and remaining in the comfort zone. Petrol prices have been reduced by Rs. 5 and will probably be reduced further in January to generate a feel good factor. Actually even with petrol at Rs. 55 a litre inflation had fallen from 13% to around 8% so reducing price at this point is ill judged. Instead the government should have built up an oil pool account so as to be able to absorb future shocks. Reducing prices at this time reduces government income because oil companies are state owned anyway. Meanwhile excise duties have been reduced to stimulate the domestic market. Falling income and job losses means that people are cutting back on spending which impacts indirect tax collections. Add to that the Sixth Pay Commission increases in salaries of sarkari fellows and the write off of farmers' loans worth some 700 billion rupees then we are left with severe fall in government revenues with increasing spending. This means that they intend to print more notes which will devalue the rupee and cause severe inflation in the future or they will borrow from the market causing severe liquidity crisis. Either way it seems to me that we are in for horrible times by this time next year. Please tell me that I am wrong.

Of all the events of last week the shoe incident was probably the most instructive. Living in a cocoon of security Bush and western leaders of his ilk never understand how much they are despised in the rest of the world. Since they control the major news networks they constantly portray themselves as civilised while abusing anyone who dares to disagree. These nations have been responsible for the greatest genocides in history, from the two world wars to Hiroshima to Guantanamo and renditions and yet they go around claiming to be the civilised world and lecturing others about democracy and human rights. For the first time a man had the guts to throw shoes at Bush and make sure he understood. I was impressed at the way Bush ducked although he was completely unprepared. Much like Tendulkar ducking to a Brett Lee bouncer while keeping his eyes on the ball the whole time. Afterwards Bush made light of the incident. He said that it was a greater insult for the Iraqi Prime Minister which is true. He also said that he bore no grudge which probably is a lie. Wonder what the chances are that this man will survive for two years. A knife or a bullet in the back in present day Baghdad is easy and Americans are vindictive. Any satta fellow care to offer odds?

Very clever fellow wrote a story in the paper. Appears that in a town there was only one rich man who owned a large shop where everyone went to buy stuff. The shop had a huge plate glass window. One day vandals broke the window. Instantly the man had to appoint short term security. A local glass firm got the order to manufacture a similar window. Then transporters earned money to bring it over and lastly fitters were paid to fix the glass sheet in place. With so many people earning it would appear to be good for the local economy but apparently it is bad and is known as broken window economics. A large chunk of Inida's economy functions in similar fashion. Take water. In Delhi you get water for only 30 to 60 minutes a day. Everyone large plastic tanks on the ground and pumps to raise the water to the everhead tank. Some days there is not a drop of supply when tankers charge Rs. 100 to Rs. 500 for 1000 litres. Since the water is polluted everyone has UV filters costing Rs. 6000. These days people are istalling reverse osmosis machines to eliminate heavy metals costing upto Rs. 15000. Frequently taps get air block so plumbers have to be begged to unblock them. In summer Delhi reaches 45 degrees Celsius so water is life literally. When I hear of politicians boasting about growth I wonder how much is broken window.

Politicians in India are generally filthy, thieving degenerates thoroughly loathed by the people. Paradoxically you will always find fervent supporters willing to fight opponents to the death for the same ugly fellows. It has been evolving for 60 years since independence. First keep more than 60% of people illiterate and dirt poor. Then divide them according to language, caste status. Call them aam aadmi with great contempt. Promise them rice at Rs. 2 or free electricity for their votes and instantly 60% of the population are converted to beggars. They will then touch your feet with gratitude for the crumbs you throw them. A few will cleverly become followers ready to commit any crime for you so anyone foolish enough to criticise can be severely beaten up. Having created the aam aadmi use that excuse to tax the middle classes to the hilt. Fill the civil services with trash like you whose function will be harass people and make life so difficult that they will be so busy trying to survive they will not have time to mount a challenge. Deny them basic services like water, electricity, schools, roads and health care and people are rushing around like zombies to see that children can get to school and old parents die a painless death. All very subtle. No need for the KGB but very effective all the same.

Zimbabwe is rapidly reaching the point of no return. More than 3 months after he stole the presidential election and after promising to share power Robert Mugabe is blocking every effort at genuine power sharing. Meanwhile hyperinflation has reduced the dollar to less than toilet paper and at least 500 people have died of cholera because the government has no money to buy chemicals. Yet Mugabe is clinging on. He does not care if millions die as long as he can somehow hang on to his seat. Sound familiar? Following the attacks on Mumbai one slimeball in India commented that such incidents happen in a big city. Another one took his Bollywood son for a photo call. A third one found something objectionable in women wearing lipstick staging demonstrations. He accused the media of painting politicians in a negative light. Can filthy scum be made any more negative? One particularly stinking piece of excrement said that even a dog would not look at the house of a major who had just sacrificed his life to protect ugly disgusting filth like him. Mugabe is just one and one can hope that getting rid of him will improve matters. How unfortunate for us that there are thousands of Mugabes in India and their children waiting to take their places once they are gone. Is there any hope?

The world advises caution and restraint. What do Islamic states do to their own people when faced with dissent. Suharto of Indinesia, with US help, exterminated hundreds of thousands of communists. Saddam Hussein of Iraq gassed an entire Kurd village. Hafez al Assad of Syria used artillery against a town which had rebelled. His orders were not to leave even one brick standing. The army in Algeria has been eliminating Islamic fighters ( GLA? ). Egypt has been doing the same to the Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi Arabia has been going guns blazing at whoever they suspect of being Al Qaeda. No compromises. Al Bashir of Sudan has been exterminating Nubian muslims in Darfour using Arab Janjaweed. Just a small list of what they do to their own people who disagree. In India we Hindus are killed and then abused in the name of Secularism. Was it secularism that made police and politicians ignore so many warnings of an attack? Resigning is not enough. They must stand trial as accessories to murder.