Scams by individuals is bad enough but when nation states start indulging in scams then it becomes very serious indeed. Saw a minister from Somalia saying that the pirate situation cannot be tackled unless money and arms are provided to the Somali government. The solution is not on the water but on land, he said. Similar reasons are being provided by Saleh, the president of Yemen. Give us money, lots of it and arms or else we cannot control Al Qaeda. Problems originally started because of bad governance and lack of democracy. When opposition and the people are brutally silenced then armed resistance is inevitable. Terrorists are encouraged as state policy and gradually start devouring the state itself. The originator of this scam is Pakistan. For decades the army and ISI encouraged terrorists and even planned 9/11. At the same time they wring their hands and whinge that without money and arms they are helpless. Money enriches the top bastards of the army and ISI and the arms help keep the population and the civilian government under control. The western countries seem to be in a state of brain death. They were spectacularly resolute against Libya, a country which financed its bad deeds with its own oil money and did not ask for assistance. It should be so much easier against these pariah failed states but we are told that they must be helped. Is it any wonder that people believe in conspiracies.

One idiot stitches up a bomb in his underpants which misfires causing him serious burns in the most tender regions of his body. He has to be one of the stupidest men in the world because what man would allow anyone to put a bomb in his underwear. Not surprising, therefore, that his father surmised something was afoot and warned the US embassy which ignored the warning and issued him a visa nevertheless. Much like the Indian consulate in Chicago issued a visa to Headley. So who pays for the stupidity of the officials? We the travelling public, of course. Searches at airports, which were unbearable before, will become even worse. You will not be allowed to leave your seat well before landing and will not be allowed to cover your lap or use a blanket. Time may come when they may close all the toilets and force passengers to use diapers. A lady in FBI had sent a memo warning about the 9/11 perpetrators receiving flying lessons but this was ignored. So the idiot Bush attacks Iraq killing hundreds of thousands and making the terrorist situation worse. The Fed and the Treasury allowed banks to gamble with the savings of ordinary people so when the crash came ordinary people lost their jobs and homes while the bank crooks continue to get huge bonuses. Criminal politicians and uncivil servants never get punished while we, the people continue to suffer. Not much difference between the US and China, only one of degree.

When you are convinced that you are the Supreme Leader then you cannot conceive of anybody higher than you. This makes you God and everyone knows that God is always right. So if anyone has the audacity to protest you can strike him or her down with fire and brimstone. Or in this case tear gas, batons and bullets. First you steal the elections, then you lie about the authenticity of the results and finally when people protest you suppress them ruthlessly. They expose your lies through facebook and youtube so you shut down the internet. They take pictures with their mobiles and send them abroad so you shut down telecommunications. You let lose your angels of death, the Basij militia to frighten the populace but their righteous anger overcomes their fear and they turn on the police and the militia. The police kill about ten protesters on the holiest day of the year and are then made to lie about the causes of death. The body of Ali Musaivi, nephew of the winner of the elections is made to disappear because you do not want the pictures all over the world. Torture and rape are your weapons against protesters who have been arrested but you continue to deny that they ever happened. You can do anything because you are God. You are the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In a sting operation a Telugu channel broadcast pictures of an elderly man in a ' compromising ' position with three women. They claimed the man to be the 86 year old governor of Andhra, Mr. ND Tiwari and the clinching evidence was that the man had raised his shirt. It was alleged the he preferred ladies from his home state of Uttarakhand but we do not know which particular hill. Mr. Tiwari approached the courts which banned the broadcast of the pictures without any consideration to the right to free speech but the damage was done. Mr. Tiwari, who is regarded as the ' poster boy ' of Congress resigned due to ' health reasons.' Further, his name has been dropped from the list of invitees during the celebration of the 125th anniversary of UP Congress Party. This is wrong. In these days of viagra he is an example for all Indian men. The Indian Medical Association should research his diet and fitness regime and make the findings available to all us doctors. An 86 year old man who can entertain three sturdy ladies from the hills by lifting his shirt is my hero. Feminists can eat their hearts out.

Apparently 364 government clerks in UP have been discovered to be multimillionaires or as we say in India ' crorepatis,' where one crore equals 10 million. One lower division assistant in the education department owns a cold storage, a shopping complex and his wife stood for election for MLA. Thankfully she lost. Another fellow owns three palatial bungalows and half a dozen cars. Surprise, shock, scratch your head. However could this have happened? Only the police, Vigilance department and the CBI do not know what every Indian child knows and that is that 99% of sarkari fellows are thieves, crooks, cheats, liars, confidence tricksters and hustlers. Everyone knows of the ' chain ' wherein bribes taken by the clerk go up the ladder to the very top. Go to the housing department of any municipality and you will find fixed rates of bribes without which you will never get planning permission or completion certificate. The fee of the architect includes the bribes he will have to pay to get your house built. The remedy is simple. Reduce the number of kleptocrats by 80% and increase the salaries of the remaining by three times provided they agree to the' hire and fire ' system. Applications must be approved within one month or written explanations must be given. Unfortunately criminal politicans are part of the chain and they are the ones who can pass laws.

Sean Goldman, a nine year old boy was handed over to his father, David Goldman of Tinton Falls, New Jersey by his Brazilian relatives in Rio after a five year old legal battle. The Brazilian mother had taken the boy to Brazil, divorced the father, remarried and died. His relatives wanted to keep him in Brazil but his father mounted a legal battle and won. Apparently the US government got involved and threatened to withold billions of dollars tax free benefits to Brazil. The boy cried when he was forcibly handed over. Clearly no one was thinking about the welfare of the child. He is now old enough to remember his life in Brazil and may hate the father. The father wanted to establish his rights over, what he considers, his possession. Whether he has remarried and what kind of life he will give to the boy we do not know. He obviously thinks that as an american he must be superior to latinos. By putting economic pressure the US government may have forced judges to rule in favor of the father and thus subverted the legal structure of Brazil. The people of Brazil and other countries of the continent already see the US as a bully and their impression will have been strengthened. This will only increase support for anti US leaders like Chavez, Morales and Castro. You can only handle so many enemies.

Assembly results in Jharkhand have ushered in the usual mixture of friends and relatives of scamsters, unproven murderers and other assorted thugs. Three reasons come to mind as to why people would vote for a bin full of garbage. The first is that people in the state are stupid and illiterate and have voted for caste and tribe without giving any thought to consequences. The second is that people were threatened or bribed with cash, hooch and clothes to vote for them and the ones with the most black money and guns i.e. the worst scoundrels won. Probably a combination of these two reasons worked on the ground again proving that elections in India are a sham. The third reason is the scariest. It is possible that after careful and informed judgement the voters thought that these are the least villainous of all the scoundrels on offer. This is probably also what happened in the general elections in May, 2009. If that is the case we do not need China or Pakistan. India is doomed by the garbage it elects.

The economy is growing at nearly 8% and we are told that we can expect growth at 9-10% within a couple of years. Car sales are booming because of low interest rates and the Sensex has got its antigravity belt on. Food inflation is running at 20% but we are reassured that prices will come down in the new year. Companies are hiring again, exports have turned positive after months of fall and property prices are rising again. Thank God for our criminal politicians and uncivil servants who are managing everything so fantastically. Meanwhile the UK is in bad shape with high unemployment, enormous public debt and negative growth. The US grew by 2.2% in the last quarter but questions remain about how robust the growth is and some are forecasting a double dip. Japan is desperately trying to avoid deflation. There is serious concern about asset price bubbles forming in Hong Kong, Singapore and China. Inflation remains a serious threat everywhere but no one seems to know when to start tightening monetary policies again. Perhaps we could export our lot to other countries to show them how it is done. They would learn about pay commissions for gigantic numbers of useless kleptocrats, criminal politicians using public money for personal and family comfort, using Participatory Notes, PNs to reroute stolen black money into the stock market, creating wealth through land mafia, illegal mining in ecologically restricted areas and so many other wealth creating schemes. Stupid firangs.

The criminal beggars have done it. They have passed a bill that allows a minister to take any number of passengers at the same travel rates allowed to them. These may be relatives, friends or just acquaintances or, who knows, donors as well. Apparently this abomination already exists for members of parliament and ministers are just being brought upto par. Where MPs go can MLAs be left behind. Only a couple of weeks back I was unlucky enough to have a runin with one of these travelling to Mumbai escorted by two armed policemen. Then there are luxury aircrafts, helicopters, expensive cars and foreign junkets all paid for by the long suffering taxpayer. We, the people, need a charter of absolute rights. Right to life, property, education and medical care are not enough. We need the right to the lowest taxes, small government, best services, best roads, best utilities and, most importantly, the right to have our own representatives monitor government expenses. Winning an election is not a carte blanche to treat the public exchequer as private property to be squandered at will. We need citizens' corporations to represent us and keep these leeches in check. No sharam, no izzat.

After nineteen long years former Director General of Police of Haryana, SPS Rathore has been found guilty of molesting 14 year old Ruchika who committed suicide. As DG of police Rathore not only contrived to delay any sort of justice but hounded the family mecilessly to have the complaint withdrawn. Ruchika's brother was thrown out of school and arrested on eleven different charges of car theft, all of which were later thrown out by the court. He was also beaten up by the police. Blaming herself for the suffering of her family Ruchika took her life by swallowing insecticide. So what is the punishment for this monstrous bastard? Six months, yes months, in jail and a fine of Rs. 1000, just 20 lousy dollars. His wife, Abha Rahthore, is an advocate. So we have the chief of police molesting a 14 year old girl, protected by his lawyer wife and his sarkari friends and receiving a derisory sentence from the court. Rathore has promised to appeal and says he is confident of being found innocent. Of course he is. With a criminal justice system as ours criminals, especially politicians and sarkari bastards, can enjoy their life of debauch while the souls of the victims continue to cry for justice.

There is a lot space being devoted to Afghanistan in ther media and whether President Obama's strategy will lead to success. The aim seems to be to root out all taliban, train Afghans into effective army and police forces and encourage the formation of a democratic government without the levels of corruption as at present. Unfortunately all this planning is based on the assumption that Afghans can be civilised into a society based on democracy, rule of law and loyalty to the nation which overrides loyalty to clan and family. The evidence is to the contrary. These are a brutal, narrow minded people used to eking out a living from dirt and living like prehistoric savages would have done. Civilisations ( Persian, Indian, Chinese ) have grown up around them but they have managed to retain their illiterate savagery. The famous Afghan resilience is also born out of this lack of humanity. The best bet for the Americans would be to revive the Northern Alliance and support them with air power. The aim will not be to build a nation state but to bring about a standoff which will prevent planning and execution of further terrorist attacks. This is the only way Nato forces will be able to reduce casualties.

Indians are probably wondering enviously when our politicians will be treated like they are being treated in Pakistan at this moment. The Paki Supreme Court has struck down the National Reconciliation Ordinance, NRO which gave amnesty to around 8000 politicians and officials for stealing and bribes. The Defence and Minister of Interior have been barred from travelling abroad on official visits and notices have been issued to Jehangir Badr, a close aide of President Asif Ali Zardari. All this would be laudable if it was being done for the nation but it seems to be revenge by the Chief Justice, who was under house arrest during Musharraf's rule, egged on by Nawaz Sharif, who was exiled by Musharraf. They are playing a dangerous game if they think that they can grab power by embarassing the present lot because Sharif and his brother are high up in the rogues gallery. Zardari is immune while he is president but he will see a constant erosion of power and will eventually be brought down. His main defence should be to leave behind a poisoned chalice for Sharif that removes all immunity from every politician and then instigating investigations into the activities of the Sharif family. If all this leads to another coup by the army all the jokers in this farce could end up at the end of a rope. Russian roulette.

Went to Delhi by train couple of weeks back. Fellow, around 40 years old, gets up with a wife, a son and a two year old daughter. He has two police bodyguards armed with automatic guns and a huge amount of luggage. Space in shatabdi trains being limited to overhead racks he wants to move my solitary case. When I object mildly he tells me to shut my mouth. This unnecessary rudeness annoys me so I tell him that I will not shut up and what will he do about it. His wife says that she will teach me a lesson and that I have not seen what she can do to me. Fellow calms down and then starts to phone people telling them of his travel plans. At each station when the train stops people come to pay their respects with biscuits and chocolates for the children. Obviously the fellow is a hustler and a fixer but what entitles him to official protection. I find out that he is just a member of the state legislative assembly or MLA. It is shocking that a two penny MLA is travelling to Mumbai with two armed policemen at taxpayer expense. The policemen have tickets in a rear compartment and spend their entire journey in their own seats leaving the fellow and his slag of a wife completely unguarded. Clearly they are for show, a kind of status symbol. It is garbage like this that we Indians have to vote for. What future do we have?

Suppose you warn your mother not to go out in the winter cold without proper warm clothes but she does not listen and catches a severe chill with high fever, severe cough and probable pneumonia. Because she is solely responsible for her illness does it follow that you will not get her treated? Let us assume that you know that her fate and your fate are linked and that her death will result in your death as well. Will you still refuse to get her treated choosing to blame your brothers who did not take her money and are very poor? This is exactly what the rich countries are doing at Copenhagen. The fact is that mother Earth is rapidly developing a fever which has the potential to deatroy us all. It is criminally stupid to argue whether this warming is man made or due to natural causes. Whatever may be the cause it has to be treated and we should try and bring down the temperature. The rich countries are trying to force poor countries to accept the same level of cuts as them. Even if they succeed, which they will not, the poor will continue to cut down forests and burn wood for cooking. When you are worried about your next meal you do not think 50 years into the future. The US may have the best defence shields in the world but it cannot air condition the whole country. Obama was full of hot air about change but he is no different from Bush in trying to destroy Kyoto. He is just a bull**** artist.

The climate summit at Copenhagen is rapidly descending into farce. The African countries walked out in outrage over the one sided proposals put forward by the Danes who are presiding over the conference. The western countries want to tear up the Kyoto protocol and sign a treaty which would treat everyone the same, the rapists of mother earth and the victims of the rape who live in the third world. Now Hedegaard the presiding Danish minister has resigned claiming that it was decided beforehand because with heads of states arriving it was only proper that the prime minister chaired the conference. Everyone was taken by complete surprise but Gordon Brown provided the proverbial fig leaf by claiming that he knew all along. The most believable explanation would be that the lady was seen as a craven, racist and shameless tout for the western, read white, countries and lost any shred of credibility. Why would Denmark behave in this dishonorable and servile manner? Why would Norway award a Nobel prize to Obama for doing nothing? The answer usually lies in lucre, filthy though it may be. Is their something in their economic state that they are hiding? We remember Iceland. Maybe the divorce settlement of Tiger Woods will help.

The state run telephone company, BSNL has reduced roaming charges within India to 1 paisa per second or 49 paise minute. This is to compete with the private companies in a trend started by Tata Docomo. Twenty years back in the dark days of landlines a call from Delhi to Chandigarh was a trunk call at Rs. 100 a minute and you had to wait for hours after booking with rude, ill tempered women at the exchange. This was because BSNL was a monopoly in those days. The same with Prasar Bharati, the parent of Door Darshan. Before private television channels came in the output was not worth watching. Now Door Darshan has dozens of channels in all languages covering the country. Unfortunately old habits, that of gouging the people, die hard. No matter who your service provider, whether DTH or cable, everyone is forced to pay Rs. 110 per month for a bunch of ' free ' channels provided by Door Darshan. Every business, from BSNL to Door Darshan to Air India to nationalised banks, that is run by the criminal politicians and kleptocrats is anti people and bad for the country. We, the people, are powerless to do anything except writing tortured blogs that noone reads.

China is the biggest supporter of Iran because of the tremendous similarities of both governments. Both are brutal oligarchies ruled by a small coterie of thugs. Both ban free speech and any form of protest. Iran has the Basij militia, China has ' black ' jails. Both control internet and media stringently. China arrested and threatened parents of children killed in the Sichuan earthquake, by melamine in milk and recently by poisoning due to lead discharge from factories. Iran arrested mothers of protesters killed in custody by the secret police. Iran supports terrorists in Lebanon and Palestine while China supports terrorists in Pakistan and Sudan. However, there are two main differences. Iran is governed by religious fanatics while China's rulers are avowed atheists. The main difference is that Iranian people have the courage to give their lives in support of their beliefs while Chinese cockroaches will tolerate any amount of indigity inflicted on them by their leaders. After all cockroaches deserve to be squashed under foot.

Since 2006 the state Vigilance Bureau in Bihar has arrested 365 uncivil servants for corruption and of these 300 were found to be multimillionaires. With just one vigilance court to try these cases of ' trap ' very few have been convicted so far. Charge sheets have been submitted against a staggering 596 gazetted officers and 632 non gazetted fellows. Gazetted officers are those whose names are published in the president's gazette and as such are supposed to be the brahmins of the kleptocracy in India. Copies of documents for any important work or application involving government departments have to be attested by gazetted officers which gurantees that they are super kosher. The irony is that the uncivil servants are the most corrupt in India which is regularly rated as one of the corrupt in the world. Only about one or two of these creatures in a service employing thousands would be honest which means 99.99% are thieving scoundrels stealing public money, taking bribes and helping criminal politicians in any act of depravity that they desire. Solution is easy. Pass a law saying that every application will be handled by only one fellow whose name will be stamped on the paper. Such application must be approved within one month or written cause supplied for refusal. Flimsy excuses will be punished with loss of salary. So easy but with politicians in the chain no hope in hell.

Russia has declared a day of national mourning for the death of 119 in a fire in a nightclub in the city of Perm. The grief is genuine because with a small population Russia can ill afford to lose so many of its young people in one tragic accident. It is completely different in India. With a population over one billion and the underclass breeding like rodents who cares if a hundred or a thousand die. Criminal politicians never talk about population control because large numbers of dirty, half naked and hungry people means so much cheap labour for the building, transport, ship breaking and other labour hungry industries. An army of filthy children in rags can be seen in the streets, inside municipal garbage bins and on rubbish tips searching for anything that can be recycled. After a whole day of mucking around in extremely toxic conditions they may earn a few rupees which would not buy them enough to fill even their little bellies with food inflation running at 20%. Labourers price themselves down to be hired by building contractors in a competition of hunger. This inflates profits of the robber barons, friends and relatives of criminal politicians. Since life has no value it is easy to give parole to perverted murderers and to help Union Carbide treat dying Indians with contempt. Forget glory, Mother India would be grateful for a little reapect.

Twentytwo year old Amanda Knox from Seattle, US has been convicted of murdering 21 year old British girl Meredith Kercher in Peruggia, Italy. In usual anglosaxon arrogance americans are pouring scorn on the italian justice system and the public prosecutor. The British do the same if one of their citizens is convicted of crime in another country, unless the country is the US, but this time they are satisfied with the verdict. One commentator from Seattle claimed that a lot of the evidence was circumstantial and Knox would have gone free in any US court. Of course she would have. She is white and pretty, your typical all american girl. But what if she had been black and poor? Most likely she would now be on death row because her pro bono lawyer had fallen asleep in court. DNA evidence has seen 140 death row convictions overturned in the US. Last month two men sentenced to death and life imprisonment for the murder of 4 teenagers were cleared. Governor of Texas has been accused of gerrymandering a commission set up to examine the evidence against Cameron Todd Willingham who was executed in 2004 for the murder of his three daughter by arson. And then there was the conviction of Mike Tyson for rape that never happened. Americans have a long history of justice by the lynch mob. Perhaps it is time to learn something even if it is from the Italians.

Remember Gadgil? He was the promoter of the Western India group of companies valued at around Rs. 40 billion in the early nineties. Suddenly one day we heard that he was in jail in Dubai because one of his cheques had bounced. Within months the whole Western India group was declared bankrupt and shareholders lost all their money. The law in Dubai is very specific. If you default on any debt you are put in prison until such time that you are able to raise enough capital or someone else pays for you. That is why last year when the economic crisis broke expatriates who lost their jobs just left their cars at the airport while flying home to avoid being stuck in jail for their inability to pay off their car loans. Yet now that Dubai World is defaulting on its debt repayment the Emir Of Dubai is still free. Not just that, his spokesman said that the government of Dubai would not guarantee the loans choosing to blame the creditors for investing in the country. S&P have downgraded six Dubai government companies to junk status. They should reduce them to dung status because the entire Dubai justice system is fraudulent and the government consists of lying crooks.

One anniversary after another. First it was 26/11, today is the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal tragedy. Twentyfive years on the site is still highly contaminated, large numbers of children are being born with congenital defects and people are still dying of respiratory and other illnesses. Victims say that they have received little or no compensation. Meanwhile public sector banks have written off Rs. 250 billion in bad loans in the three years since 2007. This occurred because bank officials, who are sarkari, arranged one time settlements with wilful defaulters where loans were written off for token amounts. This action by officials closed cases where the CBI was sure of proving criminal intent by the defaulters. No doubt the bank fellows laughed all the way to the bank. Meanwhile three agencies, CVC, CBI and now CAG, are investigating the department of telecom for dishing out 2G licenses at dirt cheap prices incurring a loss of some Rs. 600 billion to the exchequer. The telecom minister Mr. Raja's defence is that he did this with the knowledge of the Prime Minister meaning any attempt at indicting him will affect the Congress government. A fraction of all this trillions of rupees stolen by sarkari bastards could have easily paid for Bhopal. It is not just that the politicians that are criminals, the whole government is a crime syndicate and enemy of the people.

Madhu Koda, who was once chief minister of Jharkhand, is under investigation for illegaly amassing billions of rupees. Since all politicians in India are criminals it is possible that he offended one higher up the criminal hierarchy and had his protection withdrawn to teach him a lesson so that he pays a bigger share in the future. Recently Manu Sharma, convicted murderer of Jessica Lall, was let out on parole to enjoy himself with a few drinks at a night club. Convicted double murderer, Gouru Venkata Reddy, was granted pardon by th governor of Andhra Pradesh on advice from the Congress Chief Minister, YSR Reddy because his wife was a Congress MLA. Meanwhile two other Reddys, Karunakara and Janardhana, have their mining liceses suspended in Karnataka for violation of Forest Conservation Act. The really big ones are too powerful to get caught. To have real democracy, and not the criminal syndicates we have at present, we need to cut the powers of politicians. We urgently need citizens' corporations.

Seems that China is building 27 airstrips along the Line of Actual Control, LAC with India but our government is not concerned. Meanwhile the Chinese army objected to India building a road connecting two villages in Ladakh and we have promptly stopped work. This is the same sector that has seen repeated incursions by the Chinese army into Indian territory. The Chinese continue to build attacking positions along our border, continually block India's progress at international forums, threaten us by repeated incursions, insult us by calling our ambassador in the early hours of the morning and we are not concerned. Pakistan kills hundreds by repeatedly sending in terrorists and we advise restraint. Bangladesh kidnaps and kills BSF soldiers and gives shelter to ULFA terrorists we want to trade with them. Nepal is arming and sending Maoists into India at the behest of China and we smile at them. Seems that politicians just want to continue with staus quo because that gives them the chance to loot the state at will never mind how many people die. It would be much kinder to give cyanide pills to all Indians but then there will be no one left to loot.