So, British Petroleum or BP has already spent $ 940 trying to control the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico but has failed so far. It has promised to spend as much as necessary to bring the gushing oil under control. BP has also promised to set aside $ 500 million to study the effects of the oil spill on the ecology of the area and learn from it. The company is apparently paying money to people whose livelihoods have been affected by the oil such as fishermen. President Obama is snorting fire promising to make BP pay for every cent of damage and loss of livelihood. Yet this same fellow is due to come to India and apply pressure on our government to get the nuclear deal through parliament. The bill is stuck on the issue of compensation in case of an accident. According to the present bill the suppliers of equipment such as GE and Westinghouse, multibillion dollar US companies, will be liable for only $ 100 million and the government of India will pay $ 400 million to compensate victims of any accident. The density of population in India means that in the event of a Chenobyl type of accident hundreds of thousands will die and many more will suffer radiation exposure leading to cancer, organ damage and deformed babies for decades to come. Yet the total compensation will remain a paltry $ 500 million. Perhaps it is a good thing after all because most of the money will be stolen by criminal politicians and thieving uncivil servants anyway and victims will be left begging for assistance as has happened in Bhopal after the Union Carbide tragedy. Thus American shrimps are more valuable than humans in India. Incredible India indeed.

On friday a high speed passenger train, Gyaneshwari Express was derailed by a bomb placed on its tracks while travelling from Kolkata to Mumbai. Derailed coaches were hit by a goods train travelling in the opposite direction on the adjoining tracks. One hundred and fourteen people are known to have died but this may not be the final figure. Police blame Maoist guerrillas who have been on a killing spree in recent weeks. The Railway Minister, Ms Mamata Banerjee wants an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI into the accident. She accused the state government of not cooperating with rescue operations. This is a serious charge. It implies that the state government allowed people to die through inaction as a political vendetta against her to make her look bad. Ms Banerjee is chief of Trinamul Congress which is opposed to the Communist government in Bengal and hopes to win next year's assembly elections. She has been accused of being absent from her desk in Delhi during a spate of train accidents recently and is said to have replied that since her home was in Kolkata she preferred to live there. For relatives of the dead it will be like a kick in the abdomen. To be told that their loved ones could have been saved but were allowed to die for political points will be unbearable. For us taxpayers to see our hard earned money being wasted on absentee ministers is infuriating. Just a month ago we learnt that Mr. Alagiri, another minister in the central government has been travelling to Chennai every three days at the cost of Rs. 1.5 million in expenses. Will the Prime Minister sack these people? Er, got to ask madam. Genuflect.

An anti whaling activist, Peter Bethune from New Zealand is on trial in Japan accused of, among other charges, assault on a Japanese sailor on board the Shonan Maru. Bethune says that he was trying make a citizen's arrest on the captain of the Japanese ship for trying to murder his men earlier. Bethune was captain of a boat, Ady Gil, which was sliced in two by a Japanese harpoon ship while trying to disrupt a hunt in the Antarctic waters. He was detained on board the Shonan Maru and arrested by Japanese coast guards when the ship arrived back to port. If convicted Bethune could receive 15 years in prison. Every year Japanese whalers kill hundreds of whales in the name of ' research '. Whale meat is a delicacy in Japan and the killed whales end up in restaurants as expensive menu. Whales are mammals. Intelligent, social, highly vocal and very large. Killing them is not easy. Harpoons are fired into them and then they are chased as they try to escape. They will be terrified and their deaths will be slow and agonising. What is this ' research ' that starts with killing the animal. This is like the ' medical research ' carried out on Chinese prisoners when China was occupied by Japan a hundred years ago. The Chinese have not forgotten this torture and killing of their people. The Japanese are quick to lecture India against nuclear weapons but seem blind about their own barbaric behavior. Norway is another country which still engages in this barbarous practice and yet will be quick to denounce cruelty to animals. Killing an animal for food may be justified if it is done in a quick and humane manner but torturing an animal for hours is unacceptable.

Seems that and American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky has obtained ' top secret ' minutes of a meeting between top officials from Israel and South Africa in 1975 which tend to ' prove ' that Israel has nuclear weapons. Apparently the then South African defence minister, P.W. Botha asked the then Israeli defence minster, Shimon Peres for warheads and was offered them in ' three sizes '. The South Africans asked for nuclear capable Jericho missiles and obtained an affirmative answer. The report does not say if the missiles were actually supplied and if they were what happened to them after the end of apartheid. This is old rubbish being recycled as some new revelation of proof of Israel possessing nuclear weapons. Israel has never confirmed or denied possessing nuclear weapons but it has long been assumed as a fact. In those days there were strong rumors that Israel had tested a nuclear warhead in South Africa and it was common knowledge that the apartheid regime helped Israel in every way so as to obtain oil shipments routed through Israel because it was unable to do so openly due to its pariah status. So why is all this old rubbish being rehashed at this time. Since Obama was elected President he has been pressuring Israel to stop settlement building and accept a two state solution dictated by the US. This is probably a not so subtle ploy to embarrass Israel while constantly announcing US support for the country. An Indian delegation is going to the US for discussions shortly. They would do well not to believe anything that this administration says and judge it strictly on action. Nothing is more dangerous than an ambitious gasbag.

After the sinking of a warship by a North Korean torpedo South Korea has frozen all contacts with the North. South Korea is also taking its complaint to the UN to get the UN to increase sanctions on North Korea. In retaliation the North has cut of all relations with the South and threatened war which is its only weapon because it is economically totally dependent on foreign aid. Like North Korea Pakistan is also a bankrupt failed state with nuclear weapons totally dependent of foreign aid from the US, the middle east and China. Like North Korea exists only to try and hurt the South Pakistan's only reason for existence is to try and hurt India in any way. However, unlike South Korea which takes a tough line with the North India rewards Pakistan with unilateral peace overtures, increased trade offers, direct train services, allowing Pakistanis to come to India for treatment and allowing them to make money working in Indian cinema some or all of which is donated to terrorists to mount more attacks against India. We can understand that the Indian government is terrified of a civil war in Pakistan with consequent break up of the country and millions of filthy Pakis flooding across the border as refugees just as Bangladeshis have been doing for over two decades. That is why the government is trying desperately to boost the civilian government of Pakistan by rewarding it so that it has something to brag about at home. How did we get here after 63 years of independence? Because we have been repeatedly betrayed by the Congress. From refusing the UN Security Council seat to Tashkent to Shimla the Congress has repeatedly sold the country for nothing in return. We are now reaping death.

Two Jamaican policemen have been killed while trying to find a druglord, Christopher ' Dudus ' Coke to be extradited to the US where he will stand trial. His supporters are fighting the police to protect him against arrest. They claim that he gives them money and jobs and helps them when they need. In short a latter day Robin Hood doing social service. It was the same with Veerappan, the dreaded sandal wood smuggler, who had many murders to his name. Local villagers offered him protection and warned him of coming police to keep him free for over two decades. In Bangkok Red Shirt protesters died fighting the army to get the government to call for fresh elections. This is happening because of uncontrolled population growth in the developing countries. Poor people continue to breed without having the resources to feed their growing numbers and expect their governments to give them food, clothing and shelter which is impossible. Criminals take advantage of this. Make billions from crime, distribute a few millions to the poor and get an army of protectors who see the police as enemies coming to take away their source of food. Hamas and Hezbollah get their support from such masses using them as human shields if attacked. To their credit the Chinese seemed to realise the potential dangers of uncontrolled breeding of the poor and instituted a one child policy about twenty years ago. That led to double digit economic growth in every year, reduction in poverty, increasing education and increasing aspirations in the people leading to greater economic activity. The only way to reduce poverty and crime is to reduce the number of the poor.

The football World Cup is yet to start but it seems, according to The Sun, that officials in London are already preparing for celebrations of an English victory. Consultations are going on with various borough councils as it is assumed that England have the best team since 1966. However the English are forgetting that the World Cup is going to be held in South Africa and not in Europe. Ever since Brazil beat Sweden in the 50s only European teams have managed to win in Europe. In 1966 Brazil were simply kicked out of the games. In the tournament played in Italy in the 80s Brazil must have had at least fifty chances to score but managed to miss all whereas Italy had only three chances and Paolo Rossi scored a hattrick for which he was promised a lifetime supply of free underpants. In 1998, in the final against France Brazilian players were just standing around. These were players who normally played for various clubs in Europe so their style of play was very familiar. There was talk about Ronaldo having suffered a fit hours before the final but he led the attack. Brazil lost 3-1. Yet the same team won the Cup against Germany in Japan four years later where France failed to make out of the group stage. In the last tournament staged in Germany Brazil again looked decidedly out of sorts and were in danger of being beaten by Ghana. It is good that European teams win in Europe because that is where the money is and if Brazil keeps winning then the fans might lose interest. This World Cup is being held in Africa so England should wait until they have seen how others, especially Brazil, are playing before starting to celebrate.

Seems that there had been a great deal of opposition to the new runway at Mangalore airport which was the seen of the tragic crash of an Air India plane yesterday with the loss of 160 lives. Among others an organisation called the Environment Support Group filed two cases against the runway. In their cases they said that the runway was against Indian laws and below international standards. They pointed out that the runway was surrounded by industrial smokestacks and garbage dumps which attracted birds. Being on a plateau a plane could fall down into the ravine in case of an accident and it would be very difficult for rescue teams to reach victims. Precisely what happened yesterday. The seven people who survived have given harrowing accounts of going to hospital in auto rickshaws and by motorbikes. Needless to say that both cases were dismissed by the high court and an appeal was dismissed by the supreme court in 2003. Is their going to be any soul searching by the people responsible for building a dangerous runway in the first place? Perhaps, but not because so many lives have been lost. But because Air India, which is surviving on a drip feed of taxpayer cash, will have to pay out huge sums to survivors and relatives of the dead. Criminal politicians and uncivil servants are indifferent to the loss of lives of Indians but if Air India is wound up after this the sacrifice of so many lives will not be in vain. Sadly our journalists being freeloaders sucking upto politicians are never going to ask pertinent questions.

Seems that there are 70,000 child labor in Uttarakhand, a hill state carved out of Uttar Pradesh about eight years ago, with its capital in Dehradun. If this is in one small state then there must be millions in the whole of India. There is only one reason for this depressing statistic and that is unrestrained population growth. Most people in this state are poor as is the infrastructure. Corruption is endemic. Since it became a separate state it got a separate government with a large numbers of politicians and civil servants, all of whom roam around in official cars with police protection. To pay for such criminal waste taxes are astronomically high. A bottle of beer costing Rs. 40 in Delhi costs Rs. 90 here. Taxi fares are more than double that of Delhi. Politicians and civil servants means crime and black money. The only investment to hide colossal amounts of black money is in property so property prices have gone up ten times in towns. Locals are selling land and using the money to buy big cars, lavish marriage parties and drinking themselves silly. Meanwhile political parties compete with each other to announce handouts for the poor to win elections. People are given cards for being ' Below the Poverty Line ' or BPL and this entitles them to more handouts. A few days ago a woman with four children, sitting in our clinic, proudly said that she could get a free MRI scan because she has a BPL card. She said this with a smile and no sense of shame that she had produced so many children while on handouts. This is the story of all of India. No country can feed unlimited numbers of people. How long before people are dying of starvation on our streets?

Seems that Dr. Craig Venter, the private geneticist, has created a new bacteria in the lab. He took out genetic material from a soil bacteria and inserted genetic material created by assembling amino acids in a predetermined sequence. This has naturally created comment. Some scientists have hailed it as a breakthrough and a eureka moment. They say that this will create a whole new branch of industrial production of new bacteria which will revolutionise the future. Opponents have deplored it as ' frankenstein bugs ' or ' playing God '. Using emotional language of ethics, morality or religion is not the answer. Since this is science then it has to be looked at logically. We already have many diseases caused by bacteria. Typhoid, cholera, pneumonia, tuberculosis still kill millions every year. Worse, bacteria have learnt to evolve with humans. Thus staphylococci have become meticillin and now vancomycin resistant. MDR and XDR tuberculosis is spreading. Bacteria which are harmless can cause disease and kill. Legionella are ubiquitous in the soil and water but when it got into the ventilation system at a veterans' convention people died. Creating a new bacteria may be very profitable but what if it escapes from the lab and is resistant to all known antibiotics. Creating dinosaurs is much safer. T. Rex can be killed but a drug resistant bacteria will not be eradicated so easily. And what about mistakes? The substitution of one amino acid, valine for another, glutamic acid causes sickle cell disease in humans with millions of genes. How much greater will be the difference in a bacteria. Creating something new just because we can is stupid. That is how nuclear weapons came into being and the world in immensely dangerous as a result. Time to stop and reflect. Logically.

Seems that every person in India is to be issued a twelve digit identification number which would serve as proof of identity for various transactions. No identity card will be issued, just a number which each person will have to remember. Even for the Congress it seems a breathtakingly stupid idea. According to Mr. Nandan Nilekani who is head of the program, named Aadhar, this will not be a proof of citizenship but just a proof of identity. Already educated Indians are forced to carry many photo identities for instance passports, driving licenses, PAN cards, voter identity cards to name a few. On top of this we will now have to remember a twelve digit number as proof of identity. This is apparently because poor people have no identity cards and hence lack access to public services. Prints of all ten fingers and iris scans of every person, including children older than five, will go into the data base and will be accessible online. What happens to people who are blind, have corneal opacities or have lost both their arms? What about people of low intelligence who are unable to remember their number? What if a person with low intelligence has five children, how will he or she remember so many numbers? Possibly such a person could get someone to write to write it on a piece of paper keep it near all the time. What if a terrorist or a criminal steals a number and uses it to get a cell phone how will the original person prove his innocence? Perhaps a few years later a person's number will be tattooed on his skin just as the Nazis used to do. Numbers in our own country and no one is protesting. Disgusting, freeloading press.

China's richest businessman, Huang Guanyu has been sentenced to 14 years in jail on charges of bribing officials and insider trading. Huang had built up Gome Electronics into the largest appliance retailer and is reputed to be worth $ 6.3 billion. According to China Daily at least 30 billionaires are in jail or waiting sentencing for corruption. Bribery of officials and use of facilitators is the norm of doing business in China. It is an opaque society where power is centralised in the hands of the Communist Party and anyone becoming too rich or powerful is seen as a threat. Trials are held behind closed doors and accused are nearly always found guilty as Rio Tinto found earlier this year. Yet foreign businessmen are eager to set up businesses in China because of the gigantic size of the economy and its scorching double digit growth rate. As it has grown in riches China has expanded its defence forces capability so that it is now the biggest threat to neighboring countries. All forms of information is strictly controlled inside the country and the government controls the internet rigorously. Any form of dissent is immediately stifled with harsh measures. To maintain public support the government spews out nationalistic propaganda full of lies against other countries such as Japan, India, United States and so on as it suits its purpose. The Chinese are aggressive, barbaric and lacking in any form of civilised behaviour. Can a country go on growing indefinitely without collapsing under its own weight? We can only pray that something like that happens to China. Otherwise all countries in Asia will feel the weight of Chinese boots on their soil.

The junior doctors committee of the British Medical Association wants the National Health Service to stop paying for homeopathy treatment. Homeopathy was devised by Samuel Hahnemann who theorised that diseases can be cured by giving substances, which produce the same symptoms, diluted many hundreds of times. According to this theory the final solution is so dilute that there is no trace of the original substance but a memory remains in the water. Thus homeopathy prescribes deadly poisons such as aconite, strychnine and arsenic and claims to cure all diseases including cancer. British doctors have long argued that this is junk science and always fails the scrutiny of scientific trials. In India there is no such debate. When it comes to health even educated Indians are extremely stupid. They are unwilling to accept that many medical conditions such as diabetes, asthma or high blood pressure cannot be cured but can be controlled very well. Thus they are willing victims of the swindlers masquerading as homeopathy specialists. These ' specialists ' never write prescriptions naming the medicines because mother tinctures are dirt cheap. Instead they give medicines without labels to patients at huge prices just enough to last a week so that they can extort as much as possible. They often give out powders, which are ground steroid tablets, and claim credit for symptomatic improvement. They always trash doctors practising western form of medicine although such doctors have undergone rigorous training while homeopaths are lying charlatans. Since law and order is a joke in India liars and cheats prosper. People die.

The great sage Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Chairman of the Planning Commission, has been silent of late. Normally he predicts everything from rainfall to food production to rate of inflation to growth of the economy. He had been predicting that inflation would would start falling ' next week ' but sadly it is just the opposite. Wholesale price index in April was 9.5% and food inflation is over 16%. With inflation so high, fiscal deficit at over 6% and the combined central and state government debt at over 100% of GDP one would think that the rupee would sink in value. In fact, the opposite has happened. The rupee has strengthened against major currencies. One dollar now buys Rs. 45.25 and one pound sterling is down to Rs. 65.75. One reason may be because of high interest rates in India as opposed to near zero in the US. For Non Resident Indians it makes sense to keep money in India to earn higher interest. Foreign Institutional Investors or FIIs have been pouring money into the stock market which has doubled in value since the last year. The government probably feels that the strength of the rupee helps in keeping inflation in check by reducing cost of imports, especially oil. In fact, there is very little the government can do. Increasing interest rates further will bring down the growth rate. Having wasted money by increasing public sector pay and forgiving loans to farmers to win the last election it is desperate to collect higher taxes. It had to increase indirect taxes thus stoking inflation. All that the Congress can do is pray for a good monsoon to bring down inflation and that the hot money does not take flight because of external factors. The Congress has brought us close to bankruptcy many times before. It will do anything to stay in power never mind the consequences.

In an exclusive news report in the Hindustan Times of Saturday, May 15 the paper claims to have knowledge that the Central Bureau of Investigations or CBI is going file a report absolving S.P.S. Rathore, former Haryana Director General of Police of all further charges. Rathore has already been convicted of molesting 14 year old Ruchika Girhotra in 1990 and sentenced to a derisory 6 months in prison. He has been accused of mounting such a ferocious campaign of terror against the family of the girl to force her to withdraw her complaint that she committed suicide. The Girhotra family allege that Rathore fabricated records related to Ruchika's postmortem and got his police force to register false cases of car thefts against Ruchika's brother who was also a teenager at the time. The brother was repeatedly picked up and beaten up by the police. Now the CBI says that it has found nothing to substantiate these claims. It says that there are inconsistencies in the statements of the family. Of course, there are. After 20 long years of waiting for justice and being subjected to unrelenting torture is it any surprise that there are, so called, inconsistencies. The cases of car thefts against the brother were thrown out by the court. Surely there must be court records to show what evidence the police provided. Has the CBI questioned all the police officers involved in the case? From Quatrochi to the Provident Fund case to the secretary murder case the CBI never seems to find any evidence of wrongdoing against any powerful person. The BJP has accused it of acting as enforcers in the recent ' cut motion ' in parliament. Surely it is time to save to billions of rupees of taxpayer money for a useless organisation. Let us get rid of the CBI.

Seems that the Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi shortly is going to cost fifteen, yes fifteen times the original estimate. Apparently it was estimated that it would cost Rs. 18.99 billions to hold the games but it is going to cost 15 times as much. This is a small item tucked away in the middle pages of today's newspaper. As is normal in India there is no outcry, no campaign by the freeloading press about waste of public money and no call to account of the Delhi government by the opposition. As for the people they are so busy just trying to survive with erratic power supply, disruptions in water supply, broken roads, rising prices, water logging after a short shower, a brutal unhelpful police, sky rocketing school fees and absence of afordable health services that they are unable to muster up the strength to protest. Taxes on everything including patrol have been increased to pay for this meaningless show. Beer prices have gone up by Rs. 10 which is a 25% rise. Schools have been asked to stay closed during the period of the games which will put working parents under enormous strain. Office goers will find it impossible to cross over from east to west Delhi. There is no guarantee that leading athletes of Commonwealth countries will attend due to the security situation and no one pays any attention to records earned in these games anyway. This is a grand opportunity for politicians, civil servants and contractors to make billions in black and for ugly politicians to have their pictures on tv. No one asked Delhi citizens if they wanted this colossal inconvenience and expense. A referendum must be held before any such event is contemplated in the future.

If the prime minister of a country lets loose terror on the citizens of his own country can he be called a terrorist? This is not merely a rhetorical question because this is what Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva appears to have done. He sneaked in to the post of prime minister after Thaksin Sinawatra was deposed in a military coup at the behest of the elite. He has gone into exile. His wealth has been confiscated and his wife sentenced to prison in absentia. Subsequent elections brought in his party but they were prevented from holding power by the Constitutional court. Last year yellow shirted opponents of Thaksin staged huge demonstrations but were treated with great consideration by the government. Now red shirted supporters of Thaksin are occupying the center of Bangkok demanding fresh elections. About a month ago the army killed more than 20 protesters following which Mr. Abhisit promised elections in November and fresh talks. A few days ago he withdrew his offer and ordered the army to clear the area. Yesterday army sniper shot renegade general Sawasdipol in the head and two protesters were killed. It is obvious that Mr. Abhisit is a deceitful liar who is prepared to kill any number of fellow Thais to hang on to his seat. It is also obvious that he knows Thaksin's party will win any elections held now and maybe wants more time to try and fix things in his favor. What of the king? Respected as divine he has been strangely silent while Abhisit is on his killing spree. Said to be unwell is it possible that the conspirators are preventing him from speaking? Is their any difference in being killed by terrorists or by your own politicians?

In a speech to the Confederation of Indian Industries our most revered Home Minister has said that there is a lack of effective government in areas infested by Naxals. He said,'...People have virtually distanced the government. There is huge trust deficit between elected government and people of these areas. They tend to rely upon structures of power which oppose the country.' A devastating confession after 63 years of independence but not really complete. It is not just the Naxal areas but the entire country that mistrusts politicians, civil servants, the police, the CBI, industrialists, lawyers and, dare I say it, even judges especially of the lower courts. Politicians in Delhi allowed Manu Sharma out on bail for a month to enjoy himself in night clubs. Rathore was protected by senior police officers and politicians for decades. Some 15 years after he was caught redhanded Mr. Sukhram is still free to enjoy life. Judges in the provident fund case have escaped and Justice Dinakaran has been merely transferred. Politicians of all parties are accused of accumulating disproportionate amounts of wealth but no one has been sentenced to prison so far. The BJP has openly accused the Congress of using the CBI as an enforcing agency to win the recent ' cut motion ' in parliament. The list is endless. Sadly the freeloading press muddies the waters by talking about ' criminalisation of politics ' instead of telling the truth which is that most of politicians and civil servants are criminals. The danger is that ordinary people see that justice is selective and want to dispense it themselves. That is why they support the Naxals.

So, Gordon Brown has resigned as Prime Minister of Britain. He waited while negotiations were going on between the Conservatives and the LibDems and when it became clear that a deal was in the offing he resigned thus retaining his dignity and respect. He could have tried to retain his post by trying to form a coalition with the LibDems, the Scottish Nationalists, Plaid Cymru of Wales and some of the Northern Ireland parties by offering everyone a ministerial post so that Britain ended up with 83 ministers. But he did not in the interest of the country. On the other side although David Cameron was desperate to become prime minister he was not going to give in to LibDem demands just to get there. That is why it took five days of negotiations to get a working coalition. The negotiations were as much about policies as about posts. The economy, education, immigration, defence, tax changes, electoral reform, banking reform and european union have all been discussed and compromise positions reached. Whether the deal will work in the long term is anybody's guess but at least it was not all about grabbing as many cabinet posts as possible with a view to looting the country. Sitting in India it is strange to see that they were not fighting to get a post where one could get bribes of Rs. 50 billion from two companies in exchange for getting licenses at throw away prices. Journalists played their part by asking tough questions about moral right to form a government. Perhaps that in the end is the difference. Indian journalists are free loading beggars always protecting criminals masquerading as politicians.

Recent elections in Britain have thrown up a hung parliament wherein no party has absolute majority. Although they have lost seats the LibDems are playing kingmaker. Their primary demand is that the voting system must be changed from the present ' first past the post system ' to proportional representation which would reflect voter preference more accurately. The Conservatives who are the largest party oppose this because this would result in permanent hung parliaments and future prime ministers will be chosen by negotiations rather than directly by the people. The present Prime Minister Gordon Brown muddied waters yesterday by saying that he was going to step down as leader of the Labour Party by september which left the door open for a coalition between LibDems and Labour. How refreshing and shocking for Indians to see a politician offering to step aside for a different leader. Here in India that would be unthinkable. No politician will resign even if old, decrepit and incontinent or if suffering from terminal illness. Each filthy stinking old man has brought in his criminal children to take over from him. The country is divided into areas controlled by one family which extorts, rapes and loots that area for generations rather like the mafia has been doing in Sicily. The British complain that their politicians are too elite in that most are highly educated having been to public schools such as Eton and then to Oxford or Cambridge. This, they complain, makes their politicians out of touch with the commoners. How different to India. Here we have the filthiest scum who have won elections with guns and black money and there is no way to get rid of them unless entire families are wiped out.

US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has warned Pakistan that ' ....heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences.' How very cute. Does she not know that 9/11 was planned in Pakistan, possibly by the ISI, and all the financing went through that country. If she does not know that then she should not be in the post that she holds. And what has her boss done about it? Obama, the gasbag, has rewarded Pakistan with F 16 jets, advanced weapons and lots of cash. However it is not just the US that rewards the Pakis for killing its citizens. Our Congress led government is falling over to offer the hand of friendship to this murderous failed state. At every stage the Pakis sneer at, mock and threaten us but it is met by the milk of human kindness. As I keep saying, we do not need this cesspit of murderers and terrorists. We should cut off all diplomatic, trade and cultural contacts and heavily mine our borders so that not even a rat can get across. If our army does not know how to make and lay mines then we can pay Naxals to do the job. Seems that the Naxals have heavily mined the forests of Chattisgarh. They did this years ago. Apparently when new roads were being laid they planted large mines over which the roads were laid. Now they can detonate these mines whenever unsuspecting troops are passing over them causing deaths and injuries. This shows a level of anticipation and planning completely lacking in our generals who strut around in starched uniforms decorated with lots of shining brass. The government of India, all show and no substance.

The BJP or Bharatiya Janta Party, which is the largest opposition party to the Congress led government in India, is vociferously complaining about the misuse of the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI by the government to coerce politicians to support whatever it does. According to the BJP politicians the Congress is holding the CBI as a ' Damocles sword ' over politicians who have been implicated in cases of having ' disproportionate assets ' or assets disproportionate to their declared sources of income. The BJP is angry because it was promised support in a recent vote in Parliament by some politicians who then broke their word and supported the government. Surely BJP politicians have been around long enough to know that Indian politicians have no sense of decency, honor or integrity. Also when a party cobbles together a coalition by creating more than 80 ministerial posts it is going to use any means, however unethical and disgusting, to cling on to power. While it is protesting about Congress tactics the BJP is shamelessly putting together a coalition government in the state of Jharkhand with the support of one of the men it accuses of betrayal, namely Shibu Soren. Just goes to show how Indian politicians will do anything to get into power because power brings a chance to loot. Perhaps the BJP thinks that Indian people are stupid but we have not forgotten the sordid story of Tehelka and how the then BJP led government used the CBI to destroy the paper. Indian politicians should stop talking about principles or the rule of law. Just keep quiet and carry on looting.

The most Hon'ble Supreme Court has ruled that the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme or MPLADS is kosher. The Court said that fears of misuse is not does not make it illegal and it was for parliamentary committees to oversee how the money is spent. Under this scheme MPs get Rs. 20 million to spend on improving their constituencies or a total of Rs. 100 million over the life of a parliament. That is an enormous fortune in India especially in rural areas where one could improve roads, sewers, water supply, education, primary health care and a host of other services thus improving living conditions and the local economy. That none of the money is reaching the public is shown by the presence of another scheme called NREGA which guarantees 100 days of employment to villagers in need. In UP the government is considering partnership with private healthcare providers to provide primary healthcare to villagers. Ample evidence that the money is not going where it should. A lady politician, now in opposition, visited the south Delhi colony of Munirka, a typical middle class area where people live on top of each other in ill constructed flats. The residents had myriad complaints and asked why they should vote for her if she could not provide basic services. To which the lady brusquely replied that she did not care about their votes because her votes would come from slums. Yet slums are controlled by gangs and no one has seen any improvement, ever. Perhaps what the Hon'ble Court meant was that the money was going to be looted anyway so it is better to distribute the loot. Everyone enjoy.

Three people died in Greece yesterday when a bank in which they were working caught fire. This was during protests by workers against the IMF inspired austerity measures. Had the politicians and officials of the previous government been charged with falsifying accounts and sentenced to long terms in prison public fury would have been less but there is no attempt at holding anyone culpable for the present mess. Meanwhile in Thailand Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is determined to hang on to power as long as he can in the face of protests by Red Shirts who are supporters Thaksin who was deposed by an army coup. Mr. Abhisit sneaked in to the Prime Minister's post because the Constitutional Court would not allow Thaksin's party to hold power even though they had majority in parliament. Prime Minister Abhisit has proposed general elections in November which has been accepted by the Red Shirts but such is their mistrust of the government that they have vowed to continue occupying central Bangkok. In Kyrgyzstan the previous president Bekayev is on the run after protesters were killed on his orders. He was elected in a landslide when his predecessor escaped to Russia on being overthrown by street protests. Bekayev won elections promising clean up of corruption but turned out just as corrupt. In Venezuela the family of President Hugo Chavez has occupied large areas of land, own a bank and his mother goes round in expensive jewellery. All this in the name of ' democracy ' which infuriates people. Governments should be like China - just shoot anyone who protests. No hypocrisy, no lies, just a bullet.

George Bush had shoes thrown at him and Obama has just been rewarded with a crude bomb in Times Square in New York. However Obama has an advantage over Bush. He is a lawyer and that means his skin has to be at least 1000 times thicker than Bush's ever was. Since he has come to power this Paki lover has been showering gifts on Pakistan. F 16s? Sure. Smart bomb kits? Take one thousand. Night vision equipment? Take as many as you like. Money? How much you want? $ 10 billion? Take fifteen, even though the US treasury is skint. So what is Pakistan going to do with all this sophisticated killing instruments. Hopefully they will fight and finish the Taliban, bring peace to Afghanistan and the US army will come home to tearful embraces while the band plays on. The public will be oh so grateful that they will vote for Obama for a second time and there he will be on stage with his family spouting hot air, which he does best, while the Pakistan army is using all the newly acquired hardware to kill innocent Indians. Now he has been given a poke in the eye. The man arrested and charged with placing the bomb in Times Square is called Faisal Shahzad who is a naturalised US citizen. He is of Pakistani origin and son of a retired Vice Air Marshal. This not only shows that, regardless of what Obama says, Pakistan is not a friend of the US but also the intimate connection between terrorists and the Paki armed forces. Will Obama learn anything from this incident? Alas, no. He will just spout his customary garbage about how this is an aberration and that Pakis are mainly good chaps. A gasbag in charge of 5000 nukes. Scary.

Some railway workers called motormen are on strike in Mumbai. They must be important because their absence has resulted in cancellation of local trains with severe disruption of city life. Life in Mumbai is dependent on local trains because the streets are so congested that the vast majority of people are unable to get to work without this service. Twenty motormen have been sacked and around 150 arrested. Local political strongman has threatened them with unknown consequences ( read violence ) if they do not get back to work immediately. The Railway Minister is invoking the Essential Services Maintenance Act, ESMA to force them back to work under duress. All they want is a raise in their pay to survive the continuous rise in prices of essential items, especially food. No surprises here. The people have elected criminal politicians to beat them up if they want a living wage. Yet the Minister of Chemicals ( phenyl? ) has been travelling every three days from Delhi to Chennai or Madurai costing the taxpayer Rs. 1.5 millions already. Seems that he is never in the parliament to answer questions which is essential in a functioning democracy. He went abroad on vacation without informing the Speaker of the Lok Sabha who seemed most displeased. Surely she should use the ESMA on him and sack him as a member if he refuses. However if his services are not essential and he is a waste of taxpayer money the Prime Minster should sack him immediately and save us a lot of money. However that will not happen. It is all snouts at the trough or everyone misses out. Get beaten up for being useful but enjoy if totally useless.