The Congress led government is very happy at having auctioned off 3G spectrum along with broadband for over Rs. 1 trillion. Our slavish freeloading press is all praise for what is being described as a transparent exercise. Having paid so much money to obtain licenses telecom companies will have to charge their customers very heavily to make any profit. How many Indians will afford the new services remains to be seen. Meanwhile the two government owned companies MTNL and BSNL, who were granted licenses one year ago so that they could get a head start over private companies, want to opt out of 3G services because they are unable to pay the fees. With liquidity sucked out of banks and because inflation is running at over 10% borrowing costs have to go up. So far ministers have been promising lower inflation next day to put pressure on the Reserve Bank not to raise rates because they are desperate for growth to remain high. The reason is that the government is desperate for cash having catastrophically increased spending to win last year's elections and high growth means high taxes. Add to it enormous waste such as ugly statues and meaningless Commonwealth Games and public finances must be dire. Prices are going up on everything from fuel to food to electricity. State governments are adding their own taxes as in Delhi where the government has raised all taxes. Naturally this feeds into inflation. Real inflation can be judged by house prices which seem to have risen 30% since last year. Are we at the edge of a financial precipice about to implode like Greece? Who knows since no one tells the truth.