It cannot be contained.

A couple of weeks ago a gas-field, In Amenas in eastern Algeria was taken over by Islamic militants from a gang led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar who is called " The Uncatchable " by the French and " Mr Marlboro " by locals because of his cigarette smuggling activities. The Algerians retook the field by force; around 37 foreigners died. The militants are said to have come from Mali which was at the point of being taken over by the Masked Brigade which is an offshoot of the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. These Arab and Tuareg fighters had come over from Libya after Col Gaddafi was defeated by British and French bombing. The bombing was supposed to save civilians during the civil war which started in Benghazi. However, British and other western governments have issued a travel advisory telling their citizens to get out of Benghazi because there is a credible threat to westerners. On 23 December Assad's forces were accused of using Chemical Weapons in Homs. Apparently tank shells contained Agent 15, called BZ by the NATO, and resulted in vomiting, breathing problems, fainting and some deaths. The government categorically denied using CW on its citizens. It is now being reported that Syria never had a program to produce BZ but probably has mustard gas and the nerve agent, sarin. On 30 January the Daily Mail reproduced emails from senior officials of British-based contractor, Britam Defence which seem to show that the Obama administration approved of a plan to use CW in Syria and blame it on Assad's forces so as to have an excuse for bombing Syria. The emails were obtained by a Malaysian hacker who also obtained copies of passports and resumes of the executives of the company. A mail from Britam's Business Development Director, David Goulding to the company founder, Philip Doughty on 25 December reads," Phil... We've got a new offer. It's about Syria again. Qataris propose an attractive deal and swear that the idea is approved by Washington." " We'll have to deliver a CW to Homs, a Soviet origin g-shell from Libya similar to those that Assad should have." " They want us to deploy our Ukrainian personnel that should speak Russian and make a video record." " Frankly, I don't think it's a good idea but the sums proposed are enormous. Your opinion?" A Malaysian hacker discovers a British company being paid by Qatar, with US connivance, to supply CW in a Russian made shell from Libya carried by Ukrainians speaking Russian. This is true globalisation of conspiracy. Early today Israeli planes bombed a convoy of Syrian army vehicles believed to be carrying missiles for the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Thousands of Israelis are queuing up to receive gas masks in Israel. How long before the cancer spreads to Europe and the US? They want to contain it in the middle east but they cannot. The Clash of Civilisations is here.

Bow lower to foreigners.

The government has agreed to every demand by the Swedish furniture maker IKEA which apparently intends to invest Rs 100 billion in setting up stores in India. Not right away, of course, but over a period of 15-20 years. TOI, 23 January. To make it seem a good deal for India the Foreign Investment Promotion Board cleared the proposal which will now be endorsed by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs so that we, the fools, will be grateful that with so many wise heads, led by the World Famous Economist, dissecting the contract line by line the deal must be to our advantage. " The government is committed to play a constructive role in encouraging FDI specially in areas which create jobs and provide technological advancement," said Commerce Minister, Anand Sharma. Oh goody! With Tesco and Walmart being begged to open stores in India we will be flooded with technology and billions of new jobs. Or will we? IKEA is supposed to be a single brand retail company which is allowed to own 100% ownership of its stores provided it does not sell anything except furniture and, like all foreign companies, is required to source at least 30% of its products from local sources. IKEA refused on both counts. It wants to open cafeterias in its stores and will not guarantee buying 30% of its products locally. The government caved in. Now IKEA will be able to sell coffee, tea, pastries, patties and maybe even biryani in its stores. It will import all its furniture from abroad and take home all the profit it makes. What about creating those millions of jobs? Jobs will be created for sales assistants at the shop floor who will be paid Rs 3000-5000 per month to show people around, basically coolies in uniform, while all the managers will be white-skinned Swedes. Tesco and Walmart are large grocers, also known as multi-brand retail in India. They are allowed to hold 51% in their stores which gives them controlling interest. It will be easy for them to source 30% locally. Fruits, vegetables, rice, atta and other food items have to be bought in India because people are resistant to foreign tastes. Besides India has a thriving cosmetic industry which exports abroad. So it should not be a problem for these companies to set up stores in India but both companies have told Mr Sharma that they are still studying conditions in India and are in no hurry to start business here. TOI, 26 January. These companies are required to invest at least $100 million with $50 million for setting up back-end infrastructure which means a cold chain for getting produce from farmers to consumers. The idea is that this will stop wastage of food and bring down prices. Trouble is that the companies will have to set up electricity generating plants and with diesel price rising costs will increase. Also, if the Congress loses the next government may cancel the contract. Poor fellows. All that bowing is having no effect. Maybe if they bowed even lower.....

We are being made poorer.

Eventually the Reserve Bank succumbed to pressure and reduced interest rate by 25 basis points to 7.75% and the Cash Reserve Ratio, which is the cash banks hold to guard against bad loans, by the same amount to 4%. The hope is that if banks are required to hold less cash they will be able to lend more to businesses and home buyers as the fall in interest rate stimulates people to borrow more. That would have made sense had people stopped borrowing because of the high rates, but not so. Bank credit has grown by 16.3% which is apparently above the RBI's comfort zone of 16%. Also, people should be saving more in fixed deposits to take advantage of high interest rates. Just the opposite. Deposit growth has been 13.3% which is below the RBI's comfort zone of 15%. Are people really stupid not to lock in their money in long term fixed deposits if interest rates are as high as the politicians keep frothing about? At 8% interest rate was way below the inflation rate, the Consumer Price Index soaring at 10%, which means that real returns were negative. With interest rate coming down people will be even less inclined to save which is why the RBI has cut the CRR to increase liquidity in banks. While making people poorer a lower interest rate helps the government to borrow at lower rates to manage its exorbitant spending and may help companies to restructure their loans at a lower rate thus helping banks to reduce their bad loans. Seeking to protect their money against inflation people have been buying gold increasing the Current Account Deficit. To stop people from buying gold the government has increased tax on gold from 2% to 6% while giving tax relief on investment in shares. Politicians hope that large numbers of people will buy shares, either directly or through mutual funds, increasing market capitalisation of companies which can then borrow money against shares. However, stock markets in India are highly manipulated with no control over insider trading, front running or price manipulation which means that chances of losses are very high. Strangely the RBI has asked banks to extend duration of home loans of less than Rs 2.5 millions from 15-20 years, as at present, to 30 years. With property prices at record levels Rs 2.5 millions will buy a tiny one bedroom apartment in a small town which means that it is only for people with low earnings. Why does the RBI want to lock poor people into high interest rate loans for 30 years? Yet the same RBI has increased limits of investment by foreign investors in Indian government and company debt from $65 billion to $75 billion and abandoned the lock-in period. This means that foreigners will be able to borrow in the US at 0% and earn over 7.75% in India to take home. Thus our government is making us poorer while making foreigners richer. Aren't we so lucky?

Potholes in the economy.

Indian roads are generally full of potholes and as one section gets repaired potholes appear in another section. This is because most of the money is stolen by officials in municipalities so the work done is stopgap, with poor materials. Now it seems that the central government has decided to take its share of the loot. Seems that the Finance Ministry has decided to pocket Rs 27 billion from the money collected from road cess and tolls paid on highways. TOI 26 January. Cess is an additional tax of 2% on every liter of petrol or diesel sold in India, the excuse being that additional money is needed to improve conditions of  our roads. This tax is collected even though highways are constructed by companies with private finance which are then allowed to collect toll from all users for 30 years. A few years back companies were paying premiums to be awarded contracts for construction in the hope of making windfall profits from monopoly toll collections over 30 years. No longer. All these companies are making huge losses and want to exit their contracts and recent auctions produced no bidder. Why does the government tax us on fuel when it is not paying for road construction? Because the government is desperately trying to keep its fiscal deficit below 5.3% for the financial year so as not to be downgraded to to junk status. Not just that, the Finance Ministry has also pocketed money raised from toll collections. Between October and December Rs 19 billion was raised from cess on fuel while Rs 8.75 billion was raised from toll. In the current year the National Highway Authority has received Rs 64 billion from a total of Rs 102 billion which is estimated to be raised from cess and Rs 18 billion from a total of Rs 38 billion estimated to be raised from toll. So the present shortfall is running at Rs 58 billion. The Road Transport and Highways Ministry wants the money to be paid immediately and has reminded the Finance Ministry that this is earmarked for specific projects and cannot be treated as general tax collection. Meanwhile a report by India Ratings has warned that banks are raising money through short term loans but lending long term for infrastructure projects which will cause financial stress on banks and lead to interest rates remaining high. Since most of the large banks are owned and controlled by the government we wonder if they are being pressured to do so. The Reserve Bank is under intense pressure to reduce interest rates and newspapers have been predicting a decrease of 25 basis points everyday for weeks. Politicians are hoping that most loans will be restructured at the lower rate thus relieving pressure on banks. But 25 basis points is too little to help bad loans but large enough for depositors to look at different assets as inflation is still at 10%. To stop people from turning to gold the government has raised tax on gold from 2% to 6%. Try to fill one pothole in the economy and a hundred new ones appear. What a circus!

Do we know our losses?

Indians do not realise that every single day they are being cheated of hundreds of billions of rupees. This is such an insidious disease actively organised by the government that no one recognises the scale of the loot. And yet, the modus operandi is very simple - the government does not manufacture enough coins to meet the demand of countless transactions that take place throughout India. Whether by choice or design we do not know but the fact is that at every transaction, whether buying vegetables or postage stamps, in a large air conditioned store or from a roadside vendor, paying for our bus fares or the auto rickshaw, we are told that there is no change to refund the balance. We are asked accusingly by every merchant," Don't you have change?" as though we are his servants and should obtain a ready supply of coins from banks to pay him when he is running a business and, hopefully, earning a handsome profit. The value of the rupee is so low that if the balance is one rupee or 50 paise it is just ignored. Some offer candies instead of coins earning a profit on the candy. There are hundreds of billions of small transactions everyday and, at one rupee every time, it amounts to tens of billions of rupees daily or tens of trillions of loss every year. The other source of enforced loss is called KYC or Know Your Customer. Whatever any Indian does he has to provide photocopies of a photo identity document showing his address, such as passport or driving licence, photocopies of his income tax card, called PAN card, and photographs of himself. This is needed for getting a gas connection, opening a bank account or getting a cell phone connection. This costs every Indian hundreds of rupees every year and is immensely destructive of the environment as mountains of paper are wasted. Meanwhile the government wants to make it easy for Pakistanis to roam all over India by obtaining a visa on arrival in India. While the government is actively conniving in the loot of ordinary citizens it is protecting criminals. In a study of rape cases in India the Wall Street Journal published the figures for conviction of rapists in different states. With 130 cases of rapes a year Meghalay has a conviction rate of 0% while Manipur with 53 cases has a conviction rate of 100%. Andhra with 1442 cases of rapes a year has a conviction rate of just 11%, West Bengal with 2363 cases has a conviction rate of 11.5%, Kerala with 1132 cases has a conviction rate of 15.4% and Assam with 1700 cases has a conviction rate of 23.3%. MP has the largest number of rapes in India at 3406 with a conviction rate of just 23.6%. Surprisingly UP does much better at a conviction rate of 56.4%, Delhi is at 41.5% and Bihar is at 24.8%. So, while the government is aiding the theft of money from the people it is allowing criminals to get away. Is it any wonder that India is seen as a corrupt nation?

A toothless army.

Today being the 64th Republic Day there would have been a parade in Delhi where some withered old politician would have received salutes from our armed forces. Platoons of soldiers in full uniform would have marched past in perfect lockstep. Missiles would have trundled past on large trucks, presumably to be put away in some warehouse till next year. Little children would have performed pretty dance routines while being forced to live in uncomfortable lodgings in the bitter cold, on poor food, far away from their villages. Pakistanis will be laughing their heads off as they crack jokes about our toothless armed forces reduced to poncing around in fancy dress. However, all this is not meant for the enemies of India. This is an occasion when politicians and civil servants show us that they are our masters. In an opinion piece in the TOI of 25 January titled " Let's Avoid Television Wars ", regarding the beheading of an Indian soldier by Pakistani soldiers in Kashmir, the former Chief of the Indian Navy, Arun Prakash writes," No government, since Independence, has considered it necessary to promulgate a National Security Doctrine or Strategy. Consequently every crisis catches the Indian state unprepared and flat-footed." Then," Forums like the National Security Advisory Board and the Strategic Policy Group have been rarely mobilised to justify their existence. The huge repository of security expertise resident in the armed forces HQ is wasted; because it lies outside the ministry of defence and they communicate through files." There is a cry of despair and anger in his writing which we understand because it is not only the armed forces which have been gnawed away from the inside by the cancer of corruption. Our Olympic Association has been derecognised by the International Olympic Committee. Everyone of our sports associations is ruled by politicians and civil servants who use all the money for their own gratification. In the recent London Olympics our wrestling team of 5 members had 3 coaches and one manager but not one physiotherapist. Wrestler Sushil Kumar privately paid for his physio, Arvindpal Singh to travel to London but because he had no accreditation he had to stay in private lodgings at great expense. Politicians and civil servants are terrified of a coup because they know that they are despised by the people while the armed forces are admired for their brave sacrifice. Is it going to change? No. Speaking of the indestructible geriatric members of the Congress Mr Rahul Gandhi said on 23 January," I will certainly draw the benefit of your experience for the good of the party. We are fortunate to have your support and cooperation....We are one family." Ominous words. All they will teach is how to loot and betray. As they have been doing since 1947.

Mother of all junkets.

The mother of all junkets is here again and again more than 100 people are attending from India. It is the annual World Economic Forum meeting at Davos in Switzerland. Davos is a small village high up in the Alps, very picturesque covered in snow at this time of the year. You and I cannot walk in their. Attendance is by invitation only. First you have to be a member. A Strategic Partner membership costs $527,000 for 5 people for 1 year which allows them to attend Davos and 6 other meetings in the year. Plus every person has to have a ticket costing $19,000 which means a total of $622,000 for 5 people. A limousine one way from Zurich airport costs $689 and a return fight in a helicopter costs $9500. A 3-star hotel room costs $530 per night and a chalet for 5 people costs $63,000 for 1 week. CNN estimates that it costs $40,000 or Rs 20 lakhs per person, amounting to Rs 20 crore for 100 people, to attend. Add the membership costs and we come to an eye watering figure of around Rs 1.5 billion or Rs 150 crores. Question is who is paying? If the Ambanis, Mittals and Godrejes are paying from their own fortunes then fine but if taxpayers are footing the bill then it is an enormous loot of public money. Of course, politicians will never be left out of a junket at taxpayer expense. Swiss wines, Swiss chocolates and hot Swiss frauleins make for a mouth-watering few days. What is our Minister for Urban Development doing there? Does he want Gucci to open a shop in Dharawi, the largest slum in the world, or maybe Chanel can sell its perfumes so that we can pretend that people are not defecating out in the open? Is the whole circus worth Rs 150 crores of our money? Out of 260 sessions this year only 1, yes only 1, is on India. Chairman of Punj Lloyd and a regular at Davos, Atul Punj said," The under-representation of India is not just a coincidence. It signals our declining relevance." CEO of another company said," A year ago, international investors were talking about fleeing the country. That talk has now stopped. India as of now is neither an opportunity nor a challenge." ET, 23 January. So the World Famous Economist takes over a booming economy in 2004 and has made it into an irrelevance. But we have certainly become world famous in corruption as scam after scam has made headlines around the world. Commerce Minister, Anand Sharma has made a vigorous rebuttal. He said," With the issue of corruption, we always say that we will not tolerate corruption." Quite. But when will we see some action, sir? And again," I am not seeking certificates from individual opinion makers who do not have adequate comprehension of from where we come from ( sic )." But we do sir, we do. We the citizens understand very well how politicians are sucking the country dry. However, since you are there we wish you " Cheers ". Hic!

Listen to the enemy.

In a book titled " Confronting the Bomb ", Pervez Hoodbhoy, Pakistani nuclear scientist with a PhD from MIT writes that the threat to nuclear weapons in Pakistan comes from within. TOI, 21 January.  He describes the Pakistani army as " a heavily Islamicised rank-and-file brimming with seditious thoughts ". " The fear of loose weapons comes from the fact that Pakistan's armed forces harbour a hidden enemy within their ranks. Those wearing the cloak of religion walk in and out of top security installations everyday," he writes and then," The fear of the insider is ubiquitous and well founded." This shows that neither the elected government nor the top brass in the army is in full control. This is all the more reason that India should stop fantasizing about a peace process with Pakistan because those we are talking to have no control on the bulk of the armed forces and possibly their nuclear weapons. Instead we should be pressurising the US to stop the flow of arms and money to Pakistan. In an article titled " Why Maulana Qadri and Cricketer Khan can't save Pakistan " Hoodbhoy mentions 3 actions that need to be taken. 1. " Address the population problem." In 1947 Pakistan's population was 28 million, today it is 180 million and will be 258 million by 2030. There will not be enough land or water to feed so many mouths. 2. Confront terrorism head-on. and 3. " The promise of the messiahs that they shall bring prosperity to everyone by somehow equalising the distribution of wealth is fake and dishonest, and un-implementable." You could take these arguments and apply them to India straightaway. Our population is already over 1.2 billion and we need to reduce numbers urgently or else the pressures on land, water and the environment will become intolerable. We must hit the terrorists very hard, perhaps even before they have time to mount an attack. We must also build a security wall to separate India from Pakistan so that not a single terrorist can get across and if there is no interaction with Pakistan they will not be able to claim that we are a threat to them. That will take away the fundamental reason for survival from the terrorists. This is not some delusion. The fence on the Demilitarized Zone in Korea has kept peace for over 60 years between the north and the south and the security wall that Israel has built on its borders has drastically cut down terrorist attacks by Palestinians. Finally talk of " inclusive growth " is a chimera. This is just to give an illusion of respectability to distribution of taxpayer money to the " vote bank " just to win elections. As such it is completely dishonest and amounts to grand larceny of public money. Pakistan is a failed state with nuclear weapons but with a collapsing economy and no control over armed gangs. We should listen to our enemies because we were born on the same day and could share their fate.

What shade of green?

Our most revered Finance Minister can see " green shoots of recovery " sprouting everywhere in the economy. We understand that being in charge of finance he cannot really speak the truth because there will be a run on the markets and market capitalization of companies will dive. He has to be optimistic at all times and speak of grand visions. Sadly others tramp over the " green shoots " with large boots. A study by the Reserve Bank has shown that Non Performing Assets, which is the sugar coated term for bad loans, rose from 0.97% to 1.28% in 2012, creating instability in the banking sector. NPAs in public sector banks rose from 1.09% to 1.53% while those in the private sector declined by 0.10%. TOI, 21 January. Referring to the financial crisis of 2008-09 the report says " the real act of the financial crisis was enacted in the courtyard of the banking sector where the trigger of financial crisis initially took place." Maybe, but not in India. There was no sub-prime crisis in India and property prices have not only remained buoyant but have been rising relentlessly. Perhaps what the bank is hinting at is what the Congress did when it forgave loans to farmers to win elections in 2009. PSU banks have never really recovered from that act of vandalism and are probably suffering from renewed bad loans from the farming sector. The real damage has been caused by ever rising inflation which has cut consumer spending leading to rising commercial bad loans. However, remedies prescribed by the government may not lead to a cure. Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz says," The FDI in retail can promote instability by way of the exploitative and corrupt ways of the MNCs to hold sway over retail markets." What he means is that these companies with enormous reserves will drive out local stores by offering predatory low prices, get permits by paying bribes, pay very low wages and force farmers to sell their produce at rock bottom prices increasing poverty in agriculture. They may therefore cause social unrest. In an article in the New York Times on 21 January, one Steven Rattner writes that India has no hope of overtaking China. GDP per capita in China is $9146 while in India it is $3851, GDP growth in China is 7.7% while in India it is 5.3%, Inflation in China is 2.6% while in India it is 7.5%, Unemployment in China is 4.1% while in India it is 9.8%, Budget Deficit in China is 1.1% while in India it is 7.2% of GDP and Investment as a portion of the GDP is 48% in China while it is 36% in India. His figures were obtained from the IMF, Bloomberg and The Economist. Also China has 16 subway systems while we have only 5. In only one parameter is India above China. We are worse in Transparency International's annual Corruption Perception Index. Shoots there maybe but in a very pale shade of green.

He is back.

So, Barack Obama has been sworn in for a second term. Speeches have been made, the band has played and the ball is over. Will he now be able to carry out what he has promised or will it be like the first term when the Republicans blocked every bill and even tried to block the raising of the debt ceiling if the deficit was not drastically reduced? The Republicans want taxes to be reduced on the rich while cutting entitlements for the poor. In a perfect capitalist state companies would not have to pay their employees. Employees would live near their workplace, work from sunup to sundown, get no wages and get 2 meals in the day with a snack at lunchtime. Employees excess to requirement maybe sold to other companies and others bought if needed. Unfortunately this has a name. It is called slavery and was abolished after a long civil war killing tens of thousands by a Republican President called Abraham Lincoln. Republicans are mostly Pro-life which means that they are against any abortion at any stage and for any reason. There are those who would deny abortion even in a case of " legitimate rape ". However, the same Republicans are gung-ho for gun ownership. Some states have a " Stand Your Ground " law which allows you to shoot someone to death if you think he might attack you. This is the defense adopted by George Zimmerman who shot 16 year old Trayvon Martin to death on 26 February 2012 in Sanford, Florida. Martin was unarmed and walking away while speaking to his girlfriend on his cell phone. Even after 20 children between the ages of 5 and 10 years were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association claimed," The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." To reinforce this point the NRA is airing a commercial which says that Obama is against armed guards in schools protecting children of others while his own daughters are protected when attending school. Thus with with a bunch of hypocritical Jim Crow Republicans holding the nation to hostage very little will probably get done. No wonder most of them are elected from the old Confederate states. On foreign policy also there is no clarity. Bibi Netanyahu is set to win the election in Israel today so the Palestinian question will remain unsolved. Also there might be more pressure to bomb Iran. As the US leaves Afghanistan it will allow the ISI to send in the Taliban to take over the country. The US was unwilling to interfere in Mali but were preempted by the French resulting in American hostages being killed in the siege in Algeria. There seems to be stalemate in Syria with the rebels being gradually replaced by Jihadists from elsewhere. Where does India stand? Nowhere. With a bunch of spineless, selfish crooks in charge we have no standing.

Varieties of terrorism.

Our most revered Home Minister says that the BJP and RSS, " their training camps are promoting Hindu terrorism." Perhaps the minster would take journalists to these camps and show us all what lessons are being taught. Why did he make such a disgusting statement? Is it to appease " minorities " so that they vote for the Congress in 2014? If so, it is a dangerous ploy to create animosity between different religious groups which could easily lead to riots. Is it because Father Gabriel Amorth, who was the Vatican's Chief Exorcist for years, said on 25 November 2011," Pracitising yoga is Satanic, it leads to to evil just like reading Harry Potter." According to him yoga leads to the worship of Hinduism which is evil because " all eastern religions are based on a false belief of reincarnation". Hindus do not convert anybody and Hindus have never killed anyone in the name of crusades or jihad in history. Is it an opening shot against Mr Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat who could possibly be the BJP candidate for Prime Minister in 2014? In that case he should explain why Mr Sajjan Kumar is still free 29 years after inciting the killing of Sikhs when Indira Gandhi was shot. He should know that several charges of terrorism maybe brought against the Congress. The Congress is guilty of economic terrorism for bringing the economy to its knees with low growth, uncontrolled inflation and soaring budget and trade deficits. This is solely because the Congress used taxpayer money to bribe the electorate in 2008 when it forgave all loans to farmers, increased salaries of useless civil servants by 80% and started the NREGA scheme which pays money to rural people for fictitious work.  The Congress is guilty of education terrorism for creating falling standards at all levels. The Annual Status of Education Report in 2012 by the NGO, Pratham shows that 53.2% of Class 5 students cannot solve simple maths problems and read at Class 2 level. The numbers were 51.8% in 2011 and 46.3% in 2010. Thus illiteracy among children has increased by a colossal 7% in just 2 years. Another report says that pharma company Lupin spends Rs 25,000 to train every employee at entry level while IT company, Hexaware Technologies spends Rs 30,000 per employee. So the rot is at every level. The Congress is guilty of corruption terrorism for allowing scams worth trillions of rupees in telecom, in mining and in the Commonwealth Games making India a laughing stock in the world. The Congress is guilty of law and order terrorism for allowing an explosion of violent crime while former President Pratibha Patil still gets 18 constables and 1 sub-inspector which is equivalent to a sitting president. Finally the Congress is guilty of security terrorism for allowing Pakistani actors, singers and players to make millions in India while Pakistan continue to send terrorists into India. So many varieties of terrorism.

Suffer little children.

You drive to the local rubbish tip to throw your household rubbish. As you deposit your plastic bag containing rotting food, vegetable peels and discarded cartons and get back to your car 5 or 6 little children climb into the tip and tear up the bag to see what bits they can sell for recycling. They are filthy with dirty faces, matted hair and yet laughing with each other as they rumage through the stinking rubbish. You are filled with an impotent rage and guilt at their suffering while driving away in your clean car. Nothing you can do. There are just too many and the numbers are increasing. In an article titled The Economic Consequences of Reproductive Health and Family Planning in The Lancet of 14 July, David Canning and T Paul Schultz cite an experiment in Matlab district of Bangladesh between 1977 and 1996 when 71 of 141 villages were targeted by a family planning outreach program. Before the program began all villages had similar fertility, that is child to woman ratios, average schooling and housing characteristics. 19 years after the program began child-to-woman ratios were 16% lower in villages with an outreach program than the others. In the outreach villages Body Mass Index of women aged 25-54 years was 1 kg/sq m higher with a 17% decrease in mortality. Married women in program villages reported a 25% increase in physical assets per adult in their households. The quality of assets had also improved. Instead of livestock, which depends on child labor, program villages had housing and financial assets, consumer durables  and jewellery. In the same issue of The Lancet Pierre Damien Habumuremyi, Prime Minister of Rwanda and Meles Zenawi, late Prime Minister of Ethiopia wrote a comment titled Making Family Planning a National Development Priority in which they write," We believe that every person should have the right and an equitable opportunity to live a healthy, productive and fulfilling life." Family planning helps to improve the health of children and women and helps women to participate in the economic activity " enabling families to invest more in education of their children ".In Rwanda the percentage of married women using contraception has risen from 13% in 2000 to 52% in 2010 while in Ethiopia it has risen from 8% to 29%. They write," We believe that improving education and improving access to family planning are not alternatives: they are rather complementary policies that African governments and the international  community must pursue." While these enlightened leaders in Africa are spending on family planning our government is spending vast amounts on encouraging more children by handing out money based on Aadhar numbers. They call it a " game changer ". What game is it going to change? To help the Congress bribe its way to another election victory. On the suffering of children.

A mountain of grain.

Seems that the government is sitting on  66.7 million tonnes of food grain as of 1 January this year. TOI 19 January. This is not due to a bumper harvest of Rabi crops because the average for the whole of last year was 67.1 million tonnes, rising to a high of 80.2 million tonnes in June. Apparently the government has to maintain a strategic reserve of 5 million tonnes and buffer stocks of 20 million tonnes. These rules were probably enacted after the disaster of the sixties when millions would have died of famine if the US had not helped us with wheat under the PL 480 program. Since then every government has tried to maintain buffer stocks in case of climatic disasters such as drought or floods. India does not have an open market for food grains. Instead the government sets a price for procuring grains from farmers called the Minimum Support Price which is much higher than would have been the case if farmers had to sell their produce in the open market. In 2005-6 the government paid Rs 640 per quintal of wheat, Rs 570 for rice paddy and Rs 600 for Grade A rice. Last year it was Rs 1120 for wheat plus a bonus of Rs 50 per quintal, Rs 1080 for rice and Rs 1110 for Grade A rice. This year the price has been set at Rs 1285 for wheat, Rs 1250 for rice and Rs 1280 for Grade A rice. The good thing about this is that it encourages farmers to produce wheat and rice and not divert their land to other cash crops for greater gain. The problem is that by giving a very high price the government encourages too much production leading to a grain mountain and enormous waste because there has been no attempt to build requisite storage space. Thus tonnes of grain are stored in the open where they are eaten by rats or rot if there is rain. A bigger problem is that this has led to a stubborn inflation which the RBI is unable to control. By paying double the price compared to 6 years ago the government has increased prices of all foodstuffs. To pay for the ever rising expense the government borrows vast sums of money from the market pushing up borrowing costs for industry and increasing headline inflation. The big mystery is why the government does not export part of the mountain of stocks. That would earn precious foreign exchange helping reduce the Trade Deficit and prevent large amounts of waste. There can be only one explanation. The Congress wants to use food to win general elections in 2014 by distributing vast amounts at low cost to poor people who are designated as the " vote bank ". This is a very cynical ploy at enormous cost to the nation. Interestingly the Congress is holding a " Chintan Shivir " or a brainstorming session in Jaipur. The entire discussion is about how to win the next elections. There is no time for the nation, for patriotism or for the people. Only self interest. The enemy is within.

An incomprehensible mess.

A couple of days ago a group of terrorists, probably around 20 fighters, took over a gas-field called In Amenas in eastern Algeria near the border with Libya. The group, calling themselves al Mulathameen,  claimed to be holding 41 crusaders hostage including Americans, British, Japanese, Norwegian, Malaysian and Filipinos. The fighters first attacked a bus carrying workers at dawn killing one Briton and one Algerian before taking over the gas-field in what appeared to be a well planned attack. The field is operated by BP of Britain, Statoil of Norway and Sonatrach of Algeria. They claim that this is in revenge for the French action  against the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb or AQIM in Mali but experts think that it was planned in advance. The Algerian army attacked yesterday afternoon to regain the field from the terrorists and till now no one knows how many hostages have been killed in the process, which is still going on. Prime Minister, David Cameron has postponed a visit to the Netherlands where he was to have delivered an important speech on whether to hold a referendum on continuing British membership of the European Union. He has warned the British to expect bad news from Algeria. Perhaps he should also be telling his people of his own responsibility in the deaths of British citizens. It was Cameron and the then President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy who pushed for bombing of Colonel Gaddafi's forces in Libya. They managed to obtain a Security Council resolution only to protect civilians in Libya but used it to bomb Gaddafi's forces, killing 30,000 Libyans, and his convoy leading to his capture and death. Gaddafi was removed but Libya has remained a divided country where militant groups continue to rule different areas. In September of 2012 a militant group, Ansar al Sharia attacked the US embassy in Benghazi killing the American Ambassador, J Christopher Stevens and 3 other Americans. Meanwhile heavily armed Tuaregs from Gaddafi's army returned home to northern Mali and launched a rebellion for freedom calling themselves Ansar Dine. Beaten by the rebels a faction of the army led by Captain Amadou Sanogo launched a coup against the elected government in Bamako last March. Meanwhile Tuareg rebels were joined by fighters from the AQIM and an offshoot called Movement for Oneness and Jihad in west Africa. They took over the fight against the Malian army and soon " liberated " the entire north of the country where they imposed Sharia law. Seeing that the entire country was going to fall to this group French President Francois Hollande sent French troops to Mali last week to root out Islamists. Hence this hostage situation in Algeria. If it sounds an incomprehensible mess then it is. This is globalisation of terror which is not taught at Eton. Wonder if Cameron has learnt anything.

No need to fight, just build a fence.

After the recent killing and beheading of an Indian soldier by the Pakistani soldiers in Kashmir our ministers rushed out to assure Pakistan that there would be no retaliation. Our Minister for External Affairs was instantly on air saying that there will be no " escalation ". " We're not going to be pressurized by wild calls for revenge and reaction. We will do what is in the best interest of the country and peace, keeping in mind that there is a lot at stake," he said. Why? Why do we have to maintain peace at any price while the mad dogs across the border continue to kill our citizens? In response the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar said that India is guilty of " warmongering ". " It is deeply disturbing to hear statements which are upping the ante, where one politician is competing with the other to give more hostile statements." she said. She then goes on to taunt India by advising dialogue and saying that " we need to become mature countries which know how to handle the truth." What makes the Pakistanis so confident and why are we so terrified of them? Is it because there are Chinese soldiers in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir? Tiny countries such as Japan, Vietnam and Philippines have recently stood up to China's bullying and threats. China responded by cutting trade with Japan and Philippines and reducing numbers of tourists but these countries are standing firm. Is it because of Pakistani nuclear weapons? We should arm our missiles with nuclear warheads and clearly inform them that they will be targeted on Islamabad where the government is based, Rawalpindi where the army headquarters are and on areas where terrorists are concentrated. Mad dogs they maybe but they are not stupid. Once they know that we will extract a very heavy price they will cool down. Are we afraid of the US? If we are reducing our import of oil from Iran because the US wants to protect Israel why do we not ask them to stop helping Pakistan? Why was the agreement at Sharm el Sheikh hidden from the National Security Adviser, MK Narayanan, " who went ashen when he read the contents a little before it was released to the media"? TOI, 13 January. We spend trillions of rupees on a million man army, fighter aircraft and weapons and then ask our soldiers not to defend themselves. There is no glory in being slaughtered like sacrificial lambs by a government of traitors. Yet there is no need to fight. Build a fence all along the border, lay land mines along the fence so that not even a mouse can cross over and shoot at anything that tries to get across. We will have peace without wasting money or the lives of our precious soldiers. No doubt on 26 January there will be a march past in Delhi when soldiers will have to salute the same traitors. While we burn with anger and humiliation.

It is all black.

The latest Wholesale Price Index has fallen to 7.18% in December compared to 7.24% in November and 7.32% in October. This is being seen as a sign of inflation coming under control and a prediction for further falls in the future. The Consumer Price Index rose by 10.56% in December compared to 9.90% in November which is being blamed on high food prices. But is it? The Index of Industrial Production fell by 0.1% in November and the capital goods sector contracted by 7.7% which means that the fall in WPI is because of falling demand for manufactured goods because of inflation. Further proof is provided by the fact that the CPI was 10.74% higher in rural areas in December while it was 10.42% up in urban areas. If the CPI is being pushed up solely by higher food prices one would have thought that it would be lower in rural areas as food prices are much lower in villages. Also there has been bumper harvests of wheat and rice and the supply of winter vegetables are at their highest in December. After February supplies will start declining, as summer heat builds up, until September when food prices may start coming down again if the Gods are kind and give us good monsoons. What then is driving the CPI? It is probably the ever present specter in India, which is black money. A study commissioned by the government last year has just released its report. It estimates that the amount of black money is probably more than 10% of the GDP or above Rs 1 trillion. Previous studies carried out in 1976 put the amount of black money at 15-18% of GDP and in 1981 at 18-21% of GDP. TOI 11 January. While Rs 1 trillion sounds an awful lot of money it may not be a true reflection of the actual amount because black money by its very nature cannot be quantified. Our previous Finance Minister, presented a white paper last year in which he blamed transfer pricing as the main avenue of generating black money. Transfer pricing is the mechanism whereby a company sells goods or assets to a sister company within the same group at a certain price. When there is a deal between 2 unrelated companies the buyer and seller arrive at a fair price through a market driven system of price discovery. However, when both companies are within the same group one company can charge a very high price to reduce the tax burden of the other company. So, a foreign company based in an offshore tax haven charges its Indian subsidiary an unnecessarily high licence fee or for intellectual property thus reducing the tax liability of the Indian arm. But this money is going abroad and so does not increase black money in India even if it comes back as Foreign Direct Investment or into the stock market through the Participatory Notes route. No, black money is generated in India by bribes paid to politicians and civil servants, in property transactions and by the immense hawala market where any amount of cash can be transferred within the country for a fee of Rs 200 for every Rs 100,000. The higher the taxes the higher the avoidance. Elementary economics.

Our children are being strangled.

Companies in India are having to spend lots of money to train people for entry level jobs. The situation is especially acute in Information Technology and Pharmaceutical sectors. Pharma company Lupin spends Rs 25,000 to train each employee while Hexaware Technologies spends Rs 30,000 per head per year. TOI, 8 January. There are hundreds of colleges dishing out thousands of bachelors degrees in pharmacy every year charging between Rs 2-3 million per student. " While the absolute numbers look encouraging, industry-ready candidates with the required life skills and technical competence are very low. Therefore, companies end up investing heavily in technical training and life skills centers....almost like parallel universities to make already educated people industry ready," said Divakar Kaza, President Human Resources at Lupin. A medical representative is perhaps the easiest job in the pharmaceutical sector where each person is given around 20-25 products to present to doctors. Yet, apart from very few who work for the large multinationals, the vast majority cannot answer simple questions relating to the products they are trying to sell. Amit Bansal, CEO of Purple Leap says," Even in a bad year, IT companies are talking about hiring in large numbers. But there are skill gaps. At one of our clients, even nine months of training was not enough to bridge the gap in skills. Five years ago, companies used to hire from the top 10 institutes. Where are the additional employable people going to come from? From 90 percentiles, companies are now hiring 70 percentiles. That's where the problem arises in skill gaps." Thus there is no shortage of jobs and millions of graduates passing out each year yet companies are unable to find suitable people to hire at the most junior levels. Is there something wrong with our education system and, if so, why? The simple reason is that government school teachers are totally useless. The result of the Central Teacher Eligibility Test declared on 27 December 2012 showed that 99% of teachers are incapable of teaching even class 1 students. TOI, 3 January. Out of 796,000 who appeared for the test only 4,849 managed to pass Paper I or II or both. Paper I was mandatory and was to find competence to teach classes 1-5. Yet salaries of government school teachers was increased by 80% in 2008 by the Congress to win elections in 2009. Our most revered Prime Minister is on record boasting about recruiting 700,000 new teachers for government schools. So, how do you hide the dire standards of teaching? By making it easier to pass out, of course. The Gujarat Higher Secondary Education Board has declared that students who fail in 1 or 2 semesters will be passed if they pass in the other semesters. You need just 33% to pass. Our poor children. Their future is being strangled. By politician villains.

Massaging figures only delays the truth.

In an effort to hide the desperate state of government finances our most revered Finance Minister is resorting to various subterfuges. The first is to ask all government departments to hand over all the money they have not spent as yet. Apparently this could amount to as much as Rs 650-700 billion which is 5% of budgeted spending. A request for Rs 300 billion to pay for fertiliser subsidy by the Minster for Agriculture has been rejected. Since this must be paid for at some time means that this year's deficit is being transferred to next year. The second is to force companies to pay service tax if they have not obtained a stay order from a court, Commissioner ( Appeals ) or Customs, Excise and Service Tax Tribunal within 30 days. TOI, 9 January. It is true that Indian companies often get themselves a stay order only to postpone payment of taxes to a later date knowing that cases take years to resolve. The problem is that the appellate authorities are so busy that they may take much longer to hear the appeal. The law states that the authority can grant a stay within 6 months of appeal which means that if a stay is granted the government will have to return all the money collected. However, it is not easy to get a refund from government departments so companies will have to spend unnecessary time on getting the money and no doubt officers in the departments will do very nicely with fat bribes, thank you. Again this is another means of showing increased tax revenue this fiscal so long as the refund can be postponed to April and beyond which will be the next financial year. Postponing deficit till next year would have been fine if there was a good prospect of raising more money next year but that is increasingly in doubt. The Index of Industrial Production was down by 0.1% in November which will reduce corporate tax collection and exports fell by 1.92% in December widening the trade deficit to $24.8 billion that month which will worsen the Current Account Deficit. Capital goods sector contracted by 7.7% in November showing contraction in the industrial sector. Mr AM Naik, Chairman of Larsen and Toubro said that this will only get worse because of imports from China. Apparently China subsidises exports by 25-30% which makes their goods cheaper. He said that 80% of thermal power plants are imported from China and every other manufacturing sector is going to suffer. He advocated a safeguard duty of 25-30% on Chinese goods. Mr Naik said that we have imported $250 billion worth of goods from China in the last several years costing us 10-15 million jobs. ET, 11 January. The biggest problem is that the looming disaster was created by the present Finance Minister in 2008. He is now desperately trying to hide the mess by massaging figures. But how long can he hide the truth.

Making hay while it lasts?

Our most revered Finance Minister is off to foreign parts to meet investors to try and boost capital inflows. This is because the Current Account Deficit is going beyond 5.4% and a downgrade to junk rating beckons. Apparently he will visit Hong Kong on 22 January and then go to Singapore. He will then go all the way west to Frankfurt and London. Perhaps he is unaware that Britain is well on its way to a triple dip recession and German growth is falling rapidly. So there may not be an abundance of free cash for Europeans to invest. However, the New Year sales will be in full swing so some great bargains are to be had. Businessmen in the US have no clue as to whether the country will be able to pay its dues in March as the Republicans in the House are determined not to raise the debt ceiling. The debate is about whether to mint a platinum coin worth $1 trillion and deposit it with the Federal Reserve against which the Fed will pay all the bills. The alternative is to hand out IOUs signed personally by Barack Obama which the holder will retrieve later once the House is back on its psychiatric medication. Apparently this was the route adopted by California to get out of its bankruptcy. However, California does not have the option of minting platinum coins so did not really have a choice. So no point going to the US with a begging bowl unless our Minister wants to sneak into the International Monetary Fund to beg for dollars. Problem is that if he is recognised going in the IMF building the rupee will fall and we will dive into junk grade straight away. Wonder if he is carrying a false beard and moustache with him. What is impossible to understand is what he is hoping to achieve. Does he think that foreigners are stupid and have no idea what is going on with our economy? Does he think that they do not study our figures thoroughly and decide for themselves? The reason why foreigners are shunning India is precisely because they are pessimistic about our economy. The Volkswagen group, makers of Skoda, Volkswagen and Audi cars, has decided not to invest any more in India until 2015. " The policy framework here is not stable which company will like to invest?" said MD John Chacko. Jim Rogers, Chairman of Roger Holdings says," I am not a fan of India. So I do not think you are going to see a lot of good news coming out of India. India has inflation due to its own reasons, not because of international factors like high oil prices. India for some reason gets better press than the reality. I still have not figured out the Indian press." A lying, freeloading press may fool the citizens but foreigners are not so easily fooled. Maybe the Minister is not sure about the Congress winning the next election or of retaining his seat. The AIADMK has filed a petition in front of the Tamil Nadu High Court claiming that he stole the last election in 2009. So maybe he is making hay while there is still time.

Keep it bottled up.

On 10 January 2 suicide bombers targeted a snooker club in the southwestern city of Quetta in Pakistan. First one bomber detonated his bomb and then as rescuers rushed in to help the wounded a second one exploded killing 92 and wounding 121. This particular area is dominated by the Hazara minority who are Shia and can apparently be easily distinguished because of their Mongolian features. Lashkar-e-Jhanghi claimed responsibility for the attack. This is one of the many terrorist groups tolerated by the Pakistani army. Yesterday the Shiites were refusing to bury their dead unless Army Chief, General Kayani promised to protect them better in future. On the same day another bomb went off at a religious gathering in the Swat valley killing 22 and wounding more than 80. A group of armed men attacked the NATO container terminal killing one person and destroying 5 of the 10 containers parked there. They also killed a petrol pump attendant when fleeing. At least 126 killed in one day. We can only hope that millions of Pakistanis die so that we in India can live in peace. Meanwhile President Karzai of Afghanistan is in the US where he is negotiating the US pullout in 2014. Previously it was thought that thousands of American troops will remain to provide air cover to Afghan troops in their fight against the Taliban and to keep training them but now it seems that President Obama is thinking of withdrawing all the US troops out of Afghanistan. Karzai rules only in Kabul and it may not be long before the various warlords reassert there authority in their respective provinces and civil war breaks out once more. This would be what the Pakistanis would wish for and may even encourage so that it gives them an excuse to send in the Taliban with covert support to bring " peace " to the country. Afghanistan will once again become a lawless land where the Al Qaeda can regroup once more. The Americans are congratulating themselves on having dismantled the organisation as they have killed many leaders, including Bin Laden, and seriously hampered their money raising activities by concentrating on money laundering but once they are gone Al Qaeda will be able to raise money through the help of the ISI. When will the US admit that it was the ISI which planned and helped the 9/11 attacks. Instead John Kerry, Pakistan lover, is to become Secretary of State. France has already sent troops to Mali to free the country from Islamist fighters led by the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb while the US continues to kill scores in Yemen by using drones to stop the advance of the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. These groups have become more dangerous as they have gained experience and at some point they will attempt to take over Pakistan. We must make our borders impregnable to keep the scum bottled inside Pakistan.

An uncertain future.

After winning a third 6 year term as President of Venezuela in October Hugo Chavez is back in Havana for treatment of a cancer in his pelvis. Chavez has been president since 1998 and was supposed to have stepped down after 2 terms but changed the constitution via a referendum to allow him to stand for as many times as he wished. His cancer was first discovered in June 2011 when he underwent an operation for a pelvic abscess while on a visit to Cuba, which was later confirmed to be cancerous. The type of cancer has been kept a secret because he did not want the opposition to claim that he was unfit to stand for a third term but the speculation is that it is an aggressive form of sarcoma and that his days are numbered. He had chemotherapy at a military hospital in Caracas and announced that he was cured but had to undergo another surgery in Havana in February 2012. You have to admire the determination, guts and stamina of the man that he fought a vigorous campaign to win in October. However, by December he said that his cancer had returned and underwent a third operation lasting for 6 hours on 11 December. He has not been seen for over a month and is said to be on a ventilator because of a severe lung infection. For the first time he has designated his Vice President, Nicolas Maduro as his successor. Yesterday Chavez was to have been sworn in but was too ill leading the opposition to demand fresh elections but the Supreme Court said that he can be sworn in at a later date. So his supporters held a party instead. Looking from the outside Chavez appears to be a buffoon, making long speeches lasting for hours, singing and dancing on stage and daring the US to attack his country. Among his supporters he is a star and the danger is that there maybe a dangerous power vacuum if he dies. He started a socialist revolution with the state controlling the economy. Money from oil has been used to build houses for the poor and to offer free education and healthcare to the poor by bringing in teachers and doctors from Cuba. Naturally the people see him as some sort of saviour. Trouble with populist spending is that it is difficult to control as we see in India. Deficit is at $150 billion and inflation rate is at 30% which will naturally hit the poor the hardest. Corruption and crime rates are some of the highest in the world. Caracas has the second highest homicide rate for cities in the world at 92 per 100,000 population. In desperation Chavez tried a dual exchange rate for the currency in 2010. For essential items such as food medicines and industrial machinery the rate was 2.6 Bolivars to the dollar whereas for non essential items such as cars and telephones the rate was 4.3 Bolivars to the dollar. Apparently he was about to devalue the Bolivar again and increase petrol prices. A buffoon, inflation, crime, corruption, sounds like India doesn't it?

Theek nahi hai. No way.

Our most revered Prime Minister said that he was " determined to turn any setback into an opportunity to improve legal and regulatory frameworks ". TOI, 9 January. He was speaking at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Kochi which is a knees-up for non-resident Indians during which there is a lot of talking but nothing real gets done. He said this because he thinks," There is now a surge of expectation from an increasingly empowered and articulate public, for more responsive, transparent, participative, clean and efficient government." Everything he says is so untrue. The people do not want more laws. We are a police state gasping for freedom from ever intrusive laws. What we want is a police free of politicians, trained to respond to our needs and guarding our communities instead of criminal VIPs. There has always been a great hunger for a good government but until now our voice was suppressed by a freeloading press. Now the internet and social media have allowed us to have a say, if only to each other, about the contempt and anger we feel. That is why the government is desperate to censor the internet and has passed the Information Technology Act of 2011 which seeks to punish anything which is " offensive ", " grossly harmful " or " obscene ". India also wanted to transfer the control of the internet to a UN Committee on Internet Related Policies which would have governments controlling the internet. Fortunately this was fiercely resisted by the US, Australia and the UK. Blaming the world for the condition or our economy he said," From an impressive average annual GDP growth rate of over 8% between 2004 and 2010, our growth declined to 6.5% in 2011-12 and may fall below 6% in the current year." Again completely false. Our high growth was because of loose monetary policies in western countries leading to high liquidity and low interest rates. That was the time to bring in reforms, control inflation and buy dollars to keep the rupee from rising too high. HSBC has cut our growth forecast for this fiscal from 5.7% to 5.2% and for the next year from 6.9% to 6.2%. It says that the slowdown is structural rather than cyclical and says," We think the reform process will take time and it will likely be another 3 years before growth returns to 8% on a sustained basis." HT, 10 January. The Prime Minister also said," New approaches will be needed to address  challenges like infrastructure, education, energy, water and agriculture." We are entitled to ask," What the hell were you doing for 8 long years since 2004?" Meanwhile the ratings agency Fitch says that India will face a downgrade in 12 to 24 months because it will miss its deficit target and its macroeconomic trends are disappointing. This government has been the most dismal failure in history. He may ask," Theek hai?" We say loudly - No Way.

You do not play cricket with mad dogs.

Yesterday Pakistani soldiers crossed into India territory in the Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir and ambushed a patrol of Indian soldiers killing 2 and injuring 2 others. They slit the throat of one, decapitated the other and took the head along with them. They also took the weapons and possessions of the dead soldiers. Only last week the Pakistanis were here playing cricket and earning many millions of dollars from our match ticket sales and TV commercials. Why were the Indian soldiers so easily overwhelmed? Is it because they do not have proper gear such as night vision goggles or heat seeking equipment? Why do we invite these murderous vermin to play cricket on our soil? What is astonishing is that our players are so eager to shake hands and mingle with these filth. The glib explanation given is that sport and politics should not be mixed. But it is not about politics. It is about patriotism, your love for your country and respect for our armed forces. While our soldiers keep sacrificing their lives surely our cricketers can forego their earnings? It is not too much to ask. Our Defense Minister said the attack was " inhuman " and " highly provocative ". It would be laughable if we were not choking with anger. The whole problem is that we are never provoked. Already our Minister for External Affairs said the the " incident should not be escalated ". Why not? When will we say enough is enough. Pervez Musharraf was the architect of the Kargil attack and yet was invited as an honored guest in November for a conference. Those who planned the Mumbai attacks are still laughing and taunting us but we invite them for cricket. Now this. When the US asks us to stop buying oil from Iran to protect Israel we obey like indentured serfs. We never ask them to stop supplying arms, equipment or money to Pakistan in return. Internationally Israeli lives are more important than Indian ones. The reason is that Israel has always protected itself and killed 10 for each one of its citizens while we have forever allowed invaders to trample over us. In the past it was the Moguls, the French, the Portuguese and  the British. Now it is the Chinese and the Pakistanis. Even Bangladeshis have kidnapped, tortured and killed Border Security Force soldiers without any reciprocal response from us. The reason why we are unable to " escalate " this attack is because our government is under orders from the US not to threaten Pakistan because the US wants all Pakistani soldiers to guard the Afghanistan border so that the Taliban do not kill American soldiers. The Pakistanis know that. That is why they feel completely safe in attacking India. First they took a chance on Kargil, to see if they grab some territory. When that did not work they attacked Mumbai. Americans and Israelis died in that attack. So now they have resorted to hit and run which they will deny. You do not play cricket with mad dogs. You kill them.

How to tackle crime by officials.

Seems that between 1990 and 2010 around Rs 200 million were stolen from a fund to provide night shelters for the homeless in Delhi. There is a department called the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board which is supposed to build shelters for the homeless. So far it has 150 shelters providing refuge to 7500 people while there are 300,000 homeless people in Delhi. An audit in 2010 found wrong entries in cash books, missing entries and misappropriation of funds. Apparently transactions were shown in cash books and account statements were prepared on that basis but bank statements were not accounted for. ET, 7 January. Assistant Director, Purushottam Kumar, who rose through the ranks to his post, has been blamed. Ironically Purushottam means an excellent man. Excellent in cooking cash books probably. When the crime was first discovered the Anti Crime Branch of the Delhi government took over the investigation and then tried to make it go away by doing nothing, the preferred means of tackling crime by politicians and civil servants in India. Now the Central Vigilance Commission has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate. The CVC wants guilty officials to be sacked. Shocking demand. We have to remember that Rs 200 billion have to be accounted for from the Commonwealth Games fiasco in 2009 but the Shunglu Committee report seems to have disappeared. Meanwhile in neighboring Haryana the Consolidation Act has been used by the land mafia to usurp large tracts of land. The Consolidation Act is to help farmers to consolidate small parcels of land into a larger whole. Apparently this act was used by a " powerful business-politico-bureaucrat-police nexus with ostensibly no interest in agricultural, cultivation activities " to grab large tracts of land said Mr Ashok Khemka, the then Director General of Land Consolidation and Land Records cum Inspector General of Registration. " The aims and objects of the Consolidation Act are to consolidate agricultural holdings for the betterment of agriculture, for prevention of fragmentation of agricultural holdings and for reservation of land for common purposes of the village," wrote Mr Khemka. He also blocked land purchases by Mr Robert Vadra, son in law of Ms Sonia Gandhi. He was promptly transferred out to Haryana Seeds Development Corporation. In fact Mr Khemka has been transferred 16 times in 7 years probably due to his penchant for finding crimes wherever he goes. He has also received fresh death threats. Needless to say, both Delhi and Haryana have Congress governments. So the 3 methods used to avoid punishment are 1. Take over the investigation and try to kill it. 2. Hold an inquiry and then hide the report and 3. Transfer the honest officer and deny everything. Lessons on how to tackle crime by officials and politicians in India.

A light extinguished forever.

To protect the Congress from the fallout of the horrendous gang rape in Delhi the freeloading press rather predictably resorted to attacking Hindus. While trying to appear erudite every so called expert has blamed a patriarchal society which continues the practice of worshiping goddesses while molesting or raping women. Since, among all religions, only Hindus worship goddesses it would imply that rape is a crime only to be found among Hindus. Every other religion in the world has a male god as its focus. Surely that cements the superiority of men in their consciousness and is inherently patriarchal. Rape, child abuse by priests and violence against women are no less prevalent in other societies which practice other religions. However, abusing Hindus is an easy way to divert blame from the real reasons of the increasing bestiality of our society. Only yesterday a young woman was murdered in Noida on the outskirts of Delhi. Her mother had complained many times to the local police about her daughter being harassed regularly by a local thug but the police took no notice of her complaints. In fact they advised her to compromise with the thug saying that it would not be good for her to have a powerful enemy in the area. When the woman was reported missing the police said that she must have eloped with some man and refused to look. If we had a police force which was trained to serve the public, instead of being an armed militia in uniform trained to protect politicians and civil servants in their criminal activities, we would soon start seeing a reduction in crimes. Just as taking a relatively weak stimulant like ganja very often leads to addiction to hard drugs like heroin and cocaine so toleration of minor crimes encourages criminals to commit serious ones as they develop a sense of immunity and power. Police in Delhi are also used as collection agents for the government much like gangs running protection rackets. Which other city in the world requires car owners to obtain a pollution certificate every 3 months? This in itself is a money raising racket but since people would naturally forget or not have the time to wait in queues to get a pollution check motorists are easy prey for huge fines raising a fortune for the Delhi government. People abuse the police which reduces morale. However, the real reason for the rise in horrible crimes is the idea that poor people are not responsible for the consequences of their actions. Poverty is accepted as an excuse for crimes such as poaching of tigers and rhinos, cutting down of forests for firewood and building slums on public land which are then " regularised ". It is as if poor people have no duties as citizens of India and can go on breeding to receive more and more handouts as their power as a " vote bank " continues to multiply. They then graduate to worse crimes such as rape and murder. The name of the victim of the gang rape was the Hindi word for " light ". Sadly that light has been extinguished forever.

Our economy is booming. Why worry?

From 1 January taxes on properties in Mumbai were raised by 30%. This is called Ready Reckoner which is the rate set by the government regardless of the actual sale value of the property. This will increase the stamp duty, registration tax and property tax on every property resulting in a rise in values of all properties. In early December Delhi raised taxes on Category A properties by 200%. Previously you had to pay tax on a presumed value of Rs 215,000/sq meter but now you will have to pay tax on a presumed value of Rs 645,000/sq meter. This works out to a presumed value of around $12,000/sq meter, only slightly less than in New York. The other 7 categories of properties have been increased by 25%. Taxes are collected on presumed value because half the value of any sale is paid in cash or black. Whereas stamp duty and registration charges are around 1% in most civilised countries, in India they vary from 6-12%. No one wants to pay vast sums of money in taxes to corrupt politicians and civil servants so they try to minimise sale value as much as possible. A lot of the properties are owned by politicians and civil servants who have mountains of black money from bribes and rent seeking and this is the only avenue of investment for so much cash. Politicians at the center and states are always trying to find ways of increasing tax collections to fund their expensive lives and to distribute handouts. The result is that properties have become so expensive they are beyond the reach of 80% of people who have to waste money on rents which increases levels of poverty. The Bombay stock market has risen to 19,426, a gain of 25% last year and experts predict that it will reach 22,000 this year. People are buying gold despite the price rising to Rs 30,898 per tola. The HSBC Purchasing Managers Index for manufacturing in December rose to 54.7 from 53.7 in November. This is a real rise in manufacturing showing that demand is strong. Industrial Output rose 8.2% in October as opposed to a fall of 0.7% in September. So, according to all indices including prices of properties, share prices, PMI  for manufacturing and industrial output the economy is booming. If gold is selling like hot biscuits despite its price rising to Rs 30,898 per tola then it shows that people have plenty of money to invest. The sector most dependent on bank loans is the property sector and if prices are rising by 10-20% per year surely people are not in the least bothered about high interest rates. Why then are the politicians and their followers, the freeloading press, always frothing about reducing interest rates? Is it because the Congress wants to borrow vast sums of money to dole out throughout this year to bribe the " vote bank " for the forthcoming general elections? We are in for a dive. That is the worry.

If only words could suffice.

Our most revered Prime Minister has released another policy. This one is called Science Technology and Innovation Policy 2013 which is supposed to push India right to the top 5 global scientific powers by 2020. TOI, 4 January. Our august President urged scientists to win another Nobel Prize for India soon. Not quite true is it? Not one Indian has won a Nobel Prize in science while working in India. Winning a Nobel Prize takes years of research, state of the art laboratories and top class education. Above all brilliant students need to be identified and encouraged. " I call upon the scientific fraternity gathered here to rise up to this challenge and work towards this goal in a time-bound manner. I would like to urge upon all to apply modern tools for communicating science in a manner that can be understood by the common man," he said. Therein lies the whole trouble. There is a complete lack of understanding of what constitutes excellence. Excellence is produced by geniuses and they are extremely rare by their very nature. You cannot explain Archimedes Principle discovered 2000 years ago, Newton's laws of motion enunciated 300 years ago or Einstein's quantum theories to common people. The focus of the government is to hoodwink the public with populist measures such as increasing reservations in premier institutions, reserving 25% of seats in private schools for children from poor families and stopping examinations for school students so that nobody knows how well or poorly the children are doing. All designed to produce legions of dross who cannot be employed. In 2009 Indian children came last in the Programme for International Student Assessment Test in reading, mathematical science and science literacy for 15 year olds. The explanation given by government ministers was that it was because the test was not compatible with our culture. These fellows have not even understood that science and maths are universal and do not change according to culture. Why are our students so poor? The Central Teacher Eligibility Test 2012 results declared on 27 December showed that less than 1% passed the test out of a total of 795,000 candidates. All candidates have Bachelor of Education degrees. TOI, 3 January. Paper 1, which was compulsory, was for those wanting to teach classes 1-5 and Paper 2 for classes 6-8. More than 99% of so called teachers are incapable of teaching even class 1 students. Instead of setting up new colleges to compete with the IITs for the best students the numbers of IITs have been doubled without building new infrastructure. Doctors have been prohibited form going to conferences. The idiots do not understand that while laws of physics and maths do not change medical science is changing everyday as we start to understand the basics of the human body. Pious words do not produce excellence. Not when you are constantly dumbing down our children. To win elections.

One eyed justice.

There have been allegations of massive theft in the Maharashtra irrigation department amounting to loss of Rs 700 billion. Mr Ajit Pawar, of the Nationalist Congress Party has been irrigation minister for years but had to resign in September following the allegations until the government of Maharashtra published a white paper saying that he was whiter than driven snow so he has been reinstated into his old job. TOI, 2 January. Maharashtra is being ruled by an alliance of the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party which is headed by Mr Sharad Pawar, who is the Minister of Agriculture in Delhi, and Mr Ajit Pawar is his nephew. Under severe pressure from the opposition the Chief Minister promised to set up a Special Investigative Tribunal or SIT by 31 December but has been unable to do so because the government cannot formulate the terms of reference for the SIT due to objections from the NCP. Where in the world would a man accused of  presiding over a massive loss of Rs 700 billion be taken back in his old job, and not some other portfolio, and then be allowed to delay the formation of an investigating team other than in India? " There is a difference of opinion among the coalition partners, Congress-NCP on what should be the terms of reference for the probe. Thus the DF government failed to keep its promise," a senior DF minister said. DF stands for Democratic Front which explains why there is so much democracy in trying to catch criminals. Contrast that with Gujarat which has a BJP government with Mr Narendra Modi as Chief Minister. There a commission was set up in March of 2002 following the riots in February. In May Mr Nanavati was appointed chairman of the commission which got its 19th, yes 19th, extension this month by the state government. That the commission has been unable to publish its report is because it has not been able to examine evidence collected by an investigating tribunal which concluded its work in 2011. The governor of Gujarat has also appointed a Lokyukta in the state. A Lokyukta is an independent investigating authority which is empowered to look into any case of corruption. The Lokyukta in Karnataka was responsible for the exposure of the mining scam involving the Reddy brothers leading to the resignation of the Chief Minister, Yadyurappa. Needless to say Karnataka also has a BJP government. It is wonderful how there are so many investigative agencies in states ruled by the BJP but not in those ruled by the Congress or its allies. Indeed the central government has not been able to set up a Lokpal at the center to monitor its own activities. Instead protesters have been beaten up, one died, and false allegations have been filed against civil society activists. Is it any wonder that people think that they will get away with any crime, however bestial? Justice is supposed to be blind. Not one eyed.

The US will survive. Will we?

For the last month the entire world has been agog about the looming " fiscal cliff " in the US. The impasse came about because President Obama wanted to raise taxes on everyone earning more than $250,000 per year while the Republicans were implacably opposed to any tax rise on anybody. Around 95% of Congress Republicans had signed a " Taxpayer Protection Pledge " proposed by extreme right wing guru, Grover Norquist, founder and President of Americans for Tax Reform. Why grown up people would sign such an infantile pledge which ties their hands as lawmakers we do not know. If no deal was reached by the new year taxes would rise on everyone and $600 billion worth of cuts would immediately come into effect affecting social security, medicare and defense spending. The fear was that if such massive cuts came in the US would go into recession affecting the whole world. Hence the feverish interest. However, a deal was finally brokered between Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority leader, Mitch McConnell which was passed by the Senate and sent to the House where it passed with Democrat support. Under the deal income tax will increase from 35% to 39.6% on every single person earning more than $400,000 and on families earning more than $450,000. Taxes on Dividend and Capital Gains above those levels will rise from 15 to 20% and Estate Tax, or Death Duty as it is known in India, will rise to 40% on anything above $5 million which will rise with inflation. Pay roll tax goes up from 4.2 to 6.2% affecting low paid workers. Cuts is unemployment benefits have been postponed by one year and $109 billion worth of cuts in spending will come into effect after 2 months. The US government has already run out of cash to pay salaries and interest on its loans so the debt ceiling has to be raised in the next 2 months or else the US will default on its debts and may face a credit downgrade.The Republicans are already promising that they will not raise the debt ceiling unless Obama proposes cuts to spending, especially to entitlements or Social Security spending. The Democrats are reluctant to reduce entitlements because it hurts the poor. The Republicans have a majority in the House which is in charge of the budget and all spending so another bitter fight is to be expected. Everyone, especially Americans, blames the Congress for being ideological fanatics and so uncivil that they are unable to come to a bipartisan agreement for the sake of the country. But the Americans have a real choice on who they vote for. They know the positions of their lawmakers that they send to Congress so are sure that politicians will do what the people want. Not so in India. Here all the scoundrels are interested in is to win the election because that will give them the opportunity to loot. Thus there is a competition in throwing handouts on taxpayer money. The US will survive but will India?

It is nothing new.

From the constant moaning by Congress politicians supported by business fellows and the freeloading press one would assume that the Reserve Bank is the only impediment to growth by keeping interest rates high at 8%. We are being constantly told that growth will jump to over 10% if only the RBI were to bring down rates because inflation will fall in the future. But is it really true? The Wholesale Price Index rose to 10% between 1991 and 1995 ( it is 7.3% now ). Interest rate was 12% in 1991-92, came down to 10% in 1994-95 and was raised again to 12% in 1995-96. We must remember that the condition of the economy in 1991 was dire. We had only $1.2 billion of foreign exchange reserves, just enough for 3 weeks of imports. The Chandrashekhar government sold 47 tons of gold to the Bank of England and 20 tons to the Union Bank of Switzerland to raise $600 million to survive. So it would seem extremely foolish to raise interest rate to 12% at a time when the economy needed all the stimulus it could get. The State Bank of India was having to pay 14.5% on fixed deposits, which meant that your money doubled every 5 years. Surely it must have caused to the economy to contract severely? Not so. Growth was 5.5% from 1996-2000. Companies were adding to their capacity by raising money through bonds. Triple A rated bonds from Tata Steel was paying 18% per year and infrastructure bonds from SREI with double A rating was paying 21%. There was a 3-6 months waiting time on the delivery of new cars. Cell phone companies charged Rs 16 for outgoing calls and Rs 8 per minute for incoming calls but people were still buying. A flat in South Delhi sold for Rs 6 million in 1995-96 but the price came down to Rs 3 million in 2002 as inflation was controlled and a lot of black money disappeared from the economy. The collapse of the Dot com bubble in 2001 helped to bring down property prices. So who was the Prime Minister from 21 June 1991 to 16 May 1996? It was Mr Narasimha Rao of the Congress who had the guts to do what was necessary to control inflation and opt for a steady growth rate while now we have constant bleating about lowering interest rate and raising growth by a clueless and gutless leader. As western countries brought down interest rates and increased liquidity a lot of money came into our market from 2002 onwards. The rupee strengthened to 39.33 to the dollar in 2007 helping to keep inflation in check and interest rate low. Property prices increased exponentially as did the share market giving rise to a false sense of prosperity because much of this rise was due to black money. Congress fellows were strutting around the world pretending to be business geniuses and giving airy speeches at international forums. Inflation followed, consumption fell and growth came crashing down. Will they change? No. Things can only get worse as they stimulate the economy to win the election of 2014.

Will 2013 be any better?

Every Indian will remember the end of 2012 when police used water canons, tear gas and sticks to beat up people protesting against the horrific gang rape of a young woman in a Delhi bus while politicians hunkered down and waited for the anger to abate and life to go on as before. The rage of the public made it easy for the politicians. They will increase punishment for rape, a few of the accused will be sentenced to death while compensation will be declared from taxpayer money. Not one politician asked for police reforms, freedom of the police from political control and community policing throughout the year. That is because every party has control of some state and does not want an independent police to start catching the real criminals - the politicians. While all this was happening in Delhi a woman was raped and murdered in Kolkata, a 4 year old girl was raped by her father's friend in Gujarat and a 14 year old was raped by her brother in law. On 26 December a mob of 800 workers at Kunapathar Tea Estate in Tinsukhia, Assam attacked the 70 year old owner, Mridul Kumar Battacharya and his wife, Rita for getting the police to arrest 2 workers for trespassing on their property. Both were bludgeoned to death and their bodies were burnt. Some of the attackers then proceeded to eat their flesh. Yesterday a young woman was stabbed to death in Delhi by a 20 year old man, Devender because she had refused his proposal for marriage. On 16 February 2 fishermen were shot to death off the coast of Kerala by 2 marines on the Italian ship, Enrica Lexie. The Italians have been claiming that they had a right to kill Indians and they were right. The High Court allowed the marines to go home to celebrate Christmas with their families on a bank guarantee of just Rs 60 million. If they do not return the money will go to the government and the families of the dead fishermen will be left crying over their photos over Christmas. The BSF says that at least 250 terrorists are waiting to cross over into India to kill and bomb while Pakistani cricketers are enjoying 5 star luxury inside India while earning tens of millions from ticket sales. We are having to buy 70 million tonnes of coal from abroad at high prices despite having 290 billion tonnes of reserve. This is because mining licenses were given to friends and families of politicians who had no experience of mining and were probably waiting to sell their licenses for higher prices. As happened to telephone licenses. Ponty Chadha died in a shootout and was estimated to have Rs 500 billion in assets. He had exclusive licenses to sell alcohol and to provide midday meals to school children in UP and part license to sell alcohol in Punjab. Meanwhile 2 girls were arrested in Maharashtra for asking why shops should be closed if Bal Thackeray had died. A nation of snarling beasts. So, will 2013 be any better?