Hundred years ago today.

Exactly one hundred years ago today everyone would have been wishing a Happy New Year to everyone else as they hoped for good health, peace and prosperity. But it was not to be. On 28 June Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Serbia and exactly a month later the first shots were fired as Austria and Hungary prepared to invade Serbia in what was to be the start of the First World War. It would be 1918 and 9 millions deaths later before the war stopped. Surely that would not be possible today? Europe is now a common market of 28 countries, 18 of whom share a common currency, the Euro. However, the common currency means that countries cannot reduce their debt load by devaluing their currencies, as Greece and Ireland have found to their cost. Instead they were forced into savage austerity which led to more than 50% unemployment in the young. Everyone is blaming Germany for not being more generous. The middle east is in turmoil. The war in Syria seems to have reached a state of balanced killing. The Hezbollah in Lebanon is openly fighting in Syria in support of Bashar al- Assad which is inviting Sunni revenge attacks. Iraq is slowly spiraling into civil war as tit-for-tat bombings kill people on either side. Iran is playing its usual game of one foot forward and two feet back as it goes full speed towards becoming a nuclear weapons state. Saudi Arabia has warned of acquiring its own nuclear weapons from Pakistan which it financed. Israel cannot afford its mortal enemies to be armed with nuclear weapons. How it will respond is anybody's guess. It knows that its biggest support, the USA is led by a weak gasbag who hopes to dither long enough to finish his occupancy of the Oval Office without having to to take any decision. So what about us in India? This year we must hold general elections by May to decide which gang of villains will be handed the keys to the vault. The Congress, led by a foreigner, is in power which means it gets to decide the rules of the game. In 1991 Narasimha Rao rescued the economy but lost in 1996 because of severe tightening by the Reserve Bank. The Pretender who has taken all the credit of 1991 increased deficit massively in 2009 to win and probably feels pretty good about it. Sadly we cannot punish him but can certainly hope for divine punishment. We certainly deserve some good fortune, let us pray that we get some. At last.