Xenotransplant, not plastic surgery.

Self proclaimed historians are incensed with the Prime Minister for his attempt to rewrite history through " ancient mythology ", ' speculative chronology " and " fresh myths ". These fellows call themselves the Indian History Congress which automatically makes them suspect of being crypto-commie, pseudo-secular, Congress supporters. Their ire has been aroused because the PM claimed that the Hindu God, Ganesha, obtained his elephant head through advanced plastic surgery in the distant past but the knowledge has been forgotten. They passed a resolution saying," Unfortunately even the Prime Minister has suggested that in the hoary past Indians had learnt, and then, forgotten, plastic surgery of a kind going far beyond what is now possible." And," It also calls upon all members of the political establishment to refrain from making statements contrary to well-established historical facts." Thing is if the past is so hoary how can they be so well-established. Beyond about 3 thousand years the history of the past has been destroyed by wars and natural disasters so no one can really know. Also if Lord Ganesha is a myth what about the universe being created in 6 days, a woman being merely the 12th rib of a man and ' immaculate conception '? Religions are also called faiths because no one has seen God and if anyone has then it is impossible to describe the infinite. Lord Ganesha is therefore as plausible as an old gent with white hair and white beard draped in a loose shroud. In their haste to condemn the Prime Minister these fellows have missed the glaring mistake made by Mr Modi when he called it ' plastic surgery '. It was not. It was a xenotransplant, in which live animal tissue is transplanted to a human body. Normally pig organs are used as pigs are genetically closer to human beings than other animals which are slaughtered for food, such as cows and goats. Another Congress, this time the Party, has objected to  the ordinance amending the Land Acquisition Law by calling it a return to the days of the Raj. But which Raj? We had the Mogul Raj followed by the British Raj, then the Nehru-Gandhi Family Raj which practised the licence-permit raj, the neta-babu-dalal raj, coalition dharma raj and the National Advisory Committee raj which cooked up this subversive legislation as a scorched earth policy so that all business and infrastructure activities come to a stop. " This ( ordinance ) is 1894 land law with higher rates of compensation and R&R package," said Mr Jairam Ramesh. If the rates of compensation are higher then why is it bad? Thank God, at least it is 1894 and not 1984. We don't want pigs to walk on 2 legs, do we?

Will 2015 really be happy for everyone?

While the rest of the world was engaged with the civil war in Ukraine, the Ebola epidemic in west Africa, the shocking abduction of 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram in Nigeria, the extreme brutality of ISIS in Iraq, the sudden collapse in the price of oil and the unexplained disappearance of flight MH370 with 227 passengers in 2014, for us in India there was a political earthquake when the BJP achieved absolute majority in the Lok Sabha in the general elections on 16 May while the Congress got just 44. Apologists for the Congress blame corruption by its allies in government, the fall in the rate of growth because of the global economic shock in 2008, precipitated by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the unfortunate inflation and intolerant Hindutva for the defeat of the Congress but in doing so they are probably ensuring that the Congress gradually withers away as a party. True, Lehman Brothers took the whole world by surprise but the rest of the problems were created by the Congress itself. Corruption was casually brushed away as ' coalition dharma ', while ruthlessly beating up anyone protesting against it, inflation was a result of massive social schemes, which increased labor costs by putting a floor under rural wages, and Hindus were forced to unite due to the polarising effects of pseudo-secularism, which sought to portray all Hindus as aggressors while protecting so-called minorities. But the BJP could not have gained so many seats with only Hindu votes, especially as many Hindus are vehemently anti-BJP, which means that sections of every other community must have voted for the BJP as well. There are those who even today try to minimise the victory by saying that it is a minority government because the BJP received only 32% of the total votes cast choosing to forget that the Congress came to power by winning just 145 seats, with 26.5% of the votes cast, in 2004 and proceeded to wreak havoc for the next 10 years with the help of fringe parties. For the Congress to get back to power it has to realise that the people voted for its exact opposite. The Congress is a sycophantic party devoted to The Family while the leadership of the BJP passed from Vajpayee to Advani to Modi. For the Congress anyone from The Family is automatic choice for prime minister while Modi has no children and does not favor his own family. Finally, the secularism practised by the Congress is actively anti-Hindu as proved by its blockage of key legislation over reconversion while not explaining why it is fine to convert Hindus. We pray that 2015 is a year of sense when the selfie-stick and Kim Kardashian's booty are banished forever. A Happy New Year to everyone who reads this.

2014 ends as it began.

Perhaps it is a good thing that things do not change much for us in India. After the 10 years of plunder, misuse of taxpayer money and economic destruction by the Congress and its associates it is reassuring that India is getting no worse. In test cricket our valiant players lost to New Zealand by 40 runs in February, went on to lose the series against England by 3-1 and are battling to save the third test, having lost the first two against Australia. They are at 105 for 4 at tea, having been set 384 to win, with Virat Kohli out to a gentle loosener. It is as if having scored a century in the first innings, which secures his place in the team, there is no need to battle hard on the fifth day. As with our cricketers so with our politicians. Although the BJP has absolute majority in the Lok Sabha the opposition blocked legislation in the Rajya Sabha, not by reasoned debate as they were elected to do, but by rowdy behavior, just as the BJP had been doing for the last 4 years. And just like the Congress did the BJP has resorted to passing ordinances, which means that the government gets to do whatever it pleases without our objections or suggestions being heard. Since an ordinance has to be ratified by the parliament in the next session it does not breed confidence in investors. The government could call a joint sitting of both houses of the parliament where it would have the requisite majority to pass all bills but that might enrage the opposition even more and the resulting pandemonium would preclude all business. Just as the previous Finance Minister went on whining about high interest rates so is the present one. Just like the previous Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, the present incumbent, A Jaitley was a high-priced lawyer in his previous avatar, which means that he is equally adept at confusing black with white. High interest rates are not the cause. They are the result of double digit inflation and uncontrolled fiscal and current account deficits engineered by the Congress, led by a man who actually claimed to have an Economic Tripos ( whatever that means ) from Cambridge and a D Phil from Oxford. What these exalted gentlemen seem unable to grasp is that there will be no investment unless there is demand and there can be no demand if inflation and extortionate taxes are emptying our wallets. If the Retail Inflation was at 4.38% in November it does not mean that consumer goods are getting cheaper. It merely means that prices are not rising as fast as before because a Rs 10 rise of an article costing Rs 100 means a 10% rise but a Rs 10 rise of an article costing Rs 200 is a rise of 5%. This is known as the base effect and in absolute terms the consumer is having to spend equally higher. At least we are not hurtling downhill as with the Congress. A large peg to that.

It will take a long time.

The BJP government in Delhi is not going to be popular with civil servants or politicians. Civil servants have been asked to declare foreign bank accounts, cash, local bank accounts, as well as expensive furniture and art collections. However, this alone will not be enough. No one has accused our civil servants of being stupid, especially when it comes to filling their pockets. Even ordinary furniture may have hollow legs filled with gold biscuits and properties maybe registered in different names. Politicians may change with every election, which is why they are referred to as ' aya Ram, gaya Ram ', but civil servants are permanent which means that they are impossible to dislodge. All these years the CBI had to take permission to even investigate a senior civil servant but in May the Supreme Court struck down that provision. Even so it is almost impossible to catch one of these fellows because they know how the system operates and vital files have a habit of catching fire if the heat is getting too close. How badly the civil service is worm-infested was vividly illustrated when UP police filed First Information Reports against 5,000 people in the food distribution scam. The system works as a chain, with money going all the way up to the minister. If one officer is honest the chain is broken and he is punished by repeated transfers to obscure departments. When a new government comes in after an election it transfers all the officials of the old government. This is to bring in officials loyal to the elected party, who can advise on how to game the system, and to prevent information of illicit activities being conveyed to the previous regime who may use it to embarrass the incumbents. Major scams, involving trillions of rupees, would be impossible without the extensive knowledge and cooperation of bureaucrats. The present government also wants the details of Aadhar, which is a biometric card with personal details, to be included in every civil servant's file. Apparently this will help in keeping an eye on the efficiency of each individual civil servant. In fact, every civil servant must be paid his salary only to his Aadhar account. At one stroke this will eliminate all the ghost officials that plague state governments and, especially, municipalities. Ghost officials are those who draw salaries but do not exist. The money is withdrawn by someone masquerading as an employee and then divided among higher officers, union fellows and local politicians. To really rid the nation of corruption campaign finance has to be reformed, every political party must have to reveal detailed accounts of donations and not one person with criminal charges must be allowed to stand for election. There is a long way to go.

Do unto Americans as they do unto you?

In this season of goodwill we wonder whether the CIA is serving roast turkey, a selection of vegetables, mashed potatoes and pudding to the prisoners in its clutches. Are they being served food on plates, with cutlery to eat it with, or up the rectum, all pureed together. A US Senate report has cataloged a list of horrific torture inflicted on prisoners abducted from all over the world in a program of ' extraordinary renditions ' following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The most amazing thing is that 54 countries collaborated in the kidnap and torture of their own and citizens of other countries without bothering to ask if the men were at all guilty of any crime. A former CIA agent has revealed how he was ordered to torture prisoners after he objected. It is not surprising that John Brennan, Director of the CIA, has defended his agency but what is infuriating is former, Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that torture was " absolutely, totally justified ". He is the man responsible for the totally unjustified attack on Iraq which resulted in the death of up to 200,000 civilians and if anyone deserves to be fed rectally it is Cheney. If he has the slightest humanity left in him Cheney should reflect that the torture and beheading of innocent Americans by ISIS is a direct result of his own savagery. They are doing to the British and American hostages exactly what the CIA did to Muslim prisoners. Worst of all the Senate report shows how futile the torture was. Regardless of what Cheney may claim torture was not effective in revealing terrorist plots. The release of the report at this time may be related to the results of the midterm polls. With both houses of the Congress in Republican hands the report may have been buried for the next 2 years, when the presidential election comes round. With Jeb Bush as one of the possible candidates the Republicans may find it difficult to brazen it out if more Americans are tortured and beheaded. Of course, the US would never be able to commit such heinous crimes without the unconditional support of the British and the Australians. These 2 Anglo-Saxon nations instantly support the US no matter which political party is in power, as Tony Blair, of left wing Labour Party, showed by behaving as the poodle of George W Bush of the right wing Republican Party. The British government has spent nearly 400,000 pounds of taxpayer money in trying to silence a Libyan dissident who was handed over to Gaddafi's thugs. British hostages could face even tougher times in the future after it was revealed that the wife of one of the hostages, who was beheaded, was having an affair while tearfully requesting for his release. Do unto others, and so on, what?

Charity comes from an honest heart.

A World Giving Index 2014, devised by Charities Aid Foundation based in the UK, put India in the 69th position among 135 countries, when it comes to giving for charity. Which is surprising when the government forces companies to allocate 2% of earning for social schemes under the Companies Act 2013. This index measures charity only in monetary terms leaving out the value of time. Kailash Satyarthi received the Noble Peace Prize this year because of his work for preservation of childhood, and against child labor. Admittedly this is a political prize because it was shared equally between and Indian and a Pakistani, Malala Yousufzai but the fact that Satyarthi was chosen among 1.2 billion Indians makes it significant. Perhaps the reason why Indians do not want to donate to charities, despite getting tax relief on donations, is because they do not trust anyone. Politicians are seen as criminals with one third of the present MPs declaring serious crimes, such as murder, kidnap and rape, registered against them. The rest are seen as beggars whose sole purpose in getting elected is to occupy luxury bungalows, show off false status by getting Z+ security and beg for various perks, such as free tickets for ' companions ', a generic term which could include voluptuous pulchritude. Giving money to NGOs is also not safe because India has 200,000 of these, one for every 600 people. Since they do not reveal their detailed accounts no one knows how they spend the money they raise. You will see many politicians running NGOs and educational institutions, masquerading as charitable institutions when they are siphoning money into their own pockets. There are stories about charities fooling people by raising money on false promises. Once you have handed in your money you have no control on how it is spent, rather like the taxes we pay. And therein lies the problem. But surely rich people can control the way they spend on charities? Indeed they do as Azim Premji and Narayan Murthy have shown. These men entrepreneurs who became rich through their own ideas but most businesses in India are owned by families. Since independence India has been ruled by the Congress or its surrogates, except for 6 years of BJP government from 1998 to 2004, and pursued a most pernicious form of crony capitalism which meant that only friends and families were given licenses to run businesses. These are bandits and bandits do not engage in charity. Secondly, to run any business requires hefty bribes to be paid to politicians and civil servants, leaving little for profits, let alone charity. Altruism comes from the heart but needs a clean mind. 

India proves Darwin's theory.

Seems that more Indians are being forced into debt and levels have risen 7 fold in the 10 years between 2002 and 2012. In urban areas 22% of families were in debt and the average amount was Rs 3,78,238 while in rural areas 31% of families had average debts of Rs 1,03,457. The difference in the value of assets owned by the rich and the poor was stark. In urban areas the richest 10% owned assets worth Rs 146 million while the poorest had assets worth just Rs 291. Since consumer goods, such as mobile phones and televisions, and jewellery were not counted as assets the difference is between those who own real estate and those who do not. Thus, 47% of the value of assets was from land and 45% was from buildings. In rural areas the rich were worth Rs 57 million, 73% coming from land and 21% from buildings, while the poor owned assets worth Rs 2,507. Interestingly, 40% of loans in rural areas were for business purposes. That maybe because the government forces public sector banks to lend at low interest rates and farmers expect their loans to be forgiven, come election time. Rural folk are also allowed to enjoy themselves by using Kisan Credit Cards which could add Rs 2 trillion of bad loans for the banks. The mystery is that with so much money being doled out in rural areas  farmers are still committing suicide. Why are they having to borrow from moneylenders when banks are willing to lend without collateral and the NREGA scheme acts as an unemployment benefit in rural areas? Is it because crops are failing because money for irrigation is being stolen or because, as land has been divided onto smaller bits among succeeding generation of children, each family holding has become too small to provide sufficient income. In urban areas, on the other hand, 82% of debt was used to finance housing, education, marriages and so on. It is not surprising because the Congress engineered an inflation induced explosion in property prices and school fees soared by 433% as the Congress forced private fee paying schools to reserve 25% of seats for children from poorer sections, without adequate compensation. Corruption boomed under the Congress  to pay for which taxes were increased to extortionate levels. As taxes are levied on prices, the higher the price the more the taxes. Hence, the Congress ended by taxing inflation which only added fuel to the fire. A recent committee has suggested that indirect taxes at an eye-watering 27% would be ' revenue neutral ' under the GST act. As people became poorer they were unable to spend and had to take loans to maintain their standard of living. Survival of the fittest. As Darwin predicted.

You have to die to enter paradise.

A Dutchman, who has lived in Delhi for the last one year was wonderstruck on returning to the Netherlands for Christmas. He found paradise. " In the Netherlands, it struck me how utterly complete the project of nation-building is. In my view, the country is more or less finished. The roads are perfect, it is safe and clean, healthcare is superb, the cities are pleasant, gross domestic product-per-capita is among the highest in the world, we rank high in global happiness surveys, the legal system is impartial, we have an open economy and a strong liberal democracy, and the list goes on," he writes. This surely is paradise right here on earth. But, strange as it may seem, even here there are doubts. " And that is: what's next? What do you do as a nation when material aspects of your wellbeing are in place. My sense is that the Dutch are a bit clueless," he thinks. How true. Because there is nothing, indeed there can be nothing after paradise. It is alright for the dead because they have the whole universe to explore for eternity but for the living, restricted inside a destructible body and stuck to mother earth by gravity, it is difficult to be perpetually happy, with no challenges to overcome. And when you have paradise you will have barbarians at the gates clamoring to be let in to share in the bliss. To keep out the hungry hoards you must pull up your drawbridge and drop down the portcullis but that is impossible for a member of the Schengen area within the European Union which allows free movement of people without any restriction. Hence, Mr Geert Wilders of the Freedom Party has a pact with Ms Marine Le Pen of Front National of France to bring about a disintegration of the EU. They may have a point, as the murder of Theo Van Gogh in 2004 so clearly showed. Dutch passengers died needlessly in the shooting of flight MH17, in a war between other nations while Dutch UN peacekeepers were responsible for not preventing the murder of 300 Bosnians in 1995. But will a break up of the EU into nation states allow the Dutch to preserve their paradise in splendid isolation, secluded from the rest of the world behind high fences? And therein lies the problem. The wealth of the Netherlands comes from trade which will surely suffer if every country erected its own barriers, with import taxes and control their currencies through interest rates, as Switzerland did recently. So how to preserve paradise from outsiders? Perhaps it should be left to the Americans who are not hesitant about taking direct action. It takes a lot of killing to preserve a paradise. A sad fact of life.

Only heaven is higher than Everest.

So, Sony is going to release the movie called ' The Interview ' after all. The movie is about 2 journalists from the US who are recruited to assassinate Kim Jong Un, President of North Korea and ends with blowing off his face. North Korea was not amused and threatened retaliation. Sony's computers were hacked and all the data, including emails between executives, private details of employees and unreleased films, were released online. Hackers also referred to 9/11 and warned that anyone going to see the movie would be risking his life. Sony decided to pull the movie from all theaters but was criticised by Obama because apparently this was against freedom of speech. Being a lawyer the gasbag must be aware of the law that prohibits threatening the president of the US so there is no reason why North Korea, which sees the US as its enemy, should feel grateful for a threat to its president. The US blamed North Korea for the hack but they denied it and then the internet in North Korea crashed for a day. It does not matter if the US is not responsible because Pyongyang will blame the US anyway. At the moment the US thinks it is invincible. Its economy grew by a scorching 5% in the third quarter, the Dow Jones is up above 18,000 for the first time ever, unemployment is down and the dollar is stronger against all currencies. On the other hand Russia is facing a deep recession, emerging market economies are slowing down and China is having to spend on infrastructure to stimulate growth. Greece is in crisis again and the anti-austerity party, Syriza will win if a general election becomes inevitable. If Greece is forced to leave the Euro it could set off a collapse of markets. A strong dollar, making imports cheap, and optimism about the economy could encourage US consumers to spend on borrowed money and we could have a repeat of 2008. Our Reserve Bank Governor has been warning of another market crash because of a build up of asset price bubbles because of massive amounts of easy money injected into world markets by the bond buying programs of the US and Japan, with the EU poised to follow. After licking its wounds for a couple of years Wall Street banks have managed to dilute the Dodd-Frank law that was to prevent trading in exotic securities with depositors' money. The clause was written into the act by Citigroup. With this the problem of institutions ' too big to fail ' has returned but next time it maybe too big to fix as well. The US may feel that it is ' exceptional ' and too big to fail but it must remember that when you have scaled mount Everest the only way is down.

Taxes are bad. But monopoly is worse.

The government is thinking of removing tolls on highways for buses and private vehicles. Tolls cause a lot of anger as they seem unreasonable when a road has not been repaired or work is still in progress and they cause delay. Local villagers resent having to pay toll every time they go out while allowing freedom from having to pay causes heartburn for other users. The ministry is thinking of adding Re 1 cess on petrol and diesel, a 2% tax on purchase of all new vehicles and a onetime payment of Rs 1000 on existing vehicles. In 2013-14 the government collected Rs 114 billion from tolls, of which Rs 98 billion was from commercial vehicles and Rs 16 billion was from personal vehicles. Thus, the projected revenue from tolls would have been Rs 1.73 trillion between 2014 and 2019 but if the new system of taxes is adopted collection will rise to Rs 2 trillion. Wherever you have a monopoly you will have higher charges, as we have seen with Delhi airport where the operator wants more money even though the charges are the highest in the world. And there will be massive corruption as consumers are overcharged and the money is divided between the company, civil servants and politicians. Here too toll collectors have ' diverted ' Rs 9.03 billion into their own pockets, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General. The CAG has also found some ' anomaly ' in the use of money raised from tolls by R-Infra, which was denied by the company. Interestingly, some companies collecting toll are related to those supplying electricity to Delhi. These companies vigorously contested an audit of their accounts by CAG, by repeatedly appealing to the High Court, but were denied any relief. Despite the High Court order to cooperate fully with CAG the power companies constantly obstructed the audit by refusing to hand over the required documents as requested. The government can get rid of all corruption by getting rid of tolls and collecting money directly by increasing taxes, as it is proposing to do. Trouble is that increasing taxes will increase costs and that may impact sales of new cars. Sales in October were disappointing despite it being the festival month. Earlier excise duty on cars were reduced to boost sales. It is much better to increase taxes on fuels, because the higher price has been factored into the market, and bring the price of diesel equal to that of petrol, as in other countries. That will bring huge revenues, reduce the fiscal deficit, prevent adulteration of petrol and give the government a cushion to control a sudden rise in prices if international crude price spurts or the rupee falls. Encourage competition. Get rid of monopoly. Remember Adam Smith?

Best insurance for wealth.

In Greater Noida, on the outskirts of Delhi, 52% of all apartments are lying vacant as are 33.3% of all properties in Bhiwadi, Rajasthan and 27.3% in Navi Mumbai. In absolute numbers 109,519 properties in Navi Mumbai, 71,137 in Gurgaon 52,226 in north Goa, 45,026 in Jaipur and 31,465 in Greater Noida are lying vacant. These are the highest numbers, but every town and city in India has thousands of properties lying empty. This despite the fact that any property costing more than Rs 3 million will attract wealth tax @ 1%, unless it is rented out for more than 300 days in a year. Why buy property if you are not going to use it? Because it is the best hedge against inflation. A 1200 sq foot flat in south Delhi, bought in 1984 for Rs 350,000, from the Delhi Development Authority now costs over Rs 30 million, a compounded annual return of around 14%. Also real estate is now the only avenue for investing vast amounts of black money generated from the infinite number of scams committed by our politicians and civil servants. But surely it would be best to rent out any extra property rather than letting lie idle, when it is not generating any income, and then paying wealth tax on it. People are afraid to rent out any property for fear of losing it because the rent laws are so skewed against owners and our courts are pleased to drag out cases for decades, by which time the original owner may have died of starvation. So many empty properties could indicate an oversupply which should result in a fall in the prices of real estate. In fact, it is just the opposite. In Greater Noida, where 52% of properties are lying vacant, the price of real estate has increased by 27.6% in the last 2 years. The same in Gurgaon where 20.3% of properties are lying empty. By buying properties as investment and then leaving them idle creates a shortage, pushing up prices, which attracts more buyers looking for high returns on their money. The astronomical prices mean that ordinary people are priced out of the market and have to live in rented accommodation. But here too, with so many apartments lying locked up, an artificial shortage is created, resulting in high rents. The government wants to build affordable housing for everyone but with land prices so high how will it be possible? One method would be to build upwards, which means many more apartments on the same plot of land. But will people afford the maintenance costs of elevators, back up electricity generators and cleaning. Tiny flats are of no use and there will need to be huge car parks because people now aspire to greater material comforts. Eliminate black money by reducing prices of real estate drastically or reduce demand by reducing population. No easy choices.

The funny money carousel.

Just once a in while our suspicions are confirmed. An unnamed contractor, based in Pune, has written a strong letter to the state government and the governor of Maharashtra claiming that bribes cost 22% of the cost of building a dam. He has given a break down of how the money is distributed. Bribes are paid to 15 people of which the Executive Engineer, Superintending Engineer, Chief Engineer and the local Member of the Legislative Assembly get 1-2% each while the Chairman of the Corporation takes in a massive 5-10%. About the officers this is what he wrote," All of them are entertained by the bidders, who give cash fixed by the department unofficially. Approximate 10% of the billed amount in cash must be paid to the executive officers. Besides, there is what is called an adjustment amount, shared equally between contractors and officers. Projects were awarded at hugely inflated costs. A work costing, say, Rs 100, was pegged at Rs 500....these contractors did much less work, but charged double the amount from the department. Politicians became partners of small-time contractors who in turn entered politics." Contractors had to " go with the flow " or they were " dealt strongly ". The saddest sentences are," This is routine established procedure. No one feels they are doing anything wrong." The irrigation scam in Maharashtra broke in 2012 when an engineer turned whistleblower but the Congress led state government found nothing. The new BJP government has authorised an investigation against the previous ministers of Water Resources but whether all the proof has been destroyed remains to be seen. Meanwhile, farmers in Maharashtra continue to commit suicide as crops fail due to scanty rainfall. Since 1995, 54,000 farmers have killed themselves in Maharashtra, of them 33,752 suicides were since 2003. It is interesting that the Congress has ruled the state since 1999, till this year, when they came in third with 42 seats, down by 40. In the new assembly 88% are crorepatis, 1 crore equals 10 million, and 165 ( 57% ) have declared criminal charges against themselves as opposed to 136 in the previous assembly. But that maybe because the Congress is adept at hiding its crimes. People in Maharashtra must be congratulating themselves because 90% of ministers in the newly formed state of Telengana have criminal charges against them. So much corruption generates massive amounts of black money which runs a parallel economy in which there are no taxes and no control by the Reserve Bank. So how much black money is there? To give us an idea an estimated Rs 6 trillion went of India in 2012 alone. What happens to this money? Some of it round-trips back to India as white to buy assets, such as real estate or stocks. A most entertaining merry-go-round, what?

The rupee hangs by a thread. How strong is it?

The Consumer Price Inflation fell to 4.38% in November compared to 5.52% in October, while the Wholesale Price Index fell to 0% because of the fall in the price of petroleum products, following a 45% fall in the price of crude, and 6.97% fall in prices of vegetables because of a high base effect and seasonal supplies. While that is good the bad news was that the Index of Industrial Production fell by 4.2% in October compared to the previous month. Consumer goods fell by 19% and consumer durables by 35%, dragging manufacturing down by 17.6% and capital goods by 2.3%. So is inflation finally beaten and should the Reserve Bank, given these figures, cut interest rates to make it cheaper to borrow money so that people can spend more, thus stimulating demand? Not so easy for the RBI because the rupee dropped to 62.95 to the dollar, which increases costs of imports. The rupee has not dropped as much as other emerging market currencies, such as the Brazilian real and the Indonesian rupiah, the Russian ruble having collapsed by around 45%. Although governments have built up dollar reserves of $9 trillion companies in emerging markets have borrowed $5.7 trillion. If Russia and/or Venezuela default on their debts all currencies could collapse, including our rupee. Indian companies have borrowed abroad at around 1% to invest in India, in what is know as ' carry trade ', and many companies have not hedged their loans, to reduce costs. The external debt to GDP ratio has increased from 18% in 2010-11 to 23% in 2013-14. If the Federal Reserve in the US starts raising interest rates and the ECB resorts to quantitative easing, which is looking almost certain, the dollar is certain to get stronger. Foreign investors have bought $25 billion worth of government bonds and $9 billion worth of corporate bonds in this financial year as well as $17 billion worth of equities. Lowering interest rates by 25 basis points is of no use but if the RBI lowers interest rates by, say, 100 basis points the arbitrage opportunities become less and foreigners could stop investing in India. That would take away a major support for the rupee. Many experts say that foreign funds cannot sell out Indian stocks and bonds because prices would plummet and as they try to repatriate this money from India the rupee will drop, so they will lose heavily. Will they? They can hedge on the futures market before they sell out, knowing that the market will drop and they will not lose. Add to that the fact that the government has already used up 90% of the deficit of the budget for the full fiscal and the outlook becomes much more complicated. That is why people buy gold. Not stupid are they?

For the economy to take off we need airlines.

Having been stung by Kingfisher previously oil companies are refusing to supply fuel to SpiceJet, a low cost airline in India. Which meant that all flights were cancelled on Wednesday. Banks are refusing to lend Rs 6 billion to the airline, as requested by the Aviation Ministry, to keep it flying. Strangely the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has allowed the airline to continue to sell tickets for the next 3 months. It may be relevant that the airline belongs to Klanithi Maran who is the brother of Dayanidhi Maran, of the DMK party, who was Telecom Minister from 2004-2007 in the Congress led government in Delhi. Passengers were stranded all over the country and those desperate to travel were being fleeced by other ' low cost ' airlines which were charging up to Rs 25,000 for one way from Delhi to Mumbai. All the airlines in India, except maybe IndiGo, are making heavy losses so the geniuses at Aviation Ministry are thinking of how to make them profitable. So what are their proposals? One is " complete income tax exemption for a fixed period ". Brilliant. When companies are making heavy losses why are they paying income tax? Even ignorant people like us know that corporate taxes are applicable only on profits. Second, banks, which means public sector banks, should charge a maximum of 8% interest on loans to the aviation industry. Already PSU banks are sitting on massive bad loans so forcing them to lend at below par rates to a sick industry is surely asking for trouble. Air India alone has debts of Rs 400 billion so imagine the total for the industry. The third suggestion is to stop airlines offering cheap tickets to customers. We have to remember that politicians and civil servants get to fly for free with ' companions ' so for them it makes no difference. But these are creatures are of infinite cunning. India probably has the most varieties of taxes in the world but most of them are levied at ad velorem basis, which means that tax is calculated on the value of an article and the higher the value the higher the tax. However, when it comes to airline tickets taxes are fixed so that if an airline lowers ticket prices to compete with other airlines the price hardly comes down because of the taxes. Taxes are administered by the Central Board of Direct Taxes which is given a revenue target for the year in the budget. In their effort to achieve their target officers resort to arbitrary demands on companies and individuals and resort to methods which the Gestapo would have been proud of. Naturally, people take refuge in courts. The CBDT has 223, 000 cases pending locking up Rs 4.36 trillion of potential revenue. It loses 70% of such cases. Only lower taxes will revive our economy. Why will tourists come to India if they cannot travel at reasonable prices?

The power of sanctions may not be forever.

After 50 years of trade sanctions the US may normalise relations with Cuba, although that is not a certainty, given the Republican majority in both houses of the incoming Congress. It may not be such a big deal because several South American countries are more anti-American than tiny Cuba. In 1994 the US lifted its embargo against Vietnam after losing the war 19 years earlier. Vietnam's crime? It was not helping to discover the remains of US soldiers Missing In Action during the war. Not only was there no reparations paid for the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians massacred by indiscriminate bombing, millions maimed by landmines and vast tracts of the country poisoned with dioxin the US imposed sanctions for the remains of some dead soldiers. The US imposed sanctions on India after nuclear test while continuing to supply arms to Pakistan with which to kill Indians. Sanctions against Iran has not stopped its frantic rush towards developing nuclear weapons though they might have stopped Israel and Saudi Arabia mounting a joint attack against Iran's nuclear facilities, setting off a regional conflagration. Sanctions against Russia, boosted by a 45% fall in the value of oil, seem to have been remarkably successful. The value of the ruble has collapsed by 45% despite a dramatic jump in interest rate from 10.5% to 17% by the central bank. The share market collapsed by 11.5% although it has recovered somewhat from its lows. Russia's crime? Helping the eastern half of Ukraine to resist an all out attack by a fascist government in Kiev, created by an armed coup against an elected president, organised by western countries. So will the US manage to bring about a ' regime change ' in Moscow. There is reason to believe that the Soviet Union broke up when the price of oil fell by 30% from 1988 to 1992 but today's Russia is very different. The Soviet Union was a collective of very disparate countries held together by force but today's Russia is more of a homogeneous nation with very small pockets of resistance, such as in Chechnya, which are easy to contain. When Russia defaulted on its debt in 1998 US Federal Reserve had to spend $3.6 billion to rescue Long-Term Capital Management, a hedge fund managed by Nobel Prize winners. Several European banks have high exposure to Russian debt and will suffer if Russia defaults again. Already the ECB is battling to stop the European Union falling into deflation so will it be able to bail out these banks. Emerging economies are seeing their currencies and stock markets plummet. So does the US think that it can carry the global economy by itself? US banks may have to face $550 billion of bad loans quite soon. If its economy weakens the US may lose its power of sanctions. It may suddenly find that it needs all the friends it can get.

It is all because of US stupidity.

One week after Malala Yousafzai received her Nobel Peace Prize the Taliban carried out an attack on  the Army Public School in Peshawar in Pakistan in which 145, including 132 children, were killed. Pakistanis are acting surprised at this attack, which is cute. Just one month back the All Pakistan Private Schools Federation observed an ' I am not Malala ' day, in response to her book ' I am Malala ', because they consider her to be ' anti-Pakistan and anti-Islam '. Last year 27% of the people supported the Taliban and 40% did not know, which means that they did not consider it an enemy, 86% supported the army, 64% saw the US as an enemy and 69% saw India as a serious threat to the nation. There is a large faction in the Pakistan army, especially in its intelligence agency, the ISI, which supports the Taliban. Americans are well aware that the ISI was funding and arming the Taliban with US supplied arms to go and kill US and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan. Just as weapons supplied by the US are killing Indians. There is no doubt that the ISI planned and financed the 9/11 attacks and yet the US continues to support Pakistan blindly. Why? US trade with India last year was $62 billion while total trade with Pakistan $5.3 billion, less than one-tenth that with India. On the other hand US aid to Pakistan is over $2 billion every year, rising to $4.5 billion in 2010. China is by far the largest trading nation for Pakistan and Pakistani generals regularly go on pilgrimages to Beijing to lick Chinese boots. The US was responsible for removing Saddam Hussein from Iraq and look at the mess it is in. Having withdrawn all troops from Iraq Obama is again putting ' boots on the ground ' in an effort to stem the ISIS onslaught. The US supported the 2 clowns, Cameron of Britain and Sarkozy of France, to remove Gaddafi from Libya, which has descended into total anarchy. Islamist rebels have acquired planes with which to bomb government positions. US troops are going to leave Afghanistan by next year and the Taliban are salivating at the prospect of taking over that country as well. The army is stopping transfer of troops on buses after a wave of bomb attacks. Just this morning there was an attack on a bank where civil servants were being paid. The US even talked peace with the ' Good Taliban ' which opened an office in Qatar. After the Mumbai attacks, which killed 164, Pakistani minister, Qureshi said that India will come to talks on ' bended knees '. Should we be happy about yesterday's attacks as justice for Mumbai? No. Terrorism anywhere is dangerous for everybody and an attack on children is abhorrent. Obama is coming to India next month. Perhaps we should tell the gasbag that he is responsible.

The most important figure is always missing.

Madhya Pradesh has an infant mortality rate of 56 per thousand live births, which is the same rate as in Benin and Zambia, while average life expectancy in Bihar is the same as in Pakistan at 65.8 years. Infant mortality in Kerala is the lowest in India at 12 per 1000 live births, the same as in Argentina and Brazil, while average life expectancy is the highest at 74.2 years, equal to that of Kuwait and Brazil. A child in the poorest fifth of the population is 3 times more likely to die before the age of 5 years than a child in the richest fifth of the population and a person in the richest fifth will live an extra 10.8 years on average compared to a person in the poorest fifth. Grim statistics indeed. About half the children, some 60 million are underweight, 45% are stunted, 20% are wasted, 75% are anaemic and 57% are deficient in Vitamin A. The figures roll on and on. Why, when trillions of rupees are being spent on the NREGA scheme which pays the rural poor for 100 days a year, the Food Security Act provides cereals at throw away prices and the midday meals served in schools is supposed to provide added nutrition to our children. One reason maybe that politicians and civil servants love social schemes because they can be looted. The late Mr Ponty Chadha was given sole rights to provide midday meals in all schools as well as sell booze for the whole state of UP, the largest state in India, because of his contacts. Since all these schemes are not working surely it is time to modify them so that they reach the most vulnerable of our children. But any such proposal is angrily denounced by activists and NGOs. Oh dear, so many snouts at the trough. With such a plethora of figures one figure is never counted or published and that is the difference in the numbers of children in rich and poor families. Too many children means not enough money to buy food, no money for childhood vaccines and no money to buy shoes. Anemia is mostly caused by worms which enter human bodies through the feet. Too many people means that it is cheaper to employ large numbers of untrained people than to buy machines which can do the job better and more efficiently. Is it any wonder that India's productivity is the lowest among developing countries? To take advantage of so many young people we need to produce jobs but, low economic growth globally being accepted as the new normal, it is going to be impossible. If we are to improve productivity to compete with others jobs will become less, not more. The only other country with an equal population is China and its social indicators are way better than ours but then China has followed a one child policy since 1979. The solution is obvious. But then too many are becoming rich from poverty.

The subconscious makes all our decisions.

Top hundred Indian brands are valued at $92.6 while the brand value of Apple alone is $118.8 billion. India has 1.2 billion people and high taxes on imports, by making them more expensive, have traditionally protected Indian companies. SBI and LIC are recognised brands in India not because they give superior service but because, these being owned by the government, your money is safe.  If Jaguar and Land Rover are global brands it is because they are seen as British and not because they are owned by Tata. Why this lack of trust for Indians brands? Seems that our decisions are made by the subconscious part of our minds and our conscious mind merely exercises a veto depending on circumstances. This was proved by an American psychologist, Benjamin Libet who showed that brain activity related to moving a finger occurred 300 milliseconds before the person was conscious of the desire to move the finger. This means that spending vast sums on advertising are not going to build brand value unless the ads are seen as reflecting the truth from experiences of having used the brand. Hence, ' relevance, truthfulness and consistency ' will build trust and increase brand value but ' corporate self-interest, sugar coating and opportunism ' will destroy value. Indian business fellows are interested in quick money and not in the long term effort of building a world class brand as was proved by the sale of Thums Up, the largest selling cola brand in India, to Coca Cola. The Americans tried to kill off Thums Up but saw sales fall off, despite huge advertising, and have revived it again. The government was so alarmed at the sale of our pharma companies to foreigners that they slowed the process of FDI even though we needed foreign exchange. About half of the $512 billion spent on advertising is probably wasted. So how do human beings make decisions? A beautiful article tries to show the contradictions in human decision making by analysing the abduction of Helen by Paris, the son of Priam, the King of Troy. Asked by Zeus to choose the most beautiful among Hera, Athena and Aphrodite he asks to be bribed. Hera offers a large kingdom, Athena offers to make him invincible in war and Aphrodite offers him the love of Helen. He accepts Helen. His first mistake was to presume to decide the beauty of goddesses, his second was to ask for a bribe and his third was to ask for a Helen who was married to Menelaus, the King of Sparta. An experiment with monkeys shows how they behave as a herd when  faced with adverse circumstances and apparently reflects the way we behave when similarly faced. So, are we just apes in clothes?

Blinking competition between Russia and Ukraine.

Apparently the latest peace deal in Ukraine is holding. Speaking in Sydney, Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko confirmed that the peace was holding and that " Ukrainians died for the right to be Europeans." Not true. Innocent civilians are being killed by Ukrainian soldiers because they do not want to join Europe. So far 4,300 civilians have been killed by aerial bombing, artillery shells and shooting by the Ukrainian armed forces. Their crime? They are Russian speakers and do not want Ukraine to join NATO which will bring US forces right to the Russian border. Not very different from Bashar al-Assad. Western politicians are cock-a-hoop because they think that the recent peace is a capitulation by Putin because the Russian economy has been weakened by sanctions and the fall in the price of oil. Russia is in a recession. Inflation is at 9.4% because of import restrictions and the fall in the value of the ruble, prompting the central bank to raise interest rate to 10.5%. But Ukraine is not so hot either. It has to find $15 billion sharpish if it is to avoid bankruptcy. Its economy shrank by 1.1% in the first quarter, 4.7% in the second and 5.3% in the third quarter, a predicted fall of 7% for the year. The irony is that this was the exact figure that Russia offered to Ukraine last year along with an offer of cheap gas, which would have amounted to $20 billion. It was when Yanukvych accepted the Russian offer in preference to Europe that the western powers engineered an armed insurrection by co-opting the extreme right wing nationalist Svobada and the neo-Nazi Right Sector thugs who react violently towards television critics. Jews in Odessa prepared to flee, to avoid being massacred, as government forces approached. Europe and the IMF are scrambling to support Ukraine's economy but only on condition that the government commits to a restructuring program as dictated by the IMF. Everyone knows how harsh that can be and the Ukraine government has backed out twice previously, probably not wanting the people to find out that joining Europe is not going to be all milk and honey as they have been promised. The European Central Bank is desperately trying to avoid deflation by providing money to banks, almost for free. If the bank provides money to Ukraine why not Greece which is again in trouble, with the stock market falling 13% last week. Private lenders will not want to touch Ukraine government bonds unless they are backed by the IMF or the ECB. Russia bought $3 billion worth of Euro bonds from the Ukraine government last year on condition that it can demand repayment if the debt to GDP ratio rises above 60. The ratio is set to rise to 90. So who is blinking, Russia or Ukraine?

Comparing with others is no excuse.

Shiv Kumar Yadav, a taxi driver for Uber, has confessed to having raped many women in his cab over a period of months. Perhaps this story is not as horrific as that of the girl, named Nirbhaya by the press, who died after being gang-raped inside a Delhi bus or the story of an unnamed woman who was left for dead after being raped for 3 days and suffering such diabolical torture that it is impossible to read about it. These cases are reported all over the world, bringing shame to all of us as a nation. However terrible these cases maybe they pale in comparison to the case of the man in Brazil who has just confessed to having killed 42 people, including a 2 year old girl, over a period of 9 years, just for pleasure. In the UK a government adviser has warned of a " national health epidemic " as one in six people in Britain may have been sexually assaulted. Last year 3,273 children under the age of 13 years were charged with serious crimes in Britain, including rape, sexual assault, robbery, kidnap and issuing death threats, 154 of them were under the age of 12 years. Pedophilia is so rampant in western countries that police forces have special units dealing with sexual attacks on children. In Rochdale in England a gang was preying on vulnerable white girls, some as young as 13 years of age, after plying them with alcohol and drugs. Jimmy Savile boasted of having sex with bodies in a mortuary, molested women in psychiatric wards of hospitals and raped children. He was knighted for his charitable work in raising money for hospitals and helping poor children. The fear of being accused of pedophilia has so terrified men in western countries that men will not help children in danger of being killed in case they are accused falsely. In Australia a family was arrested for practicing incest over 4 generations. If that fills us with horror then what about randomly killing little children? Adam Lanza killed 20 children between the ages of 5 and 10 years, some little bodies had 11 bullets inside them. Child killing in the US is sponsored by the gun lobby which believes that the second amendment gives people the right to carry loaded guns at all times even if no country would dare to attack the US and guns would not have stopped the 9/11 attacks. US airport security posted pictures of some of the articles seized from passengers at airports. They include a six-bladed knife, guns, IEDs and even a grenade. A 65 year old homeowner recorded himself killing 2 teenagers who had broken into his house. Our population is 3 times that of the US and 20 times that of the UK but the degree of depravity is far higher in those countries. That, sadly, is no consolation.

All that glisters is not gold.

After shunning the stock market for years retail investors have started dabbling in shares since March of this year. Yet in August we were told that retail investors had been selling out since 2008 and households comprised just 2% of the equity market. That is not a surprise because hapless investors have been duped many times and Ketan Parekh is still manipulating the market despite being banned from trading till 2017 by Sebi. The previous Finance Minister wanted to increase the number of retail shareholders from 16 million to 150 million. He even started the Rajiv Gandhi Equity Savings Scheme to trap ordinary people. Why? Surely not for our good? He is the man who destroyed the economy by starting the NREGA scheme, forgiving all loans to farmers and vastly increasing civil service pay. He also started the Securities Transaction Tax in 2004, as soon as he came into office, but reduced it in 2013 to entice people into buying shares rather than gold. People were buying gold to hedge against double digit inflation which was eroding the value of our savings through negative real interest rates. Tax on import of gold was raised in steps from 2% to 10% and an 80:20 law forced jewellers to export 20% of the total gold imported by them. Import of gold fell off but smuggling became very lucrative to satisfy the latent demand. This is bad for the economy because the government cannot collect tax on smuggled gold and there is no account of the total outflow of precious dollars. Seems that ordinary people are at last investing in stocks, probably lured by the dramatic rise in the Sensex in the last few months. But should they? After the sub-prime crisis of 2008 share markets all over the world recovered gradually but the Sensex bounced back in a U shaped curve. The stock market lacks depth, in that the market capitalisation of the top 10 companies is 28.4% of the total market capitalisation of BSE 500 companies. A recent study based on 3 parameters ranked India as the sixth most expensive stock market in the world, higher than UK, Germany and China. Entering at these levels means that there is a great chance of getting burned, given the uncertainties in the world with the conflict in Ukraine, the free for all in the middle east and the Ebola epidemic in west Africa, to name just a few. It has been shown that people do not make rational decisions when investing money, so to tempt them with wildly optimistic talk of the Sensex reaching 400,000 in 15 years is grossly irresponsible. The recent jump in the purchase of gold, when the Reserve Bank relaxed the 80:20 rule, shows that people still do not believe the authorities that inflation will be controlled and that the value of our money will not continue to erode away. It is good to be cynical.

Fuel prices in India were high not because of OPEC.

For years we have been puzzled by reports that the Congress government was subsidising petroleum products to help us poor consumers when petrol prices in the US, where there is no subsidy, were consistently lower than that in India. Turns out that the government was raking in Rs 3 trillion in taxes, which was divided equally between the center and the states. Hence, the earnings from high oil prices was much higher than the so called subsidy that the Congress was so kindly dishing out. There is great jubilation that the 45% fall in oil prices in the last few weeks will be a bonanza for India but apparently our GDP grew at an average of 8.7%, when oil prices were compounding at 20%, from 2004-2008 but fell to 5.5% in 1998-99 when prices fell by 43% to $12 a barrel. Also in 2002 growth was a mere 4% when oil price fell 17.4% to $23.2 a barrel. If the government is making more in taxes than it is paying out in subsidies stands to reason that the rich, who use more oil products, are paying more to the government. Why then are we constantly told that subsidies help the rich more than the poor? Even a working paper from the IMF last year said that subsidies on fuel in India amounted to 2% of the GDP but forgot to mention that taxes on fuel were 3% of GDP. Even today when international prices are down to $60 a barrel, a fall of 45%, pump price in India is down around 5%. Why? Partly because the government raised the excise duty on oil, which is a good idea, but partly because oil retailers, which are all government companies, have raised their margins acting as a cartel, which is not so good. Trouble is that even poor people need to travel so politicians seek to hide fuel taxes but happily levy very high taxes on jet fuel, the thinking being that only rich people fly so they should be made to pay. But the poor are also human and would rather fly than go by cattle class train but they are priced out of flying by the enormous taxes. The middle class find it cheaper to fly to Bangkok where a return ticket costs around Rs 20,000 than holiday in Kerala where a return ticket would cost Rs 25,000. Which is a waste of foreign exchange and the hospitality industry in Kerala loses customers. Not just fuel, taxes on cars constitute around 60% of its cost making it unaffordable for most people. Why are taxes so high? So that politicians can bribe voters to win elections, but here the money goes to the rich while the real poor go to moneylenders. Sadly, our politicians did not understand, or more probably deliberately ignored, the fact that if the country grows rich the people will grow with it. China understood and is now far out of sight. We can only hope that the present lot understand that taxes kill the economy.

A taste of bile.

In an article full of innuendos, presumptions and outright lies one Sushil Aaron tries to prove that the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi is similar to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. What is his proof? One BBC fellow, Angus Roxburgh wrote that Putin has " eyes that consume you " by fixing you in a " glowering,piercing, highly unsettling look." Rajiv Sardesai is quoted as writing that although Modi smiled a lot " his eyes at times glared almost unblinkingly - stern, cold and distant." Anyone who saw the live coverage of the Beslan school massacre by the BBC, where 334 people, including 186 little children were massacred by jihadists, would have been sickened by the constant anti-Putin propaganda by the presenter even as explosions and gunfire were killing children. Even today they try to blame the deaths on the Russian forces. How disgusting is that? Maybe Mr Sardesai is a supporter of the Congress which has kept this country poor for 7 decades, repeatedly lost wars which our brave soldiers won through enormous sacrifice and ruined the economy in the last 10 years by encouraging corruption on astronomical scale. Aaron writes," Karen Dawisha, author of a new book Putin's Kleptocracy: Who owns Russia?, describes how Putin rules Russia in concert with former KGB colleagues who have developed a stranglehold on the country's economy and politics. Modi is not there yet but he is a proud RSS pracharak - and although he tries to define an identity beyond that of a Hindu nationalist...." The KGB was a secret police credited with torture, assassinations and espionage. Perhaps Aaron should read The Gulag Archipelago where Solzhenitsyn describes how he was arrested at night and transported in a Stolypin car. Modi is not known to have amassed any wealth, has no heirs and has never enriched any of his family, prompting his estranged wife to file an application under the RTI Act demanding official transport. The RSS is a social organisation based on Hindu values with no connection to the government. Hindus do not convert so there has never been any need for crusade, jihad or inquisition. Also there is no history of systematic abuse of children for decades and cover up as in some other organisation. Aaron says that the during Putin's tenure there has been violence against journalists, including the killing of Anna Politkovskaya and then writes," The Indian press is a lot freer for sure but it is not inconceivable that the scale of hate speech on social media creates a context for vigilantism in the future." Exactly. This article is an absolute example of hate speech disguised as serious journalism. We pay for newspapers so have a right to expect that they should not print pure garbage.

The economics of a slap on the wrist.

Six long years after he confessed to a fraud of Rs 71.36 billion at Satyam Computer Services ltd, Ramalinga Raju was sentenced to 6 months in prison and was fined Rs 1.05 million by an Economic Offences Court in Hyderabad. Some other directors at Satyam were fined Rs 20,000 each. Today, a vegetable seller in India has a daily turnover in excess of Rs 20,000 so why bother with this mockery of justice. Employees lost their jobs, creditors lost money and the taxpayer has wasted millions on the investigation, for this insult. At about the same time in the US, Bernard Madoff confessed to a ponzi scheme for which he was sentenced to 150 years in prison. His brother received 10 years and others are still being put away. The Saradha scam, which is India's own ponzi scheme, is providing great entertainment, with one fellow getting admitted to a hospital and then escaping bare foot while another staged a mock suicide. To add to the insult Raju's lawyers are planning to appeal his sentence. While Raju is guilty of outright fraud almost all companies in India hide information about their finances or present the information in such a way that it is incomprehensible to small investors. It is no wonder that retail investors avoid the stock market and most of the money is concentrated in a few top companies. Thus, 50 of the BSE 500 companies contribute 60.9% of the total market capitalisation of our share market while in the US the top 100 companies of S&P 500 contribute 63% of total market cap. Why bother with false information, 78 companies vanished altogether after raising Rs 3.10 billion from investors. And why not? If you are caught, which depends on your friends in high places, a beaming judge will promptly set you free on bail to avoid any inconvenience and another judge, after many years, may sentence you to 6 months in prison but then send you home till your appeal is dealt with. No other country offers such risk-free path to great wealth. But where do you invest this booty? After all other fellows maybe bigger crooks than you. The best returns are to be had in real estate where up to 50% of the price is paid in cash. The amount of black money generated in real estate in eye watering. Builders buy land with cash. Bribes are paid to officials to obtain various permits, electricity and water connections and to increase covered area illegally. Builders compensate by cutting on quality so that the buildings are unsafe. Finally, builders take a portion of the price in cash. All this black money gets invested in real estate again so that the cycle repeats itself. Infinitely. Unless our judges get serious.