People dance out of emotion, not reason.

Nigerians have been shown dancing at the victory of Muhammadu Buhari in Sunday's presidential elections, just as people do at the victory of politicians in India. Why do people show such joy when repeated past experiences have shown that nothing is going to change? Politicians do not fight elections to serve the people but to accumulate power, to have absolute right of way over all citizens, through Z+ security, and to be photographed with other heads of states, just as the Emir of Qatar was received by the Queen when he visited London in October. Buhari was involved in at least 2 coups in 1966 and 1983, and was the Head of State from 1983 to 1985. During this time $700 million was smuggled to Saudi Arabia in 53 suitcases by the son of his aide. They were not checked at the airport. He imprisoned and killed his opponents and brought in harsh punishments for minor offences. Anyone over the age of 17 years caught cheating in exams would be jailed for 21 years. His agents, with the help of Israelis, drugged and tried to smuggle Umaru Dikko as diplomatic baggage, only to be foiled by British officials at London airport. Buhari now claims to be a firm believer in democracy. But what does ' democracy ' mean? Do elections mean anything? In the US the Republicans have an iron grip on the House by gerrymandering their constituencies in the states which they control. Obama was completely unknown when he ran for president in 2008, his only claim to fame was that he voted against the Iraq invasion. He is a lawyer, but he only lectured at Chicago, but Hillary Clinton was a highly successful practicing lawyer in Arkansas, not just a gasbag. Of course, 95% of blacks voted for him, only because he is black and not because of his policies since nobody knew anything about him. Traditional democrat voters such as women, Jews and Asians voted for him but the surprise was that 54% of young white voters and 53% of affluent people, who earned more than $200,000 per year, also voted for him. Why? Was it because it was politically correct to do so? Here was a fellow who was half black, his mother was white, born of a Kenyan father, a half Muslim, his middle name is Hussein, who has shown that he is not a maverick by qualifying from Harvard. In 2012 people would have voted on his record of the previous 4 years. Just 9 months after the BJP swept the general elections the people of Delhi voted overwhelmingly for the Aam Aadmi Party. Even middle class areas voted for them. The reason being that Modi had not done enough. That the Congress had left the country completely bankrupt, that the Congress has deliberately passed laws that would stop all reforms and that the Congress was obstructing reforms in the Rajya Sabha, made absolutely no difference at all. If elections are based on emotion and not on logic is democracy really possible? The only argument in favor is that it is better than dictatorship or army rule. As Pakistan has shown.

Success in life is not easy.

Why do bleeding hearts write such tosh? One Disha Nawani, Associate Professor, School of Education in Mumbai has written that school children should not be failed in exams and asked to repeat the same class. It is called ' detention ' in India which sounds like punishment. Why not change the name? Call it reeducation, or retraining or reinforcement and the shame of ' failure ' will disappear. Education is to equip children to get good jobs so as to earn a respectable living. What is the use of a child going through 12 years of school if he has learnt nothing. In the US 32 million adults cannot read, that is 14% of the population. About 21% of adults read below 5th grade and 19% of high school grads cannot read. A small number of children may suffer from dyslexia and may need special teaching. Others may just refuse to learn. Should teachers waste their time trying to cajole these children to learn? The world is harsh. Once the children leave school they will suddenly find that they are unwanted. How will they cope with that? Technology is changing fast and workers need retraining to learn new skills. The writer is a believer in assessment. Surely, exams are a form of assessment? She thinks that " where learning is to ' memorising ' content without reflecting on it " is a waste of time. ".... the assessment system should not restrict itself to testing memorising content alone but must facilitate the process whereby the child connects between what's been done in school and what she experiences outside school. The government should direct its efforts towards ensuring that children learn meaningfully rather than detaining them in class,' she writes. Subjects such as maths and physics need to be understood but if you do not know the tables you cannot count your change when you shop. The writer is unaware that medical education involves a lot of memorising. Unless you memorise that the calcaneus is in the foot and the carotid is in the head you will surely put your foot in it. It is for teachers to devise school curriculum and ways to engage our children. Finland is introducing ' phenomenon based ' teaching in middle schools. To do that teachers must be highly trained themselves which is not the case in government schools in India. To promote a child to a higher class when she has failed her exams may give her the impression that studies are unimportant, especially if her parents are illiterate. On the other hand, nothing is to be gained from humiliating a child. Should there be separate schools for bright children and those who are weak, like grammar schools in the UK? After all, there are entrance tests for college places once children leave school. We fear that the bleeding hearts will resist such a scheme. Will the author support passing medical students who fail repeatedly, as demanded by the vice-chancellor of a university in Lucknow? Exams are essential. Perhaps failure early in life will protect children from failure later on.

How did Obama threaten Modi?

Wonderful news for all Indians, especially those living in Delhi. Apparently, 8 militants have sneaked into India from Pakistan, of whom 4 have been killed but not before they killed 3 security personnel and one civilian. In Kashmir a minister's guard is absconding with 2 AK 47 rifles. Why is Pakistan able to send in terrorists to kill our citizens consistently without any response from us? It all began so well when Mr Modi was elected Prime Minister. Last October Indian forces gave a robust response to Pakistani firing from across the border, lifting the morale of the troops, who were being used for target practice during the previous Congress regime. The Pakistani army controls large business sectors, ostensibly to provide financing for welfare funds for ex-soldiers. It is in its interests to create tensions with India so that it can continue its stranglehold on Pakistani society. It will therefore never allow any peace talks with the civilian government to succeed. That is very simple and easy to understand. The mystery is why we continue to play this game when our soldiers keep dying and it costs us vast sums of money. There are plenty of fifth columnists in India who keep on urging peace talks. Their argument is that by talking to politicians we help to build up civilian institutions and reduce the power of the army. It has not happened in 67 years and it is not going to happen now. As Assad is showing in Syria, as Iran is showing against the Islamic State in Iraq and as Saudi Arabia is showing in Yemen the only way to deal with murderous scum is to wipe them out. We have fought many wars with Pakistan and our soldiers have won every time against heavy odds, by taking heavy losses. Yet every time the Congress has converted victory into defeat by giving up all the gains.That is why we had great hopes for Mr Modi. He has no children studying or working in the US. He was personally insulted when the US refused him a visa to visit the country. Yet the chief of the ISI of Pakistan is able to visit the US whenever he wants. Obama visited India in January to attend the Republic Day celebrations, which was hailed as a great triumph for Modi because no US president visits a country twice and never during its national day. Maybe Obama asked for the visit. During his visit Obama convinced Modi to change his strategy of equal response against Pakistan. How? What threats, blackmail or warnings did he use? How did he manage to frighten Modi? It is shocking. Surely we can tell the US that if it wants to be a friend and increase trade with us it must stop supporting this failed state. We do not need Pakistan. Cut all relations, build a fence along the border, lay land mines so that not even a mouse can cross over and shoot at anything that moves. You do not talk to mad dogs, you shoot the bastards.

Healthcare or fate?

Can you make people honest by passing laws? Only if those doing the passing are governed by the same laws themselves. Indian politicians are addicted to freebies at taxpayer expense but have passed a law forbidding pharma companies from giving freebies to doctors. Why do pharma companies bribe doctors to prescribe their products? Because there are hundreds of companies selling dubious preparations of the same drug. The common antibiotic, amoxycillin is sold under 350 different names, a lot of them are manufactured in small dirty rooms in some town. When 13 women died in Chhattisgarh following routine sterilisation operations the cause was traced to rat poison in the ciprofloxacin tablets. Who gives licenses to these illicit companies? Politicians and civil servants. It is well known that doctors receive kickbacks from investigations such as pathological tests, x rays and from various scans. We know that our business fellows are some of the most corrupt in the world, so why are so many investing in healthcare? They set financial targets on doctors and those who fail are thrown out. Patients are frightened into getting admitted, loads of tests are carried out and then undergo unnecessary procedures such as angioplasty, putting them at unnecessary risk and costing vast sums of money. Patients are charged 3 times the cost of stents. At times it seems that doctors collude with each other to give falsely abnormal results so that the patient has no choice but to accept procedures. A new wheeze is called ' international practice '. Previously the clinician in charge examined the patient and wrote down what fluids and drugs to give. Today the clinician admits the patient, another doctor is consulted to write the fluid regimen, a third writes the drug prescription while a fourth is called to interpret the biochemistry results. A nice fat bill results. The rot starts early. Because of the reservation system hundreds of students are denied admission to government medical schools. They have to pay millions in capitation fees to get admission in private schools. It is only natural that they will want to earn as much as possible to pay back their parents who may have taken hefty loans to support their children. The tragedy is that despite spending vast sums of money people get very poor service and often have to suffer serious consequences. To avoid such risks our politicians and civil servants have awarded themselves treatment in foreign countries with a ' companion '. At taxpayer expense, of course. Medical devices rejected by rich countries are sold here at inflated prices while China is charging us higher rates of vaccines of Japanese encephalitis. It is a wonder that some people do survive. Maybe fate.

The third law of politics.

Newton's third law of motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. A similar law in politics will read that for every action made in bad faith the reaction could be far worse than the original problem. That is because of the multiplier effect of human reaction. In 2013 there was a bumper harvest of potatoes in Bengal but the crop failed in UP, the largest producer. This produced a scarcity in neighboring states but the Chief Minister of Bengal, Ms Mamata Banerjee stopped supplies to these states to prevent price rises in Bengal. She had elections to win. Farmers made handsome gains last year so they increased the area for planting potatoes and there has been a bumper harvest this year. Unfortunately for them the other states also planted more potatoes and are boycotting Bengal. Prices have crashed and 8 farmers have committed suicide. Laxmirani Das, whose husband, Tapan committed suicide last week lamented," He had borrowed Rs 40,000 but found no buyer for his crop. His yield was only worth Rs 8,000 and he mortgaged my ornaments. Lenders knocked on our door everyday. The insult was unbearable. Nobody helped us. My husband was forced to commit suicide. No one from government has come to us." The Aam Aadmi Party came to power in Delhi promising unlimited freebies. It promised to reduce electricity bills by half. Delhi is already experiencing long periods of power cuts. It also promised 20,000 liters of free water for every household. Whenever anything is free there is bound to be waste. Now the Aap is blaming Haryana for not supplying enough water. Haryana has alleged that Delhi is wasting water and the Chief Minister is a liar. The Chief Minister has ordered that in case of shortage water supply to VIPs should also be cut off. Imagine the stink in the Assembly if all the MLAs turn up without a wash. It is but natural that the Chief Minister has labeled some prominent members of his party as ' kamine ', which means ' stinkers '. The truth will out. Meanwhile the central government is very pleased with the auction of telecom spectrum which has earned over Rs 1 trillion and makes India one of the most expensive in the world. How much it will add to our bills remains to be seen. The central government is also pushing ahead with the Unique Identity project or Aadhar. This is a biometric system which is based on photographs, prints of all 10 fingers and iris scans. That makes us acutely vulnerable if the system is hacked by terrorists. Will the government protect us against the brutal police? The NREGA scheme increased food inflation by creating a rural wage inflation, the Right to Education Act has increased school fees by 500%, while resulting in a fall in standards of school education, and farmers loans waiver has resulted in bad loans for banks. They will never learn.

Good governance is not possible without the IAS.

In an article a serving IAS officer seeks to defend his colleagues against the popular impression of IAS officers being " lazy, incompetent, a file-pusher who's rotten and corrupt. " He gives a list of officers who were punished for being honest, some paid with their lives. True, but there are many who are extremely corrupt. When IAS officer, Ashok Khemka cancelled mutation of a land deal by Mr Robert Vadra, son in law of Ms Sonia Gandhi, other officers cleared Mr Vadra of any wrongdoing. Now a CAG report says that Mr Vadra made illicit gains from land licenses. An officer, related to a politician, may not be in the IAS but the person in charge will be blamed. Honest officers get tarred by association. Just as all politicians are believed to be corrupt. People are not fools. They see political parties giving tickets to known criminals to fight elections, they read about huge scams, which others knew about but did nothing to stop, and they read about politicians abusing each other so naturally they conclude that all politicians are scum. The person may not be a crook personally but he has to be an accessory to the crime if he knowingly kept silent. The pressures on our officers are huge. Land grabbers and businesses fellows disguised as NGOs demand " free allotment of expensive land or dipping into the public purse to fund a facility for which all imports will be handled by the same person's firm or by his cronies. Take them on and they will scream blue murder and run a sustained campaign with the high and mighty, also using their power as ' Twitter Talibans ' to defame an officer whose only fault would have been to be tough and firm when it comes to the application of the law." IAS officers are temporary but " the lower bureaucracy - the babus - are there forever. They can hide critical information about a decision, open parallel files when inconvenient notings need to be suppressed, fudge budgetary figures and utilisation certificates.." These babus are highly unionised and it is perilous to take them on. Then there is the media which is ready to print sensational news. Like the one about callous officials treating disabled athletes with great contempt. Since IAS is not tattooed on the forehead people will lump all government officials in the same basket. Reasonable. IAS officers are also deprived of " creature comforts which once made an officer's life comfortable ". Which then begs the question as to why so many people appear for the IAS exam every year. Either because people think that IAS officers are highly paid, cannot be sacked and retire with fat pensions or only those with criminal intent want to join the service. Just as criminals are drawn into politics because of the protection it affords.

Friend or foe, does Obama know?

Obama was elected on the promise of withdrawing all troops from Iraq, which he did in 2011, and won reelection in 2012 by boasting about it. Now he has sent 1,500 troops back to Iraq, not to fight but only to advise and train Iraqi soldiers. Whether he was wrong or right we do not know but it seems neither does he. He supported the NATO bombing of Libya, killing 30,000 Libyans, to get rid of Gaddafi in 2011 and in 2012 Ambassador Christopher Stevens and 3 bodyguards were killed in Benghazi. By 2014 the US had to close its embassy and withdraw all staff from Libya. The US was using drones to bomb Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, with the support of the then President Ali Abdullah Saleh who belongs to the Zaidi sect of Shia Muslims. Saleh was deposed by a coup and Abdrabbouh Mansour Hadi, a Sunni, became President in 2012. Now Shia rebels from the north, called Houthis have occupied the capital Sanaa and are closing in on the port city of Aden. The US has withdrawn all personnel from Yemen. Worse, US intelligence files have fallen into the hands of the Houthis which could mean death for all those who collaborated with the US. The judge who sentenced Saddam Hussein to death was captured, as he tried to escape in a dancer's costume, tortured and killed. Wisely, President Hadi has fled Yemen by sea. Since yesterday Saudi Arabia and its allies have been bombing the Houthis in Yemen because they are Shia and supported by Iran. On the other hand the US is helping Iran backed Shia militia in Iraq by bombing the Islamic State in Tikrit. If Tikrit is won the militia will  try to win Mosul. The US seems helpless. Sending in ground troops against the IS could result in huge casualties. It is having to depend on Iran to fight the IS while trying to negotiate an end to the Iranian nuclear program. To beat the IS it has to be defeated in Syria which could help the Assad regime to regain power. Assad belongs to the Alawi sect of Shia Muslims and is supported by the Hezbollah from Lebanon, which is a Shia proxy for Iran. Meanwhile Obama has agreed to keep 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through this year to support the new president. The Afghans are more afraid of US trained militia than the Taliban so what happens when the US leaves is anyone's guess. The tunnel vision of western politicians is clearly shown by an article by Carl Bildt, the former Prime Minister of Sweden who writes that a grand bargain with Iran," ...based on consultations with Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries " offers the best solution. Do they really think so? Do they not see how Netanyahu thinks that Israel is being betrayed by Obama by negotiating with Iran? If it comes to Iran versus Israel plus Saudi Arabia wonder which side the US will take. So many possibilities.

The path to progress is charted. Will we take it?

Tributes have been pouring in for Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore, who died a few days back. After World War II Singapore was dirt poor with race riots, unemployment, lack of infrastructure and hostile neighbors. By the time Lee stepped down from the post of Prime Minister in 1990 per capita GDP had risen from less than $320 to over $60,000, making it one of the richest countries in the world. His policies was emulated by Deng Hsiao Ping in China with spectacular results.  So how did Lee perform his magic? Apparently savings in Singapore amount to 48% of GDP, which results in high investment, the savings rate in China is even higher. In contrast, India has a savings rate of 30%. Per capita income in Singapore grew from $2,529 in 1960 to $36,897 in 2013, that is 14.5 times. In the same period China's grew from $121 to $3,583, that is a growth of 29.5 times while India grew from $228 to $1,165, a growth of just 5 times. Indians save less because we have to spend more on basic goods because the inflation rate in India is more than twice that in China or Singapore. India has one of the highest tax rates in the world which reduces our disposable income and our ability to save. In Singapore the rule of law is paramount, corruption is almost nil and tax rates are stable which regularly takes it to the top of the list of countries in the ease to do business index. People in India do not invest in stocks because they do not trust anyone. They prefer to keep their money in term deposits in banks or invest in real estate and gold. Gold is kept in bank lockers and millions of apartments are lying vacant because people are afraid to give them out on rent. Vast amounts of money are therefore tied up in unproductive assets. Not only is corruption very high in India but tax rates and tax calculations change every year. The annual budget has become a spectator sport. A good investment this year becomes an albatross the next. It is as if the Finance Minister wants to trap you with honeyed words to invest your hard cash in one financial instrument so that he can tax the hell out of you the next year. It is no wonder that Lee was disappointed with India's progress. In 1960 India was 3 times richer than China, today we are 3 times poorer. In every parameter, from poverty rates to life expectancy at birth to child mortality China is far ahead. To grow the economy we have to make people richer so that the middle class expands which will increase consumption, increase investments and lead to greater jobs. Trouble is that with increasing wealth will come increasing education so that people will demand more political freedom and civil liberties. Our politicians will not like that at all. No wonder Lee held them in contempt.

It is not about the law, it is about common sense.

Dutee Chand, a 19 year old female athlete from India, is challenging her ban by the International Association of Athletics Federation at the Court of Arbitration for Sports at Lausanne in Switzerland. She has been banned because her testosterone levels are higher than deemed normal for human females. She is not accused of cheating by using muscle enhancing drugs, which are based on androgens, but is unfortunate in that her body naturally produces high levels of male hormones. Her lawyers will argue that it is discriminatory to carry out gender typing in women and not in men and since, it is not her fault the her body naturally produces an excess of male hormones, she should not be disqualified. Our magnanimous Sports Ministry is bearing the cost of her appeal. The same Ministry did not back Sarita Devi whose banning by the AIBA was case of thuggish bullying to cover up for blatant cheating, depriving her of victory against a South Korean opponent at the Asian Games in South Korea. While Sarita Devi's case was clear Ms Chand's case is debatable. In 2009 a South African athlete, Caster Semenya was banned for possessing both male and female organs. She has been treated for her condition but has not won anything since. The gender of an individual is not always clear cut. There are conditions which produce indeterminate sex. Some are genetic. Out of 46 chromosomes that humans have, X and Y determine the sex of an individual. A normal woman has XX while a normal man has XY. Those with Klinefelter Syndrome have XXY and, although they look like men, they have problems with their genital organs. Those with Turner's Syndrome look like female but have only one X which makes them sterile. Then there are problems with glands. In Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia genetically normal females may have male characteristics and since this condition is serious it must be treated whenever it is diagnosed. In Testicular Feminisation Syndrome a genetically normal male has female type genitals because his body tissues do not respond to testosterone. These people have undescended testes which must be removed because there is a very high rate of testicular cancer. Experts are right to say that just because gender is indeterminate it does not mean these people are abnormal. Lawyers have latched on to this to say that this is discrimination. Is it? What if a female athlete demands the right to take male hormones so as to achieve the same level as Ms Chand? Will she be allowed to do so? Ms Semenya's case has shown that the extra testosterone was indeed giving her an advantage over other female athletes. The only solution would be to let men and women compete together, as they do in chess and bridge. That would make rugby very interesting indeed.

Half truths vs emotion, is not the way forward.

The government has allowed field trials of genetically modified mustard in India. It has been labeled DMH 11 so we do not know what kind of modification has been done to the mustard genome. The good thing is that it has been developed by government scientists to increase yield by 28-30%, which would be good for the economy because Indians use a lot of mustard oil in cooking. High yield hybrid rice, which needs less water, has been cultivated for years so why not mustard. The debate about genetically modified or GM foods has become increasingly bitter with supporters relying on half truths and emotional blackmail about reducing hunger and the opposition labeling it as Frankenfood, like something monstrous. Probably about 15% of the total land area of the world is arable so GM foods will be able to reduce hunger. That is not true. There is no shortage of food in the world, there is a shortage of access to food, because of war, epidemics, such as the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, or poverty. Research shows that about 33% of food is wasted, amounting to $750 billion a year, equivalent to food produce of 28% of farms and 39% of household waste consists of fruits and vegetables. Reduce waste and reduce the numbers of people in the world through universal access to family planning and hunger will disappear. GM foods, especially those produced by private firms, do not give higher yields but are modified to be resistant to pesticides produced by those companies and so increase harvest by killing weeds. There is concern that they maybe carcinogenic. If GM crops are so fantastic why are so many farmers using GM crops committing suicide. GM seeds are expensive and companies use, what is known as, ' terminator technology ' which means that seeds produced by these plants cannot be replanted so once a crop is destroyed there is no hope. Farmers borrow money to plant such crops in the hope of earning more money but if prices crash they are left with large debts which they are unable to repay. Suicides by desperate farmers has been called ' GM genocide '. One expert has pointed out that gene transfers are common in nature so why should genetic modification by humans be any different. Gene mutations are indeed common in nature but they occur over many millennia and the bad ones are eliminated through Darwinian natural selection. Producing hybrid plants which need less water is one thing but incorporating bacterial genes to produce toxic proteins which kill insects is dangerous. BT cotton is fine because it is outside but BT food may cause disease. We need a controlled study where a group of people are fed only BT food and see whether there is any increase in diseases such as cancer compared to people eating organic food. Logic instead of half truths and emotion.

Public service comes from honest profits.

A couple of articles by one Tjaco Walvis suggest that profits should not be the sole motive of any company. Apparently Alexander was the richest man in history with wealth exceeding $200 billion at today's rates but in those days a person was expected to attain bankruptcy by losing all his wealth through conspicuous consumption. Western religions discouraged charging interest on loans until the 16th century when a theologian suggested that interest was merely a substitute for loss of income that could be earned through other investments. So it was an ' opportunity cost '. For all our talk of spiritualism we Indians are extremely materialistic. We should embrace ' Karma Yoga ' which means action for the greater good. This apparently is what is written in the Bhagavad Gita. Is it? The Gita is all about Krishna urging Arjun to fight against people he loves, his guru, his grand-uncle and his cousins, because that is his duty. Krishna tells Arjun that he must fight to win, which means that Krishna is urging Arjun to kill as many as he can. If Arjun wins then it will be a victory for Dharma. However, Krishna also cautions him that although his side is sure to win Arjun himself could be killed in battle so he should fight without any expectations. So, on the one hand Arjun is expected to fight with all his might to win but, on the other, he should not expect his own victory. We must work and, since work cannot be aimless, we must have a goal in mind. But we must work for Dharma which means for the greater good. How can that be possible? Surely all of us cannot be ' jholawalla ' do-gooders, going round trying to help others? A company must make profits or else it will go bankrupt and its employees will lose their jobs. That will cause suffering for their dependents. The most important thing is that the company should make money by serving its customers. Unfortunately that does not happen in India. Most of our businesses are owned by families who have made their wealth due to their close links with politicians. Since they spend vast amounts to get licenses they look for short term profits. We have 3 levels of politicians, the center, state and municipal and all of them are in politics to fill their pockets. On the one hand politicians extort money from businesses for private pleasure while they extort money from us in taxes to bribe voters. Even in the US where the rule of law is well established people are so sick of politicians that two-thirds did not vote in the last elections. Indians do not trust businesses at all so they do not invest in shares. Forcing companies to spend 2% of profits for social responsibility is just show. Good business is making profits by giving the best goods and services at best prices. That is karma yoga.

How can it be high and low at the same time?

Macroeconomics is extremely difficult because of so many unpredictable variables which depend on what other countries do and on which we have no control. For instance, even the Prime Minister, Li Keqiang does not believe the figures put out by the Chinese government and Greece has admitted that it fudged its deficit figures to enter the Euro. So what to make of the figures about our economy, especially the rupee? The dollar has gained 10% against other currencies in 2015 on top of a 13% gain in 2014. The Euro has fallen 20% against the dollar, the Brazilian real is down 28%, despite interest rate being increased to 12.75%, the Malaysian ringgit is down 5%, the Indonesian rupiah by 6%, the South African rand by 5.7% while the Turkish lira is down 10.5%. While all the emerging market currencies have fallen the Indian rupee is standing strong, up by 0.7%. So is the rupee grossly overvalued? According to our Reserve Bank the Real Effective Exchange Rate of the rupee against a basket of 36 currencies was 112.70 in February as opposed to 110.05% in January. It was 101.97 at the same time last year. According to this measure the rupee is overvalued. A strong rupee keeps down the cost of imports, especially oil, which keeps a check on inflation, but is bad news for exports because it makes our products more expensive compared to other countries and when money is brought back to India companies get fewer rupees in exchange, which reduces their profits. To keep the rupee from appreciating even further the Reserve Bank buys dollars from the market, which builds up reserves, but releasing large amounts of rupees into the market may cause inflation, by increasing liquidity, so the RBI has to sell bonds to mop up excess money supply. However, the International Monetary Fund uses Purchasing Power Parity in which only Rs 18.5 is needed to buy a common basket of goods that needs one dollar elsewhere. At an exchange rate of 62 to the dollar the rupee is undervalued by more than 60% according to this measure. If we compare inflation rates between the US and India since 1995 we see that retail inflation has been consistently higher in India which means that the rupee buys less every year, which is reflected by the fact that one dollar bought Rs 7.5 in 1966 as opposed to Rs 62 today. Because of cultural differences, cost of labor and local taxes PPP can never measure like for like. The only true measure is the cost of real estate. After all 1 acre of land is the same everywhere. Here we find that the cost of real estate is the same or higher in India. Which maybe why Indians found it more profitable to invest in real estate in Dubai and spent $5.8 billion on properties in the US last year. Therefore, for us the rupee is grossly overvalued. But then we are no highly paid economists.

Governance means security, not charity.

Mr Narendra Modi was elected Prime Minister by campaigning on the slogan, " Minimum government, maximum governance ". It means different things to different people. On the one hand you have the libertarians who want almost no interference from the government to others who advocate merging various ministries so as to have one minister coordinating related parts of the government, such as agriculture, irrigation and fertilisers, and still others who think it means restructuring the administration of public sector banks. Some have taken good governance to mean citizen participation through non-governmental organisations or NGOs. But is that really desirable? India already has over 2 million NGOs who raise money, do not publish their accounts and several are engaged in dubious activities against the state. Do we really need more do-gooders when the previous government was paralysed because of constant obstruction by activists? What is puzzling is the view that good governance can be achieved through philanthropy. The writer seems totally confused. On the one hand she writes," ...the government, business and civil society must work in tandem, to bring in development related changes." And then she says," I continue to believe and expect our social initiatives to succeed in spite of the government, not because of it." Although they mean well do-gooders do not seem to understand that governance has completely different meaning for who you talk to. The people of Delhi have voted overwhelmingly for the Aam Aadmi Party. Auto-rickshaw drivers want no interference by the police. Those living in illegal colonies want them to be ' regularised ' with proper infrastructure, paid for by the taxpayer, while others want free water and cheap electricity. The result has been that auto-rickshaw drivers are refusing to use their meters and are demanding excess fares, power cuts have become common and water rates are going up. Governance comes from the word ' govern ' which is the function of the government. The most basic function of governance can be stated in one word and that is ' security '. Which means securing our borders against our enemies while enforcing law and order inside the country. Trouble is our politicians believe that the law does not apply to them. They do not pay their bills and like to take freebies from wealthy friends. In return for what? The result is that we are ripped off through extortionate taxes, which makes Delhi Airport 230% more expensive than Dubai for Air India, and lose money even from life insurance. Governance is a must. It cannot be dependent on charity.

A bounder and a cad.

We have always known that he is anti-Indian, supplying Pakistan with arms to kill Indians, but now Obama has been exposed as a liar who will use any subterfuge to win an election. US forces collected 10 hard drives, nearly 100 thumb drives and one dozen cellphones during the raid on Bin Laden compound on 2 May 2011. A team from the CIA had a look at the documents and produced over 400 reports, which Obama did not want. So he suppressed all the intelligence material and handed only 17 selected documents which did not prove anything. That is because in 2012 Obama was campaigning on the boast of having destroyed Al Qaeda. The documents clearly show that the Sharif brothers were negotiating with the Taliban, which was close to Al Qaeda, to protect Punjab from militant attacks. Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI was in touch with Al Qaeda, which had threatened " big, earth shaking operations " in Pakistan. One of Bin Laden's senior lieutenants, Yunis al Mauritani was in Iran plotting a wave of attacks across the world. Agents were sent to Libya to take advantage of the confusion after the death of Gaddafi, which was due to bombing by NATO planes. Had the close association between Bin Laden and the ISI been exposed there would have opposition to supplying arms to Pakistan. He employed Pakistan loving, John Kerry as Secretary of State. That brings us to Israel. Obama is despised by Benjamin Netanyahu, who has just won reelection as Prime Minister of Israel, for being soft on Iran's nuclear program. Obama's lectures on peace would have been credible if he did not enjoy killing hundreds of innocent civilians using drones. Israel is right to be concerned about Iran's nuclear program, not only because that will threaten Israel's security but because Sunni Saudi Arabia will not tolerate a Shia Iran with nuclear weapons. Pakistan has committed to supplying nuclear warheads to Saudi Arabia on demand, which could trigger a nuclear war in the middle east. Could we see a joint Israeli-Saudi attack on Iran's nuclear installations? That would be interesting and make Obama the most irrelevant president of the US. He is not trustworthy. Bill Clinton delivered a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2012, which helped Obama win reelection, hoping that Obama would support Hillary Clinton's run for president next year. But Obama, and his wife, have been less than complimentary about Hillary, calling her a ' Hildebeest ' which means ' depraved '. A bounder and a cad. That will be his legacy.

Given the choice would people go to work?

A paper published by the International Monetary Fund has found that participation of women in the labor force is much less in India compared to other nations and suggests that increasing the numbers of working women is key to economic growth. After a meeting with our Finance Minister the Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde said," I was also able to discuss empowerment of women and the fact the woman can be a huge contributor to the Indian economy." Ms Lagarde is an epitome of what a woman may achieve if given the opportunity. The figures are certainly dismal. About 70% of women in Maharashtra are not working compared to only 23% of men. The reasons are many. Large numbers of girls drop out of schools. A survey found that 81.6% of girls between the ages of 6 and 10 years are enrolled in government schools but by the ages of 15-16 years the number had dropped to 11.8%. 78% were enrolled in private schools. It may simply be because of a lack of clean toilets for girls in government schools. A patriarchal society forces women to bear children and then stay at home to look after them. Walking to schools maybe a problem as girls may face harassment on the way. School enrollment in Bihar jumped by 30% when 14 year old girls were provided with money to buy bicycles. The reasons could be economic. The cost of traveling to work and employing nannies to look after children could be far more than what a woman maybe able to earn. Saving on expenses increases her disposable income. That maybe the reason why men outnumber women by 60% in urban areas, where commuting is difficult and salaries are higher, compared to a gap of 45% between men and women in rural areas, where poverty is greater. But what if most women, and also men, do not want to work? The whole debate has been hijacked by feminists who blame men for keeping women chained at home. This creates enormous pressure on women to look for work when she maybe happier at home with her children. Like the pressure on women in the west to be thin is created by other women. We need studies to answer 3 questions: 1. Do men and women like to work? 2. How many people are happy in what they are doing? and 3. Would people be happier working part-time even if that meant less to spend? The CEO of Pepsico, Indra Nooyi, one of the most powerful and rich women in the world, expressed her regret at missing out on spending time with her daughters, sparking off a ferocious debate among women. Even in a developed country like Japan women are choosing to stay at home even though the birth rate is among the lowest in the world. Give them education and opportunities and let women choose. Force is bad.

If only life were so simple.

It happens every month. As inflation figures for the previous month are revealed a concerted howl for interest rate cut goes up from our business fellows. Lower interest rates reduce the cost of borrowing which makes it easier to set up new projects, which create new jobs, leading to greater consumer demand, which demand more new projects, which create even more jobs, in a virtual cycle, leading to faster economic growth, creation of wealth and reduction of poverty. All very simple which even a 2 year old child will understand. Surely, there can be no doubts or debates about something so beneficial. But we know that our business fellows, as business fellows everywhere, have very dubious ethics and so we have to wonder whether their demands for lower interest rates have anything to do with the good of the nation or to fill their own pockets. We should remember the warning issued by Adam Smith way back in 1776. Half the super rich in India like to invest in real estate and a whopping 87% are thinking of buying more in the near future. Real estate is where the really rich hide their black money and borrow the rest from banks which allows them to pay lower taxes on rents by subtracting the interest paid on the borrowed money. The lower the rate the more they can borrow and the more real estate they can buy. No harm, except that banks pay lower interest to savers which reduces the spending capacity of those who depend on their savings for survival, especially the elderly. So lower interest rates result in the transfer of wealth from savers to borrowers. But is inflation really under control? The Wholesale Price Index has fallen 4 months in a row, having fallen by 2.06% in February. It fell by 0.39% in January. Core inflation, which is measured after removing volatile products, such as food and fuel, is also declining. This is supposed to reflect consumer demand so a lower interest rate may stimulate demand by allowing people to buy on credit. People usually buy cars and houses with loans but use cash for everyday shopping. The trouble is that Retail Inflation, which is what we have to pay to survive, went up from 5.2% in January to 5.4% in February. Food inflation was 7.74% in February from 8% in January. It will probably rise further when the weather turns hotter. If oil and commodities are so much cheaper why are costs not declining? And if we are constantly having to pay more for products for daily use we have less to spend. Artificially stimulating demand by lowering interest rates will result in higher retail inflation, a simple truth that the Congress never understood. If the Federal Reserve starts raising interest rates in the US the dollar will get stronger which will translate into higher costs for imports, especially oil. If life was so simple Brazil would not have raised its rates just recently. Perhaps fellows should read the news. 

If not the British, Gandhi is surely an agent of present politicians.

Justice Markandey Katju, retired judge of the Supreme Court, is used to shooting off his mouth on every topic under the sun. This time he has really enraged people by writing that Gandhi was a British agent and that he was responsible for the religious division of India. He is not the only one. Others too have written critically about Gandhi. They say that he studied in Britain and was admitted to the Bar, he was an ardent admirer of the British, he was a racist as his friends in South Africa were all white and he helped the British by his non-violence methods. If he had been instrumental in driving the British out of India why did they not hang him as they did with the others? He was built up as a Mahatma when the British controlled India, so we may conclude that the British had an interest in it. There have been a lot of debate on his sexual practices. His practice of sleeping naked with his grand-nieces, who were minors at the time, has been condemned by feminists. Rightly so. Sex cults are not uncommon in other parts of the world and, for some strange reason many women seem to be attracted to men who build themselves up to be prophets. Others claim that Gandhi had homosexual relations with Herman Kallenbach who was a German-Jewish architect and bodybuilder. In a letter to Kallenbach Gandhi wrote," How completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance." That sounds like suspiciously sexual. We will never know the truth about all these allegations, because all the actors involved are dead, so it is waste of time to speculate about their veracity. What is not in doubt is that Gandhi was a man and not a God, with weaknesses and strengths, like the rest of us. So why has he been built up as a God? As Gandhi is dead he himself has nothing to gain. Therefore, people who have built him up as a God and defend his reputation with fanatic zeal must have something to gain. Since his death Gandhi has become a weapon to be used against the citizens of India. Gujarat is a dry state because Gandhi was from Gujarat. Which means that Gujarat has a thriving bootlegging industry, losing the state government billions in unpaid taxes, and watering holes, such as Goa or Mount Abu, are full of upstanding citizens looking to quench their thirst. Gandhi has been built up as a champion of minorities which means that it is fine to convert Hindus to other religions but ' ghar wapsi ', which means ' returning home ' becomes a crime. Gandhi was for the poor so poverty is probably the biggest business in India, with socialism written into the constitution. However, Gandhi's frugal lifestyle does not apply to our most esteemed politicians who vote very generous compensations for themselves, including free air travel with luscious ' companions '. Time to humanise Gandhi and stop using him against us. 

Surely, someone should pay?

Why is Mr Chidambaram still shooting off his mouth when he chickened out of standing for reelection for the Lok Sabha in 2014, leaving his son, Karti to receive a hammering, coming fourth among 5 candidates and losing his deposit. Wonder if Karti thanked him? Perhaps he is unable to accept that people rejected him on his and the Congress Party's dismal record in office. He has been blaming Mr Pranab Mukherjee for the Congress getting a woeful 44 seats in the Lok Sabha and so that it cannot claim the post of the  Leader of the Opposition. " My government was punished in 2014 elections after we spent more money in 2009 as part of a stimulus package. Due to this, we had to violate fiscal consolidation norms. The inflation went up to 14% and rupee lost its value. Finally, people rejected our government and we lost the elections," said Chidambaram. Is he just being cute or does he have amnesia? He persistently refers to his second stint as Finance Minister between 2012 and 2014, perhaps hoping that we would forget that he was also in charge of the ministry between May 2004 and November 2008, which is when all the damage was done. When he took charge in May 2004 the rate if retail inflation was 2.83% and the dollar was buying around 46 rupees. The real damage was done in 2007, the year before the sub-prime crisis caused a global meltdown, when the rate of retail inflation was around 7% and it was only the strength of the rupee, which reached highs of 39 to the dollar, that was keeping inflation from jumping into double digits, by making imports, especially oil, cheaper. That was when the interest rate should have been raised, to control inflation, and the Reserve Bank should have bought dollars, to cheapen the rupee, which would have supported exports, while building up our foreign exchange reserves to provide support to the rupee in the future. But what is really amazing is that the Prime Minister, who was built up as some genius in economics because of his degrees from Cambridge and Oxford, did nothing to control the damage being done to the nation by the pretenders in his cabinet. He sat around for 10 years while assorted crooks looted trillions of rupees through various scams. With no knowledge in economics we were writing in 2009 that the NREGA scheme, the farmers loan waiver and the Sixth Pay Commission will raise the fiscal deficit and cause inflation so why did Manmohan Singh not see it? And if he did see it but kept quiet then he is even more culpable. Finally, after losing the elections the Congress surreptitiously lifted controls on import of gold, allowing import of 588.1 tonnes of the yellow metal, to increase the Current Account Deficit so that the new government had no room for stimulating growth. Surely someone should be made to pay for such criminal behavior? Yet they keep blabbing. No sharam, no izzat! This blog will return on 16 March. 

Pontificating on what ' may ' happen is silly.

Why are financial predictions by so called experts in India constantly so wildly optimistic. One predicts that our stock market index, the Sensex will reach 50,000 in 3 years. But why stop there? Another predicts that the Sensex will reach 100,000 in 5 years. It is not delirious talk while high on magic mushrooms. Commodity prices are likely to remain soft in the medium term as Europe and Japan remain weak and growth in China slows down. Interest rates in Europe and Japan are likely to remain at 0% which will push investment funds to buy Indian stocks to increase profits. Corporate profits will rise to 25% as the government cuts corporate taxes and simplifies laws to make it easier to run businesses. Spending on infrastructure will increase, which will create jobs, thus increasing consumer spending. Inflation is falling so people will spend more, increasing demand for consumer goods. All very logical, but the Sensex fell by over 2% yesterday. All because the US added 295,000 jobs in February compared to a forecast of 235,000. The unemployment level has dropped from 5.7% in January to 5.5% in February. Economists believe that an unemployment level of 5.5% means full employment but we do not how many jobs were due to seasonal factors and whether it accounts for the long term unemployed who have stopped looking for jobs. However, it was enough to scare the bejesus out of our market. Why? Because it may allow the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates in the US sometime this year. Will it? Liberal economists like Paul Krugman would like interest rates to remain at 0% until the inflation rate is above 2%. They are afraid that a premature increase in interest rate may reverse economic growth like in 1937 when a premature tightening following the Great Depression plunged the economy back into recession. On the other hand Republicans would like interest rates to go up soon because they see high inflation as more damaging to the economy, because high prices reduce demand. Politicians, dependent as they are on industry for campaign finance, are acutely sensitive to what business fellows want. A combination of the improving economy in the US, and quantitative easing in Europe and Japan, resulting in a steep decline in the values of the Yen and the Euro, and the falling Yuan in China means that the dollar is stronger against all major trading partners of the US, which is hurting exports and reducing corporate profits, when money is converted from other currencies into dollars. Foreign investors have bought heavily into Indian bonds because of our high interest rates. As the RBI starts to reduce rates bond prices will rise allowing them to make handsome capital gains as they sell out. The rupee fell to 68.85 to the dollar in August 2013 on fears of tapering of quantitative easing. What happens when FIIs start selling out? It is silly to keep ranting on about what may happen? Unless they are trying to fool us deliberately. To cheat us?

It is not muscle but obedience that makes men strong.

A Prof Melvin Konner has written that all these years men have ruled because of greater muscle power but as technology takes away the need for strength " Research has found that women are superior to men in most ways that will count in future". " The Bible, the Iliad, the great Indian epics - all of them are full of sex and violence," he writes. We beg to differ. We cannot comment on the Bible or the Iliad but women were the cause and the instigators of the wars in both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. In the Ramayana, Ram's step mother, Kaikeyi gets his father to banish him for 14 years so as to make her son, Bharat the king of Ayodhya. Her maid, Manthara eggs her on. Then Ravana's sister, Surpanakha tries to seduce Lakshman who cuts off her nose. Her tearful appeal for revenge to her brother leads him to abduct Sita. Sita forces Ram to go after a golden stag, which was an illusion, by Ravana's agent and when he calls for help in Ram's voice Sita orders Lakshman to go to the aid of his brother, leaving her alone. Before leaving Lakshman creates a secure zone for her, called the Lakshman Rekha, but Sita steps out of it, allowing Ravana to abduct her, leading to war. In the Mahabharata, Satyavathi first deprives Devavrat of his crown and makes him promise to protect her descendants at all costs. Satyavathi orders her bachelor son Ved Vyas to impregnate Amba, Ambika and Ambalika but he was so ugly that Amba closed her eyes so that her son, Dhritarashtra was born blind and was deprived of the crown, which is why he bore a grudge against the Pandavs. Pandu was not the father of any of his 5 sons. Kunti gave birth to Karan before marriage and floated him down a river, to be rescued and brought up by a charioteer. Finally, Draupadi insulted Duryodhan unnecessarily by calling him a blind son of a blind father. Her desire for vengeance was so strong that she was willing to sacrifice thousands of lives, including those of her sons, to attain her goal. She refused to dress her hair until she could wash it with blood from Dusshasan's chest. Feminists accuse men of being responsible for anorexia in women in the west. Are they? About 100 years back upper class women in China used to tie their feet. It was excruciatingly painful and made it impossible for them to walk, but it got them rich husbands because peasants and housemaids had big feet. Today no woman in China binds her feet but men still find them desirable, don't they? The strength of Alexander, Julius Caesar or Spartacus did not lie in their muscles, although Spartacus was a trained gladiator, but in the armies they commanded. Men have ruled the world because other men obeyed their commands, to the death. It is this obedience and loyalty by men that has created the rulers of the world. Will women be willing to lay down their lives for women leaders?

A beginning of the end?

In recent weeks the speculation on China has been all negative. Apparently the Chinese Prime Minister, Li Keqiang confessed at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January that the economy is facing strong headwinds and will " continue to pursue a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy ". And what are the strong headwinds that China faces? Its growth rate dropped to 7.14% last year and is expected to struggle up to 7% this year. But that is likely to be the highest growth in world and, in absolute terms, a growth of 7% in a $10 trillion economy generates far greater wealth than a 10% growth of the $2 trillion economy of India. So why the panic? There are some structural problems. The combined debt of the government, corporate and household borrowings has reached 250% of GDP. Local governments spend 50% of their borrowing to service previous debts and then have to borrow more for growth. There is a glut of real estate and infrastructure projects, built on loans, which are lying idle. Kaisa Group Holdings, a real estate company, defaulted on repayment of $23 million in January. Courts have frozen some of its accounts. In January, the central bank, the People's Bank of China pumped in 50 billion yuan into banks to stimulate growth by increasing lending, and rolled over loans of 269.5 billion yuan which had matured. The PBOC cut one year borrowing rates by 25 basis points to 5.35% and reduced the cash reserve ratio for banks to stimulate lending. The PBOC is having to support the currency, the yuan, by selling dollars. All these years the central bank bought dollars, building up reserves to $4 trillion, to keep the yuan weak, to support exports, but suddenly there is a reversal of flow so that it is having to support the currency. Why? On the one hand it is loosening monetary policy by cutting the borrowing rate and the cash reserve ratio and on the other it is mopping up yuans, which will lead to tighter liquidity. The crackdown on corruption by the President, Xi Jinping has led to a flight of black money out of the country, leading to financial " uncertainty and instability ". Should India be concerned? Vast amounts of foreign money is coming into our stock and debt markets sending share prices higher into record territory while putting downward pressure on bond yields. While brokers are jubilant and are trying to entice retail investors to invest in stocks the Reserve Bank is concerned at this influx of hot money. Rightly so. Some are predicting the beginning of the end of the Chinese Communist Party. We cannot even guess how that will play out. The disintegration of the Soviet Union was relatively smooth because of Mikhail Gobachev but Xi Jinping may not want to lose power. So will China create wars with its neighbors to unite its people? We hope not. But, for us in India, a complete disintegration of China is surely to pray for. Fingers crossed.

Lessons from across the world.

The Bolsa Familia program in Brazil has been an acknowledged success story. It is a direct transfer of money to the very poor, dependent on their children attending school and being taken for health checkups. It reaches 13.8 million families, about 50 million people, which is about 1 in 4 of the population of around 200 million. It has helped to alleviate extreme poverty and improved school attendance and child health. " The Bolsa Familia helps me buy food. Sometimes I can even buy fruit for the children. My children know that when we receive the money, they will have more to eat, and that makes them happier. And they don't skip school, because they know that the money depends on their going," said a mother of 3 children. It was thought that as the economy grew more people would find employment so that they would would be able to give up their benefits. But that has not happened. In 10 years only 12% or 1.7 million people, have given up their benefits. The poor have no real estate so rents take away a portion of their incomes, leaving them dependent on the handouts to survive. Brazil is facing a severe drought that is reducing production of hydro-electricity. The currency, the real has fallen by 12.7% since January. The fall in the value of the real is fueling inflation, which reached 7.36%, hurting the purchasing power of the people. Taxes have gone up to reduce the budget deficit, adding to inflationary pressures. Commodity prices are down, hurting exports. To stop inflation and support the real the interest rate was raised to 12.75%, which is expected to cause a mild recession in the economy. Another country suffering enormous inflation, falling value of its currency and a steep decline in earnings, due to low oil prices, is Venezuela where Hugo Chavez won 3 elections because of his social policies. Mortuaries are full while supermarket shelves are lying empty. In India we experienced very high inflation, high taxes and falling growth due to the social policies of the Congress. Real estate prices are too high for the vast majority of the population so that they pay a large portion of their earnings in rent. Demand is down but house prices are not falling. Low consumer demand is pushing people to buy online which is hitting retailers in shopping malls. Social schemes are seen as a surefire way to win elections and can be milked for cash for personal use. So politicians are always looking for ways to tax the people. They have fought tooth and nail to keep alcohol outside the Goods and Services Tax, which will unite all taxes in India. Meanwhile, in the US jobless rates have fallen to lowest level since 2008 while the dollar is becoming stronger. Are there any lessons to be learnt?

What is the argument about?

A huge storm has broken out over documentary called ' India's Daughter ' by a British woman, Leslie Unwin. Some are of the opinion that the documentary must be seen by everyone as it shows how bestial Indian men are. Others are of the opinion that the documentary is boring and just seeks to shock but does not tell us anything we do not know already. Still others think it was just a waste of time to have seen the movie. The documentary is about a young woman who was gang-raped in a Delhi bus in December 2012 so viciously that she died of her injuries. Women have every right to be outraged about the comments made by the convict and, in fact, the comments by his defence lawyers are even more outrageous but do they think that all men are the same. If men are enraged they will exact horrific revenge as these pictures of an alleged rapist being lynched in Dimapur yesterday will prove. What we need to do is to try and eliminate all emotion, not an easy thing to do, and examine the facts. We know that BBC is a propaganda channel and is generally negative about India, in accordance with the narrative of India being a much better place when we were ruled by the British and ' Indians and dogs ' were not allowed into restaurants. But that is also because we have allowed them to write our history and have not demanded any apology or reparations for the devastation they wreaked on us. India is not alone in assaults on women. Women journalists in Europe regularly face threats of rape and bodily harm, according to a report by the OSCE. Just because it is online does not mean it is not scary or upsetting. California has passed a ' yes-means-yes ' law to prevent sexual assaults on university campuses although how a man can prove assent is not clear. You are hardly going to take a signature on a Rs 100 stamp paper when aroused. Perhaps it should also be made a law in India. The government will make a lot of money and the number of children will fall while the man loses his ardour while trying to find the stamp paper. However, women are not afraid to go out in New York, Paris or London or harassed on streets and in public transport, as they are in Delhi. In all the heat generated by the film people have missed a crucial sentence from the convict. He says," She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they'ed have dropped her off after ' doing her ', and only hit the boy." He is not only threatening the woman but her male companion as well. Shows that he enjoys violence. Why? Is it a rage against society in general or anger against the upper classes because he thinks he deserves more? We do not know. But there is a culture of impunity in India. Think Rathore, Amarmani Tripathi, Manu Sharma and Bitti Mohanty. If they are allowed parole for ridiculous reasons then the punishment is a joke. Maybe that is why he does not understand why he has to hang.

Obama in danger of becoming irrelevant.

The war between Barack Obama, President of the US, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel is out in the open. Seems that both men detest each other intensely, which is dangerous because that may warp their judgement. Netanyahu was invited to speak to the Congress by John Boehner, Speaker of the House without informing the White House, which was deeply insulting to Obama. Obama refused to meet him on his visit and said that Netanyahu offered " nothing new " on Iran and 60 of the 232 Democrats in the House did not attend the speech. Netanyahu wants to destroy Iran's nuclear program, by bombing its centrifuges if need be. Iran has consistently lied about its nuclear ambitions and prolonged negotiations only to gain time. Apparently last year Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli jets if they tried to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. The day after Netanyahu's speech Secretary of State, John Kerry was in Geneva trying to negotiate a deal with Iran. Obama wants Iran to halt its Uranium enrichment for 10 years and a 1 year " breakout period ", which means it would take Iran a minimum of 1 year to construct a nuke if it so wanted. Iran has already rejected Obama's demands as " excessive and illogical " but wants to continue to negotiate. Iran wants to show that it is serious to get some of the sanctions on its economy lifted while continuing to enrich Uranium so that it has a stockpile with which it can make a bomb quickly. Is Obama relying on Iran to stop the Islamic State in Iraq? Even now Iranian forces are helping the Iraqi army in its assault on Saddam's home town of Tikrit. Iranian forces in the south of Iraq, which is Shia, Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Syria and the Hezbollah, a Shia ally of Iran, in Lebanon threatens to encircle Israel. Question is, does Obama care? He, after all, has been using drones to blow up hundreds of people. His term will be over in a couple of years and, if Israel is attacked, he can shrug his shoulders and call it ' collateral damage ' as Americans tend to do when killing innocent civilians. Iran must think that the US is the most hypocritical nation on earth when it refuses to destroy its own weapons and allowed Pakistan, a Sunni country, to become a nuclear power. Meanwhile the Islamic State has destroyed priceless statues, some 3000 years old. Militants destroyed centuries old treasures in Timbuktu while the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas. What kind of god is afraid of statues? But then who was responsible for the destruction of the museum in Baghdad? The US, of course. 

A dragon can fly. Can an elephant?

When looking at the map of India every time you look up you see China, this enormous dragon to the north, looking down at us from the heights of Tibet. And when you see China all you can think of is the phenomenal economic growth in the last few decades unleashed by Deng Xiaoping, when he adopted an aggressive form of capitalism in 1978 by disguising it as " Socialism With Chinese Characteristics ", in accordance with his perceived wisdom about colorblind cats catching mice. Comparison with China has so mesmerised our politicians that all they can think of is the rate of growth of the economy and engage in verbal duels about rates of 0.001% up or down. The Congress ' big bang reforms ' consisted of vast numbers of social schemes, in the belief that increasing the buying power of the poor will stimulate growth by increasing demand, which will increase production, investment and numbers of jobs. Unfortunately, all that did was to increase inflation, fiscal deficit and taxes to fill big holes in revenue collection. The present government has targeted infrastructure to lay the foundation of long term growth but the demands are huge. We need to increase job creation by 700% every year for the next 10 years, increase building of highways by 300% everyday, increase wheat productivity by 141% and rise by 84% in the list of the ease of doing business where India is languishing at number 142 at present. Come 2019 we will be lagging China by some margin even if our rate of growth becomes faster than that of China. GDP at current prices will be $15.5 trillion for China compared to $3.18 for India, per capita income will be $11,070 for China compared to $2,366 for India, national savings will be 48.8% of GDP for China compared to 30.58% for India, investment will be 45.84% of GDP for China compared to 33.13% for India and current account balance will be +2.95% of GDP for China compared to -2.55% for India. India will be ahead only in the rate of retail inflation at 6% compared to 3% for China. China's success was built on its ability to use its vast population to become the factory of the world with cheap labor but our laws are so restrictive and taxes so high that our population, of similar size, has 400 million people below the poverty line. When compared to countries with about the same level of GDP we can see how the excess population makes us so poor. We have 1.25 billion people with a GDP of $2 trillion giving us a per capita income of $1625 per year. Brazil's GDP is $2.24 trillion with a population of 202 million giving it a per capita income of $11,067, Russia - GDP $2.057 trillion, population 143 million, per capita income of $14,316 and Italy - GDP $2.129 trillion, population 60 million, per capita income of $35,511. The more you divide the less the amount. Class 2 maths, really.