Should we wish ill for an enemy?

Although the fat lady is yet to sing the Greece story is probably over. Greece defaulted on its repayment to the IMF last night. Strangely, while brutally insisting on total capitulation by Greece the International Mendacious Fund had no difficulty in finding $17.5 billion for a fascist government in Ukraine only a couple of months ago. The half government of Petro Poroshenko represents only the western, Ukrainian speaking part of the country as Russian speaking people in the east could not vote in parliamentary elections last year. The IMF has not made demands for stringent restructuring on the highly corrupt government, as it did on Greece, so the money will go down the drain. Puerto Rico is going to default on $72 billion debt and Venezuela is only a matter of time. These are tiny economies which will cause a few ripples but no big waves. But what about China? This is the second largest economy of the world and its fall will result in the mother of all economic tsunamis. Can it happen? We certainly hope so. It is an untrustworthy, hegemonic, aggressive, extremely nasty nation, sitting on top of India, developing new technologies for delivering nuclear weapons. China's stock market has entered a bear phase, having fallen 20% from its peak in June. The central bank cut lending rate by 25 basis points to 4.85%, the fourth this year. Even ordinary people were buying shares with borrowed money, called margin trading, which means that people could lose a lot of money if the bear market is prolonged. Everything depends on how the economy does. But China is a mystery. Because no other country is described the way it is. Thus, a growth rate of 7%, which would be considered exorbitant for the US, Japan or any European economy is considered a slowdown for China. Why? Admittedly it was growing at 10% plus for over a decade but surely no nation can keep on growing forever at such a scorching pace? Analysts seem unsure about how much debt there is in China and whether it will cause problems in the future. The subprime crisis in the US involved a mere $600 billion but nearly caused a depression in the world. China has over $4 trillion in reserves but the US can print as many dollars as it likes, and that is what it did with its quantitative easing programs. China has an enormous shadow banking system, a bubble in the real estate sector and another one in stocks. The government is trying to boost growth by increasing liquidity but when will credit growth become too big not to fail. If China goes into a recession, or worse, it may cause a global slowdown but a collapse of this predatory regime with a break up of the country into smaller parts is fervently to be wished for. At least the fall in commodity prices would be good for India.

Will care of elderly save our girls?

A 13 week old aborted female fetus was found buried in Delhi. According to the police the parents have confessed that they already have a daughter and wanted a son. Abortion is not banned in India but gender determination using ultrasound is. But what if a woman has an abortion without ultrasound, because she already has 3 children and cannot afford any more, and the fetus turns out to be female? How will she prove that she did not undergo an ultrasound? Girls are regularly aborted, killed or abandoned in India. But why? The glib answer is that you need to pay a dowry when they get married. Dowry has been banned since 1961 so just refuse to pay and if the girl remains unmarried so be it. Educate all girls so that they can earn their own living and are independent. Are people afraid of the safety of their daughters, with so much violence against women in India? We see politicians regularly getting into trouble because of their sons. Rajasthan Chief Minister's son is being accused of having business links with Lalit Modi. The excesses of the Emergency were committed by Sanjay Gandhi but his mother never tried to stop him. Indira Gandhi would not be so unpopular if not for her blind love for her son. The Congress is preparing for Mr Rahul Gandhi to take over from his mother even if he has not succeeded in winning even one election till now. After the rout in the general election last year Congress workers were demanding that his sister, Priyanka should replace him. The President's son showed how incredibly insensitive he is by describing women as " highly dented and painted " after a woman was brutally raped and murdered in a bus in Delhi. Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee may be unmarried but her nephew, Abhishek can be an immense embarrassment when he threatens to gouge out the eyes of opponents. The son of the former Finance Minister, Karti Chidambaram lost his deposit in his father's constituency of Sivaganga which would presumably have been acutely embarrassing. There was huge controversy when 4 journalists were sentenced to prison by Delhi High Court for writing that sons of former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, YK Sabharwal were beneficiaries of his judgement, sealing high street shops in Delhi. DP Yadav has followed his son Vikas to life in prison, thereby proving the old axiom: like father like son. It really is a mystery why people have such preference for sons. It maybe that in Indian society daughters leave the family home after marriage whereas sons are supposed to look after aging parents. Perhaps a universal pension scheme, homes for old people and better health care for the aged will stop our girls getting killed. Laws do not seem to have worked so far anyway.

History repeats itself. Because blockheads won't learn.

A bomb in a mosque in Kuwait killed 27, at least 38, of which 30 were British, were killed on a beach in Tunisia by a gunman and a man was beheaded at a factory in France, followed by an explosion. The head of the dead man had Islamic writing on it. The Islamic State, or ISIS, claimed responsibility for all 3 attacks. David Cameron came out with the usual tripe about " unity " and " values " but is too craven to admit that he is directly responsible for the deaths of his people, by removing Gaddafi of Libya by lying to the UN Security Council to obtain a resolution to protect civilians. George Bush is responsible for the rise of ISIS by removing Saddam Hussein, also by lying about WMDs in Iraq. World War I started after Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed exactly 101 years ago. As a result of one man's death 7 million civilians died. Germany lost the war. In 1921 the allies imposed a penalty of $31.4 billion, equivalent to $442 billion today, for war reparations, on Germany at the Treaty of Versailles. This led to hyperinflation in Germany, which led to the rise of one Adolf Hitler and the rest, as they say, is history. All the present politicians strutting about the world stage know all this in great detail but do not learn. They think that the world has changed because there are institutions, such as the UN, the European Union and the IMF, which will prevent such events from occurring again. Will they? We have seen how ineffectual the UN is, now the European Union will deliberately push Greece out of the Euro for not being able to repay 1.6 billion Euros to the IMF tomorrow, after inflicting extreme deprivations on the people of Greece for over 5 years, in the name of austerity. EU politicians want to make an example of Greece for having dared to elect the left wing Syriza Party. in defiance of their wishes, as a warning to other nations in the Eurozone. Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras has announced a referendum on 5 July, so that he will not be blamed for the almighty mess that will ensue shortly. Terrified of the coming catastrophe people have been queueing up at banks to withdraw their precious Euros before they are converted to worthless drachmas. The government has shut all banks for this week, till the referendum, and limited the withdrawals from ATM machines, in a sign that it is not going to meet tomorrow's deadline. Yet all this was probably unnecessary. All it needed was goodwill and wisdom, to recognise that without growth Greece was never going to be able to meet its debt, and inflicting pain without reward amounts to torture. Of course, Greece is not Germany and is not a military threat. But there is nothing more dangerous than people who have nothing to lose. History repeats itself because no one ever learns.

Why do they dream of luxury? Why not be happy with bones?

According to research in the US the savings rate and consumption in the economy depends on the richest 10% of the population. In early 1980s the share of income of the top 10% was between 30-35% and the savings rate in the US was 11-12% of disposable income but by 2005 the earnings of the top 10% had increased to 45% and the savings rate had fallen to 2% of disposable income. That is because the wealth of the rich was rising faster than their savings so their consumption increased because of the wealth effect. These pictures on instagram, showing children of the rich enjoying summer vacations show their consumption pattern. From 1993-2013 the real income of the rich increased by $2.5 trillion compared to $1.7 trillion for the middle class while, over the same period, the real wealth of the rich increased to $30.7 trillion, triple that of the middle class at $9.8 trillion. " Much of the slowdown in consumption between 2006 and 2009 was the result of a drop in consumption by the rich," said the study." And the rich also played a key role in subsequent recovery as the rebound in their wealth encouraged a revival of consumption ( though a weak one, because income growth and wealth-income ratios remained below precrisis level )." A lot of the wealth of the rich comes from asset prices which may explain why the Federal Reserve is so hesitant to raise interest rate, so as to protect the buoyant stock market. How does all this relate to us in India? Just 928 households possess 20% of total wealth of the country. It follows that consumption by the rich is responsible for the growth of the economy while consumption among the vast majority is falling. It also explains why politicians keep on whining about lowering interest rate. They say it will increase investment by lowering borrowing costs but the real reason is to protect share and real estate prices, thereby protecting the wealth of the rich. Raghuram Rajan has warned that reducing interest rate alone will not work because other countries are doing the same so consumer demand has to increase. In the warped reasoning of politicians, since consumption is mainly dependent on the rich it is alright to keep on increasing taxes as the Delhi government did this week when it published its budget. Why can they not understand that the poor cannot fly off to the Alps in summer, as the rich and politicians do, but they also need entertainment, because they are human? So increasing taxes on TV providers, movies and gyms hurt them more. High taxes are preventing foreign airlines from investing in India so fewer jobs. Huge taxes on alcohol leads to huge corruption and the poor die, as 100 did in Mumbai recently. How to make politicians understand that the poor are not content with a few coins thrown at them. They want the same life as that of politicians.

Politicians think that their homes are their houses.

Recently President Obama told a heckler," Listen you're in my house......it's not respectful." Obama has a law degree from Harvard no less, while we are ordinary people, but we beg to differ. It is not your house. The White House, as it is known, belongs to the nation. It is your home. Temporarily, until a new tenant moves in, in 2017. Politicians in India are well known to try to hang on to bungalows they were allotted while in office. Obama is definitely a ' suit boot ki sarkar ' while our politicians weep copiously for the poor, provided they cadge as many privileges as they can, on taxpayer money. Why is this relevant? Because same type of politicians have same type of policies, resulting in the world going downhill at an alarming rate. First, Bush and Blair got rid of Saddam, releasing the forces of ISIS. Then, Obama and Cameron got rid of Gaddafi, resulting in a flood of refugees into Europe and the deaths of so many European tourists in Tunisia yesterday. But this is nothing. If the global economy goes into a 1930s type of depression, as Reserve Bank Governor, Raghuram Rajan, warned in a speech, then a bloodbath could follow, just as World War II followed the Great Depression. He was referring to competitive devaluation of currencies by rich countries, started with quantitative easing by the US Federal Reserve and followed by central banks in Japan and Europe. This was apparently what countries did 100 years back which resulted in the Depression. " In the 1930s, one country after another pushed down its exchange rate in a desperate effort to export its way out of depression. But each country's depreciation only aggravated the problems....Eventually even countries that valued currency stability were forced to respond in kind," said Prof Barry Eichengreen. The Swiss economy is on the brink of recession as the franc is becoming stronger, harming exports, despite having negative deposit rate. Rajan's problem is that he wants to lower interest rate significantly, to stimulate growth in the economy, but is being restricted by high retail inflation. Partly this is a result of having to sterilise excess foreign exchange coming into our stock market, thus increasing liquidity, and partly because of the enormous spending on social schemes by the previous Congress government, fueling double digit inflation. He has lowered the repo rate by 75 basis points but public sector banks are reluctant to lend unless they can reduce their mountain of bad loans. " The question is, are we now....trying to produce growth out of nowhere or we are in fact shifting growth from each other, rather than creating growth," asked Rajan. Good question. Central banks have to respond to policies and poor politicians lead to poor policies. Same to same, as we say in India.

Same diagnosis, different remedy.

Ever since Prof Thomas Piketty published his book, ' Capital in the Twenty-First Century ' there has been an outpouring of articles about inherited wealth and inequality. Now a professor in Delhi has written that inequality reduces growth of the economy, based on a report by the IMF. " ... the report shows that an increase in the income share of the poor and middle classes by 1 percentage point raises growth by 0.38% percentage points in a country over five years. On the other hand, an increase in the income share of the rich by 1 percentage point reduces growth by 0.08 percentage points," he quotes. Then he writes,"....countries with high income inequality, such as the US, Brazil and China, had lower economic mobility compared with low inequality countries such as Denmark, Norway and Finland." But then China has been growing at over 10% for over a decade, pulling a staggering 680 million people out of poverty and the US economy is growing faster than Europe, where there is far greater social support. Brazil adopted a different system of social handouts, called Bolsa Familia which gave cash directly to poor women if their children went to school and had regular health checks. This stimulated the economy by reducing poverty and increasing demand but may have produced a culture of dependence. As long as the Chinese economy was racing ahead, creating a boom in commodity prices, Brazil was growing but as China began to slow down Brazil has gone into recession with high inflation and interest rate of 13.5%. So it was the unequal growth of China that was underpinning the the equal growth of Brazil. In Scandinavian countries high taxes subsidise education, healthcare and pensions for everybody, including the rich. It is possible because they have small homogeneous populations. A study has shown that countries with with few languages are richer, with more social networking, resulting in less corruption. The importance of social mobility is not in doubt but there is heated debate about how to achieve it. Conservatives believe that increasing productivity and employment enriches people while social welfare hurts the poor by creating a culture of dependence. Socialists believe that redistribution is the key to reducing poverty. We Indians have been brainwashed by our politicians and our movies to be suspicious of the rich. But perhaps we should stop to think why Indians are doing so well in the US. Last year Indians working abroad sent back $70 billion. Imagine how much wealth they could have created here if the government was helpful. After the plague epidemic in Britain real wages shot up by 250% between 1300 and 1450 because fewer people increased wages of labor. Perhaps it would prudent to reduce population than depend on mother nature. After all, death is the greatest equality.

Why are we so different from others?

One week back 9 black people were killed in a church in South Carolina in the US by a white young man, called Dylann Roof. Even 150 years after losing the civil war South Carolina has still not reconciled itself to the loss of slavery and flies the Confederate Flag in front of the state capitol to this day. Even after the shooting 8 lawmakers supported the flag as part of their history. They cannot see that it is precisely because of the their history of slavery, that this flag represents, it must be consigned to a dustbin. Although Barack Obama is half black the Republicans have not accepted his election as president and have opposed every measure he has proposed. Whites in the south of the US vote 85-90% for the Republicans. They will not expand Medicaid, funded by Washington, because blacks will benefit. But then 93% of African Americans voted for Obama in 2012. Is that racism or is it just a manifestation of black pride after centuries of oppression? Is it only whites that select friends based on color while blacks are color blind? Apparently not as these photographs of young British football players show. Black players eat at a separate table, exercise together and congregate together in the swimming pool. They were probably all born in Britain, all speak in similar accents and went to mixed schools in arguably the most politically correct country in the world. Perhaps it is instinctive, in that we find comfort in those who look like us. After all the first faces we see after birth are those of our families and maybe that memory stays with us for the rest of our lives. Or are their genetic differences among groups of humans that make us different animals? While whites mourn the abolition of slavery and blacks are asserting their freedom how do we explain highly educated Indians voluntarily seeking their own subjugation by supporting the imposition of the Emergency by Indira Gandhi 40 years ago? Siddhartha Shankar Ray was a barrister and grandson of a freedom fighter. Yet he was the main instigator of the Emergency, in complete violation of the constitution. But the violation of the constitution did not end in 1977. Seems that Ms Sonia Gandhi approved of the Emergency. Between 2004 and 2014 Ms Sonia Gandhi ruled India without any accountability by appointing a Prime Minister, not elected by the people, and on the advice of a bunch of leftist imbeciles, who made up the National Advisory Council, also not elected. The Congress will do anything to keep this family in power. Is their something in our genes that makes us so meek that we allowed Muslim invaders to rule us for centuries, followed by the British, and have repeatedly returned all the gains made by the sacrifice of our soldiers against Pakistan? Perhaps races are different even if it seems unpalatable.

Bonds of trust are better than gold bonds?

Perhaps the biggest hurdle to the Indian economy is a lack of trust between the government and the people. Our politicians, civil servants and police inherited an adversarial system from the British which has given them powers of an invader and made us feel helpless. Naturally they do not want to give up their feudal privileges while the people do everything to bypass the system, thereby subverting it. One such behavior is the love of gold which baffles economists and frustrates politicians. Most of it is in the form of jewellery, which includes wasteful labor costs, lies in bank lockers, making it totally unproductive, and is a waste of foreign exchange, because India does not produce gold. Indians hoard more than 20,000 tonnes of gold costing $1.16 trillion, half our GDP. If this money could be brought into the economy it would pay for all our infrastructure projects and growth would rocket. To entice people to give up their gold the government wants to issue gold bonds which will pay interest and can be redeemed at any time at market cost. There could even be a trading market for them. But will people give up their gold reserves? Apparently Indians have an emotional attachment with the metal, so may invest in the bonds but may refuse to give up their previous buys. Maybe people are not so irrational as these clever people think. Maybe they do not trust politicians not to change the rules in the future, real interest rates to become negative again, as they did under the Congress regime, or the rupee to plunge. There are only 2 ways of hedging against loss of wealth, real estate and gold. Real estate cannot be bought in small quantities, entails huge taxes, cannot be smuggled in to meet demand and cannot be hidden in lockers. Gold is perfect and jewellery can be claimed as family heirloom. It is not just the government, 80% of people think business fellows are crooks and so do not invest in the stock market. Risky investments, meaning in stocks, fell from a high of 10.7% in 1996 to 3.8% in 2014. We are being constantly advised that investing in shares gives the highest returns over a period of years. Does it? They trick us by highlighting the indices, namely the Sensex and the Nifty. What they do not tell us is that the constituents of the indices keep changing, the loss making companies being replaced by those which are profitable. From January 2008 till now, shares in over 300 firms have lost 90% of their value while the Sensex has risen by 32.85% in the same period because 469 stocks have doubled in value. Koutons has dropped from Rs 1000 to Rs 2.45. Imagine the losses to shareholders. According to one analyst bonds have given better returns since 1991. The share market is too complicated for stupid retail investors, so invest in mutual funds, we are told. Alliance Capital Mutual Fund, a subsidiary of Alliance Capital of the US, has disappeared. The only solution is to increase trust of the people by promising not to trick them, but then who knows which party will win elections in 2019. And therein lies the nub.

Hands off our money.

The government extorts money from us by force in everything we buy or sell in the form of taxes. We spend years of hard labor studying for higher degrees, our parents suffer massive anxiety in trying to get us into good schools and colleges and spend a fortune on fees. When we start work we are at the lowest rung which means very hard work for meager wages. Without realising we start paying tax from the very first day at work, long before receiving our first paycheck. We pay tax on petrol as we travel to work, we pay tax on the lunch that we eat outside and we pay tax on the internet service that is essential for work today. There is great delight when the first paycheck arrives but even before it reaches us the government has sucked its share of blood in the form of TDS, or Tax Deduction at Source. There is a tax of Rs 16.44 on 45 tablets of R Cinex 600, which is used through the entire period of treating TB and TB is much commoner in the poor. Not content with such extortion the government is thinking of taking our money from us altogether. They want all transactions to be ' cashless ' or by electronic transfer. It proposes to do away with service charges but not service tax on cards. It will get rid of convenience charges, whatever that is, but what about yearly bank charges for issuing cards. It proposes tiny reductions in Value Added Taxes if cards are used. But why are politicians so keen on doing away with cash? It is not because the government loses money in printing notes, as they claim. They make money from cash through ' seigniorage '. The US makes $20 billion a year so India makes less, but they do not lose. They claim that if there is no cash there will be no counterfeit and drug smuggling will become impossible. Perhaps, but we will lose our privacy completely, which means that they will be totally in control of our lives, which is unacceptable. Just as high taxes on alcohol regularly cause deaths because the poor look for cheaper alternatives, as in Mumbai, it will be a disaster for the illiterate. All of us have filled out withdrawal forms at banks for illiterate people wishing to withdraw money, but they have control because they can count the cash they receive and they recognise notes by color and size. They will need help from others to use cards which means their passwords will become common knowledge. If money is transferred to a wrong account it is impossible to get it back. When you applied on forms for passports you paid Rs 200 to a fellow to fill it out, stand in a queue and deposit it for you. Now you need to pay Rs 1500 to a fellow to get an appointment at the passport office. We, old people, find computers incomprehensible anyway and ever since Mr Amitabh Bachchan called it computerji it has taken on divine qualities, vastly increasing costs. Be satisfied with extorting taxes, do not plunder all our wealth. Keep your hands off our cash.

We are Indians. We know what it means.

Yesterday was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. People in colder countries celebrated the onset of summer. For us in India it is the worst day of the year as the long day heats up the earth, roads and buildings, making the heat unbearable. Which makes today the best day of the year because from today the days will get shorter and we can look forward to winter. In a couple of weeks we can expect the monsoon to arrive in Delhi when roads will flood because the municipality has not cleaned the drains. Ever since it was elected with overwhelming majority the Aam Aadmi Party has been engaged in a vicious guerilla war with the central government, without any reason, and has refused to release money to the municipalities which are controlled by the BJP. Sanitary workers went on strike for not being paid and garbage has piled up on streets. It is criminal to play games with taxpayer money, making people suffer, for mean political pleasure. Just punishment for voting for AAP and not seeing that it is a fifth column for the Congress. The roads will develop big potholes which will cause accidents, especially for 2-wheelers, because they cannot be seen under water. There will be huge traffic jams. Delhi police will be conspicuous by their absence, busily guarding the useless politicians who are responsible for the mess. The rains will clear by October when the festival season will start. Navaratra, which means 9 nights, will start on 13 October, Durga Puja starts on 19 October and Diwali is on 11 November. This will be a time of meeting friends and relatives, exchanging gifts and an auspicious time to buy new goods, such as utensils, clothes and cars. Markets will be keenly watching sale of consumer goods because this is when companies make maximum profits. Consumer confidence will be key. A good monsoon will boost rural income, by increasing crops, and will encourage spending in urban areas by suppressing food inflation. It will start getting cold after Diwali when t shirts and shorts will be put away and woollens and shawls will appear. A cold winter with heavy snowfall on the Himalayan mountains is essential to replenish glaciers so that snow melt can keep our rivers flowing in the summer that will follow. Chill winds from the snow will cause enormous suffering for the homeless and may even be lethal. Fog will bring flights to a halt. Smoke from burning wood and leaves by poor people, to stay warm, will get trapped in the fog and cause terrific pollution. Those with respiratory illness, such as asthma, will end up in hospital where they will be fleeced of tens of thousands of rupees. December 21 will be the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and the cycle will repeat itself. Even with so many problems children will dream of a wonderful future, people will plan holidays and friends will laugh together. As Indians have done for thousands of years. 

Fact: Russia has been a friend and the US wanted to nuke India.

A man with a Russian sounding name, writing for Bloomberg of the US, has written a venomous article against President Putin of Russia, accusing him of paranoid delusions regarding a western conspiracy against Russia. No surprise there. We regularly see brown skin Uncle Toms pouring venom on India. " Putin and his people are now far outside the realm of the conventional. They see themselves as warriors of light in a world suffocated by a Western conspiracy. To them, there is far more at stake than just the regime's survival. That's what makes them dangerous," he rants. Conspiracy theory is an easy taunt but why did the west generate the crisis in Ukraine unnecessarily, when they instigated an armed coup against an elected president causing him to flee for his life? Now suddenly the Germans have discovered a man with inside knowledge about who shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine last year. MH17 was flying at 33,000 feet. A satellite map shows 15,000 flights over the world, with hundreds flying over India. We cannot see or hear them at such heights. The rebels could not possibly have tracked MH17 but the air traffic control at Dnipro certainly did. It is therefore much more likely to have been shot down by the government. Have they already forgotten ' Curveball ' whose lies about WMDs in Iraq precipitated George W Bush's invasion of Iraq, resulting in the deaths of 200,000 people and the rise of ISIS? Gaddafi was killed by the British who deliberately lied about protecting civilians in Libya to the UN Security Council, resulting in the deaths of 30,000 civilians that they were supposed to be protecting. Libya is in a mess with thousands of migrants flooding into Europe. A former hitman for the mafia claims that he killed John Kennedy. All Putin conspiracies? US stooges abusing Putin is not new, but what is really amazing is that all the lies are repeated by the Indian press without any challenge. Russia has been a constant friend of India while the US has always helped our enemies. Russia has used its veto power at the UN Security Council repeatedly to protect India. It stopped the US forcing India to give Goa back to the Portugese and to stop support of Pakistan in the 1971 war. President Nixon threatened nuclear strikes against India. Even today the US is supplying Pakistan with advanced weapons systems to be used against India while issuing stupid reports about its support of terrorism. The Indian government is worried about British help in getting Pakistan's ISI to infiltrate into Afghanistan. The US and Britain are behind all that is bad in the world today. That is a fact. Not a conspiracy theory.

If we get rich we would not worry about the Fed.

In its last meeting the Federal Reserve in the US resolved to go slow in raising US interest rates as the recovery is still seen as fragile. The IMF has already advised the Fed to postpone any rate rises till next year because of weaker than expected growth in the US economy and the massive volatility in asset prices, stocks, commodities and currencies, it may cause. Fund managers are trying to work out who will win and who will lose when the Fed does raise interest rate. Sure losers are corporate borrowers, who will have to find more money as the dollar becomes stronger, and emerging markets, which might see a fall in currencies as funds transfer money back to the US. Reserve Bank Governor, Raghuram Rajan has been blunt in his criticism of the ultra-lose policies of the central banks of rich countries, forcing previous Chair of the Fed, Ben Bernanke to defend his actions. We do not care what the Fed does except in so far that it affects us. Two years back the rupee collapsed to 69 to the dollar when Bernanke talked about tapering quantitative easing in the US, in what became known as the ' taper tantrum '. Today the situation is much improved. The RBI has built up foreign exchange reserves to over $350 billion, the fiscal deficit was down to 4% last year and the current account deficit is down to 0.2% of GDP in the first quarter. The trouble is that the Congress allowed companies to borrow overseas because massive government borrowing to finance the fiscal deficit left little for the private sector. Precisely the opposite of what the US did, when it took over AIG, and what the British government did when it took over the RBS. Many of these Indian companies have not bothered to hedge their loans and will find it difficult to repay if the dollar were to rise further against the rupee. A default by a large company could lead to loss of confidence and a sell out by foreign investors. If the RBI lowers interest rate substantially it would allow banks to restructure loans at lower rates and give the companies some breathing room. But if interest rate is lowered what happens to the rupee? The rupee has fallen by 1.6% against the dollar this year but other emerging markets have fallen even more. The Indonesian rupiah has fallen by 7%. The strength of the rupee depends on a lot of factors. Apart from the Fed we have to worry about the monsoon, the international price of oil and what our politicians do, especially on taxes. Apparently, money held in Swiss banks by Indians fell by 10% last year. Rs 126 billion seems too little. There must be more, but where? If interest rate and the rupee fall further it would make sense to save invest in the US and in Europe. How will they tax properties there? Not much point assuring foreigners on taxes, assure your own citizens. Foreigners will invest for profits, not if we are kept poor by taxes.

Magna Carta: as seen by brown sahibs and firangis.

Britain is celebrating 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, which means the ' Great Charter ' in Latin. No harm in that. Now that the Empire is gone, and with it the massive plunder of wealth from colonies, such celebrations bring in tourist and much needed cash. But how important a document was it? That depends on who you read, the brown sahibs are effusive in their praise about how it was basis of liberty and human rights while the firangis are much more tempered in their analysis. " The fame of the charter lies in its extraordinary provisions whose moral strength is familiar to the present world," writes one. And again," The Magna Carta is an early reminder of the crucial difference between freedom and liberty. Liberty is freedom that is unique to humans, it is guaranteed by law." Another sees Nelson Mandela as great because he was inspired by the Magna Carta and the present South African President, Jacob Zuma as a small man for allowing the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to leave the country even though there is a warrant for his arrest from the International Criminal Court. He sees nothing wrong in the racist court pursuing only Africans and leaders of former Yugoslavia, while mass murderers, Tony Blair and David Cameron, enjoy complete freedom. " Civilization began with equality," he says with complete certainty. Really? Humans have been killing each other before history began. " Magna Carta in 1215 was never a blueprint for human rights," said Julian Harrison, a curator at the British Library while Graham Smith, senior Lecturer in History, said," I think it's being misused." The concept of habeas corpus was present before the treaty was signed and King John repudiated it almost immediately after. The charter was " a declaration of economic rights " according to a lecture. The barons were trying to restore their feudal rights which the king had violated by imposing very high taxes. What we still face in India today, but instead of one king, we have hordes of politicians, civil servants and business fellows sucking away our vitality as a nation. The feudal system was based on possession of land and the barons wanted to protect their heirs from any interference by the king in inheriting their properties. In India today the super rich invest 50% of their wealth on real estate and are planning to buy more. In the feudal system the king was seen as corrupt, today corruption is more widespread as banks game the system, companies hide their wealth overseas to avoid taxes and organised crime operates in the shadows of the internet. Finally, a professor writes that the fame of the Magna Carta is based on myths. Apparently Oliver Cromwell called it Magna Farta. Wonderful to know that a Puritan used such a word in the 17th century. That is true liberty indeed.

Economy climbing a greasy pole?

All of us remember the math problem in school wherein a monkey managed to climb 3 feet up a greasy pole only to slip back 2 feet. Our economy seems to be doing the same. Wholesale prices have fallen by 2.36% in May after falling by 2.65% in April, which makes it seven straight months of fall. That statement is misleading because the WPI rate is a comparison with the same month last year and not with the previous month. Which means that prices are not falling continuously for 7 months but have been lower compared to last year. This could be because prices were very high last year and have cooled because of the fall in commodity prices. On the other hand, Consumer Prices rose by 5.1% in May compared to 4.87% in April. This is hard to understand. If prices of raw materials and fuel are lower compared to last year why are consumer prices still rising? Is it because greedy business fellows are making excessive profits by gouging customers or is it because this government has raised taxes, even higher than the Congress did, despite talking about being consumer friendly? Industrial production increased by 4.1% in April after falling to 2.5% in Arpil. General Electric has built a multi-modal industrial plant near Pune in Maharashtra at a cost of Rs 10 billion. Phase 2 will be ready in another 2 years. Unlike old production lines, which used to be dedicated to only one product, this plant can change products depending on demand. India needs huge improvements in roads, railways, electricity production, ports and airways. If GE can produce heavy machinery, such as locomotive engines and cranes, in India the costs will be lower, saving money for the government, as well as creating decent jobs. On the other hand, Nestle has to destroy 27,000 tonnes of Maggi noodles because of excess amounts of monosodium glutamate and lead at a cost of over Rs 3 billion. It needs 10,000 trucks and 6 cement plants to destroy such huge amounts. Contract workers will be sitting idle while Nestle sorts out its production problems. We hope cement fellows do not adulterate cement with noodle powder. That could cause a disaster in an earthquake. The Current Account Deficit has fallen to 0.2% of GDP after rising to 4.8% of GDP in 2012-13. This is probably due to the fall in the price of oil. But oil prices are rising. Petrol price has been raise by 64 paise while diesel price has been reduced by Rs 1.35. Why? If both come from crude then prices of both should rise. Apparently, international price of diesel has fallen. But we do not buy diesel, we buy crude and the world's largest refinery is at Jamnagar. Diesel is slightly more expensive than petrol in the US and Europe. We hope that the government is not trying to control retail inflation by lowering transport costs. So, is the economy poised for vigorous growth in the coming months or is its weakness being camouflaged by low commodity prices? Perhaps a neutral person will explain.

Indians are suspicious of good news.

Just 928 households out of a total of 263 million households hold 20% of the total wealth of the nation, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group. These 928 possess wealth over $100 million each and are known as ultra-high net worth households. Households with wealth over $1 million, Rs 64 million at today's exchange rate, hold 36% of total wealth. Their number has risen from 33% in 2009 to 36% in 2014 and is projected to rise to 38% by 2019. This when the average household income was Rs 157,683, which is $2895, in 2012-13, while per capita income was Rs 33,107, only $608. How could the number of millionaires be rising from 2009-2014 when the Congress was in power, with its socialist policies of redistribution, financed by very high taxes? Probably because a succession of scams generated trillions of rupees in black money which, with very low interest rates, led to rocketing property prices. At 928 India has more ultra-high net worth households than Germany with 679. Is that a bad thing? Not if the money was earned through productive investment, creating jobs, and not through corruption, asset price bubbles and illicit control of national resources, as in the 2G scam and the coal mines scam. Ultra rich individuals in India invest more than 50% of their wealth in real estate, which is the highest ratio in the world, and a whopping 87% are thinking of buying more properties this year. But danger is lurking for the real estate market.  The BJP government in Mumbai increased Ready Reckoner rates by 15 to 40% and the AAP government in Delhi is in the process of increasing Circle Rates by 100 to 150% in Delhi. If the circle rates were higher than market rates in certain parts of the country last year what these moves are going to do maybe imagined. The real estate sector is in for a crash as demand freezes completely. That will really hurt as black money, earned through risky corruption, disappears to a large extent. Hence the anguished howl for a lower interest rate. Studies show that high interest rates encourage household savings and low interest rates encourage greater spending and purchase of physical assets, such as real estate and gold. Savings in physical assets comprises more than 60% of total household savings and the higher it is the lower the growth in GDP. In Financial Year 2010 financial savings constituted 15.3% of GDP, falling to 10.3% by FY 2014, when retail inflation was over 10% due to the profligate policies of the Congress. Investment in risky assets, such as shares, has fallen from a high of 10.7% in FY 1996 to just 3.8% in FY 2014. Gold imports have jumped by 10.47% to $2.42 billion in May. Why are people buying gold with falling inflation and high real interest rates? Perhaps they do not believe in the good news.

A concentration camp called Greece.

The negotiations between Greece and its creditors, consisting of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF, have broken down once again. The troika wants Greece to cut expenses, by cutting pensions, so that it can generate a budget surplus to pay off its debts. The present left wing government was elected to negotiate an easing of austerity, if not an end, to ease the suffering of its citizens. And how they are suffering. The condition of the health system is so dire that average life span has been shortened by 3 years during the 5 years of austerity. " The situation is like a war zone without the bullets," said a charity worker. No wonder the Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras told the troika to  get real. But, unlike Brazil Greece is a part of Europe, where prices are falling compared to Brazil, where the rate of inflation is over 7%, the Euro is a stable currency whereas the Brazilian real has fallen by 14%, the interest rate in Europe is 0% compared to Brazil's 13.75% and being a member of the European Union means that Greeks can travel and trade freely all over the continent. Surely Greece should not be in this state. The creditors insist that Greece must have a primary budget surplus by reducing government expenditure and increasing taxes and Greece did have one in 2013. Trouble is that unemployment has increased to 25%, so direct tax collections are bound to suffer, plus reducing government expenditure, by sacking civil servants, cutting salaries and cutting pensions, has caused a contraction of 25% in the economy which means less indirect tax collections. Germany being the largest economy, and the main lender, insists on painful structural reforms because any leniency would encourage Greece and other nations to get back to the bad old ways. After World War II creditors wrote off half of all German debts, allowing the economy to grow again. The troika gave loans to Greece to pay off private lenders, essentially European banks. This transferred the debt from private lenders to central banks and saved banks from a Lehman Brothers type of collapse. All this was playacting to gain time to protect banks while making Greeks suffer extreme deprivation. Banks in Cyprus, on the other hand, were made to write off 47.5% of depositor and shareholder money because Russians would be the biggest losers. As cynical a piece of deceit as we are ever likely to see. Yet they could have helped. If they wanted to punish the government they could have lent money to private companies, such as Volkswagen and Siemens, to manufacture in Greece so as to create new jobs and give some hope. If Greece has to exit the Euro it will have to default on its debts and will struggle to find new financing. If the Euro breaks up Germans will suddenly find that an expensive Mark will make business very difficult indeed.

We are human, they are jackals, what will the outcome be?

A court in South Africa has asked the government to stop Omar al-Bashir, President of Sudan, from leaving the country where he is attending an African Union summit. There is an order from the International Criminal Court for his arrest for crimes against the non-Arab people of Darfur. Apart from the fact that this is an illegitimate court which targets only Africans and people from former Yugoslavia this stupid arrest warrant compels al-Bashir to try to stay in power forever. He knows that if he loses power he may be handed over to this white construct, based at the Hague in the Netherlands, so he will do anything to stay in power. He may succeed just as Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who recently celebrated his 91st birthday after being in power for 35 years, despite all the venom that the west has thrown at him and despite the local currency having lost all value due to hyperinflation. Zimbabwe now uses the South African Rand and the US dollar as currencies. Contrast that to Charles Taylor who made the mistake of losing power and is now serving a 50 year sentence in a UK prison. The irony is exquisite. Tony Blair, who earned the sobriquet of George Bush's poodle, for his support of the illegal war in Iraq has become super rich by acting as public relations officer for dictators of central Asian countries while David Cameron whose illegal bombing of Gaddafi resulted in the slaughter of 30,000 civilians in Libya has won a second term in office. The leader of this pack is Barack Obama, who promised change, but has turned out to be one of the vilest serial killers in history, killing thousands of innocent civilians by his indiscriminate and illegal use of drones. Not content with creating the mess in Iraq he now wants to instigate a war with Russia. The US is going to station tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and heavy armor, enough for 5,000 troops, in Baltic and east European states in response to the losing war in Ukraine. He is thinking of supplying arms to the good terrorists in Syria who, he hopes, will fight both the ISIS and Bashar al-Assad. Just as he undermined the former President of Afghanistan by talking to the good Taliban. His deal with Iran will help them to build nuclear weapons, according to the previous chief of intelligence. Meanwhile China has developed a supersonic vehicle capable of delivering a nuclear missile. The Chinese military is confident that it can continue its aggression in the South China Sea because Obama is their friend. Why do they think so? Because he has slyly agreed to supply China with nuclear technology as well as the means to make submarines quieter. How did a bunch of jackals come to power at the same time? The end of the world may well be nigh.

For good health we need to get rid of disease.

A high priced lawyer, Janhavi Gadkar ploughed into a taxi late at night, killing 2 men. She was driving with an alcohol level of 200 ml per 100 ml of blood, the legal limit being 30 ml per 100 ml of blood. According to the police she had paid a bill for 6 shots of whiskey at an hotel and 3 shots at a pub, before driving at 120 mph along the wrong side of the road. A bill does not mean that she consumed all the alcohol herself but if she did drink around 240 ml of whiskey, which is one-third a bottle, and did not throw up, she must be a habitual drinker. Her lawyer claims that she is also a victim. Perhaps she is. Her friends should have prevented her from driving and insisted on calling a taxi. But, would a taxi be safe, especially for a drunk woman late at night? She has admitted drink driving and causing the accident. The police have samples of her blood proving her guilt so why are they insisting on keeping her in custody? However, it is good in one way. In police custody she cannot be harassed by the media and the delay allows anger to cool. The case will drag on for years which will give her a chance to pay off any witnesses. Witnesses get fed up of being called to court repeatedly only for the case to be postponed after they have wasted entire days. She can benefit from a precedent. Sanjeev Nanda killed 6, including 3 policemen, but was sentenced to a paltry 2 years in prison so, having killed only 2, she can expect a maximum of 8 months, which will be waived because of time already served. If she has to spend any time in prison she can avail of various conveniences such as parole to attend to her sick mother, she maybe released on bail to campaign in elections and she can even get married, if she is still single, while out on furlough. As a lawyer she will be well aware that after the initial attention dies down she can get back to her normal life with the occasional inconvenience that our humorous criminal justice system may cause. What of the police? In his dying declaration a journalist, Jogendra Singh accused a bunch of policemen and thugs for burning him seriously for writing critical articles about the Minister for Dairy Development in UP, Ram Murti Verma. Police are under control of state governments who prevent them from investigating crimes of politicians and use them as private militias to beat up opponents. The great anti-corruption party the AAP has decided to appoint police officers from Bihar to the Anti Corruption Bureau against the orders of the Lieutenant Governor. Not only had the Law Minister of AAP, JS Tomar a fake law degree but an RTI provided as proof was also fake. A fake RTI for a fake minister of AAP, a fake branch of the Congress party. Crime is a disease. Unless that is treated India cannot be healthy.

That is why we are lagging so far behind.

Ordinary folks like us often wonder why India is so poor when China, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan have raced ahead. Our politicians love socialism because that gives them state control of industries, creates a license/permit raj, which facilitates massive rent seeking, and allows them to bribe the ' vote bank ' with taxpayer money to ' reduce poverty '. But surely we must have had economists who would be annoyed by and object loudly to such corrupt behavior to keep politicians under check? Well, we have a one page article by one such economist - Deepak Nayyar, Emeritus Professor of Economics, Jawahar Lal Nehru University. He was the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India from 1989-1991 and Vice Chancellor of Delhi University from 2000-2005. Wow. We remember that the great Balance of Payment crisis occurred in 1991 which resulted in India having to pledge 67 tons of gold reserve to the Bank of England and the rupee being devalued from 17.50 to the dollar to 45 to the dollar. There was a net outflow of NRI deposits from 1990-91. He writes that high inflation is good for developing countries and that the RBI should be cutting rates aggressively. Perhaps he supports President Erdogan of Turkey who accused the central bank of treason for not cutting rates. The interest rate in Turkey is 7.5%, in Indonesia it is 7.5%, in Russia it is 12.5% and in Brazil it is 13.75% while in India it is 7.25%. Perhaps he thinks governors of all these central banks are idiots. Savers lose when the interest paid on savings is less than the rise in prices. Borrowers gain from negative real interest rates, so it is a transfer of wealth from savers to borrowers, and since the government is the biggest borrower by far, low interest rate acts as a tax on savers. Perhaps the professor will explain why people bought 974 tonnes of gold in 2013 despite high prices. Last year gold worth Rs 10 billion was smuggled into India, which is about 10% of the total. Does he want another BOP crisis such as 1991? " If firms and households are credit constrained, lowering interest rates may mean that firms will have more money to invest and households will have more money for consumption," he writes. Firms are awash in credit which they are unable to repay so that bad loans at banks are over Rs 4 trillion. Banks are reluctant to lend until they can clear their books. Households do not need credit to buy items for daily use. They are unable to buy because of very high prices. Reason? Inflation. Credit card charges do not change with interest rates so why are shopping malls running empty? Finally, low interest rates do encourage asset price bubbles, as demonstrated by the sub-prime crisis and real estate prices in India are nearly the same as in the US. A long rambling article, with no evidence and full of left wing mumbo jumbo. Wonder what the good prof taught his students.

Deceitful laws turn all citizens into criminals. Scrap them.

India is perhaps the only country in the world where there is a collective obsession with the stock market. The narrative is simple. The stock market must keep going higher and higher, and for that to happen the economy has to grow faster and faster, for which interest rates must be brought down to low levels. There is no Bloomberg of Forbes to analyse the various parts of the economy and combine all the data to deliver a comprehensive review. One reason why the market is falling is because foreign investors are selling out. So far they have sold a fraction of their total holdings of over $150 billion, so we can imagine what will happen if they were to panic. Foreign investors are selling out on India because company earnings are not growing. For us simple folks this is very hard to understand. Can a company's profits keep on growing infinitely? Vast numbers of people in India are poor and if the economy grows they will make more money which they will spend on consumer goods and services, which will increase profits. We understand that. But surely, as soon as one company starts making pots of money in one field new ones will start up to take away some of the business. Just as every company in India has gone into construction to take advantage of the explosive rise of real estate prices due to the massive increase in black money under the Congress. While Volkswagen cars are selling well in India Skoda, which is a division of Volkswagen, is not doing so well. Hindustan Lever and Nestle are both foreign companies but whereas HUL has had Indian managers for decades Nestle relies on white men from Europe. Which may explain why Nestle responds with the white man's arrogance when challenged about the quality of its products. And then there is the government, which sees Indian consumers as a kind of blood bank to be bled at will. Our Chief Economic Adviser is ecstatic that indirect tax collections have gone up which must mean that people are spending more, which means increased demand, which can only be due to economic recovery. Is it? Business sentiment is down, estimates of future earnings per share is down and the purchasing managers index is down. Animal spirits has its tail between its legs. With the economy faltering and expectations of inflation rising, our esteemed Finance Minister has increased Service Tax from 12.5 to 14%. He has also sneaked in a law which forces us to deduct tax when buying anything from abroad. Firstly, we did not know about this tax and secondly, how in hell are we to know which company is abroad. Amazon advertises on our TVs and Foxconn is to manufacture iPhones in India. When buying anything from abroad you pay by credit card which carries service tax and there will surely be a tax on currency conversion. It violates the Double Tax Avoidance Treaty with other countries. People will ask relatives in other countries to buy for them and pay them in rupees when they come here. That way the government loses all taxes. Why do we always have lawyers as finance ministers who bring in laws to turn us into criminals and increase their own earnings. We hate sneaky gestapo laws. Get rid of them.

We don't need no education.

First, a Nobel Prize winning economist writes that education does not increase individual wealth or reduce inequality. While corporate profits are soaring wages are not rising in tandem. Most of the wealth is going to those who run monopoly type businesses. In the nineteenth century robber barons founded huge monopolies in railways, oil and telegraph so today the ' silicon sultans ' control around 90% of the markets in which they operate. Last year Prof Thomas Piketty caused a storm when he wrote that most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of those who already have assets, and hence can create more wealth through financial deals. Now, another professor writes that education does not increase the economic growth rate of a nation. Being teachers these professors hasten to add that education does provide more options and is necessary for all round growth of people, so as to enjoy life, but does not create wealth, either individual or national. In 1965, the labor force in France had a per capita income of $14,000 with less than 5 years of schooling while in 2010 countries with a similar level of education had a per capita income of $1,000. In 1960, China started with less education level than Tunisia, Mexico, Kenya and Iran and made less progress than them by 2010, but in terms of growth these countries were nothing compared to China. Increased spending on education misses out all the adults who are in low wage jobs today. On the other hand the world's richest man advises everyone not to be like him and not to drop out of college. What does it mean for us in India? We desperately need innovation without which we will be stuck in third world rut. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Ellison may be college dropouts but they all had high school education and are billionaires because there are huge opportunities in the US whereas in India the first rule is to make sure of survival. Recently we had a terrific drama about the number of people killed by the hot weather but it seems that lightning kills more people every year than any other natural disaster. As opposed to floods or heat lightning strikes a very small area so it is shocking that so many are killed by it. What has that to do with education? It shows that our population density is so intense that a lightning striking a tiny area kills many people. Too many people leads to poverty and studies show that bright students from poor families do 50% worse than those from middle class ones. Even worse, children from poor families have smaller brains than those from better off ones. The implications are that unless poverty is removed inequality will remain and money spent on education is not going to benefit poor children because their brains are already affected. The only solution is to reduce the number of people but poverty lovers, like the Congress and NGOs, will howl.

Seems that boom-bust cycles cannot be avoided.

Since the sub-prime crisis of 2008 central banks have kept interest rates at 0% in the US, Europe and Japan poured trillions of dollars into banks through purchase of bonds, to help avoid Lehman Brothers type of collapse of banks, and hope that this flood of liquidity would increase lending to businesses to increase global economic growth and lead to falling unemployment. But apparently all this extra money has had the opposite effect on markets, which have become increasingly illiquid. There have been a few instances of such lack of liquidity in markets. There was the flash crash in May 2010 when US stocks crashed by nearly 10% in 30 minutes, in 2013 long term interest rates jumped by 100 basis points when the then Federal Reserve Chair, Ben Bernanke talked about tapering the quantitative easing program and in October 2014 US Treasury yields fell by 40 basis points, which apparently can only happen once in 3 billion years. Also, recently yields on German Bunds have risen from 5 to 80 basis points within 10 days. With interest rates at 0% funds have been investing in illiquid instruments in search of higher yields which means that prices fluctuate wildly when everyone seeks to enter or leave at the same time. In India negative real interest rates along with huge black money creation during the 10 years of Congress saw an astronomical rise in real estate prices, shown by the difference between lending rates and yields from rent. Now real interest rate is positive, big scams have disappeared and states have increased circle rates to market levels so that people are being forced to pay the entire cost in white money. The market is almost static. After the recent earthquake in Nepal there is a fear about buying flats in high rise buildings. Prices are so high that no normal Indian can afford to buy property so a fall will be welcome. Wild gyrations in markets and assets is not good for investors or the government who have to make decisions regarding the future. One would expect that economists would be able to prevent crises by seeing problems as the arise and advising corrective actions but they have failed to predict the East Asian crisis, the dot com crisis and, more recently, the sub-prime crisis. Now economists are going for evidence based models. Some are using new data, but how do you weigh the importance of what you see. For instance, do you believe that a Grexit will have minimum effect on the Euro, as the Germans believe, or will it set off a slow dismantling of the Eurozone? Some are studying history to prevent future crises but Ben Bernanke, being an expert on the Great Depression, could not prevent the present mess. Seems that we will continue to go through boom-bust cycles.

Can Indian politics be cured by homeopathy.

Homeopathy depends on the supposition that a poison, that produces the same symptoms that the patient is suffering from, if given in dilution, will cure the patient. In other words, if you use a poison, similar to the one causing the illness, they cancel each other out. Many of our politicians seem to believe in this hypothesis. For instance, Raja Bhaiya was made Minister in charge of prisons in UP by the Samajwadi Party. Now the Law Minister of Delhi, Jitender Singh Tomar has been arrested for using a fake degree in law.  This is being done to tarnish the image of the AAP. This is political harassment," fumed the esteemed minister. " This is illegal and has been done as revenge. We are contemplating our future course of action," thundered the Deputy Chief Minister, Manish Sisodia." The Delhi government has been elected to serve the people and has a mandate like no other in the country." He should be thankful. Having won the election with fake promises that they cannot keep this is a nice diversion, fake degree to hide fake promises. For us Indians it is great entertainment. There will be a fake investigation of the alleged fake degree of the allegedly fake minister, followed by a fake court case in which nothing will be proved and the case will be closed after spending billions of taxpayer money. Just as happened in the Augusta-Westland helicopter scam, the Bofors scam, the submarine scam,the Tatra trucks scam, the Barak missile scam, the Denel arms scam, the Taj corridor case and the Mulayam Singh Yadav case. Our valiant investigating officers can never find sufficient evidence to nail the culprits. To make absolutely sure that politicians and their broods are totally safe there are not enough police personnel in India. Large numbers are assigned to protect the very politicians who are never found guilty so the remaining police are made to work extra hours without any relief. When the poor fellows manage to find sufficient evidence to convict murderers they serve their time in ' day out, night in ' prisons where they are allowed to go out to work during the day and have a safe, comfortable cell to sleep in at night. These fellows are in great demand in the marriage market. Wonder if they have air conditioners and televisions for comfort. Manu Sharma, was let out on furlough to get married. Furlough is normally leave given to soldiers, who risk their lives for the nation, and not to scum who kill an innocent woman because she would not give him a drink. Whether Nestle's Maggi noodles contain an excess of MSG and lead remains to be established but when a journalist wrote about it in 2011 she was bullied into silence by Nestle threatening to stop all advertising in the newspaper she worked for. The same arrogance was visible when Nestle CEO insisted that Maggi is safe without any hint of apology. Perhaps we should appoint an expert in adulterating to catch fellows who sell dangerous goods. A crook to catch a crook. Like in homeopathy.