Why are we so unlucky?

The British divided Indian society into principalities, along caste and along religious lines to perpetuate their rule but it was the struggle to get rid of them that united us into one nation. Sadly, our new masters, the politicians still continue to divide the nation for personal gain. Maharashtra banned the eating of meat for 4 days to coincide with a Jain festival, inviting an immediate reaction from a political party which set up a stall to cook chicken just outside a Jain housing society. In Mumbai people who eat meat are excluded from buying apartments in certain areas if they are not vegetarians. First, vegetarians in India, including Jains, drink milk which contains cow proteins. Meat is protein, so they are not really vegetarians. Second, discrimination is aggression, which surely is against the principle of vegetarianism. Some states have banned the eating of beef. It is true that pig meat is not allowed in any Muslim country or in Israel but beef has been sold in India for many centuries. Besides we almost never see beef because it is sold in highly selected areas. A ban enrages people and even those who normally would not eat beef would want to eat it. Even worse, a mob beat a Muslim man to death in UP for eating beef. Cow slaughter has been banned in UP for over 50 years. Yet Kanpur in UP is the largest tannery center in India. The whole episode was completely unnecessary because it is so stupid. Most people who object to eating beef, and strict vegetarians, have no objection to wearing leather shoes and leather belts or carrying leather wallets which are all made from cow hides. Bihar is to hold elections to its assembly shortly. Politicians are blatantly catering to caste divides and some, like Lalu Yadav, are openly calling it a caste war. They pretend to care for lower castes, called 'dalits', which means 'the oppressed'. So now even the dalits have been subdivided into 'mahadalits', which means 'supreme oppressed'. As opposed to a common or garden variety of oppressed, we presume. If there is fighting between different groups leading up to the elections politicians will blame trouble makers or outsiders but never themselves. The solution is easy. Just ban castes, just as you have banned beef. But that they will not do because it is not in their interest. 1,37,000 people die in road accidents every year. The answer is to build good roads, proper driving rules and plenty of traffic police on busy roads. Most of our tax money is used for handouts to win elections. So humps are built on major roads, to slow down traffic, because they are cheap. The result is that 11,000 were killed by these same humps, most of them on 2 wheelers. And, handouts may win votes but result in India having the highest child mortality in the world.Only opportunists, liars and charlatans, why are we so unlucky?

They got the rate cut they wanted, now let us see who benefits.

The deed is done. The Reserve Bank slashed interest rate by 50 basis points, taking everyone by surprise. The stock market index, the Sensex jumped over 400 points on the news, the rupee surprisingly has gone up by 10 paise and, not surprisingly, 10 year bond yields fell from 7.727 to 7.611. With the 2 biggest festivals of Durga Puja, starting 19 October, and Diwali on 11 November the RBI probably wanted to generate a feelgood effect to stimulate consumer spending, hoping to increase demand, so that capacity utilisation of industries improves from its current level of 70-72%. Economic growth is dependent on domestic demand because exports have fallen by 20.7% year-on-year, giving rise to fears of job losses. But will this move increase consumer demand which is very anemic at present? Will people rush out to buy cars, houses and clothes and go for holidays, paid for by credit? The total number of credit cards in use in India is a paltry 21.5 million, much lower than 35 million who pay income tax, with total outstanding credit of Rs 324 billion. Some have multiple cards. Household spending in India is not governed by the cost of borrowing but by the cost of food, fuel, school fees and the price of consumer goods. The Consumer Price Index in down to 3.66% but inflation expectation is still in double figures for the next quarter and for the next year. That people are hurting is shown by the steep fall in household financial savings, which is the lowest in 25 years. If people do not save banks will have less money to lend out. Lower interest will hurt those who depend on their savings for their daily expenses, such as pensioners, who will be forced to reduce spending .High taxes add to price rises, discouraging consumer spending even more. Then there are jokers who recommend an increase in tax on fuel and telecom to pay for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which is the Prime Minister's initiative to clean India. What happens to the huge taxes we already pay? Other jokers want to force a one car per family policy in Delhi to reduce pollution. The automobile industry contributes 7% to the GDP and provides jobs to millions, not only in manufacturing but in sales and servicing. However, tax on diesel should definitely be increased gradually until diesel price is equal to the price of petrol. This will hugely increase tax collection, stop the use of diesel cars and improve pollution, as seen with the Volkswagen scandal. Borrowers will gain from the reduction in interest rates. The government is the biggest borrower and so will gain the most as we see from the fall in bond yields. Banks maybe able to restructure the mountain of bad loans they are sitting on. The real estate sector will hope for higher sales even though prices are unrealistic at present. Higher sales will protect black money of our leading citizens. Business fellows were pleading for a rate cut. Let us see if they use it for us or for themselves.

Baddie or bigger baddie, that is the confusion.

While the Indian media was solely fixed on our Prime Minister, as they should be, perhaps a greater drama was playing out on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York where Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin shook hands, when their facial expressions suggested that they wanted to slug each other. " The talk we had today...was very constructive, businesslike and very frank - surprisingly frank," said Putin, after a meeting with Obama. In diplomatic language 'very frank' means they abused each other and 'very constructive' meant that Putin was able to win the argument. Putin is a former KGB agent who sees the break up of the Soviet Union, the weakness of the Russian economy and the application of economic sanctions as a humiliation for Russia and wants to show that Russia is not to be pushed around. Obama is a lawyer for whom morality is an argument in a court of law, provided the money is right. He apparently sees Putin as a bully, conveniently forgetting that he, himself is the world's most prolific serial killer, using drones to kill hundreds of innocent civilians. Putin says that defeating ISIS is the most important objective in Syria and the only way to do it is to support the legal government of Bashar al-Assad. Russia is building bases in the western city of Latakia but says that it has no intention of sending its troops into battle at present. Russia and Iran have been meeting in Iraq, which was 'liberated' from the baddie, Saddam Hussein by the US. The US supports good terrorists with training, to get rid of the baddie, Assad, while bombing ISIS and scolding the Al Nusra front. Just as they support the good Taliban who have just captured the northern city of Kunduz in Afghanistan. Mr Modi, like Putin, rejects such stupid distinctions. Obama's hand has been weakened by the thousands of migrants flocking into Europe and, unless there is a quick solution to the Syrian crisis, thousands more will come, putting the European Union under great stress. Eastern European countries are being forced to take in migrants against their will. These countries hate Russia because they were forced into the Comecon by the Soviet Union but views might change if they see large numbers of Muslims as a bigger threat. The ISIS predicts an apocalyptic war with infidels at Dabiq and Damascus in Syria, at Jerusalem in Israel and in Rome, which means against Shia Muslims, Jews and Catholics, with ultimate victory for Islam. " History is littered with the failure of false prophets, and fallen empires, who believed that might always makes right, and that will continue to be the case. You can count on that," said Obama. Has he thought that he could be the false prophet whose use of drones, bombing and sanctions could bring about the end of the US empire? Woolly headed thinking leads to confusion. Others fill the gap.

'Steady as she goes' could be the most important reform.

Prime Minister Modi has been touring the world looking for investment into India to create jobs for about 800 million people below the age of 35 years. He has spent the last few days at Silicon Valley wooing the titans of the tech industry and also those of Indian origin, who are thriving in that atmosphere of innovation. All these years successive Indian governments have been happy to receive precious foreign exchange sent home by Indians living abroad while trying to stop the so called 'brain drain'. Why does India receive more remittances from abroad than China does? Because, rising wealth in China means that the Chinese living abroad do not have to support their poor relatives living back at home but use their money for inward investment instead. For the first time a Prime Minister has acknowledged the contribution of Indians in the tech industry and has said that 'brain drain' is actually 'brain gain'. Studies show that diaspora is a goldmine, not only because of remittances sent home, but because they increase trade with their home countries, bring their knowledge back home and can influence policies of the country of their domicile. Today,there are more yoga classes in the US than in India and more Americans practice yoga than Indians do, despite our population being 3 times that of the US. All this is very good but what foreigners, including those of Indian origin, will look for is long term stability in business climate. Modi has promised faster decision making to US CEOs but that is of no use if laws are changed arbitrarily, if civil servants interpret laws according to their own whim or if our courts take decades to decide a dispute. The dispute regarding the Minimum Alternate Tax on foreign investment is an example of an arbitrary tax demand followed by a humiliating withdrawal. Over Rs 4 trillion in taxes are stuck in tax disputes with the government which means that the government is losing out on precious revenues while businesses are unable to plan future investments until they know their liability. People will try to evade taxes unless they get returns for what they pay. We recognise that to win elections Modi has to pander to the poor but subsidies do not reduce poverty, productivity does. Finally, highhanded decisions by politicians are reflected in the recent ban on eating meat and the instruction to arrest people for sedition if they criticise the BJP government, in Maharashtra. These are unnecessary irritants which waste time in fruitless arguments and may lead to communal tension, as has happened in Ranchi. To have a 'digital India' we need a highly educated workforce but online companies create few jobs so we may end up with lots of educated unemployed. Although necessary education does not increase growth. Modi has to succeed but the opposition will do everything to make sure he does not. We, the people, must stop the spoilers.

They have robber barons, we have Surma Bhopalis.

Why did they do it? Why did a prestigious car company, with a reputation for reliability, such as Volkswagen cheat on emissions of its diesel cars? It is not just Volkswagen, but the reputation for reliability, honesty and technical superiority of entire German engineering that has been tarnished. The town of Wolfsburg is entirely dependent on the company and workers are angry at the loss of goodwill through no fault of theirs. They are also scared about their jobs if sales of VW cars plummet. The mystery is why do highly intelligent people resort to skulduggery when surely they must know that they will be caught one day. Studies suggest that psychotic traits, such as ego, extreme confidence, charm and lack of conscience, can lead to high success in today's companies, where rewards are enormous. These people have the ability to convince others who are tempted by their success. All cars are run by software programs. Pollution laws are stricter in the US than in Europe, maybe because Europe has to import almost all its oil while the US has become self-sufficient through hydraulic fracturing or fracking. Volkswagen programmed their cars so that emission controls kicked in when they were being tested but stopped when they were being driven on roads. This meant that they could deliver higher performance, demanded by owners, while satisfying regulators. Fiendishly clever. Trouble is that there are equally clever people elsewhere and independent testers caught on to the scam. Now Switzerland has banned some models of VW, millions of cars will have to be recalled, the company will be fined in billions of dollars and some may face long prison terms. Not just VW, but diesel cars produced by all companies will be checked for cheating. But VW is not alone. Almost every company is at it. JP Morgan Chase lost $6.2 billion in 2012 from futures trading at its London branch due one trader, named the London Whale. Also in 2012 Glaxo Smith Kline was fined $3 billion for doctoring clinical tests on its drugs while bribing doctors with lavish holidays. Tobacco companies hid the harmful effects of smoking for decades and have fought fiercely against claims for damages. Recently Coca Cola has been found to be financing research into obesity, which claimed that obesity was not due to diet but due to lack of exercise. It may have something to do with time horizons. Ordinary people plan for long term, such as college fees for children, medical emergencies or retirement. Politicians have to face elections every 5 years so they choose not to see scams because they need donors to fund their campaigns while businessmen need to generate higher dividends for shareholders every year so that they are paid millions in bonuses. In India our business fellows are all Surma Bhopalis, oily, lying con men who loot their companies with the help of slimy socialists. At least in the west the crooks are punished but here they get away.

Cardiologists could learn about people from economists.

In support of Swasth Bharat, which means 'healthy India', the Cardiology Association of India recommends the elimination of 6S from our lifestyle, to prevent coronary artery disease. These are smoking, sugar, salt, sedentary lifestyle, saturated fats and stress. There is no debate about the harmful effects of smoking, lack of exercise or obesity, but what about the others. Wild animals never put 3 things in their mouths, which are tobacco, refined sugar and milk of another species. In fact, adult animals never drink milk, only humans do. So, should cow's milk be banned? However, animals love alcohol if they can get it, as chimpanzees showed in Africa. Salt is essential for life. We need about 5 grams per day but get too much from processed foods. Sugar is very bad. It is just empty calories, with no vitamins or minerals, and is primarily responsible for cavities in teeth. However, on average Indians consume very little sugar compared to western countries. The US tops the list because of the consumption of soft drinks. One bottle of cola drink contains around 11 spoons of sugar. Saturated fats come mainly from animal sources, such as milk products, meat, and eggs. So, should all of us become vegetarians? Gujarat, which is mostly vegetarian, has the highest number of diabetics as well as hypertension cases. Diabetes is an independent risk factor for coronary artery disease while patients of hypertension have a higher risk of stroke. The trouble is that diabetes and hypertension do not cause any symptoms until far advanced and so a lot of people remain ignorant of their diagnosis. People dislike taking medicines so stop treatment when they feel better and Indians have a much greater faith in alternative forms of medicine such as ayurveda or homeopathy and waste a lot of time going to various quacks, who promise complete cure to milk their money, until serious complications set in. Diabetes is unique in that it is the only disease in which the patient is mostly responsible for control, because sugar comes from the diet, which is controlled by the patient, and food is addictive. People do not like needles and so avoid tests and so 90% of diabetics in India are not controlled. Poor control means more complications. On the other hand checking blood pressure means visits to doctors, which cost money. People hate paying doctors so hypertension remains uncontrolled. Although bulging tummies of middle aged Indian men provide cartoonists with a lot of material, rate of obesity is among the lowest in the world. Economists have understood that human beings are basically irrational and will hang on to extreme opinions even when presented with proofs to the contrary. This can be explained with Bayes' Theorem. Perhaps cardiologists need to talk to economists before trying to change people's lifestyle. Understand people first.

High stakes poker: who holds the aces?

What is going to be the end game in the middle east? One thing is certain that the west, led by the US, will lose out. Which will leave 2 blocks, with huge arsenals of modern weapons, facing each other: a Shia block comprised of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, supported by the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Sunni opportunists, such as Hamas in Gaza and possibly the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and a Sunni block of Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, supported by Israel. The jokers in the pack are Pakistan, a nuclear weapon state with a long border with Iran, and Turkey, a member of NATO, with a dictatorial thug, Erdogan as president. After military defeats in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq the US has lost to Iran in diplomacy. Obama knows that his healthcare act will be overturned if a Republican becomes president next year, no one is sure which way the economy will go and his troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan were just as thoughtless and stupid as Bush's attacks in the first place. Frantic for a legacy, he has surrendered to Iran on almost every point. While running away from Iraq and Afghanistan, where US soldiers had died, he allowed Cameron and Sarkozy to bully him into attacking Libya, and engineered an armed coup in Ukraine. Libya is a mess, with militias fighting each other, while a new book reveals Cameron to be a rich 'tosser' who drank champagne at the age of 11 and played with a dead pig's mouth while at Oxford. Now that Europe is in a crisis, fighting each other over the influx of migrants, Russia has calmly exerted its control over the eastern part of Ukraine. The European Union is becoming a disunion with countries putting up fences to stop migrants from entering. With winter coming it is going to become more messy as pictures of babies freezing in the snow are shown on televisions across the world. Meanwhile Russia has transferred fighter jets and soldiers to Latakia, in western Syria. Russia has a naval base in Tartus on the Mediterranean. With its infantile mindset of cowboys and injuns the US has labeled Bashar al Assad of Syria as a baddy, just as they did with Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, with disastrous results. So they have divided terrorists into good and bad terrorists and daintily bomb only ISIS positions while supplying arms to others. Russia's aim is clear. It wants the Assad regime to win and knows that an end of war in Syria will be secretly welcome in Europe even if politicians say otherwise. Russians, Syrians and Iranians are meeting in Baghdad, which was supposed to be a stronghold of the US. As the middle east blows the global economy will suffer. India could profit if we can maintain peace. 

Is it a service if it does not serve?

Apparently, a survey by the Pew Research Center found that 87% of Indians have a high opinion of the Prime Minister, rising to 89% in rural areas. People have hopes that Mr Modi will be able to generate greater prosperity by making the economy grow faster. Unfortunately, he has to depend on our civil servants, who have been repeatedly rated the worst in Asia, to implement his policies. There are no takers for vacant posts of joint secretaries at the center. This is apparently because morale is very low among the top civil servants, who are from the Indian Administrative Service. This is because Modi wants them to come to work on time and deliver results when they would rather be playing golf at the exclusive Delhi Golf Club where there is a 40 year waiting list for membership. Poor fellows, imagine having to work for huge salaries, perks and pensions. Not just that, Mr Modi wants them to be politically neutral and the government has dusted out an old rule to enforce retirement for those deemed useless. Oh dear, next he will be demanding honesty as well. Why would anyone want to be a civil servant in India, where you have to suck up to criminal politicians, teach them how to loot the exchequer and collect bribes for them, if you could not share in the spoils? Those who masterminded the 2G, Commonwealth Games, mine allocation and various other scams want gratitude from politicians of those parties who benefited. Demand for civil service posts are highest from states with the highest crime rates. So high is the demand that only 0.36% of candidates are selected for the 24 arms of the civil service, compared to 0.5% in 1997. It is shocking that we, the citizens, are not even aware that there are so many types of civil servants. No wonder we get no services for the taxes we pay, making our lives miserable. Desperation leads to unusual forms of protest, as when a man threw snakes into an office in UP, causing panic. There are honest civil servants but they are harassed by being repeatedly transferred, denied promotion and sometimes even killed. The IAS fellows know that they are despised so they are insanely jealous of the armed forces who are still respected in India. Civil servants have been blocking higher pensions for the armed forces for around 40 years, despite Supreme Court orders. They even sparked panic in the Congress government in 2012, when they started rumors about an army coup, when 2 divisions were moved towards Delhi on a routine exercise. Most join the civil services, not to work, but to enjoy a permanent job with enormous powers and the scope to make lots of money on the side. The only answer is to link any pay rise to efficiency and to recruit top secretaries from the private sector on contract. Better still get rid of the IAS, which is a continuation of the Indian Civil Service of the British, and behaves like a colonial power. Good riddance.

Flying, while on the ground.

The BBC ran a story about a Mr Bahadur Chand Gupta who has bought an old Airbus A300 and parked it somewhere outside Delhi. For less than a dollar people, those who cannot afford to fly, are allowed to sit in the plane and are given a glimpse of what happens during real commercial flights. They are also given sweets. How sad that there are so many Indians who cannot afford a simple necessity. The cheapest flight from Delhi to Mumbai costs more than the cheapest flight from Barcelona to London and Indians earn much less than Europeans. Why do flights cost so much in India? Because of very high taxes. Politicians and civil servants will never address that problem because they get to fly free and their flights are paid for by our taxes. So they keep denying that airport charges and fuel taxes are responsible for the high airfares, blaming the airlines for not passing on the fall in international fuel prices. The previous government built 8 airports in smaller cities at a cost of $50 million but these have not seen a single scheduled flight. It's not because people are misers. The poor want to fly, to eat out and to watch movies, the simple pleasures of life that are taken for granted in western countries and which they see on television. But taxes keep on increasing, making them more expensive even for the middle class. Socialism is written into our constitution, which means very high taxes on anything labeled as luxury, such as flying, and then allowing the poor to travel by filthy, overcrowded trains, without air-conditioning or clean toilets, for a few rupees. But, guess what? The poor reject being treated worse than cattle. The railways report 150 million fewer passengers in the first 5 months of this year and 191 million fewer passengers last year. The fall in numbers of passengers is in local and suburban services, whereas numbers have increased in air-conditioned long distance passengers. Clearly people prefer to travel by road or the metro, where this service is available, even if they cost more. The fewer the users the less the tax collection. Why do these people fail to understand this simple fact? The Prime Minister wants a digital India but our online start-ups are moving to Singapore because taxes are too high and arbitrary in India. We are a lowly 131 out of 189 countries on fixed broadband service and at 155 on mobile broadband service. Not much chance of being a digital economy, is there? What is scary is that there is a complete lack of understanding. The dengue epidemic is being seen as a lack of healthcare. It most definitely is not. It is because the municipalities did not clean the drains before the monsoon and did not sweep away stagnant water. The Chief Minister held back Rs 5 billion from the municipalities while spending, you guessed it, Rs 5 billion on commercials. Poverty means NGOs outnumber police by 2:1, which means billions in funds. Enjoy.

Central bankers competing in kicking the can. Will anyone win?

Is our Reserve Bank in a better position than the Federal Reserve in the US? Last week the Fed decided to hold interest rate at 0-0.25%, as at present. Our repo rate is at 7.25% which gives the RBI plenty of room to cut rates to stimulate the economy, if it wants to. The Fed is concerned about the strength of the dollar and the effect this has on exports from the US but unlike in the 1980s it cannot force a Plaza Accord on the UK, Japan and the Eurozone for a concerted action to weaken the dollar. In fact, those countries are doing just the opposite. Japan and the EU are actively buying bonds, which releases vast amounts of liquidity into the markets and weakens their currencies, and the Chief Economist to the Bank of England has warned that the UK may have to lower its interest rate from 0.5%, at present, maybe even to negative rates, which would mean that people would have to pay to keep money in banks instead of earning interest. Of course the US started it all by lowering interest rate and with 3 rounds of quantitative easing, injecting over $4 trillion into the economy. However, the damage was done even earlier when Alan Greenspan kept interest rate at low level for too long, resulting in the sub-prime crisis. This is called the 'Greenspan put', which was followed by the Bernanke put and now this one is called the Janet Yellen put. Yellen also referred to the weakness of the global economy which has been taken to mean China. Last month China devalued the yuan by 2%, which led to a sell off in currency markets, so that the central bank was forced to support the currency. The sell off was because markets expected further devaluation in the future, so capital moved out of China and inflows declined. But why is Yellen so worried about China? Is China's economy so huge that it will harm the US if it collapses, is she worried about sales of US companies suffering or is she worried that a stronger dollar will increase imports from China, making it wealthier and allow it to become stronger in defense? We do not know. The Chinese President will visit the US shortly and the US has accused China of cyber espionage. Will Obama be able to use the weakness of the Chinese economy and the threat of raising interest rate in his talks with Xi Jinping? Conspiracy theories are so spicy. Meanwhile, what of the US economy? If the Fed cannot raise rate even after 6 years does it mean that the US is going to collapse? Sub-prime buyers were a small portion of those who lost their homes in the housing crisis. Many have been predicting rising inflation, fall in share prices and fall in growth but these have not happened. It appears that no one really knows. Can they kick the can down the road indefinitely?

The world is worried about China's dilemma. What about our trilemma?

An outpouring of articles analysing the so called slowdown in the Chinese economy shows the level of concern in the world. The rate of growth in the Chinese economy since 1980 has never been seen in the world, sometimes reaching highs of 15%. The IMF predicts that the rate of growth will fall to 6.33% by 2020, which is higher than most other countries in the world. Export orders are declining, the yuan has become stronger against other currencies, making exports more expensive, and wages have risen, adding to costs. However, a 6% growth of a $10 trillion economy will generate greater wealth than an 8% growth in a $2 trillion economy, like India. So why the worry? It maybe because low cost Chinese goods helped in controlling costs in other countries, but mainly because China's insatiable appetite for commodities created wealth for countries, like Australia, Brazil and Indonesia. One third of Australia's exports go to China so its currency has fallen while Brazil is in a recession, with a high inflation and a falling stock market. The US or the EU do not care about the world when deciding monetary or fiscal policies so why should China care about the pain in Brazil or South Africa? Partly because these countries also buy Chinese goods and if their economies are suffering they will import less, but mainly because China's Communist Party loses face if growth slows down and the Party is terrified of social unrest. Chinese leaders want to move the economy away from exports towards domestic consumption but seem unsure of how to do it. They can order an increase in investments, lower interest rate to make loans cheaper or devalue the currency but how can they order people to spend more. Household savings are 48.87% of GDP compared to 30.02% in India and 17.88% in the US. Since 2007 spending on investment, as a percentage of GDP, has been higher than household spending. There is already excess capacity and productivity is falling. Consumption can increase only if people feel secure about their future which will come from assured pensions for everybody, free healthcare and income support for loss in earnings. Above all they must have confidence in their leaders, which is difficult because the Chinese government is highly secretive and their economic figures are highly suspect. It is like Indians buying gold because they do not trust politicians to serve the country rather than themselves and their families. The excess of savings gives enough capital to banks in case the shadow banking system collapses but the dilemma for the central bank is whether to increase lending and thus increase bad loans or control lending which will result in slower growth. At least a dilemma is better than the trilemma produced by the Congress in India. India has little exposure to China and it will be good if we buy less rubbish from it. For us a fall of China, our biggest enemy, is profoundly to be wished for.

Why is the Prime Minister frustrated?

At a meeting with our extremely wealthy industrialists the Prime Minister vented his frustration saying," Risk taking is in your DNA that is why you are businessmen and not a consultant drawing a salary." Er, no sir. Our fellows are not businessmen or consultants, they are hustlers. They have been dependent on government contracts, achieved through bribes, which are funded with loans from public sector banks, not risking a paisa of their own money, and then being bailed out by the government with taxpayer money when they are unable to complete projects. The much touted Public Private Partnership in road construction is a perfect example. Construction starts with loans from public sector banks, tolls are collected from the start, even when the construction activity causes massive traffic jams, and if revenue collection is poor the government fills in through the Viability Gap Funding and extends the period of toll collection. If the government builds a supplementary road to ease traffic congestion the contractor has to be paid a compensation. It is the same story in the electricity sector. Distributing companies, which are usually state owned, have long term power purchase agreements with private plants which guarantees purchase of the entire capacity of the plant even if the plant is not producing any electricity. Cost of electricity is going up, when international prices of oil, gas and coal are at very low levels, so that there is a surplus of power because 300 million people are unable to pay for it. The number of dollar millionaires in India has risen even while 2.3 million apply for 368 posts of peons in UP. Their wealth is mostly in shares and real estate which is why they keep on screaming for interest rate cuts, causing frustration for the Governor of the Reserve Bank. He criticised the tendency for 'jugaad' and said that for sustainable long term growth we need to build the necessary institutions. " For this, we need the understanding and co-operation of business, not impatience and pressure for quick, impossible fixes," he said. However, it is not wholly their fault. Socialism is written into our constitution which gives control to politicians and civil servants who award contracts to their cronies in return for a share of the spoils. IAS officers are running away from Delhi. The government is weeding out those who have become too comfortable in their positions and are content not to do anything. But what about politicians? They are the main cause of the illness affecting our country. Why are farmers cultivating sugarcane in the driest districts of Maharashtra? Because local politicians own the sugar mills and have diverted all the water for their own use. Unless we get rid of our politicians we will never create wealth, and that is not possible. 

Secularism will do what the invaders could not.

A visit to the holy city of Haridwar is pleasing and peaceful on the one hand while being infuriating and frustrating on the other. 'Hari' is another name for Vishnu while 'dwar' means door. The holy river Ganga flows through the city and Hindus believe that a dip in the river washes away all sins. It is the only holy river in the world where millions come to pray and cleanse themselves and it is the only river whose water does not spoil if kept for months. India suffered repeated invasions from abroad and the invaders built their own prayer buildings everywhere. They believed that Hindus are heathens or kafirs and will suffer eternal damnation in hell, so Hindus should be converted, by force if necessary, for their own good. But, while suffering extreme brutality and repeated slaughters Hindus quietly continued with their own religion. Some converted under pressure, or for bribes, but since we do not convert others there was no need to fight. But a greater threat was waiting for us. After independence the new constitution declared India to be a secular state and our new masters set about trying to wipe out Hinduism. Hindus have been vilified for following a system of castes. The secularists did not ban castes, as they should have done, but decided to use castes to castigate Hindus while doling out taxpayer money to various segments, to get votes. By officially labeling people into different castes, apparently to help them, they strengthened the system, divided Hindus and tried to create violence, which would allow them to shoot to kill. But the biggest violence against us was by looting our temples. Hindu temples are some of the richest places of worship in the world because our gods are our family and friends, so we pay money so that our gods maybe properly fed, clothed and looked after. We do not know how much money is donated to temples, who controls the money and how it is spent. Temple treasures are being looted in the name of preservation. No other religion is attacked so relentlessly. Everyday pilgrims come to the Ganga in Haridwar to pray and each person pays whatever she can afford. Millions of rupees are being collected daily but the city is filthy, the car parks become muddy swamps after one shower and the stairs leading to the main temple at Har ki paidi are filthy and broken in places. Beggars, hustlers and con men try to milk pilgrims for whatever they can. The Prime Minister has started a program of cleaning India and another program to clean the river Ganga. He should stop the loot of temple funds and use the money to clean Haridwar, improve its roads, cement the car park, clean and improve the surroundings of the temple. Above all reduce the population by targeting subsidies to only those that have just one child and no more. Secularism is designed not to keep religion out of politics but to destroy Hindus. It may well succeed.

Are we the most duplicitous nation on earth?

Are we Indians more gullible than any other people on earth? While foreign news is usually quoted from organisations, such as Reuters or Bloomberg, or from the foreign media, domestic news is a mishmash of sentimental drivel, half truths or complete falsehood. Since most of our so called news providers are controlled by sympathisers of political parties most of the political and economic headlines are biased. But even day to day events are reported in an illogical manner to make them sensational. For instance, one news item says that there is no law in Delhi to force owners of dogs to pick up the feces of their pets, as there is in the US. Very true. But there are no feral dogs roaming around freely in the US or indeed in any western country. Dogs are rounded up, taken to pounds and then put down, whereas here street dogs roam around at will and defecate wherever they like. Who is to pick up their poop? Totally illogical. Various state governments want to ban the sale of meat during Jain festivals because Jains are vegetarians. About 31% of Indians are vegetarians who do not eat meat, fish or eggs but they drink milk, which contains cow proteins, but shun alcohol which is totally vegetarian. Vegetarianism has been made out to be morally superior. Killing an animal for food is cruel because we are inflicting suffering. Is dying of old age without suffering? If dying of disease or old age is so kind why is there a clamor for the legalising of euthanasia in India? The Jains went to the Supreme Court to demand the right to fast to death because it is in their religion. True, a human being fasting to death is doing so under free will and an animal being killed for food has no choice, but pets are routinely put down if they develop a painful illness, like cancer, without being asked. Even the Supreme Court agreed with a meat ban in 2008, saying that surely people can survive without meat for a few days. The point is that it is totally illogical. Even more illogical is the threat of the Delhi government to pass a law to force hospitals to admit cases of dengue fever. How will a private hospital admit a patient if there is no bed? If patients are kept on the floor there will be bold headlines screaming how brutal hospitals are for charging people for treating patients on the floor. But the question no one is asking is why is there a dengue epidemic in Delhi? Dengue is transmitted by mosquitoes and every child knows that mosquitoes breed in stagnant water. The reason there are so many mosquitoes is because drains are never cleaned and water accumulates after a slight shower. The Chief Minister has been running around fighting with the Prime Minister instead of carrying out his duties so he is directly responsible for the deaths and should be sued. Apparently fumigation does not work. Why not spray soap solution on water to drown mosquito larvae. Cheap, clean and non toxic. Logic instead of sensation. May well save lives.

Isn't it important to have economic secularism?

Doctors often moan about how every person, even the most ignorant, considers himself to be an expert on medicine, often with half-baked knowledge from the internet. At least such people are restrained by strict laws on prescribing and operating, even if enforcement of laws is very weak in India. There are no such restraints in economics. National economies are controlled by politicians whose only interest is in grabbing and hanging on to power. That has just been illustrated in Australia where Prime Minister Tony Abbott, of the Liberal Party, has been unseated by his party colleague and one time friend, Malcolm Turnbull. He will be the fourth prime minister in over 2 years. During the previous Labor government Kevin Rudd unseated Julia Gillard and then went on to lose the elections. He resigned from parliament following his defeat and was appointed Senior Fellow at Harvard University. In India no politician will dream of resigning. Whereas politicians in the west are highly educated and can go on to lucrative careers outside of politics Indian politicians have no such avenues. Their wealth comes from corruption, which can only be protected by the power of office so they will debase themselves to any extent to be noticed by their party leaders. The Congress, which has ruled us for 56 years out of 67 years since independence, is desperately hanging on to the Gandhi family. In its last 10 years of power the Congress brought the country to near bankruptcy and was soundly thrashed in last year's elections. Now it will not allow the parliament to function so that vital economic bills, such as GST, Amendment to the Land Acquisition Act and changes to labor laws, cannot be passed. China's politicians have no such restrictions. The President is in office for 10 years and has absolute powers, so he should be able to institute reforms as he pleases. Trouble is that reforms may cause the growth rate to fall, leading to a rise in unemployment which may cause protests against the Party, and that is a terrifying thought. Although the economy is still growing the effect of weak global demand and rising wages in China is causing factories to close. The government wants to move away from investment led growth to one of domestic consumption but was unnerved by the fall in stock prices and the flight of money overseas as the yuan fell. It stopped sale of stocks of certain companies, lowered interest rate, devalued the currency and has now started currency controls, prompting some to predict a debt deflationary collapse of the economy. The reason why people in the west save so little is because they have a social security safety net for everybody. Perhaps instead of wasting money on useless infrastructure projects the Chinese government could start large central insurance schemes to offer healthcare, pensions, unemployment and poverty benefits instead of the fragmented system they have now. China and India are secular for religion, they have to be secular for the economy too.

Fighting needs guts, cowards cause greater deaths.

Completely inexplicable! The US has warned Russia not to supply arms to the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad because it may escalate the fighting in Syria. The fighting would have been over long ago if the US had not supported the rebels initially. The rebels are getting arms from Arab governments and Turkey with the help of the CIA. Where are the Arab states getting arms which they are supplying to the rebels and with which they are bombing Yemen into rubble? From the US, of course. Millions of people in Yemen, the poorest country in the middle east, are staring at famine. Perhaps it would be cheaper to pay people smugglers to transfer the entire population of Yemen into Europe, as is happening from Syria and Libya. The long brutal war in Syria has resulted in the rise of the Islamic State which has taken savagery to an art form. Whereas terrorists operate in small groups and try to minimise their own loss by using car bombs or suicide bombers the IS has been highly successful against conventional armies, as shown by its rout of Ramadi. However, it is one thing to be a religious fanatic, willing to embrace death for a paradise filled with 72 virgins, it is quite another matter to devise complex battle tactics to defeat a trained army. Clearly, the IS has very sophisticated advisers. Where have these come from? They are former officers of Saddam Hussein's army. But surely Iraq's army was destroyed by the famous US 'shock and awe' tactics and the terrific fighting prowess of its marines? Turns out that the great battle for the capture of Baghdad was all theater because there was absolutely no resistance. Instead the highly trained US marines slaughtered a bunch of unarmed civilians, including women and children. So, where was the Iraqi army? The US had bribed senior officers of the elite Republican Guards to betray Saddam so they ordered their soldiers to desert en masse. Some of these officers are now devising tactics for the IS. Saddam was a Sunni, who are about 20% of the population, the majority 70% being Shia. It is exactly the opposite in Syria. Al-Assad is an Alawi, which is 11% of the population, the majority 70% being Sunni. The hatred between Sunni and Shia go back one thousand years so to meddle in this quicksand is to invite disaster. Apparently the US and Britain are encouraged by the 'success' of bombing in ending the Bosnian war so they think that bombing is the perfect way to get rid of baddies without risking their own soldiers. Bombing Serbs resulted in the 'independence' of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia and may lead to the division of Ukraine where the west organised an armed revolt against an elected president. Put in Iran and Israel and we have a nuclear explosion waiting to happen. War is savage. It needs guts. Cowards only increase deaths.

The world should learn from us: black money is the solution.

Although very different in nature dollar economies are much more successful than others, writes a Nobel Laureate in economics. By that he must mean Anglo-Saxon ones because there are many dollar economies in the world and, some like Zimbabwe, have had to get rid of their currency after it became junk. These countries have independent currencies, which move up and down according to the state of the economy, unlike in Europe where 19 countries have adopted the Euro, without fiscal or political union, resulting in severe stress. The Aussie dollar has dropped to 70 US cents from parity while the Canadian dollar is 75 US cents. This makes exports cheaper but surely makes people poorer by reducing their buying power as imports and travel become expensive. Even with a 30% fall in the value of the currency Australia is having to shut mines, with consequent loss of jobs. Surely, the same logic should apply to other countries with independent currencies, even if they are not called dollars. Brazil's currency, the real, has fallen to its lowest level in 10 years and its credit rating has been cut to junk status. A cheap currency raises the cost of goods so inflation is at 9.57%, forcing the central bank to push interest rate up to 14.25%. This is typical stagflation. Brazil's economy depends on exports of commodities so the slowdown in China has hit it very hard. But what about Japan. It is a manufacturing and high tech economy so the collapse in commodity prices should have sent its economy soaring. But its economy actually contracted in the second quarter by 0.3%. This is apparently because Japan, like the US, was buying up bonds to increase the money supply into the banking sector in the hope that banks will be forced to lend because a very low interest rate meant that the money would not earn anything. However, the inflation rate was also very low which meant that there was no loss in keeping cash lying idle, which is what banks did. China did precisely that when its government poured money into infrastructure and real estate after the crisis of 2008. China's debt has risen to 282% of GDP, most of it being household and corporate. China wants to shift its economy to a consumption led growth, like in the west, but that will cause boom-bust cycles as high consumption leads to high inflation, which is controlled with high interest rate, which leads to a fall in investment and slowing of the economy. The US has suffered 12 such cycles since 1940. Will its rigid political system withstand a bust? Meanwhile Heibei Financing is close to collapse because of $5 billion of bad debts. Some countries have gone into negative interest rates to force people to spend and banks to invest. Global confusion! In India we are not concerned. There is only one remedy for every ill: reduce interest rate and increase black money in real estate. We are so clever.

A country of rights, what about duties?

Unknown to us the Delhi High Court has passed an order upholding children's right to play and asking municipalities to provide playing grounds for children, but the Resident Welfare Associations are against such playgrounds. In order to stop children from playing most RWAs have planted shrubs or trees in the middle of lawns, making it impossible for children to play. One RWA has barred children above 10 years of age from playing in its park because a football hit an old person on the head, apparently causing a serious injury. As with everything in India the controversy arises because arguments are based on sentiment and not on logic. The problem is not with the children but with their parents. Land being extremely expensive apartments have been built with very little space in between. If children break a windowpane or the windscreen of a car their parents refuse to pay so residents stop children from playing. The easy solution is for parents to pay for large nets to enclose playing areas so that children can play without damaging people or property. But will they? No. They will claim that children have a right to play so someone else should pay. So then the question arises whose children are they? Most of these colonies are gated and the middle class has few children. It is possible that the children concerned are coming from slums outside. With crime rising in Delhi the real fear is that adults accompanying these children will use the opportunity to identify old people living alone and attack them later. No one will discuss the genuine fears of the residents, just use force to beat them into submission. Rights are distributed by politicians just like handouts. There is a right to food, right to education, right to free hospital care, right to housing, right to playgrounds, but no duties to earn those rights. Politicians dish out rights because the hapless taxpayer pays for it, because they have to justify their own rights to live like kings and because it is a cheap way of buying votes. But there is a heavy price to pay. All these rights are causing an explosion in population with increasing poverty and increasing crime. Unfortunately the same poor are demanding more than rights. They want jobs which will allow them to get out of poverty. In an article the Chief Minister of Rajasthan writes on how she is trying to reduce the cost of subsidies by targeting them to those who need them, so as to improve services. It is not going to be easy because the State Electricity Board alone has a debt of Rs 800 billion. To pay for handouts politicians are forever looking on how to increase taxes. Gambling is frowned on, so increase tax on betting at horse races. Easy money, right? People are betting of-course so that income of race clubs have fallen. Less income less taxes. When will these jackbooted commissars learn to respect us, the people? Stop rights, do your duties.

The economy is like Jurassic Park: completely unpredictable.

Young Americans have started a movement called 'Fed Up ' because they are fed up with lack of employment among the young, writes Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics. Unemployment rate among 17-20 year old African-Americans is 50%. There is no sign of wage inflation because of the competition for jobs. " Low wages means high profits for jobs, and low interest rates mean high stock prices," he writes. Hence ".......the bulk of the increase in incomes since the US 'recovery' began going to the top 1% of earners, it is not true for most communities." The interest rate in the US has been 0.25% since 2008 but the inflation rate in one year to July 2015 was just 0.2%, well below the Federal Reserve target rate of 2%. African-Americans are 13% of the population and of the 17-20 year old will a small number so is Stiglitz recommending that the Fed should tailor its monetary policy for a tiny minority of the population, like the OBCs in India? He strongly recommends that interest rate must not be raised." The worry is that in a low-interest-rate environment, investors irrational 'search for yield' fuels financial-sector distortions. In a well functioning economy, one would have expected the low cost of capital to be the basis of healthy growth," he writes." Now is not the time to tighten credit and slow down the economy." But if near zero interest rate for 7 years and 3 rounds of quantitative easing have not increased investment or inflation why does the professor think that it is going to work now? Companies cannot be forced to start new businesses in a free economy. The dollar being a reserve currency it is easy to borrow in the US to invest abroad where labor is cheap, which is what they have been doing. Others say that unemployment rate is 5.1% and benefits claims are dropping, showing a tight labor market. A rise in rate has already been discounted, markets hate uncertainty and the interest rate has to go up sometime, so let it be done. The biggest danger of very low interest rate is that it encourages companies and individuals to borrow excessively which leads to dangerous bubbles. The dot-com bubble did not cause an economic crisis because debt was limited to technology companies. Studies show that the most dangerous bubbles are not due financial speculation but due to asset bubbles, based on excessive borrowing, and these take a long time to resolve. Central banks can only do little because policy is not in their hands. Even as the economy is uncertain the Republicans want to hold up the budget because they want to stop abortions. How stupid! That is why Donald Trump is thrashing all comers in opinion polls. In India there is an outcry for the RBI to reduce rates. NRIs sent $70 billion into India last year. That could fall if interest rate falls and that, coupled with FII sell off, could cause the rupee to plummet. The economy is like Jurassic Park. It does not follow rules.

We are not afraid of failure, because we have failed already.

A correspondent based in the US has some advice for our Prime Minister for his visit to Silicon Valley later this month. In an article titled,' Om NaMo SiVa ' he asserts that the success of Silicon Valley is based on the acceptance of failure. " Much of Silicon Valley is built on a culture of risk-taking. Central to its lore is not stigmatising honest failure. Young geeks who have burnt through millions in failed ventures move on to second and third start-ups with the understanding among investors and venture capitalists that for every Google and Facebook, there are hundreds of ideas that die face down and end in zilch," he writes. He feels that in Asia there is a fear of failure. " In countries such as India, where farmers commit suicide because they owe Rs 2 lakh with no recourse to bankruptcy and rebuilding credit, or Korea, where pride and principle is hewn into every enterprise, failure on borrowed capital is tantamount to dishonour." Such differences are put down to culture but may even be genetic. While the history of western people is one of wars, conquest and slavery Asian peoples are completely different in their approach. Harmony and refraining from strife seems central to the Confucian principle while Indians are altogether supine, meekly accepting dominance of others, whether foreign invaders or local satraps. After a catastrophic explosion that cost over 100 lives the Chinese Premier visited the site in Tianjin. What is remarkable is that every official, including the Premier, is wearing a crisp white shirt and black trousers with identical black belts. Such is the uniformity in China that every delegate at the People's Congress has jet black hair, regardless of age. That is why China spent in excess of $200 billion to stop the falls in its stock markets and currency because otherwise the leaders would lose face. As for us Indians a story shows the type of people we are. A king wanted more money so he decided to levy service tax on restaurants. There was no protest. So he levied service tax on electricity, an essential service. No protest. Then he levied toll tax on a bridge that people had to cross to go to work. No protest. So he passed an order that every person crossing the bridge will be hit with a shoe while paying toll tax. Still no protest. But after one month one man wrote a petition to the king. Please increase the number of men to hit us with shoes because we are being delayed for work. Our esteemed leaders strut around like kings, levy huge taxes on us and if you dare protest you will be arrested for sedition. So, while Pakistan continues to threaten to use nuclear weapons against us we are paying huge amounts of money to Pakistani actors to act in our films. Wonder how much of that money is donated to LeT. Can you imagine any other nation being so servile? We are not afraid of failure, because we have failed as a nation.

What will they do when the fighting shifts to Europe?

Tens of thousands of refugees are pouring into Europe from Syria and Libya but not from Egypt. Why? There have always been economic migrants looking for better opportunities. After all, there are over 3 million Indians in the US and more are trying to migrate every year. But the scale of migration from Syria and Libya is far greater than seen so far. There are many poor countries in Asia and Africa and many have internal conflicts but we do not see significant population migration. Congo has had civil war almost forever,  you will need 35 quadrillion Zimbabwe dollars to buy one US dollar, such is the level of inflation, and Egypt has reverted back to army rule after a brief interlude. But we do not see such levels of desperation as we see in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Why? These are all countries where the west, including NATO, has interfered, although Rwanda has been known to support Congolese rebels. In 2009 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the elections and the regime used its armed militia, the Basij to beat up protesters. Pictures of Neda Agha-Soltan shot by one of these thugs were on front pages for days but peace quickly returned because no one dared to interfere in Iran's affairs. Whereas, in Syria the west supported the rebels with arms while Gulf states provided money so the protests quickly turned into an armed revolution, drawing in all kinds of psychos from all over the world for a killing jamboree. The comic book leaders of the US, UK and Europe want to stop ISIS but not completely because that will hand victory to Bashar al-Assad, who is a baddie. Archie and Jughead would have done better. Syrians are crossing the border into Turkey, which is struggling with around 2 million refugees already and maybe helping people smugglers to take them across the Aegean Sea into Greece. From there through Serbia, Hungary, Austria into Germany. Greece cannot cope because its economy has collapsed and has to borrow money to repay its creditors. Germany has been especially harsh with Greece so it has announced that it will take 500,000 refugees every year. Some are converting to Christianity in the hope of gaining asylum in Germany but how long before culture clashes break out as Muslims demand halal meat in schools, as happened in Britain. Although low in Germany unemployment levels in parts of Europe are very high and if migrants are seen to be taking jobs or bringing down wages clashes will break out. Britain has been using drones to kill its own citizens fighting for the ISIS in Syria. Some are realising the stupidity of their own governments but still refuse to blame them. At some point some of the strife will shift into Europe. What will they do then?

Who should we trust?

If a person is shivering and one doctor tells him it is because he is developing fever while another tells him that he is in danger of hypothermia, or below normal temperature, what will he make of it? While that almost never happens in medicine it seems to be a regular event in economics, especially in India. Here, the Finance Minister, and his stooges, firmly believe that India is in danger of deflation, or falling prices, whereas the Governor of the Reserve Bank, a highly respected economist, thinks that inflation could spike once the base effect has worn off. The raging argument around inflation and deflation is centered on only one point: should interest rate remain where it is at 7.25% or whether it should be cut and by how much. The IMF recommends a retail inflation rate of 4% and has recommended that the RBI should remain ready to raise rates while at the same time advising the US Federal Reserve not to raise rates.Not fair, say some. True, but the inflation rate in the US in one year to July was 0.2% while the CPI in India was 3.78% in July, despite falling commodity prices. Others disagree. They maintain that inflation is due to supply side constraints and a stable low inflation rate is essential for growth. The monsoon has been deficient, which will put pressure on prices, the population continues to grow unchecked and the increase in pensions for the armed forces under OROP principle, the increased spending on infrastructure and the impending Seventh Pay Commission, which will increase salaries for a vast army of civil servants, will all increase demand. Critics say that our retail inflation is based mainly on food and oil prices which are supply dependent, so a high interest rate has no effect on inflation and only hampers growth of the economy, which is essential for job creation. That was precisely the argument used by the Congress to pressure the RBI to keep interest rate at low level but every time the RBI lowered rates prematurely inflation spiked, rising to 14.97% in 2009. Retail inflation rate at 3.78% today is exactly the same as 2004, when the Congress grabbed power. Atsi Sheth of Moody's Investors Services thinks that inflation rate will determine our credit rating which is one notch above junk at present, lower than Colombia, Panama and Philippines. Not aiming for the summit, are we? So, what do professors recommend? No emerging economy will ever achieve the 10% growth rate of China so we must reform our economy. Education, institutions and governance, which means an end to corruption, are essential for growth. Economics must be practical, based on history, and not based on theoretical models taught in universities. Above all the population must be reduced to one tenth of what it is or else we will be fighting poverty forever, instead of becoming wealthy.

Maha criminals in Maharashtra.

Since the Right To Information Act came into being in 2005 at least 10 activists, the highest number, have been killed in Maharashtra, followed by 6 each in Gujarat and UP. This out of 60 who have been attacked. Most of the attacks have been to do with land grabbing. Land prices in Mumbai are in fairy tale territory. Last year Homi Bhabha's bungalow, with a plot size of 1,593 sq meters, in Mumbai sold for Rs 3.72 billion, which works out around $3,600 per sq foot. That compares to rates in Manhattan in New York. The glib answer usually given is that India has more people than the US so the pressure on land is greater. True, but we are not talking about the MNREGA scheme here. We are talking about how many private individuals can afford such rates. There are just 14,800 dollar millionaires in India, of whom 2,700 live in Mumbai. Compare that to New York, which has 389,000 millionaires, 27 times that of the whole of India. The US has over 10 million millionaires. Strangely, India has a very high proportion of billionaires at 90, compared to 536 in the US, which probably shows that a lot of wealth is from very dubious sources. About 50% of the wealth of the super rich is in real estate so it is in their interest to keep prices at astronomical levels. Naturally, such abnormal levels of prices attracts all kinds of low life, just as flies are attracted to rotting flesh, and land grabbing is probably the most lucrative enterprise in Mumbai and anyone wanting to shed light on this dark underworld will be attacked. But surely, police and officials are beavering away diligently to expose crimes which are being punished severely by the courts according to strict laws elected by our most revered politicians? Er, no. Out of 288 members of the present assembly in Maharashtra 165 have criminal charges against them, with 115 having charges of murder, kidnapping and crimes against women against them. Of the BJP, which forms the government, 48 or 61% have criminal charges against them and of the Shiv Sena, which controls the municipality, 48 or 76% have criminal charges against them. The Campa Cola case shows exactly how criminals make money out of real estate. While the residents have lost their homes not a single official or the builders have been punished. But criminals are sensitive souls and are deeply hurt by being exposed. So the Maharashtra government has issued a circular to the police to arrest anyone criticising politicians on a charge of sedition. Before we hiss in outrage we have to admit that they have a point. All politicians are innocent unless proven guilty and they can never be proven guilty because cases go on forever. Heads we win tails you lose.