Will Ms Gandhi speak up against intolerance in the US?

If any Martian visited earth he would think that India is the most intolerant country in the world where 'Wahabi Hindus' are going around killing everyone. A fierce debate is raging in the parliament on rising intolerance in the country with every party blaming BJP for being Hindu. And where is the President of the Congress, Ms Sonia Gandhi, the party which seeks to be the torch bearer for tolerance? She is visiting the US, that bastion of tolerance, which has used nuclear weapons, napalm, dioxin, white phosphorus, depleted uranium, water-boarding, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, renditions and is presently bombing in Iraq and Syria and using drones as a video game to blow up people, for fun. The Congress says that Ms Gandhi is visiting the US for medical check up. What is this mysterious illness that cannot be checked up in India but only in the US, does not seem to require any treatment, and does not seem to progress? If it is so rare should it not be published so that we can learn about the condition, how to diagnose it and what advice to give our patients? It is gross intolerance not to let us ordinary Indians benefit from her experience of this esoteric condition. So what about the US? There was an attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, which carries out abortions as part of women's healthcare program. This is because of a video which claimed that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal parts for research, which was investigated but found to be false. This has not stopped presidential candidate, Carly Fiorina from repeating the falsehood, even after the shooting. Another candidate, Jeb Bush, Brother of George W and son of George HW Bush, would not have any qualms about shooting a baby Hitler, if he could go back in time. " Hell yeah, I would. You gotta step up man," he said. He would kill a baby without trying to reach out to him or trying to educate him on the dangers of war. Naturally the question arose: wouldn't it be kinder to abort Hitler before his birth. To which another candidate, Ben Carson said that he would not support abortion. Carson is deeply religious. The front runner, Donald Trump has some interesting comments regarding reactions of Muslims after 9/11. He blamed the media for not producing videos to prove his claims. Trump supports identity cards for Muslims and Carson thinks that Syrian refugees are " rabid dogs ". Meanwhile unarmed black men are being regularly executed by US police. A policeman who shot a black teenager 16 times, including in the back, is out on bail. An Indian grandfather was left paralysed after being slammed on the ground by a police baboon in the US even after he kept saying that he does not understand English. The baboon walked free when the jury accepted the defense that not knowing English is a crime. Does that mean that Americans are fair game in countries that do not speak English? We hope that Ms Gandhi takes up intolerance with the US government while she is there.

Just cheap vodka to celebrate Rs 225 million?

The Prime Minister is in Paris for talks on climate change. The last summit in Copenhagen was a dismal failure and ended in acrimony. Whether the present summit will lead to any binding agreement is doubtful. The 2 biggest emitters, the US and China, have already come to an understanding that will undermine any meaningful agreement. The US has proposed that it will reduce emissions from its power sector by 32% compared to 2005 levels while China has proposed it will reduce CO2 emission by 60-65% per unit of GDP. China has acted to improve its air quality since the US embassy in Beijing tweeted particle concentrations in the air in 2010 and now issues smog warnings to its citizens. But the US is suspect. The Obama administration has linked trade talks at the WTO, as well as climate talks, to matching sacrifices by developing countries. As a practiced gasbag he is able to cloak artifice in lofty words, a typical shyster. Also, his term finishes in a year and the next president may not honor any pledge he makes. No politician wants to cause a fall in economic growth and the US being the strongest country in the world there is not much anyone can do if it chooses to break its promises. There is some optimism this time because nations are being allowed to set their own targets, which can be legally verified, in a bottom-up approach, so that there is greater flexibility. So, what are the numbers they will be discussing? There are absolute numbers, which give the total amount of CO2 being produced by each nation, and there are relative numbers, which is the amount of CO2 produced per person. Canada's total emission is very low but its per capita index is the highest because it has a small population while China produces the highest amount of greenhouse gases but its per capita rate is lower than that of Japan because of its huge population. The US likes to focus on total amounts to pressure countries like India which retaliate by quoting amount per person to show that we are forced to produce more to catch with western standard of living. With hundreds of millions of poor people our situation is dire. The present government wants to create large numbers of jobs in manufacturing but advances in technology means that robots are taking over the work of unskilled labor. To produce jobs for all requires huge infrastructure, especially electricity, which will need burning of fossil fuels. Modi wants to produce 100 gigawatts of electricity from renewable sources by 2022 and such industries can generate a lot of jobs. Trouble is that most Indian workers are illiterates and probably unfit for employment in high-tech industries. When police found the driver of a security van, who had run away with Rs 225 million, he was eating tanduri chicken, with vodka. Probably never heard of single malt. The only way to become wealthy while reducing greenhouse gases is to bring down population. Else India will remain dirty.

Will Cameron sacrifice all in search of a mojo?

Prime Minister David Cameron made an impassioned speech in the House of Commons for permission to be allowed to bomb Syria. He strongly feels that Britain should be "part of the action" rather than "standing aside". Bombing people is not a soccer game that you would rather be kicking the ball on the field than sitting on the sidelines. You have to feel sorry for Cameron. At times he wants to be like Thatcher, who won the Falklands war, but knows that he will look ridiculous carrying a handbag. At other times he tries to imitate Churchill, when he draws down his upper lip over his teeth, while talking. Churchill killed 3 million in Bengal in 1943 when he stole our grain for British soldiers fighting in the far east. Only 30,000 were killed in the Libyan war, instigated by Cameron and  Nicolas Sarkozy of France, so Cameron wants increase his score. Britain has been playing a dirty game in Afghanistan, trying to bring together Pakistan's ISI with Afghan intelligence. That has probably fallen apart after the Taliban attack on Kunduz, which was supported by terrorists relocated from Waziristan in Pakistan. Already a number of countries are bombing ISIS held areas in Syria. Russia started bombing in September and France has joined in the fun since the attacks on Paris. With bombs raining down on poor Syrians what difference will a few more British bombs make? Bombs do not come cheap. Seems that each bombing mission costs an estimated 1 million pounds. While cutting billions of pounds from the welfare budget, which hits poor people, Cameron can find money to kill. He talks of bombing ISIS terrorists, but do bombs, no matter how smart, distinguish between a terrorist and a child? This succession of wars has resulted in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing to Europe. Only a fraction of migrants are true refugees, trying to save their lives, the majority are economic migrants from Bangladesh, African countries, Iran and Pakistan. Pakistan is the epicenter of terrorism in the world today and the mastermind of the Paris attack slipped in with refugees from Syria. There is growing backlash against refugees in the whole of Europe and as countries put up barbed wire fences to stop the inflow, it will result in an end to the free movement of people within the Schengen area. That could mean an end to the European Union as some countries are proposing a smaller union of core countries. The growing pressure on Britain to take in more refugees is gradually resulting in growing calls to leave Europe. If Britain leaves Europe Scotland will opt for independence. And if the United Kingdom breaks up then Britain cannot be allowed to occupy a seat at the UN Security Council. So, for the want of a mojo all could be lost.

Savings or spending, what do they want?

The economy needs to grow at a very high rate, if we are to provide jobs for everybody and reduce poverty. On that there is no debate. But there is no clarity on what we, the people, are supposed to do. We are told that people need to save more to finance growth. If people save money in banks then banks will have more money to lend, which will bring down interest rates. It will be even better if we buy shares as that is the cheapest way for companies to raise money, because they will pay dividend only if they make profits, whereas they have to pay interest on money borrowed from banks, even if they are making losses. Easy to follow. What is household savings? It is disposable income (which is salary+dividends+interest-taxes), plus savings towards pensions, minus expenses. Our disposable income is low because our government does not pay us any state pension for all the income tax we have paid. Not only that, it taxes pensions almost as heavily as it taxes salaries of younger people. India ranks at number 71 in a list of countries best for old age, below Nepal at 70, Bangladesh at 67 and Sri Lanka at 46. Naturally, people with high disposable incomes are able to save more but, on the other hand, if their asset prices are very high they tend to spend more, which is known as 'wealth effect'. Gross financial savings as a percentage of GDP are the lowest in 25 years. People cannot save if their spending is high, because of high prices. Actually, wholesale prices have been falling for one year. Retail prices are increasing but at much lower rates, prompting the RBI to cut interest rate by 125 basis points. Curiously, people expect prices to rise by over 10% in the next 3 months to one year. If people are expecting inflation to be higher than interest paid by banks it is only natural that they would be reluctant to save in term deposits at banks. The Governor of the RBI has repeatedly said that he intends to keep real interest rate, which is the difference between actual interest rate and retail inflation, at 150-200 basis points but people seem to think otherwise. It maybe because they were savaged by scorching inflation during the Congress years. And if they do not trust the RBI they will invest in physical assets, such as real estate or gold, to hedge against inflation. To prevent that the government is selling gold bonds which will pay interest at 2.75%. What about shares? Seems that promoters of companies are pledging their shares with banks to service their debts. The danger in that is that if share prices fall banks will want more shares as collateral or sell off some shares to reduce their exposure. Selling shares in a depressed market will cause prices to fall even further. On the other hand, if people save more they will spend less which will depress profits by cutting demand. So what will help the economy, increased saving or increased consumption? Will someone explain?

How long will our Chandnis have to dance for food?

'Chandni' means 'moonlight', not the harsh light of the sun which burns our skin and shows up every blemish, but a soft mellow radiance which makes everything look beautiful by hiding the defects. But Chandni seems to be an inauspicious name in India. Chandni bars in Mumbai, where girls from poor families earned amounts of money they could never dream of, were closed down by moral Nazis, forcing the girls into prostitution. Now the story of another Chandni who used to earn a living by performing on the streets of Delhi, until her father died, when she became a ragpicker to feed herself. Now, at the ripe old age of 18 years, she edits a quarterly tabloid called 'Balaknama', which means 'stories of children', stories of children who live in slums and on the streets, a lot of whom have to work in dangerous occupations to relieve their hunger. So what is the big deal? Thousands of children are being born on the streets of Indian cities everyday, where they survive by begging or working, until they die an early death from disease or crime. Why? After 67 years of public distribution of cheap food, reservations and numerous social schemes, which reward the poor for being subservient, why do we have so many Chandnis? Fortunately, we have Mr Rahul Gandhi who is determined to protect the interests of the poor. His party, the Congress, blocked every bill in the monsoon session of the parliament in the Rajya Sabha, where it has a majority. He is adamantly against any modification of the Land Acquisition Bill which has made it impossible to acquire land for industries or for building roads. Which also means that farmers have no escape from a wretched cycle of failing monsoon, loans from moneylenders and ultimate suicide. Increasing the minimum support price only increases food prices, which hurt the poor. He repeatedly accuses the government of being a 'suit, boot ki sarkar', probably wanting everyone to be in 'langotis', which means 'loincloths'. After all MK Gandhi (no relation of Rahul) rejoiced in the epithet of being a " half-naked fakir ". Rahul Gandhi is extremely rich, having lived in palaces all his life so his concern for the poor is touching. Unless of course he is sacrificing our economy to his ambition of becoming prime minister in 2019. He claims to have a M Phil from Cambridge under a disguise of Raul Vinci and apparently claimed to be a British citizen in the past. Power and pelf worth any artifice. Ambition propelled Mr Nitish Kumar, reputed to be an honorable man, to tie up with Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, out on bail, to win assembly elections in Bihar. Unfortunately, Yadav's RJD party has won more seats than Kumar's JDU. It seems that Kumar's cabinet was chosen by Yadav so how much more of blood money he will have to pay remains to be seen. Chandnis dance for food while politicians dance for power.

A gasbag, a thug and a former KGB officer: what about the world?

It is not a matter of who is right but why. Two days back Turkey shot down a Russian SU24, allegedly for having crossed into its airspace for 17 seconds. Russians claim that the plane was over Syrian territory when shot down and that it " represents a stab in the back by the terrorists' accomplices ". Turkey has released audio recordings of warnings given to the Russian plane before it was shot down but the surviving pilot of the plane denies that there was any warning. Turkish President, RT Erdogan has admitted that he was angry about Russian bombing of Turkmen rebels, who he sees as brothers, inside Syria, which suggests that Russia is right when it claims that the attack was premeditated. So, what to understand from all this? The Russian plane was not attacking anything inside Turkey. Even if it clipped a tiny knuckle of Turkish territory, bulging into Syria, for 17 seconds there was no reason to shoot the plane down. The Russians did not expect an attack so they did not take any evasive action, release flares or fight back. The pilots were shot at when they were parachuting down, killing one, and a Russian marine in a rescue helicopter was also shot dead by rebels. One pilot was rescued by Russian and Syrian forces. Erdogan is an Islamist dictator who jailed prosecutors investigating corruption by his family. He emasculated the army by bringing false cases against army officers and against supporters of the opposition Gulen movement. He is angry because Russia is bombing ISIS oil installations and delivery trucks. ISIS was selling oil to Turkey, a business controlled by Erdogan's son, Bilal, who is making billions out of smuggling. He obviously feels safe because Turkey is a member of NATO which has promised that any attack on Turkey will invite reprisals. Russia has deployed advanced S-400 anti-aircraft missiles, signaling that anyone shooting at a Russian plane will be shot down. Russia has advised its citizens not to go to Turkey as tourists, a lucrative source of revenue and may supply anti-aircraft missiles to the PKK which is being bombed by Turkish planes. So, why did Erdogan do it? We have to remember that NATO is controlled by the US and Turkish fighter jets are supplied by the US. Surely, it is no coincidence that electricity supply to Crimea, annexed by Russia last year, was cut off when electricity pylons were blown up by unknown criminals. That brings us to Obama, who is being criticised for having no clue on how to stop ISIS. He told the French President, Hollande to keep pushing Russia just after Paris suffered horrific attacks. Obama should know that war is not about enjoying himself, killing innocent civilians with drones, and he should remember that Putin worked in the KGB and has a little more knowledge about how to play a dirty game. He thinks he is being very clever but could end up killing so many that Hitler will be forgotten.

If it was a secular hug why deny it?

Poor Mr Kejriwal. Seems that Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav pulled him into a bear hug when he attended the swearing in ceremony of Mr Yadav's sons. Oh, how cute! But he does not say whether it was against his wishes, and if it was, whether he has filed a complaint of sexual harassment with the police or the National Commission for Women, there being no commission for men. Some people have questioned why he was smiling when hugged by force. We suppose that he remembered the old saying," If you cannot prevent it just enjoy it." Kejriwal was a civil servant in Income Tax department, then founded a NGO and is now a politician, which in India is equivalent to holding 3 aces in 'teen patti', a card game played for money. On the way he trampled over Mr Anna Hazare, a very simple and honest man, who has now severed ties with Kejriwal. Meanwhile, Mr Aamir Khan, who has become super rich by acting in Bollywood films, said that his wife, who used to be a Hindu, is so worried for the safety of her son due to the intolerance in India that she wants to emigrate. An eminently sensible suggestion. After all, what mother would not be worried about her son's safety? So where do they think of going? Syria, Libya, Iraq, Somalia and Mali will have free education. There is no cricket in Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Sudan. Pakistan and Bangladesh are just across, and he will be treated as a star in these countries. Though, whether he will make unjustified amounts of money is doubtful. He could buy a house from Dawood Ibrahim or Chota Shakeel in Dubai. Saudi Arabia is very safe provided his wife wears an Abaya whenever she steps out, he does not drink alcohol and does not act in any film with beautiful women. Also, houses in Saudi Arabia do not have any windows. Films with dogs, although considered unclean, is permitted. Mr Khan is of course hugely rich and could easily buy citizenship in many countries. The UK charges 2 million pounds but the US is cheap at $1 million, which converts to a mere Rs 60 million, what Mr Khan would consider chump change. He should not grow a beard in the US or speak any language, other than English, while boarding a plane. If his wife is concerned about the safety of his son he should read this list of school shootings in the US, starting in 1764. The one in Sandy Hook Elementary School by Adam Lanza in 2012 is particularly educational. There have been protests against racism in Australia by Indians living there. Even the ISIS considers Indians as inferior.  Now, that is the mother of intolerance. The good thing is that all these countries will have lots of beef to eat. Chow.

If someone else is paying just enjoy.

Indian weddings, presumably of the rich, have been analysed by one Uma Shashikant, who has a PhD in Finance and is the Director of Centre for Investment Education & Learning. In her analysis she makes several criticisms of how Indian weddings are conducted. Weddings are no longer the simple affairs of the past and have become elaborate events where artisans, each with his own expertise, offer niche services. Perhaps the author is unaware that Pramod Mittal spent over 60 million Euros on his daughter's wedding in Barcelona when he had borrowed Rs 1.30 billion from the State Bank of India, which had restructured an earlier loan of Rs 300 million. His brother, Lakshmi Mittal spent 46 million Euros on his daughter's wedding in 2004. Surely, it is much better for accumulated black money to be spent inside India, where it boosts the economy, than to be spent abroad. Those who have built up a reputation " can charge a bomb " while others earn very little. You pay for the best. If lawyers in Delhi can charge Rs 1.5 million per hearing why should a florist or a caterer not charge for his services. If people are stupid enough to want the groom to arrive on a white mare in today's world then they should be ready to shell out Rs 100,000 for one hour. We have to remember that Hindu weddings can only be held on certain days of the year so these people have to earn enough to tide them over the months when there are no weddings at all. If there are thousands of weddings occurring at the same time there is immense competition for services, which pushes up their value. That is how markets operate, whether in shares or in decorating. It is wonderful that these people, many of whom have little formal education, are so adept at using the internet. Weddings cannot be standardised for many reasons. Perhaps the most important reason is how much money parents are willing to spend, which depends on how rich they are. Secondly, rich people usually have very few children and so want to make their child's wedding something to remember. And finally, there are more so called 'love marriages' today where customs of the families maybe very different. A Punjabi marrying a Marathi will be necessarily different to a Tamil marrying a Bengali, although all are Hindus. These people hate paying taxes. Very normal. Every candidate for the Republican Party in the US promises to cut taxes, the only difference is by how much. They take payment in cash because otherwise they will have to pay Service Tax, VAT and Income Tax. They will need PAN number, TIN number, Service Tax number, and other numbers, have to file returns, which may need the services of an accountant, and maybe harassed by tax officials. Also a lot are from villages and can show their income as agricultural, which is totally free from taxes. Just as politicians do. Lavish Indian weddings are great for the economy because they circulate black money from rich to poor. Don't analyse, just enjoy the single malt.

Could most of it be fool's gold?

Indians are supposed to be hoarding 20,000 tonnes of gold, worth a cool Rs 52 trillion. Naturally, politicians would love to get their hands on this wealth to plug deficits in their indiscriminate spending. To be fair, it is very bad for our economy for so much money to be sitting idle, which keeps on increasing every year. India imports 800-1000 tonnes of gold every year which adds to our trade and current account deficits. Also the price of gold  jumped from Rs 4,400 per 10 grams in 2000 to Rs 31,799 per 10 grams in 2012. It is at Rs 25,248 today. Successive governments have tried to curb this insatiable appetite for gold. The knee jerk reaction of politicians is to increase taxes, which is what the Congress did when tax on gold was increased from 2% to 10%, as at present. Which made smuggling exceedingly lucrative. One kg of gold smuggled in from Dubai gives a profit of Rs 500,000 and lots of people are prepared to take the risk. In the last financial year over 3,500 kg of gold, valued at Rs 10 billion, was seized by officials. Even more must be getting through. Of course, officers are also Indian and presumably love gold as much as ordinary folks so 11.261 kg of seized gold, worth Rs 29.2 million, disappeared from the customs warehouse. Why it was sitting in a warehouse at Indira Gandhi Airport in Delhi, a known den of corruption, is a mystery. Surely, any gold that is seized should go straight into Reserve Bank vaults from where it can be sold to jewelers, thus reducing import pressures? To bring our love of gold into the open the present government announced 3 gold schemes. One will take in gold ornaments, melt them down into pure gold and issue bonds against that, which will pay interest at 2.25%. The second will allow people to buy gold bonds, instead of buying physical gold, and again the government will pay interest at rates depending on whether they are short, medium or long term. These bonds will be actively traded. The third is coins made of pure gold which people will buy as investment. It was thought that people would want to get some interest on their gold which was sitting in bank lockers and since these are sovereign bonds they are totally safe. Sadly, people have not been enthused by the schemes. The bond scheme has attracted only Rs 1.5 billion because the price was set at 10% premium to the market price. Also you will have to open a demat account with a bank which has charges. As for physical gold, the government has collected only 400 grams out of the estimated 20,000 tonnes. Why? One reason maybe that people are afraid of wealth tax, which is payable on assets worth Rs 3 million and over. Just 150 grams of gold at today's rate will be more than that. The more important reason is that although most jewellery sold in India is said to be 22 carat every item will be much below that level. Jewellers short-change customers so they hang on to what they have. It may glitter but is it gold?

What makes news?

Seems that mathematics can explain why some incidents are big news while similar incidents elsewhere are ignored. This depends on information content, which depends on the probability of an event occurring in a certain situation and can be expressed " as the negative of the logarithm (to base 2) of the probability of occurrence of the event, and is measured in bits ". Whatever that may mean. A simple explanation of this concept is that 'man bites dog' is news but 'dog bites man is not'. Naturally, such selective reporting of news leads to outrage on social media, what the author labels as 'whataboutery'.  Thus, the killings in Paris was big news but what about terrorist attacks in Beirut, which killed 40 Shias, just a day earlier. Why was that not as big as Paris? The reason is that killings between Shias and Sunnis are a common occurrence but Paris is celebrated as a city of love. So the information content of the Beirut killings was less than those in Paris. Similarly, what about 70 people dying in floods in Tamil Nadu. That did not make the headlines because the intense concentration of people India means that any natural event results in a large number of deaths on a regular basis. Lightnings, which strike very small areas, have killed over 2,000 people every year since 2005, so 70 people killed in floods, which cover large areas, is hardly news. Mathematics is pure science but news reporting is subjective. Owners of media channels influence how news is reported. Thus the reporting of the Dadri incident, in which one man died, was rabidly anti-government and the news media kept howling about the incident for weeks but a riot in Bihar which killed 4 people, 2 of them by police firing, one day before Mr Nitish Kumar was sworn in on a platform of secularism, was kept quiet. Manufactured news was the subject of a James Bond movie, 'Tomorrow Never Dies' in which Elliot Carver, head Carver Media Group, tries to engineer a war between China and Britain so that he will have media rights in China. Yet, given the history of Europe and the middle east the Paris attacks were not surprising at all, just as 9/11 should not have been a surprise. A British historian, Tom Holland, has traced the conflict between Islam and Christianity, going back to the days of Prophet Mohammad in the 7th century. In the first 20 years after Mohammad started his mission Islam covered large areas, which were Christian till then. Their expansion was stopped by the Byzantine empire. This was followed by the Crusades, then the Ottoman empire and finally the industrial revolution in the west and the discovery of the Americas, with increasing wealth, led to the dominance of Christians in today's world. The Muslims are unable to accept that fact that a global Caliphate is totally impossible today. The media may yet engineer a 'Clash of Civilizations'.

Why is it so easy to rob the central bank?

What a ripoff. According to the 7th Pay Commission salaries of central government employees will be increased by a massive 23.55% and the minimum salary will be Rs 18,000. Pensions will go up 24%. Wonderful. So who were the most esteemed members of this bountiful Pay Commission? A retired judge, a serving government officer and the Director of NIPFP and its secretary was again a serving government officer. Never heard of NIPFP? The heading of its homepage says 'Department of Revenue', another government department, like thousands of others, engaged in research. Presumably all 3 gentlemen and the one lady have everything to gain from these enormous hikes. Interestingly, there was no one to represent the interest of the hapless taxpayer who is going to have to pay for all these handouts with higher taxes. The minimum pay for armed forces officers has been increased to Rs 15,500. How very generous. So, our soldiers who risk their lives for the nation are going to be paid Rs 2,500 less than a sweeper in a government office. Government teachers do not teach, clerks will sit on files unless bribed and the top officials, who will now get salaries of Rs 250,000 per month, were not taking decisions because they were frightened of being accused of dishonesty. Why were they afraid? Because when new ministers come in they do not know how the government runs, what the laws are and how policies are framed. Civil servants are around for ever. All the scams under the Congress had civil servants at their center. Indian civil servants have been repeatedly rated the worst in Asia. Although the Supreme Court said last year that no permission is needed to investigate a corrupt officer, they have the power to make any investigation as difficult as possible and, since court cases drag on forever, they have little to fear. Their salaries have multiplied by an eye-watering 225 times in the last 56 years. They are always compared with private sector, which is an absolute canard. The private sector is productive, creates jobs and engineers economic growth. Civil servants, on the other hand, are toll collectors, who pocket our money to issue licenses for industries to create wealth or give us various permissions, for example to build a house, get a water connection or an electricity meter, with our hard earned money. In the private sector you are given targets to achieve and will be fired if you do not perform. Civil servants have permanent posts and maybe transferred but cannot be sacked. They get an assured pension and free healthcare through the CGHS system. This is akin to a robbery of the nation's bank. It is going to add another Rs 1 trillion to government expenditure. The agitation for reservations by Patels is just a start. Expect all out war as every community fights for a portion of the loot.

Champagne for the French, beer for us?

Violence is common everywhere in the world. Death of innocent people is also sadly very common. Witness the list of school shootings in the US, going back to 1764. Even at this moment the FBI is looking for a 19 year old student armed with a rifle. A truck bomb in Oklahoma city in 1995 killed 168 people, including children. People have been killed for race as in a shooting in a black church in Charleston, in the US. Of course, no one can ever forget the Holocaust which killed 6 million people, only because they were Jews. Large numbers of people have been killed for religion. A shooting in a Gurudwara in Wisconsin, in the US killed 6 in 2012. Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a Tamil female suicide bomber in 1991. The Hindu Tamils were fighting for greater autonomy in Sri Lanka because of Buddhist intolerance. The filthy mass murderer, Churchill killed 3 million Bengalis by stealing our grains for British troops fighting in the far east. This villain combined both racism and religious hatred in one sentence when he said," I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion." He meant Hindus. Religious cults have resulted in deaths of hundreds. But all the incidents, vile as they all are, have been regional. Until now. Terrorism is now a global phenomenon, affecting virtually every country in the world. Why, what is the common link? It is religion. There is Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabaab in Somalia, ISIS and the Al Nusra front in Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Gaza, and the many branches of Al Qaeda, including Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. There is terrorism in the south of Thailand and in August a bomb at the Erawan shrine in Bangkok killed 20 people, including 14 foreigners. We are especially lucky in India. We have the Indian Mujahideen and there have been numerous attacks over the years, supported by a whole army of liberals who deny its existence. Our neighbor to the west, Pakistan, has no other ambition as a nation than the destruction of 'Hindu' India and to that end supports the Taliban, Let, JeM and many more such scum that it is impossible for anyone, claiming to be a human being with the slightest decency, to even contemplate. This global terrorism is the result of a narrative of being victimised by every religion on earth, by democracy, by trade and by each other, resulting in a venomous hatred for everyone outside their immediate group. Why are Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, Libyans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, all trying to get into Europe if western people are trash, who drink alcohol, mix freely with women and believe in science. Because they hope to convert Europeans and establish Sharia.  That is why 81% support ISIS. Turkish fans booed during one minute's silence before a soccer match for those killed in Paris. Last word to Charlie Hebdo," They have guns.... we have champagne." Champagne is expensive, we will toast with beer. 

You can have taxes or growth, not both.

The divergence in inflation figures continues to create confusion. The Wholesale Price Index fell by 3.8% in October, which is 12 straight months of decline, while the Consumer Price Index rose by 5%, up from 4.41% in September. Wholesale prices fell by 5.06% in August and 4.54% in September, so there has been a slight firming of prices. Why is there such gap between the 2 indices? Because they measure different baskets of consumption. The wholesale index measures commodity prices, which have been falling, especially oil, and factory prices of manufactured goods, which have been falling due to a combination of lower input costs and low demand. This has set up a howl for lower interest rates, which will supposedly increase demand by making borrowing cheaper. The main constituent of retail prices are food at 46%, housing at 10% and services, such as healthcare, education and recreation. Nobody pays for food, medicines, rent or children's education on borrowed money, so if most of the earnings of people is spent on basic necessities they will be unable to spend on durable goods, such as televisions and fridges. This applies especially to the poor who spend a far greater proportion on their earnings on food and need much more calories to make up for physical labor. This is clearly shown in the Index of Industrial Production which came in below expectation at 3.6% in September. What is important is that production of durable goods have gone up by 7.6% but non-durable goods, which are items of daily use, such as toothpaste and detergents, have fallen by 0.9%. Personal loans from banks at the end of September grew by 18%, compared to last year, loans for consumer durables grew by 12.7%, for vehicles by 16.3% and credit cards outstanding grew by 22.2%. This is because the RBI has reduced interest rate by 125 basis points since the beginning of this year, from 8 to 6.75%, making it easier for the well off to borrow, while the poor are being squeezed by rising prices. We have written repeatedly that low interest rates help the rich to accumulate assets while hurting those who depend on their savings. A large part of rising prices is due to taxes. Not content with levying value added tax and service tax the government adds surreptitious taxes in the form of surcharge, cess and special duties, which constitute 18.6% of tax revenues, up from 7.8% in 1998-99. There is a special levy on education in addition to the extra fees being paid by the middle class for the 25% of seats reserved for the poor under the Right to Education Act, passed by the Congress. Naturally, school fees in Delhi have tripled in just 7 years. Increasing taxes to pay for handouts is not going to increase demand. Subsidies must be targeted to not having children. That will increase disposable income, increase demand and increase tax collection, without the need for sly levies. Sadly, politicians do not like the truth.

Make in India yes, but by whom?

The Prime Minister is travelling round the world inviting everyone to come and 'Make in India' but there is doubt that this will create the number of jobs that India desperately needs. Exports from India have been falling for 10 straight months, which means that we continue to run trade deficits, which will result in a current account deficit. China had a trade surplus of $343 billion with the US, only one country, in 2014 which was more than our total export for the last financial year. To increase exports we have to manufacture world class products at competitive prices and to do that industries will have to use robots. Robots can do repetitive jobs perfectly every time, they reduce waste, they are not affected by toxic chemicals, they can work round the clock, resulting in a huge increase in productivity, and they never go on strike. However, using robots will result in loss of employment for unskilled labor. As production increases jobs will be created for engineers, computer technicians and designers. But sadly, about half our graduates are unfit for employment. The fear of robots taking over jobs for humans has been taxing experts for a long time. Which are the most vulnerable professions susceptible to the coming invasion by robots? Low end unskilled jobs are naturally the most vulnerable. Cleaners, waiters, drivers and other such professions will be in danger but will robots take over jobs which require intelligence? It now appears that even jobs which require years of study and training maybe in danger. A robot, named Adam, has been conducting scientific experiments and another one, name Eve, is conducting research to find new molecules to treat malaria. Surgeries are being performed by robots. Robots could easily fly planes but it will take decades before human beings will trust them. Self driven cars are already being tested so will all cars become robotic in future? Not so easy. Suppose a child runs out in front of a car driven by a robot and the only option of saving the child is by steering the car into a canal, thereby killing the owner, what will a robot do? How should it be programmed? And if it were to kill the child would the owner of the robot be liable or the company which programmed it? What will happen to billions of human beings if robots take over all our jobs? The rich will get incredibly wealthy but the unskilled and illiterate will need intensive training and support. The unknown is always scary. However, some see the future as exceedingly bright as machines perform all hazardous work, solar energy provides unlimited cheap electricity, which will provide unlimited water from the sea, so that vertical farms can produce unlimited organic food in cities and people will be paid to keep an eye on machines, to see that everything is functioning smoothly. Paradise or hell, thankfully we will not live long enough to see it.

Stubborn or susceptible, what are we?

All opinion and exit polls totally failed to predict the trouncing of the BJP in Bihar assembly elections last month. Pundits are now trying to make sense of how they missed such a swing against the BJP. One article says that the reason why the polls were so wrong is because people make up their minds first and then look for corroborative evidence. A British politician apparently said," I will look at any additional evidence to confirm the opinion to which I have already come." This trait in humans is used by companies such as Facebook, which gives a list of people that you may like, or Amazon, which suggests what books you may like to read, by keeping a record of what you have ordered before. That is probably why politicians surround themselves with sycophants and board of directors of companies are filled with friends of the CEO. The internet has also been blamed for an apparent rise in intolerance because it gives a chance for people with similar views, but living far away from each other, to meet in chat rooms, whereas previously they would have been unaware of the existence of each other. This tendency of using the same facts to fit diametrically opposite opinions has been explained mathematically by using Bayes' Theorem. But are human beings so pig-headed that they are completely deaf to any other opinion. If that were the case the advertising industry would not be worth $600 billion worldwide. Lifebuoy's advertisements linking its soap with health, Liril soap's commercial of a girl under a waterfall and Maggi noodles advertising tasty hot noodles ready in 2 minutes are legendary. Anchor changed the way everything is sold in India by being the first to market a 'vegetarian toothpaste' so that now food, medicines and cosmetics are marked either with a green square for using vegetarian ingredients or a brown square for animal sources. The cosmetic industry, plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons and the organic food industries earn hundreds of billions of dollars, mostly from flimflam. So human beings are stubborn and highly suggestible in equal mixture. What decides elections, especially in India, has more to do with calculation of personal gain than with principles, patriotism or social development. In Bihar a combination of extreme anti-Hindu propaganda by a biased media, an appeal for caste alliance and promises of handouts tilted people towards the anti-BJP alliance. Polls were not wrong in that both sides were still equally balanced going into election day. In a first-past-the-post system any booth capturing, wherein thugs tell people which party to vote for, will result in a clean sweep. If one party has received 80-90% of all votes caste at a booth then that would be highly suspicious. Perhaps, professors should study voting patterns instead of using Bayes' Theorem. Beware of thugs though.

No solution from dirty games and fear paralysis.

In a sign of impotent rage France bombed 'ISIS targets' in Raqqa, which is apparently the headquarters of ISIS in Syria. Bombs do not distinguish between terrorists and innocent children and the US has been bombing that city for years, so whether any fighters are still hanging around there is uncertain. On 14 November, 129 people died in terrorist attacks on Paris and 352 were injured, of whom 99 are serious. Comparisons are being drawn with the attacks on Mumbai in November, 2008, when 164 people died and 304 were injured. The difference is that Obama is bombing ISIS while rewarding Pakistan, whose ISI planned and coordinated the attacks, with advanced weapons to be used against India. Filthy scum! While the present Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi was denied a US visa for years, Gen Sharif of Pakistan can visit the US any time he wants. Whether the Congress had anything to do with the denial of visa to Modi we do not know but the Congress General Secretary did try to blame Hindus for the death of Hemant Karkare, Chief of the Anti Terrorist Squad in Mumbai. There are 2 reasons why terrorism will continue to grow. The first is, playing dirty games for short term political games, such as those the US plays when it helps Pakistan, the epicenter of terrorism in the world, to maintain military parity with India. This gives assurance to the ISI in Pakistan that it can continue to arm the Taliban, the LeT and other terrorist groups with no fear of an end to US arms supply. Similar dirty games are played with Russia which, though a democracy, is seen as an enemy, to be utterly crushed. Why? Mystery. The largest number of casualties in Paris were in the Betaclan Concert Hall where a rock band called the Eagles of Death Metal had been performing. The irony is that the band is from California in the US. A similar attack took place in 2002 when 40-50 heavily armed Chechens stormed the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow. Russians used a narcotic gas to make the terrorists unconscious and then killed 40 of them. 130 hostages also died, apparently from the effects of the gas. Western media used the deaths to wage a propaganda war against Russian President, Vladimir Putin. The second reason for attacks on Europe is political correctness. One of the attackers had a Syrian passport and had been registered in Greece as a refugee. Iraq, Libya and Syria were destabilised by the US, supported the UK and Australia, but these countries are taking few refugees. They are secure behind oceans so they watch from a distance and give lofty advice. Being anti-Semitic in an attempt to be politically correct is seen as a sign of weakness, just as so called liberals have made India weak. More such attacks will come, right wing nationalists will gain power and war will follow. The US and its poodles are playing dirty games while Europe is paralysed with fear. Bad combination.

We need a narrative to aspire to.

Every human being creates a narrative about himself or herself which guides the way they behave, writes a professor form Harvard. Similarly politicians create narratives about their nations which are not based on facts but which guide their policies. Thus, President Obama creates a narrative which portrays the US as a country of values, marching bravely towards freedom and equality, from banishing slavery to equal rights for women and minorities. That probably clears his conscience for the thousands of civilians, including children, killed by indiscriminate drone strikes. Similarly liberals and socialists have constructed a narrative in India in which poverty is good, any progress is bad, terrorist attacks from Pakistan are unfortunate but any retaliation is Hindu nationalism, to be condemned in the strongest language, and cars in Europe are a fantastic sign of wealth but cars are causing pollution in Delhi. Never mind that there are over 600 cars per 1000 people in parts of Europe, 439 in the US, while there are only around 18 cars per 1000 people in India. And farmers burning stubble in Punjab are a very big cause of pollution. A census conducted in 2011 showed that 1 in 5 Indians walk to work, 11.4% travel in buses, 12.7% travel to work on two-wheelers and only 2.7% use cars. Delhi has the highest number of car users at 10.79%, followed by Chennai at 6.14%. Dismal, shameful figures which show how poor the country really is. Yet the automobile industry contributes 7% to the Indian GDP and employs 19 million people. In 2013 it contributed 22% to manufacturing GDP and 18% to government excise duties. It is one of the few manufacturing industries with products that can compete with China. 93% of Indian workforce are in the unorganised sector which include such professions as landless laborers, bonded laborers, fishermen and construction workers. The full list is too depressing. But even in the so called organised sector around 46% of labor are contract workers which means that they are employed for short periods, as per demand, and do not get the same benefits as those employed by the industry itself. In 2012 a manager was burnt to death by such workers at a car plant in Haryana. Surely then, liberals should be rejoicing at the 48%  increase in Foreign Direct Investment in India. The Congress, which has kept Indians bound in the shackles of poverty and allowed Pakistan to snatch victory from every defeat, has criticised FDI in defence. Why? Apparently because there has been no national consensus. Shameless liars. They have not allowed the Rajya Sabha to function so how can there be any consensus without discussion? The narrative created by politicians in India is one of abject poverty, defence paralysis and grovelling to the west. Wonder why?

Does the US have the guts to take on China?

On Singles Day in China, on 11 November, the Chinese spent $1 billion in 8 minutes in shopping online. Alibaba alone sold $14.3 billion worth of products in 24 hours, compared to $2.04 billion which is the highest amount spent on online shopping in the US. What was happening in India on that day? Indians bought 60,000 Maggi kits online within 5 minutes. Splendid. Our aims are so much lower than any other country. But what about China? According to the Chinese Ambassador China is shifting from quantity to quality, based on innovation, which means lower but steady growth over the longer term. China grew by 7% this year and contributed 25.8% to the global economic growth in the first half of this year. Consumption contributed to 60% of the growth as China shifts its economy from investment to consumption. However, if demand contributed 60% of growth why did the Consumer Price Index fall from 1.6% in September to 1.3% in October? Shopping malls are closing down because of falling sales, which will only add to bad debts at banks. The government does not want growth to slow too much, maybe because it is afraid of unemployment creating social turbulence or maybe because it does not want to lose its international bragging rights. So it will try to stimulate the economy by even looser monetary policy, as it has done in the past. China has total debt of $28 trillion, 282% of the GDP so a high growth rate will help in bringing down the debt load but, on the other hand, lower interest rates may only encourage more borrowing and greater asset price bubbles. China has already cut interest rates 6 times this year. Some analysts are urging people to sell Chinese stocks on highs and not to buy on dips. A slowing economy means that China is importing less which affects countries which export to China, mainly commodity exporters, such as Australia, Brazil and Indonesia. As these economies lose momentum they will reduce their imports of Chinese goods so the damage may not be one sided. India exports little and even that has been falling for the last 10 months. What is worse is that as surplus builds up in China it is dumping its goods on the world market at cheaper rates, hurting Indian industries, such as steel. So large is the Chinese economy that it is restricting the US Federal Reserve from raising interest rate in the US. Apparently China is selling $60 billion US treasuries every month to support its currency, the renminbi, which amounts to a 25 basis point rise in US interest rate anyway. Others say that China manipulated US Federal Reserve by timing its rate cut just before the Fed meeting. Why else would it devalue its currency by 1.9% and then sell dollars to prop it up? Lots of US companies make huge profits from China but the US had a trade deficit of $343 billion with China last year and has already racked up $274 billion in deficit this year. Since inflation is low in the US this maybe the ideal time to jack up pressure on China by increasing rates. Do they have the guts?

Can there be any heroes without honor?

There is a debate taking place in the US about whether armed forces veterans should be called 'heroes'. Many veterans express discomfort with the term and some say that a simple 'thank you' will be enough. They say that they were merely doing their duty by serving their country, as others had done before them. Some feel uncomfortable when they are asked about body counts and how many enemies they killed. David Botti, a veteran of the US Marine Corps, has made a documentary called 'What Makes a Hero' in which he asks veterans about their reactions to being called heroes. One reason that veterans are uncomfortable at being called heroes is that World War II was the last war that the US won, albeit by committing massive genocide by using atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Korea ended in a draw and after that it has been one humiliating defeat after another - in Vietnam, Afghanistan and in Iraq. The reason the US lost these wars was because they were not based on any principle but on false narratives. Real heroes were those who fought in the American civil war, which was based on the principle of equality for all, regardless of skin color, and the end of the disgusting practice of slavery, so eloquently expressed in the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln. Contrast that with scoundrels, like Dick Cheney who defended torture and Donald Rumsfeld who shrugged off the loot of Baghdad with " stuff happens ". In WWI 53,402 US soldiers died in combat and 291,557 died in WWII but only 1,742 died in Afghanistan and 3,527 died in combat in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died in the war, countless more died in the sanctions on Saddam Hussein. People died in indiscriminate bombings, dismissed as 'collateral damage' by the US. Where is the honor in that? Drones have reduced the act of killing to a video game where people sitting in Nevada kill people thousands of miles away without seeing the consequences of their act. American veterans are used to ticker tape parades when they return from war but the glorification of killing has bad effects. Over 10% of prisoners on death row in the US are veterans of the armed forces. The causes are put down to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and to poor economic conditions which do not guarantee respectable jobs when they return. The US won Baghdad by bribing senior officers of the Republican Guard to betray Saddam Hussein. The US makes strenuous attempts to protect its soldiers unless they are caught red handed. Few involved in the Abu Ghraib prison torture have been punished. Robert Bales has been handed a life sentence and 4 Blackwater guards received 30 year sentences while maintaining their right to shoot innocent civilians. There is no honor in one sided killing. That is why there are no heroes and the US keeps losing.

Will our liberals agree that grain was stored in pyramids?

It is almost exactly one year to go before presidential elections in the US. On the Democrat side Hillary Clinton is most likely to be the candidate unless something goes spectacularly wrong. However, on the Republican side no one knows who the candidate is going to be. For a long time billionaire Donald Trump was the front runner. He is a bombastic speaker who is famous for his controversial statements on immigration which sends liberals into spasms of rage. He wants to deport 11 million Mexicans, build a wall along the border and take away automatic citizenship from babies born to illegal immigrants, called anchor babies. He referred to a program called Operation Wetback in which President Dwight Eisenhower moved 1.5 immigrants out of the country. If anyone in India dared to talk about getting rid of illegal Bangladeshis, who have flooded across the border and are engaged in terrorism, he will be lynched by our liberal fanatics. Trump is accused of making false statements but his followers see him as an honest straight talker. Marco Rubio is a junior senator, just like Barack Obama was when he won his first term. He was elected with the support of the extreme right group, the Tea Party but has apparently dropped a little in popularity because of his views on immigration, because his parents were immigrants from Cuba. Ben Carson, leading at present, is a retired neurosurgeon who is also an extreme conservative. His biography 'Gifted Hands' has been challenged for its veracity. His staff have defended the inaccuracies in his book saying that there is no evidence that they are false and that he is innocent unless proven guilty. The same excuse our politicians use to cover up their crimes. He traced his ancestry back to the Turkanas, who are apparently a nomadic tribe in Kenya and Tanzania. But this has been disputed by Nairobi News which said that the Turkanas are indeed a nomadic tribe but in the north of Kenya where they cross over into Ethiopia and not in the south, at the border with Tanzania. He belongs to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and is a Sabbath School teacher at his local church. What is really scary about this guy is that he believes that Rome perished because it was against Christianity and thinks that the US is going that way while Russia is becoming stronger because it is becoming more religious. He believes that the US should be ruthless in war and that there should not be any political correctness about protecting women and children. He believes that the US should have flattened Fallujah in Iraq, where the US is guilty of using white phosphorus. And he believes that grain was stored in pyramids in Egypt. A religious nut who was a doctor, a supposedly caring profession, believes in wholesale slaughter. Not much different from Bin Laden, is he? What if he is elected president? Will our liberals shun the US or will they suck up, as they usually do? After all he is black. We shall see.

How can an Indian be an outsider in India?

After an orchestrated hate campaign against Hindus by the media, the BJP has been trounced in Bihar state elections. As is usual in India people voted for handouts and caste, rather than for development. The Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar is overjoyed at his victory because of his personal hatred for Prime Minister Modi. Having sold himself for victory at any cost is there a hint of fear in the dark recesses of his mind about the pounds of flesh Mr Lalu Yadav will demand for engineering his victory? But maybe the people of Bihar will have to pay a higher cost. Nitish Kumar's racist attack on Modi, when he urged the people to vote for him, a Bihari (a native of Bihar), rather than Modi, a Bahari (an outsider), may return to haunt him. Since there are no jobs in Bihar, which has the highest fertility rate in India, they migrate to other states in India, looking for jobs. There have been violence against them in various states in the past. When the late Bal Thackeray, chief of Shiv Sena, wrote," One Bihari equals a hundred diseases, two Biharis mean preparing for a fight, three Biharis mean a train hijack and five Biharis will try to take over the ruling government," an enraged Nitish Kumar asked the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh to take action. If Modi from Gujarat is an outsider in Bihar then all Biharis are outsiders in other states, and the Chief Minister has made them fair game. After claiming to be a Bihari will Nitish Kumar be able to improve the image of Biharis in the rest of India where 'Bihari' is used as a word of abuse? As for the BJP, the party should not use the Prime Minister to campaign for state elections because he can only talk in terms of development and cannot bribe voters with money, televisions and bicycles, like local politicians can. Such is the hared against Hindus in India among the pseudo-secular politicians and the media that the RSS has been painted as a terrorist organisation. The same people have no problem in inviting Pakistanis to India despite constant terrorist attacks on India by that nation of fanatics. The RSS should learn from the missionaries who are never in the news, conducting their nefarious conversions in silence. They have built schools where they bring children from poor families and train them only in theology so that they will continue with conversions once they leave. With massive money from abroad they have targets for conversions. The RSS must reconvert the converted. It must embrace the lower castes, build schools for them and help them to get started in the job market. And finally, the RSS must establish a think-tank which will research how other countries treat their own minorities so that when the US or the EU lectures us on intolerance we can lecture them back. Else the pseudo-secular hordes will exterminate all Hindus, what the Moguls and the British failed to do. Learn, or else.

The opium of non-violence.

While the people of Bihar were voting for handouts, such as Rs 1000 for unemployment benefit, free wi-fi and reserved government jobs for women, on taxpayer money, people of Myanmar, which used to be Burma, were voting for freedom from army oppression and genuine democracy. Democracy is not a one time celebration, like a wedding party, but a long drawn process, like marriage, so what you do with it is most important. Do you build a klepto-socialist, pseudo-secular, mendacious intellectual democracy, like in India, or do you have a government that builds infrastructure, provides education and creates genuine jobs, not a nation of beggars? The politics of Myanmar is extremely complex. The National League for Democracy of Aung San Suu Kyi is sure to win the largest number of seats but to get a simple majority in parliament it has to win two-thirds of all the constituencies being contested, because 25% of seats in the parliament are permanently allocated to the army. Will it? Myanmar has several internal conflicts raging since independence where ethnic groups have been fighting the army for greater autonomy. In Rakhine state there is a hardline Buddhist  movement, called Ma Ba Tha which wants to get rid of Rohingya Muslims, originally from Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Burmese are living in refugee camps in Thailand. Aung San Suu Kyi is banned from becoming president because she had a British husband and has 2 sons who are British citizens. Her father was a general who was assassinated just before independence from the British and she was educated in India before going to Britain. She has been built up heavily by the western press as a modern day Gandhi, just as Gandhi was built up by the west. That the British left India because of Gandhi's non-violence is a myth, built by the Congress to persuade the people to tolerate poverty while politicians enjoy extreme luxury with taxpayer money. Whether Suu Kyi will be able to persuade the military transfer genuine power to a civilian government through non-violence remains to be seen. Precedents are not good. The army in Pakistan will never relinquish its hold on power because it controls a huge business empire. It was the army's refusal to accept Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as prime minister that led to the independence of Bangladesh. When the revolution in Egypt overthrew Hosni Mubarak the western press hoped that it would become a secular democracy like Turkey. We did not agree. The Egyptian army has huge business interests which it will not surrender. Meanwhile, Turkey has become and Islamist state under Erdogan. Non-violence is an opium for the people. The powerful resort to extreme violence if challenged. As they do in India.

When will they learn that it is not good for Russians to be killed?

About 8 days back a Russian airliner broke up in midair over the Sinai in Egypt killing all 224 people on board, including around 25 children. At first it was thought that it was a catastrophic mechanical failure but then the US said that a military satellite had picked up a heat flash in the same area just before the crash. Investigators have found a 'noise' at the last second of recording on the flight recorders which confirms that there was a bomb on board. US officials are sure of a bomb because they have picked up chatter among ISIS fighters, boasting to their bosses about bringing down an airplane. Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi is visiting Britain and talks are a little frosty because Britain was the first to suspend all flights to Sharm el-Sheikh. Since Egypt is dependent on tourism its economy will take a huge hit. While sympathising with Russia on their loss we Indians lost much more in the betrayal at Sharm el-Sheikh in July 2009. At first there seemed a sense of gloating on British news channels as they implied that Putin deserved a bloody nose for his bombing of terrorists in Syria, just as there was during the siege at School No 1 at Beslan, where 334 people including 186 children were slaughtered by Islamist terrorists in 2004. Now the reporting has become a little restrained, maybe because it has dawned on them that it could have happened to any airline and that the terrorists are probably coming from Libya, which is in chaos, for which the British Prime Minister, David Cameron is solely responsible, having been instrumental in the NATO bombing of Gaddafi to death. Just as Tony Blair was responsible for supporting the stupid attack on Iraq by George Bush. The UN is attempting to end the civil war in Libya but cannot get the different factions and tribes to agree on a ceasefire, let alone peace. Even now Cameron is talking about bombing Libya again to stop terrorist attacks on Britain. Not content with killing 30,000 Libyans in indiscriminate bombing Cameron wants to kill even more. He would certainly rise to the top if he joined ISIS. Western countries were selectively bombing ISIS targets while helping other terrorist groups with arms and money so as to bring down Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Just as they distinguish between bad Taliban, who kill NATO forces, and good Taliban, who do not, even if they arrange terrorist attacks in India.  Russia is bombing all terrorists including those fighting Assad. Now the Afghan government has requested Russia for helicopter gunships to fight the Taliban. Meanwhile migrants from African countries are using the power vacuum in Libya to cross over to Lampedusa, which belongs to Italy, while those from Syria are going through Turkey to Greece. Who knows how many terrorists are also crossing over with them? Europe will surely get involved in the war in the middle east. When, we shall see.