Furious indignation, but is it righteous?

A serving IAS officer has written a furious article against the Prevention of Corruption Act, or PCA, which he says assumes guilt and is used to harass honest officers. His rage is because former Coal Secretary, HC Gupta has been charged for allocating coal mines to private companies, which had no need for coal. In an act of sheer drama Mr Gupta withdrew his personal bond to the court and expressed his desire to go to jail, because he has no money to pay lawyers. How honest he is! Mr Gupta now claims that he had passed on all decisions to the Coal Minister, none other than the former Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. Mr Singh has already proclaimed loudly and frequently that he is an "honest man". In 2014, the Supreme Court quashed the allocation of 214 coal blocks. Why is the IAS so angry with the PCA act? " There is no need at all to prove whether any financial gain accrued to the civil servant himself! Now a public servant takes - indeed is constrained to take as otherwise everything would come to a standstill - a number of decisions that would naturally benefit someone: be it allotting a plot of industrial land, granting a loan, awarding a contract or doing a purchase agreement. Whether all these decisions are in public interest is a very subjective question at the best of times," writes the officer. This shows the complete lack of understanding and the arrogance of IAS officers. And these are the fellows who essentially run the government. First, gain to an officer may not be financial. It maybe a job to a relative, a juicy sinecure after retirement or even a comfortable posting in Delhi, as opposed to a stint in Naxal infested Bastar. Second, Mr Gupta was the chairman of the Screening Committee. As a senior officer was it not his duty to eliminate all the shady customers? It is disingenuous to say that he did not know. It was his duty to know, else he should have asked a more competent officer to do the job. Third, the nation was losing up to Rs 400 billion a year in importing coal and the lack of electricity meant fewer jobs, hitting the poor. At the very least Mr Gupta is guilty of criminal negligence. Strangely there was no such indignation when Mr Khemka was persecuted by politicians for revealing corruption. As for corruption, the CBI has told a Parliamentary Standing Committee that over 2,400 top officers are corrupt. The IAS is seen as a continuation of the East India Company and is feared by the citizens. The IAS is supposed to be a service but it is more of a leg iron for the nation. " How about amending the Prevention of Corruption Act in the coming session of parliament without any further delay?" asks the officer. How about shutting down the IAS school in Mussoorie and be rid of this gang permanently, we ask.

Why such enmity against the middle class?

Politicians in most countries tend to favor the rich, who contribute to their election spending, but in India politicians actively work to transfer wealth from the middle class to the rich. One constant refrain is that interest rate should be low, preferably near zero, like in the US and EU. It is always in a good cause. Commerce and Industry Minister, Sitharaman wants a cut of 200 basis points in one fell swoop because it will make loans cheaper for small businesses to expand. Banks are wary of small businesses because of a higher risk profile, which is not going to change by a lower interest rate. Also, the same government has been actively pushing the Goods and Services Tax, which will bring small businesses into the tax net they were avoiding till now. They will lose their price advantage and will be driven out of business by the big boys. No wonder the rich are smiling. The other aggression against the middle class is the constant advice to invest in shares or equity mutual funds. We are told that the only way to save money for old age is to invest in shares. An article by the president of a mutual fund calculates that if you are 40 years old and spend Rs 50,000 per month today then you will need Rs 1.33 million per month at the age of 60 years, at 5% inflation for 20 years. Which means you need to build up a corpus of Rs 25 million to maintain your lifestyle. So you must invest in shares which will give you at least 10% returns per year. Scary. But not true. Assuming you married after completing education and getting confirmed employment and assuming you have 2 children your expense on their school and healthcare alone would be at least Rs 20,000 per month. College education has become hugely expensive as the government has increased fees to a level only a few can afford. At the age of 60 years the children will be working and other costs, such as entertainment and travel to work, will fall. On the other hand health costs will rise and companies will refuse to insure you as you get older. Treatment of cancer costs Rs 5-10 million today and will rise so your corpus will not be sufficient. Dialysis costs Rs 10,000 per week. Foreign investors hold 20% of our market and if some of that money flows out prices will collapse. Promoters of companies have borrowed money from banks against their own shareholding, which means that they have no investment in the companies they are running. If a company fails the promoter suffers nothing, shares become zero. Indians do not trust our share market, having been stung by scams previously but the fall in interest rate, along with the high price of gold, is forcing some into stocks. Mutual funds charge high commissions. Sadly, lower returns from term deposits in banks has pushed households into shares, so that investment in shares has risen to 0.7% of gross national disposable income from 0.2% in 2011-12. Meanwhile, investment guru, Jim Rogers says turmoil is coming. Indians lose again. Poor Indians.

If biological and chemical weapons are banned why not nuclear ones?

WPS Sidhu, from New York University's Center on International Cooperation writes about the devious behavior of some nations regarding nuclear weapons. Nine states are recognized as nuclear weapons states, of which 5 are members of the UN Security Council, Israel has refused to confirm or deny its possession of nuclear weapons and North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, in 2003. Then there are the nuclear umbrella states, such as Japan, South Korea and Australia, which have agreed to the protection offered by US nuclear weapons. In addition the US stations nuclear weapons in 5 members of NATO, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. 190 countries have signed the NPT but it is deceitful to proclaim non proliferation and then agree to an 'umbrella' of nuclear weapons. The whole of Africa and South America are nuclear weapons free zones, as is Australia, but if it has an umbrella of US weapons then its claim is suspect. Thus, it was Australia that tried to disrupt a resolution for complete nuclear disarmament at the UN General Assembly. A resolution sponsored by Austria proposed an Open-ended Working Group, or OEWG, to take forward multilateral negotiations towards nuclear disarmament. " Although this resolution was overwhelmingly supported by 138 countries, the five permanent nuclear weapon states of the UN Security Council plus Israel voted against it. While India and Pakistan abstained, North Korea, curiously, supported the resolution. Significantly, 34 states - mostly members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) and those protected by the US nuclear umbrella - also abstained," writes Sidhu. An OEWG meeting in Geneva came to a consensus to start negotiations in 2017 to ban nuclear weapons, like biological and chemical weapons have been banned. The nuclear weapons states and their clients do not want such a treaty. " In the OEWG, Australia became a proxy of nuclear weapons states and a disarmament spoiler: it called for a vote on the group's final report....," writes Sidhu. " Australia's objective was two-fold: first, to break the emerging consensus and, second, to close ranks among the umbrella states." In the event, although 19 NATO members, Australia and South Korea voted against the report, several NATO members and Japan abstained. The US and Russia have the largest arsenals. The US is designing a super-nuke, equivalent to 50,000 tons of TNT, while also making smaller bombs, which will minimise collateral damage. At the same time countries are furiously creating software for cyber warfare. Will it be possible to takeover the control of the nuclear arsenal of a country and use that for attack? Scary.

If one sentence can be so effective why have we stayed silent for so long?

For years we have been bemused as to why India, a much bigger and stronger power, has surrendered to Pakistan, which has openly supported terrorism to 'bleed India through a thousand cuts'. Every time our brave soldiers won wars, by sacrificing their lives, against superior weapons supplied by the state sponsor of terrorism, the US of A, our politicians have handed back all the gains, with nothing in return. The policy of successive governments to kowtow to the mad dogs seems especially unpardonable when a single reference to the atrocities in Balochistan by Prime Minister Modi in his Independence Day address has set off absolute panic across the border. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is sending 22 emissaries to various capitals to bring up the old chestnut, Kashmir. The army hastily invited Baloch leaders for talks. But Baloch nationals living in Germany chanted slogans against Pakistan and raised the Indian flag. Brahumdagh Bugti, leader of the Balochistan Republican Party said," Pakistani forces are engaged in a tsunami of human rights violations in Balochistan," adding that " the Baloch people don't want to live with Pakistan any more." Bugti and 2 others, living abroad in exile, have been charged with sedition. Balochistan is a province in the southwest of Pakistan, separated from India by the province of Sindh. It is very rich in natural resources which is why it has been brutally suppressed by the Punjabi dominated Pakistan army. Balochistan was supposed to be an independent state when the British left India but was forcibly annexed by Pakistan and has been fighting for independence since. The panic in Pakistan is because a resurgence in fighting in Balochistan may derail the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a highway connecting Kashgar in China to the Gwadar port in Balochistan. Pakistan sees this project as a 'game changer' because the Chinese have promised to invest $46 billion which Pakistan desperately needs because of reduced aid from the US. The other supporter of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, which finances most of the terrorism in the world, has posted a deficit of $87 billion in its budget for this year. The bombing of Yemen is to cost an extra 20 billion riyals, about $6 billion. Pakistan expects the CPEC highway to create jobs and China expects to use Gwadar port for its ships, to threaten India. The Baloch see it as a massive land grab and a way to loot its natural resources, such as gas, coal and minerals. Kashgar is in the Xinjiang province of China whose people are Muslims Uyghurs. China viciously persecutes the Uyghurs as it does the people of Tibet. A Chinese think-tank has warned that it will have to 'get involved' if India tries to disrupt the project. If the Baloch and the Uyghurs can link up they could create problems for both these enemies of India. How wonderful.

Are humans programmed to end our species?

It is happening already. Capgemini is to replace 40% of the work done by its resource management group by IBM's cognitive management system, Watson. Whether IBM named the system after Dr Watson, who chronicled cases solved by Sherlock Holmes, we do not know. Maybe, they want to imply that this work is elementary and does not need humans. Singapore is testing self-driving taxis, which do not need human drivers. The app based taxi service, Uber is to test 100 vehicles in Pittsburgh later this month. Since no human will be involved these taxis will run 24 hours a day, they will be safe for women and there will be no traffic jam because they will run strictly according to rules and will avoid busy roads. Eventually no one will own cars, just call a taxi when you need, which will save huge spaces for parking. Not just in driving. Production of cars is being taken over by robots. The Ford plant at Sanand in Gujarat has 453 robots, with 90% of the work automated. Robots can work 24 hours without need for rest, always get a perfect finish, do not need to be paid, do not go on strike and do not fall ill. If one breaks down get a new one. If we make high quality goods our exports will increase which will add to our GDP growth. Our exports are low which is why India is a poor country. Trouble is, the economy will grow without producing jobs for the vast numbers of young people who are joining the workforce every year. Manufacturing has fallen from 16.41% of GDP in 1989-90 to 16.2% of GDP in 2015-16. That means we have to import virtually everything, resulting in perpetual negative balance of trade. Manufacturing usually employs the largest number of people but if robots replace humans then unemployment will increase. The massive increase in automation and artificial engineering is probably being driven by falling fertility rates in developed countries. In Europe fertility rates have fallen to below replacement levels, as low as 1.25 per woman in Spain. They maybe preparing for the possibility of robots taking over jobs of nursing and caring for increasing number of old people. It is very tempting to replace soldiers with robots. Scientists warn of humanity being wiped out if cyborg soldiers are created, which is stupid because they are busy developing artificial intelligence. They may claim that they intend to use AI only for benevolent purpose but if the technology is out there people will use it for killing. If Obama uses drones to kill so-called terrorists then Hezbollah will use commercial drones to deliver bombs. These are available at $400 each. As automation increases we will be forced to reduce numbers of human beings. Will we end up as Solaria, as Asimov had imagined all those years ago?

Should babies be a commodity for profits?

The government is to pass a bill banning commercial surrogacy. The bill will allow 'altruistic surrogacy', in which a 'close relative' will be allowed to carry the child of a couple who have been married for at least 5 years and have not been able to produce any children. The surrogate mother must also be a married woman with a child of her own. Presumably because the first pregnancy is the most difficult and prolonged, subsequent deliveries being shorter and less painful for the mother. Commercial surrogacy is a $1 billion dollar business, so naturally there are howls of protest from those who will see a precipitous fall in profits, mainly doctors and middlemen. Women's rights groups say that it will drive the business underground which will increase risks for surrogate mothers who are poor women. True, but with stringent punishment for doctors the numbers will be extremely small. Anyway, a woman giving birth to a white child will be immediately obvious and trying to procure a passport or travel permit for the child will become impossible. So foreign parents will not be able to take the child home. It maybe possible to impregnate a woman in India and then take her to Nepal for delivery but that will increase costs and the doctor will be easy to trace. The government says that it is only a money making racket, exploiting poverty. What about a woman's right over her own body? If that is the case then should a poor woman be allowed to sell her kidney to a rich man? There is no dearth of people ready to donate a kidney for cash as a recent scandal at a well known hospital has shown. If a man says," I am dying of hunger. Isn't it better that I survive longer by selling one kidney. It is not as if I will die with one kidney. Anyway it is my body." Will that argument be acceptable? If a woman rents out her vagina for money she is called a prostitute, which is unacceptable, but if she rents out her uterus then she is a surrogate, so that is alright. Some viruses like Ebola and Zika can last in sperms for 6 months. What if the biological parents refuse to accept a baby born with microcephaly, like a baby with Down's syndrome born to a Thai woman was refused by an Australian couple. Ebola is a deadly virus and an outbreak in India, with its population concentration, will kill tens of millions. Adults have the right to have as many children as they want, regardless of whether they can feed, clothe or educate them. But children have no rights. Because they do not vote. Any suggestion of controlling childbirth is condemned as eugenics. Children cannot become a commodity to be bought and sold. That surely is worse than eugenics.

What are regulators for?

Mint editor, Monica Halan has been writing consistently on how people in India are being cheated by insurance companies and by banks, which sell their products. Insurance policies generate huge commissions which are taken right at the beginning so customers are sold policies which are unsuitable for their needs. This is with the connivance of regulators. More than half of life insurance policies lapse within 5 years, incurring huge penalties for customers. Companies calculate the retention level of their customers based on the previous year's number and not on the total number, who invested at the beginning, and so are able to hide the lapsation details. Losses to investors run into trillions of rupees. When agents are paid a shocking 25% of the first premium as commission it is obvious that they will concentrate on getting new clients and allowing the old ones to lapse. And so the story of 80 year old, Mr Selvakumar who went to a bank in December 2014 to invest Rs 500,000 in Senior Citizens Savings Scheme. Three bank employees mentally bullied him into buying a unit-linked insurance plan, assuring him of guaranteed 14% returns. He asked the 3 goons if they would sell the same policy to their own father and they looked him in the eye and said, yes. When his next premium became due in December 2015 he discovered that his Rs 500,000 had become Rs 411,000. Naturally, none of the 3 scum could be contacted. And yet the solution is so simple. Just as the law mandates warnings on tobacco products so a warning must be printed in bold red letters at the top of the front page of the form, clearly stating the amount of commission charged and the risks involved. Halan has conducted a study to see how banks mis-sell products. She found that public sector banks sold fixed deposits no matter what was asked for while private sector banks sold insurance products. At least fixed deposits are safe, in that you do not lose your capital, even if returns are not high, but losses could be very high in insurance products. Why because a lot of these products are tied to mutual funds which invest in the stock market. Time after time retail investors have been burned in the share markets because our markets are highly manipulated. Not one person has ever been convicted of insider trading or front running or other ways of cheating. Yet the regulator wants retail investors to buy into stocks. Foreign investors held Rs 18 trillion in stocks of Indian companies in December. The figure has gone up as the market is at all time high. We can expect sharp falls if US interest rate goes up. No one to protect Indian citizens. Some people must be gaining.

Why is Clinton not winning all 50 states?

Hillary Clinton has a favorable rating of 41.9% and an unfavorable rating of 55.4%. She is said to be favored by young voters but on a late night show she was less popular than 'Robot Chicken' for viewers between the ages of 18 to 49. According to latest polls Clinton has a lead of around 8 points over Trump but according to right wing Fox News it is very tight in North Carolina, Florida and Ohio while Clinton has substantial leads in Pennsylvania and Virginia. All these states are known as battleground states because they maybe won by either side. Clinton has a clear lead in electoral college votes. States which are solid Democrat give 201 votes plus states which lean Democrat give 35 votes, for a total of 236. States which are solid Republican give 158 votes plus those which tend to lean Republican give 33, for a total of 191. So Clinton has to win 34 out of the 111 votes, which means 2 large states, and she romps into the White House. Given the number of outrageous statements made by Trump and the one sided reporting and extreme abuse by the media it is not a surprise that Clinton is ahead, the surprise is that she is not winning all 50 states by more than 20 points. The reasons are her use of private email server while she was Secretary of State, raising money for the Clinton Foundation and not having clear policies of her own. Her use of a private email server has given rise to allegations that her actions could have led to enemies getting access to classified information. Her defense that she did nothing wrong is dubious because she has a law degree from an Ivy League university and ran a highly successful practise, so she has no excuse for breaking rules. There are accusations of impropriety about the Clinton Foundation, set up by her husband Bill, after his second term as president. The Foundation does a lot of good work around the world but there are hints that the Clintons profited personally from its activities. As for policies, she is tied to Obama's policies because of having worked as his Secretary of State for 4 years. Obama needs Clinton to protect his legacy. If Trump is elected he is sure to dismantle Obamacare which is in trouble because of rising costs. Obama worked hard to discourage Vice President Joe Biden from running for president. After denying that he had paid $400 million to free 4 Americans arrested by Iran the Obama administration agreed that the payment was contingent on the prisoners being freed. In short Obama lied. This prompted the former President of Iran, Ahmadinejad to write to Obama to "quickly fix" release of $2 billion attached by the US Supreme Court. If after so much abuse Trump is still within touching distance of Clinton it means that he could still win. The fat lady is not ready to sing any time soon. 

If you spin a yarn make sure you are not caught.

Target, the second largest discount retailer in the US, has just canceled all orders from Welspun India, the largest textile company in Asia and the second largest terry towel producer in the world. Why? Because Welspun was supplying sheets supposedly made from Egyptian cotton when it was using other inferior quality cotton for 2 years. Welspun stocks hit the lower circuit breaker on 2 successive days and have settled 36% down. Walmart is also looking at sheets supplied by Welspun and if that order stops as well it could lead to heavy losses. As is usual in India managers have not apologized but have tried to justify their actions by saying that it was only a matter of provenance of the cotton and customers are highly satisfied with their product. They have appointed an auditor to probe the charge. Reputation means for nothing. Last year a famous company, Volkswagen, was caught faking emissions results on its diesel cars. Volkswagen has already paid $15.3 billion in fines in the US and will have to pay hefty fines in other countries as well. Why do managers indulge in such stupidity? Fierce competition forces companies to keep prices as low as possible and bonuses for managers depend on shareholder returns. If sales are weak they probably try cutting corners and once they get away with it they may think that they will get away forever. Sadly, forever is a very long time and they always get caught. On the other hand, Walmart and Target are discount retailers which means they force prices down to bare minimum levels. Since they buy in bulk suppliers make profits on volumes. Even well known brands bargain for pennies, to increase their profits. What is the harm in that? It is common business practise to buy as cheap as possible to entice customers with low prices. In 2013, more than 1000 people died in the collapse of Rana Plaza because production had to carry on to meet orders. Consumers may feel happy buying products for cheap but it has destroyed manufacturing in western countries. These nations are researching feverishly with robotics to manufacture their own requirements but robotic factories are very capital intensive and if humans do not get jobs who will buy the products they produce? So Walmart and Target will be back, after a suitable time gap. Ranbaxy's actions were criminal. They sold the company to Daiichi Sankyo at an inflated price by hiding adverse reports by the USFDA. If it was the US the owners and managers would be serving long prison terms but in India they are walking around with big smiles on their faces. That is what gives the nation a very bad name. Lack of punishment allows business fellows to sell shoddy products to citizens, who naturally prefer to buy imported goods. That is why our manufacturing is lagging. We need to have some pride in being Indians. But that will be cursed as 'nationalism'. What to do?

As long as we have politicians we will have hawala.

When Indians talk of 'hawala' they generally mean illicit or black money sent abroad and converted into foreign currency. What we do not know is that there is apparently Rs 20 trillion worth, about 15% of GDP, of hawala trade inside India. This kind of trade is normally used by criminals, such as smugglers, but can also be used by legitimate businesses to avoid paying taxes. Why is this news suddenly? A 67 year old man died, presumably of natural causes, while traveling by Geetanjali Express, from Kolkata to Mumbai. When police opened his bags they were stunned to discover Rs 10 million in bundles of notes and 1 kg of gold biscuits, which means pure gold. In addition to Rs 20 trillion in cash, 35,000 tons of gold and 200,000 tons of silver are sold illegally across the country every year. States in India collect entry tax, or octroi, on goods entering state borders so how can tons of precious metal be moved around without detection? Unless politicians, civil servants and police, which means the state government, is intimately involved. Some people, Seth, Qureshi, Jain, have been caught but cases have petered out. " It has never stopped, it will never stop," said an official of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence. The Prime Minister is a great believer in cashless society. If there is no cash all transactions will have to go through banks and so will be easily traced. There can be no money laundering and no tax evasion. Really? All it will do is remove all privacy from ordinary people and make us vulnerable to any politician, civil servant or policeman who wants to know every detail of our lives. Will it stop hawala? No. The rupee is not the only currency in the world. There are $1.46 trillion in dollar notes in circulation in the world, according to the Federal Reserve. Around 9 countries use the US dollar as their national currency. The total amount of all currencies in the world amount to an equivalent of $80.9 trillion. If people can move tons of gold there is nothing to stop suitcases full of dollars, euros or sterling being moved around as a kind of parallel economy. The government might find that the country has become a great deal more dangerous if foreign currencies become the favored method of payment, because the government will have no control over money supply. In Europe you can buy prepaid cards in small denominations without proof of identity. These can be used as methods of payment as 1 Euro gets you Rs 76. It is not just Indians but people all over the world trust cash. If there is no cash the state can steal our money openly in the form of negative interest rates, in which we have to pay to keep our earnings in bank accounts. To stop hawala punish politicians and civil servants heavily. Otherwise leave us alone.

We will happily pay for Olympic gold, but not to politicians or civil servants.

India, a nation of 1.30 billion people, is returning from Rio with just 2 medals, a silver in badminton and a bronze in wrestling, both women. As is usual after such a debacle the talking heads are out in force, each with his/her own solutions. One Chetan Bhagat makes it very simple. He writes that the reasons we do not win medals is because we do not value excellence, we are not fond of sports and we do not spend enough on training athletes. Australia, with a population of just 50 million, spends Rs 7 billion every year while our total sports budget is Rs 9 billion, of which only Rs 3 billion goes to training athletes. It will cost Rs 100 billion per year, which works out to Rs 80 per person per year, and bingo, we will win at least 12 gold medals in the next Olympics. We do value excellence which is why shopping malls are full of foreign brands and car companies introduce new models every year. Trouble is, excellence costs money and we do not earn enough. Today's young people are conscious of physical fitness and many spend a significant portion of their income to attend gyms. Trouble is, you need parks, swimming pools and jogging tracks for the public but the pressure of the exploding population means that any open space is gradually occupied by slums. As for paying Rs 80 per year, most Indians will happily pay Rs 800, provided no politicians or civil servants are involved. Our athletes traveled to Rio in economy class, cooped up like cattle, while politicians and civil servants went by business class. And why should a minister go with his wife? What does she contribute to justify such extravagance? Government figures show that there are a total of 186.4 million vehicles in the country, including two-wheelers, buses and trucks, while 76% of politicians are multi-millionaires. Politicians believe that taxpayer money belongs to them. The Delhi government has announced a reward of Rs 20 million for Ms Sindhu, who won a silver, and Rs 10 million for Ms Sakshi, who won a bronze. Wouldn't it have been better to spend money on their food, training and accommodation so that they could win gold? Even better. Andhra and Telangana governments are competing to reward Ms Sindhu, who is from Hyderabad. Rao of Telangana has announced a reward of 1000 sq yards of land. Land belongs to the nation, politicians are today's feudal masters. Politicians and civil servants are all suspect. A parliamentary panel has ruled that civil servants cannot even be investigated for crimes without government permission. That will give plenty of time for files to 'disappear' like in the Bihar fodder scam. Back in 2003 Murli Manohar Joshi decreed that all donations to IITs will go to Bharat Shiksha Kosh. People donated to US universities instead. Get the scum away, we will donate. Otherwise, forget it.

Health is wealth only after wealth creates health.

At 60% of total health expenditure India has the highest out-of-pocket expense on healthcare, in the world, writes Kenneth Thorpe from Emory University in the US. 47% of hospital admissions in rural areas and 31% in urban areas are financed by taking loans or selling assets, trapping people in poverty. Health insurance is useless because it covers only hospital admissions but not chronic care, does not cover old people and the cover provided is totally inadequate. Only the rich can afford the premiums for insurance cover of over Rs 2 million. It has been shown that wealth determines the health of people (Angus Deaton, Nobel Prize winner). Wealthy people have better living condition, are better educated, so have more knowledge about a healthy lifestyle, have better nutrition and are better able to protect their children by immunising them against childhood illnesses. All that seem obvious, what seems counter-intuitive is that as a nation gets wealthier its health cost tends to rise exponentially. The reason is that people live longer, which means a larger proportion of old people, and communicable diseases are replaced by non-communicable diseases which are far more expensive to treat. The cost of vaccinating every person against small pox and polio, both of which have been eradicated from India, is an infinitely small fraction of the cost of treating diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic kidney disease and cancer. Private hospitals are dens of corruption, which most people cannot afford, government hospitals are overloaded. To treat people you need doctors. Medical education is very poor in India and even that is becoming very expensive. The gap is filled by unqualified quacks. Only 43% of allopathic doctors, practicing western medicine, have a MBBS degree, the rest are cowboys. What are politicians going to do about it? As is usual in India their first reaction is to use force. Doctors are being denied permission to work abroad so that they are forced to return home. The hope probably is that starvation will force doctors to work in villages and politicians will claim a great victory. Old people are most in need of medical care but cannot get insurance. India comes last in its care for old people, with more than half living in poverty. Government fellows, on the other hand, have seen a 157% increase in their pensions recently. Uncontrolled inflation, low interest from bank deposits and lack of any returns on years of paying taxes makes retirement a curse for most. To provide healthcare to all India has to become a wealthy nation and for that we must reduce the number of people. Nothing else will work.

Rules do not apply, because we are special.

India has its own economic laws which are unique to itself, writes a consultant, A Nageswaran. There is only one rule, which is to reduce interest rate, and the only duty of the new governor for the Reserve Bank, who will be appointed shortly, is to work out when and by how much to reduce rates. The common wisdom is that high inflation is due to food prices which are due to supply constraints and will not respond to monetary policy. Interest rate must be kept low to help the government to reduce its fiscal deficit because the government borrows from the market to finance its spending, Rs 6 trillion this financial year, but government debt does not matter because it is borrowing from citizens. In fact, high inflation brings down the debt to GDP ratio by eroding the value of the debt. The ratio of debt to GDP fell from 77.1% in 2006 to 66.4% in 2014, because retail inflation was in double digits, despite the Congress running a high fiscal deficit. Low interest rates will increase investments and increase supplies. Property prices must keep on rising infinitely so interest rates must be kept low at all times. India can sustain high inflation, low interest rate and a high growth rate, without any effect on the value of the rupee, because we are unique. Fall in savings rate do not matter because foreign investors will keep pouring money into our market and we will continue to be the world's fastest growing economy without any problem. Because we are special. To this list we would add that, like real estate, the government must ensure that share prices keep on rising, regardless of profits or earnings per share. Exports do not matter because India is a vast market in itself, completely ignoring the fact that Indians want to buy international brands. Thus, we end up importing almost everything we use while our exports have been falling for 18 months running. Exports are necessary to improve quality, encourage innovations and improve productivity. India is the fastest growing nation and a middle income country but it is a poor country which justifies endless amounts of handouts to the poor. This apparently increases the spending power of the poor, leading to a rise in demand and leading to higher growth. This has created a class of people totally dependent on government largesse, who produce more children to get more subsidies. Gandhi used to go around in a loin cloth so taxes must be very high on goods deemed to be luxuries, which make them too expensive for the poor. Such rules do not apply to politicians and civil servants who may visit Rio Olympics on taxpayer money. India will continue to grow while ignoring every basic rule of economics. After all we are the country of the great Indian rope trick, aren't we?

Can governments engineer miracles? Unlikely.

Economists, business tycoons and politicians are almost unanimous in their view that slow growth of the global economy is unacceptable and that growth must be stimulated by whatever means possible. From 1947 to 2000 the US economy grew by an average of 2.2% but since 2001 it has been growing by an average of 0.9%. In the last decade 81% of people in the US have experienced flat or declining income. The figures are 97% in Italy, 70% in Britain and 63% in France. As a result people are working fewer hours, which means less income, and there is less productivity per unit of work. One economist RJ Gordon argued that internet is not going to be as productive for the economy as electricity, air transport and indoor plumbing were. Central banks have been pouring money into markets hoping that cheap credit will encourage people to spend more and increase demand, which will increase inflation. But that is not happening. A recent paper from the IMF supports a continuation of the same policies, including negative interest rates. These policies are reducing the value of pension funds, which will reduce spending power of growing numbers retired people, and are creating huge asset price bubbles. The trouble is that while central banks are increasing liquidity governments are reluctant to spend for fear of increasing government debt. Greece's problems with national debt, which is 214% of GDP, seems to have paralysed other governments. The IMF used to recommend austerity as a remedy for recession. No longer. IMF economists, includung Olivier Blanchard, have agreed that one dollar of stimulus spending by governments produces more than one dollar in output. Such is the desperation that Japan's Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe was advised to use 'helicopter money' to stimulate growth. All this easy money is helping the rich to accumulate more assets by borrowing cheap. Over $1 trillion will be invested in real estate this year, pushing up prices and creating more poverty by pushing people into wasting money on rents. But maybe economic miracles do not exist, writes Tyler Cowen. Denmark grew by 1.9% from 1890 to 1916 and has been growing around that rate for the last 100 years. Denmark has a per capita income of $52,000 per year and is the happiest country in the world. The East Asian economies of Japan, South Korea and China grew at over 10% by borrowing technology which was already invented and they started from a very low base. For advanced economies such growth rates are not possible. Or it maybe that productivity growth of today's technologies cannot be measured because much of it is given away for free. The media in India is very excited about how 'disruptive innovations' will power our economy to double digit growth. Perhaps we need to step back and take a deep breath. Disruptions disrupt. Can we deal with it?

Paranoid because they have reason to be?

China is the second richest country in the world behind the US with a GDP of over $10 trillion. They claim to have one of the oldest civilisations in the world. Militarily they are far stronger than all the nations of Asia and only the US and Russia can match their forces. Why then is China so paranoid? Chinese people are convinced that judges at the Rio Olympics are conspiring against their athletes. In these Olympics the Chinese have won 19 golds, 15 silver and 20 bronze medals which puts them in third place behind the US with 30 gold, 32 silver and 31 bronze and the UK with 19 gold 19 silver and 12 bronze. So although China has won a total of 54 medals it is behind Britain with 50 medals because it has won fewer silver. All these countries have thrived because a lot of Russian athletes have been banned for doping. Russia is fourth with 12 gold and 14 silver. Since most of the regulators are controlled by the Americans and Europeans it is not surprising that they fail to find anything against US and British athletes. Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France 7 times and would never have been caught if he had not confessed in a moment of madness. China is not above suspicion, is it? In the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China won 51 gold, 21 silver and 28 bronze, compared to the US in second place with 36 gold 38 silver and 36 bronze. Clearly something stinks. Not just in sports. China reacts by baring its teeth to all its neighbors. It has claimed the South China Sea as its territory just as drug gangs claim certain areas as theirs. In July a UN Tribunal ruled that China has absolutely no rights over the South China Sea and its aggressive tactics are illegal. The Chinese media labeled US and Japan as eunuchs. Er, yes but India is losing its tigers because the Chinese eat its private parts, because theirs are so inadequate. Americans have not complained so far. In fact, the Chinese eat every living thing and a picture of its animals market makes you sick. The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome started in China, apparently from a civet, a kind of wild cat. Only cockroaches eat everything like the Chinese do, and the Chinese eat cockroaches as well. So, why are the Chinese such uncivilised barbarians? Maybe, because the economy is not as robust as they want us to think and most of the growth is because of government spending. Local governments and companies have enormous debts and banks are saddled with massive bad debts. The government puts up all kinds of blocks on foreign companies while demanding free markets from other countries. At some point other countries will retaliate and then the excreta will really hit the fan. We hope it happens soon. A collapse of China will be a pleasure to watch.

Are Indians born to be suckers?

Indians love physical assets, like real estate and gold. Those who have the money buy properties in the belief that with a population of 1.30 billion, and growing, and economic growth increasing disposable incomes for a growing number of people, demand for real estate can only keep on increasing. Therefore, prices will keep on increasing into the distant future. However, you cannot buy Rs 15,000 worth of property so those who have less money to invest buy gold. Rs 15,000 will get you 5 grams of gold. The reason for the love of physical assets is that deep down Indians do not trust the government to control inflation and they have been hurt repeatedly by high inflation with low interest rates which have eroded their wealth. So far half the value of any real estate deal was paid in cash, or black money, and with a succession of scams creating untold trillions of black money property prices were zooming. In 2013, Chief of ITC bought a house in Delhi, built on 800 sq yards, for Rs 850 million, in white money, which works out to about $1,500 per sq foot. Similar to prices in New York. What is he getting for this astronomical price? Only 55% of homes in Delhi are connected to a sewer network, the rest drain straight into the Yamuna River. Our drinking water comes from the Yamuna. The cycle of life. Politicians have mixed feelings about the real estate market in India. They love it because their black money is invested in real estate and the higher the prices the more the tax collections. On the other hand the state loses taxes on black money and criminals gain enormous power, so politicians have fixed 'circle rates' which are taken as the minimum value for any property. Circle rates have gone so high that sales of real estate have stalled so Gurgaon recently reduced circle rates by 15% to energize the market. When prices were booming people would pay for apartments before building work had started and builders would start many projects at the same time and use the money to complete old ones. A kind of ponzi scheme. With sales stagnant builders cannot complete promised projects and people are suffering. Instead of creating wealth real estate is causing financial stress and, if a price correction is severe, will suffer huge losses. Politicians and our business fellows do not want people to invest in physical assets and force down interest rate to give negative returns from bank deposits. They want people to invest in shares. This enables business fellows to borrow from banks by pledging their shares, so that effectively they are running companies without holding any stake in them. They are then at liberty to plunder the company without losing a penny. Sadly, the high price of gold and real estate has forced ordinary investors into stocks which are in bubble territory. In India there are 2 suckers born every minute.

The BJP does not want to become the Congress.

The government has accepted a retail inflation rate of 4% (+/- 2%) as its target for the next 5 years. This despite some fierce criticism of the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Raghuram Rajan by elements within the BJP. In India all wealthy people, and their friends in politics, are constantly arguing for low interest rates and since they control the media their views always make the headlines. Their logic is persuasive. Low interest rate will make it cheaper to borrow money, which will enable them to invest more in setting up industries, which will create more jobs and boost the economy. Trouble is that it is no point producing goods if there is no demand and demand can increase only if people have money left over after essential expenses, like food, education and healthcare. The debate is about whether policy rate should be guided by retail prices or wholesale prices. In western countries a rise in price caused by an improvement in quality is not counted as inflationary. This is called 'hedonic' rise in price. True, but prices of cars, cell phones or HD televisions are not counted in a family's expenses basket anyway. Indians spend an average of 30% on food as compared to a minuscule 6.5% in the US, manual laborers spend a far higher proportion of their income on food. If the cost of food goes up there will be less to spend on other expenses. The government can control the price of food by keeping a close eye on food production and importing those likely to be in short supply. That produces a clash with farmers, an important vote bank, who want higher prices for greater profits. Farmers suffer huge losses if there is a glut. Also the government must keep within its spending target to keep fiscal deficit in control. The RBI has brought down policy rate from 8% to 6.5%, which has resulted in a fall of 100 basis points in corporate bond yields, and growth has climbed to 7.95% but the clamor for still lower rates has not gone away. So why have politicians agreed with the RBI? Perhaps, the government is aware that the Goods and Services Tax, which will unify all central and state indirect taxes, will increase prices initially and there will be a loss of jobs as the informal sector is dragged into the tax net, which it has been evading till date. With competition disappearing the big boys will be able to jack up prices hurting consumers even more. Retail inflation has already breached 6% and will rise further as vegetable supplies start to fall. The GST will come into effect sometime next year and the full effect will be felt in 2018. With general elections in 2019 the BJP will be acutely aware of the collapse of the Congress in 2014 because it chose to ignore high retail inflation. Seems that the 'invisible hand' of Adam Smith works on politicians as well. Just as well.

Would every Indian run to the US, if given the chance?

We in India pride ourselves on being the largest democracy in the world. The US is the richest, most powerful democracy. Both countries celebrate independence from the British, the US on the 4th of July while we are celebrating today as Independence Day. The US became independent in 1776, went through a civil war from 1861-1865 and fought on the victorious side in the 2 World Wars. We became independent in 1947, the humiliation of the 1962 war still burns deep and we are still begging Pakistan for peace talks despite repeatedly winning wars against it and suffering repeated terrorist attacks on our citizens. The US is almost as safe as any country can be, with Canada to the north, Mexico to the south, the Atlantic to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. India is about as unsafe as any country can be, with Blagladesh and Myanmar to the east, China to the north and Pakistan to the west. Sri Lanka to the south should have been comfortable but our politicians have managed to create tensions by their interference. The US followed a capitalist system from the beginning, with private enterprise, based on enormous natural resources and incredible innovation. Initially. a lot of the wealth was built on free slave labor. We followed a socialist system from the beginning and despite the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the example of enormous wealth creation by Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea we did not change. The reason was the rise of dynasties, led by the Nehru-Gandhi family, which controlled political parties and whose sole aim was to grab and hold on to power, at whatever cost to the nation. So, poverty has been glorified, so that the vote bank maybe bribed with handouts, and the people have been sliced into tiny segments, which maybe excited by blaming caste, promising reservation and accusations of 'majoritarianism'. Any suggestion of punishing Pakistan immediately draws abuse for 'nationalism', while glorifying the nation is happily celebrated in the US, as has been shown by their athletes at the Rio Olympics. The US even has a patriot act. The US has the longest railroads and the largest number of billionaires in the world. The rich were called robber barons in the past and silicon sultans today. Yes they are ruthless businessmen who have created monopolies but in 1924 Henry Ford had brought down the price of a car from $825 to $260, making sure that everyone could afford a car, and doubled the minimum wage of his workers to $5 a day, creating a new middle class. Today, Google, Facebook, and Twitter are free and Skype allows you to talk for free across the world. There are problems in the US. There is growing inequality since the banking crisis of 2008, which led to Occupy Wall Street and there are regular riots as blacks are being shot by the police. Every Indian, including the commies, will immediately emigrate to the US, if given the chance. Maybe we will improve.

Employing cleaners to clean the system.

Lack of jobs and poverty are a great leveler, writes Prof Dipankar Gupta. In UP upper castes have been applying for posts of 'safai karmacharis', which means 'cleaners'. Actually, they have to sweep streets, clean drains and even climb into sewers, if they get blocked. Not something any upper caste would ever dream of doing, certainly not talking about. Any man doing such a job would have no hope of ever getting a bride from his own caste. Not just upper caste, graduates and some with PhDs have also applied for these posts. For 114 jobs of 'safai karmacharis' 19,000 applicants were graduates. Earlier we read about 2.3 million applications for 368 posts of peons. Whereas fertility rates in other states are falling below replacement levels UP was second only to Bihar in fertility rates in 2011, according to the Census Commission of India. 75,000, or 21%, of our beggars have completed Class 12. Prof Gupta thinks that upper castes working as cleaners, mixing with Scheduled Castes at work, living with Scheduled Caste neighbors in accommodation provided by the government and children playing together as they grow up will gradually eliminate caste barriers. Eventually, marriage between castes will become common place. Will it? People are applying for these jobs because they have to survive. Government jobs are permanent, meaning you cannot be sacked till retirement, pay a handsome salary of Rs 15,000 per month, have health benefits and pay a pension till death. Some people will hire a person to do their job at a lower salary, but without the other benefits, while they take on a second, more respectable, job. Already valmikis, who are Scheduled Caste, have demanded 100% reservation for these jobs for their people. So, we can expect some friction. Everyday 68,922 people reach the age of 25 years in India, that is 2.1 million per month. So what to do? The glib answer is to create loads of respectable jobs that pay living wages but the world is staring at a future where robots or artificial intelligence will take over vast numbers of jobs currently being done by humans. The only solution to the current crisis is to actively discourage the birth of children, but politicians are dependent on their castes for votes. The government is trying to provide skills to young people and giving them cheap loans to encourage them to start their own businesses. Why is it that Indians excel in the US but cannot innovate here at home? The quality of education in India is very poor and even that is not available to vast sections of children. It is shocking that only 31% of the richest section of society in urban India attend college. Why attend college if you have to apply for the post of 'safai karmachari'? No wonder our best brains leave.

Free of corruption? Don't be silly.

Last year India improved its position on the index of corruption, published by Transparency International, from 85 to 76. Our politicians are adept at passing strict laws, punishing people with severe punishment for minor offences, but corruption refuses to go away. The government is keen to implement the Goods and Services Tax to eliminate tax dodging by small businesses. Will it work? We hope so but already some are voicing doubts about how effective it will be. Why are our laws unable to clean up the system? Because politicians are at the root of all corruption in the country. India has not won even one medal at the Olympics and, except Saina Nehwal in badminton, there is not much hope of getting any medal at all. That has not stopped our Minister of Sports from throwing his weight around at Rio. The International Olympic Committee is independent of any government so what is the minister doing there? For that matter why do we even have a minister for sports? Under directions of the Supreme Court the Board of Cricket for Control in India, or BCCI, has to revamp itself completely within 6 months by getting rid of all politicians and civil servants. The same order should be applicable to all the sports bodies in India, including our Olympic Associations. Sports bodies should be controlled by sports persons and athletes, with help from professional managers and lawyers. They can raise finance from sponsorships and television deals. Naturally, they will be governed by common law, like any other professional body. As if India has not been humiliated enough by one goon another Sports Minister, this time from Haryana, is about to travel to Rio, along with his lackeys and flunkeys. Of course, our hon'ble minister will never look but contestants for Miss BumBum have been seen hunting for Pokemon in Brazil in their underwear. What fun. Winning an election is a ticket to complete freedom to do whatever a politician wishes. People see politicians breaking the law with impunity and so think that they can do the same. Corruption can be reduced as Kakha Bendukidze did, when he took Georgia 124th to 50th rank on the Transparency International index. There is no rule book for eliminating corruption but unless we go after politicians it can never be done. Rod Blagojevich, once the Governor of Illinois, is serving a 14 year jail term for trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by Obama when he got elected president. We must remember that in the US prison means prison and not a joke where you can get married on furlough, while serving a sentence for murder. Politicians have the power. So corruption is here to stay.

Isn't it cheating if you pay yourself more than you deserve?

An article on the rising salaries of CEOs in India says that this is a "healthy trend". " Regardless of what the critics say, rising salaries at the top almost always lead to an equivalent downward percolation, besides enforcing stringent performance goals," he writes. " If you were making Rs 20 crore a year, chances are you would work pretty hard to protect that package." That is not the experience in western countries. In 1965 a CEO would earn 20 times the average earnings of workers in the company. In 1978 they earned 30 times more, between 1990 and 2000 the difference jumped to over 300 times. CEOs get ludicrous salaries, not because they deserve to, or because they have magical abilities to increase profits of the companies they head, but because they appoint the board which decides on their compensation. " Firstly, CEO salaries are on a tear even though corporate profits haven't kept pace," he writes." Which is why Tata Motors is paying top dollar salary to its new CEO and managing director Gunter Butschek in an effort to lift the company out of its poor run over last so many years." Isn't it amazing. CEO salaries rise if they make profits and rise even more if they are making losses. Heads I win, tales you lose. Trouble is CEOs are not punished if they cause huge losses to the company and to shareholders. Daimler's acquisition of Chrysler was a disaster and the company had to sell it off at a huge loss. Nine years back Tata spent $12 billion buying Corus Steel in the UK. Now they are desperate to give the company away for free but can find no buyers because steel prices have fallen and no one wants to take on the pension liabilities. Unlimited salaries increase greed, leading to criminal behavior. The recent Volkswagen scandal, where it was found that the company was faking its emission results, is one example. GlaxoSmithKline paid $3 billion in fines for healthcare fraud. P&G was fined in Belgium for price fixing. Barclays, along with other banks, was fined for fixing London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor, which is the international interest rate for banks to borrow from each other. " If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying," said one trader. It maybe a good thing if a CEO earns more than owners of the company because they get paid dividend as other shareholders. Apparently if a CEO is sacked the company's share price will drop which reduces market capitalisation. If share prices are high despite low profits then that is a bubble and will cause problems for the economy at some point. High private sector salaries result in knock-on effects on public sector salaries, which results in wasteful expenditure of government revenues. Undeserved compensation is immoral and borders on corruption. No one should be paid more than they deserve.

How do you modify hopes and fears?

The retail inflation rate in India has fallen from highs of over 12% in 2010 to 5.77% in June of this year, but 'inflation expectations' of ordinary people still remain high. Reserve Bank Governor, Raghuram Rajan has referred to inflation expectations in each of his policy statements and did so again in his last statement, last Tuesday, before he steps down. He kept base rate steady at 6.5%. This maybe one of the reasons why he has been treated so shabbily by politicians. What does it matter what people think when figures show that inflation is under control? It does matter. If people expect prices to rise at higher rate than interest paid by banks, as was happening under Congress rule, they will try to hedge by buying physical assets, like real estate or gold. How does the RBI know what people expect? They ask 5,000 people what their expectations are, of which 30% are housewives, 20% are self-employed and 15% are other employees. The RBI does not explain how they choose their sample, what questions they ask or how informed the people are. The survey is carried out every quarter so there maybe information bias, in that people will be influenced by current changes in prices, rather than over one year. Also, few people can make sense of year-on-year or the difference between GDP or Gross Value Added. Rajan has brought down inflation expectation from over 14% in 2013 to around 9% today but it was lower in December 2014. It maybe because interest rate was 8% in 2014, giving us a real interest rate of around 2%, while it is around 1% at present. Economists at IMF suggest that the fall in inflation in India is not so much because of the fall in the international price of crude, because that was not passed on to customers, but because of a fall in inflation expectations and lower minimum support prices for agricultural products. So Rajan has been partly right. But it is not just the stupid people, as politicians complain. 10 year bond yield in India is at 7.11% showing that markets do expect inflation to remain sticky. Yields on over $13 trillion worth of government bonds in the world have turned negative. Even after Brexit, yields on short term bonds in the UK turned negative. Not only in India, people in the US also estimate inflation to be much higher than it actually is. Politicians may sneer at us as ill-informed but economists are also unable to suggest remedies to the present lack of global growth. The sheer volume of data maybe causing a 'recency bias' in their analyses. Economists are studying human behavior to understand what advertising agencies have known for a long time. Perhaps, they have not understood the most important fact, which is that an economy is not just numbers, but is about people. And expectations are based on hopes and fears. You cannot quantify that. 

No one seems to care that machines are brainless. Why?

After the hanging chads farce of 2000, when George W Bush stole the presidential election from Al Gore, with a great deal of help from his brother, Jeb Bush, who was Governor of Florida at the time, there is great glee that the Bushes have been humiliated this time. If Bush was ditched by the people, as an establishment candidate and the third member of the same family to stand for president, then it is not surprising that Hillary Clinton is also profoundly disliked by voters. In fact, Hillary Clinton only managed to defeat Bernie Sanders in the primaries because of dirty tricks by the Democratic Party machine and Convention Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to step down. Now Sanders is trying to defeat Schultz in her primary in Florida. And we thought that our lot are the most corrupt in the world. So, if the Democrats rigged the primaries in favor of Clinton can they, will they, dare to tinker with the actual elections in November. After all, they are still smarting from the loss in 2000, with some justification, and a Democrat, Barack Obama is in the White House, and he desperately needs Clinton, to protect his tatty legacy, just as Clinton needs his soaring rhetoric to mesmerise the people. Andrew Appel, a Professor at Princeton, shows how easy it will be to hack into the voting machines. The manufacturers threatened Appel with lawsuits but he carried on his work quietly. Having invested millions of dollars on the machines governments in states started a process of giving printed receipts to voters. Now some states are going back to paper ballots, but the voter registration lists can still be hacked. That brings us to the most frightening thought of all, there is enormous enthusiasm for cars, trucks, trains, and maybe even aircraft without human control. What if any one of them is hacked and used for bad deeds, as happened in France last month. In India, where the majority of people are illiterate, there is an enormous faith in computers, encouraged by politicians, as some sort of divine intervention, which is completely infallible. We have hand held electronic devices, on which you press a button against the person you support. Very easy. Tell people not to come, or else, and then goons vote instead of the people. We are being seduced with the advantages of digital banking and how that will cut out all black money. Guess what? Ross Clark in the UK thinks that cashless society will give too much power to the banks to increase charges on customers. In India, our fear is that the government will be able to monitor every movement that everyone makes. We will be puppets in the hands of politicians, civil servants and police. Terrifying thought. India will probably return empty-handed from the Olympics. Why? The malign influence of politicians and civil servants. Simple. Implement Lodha Committee recommendations for all sports. The good thing is, everyone dies in the end.  

You cannot be smart if your ideas are from comic books.

It is amazing that the US has some of the top universities in the world, the largest number of Nobel Prize winners and a surfeit of well funded think-tanks and yet seems to have no clue as to the world outside its borders. Even those with PhDs from Ivy League universities have a black and white view of the world, in which the US is always good and anyone who disagrees is bad. Whether it is because they have grown up reading comics about cowboys and injuns, GI Joe and the gooks, Davy Crockett and Santa Ana we do not know, but education and travel should broaden minds and generate a greater understanding of other points of view. Christopher Smart, a senior fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, no less, writes that Putin is wrong to support Donald Trump in his bid to become the next president of the US, by encouraging Russians to hack into Hillary Clinton's campaign servers. " Russian leaders also have a long history of agitation and propaganda, or 'agitprop' as their Soviet predecessors called the overt and covert campaigns to shape public opinion in foreign countries," he writes. Quite forgetting an unprovoked US war on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, support for mujahideen in Afghanistan, which led to the rise of the Taliban, which gave birth to Al Qaeda and Islamic State, and the disastrous regime change in Iraq and Libya. " To be sure, Russia's interests also include political dominance over its neighbours, which is what drove the ham-handed intervention in Crimea..." writes Smart. Perhaps, he should read about US support for dictators in South America which is why left-wing governments in Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela and Brazil still have a jaundiced view of the US. As for Crimea, Russia only intervened after the extreme right wing government in Kiev, backed by the US and EU, started bombing its own citizens in the east of the country. Ukraine has turned into Europe's 'supermarket' for illegal weapons from where smugglers have to cross any border into Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic or Slovakia, all part of the Schengen area, and they can walk into Austria, Italy or Germany. Smart thinks that Trump's economic proposals may cause chaos in international markets, which may not benefit Russia. Russia's economy is suffering because of financial sanctions imposed by the Obama government over which Putin has no control. If there is chaos Russia maybe able to trade independently with individual countries. Putin has every reason to disrupt Hillary Clinton's campaign, if he can,because of her abusive language in the past. Calling him "ruthless, cynical and utterly unprincipled" is utterly stupid when the US is friends with Pakistan, a center of terrorism, is a key ally of Turkey, which is a member of NATO, and sucks up to China, which is at war with all its neighbors. If Putin is smiling, it maybe because he is lucky or because he knows what he is doing, having gone to school in the KGB.