Civilizational problems are not that uncommon.

At the insistence of Germany, which holds the presidency of the G20 for 2017, an annexure was added to the Leaders' Declaration, which stated, "The Partnership intends to support related initiatives of the G20 and facilitate investment compacts between interested African countries, international organisations and interested partners to support private investment, sustainable infrastructure and employment in Africa." Why is Germany suddenly so concerned about Africa? Because of the flood of migrants coming into Europe, with an average of 55% of Europeans wanting a complete stop of Muslim migrants. So fierce is the opposition in some countries that Austria sent tanks to its border with Italy to stop migrants crossing over. Africa is enormously rich in natural resources, with a total population of 1.216 billion people, less than that of India, with an area 10 times the size of India. So, every person should be incredibly rich. Sadly, Africa's riches have been looted by other nations for centuries, helped by local despots who derived their power from the money paid by the same foreigners. This is not some conspiracy theory. Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the United Nations pleaded for a stop to the exploitation. Annan is from Ghana. As the competition for resources has heated up, with China entering the fray, rich countries shifted to digital exploitation, trying to tie African countries to a completely free and open Internet, with no customs duties, no transfer of technology and no commitment to recruit local people. While Europe has slapped a fine of $2.7 billion on Google for not giving equal listing to products of competitors, and Apple has been ordered to pay $14.5 billion in back taxes, Africa is being asked to give complete freedom to western companies. No wonder they walked out. Africa is making progress but not as much as it should, wrote Prof Noah Smith, because it has not been able to improve quality. Why not a Marshall Plan for Africa? Indeed, Germany has proposed a 'Marshall Plan with Africa' to stimulate African economy. Will it work? President Emmanuel Macron of France said that Africa has "civilizational" problems, which include "failed states, complex democratic transitions and African women giving birth to seven-eight children". There are 2.8 million people of Indian origin living in Africa so India should be able to increase investment across the continent. But, African nations must improve their governance so that their citizens do not have to seek refuge abroad. Same applies to India.

The fiction of 'all-under-heaven'.

Dressed in combat fatigues, Xi Jinping issued a threat to all China's neighbors saying,"I firmly believe that our heroic PLA has the confidence and capability to defeat any intruder." Just as Recep Erdogan wants to establish an  Ottoman caliphate, Jinping wants to become an emperor of Asia. China claims territory of all its neighbors, so every other country becomes an intruder according to Chinese fiction. The recent face off with Indian troops in Doklam, which is in Bhutan, but overlooks the Indian state of Sikkim, is an example of Chinese duplicity. After having intruded into Bhutanese territory China resorted to repeating its claims, and aggressive rhetoric against India. But if the PLA has the "capability to defeat any intruder" then so has the Indian army. China got a bloody nose from the Indian army in the Nathu La sector in 1967, and then got a spanking by Vietnam in 1979. China should remember that our soldiers have been battling a fanatic enemy, Pakistan, on our western border since independence, and so our army has earned a lot of experience through the blood of our soldiers, whereas China has not fought a real battle against a determined enemy. "An oft repeated exhortation in China is 'use the past to serve the present', wrote Prof Suisheng Zhao. "What they celebrate is an imperial China reconstructed as the benevolent centre of East Asia, to advance the agenda of China's rise as a return to the harmonious state to reassure neighbours who worry about the nation's rising threat. The leaders insist that a powerful China can be peaceful." Chinese scholars have imagined "a benevolent Chinese empire Tianxia, all-under-heaven, based on the royal ethics, or wangdao". However, western scholars studying Chinese history, find that wars were constant and both Qing and Ming dynasties were built on military power. What is most amazing is that China sees no contradiction in repeating its myth of 'benevolent Chinese' while building military bases on artificial islands created on reefs on the South China Sea, based on another Chinese fiction, the nine-dash line, which passes through territorial waters of other nations with coastlines bordering the Sea. A Court of Arbitration ruled that China has no claim over the Sea, to which the Chinese response was that the US and Japan are 'eunuchs' and 'paper tigers'. Not at all civilized, are they? Former President of Philippines, Benigno Aquino, compared China to Nazi Germany. Xi Jinping is personally behind building islands on the South China Sea. We hope there will be no Ping dynasty, like Qing and Ming. 'All-under-heaven' can only come if there is no China. 

A precariat for the future?

"In the US, 31% of workers are now self-employed, freelancing or in gig economy work. But India is ahead of the US; about 75% of our labour force meets the same criteria," wrote Sabharwal and Chakraborty. About 50% of our labour force is self-employed. What is wrong with that? "This huge self-employment is not some overweight entrepreneurial gene among Indians; the poor cannot afford to be unemployed so they are self-employed." Which means that they are surviving somehow, but always on the brink of penury. "Since India has 60 million enterprises, but only 18,000 of them are companies large enough to have a paid-up capital of more than Rs 10 crore, it's clear most Indians enterprises are dwarfs that are built on self-exploitation. (Russian economist Alexander Chayanov made the self-exploitation case to Jawaharlal Nehru for the viability of small firms that comes from not having to pay yourself or your family market wages). Bad self-employment is not a solution to India's poverty." So is the gig economy working great in the US? Only for those who live in nice suburbs, it seems. They are able to rent their apartments, or spare rooms, through Airbnb for extra income. This is passive investing, like investing in index funds. For others, who find find work through apps there is no job security or regular earning. The future of those with poor education is probably in low wage healthcare sector, caring for increasing number of old people with physical problems. For such people there is no prospect of promotions or of climbing up the social ladder. But the informal sector in India, which employs 111 million people, is not growing, even as earnings of workers has increased. Gross Value Added has increased by Rs 11.5 trillion, which can only mean that there has been a substantial increase in productivity. Is it because of the government's war on cash, we do not know. The Indian economy is a tale of two narratives, wrote Sajjid Chinoy. On the one hand, fiscal and current account deficits and retail inflation are all down which are signs of macroeconomic stability. Bankruptcy law and the Real Estate Regulatory Authority are expected to help reduce bad loans in banks and protect buyers from rogue builders. On the other hand, the economy has been slowing since March last year, well before demonetization, exports have fallen drastically and the agriculture sector is in deep distress, despite good monsoons. If things are going so good why do we feel so bad, asked R Sukumar. Thermal power plants may have to shut down due to falling price of solar power, laying off thousands of workers, the pharmaceutical industry profits are down, as demand for generics in the US is weak, and IT companies are laying off workers. The precariat are perhaps a cross between precarious and proletariat. That is really poor.

Will it be acceptable if parents ask for it?

The Origin of Species was published by Charles Darwin in 1859, which postulated that animals evolve by the natural selection of traits which give an advantage in the fight for survival, so that these traits pass on into succeeding generations while others die out. This is most beautifully illustrated in how some animals have developed extremely toxic poisons even as their prey have developed resistance to them. "In 1883, Francis Galton, Charles Darwin's lesser known half-cousin, decided to take his famous relative's ideas to the next level," wrote Rahul Matthan. "Galton believed that if nature could achieve such remarkable results through natural selection, the same could be used to improve humankind." "He called the process eugenics..." This had support of thinkers of the time, such as HG Wells, and some states in the US passed laws to allow sterilisation of men and women suffering from certain diseases, and for criminals. Passing judgement in Buck v Bell, Supreme Court Judge, Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote,"It is better for all the world that instead of waiting to execute a degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit for continuing their kind." The Nazis took 'eugenics' to mean elimination of anyone they considered to be inferior and this led to the establishment of death camps. Eugenics is now a dirty word but sex offenders are offered chemical castration, and if you cannot have sex you cannot have children. Today there is a way to modify the human genome easily and cheaply. It is only natural that parents will want to make their babies more intelligent, more beautiful and more physically athletic through gene modification. Which was the original intention of eugenics, as proposed by Galton. This is leading to all kinds of strange rules. While calling for abortion of female fetuses to be made illegal, couples are allowed to choose the gender of their child through genetic selection at the time of conception. Britain is considering a law to allow people to choose their own gender. That would be great fun for men to ogle women in female changing rooms by claiming that they are women. Will white people ask for blonde, blue-eyed children, while blacks ask for blacker children? On the other hand, skin lightening is practised by some 70% of African ladies. So will black people opt for white children? If everyone becomes white will that end racism? People feel comfortable with their own kind so they congregate together. Will genetic eugenics get rid of racial differences, or make them worse? 

Is it possible for trade to be really free?

In early 19th century, David Ricardo proposed that "trade between nations could be mutually beneficial, even if one nation was more efficient than the other in all commodities", wrote Ajit Ranade. "Sure, free trade might hurt some people, but it's worth it, because in the end everyone is a winner." "The winners can compensate the losers and yet be ahead." That is within a nation, but why would a rich nation transfer wealth to a poor one? Western countries became rich by looting their colonies, as the British did to India. Moreover, politicians are not elected to make other countries richer, which is clearly illustrated by Germany. Chancellor Gerhard Schroder reformed social benefits, known as Hartz reforms, which forced people to accept lower wages, resulting in booming employment and low wage growth. However, Germany benefits hugely from a weak euro, which is common currency for the 19 countries of the eurozone. This has boosted German exports. Normally, when a country becomes wealthy its currency becomes stronger so that its goods become pricey, compared to those of others, but economic problems in other countries, like Greece, keep the euro weak and Germany takes full advantage. Germany had a current account surplus of $297 billion in 2016, more than China, which is giving heartburn to other leaders, including Donald Trump. Thus free trade does not help every nation. "For instance, the North American Free Trade Agreement, that came into force in 1994, was supposed to create 200,000 new jobs due to exports to Mexico. But by 2010, the increased trade deficit had eliminated close to 700,000 jobs, with job losses in every state." Prof Dani Rodrik wrote that economists have never acknowledged that many people lost out due to globalization, and that has created enormous public anger. Nations resort to currency manipulation, exploitation of labor and degradation of environment to increase profits. So what of India? Frustrated by the gridlock in the Doha round of WTO talks India signed free trade agreements with neighboring countries and regions. Trade deficits with Asean nations, Korea and Japan have more than doubled. India hoped to gain in services, but, while goods can be easily transported across borders, services need humans and every country has visa restrictions. Infosys is hiring 10,000 workers in the US, and more than 50% of Wipro employees in the US will be Americans, because of Trump's threat on H1B visas. In a speech in Delhi, former prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper admitted that globalization suits the elite who can easily cross borders but not the poor who are restricted within national boundaries. If we are losing from free trade what should we do?

Isn't it time to be truly independent?

The House of Representatives, of the US Congress, voted almost unanimously, at 419-3, to stop Donald Trump from lifting sanctions against Russia. Will Hurd, a Republican, said that Russia is "our adversary and not our ally.Why? The Soviet Union was an ally in World War II and paid the heaviest price in terms of casualties. Even today the Russians believe that the USSR would have won the war on its own, without US and British help. Germany, Italy and Japan constituted the Axis powers, who caused the deaths of millions of people. Yet today, all three are friends of the US and Russia is not. General Douglas MacArthur protected the Japanese Emperor, Hirohito, and an ex-general, George Marshall conceived of a plan to channel $13 billion to regenerate Europe, including Italy and Germany. The Soviet Union, a communist dictatorship, refused to participate, fearing US dominance over all of eastern Europe. The Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, following which there was a chaotic period during which the West, especially Bill Clinton, did everything to destroy it both economically and militarily. What a difference between farsighted statesmen, as MacArthur and Marshall, and a vain politician. That led to the rise of Vladimir Putin who is hated by the West, but extremely popular in Russia. Lisa Dickey discovered that Putin has given Russians a pride in their nation. Barack Obama slapped sanctions on Russia for allegedly interfering in the US elections last year. Yet the US has been meddling in other countries for decades, not forgetting the illegal wars in Iraq and Libya which gave rise to the Islamic State, resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands and a mass migration into Europe. Donald Trump came into office planning to improve relations with Moscow but he has been completely neutered by the Congress which has started innumerable investigations into supposed Russian help for his campaign. How did this start? It started when an ex British spy made wild allegations against Trump, which was seized on by the Democrats. Donald Trump is so unpopular in Britain that he has postponed a proposed visit to the country. yet, British Prime Minister, Theresa May was the first foreign leader to rush to meet Trump after he was sworn in and we saw photos of her leading him by the hand, like a pet dog on a leash. That is because of a British creation known as the 'special relationship' which allows Britain to project itself as a world power, despite being reduced to a small island in the North Sea after it lost its empire. In a speech in 1962, then Secretary of State, Dean Acheson dismissed Britain saying,"Great Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role." Harold Macmillan believed "we are Greeks to their Romans", meaning the British are the thinkers while the Americans are merely foot soldiers. The US celebrates Independence Day on July 4. Seems that the Brits are still dictating to them.

A real Goldilocks scenario, or a fairy tale?

Growth in US and UK will be lower this year, predicted the International Monetary Fund, although the global economy will grow by 3.5% this year and 3.6% next year. It revised its forecast for the euro area up from 1.7% to 1.9% due to stronger growth in Spain, Italy, France and Germany. China was also revised higher. A poll of economists by Reuters predicts that growth in major economies will be slower in 2019 than this year. Inflation will remain suppressed. Emerging economies will grow at 3.5% in the next 3 years. These figures prompted A Nageswaran to ask,"Is global economic recovery statistical or real?" After analysing all the data he found that recovery in China is because of export growth to the US, helped by the Federal Reserve's caution in raising the low cost of borrowing. "America's rolling 12-month trading deficit had widened to $780 billion in May this year, from a recent low of of $745 billion in September 2016." The eurozone has done better by earning a trade surplus but 60% of the population of France, Sweden and Italy has seen a decline in real incomes. Markets are euphoric everywhere. US markets closed at record levels yesterday, boosted by companies reporting earnings higher than expected. If major economies are growing more slowly, which should mean lower exports, as shown by the increase in trade deficit, and if wages are not growing as fast despite a low unemployment rate, probably because most of the increase in employment is in the low-wage gig economy, then what is driving demand? The Office of Budget Responsibility in Britain thinks that a recession is almost inevitable as debt levels are high, so any increase in government spending, to stimulate growth, will result in unsustainable increase in fiscal deficit. Meanwhile, defaults on credit cards, personal loans and overdraft are soaring, as households are unable to service unsecured borrowing. "The combination of higher-trend growth and below-trend inflation is what the folks at the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch fund manager survey call the Goldilocks scenario," wrote M Chakravarty. Which means that interest rates will continue to remain low. The same bank reported that "private client cash levels have dropped to a record low as a percentage of total assets", which means people are putting more money into riskier assets, such as stocks. So what about India? Our markets are also in record territory, in sync with the rest of the world. Our fiscal deficit, current account deficit and retail inflation rate are all down and GST is being touted as the ultimate steroid for the economy, wrote Sajjid Chinoy. On the other hand, exports are growing by only 3%, the agriculture sector is in distress and state finances are stressed because of loan waivers. So, is it going to be cheers, or tears? All fingers and toes crossed.

The letter of the law.

A 10 year old girl has become pregnant after being raped by her mother's own brother over several months. The child is forced to get permission for an abortion from a judge because she is 26 weeks pregnant and the law allows abortion up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. A court in Chandigarh refused permission for abortion fearing for the safety of the child. Leaving aside the bestial nature of the crime, which is sadly all too common in India, there are many issues which are impossible to understand. Why didn't the mother take her to a doctor earlier? We can only guess, but it maybe because the girl has not yet had a period, so the mother was not alerted by her daughter 'missing a period'. Also the nature of the crime is so shocking that no ordinary parent can even imagine it happening to their own child, even if we read about more sickening attacks on children everyday. The Supreme Court has ordered examination of the child by a medical board before it decides on whether to allow the girl to undergo an abortion. By then the girl will be about 28 weeks pregnant. A little girl, practically a baby herself, raped by an adult she trusted, now undergoing a terrifying ordeal of attending courts full of formidable adults looking through every letter of the law to decide on her fate. At least the girl is still alive, whether that is a blessing for her only the future will tell. Not so lucky were children in Nithari, where poor children were raped, murdered and cannibalised. That is a classical case of police and politicians colluding with a rich criminal, Moninder Singh Pandher, to destroy evidence and prolong the investigation unnecessarily, in a bid to subvert the case. We see that everyday in India. Yesterday, both the accused were sentenced to death, but both are still protesting innocence. Unbelievably, Pandher has been out on bail since 2014, which is unique to India. For reasons unknown, no one in India uses the word 'pedophilia', including the press. In the West pedophilia is taken extremely seriously and there are dedicated police departments to go after these perverts. In India, on the other hand, there seems to be a silent conspiracy never to mention this crime. Thus, Ruchika Girhotra was continuously referred to as a teenager in the press, when she was just 14 years old, which allowed Rathore to escape with a laughable prison sentence of 6 months. As in everything we have laws against sexual abuse of children but everything is done to see that the perpetrators escape justice. No wonder pedophile tourism is a lucrative source of revenue for governments in India. Even now Pandher's son is defending his father saying,"...we will appeal against the CBI court's judgement." He should apologize to the families of victims and change his name. At least have some shame.

Can we create a pristine world again?

The earth is slowly getting covered in plastic waste, reported Jonathan Amos. In the last 65 years 8.5 billion tonnes of plastic has been produced, of which half was made in the last 13 years. Only 13% is still in use today and only 9% has been recycled. The rest has gone into landfills or is floating on the oceans, killing animals and fish. Prof R Vasudevan has patented a method of using waste plastic in building roads, which is cheap and makes the road virtually weather-proof. The patent was obtained in 2006, eleven years ago, and should have become the standard of road building in India by now but a short drive through any part of Delhi is still a nightmare of potholes and deep trenches filled with filthy rainwater. There are 8 agencies in charge of roads in Delhi, which means that not one claims responsibility and each blames the other for problems. This year is the same. The good news is that fossil fuels will gradually disappear as we shift towards renewable energy, once battery technology is able to store vast amounts of electricity produced from sunlight and wind. Trouble is that as renewable energy becomes more widely available the price of oil will drop, making it more attractive. At any price over $50 a barrel US shale oil becomes profitable to produce, which sets a limit on the upside. The population of the earth is set to increase to near 10 billion by 2050, which means more pressure on land for agriculture. The Bay of Bengal is said to have reached a tipping point from the run off of fertilisers, leading to growth of algae and bacteria. This is reducing oxygen tension in the water and if this falls any further it will lead to a 'no oxygen' status. A company in the US, constructing vertical farms, is attracting investors from across the world. Indoor farms will be able to produce fruits and vegetables but will they produce enough grains. About half the land in the world is used for grazing livestock and to grow fodder. If everyone became vegetarian it would reduce pressure on land, reduce the number of livestock and result in less production of methane. Barry Ritholtz wrote that the world is going to change even faster and new technology will disrupt old ways of life. What happens to all those who are unable to adapt to the rapid changes, or are made redundant by technology? Tens of thousands of migrants flooding into Europe is a sign of what to expect if numbers of people keep on increasing while technology takes away old jobs. How long before there is civil war in Europe as previous inhabitants get displaced by new arrivals? Shahbad Dairy, somewhere in the northwest of Delhi, is where the human flotsam has been dumped, Drugs, crime and rape are rampant and police are reluctant to go there. Is the world reaching its tipping point?

There is always someone.

The Supreme Court has set up a 9 judge constitutional bench to hear petitions against mandatory biometric identity cards. Previously, smaller benches of the Supreme Court have been giving confusing judgements, sometimes saying that privacy is a fundamental right, while denying it at other times. More recently, the Court opined that Permanent Account Number, or PAN cards, of taxpayers must be linked with Aadhaar number, while ruling that government handouts cannot be linked with Aadhaar. In fact, biometric identity was touted as solution to prevent leakages in government subsidies, which means stealing by local civil servants and politicians. But now, long-suffering taxpayers are to be forced to provide fingerprints and iris scans, like common criminals, while those stealing from the poor are free to carry on. In the case of biometric cards the government has been insisting that citizens of Indian have no right to privacy, while in a case against Facebook the government submitted that personal data is integral to life and dignity. For ordinary people like us, it is ridiculous that the government should be allowed to get away contradicting itself and the lawyer should be fined heavily for wasting the Court's time, but the government is probably arguing in support of its monopoly right to inflict violence against citizens, without actually saying it. There should be no need for such a case. Animals have no concept of privacy, and no one can be human without privacy. To argue that Indians have no right to privacy is to claim that all Indians are animals, which is a crime against humanity. Also, people may provide false personal information on social media but providing false information to the government will lead to arrest. However, citizens are trying to fight back against a ruthless state by not linking their PAN cards with Aadhaar. How are they doing it? Some have avoided linking by submitting their returns before it became mandatory to do so, while others are filing their returns manually, instead of online. Who is responsible for setting up the abomination of biometric identity cards? A man named Nandan Nilekani, who is a billionaire, with a glittering CV. He dismisses all opponents of Aadhaar, contemptuously calling them Khan-market liberals, JNU types, privacy-wallahs and said that "In India half are fake....Fake is the operative word". Yesterday, Nilekani said that there should be a law against "data colonisation", meaning that social media companies should not be allowed to use personal data provided by the users. Clearly, this man is a shameless stooge of the government, despite his immense wealth. What the government wants is to force WhatsApp to open its end-to-end encryption, so that it can spy on citizens. WhatsApp is free and Mark Zuckerburg cannot assault us, whereas we pay huge taxes to the government to lie to us and coerce us. All because some people are willing to sell themselves.

Quacks and chickens are reasons for immortal bugs.

"Indian poultry farms are breeding drug-resistant superbugs," wrote Natalie O Pearson. Per person chicken consumption is the highest in India, probably because other meats, such as beef, are more in demand in other countries. We will consume 4.5 million tonnes of chicken this year. "Worldwide, animals receive about twice the volume of antibiotics that humans do. Much of it is administered in doses that speed growth in livestock, but aren't strong enough to kill all the bacteria, leaving mutant germs to not only survive, but thrive and potentially spread." How antibiotics promote growth of livestock is a mystery. The FDA in the US permits the use of hormones to promote growth in livestock. Is that why sperm counts are dropping in the West? "More than 56,000 newborns die annually in India because of bloodstream infections that aren't cured by first-line antibiotics..." But, we do not have to wait for antibiotics to reach chemist shops. Effluents from drug factories in India contain concentrations of antibiotics a million times the safe limit. Why waste money treating effluent? The more the infections the more the sale of antibiotics. The government of India has started an Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Surveillance Network, wrote Sanchita Sharma. "The objectives are of enhancing awareness, strengthening surveillance, improving rational use, reducing infections, promoting research and supporting neighbouring countries in our collective fight against infectious diseases," said Health Minister, JP Nadda. Infections do not come from trees, but is passed on from someone who is infected. Overcrowding and lack of trained staff have been known to cause infections. These were the reasons why so many babies keep dying in hospitals in Bengal. Patients often stop taking treatment because of side effects or more commonly because they are feeling better and do not see any reason to continue to spend money on buying medicines. That is why tuberculosis is spreading and is increasingly becoming resistant to first line drugs. One major reason for inappropriate use of antibiotics is because there is no law against someone calling herself a doctor and writing prescriptions. The WHO found that 57% of 'doctors' in India do not have any medical qualification, and 31% of so-called doctors , who practice allopathic medicine, are only high school pass. This is probably an underestimate because thousands qualifying from very dubious homeopathy, ayurveda and unani colleges also call themselves doctors. Politicians are reluctant to ban them because that will create an acute shortage of doctors. Better to let quacks treat people and blame registered doctors. When you have a huge population quantity is better than quality.

BJP is the new Congress, including cow.

"Can Hindutva-based politics deliver growth over the long run, as Hindutva votaries claim? Or would it derail progress, as their opponents argue?" asks Roshan Kishore. Prof Jared Rubin has explained why the Arab world fell behind the West even though the Ottoman empire was much more advanced in every walk of life. "The rulers of the Arab world drew their legitimacy from the clergy. While this allowed the rulers to maintain order in a violent world without having to take recourse to military action very frequently, it also meant that the clergy came to have an outsized influence on Arab society and economy, stifling its growth over the long run." But why don't the elite protest? It is because "people supportive of change refrain from expressing their true preferences for fear of punishment or social opprobrium" said Prof Timur Kuran. This is known as "preference falsification". So what of India, where killing people in the name of saving cows has become commonplace, ever since this government came to power? Was the Congress any different? Not really, according to Steven Wilkinson who pointed that "whether or not the Congress party acted to suppress Hindu-Muslim conflicts in a particular region depended on the local party dynamics and the extent of Muslim support for the party in the region." Chief Minister of Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, is an ardent supporter of Muslims, suppressing news of attacks against Hindus. Ronojoy Sen wrote that the BJP is using handouts for getting votes, exactly as the Congress used to do, and forming governments in states by bribing opposition politicians. The BJP is using governors it has appointed to interfere with functioning of state governments. Kiran Bedi, who was a decorated police chief in Delhi, is spoiling her reputation as the Governor of Puducherry, by interfering with the workings of the government, while events in Nagaland have reached a level of chaos. Modi came to power promising "minimum government, maximum governance", but has he delivered? He has appointed 75 ministers at the center. Rupa Subramanya found more repression and little governance, while Yamini Aiyer wrote that the government is very good and coining slogans but poor at delivering on his rhetoric. The government is to milk oil companies, that it controls, of Rs 2 billion to build a statue to Sardar Patel. It forces companies to pay huge dividends to plug revenue gap, exactly as the Congress used to do. Farm loan waivers will cost Rs 2.57 trillion, much more than Congress spent. Populist policies carry the risk of stagflation, as during Congress regime, wrote A Nageswaran. Cow protection is a naked deception to fool people into believing that BJP is different from the Congress. Ironic that Indira Gandhi's election symbol was a cow and calf. No wonder, Fali S Nariman is reminded of June, 1975.

A little baby boy at the center of adult drama.

Charlie Gard, a baby boy, just 11 months old, is at the center of an international drama, involving his parents, the Pope, President Donald Trump, the US Congress, the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and various British Courts. Little Charlie suffers from, what is known as, Encephalomyopathic Mitochondrial DNA Depletion Syndrome, a genetic disorder. Seems that, normally the mitochondria in a sperm breaks down at the time it fertilises an ovum so that only maternal mitochondria is passed down to babies. Why Charlie's mitochondria is depleting is not known, but since mitochondrial DNA has to be present in every cell his muscles and brain have suffered extensive damage. Nucleoside therapy is highly experimental and has never been tried in anyone with Charlie's condition, so the doctors at GOSH did not use it on him, presumably for fear of killing him. Doctors must function according to the principle of 'Do No Harm', which is part of their training. The doctors at GOSH appealed to the courts to switch off Charlie's life support systems, which was granted. However, Charlie's parents refused to give up and appealed first to the Court of Appeal and then to the Supreme Court, losing both times. At this point the case became a public drama. A US doctor claimed that nucleoside therapy may help Charlie, the Pope and Trump made statements of support and now the US Congress has offered permanent residency to Charlie. Meanwhile, a sympathetic public has contributed 1.3 million pounds to a fund set up for Charlie's treatment. Though extremely sad the whole case has become a bit of a farce. Why are British doctors and courts refusing to transfer Charlie to the US? There is enough money to transfer him by air ambulance with full life support. Once Charlie is out of the hospital their responsibility ends. We understand that parents love their son and are unwilling to accept his death but it is impossible to understand why they want to keep him alive in a vegetative state. Since mitochondria is inherited from the mother it is possible that Charlie's mother feels guilty about his condition and is stubbornly insisting on keeping him alive in the hope that some treatment maybe invented which will cure him. The boy who inspired the film 'Lorenzo's Oil' lived for 22 years. But to what end? At least he was able to breathe on his own, which Charlie is unable to do, which means he will need 24 hour intensive care. How long can that be sustained? As for politicians, they have no business meddling into something they do not understand and those that are using this unfortunate boy for publicity should be ashamed of themselves. For little Charlie's sake, courts in Britain should allow him to be transferred, doctors in the US should not experiment on him and his parents should accept that science cannot control nature. Our abilities are finite. 

Inflation rate maybe the same but India is not the US.

"The nosedive in consumer price inflation to 1.5% in June prompted Arvind Subramanian, the government's chief economic adviser, to talk of a paradigm shift in the inflationary trajectory," wrote M Chakravarty. Not just in India, CPI for June fell to 1.6% year-on-year (y-o-y) in the US, the fourth successive month that it has fallen. In China CPI for June was 1.5% y-o-y, "well below the government's 3% target" and in Japan the CPI for June was 0.4%, "way below the target of 2%". This seems to be a long term trend globally. Why? Because the price of oil is down and likely to remain so. The OECD-FAO predicts that "real prices of agricultural and fish commodities are anticipated to follow a slightly declining trend, keeping them below previous peaks over the next 10 years." Bad news for Indian farmers who cannot export their way out of trouble in the event of a bumper crop, wrote R Kishore. The Bank of International Settlements has pointed to suppressed wage inflation because labor has lost its bargaining power as manufacturing has shifted to low wage countries in Asia and because of the rise of automation. In the case of India, the present government has changed the base year for calculating retail inflation to 2012, when the average rate of CPI was  9.3%. While the rate of CPI was almost the same between the US and India in June the difference is that the interest rate in India was left unchanged at 6.25% by the RBI in June, while the Federal Reserve increased its Funds Rate by 25 basis points to 1.25% in the same month, a difference of 500 basis points. Why the difference? India has a history of high inflation because of limitation of supply. Food and beverages make up a large part of our consumption basket and agriculture is largely dependent on monsoon, which is unpredictable. The government runs fiscal and current account deficits which are plugged by borrowing from the market. Government debt has reached 46% of GDP and 77% of its borrowings are used to pay interest on existing debt. The central government has reduced its deficit to 3.5% of GDP but states are having to borrow more to pay off loans to farmers. A decade of near zero interest rate has resulted in household debt reaching an eye-watering level of $12.7 trillion in the US, which is 6 times the GDP of India, while the federal government has a debt of $19.9 trillion. The US can print dollars, which is the reserve currency of the world, but if India prints rupees then the value of the rupee will fall. The stock market is in record territory, with price/earnings ratio at a record 23.11%. A hefty cut in interest rate could see a fall in the rupee and an outflow of foreign funds which will result in a crash in share prices and also in the value of the rupee. The US, Japan and Europe want inflation to rise, do we? 

Is the global economy slowing because of digitalization?

Leonid Bershidsky is puzzled why, "Cash remains king in the digital age?" In a paper presented to the European Parliament, Daniel Gros found it a "mystery" that cash-to-economic output ratio is increasing. One explanation could be that people are hoarding cash to avoid negative interest rate in the Eurozone but that is contradicted by the fact that the expansion is not in 500 Euro notes but in the much smaller 50 Euro notes. The informal economy is shrinking everywhere. In Japan cash to GDP ratio is the highest while its informal economy is the smallest, at 10% of GDP. Cashless transactions increased to $617 billion last year, from $60 billion in 2010. We are told that complete elimination of cash will reduce crime and make us safer. Actually criminals will surely find other ways of transferring money while ordinary people will lose their privacy completely. Digital transactions are much more expensive. If a thing costs Rs 100 you pay the exact amount if you pay in cash, which enforces discipline. Banks charge a yearly fee on credit and debit cards and the government charges a hefty 18% tax on interest on outstanding credit card debt. Possibly why thrifty Germans prefer to use cash. It also gives complete information on our spending behavior to authorities. Probability of confronting a dreaded criminal is remote for ordinary citizens but the government is an ever present menace in our lives. The British government claims to lose as much as 6.2 billion pounds per year because it is unable to collect taxes on cash transactions. The British government provides social services, such as old age pension, unemployment benefits and free healthcare, for all its citizens, while the Indian government provides handouts only to the 'vote bank' and to politicians, leaving taxpayers to fend for themselves. We are told that cash is unsafe because it is easily stolen, but our loss is limited to what is stolen, whereas hackers can clean out our bank accounts if they gain access. Also, a thief has to come close to steal cash, while a hacker sitting in Ukraine can transfer money from bank accounts in India. Last year hackers gained access to 20,000 accounts in Tesco Bank in the UK. Indian banks have no protection whatsoever, so information on bank accounts can be easily bought. The risks of digital transactions are almost infinite, with hackers inventing new weapons daily. The Reserve Bank has at last woken up to the threat and has made banks responsible for cyber theft, but we can expect banks to create as many hurdles as possible to prevent compensating customers. Our government wants to collect data on citizens to enhance its powers, while it has made political funding more opaque, to avail of criminal funding. They should remember that the US government is monitoring their bank accounts, so maybe we will find out what the villains are up to. Is digitalization the reason slowing of the global economy? Economists should study whether there is any relation.

Corruption: India's most entertaining pastime.

"Corruption is amongst the most debilitating economic illnesses that afflicts large parts of the world," wrote Prof Kaushik Basu. According to Transparency International, India ranks a joint 79th position along with China. Basu was Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India, so he knows how corruption works here. He makes 2 points. When corruption is pervasive strong leaders use that as an excuse to arrest opponents. "The ubiquity of corruption gives a political leader a leash to curb dissent without having to say he or she is curbing dissent." Which also means that such leaders want corruption to stay so that they can continue to use it to enhance their power. Secondly, when the law punishes a bribe giver as well as the taker then both have an interest in hiding the crime. So, this law was passed to prevent whistle-blowers. Whistle-blowers are dangerous, so they are killed to silence them. Trouble comes when pesky foreigners confess to having paid $1.18 million in bribes to NHAI officials between 2011 and 2015, as CDM Smith has done in the US. Much better to suppress everything, as was so efficiently done during the Bofors scam, despit the fact that Sten Lindstrom, former head of Swedish Police revealed all the details of the scam. Although 2 officials of Agusta Westland have been sentenced to prison for corruption in the Agusta Westland deal, Sanjay Bhandari was allowed to flee to the UK, even though his passport had been impounded. This during the reign of our fearless leader, with a 56 inch chest, who wants fingerprints and iris scans of every citizen of India, including newborn babies. The Central Bureau of Investigation is diligently pursuing 392 investigations in 66 countries, which must involve traveling to various panoramic locations around the world. Meanwhile, 69% of Indians have confessed to having to pay bribes in the last one year, the highest in Asia Pacific region. These are, what Prof Basu calls, "harassment bribes", which means that people were coerced into paying for services that should be provided automatically. India did very well in coming 66th in Rule of Law Index, above China and Russia. Who wants rule of law which might snare politicians and civil servants. The government has failed to appoint a Lokpal in the 3 years that it has been in power. The Central Vigilance Commission red-flagged 50 cases of corruption but no action has been taken. The Lokpal is supposed to bring civil servants and politicians to justice, so no Lokpal. But, where is all the corruption coming from? From political parties. According to Prof Basu, "the main culpability for corruption lies with not ordinary citizens but government officials who are supposed to enforce the law". Will the mafia arrest its own members?

How to walk without danger?

Survey by Stanford University found that Indians are among the laziest people in the world. On average people in India walk 4,297 steps per day. People in Hong Kong walk the most at 6,880 steps per day, the world average being 4,961 steps per day. Thankfully, Indonesia comes in last with 3,513 steps a day. The study collected data from smart phones of 700,000 people in 46 countries around the world which is considered to be much more accurate than asking people to recollect how much they walked. The danger of this study is that politicians and so-called experts will immediately call for increasing taxes and parking charges to force people to give up cars. So, should Indians give up cars and start walking? But, walk on what? Most roads are in terrible condition and there are no pavements. Where pavements exist they have been taken over by hawkers and beggars. Hawkers appear anywhere and set up stalls without permission. They pay bribes to local police, a practice known as 'hafta', which literally means 'a week', so they increase corruption. While we have learnt the colonial system of government from the British, we do not seem to have learnt anything from them about how to construct pavements that provide information to people, including the blind. Then there are stray animals. India has more than 30 million stray dogs roaming the streets and every year 20,000 people die of rabies, a disease with 100% mortality. Dangers of Indians roads, combined with a low car ownership ratio means that Indians are going to buy more cars in the future. Malnutrition in India used to mean lack of food but increasingly, lack of exercise with changing diet habits mean that more Indians are becoming obese. Meat consumption in India is low because of costs, but there is a movement to force people to turn vegetarian. A minister suggested that portions served in restaurants should be reduced, so that there is less waste, but withdrew his idea when there was a push back. After all no one won an election in India through science. Genetically modified food crops are being pushed as a solution for food shortage in a poor country like India, but it is hard to know how much is actual science and how much due to pressure from cash rich multinationals. GM mustard resistant to herbicides could be lethal to bees as the use of herbicides is bound to increase. Finally, people need clean air and water for good health. Clean air is simple: increase parking charges so high that people will not use cars, which will leave roads empty for politicians to travel fast with a convoy of many cars. Water is becoming scarce in some parts of the country because of waste in irrigation. That is because farmers are given free electricity, to win votes. Kenneth Thorpe writes that spending money on healthcare is an investment, not an expense. Maybe, but does it win elections?

Democracy or liberalism, which should we protect?

In 1997, Fareed Zakaria wrote an essay titled, 'The Rise of Illiberal Democracy'. He makes a distinction between democracy and liberalism. Liberalism arose in the West in the 18th century as a reaction against the power of the Church and against hereditary monarchy. It emphasizes freedom of the individual over that of a group of people and demands that government should protect and enhance those freedoms. In an interview Zakaria said, "A properly individual state is one in which individual rights are paramount." "The Bill of Rights, after all, is a list of things the government cannot do, regardless of what the majority wants." Then the question arises as to why the majority will vote for a particular government that will suppress it. Is Zakaria recommending banning all political parties so that every candidate will stand as independent, each with her own manifesto? How will any law get passed? "Congress used to be a closed hierarchical system and active buffer against the momentary whims of the majority." But, liberalism started against the hierarchical system. Liberals are not as tolerant as they think, wrote Matthew Hutson. In the US, students at Berkeley University in California, which single-handedly gave Hillary Clinton a majority in popular votes against Donald Trump, violently stopped Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking because he is editor of Breitbart, considered extremely right-wing by liberals. So what of India? Is India a democracy or is it liberal? It is both. It is a democracy, in that every few years we stand in queues to vote for a bunch of people we know nothing about and it is liberal, in that politicians have complete individual freedom to do whatever they want. Prof Deepak Nayyar finds that India is a vibrant democracy but has a dormant Parliament. MPs are highly paid, with loads of perks, and pensions for entire life but do no work. In the UK both houses of parliament meet for 150 days, in the US the Congress meets for 133 days and in Japan, the Diet meets for 150 days. In the last 5 years, the Lok Sabha sat for an average of 69 days per year, of which 20 days were lost due to rowdyism, while the Rajya Sabha sat for an average of 68 days per year of which 20 days were lost to rowdyism each year. Laws are passed without debate and citizens are not allowed to protest. The party in power uses the CBI to harass opponents, said Prashant Bhushan, and the government actively blocks the courts by filing endless appeals, at the cost of the taxpayer. Political parties run on black money and a new law will allow companies to contribute to parties without naming which one. Democracy is merely a way for the mediocre to grab power and liberalism is only for the powerful, as Narendra Modi has shown. The rest is just philosophical debate.

The economy is growing strongly, but is weak. How come?

"Financial markets are starting to get rattled by the winding down if unconventional monetary policies in many advanced economies," wrote Prof Nouriel Roubini. The Federal Reserve in the US is in the best position to get out of unconventional monetary policies, such as zero interest rate and quantitative easing, but its equilibrium level "will be no higher than 3%".  "It is worth remembering that in the Fed's previous two tightening cycles, the equilibrium rate was 6.5% and 5.25%, respectively." Even if the Fed succeeds in reaching an interest rate of 3% it will have little room to maneuver when the next recession hits. There are 4 options for central banks of rich countries. They can revert to zero interest rate and quantitative easing, they can set negative interest rates, as some countries, including Japan and the Eurozone, have already done, they can set a target of 4% inflation rate, but that would increase inflation expectation, and they can set an inflation target of 0%, as the Bank of International Settlements has suggested. "Given that financial push is bound to come to economic shove, once again, unconventional monetary policies, it would seem, are here to stay." Prof Roubini seems to be convinced that another recession is bound to happen. So, what happens to India? There were howls of anguish after the Reserve Bank left its policy rate unchanged at 6.25% in June, despite projecting headline inflation rate of 2-3.5%, much below its target of 4%. Figures released yesterday showed that retail inflation in June had fallen to 1.54% in June, from 2.18% in May. Prices of vegetables have doubled in the past 2 months, as the effects of demonetization have passed. Industrial Production grew by a mere 1.7% in May, compared to 3.1% in April. Despite slowing to 6.1% during demonetization, GDP grew at 7.1% in the last financial year. Agricultural output increased last year after a good monsoon, causing prices to drop and leading to farmer suicides. This has led to a tit-for-tat loan waiver for farmers by state governments. State governments will have to borrow more at higher premiums, thus pushing up interest rates. A report by the Centre for Equity Studies claimed that economic growth has not created jobs. It said that people are being forced towards the informal sector. On the other hand, 10.13 million people subscribed to the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation in the first half of this year, which shows that lots of people in formal employment were not being counted. If the economy is growing at over 7% and employment is so high why are prices so soft, why is industrial production stagnant and why are savings and credit growth so weak? And why are people with PhD degrees applying for jobs as mortuary attendants? When global recession recurs, as Prof Roubini predicts, we will be safe, because no one will know what is happening here. Because we are confused as well.

Have we learnt from the East Asian crisis? Maybe wrong lessons.

"Many of the most wildly successful economies in Asia tumbled into a crisis in July 1997," wrote an editorial in the Mint. What lessons can we learn from that crisis on its twentieth anniversary? The crisis was not caused by governments running large fiscal deficits, but because of unmanageable corporate debts and crony capitalism. The central banks were committed to a fixed exchange rate against the dollar, which they were unable to defend, even with very high interest rates and massive cuts in their budgets, as prescribed by the International Monetary Fund. Only Malaysia resorted to capital controls, which was heavily criticised at the time, but turned out to be the most successful strategy. There was panic selling due to herd mentality. "At a more fundamental level, the crisis reflected the mismatch between Asia's historic growth model and its current circumstances," wrote Prof Barry Eichengreen. "But by 1997 the South-East Asian economies had reached a stage of development at which brute-force investment alone was no longer enough to sustain higher growth rates." But lessons seem to have been forgotten because "China is still wedded to a model that prioritizes a target rate of growth". "China is now at the same point as its South-East neighbours 20 years ago: like them it has outgrown its inherited growth model." True, but in order to make up for diminishing returns from investment at home China is trying to export its excess capacity to other countries through its One Belt One Road project. This is a cunning stratagem to tie weaker countries in chains of debt which they cannot repay and will have to cede territory to the Chinese, as Sri Lanka has found to its cost. The UN has warned against the risks. India, on the other hand, needs to invest more. Which means, "India needs to maintain a high investment rate as well as create jobs to allow people to shift to modern sectors that have high productivity". But how? Banks cannot lend until they have cleared their books of bad loans worth about Rs 7 trillion and businesses cannot invest until they have paid off their previous debt. Not just India and China, seems that even Europe did not learn from the 1997 crisis, and how austerity just prolonged recovery. Europe is still applying the screws on Greece, insisting that it runs a budget surplus every year when its economy cannot grow because of tight spending restraints. Germany, the main creditor, has made a profit of 1.3 billion Euros from lending to Greece, even though Greece's population is starving. Even though globalization has failed large sections of people the elite are still insisting on continuing with more of the same, wrote A Nageswaran. The East Asian crisis may never be repeated but other crises will happen. What we learn is colored by personal interest. So new mistakes will be made.

Should luxury be restricted to the fortunate few?

Majumdar and Shah wrote about the "Problems of being caught in the circle of conspicuous consumption" in India. They cited the example of a woman called Sheila who needed an urgent loan for a surgery even though both she and her husband have high paying jobs, live in a four-bedroom apartment in Bangalore and buy branded goods. Why is Sheila unable to finance the surgery herself? "The aspiration to live an extravagant life and the desire of immediate gratification and hedonistic expectations has led to a consumption binge with lesser practical utility." Which means that Indians are spending more on useless things. With a population of around 300 million the US has around 1.2 billion credit cards, while with a population of 1.3 billion people India has just about 25 million credit cards. In the financial year of 2015, Rs 1.92 trillion was spent through credit cards in India, whereas in 2014 nearly $5 trillion were spent through credit cards in the US. But even with this meager spending on credit cards outstanding debt is rising, causing consternation among financial experts. Why? Because Indians earn so little. A survey showed that the top 10% of Indians earn 29% national disposable income, which is slightly lower than 33% earned by the bottom 60%. About 71% of urban and 68% of rural workers have no work contract, which means they have no job security or benefits, like pensions and healthcare. The government encourages private consumption. Why? "In most nations, consumption expenditure accounts for 60-85% of their GDP - in India, private consumption accounts for 56% of GDP." So, Indians are not really splashing out, are they? "According to the latest data on 'Household Indebtedness' by India's National Sample Survey Office, nearly one in every three rural households and over one in five urban households are in debt. The share of debt for productive purposes, such as loans toward business, fell from 42% in 1981 to 18% in 2012 among urban households as spending on weddings and purchasing household assets increased." Savings rate in India has fallen from 34.6% of GDP in 2011-12 to 32.3% in 2015-16, and private investment is dropping, wrote Prof T Jayakumar. Is it because Indians are having to spend a greater portion of their income on essentials, such as food, education and healthcare, reducing demand for other goods? The Delhi government has announced free surgeries and investigations in private hospitals for all Delhi citizens if government hospitals are unable to provide the same within one month. Already queues at government hospitals are so long that people pay hospital staff to jump to the front. A genuinely ill person will have no chance. Trust in government is so low that people, including the poor, buy gold to protect themselves against rising prices, falling interest rates and lack of services. Very few can resort to "conspicuous consumption" that Majumdar and Shah find so distasteful. We are too poor.

Will it be like going downhill without brakes?

"The world is about to change even faster," predicted Barry Ritholtz, writing about the effect of technology on "markets, companies and labour". It is the pace of change that makes it difficult to control or even predict its effects. "The Wall Street Journal noted it took the landline telephone 75 years to hit 50 million users. But, "it took airplanes 68 years, the automobile 62 years, light bulbs 46 years, and television 22 years to hit the same user milestones." "YouTube, Facebook and Twitter hit that 50-million user mark in four, three and two years respectively", but that is nothing compared to the Angry Birds app "which took a mere 35 days". Of course, the world population would have been a about 1.2 billion, compared to 7.5 billion today, when the telephone was invented, and automobiles and air travel were very expensive, compared to average earnings when first introduced, whereas YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are free, while even poor people can afford smart phones today. "Consider the combination of genomics and molecular biology, and what this might mean for longevity and the treatment of diseases." Indeed, but what about the danger of designer babies? Today, the US is struggling to contain proliferation of nuclear weapons by rogue states. Donald Trump warned that Iran must never be allowed to possess nuclear weapons, and North Korea has warned the US of the dangers of a nuclear war after B-1B strategic bombers flew along its border. Why is the US in such a pickle? Because it allowed the invention of the hydrogen bomb, and then tested it on civilian populations in Japan. Knowing the preference for boys in India genetic engineering will make gender selection easy, badly skewing our demography. Humans have used every game-changing discovery or invention, from learning how to control fire to inventing the wheel to telegraph and the airplane, for fighting wars. There is nothing to prevent a regime like that of China from creating an army of large men with little intelligence who will fight to the death because they will have no fear. Ritholtz finds Uber a great example of progress. "Having disrupted the taxi industry, Uber's self-driving cars are poised to disrupt demand for drivers in Pittsburgh and Arizona." True, but Uber's model is under attack, including in the US. A court in London has already ruled that Uber drivers are employees and not contractors, and so entitled to a minimum wage and sick leave. The proliferation of the gig economy, with no benefits or security, is not a desirable future. At the very least we are losing our privacy which gives complete powers of control to politicians. If we are not taken over by armies of robots, or destroyed by cyber warfare where rogue regimes take over control nuclear arsenals, we are in danger of becoming slaves of our own governments. Sweet dreams. 

The plague of spoons in India.

In June 1992, Forest and Revenue officers entered a village in Tamil Nadu and vandalised homes, destroyed livestock and raped 18 women. It took over a fortnight for the news to reach the outside world. When it did the state government denied the incident and the then Forest Minister of Tamil Nadu accused the entire village of smuggling sandalwood, earning Rs 500 per person per day. The Chief Minister at the time was Ms Jayalalithaa, proving that it is not just 'patriarchal' men who are indifferent to crimes against women. Naturally, local police refused to register a case and the government used taxpayer money to obstruct justice, to protect the officers. The victims kept fighting, assisted by the Tribals Association. Finally, in September 2011, 215 out of the initial 269 accused were sentenced to prison, ranging from 1-10 years. The remaining 58 had died due to the long delay, thus escaping justice. The women also received compensation by 2015. Last month, 5 farmers were shot dead by police in Madhya Pradesh while protesting against falling prices for their produce. As usual the state government denied the killing, with the Chief Minister starting a fast unto death against violence by farmers, wrote Prof S Vishwanathan. Ever since this government has come to power people are being killed or being beaten up in the name of protecting cows. Prof T Kothiyal wrote that violence to protect cows will convert them from economic assets to liabilities so that cattle herders will stop rearing cows and shift to buffaloes instead. Why are criminals able to get away with murder in India? Because they are protected by politicians either by direct interference with the police or by repeatedly denying any crime had occurred, and cases dragging on for decades because of the inability of our courts to reach any conclusion. Politicians are surrounded by sycophants, ready to sink to sickening levels of flattery, as discovered by S Vadukut when he found 3 books in the British Library in London. The books are about Sanjay Gandhi, son of Indira Gandhi, who was behind some of the excesses of the Emergency. Writing about forced sterilisation, Jagat Singh wrote. "The greatness of Shri Sanjay Gandhi lies in the fact that he took up very unpopular programmes and vested them with a roaring popularity by dint of hard work and the force of his personality." MJ Rao wrote, "History has still in its womb the future of this illustrious son of the Nehru family, but the omens are all to the good." The title of Pyare Lal Sharma's book was, "World's Wisest Wizard - A Psychography of Sanjay Gandhi's Cosmic Mind". Sycophants are called 'chamchas' in India, which literally means 'spoons'. Is it any wonder that the armed rebellion, that started in a village known as Naxalbari 50 years ago, is still going on? Guns needed to fight spoons.