The seventh season of India.

"India, according to the Hindu calendar, experiences six seasons," wrote D Mahapatra. " 'Ghotala' (scam) deserves to be added as the seventh season as Indians have perennially experienced it, even before the country gained independence." In 1945 a chest containing donations of personal ornaments to the Indian National Army went missing after the death of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Jawaharlal Nehru's media adviser was a prime suspect. Before India became a republic VK Krishna Menon signed a contract with a foreign firm to supply 200 jeeps, worth Rs 8 million. Only 155 jeeps were supplied but Nehru blocked a probe into the incident. "Menon went on to become the defence minister under Nehru." Since then there have been innumerable scams, from Bofors to cash-for-vote in parliament to Ketan Parekh to Commonwealth Games. Politicians are involved in the biggest scams and therefore have no interest in police reforms to stop political interference in criminal investigations, despite a Supreme Court judgement in 2006, wrote M Sanwal. Naturally, political parties are extremely attractive for criminals because of the protection they afford. People knowingly vote for criminals because they can help obtain services, without having to pay bribes to civil servants, wrote M Vaishnav. Use poison to eliminate poison, as in homeopathy. "The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has unearthed a corruption network that allegedly operated at the highest levels of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and Directorate General of Excise Intelligence (DGCEI)," wrote D Singh. Actually, the CVC was forced to unearth the network after CDM Smith confessed to the US Department of Justice that it had paid $1.18 million in bribes to obtain contracts. The DGCEI is not meant to stop corruption but to extort as much tax it can for the government. Like all government departments, it is an instrument against citizens and not for protecting against corruption. Politicians use taxpayer money as they please. The government has been collecting billions in cess for education, road building and so on but using the money for revenue expenditure in a criminal breach of trust, wrote VA Nageswaran. But who is to protect us against these criminals? Judicial tension became farcical "with a three-judge bench questioning the judicial propriety and discipline of another three-judge bench, which had on February 8 overturned yet another three-judge bench's 2014 judgement on land acquisition," wrote Mahapatra and Choudhary. Yesterday, a two-judge bench referred the judgement of the three-judge bench to the Chief Justice. Judges get juicy sinecures after retirement which raises suspicion of bias because the government is the largest litigant with 45-70% of cases, wrote Prof S Rajagopalan. Criminal politicians, controlled police and a infighting judiciary. We observe.