Why bleed a person to transfuse him with blood?

 "The MGNREGS dashboard, maintained by the rural development ministry, showed 2.6 crore (26 million) households and 3.7 crore (37 million) persons were looking for work in April this year, higher by 91% and 85%, respectively, over April 2020," Financial Express. These levels "are the highest compared with any previous April since 2013-14". "The scheme's mandate under the MGNREG Act 2005 is to provide at least 100 days of 'wage employment' in a financial year to every rural household whose adult member volunteers to do unskilled manual work. This goal has never been met." "Are 'freebies' a good idea? Set up in this way, this question almost instinctively invites an answer in  the negative," Prof Surajit Mazumdar wrote a passionate defence of subsidies for the poor in Times of India (TOI). "Typically, those who get extraordinarily little have to work very hard -- partly because returns on labouring activity in India are very low and partly because some of them do unpaid work to help sustain their low income household. Even those who are unemployed are not so by choice and therefore cannot be called idlers." "It is also worth remembering that the so-called recipients of freebies also pay taxes out of their measly incomes." "So those who are too poor to pay income tax also pay taxes every time they make purchases in the market and their taxes constitute a large proportion of tax revenues in India." India has a long list of schemes to help the poor going on for years. Prime Minister Narendra modi has added his own schemes to the list. A report by the United Nations Development Programme, released in 2019, "found that over 640 million people across India were in multidimensional poverty in 2005/2006 and that fell steeply to slightly more than 365.55 million by 2016/17 -- and impressive reduction of 271 million", Forbes. If people are dependent on government handouts to survive, have their lives become secure? "Around 75 million people in India fell into poverty last year because of the pandemic-induced economic recession, compared to what it would have been without the outbreak, an analysis by Pew Research Center showed," CNBC. "The number for India accounts for nearly 60% of the global increase in poverty in 2020, the analysis showed. It defined the poor as people who live on $2 or less daily." In a rebuttal, Prof Amartya Lahiri wrote, "The Madras High Court recently made some trenchant observations regarding the practice of doling out freebies around election time in Tamil Nadu." "Promises to write off debts, provide electricity, free rice, cash handouts to target voting blocs, subsidised cooking gas, and many more, are familiar to voters across the country." "From gold chains to TV sets, the battle has now moved to washing machines and free cable connections," Economic Times (ET). "The ruling AIADMK, which is contesting in alliance with the BJP, has promised to give one government job per family along with washing machine and cable TV, connection of the government-owned Asaru Cables to all below poverty line families. In addition, it has promised these families free solar stoves. It has also promised six LPG cylinders for free in a year to every family." This is pure misappropriation of taxpayer money. The culture of handouts has led to "The expectation of state support is ingrained in private businesses and is the reason for repeated bailouts of banks swamped with non-performing assets", and "myriad agitations across the country by various groups demanding reservations in higher education and employment on the basis of caste and ethnic identities". With income tax collections falling center and state governments have hiked taxes on petrol and diesel, Economic Times. As prices rise due to higher transport costs the government has collected a record Rs 1.24 trillion from goods and services tax (GST) in March 2021, Times of India. These are indirect taxes that the poor are forced to pay. What is the point collecting blood to transfuse into the same person? Mystery.      

How do they become so inhuman?

India recorded 3,79,257 new coronavirus infections in 24 hours on 28 April and 2,645 deaths were reported, NDTV. There have been over 300,000 new cases everyday for over a week and over 200,000 a day since 15 April. "The shortage of beds, medical oxygen and crucial anti-viral drugs has added to crisis." Suffering and death are intensely personal and even these grisly numbers do not convey the true horrors of the situation. "An 85-year-old Nagpur resident with dipping oxygen levels died at home after getting himself discharged from hospital against medical advice because he apparently didn't want to block a bed after seeing the wife of a 40-year-old Covid-19 patient pleading for admission," Times of India (TOI). That was in Maharashtra. Then there is Uttar Pradesh (UP). A 26 year old man tweeeted for help to find an oxygen cylinder for his grandfather with no mention of Covid. "Officers in Uttar Pradesh state charged Shashank Yadav with spreading a rumour over oxygen shortages 'with intent to cause....fear or alarm'," BBC. Chief Minister of UP Yogi Adityanath, "a right-wing ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demanded that the property of anyone spreading rumours and propaganda be seized." "He also added that none of the state's hospitals lacked oxygen, although scenes have unfolded of an overwhelmed health system." This mother did not indulge in any propaganda. "The photo shows an exhausted Chandrakala Singh, sitting stone-faced in a electric rickshaw with the body of her son Vineet Singh, on a busy street in the city of Varanasi in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh," BBC. "As she sat there grieving, shattered by the death of her son and in desperate need of help, she was robbed. Her son's medical records and phone were stolen." Varanasi is Modi's constituency from where he won in 2014 and 2019, The Indian Express. "As India sees an oxygen crisis due to the Covid surge, a heartbreaking video of a man begging the policemen not to take away oxygen cylinders from a private hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Agra has gone viral on social media," India Today. "Policemen stand guard as oxygen cylinders are taken out of the hospital and loaded into the ambulance." The police say they were taking away empty cylinders. Why didn't they replace empty ones with full cylinders? "The video of a mother falling at the feet of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, begging for remdesivir to save her son's life has once again exposed the crumbling healthcare system," India Today. When she returned to the hospital without the drug her son had died. CMO Deepak Ohri denied he threatened the woman with imprisonment for begging for remdesivir, News 18. Kind of him. Brutal violation of citizens is sadly common in UP. "On the last day of September, India woke up to the disturbing news that authorities had forcibly cremated the body of a 19-year old Dalit (formerly untouchable) woman who had alleged gang rape and died a day earlier," BBC. The victim repeatedly told the police that she was attacked because she resisted rape but, "Since her death, the state government has insisted she was not raped at all," BBC. "A hasty and forceful cremation is a violation of the victim's right to dignity under Article 21 of the constitution," wrote lawyers KYS Tulsi and Tanessa Puri. "Video clips show the district magistrate pressuring the family to change their statement. He is seen threatening and intimidating the family." We know there is a shortage of jobs in India but does it mean that government employees will obey orders for sickening criminal violence against innocent citizens? Do they not have families of their own? Myanmar policemen sought refuge in India rather than obey orders to shoot at unarmed protesters by a brutal military junta, Reuters. Nicolae Ceausescu met his end when the army refused orders to shoot at protesters. Instead he and his wife were executed by firing squad, LA Times. Indian police and officials seem willing to obey any order. However hideous.    

Is the RBI playing with fire?

In his speech to the Congress, President Joe Biden "pitched plans involving some $4 trillion in spending - the largest overhaul of US benefits since the 1960s, analysts say", BBC. His American Families Plan "aims to provide free pre-school for children aged three to four, paid family and medical leave, and free community college," and "would also extend until 2025 a child tax credit that was expanded during the pandemic", that would apparently "help more than 65 million children". "The American Jobs Plan proposes spending $2 trillion on improving the nation's infrastructure and paying for it by hiking corporate taxes," CNN. "Moody's Analytics found that the proposal will create about 2.7 million jobs by the end of 2030." "The nonfarm payroll employment rose by 916,000 in March, and the unemployment rate edged down to 6.0 percent, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported" on 2 April. Full employment is when no one willing to work is unemployed and is said to be at an unemployment rate of around 5%. If everyone is employed companies will have to compete to find workers and wages will start to rise. That is why Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU) is thought to be the ideal level of employment. In the week to 18 April, "First time claims for unemployment insurance totaled 547,000, well below the Dow Jones estimate for 603,000 and a new low for the Covid-19 pandemic era," CNBC. "US retail sales rose by the most in 10 months in March as Americans received additional pandemic relief checks from the government and increased COVID-19 vaccinations allowed broader economic re-engagement, cementing expectations for robust growth in the first quarter," Reuters. "The upbeat data, which followed on the heels of recent reports showing inflation heating up, will likely not shift the Federal Reserve's ultra-easy monetary policy stance." "Consumer prices rose in March for the fourth month in a row and the pace of inflation hit the highest level in two and a half years, underscoring new pressures emerging on the economy as the US recovers from the coronavirus pandemic," Market Watch. "The rate of inflation over the past year shot up to 2.6% from 1.7% in the prior month, marking the highest level since the fall of 2018." "By several measures, the US housing market is running at its hottest level since the mid-2000s bubble that nearly crashed the global financial system," msn.com. "Prices have surged to decade-high rates, and homebuying, while slowed from recent highs, remains elevated." "The market frenzy is being 'carefully' monitored by the Fed, but there is little reason to fear another nationwide crash, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said." Not just a housing bubble, stock markets in the US have been hitting record levels,  although all three major indices pulled back a little yesterday. The danger is not another subprime crisis in the US but increasing asset prices feeding into the general economy and causing an increase in consumer inflation through a feel-good effect. Add to that the growth in China's GDP. "On Friday, China's National Bureau of Statistics reported that its gross domestic product grew by a record 18.3% in the first quarter of 2021 in comparison to the same period last year. The figure indicates that China's economy is roaring back to its pre-pandemic levels, marking China's highest growth rate since it began recording the statistic in 1993," Fortune. If both the US and China grow strongly, global commodity prices will start rising as well. "The second wave of covid-19 in India, if left uncontrolled, could lead to prolonged restrictions on movement and supply side disruptions with consequent inflationary pressures, The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Monday," Mint. The RBI is too modest. It has been running negative real interest rates for over a year despite high inflation rates, Financial Express. The US and China will do what's best for them. The RBI should do what is best for India. Roaring inflation is certainly not what we need. Warning signs are here.        

Why have we been reduced to begging from chest thumping?

"In the midst of the biggest humanitarian crisis of the pandemic, the Indian Premier League (IPL) (20:20 cricket) sometimes feels like it's not just happening inside a bio-bubble, but in a bubble in space somewhere," wrote Rudraneil Sengupta. "They could have raised funds of any number of things -- food aid, PPE kits, RT PCR kits, oxygen, medicines, ambulances." Such sanctimonious preaching is just disguised envy. In 2018, there were 298 million households in India with 197 million television sets, Financial Express, providing 885 registered channels in all regional languages as well as in English, IBEF. People in India love cricket and in 2020, IPL had an overall viewership of 405 million, Timesnow. Anyone with minor symptoms of Covid infection has to isolate at home and is forbidden to go outside. Naturally, these people will spend a large amount of time watching television and if they can watch movies why should they not watch IPL? These players are paid large sums of money to play and will be paying enormous amounts in income tax, which is among the highest in India. Players have short working lives and get no pension, old age care or healthcare benefits for the taxes they pay while politicians have granted themselves all kinds of perks after retirement. When a sudden lockdown was announced last year a heartless government made no arrangements for migrant workers suddenly faced with hunger, Times of India (TOI). A Bollywood actor Sonu Sood organised feeding centers and buses to help migrants get back to their villages hundreds of miles away. "While aam aadmi (common man) scrambles from hospital to hospital in search of oxygen, a bed, a ventilator, our political parties behave like prehistoric tribes, fighting elections as though they are battles for extinction," wrote Gurcharan Das. "Democracy accepts differences and disagreements but under the basic rules of cooperation. Today, there is such rage, hatred among opponents, it's an uncivil war." It was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who came to power with "Congress Mukt Bharat" (India free of Congress) slogan and incessant personal attacks on the Gandhi family, The Print. Unfortunately, the same tactic of trying to eradicate the Trinamul Congress Party (TMC) from Bengal became a hilarious howler when Modi used the slogan "pode chhap, TMC saaf", which translates to 'a stamp on buttocks will eradicate the TMC'. He meant 'poddo' which is Bengali for 'lotus', which is the symbol for Modi's party the BJP. Modi wants total power over all of India without any opposition. "And this unilateralism is a result of hard-nosed political approach and cold minded electoral calculations of the  Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2014. The party under the leadership of Modi and Amit Shah has acquired a distinct style of dealing with friends and foes alike -- what some would describe as the Modi-Shah doctrine -- to negotiate from a position of strength," wrote Rahul Verma. Modi expects and gets total subservience from his party and in February 2021 the party passed a resolution "lauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi" "The party unequivocally hails its leadership for introducing India to the world as a proud and victorious nation in the fight against Covid-19," the resolution said. That must seem like shameless crawling now that people are dying on streets as the healthcare system crumbled under the sheer number of patients. "The United States will immediately send raw materials for COVID-19 vaccines, medical equipment and protective gear", Reuters. The EU will send oxygen and medicines, India Today. Even Pakistan has generously offered to help India, TOI. The humiliation. The Madras High Court has accused the Election Commission of "murder" for holding elections during this outbreak, but Modi is the prime minister. Blaming the IPL players or the opposition just diverts attention from the one person who should be held responsible -- the Prime Minister, who has reduced us to a nation of beggars. No excuses please.

How can we complain when we got what we asked for?

"Anti-US and anti-western sentiment is exploding across social media with growing criticism directed at the Biden-Harris administration for sitting on stockpiles of unused vaccines, jealously guarding patents, and turning a deaf ear to the dire situation in Covid-wracked countries such as India and Brazil," wrote Chidanand Rajghatta. "According to a report by the Duke Global health Innovation Center, the US is on track to have an oversupply of up to 300 million or more vaccine doses as soon as July -- counting the AstraZeneca and J&J vaccines that Washington has sidelined -- even as many nations in the developing world have to wait years to vaccinate a majority of their populations." "The US government went into damage control after facing widespread criticism" and "Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced that the US will rapidly deploy additional support to India and its healthcare heroes to help combat the severe second wave of Covid", Times of India (TOI). A survey before US elections in November 2020 by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace showed that "Only 22% of Indian Americans registered to vote are expected to support President Donald Trump compared with 72% for Biden", The Print. Vaccination centers in the US are shutting down as many Americans are reluctant to take their shots, Forbes. The AstraZeneca vaccine is being manufactured as Covishield by the Serum Institute of India (SII) and has been used extensively here, but it has not been approved for use in the US because of 100 reported cases of blood clots with 37 fatalities, Fierce Pharma. The US has ordered 60 million doses of the vaccine which it seems to have no intention of using and is now going to export it to countries where the vaccine has been approved, including to India, BBC. Not just the vaccine, the Biden administration has imposed a ban on export of raw materials required to manufacture the vaccine, prompting CEO of SII Adar Poonawalla to appeal to Biden to lift the US embargo. "Unless governments act soon, capitalism itself could face a crisis of credibility," wrote Mihir Sharma. "When it comes to desperately needed Covid-19 vaccines, capacity is being wasted and innovation isn't benefiting everyone. Twelve billion vaccine doses could be produced this year," "But we're nowhere close to that in actuality. And the doses that are available have largely been gobbled up by rich countries." Other countries cannot easily manufacture vaccines because "something as complex as a Covid-19 vaccine cannot be easily reverse-engineered". Big Pharma is trying to license their products to as many countries as possible but they are hampered by the need to ensure quality control which takes up 70% of time of making vaccines. India is suffering now because, "The country's medical facilities are so inadequate that overall hospitalization rates for the sick are among the lowest in the world: 3% to 4%, compared to an average 8% to 9% in middle-income countries and even higher elsewhere," wrote Anjani Trivedi. Brazil's "population is the same as that of Uttar Pradesh, and it spends over 16 times the amount India does on a per capita basis on healthcare. Yet its medical system is overwhelmed." "If India falters, its failure will be many times the disaster in Brazil." It already is. Indians in India celebrated Biden's election victory because they expect more Indians to be able escape to the US on the H1B visa, DNA India. Indians in the US hope Biden will grant them the heaven of 'green card' security, TOI. You get what you ask for. Why complain?       

Vaccines must be uncontrolled if deaths are to be controlled.

"According to the Worldometers website, India which is going through the raging second wave of coronavirus recorded 3,54,531 infections on Sunday, besides 2,806 new COVID-19 related fatalities," Zee News. "The growing number of lockdowns will hurt economic activity," wrote Niranjan Rajadhyaksha. "More important from an economic point of view is how many people get their two jabs by September, or before the festival season begins." "It s important that enough people are vaccinated before India's festival season, so that consumer demand gets back on track, though the risk of persistent precautionary savings after large income shocks shouldn't be ignored." Of the Hindu festivals that draw vast crowds of people are: Jagannath Rathyatra on 12 July draws millions to Odisha, Raksha Bandhan on 22 August when sisters tie a 'Rakhi' (sacred thread) on the wrists of their brothers all over India, Ganesh Chaturthi starting 10 September which is huge in Gujarat and Maharashtra, Durga Puja and Dussehra from 11-15 October, very special in West Bengal and Nepal, and Diwali on 4 November when it is considered auspicious to make large purchases, such as cars, major appliances and even houses, in North India. Companies selling consumer goods rely on festivals for their yearly sales figures. Even last year, when the nation was just recovering slowly from the coronavirus lockdown, sales jumped during the festival season, Business Today. Whether people spend this year will depend on whether the rate of infections drops low enough for people to go out without fear, on how many have lost, or seen a fall in, earnings, and, especially, how many families have lost loved ones and will still be in mourning. Lots of businesses have shifted to the 'working from home' (WFH) model but this will have deleterious knock-on effects on employment, wrote Vivek Kaul. Maintenance jobs, like cleaners, drivers, local eateries and tea shops, will lose jobs. With demand for commercial real estate falling, construction of new buildings will decline, leading to fewer opportunities for manual labor. The construction industry employs over 45 million people, which could rise to 76.5 million with the increased government spending on infrastructure, The Economic Times (ET). A report by McKinsey says that "just 5% of the workforce can work remotely three to five days a week with no loss of productivity while an additional 15% could do so for one or two days a week, Times of India (TOI). "McKinsey says that one of the characteristics of a recession, which is what most economies are facing, is that firms look to cut costs by adopting greater automation and redesigning processes." "India's growing labour force and population mean that almost all jobs will grow significantly. But more than 20 million workers may have to move out of agriculture by 2030." "But post-Covid automation and e-commerce, although smaller than other countries, may decrease jobs available into which farm workers can shift." "On 20 August last year, the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration (NEGVAC) was constituted and met for the first time," wrote Prof Amir Ullah Khan and Saleema Razvi. This group recommended centralized procurement of vaccines but "in a meeting chaired by Prime Minster Narendra Modi, the Centre overturned the decision and has now allowed the private sector as well as the states to buy vaccines directly". "To reach herd immunity, three-fifths of the population needs to be vaccinated, which would require almost 1,450 million doses." Based on past records of "routine immunization program, UP, Chhattisgarh, Assam and Gujarat are among the laggards in this area and the reason for their poor performance are a combination of poor health systems and exceptionally low vaccine offtake". So, the economy depends on deaths and vaccines. Vaccines have been controlled so far. Death can't be controlled.   

    

We gave up expectations long ago.

The headlines are dire. On 23 April, India counted 346,000 new cases of coronavirus infections and 2,624 deaths. Middle and upper classes have not been spared despite living in gated communities. "In Mumbai, India's financial center, almost 600,000 households are in buildings that have been partially or completely sealed by government authorities, which indicates the coronavirus is spreading rapidly among the city's middle and upper middle classes. Official data show 164,000 slum households are in areas demarcated as 'containment zones' despite the poor being packed in far more tightly," Bloomberg. Yesterday saw another record rise in the number of cases with the Union Health Ministry reporting 3,49,691 new infections, The Economic Times (ET). Hospitals are overwhelmed and oxygen supplies running out. "Twenty critically ill patients died overnight at Jaipur Golden Hospital in Delhi amid a serious oxygen crisis, officials said," ET. "But experts say those numbers, however staggering, represent just a fraction of the real reach of the virus' spread, which has thrown this country into emergency mode," New York Times. "Interviews from cremation grounds across the country, where fires never stop, portray an extensive pattern of deaths far exceeding the official figures. Nervous politicians and hospital administrators may be undercounting or overlooking large numbers of dead, analysts say." "From all the modelling we've done, we believe the true number of deaths is two to five times what is being reported," said epidemiologist Bhramar Mukherjee. "The Centre called the Delhi government a 'cry baby' before the (High) court and said it was the latter's 'incompetence' that led to the deaths of people," Hindustan Times. Isn't it better to cry for the unbearable suffering of fellow citizens than to be callously indifferent and try to hide the true picture to win elections? If the central government has no responsibility why is it there costing the taxpayer vast sums of money? The Delhi High Court threatened to hang anyone blocking supplies of oxygen reaching hospitals. Oh no, you won't. The Supreme Court will probably grant an injunction. As it did with an order for a partial lockdown in 5 cities by the Allahabad High Court in Uttar Pradesh (UP), and will hold the next hearing in two weeks. "The second wave of the coronavirus pandemic has left a brutal impact on Uttar Pradesh. The new surge has nearly crippled the state's medical infrastructure," Times of India (TOI). UP now has the second highest number of cases after Maharashtra. "All the resources are concentrated in the hands of the Centre in the name of disaster management. It controls data, which it constantly fudges and manipulates to keep people confused. Its specialists and agencies, including the ICMR and NITI Aayog, have taken recourse to half truths and outright lies. It lies in the courts, refuses to give people relief and wants them to manage the crisis on their own," wrote Prof Apoorvanand. "Nationalistic pride may swell chests, but to fill lungs you need air," wrote Andy Mukherjee. "The second wave need not have been this lethal, if people could breathe a little easier." "What went wrong?" asked Mihir Sharma. "As is usual in India, official arrogance, hyper-nationalism, populism and an ample dose of bureaucratic incompetence have combined to create a crisis." "The government seems to expect Indian manufacturers to produce vaccine on spec, jump through various regulatory hoops, and then break all their other remunerative contracts in order to give their final product solely to the Indian state at grossly insufficient prices." "Patients and their loved ones, unable to get the necessary care, have resorted to pleading on social media for medicine and open hospital beds. And experts who cautioned for months about a potential second wave are frustrated that their warnings went unheeded," CNN. Indians don't expect anything from politicians and civil servants. We have no choice.     

Can't apply ordinary rules to India. We are special.

"One of the most ambitious plans to emerge from India's recently announced budget was the government's proposal to privatize state-owned companies in the coming years," wrote Suyi Kim. "Proponents of such an agenda believe it makes companies and sectors more efficient and competitive, to the ultimate benefit of consumers." India is a socialist state and Socialism was inserted into the preamble of the Constitution by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during the Emergency. There are innumerable social schemes to distribute subsidies to poor people and the present Prime Minister Narendra Modi has added many more to the list. The Japanese National Railways (JNR) was broken into six regional companies and privatized gradually since 1987. The companies have become "consistently profitable". The Indian Railways had 1.254 million employees in 2020. In 2019, Union Minister Piyush Goyal announced that "Indian Railways will provide over 400,000 jobs in the next two years", Business Today. With the national cabinet consisting of 21 cabinet ministers, 9 ministers of state with independent charge, and 29 ministers of state, genuine privatization will take away a lot of posts for politicians. To pay for all this the government has to raise taxes. India has the highest taxes on petrol and diesel in the world which adds to transport costs of all goods and services, including Railways. Taxes on fuel constitute 40% of costs of operating an airline in India, The New Indian Express. Taxes, fees and surcharges constitute over 50% of the base fare, Cleartax. After paying 40% tax on fuel and around 50% in fees on ticket price, airlines do not have the power to charge passengers. The Indian government has given itself the power to cap the prices of airline tickets, as it did last year during the pandemic, Hindustan Times. So, not only were airlines ordered to reduce number of passengers to implement social distancing, they could not make up their losses by charging other passengers more. The government has shortlisted 4 banks for privatization, Zee News, but it will not privatize all public sector banks because these banks can be ordered to give loans to weaker sections of society without due diligence. Rs 817.81 billion was distributed in October last year. Such loans are defined as priority sector lending. In 1969 all commercial banks holding over Rs 50 crore were nationalised," wrote Matt Kilcoyne. "In 1980 all remaining banks were nationalised." "And of course, political interference meant a huge spike in non-performing assets (NPAs)." "Corruption, cronyism, nepotism, investment and divestment based on patronage and not profit. These are what kept India down." And, these are the source of political power. No political party or prime minister is going to get rid of these, no matter what he lectures. NPAs are expected to increase to over 10% this year as individuals and businesses default on their loans because of the pandemic-induced economic slowdown and not for any fault of their own. Telecom sector was privatised and licenses were distributed on a first comer basis in 2008 but the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) calculated a loss of Rs 1.76 trillion to the exchequer because licenses were not auctioned. All 122 licenses were cancelled by the Supreme Court inflicting enormous losses on companies which had spent on infrastructure. All the accused have been acquitted by the Supreme Court. Selling public assets does not improve government finances wrote Prabhat Patnaik. "The only difference between a fiscal deficit and selling public assets lies in the nature of the government paper that is handed to the private sector, but the macroeconomic consequences of a fiscal deficit on the economy are no different from those of selling public assets." India is special. Ordinary rules don't apply.

The agony of not learning.

"Schools in India have been shut since March 2020. None of the substitute measures -- online classes, mohalla classes, home-based work -- has been able to compensate for even a fraction of this lost year of schooling for the overwhelming majority of India's children," wrote Anurag Behar. Children have been promoted to higher classes without tests. Class five children have been promoted to Class six, which means that teachers will be expected "to teach them the class-six syllabus, ignoring the reality of their not having learnt anything of class five and having forgotten a lot of their earlier learning. This will be done with all classes." "Almost every school-teacher is horrified by such decisions, while the state leadership seems deliberately disconnected from reality." Instead, in February, "The University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked all universities to 'encourage' students to enrol for the Kamdhenu Gau-Vigyan (cow-science) Exam." The exam was to be "conducted in four categories -- primary level (up to Class 8), secondary level (Class 9-12), college level (after Class 12) and for general public", The Indian Express (TIE). In 2019, Dr Vallabh Kathiria was appointed chairman of National Cow Commission and "With the BJP back in power with a resounding majority, the commission has been allotted a budget of Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) this year," Scroll.in. Cows are big business. "Other than cow-dung CNG pumps for vehicles, it has proposed bull semen banks and cow tourism in a list of creative ideas for what it calls 'cow entrepreneurship'," Mint. "India's universities have produced chief executive officers at companies from Microsoft Corp to Google -- now Prime Minister Narendra Modi thinks they can be even better with competition with global names like Yale, Oxford and Stanford," Bloomberg. A survey of 60,000 school students across India by the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2020 showed that, "Only about one-third of the surveyed children had access to online learning; only 11 percent had access to live online classes," TIE. From kindergarten to Harvard in one giant leap. "Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee says that India needs to focus on undoing the widening gap of inequality in education cause by the pandemic as soon as possible," Business Today. "In India, as many as 320 million children have been affected by the school closure because of the pandemic," said Banerjee. Politicians and civil servants learn quickly. The Delhi government has banned private schools from taking online classes during summer vacations. If students of government schools are not getting lessons then students of private schools should not be allowed to get ahead. Official equality. Last year, the Gujarat government would not allow private schools to charge fees for online teaching. Government school teachers are assured their salaries from taxpayers' money but private schools would not be able to pay their teachers if they cannot charge fees. "The coronavirus pandemic is forcing India's children out of school and into farms and factories to work, worsening a child-labor problem that was already one of the most dire in the world," The Print. A few may escape. "The village straddles two states. Each state has its own government primary school in its part of the village," wrote Anurag Behar. But all the children of the village are being taught in the open by teachers of one state who face abuse from the teachers of the other state. Maybe, just maybe, some children will escape the cow economy. Why people still have children in India is a mystery.

Can you win a battle without casualties?

Yesterday, "As many as 3,15,660 cases and 2,091deaths were recorded in the country as of 11.15 p.m. IST on April 21. No country has recorded more cases in a single day," The Hindu. The US held the dubious honor of the highest number of cases in a single day with 3,00,310 till now. Between 7-13 April, 3.44 million doses of vaccine were administered daily but the average daily doses fell to 2.70 million by 20 April. But, even these record breaking figures may be understating total numbers of infections and deaths, Reuters. According to Worldometer, graphs of the number of daily new cases and the total number of active cases in India have been rising vertically since 1 April. "Uttar Pradesh (UP), India's most populous state, is among the worst affected in the country and its people are suffering even as authorities insist the situation is under control, reports BBC's Geeta Pandey." "On Monday, as the active caseload hit 2,08,523 in UP, the ferocity by which the infection has spread in the second wave could be gauge from the fact that in nearly three weeks, the active cases increased by nearly 21 times. Also, the current active cases are three times the last year's September peak. Notably, the state added the last one lakh (100,000) active cases in mere five days," The Indian Express (TIE). If all this is shocking, the actions of the UP government and the Supreme Court are completely baffling. Earlier this week the High Court imposed restrictions on five cities in UP. "The Allahabad high court on Monday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to close all establishments private of government-run in these cities," Hindustan Times (HT). The court emphasised that it is not imposing a total lockdown. In complete denial, the UP government appealed against the high court order to the Supreme Court, which instantly granted a stay and will hear the matter after 2 weeks, Business Standard. This is completely incomprehensible. In 2 weeks, another million people could have been infected and many thousands could have died. This surely has nothing to do with assembly elections to be held in UP in February-March 2022. UP is ruled by the BJP, the party of the prime minister. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said current strategies to contain the rapid resurgence in Covid-19 infections were aimed at ensuring least loss of lives and livelihoods and appealed to states to resort to lockdowns only as the very last resort," Times of India (TOI). Is this the same Modi who imposed a lockdown with only 4 hours notice in March last year when the total number of cases in all of India was just over 500? The lockdown was rated as the most stringent, with a score of 100, by the Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker, HT, and resulted in millions of migrant workers having to walk hundreds of miles back home to their villages, often with little children, TOI. This time migrant workers are taking no chances and escaping while they still can because they have no trust in authorities. Not surprising, is it? In January 2021, the Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, a doctor, claimed that "India is gradually heading towards victory against COVID-19" and said that vaccines would be like "Sanjeevani", Zee News. 'Sanjeevani' was a plant used to save the life of mortally wounded Lakshman in Ramayana. If he really believes in the efficacy of vaccines he should have ensured coverage of the entire adult populations, starting with big cities, moving to second tier cities, to towns and finally to villages. Instead the Union health secretary made the egregious statement that "the aim is not to administer the vaccine to  those who want it, but to those who need it", HT. No one "wants" a vaccine, it is a national necessity. Modi's call to reject lockdowns has nothing to do with West Bengal assembly election, which is into its sixth phase today, TOI. The Election Commission has refused to club the last 3 phases to reduce transmission due to crowded campaigns. Modi is absolutely obsessed with winning Bengal, The New Indian Express. Elections are battles. Any number of casualties are worth it, it seems.     

The RBI has just one function, no trinity.

Robert Mundell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on the 'impossible trinity' for central banks, wrote Prof Amol Agrawal. "He said that policymakers can choose any two, but not all three, macroeconomic objectives -- foreign capital mobility, fixed exchange rates and inflation management." "The United States (US) chose inflation and foreign capital mobility and kept exchange rates flexible maintaining the status of the US dollar. China chose inflation and fixed exchange rates to keep its exports competitive while keeping capital controls." The Reserve Bank (RBI) is choosing to ignore inflation and keep bond yields at or below 6% through abundant liquidity to keep borrowing costs low for the government. Last month the Indian government "kept the inflation target of the monetary policy framework unchanged at 2-6 percent for the next five years, until the fiscal year 2025-26", Business Standard. Flexible Inflation Targeting (FIT) is useless in India according to a group of economists at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), wrote Prof VA Nageswaran. Inflation rate was coming down even before FIT, inflation was falling in countries without FIT, India's consumer price index (CPI) is weighted heavily by volatile food prices and economic growth has been hurt by high interest rates. Average retail inflation was over 8% from 2008. Interest rate started rising from 2010 and reached over 8% in 2012 following which the rate of inflation started falling from 2013. India adopted FIT in 2016. A recent working paper by the RBI recommended that inflation target should remain at 2-6%, which the government agreed to, Business Today. The same Nageswaran has been warning us of 'mother of' asset price bubbles because of negative interest rates and quantitative easing in the US and Europe. Is India immune from bubbles? "Remember, RBI is not the mighty Federal Reserve," warned Mythili Bhusnurmath. "Monetary policy in India, as in all emerging markets, is critically dependent on the actions of the Fed, the de facto global central bank. If the Fed were to tighten monetary policy earlier than anticipated, RBI would have no alternative but to do likewise." "The hope is that low rates of interest will incentivize investment and, thereby, growth." "Savers, it would seem, are best advised to fend for themselves. This is a dangerous game. Savings are the bedrock on which lending is done, and lasting damage to savings, especially household savings, could prove costly." In an effort to push yields lower "The RBI on Friday called off government securities (G-secs) auction worth Rs 14,000 crore for the benchmark 10-year bonds as traders demanded higher yields," Times of India (TOI). The higher the price of the bonds the lower the yields, so the RBI is trying to force traders to pay a higher price and take a loss if prices fall because of higher interest rates in the future. "The difference between the repo rate and government's borrowing cost, say on a 10-year loan, is called the term premium," wrote Neelkanth Mishra. Mishra thinks the bond market is dysfunctional because the cost of mortgage on a house is lower than the government's borrowing cost, though government bonds are totally safe. He seems to have forgotten that the rupee is vulnerable to inflation. House prices tend to go up with inflation but the value of government bonds will fall if the rupee falls. Mishra would like the RBI to sell bonds directly to retail investors to bring down borrowing costs for the government. When yields are being artificially suppressed by the RBI, isn't that cheating? Inflation has been kept in check because of FIT and FIT keeps a check on central bank policy to prevent excessive risk taking, wrote Prof Vidya Mahambare. The RBI has no impossible trinity. Just transfer money from savers to the government. Simple.

Why start a war intending to lose?

"Top US military commanders were recommending against a full withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, advising to try to cement a peace agreement first, but US President Joe Biden did not share their concern," reported ANI. Biden thinks that he "can guard against the risk of a new terrorist danger in Afghanistan by maintaining warplanes and counterterrorism capabilities at bases outside the landlocked country". "Current and former military officials say, however, that the lack of a small but capable military presence in Afghanistan, including surveillance drones, would greatly complicate any US effort to project force from air bases in the Persian Gulf, aircraft carriers and possibly bases in central Asia. Even protecting the US Embassy in Kabul, they say, may prove to be a challenge." Former President Donald Trump praised the move as a "wonderful and positive thing to do", CNN. Barack Obama praised the plan. He would. "In February 2009 newly elected US President Barack Obama announced that US combat forces would be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of August 2010, with the remaining troops due to pull out by December 2011," Britannica. "On December 15 the US military held a ceremony in Baghdad to formally declare the end of its mission in Iraq, and the final US forces departed before the end of the year." Obama described ISIS, now called Islamic State, as "junior varsity" and then had to send US troops into Iraq again, after ISIS started executing American and European citizens. "From the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 to the present, the United States has never had a workable grand strategy for Iraq or any consistent plans and actions that have gone beyond current events," wrote Prof Anthony H Cordesman. "At the same time, the Department of Defense has reported that it has spent over $765 billion on the Iraq conflict and the fight against ISIS as of March 31, 2019 -- and this is only a fraction of the direct cost. There is no clear stream of reporting on State or USAID spending, but it seems to have reached another $100 billion." The Iraq problem started on 2 August 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. This led to the first Gulf War when the then Prime Minister of Britain Margaret Thatcher told then President George HW Bush not to go "wobbly" on her. The Afghan problem started in December 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The US under President Ronald Reagan immediately started helping the Afghan Mujahideen with arms, routed through Pakistan. He even met with them in the White House. Following Soviet withdrawal Afghanistan descended into civil war from which emerged the Taliban. That led to Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden and the attack on the twin towers in New York on 11 September 2001, remembered today as 9/11. From the very first moment in office Biden started reversing Trump's policies on almost everything. Why is he following Trump's promise to withdraw from Afghanistan completely by 9/11 this year is a mystery. The Taliban see this as a defeat for the US. They intend to take over the entire nation and impose Sharia law. Not just the Taliban, everyone from Iran to Syria to China will see the US as a weak defeated power. Executing Saddam and Bin Laden may have won elections but are pointless if the US keeps accepting ignominious defeats. Biden has 4 years to find out. 

Lockdown or not has nothing to do with any reason.

"A record single-day rise of 2,61,500 coronavirus infections has taken India's total tally of COVID-19 cases to 1,47,88,109, while active cases have surpassed the 18-lakh (1.8 million) mark, according to Union Health Ministry updated on Sunday. Delhi and Maharashtra are worst hit. In 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a total lockdown on the entire nation on 25 March with just 4 hours notice. On that day CNN reported, "The country has confirmed 519 coronavirus cases, including 10 deaths and 39 patients who have been cured, according to the Ministry of Health." Apparently, the stringent lockdown gave time to increase our healthcare infrastructure. "The lockdown is a blunt instrument and was effective in giving the country and the medical fraternity enough time to prepare and scale infrastructure," wrote Nikita Rana. Not so effective, it seems. "The resurgence of coronavirus cases has caught India's creaking healthcare system flat-footed again, with reports of shortages in critical care beds, oxygen, delays in testing and hospitals turning away critically ill patients pouring in from across the country," Mint. India's capital Delhi is short of ICU beds, oxygen and drugs, said Chief Minster Arvind Kejriwal, Hindustan Times (HT). Another 1,500 beds with oxygen supply will be added in sports complexes in Delhi today, said Kejriwal, NDTV. Beds maybe bought but doctors and nurses need many years to be trained. "Covid-19 has so far claimed the lives of 162 doctors, 107 nurses and 44 ASHA workers in the country, Rajya Sabha was told on Tuesday (2 February 2021)," HT. "A day after the central government stated that 162 doctors died due to Covid-19 in the country, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) Wednesday said that it is 'shocked' and pegged the figure at 734," HT. More doctors have been dying everyday, both father and son dying within hours of each other couple of days ago. "India has one of the lowest densities of health workforce, with a paltry 7 physicians and 17 nurses per 10,000 population as against the global average of 13.9 and 28.6 respectively," Prof John and Dr Udwadia. On 3 August 2020, they wrote "modelling analysis from MIT predicts that by early 2021, India will have overtaken the US and Brazil to have the most Covid cases in the world, with 290,000 new cases every day." We are almost there. More than 50 patients are queueing up for a bed at King George's Medical University in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh (UP), The Indian Express. To cover up the enormous numbers dying the Lucknow Municipality has erected tin sheets around its crematorium, HT. Why was a whole year wasted? "Our flaw lies in comparing the pandemic data from India with that of the West. Compared to the West, particularly when compared to the United States and Italy, we have done good," wrote Dr Shah Alam Khan. However, "A quick glance at data from 14 South Asian countries reveals that India has done worst in terms of total number of cases and deaths." "We have done worse than most of our neighbours, including Pakistan and Bangladesh." Last year's lockdown seems to have failed in controlling coronavirus infections and deaths. It had nothing to do with the anti-CAA protests where women sat peacefully and it was difficult to use force, The Wire. Modi has ruled out any hard lockdown across India, Zee News. It could be because another stringent lockdown maybe credit negative, NDTV. It has nothing to do with Modi's desire to win West Bengal assembly elections, Business Standard. So that Modi will address 4 rallies across the state on 23 April, Economic Times. We may lose against Covid, but elections must be won. 

Pulses worth buttering for.

"The road to meaningful monetary policy outcomes in India is occasionally paved with geopolitical decisions, with the circle of influence sometimes including improbable candidates like Myanmar," wrote Rajrishi Singhal. In a coup, the Myanmar military seized control of government on 1 February after Aung San Suu Kyi's National Democratic Party (NLD) won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections, BBC. "Ms Suu Kyi has been held at an unknown location since the coup. She is facing various charges, including violating the country's official secrets act, possessing illegal walkie-talkies and publishing information that may 'cause fear of alarm'." If there are over 68 million mobile phone connections in Myanmar, why owning an old-fashioned walkie-talkie is considered a crime is a mystery. However, we need a licence to own a walkie-talkie in India so we are similar to Myanmar. Listening in to police band is illegal in India and in many other countries, but not generally in the US. The EU and the US have imposed sanctions on the Myanmar military because of the coup but India officially attended a parade on 27 March at Naypitaw to celebrate Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) Day. Buttering Myanmar in important because, "It happens to be India's second largest supplier of pulses, after Canada. Myanmar supplies almost 24% of India's total pulse imports, with Canada providing 34%." Pulses are a major source of proteins, especially for the poor, and "Inflation in pulses was in double digits throughout the past 12 months". The wholesale price inflation (WPI) rose to an 8-year high of 7.39% in March from 4.17% in February, Times of India (TOI). Inflation in pulses was 13.14%. The consumer price index (CPI) rose by 5.52% in March, but if wholesale prices are rising so fast we can expect CPI to catch up once taxes, profits and transport costs are added, The Indian Express. Not enough to ship pulses from abroad. They have to be transported across India and this needs fuel. "The Union government's net indirect tax revenues jumped 12.3% in 2020-21 to Rs 10.71 lakh crore (Rs 10.71 trillion) despite the economic contraction in the first half of the fiscal year," moneycontrol. com. The government will not reveal the contribution of exorbitant taxes on fuel to its total indirect tax collection, "but it might be 85-90% of the collections, with the share of diesel at 65-70%. Fuel price rises have been on hold because of ongoing elections to assemblies in major states but we can expect sharp increases as soon as elections are over, Financial Express. India's "Gross domestic product (GDP) growth has declined continuously from 8.2% in 2016-17 to 4.2% in 2019-20, even before the sharp fall of 7.7% in 2020-21," wrote Prof Alok Sheel. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected a growth rate of 12.5% for India's GDP in 2021 and of 6.9% in 2022, TOI. "The rebound is a statistical illusion, the base effect of a steep fall of -8% (-7.7% as estimated by India's Central Statistical Office) in 2020-21. India's average growth across the three years from 2020 to 2022 would remain under 4%, compared to 4.2% in 2019. "The output loss  relative to the pre-covid growth projection is one of the largest among major economies." "Between the wholesale price (WPI) and the retail price (CPI), the difference essentially is the former tracks basic prices devoid of transportation costs, taxes and the retail margin etc. And that WPI pertains to only goods, not services," The Indian Express.  CPI will surely follow. Keep buttering Myanmar for pulses. After all, 'dal makhani' (pulses with butter) is a favorite dish in Delhi.    

Covid, non-Covid, no food, so many ways to mortality.

"India logged in a record 2,17,353 daily coronavirus cases as many states grappled with shortages of hospital beds, oxygen, medicines and vaccine doses," NDTV. "1,185 people dying of Covid in the last 24 hours pushed the country's death count to 1,74,308." Both figures are gross understatements. Partly it is because labs are running out of RT-PCR testing kits as demand suddenly exploded. More ominously, politicians and civil servants have ordered labs not to test to minimise the numbers of infections and deaths, Economic Times (ET). In Uttar Pradesh (UP), "Executives working at collection centres of prominent diagnostic chains Dr Lal Path-Labs and SRL Diagnostics said they have not been collecting samples for Covid-19 testing for close to 10 days now because they have orders from the administration to not test." "On Friday, additional chief secretary for information Navneet Sehgal said the chief minister has said that if private laboratories refuse to test despite having capacity, action will be taken against them." First order them not to test and then threaten them to hide your offence. "A day after a video showing mass funeral pyres at Lucknow (capital of UP) cremation ground -- Bhainsakund -- surfaced on social media platforms, the Lucknow Municipal authorities got the cremation ground fortified with tin sheets erected around the area to block the view of the cremation ground from the general public." The dead cannot bear witness, after all. "At a Surat crematorium on Wednesday night, five bodies were cremated on a single makeshift pyre built to speed up the disposal of a rush of corpses," Times of India (TOI). How they separated the ashes for the families is a mystery. In two government hospitals in Vadodara district about 350 people have died in a week but according to the government only 300 have died in the whole of the last one year. "In Bharuch, at least 260 Covid-19 victims have been consigned to the flames in the designated crematorium since April 7. The data was obtained from the crematorium register. However, the official death toll in Baruch district since the beginning of the pandemic last year is 35." Surat, Vadodara and Bharuch are in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat. "Last rites of 108 people who died of coronavirus in Bhopal were performed on Thursday, a figure vastly different from the Madhya Pradesh (MP) government's claims on Covid-19 fatalities that day, according to records maintained by crematoriums and graveyards in the state capital and officials working there. The government claimed that only 8 people had died of the infection in Bhopal district in the last 24 hours (Thursday)," India TV. UP, MP and Gujarat all have BJP governments. There are many ways to kill people other than due to Covid. The Delhi government ordered 14 private hospitals to treat only Covid patients but later allowed some of them to set aside 10-30% of beds for patients with other emergencies. Patients on dialysis for kidney failure, chemotherapy for cancer and other life saving therapies are being denied treatment because of a lack of beds. "After riding out a year of the pandemic, including a first wave, states and cities still have no real plan of action to deal with the second wave," wrote an editorial in ET. "The months of lockdown should have been used to put in place response systems. Yet, governments in major cities like Delhi and Mumbai are  still opting for expediency rather than efficacy." Why should they care when they have protected themselves from any demand for damages under the British Epidemic Disease Act of 1897?  But, we are not protected until we have a certificate with the Supreme Leader's picture on it. Those who are looking for beds are lucky. At least, they are not staring at starvation.    

When you are too weak for conflict, trust in gold.

"The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits tumbled last week to 576,000, the Labor Department said Thursday, a post-Covid low and a sign that layoffs are easing," AP. In the US, "Retail sales rebounded 9.8% last month, the largest increase since May 2020, the Commerce Department said," Reuters. "Retail sales surged a record 27.7% on a year-on-year basis." "Growth is expected to top 7.0% this year, which would be the fastest since 1984." "The rate of inflation over the past year shot up to 2.6% from 1.7% in the prior month, marking the highest level since the fall of 2018," MarketWatch. "The yearly rate of inflation is likely to settle down later in the year, but it could top 3% in the near future and could put more pressure on the Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy." "Fed leaders insist any increase in inflation is likely to be mild and temporary." "A recent survey shows that business economists believe the threat of rising inflation is highest in decades." In India, "The wholesale-price based inflation shot up to over 8-year high of 7.39 percent in March on rising crude oil and metal prices," Times of India (TOI). Earlier we found out that, "The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) contracted 3.6% for February 2021, mainly on account of a steep contraction in the manufacturing output, showed data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation," Business Standard. "Meanwhile, India's retail inflation rose to a four-month high of 5.52 percent in March as food prices soared." Food prices rose 4.94% in March, lower than the headline rate. Rise of prices means the rupee is buying less and the difference in inflation rates between the US and India means that the rupee has to weaken against the dollar to reflect its falling value. "The partially convertible rupee was at 75.14/15 per dollar, as of 07.10 GMT, after touching 75.32, its lowest since July 15 last year," CNBC.  It is trading at around Rs 74.60 to the dollar today. Economic Times. A weaker rupee will increase the cost of imports, especially oil, and add to inflationary pressures, which in turn will cause further weakness of the rupee. The whole problem is totally because of the Indian government. "The Union government's net indirect tax revenues jumped 12.3% in 2020-21 to Rs 10.71 lakh crore (Rs 10.71 trillion), despite the economic contraction of the fiscal year," Moneycontrol. Because of enormous increase in taxes on petrol and diesel. "The Union government has not revealed the contribution of petroleum crude and products in the provisional excise duty collections for the fiscal year, but it might be 85-90%, with the share of diesel at 65-70%." Astronomical rises in transport costs will be passed on in higher prices to consumers. This is reflected in the "GST collections rose 27% to hit a record high of nearly Rs 1.24 lakh crore (Rs 1.24 trillion) in March, helping to narrow the deficit for the full financial year around 7%," TOI. If the rate of GST is 20% the government collects Rs 20 on something selling at Rs 100. But if the price goes up to Rs 200 the government will collect Rs 40. So, increase the price of goods and services by taxes on fuel and then collect higher GST on the increased price. Magic. Net direct tax collection was Rs 9.45 trillion, 4.5% higher than the revised estimate of Rs 9.05 trillion. This could be partly explained by a collections of Rs 543.46 billion through the Vivad se Vishwas (from conflict to trust) scheme, in which tax payers are forced to pay to settle outrageous claims by the tax department. When the government resorts to financial piracy people turn to the only talisman they trust. Gold. Gold imports surged by 471% to a record 160 tonnes in March. As dollars flow out it puts more downward pressure on the rupee. Can't vivad with the government, vishwas in gold. 

The world is more dangerous and complex. And dubious cognition.

"Sly insinuations that Democrats are deliberately 'importing' immigrants from the 'Third World' to engineer Republican defeat in elections is going mainstream amid a continuing migrant crisis on the Southern border and racial tensions in the United States," mocked Chidanand Rajghatta, a virulent anti-Republican. Rajghatta is unaware of the problems of unchecked immigration ignored by the Congress party in India. Hindus have been cleansed from Malda and Murshidabad districts of West Bengal so that they have now become Muslim majority districts. Only about 8% of Muslims ever vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi because they see it as a Hindu party, reported BBC. Hindus feel threatened as they are attacked by Muslim mobs,  as happened in the Kaliachak area of Malda in 2016. It is because of this that the BJP has been increasing its footprint in Bengal and could win the ongoing assembly election. Journalists regularly deride views they do not agree with as 'conspiracy theory' or as 'bizarre rant', even if true. Kamala Harris is Vice President to Joe Biden who was Vice President to Barack Obama and is trying to revive the same policies. Since coming to office Biden has concentrated on cancelling all of Donald Trump's policies, showing how petty and vindictive he is. "President Joe Biden says he believes Russian leader Vladimir Putin is a killer with no soul -- and vowed that Putin soon 'will pay a price' for interfering in the 2020 US election and trying to boost the re-election chances of then -President Donald Trump," "Vladimir Putin was reportedly so angered when President Joe Biden called him a 'killer' in his first sit down interview after taking office, the Russian president left his quarantine, got a COVID vaccination and moved 28,000 troops to the border with Ukraine," reported Fox News. Russia warned the US against sending warships to the Black Sea and to stay away from Crimea "for their own good", CBS News. "The United States has cancelled the deployment of two warships to the Black Sea, Turkish diplomatic sources said on Wednesday, amid concerns over a Russian military build-up on Ukraine's' borders," Reuters. Biden's stupid remark could end up dividing Ukraine into two countries. Ukrainians will pay, not Putin. "The story begins in 2014, when Russia suffered the twin shock of a plunge in oil prices, and Western sanctions levelled to punish the Kremlin for invading Crimes," wrote Ruchir Sharma. "After 2014, Putin turned even more defensive on economic policy, focussed on turning Russia into a financial fortress invulnerable to external pressure, including from sanctions. To a surprising extent he has succeeded." "It came as a rude awakening for India when a US warship sailed into India's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) near the Lakshadweep to assert its navigation rights keeping in mind the doctrine of a free and open Indo-Pacific," Outlook. The US Navy defended its action as its right to challenge India's "excessive maritime claims" which was "consistent with international law". That this was done so soon after naval exercises between the two nations could be Biden's stupid vengeance for Modi saying "abki baar Trump sarkar", meaning 'Trump government this time', at Houston in 2019. Naturally, China is delighted at India's loss of face at the hands of the US. To show how tough he is on China, Biden has sent an unofficial delegation to Taiwan which China claims as its province. "The world already seems more dangerous and complex than when Joe Biden took office three months ago," wrote ardent supporter CNN. Living in the US, Rajghatta should forget about 'conspiracy theories' and worry about Biden's cognitive abilities. He has the nuclear button.