A minor scam.

A minor scam.

Seems that costs of irrigation projects in Maharashtra was increased from Rs 66.72 billion to Rs 267.22 billion by the Vidharbha Irrigation Development Corporation in a period of 3 months between June and August 2009. TOI, 7 August. With inflation running at over 10% anything less will be too little to go around. The cost of one project was increased from Rs 9.5 billion to Rs 23.56 billion, a second from Rs 6.61 billion to Rs 13.76 billion and a third from Rs 12.78 billion 21.76 billion. It is not because police in Maharashtra are chillaxing while people stuff their pockets with notes. Oh no. ACP Dhoble is now a household name in India for scaring the living daylights out of teenagers enjoying a party in private. Apparently they were found to be drinking and dancing to music - boys and girls together. These are called " rave parties ", what horror. What the hell is a rave party anyway? Who is raving and why? According to the dictionary " to rave " is to " talk angrily or incoherently ". By that definition any collection of politicians should be called a rave party. They get extremely angry if told to enact legislation for an ombudsman to control corruption and then shout incoherently about how parliament is " supreme " and the only institution with the power to pass laws. But that is exactly what we, the people, are asking for. Presumably the power to pass laws also means the power not to pass laws, especially ones which will punish crooks. Further, who should boys dance with if not with girls. Surely Mumbai police do not want all young people to become poofters. Now another ACP, Firoz Patel has decided to join the party. He and his men smashed up 2 nightclubs with hockey sticks for overcrowding and loud music. Perhaps Mumbai police think that this is a better use of hockey sticks after the complete washout of our hockey team in London. The same Maharashtra has just passed an amendment to the draconian Essential Services Maintenance Act by making it a crime to go on strike. Henceforth authorities will just have to notify employees that the strike is illegal and they can be arrested by any policeman without warrant and will go to prison for 1 year and pay a fine of Rs 2000. Surely it is a basic human right to refuse to work under coercion, dangerous conditions or without proper pay. To take away that right is going back to slavery. So while Rathore, a pedophile, gets out after just 6 months in prison and Manu Sharma, a murderer, is allowed to attend nightclubs on parole people will be imprisoned for nothing more than withdrawing labor. The law has already been signed by our new President, probably his first act. Not much different from North Korea, is it? We Indians can be so proud that our Parliament is " the light pillar of democracy ". Enjoy.

TAM is normal business for India.

NDTV has filed a suit against TAM ( Television Audience Measurement ) Media Research, a 50:50 joint venture company between The Nielsen Co and Kantar Media Research, in the New York Supreme Court asking for $1.4 billion in damages and hundreds of millions more for interference and breach of fiduciary duty. NDTV is alleging that TAM, which is a monopoly business in India, was guilty of tampering with television viewership data in favor of companies which bribed their employees in India. ET, 2 July. In a 194 page lawsuit NDTV says that it confronted Nielsen with evidence of data manipulation including taped meetings with TAM employees in India. In meetings and through emails Nielsen apparently admitted that its data was being manipulated and promised to fix it by 1 July. NDTV has filed the case in New York because both Nielsen and Kantar are based there and are guilty of not investing in the India business with the result that there are not enough People Meters to get an accurate picture of viewership. The TV industry in India is worth Rs 350 billion of which Rs 150 billion is from advertising. What really hurts is that foreign companies, which behave impeccably in their home countries, resort to underhand methods in India because all Indian businesses run on a combination of bribery ( usually politicians and civil servants to obtain land or licenses ) cartelisation, fictitious balance sheets, under or over invoicing and ripping off the Indian consumer. Service providers actively connive in cheating the Indian subscriber. If a channel has few viewers it will not receive any advertising revenue and will have to become a free channel to attract viewers. Service providers help to hide such figures by an especially pernicious practice called " bouquets " in which several channels are bundled together and the subscriber is forced to pay for the whole lot if she wants to watch just one of those channels. Very often Hindi and English channels are bundled together. In this way they make it impossible to know how many viewers each channel has so the channel is able to charge viewers as well as get advertising revenue. Thus service providers help to cheat both viewers and advertisers. The telecom regulator TRAI made it mandatory for all service providers to offer individual choice of channels so they suddenly hiked prices from Rs 5 to Rs 20 to force viewers to opt for " bouquets ". This is where TAM comes in. If TAM publishes accurate viewership figures a lot of channels will be forced to become free. Hence the bribes to TAM employees in India. But, surely, it is the government's duty to stamp out crime and protect Indian consumers? A top official in the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry, who wants to remain anonymous, said," A lot of people have been raising concerns because of which we are looking at TAM very carefully. We will soon take some action." TAM employees are not the only ones with greased palms, are they?

Who wants gold?

What a dismal Olympics for India, lying at a lowly number 44 with just 1 silver and 2 bronze medals. It is not about being rich and being able to afford the best training facilities, medical care and nutrition for your athletes as China and the US are able to do. Even a starving country like North Korea, suffering under decades of sanctions, has 4 gold medals. It is not about size because Denmark with 5.5 million people has 3 golds, Jamaica with 2.9 million people has 2 golds and tiny Grenada with just 110,000 people has 1 gold. Partly it is because every sports body in India is controlled by slimy politicians and civil servants who are there to siphon off the money and roam around the world at the cost of the athletes. Rumor is that the Commonwealth Games netted some Rs 200 billion. Our 5 member wrestling team to the Olympics has 3 coaches and 1 manager leaving no place for a physio. Wrestler Sushil Kumar is personally paying for the air ticket and stay of physio Arvinderpal Singh who will not be allowed to stay at the athletes village because he has not been accredited by the Indian Olympic Association. However, there are at least 1 million Indians in the US alone and several million in other western countries. Yet not one of these countries has anyone of Indian origin in their teams. The reason is that Indian parents want their children to excel in studies, so that they can earn a living, and actively discourage " wasting time " on sports. You can see that in the " Spelling Bee " contest in the US where children of Indian immigrants regularly win top spot. Probably because learning the spelling of extremely weird words, that one would never remember or use during an entire lifetime, is considered studying. The sad thing is that while the US team continues to excel at London NASA scientists were celebrating the perfect landing of the Mars lander, Curiosity in the Gale crater on Mars after a journey of 8 months covering 352 millions miles. This involved some extremely complex maneuvers never tried before. The scientists were calling it " 7 minutes of terror " because the lander was out of contact for that length of time while landing. Not a single Indian has won a Nobel Prize from India, everyone has been working abroad. The best students turning out of our top institutions go into management and then into very highly paid jobs in companies where they are expected to obey orders and do whatever is necessary to make profits, however immoral it maybe. Standards of education are constantly being reduced to accommodate " reservation " students who are given seats with fewer marks and cannot compete. There are shortages of faculties in every top college because they are poorly paid and are told how to teach, the emphasis being on learning by heart. What our professors use to call " commit to memory and vomit to paper ". Libya had only one Gaddafi, we have thousands. If only we could bring them to the same end.

Why do we have a government?

After the explosions in Pune last week and a warning of similar attacks in Gujarat the Gujarat police has issued a warning to all shopping malls and multiplexes to install CCTV cameras everywhere and keep an eye on everyone moving around in their premises or else they will face strict action. TOI, 6 July. " We had sent decoys to review the security system in several public places and found that adequate measures had not been taken," said a senior police officer. " All the malls, multiplexes and shopping centres should have CCTVs both inside their premises and in parking lots.....We will keep sending decoys to ensure that the security measures are in place," he said. Yet even after the German Bakery blast in 2010 in Pune, in which 17 people were killed, CCTV cameras at Dena Bank and McDonald's were not functioning because both the police and the municipality had failed to activate them. Maharashtra Home Minister, RR Patil said that Mumbai police had received " sufficient " CCTV footage from cameras set up by private shops. HT, 3 July. There was no shame when he said it. Which government in the world totally abdicates all its responsibilities by handing them over to citizens? Call centers with female employees are responsible for taking them home safely at night. If our streets are so unsafe what are the police there for and why are we paying extortionate taxes? Private schools have to reserve 25% of seats for children of poor people and the government will refund only a fraction of its fees. This when salaries of government school teachers are double that of private schools. Nursing Homes and Hospitals must treat all patients in emergencies even if they are unable to pay. Emergency treatment is usually extremely expensive. A gunman killed 6 people inside a Sikh temple in a suburb of Milwauki this morning. One of the 3 injured is a police officer who was ambushed while helping a wounded man. The shooter was killed by another police officer. When has anyone seen police in India arrive at the scene of a crime so early as to apprehend or kill the criminal? The FBI is investigating whether this is a case of " domestic terrorism ". Our most revered Home Minister, Shinde refuses to call the blasts in Pune a terrorist attack when it has all the hallmarks of the Indian Mujahiddin. After all " minorities " are a " vote bank ". While Pakistan is going to take action against the Haqqani network under US pressure we open more of our borders to the Lashkar e Toiba by allowing Pakistan to open banks in India. The most important, perhaps the only, duty of any government is to ensure the security of its citizens both from external and internal attacks. This our central or state governments fail to do. What are they there for? To travel abroad with daughter, son in law, grand children and even sister of son in law with taxpayer money, that's what. Has any country have such a collection of criminal beggars?

Newton's third law.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In 2008 the Congress resorted to bribery of the electorate by forgiving loans to farmers, increasing the salaries of useless civil servants by 80%, starting the MNREGA scheme which pays rural people for doing nothing and reduced tax rates by 2% to engineer a false sense of growth. The effect of lower tax collections combined with a massive increase in expenditure meant an enormous increase in fiscal deficit and double digit inflation. Elections in 2009 produced a hung parliament so the Congress bribed other parties by creating 47 ministries with 121 departments. With so many crooks wanting a share of the booty all work came to a standstill. Desperate for cash to reduce the deficit, so that more bribes can be given away next year to win elections in 2014, taxes have been increased on everything adding to inflation and reducing purchasing power of the middle class. Rumor is that Rs 100 billion was siphoned away in the telecom scam prompting the Supreme Court to cancel all 2G licenses. Now the same licenses will be auctioned off, the reserve price being fixed at Rs 140 billion. Foreign companies who have lost a bundle will retaliate through their governments at the cost of Indian companies operating in those countries. Minister of Telecom, Kapil Sibal said recently," 3G has not delivered because they paid such huge prices for the spectrum and there is no liquidity in the market for them to invest in the infrastructure and the devices to deliver 3G, for which 2G was successful and 3G was not successful." No longer. Telephone bills will jump. In the coal scam mining rights were given away to friends and cronies. Only few of the mines have been developed which means that there is just enough coal for 7 days of power production. Imported coal is expensive adding to the Current Account Deficit. So false were the projected traffic on highways that construction companies paid a premium to build them but are now finding it difficult to pay off their debts. There was no bid for recent contracts for road building. No one knows how much was siphoned off from the development of the Delhi Airport. Result: airport charges have been increased by 346% making Delhi the most expensive airport in the world. The Airport Authority increased ground handling charges from 13% to 36% of revenue last week. While Americans fly 1.8 times a year an Indian flies once every 10 years. Jet Airways and Spice Jet have announced profits after years because of the collapse of Kingfisher and strike by Air India. Foreign flights have been taken over by Emirates, Al Arabia, Finnair and so on. Fares on domestic airlines are so high that only businessmen and those in emergencies can afford to fly. Power companies are Rs 2 trillion in debt because of theft by friends of politicians and free power to farmers to win elections. Hence the blackout of 30 and 31 July. Who says there is no growth? There has never been so much growth. But only in crime.

The plot thickens.

Mr Kofi Annan resigned 2 days back as UN envoy to Syria because he is unable to see how to bring about a peaceful end to the fighting. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution yesterday denouncing the violence in Syria and demanding a political transition. The resolution also deplored " the failure of the Security Council to agree on measures to ensure compliance of Syrian authorities with its decisions ". Although the resolution is not binding it is an indirect censure of Russia and China for vetoing any suggestion of sanctions against Syria. Read as a whole it is asking the Security Council ( read the US and UK who are always ready to bomb the hell out of any nation ) to get rid of Bashar al Assad by force. However, Russia and China refuse to accept any hint of sanctions against Syria having been fooled into supporting sanctions against Libya only to see that being used as an excuse to bomb 30,000 to death and Gaddafi into oblivion. Libya is now a divided country and last week a video surfaced showing rebels using his corpse as a ventriloquist's dummy inside a vehicle where one rebel was asking questions while another kept shaking his head form side to side. Saif al Islam, Gaddafi's son is a prisoner in Zintan. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court for trial but the tribe holding him want him tried inside Libya. When the ICC defense lawyer Melinda Taylor visited Saif in Zintan with 3 colleagues they were arrested on 7 June on a charge of passing encoded messages to him from his supporters. They were released on 2 July only after a personal apology by the ICC President. A new government has been elected in Libya but it is limited to Tripoli and if the tribes in Misrata and Benghazi refuse to share revenues raised from oil then a civil war is not impossible. Syria has probably reached the point of no return. Couple of days ago an unverified video showed between 20-30 men, who showed signs of having been beaten up, being executed by firing squad by the rebels who claimed that the men were members of Shabiha, the hated Assad militia. They could well have been innocent Shia men caught in the wrong place by the Sunni rebels. The rebels are being supplied by Qatar and Saudi Arabia and trained by Turkey and the US. These coountries probably calculate that a defeat for the Assad regime will take away the only friend that Iran has in the region and force it to negotiate its nuclear ambitions away. But what if elements of a Sunni regime in Syria decide to support Sunnis in Iraq against the Shia government of Nouri al Maliki? A civil war in Iraq and possibly Lebanon where the Hezbollah will lose its only supply route and become a sitting duck for Israel. Maybe that is why, fearful of its soldiers being attacked by Iranian supporters in Afghanistan, the US apologised humbly to Pakistan and is now busy packing up to run with its tail firmly between its legs. The US and UK have again created a terrible mess. Wonderful.

Better than the US.

Following the power outage on 30 July lasting for over 12 hours across 9 states affecting 300 million people the power ministry assured everyone that the fault would be fixed. So, of course, on 31 July the power outage affected 13 states and 600 million people. In response to criticism the Power Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde said," We got electricity in a matter of hours.... people should appreciate how work is done at the grid." Not content with this piece of inanity he went on to compare this with an outage in some states in the US in 2003 which took 4 days to fix. " I have briefed the PMO ( Prime Minster's Office ).....in the USA light ( electricity ) does not come for 4 days, here we got it ( restarted ) in a matter of hours," he said. Oh yes! The US is represented at the London Olympics by Michael Phelps and India by Suresh Kalmadi. Need we say more? So what did our Dear Leader do to reward such efficiency? He promoted Mr Shinde to be the Home Minister, a most sensitive post considering 4 IEDs exploded in Pune on 1 August. These have all the hallmarks of the Indian Mujahiddin but Mr Shinde refuses to call this a terrorist attack. He used to be a sub inspector in Mumbai Police and has sneaked in through the Rajya Sabha, just like the Dear Leader. In February 2010 a blast at the German Bakery left 17 dead and 60 injured. At that time a CCTV camera at the north main road was not functioning. Not surprising that the case remains unsolved. Following the German Bakery bombing the police asked for 837 CCTVs but Pune Municipal Corporation installed only 79. However, the PMC left it to the police to activate the cameras while the police thought the Municipality will do it. Consequently the cameras at Dena Bank and McDonald's were not functioning. Maharashtra Home Minister, RR Patil said that the Mumbai police have received " sufficient " CCTV footage from cameras set up by private shops. Needless to say Maharashtra has a Congress government. On 18 February 2007 a bomb went off in the Samjhauta Express, which links Delhi to Lahore twice a week, killing 68. On 1 July 2009 the US Treasury and UNSC placed sanctions on Lashkar-e-Taiba for the bombing and named one Arif Qasmani as having played a role in the attack. However, a Lt Col Purohit and Swami Aseemanand are in police custody for the bombing. On 8 September 2006 a bicycle bomb, just like the ones in Pune, went off in a Muslim cemetery in Malegaon. It had all the hallmarks of Indian Mujahiddin but the police are holding Sadhvi Pragya Kumari Thakur. After the Mumbai attacks of 2008 the Congress blamed Hindu extremists. While the Congress is whitewashing terrorist attacks on India it has allowed Pakistan to open businesses here and given permission for 2 banks to open branches. The ISI now has a direct route to finance its killers. Meanwhile the US is cutting aid to Pakistan and insists that it has the right to use drones to blow up anyone it wants. That is why the US is safe and we continue to die. Only the most thick skinned moron will compare the two.

Dirty or dirtier.

In 2010 a former Member of the Legislative Assembly in MP, elected on a Samajwadi Party ticket, Kishor Samrite filed a Public Interest Litigation at Allahabad High Court accusing Mr Rahul Gandhi of abducting and raping a girl in his constituency of Amethi in UP. Mr Gandhi denied the charges and the High Court dismissed the PIL on 7 March, 2011 with a fine of Rs 5 million on Mr Samrite. TOI, 1 August. Mr Samrite filed an appeal to the Supreme Court which stayed the High Court order in April 2011. Now, at the Supreme Court hearing, Mr Samrite has claimed that he was instructed by the SP leadership to file the PIL in the first place. He is revealing all this because the UP government of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has termed him " mentally unbalanced " in an affidavit and wants to make him a scapegoat. Mr Samrite says that he was called to Delhi in 2010 " to meet the other senior leaders, who were in Delhi as the Parliament was in session,where he was apprised about the facts of the serious incident that had been reported from a village in UP and was requested to file a writ petition in the nature of of PIL in Allahabad High Court." Considering that he is a politician he must be exceedingly naive. Firstly, he should know that you should never take on The Family, especially on such a grave matter. The BJP was in power for 6 years and yet did not dare to investigate the Bofors scam. Secondly, being a politician himself, he should have known that you never trust an Indian politician. Whether he thought that he would be rewarded with a safe seat from UP we do not know but he should have had some written guarantee before venturing to take on The Family. We saw how Mr Yadav's father set up Ms Mamata Banerjee before the presidential elections, appearing with her in front of the media and then stabbing her in the back after just 24 hours. We do know that Ms Dimple Yadav, wife of Mr Akhilesh, was elected unopposed as Member of Parliament from Kannauj which was vacated by her husband. Not one party put up a candidate against her so the voters were deprived of any say in who should represent them in Parliament. She had lost in May 2009 from Faizabad. It is possible that, after SP's thumping victory in assembly elections in March, other parties are already calculating the chances of forming a government in Delhi with SP support after the general elections in 2014. On 26 July one Prabhat Kumar Pandey filed a case in Allahabad High Court against the election of Ms Dimple Yadav claiming that he was kidnapped by workers of her party to prevent him contesting. Should we believe all these allegations of crime, perjury and betrayal? Who knows. However, there is no filthier creature than an Indian politician who is dirtier than a cesspit. How to get rid of this infestation that is the question.

We are so gullible.

A new survey by Gallup shows that 52% of Indians think that it is a bad time to find a job while 36% think that it is a good time. Only Americans are more optimistic in that 38% of them think that it is good time while Europeans naturally are more gloomy where 72% think it is a bad time. The quarterly credit review released by the RBI this week clearly states that it cannot reduce interest rates unless the government lowers both trade and fiscal deficits. "Financing the latter from domestic saving crowds out private investment, thus lowering growth prospects. This, in turn, deters capital inflows, making it more difficult to finance the former. Failure to narrow the twin deficits with appropriate policy actions threatens both macroeconomic stability and growth sustainability," says the RBI. This, in RBI language, means that the much hyped growth story was completely false, created by enormous wasteful spending by this selfish government. In 2010-11 growth was 8.4% while inflation was 9.1% which is actually a fall in growth of 0.7%. In 2011-12 growth was 6.5% with inflation at 8.5% a fall of 2%. The RBI is predicting growth of 6.5% this year with Wholesale Price Index at 7% till March 2013 which means that Consumer Price Index will be at 10%. If the MNREGA scheme was based on providing jobs to the rural poor in building roads, waste treatment or water distribution systems it would have improved infrastructure and automatically stimulated healthy growth in the economy due to increased commerce which, in turn, would have led to higher tax collections and lower deficit. Instead money was given for doing nothing resulting in rural wage inflation feeding into food price rises and shooting fiscal deficit. Increasing salaries of useless civil servants by 80% allowed them to invest a greater share of their bribe money into property investment leading to a boom in property prices, a frenzy of construction of expensive apartments and spiraling commodity prices. Those who had access to this wealth, based on black money, strutted around in fancy cars, dined in expensive hotels and traveled abroad in style leading foreigners to believe that there was gold in them thar hills. It was all a mirage. The RBI is trying to protect banks, which are sitting on massive loans to builders, from a bad-loan bomb which will bring down their credit rating to junk status. Business fellows want interest rates to come down so that they can unload stock of unsold properties or face bankruptcy like Malya is facing with Kingfisher Airlines. The government is desperate for this myth to continue till 2014 elections. Enter Mr Chidambaram, architect of the present disaster. What budget is he going to conjure up next year leading to elections. With Congress facing a danger of wipe out will he adopt a scorched earth policy and increase deficit so much that any other party which wins in 2014 will be unable to govern? We live to die.

How we suffer!

We are just recovering from a massive power outage which started around 2am and lasted for around 10 hours. Apparently something happened near Agra and the entire northern grid tripped affecting 9 states and around 300 million people were without electricity. Without electricity there was no water supply. As it is the pressure of water pumped by Delhi Jal Board is not sufficient to fill the overhead tank situated on the roofs of apartment buildings so we have tanks at ground floor level where we store water and then pump it up to the overhead tank whenever we need. The water supplied is not pure enough to drink so everyone has some arrangement to make it drinkable such as a filtration device or a more expensive machine that purifies by reverse osmosis. Since everything needs electricity to function there was no water either for washing, bathing or drinking. As they always do electricity fellows had disconnected their phones so no one knew what was happening. Since TV was out people were ringing relatives and friends to find out what had happened and when it would be corrected. Fortunately the weather was overcast and not so hot so it was bearable. The only people with smiles on their faces were the local grocery shop owners who quickly ran out of their stores of bottled water. Meanwhile some 35 people were not so lucky as they were burnt alive when a coach in the Delhi to Chennai Tamil Nadu Express caught fire near Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. Seems that the fire spread so fast that those who were asleep did not even try to get up before being charred beyond recognition. The toll may rise to 75. Only those who were sitting near the doors, because they were travelling without reservation, managed to jump out in time. If we had a viable and functioning aviation sector the load on the railways would be reduced and maybe such tragedies averted. But for some reason that only they know politicians and civil servants want to kill airlines by taxing them out of existence. The Olympics are turning into a disaster with only a bronze medal in shooting so far. A tunnel, 3 feet x 3 feet has been discovered near the border with Pakistan about 55km from Jammu. It was discovered by local villagers and was not yet complete. Even after 36 hours no army officer has arrived to investigate. Only BSF personnel have camped at the site but their digger ran out of fuel. Naturally no one has a clue as to how many tunnels have escaped detection so far. No doubt our most revered Prime Minister will offer the hand of friendship to Pakistan and believe their lies about peace. Hopefully Pakistan will fall out with the US and all aid will be cancelled so that they starve to death. We can only pray.

What is behind the Rathore smirk?

Answering questions about whether Mr Rahul Gandhi will become the leader of the Lok Sabha our most revered Home Minister has said," Why not? Mr Gandhi can accept an office in government or in the party or in the House. I am sure he will do very well in any of these places." TOI, 29 July. TOI does not mention what position the minister was in when he made these comments. Was he standing straight in attention mode or sitting in a chair or lying flat prone on the ground in what is known as the saashtaang position. He continued," But whoever would be appointed to this or that post is the decision that only the Congress President in consultation with the Prime Minister can take but I think we will welcome him in any post." The revered minister should not have given the game away. He has proved that it is Ms Sonia Gandhi who is running the country which explains why our Prime Minister has spent 8 years answering every question with a Rathore smirk. The poor man has no power or any clue as to what is going on. It is therefore imperative that we have proof that Ms Gandhi has renounced citizenship of Italy and has an official paper from the Italian government saying that she has no rights on that country. It also means that the Prime Minister, who has never been elected, is hanging onto his chair by kowtowing to the ground and can do bugger all to improve the economy. This explains why 100 protesters, including 8 women, protested outside the Prime Minister's official residence at 7 Race Course Road yesterday and managed to write " Manmohan chor hai or Manmohan is a thief " on the gate of the house. They threw pieces of coal to highlight the scam involving granting of licenses for mining coal at a time when the Prime Minister was in charge of the coal ministry. The protesters threw coins at the Prime Minister's house as symbolic bribes to encourage the Prime Minister to set up a Special Investigation Team to probe charges of corruption against 15 ministers. This is highly unlikely as the Prime Minister is one of the 15 ministers that have been alleged to be corrupt. The Prime Minister is visiting Assam where the Congress state government was unable to prevent riots between Bodos, who are Christians, and illegal immigrants from Bangladesh who have been allowed to swamp parts of the state. Had Hindus been involved the anti Hindu Congress would have happily taken them out but this being between 2 " minorities " they have been paralysed into inaction. The more the criminals the more the crime. It has become impossible to control.

A collection of corrupt cabbages.

A report by a ministry in India ( there are 47 ministries and they have to show they are doing something ) says that there were 59,923 deaths due to speeding last year and 10,553 deaths due to alcohol related accidents on our roads. Seems very low considering how overloaded buses, taxis, auto rickshaws and 2 wheelers are. It is a common sight to see a man driving a motorbike with an older child in front of him, his wife riding side saddle with a baby in her arms and another child squashed between the two. No one has any idea about the rules of driving and it is normal to drive on the wrong side of a dual carriageway to save petrol. Since there is no police patrol there is no control. Driving licenses are issued by the police for bribes so they have no interest in catching poor drivers. It is also surprising why planes are not falling out of the skies. The only airline making any profit is IndiGo whose chief Rahul Bhatia has focused on the danger of bankrupt airlines like Air India and Kingfisher being allowed to continue flying. He says of the US," If they were confronted with a situation where the crew is not paid for months, be it pilots or technical staff, I guarantee they would shut the airline on safety grounds." So how have the despots at the aviation ministry reacted to the concern for the safety of passengers? They have called his comments " uncalled for and baseless ". They must have objected to Tony Tyler, chief of International Air Transport Association, who was in India on 25 July and said," India's aviation sector is in multi-faceted crisis.... this must be resolved with coordinated public policy." He added that government aid to Air India without clear accountability and result " could well send the whole sector into intensive care ". So did the sarkari thugs snarl at Tony Tyler like they did at Bhatia? Tyler was welcomed as a state guest. TOI 28 July. After all he is a white British man who can downgrade all airlines which will stop them from flying to any foreign country. So lick the white man's shoes while threatening the Indian! Meanwhile civil society activist Anna Hazare has again started a fast in Delhi in support of his demand for a strong ombudsman to tackle corruption. While the freeloading press is mocking the lack of crowds at his campsite a Congress spokesman said," It seems he ( Hazare ) and his team want to pressure on the government. Nobody has the right to build unnecessary pressure on the government." What is Hazare asking for? Is he asking for riches, a palace or a fair damsel perhaps? All he wants is for criminals to be put into prison regardless of who he or she is. What an explosive idea. India has large numbers of very clever people. Sadly a combination of criminal morons strangulating the nation.

Anger born of fear?

In a recent interview Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi refused to apolgise for the 2002 communal riots in the state. Instead he challenged," Hang me if I am guilty." Congress fellows have been frothing in their mouths and gnashing their teeth at this simple statement. Probably because not one Congress person has even been found guilty, let alone been hanged, for the crime of inciting the killing of 10,000 Sikhs following the assassination of Indira Gandhi on 31 October 1984, nearly 28 years ago. After more than 2 decades there have been some mealy mouthed apologies and we have been advised " to move on ". They are afraid that this puts the spotlight firmly on how the Congress has been protecting murderers all these years. Corporate Affairs Minister, Veerappa Moily said,"... I think it is highly reprehensible and irresponsible." Law Minister, Salman Khurshid opined that " the courts will decide ". He said," I don't think that we either in the streets can decide or that Modi can take a decision by himself." Pity the Law Minister has forgotten about freedom of speech and a person's right to clear his name of the filthy smear campaign that the Congress has been running for 10 years. The putrid mouth in chief, Digvijay Singh, Congress Secretary General said," Modi is known for his arrogance and his fascist attitude. His functioning is reflected in the breakup of the Gujarat BJP." Oh dear. His habit of spouting filth has made him forget that fascism is an import from Italy and comes from the Italian word " fascismo ". It means a dictatorial style of government where no opposition is tolerated. Surely that typifies the Congress. We hear that 10 Congress MPs have signed a petition to Ms Sonia Gandhi to make her son the Leader of the House, vacated by Mr Pranab Mukherjee. We also hear that ministers belonging to the Nationalist Congress Party will end their " protest leave " having forced the Congress to accept a formal Consultative Committee which will include Ms Sonia Gandhi and Mr Sharad Pawar, leader of the NCP. The NCP is a breakaway from the Congress. Former Prime Ministers such as Morarji Desai, VP Singh, Chandrashekhar and many more all broke away from the Congress. It was the same Mr Singh who blamed Hindus for the Mumbai attacks of 2008 and blamed Hindu terrorists for the murder of Mumbai Anti Terrorism chief, Hemant Karkare. That makes Mr Singh guilty of treason. And treason is a hanging offence in every country in the world. Is the Congress fury born out of terror?

Sacrifice for nothing.

In today's TOI the former Chief of Army Staff, Gen VP Malik laments that nothing was learnt from the Kargil conflict which has gone down in military history " as a saga of unmatched bravery, grit and determination ". In March 1999, just 2 months prior to the conflict Gen Malik wrote to the then Defence Minister, of coffingate fame," The army is finding that major acquisitions get stymied for various reasons and a feeling of cynicism is creeping in. By and large, the prevailing situation is that nothing much can be done about the existing hollowness in the army. By denying essential equipment, the armed forces would gradually lose their combat edge..." Yet 13 years after victory at Kargil with the sacrifice of 527 soldiers the army still lacks modern air defence systems, night vision equipment and its tank fleet is short of critical ammunition. Why are our armed forces so neglected when we are surrounded by hostile countries like Pakistan and China with heavily armed forces staring across our borders? The Naresh Chandra task force on national security says," The professional heads of the three services, charged with the command of the armed forces and responsible for national defence as well as conduct of war, have neither been accorded status nor granted any powers in the edifice of GOI ( government of India ). They are excluded from the apex structure and are to be only ' associated ' with the policy formulation process." What the committee is hinting at but cannot specifically name is the dark shadow that controls our government and perverts every aspect of our lives. This is the hated Indian Administrative Service which lurks in the dark behind politicians, knows every rule and department of the government and actively assists politicians in looting the country. This way it not only enriches itself but, by controlling politicians, also controls other services such as the armed forces, the foreign service, the police service and every civil service to the people such as land registration and setting up businesses. Since independence our soldiers have suffered heavy casualties because of poor equipment and tasted the bitter poison of defeat against the Chinese in 1962. Cariappa begged for 24 hours to get rid of the mujahiddin from Kahmir but Nehru wanted to play at the UN, Lal Bahadur Shastri signed away all our gains in Tashkent and Indira Gandhi returned 80,000 Pakistani soldiers for nothing in the betrayal of the Shimla agreement. Still, even after the Mumbai attacks, we go on " bended knees " to talk peace with Pakistan and have recently announced the resumption of cricket matches. The traitors just want to maintain status quo so that they can keep their iron grip on power. So what if our soldiers die or the country suffers.

Divide and rule.

On 18 July workers at Maruti's factory at Manesar in Haryana rioted during which the HR manager, Avinash Kumar Dev had both his legs broken and his office set on fire burning him to death. His body was charred beyond recognition. We can only hope that he was unconscious when he died so that he did not feel any pain. Of the 96 senior officers who were taken to hospital 24 are still admitted with various injuries, mostly fractures. Not one worker was injured in the entire incident showing that the officers had not or could not put up any resistance so vicious was the attack. The immediate excuse trotted out was that one worker, Jiyalal, a Scheduled Caste, was abused by a supervisor in " casteist " language. Turns out that the supervisor alleged to have done the abusing, Sangram Singh is also of Scheduled Caste. Seems that Jiyalal slapped Singh at 9am and was suspended and the workers insisted on his immediate reinstatement. When this was refused around 3000 workers armed with iron rods and other lethal weapons attacked all senior staff. One eye witness talked about workers hunting for officers. Already a cover up is underway. Police are denying that the attack was preplanned and the usual idiots are out in force conjuring up various sociological excuses for the murderous behavior. Indeed workers have genuine grievances like in any other factory. Contract workers are paid up to Rs 5000/month while permanent workers get upwards of Rs 13000 for doing the same work. Rules are very strict with reports of toilet breaks allowed for only 7 minutes every few hours. All Indians, except politicians and civil servants, have very hard lives but we do not resort to this kind of barbarism. Land prices have rocketed and some villagers have become millionaires overnight by selling land. Those who have not been so lucky feel left out. There were strikes in the same plant last year following which Maruti made the mistake of buying off the leaders with, reportedly, Rs 2.5 million each. This must have created a sense of betrayal that some made windfall gains out of the sacrifice of all workers and a sense of expectation of large payouts for bad behavior. As usually happens some with criminal tendencies saw an opportunity to kill and maim. However, whenever there is any bestiality in India you can be sure that politics is behind it. Since independence poverty has been lauded as virtuous and educated or rich people have been portrayed as greedy oppressors. Politicians have followed lessons learnt from the British. The country was divided into states according to language. Lower castes are given employment and entry into colleges without qualifications. Minorities can get away with killing Hindus. This has bred a sense of undeserved entitlement and an expectation of immunity. As you sow and so on.

Nearly the same.

Various regions of Italy are in deep financial trouble and are asking the government in Rome to bail them out. As an example, the regional government in Sicily has 1800 public employees which is more than the British cabinet office. NY Times, 23 July. There are 26,000 auxiliary forest rangers while British Columbia with vast forests has less than 1500. Sicily has 100,000 public employees for a population of 5 million, which works out to 1 for every 50 people, and pays pension to many more. Government employees cannot be sacked and the only way to reduce numbers is for them to retire. Sicily has 7 billion Euros or $8.5 billion in liabilities and shows " signs of unstoppable decline " said Italy's audit court. The central government in India has 34.1 million employees for a population of 1.2 billion which is 1 employee per 35 people. The wage bill is Rs 591.43 billion per year. In 2011-12 the government revenue was Rs 7.7 trillion while spending was Rs 13.2 trillion, which leaves a fiscal deficit of Rs 5.2 trillion or 68% of revenue. Interest payment per year is Rs 2.8 trillion which is a shade below 30% of revenue. While the US has 15 Secretaries, equivalent to ministers in India, and 7 of cabinet rank making 22 in all we have 47 ministries with 121 departments. Government officials may not be investigated or charged with crime without obtaining permission from those in charge. Government school teachers earn in excess of Rs 30,000 per month while private school teachers get less than Rs 15,000 but enrollment in government schools has dropped by 2.1 million between 2009-10 and 2010-11. Private school enrollment increased by 1.1 million during the same period showing how parents do not trust government schools. In Delhi enrollment in government schools increased by 14,000 while that in private schools increased by 30,000 despite the fact that fees in Delhi are exorbitant. Italy's politicians are uniformly corrupt as are ours. Craxi had to hide in Tunisia till death, Andreotti could never be convicted and Berlusconi entered politics to save himself from prison. At least one third of our politicians have charges of heinous crimes against them and are in politics for protection. Italy has its mafia while we have our political parties. Judge Giovanni Falcone and his wife Francesca Morvillo was killed by a huge car bomb near the town of Capaci in Italy on 23 May 1992 and Judge Paolo Borsellino was killed by a car bomb in Palermo on 19 July 1992. They were investigating the Camorra. In India any exposure of crime by a politician or any criticism, even an innocent cartoon, can invite persecution, even death. The major difference is that Italy is run by Italians. Or is it a similarity?

End of what?

Analysts are claiming that the end game is in sight in Syria after the suicide bombing in which the defence and intelligence ministers, a top general and Assad's brother in law were all killed inside a secure building in Damascus last week. Fierce fighting broke out in several suburbs of Damascus and for a time it seemed that the rebels would manage to capture the city. But would a rebel victory solve the problem in Syria? Indeed is an all out rebel victory possible? The complexity of the situation can be understood from small snippets of news. Dozens of Iraqis living in Syria for decades have had to flee from the Sunni rebels back to Iraq because they are Shia. A Sunni family escaping from Damascus into Lebanon sat nervously in their car because they were afraid of being attacked by Shia Hezbollah. A local mullah offered shelter to several such families in the local mosque. On 18 July a suicide bomber killed 5 Israeli tourists and the bus driver and injured 30 others at the Black Sea city of Burgas in Bulgaria. Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu has blamed Hezbollah, supported by Iran, for the attack. Iran has vigorously denied the attack, as it did the bombing in Delhi in which a member of Israeli embassy was injured on 13 February this year. A bomb failed to detonate in Tiblisi in Georgia on the same day. On 14 February 2 Iranians were arrested in Thailand with bomb making equipment. These attacks were said to be in revenge for 5 nuclear scientists assassinated inside Iran that Iran blames on Israel. Israel claims that a would be suicide bomber travelling on a US passport in the name of David Jefferson has already entered Britain. After 11 coaches and athletes were killed by the Palestinian Black September group in Munich in 1972 Israel is taking no chances and has sent members of Shin Bet into Britain to guard Israeli athletes at the Olympic village. Teams of Mossad are said to have fanned out across Europe to search for white westerners who have embraced Islam and maybe planning to attack Israelis. Events inside Syria are being guided by outside forces. The rebels are being armed and financed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar under the guidance of the CIA. Iran is helping the Assad regime. Just across the border in Lebanon Hezbollah is quietly watching the situation. Israel suffered a bloody nose when it attacked the Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. Hezbollah was said have a stockpile of 13000 rockets and fired more than 4000 into Israeli towns during that conflict. Iran has missiles capable of reaching Britain. Will they calculate that the US is incapacitated till the presidential elections in November? Syria is not Tunisia, Egypt or even Libya. It is certainly fascinating.

Politicians - friends or foe?

British politicians are incensed at the decision by the UK Border Agency staff, responsible for passport checks in Britain, to go on strike on 26 July, the day before the start of the Olympics, and refuse to work overtime from 27 July to 20 August. Home Secretary, Theresa May said," I think it is shameful frankly." Labour leader Ed Miliband agreed," People should not be striking during the Olympics." Anger against the strike just before the Olympics is understandable because it seems like blackmail but that is what a strike is meant to be. The National Audit Office reveled this week that the UK Border Agency had laid off 1000 more staff than it intended and was having to hire reinforcements and increase overtime to meet its workload. Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt wants to sack all staff who go on strike. This is the same man who has shamelessly hung onto his post in spite of revelations of his cozy relationship with James Murdoch and News International PR man, Frederic Michel. The UK government is hell bent on a program of austerity which involves sacking government employees, cutting pensions and privatising services. Yet the people were not responsible for the present state of the UK economy. It was the Blair/Brown New Labour which reduced regulation for banks and financial firms which led to the meltdown. Seems that Blair, a mass murderer, is having a fantastic time travelling all over the world earning some 20 million pounds a year while ordinary people see their savings evaporate and are reduced to poverty. G4S, a private security firm, which was given the contract for security at the Olympic games for 500,000 pounds has not been able to provide the required number of staff. The CEO, Nick Buckles admitted that it was a " humiliating shambles " in front of a Parliamentary committee but will receive 21 million pounds in shares, bonuses and pension if he is forced to resign. Terrorist Abu Qatada's lawyers, Birmberg Peirce and Partners have been paid 181,000 pounds/month since 2002 from legal aid. Total 21 million pounds. Newly elected French President, Francois Hollande and Prime Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault have taken a voluntary 30% cut in salary. The Prime Minister's salary will come down from 21,300 Euros to 14,910. Yet Cameron, who is forever banging on about reducing public debt and is very rich, has not seen any need for personal sacrifice. The Indian Olympics Association and Wrestling Federation has given accreditation for 3 coaches and 1 manager for a 5 member team leaving no place for a physio. So wrestler, Sushil Kumar is paying from his own pocket for physio, Arvinderpal Singh to go to London. Politicians and the rich are increasingly behaving like usurpers. The reaction from the people may be extremely violent.

Information depends on education.

Information technology sector has been the real growth story for India, partly because it was left alone by politicians and civil servants who never really understood what they did. In the decade up to 2007 dollar earnings of IT companies grew at between 30-45% a year. IT has grown from 1.2% of GDP to 7.5% and its share of exports has grown from 4 to 25%. In 1998 IT industry employed 100,000 people, today it employs 2.8 million. Since 2009, however, growth has been down below 10% and is expected to stay there from now on. Dollar earnings of Infosys were down 1.1% in the last quarter though TCS was up 3.4%. The slowdown maybe explained by increased competition from other countries such as Philippines, recession in western countries resulting in reduced spending by businesses there and difficulties with getting visas. How much is due to the lack of proper education is not discussed. In a contest called Code Jam held by Google, which is like the Olympics of programming, Indians started with the largest number of contestants. At the qualifying stage 17% of contestants were Indians but by round 3 it was down to 0.7%. By the third round there were just 3 Indians left as opposed to 83 Chinese, 77 Russians, 36 Japanese, 25 Americans, 21 Poles, 11 South Koreans and 13 Belarusians. ET, 16 July. If we remember that South Korea has 50 million, Poland 38 million and Belarus a mere 9.5 million population then the shame is multiplied many times. On 9 August, 2011 Prof DK Gupta, Vice Chancellor of Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj University in Lucknow, wrote to the Medical Council of India requesting that MBBS degrees be awarded to students who had been failing repeatedly in their exams. Some had been failing since 1996. He said that reservation candidates should be allowed to pass with 40% marks because that was the requirement for their admission tests as opposed to 50% for merit candidates. Congress spokesman Ravi Kumar Bhargava said that repeated failure of SC/ST students must be probed implying that some sort of vendetta was taking place. The reason that education is so poor is because the Congress sees merit as elitist and something to be discouraged. Since reservation candidates find it very tough to pass their exams in institutes of higher education, leading some to commit suicide, every effort is made to bring down standards so that they pass. This leads to millions of young people roaming around with pieces of paper but no real knowledge. This is used an an excuse by shrill politicians to meddle with qualifying exams and syllabuses to bring down standards even lower. They completely fail to mention that good students from the same institutes are doing well abroad. Information comes through education and the Congress is bent on destroying both.