How can one be intellectual if one has to worry about earning money?

A very high decibel debate is raging over how India has suddenly become an intolerant country following the election of the BJP last year. 'Liberals' are screaming abuse on every television channel, the 'intelligentsia' are photographed returning their awards and rejected politicians are trying to polish their tarnished halos. Now some intellectuals are questioning whether a few isolated incidents in a country of 1.3 billion people is a sign of increasing intolerance, so the 'liberals' have become intolerant of their opinions. The former Prime Minister says that intolerance of dissent is bad for the economy. Oh dear. Who was in charge when a harmless old man, Anna Hazare was arrested for protesting against corruption, when Delhi Police mercilessly beat up sleeping supporters of Baba Ram Dev so that a woman died later, when Delhi Police beat up those protesting against the gang rape of a young woman on a Delhi bus and who inserted the infamous Section 66A into the Information Act, completely quashing free speech? A little sharam and izzat will be appreciated. Noted economist, Bibek Debroy has given instances when the Congress tried to silence him. A group of intellectuals have issued a statement in which they accuse those returning their awards of personal hatred of the Prime Minister. Surely, if awards are being returned for political reasons they must have been awarded for political reasons as well? That being the case there is a strong reason to ban all awards, whether in films, music or in literature. Author, Chetan Bhagat wrote that 'liberals' are the rich English speaking followers of western culture who despise ordinary Indians and are afraid of any challenge to their privileged lives. Not so, was the riposte. Just because liberals have been silent against Muslim and the Congress repression does not mean that they do not have the right to protest now. True, but the trouble is that the 'liberals' are not only guilty of selective outrage but they are dishonest about the real cause of their anger. It is all about money. Since Modi has come to power he has been very strict on corruption and black money. Media houses are owned by rich men making black money through hawala transactions. Indrani and Peter Mukherjee apparently siphoned off large amounts of money from INX Media. A huge amount of financing for Bollywood movies came from Dawood Ibrahim who demanded casting of certain communities. Chota Rajan has been arrested and the Pakistan Army has had to increase protection for Dawood which means finance is being cut off. 'Intellectuals' used to attend 'conferences' in foreign countries through NGO money. Now they are being asked to account for it. All those who eat beef do not own cattle so they are stealing cows which is why they have been assaulted. It is hard to swank around on honest income.

Does it matter how you select a judge if cases remain hanging?

Although appointed by the president judges to the Supreme Court and High Courts are chosen in secret by a group of judges, called the Collegium. Since no one knows how they are chosen there have been allegations of favoritism and unfair selection. The government can object to the selection of a particular judge but cannot block his appointment. Politicians have long been wanting a say in the appointment of judges and passed a National Judicial Appointments Act but the Supreme Court struck it down as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court's reluctance to allow politicians any say in the appointment of judges probably dates back to the dark days of the Emergency when the then Chief Justice, AN Ray, appointed by Indira Gandhi, was seen to be partial in his judgement. The striking down of the NJAC Act has precipitated a controversy over the supremacy of the parliament in passing laws. Now the Supreme Court has invited suggestions from the public on how judges should be appointed. Trouble is that most of us have no knowledge of the law so suggestions will come from lawyers, who are creaming the system, and from politicians, who want to remain immune to any punishments for their crimes, so any changes they suggest will be worse. We could have a system wherein the Collegium suggests a list of names with detailed histories of each candidate and a select committee gets to vote on it. Or we could have an Indian Judicial Service, like the IAS, where top candidates will be trained in law, jurisprudence and ethics. Promotion of judges will be based on how many cases they have tried and how many of their judgements were reversed by higher courts, showing the rate of errors. At present judges to the higher courts are appointed from among lawyers. Top lawyers charge per appearance and so the more times they appear on a case the more they are able to milk the client. This maybe the reason why cases drag on for years. The Supreme Court has a backlog of over 60,000 cases with 28 judges sitting at present  while the US Supreme Court has only 9 judges with a much shorter waiting list. If judges are appointed from among lawyers and if the future chief justice threatens to remove them from the court by calling the army it does not inspire a great deal of confidence in our system. Instead of arguing about the selection of judges the Supreme Court should be talking about how to conclude cases faster and not allow lawyers to drag things on for years. It is a joke to hear a case for 2 minutes just to pick the next date for hearing it. The Uber rape case has been concluded within months but Mr Lalu Yadav has been out on bail since December last year and campaigning in the Bihar elections in a rape of democracy. Whatever they decide judges must remember that they are also citizens of the nation and have a duty to perform. 

Should children be relegated to statistics?

Seems that 45% of children living in slums in Delhi are stunted and 43% are wasted. 39% of boys have received at least one dose of immunisation, but only 25% of girls have. Rates are worse than in the country as a whole, with 38.7% of children under 3 years of age being stunted and 15% wasted. India accounts for 20% of all the children in the world dying under the age of 5 years. Why, when we have innumerable schemes for the poor? The Food Security Act provides rice at Rs 3 per kg and wheat at Rs 2 per kg. The Public Distribution System also provides cheap sugar and kerosene for cooking. We understand that only cereals do not provide enough nutrition for growing children, who need proteins, vitamins and minerals in their diet, so stunting may result and a stunted child will be underweight. But why are they wasted, which implies a lack of calories? There is the Right to Education Act which forces fee-paying private schools to reserve 25% of seats for poor children. But private schools do not provide free food under the Midday Meal Scheme, so that could be a problem. Poverty is great for publishing papers and even for winning the Nobel Prize in Economics, as Amartya Sen did earlier and Angus Deaton did this year. Yet with all these highly erudite studies and 68 years of socialism, which is written in our constitution, half the children remain without food. Around 350 years ago Thomas Robert Malthus argued that unchecked population growth will outstrip resources of the earth resulting in catastrophic starvation. It has become fashionable to mock Malthus in India, which celebrates its 'demographic dividend', where increasing numbers of young people provide a pool of cheap labor for industries thus stimulating economic growth. There is gloating after China announced a relaxation of its one-child policy. In coming years the number of old people will outnumber the working young so there will be no one to take care of them. What no one is willing to recognise is that China would not be the second richest country in the world, with a $10 trillion GDP, without its one-child policy, which prevented 400 million births, freed women from childcare so that they could work, improved maternal health and reduced unemployment. In India 217 million women are missing from the workforce who could improve our GDP by an enormous 4.2% if they work. So we have 2.3 million applications for 368 posts of peons in UP, 25,000 with postgraduate degrees. A study in the poorest state of Bihar shows the rate of pilferage, called 'leakages', from the handouts given to the poor. Bihar is voting in assembly elections, which will be decided by handouts, as was the Delhi election. Children will continue to starve. Children do not vote.

Isn't it great that the Prime Minister has no issues?

It is disheartening as well as puzzling to hear so many educated Indians expressing dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Modi for not carrying out 'big bang reforms'. An angry article lists all that is wrong with our political system and the actions needed to correct the problems. " Failure to pass on the full benefits of oil price to consumers, continuing a boondoggle like the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee scheme, announcing a Rs 1.25 lakh crore package to the poll bound state of Bihar and the inaction on chronically sick public sector organisations thus far suggests pussyfooting on the development agenda," says the article. The author seems to have a short memory. The Congress claimed that it was subsidising petroleum products while taxing them heavily and forcing the state controlled oil companies to pay huge dividends which left them near bankruptcy. They used the money on many 'boondoggle' schemes to try and win elections while deferring payment for the subsidies on to the BJP government. To further damage government finances the Congress allowed an increase in the import and hoarding of gold when it knew that it had been booted out and no longer had the mandate to take decisions. As for increasing taxes on oil products we would argue that it is good for the economy. India imports 80% of its crude oil requirement which must be paid in dollars. The price of petrol has fallen at the pump, even with the higher tax priced in. This is not enough. The government must increase tax on diesel and lower it on petrol so that they cost the same. Ordinary people will stop buying diesel cars, reducing pollution levels, and there will not be any need for an extra tax on trucks entering Delhi, causing friction with toll collectors. The reason for bribing Bihar and going soft on failed public sector units is an attempt to increase strength in the Rajya Sabha, without which the government will not be allowed to pass vital bills, like the Goods and Services Tax bill, by the Congress. The Congress may have shot itself in the foot. Had the bill been passed last year the economy would have improved but by the time of the next elections in 2019 ennui may have set in for the Congress to benefit from anti-incumbency. As it is, the GST bill will probably pass by next year, take one year to settle in and the economy will boom by 2019. Bye bye Congress. Indian politicians will inflict any damage on the nation to stay in power. But they do greater harm when they foist their useless children on us. A study has shown how dynastic inheritance of power is bad for every aspect of the economy. The survival of the Congress lies in getting rid of the Gandhis and not in damaging the nation. Or maybe, without the Gandhis it will fall apart. Thank God Modi has no children, or issues, as they known in India. He has to perform.

Bihar has the power to increase jobs in all of India.

As the assembly elections wind down in Bihar a procession of pundits have written their analyses of how people vote and why. Some say that youth vote will be most important because they will vote for policies that create jobs and not mechanically along caste lines. Others point at the enmity between Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar of JDU Party and the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi of the BJP. Nitish Kumar was elected Chief Minister in 2010, in alliance with the BJP but such is his hatred of Modi that he has formed an alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav, someone he used to despise and who is out on bail after being convicted in the fodder scam. Clearly, principle be damned, do anything to win power. Lalu has apparently made a secret pact with Nitish that one of his sons must be appointed Deputy Chief Minister if the alliance wins, which means that he will be able to control the Nitish government. The most important factor in Bihar is caste. Lalu is pitching for the Yadav votes while Nitish hopes to get the votes of lower castes, Muslims and extremely backward castes. Trouble is that although the BJP is seen as a party of upper caste Hindus Modi himself is from a very low caste,who grew up selling tea on trains. Thus lower caste votes will get divided. Why is caste so important in Bihar? Because Bihar is economically extremely backward and a victory for someone from the same caste may mean extra money for development. There are few jobs in Bihar. Public sector jobs account for 93.8% of jobs in the organized sector, the private sector being almost non-existent. Literacy rate is the lowest in Bihar, among all the states in India. The fertility rate is the highest in India and maternal mortality is second to UP. When you have large numbers of young people with little education and no prospect of getting employed then crime rates have to be high, and they are. Because of the fear of kidnapping rich people of Bihar send their children to boarding schools outside the state. The desperation maybe appreciated from the fact that murder convicts, serving life sentences, are in high demand as grooms. There are many reasons why private companies avoid Bihar. It is easier to set up production in a state which is better developed, has good infrastructure, a pool of educated people to recruit from and safety for highly paid managers. Caste based reservations is the only hope of getting a permanent government job, with a steady salary. Unfortunately, this causes extreme jealousy and anger as some castes feel hard done by as the recent agitation by Patels in Gujarat has shown. Victory by one caste means that all government jobs go to it at the expense of others, leading to conflict. A ridiculous 68% of jobs are now reserved in Rajasthan. If Bihar votes for the BJP, Modi will be able to get the GST bill passed, which will jump start the economy. Bihar could thus increase employment in the whole of India. Will it?

Will the liberals accept that world's problems are due to them?

The recent victory of the conservative Law and Justice Party in Poland is an alarming trend towards authoritarianism in Europe, warns a professor. Living in the US his views are colored by a hatred for Russia and its President, Putin. He lists leaders of political parties in various European countries all of whom " view Russia's illiberal state capitalism as a model and its president, Vladimir Putin, as a leader deserving of admiration and emulation ". Right wing parties, like the National Front in France, Lega Nord in Italy and United Kingdom Independence Party in Britain believe that " liberal capitalism and globalization will erode national identity and sovereignty ", which is shared by left wing parties, such as Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain and the Five Star Movement in Italy. "...economic stagnation, high unemployment, rising inequality and poverty, lack of opportunity, and fears about migrants and minorities 'stealing' their jobs and incomes have given such forces a big boost," writes the professor. But, are the people wrong? After all, it was the same liberal capitalism which resulted in the economic crisis of today. The professor should reflect that it is the arrogance of liberals, their conviction in their own infallibility and their ridicule for other opinions that maybe responsible for the rise of intolerance in Europe. " In the 1930s, economic stagnation and depression led to the rise of Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and Franco in Spain," he writes. It was caused by the Versailles Treaty imposed on Germany by pompous liberals after World War I, resulting in such suffering for the people that they voted for Hitler's party in 1933. When the Soviet Union broke up instead of helping Russia to improve its economy and become a part of the European Union the liberals heaped scorn on the drunken antics of its then President, Boris Yeltsin. Insulted, humiliated and robbed by oligarchs the Russians turned to Putin who is seen as a strong man. The liberals in the west abuse him regularly, have intentionally created military confrontations in Georgia and Ukraine and have used these contrived tensions to impose sanctions on Russia, which have seriously harmed its economy. Guess what? Putin's popularity rating has soared. Putin moved troops and planes into Syria to help Assad, catching the west with its pants down. Hundreds of thousands of migrants are flooding into Europe, creating a clash of cultures. The US has sent special forces to help Kurds fight against ISIS. It is not Russian bombs that they should be worried about but Turkish ones because Erdogan has just won an absolute majority in parliamentary elections. Erdogan hates Kurds and Turkey is a NATO partner. Liberals in India have mounted a vicious hate campaign against Hindus and the Prime Minister, based on highly selective reading of events. Liberals should open their minds. Others also have a right to exist.

That is why lucre is known as filthy.

Moody's, a US investor firm, has warned our Prime Minister that irresponsible statements by party members on religion is destroying the credibility of the Indian government and could affect our credit rating. Along with S&P and Fitch, Moody's allots credit ratings to sovereign governments. Credit rating grades the ability of countries to repay any money they borrow from foreign sources. Thus Argentina has a rating of Caa1 by Moody's, with a score of 20, which places it at default level, while Switzerland is rated at Aaa, with a score of 100, showing complete safety. According to Moody's India is at Baa3, which is just above junk level, with a score of 47, but Bahrain, where protests for greater freedom by the majority Shia is crushed by the Sunni royal family, is also rated at Baa3, but with a higher score of 55. The US, naturally, has the highest rating of Aaa, with a score of 97. This is a country where a policeman tossed a school student across the classroom, a 12 year old boy, playing with a toy gun, was shot dead by police thugs, over 30,000 people die of gunshot injuries every year, there are 347 million guns for a population of 317 million people and no politician can get elected if opposed by the National Rifle Association. It is alright for the police to shoot unarmed black people in the US but if some idiots shoot off their mouths in India then Moody's has the audacity to warn us. But surely, India is a sovereign country and all our politicians are outraged at this insult? The Congress taunted the Prime Minister on Moody's report. Many in the media have immediately jumped on this as a vindication of their opposition to Mr Modi because he is seen as a Hindu. There has been an outpouring of venomous scorn on Hindutva, which means Hinduness or being a Hindu. When a fire killed 2 Dalit, or low caste, children last month the media screamed 'caste war'. Upper caste Hindus had set the fire, they said. Guess what? The fire started inside the house, say forensic experts. Is their any apology or shame for the lies they have been spreading? The news has been quietly buried. For Dalits it is lucrative to blame upper castes because they get a new house, money as compensation and a government job if they can get away with it. Ever since a man, belonging to a minority community, was killed for stealing a cow Hindus have been blamed for communal hatred. In Texas a man was sentenced to 99 years in jail for cattle rustling. The same beef-eaters want us to go on talking to Pakistan despite its determination to destroy India. Why is their such hatred for Modi and for Hindus who are seen as his supporters? Because he is destroying an elaborate system of patronage built up over 66 years in which largesse was distributed from taxpayer money by politicians in return for total compliance in all the crimes committed by them. This happened in another socialist country, Venezuela where the economy has been destroyed by handouts and the politicians are lying about it. In Venezuela the same politicians are in power whereas we threw out the crooks. Hence the anger.

We maybe irrational but we are logical.

Are Indians the strangest people on the planet? The Consumer Price Index was 4.4% in September, just a tad higher than 3.7% in August, dramatically down from the double digit rates during Congress raj. The Wholesale Price Index has been negative for 11 months, coming in at -4.54% in September. Despite consistently falling inflation rates people in India expect retail prices to rise by 10.7% in the next 3 months and by an even higher rate of 11.1% in the next one year. Why? Core inflation, which ignores food and fuel, rose to 4.1% in September from 3.9% in August but even so is within comfort range. Apparently, if people expect prices to rise in the future they increase their spending to take advantage of lower prices at present while if they expect prices to fall they delay purchases. Which should be good thing. The inflation rate in Europe is at 0% so the European Central Bank is keeping its interest rate at 0.05%. Interest rate in the US is 0.25% while in the UK it is 0.5%. This is to keep borrowing costs as low as possible so that companies invest in new ventures, creating jobs, which, they hope, will increase the inflation rate to 2% by increasing spending. A higher inflation rate will encourage people to spend more which will result in increased production to meet the demand and create even more jobs. So, with high inflation rates Indians should be splurging on new purchases and the economy should be booming along. But, behavior of people is not guided by economic theories. Neuroscientists are getting involved in economic research, though advertisers have apparently known this all along. Thing is, India is not Europe or the US. China has been cutting interest rate so the Reserve Bank cut interest rate by a hefty 50 basis points last month to boost business. According to the RBI there are only 20 million credit cards in India. Total outstanding credit is Rs 324 billion and average per card is Rs 15,000. Although this may sound huge it is only a fraction of the total population of 1,300 million people who can take advantage of lower borrowing costs. The expectation of rising prices may not increase spending in India. The reason is that there is no safety net for middle class Indians. No unemployment benefit, no income support and no state pension. The poor get cheap food, free schooling in private schools, which has penalised the middle class through rising fees, and various subsidies, while taxpayers get nothing. Rising prices hit the middle class very hard which is shown in the fall in financial savings. So expectation of inflation has the opposite effect in India. Or maybe the method of calculating the inflation rate is wrong. There is logic behind irrational behavior.

What is the use of rescue equipment if the rescuers are dead?

A few days back there was an earthquake in Afghanistan. Although around 7.6 on the Richter scale this one was 200 km below the surface, so it did not do much damage, unlike the one in 2005 which, though of similar magnitude, was only 20 km below the surface and caused extensive damage. The reason for frequent earthquakes in this region is because there is a fault line in the earth's crust underneath the Himalayan range. This is where the Indian plate is subsiding underneath the Eurasian plate at the rate of 40 mm per year and since this will continue into the future we may expect earthquakes to occur regularly in this region. Apparently the quake was felt in Delhi, mostly in higher floors of buildings, though most people on the ground did not feel anything. Scared by the slight tremor residents are demanding equipment for rescue and training in disaster management. Why are people panicking? Because almost all the houses in Delhi are unsafe. Excuses are many. Some blame new buildings built on stilts, to accommodate car parking, some say that builders concentrate on aesthetics and not on safety others blame illegal construction by owners. The real reason is greed, fueled by the explosive rise in real estate prices, which means rental yields are the highest in the world. Almost every building has been modified by owners to increase space, without any regard for safety. It is a huge industry. Owners get increased rents, municipality fellows get huge bribes and large numbers of poorly trained artisans, who have migrated from villages, earn daily wages. If most of the buildings collapse, police, firemen, ambulance drivers and nurses will be particularly affected because they live in unauthorised buildings where rents are relatively affordable. What is the point in having rescue equipment if the people who will operate them are already dead? It is the old parable about catching a monkey by putting a nut in a bottle with a narrow neck and then anchoring the bottle to the ground. The monkey can take its hand out by releasing the nut but is too greedy to do so and is easily captured. The earthquake that hit Japan was 9 on the Richter scale but caused little damage, it was the tsunami that followed that killed over 5,000 people. A building with 10 floors was constructed in 45 days in Mumbai after obtaining permission for repairs. If the media had not reported the violation it would have been sold off as in the Campa Cola case where 35 illegal floors were built and sold off without anyone noticing. The residents have been thrown out but we have not heard of the builders or the municipal fellows being punished. Victims are punished in India while criminals are free to enjoy their spoils. If, God forbid, there is an earthquake in Delhi tens of millions will die. Pray that death is quick.

If the US can, why can't we?

Professors know all the theories but do they know where to apply them? One professor has written about a theory propounded by a sociologist, Mark Granovetter which postulates that an action by one person in response to a perceived offence sets a threshold for the rest of society. This theory was used to explain a spate of shootings in US schools. The professor is writing about the recent attacks on writers in India but he is guilty of conflating the causes of different incidents as the biased media in India has done. There is no excuse for killing anyone even if his writings are intentionally offensive in an effort to sell his book. The commonest cause for murder in India today is a dispute regarding real estate, because prices have risen to astronomical levels, but police have quickly ruled out that motive. We do not know how. In the second incident Shiv Sena activists threw paint over one Kulkarni who was launching a book by the former Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Khushid Mahmud Kasuri. This is completely different from the first incident. Firstly, it is to do with local politics. The Shiv Sena is a junior partner in the present state government in Maharashtra and is afraid of losing control of the municipal corporation of Mumbai, which is the richest in India with a budget of Rs 312 billion. That would make the Sena irrelevant and, since power and pelf come from ministerial posts, politicians in India will kill to win elections. However, the real question is why does this Kulkarni want a former minister of Pakistan to sell books in India? This is a country which regularly threatens to use nuclear weapons against us. At the very least Kulkarni should be charged with sedition for consorting with the enemy. It is a mystery why some Indians are so keen to become pally with Pakistanis when a journalist writes that she and all Pakistanis support the army and the ISI because they fight terrorism. It is clear that she is either ignorant or comfortable with support for terrorist attacks against India. But a bigger mystery is why are we so weak? Why do we concentrate so much on what the US says on Pakistan? It is as if we are wimps being beaten up by a schoolyard bully and then running to complain to the teacher. We analyse every meeting between the US and Pakistan. The US government clearly knows about Pakistani support for terrorists as hacked emails of the CIA Director have revealed. Yet it nods when Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif spouts the same old lies and rewards him by giving eight F16 planes. On the one hand they threaten us and then beg to play cricket against us to make money. Since we admire the US so much we should copy it. Declare Pakistan a terrorist state, cut off all relations with it, build a fence along the border, lay landmines so that not even a mouse can cross over and apply economic sanctions on it. After all Bill Clinton applied sanctions on us after nuclear tests. What is sauce for the goose..... etc.

Satyameva jayate will triumph over gold coins.

Seems that Initial Public Offerings by companies in India this year have received lukewarm response from retail investors. Out of 16 IPOs that have hit the market the portions set aside for retail investors of 7 have been under-subscribed. Why? In April, a study showed that investors would have lost money on 60% of IPOs since 2003 and returns from 20% of those that were trading higher were less than term deposits in banks would have given. From January 2008 to June this year shares of 303 firms have lost 90% of their value. Alban Offshore dropped from Rs 5,151 to Rs 319, MMTC dropped from Rs 1,921 to Rs 45 and Koutons dropped from Rs 1,000 to just Rs 2.45, per share. Is it because the share market in India has crashed? No. Last December the Indian market was ranked sixth in the world in terms of price earnings and price-to-book ratios over 10 years. Why were 60% of investors losing money from IPOs when the market was doing so well? Because most business fellows in India are greedy, more interested in short term gains than in building long term reputations, and the market is highly manipulated by a few big players. Why then do so called experts keep on urging people to invest in shares? They work out the returns on term deposits in banks, real estate, gold and on shares and show how, over the longer term, shares always give returns many times higher than any other type of investment. Even with property prices reaching US levels investing in shares gives higher returns. If you do not have the knowledge to comprehend company balance sheets invest in equity mutual funds, they advise. Your money will be safe with experts, they say. Will it? Mutual funds are more interested in launching new schemes than generating higher income from older ones because the up-front commission is the highest. If the regulator modifies rules for one type of product, for consumer protection, the industry quickly comes out with different ones, to milk the customer. Banks have suffered when they loaned money against shares, based on reports of analysts. So, people do not trust companies, mutual funds or so called experts. Those who need regular income, such as pensioners, invest in term deposits, which are safe but lose value due to inflation, those with lots of money, especially black, buy real estate, and others, who want to guard against inflation but have small amounts of money, buy gold. India has overtaken China as the biggest importer of gold. The government is cracking down on black money and will launch a gold monetisation scheme in which people will get interest if they deposit their gold into banks. Will they? People will be afraid of questions about taxes so they may deposit only the new gold they buy from banks. Still, it may reduce the volume of import. Instead of selling Ashoka Chakra gold coins the government should sell trust. Satyameva jayate will be a game changer.

Does being a liberal mean a complete lack of principles?

There are lots of people of Indian origin in Canada such that 19 have been elected to the parliament in the recent elections. Professor Vivek Dahejia of Carleton University in Canada finds a lot of similarity in the politics of Canada and India. Stephen Harper of the Conservative Party lost the elections to Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party. Justin is the son of former Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau who wore a rose in his lapel, tightened government control over socialized medicine, restricted foreign investment, distanced Canada from the US and transferred the wealth of natural resources to the center. " Loved by writers and artists at home and abroad, he almost single-handedly managed to wreck Canada's economy." If the father was like Nehru then the son is like Rahul Gandhi, except that the Congress has ruled India for 56 out of 67 years since independence and Rahul Gandhi will be the fourth prime minister from the same family, if he manages to win. Harper was hated by Canada's liberals. " The visceral hatred felt by the liberal intelligentsia for the now departed Harper and the Conservatives is matched only by the analogous hatred of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and for similar reasons," writes Prof Dahejia. What crimes did both commit against the liberals? " Both leaders threatened the cosy hegemony of a supposedly liberal - in reality, self-serving, opportunistic, and at times explicitly venal - elite class tied umbilically over decades with a vast, interconnected, nepotistic, and crony-driven patronage network presided over by each country's self-presumed party of government - the Liberals in Canada and the Congress in India," he writes. Known as ' brokerage parties ' by political scientists, these are " without fixed principles or policies " which exploit " the power of the central state to bribe or bully incompatible constituencies to join together to share the spoils of government." So, the liberals hate Modi, not because of his policies, but because he has stopped the handouts the Congress was giving them. Modi refuses to take media persons with him when he travels abroad. Writers, most of whom have probably been read only by family and friends, have been returning their awards. All these liberals are regurgitating the western media attacks on Modi as a Hindu Nationalist because of a few hundred Muslims killed in riots in Gujarat in 2002, while supporting the killing of millions of Muslims by bombing and drones, sanctified by 'Christian Values'. One so called liberal has denied that liberals are anti-Hindu by listing all the times someone has spoken against other religious practices. Oh dear, such lies. Show us when there has been such vicious unrelenting attacks on any other group, over weeks, by every media outlet, as recently mounted on Hindus. How the liberals have been bribed has been exposed by another article bemoaning the silence of university professors who have been bribed with fellowships to travel abroad. So, which liberal to believe?

Politicians should be forced to play rugby.

Rugby union is a physically punishing game. Played over 80 minutes by 2 teams of 15 players each, the game is decided by points. A penalty earns 3 points and a try, in which a player carries the ball over the opposition goal line and places it firmly on the ground, earns 5 points, with another 2 points earned from conversion, which is kicking the ball over the crossbar. A player carrying the ball maybe tackled to the ground and the opposition is pushed in a scrum or a maul, so injuries are frequent. New Zealand and Australia are going to contest the final of the Rugby World Cup in London next Saturday. There was great indignation when the referee awarded a penalty to Australia in the last minute of the quarter final match against Scotland, allowing Australia to win by a single point. The Scots maintain that the infringement was a knock on, which should have resulted in a scrum, but Australians say that several Scottish players were offside and so it was a definite penalty. All this is technical and completely incomprehensible to most Indians, who only understand cricket, but what is easy to understand is that Scotland benefited earlier when they played their group match against Japan on 23 September, just 4 days after Japan had beaten South Africa on 19 September. Normally, teams are given at least 7 days between matches to recover from injuries. If Japan had been given adequate time to prepare Scotland may never have reached the quarter finals. So the loss against Australia was some sort of justice. Whereas there is justice in sports there is no such justice in politics. That slimy liar, Tony Blair has admitted at last that the attack on Iraq was wrong and led to the rise of Islamic State, or ISIS. But he cannot stop lying. He calls it a 'mistake' when, as a lawyer, he should know that when your actions result in the deaths of over 200,000 people, mostly innocent civilians, then you are a criminal, guilty of mass murder. He says that the intelligence was wrong, which again is a lie, because the UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix said that he could find no WMDs in Iraq. He committed to his unequivocal support to the illegal US attack on Iraq one year earlier during his visit to George Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Sadly, Blair's crimes go unpunished. Instead he was appointed a 'peace envoy' for the middle east by the US. A mass murderer as a peace envoy, the irony could not be more painful for those who suffered. But if Blair is despicable then David Cameron is even worse because he engineered the attack on Libya, killing 30,000 people, despite the catastrophe in Iraq. Blair still maintains that removing Saddam Hussein was justified because he was a baddie. Donald Trump says that the world would be better with Saddam alive. And Trump could well be the next president of the US. Rugby players are penalised for fouls but politicians get away with mass murder.

Animal spirits travel on trains.

For years the Indian Railways has been starved of investment and run on the socialist concept of the cheapest possible service for the millions of poor. Trains such as the Janata Express took 40 hours from Delhi to Calcutta and the Toofan Express takes over 45 hours. Air-conditioned Rajdhani takes 18 hours. 'Toofan' means 'typhoon' and 'express' means 'fast'. The irony of naming the slowest train a 'fast typhoon' seems to have been lost on our former leaders. Because tickets on these trains are very cheap they are crowded and because they are excruciatingly slow they become dirty, so travel, especially in summer, is torture. IR has the fourth largest network of tracks after the US, China, and Russia, which are much larger in area than India. Other than walking or cycling trains are the most energy efficient mode of travel which means that cost of importing fuel is much less and they are least polluting. When we think of the US we think of planes and flying but, at 250,000 km, it has the longest tracks in the world. No wonder it is so rich. However, IR carries 23 million passengers every day, which is around 16,000 every minute. Flying maybe quick but it is expensive, unless tickets are bought well in advance, it is very uncomfortable because of limited seat space, especially on low cost airlines, and the amount of luggage is strictly limited, which means it is suitable for short visits. So important is the IR in our nations's economy that we are probably the only country in the world where there is a minister for railways and there is a separate budget for IR every year. During previous coalition governments the railway minister was a political appointee from a smaller party, to get its support in parliament. Naturally, these people used the railways for political purposes, increasing the number of trains to their states and often on non-profitable routes. No wonder the IR was racking up huge losses, leading to worries about its viability. This being India and IR being a public sector company there was corruption at every level. Just this year there was the freight scam, where freight was being deliberately under-weighed, the ticketing scam, where officials were selling tickets to touts instead of passengers, and a bottled water scam, where officials were buying water from private suppliers. Seems that at long last the present government has recognised the importance of IR for the nation and is arranging long term financing to lay new tracks, modern trains for much better passenger services and a dedicated freight corridor. Such spending will not only create more jobs in the short term but will improve domestic trade in the long term. Indian Railways are the arteries of the country. Animal spirits can revive only if it is flowing.

Information before scams may help.

According to a report from Credit Suisse there are 10 companies in India with the highest amount of debt. Their combined debt add up to 27% of corporate loans and 12% of all bank lending. Adani group has debt of Rs 960 billion, Essar Rs 1.01 trillion, GMR Rs 480 billion, GVK Rs 340 billion, Jaypee Rs 752 billion, JSW Rs 582 billion, Lanco Rs 471 billion, Reliance Rs 1.25 trillion, Vedanta Rs 1.03 trillion, and Videocon of Rs 454 billion. Most indebted companies are into minerals, which have been hurt by the crash in commodity prices, real estate, because of the clampdown on black money by the present government, or infrastructure businesses, which have suffered because of delays in land acquisition. More than half the debt of 6 of the 10 companies is highly stressed and their ability to pay interest on their loans, called interest cover, has fallen. GVK has an interest cover of 0, GMR of 0.15 and Lanco of 0.2. Less than 1.5 is taken as weak cover. Jaypee group has defaulted on 65% of its debt, Essar on 36%, GMR on 37% and Lanco on 38% of its debt. These are terrible figures and one would expect that banks would be foreclosing on their loans and taking over the assets of the companies. Not so. Loan approvals to indebted companies have risen by 85% since 2011-12. Partly it is because bank officials are afraid to declare bad debts on their books so they issue new loans to offset the previous ones, called evergreening, and partly because of enormous corruption in our banks. A scam amounting to Rs 60 billion in money laundering, called hawala transfer in India, has been unearthed at the Noida branch of the Bank of Baroda. A loan for bribes was discovered last year at Syndicate Bank. There are brokers who are earning millions of rupees by arranging loans for dodgy business fellows, who have no intention of repaying, by distributing expensive presents or bribes. Most of our companies do not disclose all the information required under our rules. How are investors to make informed decisions on whether to buy shares in these companies? No wonder Indians have a deep distrust of the stock market. But not just private companies. Our government is also slothful in collecting and releasing information about the economy. Figures released are corrected later. How is the Reserve Bank to decide on monetary policy and companies on investing if they have no idea on the direction of the economy. Toll charges are high, causing resentment among users, because traffic projections were wrong. It is because of a lack of proper accounting that we have the yearly circus of the budget where taxes are regularly increased to cover unforeseen deficits. Ignorance is blindness. Digital information before digital economy.

Why should the strong surrender to the weak?

Physicians have known about geographical differences in disease prevalence for a very long time. For example Chagas Disease is found in South America, Yellow Fever in Africa and Pernicious Anemia almost exclusively in blond, white skinned people. Economists, on the other hand, apply the same theories, developed mostly in western universities, to every country in the world, regardless of climate, culture, eating habits and communicable diseases, which reduce the strength and efficiency of the people. India has the highest number of child mortality in the world. Partly because of our huge population and very high fertility rates but in large part because of poor sanitation. The Prime Minister has started a project to provide toilets in every house but there is cultural resistance to having a dirty room within a home. Why is all this relevant? Because ever since Thomas Piketty wrote his bestseller about rising inequality there has been a deluge of articles about it by economists. Figures look almost similar. The richest 1% own 50% of the total wealth of the world while in India the top 1% own 53% of the total wealth. There can be no comparison between India, which is about $2 trillion economy with the US, which at $16 trillion is 8 times the size, with one-third the population, and yet the rate of inequality is the same. Clearly the causes cannot be the same so the remedies have to be completely different. The US is an unabashedly capitalist country which prides itself as the 'Land of Opportunity', where you can follow the 'American Dream', which is for anyone prepared to work hard and take the risk of failure. Nowhere is this more evident than in Silicon Valley, where failure of one idea does not prevent a person from starting again with a new idea. Socialism is written into our constitution which has meant absolute power for politicians, which includes the power to distribute resources to family and friends, to use taxpayer money without any accountability, to levy very high taxes which rewards those with black money, and to pour trillions into social schemes which reward the poor to produce more children, thus keeping us mired in poverty. So, what should we do to get out of the pit? Some recommend high taxes, a minimum wage, guaranteed employment and social support for the poor. Others say that redistribution does not work but inclusive growth, in which the government invests in training the workforce to improve productivity, is the answer. Professors recommend 'quality education, skill development, health services, transparency, a level playing field, restraint on expenditure' and so on. But we need politicians to make all that possible and they have no intention of doing so. The Congress passed the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution which replaced Fundamental Rights with Fundamental Duties and is resisting the GST bill tooth and nail. We are weak, they are strong. Why should they give it up?

Why are they afraid of becoming wealthy?

If we listen to our media, India is in a terrible state where the economy is doing very poorly, despite the Prime Minister's promise of 'achhe din', which means 'good days', the poor are suffering, because spending on the MGNREGA scheme has fallen, and Hindu Nationalists are running amok killing everyone. Seems that there has never been such suffering until the BJP government was elected last year. The media is incensed because the Prime Minister has put a stop to taking journalists on his foreign trips, where they enjoyed great food and drinks at taxpayer expense. Journalists love going to western countries and many probably have children studying or working there so they echo western press in its hostility to India. Civil servants are incensed because subsidies are being dispensed to the poor directly into newly opened bank accounts, which cuts off a source of extra income for our babus. Only Re 1 out of every Rs 5 spent on the MGNREGA scheme reached the poor so the spending on this has come down, causing great anger to the social workers and do-gooders who thrive on the lucrative business of poverty. Poverty is not only big business it is a fairly easy way to get a Nobel Prize in economics. Business men are disappointed that they cannot game the system by paying ministers and civil servants as in the past. Mines and telecom spectrum are being auctioned in a transparent manner, cutting off opportunities for massive scams as in the past. Not everyone is critical though. In an article one Rajiv Kumar, of the Centre for Policy Research, gives us a list of the achievements of this government. Credit to the corporate sector grew 10.2% in September, which may be a sign of increased investments. Corporate debt to equity ratio has declined to below 80% and will fall quickly once the economy starts to grow again. Sale of commercial vehicles expanded by 24.5% from April-May. Foreign Direct Investment, which is long term and not hot money, grew 10% during those months. Inflation has fallen to low levels allowing the Reserve Bank to cut interest rate by 0.5% last month. Capital expenditure of the government has increased 38%. This is going into infrastructure and to recapitalise banks and so is good for long term growth. The government has clamped down heavily on the cash economy, which has stalled the real estate sector. Apparently 100,000 fellows have fled offshore to protect their black money. It will take time for the economy to adjust to open transparent business when real growth will spurt. That is terrifying politicians of other parties who are used to living like kings on our money. It is amusing to see the Congress bleeding for our farmers when their condition has remained abysmal through 56 years of Congress rule. Too much wealth and power in poverty. No one wants to lose it.

If natural is better should we follow Mother Nature?

Vegetarians in India have been branded as fanatics after the killing of a Muslim man in UP, allegedly for eating beef. Because most news reporting in India is biased and sensational we do not know whether the man was attacked for stealing cows, which cost a lot of money, or for eating meat. The debate on eating meat has become religious when it should be based on rational logic. We can dispense with God straight away because God must have created all the predators we see today. Predators appeared at the beginning of life on earth and have played a crucial role in evolution. So, if not God, what about morality? Is it moral to cause pain to an animal for food? Hindus slaughter animals by beheading it in one blow. Does it cause pain? Millions of human beings have been beheaded in history. During the French revolution the guillotine was used almost on an industrial scale. Charles I of England was beheaded with an axe. Today the ISIS uses a scimitar for beheading its victims. There is no study to see if victims of beheading suffer any pain but we can conjecture that, as the cells of the sensory cortex die off, there could be intense pain for some seconds. So, should we subject an animal to pain just for food? The question then arises as to whether death from natural causes, such as old age, cancer, stroke or heart failure, is painless. Ischemic pain is so severe that it needs intravenous morphine for relief. There was great rejoicing when passive euthanasia was allowed in India by the Supreme Court. Animals cannot talk so will have to suffer unnecessary pain from illness. Nature does not allow such suffering. In the wild, an old or sick animal will be killed by predators. Even a sick lion will be killed by other lions or by hyenas. Perhaps, stunning, as practiced in the west, is the most humane way of slaughter. Surely, eating meat is bad for health? Not so. Gujarat, which has probably the largest number of vegetarians, has the highest rates for diabetes and hypertension in India. Raising animals is very bad for the environment, right? Cows are said to be methane factories, which is worse than producing CO2. Trouble is that vegetarians in India consume large quantities of cow's milk and milk products. Farm animals cause depletion of natural resources, such as water. Rice takes a lot of water to cultivate and farmers burn the stubble after harvesting, creating severe pollution. Because it is difficult to obtain the same nutrition from a plant based diet you need much more land which means destruction of forests. The haze in south east Asia is for producing palm oil. Pesticides are highly toxic and poison water sources. Finally, meat eating animals are much more intelligent than grass eaters. If humans become vegetarians we may evolve backwards into goats. Do we really want that?

The numbers are sky high but isn't that a great distance to fall?

Lu Yucheng, China's Ambassador to India has written a glowing article about how China is modifying its economy from investment led growth to consumption and how it intends to benefit all its neighbors as it becomes more wealthy. He cites a bunch of figures to support his thesis. Market valuation of Xiaomi has soared to $45 billion in just 5 years. Market capitalisation of Smartisan, which wants to create new ideas for smart phones, has risen to $400 million within 3 years. Alibaba is a world renowned company , valued at $150 billion. Impressive. But in May Alibaba was sued in the US for selling counterfeit products on its site. Apparently Gucci bags, which sell for $795, were being offered for $2-5 on its site, provided the customer bought at least 2000 pieces. Alibaba is lobbying hard not to be blacklisted in the US. " China attaches importance to strengthening cooperation with neighbouring countries, and India is among our largest development partners," writes Mr Yu. And again," China is known as the 'world factory', and India the 'world office'. We can better align our development strategies and work together to make the Chinese phoenix and the Indian peacock fly higher." Of course, as ambassador, it is his job to dish out bromides and we wish we could believe him. Even as he was writing this article China commissioned a huge dam on the Brahmaputra in Tibet to divert its waters to its territory. China is the main protector of the Pakistani government's policy of supporting terrorist groups which mount attacks against India. The Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong killed around 45 million people. While other countries would revile such a monster Mao is still revered in China and his body is still preserved in a mausoleum in Beijing, an idol of a god for the Party, which does not believe in religion. One of the men who suffered in that revolution, Xi Jinping is today's president. One would expect that having suffered under a dictator Xi would move towards more democracy and transparency but he has become more powerful by using corruption trials to put opponents in prison and treating leaders of other countries with contempt. Xi is visiting Britain today where he will be treated as royalty as he stays at Buckingham Palace. Our Prime Minister is to visit Britain next month and he must be careful not to fall into any British trap as it struggles to stay relevant in the world. China's growth rate has slowed to 6.9% which would be considered fantastic in any other country but as it adjusts its economy away from investment unemployment may rise. Xi has made a lot of enemies and as the pressure builds there may be a coup and a civil war. That would benefit everyone.

The lies we believe. Are we stupid?

British tabloid, The Mail on Sunday claims to have obtained secret emails, released from private servers of the former US Secretary of State for Obama, Hillary Clinton. They were written by the Secretary of State, Colin Powell to then President, George W Bush. They reveal Tony Blair's promise that Britain would support any war on Iraq militarily, one year before the attack on Iraq. Bush had flattered Blair's ego by inviting him to his private ranch at Crawford, Texas and the photo of Blair smiling at Bush, as the two men shake hands, shows his adulation for the American President. At the time Blair said," This is a matter for considering all the options. We're not proposing military action at this point in time." Powell wrote in his memo to Bush," Blair continues to stand by you and the US as we move forward on the war on terrorism and on Iraq. He will present to you the strategic, tactical and public affairs lines that he believes will strengthen global support for our common cause." So not only was Blair lying to the British people he taught Bush what lies to tell the world. Blair lied repeatedly to the British parliament about Saddam Hussein developing Weapons of Mass Destruction, even claiming that Saddam had " active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes" and that he had " no doubt " that inspectors would find the " clearest possible evidence " of WMDs. UN chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix found no evidence of WMDs in Iraq but Bush and Blair attacked Iraq anyway, killing hundreds of thousands. Colin Powell lied to the UN Security Council, even to the extent of manufacturing evidence. The Bush family apparently had extensive business links with Saudis, including Bin Laden's brother, Salem. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis but the FBI is accused of deliberately suppressing evidence linking Saudi involvement in 9/11 attacks. Maybe, because the CIA and the Bush family had extensive links to the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International of Pakistan which shut down in 1991 but its activities were taken over by Bin Laden. Obama suppressed information obtained from Bin Laden's house after he was killed, to claim the Al Qaeda had been defeated, for his reelection in 2012. David Cameron's cronies acted as agents of UAE to attack Qatar in the British press. Yet the Emir of Qatar was welcomed at Buckingham Palace by the Queen when he visited in October last year. Cameron used a Security Council resolution authorising protection of civilians in Libya, especially Benghazi, to kill Gaddafi. 30,000 civilians died and 50,000 were injured. Libya has descended into anarchy today. They lie, we believe, we must be stupid.