Japan has suffered enormously from the recent tsunami and the resultant problem with the nuclear power plant at Fukushima. One industry which has probably suffered the most is the fishing industry as coastal communities lost large numbers of people as well as almost all fishing boats. Fears about radiation in sea water is preventing people from eating fish. The industry will take months, if not years, to recover. This gives the government an opportunity to set guidelines for the industry. Overfishing is depleting the oceans of fish stock. Japan caught 65000 tons of shark about 40 years ago, by 2009 it was down to 35000 tons. Blue fin tuna has become an endangered species and may soon disappear. However it is probably whaling that gives Japan a bad reputation. Whales are mammals and their enormous size makes them difficult to kill quickly. They must suffer terrible pain as they are harpooned and try frantically to escape. Yet Japan refuses to stop this barbaric practice insisting that it has the right to catch small numbers of sperm and minky whales for experiments. All the whales end up on restaurant menus. What kind of experiment starts by killing the subject? Surely one whale killed for dissection is enough, there is no need to kill so many year after year to study the anatomy and physiology of whales. Clearly it is a lie to cover the continuation of this cruelty and gives Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd an opportunity to campaign against the country. We admire the courage, discipline, and industry of the Japanese and pray that they recover quickly from the tragedy. We hope they will protect other species in the future.

When will we stop sucking up to the Pakis? Nehru would not give 24 hours to General Cariappa to rid Kashmir of Paki infiltrators. Lal Bahadur Shastri signed away all the gains made by our brave soldiers against far superior weapons such as Patton tanks and F14 fighter jets at Tashkent without getting anything in return. Indira Gandhi returned 80,000 Paki soldiers for nothing by signing an accord at Shimla with ZA Bhutto who had no intention of honoring what he signed up to. Rajiv Gandhi is said to have refused refueling facility to Israelis who wanted to take out Pakistan's nuclear plant which has allowed the Pakis to build up an arsenal bigger than ours. Now our most revered Prime Minister has invited the Paki Prime Minister, what's his name, to watch the cricket World Cup semifinal being held at Mohali. We know that our politicians and civil servants consider Indian citizens as dross to be treated with ultimate contempt. They demand right of way on our roads. They can turn up at the last moment and occupy a seat in first class on any train by throwing out someone with confirmed reservation. They even demand special service from Hindu Gods by going right to the head of a queue of people waiting to offer prayers. But this time it is humiliation not just for citizens but for the entire nation. People living around the cricket ground at Mohali have been forbidden from going to the roofs of their buildings because sharpshooters will be positioned on the roofs to guard Paki politicians. Indians are to be denied right to their properties not just for our scum but for Paki scum as well. Does the Congress want to destroy the country?

How innocent our judges are. Supreme Court judges were upset at a 14 page status report submitted by the Enforcement Directorate investigating black money stashed abroad by Indians. " No further information is forthcoming from you. The whole concentration is focussed only on one individual ( Hassan Ali Khan ). What about the others?" the judges asked. They said, " We would like to know what progress has been made by you in each case. We would also like to know from you on next hearing the progress made in investigation from the national security aspect and what is the source of such money which is more serious aspect." Hear, hear. All of us Indians would definitely like to know the answer to these questions. The sleuths are helpless. They are being told by their superiors not to find anything that will embarrass criminal politicians and thieving, parasitic civil servants. We certainly do not want another Bofors style comedy wherein our sleuths investigated all the hot fleshpots of the world before closing the case. The justices should keep things simple. Order the detectives to concentrate on stopovers. Go through the itineraries of all the politicians and civil servants as they fly around the world on junkets at taxpayer expense. Find out who stopped off in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, Cayman islands, Bermuda and so on and the picture will quickly come into focus. There will be the occasional confusion as in the World Economic Forum at Davos, which happens to be in Switzerland, but in most cases the answer will be oh so clear. We would also like to enjoy this game of hide and seek. What fun.

As part of bankruptcy proceedings the US Northwest chapter of the Rome based Society of Jesuits has agreed to pay out $ 166.1 million to compensate 500 victims of sexual and psychological abuse by priests in 5 US states lasting for decades. Lot of people feel that this is because of enforced celibacy demanded by the Catholic church of its priests. This stems from the concept of the " Original Sin " wherein Adam and Eve were thrown out of paradise for having sex. What is not explained is why did God create sex organs in the first place and why did he create Eve when Adam was lonely instead of giving him some other source of entertainment such as video games or Facebook. The second problem is the absolute faith demanded by the church. Bishops arm themselves with a shepherd's crook and the worshipers are called a " flock " as in a flock of sheep who are expected to follow without question. Such absolute power leads to abuse as the victims are conditioned to believe that they must suffer in silence. Power is not static. To extend its power base the church resorts to conversion. Did Jesus ever say, " Thou shalt call them heathens and convert them in my name for, verily, I am Jesus the Christ." ? Conversion is thus a form of conquest. That is why there is and has always been so much violence in the world in the name of religion. Hinduism is the only religion which does not convert anybody and so Hindus have never gone out of India to fight with anyone. Instead throughout centuries we have suffered wave upon wave of attacks by other religions who have wanted to send us to paradise by slaughtering us. Conversion and killings are still going on.

Apparently Earth Hour is held on the last Saturday of March every year where people switch off their lights and electrical appliances at 8.30 pm local time to save electricity and thereby reduce greenhouse gases. In other parts of the world it is a serious matter but for Indians it is a joke. Because we already have blackouts, known euphemistically as " load shedding ," for hours on end without any warning. Any idiot in the company supplying electricity, usually under state government control, can switch off power at whim and phones are taken off the cradle so that consumers do not disturb reception fellows with repeated calls wanting to know when power supply will return. China has been building one power station every week for the last few years. Damage to Japan's power plants have become international cause for concern and is being discussed on major international news channels. But here in India we are supposed to be grateful for every hour we receive electricity. In some states such as UP power cuts can continue for 20 hours a day yet the Chief Minister cancelled the building of a plant, which would have supplied 4000 megawatts, because the businessman building it was close to the previous Chief Minister. Yet criminal politicians and thieving civil servants get preferential supply of electricity so that air conditioners can be on 24/7. Already we are being warned that there will be massive shortfalls this summer because coal production has not been as predicted. The idea is to keep the people so harassed because of lack of essential services that they will be too busy trying to survive to question the scum. Incredible India.

First tell a whopping lie, then get your propaganda channel to repeat it endlessly and people will start accepting it as truth. David Cameron and Sarkozy claim to be bombing Libya apparently to save innocent civilians. The BBC endlessly repeats the lie in every news bulletin. We hear a voice of some Dr Sinbad from Benghazi who confirms that hundreds of women and children have been killed and wounded by Qaddafi's aerial bombardment. He then thanks the British for bombing Qaddafi's forces and pleads for it to continue. The truth is that the allies are supporting the eastern tribes in a civil war against Qaddafi's western tribes. We see heavily built armed men who are fighting against Qaddafi and told that their arms are no match for Qaddafi's forces. Occasionally we see a burnt out wreck of a truck but till date we have not seen any modern tanks or other military hardware. On rare occasions a plane would drop a bomb but far away from residential areas probably as a warning to the rebels. The allies, on the other hand, are using cruise missiles and bombing Tripoli from the air. We are never shown how many civilians they are killing who are probably being dismissed as " collateral damage " as has happened in other places. If the eastern tribes do manage to defeat Qaddafi there is every chance that they will slaughter those of the western tribes and anyone they suspect of having been in the army. How will the allies stop such a massacre if it happens. Will they start bombing Benghazi? Will Cameron and Sarkozy be tried as war criminals? Sadly Amnesty International and the International Criminal Court are controlled by whites so the villains will escape.

Syria seems to be following a familiar path. Ban protests, use police to try and stop protesters, use lethal force killing a few dozen and when infuriated people come out in greater numbers announce some cosmetic reforms hoping to divide the protesters. This is what Saleh has been trying in Yemen with little success as the crowds keep getting larger. Syria should study what other countries have done. Bahrain invited Saudi Arabia to send in forces, declared a state of emergency, forcibly cleared out all protesters from Manama and arrested some of the leaders. They could do this because the rulers are Sunnis while the protesters are Shia so Bahrain blamed Iran for fomenting trouble. Iran is furious and recalled its ambassador to Bahrain but can hardly complain. Iran used maximum force against its protesters shutting down the internet, arresting leaders and allowing the Basij militia to kill and rape at will. This has worked for two years but tensions remain. Algeria has used its oil wealth to increase salaries of teachers, police and other government employees and is selling food at heavily subsidised rates. There remains another strategy that Syria could adopt. Try and engineer a proxy war against an external enemy which, in this case, would be Israel. Syria has longstanding grievance over Israeli occupation of the Golan heights. Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel for the last few days and a bus was bombed in Jerusalem a couple of days ago. Syria could ask Hezbollah to fire missiles into Israel to prod Israel into aerial bombardment. Would Iran send fighters into Saudi Arabia in the confusion remains to be seen. Endless possibilities.

A Delhi court has charged a government engineer with negligence because he allowed mosquitoes to breed in a south Delhi court complex. Five judges contracted dengue. The engineer contested the decision saying that as a civil servant he could not be prosecuted without permission from his department. Additional Sessions Judge, Virender Bhatt said, " The negligence shown by a public servant is an anti-thesis to the carefulness and diligence with which he is expected to discharge his official functions" ( Hindustan Times, March 20 ). We feel sorry for the engineer. It was his bad luck that judges came down with dengue. Had a million ordinary citizens been infected with the deadly virus instead he would be safe. Children die regularly by falling into manholes left uncovered. Motorists die in accidents because roads have been dug up and left without any warning signs. People are electrocuted when badly connected power lines fall down. Everyday thousands of people all over India are dying because of negligence of thieving, parasitic civil servants but we are helpless. A civil servant is immune from prosecution no matter how lethal the consequences of his callous negligence. Thousands of people die everyday in traffic accidents. Freeloading press immediately clamor for tougher punishments for speeding motorists and politicians are happy to oblige. Higher fines mean more revenues and more earning from bribes for the police. The truth is that no one in India knows how to drive because everyone has obtained licenses with bribes. Who is in charge of licensing? The police, of course. When the state is the enemy people will die.

Former President of Israel, Moshe Katsav has been sentenced to 7 years in prison for rape and sexual assaults. His punishment is for assaults and rape of a few women but in India politicians are regularly raping the country and assaulting the constitution with complete impunity. Exposures by Wikileaks of cables by US diplomats show a Member of the Rajya Sabha bragging about bribing some members of the opposition to win a trust vote in 2008. Answering to the leaks the Prime Minister said that he could not " confirm the veracity, contents or even the existence of such communications." In response Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange said, " The comments I have been hearing from Prime Minister Singh these, to me, seem to be a deliberate attempt to mislead the public by suggesting that governments around the world do not accept the material." He further said, " A man who is innocent does not behave like that. That doesn't mean people making those statements like Prime Minister Singh and so on are guilty of this particular crime." What Assange is implying is that our most revered Prime Minister is lying his head off. Well we are used to Indian politicians lying after committing the most heinous crimes. After all what criminal is going to plead he is guilty.

Several states will be holding elections to their assemblies in the next few months and the air is already thick with promises of bribery. One party is promising free mixer/grinder to women, free laptops to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students, 35 kg of free rice to Below Poverty Level families and free bus travel to senior citizens if elected back to power. This is in addition to free color televisions which it promised in the previous election. So who is going to pay for this bag of goodies that this party is so generously promising? The taxpayer, of course. Why do politicians make such extravagant irresponsible promises which will bankrupt the exchequer? Because winning elections is extremely lucrative for politicians, their families, including several wives, and friends. This is the same party which is said to have caused a loss of Rs 600 billion to the exchequer in the 2G scam where, according to rumor, it made a cool Rs 100 billion from telecom companies who were given licenses illegally for token sums of money. There is no business in the world where the investment is paid by the taxpayer but the profits go to the players. However, no one will dare protest about such blatant robbery. Three journalists were killed when they exposed one of the players as a thief but the murderer is not only free but is promised a very high post if victorious. The money for the bribery will be raised through illegal loot. One way is to force doctors to renew their registrations every few years for large sums of money. This while selling fake flying licenses for Rs 500000. Politicians and civil servants continue to loot while hapless citizens pay the price.

Arab League Secretary General, Amr Mussa says, " What has happened in Libya differs from the goal of imposing a no-fly zone. What we want is protection of civilians and not bombing other civilians." Is he trying to be cute? A look at the history of Europe would have shown him that these are blood thirsty barbarians have a history of slaughter going back thousands of years. Apart from the two World Wars they used to have 30 years wars and even a 100 years war. Gaddafi was always a bogey man for them and of course Libya has oil. Mugabe has killed many more people and survives by abusing Britain in every speech he makes but who cares if there is nothing to loot. Arab countries wanted to feed Gaddafi to the killers hoping they could continue suppress their own people without interference. Did they expect that Cameron would be happy with his pilots roaming the skies of Libya? He wants to be a Margaret Thatcher or at least a Tony Blair and only warm, red Libyan blood on desert sands will appease his thirst. Small man with delusions of grandeur. As for the opponents of Gaddafi they should realise that his supporters will blame them for loss of life and a long civil war looks very likely. The criminals bombed the Serbs but have they been able to unite Bosnia? Only the presence of UN troops is keeping the two sides apart. When Saddam fled Iraqis were overjoyed and we remember the scenes of his statue being toppled and people hitting it with shoes. Well, guess what? His victor also had shoes thrown at him in Baghdad and Iraq remains a deeply divided country. If Gaddafi is wrong to kill Libyans then Britain and France are equally wrong.

Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court, Justice Dinakaran has been charged with 16 acts of corruption by a Rajya Sabha panel. Some of the charges are so serious they would do credit to a mobster. They include - illegal encroachment on public property and land belonging to Dalit and other weaker sections, 5 Tamil Nadu Housing Board plots in favor of his wife and two daughters, destruction of evidence, undervaluation of sale agreements, evasion of stamp duty and illegal constructions, and resorting to irregular and dishonest administrative actions by fixing rosters of judges to facilitate dishonest judicial decisions while he was Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court. What does " fixing rosters of judges to facilitate dishonest judicial decisions " mean? Does it mean that he knew which judges could be induced to pronounce deliberately wrong decisions or, in other words, were crooks? That surely means that a substantial number of judges are corrupt which, in turn, prompts more appeals to the Supreme Court which is already overloaded. A bench of the Supreme Court has said, " No government wants a strong judiciary." ( Times of India, February 13, 2011 ). This remark came in a phone tapping case that has been so delayed by adjournments that only one witness has been examined in last 4 years. But surely judges preside over their courts and can refuse unnecessary adjournments, a ploy to waste time by unscrupulous lawyers. Judges want higher salaries, more judges, better courts and better facilities but that will not stop lawyers from asking for a case to be adjourned. Delays help criminals. Stop hand wringing, do something.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution authorising a no fly zone over Libya. This was authored by the French and the British who, no doubt, see it as a foreign policy triumph. Sarkozy of France is a small man with pretensions of being a Nepoleon. He should realise that Nepoleon led from the front and did not hide behind his wife while his pilots killed hapless Libyans from the air. As for David Cameron of Britain he would dearly love to suck up to Obama as Tony Blair did with Bush. How he would love to have photos showing him standing shoulder to shoulder with Obama in the Rose garden of the White House or walking in casual wear outside Camp David. He failed to win outright majority in the last general elections and is Prime Minister because Nick Clegg of the Lib Dems saw this as his only chance to ever hold a ministerial post. Cameron promised no " frontline reductions " in essential services and an " end to top-down reorganisation of the NHS ", promises he has not kept. Indeed he has broken every promise including VAT, child benefit, education maintenance allowance, increasing NHS spending " in real terms every year ", incapacity benefit and many more ( Guardian Weekly, March 4 ). His vicious cuts in public spending, prompted by some weird right wing ideology, has already resulted in job losses and will most probably tip the economy into a second recession. He knows people will feel real pain very soon and he will quickly become a hate figure in Britain and desperately needs some photo ops to appear statesman like. Sadly killing a few Libyans will not achieve that. He may end up a war criminal like Tony Blair.

Exposures from Wikileaks seem to show that the Congress paid some opposition MPs in the last parliament Rs 100 million each to win a trust vote. Is it possible and will Indians believe such a charge? Absolutely. Politicians are capable of any crime and, since they control the police, will escape as usual. Defending the government our most revered Finance Minister said, " I cannot confirm or deny the contents of the cables. The government elected is accountable to the 15th Lok Sabha and not to the 14th Lok Sabha." How weasel is that ? This is the old argument that winning an election condones any crime because the people must have taken it into account while voting. Firstly, we did not know and secondly, what choice do we have. As an old Bengali saying goes, " Feces stinks the same from any side." However, the Americans knew and this may explain a cable saying that the new cabinet is pro US. If foreign governments know of the crimes committed by politicians they can, naturally, dictate our foreign policy. After Kargil, attacks on the parliament and the Mumbai attacks our government goes on " bended knees " to offer " unconditional " peace talks to Pakistan. Doing so allows the Pakis to reduce troop deployment on its borders with India and shift them to the Afghanistan border. Here they can engage the Taliban and help reduce attacks on US soldiers. Meanwhile the US is supplying the Pakis with F 16s, night vision goggles, smart bomb equipment and other military hardware to kill Indians. US lives are more valuable than Indian lives, right? When the government is the enemy of the people there will be a Union Carbide every day.

So, the double murderer, Raymond Davies walks free as we all knew he would. After all he is an American and Americans grow up with the knowledge that they are allowed to murder, torture, rendition, lock up without trial, in short commit any crime without any fear of punishment. They learn from their history lessons about Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and about how to use nuclear weapons, napalm, dioxin, depleted uranium, cluster bombs, land mines and, in the case of Davies, plain old hand gun. At least the Pakis dragged out the affair for sometime and put the spotlight on crimes committed by Americans while our ministers accompanied Andersen to the airport and gave him hearty send off after the Union Carbide massacre. There have been riots in Pakistan as religious fanatics have tried to attack US consulates. The government, which is already deeply unpopular, will be under even greater pressure and Zardari's days could be numbered. The news must have excited Nawaz Sharif so much that he has apparently been admitted to hospital with chest pains. However, the Americans may have made a long term strategic error by publicly bullying the Pakis to release Davis by holding up aid. The civilian government is weak. The army controls much of the economy and desperately wants control of Afghanistan so that they can continue to target India. The ISI is infiltrated with jihadists and there are disparate groups of crazy fanatics who will be enraged and hurt Americans elsewhere. Americans may end up losing a lot of lives in exchange for one. Sometimes brain is better than brawn.

About couple of weeks back the COO of Air India was forced to resign by the government because it did not like comments made by him. Mr Gustav Baldauf was brought in to turn around the loss making airline and is said to have remarked, " When you call someone from outside, let him work. The government should control but let him work. It should not be involved in day-to-day operations." Eminently sensible we think but not for the criminal politicians. A minister's daughter is said to have forced Air India to cancel a scheduled domestic flight and used the aircraft to take her and her friends to a cricket match. Meanwhile the Aviation Minister admitted in the Lok Sabha that Air India earns Rs 360 million/day while spending Rs 570 million a loss of Rs 210 million/day. The company owes Rs 1.9 billion to oil companies which are also owned by the government so the taxpayer is losing out because criminals and their families are using the airlines for personal junkets. Meanwhile Parminder Kaur Gulati, captain of an IndiGo flight to Goa landed her nose wheel first and, on investigation, was found to have obtained her license based on a fake mark sheet. Since then 3 others have been suspended on similar grounds. Licenses are granted by the Director General of Civil Aviation, a government body. Seems that officials change marks of failing candidates on payment of Rs 5-7 hundred thousand with touts collecting Rs 60000. Just Rs 5 hundred thousand for the lives of 300 innocent people. Hindu mythology has stories of Gods fighting demons to protect humans. Today all politicians and civil servants are demons and the Gods have given up. Can anyone save us now?

The middle east is slowly but nicely coming to a boil. About a thousand troops with tanks have crossed over from Saudi Arabia into Bahrain, apparently, to guard official installations against protesters. Saudi Arabia is 90% Sunni while Bahrain is 80% Shia ruled by a Sunni royal family. The protesters want an end to Sunni rule and see Saudi forces as an invasion and an act of war. The Saudi government is worried about a Shia takeover of Bahrain because that will increase Iran's influence right at their doorstep and also because the oil containing eastern region of the country is home to its Shia minority. The Sunnis hate Shias with such ferocity that if necessary the Saudis will push the Shia into the waters of the Gulf but they will never allow them to gain power. In contrast to the venom being poured over Libya the US will only bleat about " restraint," " dialogue" and " political reforms." Iran, the only Shia country on the other side of the Gulf, will be furious but are hardly in a position to protest having treated its own protesters with extreme violence. Saudi Arabia has a long border to the north with Iraq, 60% of whose population is Shia and live along the Saudi border. The Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia, has used security forces against students protesting against corruption killing at least 20. Iraqi leaders took shelter in Iran during Saddam's crackdown and will always side with Iran in whatever it may do. The Shias would love to control the two holy mosques at Makkah and Medina. Will Iran mount an attack on Saudi Arabia from the north when the US troops leave? Will the war draw muslims from all over? Whatever happens it will be very interesting.

The government is set to introduce a bill called the Information Technology Amendment Act, 2008. This act demands due diligence from any " intermediary " which is defined as " any entity which, on behalf of another, receives, stores or transmits any electronic record." Such a broad definition, naturally, includes all service providers including internet cafes and telecom companies. In a sinister move they have included bloggers in the catch all definition which means a blogger will be held responsible for any comment left on his blog site and may end up in jail. Any material which is " threatening, abusive, objectionable, defamatory, vulgar, racial " or any other that they can dream of will invite punishment. So who will decide what is " objectionable "? Some criminal politician or thieving, parasitic civil servant, of course. Dr Binayak Sen is serving a life term for the crime of " sedition " because he allegedly carried a letter from a Naxal leader in jail. The government released 5 dangerous Naxals in exchange for the release of a kidnapped IAS officer but, hey, what judge will dare send a politician or a civil servant to jail. This act is an attack on freedom of speech. The politicians have controlled the organised media by a combination of threats and hand outs. Journalists are given cheap land for houses, cheap drinks at army rates in their clubs and free seats on ministerial flights. Tehelka showed the big stick when taxpayer money was used to drive it out of business. Like vermin politicians and civil servants like the darkness. They hate the light of truth that bloggers bring. Libya has but one Qaddafi, India has hundreds. Eliminate the vermin.

Of all natural calamities earthquakes are the most frightening and the most cruel. In most disasters such as floods, tornadoes, even volcanic eruptions end is mercifully swift but to die slowly over several days trapped under a collapsed building with broken limbs as happens in an earthquake is horrific. However, in Japan the quake did not bring down buildings, if we believe the video clips being shown on news channels, but it was the following tsunami which caused all the deaths. We see an entire town of 13000 people in the Miyagi prefecture being swept away. Only the hospital is left standing with, perhaps, no survivors to treat. This must be because of strict building codes in Japan which experiences 20 shocks daily. Imagine a quake of that magnitude hitting India. Builders are mostly criminals using low quality materials and their proximity to criminal politicians to escape scrutiny. Inspectors grow rich on bribes. Not one public building has emergency escape routes because that would be a waste of space which means money. Japan is a small country with a shrinking population. In India, with our population and unsafe buildings, a quake of 8.9 on the Richter scale will kill tens of millions. The government is intent on building nuclear power plants. Criminal politicians will take bribes from contractors, thieving civil servants will make money by cutting corners and contractors will use substandard materials. In Fukushima reactor no 3 has suffered partial meltdown. In India it would be total. People are merely " vote bank ". After elections who cares how many die. Certainly not criminal politicians or thieving civil servants. Great.

The IMF has released figures showing that inflation is not related to a growing economy ( Times of India, March 7, 2011 ). China grew by 11.4% between 2005 and 2009 but inflation was only 2.7% whereas India grew by 4.7% from 1990 t0 1994 with inflation at 10.2%. The article does not discuss other factors possibly contributing to such figures for example China's one child policy which could have reduced demand and India's exorbitant tax rates fueling rise in prices. To combat inflation interest rates were raised so high that banks were offering 14.5% on fixed deposits but this would have been counteracted by falling tax levels due to WTO rules so that from 1995 to 1999 growth was 6.8% with inflation at 8.9% in India. High interest rates with the dot com crisis led to a crash in property prices which brought inflation down to 3.9% from 2000 to 2004 but the economy still grew at 5.6% but low interest rates created a property boom raising inflation to 7.2% with growth at 8.2% from 2005 to 2009. The reason is that rise is property prices mirror rise in black money which is beyond the control of the Reserve Bank. Today inflation is being blamed on increased demand for food due to rising prosperity but daily calorie intake in rural areas has declined by 5% in 2004-05 compared to 1993-94. The RBI has been raising interest rates timidly to control inflation but has failed so far. Today we learn that industrial growth has fallen to 3.7% in January. Unless the RBI raises interest rates to reduce property prices by 70% inflation will remain out of control. High inflation reducing demand or high interest rates reducing output, that is the choice. Tough.