Why so much love without gain. Must be religion?

Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi paid a surprise visit to Pakistan just last month. Hardly had his feet touched Indian ground than the Pakistanis sent in terrorists to attack an air force base in Pathankot. Modi promised a doctrine of bullet for bullet against Pakistan when he was elected in May 2014 and that is what India practiced at first. He called off all talks until Pakistan stopped behaving like mad dogs. And then Obama visited India in January last year for Republic Day celebrations. What the scum, Obama told Modi we do not know but since then India has been kowtowing to Pakistan, as we have been doing for 68 years, since independence. In fact, even as he accepted Modi's invitation the scum, Obama phoned Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan to ask for permission and ask for instructions on what to say. Why is the US a slave of Pakistan? US exports to Pakistan is almost nothing at $1.67 billion while imports are $3.4 billion whereas the US exported $20 billion worth to India and imported $41.7 billion, last year. Despite having no trade with Pakistan the US has been pouring civilian and military aid into that terrorist state. Pakistan has used arms supplied by the US to attack India repeatedly. The ISI in Pakistan was funding the Taliban to kill Nato troops in Afghanistan, using US supplied weapons. Contrary to what the US says Pakistan has no geopolitical importance at all. The Arabian Sea is to the south of Pakistan, India has a coastline of 7,517 km. To the west of Pakistan is Iran with which the US has concluded a nuclear deal. After having been soundly thrashed in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan the US is does not have the guts of taking on Iran, even if it constructs a nuclear weapon, so nothing there. To the northwest is Afghanistan, from where it has just fled with its tail between its legs. To the north Tajikistan has a short border with Pakistan occupied Kashmir and to the northeast is China. The US has little interest in Tajikistan but if it really want to contain China it should be engaging with India which has a large land border with the cockroach-eaters. China is building an economic corridor to the port city of Gwadar. No trade, no political or military importance and an exporter of terrorists. Why so tolerant of this terrorist state? Hindus are heathens to Christian US and Kafirs to Muslim Pakistan. Hence the extreme friendship.

Tears for the US, but what about the world?

President Barack Obama broke down into tears while talking about gun violence in the US, 3 days back. He has promised executive action to make background checks mandatory on everyone wanting to buy a gun. Donald Trump believes that Obama's tears were genuine but we are not so sure. " In this room right here there's a lot of heartache," he said, in front of relatives of victims of mass shootings, in the White House East Room." There's a lot of resilience, there's a lot of strength, but there's a lot of pain." Quite, but why now? Why has he waited so long when he could have passed the same orders in 2012, right after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School at Newtown? At that time he said," If there is one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from grief that has visited Tucson, and Arizona, and Oak Creek, and Newtown and communities from Columbia to Blacksberg before that - then surely we have an obligation to try." We know the gasbag can talk but why wait till the last year in office, when you are not only lame, but a dead duck, before passing orders that will be challenged in court and overturned in Congress? He has been extremely lucky because Virginia Tech happened in 2007, before his first election in 2008, and Newtown happened in December 2012, after he had won his second term. But for us outside the US Obama's tears seem immensely hypocritical. After all, he has the record of being the most prolific serial killer in human history, using drones to kill innocent civilians from Pakistan, to Yemen, via Iraq and Syria, on to Somalia and Libya. So either he thinks that killing non-Americans is fine, which makes him a vile racist, or he is acting for his domestic audience, which makes him a most cynical drama queen. While Obama is shedding tears, just before the Oscars are announced, North Korea announced explosion of a hydrogen bomb, although experts are sceptical about the claim. North Korea is a brutal impoverished state supported by China, a brutal wealthy state. China has landed planes on artificial reefs in the South China Sea, in a clear provocation to its neighbors. ISIS has established a 'jihadi university' in Raqqa, in Syria where they may have mastered technology to make thermal batteries for heat seeking missiles with which they can bring down airplanes. We had a Jihadi John, now we have Jihadi Sid, so maybe we can look forward to a Jihadi Bond in the near future. First Saudi Arabia chopped off the head of Nimr al-Nimr, a Shia cleric, then protesters firebombed the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and now Iran is accusing Saudi Arabia of bombing the Iranian Embassy in Yemen, in revenge. We will be rid of Obama this time next year but the world will be suffering his effects for decades to come.

Are we going to import economic virus from China?

After we hoped for a crisis in China yesterday there is some cheering news today. The Chinese stock markets opened and closed for the entire day in less than an hour this morning when circuit breakers were activated by a 7% fall in market values. The Shanghai Composite fell by 7.32% while the Shenzhen Composite fell by 8.35%. Markets were spooked by a fall in the value of the yuan by 0.6% against the dollar. But that is not the whole story. The Peoples Bank of China has been fixing the yuan at lower rates everyday because it has devalued by 7.5% in offshore markets. China is our biggest enemy, regularly protecting Pakistani terrorist groups at the UN Security Council, so everything bad that happens to this nation of cockroach-eaters is good news for us, right? Unfortunately, as the yuan becomes weaker other currencies become stronger against it which makes exports of other countries more expensive than those of China. There is a danger of central banks in other Asian countries devaluing their currencies to preserve competitive advantage in the export market. That would be very bad news for India. Our exports have been falling for over a year and a strong rupee will not help. So why not devalue the rupee in line with other currencies? Because we pay for our imports, especially oil and gold, with dollars and a weaker rupee will push up costs for customers adding to retail inflation, which at 5.41% is higher than in other countries. The Purchasing Managers Index shows a contraction in manufacturing. Banks are sitting on $60 billion dollars of defaults on their loans and cannot lend unless they can clear up their books. Companies are loaded with debt. One-fifth of non-government, non-financial companies are said to be leveraged, which means their debt is twice that of market capitalisation and 15% of these companies are said to be highly leveraged. All these companies have net worth is less than zero. Higher profits would allow them to pay off the banks, which in turn, will have more cash to lend for new businesses. But profits can only grow if people buy more goods. There is a huge difference in spending pattern between the top 10% and the bottom 10%. While the bottom 10% spends 63% of income on necessities, such as food, the top 10% spends just 33% on necessities. The middle class has been hit hard by a combination of rising prices and ever increasing taxes, apparently to fund social schemes. Sly increases are called cess, which have been diverted for other expenses. Taxes are a straitjacket around the economy which has seen a fall in growth of the nominal GDP. That means lower tax collections. Some are suggesting that government spending should rise to compensate for private sector weakness. That would increase government borrowing and interest rate. A rock and a very hard place, what?

Can you have a free market, with Chinese characteristics?

As stock markets opened on Monday for the first time in 2016 the Shanghai composite index plunged, leading to a circuit breaker coming into effect. It was down 6.9% at the close, while the Shenzhen composite ended 8.2% down, bringing markets down in the rest of the world. The fear is that if the Chinese economy slows all the countries that sell commodities, like Brazil and Australia, will suffer. However, most analysts are optimistic that China's economy will continue to grow, although not in double digits, and manufacturing will pick up in the latter part of the year. China's manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index came in at 48.2 in December, contracting for the tenth month, although the official index was 49.7. Anything below 50 shows contraction. The official services PMI grew to 54.4 in December, from 53.6 in November. The Chinese say that this is because the government is restructuring the economy away from investment towards consumption as the country becomes more wealthy. So, we can all relax? Not so, say some economists who think that growth in China will be much slower leading to the global economy shrinking by 5% this year. If everything was as the government planned it would not trying to stimulate sections of the economy to increase the rate of growth. This will lead to asset price bubbles in those sectors. Countries which sell commodities to China are also big buyers of Chinese made goods so, if their economies become weaker they will buy less from China. The other way to stimulate manufacturing is by making its currency, the renminbi or the yuan, weaker. China devalued the yuan by 2% in August which was said to be an adjustment to bring it into line with the market. This is because China desperately wants the yuan to be part of the IMF's Special Drawing Rights, which are constituted by the dollar, the euro, pound sterling and the Japanese yen at present. This will give it prestige and will prevent fluctuations in its value, as countries make it part of their foreign currency reserves. However, when China devalued the yuan there was a sharp outflow of capital as investors became worried about further devaluations so the Peoples Bank resorted to selling US treasuries to support the yuan. Therein lies the problem. The IMF has approved the yuan becoming part of its SDRs but the government has to stop interfering in the market, which it seems unable to do. If the yuan falls too much other countries will also devalue their currencies to counter the advantage. This is what worries our Reserve Bank governor, Raghuram Rajan. To stop capital flight China has started to fine banks for aggressive currency trading so that some banks are refusing such trades. Once you become used to the stick it is very difficult to put it away. We pray that the stick will soon break and China will break apart. Happy thought.

Force will not help, information will.

One, Manu Joseph writes a passionate plea for Facebook to be allowed to offer internet.org into India. " Facebook has created a platform called Free Basics that can give free access to a fraction of the Internet to anyone who has even a cheap feature phone," he writes. He is incensed by activists who are campaigning against this service, because it violates the principle of net neutrality. It would be a great service for the poor because they will get it free and " Facebook does not charge any application to be on Free Basics, nor does it pay the service provider for providing the free service ". Quite. But Facebook has no control of over service providers and we know that business fellows in India will do anything for short term profits. " If India's poor were denied their kerosene and food subsidies, and cheap railway tickets and electricity, they would hit the streets and bring the nation to a halt," he fumes. Yes, they would. Because decades of socialism has bred a culture of beggary and entitlement, in which people think they have a right on the state, but without any obligation to serve the nation in any way. Because it is free there are still 20 million without any electricity, because the boards are bankrupt. The electricity discoms have accumulated losses of over Rs 3.5 trillion and owe Rs 5.5 trillion to the banks. There are over 1 billion mobile phone connections with zero unpaid bills. Even the poorest people are buying smart phones and pay their phone bills on time because they enjoy staying connected. Till 1990 we had only the state owned Doordarshan, broadcasting extremely boring programs but once it was deregulated we have an explosion of private Indian and foreign channels. Poor people will live without a refrigerator but not one will dream of living without a color television and a cable connection. If net neutrality is so bad why is it enforced in the US, Mr Zuckerberg's home country? Mr Joseph is a good chap but the problem is that poor people are not content with bread alone, they want meat and fish as well. Those who speak on behalf of the poor believe that they know what is good for them, which is treating the poor as imbeciles, and want the rich to be made poor, through higher taxes and poor services. So, road rationing in Delhi is good because even a little bit helps, even though cars cause a fraction of the pollution, and some other countries have tried it, never mind that it has failed everywhere. Any kind of oppressive diktats imposed by tyrannical politicians is bad, whether in banning beef or dance bars in Mumbai. Rich people will always find ways to help their children stay ahead. Because they have access to greater information. If the poor are to catch up they need a uncontrolled internet.

The start of the entertainment?

Just when we thought that ISIS was coming under control, after losing Ramadi to the Iraqi army, things have hotted up nicely in the middle-east again. Couple of days back Saudi Arabia executed 47 on terrorist charges, of whom 43 were Sunnis, who are the majority in the country. Trouble was that 4 were Shiites, including a cleric, named Nimr al-Nimr. Shiites have been protesting across the region, including in Saudi Arabia, where they are a minority and normally try to stay hidden. The Saudi embassy in Tehran was firebombed. In response, the Saudi government has severed diplomatic relations with Iran and asked the ambassador to leave within 48 hours. " Iran executes far more people a year than Saudi Arabia, but it does not get the negative publicity Saudi Arabia has. This is something that must be addressed," said a Saudi political commentator. Quite. Just stop chopping people's heads in public, as a kind of entertainment. Iran released a picture comparing Saudi Arabia with ISIS in which the Saudi executioner is in white and the ISIS is in traditional black. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei has promised 'divine revenge'. Meanwhile, Israeli commandos are rescuing Syrian rebel fighters, sworn enemies of Israel, who have been wounded in battle. They are left by their comrades at the fence separating Israel from Syria, picked up by the Israelis and treated by them in the hope of sending them back to fight Bashar al-Assad. But Assad's forces are fighting ISIS, with support from the Russians and help from Iran and Hezbollah from Lebanon. So, will these actions by the Saudis and the Israelis end up helping ISIS which is being targeted by big brother, the US, which supports both countries? On the other hand, Russia has recently eliminated leaders of several other rebel groups fighting Assad, so are Russian actions helping ISIS? Turkey's President Erdogan is helping the US to bomb ISIS but is also helping them by bombing Kurdish PKK forces. Turkish fighter planes shot down a Russian SU-24 returning from a bombing mission, apparently for straying into Turkish air space for 17 seconds. Russia is sure that this was in revenge for bombing ISIS oil trucks which were being bought by Erdogan's son. Turkish fans booed during one minute silence for the victims of the Paris attacks, before a friendly football match with Greece. Meanwhile, a ceasefire has broken down in Yemen, to the south of Saudi Arabia, where a coalition of Arab countries, including Saudi, has been bombing Houthi rebels, who are Shia. Across the Red Sea, in North Africa terrorists are busy practicing their craft. We have written many times that Israel and Saudi Arabia will join together to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Maybe, it will be more exciting than that. We wait to be entertained.

Will the Commissar win in Delhi?

Since the first of January rationing of cars, with odd and even number plates allowed on the streets on alternate days, has been imposed by force on the citizens of Delhi. It was very successful on the first day, presumably because many offices were closed on New Year Day and because few would like to pay an extortionate fine of Rs 2,000. Delhi Chief Minister was ecstatic at being able to cause such misery to people and because auto-rickshaw drivers are making windfall profits by overcharging commuters. So happy was he that he quoted a John Lennon song," You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us." Wrong, on all counts. You are not dreaming of enhancing the quality of life for the people of Delhi, but of becoming the prime minister of India someday, which, God willing, will never be fulfilled. The scheme has been successful so far because of heavy policing, the threat of heavy fines and because it is only for 15 days. If you try to make it permanent to help your auto-rickshaw vote-bank we will just buy second-hand cars. which will pollute more, to beat the system. That will lead to humongous parking problems with people being killed over parking spots. If parking is made expensive, by heavily taxing extra cars, people will buy cars in other states or even in names of relatives who live outside Delhi. Car rationing has not worked elsewhere because people will do whatever it takes to get to work. For survival. It worked in Beijing during summer Olympics in 2008 because factories were also shut down during the period. On 2 January there was greater confusion and one may expect massive traffic jams at borders with neighboring states, from 4 January, which will be the first full working day since this oppression started, when people block traffic to argue with police. When Soviet Union banned decadent western Jazz and rock'n'roll people pressed music on used old X-ray plates, to beat the system, although you could end up in Lubyanka for doing so. Perhaps our very own Commissar would like to try the same with us. At least 2 studies, one from IIT Delhi and the other from the US, showed that wood smoke and emission from power stations were the biggest polluters. IIT-Kanpur found more pollution from trucks and two-wheelers. Add to that dust from construction and burning of stubble by farmers in Punjab, pollution from cars is a tiny fraction. So far luck has favored the Commissar because the weather has been mild, with no fog. Hopefully, it will become really chilly, when people will burn wood and waste for warmth, and fog will trap pollution near the ground revealing the Commissar's lies. If that happens he will no doubt blame the Prime Minister in uncouth language. The fault lies with the greedy people of Delhi for voting this fascist into power, in the hope of getting cheap water. However, Delhi people are world experts at breaking the law. Let us see who wins. Very droll.

Monetary integration with political separation, surely impossible?

" The current non-system is pushing the world towards competitive monetary easing, to no one's ultimate benefit. Developing a consensus for free trade and responsible global citizenship - and thus resisting parochial pressures - would set the stage for the sustainable growth the world desperately needs," writes Reserve Bank Governor, Raghuram Rajan. He is concerned about a low rate of global economic growth, which is reducing demand and the need for new investments. Rich countries need higher growth rate to fund social security costs of aging populations and for wages to rise, to reduce rising inequality. They could spend on infrastructure but that would increase savings due to increasing anxiety about tax increases. " That means overcoming deficit fetishism. It makes sense for countries like the US and Germany that can borrow at negative long-term interest rates to borrow to make the investments that are needed," writes Professor Joseph Stiglitz. Unfortunately he realises," The obstacles the global economy faces are not rooted in economics, but in politics and ideology." Exactly. As the then Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker said," We all know what to do; we just don't know how to get re-elected after we have done it." But maybe they do not know what to do. Economists are beginning to understand that the world has changed and what they learnt may not solve today's problems. Human beings do not behave according to mathematical models. Not only will individuals try to find ways to game the system, as the wealthy do when they spend millions of dollars to find loopholes in tax laws to save billions of dollars in taxes, but millions of people will behave in irrational manner, as when Delhi voted overwhelmingly for Kejriwal because he promised 20,000 liters of water free every month. Economists believe that they have to find new models which will incorporate the changes in society. But, surely that is impossible? We do not have a global parliament elected by all the peoples of the world. Politicians are elected by their own people and are expected to serve their interests, even if they are harmful to other countries. Colonialism was a perfect, if extreme, example of that, in which European countries enslaved other nations and plundered their resources to grow very wealthy. Although very similar in culture and religion the European Union is being pulled apart under the twin stresses of economic recession and refugee migration. The US has just negotiated the Trans Pacific Partnership with 11 countries which will tie them in strict trading rules. The US is pursuing a similar trade deal with Europe, called the TTIP. Closer integration of trade with complete separation of political systems, which means each country adopting its monetary policy to take advantage of the system. That is what is frustrating Raghuram Rajan.

Will there be a Happy New Year for children?

As 2016 starts, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kailash Satyarthi writes a heartfelt plea about protecting our children. New amendments to the Child Labor Act will allow children below the age of 14 years to help their families in 'non-hazardous' family businesses or in the entertainment industry. He gives examples of 3 children, between the ages of 8 and 10 years, being treated like slaves by their uncles. 'Uncle' is a generic term in India. It is possible that the children were sold by their parents to fill their own stomachs. In Bangalore 3 girls were sold to 2 men who assaulted them sexually. They ran away once, only to be resold by their parents to the same 2 men. In Tamil Nadu 3 girls, even younger in age, were sold by their parents to 2 families who employed them as household servants and tortured them. Child labor is abhorrent and must be eliminated. But how? When adults have the right to produce as many children as they want and parents have total control over their children. In 2012 there was a huge controversy when Norwegian Child Protection Service removed 2 Indian children from the care of their parents. Foreigners have accused the Norwegians of using child protection as an excuse to abduct children from their natural parents and hand them over to Norwegians who do not have children. No politician in India would ever dream of protecting children. The reason is simple: Children do not have the right to vote. So to show their hypocritical concern they passed the Right to Education Act which forces private schools to reserve 25% of their seats for children from slums. Very noble. Except that the reason that middle class children do well in studies is that with educated parents they get a lot of help at home, which will show in exam results. So, to stop widespread failure of poor students all exams up to Class 10 were made optional and no student could be detained. Which meant that there was no way of knowing whether children were learning anything in school, so teachers stopped teaching. Only 48% of Class 5 students can read Class 2 texts and only 44% of Class 8 students could do divisions. Government school teachers are incompetent so the crafty politicians thought that RTE was a cheap way of getting votes. Now 18 states are going to revoke the policy of no detention of students for failing in exams. Uttarakhand, a Congress ruled state, says that it cannot afford the cost of RTE. With such enormous right to education is it any wonder that there are 75,000 beggars, that is 21% of the total, who have passed Class 12. What can they do when 2.3 million applied for jobs as peons in UP, around 25,000 with post graduate degrees. Unless you are in politics when you become deputy chief minister. Instead of giving phony rights children should be given the real right: The right not to be born. Will anyone listen?

Wisdom does not come from knowledge.

As 2015 comes to an end we can look forward to the last year of Barack Obama as the President of the US. In November next year the US will elect a new president and on 20 January 2017 we will hopefully see the last of the gasbag. After George Bush, who has been ridiculed as a moron, Obama was thought to be a cerebral president, an alumnus of Harvard Law School, no less, but he leaves the world an infinitely more dangerous place than when he first came to power. Much like Dr Manmohan Singh was built up as a great economist, only to reduce our economy to near bankruptcy in his determination to cling on to his chair, whatever the cost to the nation. Obama probably thinks that he is so smart that the rest of the world should do as they are told. What he has not understood is that the US may be the richest and the strongest nation in the world but it is just another country on Mother Earth. The Climate talks in Paris earlier this month ended with a wishy-washy deal because the US insisted on the same levels of sacrifice from emerging nations. Obama had already signed a deal with China, which allows China to peak its CO2 emission levels by 2030 and the US would try to reduce CO2 below 2005 levels. If numbers one and two are not going to reduce their emissions why would anyone else? Mother Earth has just reminded Obama that she is the boss. Floods are affecting several states and 69 tornadoes have hit the US in December. 49 people have died and damage will be in billions of dollars. There are floods where Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay meet in South America while Storm Frank is causing more misery in Britain which was already inundated from previous rains. The Arctic temperature is going to rise to above freezing when it should be -20 Celsius at this time of the year. Apparently the El Nino is going to be as bad as in 1997-98, which was the worst on record. Having engineered an armed coup in Ukraine against an elected president, Victor Yanukovych, the country is now at the point of anarchy as rivals fight for power while the eastern half of the country gradually breaks away. Strangely, former President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, a US stooge, is the governor of Odessa. While Iraq was Bush's stupidity, Libya is Obama's. It is astonishing that a 'cerebral' man did not learn from the chaos produced by removing Saddam Hussein. His nuclear deal with Iran is seen as a triumph but what was he hiding? You get a bad smell when you learn that the NSA was spying on Israel's Prime Minister, including on his conversations with members of the US Congress. Having dismissed ISIS as 'JV team' he has started bombing ISIS in Syria which, of course, allowed Al Qaeda to re-establish bases in Afghanistan. He can be proud of his record of killing hundreds of civilians by using drones indiscriminately. Is it better to be a serial killer than a moron? That is surely a cerebral debate.

Without experience Nehru did a lot better than the present lot.

Couple of days ago, the Congress, theoretically India's largest party, became 131 years old, having been founded in 1885. However, the Congress is not the party it was. It was trounced in the Lok Sabha elections last year, which saw its share of seats cut from 206 in 2009 to a paltry 44, and was denied official leader of the opposition status. It is in power in only 8 states out of 29 and in 2 others, namely Bihar and Kerala, it is part of the ruling coalition. Perhaps, to illustrate the sickness inside the party an article, criticising Nehru and Sonia Gandhi, appeared in Congress Darshan, which is a Congress mouthpiece published from Mumbai. The article, written anonymously, mentions details of Sonia Gandhi's life and that her father was a fascist, which he was. It claims that Jawaharlal Nehru made a mess of foreign policy by not listening to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was Home Minister at the time. We would add other charges such as, not using air power against China in 1962, accepting China's claim over Tibet, probably refusing a seat at the UN Security Council, following a communist model of command economy, which has made India one of the most corrupt countries in the world and not making education free and compulsory, like in the west. The most confusing is the complete capitulation to Pakistan since independence. Every time our brave soldiers have sacrificed their lives to win against Pakistan our politicians have signed away all the gains without anything in return. If Lal Bahadur Shastri's death was not natural who signed the treaty with Pakistan in Tashkent? These are not fantasies or conspiracy theories but questions of enormous importance for national security. Did Nehru sign a deal with Britain to let Pakistan do what it wants in return for becoming the Prime Minister? Did Gandhi know or, even suggest, such perfidy? Whatever Nehru did we must remember that no one in India had any idea of governance after 600 years of depredation under Mogul and British conquerors. Most countries could not make a successful transition to democracy after independence from colonial rule. Pakistan is a failed state under army rule and the first President of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was gunned down, along with his family. That has to be the greatest achievement of Nehru: That he kept the army under civilian control, that he stood for elections every 5 years and that he established centers of excellence, such as the IITs and AIIMS. Compared to that the present Congress is clinging on to The Family for some reflected glory, which has dimmed considerably. " The party is so huge that it needs to have some ideology which is not present - instead the focus is on just one family," said a professor. Exactly. A party which claims to be liberal, secular and socialist, which means everything to everyone, without any reason for existence except to grab power by any means possible. The great socialist, Rahul Gandhi has just gone to Europe for a holiday. He tweeted us a Happy New Year. How twit!

Is it wrong to have principles or ideals?

As 2015 comes to an end there are hundreds of articles by pundits and 'intellectuals', giving a synopsis of events in the year gone by and their interpretation thereof. While liberals write voluminous articles on every subject we can think of conservatives write very little. This is as true in the US as it is in India. The New York Times is known to be leftist, as a cartoon by the Republican Senator, Ted Cruz so aptly illustrates, and an article in the paper lists a number of cracks that appeared in liberalism in 2015. The biggest problems were in Europe. Greece and Spain voted for left wing parties while many in France voted for the far right National Front. In Britain the Scottish Nationalists won big in Scotland and there is a danger of Britain leaving the EU. Angela Merkel's decision to admit 1 million Muslim migrants into Germany has provoked a furious backlash. In the US, Donald Trump leads the Republican race, making outrageous statements, while Black Lives Matter shut down a shopping mall and an airport terminal over shooting of black men by police in the US. The article ends optimistically saying," It is wise to bet on the current order, in other words, and against its enemies and rivals and would-be saboteurs." Is it? Liberals are so arrogant in their moral superiority, so offensive in their criticism of anyone they brand as 'conservative' and so intolerant of any view that does not echo their own egotistical interpretations, that they are as fanatical as ISIS. An Indian who prides himself on his liberalism writes that the difference between liberal and conservative is between " open minded versus close minded ". " To my mind, the liberal is defined by a lack of ideology," he writes. That is precisely the problem. The liberal has no principle, no ideal and no truth to hold on to. He is prepared to compromise with anyone or any lie to prove his lack of ideology. When Neville Chamberlain signed a peace deal with Hitler he was told," Your name will go down in history as a statesman who saved civilisation from destruction." Dozens of students at Yale, an Ivy League University in the US, signed a petition to revoke the First Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech, because they are against criticism of other views. In Finland, there were riots in a normally peaceful town of Kempele when a 14 year old girl was raped by an Afghan migrant. Sharia courts in Britain are forcing women to stay locked in violent marriages, a study showed, prompting a furious columnist to question why feminists do not object to these courts. It is the liberals' tendency to excuse terrorists as a tiny minority, extremely perverted rapists as juvenile and to mock any dissent as loonies, deluded by a false feeling of 'victimhood', that will be the death of liberalism. There will definitely be a series of extremely violent wars in the world. Liberals will be responsible.

Invent anything and we will use it for fighting.

From a list of " 100 Events That Changed The World " in the National Geographic, 14 events have been selected which show how man has used every invention for the purpose of killing. Man learnt the controlled use of fire 1.4 million years ago, which immediately gave us a defence against wild animals and allowed us to keep warm, cook food and create light after sunset. Fire would be used later to mould metal into arms. If there is one invention that civilisation rests on it must be that of the wheel in 3,500 BCE. Transport, pottery and pulleys all depend on wheels, but by 2,000 BCE Hittities were using chariots for war. They also started using iron by 1,400 BCE, which quickly led to weapons and armor made of iron. In 1569 CE new maps of the world with variably spaced latitude lines would make navigation at sea much easier. This would lead to the colonisation of Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas by white Europeans, resulting in widespread genocide, slavery and plunder of resources, whose effects are being felt till today. The industrial revolution, which started in 1712, would allow Europeans to subjugate peoples of the world but also resulted in wars between themselves, as each nation tried to gain dominance, resulting in the two World Wars. In 1876 Graham Bell invented the telephone which revolutionised communications and could be used to send signals in code. In 1903 the first manned flight would take warfare to the skies and would lead to the theory of 'shock and awe', a bombing of such ferocity that any population would be devastated . The power of the atom was used by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, probably as trial and also for revenge for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Today 9 countries have nuclear weapons, with Iran on the threshold of making one. Terrorists in Libya took control of 11 commercial jetliners last year and ISIS has got hold of a flight simulator to train some of its fighters to fly airplanes. ISIS is looking to buy nuclear weapons. Load a nuke into a commercial plane, fly low over the sea onto a city in Europe and explode the bomb in a suicide mission. Not hard to imagine, is it? The latest Star Wars movie has already raked in over $1 billion and as the name says, it is not about love among the stars but about killing, although they have tried to put an intellectual gloss on the fighting by feeling 'The Force' and the use of the lightsaber. The ISIS has been adept at using the internet as a recruiting tool by showing extreme violence interspersed with pictures of celebrating Eid, farming and fishing. Now scientists are  close to finding ways to regenerate limbs lost in battle. We can look forward to armies of invincible cyborgs taking over the world, coolly replacing a damaged part with another. No wonder man has used even God for fighting.

We need money to grow, but from where?

The Finance Ministry has lowered its growth forecast for the current financial year to 7-7.5% from an earlier prediction of 8.1-8.5%. Politicians quibble about minor differences in the rate of growth of the economy presumably to impress financial institutions, such as the IMF and World Bank, and credit agencies so that they write good things about us, which will encourage foreign investors to invest precious dollars, euros or yens in India. For us living in India such figures have no meaning. Our feel-good depends on our quality of life, on prices of what we buy, on availability of jobs, a smooth delivery of essential services and relief from the tyranny of government thugs. There is some progress but it is slow because the Congress left behind a moribund economy and has blocked all progress in parliament so far. Even at 7% India will be the fastest growing economy in the world with China second at 6.8%, the US at 2.6% and the Euro area growing by 1.5%, while Brazil contracted by 2.5%. For growth to continue millions of jobs have to be created which can only come from new investments. And therein lies the problem. Public sector investment is limited by the need to contain fiscal deficit while the private sector is completely frozen. The reason is that companies borrowed merrily during Congress regime because the Reserve Bank was bullied into holding interest rate at unreasonably low levels, in the face of soaring inflation, and they were given the impression that they would not have to repay their loans. The Reserve Bank has taken a tough stance against public sector banks on restructuring loans, which was a way of keeping bad loans off their books. The rot in the banking system is gradually coming to light and the figures are terrifying, at over Rs 6 trillion. Banks are reluctant to lend until their previous loans are repaid and taking over assets of leveraged companies will not clear outstanding loans because there is no market for stressed assets. Thus, the quality of loans is getting worse. Private sector debt has reached 52% of GDP and External Commercial Borrowing, which is loans in foreign currencies, has increased by 9% of nominal GDP. Only 39% of such loans have been hedged against a fall in the value of the rupee, which is expected to fall to around 70 against the dollar as interest rates rise in the US. That will make it more difficult for companies to service their debt. So, why not increase government spending to kick-start the economy and allow the fiscal deficit to remain at 3.9%? Trouble is that India has one of the highest fiscal deficits in the world, at 7.2%, if central and state government spending are added. Consumer inflation is also high at 5.4% while that in China is at 1.5%, in the US at 0.5% and in the EU area at 0.1%. Why? Because real estate prices increased at 13.7%. Property prices have to come down. But how?

Are we ordinary because we expect too much?

All politicians are liars, some more than others. Candidate for president in the US, Donald Trump has been deemed Liar of the Year by Politifact for 2015. Out of 77 statements made by Trump this year 16 were in 'Pants on Fire' category, which means absolute whoppers, and 77% were deemed to be lies. And yet he leads the Republican pack with 39% approval ratings, with Ted Cruz a distant second on 18%. So, why do his supporters overlook his blatant lies, his rudeness and his extremely crude language, saying that Hillary Clinton was 'schlonged' by Obama in 2008. When Trump was accused of being vulgar he defended himself by accusing the media of bias. People approve of Trump because he has not been in politics and so is seen as an outsider, which gives them an opportunity to " throw the bums out ". More important, people despise all politicians and so try to pick what they like out of all the promises that politicians make. In India, elections are decided by the poor who vote for whoever promises the most handouts, so there is no real debate about issues and the educated middle class think its a waste of time to vote. Trump's support comes from white working class people who have lost out in the transition of the economy from manufacturing to digital technology and finance and blame immigrants for taking away their jobs. This is apparently what is happening in Germany where support for right wing neo-Nazi is increasing. A few days back there was a mudslide of industrial waste in China. Industrial accidents are common in China but what is remarkable is the large number of excavators digging for survivors, the shining helmets and clean clothes of the rescuers and the advanced evacuation equipment. Contrast that with firemen in Delhi who took off their clothes and jumped bare bodied into sewage treatment tanks near Delhi airport, in this cold weather, to pull out bodies of Border Security Force officers, after a plane accident. No wetsuit or breathing equipment to keep the sewage off their bodies and out of their mouths. The daughter of one of the victims quite reasonably asked the Home Minister why our soldiers keep dying unnecessarily. We have lost hundreds of pilots in accidents because of faulty aircraft. Politicians and civil servants are never exposed to such risks even though they are the highest paid. Defence procurement is highly corrupt, with kickbacks in every deal. Who makes the deals? Politicians and civil servants. This is the real inequality in India. It is not that there are rich and poor, though there is huge inequality there, it is that politicians and civil servants have enormous powers over us and we can do nothing. Ordinary people all over the world are looking for real leaders. All we get are liars.

Are we killing them with our love?

" In a society so often intoxicated by consumerism and hedonism, wealth and extravagance, appearances and narcissism, this Child calls us to act soberly, in other words, in a way that is simple, balanced, consistent, capable of seeing and doing what is essential," said Pope Francis, talking about Jesus in his Christmas message. He means well. The Pope is asking everyone to control our greed, our insatiable desires for material possessions at the cost of ruining the earth and our own lives. Atheists might say that it is easy for him to talk because he has a very nice job, a nice apartment at the Vatican and a Popemobile to roam around in. This is in place of sedia gestatoria, which was a chair carried on the shoulders of attendants, until stopped in 1978. Priests in India do pretty well, with some of the richest temples in the world, despite India being a very poor country. In that respect they are little different from politicians, especially in India, who tax us heavily in the name of the poor, while giving themselves hefty pay rises and many other juicy perks with a being called a 'companion', while spending time abusing others in uncouth language and wasting parliament time on completely false pretexts so that there is no debate on any bill. But in all this discussion about helping the poor with handouts no one bothers to ask the poor what they want. Do they want to remain poor so that they can be showered with kindness, while being killed softly with love or do they want to become one of the reviled rich, with cars and beautiful clothes and gorge themselves on good food, with 'companion'? Even a professor from MIT in the US has a solution to Delhi's problem with pollution. Raise taxes and parking charges to unaffordable levels and levy heavy fines so that no one will dare to buy a car. Except that the US has over 800 cars per 1000 people while India has just 18, yes a measly, shameful 18 cars per 1000 people. Does the good professor find old Dilip Kumar movies romantic, wherein he is driving a bullock cart while singing patriotic songs? Doubt the poor in India aspire to such romance while watching Formula One. Why is the professor so enamored of the poor? Because he is head of the famous Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Lab at MIT and has won prizes for his work. He will become redundant if there are no poor to research on. In that respect poverty is like cancer. People get prizes and build fortunes for discovering various cures while the sufferers keep dying. Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez helped the poor, has virtually collapsed and now Brazil, where President Lula Da Silva did the same, is in deep recession. So, are we killing the poor with our love?

Does the west create terrorism?

The BBC is reporting that the Taliban has taken over the district of Sangin in Helmand province. The short report twice mentions that a quarter of British casualties in Afghanistan took place in Sangin, as if it was a tremendous sacrifice. It does not say anywhere how many civilians were killed by British troops. It is the good old "White Man's Burden ". Brand someone a baddie, kill thousands of innocent civilians to get rid of said baddie and then expect them to be grateful to the white sahib for killing their children. The US has never grown out of its cowboys and injuns mentality, so glorified by John Wayne, who was a draft dodger, apparently to continue an affair with Marlene Dietrich. The coward. Where were the valiant west from 1992 to 2001, when the Taliban was ravaging the country? They did not want to get involved. It was Ronald Reagan's support of the Afghan Mujahideen that later gave rise to the Taliban. The Brits came in to support the US when it attacked Afghanistan, looking for Bin Laden, after 9/11. Where are the Taliban coming from, if they were wiped out by the west? From Pakistan. What arms are they fighting with? They are fighting with US weapons. Who supplied them with arms and training? The ISI in Pakistan. Who supplies arms to the Pakistan army? The US, who else. Why are the Taliban resurgent in Afghanistan? Because the US, Britain and NATO withdrew all forces leaving an inexperienced Afghan army to fight without air support. Now they are blaming the Afghan army because a few British lives were lost defending Sanjin. They really are masters at lying. Earlier this month Cameron was pleading at the House of Commons for permission to bomb ISIS in Syria. All this time western countries were holding off because they wanted the Syrian opposition to get rid of Bashar al-Assad. Because he has been labeled a baddie. Now that Russia has started to bomb ISIS they also want to join in the fun. Meanwhile, Assad has been accepted as part of the solution and not the problem. How did ISIS become such a fighting force? Because former officers of Saddam's army are guiding them. But surely Saddam's army was destroyed by that efficient fighting machine, the US army? Turns out that Iraqi generals were bribed with millions of dollars to betray Saddam so valiant Americans rolled into Baghdad without challenge. Then the US withdrew all forces, as they have done in Afghanistan, leaving behind an inexperienced army without air cover. The Shia government of Iraq neglected the Sunnis who supported the ISIS. Assad is being assisted by Iran and Hezbollah from Lebanon who are experienced fighters. The only country which has managed to retain some control is Tunisia which has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Because it kept the gang of western marauders far away. 

The only way to stop being bullied is to become rich.

As expected the WTO meeting in Nairobi ended in failure, without even a fig leaf of an agreement full of bromides, as in the Climate talks in Paris. While in Paris it was mainly the US which put the onus of cutting greenhouse gases on developing countries, this time Europe joined the US in demanding cuts in subsidies in agriculture from developing countries, while preserving their own. India was blamed both times. An average American home is 2,600 sq ft for an average family of 2.4 people, while an average home in India is 504 sq ft for an average family size of 4.8 people. 32% of urban homes are 258 sq ft or less for families of 4.3 people, which means 60 sq ft for each person, which is the size of a prison cell in the US. The US is 4 times the size of India with 300 million people, while we have 1,300 million crammed into ever decreasing space. It is our fault. Our government has a program of subsidies targeted at poverty, which only encourages more children among the poor, increasing poverty. Instead subsidies should be targeted at those who do not produce children or have just one child. The reason why the US wrecked the Nairobi talks is because it signed the Trans Pacific Partnership with 11 Asian countries in October and can isolate India. The US already has the NAFTA agreement with Canada and Mexico and wants a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with Europe. The US, being the largest economy, has natural advantages which it wants to enforce. It wants to force genetically modified foods on others and the Investor-State Dispute System in which a private enterprise can sue a government if it loses business due to changes in policy. Recently there was huge controversy in the US when Turing Pharmaceuticals bought rights to Daraprim and increased its price from $13.50 to $750 per tablet. Daraprim, or pyrimethamine, is at least 50 years old and is not covered by patent protection, so this was a brutal act. People have a choice in buying a cheaper car or not buying one at all but such choices do not exist in illness. Perhaps, the US government thinks that by allowing its companies to rip off its own people will justify ripping off people of other countries, which will be very lucrative. The US economy may not be as hot as they would like us to believe. Yields on junk bonds are rising and that has predicted a peak 8 out of 10 times in the past. Yields on junk bonds in the US rose by 47 basis points before the Great Depression of 1929, by 85 basis points before the Great Recession of 1937 and have risen by 120 basis points in the last 6 weeks. Record low interest rates have led to a boom in personal debts in the UK and 27 stock markets have given negative returns in 2015. By bullying weaker nations the US maybe precipitating a collapse of the global economy. Who will it trade with then?

What will we export when we make nothing?

A mid-year review by the Finance Ministry says that the GDP will grow between 7-7.5% this year, against a forecast of 8.1-8.5%. The plus points are that inflation is down, because of low commodity prices, especially oil, fiscal deficit will be within target of 3.9% and public investment in infrastructure has been galvanised. The minus points are that exports are falling, private sector investment is slow and the fiscal deficit target of 3.5% will be difficult to meet next year. The report suggests that government spending should be raised next year to stimulate growth, so a fiscal deficit of 4% would be acceptable. " The mid-term report recognizes weak demand as a key constraint and argues for the need to provide a policy stimulus to stoke it. There is no monetary or fiscal bazooka available to quickly revive demand. The rate cuts by RBI will mildly support the economy in the coming year. But this may not be enough," said DK Joshi, Chief Economist at Crisil. We have written many times that lower rates do not stimulate growth. We get less interest for our money while the rich borrow cheaply to increase their assets, so low interest rates merely transfer wealth from the middle class to the rich. Low taxes will increase demand by bringing prices down but this the government is unable to do because of the need for increased spending on infrastructure, to pay for the huge increase in salaries of useless civil servants, and the One Rank One Pension scheme. Allowing the fiscal deficit to increase, as the report suggests, is not easy. The government borrowed Rs 5.5 trillion this year to fund a deficit of 3.9%. The Reserve Bank raises money by selling bonds but the demand was so low that yields for 10 year bonds were at 7.8%, even though the interest rate has been reduced to 6.25%. If fiscal deficit is 3.5% next fiscal the government will need to borrow Rs 5.18 trillion, plus redemption cost of Rs 2.6 trillion, making a total of Rs 7.7 trillion. That will push bond yields over 8% and reduce liquidity by sucking out so much money from the market. Oil prices have reached bottom, so may start to rise and the Federal Reserve may increase rates further, putting pressure on the rupee, which will raise prices. What no one is telling us is whether increased consumer demand will boost our economy. Whatever we buy seems to be made by foreign companies. Cars, refrigerators, and even drinks are made by foreigners. Why do they keep whining about low interest rates when they are not interested in investing in India? A private company, Spacex has successfully brought  its first stage booster rocket back to earth. Who is the CEO of Spacex? Elon Musk. Our Prime Minister met him on a recent visit to Silicon Valley to request him to invest in battery technology in India. Americans invest, our fellows only ingest. So depressing.

Can you make liquor from milk?

One very big reason for Mr Nitish Kumar's victory in the recent elections in Bihar was that 63.6% of women turned out to vote, as against 56% of men. His promise of stopping the sale of all alcoholic drinks in the state drew in women and minorities. Even a couple of weeks back he promised to close down all liquor shops and enforce complete prohibition from 1 April next year. Bihar earned over Rs 30 billion from taxes on alcohol last year, whose loss will put a big dent in state finances, so a few days back Mr Kumar said that he will ban only country liquor, which are drinks brewed locally, but allow foreign made liquor sales to continue. Which is cute because the so-called foreign liquor is actually Indian Made Foreign Liquor, or IMFL, which is the official jargon for whisky, vodka, wine or beer. IMFL is brewed and bottled in India but the names sound foreign. To maximise revenues he has said that only government shops will be allowed to sell alcohol, so it will earn from commissions as well as taxes. Perhaps he is inspired by Tamil Nadu where the government earned Rs 210 billion in 2012-13 from its drinks marketing arm, known as TASMAC. Its revenues have rocketed from Rs 38 billion in 2002-03. This is certainly not what the women had in mind when they voted for him. To pacify the ladies of Bihar Mr Kumar has come out with a new wheeze. All liquor stores will be converted into shops selling milk. Maybe because the senior partner in his coalition government, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav loves the " fragrance " of cows and his twitter campaign was conducted from a cowshed in Danapur. Bihar desperately needs investment. Will business leaders and foreigners be impressed drinking milk with soda or tonic water or on the rocks, we do not know. Perhaps, locals will find a way to ferment milk to make it more cheerful. Power is so addictive that politicians make wild promises which only increase the suffering of people as widows are finding out in Punjab where a bankrupt government is selling off widows' ashrams, jails and asylum land to raise money. Politicians and civil servants are protected for life at taxpayer expense while taxpayers get nothing. Delhi Chief Minister had made lofty promises to appoint a powerful Lokpal, or ombudsman, which will hold his government accountable. Turns out that those were total lies and the poison-pen bill introduced in the assembly is deliberately designed to precipitate an argument with the central government so that an effective check on government can be avoided. From 1 to 15 January cars with odd and even numbers will be allowed on roads on alternate days. Schools have been closed during those days, which will take thousands of school buses as well as private transport, used to take students to school, off the roads so that the government can claim success with its strong-arm tactics. Do politicians have a genetic defect?