USA: Champion of Democracy and Freedom or Worst Oppressor

USA is supposed to be the land of opportunity. Most of the scientific research in past half century have come from there. They have one of the oldest functioning democracy in the world. But there is another side of this story, which will be clear if you read these two news items and think of the background little bit-

First one is about Palestine which fear loss of aid from USAID. Reason because they dared to ask for freedom and equality. They tried to go to UN.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2096088,00.html

Second one is about the intention of US led west to invade or support a rebellion, ostensibly to help the people to get rid of their president. But Russia and China plays spoil sport this time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/05/russia-china-veto-syria-resolution  

Now if I say that it is all about oil, then there will be nothing new so many people are saying it for all the wars that USA has fought in middle east. Of course oil is one of the factors, Syria has got the oil and Palestine has not. But when you say just oil next question that come to mind is why USA was giving aid to Palestine although now it seems to oppose their right to equality and freedom? Now if you go through time article you will find, "The Palestinians have received about $500 million a year from the U.S. alone in recent years, including tens of millions of dollars for training the Palestinian security services. The partial suspension of aid by Congress mainly affects development and infrastructure programs being supervised by USAID but not the support for the security services." So it mean only development aid is to be stopped and not the aid for so called security services. Now what is the function of security services? Simple, they have to maintain law and order in area. To put it bluntly they have to kill or detain those Palestinians who are protesting against Israel. And although Israel is exploiting all the resources of Palestine, it can not sent it boys in Palestinian streets because that mean they will be attached. So it is damn good trick of controlling the enemy by bleeding enemy itself. You will say only wow!!!!!!!! what a tactful thinking and planning. And as said in earlier they will stop only funds mean for development and not for security, obviously because that security is more for Israel friend than for Palestine beggar (the way USA treat Palestine).

Lets take the case of Syria now. It is a country which has shown steady growth in-spite of so called dictatorship (as if other friends of USA are democracy in middle east). It has not towed US line on so many occasion. It has done the sin of independent policy making. Even though its oil reserves are not that much but it has shown a steady and stable growth. All that worries USA. While all its puppets have shown signs of discomfort these people showed no such sign. Egypt and Tunisia fell to US's surprise and Libya proved tough nut to crack even after invasion. SO it wanted to play the game through UN mandate, which did not come this time. This time China and Russia showed some maturity. Last time (in case of Libya), they abstained but this time they stood up to occasion. 

The US ambassador, Susan Rice, said: "The courageous people of Syria can now clearly see who on this council supports their yearning for liberty and human rights, and who does not." They actually know what is USA or at least world knows. Courageous people of Iraq will tell how their mighty economy sunk with you and how they suffered because of you. Why do not America think of Somalia, Congo etc. They need real help.

World has changed a lot and it is changing faster. While just six months ago USA could do same thing to Libya it could not do it with Syria. Economics equations have changed a lot in six months. Economically USA is much more shaky than it was six months ago. Its credit rating has been degraded, economy continues to stagger, debt is increasing and its own people are turning against military-industrial-financial complex. Citizens are turning in wall street. these are the sign of change. 

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/10/05/from-europe-with-love-the-u-s-indignados-have-arrived/

These things have happened before but this time it is different. there was no alternative when it happened earlier but today there is alternative in rising nations of the east (India and China). There was Europe which was more or less dependent on US itself, now even that Europe although aged, but stand on its feet much more respectfully than USA.

 

Times are changing and it will be no surprise that if within 10-15 years, same USA which have started so many turmoils in the modern world would be in chaos. Then may be there will be rebirth of this country but for now sun is setting and past is catching up. Once land of opportunity (because they hunted down natives) is now fully suckled up by opportunist suckers. World is awaking. 

History is in transition: Will it be Rahul Vinci or Development

Of late, following Anna Hazare's agitation, true face of our politicians and Congress in particular has come to light as a result of which the Congress is being criticized by media and majority of intellectuals. Many sections of these media and intellectuals are those who used to be die hard supporters of Congress. Columnists are declaring not just the beginning of the decline of India's Grand Old Party (GOP), but also the fading lustre of Rahul Gandhi, projected as the youth icon by the Congress and as the face of the future. That so called youth icon seems to have failed completely as of now because young generation has started asking questions about his credibility, which he do not have any answers to offer nor his GOP. Political initiative - in the form of a fast - by Narendra Modi is being seen as a game-changer of sorts and large sections of media has started comparing the two. In a time when Rahul has nothing to show he is being given publicity just by comparing with Modi, who has drawn the clear attention of masses, particularly middle class and everybody is impressed by his work in governance in Gujarat.

  
Recently, two articles in the national media compared Rahul's present situation to that of Rajiv Gandhi during the Bofors controversy, and even  to Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor. And if we see these comparisons with benefit of knowledge of history in hindsight, these comparisons are not totally unfounded. Anna’s movement was first chance that history gave him to show his leadership as his Mom was not in country, but as all of us saw he failed miserably there. He maintained a deafening silence for long and in the end when he spoke that was so immature. All the goodwill that he had earned through propagation of him as youth icon by his party vanished. And that is precisely what; lead us to second comparison to last Mughal. A little reality check and historical account taking, beginning from the 1990s, will perhaps put issues in even better perspective. 

The last decade of the previous century began the rollback of a left-of-centre, pro-people, secular-reformist agenda in Indian politics. May be we would have never approached this agenda had World Bank and IMF had not forced us to open our economy in exchange of loan. Although Congress was forced to follow reformist agenda, which definitely benefitted the country at large, but in the process in absence of populist policies it lost the support of masses or lets say mostly illiterate masses. It culminated in the right-wing NDA governmentcoming to power in the late 1990s. They carried out further reforms with greatest zeal and middle class saw a rise in its fortunes. For the first time foundation of long term growth was being made as country had never before seen such stable growth for such a long period of time. They invested heavily in infrastructure and in the process did not pursue any populist policy believing that all will understand the benefits of development. They had forgotten that this is a country of illiterates. Our middle class which believe so much in rights do not believe in voting unfortunately. To add to their misfortune Godhra train burning happened and riots ensued, which Congress used to polarize the country on communal lines. Overconfident NDA lost 2004 election to Congress. It was first national election which was fought on plank of development at least by one party (NDA). But to the credit of people development lost to populist promises like loan waver for farmers. This brought back Congress to power in the form of UPA.

During the UPA-I regime NREGA and other populist scheme were started. While the economist were talking about the reforms all the time and need to do away the subsidies, where they are not required; these measures spent wealth earned by the nation during a decade of reforms on political agenda.

 
While nation was saddened by the attack on our financial capital, by the terrorists who came from across the border, some of the leaders in government were busy in propagating new theory that how home grown terror was more dangerous.  People like Digvijay Singh were busy in dividing the country further by coining new terms like hindu terrorism. Before that terrorism used to be terrorism but these people were busy in giving colour to terrorism as well. In fact, the late Hemant Karkare died fighting terrorists while ruling party wanted to have political mileage saying just previous day he warned about terror of other colour. Death sentence of the people found guilty of terror attacks by honorable supreme court was put on hold for vote-bank politics which emboldened the terrorists even further. National security was ignored by UPA-I and the Congress party under Sonia Gandhi that even after repeated blasts affecting places of Hindu and Muslim worship, and a 26/11 type condition where entire nation was stunned. 

Even with all its misdeeds UPA came back to power thanks to populist policies and division of country more on caste and communal lines. But just when UPA-II which did not offer much to the country compensated for it by passing right to education and right to food - the next set of other bills without bothering about how to implement these. Soon a series of mega scams came to light and this time it seems at least educated middle class is really fed up and they came in full force when Anna Hazare gave them an opportunity to vent out their anger. To divert the attention of people new colour was being given to acts of terror. RSS was being blamed for everything.

 
Soon it became evident to the economists that NREGA has failed miserable. Apart from being vehicle of corruption for small time politicians it has resulted in rise in wages for any meaningful work. Like loan wavers have made people to believe that they need not pay back the loan, this one made people to believe that they need not work hard. 

However it was such a disastrous scheme, no politician from opposition could speak against it. It is such a populist measure. Its true that it increased the demand but supply side suffered and hence inflation came into being. Life of same very people who were supposed to benefit out of it became even more miserable because of inflation.

Meanwhile rather than giving any opinion or idea, so called youth icon Rahul indulged in politics of photo-shoot. Wherever there will be an opportunity he will be there trying to be seen as messiah of poor and tribal. On the one hand we talk of reforms and investment on the other hand government rejected the license of Vedanta in tribal areas of Orissa (same government had given the license), saying it was against the interest of tribal and said poster boy had lead them. All such publicity gimmicks continued. However anti-corruption crusade of Anna Hazare exposed him to real chance where you need to take a stand and for which he was not ready.

Thus there is no surprise that he has been called a man without his own views, a dumb scion and now, of course, Bahadur Shah Zafar. However we should not forget that in this country elections are decided on populist scheme and same middle class which is so much fed up with all this corruption and mis-governance would not be voting. We have a history of politicians who are there just because of their fathers and it seems it will go on unless people start understanding the meaning of development.

For all these reasons, a large, population of educated youth is disillusioned with Rahul and not want to see Rahul rise as prime minister. But with the help of populist schemes, money amassed through mega scams, pseudo- intellectuals, and non-bothering middle class, Rahul will most probably rule this country. History is on his side.

 We know this country has still not matured to the level where we can do politics on development. It is not educated at that level where people can appreciate development. Elections are still won with money power and populist schemes. However Anna has really given an awakening jolt. Let’s see what happen.

 
The writer is a historian.

I have written this article with an inspiration from following TOI article

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/History-in-transition/articleshow/10056421.cms

Is Indian Hockey Being Given Step-motherly Treatment

Last week India became the Asian Champion in Hockey and that too by beating arch rivals Pakistan. So far so good, then what? Winning team was offered some Rs 25000 for each player for winning the tournament for the country. Now that outrageous, it is demeaning for the team and more demeaning for the National game of the country.

When cricket won 2011 world cup they were offered crores and crores of rupees, and that not by federation (BCCI in this case) but by the governments of different states. That is public money was spent like water for already rich game. Now by offering that paltry sum they are discouraging the future players of Hockey, by this government is telling its people that you better don't play this game otherwise you will be treated like that.

Then we had debates on this issue and all sorts of views comes out but when somebody suggest that we should change our national game if Hockey does not reflect the real spirit of the game, at that moment everybody become sentimental and they start talking about nationalism and patriotism. Now lets take all the arguments put forward to explain the poor condition of national game one by one (Apart from the fact that, this game is administered badly).

One is that Hockey does not have money because it does not have audience and hence no sponsors. Ok agreed. So what our government have done? Insulted them by paying Rs 25000 per players for winning a tournament where 6 teams were involved and make heroes of cricketers by offering them crores. When you do not give public a chance to watch the game how there will be audience? None of the channels including our DD telecast even the final then where from the audience will come. People says except India-Pak match in Hockey world cup stadiums were empty, but do they ask are the stadias filled in test matches? Then there have been matches in Hockey where stadiums were houseful and more number of people were outside.

Some of the people argue that government gave money to cricketers because they earned it in the form of revenues for the nation. But here question is have these people considered the support of country in the form of tax wavers on entertainment tax? This thing alone run into 100s of crores.

Then they say that Hockey team is performing badly. Ok agreed but then can anybody tell in last 15-20 years how many tournaments Indian cricket have won which involved more than 5 teams? Hockey has won several times more than cricket. Does that answer the critics? Some say we are in the top team in cricket. It is most absurd. They just touched the top once mostly they are around number 4-5, that too in a game that is played only by 10 nations, now just imagine we are still number 7 worldwide in hockey, which is played by more than 100 nations across the world. Is that bad? Even after all the insults and maladministration at home. 

There was a time when cricket did not had money and Hockey used to play exhibition matches to raise money for cricket. Do cricket has the same spirit? They do not play, why to raise one challenger for all the marketing efforts that have gone in Cricket. Is that the spirit of nation not to help each other or we want a nation with the spirit of mutual support and respect?

Then somebody argued that there is not enough scope of entertainment because it is 70 min or so game with one single break. Then what about football which is 90 minute game with just one break and happen to be the most popular game world-wide?

First we need to respect our national game. Stop insulting the players, bring better administration and things will improve automatically. 

Victory of Democracy - Part-I

Anna has left Ramlila Maidan and people are happy that government in particular and parliament in general agreed to all three demands in the end (although) Jan Lokpal Bill could not be passed. Although public is back to normal work but politicians and Congress party in particular are in no mood to give in. They are busy terming it defeat of "parliamentary democracy". And if it is defeat of parliamentary democracy let it be, because it is victory of true democracy for which Lincoln said long ago that it is the "government of people for the people by the people. Some people who had reduced it to "government of powerful and corrupts, for the rich, fueled by blood of poor" are now crying foul. 

Actually greatest victory of democracy has just happened in India, greatest day for the history of democracy, it happened in the country which has oldest democratic legacy in world (although westerns would like to say it oroginated in Greece). And it was victory of democracy because the contractors of power thought that they are not responsible to the people who elected them, but they were made to realize that finally it is the people who give them the power and they should respect the people. Likes of Kapil Sibbal are damn right in contemporary India when they say that its not FB and twitter using junta which determine the future of the country it is actually invisible majority (read uninformed and illiterate people). Sadly, how right he is, damn right. Once elected; these people think that they have become power brokers for next 5 yrs. Now for the first time people of this country have made them realize their real worth, its truest victory of democracy over power brokers.

I hope we have just started on long march, lot more is still desired to be done. Now next step is right to recall. Once that is in place then these people will not behave as masters but rather as representatives of the people. Politics will no longer remain a business after that as they will have fear that they can be recalled and hence it will no longer be about the return on investment they invest in election. May be then elections will be fought on the issues rather than money and muscle power taking support of vote banks and caste politics. Then these people will have to perform.

Three Strength Of Congress: Fear, Illiterate People and Poverty

When I was studying at Mecca of learning IIM Ahmedabad, there were so many marketing courses, I must say (without any disrespect to august faculty) most of that was boring although commonsense. But then commonsense as they say is one of the most uncommon thing in the world. Hmm...... so coming to the point one thing that I learnt and remembered and observed after that was "sex" and "fear" work the best for any product. It applies as much to the products as to the behavior of the people. In fact marketing is all about influencing the behavior of the people, to induce a certain behavior so that they buy a particular product. You see almost all beauty care creams are marketed on the fear off looking old similarly deodorants and big cars are marketed on the sex appeal. 

Since from the very beginning my focus was not job and all I just wanted to serve the nation somehow or other. More I started looking in this direction more I saw the problems everywhere. Corruption was omnipresent. As we look at the details of the problems of this country we get more and more convinced that if we reduce the corruption even by 50% then more than 80% of the problems of this country will be solved. Second potent problem facing this country is the illiteracy. Although we create all the hypes that we have largest population of the young people in this country but reality is that, this young population if not equipped well to deal with the problems they are going to face soon in life will become burden and not the strength. When we ask ourselves are we doing enough to make this our advantage then answer is resounding no. Corruption is there in the system because most of the parties in this country are family based and not ideology based, then be it Samajwadi party off Mulayam or Rashtriya Janta Dal or Congress of Gandhi-Nehru or for that matter DMK of Karunanidhi; all are same. Congress is most dangereous of these forces for the country because influence of other forces is limited to some particular areas but Congress is all India problem. Only ideology based parties are Left and BJP but then left has an ideology which is already outdated and BJP is painted by its rivals in very bad colours, colours of nationalism have been turned into colours of communal-ism through propaganda by its rivals. So we were discussing the threats that this country faces in the form of family based parties. Let us try to decipher how it works. For the sake if simplicity we choose Congress from amongst all these parties because it have national level presence and longer history than its sister parties. How they play with fear to deal with educated (I must say literate people) and take advantage of illiteracy of poor people. 

So lets begin with fear. This is the tool by which group of corrupt people (but these people are highly intelligent that anybody can admit, only politics is the mean to earn a lot of money and that is what these people want in life and since they have common interest with other people over there so share the common bond with them all) take the population to emotional issues rather than ideological issues. They keep on reminding them that you are Hindus or you are Muslims or Christians. Unfortunately this game is played against the muslins the most because they are most illiterate of the lot (here second strength adds to first). Muslims are told again and again that they are different and BJP will kill them all and so on. By doing this these people are keeping a whole group almost out off mainstream.  Rather than national integration these politicians from all the family based political parties keep on creating the divide and keep Muslims away from mainstream. Fashionable ideologists also start believing this propaganda. They keep on creating the divide not only for Muslims but also for other communities as and when they get the chance. 

One comparison is very apt here. Most of us know about the 1984 anti Sikh riots in Delhi and Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat post Godhara train burning. There are two things that we fail to notice here. When I write 1984 anti Sikh riots I mean that they were anti Sikh riots but never Hindu-Sikh riots, those were actually Congress-Sikh riots. But see almost all of our mainstream media depicts those riots as Hindu-Sikh riots. In fact those were the riots after which both these communities were deeply divided. But nobody talk about the real picture of Congress riots. Yes to some extent I agree here that most of the preparators of those heinous incidents were Hindus. However we should notice here that they were more Congressmen, goons of corrupt disease, servants of dynasties. In fact mostly Sikhs were the victims in those riots and not other party as it was planned massacre and not the riot as such. Hindu in itself is very loose term actually there is no religion as such called Hindu, but if here I delve in this description here then this article will be book. Only point to be noted is that these people were propagate their misdeed very differently through propaganda and were able to convince the people and divide two communities further for future political gains and all this was done on the basis of fear. 

Now look at Gujarat riots of post Godhra train burning incidence. This was triggered by one community burning the train and other retaliating. These were riots in real sense as reaction was immediate and emotional. No government in place of Modi government would have been able to contain that because it was not planned massacre but spontaneous reaction of masses. These were riots in real sense.  People from both sides dies in it and attached each other. If almost 900 Muslim lives were lost so were almost 300 Hindu lives. Muslims being lesser in strength had greater toll naturally but it was not one sided affair as was 1984 "massacre of Sikhs by Congress". In Sikh massacre official death toll was 2700 however independent human right watch groups put it 5000-10000. Hence any sane person can see through this planned massacre.

In 1984 a person none other than then then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi said, "When a large tree falls, earth beneath it is bound to shake". Was not it an open endorsement of the riots? However in 2002 did anybody from Modi's party or government did anything like that? No they did not. But our media highlight it again and again in wrong way. Since most of our population is ignorant and illiterate they are bound to believe the propaganda that is backed by fear. Hence two strengths of Congress get combined here.

You may think here that I am cynic but sometimes it seems to me that people of this country were kept illitrate by design by corrupt people party (Congress) so that they can play with their sentiments again and again otherwise how you will explain that countries like Srilanka and Malaysia who got independence after us are more educated than us, even China which was torn apart by civil war is far better off than us with literacy rate running into 90% s while we struggle at mere 65% one of the lowest in world amongst all noticeable countries. And I have reason to believe it because Congress ruled for more than 50 years out of 63 years of Independent India and these are intelligent people to notice that you can not be-fool an educated people as you can do illiterate people. Believe it or not but there are people thanks to illiteracy who still believe that Nehru is prime-minister of country. 

Now the third pillar of Congress strength. They are winning the election after election with slogan "garibi hatao" (remove poverty) but today number of poor people in this country are roughly the same as there were at the time of independence in absolute terms. But since public memory is short and they are kept poor perpetually they are easily fooled and their votes are bought. When NDA government wanted to make education fundamental right all these family parties opposed that but they took the cue from there (being intelligent people as they are) and passed "Right to education" bill, which is sham because they never bothered to arrange the funds for the same. They do not want people to gain self respect and hence run the scheme like NREGA and mid day meal. If you do not have enough funds to provide the teachers in school then why to spent money in mid day meal? Even poor people take care of food of their children, but no these politicians do not want to make them literate and respectful they just want to show them how much they care but destroying their future simultaneously, because the same very child would have learnt some trade form his parents had he not been there for alms of food (because education he is not having even here). Similarly they are spending the money in NREGA making people dependent on government and not giving them any respectable employment, at the same time creating an instrument of corruption which is not even detectable.

So people of India are caught in this triangle of fear, illiteracy and poverty created by Congress. They need to come out of it. For that they will have better solution if they do away with preparator itself. They need to eliminate Congress. 

Country Being Thrown To Dogs

Today On this auspicious occasion of Republic day I wanted to write something good, something heartening about how we have completed 61 years of republic and our country is progressing. Sixty is the general age of retirement in this country and today our republic is one year older than that. Interestingly it seems that republic has already completed one life time, president of Indonesia was the chief-guest in first ever republic day parade in 1950 and this time again president of Indonesia is chief-guest. It seems country has actually gotten old with age rather than flourish. People are taking advantage of liberal laws, corruption is rampant, present day government is spending more time in defending the corruption rather than nabbing it, it has become fiefdom of various family based parties at regional levels and one at center (Congress), minority appeasement has become fashion of the day and being against the majority culture has become secularism, all the principles with which our founding fathers laid the foundation of this republic are more the instruments of misuse rather than instruments off good governance; and in all this we the country of great tolerant people are tolerating more and more, it seems there is no end to our tolerance, we would rather die than hurt somebody. Media that was supposed to be one of the strongest pillar of democracy has become keep of some powerful  people, journalists are looking towards powerful people and politicians rather than looking towards the glories of their profession. These people are more concerned to the murder story of the daughter of a doctor (in which father itself is suspect) rather than larger issues like poverty, hunger, development and national pride. Reputed authors like Arundhati Roy are busy in attention seeking by giving anti national statements and then justifying it in the name of humanitarianism as if they only know what is free humanitarianism and free will.  Hence time for introspection has come.

One thing that hurt me the most in last two three days was the unfortunate happening in state of J&K. Some people belonging to nationalist party (BJP) wanted to unfurl the national flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar on Rebublic day and to my utter surprise ruling party and their allies denied it and said that is is political gimmick. Even if for the sake of argument we accept that it is political gimmick, it still have a lot of symbolic significance. Lal Chowk is the place which is the center of anti national protests almost every friday now and separatists believe that its their ground literally. In this scenario this flag hoisting has got a lot of significance if we want to demonstrate solidarity with the common man of state and give them confidence in the times of trial and hardships.It is very unfortunate that our political parties have started to politicize even this issue of symbolic significance for whole nation into a political issue. They crossed all the limits of decency by declaring that they will not allow it to happen. They went to the extent of arresting the people who wanted to do service to their nation. This episode remind me off two incidents in recent history. One is Dandi march taken by Mohandas Gandhi (famous as Mahatma Gandhi) and second is the conquest of Czechoslovakia by Adolf Hitler. Let me talk one by one about both the things.

Mohandas Gandhi started Dandi March to protest against the policy of Britishers (tax on salt), and it was also a symbolic march as he could not have produced sufficient salt to supply to whole nation. Such things have symbolic significance in the annals of human history. Similarly when we are facing the problem of Pak sponsored  terrorism in valley and Lal Chowk is the epicenter of that, hoisting of national flag is the symbol of solidarity that country have with the people living in the state. By preventing the people from taling pride in the republic day celebration government of the day is behaving much like colonial government. It seems that even after more than 200 years of British rule and other foreign dominations (Arabs and Turks) prior to that country has not learnt the lesson, instead they have lost all the self respect that they had.

Second event that is conquest of Czechoslovakia by Hitler came to mind as I was thinking of present situation of India and happen to watch WW-II documentary on discovery. in 1938 Czechoslovakia was a powerful country with well equipped army and Europe's largest arms production industry and fortified border. Hitler got the foothold in Sudetenland in the name of autonomy of German population of the area and with this border fortifications of country came in the hands of Hitler. Like many parties in our country friends of Czechoslovakia followed the policy of appeasement for political gains making Czechoslovakia sacrificial animal. Once the defensive advantage was lost by Czechoslovakia Hitler captured the whole country in less than 8 weeks. Here again politicians (particularly from Slovak part of country) to gain power sold their country to Hitler. It is not much dissimilar than what is happening in our country where family based political parties sacrifice national interest to gain power and minority appeasement be it based on caste or religion is their method of choice. If these people keep on raping this country like this then day of doom is very near ffor this republic. It has already crossed all limits. 

I simply wish that people of this country stand up against the looters who are still following the policy of divide and rule, which was followed by Britishers earlier and now followed by Congress and other family based parties.

Dr Manmohan Singh - A glorified puppet

I was still in my graduation when Dr Manmohan Singh became prime minister of India. That was the time when people of our age has started taking interest in the politics. I knew little bit of it and was learning of the happenings around the world. At that time lot many things were new to my mind. Those were formative years and we were learning the things we were not in good position to make a very clear and solid view point. More than six years have passed since then and I have been through IIM between this period and traveled this country from Kashmir to Kerala. Today I believe that there are lot many things on which I can have informed opinions.

So Dr Manmohan Singh when he became prime minister was supposed to be the best candidate only P Chidambaram could have rivaled him at that time in fact even now there is nobody in the ruling camp even now who can rival his CV. At that time there used to be a mail in circulation that we have such a qualified PM and we are progressing well in this country. In fact after the six rule of NDA government and lot of investment in infrastructure we had started growing really fast to the tunes of 8% annualized GDP growth rate. That was the time when Sonia Gandhi was being hailed by our media as mother India and example of sacrifice. She achieved almost goddess like status in the mind of most of the people thanks to our free media controlled by rich people and Congress party. Dr Manmohan Singh's CV was mailed around the country so many time.

Soon however things started to clear themselves. He was nothing but a puppet. few years before that Lalu has used his wife as puppet to rule Bihar. This time Sonia has used this guy as puppet. Puppet or no puppet I had great admiration for this guy because he was best in the herd as far as honesty was concerned. But then honesty is not the thing that you require to rule a country of this size, it need leadership, it require guidance, it need somebody who can take a stand and who have a vision. In those days only I read Dr Kalam's book "India 2020" and this is very well written book and for a while it seemed Dr MMS is great continuation of legacy of Dr Kalam and Vajpayee as prime minister. We were happy that one visionary was replaced by another and there was always guiding light of Dr Kalam. 

First shock came in the light of election of Pratibha Patil as president of the country. They put a lady from nowhere in the seat which was graced by likes of Dr Kalam, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Dr Radhakrishnan. But then we thought president is symbolic figurehead and we still have qualified PM. Moreover Dr MMS had nothing to do with election of president.But that was first step where it was evident that perhaps he is the puppet. But we believed that he will rise above all this and show the mettle, I am sorry to say nothing like that happened. he disgraced himself more and more as the time passed. he was unable to take the stand on any of the issues. 

Then came 2005 and they announce NAREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme). Although I had read little bit of economics by that time but could not guess at that time that it will be most corrupt and fool-proof corrupt scheme of all time. The funds that were being invested in infrastructure development prior to that were now diverted to this scheme and as the election of 2009 came closure spending of this scheme was increased even further. As a consequence labour rates increased inflation increased but there was no proportionate increase in the productivity, in fact productivity came down. It was justified in the name of wealth redistribution which supposedly increases the productivity in the economy. But one very important factor that we ignored at that time which I came to know and understand only after reaching IIMA was that wealth redistribution will enhance productivity if it is above two basic constraints (unfortunately nobody talked about these constraints) viz. minimum level of prosperity and very skewed distribution of wealth prior to implementation if redistribution. Manmohan Singh being an economist must have known these things but still he did nothing. As the time passed we came to know that it did not reduce any poverty in last five years.

When I visited an Andhra village in 2009 I came to understand the real picture. Because of NREGA people in village are getting income without work and if you want to hire them for work they simply tell you that we are getting that much without work then why should I work for the same amount of money. Moreover there was no accountability in this scheme as people were supposed to dig some ponds and this kind of things. Now if you want to verify that if some real work was going on then you visit the place. There you will not find any pond and people will tell you that it got filled up in dues period because of rains or something or they will show u some old pond. But Dr MMS let this scheme run even though inflation was running very high (and I am sure that he is not dumb not to understand this simple fact). This inflation was because of-

1.  Increase in labour cost and hence decrease in productivity in agriculture

2. Increase in demand because of this money but no increase in production since now one of the basic resource became very costly (i.e. labour)

3. Increase in supply of money in the economy.

Hence if today onion prices are so high its not a surprise for me. It is very logical consequence of policies adopted by our scholar PM Mr MMS. But then why to blame him All decisions are taken at Ms Sonia Meno's home at 10 Janpath influenced by corrupt and sycophant people who deposit the share of Meno family in swiss bank accounts so that there is no doubt in the mind of people regarding the clean image of first family.

Then came series of corruption and scams. Now if you are man of action then you keep silent and do your work which says it all, but if you don't take any action and keep mum it is confirmation of your puppet status. Even then Dr MMS kept quite. Comonwealth games came and we were ashamed in front of whole world. These are the times when a nation try to showcase itself on international stage but we showed what nobody want to show.

Economic Reforms: 

What we know today as economy reforms are not actually economic reforms carried out in a thoughtful manner. These are the changes that we were forced to make by IMF and World Bank during crisis of 1991. We were forced to open our economy to international market. It is the sheer size of the country that we escaped that otherwise so many other states have gone in deeper crisis after that and became banana republics. Had Dr MMS been such a good economists he might have brought those changes when he was deputy chairman of planning commission and governor of RBI (only man to have seen both bodies), but as we know he did not in fact it was after his tenure at planning commission that crisis of 1991 happened. Our fiscal deficit crossed 10% of our GDP at that time and credibility ratings of the country went down.

After so many efforts government of Vajpayee brought this deficit under some control but again in his rule deficit is rising and it is already at the level of 8%. In fact falling credibility of Indian economy is reflected in the weakening currency. And here it is even more important to note that rupee is falling now already against a weak dollar. Still nobody at the top level seems to be concerned about the future of the country. MMS government is busy in defending Mr Q in Bofors rather than bring him and other offenders to book. For this government there is very special reason to defend Mr Q because if he is brought to book danger of first family of corrupt India to be exposed is higher, if that happens then danger of Corrupt party (Congress) falling apart is even more serious, because that family make the nucleus of this whole corrupt system. If nucleus is hit atom is supposed to fall apart and that is what they are saving, THE NUCLEUS. 

Real danger for this country is that if people like Dr MMS choose to be puppets what will happen to common man. However alternative fact might be he is expert puppet and reached this level of puppetry by playing the perfect puppet.

Incredible India

.......of course India is incredible....more than anybody can imagine, its almost whole world in itself
On one hand u see naked tribal, people living in hunter gatherer times, on the other hand u see burqa clad muslim women, costliest house in the world, nuclear energy
u see worse of corruption and u see best of human values
u have world's almost coolest place as well as world's almost hottest place
more than one third of people are illitrate but we have army of engineers where u will find it
On one hand there is India of which even great powers speak with respect even in private....on the other hand India in which in naxal areas govt machinery has failed........

Toll Taxes are Absurd

Today I was going to office and there are two toll tax booths on the way from Fort Kochin to Willingdon Island (one for bridge and another for insurance on island). This is regular phenomenon and I did not notice it for long time (6 months), but then I was going by ferry which make me reach over there in Rs 2 yes believe it. It is efficient system but senior managers go by car only.
...hmm so absurdity part is that Mr Santosh was very agitated by this all (although he is paying it for so many years now). His line of argument was I am paying my taxes as a good citizen and then I pay cess for so many things over and above the tax. Then I should not be paying this toll every few kilometers. What for we pay the tax if government can not provide us with good roads and bridges and all. These are the things for what we pay the taxes. Moreover if toll has to be collected it has to be done by government rather than being left to some contractor who dont use even 20% of total income to maintain these roads and bridges. Waiting there waste a lot of time that is productive time. And my friends in this case it is regular road, its not some special road which save you some traffic or extra time hence there should be no tax at such places at all.

In the same line of argument ...he continued when we buy a vehicle we pay road tax that must be sufficient for these maintenance and all other expenses. If we have to pay the toll tax after paying the road tax than what is the use of road tax at all. It is double taxation and at the same time it waste a lot of time.

These are pretty sound arguments and these forces us to rethink the whole system. In fact when we go deeper then we come to realize that there is toll tax mafia they have got all the contacts and win the contract to collect the toll tax. hence government is loosing people are loosing it is just a few of politicians and people in power that benefit out of that. We should really start some sort of movement against it. These are inefficiencies of our system we should do away with as soon as possible.

Over all this non-sense inefficiency there are 3-4 cops at every junction managing the traffic. It is not understandable where a single red light could have worked better than these 5 policeman why we are wasting manpower. And believe me these 5 people actually create the chaos rather than managing the traffic which a red light can manage better than these guys.

Only conceivable point that can come in favour of these toll taxes is that we want to discourage the people from using private vehicle and use more of public transport (e.g. in this case ferry service is more efficient than your own car). But even this argument does not hold good as these tolls are not high enough to
 discourage the people. In fact whole system seems to be designed to profit the local powerful people without giving any consideration to common-man.

I wish and I hope some day we shall be able to overcome these inefficiencies.