We the Guantanamo.

If you do any crime then do it on such a large scale, do it so brazenly that if you get caught then people will be more worried about your human rights or your well-being than victims. Hold on, that don’t make no sense! Am I crazy? Or is that world is going coo-koo? Well, I have been crazy for long time and World has always been coo-koo. But the hoopla over Guantanamo jail is so pathetic, so insane, so egregiously insulting – insulting to the law abiding citizens - that it begs question on why do we even have laws in place? If I err in my judgment then I am punished severely. I have no human rights what so ever and even if I have no prior criminal record I get punished for my mistakes. On the other hand if I blow up few buildings, kill innocent civilians in tons, slit throats of kidnapped victims and then repeat this sequence again and again I am pretty sure that I will be treated as a respectable person who should be treated with dignity and should be accorded with every freaking non-existent human right on this mother earth. However ironic this may sound but that’s the reality that is unfolding in the face of Guantanamo Bay controversy.

United States created a special cell in Guantanamo beach in Cuba for the terrorists captured in Afghanistan war. I call them terrorists because they aren’t fighting for their motherland. They are fighting one, because they got no jobs and they have lots and lots of guns, second, they are big fan of their religion and they want share that love with rest of the world. Albeit, by killing rest of the world. Technically speaking these beasts are harmful for rest of the world. Unfit to leave in the society and hazard to the well-being of law-abiding citizens. This is because they would like to blow up building full of innocent citizens; they love to cut throats of kidnapped citizens and basically, uneducated and loathsome creatures like these, just love to destroy, destruct and create mayhem for no logical reason. Umm…I think I am repeating last few lines. But it doesn’t matter! The reality is not only harsh but it keeps repeating itself. Touché!

The fact is and however unforgiving it may sound these parasites should either be killed or locked into dungeons for life. Because I for one would hate to get killed on my way to office just because some Arab or Pakistani religious zealot thinks that the book he reads allows him to kill me!

Sarcasm aside somehow I fail to see the logical reasoning behind so much talk around human rights of terrorists. If a person is found with AK-47 fighting with American forces in Afghani borders then Americans have right to either kill that guy or detain him. If they don’t do that then they will be dead meat pretty quick. Instead of rounding everyone in the vicinity or taking everyone to the some remote destination, Americans started cherry-picking the most sought after and most dreaded terrorist to special jails build in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In this facility these terrorists are interrogated to get information about future terrorists attack or nabbing more terrorists from their Facebook circle.

I am pretty sure that compared to the medieval age tactics of interrogation or perhaps, even in comparison with interrogation tactics used in all of Arab countries, the techniques of Americans to pry out information from these knuckleheads are heavenly. I mean give me a break these numb nuts gets to dress clean clothes, gets facility to take a dump, gets their religious books to read and gets beds to sleep. What else do they want? For the love of mother Mary, these people are devil incarnate. They swore of killing every non-Muslim in this world. What do you think we should do to them? Build a pyramid and crown them as King of the world?

The problem is the weird sense of equality and human rights concepts that has spread in the intelligentsia across the world. I don’t know the reason behind this phobia of rounding up bad guys. (Then why am I writing this blog? Well, because I got nothing better to do and I am angry!) But my guess is that people (the so called liberals and academics) are worried about innocent people getting trapped in Guantanamo. I completely understand this concern. No innocent person should ever be punished. The procedure to send people to Guantanamo should be stringent. The error should be minimized as much as possible. Still, errors are bound to happen. Someone is going to make mistake and send an innocent civilian to Guantanamo thinking that every bearded guy is a terrorist. Moreover, measures should be taken free a detainee who turns out to be innocent. But to destroy Guantanamo, let everyone go scot-free just because there is a possibility of an error is ludicrous. It’s like not appearing for exam because we may get some questions wrong!

Our responsibility is towards the victims not towards the perpetrators. The prisons are not supposed to be the picnic spots for terrorists. We didn’t force these terrorists to commit heinous acts; they are doing it on their own. They are not humans. They can’t have human rights either.

P.S. – It obviously raises question as in why don’t US send these people to prisons on American mainland? Apart from the fact that prisons in US are overflowing, the controversy that it would generate will be so shrill that forget about according human rights, these pinko-liberals would force government to honor these terrorists with American citizenship!

Bloggers Note – Following opinion is strictly for the Islamic terrorists of Al-Quida and Taliban. My concerns are limited geographically, as in, it’s related only to the terrorists captured in Afghanistan. I am not speaking about criminals in general. Again, my thoughts applies only to the TERRORISTS!

Devotion

He is a friend of mine for last 18 years. We are not very close friends. Not like best buddies or anything. But he is a good bloke and a good friend. He was brilliant from right from the 1st grade. He topped the merit charts in 10th grade state wide examination. He repeated that feat again in 12th grade state level examination. He enrolled into Karanataka Regional Engineering College for Computer Science. The Karanataka REC is one of the top most engineering institutions in India. He obviously scored high grades through out his engineering years. After graduation he joined a software firm in Banglore with good salary and it was his time for enjoying bachelor days. But he didn’t follow the script from this point onwards. He worked hard for a year or so and then decided to do something unthinkable. With bright future in hand and lot of cash to throw around he decided to join RSS social work. His plan was to do so for at least a year and then recalculating his life path. His father is close to RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and the kid was obviously influenced by his fathers dedication towards the organization. By joining that organization for social work he was certainly making his father proud. He wasn’t going to get paid for his work. The only thing organization did for him was to feed him and get him a room to live. He rarely stayed home, doing field work most of the time. The journey from earning attractive salary to earning absolutely nothing was not only unique but also stunning in the context of current youth in India. Everyone talks about (including this lukkha blogger) paying back to the country or working for motherland etc. But this guy actually walked the talk. And we can marvel to the end of the world at his decision but I am sure, to him, this was the right thing to do.

After finishing a year in RSS he came back to the ‘civilian’ life. He studied for an entrance exam for higher education and recently got admitted into IIT Powai for M Tech. (He scored 'only' 99.81% in the exam!)

A relative of mine – my mothers’ mamaji – is attached to RSS since his childhood. He has three kids. All of them grown up and obviously very close to RSS work. After finishing their bachelors in Economics and Science they all went to do the field work for RSS. They were so devoted to the work and so engrossed in their ideals of building a strong Indian society that none them wanted to get married. Finally, his father pleaded that at least one of them to get married and start family life. They discussed amongst themselves and one of them finally emerged as a 'candidate' to enter into ‘Grihasthashram’ i.e. married life. Two brothers are still doing field work. They get paid nothing except for food and shelter. They are never going to have families, bank balance or fancy cars. Nothing! And yet they will be winner albeit in difference sense.

There are thousands and thousands of such stories. I can fill reams of papers describing their devotion. I wish I knew all such people and I wish I could find words to describe the valor and sacrifice.

India is an ancient civilization. Well, we all say that and we all know that. Ask any India about the problems facing Indian society and he or she will give you a huge list. Some savvy citizens will throw in big words and historical perspective into their analysis. It is safe to say that most of the Indians have Doctorate in analyzing problems faced by India and Indian society. Ask them what they do to solve those problems and more often than not there will be pin-drop silence. It’s true that not everyone has to ‘sacrifice’ their lives to serve the nation. Most of the people start families. We call such people as ‘common’ man or general populace. There is nothing wrong in this either. But to ignore the work of few individuals who devote their life towards betterment of the society is all most detestable. pPeople who sacrifice their life for nation are not more patriotic than people who start families. Everyone is patriotic. It’s just that people who decided to swim against the flow, who, instead of asking questions try to find answers, are the people we should look up to.

But that’s not how it goes. The way Indian media portrays RSS and RSS work is appalling. They portray this largest non-governmental, non-profit, un-paid organization in the world as a religious fanatic akin to Taliban. The reality is far different. Not only the members (I am talking about the full time members) are highly educated but they are educated in western style education system. They all are well versed in English as well their native languages. They are aware of current affairs and they never ever force their views (i.e. they never issue Fatwa!) down people’s throat. Yet English media not only ignore the tremendous amount of work done by RSS but their interpretation raises serious questions about integrity of news media.

The truth is that these RSS people don’t really care about what English media say about them. They are very happy with their work and in spite of all the difficulties and obstacles they will continue to do their work till they achieve the goal of making our society strong.

I feel proud that I am born in the land that gives birth to such people.

Barack Obama

It’s funny to read headlines and commentaries about Barack Obama creating history. He did create history by beating formidable Hillary Clinton but most of the Pundits ain’t talking about this part. They are praising him for being first black candidate to win nomination for Presidential race. It’s true to certain extent but to anoint him as symbol of black liberation is all most as non-sense as saying Georgi boy is savior of freedom. One, Barack Obama is only 50% black. His father was black and mother was white. Second, this Harvard educated person has very few things common with the real black population of this country. Having said this, I am not questioning his capabilities. He is a hard-working, ambitious and intelligent person but let’s credit him for his abilities rather than crowning him for his skin color. Because, this country still has to cross some distance before electing a truly black person as President of United States.

Let’s talk about what I mean by ‘truly’ black president. When I say black American I am talking about the people of African heritage who suffered untold misery for last two hundred years in this land. First, as slaves and then as segregated citizens with no legal or human rights. The scars of the past are still evident in the present.

Barack Obama was born to well-to-do, highly educated black immigrant from Kenya and free-minded white woman from Kansas. Barack Obama Sr. was a brilliant student in his native country and was sent by Government of Kenya to US for higher educated. He returned to Kenya after finishing degree from Harvard. Our Presidential candidates’ mother was also highly education and after divorcing Barack Obama Sr. (she was one of his many marriages) she stayed back in US and raised her kid. Such a well-to-do and highly educated parental heritage of Barack Obama stands stark in contrast with most of the black population of United States. All though, free of slavery and official racial discrimination, the black community of United States is yet to find the firm footing in the modern world. Languished in poverty and lagging in every possible progress indicator the community is struggling to find identity, get in terms with the history and figure out where the community stands in terms of future. We have quite of few individuals who broke the glass ceiling and shone bright but for whole community to accept their past and build future will take some more generations.

Barack Obama is right when he says that he understands the pain of black community but he can never identify himself with the pain. He never suffered the crises that most of black kids go through. The gangs, the drugs, police harassments, very high High-School drop out rate and lack of role models. And yes, he can work for them. Yes, he can work with them. Yes, he can be a role model. But he can’t be one of them. In this regards, he stands on the same platform as Hillary Clinton.

I like Barack Obama. He at least sounds genuine and honest. His political life is too young to be blemished. He got no baggage to carry, except that of huge expectations. And his gaffes can be forgiven for his lack of experience. I hope he wins the election.

But it’s all most impossible to answer the question whether America is ready for a black president. They are yet to face that situation. Barack Obama is not black. He is dark skinned but let’s celebrate his achievements and his audacity to run against Clintons and let’s hope patiently that in few more years or perhaps, few more generations before we will have a genuine black guy running for American presidency.

ICL, IPL and BCCI

To be honest I don't give a damn about ICL and IPL. For me, they are simply attempts to make more money out of T20 format. But what bothers me beyond anything was the fact the BCCI - the bastards of Cricket Control of India has audacity to ban all the players who wish to play for ICL. Please correct me if I am wrong here but last time I checked India was still a democratic country where the land where laws are respected and constitution is the only supreme authority. And if that's true then no human being should be objected from taking any legal profession that he or she deems appropriate. But when you play cricket and aspire to represent India then you have to let go the constitutional rights of unbiased employment as well as stomp over the basic human rights of finding livelihood through legal means.

BCCI is a stifling bureaucratic and inefficient organization that doesn't pay taxes to the government. It's highly political, corrupt and vindictive organization that just happens to sit on the possible fountainhead of humongous amount of money that may be generated in India. As if this wasn't enough then lately, the organization is headed by and run by politicians and businessman who haven't played cricket during their entire existence as earthlings. Only redemption in BCCI's excruciatingly arrogant behavior is the selection of team of good standard. Of course BCCI is not responsible for the high quality of cricketers but it is simply because huge number of talented people that aspire to play for the country. the The thing that keeps BCCI off the hot water is the considerably large number unbelievably talented cricketer India generates. So even if BCCI botch up the selection procedure and play politics internally at every corner, the team that they end up selecting plays decent standard of cricket. There are folklores about BCCI selectors and administrators ruining careers.

An important thing to note here is that BCCI gets no funding from Government of India. It's a non-profit, non-governmental organization. It pays no taxes either. But it's just an organization in India that happens to be related to Cricket. Technically, it won't be wrong to say players are representing BCCI rather than India. They are not accountable to anyone. Now considering how wonderfully disastrous Indian government works, people would like to keep BCCI out of government's inefficient hands. But that doesn't mean BCCI will flout the law of the land and behave in absolutely anti-competitive manner. Not just that with its financial might they are forcing governing bodies of other countries to follow this anti-social behavior.

ICL – Indian Cricket League is an organization run by an India billionaire who is a media mogul too. The planned to stage a T20 tournament in India with by establishing a Club structure akin to soccer clubs in Europe. All though they haven’t sold the franchise yet the expectation is that the Club owners will make money by filling stadiums and through sponsorships. ICL owners first approached BCCI regarding using BCCI's stadium. They apparently wanted BCCI’s blessing for this tournament and they were ready to share profits with BCCI too. It didn’t fly well in the life sucking atmosphere of BCCI. First BCCI refused the stadium usage for ICL events. (So, BCCI selected team represent India but their stadiums are private property and not open for public! Am I the only bummer sniffing some illogic here?) And then they disqualified ICL tournament as an official cricket tournament. Now how can one disqualify a cricket tournament that is played purely entertainment purposes? Of course bums at BCCI didn’t realize this initially. Later on instead of rectifying their unnecessary and irrational ‘ban’, they went a step ahead. Well, lot of steps ahead! BCCI declared that any player participating in ICL tournament will be barred from playing domestic tournaments in India. After that they asked employees like Indian Airlines or Indian Railways who field teams in domestic tournament to fire the players participating in ICL. BCCI wont’ allow ICL participants from playing county cricket in England. And the worst is that they are wrangling hands of cricket governing bodies of other nations to fall in line. Now other cricket boards are banning their players for taking part in ICL. This is just too much.

If this wasn’t enough they brazenly copied ICL concept and started their own league, IPL – Indian premier League. The rule is players can get selected for IPL. And if they chose not to then they will barred from any sort of cricket anywhere in the world. This goes smack against law of land. First, who decided BCCI is the sole representative of Cricket in India and if that wasn’t mandated by government of India then second, how come BCCI is deciding who can play what and where?

These questions won’t be asked. Ever! Because the ICL doesn’t stand chance against the staggering amount of money IPL generated before even a single match. Moreover, BCCI is run by a politician who happens to be a cabinet minister in the current government.

No one gives a damn what this lukkhaa blogger has to say. Because he is nothing but a common man for whom these morons staging drama for!

Enron and current Credit fiasco

As the credit crises unfolds and more skeletons tumble out of closet I find it amusing that there is an element of surprise at this crises. It’s like something similar to this never happened. Remember the Enron? Anyone? The way Credit fiasco took place and the way it is unfolding is different on the surface but the underlying philosophy and the culprits are the same. Enron had all the ingredients necessary for a Hollywood melodrama with deadly climax and plethora of villains while current credit crises is rather boring in the appearance and no one is sure about the culprit. Yet, there are unmistakable common threads like short public memory, greedy Wall Street and self-deceiving society that believes in continuous growth in everything. These factors seems to be common in these two crises. Perhaps, in all the prior bubble and bursts in capitalistic society.

Way back in 1848, Karl Marx predicted that capitalism will have bubble and burst, that is, cyclical economy. Though, his measure to counter such bubble and bursts were worst than anything but his assertion was dead on the target. Greed is good and it can be satiated only by consuming more. All though, we can say that Adam Smith’s greed is more Socialist in nature but the current format of Greed i.e. American greed is draconian. Both of these crises in essence are hallmark of American style capitalism. Consumers has to consume more, producers has to produce more, year after year, till the eternity. Profits has to go up every year, a company has to show growth ever quarter. Thinking rationally it's not that hard to see that such an unlimited growth is not possible considering the resources are finite. Agreed, tremendous increase in productivity was achieved but that was due to sustained efforts in the fields of science and technology over the period of last century. But Shit doesn't happen in one quarter and yet, corporations are expected to show growth every freaking quarter!

It is obviously going to strain corporations. They do everything humanly possible to put rosy balance sheets in front of Wall Street. This brings me to certain snippets about Enron. Please try to understand that I have no intention of defending Enron or its cronies. But in spite of all the hoopla surrounding Enron, I didn’t read about ‘short term memory loss’ public syndrome often. In 90’s Enron was one of the biggest companies in the world. They were the star of Fortune 500 list and specialized in Energy sector. But there was something fishy. They weren't earning much of money and they forged some really shady deals to cover their losses. Their Futures contracts were based on too optimistic scenarios and in all possibility their cash flow problems were heading for major disaster. Reports started trickling out about these shady deals and false accounting and before you know this multi-billion dollar company went bust. With Thousands of employees loosing their pension and provident funds and hundreds of thousands of stockholders saw their equity getting wiped out, it was quite obvious that the public reaction was so strong that politicians as well as prosecutors were in need to put someone’s head on the table. Enron’s Chairman and CEO were charged and found guilty. Mr. Kenneth Lay, Chairman died of heart-attack before being sentenced and Mr. Skilling, CEO was sentenced to twenty-five years in jail. Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling were certainly guilty of being excessively greedy and perhaps, they deserve such a stern jail term but I think they were not the only villains of this tragedy. The ‘other’ culprit is still at large and will continue to cause trouble in foreseeable future.
Off many missteps that Enron is blamed for, was innovative accounting tactics। Now, all most all of the companies do certain form of innovative accounting to hide the trash on the balance sheet or to project the trophies (i.e. profits) more prominently. Enron resorted to an accounting technique called market-to-market accounting. The logic behind this accounting goes like this -: suppose a company A signs a deal with other company B that company A will provide certain product over the period of time for certain amount of money. But the exchange of money, in this case, doesn’t happen for years. So what accountants does is to try to project how much profit will be made every year from the deal, had the money is to be exchanged. Enron accountants were aggressive in showing these phantom profits to such an extent that in the year 2000, instead of showing net loss, Enron showed $745 millions of profit. But to Enron’s credit, they stated everything on their balance sheet. The footnotes (an integral part of balance sheet) contained the source of the profit and with careful eye, financial analyst and accountants could see through this tactic. Another indicator that financial world didn’t see or refuse to see was the amount of taxes Enron paid. For Revenue Services you pay taxes only if you earn money. All the cash flow that was to come in future makes no sense to I.R.S. and Enron wasn't paying much taxes

As I said prior, all this information was published by Enron. It’s just that publishing full accounts would take hundreds of thousands of pages. In their effort (which again is a common practice) they bubbled up the reports but in this process they had to smoothen or massage the data and that’s where the trouble started. Most of the common analyst missed this part was either or it was too detailed to understand but when some analyst took a hard look they figured this game out and published negative reports about the Enron. And, rest is the history.

After facing business as well as financial problems what Enron could have done was to admit their shortcomings in public. Their shares would have dropped drastically and Wall Street’s fury would have lead to departure of few high flying executive. But in the long term the business would have been taken care of and balance sheet would have been strong for real. This would have saved pension of thousands of employees as well as billions of dollars worth of equity would have been saved. Of course, this was for long term. What about the quarterly earning? That’s where the problem lies with American style capitalistic model. No matter how poorly the business is running, a company has to show profits quarterly and if that’s not the case then share prices goes down and CEO’s are flagged as if they are criminals. So, CEO’s in turn either cook the books and the deals as in Enron or end up taking unrealistic risk as in host of investment banks in current credit crises.

The sub-prime mortgage crises (i।e. credit market crises) was based on greed and unnecessary risk too. Mortgage firms started giving out loans to people with bad credit which in turn created housing bubble. The risk was high but it was conveniently blanketed with innovative financial engineering. Products were created out of these loans (i.e. securities) and sliced off according to consumer demand. High ratings were given to such risky securities so that they will be sold at high prices. Lending agencies are to blame, investment banks are to be blamed, ratings agencies are to blamed and at the end general public are to blamed because all though, everyone was aware about the bubble consumers kept buying pricy houses that were beyond their means. And, this pack of cards came down quickly when borrowers (i.e. home owners)started defaulting. Lenders couldn’t continue their cash flow to the investment banks who in turn couldn’t sale the existing Securities based on sub-prime mortgages. The investors who had the mortgage backed securities are still trying to figure how much in hot water they are. This lead to confidence crises in the credit market and that is leading American economy right into a recession. This is a very simplistic explanation of Credit Market fiasco. The securities structure and the cash flows are so complex that investment banks are still trying to figure out the mess they created. Fed is taking weird steps in its attempt to stop the capital market’s downturn and job market is bracing itself for long winter.

But in spite of all this, come back after few years and we will be heading towards another downturn। Actors will b new and methods will be more novel and yet the result will be the same

Agreed that US economy doesn’t command as much as clout as it used to be. But unfortunately this translates into more grave situation for the world economy. Other countries (specially, India and China) are following US capital markets step by step and they are about to start their own economic upheaval of insatiable greed, unrealistic risks and very short growth horizons.

My History

I was watching a program on PBS. The theme of the program, hosted by a Harvard University Professor, was to trace lineage of some of the famous American black personalities as far back as they could. Any written documentation in the form of county records or War records that talks something about their ancestry was used to create sort of picture about who owned their ancestors, where did they worked and what did they do before and after civil war or during the re-construction story.

One of the personalities they interviewed was Chris Rock, famous stand-up comedian. They traced his great-great-great grandfather's life story in 1870's. Back then being a black and that too in south states of United States wasn’t exactly a pretty picture. But somehow Chris Rock's grand-grand-grand father managed to get the basic education. When American civil war ended and black slaves were freed, this guy had audacity to contest election for North Carolina assembly. Not only did he get elected but he stood for the election again after his first term and was re-elected. His bravery was worth rounds of applause. It's a different story that pretty soon blacks were disbarred from contesting assembly election but in the short window of a decade Chris Rock’s ancestor shone bright on the horizon. Listening to this, Chris was literally in tears. But what he said next moved me completely. He said 'growing up as a black kid, I always thought that all I am going to do in life is to clean after the white man. It's just I was lucky to bump into a comedy club and things changed drastically for me. But if I knew that my ancestors were intelligent and brave to this extent, things would have been different. I would have been ambitious to begin with'

He really hit the bulls’ eye with his thoughts. Living in America, it is not hard to figure out that black population is poor in every sense of social structure. Though they have freedom to do anything and enjoy equal rights as non-Black population, something is missing. Providing equal opportunity is the maximum extent to which a Government can help any backward ethnic or social group. But it’s entirely up to that group to grab the opportunity, to educate them and progress over the period of few generations. Something of this sort is not happening with the black community in US.

I guess one thing that they sorely miss is the historical context of their existence. The only thing that they can definitively say is that they are all from African continent. Beyond that no one of knows about their ancestors, their culture, their homeland. Nothing! They have no stories of bravery to recount and no tales of inspiration. They have no ethnic traditions to live with and no indigent philosophy to die with. Yes, they are Christians but that too was imposed on them. In short they lack confidence to shape their future because their history was lost in cruelty of slavery and was painted blank with white supremacy. (During slavery even Church believed that Black people have no souls!)

One of the less discussed and subtle effect of colonization was that the conquistadors tried their best to either completely wash away the conquered peoples history. This helped them create doubt in the minds of Conquered people. They were so successful in their mission that most of the conquered people loath their past and are eager to accept western civilization as the only alternative.

That brings me back Indian society. India is one of the very few nations that prospered tremendously in post-colonial era. All though, the problems we faced were similar to other new born nations with minor exception of each problem multiplied by billion people, India some how managed to stay united and focused towards prosperity. There are various reasons behind this success. But one reason that is rarely discussed and which is anti-thesis to what I described above is that India has rich history. Apart from China, India is the only country that has religion, traditions, philosophies, language, and literature, in short, culture blooming and continuing uninterrupted at least for past seven thousand years. So, technically India became independent in 1947 when in fact the events of 1947 were mere bleeps in the 'a-historical' timeline of India. We progressed tremendously in last sixty years but that's not exactly an achievement. This is the least that we should expect from us. We have experienced every possible situation, good or bad. We have seen glory days of Harshawardhan Empire and dark days of Islamic terror. We have seen bravery Shivaji and treachery of our own brethren fighting with Muslims. Yet, somehow we managed to survive. '

But sadly Indians aren't aware of who they are. Under the guise of secularization, wile communists are slowly washing Indians of their rich past. Aurangzeb is painted as a Hero and Mughal era as a Golden period. Ramanayan & Mahabharata is treated as a fantasy. There is no objective research towards Indian history and the only thing that is imposed on the people is vested interest of political group. We are desperate to world how we are a new nation when we should be imparting the long lasting values of humanity on rest of the world. On the one hand we have anti-national communists who are on mission to destroy India and establish outdated and brutal communists rule and on the other hand we have our youth, educated in western system more interested in adapting alien concepts and lampooning western ethos without thinking rationally.

That's not the end of our misery. We have so called nationalist who, instead of doing thorough research, blindly believe that India had everything and all we need to do is to re-discover that glory. That's quite stupid too. We should treat our history more of stepping stone towards the future. We need to understand our history thoroughly and pragmatically in order to build our future in tune with modern times. There is nothing like 'going back' to the glory days. The only option is constructing new 'glory days'. '

History is a treasure but it's up to finder how to use it. Fortunately, our ancestors gave us rich history and we owe same thing to our future generation.

Without history there is no future. Just ask to the people who were robbed their history!

Same Shit, Different Day*

I was trying not to write anything about recently concluded second test match between India and Australia. Apart from being just a cricket test match, the end result of the controversy was all too obvious to me right from the beginning. To begin with, bad umpiring is nothing new in Australian tours. About Aussie players sledging, well, they learn how to sledge before they even say Ma. Moreover, lack of sportsman spirit, especially when they are looking at the defeat, is quite common of them anyways. Add shrill and jingoistic media glare of Australian press and it’s doesn’t require a rocket scientist to understand why visiting teams surrender meekly to Aussie. Regarding the opposition party this time the saga is re-telecasting of old failures. We are bad travelers. All though, the reason is same years after years, I have no clue why on earth Indian cricketing authority can’t make one lousy pitch that bounces like WACA? It also doesn’t help us that we surrender in tight situations. And, our board that controls the India cricket is more concerned about money than prestige of the country or welfare of the players. Granted that now-a-days Indian cricketers are paid handsomely (perhaps, too generously) but for India cricket board, players are simply race horses. If any of the race horse broke then they have one billion people to choose from. So we were in the familiar situation where aggressive opponents were pouncing on us and we, the Gandhian nation, keep talking sportsman spirit and “let’s forget the past” bullshit.

But then something strange happened and my hopes were rekindled. For itsy-bitsy, tiny-winy period of the time I thought Cricket board of India will stand by Indian players. For fraction of fraction of a millisecond I thought they will go head to head with Australians. For Nth part of the second I thought they will call off the tour to teach Australians a lesson about humility, about humane behavior and about showing respect to the opponents. It has nothing to do with nationalism or cowing to useless Indian media but just a practical way cure Australian cricketers of their stupid arrogance. We are biggest cricketing nation both in terms of viewership and money. If we don't use our might for this purposes then I am not sure what is all the money for?

But it wasn’t meant to be that way. Board cricket control of India – a grandiosely named and yet an ‘out-of-control’ cricketing body of India, which under the pretext of being a non-profit and non-governmental organization doesn’t pay taxes to the government (hell, my household is non-governmental and non-profit. Why do I pay taxes?) - initially made all the possible threats to every possible creature in this universe. (That includes giant Panda) And at the end like a good dog they backed down with their tail in between two legs.

We expect umpires to be non-partisan. We understand few tight decisions wrong but if it happens again and again in the same test then that umpire should just go. Worst, when an umpire refuses to uses everything that is at his disposal to give correct decision then that’s criminal negligence, moreover, in rare case of referral to the third umpire results into wrong decision then that umpire should be charged under penal code! Additionally if an umpire in spite of seeing a grassed catch decides to go by the players word then that just does it. And if all this happened in the space of five days then I am short of words to explain my anger and frustration. But Hold on, that’s not the end of the saga. In fact, that’s just the beginning. Ricky Ponting can’t understand squat of Harbhajan’s bowling. Batting against Harbhajan he is like a floppy duck trying to walk on the ground. But he is certainly more intelligent than a duck. He cleverly framed Harbhajan and got rid of him. And, what BCCI did? “We take racist comments seriously” really? Good to know that. Though if both of the players were of the same color then how can any comment of be racist? That’s tiny details that we don’t want to deal with.

Unfortunate the only thing that will force BCCI to pull out of the tour is more money. If someone is ready to pay BCCI all the money they will loose if Australian tour ends up in fiasco then BCCI will happily call off the tour. They don’t care about national prestige because technically players don’t represent India, they represent BCCI. (I am serious!) They don’t care about lack of sportsmanship from Australian side or clearly biased umpiring or racist accusation against their own players because all this doesn’t results into loss of revenue. Yes we lost the series. So what? We do that all the time. But if you think that something can happen that will have direct implication on BCCI’s revenues then hell, yeh, we are calling off even Sri Lanka Vs. England tour!

In short, my message to all the fans of Indian cricket is this –: either get a real job rather than wasting time on burning effigies or writing angry blogs (ala me!) or start collecting money and donate it to BCCI to call off the tour.

* Same Shit, Different Day was the answer Martin Crowe gave when he was asked about Aussie behavior.

Who Killed Benazir Bhutto?

The audacity of politicians, especially Pakistani rulers, to think rest of the people as dumb and ignorant baffles me beyond any limit. I mean, agreed, we are mere mortals who live and breath towards bright and preferably, comfortable future. And they (Pakistani rulers) are more of, well, Darth Vader. So, yes, there are itsy-bitsy differences. But in no way we are this dumb. Yes, we like to believe in ‘Slam Dunks’ or ‘Mission Accomplishments’. Hell, we are even ready to believe that Mr. Musharaff is a peace dove (worthy of Peace Nobel!) and working incessantly towards eradicating Al-Quaida. But we ain’t going to believe that Al Qaida killed Benazir Bhutto.

I am ready to believe some unknown extra-terrestrial, traveled thousands of light years just to kill a horse look alike political leader of a failed state on the Earth. But for the love of all that is sweet in on the mother earth, don’t tell me that Musharaff didn’t kill Bhutto. Please. Please have some mercy on my common sense.

After all this verbatim the question remains, who killed Benazir Bhutto? Indians? They have vested interest in keeping Pakistan in turmoil. They could kill her and keep Pakistan away from stable democracy. Americans? May be. There is no ulterior motive here in killing her. But then Americans ain’t exactly known for taking pragmatic steps. Al-Quida? Possibly. They left the paid membership of Pakistan Fan Club some time ago. By keeping Pakistan in turmoil their Terrorist Universities will certainly have bigger freshman class this year.

But in all these above ‘line-up’ characters we are assuming that Benazir’s killers want Pakistan in turmoil. Isn’t it possible that the Killer(s) may actually want to eliminate possible choices of powers in Pakistan’s politics (notice that I am not mentioning Democracy anywhere)? Apart from Pakistani elite class and Army there is no one in this whole universe (including E.T’s!) who wants to rule Pakistan. First, it is an Islamic state. Second, it’s a failed state. Repeat these two sentences again and again and you will have Pakistan in making. Yes, people would like to control them. But that’s just to make sure that they don’t send home-grown Terrorist talent as a Christmas gift but that’s about it. This logic takes out India and Americans out of equation.

It is hard to comment anything on Al-Qaida. The demarcation lines between reality and myth, reality and what Americans wants world to believe is so thin and blurred that to comment on Al-Qaida is throwing darts in the dark. (I miss them all even in broad day light. But that’s beside the point!) More ever it is next to impossible to pin-point where Al-Qaida stops and Taliban begins or where both stop and ISI (Pakistan’s CIA) begins. But even under these circumstances we can safely say that Al-Qaida will be least interested in Benazir Bhutto. More pressing concern for them at this point of time (Apart from Americans burning their tails) is Musharaff. However half hearted attempt it might be but Musharaff and Pakistani army – the only patron saint of Talibans, under pressure from US, is definitely not making these terrorists life easier. If anything then this blatant betrayal makes Musharaff as numero-uno target of Al-Qaida & Co. So, this takes them out of line-up too.

And, it leaves us in a weird situation where there are no killers in this murder investigation. Hmm….perhaps, she is still alive and plotting to take over Pakistan! All righty, let’s come back to the three dimensional world.

Musharaff ran Pakistan for straight 8 years. Unhindered power makes people crave for more power. I mean, this isn’t a revelation. But lately Bush government in order to show something to their home voters started pressing Musharaff to transition power to the democracy. Now, Musharaff already listened to US once and sent guns towards Taliban, the same organization that his Army nurtured for years. His grand plan was to take over Afghanistan and keep India in check by maintaining large resource of militants. All these plans came down tumbling in post-September 11 geo-political scenario. But he stuck with pragmatic note and sided with powerful master. But it is too much for him now that US is forcing him from his power. He could take care of Nawaz Sharif but Benazir was getting out of hand. She first stuck secret deal with Musharaff in order to gain entry into the country. But after getting support from US, she conveniently tried to back-stab Musharaff. Of course, this guy is not only a seasoned dictator but he still has strong backing of Army and he had enough. Ka-boom!!!

Of course, all this is too obvious. Yet, media and political class across the nations are refusing to see the reality. It is not easy to accuse anyone even in normal criminal cases, lest that includes political figures. In any case, who cares of justice anyways. There is only one option left in Pakistan and everyone has to cling to him

Modi Vs. Reality

In one of the most stupid electoral analysis of BJP’s stronghold in Gujrat, author summed BJP’s successes in Gujrat as ‘in 1995 they won on Ram Temple aftermath, in 2002 they won by killing Muslims and now, they will probably win because of Sonia Gandhi’s statement that generated communal fervor’ I mean, we ain’t talking about, Bihar – the corrupt state in India, or Orissa – the most backward state in India or not U.P. – most casteist or communal state in India but about Gujrat – the most industrialized state with one of highest literacy rate and state with best infrastructure in India. This may sound funny but it ain’t so. More ever, this analysis wasn’t published by mock journalists like Barkha Dutta or Rajdeep Sardesai or by leftist TV channel like NDTV but in Indian Express, supposedly premier name in Indian political journalism. And, if you read other electoral analysis in any newspaper, similar theme is hard to miss. By making such dumb analysis they effectively labeled Gujratis as dumb, communal and Hindu Talibani. And, electoral victories of BJP are surmised merely on the basis of communal Hindu frenzy generated by RSS and Co.

Just in case if reader hasn’t read the newspaper lately (and it’s quite possible considering the news quality in Indian media) then BJP won handsomely in Gujrat. They won seats in Rural as well as Urban areas. They won votes among literate as well as illiterate people. They won across the caste lines and all this, with the campaign plank of development and slogans of ‘Vaibhav-shali Gujrat’. (Prosperous Gujrat) The election was fare and peaceful by best standard practices. No vote booth grabing, no liquor distribution in poor areas and no forceful vote stamping by party hooligans, which usually happens in U.P, Bihar and yes, our beloved West Bengal.

Then the obvious question that arises is that why Indian media is so resolutely against Mr. Modi or for that matter, against BJP? Having bias towards other political parties is one thing but in order to prove non-existing reality, generating false reports is all together different. Because, in that case there is certain agenda that Media lab wants to impose on people. I don’t want to go into conspiracy theories here but it boggles my mind to see India media so far removed from the reality, so much immersed into self-gratification and sensationalism and worst, being judgmental in publishing news.

The reality is that Mr. Modi was bound to win the election from the day one. He is non-corrupt as well as progressive. His schemes for primary education as well as woman’s education are worth laudable. His zeal to build infrastructure is stupendous and his ability to fight pinko-leftist and psudo- human right activist are legendry. But I guess, these are the precise reasons Media hates him. But as I said earlier, it’s ok if he is not a darling of Media but that doesn’t mean they will paint him as a villain.

I think Mr. Modi doesn’t play by the rules, usually written and ‘enforced’ by Nehruvian Media. He don’t’ talk bull shit. He doesn’t harp on caste politics. More ever, he doesn’t worry about minority appeasement. I mean, not doing minority appeasement is usually equated as treason by ‘secular’ media. (It’s a different matter that in recently published government survey about Muslim community, Muslims in Gujrat are better off than most of the other part of the country.) He is tough on terrorist. He doesn’t mind killing terrorists in fake encounters. And, in a country where expressing Hinduism is a taboo, he is unabashedly, Hindu.

It is pity that the reality that Media is trying to portray is in fact, work of their imagination. This is how they would love to see in reality but sadly it ain’t so. But in this game of ‘communalism’ that media loves to play, the ultimate looser is a common man. Because, he (not in gender way) doesn’t want anyone else to decide what is good and what is bad for him but merely needs information, pure information, and unbiased, non-partisan information from the media. Isn’t that what media is supposed to do anyway?

Gandhi

Gandhi ji baffles me. I always find him very intriguing. His life moves effortlessly from one end of spectrum to other. He believed in peace. But his zealotry in handling any situation with peaceful manner often caused India and Indian independence movement major setbacks. He wanted all voices to be heard but at the same time, he was quite autocratic in his decisions. He created fierce followings as well as fierce opposition. Anything and everything related to him were extremities. And, as always, extremities always meet. In Gandhi ji's case, his actions and his personalities were the reason behind such extremities. His audacity to challenge the might of British empire with seemingly innocuous method of Satyagraha was outlandish by all accounts but it worked. It did wonders. At the same time his timidity in taking necessary and stern actions right before partition cause untold misery.

Contradiction ran amok in his personal life as well public.It seems his personality was in constant turmoil. Reading his autobiography gives us valuable insight into his philosophy, which was imposed on Indian people and changed the course of independence struggle.

Since his childhood, knowingly or unknowingly, he always carried certain notion about what is right and what is wrong, who is good and who is not. But these principals proved elusive to him. And, he was absolutely self-absorbed in his quest of achieving this mirage. He was married happily and had a nice family. But then he wanted to live austere life. So, in the midst of his family life he decided to take a vow of celibacy. Such efforts weren't exactly logical. More ever, he never fully understood that someone is going to face repercussions of his abnormal actions. Or perhaps, it never occurred to him that his ideals, his quests might be contrary to some one else's beliefs. This pattern of kept recurring even in his public policy decision. For better, for worst.

He was a politician. Leading a political movement of freeing a country from clutches of colonial superpower was always going to be a treacherous journey. It wasn't any Saint's job or perhaps, person doing this shouldn't be called as a Saint. But then, Gandhi ji wanted to be a saint as well as a politician. This contradiction was obvious to create trouble. For example, he was successful in stirring up Indian society to stand up against British power in 1921 but then with one violent incidence and he decided to call off raging movement. Reason, he wanted a strictly non-violent movement, that is, Saintly way. Now, no one was questioning his leadership, his motives or perhaps, his methods. But his zealotry in forcing 'peaceful' movement on Indian people was quite contrary to vary philosophy he was trying to espouse. Similar thing happened during the riots of Mophala in Kerala, a precursor to his actions during partition.

When India needed a stern leader during the bloody days of partition, instead of using his towering stature Gandhi ji not only failed in his basic duty but he impeded efforts of others who were taking necessary decisions. Razakar's were creating havoc in central India, Punjab and Bengal was literally flooded with blood and here, our esteemed leader wanted peace by asking only one community to stop retaliating. This was beyond redemption.

Contrary to popular culture he was not sole reason behind independence but he was one of the very few important reasons behind independence. Lokmanya Tilak set up stage, a perfect political launching pad for independence movement and Gandhi ji used that pad to take movement to next stage. His efforts to mobilize people for the cause are unparalleled in Indian history. Irrespective of casts, clans, gender, region and to certain extent religion, masses readily stood besides him. Trusting him with their lives. At best Indian society at that time can be described as fragmented, timid and non-confident. Gandhi ji successfully stirred flames of independence amongst these lost souls. It was truly a superhuman effort.

Thus he understood what is needed to be done to unite people for political struggle i.e. he was a perfect political leader but then at critical junctures his inner urge to become a Saint would take hold of him. To say his inner conflicts caused untold misery would be an understatement.

In the heat of partition his limitations came into fore. The visage of invincibility suddenly started looking more like showmanship and his ideals listless. Contradiction followed him to his end, his followers, sensing the imminent fall of this grand sire, rushed to commodities his principals in the market of petty politics. All this was too much for him to bear. Instead of being more attentive, Gandhi ji retired into his world of Maun-Vrat and Upavaas. The irony is not that monsters his indecisions created ended up consuming him but these monsters made cruel joke of his principals by elevating him to the Godly status.

He was a mortal human being who did superhuman things. Some of his principals were outdated and ill-informed but then some where bang on the target. In any case he shouldn't be an object of loath. We need to take what suits our time and move on. It is better than making mockery of this great person and hurting our own generation.

Stock Market and the Economy

Discussing Stock Market always excites people. Tell people that you are a trader and people will start asking you for ‘tips’ immediately. Some people are nuts about stock market and some people just hate the idea of investing directly into stock market. The irony is both are right. Risk to invest money for short term usually outweighs the returns while investing for long term is probably a better idea. Still, stories of traders walking off with Corvette as a bonus or people jumping out of windows because huge losses are permanently imbibed on the psychic of modern societies. But why stock market is so important for economies?

Stock markets are hallmark of capitalistic economies. It is one of the most important system in Capitlism to raise money. Now, they can raise capital either by borrowing money from banks or floating bonds in the market or taking company public. When a company goes public, stock market comes into the picture. A company divides its worth into stocks. They sell those stocks on Stock Market to general public and raise capital. A stock holder owns part of the company, though, he/she doesn’t have any say in day-to-day running of the company. Later, those stocks get traded over and over according to news, rumors and performance of that perticular firm. But capital that, company raised initially remains the same.

Now as returns of stock market – over the period of time – are usually greater than interest rate of bank, more and more people invest money in the stock market. In developed economies percentage of population involved in stock market is quite high. For example, in US, more than 50% of people have their money in stock market while in China it’s mere 7%. So, it is quite clear that when stock market crashes lot of public equity vanishes. But this usually happens when market is floating high on the cloud nine of speculations. For example, the tech bubble of 2000.

Another factor that is related to above point is that as stock market lures people with higher results, greater part of household savings or pension plans is invested to stock market. Obviously, when market tanks, household savings and pension plans goes down the drain too!

The second factor to gauge importance of stock market is the value of tradable stocks. These tradable stocks doesn’t include equity held by government. As this value increases it affects economy more and more. In China, for example, value of stocks traded is only 25% of GDP. But in US, value is 150%. (In India this percentage is more than 100%)

Third, if stock market is on roll then it becomes easier for companies to raise money through the market and there by invest more. But when stock market crashes the investment decreases affecting economic growth on longer term.

Thus stock market is quite important to economy but without these above factors, it doesn’t affect economy as much as it is believed. That is, stock market melt down in China won’t be as detrimental to Chinese economy as it is predicted. But swings in stock market have puissant effect on public psyche. So, it is understandable that when stock market dives everyone is talking about economy going down but it doesn’t have to be so.

Hindu Renaissance

It seems Hindus are destined to take fault for every possible ill in our society. Now, considering more than 85% of our population is Hindu so,it is quite obvious that Hinduism or at least, Hindus are responsible for social problems. But what bothers me is that Hindus are the victims here. Victims of bloody and torcherous history. The situation that they are facing today is the result of constant warfare and invasion for last thousand years. How come Hinduism that bore the brunt of Islamic genocides and plunders and lost 1/3 of its population to Abrahmic religions, stands on trial for everything that is bad in India? Isn't there a tiny possibility that the ills we are facing are caused because our society cocooned itself in order to survive from continuous invasion?

Worst thing is that modern day politics dictates Hindu sects like Sikhs, Jains and neo-buddhists to consider Hinduism as main threat to their existance. One reason is our political system since independence (thanks to Mr. Nehru) made joke out of Hinduism. Hindus are compartmentalized and marginalised in their own land. The imprints of extrimely biased education system are quite evident on Hindu mind as we don't know our history. We don't know meaning of our traditions and our heritage. That's why we are usually on the backfoot when sects like Sikkhism, Jains and Buddhists attack Hinduism with blatent lies.

Still worst, our insecurity oozes out whenever faced with Islamic terrorists and Christian. We suddenly start parroting alien concepts like secularism and conveneantly misinterprit the spirit of sarva-dharma samabhaav.

With such a non-confidense and lack of knowledge, are we going to survive in next century?

I agree that we should embrace these enstranged children of ours more tightly. They are slinging mud at us only because they gain political profits out of it. But most of believe that that somehow someone will take care of problem and that ain't going to happen for sure. As more and more Hindus make economic progress as their priority numaro uno and rightly so, I think we are going to witness further dip in Hindu traditions, Hindu population and awareness for Hinduism before we see possible resurgence. Swami Vivekananda said that unless a person is sure about his/her two meals every day, he/she ain't going to think about Hinduism. (Of course, Muslim people are opposite but that's why Hinduism and Islam is two opposite ends of spectrum.)

Coming back to economics, right now majority of Hindus are worried about their income. They are working really really hard for making more and more money and then spending as much as possible on luxuries. It is understandable. This is probably the first time that Indians, in general, are seeing so many opportunities to progress. But the flip side is that either they ignore their religious traditions or young generation grow ignorant of their religious background. But as they grow economically stable, I hope that 'Hindu gene' will kick in and they will start working towards betterment of Hindu society. One can see similar thing happening withNRI's. They are econmically stable and financially rich. That's why we see more awareness amongs them about problems faced by Hinduism and more probability of NRI's working towards betterment of Hindu society. It's going to take at least half of a century for economic progress to encompas all most billion Hindu people, but do we have that much time? We are going to face another onslaught of Islamic and Christian terrorism within next 20 years. In the mean time our political system will be more minority appeasing, more corrupt and will be admantly anti-Hindu. How are we suppose to face this?

There are three kinds of people, one who blessed with absolute ignorance. Second who think someone will take care of problems and that 'someone' doesn't include them. And, third who believe that Sanatan Dharma faced with such problems before and came out triumph. True, we faced with similar kind of problems before. For the sake of convenience, I will divide Hindu history into three broad parts. First one, before Islamic invasion, second one, from Islamic invasion till independence and third time period is since independence. During first part the greatest threat we faced was from Buddhism. This closest relative of ours literally gobbled us from inside out. All though, Buddhism emerged as more refined version of Hinduism sans rituals, later on it tried to disown Hinduism and stumbled badly. Things never looked bright for Buddhism since then. But Buddhism held mirror to Hinduism and unwittingly, end up strengthening roots of Sanatan Dharma. Islamic invasion was absolutely brutal and bloody. This kind of religious ferocity and unprecedented violence was something Hinduism never witnessed in its a-historical past. Though it took few hundred years for Hinduism to regroup and fight back. These efforts weren't exactly coordinated and missed quite a few golden opportunity(we lost one third of our population and one third of our land to Islam) but Hinduism still survived. We are still majority in Indian subcontinent.

That was that. It all happened in past. All this was result of sacrifices made by innumerable souls. Some we know like Shivaji or Maharan Pratap and some we don’t know like Khokars of Afghanistan or Raja Harpal Dev of Devgiri or Ahoms of Assam. But the most important thing that was common among all these people was they were ready to sacrifices their life for the cause. And, they knew who their enemies were. Not only this ‘sacrifice for cause’ thing is missing in present generation, we have absolutely no clue about our enemies either.

Let me finish this blog by giving an example -: Christian missionaries put together a study in which they figured out how much money it takes to convert a Hindu? They divided that part according to regions, castes, education and language. And, with this study (I am not saying this study is statistically correct) they know where to push for further prosyletization. So, they using their capitalistic mindset to ‘harvest’ more souls.

How’s that? How are we supposed to counter this with stupid caste and regional politics?

Complexities of Debt and Securities Market I

With housing market crashing down, market is behaving quite cautiously. The effects of housing crash took two of Bear Sterns hedge funds to cleaners. Failures of these two respected hedge funds, which has more than $20 billion of investments, bares the inner world of extremely complex debt and securities market of Wall Street. I will try to shed some light on these intricacies.

Since last few years US housing market was going through housing boom. This was possible because loans were given to the people with bad or not-so-good credit history. These home loans are known as sub-prime lending. But institutions who loaned money to these people didn’t wanted to carry this risk entirely. So, they packaged those loans into bonds and sold them to investors further. Thus, if they are lending money with 10% interest rate, they packaged this loan into bond and sold them to the market by promising say 5% interest rates. Since 2000, more than $1.8 trillion of such bonds back by home loans are sold in the market. Now value of these bonds are affected adversely as number of defaulters or late payments are increasing. But the underlying concept behind this procedure is simply to spread the risk by repackaging and selling an already sold financial product.

The next step of this chain is to pool these bonds, that in derive their value from some other entity, into one product. They are known as Collateralized Debt Obligations (or CDO’s) So, some CDO’s contain less risky bonds and some contain high risk (and obviously high return ) bonds. But the funny thing is institutions and hedge funds that invest in these CDO try to further stretch the risk potential of their investments. So, for example, if a Hedge Fund decides to invest a grand in CDO’s, they will invest only 100 bucks of their own money and they will borrow rest from some other institution. Thus, it is clear if a particular set of CDO went down, it sends shivers through out the market. Because directly or indirectly lot of investors are involved in it.

Is Indian economy running out of gas?

The recent sudden increase in dollar value of rupee ruffled quite a few feathers. At least, my roomies who regularly send money to India have lost their sleep. In last month or so, the Rupee value of Dollars decreased from around Rs. 44 to Rs. 40. It means, Rupee is getting costly. There are bunch of reasons behind it. Most of the people believe that monetary policy is solely responsible for this hike but it is much more complex. And, getting perceptive on this issue will help us to understand the rising inflation in India too. If Government Of India failed to act on either inflation or on rising rupee, the over heated Indian economy will come to screeching stop. Of course, the effects won’t be too pleasing !

India became a service sector giant in last few years. More than 50% of India’s GDP is contributed by service sector. Instead of making standard transition from agricultural based economy to industrial and then to service sector, India jumped straight from agriculture to service sector. Thus Rupee is in heavy demand in international market as India’s exports of services are rising. Also, Indian expatriates are sending unprecedented amount of money back to their home land. That’s why Rupee is getting costlier i.e. it is taking less Rupees to buy a dollar. But if Rupee becomes costlier then we will loose our export advantage. For example, it will be expensive for American software companies to outsource to India and they will scale back on outsourcing if Rupee continues to gain strength. But populist policies is forcing Government of India to making Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to put more money in the market and dilute the Rupee value. It was doing that for all most an year but such forced treatment on an all ready sick patient is surely going to have awful side effect. So, we have rising inflation as there is more supply of money than demand.

In short - : As India’s exports are rising (service sector) Rupee value increasing in international market and to keep it artificially down RBI is printing more money which in turn is increasing inflation.

But recent increase inflation can’t be attributed solely to the lax monetary policy. Sustained GDP growth of last 25 years or so is more related to internal consumption than export based economy. There are various reasons for continuing increase in internal consumption. Of course, easiest of them is huge population. But other reasons are quite subtle India’s middle class is burgeoning and their apatite for luxurious goods is increasing rapidly. In the mean time, India is slowly catching up industrialization too. All though, government is waking up slowly to the realities of shabby infrastructure, the projects such as golden quadrangle road is consuming lots and lots raw material. But sadly, the supply side is unable to keep up with this rapidly rising demand. The second step of green revolution never took place. Hence, rising population is straining food supplies. Rigid labor laws and strict government control stunted the manufacturing industries. And now they can’t provide enough of cement, steel or tar. Thus inflation has more to do with demand than monetary policy.

All these signs are pointing towards over heating of the economy. Instead of loosening the bottle necks of the economy, government, admittedly because of useless leftist parties, is forcing more and more populist policies down economies throat. We need more fuel to keep economy running at this pace otherwise it is fast hurtling towards some serious trouble.

Bharat and Indian Government II

I am continuing my argument regarding to Mr. Prime Minister’s recent comments about conspicuous spending of rich Indians. I am throwing some facts that I got from recently published article of Mr. Guru Charan Das in Foreign Affairs. The facts and last Italic paragraph are of Mr. Guru Charan Das. The first three facts proves how much India has progressed in last 25 or so years. And, then how much of that progress is done in spite of Government of India rather than vice versa.

• The country's economy grew at 6 percent a year from 1980 to 2002 and at 7.5 percent a year from 2002 to 2006

• In the past two decades, the size of the middle class has quadrupled (to almost 250 million people), and 1 percent of the country's poor have crossed the poverty line every year.

• As a result, inequality has increased much less in India than in other developing nations. (Its Gini index, a measure of income inequality on a scale of zero to 100, is 33, compared to 41 for the United States, 45 for China, and 59 for Brazil.)

• For now, growth is being driven by services and domestic consumption.

• Consumption accounts for 64 percent of India's GDP, compared to 58 percent for Europe, 55 percent for Japan, and 42 percent for China.

• Only 10 percent of credit goes to the private sector in China, even though the private sector employs 40 percent of the Chinese work force. In India, entrepreneurs get more than 80 percent of all loans.

• Software and business-process outsourcing exports have grown from practically nothing
  to $20 billion and are expected to reach $35 billion by 2008.

• A recent national study led by Pratham, an Indian nongovernmental organization,
  found that even in small villages, 16 percent of children are now in private primary schools. These kids scored 10 percent higher on verbal and math exams than their peers in public schools.

• At government health centers, meanwhile, 40 percent of doctors and a third of nurses are absent at any given time. According to a study by Jishnu Das and Jeffrey Hammer, of the World Bank, there is a 50 percent chance that a doctor at such a center will recommend a positively harmful therapy.

Thus it is clear that privatization - one way or other - has helped the middle class carrying burden of growth. And sadly, Indian government failed in doing basic duties.

After India's independence, Nehru attempted a state-directed industrial revolution. Since he did not trust the private sector, he tried to replace the entrepreneur with the government -- and predictably failed. He shackled private enterprise with byzantine controls and denied autonomy to the public sector. Perhaps the most egregious policy was reserving around 800 industries, designated "small-scale industries" (SSI), for tiny companies that were unable to compete against the large firms of competitor nations. Large firms were barred from making products such as pencils, boot polish, candles, shoes, garments, and toys -- all the products that helped East Asia create millions of jobs. Even since 1991, Indian governments have been afraid to touch this "SSI holy cow" for fear of a backlash from the SSI lobby.

Fortunately, that lobby has turned out to be mostly a phantom -- little more than the bureaucrats who kept scaring politicians by warning of a backlash. Over the past five years, the government has been pruning the list of protected industries incrementally with no adverse reaction.

The last paragraphs proves the moronic ways the Labor Laws are administered in India. Since 1991 successive governments tried to dismantle these ‘legacy’ industries. The results were mixed until our beloved Mr. Manmohan Singh came to the power. The first thing his government did is to scrap the disinvestment commission that used to overlook the process of disinvestment under Vajpeyee government.

Possible Fallouts Of Recent Caste Violence

The recent caste violence of Gujjar community in Rajasthan is quite unsettling. This situation can be analyzed in two ways and unfortunately for India, both of them are harbinger of dark times ahead. The infuriating thing is that this particular ‘caste’ is not fighting for social justice but rather to prove its ‘backwardness’.
The suspicious pattern that emerges from controversy of Dera Sacha in Punjab and then Gujjar violence in Rajasthan is that, both of these states are ruled by non-Congress governments. Congress party since the days of Indira Gandhi can’t stomach non-Congress political parties ruling at state level. In her draconian quest of power, Indira Gandhi fermented trouble in North-Eastern states, Kashmir, Punjab and in Tamilnadu. Fortunately, Tamilnadu remained peaceful (and Sri Lanka bore the brunt) but Punjab paid dear price. While North Eastern states and Kashmir are still burning.

It was not only unthinkable but all most blasphemous to imagine India being ruled by a non-Gandhi person. Luckily, P.V. Narsimharao, the first non-Gandhi prime-minister to complete five years of tenure, didn’t continued this old tactics of destabilizing non-congress state government. But the old ‘gang’ of Indira Gandhi is back in the power. First we have central governments faltering in Naxal hit areas only because these states are ruled by non-Congress government. Then as this ‘gang’ is feeling more cozy in the power, they started trouble in Punjab and now in Rajasthan. I suspect either Madhya Pradesh or Gujrat will be the next target. We will either see communal violence flaring in these two states or perhaps, continuation of caste violence.

The second conclusion is more dark and of course, is fall out of policies implemented by current government only. This caste violence is tight slap in the face of anyone who supports limitless affirmative policy. It is surely sowing seeds of deep distrust between various Hindu communities. The worst thing is that the government which is inciting violence for few extra votes, will judge who qualifies for ‘backward’ status. Of course, this backward status has nothing to do with being backward. And, in any case what is the definition of ‘backwardness’? If economical status is the criteria then half of India regardless of caste lines can be labeled as backward. If not, then Hindu caste system is way to complex to draw clear demarcation lines various communities.

With rapidly increasing education and host of social movements in last seventy years, Hindu society was realigning itself internally. Obviously, such progressive social movements are quite complex to describe but our ‘secular’ government deeply distrust anything that is genuinely Hindu. With rise of vote bank politics it was quite obvious that government will do its best to destabilize Hindu society. The tiny minority of so called ‘Dalit’ activists and communist dominated media have literally made it impossible to have any sensible dialogue over social justice. The strategy is just to muddle the water rather than to debate honestly. Thus, instead of caste lines getting blurred, they are vigorously getting drawn again. Though, the current motive of distinguishing ones’ caste is political, the differences will soon be stark enough for us to see recurring caste violence.

In nutshell, even if the recent rampage over castes is politically incited or perhaps, new trend in the society to reap the profits of affirmative policy, the ultimate looser is Indian society.

On the lighter side if everyone tried to become ‘backward’ then no one will really be ‘backward’ !

Bharat and Government of India

Yesterday prime minister of India, Mr. ManMohan Singh in his address to CII (Confederation of Indian Industries) emphasized on ‘inclusive’ nature of the growth. He said “India has made us. We must make Bharat...vulgar display (of wealth) insults the poverty of the less privileged” His assessed that rapidly rising income inequality in India is a source of concern and it may lead to social unrest in the future. I can’t agree with Mr. Singh on this point more. He further said that people with money should not flaunt their wealth and there is a need to limit the executive pay. But somehow I smell political motive and hypocrisy in his statements. He was the best finance minister India ever had and he is fast turning into the worst prime minister India will ever have.

There is no doubt income gap is rising at breath taking speed in India. People who are working in the IT sector are earning unprecedented amount of sum. Whether their pay is unnecessary is not a question here. It’s simple supply and demand graph and right now, Indian IT is in high demand. Secondly, people living in the cities are earning far more than people living in villages. With service sector rising rapidly, it is no brainier that there are more opportunities in the cities than in country side. But even in cities, people with education are earning far more than uneducated. And, uneducated in the cities are earning far more than uneducated people in countryside. But I don’t think we can change wealthy life style of middle class or rich class. Last time I checked India was still a democracy and more ever, with adaptation of western style capitalism it is next to impossible to keep check on people’s life style. I mean, increasing spending and lavish life style is the solid rock on which western style capitalism stands.

I strongly believe that we should adapt any foreign concept according to Indian life style, culture and ethos. So, what Mr. Singh fits well with me but the thing that I don’t understand is that his government failed to do basic stuff that government was supposed to do and now he is asking middle class to curb on their life style. That’s moronic. No wonder that the industry in its report card gave this government mere 30% . The infrastructure work has literally stopped. The road building is going no where. The SEZ’s have become political fire balls. Dismantling of legacy government industries has been stopped. The inflation is going up way more than government statistics suggests. We are heading towards electricity shortage chaos. The security of the country is in jeopardy with recurring bomb blasts across the country. His frivolous affirmative policy is surely going to wreck havoc in coming generations. The list just doesn’t stop.

Indian economy is emerging challenge to China and US. The Indian government should work in tandem with Indian industry and stop foreign domination of Indian markets. In case if Indian industry start using predatory tactics in order to make profits then yes, government should intervene. But right now they are still growing and instead of helping them grow, this government is sabotaging the future of Indian industries. More ever, there is lot of stuff that government is supposed to do and it’s not doing. For example, government should concentrate on providing better primary education, better roads connecting villages to cities and better health care to children. It should work towards betterment of higher education. To believe that five or six IIT’s and IIM’s is going to take India to next century is dumb. If anything, government can ask industries to work towards establishing some sort of business model that will stop constant flow of people from countryside to cities. Or should start something like Gramin Bank to make villages independent of city economies. Dang! This list doesn’t stop either.

Rather than blaming conspicuous consumption of middle class and asking executive to earn less, government should work more actively towards stemming inflation. If Mr. Singh is yapping to gain politically then I am ready to understand his logic but if not then someone needs to tell him that he is an economist!

Globalization and future conflicts

Globalization and capitalism usually work in tandem. In the tussle between communism and capitalism, capitalism was conclusively proved as a sole winner. But the effects of this rapid transformation of global financial scenario are still mixed. On one hand we have enviable growth rates of Asian economies and on the other hand we have plunder of African natural resources as well as seemingly perennial financial instability in South America. Obviously, we have fierce opposition to globalization through out the world. With dramatic improvement in the telecommunication and physical infrastructure, globalization is virtually unstoppable. But if we don't manage it well then the rapidly changing world order will soon result into conflicts between world powers.

Most of the world considers western countries as a benchmark of development. And, western economies, more specifically US economy, are based solidly on the base of higher consumption. In their quest to provide luxurious lifestyle (luxurious as compared to the lifestyle of non-western world) they are gobbling huge amounts of resources. Apart from the fuel based amenities, free trade economic model i.e. globalization, provides opportunity for each and every individual to have a life style that for all practical purposes was rich game few decades ago. Of course, such a lifestyle is still out of reach majority of the non-western population. It is not only impossible to provide such lifestyle to every one but attempt to do so will have disastrous environmental effects. For example, if all of the Chinese population is provided with standard US life style then earth will be empty of any resources in just three years.

Sadly, increasing pressure from western countries to open the markets of India and China and pursuit of these two behemoths to provide western life style to their citizens is straining world's natural resources to breaking point.

It’s a vicious cycle. Without consumption there is no capitalism and supposedly, no growth. But with more consumption we have rapid environmental degradation and conflicts over natural resources will follow.

With all most 2.4 billion people i.e. one third of world population in the world embracing rapid capitalization, we should brace ourselves for drastically new world in every possible way. None of the western countries even in their hey-days of growth managed more than 3% economic growth consistently. On the other hand China is clocking all most 9% for last thirty years and India on an average managed 6 to 7% in last fifteen years or so. As more and more people enter in the class bracket of income, the consumption of every thing is going to go up. If their consumption doesn’t go up then the capitalistic model won’t work and that will result into immediate chaos. In order to sustain consumption level, it will be imperative for the two countries to capture more and more of the world resources. The problem doesn't just stop there. We still have Europe and US as kings of consumption and more ever they most of the world resource under their belt. And, yes, they have technologically advanced armies to protect those resource. For example, if US end up stabilizing Iraq then they will have the second highest Oil reserve under their thumb. Thus it will not only safeguard their oil interest but they will control over the growth of India and China.

So, it seems that future conflicts will be over world resources than terrorism. We don't need Oracle to figure this out. But the point is that time is fast running out for stopping such conflicts. China and India are rapidly advancing their armies. Though, it will be years before they can compete with US army, but then we don't need 'equal' forces for wholesome destruction. Few nuclear missiles sprinkled around the globe and we are back to the stone age.

Bush's Legacy

“Mr. Gonzales, do you remember the events of 29^th September 2006?” Asked one of the Senator. “No” replayed Mr. Gonzales. “You don’t remember that you had a meeting in your office about the possible firings of the District Attorneys on that day?” another shot at Mr. Gonzales. “My schedule says that I had that meeting 8 of that morning but I don’t recall the happenings of that meeting” replied out beloved attorney general. And, here I thought that general of the country is supposed to be an honest and intelligent lawyer !

All though I was aghast to see clips of Gonzales’s testimony to the congress, if we take a look at the larger picture of the Bush administration, it is not at all surprising to see such a high level of incompetence. Each and every step that Bush administration took, at least with respect to foreign relation, is full of blunders, inanity and absolute arrogance in both. Of course, that’s what is expected from an administration whose chief (i.e. the President) is as dumb as our George W. Bush. I have tried to see a bit of wisdom or a bit of sense in his eyes but naada. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He doesn’t know what he is talking about nor does he have any clue of what he is doing. And the worst thing is he doesn’t know that he doesn’t know. Of course, his administrative staff is to be blamed equally for all the ills. But the scariest part is that his subordinates are extremely shrewd and they know what they are doing. These rats are going to leave the ship soon but Mr. Bush's legacy will go down with this Titanic for ever.

Post September 11, it was obvious to attack Afghanistan but it was soon clear that bombing Afghanistan was by popular demand and the real target was Iraq. Now, every known living organism on the earth (except for the some in US) knew that Iraq has nothing to do with September 11 attacks. But bush administration first tried to connect the non existing dots on the map and later when their leitmotif of fighting against terrorism failed they changed their tune to planting democracy in the middle east. Even if we accept the new found mission as a noble one, the administration is doing miserably in that. The terrorism never emanated from Iraq (ahem, Pakistan and Saudi. Anyone?) and democracy can’t be forced on any society.

Thinking strictly from geo-political point of view, I am ready to admit that it makes sense in sitting near to the terrorist hot-spots. By having solid base in the middle east it will be easier to keep tabs on Iran, Saudi and on Pakistan. But by sheer arrogance Bush administration failed to subdue an already battered nation and mess up the whole logic of invading that country. They let the Bathist forces dissolve in the Iraq society. The problem is, these Bathist forces are heavily armed and posses technological know-how of bombings. Gosh ! now that was stupid. Thus each and every Iraqi in Baghdad and ‘bloody’ triangle around it became a suspect, a potential suicide bomber. Without any active support from the Iraqi society, it is impossible to contain the Shia and Sunni violence. Though a spectator of this gory violence between two warring sects, the US with it’s gaucherie public relation is taking the blame.

In the mean time, Iran is dangerously close in acquiring nuclear weapons and North Korea already posses some. Pakistan is double timing both US and Taliban. Russia is growing belligerent. South American nations are increasingly getting engulfed into rabid Chavezesque anti-Americanism.

Increasingly getting isolated by failures in foreign affairs, even Mr. Bush’s internal policies are seriously questioned by his peers. True he is not running for the Presidential election but it seems that his legacy is going to haunt US as well as rest of the world for quite a sometime to come.

The Real Hero.

How do you define greatness of a person? Who do we think is worth enough to be called a Hero? Is it that he – as a leader - survived toughest time of the history ? If that’s the case, what is the definition of ‘toughest time’? Is it that he lead the nation to the dizzying height of the success? Then, in that case, what is the definition of the ‘success’?. Or is it that he – as a leader - astutely lead an already established empire and succeeded in maintaining the hegemony? Of course, the definition tough times or success will vary drastically according to the time and situation. More ever, the society that person belongs to also play important role in shaping the nature of greatness of a person. Apart from being brave, intelligent and inspiring, that person not only needs to be on the winning side in order for the world to understand his greatness, but also the nation that he commanded and voiced needs to understand the consequence of his deeds for it be immortalized. There are number of examples where the extremely gifted people failed to grab the attention and ended up surrendering meekly to the unresponsive, pathetic and regressive society.

Thus it is quite hard to pinpoint exact reason behind greatness of a particular personality as time, situation and society plays great role in shaping a personality. Having said that, there are some common traits in great people – whether he is a political leaders, military general, ideologues or philosopher - who change the course of the history and future of the lackadaisical society drastically. That person is a rebel at the core because the ability to question the contemporary practices is a necessary first step towards revolutionizing the society. But Revolution doesn’t mean complete destruction of reigning social structure and forceful imposition of ‘new’ ideas because such a charade always fails. The genius of a great person becomes evident at the way he seamlessly institutionalizes his revolutionary ideas with contemporary social structure. The process of social change is usually very slow. And a leader understands this shortcoming of the society and yet manages to inject the vigor and confidence in the society. It is not that he is undefeated in all the contests. But he understands the nature of the defeat better than other looser. He learns from his mistakes and make sure that he doesn’t repeat the same mistake. At the end of the day – by hook or crook - he emerges victorious because of tremendous confidence and unflinching conviction in the cause.

To certain extent, heroes of the one society can be villains for the other. But then there are some deeds that transcendence the political and cultural boundaries. Such examples are quite rare. These people make cause more important than their persona. The rallying cry is the necessity to take action rather than personal whim. The result is counted on the basis of its effect on the cause rather than personal success. And, that’s precisely make them stand out among the other leading minds of the history. These great people attain higher degree of success even after their death. Because during their life time they rear such high quality of talent and imbibe the next generation with quintessential philosophy, that the next generation not only further the cause but take the success to the next level. Their legacy continue to live for hundreds of years and when ever society finds itself confused and under siege, these great people act like a bacon of hope the lost generations.

Such heroes are quite rare. And, in the last thousand years of Indian history, only Shivaji fits all the criteria described above.