India 2014 - Hope is a waking dream!

"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it" ~ Albert Einstein

Some of my friends would have found me extremely active discussing political topics for the last few months and overtly supporting Mr. Narendra Modi. Some are not very happy about this, few were surprised on my strong bias and many thought Namo as PM was absurd.

On May 18, 2009, five years before I wrote this article on the eve of results election announced in India.

http://ragsgopalan.blogspot.in/2009/05/rise-of-india-opportunity-window-for.html

I would not have any hesitation to accept that I voted for Mr. Manmohan Singh and regretted for that. I started calling him "Shikandi Singh" for his disastrous performance and had this blog done on him here, in Feb 2013..

http://ragsgopalan.blogspot.in/2013/02/a-disaster-called-dr-manmohan-singh.html

http://ragsgopalan.blogspot.in/2013/02/the-lost-decade-misgovernance-lessons.html

Lets look at some interesting election stats first:

• EC has seized INR 331Cr of money,(out of which 153 Cr is in AP alone), 325 lakh litres of liquor and 1.85 lakh Kgs of drugs during these 45 days. Can you believe that?
• Over 75K FIRs are filed during the election period, 13K+ in each of WB, TN and UP. Now you know where the major problems were!
• Highest ever voting % @ 66.21%+ on a 834m voter base for 543 seats. It was a huge 168m voters who were between 18-25 i think who made the difference.
• Of the 8000+ candidates reviewed ~17% (15% in 2009) have criminal cases against them and ~ 11% (2009 - 8%) have serious criminal charges against them. This means cleaning politics of criminals has not succeeded but worsened in last 5 years.

I firmly believed that these elections are very crucial and it could make or break a country like India for few more decades. The disastrous UPA government that clearly placed everything else above nation's sovereignty, security, the incestuous relationship with anti-nationals, the impunity with which corruption was carried out, the arrogance and unaccountable responses that were thrown at the citizens, the cunning responses from the lawyer turned ministers, weakening of every institution possible and the communal poison that was seeded.. and the list can go on for which i believed there should be a change. As a wise man said "It always with the darkest skies, you see the stars brightest".

If you had looked around for choices as to who could lead us, you had none. I could not believe that BJP leaders like Sushma, Advani can deliver the final punch that the dynasty led Congress party deserves. Maya, Mulayam, Jaya, Pawar were nightmares as PM candidates and the only choice was Modi. Congress certainly offered Rahul Gandhi and any one who has heard him speak and in the right senses would not vote for him. 

Modi very clearly positioned himself in "Right of Center" and more importantly he gave hope that he can talk about development without playing majorly on caste, creed and religion which we are all very sick of. He proved himself with a kind of Innovative, untiring, reaching out to largest number of people in Indian history with 437 rallies, travelling about 4 lakh Kms.

He came across as a leader could connect with large segment of the voter with local issues, raise their vision, had set the agenda and others followed. More importantly he was a dealer in hope for a large section of Indians who are oppressed with inflation, job loss, deceleration and poor governance. For me Namo was offering a 4 letter word called Hope - with sleeves rolled up!

While the election result is yet to be out and we have seen the exit polls which predicts a comfortable majority to NDA, and I believe unless EC plays a foul game with EVM machines NDA should reach some where between 300 to 330 seats and anything above 70 seats to Congress would be a surprise. With 6 million voter names deleted from the voter list through some foul play Maharashtra is key state with possible poor results.

My top priorities for the new Government are very clearly as follows:

1. Create a policy driven state.
• This means strengthen institutions.
• Eliminate discriminatory powers as much as possible.
• Systems to cross check - like a parliamentary panel with all political for any major decisions.
• Clear pending judicial cases and ensure that time bound punishments for all high profile cases.
2. Decriminalize public life.
• Politics, judiciary and bureaucracy all needs to be decriminalized.
• Negligence and crime should have high cost consequences for criminals.
• Check massive proliferation of foreign funded NGOs. 
3. Strengthen Internal security.
• Strengthen border security and stop infiltration and illegals.
• Identify and disenfranchise illegals.
• Strengthen information flow and appoint all vacant posts - Police, Law enforcement. 
4. Kick start economy
• I have always maintained that for India to grow at 6%, we do not need any government. We need a government to grow beyond 6% and we should target 10% growth in the next 3 years.
• Promote low tax, high tax payer base, high cost of non-compliance environment.
• Gain back investor confidence.
• Bring back black money - don't be lenient on this.
5. Ensure Social harmony
• Minimal government lean and interference with religious groups and vice versa.
• Free up Hindu temples from government clutches and ensure that the continuous loot of temple wealth stops.
• Ensure time bound justice to communal riots. Be very hard on them.
• Clean up news media that is infested with anti-nationals and communal elements who spread poison.
6. Try some Moon shots

This government should try some moon shots probably on priority:

• Energy Security: Electricity surplus, alternate power generation on a massive scale, Thorium based energy, 24/7 Electricity to all villages.
• Water Security: Linking of rivers, Quality drinking water for all villages and of course cities, Desalination plants on a massive scale. 

We are still awaiting the election results and I hope Narendra Modi is elected as the next PM and he runs the country in the same way he ran his campaign - Innovative, Inclusive, disciplined and demanding. I shall close this blog with the words of Emily Dickinson!

"Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul 
And sings the tune without the words 
And never stops at all!"

I wish all my fellow Indians a golden period for the next 5 years filled with peace and prosperity.

Jai hind!

Happy reading!

PS: Astrology predictions - Namo would not be in a position to form a stable government immediately and after few months of uncertainty he will form a stable government and run India for 10 years ;). But believe me, Hope costs nothing! 

The lost decade: (Mis)Governance lessons from India

Disclaimer 1: Its purely based on perception with facts and reports available in public domain! If you don't agree with this in part of full, its easy, just ignore / delete this link. If you agree, its easier, please leave a comment :).

Disclaimer 2: The author is not an expert in politics but the performance of this government gives him a serious delusion that he can be one. :)

A section of Indians were deeply worried that the contribution from ancient India on philosophy, spirituality, science, politics, language, literature, astronomy et al seems to have stopped and looked like a thing of the past. They were anxious as to when will India will start to teach the world on new management techniques catching up with the 21^st century trends.

This blog is dedicated to those millions and I am giving a 4 point formula on (mis-) Governance which we seem to have mastered. As we look back the last 10 years we notice that millions have been pushed into poverty, thousands of crores of savings and investments lost, a generation of Indians have been pushed deeper into debts, morale of the armed forces dented, independence and efficiency of judiciary and institutions like CVC, CEC, CBI etc are seriously compromised. It takes lots of effort to do this to a billion people and let’s look at what those golden rules are:

Rule 1: With us or against us

Our government that is in power is sending a very strong message that "If you are with us, then everything is OK, if you are against us then every law, agency and resource shall be directed against you". This includes parties, NGOs, corporates and what not. You need to be matured to understand this rule. May be by the end of this blog you may understand this better. 

Rule 2: Limited Latitude

Opposition parties, NGOs, media houses all are given a latitude - a margin with which they are free to do anything as long as they don't target the first family or those closer to them. If you cross this margin then the above rule 1 would apply. Most of the parties and institutions seems to stick to this rule. Some examples listed below.

Rule 3: Partners in crime

This is the democratic aspect of this government where the loot is shared. There is enough for all of us to loot and share as long as you play along. The middle class tax payers and the honest citizens are the only suckers in India, rest all play this game. This is the circle some of our media companies and NGOs are part of. Be it ad revenues, sponsored news, planted articles or the anti-Modi industry all are benefited under this rule. In fact I can safely say that the only industry that survived under UPA is the anti-Modi cottage industry. Flagship ones like Telecom, Infrastructure, Insurance and Airlines have all bitten the dust.

Rule 4: Unique scam management methodology “IDD- TBD-HIM”

This 3 stage, 9 step methodologies can be patented by UPA and is very unique for the world. This also should encourage lots of quasi-democracies to adopt for democracy for they see that this technique would help them survive any scams and inefficiencies. The expansion of this anagram is:

Stage 1: Ignore – Deny – Divert

Stage 2: Technicality - Blame – Democratize

Stage 3: Helplessness – Innocence - Manage

This is the scam management methodology which is so far produced 6 sigma results for the government.

Stage 1:

Ignore the scam and then be in denial, then divert the scam with some other scam or news. Service of media houses comes in very handy here.

Stage 2:

The stage called ‘technicality” is the original script of UPA ministers like PC, Sibal and Manish Tiwari. Through the law book to you and explain how it is such a technically correct decision but a poor economic or a governance decision. 2G and Coal scam used this technique as much as possible. “Coal in mother earth” and ‘Zero loss theory” should be etched in stone and kept as a memorabilia near Qutub Minar for the future generations to know that we had such morons governing us.

Else blame the previous government or other parties. We followed NDA’s policy and other such crap. The last step in this stage is to democratize the scam like it has been like this since independence, across the world blah blah. Typical statements are “Law will take its own course”, we should not politicize this.

Experts and NGOs come in handy here.

Stage 3:

But the cherry is being openly helpless. Be it the prime minister or Congress ministers, they can throw their hand in air and say “What can I do?” The person governing shall suddenly become a party member, just descended from the mountains of moon and act as if there is no accountability on them and comment on their own performance.

But what is unique to India is the innocence of the first family in all that. Yeah! I don’t Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi is aware of the lathi charge order, hanging of terrorists etc. Even though everyone knows that nothing moves without the explicit approval of Gandhis. In fact we can safely say that this is the bedrock of this rule that if it happens to be controversial or adverse to vote banks then the first family is not aware of it.

If everything else has failed we can use the institutions to “manage the environment”. This can also be called the CBI stage which ensures that the enquiry runs for few decades and everyone related to the enquiry is dead or mentally old to remember anything so that there is an adverse or no Judgment at all. We can follow up by giving even a “Bharat Ratna” posthumously if he is from the first family. Ex. 1984 Sikh riots and Bofors..

I would consider them naive who believe a change in regime would change our course and dumb if they think that this technique will die with UPA.

Let’s look at some examples and why I say so:

• Budget for CWG was supposed to be ~INR 7000 Crores which was increased to ~ INR 70000 Crores which is a 10 times increase approved by GoM and PM. Out of which only INR 1600 crores were spent by Kalmadi and the balance is spent by whom? Have you seen the opposition insisting on this apart from some passing remarks. Conspicuously silent!

• Damadji's exploits with DLF and Haryana are very well documented. This episode was allowed to die a silent death by the opposition. Why? Again conspicuously silent!

• Minor episode of Young Indians minor episode with the assets of the publication company (National hearld) was that serious that the congress party's registration as a national party could have been suspended / cancelled. Again a silent burial. Read more about it here http://newindianexpress.com/opinion/article1332271.ece

• The whole political and industrial class seems to be one big family when it comes to issues against Reliance - be it Gas projects and its pricing, Delhi Metro rail project, Delhi electricity pricing, Issues around investments and approvals on Lavasa city project, Agricultural deaths in Maharastra and AP, Loots on irrigation projects,...  neither urgency nor action on any of the issues.. All are complicit and silent!

This article may sound very pessimistic and sarcastic and I agree that I have given vent to those feelings inside me. I am certainly discounting the thousands of PILs and the war waged by the Single man army like Mr. Subramaniam Swamy against this. I would also like to sound more hopeful and perhaps may be you can help!

Yours sarcastically

Happy reading!

A disaster called Dr. Manmohan Singh!

Disclaimer 1: This blog is based on my perception supported by facts as available.

As a wise man said, "Time is a great leveler". On the eve of the results of the last elections this is what i blogged about the decisive mandate received by UPA.  

http://ragsgopalan.blogspot.in/2009/05/rise-of-india-opportunity-window-for.html

Needless to add that I am one of those most disappointed citizens of this country and a review now on the State of the nation seems very different.

Dr. Manmohan Singh whom i have fondly started addressing as "Sikhandi Singh" has certainly taken us back to the 1991 days in his 10 years of reign or probably worse and would certainly find his way in all the management text books for the best case study of the century on "How not to run a country!".

Lets look at how the economy is mismanaged: 

Image Courtesy: Business Today

• The revenue deficit which was sub 2.5% of GDP has more than doubled to 5%+.
•  Subsidies which were 10% of the central government revenue expenditures in 2000-01 has increased by whopping 60% and is now 16% in 2009-10 as per finance ministry figures. http://finmin.nic.in/workingpaper/FPI_trends_Trajectory.pdf
• The worrying part is that the defense expenditure has reduced from 14% to 10% in the similar period.
• Take every measure in economy like savings rate, investments, growth, inflation etc and every measure is on the wrong side of the health.

It is clear that the first 4 years of boom in UPA 1 is primarily because of the growth momentum and feel good factor that NDA government has left back.  

• Experts are tearing apart the MGNREGA, that it encourages unskilled labor pools to remain unskilled and more so increases the labor costs for agriculture and other rural economy requirements.
• Its better not to talk about inflation and government's response to that to avoid very un-parliamentary language in this blog.

Couple of years back few experts have expressed their fear that UPA government is taking India to be the Greece of Asia and i think we are very close to it now than ever.

Plight of flaggship Industries: 

Lets see how flagship industries were grounded. In 2004, Telecom, Infrastructure, Airlines and Financial sector were among the top industries which are now grounded and flushed through the drain - both in its current performance and its future outlook.

What happened to Telecom after 2G is very evident and the same thing happened in every big project be it how the airports are privatized, how the unofficial carrier of India is Emirates and not any Indian airlines, how Indian Airlines and Air India were screwed, looted and pushed into debt traps, the inordinate delay and corruption laden infrastructure projects, be it how our nation is held to ransom by Big brother on the gas projects... and the list is endless.

Screw the democratic institutions:

After the 2009 election euphoria the incident which woke me up was Shikandi Singh's statement on A. Raja on the 2G case. When the issue was raised in 2010, MMS replied to media that "I asked A Raja if there are any mistakes committed and Raja told me that everything is absolutely as per law, so we should drop this topic".

Well that when i thought we are setting new governance standards, were we inquire the accused if there are any issues and decide to drop the issue based on accused's assurance. How is that! But that was just a precursor of what followed.

Be it CVC (Where MMS pleaded ignorance after SC slapping him and he lost his face in front of the nation), PAC and JPC (for 2G), Armed forces on uniform pay and the issue with Army chief, be it SEBI (Which sometimes looks like our PM - muted and impotent for all the issues which we see around), Enforcement directorate, IT department, CAG and above all Congress Bureau of investigation, not one institution is spared and every setup is degraded to an extent that we have started looking at each one of them with suspicion.

In my opinion a Tsunami or Katrina like hurricane or a deadly virus like SARS or a nuclear attack or a combination of all would not have been as deadly but for what we are going through now. Japan took about 2+ years to recover from the triple disaster (Earth Quake + Tsunami + Nuclear disaster) but India may require more than 5 years to recover from where Dr. Singh has taken us.

Millions have been pushed into poverty, thousands of crores of savings and investments lost, a generation of Indians have been pushed deeper into debts, morale of the armed forces dented, independence and efficiency of judiciary and institutions like CVC, CEC, CBI etc are seriously compromised.

Had it been a country like China for this performance the corrupt, non-performing parts of  government and the leadership would have been sent to jail for life. Alas! we are not China and I am cursing ourselves on this aspect.

Apart from the economy, industry and democratic institutions, Dr. Singh has managed to create permanent scars in the self esteem of many Indians and deep dents in our hope for a better future. For this disaster needs more time to fight back, rebuilding our institutions and more importantly we need to mend our sense of hope and self belief.

May the almighty give us enough strength to come out of this disaster as quickly as possible.

Yours sadly,

Happy reading!!

Is Delhi the "Rape Capital" of India?

As always the media has been going ballistic (this time rightfully so) on the horrific rape news of a Delhi based doctor who was raped in a moving bus. For those who have an eye for such crimes stats, they would tell you that it is not anything surprising in India.

The statistics tell us that in 2001 one woman / girl is raped every 54 minutes and in 2011 it has worsened to one in 24 minutes. Now this is based on the crimes that are registered and if you have lived in India, you would agree that it is a general tendency not to raise these things in public unless there is a strong trigger. Having been ethics counselor in some reputed concerns, I can tell you the actual cases of sexual abuse and rape crimes should be far higher than what we see.

I saw on TV the police commissioner asking a reporter as to why you called "Delhi - the rape capital of India". We are as intelligent as we are informed and since our Media just shouts without any data, I decided to browse through some statistics and put together  this analysis.

1. The rape statistics of 2011 are as per the Home Ministry.

2. I analysed this against the female population in that state / city. I also analysed it against the size of the state / city.

3. I derived 2 ratios, Ratio of rapes per every 1000 females and Ratio of rapes every 100 Sq km.

Now, I wanted to make it clear that its shame on all the right minded Indians if we are  happy about less rapes in our state and more rapes in the neighbor states. We should be equally ashamed and unhappy about every crime that happens in any part of India.

But the tables show a very clear ranking. Delhi seems to be worse off and is worth calling the rape capital of India when you compare the ratio of rape in every 100 sq km specially. It is startlingly 10 times more than the 2nd ranked state which is Kerala and also more than the sum of all the ratios of other states put together.

Delhi ranks 5th in ratio per 1000 people, but surprisingly Assam leads this ratio across India. MP, WB, UP and Rajasthan seems to be worse off in absolute numbers of rape. I am not fully sure about the rape cases in Haryana.

There were multiple reactions from asking for death penalty to these culprits to emotional debates by our MPs. My thoughts as follows:

Capital Punishment: 

I think we should first hang the people who are already sentenced to death. Its a shame that the 20+yr old death sentences are still pending. What caste, creed, which community how much votes we will lose - every damn thing is a factor when it comes to execute a criminal. As a country we are impotent in executing death sentences. We have seen dengue mosquitoes are more effective than our justice delivery system but how can we depend on them always?

Political will: 
Its not long before the President of India (Mrs. Patil) and the HM (PC) colluded to pardon number of culprits which included child rapists and killers. This has happened in this year only. What do expect from these elected jokers when there is no political will to punish the culprits.

Experts say crime can be controlled effectively with the speed of justice more than the severity of justice. We have to speed up the justice delivery mechanism.

In my opinion nothing works more effectively than CASTRATION for such crimes. This way you disable them without the tool to repeat the crime. And just like the victim will live with a scar, the culprit also should live with one (or rather without one? :)).

I think we should request government to deploy mobile castration centers in specific areas and see the speed at which this menace can be controlled. Many like me would be more than glad to donate rusted scissors for this punishment.

Being a father, husband and brother, I want to see love, admiration, fear and respect in men's eyes and not lust when they see girls / women in this country.

Yours angry-sadly

Happy reading!

PS: Please ignore the word millions in the first table under female population. Its already given in millions. I am too lazy to change this in the picture :)

Mera Bharat Mahan!

I have been in hibernation for some time, not having the drive to blog about anything.

Thanks our national political scene, i thought i shall quickly and satirically comment on some of the top headlines. Read as news item in the first line and my comment subsequently.

"இடுக்கண் வருங்கால் நகுக!" said the great sage Thiruvalluvar which means "Face your troubles with a smile". I doubt if the sage is living now with us he would have thought twice before saying this. Yet, this blog is an attempt to do that when we are facing so many troubles as a nation.

Kapil Sibal - Most of the kids are addicted to porn in the internet! 

Hmm, this is the reason behind his itch to censor the internet.

Rahul Baba - 70% of youth in Punjab are drug addicts. 

Not sure if he was talking about Youth Congress members and mistaken it as entire Punjab!

Congress Haryana Leader - Goyat - 90% of the rapes are Consensual. 

Yeah! you read it right. This is after JUST 19 rapes in one month. He is inspired by Abhishek Manu Singhvi, ND Tiwari of congress for sure.

Soniaji - In her Rajkot rally said that she is concerned about rapes in Gujarat and wants to build a new Gujarat.
Aiyo, This should have sent jitters across the spines of Gujju girls and women. Please note that in 3-4 days time there were 5 rapes in Haryana after Madamji's visit which means the "rate of rapes" have accelerated.

Salman Khurshid - His NGO trust allegedly cheats and loots money meant for specially-abled people. 

I agree that it is their curse that has made him to appear mentally challenged and morally bankrupt whenever he is in front of the camera.

Shikandi Singh - Disproportionate negativity about corruption is not good. 

Yeah, but disproportionate looting is fine? I can stand anything in life but not when our PM speaks about probity.

Toilet Singh - India will grow by 8% and planning for it. 

I read this today morning in some daily. This can be taken as a stupid joke among the cruel ones we have heard. 

Revenue Minister abducts his own Chief Medical Officer in UP.

I actually still cannot believe this news yet. So, no comments.

SGPC - Terrorists and anti-nationals honored in Punjab. 

This is of-course done by the 3/10th people of Punjab which Rahul baba has excluded. I guess we are actually fine with 7/10th of the population. What say?

Assassination bid against a decorated Indian ex-army officer. 

What can i say on this?

Rs.1800 crore has been spent one person's foreign travel and that too for all undisclosed places and reasons. 
Hmm, We could have got 5 crore Indians out of poverty line with Rs. 32/- per day for almost a year.

All the above were summed nicely by a one-liner in twitter as "UPA is trending, please keep your wallets safe" :).

Daamad ji - We are all mango men in a banana republic. 

Actually his parents named him as just "T" and the prefix he took as an adjective / noun has reflected how he has led life so far. Considering that he took few crores as over draft and the DLF related deals in the news are in the order of few 10s of crores, Team Congress should be  fuming for the sheer pettiness about the loot. Just few crores chori tag for the first family is kicking them below the belt. How can the first family be associated with such petty thefts when the loots have crossed INR 5 Lakh crores. This goes on to prove that you can take a metal scrap dealer from Delhi and put in him 10JP but cannot take the "metal scrap mentality" out of him, isn't?

So i recommend that MILji should rename Daamadji as "Petty Robber-T Vadra".

The best comment i relished was from a internet magazine about RV is, talking about the stupidity with which he aggregated evidence against himself, the magazine concluded that Daamadji's intelligence made his brother-in-law look like Einstein. ROFLLLL and laughing.

But, Of all the people I agree with our Ghar Jamaai. Look at our paid media and all the clowns governing us. I agree that we are a mango-banana milkshake as a country to still have them in power and not behind jail bars....

Despite all this majority of us are hopeful, optimistic and expecting a positive change in the near future. Yeah that includes me too. So, i conclude that we are a country of die hard optimists within a "mango-banana milkshake" republic...

Yours satirically

Mera Bharat Mahan!

I am an INDIAN. I am in Minority :(

Thoughts for a special occasion - 26 / Jan / 2012 - 63rd republic day

74% think "I am an Aryan"
24% think "I am a Dravidian"
41% think "I am a Hindi-ite"
 8% think "I am a Bengali"
 7% think "I am a Telugu-ite"
 7% think "I am a Marati-ian"
 6% think "I am a Tamilian"
But, Where are "I am an Indian"?

80.5% think "I am a Hindu"
13.4% think "I am a Muslim"
  2.3% think "I am a Christian"
  1.9% think "I am a Sikh"
  0.8% think "I am a Buddhist"
  0.4% think "I am a Jain"
But, Where are "I am an Indian"?

16.5 M think "I am a Mumbaitie"
13.8 M think "I am a Kolkotan"
12.8 M think "I am a Delhiite"
  6.4 M think "I am a Madrasi"
  5.7 M think "I am a Bangalorean"
  5.5 M think "I am a Hyderabadi"
  4.5 M think "I am a Ahmedabadi"
But, Where are "I am an Indian"?

69% think "I am a Rural dweller"
31% think "I am a Urban Dweller"
74% think "I am a Literate"
26% think "I am a Illiterate"
Some think "I am a vegetarian"
Some think "I am a non-vegetarian"
Some think "I am a vegan"
Many in India think food itself is a luxury and
eating one full meal is being blessed!
But, where are "I am the Indian"?

"I am a Scheduled class"
"I am a Scheduled Tribe"
"I am a Backward class"
"I am a most backward class"
"I am an Aadivasi"
"I am an other backward class"
"I am a minority"
But, Where are "I am an Indian"?

I am a politician
I am a bureaucrat
I am a Journalist
I am a doctor
I am a government employee
I am an unemployed
I am a Aam Aadmi
But, Where are "I am an Indian"?

In a country of 1.2b, I find myself to be IN a MINORITY. No one gives a damn about me!..

I am an INDIAN.

Happy Reading!

The nicest and safest place in the world!

What is the safest place on earth? This was the question i was mulling as i saw pictures of Muammar Gaddafi being dragged out of a sewage pipe and given the treatment that isn't different from the ones meted out by him to most of his opponents for the last 4 decades.

With due respects to the departed soul, i was giving myself a dry smile at his very "karmic"ally apt last words 'Don't shoot me". Do you need any more proof that "Time is great leveler"?

I would not disgaree if you call him "mad dog from the middle east" with a nauseating sense of dressing, usurping power with a single tool called "merciless elimination of dissent" and who ruled with an iron hand on the foundation of nature's oil reserves. But my memory of Gaddafi from my college days were firmly rooted in adulthood jealousy when i read about his female virgin body guards :). His quotes like, 

"Were it not for electricity we would have to watch TV in the dark" 

"A woman has the right to run for elections whether she is male or female"

were quite revealing and inspiring in making me realize that nature isn't entirely logical and it can endow power and wealth to absolute merciless morons like Gaddafi. Then nature started revealing more such morons exist in the world like Dubya Bush and i think i am quickly reaching a stage where nature is suggesting that vast majority of our world leaders are rooted in ignorance, idiotic and dogma driven without any trace of logic and rationality in their genes.

The Gaddafi's clips on screen led me to recollect the images of Saddam Hussein being pulled out of a underground pit and hanged but the ending was a shade more gracious than his African counterpart.  

News of Jaya being questioned in Bangalore was also noticed by me on the day. A trial for 66cr, has been going on for the last 15 years and with more than 1500 policemen deployed for 2 days and the cost of just these 2 days should be more than 25 lacs to the state. I am sure by now the overall cost of trial is more than the tax from the wealth that could have been realized. 

Irrespective of country, creed, religion, and nationality, corruption has attained the qualities of god - Omnipresent and Omnipotent. With most of our leaders being mentally corrupt usurping power and wealth without any limits, but all the accumulated power and wealth does not provide the safety and protection when the time is not on their side. 

Chanakya in his "Chanakya sutra" says "Stinking riches are not possible without evil" 

(नास्त्यपिशाचमैश्वर्यम् । - nāsti apishācham aishvaryam)

So coming back to the question i started this blog with, what provides safety against the vagaries of time and life? This is not just for our leaders but for all of us in general. If enormous Power and wealth does not seem to provide that safety consistently, then what provides this safety.

Then i read this old email accidentally which said, the most valuable places to be,

"The nicest place in the world to be is in someone's benign thoughts

The safest place in the world to be is in someone's prayers"

Be it Saddam or Gaddafi or Bush or most of our leaders neither existed in benign thoughts nor in people's prayers. I understand that there cannot be a sweeping generalization and the argument that a person can never exist in everyone's prayers.

So, the next question i have, "Is there a easy way to be present in everyone's prayers that gives us an affordable ticket and visa to be on the safest place?'.     

I don't know the answer to this question but thinking logically about the “Law of reciprocity of nature” or you call it “Law of Karma” which states that "As you sow, thou shall reap", then the easiest way to be in the safest place / in everyone's prayers is to have "everyone in our prayers". So the trick seems to be,

For a healthy life, pray health for all, 

For a wealthy life, pray wealth for all

For a prosperous life, pray prosperity for all

For a safe life, pray safety for all

For a peaceful life, pray peace to all,

To be in everyone's benign thoughts, be benign to all

To be in everyone's prayers, pray for all!

2 aspects of this concept is concisely captured as under:

• தீதும் நன்றும் பிறன் தர வாரா - Theedhum Nandrum piran thara varaa (Translitt) (In Tamil it means Good and bad things to you does not come because of any one else but because of your thoughts and deeds only.)
• Shreyo-bhooyat-sakala-Janaanam (In Sanskrit, it means may the whole humanity be blessed with excellence).

From time immemorial nature has been teaching us the same lesson with many characters Ravans, Kamsas, Hitlers, Gaddafis, Saddams et al, and that does not seem to register with us. Guess, we shall continue to do what we would and nature would continue to teach us what it should!..

I am signing off wishing you and your family a very happy Diwali. 

May the festival of light help us lit the light within.

Happy reading!

Independence Day - More hopeful than happy?

As our corruption friendly Dr. Singh (irony - you cannot call him corrupt yet) would unfurl our national flag and deliver the speech today for the 8th time, everyone is wondering what the speech would contain specifically in terms of corruption management.

Though contentious I maintain that this time our Independence day gives me more hope than happiness. It's not "scam a day" that has been breaking was a dampener but the way we reacted for the last 3 years and how we are trying hard and misgovern ourselves to the brink.

Some thoughts on this issue are as follows:

1. UPA tends to boast that the growth for the last few years has been closer 9% and the highest ever by any government.

I agree but just wanted to highlight this fact that growth is given in India as a factor of life during this period. Let's instal president's rule for 5 years and see what's the growth. We would still have a growth % closer to this sans the stupid political issues. This is agood smoke screen to hide behind. 

2. Lok Pal bill and Anna's campaign is unconstitutional.

Experts say that the Indian constitution has been changed / fine tuned many times over. (Heard it is 150+ times since independence) When the Kashmiri interlocutors can suggest that Indian constitution should be changed to solve Kashmiri issue, which is tacitly accepted by this government, why can't this be changed for the better.... For addressing the corruption issue.

3. Anna's movement is undemocratic.

Not sure what else could be called democratic. When people assemble for the protests leaving back their daily business (in many case their livelihood for the day), when people gather without any daily incentive for attending meetings (very unlike political meetings), when people fast for many days without any compulsion, when people brave bad weather and risk of injury during gatherings. When they come around with their families to protest, when things are completely ground up... It's participative democracy and nothing else.

4. Lok pal bill alone cannot stop corruption.

Among the reasons this seems to be most valid. Agreed that this is not the sufficient condition but a very necessary condition which is hidden in that statement. If an ineffective law is not be enacted then how will we know that the law is ineffective even before implementing. Also if currently ineffective laws have to be repealed then tell me which of our laws would stand the test in India today. Take the simplest of the laws ~ traffic laws. One of the most ineffective laws can this be repealed? Unfortunately our media also does not want to ask difficult questions about the key people at high levels who are behind corruption. We are in a media frenzy where the energy is spent on catching  low hanging fruits like Raja and Kalmadi.

5. This government talks about programs like NREGA where close to 70000 cr are being spent.

Many studies have been conducted that out of every one rupee spent by government only 5 to 15 paise or even less reaches the poor. Even I assume it's 15% only should we appreciate the government for a 10000 cr effective program or a charge them with a 60000 cr loot.

6. Fiscal deficit, growth and inflation.

Our debt to GDP ratio is over 70% which is as close as some of the developed economies which are considered broke or almost broke now. Despite this, most of our eminent economists are saying that we can afford this fiscal situation because we are growing at 8%+. The fact which i wanted to highlight based on this growth argument is Greece. Greece was the fastest growing economy last decade in Europe but is financially broke now. Few economists from Greece should have also thought that the fiscal situation is OK as long as there is growth like we do now. But growth can reverse in a small period of time not leaving enough time to repay our debts. Here i see we are blindly walking down that path and would be one of the economies in the near future where we invite another 1991 situation upon us. 

I think we need to overcome 3 barriers....

1. Priority barrier:

I believe we have got our priority wrong. The order of priority should be:

a. Governance reforms (not on policy and investment reforms as popularly understood). This includes judicial reforms, political criminal nexus mitigation and obviously an independent authority for oversight. If the last one is about Lok Pal then it is independent Lok Pal. Please note that our growth %s did not increase till we had an independent election authority - this is a factor not highlighted enough. 

b. Security reforms - Be it Maoist, terrorist, naxalites or a petty thief - we need a sense of security. Today this does not exist and there are too many areas to tie up here.

c. Third comes investment reforms. Putting this ahead of the other two is not only inefficient but also self serving for those who benefit from bad governance.

2. The conflict of the interest barrier

Conflict of interest between people who create governance reforms and the ones who benefit from misgovernment is very strong and obviously the fruits of  bad governance are sweet for them, keeps them going in their political life and more importantly the deterrents are not very strong.

3. Lack of will as a barrier

If there is a strong will then there is a way. But its lack of will that creates an impasse on the bill. Our governments response seems to be on a familiar line "Ignore - Denial - Discredit - Delay - Disrupt - Be forced - Try to take credit for the outcome". I wish they change the strategy - be less defensive and develop the will. Some say that this is the first barrier to be broken.

With these mixed emotions I am not happy today for what we are today considering where we could have been. Yet I am very hopeful of our country and our future not because that our political parties can get their act right but as a country we have seen many ups and downs and have a past of coming out of successfully. This time the issues are created by ourselves not by someone from outside and i am hopeful of the past repeating itself.

I wanted to list 2 of the Thirukural that is very apt for the day:

வேலன்று வென்றி தருவது மன்னவன் 

கோல தூ உங் கோடா தெனின்.

This essentially means that king's armor (can be added as military or police might) cannot help him endure success to his might but only because of his lawful reign. We are seeing this happening in many places across the world that when people rise because of dissolution against the monarch none of the forces can stop them.

அல்லற்பட்டு ஆற்றாது அழுத கண்ணீரன்றே
செல்வத்தை தேய்க்கும் படை.

The tears of the citizens of the country enduring woes (because of  bad governance) shall wear / file away that reins prosperity and influence. This means that the army of tears is stronger than  anything else. 

So here i am wishing all a very hopeful Independence day and a happier future.


Yours hopefully!