Saare Jahan Se Achcha

Apparently Shivam Vij of the Other Idiots has changed his major to economics. He states that India's per capita GDP of about $728 is only better than sub-Saharan Africa. There is a thing called PPP but let's not talk about that yet. Indeed, it is extremely shameful. So let us see how we got here.

Here is an interesting graphic, depicting the percentage of time a particular political party was in power at the center:

So, what is the outlook for tomorrow? A quick look at some of the people who are supposed to steer us away from our misery:

Dr. Manmohan Singh, Hon'ble Prime Minister:

All we can say is that any rumors to the effect that he may quit are not, we repeat, are NOT true. Recently he visited Vidarbha and made the teary eyed pledge of about a billion dollars. The farmers welcomed the move, by committing more suicides! The good doctor has completely shattered the stereotype of the valiant and couragous Sikh. From a liberal standpoint stereotypes are bad so I guess it is a good thing.

Shri Palaniyappan Chidambaram, Hon'ble Minister of Finance:

PC as he is affectionately called, is busy telling the nation that in fact his life experiences may be the best research that we have. Illiteracy? No problem. Just take a small leaf out of PC's illustrious life, a part of which was spent in defending big bad corporations like Enron for instance. Recently a stray comment by PC about taxes on FII portfolios sent the stock market tumbling. PC is busy fighting inflation at the moment so we will leave him for now. In any case he certainly deserves a whole post of his own.

Shri Laloo Prasad, Hon'ble Minister of Railways:

When he is not busy attending the marriages of his numerous kids (we lost count how many) and saving himself some taxes in the process, he visits Europe with his beloved wife.

Dr. Anubumani Ramadoss, Hon'ble Minister of Health and Family Welfare:

When he is not busy terrorizing the medical community or prescribing iodine to us, he likes to pose for photo-ops with film stars. Meanwhile we have fixed all our health problems including dismal malnutrition, diseases and lack of even basic medical facilities in the rural areas.

Shri Kamal Nath, Hon'ble Minister of Commerce and Industry:

His talk shows on social justice and threats to implement SC/ST quota in the private sector sent shivers down the spines of industry leaders. Meanwhile I guess he didn't have much energy left to do anything useful in the WTO talks.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

[...to be continued.]