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Socialism is immoralProtest the quota systemEnd entitlement benefits for freeloaders Support the death penalty for terrorists and anti-nationals |
| FAKE STINGS AND SECULAR GAMES: | |
| The deep rooted conspiracy to subvert the political process [link] |
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Tuesday, January 30, 2007 |
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India 2050: Updates | |
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 I found a copy of the latest Goldman Sachs BRICs report, here (pdf). The report projects that India's real GDP will exceed that of the US as early as 2040.Several readers have expressed skepticism at the report. These projections are just that, projections. There are many assumptions and some of them quite outlandish. There are many things being considered by leading economists about the BRICs phenomenon in general and India's potential in particular. One of them is whether India's economy has undergone a fundamental structural change. I think the answer is obvious, it has. But whether these projections will be met is another matter. Quite obviously the current sectoral composition (60% of the workforce in Agriculture which contributes 30% of the GDP - with significant Government interventions) will not lead to this. Congress is making a big bet on the SEZ policy and as things stand, even that policy may be halted or at least slowed down because of fierce political and public opposition. We definitely have a consumption driven growth pattern now, which never existed in the days of the license Raj. Just ask one of the socialists to give up their shiny vehicle and buy an Ambassador instead. Are they even making those things these days? There are some good news. The Tatas acquired Corus. Ambanis expect $20 billions plus retail revenue by 2010. The PM is openly hailing the auto sector, which is expected to grow up to $145 billion and employ 25 million people by 2016 (remember the outcry when the auto sector was opened up?). S&P increased India's credit rating to investment grade. But the fundamental risks still remain. The education system remains within socialist clutches. There are concerns related to budget deficit. Already a number of populist measures are being considered for the upcoming budget. Moody's has expressed doubts about the sustainability of the current growth rate. I believe the biggest risk will come from divisive politics. India may even cease to exist in its current form before 2050. For some interesting updates on these issues, read RealityCheck.
posted by barbarindian at 11:01 PM Permalink
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Sunday, January 28, 2007 |
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Shilpa wins Big Brother, Bachchan is nowhere | |
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 So, it finally happened. Ms. Shetty has, predictably, won the rather important Celebrity Big Brother reality show. I guess Tarun Tejpal and Co. can take some consolation in the fact that this most important piece of news has relegated Bachchan's Legion d'Honneur win to the sidebar.Amitabh Bachchan, quite deservedly in my opinion, won France's highest civilian honor, the Legion d'Honneur. So, tomorrow, when Ms. Shetty's buxom images are splashed across prime time tele in India all day long, the socialists can take relief that the most celebrated Cong defectors (the Bachchans root for SP now) will not be there to do as much damage. This incident also proves that when a resolute minority community votes one way or the other, it makes a difference in electoral outcomes. Expect our esteemed leaders to connect this to India's freedom struggle, which was won single handedly and most courageouly by Congress leaders. Jai Hind.
posted by barbarindian at 9:37 PM Permalink
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Saturday, January 27, 2007 |
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India 2050 | |
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 So, hope you had a nice Republic day. You woke up early, saluted the flag, stood in attention while the national anthem played.You might have missed an interesting piece of news. The latest version of the Goldman Sachs BRICs report projects that by year 2050, India's GDP will surpass that of the United States. The original report (pdf) came out in 2003 and made quite a stir in its bold projections of the future. Since then Goldman Sachs has been steadily revising its estimates about India's growth potential upwards. The latest report doesn't appear to be publicly available but the original document contains most of the ideas. Interestingly, one of the authors of the original report, Roopa Purushothaman (inset), has decided to make a bold bet on her own predictions. This young Indian American economist has moved to India and apprently her fiance will soon too. She joined Biyani's retail group as an economist. Quite obviously this sort of growth can not come from a repressed socialist regime. The report lays out a series of ifs and buts. Since the report is small, I urge you to go through it. Here is a small passage: A set of core factors - macroeconomic stability, institutional capacity, openness and education - can set the stage for growth. Robert Barro’s influential work on the determinants of growth found that growth is enhanced by higher schooling and life expectancy, lower fertility, lower government consumption, better maintenance of the rule of law, lower inflation and improvements in the terms of trade. These core policies are linked: institutional capacity is required to implement stable macroeconomic policies, macro stability is crucial to trade, and without price stability a country rarely has much success in liberalizing and expanding trade.Coming from the world's most powerful investment bank, the report is not just some pot hazed dream. This is a realizable future. Of course, the immediate questions would be, what about the population? As a matter of fact, population growth in India has been declining. All projections that I saw places the 2050 population between 1.4 and 1.8 billions. At that level of GDP, poverty should be eliminated. Indeed this growth can not come unless all or most of the population is engaged in productive work.
posted by barbarindian at 10:23 AM Permalink
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Wednesday, January 24, 2007 |
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Breaking News: No More Stings | |
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 "Competition is good". Thus begins a recent op-ed column by Tarun Tejpal, Head Stinger of The People's Paper. To the reader uninitiated in Indian politics, this could be the beginning of an essay singing the virtues of competition. Seasoned readers would know that coming from the people's paper, this is merely setting the stage for a reductio ad absurdum.I was rather stung by what followed, if I may say so. I was expecting some sort of a Dalit/OBC deprivation story to be the central theme of the stinger-in-chief's short article. However, Tarunji chose the most unusual idea to rebut competition, if indeed that was his intent. His main gripe seems to be about the wild coverage the Ash-Abhishek story received on the news channels. The story was splashed across most of the channels as "breaking news" and not only that, the assault lasted for several days. Now, we are totally unable to comprehend in what way does this indicate a market failure. Those who consider the Ash-Abhi story newsworthy, might as well consider the story breaking-news worthy. Surely the channels covered other news for the rest of the time and if indeed the constant footage offended you, you could always change the channel. If you wanted socially conscientious news, you could always turn to the ever so faithful People's paper. Perhaps Tarunji is forgetting, not very long ago, we didn't have the ability to switch channels. One had to endure countless hours of Krishi Darshan in order to get the treat of the day, namely Nukkad or Humlog. To be fair, we know the problem Tarun Tejpals are facing today and we will elaborate on it in a later piece. We just feel sad that he is not stinging as much these days. Not that there is a dearth of targets, he just has to endure the breaking news for a few minutes.
posted by barbarindian at 8:17 PM Permalink
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Tuesday, January 23, 2007 |
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RIP | |
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posted by barbarindian at 1:27 AM Permalink
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Sunday, January 21, 2007 |
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Sad for Saddam? | |
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    I suppose this was expected. Protests against the hanging of Saddam led to various incidents of violence and clashes all over the country. The Samajwadi Party attacked tourists in Agra, injuring several Indians. They tried to whitewash this by claiming that it was a mistake and that they thought the occupants of the bus were foreigners. Aha, that justifies the attacks. As usual, not much transpired in the days immediately following the execution. New Year's eve was coming up and that was enough to put important things like this on the back burner. Twenty one days later a 12- year old boy was killed in police firing when a mob turned unruly, forcing the cops to open fire. A 12-year-old boy was killed and 22 people were injured when police opened fire in Bangalore on Sunday to control a rampaging mob that was apparently provoked by a group of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's supporters. [...] Meanwhile, at the rally held under the banner of 'People's Front' at the Shivajinagar stadium, leaders of various political parties from the state, including Congress leaders CK Jaffar Sharief and former chief minister N Dharam Singh and Samajwadi Party leader S Bangarappa, attacked the Iraq policy of the US.Nothing spontaneous about it. Just like there was none during the staged Dalit train burning. The usual suspects were there. Communal parties? Check. Minority members of Secular parties? Check. Social justice wallahs? Check. Who lost his life? A 12-year old boy. Now, I am not going to get into the realm of international politics like the socialists do. I think it is silly to use international incidents to gain political leverage at home. Let me just quote a small passage here: According to Janabi, Odai's rape victims were as young as 12 and powerless to resist him. After a visiting Russian ballerina resisted Odai's advances in 1994, Odai had his men secretly film her making love with her trainer, Janabi said, then invited her to a party and told her he had a surprise. "He showed her the film. And he raped her after that." said Janabi. Latif Yahia, who for years served as Odai's security double, says Odai found violence sexually exciting. "He love to hear the woman scream.... He love the rape.... He's a sadist." Yahia described, in detail, nighttime scenes in Baghdad of group sex and violent acts. He said he once saw Odai beat and rape a pregnant woman. "Odai, he can't sleep with a woman if he don't hit her and see the blood coming out of her," he said.Indeed, Saddam's death has saddened many in India, like this cook from Kerala. At least six boys all over the world hanged themselves to death trying to mimic the Saddam hanging snuff video. You see, India's economic interests in the Gulf region makes it a stark choice for both our politicians and people to stick to their famous non-aligned stance, so hailed by Arundhati Roy. We Indians sure know how to put our mouth where the money is. At least Saddam kept his shirt on, unlike Gandhi and Nehru who donned the silly dresses as if it gave them some sort of moral superiority. These dudes were educated in the West and never wore anything other than full western regalia before joining the nationalist movement. Immediately after independence these fellows firmly embedded themselves in the textbooks. Indeed it would be hard to determine if there are more symbols in the names of Nehru and Gandhi in India than the numerous statues of Saddam in Iraq. These poseurs have done irrepairable harm to our politics. Fakeness is the de facto norm. Our politics is more fake than reality TV shows. Saddam was honest in other ways too. He wanted to be a dictator and said so openly. Nehru, the champion of democracy, kept power for 17-years. If he didn't die, he would perhaps still hold on to the throne of India. Term limits anyone? Thankfully, Nehru had a daughter and not a son. Mrs. Gandhi was enough of a dictator but I suppose she was naturally disadvantaged to do the sort of damage to women and girls that Odai Hussain did. The dictatorial traits would later fully manifest in the grandson, Sanjay Gandhi. Rumor has it that he used to abduct girls from New Delhi streets. It is still hotly debated whether the plane crash that did him was an act of conspiracy. I just feel sad for the 12-year old boy. And the 12-year old girls.
posted by barbarindian at 4:34 PM Permalink
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Friday, January 19, 2007 |
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Bad Doggie | |
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 When two socialists meet, they go about sniffing each others' posteriors like dogs do. If your backside doesn't smell like Congress (basically a putrid and potent mix of things like reservation, secularism, subsidies, dharnas, bandhs and wholesale corruption and sycophancy), you have no chance, even before you had the time to bark or bite.Apparently, a few ex-IITians have started a new political party, called The Bharat Punarnirman Dal (BPD). This is the second such venture by alumni of that venerated institute after Lokparitran. Very few details are available about this party or their ideology. This is what they officially said so far: But this is enough of a red flag for the socialists. Congress can accept the scum of the earth like Laloo, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Shibu Soren. They can even take in members who do not even have an Indian citizenship (not talking about Sonia Gandhi). But they will never accept anything however small or insignificant that has the remotest chance of challenging the hegemony of arguably one of the most corrupt political establishment on this earth. Why, you ask? Don't these people have a right to start a political party? Apparently not. The socialists already know. Perhaps they could do some good? Not a chance. Krish seemed to have a lot of fun in dissecting this political party. He even assigns real numbers: I can confidently say that 90% of all IITians are opposed to reservations to fix social inequalities.Perhaps he is forgetting, at least 27.5% of all IITians firmly root for reservations. This number will soon become 49.5%. He even has some words of advice for IITians. This is deep rooted in the socialistic psyche. A man can not and must not think for himself. Frankly speaking, I have no opinion on this matter. I was also a bit surprised at the venomous tone of the socialist bloggers. Then it dawned on me, perhaps it has something to do with this. Actually they may be right. In the poisonous environment of Indian politics, a normal person does not have a chance. Unless you are a thug or a rapist or a murderer or a smuggler.
posted by barbarindian at 7:58 PM Permalink
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Blogbharti or Chor-bharti? | |
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 A few weeks ago a reader brought a few new socialist collaborative blogs to my attention. I bring to you two of them (let us know if you find more): kafila and blogbharti. The blogs were launched by the usual suspects at the other idiots site. Presumably the former socialist blog is not really working out.For the most part, kafila has followed the same modus operandi, by luring unsuspecting bloggers into their network. Most of the claimed writers have not yet contributed anything. For instance, click here. As you perhaps know, many original members of the other idiots site quit after they came to know the political affiliations of the blog. We exposed some of their tactics in the past, read here and here. Perhaps blogbharti is even more atrocious. There is a fine line between aggregating and outright stealing. These guys can't write a couple of lines for shit, all they do is cut and paste a substantial part of posts from other blogs. Misrepresentation and outright lies are old socialist tricks. Beware of these individuals even if they promise you instant fame. Some of them are actively involved in politics, the worst kind.
posted by barbarindian at 7:32 PM Permalink
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Sunday, January 14, 2007 |
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Book Review: Pure Whining | |
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 I wonder what is happening to the contemporary Indian literary scene. We are hopeless as far as movies go. I am told the vast majority of films are being copied from various sources. Apparently they even made a frame by frame copy of a South Korean movie and even a Quentin Tarantino flick.But books? I could think of many interesting topics. Tom Clancy would go nuts with the level of political intrigue going on. The exploding urban scene could be fodder for pulpy dramas. Alas, that is not to be. The anglo/anglo-wannabe led Indian lit savvy folks are feeding us with the same old social justice crap. Dilip D'Souza's maternal grandfather A. N. Sattanathan wrote a memoir of sort, now being posthumously published under the title: Plain Speaking: A Shudra's Story. It got heaps of praise from commie quarters as well as socialist intellectuals. I haven't yet read the book and it is unlikely I ever will. I do not mind reading yet another oh I was pissed on by Brahmans but yet ended up making bazzillions tale. One could read a book just for its literary values but if the general quality of DCubed blog is any indicator, I do not have much hope. A quick search on "Plain Speaking" on amazon yields hundreds of matches. How very original. I do not like some of the ideas behind the book either. First of all, it is a total misappropriation of the oppression script of the real Shudras. This dude was privileged from all accounts. He got patronage from a wealthy family yet ended up narrating hateful things about his benefactors. This is what is referred to as "Jis thali me khate ho, usi me ched karte ho". Apart from the fact that he had separate dining facilities from Brahman kids, I do not see any discrimination. But then again you know my biases. Sattanathan obtained a First Class Honours degree in History in 1926 and qualified for the Superior Civil Service in 1929. Retiring as Collector of Customs and Central Excise, Calcutta, he was Chairman of the first Tamil Nadu Backward Classes Commission constituted in 1969 by the DMK Government under M. Karunanidhi.Does this sound like deprivation to you? I will take this any day over my supposed uber privileged existence! With biases of this sort no wonder where the TN reservation scene went. You have to keep in mind that the dude kicked the bucket in 1991 and this book was edited by his grand-daughter Uttara Natarajan. You can safely assume some prominent and influential socialists had a hand in the publishing. One cannot help but wonder about the opportune timing of this book. Our verdict: Don't waste your money, buy this instead.
posted by barbarindian at 1:03 PM Permalink
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Monday, January 08, 2007 |
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Assam is for Assamese | |
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 So the shit finally hit the fan.With no end to the bloodbath in sight, panic-stricken non-Assamese people, mostly seasonal laborers engaged in various brick kiln in various parts of the state, have started leaving the state. A three-member Bihar Government delegation, including two ministers of the Nitish Kumar Cabinet, is currently in Assam to put pressure on the Assam Government to ensure the security of the Hindi-speaking population.Meanwhile the Government assures us that Assam is for all Indians: Jaiswal told them that in his meeting with the Chief Minister he took up their demand of Rs 10 lakh as compensation and government jobs to next of kin. "The entire country is for all its people. Assam is not just for Assamese, but for the people of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh too," he said.Ahem. Can you really blame ULFA for acting this way? After all this is the default behavior assumed, nurtured and morally supported by all and sundry from the Socialist bloc. The violence may be reprehensible depending on your point of view but claiming group entitlement is nothing wrong. Arguably the Assamese really have special claims. Historically they were an isolated nation state for most of the time. Since they were not politically significant, they suffered years of negligence in the hands of an autocratic, nominally democratic leadership (Nehru - 17 years, term limits anyone?). India is for Dalits, India is for Moslems, first priority to OBCs - if all these dubious claims are accepted and propagated, how can you deny the ULFA folks their 15 minutes of fame? One wonders if all these political statements would be given if the majority of the workers killed or in distress were not from Uttar Pradesh. Previous: A New Revolution.
posted by barbarindian at 12:50 AM Permalink
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Wednesday, January 03, 2007 |
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Year 2007: The Spinning Has Begun | |
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 The Barbarian community wishes its readers a belated Happy New Year. We thank our readers for leaving kind comments on this blog and sending us emails of encouragement. We hope to continue to provide you with non-stop entertainment throughout this year. So, what made 2006 such a special year? The great reservation fiasco? The Bombay bombings? Saddam hanging? Nah. 2006 will always be remembered as a pivotal point in Indian politics. From now on at least part of the debate will focus on or rather has to focus on economic development. There has been a lot of debate on who gets the credit for India's liberalization. Indeed, the first time India took significant measures was under the Narasimha Rao Government, led by then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh. These changes were hardly deliberate though, the scepter of defaulting on its debt was hanging on India. World Bank was relentless in its threats. Anyway, the reforms did happen, however they did. A lot of credit is due to the NDA regime for not reverting back any of these changes. Think about it, the first reaction of a political party coming to power after ages would be to quickly jump back into a frenzy of populist measures. They did no such thing. Instead, they launched the India Shining campaign which ultimately doomed them. Three years ago India was "shining" for some. Is it shining for more people today?So asks the People's paper. Its conclusion? As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has gone beyond being a mere economist and so improved the capacity for all of India to shine.Thankfully, Manmohan Singh hasn't been able to do too much damage. As soon as Congress came to power, they launched an avalanche of "social justice" programs. Congress didn't truly believe in the financial reforms they started. Until now. Already the various Cong mouthpieces have started singing different tunes. So, we would exercise extreme caution in 2007. Let's take a quick look at how statistics is spun, from the most absurd to the most wily: The year-end issue of The Economist ran a double feature on happiness. Socialist obsession for happiness is well known. It can be used for long term programming and indoctrination, the idea is that you need less money to be happy and hence have no reason to be grouchy about "social" spending. Because social spending is needed. Think of the scramble for schools, Mr Frank says. Only 10% of kids can go to the top 10% of schools.Can someone explain to me how under any system more than 10% of the kids can go to the top 10% of schools? From the same issue, notice this curious graph:  Scary, isn't it? The vice-like grip of retail prices has finally trumped earnings! The author tries to imply that compared to 1995, although wages have risen, prices have risen far faster, finally catching up.Except that the graph says nothing of that sort. The graphs represent growth in average earnings and growth in prices over a previous period. Since the earnings growth graph has always stayed above the prices growth graph, as of 2006 the average earnings provide far bigger buying power compared to 1995. Of course these are not directly related to India and provided here strictly for illustrative purposes. Meanwhile, our own Finance Minister Shri Chidambaram slips in one or two when no one is watching. ''Though we are concerned about the inflation, it is also a fact that in the last ten years, the highest inflation was during June 2001 (when the NDA was in power) when it touched 8.8 percent. The average inflation during the UPA regime was between 3 and 3.5 per cent,'' said Chidambaram.Now, as far as I can recall, the inflation never reached that high any given month during 2001. Indeed, the average inflation during UPA regime hasn't been that low. A summary stat is available here. The site used to provide a searchable database of weekly CPI, I can no longer find it. Inflating poverty stats and deliberately creating confusion is nothing new to The Other Idiots. They have done it before. Perhaps the new party pamphlets are yet to reach Abi, he weighs in with a curious viewpoint about poverty stats. Because escaping poverty and falling into poverty are caused by different factors, looking only at the figure for net change will not help to develop appropriate policy responses. [...] for example, a 3 percent net reduction over a ten-year period can arise because (A) three percent of the population escapes from poverty and no one previously non-poor falls into poverty during this time; or (B) eight percent of the population escapes from poverty while five percent descend into poverty; or (C) 20 percent escape from poverty while 17 percent fall into poverty during this time.The quote is not Abi's own, it is from some socialist research. What Abi is referring to is income volatility, specifically at the lower end of the spectrum. At any given point some people are escaping poverty just like some are falling back into it. So, in a general sense, you will not distort the count if you take a snapshot. Now what happens when a very large part of the population is precariously see-sawing between poverty and affluence? You call that country Argentina. Is it really the case in India? Much of the bottom 300 million are the chronically poor, marginal farmers, landless laborers, slum dwellers etc. It is hard to believe there is too much swing in there. Situation (A) might require faster growth as the antidote to the observed slow pace of poverty reduction, but Situation (C) will certainly require first paying attention to the large ongoing decline.A large swing would definitely induce different spending patterns and fiscal targeting than what we are seeing done. A larger swing would mean perhaps about 500 - 600 millions would have experienced dire poverty within the last year or so. You would see Congress dipping into forex reserves and expanding the deficit. That would be too big a vote bank to ignore. History and statistical analyses show that over the longer term, growth is the only abiding antidote to poverty. But the long-term may often be too long in coming, and to paraphrase while slightly distorting Keynes, many of the poor may be needlessly dead by that time.On the flip side, if Abi and the socialists keep on spinning it, we may end up keeping the bottom rung in dire poverty far too long, by needlessly denying them the benefits of brisk opening up of the economy.
posted by barbarindian at 8:41 PM Permalink
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Monday, January 01, 2007 |
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Sordid tales from UP | |
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  Didn't want to start the New Year with this post, but could not help it. The warning signs were already present and we even covered it in a post in the past. "Sex, lies and videotape" - could be a perfect headline for the bizarre saga that unfolded when a university lecturer was found murdered. She was involved in a lurid racket involving UP ministers. Since the party in question, Kavita Rani, is no longer available to provide insight into the matter, we will never know the whole picture. Mulayam Singh refuses to involve the CBI in the probe. Here is a question, is there any guideline or benchmark for when to use the CBI? In my book, a gruesome murder, possibility of extortion, blackmail and possible sexual abuse that involves public officials in high post, should automatically bring in the CBI. But it is not happening. Just like stings are not happenings anymore. UP's sorry state of affairs was further exposed by the scandals of Lucknow University. Drugs, orgasms in the classroom, illegal encroachment - in short everything but academics. Finally, to cap it all, a massive tale of unimaginable depravity was exposed in Noida. This is likely to be the most gruesome serial killing case, that too involving children from underprivileged families, ever in India. Although things are starting to move now and the perps apprehended, the whole thing was mired in bureaucratic bungling, apathy from the police and authorities. There is a organ smuggling angle to it and of course, no CBI investigation. Anyway. We demand the death penalty for the perpetrators of this case, not only those who were directly involved but for all accessories with substantial involvement in the case. Mulayam Singh must go. Indeed, Congress has dropped him like a hot potato and absolved itself of all responsibilities. The sad demise of UP and its conversion into the cesspool of civilization is not surprising. This is what happens when politics focuses on all the wrong things. Sadly, these are the de facto standard in Indian politics today.
posted by barbarindian at 2:29 PM Permalink
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