Rahul Gandhi wins the US Democratic Primaries

New Delhi: Spontaneous celebrations broke out on the streets of the capital today as the news of Shri Rahul Gandhi's win in the democratic primaries reached here. The revelers were smearing each other with leftover gulal from the Holi festival.

A socialist intellectual, who didn't want to be named, said, "We always knew this would happen. We started calling ourselves liberals from last year. Now it is vastly easier to internalize articles straight from the American political press. "

Party spokesman Mamu Phirbhi described this as a "historic victory" and that "communal forces have been defeated".

Rahul Gandhi's victory doesn't seem all that surprising, given that he was endorsed by such favorites of the left as ex-British PM Tony Blair. Political analysts expressed their opinions at the dramatic turn of events. "You could say this was that last, the final desperate push that dilates the sphincter and releases the stuff with great force. Now, globally speaking, it is the same shit all over. ", commented one analyst.

The bitter tears of Taslima Nasreen

"Chamber of death", "harassment", "mental torture", "extreme stress", "worse than religious fundamentalists" [link] - these aren't some of the keywords and phrases you would normally expect from a writer-in-exile when she describes a secular country in which she sought shelter after being driven out from her own.

But then again, very little is normal about India's peculiar situation. We have been following the ideologies our intellectuals have been shoving down our throats for some sixty years now. We were told in no uncertain terms that much of India's malaise derives from religious fundamentalists (of a particular religion). The rest of the problems could be pinned on our not accepting socialism.

As a result, for sixty years, we did not see much progress, either in our outlook or our economic situation. Until quite recently, top professionals of the country could only aspire for a motorcycle. Cars were meant only for the mysteriously rich - or politicians and their flunkies, sometimes civil servants. That too only one model, an ugly metallic hump rolling over the natural bumps that passed for roads.

This was apparently alright. Don't believe us? Look at the editorials and newspaper articles from the 70s and the 80s. This was too funny, in those days newspaper men used to be rich in relative terms. Many would spend their vacations abroad. The "intellectuals" would get academic assignments in foreign universities. But for some reason, their articles always said it was much better not to succumb to the decadent western ways. Russia was much better (although their kids went to schools in UK or US, never Russia, language barrier perhaps?).

Also, by electing a secular Government year after year, we were guaranteeing ourselves an elevated stature in terms of human rights, liberal mindset, intellectual outlook, religious tolerance - all of the above.

After narrowly escaping the sensitive people in her own country, Taslima Nasreen spent some days in Europe. She didn't quite feel at home there. So she moved to Calcutta, allegedly among the most enlightened places in India, that too ruled by the most liberals. She was happy, Calcutta was culturally familiar, she made friends. Poor Taslima Nasreen. Perhaps she got taken by the India Shining campaign too. She completely missed the rot beneath the superficial gloss.

Well, the tumor that lurks beneath finally got her. Seriously ill and mentally exhausted, Taslima had to leave for Europe. Her heart broken and her dreams shattered.

Long tailed losses

Long tailed losses tend to make a monkey out of everyone, every once in a blue moon. These are remarkable times. The next decade is going to be tough.

Commentator reason pointed out that ICICI was not obligated to report their derivative exposure to the US sub prime crisis and it was only in response to a question in the Rajya Sabha that their losses came to light. India's accounting laws may be a bit archaic and perhaps do not require periodic marking to market for complex derivative instruments. By itself this may not be of concern for two reasons. First, most emerging economies have gotten their acts together after the spate of crisis in the 90s. They are quite conservatively leveraged, the central banks ensure lots of buffer. Second, even with all sorts of safeguards, banks can and will commit financial seppuku from time to time.

It looks like in the next decade we are going to see a global socialist surge. If the US gets a hard landing and a democratic president, expect some tough laws. China has been playing nice so far, post Olympics it will start acting its usual aggressive self. The west will start cozying up to it, while they clean up their financial mess. Perhaps Arab street will own much of Wall street, which means bigger influence on Washington. Meanwhile bit players like Hugo Chavez will start flexing their muscle, just like our domestic commies. People will see which horse is strong and flock in large numbers to the relevant camp.

Free Tibet

Bring down the wall

Violence

A 10-year old boy was brutally assaulted and burnt alive by a crowd at a village near outer Delhi. A casual survey of news headlines shows that violent incidents such as this are par for the course, almost for the entire nation. Occasionally a particularly gruesome incident captures people's imagination.

Yet the media is on a concerted effort to prove that Gujarat and Bihar lead the way in violence. There have been a lot of coverage for certain incidents in Gujarat, especially sexual assault related crimes. Never mind that the Kerala politician sex scandals never see much attention. Even horrific crimes such as the gang rape of about a dozen Girijan women by cops in Tamil Nadu never made it to the breaking news category.

Right now of course, the attention is focused on Goa, where a teenage British girl was treated like a half eaten salami sandwich by a couple of bartenders. The picture of Goa that emerges is pretty sordid, a haven for hippies, junkies and trailer trash crowd from the West and a local crowd quite eager to exploit whatever these tourists are worth. Contrast this with the picture CNN-IBN editor Sagarika Ghose painted on her blog following BJP's defeat in the last assembly elections in Goa.

The point is, the aam aadmi (in this context anyone who can not afford private security forces or taxpayer funded security cover) is a sitting duck in most of India, not just the Naxal infested areas. Women have no safety in throbbing business centers in India's metros. The outcome of road accidents is determined by whether you were travelling in the car with a higher number of passengers. Then of course, we have those never ending stories of cyber crime (a recent report pegs it at a whopping $40B), stalking, extortion, loot, murder, kidnappings, not to mention activities of freedom fighters. If you survive all this, you may yet become collateral damage from political violence, as people with certain politicial affiliations are finding out in Kerala.

India's police infrastructure is not just inadequate, it is a joke. This will likely remain so, unless our politcians figure out a way to provide enhanced police coverage to targeted groups. An attempt has been made by enacting special laws (such as atrocities act, laws that supposedly protect women etc.), but they are clearly not working.

Don't hold your breath though, things are not likely to change anytime soon. You better make sure the doors are bolted tight while you watch our FM dole out tens of thousands of crores on prime time TV.

Two babies

NEW DELHI: Two nurses were arrested on Thursday in connection with the death of a five-day-old baby girl kept in an incubator of a government-run hospital. [...] The incident took place early morning on Wednesday following a short circuit and the baby was charred to death. [...]. Admitted to the hospital since March eight, the baby had been kept in the incubator as she had contracted jaundice and was under-weight. [link]

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat government has formed a three-member inquiry committee to probe into an incident in which a three-day-old baby was charred to death in an incubator following a short circuit at the Shardaben hospital. [...] After the inspection of equipment by the experts, they will be reutilised, an AMC official said. The baby died at the city hospital during early hours on Wednesday when the incubator caught fire due to a short-circuit. [link]

Now, that would have to be one heck of a coincidence and an extremely tragic one too. Of course the respective Goverment agencies are running their own investigations. There is no indication that this coincidence was noticed, at least till the last time we checked the news.

If you happen to know someone connected to the medical profession or from the health department, please bring this to their attention.

The state of TalibaNadu vs. freedom of art

RealityCheck reports:

Its that time of the year again. Wine sipping, art-for-arts sake loving journalist types, have to just lie low and stay quiet for a while. It seems we cant paint mughal emperors in India - unless the painting glorifies them. No goons wont attack you, the government will shut down the entire exhibition. [link]

The paintings in question depict the historically accurate demolition of Hindu temples (a process nowadays known as secularism) during the time of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.

This incident did not attract much coverage. Compare and contrast with the Baroda MS University fiasco (thousands of reports, articles, editorials, blogs, TV shows that continue till today).

A bad melodrama

So tired
Tired of all this drama
You go your way
I go my way
I need to be free

No more pain No more drama in my life
(Popular song by American Hip Hop artist Mary J. Blige)

This drama-baazi has been going on for far too long now. One instant they are willing to sacrifice the Government for the Nuclear deal, the very next they have to save the Government. The Left has served as Congress' useful idiot for a long time, this is a well known fact. But right now there are important things to take care of, such as governance, social justice etc.

Can you believe these idiots? This type of thing is hard to pull off without the full complicity of the mainstream media and India's self styled intellectual crowd. Just imagine the uproar and indignation it would cause if it happened between BJP and one of its allies.

Prepare for double digit inflation next year

Even before secular mediamen had an opportunity to wipe off the froth of excitement from the corner of their mouths after the Railway Budget, our Harvard educated FM announced a stunner of a budget. The Rs. 60,000 crore (about $15B) farmer loan waiver package still remains the talk of the town and likely to remain so, perhaps for years.

RealityCheck and Offstumped addressed some of the immediate problems with this budget, as indeed countless other blogs and editorials.

Yet, no one is talking about what this whopper of a loan waiver can do to our economy. In terms of size, this is about half of the income tax receipt. Naturally the provisions to fund this has been kept off budget. The details will be worked out by June.

The biggest problem of this waiver is perhaps the crude setback this will cause to farmers' insurance programs. To put it most charitably, we do not have adequate farmer insurance infrastructure. Some banks do provide coverage for crop damage due to flood, drought, mice etc. by charging an extra premium. By announcing this ad hoc relief, this waiver will throw insurance schemes totally out of gear. Not only that, it will wipe out historical credit data, thus making it impossible to rationalize premiums.

If the waiver itself is big, the problems are exacerbated by the current world macro-economic context. Some other factors unique to India make it even worse.

With the US financial market in free fall, Ben Bernanke is all set to announce rate cuts on March 18, perhaps by as much as 50 basis points. India's interest rates are already overdue for a cut. At a first glance, it seems to be the right thing to do, but it actually worsens the situation. The interest rate differential attracts FDI and private transfers. These transfers are huge.

We have the pay commission coming in. Coupled with the tax bonanza, our consumers will be flush with extra cash to spend.

Then we have the NREG scheme, which amounts to about Rs. 16,000 crore. So far the scheme has been an almost total failure, adding just froth.

The FM has refused to divulge any details of how the waiver itself will be handled. There is talk of bonds, which will invariably add upward pressure on the real interest rates. The waiver will have a multiplier effect on the liquidity situation. Ordinarily, these loans would be written off as NPAs and show up on the income statements as losses. Now, the banks will get straight capital, which has the potential to add X times one over the cash reserve ratio to the market.

The inflationary pressures on Rupee are already showing up, it ended up weaker against the dollar. Inflation is clocking at 4.89 precent, already up from lows of below 3. This is just the WPI which has a decidely downward bias.

The FM is essentially betting on one of two things. Either he believes that the downward pressure on growth will be so large that extra momentum is necessary even at the cost of inflation. This is essentially a bet on the middle class professional or aspiring to be professional crowd. This could also be an indicator that the export job losses due to a stronger Rupee are significant and not mere propaganda by our industry lobby. If this is the case, the FM perhaps wants to induce inflation, bring the Rupee up to 45 to the dollar, aggressively import food grains and hope for a rebound. Alternately the FM is betting on the fact that inflation is a lagging indicator. By the time the waiver is worked in and all the factors set in, it will be late in the year.

In the latter case we will likely see the general elections happen later this year.

Privatize the Indian Railways

Come to think of it, Laloo is the only minister in the UPA cabinet who gets any amount of coverage in the context of the work he is supposed to be doing. Of course, right now the budget is the biggest news and our FM has a field day. Setting aside these two, no one else is visible. The home minister dude sulks in the background, his only function being providing transport to Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. The Agriculture Minister, supposedly the most important cabinet position responsible for the livelihood of at least 60% of the population, is busy playing cricket. Dr. Ramadoss keeps making the headlines for the wrong reasons. Arjunji may soon get the boot, Rahulji is not happy with him.

Bihar CM and ex-Railway minister from the NDA days, Nitish Kumar, keeps claiming that he deserves some credit for the railway turnaround story. Indeed, reformist measures have a nasty habit of showing up in the numbers much later. For instance, the current bullish trend of high GDP growth rate certainly set in during the NDA tenure, although it has made our current FM a superstar of sorts.

Back to the railways story. From this KPMG report, it does not look like Laloo achieved any dramatic improvement above the trendline. Significant improvements in the wagon turnaround etc. had already taken place. The operating ratios etc. have indeed improved, thanks mostly to accounting tricks. As you can see, freight revenue is increasing at a high rate and contributes more than two thirds of total revenue. Freight rates have been reduced, the extra revenue realization comes from wagon overloading, which according to Nitish Kumar, was made possible by some of the infrastructure upgrade tasks undertaken during his tenure.

Even after all these supposed improvements, our rail freight rates remain among the highest in the world. Some of the value added services are entirely missing. Laloo talked about private-public partnership in his budget speech. One only hopes that he puts the concept into practice, although he may not really have much time left before his tenure runs out.