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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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Friday, May 29, 2009 |
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Someone please explain this to us | |
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Social Scientist ASHIS NANDY writing for Tehelka:The Hour Of The Untamed Cosmopolitan Let's get this straight: - Free market does not work, since legitimately acquired wealth somehow vanishes from the economy altogether and hence does not trickle down. - So we need socialism and socialistic schemes such as NREGA and loan waiver for farmers. - These schemes do not work either because 90 percent of this money gets pilfered. - However, the pilfered money eventually trickles down and helps the local economy and the poor. This sounds too good to be funny or too funny to be any good. Something like that.
posted by barbarindian at 12:10 AM Permalink
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Thursday, May 28, 2009 |
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Swearing in ... | |
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P. Chidambaram: English, Atheist Farooq Abdullah: English, Believer (not what you think, "in the name of God" etc.) Kamal Nath: Stupid. Yuvraj: did not swear in, will continue in his current role.
posted by barbarindian at 7:52 PM Permalink
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Wednesday, May 27, 2009 |
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Naxals and Pseudo-Naxals | |
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  Dr. Binayak Sen: with and without Believe it or not, there are pseudo-naxals, and the term wasn't coined by some BJP leader: Anyway, don't let that fun bit distract you from the seriousness of the topic at hand. Ever heard of a tribal girl simply called Pappe? How about a man called Ujjani Gowda? But we will bet you even money you have heard the name of Dr. Binayak Sen, you have even seen that face before, splashed on TV screens and pages of newspapers.
"She started clapping"
As discussed in the previous post on this blog, the Binayak Sen case vividly illustrates the pitfalls of activism. While these activists claim to bat for social justice, their zeal for defending a particular individual seems to be inversely proportional to the helplessness of the "victim". Actually that is not true. Activists always go after the politically high value targets. That is where the juice is, the publicity is, the TV appearances, magazine and webzine columns, talk shows and even Bollywood films. In terms of civil liberties, India remains at par with with the worst of autocratic regimes. Much of the problem stems from the natural state of affairs in a resource constrained socialist state. The rest comes from hare brained policies. The civil rights activists may feel good about Dr. Sen's release, good enough to spontaneously break out into wild cheering in the courtroom, but they are clearly not serving anyone's cause other than their own. The legal reforms considered by the Congress in the last term were expressly aimed at pleasing their constituencies. They repealed the POTA. The brought in the CrPC amendment, which eventually turned out to be impractical. Repealing the POTA might have helped only a few dozen minority youth at the outside. Extra-legal confinement, custodial beatings and occasionally even encounter killings continued - in Congress ruled states of Hyderabad, Delhi, Maharashtra. The party is simply not interested in implementing anything that does not bring in electoral dividends. This is where activists could make a difference. Don't count on it though. The principal opposition, BJP made it very clear in its vision statements and also in the manifesto that it would bring in crucial legal reforms necessary to fix our creaking justice system. Think anyone read those? Bonus tailpiece: As Ram Guha noted in one of his articles, human rights activism really took off since the early 1980s. If you look at India's historical GDP growth chart, this roughly coincides with the first departure from the "Hindu" rate of growth, with a noticeably steeper slope than prior years. Since the 90s, the line goes through the roof. This is no coincidence, "activism" follows the money trail. The more money there is to be made, the more activism there is. Anyway, here is a fantastic article about the first Naxal movement and its brutal suppression. Those days we had a pretty elitist situation in India. You could not criticize the Government. There were those who were in on the game and those who were on the outside. soumen was archana's brother and latika's husband. gouri happened to be soumen's relative. the police were in hot pursuit of soumen as he had been tortured as a "prized catch" by the lalbazar top-brass. after repeated attempts to hunt soumen down failed, the police resorted to a much known below-the-belt-tactic. torture other family members and force the "wanted man" to surrender. but the officers pushed themselves too hard. the three women repeatedly pleaded with the interrogating officers that soumen had not returned home for days and they didn’t know about his whereabouts. they were assured that after the "routine inquiry" they would be released. but they were in for more. the police officers took a stricter line of action to "extricate" information from latika and archana—the third degree. this inhuman torture in the police custody did not last for one, two or three days... but for 27 days. Read on to find out what happened to the hapless woman called Archana. You won't feel like clapping for sure.
posted by barbarindian at 12:12 AM Permalink
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Monday, May 25, 2009 |
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Strategies of "Activists" | |
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Some general thoughts on the subject of Activism and what makes them tick. Activists of various hues such as Animal Rights (PETA), Environment (Greenpeace), Human Rights (PUCL, ACLU) etc. are a major non-state force in the global polity today, just like perhaps insurgents. They draw a lot of water, wield tremendous influence and needless to say are usually flush with cash. Of course they are not viable under certain circumstances, such as Human Rights Activism in Saddam era Iraq, China etc. Does "activism" help? Obviously it helps in localized situations, but the total effect is at best unclear. We are more interested in finding out why activism works, how does it sustain etc. Activists work against broadly two types of entities: Government/political entities and Corporate/Business entities. The effect of activism on businesses and corporations is so great that the phenomenon is regularly studied in business schools, to equip future managers with tools to deal with them. For instance, this course syllabus for "Ethics in Action" from the Tuck School of Business openly shows a significant portion devoted to strategies of activists (scroll to: STRATEGY AND ETHICAL DILEMMAS POSED BY ACTIVISTS). Needless to say in this day and age of political correctness, the fact that business schools look upon activists as a major pain in the ***, shows something. Corporations like WalMart know. A whole cottage industry of leachers have grown around the venerated US retailer at local, state, national and global levels. WalMart deals with them in various ways, including PR campaigns, dedicated bloggers to fight misinformation etc. WalMart also supports every whims of these groups, it has become a major crusader in the "Green" movement. Funny thing is, the company is so super efficient, it is actually visibly impacting emissions standards and yet keeping costs low. Quite obviously business schools can not openly teach effective techniques as they are essentially controversial in nature. Instead, they introduce students to some basic ideas and drop enough hints that dealing with activists may need underhanded techniques. A sample concept is as follows: N * (individual economic loss) < Economic loss to the organization N represents the number of activists embarking on a protest. In this simplistic and laughter inducing model, a number of do gooders are protesting against an errant corporation by picketing at a factory. The activists will win if the above inequality holds true. In that case the corporation will strike a deal. Actually, corporations do strike a deal in many cases, when the legal costs are insignificant. Some corporations have a no negotiation policy for obvious reasons. They fight each case in court to the bitter end. Value creation or financing: The first question is of course, how do these activists create value? Without tangibles, the movement will not survive. Donations are a major factor, but even a significant part of donations are obtained by plain blackmailing. These organizations employ a very large number of people, who in turn become dedicated fighters for the cause. So, when you see that banner waving crowd protesting against something or the other, they are not quite what you think. Most of them are being paid for the job, you are the one footing the bill, indirectly. In India, we have the Government subsidize and directly finance these organizations. The last UPA Government unleashed an unprecedented NGO culture. No public records or accounting is available, nor is it obvious how such funds were disbursed. The potential for abuse is phenomenal. In any case, NGOs are a special case, generally speaking the money does not make it to the activists. A special case is Human Rights Activism. Government money is directly available to them since they also double up as NGOs involved in rehabilitation efforts. Activists also enlist students and genuine citizens concerned for the cause. Often these unsuspecting folks do not know that the sweet talking dude who is leading them to a protest is in on the money. They also get free endorsement from Film stars and public personalities. It is a much better option to appear in a 30 second ad than stir up the hornets nest. Activism greatly benefits from network externalities, the more the merrier. You support the cause, you get assignments. You write about the cause. The cause becomes even bigger. Political involvement: Just like some people argue that caste should not be a factor in politics since every party can put up caste candidates, activism should not really impact the political process. It should be easy to neutralize environmental and animal cruelty activism. Unfortunately activism has become a significant part of the political process, each reinforcing the other. Apart from the financing factor, activists often use propaganda to enlist people. They inform a significant number of people, so political parties recruit them to send out political messages. Activists generally end up supporting one side of the political spectrum. This is a riskless strategy. It works regardless of whether their party is in power. Arguably they might lose out on Government financing when their party is not in power, but this is compensated by the fact that the party will have to enlist them for political campaigns anyway. Contrast this with the strategy of going after every political party. This does not fly since then the political parties might collude to put the activists out of business. When their party is in power, activists become subdued, introspective. They can still go after the opposition. To Summarize:
posted by barbarindian at 9:18 PM Permalink
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India's next big foreign policy challenge | |
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 There were many promises made during the American election campaign. It is quite clear to what extent they are being kept. If the basic premise of the changes promised was the hope that the world would warm up to the Americans, well, that didn't quite happen. North Korea just conducted a second Nuclear test. Demagogic leaders often share two common characteristics. First, they often tend to have a out of body experience as far as the body politic is concerned, i.e. they often furiously criticize "The Government". Funny that during those moments no one bothers to question the fact that the leader in question is the head of the said Government. Communist leaders of China often do this, as do Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales etc. The second characteristic they often loudly claim to be doing something while in reality doing the exact opposite. The reason they get away with it is because populist leaders often have demographics on their side, the social justice population in any country has no patience for logic and reason. Also, the media usually bat for them or are too scared of attracting their wrath. So, the situation in South Asia (hopelessly out of control, chaotic) can be explained in two ways. One, the American administration does not really know what the heck it is doing and does not care - since they believe it won't dent their electoral prospects. Two, they have a logically coherent strategy, at least one that makes sense to them. (... to be continued.)
posted by barbarindian at 12:42 AM Permalink
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Sunday, May 24, 2009 |
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Government Fundamentalists | |
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What should we call people who seem to regard government as the solution regardless of the evidence? I propose the term "government fundamentalists." How would you identify a government fundamentalist? One characteristic would be a tendency, after the person points out market failures, to argue for government intervention as the solution. Rarely does anyone who proposes a government solution spell out how the incentives will be set up so that the government will actually solve the problem. Even many economists who are strongly committed to free markets will agree that economic freedom can underprovide defense from foreign attackers because of the notorious free-rider problem: Those who refuse to pay will get the same defense as those who pay, giving all an incentive not to pay. [link] Great piece. Of course this applies to people who advocate bigger Government for ideological reasons, regardless of whether benefits directly accrue to them. Then there are the parasites. Oh, and the haters. They also like the Government, for different reasons.
posted by barbarindian at 8:25 PM Permalink
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Social Engineering in progress .... | |
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After Dera Sacha Sauda, it is the Dera Sachkhand:VIENNA (AFP) — Sikh followers clashed with knives and at least one gun at a temple in Vienna on Sunday, injuring some 30 people in a dispute between rival religious communities, police and witnesses said. The violence at the temple broke out around 1:30 pm (1130 GMT) and saw the perpetrators pull out knives and a gun as a guru visiting from India gave a sermon. Others in the 200-strong audience at the temple pounced on the attackers and subdued them, police said. All of the attackers, who a witness said were wearing yellow and blue turbans, were arrested. Almost simultaneously, clashes broke out in India: Jalandhar: Followers of Dera Sachkhand and various Dalit bodies on Sunday blocked traffic on the national highway in Jalandhar, damaged three buses and torched a vehicle soon after news regarding firing on Sant Niranjan Dass, the Dera head, in Vienna, Austria spread. Meanwhile, there is no report on the progress of investigations into the alleged crimes of the Dera Sacha Sauda cult leader - Baba Gurmik Singh Ram Rahim. The alleged crimes include murder of a journalist and whistle blower, routine sexual exploitation of female inmates, instances of sexual assault at gun point. It is quite curious how the caste system persists in every religion, for instance within Christianity, there is widespread discrimination. Church access is denied to people deemed to be from the "lower castes". The other minorities are a special case, it will require several posts to fully describe the curious situation there. People in denial will of course place all the blame on Hindus. The fracture within the Sikh body of religion was artificially created. After centuries of relative cohesion, there is no reason the religion should break out into cults and start violent clashes within itself. In any case, these episodes are on the rise and the amount of discord appears to be proportional to the monies made available for group directed incentives.
posted by barbarindian at 4:58 PM Permalink
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Saturday, May 23, 2009 |
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Weekend comic relief for you management types | |
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From a current lead story on the Times of India:Inside the mind of Rahul GandhiThe difference between monarchy and the Indian democracy is that the coronation will take five years, and many such articles. Note that all this is happening retroactively, you can say this is a late breaking Discovery of Rahul Gandhi's many geniuses tour. The fact that this is happening after a certain sequence of events (read the very last part) could be a coincidence, but skepticism remains.
posted by barbarindian at 6:35 PM Permalink
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Thursday, May 21, 2009 |
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BJP lost because of its divisive policies | |
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The primary appeal of BJP for its base in the heartland used to be the sense of pride and dignity the party instilled in its cadre which shone a bright light of optimism on the electorate. This is how despite a massive and sustained barrage of propaganda by a powerful lobby of media, klepto-socialists, feudal lords, closet religious fundamentalists, international forces and anti-nationals - the party rose to power and was able to sustain the momentum. Among other things, BJP's vision offered a truly egalitarian and classless society in contradistinction with the caste/ethnic/economic strife ridden view offered by the detractors. Take for instance a few facts about the caste. The historic account of the Indic people suffers from discontinuities. These have been filled in by people of dubious intellect and questionable intent. Now these fabricated ideas are used to divide people, socialism makes these divisions persist. A lot of people in India reject these artificial divisions. They do not want to live as a statistic on the NSSO reports, constantly viewed upon condescendingly by the battery of propagandists appointed by the fascists. This battery of paid mercenaries is collectively known as the "intellectuals". Thus BJP's ascendancy was rooted in something much more fundamental. It is but natural that the intellectuals could see it only in the same superficial terms they used to interpret the complex and sophisticated history of the Indic people. For instance the constant obsession with BJP's symbolism while completely ignoring the vulgar and crude displays by the leaders of their favorite party. It is but natural that their myopic lenses would offer a distorted image of the party in the same manner as it offered a grotesque representation of the ancient civilization of the Indic people. Unfortunately, political expediency and the greed of certain elements within the BJP took away the best thing the party had to offer for the masses. By the time the recent general elections rolled in, the party was already a veteran traveller of the tried and tested path to Delhi - it was making the same caste based maneuvers other parties do. It had mollycoddled Jats, it made similar mistakes with Gujjars. It was talking to caste based parties. Thus by trying to expand its electoral prospects by abandoning the very same principles that made it appealing in the first place, BJP lost the elections.
posted by barbarindian at 11:45 PM Permalink
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Possibly right conclusion, wrong analysis | |
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Why Rahul (probably) won't become a minister First of all, the experience factor should hardly be an issue especially when a "community organizer" with zero executive experience can stake a claim to the top job in the most powerful country. Also, experience was not an issue when #3 went straight from the cockpit to the throne. Actually giving a portfolio to the Yuvraj is a risky proposition. A sensitive portfolio will be under constant scrutiny. Important cabinet ministers have lots of resources to share and distribute - so they typically end up getting bad vibes from everyone. Plus it is clear by now the Congress strategists would rather give an important cabinet post to the Princess. The only thing they are letting the Prince do on his own is his own little partying with the "young" second generation MPs. As it is, it will take nearly five years of constant spinning to gloss over the Youth Congress success stories.
posted by barbarindian at 12:11 AM Permalink
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Tuesday, May 19, 2009 |
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First terror attack (man caused disaster) since the elections? | |
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Home Guard killed in attack on police picket
posted by barbarindian at 12:03 AM Permalink
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Sunday, May 17, 2009 |
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It could happen to you... | |
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 Feral display of raw emotions Between 2002 and 2004 millions of Venezuelans signed petitions calling for a vote to remove Hugo Chavez from office. Signatories were not anonymous and during the petition campaign Chavez supporters hinted darkly that there would be retaliation. Chavez was in fact forced into a recall election, but unfortunately he won (not one of democracy's better moments). After the election, the list of signatories was distributed to government agencies in an easy-to-use database. The database included the names and addresses of all registered voters and whether they had signed an anti-Chavez petition. Technology thus provided Chavez supporters the information they needed to retaliate. What would be the normal reaction of people who think their side won? Naturally one would feel elated and buoyant. Something like the picture above, look at the very natural reaction. There will of course be some amount of put downs. The reaction of the secular socialist intellectuals was anything but. There were essentially two different flavors of responses, each revealing something deep about their personalities. In the first type of responses we saw a deep desire for validating their intellect through popular mandate. It goes beyond that - it is quite clear that they would not stop at that - they want us to genuflect before them. As one great philosopher had once observed, to these men the satisfaction of a pride is infinitely more alluring than the satisfaction of an interest. We can only guess what drives this but are deeply distressed by this attitude. These men do not realize that the tone of their message constantly betrays their true intent. Every article they write validates our view of them. Socal has a post on Chindu explaining this. We found the second flavor of responses somewhat amusing although some may find it shocking. It goes something like this - our Government is at the center, so you people take a hike. This shows among other things a complete lack of understanding of democracy. We do understand where these people are coming from though. True democracy ceases to exist when Government size exceeds a certain threshold. Then democratic power merely becomes a tool for usurping resources, in this case awards, recognitions, plum posts. Out goes the famed bipartisanship or "reaching across the aisle" of their current icon. These evil little men are not much different from the evil power grabbing politicians they support except in their desire to be what they consider intellectually acceptable. Both are trying to use political power as a shortcut, some just for money/power while the others for money, fame and settling their private scores. No matter how much paper and bandwidth you waste explaining the "vision", these men won't find it. Just like before BJP came to power, they could not find any evidence of extreme poverty and misery, nor could they find any genocide or riots. If anyone in India needs to introspect, they are the ones. Especially since "their government" is in power and they will be running policies for five more years. Just to recap a few key items: Are we there yet?, Two places, Air Force One (I) and many more in the archives for those who care to read. * * * This was however a pyrrhic victory for most socialists in India since their favorite Left parties got decimated. We foresee this factor driving a deep chasm between the pure power grabbers and the committed. No more playing good cop - bad cop, no more excuses. As far as the inner circle of the secular party is concerned, they were completely taken by surprise at the almost landslide (under the circumstances) victory for Congress. This was far beyond their expectations. Yogendra Yadav announced that he is taking a hiatus from election predictions. The only thing that could be said positively about his predictions is that the general direction was somewhat correct. He didn't see the rout of the regional parties. Neither did he predict such a convincing victory. These elections will also create a significant problem for the aforesaid intellectuals. We have a feeling many of them had to discard the copies they had written down bashing Hindus in anticipation of a comeback by BJP! It will be curious to see if Meera Nanda types will still be able to get book contracts on BS theories. As the dust settles, the secular intellectuals are slowly reaching a consensus about what led to the victory. If you said NREGA, loan waiver etc., try again. Yep, the victories must only be attributed to the Queen and the Prince. We can only pity those intellectuals that for all their bravura, ultimately their role is relegated to that of a court jester. So much for "debate". * * * Coming back to the original thoughts, do not get conned by the euphoric and occasionally generous displays into letting your guard down. Don't get fooled by the baby faced politician with the spotlight on, focus on the hideous people surrounding him, somewhat in the background. What goes on in Venezuela goes on in India too, perhaps a lot more so. Many bloggers have "withdrawn" their posts about Rahul Gandhi's educational credentials. Among them is a blogger who specializes in educational advise for the youth, and who recently debuted on a TV show. She used to be a BJP supporter, if not very vocal, she never tried to hide it. It is quite clear people are not taking chances. As we saw in the witch hunting cases involving Sonal Shah and Balakrishna (original post, follow up), the legal intimidation of a blogger by Barkha Dutt of NDTV, the fascists will go to any extent. When they find a prey, they drop all pretenses and hyperbole about "human rights", "justice" etc. and attack with all teeth and claws bared. After all, election victories for them are just another opportunity for extracting their pound of flesh.
posted by barbarindian at 8:10 PM Permalink
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Saturday, May 16, 2009 |
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BJP loses the war of the babies | |
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 This was bound to happen. The last census happened way back, plus the proportion among different age groups is different among different socio-economic groups. This was a well known trend. Why did the consolidation happen so well this time? Well, for one thing, another minority group mobilized in a major way this time. This second minority group happens to have high HDI factor, and sometime during the last few years they decided to stop sitting on the bench. They actively helped the major minor group organize. That plus industrial scale proselytization plus massive scale fund inflows. Why did this inflow happen now and not earlier? For one thing, the massive global growth of last decade increased charitable giving in the West by a order of margin. For another, the UPA government showed unprecedented laxity in controlloing inflows - partly because a lot of capital inflows was showing up as GDP growth and thus making it look better.
One woman who deserves a significant portion of the credits and who won't get any is Nisha Susan. In terms of urban youth vote, she accidentally ended up making a huge difference. She provided the momentum and emotional charge the youth needed. The youth will vote for anyone, you have to provide a good reason. According to a blogger, the message going out in the whole Ram Sene fiasco was simply this: BJP is against fornication. Kind of hard to win on that platform. BJP also lost out in the slog overs running up to the election when the money distribution takes place. As it is they had less resources to begin with, being out of power and all that. Their position on the black money might have scared the self-employed lobby. On streaming video, we heard cringe inducing levels of Queen worship on the major channels. It is like, the Queen ordered the NREGA and Farmer loan waiver and Congress won. Nothing could be further from the truth.
posted by barbarindian at 2:34 AM Permalink
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Friday, May 15, 2009 |
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Election musings - VI | |
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  India's first mosque? The historic Zeenath Baksh mosque in Bunder, Mangalroe is now ready for Muslim fraternity for offering their prayers. This mosque, which is known to be Jumma Masjid of Mangalore is a historical mosque constructed in seventh century by Muslim Arab Traders in the coastal belt, which was known as Kanara district, comprising of Uttara Kannada, Dakshina Kannada (including Udupi district) and Kasargod district. Then of course it didn't remain so cordial for long. We had Islamic rule for close to a thousand years. Then about 200 years of Brits. Then came the seculars. So, the significance of this election is basically this: will Hindus come under foreign rule once again or will there be a temporary breach?  Why does this man look constipated?
posted by barbarindian at 9:27 PM Permalink
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Thursday, May 14, 2009 |
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Economic Times rips off American professor | |
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(click image for a larger size)  So far as journalistic ethics goes, India is perhaps at the lowest possible level for any country at any point time in history. We already know there are astounding levels of suppression and embellishment (for instance major newspapers issued a directive to their desks not to use the word "recession").
Newspapers are expected to gently massage stories, but this blurs the already thin boundary between a party mouthpiece and a national newspaper. They already received hundreds of crores in bailout money, with more to follow. Isn't it nice that Hindus are basically paying to get abused? We also know newspapers are accepting money to publish articles and sometimes biased opinion poll results. In any case, this ought to be the most bizarre. The screenshot shows a part of a financial story with the portion highlighted that was ripped off from American Professor Mark Perry. Professor Perry writes: Can you do that? Shouldn't you at least change it a little bit? I think the "copy and paste" feature for some writers (and students) is like "journalistic or academic crack cocaine" - easy, cheap, and instant results, i.e. irresistible and completely addicting. At first glance the passage in question seems to be rather inconsequential. However, the implications are very grave. Even a short financial commentary requires analysis and more to the point skill. It costs money. If The Economic Times is really substituting financial reporting with a bot who randomly pieces together bits and pieces snitched from here and there, this is very serious. But then again Indian media has always left us high and dry,
posted by barbarindian at 8:37 PM Permalink
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When did civilization begin? | |
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 World's first nude sculpture? If human culture seems obsessed with sex lately, it's nothing new. Archaeologists have discovered the oldest known artistic representation of a woman - a carved ivory statue of a naked female, dating from 35,000 years ago. As you know, every time Hindu leaders say anything, the seculars go after it like a pack of wolves and tear it down. The seculars go particularly crazy when things are written down. Murli Manohar Joshi wrote the preamble to the BJP election manifesto. There is something about Joshiji that throws seculars into a hissy fit. Among other things he was criticized for trying to take away the independence of autonomous educational institutions. Years later, his successor in the UPA Government were making similar moves. India's "liberals" continued writing articles criticizing the moves by - Murli Manohar Joshi. In any case, the Hindu published a scathing critique of the above mentioned preamble, written by unnamed "eminent historians". Since then many rebuttals and rebuttal to rebuttals have followed and some of these can be found by searching "India was shining". We have no problem with the article. Well, maybe except one: India is not the most ancient civilisation. Civilisation is generally defined as having city cultures and that would make Egypt, Mesopotamia and China older. Says who? Also, "generally' isn't a particularly good argument. Either there is an objective criteria to define the start of civilization, or there isn't. You can not dispute one generality with another. In any case, where exactly is this rule defined? Could be some obscure guideline "eminent historians" follow but google definitions don't even throw up the word "city" once. If civilization is indeed city based, can we say 60% Indians are uncivilized? Then of course we run into the bigger problem of defining a city. Can we say major Maharashtra towns which get less than 8 hours of electricity and lack drainage are cities? Can we say cities must have wide and safe roads? The state of Maharashtra saw 12,000 deaths in road accidents in 2008. Is India shining? You could argue India is not shining right now, although secular people may not agree. We could say, a civilization must shine. If "eminent historians" can pull a rule out of their arses, so can we. Yes we can! As you can see, defining civilization in this manner opens up numerous issues. So, let's define civilization when pornography began. By this definition, clearly civilization began in Germany, 35,000 years ago. So, Murli Manohar Joshi is perhaps wrong but so are "eminent historians". Civilization did not begin in some Muslim or Communist country as they would like to believe.  Of course we are just kidding. The opinion space used to be a monopoly of "intellectuals" and as we all know monopoly isn't a good thing. We believe civilization began when blogging was invented. See, how easy it is?
posted by barbarindian at 12:33 AM Permalink
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Tuesday, May 12, 2009 |
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Mature foetus killed outside the womb and other atrocities by communists | |
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Sania Khatoun, a year and 11 months old, was in mother Aleya Bibi's lap last night, being fed her dinner, when alleged CPM supporters entered their home and opened indiscriminate fire. One of the bullets went through Sania's leg, and then lodged in the stomach of Aleya, 27. [link]In another tragic incident, a Trinamul leader was killed and his mother was gangraped. [link][link 2] As usual, no outrage. In another news, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the 1984 Sikh riots is well past its sell by date.
posted by barbarindian at 12:29 AM Permalink
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Sunday, May 10, 2009 |
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The international hit job on Varun Gandhi | |
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We are not really concerned about what Varun Gandhi had actually said (reference article, now sterilized) and how it was twisted. We already apply a large discount factor to media reports and then some. The coverage given to the article in India was a standard job, they took a leaf straight out of the recent US election coverage. For instance the Times of India coverage ensures the damage is done. Everyone knows all you have to do is put "sterilization" in the same sentence as the name of a leader and bingo. What was that deal about Varun Gandhi stepping into the sterilization row? He never did, more like he was pushed into it. What concerns us is how the hit job was done, especially after the writer himself denied it and appeared upset about how the paper's editor took liberties:
This job was done at the highest level. You see, during the NDA rule, the Congress rulers spent sleepless nights imagining the bogey of diasporic support for BJP. The truth of the matter is, the secular party enjoys very strong relationship with diaspora, especially people in strong positions. This is particularly true for UK, where some Indian origin politicians are in cohorts with the secular party. This relationship goes way back, to the days of the Raj. In the current scenario of globalized politics, this is particularly dangerous for India. A lot of these buggers are in the tank with the Pakistani elite. You can well imagine the security concerns. These buggers have looted India more than their Brit masters. They got it easy during early years of secular rule, business permits, land - you name it, they got it and partied. So, first we had an international hit job on Mayawati and now on Varun Gandhi. You can very clearly see what's going on here. Perhaps they even helped out with the degree certificates, who knows.
posted by barbarindian at 7:35 PM Permalink
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Minority Report | |
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Collected randomly over the past few months, just a sample and by no means comprehensive. A lot of problems in India can be solved with technology or let's call it the TFP factor. One day this sort of info will be collated automatically by people. If the government does not provide any information and intellectuals stubbornly refuse to put any sort of objective evaluation on the agenda, the aam aadmi will have no option but do this. After all, you can not do social justice in a vacuum. 63 sentenced for Marad massacre.html 4 held for Rs 5 cr e ticketing fraud Youth rapes 60 yr old in Panaji market Nagpur Man held for raping niece Woman forced into flesh trade Youth stabs girl Man held with fake currency at Charbagh Passengers nabbed for smuggling Pune 5 more girls rescued 3 held Druglord Sheikh helped Satte gang from Tihar Arms unit busted goon arrested Man involved in terror recruitment held Key terror suspect nabbed Youth stabbed to death one detained Villagers fight off goons in Malda Pickpocket held with a kilo marijuana Couple brutally murdered Attempt to murder case against MLA Mumtaz Khan 3 convicts escape from Bijapur jail Samjhauta passengers smuggling Rs 70cr worth heroin Beggars rescue kidnapped girl Minor attacked with scythe after abortive rape bid Thane rape Two accused held 5 abduct teenage girl from home Mehmoods grandson arrested on sexual abuse charge Classmates held for girls suicide Five killed in Trinamool CPM clash Minor sexually abused by dads friend Fake currency racket busted in Jaipur/Rape victim tries to hang self Fake currency racket busted 5 held Dawood aide held in fake currency case Fake currency seized 3 held Teen killers dad found kidnap plan in sons book Rape accused escapes from Upleta jail Druglord gets lawyer from lower court Kanpur cop suspended for eve teasing Brown sugar worth Rs 469L seized two held Man admits to tax evasion pays 22cr Couple killed with own revolver Robbery accused arrested Arabic teacher arrested for sodomising minor Goons shoot Iran duo in Santiniketan Rapist thrashed outside Kolkata court Farmhouse raided in Bangalore 110 revellers held eightyearold shot at for spraying colours on man Woman caught with fake currency worth Hyderabad Divorced woman raped 2 quarrels 2 murders and other crimes in city In a first man gets life term for pouring acid on wife Girl goes missing boy blames in laws Bengal gang behind thefts in suburbs one arrested Delhi Woman held with fake currency Bus driver gets 7 years RI for raping minor Youth in female attire held for trying to molest girl Two arrested for credit card fraud Court allows Atiq to file nomination Mumbai 4 get life sentence for murder Lucknow Minor alleges rape by father Teen punches another to death in city Thief nabbed after high drama Man who died in accident was murdered for gain Cops Man held for raping daughter in articleshow Woman held for cheating 10 husbands Man gets life for murder Man held with a bullet in airport Blind man kills boy for eyes Stolen mobile led cops to Baguiati bank robbers Youth held for sex workers murder in Taltala Girl rescued from Bihar Neighbour rapes 10 year old Girl dragged out of train gangraped Cousin rapes 4 year old Woman found dead on tracks Four held for assaulting youths in Bandra Spurned auto driver barges into girls house Another nabbed in Shahibaug robbery 8 get life term for murder in Jharkhand Three held for robbing young couples 10 get life for 2004 Powai murders Woman raped by hubbys pal aide Decomposed body of missing girl found in electric meter box HC rejects anticipatory bail plea of gang rape accused
posted by barbarindian at 2:25 PM Permalink
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Help us understand this | |
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Ever since the communal party raised the issue about black money, intellectuals have become completely restless. Gentlemen doth protest too much? Anyway, in the first phase, they said that the claim of such a large stash was totally outlandish. This was followed up by dozens of editorials, articles and TV shows. Now they are saying that attempts to retrieve the money will cause distress to the Swiss economy (via Chindu). So, please help us understand this:
Their hilarious arguments. Swiss cheese. Cliche. Etc.
posted by barbarindian at 1:30 AM Permalink
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Election musings V | |
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If you believe in the conventional wisdom (or intellectual opinion - isn't it funny how these days conventional wisdom almost coincides with intellectual opinion? e.g. Booosh is baad, Hindooo violent etc.), Congress could lose this election. Chindu rips apart a nugget of such wisdom. If Congress has many more allies and if they are unable to strike pre-election seat sharing deals, the secular vote will likely split more, thus increasing the chances of BJP whose votes will be split among fewer parties. Of course this holds true only if you believe in another piece of conventional wisdom - that these elections are about just one issue. Indeed the pre-election euphoria of the secular crowd which nonchalantly wrote off the communals seemed to have completely evaporated by the third phase. This is leading to such sordid displays of opportunism as the belated wooing of Nitish Kumar. Perhaps it would help if Tehelka and co. and other newspapers hadn't done so many hit jobs on the poor dude earlier. In one particularly nasty story, Tehelka insinuated that Nitish Kumar had irked minorities in Bihar by "downgrading" Urdu in schools. Read the whole story so you know which direction to point the finger next time you feel upset minorities are losing out in the "knowledge" economy. The Prince himself is at the forefront of courting Nitish Kumar. Given the Prince's track record, especially with the Youth Congress thing, we can pretty much write it off. * * * Why is it that the media made such a volte face about possible outcomes after the third phase? What did they find out and how? The exit polls were banned, does not mean they didn't conduct any. Also, think about it. If you have access to only a few EVMs after the third phase, you can predict the results with deadly accuracy. Unlike pre-poll surveys, not only is the data completely error free, but also the votes are wholly committed. Not that we want to insinuate this was the case, but one can't help but wonder the possible value of such information. They pay a fortune for this sort of things. In any case, it is an open secret that government agencies actively watch and attempt to predict election outcomes. * * * Who ordered the international hit job on Mayawati? But unlike Obama, who promised a new politics that would transcend not only race but traditional ideology and corrupt Washington ways, Mayawati has built her power on demagogic class warfare. As her national ambitions have grown, she recently began reaching out to upper-caste voters—but by playing on their fears of the upwardly mobile middle castes, not by appealing to their better, caste-free angels. She has accumulated a suspiciously ostentatious fortune, and is dogged by corruption charges. She is admired by many Dalits, but often more for her power and jewels than for her limited accomplishments on their behalf. Her victory, if it comes, may be seen as a great leap forward for India's oppressed—but, ironically, will end up bolstering the caste system that has kept them in chains. Almost every point in the above paragraph that supposedly makes the current US administration so virtuous is completely untrue. But the media loves a certain political party in the US so very serious transgressions are being totally glossed over. Unfortunately in India the media educates the public only on a need to know basis. So we have a virtual radio silence on the bizarre political scene in the US. This will have far reaching and devastating foreign policy consequences, more on that later. * * * We have no problem if Mayawati becomes the Prime Minister. She will be a lot better than the corrupt royalty. Our intellectuals hate her because she holds so large a mirror to them that they can't push it away. She builds statues? Well, guess what, the royalty does too. She isn't so good at development? The royalty ain't either. She plays the secular game too! Demagogic? Check. Corrupt? Check. Ineffectual, doesn't alleviate poverty, didn't truly help Dalits, not academically accomplished? Check! Check! Check! Check!
posted by barbarindian at 12:30 AM Permalink
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Friday, May 08, 2009 |
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Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers .... | |
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The response of these three groups of professionals to various external events shows how remarkably accurate the basic paradigm of free market (people respond to incentives etc.) is. Take engineers for instance. Arguably this group is least affected by government actions, at least directly. A small percentage of engineering undergrads pursue higher studies - hence as a group engineering students are least bothered by changes in the quota system. Engineering students seldom go on strike, their response was quite muted during the reservation drama. Law students have a short fuse, taking to the streets and violently agitating every chance they get. They indulge in wholesale destruction of properties. Forget students, groups of lawyers are known to settle their disputes in the traditional way, often in the court premises. Recent examples include beating up of accused in court premises, violent agitations in Tamil Nadu etc. What's going on? For one thing, law students and lawyers are pretty much part of the system so it is natural they will respond to what they perceive as systemic changes much more aggressively. There are two other things going on here - one subtle and the other not so subtle. There is an element of information asymmetry here. Law students "obviously" know what they can get away with. Perhaps the law enforcement thinks the same, so they probably believe the law students would not do anything they didn't think they can get away with. In other words, perhaps the law enforcement doesn't even bother to try and enforce the law against law students. When the law students grow up, they become very critical and powerful components of the system. Not all of them, but you simply don't wanna find out, do you? If law students frequently agitate, doctors simply leave them in the dust. There is always a doctors' strike or a medical student led protest (non-violent) going on somewhere in the country. It is no wonder, doctors are at the receiving end of government policies which will directly impact them. Silly politicians will threaten to send them to mandatory rural postings, withdraw their allowances and so on and so forth. Add to it the frequent assaults they face from relatives and friends of patients, even when the fault lies entirely with the hospitals and facilities. Medical students also have to go to school for a longer period and many will pursue a post graduate degree. There is no wonder medical students spearheaded the anti-reservation agitation. So, what happens if you reduce the incentive of a group who have no recourse? Well, the obvious.
posted by barbarindian at 6:31 PM Permalink
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A global Sachar report? | |
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LONDON: Joblessness and poverty are a more potent source of tension between Muslims and wider European and US society than religious differences, one of the first major studies of Muslim integration since the Sept. 11 terror attacks claimed on Thursday.This issue has been discussed intensely and endlessly at least since 9/11. It has been almost a decade since. The concept has been around much longer. All these decades has not brought about this elusive understanding. Could be one of two things really, but never mind.
posted by barbarindian at 1:04 AM Permalink
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The one who wears the pants in the family casts her vote | |
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posted by barbarindian at 12:44 AM Permalink
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Wednesday, May 06, 2009 |
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A confirmed scam and another that sounds like one | |
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Given that scams these days do not come in less than Rs. thousand crore denominations, this one is small:KAKINADA: A Rs 439-crore scam has been unearthed in East Godavari district following the nexus between District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) and bankers coming out in the open.Perhaps it is irrelevant that this happened in Andhra Pradesh, which is a Congress ruled state. We don't understand these so called self-help groups (SHG). Apparently a boatload of people go and set a few poor people up to help themselves. This being a new concept one is yet to see whether the said beneficiaries are ever able to wean themselves of this help. Also, given the gargantuan expenses and overheads, no one really knows whether it makes long term economic sense. If all this is not enough, we have siphoning of funds. Clearly some people are helping themselves, only not the ones actually targeted. The second one is not a scam in the sense the person involved himself proudly admits it: New Delhi: Deepak Bharadwaj owes his reputation as the second richest candidate in this Lok Sabha elections, with assets of Rs 604 crore, to being in the right place at the right time. Bharadwaj was a stenographer in a Delhi court in the mid 70s. "I largely made money by buying and selling land where government projects were proposed in the 80s. Working in the government gave me advance information of these projects. I would purchase land in advance and get compensation from the government," he says.If there is a mousetrap designed to catch social justice related market failures, we must say the mice have it outsmarted by generations. The people meant to protect farmers actively swindle them, and then they join the Government - or the other way around.
posted by barbarindian at 1:13 AM Permalink
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Tuesday, May 05, 2009 |
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Lost in Talibanization | |
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 They didn't quite mean that  E = (Same Old)2
posted by barbarindian at 2:53 AM Permalink
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Monday, May 04, 2009 |
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No amnesty for LTTE leadership | |
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As the curtains are about to fall on one of the longest standing insurgencies of the Indian subcontinent, it is time now to set some ground rules as to how to respond to the fall outs. One of the big problems of an over-intellectualized society is its refusal to create rules or frameworks. To get a better idea of what we are talking about, please read this post on the blog Overcoming Bias. As a current example, we have about a million speculation a day about the election results which are due only a couple of weeks from now. Yet, very few have tried to hash out scenarios of a fractious verdict and what should be the rules to decide who will form the government. There are some basic rules in place, we know what the constitution says. We saw how far that went with the CEC/Navin Chawla debate. In any case, the nature of the LTTE conflict is now amply clear. Like any other, it started out as something and in due course of time morphed into something wholly different. To summarize:
In view of the above, we have the following two demands:
posted by barbarindian at 12:15 AM Permalink
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Sunday, May 03, 2009 |
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India: How about Sikhs in SWAT? Pakistan: Shove it | |
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 A typical Sikh owned house in Swat valley, Pakistan
posted by barbarindian at 1:22 AM Permalink
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Saturday, May 02, 2009 |
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Suzanna does Urdu | |
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 Suzanna Arundhati Roy On Pakistan, Taliban, Indian elite, Mumbai 26/11, Hindu Talibanisation, Kashmir, Chattisgarh and much more: BBC Urdu [audio] [via Outlook India blog]Excerpts (transcript by The Outlook): Pakistan is more vulnerable because it is smaller. If a drone attack kills one Al-Qaeda member, it kills 45 common people. Suppose this were to happen in India and we, who always oppose the Bajrang Dal or the VHP... now suppose America were to come here and start bombing them, the whole equation would change, wouldn't it? We will surely not keep quiet. [Well, we are not too sure about this. Is this the goal? Getting US drones to attack Hindus?]
Of course, hindu talibanisation is going on. So many people talk about Mumbai [26/11] attacks but no one wants to discuss their cause. Despite many people saying that Lashkar did it. If Lashkar did it, is there no connection between Lashkar and Kashmir or what? But you can't even say the word 'Kashmir'. [Well, she just did.] Do more Indians hate her or love her? Previous: Language Barrier
posted by barbarindian at 1:58 AM Permalink
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Testing a hypothesis | |
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 Percentage of time a party was in power since independence We hear this a lot - that the current administration of Gujarat made no difference to the development of the state. There are essentially three different variants of this idea. The first, favored by the commies is that Gujarat has not really improved or rather Gujarat is not significantly better for the aam aadmi than any other state. The second group suggests that the Gujaratis are inherently entrepreneurial and this has led to the development of the state. The third group, essentially the family members claim that Gujarat was already a developed state and this was achieved by past secular party administration. We really have no problem with this theory, except that we would like to humbly request the various intellectuals to go easy on the second variant. You can't just go to Orissa or Bihar or UP and tell the people, hey, you guys suck. We also present the most updated chart (above) of percentage of time a particular party ruled India since independence. The chart is self-explanatory. There is a reason we would like to emphasize "since Independence". Thanks to Ram Guhaji, we got sensitized about Indian history. As a matter of fact, the secular party has ruled India at least since 1937, when they joined hands with the British to be part of the political administration. In any case the party wielded strong lobbying power and influenced policy for decades prior to independence. So, as you can see, the secular party has been developing India from much before independence. Special Case: Orissa Recently, the Yuvraj was shocked by the abject poverty he saw on a trip to West Bengal. He issued the following statement: "I was shocked on my first visit to Purulia, I thought that only Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are bad, but now I find that the level of poverty in Bengal is comparable with some of the poorest places in Orissa." Curiosity got the better of us, we looked up who all ruled Orissa in the past.
posted by barbarindian at 12:38 AM Permalink
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Friday, May 01, 2009 |
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Election musings IV | |
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 This thing looks like a keyboard. Perhaps music of democracy would be more appropriate.Swine Flu music - if you think it will go oink! oink! oink!, you will be surprised. This is awesome. Indelible ink issues:   The smart thing to do is to insist that the polling officer applies the ink on your index finger. Film stars can afford to flip the birdie, but for politicians there is always the awkward workaround. Meanwhile, our beloved Princess her Noseness keeps making strides in the media circle. The whisper is a distinct murmur now. As you can see, we continue to bring you trends long before the MSM catches on.
posted by barbarindian at 2:14 AM Permalink
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