RIP

Breaking News: The Other Idiots are back.

Sad for Saddam?

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.

Bad Doggie

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:

Says BPD spokesperson , Ravi Kishore, "The time has come when we stopped talking and instead start acting. We are creating a platform for people who want to make a change now and we have come here to deliver that change."

These young men don't have a fixed ideology, money or cadre to call their own.

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.

Blogbharti or Chor-bharti?

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.

Assam is for Assamese

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.

Year 2007: The Spinning Has Begun

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.

Sordid tales from UP

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.

The Tatas at the gates of Singur

So, Mamata didn't croak after all. If memory serves me right, I haven't heard about any career politician in independent India dying from a hunger strike.

The Tatas had a mixed year in 2006. On one hand, they captured headlines all over the world for their ambitious gambit to acquire Corus, on the other they made a very surprising move to establish their "peoples" car factory in Singur, WB, of all places.

Looks like their first gambit may have failed, while the car factory might just take off after all.

Needless to say, the Singur fiasco has created a colossal dilemma for bloggers of all persuasion. The leftist/socialist bloggers can not wholly welcome the move because although launched by their political darlings, it is a direct anti-thesis to their basic script of oppression and anti-globalization. The right wing bloggers meanwhile got thrown into a state of confusion. The general direction seems right to them, but is it really? There were such right wing issues as right to property etc. to be examined. The holy grail of economic development could not be ignored.

Slowly and surely, most bloggers are starting to welcome the move. Ravikiran gave a thumbs up to the deal, although I must say the point of emphasis was something wholly different. Sandeep, in his terse post, seemed to laud the deal. GreatBong weighed in with a history of West Bengal's economic demise and at the end seemed to give his support for the deal. Some comrades got so excited by this deal that they wrote about how the New Left will chart India's modern history in ways we could not imagine!

Not only do we strongly condemn the deal, we think this project is a colossal blunder in the making.

No, we are not just saying this for adopting a fashionable contrarian point of view.

The basic idea that a particular state needs to be developed in order for its residents to enjoy the fruits is utterly perverse. One wonders why even folks who seem to understand economics tend to buy this. Why couldn't this project be launched in Vidarbha? Heck, some farmers there were in fact even attempting to sell their land to the Tatas. No one questions this idea because India remains, psychologically, the multitude of nation states that it always was. A Tamil won't feel comfortable if they built a factory in WB and vice versa. There are strong rallying cries of restricting employment to locals. We have heard it in Maharashtra. We will soon hear it elsewhere. Indeed, the implicit promise to the ex-farmers of Singur is that they will be provided employment in the new factory.

Basic economics suggests that the states should specialize in things they are best at. By this I am not alluding to the mythical fertile lands of Singur. Agriculture as a provider of mass employment is doomed. By trying to build factories, WB is going against the grain of its cultural strength and heritage. People from Bengal used to be and perhaps still are culturally superior to the rest of the nation. Heck, even the whole Hindu Nationalism thingy was scripted exclusively in West Bengal, by Bankim Chatterjee. Bengalis do not like working in factories and their climate does not help either. The extreme humidity makes one lethargic. It makes Bengalis even more lethargic. If you look at youth from Calcutta, they seem to be sapped from all energies, merely surviving and forever smoking cigarettes. Menial work is practically looked down upon in Bengal. A Bengali youth would rather live off his parents than take up a factory job. That is why you will see the most demanding physical tasks are being done from folks from neighboring states, especially Bihar.

Bengalis however make excellent office workers. They learn fast and in general exhibit an unusual curiosity for scientific stuff.

Buddha, instead of expending his own energy and that of his people, should have done the obvious. He should have asked Tatas to get the hell out of Bengal, others too. He should have welcomed with open arms the software and BPO giants. This was already happening, and the reason it has not happened more is because of the notorious reputation of poor infrastructure. Budhdha should have welcomed the Ambanis to build satellite townships that are livable and welcoming to the populace from outside. Indeed, WB itself could provide the skilled workers it needed. West Bengal could take the retail lead along with the small goods/electronics and ITeS sector. Softer sectors such as advertising, finance and perhaps even film production would follow. All it needed was a goddamn basic city with reasonable roads and habitable suburbs.

But Buddha had to go all out and try and trump other chief ministers. After all, how could he miss his 15 minutes of fame on the pages of history?

Finally, we must analyze the economic logic behind this factory.

The first trials of the new car took place last month at a test track in Pune, near Mumbai. It is not a cut-down version of an existing car, but is an entirely new design. With a rear-mounted 30bhp engine, four seats and a choice of four- and five-door models, it is a "good-looking car which is comfortable to drive," according to Ravi Kant, the boss of Tata Motors. Most ambitious of all is the price. The car is known as the "one lakh" car - one lakh is 100,000 rupees, equivalent to around $2,100 when the car was first conceived four years ago. Material costs have since increased, but Tata still hopes the price will be less than $3,000 before tax. (from The Economist).

It looks like the Tatas and everyone else too is taken up with a fantastic idea that there is a strong cutoff line between people who can afford cars and who can not. In other words, if a car is introduced at a certain magical price point, hundreds of millions of people will suddenly jump across that cutoff line and line up to buy a car from the Tatas. Even a kid could blow holes in this theory. Quiz: Name a people's car that was launched in India with the very same premise in the late 80s.

Looks like for about a lakh and a half rupees, the Tatas will sell you a box smaller than the Maruti 800 with donut tires. Why would you not buy a much bigger second hand car with lot more features? Indeed, all companies will launch competing basic model cars. They will price them a bit higher but offer a lot more features. It is not that the Tatas can't make decent cars, but this project is not going to bring an economic miracle that will turn WB into say Gujarat.

Mamata will not go away, not so easy. She will breath down the necks of Tata management. Worst still, if the project turns into red, we might see protectionism creeping back into the auto sector. Because the project has gone beyond sane economic argument and firmly entered a political match whose success will become a key issue in the next general elections.

A few questions for Suzy Mol

* * * Updated * * *

YUSUFALI: He said: "Nay, this was done by - this is their biggest one! ask them, if they can speak intelligently!" (Holy Qu'ran, Sura 21, Verse 63).

Suzanna Arundhati Roy, better known as Arundhati Roy, raises
some important questions in a recent column. She also has a new book to peddle, but that's besides the point.

There was not much noise in the blogosphere about the column. Shivam Vij covered it, Dilip D'Souza ignored it. Usually when that happens, we lose interest.

However, what piqued our interest was that the column came out both on Outlook and The Guardian. The column on Outlook was titled Breaking The News, while the one on The Guardian is called India's Shame.

Sure, some of the differences could be explained away by an effort at internationalization. However, closer scrutiny reveals a lot of differences.

For instance, take this passage from the Outlook version :

The main strategy seems to be to create confusion and polarise the debate on communal lines. The editor of The Pioneer newspaper writes in his columns that Mohammed Afzal was actually one of the men who attacked Parliament, that he was the first to open fire and kill at least three security guards. The columnist Swapan Dasgupta, in an article called 'You Can't Be Good to Evil', suggests that if Afzal is not hanged there would be no point in celebrating Dussehra or Durga Puja. It's hard to believe that falsehoods like this stem only from a poor grasp of facts.

Poor poor Swapan Dasgupta. The man perhaps earns a tiny fraction of what Arundhati has amassed over the years.

[WITHDRAWN]
Arundhati writes that Swapan Dasgupta claimed that Afzal was one of the men directly involved in the attack.

Note: Some readers didn't like the above statement. One could say she was talking about two different columns. I didn't find the other column by an unnamed editor of The Pioneer. If you find the mentioned column, please let us know, we will update the post.

Swapan Dasgupta wrote NO SUCH THING.

God only knows how many Swapan Dasguptas were trampled under Arundhati Roy's Booker fueled juggernaut. You see, she has received a life time membership of the Absolute Moral Authority club. Only she can claim that others propagate falsehood, while no one can challenge the fact that perhaps she didn't even read the Supreme Court verdict. If she did, many of her questions wouldn't even make sense. Only she has the right to make apocryphal references to columnists who can not even sue her back for libel.

After discovering this, we sort of lost interest in the whole thing.
[/WITHDRAWN]

There were many other interesting facts to note, including her method which can only be termed as argumentum ad hominem. Some of her reasoning belies her age and are fit for high school kids. Stating the opponent's argument preemptively does not make it weak. Making statements in the guise of questions is oh so yesterday. But of course, she is beyond reproach, for she has attained the highest honor that can be offered to a person living in the Anglo-world.

While the Outlook column is more communal in tone, the Guardian version spins a conspiracy theory. Apparently The Indian Government has skeletons to hide in its closet. Now, there is a huge difference between the Government then and now, and if indeed there were cover ups and a conspiracy of the scale she suggests, one would think they would be unearthed. No, this simply will not do. We have heard this before. The Government bans websites, unknown youths burn cars in Paris suburbs. You see, by elevating the point of reference you can implicate the whole of humanity for any crime, thereby blaming your enemy by default.

Through her words only one theme emerges and that of extreme indignity of being ruled by Hindus. You see, for an Anglo it is very difficult to live in a country dominated by heathens. They have no respect for us Hindu fascists. Indeed their churches do not teach any better. Hence the condescending tone, hence the utter disregard for any rules of debate. The bloody Hindus are at fault, no matter what. The Raj was better.

The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone
he obeys no orders unless they are his own
he keeps his side arms awful, he leaves them all about
and then comes the regiment and pokes the heathen out.

You see, absent the regiment, Arundhati and her ilk are trying their best to poke us heathens out.

The Barbarindian community wishes Arundhati Roy and the secular Christians of the world Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

NOTE: We apologize for our claim that Arundhati had lied about an editor of the Pioneer claiming that Afzal was directly involved in the attacks. Indeed there was a column which claimed that, read here.

Dalit died, Sonia cried

"She almost broke down when Bhaiyalal Bhotmange (whose family was murdered in September) said his slain daughter's name was Priyanka. Gandhi told him that her daughter's name was also Priyanka," a Congress leader said.

But when it came to taking action,

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi are "extremely upset" over the Dalit killings in Maharashtra and the violence last week in Mumbai and elsewhere, party sources say. But there are no plans to tell Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to step down.

Although,

The party sources, however, said the Congress leadership was not keen on replacing the chief minister although both Gandhi and Manmohan Singh felt that the police machinery in Maharashtra had virtually collapsed.

You see, by shedding tears she obtained several credits (or Karmic points depending on your idiomatic preference) on her absolute moral authority card. She will use these points in the crucial UP elections.

India's first Dalit Chief Justice

Justice K G Balakrishnan, the senior most judge in the Supreme Court will be appointed the new Chief Justice of India - the first Dalit ever to occupy the post.

The appointment has been approved by President APJ Abdul Kalam. Justice Balakrishnan will replace Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal who is retiring on Januray 14, 2007.

Let us remind our readers that Justice Balakrishnan's children, grand children and so on will be eligible for Scheduled Caste quotas in all educational institutes, Government jobs and for a host of other benefits including soft loans etc.

For a list of current judges of the Supreme Court, click here.

Laloo gets a clean chit, Shibu Soren in deep shit

You couldn't find a more illustrative example of how OBCs can game the system way better than their Dalit/Adivasi counterparts. Of course, OBCs are way more cunning, so much so that they have fully internalized the Dalit oppression script and making a full use of it.

As expected, Laloo, who belongs to a powerful OBC clan, was acquitted of graft charges.

A special CBI court acquitted Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and his former Bihar chief minister wife Rabri Devi in disproportionate assets case on Monday. The CBI will now appeal against the verdict in the High Court. The disproportionate assets case is an offshoot of the fodder scam (~ Rs. 950 crores) in which complaints were lodged against Bihar's most famous couple.

On the other hand, Shibu Soren, who is technically an ST, got the short end of the stick.

Former Union coal minister Shibu Soren was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Delhi court on Tuesday for his involvement in the 1994 abduction and murder of his private secretary Shashi Nath Jha. On November 28, Soren became the first cabinet minister to be convicted of murder.

I am waiting to see a huge hue and cry from the socialist lobby. No word on whether we should use the same lens to judge these two incidents.

Meanwhile, if any progress has been made at all in decriminalizing Indian politics, it came from a totally non-partisan group not interested in self-promotion (unlike the Narmada bachao, meri Kitaab kharido gang of Arundhati Roy, Dilip D'Souza etc). That's why you may not have heard of them.

There are signs of improvement. Details of the charges against MPs were not public knowledge until a few years ago, when a campaign led by a group of academics resulted in their disclosure. At the time, all the parties resisted the move. Proof, says Jagdish Chokker, one of the campaigners, that "India's politicians can be unanimous and efficient on an issue that affects them all." But the idea stuck, and now the two big parties ask potential candidates to disclose any charges against them before they are selected.

If you are interested, check out this page on the Public Affairs Center website. Some stats:

• Of the 540-odd members of the lower house, around 100 have been charged with crimes. Of those 100, one-third face serious charges such as rape or kidnapping.
• Over fifty per cent of the MPs with the most serious criminal cases happen to be from four states, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. Among the political parties in these states, the regional parties account for a majority of the MPs with serious criminal cases.
• Money is truly a barrier to entry in the political arena. The average assets of an MP is Rs. 1.64 crores ($366,000), and a majority of MPs are multimillionaires. There are variations among political parties, with the Indian National Congress leading the pack in terms of asset power. The two communist parties are at the other end of the spectrum.

Let me also quote a stat I found interesting:

Average Total Assets per member:
Congress - Rs. 310.76 lakhs.
BJP - Rs. 96.91 lakhs.

BJP tails by a wide margin most other parties. BJP MPs also lag far behind in "dues" (i.e. money taken out of public funds) to various Government institutes.

Yeah, yeah, I quoted selectively. So, socialists, the link is there. Go knock yourselves out.

A New Revolution

"To men in general the satisfaction of a pride is infinitely more alluring than the satisfaction of an interest."

- from the Continent of Circe, Nirad C. Chaudhuri.







We had hoped, really hoped, that the OBC reservation chaos would die down. People would go back to watching the India/South Africa cricket match or following the minute by minute progress of Aishwarya Rai/Abhishek Bachchan romance as being reported by the MSM.

No dice. The AIIMS docs haven't given up, neither have the IIT students. This is an ominous sign of things to come. There are really two scenarios for future India. The first scenario is that of hope and based on new ideas. We could really embrace our diversity, forget the petty bickering and become a truly strong capitalistic democratic republic. If, and only if (and a big IF at that), we could reset our psychological clock to 1947. Unfortunately, it is not going to happen. India will disintegrate into tiny little pieces before the turn of the century.

A nation can not be built unless everyone agrees on a common time line, common border and more importantly a common benchmark for rewarding achievers. We do not even agree on the first aspect. The Dalits and Shudras want to go as far back as 1500 BC. The Muslims want to selectively accept historical facts. The Brahmins, when they are not fighting with the rising OBCs, bicker among themselves over Aryan invasion theory.

Battleship Potemkin is perhaps the best propaganda movie ever. Sergei Eisenstein's masterpiece from the silent era, the film depicts a ruthless mutiny of seamen, borne out of discontent and chronic ill treatment. The film (or rather the famous Odessa steps sequence) would later be knocked off by Hollywood blockbusters such as The Untouchables and even by the Bollywood film, Tezaab. I am not going to delve much deeper into this widely acclaimed film. I am sure someone from the arty-farty circle such as this blogger will assemble something from Guardian and Salon articles.

Revolutions are seldom spontaneous. What worked for Bolshevik propaganda does not reflect historical precedents. Starting from the Russian revolution itself to French revolution, Black civil rights movement, Indian freedom struggle - none of these happened spontaneously. The romantic idea of a group of men forced to a point of no return suddenly erupting into an orgasm of violence never happened in history.

Just as it didn't happen in the Dalit train burning incident.

Revolutions need three things. Strong leadership which stand to gain big, really big after it is all over. A unifying theme of oppression and healthy dose of indignation complete the picture. Revolutions are meticulously planned, over time. Advantages are negotiated and outcomes rigged. Revolutions are almost always spearheaded and managed at a tactical level by students.

Consider this, within 3 years (assuming a staggered implementation), the OBC population in premier institutes will approach half of total students. They will suffer serious indignation because of the recalcitrant attitude of the upper caste students, as is amply clear from the AIIMS and IIT student attitudes. Moreover, they will suffer academically as well. The institutes will now become political battlefields. At this juncture, a rioting student body of OBCs will actually garner a lot of sympathies, just like Afzal did. They will be the poster boys (or gals) of privilege oppression against OBCs. No political party will have the will to enforce disciplinary measures.

The leadership is in place. The theme of oppression has long been scripted. The indignation is just a few years away. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then Ill get on my knees and pray
We won't get fooled again.

Calling their bluff

I am working on Arundhati Roy's 13 questions. Meanwhile, I noticed some strange things being reported by socialist bloggers.

Abi triumphantly reports that Pinochet, the ex-dictator of Chile, is dead. Apparently it is proof that capitalism does not work. Or something like it. Well, I suppose collectively Kim Il Jong, Stalin, Pol Pot and Castro do prove that communism works. Also, socialism does work, see, it is working in India.

Perhaps more interesting is this strange post by Dilip D'Souza.

Last month, I sat in a dark Delhi auditorium and listened to Vijaypat Singhania, the industrialist and celebrated hot-air ballooner, raise the stakes. Bombay must cope, he said up there on the stage, with a "net migration" of 8000 -- eight thousand -- people a day. Later in his presentation, he repeated this.

Where did Mr Singhania come up with that number from?

More important, why didn't he do some simple arithmetic? 8000 people a day multiplied by 365 days in a year: that's about 3 million people a year coming into Bombay. Is it even conceivable that a city of something like 15 million is increasing its numbers by 20 per cent a year, and that without accounting for "natural" growth, meaning babies?

Natural growth does mean babies, we get it D'Souza. Unless of course it means the ugly appendages around your sphincter.

Here is what Singhania actually said, according to Tehelka (the favorite stinger magazine of socialists and beneficiary of Rs. 1 Lakh donation from Junior and Senior D'Souza each):

For Raymond chairman emeritus and Mumbai Sheriff Vijaypat Singhania, the answer is clear. "Mumbai cannot become Shanghai in the next 100 years. I was travelling in a train in Shanghai at 441 km per hour. In Mumbai, the average speed would be around 60 km per hour, that too with low grade facilities," he said. "Because of its perception as being a land of prosperity, 8,000 people enter the city everyday. Even slums cannot provide such accommodation. People don't get a decent life and get into anti-social activities. This will not make Mumbai Shanghai."

Well, net migration of 8000 does not equal 8000 people entering the city, not in our book. But then again, socialists usually follow a different Math.

I believe this has something to do with Shiv Sena's Bombay for Mumbaikars campaign. But this could potentially turn out to be a minefield for Congress, much of their strength is derived from dividing the country along communal lines and creating entitlement mentality for "Bhumiputras".

While we do not condone the Shiv Sena principles, the oldest trick to conquer a constituency is subsidizing certain folks to reside in the constituency. You see, Bombay has millions of slum dwellers. If municipal laws are enforced, they would have to leave Bombay. Forget laws, if economic subsidies are taken away, many of these slum dwellers will find their incentives gone. The Bombay slums feeds the underworld, creates law and order problems and in general makes any infrastructure development impossible.

Any citizen of India has a right to live in Bombay. No citizen of India should be forced to subsidize it.

Mystery surrounding Rashmi Bansal's disappearence

Karma police, arrest this man, he talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio
Karma police, arrest this girl, her Hitler hairdo, is making me feel ill
And we have crashed her party
This is what you get, this is what you get
This is what you get, when you mess with us ......
(Radiohead, Karma Police)

The Rashmi Bansal arrest warrant issue is getting confusing. Rashmi seems to have gone underground, she hasn't posted anything on her blog since then. Thanks to an anonymous tipster on this blog and comments left on RealityCheck's blog, it appears that Hindu groups, such as Hindu Janajagruti Samiti may have had a role to play in the fiasco.

The website of this group has an article protesting the publishing of the above caricature involving Lord Shiva. Now, what is interesting is that, they did publish the above image on their website, unlike, say, the protesters of the Mohammad cartoons. Therefore, I have taken the liberty of publishing it on this blog, sorry if it offends any sensibilities.

On the other hand, Saran Sharma brought two things to our notice.

A commenter, claiming to be an IIPM student, rejoices Rashmi's misfortunes on a comment left on her blog. Second, and perhaps more disturbing is the news of Arindam Chaudhuri, the IIPM supremo, hobnobbing with Dalit leaders. Arindam Chaudhuri is a founder of the IIPM, an institute Rashmi Bansal had exposed earlier, for gross irregularities in both process and conduct. Even at the time Rashmi received threat of lawsuits from IIPM. To understand how much water IIPM draws in the capital, consider this: they have received orders from the MCD but apparently no action will be taken against them.

This is a dangerous trend. Quotas in the private sector will ultimately morph into a Dalit/OBC hiring contest. Unscrupulous entrepreneurs will use their payroll count of the deemed underprivileged to get favors from the Government. They will also use those to their advantage and break laws elsewhere. Imagine the chest thumping: I employed over a thousand Dalits, what's a little tax evasion?

However, all this is minor compared to the real question RealityCheck brings up. Apparently the Government is in the process of procuring sophisticated routers capable of censoring content at a granular level. This is alarming to say the least.

Finally, articles such as 295 and 295a of the Indian Penal Code need a serious rethink. Enacted in 1860 and still carrying amendments such as the 145 to 295 dating back to 1927, our Penal Code requires an overhaul. But it will not happen. Our country is too fragmented for any sort of rational consensus.

295. Injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class
Whoever destroys, damages or defiles any place of worship, or any object held sacred by any class of persons with the intention of thereby insulting the religion of any class of persons or with the knowledge that any class of persons is likely to consider such destruction, damage or defilement as an insult to their religion, shall be punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.

¹⁴⁶295A. Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs
Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of ¹⁴⁶[citizens of India], ¹⁴⁷[by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise], insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ¹⁴⁸[three years], or with fine, or with both.

Do you like sequels? Now, do you really?

Once again, don't blame me for getting the count wrong. This is Imrana IV or V.

MEERUT: Rehana Begum, a resident of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh has filed a First Information Report with the local police, charging her father-in-law and two of his friends with rape.

Rehana, in her mid twenties and married for the past ten years, is the mother of three children. She has been the sole bread earner of her family since her husband has been staying in Saudi Arabia for the past six years.

"I had gone to the jungle with my father. He had gone in search of wood while I sat down to cut the wood. Three people, riding a motor cycle, came from behind and dragged me to a secluded area. There, they raped me. I recognised two of them, one of whom was my father-in-law. I pleaded with them to stop molesting me, but to no avail," said Rehana.

Rehana’s father-in-law, Aniz, has denied the rape charge, and says that his daughter-in-law is trying to trap him into giving away some of his property to her.

"I do not know anything. I had gone to the masjid for prayers. She is charging me with wrong allegations. I never did anything like this," said Aniz.
(Note: Free registration required).

Ah yes, he had gone to the Masjid, so would have lots of witnesses. Well, all they need is one. Imagine if we applied the OBC reservation type logic here!

Previous: Imrana II/III, Imrana III/IV

Rashmi Bansal's folly

Publisher of the Jam magazine and popular blogger Rashmi Bansal narrowly avoided getting arrested under section 295a. Things are not quite clear yet, she may still get arrested. At the very least she is looking at getting hassled by various Government agencies for the foreseeable future. Rashmi has offered an unconditional apology on her website.

It looks like the UPA Government is on its way to break every record (by that we mean its own record because since independence India has been ruled by various avatars of Congress for about 81% of the time) for censorship and intolerance. It's like this: you sneeze hard and somebody gets offended - voila, you are incarcerated.

Various bloggers including RealityCheck are covering this development and are requesting your support for Rashmi Bansal.

So, what is it that irked the Government so much?

In its November 30-December 15 issue, JAM, which is generally considered to be a campus magazine, had published a series of articles and photographs sent by readers on the occasion of the World AIDS Day. The punch lines below a couple of pictures of Dr BR Ambedkar and a Shivling - had allegedly used derogatory remarks about the religious figures, following which a complaint had been lodged against the magazine's printer/publisher.

Rashmi didn't know that Dr Ambedkar is now officially a God, just like Periyar is. Ambedkar's statues outnumber those of any other dead leader. There are more roads, buildings and institutes named after him than any other personality.

If you offend the followers of such a powerful God, well, may the lord above help you.

There could be another angle to this whole fiasco. Although RealityCheck disputes this, I believe the IIPM chaos and the following cover on a past issue of the Jam Magazine may have something to do with it:

Our advice to Rashmi, publish some articles by Shivam Vij or Dilip D'Souza. Heck, you may even get tax breaks or SEZ status!

Sexual violence by "minorities"

Arguably the largest number of rapes are committed by Muslims in India. This would be consistent with the general Muslim behavior in Sweden, Norway, Australia and many other countries. This is of course strictly based on eyeballing the headlines.

We are not supposed to question the Government which issued a statement recently that Muslims are screwed. Well, they could be figuratively screwed but quite literally screwing any lone woman they can lay their hands on.

A 22-year-old woman was allegedly raped by two persons in a scrap yard at Kurla (west) in the early hours of Saturday.

The incident occurred in a shop inside a scrap yard - Najibulla compound, near Baghdad Hotel on the Kalina Road in Kurla (west). Around 6 am, the woman, who is a rag picker, and her friend were collecting some metal scrap near the scrap yard. In the meantime, 40-year-old Shakeel Ahmad Qureshi, who owns a shop in the compound, spotted both the ladies. He then summoned both the women through the watchman, Shahdat Ali alias Chikna (24).

He allegedly took the duo inside his shop, Gala No 25, along with the watchman. He then charged the victim of having stolen 300 kilograms of scrap from the yard in the past and even beat her up with the watchman. Then in the presence her associate, the duo repeatedly raped her for over two hours.

Well, I do not know if any studies has been done in India to determine the rape demographics. Journalists usually gloss over the religion and caste of rapists. For instance, the recent Bangalore call center employee rape-murder was perhaps an OBC on privileged case. Under the current political circumstances, it is essential that this information be made available.

How to read the Nuclear Bill

The nuclear bill, which passed with overwhelming majority in the US house is so mired in controversy and rhetorics that it is impossible for us ordinary mortals to see the implications. Indeed such bills are written in a manner that will confuse even the most astute political observer.

As you know, the opposition BJP/RSS and Leftist allies of Congress are pretty upset with this bill. It doesn't mean a thing, nada, zilch. In the tradition of our fine democracy, the opposition is supposed to make a huge noise at anything substantial done at the center. The Left barks at every passing vehicle. This was the general pattern during the NDA rule as well, indeed UPA has implemented almost every policy undertaken by NDA that it denigrated at the time.

So, how to cut through the crap and decide whether we are a net winner? Pretty simple actually. You observe the reactions of folks.

(A) What is the reaction of the democrats in the US?
(i) Democrats are fainting en masse at Washington Square Park, New York, nude protests going on.
(ii) Democrats held a peacefully rally
(ii) Bill passed with overwhelming majority - token protest by a few democrat senators.

(B) What is the reaction of Pakistan?
(i) Musharraf frothing at the mouth and presently hospitalized
(ii) Pakistan diplomats and politicians issue strong statements directed at the bill
(iii) A few Pakistani newspapers make some noise

(C) What is the reaction of China?
(i) China invades Arunachal Pradesh
(ii) Chinese envoy chokes on chicken chow mein.
(iii) Chinese issue strongly worded press releases

(D) What is the reaction of the Indian scientific community involved in defense research and defense forces ?
(i) Huh?
(ii) Scientists issue angry statements to the press
(iii) Mass resignation by scientists and coup by the army chief

So on and so forth.

So far it looks like India managed to get exemption from inspection for some nuclear facilities. Oh, we got the Iran waiver, i.e. US can not force India to change its Iran policy. This is again one of those minority ego stoking thingy and has no real consequence. We do get civilian nuclear technology.

Note that Nuclear power is no panacea. Although in theory nuke-power should be cheaper than conventional energy sources, it presently costs up to 50% more than coal-power. Huge upfront capital expenditures are required and there are capacity utilization and maintenance issues. There are safety concerns as well. Here is what takes the cake: nuke-power is usually supported by huge Government subsidies. No prizes for guessing who will eventually foot the bill. So don't expect to keep your Christmas lights on all year long anytime soon.

Our verdict: 4/10
Winner: Indian politicians and administrators who will approve the projects
Runner-up: GE, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, L&T

Laloo's daughter: alive, Lover : dead

How many kids does Laloo have? Perhaps a dozen or so. I tend to forget. Anyway.

The death of BIT- Mesra student Abhishek Mishra at a waterfall near Ranchi got surrounded in a mystery after it was revealed that he had a love affair with Railway Minister Lalu Prasad's daughter Ragini.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Abhishek's parents have now demanded a CBI probe into the incident, saying the death did not appear to be natural. "The death looked unnatural as there was blood on his face. The autopsy was done within 15 minutes and that declared him drowned," Abhishek's father Subhas Chandra Mishra, a doctor with Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi, told a news agency on Sunday.

Looks like it is pretty dangerous to get cozy with Yadav girls. First it was Bharti Yadav's lover and then this dude.