Farmers and Numbers: Part III

To paraphrase Joseph Stalin, it does not matter how many farmers
commit suicide. It only matters who counts the deadbodies.

Recent reports suggest that not only did the farmer package not stop suicides, they may have spurred even more deaths.

'Interestingly, the prime minister's visit along with the agriculture minister to the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra on June 30, 2006 was followed by an increase in the number of suicides in the region. Over 150 suicides occurred between July 2 and August 21,' the report says. [link]

This, in a good crop year.

Note that the Vidarbha farmer suicide issue reached a crescendo of coverage in the newspapers during the PM visit. The package was widely publicized. Perhaps a section of the media truly believed that the package would help.

We noted earlier that the marginal utility of these packages may have long been exhausted to the point that moral hazard is now kicking in.

According to a CNN-IBN report:

Farmers in the killing fields of Vidarbha live on credits and die in installments. As many as 1,338 farmer have ended their lives till date. On Friday, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited the region and announced a new package, Vidharba was still grappling with the dark reality of farmer suicide.

The 3,750-crore- rupee package announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for cotton farmers in Vidharba hasn't touched many lives like that of 64-year-old Bhavrao Ingole, 74-year-old Sukdev Meshram and 26-year-old Sunita Lasankute.

Bhavrao received a cheque of a paltry Rs 350, which bounced twice

"Last year, the crop got damaged due to rains and I got a cheque of Rs 350 in the name of relief. Even that bounced twice," Bhavrao Ingole claims. [link]

Meanwhile, this is what our esteemed Minister of Agriculture has to say on the issue:

Union agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said on Friday that the media were not doing justice to the issue of farmers’ suicides in Vidharbha. Briefing the press after a joint review of agriculture by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr. Pawar said he came to the conclusion after hearing the State government’s presentation on the package for farmers.

Mr. Pawar said the State’s presentation showed there was a substantial improvement in the situation. The State government figures showed a fall in the number of suicideshe said. He, however, said he did not want to comment on the statistics in response to questions. [link]

As always, we are sternly reminded that we should abaondon stats and rely on life stories narrated by ministers instead.

Meanwhile a new visit by the PM is planned. Who knows if the new package will be of any help? If you were to believe in the Rajiv Gandhi theorem (at the most 15% of any social spending reaches the intended audience), the situation seems to be stark.

We end this series with a couple of quotes by P. Sainath (this year's Magsaysay award winner), who is perhaps the most authoritative figure on farmer related issues in India today:

Q. Is it true that the suicides went up in July this year as opposed to last year despite the PM’s visit to Vidarbha?

There are two sets of figures, one is the official set, which is very recent, shaky and not reliable, then there are the Vidarbha's Jan Andolan Samiti's figures, which are more reliable. Both confirm this.

Q. Have there been any positives at all in the government’s actions?

There was a political benefit to the PM's visit; nothing in terms of the economy. [..] To find the positives in the government's actions, you would need a microscope.

[link]

Farmers and Numbers: Part IV

Dr. Ramadoss gets an order

To his great dismay, Dr. Ramadoss discovers that not all of India is his family's feudal turf. Not yet, at least.

In a rebuff to Union health minister Anbumani Ramadoss, the Delhi High Court on Monday directed him to sign the degree certificates of AIIMS students within 24 hours - the very same certificates that the minister was refusing to sign as they bore the signature of Dr Sandeep Agarwala, the registrar whom the minister, as president of AIIMS, was not recognising.

Stung by the court directive, Ramadoss - according to agency reports - has agreed to sign the certificates. [link]

All objections raised by Dr. Ramadoss in the matter were mercilessly squashed by the judge. The certificates were duly signed.

In a country where half the children are malnourished, Dr. Ramadoss has his priorities right. He has spent most of his tenure chasing multinationals and film stars and enacting legislations banning onscreen smoking. Good job.

Stories that don't get much attention

ALLAHABAD: Curfew was relaxed on Sunday in Allahabad, which witnessed large scale rioting over alleged desecration of the Geeta on Saturday.

Scores of Hindus in Allahabad went on rampage on Saturday, pelting stones and destroying public property in the communally sensitive town after they found a torn and damaged Geeta in a Temple.

Police were forced to place certain areas under curfew to curb large-scale vandalism.

With tempers ebbing on Sunday, police lifted curfew in certain areas for two hours for locals to buy their daily essentials. [link]

[Edited version]

Infrastructure OR Nukular Power?

Caption: Vehicles pass through a water-logged street in New Delhi.
Parts of the Capital received moderate rainfall on Sunday evening.

Bangladesh: Thank you India (Boom)! Oops!

Year 1971. A feisty Indira Gandhi leads India in a war against Pakistan. The point of contention? Huge humanitarian issue in erstwhile East Pakistan. Massive rush of refugees from Bangladesh into India. War begins. Pakistan suffers a "humiliating" defeat. A new nation is born.

Year 2007. Bomb blasts in Hyderabad - first at Mecca Masjid and then at two popular joints. About 50 dead. Prime suspect: one Mr. Bilal, commander of a Bangladesh based terror group.

Throw in various issues of land encroachment, harboring Ulfa terrorists and of course massive scale smuggling, racketeering, fake notes, prostitution, slavery etc. A smattering of denial of deals to Indian companies. Not much interest in developing economic relations with India.

Meanwhile the new nation has flirted with dictatorship, religious theocracy, military Junta and all other conceivable types of Governments. Don't even talk about the current state of affairs.

Note also the deafening silence of the Indian media about the massive scale human rights violations against minorities in Bangladesh. The only vocal protester, Taslima Nasreen, currently in exile in India, is fast becoming a persona non grata.

These sort of problems arise when a country is unable to identify its citizens by a common trait. Thanks to the Brits and other colonial countries, more than two thirds of the world has become bastardized. The natural historical boundaries of nations have been destroyed. Ethno-religious groups are being forced to cohabit with incompatible groups.

Of course you can't hate them (meaning the Brits and other colonizers). Especially we can't. But for the Brits, we would have a different, perhaps much more unpleasant arrangement.

(Add your favorite cliche involving roses, glasses etc. here.)

Farmers and Numbers: Part II

First, a little quiz:

Which of the following states/places saw the maximum number of farmer suicides during the 2001-06 timeframe (during which time this became a major political issue)?

a) Orissa
b) Kalahandi
c) Andhra Pradesh
d) Karnataka
e) Vidarbha
f) Kerala

Don't spend too much time on it though, you will find the answer (and more) in this post.

Flashback to May, 2004. Chandrababu Naidu is ousted after a stint of about nine years, amid a huge national uproar on the alarming increase in farmer suicides in AP. During the final few years of his tenure, article after article, research paper after research paper claimed that the CM, in his zeal to pander to the information industry, completely neglected the Agricultural sector. Naidu's TDP is summarily defeated in May, 2004 and a people friendly Government, led by YSR Reddy is voted in.

Suicides by farmers are nothing new in AP. The issue first hit the headlines in 1987 when 20 cotton growers committed suicide. The problem assumed alarming proportions in 1997. In the last seven years, about 200 farmers have ended their lives each year. And these are conservative estimates.

During the TDP government's regime, farmers' suicides had become a regular occurrence. The Congress reckons over 3,000 farmers ended their lives under Naidu's rule. Farmers' organisations (kisan sabhas) place this figure at 1,800. Official records say 900 farmers have committed suicide since 1997. [link]

Same stat, three sets of numbers. Assuming the farmer orgs are right, this puts the TDP factor at 2 and Congress factor at 1.67 (these factors will be useful later in the analysis).

Now, let's throw in some recent data. According to a recent publication [pdf] by Social Watch India, 2,410 farmers commited suicide between 2001 and 2006 in Andhra Pradesh. Given that the average score was about 200 per year between 1997 and 2004, you can subtract about 700 from this and you arrive at a number for YSR Reddy from May, 2004 till 2006.

So, at about estimated 1,400, the YSR regime has already seen more than 1.5 times the official figure of Naidu's time. This excludes 2007, which isn't over yet! Even if you take the Congress figure of 3,000 for all seven reported years from the earlier article, YSR has scored a much better per year average so far. If you take the farmers' organization figures, YSR is going to beat Naidu by a whopping margin. You could call it an innings defeat. In one term, YSR is set to kill more farmers than Naidu did in two terms. Of course, Andhra farmers are getting killed by other more direct means by the state Government as well.

Some more stats: TDP claims 3,302 died during the YSR regime through 2006. The National Social Watch report claims 1,126 in 2004 alone. Another interesting report with a suicide density map (at the bottom). Using the TDP factor, the number 1,400 seems about right. It also matches with the independent source.

Answer to the Quiz. At 5,980 (2001-2006), Karnataka beat Andhra Pradesh by a huge margin. Here is a link to Karnataka's political history. We expect the journos to decamp from Vidabhra and move to Karnataka soon.

Final Tally (2001-06)

Karnataka (5,980)
Andhra Pradesh (2,410)
Maharashtra (2,280)
Kerala (506)
Punjab (179)
Gujarat (24)
Orissa (8)

Notice that some states are missing from the tally.


Farmers and Numbers: Part III

Farmers and Numbers: Part I

Farmers and Numbers: Part II

The best video you will see today

Swedish professor Hans Rosling delivers a stunning lecture, using animated bubble charts and real data. (link via IndianEconomy.org). Running at about 20 minutes, you may be tempted to give the video a pass. We urge you to see it.

Animation after animation clearly shows that the world has become a much better place since the 70s, in every aspects. Globalization has brought dramatic changes to the lives of billions of people across the world, for the better. The world has become much more equitable across and within countries.

Recently there was a hue and cry about how India is worse than Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of some development indices. Well, Sub-Saharan Africa includes South Africa. And Mauritius.

Similarly, some of our intellectuals like to believe that India should remain a socialist economy since Sweden is a socialist economy and it is much better. It may be a matter of debate whether the Swedish economy can be called "socialistic" in the most understood sense of the term, at least in India. The video tells you why Sweden does much better. Simple, they prefer data to life stories.

Losing faith

Business is losing faith in Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, reports BusinessWeek in an article in its latest issue. [link]

In May the Indian Prime Minister endured a hail of criticism from the business community after he urged corporate chieftains to "eschew conspicuous consumption" or risk a backlash—a warning that left his audience wondering whether the sage economist was turning his back on reforms he himself had pioneered as finance minister 15 years ago.

But his government has been so embroiled in internal disputes that New Delhi has failed to capitalize on an extraordinary opportunity to cut farm and oil subsidies, abolish rent control laws, and change onerous labor regulations. These and other measures are essential if India is to keep growing at almost double digits and lower the poverty level from 25% of the population.

The business community's list of complaints is long. Privatization of state-run companies has been put on hold, on ideological grounds. A program to build Chinese-style special economic zones has foundered over how much to pay displaced farmers for their land. Official approvals, slow to come, are blocking badly needed commercial and residential construction.

India's poor don't have much to cheer about either. In 2004 the government launched a $2.8 billion annual plan to guarantee rural laborers 100 days of work at minimum wage—a bid to provide a livelihood to millions. But in most states, critics say the scheme has been wasteful and ineffective.

An intellectual blow to the left

Reflecting the increasing isolation of the Left Front in the intelligentsia, West Bengal's eminent Leftist writer-activist Mahashweta Devi feels that it has achieved "very little" in its 30 years of rule in the State. [link]

"I was deeply impressed to see how strong the work culture is in Gujarat. The city and village roads are well-built, even the remotest villages have electricity and drinking water. I was especially impressed with the medical facilities in the panchayats and local-level health centres. Not at all like West Bengal where, even now, villages and panchayat areas have hardly any electricity and where the Government's so-called swasthya pariseva (healthcare service) is totally non-existent," she said. "In West Bengal, which has been under a CPI(M)-led Left Government for 30 years, little has been achieved," the writer said. She also alleged that starvation deaths and child mortality are "rampant" in West Bengal.

I think the leftists should go out more. In a panel discussion held in Europe, Arundhati Roy actually said that she had expected to get killed during one of her speeches in the US. It is quite clear that at least some of the communist ideologues today hold their wits together by means of strong self-deception. The rest are scums, their act is deliberate.

It is heartening to see some of the influential oldtimers coming around.

Autograph please

At least 1,200 resident doctors of the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) went on a flash strike on Tuesday evening expressing their displeasure with Union Health Minister Ambumani Ramadoss.

However, the doctors have assured that the ICU and emergency services at the hospital will not to be affected for next 12 hours.

The doctors are upset that at least 700 medical degrees are pending with Ramadoss for his signature - a bureaucratic delay that is affecting their chances of going abroad for further studies or work. [link]

Meanwhile the standoff continues between AIIMS director Dr. Venugopal and Hon'ble Minister of Health Dr. Anubumani Ramadoss.

This is the latest in the tug of war between the Health Ministry and India's top medical institute, which is getting fierce by the day.

The AIIMS faculty is up in arms against Ramadoss, protesting a bill that will enable the removal of their director P Venugopal.

In a recent AIIMS faculty association meeting, over 200 senior doctors decided to petition Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to stop Ramadoss from passing the AIIMS amendment bill that will bring changes to the AIIMS Act 1956.

According to Newsweek:

The premier AIIMS has been described by Newsweek magazine as a medical "oasis of the poor" and treats at least 8,000 people every day. Patients from across the country avail treatment here for a nominal fee.

Respect needs to be earned, quotas or life stories won't work in that area.

Moral policing in Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu does not want women to have access to emergency contraceptive pills.

Cipla's new emergency contraceptive, popularly known as the 'morning after pill', the i-pill is showing contra-indications in Tamil Nadu.

The Tamil Nadu Directorate of Drugs Control has sent a notice to a popular Tamil magazine, Ananda Vikatan, for publishing advertisements of the i-pill.

The state government has 'moral' issues as well.

Says N Selvaraju [Director Of Drugs Control], "The advertising of this drug will mean that women will think 'I can do anything and there's an easy way not to get pregnant'. We can't allow such an attitude. We are not against women's rights, but this is a moral concern."

Cipla had lost a similar case against the Tamil Nadu government last year for its drug Norlevo, which was another emergency contraceptive. [link]

Given that the state politicians claim themselves to be rationals, Tamil Nadu appears to have very retrograde ideas about what women should or should not do. Recently they hounded actress Khushboo for making certain remarks.

Contrast this report with a recent CNN-IBN coverage of a similar Government intervention in MP (BJP ruled state).

The narrative fits together nicely

Rajdeep Sardesai being interviewed by his own channel.

Quiz [Answer]

In May 1940, a well known Indian leader heaped lavish praises on Hitler. Who was this leader?

Most commentators got the answer right. Indeed the great leader was no other than Gandhi.

A. G. Noorani reviews a recently released book and comes up with the conclusion that the book is short on substance and full of sensational trivia.

Gandhi praised Hitler. "I do not consider Herr Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted," he wrote in May 1940. "He is showing an ability that is amazing and he seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed." He regretted that Hitler had employed war rather than non-violence to achieve his aims, but nonetheless averred that the Germans of the future "will honour Herr Hitler as a genius, a brave man, matchless organiser and much more".

Then in 1946:

In 1946 he told Louis Fischer: "Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions." The author wrote: " Gandhi's ambivalence towards the Nazis was matched by his feelings about the Japanese."

Now, contrast the tone of the Noorani article with the constant media campaign and hate mongering about how folks from a certain religion admire Hitler and how this is a foreshadow of looming fascism. Also note how annoyed Noorani is at the author. He had quite a different frame of mind when he severely criticized President Kalam in another recent article. In the latter article, Noorani concludes that Kalam had attempted to overstep his boundaries. So now we are down to reading people's minds and judging them by thoughts rather than actions.

In another news, the latest Indian Institute of Management at Shillong will be called Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management. Why not just call it Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Management? Granted we need to honor our late Prime Minister, but don't we have enough symbols dedicated to him already?

Farmer suicides down

Farmer suicides are down in six Vidarbha districts for the first seven months of the year, according to a report from Indian Express. Apparently the police and the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti have different ways to track suicides. The Samiti puts the figure at 605 for all eleven districts.

General observations:

1. There is something called "Agrarian suicides". Inasmuch as the dead can not be relied upon to testify for the reasons of their deaths, it would be great if the methodology followed to determine an agrarian suicide as opposed to a garden variety suicide was made known.
   
   
2. Apparently these numbers are "dynamic" in nature. But the Maharashtra Government is very confident about them.
   
   
3. Certainly, say officials, attributing this year’s improvement to policy interventions over the last one year in the form of packages from both the state and the Centre.
   
   
4. Add to this good rains that led to an unprecedented spurt in rabi production and lucrative prices for soyabean, which is fast replacing cotton as the main crop in these districts.
   
   
5. Once again, no data available to determine the relative effects of #3 and #4.
   
   
6. Cotton saw a bumper harvest attributed by authorities mainly to the huge spurt in the use of Bt cotton. Wait, what? Isn't Bt Cotton the infamous and ineffective seed introduced by the profit racketeering Monsanto?
   
   
7. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed. Perhaps they should be more confident on Government measures, no?

Yet another report called for urgent corrections to the relief package totalling Rs. 17,000 crores.

While searching for suicide statistics, we found this report: South India - world's suicide capital. Well, despair no more. Help is now available in the form of bomb blasts. No more messing around with amateurish rope knots, poisons etc. Just go out more on the weekends to popular venues.

The only consolation to Chandrababu Naidu (suicides were a primary reason behind his ouster), ex-CM AP, is that his son got married today. Sadly he could not enjoy the ceremony fully as he had to attend emergency meetings in the wake of the tense situation in the city.

Tehelka gets a new sponsor and it's you

Can anyone explain why the Gas Authority of India Ltd. would need to advertise at all? A few corporate TV spots would make sense from recruitment etc. point of view. But of all places, why Tehelka?


Tehelka proudly wears the logos of its sponsors, Air India and GAIL on its home page.

Both are public sector undertakings. GAIL comes under Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Air India is under Ministry of Civil Aviation. Thus the tax payer indirectly ends up supporting a Congress mouthpiece.

Keep in mind that there are other ways Tehelka could potentially channel monies into its newspaper. They run several NGOs and they are blessed by our top politicians who frequently show up in the functions. Someone should fully audit this whole thing.

GAIL's mission statement is Gas and Beyond. You could say it fits Tehelka in way.

How's that for timing?

* * * Updated * * *

Sensational journalism, meet irony. Yeah, it's hard and it hurts.

Even as CNN-IBN prepares for a well coordinated political campaign for Congress in aniticipation for a chance snap poll ("Special: Mumbai riots a planned, perfected pogrom?", "Sonia's healing touch eases UPA-Left tension" etc.), blasts rocked Hyderabad yet again.

HYDERABAD: At least five people were killed and over a dozen injured when two blasts in quick succession rocked a park and a popular eat-out in Hyderabad on Saturday evening, police sources said.

The injured have been taken to nearby hospitals. Both the areas have been evacuated.

The first explosion took place at Lumbini Park near the state secretariat at around 2000 hours and another at Gokul Chat Bhandar 15 minutes later, they said. [link]

Luckily for Shri Sardesai the blasts did not do quite as much damage. We expect CNN-IBN to resume its schduled programming as soon as possible, with their headline alternating between a Sonia related story and the Bombay riot "expose".

Come to think of it, the P-word is being thrown around too casually. The word was introduced into the popular political lexicon post Gujarat riots. Now they have extended it to the Bombay riots as well. As we see it, the Bombay riots could neither have been planned, nor could it be called perfect. With that kind of casualty ratio (575:275), it looks much more like a random orgy of violence.

[Update] More details are trickling in about the blasts.

The killing just doesn't stop. At least 40 people were killed and scores injured in two powerful blasts in Hyderabad, one at an amusement park packed with weekend holidayers and another at a landmark eatery in the heart of the city on Saturday evening..[link]

One explosion happened at an amusement park where a laser show was underway. Another happened in a popular eatery thronging with weekend crowd.

The blasts were intended to produce maximum number of casualties. Perhaps you could call it a "planned and perfected pogrom", not sure about this. As usual foreign hands have been blamed, red alert sounded in other cities (so confidence inspiring in a POTA less regime), words such as RDX, HuJI, LeT etc. occupy news reports.

Left out

Does anyone still believe the Government is going to collapse? In the past week, the left has moved from a total hardline stance to "we will wait till the IAEA meet" to "we will wait till the Government operationalizes the plan", whatever that means. Merely a couple of days ago the fall of the Government seemed inevitable. Today many people are singing different tunes.

So what happened?

The leftists simply do not have the belly to go to a snap poll when the wounds from Singur and Nandigram are still so fresh. Meanwhile Prakash Karat is scouting around for new bases. A convenient scapegoat in the form of Ambassador Ronen Sen has been found.

There is no doubt in our minds that the left is in serious trouble. The next election might as well bury them forever. Let's try to understand what is happening. We love the phrase "narrowing of interests" which blogger RealityCheck uses so often.

What would you rather do, subscribe to the communist folklore and settle for a life of mediocrity (albeit one that promises fictitous equity) or believe in group incentives which just might help you beat the odds? How would your views change if you see kids around you beating the odds? Not all of them will beat the odds using group incentives but you might still want to hedge your bets.

Thus it is a no contest between the egalitarian premise and narrowing of interests. The left realizes this. It is not just about the OBC quotas in central institutes. Mayawati's rise means trouble for Congress which can only be averted by implementing private sector quotas for Dalits. Unfortunately Congress is in the OBC quota logjam at the moment, it is a big bite they can neither swallow nor spit out. Unless that one plays out fully, their hands are tied. Our reading is that Maya will beat Congress to making a strong proposal for private sector quotas. Her anti-retail moves are as much about hatred for the Ambanis (who are friends of SP) as they are about collecting future bargaining chips. She also realizes that in the era of narrowing interests people want their benefits here and now, not wait about half a decade for the success of a dubious Agro-reform plan (yeah, like we didn't have a zillion of them already!).

So, why did the left throw the gauntlet all of a sudden? It is a clear diversionary tactics. This muscle flexing was only meant to assure whatever support base they have left that they still matter and they are still powerful.

It appears that the West Bengal faction of the left is the first to blink. Apart from Singur and Nandigram fiascos, the state is long overdue for anti-incumbency.

The Government may yet fall, which is contingent on an entirely different group which has maintained strange silence through the whole thing as it did during the Haneef case. Was there a secret arrangement? Only time will tell.

Mayawati should exercise caution

Several days ago, we observed that Mayawati's UP win hadn't gone down well with the socialists.

The attacks seem to be picking up pace. CNN-IBN is running an "expose", claiming alleged financial irregularities by Mayawati:

Maya 'gifts' BSP office worth crores to brother

Lucknow: The BSP Prerna Kendra is the place which is meant to act as a source of great inspiration to Dalits across the country. It is the place which bears tell tale signs of BSP's brand of Dalit revolution.

Now this place is about to become a personal property - the property of the brother of UP's Chief Minister Mayawati, Anand Kumar.

CNN-IBN has details of the deed which has been worked out.

According to the deed, the market value of the Bahujan Prerna Kendra located at 5, Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg is more than Rs 1.25 crore. [link]

Compare and contrast this report with the Pratibha Patil related exposes. In those cases, the media strongly asserted:

a) Nothing has been proven in a court of law yet (and never will be, as we now know)
b) All Maharashtra politicans have a suger mill, a cooperative and a college - so what's the big deal?

Also, note how the report starts with the legacy of Ambedkar. As we noted before, Mayawati is being held to an absurd benchmark, conveniently defined by the sec-soc lobby. The subtext is clear, Mayawati is not upholding Ambedkar's visions. Hence she is not the right choice for Dalits. Once this framework is properly laid out by the media and consumed by gullible public, all they need to do is cry foul! No need to examine the details. For instance, if Mayawati supports retail expansion in UP, it will be a foul. Ambedkar never said retail, did he?

Another minor detail, the headline mentions that the office is worth "crores". Turns out the office is worth about 1.25 crores. The report also mentions that the office will now become "personal property" of Mayawati's brother. Well, the office will be given to a trust. Not quite the same thing, is it? Buried deep in the report is the factoid that the office was actually built from BSP funds, i.e. funds built up by political donations to the BSP party. This is not in the same ballpark as the Pratibha Patil and Co. scams. Heck, this ain't even the same game!

Mayawati should be very careful. She is up against a very determined group of people who have been running a fascist regime for decades. She should learn a lesson from history too, when the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law duo of Indira Gandhi and Maneka Gandhi used nasty techniques to arrest Babu Jagjivan Ram's political ascent.

Soldiers of fortune

Shiv Sainiks are at it again, they vandalized The Outlook's Bombay office to protest their leader's less than charitable portrayal in the said magazine's independence day special.

This isn't the first time they reacted way over the top for real or imaginary insults to their leader. The previous time was perhaps that statue related issue.

Make no mistake about it, we do believe that this attack was ugly and the perpetrators must be punished. However, we do think that running that story on the 60th anniversary edition was merely political opportunism. Were these people the only villains? If you add 2nd order effects such as poverty, starvation etc., we could have a completely different list.

In a sense the cartoon was most appropriate for Thackeray. His ideology is a virulent blend of ethnic identity based politics, religious dogma and social justice. Shiv Sena has done many curious things in the past, riot involvement aside. They used to send fish sellers to apartment complexes to scandalize and harass vegetarian upper-class folks. They are the strongest proponent of Bhumiputra clauses - a move that is bound to poison India's already divided public in the days to come. Thackeray thundered, Bombay is for Marathis, only to recant a few days later. Bombay is still for Marathis, but as a footnote they add Gujaratis and Parsis for good measure. Bhojpuri people still unwelcome though.

We are still confused about their recent decision not to support Shekhawat for President. Would they be in the Congress camp if Congress had a Marathi leader? This move showed the complete moral bankruptcy of Thackeray. Perhaps they aspire to be like another DMK.

This could be a great opportunity for BJP to lose this ugly appendage although political reality may prevent them from doing so.