The shrinking Hindu space

Perhaps nothing illustrates the extreme prejudice and visceral hatred this administration harbors towards Hindus quite like this video. A senior Congress leader and designated mentor to the crown Prince, no less, mercilessly kicking an would be shoe attacker. That video basically sums up what Congress would do to us, given a chance.

As we have been saying for quite sometime, what we have here is not mere hardball politics, we have long transitioned into a different ballgame. From mere socio-economic re-engineering, we have transitioned into genocidal territory.

The completely needless and strategically foolish police action of last Saturday when a battalion of handpicked Delhi Police converged in on the Ramlila grounds, where tens of thousands of devotees, as many as half of them women and children, had already retired for the night, was designed to inflict casualties - which it did. Up to a 100 people were injured, many of them critically. A woman still remains comatose. The fact that it did not result in a stampede is a miracle in itself and perhaps speaks for the discipline and self-restraint of the devotees. The police had fired so many teargas shells that beat journos had irritation and tears in their eyes until late next morning.

This operation had to be authorized at the highest levels. No one at a lower level who would have the gumption to order a lathi charge and teargas shelling in a tent containing so many women and children.

This operation was also a live demonstration of what is going to happen when the proposed Communal Violence Prevention Act (aka Right to Riot with impunities act for minorities) comes into effect. That act will give enormous and unprecedented powers into the hands of a group of hostile and prejudiced people. Under any flimsy pretext, they can take over any district administration. They can then run off any people deemed undesirable, like they did with the tens of thousands of devotees. Within a stretch of 4 hours, the ground was completely deserted, people scattered all over Delhi without shelter and belongings. Some dropped off at potentially unsafe places. Post-op, the administration declared random and arbitrary section 144 and ordered externments without court orders.

Then we have the RTE act, which essentially shrinks education space for Hindus. We also have the Food Security Act, again, designed by the same contingent, which divides the food doles recipients into "general" and "priority" categories, the latter being euphemism for ... you know who.

A day after the operation, Sonia Gandhi offered a chaadar at Ajmer Sharif. A day later, Manmohan Singh followed suit.

Still think you are safe under this administration?

Do we need a Lok Pal bill?

Scene of protest: Tahrir Square, Cairo. Many have likened the Jantar Mantar gathering

surrounding a fasting septuagenarian Gandhian with the Egyptian uprising

Did we just have a revolution? Well, if we did, it certainly didn't quite have the effect it brought about elsewhere. The ruling dispensation that is engaged in massive scale Economic Terrorism (scam is too mild a term for what we have here) continues to rule the country.

Sandwiched conveniently between the World Cup and the IPL, the "revolution" brought all sorts of people out from the woodwork. Pretty soon, Anna Hazare was seen sharing the dais with a motley crowd of career activists, human rights types, various political entities, wheeler dealers, curious media personnel trying to get a slice of the action and even some Maoists.

Now, let's consider for a moment what we are really asking for. Frankly, the Lok Pal concept is fairly overrated. The wikipedia entry clearly suggests an ombudsman system is neither essential nor sufficient for a corruption free society. One can't just jump at every novelty item every other country has. For a good analysis of what this Lok Pal bill controversy is about, look no further than two stellar post by Reality Check: (1) Jan Lok Pal, (2) Lok Pal - report generator or jail sender?

As a matter of fact, the group that is pushing this Lok Pal bill simply does not have a good track record at drafting good legislations. Good intentions do not result in good laws. The RTI Act is a case in point. The act has led to disappearance of all info from public domain ("need to know") and given rise to a new breed of activists. Having passed the law, the Govt abrogates itself of all responsibilities of making info publicly available. So, keep filing RTI petitions hombres, and keep in mind, such laws actually prevent the weak (such as a person with no access to a powerful RTI lobby) from getting access.

Some clauses in the original proposed draft such as having the two most recent Magsaysay awardees in the selection committee came across as awfully self-serving. This clause has been subsequently removed. On the other hand, the Govt draft mandates jail time for false complaints - a definite red flag.

Any chance of a good bill is further dimmed by the fact that Kapil "Zero Loss" Sibal is on the drafting committee. So is former Enron lawyer Harvard Chidu, whose name is mysteriously missing from the CBI 2G charge sheet. Noted wheeler dealers Moily and Pranab Mukherjee are also on the drafting committee.

The need of the hour is justice for the deprived sections, whose money has been stolen by a ruthless mafia type ruling faction. The drama about this bogus bill shifts focus away from the central issue.

A central omnipotent Lok Pal has some significant shortcomings. First of all, it will lead to legitimization of our central planning tendencies. India is a very large and complex economy now, it is absurd to expect an 11 member body to be able to handle all its scams. This is where most of the bill's designers are being terribly short-sighted. The bill simply does not address prioritization.

Finally, the bill is probably dead on arrival anyway for the same reason the women's reservation bill died. There are already clamors for representation for special classes. Pushed to its logical limit, this will eventually morph into a collective desire for the Lok Pal to yield the same outcome as the political process - why not just have an election then?

Thank you, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi

We must confess that often we find it hard to understand socialists, sometimes it is due to their better education from institutes like St. Stephens or Jamia Milia Islamia or JNU etc. or sometimes it is simply due to their superior religion. Therefore, we often find ourselves at a loss as to what would be an appropriate and correct response to an event.

All of us has the experience of being confronted by socialists at some point or another. For instance, say you just heard a joke or something and have a wide grin on your face. Suddenly, you meet your socialist friend. Chances are he will read you several statistics such as how 50% of India's kids are malnourished etc. He will prove that you should not grin like that. Of course, your socialist friends have likely lost a bit of their enthusiasm since 2004, but you get the general idea.

Now, cricket is just a sport, nothing more, nothing less. So, should we celebrate India's victory in a cricket match? Sounds simple, isn't it? If you are a fan of the sport, you will probably feel elated, for a few hours anyway, then go back to your daily life in the socialist state. If you do not follow the sport, no problem. Go watch a movie or take your dog out for a walk or something.

Unfortunately, it is not so simple. It could easily go like this:

Cricket fan: Yayyy giggity omg LOL ROFL! We won the world cup, how cool!

Socialist: 50% of India's kids are malnourished.

Cricket fan: Agreed, but can I just burst this last firecracker?

Socialist: NO! You jingoistic nationalistic chauvinistic a-hole from the bad religion!

Cricket fan: :(

Therefore, we were mighty concerned when India did pretty well this world cup and actually went on to win the cup. We were concerned for our cricket loving friends, we had no way to guide them and no help was forthcoming from the socialist circles.

Fortunately, the Queen came to our help. Not only did she attend the important matches with the Prince, but she came out after the win and broke out into an impromptu dance. Was that cha cha cha? Or was that the bhangra? Let's call it the Spectrum Twist, but that's not really important.

The important thing is, now it is totally appropriate for you to celebrate India's cricket victory, at least until 2014 and your socialist friends ain't gonna bug you, not one bit. We guarantee it.

Secret things ....

We all know that secular media and intellectuals are nuts about the Prince. According to a devastating cable from wikileaks, published by The Hindu, the Prince may have a few - um, nutty issues of his own:

Naqvi claimed that it is increasingly common knowledge that Rahul suffers from "personality problems" of an emotional or psychological nature that are severe enough to prevent him from functioning as PM.

Who would have known! Actually, that's not quite true. We have always believed there was something odd about the Prince. For instance, during the 2009 election cycle, we blogged about it. The cable mentions Congress leaders' growing disenchantment with the Prince and that they thought he "is causing more harm than good" and has "made no impression on the people of the state."

In the same blog post, we unambiguously stated that the Princess came across as a much smarter and polished political leader. The last part of the cable echoes the same sentiments, about how everyone wanted the Princess to join politics and how Sonia Gandhi had chosen the Prince against her own better judgment etc.

The cable also mentions "he continues to be the subject of press reports that rave about his participation in the early January Congress Youth training camp" - which is like, hardly a secret. Read another blog post where we described this in some detail.

The lunatic is on the grass

Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs ....

- Brain Damage, Pink Floyd

Whither revolution?

Continuing our thoughts from a previous post, the question that stares us squarely in the face is simply this - if Egypt, Libya, Tunisia etc. have opted to oust their autocratic leaders through violent revolutions, why not us? Democracy is obviously not a good answer. The said countries had democracies of sort, elections too.

Now, consider these two snippets, from India's largest circulation daily, The Times of India:

SNIPPET 1: I still remember Nehru stepping into our living room and inviting Sir Alladi, my father-in-law, to join the drafting committee," says Lalitha Krishnaswami. "We were caught by surprise when someone informed us that Nehru who had come to attend a function at the nearby Andhra Mahila Sabha had decided to drop by. But to Sir Alladi's horror, no picture of the prime minister framed our walls. My husband was immediately asked to get one. He rushed to Luz Corner, got the first picture of Nehru he saw, framed it and rushed back home just minutes before Nehru himself walked in. Over the discussions that followed, Sir Alladi accepted his invitation to join the Constitution drafting committee," she says. [link]

SNIPPET 2: As she took her seat in the front row next to NCP chief Sharad Pawar, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee handed her the one-paragraph statement the PM had just read out.Going through it carefully, Sonia nodded briefly to herself, signalling her approval and put the paper down. Looking up, she saw MPs thanking her for ensuring that the government accepted including caste as a point of enumeration in the national headcount. As is her wont, Sonia was quick to gesture towards Congress's chief troubleshooter while Mukherjee sat unmoved. [link]

Remarkably, these are from the news section of the newspaper. Qualitatively, we are not really different from those regimes, the same state run or controlled media and its intellectuals singing glory be.

We have gargantuan scams going on, not only do these scams deprive the very same social justice classes the rulers and their PR agents claim to benefit, but they have grave national security implications. What are some of the beneficiaries of these scams? Aside from the obvious holy cows and calves, these names are Hasan Ali, Shahid Balwa, Jagath Gasper Raj etc.

Minister after minister have been allowed to brazenly perjure themselves on national TV without so much as a murmur of protests from TV show hosts.

Secular intellectuals, whose raison d'etre seems to be to constantly decry deprivation of certain sections, have remained mum. Worse, some have actually blamed 'neo-liberal economic framework' etc. for the scams. Diabolic plans have been put in place to somehow retroactively blame folks who have not been in power for two terms. Attempts to put the right sort of people in charge of the vigilance department has backfired for the time being. The state machinery has made significant progress in blocking out any signs of dissent.

Yet, there are no signs of revolution. We remain hopeful though.

The crosses we bear ...

More pictures at Flickr

MUMBAI: Fresh demolition notices pasted by the BMC on several crosses across the city on Saturday drew a sharp reaction from the Christian community. Around 400 Bandra residents from the community gathered on Chapel Road in Bandra (W) in the evening to protest against the notices, prompting cops to rush there. [link]

Funny thing is, this thing has been going on since 2003 - when people started noticing illegal structures of all types sprouting all around the city.

• Feb 18, 2011: Demolition stayed for 4 days - Priya Dutt (CONGRESS MP) et al do what secular politicians are supposed to do. Religious groups incensed.
• Mar 1, 2011: 7 day stay on notices to crosses
• Mar 2, 2011: 30 day to prove legality of crosses
• Mar 5, 2011: Chief Minister says sorry
• Mar 8, 2011: Locals did not seek BMC permission to re-erect cross

What we have here is a vivid illustration of competitive secularism. If Waqf board can do this (albeit a lot more violently and with a lot less media coverage), why can't Minority Team B? There is obviously no good answers to these questions. Hence, the shrines will not get demolished or alternately they will be demolished but community leaders will get sops elsewhere.

Rinse. Repeat.

The troubling thing is, due to the British legacy, the community owns disproportionately high amount of real estate, in prime locations all over. They are obviously out of bounds. But of course, they have nothing to fear, forget about those large swathes of tax free land - the municipal body of India's largest city can't even touch tiny recently built structures for almost a decade.

Just wondering ...

A 19-year-old boy stabbed to death a Std X student whom he suspected of having an affair with his sister. Yasin Sayyed stabbed Nawaz Hanif Kalifa at least five times and left the 17-year-old to die on the tracks last Thursday. Nawaz was a student of Nice English school in Mumbra. Cops identified him on the basis of his school identity card and his bag, both of which were recovered from the murder spot.

[...]

During investigation, sleuths learnt that Nawaz was romantically linked to a girl from the same school. Preliminary inquiries pointed to the involvement of the girl's family in the crime. [link]

Just wondering if this fits secular/liberal definition of 'Honor' crimes. Article does not mention it though.

Tunisia, Egypt ... etc.

Perhaps counter-cyclical political events provides for the largest servings of irony and the Middle-Eastern 'revolution' falls firmly in this category - so far as the Indian political scene is concerned.

Just imagine how the secular journos, intellectuals, human rights and other assorted Left-Lib types would cover this thing had it happened during the NDA regime. But we have what we have and ironically (a double dose, if you like), the regime, with its ~$100B scams looks every bit like the despotic regimes the Middle-Eastern folks are trying to depose.

In any case, Indian journalists went to Cairo in hordes. Short of a story and short on analysis and certainly deprived of a suitable political narrative to spin, they decided to make it about personal valor. The social media scene was abuzz with (mostly) brave journos patting each other etc. Funny thing is, they did not actually come in harms way to the extent some Western/Middle-Eastern journalists did. Some spent a few nights in the cooler. Most spent the time holed up in the Indian embassy, only to come out during times of relative calm and that too avoiding the rough areas.

The Barkha Dutt docu-drama called The Women of Egypt is a perfect example of this. It was at least in part an attempt to redeem herself from #barkhagate using the Kargil flashback. Already being hailed as a masterpiece, award-worthy etc. the documentary shows Barkha walking around about town, microphone in hand. She also interviews a few what appeared to be a few elite Egyptian women at their homes.

* * *

This is not to suggest the Egyptian scene was not dangerous, quite the contrary. Unfortunately, the attack came from unexpected quarters. An American journalist was brutally assaulted at the Tahrir Sqaure in Cairo. She suffered a sustained attack and beatings by a mob of about 200, who yelled "Jew ... Jew ... Jew ..." while setting upon her. This wasn't the only such incident.

It took several days for the Mecca Cola drinking Left-Lib media to deliberate and finally release the information (after censoring the chants). Why? Because it largely cut through the narrative of 'revolution', or rather the Western conception of it. Secondly, the revolution is being worked into a storyboard of achievements for Dear Leader, in prep for 2012. Baaaaad Boooosh attacked Saddam, but The Great One liberated Egypt by delivering just one speech in Cairo!

Shortly afterwards, instead of a proper root cause analysis, they were able to steer the conversation towards a few fringe comments. Business as usual. But that did not prevent a particularly loony Left-Lib to actually connect this attack to 'Hindu Nationalists'!

This and various other factors, history etc. does not make us feel particularly warm and fuzzy about the whole deal. We just have to wait and watch.

* * *

We were particularly anxious to see the effects of this revolution upon our domestic faithful. Historically, the heart of the faithful has always throbbed for the global movement, for instance Khilafat. But so far there is not much evidence of any ripple effect.

Actually, we are not too sure - is it possible the disturbance is manifesting itself in different ways? As we discussed earlier, there was a dangerous riot in New Delhi, involving the demolition of an illegal Mosque. This was largely censored by the media. Well, there was another one, also censored by media, this time involving the expansion of a burial ground, in New Delhi. Then there was major rioting in a village in Rajasthan.

Would they actually rise up and depose a secular Government? It would be rather interesting.

Sachar Envy ...

In a previous post, we discussed how the community was finding it problematic to push its victim status:

The biggest obstacle to pushing through special privileges for the community proved to be raw data. There was no way to massage this to manufacture a "deprived" victim status for the community. Call it Sachar envy. Soon this was largely mitigated - large number of poor people, like cattle was head counted and factored into stats. Even this proved inadequate. This is why the Kandhamal incident was engineered. Now we have a new victim category with refugees and dead people to show for! Take that, Kashmiri Pandits!

Well, lo and behold, we already have a demand for a Sachar Report for the community!

A meeting of Church representatives, scholars and activists on January 25, which was presided over by Delhi Archbishop Vincent Concessao, decided to petition the UPA government for a Sachar Committee type report on the status of Christians. The report would serve as a reference point for decisions concerning the community, it was felt.

"Our own spot studies have shown how poor groups like tribal and Dalit Christians are but we dont have authenticated empirical data," said All Indian Christian Council general secretary John Dayal. "We want the government to quantify their marginalization in terms of poverty levels, land holdings, literacy and so on like the Sachar Committee did for Muslims. We also want the government to establish burning issues in troubled areas like the Dangs in Gujarat so that they can be addressed." [The Times of India]

Now, everyone knows the community is far from deprived, as a matter of fact they enjoy massive advantages in almost every field, and more so in 'liberal arts' type fields. They dominate journalism, human rights, book publishing, advertising and most other soft sectors. They lead in awards too.

However, we have an interesting problem here. Of course there are those in the community that are not doing well, after all not everyone is John Abraham. So, unless everyone in the community gets up to that level, we will always have grievances, right? This is the unique problem with this type of identity politics. There is never enough. Poor Hindu? Stand in line, we are now uplifting Community 1, Community 2 ....

Then of course we have the numbers game. Suddenly tribals become part of the narrative. This explains why this increased level of missionary activities in Maoist areas, why we suddenly have a Hindu seer killed in a remote district in Orissa, why we have another rotting in jail (the latter's 'confession' being all over media with nary a regard for rights of the under trial, no peep from Human Rights), why we have indignation over (mostly) self-inflicted attacks on religious places in Karnataka, why we have EU delegations interfering with our domestic matters, why the Supreme Court is forced to change certain remarks in its verdicts in an unprecedented manner, why after years we suddenly begin to accept UK aid, which invariably flows through certain organizations.

When the Sachar Report II finally comes through, rest assured to find apples to oranges comparison just like in Sachar Report I. Recently acquired members (who is gonna check?) will drag down the average and it is all the way to the bank for community leaders.

Funny thing is, we already have a parallel Government running with Sonia Gandhi (anyone knows her faith?) as its tenured President, it is called the NAC. This organization is planning to control every drop of milk squirted from the mammaries of our welfare state and no one could claim they are being misdirected. But we still have grievances.

Call it the burden of secularism.

Free, Fearless Journalism ...

So, after furious backpedaling for over two years by the Government (which according to rumors may be headed by the Congress party), finally some moves are being made to bring back black money home. Lo and behold, now everybody and their chachaji wants to bring back black money home! Funny thing is, when the black money issue came up just before last elections, everybody and their auntyji said - well, various things.

Anyway, we digress.

As a trailer for supposedly bigger things to come, a number of individuals with accounts in the LGT bank of Liechtenstein, Germany, are being pursued. Tehelka claims it has "accessed" the list. Now, the original list had 18 names on it, Tehelka published only 15 with much fanfare and over the top triumphalism:

TEHELKA has accessed 16 of the 18 names, of which we are putting out 15 right now. These names include individuals as well as trusts. At this point, we are putting out 15 names without disclosing details like their addresses, the businesses they are involved in and the total money they have stored away in Liechtenstein. Abiding by the basic journalistic principle of proving the accused an opportunity to present their side of story, TEHELKA has approached each of these individuals involved and is awaiting their response. [link]

Now the intriguing question is, why 16? Why not all the 18? As such none of these individuals have been found guilty of any crime yet. So, like the Spectrum scam losses, their guilt is presumptuous. There are three possibilities as to why 16 and not 18:

(a) A metered leak from the Govt (allegedly headed by the Congress party)

(b) Leaked by a whistle-blower with only 16 names

(c) Leaked by a whistle blower, last two names too hot

These are situations which stretch your imagination and push their credibility or perhaps the other way around.

Anyway. Having gotten over that bit about 16/18, we are suddenly faced with a strange situation. If all 16 names had been accessed, why publish only 15? The question perhaps intrigued other individuals as well, Tehelka faced a barrage of queries.

• 16th name on 'The List' to be out in a few hours...
• More developments happening on the 16th name... Sorry to make you wait a little longer. Will keep you posted.
• Sincere apologies. Between developing stories and technological hiccups-- the two big stories planned for the day will have to wait :|
• No. 16 on the Swindlers List... Out in a few minutes... (This time for real)
• The 16th name on the Swindlers' List...

This is far more suspenseful than the Oscars and arguably about as entertaining.

These messages indicate the tremendous amount of emotional turmoil Tehelka folks must have been going through. In any case, Tehelka did indeed publish the 16th name on the list, more than 2 days after publishing the first 15.

The 16th name rated a full story of its own for some inexplicable reason, with loads of explanations. The 16th name happens to be a member of a large family run industrial house.

Now, Tehelka can not claim they were waiting for the individual to offer his side of the story, since the other 15 had not been given this opportunity. So, why was this name held up? The guy was too big? The fearless folks of Tehelka, supposedly crusaders for the small guys holds back the one big name on the list? Or is it perhaps religion? Or secularism? Or some other reason? Perhaps we will never know.

Religious Banking is here!

In a previous post, we had pointed out how India has progressively moved towards compliance of religious laws. As it stands now, India is nearly as compliant as Pakistan, certainly more compliant than Malaysia or Qatar.

By its ruling to allow religious banking/finance institutions, the Kerala High Court has opened up a whole new paradigm. But are we ready?

Sure enough, the current entity expects to operate wholly within the framework of Indian laws. But what does Indian law exactly mean? Who creates laws? The track record of our lawmakers starting from institutionalizing medieval religious practices through constitutional sanction to Shah Bano to more recent cases does not inspire any amount of confidence.

The most alarming aspect of the case is that this is not a private company trying to offer just another product with a largely superficial label, with not much consequence to anyone else. The entity in question is Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC), a state owned entity. The rationale being provided is absolutely bunkum - this is a real estate investment Public-private-partnership deal with a mutual fund type arrangement. Religious issues most certainly are not in the way of getting Gulf based Kerala diaspora into infrastructure - and this appears to be the primary pitch!

Secular blowhards have been trying to legalize religious banking for several years now, with The RBI steadfastly opposing such moves. For instance this report shows what a minefield this can quickly become in terms of regulations and bureaucratic overload. Even under the current arrangement, there will be regulatory costs. Someone has to pay for it. What if investments come a cropper? It would be too tempting to do a social justice bailout.

The reasons for this enthusiasm is quite clear. This type of moves are cheap popularity stunts performed for the M-Street. Additionally, the religious label will make sure law enforcement and financial regulatory bodies keep their hands off. Like most other religion tinged concepts, it will likely morph into a money laundering operation with other attendant ill effects.

We have let the camel's nose in the tent, the beast will come in.

The unbearable heaviness of secularism

Wednesday, January 12, 2011. In a couple of weeks time, the nation would celebrate its 62nd republic day with much fanfare. But here, the situation was grim, very different. In fact, the place looked like a mini battlefield. Large contingents of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Rapid Action Force (RAF) and city Police personnel had been deployed. The police used teargas shells and had to resort to lathi charges; the mob armed itself with brickbats and set fire to random things. Stone pelting, vandalism. Dozens of people were injured. The main arterial road, a National Highway no less, was blocked for over a 3-km stretch, causing major gridlocks in the area. The entire neighborhood was locked inside their homes, too scared to come out. The protests continued for two days ...

We wouldn't blame anyone for saying this sounds like a bad day in Srinagar. Only, it wasn't. It was right in the heart of our capital city, not far from where the rulers of the country, leaders of the designated secular/liberal party would participate in the Republic day celebrations. Only two weeks later.

So, with a secular/liberal party ruling the country and the city-state itself being ruled by the same preferred political dispensation, why the unease, why the aggravation? Also, why are so many folks from the chatterati class yet to wise up about the incident?

We will attempt to answer the second question first. Surely, the sheer scale of the incident rated a headline and a breaking story on the various TV news channels? But there was simply no mention of the incident on any of the news channels. Not a peep. This got us curious - we reached out to Barkha Dutt, senior editor of NDTV. She confirmed that all the TV channels decided to black out the incident and it was an NBA (News Broadcasters Association, a cartel of TV news channels) decision.

Needless to say, this is highly disturbing. TV news dominates the world view of most literate Indians and drives much of the opinion business. Ms. Dutt herself hosts several shows on her channel. Now, if important items like this are completely blacked out, what does it do to the reference point in any debate on national policy? After all, information is the key driver in many debates. Aren't we essentially killing any effective "debate" if we do away with about half the information? This is hardly an isolated case - dangerous riots in Miraj, Bareilly, Deganga and many other places are unceremoniously dumped on the floors of editing rooms.

* * *

The genesis of this trouble dates back to a quasi constitutional and extremely odd institution called the Waqf Board. Saba Naqvi's article [Edited for sensitivity]'s Left the Building is as good a resource as any for a quick intro. At 4 lakh acres, the Waqf board is the third largest landholder in the country, behind only railways and defense. The logic behind this institution is peculiar - Mughal era monarchs donated huge tracts of land for charitable purposes, following an established religious custom. After independence, all this land was put under the trust of Waqf board, and get this, for the EXCLUSIVE use of the community! Well, just whose land is it anyway?

Needless to say, the board leadership takes full advantage of this. Instead of putting the land to use for the benefit of the poor in the community, they do all sorts of sordid deals. Every once in a while our secular nation then replenishes the land, from the common pool.

Any time an illegal religious structure comes up for demolition, it is an opportunity for the Waqf board to acquire more land. The easily excitable faithful create enough trouble for the local administration to back off. This is exactly what happened in New Delhi.

* * *

As you can see, all this makes the BJP's so called flag yatra to Lal Chowk rather redundant, no matter which side of the issue you are on. By historical accident Kashmir just happens to be demographically skewed across one state. In every city, every hamlet, every corner of the country, we have thousands of mini Kashmirs. All these Kashmirs are really off limit for the state. The controlling elements of the community makes sure the larger population is held hostage to them. Progressive elements are hounded out, like they forced the newly elected leader of Deoband seminary to resign for going against the grain. Popular imagination is captured not by the likes of M. J. Akbar or Azim Premji, but by perpetual grievance mongers like Shabnam Hashmi. Human rights mafia led by the likes of Teesta Setalvad etc. ensure that the community remains in a state of constant paranoia. Secular politicians form the final link in this ecosystem - a community that prays together votes together. The cycle continues. We continue to have faux debates, armed with partial info.

* * *

So, what was the final outcome of the drama? We leave it as an exercise for the readers to figure out. It is there in the references.

References:

Facing contempt DDA demolishes Mosque
Mosque demolition causes protests, jams
Waqf attempt to grab land
Local Residents get threatening calls
Jama Masjid - secular leaders rush to woo community leaders
Demolished Mosque will be rebuilt - Sheila

21 years of exodus

Read more at: iKashmir.net

Week-o-leaks

Secularism as a concept died in India the day Rajiv married Sonia ....

Admittedly history could have taken many different paths. Rahul's grandmother and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi did not have to get killed in the hands of militants. Rahul's father "jeetenge ya loosenge" Rajivji would not have to leave his flying career and subsequently get killed by who we now know to be terrorists of another hue. But history took the course it had to and now we have Rahul snitching about "Hindu terrorists" to the US ambassador - according to leaked cables.

So, massaging and lazy explanations aside, the leaked cable confirms what we knew to be true for a while now - the Prince does not consider himself as one of us or more accurately, he does not consider us to be one of his. His vision for a future India solidly excludes us or at best reduces us to a body of cheap labor and clerical work. We have already seen from the Radia tapes how much collusion has taken place at the top. The exclusive officers' club has been built and its gate is being shut on our faces. If you want to pass through the strict face control, make sure you carry your Youth Congress card.

Remember Sonal Shah?

It is important to understand where the Prince derives his world view from. Obviously the biggest influence had to be the Queen, who after decades in India still remains ill at ease with Hindi. According to another leaked cable, the usually reticent and aloof Queen poured her heart out to California first lady Maria Shriver to such an extent that they titled the cable - "A garrulous Sonia Gandhi opens up to Maria Shriver". So here we have Italian Mama gabbing to her Germanic cousin. History may not repeat itself but it sure does flirt with memory.

In her conversation Sonia clearly comes off as a person on a civilizing mission. But we digress.

Sonal Shah was the Indian American woman who made news for becoming one of the first persons of South Asian extract to be made part of President Obama's transition team. Soon she was to find out blood is thicker than water. We all know who was behind the ghastly, nefarious and apocryphal campaign against Sonal Shah, as also against The Times of India reporter Balakrishna.

The idea is very simple and alluring. The vast millions of soft office jobs that so many of us covet (and upon landing such a job think the world of ourselves) - you can easily take out a large part of competition in one fell sweep. All you need to do is create a demand for an absurd and nearly impossible to prove moral requirement. Then either you are the right color (figuratively speaking), or you must show the Youth Congress card.

The worldly contact of the Prince largely comprise of the people behind that campaign. What might they be telling the Prince?

Squeezing the Free Agent voters:

Like most political parties in the World, the Congress party realizes the mortal danger "free agent" voters present to them. The first most visible of these were rather absurdly the so called NRIs. Congress and its minions went hammer and tongs at them. Old issues of The Outlook magazine still carries those articles - they provide good comic relief. The second source of free agent voters are produced by the Education system. Having received a drubbing once from the NDA dispensation, UPA realized the dire need to squeeze these obstinate types. They launched a multi-pronged approach.

- The first consists of completely destroying the primary education sector so that - (a) Missionary schools flourish (b) Changing the curriculum so that the "right" values are inculcated from an early age. The RTE act was designed to bring about this change.

- The second consists of destroying the Entrance test based system and gradually replacing it with a strong secular filter such as an interview. Efforts are on in this area but currently suspended due to the unfortunate portfolio reallocation due to the 2G scam.

- The third is to formally introduce religious quotas in education. Already we have minority institutions. Conversion, where possible, is underway - for instance a century old Agricultural institute suddenly got renamed and its students even took out a religious procession!

Already top posts in Government and bureaucracy are being strictly face controlled (eg CVC). In the Indian Administrative Services interviews for instance, the only right answer to "who was the all time great ruler of India" - is Akbar the great.

Free agent voter reduction program, aside from achieving the demographic rengineering goals has the extra advantage - 2G, CWG etc are much easier to pull. Everything stays in one happy extended family.

On ground tactical aspects and International intrigue:

The biggest obstacle to pushing through special privileges for the community proved to be raw data. There was no way to massage this to manufacture a "deprived" victim status for the community. Call it Sachar envy. Soon this was largely mitigated - large number of poor people, like cattle was head counted and factored into stats. Even this proved inadequate. This is why the Kandhamal incident was engineered. Now we have a new victim category with refugees and dead people to show for! Take that, Kashmiri Pandits!

Then of course we always have the UN route - if you do not let us rule, we will complain to the UN. Already the High Court in Gujarat has taken strong exception to certain Human Rights groups making unwarranted complains to the UN. The leaked cable proves this strategy can be and will be extended if UPA loses a national poll in the future.

In other words, in one sense, Rahul Gandhi might have simply been preparing a hedge against future election defeat when a quasi-legal internationally supported maneuver could still help retain power.

In Conclusion

If the above sounds too conspiratorial to you, we have two points to make. First, just because you can not see a glacier move does not mean it is not moving. The signs are too ominous to ignore. Second, when Digvijay Singh with his wild conspiracy theories becomes the leading mentor of India's future PM and consequently his conspiracy theories are all but tacitly approved by the High Command, it is no longer a conspiracy theory. The fact that they sanction such views is reason enough for alarm and caution.

Secular Hindus must make a hard call at this juncture. If they do not want to end up like Buddhists in South Korea or Hong Kong, the time to act has arrived. A few generations later it might be too late. Remember that "I am not very religious" "I am an atheist" etc. cuts mustard only with Hindus.

We refuse to succumb to fashionable concepts. We refuse to accept ANY absurd moral requirement dictated to us by people with vested interests or otherwise hostile to us. We reserve the right to act as we please within the Indian legal and constitutional framework and ... TO HELL WITH YOUR SECULARISM!

BARKHAGATE: What's up with Barkha Dutt

* * * EXCLUSIVE: Barkha Dutt's response to hitherto undiscussed tape * * *

The 110 odd tapes that have been released from the cache of about 5000 contain conversations with or references to dozens of journalists. But none have taken the issue to heart as much as Barkha Dutt has. She has taken the battle to the front lines - engaging directly with her social networking fandom, responding with a sense of righteous indignation. This is however at great variance with her TV channel - which continues the blackout till date.

Unfortunately for Barkha Dutt, her online responses combined with continued blackout on TV has raised more eyebrows than the tapes actually did. For instance, RCR being the OB van etc. We have no way to confirm this but people speculate RCR is Race Course Road (PM's residence). Someone suggested journalists sometimes refer to OB vans by their location.

Since the issue has been discussed endlessly, both on and off TV - we will focus on certain aspects that we feel were not adequately covered. We will use Barkha Dutt's response on NDTV website as a reference.

1. Like Vir Sanghvi, Barkha has also taken great issue that she is being selectively picked for reasons she attributes to personal vendetta. Both have hinted at conspiracies.

2. Unlike Vir Sanghi however, she flat out denies that she was actually asked to pass on any message:

Barkha: AT NO STAGE WAS I EVER ASKED TO PASS ON ANY MESSAGE TO INTERCEDE ON BEHALF OF A PARTICULAR MINISTER OR PORTFOLIO. NOT ONCE, WAS I ASKED TO "LOBBY" FOR A. RAJA. NOT ONCE WAS I ASKED TO CARRY ANY MESSAGE REGARDING HIM OR ANY OTHER APPOINTMENT.

Contrast with Vir Sanghvi: One conversation relates to a call Radia made to me [..] but the problem was that nobody was speaking to Karunanidhi directly. Could I pass this on to Congress leaders? I had no intention of passing along the information but I strung her along and said I would ...

3. Both Barkha and Vir Sanghvi allude to tape doctoring or editing in a manner suggestive of manipulation or outright fraud, Vir more strongly than Barkha:

Barkha: "The edited conversations" - "Oh God, What should I tell them", is in fact two separate sentences ...

Vir: They seemed to me to have been doctored (I said so last week in a statement on my website). I then listened to the actual tapes. There were gaps, words had been deleted, whole chunks of conversation had been removed and there was an obvious malafide attempt to cause mischief.

4. Here we come to the most interesting part - so far all discussions related to Barkha Dutt were based on the tapes released by The Outlook on a single page. These are the tapes that Barkha Dutt bases her response on.

But one more tape contains a discussion with Barkha Dutt. Unlike the other tapes, which are dated 22 May, 2009, this tape was recorded on 9 July, 2009:

Conversation between Barkha Dutt, Managing Editor, NDTV and Manoj Modi, the right hand man of Mukesh Ambani, July 9, 2009, 4.14.11 p.m [AUDIO]: (Transcript mostly via Indiasreport)

Radia: Barkha, one second, Manoj (Modi) wants to speak to you.

Manoj: Hi Barkha, sorry couldn’t say bye to you yesterday night. Parimal (Nathwani, Rajya Sabha member from Jhakhand) was remembering you yesterday night.

Barkha: Oh, he , he once saved my life on the plane you know. It was nice to meet you, Manoj, kabhi aap ko fursat hoga toh we should meet araam se (whenever you are free we should meet freely), without the crowd.

Manoj: yeah, yeah, we will meet, but Parimal is my cousin brother, I have brought Parimal to Reliance.

Barkha: Reallyyyy!!! I didn’t know that, ohh, I didn’t know that, ohhh.

Manoj: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Barkha: You please give him my regards, aur aap kabhi dilli aaye toh fursat mein, not that you have any thing like fursat, but if ever you—

Manoj: No, no,no, you know I never come to Delhi, but I came only for this ... last night, only for this purpose I have come.

Barkha: It was very helpful Manoj, it was really very helpful. But then maybe main aapke saath ... ( gets disconnected).

This tape throws a new light of sorts on the whole issue. From her response, Barkha appears to suggest her conversations with Niira Radia took place only during the cabinet formation, in May 2009. However, this particular conversation takes place more than a month later. Reading this transcript along with Barkha's response throws the latter somewhat out of gear.

We were very curious about how did the person Nirmal once saved her life on a plane. So, we reached out to her and this is the response we received:

Ma'am, could you expand on "he once saved my life on the plane you know" ...

Barkha: ?? is this a scandal, that someone helped me on a plane when i fell sick. for gods sake. This discourse is now absurd

That's about as far as we got and needless to say we have to take her word for it.

5. Barkha Dutt's claim related to NDTV coverage of 2G scam:

It is simply scandalous that we first came to know about the spectrum scam from a blog. Check out the date of the first post on RealityCheck on the subject - December 12, 2008.

In her response, Barkha Dutt cites her "consistently hard-hitting and scathingly critical of the ongoing 2G scam and the former Telecom Minister" as proof that she could not possibly have lobbied for the man. We are not saying she did, one way or another - but the issue that we have is with her claim. She provides a list of shows in her response. We provide three graphics below and let you decide whether this is a fair coverage of the largest scam ever (~$40 B) in the country or whether her claim of "hard-hitting and scathingly critical" coverage stands up to scrutiny:

(please click on the images for a larger version)

BARKHAGATE: When news manufacturers become news

Run, rabbit run
Dig that hole, forget the sun
And when at last the work is done
Don't sit down
It's time to dig another one

- Breathe, Pink Floyd

It is telling that much of the shock and awe surrounding the so called "Radia Tapes" aka "barkhagate" involves the news industry and some of its most revered icons. This should really have been a sideshow, the real story is the massive scams and systematic loot of the country and the wholesale destruction of institutions by the ruling UPA dispensation. However, cutting Indian mainstream media down to size was also necessary and somewhat inevitable.

Consider the following:

• This year alone, NSUI and "Youth" Congress activists indulged in dozens of acts of vandalism. How many did you see on the TV ticker?
• In the past couple of years, dangerous riots occurred in Miraj, Bareilly, Farakka, Deganga and many more places. How many do you recall?
• Based on the coverage of politics, why does it feel that BJP and not the Congress party is running the Government?
• It has been revealed that the Karnataka CM (BJP) used his "discretionary" quota to grant lands to his kids. Subsequently we learn the practice has been around for decades. Why do we learn about this now?
• Should media give equal emphasis to scams worth tens of billions of dollar and those worth a few million?

Rasheeda Bhagat writes:

Readers of the print media and television viewers are strange creatures. Most of them are generous in heaping encomiums on their favourite reporters, columnists or anchors. Despite growing cynicism and scepticism about the media, unfortunately, most people in India tend to take the written or broadcast word as gospel truth. So, any journalist with good articulation skills, flamboyance and a dash of glamour — oh yes, glamour is important in the electronic media, ask the plain Janes and they'll tell you horror stories on this aspect — can catch the fancy or admiration of thousands of followers. (emphasis added)

In our view, that is the real scandal of Indian media and journalism.

Much of it comes from the explosive growth and extreme visibility of news anchors. They keep getting industry and national awards. They also become part of international junkets and foreign think tanks which wield great influence on policy. They also seem to be raking in crores. As a result, in our aspirational society, where chances of escaping "darkness" without resorting to "white tiger" type tactics is rather thin, they start to seem like demigods. The way the urban white collar middle class teens fawn over these media icons is astonishing, you could strike some of these awestruck specimens down with a rose petal.

Indian journalists exploited this factor to the hilt by building loose fan networks by pretending to be accessible. In a society where connections and plugs go their distance, they also managed to coopt so called independent media - a plug for profuse praises for a show or an article. Thus their influence far exceeded the reach of television both in terms of coverage and influence.

The gory details in the tapes reveal they might have also exploited their proximity to businesses and politicians to their full advantage, bartering favorable coverage for favors ranging from the trivial to the substantial to the much more serious - possible insider trading tips.

Possible effect on Indian Media

The "barkhagate" tapes initially had a deer in the headlights type of effect on MSM - when the young and still idealistic Open Magazine broke ranks and went ahead with the story. The OutLook magazine soon followed suit. The impact on the Indian netizens was instantaneous and devastating. Various related topics started trending on social networking sites and continues to trend till this day. After an initial period of blackout, various news channels have started covering the incident - but metering it carefully. Some channels like NDTV, whose star journo Barkha Dutt was among those "stung", continues the blackout.

Let's take a step back and look at the media situation in other countries: in the US for instance, journalism commands very poor respect from the public. A recent Rasmussen poll reveals that Americans regard journalism as one of the least respected professions, after their lawmakers and CEOs. In this regard, American public has been pretty consistent over the years. This merely shows the maturity and pragmatism of the electorate, which, needless to say has been a crucial factor in the country's destiny.

The second important factor about the US news industry is the dramatic shift of power from organized media towards crowd sourced media. Today, at least half of all Americans consume news from what they consider more trustworthy sources of news - news aggregates, blogs, alt websites and social networks. High traffic websites on both sides of the political aisle not only thrive but increasingly referred to by the MSM itself. Alternate news sites have come up in many countries including Japan, South Korea etc. and act as governors which keeps the MSM honest.

The self-evident fact that BarkhaGate must have been powered by not just political detractors but a large portion of Indian netizens, including former fans of Ms Barkha Dutt, gives us hope that at least in the the credibility department, we are seeing a course correction in the right direction. Now every time you read a story or see a TV report, you can not but wonder about the phone calls that might have preceded it. As a matter of fact, this has been an ongoing process - Indian MSM has been slowly losing credibility over the years as this blog post shows - India's trust in media down by 7%.

As far as alternate sources of news is concerned, it will have to be seen - we fear that various Congress party affiliated outfits or NGOs might hijack this most opportune moment. This is a battle that must be fought till the bitter end. Beware of lifelong Congress supporters or connected people suddenly claiming to be "disgusted" by the "system" and launching a website - inviting you to be a part of the change etc. Remember, even Tehelka started out as a "free and fearless" website. Look what happened - sample this (if pressed for time, search for "Tarun") and ponder.

Next Up: What's up with Barkha Dutt?

Remembering 26/11 - Missiles, not Mombattis

Two years ago, a belligerent neighboring country launched a pre-planned, deliberate and deadly terror attack on Indian soil. The attack resulted in hundreds of casualties in our largest metro, at the heart of our financial capital.

The Indian response to it was to organize rallies by Left-Liberal secular crowds. With candles in their hands, they insulated the political fallout and prevented the true state of the disgusting rot within our security apparatus from reaching the aam aadmi. Some of those journalists who now find themselves in an uncomfortable situation (aka #barkhagate), carefully metered and steered public opinion.

Ever since the attacks, we indulged in a series of comical "diplomatic" moves. The Secular hard left lobby became even more chummy with their "civil society" counterparts from the belligerent country. The offending country received even greater foreign aid and now actually possesses the capability to harm our nation even more. Complicity of certain Indian citizens in the attacks were never seriously pursued.

• We summarily reject these bogus gestures of the corrupt Indian Government.
• We reject the crocodile tears and overtures of their "civil society", for we find them merely an extension of their corrupt, morally decrepit Military-Industrial-Jihadi complex.
• We reject any notion of friendship, Track II, goodwill, Aman-ki-Asha and any such bullshit.
• We strongly protest ridiculous attempts to connect this with Kashmir or social justice issues by a section of Indian "liberals".

Above all, we reject any calls for candle light vigil - as far as we are concerned, candles are items with the flame at the wrong end.

A few thoughts on Micro Finance

This post is about the general concept of Micro Finance as opposed to Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs), although we will also discuss the latter.

At the heart of every credit business lies the same and incredibly simple fundamental principle. The lender needs to make a certain amount of money on his loans. In a world with no defaults and no fraud, all loans would bear the same interest rate, adjusting for term of course. But people often default on their loans and there is also considerable fraud. So, when you are paying that high "EMI", you are paying for the next person's incompetence or criminal intent. You are the default sucker.

This is the first of the two ironies of the credit business. The second is also obvious - credit is not easily available to people who need it the most, i.e. poor people.

Micro Finance was sprung upon us by the UN, NGOs, various do gooders and even some nasty rich turned "philanthropic" type people as the panacea for the latter evil. It came with lofty promises and was duly awarded the Nobel prize too.

The story went something like this: Kalavati needed to raise her kids. She did not have sustainable income from the patch of land she owned and lived on. Enter the Micro Finance (the concept). Soon Kalavati is raising chickens, selling eggs, even omelets to day laborers returning from the field at dusk. In short she went from being the poor widow waiting for salvation to a veritable entrepreneur, a bourgeois! How did this magic happen? Simple, someone gave her a loan of Rs. 1000/- and a booklet Chicken Farming for dummies. This story ends nicely, Kalavati even pays back her loan.

There are two obvious problems with this story. The first is, how do we know this woman is truly the poor downtrodden widow she claims to be? The second is, if there is a demand for eggs in that village, how likely is it that someone is already not selling them? In short, for MF to be successful, we still need to fix the original problems.

MF proponents want to conquer these problems with the help of an army of volunteers or SHGs. With person to person contact, they want to achieve better weeding and also to find unexploited opportunities (chicken farm). The first is easier to achieve with physical verification, but the cost is high and unaccounted for since it is ultimately passed on to the tax payers. The second is extremely doubtful, except under extenuating circumstances. If there are unrealized returns, it will soon be exploited by someone until none is left at all.

The fact that Micro Finance Institutions are charging the same high rates as moneylenders proves that accounting for overheads, defaults and after adding the purported benefits of unexploited opportunities, as a concept, Micro Finance is not generating value over what normal economic factors would predict. In addition, much of the nastiness surrounding the rural credit business continues to exist even with organized Micro Finance institutions.

We should have opened up the rural credit sector to organized private sector in the first place, but we wanted to protect the rural poor from exploitation. After decades of exploitation, lost productivity and stagnation we finally did open up the rural credit sector but put a pretty weird spin and highly questionable moral tone to it. Isn't socialism just wonderful?

Swaminathan Aiyar argues that we should still allow the MFIs to operate even after the "shocking" discovery they can be as heartless as the rural moneylender and the resultant indignation of the social justice wallahs. We agree, there is simply no reason to not let organized and better monitored operators make rural credit when we know that moneylenders can not be stopped anyway.

Of course, Mr. Aiyar has nothing to fear. MFIs will emerge as the next big thing in our crony socialistic portfolio. Since much of the action happens away from the chatterati, this business will thrive with politicians staking a big claim to it. The overheads will be passed on to NGOs and ultimately the tax payers. Occasional loan waivers etc. will soon follow, also paid for by tax payers. Village vote marshals will double up as loan collection agents and a win win scenario will emerge for the right people.

Who let the dogs out?

A dog walks past Mike Fennell, president of Commonwealth Games Federation

People are ostensibly upset over the tragic-comic events of the CWG unfold before our eyes. It is a combination of law of averages catching up (foot bridge collapse), the stark reality that socialism simply does not work (dog poo on the beds in the athletic village) and massive levels of denial (the non-terror attack).

It actually took international criticism for our media to actually realize that the village was a dud. Conversely, the message could not be controlled this time since it went beyond the scope of state controlled media. Thus, oh what a a shocker!

Of course the socialists will tell you that none of these matters - a Government that can not build a decent athletic village for a smallish international games meet in its capital city (and Governed by its star CM) can administer a gargantuan scheme like NREGA successfully across the nation.

As country after country, athlete after athlete pull out of the game, watch our media honchos (many of whom actually have a real financial stake in the loot - more on it later, watch this space) scramble for the proper verbiage to tell us that it really is our collective shame.

Exactly how? Aren't we the communal greedy unneeded people relegated to the sidelines while The Crown Prince traipses around the countryside as his Momma the Queen watches over an able bodied administration like a Guardian Angel that sends poor children to school, feeds the hungry and (most importantly) keeps us at bay?

CWG pierces the narrative, it is a peripheral event that will soon be lost to memory and obscured by TV overload. It is the dog that escaped the catcher.

The Judiciary strikes back ....

As usual, the recent Supreme Court order on food grain distribution triggered a deluge of editorials, TV shows and commentary.

What we find interesting is not the order per se, but the curious evolution of the dynamics between the Judiciary and the Executive/Legislative branches of the Government.

The key issue in Indian politics is the regime of ad hoc and unmonitored benefits, as blogger RealityCheck has chronicled on his blog. Ad hoc benefits directed to minorities or "caste" groups, even when thinly disguised by catch phrases like "classes" is de jure unconstitutional. As a matter of fact, a modern Constitutional Democratic Republic (CDR) can not have any incentives tied to social groups. The Liberal Democratic Republic (LDR) works around this problem by secondary activism, whereby pressure tactics and intense propaganda causes public opinion to steer so much as to threaten the functioning of the state.

Compromises are struck and the public is served a full load of BS, by a group of bureaucrats whose key qualification is that they can keep a straight face amid the stench.

Invariably, when CDR trends towards becoming an LDR, the Judiciary conflicts with the other two branches. In well functioning countries, Legislative eventually sides with Judiciary since opposition parties do not want to be railroaded. In other words it balances out. Executive proposes, Judiciary opposes. If executive goes too far out, political opponents exert pressure via Legislature. In other words, in order to work around the constitution, the Executive branch needs to overcome both political as well as legal challenges.

In Banana (or Pasta, if you like) republics, ALL political parties want to create their own social justice groups. Contrary to secular propaganda, even the BJP holds regular Iftaar parties, promises loads of stuff to minorities - thus, in this ruinous journey all parties are but Humsaafars.

In this way, in India, the judiciary comes into direct conflict with the executive.

We saw this come to a head in the apex court during the "OBC reservations in central institutions" issue. After several months of duking it out, the court finally gave in. The verdict had a resigned tone about it which was not surprising, coincidentally during this time the issue of asset declaration of Judges came to the fore. It was clear that the executive was willing to go to extreme lengths.

The current Supreme Court order on grain distribution is interesting because here the court has deliberately trespassed into executive territory by using the biggest trump card in an LDR poker game - social justice for the poor. This has caused much public hand wringing by the Manmohan Singh Govt. It will be interesting to see the moves of the court in the days to come.