True Cost of a war

Most of us who live a war only from a distance don't really realize what it means to live under the shadows of guns. No wonder some of most war hating people I have met have been armed forces (Indian) guys.

There are Brave (Wo)Men Too

My impression of Pakistani civil society is mostly of a society in denial and worst actually sympathetic to militants. Witness Imran Khan and so many other politicians who one would have expected to be liberals who actually support Jihadists overtly. That does not take away the fact that there are voices of dissent who see this as in fact a fight between obscurantism and liberal ethos, between warped notions of morality and a right to freedom for each, between good and evil.
Given the state of Pakistan I think most of the people who are actively espousing looking inwards are probably much more brave that most of us outsiders realize. Compare say the Indian media with Pakistan media. While by and large our media is free, often critical of government, I have not really seen too many biggies actually take on government when we invariably always end up blaming Pakistan. How many of our media groups actually champion the cause of human rights?
On the other hand I find Dawn almost always balanced. look here and here. The News is again fairly well balanced. And given the state of Pakistani society which has probably genuine sympathy to Jihadi groups, a super powerful security establishment that the rest of the world justifiably believe to be Jihadist and terrorists itself, and an executive that is at best ineffectual, on an average complicit with terrorists, it takes a lot of courage to point the accusatory finger inwards.
I wish we too have more media houses becoming as brave. In terms of individuals we all have heard of Asma Jehangirs of Pakistan and many activists within India so there we can still take hope that individuals in India still bravely battle the system, but in terms of mainstream coverage I think our media, especially TV is hopelessly out of tune with reality. Except from page3 kind of reporting there is very little actual news coverage. The the coverage often reeks of agenda.
Times Now - channel I earlier liked because well they did try and cover news now reminds me of Fox news of US. While yes a whole host of India and world's problems emanate from Pakistan, can we actually have a more nuanced discussion rather than simply calling them liars and duplicitous over and over again? CNN-IBN the other channel that I watch for news is somewhat fairer but again I do not see the kind of reporting that say Geo TV (that broke the story of Kasab's family being in Pakistan and first shots of his being Pakistani) does in Pakistan. Other Indian new channels are a travesty of news where breaking news might be a detailed coverage of what Rakhi Sawant wore to a party!
So long as there are these brave souls in Pakistan who risk life to show reality to Pakistani society there is still hope. Now to wish the same for India.

Lets follow the due process of Law

I am saddened that in their zeal to show their patriotism, some parties and many people have forced lawyers not to take on the cases of Kasab. Infact many bar associations have been guilty of such misplaced enthusiasm. If memory serves me right after the Nithari case too, UP bar association passed a resolution asking lawyers not to defend the accused.
A cardinal principal of rule of law is that accused be given a chance to defend him/herself and when lawyer associations of all try to force its members to go against it, its sad. A lawyer does not merely try to save a client, (s)he is an officer of the court charged with helping a court reach the truth and deliver justice. Let a lawyer serve the man and let the court decide how to punish.
Rule of mob, politicians, emotions will only make us stoop to the level we accuse these terrorists/Taliban of falling.

Its a Billion? 100 Billion? Its a Potato!

Zimbabwe introduces a 100 billion dollar bill! Hard to imagine that. Why not simply re-designate the 1 dollar bill to be equivalent to 100 billion dollar and save some paper? Given that the new bill will not even buy a loaf of bread it really makes me think how do business decide on price. If the 'official' inflation at 2.2 million percent is anything to go by, what you charge today will be too cheap tomorrow so how do you decide on a price?
Why not peg your prices to say a kilogram of say potatoes? While it will surely be comic to write on the plaque - this building costing a billion potato was dedicated to the glory of revolution by President Mugabe, it will also serve a reminder to future how an incompetent government can quickly ruin a rich country. A reminder we in India can do with. It might help us who are fortunate to live in a much more stable economy (at least as yet) to make sense of prices. And bring the much needed recognition to the veggie that has staved starvation for many.
Incidentally its a shame that the world has not done enough, a UN resolution being blocked by two of our own best friends Russia and China. I wonder why do votaries of morality in international politics that so eagerly jump on each Indian move with US as evil don't comment on that?

Updated Jul 30.
Apparently their reserve bank thought so too. They have introduced a new currently where 1 new Z$== Z$ 100 Billion of old. (Read is here on BBC). Potato has been denied its own currency

Why the farce

The farce being played out over the Indo-US nuclear deal while having huge entertainment value, is also instructive in its causes. The primary reasons I think on this is Congress's political incompetence matched by monumental hubris with another that we'll also discuss.
Hubris because as far as I can see, I saw no real effort in Congress trying to reach out to opposition (SP leaders even said it in so many words) and build a consensus over its merits. The same argument that goes that Left is guilty if they vote with BJP just because its BJP probably was at play or not. Lets assume both Left and BJP here have no hidden agenda and seriously think the deal is severely detrimental to Indian interest. So should the Left vote for the deal merely because BJP is opposing it even while fully believing that a party with national interest in mind will oppose it? The argument is dangerous in extreme. So if the only reason Congress did not talk to BJP overtly is this than God help India. Here you have 2 parties that together have been given more than 1/2 of all votes polled in India not talking even on matters of supreme national interest because of some new untouchability? This is both incompetence on Congress's part and monumental hubris if they thought that opposition's views never matter.

That is what comes of Congress's Durbari culture. Those who matter in the party are not those who understand politics or have talents useful to nation. They are there because they swear undying loyalty to the family. No wonder they seriously overestimated their hand and seriously underestimated the play of parochial interest that is so in our genes. But that is not the only juvenile political decision. Last year when the difference with Left first came out in open all the commentators were saying call the left's bluff and go for the kill. If Congress had actually gone in for the deal then they would have in all probability got a much bigger deal.

The fact is that the international momentum over the deal has largely fizzled out. Last year India would have had an upper hand in negotiations, now the government if it survives will still be perceived as a weak government that can fizzle out. Furthermore given the politics over the deal the impression is that plenty in India want to kill it which will give fodders to those opposed to deal internationally. Domestically the economy was doing very well, things were under control.
As the conventional wisdom says economic policy decisions take around 3 years to reflect in numbers. The good run till last year was more because of good fortune of favorable global outlook and earlier policies. Inflation of today is because of unfavorable global outlook and the supreme inaction of an emasculated government that had no substantial reform happening. Global outlook is out of our control but Manmohan Singh should have figured out that lack of reforms will come to haunt at some time.
Congress should have realized last year that BJP will not want an election while the economy was blazing and a feel good mood was around. Further more BJP as a party was moribund. left just had had Nandigram and Singrur and they would have hated an election even more. Granted Karat has never fought an election and hence doesn't care about public opinion but the Left governments in states do. They might have just backed out.

Congress has also been grossly incompetent in not emphasizing the various facets of the deal. It because for Left- a strategic alliance with US - which it is but its only a part of the whole, for others it was about energy which is also extremely important for a power starved India. But the deal is more than just that. For one, its about gaining entry to nuclear commerce club where US is not the only country. More importantly it opens doors to all sorts of dual use technologies. Indian scientists and engineers will be allowed to study such technologies in top foreign institutes. Dual use things like special alloys, fertilizers, space tech, military tech, doors will open to all sorts of collaboration with various leaders in the fields to India. Top talent can come over from abroad and work in Indian firms that will help raise the standard of cutting edge in India. Where is the even mention of all these things by the government.

The 3rd reason is BJP's own petty chagrin. As an MP in the Lok Sabha debate so eloquently put it the BJP's opposition is not because of substance of the deal, its because Advani's signature is not on it. There are reports in media of NSA and Manmohan briefing key leaders of BJP and those leaders accepting that the deal is very well done. Yet BJP chose to oppose the deal because of petty reasons.

The very fact that a party that has its base in urban India (arguably the future India) has nearly killed the deal that it itself started and knows is in national interest merely to score points, deserves itself being sent into political oblivion. The fact that I who hated the dynastic culture of Congress now hope that BJP is voted out humiliatingly should be a lesson to such parties. Those who are sent to parliament are supposed to work for the nation. If they are willing to sell out the nation of a mere red light on an antiquated car, they have no place in public life. And more than Congress which is mostly incompetent in this saga, it is BJP that acted evil and deserves to be taught a lesson.

Updated: Sometime later in the day:
A news report said that Ajit Singh and Dev Gowda have commented that Government seems to be winning and so they cannot predict how (their) voting shall go. Dev Gowda apparently has asked for Sonia's time later today. These leaders where in discussions with Both Government and opposition had publically gone anti government. Now that govt seems to be carrying the motion they are thinking of switching sides.
Translation: Sorry we made a wrong move but doesn't matter. You can hand over your money to us now.
Boy T20 wasn't half as much fun as this.

Maybe this time they will investigate

Jaipur was hit by serial blasts. An event that would have shook the nation wildly but for the fact that its become a regular occurring event. All politicians are playing the blame game. States blame center, center blames states, BJP blames Congress, Congress blames BJP and people will die on.
Meanwhile our VIPs will continue playing the give me more security game. The status of a VIP is rated by how many security personnel they have. A lowly one gets like 18! policemen, higher ones may get more than 100! How does sheer number helps doesn't make itself clear to me but apparently the Kings know it so they keep increasing their security detail numbers while blaming lack of policemen for crime investigation and prevention.
After all the government will get time to pay attention to citizen deaths once the ministers get time from writing letters to other ministries to corner government largess for the family, or after settling the burning issues of cricket. It seems every state's cricket body is headed by a minister or erstwhile minister. J&K has Farrukh Abdullah, Bihar has Laloo, Sharad Pawar is the head of BCCI.
But there may be a silver lining here. Today's TOI mentioned that many Australian cricketers were planning to return back post the blasts. That'll deal a blow to T20 which is cricket's latest money spinner. We know that politicos in India care only for money and cricket. So it might be a double whammy for them. This might just about make them try and work on prevention of such activities, at least in places important to cricket.
We can dream.

Sham Democracy

Manohar Joshi, the ex Lok Sabha Speaker in an interview post his book "1B" launch mentions that often passengers were too scared to talk to him when they realized that they were sitting next to a Shiv Sena MP. An MP (speaker of House of representatives no less) is feared because of which party he belongs to and that party is a registered political party! Speaks volumes about how our democracy has degenerated.

Another MP, cabinet minister and in charge of "human resources including education" swears that he pledged his loyalty to the family and will remain true to it and that is how he is judged. Please not, he does not mentions he pledged to constitution or to safeguard India's interest but of the "family". Does no one finds it odd that loyalty to a "family" and its rewards being ministerial births a slapping insult to democracy? Was this why people shed blood to liberate this country, why Patel and and Nehru worked to get the kings away from deciding citizen's destiny? If this is not an insult to us and our constitution than what is? But I am sure we will vote in the same people who will reward his subversion of democracy with more power.

Then we have our ackowledged security experts, our scientists (and those not dependent on political masters to continue in job) touting the nuclear deal, other defense agreements, oil pipelines only to have the political masters (including one who traveled in a Jet to Taliban, gifted them mangoes and lots of freed terrorists) citing Kalam's competence to judge the nuke deal? or left who opposed India's nuclear program but support's Iran and want India to support it no matter what the political costs?

Or Das Gupta of CPI who said Dalai Lama has insulted India by being political when the gentleman says he is not against China owning Tibet but want cultural genocide to end? His party and its ilk actually compared Tibet to Kashmir. As far as I know India is not illegally occupying Tibet tho China does have parts of Kashmir ceded to it by Pakistan. As far as I know Kashmir does not let rest of Indians buy land there while Tibet is probably now Han majority? Will the communists allow India to follow the same policy in Kashmir as China in Tibet (after all these are similar cases as per dear commies of India)?

Non resident resident

There is a recent report of an MP involved in some controversy in delaying an aircraft. What I find interesting is that the said member of Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Indian Parliament) is apparently an NRI based in Dubai.
Isnt it an eligibility criteria that the candidate for a RS seat be a 'resident' of the state? How is a non resident Indian a member of a house of parliament meant only for residents of a state. While it may be legal because he is a citizen, isn't it against the spirit of the house?

Olympic torch in India and Tibet protests

India does have a delicate balancing act in the whole Tibetan - China issue that is right now taking the world's center stage. While justice demands that we strongly oppose the cultural annihilation of Tibet being conducted by China, real politic demands that the government conducts itself with India's best interest in mind and not being guided by emotions.
That said as a genuine democracy India must not repress any peaceful protest against China or the Olympic torch. Democracy as the most participative of the current political systems needs to emerge a winner here. So all the security and all being planned for the torch relay into India is fine, let no harm come to the torch that is a symbol of human athletic achievements.
At the same time nothing should stop us from letting peaceful protests happen in background. What is the harm is allowing black armbands? Or people staging plays depicting the concern in the backdrop of a torch and our TV covering it? Will China like it? Of course not. But so long as the torch is not harmed we must be firm. No one respects a lap dog, a lesson many of our senior politicians and powers to be will do well to realize. Yes China will fret and fume and that is their right. And it is our right to show how a competent democracy works and how people are free to do their will in India so long as they do it peacefully,.
China will respect a confident India and not a groveling India.

ITIs and not IITs are the answer

Read about this interesting proposal in Outlook India. I have been wondering about the same issue for some time now. Based on my own experience of trying to hire software engineers I can say most colleges including some of the very popular Engineering colleges in the country are totally clueless about teaching real skills. Most guys can't think of solving simple problems, while they may regurgitate a perfect textbook answer stumbled when acted to apply it to simplest of real world problems. And we are talking some of the countries top engineering (except maybe the IITs and some erstwhile RECs) colleges. I can only imagine the level of engineering education in the small town colleges.
Again my own experience of studying in the major University has not been the most pleasant. Baring a few teachers, more didn't know how to make a topic interesting and almost none could relate theory to practice. No wonder we are a nation of mere drone workers and not of researchers. There is an understandable worry also reflected in media now about and impending skills shortage while millions remain unemployed and unemployable. But while we see a lot of jaw jaw happening on skills shortage in IT and such high skilled vocations not enough attention is being paid to a lack of training into vocational courses for the real poor.

Agriculture still employs like 60% of India. No amount of poverty alleviation programs will work unless we address such a skewed number. Most of such workers I guess are mere labourers who well having no other vocational skill work on pure manual labor. Meanwhile construction industry in India (again among the largest employers of real poor Indians) finds an acute shortage of skilled labour like plumbers/carpenters/electricians. Try getting someone skilled to do any sort of repair work at home and you'll realize that lack of training is a real concern. If we can train even 10% of this segment in the next 5 years that will mean something like 30 million people who end up trained skilled labour! That also means 30 million less people dependent on pure agriculture jobs (though many might end up working as pump repairers, tractor repairers etc which will add a lot of value to that sector too and actually generate a lot of employement for rural folks).
Currently there are only about 5000-6000 ITIs in India. And numbers don't tell the true story. A look at statewise figures reveal that the industrialized states like Karnataka, TamilNadu, Maharastra have almost double the number (range of 600-800) ITIs than the most populous states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (300 and 98!) respectively. No wonder UP and Bihar mostly yield only unskilled labour since the training institutes simply don't exist. While I could not find average student intake in ITIs, some information mentioned a batch of 10-20 students for some specialized courses. Digging deeper there are around 50000 industrial units associated with the ITIs and since industrial apprentiship is a mandatory requirement if we assume 10 trainees an year per unit that gives it around 1/2 a million industrial graduates an year. For a population of 1 billion where 600 million are still dependent on land this is too small a number.
Why cant we have another 10000 IITs especially in areas that have been left behind the industrialization curve? There should be atleast 1 ITI per district headquarter. Infact a lot of big manufactoring and many service firms especially related to construction sectors can easily give apprentiship to such trainees. If some sort of contract to work for say 2 years at decent wages can be enforced a lot many might even fund the studies of poor students.
Judging from the IT sector experience the firms are already bearing the pain of skills shortage. Other sectors must also be experiencing the same. And wage inflation must be surely worrying the industry brasses. In such a scenario the need for better trained people hardly needs selling. My own take is that the industry might be happy to actually fund such training not just in terms of direct money contribution but in terms of course content and even faculty. Software - again as an example, already has top firms investing heavily in training facilities for freshers. Many firms have also started sending experienced professionals to colleges to conduct some workshops. The same idea can be implemented for ITIs too.
So the industry can actually pay for course and facility upgradation which can either be offset by some tax breaks or is simply taken in as a cost of business that slows down wage inflation - not a bad deal for many. As an added incentive the industry can offer paid education in return for a job contract - not a new idea since many firms do make freshers sign job bonds citing the training costs. Once such institutes and job contracts are in place, industry might even be willing to locate in areas currently low in development index because the skills supply is assured.
At the same time with more Indians being able to get into organised sector the whole issue of "unreported" economy can also be better tracked. Plus organised sector will enable rolling out of social security net across to people who need it the most.
Lets face it, we will not be able to eliminate poverty unless we address the basic employability issues staring in the face of majority of Indians. And the time to do so is now.

Indian War of Independence - Unfinished Business

My maternal grandfather, a M.Sc in chemistry in times when someone who passed 10th class in India was considered highly educated, did not join the industry as some hotshot. While manufacturing ink and chalk to sustain family, fought the British masters for Indian independence, went to jail, hid leaders at his places during times of British crackdown and then when Independence was achieved, gave up all, not using his friends in freedom struggle now big shot in Delhi politics, back to a simple family life. The struggle he maintained was for freedom, of mind, body and soul and not for being rulers of self. So once achieved he shunned all trappings of politics, not even to the extent of registering as freedom fighter which on those state controlled times would have made government jobs for his successors easy.
Turns out he was wrong. There was a time when clubs had signs - "Dogs and Indians not allowed in". The sign are back up these days. "Dogs and North Indians not allowed" or "Dogs and (Kashmiri) Muslims not allowed" or Dogs and Northeast Indians not allowed" Or "Dogs and Kannadigas not allowed" or Dogs" and "Tamilians not allowed" depending on which part of India you are in. We have changed one set of "rulers" for another.
Did Tilak fight for Independence of Pune only? Did Gandhi gave up his lawyer practice, endure hardships for independence of Porbandar only? When Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev put the noose on their neck singing "Desire of sacrificing our lives is in our hearts, /Let us see how strong are the biceps of the murderer." Did they die just for Punjab? I guess not. We spent 1500 years in slavery because we never stood up as a nation against foes. It was either caste or region or a village which was the max we were willing to look after and paid the price.
Today when Raj Thakre and his ilk preach such narrow bigotry, they are playing the same game that rulers in India played earlier inviting foreign invaders to come in and attack the neighboring kingdom so that they can annex it once the invaders go back home. Pity they never went back home. And its not just this Thakre who is committing what for me is treason. There are many.
That Kashmiri student in train who told me that how can he think fondly of India when his classmates in the engineering college call him a Pakistani just because he is a Muslim and from Kashmir which has a separatist movement? Or Tamilians beaten in Karnataka and Kannadigas beaten in TamilNadu when Kaveri issue flares? Or the Biharis killed in Assam and the Assemese woman dragged from a train and raped in Bihar in retaliation? How can we call ourselves a nation when such brazen acts of hate crimes take place and nothing happens?
Why are leaders calling for hate crimes against fellow Indians from a different group not tried for sedition and treason with its full impact?
We need another war of independence. This time from bigotry and hate. We shed blood to get rid of British. We need to shed more blood to get rid of our prejudices

India tour of Australia: The bad, the ugly and the stupid

The whole cricketing row is amusing and at the same time disheartening. This is what happens when sports folks become page3 'celebrity items' and 'socialites' (all politicians are) start running the show.
To be honest if Bhajji really called Symonds a monkey, it was a monumentally stupid thing to do even if not intentionally malicious. As a page3 item boy Bhajji must have been aware of the rukus a act of a spectator in India making monkey action at Symonds caused. If after all the rukus (and probably justifiably - racism in any form cannot be condoned) Bhajji had the stupidity to use it without meaning harm he is a fool of top order who deserves to sit out for the same.
One can argue that Australians probably must have also hurling abuses and knowing Australian team on cricket, I'd be very pleasantly surprised if they were not be viciously/criminally abusive on field so why not pay them back. Agreed. The way to do that is to report every such incident and use our financial muscle in ICC to then punish them severely. If ICC still ruled that its all part of the game THEN use the same abuse words back at the Aussies and their well wishers. Since Cricket Australia and ICC would have already ruled those terms acceptable- Indians couldn't be faulted.

Learn from Tennis. They have introduced a challenge system where a player can contest a decision of the chair umpire when TV replays etc are called into picture. Simple format and no reason why it can't work for cricket? Alas our clueless politician manning the BCCI spend so much time chasing the glamour they have no time to think of making the sport less error prone. Equally likely they are simply too incompetent to think of such simple measures.
A recent piece is papers also suggest implementing some pay cut feature against obviously wrong decisions on the umpires. Again such a system will act as hindrance to malicious incompetence. Given the financial stakes involved, there is simply no excuse for incompetence in the sport any more. Instead of fighting over issues by threats, its time to reform the sport. Otherwise it will simply degenerate into mud slinging exercise.

Murdering Mahatma?

I wanted the sesquicentennial post to be some light/frothy piece but alas no inspiration. Meanwhile the theme of increasing violence as a social phenomena has been making rounds to TV too. CNN IBN recently did a feature called "Murdering Mahatma". Since its the month of Mahatma Gandhi's birthday, I thought it appropriate to blog on the same.
First I think the program got it wrong. While Gandhian nonviolence credo I think refers more to non violence as a political tool i.e. the political approach should be non-violent and I do not think its really that much on the crime side which is what the program focussed on. Sure there should not be any crime and Mahatma emphasized on virtuous living. But surely a rape victim taking a knife and attacking the rapist in the act cannot be termed as Murdering the Mahatma which I thought the program argued!
So is non-violence really a philosophy when faced with a violent crime? Sure, when British army fired on peaceful assembly in a stadium (after sealing on exit routes) as far as I know, no one really turned and attacked the soldiers. Its a crime but again the soldiers were really following orders howsoever wrong. I think its again political violence countered with non-violence. But should I follow the same philosophy if a gang of dacoits enter my house, brandishing weapons with intent to hurt. If I have a loaded gun in hand and decide to use it, is it really murdering Mahatma?
While there might not be easy answers, I believe non violence is not about not offering violent resistance in face of hostile bodily harm. It is about not making violence a tool to achieve political or personal goals. And to a large extent Indians have followed the logic. Many of our protests while not being completely free from violence by and large do not make violence the center piece of policy.
What then explains the rise of violence which I paradoxically agree to in the beginning paragraph? I again come back to the theory of a failing state. The program interviews people who said that if they catch a thief they will beat him up. The reason was in the interview itself. Many said they will resort to violence because the culprit will not be otherwise punished. And its a very valid fear. As an ex Supreme court chief justice said once - justice late is justice denied. We had this case where an IAS official was killed by a mob supposedly incited by the sitting MP of the area. The court recently pronounced death verdict on the MP for the crime. And it came after 13 years of the act. 13 years when life imprisonment in India is of 14 years duration! When such a high profile, widely covered in media case takes 13 years to settle just think of a poor helpless person trying to get justice.
I've heard opinions that sometimes lawyers decided among themselves to drag a case longer since that gets more fees. And its not hard to imagine. So we can easily assume that if its a poor person, justice will not come easily to him or her within the span of a life sentence! Is it wonder that the people will want to settle scores on streets at the moment of crime itself. Combine the delay with so many cases (I covered em in some earlier posts) where the courts have pulled up prosecution agencies for botched probes - often deliberately botched posts and its even easier to assume that justice may not always come and when it comes its usually very late.
For me, the fundamental reason for a state to exist is that it provides guarantee of life and liberty. So if the same is not being made available to all, then is state really relevant? If not then why should i play by its rules? That I think is what is prompting so many cases of public taking law into its own hands. Its a telling point that most of such cases occur in places where its generally acknowledged that the state has not done well to keep its promises of crime control and safe life.
What then is the solution? One which come to my mind is to set up more courts. But merely setting courts will not help if the mechanism to administer justice is not improved and is perceived to have improved. And a key to improving the trust is to restore confidence in authorities. It doesnt help when sitting or ex MPs and sometimes cabinet ministers are convicted by courts for extremely serious crimes. Therefore I suggest we have special fast track courts specifically setup to handle cases against senior government official and all elected/nominated members of various legislative bodies. There should also be a separate investigative and prosecuting agency not under direct control of executive but maybe under a parliamentary committee along with maybe some public citizens (a judge/bar council/press council/ etc). Make it mandatory to wrap up a case within 6 months. All cases against such people and found to be prima facie admissible by a magistrate be mandatory referred to these.
All it proceedings should be in public domain and not hidden behind officials secrecy acts.
Once the custodians of public trusts are swiftly punished for any shortcomings public confidence will trickle back.
Next step, reform of criminal justice system for all. Only once the justice becomes really impartial and very swift will the state again become relevant. Only once that happens will public stop acting its own judge, jury and executioner.

Forging PAN Indian identity thru soft power

Another run of Indian Idols comes to an end with a victor crowned. While many lamented the rather limited talent of singers coming to the fore, this particular series will be known for another reason.
For a change the 2 finalists were not from main stream India and seen by most - which is essentially the North/West and South of India. Rather both of them were from East - One from Darjeeling which a part of Bengal still has its own identity and the other from very East Meghalaya. TV news channels were reporting a lot on how it has fired up the people of North east to finally see one of their own occupying national centre stage. There were reports that the usually very estranged Garo and Khasi tribes of Meghalaya for once united in supporting a guy from the state. This is a very healthy sign.
I personally watched Indian Idols rather very infrequently. From what I heard from most was that the candidate from Meghalaya was the most talented of the lot though I personally preferred the voice of the Darjeeling hero (and mind you I say the voice not the singing talent). Well one show is not fair to pronounce judgement on someone but most of friends were holding the Meghalaya guy as the winner for many weeks now.
What might have happened is that the usual bane of such shows strike and maybe people voted on ethnic lines and Bengal is a very large state. On the other hand, winning a show is also about preparation and lets face it, when its just two finalists, both of them will have great talents. So a song selection and that one day can make fortunes. Lets hope that indeed that was the case in which case Meghalaya will not be disappointed.
It was good to see politicians for one realizing something. The final had clips showing the prime minister and the chairperson of the ruling coalition meeting the two finalists to wish them well. This is something I saw for the first time and I think it was significant. For both the finalists to come from North East (and lets face it the favorite was the Meghalaya guy) it was as much an endorsement of the fact that india is slowing coming into its own.
Many say that the unifying factor in India are cricket and Bollywood. Its a thought I can readily agree with. There might be a lot of hostility between ethnic groups within India but Hindi movies and Cricket does fire imagination across India. It is this soft power that is often neglected by most Indian policy makers. Thus it was heartening to see the top policitos realizing this importance and were seem to wish the two. I only hope this will encourage other NE Indians to come forward for such. If we look at it, i remember no cricketer from Northeast. There is Bhaichung Bhootia who is quite a superstar but in football, a game not that main stream in India. The only noteworthy actor from NE India has been Danny Denzopa and he too is old now.
By encouraging more people to come, especially into mass media from NE (cricket takes too many facilities to begin showing results) we can ensure that not only NE guys start seeing them as a part of a PAN Indian identity, it will also make them more familiar to the rest of India. Ignorance of our own brethren from East is a blot on the rest and it can only augur well for the future of India if the same is rectified early.

Making Government Footprint more Welcome

Continuing from the last blog post idea, I feel one way to citizens feeling more empowered is to reduce the government arms to people contact. Remember its the attitudes which set the tone of the interaction and we are a nation have severe attitude problems.
Recently I paid by municipal taxes thru an online bill pay facility of a bank. I never received the tax demand but thankfully Pune municipal corporation has a website that allows you to search and view taxes to be paid by you. Assuming that was not the case I would have had to go to the municipal office. Find out where to go (interaction 1), find out my outstanding taxes (interaction 2), go and pay the taxes (interaction 3). Any of these 3 places could have exasperated me. However the online governance ensured that I do not have to waste a leave and saved a lot of time for me. That makes me feel better about Pune Municipal corporation.
Now many people - especially in government employee unions will complaint that if we make everything online where will the employees go. An argument that makes me as a tax payer angry. Does the government feed me if i get unemployed? As for municipal facilities? well half the city doesn't get municipal water (tho it pays local taxes), my housing society has its own security, if I get ill chances are I'll go to a private hospital because i do not 'trust' the government hospital to always treat me well and yes I can afford to pay for private hospital so maybe its good cause the 'sarkari doctor' has 1 less patient to see so (s)he can see another poor patient. But lets take the union's argument and assume that it is every tax payer's duty to sustain living for those who cleared a government employee recruitment exam. Can we than reduce government and still not unemploy them?
I think we can. The problem is that the government is missing from areas it should be in and is too much into areas it should not be in. Do we need a thousand tax collectors when by automating system we can do with hundred? While Pune traffic police complaints that the traffic is a mess because they have too few people? Why not take those 900 tax collectors and make them traffic policemen?
Villages don't have medical facilities because medical graduates don't want to live in a village which has no worthy school, no electricity and what not. Government still posts them and most of them go to villages only on paper. Why not take the biology graduates in government and below 25 years of age and give them an offer. Government will train them on its own expense to be a medical practitioner (RMP) provided they spend 10 years living in a village. After 10 years they are free to do private practice. Now the question is 1) what will keep them in villages and 2) do we have enough colleges to train them?
My answer to 2) is, do we really want to make them an MBBS doctor? Really how much treatment can a village dispensary do? Better idea is to open maybe 20 colleges across India that trains them to give medicine for common stuff like malaria, dysentery, family planning, taking blood samples and all, preserving them well and sending them to district laboratories for tests. Also to identify when things are beyond their competence and send them to city hospitals.
For 1) Make the village panchayats responsible for ensuring the RMP is actually in the village. If not they must report it to the district. And make Panchayats answerable for any issues arising out of non-reporting.
This is a short term solution. In longer term, a real issue is that village kids can't compete with most city kids and become doctors or engineers because the village schools are terrible. Instead of trying to get them into medical/engineering colleges through quota when they do not have the skills to compete with fellow classmates during course and bring the overall interaction quality down, why not have special schools. Do we really need MBBS in every village? Have colleges that take them for 3 years and train them to handle normal medical/engineering needs. Have PG courses that can make some of the more promising ones MBBS should they care to after doing maybe 10 years in villages. Since these are not MBBS they are not allowed to practise in private merely in dispensaries. Some will argue this is a class distinction. My answer is that given a choice between being unemployed and becoming a looked up to member of a village many village kids will jump at this opportunity. And it will raise standard of living in villages.
Similarly involve private sector. Have electricity bills/municipal bills available online. Whats stopping a bank from sending an officer to a village once a month with a laptop and a mobile net connection, collecting money and paying the bills online given the payer a receipt then and there. The villagers don't have to come over to some place, stand in line to pay and there is no additional charge. The bank can charge 2 % to the tax authorities for this service. The man power reduction in tax collection will be more than 2% in costs so net collection goes up. Meanwhile the tax collector becomes a teacher/police/doctor or some such more skilled guy.
True some will crib at having to leave a cushy job in a city with a lot of potential to harass and earn illegal money. But government jobs are not about that right? They are so that people can serve people.
Its a win win.

Whats left? Reference to context

Thanks to Mudit in Bus Yun Hi blog for giving me a link to that other master misguider Prakash Karat making some points on the Nuclear deal. As usual what he quotes and how he quotes are not the same things. Let us try and analyze the workings of this great patriot.
"Prior to the joint statement of July 2005, the UPA government signed a 10-year Defence Framework Agreement with the Untied States. It is evident that without the defence agreement, the Americans would not have agreed for the nuclear cooperation. This is part of a quid pro quo."
No references here as to how the 10-year Defence Framework Agreement is a bad thing? the "quid pro quo" that makes it out as some sell out of national interest may/may not be so. For all that is not said, it may have meant USA guarantying India that they will always be on sides of India in case of an armed conflict with any 3rd party. Since Mr Karat conveniently does not spell out the issue with it, merely hinting that its evil are we to take him on face value?

"The first serious conflict with the Left arose when the UPA government did a volte-face on the Iran nuclear issue. The government voted along with the US and the Western countries in September 2005 and was not even prepared to go along with the position adopted by the bloc of Non-Aligned Movement countries."

Again we go into unfamiliar territory. It again implicitly assumes that Iran issue had only 1 moral choice and that was to vote for Iran. While I can agree that US often does not play by fair, we have to remember that this is an NPT signing nation that went against some of the commitments made in that treaty. In short an explicit violation of an accepted treaty. India voted against it.
While I can see the logic of having nuclear power plants and Iran wanting that. In this specific case though it seems that there was something more than mere power plants happening. Mr Karat may say India should not have nukes but he wants Iran to have it. I and any rational Indian without any vested political agenda would say it is bad. For one India maintains that nukes are bad and the only reason we want to have them is because Pakistan and China, both nations claiming Indian territory for its own have nukes and probably directed at India.
Also India does have a lot of terrorism problems often from Muslim fundamentalist organizations mostly outside India. Iran for all its other good points will probably claim the bomb to be an Islamic bomb. India should get alarmed especially since Iran belongs to a rather volatile area with often such considerations coming into force. For all our support to Palestinians on their struggles (often just) I find that those nations do not criticize the fundamentalist groups when they strike against India. Iran for all our support still went back on some of the agreements on the gas pipeline. Given their fickle stand on issues pertaining India why should India not take the sensible decision and stick its neck out to support Iran on this issue given that we do not want a nuke armed Iran. let me rephrase, given that rational Indians do not want nuke armed Iran, Mr karat though probably has a different opinion.

"The Left parties have been watching with diOk squiet the way the UPA government has gone about forging close strategic and military ties with the United States. The Left came out in strong opposition to the Defence Framework Agreement."

All said and done, we are proudly the world's biggest democracy while USA is often held as the world's most functioning democracy, certainly the most powerful one. USA is often held to be the national which brought the idea of individual liberty as supreme, codified the right to free speech and is called the land of the free. On the other hand communist China treated unarmed students clamoring for democracy to tank fire in Tienanmen's Square, still controls access to media and generally has less freedom than any democracy for common citizens. same for other communist countries. Left does not protest against our alliance with any communist country but an alliance with a democracy is bad? Funny that the same democracy that allows Left to protest in India (and would get them killed in most communist countries) is what the Left hates the most.
As discussed earlier in a blog post of mine, the strategic tie-up with US and consequently Europe/Japan/Israel is the need of hour. We probably already have enough nukes for deterrent. What we lack is the multi lateral delivery capacity. This is where we need technology help and this is where the real importance of Strategic tie-up with US help. It allows us not only access to US technology, it also allows us to get France, Germany, UK, Sweden, Japan, Australia, Israel to also share technology. Lets face it, we currently only have Russia as somewhat of an important ally that can give us technology and as the cryogenic engine fiasco proves, its not good to place all eggs in 1 basket. Do we expect China to help us develop such military projection capacity? Give me a break!

"The Left has been vehemently opposed to the joint military exercises as the one that took place in the Kalaikunda air base in West Bengal. These exercises were held despite the strong protests of the Left parties and the Left Front government of West Bengal."

So Indian government must do everything as per Left's sensibilities? Why only left? Should then logically they not also take opposition BJP's all sensibilities in mind? No not opposition merely allies? then how about Laloo's RJD also which is pro deal? Apparently not allies either, merely Left.
Or will he now say anytime there is a street protest? I remember In West Bengal which as correctly claimed by Mr Karat is under the Left front government, there is a huge protest against some land acquisition which the Left wants. Paradoxically in this case I think the the Chief Minister is right. Relying merely on agriculture for a living will ensure people at starvation level. Our land holdings are too small for farmers to survive. the way out is to industrialize. But in this case the principled Left did not merely handle the protest in government way. Its cadre (and lot of media has given very strong proofs of this) murdered protesting men and boys raped and murder the protesting women and girls, in all over 300 people dead! And still Mr Karat expects the government to stop alliances because left does not like democracies!

"UPA government has been deepening collaboration with Israel in the military and security spheres which violates our long-held policy of support to the Palestinian cause and friendship with the Arab countries."

Its ok for Egypt - an Arab country to have normal relations with Israel? Its ok for Pakistan to start normalizing its relationships with Israel but not India! if you draw an arch across Asia, Israel at its beginning, India at its middle and Japan at its end are probably the 3 most (and maybe the only real) democracies in Asia. By definition that same democracy that allows Left to function well in India and have a voice makes these nations pariah? Agreed Israel's policies may not always have been more benign but as Nandigram proves nor are the Left's? And how has friendship with Israel bad. I remember Arafat of PLO agreeing that India needs to improve relations with Israel. We get great military hardware and technologies from them. Their counter terrorism skills are the best in the world, we need those badly, And as mentioned before, Arab countries by and large have not helped India against state sponsored terrorism in the name of Islam. Have not seen any Arab country coming out strongly in support of our Permanent seat in UN security council, have not seen them sending cheap oil to India (rates of oil sold to the evil empire USA are paradoxically lot lower for USA than for Asian countries). I'd say Arab world needs to give more to India for the support we have shown them than they do. Statecraft is about getting the best deal for your nation, not some dumb ideals that enslave your nation.
"The Hyde Act expects India to have a foreign policy 'congruent' to the United States."
True its a loaded statement. But the language of diplomacy is not straight. making it non binding is the nearest USA can do to say - dude don't worry about it. You can say what if another administration decides its binding? I'd say all the more reason to close the deal while the current administration is there! then once the deal with NSG is signed where does it say all our reactors will come only from USA? I do remember the deal making it clear that the USA will help create a strategic reserve of fuel. even if fresh supplies stop this reserve can be used. Further the same defense co-operation that so threats Mr Karat makes unilateral action by US so tough on them. We can simply say sorry, you pinch us there and we don't give you that billion dollar aircraft order. Our airlines too will only get Airbus from now on and so on.
Lets face it, USA and India are natural allies. And given the Chinese presence of listening posts in Pakistan, Tibet, Myanmar, Bangladesh and their intent in Sri Lanka, India will be fool of highest degree not to try alliance with other important Asian nations. Negotiations happen between equals, not between a lame beggar and a King. If India is to have good relations with China based on mutual respect, India has to show that it is equal to meet Chinese challenge should the need ever arise. The same reason why Left wants a multi-polar world, we need a multi-polar Asia. Its not some power trip, its the best chance for a healthy peaceful co-existence.
It a lay person like me can understand this but an erudite leader like Mr Karat pretends not to, do I take it for incompetence or do I look for designs. I refuse to believe that he is incompetent hence the conclusion is obvious.

Updated: Apr 21, 2008
If proof of the "design" is needed, read this and draw your own conclusions.

Midst of Gloom, flowers may still bloom

Amidst all the gloom of the party with less than 5% of popular vote trying to set country's agenda and the stock market worries comes some good news.
Mayawati, the Chief Minister of UP - our most populous state makes some steps towards privatization in agriculture. Essentially she is going to allow private parties (above a certain net worth ) to directly buy from the farmers should the farmer wish to sell. Eminently sensible since now the farmer can choose to sell to govt or to any pvt player depending on who is paying more. But alas sensible policies are an exception in India and that is why its only happening now in a tentative way. Upto now farmers could only sell in Mandis and in case that cost to transporting to Mandis is high compared to prices, or other things like non availability of trucks for perishables, the farmer was forced to destroy standing crops!

I guess Mayawati being politically strong and very savvy and right caste may just carry it off in spite of trenchant criticism that the established interests may heap. What i hope is that private players will invest in air conditioned goods trucks and help farmers with scientific inputs as often happens in contract farming. From what I have read upto 40% of our produce is lost to improper storage and all. Hopefully the private buyers will invest in cold storages also which ofcourse depends if Left and BJP not manage to set the agenda and ensure Indians go back to the glorious Hindu age of Diyas. After all Electric power has lot to do with Edison - an American and since America is imperialist any American invention will make us their slaves for all times to come.

Also the Japanese premier is coming to India. Japan and India have so much to gain from mutual partnership. Japan has surplus capital, India needs capital. Japan has cutting edge technology especially in manufacturing/electronics and space. India needs it. Japan lacks resources and young folks, India has plenty. If our politics doesn't wreck it I see the start of a beautiful relationship there. We can build the industrial corridor, have really high speed trains which will further bring forwards a bigger market for perishables nearer. It will also help decongest. Imagine if a train running at 300 km/hour were running between Mumbai and say Ahmedabad/ Delhi that will bring an area of 600 km within commuting reach.
In short there is so much of opportunity to bridge the gap between our potential and reality. If only we don't squander our chance away. It may never again come.

Updated 24/08
The Hindu and other newspaper report that the idea is put on hold after traders protested. Amusingly The UP government said that to protect the interests of farmers the policy needs be reviewed. I thought the farmers were the gainers since Reliance Fresh pays more to farmers and charges consumers less. They make real margin by cutting off middle men. So why not be honest and say that the in the interest of traders the policy is being reviewed rather than a rather inaccurate word called farmer?
This also brings another issue in mind. I thought that all Indians are free to profess any trade they want to (Except some that require special training like medicine where anybody who is trained then can undertake). So isn't this whole business of no vegetable seller is allowed to open a large show a bit unfair?

Updated: Sept 3
Express reports that finally farmers have woken up to the fact that this review is not in "farmer's interest" and are protesting in Lucknow. The farmers hold that Retail stores are paying the them- the producers more than the current middlemen riddled system. Flowers may still bloom for the countless farmers.

Nuke deal: Nuked or Left?

What a comedy over the Nuke deal! For once MM showed spine and said take the deal or withdraw support. Three cheers to Dr for finally choosing national interest over politics.
Left meanwhile makes its issue clear. They claim its both the deal and the strategic tie up with the USA that they resent. Strategic tie up with a 'democratic' sole super power is bad? lets face it, we've been beggars most of our modern life. finally that we are waking up to potential it makes sense to make ties. Its time we realize that a nation is truly independent only when it feed all its citizen, ensure full life and liberty and is powerful enough to stand up to any nation militarily and economically. We can harp on non-alignment for all we want but who gives a hoot to it? Do we matter to any nation. Heck we can't even fix a small nation on our side and we dream of being leaders of the world.

I won't be surprised if left is getting instructions on this from China. After all the nation that lays claim to a fair bit of our territory, is most steadfast ally of the nation that has make death by thousand cuts of India its raison de etre, and aims to be the power in Asia has genuine reasons to fear India and USA coming closer. Left being a client party of China CPA may actually have got word to oppose it on this big an issue.

BJP is of course opposing it while the deal that they were negotiating had much less to India (Talbot in his book mentions that Jaswant was willing to sign CBDT to get the deal), but in India opposition is not about working for interest of India if government goes wrong. Its about power even at the cost of India and Indians. But i wonder a mid term poll is such a good idea for BJP. They are in a hopeless disarray and their recent acts will make any rational Indian wince at the thought of voting them back to power.

Pity that Karan Thapar on CNBC made such a hash of interviewing Sitaram Yechuri. for once I agreed with S Y that Karan came with an agenda and tried to impose it besides monopolizing conversation. He just made one good point of the agreement text circumventing a US law which SY said is denying India its rights. While I have strong views on SY's misrepresentations of reality, this encounter left SY with moral upper ground. Such a pity or was it a part of the agenda too?

One question I would like to ask Left is whats the net gain if we do not have this deal? We don't have uranium fuel to run our power reactors. While jingoistic pride leads one to say we are the leaders in fast breeder using thorium, I doubt. if thats true why ain't we generating more electricity? Exporting nuke reactors? Have more nuclear science university programs? As for weapons we probably have enough to deter any body.

What we might lack might be the delivery systems where a strategic tie up with US might help more. After all, Pakistan is imploding. Where we might need a triad of delivery system might be to deter China, not so much Pak. Of course given that, Left very conveniently is dead set against any strategic, military and technology tie up with USA and Israel the two countries that can actually help develop a reach capability (reach within the immediate and near neighborhood).

In this case the deal actually allows us to import fuel for our reactors. Which means that our own meager supply of Uranium is actually available for military purposes. This is an argument often quoted correctly by Nonproliferation ayatollahs and is essentially true. Left of course very conveniently forgets to comment on this. Currently we have a severe shortage of fuel for our reactors and hence have to eat into our military use reserves. The deal also allows us to build a strategic reserve of fuel for our reactors. Assuming that Left fears are true and USA does demand a recall after say a nuclear test by India. It has to buy out our reactors and fuel which means that the financial impact is less on India than on US.
Besides I doubt if India will really test anymore at least in near future. Even without the deal the cost of a fresh test will be steep, a percentage more or less after the deal ain't all that different. Besides an underlying assumption is the we need more nuclear weapons. Do we? Aren't say 50 bombs enough to deter any nuke power from nuking us? As for non nuke warfare which is what the world usually sees, having great allies helps in preventing war and helps in upgrade of military. Of course Left opposes military games with countries who can be our natural allies.

Is it really that far fetched if some smart congressmen tie up with BJP. lets face it, ideologically they are not too far apart. If Vajpayee is brought around, Advani, Narendra M marginalized, Both may gain. I'll say tie up for the next elections. that will give both 7 years. Eliminate left from Bengal (if they can't after Nandigram they are really too incompetent), Shiv Sena from Maharashtra, Mulayam from UP, Dev Gowda from Karnataka can all be gotten rid if we just allow the law to take its own course. and 7 years is long enough for law to take its own course. That leaves the two to slog out in subsequent elections on real issues.

History shows that Indians are their own worst enemies. Cong and BJP of course will not come together. And Left will ensure that any chances of India becoming a real important power are fizzled out at first opportunities. What the deal and its strategic implications give us is high technology, access to top civilian nuclear tech which is all the more important given the scarcity and politics of oil based economy. Our engineers may train with the best university world wide (in civilian tech areas), all of which is so important with future. The reason why left is so anti is because its coming from US.

They probably want us to sign space technology kind agreements with Papua New Guinea's to improve our capabilities. The sheer duplicity of left which opposes Indian nuclear progress which vehemently championing Iranian program is staggering. and to think we elected 59 of these folks to stab us in heart, back and eyes just proves we get what we deserve.
I fear that even if the crises blows over and there is some compromise put in place which it may given the lust for power in Delhi, our negotiators may have their hands severely weakened after all this visible circus. That may be the biggest loss of them all.

Thats it, the last straw?

We often said fondly to our friends abroad should talks come to terror attacks how India while being one of the biggest sufferers does not contribute to the poor of people carrying out this shame across the globe.
Last week truth or change hit home. Among the perpetrators of failed attempts in UK, a few Indians were at forefront it seems. While lets not presume the guilt till the courts hold them to after due diligence, the impact already hits.
I remember when I was in US a few years ago, well after 9/11 the "random" airlines extra scrutiny will unfailingly select almost all Indian (actually all Asians). The randomness looks a bit uncanny once u realize that almost 90% of the sample chosen looked like I did at-least in terms of skin colors or alien names. To be fair, I did see Caucasians also being selected and an occasional Indian not selected, nearly everyone selected was young. And maybe it was a case of all young men (sometimes women too) traveling alone was the biggest factor. Also the security was usually very polite and at least once I had this gentlemen actually helping me pack back my stuff carefully while we discussed my collection of camera lenses.
A big grouse was why all "browns" seem to be selected? Aren't we all highly educated, traveling frequently abroad, working for good firms? That is what worries me. The ones accused this time fit the bill. All highly educated in some of the toughest fields in academic terms, lived abroad and were by all accounts doing good in professional life. I wonder if now Indians (other Asians too probably but I know more about Indians so will use this as a specific example) will not spend in-ordinate time in security checks? Visa could also be an issue. A large chunk of forex is earned by Indians doing small jobs in Gulf sending money back home. Money which sustains the rest of the family, see kids go to school, pick more valuable skills. In short money that uplifted a whole family out of poverty. There is a talk of nursing services being the next boom and this time to Europe already suffering from bad demographic ratios. What if suddenly this avenue dries up?
I wonder what if this was a target as much as the airport in question? What better way to destroy lives than making all suspected in the eyes of the rest of the world. While I'll wager that this probably is a long shot but the fact is that it could have a tangible economic impact on especially poor strata trying to move to higher wage areas. People poor enough or not in that high wage category where they or the employer can afford to pay for greater security scrutiny?
And this is where our apathy towards such criminals is such shocking. I have this grouse against most of Muslim leadership in India. They almost never condemn any attack linked to Islamic terrorists without trying to Justify it on some level. Yup this is a barbaric act but they were provoked! Whats the need for but? Gandhi has shown that violence is not the only way. Even when our own freedom fighter fought with arms the targets were invariably military/police almost never the families. And remember that once during Quit India movement there were civilian casualties Gandhi did stop the movement as a protest against our violence.
Its time we woke up to the fact that terrorism is against innocent civilians and must be unequivocally fought against. True powers often act against innocent victims but then two wrong acts do not make a right.

Why don't we lose sleep?

Tavleen Singh In Indian Express makes an interesting point Why didn't PM lose sleep over 7/11?
The fact of the matter is that we Indian simply cannot overcome our lust for petty gains over longer term good. Its a story repeated time after time. Any outrageous act (not just terrorism, it can be local rivalry, political point scoring, regionalism in cricket team selection of all things, and its the same story.
The PM otherwise an honest man from what i gather hastily gives a clean chit to a minister who is forced to resign after a couple of days on the same issue and is blamed by the ruling party as guilty! Why was the PM not sacked for giving a "clean chit" without checking on facts? He is after all the Prime Minister. Or are we saying that the PM of India actually make statements he expected to be taken seriously without checking on facts? If not so then obviously he makes statements while knowing that he is being at best economical with truth?
The ruling coalition's Presidential nominee is accused of political and moral crimes and the spokesman says all political folks have these kinds of charges including the opposition candidate. How does the unsuitability of opposite candidate makes the choice of someone with serious credential issues right? Let both be declared unsuitable. Reminds me of that argument in movies where a criminal caught for an act says first catch all those who get away before catching me. What makes this so sad is that audience will happily clap if this criminal in the movie is a favorite star. We condone turpitude if it comes from our favorite people.
Somewhere I think we are ourselves to be blamed because we within our democracy refuse to punish leaders for their sins. Until that starts happening expecting those wielding power to be holy in thoughts is naiveté of tallest order.