Paid news: India's new cancer

After a long time The Hindu drew admiration for doing an in-depth analysis of the cancer afflicting Indian democracy in the form of "paid news" to fool the people. Seasoned journalist P Sainath in his article in The Hindu on Nov. 30 brought forth the scam of Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan in using the media to further his political interests through paid news ( www.counterpunch.org/sainath11302009.html). Kudos to him. Late journalist Prabhash Joshi had also raised the issue of the paid news and had also filed a complaint with the Press Council of India, which, however, is a toothless body and is hardly heard by any.

The cancer of paid news is now a full blown cancer for India. This could not only be a forgery but could even be a fit case for section 420 of the Indian Penal Code. Punjab Keshri has been doing this for a long time and during election times its reporters make lakhs of rupees. Now, the whole herd of the Hindi newspapers has joined this collective shame. Before the Delhi Assembly elections last year, the kinds of Navbharat Times, Nai Duniya, Hindustan among some more had gone aggressively to sell their space for sponsored news items in favour of candidates in the fray. The modus operandi was simple that apart from buying the space the sponsoring candidates will buy newspapers in bulk, in thousands, and circulate in their constituencies to influence the voters in their favour.

This cancer is more deadly than any afflicting the nation. Corruption in media will not only undermine the very foundation of the country but will condemn the people to high dose of disinformation, which they might not distinguish from the information. Adding to this menace is the disinformation campaign is the propaganda war unleashed by the incumbent ruling party, which has government's resources at its disposal. Just recently the Haryana government had gone aggressively to publicize its "achievements" in the media before the election dates were notified. The Congress led Delhi government had also before Assembly polls had gone to the town with tall claims of one lakh homes for the poor (Not even a single home has been handed over to the poor despite one year passing by since elections), regularization of unauthorised colonies, which stoked the real-estate prices there but none has been done so far and many more.

The crisis is very deepened and challenges the Election Commission of India to wake up from its deep slumber, else the very foundation of the democracy will come tottering. The alarm bell is ringing.

Congress' umbilical chord with price rise

A vast section in India is reeling under unprecedented price spiral of the food items along with goods of daily use. No on in the political establishment gets moved. Rather the price rise as a political issue is dead and is ready to be buried for ever. Purchasing power of a large section of  the middle class has gone up, which makes them apologetic to complain. The fact still remains that the galloping prices of essential commodities, particularly the food items, is threatening to not only eat away the savings of a large number of people but could push the Indians into an American life style of perennial debt.

The Parliament will be rocked in the coming week on the issue of price rise. The Opposition parties in India are still groping in the dark on whys of the Congress coming back into power despite unprecedented price rise. Samajwadi Party's youth icon and Parliamentarian, Akhilesh Yadav, was quite shocked at the people voting for Congress despite the fact that they were buying potato at Rs 25 a kg. The prices of the pulses are beyond the reach of the commoners and the list is quite long.

Drought this year is a omnipresent explanation of the Congress. The party, however, does not exceed that its coming to power at the Centre rockets the price rise of essential commodities without any failings. Interesting food for thought is the association of the party with a large number of mill-owners be the of rices, pulses, sugar or of any other commodities. They share an umbilical chord and each survive at the expanse of the general mass.

The top bureaucrats in the government concede that the mill-owners started stocking their items just before they sensed that the country was not going to have a good date with Monsoon. They stocked and fueled the price rise is understood by the top bureaucrats but the remedial action is not taken. This is perplexing and is hugely against the interest of the country.

Why the issue of price rise is no more a political issue in India? Former UP chief minister and erstwhile BJP leader Kalyan Singh has a long answer but sounds quite logical. "The upper class is least bothered with price rise and same is the case with the middle class. The lower class has also nothing to do with this, as they consume what they grow and manage their affairs with the bare minimum foodgrains. The middle class should have been affected but the Sixth Pay Commission bonanza silenced them as majority of them are government servants. Rest of the middle class employed with the corporate sector do not vote," Mr Singh told this author, after the verdict of the May Lok Sabha elections this year.    

Congress wins election on slogans of Garibi hatao (bash poverty) not mehangai hatao (bash the price rise). The Opposition parties have much to ponder on how to mobilize the people on the issue which hits them at their belly.

Manmohan's absurdity

Lakhs of farmers particularly in the western UP have been agitating for over a month now against the government's ordinance on fair and remunerative prices for the sugarcane. The Parliament was forced to be adjourned on the first day of the session amidst the Opposition, including some of the UPA allies, raising the farmers' distress. Still, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh played to the propaganda of the "heir" of  the Congress Rahul Gandhi as the messiah of every suffering people in the country. Mr Singh chose not to assure the Parliament but the young Gandhi, that the government would look into the grievance of the farmers. Nothing could be more explicit zeal on the Prime Minister in building the profile of Mr Gandhi than this, though the Union Cabinet also approved the "political" demand of the young Congress leader for over Rs 7,000 crore for Bundelkhand region in UP and Madhya Pradesh, despite a long standing demands from the two state governments in this regard.  

It appears that a heavy and well oiled propaganda war is being unleashed by the Congress in tandem with the Manmohan Singh led Indian government to project Mr Gandghi as the eligible heir to the top post of the country. The media is playing to the gallery for their own reasons.

An error to regret for long

Amidst the fast roller-coaster unfolding in the battered Samajwadi Party, I landed up with a stunning news that the party would dump former BJP leader Kalyan Singh on Friday evening. The plot was told with all details but I  sat on it to do the story for Sunday, a lean day generally. Though tipped off the boss about the development, it was decided to do it for Sunday. The decision is now to be regretted for a long time until I land up with something bigger, as on Saturday SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav peeled off the details in a media interaction in Lucknow. My heart had sunk the moment when I saw from a distance Mr Yadav on a TV channel, while shopping in the narrow bylanes of Lajpat Nagar.

The big lesson for a political journalist, which I learnt now with a pinch of salt, is never to sit on any story, when the party you are covering is on a roller-coaster drive, where a herd of frenzied media men is waiting for  any new development, that too in the days of excessive electronic media. It appears that now we are in days of latching on a story and dashing off to the boss to say "look, I have this and we can not delay it any further".

The lesson has now been taken well.

Now on Mulayam and Kalyan, one having lost his plot completely and the other in the winter of his career but still thinking that he can turn the tide with his minuscule Lodh vote base. The UP politics is all about castes. No Rahul Gandhis and L K Advanis can change this fact. You have to hammer out the right caste equation to be on the winning side, else you will be wallowing in the abyss like the BJP and Samajwadi Party. Nothing remains your fiefdom, as even Yadavs this time deserted Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Rahul Gandhi is sitting on a great UP plot to get the Congress an unassailable domination in the Indian politics. As the Congress men not so much in the limelight in UP say that people gather in large numbers to listen to Rahul Gandhi but they do not vote for the party, there is a big disconnect to find out and that is micro-managing the polls. Raj Babbar won from Firozabad, as people had teach a lesson to Mulayam Singh Yadav, who had put his faith among the land grabbers in the place. UP chief minister Mayawati is having everything politically right but she is at the peak of her career and there is no more peaks but only decline.

The Congress has to climb a mountain in the state though the party does not have too many good climbers. The BJP is battered but has everything to gain and has its cadre intact who has been shifting from one party to another, while the party is waiting to get medically fit to reckon on in the political warfare.

UP is set for an extraordinary political battle in the two years time and much more churning process will unfold. I wish I hold on to the pulse of UP politics and its main characters.      

Kundun's last vow

Dalai Lama, also addressed as Kundun, made media take note of him during his trip to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. Despite four decades having passed by since the defeat at the hands of Chinese, India remains apologetic of its territorial boundary. The curbs on media to cover Kundan's visit is not only shocking but also bewildering. It is interesting to wonder if the Indian dispensation can really safeguard the interests of the country for any kind of Chinese aggression. The saying that if Chine sneezes, India catches fever, still remains true, given the kind of lack of clarity on the part of the political leadership of the country.

"Kundun", a 1997 film written by Melissa Mathison and directed by Martin Scorsese on the life and writings of Dalai Lama sheds great light on what happened preceding to the historic flight of Kundun from Tibet to India. The last vow of Kundun to return back to Tibet remains incomplete, though the World does not tire of calling him the greatest man living.

There were a few speculation that Dalai Lama could have retraced his steps back to Tibet during his visit to Tawang. Such speculations have been quite off the mark given the thoughts of Dalai Lama. His misfortune is that he can not win freedom for his people if he does not go back to Tibet. Compounding his situation is the state of his host, India, which shivers even at the thoughts of China's domineering postures.

India did a great injustice to the peace loving people of Tibet by not protecting it when they faced the Chinese aggression and rather chose to trade its strategic geographical positioning for the misplaced friendship with the Red Dragon. Innumerable historical blunders of India's first Prime Minister JL Nehru has condemned the country to perennial sense of insecurity. No wonder why India can not help Dalai Lama to reclaim his country for his people.

With age catching up with him, it will be only essential that Kundun goes back to Tibet and let the world, the US in particular, guarantees protection of his life from any attack by the Chinese. Else, in India he will become just another Indian, with his vow and promise to his people remaining incomplete.

Mahatma Gandhi had also returned to India to lead its freedom struggle from the British. Others, including the adoring West, will not help unless Dalai Lama takes the first step to reclaim the freedom of his people in Tibet.

(The photograph has been taken from the web.)  

PM's shame: A death

Notwithstanding an apology by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the death of a young man, Sumit Verma, is a shame, condemnable in strongest of the words. The media showed its spine by giving it a good coverage, otherwise the VVIP security around the country has been causing hardships to many on a daily basis.

The death of the 32 years old man must act as a wake up call for the VVIPs, including the Prime Minister and other ministers, who have been in the habit of obnoxious display of their power to the helpless people that they own this country. Now onwards it would be in the fitness of the commonsense of the administration to just ban the visit of the VVIPs to the hospitals of the country, which are supposed to help the patients and not kill them by turning their access into a fortress during the visit of the high ones.

It is an irony that the public exchequer is spent on the clamour of the VVIPs to showcase their gun-wielding commandos to the public even if they do not have any real threat to their lives. The spineless Home ministry appears not to have the spine to withdraw their security. Just in contrast look at the foreign VVIPs who do not shy away from mingling in with the public without the glare of their security men.  

The death of Verma in Chandigarh is unpardonable and the Prime Minister must ensure that the police men just get a little bit of commonsense, though it's known in the common parlance that the police men in the country are just brainless or rather "latthmar".

Red alert in the land of scams

India appears to be now waking up to simmering war within the country. The land of Marxism, West Bengal, is now a stage for deadly battle among different proponents of the Left ideology. Despite more than two decades of rule in the red territory, the proponents of proletariat rule have failed to deliver on the promise. So, a war ensues, with initial shocks already making the establishment shaky.

Interestingly, the CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat told the media this week that his government would not be depending just on the policy but the "party cadre would take on the Maoists". It appears that this is the first confession by the comrade that his party has an armed cadre. It is in public domain how the Left rule in West Bengal made the police weaker, as its armed cadre virtually ruled the state by instilling terror among the people. Now that the fruits of power did not flow to the large sections of proletariat they have taken recourse to the most extreme Maoist rebellion, thereby bringing the nation to confront a war within.

After the rout of naxalites, loosely referred as Maoists, in Andhra Pradesh, they appear to have established their turf in the states of West Bengal, Odhisa (earlier Orissa), Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhatisgarh. All these five states have one thing in common: "unchecked poverty" and political conspiracy to loot wealth of states to amass individual assets.

While West Bengal never let progress come to the state, Jharkhand presents a classic case of politicians bleeding white the state. The Enforcement Directorate has just registered case against the former chief minister Madhu Koda, who occupied the high post allegedly by colluding with established parties in an arrangement of loot and distribute, and his ministerial colleagues. Just recently, lakhs of people in Jharkahnd got their land registerd, after offering huge sums to the representatives of the politicians. Koda's alleged asset is reported to be to the tune of over Rs 25,000 crore.          

Given the state of affairs in these five states, it would have been quite unmanly if the people did not take arms to get justice. Wars should be fought on the borders but inside it becomes quite a complicated business. The Maoist rebellion must be taken as a final warning for the political class to stop the loot and work of the progress of all or it will be too late.

Delhi's Diwali dread

Delhi shudders at the thought of Diwali every year. Another one on this Saturday is not likely to be any different. For a month there has been a beeline of people at the doorstep of Delhi's ministers or any politician with connections to get license to sell firecrackers. The decision makers did not disappoint them and a good number of them have got the license. Going by the huge number of retail firecracker sellers, it is to be easily estimated that Delhi will crack for nights before and after Diwali.

There is a palpable double standard on the part of the government, as its stated intent is to improve the environment of Delhi along with a popular discouragement for firecrackers. What the government preaches is seldom practiced, as there is a whole lot of people who need to be obliged, as they happen to have helped the people to come to the power.

A couple of years I just happened to run away Delhi's Diwali dread for a stay in Jaipur, the city of lights. In contrast to Delhi, there was hardly any noise. It was all lights, as if Jaipur was decorated as a bride. Delhi can take some lessons from Jaipur, but it is the people who give a character to a city, which leaves a question mark on the capital.

After staying in Delhi for a decade, I will choose to leave the city for few days during Diwali. I say so, as I along with many have suffered from the thick layers of gases emitted by the firecrackers occupying every space at the places where we reside. We inhale toxic gases, not oxygen on Diwali night and just add the shattering noise booming all night, as if having a good sleep that night is forbidden. If people in their youth are subjected to unbearable air  pollution, just imagine the fate of elders, children, newborns, pregnant ladies, the ill ones and so on. These people just do not have voice to be heard by the herd of merrymakers who think that they can just blast the whole world on the Diwali night.

Irony is that the government spends a good amount of public exchequer to sanitize people against the use of firecrackers through advertisements and campaign. But who ties the hands of the government to just ban the firecrackers in the capital.     

Just hope that Delhi, which is always short on manners, learn a little bit of human sensitivities. Paradoxically, the city of brute, that Delhi is known for, is going to host the Commonwealth Games next year.        

Will Rahul's gamble with Dalits pay?

More on Rahul Gandhi, as he has embarked on an ambitious task to restore Congress to its historical might when the party ruled the whole country with no opposition. Rahul's hunting ground is UP, the Hindi cowbelt, where he is dating the Dalits, which is part of a clear political strategy. The Congress has ruled the country with Brahmin-Muslim-Dalit support base, which, however, suffered chink in the last one and a half decades, with the rise of the BJP and regional parties. Bring back the equation and Rahul can head a Congress government with absolute majority in the next elections appears to be the mantra of the coterie advising Rahul. How far his date with Dalits will go is a matter to look for, though the Muslims appear to be coming back to the Congress in UP after a long break.

The ruling BSP in UP should be disturbed with Rahul's zeal. But the flag-bearers of Mayawati are least concerned. Ask Dara Singh Chouhan, the leader of the BSP in the Lok Sabha, on Rahul's roller-coaster ride with Dalit clusters in UP and he replies nonchalantly that it's all media hype. Congress ek pagal haathi ke tarah kaam kar raha hai (Congress is acting like a mad elephant). Mr Chouhan rather adds that if the media were to give just 25 per cent of the space to the BSP that it gives to the Congress the party will show what it is capable of !!! It is definitely to ponder, as the media itself behaves like a mad elephant wherever Rahul goes. An elephantine question in the real sense of Chouhan's claims.

Rahul has reason to be maddened with the hope that he can bring the Congress to power in UP in 2012 when the next state Assembly polls are due, as he just ensured that his party bagged 21 Lok Sabha seats when all the political pundits were giving the party just around 10 seats. Mission 2012 for UP is high on the agenda of Rahul and Dalits hold the crucial link for its success.

So, staying at Dalit clusters can help you get votes. Not in the real sense, as the voters are much smarter now. They can listen to you with all earnestness that you could be fooled that you got their votes. It just does not happen that ways.

BSP's Chouhan has more to explain, as he says that his party has given the Dalits which no party in the country could give them so far. It is sammaan and aatm-viswas (honour and self-confidence). Mayawati happens to be a protector of their honour.

Stunts may not pay and Rahul will need to ask himself how could he become a protector of the honour of Dalits before he can stake claim for the honours of being a popular leader.

Rahul wants Mahatma's journal

The Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi has decided to acquire

the copyright of "Young India" from National Archives of South Africa. The journal was launched by Mahatma Gandhi during his initial years in South Africa as a mass leader.

For the purpose, the young Gandhi has roped in the Union minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor as the pointsman to liaison with the South African government to acquire the rights of the "Young India". The National Archives of the South African government currently owns the copyright of "Young India".

Sources in the party circle revealed that the Congress general secretary has entrusted the task to acquire the rights of "Young India" to Mr Tharoor, who is expected to initiate negotiations with the South African government soon.

Mr Gandhi intends to relaunch "Young India" as a magazine in India after acquiring the rights, sources added.

Meanwhile, when contacted by this newspaper Rahul Gandhi's office declined to either confirm or deny the young leader's desire to acquire the rights of Young India.

The move comes after Mr Gandhi scrapped the proposed magazine of the Youth Congress, which was named "Youth March". Mr Gandhi had reportedly found the dry run of the magazine dissatisfactory and had told its editorial board that he would revisit the proposal on a later date.

To work on the project to publish a magazine for Youth Congress under the banner of  Young India, the Congress general secretary has constituted a task force, which has been asked to study the journal launched by Mahatma Gandhi and decide on the possible contents, sources said, adding that the proposed magazine will not carry any advertisements.

The plan is to sell the copies only through subscription. Sources also revealed that Mr Gandhi has shared his vision for the new magazine with his team, which includes an objective coverage of social issues. "The proposed magazine will also cover politics but emphasis will be on social issues," sources said, adding that the

professionals from the media industry will also be taken on board.

(The Asian Age. October. 2)

Correction: Mahatma Gandhi had taken over as the editor of "Young India" after the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre. He had not launched Young India. Error is regretted.

Puffed away...warning!!!

It is a while that the government forced scary pictures on tobacco products. If you look at them, you feel like being harassed. The cigarette packets have all the gory pictures to twist your organs inside. The intention rather the supposed intention was that the smokers would be too shocked to put the death-stick into their lips and make hard puff. Now that a comfortable time span has passed away since those shocking pictures appeared on the packets of the tobacco products, it will be interesting to know if they made any impact. Did the labels really make a good number of people to quit?

It just happened that a gentleman in his sixties asked my regular paanwaala after lighting his cigarette why the cigarette packets in the cubicle shop do not show those scary pictures. "The pictorial sides of the packets are all turned back, so they are not visible to the customers," told my paanwaala to the gentleman, who, pleased to hear the explanation, said: "Keep it that way."

The smokers know the ill-effects and still they indulge in their favourite habit. They have innumerable reasons, which might sound hollow, as they are. But the habits just do not go away. However, it is really terrible to smoke. It induces ageing...

The cocktail of history and politics

Manish Anand

History or rather writing on history is in the news. History written by a politician often runs the risk of erring on prejudices. Objective history writing has been the attempt of all the famed writers but few succeed in this enterprise. Lev Tolstoy has written a long chapter on history writing in his masterpiece "War and peace" where he has explained "whys" and "whats" of history writing.

Indian history is replete with too many eulogies dished out as historical records of numerous kings by their courtiers. Though they have handed out crucial information about certain historical eras, they lacked in the art of objective history writing. Most have succumbed to their weaknesses to glorify individuals in their history writing. The people most often have been the last on the priority list of the writers.

The trend is nowhere seen changing. However, Jaswant Singh's take on the partition of India has reignited the passion of the people in the Indian subcontinent to revisit the trauma of 1947.

The people in the Indian subcontinent have more or less a collective psyche. The scar of partition of the subcontinent is far from being erased so much so that the collective Psyche could be called a prisoner of the past. As the past that is the partition is painful the collective psychological consequences might just have left the people of India and Pakistan diseased in their thoughts.

The discomfort of the people of the subcontinent leaves them to find easy targets to express their frustration on to find peace with their own failings to understand their history and move ahead in their collective lives. We need someone like Jinnah, Nehru, Patel and other characters to damn them for our failure to live with our history.

After exhaustive reading of Indian history from its ancient era to the modern, I believe that the subcontinent can take pride in the fact that it has the richest history in the world, with the civilisation having come out from innumerable traumas and tribulations. Also, the history if there for the people to understand their past so that they make a much better future. A mind which is enmeshed in the past is a diseased mind which needs psychological intervention.

Indian subcontinent is in dire needs of that psychological intervention, as the disease has take the form of bloody hatred in the form of terrorism. The intervention has to be collective and massive at much higher level, with the politicians of the subcontinent asked to behave like leaders. The leaders, however, are too few there to take on the task.

Squirming in the abyss

Manish Anand

Flogging a dead horse is the favourite time pass for many and particularly for Indians. The BJP rather its leadership appears to be the proverbial dead horse. The media ordeal for the party which began since June this year is nowhere at its end. It is to the credit of the party that the media have spent reams of papers and hours and hours of TV flogging the party.

What if the party had not lost the Lok Sabha polls. The Jaswant Singhs, Sudheendra Kulkarnis and Arun Shouri would have continued enjoying the comforts of the power. Experts are giving their advices for revival of the party, while Mr Shouri has taken inspiration from Mao Zedong (Just bombard the headquarter and bring competent leaders from the state). The saga will continue for now, as some powerful satraps are orchestrating it from inside.

Just wonder if the people could ever see the same level of mud-slinging on the top leadership of the Congress from the within. Never. So, at least we can concede that the BJP is much more democratic than any family run political enterprises.

The BJP will rise to the challenges both from the within and outside, as the party has millions of cadres. The purge has to reach to its logical conclusion. The party has just to get rid of the "fixers". The second largest political party is a dead horse now due to the "fixers" getting regularly awarded with Lok Sabha tickets, ministerships and lot more. The Congress too suffers from the fixers but this party does not make them "leaders".

The BJP had nothing to gain from the likes of Jaswant Singh, Kulkarnis and Shouris, as the folks of their likes will come with no wastage of time if the party makes a roaring comeback. But the party will suffer and has suffered due to the disconnect with the mass, who do not largely read the English newspapers or watch English news channels.

The BJP is a party which romanticises Indian Nationalism, as the cadres that it draws have the figure of mother India imprinted. The RSS as its father figure is blessed with sharp minds drawn from all walks of life, which has been a much lenient parent. It will do a much greater service to Indian polity if it becomes more proactive, which it could just to do by purging the fixers.

As the BJP squirms in its abyss, few within the party sitting on the fence must be wondering at the fate of the party, which is now reduced to the dull media getting breather at its expense. A big party like the BJP is not going to die but it is to be seen what it does while languishing in the abyss.

Over to people, then to fixers

Manish Anand

So, the nation goes to the polls to elect a new government. Poll hysteria will pick up in few days. The issues for the electorates are nowhere to be seen. The Lok Sabha elections this year are likely to be issue less. The edge for either of the two leading coalitions, UPA led by Congress and NDA led by BJP, is to be decided by the kind of "equations" that they forge. Even after 62 years of Indian independence, democracy here is all about castes, hence the pre-poll caste equations hold the key to the formation of the next government.

Regional parties, who have now mastered the art to milk the leading coalitions after they form the Central government, have sensed the ground realities. They know that none of the leading coalitions are showing signs of securing a clear mandate from the electorates. They have positioned accordingly and could swing either ways to milk them the maximum.

BJP's poster boy Varun Gandhi hogged the limelight for few days with his histrionics. He exhibited signs of desperation to come close to his cousin Rahul Gandhi, with his party allowing him to try his tricks. Five years back when I had met him at his mom's residence, he was the same restless teenager, as he is today. Then he had been badmouthing none other then the tallest leader of the BJP, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in the impression that the BJP should hand over the leadership to young politicians like him. He has not changed any better.

The UPA is showing signs of losing the momentum which it had been claiming after the Assembly wins in Delhi and Rajsthan. The Congress just seems to have got a little more ambitious then its partners in the UPA could have allowed.

Sooner or later the Congress could get into the desperation mode in the run up to the polls. The desperation is interpreted by political observers in Delhi as prelude to something unexpected.

The NDA on the other hand is far from having filled the vacuum created by the exit of Vajpayee from politics. LK Advani remains a leader of faction within the BJP. He has not grown up enough to set into the shoes of Vajpayee. This leaves the NDA much crippled. Even after the UPA left the nations to grapple with too many issues, Advani led NDA is far from capitalising on them.

The people could just leave the political mavericks to interpret their mandate according to their conveniences to cobble up a majority in the Lok Sabha to form a new government. It could just be that people might say in their mandate -- "over to the Amar Singhs, Mayawatis and Jayalalitas" -- to the coalition attempting to form a new government.

Great gambling bazaar

By Manish Anand

Are the stock markets places for big gamblers to swindle novice investors' hard earned money? The answer will be clearly yeas, if the turn of events of the past two years are deeply looked into.


The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his one of foreign visit last year had called the US economy a "casino economy". With his vast experience of managing the economy, he had hit the bull's eye with his statement.


The economy, whose barometer happens to be the stock market and which plays into the hands of big manipulators who could keep the market swinging into a range, has to be dubious and fallacious. With the stock market tanking from January 2008, the countries worldwide have reached stage where they are witnessing largescale lay-offs. Were the fatly paid top management of the corporates taken unaware that a cyclical slowdown could be in the offing. If they can not forsee the future challenges, they better need to find an alternative employment.


Hedging and pledging in equities and foreign currencies became the major tools of the corporates in the recent times. The corporates have been hedging their shares against financial loans in place of the traditional method of mortgaging the real assets. The banks and financial institutions are taking deep cuts thanks to the shares quoting at unbelievable prices. What kind of business model is this on their part, which resulted in the money eventually being sucked out from the economy?


The Udayan Mukherjees and Mitalis of the CNBCs take the command of this great gambling bazaar along with their associated who call themselves an expert but are always proved wrong on their predictions. Listen to them and follow their advices, you will have no better ways to put your hard earned money on fire. Also, the people around see you miser day by day and find you diseased.


What is the logic behind a particular share swinging from Rs 88 to Rs 138 and then back to its level in a span of two weeks, while continuing to do so consistently. Be a good gambler and then come to this world of great casino, else no one helps as even the government and the market regulators are seen just to be the accomplices of the great gamblers.

"Don't steal. Govt.hates competition"

By Manish Anand

In a parking lot, a sticker on the back screen of a Maruti Omni just stunned, as it made a too hard-hitting statement in just one sentence. It read "Dont steal; govt hates competition". Though born out of one fertile cynical mind, it captures the agony of the millions who have by now turned apathetic to the crass loot that government directly or indirectly indulges in.

The media has been maddened with the Satyam fraud for the last one month as if something alien happened to the country. The tainted Ramalinga Raju, erstwhile chairman of Satyam, is now every body's whipping boy. What did he do, by the way? Prima faci, Raju diverted Satyam's fund to lay down another empire in the real-estate sector, whose growth story had been only dizzying and mind boggling, making all other sector Pygmies in comparison to their exponential growth.

Now, the realty is busting, thanks to its illogical business model. But the real bolt from the blue is the stimulus package that the government is said to be bringing in soon to give a booster to this sector, which has largely been unregulated and had never been accountable to any.

Rajus and the realty sharks are the gifts that the governments of this country, and nonsense politicians who lead them, have handed over to the people of the country. The government is as good as the people and the politicians are as good as the mass have been the famous alibi that the textbook political scientists have dished out to the people to keep them brain-dead over the decades.

Raju diverted the fund of Ssatyam and is in jail now, though it's better to call him a state guest in the prison, otherwise he would have been twisting his nerves in one of the US jails. But the Central government too diverted Rs 60,000 crore of the tax-payers' money to waive off the farmers' loan, for which it had no mandate. What was this diversion for and who accounts for the money? Does the government tell the tax-payers that you timely pay your tax dues so that we can waive off farmers' loan? If the Congress was so peeved at the status of the farmers, it could have compensated for the farmers' bad loans from its party fund, which must be running into billions though unaccounted.

In the last decade or so billions of rupees have flown into land acquisition deals that the front companies of many individuals, including largely the politicians, have carried out across the country. The political class has been privy to the critical information which part of the country along with their precise location would thrive in the future due to the government initiatives. And they are all black money, mind you. Would there be any leader worth his salt who could get a result oriented and time bound investigation by an impartial agency, which unfortunately the country does not have, to tell the people that while 30 per cent of the people still do not meet their food needs but the money has been flowing in the country like the Ganges.

But the seething anger in the millions of the people die down over the period, as the system is so well organised in its murky deals that it could hardly be moved. Rajus are just tiny offshoots of the political class of the country, they come and go, while the system runs as usual despite the fact that the thousands of acrs of land that the former chairman of Satyam acquired in Andhra Pradesh could not have possible with mutual benefit of him and his political masters in the state.