Dark Comedy

The debate continues. (WARNING: More futile discussion of Indian cricket ahead!)

I think any discussion of Ganguly, Chappell and the Process is moot at this point in time. The call for revolution has been answered with a civil war. The waters have been muddied with accusations and sources. Even EAS Prasanna whose spin could outfox very good batsmen has given up trying to determine whose fault it is. Chappell has already resigned. Ganguly's name heads the list of the senior group in every report, while it is said that he was let into the management discussions only after the Bangladesh loss, and when it is Tendulkar who actually speaks out about his lovers' quarrel with Chappell. The ex-master-blaster has done a neat retraction - denying that he had ever said that there was a rift between him and the coach - following in the best traditions of politics. Ex-Presidents of the BCCI hint at quite unbelievable things.

But what the heck, what if it is moot, let's have at it! kmp's latest rejoinder (my comments inline):

There are multiple things that I have to answer (or put across my point)

1) Saurav Ganguly’s inclusion into (or exclusion from) the team and how that derailed the process
2) Why I think the “process” was never given a chance
3) Hence the question on that day’s press-conference was indeed “inflammatory”

Saurav Ganguly was dropped from the team because he had an awful form for quite a long time – It was termed just in this forum too and what supposedly was bad was the way they handled the subsequent (taking and dropping for no reasons) actions . I don’t have too many issues with that either [Me: Thanks!], because in any case he was taken into the team for non cricketing reason (he had met Sharad pawar) and may be he was dropped again for non cricketing reason.

Having asked to prove his mettle in domestic cricket or county cricket, he did not play well in County (where-as Zaheer did well there), he did not play well in Ranji, He did not play well in Challenger series. Then comes the brouhaha in Parliament (Brinda Karat, Gurudas Dasgupta etc) and lo he gets selected on the basis of “experience” (mind you not because of form or fitness). I don’t remember this “experience” theory being invoked for some dropped players (and for that matter, which “experienced” player was *recalled* when we did not do well in our previous series to SA). [Me: If he was brought in because of political reasons, why so late in the day. He was out of the team for more than a year. Why wasn't he brought back earlier? Or maybe we need to investigate how many sponsors he has in WB. After all, the whole team seems to have been selected on that basis.]

Again the point was, dropping a senior (and one having political linkages) player was relentlessly resisted and that was the first (and perhaps the last) obstacle for the process – who knows if he were allowed, he would have cut Sachin to size, but alas the Ganguly saga did not let him implement his process. [Me: That's a bit too much - remember Ganguly came in only 3 months before the WC (I'd wrongly put the date of his return as August 2006 - a full 5 months earlier than the actual date). The process had run its course for a year, and then just three months before the WC it sprang a leak because Ganguly came in, and Chappell lost his nerve about disciplining Tendulkar? I don't buy it. As for Ganguly's dropping being relentlessly resisted (nice phrase) - well it was completely ineffectual for more than a year wasn't it? What kind of resistance is that?]

And the playing 11 for WC 2007 is almost same as WC 2003 (Oh yeah Munaf has replaced retired Javagal and Robin has replaced Mongia – and BTW Mongia was there in Champions trophy) – and also remember this WC 2003 team had not won a ODI series, even at home (under Ganguly) for 2 years (after WC 2003) till Greg came along and had that 17 successive chases, under Dravid and with youngsters team [Me: This Cricinfo article analyses the successes - and chalks it up to Indian batsmen thriving on home pitches and floudering outside. Less to do with coaching and more to do with the batsmen? Note that these were only wins while chasing, there were other losses in between - a funny kind of world record! Also note, when Ganguly and Wright took over also there were stirring performances initially, then the usual stuff happened and things petered out, just like with Chappel - but there was no nothing like Process to distract us.]. Sure, they did lose in West Indies (not badly) and in SA (very badly) but that does not mean you get back to all the old players – that’s certainly was not the Greg’s process (however flawed that may be) that’s tough-talking-Colonel’s “experience” theory – coz all the players now have “experience”. [Me: That is the point - that does seem to have been Chappell's process. Because with all the freedom in the world and a pliant Kiran More, Chappell was playing with the same core of 'experienced' players in July 2006, within shouting distance of the World Cup, before the Colonel came in with his 'experience' theory. Even the team the Colonel gave for the August Sri Lanka tour is not much different - see the Indian team for the first ODI! The idea that he was all for youngsters just doesn't hold much water. So, would the team have been different from the WC 2003 team if the Colonel had not come in? Going by the teams doing duty with Chappell's full confidence, one doubts it. Of course, with the allegations of kickbacks for selection and Chappell's own allegations of sponsorship deals affecting selection, one is completely flummoxed and in the dark trying to second-guess the team.]

So, those folks should have asked about the “process” when the team was selected and before it went to WI, like “Hey Greg, how come your process has thrown in the same team as the previous edition, was that the “process” to churn out the same players again and again or was the process was flawed and we gave a go-by?” (coz you could guess the playing 11 anyway). After the debacle, only question they could have asked was to colonel “Hey chief, was it that this team did not have enough *experience* to go to next round?” - Since they asked about the process, after the debacle - it is indeed inflammatory. [Far be it from us to tell the free media how to do its job. But we can say that it is screwing up the job massively. Edit: There seem to be wheels within wheels in the media's treatment of cricket and cricketers as I'd noted here. It seems to be under the impression that hagiography is the style best suited to cricket coverage. Of course, the small knives are out after a loss, but quickly sheathed. A MAJOR clarification all the same: I still don't see how the question is inflammatory - that is the only point I was making in the original post - others were doing a better job of question the process and supporting it and all that and I was not getting into any of that. I would have been happy to let it go if Chappell had at least tried to address the question in the briefest manner - "We'll have to analyse it later" would have kept me happy and sleeping soundly for many days. As to asking the Colonel, he can still get away by saying that selectors are in any case just 'a bunch of jokers'. No one expects anything approaching logic from them. But when you have almost made a religion of "The Process" and have been hailed as the messiah and mocked a cricketer well-liked by many then you need to feel a tad less prickly. I mean, just compare the reams of newsprint on Chappell and his way and that written about the Colonel.]

-P

PS: This is beside the point – but I am answering coz you have mentioned. I did not mean Saurav was lobbing catches intentionally [Me: I've been misunderstood, I was not implying that], sure it did not get reported either. I watched those matches and observed myself, there were tough chances which Bermuda and Bangla could not convert, and Murali took an exceptionally tough catch. What I meant was, earlier those hits of Saurav would consistently clear the rope, and now somewhere in between circle and boundary. I can only guess, his timing was not good as it used to be – understandable. That also says, he had not regained his form or fitness completely. (And, BTW he was clearly unable to rotate strike and his running between the wickets was awful – again I would put fitness as the problem rather than commitment). All that he had now is “grit” and if you are playing every match (including against Bermuda ) with “grit” that means you have lost form. [Me: I'll let his scores speak after his comeback for him :-)]

kmp adds:

When it was just rumored that supposedly Greg had said that there is “Senior” players group and then he supposedly called they act as “mafia” etc… (mind you they were just leaks and quotes attributed to “sources” , Greg never openly said) – Some people believed it and some did not believe (rightly so). In fact you had questioned along the lines of “apart from Captain which “senior” player could have influenced anyway”. Not sure about the *influence* part, however today’s report of Sachin’s and other unspecified folks reaction clearly shows there indeed exists a “senior group”.

BTW, Greg supposedly did not speak to Sachin for 4 days (in the 7 day Carribbean trip) and Sachin got so depressed that he lost the sight of incoming delivery and got bowled!!!

And that is that. I'll print kmp's next rejoinder (if any) as is with no comments. Time we laid this particular discussion to rest. Indian cricket is already RIP.

Love Or Money?

What's with British newspapers and Indian cricketing superheroes? First it was Chappell telling a British newspaper that Ganguly wanted to play for the India team only because of money. Now it is Atherton insinuating something similar in another British newspaper about Tendulkar. Why don't the pommies leave our gods alone? Not that I'm clean though - I too have long suspected the unseen hands of the market behind the strong groundswell of support for Tendulkar, as I'm sure many others have. One doesn't build a brand with lots of hard-earned money and just let it crumble because of declining cricketing powers. Many things need to be sold to the consumers before that happens. Promises to keep etc.

Quit And Re-apply

It is a truism in the IT industry that one could quit and rejoin the same company at a higher pay - this following from the fact that comparable lateral hires mostly get higher pay packages compared to the existing employees. But employees at Circuit City, the electronics retailer chain in the US, are getting are being forced to do the opposite (via Atrios). But the consumers get a good deal right? So it should be ok.

NRN, Infosys And A Process

kmp sends a link to an article which quotes Infosys' N R Narayana Murthy:

Frankly, I don’t think having a coaching camp for a few days helps. I’d suggest we pick the 30 guys who we believe are the best in the country. They should all be given good salaries by BCCI and closeted in a hi-tech training centre round the year. Rotate them so that even if 15 are playing a series, the other 15 are training. Ensure that everyone gets to train intensively during the year. Follow best practices from around the world, give the players the best facilities and make them work really hard — eight hours a day. If anyone refuses to practice or follow the rules, axe him immediately. Follow these principles and you’re bound to have a world-beating team.

30 players cooped up in a high-tech centre round the year, practising hard for eight hours everyday. Let me humbly suggest the outcome of such a course of action: By the time the next World Cup comes along, the 30 guys would hate the sight of each other and the coach so much that on-field fights would become routine and hardly the stuff to give a second thought to. TV vieswership would shoot up initially then taper off as the novelty wears.

Seriously, the question of whether cricketing greatness can be achieved by following a particular training process is a good topic for a debate. I'm hoping to weigh in on this critical topic anon.

The Fun Never Ends

kmp (a very good friend) writes in, responding to this post.

I knew this was coming, and I knew this particular question will be highlighted. I remember an old post [kmp is referring to this post] mentioning the “process” part in this blog! Having said that, I am still waiting for that courteous reporter to ask another much often used word “experience” to none another than “tough-talking-colonel”!

Did we let the “process” to start to find out whether it is flawed? Whom did we let in thru the “process”? I mean, whom did we let out? When an awfully out-of-form batsman gets dropped, streets were set on fire and so was parliament. He continues his awful form in County, Ranji, Challenger series etc. and comes in advertisement pleading for a chance – and lo, he is into the team coz of “experience” and that’s a cricketing reason (referring the previous post of cricketing and non-cricketing-reasons – moreover that is a damn good “process”. Sure, he did score runs aplenty (contrasting with abysmal standards that this team has set), but how on earth anybody knew that he would. And, this man who is known for those lofted hits (sixes) was clearly unable to execute in his new stint. He kept on giving those catches, but Bermuda and Bangladesh could not hold it, and Murali held it. No, I am not after Saurav ganguly, I am after those groaning rascal Marxists – for setting a “experience-process”. Other than Robin and Munaf, did we have anybody else for whom “Process” could be applied? And, do we need to have “process” for Sachin, Saurav, Dravid, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Agarkar? How many years they have been playing?

First up, courteous is one thing that journalists need not be - their duty is to ask and tell it like it is. If they sound uncourteous so be it. Chappell will understand - seeing that he himself is not averse to the odd gesture involving a middle finger.

As to Ganguly's comeback and how on earth anyone knew that he would succeed - well, could that be just like how people thought Chappell would succeed knowing fully well that he had failed in his previous coaching role for New South Wales?

Or it could have been an informed guess based on the following:

1. His efforts at improving himself - physical fitness, playing first class cricket regularly, and making a few good scores(thought not consistently)
2. The fact that sending a player to first class cricket to regain form is generally considered a good way to regain form, if nothing else, they come back more hungry for success - like it happened with Hayden who was left in the wilderness till recently
3. Or, maybe they did think experience does play a role, like Buchanan seems to feel :

"We've got a lot of experience in our batting, and we leave it to individual players to assess the conditions," Buchanan said. "They are good at telling each other what to do when they go out there, and they're good at sending information back. This is a new ground, and both sides were not exactly sure how it would play. In the end, it was pretty true but we made just about the most of those conditions that we could."

Mind you, this was not experience taking the place of deserving youth - the said youth had failed miserably playing in the West Indies and South Africa, after having feasted and been hyped up on home pitches. And this just a few months away from the World Cup.

And whatever he did in the World Cup, Ganguly has been one of the more consistent batsmen after his comeback. As for giving catches, I thought he played slowly against Bangladesh - I was not aware that he was lobbing balls to the fielders - don't blame me, none of the newspapers carried that bit!

I don't think it is true that the process was not given a chance. Chappell had been having his way for more than a year. The process was already dead by the time the colonel entered the picture. The team had flopped miserably against WI in the ODIs and by the time SA were lording it over us, Chappell was already putting the players and not the process at the centre of the losses. Here is the team that played the ODI series in the West Indies (May-July 2006):

• Agarkar
• Dhoni
• Dravid
• Harbhajan
• Kaif
• Patel
• Pathan
• Powar
• Raina
• RP Singh
• Sehwag
• Sreesanth
• Uthappa
• Venugopal
• Yuvraj
• Tendulkar

I've added Tendulkar because he was nursing an injury and would have been selected if that was not the case - and one youngster would have been knocked off the list. Now this is a team which Chappel and his enabler Kiran More had selected keeping in the World Cup in mind. Except for Ganguly and Zaheer the World Cup team is in there in its entirety! That includes the nonprocessable "Sachin, Dravid, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Harbhajan, Agarkar".

Seeing that Chappell had planned for these hardened veterans to be in the team for the World Cup, the difficulty in applying the process to them ought to have raised a red flag. An idealised process then should have been given a dose of pragmatism and modified suitably. Else it is the process that is useless and should have been dropped like a brick. And assuming that Ganguly and Zaheer had not come in and two young legs had come in instead, would four processed products have been enough to neutralise the seven heavyweights? Because somehow I think the magnificent seven would have made it into the World Cup squad, no matter who was selecting - the Colonel or More.

Now it comes to light, a tad predictably, that Chappell was not happy with the team composition. It is of a pattern with Chappell - the whining and cribbing with paper and other trails carefully preserved. He says the seniors fought against youth. Only Dravid would have had the say in the matter. So it seems to me Chappell is saying Dravid was against youth (Vengsarkar has confirmed on TV that this was the case at least where Sehwag was concerned). Now, Dravid is a process champion. So he seems to have lost confidence in the process by the time the World Cup tooled along, probably sometime in 2006 itself given that he had stopped invoking its magical powers by then. How can we support the process when one of its two firm proponents in the team has given it up?

He praises Kaarthik - why then has Kaarthik played so few matches under Chappell? And why wasn't he played in any match in the World Cup though part of the team?

He criticises Yuvraj. Here he is claiming Yuvraj is a key player - a month before the World Cup. He rues Raina not being present - but look at that interview again - he has almost given up on Raina for the World Cup.

Why blame others like a spoilt kid?

Of course, all this could just be Chappell positioning himself for an extension as coach post-World Cup.

#$%!@*

Where does the US get off acting like the school bully? From The Hindu:

ON THE proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline, the United States has dropped all pretence at nicety. American Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, during his visit to India, bluntly warned New Delhi to shelve plans to participate in the project. Mr. Bodman was direct and up front about his "concerns." His remarks can't really be termed diplomatic or nuanced; he appeared to be reading the riot act to India.

First, in an interview to Dow Jones in New Delhi, Mr. Bodman said: "During my trip I have made it clear at the highest levels of the Indian Government that the United States opposes the development of the Iranian pipeline to India." "We believe that Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, and anything that will support that endeavour is something that we oppose," he added.

As Amit Baruah puts it:

There is no "either or" situation here. Any Government that allows itself to be pushed around by the U.S. on ties with Iran will find itself being asked to fall in line time and again on issue after issue.

If there were some high principle involved in America's oppostion to the pipeline, it would still be acceptable. But there isn't. The reason cited, which is the danger of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons through the revenues of the pipeline is just a pretext. A far more important reason is the lobbying organization which claims to speak for the American Jews, as is argued here.

So why is the Indian government toeing the line of an American lobby on Iran? The US - on the directions of AIPAC - will most likely not stop short of attacking another oil-rich country. Unfortunately no one seems to be bothered, including India.

Inflammable Chappel

From the press conference:

Another word that has been mentioned a lot is 'process'. What went wrong with the process?
That's an inflammatory question and I'm not prepared to answer it.

An highly inflammable coach I should say.

Off tangent, with respect to Bob Woolmer's muder, will there be a cover-up and if yes, how big a cover-up will it be? Apparently Pakistani diplomats have flown in from the US to Jamaica. As the Guardian puts delicately:

It was not clear in what capacity they would assist the investigation.

Are these diplomats trained police investigators?

As for the ICC, the ACB is already doing its bit regarding the match-fixing charge. Calls seem to have gone out from some person to members of the Pakistani and Indian teams. Who got these calls, what were these calls about? Will the ACB come up with anything in the middle of the World Cup? It will be a pleasant surprise if they do, the status quo seems to suit everyone just fine. Like the recent Samuels case - what happened about that? It is obvious that match-fixing is very much present. When a captain says that his gut-feeling is that fixing is happening, one can't just ignore it. One treats it as English understatement and concludes that it fixing is taking place, more likely than not.

Update: How much more rotten can it get?

Former South Africa player Clive Rice said that when news of the match-fixing scandal broke seven years ago, he was coaching Nottinghamshire while Woolmer was in charge of Warwickshire.

“We were actually involved in a match in England at the time and Bob and I discussed it. He told me a lot that never came out…. I’m not just talking about other players being involved, but officials too,” Rice said.

“Bob knew a lot of what went on during the match-fixing scandal in which Cronje was nailed.”

Rice said Cronje, who died when a chartered plane crashed five years ago, too, was planning a book and that he had acquired the rights for it.

“I went to see him six months before he died. He signed over the rights to me. Like Woolmer, he knew a lot more of what was going on. His so-called accident was just a lot cleverer than the one that killed Bob.”

Super-8s Math

After that defeat, the only way India get through to the next stage is if Bangladesh lose to Bermuda by a big margin. It is very obvious what the Indian team must do to make that happen. They need to sit down with the Bangladesh team and pass on their considerable experience to the minnows.

After that, they need to pray that Bangladesh are quick learners.

The Motive Is Everything

From The Hindu:

It is still under wraps. Despite an effort made through the Right to Information, no one outside government has seen it. The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has proposed to introduce the Environment Tribunal Bill, which envisages the setting up of "green" courts to deal with environmental disputes. Why is this necessary? How will the "green" courts work? Who will benefit from them?
...
The excuse being used to set up an environmental tribunal is that there are too many cases pending in courts. A Central tribunal in Delhi and regional ones, it is argued, will take the burden off the courts. The plan is based on the assumption that the groups presently taking matters to court will be satisfied with the civil remedies that the environmental tribunal will offer. What is not so well known is that apart from communities with grievances, proponents of projects can use the tribunals to clear their projects if they feel aggrieved that they have been denied permission on environmental grounds. The government would argue that such a set-up would obviate the need for specific committees as the tribunal could set up its own committees to look into specific projects.

On the surface, this appears reasonable. But people selected by the government will man the tribunals. When the majority of the cases that land up in court concern government policy and the perception of groups and communities that the government is violating its own laws, how can such tribunals be viewed as impartial?

Not Cricket - 2

Sambit Bal writes in Cricinfo:

Take the current predicament of this World Cup as an example. The major stake-holders in the tournament - the television channels and major sponsors - risk losing millions, either in cash or kind, if India go out in the first round. They are not the number one team in the world by a mile. Not even number two. They are ranked sixth in the ICC team ratings and, while that might not always be the best indicator of a team's worth, they have not won a competition of note outside the subcontinent since 1985. Yet the fate of the World Cup rides on them. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

Like they say on the comment threads: Tell Preach it, brother.

Getting Off Lightly

From Tehelka:

“When I will be asked by the Supreme Court why everyone else has got TADA and my client only the Arms Act, I will have no answer.”

He could just say it is an instance of the “benign judicial eye”.

How Wrong Can One Be

I never believed that it was murder. The better half was convinced it was murder or suicide right from the time the death was announced, but I couldn't think of a motive. And suicide also seemed unlikely, he being a professional and all.

How wrong was I.

And yes it was the chamber maid who found him.

Different Versions

Of Bob Woolmer's death are doing the rounds on TV and online. But there are many inconsistences. Just one of them: Who actually found Bob Woolmer's body? I've read three different versions online:

1. The team manager (or some team official) sent Inzamam to Woolmer's room to pick him up, because he had not been seen for more than an hour
2. The hotel staff forced their way into the room
3. A maid found him after she entered the room (presumably for cleaning)

Which one is true? And linked to this question, which of the various versions of the cause of death are true?

Poor Losers

From The Hindu:

As soon as the House assembled in the morning, BJP members were on their feet, raising slogans against West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. They were warned by the Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat to refrain from rushing into the well. "Do not march into the well or else you will regret it later," the Chairman warned before adjourning the House for an hour.

The scene was no different when the House reassembled at 12 noon but Deputy Chairperson K. Rehman Khan continued amidst the din with the business of laying papers, moving and passing the National Institutes of Technology Bill, 2006, the statement by Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and even ran through the list of Special Mentions.

At this stage, BJP members trooped into the well, continuing their sloganeering more vociferously and demanding a discussion on the Nandigram issue. Left with no choice, the Deputy Chairperson was heard telling BJP members who had stationed themselves just below his chair: "Go to your seats, I am adjourning the House."

Leading to this conclusion:

...the BJP ... has proved itself to be a poor loser after the May 2004 general election. In the aftermath of that defeat, the BJP boycotted the budget, leading to its passage without a discussion. In the Rajya Sabha on Monday, its members made a bid to snatch budget-related papers from Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, forcing him to cut short his reply to crucial points raised by members. The party has gained a reputation for disobeying rules, flouting agreements reached in the Speaker's chamber, and refusing to extend the normal parliamentary courtesies to Ministers and to other parties. The Treasury and the Opposition benches must come to a minimum agreement on running Parliament — if not for improving their own public image, at least for the sake of Indian democracy.

It is especially sad when the party with a difference behaves thus.

Before The Spin

Begins, someone sounds a cautionary note (via Atrios):

The sub-prime and overall mortgage carnage is now likely to lead to a financial crisis whose cleanup and bailout costs will make the S&L bailout bill look like spare change. We are only at the beginning of this fallout but, already, several proposals and bills in Congress have been submitted to help millions of sub-prime homeowners on the verge of bankruptcy and foreclosure. The prospect of millions of homeowners thrown homeless on the street is already shaking politicians of every stripe.

Given the fallout and real, social and financial costs of this disaster the political blame game will soon start. So it is important to make sure that the self-serving spin game that accompanied the game of those who happily ignored since last summer the looming housing, mortgage and economic mess will not be repeated again. Powerful political and financial interests will spin their self-serving ideological spin on who is to blame for this mess. Specifically be ready for a cabal of supply side voodoo ideologues - from the Wall Street Journal editorial page (and its invited op-ed writers) to hacks (calling them economists would be an insult to my profession) such as Arthur Laffer, Steve Hanke and other assorted voodoo religion priests - to start spinning a tale blaming government regulation and interference for this disaster that has instead its core in the lack of sensible government regulation, not the existence of such regulation. In the meanwhile powerful financial interests that repeat the mantra – or better the proof-less dogma - of unregulated free markets and do not like any – even sensible – supervision and regulation of the financial system will happily blame government action – rather than their own reckless greed and stupidity - for this disaster while happily demanding and receiving billions in bailout funds from the same government that they so happily disdain. This will be the most appalling form of corporate welfare: privatize the profits in good times and socialize the losses in bad times.

Privatize the profits and socialize the losses. Nice.

US And The World

From The Hindu:

Western leaders promised the former Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation would not expand eastward. That promise was broken less than 10 years later, when Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic were admitted to the alliance. Later, NATO swore that no military infrastructure would be deployed in the territories of new members of the alliance. Today, the U.S. is setting up military bases in Bulgaria and Romania and is about to deploy missile defence components in Poland and the Czech Republic.

...

And this is only the beginning. The Pentagon said the European component of its global missile defence would keep expanding and upgrading. On March 1, Lt. Gen. Obering said he would like to have an additional radar station in the Caucasus.

It is difficult to imagine why the rest of the world should believe anything that the US says.

Judges And The Poor

A former Supreme Court judge writes:

Most Ninth Schedule statutes were meant to save the wretched from the claws of pro-property dimensions of Part III of the Constitution. Judges must abide by Churchill's dictum: "Humanity, rather than legality, must be our guide".

Crunching The Numbers

I wrote here about the hyperbolic headlines accompanying the IIM placement season and the fact that some graduates are opting to stay back in India. The Hindu article carefully avoided hard numbers. Well, let's look at the actual numbers.

Dollars, pounds and francs don't hold any glamour for them anymore. Big buck offers notwithstanding, they would rather stay put in apna India, thank you very much. This year, about 20-odd students from the three IIMs – Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta have rejected plum international postings.

20 students out of approximately 600. That is a full 3%.

Not Cricket

Not any longer. It isn't just a game any more. Money plays a starring role.

Kunal Dasgupta of Sony, the official broadcaster of the World Cup, agreed that the money spend on advertising will be hugely affected if India is knocked out. He complained, ‘‘The entire format of the 2007 World Cup is flawed. In a 48-day tournament, if a team like Pakistan is already out for playing bad cricket in two matches, there is something really wrong. We were against this format and even told the GCC (the commercial wing of the ICC) to reconsider it. But they refused.

‘‘Now that Pakistan is out, the fun of an India-Pakistan Super 8 match is gone. And if India lose another group match, the Cup will be the biggest flop in India and advertisers will lose value of their investments and we may also lose money even after selling all slots,’’ he said, indicating that advertisers could force the broadcaster to lower rates if India went out. He refused to divulge any financial details.

So a television channel is trying to influence the format of the cricket World Cup. And the world cup is no longer about the best teams winning, but an India-Pakistan match on a Sunday.

Bob Woolmer

What a way to go. Alone in a hotel room far away from home. Totally dejected and no one to share the pain with. All for a game of cricket.

It was horrifying to watch the news break over the news channels on sunday night here. The looped video footage of the scenes with Shoab Akhtar and Mohd Asif and others, making it too obvious that the coach was hardly enjoying a good working relationship with at least some members of the Pakistan team. Still some of them probably felt otherwise as was evidenced by Kamran Akmal and a few others breaking down during the farewell meeting.

There must be many dying every day in other ways that are equally tragic. But we don't know their particular stories and hence don't feel as much. But in this case everything was open. The humiliation of the loss against the weakest of teams. The shattering of the world cup dream. All the hard work - not only for Pakistan but also the illustrious career with SA - down the drain. The shocking death of the affable and mostly cheerful - as far as one could judge on TV - coach. It was hard not to feel sorrowful.

Boosting Religion

Albeit, under the radar. Also, it is news to me the Sri Sri Ravishankar has achieved "enlightenment". Wonder how it feels like. He's eversmiling, so must be good.

Please Don't

Screw up the rich environment along the coast and the nearby ghats by building a coal-based power plant. Coal pollutes big-time.

More Freedom

Governments don't work - can't work. Can never work. So they should get out of everything except law and order, defense, and 'a handful of things'. The handful of things is left artfully unelaborated. Probably would include education, healthcare and so on. Some of the most important things for common citizens.

The questions is: if government can't do anything else straight, why would a libertarian expect it to do well in these important fields?

I need to really read up on libertarianism.

Spine

Lack of it (via Atrios):

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?”

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.”

This is a US Presidential candidate who will run in 2008. Stumped by a simple question of whether condoms help stop the spread of HIV/STDs. Because his political base - the conservatives - wouldn't forgive him if he agreed.

One Down

The Hindu's editor gets a letter:

I must confess that I was one of those who protested against increased reservation for the OBCs when it was announced. But the two-part article exposes how difficult life can get for those born in a supposedly inferior class. As one aspiring to study law in the hope of making some difference to the widespread administrative malfeasance, I felt truly disheartened on reading the article.

Surely, a dual society prevails in our country — one that has an economic growth of 9 per cent and the other that is stuck in the medieval times. The article has made me realise that I must not go by popular response to the things I see. But it must also be said that it was the media that influenced my thinking that Dalits and OBCs do not deserve reservation in a "modern" society like ours. I only wish I could help and was told how to in more such articles.

Srishti C. Kalro,
Bangalore

So that's one person converted. Only about 310.5 million more people to go.

Free Market At Work

Via Atrios.

Today's pop quiz involves some potentially exciting new products that mortgage bankers have come up with to make homeownership a reality for cash-strapped first-time buyers.

Here goes: Which of these products do you think makes sense?

(a) The "balloon mortgage," in which the borrower pays only interest for 10 years before a big lump-sum payment is due.

(b) The "liar loan," in which the borrower is asked merely to state his annual income, without presenting any documentation.

(c) The "option ARM" loan, in which the borrower can pay less than the agreed-upon interest and principal payment, simply by adding to the outstanding balance of the loan.

(d) The "piggyback loan," in which a combination of a first and second mortgage eliminates the need for any down payment.

(e) The "teaser loan," which qualifies a borrower for a loan based on an artificially low initial interest rate, even though he or she doesn't have sufficient income to make the monthly payments when the interest rate is reset in two years.

(f) The "stretch loan," in which the borrower has to commit more than 50 percent of gross income to make the monthly payments.

(g) All of the above.

If you answered (g), congratulations! Not only do you qualify for a job as a mortgage banker, but you may also have a future as a Wall Street investment banker and a bank regulator.

Read more about it in the linked article. Tying it in with something a bit closer to home, the meltdown in the Sensex (and the rest of the global stock market indices) is apparently due to the collapse of the subprime mortgage market in the US. No I don't have a clue what a subprime mortgage is, so don't ask me.

Nandigram

This is pathetic. The Governor of the state asked:

“the news has filled me with a sense of cold horror”. “What is the public purpose served by the use of force that we have witnessed today?” he asked.

What purpose was served really?

The issue has been too politicised too. The lady is too reckless. And the government is too stubborn. Will this be the beginning of the end for the Left in WB?

Fence Eating The Crop

Officials of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes are themselves prejudiced against the Scheduled Castes apparently. On second thoughts, not much of a surprise there I guess.

Wheels of Justice Grind Too Slowly

Here's a senior advocate in the Madras Courts High arguing that hanging may not be required at all if only more convictions were coming from the higher courts. Instead of the steady drip, drip, drip of delays in hearing the cases on account of frivolous technicalities. Of course, this tactic is not restricted to corruption cases.

Corruption

It is a bit disheartening when one finds people like Ramesh Ramanathan writing for the Freedom Paper. As I was going through his latest article in my mail, the feeling just grew. He seemed to have changed his tune completely. No more people and politicians/governance institutions working together in a partnership? All the blame on the politicians? Not the Ramesh Ramanathan I know (I don't know him personally, only through his writing), I thought. But I'd jumped to conclusions as I found out. Here is the article itself (this is supposed to have appeared in Live Mint, but the online site does not have a link).

Travel Notes

On a recent family trip to the US and UK , we also got a glimpse of Eritria , Ethiopia , Pakistan , Ghana and Morocco . We were “taken” there by the various taxi drivers during our travels. The conversations were honest, stripped of the veneer of diplomatic deceit, possibly because we knew that weren’t likely to meet again.

We learned a lot about their countries. We also discovered some universal qualities of people across societies – more on this later. We learned that Eritria was once a part of Ethiopia and that it got Independence recently, a fact that made the Eritrian very proud, and the Ethiopian very angry. “They took away the ports”, he said testily. Eritrian independence cost Ethiopia the entire coastline of the country, leaving it completely landlocked. We were surprised to hear that Ethiopia is actually not desert, that it has plenty of rainfall, and forests and mountains.

“And what about the famine?” we asked, referring to the calamity that had put Ethiopia on the world map. “It’s them politicians”, he said, continuing, “It’s a great country, with wonderful people and lousy politicians. And because of them, we have hunger and corruption, and one out of 10 children dies. If only we could get rid of them politicians…”

The Ghanaian – Kwesi - was very quiet at first, rejecting our conversational overtures. And then we asked the one question that always breaks the ice, “Is your country beautiful?”

He smiled wistfully and spoke in that delicious thick African accent, “Oh yes! We have everything in Ghana .” And he was right, 500 kilometers of coastline, mountains, plenty of natural resources and arable land. “Unfortunately, we also have politicians”, he said, “and they are looting all our gold and cocoa.”

Our Pakistani driver, Masood, had wanted to be a Bollywood actor, and had even stayed in Bombay for 3 months, working on a film with Urmila Matondkar! “Don’t look at me now”, he said, pointing to his balding head and belly, “I used to be really handsome then”. The producer-director had died unexpectedly, and Masood’s dreams with him. He now drives Sunjay Dutt in Long Island whenever he visits. We rode silently down Van Wyck Expressway, under the newly constructed monorail to the airport.

“How is this monorail affecting your business?” my wife asked him. He snorted, “Behen, you know what the size of the taxi business in New York - in New York alone - is? Billions of dollars. This silly monorail starts somewhere in Queens , in the middle of nowhere. Who is going to take it? The taxi fleet owners have paid off the politicians to make this white elephant. Hundreds of millions of dollars” – he said “dhollars” - “phoof”.

Our last taxi trip was with Tahar, the Moroccan, in London . He arrived ten minutes early. Pacing around, he waved us in, loaded the luggage impatiently and raced off. “The rush, it is too much”, he said, “ten minutes, and you lose thirty minutes in traffic.” I said, “We have plenty of time, no problem”, to which he replied, “Yes, but I haf problem! One more trip, I can make.”

He waved his arms around, carving and chopping the air like a music conductor as he spoke, the words coming off his tongue like hand-rolled cigarettes.

“Oh, Morocco , beautiful country, we haf everything. Our Mediterranean beaches, our oranges. They are the best in the world. And our pears, you can smell the aroma a mile away.”

He drove frantically, weaving in and out of the narrow London lanes, zipping across the short stretches of motorway, glancing at the clock on his dashboard.

And what about the government?

“Oh terrible! Looters, I tell you. We have oil, gold. But they hide it away, they keep hush about it.”

As we took the exit for the airport, he reached his short, stubby hand across, shook mine vigorously, and said, “I am Tahar. When we reach the airport, there could be some people, they ask who you are. You say that you are my family ok”, he whipped his head around to take in those in the back, wrapping an imaginary rope around the group, “family, ok?”.

I was puzzled. “Why?” I asked. He shook his head, and looked away guiltily, saying, “I not tell the taxi company, this way I keep the entire fare. Times are tough here in London , you see.”

There was an awkward silence for the next few minutes as we drove up to our terminal.

Nobody stopped us, thankfully. As we got out, I asked him, “So, Morocco sounds like a great country, but the government, it is corrupt, has no values, right?” “Ah, absolutely. No values.” He took the fare, climbed back in and drove off to catch his next trip to the airport. Such is the state everywhere in the world: the mirror reflects our own image, but we don’t recognise ourselves.

Toilets In Government Schools

Are very difficult to come by. DH writes about it. And the Primary and Secondary Education Minister says it is just a matter of 2-3 years before the toilets are ready. Kids are really having it tough in Bangalore lately. 2-3 years before they can get toilets in their schools. At least that many years, and most probably many more, before they are able to walk on the street without fear of dogs (since the birth control program lets dogs back on the streets after sterilization).

IIM Placement Season

One could also describe it as the season of lists and mellow wantonness, and silly headlines. Lists as in lists of companies attending the placements. Wantonness as in the big pay packages. And silly headlines like this from today's Bangalore edition of The Hindu (not present online):

IIMB graduates prefer to work in India

Silly because the article hardly justifies it - two graduates are quoted as having decided to stick on in India. Oh well, I'll just recycle an old post. Why not, when they are recycling the headlines.

Hang It All

We're responsible for it aren't we? A reader hits the nail on the head in The Hindu:

Once again, we have drawn a line. On this side of the line are "we, the good and the noble." And on the other side are "they, the bad and the ignoble." Face reality. Aren't we the ones who bestowed on "them" the power through our own political process? Aren't we responsible for what society is today? Are we separate from the rest of society that we now sit in judgment and proclaim: "Those of you, the evil, shall be hanged?" Let us no longer fool ourselves — we and we alone are responsible for the corruption around us.

S.B. Badekila,
Bangalore

Two Quotes

Two unrelated quotes. First from Khushwant Singh in DH:

When it comes to voting, large sections of the Sikh peasantry including those who do not observe Khalsa traditions by chopping their breads, smoking or chewing tobacco and drinking alcohol vote the Akali party because they believe it stands for the Panth.

Very interesting. The next, from The Hindu:

... peddlers of distilled male fantasies like Yash Chopra, Karan Johar and Vidhu Vinod Chopra continue to dabble in dreams.

That sentence rolls off the tongue nicely. Peddlers of distilled male fantasies...

The Budget And The Markets

From Hindustan Times:

The stock markets gave a virtual thumbs down to the Union Budget and the benchmark BSE crashed 541 points to end below the 13,000-point mark on Wednesday in highly volatile trading on selling by funds and investors.

Right. China's markets crashed by 8% yesterday. Following that, the Dow lost 5%. And following that, all world indices are awash with red today, except Norway's. And the budget caused the crash?

Update: et tu The Telegraph?

Palaniappan Chidambaram had looked good at the nets yesterday when he came to the pitch with the India Shining story in the Economic Survey. But today he dropped a sitter.

The stock market howled, driving the sensex down by 540 points after the budget.

The story was mostly correctly told like here and surprisingly here, but a little surprisingly again not here.

Another Nexus

To add to the politician-criminal nexus, police-criminal nexus, now we have the private bank-goonda nexus. The SC does not approve. Difficult to do otherwise.

There is this paragraph in the DH report which sticks out unrelated to anything else in the report:

The court observed that MNBs score over the nationalised banks as they are technically upgraded, efficient and their staff is well-paid. The ‘dead wood’ in the staff can be removed any time unlike government banks, where staff do not have any accountability and fear of being removed from service and therefore their attitude towards the public is pathetic.

(Italics mine.) This, when the whole brouhaha is about private banks using goondas to assault the public!

Press Freedom

The Hindu cheers the events in AP:

It is to the credit of the media and democratic voices both within the State and outside that the assault on democratic values was beaten back, with the Chief Minister taking the plea that the order had been issued without his knowledge.

The euphoria would be a bit more justifiable if the media and democratic voices had risen up equally strongly against the assault on Tehelka. Instead of nitpicking about the methods used.

Just A Marker

Noting this link, purely as a marker if ever I need to find it again. Things don't get much bigger than that : ushering in wonderful democracy in a country which was ruled by a bloodthirsty dictator.

Commuting In Bangalore

The government creates an Electronics City way outside the city. Software firms head out to it. People swarm to software firms. Traffic abounds on the muddy road leading to Electronics City. We (L&T more correctly) build a nice four-lane highway, with open gutters on either side and service roads too. Things improve for sometime. But eventually the gutters fill with garbage, traffic expands to fill the available road, and the service roads are foobar'd. Then we dig up the nice road laid by L&T right in the middle. We lay prefabricated structures for drainage in the aforementioned gutters and cover it all up with concrete slabs. We are going to build a nice little elevated road. But transportation professionals - you know, the ones who are actually qualified - have a maxim : "You can't build your way out of congestion". That isn't going to stop us from trying.

But really, we can't.

Mohabbat Di Gaddi

The Hindu puts the tragedy in perspective:

The attack on the train (technically a special train from which the passengers are transferred at Attari to the India-Pakistan service) has taken place a day before Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri arrives in New Delhi for talks on the ongoing peace process. In a bid to signal their strength, terrorists sometimes choose to time their attacks to coincide with the visit of dignitaries. In 2002, Hurriyat leader Abdul Ghani Lone was shot dead in Srinagar a day ahead of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to Kashmir. Two years earlier, 35 Sikhs were massacred in Chattisinghpora in Kashmir on the eve of President Bill Clinton's visit to India. It is more than likely that those who perceive the India-Pakistan peace process as a threat to their survival have perpetrated the Samjhauta Express carnage.

It also notes:

The attack may revive memories of the Mumbai train blasts last year, but there is an important difference. The Samjhauta Express is a highly protected train and the attack on it raises serious questions about gaps in railway security. How did the incendiary material used to set the coaches ablaze get past the security checks at Old Delhi railway station?

Praveen Swami looks to the Pakistani jihadi press for clues to the motives of the perpetrators.

Clash Of Civilisations

I have no idea what to make of this:

India is among the countries where a significant number of people believe that a "violent conflict'' between Islam and the West is "inevitable'' as claimed by the American academic Samuel Huntington in his controversial theory of "clash of civilisations'', according to a BBC worldwide poll on the relationship between Muslims and Western culture.

... there is much greater optimism in the West despite the wave of Islamophobia that swept America and large parts of Europe after the 9/11 attacks, and the Madrid and London bombings.

In Britain, an impressive 77 per cent believe that Islam and the West can find a "common ground'' followed by 69 per cent in France, 64 per cent in America and 49 per cent in Germany. Italians are the most optimistic with 78 per cent saying "no'' to the Huntington theory.

What do we know that the West doesn't?

BBC has more details.

Navratna List Expands

To include HAL, BEL and five others. From The Telegraph:

For navratna status, a PSU needs to be up to the mark on six parameters set by the department of public enterprises.

These include the ratio of manpower cost to cost of production; ratio of net profit to net worth; ratio of profit before interest and tax to turnover; earnings per share; and the performance of the PSU vis-a-vis others in its sector.

The scoring is on 100, and a PSU needs to score at least 60. The highest weight of 25 is given to the net profit to net worth ratio followed by the performance of the PSU in its sector. The parameters will be checked for three consecutive years.

They say government has no business being in business. But these PSUs seem to be doing well enough.

Wanted: Leaders

Ramesh Ramanathan [will update link as and when I find it]:

When asked “What kind of political system would you prefer?”, 90% of Indians plumped for democracy, over-ruling alternatives like army rule by a whopping margin. However, we also want a command-and-control type of leadership: over 60% felt it would be good to have a strong leader who didn’t have to deal with the messy realities of parliament and elections. As far as taking individual ownership is concerned, 60% prefer a society that assures safety and stability through appropriate regulations, compared to only 25% who wanted a deregulated society where people are responsible for their own actions.

It seems that we want strong leaders to take us to the “promised land”, minimal responsibility for ourselves in this process, and the authority to fire the leaders when they fail us. Democracy in India is a bit like cricket – it is a spectator sport.

Walmart And Cheapness

Prem Shankar Jha writes about Walmart entering India in DH. Tucked at the end is this:

Stiglitz has also pointed out greater efficiency is only a small part of the reason for Wal-Mart’s edge in pricing. Most of it comes from squeezing its suppliers, driving down wages and denying social benefits. Someone pays, only not Wal-Mart.

Reminded me of something I read sometime ago about Walmart. It is a neat little trick: longtime employees cost more in terms of wages and benefits. So gently prise their hands off the jobs and replace with part-timers as needed:

In the confidential memo sent to Wal-Mart’s board last year, M. Susan Chambers, who was recently promoted to be Wal-Mart’s executive vice president in charge of human resources, questioned whether it was cost-efficient to employ longtime workers. “Given the impact of tenure on wages and benefits,” she wrote, “the cost of an associate with 7 years of tenure is almost 55 percent more than the cost of an associate with 1 year of tenure, yet there is no difference in his or her productivity.”

The memo said, “the shift to more part-time associates will lower Wal-Mart’s health-care enrollment” even though Wal-Mart was reducing the amount of time to one year, from two, that part-time workers would have to wait to qualify for health insurance.

Workers say there is some evidence that the goals outlined in Ms. Chambers’ memo are being put into practice. At several stores in Florida, employees said, managers have suddenly barred older employees with back or leg problems from sitting on stools after using them for years while working as cashiers, store greeters or fitting-room attendants. Wal-Mart said it had no companywide policy on stool use and did not have enough information to comment.

A bit heartless, but it brings home the bacon for Walmart.

There They Go Again

From The Hindu:

For the nth time in its post-1950 career, the Congress Party is in the process of demonstrating that, Bourbon-like, it can `learn nothing and forget nothing' when it comes to deploying the knife of Article 356 against State governments it intensely dislikes.

Time for some political fun and frolic. The question is: why?

Coercion

We learn that India's vote against Iran was coerced. We also learn through the same US official, that we will continue to be coerced:

As a "first step" towards tightening the screws on Iran, India should withdraw from the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project, the former U.S. official argued. "This would send a strong message to Iran, while not hurting India's economic interests" because the pipeline was unlikely to be economically viable, he claimed. "I am not sure what kind of investor would put up money for a pipeline running from Iran through Pakistan. What happens if there is an incident in Kashmir?"

Walking away from the IPI pipeline project, said Mr. Rademaker, would, therefore, be "a low cost way of India demonstrating its commitment to non-proliferation."

He clarified that the U.S. did not consider the Iran pipeline to be a "litmus test" for India. But scrapping the project "would be a smart thing for India to do." India, he stressed, "needs to stop thinking of itself as a Third World country... and start aligning itself with the First World countries."

Galling, especially from the current US administration. So it is refreshing when someone lays it out like it is:

"One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders and is imposing its legal system on other states," Mr. Putin said. "This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody feels protected by international law. This policy fuels the arms race... encourages countries to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

"They keep teaching Russia democracy, but don't want to learn it themselves. Why do they resort to bombings and shellings all the time? Could it be because of a lack of political culture, respect for democracy and law?"

Correction: US Ambassador to India says Rademaker is not an US official, and that his remarks were not accurately reported by The Hindu. As to the first point, he is not an outsider. He's been associated with government in some form or other since 1987, and most importantly he was the Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation till sometime last year and should have intimate knowledge of the Iran vote affair. As the second point, The Hindu says:

The Hindu would like to clarify that Mr. Rademaker spoke before an audience of approximately 20 people and that its Associate Editor, Siddharth Varadarajan, was present and took detailed notes of his remarks, and that the quotes attributed to Mr. Rademaker are wholly accurate.

I'll go with The Hindu.

Are They Mad?

From MSNBC/Newsweek (via Atrios):

At least one former White House official contends that some Bush advisers secretly want an excuse to attack Iran. "They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for," [he says].

How can they even think of doing such a thing after basically destroying another country? How could it happen in a country that is a vibrant democracy with a free press, 24 hour TV, ubiquitous radio, a big military-industrial complex, legalised lobbying (by, for instance, the Israel lobby), an oil industry hungry for foreign oil, and free markets?

I just can't figure it out.

Corruption Here And There

Corruption, nepotism, incompetence. No not India. That's the US reconstructing Iraq:

Instead of hiring reconstruction experts from NGO's, they hired from the Heritage Foundation [a right wing think tank]'s reject list. People who were ideologically sound were hired over the competant and trained. People like Michael Ledeen [a leading regime-change exponent, who works for another right wing think tank]'s daughter, Simone, were given the task of rebuilding Iraq's economy. Imagine the reaction of highly educated, Harvard, Oxford and Sorbonne trained Iraqi economists, when they could get into the Green Zone, dealing with these idiot children. By sending the pure, loyal and untrained, they told the Iraqis they were not serious people. The neocons were allowed to turn Iraq into their playground, and test their wacky theories. Meanwhile Iraqi oil facilities have been attacked 54 times since the occupation started.

Rumors of overcharging and kickback litter the news on a near daily basis. Halliburton has been accused of running empty trailers to get paid from the US government. Even so, the lack of security which is endemic in Iraq makes reconstruction a nightmare.

From here. "Running empty trailers to get paid"? If you like that, then how about hiring a non-existent audit firm for $1.6 million dollars? Watch it. (That's the head of the CPA in the earlier days of occupation being questioned). Corruption is a world-wide phenomenon, tough it does seem not to exist at the lower levels in the US.

Update: And there is a more subtle kind of corruption too. For example, look at this report from The Hindu:

Washington: An ``alternative intelligence'' unit operating at the Pentagon in the run-up to the war on Iraq was dedicated to establishing a link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda, even though the CIA was unconvinced of such a connection, the U.S. Senate was told on Friday.

A report presented to the armed services committee by the Pentagon's Inspector General Thomas Gimble exposes the Bush administration to new charges of manipulating intelligence to make its case for going to war against Saddam nearly four years ago.

The kind of corruption which tries to hoodwink the engine of a democracy - its people. More on this [the intelligence manipulation] here.

Air Show Tickets

I walk in to Canara Bank's Indiranagar branch. Strange. Not a single poster about the Air Show tickets being available. I look around and finally check with a harried looking lady. She says, no, not available. Try the M G Road branch. Thinkng, "not a problem", I get into an autorickshaw. Slow traffic as usual, getting late for work. But have to go get the tickets. Can't disappoint the kid. He's been seeing photographs of the planes for three days now - at breakfast and at dinner. I reach the M G Road branch. Looks like it's closed. No the main door is open. But what's that sign hung on the knob? 'Air Show Tickets sold out'. WHAT? That is not an option at all. Was never! What do I tell the pint-size? Now I realise I should've checked online where else the tickets were supposed to be sold. I remember Forum Mall, but there were others. Not that there is much hope of their being available now. Still, I wouldn't mind scouring Bangalore end to end.

I head out to Forum Mall. Reaching there again the lack of Air Show posters. I ask the security guard. He confirms that they are sold out. He points to a poster on a lampost and suggests I call the phone number listed there. I do. A voice answers and says YES, AVAILABLE! Next to the Ulsoor Gurdwara. Something Mansion, room 404. I thank the voice a lot, feeling euphoric. I don't have to disappoint the pint-sized offshoot. That would have been torture, seeing how eagerly he was waiting to go. My mind conjures up the scene and many internal parts contract, including the heart I think.

I get an auto at the prepaid counter - argue about the charge, but my mind is not really in it. I sit down and we're on our way. Then, slowly, doubts arise. Why in a room in a apartment? Was the voice pulling my leg? Is it a black ticket racket? Not that I was unprepared to pay extra. Anything so I didn't have to break my promise of taking him to the show. I could try to substitute some other thing for the air show, but what really would be a suitable replacement for a Mig 35 shooting by upside down, the Surya Kirans, the Dhruvs, and the various sleek fighter planes? He's been taking them all in in both Deccan Herald and The Hindu for 3 days. And the first thing he said today morning, just after opening his eyes "I'm very happy!". Why? Becuase we'd be going to the air show tomorrow! His first waking thought! Try telling him we couldn't go after all that.

The suspense is killing. The traffic is thick. We're stuck at signal lights every now and then. Finally we reach. The security guy at the apartment waves me on towards the lift as another one tells him, "Didn't he say the tickets are over?" Please, no! I knock on the door of 404. A Punjabi lady, late-middle-aged, is sitting at a dining table right up, and her mother/mother-in-law is sitting on a sofa further down the room. "Do you have tickets for the air show?" The answer is not 'No'. It is "How many do you want sir?". What a nice lady, such a sweet voice. And the old lady, she is nice too. So calm and peaceful. I hand over the money. The dining table lady is confused, I've given her an extra 500 rupee note. I take it back beaming.

Peace and happiness reigns.

Twist Their Arms

Till they do it. But please do provide a route from Indiranagar to Jayanagar. I'm prepared to walk the last-mile[or part thereof] if I can get there in 30 minutes total. And yes, others may want their favourite routes too. Consider how you will provide those. And please do it quickly.

Land of Elephants, Snake Charmers

And bookies.

Iran

Military means not a solution to Iran crisis, says Pranab Mukherjee. About time - one was beginning to wonder if the backbone had atrophied due to disuse. Now to repeat it frequently and not only in Iran. Not that it will change the minds of Bush and his crazy vice-president.

Freedom To Default

In which we learn that someone has been very clever in framing the pensions reform bill. Putting it briefly:

1. We want more money to flow into the stock market.
2. It has been seen that a majority of people who opt for pension plans go with the default option when asked to choose an investment option.
3. So we ensure that the default option in our pensions reforms bill, is the one in which the money is invested into the stock market.
4. Voila, our end is achieved!

Read about it in the Freedom paper [ registration required ].

...the government is keen to move forward on it as it faces major problems in sustaining current pension plans that promise certain fixed payments to its employees, irrespective of the actual returns on the amounts collected from employees.

In return for moving to a flexible returns system, contributors will get the option to invest their contributions in riskier investment avenues that could offer better returns.

Delectable. Another way of putting the second line would be:

Contributors' money will be put into inherently risky investments and they could end up losing their pension money.

Again, from the article:

..the move is sure to increase the flow of pension money into stocks, given India’s soaring markets that are generating double-digit annual returns to investors.

True, the Indian stock market is soaring right now, but what about the long term - after all, the young risk-taking guy choosing to park his money there is in it for more than an year or so.

Freedom. Smells nice.

Safeguarding The Citizenry

Looking around on a topic related to the first Mint post, I found this:

Kelo* has several important lessons for all of us. We are witnessing the destruction of any last remnants of the separation of powers doctrine, a doctrine our founders considered critical to freedom. The notion that the judicial branch of government serves as a watchdog to curb legislative and executive abuses has been entirely exposed as an illusion. Judges not only fail to defend our freedoms, they actively infringe upon them by acting as de facto legislators. Thus Kelo serves as a stark reminder that we cannot rely on judges to protect our freedoms.

It is folly to believe we will regain lost freedoms if only the right individuals are appointed to the Supreme Court. ... Even the most promising jurist can change radically over the course of a lifetime appointment. We are supposed to be a nation of laws, not men, and the fixation on individuals as saviors of our freedoms is misplaced. America will regain lost freedoms only when her citizens wake up and reclaim a national sense of self-reliance, individualism, and limited government. A handful of judges cannot save a nation from itself.

*Kelo refers to a judgement passed by the US Supreme Court.

More Mint-flavoured Freedom

Sure enough, here is what you can expect [reg'n required], straight from the horse's mouth:

...we will aim to fill three needs:

• The need for authoritative, credible and timely news and analysis affecting business and finance, primarily in India, one of the fastest-growing economies in the world today, as well as around the world.

• The need to save you time, through careful selection of essentials, to spare you from wading through torrents of unevaluated words each day.

• And, critically, the need for trustworthiness. We believe that the only information that is useful is information that is accurate and unbiased.

We will not dilute our usefulness by attempting to be all things to all people, or be a general newspaper. Nor will our focus be narrowly stock markets oriented: While the numbers are growing, less than 3% of all Indians own shares.

We will concentrate our reporting efforts on the broad world of Indian business and, through select WSJ content, relevant international business and trends; on political and social forces at the intersection of Indian business and politics.

Through such understanding, we hope to help our readers find new business and investment opportunities, avoid costly mistakes and make wiser, informed decisions.

The missing stress on freedom and tribalism etc immediately strikes one. As for 'information that is accurate and unbiased", Fox News' tagline (or whatever it is called) is : "We report. You decide".

Freedom

I read this:

...finally, India has a newspaper that explicitly supports the values of freedom, in all its forms, that I hold so dear.

I head out to the link kindly given. I realize that some people have a very different conception of freedom than mine.

Update:
Mint quote [reg'n required]:

... India continues to have one of the most fettered economic systems in the world. We still live in a country that is technically socialist and where the right to property is not a fundamental right. The state can brazenly take over private land for what it believes to be the public good.

Poor Wall Street Journal (one of the "partners" of the mint-flavoured newspaper). It must have given up on the US, where till this day, the state can brazenly take over private land.

The same Mint columnist also writes:

Caste and gender atrocities leap into prominence every once in a while. Religious pogroms, too. No country can claim to be free when people can be killed because of the accident of birth. We will support the individual against the insanities of tribalism in its various forms.

Color me cynical for not believing that. There will be occasional noises - if at all - but that's all there will be. Polite noises. And 'insanities of tribalism'?!

This is what the it is really all about:

We believe that prosperity is achieved by giving the market a free run.

What else, with the WSJ powering it.