Pray for Indian pseudo democracy

Head lines Farooq opts for Omar as J&K CM

Congress party leaders voluntarily chose Indira Gandhi (emergency, blue star, killed), when she died they ran to Rajiv (IPKF - Killed) then to Sonia, then now grooming Rahul Gandhi. This is a sham democracy.

Laloo installs his wife as chief minister and runs the state from the prison.

MGR dies his wife Janaki is installed as a puppet. then his concubine Jaya are running a reign of devils. PMK Dr. Ramadoss' son, Murasoli Maran's son ...

Sheikh Abdullah, Farooq Abdullah and now Omar Abdullah. The family whose shoddy governance is a huge factor in the militancy in the valley.

These are not exception, though one would hope it to be. Nepotism and dynastic rule is across the board (From prime minsters to the Chaprasi in the lowly Panchayats. I guess people don't even seem to think this as another form of corruption. Which spreads incompetence and costs everyone dearly.

Pacific NW under seige ... by the governments in action.

Cliff mass has a nice blog that contrasts the problems of the Pacific NW snow storms to others. No matter what the problem is it has come @ a great cost. Entire pacific northwest has been under virtual house arrest since Dec 18th. It has hurt the local economy in more than one ways. With economy hurting it is the worst time for them to fail. It has not only ruined the Christmas gifts for thousands, it prevented employees from getting to work and hitting them hard on their wallets. Plowing could have also provided hard to come by jobs for 10s of drivers from construction industry. Cost of plowing loses hand over fist to cost of lost productivity and tax revenue

One of the biggest stumbling block here is, the fact that Government is running low on cash. Nobody wants to spend money preparing for an event that happens every 5-8 years. Plowing cost is not just the cost of the plows. The cost of renting and operating plow trucks. Cost of hiring plow drivers. Cost of sand/salt. There is cost in running a big operation like that in terms of choosing when and where to apply those resources effectively on the fly. I hope there is someone with a reasonable answer for complicated question.

Secret service "protecting" the president

Secret service has become secretive in service, they ware no where to be found when needed. When disgruntled Iraqi threw his footwear at the president, President Al Maliki did more than the entire service @ that point. He put his hand in front of presidents face. May be they were provide their service in complete secrecy, May be they have some invisible agents who came and covered the president.

Al Maliki celebrity guard service



Now a days Secret service, NSA et al are so busy spying on American citizens they have completely forgotten how to do their their real jobs.

British Bigotry Corporation aka BBC

When Muslim citizens of Britain bomb London they call it "Rocked by TERROR". When Pakistani based, terror camp trained, terrorists come and shoot random people and foreigners they are just gunmen. Why don't we just go ahead and call them freedom fighters like Pakistan does.

I am disgusted by the double standard that clearly shows the hypocrisy and colonialist attitude of BBC. I guess I don't understand, barbarians from third countries do kill each other meaninglessly and hence they don't necessarily have to be terrorists. See it for yourself, try to find the word terror anywhere in this page or related pages that is page from BBC reporter/Writers, ie not in double quotes.

In defiance to the threats from the terrorist thugs

My hats off Mumbaikars. Within a matter of days after the Mumbai terrorist massacre was over I saw pictures of Cafe Leopold buzzing with life, not withstanding the scars of terrorism in every picture. My special kudos to its international patrons who not only chose to stay instead of fleeing, they even chose to come back to the place where the terrorist came to make a point. So to make a counter point that you cannot cow us down, next time I go Mumbai, I have decided to go eat in Cafe Leopold, Stay @ Oberoi Trident or Taj Mahal Palace hotel and stop by the CST train station too. I saw bold and defiant statements from Tata who owns the Taj Mahal Palace to bring it back to its full glory and from the Chabbad organization to start a bigger place. I hope the world business community makes such bold decisions too.

There nothing called recession in land of "Pork"

CNN reported that "Mayors want funds to fix their cities". I know I sound like a guy who is never going to be happy. I don't trust any politician. The fact that most of them are former attorneys isn't exactly a very helpful to earn trust. This is moment is rife with opportunities for irregularities. Because public and the market are anxiously waiting for the government to act "quickly and decisively".

Lets lets look at a few scenarios:

1. The contract was over priced: Our Governor chose to give the contract to company that could get going with project in the most expeditious manner.
2. A no bid contract was awarded to Haliburton: Our secretary of transportation had to act on a war footing to organization that had the most experience in doing the full spectrum of the project (including what the government's was supposed to be doing).
3. A project was ill conceived: (if they every agree to their mistakes) We worked across the aisle and put together a bipartisan plan with the knowledge and expertise available at that time. We active with interest of the public in our mind and the economic downturn has changed the conditions.
4. Newly constructed structure has serious design flaws: Contractors fault, Opposition party had cut the funding for the government employees who were to oversee the projects.
5. Shoddy construction: Same answer as previous line.
   
6. Project was never finished on time and is way over budget: We told you, reviving America was not going to easy. It is not a one year or ever a one term thing. We made some tough choices and we have to stay the course and actually we may need a surge of another $100 Billion to win.
   

It sounds lobbyist firms are going to be busy hiring all the crooks from wall street who lost their jobs first cooking books, then selling worthless bonds now re-tooling America. I am so elated. Recession is over my friends lets open that bottle champagne and start day trading again.

Affirmation: Hope history does not repeat itself ...

NY Times article: The Kashmir Connection: A Puzzle wrote "After the attacks of September 2001, it was clearer that Al Qaeda had formed alliances with Lashkar: the first high-level Qaeda prisoner taken after 9/11, Abu Zubayda, was captured in a Lashkar safe house in Pakistan, as Mr. Riedel, now affiliated with the Brookings Institution, pointed out in an article posted online last Wednesday. Other Qaeda operatives who fled after American forces arrived in Afghanistan also holed up with Lashkar, he noted."

This is exactly what India has been screaming about since mid 90's, Clinton administration chose to bury their head at that time and now everyone is paying the price.

Hope history does not repeat itself this time...

India has been screaming since mid 1990's that what Pakistan calls freedom fighters also include a a long list of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. Clinton/Albright team chose to ignore that, sticking to the old cold war posture and blindly supporting their old allies. Common perception in India was that Madeline was an anti India hawk and it was of no value to US interests. But what was surprising was, the administration almost did nothing when the terrorists bombed the embassies in north africa and went hit USS Cole with devastating effect. They not only did not do anything they even did everything in their power to stop India from doing something decisive. They blackmailed week coalition governments that ruled this young democracy in acting their own self interst to protect their citizens and national interests. They did this knowing fully well that Taliban is an instrument of Pakistani establishment and Osama bin Landen and his Al Qaeeda thugs were thriving in their patronage spreading their reighn terror from India in south to Chechenya in the north and Bosnia in the west and Philipines to the esast.

If only US had acted or even let others act on their own behalf, that too at least after being hit three times directly, I am very sure 9/11 would not have happened. Those 19 hijackers would have died in the fight that ensued in Afghanistan. Those camps where the plans were hatched and trainings were being provided would not have existed. The planners of London and Madrid bombings would not have had the guts or the infrastructure to carry out such adacious attacks against humanity. The 19-21 year old terrorists from pakistan wouldn't learnt their correct lessons when their were still children, instead they grew to become terrorists to commit such attrocities against the humanity. But then here we are once again, getting ready for another Clinton foreign policy team. A cabinet over flowing with former Clinton "team" members. I am not sure why one would need a team, when you are planning to do nothing. Clinton/Albright team did nothing to stop Rwanda massacre, ran with their tails tucked between their legs when buch of criminals shot down black hawks and killed american forces, Serbernica and the list goes on. Now the task @ hand is even harder. Pakistan has had time to develop and perfect their nuclear and missile technology. Terrorists have grown in numbers, are emboldened by the success of many successful spectacular attacks and grown technologically savvy. US has gotten lot weaker financially and interms military preparedness. My hope against hope is that the new president Obama seems to a student of history and has made the right noises and I wish that Clintonites have learnt from their mistakes and right the wrongs this time around.

Its always the other indians who are wrong ?

Once again I want to visit a scenario:

1. Terrorists open fire in crowded train station. Lucky ones die immediately.
2. Ill-equipped and under trained and barely motivated police arrive late.
3. Ill equipped ambulances arrive even later and take the victims to woefully ill equipped hospitals.
4. If you think the families of the dead or the seriously injured are in a the nightmare it just got worse.
5. There is no way for them to find out what happened to their loved ones, because there isn't any volunteer based or government organized system to co-ordinate with the hospitals or police. Needless to say, by this point, under paid and under trained staff are also overwhelmed. To the police the victims families are just another nuisance or a cash cow depending on where the crisis is.
   
6. Finally by some miracle when the loved ones locate their deceased kin in some hospital, one would think would bring some kind of relief, but no, a new chapter of nightmare has just begun.
7. Just as the smoke clear, India is back in business, as usual. Now the babu's (also called civil servants) hands start itching. It is like trying to snatch the remains of your loved ones from hungry vultures, hyenas and crocodiles. The pillaging happens at the very steps of the way from getting a death certificate, to getting the remains released, getting government grants announced for the victims, getting insurance claims filed, getting insurance claims cleared .....and on and on.
   

The utter heartlessness and "professionalism" of the Indian Babudom that has lead to the state of the current state affairs. And trust me all those people who took the streets today, lit candles last night, the ones who blogged about it when the guns were blazing will be more than happy to take part in these delude without a second thought come tomorrow morning. And I won't be surprised to find some of them on the other side of the table ... with an itchy hand and heart without any remorse.

Does it even make sense to say "God save India" ?