Most of the above mentioned women (except Sonia Gandhi) have made it on their own.  Of course they had their own mentors on the way up.  But they made it on their sheer dint of hard work and perseverance.

Am not sure if there is any big country in the world where women are in power in such a big capacity.  So, its 3 cheers to the populace who voted all these women to power.  Hopefully unlike the men who screwed up the country royally, the women would do a better job.

Hope Jayalalitha would keep her vindictive streak in the backburner and let law takes its course on the various scams perpetrated under the DMK reign.   Hope Mamta Banerjee will realise that she is the leader of the ruling party now and ditch her habit of going on a strike / hartal every time her ego has been hurt.  Am sure the Commies wouldnt have taken the kick in the butt given to them by the people of the state of Bengal in the right spirit and try to rake up problems for the new government.  Afterall, the Commies are synonymous with inefficiency, violence, ineptitude and failure.

Here’s 3 cheers to the women power and hoping that Behenji will finally wake up from the slumber and stop building more statues and do something for the chronically backward state of  Uttar Pradesh.  Hope Shiela Dikshit will keep up the good work of transforming the infrastructure of Delhi from a sleepy bureaucratic city to a modern mega-metropolis.

Headline taken from: Ibnlive

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This book is a look into the next 100 years by George Friedman (no relation to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times).  George Friedman is the chief executive of STRATFOR, a private global intelligence firm he founded in 1996. He has spent more than 20 years teaching political science and has commented extensively on security and defense issues.

Though its difficult to accurately predict what can happen next year, Friedman lets his thoughts into the next 100 years based on the situations and issues that have shaped the past 100-200 years.  Based on this he comes to the conclusion that in the next 100 years, the major powers of the world would be (hold your breath) USA, Japan, Poland and Turkey.

He goes on to describe that by the end of the current decade (2020), China would have disintegrated and Tibet liberated with active participation by India and China will either go back to its closed doors policy or become a non-entity.  Yes, China has to keep up its blistering growth or else there could be serious trouble among its population which has no other outlet to express its disenchantment against the communist government.  But to think that the communist government hasnt thought about it and doesnt have a plan B is difficult to imagine.

The author asserts that the United States power is so extraordinarily overwhelming that it will dominate the coming century, brushing aside Islamic terrorist threats now, overcoming a resurgent Russia in the 2010s and 20s and eventually gaining influence over space-based missile systems that Friedman names battle stars. Friedman is the founder of Stratfor, an independent geopolitical forecasting company, and his authoritative-sounding predictions are based on such factors as natural resources and population cycles. While these concrete measures lend his short-term forecasts credence, the later years of Friedmans 100-year cycle will provoke some serious eyebrow raising. The armed border clashes between Mexico and the United States in the 2080s seem relatively plausible, but the space war pitting Japan and Turkey against the United States and allies, prognosticated to begin precisely on Thanksgiving Day 2050, reads as fantastic (and terrifying) science fiction. Whether all of the visions in Friedmans crystal ball actually materialize, they certainly make for engrossing entertainment.

source: Amazon

There are a lot of issues on which i dont agree with the author of the book.  Other than a few instances, Friedman makes no mention of India in the whole book.  He says that India would be a regional power with no impact on the global affairs.  I cant understand how he manages to just discard a country that could have 1.5 billion people by 2050, the world’s top 5 standing army, one of the best airforce and naval power, not to mention an economy of at least $ 20 trillion by 2050 (conservative estimates).

I tried making a small comparison chart of the countries that are supposed to be significant players (according to Friedman) in the next 100 years versus India.  A cursory glance at the figures and its easy to see why the book is way off on its prediction.

* Data belongs to year 2009
** All figures are in US dollars
*** GDP & per capita is PPP
**** Data sourced from CIA website

But he goes on and on about Turkey and Poland being significant leaders in Europe who will militarily crush the rest of Europe.  There is hardly any mention of France or Britain.  Germany according to Friedman would be on the decline.  Agreed on that, but to dismiss the German power with regards to Turkey and Poland is simply too far fetched.

He also speaks a lot about Mexico which could be the top 10 economies by 2050, but no mention of India which could be the top 3 economy by 2050.  The author looks too enamoured by USA and believes that they will maintain status quo into the next 100 odd years.  Of course, no one believes that US will just lie down and die, but to imagine that the disastrous economic policies pursued by USA would have no impact into the future is a bit too far fetched to believe.  As for Japan, its negative population growth combined with its insignificant economic growth for the past 20 odd years have dented its abilities both on the economic as well as military front.  As a country that doesnt encourage any form of immigration, Japan will be in deep trouble as it has to cope with a rapidly graying population.  If it opens its doors to immigration, its will have to face a lot of social tensions.

The book is a good read, if you are into fantasies and would love to have a good laugh.  Surely not a book to be taken seriously.

The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century
Author – George Friedman
Pages – 272
Publisher – Doubleday

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A win for Congress-RJD would have been a trip back to the stone age for Bihar. Nitish Kumar has got an overwhelming mandate from the public.  No matter how much the Congress tries to portray that the win for Nitish was nothing but a rejection of Lalu’s politics, they cant deny the fact that people have virtually rejected them too.  For the party ruling at the center to win /lead in less than 10 seats in a 243 member assembly is a new low.

People are increasingly voting for roti-kapada-makaan and other necessities in life.  No one bothers about reservations, mandir-masjid, communal and other caste politics anymore.  There is a whole new generation of kids who have been born post the 1991 liberalisation.

The new India demands development.  Hope the Thuggerays in Bombay realise that probably they need to stop beating up the migrants from Bihar.  Sooner or later no one would want to end up in the corrupt and crumbling Slumbay Bombay anymore.  Hope the corrupt Congress in Maharashtra gets the message too.   Not to mention the constant feuding AP Congress.

3 Cheers again to Nitish Kumar for his developmental politics. May his tribe increase.

PS: Guess what is the other heartening news?  The complete rout of the commies

Above picture courtesy: IBNLive

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After the leak of more than 90,000 secret documents on the Wikileaks website, more and more sordid exposure of the Pakistani leadership are coming to light.  It was always known that the rogue intelligence agency of Pakistan, the ISI, was hand in glove with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Lashkar-e-Toiba and many other terrorist organisations fomenting teror in India.

But what takes the cake is the ignorant America feeding the Paki army so that it can fund the terrorists which in turn stab the American and other NATO troops currently in Afghanistan in the back.  The same money that the Americans provided the Pakistani government is now being fed by the ISI and Pakistani Army back to the Al Qaeda backed terrorists who are in turn killing the American soldiers.

I wonder how the American citizens are tolerating their government feeding the same scums who are killing their soldiers. Any civilized government would have re-looked at the horrors of the backstabbing that Pakistan has been doing to their soldiers…but not the US government.  The game of strategic reach that the US likes to play so much has stretched its resources so badly that the US economy is on the verge of a collapse.  Still, it refuses to learn from its mistakes.

Inspite of the evidence put forth by the intelligence, that the biggest snake in the hole is nothing but the Pakistani Army/ISI, the Americans seem to have no qualms sharing the same bed with them.  Pakistan has mastered the art of holding a gun to its own head and threatening to kill itself.  Its time the Americans call their bluff.

If the Americans want to withdraw from Afghanistan in 3-4 years as they predict, its best for them to rein in the Pakistani Army/ISI and strengthen the Afghan govt’s hands in developing a strong defence against not only the local insurgents but also the Army/ISI.

As for India, the best thing for it to happen would be the breakup of Pakistan.  I have always believed that a strong and economically stable Pakistan is a bigger headache for India than one which is broken up into pieces.  I love Manmohan Singh and really appreciate the hard work he is putting in trying to find a peaceful solution with Pakistan.  But he doesnt realise that he is barking up the wrong tree and that Pakistan is like the dog whose tail will always be curled.  No matter what we cant straighten it.  Its not a civilized society and probably we need to wall off the borders between the two countries and cut all strategic, business and people to people ties.

According to Canada’s former ambassador to Afghanistan, Chris Alexander…

Gen. Kayani is saying he wants to call the shots in Kabul. To do so, he is prepared to support the principal outfit launching suicide attacks in Afghanistan’s cities. He is backing the Islamic Emirate’s effort to wreck an Afghan-led nation-building process.

The Pakistan army under Gen. Kayani is sponsoring a large-scale, covert guerrilla war through Afghan proxies – whose strongholds in Baluchistan and Waziristan are flourishing. Their mission in Afghanistan is to keep Pashtun nationalism down, India out and Mr. Karzai weak.

It has nothing to do with Islam, whose principles they trample; indeed, the flower of Afghanistan’s ulema (religious leaders) have been among their victims. Gen. Kayani and others will deny complicity. But as the WikiLeaks material demonstrates, their heavy-handed involvement is now obvious at all levels.

To understand the context of this fraught relationship, read a report called The Sun and the Sky: The Relationship of Pakistan’s ISI to Afghan Insurgents, by Matt Waldman, a former Oxfam policy adviser now at Harvard. It is a chilling tale. When the scale of this complicity is fully exposed, it will rank high on the list of modern scandals.

The USA seems to have no qualms cutting off all funding to Iran, North Korea and any other country that doesnt toe its line.  But when it comes to Pakistan, it strangely behaves like an Ostrich who buries its face in the sand.

Tunku Varadarajan hits the nail on the head when he says…

We are now at a crossroads with Pakistan, a point at which we need to pull out old words from the Bush playbook. It is time to state to them—to state, in particular, to Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani, the Pakistan army’s chief of staff—that Pakistan is either with us, or against us. There can be no caveats, no exit clauses, no fine print, no weasely handwringing about Pakistan’s need to retain “strategic balance” in Afghanistan.

Some more articles on the leaked documents

On WikiLeaks, Pakistan and Afghanistan; the tip of an old iceberg

Above pictures courtesy: Pakistanisforpeace & omjiyadav

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But under the socialist regime of our succesive governments, the economy has been screwed up badly and sadly even 63 years after independence, we have millions of our citizens going hungry every day while millions of tons of foodgrains rot in open grounds for lack of storage space.

Meanwhile we have a food and agricultural minister who is busy hobnobbing with the glamour of industry and entertainment and involving himself in cricket. Not to mention monopolising the sugar business in his home state of Maharashtra. All this at time when foodgrains have no place to be stored and are left to the mercy of rains and heat in some open lands.

Even though the Supreme Court has woken up late, its good to see that the apex court has now come out with a ruling stating that not a single grain should be wasted and if the government cant do the needful, it must distribute the food to the poor free of cost.

The Supreme Court has observed that not a single food grain should be wasted. In a strongly-worded ruling, the apex court has told the government that foodgrains are rotting and if you can’t do anything about it then distribute it among the poor. The court has also sought government’s response on this.

Meanwhile, as the government faces flak over letting close to 30 lakh tonnes of foodgrain rot across the country, the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on food has reportedly decided to sell an additional 30 lakh tonnes of rice and wheat to 11.5 crore Above-Poverty-Line (APL) families through ration shops.

Didnt such a though occur to the incompetent government and the food minister earlier?

PS: Remember the days of waiting for 2 years for a land line, booking periods for a Bajaj scooter or a Maruti car?  That’s the kind of pathetic performance only our government can do.  That’s why agriculture, retail and everything to do with logistics needs to be deregulated.  So that the private sector can do in a few years what our government hasn’t been able to do in decades.

Picture courtesy: Poonam

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Today’s news reports that 5 people involved in the Satyam scam have been given bail. Dont be surprised when Ramalinga Raju who is living like a king in the NIMS hospital but refuses to appear in courts or even take part in a televideo trial will soon be released on bail too.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry can make out that the various excuses given by criminals and undertrials are fake and yet our courts accept those excuses and keep pushing the dates of the cases.  A friend of mine who was working under a famous lawyer in Hyderabad used to tell numerous stories of how his boss used to hoodwink the courts with fake medical leaves, out of station kinda excuses to not attend the court.  Heck, the lawyer even used to give excuses like his car’s tyre got punctured and excused himself from attending court.  I wonder if the judge didnt remind the lawyer that there is something called autos, taxis or other public transport that he could have taken to attend court.

Till the government amends the laws to ensure that every case needs to be wrapped up in a certain amount of time no matter what the excuse, this charade will keep going on.   It took 26 years for the courts to find the guilty in the Bhopal gas carnage.  People are still suffering the after effects.  The wounds of the survivors of the Sikh riots led by the Congress ministers, the muslims killed in Gujarat with the active participation of the ruling BJP and the current CM Narendra Modi, the riots of Bombay perpetrated by the Thuggerays….the list goes on.

Till the feet of our leaders are held to the fire and action demanded from them, i dont see any closure for the millions of people on whom the actual crime is not the injustice, but the judicial system and the government that was elected to keep them safe from harm insults them repeatedly by denying them justice.

Fraudulent sales, inflated invoices, accrued interest and understated liabilities were some of the major methods that Ramalinga Raju and his henchmen used in order to make Satyam Computers Services Ltd appear highly profitable and keep the share price high, so that he could take away a whopping Rs2,743 crore out of the company. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) explained this and other intricacies of its investigation into Satyam at a media workshop in Mumbai.

JL Negi, general manager, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on deputation to the CBI explained how Ramalinga Raju falsified facts and puffed up results. He said, the company benchmarked its performance to that of Infosys. The financial numbers were massaged through fraudulent sales- invoices generated through “Excel porting”, which allowed the founder of Satyam and his co-conspirators to raise invoices bypassing the regular system and obfuscating an audit trail. In the period from April 2003 to December 2008, 7,561 fake invoices were created by a set of people close to Raju, who had access to the system. The fake invoices generated without purchase orders were shown as “hidden” and could only be accessed by a chosen core group. The CBI alleges that Mr Raju even asked his software team to develop certain products for seven non-existent customers.

These were Mobitel, Cellnet, E-care, Synony, Northsea, Autotech and Hargreaves. Fake revenue was recognized for these products by generating fictitious email as if they originated from these customers.  A domain was created in rediffmail to send these emails and 63 invoices were generated to raise Rs430.66 crore. The company even booked Rs31.18 crore as forex profit on account of fictitious sales.

Read this full article in livemint on how Ramanlinga Raju used his position in Satyam to perpetrate the scam.  You have to simply say hats off for the way he manipulated the scam.

Not to mention a big kick on the backside of the regulators, law enforcement agencies who let the scam happen for years and kept their eyes shut.

Past articles on the Satyam scam

The Satyam shocker continues…
Ramalinga Raju – The fraud King
Satyam’s pack of lies crumble
The Satyam – Maytas flip flop

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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh dropped a bombshell at the meeting of the full planning commission on Tuesday when he disclosed that the US computer hardware giant Dell was looking at shifting out of China, and hinted that the company may be looking at India as its sourcing base. Dell, he quoted the company’s chairman as saying, buys $25 billion from China. China’s loss could mean a huge gain for India, he added.

The news comes on the heels of software giant Google shutting down its search engine in mainland China and redirecting Chinese language search traffic to Hong Kong.

The prime minister, in his closing remarks at the plan panel meet, said: “A very important point has been raised regarding development of the hardware sector of information technology. This morning I met the chairman of Dell Corporation. He informed me that they are buying equipment and parts worth $25 billion from China. They would like to shift to safer environment with climate conducive to enterprise with security of legal system. So I think this is an area where there are immense opportunities. I urge the Planning Commission to apply their mind about development of hardware and parts of computer industry.”

Full article here

Google picture courtesy:  Apple Investor

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Years ago Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney laid the foundations of outsourcing the critical logistics of the American military machienary.  Dick Cheney as the head of Halliburton and Donald Rumsfeld as the person who created the policies necessary for the same.

Today Halliburton-KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root) which was later on split into two different companies, Halliburton and KBR are the main ones who run the logistics of the American military.  In the process they have totally corrupted the procedures and have billed the American public billions of dollars of fake expenses.

Pratap Chatterjee goes into great detail as to how the Halliburon-KBR combine came about, how it managed to entrench itself into all the contracts of the military logistics, its transgressions, fake billing, over billing, wastage of food, resources, blatant human rights abuses, rapes of its female employees, usage of foreign nationals in war zones with no safety equipment, their exploitation etc.  Its a disturbing read of how in this age of free and available information, all these details have been hid from the public in general.

The book is in the markets for a few years and the fact that it hasnt been challenged or sued is a sure indication that the author has got his facts right and that he has evidence to prove all accusations he presents in the book.  Even though Halliburton-KBR might reject the author’s claims, it does recognise the rot that infests the organisation.

Chatterjee (Iraq Inc.) delves into the nebulous world of the Houston-based Halliburton corporation, tracing the company to its roots, when a fortuitous meeting with a young Lyndon Baines Johnson propelled the Brown and Root Company (which later merged with Halliburton) into Washington power politics. The author details the military contracting that largely funded the company through WWII and into the present-day war in Iraq, intertwining the company’s history with the biographies of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other officials in the Bush administration. Chatterjee provides a laundry list of abuses for which the company has been investigated, including inflated billing of the Pentagon, providing unsafe living conditions for U.S. soldiers, labor exploitation and coverups to avoid congressional inquiry. He concludes with a look at the whistleblowers that brought these scandals into the public eye and the repercussions of the eventual congressional investigation. Chatterjee keeps the pace of the narrative at a quick clip and nimbly marshals his extensive evidence to reveal—without sanctimony or stridency—Halliburton’s record of corruption, political manipulation and human rights abuses.

“Halliburton’s Army” begins citing how $5,000/day oil-well fire-fighters were brought in, despite the Kuwaiti’s offering to do the job for free out of gratitude for Gulf War I and concern for their own environment. The situation rapidly deteriorated – potential whistle-blowers demoted or other wise threatened, overheads running 43-55%, overcharges for fuel – $2.64/gallon, vs. a local Iraqi source at .96/gallon (or even an internal Defense Dept. source at $1.32/gallon), splitting contracts to avoid bidding requirements associated with large dollar amounts, billing for hours not worked, ordering multiple items when just one was needed (cost-plus!), serving overpriced and sometimes outdated food to non-existent troops, failure to treat water with chlorine, using very-high-priced suppliers, electrocuting troops via improper electrical work, failing to pay required disability benefits to those injured on the job, etc.

Source: Halliburton’s Army Amazon page

Halliburton’s Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War
Author – Pratap Chatterjee
Pages – 304
Publisher – Nation Books

While dealing with terrorist supporting countries like Pakistan, an aggressive covert assassination program can go a long way in controlling the terrorism perpetrated by Pakistani supported terrorists on India.  Taking out select leaders of the rogue intelligence agency, ISI sponsoring the terrorism and leaders of JuD, LeT etc should be actively considered by India.

After the disastrous policy by the ex-Prime Minister IK Gujral who shut down the Counter Intelligence Teams of R&AW, its time India flexed its muscles.  A few targeted killings will send a strong message across to our neighbours that their transgressions will not be tolerated anymore.  The only way to stop terrorism is to increase the cost on the sponsors.  They slap you and you gouge out both their eyes and bash their face up badly.  That’s how you respond to terrorism and not by getting apologetic about it.

But it needs leaders with guts and conviction to take up such measures.  Do we have any of them?  Our leaders are either busy dividing us on caste, religion, region etc or sucking up to minorities.  Anyone out there who can implement these measures?

According to a report in the Telegraph, the group, which included a woman, entered the hotel dressed as businessmen and tennis players, and managed to strangle Mabhouh inside his room. The assassins arrived in Dubai carrying French, German, Italian and Swiss passports, and checked into different hotels, says the report. They used fake names like Gail Folliard, Kevin Daveron and Peter Elvinger.

They met later at a shopping mall, and communicated with each other before that via a ‘command centre’ in Austria, says the report. Traveling under the alias of Mahmoud Abdul Ra’ouf Mohammed, Mabhouh was spotted at the Dubai airport by a member of another surveillance team, who had waited hours for him.

Meir Dagan – The current head of Mossad

After he checked into the al-Bustan hotel, one of the hit squad dressed as a tennis player accompanied him in the lift, and followed him to his room, the daily said. The information was then passed on to Elvinger, the group’s leader, who promptly checked into the room across the corridor from Mabhouh, says the Telegraph.

Soon, another surveillance team arrived to keep a check on the target, who left the hotel half an hour later. The group tried to take advantage of his absence and attempted to break into his room, while the woman and Daveron kept a look out for other guests. The police have not released footage of what happened next, but the assassins somehow managed to force or fool Mabhouh into opening his door, and suffocated him, said the paper. They then locked the door from inside and left.

The team left Dubai on different flights over the span of the next 12 hours, and fled to various destinations including Frankfurt, Hong Kong and South Africa [ Images ], said the Telegraph. Mabhouh’s dead body was discovered over twelve hours later, and his killers, ‘a professional team that is highly skilled in these kinds of operations’, were thousands of miles away by that time, said the daily.

Read the full article here

And now, Dubai has threatened to issue an arrest warrant against the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu if Mossad’s complicity in the assassination is proved.   It would be good for Dubai to first explain as to what the leader of a global terrorist organisation was doing in its country?  It would be better for even Britain who is now blowing hot and cold against Israel to see why most of the terror plots in the world today are being hatched on their own soil and why most of the terrorists seem to have some connection with Britain?

Countries like Britain and Dubai seem to be in the crosshairs of global terrorism and it would be good for these respective governments to get their houses in order before pointing their fingers at others.  As for Mossad, its job is to keep its people and country safe.  And to chase down anyone who hurts their people/country and kill them like dogs.  Three cheers to Mossad for a job well done.

Some good reading on Mossad in the Telegraph paper here – “Mossad’s license to kill“.  How i really wish our so-called external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) would grow some balls and do their job properly than being caught with their pants down.

Above pictures source:  FPP & Wikipedia

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Three Shiv Sena legislators complained Monday that their police security cover had been withdrawn, and accused the Congress-NCP of getting back at them for their recent opposition to the government.

Two of the three lawmakers, Jogeshwari MLA Ravindra Waikar and Andheri MLC Anil Parab, were among the 342 Shiv Sena activists who were detained last week for waving black flags at Rahul Gandhi during his visit to Mumbai. Before that, Parab had led a march to Shah Rukh Khan’s home to protest the star’s statement that Pakistani players should have been part of the IPL.

The third lawmaker, Bandra MLA Prakash (Bala) Sawant, said he had not taken part in any protests but had visited police stations to talk to Sainiks who had been detained.

MLAs and MLCs in Maharashtra are provided security by the Protection and Security Department of the Mumbai Police, and are assigned policemen not above the rank of constable who carry a small weapon and work in 12-hour shifts.

Sawant complained he had been targeted despite his not having taken part in the protests. “I had only gone to meet activists detained at various police stations,” Sawant said. He added he would write to the police to ask them to restore his security. “My constituency is very sensitive and if anything happens to me the state government will be responsible.”

Read the full news here

I have always believed that all these morons dont deserve even a single police constable’s protection around them.  Since they have no qualms whipping up communal and regional feelings and exhorting their supporters to beat up innocent people, the police should also let them be at the mercy of people who want to take revenge from them.

Let them also be beaten into pulp while the rest of the world watches the fun.

Picture source: Moneytrader

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