A load of crap from an idle brain

Picked this book at the library just for the heck of it and it really turned out to be a racy read.  Andy Hayman, Asst Commisioner at the Scotland Yard was in overall command of the counter terrorism offensive at the time of the bombings in the bus and train tunnels in London.

He writes about the way the police along with the MI5, MI6, and various other investigative agencies put the pieces together in the biggest manhunt ever undertaken in the UK to catch the culprits involved in the mayhem.

Andy also goes about his frustration with the inefficient policing and investigative system; the self centered politician who wants his 2 minutes of fame; the ego clashes within the police department which are neatly exploited by the terrorists etc.

Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman, CBE, QPM, was in overall command of the UK’s national counter-terrorism offensive, at the centre of every major terrorist investigation – overt and covert – of the past five years. He handled the Metropolitan Police’s response to 7/7 and dealt with the politically explosive murder of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko.

Based at New Scotland Yard, in charge of thousands of Special Branch and counter-terrorism officers in the UK and across the globe, deciding strategy, working directly with the Prime Minister with a budget of GBP500 million, Hayman is able to give unprecedented insight into key top-level crisis meetings he attended with intelligence chiefs and political leaders worldwide. In an inspirational and at times heart-breaking account, he describes how he led a dedicated team of men and women, committed to protecting the UK from dangerous enemies. Hayman lived through the pain and soul-searching when terrorists did succeed – and the pride when intelligence officers prevented attacks.

Andy Hayman leaves no holds barred in his analysis of the way law enforcers tackle terrorism. He outlines his radical blueprint for the future to protect the public, in the run-up to the 2012 Olympic Games and beyond. If you thought you knew the stories behind the news, you’ll realise you didn’t until you read this book.

The Terrorist Hunters
Authors – Andy Hayman & Margaret Gilmore
Pages – 352
Publisher – Bantam Press

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For a country that has always looked at Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) with suspiction and has resisted the entry of foreign money, the $100 billion mark that India has hit is not a mean achievement.

India has crossed the $100 billion milestone in FDI through equity since 2000 up to July this year testifying the country’s increasing profile as a safe and sound investment destination in the midst of the global financial crisis.

As much as 44% of the money came through the Mauritius route, apparently because the investors wanted to take advantage of India’s double taxation avoidance treaty with the island nation. The cumulative FDI inflows since 2000 and up to July 2009 amounted to $100.33 billion. The inflows in the first four months of the current financial year was $10.5 billion, according to data compiled by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. The other big investors included Singapore, the US, UK and the Netherlands.

Commenting on the $100 billion milestone, economists said India is being perceived as a safe and dynamic destination for global investors. “This is a reflection that India is being taken as a safe and dynamic destination for investment as the economy is growing at 6%. The investors also want to diversify their portfolio from China by investing here,” Rajiv Kumar, CEO and director of Icrier said. The FDI would further improve if the economic recovery continues.

“We did not receive much FDI initially…since 2008 we have started receiving good numbers…there are signs of economic recovery in a few countries and I think inflows will improve with the economic recovery,” Crisil principal economist D K Joshi said.

Ficci secretary general Amit Mitra said FDI not only brings money but also new technology and managerial capabilities. “FDI’s main impact comes from new technology, new managerial capabilities, new benchmarks in corporate functioning,” Mitra said.

Above news source: TimesofIndia

Picture source: The Hindu

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One of my favourite columnist, Ajit Dayal from Equitymaster writes a regular post called “The Honest Truth”.   With little anecdotes and stories, he decodes the complex world of money and finance.  This week’s article harps on the thousands of crores of illegal money stashed in the tax havens worldwide by corrupt Indian politicians and businessmen.

Ajit writes about an imaginary future where the Indian Finance Minister writes to all the bank CEOs, CFOs, Chairmen etc to repatriate the money that they have helped save in their tax havens in countries like Bermuda, Channel Islands, Dubai, Hong Kong, Lichtenstein, Singapore, and Switzerland.

Letter to: All Banks in Hong Kong, Singapore, UAE, UK, USA,

Dear mostly-overpaid CEO:

As you are aware, there are a lot of Indians with a lot of “black” money.
You see them when they visit your art-infested offices or when your mostly-overpaid relationship managers wine and dine them to the tune of “hum kale hain to kya hua, dilwale hain”.

Some of this “black” wealth that they have earned – on which they have not paid any taxes – lies in your bank. It may be in a branch at your head office, or it could be deposited in one of the branches that you have so conveniently set up in countries and jurisdictions which allow you global thugs to indulge in legal theft.
Countries like Bermuda, Channel Islands, Dubai, Hong Kong, Lichtenstein, Singapore, and Switzerland are some of your favourite hiding holes.

We recognise that there are millions of persons of Indian origin who have bank accounts with you because they legitimately work outside India and use these legitimate bank accounts with you to pay their grocery bills and live their daily lives. This letter is not intended to question your relationship with them.

We are interested in accounts which have the following characteristics:

1. they belong to a holder of an Indian passport,
2. who shows his or her residence to be in India,
3. or, if the first two points are not true, where the signing authority over any individual, trust, or corporate account is held by someone with the above two qualifications.

To make your life easier, I am attaching a list of:

1. all Members of Parliament and Members of the Legislative Assemblies in India since 1950 – and the names of their spouses, children, brothers, sisters, and in-laws,
2. the names of the Top 1,000 founders of companies in India – just as an aside we call them “promoters” because most of them promote the corrupt habits of our politicians and bureaucrats
3. the name of the bureaucrats – and their family members – who have had senior decision-making positions at the federal/central and state government levels since 1950,

This list, enclosed in the attached box, is also being published in the newspapers in India. In no way are we suggesting that all – or any – of the people in this list are corrupt or have illegal wealth. But it is a starting point and shows the seriousness of our desire to get some results. Any person named on this list will still enjoy all the travel benefits and other rights as a citizen of India.

In case your bank decides not to cooperate with us, we will ensure that any assets you own in India will be seized and taken over by the Government of India. Till this investigation is completed, there will be a temporary ban on any sales of your shareholdings and other assets in India.

And, since most of your management have been bred on the philosophy of greed and rewards, we will carry on that tradition to ensure that we get your full cooperation in this matter of national importance.
For every account that your bank helps us identify as a haven for “black” money, we will pay you a fee of 2% for helping us find it.
And we will ensure that your bank gets a license to operate in India as a 100% owned subsidiary to tap the growing banking opportunities in India.

Needless to say, you will be regulated by a proper regulator – the venerable Reserve Bank of India – and not by some tin-pot regulators like the SEC in USA and the SIB in UK that have fallen asleep on the job.
But that should not worry you – there are so many ways to make money without compromising on ethics.

Thank you for your support and, if you need any clarifications, please do not hesitate to call me directly on my mobile.

With regards,

The Finance Minister of India.

P.S.: you will see that my name is missing from the list, and the name of a few other very well known people. Let’s keep it that way. I will discuss with you when we next meet in Davos, Switzerland. Ssshhh till then.

To read the archives of Ajit’s Honest Truth, click here.

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In the initial anguish reading about the terrorists strike in the heart of Mumbai, this is what i wrote on a  common forum. Reproducing it here in full.

I wonder what is the difference between the terrorists who attacked the city of Bombay and the goons of Raj / Bal Thackeray who regularly kill, injure people and destroy property just to further their political agenda?

Why dont we feel the same pain and shame when a politician rouses communal fears and tries to divide us and makes us fight among ourselves?

What makes the Indian / Deccan Mujahideen / SIMI / Lashkar  any more dangerous than home grown terror like the VHP, RSS, Shiv Sena, Maoists, the Christian fundamentalists in Eastern India?

Is Advani not responsible enough for all the violence we are facing today due to his role in the Babri Masjid demolition?  Is the Congress not responsible for repeated miscarriage of justice by their pseudo secularism and pandering to the extremist muslims?  Is Narendra Modi not responsible for the 1000s of muslims killed under his watch in the Gujarat riots? Is Congress not responsible for the thousands of Sikhs killed in 1984?

And then, why are we surprised that someone from our own country wants to kill his fellow countrymen?  When he/she asked for justice as his house was being burnt, his sister was being raped, where were we?  Why did we turn a blind eye?

All the miscarriages of justice is finally coming home to roost.

We will still bounce back and am sure of that.  But is it this kind of a society that we want to live in?

Raj Thuggeray, the leader of Maharashtra Napunsak Sena (Maharashtra Eunuch’s Army) and the paper tiger leader of Shiv Sena, Balls Thuggeray are so busy setting up vada pav stalls that they have retreated into the kitchens of their houses. The bloody uncle and nephew team that has held Bombay to ransom over their petty anti-North Indian politics are nowhere to be seen.  The NSG, Marine Commandos, RAF and Black Cats from other states of India have to come down to clean up the mess.  How come the Thuggeray family is not complaining now?  Bloody nincompoops.

Narendra Modi after lording over a state that recently was hit by more than 20 bomb blasts at various places tries to blame the central government saying that they are lenient.  For all his show of bravado, i have never seen a bigger coward.  In any other country, he would have been hung on a pole for being a mass murderer. Advani, the ever colour changing chameleon of Indian politics and the biggest terrorist India has ever produced is also busy fishing in troubled waters.

For all my respect for Manmohan Singh, i should admit that when it comes to internal security, he is the worst PM we ever had.  Sorry Mr Singh, i appreciate your honesty, your work in finance and the Indo-US nuclear deal, but you are pathetic when it comes to the security of our country.  It would be great if you could take your bloody incompetent Home Minister, Shivraj Patil (who might be busy at some clothes shop looking for the shirt to wear in the next press conference), your boss Sonia Gandhi and resign.  Please do us a favour.

What about RAW (Research & Analysis Wing), IB (Intelligence Bureau), the spy agencies who were supposed to smell the conspiracy and nip it in the bud?  We have another incompetent National Security Advisor in Narayanan.  He is so bloody camera happy that he has no qualms shooting off his mouth on TV.  Mr Narayanan, i wish you had the same competency in your work, at least these attacks would have had been stopped.  The RAW & IB has not been able to stop at least 20 attacks in different places of India in the past 2 years.  If they even have a shred of shame, heads should roll in all these 3 organisations.

If you cant bloody well protect us, then get the hell out of your seats.  We do not have a choice and that’s why we go back to our schools, work and daily routine inspite of a bomb blast.  Now that’s been bandied about as the resilience of our people and economy.  And, iam sick of being reminded of my resilience when iam being ruled by spineless and incompetent people who instead of saving me and my family are more busy playing politics hiding beind a bullet proof screen and being swamped by some black cats who put their lives at stake so that ingrates like you can live to see another day.

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A good writeup by Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr on the sheer neglect of Science in India.

Everything about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Nuclear Research Centre (CERN) in Geneva is big. The money spent on the project — $3.8 billion — is big. Thousands of scientists, thousands of instruments are part of this mega project.

The 27-km tunnel is the longest for a project of this kind. The instruments which line the tunnel are a few thousand in number, especially the super-sensitive, super-precision magneto-detectors which are key to the success of the super-duper experiment ever in theoretical physics. It is here that Indians make their dramatic appearance, though it is kind of a bit role in the lavish drama. Fifty per cent of those magneto-detectors have been engineered by Indian scientists, right from conception to execution and installation.

What is overlooked in all this number crunching of the elementary kind is that beyond the big budget, big site-laboratory, big instruments and big teams of scientists is that it all stems from a big idea — what is the source of the universe. Without the pioneers’ passion to cross the frontiers of knowledge, to go back to the ancient beginnings — now reckoned to be approximately 13.7 billions years or so — the whole enterprise would be a titanic empty shell.

Consider what nuclear means for most informed Indians? It just brings to mind nuclear power, nuclear bombs, nuclear medicine, not necessarily in that order. But very rarely would it also connote in the minds of these people the teasingly infinite, infinitesimal universe of sub-atomic particles.

Indians will be able to cross this mental frontier if they can stop thinking of science in terms of its utility, in terms of visible technology and its benefits to India.

Click here for the full article

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Like someone mentioned, the only places of mourning after the NSG nod is Beijing, Islamabad and the headquarters of BJP and Communists. The BJP was the one who started the whole deal by starting talks with the US.  The BJP was on the verge of  signing the NPT which succesive Indian governments have vehemently opposed signing saying that its a discriminatory treaty.

What the Congress has managed is a far far superior deal than what BJP could do.  No wonder the heart burn among the chaddi gang and the name calling of the Prime Minister.  They simply cant believe that the wily sardar has simply stolen the thunder from right under their nose.

As for the commies, no comments.  One doesnt need to bother much about mad barking dogs.  Prakash Carrot Karat, Bardhan, Raja (all are on the Chinese payroll and hence loyal pets to their masters). They thrive in the gutters and are better left there.

Meanwhile i would love to see Advani’s sorry face.  He’s nowhere to be seen these days.  Maybe he’s reconciled to the fact that he might never be able to become the Prime Minister of India

The group of nations which regulates the global nuclear trade has approved a US proposal to lift restrictions on selling nuclear technology to India. The controversial deal now needs to be ratified by the US Congress before it can be implemented.

India says the deal is vital for it to meet its civil energy demands. The approval came after India pledged to keep its nuclear non-proliferation commitments and to uphold a voluntary moratorium on testing atomic weapons.

The real leaders in the whole deal has been none other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and George Bush. Though Bush had nothing to lose even in case the deal fell through, it was Manmohan Singh who staked his career and reputaion at the altar of the nuclear deal.  He’s been called the “weakest Prime Minister” by the eternal Prime minister in waiting LK Advani (he never will sit on that seat).  After decimating the opposition in the no confidence deal, the Prime Minister has marshalled his troops for a fine victory at the NSG.

For months, the oscillation continued till Manmohan Singh upped the ante saying he could not renege on this international commitment on a deal he firmly believed was the best for India. Despite critics from within his party, the support of the Gandhis gave him the backing he needed and it was a transformed prime minister who faced Parliament this July in a dramatic vote of confidence.

Eventually the government emerged victorious with a new ally and without the Left. Closely watching India’s domestic battle over the deal was the White House, the deal a personal legacy for an embattled President Bush. After the Iraq fiasco, the Indo-US nuclear agreement was seen by him as a foreign policy coup and a huge opportunity for American business, something he was willing to go the extra mile for.

On Saturday, as China threatened a walk out, President Bush picked up the phone and called his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, a toned down version of his infamous, ‘you are with us, or against us’ rhetoric.  A pact clinched by two men who couldn’t be more unlike each other, one a flamboyant Texan known for his foreign policy gaffes, the other a mild mannered economist turned politician.

In the end however, the two men came together to push through a historic deal for India amid huge domestic and international opposition.

Above pictures and news courtesy: IBNlive, NDTV, Atomic Archive

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Indian tennis ace Leander Paes and Zimbabwe’s Cara Black won the mixed doubles crown at the season-ending Grand Slam on Thursday. The fifth seeded Indo-Zimbabwean pair beat the American-British pairing of Liezel Huber and Jamie Murray 7-6, 6-4 in the final.

The triumph increased Paes’s  tally of Grand Slam crowns to eight. In 1999, Paes had partnered Mahesh Bhupathi and Lisa Raymond to win the men’s doubles and mixed doubles crowns at Wimbledon.

American brothers Bob and Mike Bryan won their seventh Grand Slam men’s doubles crown Friday, defeating India’s Leander Paes and Czech Lukas Dlouhy 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (12/10) to take the US Open title. The Bryans, who ran through the tournament without losing a set, previously won Slam crowns at Roland Garros in 2003, the US Open in 2005, Wimbledon in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2006 and 2007.

The defeat denied Paes a chance at a US Open doubles double, having already claimed the mixed crown with Zimbabwe’s Cara Black. Paes had claimed such doubles in 1999 at Wimbledon and the French Open, partnered with American Lisa Raymond in mixed and compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi in the men’s doubles.

The victory enables the Bryans to move back into the world number one ranking from second.

News and pictures courtesy: AFP, Daijiworld

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Infosys Technologies said on Monday it had agreed to buy British consultancy Axon Group Plc for £407m (US$753m) as India’s second-biggest software services exporter looks for growth beyond an uncertain U.S. market.

The cash deal values Axon at £6 per share, a 19.4 per cent premium over Friday’s close of £5.025 and 33 per cent over the average price of the last six months, Infosys CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan said.

The offer price included any interim dividend that Axon, which has a market value of almost US$600m, may announce when it releases results on Tuesday, Infosys said. The Axon board has already ”unanimously recommended” the offer, with its large shareholders and some key employees also supporting the deal, Infosys CFO V. Balakrishnan said.

”They wanted to enter Europe in a big way, and probably this is the reason why they have paid a higher premium,” said R. K. Gupta, managing director of Taurus Mutual Fund in New Delhi.

”It’s a positive sign for the company because they were sitting on a huge cash pile, and it was not generating any return.”

Subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, Nasdaq-listed Infosys expects to complete the deal in November. Axon, which provides services to companies using products of German business software maker SAP, would be delisted, Infosys said.

Rest of the news here.

Above picture of Infosys Mysore courtesy: Karthik

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