End of 2011. It’s been a mixed year for me personally. I would give it a 7 out of 10. Today I am moving home. Not too far away, just moving from Santa Clara to San Jose. Nothing brings home the reality that we are material beings more than when you are moving — the stuff one accumulates! I will not have internet access for the next couple of days because of the move. New year resolution: deal with all emails within 24 hours of receipt. Best wishes for a …

The UPA has done quite a lot in the last seven years or so. Around 2004, India was at the take-off stage of a developing country. We could see a tiny light shining at what appeared to be the end of the tunnel. It looked like the country was finally out of the clutches of the Nehruvian socialist regime and had broken free of the 2-3% “Nehru rate of growth.” The NDA (led by the so-called “Hindu nationalist” BJP) had done a few things right and given India the 10% …

I think it can be very persuasively argued that ignorance lies at the root of all evil that we suffer in this material world. Avidya is the source of all dukkha. Collective ignorance indeed leads to all kinds of poverty, not just material poverty of which India has in truckloads. If we were not so collectively ignorant of the misdeeds of the political parties and their bosses, we would not have ever had the sorry bunch of thugs running the country. Allow me to share with you what I learned …

The Congress is the enemy. Their goal is to destroy the country to enrich themselves. They are true to their goal and cannot be faulted for it. Indians who support the Congress are traitors since treason lies in aiding the enemy. Some of the biggest names in the BJP have aided the Congress in the past, and continue to do so. They are traitors. Let’s distinguish between the enemy and the traitors. While I may grudgingly respect the enemy, I have nothing but contempt for traitors.

But that’s too generic a description. Besides being too general a description, democracy is hardly a comprehensive description of the Indian government. Surely, the democracy found in say Switzerland is quite different from what’s in India. We need better descriptors of Indian governance. Here’s a partial list, offered in the hope that you will add your own favorite.

Observing what’s going on in India these days, I am filled with loathing and fear. What kind of monsters occupy India’s highest public offices! I stand with H. L. Mencken when he wrote, “It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.” It appears that the primary requirements for holding political power in India are a lack of common sense, common honesty and common decency.

Goodbye Christopher. I am glad that you lived and I have had the pleasure of meeting you a couple of times — once at the Berkeley Repertoire Theater in the 1997 and once at a book release in 1999. I am certainly going to miss your incisive writing. The world is going to be a poorer place for your departure.

I support Dr Subramanian Swamy’s right to express his views and I support Harvard University’s right to remove Dr Swamy’s economics courses from Harvard’s summer teaching roster. Academic freedom — which includes the freedom to choose whom you allow to teach in your institution — is as important as freedom of expression. We, the third party, have the freedom to decide whether or not we wish to support Harvard. Given a choice, I will not support Harvard University. Note the distinction between “supporting Harvard” and “supporting the rights of …

I am forced to put this one on my blog because Kapil Sibal would like to censor this kind of stuff. He wants to control what we see, hear, and read on the internet. Mr Sibal, up yours.

Who is Antonia Maino a.k.a. Sonia Gandhi? An average Italian woman who married some guy who ended up becoming the prime minister of India. She acquired the last name “Gandhi” that she currently uses through marriage. Many women traditionally take on the last name of their husbands. That is unexceptionable. What’s remarkable is how she — aided by her minions such as Manmohan Singh, Kapil Sibal, P Chidambaram — is wrecking the country. One can argue that she is responsible for India’s current decline (as if India was not …

Kapil Sibal’s uncivilized behavior has to have the backing and protection of the Queen Antonia Maino aka Sonia Gandhi. As @vinod_sharma pointed out, “Sibal can’t be head of Gestapo unless there is a Hitler who wants him to do whatever it takes promote & protect him. Why silence about that?” Kanchan Gupta writing in Mid-Day, “A brazen attempt at political censorship” notes that censorship is nothing new: the Congress party and the Nehru-Gandhi family have a history of trying to dictate to the press and muzzle free expression.

Dr Swamy is a national asset. I sometimes wonder why the Congress goons don’t bump him off. May his tribe increase. To increase awareness among Indians of the corruption charges against the Nehru-Gandhi-Maino clan, please circulate this widely.

I tell you, the things that you find on them interwebs. Well, not diapered goats but a report about them. I am taking a huge risk here but let me put that off till the end. Here’s what I am talking about: violence in the Islamic state of Iraq and some Iraqis’ killing desire to turn it into a fully sharia-compliant state.

Kapil Sibal is an idiot. You may say that the title of this post is brimming with redundancy since asinine means ‘extremely foolish’ and fatuity means ‘foolishness’. But I like the phrase ‘asinine fatuity’ because it describes Kapil Sibal’s idiocy accurately and comprehensively. Hence the title. Now here’s the why.

Today afternoon, I am leaving Chicago for the SF Bay area. My travels, which began on 11th October, are almost over. Saturday I will drive to Los Angeles and return on Monday Dec 5th. That is when I will finally be home. It’s been a very very long journey and I am aching to be back in Santa Clara. Happy travels to me!

When one is talking about anything that has to do with economics, I think it is best to use a bit of common sense and to stick to the basics. Recently, the government has moved to allow up to 51 percent foreign direct investment in “multi-brand” retail in India (and single brand retail is allowed 100 percent FDI.) Some people (and some parties such as the BJP) oppose FDI in retail. The question whether FDI in retail is good or not is being hotly debated. The debate is …