In a license control quota permit raj, the link between big businesses and the government is bi-directional. The government hands out licenses in exchange for part of the loot that the businesses make from their monopolistic businesses.
Just the other day a friend was telling me how one major business house (starts with a B) used to give freebies to one of India’s prime ministers (starts with a N). N would be hosted and feted by B, and in exchange, N made sure that B got licenses for steel or …

Sheela Bhatt’s piece in Rediff.com, titled “I will implicate Sonia Gandhi in the 2G case“, has interesting stuff on Dr Subramanian Swamy. Here are some excerpts, for the record.

There’s something fascinating about the Congress party which is only infrequently noted. It’s a party of sycophants and brown-nosers. The better a person is at bending, bowing, scraping, groveling, and sucking up to the members of the Nehru-Gandhi family, the higher his or her position in the whole sordid hierarchy.

If you have a sense of deja vu reading the title of this post, don’t worry. That appears to be most apt description of the man (and I use the word loosely), with each new multi-lakh crore scam coming out in the open.

India’s present predicament can be fully ascribed to the flawed policies of those who guided India’s destiny since 1947. The person most notable among the lot that set India along a disastrous path is Jawaharlal Nehru. Scores of places, institutions, roads, ports and government schemes are named after him. New Delhi, the city I am currently visiting, is festooned with not just his name, but the names of his relatives. Nehru Place, Kamala Nagar, Jawaharlal Nehru stadium, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Rajiv Chowk, Indira Gandhi International Airport, JN Urban Renewal Mission, …

“Netaji could have taken us past China” — the TOI quotes Infosys chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy. Here’s a bit.

The English word “mealy-mouthed” comes from the German Mehl im Maule behalten, “to carry meal in the mouth, that is, not to be direct in speech,” the dictionary says. Its opposite is “plain-spoken,” as in “Mr Lee Kuan Yew is as plain-spoken as Dr Singh is mealy-mouthed.” This is not an English lesson, however. It’s just that the word came to mind while reading this AFP report “Lee Kuan Yew urges Muslims to ‘be less strict’.”

I am torn between contempt and pity for the small man that Dr Manmohan Singh is. Does the man have no shame? Do guts? No spine? Apparently there’s nothing in him that is of any value. He traded in his integrity — that is if he had any to start off with — to become the appointed prime minister. But he could have grown a backbone and redeemed himself. If not for himself, at least for the sake of the clan to which he belong, the proud fearless warrior clan …

Swami Vivekananda was born on this day, January 12th, in 1863 in Kolkata. Here is a quote from the wiki entry on him.

“The reason why China will never win hands-down in its current economic war with America is the same as why Japan didn’t succeed in the 1980s when all (Americans included) were expecting that its corporations and banks would eat America up. The reason is that both countries are good at copying ideas and technologies; neither is good at inventing new ones.” That argument is Keith Hudson’s post today on his blog.

It’s funny how India produces world-class economists but is an impoverished third-world country with an economy that languishes at the bottom of the barrel. Not ha-ha funny but ironically funny. Still, as Indians we can hold up our heads with pride that in our tribe we have economists such as Bhagwati, Srinivasan, Dasgupta, Bardhan, Basu — and of course Dixit.

We pretty much know how despicable Dr Manmohan Singh is. I struggle inexpertly to express my contempt for him on these pages. The contempt I feel for him arises from the certain knowledge that much of what the hundreds of millions of poor & middle-class Indians suffer (and will continue to suffer) can be laid at his door.

That’s my conclusion. YMMV. Ashok Malik wrote a piece in Hindustan Times, “Modi Operandi.” While the title is too clever by half, you should check it out. An excerpt below the fold.

The Copernican Revolution.
In the Western tradition, the idea that the sun revolves around the earth — geocentrism — is known as the Ptolemaic model. It was a notion that led people to explain astronomical observations such as the movements of planets with convoluted arguments and constructs. In 1543 Copernicus provided an alternative hypothesis — heliocentrism — which placed the sun at the center of the solar system, and was later confirmed in 1610 by Galileo Galilei. From geocentrism to heliocentrism was a “paradigm shift” (a term much abused …

Dr Subramanian Swamy is pulling no punches in his fight against corruption in India. He appears to be the only high-profile politician who has taken up cudgels against Antonia Maino, aka Sonia Gandhi, the woman who appointed Dr Manmohan Singh the prime minister of the Congress-led UPA government. I wish that there were others in the media and in politics who had the chutzpah to take on the unholy bunch that is wrecking India. Dr Swamy says that Sonia Gandhi is the “Gangotri” of corruption in the country.

A guest column from my friend Mr Keith Hudson who lives in Saltford England. He’s the only polymath I personally know.

I should apologize for being a lazy bum. Otherwise I would have responded sooner to some of the comments that need a response to my post “Arundhati Roy is a Damn Nuisance.” Anyhow, better late than never. So, first, a note of thanks to those who left the thoughtful comments. I am glad that you took the time. Next comes the more interesting part of replying to the negative comments.

My post, A few home truths for Indians, did not go down too well with some. They don’t like my pointing out the fact that the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty has been India’s primary curse, and one commenter apparently believes in shooting the messenger when he disagrees with the message. But it is a small price to pay for my continued education. (In recognition of the fact that I use this blog for my own education, I categorized that post as “My Continuing Education on the Web.”) I’d like to share with …

In August in a post, Is the Indian Government the Greatest Enemy of India’s Prosperity?, I had quoted a WSJ piece which read in part, “Because India’s entrepreneurs have succeeded amid dysfunctional government and financial institutions by developing a kind of independent and experimental ingenuity, it stands to reason that the enterprising class would prosper even more were India to reduce barriers to business and clean up corruption.” I commented on that and wrote:

Scary title added out of plain mischief. Nehru was bad enough; recycled Nehru would be unimaginably bad. So fear not, dear reader. I mean to just quote from on old post on Nehru. Only the post from January 2005 is recycled, not Nehru, god forbid.