Campa Cola Cocktail

Recipe:
Take prime property in the island city of Mumbai, add some unscrupulous builders, a liberal sprinkling of corrupt city officials and politicians, and a privileged upper class who believe that anything in the city can be fixed for a price, shake and stir,  and you have a molotov cocktail waiting to explode in our face.

The hypocrisy of democracy
The Campa Cola cocktail that hit the headlines and all media channels with politicians from all sides taking the side of the residents ( as if the politicians take any  side other than their own ), lays bare the hypocricy of our democracy. If the affected residents did not belong to the privileged and connected class, they would be homeless today. Every day in the city of Mumbai slum dwellers are rendered homeless in conscious disregard of their right to shelter. In this city only the privileged and connected have an unwritten right to shelter, and when that is threatened the media descends and the ensuing photo ops attract politicians of all hues and leanings to make grand statements of their commitment to set things right. In the ensuing free for all we tend to lose sight of all facts, ignore all city planning rules ,and even the Supreme Court judges lose sleep and wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night to give them more time to find a solution. Where were the honorable judges when thousands of slum dwellers are thrown out of their hovels with not so much as decent notice? Did they forget that the Campa Cola residents had lost their case in every court of law, and were given a last extension based on their own undertaking to vacate peacefully? If anybody else had gone back on their written undertaking to the supreme court, it would be contempt of court.

The audacity of the connected
The power of the visual media to influence our judicial process should be a matter of great concern to all law abiding citizens. Why go to court when you can go to Arnab Goswami or Barkha Datt instead, who can out shout anyone and plead your case more effectively than any supreme court lawyer? And probably cheaper too? They have the ability to rouse sleeping judges from their slumber and change their minds Try getting your lawyer to do that.

Whatever happened to the concept of caveat emptor, one of the first concepts taught in law school. Buyer Beware. You are supposed to do some due diligence before you buy property. If the residents case is that they were unaware that the apartment they bought was illegal, and that they were duped by the builders, maybe they deserved to be duped either because they were lazy to do their homework, or they were greedy ( because there has always been a difference between the per square foot rate in campa cola vs any comparable property in a similar location). They were confident in their ability to get everything fixed eventually. And they were right. They may actually succeed.

We paid taxes, they say. As if it is a favour. Everybody who lives in this city pays taxes, including slum dwellers. Every time you buy a product or service, you pay taxes. You cant pay taxes on an illegal product or service and make it legal. You pay your taxes to use the city services like water, roads, security, sewage.

The builders are going scotfree they claim. And that is right. They should be made to pay, both by the authorities and by each individual owner who has been duped. That is a right the residents always had and continue to have. So should all city officials and who colluded with the builders in allowing this to happen and for turning a blind eye for so long.


The asymmetry of sympathy
There is an obvious asymmetry of sympathy here. For the connected few the public, the media, the judiciary, the politicians, all come together. For the dispossessed slum dweller, no tear is shed.

This cocktail has the potential to blow our city into complete disarray, as this becomes a precedent to regularize the over 50000 illegal constructions that have come up in the city over the last few years. We may as well give up the fig leaf of town planning, in this city that is already bursting at its seams.

Think 2022 Goa.

2000 thinkers..75 speakers, 25 performances, 10 artists..a forum for thought, provocation and hopefully some solutions at the end of three days.

Goa, in the beginning of November, an overcast day, with the prospect of rains, and a flood of ideas in multiple fields of inquiry.A proud legacy and an uncertain future.

Into the second year now, the festival to celebrate thought and ideas, in Goa, got off to a subdued start, in the sense, that the Afghanistan issue is hardly THE issue on top of the mind of the assembled thinkers. But the whole idea is to keep an open mind and see if we can learn from afganistans mistakes..

Fauzia Koofi talked about the other Afghanistan where people live, learn, love and learn to love..the war left scars, but emerging out of the ashes is the possibility of a lasting peace. Where women like fauzia show the way to what is possible.

On American involvement in afghanistan , she says that they came without being invited, and left without being asked to leave, and all they left behind was a mess. According to her the situation there is not exclusively an afghan issue, but a regional and global conflict being fought in her backyard.

Jason Burke is the journalistic incarnation of Jason Bourne. He has been in some of the toughest spots in the world. He has been close to the action, sometimes in the thick of it, a way with words to describe it, but most importantly he has a perspective that lays bare the futility of this war.

The ascent of Robert Vadra


There are many ways to accumulate wealth and riches, none easier than marrying into it. Robert, of average looks and even averager IQ, did much better than that. He won the fastest race to billionairedom, without even having to ask his in-laws for help.

According to him, he just sent his kids to the rights schools, where they made the right friends, who had the right parents, who had the right need for his considerable talents as an average Joe. 50% ownership of international hotel chains, non redeembale, non convertible, non repayable, zero coupon loans, a few 5000 sq ft apartments in prime buildings, and many more non average kind of goodies, soon followed, all for nothing. A true case of money for nothing and Priyanka for free. His benefactors just liked the fact that Roberts kids were best friends with their kids in schools, and the fact that Robert was such a likeable average guy.

Hey, these are private transactions between private entities, and our good average Robert is not an elected officer ( who are entitled to all these goodies anyways). And DLF would have done the same for any average citizen married to the Gandhi family. Cant  see why the Congress party is jumping to  Roberts' defence...a case of the party protesting too much...they should instead be auctioning this national and natural resource to the highest bidder, in keeping with the latest supreme court rulings on such assets. He is a money making machine.

The other alternative is to elect him into an office of power, so the nation can benefit from his considerable talents. The national deficit may be completely solved in a matter of months if we leave Robert to do his job and give him  carte blanche, to seek and expand his childrens  circle of friends. Maybe they can change schools every term so they can make new friends.

And can we request honorable members of parliament and ministers like Salman Kurshid, Chidmabaram, and Manish Tiwari, to stop wasting their time, and insulting the public's intelligence by trying to defend the good Robert. He needs no defence, and even if he did, is perfectly capable of defending himself. They should instead all bow to his superior skills in winning friends and influencing people, while still maintaining a low profile and his average Joe image.

child protection issues

When our learned legislators tear their eyes away from watching porn on their mobile phones, they can act with alacrity on inane issues such as how old you have to be to fall in love. They can let important issues like the Lok Satta Bill or the Microfinance Bill or many other important pieces of legislation get caught  in political procastination, yet are pretty prompt in deciding that teenage hormones need to be legislated against in the interest of the Republic.

Of course the already overburdened police force has a lot of time on their hands to implement this new law, while looking the other way as far as minor crimes like murder, rape and the general loot of our nation takes place in full public view. The only other priority that our police force has is the security cover that they need to provide to these very legislators, so that they can be protected from each other,  and the general public.

To assume that legislation is the only way to address all social problems is like using machine guns to shoot butterflies. To assume that our learned legislators are competent and learned enough to consider all relevant issues before throwing the book  at it, is an insult to our intelligence.

So suffer in silence, at your children's peril..or let our legislators watch porn in the legislature..that is harmless fun which will cause very little damage.

Money and the police state

Was at a friends house over the weekend. Nice party, with a lot of interesting people, and great conversation.This was no teenagers head banging music party, but more like good wine and conversation flowing on issues like how South Mumbai residents would assemble in throngs for a candle light march, but would not take the time to vote.
My friends home is across the road from a very posh building in which senior police officers stay, at the tax payers expense. At 11:20 pm, one of the residents decided the decibel level was too much for him, and instead of calling my friend to lodge a neighbourly complaint, decided to send a posse of uniformed policemen to break up the party. Remember there was not even music playing, just a few freinds over for some wine and conversation, and it was not even so late at night.
Anybody who lives in Bombay city knows, that this is a noisy city..from the mullah at unearthly hours calling his flock to prayers, to Hindu devotees invoking their deaf Gods through amplified sound systems, to blaring horns, to processions to celebrate everything ranging from political events, to religious to sporting, all.highly amplified, and in general the police sleep through most of it..but when it intrudes on their personal space they react with alacrity, and have no qualms about misusing their authority and powers.
It is not only the politicians who we must blame all the time, it is also the so called guardians of law, and senior ones at that, who think they are above the law. We can either be apathetic as usual, or in the normal course let this too drown in the cacophony of noise and corruption that is our city.

Wealth disclosures by Indian ministers

What a joke!! What an insult to the intelligence of the public !! Why would they take so long to disclose, then take even longer to stonewall any attempts to make the information public, and then finally come out with something that is totally unbelievable and incredulous.

Many ministers like Farooq Abdullah, Didi Banerjee etc have collective personal assets of less than 10 Laks and even Sharad Pawar has less than 10 crores. There is something rotten in the Republic of India. Despite the recent success of the Anna Hazare led Lok Pal movement, our thick skinned politicians have not learnt their lessons. They have neither made full disclosures, and even where they have made partial disclosures the values have been so understated as to make a joke out of the whole process. For example our honourable Aviation Minister has disclosed an apartment in tony Worli worth less than 8 laks, which is less than the cost of a parking space in most buildings there. Or is he confusing the monthly rent for the capital value?

Anna Hazare,s initiative to bring accountability into public life would be completely meaningless if our elected representatives continue to take such matters lightly. Even the new proposal to call back MP's may not be enough. We need to look at the laws relating to perjury in Parliament and disclosures that they are required to make and frame severe penalties for offenders, including loss of the asset that is either not disclosed or under disclosed, followed by a lengthy jail sentence which will keep them and the public out of harms way.

I just checked the processes in the US. Not that we have to follow them blindly. The mayor of New York city Mr. Michael Bloomberg, a multi billionaire, made full disclosures of all his assets, transferred them to a trust and to money managers with whom he maintains no contact. In public office, you not only have to be clean, but also scrupulously avoid any contact with anything or anybody that may contaminate your reputation, or even remotely influence your decisions as a public officer.

Our politicians on the other hand treat their election to power as a free licence to loot and pillage our country and accumulate personal wealth with complete impunity and total immunity from any remote chance of punishment.

Greece India and Grief

Just read Michael Lewis and his take on the Greece debt crisis. He is his usual inciteful and humorous self, as he talks about how Greeks who claim to have invented Maths had forgotten to count almost 30 billion Euros in deficit spending every year, about how failure to pay taxes and cheat and lie about your income and expenses is not even treated as a minor misdemeanour, in fact it is the Greek character..

How different are we? we invented the zero..and I would argue that our grasp of what our deficit is, how it is computed and what to do about it, would probably put the Greeks to shame. And our attitude to taxes is not different either. The only people who seem to pay taxes in this country are those whose taxes are deducted at source. For every one else it is an approach of broad understatement of wealth and income and deal with the authorities, if a problem arises.

Are we headed for a Greek type tragedy?

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010

Read the article and judge for yourself..