Jai Ho

Not the most original title in these Slumdog crazed times I agree , but hey it's probably increased this post's ranking on google some , so I'll take that.
I was just telling someone how I had nothing to say about Slumdog since I had not seen the movie. To be honest I don't expect to be blown away, since I have seen a 100 bollywood movies and its not a unique experience for me as it would be for a western audience(that by the way is the same logic I used not to see Bombay dream's). And unlike some others I also do not see it as my patriotic duty to "support" Slumdog Millionaire(like it really needed my support anyway).
Coming to the point of this post. I am not quite sure I have heard Jai Ho earlier, but I did today.
It was in a spinning class. Maybe it was the unexpectedness of it, I felt the blood rush to my face. And it kept me pumping well beyond my capacity.
So I guess inspite of my protestations to the contrary, I do feel good about Slumdog Millionaire achieveing the success it has.

Do you have a first aid kit handy?

So go the lyrics of a song I have heard in the gym repeatedly, it has a catcy tune and I believe its called "Damaged".
There were also such pearls as "Can you patch up a wall for me?" "Are you patient and understanding?" .
I also had the great misfortune of watching the video while on the step mill. And it was a bunch of really dolled up women in extremely skimpy outfits(so whats new right?)
Now the lyrics of the song seem to place certain demands on the man , including such inanities as patch up a wall. All he can expect in return(since the lyrics don't specify) is a dolled up skimpily clad hottie. A deal I must admit most would go for in a heart beat, despite the uneveness of the trade.
I thought of writing this bloag a while back and never got around to it. But now with Chris Brown smacking up Rihanna , it seems like the dolled up hotties knew what they were talking about when they list having a first aid kit handy as man selection criteria.

The idiocy of the IPL

The IPL is the Indian awnser to the NFL. Where the world of cricket collides with the world of glamor accompanied by a flood of money.
The NFL draft which any fan looks forward to is sought to be mimiced by the IPL auction.
So while top prospects of the NFl are drafted or picked, cricketers are auctioned like heads of cattle bought by the highest bidder.
Ignoring the distasteful terminolgy for a second, lets focus on some specifics.
The IPL which is the brain child of the US educated Lalit Modi, is the favorite son of the BCCI which for all practical purposes has a monoply on world cricket.
But like all good monarchies you have to keep the your Nobles happy. So it is with the IPL and BCCI.
The boards of England , Australia and South Africa must be kept happy since they are the ones that matter.
At this point it might be useful to introduce the concept of the reserve price. Each player comes into the auction with a reserve price(now I am not sure how that reserve price is decided)
ie. the lowest bid has to be for that amount.
The thing that took me by suprise was that stars from weaker teams such as Mohammad Ashraful and Mashrafe Mortaza from Banagladesh who have performed against the best of opposition for years attracted a reserve price of $75K and $50K.
While such unknowns or atleast unproven performers like Samit Patel and Owais Shah of England attract reserve prices of $100K and $150K .
I would juxtapose their career statistics but You can always look that up.
My point is this display of disregard for bangladesh and bangladeshi cricket and fawning of England's cricketers is apalling. If this isn't brown on brown racism I am not sure what is.

Michael Phelps - Olympic Hero,Pothead

Recently the man who won 8 golds (more than the gold medal tally of all but 9 countries) in a single Olympics was caught in the eye of a mini-storm when he a photo of him smoking pot .
And suddenly the man is losing endorsements and copping suspensions.
So in a country where pot smoking is culturally front and center, where shows like that 70's Show ruled the air waves not too long back, we recline in horror when a 23 year old who has achieved more at that young age than most of us would in a few lifetimes, is caught in film smoking a bong at what was doubtless a private gathering.
Sure he has benefitted from being in the public eye, so should'nt he be ready for the consequences?
In my opinion its silly to hold our heros to moral standards that most of us cannot apply to ourselves. Phelps did not make a name for himself preaching about how marijuana was bad for you. He made his name training tirelessly and delivering on the biggest stage there is.
I have not done the research required to comment on the smoking of pot itself. But I can safely say there are a lot of people out there who have smoked pot and have no qualms doing it. And they lead rewarding and successful lives.
So America get of our moral high horse and give the Kid a little space to breathe.

People invested with Madoff did not have a CFA did they?

Quoting from one of the many voluminous books that one has to go through to appear for the CFA exams:
The investor needs to be intimately familiar with the investment process of the manager's organization(where manager means fund manager which is what Madoff was).. Futher .. Before selecting a manager the plan sponsor needs to spend time asking questions of several key people in the organization.
Clearly the funds and rich individuals who invested with Madoff , missed this para.
As the saying goes "A fool and his money will be soon parted".
I know this might sound like kicking a guy when he is down, but when you are dealing with the kind of money these people were, surely they should have asked more questions.
On a slightly unrelated note, I read an article of how a wealthy Jewish community in Chicago was devastated by the Madoff scandal.
It brought to mind certain thoughts I have had in the past.
For some reason we tend to trust somebody solely on the basis that they belong to the same community. I guess its human top an extent, to be a little suspicious of the unknown.
But it is quite illogical to base our trust on which community someone belongs to.
Scoundrels comes in all shapes sizes , colors , speak many different tongues and worship many different Gods.

Give Obama some space

The one side-effect of the euphoria created by Obama's election is that expectations have been raised sky high. In the campaign, Obama promised to right many wrongs, and not unjustifiably, a lot of people expect him to deliver on those promises.
Nobody undertakes the mother of all repair jobs without serious intent and we can expect Obama to do his darndest. But to expect one man to do it all is naive at best.
What Obama achieves should not be judged on a day to day basis, rather the evaluation period has to be the leght of his full term in office.

When will the British realise that the Sun has set on the British empire?

In an article published today in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, Miliband wrote that during his visit to South Asia, he would be arguing that the “best antidote to the terrorist threat in the long term is cooperation”. “Although I understand the current difficulties, resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms, and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders,” he wrote. ---Indian Express
That, David Milband had the temerity to offer such prepoterous advice(given the background of the terror attacks in Mumbai, should come as no suprise. After all the British do beleive that different standards apply to them and their masters The United States.
Mr Milband if you start going down the path of "denying extremists of their main calls to arms"
You might have to start with telling the US to withdraw from Iraq, and Afganistan and abandon its bases in Saudi Arabia.
Oh yeah don't forget to mention that the Americans and the rest of the western world should probably not support Israel, since not a lot of extremists like that.
And last but not the least, the western world should probably take up Islam en masse, since the extremists do aim at world domination, why allow them that clarion call? Why not lay down our arms and prostrate ourselves.
Try selling that to western audience Mr Milband.
What did you say? No can do?
Well then don't try forcing that drivel down Indian throats.
Sure you ruled us for 200 or so years, and we have'nt gotten over it completely,
but we do count for more in todays world than you. So as the Brits say bugger off mate.

Coud'nt have said it better myself , Condi

In a recent intrerview , Secretary of State for the United States of America Condi Rice said that "Only an idiot would trust North Korea". Let me amend that a little. Only an idiot with a death wish can trust Pakistan with regards to its commitments to dismantle the terror infrastructure.
Who knew, I guess I can say it better.

The long term game plan of the Lashkar E Taiyaba

The truth often stares us in the face and yet the best and the brightest either miss is it or are unable to comprehend it. The audacious attack on Mumbai by a band of 10 terrorists was one has invoked a lot of chess beating "why do they hate us" type of analysis. The more cynical of us dismiss "it with the its all politics" feint. There are those bleeding heart liberals who actually believe their own speil about "non state actors".
So amidst this logjam of reasoning one angle that has'nt recieved sufficient attention is the angle that I intend to discuss in this piece.
In one of his speeches made in 1999 , Moammad Hafeze Sayed, the then head of the Laskar E Tayba , declared that the ultimate aim of the Laskar was to dismember India and establish Islamic rule over the sub-continent. This should not shock anyone , who hasn't lved under a rock for the past 20 years.
What he went on to add next was of a little more significance. He compared the 'Jihad' against India to that against the Soviet Union. Just as the Soviet empire had fallen when nobody saw it happening, India would go the same way. Now its not like a modern daySalluddin rode into Moscow and conquered Russia. The Soviet Union's was a collapse precipitated by economic reasons(i know thats an over simplification).
So tha leads me to believe that that is precisely the playbook that the lashkar is planing to follow against India. The attack in umbai furthered hat aim in the following ways.
It warned international investors that inbvesting in India was a dangerous proposition.
The reaction it triggered within the India establishment, is the creatio of 4 different NSG hubs.
That will require a massive investment in Infrastructure men and arms.
Coporate India will also have to start paying for a higher level of corporate security.
All this asymmetrical costswere imposed in the Indian economy for the appromiately $100,000
which is what in all likelyhood it cost to carry out the terroist attack on Mumbai.

Rush to war

The recent terror strike in Mumbai, has quite justifiably raised the spectre of war between the two nuclear power neighbors India and Pakistan.
Very few on the Indian side have actually demanded that India go to war.
But almost as if to pre-empt that stream of thought, the peaceniks are already out in force.
Particularly appalling was an article by Kausar Ahmed a professor in some God forsaken College in Connecticut USA.
He approaches the possibility of war from the point of view of the imminently sensible question , what does India hope to achieve by going to war.
He then stumbles badly when he compares an Indian declaration of war with the American policy of pre-emption which he labels as imperialistic.
There are a couple of things I'd like to point out to Mr Ahmed and those of his ilk.
There is no element of pre-emption involved in action against Pakistan. Any action would have been made necessary by repeated aggression against India from Pakistani soil.
Secondly since when did defending the lives of those who call India home, become imperialistic?
I am neither a hawk nor a dove.
Common sense dictates that an adversary has no reason to change behavior if there are no costs involved. Pakistan and its rulers have operated under the impression that as long as a certain threshold is not crossed, India and its rulers can be relied on to act in a rational manner.
India has a lot more to lose than does Pakistan in case of open war.
So the options for India are limited. If full scale war is ruled out as an option, then India must find other means to impose costs on Pakistan when its territory is used to carry out terrorist violence against India.
To those who believe that India must rally world opinion in its favor, all I can say is wake up and smell the coffee.
World opinion is no match for world interests. By all accounts both America and the rest of the world is aware of the danger a nuclear armed Pakistan on the brink of anarchy poses to the rest of the world.
But you can trust the world will not do anything, as long as the violence originating in Islamabad stays confined to India. To summarize, if India cannot tolerate terror strikes against its citizens, either we find some leverage agaisnt Pakistan fast, or we have to consider the possibility of war and the costs it might impose on us.
I know its easier contemplating war while living in new york (like me) or inaction while living in connecticutt(like kausar ahmed).

A police force stretched to it seams: How it can be redeemed

Now I am descending into serious the arm-chair critic role, so bear with me while lay my ideas(nothing but common sense out).
If the carnage in Mumbai proved anything , it was that the Mumbai police was ill equipped to deal with the terrorists that held the city to ransom for 60 hrs. Call it intelligence failure or systemic failure, it was definitely a failure of massive proportions.
And since its the Police who are supposed defend the failure will be rightly assigned to them.
There is no doubt that the Police lacked the weaponry, the protective equipment , the training or for that matter the organization to deal with such a situation.
We can only hope that these issues will be studied by someone a lot wiser than myself and addressed appropriately. I am going to do my bit and lay out what I think needs to be done(being constructive as opposed to purely crictical).
The one thing that has to be noted here is that Mumbai a city of 18million people has a police force of 40,000 or so which is, 1 cop for 45o residents.as opposed to NYC whic has approximately the same numbers policing a population of 8 million or so.
Also NYC does'nt have politicians like Raj Thakeray to deal with.
A simple search for the Mumbai police on wikipedia reveals an interesting fact. Mumbai has no commando/SWAT team . The closest thing they have are the Local armed Police or the Anti-Terror Squad(which is basically an investigative unit).
This is something that has to change fast. In fact its appalling that this state of affairs was allowed to continue, with Mumbai being in the cross hairs of the terrorists for so long.
Every cop in mumbai has to be armed with a weapon and must know how to use it.
This might seem like a no brainer, but it has to be said, since the of the a 60 or so cops present at CST station a majority were equipped with batons. We do not live in British India anymore, where the biggest threat a cop might have faced was a non-violent Gandhian trying to burn british merchandise.
Off duty cops must be encouraged to keep their small arms on them. You never know, that might be the difference in a terrorist attack in the future.
If we expect cops to lay down their lives to protect their fellow citizens, we have to atlast give them the kind of protective gear that would give them a chance.
Sufficient care has to be paid to the physical fitness of the cops. An hour every day of duty time must be set aside for physical fitness. Anyone who has seen a pot bellied cop in Mumbai knows why this would be needed.
A chain of command has to be identified for any such operations to take place in the future.
The police leadership is better off directing operations from a control room, than providing target practice to terrorists in the case of attack.
Wel thats all I have , feel free to add suggestions

Open letter to the Prime Minister of India

Dear Dr Singh,
Before I launch into what no doubt will be a tirade(who ever hear of an open letter that was not), id like to point out how much, I and a majority of my countrymen admire and respect you.
If today India stands poised to take its place as a world power, it has a lot to do with what you did as Narsimha Rao's finance minister. You are rightly viewed as incorruptible and brilliant.
Now that the nicities are out of the way, let me get down to why I am really writing.
As opposed to your stint as Inida's FM, your stint as PM has been far from sucessful. There were a few things that only you could have done. I absolutely loved that you graded your ministers perfomance. So why was Shivraj Patil not booted out as Home Minister when he was consistenly scoring an F?
Why was this attack in Mumbai allowed to happen? Are you all spent out from the Rural employment Scheme, that we cannot afford to get our commandos on a plane before 5am 7hours after the terrorists first struck in Mumbai.
There is a whole littabny of things that went wrong, not all of which should be blamed on you.
But what followed?
You went on television and assured a jittery and angry nation that action would be taken.
So what happend? Not much later, you foriefn Minister says , that the military option with regards to Pakistan is rules out.
So whats the Plan Dr. Singh?
Wait for the next attack? Or are we supposed to wait till Jihadi terrorism goes out of fashion?
If those are infact ur solutions ie. do nothing, at least be honest enough to admit as much to the long suffering people of India. So atleast if a majority disagree with your approach, they can go out an elect someone else to do your job.

That did'nt take long did it.

India's foriegn minister issued a statement saying that India was not about to go to war with Pakistan over the terror attack in Mumbai. Less than 24 hours later, Pakistan's President, Asif Zadari, virtually backtracks on his earlier assertions of full co-operation with India's investigation. The demand to extradite the 20 terrorists/criminals sheltering in Pakistan was rejected. And comically, the captured terrorists Pakistani orgin is being questioned.
None of this should be the least bit surprising to anyone with mental faculties of a 11 year old.
But I am sure this has taken the collective Indian leadership by surprise.
The initial assertions of co-operation were made under the assumption, that this was the incident which would finally stir the Indian government to deal with Pakistan militarily. With the Pakistan army on its heels there could be no worse time for them to faceoff with the Indian army.
Now that the military option has been taken off the table right off the bat, Pakistan has no reason to co-operate with India. And they wont.
Now if someone had only explained this to Pranab Mukherjee, before he went off and blew India's chance to do get some real concessions out of Pakistan.

News flash:Terrorists don't usually come armed with pea shooters

The more details emerge about the Terror Attacks in Mumbai, the more embarassing it becomes for the Indian Security Apparatus in general and the Mumbai Police specifically.
Now it emerges that there were 60 or so policemen patroling CST(railway station) a site that was attacked by 2 gunmen armed with AK 56'es hand grenades and hand guns.
Given that most of these cops were armed with lathis and antiquated weapons, they still should have been able to take the terroists out, given their vast numerical superiority.
Having said that, I do not quite see the point of a cop without a gun. At the very least I expect a cop to be able to protect himself, only then can he be expected to protect the public.
Why exactly were there 60 policemen at CST? Most likely that its a transportation hub, and terrorist strikes there are not unexpected.
If you accept that argument, what exactly do you expect a terrorist to be armed with?
If yout awnser is anything like the weaponry the actual terrorists possessed, should'nt the cops (at least some of them) have been equipped to deal with that?
This points back to one of my previous posts, which wondered how the two terrorists were able to escape from CST after their rampage, which later resulted in the ambush which killed Hemant Karkare along with Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar.

Caught between a rock and a hard place.

After a 60 hour fire fight that left closed to 200 people dead, the Indian security establishment declared victory against the terrorists. Essentially they are caught between a rock and a hard place. Admitting that 10 gun men could hold up the Indian commandos who probably outnumbered them 1-20( not to mention Mumbai police and the army), for close to 3 days , is probably admitting that our capabilities are not quite where we would expect them to be. On the other hand admitting there were more terrorists involved who managed to get away, would disturb to no end a highly jittery public. So for now the theory that 10-12 gun men could hold up India's finest seems more palatable.

Boy do we have our priorities straight

I did a quick google search for the "Major Terrorist Attacks India". I got the following link mostly detailing attacks from 2001-2007. So this is not counting the multiple incidents we have had this year, which include, Mumbai Jailpur, Bangalore and Ahmedabad.
All told there were approx 470 fatailities. So I am not including anything from the 90's or anything since the end of 2007, nor the profusion of violence that is common-place in the north east and in the state of J&K.
Now let me ask you how many top politicians have died in terrorist violence?
You have to go back all the way to 1991 and the Rajiv Gandhi assasination.
Ever since we have provided security , to each and every two bit politicians, so much so that terrorists don't even think of looking in their direction. Its either that, or the terrorists are content to let the guys we have as our leaders , run the country into the ground.
Just to put things in persprective, it costs 154 crores a year to provide security to the Prime Minister, prime minister's family members , former Prime Minister's families and a handful of SPG protectees. This is not counting the protection accorded to the various union ministers, state ministers and every other Tom , Dick and Harry politician.
So I am tempted to ask, what would I rather have tax payer money spent on?
Politicians or protecting the common man?
And I have a feeling I know how the common man would respond to that.
Pity we cannot have a referendum on this issue and inrporate it into law.

The terrorists are dead, let the blame games begin

Now that operations against the terrorists who held Mumbai hostage for 60 hours is over, the spin masters are out in full force. If only they realised that the people are beyond spin, it would also help if the spin was not as comical. Exihbit A Maharastra Home Minister RR Patil's claim that the terrorists were out to kill 5000. Now by all accounts the terrorists dead or captured number 10-12. Do you think theor handlers expected them to have the success they had? Or to humor the good minister, were they expected to kill 5000, even by those who sent them?
There are also noises of how the terrorists were trained for atleast 2-3 years. This should explain how they manage to best the security establishment. Only problem is the interrogation of the captutured terrorist has revealed , that the training period was far shorter than that(closer to 2-3 months)
I also read the minister saying that the cops reached CST within 7 minutes of the shooting there. Now tha actually brings into question why there were'nt cops with guns there in the first place. Thats like saying the cops got to Penn station 7mins after shooting started there.
I know for a fact that CST has a police post. So where were the cops? Were they neutralized by the terrorists before they went on their rampage?
We will mourn the loss of the 14 cops from the Mumbai police who lost their lives. But we also would like to know why they died. Preferrably with no spin.

The Mumbai Massacre , an analysis too soon

The massacre , thats what the attack in Mumbai is being called.  An apt definition, considering the defenceless of a city of 20 million people in the face of what appears to heavily armed well trained madmen, who numbered approximately 12.

There will be statesmanly like calls saying "This is not the time to point fingers" , "Its time for us to stand united".  You can't argue with that kind of sound logic. But I can, and I must.

Candle lit vigils are not going to stop the people who perperated the mayhem in Mumbai.

Mumbai has been hit by terrorists more often than most cities, starting 1993.

One would imagine that its police would have evolved to handle terrorist threats by now.

Whenever an incident such as this happens, the first to be blamed is "intelligence failure".

All manner of sins are swept under the same rug.

Intelligence failure or no intelligence failure, it was a general policing failure.

Exhibit A.:2 Heavily armed men enter the biggest commuter railway station in Mumbai, start shooting up the place. But no cop in the vicinity are able to get a shot off.

Exhibit B:The terrorists hijack a police van no less , and proceed to shoot at bystanders. This goes on for atleast a matter of hours. 

Exhibit C: Heavily armed men attack the Taj and the Oberoi, and enter the hotels unchallenged.

I am willing to accept that the attack , its scale and planning were unprecedented.

What I am not willing to accept , is that the terrorists proceeded unchallenged.

I am willing to accept that putting an operation together to take out well entrenched terrorists takes time.

What I cannot accept is that NSG commandos had to be flown in from Delhi.

There should be a permanent detachment of commandos in Mumbai.

There is no good time or bad time to accept ones short comings. The only way we can prevent or atleast have a chance to prevent another embarrassing and emasculating attack, is to learn from our mistakes and work towards correcting them.

As a force the mumbai police force has been stretched to the breaking point. 

The force is not equipped or trained to tackle terrorist threats of this magnitude.

Raising an ATS is not enough, since an acronym is not enough to stop bad men in their tracks.

Mumbai needs to raise/maintain a commando team for any such operations. Training for such eventualities is a full time occupation, not a course you take once in your 20 year career.

You need both the investigators as well as the whip hand.

Hemant Karkare the chief of the ATS, was a fine police officer by all accounts, but he was not the whip hand I am talking about.

Finally the backbone of the force, the lower rung, needs to be trained and equipped with handguns. A lot of the force, patrols the streets unarmed, that has to change.  

A similar incident in New York city would be unfathomable, since every cop has a gun and knows how to use it.  

Finally its easier to say all these things and do them. But do them we must. As a people we have a right to life, and if history has taught us anything, we have to stand up and be counted.  Ironically as the whole world celebrated the end of George Bush's reign and he beginning of Obama's I can't help but wonder , if India would have been better of with a little more of Bush's single minded arrogance than the Mr Nice Guy image we have worked so hard to cultivate.

Electoral College reform

The debate about electoral college reform has never really gotten off the ground. Sure there was outrage when Al Gore lost the Presidency even though he won the popular vote. But that quickly dissipated, and the John Kerry debacle four years later meant that George Bush won another election but this time with a lead of some 3 million votes.
And thats how its usually going to be the guy who wins the Electoral College, likely gets the popular vote, so why bother changing it?
The one reasoning I have heard in the past for having an electoral college is that the smaller states(population wise) would not get the short shrift from the Presidential candiadates.
And its a reason I'd be willing to accept if it was not for the fact that even larger states get the short shrift currently from one candidate or the other or sometimes from both.
I have'nt gotten figures, but it would be safe to say That States like Texas, New York and California, did not get the attention that was heaped on Swing States, from eithe candidates. If you were Obama, why waste precious resources on a states thats already been sewn up. And if you were McCain, why waste prescious resources on a state that you did'nt have a prayer of winning.
The winner takes all approach is responsible for this state of affairs.
What it has done effectively is render republican votes useless in a state like California, that almost always goes Democrat, and a similar story unfolds in Republican states. From media reports it would seem that a record voters came out for the first time to cast their votes. Part of this is due to Obama's magnetic appeal, part of it a desire for change. But surely one has to ask the question, how many of these people did not vote in past elections , since they believed(quite rightly) that their vote would not affect the final outcome.
If I have made the nature of the problem apparent, Id like to suggest a potential solution.
There are currently 2 states which allow their electoral colleges votes to be divided proportionally between the candidates. Extend this to all the 50 states.
What are the chances, that McCain would have taken his message to California if he knew that he had a shot to pick up 20-25 electoral college votes there or that Obama would have made his views known in the Republican South?
My guess , pretty good.
As Obama rightly pointed out , he was elected to be President of all Americans. So next time , let a few more American's have a genuine say.

It can only be my fault if I did something right?

That's what Dick Fuld seemed to be implying in testimony to the congressional committee.
I hate to kick a man when he is down, and heaven knows I know enough people who have been effected by Lehman's collapse. But somethings , you can't run away from.
Mr. Fuld might be right in many of his observations about why his venerable institution had to file for bankruptcy, but come on Dick when u've made 1/2 a billion dollars in less than a decade, can't your company at least expect that u wouldn't be asleep at the wheel a this time of crisis?
The very fact that matters were allowed to reach such a state after a full year had been provided as warning(collapse of the Bear Stern funds, that gave the first inkling that something was terribly wrong), reflects poorly on you and other members of the management. Sure you can accept responsibility or you can blame everyone else, but ultimately neither will affect the comfortable life that 1/2 billion dollars can buy.