This deserves to be linked!

Cynics see the Common Minimum Program of the coalition government as the usual bunch of political promises: motherhood, apple pie, sugar and spice for all credulous suckers. The government itself calls the CMP reform with a human face. But what about the cost? Face-lifts are expensive, and may not improve your looks much. The CMP proposes to increase education spending by 2% of GDP, and health spending by another 1-2% of GDP. It promises a National Employment Guarantee, debt relief to the states, and doubled agricultural lending, each of which could soak up another 1% of GDP. Each 1% of GDP is Rs 25,000 crore, so the bill adds up alarmingly fast.

How will it be paid? The CMP has no explanation, only a bland declaration that the governments revenue deficit will magically disappear by 2009. But much of the proposed new spending (on education, health, employment) is revenue expenditure. How then will the revenue deficit disappear? Through additional revenue maybe?

Read The Whole Thing

Truly, an extraordinary fellow(via The Opti-Mystic

Makes sense

I have a confession to make. I have committed a serious transgression, one that if it goes unpunished will earn me expulsion from the Cartel and the undying hatred of all right-thinking and decent bloggers.

I am finding it extremely difficult to type out this post. Even as I type this, a voice within me says, “Don’t! No one will ever know! It’s all right!”

But I will know and unless I own up, I shall never be able to sleep again.

I bought a copy of the One Novel That Cannot be Named, written by The Verbal Terrorist.

No! Don’t look at me like that! I did not even buy a legal copy. What do you take me for? A Mallu? I bought a pirated copy and that too second hand. I didn’t hand her any of my money! I was just strolling along Matunga casually looking at the many roadside bookstalls, thinking “What could be worse than reading an essay by the Verbal Terrorist?” The answer was, “An entire book by the Verbal Terorist” And there I saw The One Novel That Cannot be Named and I don’t know what possessed me and… Hey I also bargained! If she ever writes another novel, it will not be because she got secondary encouragement from my purchase! Why are you staring at me? Look I’d throw it into the fire, but I thought I’d need to be able to have an answer the next time someone says “Her views are crap, but she writes really really well.” So probably I’ll read the thing.

Anyway, I plan to read the book reaally slowly, one page at a time, so that there is less chance that I lose my sanity in one shot, and so that I’ll be able to give you guys a fair warning if it happens.

How could I have committed the elementary fallacy of the slippery slope? That’s simple. I committed no such fallacy. An example of the slippery slope fallacy is this: “You start punishing people for murder today and the next thing you know, people will get hanged for killing animals.” Now that is a fallacy because you are refusing to make a sound decision today for fear of making a sound distinction tomorrow. (In this case, the elementary distinction between humans and animals)

I did not claim that there is no difference at all between citizens and non-citizens. I just wanted to know what the difference was, so that I could use it in my argument, in ways you are probably not anticipating.

Yazad is right that the reason we let only citizens stand for political posts in our country is to avoid conflicts of interest. But let’s be clear on what the conflict of interest amounts to. If the fear were just that a person could hold political office in two countries simultaneously, then we could pass a law prohibiting that specific action. Of course a person could be Defence Minister of India for a period and then move to Pakistan after demiting his post. But that could happen even now.
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I deserve an award for getting a Gmail account in the most shameless way possible.

In my defence, all I can say to my friend is,

My need was greater than yours.

P.S. If I make it my life’s ambition to hunt down and kill the person who went and acquired ravikiran @ gmail.com before me, would I be overreacting?

I am busy at work, so I will just post a bunch of links.
From Swami there is this about bringing of marriages under the Essential Commodities Act in Jammu and Kashmir.

“The ECA of 1955, which was notified in September 1973, has been re-invoked in view of the huge wastage of food involved in marriage feasts across the state,” Minister for Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs Taj Mohiuddin told reporters.

The order stipulates that not more than 45 kg each of rice and meat must be consumed at a wedding. The bride’s side must not invite more than 75 guests, including 25 baratees. The groom can invite 50 guests, Mohiuddin said.

Swami got married only recently, so he probably doesn’t know that at one time this was the case all over India. There used to be a limit on the number of guests you could invite. And this is for those who think that it is not the system that makes people corrupt, but the people that corrupt the system. If you were a government employee whose unpleasant job is to barge into Marriage Mandaps and arrest people for overspending, how long do you think you are going to remain honest?

Yes Ramnath, I’ve read this advice from Swaminathan Aiyar to his brother Mani Shankar Aiyar. I will be bold enough to confess that I read it in the paper today morning (The kind of paper that you hold in your hands, I mean) . That’s good advice, but look at it this way. May be he was trying to make up for calling his brother a dog last sunday.

I am referring of course, to this passage.

Now, I have been a stern critic of the Gandhi family most of my life. I am not happy that the great party which won us independence has become one where Congressmen sit up and beg every time a member of the Gandhi family whistles. But my opposition to sectarian politics vastly outweighs my opposition to dynastic politics.

I have heard rumours to the effect that petrol and diesel prices will finally go up by the end of this month. I at The Examined Life would thank all my tax-paying Indian readers for subsidising my diesel for the past few months.

Here it is

Actually I still want to write that post about the foreign origins issue even though it is moot now, but it will turn out to be a long one and I won’t have the time for it for some time. So I want you people to do the hard work for me.

Defenders of Sonia Gandhi’s becoming PM point to the fact that she is a citizen and hence she is entitled to the post, period. Yazad asks me if I am having second thoughts about the rule of law, which is one of the principles I hold dear.

Actually no. But a law is supposed to have a rationale behind it. So my question is, why have the citizenship requirement at all?
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Interviewer So where did you graduate from?

Applicant: Are you saying that one cannot get a job with you unless he graduates?

I: Not really. Take Bill Gates for example. He runs the world’s biggest software co and he isn’t a graduate. But then he has other qualities that compensate. He is smart and has good leadership skills, etc.

A: So are you saying that I am not smart?

I: Hardly. I don’t really know you, so I have no way of knowing whether you are smart or not… I don’t even know if you have any experience at all…

A: Which means that you can’t really say that I will do badly on the job?

I: Well let’s try again. Do you know any programming languages?

A: Which languages are you looking for?

I: Actually we have projects in all major languages…

A: So are you saying that anyone who joins knows all the languages you people work on?

I: Not really, at the most they will know a couple.

A: So anyone who joins your company won’t know most of the languages you work on. So I really don’t see why you are claiming that knowing a programming language is a prerequisite to joining.

I: I must say that I am impressed by your logical reasoning.

A: See? You haven’t come up with a single reason why I should not join your company. Where’s my offer letter?

Before I start off on my promised Anti-Sonia tirade, yesterday’s crash wasn’t caused by any dark conspiracy by the BJP. There was no Ketan Mehta or Harshad Mehta style manipulation this time. It was entirely due to FIIs pulling out. So unless you think that Yashwant Sinha’s son and daughter-in-law have such disproportionate influence on the FII community as to influence decision-making among all of them, your conspiracy theory is simply over the top. The crash was caused by FIIs losing their nerve and pulling out, because of the loony statements that the Left was making.