Surely You Gotto be Kidding Me!

The Election Commission has announced the dates of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. Entirely coincidentally, the Congress announced a cut in petrol and gas prices the same day.

More coincidences. Sonia laid the foundation stone for her dream project – the Rae Bareli rail coach factory, yesterday. The aim is to boost job prospects in the UP. Job prospects for her MP candidates, to be more specific. (The Congress had a vote share of 8% in the 2007 UP assembly elections).

On the other hand, it’s a pleasant change to see Sonia leaning in to lay the foundation stone. You know, after 5 long years of bending over backwards to accommodate all her allies.

Mayawati laughed it off as a political stunt pointing out that the foundation had already been laid near Baiswara way back in Feb 2007. Maybe. Thankfully, the Congress has made absolutely no progress with the project since then. At least we don’t need to do any of the development work again – it’s just the stone part.

Despite the seat-sharing agreement for UP, Amar Singh made it clear that he will not accommodate all demands of the Congress. No such luxury for the Congress. Amar Singh wants a Padma Shri for Kalyan Singh and an Ashok Chakra for Sanjay Dutt.

Sickeningly, the Ram Sena and Bajrang Dal are fighting over who gets ‘credit’ for the Mangalore incident. Capitalizing on the situation, Sanjay Dutt is opening bids for anyone wanting to take credit for planting all those AK-47s in his basement in 1993.

Believe it or not, the Ram Sena also claims to have a suicide squad of its own ready. In all probability, it has already claimed its first victim – the BJP.

Pranab Mukherjee rushed to Sri Lanka yesterday to address the situation there. Is it just me or is anyone in charge of the Finance Ministry either getting hospitalized or running away to other countries?

Pranab said the purpose of his visit is to ensure that Tamil civilians are protected and do not become hapless victims of the two fighting factions. I can see the people of Mumbai throwing their arms up in the air already….

Pakistani PM Yousuf Raza Gilani has reiterated his government’s commitment to resolve all outstanding issues with India to usher in an era of peace. Once he resolves all outstanding issues with President Zardari, that is. Kashmir can wait.

Gilani also has deal with the fact that Islamabad has seceded from Pakistan and is now an independent state. How else do you explain the “findings” of Pakistan’s dossier on the 26/11 attacks?

The residents of Mumbai’s slums are not happy at being branded ‘slumdogs’. Its just one insult after the other. First, they were called Pakistanis. Now slumdogs. All that’s left is for AK Antulay to somehow connect them to the Malegaon blasts.

A woman in California gave birth to octuplets yesterday. Great. We now have 8 more Americans who wont be buying GM cars. In response, a resigned Obama hiked the bail-out bill further up to 900 billion.

Nandan Nilekani has authored a new book titled ‘Imagining India’. Really? Do we need more imagination in this country? We’ve had CEOs running companies with 13,000 ghost employees, 400 benami accounts and non-existent cash reserves of 7,000 crores. We’re doing O.K. with the imagination part, methinks.

Big Republic Day parade today. And a bigger security force of close to 20,000 men. Basically, we had the police protecting the Army, which was showcasing our military might. Ironic, eh? Am just glad we have the moral police around to take care of the rest of the country.

Good news. Doctors attending on Manmohan Singh post-operation said that he is “stable, comfortable and making rapid progress”. On the downside, we never go to say these three things about his tenure as Prime Minister.

The operation went well. Much better than the last bypass operation he was involved in. That ailment was brought about by leaning too much to The Left for 4 years.

RK Panda, a cardiac surgeon with Asian Heart Institute (AHI), led his team of doctors at the operation table. A bunch of outsiders at AIIMS? That should teach the AIIMS for having pushed for the quota system and ‘diluting’ its brand. Or…..was it the UPA??

When asked if Manmohan had been suffering from any stress, Pranab replied – “Some stress must be there. Otherwise, I don’t know why it has happened”. With statements so vague and lacking in investigation, he’s in danger of being mistaken for an auditor from PwC.

M & A news. Pfizer is buying rival drugmaker Wyeth in a $68 billion deal and will immediately follow it up with a bunch of lay-offs to shed the ‘excess fat’ resulting from the merger. This is where all the stockpiles of Lipitor come in handy.

Remember Gov Blagojevich? The one who tried to sell the Senate seat? Even as he got impeached, he compared himself to the likes of Mandela and Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi, I am guessing. She could very well be his role model.

Then again, if terrorists can use ‘Gandhigiri’ as the centerpiece of their political campaigns, why not politicians impeached on corruption and malpractice charges? I do think he’s like Gandhi and Mandela – in that he will be spending a lot of time in jail hereon.

The Padma lists are out. Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission Anil Kakodkar, and environmentalist Sunderlal Bahuguna were on the list. So was Abhinav Bindra, for being our first Olympic Gold medalist. And Aishwarya Rai. Presumably, for this.

Sister Nirmala, from the Missionaries of Charity also got the nod. The moral of the story – it doesn’t really matter whether you claim Mother Teresa inspires you at a beauty pageant or actually get inspired by her. You get a Padmi Shri either way.

New game in town. Heard of the Kevin Bacon number? This one’s called Six Degrees of Amar Singh – wherein, your chances of winning a Padma Shri go up dramatically if you can be linked to Amar Singh in the least steps possible. The Congress might be corrupt, spineless and ineffective but its nothing if not grateful.

Lets take Aishwarya Rai. She is married to Abhishek. He is the son of Amitabh Bachchan. The Big B is a close friend of Amar Singh. That’s a mere 3 degrees of separation. No surprise she was on the list.

How about Akshay Kumar? He was in Aitraaz, produced by Subhash Ghai. Ghai directed Tina Munim in Karz. Tina is married to Anil Ambani. Anil has all but slept with Amar Singh. Fun game, isn’t it?

Israel’s government will provide legal protection to its military officers if they are accused of war crimes. War crimes? What war? Thousands of Palestinian citizens were slaughtered. Some Hamas militants got caught in the crossfire by mistake. There never was any war.

And don’t be surprised if Ehud Olmert, Israel’s PM gets nominated for a Padma Shri. Wondering how? Well, he is Obama’s pal. Barack appointed Hillary Secretary of State. She is married to Bill Clinton. And Amar Singh is so close to Bill that he’s donated millions of dollars to his charity. That’s 4 degrees. Not bad.

Want to try your hand at some of the other nominees? Harbhajan, Dhoni, Udit Narayan, Helen anyone?

Big news! Steven Spielberg is going to shoot another sequel to the hit Jurassic Park series. But there will be no dinosaurs. Instead, PM candidates from the BJP and Congress for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections will represent the life forms from that era.

Yep. Look at the roll call from both sides – Advani, Vajpayee, Pranab Mukherjee, Manmohan Singh…..But the real scary part? John McCain would be the youngest contender at the polls if he ever opts to relocate here.

Several names being thrown about in the Congress for ’09. Pranab Mukherjee among them. Following decades of service to the Congress, he’s hopeful that he won’t be overlooked by Sonia. Much to his dismay, Asif Zardari called up Pranab today and asked him to stop ‘living in denial.’

And to stamp out any lingering embers of hope, Pranab has been handed the dreaded Finance Ministry post. That should seal his fate.

Advani has coined a new slogan for his party in the ’09 elections: ‘Give us your support; we promise you good governance’. He also has a new slogan for bridging diplomatic relations with Pakistan – ‘Give us Dawood and we promise to hand over Kalyan Singh’.

To counter the SP’s Sanjay Dutt nomination, the Congress will have Mohammad Azharuddin contest on its ticket. How about that? Closely observing developments, Pakistan demanded that India back this up with appropriate action and get them duly elected.

Manmohan will be out of action for up to five weeks after he undergoes a routine heart surgery operation on Saturday. Out for five weeks!! Surgeon RK Panda confessed that he had never come across a more cheerful patient at the operating table.

M. Karunanidhi has issued an ultimatum to the Centre threatening to withdraw support if it didn’t act on Lanka. He then warmly wished Manmohan good luck with his impending heart operation.

The DMK wants Lanka and the LTTE to arrive at a political solution through peaceful talks. Yeah right. How about trying to get Priya and Manyata Dutt on speaking terms first? Lets see if we can accomplish that.

Subramanian Swamy has chipped in his with his perspective. He reckons that the LTTE is not relevant in Lankan politics anymore, does not represent its people and is part of the problem, and not the solution. Ironically, the same arguments apply to the Janata Party in the Indian context.

Karunanidhi contends that, as a “great democracy”, India has the right to intervene and question ethnic violence in any part of the world. Meanwhile, both the Congress and BJP have taken strong objection to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s comments on our cross-border disputes with Pakistan.

India has indicated that it draws the line at the UK offering “solutions” to India’s internal problems. I’m glad we are the ones drawing lines. The last time an Englishman drew a line to solve an Indo-Pak dispute, things didn’t work out particularly well, did they?

Our stance is clear. Kashmir is an “internal” issue. We don’t need any advice / help from the US or UK. But when the same LeT militants (again with the help of the ISI), wreck havoc in Mumbai, we’ll demand that the US, UK and the rest of the international community take action to dismantle the terrorist camps. Go figure.

Following his criticism of Slumdog Millionaire’s unflattering portrayal of Mumbai, Amitabh Bachchan has also dismissed the importance of the Oscars from Bollywood’s perspective. Unless he is looking to get invited for a tea party at Raj Thackeray’s place, its not really clear what the Big B is trying to accomplish here.

To wrap up, a what-the-hell-was-the-editor-smoking-when-he-let-this-one-pass headline from the Indian Express : “Bollywood actress, Aussie troops: Afghan ‘sex scandal’ under probe.”

More signs that the recession is behind us. We are back to paying footballers 107 million pounds for kicking a ball between two posts.

Its celebration time in Washington. Rock concerts, lavish star-studded parties, 10 official inaugural balls, 150 million in expenses. And why not? The two wars in the Middle East have been won, the economy has recovered and unemployment rates are at an all-time low. Right?

In its defense, the Democratic Party claimed that the whole gala has been funded entirely by the back-taxes paid by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner last week.

Obama, and his supporters, made a grand entry in his private train as it passed from Philadelphia to the capital. He picked the train since he was less likely to be floating over the Hudson River 10 minutes into the ride. Smart.

Everyone’s excited about the Inauguration. There will be new policies and faces at Washington. Not to mention, new lips, breasts, noses, hips….

Yep. Before the big Inaug, the demand for “cosmetic procedures” has shot up in Washington. So one can expect a whole bunch of people at the event hiding their real ugly selves behind artificially erected facades. And that’s not even counting Congressmen, mind you.

Narendra Modi has been touted as a future PM by top industrialists following the 10% GDP growth in Gujrat’s economy over his tenure. It should be mentioned that his state has also achieved a 10% growth in the MDP (Minority Deaths in the Population) during this period.

On his part, LK Advani has showered praise on Modi and assured him he will have his turn as the Prime Minister of India one day. That’s pretty sweet, and decidedly delusional, coming from someone who’s been waiting 81 years for his turn.

Congress Spokesperson Manish Tiwari compared Narendra Modi with Adolf Hitler, branding him a fascist and a ruthless dictator. Modi hit back saying that flattery would not get the Congress anywhere as he was committed to the BJP.

Pranab Mukherjee has again accused Pakistan of ‘living in denial’ over 26-11. In unrelated news, he says he’s confident that the Satyam scam is definitely an ‘isolated incident’.

As part of its investigation, Pakistan is likely to want to speak with Amir Ajmal Kasab soon. Should be fairly simple – just return his cellphone and SIM card. They know his number and everything.

Wipro is arguing that it had not bribed World Bank employees. It had merely handed them gifts, also euphemistically termed ‘facilitating payments’. This has set a bad precedent. Ramalinga Raju now wants to re-classify his fraud at Satyam as a ‘subtle strategic subterfuge’.

In his blog, Amitabh Bachchan has slammed the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ for projecting the “dirty underbelly” of Mumbai (and India, by extension). Its funny, cause he can call up his good friend Amar Singh and tell him the same thing about nominating Sanjay Dutt for the Lucknow seat.

This is interesting. An oil painting by Vladimir Putin got picked up for more than a million dollars at a charity auction in St.Petersburg yesterday. Wow! The extent to which the EU will go to make Russia resume gas supplies to the region…

Good news folks! The job market is looking up and companies are hiring again. Just today on Naukri.com, I saw openings for the positions of CEO, CFO, COO, CTO, VPs, and Directors at Satyam Computers. Recession? What recession?

The government has taken charge at Satyam and plans to replace the entire Board of Directors with its own nominees. Ostensibly, with the aim of avoiding any further shocks going forward. Makes sense. When was the last time any of us got shocked when reading about corrupt government officials?

The Centre is also planning a 2,000 crore salary bailout for the 53,000 Satyam employees. This sends out the right message. Namely, if you are the CEO of a large MNC, feel free to siphon off all the company’s cash reserves and profits with a clear conscience. Your employees will be somehow taken care of.

On the plus side, Infosys intends to honour all the campus offers it made for 2009. A marked difference to Satyam, where it’ll be more along the lines of ‘Yes your Honour, No your Honour’.

After the revelations about Satyam, it’s the turn of Wipro to be banned by the World Bank, for bribing its employees. Shows you how business models have changed at banks – nowadays, they are taking in money rather than lending it out.

One Supreme Court judge, along with 11 high court judges in the Ghaziabad judiciary have been accused of using court funds for making expensive personal purchases. They are likely to be fired with immediate effect and sent where they belong. To form the new Board of Directors at Satyam.

Prince Harry is in a spot of bother for calling a Pakistani Army Captain a ‘Paki’ in a home video. Its a derogatory term, apparently. I believe the politically correct term is ‘non-state actor’.

Pakistan has dismissed the 26-11 dossier submitted by India as ‘information’, not proof. They want us to be more extensive with the investigation and provide more documentary evidence. I know what you’re thinking. If only the auditors from PwC were this thorough…

Former Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje has been accused of corruption and arrested in connection with the Deendayal Upadhyay Trust land scam. In her defense, she was probably stuck riding a galloping camel not knowing how to get off without a parachute.

In his role as UN Ambassador, Sanjay Dutt could get a chance to meet Barack Obama. Great. That should put an end to all talk of Obama ‘palling around’ with terrorists.

Finally some solid evidence for the existence of parallel universes. Right here on planet earth. Both the SL Army and the LTTE released statements claiming to have achieved a string of major victories against each other. Right now, both armies are simultaneously in-charge of Kilinochchi. A classic win-win situation.

The new ‘Kings Button’ iPhone 3G, made with gold and diamonds, is now available for a cool $3 million!! Unfortunately, the steep price tag means that the market for the product is very niche. Under present economic conditions, only auditors, Somalian pirates, Supreme Court judges and AIG executives can afford it.

This is touching. Manmohan Singh had sent a personally signed New Year greeting card, featuring a dove, to Pakistan President Zardari. It almost worked. Till he chose to sign off with ‘To my dear Paki friend’.

Forget David Copperfield and Criss Angel. The world’s best illusionist has been living in India all along. Our very own Ramalinga Raju. A 5-page letter, and 7,000 crores of shareholder wealth disappears overnight. Try topping that. Of course, we are all astonished. But shouldn’t industry insiders have suspected something? Take Narayana Murthy. Over the years, he made several entries in his personal diary about Satyam and Ramalinga Raju that, on hindsight, indicate that something was up. Some select passages that are of interest:

Note: In his diary, Narayana Murthy refers to Ramalinga Raju by his pet name ‘Rama’.

January 3rd, 2002: At the Nasscom Leadership Forum
…. bunch of clichés. Talk then turned to Enron. Azim confessed to be being shocked by the whole affair. I was too. We all agreed that this was NOT an isolated case of mis-governance. Foreign investors need to be wary of American companies going forward. Surprisingly, Rama opined that competitive pressures can push CEO’s into a corner. He then muttered something about Kenneth Lay piggybacking on an Orangutan and not knowing how to get off without finding a banana to distract it. He was despicably drunk. He then started laughing so hard that he almost fell off his chair. ‘Why on earth would anyone go to the trouble of creating a bunch of offshore entities merely to hide ones losses?’ he asked us, still breathing hard. I agreed with him. It was utterly unethical and Enron would have been well served to come clean a lot earlier. Rama went into one of his laughing fits again. What about the shareholders, Azim pointed out. Rama continued, rather cynically, that shareholders were leeches who don’t do any of the work but boss you around just because they loaned some money. I ignored him for the rest of the day. Besides, my presentation on ‘The IT boom in India – Myth or Reality?” was up next…..

May 14th, 2004
The NDA lost the elections comprehensively. I did predict as much to Sudha. Why choose to highlight the success in the IT sector when the rest of India is plunged in darkness? In fact, I am worried about our Earnings Announcement next week. Uncertain global economic conditions are forcing clients to reduce spending on technology in the short term. Expectedly, it has led to a decline on several key operational metrics at Infosys. I hope investors appreciate the fact that Infosys cannot sustain its growth rate of 30% Y-o-Y regardless of market conditions. Satyam is also announcing its results this week, which makes it worse. They never post anything less than 40%. My admiration for Rama continues to grow with each passing day. He handles pressure like a seasoned campaigner. If I am to be the President someday, I need to manipulate politicians as skillfully as he does. Rama practically has Chandrababu Naidu eating out his hand. How I wish I could throw away this balance sheet and take an empty piece of paper and fill it with the numbers I want to see. If Satyam posts 40% growth, we’ll declare 45%. Maybe I’ll round it off to 50%. If only life were that simple.

January 10th, 2005
….I should drop off a congratulatory note to Rama about his son launching Maytas Properties, Inc. Looks like a promising venture. ‘Maytas’ is Satyam in reverse apparently. If Satyam means Truth, what does that say about Maytas? Should remember to include this witty observation in my note.

June 3rd, 2006
This is getting annoying. Nandan tells me that we lost another project to Satyam. Big fish. General Electric. Our quote was a reasonable 120 Crores. We had no chance though. Satyam offered to do it for 25,000 rupees. I wonder how Rama pulls this off. His team consistently underbids for projects and snatches Tier-1 clients from under our noses. Satyam employs half the number of people we do but operates on an enviable 25% margin. Truly remarkable productivity. Maybe we are not working hard enough. Our assets walk out of the door each evening and we have to make sure that they come back the next morning. I know that. It was my quote. But it’s a lot easier to have them in their seats next morning if they don’t leave overnight. I’ll call up Nandan tomorrow and ask him to announce revised working hours at Infosys. We have to beat Satyam at its own game.

April 8th, 2007
Today was a disaster. Instead of focusing on Kalam’s speech endorsing my Presidential credentials, the instrumental version of Jana Gana Mana we played snowballed into a controversy. If I know anything about this country at all, the media will be baying for my blood unless I apologize within 24 hours.

July 25th, 2007
Pratibha Patil was sworn in today. Maybe I should just forget about the Presidency and focus on my speaking assignments and charities. Sudha reminded me about the shining example in my own sector, Ramalinga Raju. Here is someone whose company has been growing remarkably in the last decade – share value, market cap, revenues etc. And contrary to expectations, he has been steadily divesting his stake in the firm and donating the proceeds to charity. Last time I checked the shareholding pattern, his equity in Satyam was down to 8%, compared with 25% in 2001. Rama assures me that every single paisa went to charity. Not a single family member or friend got any of it. He runs one of the most promising companies in India, with sound fundamentals, and yet his commitment to the poor outweighs everything else. Clearly, he knows something the rest of us don’t. Namely, that money isn’t everything in life. Such selflessness in this day and age is rare indeed. Wish there were more like him.

November 22nd, 2007
Earlier today, I rang up Rama to congratulate him on winning the E & Y Entrepreneur of the Year award. Rama said he was flattered to be the recipient of an award that I had previously won in 2003. Now it was my turn to be flattered. He then asked me to hang on for 5 minutes, since the auditing team from PwC had dropped by. I understood and offered to call him back tomorrow. These audits can be brutal. But he put me on hold and as promised, he was done in 5 minutes. I asked him jokingly if he just handed them a prepared version of the statements. There was complete silence for 10 seconds before he spoke again. Rama indicated that he did not find it funny. Productivity and efficiency are the cornerstones around which Satyam was built, he barked. He also pointed out his internal audit team had received the “Recognition of Commitment Award” from The Institute of Internal Auditors, (USA) last year. Of course, I knew that. He did not have to get all defensive over a harmless quip. I reminded him that I had called him about an award in the first place. I concluded the call by saying that the future of the IT sector was in safe hands.

December 12th, 2008
…. After lunch, I belatedly called up Rama to congratulate him on Satyam winning the ‘Golden Peacock’ award for Corporate Governance. He conceded that it was long overdue. The award, not my call. More importantly, he was looking forward to throwing this at the World Bank’s face. He confessed that he had taken the bribery charges personally and couldn’t sleep at night thinking about it. I conveyed my sympathies. It’s the likes of Bernie Madoff who give the rest of us a bad name, I offered. Rama joked about this decade turning into an elaborate tribute to Charles Ponzi. I mentioned Enron and WorldCom. Rama was adamant that Madoff was much more serious. The scale of the fraud was so much bigger. 50 billion dollars! For decades!! A single man hoodwinking the system for decades, he re-iterated. I had to stop him since I detected a touch of admiration in his voice. Hundreds of investors, including Pension Funds, had lost their all money, I retorted. Rama mumbled something about how Bernie Madoff was stuck riding an Iberian Ox and couldn’t get off without the animal chewing up his beard. I hung up the phone.

December 18th, 2008
……An equally rough two days for Rama. The markets did not take the news of his planned acquisition of the Maytas firms well. To a layman, it does look like an unrelated diversification. But Maytas Properties has been doing stellar business. It recently secured the Hyderabad Metro deal for a whopping 12,000 crores. And as one would expect, the losing parties are crying foul about bribery and land scams involving the state government. Can drive anyone to despair. Besides, my good friend Rammohan Rao chaired the Board meeting where they decided to go ahead with the proposed takeover. I suppose the Dean of ISB is a complete moron? That seems to be the implication. What about corruption? I am sure there will be sections of the media accusing him of colluding with Rama. The bottomline – the Dean of India’s premier MBA institute is a complete moron and corrupt. Will that make everybody happy? Or would he have to resign? It just gets sadder with every passing day in this country. The least they can do is give entrepreneurs the freedom to do what they do best.

December 31st, 2008
Unsettling developments over the last 2 weeks. Maybe the Dean of ISB is a complete moron. And possibly, corrupt. But I can still see some merit in the deal. Why let 5,000 crores of cash reserves idle in the bank? Why do shareholders want Rama to pretend that the amount is non-existent and lay off it? It’s like riding a tortoise and expecting it to go faster without twisting the tail. If you have extra cash, then make optimum use of it. In any case, hope things turn for the better in 2009. Not just for Rama, but all of us. May God be with us all.

India has re-invented the concept of zero again, since the age of Brahmagupta. We now define it as Rs. 7,000 crores.

Am sure you’ve read the details. But how does one claim that 7,000 crores in the balance sheet is “non-existent”? To be fair to George Fernandez and the NDA, they at least had those coffins to show for their efforts. Where are those good old days?

In his letter, Ramalinga Raju claims that nobody – him, his family, the Board or the Independent Directors – benefited from the fraud. No wonder everyone’s saying that he broke all the rules of corporate governance. In case of fraud, at least one of these parties should have benefited.

The possible impact on the other IT companies is being debated. Experts agree that it could go both ways – either the image of the whole IT sector could get tarnished. Or the image of the whole IT sector could get severely tarnished.

The role of the auditor PwC in this mess. Lets see. Satyam pays PwC for its services. In return, PwC has to verify the accuracy of Satyam’s financial statements without having its commercial interests compromised by the client relationship. Basically, it comes down to ethics. What could possibly go wrong here?

Wonder who designed this system where auditing firms derive their economic incentives from the client, whom they are supposed to “objectively” scrutinize. It’s laughable, really. We all know that the concept of business ethics is as non-existent as Satyam’s cash reserves.

Potential suitors for Satyam are hard to come by. L & T has ruled itself out, unless it can pay for the acquisition with ‘Monopoly’ money. Fair enough.

This is not the first time the IT sector has let down the country though. Remember BJP and its ‘India Shining’ campaign in 2004?

Back to 26-11. Chaos in Pakistan. Mehmud Durrani, from the NSA, was fired by Prime Minister Gilani for admitting Kasab was one of them. Pakistan has issued a new statement declaring Durrani a ‘non-state actor’.

Meanwhile, all possible steps are being taken to beef up internal security. Like nominating terrorist Abu Salem’s best buddy for the Lucknow seat in the upcoming elections.

Manmohan Singh has condemned the conflict in the Gaza and called for the immediate cessation of hostilities. It’s heartening to see him retain his sense of humor in these troubled times.

Btw, Manmohan Singh is in Kerala today to inaugurate the new Indian Naval Academy (INA) at Ezhimala. Basically, Amir Kasab’s pals will have to take a long detour if they want to hitch a ride in one of the Academy’s ships.

It’s the fourth day of the nationwide strike called by the PSU oil companies. More bad news for the carmakers, huh? Now, the public cant drive around the cars they don’t want to buy.

After Wall Street and Detroit, its now the turn of the porn industry to ask the Fed for a bail out. Predictably, in response, they were asked to go screw themselves.

Having said that, the porn industry is one special interest group that has a strong lobbying presence in Washington. It’s called the Senate.

Yesterday, India submitted incriminating evidence to Pakistan, dubbed the ‘dossier of information’. They responded along expected lines. With a ‘cluster of clichés’.

India is still urging Pakistan to extradite terrorists working from its soil. To be fair to Pak, they ARE sending terrorists over to India. But just not when we are expecting them.

Manmohan has assured the public that the UPA will be much better prepared to deal with terrorist attacks in the future. For starters, they’ll soon be the Opposition party. That’s step 1.

Jokes apart, the UPA is putting pressure on the State Governments to get tough on terrorism. Going forward, Chief Minister’s will be given no more than 24 hours to resign in the event of an attack.

P.Chidambaram issued a warning to Pakistan that India will take stern action to combat terrorism on its soil. From the next time. This time was OK. But from the next time…

The UPA will be spending 1 Trillion rupees in the next 3 months to boost “internal demand” in the country. Demand for another UPA term, that is. Elections coming up next year.

1 Trillion rupees! The last time the Centre spent that kind of money during an emergency, the Supreme Court and CBI are still working to clean up the mess.

Ahead of the by-elections in Tamil Nadu next week, MK Stalin was caught offering bribes to voters in Tirumangalam. Asked to respond, Stalin said he preferred the term ‘stimulus package’.

What’s with all the ‘stimulus package’ talk these days? Not that it’s a new concept. But back in the days of the Clinton administration, the phrase had an entirely different connotation.

Dhoni and Co. might play a cricket match next week in Tihar Jail, against the inmates of the prison. Yep. The inmates’ team will be represented by the Board of Directors from Satyam Computers.

Here’s something ironic. Dhoni has been the one receiving death threats but he’ll be going to jail before the extortionists do.

This is not the first instance. Many past greats like Kapil Dev, Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja have played cricket in Tihar jail. For the inmates’ team, I must clarify.

Air India has fired a dozen airhostesses for being over-weight. This was long overdue! I don’t get it though…how does anyone put on weight eating airline food?

To ensure that the hostesses lose weight rapidly, they have been strictly advised to be on the ‘Steve Jobs’ diet.

Steve Jobs missed the Macworld Expo this year citing health reasons. He has been losing weight rapidly over the last year. His doctor got concerned when Jobs started weighing less than the Macbook Air.

Auto sales in the US plunged again in December. GM sales down 31%. Taxpayers paid $15 billion to bail out GM but stubbornly refuse to buy its cars. I’d like to see Alan Greenspan plot the supply and demand curve on this one.

A sweet story from Warsaw. A Polish man is divorcing his wife after he visited a brothel and spotted her among the establishment’s employees. They’re still arguing over who is allowed to take the moral high ground on this one.

When you think about it, this incident is an allegorical representation of what’s happening in Gaza. The man (US/Israel) initially married this woman (Hamas) just to piss off his ex-girlfriend (PLO). With time, he found other women more attractive (Saudi, Egypt, Turkey) and ignored his wife. She, in turn, started sleeping around with other men (Iran, Syria) for the money. One fine day, the man walks into the brothel and demands that his wife stop firing rockets into his bedroom. Something like that.

After the security failures in Bombay and Assam, the UPA has a new strategy to fight terrorism – Get others to do the actual grunt work. Yep. We are openly asking Sri Lanka to hand over Prabhakaran, if they somehow manage to nab him.

This is a worrying trend. We want Pakistan to hand us the leaders of the LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammad. Now, we’ve asked Sri Lanka to drop off Prabhakaran. Adds a whole new dimension to passive-aggressive behavior, eh?

So far, only the US has come forward in terms of offering to hand over terrorists. The bad news – it’s the chaps from Guantanamo Bay that nobody else wants.

Concomitantly, India is stepping up all possible diplomatic efforts to unite the international community against Pakistan. To be on the safe side, we’ve hired the team from Ghajini to handle the marketing campaign for our case.

Some good news. Sheikh Hasina has assured us that she’ll absolutely not allow terrorists to set up any camps / training grounds in Bangladesh. ‘That’s what Bengal is for’ she added, tongue-in-cheek.

MS Dhoni continues to receive extortion threats. The police are on top of the situation – seems they know the perpetrator’s name, face, family and favorite sushi joint. So everybody relax. They’ll get the job done.

Its not just Dhoni. Wipro and Infy have received threatening emails as well. The messages have been traced to certain Satyam shareholders. They are demanding that Infy acquire General Motors and Chrysler.

The Governors of the USA’s 50 states are urging the federal government to provide $1 Trillion to bail them out during the recession. Great. After Wall Street and Detroit, it’s the 50 states asking the Fed for aid. Their argument is that they fall under the ‘too big to fail’ bracket as well.

This is amazing. Rocket company SpaceX is mulling a supersonic spacecraft to ferry people to Mars and get them settled there. Finally, some light at the end of the tunnel for the thousands of Americans who’s homes got foreclosed last year.

On New Year’s Eve, an Indian mission embarked on an expedition to Antarctica. Given that we’ve handled the recession back home so well, surely we can afford to devote resources to study recessions in polar glaciers?

The research team from Brigham Young University has “discovered” that restrained eating helps women avoid weight problems as they age. No kidding. You know, we can make the recession work for us. By cutting off funding to such projects.

We are off to a rocky start in 2009. Israel has the US’s consent if it wants to invade Gaza. In fact, the Americans are offering to send military aid if needed – like Dick Cheney armed with a Swiss army knife.

Back home, the Assam blasts. We changed our Home Minister but still had serial blasts in Guwahati this week. Its almost like the terrorists don’t care about who the UPA puts in charge.

Direct quote from P.Chidambaram – “We had intelligence about the blast, Assam Police knows who the perpetrator is, they know his family, they know him by face but somehow he escaped”. Meanwhile, Pranab Mukherjee is adamant that Pakistan should take decisive action against terrorists based on the intelligence provided by the FBI and India.

The Police knew the terrorist’s face, his family, his plans and yet, they let him slip away. People are rightly pissed. None more so than Ajmal Amir Kasab. Imagine how bad he must be feeling…to actually let them catch him…

The ULFA, Assam’s militant group with a predominantly Hindu leadership has been linked to the blasts. Ever the opportunist, AR Antulay called up Sonia Gandhi asking her if he could open his mouth now.

Once Omar Abdullah is sworn in next week as CM, J&K will be governed based on the ‘Maharashtra model’. Well…politicians in J&K have been accused of nepotism, vote bank politics and utterly neglecting their role in curbing terrorism in the state. Is it just me or is the ‘Maharashtra model’ already in place?

Sheikh Hasina back in power in Bangladesh. Hasina’s party, previously rated the most corrupt in the world, has replaced Khaleda Zia’s BNP, also rife with corruption. Just doesn’t make any sense. It’s like saving Washington Mutual by selling it to JPMorgan.

So the Bangladeshis overwhelmingly voted in the most corrupt government they ever had. Yep. You know what this means – the Republican Party is shifting base to Dhaka.

Breakthrough. Following a phase of intense fighting, Sri Lankan troops on Friday captured the northern town of Kilinochchi. With that, alas, goes the last known natural habitat of the Tiger in the world.

Anil Ambani lost close to $30 billion in 2008 and his net worth is currently down to just $12 billion. He took the news well. After all, this is not the first time he’s been the victim of a recession. (Refer Image)

The economy. Declining food and fuel prices pushed inflation down for the 8th week in succession to 6.38 %. On the plus side, Anil can buy more stuff with his paltry 12 billion than he could 8 weeks ago.

Like the rest of us, Anil is hoping that 2009 turns out better than 2008. The good news – there is no way he can lose another 30 billion in 2009. That’s a good start.

Ghajini and Rab Ne have worked wonders at the box-office. It brought some cheer to Bollywood, already reeling under the effects of increased competition. You know, with all those non-state actors in Bombay these days.

According to The Futurist magazine, Americans will be having more sex in 2009. And, for a change, most of the sex will be between spouses since hookers can be an expensive option when you are out of work.