Spotted on the (information) highway. For those of you who don’t read Hindi, it reads (not a literal translation) “Sonia Gandhi, you are a disgrace & a shame.” Someone inform Diggy Raja.

The Congress party and the Nehru-Gandhi-Maino clan need your help in quitting India. You, and thousands like you who are willing and able to help them quit India, can make it happen. India needs your help. India can become a prosperous country once we take that first most critical step — make India free of the Congress and the N-G-M clan. Once India is rid of them, it will progress rapidly to become a developed nation. Come let us work together to make that a reality. Email me atanudey at gmail for details.

If you thought that I was about to quote Alexis de Toqueville, you were wrong. I quote H. L. Mencken. “As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

Steven Speilberg’s movie “Lincoln” which opens Friday is one that I plan to see for sure. I think that Lincoln was a truly great man. It’s strange to think that there was a time when the US had an amazing giant of a man as its president, compared to whom the present leaders appear as pathetic caricatures — one of whom will be elected (or, heaven forbid re-elected) in a few days.
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The US presidential elections are scheduled for next week Tuesday, Nov 6th. A lot hangs on the outcome for the US — and perhaps the world. In a piece that I wrote a few days ago for NitiCentral.com, I argue that its importance for India is overblown since what happens in the US does not materially affect India’s fortunes. For the record, here it is below the fold. If you wish to comment, please do so on NitiCentral.
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Pujo is over and Ma Durga has gone back. Shubho Bijoya to all. Below the fold, listen to the Mahisasuramardini radio program.
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I was on the phone with my friend JP, talking about how extraordinarily successful the United States has been. I believe that part of that success arises from extraordinary luck. Around the time when the US became an independent nation, it had a bunch of amazingly wise people guiding it. As in the case of individuals — what one inherits is a random draw from the lottery of creation — so also for nations: the endowments that a nation is born with is random and exogenous. Among the giants who are called the “founding fathers” (a much abused phrase applied without justification to others in other nations) of the United States was an Englishman named Thomas Paine.
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CANDLELIGHT: A Buddhist woman prayed in front of a Buddha sculpture in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Wednesday. Bangladesh’s High Court has asked the government to explain why officials failed to protect minority Buddhists whose homes, temples and businesses were attacked after a picture of a burned Quran was posted on Facebook. (Andrew Biraj/Reuters)

Paraphrasing the German poet, historian and playwright Friedrich Schiller (1759 – 1805), you can say that against ridicule even the gods struggle in vain. While Sonia Maino and her family still appear to be largely unscathed from all the scandals enveloping the supremely corrupt Congress party, her son-in-law is the target of some well-deserved ridicule. It is interesting to note that the main stream media in India still does not have the guts to report the truth. It is therefore the social media which has taken on the burden of shaming the guilty through ridicule.
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Over at Quartz, my piece on the topic of sex-selection in India is titled, “Why Indian parents should be allowed to choose whether to have girls.” Writers often don’t have control over the titles of pieces but this one is not bad compared to the really lousy title of my piece in NitiCentral published yesterday which should have been titled “Sonia Gandhi’s travels are more mysterious than the Shroud of Turin & costlier than going to Mars.” C’est la vie and all that. Anyway, an extended excerpt below the fold.
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Sonia Gandhi’s travels are more mysterious than the Shroud of Turin & costlier than going to Mars. That should have been the title of my piece on NitiCentral — but it is not. Go read it all.

John Mitchell, Vice Provost for Online Learning , Stanford University announces five more exciting classes offered by Stanford University for free. Here is the list:
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Shri Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also known as the “mahatma,” was born on this day October 2nd in 1869. Popular opinion associates Gandhi with non-violence. I differ. I believe that poverty engenders more violence against innocent humans than any other single cause or condition. Perhaps he genuinely was against violence but what Gandhi achieved resulted in unimaginable violence.
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Blogging will resume now that I am done with nearly all my domestic travels. Tomorrow I get back to Mumbai for a few days and then off to Brussels. And now the gratuitous insult to the Congress — the party of crooks & criminals led by the despicably dishonest Dr Manmohan Singh. Below the fold, a tweet from the last day of the last year.
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Pat Condell is a special kind of commentator — the kind that have the cojones to speak truth to evil. Here’s Condell on how sick we’ve all become of the Perpetually Offended Ones. (Video below the fold.)
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Ganesh unveiled

Greetings from Pune on this Ganesh Chaturthi.
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I have a piece on NitiCentral.com where I argue that FDI in retail is good for India. Naturally, the comments are negative since Indians have the milk of socialistic thinking coursing through their veins. India would not be so poor without that mentality, would it? It’s all karma, neh?

I am at Chicago’s O’Hare International airport, about to board Air India flight 126 to Delhi (via Frankfurt.) I will be off the air since I will be in the air during the next 24 hours or so. Which means that I will not be able to respond to the outrage that I have caused in some quarters. I have stirred a hornet’s nest. The game is afoot. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

Emerging Markets Insights: a blog by Frontier Strategy Group