Jokepal - The Joke is on the AAP sympathizers and supporters!!

A reading for AAP sympathizers and Anti Jokepal agitators. Are your reactions not clouded by your partisan requirements.

My view after reading the differences between the two (http://www.hindustantimes.com/Images/popup/2013/12/AAP%20Press%20Release%20Lokpal.pdf)
are as follows

1. Though lokpal seems to be loaded on the side of parliamentarians, in a democracy you cannot fundamentally distrust politicians, after all in the case of delhi (Assuming similar law is passed in Delhi as promised), a party like AAP can effectively have 2 voices (CM+speaker) so I think it is a clause that need not seriously hamper the workings. 
Also in Janlokpal the alternative is to have 2 SC Judges, 2 HC Judges and 1 nominee from CAG CVC CEC all being directly or indirectly appointed by govt and therfore effectively its the same thing. (All of them can lured with post retirement jobs as is being followed upon today)

2. I think there is a need to ensure random and frivolous complaints are not entertained, but a compromise could have been found like in US where a minimum of 1 Lakh signatories are needed.

3.This point is valid, but lokpal has jurisdiction to use any investigative agency, so in effect there is always scope for cleverer lokpal to get around the caged parrot.

4. Completely agree with need for wishtle blower protection, but I don't think this point alone is enough reason to reject lokpal. I think it is important matter but is doesn't negate or the workings of a lokpal severly.

5. Citizens charter, I have not been able to gather much from public sources about what it is, but from the initial readings from (http://infochangeindia.org/governance/analysis/citizen-s-charters-putting-people-first.html) I can gather that citizens charter is something to do with service mechanism than prosecuting corrupt officers, though it does help in preventing corruption for service, My own experience with similar one in Karnataka is that they need not help in that matter as there are always ways to delay and prolong the delivery and still harass the common man

6. I agree with this aspect and all state governments should have one, you can't wait for AAP to win government in West Bengal lets us say for the state to get lokpal/lokayukta

7. I think this is needed as you might be aware that even PIL when introduced didn't have punitive action against frivolous complaints but later this was introduced to stop them. 1 Lakh is too little an amount for a person who is capable enough to launch a frivolous complaint, imagine that during a honest officer's sons wedding, his rival initiates a complaint and a raid and will 1 lakh be deterrent enough to prevent such damage. Also punishment will be always when the complaint is proven to be frivolous rather than in ambiguous cases.

8. Except Judges, everyone is almost included. Now even in MPs only their voting pattern and questioning is not covered. When taken the total corruption play in the nation, this represents a tiny very tiny part and hence this should not be a sufficient reason for killing this bill. MPs corruption is primarily from hundreds of other means and the corruption from voting and questioning is too trivial and hence rejection of lokpal on this one issue seems frivolous 

But after addressing out the differences between Lokpal and "Jokepal". I want to stress that lokpal or the Jokepal alone is not enough to stop or prosecute corruption. The reason for this is slow pace of judiciary. Even if lokpal seriously investigates the case and presents all evidence, it will still take tremendous time and effort to get conviction which no lokpal or other such authority can have. The resources and bandwidth to prosecute so many offenders would probably need to create a parallel administrative system.

These points I am going to validate based on the study conducted by Azim Premiji foundation on effectiveness of lokpal. (http://www.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/sites/default/files/userfiles/files/epw-16961.pdf) Let me quote some line from the results and conclusions of the study based on effectiveness of the Karnataka Lokayukta which is considered as a model lokayukta

"The success of the Karnataka Lokayukta in investigating cases suggests that the existing legislative and bureaucratic framework in Karnataka does not impede investigation of corruption offences. The Indian public debate on the Lokpal has focused extensively on the need to equip the institution with extraordinary powers of investigation. Our analysis leads to the conclusion that much of the Indian debate has sought to extinguish a problem that does not have a very significant impact on the effectiveness of the anti-corruption agency.

Concluding Remarks
The presumption of a criminal conviction model is at the core of the Lokpal Bill, which means that it will come up against the same environmental limits – the efficacy of the criminal justice system – that the Lokayukta in Karnataka confronts. Without highly contentious legal reforms, an extremely powerful agency, which the Jan Lokpal Bill promises to establish, can at best marginally improve investigation rates and filing of charge sheet in corruption cases without securing more convictions. The proposal for the Lokpal at the moment fails to address this core problem and for that reason is bound to fail to achieve its primary purpose: the criminal conviction of corrupt officials"

I ask my friends with AAP sympathizers and good friends on whether my argument that this bill might not be perfect at what IAC initially wanted but is something that gets you the majority of what you wanted. (while fundamentally disagreeing on the view that Lokpal can solve the issues since there are far structural issues to be solved). 
Also do you oppose the bill after nominal study of the bill or is it based on the fact that GOD "kejriwal" said so 

2014 Elections: Blitzkrieg Vs Maginot Line

The funny thing about history is that what is unexpected in past is obvious in the future. A fine example for this is nomination of Narendra Modi as PM candidate from the BJP. If one were to go six months back, one would see a torrent of articles and op-eds on why Narendra Modi would never be declared as BJPs PM candidate. But today, if one were to look at it dispassionately then it seems the anointment was long overdue and it was just a matter of timing.

Now coming to the point, recently when I was going through the archives the economist magazine out of curiosity, I came across an interesting insight which I would like to share. The so called opponents of Modi (including congressmen, pseudo-secularists, bankrupt intellectuals and plain retarded people) keep throwing in words like Hitler, Genocide, Holocaust,  Goebbels and other Third Reich names whenever one mentions about Modi. But as one might be aware, their knowledge on anything let alone history of 20^th century world is nonexistent.

Hence I would like to share with them the interesting story in WWII of Fall of France in 1940. Without going over in too much into background, WWII started after Germany invaded Poland forcing Britain and France to declare war on Germany. Britain and France combined were much stronger than Germany. Britain had an army of 16,50,000 and the French even bigger with 50,00,000 men under service. This coupled with other allied nations of Belgium and Netherlands (10,50,000) brought the total size of Allied Armed forces to 87,00,000. Germany on the other hand just had 42,00,000 men under service. Similarly the allies had more tanks (3383) when compared to Germany (2445) and the allied tanks were superior to the ones the Germans had. 

 

As the table below illustrates, the Allies had numerical superiority in all the aspects of warfare.

	Allies	Germany
Armed Forces Strength	8.7  Million	4.2 Million
Tanks	3,383	2,445
Artillery Guns	13,974	7,378
Aircraft	2,935	5,638

In addition to this, France had built a fortified wall between them and Germany called the “Maginot Line”. This was supposed to impenetrable and was fortress with provisions for millions of men, hundreds of artillery guns, etc.

Now naturally, the so called “experts” before the war expected the allies to win. They would cite that military arithmetic favors the Allies. Germany was foolish to declare war on the Allies. How could anyone break through the impressive and impenetrable Maginot Line. Where would Germany get the numbers to defeat France. Everyone was of the opinion that the Allies would defeat Germany and end the war.

But the result was a shocker. The smaller and less equipped German army not only defeated the Allied armies but managed to conquer France in just 6 weeks. It took them even less time to conquer Belgium and Netherlands. This came as a surprise to everyone.

The man behind this brilliant success was HienzGuderian, one of the commanders of the German army and the man credited with the development of “Blitzkrieg” or Lightening war. His favorite catchphrase was “Nicht Kleckern Klotzen” which translated to “Don’t tickle but smash”.

Now one might wonder what all this history has to do with the present, specifically 2014 elections. It does, for today the congress party reflects what France was before 1940. Their approach to elections is similar, defensive, un coordinated, attacks in fits and spasms. Congress today might enjoy the numerical superiority in money, media support, etc but is bumbling its way to the battle. The Food security bill and Direct Cash Transfer are the Congress’s new Maginot Line. Just like France expected Maginot line to win its battles, Congress foolishly believes these so called “Game changer” bills will win its elections. Just like in France in 1940, Congress’s commanders are men who cannot command and its second line of leadership is busy fighting sectional wars within itself. The congress rank and file are today as dispirited as French soldiers in 1940 or even worse. They are poorly trained, lack motivation and above all are confused in the conflicting directions that come from above. And finally similar to that in 1940 France, Congress command is on the firm belief that it will defeat Modi using the same old tried and tested methods, because it enjoys superiority in the media while all the while the reality on the ground is different.

On the other hand Guderian’s approach to battle was based on the tenets of Blitzkreig. It was based on the concept of combined arms, where you co-ordinate everything including your armor (tanks), infantry, artillery and air force into one concentrated attack to break through enemy’s defenses. This is achieved by only by a disciplined and motivated army. Secondly Germany made up for its numerical disadvantage by embracing technology, it developed dive bomber giving tactical advantage, had radios in each tank which brought on the field co-ordination to a whole new level.

Something similar can be witnessed today, in BJP’s game plan for 2014. BJP under its “Guderian” Modi is embracing this concept. Just as Guderian made up for lack of artillery by use of dive bombers, Modi has made up for the lack of Main stream media support by embracing the new social media. This is the key to success, the utilization of the new weapons at your disposal in innovative ways to achieve traditional targets. Modi just like Guderian understands the need to exploit new tools to transform the battleground. And just like in 1940, the campaign will be fought on one unified message where different aspects of a motivated organization will work in coordination to achieve this one goal something similar to combined arms tactics of WWII.

It is humorous, when you see the parallels between the so called expert analyses now and then. Air force and radio in tanks were not thought to make a big impact in the war. How can a few thousands aero planes defeat a million strong army. Just as in today, the so called experts deride on how social media even can impact electoral fortunes. But they forget to connect the dots, for just like in WW2, it was the combination of dive bombers with the infantry and the tanks that won the day. Similarly it will be the coordinated attack by social media platform in combination with the various on the ground campaigns. NamoBrigade is fruition of such an effort.

This is the whole point of concepts that are revolutionary, for they are revolutionary because no one could have anticipated or expected their impact. 2014 elections will thus be the new battle where Blitzkrieg will be redefined. Where the old electoral strategies will be discarded and new innovative ones will be devised. It will be where the book on fighting Indian elections in the 21st Century will be written.

PS – It is my firm belief that post 2014 elections, one will see a torrent of articles from the so called experts analyzing the results and concluding how it seemed to make sense and how it was obvious from the start. 

MediaCrooks: Modi Vs Gandhi

MediaCrooks: Modi Vs Gandhi: True case: A new progressive school decided that along with students from very well-off families it will also take in some slum kids. ...

Why we should Vote??

In the present context, we see doom and gloom everywhere around us. A sense of pessimism pervades through the entire nation. From “we are the next superpower” mindset we have now entered into a state of helplessness and weakness. No wonder everyone seems to make a joke of us. From a country that regularly elects clowns, to a tiny country that is expected to entirely submerge in due course of time with global warming, no one takes us seriously enough. Pakistan regularly humiliates us and the entire experience with Pakistan reminds me of Elmer Fudd’s attempts in catching Bugs Bunny (No rewards for guessing who is what here). But we continue to prod on, always thinking that it could have been worse.

Anyways why the hell should we worry about how India is treated by other nations? As long as we are happy and content in our lives, we really don’t give a damn about such things. Only a few lunatic nationalists cry hoarse over such incidents, after all we are all more worried about our next trip to Europe and what if deterioration of relations results in us not getting tourist visas (Apparently, 9L tourists visited Europe from India last year)

Coming to domestic front, the economy seems to huffing and puffing and chugging along at a meagerly Nehru growth rate of 5%. A key indicator of future growth prospects, capital goods output continues to fall. Some reports even suggest that we may have to face sluggish growth rate till the end of the decade.  Infrastructure formation is crawling at speed faster than ludicrous speed. As this report clearly indicates UPA government’s mismanagement is the key factor for the slowdown in infrastructure formation. Our current account deficit is hovering at a dangerous level of 5.3% as compared to a surplus of 1-2% in the early 2000s. Given that most of this deficit is being financed by highly liquid FII inflows which have a high tendency to bolt off with just a whiff of worsening in the situation. The country is at a perilous stage. Imagine the plight of the country if due to global shock, FII’s were to leave in droves, India will face a Balance of payments crisis of unprecedented nature. To add to all of these, we have numerous corruption scams that seem to prop everyday whose reach and scale can beat any of the recent internet sensations. All these should worry any common citizen (I mean highly educated middle and upper class commoners), right??.We could expect angry citizens (??) to vent their fury come Election Day. We can expect historic results from the next elections just like in those European nations that we so desperately aspire to be. Right??

But hey, how do these things concern us. GDP growth, infrastructure, current account deficits, all these are things that never really matters in our lives. Let the politicians and economists figure out what to do. Talking about roads, we really don’t care, since we mostly travel by air and if we do travel, we use our SUVs. In fact these roads are awesome to try out the off-roading capabilities of our new cars. Our apartments have UPSs and generators, so we never bother whether there is power or not. Mineral water is easily available, so why worry about water supply. We thrive irrespective of any infrastructure formations.  Corruption, well... it has always been there, besides giving some money for getting work done quicker isn’t so bad. So why should we go and vote on Election Day and ruin a good holiday. When things are going so fine for us, why waste our time standing in long queues with other commoners. Anyways our votes really don’t matter. We never seem to get the kind of people we like to be elected; in fact they seem not to even bother standing. The rest of the people who stand are anyways uneducated slum dwellers who cannot even speak one sentence in English. So seriously who really cares about voting. Politics is so lame and such a waste of time. We have our beautiful lives to look after, why should destroy our carefully built world by thinking/ involving ourselves in the matters that are so repulsive.

This is where most of us are wrong. All of the above things matter to us and at more fundamental level that we never think. Infrastructures, growth, GDP, current account deficits, corruption, etc all influence one elementary factor that affects most of our lives. This factor is nothing but our jobs, our careers and its growth. Unless we are public sector employees, rest of us are clearly dependent on our jobs, bonuses for all the luxuries that we afford in our lives. And all the above factors can really upset the delicate balance that we have carefully built in our lives. Why??

Because when the economy does badly, most companies also do. When your company does badly, it affects your career.  Your bonuses have shrunken in the last couple of years faster than matter and time at the edge of a black hole. Promotions have become scarcer than Sir Ravindra Jadeja’s centuries. All those neat little calculations on paying your EMI’s for your cars, apartments and other things have gone for a toss.  Even the carefully built protective bubble around your life has been penetrated by the obnoxious external doom and gloom. For it is the simple rule of mathematics, that when the whole is divided, so are the constituents of the whole. The weights might be different but division will occur irrespective of your efforts to preserve status quo.

Hence it is my humble request to all my friends to stop being cynical and pessimistic and start thinking positively on how to bring about change. To stop living in carefully constructed “dream” lives and start interacting and responding to the external environment.  To stop believing in the non sense of two different worlds of “India” and “Bharat” and start understanding that, we all are leaving in the same country. And finally to stop treating every Election Day as an holiday and start thinking seriously about voting the right candidates. Right candidates doesn’t mean candidates who act and speak like you and who have similar qualifications but candidates who speak the right thing irrespective of his background or party. For every vote is crucial, and it is not crucial because it will change the destiny of the nation, or dramatically improve our fortunes, makes us a superpower, eradicate poverty, stop crimes and corruptions completely but for the simple fact that you’re entirely constructed structured lives depend on it. For without our jobs, bonuses and promotions, we cannot have our beautiful apartments, sporty cars and holidays to exotic locations.

So please register yourself and cast your vote in the next election (to any candidate!!!)

Why Internet Hindus love Modi

Narendra Modi’s popularity among the internet population is well known. Various surveys and the cult like personality that is revered in the social media are good indicators of this fact. But why do Internet savvy Hindus disproportionately support Modi. What is that they find in his personality that makes them so vocal and aggressive in their support of Modi.

Various intellectuals (Libtards) have delved on this topic and have concluded on a variety of reasons for Modi’s popularity. But most of them according to me have missed understanding the driving factor for his huge support base among this specific population.

They quote, Modi’s no nonsense approach, his “quality of governance” and the “results of his work” (hypothetical in their opinion) is what attracts the young to him, youth who are always attracted to leaders who can take decisive actions and solve issues with a firm hand. Though there might be share of the young population who are attracted to Modi because of this, it doesn’t reflect the drive behind his hard core supporters. There are/were many CM’s and leaders who have delivered good governance, who took firm decisions, but none of them, resonate with the young as much as Modi does. There support base is definitely restricted to their respective states and rarely reaches out to a pan India audience.

Now the so called intellectuals argue that it is Modi’s effective PR machine that has enabled him to capitalize his “good governance” and “quality of governance” in reaching out to a wider audience. Thus he has been able to leverage his strengths to the hilt unlike the other CM’s who may have similar track records. This argument, I find is bordering on the ludicrous. Majority of the Internet Hindu population are keenly aware of their surroundings, they are well informed about global issues and their implications. Surely any effective PR machine cannot hoodwink this segment into making them follow Modi. Besides, CM’s like Chandra Babu Naidu and S.M Krishna have equally enjoyed/employed similar PR machinery to propagate their image as forward looking no nonsense technocrats, but do you find any pan India support or fan base for the same. Let alone winning elections, they might not be able to garner more than 10,000 followers on twitter. Therefore I can conclusively say that the so called “PR” reason is BS. I will concede that PR does help in reaching out effectively to the audience but never in winning over them.

Then finally there is the perverse reason spelled out by the more retarded segment of the intellectual population that Modi enjoys huge popularity with the Right oriented youth in India because he according to them was responsible for killing of thousands and hundreds of thousands of Muslims. What happened in Gujarat in 2002 is highly deplorable, and I am sure that except few marginal extremists, no rational person will support Modi, because they think he was responsible for the death of hundreds of people in the Gujarat riots of 2002. This is just a very sick and perverse argument that one gets into as a last resort especially by  intellectuals who have nothing else left to counter with.

Now after going through the reasons put forth by our intelligent brethren, let me put out my own humble reason for the tremendous popularity Modi enjoys across the country among the Internet savvy Hindu population (or according to Sagarika Ghose of CNN IBN, the Internet Hindus).

In my previous blog, I had elaborated on how a certain section of the population has a disproportionate control in setting the agenda for the country. These set of individuals who according to popular theory emanate from the great institutes of Delhi like the JNU, colleges like St. Stephens subscribe mostly to a retarded version of communist liberal ideology. They according to them represent and guard the idea of India. These are the same set of people who “are always thinking about the nation” while having no ***** clue about it. But this doesn’t stop them forcibly gulping down their stupid agenda on the nation (To get a better idea of how the Indian story has been shaped by such Individuals, I recommend reading “Durbar” by Tavleen Singh). And my hypothesis is that, these are the same people who are indirectly responsible for Modi’s rise in popularity.

These people claim to be morally and intellectually superior to the common man and their guidance in all matters must be religiously followed upon. They consider anyone outside their network to be fanatics, extremists and people who need to be condemned and suppressed from the onset. This is deeply insulting to any self respecting individual who is outside this so called network. And this is what drives the Internet Hindus to support Modi.

Modi is the anti thesis of everything that the retarded set of people believes in. He believes in Hinduism, he is proud of our ancient heritage, customs and practices. He doesn’t feel the need to mindlessly ape the western customs and traditions. He is confident about himself and also the potential of this Nation. He firmly believes that India could one day become the first nation among other developed nations.

This exactly what the left liberals despise of. They are anti Hindu, ashamed of our culture and believe that our customs and practices need to be abolished to oblivion. They would like India to become European in nature (remember how, these same people keep fretting on why BJP is not true centre right party). They are definitely not confident of the potential of the country and believe that salvation lies in becoming a third grade third world nation.

Therefore they have relentlessly targeted the Modi and his visions and ideology. This is the bone of contention between the Internet Hindus and the Intellectual population.

Internet Hindus like Modi and unlike the retarded intellectuals believe in our proud ancestry and firmly believe in the infinite potential in this country that can be harnessed to make India a progressive developed nation. Therefore when they see these intellectuals lampoon this idea of India and try to propagate their idiotic vision of India, they feel the need to counter this intellectual ideocracy. But sadly, they do not have similar power or hold over the governing mechanism of the country or have the required space in the main stream media to propagate their alternate vision.

Hence they have turned to Modi to become their proxy in their fight against the Libtard intellectuals. Modi who is the only person in the current context who has dared to take on the collective might of the intellectual society. Thus they have found the one leader who can take the battle to the enemy’s camp and win by playing according to his own ball game. They support Modi in order to demonstrate that their idea of India is the one the country needs. The more the intellectuals oppose Modi, the more vigorous the support for him grows. The more the intellectuals lampoon the Internet Hindus’ ideas and philosophies, the more they feel the need to prove them otherwise. The years of helplessness in listening to the BS dished out in the mainstream media and the slights on their intelligence by the people in power have resulted in making them overly aggressive in hitting back. This is what drives Internet Hindus to support Modi, because his victory means the victory for their idea.

PS – I still remember the distance of the some of the intellectual people with the rest of the nation. In college, in one of the campus presentations, a recent recruit was recounting his/her experience in a village orientation program. The person realized the importance of having power 24x7 and (believe me this is true) that people can leave without having access to Coffee days and Pizza Huts. I was extremely appalled at this person’s ignorance of the country. These are the same people who see 2 India’s while for most of us commoners there is only one.

Libtards and their logical fallacies

Libtards is portmanteau of two words “Liberal” and “Retards”. The word broadly defines a political species that dominates the opinion making establishment in the country. Even though this species has nothing remotely to do with Liberalism, it still propagates Retarded behavior in the name of liberalism. Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality. Liberalism by definition stands for as Wikipedia quotes below

Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas such as free and fair elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free trade, and private property

But as I will show below, the species of Libtards don’t truly believe in any of the ideas that are commonly considered liberal by philosophy but their behavior on the other hand can completely be explained by the retarded nature of their thinking.

Let us start with the freedom of religion, Libtards do not really believe in freedom of religion. Their philosophy towards religion is that anything is fine except for Hinduism. In fact, they display maniacal hatred towards Hinduism or anything that is remotely associated with Hinduism. They will not let go of any opportunity to demean and condemn the religion. I personally have no issues with people criticizing Hinduism as long it is logical and sensible. I believe without an intelligent discussion, Hinduism will never be able to progress further. And here in lies the crucial difference between Liberals and Libtards, Liberals criticize the Neanderthalic  practices that some practitioners of Hinduism still follow, which is by all means sensible and understandable, but the ways in which Libtards criticize Hinduism and the logical reasoning they follow demonstrates how completely retarded they are in their thinking process.

Let me illustrate this, recently when the Delhi gang rape had occurred and there were huge protests and demonstrations in Delhi. One of the “Liberals” managed to find a way to criticize Hinduism for being responsible for the gang rape. You may ask how?

The “Liberal” argued that the main reason for the occurrence of the Delhi gang rape and other rape cases in India was solely because of Vivekananda. He/she goes on further and states that it is in fact the masculine pose of Vivekananda that was responsible for all the ills in the society. Yes, I know such reasoning is beyond my understanding or the limited analytical capabilities that my mind possesses.  The argument that one religion is solely responsible for the deterioration of public safety is laughable. Rapes occur everywhere, in all countries with all possible religious followers and also in communist countries where there are no followers of any religion. Surely, it is a law and order problem, the failure of which in the Indian case squarely lies on the present governmental disposition that is ruling us, but Libtards who believe in freedom of religion could not miss an opportunity to demonstrate the same.

Going to the next topic that Libtards are supposed to believe in is freedom of speech. But the Libtards definition of freedom of speech goes something like this “I have all the freedom to criticize any god damn thing in the world, but anyone else criticizing me or my beliefs is either a terrorist, hate monger, etc and should be immediately locked up in Jail.” Let me demonstrate this, one of the leading anchors (so he/she thinks) of one of the prime time English news channels (so they think) doesn’t miss an opportunity to fight for the cause of freedom of speech. Whether it is defending M.F.Hussain, or some of the leading Libtards figures who believe that the nation should either be run by Pakistan or by the communists from china, this leading anchor is in the forefront of the battle for one of the cherished fundamental right.

So what do you think would happen if someone were to criticize her work? The champion of freedom of speech would accept his/her critic’s freedom of speech and would either react by furnishing his/her side of the argument or ignore the whole thing. But NO, this anchor went all the way and brought out a defamation case on a common blogger who dared to criticize his/her handling of 26/11 coverage. The blog post was forcibly removed and the author was forced to tender an apology. And in reality, the entire blog was about shoddy journalism in general, but this anchor took it personally and decided to “champion” the freedom of speech of this commoner.

Now let’s get to free and fair elections, Liberals by philosophy support free and fair elections and respect the mandate of such elections. Though they might criticize the elected government, they would never question the legitimacy of the same. But Libtards in India only believe in free and fair elections when a similar party with Libtardian disposition forms the government. Any other government is treated like an enemy of the state which needs to be removed as first opportunity arises. There are enough evidences in the internet about what I am speaking about, so I will not delve much into the topic. All I will state is that Libtards believe in totalitarianism that masquerades as democratic ones. They would prefer Hitler/ Iranian/ East German elections where the same ruling government is elected time, time and again. No wonder all the communist halves of divided country had the word Democratic attached to it, (this fact was illustrated humorously in Yes minister Watch after 3:20).

Finally coming to last topic, free trade and private property, Libtards do not believe in free markets. The only thing they believe is in Hippy style community based societies, they dream of making India a big NGO where they and similar minded people are in charge. They despise capitalists and entrepreneurs and disdain wealth creation for they are evil and should be eliminated in initial stage itself. The only good thing that wealth can be used for is redistribution, equity and so and so forth. Sadly they don’t realize that without any creation there won’t be any wealth to redistribute. They are also under the misconception that growth and equity are two things that need to be balanced. Their Fundamentals of economics are idiotic to say the least. Except a few, most of them do not understand the basics of commerce, trade and economics work. A regular columnist in one of his article quoted that one of the founder of NGO when asked where the money will come for implementation of the food subsidy bill replied that government can create any amount of money required. This kind of illiteracy combined with need for grandiose schemes has been detrimental to the country. I have in my previous blog, how such hair brained schemes designed by the esteemed members of NAC has resulted in rampant inflation, hurting the salaried class and has made India extremely vulnerable to global headwinds.  They are against industrialization, modernization but keep on speaking about progressiveness of the society. They believe in subsistence economy and government dole outs are the ideal solution for the elevation of poverty. They will oppose development in the name of environment, farmers, tribal and so and so forth without understanding the damage they are doing for the same populace that they are protecting.

I clearly remember, once a prominent writer had written an article describing about the poverty in Orissa and the existence of starvation in the region. The writer than goes on to blames the middle class for not being sympathetic towards such people and condemned their ignorance and apathy towards the same. The article goes on further and ridicules the materialistic life, which the middle class follows, too much interested in their own selfish interests. Interestingly in the next article, the writer writes about her trips to Turkey, Greece on vacation where she enjoyed all the material comforts the world can offer. Surely this hypocrisy at the best, for writing one article doesn’t amount actually helping those people whom you were purporting to help. One cannot claim moral high ground just by condemning others and accusing them of ignorance. It is my belief that the common man is more sympathetic towards the downtrodden in our society then these celebrities who fake their concern and claim moral superiority based on the same.

These celebrities are the same who travel in SUVs everywhere and turn up to run in green marathons and protest felling up of trees, damming of rivers and so on and so forth. They need to practice what they preach and should learn from one of their icons Gandhi about following up with actions rather than speaking endlessly on the same topic. They talk about helping the poor, but have no qualms being associated with people who drunk drive on hapless pedestrians and kill them or who go and hunt wild bucks for fun. The same people are invited for promoting worthy causes while in fact such people should be behind bars. Hypocrisy is the tell tale sign of a Libtard species.

Hence Libtards are never liberal from any perspective but are complete retards from every perspective. They propagate communist, narcissist and anarchistic ideologies in the guise of liberalism. Retards exists in the entire range of political spectrum from right wing extremists to left wing loonies, but these retards are distinctive due to their control over the main stream media and their prominence in setting up agenda for the nation and in the development of “idea of India”.

When you see a Libtard, proceed with care. You will never defeat them in an argument since they do not believe in logical reasoning. They will use circuitous and cyclical arguments to win their case and utilize firepower to establish dominance. They are the believers of Goebbels (though all Libtards hate him) that a lie repeated hundred times becomes the truth.

The only way to defeat a Libtard is to be first aware of the species and next to completely ignore them. Hence it is imperative for every one of us to spread awareness about this vicious species so that we can collectively banish them from the corridors of power. This is the only viable solution for this cancerous problem. Therefore I request each and every one to create awareness so that we can finally end their dominance.

How NREGA won UPA its Second Term

Now ever since UPA won the 2009 elections, A lot of political commentators have speculated on the possible reasons that would have persuaded the electorate to vote them back to power. Everything from Rahul’s new paradigm in politics to matured leadership of Manmohan Singh was perceived to be the main factor behind UPA’s re-election in 2009.But one of the major contributing factor for congress victory that most political observers agreed was NREGA scheme.

In this short post, I try to rationally analyze whether NREGA indeed help UPA in the pro-incumbency wave seen in the election. 2009 national elections was in-fact not a single issue based election and multiple issues interplayed at both regional and local level to effect the outcome of the election. Hence it is very difficult to single out an issue and extract the impact of that issue on the final voting preference of the electorate. Hence it would be very difficult to analyze the impact of NREGA scheme on 2009 elections at India level analytically. Therefore I have tried to take a sample state which ideally would be bereft of any local or regional issue during the 2009 elections.  

Starting from the 28 states in India, we can easily rule out the smaller states of Goa, North East, since electorally they are relatively insignificant. Ideally we would want a state which is a bipolar contest between BJP and Congress (the two national parties, since these would relatively have lesser prominence to local issues). Among the states where there is a straight contest between BJP and congress, Madhya Pradesh stands out. In 2008 assembly elections BJP had just won a 2^nd term to rule the state with near 2/3 majority 143 out of 230 seats.^[1] So BJP was expected to win a majority of the parliamentary seats in 2009.^[2] Most opinion and exit polls predicted a BJP sweep of around 20-25 seats out of the 29 seats in total. But surprisingly Congress managed to win 12 seats with BJP winning 16 seats and BSP the remaining seat.^[3] This was surprising and almost a matched performance by the Congress especially with the fact that the same party had got a thrashing in the assembly elections held just 6 months back.^[1] In the case of the other states where elections were held along with that of Madhya Pradesh in 2008, the results in 2009 parliamentary elections broadly followed the assembly elections results. In Delhi and Rajasthan Congress swept the states with 7/7 and 20/25 seats respectively and in Chhattisgarh BJP won resoundingly 10/11 seats in the state^[4]. Hence when all these states are considered, Madhya Pradesh clearly stands out.

So how was Congress able to win so many seats in Madhya Pradesh? In 2009 elections there were not many dominant local issues that dominated the discussion. Hence it is safe to assume that National issues with local bearings had major role to play. Now the question arises, which ones? Was it the matured leadership of the PM that enabled to the voters to trust Congress or was it Rahul’s magic?.

So when we deep dive into the 2009 results, we can clearly see a pattern that when taken in context explains the underlying factor behind congress better than expected performance.  I was able to procure assembly level voting shares for each of the party in 2009 elections from the election commissioner website. ^[5] I correlated this with the no of blocks in each of the assembly segments designated as Rural or urban by the election commission. By broadly using the share of polling booths classified as Rural vs. Urban and with an assumption that each of the polling booth would cater to nearly equal number of voting population. I was able to approximate the share of Rural and Urban electoral population in each of the assembly segment. Refer the link below for reference.

When the assembly seat population characteristics are correlated with the voting pattern in 2009 elections, a clear trend emerges. Rural segments have voted fairly evenly between Congress and BJP while the urban segments have in majority of the cases voted decisively for the BJP.

The below table illustrates the voting pattern that emerges

Rural Share	INC	BJP	Total Votes cast	Weights	No of assembly segments	BJP	INC	BSP
95-100%	40.1%	39.7%	5551853	29%	63	27	32	4
90-95%	40.4%	41.9%	4303994	22%	52	27	23	2
80-90%	39.8%	43.9%	3891963	20%	47	25	21	1
70-80%	36.8%	46.4%	1624213	8%	20	11	9	0
50-70%	42.7%	47.8%	1378412	7%	16	9	7	0
25-50%	43.3%	43.6%	924128	5%	11	8	3	0
0-25%	40.1%	51.9%	1796309	9%	21	16	5	0
Total	40.2%	43.5%	19470872	100%	230	123	100	7

As we can see from the above table, Congress has in fact performed better than BJP in predominantly rural seats (95-100% share of rural polling booths) with a total vote share of 40.1% against 39.7% of the BJP. In terms of assembly segments, Congress had leads in 32 out of a total of 63 seats with predominance of rural population as against 27 for the BJP. As we go further into urbanized assembly segments we find BJP’s vote share difference vis a vis Congress improving and eventually dominating. At a broad level the Voting share of Congress and BJP in seats with more than 70% rural population stands at ~40% and ~42% respectively. At an assembly seat level this translates into 85 and 90 seats in which the respective parties had leads out of 182 seats in this category. In seats with significant urban population (30-50% of Urban polling booth share), we can clearly see BJP having a significant advantage with ~48% vote share as against ~43% of the Congress. In terms of assembly segments BJP lead in 16 seats as against 9 seats by the Congress out of a total of 25 seats. And finally in Urban majority seats, BJP is the clear winner with whopping 8% lead in vote share with ~49% as against voter share of ~41% for the congress. BJP had leads in 24 of the 32 assembly segments vis a vis 8 for the congress.

Clearly the major reason for the better than expected of the Congress is due to its on par performance in the rural segments of the Madhya Pradesh state. It is here that NREGA comes into picture. NREGA has been reported to have been successfully implemented in Madhya Pradesh. NREGA is rural focused scheme and benefits only the rural population by guaranteeing 100 days of work for eligible adults. The successful implementation would have resulted in the creation of enormous goodwill among its beneficiaries which could have resulted in proportionate impact on the voting trends of the beneficiaries in 2009 elections. We can clearly state that NREGA indeed had a positive impact on the electoral prospect of the UPA government. The on par performance of UPA in rural segments can only be attributed to the NREGA scheme and nothing else, since there existed no anti incumbency against the state government; there were no regional parties and also no significant regional issues that were course of the discussion. And significantly Congress performed equally well across the state with wins coming from both East, West, South and Northern parts of Madhya Pradesh and hence negating the possibility of local cluster level issues or performance linked to pockets of influence of leaders. With the elimination of most of the issues that could have had a broad level impact across the state, clearly NREGA is the only factor left and hence NREGA is the winning factor by elimination.

What will be the implication of this analysis on 2013/14 elections. Rural voters are still significant even if there is a growing clout of urban neo middle class. So even though after the recent protests in Delhi, everyone seems to talking about these new segments, the rural population cannot be ignored. Therefore the politics of handouts and giveaways will still compete in the near future. Also significantly Congress and the UPA have an edge over this segment which always has been the traditional vote constituency of the congress. Even though the electoral impact of the Direct cash scheme is questionable as I have argued in the previous post. Still, the many other schemes of the present regime will create favorable dispensation. But there is also the drought that has affected India in 2012 coupled with stagnation in the Market prices for farmers and the growing input costs of labor and other farm inputs could create adverse opinion. And finally for the BJP and especially Narendra Modi, they have to come up with a credible idea that would entice this voting segment. Development and Industrialization cannot be easily sold to this segment unlike the technology savvy neo middle class. Also for Modi especially communicating his vision to this segment will be the most challenging prospect if he were to promote himself as the PM candidate from the BJP. The way the vision is articulated and communicated is crucial. But the growing reach of Television and Mobile phone connectivity with nearly 25-35% (33.4% at all India level) of the rural population across the states with access to TV and 50-60% (55% at all India level) with access to Telephone network can be the critical enablers for the above communication.

Therefore the analysis clearly indicates the importance of this important electoral segment which no party or PM candidate can ignore or take it for granted and the key to winning 2014 would crucially lie with the party or candidate who can gain significant share of this huge electoral pie. But the crucial challenge will remain in connecting and communicating one’s vision to this key segment.

PS -
For the detailed Data and analysis
Please refer to
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvxmEFR9ZNZKdEdSUDZvNzIwTWlDYXRtZTdPci04anc#gid=1