The Maverick Chronicles

With the Government freeing petrol from the price controls mechanism, the oil companies have gone wild pricing the petrol as per their whims. I understand with the public sector companies pricing it as per the international prices prevalent in the world, the prices would increase. But when the global crude prices fall, I have never seen the petrol prices ever been reduced save one instance some years back when the NDA was in government. This year has seen petrol prices being hiked at least 7 times in the year while ATF prices have been slashed twice. If this doesn't take the p*&^ out of petolheads then what will, evidently is the fact that every time the Oil PSUs complain of huge losses, the government promptly raises the prices. I have never seen petrol prices been reduced because of the decrease in global crude prices. The latest comment from Montek S Ahluwalia is a gem: "If you are importing energy, you should in fact align energy prices with world prices...there...

I was just watching an episode of 'The Big Fight' on NDTV 24*7 on Sunday morning which featured Sanjay Nirupam (ex Shiv Sena now Congress), Akhilesh Dubey (Legal VP,MNS,dats a mockery),a SP MLA and some academic of South Indian origin and DMK MP Ms. Kanimozhi joining via VC. The debate was on the entire incident after Abu Asim Azmi was slapped after taking his oath in Hindi. In the entire debate, the one thing that struck was that the North India politicians from SP & Congress were vehement on Hindi being spoken & accepted as the National language. Just because Hindi is the language of choice of the 2 major BIMARU states in India and just because 40 crore Indians speak that language it doesn't entitle it to become the National language. Though, I dont support Raj Thackeray, I am firm in the belief that the influx of the North Indian migrants into Mumbai is bleeding the city I love, and its imperative for us to protect the Marathi language.If people can come in Mumb...

Though I am not a huge fan of the Shiv Sena supremo, I firmly stand behind him when he says Sachin should concentrate on cricket and not politics. Though, I am all for a globalised world and free movement of labour and the opening of the world economy and all that crap, I firmly believe that Mumbai my beloved city is bleeding to death because of the unchecked influx of migrants from the North. Though, the comment by Thackeray is of political nature, I however think that Sachin should not pass such comments when the entire issue is one which has been blown out of proportion. Its very easy for Sachin to pass such statement when more than half the time he is touring the world playing the silly game of hitting the ball with the bat and rest of the time leading his comfortable super duper rich lifestyle unlike the common Mumbaikar who has to deal with everyday Mumbai grind and the crumbling infrastructure.

The Maoist goons held the Delhi-Bhubaneshwar Rajdhani hostage for 5 hours before government forces could secure the train and bring relief to the nearly 1200 passengers trapped in the train. Now what is really surprising is that with the ease the Maoists are openly launching such logistically difficult operations. This is really not possible without the help of some elements which have a good understanding of the administrative apparatus. There are claims that the Maoists which earlier used to be supporters of the ruling party in Bengal, are now apparently being supported by the Trinamool congress. The Bengalis have over the period of time managed to with their attitude and liking for Communist rule managed to make the state an unlikely place for carrying out business. In fact, the entire eastern side of India as compared to North,West & South has seen fairly less development and will continue to do so with this sudden surge in Naxal challenge. The Bengal incident is clearly an off...

Today at 19:48pm IST, Bharti Airtel called off the much hyped $23 billion deal for the merger with South Africa's MTN after a nearly exhausting 4 month long discussion process in which even the key cabinet ministers and the Indian PM and the neighbouring dog were pushing for the deal. This was the second time in the year Bharti has had to taste dirt in its quest for becoming a dominant player in the world telecom market (geography and customer number wise). It was going to be a very complex deal with which the South African government was not very comfortable with. As per the proposed structure, Bharti would have acquired 49% stake in the deal while MTN would have acquired 36% stake in Bharti Airtel. Both the share holders were not happy with deal primarily the Bharti share holders. And this was apparent enough. What with the much delayed 3G auction coming up in India as well as the MNP to go live by the year end, the capex pressure on India's largest telecom player was huge n...

Since a long time international experts and foreign affairs mandarins have acknowledged that Pakistan is a basket case. Now, I would ideally not use this slang for any nation or a person for that matter, but Pakistan warrants this adjective. Its not only an economic basket case, but also a cultural and political. The funny part is that even though seesawing on the brinks of bankruptcy regularly it still has the capacity or the will to pursue disruptive activities towards it larger and peaceful neighbour, India. Its a different story altogether that India's leaders have always failed to match up to their Pakistani counterparts' slyness and treachery. But sometimes you have to just sit back and admire the way Pakis manage to tread that fine line which enables them to get away with its various acts of terrorism while on the same time pretend to be one of the allies in the War on terror. I mean are the Americans actually that dumb? I mean everyone knows that the Yankees are dumb, ...

The entire last week and before that the hapless Indian television audience have been witness to the media circus over the Jaswant Singh & the BJP face-off. And guess what was the melee all about? Jaswant Singh, a has been in the country's politics scene (like his party now) , who committed the cardinal sin of eulogising Mohd Ali Jinnah, the founding father of our friendly neighbour. It started with the BJP's parliamentary board expelling JS for authoring a book which had the gall to praise or patronise Jinnah, the root cause of evil as per many of the inhabitants of this country. Now not much is know of JS except that he is from Rajput and an ex Indian army Major. He has served as a Finance minister, Defence Minister as well as a External Affairs minister during the Kandahar incident. Now, in his latest book, Jinnah:India-Partition-Independence,he has claimed Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru's centralised polity was responsible for the partition while giving a clean chit to Jinn...