The real cost of living: how inflation could hurt us all

By Sean O'Grady, Economics Editor

Published: 16 January 2008

 

Inflation data published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics was strangely unremarkable. Consumer price inflation (CPI) in the year to December was steady at 2.1 per cent, while the "headline" rate, the Retail Price Index (RPI), which includes housing, fell,to 4 per cent, from 4.3 per cent in November.
Both rates are high by the most recent standards of the UK – CPI inflation was below 1 per cent for most of 2000 – but subdued when set in a longer historical perspective and viewed by international standards.
But the dissonance between what the official numbers tell us and what we feel in the shops, at the bus or train station and on the garage forecourt is growing acute. Almost every day seems to bring some shock. This year, young as it is, has seen fuel prices hit fresh highs, with oil at or around $100 (£51) a barrel; food bills spiralling, pushed higher by record wheat prices and the drive for biofuels; rail operators announcing double-digit increases in fares; and yesterday the energy supplier EDF – which commands the bulk of the market in London and the South – said it would raise its gas prices by 12.9 per cent and electricity bills by 7.9 per cent from Friday, due to "soaring" wholesale energy costs. Earlier this month Npower announced prices rises of 17.2 per cent for gas and 12.7 per cent for electricity that will affect than four million households. More will follow.
Research by Capital Economics suggests the middle classes are being hit much harder than the official data say, with "Middle Class RPI" running at close to 7 per cent, not least because of sharp increases in private school and university tuition fees. About the only thing that isn't going up is the value of their homes.
And the official inflation rate is set to rise. The increases in energy prices alone, for example, will add 0.75 percentage points to inflation over the next few months and the rise in food prices will be steeper still.
"Factory gate" inflation, that is before goods reach the shops, is running at a 15-year high. Fuel is up 20.5 per cent on the year, and food products by 7.4 per cent. Such "high-visibility" price rises in frequently purchased goods tend to count for more than, say, a fall in the cost of a new car or DVD player. In the case of input costs, a little further back in the economic chain, things are equally ominous; they rose by 11 per cent in the year to December. Again such increases could easily push the RPI above 5 per cent by the spring, and, with a slowing, even stagnant, economy, signal a return to the "stagflation" of the 1970s.
The new inflation also provokes fears that Britain might return to the sort of industrial strife last seen then, especially in the public sector. Then as now higher inflation is leading to higher pay demands from a Labour government trying to impose a pay policy with mixed success.
The police are once again leading discontent. Rapidly escalating inflation makes the Government's pay policy look stingier by the month; but by the same token even more crucial to Gordon Brown's survival, as to give in to public pay demands could lead to a splurge in public spending and borrowing, and thus, possibly, even higher inflation, a spiral that could prove difficult to control.
Thus, the Government's decision to award teachers a pay rise of 2.45 per cent, above the 2 per cent limit set for public workers this year, has left police officers "absolutely furious" according to the Police Federation, with the Federation's chairman, Jan Berry, condemning ministers: "This announcement blows out of the water the Government's own spin that public sector pay awards above 2 per cent will fuel inflation. How does this fit with us being told police pay was being suppressed because it's the first in the public sector pay settlements this year? What rubbish."

 

---

Think you know your TV, music and film? Try Search Charades!

Using Bhutto For Imperial Gain

By Stephen Lendman

14 January, 2008
Countercurrents.org

Benazir Bhutto led the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) as "chairperson for life" until her death. She was the privileged daughter of former Pakistan President and Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged in 1979 at the likely behest of Washington and replaced by military dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. He later outlived his usefulness and died in a "mysterious" plane crash CIA may have arranged that allowed Bhutto to become Prime Minister in 1988.

She sought the post to avenge her father's death and twice held it as the first ever woman PM of an Islamic state - first from 1988 - 1990, then again from 1993 - 1996. In the end, she was too clever by half and it cost her. She lost out thinking she'd cut a binding deal with the Bush administration to return her to power a third time as Pervez Musharraf's number two and fig leaf democratic face in the scheduled January 8 elections, now postponed. On November 6, she may have been right when she returned from self-imposed exile. Like now, the country was in turmoil, and Washington arranged a power-sharing deal (so it seemed) to restore stability in the wake of this series of events:

-- Musharraf suspended Pakistan's Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry in March, falsely accused him of "misconduct and misuse of authority," and used that excuse to remove a key official likely to block his plan for another five year term as President while illegally remaining chief of army staff (COAS) where the real power lies.

-- The response was outrage from opposition parties, lawyers organizations and human rights groups. They called the action unconstitutional and publicly rallied against it.

-- On October 6, Musharraf held a bogus election like all others in a country where democracy is a joke. It was stage-managed by the military, clearly unconstitutional, and Musharraf won all but five parliamentary votes and swept the Provincial Assembly balloting.

-- Afterwards, Pakistan's Supreme Court said no winner could be declared until it ruled if Musharraf could run for office in his joint COAS capacity. Constitutionally, he can't, protests erupted, the country has been in turmoil since, and Musharraf lost all credibility;

-- That was Bhutto's chance to return, again serve in the post she twice before held, and she thought her Washington allies arranged it. Maybe yes or maybe not. It didn't matter that she was being used - to be a democratic face and fig leaf adjunct to Musharraf's dictatorship, but whatever was then clearly changed by December 27 without Bhutto's knowledge. Now she's gone, and Musharraf nominally transferred his army chief post to close ally General Ashfaq Kayani last November. He also lifted a six week long state of emergency in mid-December ahead of the scheduled January 8 elections, now postponed after Bhutto's assassination until February 18 as of this writing.

Today, she's bigger in death than life, spoken of reverentially as a populist, and her 19 year old son, Bilawal (in school at Oxford), now heads the PPP as its figurehead leader and third generation family dynasty standard-bearer with his father, Asif Zardari, co-party chairman and de facto chief. More on him below.

Who Was Benazir Bhutto and Why Is She Important

Who was this woman, why the worldwide attention, and why another article with so many written and more likely coming? Bhutto was an aristocrat, privileged in every respect, and raised in opulence as the Harvard and Oxford-educated daughter of a wealthy landowning father who founded Pakistan's main opposition party (Pakistan Peoples Party - PPP) that Bhutto headed after his death.

While in office, she was no democrat in a military-run nation since its artificial creation in 1947. Elections, when held, are rigged, and the army runs things for Washington as a vassal state in a nation called a military with a country, not a country with a military. Its Army strength is 550,000, its Air Force and Navy 70,000, and 510,000 reservists back them with plenty of US-supplied weapons for the "Global War on Terrorism."

Today, FBI agents freely roam the streets, the Pentagon operates out of Pakistan military bases, and it has de facto control of its air space as part of the Bush administration's permanent state of war "that will not end in our lifetime." Pakistan is a client state, but what choice does it have. Post-9/11, Deputy Secretary of State Armitage warned Musharraf to comply or be declared a hostile power and "bombed back to the stone age." He got the message and a multi-billion dollar reward as well.

Bhutto knows the game, too, and the New York Times explained that she "always understood Washington more than Washington understood her" in a feature December 30 article called "How Bhutto Won Washington." Her relationship began in the spring of 1984 on her first "important trip" to the Capitol. At the time, she tried to persuade the Reagan administration it would be better served with her in power, but to do it she had to overcome her father's anti-western reputation. With considerable help she succeeded by assuring congressional members she was on board and supported Washington's proxy war on the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Faults aside, she had her attributes, and The Times called her "completely charming," very beautiful, and a woman "who could flatter the senators," understand their concerns, and better serve US interests than the man who hanged her father, General Zia-ul-Haq. At the same time, she began working with the Democratic National Committee's Executive Director, Mark Siegel, who later lobbied for her government when she was Prime Minister. Early on, he walked her through the halls of Congress, helped her develop relationships, and made her understand that to get along she had to go along.

She caught on fast, and it made her Prime Minister in December, 1988 after she ran for the post, won a plurality but not a majority, and got Reagan administration officials to arrange with Pakistan's acting President to have her form a government. According to a Washington insider, it was the "direct result of her networking, of her being able to persuade the Washington establishment, the foreign policy community, the press, the think tanks, that she was a democrat," a moderate, and that she backed the US Afghanistan agenda against the Soviets. Public rhetoric aside, she was on board ever since, but she paid with her life by not understanding how Washington operates: like other rogue states - using leaders and aspiring ones, then discarding them.

In the end, it didn't matter that she twice survived dismissal from office on corruption charges or that she managed to co-exist with her country's military and intelligence service (ISI) that deeply mistrusted her. Until her luck ran out, she maintained ties to Washington and key members of the press. She politicked well and "understood the nature of political life, which is to stay in touch with (key) people whether you're in or out of office" and let them know you back them.

Like others of her stature, she also relied on a PR firm to arrange meetings with the powerful and had plenty of resources to do it. She "kept up her networking," but she paid with her life. She tried to convince Washington that Musharraf's "war on terrorism" failed, she could do it better as a loyal ally, and she would eliminate extremist elements (meaning the Taliban and Al-Queda) by a determined effort to maintain pressure.

It sounded good but was risky and dangerous. Pakistan's army opposes it, especially in the ranks; a stepped-up effort assures a huge public outcry; disrupting the Taliban benefits India; and trying and failing might embolden their forces as the US occupation learned in Afghanistan. In the end, Washington and Pakistan's ISI may have concluded Bhutto was more a liability than an asset and had to go. Things came to a head on December 27, she's now a martyr, and larger than life dead than alive.

It wasn't that way as Prime Minister, however, when her tenure was marked by nepotism, opportunism, scheming, corruption, poor governance and selling out to the West. Her early popularity faded, especially when word got out about her businessman husband's dealings. Asif Zardari was known as "Mr. Ten Percent" (by some as "Mr. Thirty Percent") because he demanded a cut from deals as the Prime Minister's spouse and in some cases wanted more.

He was also reportedly into drugs trafficking and was investigated for it. With his wife in power, he amassed billions including what he stole in public funds that was even excessive by Pakistan standards and enough to get the country's President to sack Bhutto after 20 months in office. Whether personally culpable or not didn't matter. As Prime Minister, she made her husband a cabinet minister, gave him free rein to dispense favors in return for kick-backs, had to know about them, there was no evidence she objected, and she enjoyed the riches in office and thereafter.

In spite of it, Bhutto got a second chance. She returned as Prime Minister in 1993 for another three years, but was again dispatched on even greater corruption and incompetence charges than in her first term - this time by President Farooq Leghari, a member of the PPP and someone she thought was an ally. He certainly had cause as the amount stolen earlier was prologue for the fortune she and her husband (as Minister of Investment) amassed in her second term.

It was enough to get Transparency International, an independent watchdog group, to name Pakistan the second most corrupt country in the world in 1996 (Bhutto's last year in office). It also got her convicted in Switzerland of money laundering and bribe-taking and made her a fugitive with charges pending in Spain, Britain and her native Pakistan. That was until Musharaff signed a US-brokered "reconciliation ordinance," absolved her of all outstanding offenses, and allowed her to run for Prime Minister a third time as part of a power-sharing deal with her as number two.

Bhutto's earlier tenure had another notable feature as well. It was when Pakistan's military and ISI established the Taliban with covert CIA help. The link still exists, and at a September, 2006 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, General James Jones, former NATO Supreme Commander (who oversaw US-NATO Afghanistan operations), testified that it was "generally accepted" that Taliban leaders operated out Quetta, Pakistan, the capital of Baluchistan province bordering Afghanistan and Iran.

Musharraf and other Pakistani officials deny it, but there's no hiding the facts or that nothing of consequence happens in Pakistan without Washington's knowledge and/or consent. It's also no secret that Pakistan's ISI is a CIA branch, and their regional activities are closely linked. Bhutto was on board, but what choice did she have.

All along, she was a daughter of privilege, acted like one, and enjoyed the good life the way billions allow. Today, the major media lionize her, but omit her dark side: as Prime Minister, she lusted for power, was arrogant and contemptuous, ignored the poor and Pakistani women, allowed outrageous laws to be enforced, gave the Army free reign including over nuclear weapons, and considered Pakistan her personal fiefdom. Her home was a $50 million mansion on 110 acres, and she ruled like a feudal overlord. The family still owns a 350 acre UK estate complete with helipad and polo pony stables, a mansion in Dubai, two Texas properties, six in Florida, more homes in France and large bank accounts strategically stashed around the world, including in the US and France.

From the time of her father's death to her own, Bhutto had close ties to Washington, the CIA, Pakistan's military, its ISI, as well as to the Taliban (established in her second term), "militant Islam" and Big Oil interests. She was a servant of power and pocketed billions for her efforts. In the end, she lost out and paid with her life on December 27.

Who Killed Bhutto and Why

Bhutto's now dead, shot in the back of the head by one or more assassins at close range, plus the effects of a suicide bombing that killed two dozen or more and wounded many others tightly packed around her. It happened in Rawalpindi, "no ordinary city" as Michel Chossudovsky explains. It's the home of Pakistan's military, its CIA-linked ISI, and is the country's de facto seat of power. Chossudovsky adds: "Ironically Bhutto was assassinated in an urban area tightly controlled and guarded by the military police and the country's elite forces."

Rawalpindi and the country's capital, Islamabad, are sister cities, nine miles apart. They swarm with intelligence operatives including from CIA, and Chussodovsky stresses that Bhutto's assassination "was (no) haphazard event." Blaming Al-Queda misses the point, but that's how these schemes work. They're also clearer when convincing video is broadcast as UK's Channel 4 did on December 30. It debunked the official story and exposed Musharraf as a liar - that Bhutto died from a fractured skull "when she was thrown by the force of the (explosion's) shock wave (and) one of the levers of (her car's) sunroof hit her."

The video contradicts this. It shows a clean-shaven man in sunglasses watching close by with a concealed gun and the suspected suicide bomber behind him dressed in white. The gunman then approaches Bhutto's car and at point blank range fires three shots. Immediately after, the suicide bomber detonates his device, killing and wounding dozens nearby.

The question then is - not who killed her, but who ordered her killed and who profits from it? Musharraf quickly named the usual suspect - Al-Queda but ignored what William Engdahl observed in his January 4 Global Research article called "Bhutto's Assassination: Who Gains?" He notes how well protected political leaders are so it's no simple task killing them. "It requires agencies of professional intelligence training to insure the job is done" right, and no one can reveal who ordered it or the motive.

Engdahl also states that naming Al-Queda serves Musharraf and Washington. It increases public fear, revs up the "war on terror," and provides justification for it to continue. It also reinforces the Al-Queda myth as well as "enemy number one" bin Laden, and ignores the evidence that the CIA created both in the 1980s for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. It's just as silent on the possibility bin Laden is dead, killed (as Bhutto told David Frost last fall) by Omar Sheikh whom the London Sunday Times called "no ordinary terrorist but a man who has connections that reach high into Pakistan's military and intelligence elite and into the innermost circles" of bin Laden and Al-Queda.

If true, a dead bin Laden disrupts Washington's national security doctrine that needs enemies to scare the public, eliminates "enemy number one" as the main one, and exposes strategically released bin Laden tapes as made-in-Washington frauds. Today, we're told that bin Laden-led Islamic terrorists endanger the West, but at the same time we use them for imperial gain as we did against the Soviets, in the Balkans and now do in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere. If Al-Queda operatives killed Bhutto, it means Pakistan's ISI and CIA were involved, and what's more likely than that. Forget a lone gunman theory, a lose cannon terrorist or a sole anti-Bhutto assassin. Consider "Cui bono," examine the evidence, and it points to Washington and Islamabad.

Today in Pakistan, intrigue abounds, and the country is destabilized as Michel Chossudovsky observes in his December 30 Global Research article called "The Destabilization of Pakistan." Assassinating Bhutto contributes to it, and Chossudovsky sees a US-sponsored "regime change" ahead. Musharraf is so weak and discredited "continuity under military rule is no long the main thrust of US foreign policy." Musharraf's regime "cannot prevail," and Washington's scheme is "to actively promote the political fragmentation and balkanization of Pakistan as a nation."

From it, a new political leadership will emerge that will be "compliant," have "no commitment to (Pakistan's) national interest," and will be subservient to "US imperial interests, while concurrently....weakening....the central government (and fracturing) Pakistan's fragile federal structure."

It makes perfect sense as part of Washington's broader Middle East-Central Asia agenda. Pakistan is a key frontline state, a "geopolitical hub," with a central role to play in the "Global War on Terrorism." It includes "balkanizing" the country Yugoslavia-style the way it's planned for Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran - a simple divide and conquer strategy. Chossudovsky adds: "Continuity, characterized by the dominant role of the Pakistani military and intelligence (that worked up to now) has been scrapped in favor of political breakup and balkanization." The scheme is to foment "social, ethnic and factional divisions and political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup" of the country.

It's a common US strategy with covert intelligence support, and consider The New York Times article on January 6 called "US Considers New Covert Push Within Pakistan" to exploit Bhutto's death. It states that senior national security advisers (including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen) may "expand the authority of the CIA and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan" against Al-Queda and the Taliban to counteract their efforts and "destabilize the Pakistani government."

The article states that Musharraf and the military are on board, gives the usual boiler plate reasons, but omits what's really at stake even as it admits Musharraf is unpopular and a US intervention could "prompt a powerful popular backlash against" both countries.

Chussodovsky fills in the blanks and explains that US strategy aims to trigger "ethnic and religious strife," abet and finance "secessionist movements while also weakening" Musharraf's government. "The broader objective is to fracture the Nation State....redraw the borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan" and replace Musharraf in the process. He's unpopular, damaged goods and has to go.

Bhutto was an unwitting part of the scheme but not the way she planned. She thought Washington needed here, and she was right - not as Prime Minister but as a martyr to destabilize the country and break it up if the plan works. It may as internal secessionist elements are strong, especially in energy rich (mostly gas) Balochistan province, and "indications" are they're supported by "Britain and the US." The idea is a "Greater Balochistan" by integrating Baloch areas with those in Iran and southern Afghanistan.

Chossudovsky explains that it was not "accidental that the 2005 National Intelligence Council-CIA report predicted a 'Yugoslav-like fate' for Pakistan" through internally and externally manufactured "economic mismanagment." Remember also that the country split before in 1971 when East Pakistan became Bangladesh following months of civil war and against India that took a million or more lives. Pakistanis may face that prospect again as US plans unfold.

Future Outlook Remains Uncertain

Big questions remain, and key ones are will breakup plans work, who'll emerge with enough popular support to lead it, and will the public go along. They've got no incentive to do it once anger over Bhutto's death subsides, and recent polling data show overwhelming public opposition to US or other foreign intervention that's very much part of the scheme. In the end, their views don't count, and it may happen anyway through political intrigue and Washington-led brute force.

Reports prior to Bhutto's assassination point that way. They suggest US Special and other forces already operate in Pakistan, and head of US Special Operations Command, Admiral Eric Olson, arranged with Musharraf and Pakistan's military last summer and fall to substantially increase their numbers early this year. Involved as well is what The New York Times reported in November that the "US Hopes to Use Pakistani Tribes Against Al Queda" in the country's "frontier areas."

The scheme is similar to the effort in Iraq's al-Anbar province with bribes and weapons to seal a deal apparently now finalized. US Central Command Commander Admiral William Fallon alluded to it in a recent Voice of America interview by saying we're ready to provide "training, assistance and mentoring based on our experience with insurgencies," but he left out the bribing part that's part of these deals.

Where this will lead is speculation, but consider a feature Wall Street Journal January 8 article. It's headlined "Bhutto Killing Roils Province, Spurring Calls to Quit Pakistan" and calls Bhutto's native Sindh province (second largest of Pakistan's four provinces) the "Latest Fault Line In a Fractured Country; Like Occupied Territory."

Mourners filed past Bhutto's grave chanting "We don't want Pakistan," and in the wake of her death "Sindh has been swept by nationalist rage." Many in the province are "calling for outright independence," and support for separation has grown among rank and file PPP members. There's even talk of an "armed insurgency" as anger is directed against neighboring Punjab, the largest province, and home of the military, ISI and government.

The Journal quotes Qadir Magsi, head of the nationalist Sindh Taraqi Passand movement saying...."Bhutto was the last hope (for unity). Now this Pakistan must be broken up." The article continues saying what's happening in Sindh is already in play in the Northwest Frontier province where central government authority withered in recent years. In addition, Pakistan's Army has been embroiled in Baluchistan's insurgency for the past few years adding to overall instability. The theme of the Journal article is that calls for unity are falling on deaf ears, and one PPP veteran sums it up: "What we need is separation."

That suits Bush administration officials fine, they're likely stoking it, and one thing is clear. US forces are in the region to stay, and Washington under any administration (Democrat or Republican) intends to dominate this vital part of the world with its vast energy reserves. The strategy appears similar to the divide and conquer one in Yugoslavia. There it worked, but the Middle East and Central Asia aren't so simple. Stay tuned as events will likely accelerate, the media will highlight them, and it looks like stepped up conflict (and its fallout) is part of the plan.

Attack polluting policies, not the Nano

13 Jan 2008, 0135 hrs IST,Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar

SMS NEWS to 58888 for latest updates
RK Pachauri, head of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, is getting nightmares because of the Nano, Tata's Rs 1 lakh car. Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) says that it isn't the Nano by itself but cars overall that give her nightmares. The villains in my nightmares are neither the Nano nor cars overall, but stupid government policies that subsidise and encourage pollution, adulteration and congestion.

Sanctimonious greens call the Nano disastrous because of its affordability— millions more will now clog roads and consume more fossil fuel. This is elitism parading as virtue. Elite greens own cars, but cannot stand the poorer masses becoming mobile, since the consequent congestion will eat into the time of the elite!

More logical would be a protest against big cars that use more space and fuel, or highly polluting old cars. Instead, green hypocrites aim at a new car with the lowest cost, best mileage and least emissions.

The Nano will not burden us with too many cars. India has very few cars per person by world standards. London and New York have ultra-high car densities, yet have clearer air than Delhi. Our problem is too many bad policies, not too many cars.

We subsidise vehicles on a gargantuan scale invisible to layfolk. Roads and flyovers cost crores to build and maintain, yet road use is free (save on a few toll roads). Traffic police and lights are costly, yet are provided free. These invisible subsidies starve cities of funds to expand roads and public transport.

Land in cities now costs lakhs per square metre. Yet parking is free in the suburbs, and costs just Rs 10/day in city centres. A single parking space of 23 sq m occupies land worth Rs 40 lakh. A car occupies more space than an office desk, yet the desk space pays full commercial rent while parking space costs just Rs 10 per day.

Daily parking charges range from $15 (Rs 600) in Washington DC to $30 (Rs 1,200) in New York. CSE launched a sensible campaign to raise parking fees in Delhi to Rs 120, but was foiled. So, parking space now exceeds green space, a scathing comment on priorities.

The world price of oil has risen tenfold to almost $100/barrel, but Indian prices have barely doubled. Left Front politicians, who once wanted to soak the rich, now want to subsidise them. Under-recoveries of oil companies' total may be Rs 80,000 crore, far more than the cost of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the employment guarantee scheme put together. We sanctimoniously lecture rich countries to reduce their greenhouse emissions, yet subsidise our own.

Diesel is subsidised to be cheaper than petrol. So, Indian car producers produce the highest proportion of diesel cars in the world. Diesel fumes contain deadly suspended particles, P-10 and P-2.5. This subsidy kills.

So does kerosene provided at throwaway prices, ostensibly to benefit poor villagers. One-third of all kerosene is used to adulterate petrol and diesel. That causes horrendous pollution even in the greenest
of cars.

What's the way forward? We must abolish subsidies and raise taxes on vehicles and fuels to reflect their full social cost. The biggest but least visible subsidy is for parking, and we should start there.

Many car owners in the West take public transport to work since parking space downtown is costly and scarce. We should levy parking fees on an hourly, not daily basis. Rs 10/hour could be a starting point in the metros.

In parts of Tokyo, you cannot own a car unless you own a private parking space. This is too extreme for India, but indicates the future path. If we charge owners the full social cost of parking, people will buy smaller and perhaps fewer vehicles, and fewer still will take them to work. That will slash congestion and pollution.

Cities should levy stiff annual taxes on vehicles, not a one-time tax as in Delhi, and use the revenue to constantly expand public transport and roads. This will create economic synergy: private transport will finance public transport. London and New York have high-density public transport as well as high car density.

Apart from underground rail, cities need elevated roads to ease congestion and pollution. Lata Mangeshkar killed a proposal for an elevated road near her Mumbai flat saying pollution at her flat's level would affect her throat. She did not care that the throats of poor people living on the pavements were far worse affected by fumes, and might get relief if some fumes were diverted to a higher level. What elitism!

Next, some medicine that will be really bitter, politically. The excise duty on all automotive vehicles should be raised to reflect their social costs. Fuel subsidies should be abolished. Price differentials between petrol, diesel and kerosene should be removed, ending incentives for adulteration. Diesel cars should bear a heavy additional cess to finance improved healthcare for those affected by their emission of harmful particulate matter.

That is a long, politically difficult agenda. Only part of it will ever be achieved. Yet that is the way to go, rather than agitate against the Nano.

Parted-at-birth twins 'married'

A pair of twins who were separated at birth got married without knowing they were brother and sister, a crossbench peer has told the House of Lords.
A court annulled the UK couple's union after they discovered their true relationship, Lord Alton said.

The peer - who was told of the case by a High Court judge involved - said the twins felt an "inevitable attraction".

He said that they were adopted by separate families, and neither was told that they had a twin sibling.

Details of their identities have been kept secret, but Lord Alton said the pair did not realise they were related until after their marriage.

'Truth will out'

The former Liberal Democrat MP raised the couple's case during a House of Lords debate on the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill in December.

"They were never told that they were twins," he told the Lords.

"They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation."

He told the BBC News website that their story raises the wider issue of the importance of strengthening the rights of children to know the identities of their biological parents .

"If you start trying to conceal someone's identity, sooner or later the truth will out," he said.

"And if you don't know you are biologically related to someone, you may become attracted to them and tragedies like this may occur."

Cricket must crack down on the abuse

By Geoffrey Boycott
Last Updated: 2:20am GMT 10/01/2008

Have your say Read comments

I can't help noticing what a resounding lack of sympathy there has been around the world, and even in Australia, for Andrew Symonds and his sad little protestations of racial abuse. So Harbhajan Singh called him a monkey. So what? The Aussies have been dishing out far worse for years, as anyone in the cricket world will tell you.
# Kumble asked Ponting not to report racist accusation
# In pics: Indians protest after Australia row

For some reason, the Australian team think it's their right to lord it over every opposition team, to disparage them and mock them. Yes, Australia are the world champions. Yes, they're an exceptionally talented and consistent side. But that doesn't give them the right to behave like gods who are outside the normal standards of behaviour.

Cricket must crack down on the abuse
Flare up: Andrew Symonds and Harbhajan Singh

I've always said that sport should abide by the same principles as the rest of society. If a comment is unacceptable in a pub, and would earn you a fist in the face, then it's unacceptable on a playing field. In my view, umpires have been far too lax on this sort of thing for too long. When a fast bowler finishes his follow-through, he's only 10 yards away from the stumps: how can an umpire not hear what he's saying to the batsman? The only reason they don't take any action is because they prefer an easy life.

The Australians have been the leaders in this unsavoury field for as long as I can remember. And I'm not talking about them calling us Englishmen "Pommie bastards" - even though we could treat that as a racial insult if we wanted to, because the word 'Pommie' refers to the fact that our white skin turns red in the hot sun, until we look like pomegranates.

In fact I don't mind the term: I see it as a sort of backhanded compliment. But the Aussies come out with far worse than that. Until a couple of years ago, they had a captain, Steve Waugh, who publicly supported the practice of sledging, although he wrapped it up in a euphemism and called it "mental disintegration".

Waugh's principal fast bowler, Glenn McGrath, was one of the worst offenders. Back in 2003, he had a big bust-up with Ramnaresh Sarwan in the West Indies, after accusing Sarwan of having an unnaturally close relationship with Brian Lara, shall we say. When Sarwan turned around and gave him a mouthful back, and brought McGrath's wife into it (unfortunately, she had just developed cancer), he flipped completely and there was a really ugly incident.

It wasn't long before the Australian Cricket Board rang up and told the captain and players to cut it out. Which is all very well, except that they should keep a closer eye on their team all the time, and not just when there is a nasty scene that makes the news. The administrators must have known that their players were developing a reputation for abusive language. If they had sat them down and laid out an acceptable code of behaviour, and then warned them that anyone who crossed the line would be dropped, we would have seen an end to it all.

If you keep abusing people, sooner or later someone is going to turn around and talk back to you. My message to Symonds - and to his captain Ricky Ponting, who reported Harbhajan to the umpires - is "Don't be a cry baby". If you dish it out, you've got to be prepared to take it in return, and not go running to teacher.

Frankly, I'm not surprised that the Indians threatened to call off the tour. They see this whole affair as a slur on their country. You've got to remember how big the cricket team are over there: they are at the heart and soul of India's national identity. And cricket still has these long-standing associations with sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct, though I wonder how they have survived with everything that's been going on.

In the past, sledging used to be humorous and colourful. I always mention my old friend Fred Trueman, because the things he used to say would crease us up. And I'm not suggesting we should do away with that sort of banter, but let's give it a rest with the abuse, shall we? It's not just the Australians; the whole world are at it and the onus lies with the umpires to be tougher, to nip things in the bud before they reach the stage where the bust-ups are pushing the runs and wickets out of the headlines.

Indian row video

In my day, you didn't get on the wrong side of umpires, because you knew they had the ultimate sanction: they could give you out if the ball was going down leg. These days, umpires can't go around handing out rough decisions because of TV. But they can use the disciplinary process more firmly, and national boards should give them support by cracking down on any player who steps out of line. It's time everybody in cricket worked together to rid the game of this sickness.

Rupee madness and modern maharajahs

By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE - If "simple living, high thinking" was what Indians of another era aspired to, today it is a different creed that's driving their lifestyles. If you have the money, modern Indians would argue, flaunt it. And they seem to have plenty of money to flaunt.

Take Mukesh Ambani. The chairman of Reliance Industries, number 14 on Forbes' list of the world's richest and India's richest resident, is building a vertical palace for himself in Mumbai that will rise to a height of 570 feet. The "palace in the sky" will have three floors of gardens, two floors of swimming pools, a helicopter pad and space to park 170 cars. His wife, mother and two kids will occupy the top four floors. The family of six will be waited on by over 600 servants.

Or consider liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya, whose net assets have been pegged at about US$1.5 billion. He has some 42 homes scattered across the world, 250 vintage cars, a customized Boeing 727 and two other corporate jets, and three yachts, including one once owned by actor Richard Burton. He wears gold chains, diamond earrings and a big bracelet with his initials spelled out in diamonds.

Mallya's loud lifestyle might have provoked disdain among most Indians some years ago. Not anymore it seems, if one goes by the number of those who now mimic Mallya's flashy lifestyle.

No event provides Indians greater opportunity to show off their affluence than weddings. Weddings have turned into extravaganzas, with rich - and even middle class - families competing with each other to put on the flashiest show in town. The clothes, the jewelry, the gifts, the menu, the entertainment, the locale, even the guest list drip with ostentation, the showier the better.

When steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal got his daughter married in the summer of 2004, guests received a 20-page silver-cased invitation. The engagement and the wedding were in French palaces, Kylie Minogue entertained the guests. The wedding was a $60-million Bollywood production. Hotelier Vikram Chatwal's week-long wedding to model Priya Sachdev spanned three Indian cities and is estimated to have cost about $80 million. The icing on the wedding was the star invitee - former US president Bill Clinton. The wedding of the two sons of Subrato Roy, head of the Sahara Group, had about 11,000 guests, including powerful politicians, the entire Indian cricket team and Bollywood celebrities.

India was once associated with Gandhian austerity. The unmaterialistic "other-worldliness" of Indians was often seen as a trait unique to this country.

Indian leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru gave up lucrative professions and comfortable lifestyles to plunge themselves in the freedom struggle. They dressed simply in khadi (handspun cotton fabric), ate and traveled like the masses. Gandhi celebrated his austerity, wearing little more than a loincloth. Simplicity carried a statement.

At her wedding in 1942, Indira Gandhi, daughter of Nehru and later India's prime minister, wore a khadi sari made of yarn her father wove while in prison during the freedom struggle. The "jewelry" she wore at her wedding was made of flowers strung together by the family gardener. Whatever happened to that understated elegance of the Indian wedding?

It never existed, some might say.

Indeed, Hindu weddings have always been elaborate affairs, with celebrations running into several days and hundreds, even thousands being invited for the ceremonies. Yet a wedding had a personal touch to it, even if the invitees were distant cousins one had never met previously. It was still an occasion when people would invite their kindergarten teachers, the family cook and the old chowkidar (watchman) and their entire families.

Not anymore, it seems.

It is unlikely that Mittal or Roy would have known personally even a tenth of the people they invited to their weddings. Their invitees were people who provided the event with star power and glamour. Weddings today provide Indians with an opportunity to display their influence and connections with the rich and the powerful.

And it's not just the seriously rich that love showing off. Even the middle class do so, often running into serious debt to organize weddings with ceremonies looking more like a glitzy scene from a Bollywood film. They pay horrific amounts to have people they do not know attend their weddings.

Indians love showing off the power they wield, the perks their jobs bring them. Officials and politicians vie with each other to ensure that they are surrounded by gun-toting security personnel and that they are given an "official car" with plaques announcing their position in the hierarchy and sirens signaling their VIP status.

This compulsion to show off wealth and status seems at odds with the general perception of the Indian as unmaterialistic in outlook, parsimonious in spending and austere in lifestyle.

But "Indians have never been, and will never be 'other-worldly'," argues Pavan K Varma in his book Being Indian: The truth about why the 21st century will be India's. Hindus worship Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity. "The pursuit of material well-being, artha is a principal goal of life," Varma points out. Indians "hanker for the material goods that this world has to offer, and look up to the wealthy". And like wealth, "power in the Indian way of thinking is a legitimate pursuit".

Indian society is deeply hierarchical. A person's entire worth is dependent on the position he occupies in the hierarchy. In such a system, "The assertion of status [and its recognition by others] becomes of crucial importance," Varma argues.

Whether an official has direct access to the minister, how many telephones are on his office table, whether his car is air-conditioned - all these are indicators of his status. When a person's sense of self worth and his social standing are so intimately connected with who he knows or what he owns, it is not surprising then, that people look for any opportunity to put these on public display.

Today there are more wealthy Indians than ever before. India is now home to the largest number of billionaires in Asia. The number of millionaires in the country has crossed 100,000 and is growing at a rate of 20.5% per year - the second fastest in the world after Singapore. A booming economy and a robust stock market have contributed to a more prosperous, 320-million strong middle class with growing disposable income. Not only do they want to spend it but also they want to be seen splurging.

And unlike the pre-liberalization years, when Indians had few things to show off besides an Ambassador car or gold jewelry, today they have access to the finest of branded goods. They don't have to go to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to buy what they crave, they can purchase it here.

With liberalization, not only do Indians have the means to lead opulent lifestyles, but also the stigma associated with "Western materialism" and excessive lifestyles during the freedom struggle and the decades of socialism have now been removed. The pursuit of wealth is not considered dirty any longer. Being rich and showing it off as did the the kings and emperors in the past is fashionable again.

It's the era of the modern maharajahs and nouveau nawabs.

Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.

Players are the problem - not umpires

* Jonathan Agnew
* 8 Jan 08, 03:17 PM

Anybody who finds themselves surprised by the events on India's tour of Australia must have been living on a different planet for the past five years.

The unedifying drama unfolding in Sydney is the result of a number of issues which have been bubbling away beneath the surface with increasing intensity.

They all exploded in a furious head as Australia single-mindedly homed in on their record-equalling 16th Test victory, without giving a damn about the consequences on the way.

Let’s start what will probably be a controversial, but honest, assessment by congratulating Australia on their achievement.

What a shame it is that the legacy of this fine team will be so tarnished by the ugly and offensive manner in which it plays the game – and has done for at least three years.

Ricky Ponting’s men have trampled all over the spirit of cricket by offering the lame excuse that they are "hard". In their world, deliberately conning the umpire is part and parcel of the game: “It’s his decision," they offer as a cop-out.

Just look at Andrew Symonds, who visibly gloated for the media when he admitted he had got away with a catch behind the wicket early in his first innings - what a miserable performance.

And what effect does that have on the umpire’s confidence – or that of the players in him?

This Australia team plays the game to win – there’s nothing wrong in that – but it has negated its responsibility to those who watch it and, more importantly, the next generation of cricketers who will inherit the battered sprit of cricket that Ponting’s team leaves in its trail.

Cricket can be an aggressive sport, but it is the ball and the bat that should do the talking. The hostile, nasty and intimidating environment that the Australians create on the pitch is a key ingredient in unsettling an opponent.

Little wonder that, sometimes, a volatile character lashes out in what he would perceive as self-defence, and what does it say of these "hard" men that they then go and report him to the umpire?

They can give it, but can’t take it.

That, of course, does not offer any defence for racism. If Harbhajan Singh did racially abuse Symonds, he must be punished for it.

But the above might offer some insight into how a cowed opponent could suddenly react to the intense pressure and intimidation that has been deliberately and ruthlessly applied to him by the fielding team.

Purely because we are talking about India here, I am going to throw in Sreesanth’s name as an example of an Indian cricketer who has often – and recently - gone well beyond the spirit of cricket: it is not purely an Australian thing.

And that is why the decision to remove Steve Bucknor from the next Test is so short-sighted.

As I warned when Darrell Hair was seen off by the Pakistan Cricket Board 18 months ago, the way was opened for powerful cricket teams to dispose of officials when a decision is made they do not like. How dare the game be held to ransom in this way.

But the real fault lies with the players – and it is their behaviour, attitude and respect for the game and its traditions that need urgently to be addressed.

Umpires will always make mistakes – just as the players do (although you wouldn’t believe it sometimes) and undermining their confidence by removing their most senior colleague in this way is unbelievably foolish.

Cricket is truly at a crossroads.

Administered these days by businessmen who have no feel for, or genuine love and understanding of the game, cricket is played purely for money, ego and power for those who control it.

Goodness knows where it will end unless a stand is taken, and that action must be directed by all the countries at all of their players, and not the umpires.