Italy's votes Monday to oust sleazy politics and cronyistic society

The guardian has a interesting article on the surging sentiment for the Five Star Movement (M5S). The voters are sick and tired of the current parties and are rallying behind Beppe Grillo, the leader of the M5S. The sentiment here in the Italy is no different then the one in India with the AAP, the party of the Mango people lead by Arvind Kejriwal. When the BJP protests the origin's of the Sonia Gandhi, they were protesting against themselves. The Italian voters are no different then the voters in India and so are the Italian politcians who are no different then Indian sleazy politcians.  Berlosconi is a example high handed leadership which has cost the country dear which parallels the Gandhi family and Mr Vadra who appear to have suberverted the system to their advantage to no end.

Will this change in leadership in Italy go after the AgustaWestland bribery scandal and bring down all the middlemen in Italy, UK and India to justice ? If Italians want it, they could do it. After all Rome was never built in a day. For bloggers Beppe Grillo will be liked instantly as he is on of them. 

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All the evidence suggests that, when the result of Italy's general election is known later on Monday, it will be a deafening – and sensational –Basta! (That's enough!). The publication of polls in the last two weeks of the campaign is banned in Italy. But results circulating on the internet showed an abrupt surge in support for the Five Star Movement (M5S), which wants to force a reboot, not just of Italy's sleazy politics but of its cronyistic society too.

For the first time in 20 years, we have seen an election that has not been hijacked by the sayings and doings of Silvio Berlusconi. Instead, it has been seized by another, equally controversial figure – the M5S's barnstorming frontman, Beppe Grillo. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/24/italy-elections-end-to-sleaze-cronyism

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NOIDA mess - What to do about it

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Aaj ka Mahabharat.

Pure Genius

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Guess what is common between Ramdev, Anna Hazare and RSS ?

The last few days in India have been very hectic for the media as the anger against corruption has been taken to level not seen in recent times. In such stressful times it is best to find some comic relief to soothe the nerves and ready oneself for the battle next morning. Chidambaram , one of India's cabinet ministers have graciously offered to provide Indian citizens their daily dose of laughter. 

On Twitter citizens from every walk of life are now joining Chidambarm in slamming the RSS for being responsible for almost anything and everything which has happened in the Universe for over few billion years.  Link here

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Force UPA govt to accept the Lok Pal Bill - Support Anna Hazare

Ignoring Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's appeal, veteran social activist Anna Hazare began an indefinite fast on Tuesday pressing for a more stringent anti-corruption Lokpal bill.

The call has evoked a massive response across the country with even the high profile NAC led by Sonia Gandhi in broad agreement with civil society.

Responding to the call of Anna Hazare, hundreds turn into Satyagrahis and along with him, fast for a strong Lokpal bill to fight corruption in high places in cities across the country. For a nation that ranks at the bottom of the heap on corruption, this solidarity is not surprising.

“We do not want yet another advisory body,” said Kiran Bedi.

More from CNN-IBN

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Rajat Gupta indicted of insider trading and his speech to the ISB

Here are the two faces of Modern India.

Give speeches exhorting the youth on the values of Indian tradition and at the same time trade with the insiders throwing all values out of the window. Now that Nira Radia has exposed the ugly truth of corporate India, here is one more fall guy for the Goldman Sachs who is going to join Madoff and company

The insider trading charges against a Goldman Sachs board member filed today by the Securities and Exchange Commission have been a long time in coming.

The SEC’s Division of Enforcement said that Rajat K. Gupta, a Westport, Connecticut-based business consultant, provided Raj Rajaratnam with confidential information he learned while serving on the boards of Goldman and Procter & Gamble. Rajaratnam allegedly used to inside information to trade on behalf of hedge funds controlled by his company, Galleon.

and this is from the speech 5 years ago at the ISB Hyderabad


Another thing which I think Ratan said a little bit earlier. Lead through values, be true to yourself. It is easy to make short term compromises that push you ahead. That won’t give you happiness or peace of mind. Sometimes in the quest of making everybody around you happy or what you think they want, you may not do the right thing. Unfortunately or fortunately, you have to live with yourself longer than you have to live with anybody else. So be true to yourself, be value driven

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Black money debate on CNN-IBN.

Here is another rant on the state of black money. The Government is useless, absolutely useless. Manmohan is an absolute incompetent, ignorant and timid PM, worse then any other PM India has ever had

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US warns India about possible WikiLeaks release

Another embarrasment is about to hit the Indian politicians and government officials.
This might help the 2G scam accused as the Wikileaks.org disclosures will dominate the news headlines on Sunday and the coming week. Any guesses what US diplomats think about Indian politicians and Babu's.

DNA India reports.

The US has warned India and other key governments across the world about a new potentially embarrassing release of classified documents by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks which may harm the American interests and create tension in its ties with its "friends".

"We have reached out to India to warn them about a possible release of documents," state department spokesperson PJ Crowley told Press Trust of India.

"We do not know precisely what WikiLeaks has or what it plans to do. We have made our position clear. These documents should not be released," Crowley said, ahead of the expected release by the website of millions of sensitive diplomatic cables.

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2G scam, corrupt nexus between policiticans, business and the media

Full transcript of calls between politicians/lobbyists and journalists including the Ambani Gas deal, Air-India ripoff by Praful Patel and more. It appears that Prabhu Chawla had advance information of the judgement and Nira Radia is fishing for information. More juicy details by Outlook

By roping in the media the politicians and businessmen have nothing to fear. The 4th estate is as corrupt as the other three and these tapes provide damming evidence to that effect. When I said that the Indian media will never report the truth on the state of real estate because of vested interests like builders placing advertisements into the same publications I didn't realize the extent of the rot which had seeped into the system.

Forget real estate one can replace 2G scam with any other scam and the same nexus will operate with high efficiency.

There are also news articles which now put the stock market boom in recent months into question as the recycled corrupt money enters India thru Marutius and other tax havens.

Open Magazine has provided links to Barkha Dutt's conversation with Nira Radia. The media in India is the wolf in the lamb's clothing. Who will trust the messenger ?

Here are Magazine's links

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For a responsible citizen, is investing in land the wrong thing to do?

Like a few other NRIs, I got carried away during the boom years of Bangalore Real Estate and invested in land. I tend to think I am a responsible citizen, so in order to avoid the normal trappings of black money, went with a 'BDA approved developer' in an approved layout. All the money I put in was accounted for money - directly from my savings earned through my full time job. I made sure the money I paid was properly accounted for, receipts issued and so on.

To my surprise, at the time of land registration, the land was being registered for a fraction of what I paid for and the rest of the money going towards 'community development' towards the developer. Again, since this was all documented correctly in the documents I signed and since I had written proof, I didn't think twice about this. I was now a proud land owner in Bangalore.

Early 2007, I visited India and tried to sell the land. I was told that the best deal I could sell the land was through a 50:50 split of black vs white money. Even if I find a buyer to pay completely through white money, I would run into trouble trying to register the land at that face value, since the face value might be much higher than the prevailing rate or the rate the Government sets as fair price value.

Now the quandary. I dislike black money. I strongly feel it feeds corruption, feeds the mafia monster and in general prevents India from truly becoming the great nation it ought to be. From a pure investment point of view, as white money, I have barely beaten the Fixed Deposit rates offered by the banks and I have generated an equivalent amount of black money. The preferred way of disposing off the black money would be to re-invest the money into real estate, thereby feeding the corrupt system even more fodder. I disliked the idea and I haven't sold the land yet.

Every person I talk to treat this with an very casual attitude, "Every one does it, so what is the big deal?" - "There are much bigger fish to fry in India, no one comes after you and me".

In my view, it is pretty callous and the domino effect caused by many of us small investors is what drives the parallel Indian black economy. The more you feed the mafia monster, the more it grows. It controls countries in the long run.

Hence the title of the blog. For a responsible citizen, is investing in land the wrong thing to do? To be very clear, I am not looking for suggestions of what to do with black money - I am looking to hear from you what responsible citizens would do to avoid the black money mess in the first place.

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