Nor does the Australian Government !

According to the BBC news website, the Australian Prime Minister John Howard said that Australia will not be apologising to Dr Haneef. He added:

Dr Haneef was not victimised

Australia's international reputation has not been harmed by this 'mis-start' to its new anti-terrorism laws.

In George Orwell's 1984, the three slogans of the Party were:

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Well, Australia has supported a war on Iraq for peace. It has robbed Dr Haneef and other people of their freedom to protect freedom. And the people who vote for such a Government may quite possiby find their strength in ignorance.

There is however still some hope for the people of Australia. I understand that instead of letting Big Brother watch over everyone, Australians prefer to watch Big Brother instead. Mr Howard does not approve.

On the world at war

I grew up with tales of World War II — oral history of the war in Burma when I was really young, children’s books about the Great Patriotic War courtesy of the Soviet propaganda machine came next, few years later, in high school, came Alistair McLean novels, war movies and the classic documentary after which this post is titled.

I was very excited when we bought Axis and Allies. As the link suggests, this is a board game based on the war. In the game, each powers control six victory cities in the beginning: Berlin, Rome, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai and Manila are under the Axis; and London, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Moscow, Leningrad and Calcutta are under the Allies. The aim is to control eight cities for a minor victory, ten for a major victory and all dozen for total victory.

As a game, it’s very different from Diplomacy. Compared to Diplomacy, Axis and Allies is lot more complex. On the other hand, two people can play the World War II game, whereas the Great War game requires seven players.

We have had our first game. My best friend refused to play the Axis powers. So I played Germany and Japan, and she played the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. We played for a few rounds, reached a stalemate with each controlling six cities, and called a truce.

In the Eastern Front of the European theatre, Germany captured Leningrad early on, and eventually took Moscow as well, leaving the remaining Soviet forces scattered across the country. Germans also broke through British defence in the Middle East, capturing Suez and cutting the British Empire in half. In the Western Front, Germans successfully repelled Allied attacks on France. In the Atlantic, u-boats did a lot of damage to the American assistance to the British. But despite this, Britain was defended well enough to deter any invasion.

While the Axis powers seemed to have done reasonably well in Europe, things were very different in the Pacific theatre. Here, the British raised a large army in India — we interpreted as India gaining freedom when the Suez fell to the Axis. This large army ousted the Japanese from the mainland South East Asia and wrested Shanghai. Meanwhile, the Americans, after heavy fighting, captured Manila. However, the Japanese home islands were heavily defended, and the game didn’t allow for the bomb.

So the Axis seemed to have the upper hand in Europe, while the Allies were in better position in the Pacific. As neither side could see a quick change in fortunes, the truce was accepted.
So, how does the game compare with history?

First, the similarities. Britain and Japan were heavily defended, making an invasion very difficult. Also, it also near impossible to see how the Axis could muster enough resources to launch an invasion of North America. Total Axis victory seemed impossible given the existing technology.
In some cases, the game deviated from the real world in directions that really could have happened. The Suez Canal could have fallen. India could have gained freedom and joined the war in full force, bringing million men to arms. And the Operation Overlord could have failed.

In the real world, Germans failed to win in Russia. And I haven’t read any serious history book that suggests that the Nazis could win in the Eastern Front. But here lies the biggest difference between the game and history. In the game, the power is Germany, not the Third Reich. Its symbol is the iron cross, not the swastika. This is interesting as Germany fights the Soviet Union, not Russia, whose symbol is the hammer and sickle. Presumably, the game’s creators figured that no one wanted to play the Nazis, while people could be expected to play communists.

Why is that, when Stalin and Mao killed more people than the Axis powers?

The main reason for this is because as an ideology, communism, like radical Islam, can, in theory, provide salvation to any believer. Nazism and fascism on the other hand are only for the chosen people. As described in a great book by Mark Mazower, Hitler’s ideology made it impossible for the German-occupied Europe to function — the subject peoples were never going to be acquiescent. And unlike in the game, in the real life the Russians fought to the end because they didn’t have a choice, they were facing extermination.

As noted in the review of Mazower’s book linked above, liberal democracy emerged victorious in the war not because of its appeal to Europeans, but because of its success in the United States. Americans suffered as much from the Depression as the Europeans, but no fascist went to the White House. As was also the case in the game, America was the arsenal of democracy that prevented an Axis victory.

Okay, enough history lessons. We also bought a game based on the Wild West, and I’m off to play that now.

The BCCI has no shame!

An excerpt from a rediff interview with Niranjan Shah, the BCCI Secretary. The discussion turns to the applicants for the position of new coach for the Indian team, and Mr Shah gives us the spectacular sequence of responses below, each of which contradicts his previous answer:

Have all these applications come from abroad?

Yes. They all have come from abroad.

But an Indian is also learnt to have applied. Isn't this true?

Maybe someone from India has also sent an application, but I don't remember exactly at the moment.

Who is he?

I think it is Chandrakant Pandit.

Lord's: Zaheer Khan attempts a hat-trick

India v England, 4th day of the 1st Test at Lord's: Zaheer Khan is on a hat-trick as he bowls to England's no.9 Ryan Sidebottom.




Zaheer's yorker is on target, but Sidebottom manages to keep it out.



The fielders' arms go up in the air.

The Coming Revolution in Indian Cricket - Part 1

These are exciting times for followers of Indian Cricket. A big bloody battle looms on the horizon, as the comfortable monopoly of the Board of Control for Cricket in India is challenged by the bold entrepreneurism of Subahash Chandra and his Zee TV network.

Historically, the BCCI has had complete control over India's domestic and international cricket programme. As the Indian cricket brand has increased exponentially in value, the Board has grown richer and fatter. They have however concentrated so far only on International Cricket, neglecting Domestic cricket. Most domestic cricket games in India are a grim affair, played to empty stadiums by essentially anonymous cricketers. The schedules and venues and formats change arbitrarily, the players from the national team rarely take part, and when players reach the national team, they seem to have turned up from nowhere. For nowhere is where domestic cricket currently is.

This is where Zee TV's ambition is so exciting and refreshing. They want to create a professional Indian Cricket League, with city-based teams and a combination of local foreign players, which will attract viewers at stadiums and on television. They want to transform the domestic game, raising its profile, and making it into a popular entertainment product. In the process, they will improve domestic cricket infrastructure, increase the employment opportunities for everyone involved in the game of cricket, and offer a great new product to Indian cricket fans.

This is a great opportunity for Indian cricket. And the BCCI is trying to strangle it at birth.

(to be continued)

The Taxes of Evil: The 4th Duke of Westminster

The 4th Duke of Westminister received a leg-wound at the D-day landings in 1944. He died of cancer in 1967, partly as a result of this wound.

While there was an exemption available from Inheritance Tax for those whose cause of death was active service in the armed forces, the Inland Revenue tried to argue the Duke was not eligible, as he had not died immediately from the wound / active service. Instead, they tried to charge Inheritance Tax on the estate he left behind on his death. The Revenue lost their case (Barty-King v Ministry of Defence).

See, the Revenue doesn't discriminate. They are willing to screw everyone over.

A-A-A want democracy and test cricket

Amar: If this deal between BCCI and Zee TV is cancelled, it will be good for all. Stupid BCCI is trying to find another broadcaster. Let's get rid of all the one-dayers, and have a bloody extra practice game in Australia. And maybe an extra test in England instead of 7 one dayers!

Anthony: I presume the idea is to 'improve' irish cricket. Irish cricket would be better served if India played a three or four-dayer against Ireland. This would also give the Indian team good conditioning practice.

Amar: Oh no. Nothing to do with Irish cricket. The idea was to honour the 200 million plus deal done with Zee TV for playing offshore one-dayers in non-test centres (if played in test country, the local cricket board has the TV rights apparently — don't know how). Thus the 3 one-ayers with South Africa. I think the one match with Ireland was just a sop — they are also playing Pakistan in Scotland, without playing Scotland.

Anthony: What do you think will end first — this obsession with one day cricket, or military rules in Pakistan and Bangladesh?

Akbar: This obsession with one-day cricket shows that the people of Pak-Bangla lack the genius for democracy. Only when the people are ready for test cricket can democracy succeed!

On the star economists

We discussed the greatest economists of all time last September, settling for, in chronological order: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, Ronald Coase, Paul Samuelson, Kenneth Arrow, Milton Friedman, and Garry Becker. Now, these guys are all old, really old, they all remember the Great Depression. Who are the greatest economists born after World War II?

That’s the question the Economist asked in an issue in the late 1980s. They settled for eight people. They are listed below, in alphabetical order, with brief notes on where they are now.

• Alberto Alesina: works on political economy and co-authors fascinating books such as the one discussed here.

• Sanford Grossman: a very wealthy fellow with his own hedge fund.

• Paul Krugman: easily the best known of the eight, as much for his widely partisan New York Times columns as for his work in international trade and finance; might win a Nobel, perhaps with Bhagwati.

• Gregory Mankiw: served the Bush administration, sold heaps of textbooks, and has his own blog.

• Jeffrey Sachs: after providing shock therapy to countries from Bolivia to Bulgaria, Sachs has been saving the world with U2’s Bono for the past few years.

• Andrei Shleifer: he advised ex-communists on how to get into capitalism before getting into legal wrangles with the US government, ironically as his research issue is corruption.

• Larry Summers: after serving as the Secretary of Treasury during the last years of the Clinton Administration, he ran Harvard for five years before quitting over women.

• Jean Tirole: the only one in the list to be based outside the United States, and the only one to have remained in the ivory tower, working on microeconomic theory.

A decade later, the magazine asked Où sont les Krugmans d’antan? They came up with a list of another eight bright and coming economists. They are listed below, in the order of their appearance in the Economist piece, with brief notes on their specialty and what they have been up to since then.

• Michael Kremer: then of MIT, now at Harvard, Kremer was chosen for his O-ring theory, and it seems a decade on, this is still his best known work.

• Edward Glaeser: of Harvard, chosen by the Economist for his work on why cities exist, he has been a prolific researcher exploring, among other things, Rove’s excite the base strategy, the need for state sanctioned holidays, co-authoring the abovementioned book with Alesina and much, much more.

• Casey Mulligan: he was chosen for the observation that social factors, such as parents’ work ethic, contribute far more to inequality than financial constraints do; he continues to be a prolific ivory tower economist at Chicago.

• Steve Levitt: he was chosen for innovative empirical works like the one that drew a link between the legalisation of abortion in the 1970s and the drop of crime rates in the 1990s; since then, he has won the John Bates Clark medal in 2003 and written Freakonomics.

• Caroline Hoxby: of Harvard, chosen for, and continues to work on, the economics of education.

• Glenn Ellison: of MIT, continues to work on microeconomic theory.

• Wolfgang Pesendorfer: of Princeton, works on game theory and political economy.

• Matthew Rabin: of Berkeley, works on behavioural economics, and won the John Bates Clark medal in 2001.

Two people not in the list have won the John Bates Clark medal, awarded to ‘that American economist under the age of forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge’ by the American Economic Association and is considered the best accolade in the profession, in recent years. They are: MIT’s Daron Acemoglu, co-author of a great read on democracy and dictatorship, and Harvard’s Susan Athey, who works on auction theory, proving that theory is not dead.

This then raises the obvious question, who are the brightest of today’s economists? I guess there will be an article in the 2008 Christmas edition.

The Lord's Prayer

Dear Lord's

Let the sun shine on your most hallowed grassiness when India play England. Especially on Sunday, which is the Lord's day for this believer in need of redemption.

Amen!

post-storm

Dictator 1 - Mullahs 0

Maulana Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid had previously been extremely vocal about the willingness of his followers to become martyrs for the cause. But when the time came, the Mullah himself proved a little less eager, preferring to try and sneak away pretending to be a woman, dressed in a burqa and carrying a handbag.

As the Mullah turned from a figure of awe into an object of ridicule, the Dictator's Government took the opportunity to humiliate their opponents further, parading this firebrand Jihadi leader on PTV wearing a burqa, a symbolic castration of this self appointed warrior of the faith.

Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda's No.2 man Ayman Al-Zawahari is pretty pissed off to see this humiliation of his Pakistani allies. He had some nasty things to say about General Musharraf in his latest video, including the following rant:

I talk to you today on the occasion of the criminal aggression carried out by Musharraf, his army and his security organs - the Crusaders' hunting dogs - against Lal Masjid in Islamabad, and on the occasion of the dirty, despicable crime committed by Pakistani military intelligence - at the orders of Musharraf - against Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi when it showed him on television in women's dress.

(...) Musharraf and his hunting dogs have rubbed your honor in the dirt in the service of the Crusaders and the Jews, and if you don't retaliate for your honor, Musharraf won't spare any of you, and won't stop until he eradicates Islam from Pakistan. Lowly Musharraf, who has sold his honor and religion to the Crusaders and Jews, is arrogant with you in the extreme and regards you with the utmost contempt, and treats you like animals and dogs, and only is satisfied by portraying you in the lowliest and most despicable light.

Political Graffiti

This funny piece of political graffiti was spotted in Rome.

The Tricolour Flame, based on the Italian flag, is the symbol of the Movimento Sociale Fiamma Tricolore, a right-wing Italian political party with neo-fascist leanings.

This is how their logo usually looks:

Robin Hood of Nottingham

Desh: an alternative history — the constitution

Some time ago, we started exploring the possibility of a Desi Commonwealth coming out of a violent non-cooperation movement. In this post, we follow up on the idea.

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As par the Government of India Act of 1930, a constitution was drafted for the new country to be formally named the Commonwealth of India (somewhere along the way, Desh has become the popularly used term). The constitution was drafted by Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, or CR. Head of the Congress party in the southern province of Madras (now Tamil Nadu), CR was known for his conservative leanings, and these were apparent in the constitution.

There were two major issues that the constitution needed to tackle. First of these, the relationship between the Commonwealth and Britain, is no longer an issue in 2007. But the second — how Desh's mosaic of religious, ethnic, caste and class of peoples coexist — still very much is.

The British were concerned that the new Commonwealth would ally itself with hostile powers, and appropriate substantial British economic interests. To assuage such fears, the constitution included a 25 year Indo-British defence pact.

The constitution was modelled on that of the United States, with a very weak centre and strong states. The centre had power over nothing more than defence, foreign affairs including trade, and monetary policy. Unlike any other federation in the modern world (including the Commonwealth in 2007), the centre had no fiscal power except for tariff and customs duty. The states made constitutionally guaranteed contribution (based on the size of the economy, revised once every decade) for defence and the functioning of the central government. Only in the time of national emergency, such as a state of war, could the centre raise taxes.

No independent source of revenue meant that the central government could not intrude on the states' affairs — or so the framers of the constitution thought (oh how wrong they were). Only effective constraints on the state’s rights were that: there were to be no economic barriers between the states — common currency and market; and states had no powers to deal with foreign countries — war and peace were the domain of the centre.

And there was a bill of rights, but only for those eligible to vote (see below). Everything else, from roads and railways, to health and education, to police and courts (except the federal court), to land regulations, to the thorny issues surrounding Hindu-Muslim relations and untouchability, belonged to the states. Why were the states given so much power? CR, with the blessing of the founding trinity of Jinnah-Nehru-Das, thought that this was the best way to maintain political stability and territorial integrity of the new Commonwealth.

While silent on untouchability, the constitution guaranteed property rights — Desi business and land owning elites would not have it any other way. In fact, voting rights for the centre was tied to property ownership (states could widen suffrage, but none did so voluntarily), and only 10 per cent of the population, overwhelmingly men, had suffrage.

But Congress insisted on, and the British conceded, a republic. Desis, or those Desis who owned property, would vote their own president. There were to be a bi-cameral legislature, with a 500‑member House of Representatives, each elected by an equal number of voters (boundaries to be drawn once every decade) through the first-past-the-post system, and a Senate with 5 members from each state regardless of the state’s size. States would decide how their senators would be selected (these days of course senators are popularly elected, but this wouldn’t happen until much later). There would also be an independent judiciary, with ample checks and balances.

Ten provinces of British India — Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Bombay, Central Province, Frontier Province, Madras, Orissa, the Punjab and the United Provinces — were to be the first 10 states of the Commonwealth. Each state of course had their own constitution.

Between 1932 and 1935, states held their elections according to their constitutions. In 1935, a central legislature was elected. In 1936 the states ratified the constitution. In January 1937, the Congress nominee Mohammed Ali Jinnah was elected to the office of the president unopposed. On 23 march 1937, Jinnah was inaugurated as the first president of the Commonwealth of India, and the Raj had ended.

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Next: the Jinnah presidency.

Music in Prague

Aadha hai chandrama, raat aadhi...

East London Mosque

On the left is the 'Main Entrance for Men'. On the right, the 'Main Entrance for Women'.

Why has PTV co-opted Talat Mahmood as a Pakistani?

The PTV website, ptv.com.pk, has an online library of songs by Pakistani singers, called Pakistani Evergreen Hits. Except that Talat Mahmood, who features on this list, is surely not Pakistani.

So what is going on? On what ingenious grounds have the worthy folk at PTV seen it fit to co-opt Talat Mehmood as a Pakistani? Is there something to the Talat story that we are missing, some mysterious connection which renders his hits Pakistani Evergreen Hits?

Any idea? I have emailed PTV in search of an explanation, and will let you know what they have to say.

Once upon a time in India - Amar in action

Ashfaqullah is an old friend of Amar’s. The two had fought side by side against the British imperialists a number of times. It has been a while however that the two met. It must be the excitement over meeting his friend that Amar does not notice the black car trailing him for a while.

Before long however Amar realises that he is being followed. A black Austin — the driver’s face is unrecognisable under a hat.

A British agent almost certainly, but why is he being followed? It could be related to the incidents last night. If that is the case then the gang is being picked up systematically, perhaps using the information supplied by the still unknown traitor. Or maybe they have become aware of the presence of Azad in the city. The very thought leads to an instinctive jaw tightening.

He has a choice to make — whether to shake the tracker, or to confront him.

While mulling over all these, Amar takes a few unrelated turns — through a morning bazaar, a rail crossing and a five-pointed roundabout — to end up on the highway outside the city. The black Austin follows suit.

Amar has chosen the latter option. It is important to find out who the tracker is.

A bus is up ahead, and a loaded lorry is coming from the opposite direction. Amar speeds up, overtakes the bus, makes a sudden U-turn as the lorry passes the car, and then makes another quick U-turn to be behind the follower. He stops the bike, takes out his pistol, aims squarely at the tyre and shoots. He doesn’t miss, the car loses control and spirals off the road to hit a tree.

The driver comes out, bleeding, a gun in his hand.

‘Drop the gun.’ Amar says, pointing his weapon towards the injured man.

The injured man raises his gun, while trying to regain balance by leaning on the crashed vehicle.

‘Drop the gun!’ Amar shouts. ‘Don’t be stupid. You’re hurt, and I don’t want to kill a Desi.’

The driver isn’t listening. He shoots. Amar shoots back, hitting the man in his leg. The man, unbalanced from the effect of the shot, stumbles and falls onto a large shard of glass which goes clean through his chest.

Amar runs over to the car. The man is dead. Amar curses himself. He goes through the dead man’s wallet. A few rupees, a photo of a young couple in their wedding dress, some receipts, and an ICC badge. The gun is a Colt 45, as common as it gets.

Amar frowns — the army carried out the raid previous night, while the dead man it seems was an ICC agent. He looks at his watch. It’s getting late, and he must be on his way.

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Previously: Heroes and villains.