From Vijay Mujumdar

Indian investment in Afghanistan! Has all that India invested in Afghanistan gone down the drain? It would appear so. Exact amount is not known but one media report mentions a tidy sum of Rs 23000 crs, including Rs 2200 crs for Salma Dam near Herat city. Wonder whose diplomatic dynamism caused such a huge loss to Indian taxpayers? Is it not enough for us to subsidise Indian farmers, backwards, toilets for assorted poor, NPA of the rich and powerful so that we must now subsidize Afghans? Who has blown our scarce resources on bloodthirsty tribals and crazed Mulla's in a hornet's nest? Who made us lose our money?

Value of Rupee Value of currency is inversely proportional to the degree of a leader's incompetence, policy of reservations, corruption, freebies, loan waivers, crony capitalism & sheer crookedness. These qualities are not the monopoly of any one political party, but have been the core values of all. Hence nosedive of Indian rupee from near parity with US $ in 1947 to precipitous fall to Rs 74 now.  War ravaged countries like Japan, China, Thailand and many more have seen their currencies rise ever so often. In the 1980s one Indian Rupee was equal to 2 Thai Bahts. Now one Baht equals 2.22 Rupees.  Anyone sneezes anywhere & our rupee catches cold! Why so? Is the quality of leadership post independence responsible for taking away the shine of our beloved Rupee? Conversely, have the leaders in the neighbourhood done better in managing affairs of their countries bringing economic prosperity with strong exports and currencies? Perhaps they spent more time at home for hands-...

Right, Center & Left Late Hugo Chavez destroyed a beautiful, resource rich & prosperous country like Venezuela, giving humongous freebies & reservations to buy votes. His successor Nicolas Maduro continued this policy rendering the country corrupt, bankrupt, lawless, and violent. We have our own Chaves-Maduro combine almost everywhere, at the centre as well as in every state. Will we ever win freedom from our Chavez-Maduro duos? We infact have a triple whammy, our leftists are leftists, centerists are leftists & and the rightists are also leftists. Everyone has the same formula for winning elections.