Let's go TACO

 

So, after spending USD 200 billion, losing 13 U.S. defence service members and causing world-wide disruption, what did Trump get from the US-Iran war? To see it in perspective, I prepared a comparative chart and juxtaposed the outcome to that of Obama without firing a single shot.

 

What Obama had in 2015	What Trump got in 2026
Iran gave a written commitment never to seek a nuclear weapon.	Iran gave a written commitment never to seek a nuclear weapon.
Tight ​limits on Iran's efforts to produce weapons-grade uranium, aimed at extending the "breakout" time it would need to produce a bomb.	Only a general path, no specific commitments from Iran.
Forced Iran to ship 98 percent of its enriched uranium out of the country.	Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is to be diluted inside Iran — not destroyed — contingent on what may prove to be years of difficult diplomatic negotiations.
Extensive international inspection of nuclear enrichment.	Not mentioned in the MoU.
Unfroze tens of billions of Iranian monies held overseas and lifted crippling economic sanctions imposed by the United States and EU. Freed Iran's central bank to operate in the global economy. Also included cash transfers of previously seized assets amounting to $1.7 billion.	Lifted oil restrictions, promised to help create a $300 billion reconstruction fund in Iran with regional partners, and dangled the promise of sweeping sanctions relief if the two sides could reach a broader nuclear deal. But most of the sanctions relief is contingent on future negotiations that haven't yet materialized.
Allowed Iranian oil exports only after Iran shipped its enriched uranium out of the country and was verified to have dismantled core elements of its nuclear program.	Allowed Iran to immediately restart exporting oil — roughly 90 percent of which is sent to China — which will bring in a flood of petrodollars, directly funding the Iranian regime.
In exchange, Iran agreed to reduce its nuclear centrifuges by two-thirds, committed not to build new enrichment facilities for 15 years, significantly reduced its stockpile of enriched uranium, disabled a major heavy-water reactor and agreed to IAEA inspections.	In exchange, along with the lifting of the naval blockade by the United States, Iran  agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz.   Point 5 of the 14-point MOU states the strait will be toll-free for 60 days, but after that Iran will work with neighbouring Oman to “define future administration and maritime services” in the strait. That means tolls are not ruled out down the road.
Allowed Iran to enrich uranium up to 3.67 percent for 15 years – enough for developing a nuclear power programme, but well below the 90 percent needed to produce nuclear weapons.	The memorandum does not mention whether Iran will be allowed to enrich uranium at all or for how long.
Had very specific terms for sanctions in the event of non-compliance.	No such details are in the memorandum.

 

Trump claims to have obliterated ALL nuclear facilities of Iran. According to him, he has sunk its navy. He has killed its leadership and Iran no longer has an Army. So what exactly is the MoU about and who is it with?

 

If one is to believe Trump (like many of his MAGA supporters do), the United States didn’t wage war against Iran so didn’t need Congress approval, either before or after expiry of 60 days as mandated under War Powers Resolution. Nobody knows when this non-war began. Either it began on June 2025 when he didn't bomb Iran’s so-called nuclear sites “beautifully obliterating” them or it began on February 28, 2026 when Trump again “did not” start a non-war so that Iran couldn’t build the nuclear weapon with the totally obliterated Uranium that they didn’t have.

 

Following this, Iran closed down the Strait of Hormuz with weapons they didn’t have and its navy which was sunk. So, the United States had to continue waging its non-war to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Everything has now panned out beautifully due to Trump’s charismatic leadership and "Art of the Deal" and lo and behold, he has achieved unprecedented success which no other President was able to achieve, in reopening the Strait of Hormuz which was open before his non-war. For good measure, he has kept a provision for Iran to charge tolls in the future.

 

Glory be!

 

P.S. Trump just couldn’t bear the economic pressure generated by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and caved in. TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out.

The straight and narrow

 

While Police academies and MBA classes have courses and lectures on how to be ethical or how to build an ethical organisation from scratch, not much emphasis is accorded to how to intervene in an unethical organisation. My thoughts on how to go about it crystallised over a long time. I feel, while individual situations vary, there are five essentials one should think of when suddenly parachuted into a situation of endemic and pervasive high-corruption.

First, define the transparency goals and see what level of corruption and indiscipline one could live with – sometimes, complete transparency or 100 % diligence to rules and regulations may not be feasible. As a DIG, I went to a lot of trouble to collect the transfer policies of organisations similar to mine, analysed and tried to improve upon them, prepared a draft policy for my organisation and got the same approved by the government. After this, I stuck to the policy to the letter. However, my DGP got increasingly annoyed at not having any discretion, not being able to oblige anyone and being helpless against a lot of pressures from different quarters. Finally, he changed my assignment and also revised the policy. My successor, a very good officer and senior to me, once advised, “Look, it’s important to be practical. If a transfer policy is implemented to even 70 %, that is a big achievement.”

 

Along with defining the ethical goals, it is important to keep the leadership on board and get them to have a buy-in. In my last assignment, I was face to face with rank indiscipline and corruption of one particular unit, WWCD. In the name of a ruling-party supported union, they had become a law unto themselves. I heard from my predecessors that whenever they’d tried to impose any discipline, the WWCD guys used to march up and down the corridors shouting slogans against the authorities in an aggressive manner. The Commandant used to quake when their union leaders threatened.

 

I compiled a list of their misdemeanours. A new location with modern buildings and facilities were constructed for them at a distance of 120 kms and government had ordered them to shift. However, in defiance, they’d refused to move, primarily because of the vested interest of some of the union office-bearers. I went to the Cabinet Minister, appraised him of the situation and told him that I was planning to shift them forcibly and I needed his support. He was hemming and hawing but I told him that it was not possible for me to work in such an environment and I was prepared to resign over the issue.

 

One day, in a coordinated operation, under heavy Police deployment, I organised the shifting process to start at 9 AM from the five locations of the wing, well before the personnel used to roll in casually at 11 AM. When they came and saw what was happening, they rushed to meet the Minister and other bigwigs of the ruling party but thanks to my prior efforts, they didn’t get to meet any of them. They tried to involve the press but didn’t get any purchase.

 

The second thing I learnt over time was that, rather than trying to attack corruption piecemeal, one should start with “frying a big fish.” In that WWCD unit, there was a constable rank person who was actually running the show because he was the head of the union. I mapped him in my mind as “The Don.” He used to decide who will get what duty, who will attend office and who will “work from home” [this was all way before Corona times], who will never be given any duty, who will get the contracts and so on. He himself was always on office duty and used to hold court after office hours to “decide” on everything for small and big considerations and distribute the day’s collections.

 

I decided to start with him. During the monsoon season, I put every single person on the field with water boats and rescue gear. The Commandant came to me in a panic and repeatedly asked whether the Don would also be sent on field duty and I asked why not. Then the Don walked in with his entourage and asked me how I’d put him on the field when none of my predecessors had dared to do so in the previous 26 years. He mobilised the entire wing to “boycott” the duties. In my research into his conduct, I’d found that he had kept a died-in-harness employee’s dues and benefits pending while processing applications of much later vintage. Based on this, I placed him under suspension and started the Departmental proceedings. I also threatened to start a Police case against him for criminal breach of trust. That broke the back of the revolt. When the office was moved, 123 empty liquor bottles were found in the room where he used to hold court.

 

The third important means of taking an unethical organisation towards an ethical culture is to incentivise ethical conduct and disincentivise unethical acts. Incentivisation in the Police context includes generous rewards, glowing testimonials, favourable appraisals, medals – even a pat on the back works wonders. Disincentives must be harsh for unethical acts. In Police, many unethical acts are punished through minor punishments like a “censure” or “warning.” The most stringent punishment is usually a suspension and a Departmental Enquiry which meanders on for years. These are not very effective nor immediate. When I was SP of a district, I learnt that the night patrolling was a major source of illegal income for the Thana personnel. Against a specific complaint, I went to the Police Station and got the concerned persons arrested. That served as a chilling effect throughout the district.

 

The fourth thing I’ve tried to do was encouraging whistleblowing. However, this is a delicate step. The whistleblower runs serious risk, not only of his life and limb but sometimes his family members’ too. While encouraging whistleblowing, one must make sure that the potential whistleblower is fully protected. His identity should be guarded.

 

Fifth and finally, sunlight is the best disinfectant. When I joined the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), I found that corruption was rampant. There had been several CBI cases against the personnel and even very senior officers. The main way of extortion was through delays. Many permissions and licenses needed to be obtained by airports, airlines, concessionaires and so on before they could operate in the aviation environment. A single day’s delay meant losses of crores of rupees for them. What I did was put everything on the website. All permission/ licensing processing were put up there right from the application stage through each of the stage of processing with details on where it was pending and why, with names and designations of the official concerned. It was now easy for any applicant to track his application on a real-time basis. It was also easy for me to continuously monitor. This put paid to the delays. Further, in the teeth of severe opposition from my staff and their contrary counsel, I put up my mobile phone no. on the BCAS website. Sure, there were a few crank calls but I received such quality information that the organisation and I could respond to developing situations promptly and robustly. I think, these two measures contributed immensely to India hitting the top spot in terms of civil aviation security across the world.

 

Unfortunately, some of these telephone calls still come, despite my having left BCAS and even retired from the service long back because the no. is somewhere on the net. I don’t mind. At least, I managed to keep some people on the straight and narrow.

Maximal leader, minimal bureaucrat

 

I don’t think many people outside Bengal have heard about Mira Pandey. 

Everything about her was quiet, understated, minimal – soft-spoken, never bothered about posting and lurched from insignificant post to insignificant post without ever being a District Magistrate and retired from the “lowly” post of Principal Secretary, Cottage and Small-scale Industry in 2008. The Left Front government was on the lookout for just such a person for a sinecure job of State Election Commissioner and thought she fit the bill perfectly. Lucky for them, they never knew how badly they had miscalculated.

 

Unlike the Central Election Commission, the West Bengal State Election Commission does not enjoy untrammelled independence. The state deliberately passed an Act where the dates of polls etc. were to be decided by the government. In fact, unlike the high-profile Central Election Commissioner, the West Bengal State Election Commissioner’s job was considered a dead-end.

 

There was just a minor skirmish between the Left Front government and Mira when they wanted a single-phase rural polls and Mira opposed. The government budged and that was that. When elections are held in a single phase, the Police force gets scattered. Many of the booths get manned by unarmed Home Guards or even temporarily recruited volunteers who are ill, fragile, overage and singularly incapable of tackling any disturbance. This helps the Party with numerical strength, usually the ruling Party.

 

Then came Didi riding on a Tsunami of a mandate in 2011. There was nothing quiet about her. She rode roughshod over everything and everyone, even micro-managing Casual Leave applications of DMs and SPs. Every single bureaucrat from the Chief Secretary to the Constable felt the heat. Supreme leader. Maximal absolutism. Most heads of departments and institutions panicked, and then gave in. Even initiating a case or arresting someone required Didi’s permission.

 

Something sleepy called a State Election Commission must have been just a gleam in the eye for Didi and Trinamool Congress in the initial days. In 2013, the Panchayat elections fell due.

 

The State Election Commission requested for 400 observers. It recommended polling in three phases. It also pointed out that the existing strength of Police force was inadequate to meet the requirement hence central forces be requisitioned. In response, the state government provided 266 observers. It unilaterally declared a single Poll date as they had the power as per the West Bengal Panchayat Elections Act. They said that there was no need for central forces.

 

The significance of this: In Bengal Panchayat elections, there is a tendency by the ruling party not to allow any candidate to stand against the ruling party candidate. CPM had developed this into a fine art. In the 2003 elections, in many villages where anyone dared to stand against the CPM candidate, the intellectual giants of the party visited the rival and gave him long and cogent arguments regarding Karl Marx, Lenin, the intricacies of dialectical materialism, etc.. If the fellow got convinced, it was good. If he did not get convinced, the leaders politely withdrew, called a small child in the neighbourhood and gave him a white saree to present to the rival candidate’s wife, with their compliments. In sheer terror, many candidates withdrew and 2003 saw an unprecedented number of seats where the CPM candidates won unopposed. Didi didn’t have time for the intellectual bit. Any rival candidate was beaten up mercilessly on his way to the BDO office or SDO office to file his nomination and he was not able to reach. Mira Pandey sent observers for the nomination phase also and cancelled the election wherever there was intimidation. Hence she needed more observers and hence the state government was not willing. Single poll date and avoiding central forces had similar logic.

 

Under normal circumstances, that would have been the end of the matter. As mandated by the Act, the State Election Commission had made its recommendations. The state government was not mandated to follow the recommendations and had done their own thing. Even though everyone knew the reality, the farce called Panchayat elections would have been gone through. Hardly any State Election Commissioner, much less a quiet, unassuming lady like Mira Pandey would go public with it. Most civil servants would have reread the Act, swallowed the prickling of their conscience and bitten the bullet.

 

Not Mira Pandey. She did something extraordinary. She filed a case in the Calcutta High Court against the State government. All hell broke loose. This was unheard of. No Election Commission had ever filed a case against the government. In West Bengal the concerned Act favoured the government. There were dire threats to the person of Mira Pandey from public platforms and through letters. She did not respond to anything except forwarding all such intimidation to the DGP. The state government was still confident that they would carry the day because as per the Act, they had the power to do what they did. What they had not bargained for was that Mira Pandey would challenge the constitutionality of the Act itself. She did, with devastating effect.

 

In the High Court, she pointed out that during the previous Panchayat polls, the polling booths numbered 47,731 which had now increased to 57,012. The voters had increased by almost a lakh. She pointed out that she had asked for 400 observers and the government had provided only 266. She had asked for 800 Companies (80,000 personnel) of Central forces and the state government had refused. Most importantly, section 42 of the Panchayat Election Act was ultra vires (i.e., incompatible) with section 243 K of the Constitution which envisaged a neutral and impartial conduct of elections. The High Court ordered that the Commission would issue the dates, the state government would supply the balance observers and get additional forces as required by the Commission.

 

The state government decided to play the (wo)man and not the ball. They tried to discredit Mira Pandey. Many leaders openly and covertly threatened her life and limb. She never spoke to the Press. When cornered by some media as she was entering the car, she merely said, “The Commission cannot make irresponsible statements.” This must have hurt. The state government also indulged in dilatory tactics so as not to comply with the High Court order. All Mira did was quietly file a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court regarding the dilatory tactics.

 

I don’t think there have been many angrier judgements by the Supreme Court. In fact, one of the judges told the open Court, “We will show West Bengal government how elections are conducted.” Instead of the three phases asked for, they increased the schedule to five phases, fixed timelines for provision of observers and central forces and virtually made the State Election Commission the final authority for everything for that period. 2013 saw the fairest Panchayat elections in West Bengal. There were the least number of seats won uncontested. Mira Pandey became and still is a household name in West Bengal.

 

In fact, she terrorised Didi so much that there was a rumour that Didi used to check whether she had left her office for the day so that she could not take retaliatory action and then gather her papers and talk to the Press regarding anything to do with the elections.

 

On her last day in office, Mira Pandey reluctantly agreed to a rare interview by the Telegraph. Her answers were extremely banal and non-controversial. Deliberately so. When goaded to comment on Didi, she said, “I have all due respect for the Chief Minister’s chair.” Then she got into her car and rode off into the sunset.

 

Till date, when agitated about anything to do with elections, many Bengalis still murmur, “Alas, had Mira Pandey been there today …”

"Organised" chaos

 

A small group of people in Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) have been demanding their services to be Organised Group A Services (OGAS) so that their organisations would remain uncontaminated and they would get their just dues. They’ve “organised” themselves with a rarely-seen-before ferocity and insubordinate, intemperate language and have convinced a large number of people that all that is wrong with the country and its foundations is something evil called the IPS. 

This is ridiculous. The arguments advanced are specious. 

The first argument is that the Assistant Commandants are recruited by UPSC so they should be on par with any other person recruited by UPSC. UPSC is mandated by the Constitution for appointments to the services of the Union and All India Services. That doesn’t mean that all these services are equivalent and interchangeable. What they do not mention is that the examination and the level of competition are nowhere near the same. 

The second – and bizarre – argument is that IPS officers handle “minor” duties like law and order in the states whereas CAPF officers have to move at short notice anywhere in India and abroad to perform very onerous duties (interview at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHYcZDiJFnM). OMG, the reality is that mainstream policing is a thousand times more difficult – an SHO’s job itself is so complex that even after serving in the IPS for a lifetime I’ve wondered how these officers actually cope with so many things at the same time and still survive to face another day. 

A third argument is that the requisite qualifications for both IPS and CAPF officers are the same. In reality, the minimum qualification for all Group B services recruited by UPSC is also graduation, the same as for Group A services. Would a Section Officer then be eligible to be promoted to head a CAPF? 

Another argument: CAPF personnel have laid down their lives in large numbers in the service of the nation. But then, so have the other police personnel. As far as the Group A officers are concerned, IPS officers have led from the front, regardless of the rank. The near-fatal attacks on Mr. Ribeiro are too well-known. I have lost three of my own batchmates in attacks by terrorists. Do not talk to us regarding sacrifices and laying down lives. A CAPF officer is always with a large contingent of force while most times, an IPS officer rushes in with barely 5-6 constables and still manages to dominate mobs numbering thousands. 

The force morale is argued to be going down. No Sir, the only people who are affected and are agitating are the Assistant Commandant direct recruits. What about the morale of the lower ranks? Conversely, where will the IPS officer go and what about his/her morale? 40 % of the IPS posts are reserved for central deputation. Whenever an IPS officer is inconvenient to the political dispensation of the time, the state is too keen to put him on the offer list. Even though, theoretically, they are eligible to be posted anywhere, there seems to be an unwritten ban on IPS officers being posted in Ministries and non-security related posts. While Railway officers, Forest Service officers and even Estate service officers manage to get posted in our own Home Ministry, there have been hardly any IPS officers in the Ministry. In my entire career, I saw only four such. 

The sub-text of the arguments by these disgruntled officers is that IPS is injected from “outside” to pollute “their” organisations. What nonsense is this? What is it with “their” organisation? CAPFs are as much “their” organisation as it is ours. Barring CRPF, all the other CAPFs were founded and nurtured by brilliant officers from the IPS. Even CRPF underwent a much-needed wholesome transformation under the stewardship of IPS officers. The Britishers had designed it as an instrument of colonial oppression. Slowly, it has grown into a well-sensitised organisation with enormous contribution to nation-building and maintenance of the nation’s unity and integrity, while retaining the best of its earlier avatar such as zero-tolerance to indiscipline, extraordinary mobility and integrity across all ranks. 

In fact, all the CAPFs are shining examples of organisations any country would be proud of. That has been possible because of a healthy infusion of IPS officers who have brought into them the benefit of their vast experience from the nooks and corners of the country, their abilities, their vision and their connections across the governments. I was once visiting a unit and the Commandant had been trying to get some land for his unit for a year without even managing an appointment with the BDO even though the land had been earmarked for his unit. On his request, I took an appointment with the District Magistrate. Something which was pending for a year was resolved in half an hour. I'm not detailing the many successful intelligence-led operations which were feasible only because of the coordination of the IPS network. Many times, whom you know and can access is much more important than what you know. 

While the internal officers specialise in their organisations and the nitty-gritty of battalion management, I found that there is a reflexive hankering on their part to make these organisations into cheap copies of army-like units. However, that is not at all the purpose of these organisations. Army has a different role. Normally, they are supposed to stay in the barracks in battle-ready position for quick and mostly destructive mobilisation in extreme situations. Their other skirmishes are also designed to be engaged with overwhelming force. On the other hand, the CAPFs basically do a day-to-day policing job whether it’s in internal security or guarding duties – they tackle crimes of lawlessness, infiltration, etc. and serve as early warning and engagement systems too. 

How did we get here? The problem is not the IPS or the direct-recruit Assistant Commandants. The problem is, despite knowing the structure and the requirement of the CAPFs, there has been over-recruitment of Assistant Commandant level officers in the CAPFs. Induction has not been planned and systematic. The hierarchical pyramid has been distorted. Releasing just a few top posts “from the clutches of the IPS” as they put it won’t solve the problem of morale. The Supreme Court hasn’t gone into the systemic problem and has addressed only the existing situation. The morale would be improved if someone sits down and carefully calculates intake at each level for the future so that there is no stagnation at any level. The exercise is a little tedious, factoring in attrition rates, future requirements, etc. but is eminently doable. This exercise should ensure that a Sub Inspector would have some chance of reaching IG level and an Assistant Commandant would have an excellent chance of doing so. The entire organisation structure and the Recruitment Rules of each rank should be drastically redesigned to cater for this. That would boost the morale. 

With that organisation structure, the officers found surplus at each level right now should be given a strictly one-time alternative assignment – there are many organisations where they can have equivalent or better career prospects. That should include the state police forces. 

One final thing. The new bill has removed a lot of ambiguities but it hasn’t done enough. It’s silent on IPS intake for DIG rank and below. I feel, legislation/ Rules should designate 20 % posts of Commandant rank, 40 % of the DIG rank, 60 % of the IG rank, 67 % of the ADG rank and 100 % of the SDG/DG rank in CAPFs (to be renamed as Central Police Forces) for IPS officers. That would benefit the CAPFs, the IPS and the nation.

Remove him. Pronto!

 

Look at what devastation just one man’s whim has wrought all over the world. The middle east was expected to experience repercussions but life has become hell in places and countries far removed from the middle east and the Iran war. 

Butter chicken and Dosa are disappearing from Indian menus. Australian farmers are planting less wheat because of fertiliser shortfall (25 % of world’s fertiliser passes through the Strait of Hormuz, now renamed Strait of Trump by Trump himself). South Koreans have been urged to take shorter showers to reduce the energy consumption for heating the water. Sri Lanka now has shorter work weeks. Laos has shorter school weeks. Formula 1 has cancelled races. Concerts and shows have been postponed. Medicines, airfares, sugar, housing – practically all things have become costlier while gold prices and stock indices have crashed. Indian cities and towns now sport long lines for LPG. It is reported that there are now queues for petrol even in America. 

And the end to this guy’s madness is nowhere in sight. 

In June 2025, out of nowhere, he bombed Iran and said, “We wiped out the nuclear capability of Iran. We’ve obliterated it. That place is under a rock. They’re never going to have nuclear weapons.” The negotiations with Iran continued apace with what many perceived as the US having the whip hand. Iran was acceding to most of the demands but suddenly, in the middle of the negotiations, Trump again bombed Iran on February 28, 2026 and killed most of its leadership claiming that Iran was building nuclear weapons and was an existential threat to the US and Trump himself – “I attacked them before they could attack me.” Pray tell me, O Supreme Mis-leader, how could Iran build nuclear weapons when you had “obliterated” its nuclear capability and how could they attack you when they were under a rock? 

Trump described the bombing as “a little excursion” which had killed all the top leadership in Iran and said he would continue bombing for a week or so “just for fun.” On March 3, 2026, he said, “The war is pretty much complete.” The same day, he also said, “We haven’t won enough. We’ll not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated.” 

On March 6, TSM (The Supreme Mis-leader) declared, “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” On March 9, he said, “The war is almost over.” Almost? After obliteration in June 2025? On March 11, he claimed the war was won on February 28 in the first hour. On March 14, he begged NATO allies and even China for help in opening the Strait of Hormuz, or the Strait of Trump as he calls it now. On March 16, he said US never needed “THE HELP OF ANYONE!” – all caps and exclamation mark, as usual. 

On March 21, he gave a 48-hour deadline to Iran to open up the Strait, or else. Just before that deadline was up, he extended it to five days and again extended it to 10 days on March 26. He claimed that Iran was begging for a ceasefire and he was talking to them. He also said one ex-President told him enviously that he wished he’d done what Trump is doing now. The first one was blatantly false as Iran denied it immediately. The second statement was denied by all the ex-Presidents alive. Turns out, in both these cases, Trump was talking to himself. He is also an ex-President, isn’t he?! 

When asked how the time for ending the war would be decided, The Supreme Mis-leader stated, “I’ll know it in my bones.” However, his bones have not been a good enough barometer in the past. E.g., during Corona pandemic, his bones told him that masks and vaccines are contra-indicated but those two things and Oxygen were the only measures that actually worked. Despites his bones’ soothsaying abilities, Trump, Mis-leader himself came down with Corona. 

The bunch of jokers he has surrounded himself with - Vance, Hegseth, Rubio, et al. - are no less in all this confounding confusion. I add some of Arundhati Roy’s words to mine to describe the whole lot – “bloated, lying, cheating, greedy, resource-grabbing, bomb-dropping schizophrenics trying to bully the whole world into submission with their gratuitous violence and their s*^t for brains."

Obviously, The Supreme Mis-leader suffers from gross mental (and physical) incapacity to hold the job. Remove him, pronto, before he completely annihilates the whole world. It’s time to invoke the US 25^th amendment, section 4: 

"Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President". 

This section has never been used but then Trump has a lot of firsts to his credit. He has been the first and only US President ever who has never served in the military. And a draft dodger, to boot.

Make America Go Away

 

This time, I’m venturing way above my pay grade, or domain expertise. International affairs. However, there’s no way to ignore the current cataclysmic events. One unhinged, narcissistic megalomaniac, in between his tweets, decided to attack Iran ("for a little excursion," as he put it) and look at what havoc has been wrought across the world. Far away in India which has no part in the war and its theatre, despite Police contacts, I managed an LPG refill with great difficulty, after a long delay. When this one runs out, I don’t know whether and when another refill will happen. Induction cookers have disappeared from the market. 

So many people have died, including a large number of schoolchildren. The fuel prices are shooting up all the time. International travel has almost come to a standstill. The entire world GDP growth has taken a nosedive. Major stock indices have fallen steeply. One lesser-known fact is, around 25% of global fertilizer production passes through the Strait of Hormuz - the war is causing worldwide spikes in agricultural costs and threatening global food security. The world is staring at a prolonged period of stagflation. 

In a way, I’m kinda happy that the Iran war happened. Hopefully, Bicycle Pump, that overgrown, entitled child would learn that there’re limits to his filthy, autocratic ways and language. However, things will get much worse before he realises that. 

He knows that he has bitten off way more than he can chew. He had obviously no clue as to how things might unfold. He has surrounded himself with bootlickers whose only priority is to anticipate what he wants to hear and then gleefully feed him the same in that echo chamber. Even an 8^th standard kid with a decent Atlas could’ve seen that in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran had an ace up its sleeve. A 9^th standard History book could have told him the resilience and the ingenuity of the Iranians. A 10^th standard knowledge of Economics could’ve shown him the havoc the war, and even before that the entire tariff madness, would have caused the world and America too. TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) has now been replaced by TAMU – Trump Always Messes Up. 

However, despite knowing this, Trump will not be bothered. You know why? Even though 60 % of the Americans are against the war, his approval ratings amongst the MAGA Republicans have shot up to 100 %. As long as that holds, Trump will blithely carry on doing whatever he thinks he is doing for which the acronym is FAFO. There can only be two ways this abomination will stop. 

One, if he makes the cardinal mistake of putting American boots on the ground. Once the body bags start coming back from the trenches, that 100 % will start dipping. He was asked by reporters whether he was putting boots on the ground. His reply: “If I was, I won’t tell you but I’m not putting boots on the ground.” Brilliant – make of it what you will. 

The second way is if somehow, either through adverse mid-term election results or through being fed up with an attrition war, the MAGA public and through them the MAGA Republicans turn away from their rock-solid loyalty to Trump and the approval rating starts dipping – even a 10 % dip would make Orange-man panic. 

The whole world is against America now. It’s about time America stood up against that one man, Trump. And, save the world. MAGA now stands for Make America Go Away.

Keralam yum yum

 

These name-changes have broken out on our body politic like a body rash. Thus, Calcutta became Kolkata. Madras became Chennai. Bombay became Mumbai. Theatre Road became Shakespeare Sarani. Harrington Street became Ho Chi Minh Sarani. The latest is Keralam. 

Some of the changes are bizarre and do not have any logic. There actually never was a city called Kolkata. The Britishers purchased three villages (Sutanati, Kalikata and Gobindapur –and built up a city from scratch so the only name of the city ever was Calcutta. Gobindapur was the biggest and most prosperous of the three villages, where the Fort William and Maidan, etc., practically the heart of the city is situated. So, if there was a harking back to the past, it should have been Gobindapur. If one went even further back, it may not have been anything but an unnamed jungle or a water body. When Calcutta became Kolkata, an MLA from Darjeeling raised the demand to rename Darjeeling as Darling because apparently that was the original name of Darjeeling. 

What’s the point of it all? For the masses it’s just a declaration by a politician, a rose-by-another name kind of a thing. Not so. There are serious costs involved – the administrative costs of assembly/ parliament debates, updating signages, railway station records, airport records, bus records, official stationery, all official records including digital records, websites, business address changes, changes in the legal documents and so on. The estimable cost for changing the name of a large city alone is around Rs. 1,000 crores. Then there are the imponderables of the cost of rebuilding brand equity, goodwill etc. of things associated with the name. These have been built over such a long period of time and the costs are so much that the IITs and IIMs haven’t changed their names. So, they continue to be IIT, Madras, IIM, Calcutta and so on. There’re now high-decibel balloons floating to have the name of the country as “Bharat” only and obliterate “India” from all records. THAT is estimated to cost at least Rs. 14,000 cr in calculable costs alone. 

The recent name changes have been justified on the grounds of removing the vestiges of colonialism. Really? During colonial rule, there were the lords and masters and there were subjects. Has that changed? The lords and masters had saat khoon maaf; the subjects had only limited rights, as long as they were subservient and didn’t transgress the lords and masters and their divine right to rule. Different rules applied to the two classes and the rules kept getting made up for the colonised at the whims and mercies of the colonisers. 

Has that changed? No, Siree, not by a country mile. In fact, things have got worse. Police continue to slap cases on people left, right and centre, on mere suspicion, without enough evidence which will stand up in a court of law. Even when a case has no merit prima facie, the arrested persons stay behind bars for years, only to be discharged because even charges cannot be framed. Ministers lie in legislative bodies – even colonisers didn’t stoop to this. Thus a Minister proclaimed that they have done away with sedition laws while in actual fact, the replacement laws had become far more draconian and arbitrary. There has been severe centralisation of power and economic resources and suppression of inconvenient data and dissent which again are colonial characteristics. So, obviously, evisceration of colonialism is not the purpose behind the name changes. The only and only purpose for the name changes is to whip up false, jingoistic hyper-nationalism to fool the masses so that power can be perpetuated. 

Meanwhile, despite all this nonsense of not shaking hands on the Cricket field and laser-eye wala photoshoots, we are looking increasingly like a servile nation. The things that Trump has been doing to us since starting his second term and the language he and his coterie have been using about us smirks of a rabid colonial mindset. The fact that we are not able to push back or respond entrenches the image of a helpless, servile nation. We parole murder convicts and Trump paroles us for 30 days to “allow” us to buy Russian oil. 

We cannot really wish away our past by dropping chapters from school text books and changing names. The past existed; we need to accept it and not bury our heads in the sand. Many decisions taken by many people – both colonisers and colonised – were products of those times. Maturity lies in cherishing the good things that were done while critiquing the “bad” things with allowances for the milieu and thinking of those times. Constantly harking back to the past and trying to repaint it in polarising colours would keep us forever in the past. Let’s get a move on. 

In truth, these name-changes do not serve any substantive purpose. Their currency shows our under-confidence as a nation and our immaturity. We have done well and much better than other countries in similar circumstances. It would be a whole lot more creditable if we now accept our past and look upon it with detachment. Rather than spending so much money on silly things like name-changes, let’s use that money to ensure that not a single Indian goes hungry, every Indian lives with basic dignity and every single child gets a decent education. Only then shall we have “arrived” as a nation.