NOW LINK YOUR AADHAR WITH YOUR DOG.

 The jury may still be out on whether India is an elected dictatorship, but it should be unanimous on the fact that it is a bureaucratic diktat-orship. For the last few few years our Ministries and their pen-pushers, denuded of any role in any sane policy formulation, have been passing their time in issuing all kinds of diktats on a daily basis, like bullets coming out of a Kalashnikov, with equally damaging effects on us citizens. So we have to contend with new rules every second day, on KYC, motor vehicles, FastTags, PUCs, PAN, Aadhar/ bank/ phone/EPIC/ electricity meter linkages, demat accounts, tax revisions, fuel emission standards, nominations and anything else that catches their fancy. These rules  are made without any consultation with stakeholders and usually lack any sense or logic. A few will suffice to prove my point.

Take the latest diktat in the NCR region: all vehicles should affix a petrol/diesel/EV sticker on their windshields so that the cops can identify them  BVR (Beyond Visual Range) in the manner of fighter jets. Non-compliant vehicles will be denied PUCs and fuel and will be fined too, for good measure. To add to our misery and confusion, no one has a clue where these stickers are available! Even GROK cannot figure out why this is necessary. If the cops need to see everything at a glance, then soon we may be asked to stick everything on the windshield- driving licence, registration, insurance, PUC, Aadhar and the wife's photograph. In which case accident fatalities will double to 300,000 per annum, since the driver won't be able to see anything through the windshield!

NOIDA introduced a mandatory pets registration policy a couple of years back via an App. One has to feed in particulars (and a photo) of the pet, address, owner's name, vaccination proof. So far so good. But then it also demands the owner's photo and Aadhar details. Why, for God's sake? It is the dog which is being registered, not the owner, surely. And what happens if the the owner's photo doesn't match that on the Aadhar, or resembles that of the dog? I have a friend who looks uncannily like his pet, a pedigreed bulldog, and there's every chance of the two photos getting mixed up, in which case the App will probably insist that my friend take the anti-rabies and distemper shots too, as a matter of abundant caution! Why not keep the whole thing simple?

                                       

It would appear that NOIDA is exceptionally endowed with cerebral bureaucrats: sometime back another diktat was issued that required all buildings on arterial roads to illuminate 30% of their exterior facades at night, to present a beautiful night-scape. Another ill thought-out intervention, and completely unnecessary at a time when power consumption is going up by almost 10% per annum. It will add to the electricity bills of the residents, but even more important, it pushes up power consumption precisely at the time of day when the power load is at its highest! And it's all thermal power, because renewables are not available at night. Such a policy is in total contradiction to the national power policy which is trying to reduce dependence on coal based power, currently at 70% ot total power generated; it also bucks the global trend of reducing city lighting so as to lessen the heat island effect, cause less disturbance to nocturnal creatures, especially birds, and lower the stress that excessive lighting causes to  humans. Did the authorities even consider these factors, one wonders? Have they not heard of light pollution and the global trend to reduce it ?

There is now a wave among city administrations to ban the humble "tandoor", allegedly because they add to air pollution. Cities in M.P, Maharashtra and U.P have already issued orders to this effect. Tandoors are used primarily by bakeries and restaurants serving Mughlai food, and there would probably be a few hundred of them in every large city- as compared to millions of vehicles! I have not come across any report of any study carried out by any of these cities to establish that tandoors are a major source of pollution, compared to the major polluters- vehicles, construction, road dust, burning of garbage and waste. Nothing meaningful is ever done to tackle the major polluters, but the tandoors are easy target, as all low hanging fruits are. The ban endangers one of our traditional, popular and distinctive forms of cuisine, one copied across the world: could that be the real motive behind these bans, I sometimes wonder? And will they also ban cooking at home since PNG/CNG also releases significant quantities of nitrogen dioxide, according to studies by the Universities of Oxford and York? It is estimated that 40000 people die every year in the UK because of this. And cows too for good measure as their flatulence releases vast amounts of methane?

I guess the picture above says it all: neurons and protons don't stand a chance against morons.

HOLY COWS AND LOOSE CANNONS- THE DUFFER ZONE CHRONICLES.

 

I am delighted to convey that my latest book (seventh!) has been released this week by AUTHORS UPFRONT/ PARANJOY. It is a compendium of my writings over the last three years or so and, as the title suggests, the pieces take aim at some of our less than admirable personalities and practices.

                                 

I am of the firm view that life gives us two types of experiences- the serious and the funny. The secret of retaining one's sanity lies in looking at both with the same lens, but bifocal ones. We should look at the comical and ridiculous side of the serious experience, and at the serious side of the funny one. That way you balance out both the experiences and live life on an even keel, not veering off to either extreme (which is the mistake most of us make!). That is what the observations and commentaries in the pieces in this book seek to do, whether they deal with the pomposity of politicians, the mysteries of the judiciary, the inertia of bureaucracy, the prostrating of the media, the intolerance of society, the indifference of celebrities, or the self serving hypocrisy of self-appointed "influencers."

I could tell you more about the book, but will defer to Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar- author, columnist, ex-Union Minister and self-confessed maverick - who has penned a superlative Foreword to the book and has done a much better job of introducing the book than I ever could. So, given below are some extracts from Mani's Foreword: 

Avay Shukla is to Indian writing what James Thurber and Art Buchwald combined were to American funny bone journalism. Another way of describing him might be to say "Bernard Levin meets Private Eye." But perhaps both comparisons are unfair. For Avay stands alone. Neither we nor the world has ever seen anyone like him. He brings wisdom wrapped in wit. Always a delight to read, once you stop laughing, it dawns on you that what he has said is not just hilarious, it is deeply perceptive and hits the issue right in the solar plexus......

He is the master of the putdown. Writing of one of the saffron brigade's "intellectuals", one S. Sanyal, a "historian and alleged economist", Avay Shukla advises Mr. Sanyal to "stick to history, where he cannot do much damage since it all happened long before him!" Of a book on our revered PM as a child, titled Bal Narendra, Avay says "you can find it on Amazon under the category Fairy Tales/Mythology. If you don't want to buy the hard copy, you can read it on Swindle." And referencing the Home Minister's assertion that frying pakodas on street corners is also 'employment', Shukla advises that "he is waiting for some political party to make the pakoda its party symbol." He doesn't spare himself either. After retirement from the IAS, says Shukla, while examining options for a comfortable sinecure, " a ticket to fight elections was also explored through some Shuklas out on bail in various cases. None of it worked for a good reason: why should any political party offer a ticket to a retired joker when there are so many serving ones lining up?"....

He wields the pen like a rapier, his satire is akin to a curved dagger, his parody a hidden claw. He tops off his thrusts with telling quotes from not only Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw and others, but also limericks and pop songs to exclaim 'touche' as the point of his (s)word play finds its target. I loved his reciting these lines in a column that mentions Darwin:

"Said Mother Monkey to her little one

As she swung on her tail,

It's just a matter of time

Before you become a Professor at Yale!"

As a resident of Himachal Pradesh, his muse is the new MP and cine-star, Kangana Ranaut:

"My worry is that Ms Ranaut's oomph in such close proximity to the high mountains of Mandi, Manali and Lahoul- Spiti, with their glaciers and snowfields, might hasten their melting.".....

I would commend to the reader Avay's reflections on whether he should become a 'divorce consultant' on retirement although this seems unremunerative in an India where the divorce rate of one percent contrasts with the US divorce rate of 50%. He comforts himself with the thought that "as long as the institution of marriage exists, divorce will continue to flourish, for, as Groucho Marx said, 'The main cause of divorce is marriage!' " Avay's command over the subtleties of the English language and the treasure trove of its literature become tools of gut-wrenching, side-splitting laughter in the footsteps of P. G. Wodehouse. Two excellent examples are his 'Bed and Breakfast (Bail Complementary)' [2022] and, if you are not too prudish, his 2023 masterpiece, 'Of Testaments, Testicles and Telling Times.'

But , unlike Wodehouse whose only purpose as 'the performing flea of English literature' [Evelyn Waugh] was to bring the sunshine of Blandings castle into the lives of his millions of readers, Avay's is a crusade to remind us in the Modi Era of the liberal values we are fast losing, the secularism now abandoned as the PM becomes the 'fifth Shankaracharya', seamlessly "blending politics and religion in one supreme individual", the threats to the institutions of our democracy, the idiocy of economic policies like demonetization. He does this, not by thundering polemics, but by provoking a guffaw......

And occasionally, as when he writes of 'near-death experiences', and particularly when he addresses environmental issues, he can be very serious indeed. His reminiscences of trekking on Himachal's high Himalayan trails are an evocative encomium to beauty and Nature and the bliss of solitude.

For all those distressed by the current condition of our polity and the abandonment of 'the idea of India' that guided both our Freedom Movement and the first six and a half decades of nation building, with a Constitution that proscribed the state from having any religion and promoted instead compassion towards our minorities as the hallmark of a civilized nation, and the poor and the historically disadvantaged as the focus of national resurgence, Avay Shukla reminds us, as The Reader's Digest once used to do, that 'Laughter is the Best Medicine.' I commend to you this collection of columns that laughs away our problems while restoring to us our sense of common humanity.....

After this Foreword the book certainly needs no further introduction!

Finally, let me wrap this up with what the incomparable Arun Shourie has to say about it:

Avay Shukla is quite the best, by many-a-mile. He teaches us to look. He makes us laugh. One moment he makes us fume at rulers. The next he makes us furious at our own inertness. Commentaries that will be rivalled only by the next collection of Avay's writings.

HOLY COWS AND LOOSE CANNONS- THE DUFFER ZONE CHRONICLES

PUBLISHED BY AUTHORS UPFRONT- PARANJOY

229 PAGES

RS. 595 ( paperback)

PUBLISHED APRIL 2025

ALSO ON AMAZON  at   https://amzn.in/d/gb9sbrr 

TIME TO BOOK YOUR CONDO ON MARS ?

 Elon Musk has just declared that there will be one million humans living on Mars by 2045. Perfect timing, you will agree, because by then Trump would have digested Greenland, Panama, the Gaza Riviera, maybe even Canada, and would, like Alexander the Great, be shedding tears because by then there would  be no new real estate left for him to conquer on Earth. The resort on Mars would be called-what else?- Mars-a-Lago. One is not aware whether the Martians have been consulted on the little matter of forcible occupation of their planet, or whether they would be deported to Saturn, but we shall doubtless get to know shortly the next time Pete Eggshead, the Defence Secretary, leaks their classified chats on Telegram. But this inter stellar land grab raises other important questions.

                                     

 

How would this one million horde be selected ? It has been rumored that DOGE (aka DOUCHE) had considered setting up a Guantanamo Bay type of facility there for deporting illegal migrants. But someone pointed out that with 2.29 million potential Indian deportees, Mars could soon become a Khalistan or Hindu Rashtra, and so the idea was dropped. Instead, since Hamas refuses to play ball or catch-the-grenade in Gaza, the Jared Kushner idea of a new Riviera would be shifted to Mars and the world's billionaires invited to move to its unpolluted, land-mine free, unbombed environs, the fifty-second state of the USA.                        Considering the success of Trump's Gold Card offer (1000 were sold on the first day at one million dollars each, we learn) a similar model could be followed, with a ten million dollar price tag, perhaps. Since only SpaceX rockets would be used, Musk would get half of the revenues, with which he could shore up Tesla's plummeting share prices and pay the alimony to the additional half a dozen wives he would have acquired by then. Going by Space X's current record, about 40% of the space ships would blow up in space along with their occupants but there would be no refunds since space has neither any gravity nor any expiry date.

So, who would comprise this one million ? Not many Americans, I predict, because by then they would all have been reduced to penury under Trump's MABA ("Make America Broke Again") policy and would be unable to pay for the ticket. Putin and Netanyahu may want to go but could face arrest under the ICJ warrants when they land on Mars, so they are unlikely to apply. Many from the South Pacific- Tonga, Vanuatu, Fiji- would be interested since by then their islands would be drowning in the rising sea levels. Unfortunately, they wouldn't have enough sea-shells to pay for the tickets. But by far the biggest catchment area would be India, which by then would have a GDP of 35 trillion dollars, according to our Ministers, and about a thousand billionaires and a million Ultra-HNI's as a consequence of the Viksit Bharat programmes. Since roughly 40 % of our GDP is siphoned off to make these billionaires, and another 25% taken abroad by the thousands of millionaires who take foreign citizenship every year, there should be no shortage of applicants from India. Reason? There would be no ED, CBI, FCRA, Interpol or extradition rules on Mars, the only rule being "what you grab is what you get". There would also be no political parties or judges to "voluntarily" donate money to. I believe certain eminent absconders from Gujarat-where else?- have already sent feelers to Musk to check whether dhokla will be served on the flight. There should be a good chance of that, I should think, since the airport contract on Mars will probably be awarded to the Adani group once all Indian import duties are removed on Tesla in the national interest: Musk can make rockets but not dhokla, you see.

But one problem still has to be sorted out by the new Sheriff in town: who will Mars belong to? There exists an international treaty on the sharing of the Antarctic for research purposes, I learn, but none for Mars. So the USA will lay claim to it based on the oldest covenant of all: "Finder's Keepers." Plus, Trump is likely to demand the planet as compensation for America having been left out of the first wave of global colonisation in the 18th and 19th centuries when England, France, Portugal, Spain and Belgium had carved out the world amongst themselves like a Thanksgiving turkey. Well, that particular chicken has now come home to roost- on Mars. It's COLAnisation time again, folks!

Advance bookings for the condos, I believe, will begin on the day that Mr. Drumpf is sworn in as President for the third time, with Vice President Musketeer looking on. Looks like Gurgaon and DLF will finally get some competition.

BEYOND THE DIPLOMATESE - DARWIN WAS RIGHT , IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE.

 The generally received wisdom is that international affairs is so arcane a subject that it should be left to experts and diplomats to interpret. Which they usually do in language that no one understands. But even that is fine so long as we can make sense of the moves on the global chessboard. That is not, however, the case today, post-Trump, as we see the global order unravelling before our eyes, open licence being granted for slaughter of innocents, the legitimisation of a new era of colonisation and genocide. We would, therefore, be justified in feeling that the future of billions cannot be left to the mercy of diplomats, just as war cannot be left only to Generals for, as Shylock asked: "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" The world is bleeding now, and we, the common citizen, have every right to ask: What the hell is happening?

The world is now dominated, and dictated to, by three unscrupulous leaders; one has been convicted on 34 counts of felony and would have been in jail if only the American Democrats had played their cards better, the other two are alleged war criminals, accused of  crimes against humanity for whom arrest warrants have been issued by the ICC. They have now joined forces to carve out the world amongst themselves, in a macabre replay of the Yalta Conference of February 1945. But whereas Yalta marked the end of a period of violence and killing, this new meeting of minds marks the beginning of a period of renewed killings and oppression.

These three have completely upended the rules-based international order (RBO), which has more or less governed international relations since the UN came  into existence on 24th October, 1945. The use of the veto and military power has ensured that the RBO has been replaced by the law of the jungle- open annexation of sovereign territories, blatant genocide, forcible grabbing of mineral resources. Putin will be gifted Ukraine as the main course and can help himself to Eastern Europe and the Baltics as dessert, while Trump gets his Akhand America and Netanyahu swallows up most of the Middle-east. China will probably pocket Taiwan and all the islands within the nine dash line.

International cooperation, and the organisations meant to ensure this, are as good as dead. The United Nations has been put in moth-balls, for all the influence it has on the world now. It's just a debating club now, and not even in the same league as the Oxford Union Debating Society. It's impotence has been underlined by the fact that Israel- a member state- has banned the entry of the Secretary-General into the country, killed more than 200 of its staff, disallowed the functioning of its aid organisations like UNRWA in Gaza, attacked its schools, hospitals and refugee camps, and there's nothing that can be done about it. Working for UNRWA can now get one arrested and deported in the USA. The ICC arrest warrants and orders to end genocide in Gaza are not worth the paper they are written on- in fact, Netanyahu has now extended the genocide to the West Bank and the USA is issuing sanctions against the judges of the ICJ! The WTO is in a shambles with Trump imposing unilateral tariffs and other countries retaliating in similar fashion. The WHO is facing collapse with the USA backing out, ditto for any effective climate Accord as the world's largest polluter disassociates itself from climate change agreements and expands its fossil fuel extraction.. A huge sink hole has just opened up under the edifice of global cooperation.

Other portents are even more worrying for the future of mankind. We were all aware of a creeping right-wing, intolerant and authoritarian wave moving across nations, but now the Italian Prime Minister has proposed a confederation or alliance of right-wing rulers: Trump, Modi, the Argentinian President, Netanyahu and herself to begin with; no doubt the likes of Erdogan, Viktor Orban of Hungary, and other wanna-be strongmen will also be lining up to join this unholy gang. This can only spell more danger for a world where democracy has been in retreat since the late 1990's.

The world is in a more dangerous place today than it has ever been since 1948, with this powerful troika abandoning all principles of international law and the sovereignty of nations, crushing underfoot the hard fought-for values of human rights, negating agreements built over decades by  painstakingly achieved consensus, withdrawing from international organisations established to bring about cohesion and equal development, repudiating global covenants such as the Climate accords, intimidating other nations by the use of their military prowess. Even more alarming, their lawlessness and unpredictability  is forcing other countries like Japan, South Korea and Poland to consider acquiring nuclear capabilities to hedge their safety bets.

And where does India stand amidst all this chaos, I wonder? It appears to me that we stand for nothing- we are not what we are, we are what we are not. The traditional bedrocks of our foreign policy-the "Panchsheel" principles, support for the Palestinians, anti-colonialism, a nuanced neutrality, the values of liberal democracy- have all been jettisoned in favour of cronyism inspired GDP, the image of one man, and the desperate desire to sit at the high table of global politics. This is sought to be achieved by a supine surrender to the new Satan on the block, shameful abstentions in the United Nations, silence when our own citizens are shackled and humiliated, putting money over morals. This is all disguised as "neutrality" but is just strategic cowardice. And it's not working either: we have zero influence today over global affairs, we can no longer claim any leadership of the global South, we are isolated within BRICS, Trump doesn't give a tinker's curse for us, nobody knows what we stand for anymore notwithstanding a pulpit-thumping External Affairs Minister who sounds more and more like Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep combined from the Dickens novels every day.

The "experts" will probably say that all this is very naive and simplistic, that what we are witnessing is unilateralism vs multilateralism, or a battle between liberal humanism and evolutionary humanism, or a tussle between Marxist socialism and neo-capitalism. But the truth is far more simple, as all great truths are. And the truth is that the blood thirsty phenomenon we are observing today is pure and simple Darwinism- the survival of the fittest. Which may have been acceptable 200,000 years ago when homo sapiens was still at the hunter-gatherer stage of our evolution, but not today after millenia of progress. Today it is evil, a threat to humanity itself which cannot be removed by armies or the law but only by the people themselves, the people who have birthed these mutants in the first place.

These are, as I said, dangerous times for all nations, but do we have the leadership that can navigate the country safely through these troubled waters? I don't know because right now it is busy in trashing a stand-up comic, demolishing houses, demonising live-in relationships, digging up mosques, figuring out more novel ways of winning elections, taking over Waqf boards and declaring more meat- free zones. World affairs can wait.