Taiwan’s Markets Surge Ahead While India Watches Ram Rahim’s 16th Parole

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The Parole Paradox: How India Outdoes the World in Forgiving a Rapist-Murderer While Taiwan Builds the Future

News arrived that Taiwan’s total market capitalisation has left India behind – all because of a single company. If someone wants to rub salt into your wounds with that fact, tell them this: India has already set a world record by granting 435 days of parole in eight years to a convict serving a life sentence for rape and murder. Taiwan may have a global semiconductor giant, but it does not have a Ram Rahim. And that, dear reader, is a uniquely Indian achievement.

Wherever you look, the system is punctured. Leaks pour in from every seam. Forget competing with Taiwan; it feels like a monumental task just to hold a fair examination. Many are saying that by repeatedly freeing Ram Rahim, India’s administrative and judicial machinery has turned itself into a laughing stock. But is anyone really laughing? I do not think so. If the system believed it was being mocked, would it hand out parole again and again with such nonchalance? The real joke is not on the judiciary – it is on the very idea that anyone expects accountability anymore.

The Mathematics of Parole: How a Murderer-Rapist Spent 435 Days 'Out'

Ram Rahim, the chief of Dera Sacha Sauda, was convicted in 2017 for rape and murder. Since October 2020, he has been stepping out of jail as if on a scheduled vacation. He came out for 21 days of furlough, then 40 days of parole, then again and again. By August 2023, he had been granted parole 14 times, accumulating 366 days of freedom. He celebrated his 58th birthday on 15 August – India’s Independence Day – on a 40-day parole, sanctifying the date with his presence. This year, after returning from a 40-day parole in February, he is back on a 30-day parole in May. Total: 435 days outside prison in just eight years.

Period	Duration	Occasion / Remark
Oct 2020 – mid 2023 (multiple spells)	366 days (cumulative)	Furlough and parole; 14 episodes
15 Aug 2023	40 days	58th birthday celebration
Feb 2025	40 days	Parole (returned to jail afterwards)
May 2025	30 days	Fresh parole; ongoing
Total parole/furlough days in 8 years		435 days

Days outside (parole + furlough)435 days (14.9%)

435

Days in custody (approx. 8 years)~2,485 days (85.1%)

2485

A life sentence for rape and murder turns into a part-time arrangement.

On 7 March this year, the Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted Ram Rahim in the murder case of journalist Ramchandra Chhatrapati, setting aside his life imprisonment. Chhatrapati, who ran a newspaper called ‘Poora Sach’, was shot five times outside his home in 2002. India’s media remains silent on the killing of a fellow journalist – that is the bonus of being a ‘godi media’ (lapdog media), you never have to burden yourself with speaking the truth.

Bail Denied, Parole Granted: The Two Faces of Indian Justice

While a convicted rapist-murderer roams with sirens blaring, students and activists rot in jail for years without bail. Look at the cases of Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam – their bail hearings dragged on as if the republic faced a constitutional emergency. The Bhima Koregaon accused, from professors to lawyers, spent years fighting for bail in high courts and the Supreme Court; some got relief only after prolonged torment. For Umar Khalid, even bail remains elusive. But when Ram Rahim steps out, the judiciary appears guilt-free, lighter, as if its credibility does not matter at all.

Petrol Bachao, Convoy Badao: The Prime Minister’s Appeals vs. the Reality of Power

Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeals to citizens to reduce petrol and diesel consumption. Soon after, a video from Lucknow shows judicial officers cycling to court to save fuel. Yet Ram Rahim exits jail in a 10-car convoy, horns blaring, luxury vehicles reportedly costing Rs 2 crore each. His conviction for heinous crimes has done nothing to dent his swagger. He drives like an uncrowned king, and the government that preaches fuel conservation watches in silence.

The Taiwan Lesson: Chips, Not Paroles, Build Nations

Taiwan, with a population equal to Delhi’s, has pushed India out of the world’s top five stock markets. India fell from fifth to sixth, just as it slipped in the largest economy rankings. We are no longer among Asia’s top three markets either. The engine behind Taiwan’s leap is TSMC – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company – the world’s largest chipmaker, whose stock surged nearly 49% in a year. Meanwhile, India’s headlines call it ‘Tiny Taiwan’, ignoring that the semiconductor king resides in that tiny nation.

Now compare this with Samsung Electronics of South Korea. Samsung alone commands a market cap of around $1 trillion – more than the combined market cap of India’s top 10 companies (Reliance, HDFC Bank, Airtel, SBI, etc.).

Samsung Electronics~$1 trillion

100%

India's Top 10 Combined< $1 trillion

88%

One company outweighs an entire country’s corporate elite.

Samsung’s semiconductor division alone is paying a $26.6 billion bonus to 78,000 employees this year because of the AI boom. And how was that bonus secured? Through a union. South Korean workers threatened an 18-day strike, and the company rushed to negotiate. After the deal, Samsung’s shares jumped 8.5%. In India, unions are treated as sinful, and workers are told to be grateful for gig-delivery jobs under the scorching sun. Prime Minister Modi has been talking about a semiconductor mission for years, promising that by 2047 India will have ten major chip units. But in 2026, we are nowhere to be seen in AI or semiconductor manufacturing – only the 2047 dream is shown while exam papers leak and paroles pile up.

The Indian Innovation: Exam Leaks and the Rise of ‘Screen-Sharing Scientists’

Taiwan and Korea create global tech giants; India produces solver gangs that guarantee exam success through screen-sharing. In the SSC GD examination conducted by the central government, candidates were caught with cheating devices in Ranchi and Uttar Pradesh. A Bihar-based gang charged Rs 13 lakh per candidate, promising that the computer would answer everything remotely. Police arrested six aspirants and seized the centre’s computers. In Noida, the Special Task Force nabbed seven men with laptops, mobile phones, and exam documents. They didn’t hack papers – they used screen-sharing technology to solve papers for failing students. Call them scientists, because their innovation has solved the problem of failure for those who refuse to study.

At the same time, examination centres were overbooked: a Kanpur centre with a capacity of 399 issued admit cards to 819 candidates. In Lucknow, the server crashed and students were turned away. Videos of vandalism at centres went viral. And at Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam University, a B.Tech semester paper leaked – students were caught with chits containing exact answers to that day’s questions. The exam was cancelled. Investigations are on, as they always are in India – that is the only good thing, the perpetual investigation that changes nothing.

Whose Sentiments Matter? The Arrest of a Food Vlogger and a Dead Animal Near a Temple

In Muzaffarnagar, a YouTuber named Anas Ahmad was arrested because his food vlog accidentally showed a temple. He was reviewing a hotel’s non-vegetarian dishes; while walking through the streets, a shot of a Shiv temple appeared. A Hindutva organisation complained, and the police jailed him. The police themselves posted his forced apology on social media, where he said he was captivated by the beauty of the tricolour on the temple. The next day, they arrested him anyway. Religious sentiments were hurt, they said. What about the sentiments of a young man who now has a criminal record for making a food video?

In Bhilwara, Rajasthan, remains of a dead animal were found outside a temple. Tension flared, Hindu organisations protested, and the police scanned CCTV to find Lokesh Khatik and Hemant Kohli, meat traders whose sack had accidentally dropped some pieces. They had not done it deliberately. If they hadn’t been identified, an innocent person – likely from a minority community – would have been picked up and thrown into jail. How easy it has become to fling something in front of a place of worship and set a locality on fire. The whole country seems busy stoking tension.

A Father’s Scream in Patna: The Collapse of Safety

A father from Begusarai came to Patna with his daughter for her polytechnic exam. At night, the hotel door opened; a drunk staff member entered and tried to drag the girl out. The father woke up, screamed, and later filed a complaint. The CCTV was not working at the time – an investigation is on, of course. Satyendra Kumar, one accused, has been arrested. The father’s sobbing interviews on social media reveal a nation where safety is a myth, and the only thing guaranteed is an investigation that leads nowhere.

Conclusion: A Country Where Ram Rahim’s Future Is Secure, Yours Is Not

Taiwan’s TSMC, South Korea’s Samsung, Norway’s trillion-dollar pension fund – these are built on skill, innovation, and labour rights. India’s headlines are built on paroles, paper leaks, and the arrest of food vloggers. The Prime Minister should formally declare a festival every time Ram Rahim steps out; the nation should cook kheer-puri and celebrate the freedom of a convicted rapist-murderer. After all, what remains to be destroyed? The youth’s dreams are scattered on the streets, young men turn into cockroaches or disciples of babas, and the media ticks off a ready-made graphic chart every time the parole counter updates. A person’s ability to make the entire system bend is the real story of Ram Rahim. Taiwan may have chips, but we have perfected the art of surrender.

Criticisms

• The Modi government’s ‘Viksit Bharat 2047’ is a cruel joke when it cannot ensure a single fair, leak-free examination in 2026.
• The Prime Minister remains silent on Ram Rahim’s repeated paroles, exposing a tacit partnership with criminal godmen for electoral arithmetic.
• The judiciary has become a turnstile for the powerful: it acquits Ram Rahim in a journalist’s murder while keeping students and activists in jail without bail for years.
• The ‘godi media’ has abandoned its duty, reducing journalism to a propaganda tool that ignores the killing of a fellow journalist and turns parole data into lifeless graphics.
• Police forces across states act as the enforcement wing of Hindutva sentiments, arresting food vloggers and meat traders while a rapist’s convoy speeds past with sirens.
• Central exam agencies like SSC and CBSE are so rotten that every exam season brings a new leak, yet no minister resigns and no systemic reform arrives.
• The BJP’s politics of religious polarisation has turned every temple, mosque, and street corner into a potential riot site, while the youth survive on delivery gigs and broken ambitions.
• The government boasts of semiconductor missions and AI dreams, but its industrialists are better known for capturing companies with state help than for building globally competitive products.

— Ravish Kumar

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Tags: Ravish Kumar,Indian Politics,

Why Has Discussion and Protest Over Inflation Disappeared?

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The Oil Price Surge and the Silence of the ‘Expert’ Public

Good news for those who once declared they would happily pay Rs 500 a litre and still vote for Modi ji. That Rs 500-a-litre petrol may still be some distance away, but Delhi has already served up a delicious starter: petrol crossed Rs 100, and on 25 May alone it jumped by Rs 2.61 per litre, diesel by Rs 2.71. In just 11 days, petrol has shot up by Rs 7.94 and diesel by Rs 7.57. In Patna, petrol is now Rs 113 a litre; CNG in Delhi has sailed past Rs 81. The people, however, are not jumping up and down – at least not in protest. Their bouncing is happening on news channels, where they have miraculously transformed into global energy experts.

1. The Public’s Newfound Expertise: A Crash Course in Geopolitics

Switch on any news channel and you will find reporters thrusting microphones at people on petrol pumps. The responses are a masterclass in strategic patience. “The government’s hands are tied,” says one. “Until the war ends, the situation won’t normalize,” explains another. “We know crude has touched $100 a barrel, so prices will rise – but if the war ends, the government should reduce them quickly,” a third adds, suddenly sounding like a finance ministry spokesperson. The public has stopped wailing about inflation and started giving PowerPoint-worthy presentations on global supply chains.

This is a remarkable transformation. Before 2014, when the UPA was in power, the same public would take to the streets at the mere whisper of a price rise. The BJP’s leaders would dance to the song “Mehngai dayan khaye jaat hai” (the witch of inflation is devouring us). Today, that witch has been retired, and the public has enrolled in a crash course titled “Why the Government is Helpless”. They have internalized the global narrative so thoroughly that they now sound like spokespersons for the Ministry of External Affairs. The real breaking news is not the price hike – it’s the public’s newfound “understanding”.

2. Fear, Not Wisdom, Is the Real Reason

But let’s not mistake fear for wisdom. The same public that patiently explains crude oil futures is also learning a harsher lesson: the cost of protesting has become far higher than the cost of petrol. When Aamir Khan, a man seen in photo frames with chief ministers and the powerful, tweeted a song from his own film and then deleted it within hours, the question echoed – what was he afraid of? If a superstar cannot muster the courage, why should an ordinary employee filling petrol at a pump dare to show anger?

Consider Vedant Srivastava, a student who simply asked CBSE to recheck his physics paper. His tweet was seen by 2 million people, and the digital mob immediately branded him a “Pakistani”. His brother had to step in and publicly plead: “How can my brother be called a Pakistani?” A child, a student, labeled an anti-national for questioning an exam board. This is the atmosphere in which fuel prices are rising. When speaking out can get you investigated by the Enforcement Directorate, or turned into a “deshdrohi” overnight, silence becomes a survival strategy. Inflation may be burning holes in pockets, but the fear of the state’s machinery burns far deeper.

3. The Hidden Distress: Gold Loans and Default Warnings

Behind the smiling “expert” faces on TV, the ground reality is grim. On 28 April 2026, the Reserve Bank of India quietly asked banks to prepare for a spike in loan defaults by FY2027 and to set aside separate funds. A few weeks later, on 16 May, The Hindu Business Line carried an interview with George Alexander Muthoot, MD of Muthoot Finance. The headline said it all: “More people than ever are pledging gold for loans.” Muthoot Finance recorded a 48% jump in its gold loan business in FY2026. Mr Muthoot candidly admitted, “People’s purchasing power is declining; their incomes have been hit. But our business hasn’t been affected – in fact, more and more people are coming to us.” When gold loans surge 48% in a year, it means families are pawning their last assets to put food on the table, to pay school fees, to buy medicines. The smiling face on the petrol pump is the same person quietly removing his wife’s bangles from the locker.

The Chamber of Trade and Industry (CTI) wrote to Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, pleading for an emergency meeting of state finance ministers to cut VAT on fuel to 5% for three months – a move that could slash prices by Rs 10-15 per litre. Yet, the government, which can arrange a photo-op in minutes, cannot seem to arrange that meeting.

4. Oil Company Profits vs. People’s Burden: The Great Transfer of Losses

The narrative fed to us is that oil marketing companies are bleeding. Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri once claimed they were losing Rs 1,000 crore every day. But the numbers tell a very different story. In the fourth quarter of FY2025 (January-March 2025), the combined profit of IOC, BPCL, and HPCL jumped 41% to Rs 19,470 crore. For the full year 2024-25, profits surged by 130% compared to the previous year. In FY2024 alone, these three companies raked in Rs 81,000 crore in profit. Where did that money go? The losses, it seems, are always socialized; the profits are privatized.

Combined Profits of IOC, BPCL, HPCL (Rs crore)

FY2024

81,000

Q4 FY2025

19,470

Source: Company quarterly reports, various media compilations (The Hindu Business Line, 25 May 2026)

The table below exposes the brutal math of crude prices versus what the Indian citizen paid. When crude crashed, the government gobbled up the gains through excise hikes. When crude soared, the bill was instantly transferred to the public.

Year	Crude Price ($/barrel)	Petrol in Delhi (Rs/litre)	Central Excise (approx Rs/litre)	What Happened
2014	114	72	9.48	UPA era; excise moderate
2016	27	64	21.48	BJP raised excise 11 times; price barely fell
2020 (Covid)	20	~70	32.98	Record low crude, record high excise
March 2025	~75	94	9.98*	Pre-election excise cut of Rs 10
April 2025	~78	96	11.98	Government quietly added Rs 2 excise
May 2026	~97	103	11.98	Iran tensions; daily hikes; people pay more

*Estimates based on reported excise adjustments; data collated from Manik Tagore’s analysis and CAG reports.

When crude plunged from $114 to $27 between 2014 and 2016, petrol prices dropped by a mere Rs 8, while the government silently filled its coffers with over Rs 12 in additional excise. In 2026, when crude jumped to $97, the retail price was jacked up within days. This is the government’s definition of “citizens’ interest first”.

5. The Government’s Tax Game: Centre, States, and the Never-Ending Excuse

On 27 March 2025, with elections around the corner, the Modi government cut central excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 10. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal thumped his chest and declared, “Despite the global challenges, the Modi government has taken the loss upon itself to make citizens’ lives easier. Whatever the global challenge, the interest of Indian citizens comes first.” A grand narrative of sacrifice. But as soon as the elections were over, the government quietly added back Rs 2 per litre in April 2025, and by May 2026, daily price hikes became the norm. The “loss” they took upon themselves lasted just long enough for the polling booths to close.

States, too, have feasted on fuel taxes. After GST implementation squeezed their revenue, almost all states – except Kerala, as per CAG reports – made up the shortfall by increasing VAT and sales tax on petrol, diesel, and jet fuel. Today, in many states, nearly 40-50% of the retail price of fuel is tax. The central and state governments together have turned petrol pumps into tax collection machines. And when global crude prices rise, nobody talks about reducing that tax burden; instead, the public is lectured on “global challenges”.

6. What Other Countries Did: Tax Cuts, Not Excuses

While India’s public was being trained in geopolitical patience, governments around the world took real steps to cushion their citizens. In the past month alone:

• Pakistan cut petrol prices by Rs 6 per litre and diesel by Rs 6.80.
• Germany’s Finance Minister ordered oil companies to pass on discounts and slashed the energy tax by 17 cents a litre, along with a relief package of over $1.4 billion.
• Thailand saw oil companies reduce pump prices by 85 satang.
• Australia halved its fuel excise duty for three months starting 30 March.
• South Africa reduced its fuel tax for one month from 31 March.

India’s response? A pre-election cut that was reversed, followed by daily price hikes and a wall of “expert” public opinion manufactured on television. If Germany, Australia, and South Africa can absorb fiscal pain to protect their people, why can’t a government that claims to have made India the fifth-largest economy do the same?

7. Pre-2014 Modi vs. Post-2014 Modi: The Hypocrisy Laid Bare

Before 2014, Narendra Modi and the BJP turned every fuel price rise into a weapon against the UPA. Modi himself would thunder about the “mehngai dayan”, and his supporters would sing, dance, and demand the government’s resignation. Today, those same leaders cannot even hum that tune. The Enforcement Directorate and a barrage of investigative agencies ensure that the song remains buried. Opposition leaders, activists, and even film stars know that if they raise their voice, their next few years might be spent in legal battles rather than on the streets. The BJP’s pre-2014 “public interest” was nothing but a ladder to power. Once on the throne, they pulled the ladder up and set the dogs on anyone who dares to ask for it back.

8. Conclusion: When the People Sing Songs of Joy Amid Ruin

The public may have been conditioned to rationalize every price hike, but the market data, the gold loan queues, and the RBI’s quiet warnings tell the real story. Indians are burning their savings to survive, while the government and its oil companies burnish their balance sheets. The tragedy is not just that petrol is Rs 113 a litre; the tragedy is that the public has been so systematically terrorized that it now explains its own exploitation in the language of its exploiters.

So, the next time you visit a petrol pump, pay Rs 500, fill exactly one litre, smile at the attendant and say, “I am very, very happy. Please keep the change.” That, dear viewers, is the true state of our democracy.

Criticisms

• The Modi government has turned fear into a state policy, ensuring that economic hardship is met with silence, not protest.
• BJP leaders who built their careers attacking UPA over fuel prices now cower behind “global factors” and use agencies to crush dissent.
• Oil PSUs are allowed to pocket record profits in good times and instantly pass on every loss to citizens, with the government’s full backing.
• The media behaves as a propaganda arm, airing staged “expert” vox pops while burying real stories of distress and state intimidation.
• Excise duty and VAT on fuel are regressive taxes that the poor pay, while the government pretends to be pro-poor.
• The selective tax cuts before elections and immediate rollback afterwards are a textbook betrayal of public trust.
• Despite ruling 21 states, the BJP refuses to coordinate a VAT reduction, exposing its complete disregard for citizens’ suffering.
• Calling a student a “Pakistani” for questioning an exam board is a direct outcome of the toxic nationalism this government has fostered.
• The narrative of “global helplessness” is a lie when other nations with fewer resources have cut taxes and cushioned their people.
• People have been reduced to smiling victims who dare not complain – and that is the greatest failure of Indian democracy under this regime.

AI generated, for reference only.

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What is Cockroach Janata Party?

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RAVISH KUMAR — POLITICAL COMMENTARY

We Are the
Cockroaches

India's Youth, Digital Dissent, and the Democracy That Forgot Them

POLITICS DEMOCRACY SOCIAL MEDIA 7 min read

The Insult That Backfired

Imagine finding a cockroach under your pillow. You leap out of bed. Your skin crawls. Now imagine — the very next morning — you wake up, look in the mirror, and call yourself the cockroach. Proudly. With a party manifesto.

That is what happened in India. India's Chief Justice — in remarks reported by the media, later "clarified" as misquoted — allegedly used the word parasite to describe those with fake degrees sneaking into law and journalism. The word cockroach, as reported, referred to those who had crawled into respectable institutions through dishonest means.

The Chief Justice offered a clarification the very next day. He said the media had misrepresented him. He had not called the public cockroaches. He was speaking about fraudsters in the legal profession.

The forest, however, was already on fire.

The youth of India did not wait for the clarification to settle. They took the word, they wrapped it in a coat and tie, they put a Gandhi cap on it — and they built a party. Welcome to the Cockroach Janata Party.

A Bug Goes Viral: The Numbers

In five days, the Cockroach Janata Party's Instagram account accumulated 15 million followers. Not in an election cycle. Not after years of grinding street protests. In five days — on a platform built for recipe videos and vacation photos.

15M Instagram followers in 5 days

1 Twitter handle banned in India

0 Editorials in mainstream media

Rap songs were written about the cockroach. Posters appeared: "Vote for me, I am the CJP candidate." Young Indians did not mourn being called a cockroach. They embraced it — because when the drains of democracy are clogged, cockroaches are precisely who survives.

Event	Date / Context	Outcome
CJ's reported "cockroach/parasite" remark	Bar Association event, 2024	Viral outrage on social media
Chief Justice's clarification	Next day	Largely ignored; movement already live
CJP Instagram account launched	Within days of the remark	15 million followers in 5 days
CJP Twitter handle banned in India	Shortly after launch	Government-directed account suspension
Congress protest over NEET paper leak	Rajasthan, concurrent period	Invisible in mainstream media

Who Is Abhijit Deepke — and What Must He Clarify?

The founder of the Cockroach Janata Party is Abhijit Deepke, a student at Boston University, previously associated with the Aam Aadmi Party. The movement's origin story invites legitimate scrutiny.

Those who remember the India Against Corruption movement — and how the RSS allegedly used it as a runway for AAP's launch, and how many supporters felt cheated afterwards — are now watching CJP with the same suspicious squint. The question being asked aloud: Is BJP behind this? Is the public's anger being rerouted from opposition parties into an Instagram reel?

These are not paranoid questions. They are necessary questions in a democracy where artificial public support has been manufactured before — through EVMs, through blocked votes, through WhatsApp University. When public opinion can be fabricated, a political party too can be fabricated.

Deepke owes his growing constituency a direct answer: Does AAP have any organizational role in CJP's formation? Transparency is not optional when you are positioning yourself as a democratic alternative.

That said — dismissing CJP entirely because of unanswered questions is also unfair. In a democracy where all institutional machinery has been captured, the mere act of imagining a party is itself an act of resistance. Tamil Nadu's TVK party never marched on the streets. It went from a social media presence straight to electoral power. The route has changed. The map is being redrawn.

The Democracy That Is Being Dismantled, Quietly

Why does the cockroach resonate so deeply? Because young Indians are living inside a country where democratic imagination is dying — and they know it, even if they cannot name it.

Look at what happened in West Bengal: 27 lakh people were reportedly prevented from casting their votes. Serious questions arose about vote counting. Central forces visibly and selectively dominated the polling process. One section of the public fell into a stunned silence, wondering: This much happened, and the country's youth said nothing?

Then there is the story of Coastal Energen — a company whose owner was imprisoned for 31 months on fabricated charges, against whom no evidence was produced, while his company was quietly swallowed by others. This is not an anomaly. It is a pattern. When the state can imprison a citizen without evidence and absorb his enterprise, it is not justice that is being served. It is intimidation.

In a country like this, democratic imagination does not just weaken. It is murdered. Slowly. Methodically. With a gag and a blindfold.

The Cockroach Janata Party is not a policy document. It is proof that despite everything — despite the media surrender, the institutional capture, the electoral manipulation — the democratic spirit has not been fully exterminated. Cockroaches survive the apocalypse. Perhaps that is the point.

Nav Pratirodh: The New Resistance

A common criticism of CJP is that real politics happens on the street, not on Instagram. This criticism is not wrong. But it is dangerously incomplete.

Consider: Narendra Modi's rise in 2014 was not purely a street movement. WhatsApp University carried fabricated histories into millions of homes. A compliant media built a 24-hour personality cult. The street was only one element of a carefully engineered political machine.

If the ruling establishment can use social media to build and consolidate power, why must the opposition and the citizens be restricted to only marching boots and lathis?

Traditional Resistance

Street protests, dharnas, marches

Digital Resistance (CJP)

Social media party, viral satire, rap songs, memes

Godi Media Coverage

Near-zero editorial response

Democracy is not a single exercise. It is a bouquet. Someone marches. Someone sings. Someone makes a YouTube video. Someone builds a satirical party with 15 million followers. All of these are democratic acts. The question is not which form is more legitimate — the question is why the government fears even the satirical ones enough to ban their Twitter handle.

The Godi Media's Comfortable Silence

When the Chief Justice's remark went viral, how many editorials did India's mainstream press write? Count them. Take your time. I'll wait.

While the CJP gathered 15 million followers, India's television studios — those same studios that will devote forty-eight hours to a Pakistani press conference or a celebrity divorce — found no airtime to address whether it was appropriate for a sitting Chief Justice to describe citizens as parasites, or cockroaches, in any context.

At the same time, the Congress party was on the streets of Rajasthan — demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over two separate NEET examination paper leaks. Students cheated. Futures stolen. A government that can conduct a moon mission apparently cannot secure a question paper.

That protest received no coverage in godi media. But if 15 million social media followers amplified it, perhaps the government would feel the weight of that silence becoming a noise it could no longer ignore.

The media's fear of criticizing the judiciary and the government in the same breath has made it useless to the very public it claims to serve.

A Warning to the Opposition

The rise of the Cockroach Janata Party is not just a rebuke of the BJP government. It is a rebuke of the opposition too.

If one young man in Boston — Abhijit Deepke, building a satirical Instagram account — can mobilize 15 million people in five days, what exactly is the Congress doing? What is the Samajwadi Party doing? What is the entire edifice of Indian opposition doing that it cannot create a single moment this electric?

The public is anxious. It is looking left and right for the opposition and finding it only occasionally — flickering like a streetlight at 3 a.m. The opposition must expand its canvas of democratic imagination. It must learn the grammar of the new resistance — not replace street protests, but amplify them. Use every tool. Speak every language. The cockroach survived because it adapted.

!

Criticisms

• The Modi government's instinct upon seeing 15 million citizens form a satirical political party was not reflection, not dialogue — it was to ban their Twitter handle. This is the action of an administration that is allergic to dissent even in its most theatrical form.
• Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has presided over a catastrophic failure of examination integrity. NEET paper leaks have occurred not once but twice on his watch. He has not resigned, has not been asked to resign by the Prime Minister, and the BJP government has offered no accountability whatsoever to the millions of students whose futures were sold by paper thieves.
• The Modi government's systematic capture of godi media — converting newsrooms into state megaphones — means that even a Chief Justice calling citizens "cockroaches" produces no editorial outrage. When the press stops being the press, cockroaches have to build their own parties.
• The West Bengal election of 2021, in which credible reports indicate that 27 lakh voters were disenfranchised, remains without any meaningful central investigation. The same BJP that screams electoral fraud in states it loses has nothing to say when its own central forces are accused of intimidating voters.
• The BJP and its ecosystem must answer how the India Against Corruption movement was politically harvested to birth the AAP, leaving millions of genuine protestors feeling used and discarded. The same template of co-opting public anger for partisan benefit remains BJP's most dangerous and perfected weapon.
• Prime Minister Modi's social media presence — including the viral video of him gifting Italian Prime Minister Meloni a "melody" — is covered adoringly by godi media while genuine public movements are suppressed. The double standard is not accidental. It is policy.
• The imprisonment of the Coastal Energen owner for 31 months, without evidence, while his company was absorbed by connected interests, represents a criminalized use of state power. This government has turned the law into a tool of corporate predation, not justice.

- Ravish Kumar

Note: In this democracy, you may now consider keeping this in your pocket. Carefully. Folded. For later.

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India Considers Seeking Dollars from NRIs and Raising Interest Rates — Can the Rupee Still Be Saved?

The Reserve Bank of India is now reportedly considering an NRI dollar deposit scheme and sovereign dollar bonds. Yes, the same government that spent years claiming India had become a golden bird under its watch is about to go door-to-door, asking NRIs for dollars to save the rupee. Bloomberg’s Anup Roy reports that the central bank is exploring ways to raise dollars, including hiking interest rates, because the rupee is in free fall. A 12% drop against the dollar in just one year. RBI has been selling dollars, but it isn’t working. And when interest rates go up, your EMIs will shoot up, fuel prices will rise again, school fees, taxi fares — everything. This isn’t because of Iran. This is the result of 13 years of economic mismanagement by the Modi government.

The Confession of a Devotee

Surjit Bhalla, the economist who rarely missed a chance to applaud the Modi government, has finally admitted that the economy is sinking. In a column that broke the camp’s silence, Bhalla noted that India’s GDP averaged 6% over the last 35 years — and 13 of those years belong to this government. He can’t explain why the BJP keeps winning elections despite a crumbling economy. He says he does not doubt the electoral process, but his own numbers raise uncomfortable questions: how does a party win mandate after mandate when the ground beneath everyone’s feet is giving way? Vote deletions running into crores, 27 lakh voters disenfranchised, counting centre videos demanded but never released by the Election Commission — as Scroll reported. Bhalla might not ask, but we must.

The Growth That Never Was

Bhalla is not the first to say the India growth story is a lie. Arvind Subramanian in 2019 showed GDP was overstated by about 2.5% between 2011 and 2017. Real growth was closer to 4.5%, not 7%. Former chief statistician Pronab Sen raised the alarm as early as 2017. Ashok Modi’s “India Fake Growth Story” paper drew vicious trolling. Professor R. Nagaraj of IGIDR flagged the figures in 2015. Arun Kumar, Rajeshwari Sengupta, Pramod Sinha, Ravindra Dholakia — all have been telling us for years that the emperor has no clothes. Bhalla is just a late arrival at the truth.

The favourite slogan — “India is the fastest growing major economy” — collapses the moment you remove the word “major”. Since 2014, India ranks 9th in GDP growth among all countries, and 8th in per capita GDP growth. In dollar terms, the picture is even grimmer.

Per Capita GDP Growth (Dollar Terms, Annual Average since 2014)

Bangladesh

8.3%

Ethiopia

7.2%

India

4.7%

India trails Bangladesh and Ethiopia in per capita dollar income growth. Source: Surjit Bhalla compilation, IMF data.

Metric	India's Rank
GDP Growth (since 2014)	9th
Per Capita GDP Growth	8th
Per Capita Growth (Dollar Terms)	16th

Yet the propaganda machine kept running. Ministers repeated the lie, and the Prime Minister himself declared, “140 crore Indians are not satisfied with being the fastest growing economy, we want to be the third largest soon.” The reality is a country struggling to touch 6% when it needs 8% to even pretend it can develop.

Distraction as Policy: Cow, Bulldozer, Toffee

While the economy bled, what were we debating? Pakistan. Cow. Muslims. Madrasas. Bulldozer justice. DJ dance in front of mosques. The government and its godi media manufactured a permanent circus so that nobody would notice the hollowing out of the nation’s economic foundation. Free rations for 80 crore people were not a sign of a caring state — they were an admission that prosperity never reached them. In Bihar, over 1.5 crore women got ₹10,000 each during elections — vote-buying, plain and simple. Forty percent of graduates are unemployed. Sixty percent of BA degree holders don’t find a permanent job in the first year, and those who do earn meagre salaries. When young Indians started calling themselves cockroaches in protest, the government silenced them: social media accounts deleted, the “Cockroach Janata Party” Twitter account banned even as its Instagram outpaced the BJP’s follower growth.

The Credibility Trap and the AI Blindspot

Former RBI Governor D. Subbarao, in a widely discussed Hindustan Times article, says the rupee’s fall cannot be blamed only on oil prices. He warns of a credibility trap: if the world sees the RBI trying and failing to defend the rupee, it signals that the situation is beyond control, triggering a capital flight panic. India has also missed the AI bus. Global money is now chasing markets that lead in technology and AI, and India, despite all the chest-thumping, is a marginal player. Subbarao calls it a margin player. This, too, has battered the rupee. Remember the stock market frenzy after COVID? People pulled money from banks and poured it into equities without any underlying economic expansion. Companies weren’t investing, but stock prices soared. That bubble has now burst, and the common retail investor has been destroyed — two years of negative returns, and not a word about it in the prime-time debates.

“An economic storm is coming, the kind India has never seen... Modi went and ate toffee with Meloni and made videos... When he returns, the storm will hit the poor, the farmers, the youth... Then he will fold his hands and say, ‘Hang me, it’s not my fault.’” — Rahul Gandhi, months before the rupee rout.

The Amrit Kaal Scam

In December 2023, when the cracks were already visible, the government launched “Viksit Bharat 2047” and the “Voice of Youth” campaign. The Prime Minister spoke of an Amrit Kaal — a golden era — and asked everyone to work beyond limits. But to hit the developed-country target, India needs 8% annual GDP growth. The reality is stuck around 6%. UN DESA projects 6.4% for 2026-27, down from 7.5% in the previous year. Journalist Anindya Chakravarty pointed out that GST was supposed to add 2% to GDP. Since its introduction, average growth (excluding COVID) is 6.3%. Without GST, would growth have been 3.5-4.3%? The numbers scream that the much-touted reform didn’t deliver.

When Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman suddenly tweeted a string of rhetorical questions defending Jan Dhan, Mudra loans, and free grain, Congress’s Pawan Khera held a press conference that few channels cared to show. The facts he laid out were devastating: 15 crore Jan Dhan accounts are inoperative, 62% of the remaining hold less than ₹1,000. The central government has collected ₹43 lakh crore in petroleum taxes over 12 years. Public sector oil companies earned ₹12,400 crore in just a few hours from price hikes. Whose Amrit Kaal is this? The middle class is being crushed, and the finance minister’s threadbare defence was met with silence.

The Trump Factor: Toffees and Trade-offs

Prime Minister Modi’s foreign visits are assessed by the number of hugs, toffee moments, and dance reels, not by outcomes. Why did relations with Trump sour? What did India concede? Rahul Gandhi alleges that the Prime Minister traded national data to get Adani’s case cancelled in the US. The Telegraph’s Hans van Leeuwen wrote that “Trump trampled Modi’s dreams.” Yet the BJP’s supporters, who are also Trump supporters, don’t ask. India wants to know how much of this economic devastation is linked to those backroom compromises. If Modi wants India to be taken seriously, says the expert, he must turn the economy into a powerhouse that can rival China. Instead, manufacturing has declined over the last decade, India’s global industrial output is one-tenth of China’s, and deep-tech investment is abysmal. Winning elections by any means and running an economy are two different things. Controlling power, resources, and the media can win votes. Economic reality is like sand — it slips through even the tightest fist.

The Final Illusion

As the common citizen is pushed towards poverty and the middle class is pulverised, the godi media will switch on the Vishwaguru stories again. If you have enjoyed these fairy tales so far, you have no right to ask why the rupee is in a ditch. You should thank the Modi government: every time you are in pain, it expertly distracts you from your own wound.

Facts

• Rupee depreciated 12% against the dollar in one year; RBI exploring NRI dollar deposits and rate hikes.
• India’s average GDP growth over 35 years is 6%, with 13 years under the Modi government.
• Since 2014, India ranks 9th in GDP growth, 8th in per capita GDP growth, and 16th in dollar-term per capita growth.
• Bangladesh (8.3%) and Ethiopia (7.2%) outpaced India (4.7%) in per capita dollar income growth.
• 40% of graduates unemployed; 60% of BA graduates lack a permanent job in the first year.
• 15 crore Jan Dhan accounts are inoperative; 62% of the rest hold less than Rs 1,000.
• Central government collected Rs 43 lakh crore from petroleum taxes in 12 years.
• UN DESA projects India’s GDP growth at 6.4% for 2026-27, down from 7.5% previously.
• India’s share in global industrial output is about one-tenth of China’s.

Criticisms

• The Modi government has hollowed out the Indian economy while using statistical jugglery and a captive media to sell a fake growth story.
• For 13 years, communal polarisation, bulldozer theatrics, and manufactured nationalism were used to hide catastrophic unemployment, inflation, and a falling rupee.
• Electoral integrity has been compromised through mass voter deletions, opaque counting, and direct vote-buying with free rations and cash handouts.
• Flagship schemes like Jan Dhan are a sham — the majority of accounts are either dead or near-empty, while crony capitalists thrive.
• The government extracted Rs 43 lakh crore from citizens via fuel taxes while offering 5 kg of free grain as a sleight-of-hand to manufacture consent.
• The Prime Minister’s personal equations with foreign leaders, especially Donald Trump, appear to have compromised national interests, with possible data-for-legal-relief deals going unquestioned.
• The ‘Viksit Bharat’ and ‘Amrit Kaal’ narratives are cynical election props that mask the brutal math: India needs 8% growth, barely manages 6%, and the middle class is being systematically destroyed.
• A subservient ‘godibachi’ media launders the government’s failures, deletes dissenting voices, and converts every economic disaster into a Toffee-and-Dance spectacle.

Disclaimer: This writeup was generated with the assistance of AI (DeepSeek). While AI has been used to organize and present the information, the facts, data points, and criticisms referenced are based on public reporting and documented analysis. Readers are encouraged to verify claims independently and consult original sources.

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End of the India's Growth Story? Capital Flight Heats Up as Investors Look Overseas

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The Two Storms: How India’s Economic Shine Turned to Dust

Ravish Kumar | May 2026

Two fierce winds are tearing through this country. One brings inflation, unemployment, and vanishing jobs. The other, moving in the opposite direction, is the storm of capital fleeing India. Currency, dollars, foreign investors, and now even Indian investors are sending their money abroad at breakneck speed. The common people hauling the economy on their shoulders have no idea that the root of their misery lies in a decade of claims that never became reality. Foreign investors are pulling out, and Indian companies are following suit. The question is no longer whether the economy is in trouble—it’s whether anyone is left to care.

The Great Capital Escape

The numbers are staggering. Between March 2025 and February 2026, Indians pumped $2.2 billion into foreign stock markets, a 60% jump over the previous year. In the same period, retail investors’ share in Indian stocks shrank by 9.2%. Overseas investments by Indian companies surged 138% in February and March alone, and a later Business Standard report pegged the year-on-year rise at 27.5%, with a jaw-dropping 138% spike between February and March of 2026. Foreign institutional investors yanked out 2 lakh crore rupees in just the last two months. Sensex market capitalisation plummeted from 473 lakh crore on November 12 to 454 lakh crore, wiping out nearly 20 lakh crore of investor wealth in seven months. The exodus is no longer a trickle; it is a flood.

Market Cap Percentage Change (One Year, Selected Economies)

+74.6

S Korea

+45.5

Taiwan

+17.4

China

+11.3

Japan

+7.2

US

-4.2

France

-8.5

India

Source: Bloomberg data, May 2026. India’s market cap contracted even as peers surged, well before war-related disruptions.

The Rupee’s Silent Collapse

In the past year, the rupee fell 11.2% against the dollar, and it lost ground against the Thai baht, Bangladeshi taka, and Pakistani rupee as well. Economist Kaushik Basu noted that total foreign direct investment over the last 22 months has been virtually zero—what came in went out. He warned that if crude oil stays above $100 per barrel without Arab intervention, the rupee could slide to 102 to the dollar. The government’s standby excuse—the war—is wearing thin. Analysts from Goldman Sachs confirmed that even after April’s ceasefire and falling crude prices, foreign investors did not return. The rot is older and deeper.

The Adani Contrast: $10 Billion for America, Sermons for the Poor

While the common man is advised to cut down kitchen oil consumption to save foreign exchange, the Adani Group is reportedly moving 96,000 crore rupees out of India. Reports surfaced that Adani will invest $10 billion in the US to settle legal troubles and create 15,000 American jobs. The government allegedly settled a case for $18 million. Ask yourself: can Prime Minister Modi stop Adani from taking that investment abroad? The silence is deafening. The administration that sold India as the world’s fastest-growing economy now watches its biggest capitalists bet on foreign shores.

The Disaster Decade That Was Never Acknowledged

Prime Minister Modi now proclaims the coming ten years will be a decade of disasters for the world. But what about the decade just gone? From demonetisation in 2016 to today, the country lurched from one crisis to another. In 2019, news of peak unemployment was buried. For years, reports have shown that India’s savings rate is abysmal, household incomes are among the lowest, and per capita income hovers around 18,000–20,000 rupees a month. This is a nation where 80 crore people have survived on free rations since 2020—six years of subsistence on government grain. No prime-time debate shows this. The economy crawls on the backs of a pauperised majority.

Indicator	Data	Period/Source
Indian retail investor share in stocks	-9.2%	Past 1 year
Overseas investment by Indian companies	+138% (Feb-Mar)	2026 vs 2025
FII outflows	2 lakh crore INR	Last 2 months
Sensex market cap loss	~20 lakh crore INR	Nov 2025 – May 2026
Indians investing abroad	$2.2 billion	Mar 2025 – Feb 2026
Rupee depreciation vs USD	-11.2%	1 year
Citizenship renunciations	18 lakh (1.8 million)	Up to 2024
BA graduates getting corporate jobs	Only 4%	Azim Premji University

Jobless Growth and Cyber Slavery

The government loves the phrase ‘digital India’, but the reality is grim. Young men from Bihar are lured to Vietnam and Cambodia with fake job promises, then forced into scamming people worldwide—what the National Investigation Agency calls cyber slavery. Others go to Russia and are thrown into the army to catch bullets; some go to Israel as labourers and get trapped in war zones. This is the ‘demographic dividend’ in action. And yet, only 4% of BA graduates find corporate employment. The rest are pushed into gig work that pays so little they remain indistinguishable from the poor. Permanent jobs are a dying dream.

Systemic Rot: From Municipality to Judiciary

The decay is not limited to the economy. An army Major had to stage a sit-in protest outside the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister’s house just to get an FIR registered for his sister’s suspicious death. Twisha Sharma, a former Miss Pune, died within five months of marriage; her husband, a lawyer, is absconding, and his mother is a retired district judge. The family alleges manipulation, a compromised post-mortem, and obstruction at every level. “We are fighting a system,” the Major said, describing how the accused have deep links in the judiciary and medical establishment. The body has not been sent for an independent autopsy. The message is clear: in today’s India, even justice is a privilege of the connected.

The AI Miss and the End of the Market Darling

When the world pivoted to artificial intelligence, India missed the bus. Headlines now mock: “India missed the AI opportunity, and its days as a market darling could be over.” The AI Global Summit turned into a spectacle. What product has India created to claim global tech leadership? Investors listened to grand speeches for ten years and finally understood that those speeches were meant for winning elections in the Hindi heartland, not for building an innovation ecosystem. Since 2024, foreign investors have simply stopped looking at India.

“At the very moment AI is reshaping global investment flows, India has proven to be one of the world’s biggest losers.” — Japanese Business Newspapers, May 2026

Tax Cuts for the Rich, Hardships for the Rest

Each time a crisis erupts, a familiar chorus begins: slash taxes for corporations and the rich. In 2018, corporate tax for companies with turnover of 50–250 crore was cut from 30% to 25%. What followed? Investment did not surge, jobs did not appear, and Indian companies continued parking money abroad. Now the demand is to bring tax on sovereign bonds to zero to attract foreign capital. Even if implemented today, analysts say the effect will take two years. Meanwhile, the middle class gets no such relief; their real incomes are shrinking, and their purchasing power is eroding. The government’s own circular asking banks to cut travel and adopt video conferencing betrays a panic—the siren is blaring.

The Business Climate of Fear

Why would anyone invest in a country where a YouTuber’s channel can be shut down by a single government order? Where businesses flourish only if they donate crores to the ruling party? Where bulldozers demolish homes and shops without court orders, and the public applauds because it aligns with a perverted notion of “Hindu happiness”? Bribery, fake cases, land grabbing—all are shrugged off. The middle class has sold its conscience for religious polarisation. From the municipal corporation to the highest courts, institutions have been hollowed out. When the state itself becomes the biggest threat to enterprise, capital will always choose the exit door.

Climate Blindness Amid Record Heat

This April, all fifty of the world’s hottest cities were in India. While tree-planting photo-ops are staged in the name of mothers, real forests are being cleared and those who protest face police batons. The middle class remains obsessed with stock market returns, oblivious to the environmental collapse mirroring the economic one. The government’s proposed hike in fixed electricity charges will squeeze households further, adding to the burden of a population already surviving on free grain.

The story of India was sold as a miracle. Now even its own people are beginning to say that the story was a lie, and the truth is finally catching up.

Facts

• Between March 2025 and February 2026, Indian retail investors moved $2.2 billion into foreign equities — a 60% year-on-year increase.
• Sensex market capitalisation fell from 473 lakh crore (Nov 2025) to 454 lakh crore (May 2026), destroying nearly 20 lakh crore in investor wealth.
• Overseas direct investment by Indian companies surged 138% in Feb-Mar 2026, with an extraordinary 138% spike between the two months.
• Foreign portfolio investors pulled out 2 lakh crore rupees in just the last two months.
• The rupee depreciated 11.2% against the dollar in one year and also weakened against the Thai baht, Bangladeshi taka, and Pakistani rupee.
• Kaushik Basu stated total FDI over 22 months was near zero; crude above $100/barrel could push rupee to 102 per dollar.
• 1.8 million Indians renounced citizenship up to 2024.
• Only 4% of BA graduates secure corporate jobs (Azim Premji University).
• 80 crore citizens have been dependent on free government rations since 2020.
• India’s market cap contracted 8.5% in a year while Taiwan and South Korea posted double-digit gains.
• Adani Group reportedly moving 96,000 crore rupees overseas; plans $10 billion US investment to settle legal cases.
• India’s sovereign bond market has a minuscule 3% foreign investor share due to high taxation.

Criticisms

• The Modi government deliberately suppressed data on peak unemployment in 2019 to protect its narrative of a booming economy.
• Ten years of claims about ‘fastest-growing economy’ have collapsed under the weight of stagnant incomes, mass emigration of capital, and a jobless workforce.
• While preaching austerity to ordinary citizens, the government facilitates crony capitalists like Adani to export billions of dollars for personal legal bailouts.
• Corporate tax cuts in 2018 failed to stimulate investment or job creation; instead, Indian companies accelerated overseas investments.
• The administration has created a business environment riddled with extortion, political donations as licence to operate, and arbitrary use of bulldozers without due process.
• Institutions from municipal bodies to the judiciary have been systematically weakened, leaving citizens without recourse—as witnessed in the Twisha Sharma case where judicial and medical networks obstructed justice.
• The Prime Minister’s speeches, once marketed to global investors, are now openly understood as election rhetoric for the Hindi belt, not blueprints for economic reform.
• Media houses that function as government mouthpieces have normalised economic distress, turning a blind eye to cyber slavery, falling savings, and the precarity of 80 crore ration-dependent Indians.
• Climate policy is a charade: record-breaking heat and deforestation are met with photo-ops, while dissenters are brutalised by police.
• The middle class has traded its material interests for communal polarisation, cheering the demolition of Muslim homes as ‘Hindu happiness’ while its own economic foundations crumble.
• YouTubers and independent voices live under constant threat of having their channels terminated by government diktat, revealing a regime allergic to scrutiny.
• The coming decade may well be disastrous for the world, but the past decade of disaster was homegrown and entirely of this government’s making.

Disclaimer: This article was produced with assistance from artificial intelligence (DeepSeek) to help draft and edit content. While efforts were made to ensure accuracy, the AI may introduce errors or omissions. Readers should verify facts and exercise their own judgment.

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