First Bank of India

In India, state and local governments enjoy a time-honored system of balancing their financial books with easily available no-interest loans. Among the other favorable terms are indefinite payback periods, unlimited credit lines, and year-round availability. As you might expect, such easy credit is a godsend to financially strapped governments; and those which favor this bailout vehicle use it with annual regularity.

This arrangement is not, of course, particularly remunerative for the lender, First Bank of India. But then, First Bank of India doesn’t have the same political clout that most other financial institutions enjoy.

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The People Fight Back

Yesterday was a good day for democracy in Pondicherry. The people took to the streets to protest a government which, time-and-again, deftly protects the private interests of its corrupt officials, disregards the public good, and holds itself to be above the law.

The issue concerns the ongoing battle over the illegal concession given to a private developer by former Chief Secretary Khairwal and Minister Valsaraj to build a huge port complex in the heart of this tiny heritage town, and the vast environmental, economic, and social devastation this development will cause.

Penguins in Pondicherry

When I left Pondicherry a few days ago, it was 31 degrees Celcius and humid. I now stand on the snowy slopes of Brighton Mountain, in the upper reaches of Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, where the temperature hovers around minus 12 degrees and the air is desert-dry.

And you thought the reason there was no snowboarding in Pondicherry was the shortage of mountains.