Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Yevgeny Prigozhin rebelled against Putin in June this year and he died in a plane crash in August. Under normal circumstances, his death wouldn’t have taken two months after his rebellion. Putin’s Russia is not going through normal circumstances, you know. Putin is a Communist. But his hero is Peter the Great, Russia’s first Emperor. Peter’s statuette adorns Putin’s private spaces. What Peter did to his own son is quite like what Putin did to his closest friend Prigozhin. Peter’s son rebelled against him and then defected and escaped to Vienna. That was in 1716, just to remind you. Peter lured him back to Russia promising security. When the young man reached the ‘security’ promised by his father, he was tortured to death. Putin had given all assurance to Prigozhin that his rebellion would be forgiven. Call it political strategy or diplomacy or sheer trickery, whatever you like. Karma too, if you prefer. Putin is the ultimate product of Communism. Dictatorship is the natural out...

“The poor are poor not because the rich are rich,” says Robert J. Samuelson in his Washington Post column reproduced in The Hindu .  In 1968, the sociologist Robert K. Merton coined the phrase ‘the Mathew Effect’ for the phenomenon of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.  The name Mathew came from the Bible.  Jesus said, according to Mathew’s gospel, “For to him who has more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away” [Mathew 13:12].  Jesus did not live in a time which promoted capitalism and its wealth-creating ideology.  Jesus was far, far from being a capitalist.  In fact, he would have been the ideal communist, had he been allowed to have his way by the various leaders of his time (political as well as religious).  What he meant was that those who have the spirit of life in them will be given more of that, and those who are just bullshit will get lost. ...

Manik Sarkar The poorest chief minister in India is Manik Sarkar of Tripura.  His total assets amount to a meagre Rs250,000, according to the accounts submitted by him to the election commission.  He has been the chief minister of Tripura 3 times.   When he filed his papers to the election commission in 2008, his total assets amounted to Rs13,920.  The amount rose to lakhs (!) this year not because he fished in the troubled waters of politics but because he inherited his mother’s house whose value is placed at Rs220,000.   It is a tin-roofed house, the usual ones you’ll find anywhere in the state. Mr Sarkar does not own a car.  His bank balance is Rs9720.  He had Rs1080 in his pocket when he was filing the papers to the election commission.  Mr Sarkar’s monthly salary as chief minister is Rs9200.  He donates the whole amount to the party since he is a genuine communist.  The party gives him a monthly allowance of...