The public assertion of BJPs prime ministerial candidate L K Advani to bring Indian money stashed in secret bank accounts abroad back into India has unsettled the Congress leadership in no small measure. Interestingly, the Left as well as some regional parties have included this idea in their poll manifesto for the forthcoming elections. Strangely, the Congress manifesto is silent on this issue.

That explains the consternation in the Congress camp. Writing a detailed letter on the subject to L K Advani, Jairam Ramesh, the man in charge of Congress campaign for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, has cautioned the former against using obscure and un-authenticated Internet sources and questioned his claim of several crores of Indian money having been stashed abroad in secret accounts. Normally a suave person and not known to use harsh words, Jairam Ramesh having been caught on the wrong foot on this issue, even went to the extent of calling Advani a liar.

Puritans in the accounting profession are aghast. Old-timers are flabbergasted. Youngsters are dismayed. In what must rank as the height of indiscretion, the President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has, according to press reports, “attempted to meet” the auditors of Satyam inside the Hyderabad prison.

One may recall that in the aftermath of the confessions of Ramalinga Raju, the Andhra Pradesh police detained two partners of Price Waterhouse; the auditors of Satyam for their alleged role in the scam. The president of the ICAI has sought to meet these very auditors inside the Hyderabad prison where they are currently detained.

Pink, suddenly has become the colour of the season. First, it was the pink panther show. Then came pink slips. Now is the turn of pink chaddies.

Ever since some politically incorrect, ideologically debased and self-appointed cultural police attacked women in a Mangalore pub, the debate between individual rights versus collective responsibility in a society has assumed centre stage in India. And in this debate most people have substituted shrillness for their lack of substance. In the process most of them have been caught with their pink chaddies down.

In a remarkable string of coincidences over the past fortnight or so, the United Progressive Alliance government has successfully and repeatedly denigrated our democratic institutions. Naturally, if the silence of our intellectuals on this issue has left me intrigued, the response by the opposition parties to the same has left me completely flummoxed.

Denigration of democratic institutions has virtually become a way of life in the country ever since the sixties when the then prime minister Indira Gandhi went on to subvert every single institution for her narrow political gains. Over a period of time, this became the norm for all political parties, whenever they occupied power.