India is a land of ironies. Even so, the prospect of the Left shedding crocodile tears for the petty trader is truly bizarre. For sixty years the Left bashed the bania--every time food was short, it wanted to nationalize the grain trade and send the 'profiteer' to jail. In the early 1970's it almost succeeded. Now, when the nation has begun a historic transition from small, unorganized retailing to supermarkets, the Left wants to stop it in the name of the bania

Not long ago we thought of Gujarat as the land of non-violent Mahatma Gandhi and hard working merchants. That picture has grown more complicated. Gujarat has emerged as an Asian tiger—the fastest growing Indian state with the lowest levels of unemployment, the most investor friendly, with the shortest red tape and least petty corruption. It is hailed by migrants from Bihar and MP as a land of opportunity.

Let's begin this Sunday morning with a statement of unimpeachable reliability: India has doubled its production of cotton in the past five years. It crossed the United States last year to become the world's second largest producer and is expected to overtake China in 2009 to become world's number one. India's cotton revolution is the subject of constant discussion at global agricultural forums, but in India almost no one has heard of it. Our media talks only about the suicides of cotton farmers. This is because environmental activists have been spreading disinformation and misleading the public.

 When Robert Fullenwider compared politicians to garbage collectors, he did not have the former prime minister of India, Deve Gowda, and his 'kumara' in mind. He only meant that we should expect both vocations to stink. But on October 3, 2007 the smell of Karnataka politics left its competitor far behind. On that day Deve Gowda's son refused to vacate the chief minister's seat after enjoying power for 20 months and reneged on the commitment to transfer power to its BJP ally. Newspaper headlines screamed 'betrayal' and then forgot about it.

To get to the playing field where children play in our neighborhood, you must turn right at the market and then take a sharp left. A bhuttawali sits at the corner. Go past her another fifty metres and you can't miss it, especially in the evening when the occasional roar of 'Chak De' will announce that someone has just scored a boundary. The Hindi film, 'Chak De India' with Shah Rukh Khan, has given us a new slogan that at once unites us and captures the exuberant mood of a confident, young India.

One night in 1987 a biochemist from New Zealand, Allan Wilson, and his American colleague Rebecca Cann were examining a so-far ignored part of human DNA at the University of California, Berkeley, and they made the astonishing discovery that all human beings have the same parents. This DNA in our bodies remains intact through the generations and is passed on from mother to daughter, but also leaves behind traces of the changes or mutations. When these scientists examined this DNA component in the family tree of each of the continents of the earth, they could trace it back to one woman who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago.

A friend of mine, who hikes frequently in the Himalayas, showed me a solar torch the other day which gives light for seven hours before you need to recharge it in the sun. It has a hook for hanging and can light up a small room. My friend uses it for camping. But what a boon, I thought, for our 250,000 villages without electricity and the millions of school children who can't do homework at night and village women who fear walking after dark. I googled the maker of the torch and discovered an inspiring story about how to be both a good and an effective human being.

Not unlike other unrepentant fans of Indian cricket, I have been feeling pretty low ever since our ignominious exit from the World Cup. Although we managed to defeat England recently, there is something rotten with our cricket and it lies in the monopoly of our cricket board (BCCI).   I am no cricket expert but I do know something about how organizations work and the damage that monopolies can cause.

A dear friend of mine has grown weary. He runs five schools in the slums of Delhi which provide a fine education to 13,500 poor children with 250 motivated teachers. But his idealism is frayed from fighting the 'license raj' for 20 years. He has been unable to gain accreditation for his schools because he is unwilling to bribe. Instead he is humiliated daily as he runs from one official to another. Ironically, 'license raj' went away in industry in 1991 but it still thrives in education. You need 11 licenses to run a school and each comes with a bribe.

The police investigation into the botched terrorist attacks in Glasgow and London reminded me of the classic Prisoner's Dilemma. In this famous game, police don't have enough evidence and are trying to get two prisoners, say Bilal and Sabeel, to confess. If one of them confesses he will be let off but the other will spend his life in jail. If neither confesses, both will go free. If both confess, then both will have to spend seven years in jail. The logical selfish strategy is to confess, betray your partner, and hope that he won't. The altruistic path is not to confess.