Preet Bharara Pours Gasoline on the Fire

Protests continue in India over diplomat's arrest. Thank you, Preet Bharara!

The raging diplomatic incident that has breached relations between the U.S. and India--the arrest of a deputy counsel general on visa charges--continued to simmer on Wednesday. TV reports showed images straight out of the sixties, with protesters burning American flags and an effigy (above). Secretary of State John Kerry issued a statement of regret, and the furor lead off  Erin Burnett's CNN broadcast (hosted by Chris Cuomo) at 7 p.m.

It seemed that cooler heads were prevailing--for a few minutes. Then a not-so-cool head, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, stepped in, and proceeded to pour a gallon of Exxon Unleaded on the raging fire.

Bharara, whose ham-handed prosecution of the diplomat--charges carrying a fifteen-year prison term--touched off this entirely unnecessary diplomatic rupture with a key U.S. ally, was apparently feeling the heat. Or, perhaps, he didn't think that soothing U.S.-India ties were a good idea. Or something.

In a gratuitously nasty statement emailed to reporters at 7:25 p.m., Bharara defended not just his prosecution of the Indian counsel, Devyani Khobragade, but also the body-cavity search which so enraged Indians. It was not carried out by his office, but not to worry, Bharara was mad as hell and not going to take all the "inaccuracies" in the media anymore.

The New York Times called it "an unusual and robust public defense," and reported that "the tone of Mr. Bharara’s statement, issued in the evening in New York, seemed in marked contrast to an expression of  'regret' made earlier in the day by Secretary of State John Kerry." That's putting it mildly.

In a way, you have to admire Bharara for stepping up to the plate and slamming one into the stands (albeit, the ones behind him) with quite so much vigor.  A more astute prosecutor, or one desiring to  repair this international incident, would have either kept silent or leaked to the media about how Khobragade was allowed to keep her cell phone and was given a cup of coffee by the arresting officers, etc.

Bharara ended his statement by saying that "this Office's sole motivation in this case, as in all cases, is to uphold the rule of law, protect victims, and hold accountable anyone who breaks the law - no matter what their societal status and no matter how powerful, rich or connected they are."

He might have added: "... unless they are major bankers who precipitated the financial crisis of 2008. In that case, I'll find an excuse not to prosecute them."

Predictably, India did not react favorably to Bharara's statement. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs issued a response. CNN-IBN reported: "Taking a dig at the US Attorney prosecuting the case, MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said, 'The statement issued by Preet Bharara that the procedure followed in the Indian diplomat case is a standard practice for every defendant, rich or poor is a rhetorical remark and that is not conducisve in resolving inaccuracies.' " The Times of India reported further on the antagonism that Bharara generated  by his statement.

There's no question that India has overreacted, and also that there is another side to this story--the domestic worker whose complaint of underpayment resulted in this whole crisis. But there's a deeper issue here, one of judgment and prosecutorial priorities. It's been my belief for quite some time that Preet Bharara's are way out of whack. This whole episode not only confirms that, but shows that there is something seriously wrong with his judgment and temperament.

© 2013 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
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My latest book is AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, published by St. Martin's Press. Click here to order the book from Amazon.com, and here to order it from Barnes & Noble. Follow me on Twitter: @gary_weiss

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Could Arrest of Indian Diplomat Sink Preet Bharara?

Won't prosecute "untouchables," but fierce against errant diplomats

For years, complaints have swirled around the most visible--and inexplicable--outcome of the 2008 financial crisis: Not a single financial executive has been prosecuted for doing engaging in any criminal activity. And no, I don't mean insider trading, a favorite of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. I mean the kind of stuff that almost sank the banking system.

PBS's Frontline, in a memorable special report, called them "The Untouchables."

Five years after the crisis, prosecutors here are supposedly "exploring new strategies for criminally charging Wall Street bankers who packaged and sold the bad mortgage loans behind the financial crisis," according to Reuters, but time is not on their side. The trail is going cold, and statute of limitation issues are going to start kicking in.

Bharara has famously focused on other kinds of wrongdoing--drug gangs in the Bronx, insider trading rings, and other wrongdoing not involving large, politically connected Wall Street banks. Most recently, his office arrested Devyani Khobragade, deputy consul general for India based in New York, for allegedly submitting false documents to obtain a work visa for her housekeeper and paying the woman less than the minimum legal wage. She faces ten years in prison on one charge and five on another.

It seemed at first as yet another day at the office for Bharara, who I profiled for the Daily Beast in 2011. Another heavy-handed prosecution of a fairly routine immigration-law violation, aimed at deterring other transgressors, and also showing the public that the man is not entirely an empty suit. I mean, he is actually doing something. He may not be prosecuting people involved in the financial crisis, but at least he can nab people for visa transgressions.

I wonder if Bharara knew that he'd be touching off the worst diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and India--a crucial U.S. ally, for heaven's sake--in recent memory.

The Indians have gone ballistic. There was outrage that not only was Khobragade arrested, but strip-searched and tossed in the clink with dope addicts before forking over a steep $250,000 bail. The New York Times reported today that the U.S. ambassador was summoned for a strongly worded protest, and people in Delhi were furious. Indian authorities even removed the vehicle barriers that prevent car-bombers from driving into the U.S. Embassy grounds.

The Indian national security adviser, Shivshankar Menon, used words like “despicable” and “barbaric,” and the Indian government retaliated in a way that harkened back to the Cold War, when India and the U.S. were barely on speaking terms:

In addition to removing the maze of concrete security barriers surrounding the American Embassy compound, Indian news reports said, officials demanded that the embassy provide details about all the Indians it employs, as well as the names and salaries of teachers at the American Embassy School; that the embassy commissary stop importing liquor; and that diplomatic identification cards for consular staff members and their families be returned.

Here's a video from NDTV of the barriers being removed outside the U.S. Embassy:

What's striking about this diplomatic crisis is that it was totally unnecessary. Expelling the diplomat, or arresting her while showing more sensitivity to Indian sensibilities (you'd think the Indian-born Bharara would be acquainted with them) would have had the same deterrent effect, without causing a rupture in U.S.-India relations.

And yes, it is a rupture.  Politicians from leading parties refused to meet a visiting U.S. congressional delegation, The Guardian reported. The leader of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party suggested arresting gay U.S. diplomats because homosexuality is illegal in India, the Times reported.

This is not to say that there isn't an element of hypocrisy in the Indian protest. As the Times points out, "It is not unusual in India for domestic staff to be paid poorly and required to work more than 60 hours a week; they are sometimes treated abominably. Reports of maids being imprisoned or abused by their employers are frequent."

But that's beside the point. The handling of Khobragade's case was inept, and  as ham-handed as his approach to Wall Street has been hesitant. Make no mistake: all this happened because of one man, the prosecutor who can't find a single major banker to prosecute, but seems to think that a deputy counsel general of a major U.S. ally should get ten years in prison for visa violations. Right now it is Devyani Khobragade who is in jeopardy, but I have to wonder if Bharara has sealed his own downfall with this prosecutorial overreaching.

© 2013 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
Please note that the comment function does not work, possibly because I've screwed up the settings. No problem. Drop me a line at the email address on the right side of this blog, and I'll include your comments.

My latest book is AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, published by St. Martin's Press. Click here to order the book from Amazon.com, and here to order it from Barnes & Noble. Follow me on Twitter: @gary_weiss

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A Stone Rolls in India

I'm cheered to learn this morning that Rolling Stone is starting an edition in India. The BBC website reports:

The first issue hit the news stands last week with a quirky marketing spin - five different covers featuring Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, Amy Winehouse, Jay-Z and Anoushka Shankar were put out together with a mix of local and original content.

I haven't seen this issue, but I think that the "local and original content" will be the deciding factor in whether this publication is a success.

India has a multitude of English-language newspapers, some published nationally, but a paucity of top-quality magazines serving the growing middle class. A p.r. fellow I know complains that the problem does not end there, and that he has trouble finding competent English-speaking p.r. firms in India.

I'd say that both ends of the equation, journalism and p.r., are ripe areas for growth in the country, for entrepreneurs who can navigate the local bureaucracy. Fortune is commencing an Indian edition, and it will be interesting to see if other publishers follow. There is definitely an unfulfilled need in the market, as a browse through any Indian big city newsstand would show. Two-day-old copies of the International Herald Tribune just don't do the trick for news junkies.

© 2008 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

The Darjeeling Limited

I have no comment on the artistic merits of The Darjeeeling Limited (neither did the New York Times reviewer, I see), but I do think that it absolutely nailed the experience of traveling through India.

One tiny point of annoyance is that the final scenes of the film, set in the Eastern Himalayas, were filmed at a hunting lodge in Rajasthan. That's like filming a New England scene in southern Arizona.

This is a shame, as the film -- which is a travelogue as much as anything -- lost a chance to show the amazing diversity of India. It appears in the film to be one big Rajasthan.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.



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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.

Fortune Moves Into India While BW Moves Into .... Chicago?

I was delighted, and intrigued, to read this morning that Fortune is planning to commence an India edition (hat tip: Talking Biz News). I think this is interesting for two reasons.

First it meets a huge unmet need in India, which desperately needs more intelligent and in-depth coverage of its business scene. It also is a smart move because Indians are fascinated with global business, and the U.S. and European business magazines, while available, are prohibitively expensive and scarce.

Second is the inside-baseball perspective, and how it contrasts dramatically with the retrenchments and deglobalization at my alma mater, Business Week.

Late in 2005, BW announced it would shut down its international editions. (Here's the BW spin on this retrenchment.) In so doing, BW threw out the basic tenet under the former regime of Steve Shepard that it was a "global magazine." It also laid off a bunch of talented people.

I remember well how Shepard used to make "We are a global magazine" the first of the "ten commandments" of BW's operations, which he used to trot out at conferences and such. BW has done some good stories on India, including a 2004 cover story on the country that garnered some of the magazine's last major awards. But it has basically given up on Asia as a market.

In keeping with this U.S.-focused strategy, BW recently announced that it was commencing a Chicago edition. This may be the beginning of still more locally focused editions, BW says.

It's interesting to contrast the two strategies. BW's is vaguely reminiscent of how newspapers moved toward suburban and regional editions in the 1960s and 1970s. But there is a difference. Big-city newspapers had an obligation to follow their subscribers as they moved out to the exurbs. BW's has no such demographic imperative. On the contrary, this strikes me more as an admission of defeat in the battle for ad dollars, a kind of conscious narrowing of its mission.

It also is questionable as a circulation-building strategy. Will this really induce Chicagoans to buy Business Week? The local market already has the Chicago Tribune and Crain's Chicago Business. BW simply doesn't need to cover Chicago in the same way that, for instance, the Hartford Courant needed to cover the town of Vernon when it established a bureau there four decades ago.

People in Chicago read BW because of stuff like this, a nice piece on a ratings downgrade --cutting close to home because of Standard & Poor's -- and not for local biz news.

I'm reminded of what an old colleague, one of the best financial journalists in the business, told me when he left BW, without another job, back in 2004. The financial magazine business is undergoing a secular change, he said, and it is going to get uglier.

His prediction has proven correct. Still, Fortune's move into India shows that some magazines are willing to take risks and still have a global vision.

UPDATE: BW Chicago died after eight issues.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.



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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.

The Nuclear Pact That Got Away

My latest column in Forbes.com deals with the continued fuss over the India-U.S. nuclear deal. You can read it here.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.




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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.

The Indian Mangoes Arrive

Yummy!

The first Indian mangoes of the season -- which also happen to be the first Indian mangoes ever imported, thanks to a new India-U.S. trade pact -- have arrived. And boy, are they yummy.

You can buy them at ..... nah, I think I'll be selfish and not say where you can buy them. You see, they are only available in the New York area at a few stores that specialize in Indian products, and they sell out almost immediately. So sorry, but I don't want to jeopardize my supply.

Oh, and don't try finding 'em on the Internet. None are available on Ebay, and the shippers that you do find will only ship mangoes within India. See, they have to be irradiated to eliminate fruit flies, which is the reason mangoes were previously unavailable in this country.

If you ever try one (and I hope you don't, so there will be more for me), you'll know what I'm talking about. Indian mangoes are simply not comparable to the pulpy, weird-tasting imitations that are imported from Mexico.

Right now, if you can find them (and I hope you don't), they are sold by the case -- $30 bucks for twelve succulent Kesar mangoes. I've heard of prices as high as $4 a mango. Believe me, they're worth it. They're shipped in by air freight, but hopefully in the future they will be coming in by ship.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.

Arrival of the Mango

This blog focuses quite a bit on nuts, so as a change of pace I thought I would focus on fruit -- the king of all fruit, the Indian mango!

The New York Times reported today that the first legal shipment of delectable, succulent, juicy Indian mangoes arrived at Kennedy Airport on Friday.

It has been a tough voyage for the mango:

Since India first applied to ship mangoes to the United States in 1989, the fruit has been barred because it can harbor the mango seed weevil, a pest absent from North America. A solution emerged in January 2006, when the Agriculture Department allowed the importation of produce treated with low doses of irradiation to kill or sterilize insects — a somewhat controversial issue.

On a visit to India five weeks later, President George W. Bush cheered the news as he announced a pact on nuclear energy and trade. “The United States is looking forward to eating Indian mangoes,” he said.

Apparently these Indian mangoes are prohibitively expensive but they are worth it. The tasteless varieties available from Mexico aren't even mangoes, as far as I am concerned.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.

A Hot Topic

Rediff.com, a leading Indian website, reprinted my Forbes.com column on Wal-Mart and India on Wednesday. So far there are 213 comments, some impassioned and most quite thoughtful pro and con.

Here's the Rediff pickup and comments.

I've been getting a lot of emails. which is great, but I would appreciate it if people would post their views here, or in the comments section of this item. That way your views can be heard by everybody.

UPDATE: Oddly, the comments section to the Rediff article was deleted. That seems to be the website's policy. Oh well. A lot of the commentswere pretty good, and I'd have liked to see them retained.

Here is another blog reaction which I though made some good points. Just to address one point that this gent makes: my use of the term "bazaars" was not to imply anything exotic. That just happens to be the Hindi word for markets.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.

Bring Out the Brickbats, Folks

My latest Forbes.com column is on Wal-Mart in India, the one subject that in the past has yielded uniformly negative feedback.

Really. Not one favorable comment.

Go ahead... fire away!

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.

A Wake-Up Call for India

I've long lamented the media's tendency to gloss over India's infrastructure problems, which I touched upon in a Forbes.com column. So I was delighted by the cover story in the current issue of Business Week, "The Trouble With India."

It's a thorough, detailed examination of the problems facing overseas businessmen in India. The article concludes, "Unless the nation shakes off its legacy of bureaucracy, politics, and corruption, its ability to build adequate infrastructure will remain in doubt. So will its economic destiny."

This article is going to be unpopular among some India boosters, but I'm sure most informed observers of this country will be nodding in agreement.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site.

India's Fight Against Wal-Mart Begins

As is hardly surprising, protests have commenced over Wal-Mart's move into India -- and what you see on the left is just a sample of things to come.

See this article in The Hindu. “We believe Wal-Mart is going to ruin this country and millions of people will lose their jobs,” one protest organizer told the New York Times.

He's right. Don't be gulled by the Times's description of the protest coalition as a "coalition of trade unions, traders, students and communist parties." In the U.S., such demonstrations could be easily dismissed. In India, those are mainstream forces, and are taken very seriously by the Congress-led government.

Here is the website of the FDI-Watch anti-Wal-Mart coalition. The website makes some very good points about the impact of foreign direct investment on the Indian retail sector, and on Indian society as a whole.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site.

More Big Boxes for India

There's an old saying about India, one that Indians sometimes recite in talking with furungis: "Big country, big problems." True enough. But I've never understood is why India sometimes compounds its own problems, such as by, for example, allowing Wal-Mart of all things into the country.

Today the Wall Street Journal reports that Wal-Mart's plans to blitz India are moving ahead, despite its potentially devastating impact on the millions of small, mostly poor shopkeepers in that country. I explained in a previous item what a really dreadful idea this is. In a country with no social safety net, big-box retailers could mean starvation for small store owners driven out of business.

Wal-Mart's Indian partner addresses this obvious concern as follows, according to the Journal:

Rajan Bharti Mittal, joint managing director of Bharti Enterprises, which owns Bharti Retail, emphasized at a news conference that the Indian company would own the new stores and would seek to help small farmers link into its new supply chain.

Isn't that just ducky? Indian farmers, who are driven to suicide by economic pressures, would now enjoy the fruits of Wal-Mart's notoriously cut-throat buying practices!

In the U.S., Wal-Mart pays lip service to lessening its devastating impact on local economies, such as by engaging in PR initiatives. With the exception of nonsense like Bharti's "farmers will love this" statement above, the Indian enterprise makes no effort to mask the havoc it will wreak.

It will be interesting to see if the Indian people are able to stop the Wal-Mart steamroller.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site.

Fly in the Indian Ointment

The India-America nuclear deal was signed by President Bush yesterday, but there's a fly in the ointment -- a Congressional provision requiring the president to make annual reports to Congress on India’s ties with Iran’s nuclear program.

Not surprisingly, that has royally annoyed India, and Manmohan Singh has put his foot down on the whole thing. Note the headline in the Financial Express: "We will not give up our nuclear swaraj, says Manmohan." Roughly translated from the Hindi, "swaraj" means "self-rule."

I really wonder whether Singh believes that. The congressional concern is totally reasonable. Posturing like that helps no one, except maybe Iran, and hurts U.S.-India relations.

© 2006 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site.

Wal-Mart's De-Employment Program For India

Word is spreading through the galaxy today about what must surely be one of the most awful ideas of recent history -- a plan to set up Wal-Mart superstores in India, of all places. Here's a Reuters story on the subject.

As anyone who has been there for more than thirty minutes can attest, if there is one thing that India doesn't need it is more stores. Since its many thousands of shops are a path to upward mobility for even the poorest Indians, Wal-Mart's arrival would be devastating. It would be nothing less than a massive de-employment program.

As I pointed out in my column a couple of weeks ago, when Indians are pushed up against the wall, violence can erupt. Delhi merchants have taken to the streets because of a plan to shutter many of their shops, and civil disobedience (or worse) is more likely than not if Wal-Mart arrives.

One report today says that the deal has been sucked into a "political whirlpool." Left-wing parties, "which provide crucial support to the Congress-led UPA government, asked trade unions to launch a nationwide action against the entry of Wal-Mart and other multinational retailers into the domestic market."

Hopefully this terrible idea will be protested peacefully, then consumed by India's legendary red tape, and then die a quiet death.


© 2006 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site.

Another Perspective on India

I received a thoughtful email from a gentleman in India on my Forbes.com column on India and its problems/opportunities. I thought he made some good points, so I'm taking the liberty of excerpting it below:

"I wish your criticism was aimed at some of the Multinationals (particularly the American ones) in India instead, who produce lousy cars (which make your/your wife's lungs go bad); these same smoking (industrial) companies don't even bother to develop the infrastructure around their own workplaces, let alone making it a better society to live in, so why would you not find the infrastructure choking?

"Have you ever questioned the fact that for cheap English speaking and technologically educated labor, every damn organization on planet earth is rushing to India in the interest of your Wall Street? Yet in your own country, there is a hue and cry about the b****y Indians. It just follows the old law of Economics - every country will create / produce what it is best at doing.

"Unfortunately, for your own country, all you do is consume gas and pollute the rest of the world and live on the cheap wares from China. I think \n you should know where to draw the line to this hypocrisy."

He's right. The multinationals that come to India certainly deserve a large measure of the blame, to the extent that they contribute to the worsening environment of India.

True, the godawful conditions in India are largely a result of home-grown development, and the Indian government has a responsibility to protect itsr people from rampaging industry, be it foreign or domestic.

But when a government is too indifferent or corrupt to do anything about a smoke-belching factory or a environmentally atrocious land development, what is the moral responsibility of the developer?

The answer in India is "none," and it is not the right answer.

© 2006 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site.

More 'Muckraker' on India

My latest Forbes.com column is a "reporter's notebook"-style reflection on India.

Meanwhile I see that the Senate must have read my last column, as it overwhelmingly approved the U.S.-India nuclear deal yesterday.

The Senate correctly rejected an amendment that would have required India to cut its military ties to Iran. My feeling is that India needs to take such steps, but should be persuaded to do so voluntarily -- not bludgeoned or bullied. The lathi doesn't get results in India, not during the Raj and not today.

© 2006 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site.

Some Thoughts on India

I've been in India for the past few weeks, hence my absence from this blog. However, while there I wrote a column for Forbes.com on the India-U.S. nuclear deal. This is the beginning of what I expect will be a fruitful relationship with Forbes.com, which regularly kicks butt on all manner of subjects.

* * *

A friend sent me this excellent article by John Judis on my alma mater Business Week. which appeared in the New Republic's website. Judis describes how BW recently laid off its excellent labor reporter, Aaron Bernstein. Aaron was let go in the second full-scale layoff to hit the magazine since its new editor, Steve Adler, took charge in mid-2005. While shedding staff, Adler has added columns and generally, in my view, fluffed up the magazine.

I don't agree with all of Judis's conclusions, but I do think that his general assessment of the magazine is correct. BW may not aspire to be the "People of the business world," as Judis suggests, but it certainly seems to be moving in that direction.

I think Judis's conclusion is right on the mark:

Perhaps this new BusinessWeek will make more money than the old. Then [BW editor Steve] Adler will be vindicated in the new cutthroat world of magazine publishing, which sees magazines as simply another commodity to sell. But I somehow doubt that a magazine named BusinessWeek can attract the narcissistic readers that advertisers love. My guess is that, under Adler, BusinessWeek will become a magazine that is neither particularly profitable nor socially useful. In any case, it has already lost at least one reader.

UPDATE: I later learned that this post was linked from a cyberstalking website "antisocialmedia.net," which has been identified by the New York Post as a dirty tricks operation by Judd Bagley, director of social media for a company called Overstock.com. (Its CEO Patrick Byrne is famous for blaming his company's woes on a "Sith Lord.") Here's a later post on the stalker site's malicious lies. More posts on Bagley's paranoid dirty tricks campaign, which includes extortionate threats and stalking of other critics of Byrne, can be found by reading posts tagged "cyberstalking."

© 2006 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site.

Learning to Recognize Your Friends

This is a bit off-topic for me -- assuming anything in a blog can be off-topic -- but I was distressed to a learn of an embarrassing bit of bureaucratic stupidity by U.S. officials in India recently. (Hat tip: Ram Narayanan, U.S.-India Friendshp.net). I'm surprised this story hasn't gotten even a little attention in this country.

Seems that our counselor officials in India need to brush up on their high school chemistry. And maybe also their common sense.

Just a few weeks ago, one of India's leading scientists, Goverdhan Mehta, was invited to this country to speak at the University of Florida at Gainesville and the American Chemical Society. So he applied for a visa in Chennai, and the nightmare began.

I should point out that Mehta is one of the top scientists in India, and has been in this country many times. He is former director of the Indian Institute of Science, and is one of the world's leading organic chemists. According to the Indian Express, he is "a member of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Scientific Advisory Committee, has been to the US 20 times, the most recent being May 2005 when he delivered a lecture at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC."

So you'd think a routine request for an entry visa would fly right through. But it didn't. The Express story goes on:

On February 9, Mehta appeared for the visa interview. He said he was "repeatedly humiliated" by the consular officer who accused him of "hiding things," suggesting that Mehta's work related to chemical warfare and bioterrorism. . . Mehta said he told US officials that all his academic research was in the public domain and related to "new molecular entities" and "by no stretch of imagination (could be) related to hemical cwarfare."

No visa.

Well, there was immediately a big media furor in India. Newspapers that are usually have only nice things to say about this country were slamming American "arrogance." Consular officials in India promptly backtracked, saying Mehta was welcome to re-apply, which unsurprisingly he is not going to do. I don't blame him.

A spokesman for the US Embassy in New Delhi said it was a "pretty standard affair to ask for more information." Yeah, that's what worries me.

Hey, I'm all in favor of strict border security. I'm a hard-line guy on that kind of thing. If Mehta really is involved in "chemical warfare" or whatever, I don't him in this country. But please. Don't say an eminent Indian scientist got a humiliating interrogation from a junior factotum because it is S.O.P. -- a "pretty standard affair."

It seems to me our consular officials in India should be able to tell the difference between an leading Indian research chemist and an AQ Khan. If they can't, they should be stamping passports in Swaziland.

Ram Narayanan, who alerted me to this nonsense, entitled his email, "Do US bureaucrats specialize in making enemies out of friends?" He's not just referring to the scientific community. According to the Pew Global Attitudes Survey last year, 71% of Indians -- more than any other country surveyed, including Canada, for Pete's sake -- held a favorable view of the United States.

President Bush is visiting India next month to cement that relationship. Seems that some of our consular officials need to get with the program.