STAND on the edge of every decade and go berserk. Make the wildest predictions you can imagine, and check them out with facts as they unfold through the years. How many of us, of those who claim to be sane, would have predicted on the last day of 1989 that within two years the Soviet Union would be heaving mass of rubble, surviving as the original Mother Russia but deprived now of the many sons she had forced into her nest by war and chicanery over the previous two hundred years. Who could have foreseen the international retreat and economic collapse of the United States in the Seventies, the birth of Bangladesh, the rise of oil power, or the collapse of the Shah of Iran? In India, who could have predicted the assault on the Golden Temple and the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi in the Eighties and indeed the eventual collapse of the Congress as a national political force? The Nineties were as dramatic, starting with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the conversion of Kashmir into a deathly cauldron, and ending with the war over Kargil and the decimation of the Congress.

Do you still want to predict what India and the world will look like in 2010?

For that matter who would have had the gall to suggest, this time last year, a Narendra Modi sweep in Gujarat? But a hinge event occurs, and events twist like a tornado; in the subsequent havoc the world is so rearranged that Prime Ministers in waiting are wondering how to fend off exile. Who said the future was easy...

I am sure you see the point of this preamble. I am merely protectingmyself in case I get all my predictions wrong, as I am of course I predict I will do.

Assembly elections: The Congress will win in Himachal Pradesh, for the usual reason: because it does not expect to. It does not have to do anything to win this state, apart from hang around. Anti-incumbency is so strong in these hills that the voter will replace the BJP with the nearest alternative. The BJP's attempts to create a pseudo-Gujarat will fail in Himachal, and all talk of "Himachali pride" raise little more

than a snigger. This will not be a vote for Sonia Gandhi, although her closed-circuit intelligentsia will try to present it as the "answer" to the drubbing in Gujarat. This will be a vote for a new chief minister who comes from Himachal rather than italy. Proof that Sonia Gandhi cannot change the prevailing mood, either way, will come from Rajasthan, where the BJP will win easily and Vasundhara Scindia take over as chief minister. And despite his charms, Digvijay Singh could find it difficult to win a third term in Madhya Pradesh, completing the Congress retreat from the Hindi heartland.

Maharashtra: More dismal news for the Congress. Since there is no Assembly election scheduled in this state, the Congress can't lose one. But it could lose the government, because of the increasing disenchantment of Sharad Pawar with the Congress. Sonia Gandhi will not bend from the arrogant stance she has taken towards Congressmen who are seen to be wary of permanent family rule, because her personal future means more to her than the future of the party. Those who could have been allies of the Con- gress will find this one attitude unacceptable, just as Sonia Gandhi will find anything other than this unacceptable. Growing distance will lead to drift, which will become a rift. Government will crumble under the weight of contradictions, particularly as Sharad Pawar begins to chart an independent route to the 2004 general elections.

Gujarat: Narendra Modi is likely to get so much stability he won't know what to do with it. He is a political player, not an administrator. Running a government will bore

him. Fresh pastures will drum up his adrenalin. Sonia Gandhi, by making him a superhero, has also put him onto a different trajectory. He will not waste his year by worrying over a mere Gujarat. He will make a bid to become president of the BJP after Venkaiah Naidu, and lead his party into the general elections of 2004. The major resistance to him will come not from the elderly triumvirate of Vajpayee, Advani and Joshi but the younger crowd: Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj and company, who, naturally, will be the first victims of Modi's ambitions.

Atal Behari Vajpayee: There will be no challenge to the benign supremacy of Atal Behari Vajpayee, the fluctuating authority of Lal Krishna Advani or the status of all the status-quoists who constitute the Cabinet. Token changes will be recorded on page one of newspapers: as for instance the induction of Farooq Abdullah into the Cabinet, possibly as minister without portfolio so that he can get his perks without actually having to do a job. The politics of sludge, fudge and drudge will continue, as the tried and tested formula for survival in a coalition. Periodically the Prime Minister attempts to use his moral authority to stress government energies in the direction of a vision (infrastructure, peace in South Asia or disinvestments) but since no one will entertain any idea that entails electoral risk, nothing much will happen. Politically, the PM will give his personal attention to Jammu and Kashmir, attempting to find solutions through the elected state government. Pakistan will respond by intensifying its sporadic jihad. Expect a crisis in summer that will once again be neutralised, not by

the armed forces, but by telephone calls. (Thank God for instant international dialling.) The Prime Minister will have a perfectly contented 2003 and holiday in Andamans in the last week of December 2003.

Sonia Gandhi: What happens when an irresistible demand for common sense encounters an immovable object at the head of the Congress? The immovable object wins. Sonia Gandhi will remain the president of the Congress and claimant to the prime ministership. Not even a miserable performance in the Assembly elections will persuade her to see where the good of her party lies. She will lead the Congress to its worst ever performance in the general elections of 2004 (probably in the spring), after which she will tearfully admit that she has to take responsibility and then suggest that the party makes her daughter its president.

Congress Leadership: What's that?

Left: Will preserve what's left.

Arun Shourie: With any serious policy initiative placed on hold as the last phase of this government's term begins, he will increasingly turn to his first love, and spend even more time as surrogate editor of a friendly newspaper.

George Bush: Will match his father in the speed of decline just as he emulated his dad in his crisis-driven rise in popularity. Has told everyone that he will go to war against Saddam Hussein in February, and is now contemplating whether Saddam will be killed within two days of this war by advancing American troops or missiles, or whether it will take longer. Will have no idea what to do in victory; and even less about what to do in a

stalemate. Under pressure will manufacture Bushisms at preelection rate. Democrats will quietly turn to the Clintons to give them a candidate for 2004. The Clintons might make an unsurprising offer for the Democratic nomination.

Saddam Hussein: This time he will not make a speech promising the mother of all battles. This time, while there will be sympathy for his plight in the Muslim world, the Muslim street will not erupt in his favour. Just before the promised American invasion of iraq, a group of Saddam sympathisers (probably led by Russia) will persuade him to leave Baghdad and go into exile where his life will be protected. He may be tempted, although he will be reluctant to accept the validity of any such guarantee. After all, which country is safe from the long reach of an American-backed war crimes tribunal?

World Cup: This will essentially be a bilateral between Australia and South Africa, the latter making up for deficiencies in batting with home support and knowledge of local conditions. The other alleged claimants are single-word dismissals. West indies: non-starter. Sri Lanka: non-sequitur. New Zealand: just non. Pakistan: brittle. England requires two words, though: utterly hopeless.

india joins Canada, Kenya, Zimbabwe etc as one of the countries who can no longer be considered among the serious claimants for next year's World Cup. The team has now been reduced to three fully functioning players (Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Zahir Khan), and another couple who look good in comparison to the rest. The others are injured. Most of the injuries are to the head, so recovery is unlikely. The captain, Saurav Ganguly, for instance, is suffering from a bloated head, and there is no medical assistance that can remedy that. He also has a severe case of immaturity and mental cramps, both inflamed by large amounts of advertising cash. if indian players took their cricket as seriously as they take their advertising plugs, we would be better placed than Australia. Our national eleven destroyed indian cricket in stages. it first converted Test match innings into one-dayers, barely surviving fifty overs in an innings. Now it has turned one-dayers into half-dayers, barely getting through 25 overs before being bowled out by New Zealand. Australia's main enemy will be complacence, or a maverick performance by another team in an elimination round. in regular sustained play, there is no team that comes close to Australia. There is the faint chance that the Australians may have peaked too early, but that is really hoping against hope. So my prediction for the World Cup final (unless they are on the same side of the rounds and therefore meet in the semis; i have not checked) is Australia versus South Africa with the final decision in the hands of the third umpire, who of course is God. irrespective of the outcome, my man of this match is Ntini. No bowler in world cricket has improved as much as him and he will have a few personal things to prove if he plays on that dream occasion before a home crowd.

MJ Akbar is Chief Editor of the Asian Age.