Alternative ways to fight against corruption?

With the recent movement in India led by Anna Hazare and others against corruption, there have been mixed reactions from the people of India. Although I have seen very few who are doubting Anna Hazare and his crusade against corruption calling them unconstitutional and all, it is worth looking into any alternative way(if any) in the minds of these people to bring the corruption down in India. Anna team are putting pressure on the government to implement the Jan Lokpal bill which will bring an autonomous body called Lokpal into existence. This will handle everything like speedy probe, trials and awarding punishments to the culprits without asking the government. I don't know why people are opposing this move? I have not seen any strong reason from anyone why Lokpal is not going to work. Most of the people who are complaining it seems, are not a fan of the way Anna is pressurizing the government. I would request them to suggest an alternative way. And even if there is an alternative, let Anna and his team fight in the way they prefer. After all they learned it from Gandhi, the father of the nation. Before independence also, people did not agree with each other in their ways to fight against the British. And they indeed fought in different ways, although the whole credit went to Gandhi and his followers only. So this time also, it's perfectly alright if someone think he or she does not believe in Anna's way. May he(she) fight in his(her) preferred way. As long as people support the cause (which is fight against corruption now) and choose their own way to fight for it, the solution will come in one way or the other. But just criticizing the Anna and his team (which now the Congress led government is doing to save their own political leaders who will be nowhere is Lokpal come to existence) is not enough, people should come up with proper logic why they think Anna's crusade is wrong and also suggest alternative ways to fight against corruption if they at all think corruption is a big problem India is facing nowadays.

Where is this country heading for?

The kind of things happening in this country (India of course) in past few months are really shameful. With the multi-billion dollar scams coming into light and sending the culprits like Raja, Kanimozhi, Kalmadi etc to jail, the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare and later by Ramdev and all have gained a new momentum recently. The way the government has used brutal police force against the peaceful protesters in Ramlila maidan, New Delhi has in fact increased the momentum of the anti-corruption movement with every possible party, organization (except Congress) condemning it. The Congress led government seem to be playing a dual role: they accept the Jan lokpal bill demand of Anna Hazare team on one hand and on the other hand they order heavy crackdown on Ramdev led peaceful protesters. Their recent action has forced all of us to doubt whether the govt is serious at all about the Jan Lokpal Bill which if come into play will leave no room for the corrupted leaders and bureaucrats. Congress seem to be afraid of this bill a lot as many big leaders of the ruling government have been sent to jail already and if this bill becomes operational, may be all of the Congress leaders will be sent to jail. Unable to fight against the mass supporters of anti corruption movement, they government is now taking this issue personally against the leaders like Ramdev by putting income-tax, CBI behind him to probe some issues claimed by the government. The government is even claiming the aide of Ramdev to be a Nepalese criminal and trying to probe how he managed to get an Indian passport. The same Congress government however issue Indian voter ID's to millions of Bangladeshi immigrants who illegally infiltrate into Indian territory. It's unfortunate to see that the opposition parties like BJP are not taking full advantage of such a situation to fight against the Congress led government and their atrocities on innocent people. Even self-acclaimed common men's friend Rahul Gandhi seems to have disappeared instead of raising his Italian origin voice against the inhuman crackdown on the innocent people. He was shouting a lot recently for the Uttar Pradesh farmers against the land acquisition by the Mayawati led government in Uttar Pradesh. But now, when the same kind of situation has arisen sponsored by Congress although, he is silent. This clearly shows how fake Rahul Gandhi and his activities are. Hope the youth of this nation will stop calling him an idol of this country or future Prime Minister of this country or similar bullshits. Anyway, as long as we, the citizens or India are united against corruption, we do not need any false sympathies of people like Rahul Gandhi. Hope this movement turns into a revolution in this country and bring food, cloth and home to the millions of poor instead of increasing the Swiss bank account balance of Politicians.

Railway Budget 2011: Ignoring North East once again!

When Mamata Banerjee became Railway Minister of the country, it raised some hope among the people of east India (specially North East India) where the railway sector is least developed. But as couple of years have passed, it has become clear that she is no better than the former railway minister Lalu Yadav, or may be even worse. Lalu's budgets were Bihar centric and Mamata's budget nowadays are Bengal centric. She has crossed all limits probably this year, ahead of Bengal assembly elections. Sacrificing the national interests she is mainly trying to woo the voters in Bengal. The budget 2011 has brought 56 new express trains in India and like it has happened many times before, none of these new express trains connect North East to the rest of India. Earlier Mamata Banerjee introduced a special class of trains called "Duronto" (with no official stoppage between upto the final destination) which became very popular due to their efficiency. But she did not think of sending one such train to North East (seven states). This time she has given a consolation to the North East people saying that out of these 56 new trains, one train will be running between Guwahati and Dimapur. But is it enough? In fact, we would have been happy even if this train was not introduced. There are other trains between these two stations and people often travel by bus also. What North Eastern people need more is couple of good trains to places like Bombay, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai where there are large number of students, workers from North East are living. To Delhi at least we have a good train called Rajdhani Express. She is also proposing that Manipur capital Imphal will be connected by railway network very soon..let's see how soon it happens. Such budgets which are being proposed with an eye to grab some votes in state assembly elections(Bihar, Bengal or whatever) will never be able to satisfy the needs of the country and North East will always be ignored like before.

Jai Ho Part II

India is great indeed. Recently you might have heard about the resignation of Maharashtra Chief minister Ashok Chavan amidst the controversies of his involvement in multi-crore Adarsh society housing scandals. Apparently the Maharashtra government allotted the land to the builders without proper approval from environmental ministry and beyond that, the flats which were meant for the family members of Kargil war heroes, the politicians and few corrupted defense top people shared among themselves. This became such a huge issue that the ruling party had to sack the chief minister and replace him with his successor Prithviraj Chavan. This is one story which is quite acceptable. But the same Congress government which sacked Maharashtra Chief minister is now defending another minister who is involved in so called 2G spectrum scam. The Adarsh society scam might have involved maximum of thousand crores, but this 2G scam involves an unbelievably huge 1.7 Lac Crores. Yes, I am talking about telecom minister A Raja. In terms of the public money involved in this scam, if Ashok Chavan deserved resignation, this guy should deserve public execution. I don't know where are those people now, who were shouting against the Commonwealth Games (CWG) saying the money (around 78 thousand crores if I am not mistaken) spent on the games could have been used for the cause of poor people. Although CWG was also hit by multi crore corruption, it was not as bad as this 2G scam. At least success of CWG could build a better image of India in the global stage. There should be huge public rage against such corrupted politicians like A Raja, and they should not just be sacked down from the current post, but should be given severe punishment.

The second part of Jai Ho is regarding construction of dams. India is very well known for throwing poor people out of their lands without giving enough compensation to construct dams. Narmada Bachao Andolan led by social activists Medha Patkar is one of the best example. Constructing dams, highways is no offense, provided the poor people who sacrifice their lands are given good enough compensation. In a country where one politician can lead a scam of 1 lac crores is it a big deal? Certainly not. India is currently building around 100 dams in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. The river Brahmaputra as well as most of its tributaries which flow across Arunachal come down to Assam, the neighboring state. And, you can imagine how these dams are going to change the eco-system in the entire state of Assam. The Government is saying dams are needed to control floods whereas people who have done study on it are saying the height of the dams are above the danger limit and if these dams start operating, it will bring terrible danger to the state of Assam. There is a huge public agitation going on across the state of Assam nowadays but it seems the state as well as the central government are completely indifferent to the concerns of the people of Assam. There was a committee composed of Professors from IIT Guwahati and Gauhati University to study the impact of dams in Arunachal on neighboring states like Assam. They gave a green signal to the dams based on their incomplete study, but according to Prof Shivaji Rao, the heights of the dams are still questionable http://www.downtoearth.org.in/node/1978 . There was also a news that the government gave a bribe of around 30 lacs to the professors in the report committee to give a green signal to the dams. Today I have seen another terrible news that now the central government is proposing 10 huge dams in the neighboring country Bhutan completely ignoring the outcomes of such dams in hill states on the plain regions of neighboring state Assam. This same government which is designing blue-print to destroy one state by constructing dams in another state, makes too much hue and cry when China attempts to build dams in Tibet on the river Brahmaputra as well as other small rivers which flow down to North East India. This does not make any sense at all to me. No matter who builds the dams, equal number of Indians will be affected by them. Anyway the way things happen in this country is beyond my imagination all the time. Jai Ho once again!

Jai Ho

After lots of uncertainties, fears and doubts, finally the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi is all set to take off today with a record-breaking number of participants. Things got changed drastically within one week in an unbelievable way. Just two weeks before, I really started doubting whether CWG will really happen or not. The Games village was not ready, many top athletes were withdrawing from the even due to security reasons or so, there were lots of allegations against the organizing committee of corruptions etc etc. But now there is nothing like this. All the participating countries are happy with the arrangements, Games villages seems to be ready as well and most importantly the security in the Delhi seems to be amazing with 1 lakh (0.1 million) security personnel on the streets of Delhi. Anyway, it surprises me whether things can change in a city like Delhi at such a rapid way or may be the media was exaggerating the things too much for their own benefit. I think that's surely the case. Before two weeks I have not seen any good sayings by the media about the games. All they published was about where ceiling collapsed, where bridge collapsed, how much money has been misused, which country is not participating etc etc. But as soon as the media got a much bigger issue to talk about, I mean the Ram Janmabhoomi issue, they have probably stopped attacking the CWG. Although I initially thought the Ram Janmabhoomi verdict came at a wrong time (thinking that it might produce some unrest in the country which can indirectly affect the games also), now it seems that it had one good side. The shifting media attention from CWG to the verdict perhaps made a better image of the games in the country. Now everybody seems to be supporting the even from the core of their hearts. Things were not as bad as media showed us probably, there were couple of good things also about the games preparations which were overlooked. Otherwise things can't change in such a way. Anyway, leaving aside the media exaggeration, the organizing committee as well as the government should also justify the amount of money being spent (where and how much). We can't let a huge amount of money to go into the pockets of some corrupted leaders which could have been used for the millions of starving poor people in the country.

I wish a grand success of this grand event and hope everything goes alright till the end of this mega event. Jai ho!

Judgment Day II

Finally Allahabad HC announced it's verdict one and half hour back bringing a resolution to the 60 year old dispute. The three member bench of HC, comprising justices SU Khan, Sudhir Agarwal and DV Sharma announced the verdict which should keep everyone in this country more or less happy. According to it the disputed site in Ayodhya be divided into three parts: one-third for Hindu Mahasabha, one-third for Sunni Waqf Board and one-third for the Nirmohi Akhara. I was expecting the HC will again ask for out of court settlement, but it's really nice to see the HC coming up with a more realistic verdict. I just wish this is the final verdict on this issue thereby closing this shameful chapter in the History of India forever. I wish every Indian will accept this and come out of the barriers of religion, caste and all to make India a better place to live in.

Judgment Day

There have been lots of anxieties among the people of India regarding the verdict of Supreme Court in the Babri demolition case. The mosque at Ayodhya was destroyed by Hindu activists two decades back which resulted in communal riots as well as many terrorist attacks by Muslim fundamentalists. This is probably the most difficult case Supreme Court ever had to give judgment to. Initially Allahabad High Court ordered out of court settlement between the two groups Hindu and Muslim but both the groups rejected and appealed in the Supreme court. After lots of drama like shifting the Judgment day and all, finally the court gave Judgment today saying it has rejected the deferment of High Court verdict. I found the verdict very obvious and not surprising at all. In a country like India, where you do not have to make lots of effort to fuel a communal fight among two communities, a verdict on such a sensitive issue in favor of one community would be too much to bring chaos in all parts of the country. Already there is so much trouble, both internal as well as external and specially when the Commonwealth Games is around the corner, nobody would like to take the risk of such a disaster which will indirectly affect the games as well. Although today Supreme court said that on 30th September , Allahabad High Court will give verdict on the case, it looks very trivial. The High Court will definitely stick to its earlier verdict of out of court settlement. I am wondering if a mosque can be built at ground zero in New York, why can't we build something at Ayodhya which will create opportunities for all the communities and not biased towards just one. But it's not as straightforward actually. Even if the court orders to build a University or some trade center may be, it won't surprise me at all if people bring that down also. Indians are yet to come out of rigid religious boundaries. I do not know how to make people realize that there are many important things in this world to which we should pay attention to make world a better place to live in. Text book education seems helpless because you will find millions of Indians who are well-educated (in terms of their degrees) but suffers from religious brain-wash. I think this process will keep going maintaining the tradition of Indian Judiciary system. High Court will always stick to it's verdict, the communities will keep appealing in the Apex court which will again reject it and so on and on....

What's going on in this country?

I usually try to keep myself indifferent to politics, media and all. But it seems too much now to keep myself so. I do not know if me as well as billion citizens of India are being fooled around by the stupid media here or is it really true that everything is going wrong across the country (except the stock exchange probably). The only good news I see nowadays is that the boom in stock exchange, creating new and new records. But these stock exchange records hardly make any difference to the poor in this country. Although economics is something I hardly understand, but I can definitely say that these so called economic boom is creating an absolutely wrong image of the country in the world as if we are really developing a lot. The poor-rich hierarchy is increasing like anything in this country and only the rich people's growth gets reflected in the sensex mirror. Anyway this is not a new issue in this country, it has been like this always and nobody pays much attention to it unless the sensex crashes. India has been facing so many internal problems recently starting with the Maoists who are as worse as terrorists but somehow our politicians are protecting them saying they are son of this country only. The second turmoil is the Commonwealth Games (CWG). Although it was a matter of proud when India won the bid to host this prestigious event, now I guess most of the citizens feel it to be shame now. Nothing is going well with this event which is scheduled to be started on 3rd October 2010. Looking at the present situation I seriously doubt if it is going to happen at all or not. After missing deadline many times, the whole organizing committee is found to have misused the funds allotted for the event. Not only that, the stadiums they prepared are not up to the mark and yesterday it came in news that the Accommodation at the Games village was too below international standards as complaints came from many foreign delegates. Today a foot bridge collapsed there adding one more feather to the CWG cap. The billions of people in the country have been made laughing stock in the world just because of some corrupted politicians and bureaucrats. While the government might be focusing on this CWG, on the other side Kashmir is boiling like never before. The ongoing protests there have crossed 100 days as well as 100 casualties so far and no agreement, understandings have been reached so far between the government and the separatists there. The hard-line separatists now want Kashmir committees in both India and Pakistan for some reason I do not understand. I seriously doubt whether those separatists want Kashmir to be an Independent country or a province in Pakistan or China may be. This unrest in Kashmir has also brought a serious concern of safety in the country specially in the CWG event in Delhi. I hope everything will remain alright at least till the end of this event.

Another Independence Day, 15th Aug'2010

So here comes another Independence day for us. Sitting inside my room also I can see the "virtual" celebrations through forwarded mails, social networking sites like facebook and all. Someone has put a tri-color in the profile pic or someone has uploaded a video which shows India's economy growth rate, number of Indians in NASA, India as largest democracy, India has x number of supercomputers, India has y number of CEO's in MNC's and so on. I get so much pissed off with such videos. I do not understand what these videos are meant for, and why these videos come at the time of Independence day or Republic day. I do not think people will forget the importance of the day if such unnecessary videos are not made. I am an Indian and I love my country and I do not need any reason to love my country. Even if my country has none of the "plus points" which these videos show, I will continue to love and respect my country. The worst thing about this videos are that they do not show everything. They show less than one percent of India just to win people's hearts and to gain popularity. They don't show the situations of millions of people under poverty line, common people who get killed by extremists, naxalites or security forces in various parts of the country. They don't show the civilian human rights violations in many parts of the so called "largest democracy". They don't show how much pride/shame India has earned hosting the Commonwealth Games which has been severely hit by large scale corruptions delaying all the preparations. There are many more things to be shown to the people about this country. If someone makes video showing India as a whole, he or she should include all such things. But they always put 10 bright things in the video and neglect thousands of dark sides of the country. India will change only when there will be enough awareness among the common people. The media, social networking sites should be used to increase the awareness, not to flatter the public to gain some cheap popularity. Happy Independence day to all, Jai Hind!

Another Independence Day...

Today its the 63 rd Independence day of my country. India became a free nation from the British colonialism on this day in 1947. It's been such a long time till today, but I am yet confused about the meaning of independence. It hardly makes any difference to me. I have grown up in this country with a perception that 15th August is a holiday. Not just an ordinary holiday, but a special one when it's not only that people don't go to office and schools but all the shops, markets as well as vehicles on roads come to standstill. That may sound too weired to my fellow Indians, but that's what the scene I have witnessed in North-East India. Most of the extremist groups there who are fighting ( or spreading terrorism ?) for the so called sovereignty call for boycotting events like Independence day, Republic day etc. They don't even bother to blow a group of kids celebrating Independence day in their school. I still remember I used to play cricket with my friends on the national highway. You can just imagine how deserted the public life there is on this day. It's been more than 6-7 years of my stay outside Assam as well as North-East, I don't know what people's perspectives are nowadays about Independence day. May be people nowadays dare to come out of their homes to celebrate I-day. But for me the reminiscence of I-day during my childhood days still make this very special day for Indians just a holiday. Anyway I wish the people of our beloved country India, the largest democracy in the world a very happy Independence Day. Jai Hind.