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JNU Protests - A Warning Bell

2016-02-19T02:23:00.001-08:00

It was appalling and very disturbing to see JNU student protests with slogans that were blood boiling to any nationalist. They certainly looked like soon-to-be Jihadis chanting slogans against India and expressing desire to break India into pieces, but more appalling was the desperation of Indian Media to downplay the gravity of these protests and thereafter to divert the issue from the Jihadi-like JNU protests to Lawyers' hooliganism. A minor attack on Kanhiya was blown out of proportion and was compared with the well-organized JNU student protest, which clearly had a Jihadi color to it.

Immediately after protest videos got out and the leftist were exposed, damage control measures were taken by arranging a rally with roses and Tiranga, with left-leaning, terror-friendly media romanticizing with these students in order to make them look like nation-loving peaceful students.

One more point raised by the terror-friendly media was police should not have entered the university and JNU management should have been allowed to handle the protests. I fail to understand this. You cannot dismiss these protests by saying these are harmless undergraduate students. Age is no bar in today's new-age terrorism. Look around the world and you will see several examples of kids being used to achieve terror goals. Like one of the suicide bomber in Paris attack was just 19 years old. The two brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon, one of the brothers, Tamerlan, was 26-year-old, and now very recently ISIS has used teenagers to behead people.

These protests certainly smell like a big conspiracy, probably from our neighboring country as it is finding extremely difficult now to promote terrorism from its soil, and also is facing domestic pressure to stop supporting terror (especially after the army school attack by a Taliban faction) and hence might be trying to infiltrate our universities with jihadi elements.

Most importantly, we should stop believing in these hell-bent leftist and terror-friendly Indian media, which is collectively trying to redefine patriotism by saying that patriotism is the first refuge of the scoundrel. I say, tell that to the self-sacrificing soldier who guards us with his life.

No matter how dumb I may sound to our media, this scoundrel certainly loves to say,

Jai Hind!!

Why Aam Aadmi Party’s allegations against Kiran Bedi do not hold ground

2015-01-23T09:47:00.000-08:00

I today distinctly remember Mr. Arun Jaitley’s phrase, which he used against the Aam Aadmi Party stating that “AAP is a party of pathological liars.” This is relevant today as well, especially after AAP leveled allegations against Kiran Bedi that she was a mole of BJP during Anna Movement.

It seems that AAP leaders including Arvind Kejriwal lose track of what they were stating earlier and what they want to say now. First it is clear that AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal had offered Ms. Kiran Bedi, post of chief minister to suave her to join AAP. Now, they are saying that she was a BJP mole. If they knew that she was a BJP mole, why they offered her the post of chief minister.

Secondly, they question her earlier tweets about BJP when she was with them and ask her what her views are now post her joining the BJP, so this too holds against their claim. If she was a BJP mole, why would she tweet anything against the BJP.

Thirdly,their member, Ashish Khaitan claimed that Arvind Kejriwal could be murdered. Now, this kind of sensationalism, is clearly a desperate measure to garner sympathy of voters and does not sound of a winning party. I used to hold him in high regard, but now he lost my trust . It seems all his exposes as a journalist, especially against Mr. Modi were a bunch of lies and mere sensationalism and nothing more than that.

Recently, AAP’s founder member and patriarch, Shanti Bhushan questioned Arvind Kejriwal’s leadership qualities and party’s recent moves. Arvind Kejriwal recently instigated voters to take money from other political parties. A party whose main flank was corruption, is today asking its voters to take bribe. It is pretty evident that AAP is a confused unit and does not have a clear ideology.

Is “Free” Indian Media Free of Unethical Practices?

2012-03-24T04:49:00.001-07:00

Is "Free" Indian Media Free of Unethical Practices?

Reading famous English daily or watching your favorite news channel while drinking tea or coffee after a nice healthy morning walk is a routine most of us love to have. We normally believe in what's said in the newspaper or what's shown on the television. We do not question the sanctity or righteousness of the news, and implicitly, start believing what is presented to us. We never doubt the author’s intent behind the story; never check the editor or owner’s dubious associations, if any.

Two recent events not just questioned media’s credibility, but its behavior as a responsible constituent of our democratic structure. Without substantiating the facts, two news items were published. First was the CAG report on coal blocks, and the second was the porn-gate in Gujarat. Either it was over enthusiasm or deliberate attempt to mislead the facts. In both the possibilities, media displayed lack of professionalism.

This has once again brought to the forefront the issues raised by Justice Katju a couple of months ago. There are several other issues that have come to light with regards to the media's conduct such as ownership of media houses, blackmail, sensationalizing the story, intentional breach of ethics, paid news, etc. Clearly, the self-regulation is failing to regulate the media.

Today many journalists lack professional skills, commitment to the profession, and do not feel the need to take time to collect all the facts and to cross check them before publishing the story. Therefore, the stories that come out of their fold are of very poor quality. Although journalists are not liable to any poor reporting, certainly, they are responsible for what they write and hence can lose credibility and a faithful reader.

Deliberate breach of ethics due to ownership or otherwise is an issue that has got more prominence than before. Today, headlines are twisted and turned so that a win can look like a loss and a loss can look like a win. Today, most media houses have political affiliations and hence their intent of airing the news is very controversial. No wonder we see friendly media jumping to defend their respective political parties more vehemently than even the party spokespersons in a television debate. Deception is the order of the day.

Nira Radia tapes have shown how the media can go overboard and start power broking instead of doing their duty of honestly putting facts in public domain and let the people judge them.

Here are few lines quoted by someone on media’s unethical behavior: The media is but a tool in the pockets of the corporate, political, and financial establishments that seeks to mold and even manipulate public opinion in the favor of those who have vested interests in various channels around the globe. What is needed today is discretion, critical thought, and the ability to read between the lines, gauge the information being churned out, and accordingly judge whether the source is indeed being unbiased or not. The answer will be no in almost all cases, and if you look carefully, you will see that each media conglomerate has a leaning, inclination, or affiliation with a certain party, group or organization that seems very subtle at first, but is actually extremely pronounced through the method of reporting and presenting information – (Unconfirmed source).

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. - Noam Chomsky

After taking all these things into consideration, one should be aware of the possibility of the fact that the news may not be true at all or there could be a deception in what is presented to us. Facts could be entirely different. There could be vested interests in what we are reading, seeing or hearing. Therefore keep your eyes, ears and above all, you mind open in a true sense.

Indian National Congress, its heir apparent, and Indian politics

2012-03-20T02:17:00.000-07:00

Indian National Congress, Its Heir Apparent, and Indian Politics

Congress party’s debacle in the recently concluded state elections was on expected lines for many independent observers like me who watch politics from a distance. The party, which governed India, like always, baring few aberrations here and there, is today struggling to survive.

To begin with, during post-independence era, Congress ruled the country without a hitch because of lack of credible opposition. The sympathy wave post deaths of its leaders too brought it back to power twice. It faced real opposition only in the late 70s. Then, the only instance when the opposition was able to complete its full term was from 1998 to 2004 when Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the prime minister and completed its full term. Therefore, by and large, Congress really had its way when it came to ruling the country.

The Nehru-Gandhi family has had always been the glue of the party, and things have always revolved around it. This has encouraged sycophancy, which in turn has made the party vulnerable to management problems like poor decision making.

Some musty decisions taken in the near past have cost the party heavily. This took away all the goodwill it enjoyed during UPA1. The staleness was evident when Congress party announced quota for Muslims of UP. Muslims understood their fallacious intent and completely shunned the Congress party. Nevertheless, UP campaign of the party was very aggressive, but without genuineness and was always viewed with a doubt by the UP voter. Instead an honest appeal to the voters without any political posturing could have garnered them more votes. In fact, Mr. Rahul Gandhi would have done much better without Digvijay Singh and Salman Khurshid in UP.

Sycophants usually lack talent and leadership qualities. Look around any Gandhi and you will see people with zero mass appeal. This style of functioning has created a void between its voters and central leadership. The void became so deep and wide that The Gandhis couldn’t save their own turf.

Another issue Congress has is lethargy. They take ages to take decisions. UPA-1 in its common minimum program promised to spent 6% on education and 2-3% on healthcare. Other issues like administrative reforms, judicial reforms, panchayati raj, women reservation, separate Telangana state have been in limbo, even after eight long years.

Dynastic politics, due to its very existence at the top, is something that Congress has not been able to discourage in the party. This has also alienated the voters. Goa is a classic example of this with 11 out of 40 seats went to few families of Congress members. This made voters angry, and they aggressively voted against the party.

Congress party’s heir apparent, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, should start doing things on his own and stop taking advice from others. After all, he is in his 40s and can understand good versus evil. He should take control, come out in the open, deal with the issues head on, make some mistakes, and learn from them. He should brew his own ideas instead of following others. He should think and should act like a leader if he wishes to be one.

Congress might face tough times going forward. BJP, on the other hand, doesn’t look very strong and therefore we may not see coalition politics ending very soon, ahh! What a pity?

Indian Railways, Its Budget, and Aam Admi’s Travel

2012-03-15T04:37:00.002-07:00

Indian Railways, Its Budget, and Aam Admi's Travel

There has never been such a bad time and good time to write an article about politics in India. Good time because there is no dearth of issues. When I took to write this article, Dinesh Trivedi had been sacked as railway minister and press reported that Mamta Banerjee has asked prime minister to replace him with Mukul Roy. Then in the morning, things changed and now they say he is still in chair. Minutes after Akhilesh Yadav took oath as the youngest chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, there was a ruckus on the same stage and an unruly gathering made chaos. Bad time because you cannot focus on the event, which you are writing about.

Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi presented his budget where in he proposed to raise rail fares across all classes. Safety as recommended by the Anil Kakodkar Committee was the main focus area. The budget, as many did say, was very bold. The financial health of Indian Railways has not been very good since over the past decade there has not been any increase in fares. On the other hand, costs have gone up significantly.

Indian Railways has become a toy in the hands of the politicians that they use for their own benefit. During last one decade, there has been mushroom growth of new passenger trains on an already insufficient rail infrastructure in the country. During last five years, addition of more than five hundred new trains, increasing the frequency of trains and adding more coaches per train has left Indian Railways in a tight spot. Today, IR needs spare capacity. Such a massive addition of passenger trains every year without any serious thought, mainly on political consideration, has severe implications on safety preparedness of railways. Further, neither any system or mechanism exists to evaluate safety risk of such uncoordinated measures nor has any effort been undertaken to ameliorate the worsening conditions created by such an act.

The proposed investment on safety as per the High Level Safety Review Committee for five years is more than 1 lakh crores. Indian Railways needs to improve its finances in order to implement those recommendations.

Indian Railways transports more than 20 million passengers and 2 million tons of freight on a daily basis. It has a network that is spread across the length and breadth of our country comprising close to 65,000 route kilometers. More than that, it has a strong workforce of close to 14 lakh employees. Therefore we cannot ignore the needs of this organization for a protracted period of time.

Today, IR enjoys less than 12% market share of India’s total passenger traffic. To improve on this front, there are several other measures that need to be taken such as separation of passenger and freight businesses, discourage short-distance passenger, reduce travel time, increase service speed, and reduce train stops. It also needs to work on problem-free ticketing and reservation, improve its safety, security, and hygiene standards. It has to improve on reliability with timely arrival and departure of its trains to repose faith.

Those who oppose the fare hike should also realize that today’s aam admi is not that aam and demands better service too.

State Elections 2012 – Who is the real winner?

2012-03-07T02:20:00.001-08:00

State Elections 2012 - Who Is The Real Winner?

The state elections of 2012 that took place this week are finally over. Five states went to polls and out of them, two (Punjab and Goa) clearly went in favor of the BJP. One, Uttarakhand is tied very closely and could go either way. Only Manipur gave the Congress something to smile about. Uttar Pradesh once again brought back to power, a regional party and completely ignored the national parties. BJP and Congress expectedly finished third and fourth respectively.

These state elections left the Congress party in a very bad shape. For political parties, losing and winning elections is the part of the game, but the manner in which Congress lost the election cannot just be ignored and needs serious introspection by the congress top brass.

Let’s take Punjab first; they could not throw out the incumbent government of the Akalis even though Punjab has a history of replacing governments every 5 years. In Goa, Congress was in power and were defeated convincingly by the BJP. State of Congress is so unfriendly in Goa that a so-called right-wing Hindu party got votes from the Catholics of Goa. The anger and frustration against the incumbent Congress was also evident from an unprecedented 82% voter turnout this time. The real Congress’ debacle came from UP, and this very much establishes the fact that something is horribly wrong with the Congress. In UP, the party was unable to even save its bastion like Rai Bareli, Amethi, and Sultanpur. Out of the 15 assembly seats from these areas, it could only manage to win just 2.

Congress itself is to blame for this poor showing. Today the party is behaving like an arrogant fat cat that drinks milk with closed eyes and roars if you interrupt. Several corruption scams came up during its regime. Instead of dealing corruption head on, they tried to defame those who were fighting for corruption. The way they handled Baba Ramdev and Team Anna and the whole Lokpal episode has not gone down well. Every time you can close your eyes like a cat when you steal the milk, but you cannot fool the people all the time. Corruption may not be as big an issue as an inflation or governance, but it nags with the subconscious mind of an average voter. Congress has failed to acknowledge the fact that it is seriously tainted and needs immediate corrective steps. An arrogant Congress drank bad milk and now is complaining of stomach ache and may fall very sick if not treated immediately. They should immediately consider demands of the civil society of an effective Lokpal and come out clean against corruption in order to change its image. Another reason for the poor performance is the lack of trust of the people in Congress. After many attempts to woo the Muslim voters, the party has failed to convince them. It needs to correct this trust deficit.

The BJP, on the other hand, may find solace that it has done pretty well by grabbing Goa from the Congress party and keeping Punjab in its belt, but BJP too is crippled with several issues like lack of strong leadership in the center and lack of rural presence. Mr. Advani has a very low visibility and appeal among the masses. Mr. Modi is not acceptable to many political parties. The second-line leadership is extremely talented and deserves to come forward, but needs direction from the RSS. The magical spurt in BJP’s tally when counting began in UP and then the sudden slowdown demonstrates the BJP is largely a party with an urban presence. It needs to touch base with the rural masses in order to improve its tally. How can a national party in India do well if it has a low-rural base?

There are a few winners of this election like election commission, but the real winner of this election is the voter who once again managed to establish that he is supreme by voting out corrupt and arrogant governments. Rahul Gandhi might have lost the election, but he has won many hearts. Also, winners are well-educated, fluent, English-speaking candidates from UP. They are refreshingly new faces which bring hope for UP and make us believe that India is changing.

Free Universal Healthcare – Possible or Distant Dream

2012-03-03T03:46:00.000-08:00

Free Universal Healthcare - Possible or Distant Dream

Recently, a meeting was called by prime minister’s office to take steps to help the government offer free universal healthcare along with union health ministry and planning commission. This scheme was proposed to the prime minister by a high-level expert group last year.

The PMO meeting asked the commission to allocate adequate funds to enable the government’s health spending to increase from the current level of 1.4 per cent of the GDP to 2.5 per cent of the GDP by 2017.

John Bryant in his book Health and The Developing World says that large numbers of the world’s people perhaps more than half, have no access to health care at all, and for many of the rest the care they receive does not answer the problems they have. India has the same story as the world has as half of our population has no access to healthcare at all.

Now, the question is whether free universal healthcare is the answer to this problem?

Up until now, India had two national health policies, one in 1983 and then another in 2002. Primary healthcare was their prime focus. The goals and objectives of both these policies have not yet been fully achieved, though we had some success like eradicating diseases like small pox. The national health policy, 1983 stressed the need for providing primary health care with special emphasis on prevention, promotion and rehabilitation. The policy suggested planned time bound attention to few points like nutrition, water supply and sanitation, immunization programs, and most important maternal and child health services. We have failed in dealing with all these and that should be the focus area of our spending.

Today in India, 42% of our children below the age of three are malnourished that is twice than the sub Saharan African region. Only 25% of the population has drinking water in their premises and over 50% of the population defecates in the open and has no access to latrines. Immunization programs have so far covered only 55% of our children. There is also a pressing need to add more vaccines to the EPI (expanded program of immunization), which are costly and may need more funds than anticipated.

Free universal healthcare is a very good idea, but may be very hard to implement due to lack of infrastructure and basic facilities and could encourage large-scale corruption since health is a state subject. We have seen that in case of NRHM. Our focus should be primary health, safe drinking water and sanitation, major thrust on immunization, and child health services. Our focus should be each malnourished child. There should be a system to monitor its growth until it completes a certain age. The child should get all round care for it to grow in a healthy way.

Instead of having a free universal healthcare plan, we can introduce a scheme that will guarantee any patient who has spent Rs 25,000 (including hospital bills or medicine) and still requires treatment, will automatically get free treatment thereafter, whatsoever may be his/her cost of treatment. Government of India should pay the bills after that threshold. Today cost of healthcare has gone up tremendously and average household cannot spend more than 25,000 in hospital bills. This will also eliminate the possibility of chaos that might occur with the free universal healthcare. The Rs 25,000 cost can also be brought down by encouraging affordable health insurance schemes.

Free universal healthcare sounds very nice, but there are certain negative aspects to it as well. We are a huge developing nation of more than 1 billion people with different medical needs than say any other developed country that have universal healthcare. UPA’s image is already tarnished because of corruption, and they cannot afford another scam by way of universal healthcare. Let us hope this is not the case this time!

Has Arvind Kejriwal Said The Ugly Truth?

2012-02-27T00:14:00.004-08:00

Has Arvind Kejriwal Said The Ugly Truth?

Arvind Kejriwal spoke something that is hogging the limelight since yesterday. Social media also is abuzz with what he said and the reactions of political parties after his comments. Twitter is also adding a lot of spice to this

In his speech, he said parliament has become a problem rather than a solution. After the last session of parliament, I feel there is so much truth in what Arvind is saying. After all, parliament in toto failed to deliver what was promised by none other than our honorable prime minister to the people of this country. An act which could deter people from doing corruption. Since then, I have no doubts in my mind that parliament can easily be manipulated by people with vested interests.

Everybody saw how the parliament was completely rigged by someone as unknown and insignificant as Rajniti Prasad Yadav. Nobody even knew about him before his dishourable act of bravery. (don't want to go into the debate who were his masters)

Those who believe it is a mistake to undermine our parliament should also explain what Rajniti Prasad Yadav did. Rajniti Prasad tore and threw a bill in front of our prime minister and went scot-free. Is this a democratic act? Is he democratic? Doesn’t it indirectly bring disgrace or disrepute to our parliament. Therefore someone like me, an average Indian citizen by the way, feels the same like Arvind Kejriwal. What democracy is this when a single person does not allow to pass the bill. Why can’t we have a provision to punish these acts. He and a few men behind him completely wished away the desire of billions to have an effective Lokpal. This demonstrates lack of accountability from our MPs and indirectly from our parliament.

Massive corruption cases have come forward in the recent past. The magnitude and frequency of these scams have shocked many like me. They have brought to the fore the need for an effective body to tackle corruption like a Lokpal. If we put to rest for a while the stupid argument of BJP Vs Congress’ betterness and think in totality, it is the parliament that has collectively failed to deliver. Delivery is lacking because it is governed by people with lethargy or malevolence and that is the point Arvind is making.

Parliament represents our democracy. Few people with power and money are taking advantage of the democratic setup and its loopholes for their own benefit. In this process, they are manipulating everything including media and distort all the facts and findings that people of this country should know. Political parties seem to have lost all their ideologies in the way and their sole objective is to gain or stay in power.

Arvind’s statement has many takers today. In fact, the number has gone up especially after the last session of parliament.

Political parties should clean up their acts and should have some decorum both inside and outside parliament before criticizing Arvind. They should not give people like Arvind an opportunity to criticize. If they ignore his voice, then it will echo in large numbers and then what will suffer is our parliament as more and more people will lose faith in it.

Tips for Not Falling In Love

2012-02-15T08:05:00.000-08:00

Tips for Not Falling In Love

Hello friends, Happy Valentine’s day to those who already are screwed like me, but let me help in some way to those who have not yet suffered and haven’t fallen sick from this bug called “LOVE."

No, no, don’t just rule out this possibility and don’t say that this is not going to happen to me. A very well-known gentleman, Samuel Richardson talks about this contagious disease and says, “love will draw an elephant through a key-hole.” Therefore just imagine the odds.

Actually since I have seen, felt, and dealt with this horrible thing, I thought I shall give you some tips of not falling in love.

Falling in love is my thing. Well then, you might say I should give advice on how to fall in love, and not otherwise. Yes, initially I thought so, but then I felt since I have suffered a lot because of this “gale ki haddi,” it would be better to give some tips on not to fall in love. After all, mein bhala kisi ka bura kyon karunga!

Okay, then let’s see who could possibly get this infection and what prevention one can take to avoid this “kamini cheez.”

People in the age group of 16 to 30 are more likely to be infected. Prevention: Apni umar ko chipao!
If you cry and still watch the movies like Titanic, Notebook, Serendipity, Dilwale, or Kuch Kuch Hota Hai again and again, then chances are you might be very susceptible to this disease. Prevention: Start watching Grudge, Die Hard or Resident Evil.
If you are hopelessly romantic, do not make eye contact while talking to the opposite sex. Prevention: Wear dark shades. Nahi to ankhon ankhon mein ishara ho jayega!
If you are very good looking. Prevention: Then stay indoors, I repeat, do not go outside without any strong reason or you can cover your face while going out. Pata nahi kis ki buri nazar aap par pad jaye!
If you are weird, then an expert, Dr. Seuss says, “We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.” Prevention: Keep distance from all the weirdos out there!
Girls who like to stand brushing their hair for long time in the gallery! Prevention: Cut your hair short. Recommended haircut “Boy Cut” or one can go bald also!

Others who do not fall in the categories mentioned above are either inconsequential or are already infected and are carriers of this epidemic. You need to stay away from those as well. To identify them, here are a few tips. They listen to the same love song for ‘n’ number of times. They sleep very less at night and still look fresh. They keep smiling when alone and are preoccupied with thoughts and are delusional. They love to get wet in rainy season. Now, if you do not want to have this menace, please be wary of these things or the crazy stupid thing called love might just catch you and then you might feel sorry for yourself. Some experts say love at first sight is also possible, but it pays to take a second look (especially if you have poor eyesight). You might wonder if this is curable or not. Yes, of course, it is curable, but chances of relapse are very high. On the brighter side, some experts say LOVE can give meaning to your life and can make your life very fulfilling. So here is the mother of all tips, friends, you go out there and fall in love and get infected with “LOVE” and infect others too.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is for fun only. Please take advice of your Love Guru before taking any romantic decisions.

Indians are Hypocrites?

2012-02-13T11:04:00.000-08:00

Indians Are Hypocrites?

In the past, it used to be the bashing of Valentine’s Day or any objectionable content from a book or a movie that could pop up this debate. Some current issues have raised this debate once again. One of them was the “porngate” controversy of Karnataka that is well known as it has been highly publicized by the media. Television personalities described watching porn as an act performed by mentally unstable people who need treatment. We completely squashed that pornography has arrived and stopping it may not be possible. This is, in fact, hypocritical.

Wikipedia defines hypocrisy as a state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie.

Earlier when I was young, I had firm belief in our culture. My heart used to overflow with patriotism after watching movies like Purab Aur Paschim, but then the faith started to shake a bit, and today the big idea of cultural superiority has completely vanished. Today, I feel that more often we try to hide behind the word “culture” and practice cultural jingoism to cover facts, which we conveniently want to hide or protect for our own interest.

Let me share with you a few experiences of my life, which have shaken my faith in our culture. These are true stories that have taken place in very recent past and do deserve mentioning. They might choke you a little. One of my neighbor’s son had an accident. The boy rammed head on directly into a standing truck while he was riding his bike. He fell on the road and was fatally injured. Here comes the sad part, the locals who were present at the scene started robbing him. They took his gold chain and mobile phone, and threw his sim card. The boy was “brought in dead” in a hospital just 100 meters away. The kid was in his 20s. Same thing happened with one of my friend when he had a car accident. All four people from the car were seriously injured, but were robbed off cash and jewelry by the people. They were lucky…. they all survived. If we are so culturally great people, then how come we do such horrible things? These people made money on someone’s misery. Which culture teaches you that? Sadly, we belong to the same culture.

If we go back in the past, I distinctly remember that in early 80s, AIDS had just started to make some noise around the world. In India, one subject that started huge debate was that of sex education in schools and colleges, but the culturally blind people were not ready to accept this reality. The WHO predictions about the spread of HIV in India were very disturbing. The warnings were pretty clear, but the hypocrites argued that polygamy and homosexuality were not in our culture and therefore there is no threat to us. Today, India has cases of full blown AIDS, possibly second only to Africa.

Coming back to the “porngate” scandal from Karnataka, whether we like it or not, let’s accept that porn is a reality. Though, I strongly feel that there is a time and place for everything and watching porn should be a very private affair. What the ministers did was disgraceful, and they deserve to be out of the state assembly. Having said that, the fact remains that many people love to watch porn and that is a reality, and we must accept it.

Treating women has also exposed our hypocritical nature to a large extent. Throughout my life, I have heard and read a lot about how we in India treat women, and they are like goddesses and we should respect them, but here is the truth, we do not like to have a girl child, our sex ratios are horribly messed up; we tease girls on the streets; rape them in record numbers; and abuse them and burn them at home for easy money (dowry). Thomson Reuters' Trustlaw Women, a hub of legal information and legal support for women's rights conducted a survey, which lists India fourth primarily, due to female foeticide, infanticide, and human trafficking.

Secularism is one such farce. We sing Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isai, aapas mein hain bhai bhai, but we are far, far away from the idea of sarva darma samabhav. Today, there is huge trust deficit between communities. We are together, but we lack fondness or emotional bonding. We merely get along, but do not share anything. It is a fact that people try to live in pockets or clusters just to feel safe and that is what is left about secularism in India today.

I hate to say this, but today, I do feel that most Indians are hypocrites and/or unrealistic. Both possibilities are equally bad for us. Running away from reality would keep our problems where they are.

Hypocrisy takes us away from reality. The more realistic we become, the sooner we will find solutions to our problems, so let’s stop being hypocrites and face our problems........... Jai Hind.

Why Can't The Judges Brief The Media?

2012-02-02T07:52:00.000-08:00

Why Can’t the Judges brief the Media

Supreme Court today gave the final judgment on the 2G issue and canceled all the 122 licenses issued by the then telecom minister, A Raja that were issued with great controversy in 2008.

The judgment was interpreted in different ways. The honorable court canceled licenses of these companies that were issued licenses by the UPA government in 2008, but Mr. Zero Loss, Kapil Sibal claimed that it was NDA policy of issuing licenses that has been indicted and squarely blamed the BJP and their first-come-first-serve telecom policy. This has raised serious questions and doubts in people's mind. After all, who is to be blamed for the monumental loss that came to light after the CAG report.

This has happened many times earlier as well that whenever a judgment on a much publicized issue comes out, it is interpreted by various concerned parties with an obvious bias and the layman is left in a dilemma that after all who is at the fault here, just to name a few is the case of Maria Susairaj.

We have seen several post-judgment press conferences and debates on television and read about them in the newspapers, but they always create confusion in our mind and we are left with doubts, which never go away. We see eminent lawyers fighting on television defending how their client is not at fault by twisting and turning the judgment.

I believe there is a ambiguity here and needs clarity from our judicial system. An unfavorable judgment can be easily concocted with effective media management.

To stop this, firstly, the honorable Supreme Court should not allow any concerned party to express their interpretation of the judgment to media without studying the judgment, especially the final judgments. Any concerned party should express their interpretation only after studying the judgment and should be held accountable for any misinterpretation.

Now my question is why can't the honorable judges themselves brief the media and explain what their judgment exactly means? After all, they are ones who have done all the hard work on it by listening to arguments of lawyers and by studying the issue with full sincerity and honesty. I believe at least the final judgment of the cases of public and national interest should be briefed by the judges as they are final and their correct interpretation is necessary. This way even the judges can explain the rationale and circumstances that led to their judgment and will leave no room for any debate.

Most people do not understand the legal terms and their implications. Therefore, I feel it is necessary that the judges brief the media or appoint someone on their behalf to interpret the judgment, and explain in simplest possible way what the judgment exactly says.

This will make our democracy and more than that our judiciary more simpler, sensible, transparent, effective, and that is what we all want.... right?

Congress + BJP - Too Wishful Thinking?

2012-01-09T05:39:00.000-08:00

The title of my post itself is self-explanatory that the idea of congress and BJP coming together is very thoughtless and stupid, but hold on….. before you completely write off this thought…. think about those smarty pants who are working sanely inside and outside the parliament, they have run out of ideas too.

This idea is what is the need of the hour, rather than what is feasible or possible. This idea is a necessity rather than possibility. We need to think out of the box.

India is at a crossroad of either becoming a superpower of the future, or it can easily lose its way. The threat of the latter is more evident today.

This thought of two main political parties coming together to form the government is what our parliamentary democracy is all about. This is what our people (in a larger context) want - stability, reforms moving forward, decision making, and large investments in infrastructure.

India needs a start that we haven’t got in a long time. We, the people of this country, collectively need to start somewhere.

One song that is relevant in that context is “Lets get it started in here” (Black-eyed peas). The song too says “get stupid, get started”.

We desperately need to do some stupid things to start with.

After seeing the agile debate in the Rajya Sabha on the Lokpal issue, I believe the lawyers in the parliament always hijack the whole debate by displaying their articulating skills in the parliament, and we start comparing them against each other. We need someone who can bring forth an idea whether stupid or not, does not matter.

Too much debate has already happened on the circumstances that we find ourselves in - constitution, parliamentary democracy, civil society, who is more corrupt than whom, right or left, but one point is missing and that is how to move forward?

There is really nothing good happening for India right now. (Cricket not good, economy in shambles, serious global crisis, corruption at the peak, low moral values, and scam-ridden government). We are stuck at a point for too long. Therefore we need a starter to start our national engine and move ahead.

I know I am too philosophical and may be impractical here, but this idea could take us somewhere as a nation.

On a lighter note, it has always been the regional parties who take the national parties for a ride; this could give the regional parties something to worry about. Imagine no pressure from the people like Jayalalitha, Lalu Yadav, or Mamata.

In the past, governments have run on common minimum programs, so it is not completely impossible.

We need to do these crazy stupid things. I don’t know about others, but I have started doing them already. I am obese, weighing 95 kg, and have started to jog recently. Next week hoping to reach 10 km, no matter how slow, but will try to achieve it. Wish me luck.

Sorry, I Beg to Differ Mr. Prime Minister

2012-01-03T05:21:00.000-08:00

Sorry, I beg to differ Mr. Prime Minister.

Prime minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh in his new year message to the nation acknowledged corruption and vowed to personally work to provide an honest and efficient government. This generic and assuring statement by the head of the state cannot be an issue of debate or something to blog about, although one might have serious doubts about the possibility of India getting an "honest and efficient government" in his leadership, especially after what happened in the Rajya Sabha on December 29, 2011.

In this new year message, he outlined several challenges facing our nation. The first challenge was that of livelihood security. His government thinks that by providing minimum employment and access to food (by giving food subsidy), they will be able to address it. Many believe that if some of these subsidies are given, these challenges could turn into even bigger problems and could cause severe damage to India’s fiscal condition.

For instance, take his own views that he expressed in the month of November while returning from the SAARC summit in Maldives and I quote, "further subsidies can only aggravate the budgetary problem, and if the budgetary problem gets aggravated, inflation will again raise its ugly head." His government is coming up with another gigantic subsidy in the form of food security bill even before reducing the oil subsidies as is desired. What is the logic sir?

It seems there is no game plan to deal with the oil subsidies either. Oil minister requests people to voluntarily stop taking subsidy on cooking gas. Sounds funny. Today, every luxury diesel car is fed with subsided diesel.

Experts believe the food security bill expenditure will need 6,00,000 crores for three years. This bill could push the government into bankruptcy and India could face problems, which some of the European countries are facing currently.

The message further says that he is concerned about fiscal stability in future because our fiscal deficit has worsened in the past three years. This is mainly because we took a “conscious decision” to allow a larger fiscal deficit in 2009-10 in order to counter the global slowdown. That was the right policy at the time. But like other countries that resorted to this strategy, we have run out of fiscal space and must once again begin the process of fiscal consolidation."

On the flip side, recession and inflation have increased the problems of this government. Its revenues are not keeping pace with the expenditure. They are unable to implement any concrete reforms that could bring money back into the country. With these mammoth subsidies and decreasing revenues, how are we going to achieve fiscal consolidation?

With no fiscal stability, the government’s borrowing is going to go up in the coming days, which could lead to shortage of money in the financial market and that could give rise to rising interest rate scenario. That will affect our banks with rising NPAs, which may have a disastrous impact on our country's financial health and indirectly on our people. Being a well-known economist, he is aware of all these facts, but he is allegedly accused of undermining the post of the prime minister with decision making power being in the hands of Sonia Gandhi.

Since the UPA-II came to power, it has been facing various charges of corruption and media has played an active role in bringing to light these scams of serious magnitude. In his message, the prime minister, in a way, blamed the media by saying, "A revolution of rising expectations fostered by the extraordinary reach of the electronic media and the connectivity provided by new social networking platforms has kept governments around the world on their toes." Toes? really, the Indian Government was napping when the 2G, CWG, and Adarsh were exposed.

The political equations have turned to worse with aggressive regional parties trying to put pressure on policy decisions (FDI in retail, insurance and pension). Now alliance partners have started to undermine his authority.

All these issues and forthcoming general election leave very little room for Dr. Manmohan Singh to provide an honest and efficient government. He and his party may win next election, but he may do no good for India.

Why BJP is still not the party of the poor?

2011-12-31T09:12:00.000-08:00

Why BJP is still not the party of the poor?

Bhartiya Janata Party, after thirty-plus years of existence, has still not been able to win hearts of the masses especially the rural poor of India. We can argue that many urban poor vote for the BJP, but largely BJP is considered a party of the middle class, which in its own right is not a voter group and is certainly not bankable especially in view of the BJP's loss in the last election and the very recent Anna Hazare fiasco. The middle class voter is deceptive and therefore limits the chances of BJP doing well in the next general election. BJP badly needs something that could turn the poor in their favor.

Now let us analyze why poor do not vote for the BJP on a relative basis.

If we take a look at the regional parties, they seem to be doing far better than BJP even though they are fairly young. Parties like BSP and SP from Uttar Pradesh, JD(U) in Bihar, BJD in Odisha have a fantastic rural voter base. Tamil Nadu with different political dynamics also has parties with good rural base. We can debate that these parties are regional and therefore are able to touch base with their voters quickly and effectively than the national party like BJP. In a sense, regional parties have made it difficult for national party like BJP to penetrate in rural areas.

Another reason for this could be that it had been in power at the center for just 6-7 years and hence has not been able to make any goodwill among the rural voters.

BJP's central leadership is also partly responsible for this as well. Other than the legendary Atal Bihari Vajpayee, none of their central leaders has impressed the masses. Leaders like L. K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj, and Arun Jaitley spend more time in criticizing the Congress Party and Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh instead of reaching out to the poor and trying to woo them. Has anybody seen L. K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj, or Arun Jaitley making a deliberate attempt to attract them? I do not think so.

They have never talked about rural issues in a big way, have never announced any rural welfare scheme when in power, and have never even sounded caring about their problems.

Though I must agree some of their schemes like Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana are very good and have benefited the rural population, but their impact in converting votes is questionable. They should do more to strike a cord with the “aam admi.”

By repeatedly using the word “Kamjor,” (kamjor pradhan mantri, kamjor Lokpal bill) they are sounding boring to many. “Aap me kitana jor hai voh logon ko dikhaye na”

The ruling Congress Party has a strong rural base obviously because of its long history. It also has expressed intent to do things for the poor and implemented schemes like farm loan waiver, NREGA, etc. Although many of these schemes are marred with large scale corruption and are not more than a temporary relief, these welfare schemes reflect well in the eyes of rural voter and that translates into votes for the Congress.

BJP should learn from Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar who has managed to impress the masses by implementing innovative welfare schemes. He has done well so far and has been able to throw a mass leader like Lalu Yadav out of power.

BJP has not yet succeeded in getting votes of this section of society. If BJP wants to come back to power in the next general election, they need to expand their voter base. After all, 60-70% of India still lives in the rural area. There is reasonable amount of time (2-3 years) still left for them to get their act together and focus on expanding their voter base. Otherwise, I am not a psephologist, but their fortune might not change in a hurry.

No Lokpal; Well, Boo Ourselves

2011-12-29T23:24:00.000-08:00

No Lokpal; Well, Boo Ourselves

Yesterday, an utterly disgraceful event in the Rajya Sabha demonstrated how our politicians behave when there is no deterrent like Anna to fear for.

Anna's Mumbai fiasco has been a booster for the politicians, and they have started justifying their misdeeds fearlessly. Watch Rajniti Prasad on TV.

It was not one-of-its-kind event that took place yesterday. We have seen time and again how easily a few unruly members of parliament can create disruption and subvert the whole idea of democracy. The fact that a few men can cause havoc in the parliament and disrupt the proceedings makes us believe that parliamentary democracy is nothing, but a big farce. The whole Indian democratic set up got completely sabotaged by a very few men. The most worrying thing is that this is not going to be a one-off event. This has just set a very bad precedent and this is going to happen again and again and again.

Blame it on ourselves for what happened in the parliament yesterday. By not listening to Anna’s call for agitation, we in a sense made a mistake. We are too careless, too self-involved, and very less patriotic.

The Congress Party, which is in minority in the Rajya Sabha failed to take into confidence its own allies on the Lokayukta issue and hence completely fixed the last hour proceeding by creating a ruckus along with RJD.

A television channel exposed this dramatic event much before it actually happened. Therefore instead of going for voting, they just organized a scripted drama and hushed up the proceedings thereafter.

Yesterday’s event in the Rajya Sabha certainly forces us to think why we need people like Anna in our democratic setup.

On the flip side, Team Anna failed to mobilize people for their agitation in Mumbai, and the whole event was a damp squib. Why there was so much apathy towards the agitation is beyond my understanding.

Now the questions we need to ask ourselves are, firstly, do we need Anna to fight against corruption? Secondly, if this movement dies, what would be the nature of politics that we will see going forward?

The answers are YES, we need Anna and we should not let the movement die, as it would be catastrophic.

But in the meantime, do not feel surprised and sad if any big scam comes to light in the future. Do not feel sad either if Lalu Yadav judges Anna Hazare.

Voh kehate hai na, Tab dhyan nahi diya, ab bhugto!!!

God bless this country and its countrymen.

UID In Jeopardy

2011-12-10T01:33:00.000-08:00

UID In Jeopardy

The UPA-II's dream project, the Unique Identification Card project that it was very gung-ho about is getting into rough weathers.

First, it was the home ministry that raised serious questions about its reliability. Then the NAC and NHRC have expressed reservations

on Aadhaar saying that it could lead to discrimination against minorities and those who do not have the Aadhaar number, and now

the parliamentary standing committee has also given it a thumbs down.

Therefore, the big question is if the UPA abandoning the project?

This is the thought that all of us are fearful of right now.

Now let us look at the noble cause of the government behind this project in the first place.

Unique Identification System is a system in which every citizen of a country will have a unique 16 digit number, Unique Identification

Number which would not just help the government track down individuals, but would make life far easier for citizens as they

would not have to submit multiple documents each time they want to avail a new service—public, private, government, regulatory authority or law-enforcement agency. This system will contain details like the name, sex, address, marital status, photo, identification mark, and

face biometrics.

Now in how many ways this card could help the people of this country. Other than the identity benefit, the first and the most important benefit that the UID can provide and where most of the corruption takes place in this country is confirmation of the entitlement actually reaching the intended beneficiary. For example, a farmer getting his subsidy or other compensations directly credited in his bank account.

This means that Aadhaar could very well improve the delivery system of the government and therefore control corruption.

The home ministry and the parliamentary standing committee have suddenly woken up and started questioning the credibility of Aadhaar. One of the several questions raised by the home ministry about UID is its unsecured data. Well, how the home ministry is going to get the secured data is beyond my understanding. I bet the home ministry does not have records of all the criminals of this country. We all know the blunders they committed when the ministry disclosed the list of most-wanted criminals living in Pakistan.

It is noteworthy that no previous government scheme has been 100% effective. We all know there are flaws in all of them. Even this project may not be 100% perfect, but after weighing the pros and cons, the good that will come out of this project will definitely outweigh the bad.

I feel there is a serious conspiracy going on to defame the UID and then scrap it altogether. Earlier, we saw Mr. Nilekani being ridiculed on the TV talk shows by trivializing and naming the whole idea as a number project (will number the individuals) and then by various articles in the print media.

We need to be more alert and sensitive about the intentions of those who want to sabotage this project. After all, we have a serious

job in our hand to help the lesser India (India that has neither seen India Shining, nor has seen Bharat Nirman) to help join the mainstream for inclusive growth. India that is up until now irrelevant after 60 plus years of independence. We must stand up and fight for that India. We must fight for that aam aadmi who is nowhere in the picture and has no known existence and dies without a trace. He, who is someone born here without a birth certificate and dies without a death certificate. We must fight for those who even do not know what Aadhaar is and what good it can bring to them.

The opposition parties are also silent on this issue and have not aired their views very clearly. We should question that silence.

Many people feel that the politicians are not going to let this UID happen because that would just reduce their importance.

The civil society is fighting a war against corruption. They should also fight for UID.

The politicians on the other hand have more responsibility as they govern the country and therefore could face Kolaveri Di from the

people of this country if they do not deliver.

Mr. Nilekani really has done a commendable job so far. We must give credit to our prime minister as well for giving Mr. Nilekani all the financial as well as political support.

Therefore, we all should make sure that this project should get completed.