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3 big states (West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu) and one politically strategic state (Delhi) is now ruled by women.  Not to mention the President of India, Pratibha Patil, the leader of the ruling party, Sonia Gandhi, leader of the opposition, Sushma Swaraj.   India is today the perfect poster child for women’s empowerment.

Most of the above mentioned women (except Sonia Gandhi) have made it on their own.  Of course they had their own mentors on the way up.  But they made it on their sheer dint of hard work and perseverance.

Am not sure if there is any big country in the world where women are in power in such a big capacity.  So, its 3 cheers to the populace who voted all these women to power.  Hopefully unlike the men who screwed up the country royally, the women would do a better job.

Hope Jayalalitha would keep her vindictive streak in the backburner and let law takes its course on the various scams perpetrated under the DMK reign.   Hope Mamta Banerjee will realise that she is the leader of the ruling party now and ditch her habit of going on a strike / hartal every time her ego has been hurt.  Am sure the Commies wouldnt have taken the kick in the butt given to them by the people of the state of Bengal in the right spirit and try to rake up problems for the new government.  Afterall, the Commies are synonymous with inefficiency, violence, ineptitude and failure.

Here’s 3 cheers to the women power and hoping that Behenji will finally wake up from the slumber and stop building more statues and do something for the chronically backward state of  Uttar Pradesh.  Hope Shiela Dikshit will keep up the good work of transforming the infrastructure of Delhi from a sleepy bureaucratic city to a modern mega-metropolis.

Headline taken from: Ibnlive

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We are in the midst of a daily scam unraveling.  What does this say about the times or the society we live in?  I suppose, we were always corrupt, it was ingrained in our DNA.  Its only now that the skeletons are tumbling out.  Whether its the 2G scam, Adarsh scam, Commonwealth games scam, Kargil coffin scam, mining scam of Karnataka, the land scam concerning Yedyurappa, Satyam scam, Telgi scam, Harshad Mehta scam and the thousands other that are swirling in the news.

The scams were always happening. Its just that only now they are unraveling.  Does anyone remember the time when buying a scooter, ambassador car, telephone etc used to have a waiting time of years.  Today, you can throw in some money and take your pick.  Liberalisation has in fact brought down corruption a lot.  Earlier not a single file moved in the government office without bribe being paid.  Today a lot of government job can be done on the internet without the need for stepping into an office.  Just a decade ago, the government run PSU banks ran amuck. I remember having the misfortune of going to the banks to create a Demand Draft and know the headaches I had to endure.

Today, the private banks have revolutionised the business.  Hardly anyone of the present generation visits those PSU banks. The PSU banks are bending over backwards to win their business. Getting a driving license is not a chore anymore too. Many of the government work is either become efficient due to private sector competition or due to the introduction of technology.

Does it mean that all is hunky dory?  No, it isnt. The poor even today have to endure the red tape of the government.  Getting the loans granted by the government in their hands is at the mercy of the officer who is disbursing it.  After a catastrophe, the government declares an ex-gratia.  But the official overseeing the disbursal will make sure he get his cut before the money is given.  This trait of feeding over the dead body has been prevalent for decades.  Today, its a bit more difficult as you can call up the media to raise a muck and make sure the money is disbursed faster without any corruption in between.

So, why is it that so many scams are surfacing?  Truth is that the scams have been in our midst for decades.  Kalmadi was not involved in the sports graft for the first time.  He is a survivor in that business for decades.  His family and his cronies have made millions over these years.  People knew that yet didnt raise the muck because it was mostly hidden.  One didnt have access to all the information. Today the Right to Information (RTI) act and other kinds of citizen & judicial activism has increased. People are more aware of their rights and hence all these skeletons tumbling out.

Another reason is because the political parties themselves use these scams to settle scores. Its a simple theory which goes like… you expose one scam of mine and i do the same about you.  None of them are about public welfare nor is that only one political party is responsible for the mess.

Both the BJP and Congress are 2 sides of the same coin.  Both corrupt to the core.  If you were believing that the BJP led NDA was supposed to give you an alternative, you were living in a fools paradise. The NDA and its constituents are as equally bad as the UPA if not worse.

The Radia tapes doesnt reveal anything new.  Its a known issue that during the license permit raj of the 70s to 90s, businessmen used to pamper the politicians in power so that they could bag business or made sure that some of the laws were tweaked in their favour.  Today with lots of bidding and laws being online, its gone down to a large extent.  Even the media was nothing holy.  Currying favour with the media to carry their side of the story by politicians and businessmen was the norm earlier too.  Today its given a respectable name like Corporate Relations or Public Relations.

Anyway what i find baffling is the common man’s surprise at all these events.  Let’s face it.  We Indians have corruption engrained in our DNA.  We are taught from young on how to circumvent the rules, how to bribe the policeman to get away, to bribe the municipality to extend the height of the house by another floor etc.  If there was no TDS, am sure none of the so called “middle class” in India would pay taxes.  In fact the middle class of India are the biggest hypocrites you can encounter.

How did Raja, Kalmadi, Chavan, Yeddyurappa, Karunanidhi, Lalu, Mayawati etc come to power?  We voted them to power.  To satisfy our silly egos, to protect our so called religious casteist, regional beliefs etc we vote them to power.  Integrity is not something we are known for.  Everything and anything goes.  We are good at masking our incompetence with the national slogan of chalta hai attitude.  As government officials, we take bribe to do our work.  Our police takes bribe from the mafia and look the other way as they go about killing innocents and trading in arms and drugs.  We ourselves screw up our society and then blame all and sundry.

The rot is set.  Its a part of us.  Its in our system.  Its in our blood.  So, lets look within ourselves and cleanse ourselves as we go about uprooting this cancer of corruption from our midst.

Above pictures courtesy: Akalol & Indiabuzzing

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Iam a strong believer in the theory that the government has no business doing any business.  The government has no business running steel companies, textile mills, condom companies etc.  All that the government has to do is to manage the law and order machinery, keep the country safe and to create laws and an environment that is conductive for its people do do business and prosper.  The government exists so that the common man can use his skills to run his own business and employ people.  More than 60 years ago when the country got its independence, it was ok for the government to get into all the industries so as to kick start the process of industrialisation.  As time went by, the citizens of the country got into the business of making money and it was time for the government to sell off the businesses and do what it was mandated to….and that is to govern the country.

But under the socialist regime of our succesive governments, the economy has been screwed up badly and sadly even 63 years after independence, we have millions of our citizens going hungry every day while millions of tons of foodgrains rot in open grounds for lack of storage space.

Meanwhile we have a food and agricultural minister who is busy hobnobbing with the glamour of industry and entertainment and involving himself in cricket. Not to mention monopolising the sugar business in his home state of Maharashtra. All this at time when foodgrains have no place to be stored and are left to the mercy of rains and heat in some open lands.

Even though the Supreme Court has woken up late, its good to see that the apex court has now come out with a ruling stating that not a single grain should be wasted and if the government cant do the needful, it must distribute the food to the poor free of cost.

The Supreme Court has observed that not a single food grain should be wasted. In a strongly-worded ruling, the apex court has told the government that foodgrains are rotting and if you can’t do anything about it then distribute it among the poor. The court has also sought government’s response on this.

Meanwhile, as the government faces flak over letting close to 30 lakh tonnes of foodgrain rot across the country, the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on food has reportedly decided to sell an additional 30 lakh tonnes of rice and wheat to 11.5 crore Above-Poverty-Line (APL) families through ration shops.

Didnt such a though occur to the incompetent government and the food minister earlier?

PS: Remember the days of waiting for 2 years for a land line, booking periods for a Bajaj scooter or a Maruti car?  That’s the kind of pathetic performance only our government can do.  That’s why agriculture, retail and everything to do with logistics needs to be deregulated.  So that the private sector can do in a few years what our government hasn’t been able to do in decades.

Picture courtesy: Poonam

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In the initial anguish reading about the terrorists strike in the heart of Mumbai, this is what i wrote on a  common forum. Reproducing it here in full.

I wonder what is the difference between the terrorists who attacked the city of Bombay and the goons of Raj / Bal Thackeray who regularly kill, injure people and destroy property just to further their political agenda?

Why dont we feel the same pain and shame when a politician rouses communal fears and tries to divide us and makes us fight among ourselves?

What makes the Indian / Deccan Mujahideen / SIMI / Lashkar  any more dangerous than home grown terror like the VHP, RSS, Shiv Sena, Maoists, the Christian fundamentalists in Eastern India?

Is Advani not responsible enough for all the violence we are facing today due to his role in the Babri Masjid demolition?  Is the Congress not responsible for repeated miscarriage of justice by their pseudo secularism and pandering to the extremist muslims?  Is Narendra Modi not responsible for the 1000s of muslims killed under his watch in the Gujarat riots? Is Congress not responsible for the thousands of Sikhs killed in 1984?

And then, why are we surprised that someone from our own country wants to kill his fellow countrymen?  When he/she asked for justice as his house was being burnt, his sister was being raped, where were we?  Why did we turn a blind eye?

All the miscarriages of justice is finally coming home to roost.

We will still bounce back and am sure of that.  But is it this kind of a society that we want to live in?

Raj Thuggeray, the leader of Maharashtra Napunsak Sena (Maharashtra Eunuch’s Army) and the paper tiger leader of Shiv Sena, Balls Thuggeray are so busy setting up vada pav stalls that they have retreated into the kitchens of their houses. The bloody uncle and nephew team that has held Bombay to ransom over their petty anti-North Indian politics are nowhere to be seen.  The NSG, Marine Commandos, RAF and Black Cats from other states of India have to come down to clean up the mess.  How come the Thuggeray family is not complaining now?  Bloody nincompoops.

Narendra Modi after lording over a state that recently was hit by more than 20 bomb blasts at various places tries to blame the central government saying that they are lenient.  For all his show of bravado, i have never seen a bigger coward.  In any other country, he would have been hung on a pole for being a mass murderer. Advani, the ever colour changing chameleon of Indian politics and the biggest terrorist India has ever produced is also busy fishing in troubled waters.

For all my respect for Manmohan Singh, i should admit that when it comes to internal security, he is the worst PM we ever had.  Sorry Mr Singh, i appreciate your honesty, your work in finance and the Indo-US nuclear deal, but you are pathetic when it comes to the security of our country.  It would be great if you could take your bloody incompetent Home Minister, Shivraj Patil (who might be busy at some clothes shop looking for the shirt to wear in the next press conference), your boss Sonia Gandhi and resign.  Please do us a favour.

What about RAW (Research & Analysis Wing), IB (Intelligence Bureau), the spy agencies who were supposed to smell the conspiracy and nip it in the bud?  We have another incompetent National Security Advisor in Narayanan.  He is so bloody camera happy that he has no qualms shooting off his mouth on TV.  Mr Narayanan, i wish you had the same competency in your work, at least these attacks would have had been stopped.  The RAW & IB has not been able to stop at least 20 attacks in different places of India in the past 2 years.  If they even have a shred of shame, heads should roll in all these 3 organisations.

If you cant bloody well protect us, then get the hell out of your seats.  We do not have a choice and that’s why we go back to our schools, work and daily routine inspite of a bomb blast.  Now that’s been bandied about as the resilience of our people and economy.  And, iam sick of being reminded of my resilience when iam being ruled by spineless and incompetent people who instead of saving me and my family are more busy playing politics hiding beind a bullet proof screen and being swamped by some black cats who put their lives at stake so that ingrates like you can live to see another day.

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