Chance of a lifetime - A piece of wisdom to the unwise polity of India

You guys have looted this country for six decades at a stretch. You have played with the policies, rules and regulations, power of discretion, absolute misuse of authority to further your monetary interests, to further the monetary interests of your city, town, village and street level political goons who ensure victory for you in elections.You people get remuneration and unlimited perks from the government funds. What benefit these associates get legally? You give them the access to fill their pockets through graft, corruption and black money generation making use of your powers unabashedly.

Gentlemen , it is a wake up call for all of you. It is God sent opportunity to get your names in the history of this nation. It is an opportunity to ensure government for yourselves for maybe next fifty years.And above all an opportunity to eradicate poverty and giving an enviable life style and conveniences to the billions of common citizens of India in just five years. The choice is entirely yours for you are the ones who are responsible for the neglect and miseries of these billions through a combination of your corrupt governance and bad governance over the last sixty years.

The 5-8% growth in GDP that too for the last few years only, that is being boasted of by the government could be catapulted to 15% and beyond if only corruption and black money could just be halved. This is beyond my imagination as to what level of growth we could hit upon if corruption and black money could be eradicated and black money stashed abroad could be brought back. Gentlemen, this is the opportunity that is beckoning you.

Find out just one man who is INCORRUPTIBLE  in the true sense of the word ie. who could not be bought for  because of his lust for money, lust for wine and woman, lust for power or lust for having a great name. I understand there is danger of being deserted by more than 50 % of these fair weather friends if the right kind of administrative and judicial reforms with an absolute sincerity and honesty of purpose are put before the parliament. Let the bills be defeated . Let the government fall. But in the ensuing elections if you put up a stone as a candidate, people will see to it that it emerges as a winner and the people who oppose these measures will find it difficult even to walk on the streets of this country.

Indian Governance - A Corrupt governance

We have heard of good governance and bad governance. A good governance is desirable to achieve best possible results, a bad governance can be forgiven and tolerated to some extent for in this case the decisions of the government do not originate out of ulterior motives but are the result of wrong judgement. The agony of Indian Governance is that all decisions are a result of corrupt motivation in one form are the other.

The scams like 2 G, CWG, Adarsh or the mining scam in Karnatka and other states are just a few samples of thousands of such scams going on in this country where the country's resources like minerals, land, spectrum etc. and tax payers money is being wasted at whims and fancies of political bigwigs using all discretionary powers to favour themselves directly or indirectly. The present day government takes credit for the action taken by it in these cases. But imagine the  amount of effort that was needed to convince the government for action by media, opposition, civil society, CAG, CVC and even the Supreme Court. The extent of involvement of judiciary, CBI, and other government organs only suggests that they cannot handle five more such cases in a reasonable period of time particularly looking into the attitude and sensitivity of the government in all these cases.

The discretionary powers of the authority are meant to safeguard the interests of the nation, whereas in all these cases discretion was used to favour one party or the other. The nation is given to believe that in 2G spectrum allocation, the decisions were taken in the light of of prevailing government policies on the matter, the policies which were framed some fifteen years back looking into the requirements of that time. These powerful politicians and bureaucrats bend the rules under the garb of discretionary powers to help themselves, their near and dear ones or their favoured ones when looting this nation but when it comes to do the same for the good of the nation they behave worse than clerks even and go verbatim by the rule book. The motivation for doing so is not very hard to understand.
The CAG report on CWG mess is said to be pointing out to procedural irregularities only and there is no mention of the word scam. Even a clerk in the government won't succumb to procedural irregularities unless and until he has his axe to grind. The motivation on the part of of all bigwigs involved to commit such irregularities is not hard to understand. Incidentally even if no procedural irregularities are resorted to, there is still a corruption margin of 30 % of the project cost because of use of less quantity, substandard materials and not adhering to construction specifications which cannot be checked once the civil work is finished.
To control such occurrences we require some sincerity of purpose on the part of those who rule this country. This cannot happen till such time we advocate the motto ' Loyalty to the chair and not to the nation ', and the political parties do  rely on persons wedded to moral ethics and who have some substance, sincerity and honesty of purpose in their thought process and not on persons who have been bestowed only with extraordinary gift of the gab to defend even their wrongful actions. Incidentally majority of spokespersons of all political parties are advocates who adhere only to professional ethics where their utmost priority is to defend their client irrespective of the fact whether the client is right or wrong. The moral ethics take a back seat in their profession and they carry the same during their governance stints also.
As a first major step towards fighting corruption let us do away with all discretionary powers so that we graduate into the realm of bad governance from the present state of corrupt governance. By doing so we will only be causing damage to government kitty that too in some cases and will not be filling the coffins of corruption money which has spiraling damaging effect on the economy.

Indian Governance - A Sham

Some views of Indian Polity on corruption

The asking for a meaningful Lok Pal Bill by Team Anna has been termed as a danger to democracy, tyranny of the non elected and non electable. If this is so we are all proud to escape the slur of being  Electable.
Anna has no right or business to talk of corruption in this country because there are charges of corruption against him.The basis for this charge is the observation of a commission some 7 years back. Why no action by this honest government? What was the motivation of no follow up action ? Honesty I believe !

Those tainted with corruption have no right to take up the cause of fight against corruption. That is perhaps the reason our politicians are so insensitive to this cause and are not taking action against it. True to their convictions at least ! 

Fundamental rights are not absolute rights in the context of fast and Satyagrah by Anna Hazare on fight against corruption by the party who claims to inherit values from Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy.

Corruption in India:Our Birth Right

The events of last few months involving the drafting of the Lok Pal Bill, the actions of the government on the 2 G Scam, Adarsh Housing Scam, CWG Scam and the views and actions of Indian Polity on the biggest menace eating into our struggle of developing India gives an impression that we are fighting for Our Birth Right --- i.e. CORRUPTION. In this endeavour all political parties and all politicians seem to be contributing with all their might, passively, actively or silently like they were contributing when Bal Gangadhar Tilak  gave the slogan ' Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have it' way back in 1898 irrespective of their political and economic ideologies. The government claims that it has taken action against senior ministers and politicians but only when it became clear that shielding them will be their Waterloo. Who found out these scams? The government with all its powers and machinery never bothered to find out as to what is going on in this country. It was only press and media who exposed manipulations and corruption in these scams. Are these the only scams and corruption cases that have happened in this country during last five years? When black money issues are raised we talk only of Rs 70 lakh crores which is stashed away in foreign countries and the government expresses its helplessness in bringing it back because of international laws and procedures. Government, opposition and everyone in the country who matters does not talk of  Rs 10-15 lakh  crores being generated every year for it requires action solely on their part.

What should we expect from these people when the first small step towards having an effective Lok Pal has generated so much of commotion in political circles that erosion of parliamentary system and democracy are talked about when it comes to incorporating suggestions by a group of people invited by government itself to prepare a blue print of the bill, suggesting thereby that wisdom, morality and national concern are the sole propriety of handful of these politicians half of them are members of parliament through appointment ( indirect election) while the others carry at best a backing of 25% of electorate of their constituency.

It is surprising that every body in politics claims to be gravely concerned about corruption and having a powerful Lok Pal but nobody seems to have even a basic blueprint of the bill ready and are working in damage control mode after the issue has been thrust on them by team Anna. The total effort is not concentrated on having an effective Lok Pal institution but on scoring political points over rivals and ultimately whom to blame for not getting the bill through. In the worst of the circumstances if the bill has to be passed the aim is to have a lame Lok Pal standing on one leg waiting to fall with the slightest whiff of air.

By excluding CBI  from the ambit of  RTI, while the intentions of government about fighting corruption and bringing in transparency in governance are clear, the silence on the part of other parties on the matter only smells of a collusion amongst the polity for maintaining status quo in all matters of national interest. The lame excuse of CBI handling cases involving national security is just a ploy for keeping it outside the purview of RTI, for separate wings must be dealing with cases of corruption and national security and even if this is not the case, separate wings could be created for strengthening the claim of good governance and transparency.

Indian polity has a flair for coining high sounding vote catching slogans. These days we hear a lot about inclusive growth and empowerment of masses. In principle both the phrases are wonderful but in a country where 70% of the money is known to be going into individual pockets when accountability on ground cannot be established. Is it not an effort to establishing your political clout through indirect bribe. Or in simple words, you participate in the national loot in a small way and allow us to grab the major chunk peacefully. We have heard programmes and slogans like Community Development, Roti Kapda aur Makan, Jai Jawan Jai Kissan, Garibi Hatao and we are not any better on these fronts. Similarly after five years or so we will come across some new vote catching phrases and generation after generation the poor will have to live as poor and be at the mercy of free India's democratically elected masters.
In the end one could only say ' God bless this country and millions of deprived, starved and hapless citizens who are being condemned to this fate by the rulers of this country.

Ashamed To Be An Indian

"I am ashamed to be a Hindustani" said Rahul Gandhi , Congress general secretary and the man considered to be the next prime minister of India. This was said when he saw the plight of farmers protesting against acquisition of their lands for Greater Noida Phase II in U.P. a state governed by one of the opposition parties. Surprisingly the same sort of problems are faced by the poor including poor farmers all over the country and even in states governed by congress and its allies but not an eyelid is battered by the so called and self acclaimed 'Masiha' of the Indian Poor.Let us not shed crocodile tears over the fate of poor of this country with a view to keeping only politics and vote banks in mind.

After sixty years of democratic rule in the country, as well meaning, sincere citizens with self respect we are ashamed to be an Indian because of anything and everything going on in this country, a few of them are recited below.

• We are one of the most corrupt nations of the world and we are not prepared to take cognizance of this fact.
• We are no.1 country in the generation of black money and we do not want to take any action.
• Even after 64 years of independence, we have 450 million people below poverty line without even shelter, clean drinking water, basic health care, sanitation facilities and food for survival.
• Even now we resort to food and fuel subsidies where only 20% reaches the target group and some part goes in administration costs and the biggest chunk goes into the pockets of mighty and powerful of this country.
• We have grossly inadequate judicial system in the country. All kind of cases relating to criminal offences, economic offences, land and property disputes can and can be made to drag in courts for decades without any relief to the complainant and punishment to the guilty.
• After 64 years of independence we are not utilising even 10 % of our river water potential culminating into frequent floods and droughts.

We do have the resources and wherewithal to achieve these in a short span of about five years provided we are sincere in our approach and don't resort to political play. Let the government begin in right earnest in introducing bills for bringing forth the desired laws and expose those who try to stall them and leave the rest to Indian electorate. Let us give these matters a sincere and earnest try without resorting to political slogan mongering and gimmickry.

Corruption and Black Money:Our Main Priority

It is not a coincidence that India is one of the most corrupt nations on our globe. With the kind of people ruling this country and the concern they show to the burning issues of corruption and black money we are bound to improve upon our ranking in the list of most corrupt nations in the coming years. These days there is a lot of hue and cry about corruption and black money and the issue is being constantly raised by media and non political civil society. While Anna Hazare led a Dharna and fast for impressing upon the government to have an effective Lok Pal in the country, Yoga Guru Ramdev fasted for government action on curbing the demon of corruption and retrieving black money.The reaction to these two small initiatives on the biggest menaces eating into the nation's wealth and resources has been simply pathetic. Everyday a multitude of ministers of Central Government and party spokespersons of Congress talk of law making being the purview of the elected members only.It is not understood how Anna Hazare and Ramdev are going to enact laws concerning Lok Pal and fight against corruption. May be our politicians are simply reminding themselves about their powers and duties towards the nation which they have not cared to exercise during the last sixty years. None of these leaders can absolve himself of the responsibility of failing the nation on these counts for most of them have been in the government for more than twenty years.

Both Anna Hazare and Ramdev  have been termed to be the mouthpiece of BJP and RSS. Therefore their Satyagrah is a danger to the security, integrity, communal harmony and democracy. First of all it is not  certain whether BJP and RSS are any more serious about these issues, for over the years they also have kept these as sparring weapons to gain politically. Secondly does the issue becomes unimportant, loses relevance and is not in national interest if BJP and RSS are seen raising it or are associated with it. Thirdly if these two are so dangerous to the country, the government is failing in its duties by not banning them and is not working for the country but against it.
Let us have an effective Lok Pal. Let us have effective laws to take care of corruption and black money or face the nation's fury for not doing what is in the best interest of the country. This can be done only if the political might of this country decides to serve the country instead of serving the interests of their political clout, for all dubious economic activity always has a political backing.

Energy Security:Clean Energy Technologies : The Best Place To Be In

US President Barack Obama wants America to stay way ahead in the global race for clean energy innovation and wants his country to make sure that the new technological breakthroughs do not take place in countries like China and India. Such is the importance of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources and the growing realization across the world that clean energy technology is the way to future as it is going to help spur job creation and economic growth for years to come.

Surprisingly these lines and thought process of the Head of the super economic power of this globe do not cut any ice with Indian leaders and technocrats. For some strange reason and logic they only want to ensure Obama's wish and vision by buying from US and France nuclear power plants for trillions of dollars so that these nations have enough funds in their kitty to spend on research, technology development and creation of relevant industrial infrastructure to remain technology world leaders for future also.

Let us spend all the money meant to be spent on our nuclear energy program i.e. a sum of 9.6*10^12 i.e.  1.0 million crore rupees for 20000 mwatt of nuclear power to be added in the next decade or so. Cost includes  measures for waste management, disaster compensation insurance and stringent safety norms likely to be imposed in the light of Japanese disaster. In comparison 200000 mwatt of wind/hydro or 60000 mwatt of solar power can be installed at the same cost. On the top of it  environment issues,  security hazards and risks, disaster possibility and above all dependence for fuel on other countries will no more be issues of any concern. Let us give opportunity to our research labs, our engineering giants and i am convinced that we will add much more power in the coming decade and huge financial and opportunity inputs in these renewable energy technologies will catapult India to be the world leader in these fields.