Anna, Baba Ramdev… who next?

10

Tweet

The Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh duo can not escape the consequences of lathi charging over one lakh peaceful protesters in the dead of the night. The strategy to question the integrity of Baba Ramdev at this stage has been cooked in cunning heads that can not think beyond power. The men, the women and the children who had gathered at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi were not thugs. Why were they lathi charged? Whatever might be the duration of the Indian public memory, this question will haunt the Congress for a long-long time. The BJP heads are no less cunning. The party wants to ride to power on the shoulders of Baba Ram Dev and Anna Hazare. LK Advani had promised to bring back black money during the run up to the last general elections. There were no takers. No one trusts the BJP on corruption. The RSS and....

Will Baba Ramdev revive Tahrir aspirations?

10

Tweet

Anna Hazare's India against Corruption campaign was mobilized on the internet. Not many gave it a chance. The pundits were skeptical about the reach of the internet. The basic flaw in the argument was the comparison of numbers. Those who pressed the like button on the IAC page on facebook were too small in number to be calculated as a percentage of those who did not have any access to the internet. The campaign went on to become a huge success, middle class India responded, Jantar Mantar was briefly talked as the Tahrir Square of India. The media played a huge role in keeping up the pressure. The Jan Lokpal Bill, the focal point of entire campaign, is still a distant dream. Government representatives and civil society members on the joint draft committee are still haggling. A definite course should emerge only after June 4, the day Baba Ramdev....

Moral science mafia on the rampage in MP

2

Tweet

A classic story of how the ruling mafia (read government) creates propaganda tools in the form of media houses that run news papers and cable networks is unfolding in Bhopal these days. The idea behind creating such propaganda tools is to safeguard the interests of the secret society that oils the 'mafia machinery' with its unaccounted ill gotten wealth. Occasional corruption exposing stories that emanate from these newspapers and cable networks are aimed at enhancing their blackmail potential. Once the deal is done the stories vanish only to be replaced by fresh agendas that can further enhance the blackmail potential. There is no end to this cycle. Higher the blackmail potential, bigger the net worth. Successive rulers in Madhya Pradesh have created several such blackmailers over the years. There are so many of them lurking around as conscience keepers giving moral science lessons everyday but there are some....

Who provides justice to the wronged in India?

3

Tweet

There is still a lot of dispute over how many people were killed and left with life long disabilities by the deadly Methyl Iso Cyanide leak from the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal in December 1984. The CBI says over 5000 died and over 5,68,000, were left suffering from various kinds of injuries. The Madhya Pradesh government says over 15000 have died while NGOs working amongst the victims claim the number is much bigger. Whatever the number of dead and injured may be, the victims of Bhopal by the end of May 2011 have a Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) to answer as in who will provide justice? The question as to when justice will be done is irrelevant even after 26 years . The Question is: who provides justice to the wronged in India? The four choices are: A) The Judicial System in India with the....

People of Pakistan have done no wrong

1

Tweet

The American discovery of the Abbottabad mansion from which Osama bin laden was directing his al-Qaeda operations for the past five-six years has brought Pakistan under the scanner in America's war against terror like never before. President Obama has assured an investigation to look into who was harboring Osama. The ruling politicians in Pakistan have taken it upon themselves to defend their country's role with an innocence that speaks of their total lack of knowledge about the inhabitants of the Abbottabad mansion. The idea is to reflect that they are in control but the fact is they have yet not been empowered to control the Pakistani Army and the ISI. The Pakistani rulers are yet again looking towards America to provide them with the leash with which the Army and the ISI can be reigned in. Both these Pakistani institutions have worked in very close coordination with the....

Osama, US humanitarian aid and a helpless world

0

Tweet

"The people of Afghanistan, with their blood, courage and faith, are an inspiration to the cause of freedom everywhere" This was President Reagan in February 1985 to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia after he had been briefed about the humanitarian work undertaken by the Saudis on the Pakistani frontier where refugees were poring from Afghanistan. The quote has been pulled out from Steve Colls wonderfully written book: The bin Ladens. Behind the humanitarian work that President Regan was referring to was Osama bin Laden and the evidence on the basis of which this statement was made was filmed in Pakistan by Osama's half brother Salem bin Laden. Osama was then working for the Saudi Secret Service that had assigned him the task of recruiting mujahideens for taking on the Soviets. Saudi and American money was available in plenty. The Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989 but Osama stayed back crisscrossing....

Democracy, corruption and media

4

Tweet

There is no better way to exercise complete control over an individual or an organisation than this one: systematically facilitate corruption by changing rules and form policy in an arbitrary manner that allows the beneficiary to flourish. If the beneficiaries of any such arbitrarily formed policy are newspaper barons, can such newspapers be expected to expose the corruption of the policy maker? Well there can be some stray incidents when corruption stories appear in such newspapers but than a deeper focus on the motive behind such stories would reveal their real appetite for further change in policy that could further enhance their net worth. In the year 2000 Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta justice Faizanuddin cancelled allotment of one acre of prime property to an Indore based newspaper Nayi Dunia. The allotment was made by the then Chief Minister Digvijay Singh for Rs 5 lakh while the market rate of that....

Who is Digvijaya Singh speaking for?

0

Tweet

Thomas Fergusan of the University of Massachusetts says in his investment theory of politics that political parties are essentially political arms of business groups that finance elections. Political parties are subordinate to campaign donations, he argues. The periodic change that happens is because of realignment of voters that is based on performance of political groups which in turn is essentially based on the policy that flows from the agenda set by the financiers. Ferguson's conclusions may be based on the American democratic system where the Supreme Court has allowed corporations to spend money on elections without taking the shareholders' consent but the theory holds absolutely true for India. The only referral difference is that corporations here don't need the Supreme Court's stamp to justify investment in political parties. It is mostly done in black and is thus the damp ground from which sprouts the weed that assumes various forms....

Anna Hazare, the guiding moral force against graft

0

Tweet

The best possible compromise is achieved when both warring sides split the spoils amongst themselves equally. But make no mistake there is no such thing called a 50-50 revolution. Those who were not celebrating on the evening of April 8 when the union government issued the notification on the constitution of the committee that will now draft the Local bill had their reasons. The validity or invalidity of these reasons depends on the angle from which the action at Jantar Mantar was viewed. A slightly obtuse angle runs the risk of blurring vision. Those who are criticizing the Jan Lokpal bill for the powers it could confer on this institution are missing the woods for the trees. Those who had rallied behind Anna Hazare had rallied against corruption. The Jan Lokpal bill draft was offered as a limited solution that could prosecute, punish and thus act as a....

The dance of Gandhi's ghost at Jantar Mantar?

0

Tweet

The sudden expression of respect for Anna Hazare by both the Congress and the BJP is rooted in fear. The spirit of Gandhi and his ways of protest have the potential to dislodge any system that thrives on corruption. No one knows this better than those who have taken turns in the past 60 years in their attempts to surpass Ghazni when it comes to plundering the nation. Those who have played divisive politics for consolidating vote banks can not afford to let the nation unite. Hence the sweet talk: "We respect Anna Hazare." If anything near to the proposed Jan Lok Pal Bill becomes Law it will gobble all those who are trying to show their respect to Anna Hazare by suggesting he and his team has no right to propose any such thing because that is the sole prerogative of the legislature. The rulers of Independent....