Democracy is form of governance, by the people, of the people, for the people. How it normally works is that the people of each constituency of the democracy elect a leader to lead them and put forward their point of view. That leader then represents them in various forums such as the Parliament, where laws are made. The laws are debated by all of the representatives and based on a majority it gets passed.
Politicians and corrupt and therefore the entire system under them is corrupt, this needs to be stopped? How can this be achieved? There are two schools of thought to this:
Anna school of thought - Let us continue to elect crooks and criminals as ministers. Create a watchdog agency that will watch over these guys. The crooks would suddenly develop culture and refrain from bribery.
Was the CVC also not there for the same purpose? When the CVC could become corrupt, why not the Lokpal?
My guess. A watchdog agency with infinite powers is created. Then these guys will start bribing the watchdog agency and continue to do whatever they have been doing. Anna Hazare will be first Lokpal in India, he will also clean a few bucks after he assumes that position and stash it in Swiss Bank accounts.
The other school of thought - Disenfranchise the crooks and criminals. Take away their ability to stand in elections. Make education a pre-requisite to lead. Increase salaries in government to the level where talented individuals are attracted to work for the government. Cleansing shall be systemic.
This bill will not go through the parliament easily either considering its composition. But this is the right way to do things.
What Anna Hazare is doing is getting a bunch of boisterous clowns together and demanding that he be allowed to dictate the terms of laws that are to be formed?
I would like to understand who determines that Anna Hazare is the gold standard in law making?
A group of about 1000 people standing on a road or fasting unto death is blackmail? This is not the way to form the law. If Anna really cares, let him take his ideals and float a party, get elected and then bring about all of the changes that he wants to do.
What is currently being done is not in the least democratic. If at all it is the most undemocratic act in the history of this nation.
There is another way to solve this - Plebiscite. Conduct a country wide plebiscite on what the Lokpal bill must have and even the Parliament does not need to get involved (don't know if this is constitutional but it is very democratic).
If what Anna is doing is to be considered Gandhian and agreed upon, then, tomorrow if Dawood Ibrahim was to land up with about a 1000 people outside some park in Delhi protesting the ban on smuggling, the government should bend and fold.
It is a criminal violation of democracy.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
Anna Hazare
Some 5 months back one obscure figure, who had apparently sworn to rid India of corruption shot to fame on national media. His apparent weapon an obscure bill called the Lokpal bill, which I am sure none of us has read, but believe will rid this country of corruption. The only problem being that the government does not quite seem to agree with him and he has made an ego issue out of it.
Before we delve any further, I would like for you to be able to ponder about a few questions:
Why doesn't Hazare protest against letting people with criminal records stand for election? That is a bad thing is it not?
Why does he not protest for those with a record of wrong-doing in politics to be barred from contesting elections? They should be shouldn't they?
When the IAS officers who work for the government, under the ministers, need to pass such grueling exams, why cant education be a pre-requisite for becoming a minister? Why does the blind get to lead a man with eyes in this country?
Why was he absolutely silent about the indiscretions of BS Yeddyurappa while being extremely vociferous about the Congress ministers?
How does the Lokpal really solve the issue? They can be hand and glove in corruption?
First things first; how do you know that giving someone the 'License to kill' ensures that it will mend the system? The only thing that will happen for certain is that this power drunk agency will misuse this power. This is precisely the reason why there is no Spiderman, Batman or Superman in the world. If they did get that kind of power, they would be putting it to much selfish use. Also, all power drunk agencies have a negative image, FBI, CIA, MI6, Mossad, etc.
To illustrate this point better, let me take the law on dowry. There was injustice, unfair practice, to eliminate it, this law was enacted. Today every husband in India has to wish and pray that the wife is not insane enough to go and file a dowry case. Irrespective of your background, caste, creed, history; you and your entire family can land up in jail if a woman decides to file even a baseless case. That is how beautiful the law is. It needs more thought for certain and in the current form it is absolutely one-sided, which has had negative consequences.
So coming back to the point, the government does not wish to create a one sided bill of this nature and Anna has a problem with it.
Now coming to the more important question. How does 'Mr. I am Gandhian' coming from an obscure village in I don't know where, suddenly get recognized and covered so heavily by media. Me sitting in a city like Bangalore with all the social network and internet and media at my disposal can't get more than a sympathetic nod if I were to take any issue up and make a hue and cry about it.
Obviously, somebody bought the media and bought the coverage OR Anna Hazare is the best PR Agent known to mankind and he should start a PR Agency and give every top PR firm a run for their money. Anna Hazare does not seem to have such a strong background in PR so it is safe to assume that there is money backing him.
Just to compare, Baba Ramdev, a TV celebrity having crores in the corpus (and Hundreds of Crores at that) and a huge fan following, due to his yoga; needed to travel all over the country to gather support. He had been travelling and meeting opinion leaders for about 4 months and then he had to buy media time with his massive financial resources. Then he had to go on an all out 360 degree marketing campaign before the fast. Despite all the money and arm-twisting, he got whacked by a cane out of the Ramleela Grounds and got sent back to where he belonged. This for a man who had Hundreds of Crores at his disposal.
So again, how much money and power is really backing Mr. Hazare?
Anna Hazare is not fighting for corruption, I am sure even he has not read the Lokpal Bill completely, only parts and excepts. He is doing this show for some political party that wishes to soil Congress's image (as if that needs so much work). I will give you 10 guesses to guess which political party.
This bill will never be passed. This noise will last till the next election. This entire campaign is a subterfuge.
Before we delve any further, I would like for you to be able to ponder about a few questions:
Why doesn't Hazare protest against letting people with criminal records stand for election? That is a bad thing is it not?
Why does he not protest for those with a record of wrong-doing in politics to be barred from contesting elections? They should be shouldn't they?
When the IAS officers who work for the government, under the ministers, need to pass such grueling exams, why cant education be a pre-requisite for becoming a minister? Why does the blind get to lead a man with eyes in this country?
Why was he absolutely silent about the indiscretions of BS Yeddyurappa while being extremely vociferous about the Congress ministers?
How does the Lokpal really solve the issue? They can be hand and glove in corruption?
First things first; how do you know that giving someone the 'License to kill' ensures that it will mend the system? The only thing that will happen for certain is that this power drunk agency will misuse this power. This is precisely the reason why there is no Spiderman, Batman or Superman in the world. If they did get that kind of power, they would be putting it to much selfish use. Also, all power drunk agencies have a negative image, FBI, CIA, MI6, Mossad, etc.
To illustrate this point better, let me take the law on dowry. There was injustice, unfair practice, to eliminate it, this law was enacted. Today every husband in India has to wish and pray that the wife is not insane enough to go and file a dowry case. Irrespective of your background, caste, creed, history; you and your entire family can land up in jail if a woman decides to file even a baseless case. That is how beautiful the law is. It needs more thought for certain and in the current form it is absolutely one-sided, which has had negative consequences.
So coming back to the point, the government does not wish to create a one sided bill of this nature and Anna has a problem with it.
Now coming to the more important question. How does 'Mr. I am Gandhian' coming from an obscure village in I don't know where, suddenly get recognized and covered so heavily by media. Me sitting in a city like Bangalore with all the social network and internet and media at my disposal can't get more than a sympathetic nod if I were to take any issue up and make a hue and cry about it.
Obviously, somebody bought the media and bought the coverage OR Anna Hazare is the best PR Agent known to mankind and he should start a PR Agency and give every top PR firm a run for their money. Anna Hazare does not seem to have such a strong background in PR so it is safe to assume that there is money backing him.
Just to compare, Baba Ramdev, a TV celebrity having crores in the corpus (and Hundreds of Crores at that) and a huge fan following, due to his yoga; needed to travel all over the country to gather support. He had been travelling and meeting opinion leaders for about 4 months and then he had to buy media time with his massive financial resources. Then he had to go on an all out 360 degree marketing campaign before the fast. Despite all the money and arm-twisting, he got whacked by a cane out of the Ramleela Grounds and got sent back to where he belonged. This for a man who had Hundreds of Crores at his disposal.
So again, how much money and power is really backing Mr. Hazare?
Anna Hazare is not fighting for corruption, I am sure even he has not read the Lokpal Bill completely, only parts and excepts. He is doing this show for some political party that wishes to soil Congress's image (as if that needs so much work). I will give you 10 guesses to guess which political party.
This bill will never be passed. This noise will last till the next election. This entire campaign is a subterfuge.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
The Myopic Indian Cricket Team
Harbhajan dropped from the Third Test. He has not been bowling to his potential and if you look at the graph, his wickets haul this year has been the lowest in his career.
Having said that, one might also consider that he is probably only player other than Raina, who has been chosen to play for the country right since the World Cup... What about all of the these clowns who took rest??
Dhoni has displayed the worst batting performance since the beginning of his career. Not only that he has been rather ordinary behind the stumps as well.
Zaheer, bowled 13 overs and injured again!! (We don't need porcelain dolls)
Nehra, yet to return, at least he was hurt playing for the country and making an extra-ordinary effort in the Semi-Finals.
Sehwag, yet to return, Abhi tak maa ka ashirvaad nahin mila.
Gambhir, what an elbow!!
Sachin, Aura!! Aura!! Can't say anything about his batting. Bullshit... He has been playing like a high school kid and a bad one at that.
Dhoni says too much cricket, while he should say, we shouldn't have been playing fucking IPL.
The Indian cricketers have a very myopic view on this. They get to cash in thanks to IPL but their careers will come to an end far sooner. The IPL, is a high pressure format with excessive amount of travel and a terrible shortage of rest. They need to play and then jump around with famous monkeys at night and then travel by morning. Not to mention sponsors obligations and ad shoots in the middle of this. The players cannot cope with that kind of a schedule
The team is burning itself out by choice. Somebody needs to put an end to it.
Having said that, one might also consider that he is probably only player other than Raina, who has been chosen to play for the country right since the World Cup... What about all of the these clowns who took rest??
Dhoni has displayed the worst batting performance since the beginning of his career. Not only that he has been rather ordinary behind the stumps as well.
Zaheer, bowled 13 overs and injured again!! (We don't need porcelain dolls)
Nehra, yet to return, at least he was hurt playing for the country and making an extra-ordinary effort in the Semi-Finals.
Sehwag, yet to return, Abhi tak maa ka ashirvaad nahin mila.
Gambhir, what an elbow!!
Sachin, Aura!! Aura!! Can't say anything about his batting. Bullshit... He has been playing like a high school kid and a bad one at that.
Dhoni says too much cricket, while he should say, we shouldn't have been playing fucking IPL.
The Indian cricketers have a very myopic view on this. They get to cash in thanks to IPL but their careers will come to an end far sooner. The IPL, is a high pressure format with excessive amount of travel and a terrible shortage of rest. They need to play and then jump around with famous monkeys at night and then travel by morning. Not to mention sponsors obligations and ad shoots in the middle of this. The players cannot cope with that kind of a schedule
The team is burning itself out by choice. Somebody needs to put an end to it.
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