Wednesday, August 24, 2011

In a hodgepodge politicosphere

'Hodgepodge' may be one of the exact words to define the political atmosphere of India these days.Starting from the scam series to the inflation and market tip-tows, from the Telangana logjam to the terror attacks & from the land acquisition debacles to the corruption strands, the might of the government has turned into a face of plight. Breaking the deadlock seems distant though respondent power bearers get entailed in heated debates and joint party meetings. Sighting the advancements, the framers of the Twelfth Five Year Plan are engulfed in the hodgepodge politico-sphere. 

Unlike UPA-I, the UPA-II is feeling its term longer than ever before as it has been unable to address the varied misappropriations at the societal level. Firstly the scams came to glory which was dealt with by removal and trials in court. But the disclosure of luxury treatment of the accused in the jails questioned the seriousness of the government which may have critical repercussions like loss of public faith and devaluation of morale and integrity of effective governance.Secondly, the people of India have been bearing the overburden of inflation fore past 2 years now. Inflation has appreciated incessantly with minor temporary short term dips.The government sustains with a deficit budget  year after year in order to improve the value added stocks but the controls and regulatory authoritarians of the fiscal policy seems malfunctioned. On debt concerns, it may not be reflected by the effect of global showdown on India or by the ratings of S&P as in the case of USA but India tops in Asia in this arena. 


Land acquisition laws in India after 64 years of independence still abides by the 115-year old Act. Serious concern must be shown by the government in this direction as it plans to acquire agrarian lands for industrialization and superimposing the fraction of the employed in relatively high payed industrial sector. Failure in leaping into the grass-roots and sprouting up with creative and just methods may result in peasant movements and protests sympathizing with the ideology of Naxals making things much more coercive. Finally the Lokpal bill which is pending since 1971 when it was first introduced in the Parliament. Successive government kept dissolving it ; though in 1996 under the A.B Vajpayee government, the bill had a modified outlook but still it maintained the status of heedless. Recently, Anna Hazare has become the crusader for the bill but the insights into the JanLokpal bill suggest though it might be successful in capturing the imagination of many and result in mass mobilization, the bill projects the possibility of the return of anarchy which may diminish our representative democracy like the demand for the judiciary into the ambit of the Lokpal is entirely unconstitutional. The bill is quite impressive on some grounds like the advent of Citizens' Charter for improving public delivery operations. Balance need to be struck in between the Lokpal & the JanLokpal bills without being unconstitutional and superiority arrogance approach.

The Parliament has become a synonym for the word 'hodgepodge' as many legislations are pending in the Parliament. These stimulate debates and discussions but fail to converge on an effective remedial conclusion, which ultimately becomes the political propagating issues of political parties. Besides, legislations have accumulated over the years just to add up to the procedural miseries of the recent and forthcoming ones.Some of the major bills in the foresight of the Parliament are Women Reservation Bill, Goods and services Tax bill, Land acquisition bill, Communal violence bill, Whistle-blower's bill, Judicial Accountability Bill, Food Security Bill, Public Grievances and redressal bill and off-late the most hyped of all, Lokpal bill. In addition to these, several projects and programmes of the government are at stake, some in the framing stage, some in the implementation stage and several previous ones in the evaluation and remedial stages. 

In the context of the above scenario, do you think the Planning Commission will be able to tap the flying energies in different sectors and develop coordination to pull the curtains over the public uproar on the government? the Planning Commission headed by the PM himself has lost direction in framing the Twelfth Five year Plan(2012-17) and thus the plan sits still on the tip of a see-saw. Concurrent concerns has to be devoted as a headless chicken can reproduce faltered manifestations.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Angles of Corruption

Enough has been spoken and heard about on this glamor word in the past one year. Thought of writing the various angles of viewing it after 10 months of slumber in my blog posts. As we all know the political scenario of the country is burgeoning on the allegations and indulging the masses to have opinions on it. In such a situation, a citizen sound to have opinions needs to have a comprehensive and deepened view on this issue. In this post, I would like to put forth whatever I've envisaged about the radiating corruption.

First, let us look at it from the psychological aspect. A person thinks of corruption when one is unable to get a task done, when one has the power to break the laws and settle all consequences of it and when one has the greed resulting from frustration of a low scale job. For the younger generation, it may be a cool thing to break the laws and be a part of it. Looking at all the above cases, one thing is common that the fear of law has suffered a moral breakdown in the hearts of the people. People fancy themselves going beyond the law and meeting their necessities. Psychology tells people tend to do those things often with they are not supposed to do. It implies that people become corrupt because taking bribe is a crime. If suppose being corrupt is as usual thing as calling a friend, the menace of corruption may be controlled to some extent. Ask yourself that how many of you call a friend that often as to the number of times you wont hesitate to fill your pockets when you are in power to do it. People may gain from it if corruption is made a law, but they wont be given credit for making out an empire of their own as the morale of something sustains till it makes it invincible.


Secondly, deepening the pockets can be seen from individual economic point of view. The greed of making money reaches a saturation point after a definite time period . Even a dog does not find a bone tasty enough after licking it for sometime. We are not a developed economy as the OECD countries of the world, in which the people have a good standard of living as they are financially strong enough to hold their morale and burdens. If a situation arises where every Indian has the financial stability in life and complacence of making money is achieved, this ill-deed wont penetrate the skeletons of our democracy. People will start thinking beyond money matters instead of living for money or power. People will be well enough to support their families and also invest elsewhere for the security of future generations. If this happens to the societal framework of India, the thought of bribing will be dissected into pieces in the minds of people.


Thirdly, which will precede the above situation is the investment friendly atmosphere of the country. How can a country be investment hub of the world? Hong-Kong and Singapore are the best examples. Lets take Hong-Kong for example where a similar uprising as that of Anna Hazare took place in the 1970s when a person fled away from the country after serious allegations of corruption where reported on him. The mass mobilization of the people forced the Government to act and an independent Commission on corruption was constituted.On further super-incumbent pressure from various directions, the Government took the responsibility  to prove the point of being serious on this issue, to the citizens. The by-laws of the commission was framed to build up an effective and efficient mechanism of tackling the menace. In the subsequent years, many corrupt officials were prosecuted and the international companies which tided away from Hong-Kong returned after viewing the investment friendly atmosphere in the country and the potential of Hong-Kong Government in profiteering the entrepreneurs with negotiable collaboration. The similar crisis in India needs immediate attention and the urge to invite FDI and FII which will not only glorify India in the global investors' fraternity but also will enable the Government to achieve its various objectives like financial inclusion. Institutionalizing the entire mechanism of operation in the social domain of the country can shun the roots of this ill-deed.  


All the above explained situations are hypothetical and it is just to bring to light the different angles of looking at the menace of corruption. People may have many things to say about corruption but opinions are unique to a person as the food item of 'brasht- achaar' is to the leaders of India today.
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