“Whenever the Indian Prime Minister speaks, the whole world listens to him”-Barrack Obama
The statement was a shot in the arm for the visionary leaders who envisage a vision of India as a superpower by 2020. But they fail to realize that before we can claim a role of superpower, we need to empower our people. Today more than 50% of population lives on less than Rs 20 a day (official figures still show it 26%). The concept of holistic growth and inclusiveness is a far cry from the present Indian system of governance. The hasty legislations have become mere paper tigers. In the absence of proper machinery and infrastructure, many policies like the right to education and setting up of green tribunals are yet to be implemented.
The pompous inauguration of T3 terminal of New Delhi, built in record time of 37 months, lays out a red carpet welcome to all our international guests. At a time when our Human development index is nose diving, child malnutrition is on a rise, we are more worried about getting Indira Gandhi international airport into the top ten airports of the world rather than addressing the problems of the poor.
The constitutional ideals of sovereignty, secularity and democracy are in danger. In the north J&K curfews and stone pelting have become a regular occurrence. The short lived calmness in valley has ended with the mindless shooting and Killings by the paramilitairy forces. Down at Haryana, Khap panchayats are running a parallel judiciary system openly defying the laws of the land. The principles have natural justice have been thrown out of the window in the name of honour of a group of people.
Delhi is busy with arrangements for CW2010. Common wealth games in India was to project india to the world. In this regard a string of welfare and poverty allievation programs should have been taken up. Atleast an effort to alleviate poverty in NCR should have been taken up. Instead they turned a blind eye to it and went on a spending spree to pep up the city for the International event. The RTE act which has the potential to change the future of India has not been implemented owing to lack of funds. I wonder how they were able to pump in crores of rupees in City planning and beautification.
The Bhopal gas tragedy was back in news after 26 years thanks to the inconsequential judgement in Keshub Mahindra case. The government in a bid to console the people of Bhopal gifted them a toothless Green tribunal to resolve any future accidents of such sort.
AP seems to be on a downward spiral under the reign of Rosaiah. Ever since he took over after the shocking demise of YSR, the funds have dried up and its reached near bankruptcy with many welfare schemes being stalled or restricted to certain regions. In a bid to garner the necessary funds for welfare programs, govt came up with idea of selling licenses for liquor shops. What a gem of an idea! Getting funds for welfare programs at the cost of health of its subjects.
The roads of India are one of the dangerous in world. Lack of
i) lane discipline
ii) Safety infrastructure
iii) Stringent rules
have led to accidents which take away lives of 350 people a day. That is equivalent to an plane crash every day. Instead of improving the safety standards of existing roads, the road ministry is busy making up plans of laying another 43000 km of roads and thus laying more deathtraps.
For sure our economy is robust and is leading the world out of recession with its vast experience in monetary and fiscal policy making of a nation of a billion. But it is also a selfish and witty one at bullying the poor and making way for the rich to prosper.
