According to Soli Sorabji, the supreme court called ragging a “ violation of Human Rights”, while a Prevention of Ragging in Colleges and Institutions Bill was introduced in Rajya Sabha in 2005, has not been enacted yet. That surely brings a feeling of outrage and helpless in many of us in this country. There has, likewise, been much horror and indignation over the highhandedness of the law in the alleged Rave party in Bangalore recently, and outrage the callous indifference of the police in the Mangalore pub case and the violence on women incidents in Bangalore.
While its so easy for us to point a finger at the Sangh parivar, be outraged over the police action and police in action , and the indifference of our MPs, let us stop for a moment and wonder about ourselves. The high highhandedness of the student raggers who just got a high from the "power" they felt over beating a younger student, and the indifference of the principal and faculty, who have surely known that ragging was prevalent. In Bangalore, what bout the indifference of the passers by who didn& want to or were too afraid to get involved as the women were being attacked right before their eyes.
And what about the press reporters who happily accompanied Mutalik’s men to the pub in Mangalore, knowing fully well what was about to happen, but they just HAD to get that exclusive Breaking News story. To my mind they are no different from our politicians and lawmakers.
Another case in point is Corruption. We never tire of pointing out the corruption in politics. But the level of corruption in just one area, evasion of taxes, is an indication of how deeply entrenched corruption and selfishness is in our society. The shocking figure of almost 1.5 trillion US$ of Indian black money in Swiss banks, which is the higher than any other country in the world, is something we need to really think about and get together to demand answers from ourselves as a society . 1.5 trillion$ is twice the GDP of our country, where more than half of us earn a mere 50 cents a day. Politicians, police, lawmakers are from us, of us and (elected) by us, after all !! As a society, we have to introspect on what it is that makes so many of us indifferent, irresponsible, corrupt, violent citizens, ready to pass the buck, ready to evade responibilty, ready to impinge on the rights of others. And election time is the best time to think about these things Because , like it or not, we will soon put into the highest office of our country, people who are JUST LIKE US. people who will make important decisions for a billion of us.
Its time we stopped shrugging and smulgly claiming “We are like that only” !!
ಈ Forum topic ಅನ್ನು ಸ್ನೇಹಿತರಿಗೆ ಕಳಿಸಿ
Transparency in Govt Offices...
There is a friend of mine who has a background from the army and is capable of getting things done ,whether it is a visit to the RTO or the passport office or the gas connection, the easy way. However since he has been in Bangalore he has been trying to get that all done like a common man with integrity and determination. I don't have any experience of my own but his stories have actually made me wonder whether it is possible to live our lives without corruption a part of it.
So some of the questions I wanted to ask experienced Praja members was....
1. Have we ever done some study on the efficiency of the Govt offices which have to interact with the general public in Karnataka/India?
2. How difficult/easy/impossible is it to
a. Get the registration of your vehicle changed?
b. To get a gas connection?
c. To get a ration card/ driving license/passport/pan
card?
d. File a FIR in a police station.
3. Would it be easier for someone to do it if he is a
native of Karnataka? Would a foreigner, say, get resigned/cynical about us if he gets to visit any of these offices?
4. Why can't the IT capital of India make all these process streamlined, transparent and online?
Would we be interested in actually preparing a comprehensive report about this and putting it up on Praja.
We can discuss what are all the offices we can try out. I am sure within this community we can find people who need to get some or the other work done in these offices in the near future. We can use these opportunities to do this.
I am ready to take the lead in this once we come up with a plan.watsay fellas??
Indian black money
As per a 2006 report by Swiss Banking Association, India with $1456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks than rest of the world combined. This doesnt include amount stashed away in the other tax havens around the word or the ones in suitcases. This amount is 13 times larger than India's foreign debt.
I have always maintained, when govt complains of no money for projects, all they have to do is get a list of people from the lokayukta or Income tax office and recover the ill gotten wealth from them. It can fill coffers without having to raise taxes. 75 crore poor people can get 1 lakh each which if they put it in a bank and provide liquidity to the white market can earn them a decent 1K per month in interest alone. While that is an example giving without riders can be dangerous. So, if we put it to use as seed money for entrepreneurs it will have downstream job creation benefits. Or take all that money and create a social security fund. Or use it to provide facilities in the villages.
We are hoarding for a future that may not exist. OTOH if that money created a better future there would be no need to hoard.
Against "chaltha hai"
BJP wants 1.5 trillion back
LK Advani has made this a major plank for this election in his news conference today. Getting back the 1.5 trillion of black money in tax havens!!!! Way to go. Let me see how the media works on this!
This is why we need national parties. I cant think of a BSP or JDS talking about these issues.