Sunday, October 31, 2010
Dr. Jagdish Pathak@Odette: Honour Killings In India: Is It Not A Plain Murder...
http://jagdishpathak.blogspot.com/2010/07/honour-killings-in-india-is-it-not.html?spref=bl: "Every alternate day, I am shocked to read such headlined item in the Indian newspapers of repute that another 'honour killing' took place at..."
What Does it Mean to be a Corrupt Society?
We Indians are a corrupt and depraved society. Someone asked me how do you describe a corrupt society for which my description is a corrupt, depraved Society is one in which the people en masse have lost their moral sense. It is not one in which people sin. It is one in which people have lost their bias against sin. It is not one in which people commit adultery. It is one in which people condone and accept adultery. It is not one in which people commit immoral acts. It is one in which people accept and condone immorality to a significant level. It is a loss of moral values, moral knowledge, moral sense.
How do you know such a society when you see it? You listen to people's opinions on matters of morals. You note their likes and dislikes, their tastes, their preferences, how they entertain themselves. You note their humour, what they joke about, what they think is funny. You note their fads as a people. You note their preferences in entertainment. Let us be more specific. Suppose you look through the newspaper listings of the dozens of movies that are showing around town and month after month, year after year, there is never a decent one to be found. They all lash forth advertisements revealing their themes of lust, illicit sex and violence. On your television you flip through the dozens of channels that are available and again there is not a decent program showing. Every picture that comes up is either a bedroom scene or a scene involving violence or becomes one or the other within a few seconds. And this same situation goes on year after year. You wonder how this society can live on a constant diet of dirt and filth year after year and never get tired of it. You try going to some plays. You find they are all interlaced with profanity, obscenity, and crude language. You find nothing of depth or worth or merit in any of them. You turn on your radio. You run through dozens of stations before you find one that is playing something decent. To find a decent novel to read you have to choose an author from some past century.
Rarely anything written in this century is worth anything. Art and painting? You have to go to the art of centuries past. How about the conversation at coffee break at work? Both women and men freely banter with one another in the risqué, the crude, and the obscene. It is obviously the type conversation in which they most delight. Anyone who is not comfortable with this kind of thing is regarded as Puritan, Victorian or prude. You see a debate on pornography. Two people are defending pornography and two are against it. A question is posed. What is pornography? They can't agree. Another question is asked. Is a picture of a nude woman pornography? They are all agreed on the answer to this question. They all agree that it is not.
Reporters covering candidates for public office openly state that they don't report on the sexual conduct of the candidates. They say they don't believe that information is important or relevant and feel it is none of the public's business. Court of laws have started deciding on the live-in relationship despite the existence of legally wedded wife. What have we become? Insensitivity to all that is immoral or accept that immorality, depravation, corruption is all part of the game played by all and sundry.
A corrupt society is a society ruled by immoral, wicked men; criminals elected by the populace, supported by the populace, and shielded from punishment by their political allies. Look what happened in Commonwealth games or Adarsh society in Mumbai, or the former Chief Minister robbing huge wealth of a newly created state? Do we have answer for these intrinsic maladies?
How do you know such a society when you see it? You listen to people's opinions on matters of morals. You note their likes and dislikes, their tastes, their preferences, how they entertain themselves. You note their humour, what they joke about, what they think is funny. You note their fads as a people. You note their preferences in entertainment. Let us be more specific. Suppose you look through the newspaper listings of the dozens of movies that are showing around town and month after month, year after year, there is never a decent one to be found. They all lash forth advertisements revealing their themes of lust, illicit sex and violence. On your television you flip through the dozens of channels that are available and again there is not a decent program showing. Every picture that comes up is either a bedroom scene or a scene involving violence or becomes one or the other within a few seconds. And this same situation goes on year after year. You wonder how this society can live on a constant diet of dirt and filth year after year and never get tired of it. You try going to some plays. You find they are all interlaced with profanity, obscenity, and crude language. You find nothing of depth or worth or merit in any of them. You turn on your radio. You run through dozens of stations before you find one that is playing something decent. To find a decent novel to read you have to choose an author from some past century.
Rarely anything written in this century is worth anything. Art and painting? You have to go to the art of centuries past. How about the conversation at coffee break at work? Both women and men freely banter with one another in the risqué, the crude, and the obscene. It is obviously the type conversation in which they most delight. Anyone who is not comfortable with this kind of thing is regarded as Puritan, Victorian or prude. You see a debate on pornography. Two people are defending pornography and two are against it. A question is posed. What is pornography? They can't agree. Another question is asked. Is a picture of a nude woman pornography? They are all agreed on the answer to this question. They all agree that it is not.
Reporters covering candidates for public office openly state that they don't report on the sexual conduct of the candidates. They say they don't believe that information is important or relevant and feel it is none of the public's business. Court of laws have started deciding on the live-in relationship despite the existence of legally wedded wife. What have we become? Insensitivity to all that is immoral or accept that immorality, depravation, corruption is all part of the game played by all and sundry.
A corrupt society is a society ruled by immoral, wicked men; criminals elected by the populace, supported by the populace, and shielded from punishment by their political allies. Look what happened in Commonwealth games or Adarsh society in Mumbai, or the former Chief Minister robbing huge wealth of a newly created state? Do we have answer for these intrinsic maladies?
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Corruption in India is No Exception: It is Intrinsic to Our Life Style
I was surprised to read someone calling India a hub or epicentre of corruption. The truth is that no economy of the size of India or bigger is free from this global menace. I sympathise with the author and his examples of IPL and CWG. He could have gone even further by adding almost all the defence procurements and others. Look at some of the places like Congo, Seara Leone etc where entire national economy is run by the despots supported by the powerful oil and gold/diamond lobbies. What would you call those countries? Corruption has become part of routine life in all the major developing nations including India. Look at our eastern and western neighbours. The political, military and civil people literally milk these economies every day. Yes, the corruption is highly restricted in developed World not because people here have aversion for money but purely population in general is reluctant to encourage it here. Indian corruption is manifold. Foreign suppliers of goods and services provide corruption money to seek business from the top politicians. Indian business houses pay similarly to get hand on money making projects. Government servants from a peon onwards collect corruption money to provide you service which you rightfully deserve without it. This class of corruption is all pervasive in every developing nation like India. General public gets affected by such corruption and very few even dare go to anti corruption people for help as anti corruption establishments are simply populated by very people who used to take this ill-gotten money prior to postings anti corruption departments. I have very personal exposure with the happenings for more than two decades working in Indian establishments. Many a times, postings in such areas like CVC or anti corruption units of states are meant to punish an officer (so that s/he can not get plum positions with lot of money. But, these very corrupt officers know how to collect money from other corrupt executives using anti corruption laws. In North America, average citizen gets available state services without such corruption issues for the reasons of efficiency and effectiveness of the system. For example, obtaining a driving licence is almost impossible using corrupt means in Canada or US but matter of just a phone call from anyone away in India. People do not encourage corruption in West whereas in India mostly it is general public who make system corrupt. People do not like to stand in line to buy tickets, getting ration cards made without proper documents, expecting VIP treatment are some of the serious personality and life style issues with average Indian. These very people make the entire system corrupt. Should we still blame others for corruption? My answer is emphatic 'NO'.
Look at the scenario at CWG, suddenly everyone started showing interest in corrupt practices at Commonwealth games jobs. CVC and even CBI became active when all is over or almost over. Where were these bodies when payments were made to all and sundry? Was it not sports minister taking special interest in setting all these sports body in order and facing flake from these well entrenched folks?? Sports minister knows well to deal with all such people. He was an IAS himself and very close to the political establishment of today. People have very short memory that the incumbent sports minister was instrumental in making life miserable of the then CEC Sheshan who went all out against corrupt practices in elections of India. This is all about playing games!! People change overnight when this change benefits them or the party. IPL and Modi corruption would never have seen the day, had Modi not played spoilsport. He went all out against Mr. Tharoor and result is obvious for all to see. No party in power would dump its very strong member like this. Now, govt has gone all out to see how Modi and his supporters are shown their places. It is called 'witch-hunt' in Indian politics and nobody calls it corruption per se!!!
Remember that even minor indiscretions of public servants are viewed seriously in US and other developed nations. Media is very strong but it does not mean corruption is almost always reported. No, as media too has its vested interests and would support only its well wishers. Law enforcement agencies like India, are equally responsible for drug and prostitution trade in every country. It is a dream of every politician to hold 'home' or its equal portfolio as it controls the law enforcement agencies. Look at our very own CBI functioning and see, how selective are these in cases for investigation. Let the opposition come to power and these very cases in public domain would disappear overnight!! Where is the independence granted to these agencies? What happened when CEC Sheshan started flexing his musceles, everyone went against him but at the end of the day, electoral system improved and very rarely we hear of 'booth capturing' during elections in India.
India is an example of corruption but should not be called an epicentre as almost all the developing nations are corrupt courtesy the developed world business interests, and lack of individual character and moral value system. Our society at large has no mechanism to imbibe values and ethical conduct which leads to the exponential growth of corrupt minds copying corrupt role models.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Dr. Jagdish Pathak@Odette: Honour Killings In India: Is It Not A Plain Murder...
http://jagdishpathak.blogspot.com/2010/07/honour-killings-in-india-is-it-not.html?spref=bl: "Every alternate day, I am shocked to read such headlined item in the Indian newspapers of repute that another 'honour killing' took place at..."
Honour Killings In India: Is It Not A Plain Murder ?
Every alternate day, I am shocked to read such headlined item in the Indian newspapers of repute that another 'honour killing' took place at such and such town. Indian media has grown over the years but using such phrases like 'honour killing' do not fit the incidents reported by them. There is no such thing called 'honour killing' and one should not start thinking that such killings are different from plain murders. These are just murders and nothing else. Media in its zeal to coin a new term has given us a false understanding on these kind of murders by family people.
Indians only knew that our soldiers on the border kill enemy combatants for keeping honour of motherland and for which Indian panel code section 302 is not applicable. We knew that it is the killing for honour of our country. Surely, we never knew in our wildest dreams that a brother, father, uncle, mother and other close blood relations would also kill very own blood in the name of keeping false honour. We also did not know that media which has better sense of looking through the lines would start calling these plain murders as 'honour killings'.
Indian society though claims to have undergone change is infact failing to accept the truth that education helps in removing old dogmas, biases and prejudices amongst its members. It is different that a politician whose survival is based upon maintaining such irrationalities would prefer status quo. Indian legal system has truely accepted such killings as plain murders but unfortunately, our political leaders are still unchanged, intentionally or unintentionally. My hats off to all those legal and judicial members of Indian establishment who have refused to succumb to such petty people pressure but you never know!!
My request to the Indian media people is to call these killings as pure murders without using such coinages like 'honour killing' etc.
I hope someone is listening to me.
Indians only knew that our soldiers on the border kill enemy combatants for keeping honour of motherland and for which Indian panel code section 302 is not applicable. We knew that it is the killing for honour of our country. Surely, we never knew in our wildest dreams that a brother, father, uncle, mother and other close blood relations would also kill very own blood in the name of keeping false honour. We also did not know that media which has better sense of looking through the lines would start calling these plain murders as 'honour killings'.
Indian society though claims to have undergone change is infact failing to accept the truth that education helps in removing old dogmas, biases and prejudices amongst its members. It is different that a politician whose survival is based upon maintaining such irrationalities would prefer status quo. Indian legal system has truely accepted such killings as plain murders but unfortunately, our political leaders are still unchanged, intentionally or unintentionally. My hats off to all those legal and judicial members of Indian establishment who have refused to succumb to such petty people pressure but you never know!!
My request to the Indian media people is to call these killings as pure murders without using such coinages like 'honour killing' etc.
I hope someone is listening to me.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Mining Company Ownership Rights to The Tribals of India
The GoM of Indian government are at last thinking about providing economic rights to the agitating tribals of central India. My congratulations to all those involved in decisionmaking. Tribals can be empowered in one very interesting and successful manner which has been practical in Goa since Portugese days. It is called communidades. The entire land of individual communidades in Goa is distributed amongst the gaokars. This right passes in proportion to the next generation and the income generated by the communidad is distributed amongst the gaokars proportionately. These rights were non-transferable to anyone non-gaokar (now, ofcourse builder lobby has found a way to buy these rights.).
Govt of India can provide the proportion of equity decided in the form of communidades to entire population of tribals in concerned states. These communidades may be geographically earmarked so that tribals living in that area become member of that communidade and get benefits from the rights. Every mining company will have to distribute profits to these communidades and these communidades will in turn issue part of proceeds in cash to its members and rest would be used for various social developmental works to be managed by these communidades and its membership.
I am sure such mode of help would go a long way in helping agitating tribals and solve many of theirs problems. Here rights of communidades are not saleable by tribals to any non-tribal or anyone. These rights are non identifiable in the property or assets of the communidades.
The proposed bill may be crafted in such a way that ultimately these tribals only get benefits and no one else.
Govt of India can provide the proportion of equity decided in the form of communidades to entire population of tribals in concerned states. These communidades may be geographically earmarked so that tribals living in that area become member of that communidade and get benefits from the rights. Every mining company will have to distribute profits to these communidades and these communidades will in turn issue part of proceeds in cash to its members and rest would be used for various social developmental works to be managed by these communidades and its membership.
I am sure such mode of help would go a long way in helping agitating tribals and solve many of theirs problems. Here rights of communidades are not saleable by tribals to any non-tribal or anyone. These rights are non identifiable in the property or assets of the communidades.
The proposed bill may be crafted in such a way that ultimately these tribals only get benefits and no one else.
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