Burning people down with oil

In the budget session of the Parliament this year, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee increased excise duty on Petro products, I really don't know why.

Now, the Congress people have decided to de - regulate prices of petrol and other fuels, so as to bring them to International Market levels. Hence, in a choice of choosing between people of India and Companies marketing oil, they say they have gone for saving the companies. The people well, they say, people can easily cope up with the rise in prices.

Of course, Congressmen are right on their part. People of India don't ever care what their party does. They love the lollipops that congress throws on them, like NREGS or Debt payment to the tune of 60,000 crore of farmers. They are devoted to the Gandhi family and Indians it seems, shall foolishly remain devotees of that dynasty.

My problem is that, I am not a congressman. Most of the congress people (top people of that party) are rich, I am not. They saying that people can afford such steep rise in petroleum products seems vulgar to me, for it is a statement that mocks my monetary status. People of India were reeling under the severe inflation crisis when 2009 General elections happened. They did not give a damn. I do. I who myself had purchased sugar for 20-25 rupees Kg when I was in hostel 4 years back, now feel shocked that sugar would never ever come under 40 rupees now.

The agriculture minister himself belongs to a sugar belt. He is openly speculating on sugar and no one is doing anything. And now it is oil. The government charges excise and custom duties and taxes on crude oil, on petrol, on diesel and on every other petro product. They can't even control food prices and they say that they will keep tab on market price of petrol/

Then how can it state that the oil companies will face losses? You charge more taxes than the subsidies you give, and people of India who are fools anyway to support you, and then you say, you are helpless?

Even state governments charge taxes on the same products that already have been taxed heavily. But I won't blame all of them for most of the income of state governments comes from VAT. Oil sector is one of the few sectors, where VAT is paid honestly. So, this results in a good amount of revenue from taxing petrol and diesel. Since, most of the states in India are financially doing badly, I would not expect them to take responsibility.

But the central government? Elections to Lok Sabha are four years away, so you can exploit us, as much as you can?
Why just we not label our country as the crony capitalist of the world? Hell, we can beat Russia in implementing socialism, and America in Capitalism, with extremes that we devise to exploit, poor people.

Lastly, the media. Wonderful! Awesome people! They say, all this is because opposition is weak and Manmohan Singh is so nice that all the people in the world like him.

First point, All the people of the world would like Manmohan Singh for they don't live in India under his rule. (Or rule of his madam, or whatever)
Secondly, can anyone explain to the media that if the opposition would have been strong, then they would have been in power. The very fact that they are less in numbers and support make them the opposition.

Where is India heading to?

Can anyone please answer that?

My Country My Life

My Country My Life

is an autobiography written my former deputy prime minister of India, Lal Krishan Advani.

Now politics in urban India is seen from different perspectives. The middle class students getting good higher degrees see it with disdain.

Youth, in politics are being welcomed, and applauded, with the point easily being ignored that almost all these scions of previous politicians are foreign educated and have a hell lot of money.

Then, there is the general public which considers most of the politicians as shady people. Who are just corrupt and manipulators. And there are innumerable examples why the feeling is like that.

It is in this backdrop, I recommend all my friends and followers of my writings to read My Country My Life. For, according to me, how many politicians can actually vouch for or write a 900+ page book about the work they have done. Or about their backgrounds. (A large number of politicians have criminal records these days and equally large have become quite rich overnight). Heaven forbids, the truth of Indian politics never comes out of the closet.
Because truth is generally bitter, but this type of truth, will cause people around the globe to lose hope for humanity. Such is the state of Indian politics.

Mr. L.K. Advani's book has a lot of errors. Mostly grammatical or numerical errors. I failed to understand, why the publisher, Rupa&Co. could not get a good editor for the book. Other than that, it is a great read. For Mr. Advani has been involved in one form or another in every general election since Independence till date. His experience is vast and knowledge immense. The Indian media which is by and large biased towards the Indian National Congress, always showed him as some sort of a demon who always shout Hindutva. But that same media had to concede at times, that Advani was perhaps one of the best Home Ministers India had after Sardar Vallabhai Patel.

So, his book clears all the doubts over Ayodhya issue. His idea of a spiritual nation is also good. If Vajpayee would be remembered for his vision and oratory, Advani should be remembered as a scholarly politician. In his book, he talks about the vast number of books he has read, ( and taken reference from for his book). His understanding on issues, the real issues that plague the Indian society today has a lot of depth.

Reading this book, I could connect with the Hindutva issue, which the media laughs about and demonizes. Someone who is averse to vote bank politics, I found a good amount of examples that illustrate how, the BJP is wrongly accused of being a communal party.

Although I disagreed on certain points made by Mr. Advani, as a whole, I have come to respect the man, a lot more and would be always be thankful to him for sharing his experience with us.

At least there is one politician of modern times to come out and talk about his life and what really he has done. He built his career from a scratch and rose to such high position in social life and that is inspiring in itself. He changed the political scene of India which was dominated by a single party rule, by building his party into being a worthy alternative.

Do read the book. It is about your country and your life too.

I am jealous of Rouvanjit Rawla. Here is why...

For all those busy souls, who think suicides happen every other day and never bother to look deep into such news, let me recap the story of Rouvanjit Rawla. Principal and two teachers cane him, humiliate him, manhandle him and a couple of days later, this class 8th student hangs himself.

That is the story of his death in nutshell. Now, what is school life without a punishment? It is like eating dal without salt. I have myself been caned once, for bad handwriting. We are young, naughty and do tend to move towards notorious ways. Parents understand that too. And they too don't see it as a huge deal that the teacher scolded you. In their heart, they are happy, I think, for the child is being disciplined. But what happened with Rouvan was way too much of scolding. You can speak with him rudely but not manhandle him. This is absolute barbarity. How come La Martineire become such a famous institution I wonder. I, a resident of Punjab has heard a lot of glory of it and its other branch in Lucknow.

If you see pictures of the boy, he is so sweet and innocent looking, that am sure he must have done something naughty to gain punishment. But English dictionary says that their is a lot of difference between word punishment and harassment. People do, support the school and corporal punishment. But you cannot allow students to become punching bags for school teachers and educationalists.

Pinky committed suicide the other day. She was a 9th class student.
Ruchika Girhotra was chucked out of her school for she took a brave stand against a police officer who molested her. Her school was the top most school in the region and it was their right to teach the girl a lesson.

Now point here is, why should have Rouvanjit said anything against his school? Who would have heard his voice if he would have rebelled. His death is not being taken seriously by the society, then why would his voice could have found some ears? One boy already has been allegedly rusticated from the school for speaking up against his death.

The school has maintained that their is nothing wrong in caning the child. No action what so ever has been taken against the principal. School authorities, government and alumni of the school are standing besides him.

Politicians can do nothing for these kids, for you see, Rouvan could not vote still for some years. Then why waste time on him? Or his death? Why not instead focus on honor killings or Bhopal tragedy, something which voters would like. And something that could translate votes. Like terrorism perhaps.

3 years ago, I had written about my views on suicide. And I still stand by them. I feel brave are those who make such strong decisions. But that is not the only reason I am feel that Rouvan did an envious job. He chose to stand up to the society when he was expected to be bogged down by the society like a good boy and suffer torment and humiliation like good people in society should. In his death, he has chosen to slap the face of the hypocritical society in which we all live in. His soul shall see, what his physical self could not see. That, in his death, he has shown mirror to the society, naked to the truth. A truth not only of the sloth of our educational system but also of our Indian mentality. You keep hearing cases about child abuse by teachers, one 3rd class girl was made to strip in front of her class when the teacher was unhappy of the Andhra Pradesh girl who was caught speaking in Telugu instead of English. What did we do? Nothing.

What will we do now? Nothing.

If I have to speak in words of Robert Frost, Rouvan chose the road less taken.

And that is enough to make me jealous.

May his soul rest in peace.

Bhopal Gas Tradegy - A genocide of thousands of people

I think, it is a high time now, India should include in it's Preamble that we are a shameless country.

More than 20,000 people dead. Several maimed for life. And what do we do?
We charter a state plane for the prime accused and send him back home. (Perhaps, this sounds bit dry, as he was not packed lunch for the journey, but then they had little time).
The same accused had a non bailable charges being filed against him.

But we are good Indians. Shameless to the core. Charges were dropped against the other accused (mainly top management of that company) and were easily erased against Mr. Anderson, who logically speaking, as the CEO of the company should take more blame than the rest 8 accused.

That their were earlier leakages as well in the pesticide factory, no one has yet answers to the fact that why did not the state government do anything.

What it did, was get cozy with the Union Carbide. Indeed, top congress honchos, including Madhav Rao Scindia ( A close aide of former PM Rajiv Gandhi) using the guest house of the company and even resources in political meetings.

The soil of Bhopal is still contained of the poisonous gas that killed so many people in the year 1984. How shameless of us, that neither justice was handed out to the people, nor was it intended. Justice was traded. Lives of so many innocent people, children amongst them, simply put at stake by the Congress government in center and the state for I don't know what gains?
What must be bargained for to let someone escape of 20,000 deaths?

I personally believe all this a handiwork of Rajiv Gandhi. He, who could trade India's defense by indulging in the Bofors scam, he could have easily been capable to letting Anderson off.

But anyway, India as I said, is a shameless country. People re-elect parties like Congress, fond of its evils. Perhaps they don't give a damn about people who have to carry the burden of physical handicapping, or loss of life.

Further, we indulge in a bizarre tamasha of those dead. that is what motivated to write the post.
Media, in order to find the truth (supposedly), is asking every possible person, why was Anderson let off? In this they are very effectively themselves trying to shield the name of the then PM. Why is the Indian Media so afraid to ask questions to the congress? Why is it disassociating the congress party from Arjun Singh?

The BJP is coming out well, in this episode. It is taking a sensible approach of not politicizing the issue. The Madhya Pradesh CM, Shivraj Chauhan, spoke well, as he said, that asking various people about the issue would not help. Only one statement by Arjun Singh should end this matter now.

The congress, with all the support it gets from the media is acting funny. Mr. Moiley the law minister said that, it was all the judiciary's fault. Now who would remind the intelligent man, that his party has ruled this country for most of the time. So if the judiciary is incompetent according to him, should not his party take the blame? For not improving it?

Also, what about development of the region? About the people who are still suffering?
No concrete action has ever been taken? I feel, that Arjun Singh and his accomplices in Delhi should also now be tried for genocide. For they are now conspirators as well.

A shame I say, not only on the Indian National Congress but also India, where such acts happen. Where poor are left to die, and rich are appeased to the core.

A country of Doctors & Engineers & Hartals

The nineties marked my growing up years. I recall, the best career option, the dreamed profession of both parents and their children was engineer or doctor. If you look around, you would see many families who have 2 kids, one a doctor and another is an engineer. Or, you would see many families with at least one engineer. In jobs market, both doctors and engineers are very much in demand.

Pandit Nehru started the IITs. Similarly, over the time, several prestigious medical colleges gained ground. The almost non-existent medical system in the country provides fertile area for doctors to make their mark and the IT industry has led to good jobs for a lot of engineers. It is therefore not very contentious to conclude that, these two professions have gained up a lot of respect in the Indian psychi as well as Indian society. They are looked upon with pride and achievement. Arts and humanities are slowly becoming extinct largely because they have not been able to capture the Indian imagination so well.

So why I am writing all this? Because of the two strikes that have happened in recent days.

One was by doctors of the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi
and another was by engineers of Air India, again in Delhi.

In the sixties and the seventies, when strikes were very common, they were mostly by workers and laborers. Now, we have very educated, people, using strikes, stopping work to get their demands done. In days of worker union strikes, often it was speculated that politicians or leaders or people with malicious interests mislead the poor workers. But what is happening here, is very strange as well as a threat to the Indian democracy that has already submitted itself to low intellect and mediocrity.

In both cases, we have people, well educated ones, employed by reputed, well known institutions. But should they be doing this? Should not a doctor or an engineer, who are seen in high esteem by the society, take some more moral responsibility?
Should they not at least look up for more better excuses to halt work.
The engineers went on strike for their management asked them to talk to them before speaking to media.
The doctors wanted better facilities.

Strikes or Hartals can sometimes be very necessary to wake up the management. But, should not these brilliant creamy layer of the society come up with more innovative ideas to make their points clearer? Should they not think about the fact that they do something that affects thousands of people every day.

Or does this rather primitive idea of raising your voice, gives us another aspect of the ever sinking morale and intellect of our nation...

Do pen down your views