VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue:127

Date: 25.08.2012

Contents:

1. The Accountability Deficit In Governance

2. The Recent Incident at Azad Maidan: The Police Restraint Was Commendable

3. On Syria & Iran: A Little Equity & Balance, Please!

4. With Logjam In Parliament, Is President's Rule Likely?

5. UPA Suffers From Ineffective Management & Hobbled Minds

The Accountability Deficit In Governance

The accountability factor is somewhat missing among our ministers and government. With the coal ministry directly under his control when the coal allocations were done Manmohan Singh is refusing to accept responsibility for the Coalgate scam which is representative of this problem. Nothing could be worse. Just like A Raja and Maran before him, let the PM first resign as the BJP has demanded and then make a statement as the Congress circles are claiming that he is not being allowed to do. The offer for a JPC on Coalgate is neither here nor there, since nothing has ever come of a JPC except to completely bury the issue like we have seen in the Bofors scam and lately in the 2G scam. A JPC helps to take the issue off the public radar and have the government play footsie with the whole process of the JPC starting from its constitution, to its chairman, and then declare impossible requests like in the 2G case where the Congress dominated JPC want to call George Fernandes and Atal Bihari Vajpayee as witnesses who happen to be both ailing and in no position to move let alone appear as witnesses and who also happen to have no connection with the 2G case. At the same time the JPC has been refusing the call by some of the other parties to call the PM and Chidambaran before it since they were directly involved in the matter. Similarly Suresh Kalmadi, the prime accused in the CWG scam is being let off by the government manipulated CBI because he was ‘not properly briefed by his subordinates’. The whole process of investigating government related and Congress functionaries under this regime is a sham and more oriented to getting them off the hook rather than indict them. Similarly there is no need for a JPC on Coalgate but let the heads roll first and then we can get to the bottom of the allocation problem. As part of the obfuscation process, there are government lackeys posing as economists who are trying to blow holes in the CAG numbers without realizing that whatever be the numbers and however small they may be, there still has been a loss and even these small numbers can make a difference towards the budget deficit and funding development programs. At least this government should realize that when at the drop of a hat it talks of raising prices of different commodities while squanders national resources for the benefit of corporates. In what we are seeing in Parliament on these matters, one cannot understand why it is only the BJP & Opposition parties that are being blamed for stalling Parliament and causing great loss to the national exchequer and stopping the passing of important bills. Is the Congress & UPA not also equally responsible for not conducting the affairs of governance in a proper responsible and accountable manner. The BJP & the Opposition are using the tools that are available to them of a Parliamentary democracy and it is up to the Treasury benches to find a way around this.

The Recent Incident at Azad Maidan: The Police Restraint Was Commendable

The recent incident at Azad Maidan in Mumbai has opened up a can of worms, as they say. There are different shades of opinion on the manner in which the police handled the situation ranging from the outright communal clothed in secular garb asking whether there is one law enforcement for the minority community and another for others like in the article - Bending Over Backwards by Madhu Trehan in the Indian Express, Mumbai of 22nd August 2012. While the MNS is bent upon exploiting the incident for their own political ends as is their want by claiming that they are there for the Marathi manoos who were hurt and/or molested and blaming the incident on the outsiders from Bangladesh and Northern India among whom Muslims also figure. In the middle is a community like Javed Anand and Teesta Setalvad writing in the Indian Express, Mumbai under the headline – Making History, Not Repeating It on 17th August 2012 who give a twist to the story by praising the police’s restraint and seeking long term concessions for dealing with the minority community in an indirect manner which is essentially trying to get the majority community to turn the other cheek after being slapped on one. Even Syeda Hameed, Member, Planning Commission writing the next day, 18th August 2012 again in the Indian Express, Mumbai in her article – Kokrajhar to Bangalore, in seeking everyone to maintain the secular fabric is a fatuous plea without directly involving with her community and seeking there a change from within. However, the truth is somewhere in between all these options. None see or think it fit to comment as to why the Muslim community particularly at the lowest levels should be hoodwinked by the SMS/MMS’? Why these Muslims do not consider themselves Indians first and shun taking the sides of their religion members from outside countries be it Bangladesh or elsewhere? These are questions that the elders in the Indian Muslim community should answer. Why should the people of the larger Muslim community not encourage education beyond and in addition to the madrassa schools? This emphasis on education would have helped them in just such incidents to qualify, assess and analyse the SMS/MMS’ received and decide whether they should jump into the fray. Why should they continue to be held to ransom by the mullahs? These are the questions which the more respectable, educated, talented and accomplished among the Muslims do not do and that is to lend a helping hand to their deprived and struggling brethren to come out of the morass that is Muslim society in India today. One is not saying that they have not been doing anything at all for the larger Muslim community but there is more organized, concerted and systematic effort required to pull the larger part of their population out of the clutches of fundamentalists and the terror perpetrators. The elite, so to speak, among the Muslim community, is happy to leave behind the morass and escape to a more comfortable surroundings and be ensconsed therein. Time and again when the Muslim community is challenged by incidents like terror or otherwise as in the Azad Maidan incident or the earlier ones, the elite first recoil in horror of once again being entangled in the finger pointing against their brethren and prefer for the sake of form to play along or show that they conform with the fundamentalist elements in their community either out of fear or to avoid unnecessary complications in their ordered lives. Thus what the Muslim community should do is to emphasise on education first and foremost, followed by lobbying for government jobs, seeking quotas just like the OBC/SC/ST do, get themselves enrolled in government programs where assistance is doled out. They are a part of India and are also entitled to benefit from it. This is where the Muslim community has to draw a line and pull together so that their society as a whole can march together hand in hand with a progressing India. Like they say God & Allah helps only those who help themselves and this is where the Muslim community has to put their best foot forward. The approach to retreat into a shell of the minority community and from those barricades defend oneself and put pressure on the majority is old hat in terms of tactics and strategy since it does not benefit the community in any way except to be blamed for blackmail. Thus it is time for the Muslims in this country to believe in themselves, believe that they are part and parcel of this country and partake in its progress and wellbeing as India marches into the 21st century. This journey will not be easy but having made a start one can hope that the end will not be far where one can see every other Indian Muslim confident, assured and believing in themselves raise the Indian flag as a right and entitlement and not just to play make-believe. Coming back to the Azad Maidan incident, the police in the teeth of adversity did an exceptional job and the restraint shown was admirable. There is no more need to use violence against our own people and worse still fire at them. The police, even in this case, true to established norm neglected the intelligence which would have made them better prepared to handle the violence and contain the injury to themselves and damage to public property. If this had been done then the manner in which Arup Patnaik and his police force dealt with the issue would have been a shining example in the annals of police action in India. And for that, what does he get, but booted upstairs, like they say, with a ‘promotion’. The action taken against him was blatantly unfair including the accusations that have surfaced about him in social media. One incident does not make a story and the other side of the truth should also be known before you throw a man into the dungeons, even in the Middle Ages they did that but not so it seems in modern India.

On Syria & Iran: A Little Equity & Balance, Please!

The manner in which the international community is bullying Syria is rather sad. David Cameron on the back of an excellent organisation of the recently concluded London Olympics 2012 and to cover up his policy gaffes on not having an elected House of Lords for fear that it would take away the importance of the House of Commons and creating schisms within his alliance with the Liberal Democrats by not signing the approval for redrawing Parliamentary constituencies according to equal population counts, has announced monetary aid to the Syrian rebels along with assistance to them of arms and ammunition. After the US & the French showed their muscle in Iraq and Libya, it seems it is now David Cameron's turn to show the UK muscle in Syria. This misplaced bravado was commended in international circles as a long awaited initiative. While at the same time Iran's training the Syrian army has come up for criticism. What is good for the goose, does not seem to be good for the gander. In the same manner crocodile tears are being shed by the West for the loss of heritage structures and damage to historical treasures in Aleppo which 'date back 5000 years to the dawn of civilisation' that has been under siege by the opposite forces. While in the same context when Iraq's treasures of the same vintage but larger in number were allowed to be looted and vandalised even after one year of US occupation, nothing was mentioned in the media and in fact news about people including the US forces carting away ancient treasures was suppressed. Is this not a very confined and selective viewpoint that is being projected? In the same manner the US last week has been threatening Iran with an armed strike after failing to move anywhere on its ability to control Iran's nuclear ambitions because it is supporting the Syrian official forces. Talk about a fig leaf to hide your shame, nothing could be closer. A few days back there was an earthquake in Iran where some 300 people were killed and there was massive damage to property and infrastructure but one did not even hear a peep from the UN or multilateral charitable and relief institutions to go to the assistance of Iran though it still retains full membership of the UN. Was Ban E Moon, the UN Secretary General looking at the West before he would lift his little finger to provide relief to the distressed Iranians. This once again proves the time honured priciple that the West follows and that is that life is cheap in any other country on this planet other than in the West.

With Logjam In Parliament, Is President's Rule Likely?

The way things are going on in our political affairs, in the worst case scenario P A Sangma could end up ruling the country as President in the next few months. Consider the present logjam in Parliament with the BJP-led Opposition which is gaining support from the fence sitters like the Samajwadi Party, there could be a case for President's rule in a few weeks. While Pranab Mukherjee could be drooling at this prospect, P A Sangma may turn out to be the dark horse. If Sangma's suit in the Supreme Court on the invalidity of Pranab Mukherjee's candidature for President because of his holding an office of profit at the time of filing his nomination is upheld, then Sangma becomes President and rules the country. On the back of the North East riots and consequent exodus of its people from the rest of the country heading back home, it would be sweet justice and give that region the importance it deserves. It will unify the country like no other measure and bring the North East into mainstream India. Make way Pranab-da, Sangma is coming! Q.E.D.

UPA Suffers From Ineffective Management & Hobbled Minds

Whether it was the 2G scam or the coal gate scam that is currently rocking Parliament, the issue of presumptive loss which is the basis of the calculations made by the CAG are up for debate. But what cannot be contested is that the UPA government on that and a host of other issues clearly did not do their best in terms of managing our economy and its assets. There is also the debate set off by the advice of the Supreme Court that all natural assets of the country should be auctioned which has drawn the rejoinder that whether water should be given off to the highest bidder! But these extraneous matters apart which tend to distract attention one needs to ask this government that on the one hand it claims that revenue is required to fund its development programs and with a sluggish growth, revenue is getting impacted but at the same time where it could have generated a substantial revenue like whether it be the 2G spectrum or the coal allocation we find that the government did not put its best foot forward or applied its best minds to the issues. The approach to most such issues seems to be pedestrian like Salman Khurshid now saying that the UPA has answers to many of the questions that are disrupting Parliament now or Sonia Gandhi offering a debate in Parliament on the coal gate scam and also suggesting to constitute a JPC on the matter to stall the Opposition demand for the PM's resignation. These ploys are old hat and even a schoolboy would scoff at these juvenile methods to defuse the situation by the Congress benches. The problem with the UPA has been that it has refused to engage with the Opposition in a constructive manner on many of the bills that it has been wanting to pilot through Parliament and has been taking the easy way out by saying that the Opposition is bent on disruption and thus encouraging the blame-game. One needs to say that where the UPA itself is a divided house as we have seen recently with the NCP & the TMC stating that on most policy issues the constituents have not been consulted and insisting on co-ordination committee meetings, where is the question that the UPA would even deign to talk to the Opposition. This is the primary reason for the affliction of policy paralysis that the UPA has been blamed for by many political and financial commentators. Kaushik Basu, the Chief Economic Advisor to the PM has finally woken up to reality when he recently commented that this UPA combine suffers from a 'trust deficit' and is therefore hobbled in its ability to deliver governance to the people of this country.

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VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue:126

Date: 18.08.2012

Contents:

1. Excuses Galore & The Best Excuse Givers Are Also Rewarded

2. Police Laxity On Terror Issues

3. 15th August, Independence Day, Do We Need To Celebrate?

4. Independent Nuclear Viability Commission Required

5. Mobile Phones For BPL Families

Excuses Galore & The Best Excuse Givers Are Also Rewarded

The Indian economy is showing serious structural flaws indicative of a long term recession with the recent release of figures of the IIP which has shown a very low growth and among the sectors, capital goods showed a negative trend consistent with the figures that we have seen for the last two months or so. At the same time export figures for the last month were also down and the trade balance data has again showed major errors in computation by the DGFT and the Commerce Ministry. Thus it is not only that the economy is performing badly but the data on it cannot also be relied upon to take any proper corrective action. In all this Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Vice Chairman of the Planning Commission instead of putting his head into looking at the economic problems in a serious manner and coming out with constructive suggestions, has again taken the easy way out by blaming the failure of the monsoon on our economic ills. This is obviously being done to save the government and the policy planners from embarassment and is more a palliative statement which fails to give any confidence to the common man that anything serious is being done to save the economy and alleviate his misery. This in fact has been a pattern where all sorts of excuses are being given by officials and Ministers of this government and they get rewarded for possibly giving the best excuses. Like take the instance of Pranab Mukherjee who was a miserable failure in his last stint as Finance Minister giving only feel-good statements about the economy - that recovery was imminent which did not happen in the 3 years that he held office. And what does he get for the non-performance but get promoted as the President of India. In the same manner Sushil Kumar Shinde did not have a clue as to why we had the massive grid failures that affected almost the whole of northern and eastern India recently and what does he get for making a mess of things but be promoted as the Home Minister and the Leader of the House for the UPA in the Lok Sabha. And on his first foray on the floor of the House he gets into a mess with the entanglement with Jaya Bacchan on the Assam riots for which he had to finally apologise. So much for competence! In the same way the Assam CM by throwing up his hands on his government's ability to control the riots in Kokrajhar and adjoining areas and blaming the Centre for not giving intelligence has in fact encouraged the troublemakers to spread the nuisance to other areas of Assam like Kamrup district etc. If he cannot manage the situation, then should he not quit? What we need to do is that a clear accountability has to be brought in, on the performance of our ministers and government officials since only then we will be able to move forward in a stable manner.

Police Laxity On Terror Issues

After the fracas in Azad Maidan happened recently it has again come to the fore that the Mumbai police had ignored the warning of impending trouble at the rally which has resulted in a majority of their own people getting injured and losing 2 SLR's and a pistol in the melee. This kind of cussedness is nothing new with the Pune police also not considering the threat via anonymous letter based on the killing of the terrorist in Pune jail that revenge would be taken which finally happened with the low intensity blasts at Junglee Maharaj Road where luckily no one lost lives. The same was reported just before the 26/11 terror attack where the Mumbai police had overlooked the warning intelligence given by the Central agencies that a seaborne attack was likely. It is said that the signal from Delhi had been lying on the desk of the Police Commissioner for a week and he saw it only when he came back after the attack was going on full blast. If this is the attitude of the police who ignore leads and believe that they know all and are contemptuous of the terrorists then surely our society is not safe as we have seen time and again. Every single rumour, every single piece of random information should be pursued to its logical conclusion by the police and closed. Alertness and interception are the only ways of stopping future attacks from happening and the earlier our police force realise it, it is better for them and also for the society at large.

15th August, Independence Day, Do We Need To Celebrate?

On 15th August 2012 we celebrated the 66th anniversary of our Independence. At this point we need to pause and look at the word Independence which is also used interchangingly with the word freedom. On 15th August 1947, we did get our freedom from the colonial rule of the British but then in the context of a nation we need to examine as to when we should celebrate a nation, when it frees itself of colonial rule or when it gets formed. In this line of thought when a nation gets formed, its identity is cast and the guiding principles of its governance system is established.This is where one thinks that 26th January 1950 when India was announced to have become a Republic is the day that we should celebrate and not 15th August. There is another aspect to this kind of thinking since at an individual or citizen level, we have all been free since freedom is a state of the mind and irrespective of whatever methods that the rulers, of whatever kind colonial or otherwise, try to impose a common citizen remains free to a large extent based on the state of his or her mind. Even Rabindranath Tagore has said that as long as the mind is without fear there is no question of acquiescing to any kind of hegemony and the individual is essentially free. It is another matter that in India today the common citizen feels that earlier it was the British who ruled us and now the people who rule them, they do not know because of the gross alienation between the rulers and the ruled akin to colonial rule. Our leaders and politicians have created this kind of a divide by confining themselves to their air-conditioned ivory towers protected by Z+ security. Thus hereafter there is no need to celebrate 15th August on the scale it is done now but in a lesser manner just to recognise that also happens to be a date in our history when the British left our shores. In fact we should celebrate Mahatma Gandhi's birthday on 2nd October on a grander scale and similar to the present 15th August since he has been accorded the status of being Father of the Nation and is widely regarded as one of the most important persons responsible for the British leaving India. In the same manner the birthdays of our great and eminent people like Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Rabindranath Tagore, Swani Vivekananda, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Vallabhai Patel, Govind Vallabh Pant, S Radhakrishnan, Sri Aurobndo and others should be celebrated with great fervour so that the values and principles that they stood for become the guiding thoughts for our country particularly our youth. While concluding one needs to look at why politically 15th August is important apart from the being the day British left India and that is for the Congress party to reiterate time and again,year after year that it is they who got India its freedom. To an illiterate and gullible electorate which is the majority in India drumming this fact in ensures that it remains at the top of the mind when elections come along. The advantage that the Congress seeks is that they were there in 1947 and before that since none of the parties like the BJP or others were around at that time and it is the Congress' contention that the Communists did not fight for India's freedom. This thus gives the Congress party the halo it seeks which translates to votes at the hustings. This is, however,a minor reason not to celebrate 15th August as Independence Day since the primary reason is that we should not keep reminding a young and vibrant India about the chains of bondage that we suffered in the past. It is not that we suppress this fact but for the large number who have been born after 15th August 1947 and comprise the present population it is something to read in the history books.

Independent Nuclear Viability Commission Required

On the Kudankulam NPP there was news that by end of August 2012 it would go on-stream and start supplying power to the Southern grid. At the same time the PM expressed his dismay that Russia the principal suppliers to the Kudankulam NPP had refused to bear the liability if at all any accident took place at the plant and its impact on the nuclear reactors equipment that are likely to come from France and the USA for nuclear reactors in different parts of India. Why is the liability issue coming up now at the fag end when the Kudankulam NPP is at the last stage of commissioning? Was this not covered earlier while signing the agreements for the plant? Was this also not what the Kudankulam villagers were saying all along? Along with it came the news that Haryana farmers had a sit-in protest on a nuclear plant coming on their agricultural land in which our eminent and recently retired Gen V K Singh, Chief of Army Staff also joined in considering it was his native village. This while even the inscrutable High Command of the Congress party running the UPA-2 coalition, Sonia Gandhi, had publicly announced that for public projects and industry no agricultural land should be acquired. These are the immaturities or contradictions that we see in India and particular to nuclear energy where a lead screen is drawn on the plans, programs, strategy and operations on grounds of national security. This allows a coterie of scientists and technocrats to dictate terms according to their whims and pet interests which is essentially the virus that is affecting our nuclear programs. Why a country blessed with coal reserves for the next 100 years should pursue the risky option of nuclear energy is something that will never be understood? This more so in the context of the Fukushima tragedy in Japan,where in the independent government commssion report that has been recently released, it has been brought out that the nuclear power industry and the government there actively colluded to propagate the myth that nuclear power was essentially safe and lulled into that belief the stakeholders refused to even recognise these risks. And once when these came to the fore like in the early days of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown both the energy operator and the government plotted to keep the information on the risks away from the people and even to their workers and those who lived in the neighbourhood of the plant. You can imagine what would happen in similar circumstances in India where without very much of activity in the area of nuclear energy we pull a veil on operations and it is only after an accident happens that information will come out that there were no liability guarantees. Indian people in the minds of our establishment are dispensable like fodder and deserving of no consideration except to throw some pennies at them if and when an accident happens. Thus it is time that the entire nuclear policy for India be reviewed by an independent commission with feedback from the public and cosmetic gestures like having an autonomous Atomic Regulatory Board are just not enough.

Mobile Phones For BPL Families

The latest initiative by this embattled UPA-2 government of giving mobile phones to BPL families is indeed laughable. The emphasis of roti, kapda, makaan and bijli seems to have been expanded in modern times to the mobile phone. For people occupying our gaddis little does it matter that they have not been able to provide for the first four on the above list but to start on a fifth to delude the public. You may not get food - roti - to eat since the powers that be would rather have it rot in godowns or in open - free to air - spaces as we have seen and what we will see in the next few months with international food prices riding high the better part of our grain stocks will be exported to earn money for the country keeping the worst of the stocks for our people or have them starve. The benefit of all this will go to the vested interests of traders and large exporters with no benefit to the farmer or the aam admi. As for kapda we continue to export cotton, which once upon a time was the aam admi fabric, made famous by Mahatma Gandhi with khadi , but does not clad our people any more. Makaan there are none for the aam admi as we have seen in Mumbai, the teeming metropolis that is representative of the housing problems in our country, where land is hijacked to serve individual interests of politicians and even slum re-development projects are cleared not keeping the interests of the slum-dwellers in mind but on how much FSI and towers that will be allowed for selling the flats that will come upon that property. Bijli we have again lately seen how 600 million people were deprived of power for close to 14 hours with the cascading failure of the Northern, Eastern and North Eastern grids which one may say was a one-off incident for those living in the urban areas but is a daily feature for our rural brethren who on an average do not get more than 6 - 8 hours of power a day. Thus the option for sloganeering on the first four was not possible since all avenues to exploit these had been exhausted and per force the government had to come up with a new tool to delude the common public. This is where the mobile phone comes in to capture the imagination of an aam admi who is starving or living on one meal a day, living in the open or on the pavement or in the shelter of a house balcony or under a flyover and therefore needs no electrical power but give him a mobile phone and he will forget his suffering and talk his heart out until the pre-paid amount runs out and then not affording to pay the phone bills he will smash the phone to the ground. Q.E.D. & R.I.P. So much for freebies that have no meaning and do not empower the people except for that instant when they cast their vote.

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VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue:125

Date: 11.08.2012

Contents:

1. The Recent Electrical Grid Failure & The Way Forward

2. Casino Revenue To Support Humanitarian Causes!

3. A Little Balance, Please!

4. The Problem Is Not With The Intent, But With The Implementation

5. Managing Poverty Numbers To Make The NAC & Sonia Gandhi Look Good

The Recent Electrical Grid Failure & The Way Forward‏

The recent electrical grid failures covering the North, East and North-East impacting some 600 million people for a minimum of 12 hours has generated a lot of debate on the revenue model of the electricity generating utilities and the need for increasing tariff levels. The failures have been attributed apart from excess drawal by States like Uttar Pradesh on that fateful day on the fact that essential equipment for containing the spread of the grid failures was not in place and that maintenance of existing equipment had been curtailed because of budgetory issues. It has been widely touted that the solution is to raise tariff levels in a cascading manner so that the end customer is finally overburdened. It is not that the existing electricity utilities are not increasing tariffs which they are as one would notice over the last few months in Delhi and many places across India supported by the Electricity Tariff Commissions in the respective States. But in all this surprisingly no one is talking of efficient management and optimal deployment of resources. Increasing tariffs is not the be-all and end-all solution to the electricity outages that are faced across India more so in our rural areas. There is also no talk of trying to curb our transmission and distribution losses which are close to 40 - 50% of our total generation and power stolen through illegal connections with the connivance and patronage of our politicians. If we are able to manage these matters then the power situation in India will see a dramatic change what with the addition of some 55,000MW of power in the last few years. Better management is suggested since there was a report that due to faulty equipment supplied from China some 40,000MW has remained idle for extended periods of time. Why we should source sub-standard industrial equipment from China on count of low prices alone is something that is not understood and given our inimical relationship with them and purely on strategic grounds we should not source any critical equipment from a not so friendly neighbour. After the massive grid failure we have had all kinds of experts telling us what we should have done and what we should do among them some foreign. It is all right to listen to everyone but we should at the end find our own solutions to our own problems that comes out of our own thinking since that is what will stand to our own good in the long run. The fact of the matter is that the grid failures happened mostly because with the threat of a deficient monsoon in the North and North-West India all the farmers in the region connected their pumpsets to the nearest power line resulting in the serial tripping of the grid. It is a shame, is it not that 65 years of Independence our agriculture is still dependent on a favourable monsoon. So much for being a technological literate nation.

Casino Revenue To Support Humanitarian Causes!

The logic for justifying the casinos in Goa is getting curiouser and curiouser. The last in this series of laughable ploys is that the revenue to the government from the casinos will be used for humanitarian causes like funding the Provedaria, setting up centres for the treatment of the old and those suffering from Alzheimer's disease etc. One has heard of raffles and lotteries used for generating revenue for such causes but licencing casinos must be the first in the world and for that we have to give the credit to Manohar Parrikar, Chief Minister of Goa! One does not understand why someone has to think that he can fool the people all the time and not most of the time. By any yardstick and mostly on counts of practical common sense, his above logic falls flat. Take for example that you have a woman involved in prostitution in your locality who also happens to run an orphanage. Would the society and the locality allow her to continue her business because she is using her earnings for a good cause! Since if she is allowed to continue she would have polluted every adult male in the locality. The casino issue is one of morality and whether a society should live of its licentious earnings. All the measures announced in the Assembly session on managing casinos, however brilliant and innovative they may be, are quite unnecessary since the basic premise of having gambling and casinos in our society is wrong. Therefore there is no question of managing it but only of shutting them down. The effort that the CM and the government puts in managing the casinos can be better used elsewhere once they are closed. Much has been made of jobs being generated for Goans from the casinos which in any case is a small proportion from the total employment by this business and at some 2500 persons is less than the number of lives it destroys by addiction to gambling. Unfortunately the number of families turned destitute by the casino business is not being highlighted in any of the statistics generated by the government or other agencies. The other aspect that has come to the fore after the recent Kanda case who is the owner of the Casino Rio is that the ship is moored in the Mandovi without any clearances from the DG, Shipping for being sea-worthy. Thus are the rivers of Goa to be used by outsiders to park their junk casino ships on one pretext or other and block navigation and create congestion for our fishing trawlers and cruise ships that support livelihood and healthy tourism respectively. At this rate the beautiful Mandovi will end up as a graveyard for dead ships. Therefore let us stop beating about the bush on the casino issue and close them down once and for all in Goa.

A Little Balance, Please!

In the shooting incident at the gurdwara in the US recently the number of dead were 6 while the number of dead in the riots in Kokrajhar, Assam have reached 73 but if you look at the media coverage for the incidents, it is disproportionately in favour of the US incident. This includes the reactions from our government and our Prime Minister who happens to be a Sikh while he also represents the State of Assam in the Rajya Sabha. Is it that it is more grievous when someone dies in a foreign country from incidents of terror or communal strife rather than in our own country. We have seen this unbalanced reaction from Western countries where when a few tens of people die in a terror attack a big issue is made out of it, candle light vigils are held thereafter and commemoration of the attack in memory of the victims are organised while hundreds of people are dying almost every day in one or the other country in the Third World from bomb attacks etc. and it is very rare that one sees any concrete step taken to sympathise with the victims except the standard statements which are issued. We also seem to be following the same tack. A life lost in the US or in India should be the same. Like we discriminate against each other in life in India, have we come to a pass where we tend to discriminate in death also. Someone said that on the gurdwara shoot-out the amount Manmohan Singh spoke is much more than he has ever spoken in the two terms that he has held as PM except for maybe when he is holding his press conferences on board aircraft while going or coming back from a visit abroad.

The Problem Is Not With The Intent, But With The Implementation

The CCTV's installed on Junglee Maharaj Road in Pune where we had the latest bomb blasts were not working as reported in the media. In the same manner the CCTV on the Worli Sealink, a very prominent and prestigious structure and therefore a target for terrorists, was also not working to record the suicide of the businessman Sheth involved in the travel business. In the same way for all the lipservice paid in sympathy to the victims of the 26/11 terror incident in Mumbai and the mobilisation to improve preparedness against terror attacks, it was found that after the last attack in Mumbai a couple of months ago that nothing had been done on CCTV and also on buying bullet proof vests for our police personnel which was a hot topic when senior police officer Karkare was shot dead pointblank by the terrorists. Thus the issue is not of intent but implementation. The politicians and the authorities will all make the right noises just after the incidents of terror as in the German Bakery case in Pune and the recent one but a few months down the road, operating on the premise that public memory is short, nothing will be done until the next incident. Thus all this talk that CCTV's costing some Rs. 30 crores will be installed in Pune by the Maharasthra Dy CM Ajit Pawar and the Home Minister, R R Patil are to be taken with a large 'dose' of salt since even if the cameras are installed, the politicians and authorities would have extracted their pound of flesh from the purchases which will be part of the reason why the systems will never be working since the contracts would be placed not based on professional considerations but on the convenience and the ability to pay? The problem is that in India life is cheap and the establishment care two hoots for the aam admi since they know that irrespective of what happens they can fob off the public by donating a few lakhs for those killed and shirk their primary responsibility. It is time we changed this attitude and got things work better so that our society is safe and secure from dangers thrust upon it.

Managing Poverty Numbers To Make The NAC & Sonia Gandhi Look Good

The NSS survey on poverty released recently which says that the poorest in India in the villages live at about Rs.17 a day and in the cities at about Rs23.50 a day is a deliberate ploy to further lower the Planing Commission estimates of around Rs. 22 and Rs.29 respectively. This is being done to set poverty levels for those who would be eligible for government benefits under its various schemes. The lower you set the threshold levels for defining poverty the lesser will be the number of those who are poor. This is how the poverty numbers are managed to fit the NAC guidelines on the Food Security Bill so that it becomes affordable which otherwise has been criticized on two counts, first that in the long-term and during monsoon failures there would not be enough food to meet the requirements and secondly, that the government would have to fund the difference given the high MSP’s and the subsidized lower prices that the food would have to be given to the poor. In these times of criticism of subsidies and growth problems resulting in lower revenue these resources would be difficult to find if 55% of the rural poor and 50% of the urban poor are to be included under the Food Security Bill. Therefore manage the numbers of the poor so that both these problems of availability and funding are tackled by artificially defining them in the NSS survey as above. Thus the objective is not to feed the poor and alleviate their suffering but to prove that the thinking of the NAC is right led by the redoubtable Sonia Gandhi whose image will be automatically enhanced. These are the unfortunate circumstances that this country has fallen into.

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VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue:124

Date: 04.08.2012

Contents:

1. Fighting Terror From Behind Closed Doors

2. The Demise of The Anna Movement

3. The Abhishek Verma Air Force Plans Leak

4. The NCP Hullabaloo

5. Complete Breakdown of Indian Society

6. Misguided Western Initiatives To De-Stabilise The Terror In Islamic Countries

7. BJP Should Think That They Are Competent & Come To The Starting Line

Fighting Terror From Behind Closed Doors

The 4 low-intensity bomb blasts on 1st Aug 2012 in Pune on the busy Junglee Maharaj Road on the eve of Rakhi Poornima carries a message to the UPA government that the terror operatives are very much alive and kickin’. More so on the day where Sushil Kumar Shinde was assuming his new charge as Home Minister of the country and P Chidambaran was moving out. The stuff that Shinde was made of also became crystal clear when he cancelled his scheduled trip that evening to Pune after hearing about the blasts. Why Shinde could not visit as scheduled and show some spine is something that will never be known? By Shinde’s visit immediately after the blast he could have conveyed that his government is not afraid of the terrorists but instead of that with the first news of the blasts, Shinde went scuttling for cover. Our leaders are no more made with the backbone as in the past and prefer to follow their security details advice instead of overruling and deciding to go to the affected site in any case. This was the stuff that our leaders like Nehru, Shastri, Rajiv Gandhi and inspite of being a woman, Indira Gandhi, were made of. But no more since our leaders, ministers and politicians prefer to hide behind their security details and give media interviews sitting in cloistered offices.

The Demise of The Anna Movement

The Anna movement is slowly and surely losing steam with none of the earlier aura and charisma that characterized it in the beginning. They need to only blame themselves for what has happened since the single-mindedness of tackling corruption was what had drawn the common public to the movement which has been frittered away by the members of the team through fractious in-fighting, one-upmanship, immature negotiating positions and the dispersal of the aims of the movement to other issues apart from corruption. It has become apparent to the common man that Anna is being ‘managed’ by other members of the team and maybe to show his independent mind he has allied himself with Baba Ramdev while the rest of the Anna team seem to not accept Ramdev into their fold. This is somewhat correct since the allegations of ill-gotten wealth continue to stain Baba Ramdev and Anna’s welcoming him on the IAC platform has become yet another reason to fuel the divisions among the Anna team. Thus in this background Kejriwal’s plaintive plea on national TV during the current fast in which he is participating that the government by not conceding to their demands is wanting to kill him seems to be rather farcical since it is he alone who in his adamancy is bringing himself close to death. There is time still to recast the Anna story and get them into a negotiating force with the incumbent government but that is not going to come by measures like fasting etc. since it is only ending the Anna team to make themselves a laughing stock in front of the nation. Better sense seems to have prevailed on Anna and his team and the latest is that they have called off the fast.

The Abhishek Verma Air Force Plans Leak

In the Abhishek Verma case where the IAF long-term plans for acquisition of air force hardware and strategies is purportedly to have been exposed, why the government does not take immediate action to curtail the pensions of those who were responsible for these papers up to and including the Chief of the Air Force at that time along with terminating the services of those lower in the chain of access to these papers who may still be in service, is something that is not understood. Taking such exemplary action will put the fear of strong disciplinary action through the armed forces and also through government ensuring that the number of such cases are reduced if not eliminated. Thus there is no point in pussyfootin’ on this but put a stop to this once and for all.

The NCP Hullabaloo

The NCP deal to cover up corruption of Chagan Bhujbal and Sunil Tatkare, Water Resources Minister, the latter accountable for a Rs. 23,000 crore irrigation scam once made was the signal to end the stand-off with the Congress and thus the co-ordination committee for the UPA story was the face-saving ploy put out for the consumption of the public. This is the same kind of story like – You Scratch My Back & I Will Scratch Your Back – and we will keep secret what itch of corruption that we have from the rest of the world is exactly what was once again played out to the detriment and the disadvantage of the Indian people. In all this drama one has to say that the ability of Sharad Pawar to make money is phenomenal and he puts to shame even Lallu Yadav who is famously believed to have made money from cattle fodder and got caught while the former each and every time like The Scarlet Pimpernel eludes everyone. There is a public image of his as a do-gooder and helper of one and all but at the same time when farmers in his State of Maharasthra string themselves up on trees or drink pesticide, he is nowhere to be seen but emerges when farmers loans are to be waived off like in the last Rs. 60,000 crore Big Deal to write off farmers loans, he promptly comes on the scene seeking the same relaxation for the large farmers in the sugar heartland. This is the NCP story and there was nothing in the smoke and fire ostensibly raised by them within the UPA for No. 2 status in the Cabinet and all that which were diversionary tactics to protect their corruption.

Complete Breakdown of Indian Society

The electricity grid failures in Northern & Eastern India over the last 2 days is representative of the malaise that is affecting the country over the last few years now. No one has a clue to what is happening. No one has the will or the ability to control and regulate anything. We have seen the same thing happening for our economy where no one even attempts to control the drift and every agency involved pulls in different directions intent on protecting their own turf. In every single disaster, natural or manmade, there has been no clue on how to tackle the massive calamities and every single agency involved in these matters either to prevent or provide relief, end up making a mess. We have a communal strife out of control in Assam where the Chief Minister thinks fit to blame the Centre for not sending the Army quick enough when we all know that llaw and order is a State subject. We have women being attacked, disrobed and assaulted in every part of the country and in public by common people as well as the police, who are supposedly the custodians of the law, and we talk of the habits of the women and their dress code which are the peripheral issues, without going deeper into the problem which is essentially an economic issue and an outburst of pent-up anger by the have-nots against the haves. Traveling by rail is no longer safe since apart from accidents, things like uncontrolled fires take place and without looking at the safety and security aspects of the rolling stock and signaling the Railway Ministers hold fort on theories of sabotage just to deflect attention and seek more time to find reasons to completely absolve themselves. Such things are very apparent when we see the Power Minister Shinde promoted to Home Minister in the wake of the grid failures which affected 600 million people for a minimum of 12 hours in Northern & Eastern India and P Chidambaram restored to the Finance Ministry inspite of his involvement in the 2G scam for which he was yet to get a clean chit and Pranab Mukherji bumped upstairs into Rasthrapati Bhawan inspite of his inept tenure as Finance Minister. The intentions of this government in making these changes is clearly to be devious rather than have its functionaries face the music. In the wake of all this the question should be – Where is India headed? And the answer to that should be tackled forthwith rather than let matters take their own course resulting in more apathy, misery, loss of life and damage to public and private property. Is anyone in the government listening? Postscript: Power Minister Shinde after his elevation to Home Minister while being put on the mat by Rajdeep Sardesai on CNN-IBN on the electricity grid failures said that even in the US they take 4 days to restore power in such situations while in India we took only some 12-14 hours, which fact needs to be verified. The first thing here is that the US is no standard to judge the efficiency by which we need to restore essential needs like electricity since we should go by our needs, demands and priorities. Secondly, the US takes a couple of days to restore power during adverse weather conditions like rain, snow in their severe winters and during the hurricane season which makes it difficult to restore power in the event of downed transmission towers and lines while in fair weather India in the month of July Shinde entered the Guiness Book of World Records with the dubious distinction of being responsible for the largest blackout in the world impacting some 600 million people for close to 14 hours. Quite a record that!

Misguided Western Initiatives To De-Stabilise The Terror In Islamic Countries

The manner in which the crisis’s in the Gulf & the Middle East has been unfolding over the last 2 years or so with the latest on the brink to fall being Syria one is reminded of the spy movies that used to come just about the time when the Ian Fleming’s 007 James Bond movies, made enduring by Sean Connery, were making their debut. One movie which was quite popular was – Panic in Bangkok, where in one of the ending scenes, the spy hero is chasing the villain through a ramshackle village in Thailand in a car chase and everything is getting toppled in their way. You have a bamboo hut being driven through, a large water tank being upturned, a vegetable market with stalls with produce scattered all over and then the chase suddenly ends with the villain’s car toppling into a lake and the spy hero nonchalantly lights up a Marlboro on the banks of the lake watching the car go down with the villain ‘supposedly’ inside. (The apostrophe is to provide for options for a sequel.) This seems to be the orchestrated policy of the West with regard to the Gulf & the Middle East that has been pursued under the leadership of the US, the EU countries and NATO. In terms of the analogies to the abovementioned scenario Iraq was the bamboo hut which was blown away in revenge against Saddam Hussein and the rest followed in sequence from Yemen to Egypt to Tunisia to ending with Libya which was the vegetable market where military intervention was necessitated, until Syria came into the cross-hairs over the last few months. Just like deliberate interference in a covert manner in the affairs of other countries was the policy followed by the West in the middle of the 20th century under the pretext of the Cold war and combating Communism so also it is now by orchestrated interference through their own efforts and that of multilateral institutions like the UN has been the hallmark of the West cloaked in the noble objective of guaranteeing freedom and bringing in democracy to the named countries as above and also to the rest of the world where in the opinion of the West democracy and freedom does not subsist. In these uncertain circumstances as is natural the unlawful, illegal and terrorist elements have taken root in these countries and have contributed to mayhem as is their innate attribute and also with the objective of taking revenge on the West by killing their soldiers deployed there. None of these countries in the process of transition can do anything right and every action of theirs is looked through a tinted lens of being undemocratic and tyrannical and castigated roundly in the international media and other forums. Little does the West realize that such initiatives as above are counter-productive to their strategy since it is ending up in contributing to the strength of the enemy and re-instating the confrontational position between the Islamic countries and the West. In fact the Islamic countries are being pushed into the hands of the militia or the fundamentalists as we have seen in Egypt, Libya and other of the named countries where ‘democratic’ elections have taken place. This would not have happened if the change taking place in these named countries was home-brewed and allowed to run at its own speed and on its own course without the provocation and instigation from the West. Will the West even now learn and desist from interfering in other countries around the world and dampen their do-good altruistic noble motives?

BJP Should Think That They Are Competent & Come To The Starting Line

Ravi Shankar Prasad has suggested that Rahul Gandhi show his merit by taking on the mantle of the PM. What kind of a loony suggestion is that? BJP should show more maturity than throw this country off the edge of a cliff by such suggestions. Even someone from the BJP as PM would be better than Rahul-baba. This is exactly where the BJP fails to score since they would rather have someone else take up the baton and fail rather than pick it up themselves. Therefore the BJP should shed their skin of diffidence and walk up to the starting line and show their worth by aiming for a gold medal performance. Is anyone in the BJP listening?

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VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue:123

Date: 28.07.2012

Contents:

1. The Indian Economy Slipping Into Recession On A Bed Of Lies

2. Keep Pakistan At Arm's Length

3. BJP Devoid Of Real-Politik

4. With NCP Tiff, The UPA Split Is Wide Open

5. Rahul Gandhi: The Reluctant Leader

The Indian Economy Slipping Into Recession On A Bed Of Lies

The Indian economy continues to show indifferent performance and is slowly but surely slipping into recession. Manufacturing for May showed a blip of an increase compared to a negative in the previous month but Capital Goods production continued to decline which is indicative that long term growth in manufacturing would be impacted. The latest decision of the government is not to release break-up figures for the sectors that constitute the IIP. Thus what was a surmise is now fact that the government is fiddling with the figures, otherwise in these days of transparency where is the need to do the dance of the ‘seven veils’ with the figures unless it is a habit with our bureaucrats to do the dance with six digits hyphenated at two digit intervals. Exports for June showed a marginal spurt which given the Commerce Ministry’s track record one is never sure whether it is fudging or a real increase and considering the growth being in the low single digits it is easy to decorate these figures to manage public opinion. This assumption is borne out by the reports coming in that the Labour Ministry’s survey for unemployment resulted with widely varying figures like 17% for Goa to 1% for Gujarat with other States also showing varying figures. The Ministry has now decided to withdraw these figures and look into the methodology of the survey which revision will be used in the next surveys. There is a background here, as it is understood that in 2010 the Ministry had claimed unemployment figures of some 13% when the NSSO (National sample Survey Organisation) figures on the same in 2008 was about 3.5%, and these variations were asked to be examined. These matters give credence to the fact that the government is ‘managing and massaging’ the figures and any figures that they put out hereafter should be taken with a pinch of salt. The approach of the government and its spokespersons seems to be to paint a rosy picture until they are caught out in their act and then blame it on processes and procedures. This also applies to claims that for FDI, ndia is a desired destination while actual figures show that we do not even receive even half the FDI that China gets and even lower than what Brazil and South Africa get among the BRIC countries. It is like the old saying that – An Empty Tin Makes The Most Noise, and the government of India with not having much to report lately with its non-achievement arising out of ‘policy paralysis’ is trying to rattle the empty tin as much as it can and then when the noise gets muted tends to look inside the tin with surprise to find out as to what went wrong. The problem is that the ministers and people in the government like bureaucrats get into the habit of believing these ‘managed’ figures on the saying that the more you tell a lie there is every chance that people will believe it is the truth. Thus the actual truth never surfaces and in that manner our economy has got lost under the piles of lies being put out from the PM, the PMO, the Planning Commission, the Finance Minister, the Agricultural Minister, the Food & Civil Supplies Minister etc. (Have we left out anybody?) And it has ended up as managing lies like if there is a drought or excess monsoon the prices will go up since there will be a shortage of items and commodities while in the latter case prices will still go up because the roads would have got washed away by the rains and stuff cannot get into the market. They even have an excuse for normal rains and say wait for 3/6/9 months depending on who is speaking and who has someone in the family in the family way. We wish them a happy delivery but each time such assurances are made the economy has been born still-born every time meaning nothing has changed.

Keep Pakistan At Arm's Length

It has been reported that President Zardari has still not been forthcoming on his promised $1 Million donation to the Chisthi shine in Ajmer during his last visit to India. This sums up the Pakistan psyche where they say one thing more often than not to keep face and an assumed sense of importance and bravado while in action do the completely opposite. When they are less than diligent on their promises to religious shrines how can we believe them when it comes to promises they make in bilateral affairs like in the last episode of Surjeet Singh’s release in place of Sarabjit and many more important matters like the 26/11 investigations etc. After Zardari's visit India released Dr Chisthi (the names are similar to that of the saint in Ajmer) which cannot be really grudged considering his age but India either did not ask for Sarabjit's release then as a quid pro quo or if it did then Zardari welshed on the deal but India did not stop at that and gave permission for Dr Chisthi to visit Pakistan which was completely unnecessary. Now we have gone and agreed to playing cricket with Pakistan in India which was avoidable. We need to realise that here it is not just cricket but that we need to keep Pakistan at arm's length until they learn to play ball on terror and Kashmir before we move on to sporting and cultural ties. The relationship with nations particularly with Pakistan in this context cannot be expected to normalise from the sporting field and sympathetic issues like that of Dr Chisthi to the diplomatic table. With Pakistan we should keep talking but follow the maxim - Do Unto Others As They Do Unto You.

BJP Devoid Of Real-Politik

Now that Pranab Mukherji has won the election to be the 13th President of India, the BJP must be regretting for having supported a ‘lame-duck’ candidate like P A Sangma. Instead of that from the beginning if they had played a pro-active role on the Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections and started a dialogue with the Congress and the UPA then they could have struck a deal to make Pranab Mukherji the President and Jaswant Singh the Vice-President. This would not only have helped the BJP but also showed their desire to arrive at a consensus on important national issues. Thus the BJP instead of leading were in turn led by the nose by two small parties, the BJD and the AIDMK and their leaders Naveen Patnaik and Jayalalithaa in supporting P A Sangma. Clearly the strategy of the BJP could have been better since come next month Jaswant Singh is a sure loser to the UPA’s Hamid Ansari for the Vice-President’s post given the way things have shaped up.

With NCP Tiff, The UPA Split Is Wide Open

One must say that Mamata Banerji was quite perceptive last week when she had said that the President and Vice-President elections have splintered the UPA & NDA coalitions and put the Indian political scene in chaos. Almost on cue over the last few days Sharad Pawar and the NCP came out citing their unhappiness with the Congress for apparently the former's seniority issue within the present Central Cabinet but with more serious underlying differences and threatening to resign from the ministries held by them as also pull out of the UPA. The target in the cross-hairs of the NCP seems to be Prithviiraj Chavan, the Maharasthra CM who is accused of systematically targeting NCP in the State as also for his non-performance. Having just done a cut and paste job to the UPA with the threatened TMC withdrawal and extending a friendly hand to the SP & the BSP to shore up the President's election, the Congress will be hard put to resolve the NCP problem which is not so much a numbers issue but more of a loss of face in its inability to hold together a longterm ally with the ensuing general elections in mind.

Rahul Gandhi: The Reluctant Leader

The vacuum in leadership as also leaders in the Congress party is reflected in Rahul-baba's diffidence in accepting any position of responsibility in the party or in the government. The reluctance in holding responsible positions could be his personal character flaw following in the footsteps of his father, Rajiv or the comfort that he now basks in of being Mama's boy. In either event the Congress have a difficult task ahead of them in preparing for the 2014 elections with no leader or having reluctant leaders. In the absence of a strong binding force at the top the Congress will also go the same way as the other political parties like the BJP who are caught up more in internecine infighting and backbiting.

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VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue:122

Date: 21.07.2012

Contents:

1. In Goa, The Casinos Should Be Shut Down

2. Democracy Under Siege In India

3. BJP Should Get Its Act Together

4. Mamata Needs To Grow Up

5. Kalmadi On Bail

6. In Presidential Election, Candidates Should Respect the High Office While Contesting

7. The Shame On Assam

In Goa, The Casinos Should Be Shut Down

First it was the Congress – led government and now the BJP government in Goa that both pay lip-service to be anti-gambling and against casinos are covertly supporting it. Lately with regard to the statistics put out on the revenue generated and the employment provided by casinos in the State, it is an apparently clear case of the BJP government with Manohar Parrikar leading the charge being detrimental to the social well-being of the State and having a clearly distorted viewpoint on the mechanism for generating revenue for the government. In the first instance, we need to remember that the revenue arising out of casino operations is something which is not contributing to improving the moral fibre of the State and a BJP government stooping so low as to take credit for increase in revenues from casinos speaks for itself. The increase in the number of footfalls at the casinos in the April – June quarter of 2012, normalized for the reduced entry fee of Rs. 500 and assuming that each person visits the casino three times on a 3-day package tour, we arrive at a figure of 10,000 persons per quarter or 3300 persons approx. per month. These will include more outsiders than Goans and even if 10% of these become chronic gamblers, the casinos in Goa are destroying the lives of approx. 4000 Indian citizens per year. Out of this at least 5% should be Goans, which means that lives of 200 Goans are being destroyed by the casinos every year and about 800 Goans in their immediate families are being made destitute. Additionally Goa would be getting blamed for the lives destroyed of other Indians who visit the casinos. Is all this desirable? If not, is this not avoidable? In the second instance, the casino entry fee at a higher level was a threshold barrier to deter people from going into casinos to gamble, this being more so for Goans. By reducing the entry fee to a nominal Rs. 500/- you are opening the floodgates for people and particularly our youth in Goa to flock to casinos and gamble. Just like the DSSY scheme the money has been increased from Rs. 1000/- to Rs. 2000/- as an election promise, so also the BJP had promised that our youth would get an unemployment allowance of some Rs. 2000 – 2500 per month. When this takes place, would some of our youth not go and play with government money at the casinos since the entry fee is just Rs. 500/- By playing to the masses in reducing the price of petrol in the State, if Manohar Parrikar thinks that the people of Goa will condone his raising revenues from casinos and gambling to compensate for the revenue loss, then he is sadly mistaken. Thirdly, the employment statistics given in the newsitem and quoted from government figures seem to be wrong. These job numbers seem to be fudged to show that more Goans are being employed in the casinos while the reality is closer to that which is given in the figures given for Hotel Neo Majestic (Casino Pride) of total employees 351 out of which Goans are only 151. Thus with employment being provided for an upper maximum of 1600 persons, the casinos would destroy the lives of the same number of people that it would give jobs to though these two categories are different set of people but even then for the whole of Goa the figures nullify each other and thus there is no benefit of the casinos to Goa at all. Additionally, there is more nuisance because of their presence arising out of increase in crime, prostitution, drug usage, money laundering, palming off counterfeit money and its relationship to terror operations, congestion on the River Mandovi of the off-shore casinos to the fishing vessels, barge traffic and cruise ships along with the additional costs of administering these problems by the government which are being currently hidden away in the respective departmental budgets. Finally the casinos are an increasing nuisance to Goans and normal tourists. Like in the first category where the casinos are located in residential neighbourhoods the peace and calm of the locality is being destroyed by movement of noise, commotion and rashly driven traffic on a 24/7 basis, soliciting by prostitutes which restricts decent women from respectable households from coming out on the streets for fear of being accosted. Even if we take the figure of jobs provided by the casinos for Goans at 1600, then for 0.1% of the population should 99.9% of the Goan people suffer the nuisance generated by the casinos. Thus we need to think whether we need these casinos at all in Goa since their disadvantages far outweigh their benefits. Goa should aspire to provide clean tourism which seems to be a lost cause now with Manohar Parrikar and his government bent upon acting analogous to a priest operating a vice den or a liquor vend where they first encourage the individual to indulge in the vices on account of the necessity to earn money but without a care for the ultimate destruction of the person on account of his addiction to that vice. Is this why the people of Goa sent Manohar Parrikar and the BJP to power with a resounding majority in the last elections?

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THIS IS AN APPEAL TO ALL OF YOU TO COME OUT AGAINST CASINOS AND GAMBLING IN ALL ITS FORMS IN INDIA AND PARTICULARLY IN GOA. IN THE EVENT THAT YOU VISIT GOA PLEASE SHUN THE CASINOS AND DO NOT ENCOURAGE THEM TO CONTINUE IN BUSINESS WITH EVEN YOUR OCCASSIONAL PATRONAGE. THE FOLLOWING LETTER SENT TO THE BJP AND RSS TOP BRASS OUTLINES THE PROBLEMS THAT WE SEE IN THE CASINO INDUSTRY FLOURISHING IN GOA. SOME LIKEMINDED PEOPLE LIKE ME ARE CAMPAIGNING AGAINST THE CASINOS IN GOA AND WOULD VALUE YOUR SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT. IN YOUR OWN AREA OR CITY YOU COULD TAKE UP THIS ISSUE TO STOP GAMBLING OF WHICH THE ‘MATKA’ FORM OR THE NUMBERS GAME IS THE MOST PATRONISED IN INDIA BY WRITING TO THE AUTHORITIES OR THE STATE AND CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION TO CURB, CONTROL AND STOP THIS. ANY OF YOUR LETTERS THAT YOU ISSUE ON THIS CAN BE COPIED TO ME BY EMAIL OR BY REGULAR POST. IF YOU CAN ALSO WRITE SIMILARLY ON THE CASINO BUSINESS IT WOULD BE APPRECIATED. SEND ME COPIES OF THESE LETTERS ALSO SO THAT WE CAN ALL WORK TOWARDS COORDINATING A NATIONWIDE CAMPAIGN TO RID THIS COUNTRY OF THIS VICE OF GAMBLING BEFORE IT BECOMES AN ORGANISED INDUSTRY LIKE WE ARE SEEING IN GOA. PLEASE REMEMBER THAT THE CASINO BUSINESS IN GOA IS JUST THE BEGINNING WITH SIKKIM ALREADY HAVING SOME CASINOS. THEN DAMAN & DIU FOLLOWING SUIT IN A COUPLE OF MONTHS AND THEN IT WILL BE THE REST OF THE COUNTRY SHOWING THE GOA REVENUE MODEL EXAMPLE SINCE EVERY SINGLE STATE IN THIS COUNTRY NEEDS AN EASY REVENUE MECHANISM AND CASINOS ARE IDEALLY SUITED FOR THIS.

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LETTER SENT TO THE BJP AND RSS TOP BRASS IN NEW DELHI: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 4th June 2012

To,

(See below for Addressee List)

Dear ....................... ,

This is to bring to your attention the mushrooming gambling and casino culture that is spreading in Goa, which happens to be the only State in India where this activity is thriving and rampant apart from Sikkim where there is a marginal presence of casinos. Now that there is a BJP government in power in Goa with an unassailable majority, it is time that a moral clean-up of the State is undertaken by banning such activity as gambling that is represented through the casinos. We have as a group under the umbrella of the Aam Aurat and Admi Against Gambling (AAAAG), Goa have submitted a memorandum in this regard to Shri Manohar Parrikar, the Chief Minister of Goa, a copy of which is attached to this letter. In addition to this, this letter seeks to request you to remind the BJP in Goa and Shri Manohar Parrikar of the basic conceptual ideology that gambling as a vice should not find place in our contemporary Indian society and any earnings from this activity are surely tainted and have no business to be considered as revenue for the government.

In this spirit, the following is enumerated to give you the background of the gambling/casino culture that is slowly rising as a menace to civil society in Goa:

1. Gambling as a vice and represented through the casinos in Goa is polluting civil society since in its wake it brings in the other vices like organized crime, money laundering, drugs, prostitution and linkages to the terror networks. This fact is nothing new and has been seen in other places of the world where gambling activity is actively promoted. Even in Goa over the last 5 years or so when the number of casinos were being increased there have been many cases of crime, money laundering, drugs and prostitution that have happened. It is time that this is stopped and the casinos are asked to close down.

2. Even though the casinos are ostensibly set up to cater to tourists, many are the local Goan families who have seen their near and dear ones destroyed through the passion of gambling. These are ordinary middle class families whose youth primarily are attracted towards the ‘hi-life’ as represented by the casinos and end up loosing everything on the gaming machines/tables of the casinos.

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3. There is no independent control or regulation on the gambling machines and/or tables in the casinos apart from that set up by the owners. Thus the gambling is biased towards increasing the profitability of the casino owners at the cost of those gambling. This therefore is a manner of extortion through the gaming process. Abroad there are independent gaming commissions which ensure a certain amount of fairness in the process of the games that are played and which monitor the casinos on a regular basis to ensure that these regulations are being followed. In Goa though there is a gaming commission, it is almost defunct and serves no useful purpose and those visiting the casinos are at the mercy of the machines/table operators which is essentially the casino owners.

4. There are two kinds of casinos – on-shore and off-shore. On-shore casinos are allowed to operate only gaming machines with no live gambling at the tables like card games and are supposed to be only in ‘5-star’ hotels. The off-shore casinos are located on board ships and are supposed to be technically 5 KM. from Goa’s sea shore. These off-shore casinos can have gaming machines as well as live gaming at tables. In both categories of casinos, the surprising part is the uniform flouting of laws by which on-shore casinos have been allowed to function within the premises of supposedly ‘5-star’ hotels, certified by the local State administration and not by the Tourism Dept. of the Govt. of India. In the same manner, the off-shore casinos are located mostly on the river Mandovi in the capital city of Panaji on ships that are not seaworthy and which clutter up the river causing traffic congestion to the movement of fishing trawlers, cruise ships and barges carrying iron ore for export. In the manner of splitting hairs, the off-shore casino owners have filed cases in the courts of law that off-shore can also mean being on the river! The matter is now sub-judice. Most of this had happened during the erstwhile Congress government’s rule in Goa for the last 8 years or so.

5. Upon the BJP government assuming power in Goa a couple of months back, the Chief Minister, Shri Manohar Parrikar announced a reduction in the entry fee of off-shore casinos from Rs. 2,000/- bringing it in line with the Rs. 500/- as applicable for on-shore casinos. At the same time, he enhanced the licence fees payable in advance of on-shore casinos from Rs. 15 lakh per year to Rs. 2.5 crores per year and that of off-shore casinos from Rs. 5 crores per year to Rs. 6.5 crores per year. Both these have since been notified. This he admits was a revenue mobilization measure and to simplify the administration of the collection of entry fees from the casinos in which there was a high amount of leakage. However, Manohar Parrikar failed to realize that in his zeal to earn revenue and to plug procedural leakages, he is firstly, resting his government’s earnings on a vice which is, as said earlier, conceptually immoral, and secondly, encouraging a social evil by making it easier for people to visit the casinos by reducing the entry fees to Rs. 500/- for both categories.

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6. Shri Manohar Parrikar at around the same time of revising the entry fee and licence fees of the casinos announced an unemployment allowance of some Rs. 2500/- p.m to Goan unemployed youth. When this is implemented it would not be surprising to see the youth in Goa playing with government money at the casinos with their entry fees now reduced. Thus Manohar Parrikar has increased the social nuisance of the casinos in Goa. Though he has said that he will come up with legislation to restrict entry of Goans below 21 years into the casinos, this will again be a very difficult thing to administer since it will be easy for the youth to grease the palms of the gate-keepers at the casinos and gain entry, since the rates have been reduced from Rs. 2000/- to Rs. 500/-, leaving them with more money in their hands. 7. Goa gets about 20 lakh tourists a year, both foreign and of Indian origin, out of which just about 60,000 visit casinos. Thus the casinos make no serious dent in the tourism portfolio of the State but for adding a certain nuisance and notoriety value to Goa. The negative fallouts of the gambling and casino culture are more than any benefits that it allows.

8. Gambling is an illegal activity all over India and even in Goa but gaming at casinos is not illegal in Goa which is somewhat anachronistic! Therefore gaming at casinos being gambling should also be declared illegal.

9. Advertising is resorted to by the casinos in Goa not only in print advertising, but also point-of-sale moving sign displays, lighted hoardings, signs on road dividers, on airport luggage turntables and even on police road barricades! The image that is conveyed for anyone visiting Goa is that this is ‘Sin State’ akin to ‘Sin City’, is what Las Vegas is known in the United States. Moreover when advertising for liquor and cigarettes is banned in print and visual media, though we see surrogate advertising in this area, the simple question is how are casinos able to advertise freely in all forms of advertising? Clearly this has to be stopped.

10. In many States in India and also in Goa, bars and liquor shops are banned within 100 meters of any place of worship or educational institutions. If bars and liquor shops are required to follow the 100 meters distance separation, common logic or sense should also not allow casinos to be within 100 meters of any place of worship or educational institutions.

11. For entry into casinos, there is no record kept of the visitors and thus it becomes a hot-bed for laundering black/hot money. In hotels around the country and even in Goa, photo ids are a must during check-in as part of the ‘war on terror’ and to also have a record of those visiting the place. But for casinos, there is no record of the people visiting their premises. Just asking for a photo id or PAN card at the time of entry to the casino will prune the visitors and bring a modicum of control to those going to casinos.

12. Another nuisance is that casinos appropriate public spaces near their entrances mostly on the road along the river Mandovi in Panaji which is allocated for the general public.

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13. It is estimated that the casinos in Goa contribute to about Rs. 60 crore to the State Budget while the expenses related to maintaining the casinos in the State, in terms of policing, ensuring law and order and investigation of crimes related to the casinos along with cost of repairing and upkeep of the environment of the river Mandovi in which the off-shore casinos ships continually discharge sewage and effluents are much more than the revenue earned from them. Again as a measure of generating public approbation immediately upon taking over the helm of government in Goa, Manohar Parrikar exempted petrol from the State taxes thus bringing the price down by some Rs. 12 per liter. This is estimated to have resulted in a revenue loss of Rs. 150 crore to the State which he is confident of compensating or recovering from alternate means. If so to continue not patronizing a social evil like casinos in the State, he can surely find ways and means to compensate for the Rs. 60 crores revenue that comes from casinos.

With this, it is requested that you should intervene and ensure that the nuisance and the resultant social evil of the casinos in Goa which is essentially a gambling activity and should be banned with immediate effect. I look forward to your support on this critical and sensitive issue.

Thanking you Yours truly

Sd/-

Srinivas Kamat AG 2 Sabnis Palace Alto Betim Goa 403 521. Ph: (0832) 2416430 Email: kamatsrinivas@hotmail.com

Sent to:

1. Shri Arun Jaitley, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 11, Ashoka Road, New Delhi 110001.

2. Shrimati Sushma Swaraj, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 11, Ashoka Road, New Delhi 110001.

3. Shri Suresh G Soni, Rasthriya Sevak Sangh (RSS) Keshav Kunj Jhandewalan Deshbandhu Gupta Marg New Delhi 110 055.

4. Shri Ram Madhav Rasthriya Sevak Sangh (RSS) Keshav Kunj Jhandewalan Deshbandhu Gupta Marg New Delhi 110 055.

Democracy Under Siege In India

It is democracy under siege during the ongoing Goa Assembly session which is being held behind police barricades and hordes of armed police guarding from a point about 1 km. away from the road leading up to the Assembly premises and then again at the approach of the two Mandovi Bridges in Panaji which are used for access to North Goa and on whose other immediate end are the Assembly premises. Thus for a premise of democracy which was famously defined by Abraham Lincoln as – Of The People, By The People and For The People, has reached a stage in Goa and for that matter in the whole of India as a shuttered, isolated and secretive exercise. The definition of democracy as adapted to the Indian circumstance is - Of The Politicians, By The Politicians and For The Politicians. Never before in the history of India or for that matter mankind has a select few been so apprehensive of the large majority. In this situation our politicians use every single machination and devious tactic in the book to protect themselves against their habit of personal aggrandizement and amassing wealth by hook or by crook. The unseemly hurry to satisfy their greed is the characteristic of the majority of the politicians in India and in that process they are alienating themselves more and more from the aam admi of this country. That is where they see the necessity for protecting themselves with Z+ security, hiding behind procedure for doing anything that is requested for them for the public good, claiming to be snowed under with the onerous process of serving the mass of humanity that is characteristic in India. This in fact is the sum and substance of the problems related to democracy in India which like Bollywood tends to be India’s own and unique masala mix of the premise called democracy.

BJP Should Get Its Act Together

The BJP as a party seems to have lost the elementary basics that they need to be decisive. Being decisive is indicative of leadership which the BJP sorely lacks today. A fractured leadership which resorts to in-fighting at every instance and every turn on the winding road of politics has been their hallmark lately. Take the case of the crisis in Karnataka where yet another CM was installed on the instance of Yeddyurappa's obdurate demands to bring down his own earlier and the only BJP government south of the Vindhyas. This man has been castigated for corruption on many varied counts which has caused no end of embarrassment to the BJP but continues his machinations to topple the incumbent CM since he believes that unless he or his cronies are in the drivers seat in the Vidhana Soudha he would again have to spend some time in jail again. Why no one in the BJP HQ cannot read the riot act to him is anybody's guess? Then again, first in the Presidential election candidates and now in the Vice-Presidential election, the BJP seems to be giving the impression that they prefer to follow rather than lead in spelling out their candidate in advance so that they can build a groundswell of support to challenge the Congress and UPA candidates. This has led them to support a non-candidate like P A Sangma for the President's post since they played themselves into a corner with little choice. Mamata Banerji for all other things that you may blame her for, came out with names of candidates at least of better stature and eminence than that of the Congress & UPA for both the President and the Vice-President. It is quite another matter that her candidates did not want to contest. In this context the BJP's Jaswant Singh is a good candidate for the Vice-Presidency and given time to build support among the political parties he could have been a shoo-in against Hamid Ansari, the Congress candidate who has already had a stint in the post. But it looks like again the BJP left it a bit too late to make up their minds. These and many other things lead the aam admi to believe that the BJP is party which likes to be permanently ensconced in the Opposition and lacks the wherewithal to lead.

Mamata Needs To Grow Up

Mamata Banerji rule in West Bengal is clearly going erratic and directionless. The initial problems she had, with baby deaths in the hospitals, the fires that randomly seemed to sprout from nowhere all over the State and then the Park Street rape case in which the first woman CM of Bengal, Mamata Banerji was perceived not to be on the side of the aggrieved woman and also instrumental in transferring the woman police officer in charge of the Crime Branch in Kolkata Police for hogging the limelight, seem to be far from over. With the Pinki case which was obviously badly handled by the police who did not give the basic protection that a woman or a person claiming to be a woman deserves to get, during arrest or while in jail and the fact that Mamata Banerji did not come out with a statement on this matter has been seen as a negative considering Pinki was in jail for 25 odd days. There is also a broader issue of how a medal-winning athlete is handled in Kolkata or for that matter in India where surely some benefit of the doubt can be given to the athlete and then only rigorous police action taken unless it is an obvious case of murder or similar grievous crime. In line with the hospital issues there was also last week a footballer who died in North Bengal after having been injured on the playing field and no hospital accommodated him to evaluate his injuries. The poor footballer finally died which again speaks of the lack of urgency or seriousness with which patients are treated in West Bengal during the current TMC rule. Even with regard to the Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections she does not seem to have talked to either Abdul Kalam or Gopal Gandhi, her candidates for the two posts since both have come with almost identical comments on their candidatures and that is only if they are assured of a win they would have contested. Here there is nothing to fault in Mamata Banerji’s choice of candidates since both are highly eminent people and better than what the Congress & UPA put up, but the process that she followed in proposing their candidature which was at fault. Then there was the commemoration of Jyoti Basu’s birth anniversary which happened to fall on a Sunday which she wanted to celebrate on the preceding Friday which the Left boycotted and in retaliation she locked them out of the Assembly premises when they turned up on Sunday to pay their respects to the Grand Old Man of Bengal politics and the media splashed pictures of the Left MLA’s clamouring at the Assembly gates seeking entry. At least for Jyoti Basu’s stature in Bengal should she not have been a little negotiable in her adamancy? It is time therefore that Mamata Banerji gets her act together and shows some maturity and at the same time restores a semblance of governance to the State that has reposed confidence in her. Postscript: Mamata's erratic slip is still showing with her flip-flop in offering support of the TMC to Pranab Mukherji in the Presidential election. Considering that a Bengali has been nominated for the post for the first time she could have gracefully stood behind Pranab-da from the beginning which would have cemented her position across the Bengali psyche irrespective of party affiliations. There is a time to play politics and there is a time to play the stateswoman is what Mamata should realise.

Kalmadi On Bail

How can Suresh Kalmadi be allowed to go to the London Olympics by the CBI judge when he is implicated in the CWG scam where hundreds of crores was purportedly swindled unless it is to collect his dues from the CWG flame run organizer based in London, with which issue the CWG scam started unraveling! In fact his passport should have been permanently cancelled and he should also not have been given bail. By allowing Suresh Kalmadi to go abroad when he has not yet been cleared of his guilt on charges brought against him the Indian justice system is clearly being undermined. The act of giving Kalmadi smacks like that of the judge who gave the Reddy brothers bail in the Obulapuram illegal mining case in Andhra Pradesh. The fact that people like Suresh Kalmadi, the Reddy brothers and A Raja in the 2G scam case who also got bail are influential people and who can swing the outcome of a case by compromising witnesses or tampering with documents would not be lost on the judges. But with the political patronage of the ruling party these cases like the 2G and the CWG are being systematically diluted and with the cynical pessimism that has become the expectation of the aam admi in such matters, one will have to but conclude that nothing will come out of these cases now. This cynicism is in order since if both Kalmadi & Raja were denied bail all this while particularly the latter who was in jail for close to 14 months, what has materially changed in their cases to grant them bail now? Essentially nothing except that the investigation agencies will need more time to make out their case. And simply on this plea every accused in the 2G & CWG cases have been enlarged on bail. It is thus expected that the mills of justice will grind but will not dispense any justice and it will be yet again a fruitless exercise. Therefore you can argue that the accused need not have been incarcerated in jail at all since what was the point in putting all these wealthy and influential people to unnecessary difficulty? Take Suresh Kalmadi’s case where the party including the Congress High Command defended him initially in the CWG scam, but finding that his case was becoming embarrassing they dumped him and also threw him out of the party but then he swung bail on grounds of dementia of which there seem to be no signs now and then had the audacity to announce that he would contest for MP from Pune, his original constituency, and just last month caused a minor fracas in Pune when his cronies in the Municipality invited him to an inauguration which the Opposition did not want anything to do with. The Congress party at the Centre has compromised our value system so much that the border lines of right, wrong and maybe have blurred and nowadays one is not sure of what’s what since what was wrong until yesterday is right today and vice versa.

In Presidential Election, Candidates Should Respect the High Office While Contesting

The manner in which the current Presidential elections are being 'fought' is a shame on the highest office of the land and some of the august and eminent personalities that have graced the office of the President of India in the past. P A Sangma who is completely unfit to hold this office is in any case contesting because some of the political parties who do not see eye to eye with the Congress and the UPA government are playing him along to meet their own limited objectives. His being in the fray has led some of the parties like the Samajwadi party to extract its pound of flesh from the Congress for supporting their official candidate, Pranab Mukherjee and thus indirectly UP needs to thank Sangma for the financial largesse. Talk of a sword that can cut both ways. But in this doling out of budgetory support by an incumbent government to one or the other State for support by a political party for the Presidential candidate is what is vitiating the process of the election and bringing down the stature of the office of the President. Sangma has also stooped low in saying that Rasthrapati Bhawan should not be a 'dumping ground' for a non-performing Finance Minister like Pranab Mukherjee. Little does Sangma realise that by saying this he is indicating that he is amenable to go to this 'dumping ground'! Thus Sangma should know his limits while campaigning for the Presidency and taking pot-shots at Pranab Mukherjee. Not that Pranab Mukherjee is without fault since his very candidature is suspect in the public eye in terms of the technicality that he did not resign from the various offices of profit that he held at the time of filing his Presidential nomination. The signature on the resignation from the office of profit that Pranab Mukherjee held at ISI, Kolkata is clearly different from how he regularly signs other documents which even a layman can see. Thus claiming that can a person not sign his name differently is insulting the imagination of all Indians since we all know that even if one is woken up in the middle of the night to sign a document one would use the same official signature as a matter of caution that whatever document is being signed should not be contested and then held invalid. Thus a man with 40 years of political experience behind him, holding the high office of Finance Minister and aspiring for a higher office that of President does not have the elementary knowledge that he should sign the same way in all documents shows up Pranab Mukherjee's negotiable standards of conduct. There is like they say - 'Dal Mein Kuch Kala Hai!' but then that is what this country has come to under the Congress party where what they would say or do has become the de-facto non-negotiable standard of behaviour or action which we all have to accept. Some one will definitely move a PIL on this matter, sooner or later and we may have the ignominy of Pranab Mukherjee having to demit office and then get re-elected in a short span of time or does that make Sangma the President for the full term in which case it will be a disaster or a thunderbolt of fortune pushing Sangma forward, depending on which way you look at it. But all the same the two candidates should remember to contest the election with conduct that behoves the high office of the President of India.

The Shame On Assam

The Gauhati incident is a shame on the people of Assam following in the wake of the Kolkata incident where a woman was raped in a moving car by perpetrators claiming false identities. In the eastern and north-eastern States of the country starting from Bengal up into Assam and the other Seven Sisters women were treated with respect in the past but with this incident in Gauhati and the increasing rape cases in Bengal, this image seems no longer valid. As far as the police are concerned though there is a necessity for them to be alert, there is little that they can do when such out-of-the-ordinary incidents occur. As reported by an eye-witness the police came within half-hour of being called which is a pretty good response in any part of India and therefore there is not much blame that you can apportion on them. What this or the other police officer said is not valid since its worth is only transient to create those sound bytes on instant TV. The police should however be quick in apprehending the perpetrators and with the support of the Assam CM which has been assured by him, the case should be tried in the fast track courts and exemplary punishment is awarded so that the fair name of Assam is no longer sullied in this manner. The media being castigated for continuing coverage of the incident as it was unfolding is rather unfair since we are not sure if the coverage was received from independent observers or if the media people had alerted the police and then continued to shoot the incident, in which case it is good, hard and unbiased legal evidence which is being presented. However, this incident brings back the memories of the Mangalore incident involving Shree Ram Sene assaulting young couples in a bar or others in Bihar & UP of a cop dragging a supposed criminal along the road while riding a motorcycle, children and women getting thrashed by policemen. This has all happened in the last one year and with more regularity over the last few months which shows that India is getting increasingly violent and intolerant. Time to change, no!

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