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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