Here's my take on some issues that made for eye-grabbing headlines, expressed in no particular order...
The
End of Kasab!
How does it get any better any
than this! Not the hanging in itself, (which, in my humble opinion is overdue) but
the manner in which he was executed. It
is difficult (and rather disastrous to imagine the kind of circus the media
would have indulged in had there been a prior notice). The fourth estate would
have gone berserk as always and the issue would have ended up being
trivialized. End of the day – it was good riddance of bad rubbish without media
intervention for once!
The
Aam Aadmi Party!
Mr. Arvind Kejariwal (messiah
of the ‘mango’ people) has arrived
with his party for the people, by the people and of the people, christening it
as the “Aam Aadmi Party”!
Rewinding a little, the events
prior to the launch of the party have urged me to think that news channels
should now have a separate corruption bulletin, something on the lines of a
“SportsCentre”, “World of Sports”, or “Weather Update”. The said special can
highlight the day’s exposé, a status on the last few exposés and so on. Throw
in a Top-10 of Exposés as a highlight and interested people can keep tab, while
others can stick to regular news! There is some reprieve these days considering
these revelations have slightly lost their steam!
If it sounds absolutely cynical
and irresponsible to make the issue of corruption look trivial, that is
certainly not the intention. Corruption is an ultimate evil and needs to be
addressed. The point that I am trying to ascertain is that the aam aadmi is beginning to lose interest
in these “startling exposés”, considering they are going nowhere besides
‘Breaking News’ on TV. It is not front page news anymore, none of these seem to
reach a logical conclusion and the ones named in them are not going to get
hurt, barring, maybe, minor electoral setbacks.
What I think is being missed in
this ‘press-conference-driven-system-clean-up-act’ is, we Indians are
almost used to corruption and there is no element of shock or surprise to
this. Probably one of the sensible
comments was made by a Union Minister was when he stated that the amount
mentioned in a so-called scam was too low for a Union Minister to get involved
in. While he may have defended himself (read
clarified) later by saying he was misquoted, but come to think of it, what he
said made perfect sense and I’m sure the majority public agrees with him. Public
is already of the opinion that such things are a part and parcel of politics
and “yeh chota mota corruption toh chalta
hai boss”!!
What the Aam Admi Party could
rather do is focus on what they can offer other rather than mere exposés. At
the end of the day, you do need capable people to run government not just clean
people!
Parliamentary
functioning!
What amuses me is the childish
behavior of politicians, especially the so-called Opposition. In India, Opposition
takes the word ‘opposition’ a bit too seriously – they HAVE to oppose
everything. It is understood that there
are few contentious issues, for instance ‘FDI in retail’. Why can’t they
conduct regular business and agree on agreeable things like passing a simple
economic legislation like Companies Bill? Why stall the functioning of
parliament for an issue which they don’t have a consensus on or rather an issue
on which they don’t want to have a consensus on? It’s funny but that’s democracy
for you. Latest is the opposition wants two separate voting and discussion on
same issue of FDI in retail. It is hard
to imagine the time that gets wasted and of course, the taxpayer’s money.
Tendulkar
and the ‘R’ Word!
Disclaimer – like the millions
of other Indians, I also like Tendulkar – but the way things are unfolding is
nothing but disappointing. To see THE
MAN struggle and allowing every Tom Dick and Harry (including me) to debate on
his calling the shots is appalling. Let’s hope he goes out on a high and not
like this.
Indo-Pak
Cricket Diplomacy!
In spite of a thousand debates
on this, it still does not make any sense.
The only beneficiary of this is the BCCI considering the moolahs they get to make from this one.
As we all know, cricket diplomacy has not helped the two countries improve their
ties in any way. It’s just a
gimmick. And yes, India and Pakistan have
been playing against each other on other tournaments, which should be enough to
cater to a cricket fan’s appetite. We
are under no moral responsibility to revive or help Pakistan Cricket by
offering to play a series with them. The
only outcome can be some law and order problem in the country which, we have in
plenty anyways!
The
Sahara Saga!
Another news making headlines
these days is the Sahara saga. To
re-capitulate, Sahara Group has raised huge sums through issue of OFCD
(optionally fully convertible debentures) and it is alleged that they violated several
statutory provisions of Companies Act and SEBI regulations. Strangely, while
the whole world knows Sahara gets funds by running these finance schemes, SEBI
got to know about this only when the group initiated listing of two of their
companies and filed prospectus with SEBI.
The concern here is the OFCD issue through which the funds were raised
were actually cleared by the Registrar of Companies and it appears that they
are not being held responsible in any way for this mess!
Apart from the legalities, I
happen to read an interesting piece on how companies like Sahara succeeds in an
article titled ‘Why the poor are willing to hand over their money to Sahara’
which is worth a read…
A few more thoughts in a
probable Miscellany 2!!
No comments:
Post a Comment