The new voice of India

 Who exactly is responsible for the sudden unending movement against corruption in the country? Was it Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev or a combination of both?

Why has a society that was tolerant towards corruption suddenly against it? Was it the huge figure of amount involved in the corruption charges in the 2G case?

How exactly has it happened that Cabinet Ministers and very influential persons suddenly locked up behind bars in Tihar jail? Was it the judiciary that has become suddenly active to refuse bail even in cases where there are negligible chances of the accused leaving the country?

What has made talk shows on news channels of television focus on corruption in high places and are getting more TRPs than movie channels at prime time? Is it the peoples’ hunger for news - sensational news, or because of boring films shown on movie channels?

Whose voice is it that we hear in the above mentioned questions that is gaining higher decibels and momentum in the society today? Where were these voices in the past and why were these voices not heard?

What has suddenly instigated this clamour? What has made them impatient?

Why are their voices heard above the rest? Is it the new class of people that have suddenly arisen forth?

A class of people that are not tolerant to bribe their way through? A class of people that does not believe in the principle of forgive and forget?

A class of people who have found new meaning for freedom of speech in today’s news channels.

India has suddenly woken up. And Indians have begun taking it in their hands to change their society for the better. Everybody knows it and welcomes the new generation of do-gooders who are getting results.

The likes of Anna Hazare may be from the older generation, but they have found acceptance from the newer generation.

They are willing to be led towards a country free from corruption and towards a more efficient and wonderful society. Lead forth. Everybody knows it.

But do our politicians know it? Are we heading for a day when all the present set of politicians will be wiped out with new non-dynastic faces in the next decade?

Everybody wants it!

The media is the new ruler?

The 2G spectrum scam has last Thursday claimed its second victim in the Union Cabinet when Shri Dayanidhi Maran resigned from the post of Textiles Minister. The DMK supremo Shri Karunanidhi who is Maran’s grand uncle said it was the news media that is ruling the country and that it had defamed Maran and could defame anyone and everyone it chooses.

It is ironical that in the present Government, all illegalities and scams have been unearthed and busted by the media and all arrests and prosecutions have resulted only because of the hue and cry raised thereafter.

The official watch dogs including the opposition, the CBI and the police have been toothless and totally ineffective in controlling the rot in the system. The opposition does not seem to be interested in spotting and stopping any of the scams, but rakes up issues that have no financial kickbacks.

So in our own State of Goa, the opposition makes a hue and cry on the medium of instruction issue, fuel price rise issue, etc but is silent on the blatant corruption existing in the PWD and real estate business.

Every person in the street knows how much money is to be paid to which Minister or which of his Trusts, for either getting a job in a Government Department, or for getting a work contract in the PWD, or for getting a building plan approved.

The opposition appears to be making a database of all the scams for future use in case they come in power and are able to rake in the income themselves.

Like the DMK made the mistake of believing that the coalition government had sufficient leverage to stall any investigation into its scams, so is the present Government making the mistake in believing that the existence of a toothless opposition making it immune to ramifications of corruption.

The Government has failed to learn its lessons from examples of the support a person like Anna Hazare could generate on a single issue of the Lokpal Bill. The State Government as well as the Central Government has not concentrated on the pulse of the common man and one fine day, it is going to have to succumb to its might.

Meanwhile, they might already have reserved a room for a VIP in Tihar jail.

The problem with our politicians

There appears to be no solutions for any of the problems in Goa. This is especially true where politicians of Goa have been trying to control and work out for a solution.

So the medium of instruction issue has been on hold with final decision still pending. So is the city garbage issue where garbage is disposed off temporarily after it raises a stink literally with no permanent solution in sight.

The way our politicians handle these problems, they give a feeling that these are unique problems of Goa for which there are no solutions. They behave as if no other place in the world has similar problems and it is up to the politicians themselves to work out a solution.

A case to point is the stranding of the ship “River Princess” off Candolim. The way our politicians reacted and handled this issue was as if this were a unique problem for the state of Goa.

And the people had never witnessed similar problems in their living memory believed the politicians. So eleven years later and after much drama, part of the ship still remains grounded.

And the people would have believed the politicians had it not been for a similar ship “M V Wisdom” which drifted into Juhu beach in Mumbai a few days ago.

Within days, and without much fanfare, the Mumbai authorities manage to tow away the ship into the sea. This is a lesson for us Goans to follow.

We Goans need to use this as a lesson and think whether we need politicians at the helm of our affairs or do we need professionals to do the job. Cities like Mumbai on the same coast of the Arabian Sea as Goa, with much larger population and industries generating more garbage is able to take care of the garbage disposal.

But smaller cities like Panaji has not been able to do it for years. Larger states like Maharashtra and Karnataka with diverse language dialects have resolved their medium of instructions issue, but not Goa.

We still have the ruling and opposition parties squabbling and quarrelling, with toothless morchas and meaningless dharnas creating noiseon the issue and nothing else.

We still are waiting for the day when decisions will be taken.

The all-party meeting on Lokpal

The all-party meeting convened by the Prime Minister Shri Manmohan Singh last Sunday was expected to bring out differences amongst the parties on matters related to inclusion of the Priem Minister and Higher Judiciary within the ambit of the inquiry by the proposed Lokpal legislation.

A lot of speculation was voiced in newspapers that the Government was expected to present the parties a comparison draft of the provisions of the Lokpal Bill suggested by the civil society members and those put forward by the five Union Ministers in the joint drafting committee.

Surprisingly, the meeting, when it did take place on Sunday did not generate as much issues as were speculated by the media. Instead, the Government came under attack for engaging civil society led by Anna Hazare before consulting the political parties.

There was consensus that setting up of the institution of lokpal should not undermine the established processes of enacting the law. The all-party meeting though agreed that the Government must bring before the next session of Parliament a strong and effective Lokpal Bill following duly established and constitutional procedures.

It is known that the procedure adopted by Shri Anna Hazare for forcing the Governemnt to wake up to the need of a Lokpal Bill to end corruption in the country was required. However, thereafter Anna’s insistence on chairing the committee to draft the lokpal bill had divided the opinion of the country for and against.

The group which was against his and civil society’s inclusion justified their claim saying that this method was against the provision laid down in the Constitution. The group which was for inclusion of civil society felt that if it weren’t done this way, the lokpal bill would never see the light of the day.

Shri Anna Hazare has thus achieved his objective of the lokpal bill being tabled before the cabinet by the 15^th August albeit without all his recommendations of including the Prime Minister and the Judiciary in the ambit.

It remains to be seen that once the lokpal bill is passed by the cabinet whether Shri Anna Hazare will go on his lesson-teaching fasts as his recommendations were not included and whether he will have as much support from the public.

Only time will tell.

The fuel price rise crisis

The recent hike in fuel prices comes at a time when the international oil prices are dropping. Government spokesmen claim that the price rise will settle down in three to four months.
This statement basically appears to have been made to confuse the common man. Reading between the lines, it implies that in the next couple of months, we can expect the prices to rise.
This woll be in every aspect after which there will be no further rise. In other words, if the prices do stabilize in three or four months, it will be well and good. Otherwise the government will rely on the short term memory span of the common man.
By then, a new scam may break out or the attention of the public will be diverted elsewhere.If the prices do stabilise, then the Government can always say it had predicted just so.
It will conveniently divert the attention that prices have been rising in the country while it is converse in the international market. The net loser is the common man who will suffer the most.
The UPA government in its second phase appears to be in a constant denial mode prefering to bury its head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich.
Its reaction has been exactly the same in each of the scams that have been unearthed by the vigilant media in the past one year.
It has refused to accept its failures neither in controlling the rot nor in preventing future rot. This was evident in the Kalmadi role in commonwealth games scam, in the CAG report in the 2G scam, then on the 2G scam itself.
The classic reaction or response is evident in the prime minister's role and reaction in the CVC Thomas sacking drama where he made a statement before the parliament that he did not know that P J Thomas was implicated in the Kerala palmolein import case.
We dont know where the present government is headed for but we can say with certainty that wherever it is headed , it spells doom for the country and its country men.
Only God, if at all He exists, can save the country.

Control of mining lobby on Goa

Almost a fortnight after a part of the Cuddegal mine tailing dump collapsed and fell on three mine workers, the police have registered a case against the manager of the Cuddegal mine owned by Fomento group.
This registration has been done only after the security agency Viking made a complaint to the police station last Saturday because one of its employees Security Guard Ajit Mayank lost his life in the dump.
It is common knowledge that the State of Goa is controlled by the mining lobby is a known fact. Everybody - right from the Chief Minister Shri Digambar Kamat and his fellow Ministers, to the media - print as well as electronic, to our Corporators, Panchas and Sarpanchas, almost every body in power are affiliated to the mining lobby.
Those who talk against the mining lobby are silenced either through threats or with money. It is no doubt that even the present case of Cuddegal will be silenced.
Every appointment and posting of Government Officers and every elected representative in the mining belt is controlled and financed by the mining lobby. Known sincere officers of the police, forest and revenue departments are never posted in these areas of Bicholim, Sanguem and Sattari talukas.
Thus Government Officers not posted there have learned to beg and bend before the politicians for a posting in these areas and have in turn learned to in turn get pampered by the mining mafia to protect their interests.
So any crime committed by the mining mafia finds no report in the newspapers because they are owned by the mining lobby, crime committed by the mining mafia finds no report in the television media because they are owned by the mining lobby, and crime committed by the mining mafia finds no reaction neither from the ruling party nor from the opposition because they too have their fingers stuck in the mining pie.
The occasional crime where lives are lost do get reported but are quickly scuttled out or “settled” out of court with cash.
And life goes on.

Declaring a Tiger Reserve in Goa

Recent newspaper reports on the letter addressed to Shri Digambar Kamat, Chief Minister of Goa by Shri Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister for Forests appears to snowball into a major controversy.

On the one hand, is the State Forest Department, keen to maintain that the tiger is only a transient wild animal appearing in Goa’s forests intermittently while being resident in neighbouring Karnataka and Maharashtra.

On the other hand, are a few environmentalists who claim that Goa indeed is home to the tiger and has been known to haunt the forests of Sattari taluka, often venturing to the villages and killing the occasional cattle.

Shri Jairam Ramesh, in his letter dated 28 June 2011 suggests that Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary be declared as a Tiger Reserve. The Minister does not elaborate how he has arrived at the conclusion that there is considerable local community support for the tiger reserve, when it is open knowledge that the villagers living adjacent and in Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary are against the forest being declared a wildlife sanctuary.

The local MLAs – the father and son duo of the Rane family have been vocal against the decision taken by the then Governor of Goa to declare the forests of Sattari as a Sanctuary during the brief period of President’s Rule in the State.

The Forest Department is towing the line of the senior Rane into not only claiming that there are no tigers in the State but also by not recognizing the Sanctuary as an independent range for almost ten years since its declaration.

More than any constructive work, the newspapers as well as a few NGOs have used the issue as a point of ridicule engaging dialogues pointing inconsistencies in the stand taken by the Forest Department.

Environmentalists and scientists have used the topic for slander rather than carrying out scientific observations to provide evidence for or against presence of tigers in the State of Goa. The two leading newspapers in Goa thus have opposite stands in the whole issue.

While one ridicules the Forest Department every time the issue comes out for discussion while the other older newspaper comes up in support of the Forest Department.

Going by history of tiger reserves in the country, it is obvious that tiger reserves are viable only if there is a ground level participation of the locals as well as officials. A series of public hearings in the village panchayat level needs to be held on this issue by appointing a special committee as provided under the wildlife protection act.

Only after the completion of the process of public hearing, the Cabinet may deliberate on the issue and prepare and approve for or against the establishment of the tiger reserve. Any other recourse or hurried decision into the Union Minister’s proposal will only lead to more controversies and issues.