The UNcivilized Civilian

              We all are civilized citizens of India, at least in our claims. But civility is not a binary value confining to zero or one. We all have a grade of civility which may varies over a large scale. But when it comes to corruption our grade of civility is as high as our inflation. If we stand in a queue and someone bypasses it we explode as IED’s in Hyderabad-conditions apply.I said conditions apply since if the defaulter is a common guy our mind automatically tunes to angriest, loudest channel available in spectrum. But if the same guy is a higher bureaucrat/politician we remain like hapless Warne bowling to Sachin in 1998-want to do everything available but nothing more than being a mere spectator.

            But if we are in that situation of receiving those privileges we care nothing, instead we feel as the happiest person on earth for accepting that. We even proudly advertize to others that I went through that shortcut, my friend allowed me to meet X in just Y minutes etc. In some situations, we ourselves offer petty bribes to gatekeepers just to allow us to pass. So what is our grade of civility in such situations? Can we proceed further just because everyone is doing the same?

            Today, my friend boarded a bus for some short distance which is charged Rs.15 in our beloved Bengaluru Metro Transport Corporation (BMTC). As most of conductors in Bangalore he took Rs.10 and didn’t issue a ticket. Many of us accept this as we are also in line of profit, but who are losing exactly? -A public enterprise which is nothing but ourselves. This may look as petty issue but these are the commuters who felt dissatisfied when BMTC fares are up recently by Rs.5-10. If we had agreed to pay genuine fares previously they wouldn’t have increased prices in the first place. So, who are losing here? A question we all should ask ourselves.

            It doesn’t ceases to these petty issues only; from Rs.5 ticket to 5 lakh land-registration fee everyone in society made a habit of it. If we are getting a profit by avoiding paying to government, we are avoiding the growth of our very own. Daily we complain about increase in prices, corruption in government etc. But in participating in corruption we are losing our right to question anyone. In above situation we are part of 33% corruption (5 of 15). I believe it is much more if we take the whole bureaucracy. It is never about the amount of money but the attitude which is prevailing.

            My friend mentioned above disagreed and demanded a ticket. He even noted down the bus number so that he can complain online. There is a column for feedback/complaints in BMTC website. He was glad looking at that screen. After filling every idiotic field his joy doesn’t last even for a second after hitting the submit button. It showed a big red error-“Unable to post, please try later”. He tried later and later but it felt like Rohit Sharma batting again and again-both are useless. So, that is the level of feedback they are expecting. BMTC site is not very busy unlike IRCTC (they should keep unavailability index for IRCTC-curve reaches Everest during 10 AM); many of us don’t even know the site really exists. I should appreciate the intelligence of BMTC. Indirectly exercising veto power regarding complaints, they should pass it to RTI columns in many other government sites.

            We are so civilized that we apologize unconditionally even when we sneezes but equally uncivilized to be part of corruption and in turn criticizing it. For retaining our right to question corruption we should stop practicing it in first place. At least if we try to highlight those loopholes in government, they may change. Our media doesn’t care much about it as they have prerequisites for unearthing scams-they should be at least X lakh crores. These petty crimes are as equal as the heavy ones since it deals with attitudes of our civilized people. So, Can we behave civilly?

The MORONS

Bomb blasts rocked Hyderabad…again. As everyone knew they aren’t new to neither India nor Hyderabad. But those “everyone” are wondering why it is repeating again and again. Is it an intelligence failure..again? maybe or may not be but I strongly believe that it is a work of agencies like IM, JuD,  LeT etc. It’s the same scenario always- there will be a blast and when people panic there will be another nearby increasing death toll drastically. It’s the same scenario since I got to know the spelling and meaning of bomb. But why doesn’t it stop??

Consider the case of Indian Mujahideen which is believed to be main culprit in Hyderabad case. Their email after Jaipur bombings in 2008 says "demolish the faiths (all religions apart from Islam) of the infidels of India". Islam never said to kill innocents, and it even says that those who kill innocents, women, and children should be killed. Now, these groups which claim to be light houses of Islam are doing the same. As a secular country we should accept all the religions and beliefs. We do accept and respect all faiths but terrorism in mask of a false faith is unacceptable.

It is an open secret that Pakistan is main source of funding for all the extremist groups against India. After three wars against India and defeats in all of them, it realized that it cannot defeat India directly, thus started a pseudo war named TERRORISM. But Pakistan denies it just as fox saying I didn’t kill any chicken. But if you forgive the fox for stealing your chickens, he will take your sheep. It is what happened today, we got 12 sheep dead many other injured..!!

Of course, we can’t allow government to get away. Many of taxpayers will have this question in their mind-why the hell we should pay if you can’t provide basic security to live? They should stop behaving like life insurance companies giving ex-gratia after every death. But central government is not the wholly culprit. The nine state governments which opposed NCTC bill can have an explanation now? Those cite human rights as an issue!! and the funny part is the list includes Mamata Benarjee too..!! If NCTC would have been established long before may be due to better co-ordination this tragedy would have been avoided. At least now government can cite this as an example and pass this bill in Budget session itself. Instead of regretting about not to avoid this incident, it should take this opportunity to pass the bill.

Sorry, I forgot that opposition might be planning what to discuss during break times of adjournments instead of what to discuss in parliaments. If this is the scenario how those crucial bills can will be passed. As Pranab said we added the fourth D-Disruption to our democracy leaving the other three important Ds-debate/discussion, dissent and, decision. We also take part of that crime as we don’t question our elected representatives about disrupting, opposing crucial National Security bills.

Last comes our famous Idiots…The Great Indian Media. These are the guys criticizes if any VIP government official was not present in the blast site within an hour. Those are the same idiots who say that VIPs visit will destroy evidence and disrupt medical facilities. Some of the channels even got a court report on Pune blast case which mentions Begum-Bazaar and DIL-KUSH nagar. Yes, it is dil-kush nagar to them. Those are the idiots who don’t even know the name of area but went on analyzing court reports. Where the hell they are until dilsuknagar came to headlines, instead of blaming government on inaction why didn’t they take initiative and alert police. The answer is simple-how can we know its dilsuknagar until the blasts occur. Some organize meaningless newshour debates, not even one hour after the blasts.

So, who are the morons mentioned in the title? The Indian Mujahideen? Pakistan ? Government? Opposition? Media? No, the answer is WE, THE PEOPLE as until; unless we stop entertaining them all nothing can be done to the nation. The best medicine always comes in bitter taste, so does the truth..!!

IIPM..Indian Institute of.......whatever...!!

It is while going through The HIndu I’ve seen the acronym IIPM for the first time and I burst into laughter, because it always carries a hilarious joke with it-“DARE TO THINK BEYOND IIM’s.” I went through the full page advertisement and googled it a bit. I went through many forums and meanwhile I got the carrers360 case which exposes the IIPM scam. IIPM is an institution which uses advertisements as prey and hunts unaware middle class. It claims as No.1 institution for MBA, gives dazzling pictures of its association with foreign institutions, shahrukh khan and with mind blowing placements. When careers360 contacted many companies IIPM claimed, they said they never visited IIPM for placements.

 IIPM got a warrant against a web post and filed a defamatory case against it. Though it is squashed by uttarakhand high court later, I wonder how a “so called business school” is criticizing premier government institutions in public, that too with full page advertisements in major newspapers of country and get away with nothing. What more ironic is it is using our legal system so effectively that it is operating with 9 branches with none of them have approval from either UGC or AICTE.

The story is other way round from IIPM. They offer courses for BBA/MBA/MCA etc. In my point of view anything either bachelor or a master refers to a degree. Now as cat is out of box, IIPM says that it offers diplomas and students have a chance to get degrees from institutions like Berkley and IMI Belgium. Carrers360 worked background of these institutions. Berkley clarified that it no relationship regarding degrees and the advertisements are issued without their consent. So it is a big LIE!

While a degree from Berkeley is a lie, the IMI Belgium part is actually a joke.IMI itself is not recognized in its home country Belgium and cannot offer any degrees. And our IIPMers are daring to think beyond Belgium government to get degrees from it. Belgium officials also clarified that holders with IMI degree can be PROSECUTED as it is fraud. I think IIPM should give an explanation to this.

The best part of IIPM started on February 15^th. DoT ordered Internet Service Providers to block some 73 URLs containing anti-IIPM material. They include articles from The Indian Express, The Economic Times and The Wall Street Journal. It may not be very big surprise but those 73 URLs contain one from UGC website. It is a public notice that IIPM is not a recognised body and cannot award any degrees. Order is issued by a guy named Subodh Saxena which may in turn came from a judicial order. How come a government officer/judicial authoritarian blindly give an order to block a notification of government itself issued in concern of public interest…!!

We have the three great arms of Indian democracy jointly failed here. The legislative which blindly gave an order to block some URLs without specifying any reason. The judiciary which ordered that executive. And last comes the legislative body which did a grave mistake by allowing such an institution to run in the first place. Forgot to mention the Fourth Estate.-Our media is the best part of this idiotic institution. As IIPM carried advertisements in those channels/news papers they can’t say anything against it. It doesn’t even come as scrolling news. These are the guys who host manufactured debates for ridiculous reasons. They can debate even if some guy farts but cannot bring such institutions to criticism.

IIPM charges some 7-10 lakhs per course is acting a looter from the middle class. I think even students who passed out of IIPM can’t proudly say that they are from IIPM. But I still believe in our government system. There are heck lots of laws to control everything but our inability to use them is a serious threat for ourselves. I am not speaking about any complex laws, take the simple section 420 of IPC for cheating (at least 99.99% of our population knows about it). It is enough to book these kinds of institutions.

 I always remember a facebook update of my friend when I think about Arindam chaudhuri. When Obama visited India in 2012, our self proclaimed management guru posted some crap video blog about titled “Why Obama is of no use to India”. My friend reframed it as “Why Arindam chaudhuri is of no use to India…??” A question we should all think of…!!

FDI - For Development of India

If there are persons who cares for India at present, MANMOHAN SINGH will be the first on the list. Everyone knows what he did for country in 1991. Bringing economic reforms and opening Indian market to foreign investors was a big bold step. It might have gone either of ways-establishing a stable economy or a “would be disaster”. But if he didn’t took those reforms it is obvious that country’s economy would be garbage now. So he took a chance of 50% than of certain gutter the economy. It became a big hit that Wikipedia categorized Indian economy into the following periods:

·         Before Independence

·         Between Independence and 1992 reforms

·         Post reforms to present

That explains the impact of reforms on our economy. If we change the year from 1992 to 2012 a similar situation exists now. Only exception is that we are forced to induce policies in past and we are preventing that situation now by adapting now itself. As usual, there are lots of myths and facts about current reforms. But the problem is we are used to take the negative news more than the positive. Even our “black boxes” showcase the same. They are power amplifiers of negative news and resistors of good news (there are exceptions like doordarshan but people rarely call it a TV channel).

As of now, three sets of reforms are induced viz.FDI in retail, hike of fuel prices and FDI in aviation and more are expected to come. Actually I’m expecting this from a quite long time as this is my most romantic part of the reforms.

            In this segment, people believe that small vendors will lose market and giants like Wall-Mart, Carrefour will dictate Indian retail segment. But the reality is completely different. When they allowed FDI in other sectors in past, Indian companies doesn’t lost but became competitors and set some new standards. Now Indian companies are expected for foreign investments in countries like U.K, U.S and Latin America. Though in retail it is not expected as that incredible, there would be high standards induced.

The main beneficiaries of this reform are farming community. I, from an agricultural family, experienced how middlemen exploit both farmers as well as the customers. In other case, if they are allowed, they’ll create a supply chain system which doesn’t exist before. They’ll source directly from farmers at comparatively higher prices and in contrast, end customer also gets the product at cheaper prices that too with better quality. If you are buying something like that, aren’t you happy ? And I’m very sure that farming community will be happy too. The main problem is that many of agriculturists are illiterate and doesn’t know the benefits of it. If they got to know by some means, damn Mamata and other politicians-it would be a completely different story.

Moreover, our country didn’t face a mass protest from farmers yet. And politicians should be happy that the situation is better like this. If it does happen, it’s nothing but chaos. I still can’t understand the logic of politicians. They are opposing it on the grounds of relatively richer and exploiting middlemen. But not viewing in perspective of a farmer. You can play only as long as he keeps silent. If politicians mess with backbone of our country, all the bones of them will go fractured.

Government also formulated some rules like investing 50% of capital in back end infrastructure like developing warehouses and cold storage. They will greatly reduce the post harvesting losses by farming community. And 30% of sourcing should be done from SME’s. They’ll indirectly strengthen the economy as SME's contribute a major stake in our economy. It does also increases healthy competition among themselves, providing better products at relatively cheaper prices. Introduction of FDI in retail reduces the stages from producer to customer to a meager two to three which is really helpful to both the parties. And our beloved didi is opposing to this.

However, there are some disadvantages too like effectiveness of implementation etc, but we’ll not throw it out on those basis. It’s time we need to look ourselves forward for a better future, at least by not supporting those who stand as speed breakers for our country’s development.

NO SENSE AND NON SENSE

In recent times every Tom, Dick and Harry are fasting in so and so “leela maidan” and doing lot of leelas. They are soo dramatic that lord Krishna would be envious looking them. A quote by them is “congress ko hatao, desh ko bachao”. I would re frame it like “ramdev baba ko hatao,sab janata ko bacho”. He says congress have no interest and responsibility of bringing black money back. I would question the responsibility of him having a protest and fasting in Ambedkar stadium which is so near to rashtrapati bhavan just two days before celebrations of our Independence Day. If something weird happens and BLASTS occurs (they became monsoons of cities recently, visiting at least twice a year) does he stand responsible for it? Even if something occurs, they would again blame government of inaction. Even some extends and may say only due to black money blasts are occurring, tsunamis are coming in India.

Further, team Anna said they will contest election; I welcome their move wholeheartedly. And for the god’s sake I want them to win every constituency they contest so that we can see their ability to run a successful government. According to them a government doesn’t bring a bill according to their wish and doesn’t negotiate with them when they are fasting is not a responsible government. I would ask their direct motive in hosting recent CIRCUS SHOWS is to hold a meeting to say that they’ll join politics. If they followed chiranjeevi’s policy in Andhra Pradesh, they would have at least some of the media attention, which doesn’t lasts long like make up on faces.

By the way, hero of today is Ramakrishna yadav(alias Ramdev baba). As Moily said it’s just a waste of time talking about a person who lost his credibility. It’s like Pakistan promising no more terror attacks in India. He claimed 400 lakh crore of black money abroad. It is 9 trillion..!! Moving assets abroad can happen through inflating import costs and evasion of taxes. As total of tax cannot be evaded since government regulates main imports like crude oil and ornaments, let’s assume some 20% of it is evaded. That makes it we have a trade of something nearly 45 trillion..!!.Oh god! India’s GDP is 1.5 trillion. So Ramdev please stop talking S**T, and all the people supporting him, if you ask him details of the countries and banks of those, I think we can celebrate a lot.

I remember a story from my childhood-A father tells his son to look after lambs and warn him if a tiger arrives. Son plays prank for two times and father comes both the times. Third time tiger arrives for real and son screams like hell, but father doesn’t care. Ultimately the loss is for them. Similarly Anna fasts for one time; government comes down and negotiates for lokpal. Ramdev fasts another time for bringing back black money, government comes down and plea to stop it. There would be no third time.

As our president said “When authority becomes authoritarian, democracy suffers; but when protest become endemic, we are flirting with chaos.” Don’t take your right to protest for granted, our constitution provided duties along with rights. You can protest only to a certain extent, after it reached its threshold, no one can save you. THOSE WHO LIVE BY MEDIA DIE BY MEDIA. Remember it and don’t overact. Just be perfect and tell others to be perfect. If they aren’t, question them but it’s not the way. An Olympic gold is worth only if you won it in a right way not by doping. Similarly, disgracing legislation is not the right way to express your anger. Don’t get carried away by the lip service of BJP, BSP, SP and TDP. They do it for their own benefits and not for saving the nation.

I LOVE POLITICIANS...you heard it right..yes I do.

          Sharad powar got slapped today. And it is good news to many..!!It’s easy to say politicians are corrupt. Just tell me one thing, who isn’t corrupt? If you doesn’t have a driving license,never gave anything to police? If you or your parents registered a land or what so ever, did you pay exact registration duty for market price to government, why do you pay exactly (or even less) of what government values your land? Are you giving exact income details to IT department? I heard many of them scolding politicians.... someone slaps them...some throw a chappal against them...and even some say “He got slapped! Only one slap?”...GREAT..!!....if u are against politicians...ok...but these are really horrible....who is not corrupt...AREN’T YOU???

Anyone who says I am against corruption, I support ANNA, I support lokpal bill.(how many of them know what it is, except that it will get corrupt politicians arrest). If you are against corruption first you stop following it. If you are against 2G scam and scold RAJA, Stop paying 50ps for STD call, stop activating special offers. You want to enjoy all calls @10ps (some doesn’t want that too) .Why the hell you scold the one who made it possible..? Yes he made loss to exchequer, but aren’t you a beneficiary of it? In which other country you’ll get a call for 0.002$?
           Today some guy slapped a politician; ANNA says “Only one slap?” OK, you contest elections, I’m sure that you’ll win but can you manage ministry of telecommunications or something like ministry of home affairs? Someone who says they don’t like politicians also indirectly mean they don’t like democracy. OK, Nobody forces you to like it. But why are you creating such a nuisance.Go check the situation in countries like China and Syria. If someone like ANNA sits for hunger strike even for a genuine reason, they won’t let you do or let you die, simply they arrest you and you’ll be a nobody in two days. If you go ahead and protest as you did in front of Tihar-a 9mm bullet will be in your head even without your notice.
           Moreover, people say government is not controlling prices, government is corrupt. I agree that inflation got up and people are suffering, but it doesn’t mean that government is sitting idle or manmohan singh and montek singh are playing snake and ladder in their offices. They are struggling even more to control prices. It’s their duty and they are obeying it.Are you obeying your duties...?

Coming to people posting about corruption, one interesting point that comes in social networking sites is some bloody idiot will create an image or document about some X billion money got into politicians hands through scams, some even got their account numbers in swiss bank and displays amount held by each..!! And such notes and images got some x,xx,xxx shares and likes..!! I wonder they worked in Directorate of Enforcement /IRS or their cousin is one of the members of board of directors of swiss bank...!! Yes scams do occur, but don’t blame only the spearhead, many are involved in it. Why only politicians get into jails, bureaucrats escapes by saying politicians ordered it. If they order by word and not a written one, you shouldn’t obey it, else you are also part of the scam no matter you took the money or not.

Even some draw unusual comparisons, they’ll compare someone like Chidambaram and Arvind kejriwal..How can you compare two such personalities..? I agree that kejriwal worked a lot for RTI and a recipient of Raman Magsaysay award but in what context he can relate to Chidambaram. I would like the concept of Shankar in “oke okkodu” movie-be a minister for one day and see their difficulties, then you will understand. Think practically that change in one night occurs only in movies, at max in your dreams. But not in real world...!!

You can argue one should start the change...Yes...ANNA started it, JAYA PRAKASH NARAYAN started it even long before but it doesn’t occur with a feel of HATRED. I want to say one strong thing to anti-corruption supporters. If you want change, corruption free society just stop the sources of it. It is none other than YOU. If you hate corrupt politicians, Come join politics (don’t say it’s garbage)...Be a Jaya Prakash Narayan...else keep your mouth shut...at least keep your facebook updates about anti-corruption shut..!!