Rahul Gandhi to take over a more important role in the Congress ?

A few days back, Salman Khurshid gave an interview to the media where he talked essentially about how Rahul Gandhi was not stepping up to properly guide the party for the future, about how it was required for him to ensure that he did not just restrict himself to his youth Congress role, and how his not coming forward was hurting the party. There was a lot of media attention including the fact that the party had criticized him for his statement, but his closeness to the high command made this statement a bit surprising. He did not really change his stand, only stating that he had been misquoted, and that further discussions will happen inside the party. A few days later, he was again making more statements on behalf of the party, which indicated that there were no restrictions on him; at the time of his earlier statements, there were a few media reports that were more in the nature of this being a planned move to start the process of introducing Rahul Gandhi to greater prominence and more obvious party within the party.
There is no doubt about the power structure within the party, with Sonia Gandhi being the #1, and then Rahul Gandhi. Manmohan Singh does not really figure in a very powerful position, and if the support of Sonia Gandhi were to waver even a minute, many of his ministers would not even bother to listen to him. Even when Pranab Mukherji was following economic policies that were not approved by Manmohan, there was apparently nothing that the Prime Minister could do, but wait for Pranab Mukherji to leave his Finance Minister job.

Now, the chorus to get Rahul Gandhi in a more apparent power position within the party is growing, and is being encouraged by the party apparatus, with even Sonia Gandhi stating that it is for Rahul Gandhi to decide his position; after all, it is his party and he can decide to be what he wants, whether this be the party chief, a General Secretary or the Prime Minister; and no bothering about any processes to put him in the desired position, or more important, his ability for the position.
With the recent elections in Uttar Pradesh pointing to the failure of Rahul Gandhi to sway the masses, and the same in Bihar sometime back, there has been no real vindication of the claimed winnability factor for the heir apparent. For some time after the disastrous Uttar Pradesh elections, Rahul Gandhi was missing from the scene, apparently vacationing outside the country; but now the push to make him a leader within the party is again peaking and this pushing and prodding is likely to continue. There are more leaders within the party who are again talking about him being the Prime Minister, and a couple of media articles talk about Manmohan Singh being on his last years, with Rahul Gandhi set to be the Prime Ministerial candidate.
At the same time, projections talk about the Congress being at a historic low in the next elections, with very little urban support and even traditional votebanks getting wiped out. One wonders what magic Rahul Gandhi will be able to bring out in the Congress ..

The declaration by the khap in Uttar Pradesh and cowardice by politicians in reaction ..

Everybody agrees that rural India is very conservative; and there have so many cases in the recent past where panchayats in the states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh actually punished people who have broken their definition of moral rules and even killed many of these transgressors, or encouraged their family members to do so. Whenever such a news comes out, there is the usual hand-wringing where the media objects to these actions, and the government ministers and functionaries say something against the action of these unelected panchayats, but really don’t take any detailed action. Only when the crime has been huge is there enough action to cause a court case and prosecution. Even in this one, politicians who are dependent on these areas for support and for votes are afraid of going against these khap (caste) panchayats, and hence are muted or sometimes even speak up for these panchayats in some way or the other, or demand a go slow of action of against them.
In the last few days, there has been another case like this, where the crime is not so heinous, but this is like an enabling legislation (an enabling legislation is where a law which is passed is meant to allow certain further laws to be passed building on the passed legislation). The khap panchayat passed a diktat meant to restrict the few cases where local girls have run away (allegedly with some dalit youth); how do these girls manage to elope ? They come into contact with these youth when they either step out of the house, like going to the market or somewhere else, or they remain in contact with these youth through mobile phones; so the answer was a simple answer. Do not let these girls out of the home unescorted, do not let them use a mobile phone, and they should move out of the house only with their head covered, and those who have had love marriages should not be allowed to enter the villages, since their actions are a bad influence.

This diktat by the khap panchayat was criticized very heavily by the media and by women’s organizations. The sweeping restrictions put by the panchayat points out that if girls have a phone, they will do bad things; if they move out around without somebody to keep a watch on them, then they will meet young boys and could possibly have relationships with them. And this is not in the backward Taleban ruled areas of Afghanistan or Pakistan, this is 50 km from the national capital of one of the brightest developing countries in the world. Further, this in the constituency that is almost the family constituency of the national Airlines Minister, who is also educated in the United States.
And what do many politicians say ? The politicians from the constituency weasel out, scared of taking a stand that might lose them votes; the young Chief Minister of the state, coming to power with a thumping mandate refuses to comment on this. One would have expected the Chief Minister to take a much more forthright stand against the illegal authority of a caste based panchayat to introduce laws suppressing the freedom of a women. If this illegal stand taken by the khap panchayat is not opposed, this will not be the end of it; sooner or later, more draconian measures will be proposed to stop the younger generation from taking steps that are opposed by a section of people who feel that these offend their moral feelings; even if these have no problems from the perspective of the law of the land.

Anna Hazare and the people of India win this round, the Government accepts demand for change in process for setting up Lokpal

Government of India gave up and accepted the demands spearheaded by Anna Hazare. Initially it looked difficult. After all we are talking about the ruling party of the country, which has been ruling for around 7 years now and, based on the last few years, has been implicated in some of the biggest scams that the country has seen. Who can forget the efforts and pressure it has taken to get the Government to investigate the 2G scam, the Adarsh housing society scam, the scam related to spending on the CWG games, and so on. In none of these cases did the Government take a lead in investigation; in fact, in most of the cases the Government kept on denying that something has happened. It was persistent efforts by private parties, by the courts, through RTI, and by the media (which senses major juicy news in terms of scandals involving the Government) that forced the Government to see the writing on the wall. And even now, there are major issues happening – open any newspaper, and you will see news of the following nature:
- Bribes alleged to be paid, or arrests happening
- A case where a private party paid for the marriage of a politician’s son (out of their own sheer goodwill)
- RTI revealing spending beyond limits, or some other financial issue
- CAG alleging lack of proper oversight or extra spending in some area
- Court ordering something or the other which the Government should be doing
And so on, and these are the reported cases. The amount of corruption in this society of ours is incredible, and a lot of it happens because people see that nothing happens to the corrupt and hence they also get emboldened. For example, when politicians such as Mayawati, Mulayam Singh, and Laloo Prasad Yadav have corruption cases against them (or declared enormous increases in their personal wealth), nothing happens.

The campaign by Anna Hazare was not about corruption per se, it was about setting in the mechanism to form a Lokpal Bill. For the above mentioned reasons, there is a need to have a strong institution which can investigate corruption cases, be independent enough to even log cases, and get judgment within a definite period of time. Current mechanisms are lacking in all these – those institutions that can file cases such as the CBI and anti-corruption wings of the police are totally dependent on the politician class, those that are independent such as the Lok Ayukta’s can only give advice which needs to be acted upon by the Government (and which does not happen in many cases, such as the recent case in Delhi), and cases take more than a decade to come to a solution by which time witnesses have recanted, watering down of cases would happen, and enough time to hide or destroy evidence would have taken place.
What did the Government propose ? There are a lot of technical details of the propose vs. the proposal made by the civil society activists, but the major difference is primarily centered around the powers of the Lokpal (the Govt proposes that the Lokpal can only advise and the Government will sanction (with a high possibility that the Government will delay or not sanction, something that already happens a lot), vs. the Lokpal having the power to prosecute), who will select the members of the Lokpal (the recent CVC case shows how the Government will always do what it wants irrespective of the merits of the person, and the Government proposal continues on the same line, with a high degree of possibility that the Lokpal will become a place for retired judges, police officers, legal officers, etc, the Anna proposal wants a mix with more number of eminent citizens being a part of the committee).
The show over the past few days has shown a huge amount of drama. The Government and the Congress party tried to impute motives to the fast by Anna Hazare, and dismissed it as a non-event. And then the huge public reaction, including ordinary people joining in over the country, many eminent people associating themselves with the fast and the protest, and a huge push on social networking sites started shaking the Government. So you had the PM and Sonia Gandhi both claiming that they were in favor of anti-corruption measures.
That is the biggest lie that one can ever see. These people have been in power for 7 years now, and all the major scandals have occurred in their timelines, and one could never see any case where they took proactive action. In fact, the final fixing of the investigation into Bofors took place in these 7 years. And the PM himself came out with a statement where he in effect accepted that corruption of a huge scale will happen so that the Government can continue when he made his justification in the 2G scam. Further, if you take another case where the CWG scam happened, the PM had set up an over-sight committee, which did not do any over-sight, since the Games went into crisis mode in terms of preparation and cost much more money than what was required.

So, finally the Government buckled down and agreed to a committee that will have equal representation from civil society for drafting a Lokpal Bill. This is the next phase of the struggle. When the committee comprises members from the Congress side such as Pranab Mukherjee (who is the chief disaster fighting instrument of the Congress, and to settle down any tension) and Kapil Sibal (who will try and ensure that any significant corruption fighting measure will be fought tooth and nail), one can be sure that one of the policies of the Congress will be try to take these discussions to many years of discussion, by which time the risen public will have settled down again. It will require a great deal of vigilance, and many such vehement protests to ensure that the issue does not die down and is resolved in the next few months. In the end, can I believe that we will have a powerful Lokpal (with some accountability) to fight and start rolling back corruption ? It seems like something that is just too good to be true. But I still have hope. The recent participation by the citizenry in the fight against corruption is what is giving me hope.

Anna Hazare launches a crusade against corruption, for a strong Lokpal; Government not willing

If you were to ask an Indian citizen about whether the Government, comprising of their elected representatives (politicians) and bureaucrats, were corrupt, you would most likely get an earful about the amount of corruption that is all pervasive in the country; at all levels and positions. Scare is the person who would not have to pay money to get something done, else, their work does not happen. But, when you go to some sort of intellectual discussion on this subject, you get to hear such absurd ideas such as that corruption is due to this society, that corruption is because all of us pay money to get something done, else it would come to an end. What an absurd concept – if our work would be getting done on time and as per process, why would anybody pay money to make it happen. The reality of corruption is that when people see that there are no real steps taken against corruption, and even when it is openly known that corruption prevails even at the highest political levels, then it sort of gets sanction. What is required is that some tough steps be taken that show people that corruption will not be tolerated, and obvious signs of corruptions such as the following – the CWG scam, the 2G telecom, the Adarsh housing scam, the Bofors scam, the scam around Karnataka CM giving land to his sons, politicians growing their wealth exponentially, etc – are investigated on a priority.
Instead, what do we have ? We have the highest authority in the country claiming that because they got voted in again, any corruption involved in the buying of parliamentary support was no longer relevant; a case of corruption implicating a former Prime Minister being finally closed in disgrace 25 odd years after it came to prominence, the CBI reversing its stand on the wealth cases of Mulayam Singh and Mayawati depending on how the Congress needs their support.

The time has come to push for rights to have a clean polity, where corruption is relentlessly pursued and prosecuted; where when some signs of investigation happen, the Government does not start claiming that work has stopped because everybody is afraid of being prosecuted and so on. But, given that all parties and a large section of the bureaucracy is implicated in the reports of corruption, it is unlikely that one will really see the Government bringing in any institution that has the power to investigate and take action. In many countries that were in similar conditions such as India, there were movements to bring in an independent institution that could investigate and take action, and these worked. In turn, the cleaning up of the corruption infected body resulted in a higher amount of economic growth. Consider the fact that a huge chunk of the large funds set aside for poverty alleviation are siphoned off, and there is no real effort to stop this leakage. Even the money siphoned off in the 2G or the CWG cases was huge, enough to fund rural growth and human development. And yet, the Government did not take any action (and did not let any action happen by the CBI) until the combined effect of reports by the CAG, media pressure and Supreme Court strictures forced its hand (it is speculated that the Government would like to change the progress of the 2G scam, but fear of ridicule is preventing any interference in the investigation).
It is at this point that the noted Gandhian, Anna Hazare has decided that any interaction with the Government to bring in a responsible and powerful anti-corruption institution is not of any use; the Government will like to bring in a LokPal that can provide consultation, but cannot take any action (consider the case in Delhi where the LokAyukta has recommended action against a minister for interfering in an excise raid, but nothing has happened so far). The constitution of a Group of Ministers to decide on anti-corruption is self-defeatist when so many people are involved who are widely believed to be corrupt. Independent activists have studied some of the good principles contained in various acts, and come out with a proposed Bill that will set up a useful institution that could actually do something about corruption, but one can be sure that unless forced through a public outcry, the Government will never agree to take this.
Now, this act of a fast unto death is one of the ways to galvanise the public, and put huge pressure on the Government to agree to such a Bill; even then it seems unlikely. But, one should never lose hope.

Need a new revolution for keeping our mother (INDIA) from fraud indian politics and religion political frauds

To protect our India from scammers and political looters and religious fraud political persons, can you make a revolution?? Our former freedom fighters dream was to make India a world number one. But there is a question about who has sacrificed for our India..BJP? Congress? Communist?? If anybody read the Indian freedom fight history, then you will get the answer that..Subhash Chandra Bose and Bhagath Singh sacrificed lot of for our mother land. they followed communist principles. that was their energy…but Bhagath Singh shaheed..and no information about Subhash Chandra Bose’s death. its still unknown…
But all credit gained to Gandhi and Nehru….when it was decided to divide India, he (subhash Chandra Bose) was against that. his famous slogans was energetized for our Indian patriots,, his famous slogans theft some other political parties its also shame …
His slogans are
1) jai hind
2) Delhi chalo
3) give me blood I shall give u freedom
but Bhagath Singh’s slogan was Inquilab Zindabad
Its meaning is long live the revolution
I got the answer after reading Indian freedom history. Communist sacrificed for our mother land and lot of peoples joined under them.. but Nehru thought India should be always under their family politics moreover he was very cunning and used Gandhi as his doll model. So India still not developed. So he feared when China went under communism, may be communism will enter in India and already peoples fond of communist principles under Subhash Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh. So he did as far as he can to resist communism in India. but I am so sad about this. Why they did it, bz they wanted India never develop. And never cultured, so Nehru used China bhai bhai, and alliance with soviet union (NOW RUSSIA), but I have no doubt that if India’s first prime minister was Subhash Chandra Bose, India would b the number one in the world rather than China and America.

The two B’s: Budget and Black Money

The issue of the black money is growing day by day whereas on the other hand there are high level meetings for the budget session. The most effective challenge before the Indian Government will be to tackle both of them at a same time. The most prominent thing that is to be noted is that the Govt. has promised to declare the names of the account holders before the Indian citizens. But thats not enough of it, the masses are aggrieved of the high rates of inflation especially, the prices of petrol. Therefore I consider that the two B’s: Budget and Black Money are both important and co-related issues that the government has to tackle as early as possible.
Today the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India has said that Government has issued notices to those who have account in the Swiss as well as the German Bank. The government by taking up the issue of black money has effectively showed that its enough of the drain of India’s wealth outside and that is seriously affecting our economy. Further by arrest of A. Raja can also be related to this that the government is now showing up the ‘responsibility’ of holding the centre. No matter whatever be the scam and scandal, mostly Congress leaders are now found to be involved in it. Just due to some political and legal reasons the Government was not able to declare the names of the account holders in front of public. But now it has promised to do so, what will happen they only know (as no one keeps faith in the government today). Also it has been seen that black money in the form of bribes has adversely affected our FDI growth as the international companies have lost in the legal procedure of the government. Only the main 11 public services have accounted for a bribe of about Rs. 22,000 crores !

The bribes are also form of black money, we know; we also know that it can be reduced by reducing the rates of the taxes and reducing the number of taxes. Just one thing to do is to bring more population under the tax system and take a little tax from everyone. The bureaucrats are found to be most corrupted, do you know why ? Because they are given very much less payments; if their payments will be increased to a bit good of Rs. 60,000, I think the corruption rate in India can be effectively controlled. The Black money, as told by Hon’ble Finance Minister of India that is stabbed abroad may be anything between Rs.10,000 crore to Rs. 70,000 crore !  Such a huge amount that has been deposited abroad is really a theft of the Indian wealth.
Now it comes to the budget. Budget is to be defined such by the council that the aggrieved common man should get atleast some relief by itself. The average GDP growth as expected by the Finance Minister was about 8% but to his contradiction it was 8.4% for the fiscal year ’10-’11. So it seems that the budget of the previous year was much better for the Indians. But now the major challenge is that, after so much so scams and scandals, India’s position and image in the global atmosphere needs to be improved, FDI is to be improved, for that purpose budget is the most important power in the hands of the government, it has to use it efficiently. Moreover, there should be a policy or a strategy planned by the government that will effectively reduce the petrol prices, which have been increased for 7 time in the 10 months ! The Defense of the nation will be the major obstacle for the budget. Now-a-days it has been a hit on the news channels and newspapers about the old and outdated weapons that the Indian Defense Staff uses. So government will have to clear up the scratch before a good public opinion is aroused in the country.
Thus bringing black money back in India and simultaneously approving a Budget that will effectively curb the inflation are the two major tasks before the Govt. The developed economies will surely have an eye on these issues. But its in their hand, lets hope for both the things to get settled well in there place. JAI HIND.

Finally the Congress Government agrees for a JPC, could have taken this action long time back

The whole winter session of Parliament was made useless over the controversy about getting a JPC in place for investigating the 2G scam. The Government was adamant over its refusal, making light of the efforts of the various opposition parties in demanding the JPC; the Prime Minister even claimed that he was ready to answer any queries posed by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament. It took some time to puncture that claim, with the PAC finally revealing that forget the Prime Minister, they cannot even call a Minister. All they can do is look at records and call officials (which they have started doing, having interesting meetings where they called the CBI chief, the RBI Governor, and so on – trying to come up with challenges to the front presented by the Government). There was intense speculation that the Prime Minister was evading the JPC since it has the power to question him, and it would be very embarrassing for him to answer the series of questions of why he stood by while A Raja was changing policies to favor a set of corporates and give them a precious natural resource, the 2G spectrum. That Manmohan Singh has no good answers to these questions is very apparent when he gave the interview to newspaper editors and made the acknowledgement that for the sake of keeping the coalition going, there are compromises that need to be made. When the JPC (even one where a Congress MP is the head) asks these questions, what will the PM say ?
So, finally the Congress has accepted that it is far more embarrassing for them if Parliament does not function, especially when the Budget session is underway, and hence the concession by the Government that a JPC will be setup. The opposition parties seemed determined to prevent Parliament from functioning, a rather extreme step, but then in the 2G scam, the Government has only acted when forced to do so.

However, it is not clear whether the setting up of a JPC will really do anything. The CBI was dragging its feet at taking any action, and the Government was not even accepting that there was a problem. It was the sustained media campaign, and then the twin blows of the report by the CAG (which projected 3 difference revenue loss figures, with the highest figure of Rs. 1.76 lakh crore capturing the attention of the public) and the push by the Supreme Court to get into the root of the matter that derailed the campaign of the Congress. The attempt by the new minister, Kapil Sibal, to white-wash the figure and claim that there was no revenue loss only served to reduce his own credibility, and now he is not taken seriously in terms of taking any sort of strong action.
The Supreme Court has been the force that has pushed the Government relentlessly, taking on the garb of the Chief Investigator, and getting the CBI to act. What can be more embarrassing for a Government than the concept that the highest court of the land claims that the CBI will investigate the case without any interference, to the extent that the Government would now be hesitant to try and tweak the working of the agency. The Prime Minister is aware of the heavy dose of public attention that any adverse comments by the court could have on his own credibility (or what is left of it).