subject: So what do we have now - CWG, 2G Spectrum, Land grabs etc [print this page] So what do we have now - CWG, 2G Spectrum, Land grabs etc
I wonder if the guys in the government get any quality time to run the affairs of the nation considering they must be extremely tied up in garnering illegal money/power and thereafter cleaning up the muck.
I think most of us would have faced some corrupt official at some point of time in our lives. One would have also encountered talks that collections made by say a constable, travels till it reaches the top. Who is at the top? the C.P or the I.G or the D.G. or does it travel even higher?
We would have also heard that lots of money changes hands to get a plum posting (plum post means a designation that inherently carries a decent potential of making money from illegal sources).
Who makes the postings of govt. employees? I guess politicians and administrators in powerful positions. The rule that applies for cops will probably stay good for doctors, tax and excise officials, officials in financial institutions, infrastructure, railways, airlines, schools, colleges, mid day meals, hotels, sports authorities, district administration, industrial development boards, area developments authorities, rural development schemes, poverty alleviation programmes and so on ..... So it partially proves that any public job that is supposed to be done by a govt. official as rendering of service for which he or she is being paid a salary will not be done till such time that a certain amount of illegal monetary transaction takes place.
I came across a report in a journal a few back, it said our country is more than 50% corrupt. Not too bad, a sigh of relief, it is only about 50% whereas it seems like 100% on the street. But look at it the other way and you will realise that 50% is hell of a lot. No political party gets anywhere close to 50% of the casted votes and yet they claim that they are democratically elected representatives. 50% aggregate in exams is a big pass and second division. Are we an absolutely corrupt country? Well unfortunately it seems that way. When most of the citizen of a country have to pay illegal money or bribe to get facilitated by a fundamental right that the constitution of that country granted them 60 years ago, that country is got to be a huge hugely corrupt country. If someone agrues that people may decide not to pay bribe and slowly the system will become strong and eventually honesty will prevail. I will ask them to shut up and tell them that it is just the system of bribe that keeps our economy growing at 8 or 9%, if people decide not to pay to get their jobs done, things will come to a standstill, most of the things will not move. And there will be so many litigations that it will take hundreds of years to clear them. The ordinary man will run to so many places that the life expectancy will reduce to half.
I feel saddened to write this but we live in a country where corruption is in our bone marrow. A very close friend told me that a certain tax officer picked up his case and refused to clear it (taking help from the grey area of the law). He would clear it only if that guy paid him a hefty bribe, else he will pass an order with pretty heavy tax liability. My friend was stunned. He was running through a bad phase and he found it atrocious to pay such a heavy bribe. He refused, the officer told him if i pass this order, you will have to pay the tax, if you don't and decide to challenge it in the court, you will be required to deposit a certain amount of money in the court to start the proceedings and that amount by itself will be around the amount i am asking for and don't you in your dreams imagine that from the court you will be able to get an order without paying the judge. No one knows how many months or years it will take before a final order comes. And on top of this all, you will have reduced your life by few months to few years.
Are we so corrupt and cunning. If Shakespeare would have lived here he would not have written Merchant of Venice, in a society full of shylocks no one would have looked at one shylock with disdain.
Now look at this:
Rajesh Kalra, Chief Editor at Times Internet Ltd, Delhi, wrote on 22 Dec 2009 in context of CW Games "we are masters at exploiting our weakness that the nation's prestige should not be compromised with. This means under no circumstances can the games be allowed to go under. However, these delays, which I am pretty certain are deliberate, have brought us to a situation where everyone will now focus only on getting the facilities ready at any cost. So far behind schedule are we that the only way we can deliver now is to pump in as much money as is required to get things up. The big plus, for the politicians involved is that there is no risk of being questioned. Milking the nation in the garb of safeguarding prestige is an art our politicians have perfected. In plain terms, this would mean that exponentially more would be spent on creating facilities that, if managed well, would not only have cost much less, but the quality would have been superior too".
But this issue was not picked by the electronic media till 2-3 months before the games. Why?
Here is why. The mess as we all know runs into thousands of crores. And i dont think any one will doubt that money definitely reached beyond suresh kalmadi. So when the muck bloated and it was apparent that things will soon be talked about and questions will be raised, the friends in the electronic media were tipped off and the entire focus was shifted from BIG SCAM to suresh kalmadi. As things stand today, the focus stays on kalmadi, he is the scape goat for the buffet shared by everyone. And now (political will given) whatever will happen will happen only to him and the OC and everyone else will go scot free. In any case a bigger scam has been brought into light. So basically the CWG issues have been taken care of.
Next 2G spectrum.
I have been reading about the scam for almost 2 years now or perhaps even more. It is obvious that the scam runs into thousands of crores if not lacs of crores or even more. If i would have known that a certain employee of my company has been playing, i would have acted, and acted myself. It is sad that the PM chose not be get bothered about almost 1/6th of our GDP amount. After all he needed the support of MP's to support him through the nuclear bill. And thereafter to win the general elections. And only now when the govt feels confident that they can get the support of 9 more MP's from another political party, they have started the process of cleaning the 2G spectrum mess.
I have only 1 question to ask here. How much money does it take to live a comfortable (ROYAL) life? Luxurious lifestyle in a house like Mukesh Ambani's? 4000 Crores?, Few of the best Cars? 100 Crores?, Best and impenetrable Security and Surveillance system? 50 Crores?, Best meals from 7 star hotels for life? few more crores? What does one do with rest of the money one makes with legal and illegal means? The answer is power, control over the lives of people, controlling the whole country and doing what you think is right for rest for rest of the country and parts of the world. That is what insane amount of money does. And so anyone who lets corruption bypass just to control the country and lives of its people and sit on unfathomable power is as corrupt as it may ever get.
To top these, there are stories of land grabs by politicians and administrators doing rounds everyday in the media. What is it telling us. It is telling us that when we institutionalised corruption, created power cartels, we let go Rs.50 - 60 crore scams decades ago, we sowed the plants of such mammoth scams. Most of the people are themselves corrupt now so what do they say about corruption. Rest think why talk about it as nothing will happen, this is called desensitising. We have flipped out the sensitivity from the issue, it does not matter. In effect, we have reduced the role of the common man as it is only him who suffers as it is his share of money that has been taken away. Everyone else's money has reached their pockets.
The proof is that the media is busy counting numbers - 140 crores lost in waste of parliament time. If media would have built up the pressure along with the opposition, there was no way a solution would not have come way. I am sure that few from the opposition would also have had come in the net but an effort would have started to clean the system. SC's judgement will be technical and will only address the issues taken up in the litigation process.
