Probe by Ethics Committee

A half-dozen law makers in Capitol Hill at Washington are facing an investigation by House Ethics Committee into their unreturned surplus per diem allowances meant for overseas travel. It has been gathered now that when lawmakers travel, many of their meals and expenses are picked up by other people, such as foreign officials or U.S ambassadors.

The funniest part is that the rules regarding this allowance are vague from their point of view. If law-makers are ignorant or indifferent towards a common rule for their own conduct, how are they justified in enacting laws and regulations for others to follow in USA?

A similar trend is noticed in Indian Parliament too which passes bills from time to time enabling enhanced pay, allowances and other perks without bothering to go through any formal commission to look into those revisions as in the case of permanent executives and other employees of Central Government, namely, Government of India.

It is also a matter of fact and concern to the common man that if a similar test or investigation is ordered into the claims made in the past several years by many civil servants during their foreign sojourns would reveal startling facts and figures warranting action and punishment. Who is to bell the cat?

Why is justice denied or blinded at times?

“We shouldn’t have to fear our judiciary” (Editorial of June 5, 2010 of ‘News China’ magazine published by China Newsweek Corporation).

Zhao Zhenshang (in Henan Province in China) served more than 10 years of his sentence before his ‘victim’ reappeared alive and well. Zhao told media that he confessed only because the torture he was subjected to by police investigators, which include beatings and sleep deprivations, was unbearable.

So the editorial had to end with the statement: “ As things stand , as is proved by Zhao’s case, the innocent still have much to fear from the Chinese court system".

As an administrator for more than three decades in Central India, I find a similar predicament in our country too. Nearly 90% of the criminals are roaming on the streets of India who can be hauled up under some law or the other while similarly 90% of the under trials and convicted persons languishing inside Indian prisons are innocent and wrongfully harassed, prosecuted and convicted. It therefore prompted me to write a poem on Indian police as follows:

Crooks  &  Cops

Spineless bureaucrats and corrupted cops

Bane of Indian society and order of the day

They dance to the tunes of political bosses

Laws and facts twisted to tastes of masters

Voiceless are victims of these cruel lobsters

True to their skin & skull they are like stones.

Damn they  care no hoots to anyone in the world

Umpteen are methods they adopt to plant a story

Third degree method verily known to one and all

Depressed & decimated are some at their hands

Elephants & man-eaters escape their owlish eyes

Mongooses & mice only could be their easy preys.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Swim Against the Current

Necessity is the mother of invention. Qualities and the character of a person are already determined and destined for delivery in one’s life time, the day he or she is born into this world. Challenge against the odds or adversities is the keystone of the success of an average or the first-time achiever in a given society, group, community or the region. A  real hero is the one who would consistently like to swim against the current and achieve the unachievable or unthinkable feat of making a different approach, process and / or finding solution in the form of a successful alternative to the existing knowledge, thinking and action in human endeavors. There lies the crux and a kick that paves the way for one's extraordinary intention, interest and goal.

Every field of activity has its own set of rules and regulations, a system of functioning, a set of characters or personnel who operate it and become participants with a view to ensuring their own survival and promotion first as also their avowed and the overt goal in the guise of services to the targets in hand.

Change is undisputedly has its own charm, warmth, context and significance in every human action. For instance, Gautam Buddha’s decision to renounce his crown and kingdom for the emancipation of human beings from the shackles of their sufferings and death, Jesus Christ’s birth as a human being for the salvation of individual souls, Mohammad Nabi’s efforts to teach the essence of brotherhood to his followers, French Revolution which ignited and introduced the concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity among mankind for the first time by breaking the new ground in Europe, New Revolution that established the United States of America, Freedom struggle under the leadership of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Indira Gandhi’s resurrection after the emergency era in India and Barack Obama’s success in becoming the first Afro-American President of USA are the illustrations and events that come to our mind immediately on the first reading of their history and biography.

A normal and ordinary soul in me too tried in a humble way to question the existing order and the system in governments and departments wherever I worked and tasted the results with distinct advantages as well as disastrous consequences at times which I would refer to and discuss at the appropriate places and at the relevant time as I proceed further with my narrations in the days to follow.

India Needs Inquisitive Minds

What one generally finds in India is that the educated and the most intelligent middle class used to join the top bureaucracy while a few others entered the professional courses in the recent past (1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s). Now there is a plethora of professional colleges both in engineering and medical education offering seats not only to the top brains but also to others with medium intelligence including the lower cadres on the strength of performances in higher secondary schools or on the quantum of donations / capitation fees offered by rich and influential parents.

While the very top and enterprising graduates go in search of higher education and jobs abroad and a small group either enters management schools within the country and thereafter joins MNCs or runs parental ventures, the majority of the remaining lot tends to adjust in competitive and low paid jobs. Only a minuscule minority does find an opportunity to apply its mind and brain to invention and improvement either due to self motivation or incentives offered by employers.

Once a person joins a job or occupies a seat of power with perks and moderate security of tenure, his or her mind stops working or exploring the new ideas and processes, nor even starts trying to reform the techniques already deployed or engaged to serve and execute. Majority of Indian minds are no doubt inquisitive but hardly employed in their work or style of execution but invariably involved in the status of their neighbors, their strengths and weaknesses and the possibilities of taking over them by pleasing the masters to an unwanted degree & extent. They do it basically to destabilize the existing, traditional and conventionally utilised best practices and procedures to suit their selfish requirements. Western brains are generally inclined to fully apply their minds to what they do and waste little on others in the neighborhood but try to excel in their occupation by taking adventurous steps or making the job easier, better and pleasant to the extent possible on a continuing basis wherever they are. Technologically one could notice the advancement they have made in every piece of work they have undertaken with the help of simple but effective and sophisticated tools deployed by them in construction of buildings, roads with beautiful and useful markings for the pedestrians and automobiles, bridges, factories, theaters, tunnels under rivers and in transportation vehicles with excellent handling devises and equipments reducing the necessity of straining hands and the human body. Look at their shops, shopping malls, super markets, company outlets / clubs. Human life especially that of woman folk is made so much simpler, livable and lovable, compared to the past, with umpteen types of goods and appliances they have produced and pushed into the markets for sales! Simply Mind-boggling!!

Let us ape the West in this regard for the present and show remarkable progress and improvements in our day-to-day life wherever we happen to work.

Random Reflections

I am a puritan in mind & heart and harmless in thought and action, simpleton in mundane ways and human standards. I never smoked, nor drank any hard liquor so far in my life despite occasional humiliation. Even in wildest of my dreams I don’t think of doing harm to others, even to species like insects what to talk of humans and especially those who work with me on a day-to-day basis. But if someone had ever thought and spoken ill of me behind my back and tried to do injustice towards anyone in a given set-up or workplace, I don’t care how big or small he may be in status and position but try to fight tooth and nail for justice and fair play irrespective of consequences – in the short run or long term.

My principled way of living was misunderstood by many in the surroundings. I knew what they were doing and talking but I deliberately ignored them on account of their ignorance and the purpose for which they were living, different from that of mine. Some including powerful politicians, seniors and juniors in bureaucracy thought I was arrogant, egoistic, greedy, head-weighted, impractical and secluded. Well, if that is their assessment, leave it to them to introspect and correct their own views at the appropriate time.

Perhaps, it is no exaggeration, India has lost another Vivekananda in me due to the following reasons:

• 
  
   My dearest soul and mother (biological & life-giving) passed away in 1969 when I was studying in the first year of my Masters Degree in Economics at Loyola College, Chennai.
• 
  
   I am the eldest child of my parents having six children.  
• 
  
   My father was a spendthrift wasting his resources for relatives and others. 
• 
  
   I hated to depend on others for my living in this birth.

 I believe in karma and its result. One meets the result of his action in this birth itself. He doesn’t have to wait for hell or heaven after death for his own deeds or misdeeds. I believe in hard work and enjoy its fruits. I never waste my precious time in any gossip or fruitless discussion or entertainment at the cost of other living beings – humans or beasts.

I realize the importance of the Creator of this universe, the Nature and its benevolent & destructive powers. We are at the mercy of that Nature / God. Every action of mine is being guided by some supreme power  I feel - sometimes much against my will and desire. Lives of thousands and thousands of flora and fauna including humans have a purpose behind and a pattern to follow &  disappear after finishing their role on this planet. Nothing is permanent and ever-lasting – name, fame and fortune of the human beings.

Forests under fire

Here-in-below is produced a piece on naxalite activity in Central India including Chhattisgarh:

Naxalites Vs States

Vast tropical forests in India were effectively protected by the wild life and the Princely States in the past before the advent of fire-arms. But the invented firearms helped the human poaching in eliminating the flourishing fauna and increasing the list of endangered and extinct species in wild life.

Simultaneously man's greediness found no bounds while decimating the deep forests over a period of time but thanks to the presence of naxalites in place of wild life that there is some check on this trend unwittingly of course.

Two decades ago when naxalite activities were at the peak in Andhra Pradesh State we literally feared their advance and intrusion into the jungles of Orissa State, Chhattisgarh area of erstwhile Madhya Pradesh State and Jharkhand area of erstwhile Bihar State which had actually taken place to the dismay of all concerned. The solution seems to be elusive of all the preparations and attempts made by the Central Government and the respective State governments so far on the ground. Naxalites are almost running a parallel government in those places and the general public are in their grip willingly or unwillingly. Developmental activities of civilian governments in those areas have taken a beating in the hands of naxalites. God knows when normalcy will return to such territories so that those simple and peace-loving citizens can start leading a normal life like their brethren in other parts of the country.

The central government refuses to send the military forces to contain this menace on the basis of a settled convention practised so far of not sending the troops for an internal law and order problem. But the issue has assumed such a big dimension and proportion that it is only a quesion of a few days or months before the embattled areas are handed over enabling a show-down between the naxalites and the armed forces for a final solution.

Let us await the D-day.

Business in Office

I am reminded of the office atmosphere in which I had to work for several years

Business in Office

Too many of cooks spoil the broth
True of modern office it is in depth
Two+two not make four as in Maths
Whenever a subject is brought forth
Whatever be its simplicity on earth
Whoever tries to twist sans breadth

Tension and stress mark the office style
Attention they ensure at the last minute
Everything is done in a hurry and burry
Something goes wrong in the essentials
Scrutiny in right earnest is missing badly
Seldom the right advice is taken seriously.

Babus & others work only on order
Bother they don’t on their own ever
System and punctuality is very rare
Sanitation & cleanliness one isn’t sure
Workers often sit crowded to each other
With the dusty files & the tables all over

Meetings convened day in and day out
Minutes and agenda keep moving out
Most of the office time spent in meetings
Cost of several projects keeps mounting
Best to devote time for work on the spot
Lest the burden isn’t cut to size in a slot

Raipur
01-01-06