Thursday 24 February 2011

Much to be Grateful For...

I was browsing around in the website of National Crime Records Bureau and found that indeed there is much to be grateful for ... that I did not previously realise! For example, here is a table "Incidence Of Human Rights Violation By Police During 2009" that shows how pro-people our police really is. I surely Have Come a Long Way BABY, from Femina to This :)

By the way, Bangalore leads the country with the largest number of IPC cases recorded in 2009 (Table 1(B))...lots of really interesting browsing here!

Saturday 19 February 2011

Five Points about Change

Contemplation has clarified the following:

1)Change happens when needed and from within where it is needed.

2)Suffering is a necessary condition to seed change.

3)A societal, or political change cannot be propelled by a minority of bourgeois intellectuals or leftist rebellions. The latter may ONLY help structure people's movements and give it direction.

4)Information and communication are key elements of effecting change. Thus, suppressing information is a tool of repression by the ruling class, and media plays a crucial role in evolution of a revolution.

5)Change has to be wrenched by a majority, needy weaker class from a minority, powerful, upper class who are beneficiaries of staus quo. NON VIOLENT METHODS ARE BEST STRATEGIES TO WORK TOWARDS CHANGE.

Thursday 17 February 2011

POSCO VIRUDDH -2


They stood there
a dozen plus one in all
half-clad, determined
old, young and small;
to protect their land
with a bamboo gate
from government, corporates,
and a police state;
they stood there else
everything would be lost;
life, liberty and all
they cared for most;
their right to pursue
what they thought was right
and for this, they could not,
bow to the bullying might
of a state and centre
seizing power
grabbing land, water, resources,
for a corporate takeover.
They had been shot at -
and thrown in prisons too
thrashed by political goons
whom they could not sue.
Justice to them
is so far denied
in brotherhood, very few
share their fight
if they loose
we are all lost
dreams, ideals, hopes
for a better lot,
for all those who suffer
that you and I might gain,
so pause briefly now
to say - you
share their pain!
Join hands now
take responsibility
for their plight
and don't turn away
from their urgent fight
Or let the state
do what it may -
pillage, plunder,
do many countless wrongs
for national economic growth
and for you -
a trip to the mall,
a cup of wine
and a song.

Personal Integrity No Substitute for Corrupt State

An Open Letter To Manmohan Singh

Dear Mr. Singh,

I read with increasing trepidation the front page news that carried contents from your public televised interview yesterday. There are an increasing number of national wrongs that are justified on your behalf, since you remain unblemished by corruption, practiced by a run of the mill Indian politician. However, your latest effort to brush away the 2G scandal and the huge associated loss of revenue is unforgivable, weak, and dismal. To further attempt and equate this loss with the government subsidies to the needy class, is irrationally criminal and should shame you into immediate stepping down from you office.

Let me explain what are the duties that I expect from my head of State. First, you should be able to verify wrong doing and accept responsibility. It appears that in the latest scandal, that the 'wrong happened' is by now largely accepted and must have surely reached your ears! So, either you accept it, or you do not. But, what you may not do is to hide behind 'I know wrong happened, but if we do math differently, it is a lesser wrong' - for that is one of your arguments, right? Look, we do not need lessons in mathematical manipulations to right the wrongs. We actually need our elected officer to discharge his duties, accept the wrong, and if grace prevails, to say 'I take responsibility' because 'the buck really stops here!'

But this is not all - allow me, as a citizen of this nation to say further, that the most objectionable of all your explanations, was to bring in the loss(??)to the government in subsidies on 'food grains, LPG, fertilizers'. Let me remind you, Mr. Singh, that the government treasury is not your private bank account, but fed into by the resources of the same people that you claim to subsidize. There is definitely no equating loss from this 'national account' for massive corruption, to that used in expenditure for subsistence of our fellow countrymen.

Finally, I would like you to take a minute and take stock of the numbers that you are dealing (or not dealing)with. Remember you sold away the liability claims for India's civil nuclear program for tiny, tiny numbers compared to the kind of losses we are talking about now? Are you now saying that the corruptness on level of national food grain subsidies is 'tolerable' by the society? which society? and who decides? You?? Sorry Mr. Singh, this is not your 'wrong-decision' to make.

Please do not run around now, trying to find a wrong-doer - just stop the wrong; don't define your integrity by what you don't take, but by what you let others take; don't worry so much about 'how we look' - but please worry about 'how we really are'. Most of all, don't sell this nation short just to save your seat.

Sunday 13 February 2011

About Us?

I got this in my mail box from a friend who cares:

Otto Rene Castillo

Apolitical Intellectuals

One day
the apolitical
intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the simplest
of our people.

They will be asked
what they did
when their nation died out
slowly,
like a sweet fire
small and alone.

No one will ask them
about their dress,
their long siestas
after lunch,
no one will want to know
about their sterile combats
with "the idea
of the nothing"
no one will care about
their higher financial learning.

They won't be questioned
on Greek mythology,
or regarding their self-disgust
when someone within them
begins to die
the coward's death.

They'll be asked nothing
about their absurd
justifications,
born in the shadow
of the total life.

On that day
the simple men will come.

Those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered
their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs,
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens
and worked for them,
and they'll ask:

"What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out of them?"

Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will not be able to answer.

A vulture of silence
will eat your gut.

Your own misery
will pick at your soul.

And you will be mute in your sham