26/11/2013

Five years ago, on this day, Mumbai came under an unprecedented terrorist attack.It was an audacious act of war by Pakistan.Fortunately ,one terrorist [ Kasab] was caught alive by the police and the whole conspiracy is now known to the whole world.Fine.

What have we done as a nation since then? How many more terror attacks have taken place since then? Will we be attacked like this in future? Governments of the day have no answers for these simple questions by the citizens. As i have written in my previous blogs, the nation states were formed with the idea of providing security to the inhabitants of that state.

In the mean time, Pakistan has changed its strategy of this proxy war.It is now encouraging local Muslim youths to organise themselves as local cells.These cells remain dormant but can be activated at very short notice.This strategy absolves Pakistan of any involvement and thus any retaliation by India.By 2014, India may have a new government and Kabul may be left to fend for itself , post draw down of foreign troops.There is already a new government in Islamabad.USA may not be as keen to intervene in this part of the world in near future.India and her so called fight against terrorism will have to take all these aspects in to considerations.

Resource Mobilisation for the new Indian government

TOI has reported a news item today where a UP state Engineer has been caught who had amassed more than 260 crore of wealth between 2002 to 2007 in UP.
Central Government,various State governments,Qasi government bodies and PSUs employ more than 1.2 crore employees.We can safely presume that at least 10% of them are highly corrupt and have managed to amass more than 10 crore each.That will give us the figure of of 120 Lakh crores! [ 12 lakh employees having > 10 crore hush money].Govt agencies like CBI or Anti Corruption Bureau or ED should focus on their own colleagues and locate these 12 lakh crooks.Once done they should be asked to cough up and get out! "Deals" can be stuck to shell out at least half of the booty.[ no use filing legal cases that can go on and on for decades.Time is for the "Instant deals"]That could still be 60 Lakh crores.Compare this with central govt yearly budget of Rs 12 Lakh crores and we have the idea of resources that we can mobilise without much a do.
Added bonus will be that the govts will be able to get rid of 12 lakh crooks and replace them with better,younger,more honest and more deserving persons.

NaMo as PM

13th September was the date on which NaMo has been declared as PM candidate by BJP with only LKA dissenting.Today is 16th September and LKA while addressing a rally at Chhatisgadh along with Dr Raman Singh [ CM of Chhatisgadh[ has praised NaMo for the first time in last few weeks.Others who were opposed to NaMo's nomination [ M M Joshi,Sushma Swaraj,Ananth Kumar] seem to have fallen in line,not so much to respect party diktat,but to respect opinion of overwhelming numbers of rank and file and party supporters.
With this now BJP has the leader and an excellent national team comprising of Rajnath Singh,Arun Jaitely,Sushma Swaraj,Nitin Gadkari,Naidu,Ananth Kumar,Naqvi,Shah Navaz Hussein,Prasad,Sinha,Joshi and now LKA.. so many.Not only that but BJP also has very robust teams in the states where it is strong challenger to Congress.Compare this with what Congress has got.MMS? PC? Antony?Anand Sharma? Manish Tiwari? Ahmed Patel? Many of them may not be able to contest or win elections.That leaves the family led by SoniaG,RahulG & PriyankaG.Young dynasts like Scindia,Pilot,Devda,Prasada,Singh may not be much of election mobilisers.So how does Congress put in place teams,strategies,agenda? How does it counter huge anti incumbency? humongous scams?
As 2014 apporaches,it may become a walk over for BJP/NDA.

Food Security Bill & BJP

UPA II government & Congress party are struggling to pass this bill anyhow.This is Congress party's idea of "Buying" votes of the poor without worrying about serious,long term consequences on country's finances.BJP as a responsible Right -Of  Center Hindu party should have opposed this bill on following grounds.

1. Food Security Bill [FSB] seeks to provide highly subsidised food grains to 67% of the population,while number of actual poor has fallen to 20% of the population

2.Most of the state governments have failed to deliver benefits of subsidised food grains through existing Public Distribution System [ PDS] - because the sytem is inefficient,wasteful and highly corrupt.40% of subsidised food grains and kerosene are siphoned off in the black market

3.If Governments can't operate this existing PDS for the poor,how will it operate this new FSB for 67% of the people.It will be a financial disaster.

4.Since FSB expects states to distribute highly subsidised food grains to farmers,states may not be able to give remunerative prices to farmers for such food grains.That will force farmers to switch to more remunerative cash crops,thus creating long term shortages of food grains for 125 crore people.

On all these counts FSB is a disaster and hence should have been opposed by BJP in the national interest.

Disasters and the department called Central Disaster Management Authority

We are experiencing an unprecedented disaster in Uttarakhand since last one week. Since last seven years or so, central government has set up this department called CENTRAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY [CDMA] directly under the Prime Minister - We don't know what it is doing at the grounds level in Uttarakhand. What we read and see on TV is the involvement of following bodies

1.ITBP
2.Army
3.Air Force
4.State Governments
5.Media
6.NGO's

After one week, reports claim that 50,000 pilgrims are still stranded around four pilgrim  centers [ Yamunotri,Gangotri,Kedarnath and Badrinath] and surrounding areas. Administration  does not have correct casualty figures, estimates of time when all these people will be evacuated to safety, issues related to food ,water and medicines for them etc, when the infrastructure [ roads, telecommunication...] will be restored and so on - Where is this Disaster Management Authority in the entire mayhem?

A country as vast as ours is prone to all kinds of disasters. While it is good to have a centralized agency like this disaster management cell, it should have nation wide presence through networks of NGO's,concerned government departments, army cantonments, corporate bodies, and PSUs and suppliers of critical items equipment for each type of disaster.
Such a cell should be small by nature but it should have on its list all agencies who can mobilize resources and manpower. Nothing wrong for example  in Punjab to have on its list SGPC's network of Gurudwaras or list of RSS functionaries who can quickly mobilise its volunteers in any part of the country at very short notice. How about keeping all large temple complexes, Mosques, Churches, Gurudwaras etc on call?
Now the governments have money but does not have the right type of manpower to reach out to the affected. It is time to develop a model involving people and people's organisations.

Since the writing of this blog, it has come to light that this great CDMA was formed in 2006 but has never held any meeting since then. After this tragedy ,they could hold their meeting yesterday [ 25th June] as reported in media.

Ms Aruna Roy and her ilk

It has been a while! In fact more than a year.I am quite worked up by the article by Ms Aruna Roy [ till other day , member NAC ] in TOI today[ 18.6.13]

She has referred to Narendra Modi's comments on Maoists or at least their sympathizers entrenched in UPA II government. This has been the reason enough for Ms Roy to write and publish this article in TOI.She laments this process of "demonizing" of Maoists and their sympathizers. This is truly surprising ,coming from a Left Liberal, a tribe, which has been busy demonizing Modi all these years.This means that Left Liberals are free to be intolerant of those who are not Left Liberals but others are not free to criticize them. If they do, they become demonizers.