All the countries including ours that were once slaves of the mighty british empire are getting together to celebrate their common lineage during the common wealth games at New Delhi. Are the games therefore a symbol of british dominance or our common subject like mentality? The group definitely is made up of former subjects of the british empire, but the games are not, they are pure sports and I see nothing wrong in it! The british superiority is something that a nation should strive to be able to emulate.
The games have caused quite a furore in the country. Allegations of corruption in high places that rather appear to be true, sordid saga of shoddy construction work at stadias and the Connaught Place that looks like a bombed out zone, not a place where almost a thousand crores of our hard earned money has been (mis)invested. Yes a lot of interesting but sad news has been manufactured.
The fact however remains that there has been a massive input of infrastructure to the capital city of Delhi. This input would otherwise have taken decades and that is what we Delhi-ites have to be thankful for. It is another matter that over eighty percent of the allocation appears to have been siphoned off. Yet we should be thankful for the twenty percent that hit the ground and has made Delhi a slightly more pleasant place than it was earlier.
I have been following your blog for quite some time and admire you for your courage and conviction. Your concern for corruption in high places is appreciable but it is beyond my apprehension as to how only 20% output of allocation amount is acceptable to us whereas huge chunk of 80% is filling the coffers of corrupt, depriving the hapless masses of basic infrastructure rather needs. Such display of ‘flexible conscience’ and ‘bounded rationality’ is both disturbing and demoralising as we loath to take a formal and firm stand against such practices. Will we accept anything worth only twenty rupees in our personal life even after shelling out hundred rupees? Certainly not.
ReplyDeleteRecently I read a book ‘The Professional’ by Subroto Bagchi, co-founder of ‘Mind Tree.’ I was moved by the spirit, dedication and integrity of the man. It should act as beacon to today’s professionals. I am pasting link for Subroto’s Blog-
http://www.mindtree.com/subrotobagchi/index.php
Sir, we need to obliterate this ‘acceptability level’ altogether otherwise our posterity will not forgive us for our indifference towards this malaise. We should not blame only the higher echelons for corruption; it is all pervasive even in our railways, even in Delhi Division.
Corrupt people rule and roam freely, which, of course, can’t happen without official patronage directly or indirectly. Most of the cases remain unexposed and if in certain isolated cases complaints are sent, then the administration feels a sort of assault on itself and tends to suppress it and the complainant is subjected to persecution and is hounded.
It is not appropriate to reveal such things in this forum but you are requested to deal complaints regarding corruption more seriously, even if those are anonymous.
There are only two ways of telling the complete truth-anonymously and posthumously.