Go further and you will see how near the Chief Ministers Official Residential Bungalow is a long line of cars parked on either side of the road, right below the no parking sign – and all of this is guarded by the law maintaining police – vehicles that bear the state sticker, most belong to other ministers or cronies huddled together to save their ministry and claim to power, as you wait for the traffic to be cleared by the inspector, who salutes in attention when the official vehicle passes by, for he most often doesn’t know whom he saluted due to the dark cling film used to screen window glasses – he salutes nevertheless.

Creator brings in all beings equally to the world and civilized that we are, eventually categorise each one of us to the convenience that we eventually develop to. Plunder the forests, for you see on both sides of the state highway through Bandipur tiger sanctuary, there are no trees 30 metres deep on either side; for it wouldn’t need a CBI probe to know where they went. Encroached rivers – divested of their sand across most rivers; and lake beds that have turned to developed real estate property – all around exploitation stares you wondering, where one would take all of this – for we all know that we are mere visitors here. We exploit the illiterate and poor, cheat the voting masses, poach and kill animals, overuse the resources to an extent, that even the exploiters would feel for it when it is time to leave. And we continue to do such…civilized we are!

All that we as human race are capable of leaves us not an inch better than what we are made of… flesh and bones… all that we are, are and will remain no better than any animal, they could be the better ones – they at least do not pretend to think… power corrupts and corrupts absolutely !

Anant Pai, whose picture I saw in many of the search sites and I guess probably the only time I saw him;  -I am sure he shaped a lot of kids like me those days. All that we knew from Amar Chitra Katha – the glorious epics, the short and long stories, the panchatantra and so on – vivid memories etched in.

Rest well Sir !! You for me are no less deserving than of a Bharat Ratna !!

The media is abuzz of how very close relatives of his have been marked out for wealth disproportionate to their known sources of income. Allegations do not and will not warrant wrong-doing , but the mere pointer of accusation leaves much to be desired…. !

Judicial reforms ? when do you come ?

Why do they want us to believe that the PMO and the congress party were unaware of the tangle that was enveloping the telecom scenario ? and the adarsh housing scam ? and the nexus that the corporate lobbyist have had with ministries across the spectrum … !

We don’t know of the cartels that exist in the aviation sector ; automotive sector; pharma sector; the mining industries – do we? Come on guys PMO can shed better crocodile tears and surprise shocks than these …. !

A respect for the country’s law and order could have come only with reforms in judiciary, since there is an absolute contempt by the have-ins against the have-nots when it comes to justice delivery. We have seen that in many such cases.

The reports says it all, a promising sports person, a teenage girl (who went on to commit suicide – do we need to know the reasons why?), a DGP of the state (who also was the president of the lawn tennis association – and wielded power), molests, 19 years of trial (in the lower court – after the state confirms a CBI enquiry) gives a verdict of six months in prison ! Ah !! Its sheer outrage…!

The family had to relocate following the prosecution of the so called law keeper; their son (brother of the victim) had many cases of theft on him (oh yes… !).

Come on…. I cast a vote everytime…. come on legislators…. come on the conscience of the nation !! wake up !! We need reforms in the judiciary. I was not as outraged when an outsider came and opened fire at my countrymen ….so much for this insider. Can the PM get another one (like Nandan Nilekani for UID) to advise him on the judicial reforms.

Survival politics, lack of leadership and direction has caused such a misery which we all saw coming post Vajpayee era; succession planning was and is very much the need of the hour if we were to have a stable opposition to check the un-questioned free run of the government. Is Nagpur listening yet ??

Right from my childhood when we would make the journey to Kerala during summer holidays, we would dread the route of Raichur since the train journey in the second class compartments during those days would be virtually intolerable with the sun blazing down the area.

I don’t ever remember in my numerous visits seeing a continuous water stream and a flowing Krishna which flows alongside Raichur or a Tungabhadra, on the bank of which Kurnool resides. Media reports that the dams released rain water without warnings and both the rivers did just the same that was expected, human encroached areas got inundated. Villages on both sides of the bank were flooded causing tremendous misery to the inhabitants.

To understand the whole sequence better let me take you to the beginning. It was during this period that I and our family were traveling. It was Dussehra time and with some leave around the corner we went off to the catchments, the western ghats, where it all began and we were treated to some great rain (a missed monsoon made it even more spectacular). It was like standing – pouring rain over long periods, on one occasion it just poured the whole night out, and on our way back a day later we saw the many crevices on the ghats making much noise with waterfalls, many small streams gushing with water, making their way down with great force. It was a something I hadn’t seen for long, and then these streams went on to bigger canals, which made their way down to join tributaries.

A striking feature that kept me concerned was that we came across the earth having caved at many points in the ghats; there were mudslides on most curves, and moreover, the water was flowing unchecked. I reckon the force with which the water came down the tributaries to the dam at Krishna & Tungabhadra took our dried up water resources department which manages these dams napping and before they realised, it should have had reached alarming levels forcing them to open the sluice gates.

We are very clearly paying for the massive vegetation destruction that has happened in these ghats which is not holding on to the rain water, and there’s no check on the small streams to hold on to this treasured resource, just some bridges built for the road to pass through above. All the while we have been neglecting the falling rain, to catch it and have it build on our water table below the ground. It’s just been the same story, the cities have not preserved the lakes to sustain the ground water table, and in the country side we have abused our rivers, depleting it.

One visit to both these towns and we can see the massive infringement and encroachment that that has happened on the banks of these rivers. A news report also mentioned of a hotel by a local MLA on the banks of Tungabhadra which had flooded the top floor, I would love to see if the hotel conformed to the Environmental Standards.

With no checks of the water flowing down our ghats where they could effectively be trapped, we are foolish to waste this precious resource when it comes to us in abundance. While we keep spending millions on drought relief which never reaches the intended; the rains most usually has caused us misery when it comes plentiful.

When it rains – it causes floods and when it doesn’t its drought – much to report on our effective use of this resource. Cynical is the last thing I want to sound; desperate and helpless is more like it to see that we have a full fledged Ministry for water resources and rivers. There are so many possibilities; a public-private initiative can certainly work wonders to preserve before it’s too long. By the way did we all note that the meteorological department had nothing to say about the rains its intensity when it happened, and when they said it was going to last a week, the rains had stopped over in the ghats.

It is surprising that the law-keepers themselves are unwilling to do much about the scenario. A case in point is the Election Commission, though it being a part of the executive machinery, the seniors there even at the cost of being labeled publicity mongers, made sure they were heard and got the necessary reforms carried out to ensure people faith in the functioning of the commission. As citizens, many of us are pretty certain of the fairness with which they conduct probably one of the largest democratic exercises in the world. I am bewildered as to why the judiciary has kept away from insisting similarly on these reforms. We don’t hear many of our senior judges advocating the need for these reforms and creating any public awareness to push the case. The freedom to have the corrupt officials caught red handed by vigilance commissions and the lokayukta’s (most of whom are from the judiciary themselves) have also been dealt with rather shoddily, with a  blame game on by both the sides, the judiciary says the government doesn’t give them the permission to prosecute and the government blaming the commission. Many a union law ministers have bragged publicly about these reforms with very little achieved in terms of reality.

We celebrated with much fanfare; the media and the political class made sure that they told us how we got the first Chief Justice from a stratum of the society which the political class for their convenience considers backward / reserved and such. I am not really concerned which societal sector our Chief Justice comes from as long as I get justice on time and have my belief that the system is managed well under him. We also cried with joy (the media did more so) when the high courts and apex court gave their opinion regarding cases of public importance (the gay rights; the statues and so on) but am not sure how much of those opinion were actually considered and acted on by the government though, and who remains accountable. Now we have a scenario where a judge of questionable character (though he is yet to be indicted – but his amassed wealth as reported in the media seems to tell a different story altogether) and is considered for the Apex Court, a news that is indeed scary.

Our public institutions have to be sacred, without a speck of dirt on it, beyond the scope of doubt, and if not any other institution the judiciary necessarily has to be one. As long as this continues to elude, we are no different from our neighbor in ensuring that people get away scot-free for whatever evil they’d do.

Government sector being the largest amongst money collector in terms of taxes have to spend for the businesses to do well. As for ministers and high level politicos staying in five star hotels we all know that these hotels extend government rates for officials staying with them which are a fraction of the published tariffs and I hope they use these special rates. We surely can’t be expecting them to travel by general compartment for saving the cost of travel. I wonder if these stunts actually costs more for the deployment of security and intelligence measures that would need to be managed to make them happen.

Austerity drive in a generic opinion is not suspending use of commercial services but the judicial use of resources, for we all know how many convoys are used by the VIP’s when they travel; and the money they spend uselessly in the name of security and such. A walk into government institutions will ironically throw light on the wasteful use of electricity, water and such…. lets walk the talk when it comes to usage of these resources which actually costs the common man to keep the system running, and not being able to use such resources effectively where they are required to be used.