Killing the Golden Goose the UPA Way

Mahatma Gandhi said India lives in the villages. Whenever I visited my naani-ke-gaon, my mother would point to the fact that people in villages were honest and lived a more virtuous life than those in the cities. And as I grew up, I agreed with this notion. But it didn’t have to continue for long, as I saw. Each time when my government waived the farmers’ bank loans, it punished the honest and industrious farmers who had planned and cared to return back the loans they took. Such loan waivers, which matched the election schedules to create the right atmosphere for the UPA government to win, rewarded the lazy and corrupt farmers who would take bank loans and would fund their wrong habits instead of using the money to invest in their farm lands. Of course there were farmers who genuinely benefited from the loan waivers, but any other scheme which helped the poor or Below Poverty Line villagers would have helped them anyway. Farm loans waivers were an election gimmick.
 

I think now we are about to reap the results of our government’s gambles. As this report tells us:
 

All government banks are reporting an increase in their bad debts on farms loans ranging between 80% and 2000% in the first nine months of 2010-11. The net NPAs of all public sector banks till December 2010 increased by 70% compared to 46% in 2009-10.
 

State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur reported the highest increase in non-performing assets (NPAs) on agriculture loans at 2,000% in April-December 2010. The increase in SBI’s bad loans has gone up by 80% compared to the bank’s total farm loan NPAs in the previous fiscal. Andhra Bank reported a 168% rise in NPA while in case of Allahabad Bank, it was more than 157% and for Corporation Bank, it was 205%. Bad farm loans of Bank of India increased by 100% in the current fiscal till December 2010.
 

Source: “Bad debts on farm loans pile up”, 7 Mar 2011, TNN,

https://m.economictimes.com/PDAET/articleshow/7644305.cms
 

Such high proportions of bad-loans would force the government to waive them again. (This culture of loan-waiving would make the rural banking system ineffective in the long term. People will take loans in order not to pay them off; and banks would be forced by govts to keep granting larger sums of loans to rural area. This is what I call “Killing the golden goose”). In most probability, PSBs would get their due in the form of government money. But ultimately from where does the subsidy come from? It comes from our tax-returns to the government! So in a way, we, the responsible citizens, are funding the corrupt practices happening in the hinterlands…

Given the plethora of scams and scandals which have enveloped the current UPA government, we would be deaf and dumb if we still believe its motives were honest. As the government indulges in large scale corruption, it is part of the same corruption to corrupt the uncorrupted among the citizens too. I see the use of farm loan wavers as an election gimmick to be doing the same to our farmers and to all of us…

Sheila’s Gift to Delhi on Women’s Day

8th of March is celebrated as International Women’s Day. But Delhi, which is virtually the rape-capital of India, celebrated it by learning about an incident where a college going female student was shot dead in the broad day light. (goes without saying that the killer was a male.) The killer may be mentally disturbed; he may have some personal vindication against the girl, the case even may be that of revenge, but we can’t ignore the bold circumstances in which the crime was committed. It speaks much of the law and order situation in the national capital.
 

Why my blame goes to Sheila Dixit has historical reasons behind it. At a time when rapes were being committed in Delhi in moving cars and by all sort of people, Sheila Dixit had made an important comment, virtually blaming the girls who dare to go out on the road late in the night. Many of us thought she was blaming the rape victims rather than the criminals. What we never imagined at that time was that Sheila Ji is totally incorrigible – even today she blames the public for her government’s failures:
 

Society should help in fighting crime: Delhi CM
 

Mar 10, 2011 at 03:21pm IST
 

New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has shifted some of the blame on the public saying civil society should speak up when they see crimes being committed in the city. Sheila made the statement even as hundreds of students from various Delhi University colleges are up in arms against the killing of 20-year-old Radhika Tanwar and increasing crime against women in the capital.”Civil society should also take responsibility and people should be more responsible when they see acts of crime in front of them.” Sheila said on Thursday.
 

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/society-should-help-in-fighting-crime-delhi-cm/145463-3.html
 

It is true that aam aadmi is often a mere spectator when a crime is committed in front of his/her eyes, but there is a reason why one behaves like a coward. It is because people don’t trust the police and our government to protect them from criminals’ revenge, if they come out in the open to stop or identify the criminals. Our government and our system have failed to create that sort of confidence in the minds of our citizens. If Sheila Dixit doesn’t understand this, it is her problem.
 

I look forward to the media to take up this case and create some pressure on governments like Delhi’s and powerful but irresponsible Chief Ministers like Sheila Dixit, to come out of their cozy offices and do something for which they have been elected by the people.

More than Error of Judgment

Prime Ministers of India are perhaps the most erroneous among their peers. Errors, we define, by the admission of the culprits. Otherwise when one sits down to judge, right from the creation of this nation to what not – all would seem erroneous. So we had our first prime minister Nehru making an error which he termed as “Himalayan Blunder”. Next in the line when Indira ji made an error of a horror. An error of ego, to be precise. Doesn’t matter what tag it deserves, but it resulted in hundreds of Sikhs massacred on the streets. Third in the line, the clean shaven Rajiv did an error too. Two innocent errors actually – of sending troops to kill our own children in Lanka and of entertaining some guests from his in-laws circles. “Q”uantum of error – but doesn’t count. After all we need heroes to worship, right? So Rajiv remains a hero despite his errors and their repercussions. And all other small people – from LB Shastri to Narsimha Rao – were less of a hero no matter what they did. When we see such great error-makers along with their blunders and follies, our current PM’s self-touted “error of judgment” seems a petty one. It goes even without a flutter. But what if it was not an error?
 

What if it was not an error?
 

What if it was a well thought-out decision?
 

Who pays for it?
 

Dr. Singh has accepted his responsibility. But is that all he thinks we deserve?

Ban Organized Conversion by Christian Missionaries

Just read the following article and can’t contain my happiness. I believe organized religious conversion out of Hinduism should be legally banned in India. Individual conversions are personal choices and should be left out. But the manner in which Christian / Catholic missionaries have been spreading their propaganda funded by foreign money/donations, it is shameful if our democratic govt should not stop it.
 

Conversion not a constitutional right: SC judge
 

Satya Prakash,Hindustan Times

New Delhi, February 27, 2011
 

Maintaining that there was no constitutional right to convert a person from one religion to another, justice P Sathasivan of the Supreme Court on Saturday said the right to propagate one’s religion was not an unrestricted right. Delivering the third Dr LM Singhvi Memorial Lecture on “Secularism and rule of law in India,” justice Sathasivam said the state has a right to pass laws restricting conversions if such activities created public disorder.
 

Quoting from the SC’s 1977 verdict in Stainislaus vs State of Madhya Pradesh & Orissa, he said: “The right to propagate means the right to ‘transmit and spread one’s religion by an exposition of its tenets’. But…there is no constitutional right to convert a person from one religion to another, because this would impinge on the ‘freedom of conscience’ guaranteed to all the citizens of the country alike.”
 

The Supreme Court delineated the boundaries of the right to propagate in the context of state legislation prohibiting forcible conversions, said justice Sathasivam, who headed the bench, which made a controversial remark against religious conversions while upholding the conviction of Dara Singh in the Graham Staines murder case last month.
 

But the bench chose to modify it after several Christian organisations termed it uncalled for and demanded its withdrawal.
 

On state’s the right to pass legislation restricting conversions, justice Sathasivam, quoting from an SC verdict said: “the ‘public order’ provision of Article 25(1) of the Constitution has a ‘wide connotation’ and that the state could legislate conversions if they ‘created public disorder.”
 

While maintaining, “Secularism is the part of the basic structure of the Constitution,” he said the term ‘secular’ has not been defined, presumably because it is a very elastic term not capable of a precise definition and perhaps best left undefined.
 

He, however, said in Indian context secularism meant “Sarva Dharma Sambhav” ie tolerance for all religions, which springs from due deliberation for one’s own happiness and also for welfare of all beings.
 

https://www.hindustantimes.com/tabloid-news/newdelhi/Conversion-not-a-constitutional-right-SC-judge/Article1-667294.aspx
 

I hope this creates a better environment and consensus for our govt to be able to put a ban on the corrupt conversion activities with help of money or jobs.